Carolyn Wells

Patty's Suitors Carolyn Wells

When the young people returned to the ballroom, it presented a decidedly changedappearance. Instead of an interior scene, it was a winter landscape. The floor was covered with snow-white canvas, not laid on smoothly, but rumpled overbumps and hillocks, like a real snow field. The numerous palms and evergreens that haddecorated the room, were powdered with flour and strewn with tufts of cotton, like snow. Also diamond dust had been lightly sprinkled on them, and glittering crystal icicles hungfrom the branches. At each end of the room, on the wall, hung a beautiful bear-skin rug. These rugs were for prizes, one for the girls and one for the boys. And this was the game. The girls were gathered at one end of the room and the boys at the other, and one end wascalled the North Pole, and the other the South Pole. Each player was given a small flagwhich they were to plant on reaching the Pole. This would have been an easy matter, but each traveller was obliged to wear snowshoes. These were not the real thing, but smaller affairs made of pasteboard. But when they weretied on, the wearer felt clumsy indeed, and many of the girls declared they could not walkin them at all. And in addition each one was blindfolded. However, everybody made an attempt, and at a given signal the young people started fromtheir opposite ends of the room and endeavoured to make progress toward the goal as theyblindly stumbled along. Patty concluded to move very slowly, thinking this the surest way to make a successful trip. So she scuffled along among the other laughing girls, now and then stumbling over ahillock, which was really a hassock or a sofa cushion under the white floor covering. It wasgreat fun, and the girls cheered each other on as they pursued their blinded way. And thenabout midway of the room they met the boys coming toward them. Then there wasscrambling, indeed, as the explorers tried to get out of each other's way and follow theirown routes.