The Scarlet Leaves

"The Committee will please come to order!" said Maine.

"What's up?" asked Massachusetts, pausing in her occupation of peeling chestnuts.

"Why, you know well enough, Massachusetts. Here it is Wednesday, and we don't know yet what we are going to do on Friday evening. We must do something, or go shamed to our graves. Never a senior class has missed its Frivolous Friday, since the school began."

"Absolutely no hope of the play?"

"None! Alma's part is too important; no one could possibly take it at two days' notice. Unless--they say Chicago has a real gift for acting; but somehow, I don't feel as if she were the person."

"I should bar that, positively," put in Tennessee. "In the first place, Chicago has not been here long enough to be identified with the class. She is clever, of course, or she could not have entered junior last year; but--well, it isn't necessary to say anything more; she is out of the question."

"It is too exasperating!" said Massachusetts. "Alma might have waited another week before coming down with measles."

"It's harder for her than for any one else, Massachusetts," said Maine. "Poor dear; she almost cried her eyes out yesterday, when the spots appeared, and there was no more doubt."

"Yes, I know that; she is a poor, unfortunate Lamb, and I love her, you know I do; still, a growl may be permitted, Maine. There's nothing criminal in a growl. The question is, as you were saying, what shall we do?"

"A dance?"

"We had a dance last week!" said Maine; "at least the sophomores did, and we don't want to copy them."

"A straw-ride?"

"A candy-pull?"

"A concert?"

"The real question is," said Tennessee, cracking her chestnut leisurely, "what does Maine intend to do? If she thinks we made her Class President because we meant to arrange things ourselves, she is more ignorant than I supposed her. Probably she has the whole thing settled in her Napoleonic mind. Out with it, Moosetocmaguntic!"

Maine smiled, and looked round her. The Committee was clustered in a group at the foot of a great chestnut-tree, at the very edge of a wood. The leaves were still thick on the trees, and the October sun shone through their golden masses, pouring a flood of warmth and light down on the greensward, sprinkled with yellow leaves and half-open chestnut burrs. Massachusetts and Tennessee, sturdy and four-square as their own hills; Old New York and New Jersey, and Maine herself, a tall girl with clear, kind eyes, and a color that came and went as she talked. This was the Committee.

"Well," said Maine, modestly. "I did have an idea, girls. I don't know whether you will approve or