“Everybody go back and sit down,” she ordered. “Buddy, stop yelling…stop it, I say! Pat, slip up and get into another dress. Judy, clean up the mess. There is plenty of soup left…Pat had only half the servings on the tray and Judy hid a potful away in the pantry. I’ll have it ready in a jacksniff. Shut the cellar door and keep that dog down there until he gets the pepper out of his eyes.”

Judy always declared she had never been as proud of any one at Silver Bush as she was of Cuddles at that time. But just at the moment poor Judy was feeling nothing but the bitterest humiliation. Never had such a shameful thing happened at Silver Bush. Wait till she got hold of Tillytuck! Wait till she could get her hands on that Jerusalem cherry.

In a surprisingly short time the guests were back at the table, where Cousin Nicholas had been placidly eating crackers through all the hullabaloo. Cuddles and Judy between them served the soup. Pat came down, clothed and in her right mind once more. Two cats, whose nervous systems had been shattered, fled to the peace and calm of Judy’s kitchen chamber. The Jerusalem cherry bided its time. The goose-duck-turkey course was a grand success and Judy’s raisin gravy was acclaimed the last word in gravies. The dessert was amazing, though Cousin Nicholas did manage to upset a jug of sauce over the tablecloth. Judy came in and calmly mopped it up. Judy had got her second wind now and was prepared for anything.

Pat sat down for the dessert and there was laughter. People were to seek Pat from birth till death because she gave them the gift of laughter. Though she had a secret worry gnawing at her heart. Aunt Jessie had eaten only three spoonfuls of her pudding! Wasn’t it good? And Winnie…somehow…wasn’t looking just right. She had suddenly become very quiet and rather pale.

To Judy’s thankfulness the cracked chair lasted the dinner out, though it creaked alarmingly every time Uncle Brian moved. Then came “the grand dish-washing,” as Judy called it, in the kitchen. Judy and Pat and Cuddles tackled it gaily. Things weren’t so bad, after all. The guests were enjoying a good clan pi-jaw in the Big Parlor and the children were sitting around Tillytuck in the Little Parlor, looking up fascinated, while he told them stories. “Tarrible lies,” Judy vowed they were. But then Tillytuck had once said, “What a dull fellow I’d be if I never told anything but the truth.” Anyhow, he was keeping “the young ones” quiet and that was something.

CHAPTER 7