the roof garden party was not begun as the social affair it turned out to be. in the beginning it was strictly a business proposition. the party was an outgrowth of a “be beautiful” campaign mimi herself started.
if mimi had known the series of exciting events which hinged on the innocent purchase of a bottle of mange cure, she might never have bought it. she might have let dandruff stay in her hair and freckles continue to splotch the bridge of her nose.
what to wear at the growing-closer-every-day commencement affairs turned mimi’s thoughts from her term themes, two highly important letters from daddy and mother dear, and a reprimand from mrs. cole for disturbing study hall.
“i can’t wear white for commencement and look decent with freckles. i don’t look nice in white.”
“who cares?” sue teased. “to hear you rave, one would think you were going to graduate, or something.”
“well, i am going to improve my looks. miss bassett was talking to us today about our hair and nails. she said my posture had improved this year. beginning tonight, i am going to brush my hair one hundred strokes every night before i retire.”
“yeh, i did that once myself—once was about all.”
“dog mange cure is grand for your scalp,” madge volunteered as the discussion became general.
“is it?” mimi asked turning to madge. she had never given much thought to her personal appearance other than cleanliness. she was always too busy doing something. the silliest thing she ever watched was a girl standing near the highest window, mirror in one hand, tweezers in the other, plucking her eyebrows. she didn’t plan to go in for that sort of beauty; something, say, which would improve her hair—mother dear hadn’t made any suggestions about it in so long. it was getting more unruly. she’d tried changing the part from the right side to the left and that had only made it worse. she was thinking of letting it grow long enough to braid so that she could wear it like dit’s, but the thoughts of shedding hairpins and never finding a hat big enough kept her from it.
“what does it do to your hair, madge?”
“oh, makes it shiny and fluffy and thick and long. i saw a picture on a box of a woman whose hair fell from her shoulders to her knees. i had a cousin who put mange cure on her hair and——”
“stop!” sue cried. “waste no more words. you’ve already sold her the idea. i can tell by the smooth and oily waves”—she made rippling motions with her hands and arms mimicking a favorite gesture of mimi’s—“that the fragrance of mange cure will soon permeate the hithertofore wholesome air of tumble inn. i wouldn’t put that awful smelling stuff on my hair for—for——”
she gave up trying to find a word bad enough to describe it.
“but you only leave it on one night. besides it washes off, and furthermore, i don’t mind the odor. it’s a good clean smell like tar.”
“rave on,” sue encouraged disdainfully. “pretty soon you’ll have it sweet scented as dew hung jasmine in the rosy dawn. blah! you’ll have mimi believing she can pose for the pictures in the hair tonic ads after two trial bottles. double blah!”
two weeks passed before mimi had an opportunity to buy the dog mange cure.
with commencement so near, every afternoon now some teacher chaperoned a group of shoppers to town. mimi joined the first group. in order to make her purchase before the others were ready to leave, she left a few sups in the bottom of her chocolate malted milk glass. anyhow she never could get every drop without making that vulgar zooping, sucking sound on account of the whipped cream settling to the bottom. she didn’t want to “strike bottom” before a chaperon. she had done well to juggle the cherry on two straws safely to her mouth.
the chaperon watched her closely while she was at the counter. sometimes girls slipped notes to the soda skeets. you can save your eyesight on me, mimi thought. bumpy faced upstarts. she had no note or no time for them. some girls were so silly!
even after the bottle was stowed away on the top shelf of the bathroom, school was nearly over for the year before mimi, madge and several others, who had been begged into the “beauty school,” found time to put it on when they were sure they would have time to shampoo it out the following morning. in the intervening time, however, mimi had been using freckle cream and brushing her hair religiously, a hundred strokes a night.
“if we don’t put it on tonight, there’s no use,” mimi urged. she had cornered several of the girls after supper before they left the dining hall. the final rush was on and rounding them up had been difficult. “this is friday—sunday is baccalaureate—monday—too late.”
“tonight suits me,” madge said. “i was planning to get up early anyhow.”
“me, too.” jill agreed.
all together there were six who came to tumble inn for the scalp beauty treatment. madge was more or less in charge because she had known people who had done this. however, mimi had read the directions carefully and had to get in a few words. she could no more stay in the background than a peacock. center stage-front, was where she belonged and, no matter where she began, she usually wound up there.
“why pick on tumble inn, mimi, when you are the only one who is sap enough to smell like a polecat?”
“i didn’t think of that, sue. i’m sorry. just seems like that most things that happen, take place here.”
“you’re right. things do happen here. stick ’em up, every one of you girls! dimes and quarters or what have you! all donations kindly received and accepted. while you ‘vanities’ stars sing your ‘stay young and beautiful’ theme song i am going to prepare a feast. everybody who wants to eat, kick in.”
“swell idea, sue. get plenty of dill pickles.”
mimi was the first one to pay. she dropped a quarter in sue’s beret, then settled down to business.
“let’s be careful and only rub it in the parts,” she cautioned, running a comb through jill’s sleek hair.
they went about their work seriously. they parted and patted and massaged. as soon as they took the stopper out of the bottle and before they had well begun, chloe and sue grabbed their noses and ran out. betsy weakened. she couldn’t stay out of anything that was causing such a stir.
“next,” mimi called, shooing madge out and beckoning betsy. she put her in the chair as a barber would and pinned a towel around her neck.
“do a good job on me and then i’ll really fix you up.”
“o. k.”
the agreement was carried out. to hear sue and chloe and other roommates carry on, they were all “fixed up.” sue passed judgment.
“you can’t sleep in tumble inn, stinking like that.”
“aw, sue. what will we do?”
“take your mattress to the roof for all i care.”
sue wasn’t serious but mimi jumped at the idea.
“sue, you angel!”
she hugged her and turned her around a time or two.
“you think of the grandest things! that’s exactly what we will do and we’ll have a midnight feast—a roof garden party!”
there! the plans had been made that quickly. sue had no difficulty buying and preparing the food. on the promise of three sandwiches, a college freshman went to the grocery for her. the rest had been easy. the girls who would have to sleep out were the ones who had trouble. they couldn’t sleep on the bare tin roof, but how could they get the mattresses out? they figured and planned. finally, mimi worked it out.
there were only seven to sleep out. all right, they would sleep crosswise; four on one mattress, three on the other. they would take the two mattresses out of tumble inn and get them out the sitting room window onto the porch roof. sue and chloe objected loudly until they heard the arrangements made for them. chloe was to sleep with madge’s roommate and sue with jill’s.
the whole plan must be kept secret. that was hard, almost as hard as tugging and rolling and pushing the mattresses out. they had to wait until dark, and from the time they were out, until she saw mrs. cole’s light go out, mimi worried for fear mrs. cole would find tumble inn vacant and the beds torn up. that would be too bad!
there was, also, a threat of rain. if it would just hold off until the feast was over, surely the roommates of the beauty cult could not be so cruel as to leave them shivering and wet. but long before the weather changed, and for an entirely different reason, the girls were taken from the roof, but not before they had had a feast.
sue had done well. it was quite the swankiest spread of the year—paper napkins if you please and as a big special surprise, ice cream suckers. the man had packed them in dry ice and sealed them in a carton. they were still frozen hard when sue proudly passed them around.
mimi ate and ate.
“if my pajamas had a belt, i’d surely untie it,” she said. “if you hear a sudden noise, you’ll know what it is—mimi exploded! there’d be nothing but giblets left.”
“oh me,” groaned sue. even in pain she was happy.
after the food, there were stunts; things that could be done without noise. walking like dr. ansley. looking over spectacles as dr. barnes. mimi and sue “made an elephant.” after convulsing the girls with laughter—none of the stunts would have seemed half so funny if they could have shrieked out—madge succeeded in patting her stomach and rubbing her head at the same time. jill, after several trials, got her foot behind her head.
they were getting too noisy. betsy was afraid, that any minute now, they’d be discovered and called down. she suggested that they see who could go the longest without laughing. faces began to puff up. a snort here. a titter there. was there ever such fun?
after they had worn themselves out they talked and talked. all the good times of the year were reviewed. but by now, here and there a sleepy girl was crawling to an outer edge of a mattress and going to sleep.
mimi was as wide awake as the owls she had heard at camp.
“i bet i can stay awake longer than any of you,” she wagered.
as it turned out she did, but when she was speaking, she little knew the excitement she would live through before the sun rose again.
she became so drowsy she had to stretch out. she wouldn’t go to sleep but it would be more comfortable lying. just as she crossed that hazy land which lies between wakefulness and slumber, madge reached over and clutched her arm.
“oh, mimi,” she said tensely. “i—hear—them again!”
“hear what?”
mimi was too far gone to realize why madge was frightened.
“d—d—death bells!” she sobbed, her teeth chattering with fright.
mimi sat bolt upright.
