1 files changed, 6422 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/28439.txt b/28439.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3939d01
--- /dev/null
+++ b/28439.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6422 @@
+Project Gutenberg's The Comings of Cousin Ann, by Emma Speed Sampson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Comings of Cousin Ann
+
+Author: Emma Speed Sampson
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2009 [EBook #28439]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMINGS OF COUSIN ANN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Comings of Cousin Ann
+
+
+
+
+ The Comings of
+ Cousin Ann
+
+ By
+ Emma Speed Sampson
+
+ Author of
+ "Mammy's White Folks"
+ "Billy and the Major"
+ "Miss Minerva's Baby"
+ "The Shorn Lamb"
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+ Reilly & Lee Co.
+ Chicago
+
+
+
+
+ Printed in the United States of America
+ Copyright, 1923
+
+ by
+ The Reilly & Lee Co.
+
+ All Rights Reserved
+
+ The Comings of Cousin Ann
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ CHAPTER                                                          PAGE
+
+       I  The Veterans of Ryeville                                   9
+
+      II  Cousin Ann at Buck Hill                                   20
+
+     III  Cousin Ann is Affronted                                   32
+
+      IV  The Energy of Judith                                      44
+
+       V  Uncle Billy's Diplomacy                                   58
+
+      VI  A Question of Kinship                                     68
+
+     VII  Judith Makes a Hit                                        77
+
+    VIII  Cousin Ann Looks Backward                                 89
+
+      IX  The Veterans' Big Secret                                  98
+
+       X  Judith Scores Again                                      111
+
+      XI  A Surprise for Cinderella                                123
+
+     XII  Jeff Gives a Pledge                                      136
+
+    XIII  The Debut Party                                          144
+
+     XIV  On With the Dance                                        156
+
+      XV  Cinderella Revealed                                      165
+
+     XVI  The Morning After                                        176
+
+    XVII  Uncle Billy Makes a Call                                 185
+
+   XVIII  A Cavalier O'erthrown                                    193
+
+     XIX  Miss Ann Moves On                                        202
+
+      XX  A Heart-Warming Welcome                                  212
+
+     XXI  The Clan in Conclave                                     220
+
+    XXII  A Great Transformation                                   228
+
+   XXIII  The Lost Is Found                                        237
+
+    XXIV  Blessings Begin to Flow                                  251
+
+     XXV  Uncle Billy Smiles                                       262
+
+
+
+
+The Comings of Cousin Ann
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+The Veterans of Ryeville
+
+
+Ryeville had rather prided itself on having the same population--about
+three thousand--for the last fifty years. That is the oldest
+inhabitants had, but the newer generation was for expansion in spite
+of tradition, and Ryeville awoke one morning, after the census taker
+had been busying himself, to find itself five thousand strong and
+still growing.
+
+There was no especial reason for the growth of the little town, save
+that it lay in the heart of rolling blue-grass country and people have
+to live somewhere. And Ryeville, with its crooked streets and
+substantial homes, was as good a place as any. There were churches of
+all denominations, schools and shops, a skating rink, two motion
+picture houses and as many drug stores as there had been barrooms
+before prohibition made necessary a change of front. There were two
+hotels--one where you "could" and one where you "couldn't." The former
+was frequented by the old men of the town and county. It stood next to
+the courthouse. Indeed its long, shady porch overlooked the courthouse
+green. There the old men would sit with chairs tilted against the wall
+and feet on railing and sadly watch the prohibition officers hauling
+bootleggers to court.
+
+There were a great many old men in Ryeville and the country
+around--more old men than old women, in spite of the fact that that
+part of Kentucky had furnished its quota of recruits for both Union
+and Rebel armies.
+
+In Kentucky, during the war between the states, brother had been
+pitted against brother--even father against son. The fact that the
+state did not secede from the Union had been a reason for the most
+intense bitterness and ill feeling among families and former friends.
+The bitterness was gone now and ill feeling forgotten. The veterans of
+the blue and the gray sat on the Rye House porch together, swapping
+tales and borrowing tobacco as amicably as though they had never done
+their best to exterminate one another.
+
+"As for Abe Lincoln," declared Major Fitch, an ancient confederate,
+"if it hadn't been for him Gawd knows what we'd 'a' had to talk about
+in these dry days. I tell you, sah, we ought to be eternally grateful
+to Abe Lincoln. I for one am. I was a clerk in a country store when
+the war broke out and I'd 'a' been there yet if it wasn't for the war.
+I'm here to say it made me and made my fam'ly. We were bawn
+fighters--my fo' brothers and I--and up to the sixties we were always
+in trouble for brawling. The war came along and made a virtue of our
+vices. My mother used to be mighty 'shamed when she heard we were
+called the 'Fighting Fitches.' That was befo' the war, and one or the
+other of us boys was always up befo' the co't for wild carrying on.
+But, bless Bob, when we were called 'Fighting Fitches' for whipping
+the Yankees the old lady was as pleased as Punch."
+
+"What did they call ye fer not bein' able to whup us?" asked a
+grinning old giant from the mountains.
+
+"Nothin'--'cause we were able. All we needed was mo' men and mo' food
+and mo' guns. We'd 'a' licked the spots off of you Yanks if we had had
+a chance. You wouldn't stand still long enough to get whipped."
+
+So the talk went on, day in and day out. Battles were fought over and
+over but never finished. They always ended with a draw and could be
+resumed the next morning with added zest and new incidents. One old
+man, Pete Barnes, who had the distinction of being the only private
+who frequented the porch at Rye House, always claimed to have been
+present at every battle mentioned--even Bunker Hill and the battle of
+New Orleans.
+
+"Yes sirree, I was there; nothin' but a youngster, but I was there!"
+he would assert. "There wasn't a single battle the Fo'th Kentucky
+Volunteers didn't get in on an' the Johnny Rebs would run like hell
+when they heard we were comin'. I tell you when we got them a goin'
+was at Fredericksburg in '62--must have been 'bout the middle of
+December. We beat 'em even worse than we did at Chickamauga the
+following year."
+
+"Aw dry up, Pete. You know perfectly well the Yanks got licked at both
+of those battles," a jovial opponent would declare, but Pete Barnes
+was as sure his side had won as he was that he had been present at the
+surrender of Cornwallis and there was no use in trying to persuade him
+otherwise.
+
+The Rye House faced on Main Street and nothing happened on that
+thoroughfare that escaped the oldsters on the porch. If anything was
+going on all they had to do was move their chairs from the side porch
+to the front, whether it was a circus parade or a funeral, or just
+Miss Ann Peyton's rickety coach bearing her to Buck Hill, which was
+the first large farm the other side of the creek, the dividing line
+between Ryeville and the country. There were several small places but
+Buck Hill the only one of importance.
+
+On a morning in June the old men sat on the porch as usual, with feet
+on railing and chairs tilted to the right angle for aged backbones.
+Nothing much had happened all morning. The sun was about the only
+thing that was moving in Ryeville and that had finally got around to
+the side porch and was shining full on Colonel Crutcher's outstretched
+legs.
+
+"I reckon we'd better move," he said wearily. "Th'ain't much peace and
+quiet these days, what with the sun."
+
+"Heat's something awful," agreed Pete Barnes, "but it ain't a patchin'
+on what it was at Cowpens."
+
+"Cowpens!" exclaimed a necktie drummer who was stopping at the Rye
+House for a day or so, "I thought Cowpens was a battle fought between
+the United States and the English back in 1781."
+
+"Sure, sure!" agreed Pete, "I was a mere lad, but I was there."
+
+"It was in January, too," persisted the drummer.
+
+"Of course, but we made it so hot for the--for the other side that
+this June weather is nothin' to it."
+
+There was a general laugh and moving of chairs out of the rays of the
+inconsiderate sun.
+
+"By golly, we're just in time," said Colonel Crutcher. "There comes
+Miss Ann Peyton's rockaway. Where do you reckon she's bound for?"
+
+"Lord knows, but I hope she's not in a hurry," said Judge
+Middleton--judge from courtesy only, having sat on no bench but the
+anxious bench at the races and being a judge solely of horses and
+whiskey. "Did you ever see such snails as that old team? Good Golddust
+breed too! Miss Ann always buys good horses when she does buy but to
+my certain knowledge that pair is eighteen years old. Pretty nigh
+played out by now but I reckon they'll outlast old Billy and Miss
+Ann."
+
+"I reckon the old lady has to do some scrimpin' to buy a new pair,"
+said Major Fitch. "By golly, I remember when she was the best-looking
+gal in the county--or any other county for that matter. She was
+engaged to a fellow in my regiment--killed at Appomattox. She had
+more beaux than you could shake a stick at, but I reckon she couldn't
+get over Bert Mason. She wasn't much more than a child when the war
+broke out, but the war aged the girls as it did the boys."
+
+"I hear tell Miss Ann is on the move right smart lately," ventured
+Pete Barnes.
+
+"So they tell me," continued Major Fitch. "I tell you, havin' comp'ny
+now isn't what it used to be, what with wages up sky-high and all the
+niggers gone to Indianapolis and Chicago so there aren't any to pay
+even if you had the money, and food costin' three times what it's
+wuth. I reckon it is no joke to have Miss Ann a fallin' in on her kin
+nowadays with two horses that must have oats and that old Billy to
+fill up besides."
+
+"Yes, and Little Josh tells me Miss Ann is always company wherever she
+stays," said the Judge. "He wasn't exactly complaining but just kind
+of explaining. You see his wife, that last one, just up and said she
+wouldn't and she wouldn't. I reckon Miss Ann kind of wore out her
+welcome last time she was there because she came just when Mrs. Little
+Josh was planning a trip to White Sulphur and Miss Ann wouldn't take
+the hint and the journey had to be put off and then the railroad
+strike came along and Little Josh was afraid to let his wife start
+for fear she couldn't get back. Mrs. Little Josh is as sore as can be
+about it and threatens if Miss Ann comes any more that she will invite
+all of her own kin at the same time and see which side can freeze out
+the other. The old lady hasn't been there this year and she hasn't
+been to Big Josh's either. Big Josh's daughters have read the riot
+act, so I hear, and they say if their old cousin comes to them without
+being invited they are going to try some visiting on their own hook
+and leave Big Josh to do the entertaining. They say he is great on big
+talk about family ties and the obligations of kinship but that they
+have all the trouble and when their Cousin Ann Peyton visits them he
+simply takes himself off and leaves them to do the work. Big Josh
+lives up such a muddy lane it's hard to keep servants."
+
+Miss Ann's lumbering carriage had hardly reached the far corner when
+the attention of the old men on the porch was arrested by a small,
+low-swung motor car of the genus runabout. No doubt its motor and
+wheels had been turned out of a factory but the rest of it was plainly
+home made. It was painted a bright blue. The rear end might have
+applied for a truck license, as it was evidently intended as a bearer
+of burdens, but the front part had the air of a racer and the eager
+young girl at the wheel looked as though she might be more in sympathy
+with the front of her car than the back. Be that as it may, she was
+determined not to let her sympathies run away with her but, much to
+the delight of the dull old men on the Rye House porch, she stopped
+her car directly in front of them and carefully rearranged a number of
+mysterious-looking parcels in the truck end of her car.
+
+"Hiyer, Miss Judith?" called Pete Barnes. The girl must stop her
+engine to hear what the old man was saying.
+
+"What is it?" she called back gaily.
+
+"I just said hiyer?"
+
+"Fine! Hiyer, yourself?" she laughed pleasantly, although stopping the
+engine entailed getting out and cranking, since her car boasted no
+self-starter.
+
+All of the old men bowed familiarly to the girl and indulged in some
+form of pleasantry.
+
+"Bootlegging now, or what are you up to?" asked Major Fitch.
+
+"Worse than that--perfumes and soaps, tooth pastes and cold creams,
+hair tonics and henna dips, silver polish and spot removers--pretty
+near everything or a little of it; but I'm going to come call on all
+of you when I get my wares sorted out."
+
+"Do! Do!" they responded, but she was in and off before they could say
+more.
+
+"Gee, that's a pretty girl!" exclaimed the necktie drummer.
+
+"I reckon she is," grunted Colonel Crutcher, "pretty and good and
+sharp as a briar and quick as greased lightning. There isn't a girl
+like her anywhere around these parts. I don't see what the young folks
+of the county are thinking about, leaving her out of all their
+frolics."
+
+"Well, you see--" put in another old man.
+
+"Yes, I see the best-looking gal of the bunch and the spunkiest and
+the equal of any of them and the superior of most as far as manners
+and brains are concerned, just because she comes of plain folks--"
+
+"A little worse than plain, Crutcher," put in Judge Middleton. "Those
+Bucks--"
+
+"Oh, then she lives at Buck Hill?" asked the drummer.
+
+"Buck Hill! Heavens man! The Bucknors live at Buck Hill and are about
+the swellest folk in Kentucky. The Bucks live in a little place this
+side of Buck Hill. There's nobody left but this Judy gal and her
+mother. I reckon their place would have gone for debt if it hadn't so
+happened that the trolley line from Louisville cut through it and they
+sold the right of way for enough to lift the mortgage. They do say
+that the Bucknors and Bucks were the same folks originally but that
+was in the early days and somehow the Bucks got down and the Bucknors
+staid up. Now the Bucknors would no more acknowledge the relationship
+to the Bucks than the Bucks would expect them to."
+
+"I should think anybody would be proud to claim kin with a peach like
+that girl," said Major Fitch. "Her mother is a pretty good sort too,
+but slow. I reckon when they get cousinly inclined they always think
+of old Dick Buck, Judy's grandfather, who was enough to cool the
+warmest feelings of kinship."
+
+Nodding assent to the Major's remark, the veterans lapsed into sleepy
+silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Cousin Ann at Buck Hill
+
+
+"Here comes Cousin Ann!" It was a wail from the depth of Mildred
+Bucknor's heart.
+
+"Surely not!" cried her mother. "There are lots of other places for
+her to visit before our turn comes again. There's Uncle Tom's and
+Cousin Betty's and Sister Sue's, and Big Josh and Little Josh haven't
+had her for at least a year. Are you sure, Mildred?"
+
+"It looks like the old rockaway and Uncle Billy's top hat," said
+Mildred. "It is too much to bear just when we are going to have a
+house party! Mother, please tell her it isn't convenient this June and
+have her go on to Big Josh's."
+
+"Oh, my dear, you know Father wouldn't hear of my doing that. Maybe it
+isn't she after all. Nan, climb up on the railing and see if that
+could be Cousin Ann Peyton's carriage coming along the pike and
+turning into the avenue."
+
+"Well, all I have to say is if it is her--"
+
+"She," corrected her mother.
+
+"Her carriage. Wait until I finish my sentence, Mother, before you
+correct me," and the girl climbed on the railing of the front porch
+where the ladies of the Bucknor family were wont to spend the summer
+mornings. Clinging to one of the great fluted columns she tiptoed,
+trying to peer through the cloud of limestone dust that enveloped the
+approaching vehicle.
+
+"It's her all right and I don't care what kind of grammar I use to
+express my disgust," and Nan jumped from the railing. "I don't see
+why--"
+
+"Well, my dear, it can't be helped. You know how your father feels
+about his kin. Better run and tell Aunt Em'ly to send Kizzie up to get
+the guest chamber in order."
+
+"Oh, Mother, you know it is in order. Nan and I have been busy up
+there all morning getting it ready for the girls. We've even got
+flowers all fixed and clean bureau scarves and everything," said
+Mildred, trying not to weep.
+
+"Yes, and linen sheets. We thought you wouldn't mind, Mother, because
+you see Jean Roland is used to such fine doings, and this is her first
+visit to Kentucky. We know you have only three pairs of linen sheets
+but this seemed the psychological time to use them. I've a great mind
+to go yank them off the bed."
+
+"But, Mother," pleaded Mildred, "couldn't we put old Cousin Ann Peyton
+in the little hall room? I can't see why she always has to have the
+guest chamber. She's no better than anybody else."
+
+"But your father--"
+
+"What difference will it make to Father? He needn't even know where we
+put Cousin Ann."
+
+"What do you think about it, Aunt Em'ly?" Mrs. Bucknor asked the lean
+old colored woman who appeared in the doorway. "Here comes Miss Ann
+Peyton, and the young ladies want to put her in the little hall
+bedroom because they have planned to put their company in the guest
+chamber?"
+
+"Think! I think I'm a plum fool not ter have wrang the neck er that
+ol' dominick rooster yestiddy when he spent the whole day a crowin'
+fer comp'ny. I pretty nigh knowed we were in fer some kind er
+visitation."
+
+"Maybe he was crowing for our house party," suggested Nan.
+
+"No, honey, that there rooster don't never crow for 'vited comp'ny.
+Now if I had er wrang his neck he'd 'a' been in the pot, comp'ny or
+no, an' it 'ud cure him of any mo' reckless crowin'."
+
+"But, Aunt Em'ly, what do you think about putting Miss Ann in the hall
+room?"
+
+"Think! I think she'll git her back up an' that ol' Billy'll be
+shootin' off his mouf, but we-all done entertained Miss Ann an' ol'
+Billy an' them ca'ige hosses goin' onter three months already this
+year an' it's high time some er the res' of the fambly step up. What's
+the matter with Marse Big Josh? An' if he air onable what's the matter
+with Marse Lil Josh? Yassum, put her in the hall room an' 'fo' Gawd
+I'll make that ol' Billy keep his feet out'n the oven, if not this
+summer, nex' winter. He's the orneris' nigger fer wantin' ter sit with
+his feet in the oven."
+
+"Then, Mother, may we keep the guest chamber for the girls? Please say
+yes!" begged Nan. "Aunt Em'ly thinks it is all right and you know you
+have always been telling us to mind Aunt Em'ly because she has such
+good judgment."
+
+"Well, my jedgment air that Miss Ann oughter been occupewin' the hall
+room for some fifty year or mo', ever sence she an' that ol' Billy
+took ter comin' so reg'lar," said Aunt Em'ly. "If I had it ter do over
+I'd never 'a' let him git so free with his feet in the oven. The truf
+er the matter is, Miss Milly, that you an' Marse Bob Bucknor an' all
+yo' chilluns as well, long with all the res' of the fambly includin'
+of Marse Big Josh an' Marse Lil Josh, done accepted of Miss Ann Peyton
+an' ol' Billy an' the ca'ige hosses like they wa' the will of the
+Almighty. Well, now le's see if Miss Ann Peyton can't accept the hall
+room like it wa' the will er the Almighty an' if ol' Billy can't come
+ter some 'clusion that Gawd air aginst his dryin' out his ol' feet in
+my oven."
+
+While this discussion was going on, the cloud of limestone dust had
+disappeared and from it had emerged a quaint old coach, lumbering and
+shabby, drawn by a pair of sleek sorrel horses, whose teeth would have
+given evidence of advanced age had a possible purchaser submitted them
+to the indignity of examining them. Their progress was slow and
+sedate, although the driver handled the reins as though it were with
+difficulty that he restrained them from prancing and cavorting as they
+neared the mansion.
+
+Old Billy's every line, from his dented top hat to his well-nigh
+soleless boots, expressed dignity and superiority. He was quite sure
+that being coachman to Miss Ann Peyton gave him the right to wipe
+those worn boots on the rest of mankind.
+
+"Look at that ol' fool nigger!" exclaimed Aunt Em'ly in disgust.
+"Settin' up there lookin' mo' like a monkey than a man in that
+long-tail blue coat with brass buttons an' his ha'r like cotton wool
+an' whiskers so long he haster wrop 'em. The onlies wuck that nigger
+ever does is jes' growin' whiskers."
+
+"Oh, come now, Aunt Em'ly," remonstrated a young man who stepped from
+the study window on the porch as the old coach lumbered up the
+driveway, "Uncle Billy keeps his horses in better condition than any
+on our farm are kept. Poor old Uncle Billy!"
+
+"Poor old Uncle Billy, indeed!" snapped Mildred. "I reckon, Brother
+Jeff, you'd say poor old Cousin Ann, too."
+
+"Of course I would. I can't think of any person in the world I feel
+much sorrier for."
+
+"Well, I can. I feel lots sorrier for Nan and me with our house party
+on hand and Cousin Ann turning up for the second time since Christmas.
+It's all well enough for you and Father to be so high and mighty about
+honoring the aged, and blood being thicker than water and so on. You
+don't have to sleep with Cousin Ann, the way Nan and I do sometimes."
+
+"We-ell, no!" laughed Jeff.
+
+"Hush, Mildred. Remember how Father feels about the comings of Cousin
+Ann. You and Nan must be polite." Mrs. Bucknor sighed, realizing she
+was demanding of her daughters something that was difficult for her to
+perform herself. Being polite to Cousin Ann had been the most arduous
+task imposed upon that wife and mother during twenty-five years of
+married life.
+
+At the yard gate Uncle Billy drew in his steeds with a great show of
+their being unwilling to stop. He turned as though to command the
+footman to alight and open the door of the coach. With feigned
+astonishment at there being no footman, he climbed down from the box
+with so much dignity that even Aunt Em'ly was impressed, though
+unwilling to acknowledge it.
+
+"That ol' nigger certainly do walk low for anybody who sets so high,"
+she whispered to Mildred. The bowing of Uncle Billy's legs in truth
+took many inches from his height. But the old man, in spite of crooked
+legs, worn-out boots, shabby livery and battered high hat, carried
+himself with the air of a prime minister. Miss Ann Peyton was his
+queen.
+
+There was an expression of infinite pathos on the countenance of the
+old darkey as he opened the door of the ancient coach. Bowing low, as
+though to royalty, he said, "Miss Ann, we air done arrive."
+
+Jeff Bucknor took his mother's arm and gently led her down the walk.
+Involuntarily she stiffened under his affectionate grasp and held
+back. It was all very well for the men of the family to take the stand
+they did concerning Cousin Ann Peyton and her oft-repeated visits. Men
+had none of the bother of company. Of course she would be courteous to
+her and always treat her with the consideration due an aged kinswoman,
+but she could not see the use of pretending she was glad to see her
+and rushing down the walk to meet her as though she were an honored
+guest.
+
+"It is hard on Mildred and Nan," she murmured to her stalwart son, as
+he escorted her towards the battered coach.
+
+"Yes, Mother, but kin is kin--and the poor old lady hasn't any real
+home."
+
+"Well then she might--There are plenty of them--very good comfortable
+ones--"
+
+"You mean homes for old ladies? Oh, Mother, you know Father would
+never consent to that. Neither would Uncle Tom nor Big Josh. She would
+hate it and then there's Uncle Billy and the horses--Cupid and
+Puck--to say nothing of the chariot."
+
+Further discussion was impossible. Mother and son reached the yard
+gate as Uncle Billy opened the coach door and announced the fact that
+Miss Ann had arrived at her destination. Then began the unpacking of
+the visitor. It was a roomy carriage, and well that it was so. When
+Miss Peyton traveled she traveled. Having no home, everything she
+possessed must be carried with her. Trunks were strapped on the back
+of the coach and inside with the mistress were boxes and baskets and
+bundles, suitcases and two of those abominations known as telescopes,
+from which articles of clothing were bursting forth.
+
+It was plain to see from the untidy packing that Miss Ann and Uncle
+Billy had left their last abode in a hurry. Even Miss Peyton's
+features might have been called untidy, if such a term could be used
+in connection with a countenance whose every line was aristocratic. As
+a rule that lady was able so to control her emotions that the
+uninitiated were ignorant of the fact that she had emotions. She gave
+one the impression on that morning in June of having packed her
+emotions hurriedly, as she had her clothes, and they were darting from
+her flashing eyes as were garments from the telescopes.
+
+Gently, almost as though he were performing a religious rite, Uncle
+Billy lifted the shabby baggage from the coach.
+
+"Let me help you, Uncle Billy. Good morning, Cousin Ann. I am very
+glad to see you," said Jeff, although it was impossible to see Cousin
+Ann until some of the luggage was removed.
+
+"Thank you, cousin." Miss Ann spoke from the depths of the coach. Her
+voice trembled a little.
+
+At last, every box, bag and bundle was removed and piled by Uncle
+Billy upon each side of the yard gate like a triumphal arch through
+which his beloved mistress might pass.
+
+Old Billy unfolded the steps of the coach. These steps were supposed
+to drop at the opening of the door but the spring had long ago lost
+its power and the steps must be lowered by hand.
+
+"Mind whar you tread, Miss Ann," he whispered. Nobody must hear him
+suggest that the steps were not safe. Nobody must ever know that he
+and Miss Ann and the coach and horses were getting old and played
+out.
+
+Miss Ann had dignity enough to carry off broken steps, shabby baggage,
+rickety carriage--anything. She emerged from the coach with the air of
+being visiting royalty conferring a favor on her lowly subjects by
+stopping with them. Her dignity even overtopped the fact that her
+auburn wig was on crooked and a long lock of snow-white hair had
+straggled from its moorings and crept from the confines of the purple
+quilted-satin poke bonnet. The beauty which had been hers in her youth
+was still hers although everybody could not see it. Uncle Billy could
+see it and Jeff Bucknor glimpsed it, as his old cousin stepped from
+her dingy coach. He had never realized before that Cousin Ann Peyton
+had lines and proportions that must always be beautiful--a set of the
+head, a slope of shoulder, a length of limb, a curve of wrist and a
+turn of ankle. The old purple poke bonnet might have been a diadem, so
+high did she carry her head; and she floated along in the midst of her
+voluminous skirts like a belle of the sixties--which she had been and
+still was in the eyes of her devoted old servant.
+
+Miss Peyton wore hoop skirts. Where she got them was often
+conjectured. Surely she could not be wearing the same ones she had
+worn in the sixties and everybody knew that the articles were no
+longer manufactured. Big Josh had declared on one occasion when some
+of the relatives had waxed jocose on the subject of Cousin Ann and her
+style of dress, that she had bought a gross of hoop skirts cheap at
+the time when they were going out of style and had them stored in his
+attic--but then everybody knew that Big Josh would say anything that
+popped into his head and then swear to it and Little Josh would back
+him up.
+
+"By heck, there's no room in the attic for trunks," he had insisted.
+"Hoop skirts everywhere! Boxes of 'em! Barrels of 'em! Hanging from
+the rafters like Japanese lanterns! Standing up in the corners like
+ghosts scaring a fellow to death! I can't keep servants at all because
+of Cousin Ann Peyton's buying that gross of hoop skirts. Little Josh
+will bear me out in this."
+
+And Little Josh would, although the truth of the matter was that
+Cousin Ann had only one hoop skirt, and it was the same she had worn
+in the sixties. Inch by inch its body had been renewed to reclaim it
+from the ravages of time until not one iota of the original garment
+was left. Here a tape and there a wire had been carefully changed, but
+always the hoop kept its original form. The spirit of the sixties
+still breathed from it and it enveloped Miss Ann as in olden days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Cousin Ann Is Affronted
+
+
+Mrs. Bucknor stood aside while Uncle Billy and Jeff unpacked the
+carriage but as the visitor emerged she came forward. "How do you do,
+Cousin Ann?" she said, trying to put some warmth in her remark. "Have
+you driven far?"
+
+Cousin Ann leaned over stiffly and gave her hostess a perfunctory peck
+on her cheek. "We left Cousin Betty Throckmorton's this morning," she
+said with a toss of the purple poke bonnet.
+
+"Then you must have had a very early breakfast." It was a well-known
+fact that the sorrel horses, although of the famous Golddust breed,
+were old and could travel at a stretch only about five miles an hour.
+
+"We lef' Miss Betty's befo' breakfas'," said Uncle Billy sadly, but a
+glance from his mistress made him add, "but we ain't hongry, case we
+done et our fill at a hotel back yonder."
+
+"I deemed it wise to travel before the heat of the day," said Miss
+Ann with an added dignity. "Take my luggage to my room, Billy."
+
+"Yassum, yes, Miss Ann," and the old man made a show of tying his team
+to the hitching post although he knew that the fat old Cupid and Puck
+were glad to stop and rest and nothing short of oats would budge
+them.
+
+Mildred and Nan came slowly down the walk, followed by Aunt Em'ly.
+"We've got to let her kiss us and we might just as well get it over
+with," grumbled Mildred.
+
+"Well, they's some compersations in bein' black," chuckled Aunt Em'ly.
+"I ain't never had ter kiss Miss Ann yit."
+
+"How do you do, cousins?" and Miss Peyton again stooped from her
+loftiness and pecked first one girl and then the other. The old lady
+called all of her young relations cousin without adding the Christian
+name and it was generally conceded that she did this because she could
+not keep up with the younger generation in the many homes she
+visited.
+
+"Mother, remember your promise," whispered Mildred.
+
+"Yes, Mother, remember," added Nan. "Now is the time, before the
+trunks and things get put in the wrong room."
+
+"Uncle Billy, Miss Ann is to have the room next the guest chamber. I
+mean the--hall room," hesitated poor Mrs. Bucknor, who was always
+overawed by Cousin Ann.
+
+Uncle Billy put down the two bulging telescopes he had picked up and
+looking piteously at Mrs. Bucknor said, "What you say, Miss Milly? I
+reckon I done misumberstood. You mus' 'scuse ol' Billy, Miss Milly."
+
+"Miss Milly done said I'll show you the way," said Aunt Em'ly, picking
+up a great hat box and a Gladstone bag. "I'll he'p you carry up some
+er these here bags an' baggage."
+
+The gaunt old woman stalked ahead, while Billy followed, but far from
+meekly. His beard with its many wrapped plaits wagged ominously and he
+could hardly wait to get beyond earshot of the white folks before he
+gave voice to his indignation.
+
+"What's all this a puttin' my Miss Ann off in a lil' ol' hall bedroom?
+You-alls is gone kinder crazy. The bes' ain't good enough fer my Miss
+Ann. How she gonter make out in no little squz up room what ain't mo'n
+a dressin'-room? Miss Ann air always been a havin' the gues' chamber
+an' I'm a gonter 'stablish her thar now. Miss Milly done got mixed up,
+Sis Em'ly," and the old man changed his indignant tone to a wheedling
+one. "Sholy yo' Miss Milly wa' jes' a foolin' an' seein' as th'ain't
+nobody in the gues' chamber we'll jes' put my Miss Ann thar."
+
+The door of the guest chamber was open and the determined old darkey
+pushed by Aunt Em'ly and entered the room prepared by Mildred and Nan
+for their friends.
+
+"See, they mus' a' got a message she wa' on the way, kase they done
+put flowers in her room an' all," and old Billy kneeled to loosen the
+straps of the telescopes.
+
+"Git up from yonder, nigger!" exclaimed Aunt Em'ly. "The young ladies
+air done swep and garnished this here room for they own comp'ny.
+Th'ain't nothin' the matter with that there hall room. It air plenty
+good enough fer mos' folks. I reckon yo' Miss Ann ain't a whit
+better'n my Miss Mildred and my Miss Nan--ain't so good in fac', kase
+they's got the same blood she air an' mo' of it. They's a older fambly
+than she is kase they's come along two or three generations further
+than what she is. They's Peytons an' Bucknors an' Prestons an'
+Throckmortons an' Butlers an'--an' every other Kentucky fambly they's
+a mind ter be."
+
+Uncle Billy staggered to his feet and looked at Aunt Em'ly with
+amazement and indignation. He tried to speak but words failed him.
+She towered above him. There was something sinister and threatening
+about her--at least so the old man fancied. Aunt Em'ly was in reality
+merely standing up for the rights of her own especial white folks, but
+to the dazed old man she seemed like a symbolic figure of famine and
+disaster, lean and gaunt, pointing a long, bony finger at him. He
+followed her to the hall bedroom and deposited his burdens and then
+staggered down the stairs for the rest of Miss Ann's belongings.
+
+Poor Uncle Billy! His troubles were almost more than he could bear.
+Not that he personally minded getting up before dawn and flitting from
+Mrs. Betty Throckmorton's home before any member of the household was
+stirring. His Miss Ann had so willed it and far be it from him to
+object to her commands. Even going without breakfast was no hardship,
+if it so pleased his beloved mistress. The meal he had declared to
+Mrs. Bucknor they had eaten at a hotel on the way was purely
+imaginary. Crackers and cheese from a country store they had passed on
+their journey and a spray of black-heart cherries he had pulled from a
+tree by the wayside was all he and his mistress had eaten since the
+evening before at supper.
+
+That supper! Would he ever forget it? From the back porch steps he
+had heard the insults flung at Miss Ann by her hostess. Of course
+everybody who was anybody, or who had ever belonged to anybody, knew
+that Mrs. Elizabeth Throckmorton, known as Cousin Betty, was not
+really a member of the family but had merely married into it.
+According to Uncle Billy's geography she was not even an American, let
+alone a Kentuckian, since she had come from some foreign parts vaguely
+spoken of as New England. He and Miss Ann never had liked to visit
+there, but stopped on rare occasions when they felt that being an
+outsider her feelings might be hurt when she heard they had been in
+her neighborhood, had passed by her farm without paying their respects
+in the shape of a short visit.
+
+The encounter between the two ladies had been short and sharp, while
+the Throckmorton family sat in frightened silence. Miss Ann and Uncle
+Billy had been there only two days but from the beginning of the visit
+Uncle Billy had felt that things were not going so smoothly as he had
+hoped. Things had not been running very well for the chronic visitors
+in several of the places visited during the last year but there had
+been no open break or rudeness until that evening at the
+Throckmortons'. It was a little unfortunate that they had come in on
+the family without warning, just as the oldest grandchildren were
+recovering from measles and the youngest daughter, Lucy, had made up
+her mind to have a June wedding. The measles had necessitated an extra
+house cleaning and fumigation of the nursery and the young sufferers
+had been put in the guest chamber to sleep, while the June wedding
+meant many visits to Louisville for trousseau and much conversation on
+the subject of who should not be invited and what kind of refreshments
+must be served.
+
+A more unpropitious moment for paying a visit could not have been
+chosen. It was plain to see that the Throckmortons were not aware of
+the honor conferred upon them. The guest chamber having been converted
+into a convalescent hospital, Miss Ann must share room and bed with
+the reluctant Lucy. Bureau drawers were cleared and part of a wardrobe
+dedicated to the aged relative. Moreover there was no room in the
+stable for the visiting carriage horses, as a young Throckmorton had
+recently purchased a string of valuable hunters that must be housed,
+although Miss Ann's Golddust breed were forced to present their broad
+backs to the rain and wind in the pasture.
+
+Old Billy slept in the coach, but he often did this in late
+years--how often he never let his mistress know. In early days he had
+been welcomed by the servants and treated with the respect due Miss
+Ann Peyton's coachman, but the older generation of colored people had
+died off or had become too aged and feeble to "make the young folks
+stand around." As for the white people, Uncle Billy couldn't make up
+his mind what was the matter with them. Wasn't Miss Ann the same Miss
+Ann who had been visiting ever since her own beautiful home, Peyton,
+had been burned to the ground just after the war? She was on a visit
+at the time. Billy was coachman and had driven her to Buck Hill. He
+wasn't old Billy then, but was young and sprightly. He drove a
+spanking pair of sorrels and the coach was new and shiny. It was
+indeed a stylish turnout and Miss Ann Peyton was known as the belle
+and beauty of Kentucky.
+
+It was considered very fortunate at the time of the fire that Ann was
+visiting and had all of her clothes and jewels with her. They at least
+were saved. From Buck Hill they had gone to the home of other
+relations and so on until visiting became a habit. Her father, a
+widower, died a few weeks after the fire and later her brother. The
+estate had dwindled until only a small income was inherited by the
+bereaved Ann. Visiting was cheap. She was made welcome by the
+relations, and on prosperous blue-grass farms the care of an extra
+pair of carriage horses and the keep of another servant made very
+little difference. Cousin Ann, horses and coachman, were received with
+open arms and urged to stop as long as they cared to.
+
+In those days there always seemed to be plenty of room for visitors.
+The houses were certainly no larger than of the present day but they
+were more elastic. Of course entertaining a handsome young woman of
+lively and engaging manners, whose beaux were legion, was very
+different from having a peculiar old lady in a hoop skirt descend upon
+you unawares from a shabby coach drawn by fat old horses that looked
+as though they might not go another step in spite of the commands of
+the grotesque coachman with his plaited beard and bushy white hair.
+
+But that supper at the Throckmortons'! Uncle Billy was seated on the
+porch steps with a pan of drippings in his hand, wherein the cook had
+grudgingly put the scrag of a fried chicken and a hunk of cold corn
+bread. The cook was a new cook and not at all inclined to bother
+herself over an old darkey with his whiskers done up in plaits. The
+old man silently sopped his bread and listened to the talk of the
+white folks indoors.
+
+"Cousin Ann, have you ever thought of going to a home for aged women?"
+Mrs. Throckmorton asked. Her tone was brisk and businesslike, though
+not unkind. Mrs. Throckmorton had been entertaining this old cousin of
+her husband for many years and while she was not honored with as many
+visits as some of the relations she was sure she had her full share.
+It seemed to her high time that some member or near member of the
+family should step in and suggest to the old lady that there were such
+homes and that she should enter one.
+
+"I? Ann Peyton go to an old ladies' home? Cousin Betty you must be in
+a jocular vein," and Uncle Billy saw through the open door that his
+mistress drew herself up like a queen and her eyes flashed.
+
+"Well, plenty of persons quite as good as you go to such homes every
+day," insisted the hostess. "I should think you would prefer having a
+regular home and not driving from pillar to post, never knowing where
+you will land next and never sure whether your relations will have
+room for you or not. As it is, just now I am really afraid it will not
+be convenient for you to stay much longer with us. What with Lucy's
+wedding and the measles and everything! Of course you need not go
+immediately--"
+
+"That is enough, Cousin Betty. Never shall it be said that we have
+worn out our welcome. We go immediately." Miss Ann's voice was loud
+and clear. She stood up and pushed back her chair sharply. "We beg to
+be excused," she said and turned to walk from the room.
+
+"Oh, nonsense, Cousin Ann!" exclaimed Mrs. Throckmorton impatiently.
+"Nobody said you must go immediately. It was just with the wedding
+imminent and--anyhow I meant it for the best when I mentioned a home
+for aged women. You would be quite comfortable in one and I am sure I
+could find exactly the right sort. You would have to make a deposit of
+several thousands--I don't know exactly how much but you must have a
+little something left since you pay old Billy's wages and have your
+horses shod and so on. Of course in the home you would have no such
+expenses. You could sell your horses and your old coach is little more
+than junk, and old Billy could go to a home too."
+
+Miss Ann had paused a moment but when Mrs. Throckmorton spoke of her
+carriage as junk and suggested a home for Billy, too, her indignation
+knew no bounds and with a commanding gesture of dismissal she stalked
+from the dining-room. Billy was summoned and since it was out of the
+question to start so late in the evening it was determined that
+daylight should find them on their way to Buck Hill--Buck Hill where a
+certain flavor of old times was still to be found, with Cousin Bob
+Bucknor, so like his father, who had been one of the swains who
+followed in the train of the beautiful Ann Peyton. Buck Hill would
+always make her welcome!
+
+And now--Buck Hill--and a hall bedroom!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Energy of Judith
+
+
+"Mother, Cousin Ann Peyton is at Buck Hill. I saw her old carriage on
+the road when I went in for my express parcels."
+
+"Why will you insist upon saying Cousin Ann, Judith?" drawled Mrs.
+Buck. "I'd take my time about calling anybody cousin who scorned to do
+the same by me."
+
+As Judith's mother took her time about everything, the girl smiled
+indulgently, and proceeded in the unpacking of the express packages.
+
+"I'm so glad I am selling for this company that sends all goods
+directly to me instead of having me take orders the way the other one
+did. I'm just a born peddler and I know I make more when I can deliver
+the goods the minute they are bought and paid for. I'm going to take
+Buck Hill in on my rounds this year and see if all of my dear cousins
+won't lay in a stock of sweet soap and cold cream."
+
+"There you are, calling those Buck Hill folks cousin again. Here
+child, don't waste that string. I can't see what makes you so
+wasteful. You should untie each package, carefully pick out the knots,
+and then roll it up in a ball. I wonder how many times I've told you
+that."
+
+"So do I, Mother, and how many times I have told you that my time is
+too precious to be picking out hard knots. I bet this minute you've
+got a ball of string as big as your head, and please tell me how many
+packages you send out in a year."
+
+The girl's manner was gay and bantering. She stopped untying parcels
+long enough to kiss her mother, who was laboriously picking the knots
+from the cut twine.
+
+Mrs. Buck continued, "Wasting all of that good paper too! Here, let me
+fold it up. My mother and father taught me to be very particular about
+such things and goodness knows I've tried to teach you. I don't know
+where we'd be if I didn't save and if my folks before me hadn't done
+so."
+
+It was a well-known fact that Judith's maternal grandparents, Mr. and
+Mrs. Ezra Knight, had been forced to abandon their ancestral farm in
+Connecticut and had started to California on a hazard of new fortunes
+but had fallen by the wayside, landing in Kentucky where their habits
+of saving string and paper certainly had not enriched them. Such
+being the case a whimsical smile from the granddaughter was
+pardonable.
+
+"There is no telling," she laughed, "but you go on saving, Mother
+dear, and I'll try to do some making and between us we'll be as rich
+as our cousins at Buck Hill."
+
+"There you are again! I'd feel ashamed to go claiming relations with
+folks that didn't even know I existed. I can't see what makes you do
+it."
+
+"Oh, just for fun! You see we really and truly are kin. We are just as
+close kin as some of the people Cousin Ann Peyton visits, because you
+see she takes in anybody and everybody from the third and fourth
+generation of them that hate to see her coming. Yesterday in
+Louisville I looked up the family in some old books on the early
+history of Kentucky at the Carnegie Library and I found out a lot of
+things. In the first place the Bucks weren't named for Buck Hill."
+
+The land owned by Mrs. Buck had at one time been as rich as any in
+Kentucky, but it had been overworked until it was almost as poor as
+the deserted farm in Connecticut. As Judge Middleton had said, the
+price of the right-of-way through the place sought by the trolley
+company had enabled her to lift the long-standing mortgage. She had
+inherited the farm, mortgage and all, from her father, who had bought
+it from old Dick Buck. The house was a pleasant cottage of New England
+architecture, built closer to the road than is usual on Kentucky
+farms. Old Mr. Knight had also followed the traditions of his native
+state by building his barn with doors opening on the road. The barn
+was larger than the house, but at the present time Judith's little
+blue car and an old red cow were its sole inhabitants. The hay loft,
+which was designed to hold many tons of hay, was empty. Sometimes an
+errant hen would find her way up there and start a nest in vain hopes
+of being allowed to lay her quota and begin the business of hatching
+her own offspring in her own way, but Judith would rout her out and
+force her to comply to community housekeeping in the poultry-house.
+
+The Knights' motto might have been: "Lazy Faire" and the Buck's "'Nuff
+Said," as a wag at Ryeville had declared, but such mottoes did not fit
+Miss Judith. Nothing must be left as it was unless it was already
+exactly right and enough was not said until she had spoken her mind
+freely and fearlessly. Everything about this girl was free and
+fearless--her walk, the way she held her head, her unflinching hazel
+eyes and ready, ringing laugh. Even her red gold hair demanded freedom
+and refused to stay confined in coil, braid or net.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know where you came from," Mrs. Buck drawled.
+"You're so energetic and wasteful like. Of course my folks were never
+ones to sit still and be taken care of like the Bucks," and then her
+mild eyes would snap a bit, "but the Knights believed in saving."
+
+"Even energy?" asked Judith saucily.
+
+"Well, there isn't any use in wasting even energy. My father used to
+say that saving was the keynote of life as well as religion. I reckon
+you must be a throw back to my mother's grandfather, who was a Norse
+sailor, and reckless and wasteful and red-headed."
+
+"Maybe so! At any rate I'm going to plough some guano into these
+acres, even though I can't plough the seas like my worthy grandpap,
+Sven Thorwald Woden, or whatever his name was. Just look at our wheat,
+Mother! It isn't fit to feed chickens with because our land is so
+poor. I'm tired of this eternal saving and no making. There is no
+reason why our yield shouldn't be as great per acre as Buck Hill, but
+we don't get half as much as they do. I've got to make a lot of money
+this summer so as to buy bags and bags of fertilizer. I've got a new
+scheme."
+
+"I'll be bound you have," sighed Mrs. Buck.
+
+"But you'll have to help me by making cakes and pies and things and
+peeling potatoes."
+
+"All right, just so you don't hurry me! I can't be hurried."
+
+"What a nice mother you are to say all right without even asking what
+it is."
+
+"There wasn't any use in wasting my breath asking, because I knew
+you'd tell me without asking."
+
+"Well, this is it: I'm going to feed the motormen and conductors. I
+got the idea yesterday when I was coming up from Louisville by
+trolley, when I saw the poor fellows eating such miserable lunches out
+of tin buckets with everything hot that ought to be cold and cold that
+ought to be hot. I heard them talking about it and complaining and the
+notion struck me. I went up and sat by the men and asked them how they
+would like to have a supper handed them every evening, because it
+seems it is the night meal they miss most, and they nearly threw a fit
+with joy. I'm to begin this very day."
+
+Mrs. Buck threw up her hands in despair. "Judy, you just shan't do any
+such thing."
+
+"Now, Mother, honey, you said you'd help and the men are not bringing
+any supper from home and you surely wouldn't have them go hungry."
+
+"But you said I would not have to hurry."
+
+"And neither will you. You can take your own time and I'll do the
+hurrying. I only have two suppers to hand out this evening, but I bet
+you in a week I'll be feeding a dozen men and they'll like it and pay
+me well and before you know it we'll be rich and we can have lots
+better food ourselves and even keep a servant."
+
+"A servant! Heavens, Judith, not a wasteful servant!"
+
+"No indeed, Mother, a saving one--one who will save us many steps and
+give me time to make more money than you can save. I'll give them
+fried chicken this evening and hashed brown potatoes and hot rolls and
+plum jam and buttermilk. The radishes are up and big enough to eat and
+so are the young onions. All conductors eat onions. They do it to keep
+people from standing on the back platform. I am certainly glad the
+line came through our place and we have a stop so near us. I'll have
+to order a dozen baskets with nice, neat covers and big enough to hold
+plates and cups and saucers. Thank goodness we have enough china to go
+around what with the Buck leavings and the Knight savings. I'm going
+to get some five and ten cent store silver and a great gross of paper
+napkins. I tell you, Mother, I'm going to do this up in style."
+
+Mrs. Buck groaned out something about waste and sadly began paring
+potatoes, although it was then quite early in the forenoon and the
+trolleymen's supper was not to be served until six-thirty.
+
+"That child'll wear herself out," she said, not to herself but to an
+old blue hen who was scratching around the hollyhocks, clucking
+loudly. The hen had a motherly air, having launched so many families,
+and Mrs. Buck felt instinctively she might sympathize with her.
+
+"Thank goodness I ain't got but one to worry about," she continued as
+the repeated clucks brought Old Blue's brood around her. "Now just
+look at that poor old hen! I wonder if she'd rather be a hen and have
+so many large families to raise or if she wishes she'd been a rooster
+and maybe been fried in her youth."
+
+Deep thinking was too much for Mrs. Buck. She stopped peeling potatoes
+and fell into a brown study. The side porch was a pleasant place to
+sit and dream. Judith had sorted out her wares and stored them in the
+back of her blue car. She had caught two chickens and dressed them
+and set a sponge for the hot rolls. She had promised herself the
+pleasure of serving the motorman and conductor a trial supper whose
+excellence she was sure would bring in dozens of orders.
+
+A whirr from the barn and in a moment Judith was off and away, leaving
+a cloud of dust behind her.
+
+"No hurry about the potatoes!" she called as she passed the house, and
+then her voice trailed off with, "I'll be back by and by."
+
+"Just like the old woman on a broomstick in Mother Goose," Mrs. Buck
+informed the hen and then since there was no hurry about the potatoes
+she fell to dreaming again. It was very peaceful on the shady porch
+with that whirlwind of a Judy gone for several hours on one of her
+crazy peddling jaunts. What a girl she was for plunging! Again the
+mother wondered where she came from and for the ten thousandth time
+agreed with herself that it must be the blood of the Norse sailor
+cropping out in her energetic daughter.
+
+"It might have been the Bucks way back yonder somewhere. Certainly she
+didn't get any up-and-doing from old Dick Buck or my poor husband."
+Mrs. Buck always thought and spoke of her husband as her poor
+husband. That was because he had died in the first year of their
+marriage. Perhaps a merciful Providence had taken him off before he
+had time to develop to any great extent the traits that made his
+father, old Dick Buck, a by-word in the county as being the laziest
+and most altogether no-account white man in Kentucky.
+
+Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood in New England. She could
+barely remember the old white farmhouse with its faded green shutters
+that rattled so dismally in the piercing winds that seemed to single
+out the Knight house as it swept down between the hills. She recalled
+vividly the discussion carried on between her parents in regard to
+their mode of moving West--whether by wagon or rail--and the final
+decision to go by wagon because in that way they might save not only
+railroad fare but the bony team. Furniture was packed ready for
+shipment and stored in a neighbor's barn until they were sure in just
+what part of the West they would settle. California had been their
+goal, but Kentucky seemed far enough. They had stopped for a while in
+Ryeville with an old neighbor from New England and, hearing of a farm
+owned by one Dick Buck that was to be sold for taxes, they determined
+to abandon the journey to California and put what savings they had on
+this farm.
+
+The mortgage went with the farm. That Ezra Knight bargained for, but
+what he had not bargained for was that old Dick Buck and his son,
+young Dick, also were included in the purchase. They lived in a
+two-room log house, a little behind the site Ezra had selected for his
+own domicile. This was the natural place to build, since the land
+sloped gently from it, giving a proper drainage, and then the well was
+already there and a wonderfully good well it was.
+
+The new house was built, the plan following the old house they had
+left in Connecticut as closely as possible, but still old Dick Buck
+stayed on in his log cabin. Every day he told Ezra Knight he was
+planning to move, but always some unforeseen event would arise to make
+it necessary for him to postpone his departure. The houses were not
+fifty feet apart, the back yard of the New England cottage serving as
+a front yard to the cabin. The days stretched into weeks, the weeks
+into months. Ezra grew impatient and the old Dick took to his bed with
+a mysterious malady that defied the skill of the country doctor. Mrs.
+Knight, a kindly soul, ministered to his wants, saying she couldn't
+let a dog suffer if he was a neighbor. The months stretched into
+years. Every time Ezra approached the one time owner of the farm on
+the subject of his finding some other place of abode, old Dick had an
+attack of his mysterious malady and Ezra would have to give up for the
+time being.
+
+In the meantime young Dick was growing into a likely lad and little
+Prudence Knight had let down her skirts and put up her hair. Dick was
+employed on the Knight farm, and what was more natural than he should
+take his meals with them? Old Dick found it equally natural that he
+should also make one at the frugal board. When Ezra died, which he did
+ten years after he moved to Kentucky, old Dick and young Dick kindly
+offered to sit up with the corpse. The bereaved wife made the bed in
+the low-ceilinged attic room for them and what more natural than they
+should stay on? Stay on they did until young Dick and Prudence were
+married; until young Dick died. Then old Dick stayed on and Mrs.
+Knight died and his daughter-in-law and the little flame-haired Judith
+were left to fend for themselves.
+
+After the death of Mrs. Knight of course leaving was impossible. Old
+Dick even spoke of himself as the sole support of his daughter-in-law
+and her little Judith. He began to look upon hunting and fishing as a
+duty and seemed to feel that they would have been destitute without
+his occasional donation of a small string of perch or a rabbit. Mrs.
+Knight tolerated him because she was used to him. Judith had a real
+affection for the old man and, when he died, mourned for him
+sincerely. To be sure he had been a very untidy old person who had
+never done a day's work in all his life but at least he had a nimble
+wit which had appealed to the child.
+
+After his death Judith trapped rabbits and caught fish. She did many
+things besides, however, as by that time family funds were so low and
+the farm so unproductive it was necessary for some member of the
+family to begin to make money. She was fourteen at the time her
+grandfather died--a slim long-legged girl giving promise of the beauty
+that the old soldiers and the drummer on the Rye House porch
+acknowledged later on. Even then the wire-spring energy was hers that
+still puzzled her mother--energy and an ever-present determination to
+get ahead. Sometimes she caught enough fish to sell a few. Sometimes
+she carried rabbits into the town for sale. In blackberry season she
+was an indefatigable picker. She went in for chickens and had steady
+customers in Louisville for her guaranteed eggs. School was looked
+upon as part of the business of getting ahead. Nothing in the way of
+weather daunted her. She went through the high school with flying
+colors and got a medal for not having missed a single day in four
+years.
+
+At nineteen she was teaching school for eight months of the year and
+the other four peddling toilet articles and a few side lines and now
+planning to feed the motormen on the interurban trolleys.
+
+"Well, well! I guess she got it from the Norse sailor," sighed Mrs.
+Buck picking up another potato.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Uncle Billy's Diplomacy
+
+
+The hall bedroom at Buck Hill was not such a small room, except in
+comparison with the other rooms, which were enormous. There was plenty
+of space in it for Miss Ann and a reasonable amount of luggage, but
+not for Miss Ann and three trunks and the numerous bags and bundles
+and boxes, which Billy stowed away, endeavoring to make the place as
+comfortable as possible for his beloved mistress.
+
+"I'll unstrop yo' trunks an' we kin git unpacked an' then I'll tote
+the empties up in the attic 'ginst the time we 'cides ter move on," he
+said, looking sadly at Miss Ann as she sank listlessly in a chair.
+Miss Ann allowed herself to be listless in the presence of Billy, and
+Billy alone. At the sound of a step on the stairs she stiffened
+involuntarily. Nobody must find Ann Peyton slouching or down-hearted.
+It was only Mildred going up for a last look at the guest chamber, to
+make sure everything was in readiness for her company. She did not
+come to her old cousin's room so Miss Ann felt at liberty to relax
+once more.
+
+"Billy, I am not going to unpack yet," she faltered. "I--I--perhaps we
+may have to start off again in a hurry."
+
+"Don't say it, Miss Ann! We won't never be called on ter depart from
+Buck Hill 'til we's good an' ready--not whilst Marse Bob Bucknor's
+prodigy is livin', an' Mr. Jeff the spitin' image of his gran'dad. I's
+sho Miss Milly done put you in this pretty lil' room kase she thought
+you'd like it, bein' so handy to the stairs an' all, an' the windy
+right over the baid so's you kin lay an 'look out at the trees an'
+flowers--an' if there ain't a wishteria vine a comin' in the casement
+an' twinin' aroun' jes' like a pixture. I tell you Miss Ann, this here
+room becomes you powerful much. I wonder they ain't never give it ter
+you befo'. It's a heap mo' homey like than the gues' chamber an' I'm
+thinkin' it's agonter be quieter an' cooler an' much mo'
+habitationable."
+
+"Yes, Billy, I'm sure it will be." There was a plaintive suggestion of
+tears in her voice.
+
+"Now, Miss Ann, you git in yo' wropper an' lay down a spell an' I'm
+gonter fotch you a cup er tea. You's plum tuckered out what with sech
+a early start an' mo'n likely no sleep las' night. You ain't called
+on ter be a botherin' yo' little haid 'bout nothin'. Jes' you res'
+yo'se'f an' after you rests you kin come down on the po'ch an' git the
+air."
+
+If he had been a mammy coaxing a child Billy's tone could not have
+been more gentle or loving. He busied himself unstrapping the trunks
+and valises and then hurried off for the cup of tea, declaring he
+would be back in a moment although he well knew that a trial of will
+with Aunt Em'ly lay before him. Tea and toast he determined to have
+for his mistress--if over the cook's dead body. Aunt Em'ly was queen
+of the kitchen and nothing irritated her more than having extra food
+to prepare.
+
+"Let 'em eat they victuals when they's served, three times a day
+without no stint or savin' an' not be peckin' in between times," she
+hurled at poor old Billy when he meekly demanded a tray for the hall
+bedroom.
+
+"I'll fix it myself, Sis Em'ly, an' I won't make a mite er dirt. Miss
+Ann air plum flabbergasted what with sech a long trip an' no
+breakfas'."
+
+"I thought you done boas' you et at a hotel," sniffed the old woman.
+"How come she air hongry fer tea an' toas' if she done et at a
+hotel."
+
+"Sho--sho--but you see it done got jolted down an' Miss Ann--Please,
+Sis Em'ly. I ain't a arskin' nothin' fer myse'f, but jes' for my Miss
+Ann. You done won out consarnin' gues' chambers an' hall bedrooms so
+you mought be willin' ter give a po' tired lady a cup er tea."
+
+Aunt Em'ly was really a very kind person, but there was something
+about old Billy's long beard tied up in innumerable plaits, his bow
+legs and general air of superiority, that had always irritated her.
+For years she had been held in the subjection of politeness by this
+unwelcome guest by the attitude of her white people to his mistress,
+but now the barriers were down and Mrs. Bucknor had openly expressed
+her impatience at this too-frequent visitor and had been persuaded by
+her daughters to give Miss Ann the hall room, no longer need she
+assume cordiality to the old servant. Of course she intended to make
+the tea for Miss Ann but she also intended to be as disagreeable as
+possible while the kettle boiled.
+
+The old man sat meekly in the corner of the kitchen, watching Aunt
+Em'ly while she scalded the small Rebecca pot and measured out the
+tea. He was glad to see that she put in an extra spoonful as that
+meant that he too might find some much-needed refreshment. She made
+quite a stack of toast and buttered it generously, although all the
+time she grumbled and frowned.
+
+"Here, take it, an' git out'n my kitchen. I don't much mo'n git the
+breakfus dishes washed befo' I haster begin gittin' dinner an' if I's
+gonter have ter be a stoppin' every five minutes ter fix trays I like
+ter know when I will git through."
+
+"Thank you, Sis Em'ly, thank you!" cried old Billy, seizing the
+coveted tray and making a hasty exit. "Her bark air wus'n her bite,"
+he chuckled, "an' I do hope Miss Ann ain't gonter take away her
+appletite for dinner by eatin' all this toas' an' drinkin' this whole
+pot er tea, kase I tell you now ol' Billy's stomic air done stuck to
+his back with emptiness."
+
+The tea and toast did put heart in the weary travelers. Miss Ann left
+half the simple feast for Billy, commanding him to go sit in the
+corner of the room and devour his share.
+
+"Now I'm gonter rub down my hosses an' wash the ca'ige, and if you's
+got any little odd jobs fer me ter do I'll mosey back this way arter
+dinner. Praise Gawd, the Buck Hill folks has dinner in the middle of
+the day, an' plenty of it. These here pick-up, mid-day canned salmon
+lunches air bad enough for the white folks but by the time they gits
+ter the niggers th'ain't nothin' lef but the can. I hear tell the
+young ladies air 'spectin' of comp'ny so I reckon you'll be a needin'
+yo' sprigged muslin ter take the shine out'n all the gatherin'. I'm a
+gonter press it fer you, even if a hot iron air arskin' a big favor
+with some er these free niggers."
+
+"Oh, Billy, you needn't bother to press my gown. It makes very little
+difference what I wear. I don't believe I can appear this evening."
+
+"Miss Ann, air you sick? Ain't yo' tea picked you up none?"
+
+"No, Billy, I'm not sick. I'm just so miserable. I'm beginning to see
+that we are no longer wanted--even here at Buck Hill." The old woman's
+voice quavered piteously. "They used to want us--everywhere. At least,
+if they didn't they pretended they did. I don't know when it
+started--this drawing back--this feeling we are a burden. When did it
+begin, Billy?"
+
+"'Tain't never begun. You's jes' so blue-blooded you is sensitive
+like, Miss Ann. You is wanted mo'n ever. You-all's kin is proud ter
+own you. You air still the beauty of the fambly, Miss Ann. I knows,
+kase I done seed every shemale mimber of the race er Peytons an'
+Bucknors an' all. Th'ain't never a one what kin hol' a can'le ter
+you. Don't you go ter throwin' off on my Miss Ann or you'll be havin'
+ol' Billy ter fight. I ain't seed nothin' in this county ter put long
+side er you, less'n it wa' that pretty red-headed gal what went
+whizzin' by us up yonder on the pike in a blue ortermobubble. I ain't
+knowin' who she air but one thing that made her so pretty wa' that I
+member the time when you wa' jes' like her. She turned her head aroun'
+ter look at us an' she give me sech a start I pretty nigh fell off'n
+my box.
+
+"I ain't meanin' no disrespec' ter Marse Bob an' Miss Milly's
+daughters, but they ain't nothin' by the side er that there young gal
+what dusted us this mornin'. The bes'-lookin' one er their daughters
+is Mr. Jeff. He air sho growed ter a likely young man. He air
+certainly kind an' politeful too. Didn't he say pintedly he wa' glad
+ter see you? Didn't he ketch a holt an' help me tote ev'y las' one er
+these here trunks up here? When the young marster air so hospitle I
+don't see whe'fo' you gits notions in yo' haid."
+
+"Perhaps you are right, Billy," and Miss Ann again held up her head.
+She must not let herself slump. The will that had carried her through
+all the long years of visiting must carry her still. She had demanded
+and hence received homage and respect from her kinsmen for two
+generations and she must continue to do it. It would be fatal at this
+point to show weakness or truculence. She had been and intended to be
+always the honored guest at the various homes that she visited. The
+unfortunate occurrence at Cousin Betty Throckmorton's was to be
+ignored--forgotten. Billy was right; she must dress with care. The
+matter of the hall bedroom must be treated lightly and accepted as a
+compliment. It wasn't as though she had been put out of the guest
+chamber. She knew in her heart that in times that were past any
+youthful visitors expected at Buck Hill must have made way for her,
+but she did not acknowledge it to herself or to Billy.
+
+She shook out the sprigged muslin and gave it to the old man to press.
+Then, with meticulous care, she began the business of unpacking. It
+was with some irritation that she found only the top drawer of the
+bureau empty. In the other drawers Mrs. Bucknor had put away sundry
+articles which she had forgotten about--remnants of cloth, old ribbons
+and laces and photographs. The hall room was used only when there was
+an overflow of guests and only transient visitors put there. For
+transients one drawer was sufficient. In the wardrobe there hung an
+old hunting suit of Jeff's and several dancing frocks belonging to
+Mildred and Nan, that had been temporarily discarded to await future
+going over by the seamstress.
+
+"They might have spared me this," Miss Ann muttered, as she endeavored
+to make hanging room for her voluminous skirts.
+
+She snatched the offending garments from the hooks and put them in a
+pile on the floor. Then she pulled out the lower bureau drawers and
+dumped the contents on top of the old hunting suit and dancing
+frocks.
+
+"There! I shall give them to understand I am not to be treated with
+ignominy. I am Ann Peyton. I have always been treated with
+consideration and I always intend to be."
+
+The old eyes flashed and the faded cheeks flushed. She gave the pile
+of debris a vicious little kick. The blow dislodged from the mass a
+small, old-fashioned daguerreotype. There was something about the
+little picture that was familiar. She stooped and picked it up. It was
+her own likeness, taken at seventeen, a slender, charming girl whose
+expression gave one to understand that she could not be still much
+longer. She would have been a better subject for a motion-picture
+camera than the invention of Daguerre. Youth looked into the eyes of
+age and Miss Ann put her hands over her own poor face as though to
+hide from youth the ravages of time. It seemed to her that the young
+Ann looked out on the old Ann and said, "What have you done with me?
+Where am I? You needn't tell me that you and I are one and the same."
+
+Slowly she walked to the bureau and slowly she raised her eyes to the
+mirror and then gazed long and sadly at her face.
+
+"Ann Peyton, you are a fool. You have always been a fool. It is too
+late to be anything else now and you will go on being a fool until the
+end of time. This child had more sense than you have."
+
+Reverently she placed the little daguerreotype in her handkerchief
+box. It was the picture she had given Bob Bucknor, the father of the
+present owner of Buck Hill and the grandfather of Jeff. He had prized
+it once but now it was thrown aside and forgotten by all. She then
+stooped over and gathered up the articles on the floor and carefully
+put them back in drawers and wardrobe. She washed her face and hands,
+straightened her auburn wig, changed her traveling dress to a more
+suitable one and then sailed majestically down the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A Question of Kinship
+
+
+Jefferson Bucknor had been away from home, except for flying visits,
+for five years. Like most of the young men of his age, the World War
+had broken in on his college course. He had gone into training at the
+first suggestion of his country's need. He was then in his junior year
+at the University of Virginia. Law had been his goal and at the close
+of the war he hastened back to finish what he had begun. Determined to
+hang out his shingle as soon as possible, he had studied summer and
+winter until he got his degree. He was now at home, taking a
+much-needed rest and getting acquainted again with his family. The
+sisters had grown up while he was away, and his father and mother were
+turning gray. He had only arrived the day before the coming of Cousin
+Ann, and could not help regretting that his sisters were having this
+house party. It would have been pleasant to be quietly at home for a
+while.
+
+"When does your company come?" Jeff asked Mildred. Cousin Ann had
+joined them on the front porch, where the family awaited the summons
+to dinner. "Mildred and Nan are having a swarm of guests," he
+explained to the old cousin.
+
+"Ah, indeed!" said Cousin Ann.
+
+"Some of them come at six-thirty and the rest at seven from
+Louisville. We are to meet them at the trolley. You'll go with us,
+won't you, Jeff?" asked Mildred.
+
+"Of course, if you need me."
+
+"Need you! I should say we do need you. Why, you are to fall madly in
+love with Jean Roland. We've fixed it all up. She's rich and
+beautiful."
+
+"Yes, and we put linen sheets on the bed in the guest chamber," broke
+in Nan. "Jean Roland is used to grand things, but she'll have to sleep
+three in the bed and so will all of us--now."
+
+"Hush!" from Mrs. Bucknor. There was an embarrassed silence. Cousin
+Ann's backbone stiffened. Mrs. Bucknor looked reproachfully at her
+daughters, who giggled helplessly. It was a relief to have the head of
+the house arrive at that moment.
+
+Mr. Bucknor was a hale and hearty man of fifty, florid and handsome,
+slightly dictatorial in manner, but easily influenced by his wife,
+who was all softness and gentleness. He was generous and hospitable,
+priding himself on keeping up the reputation in which Buck Hill had
+gloried in the past--that of an open house with bed and board for all
+of the blood. He greeted his Cousin Ann with a cordiality that might
+have been balm to her wounded feelings had she not been aware that
+that was Cousin Bob's manner to everybody.
+
+"And where do you come from, Cousin Ann?" he demanded. "I hope all
+were well. Cousin Betty Throckmorton's? Well, well! I thought Sister
+Sue was to have the honor of your company. It will keep! It will keep!
+Measles at Cousin Betty's? Heavens! I hope none of them will go off in
+pneumonia. You must give us a nice long visit. Always glad to have
+you, Cousin Ann. Glad to have any of my kin come and stay as long as
+they choose. Blood is thicker than water, I say, and blue blood is
+thicker than red blood."
+
+"Thank you, cousin," was all Miss Ann could say.
+
+"By the way, Mildred, speaking of falling in love, who is that pretty
+girl I saw on the trolley yesterday?" asked Jeff. "I can't remember
+ever having seen her around here before, but then the girls have all
+grown beyond me since I left home. She has what some people call
+auburn hair, but I like to call it red, although it had lots of gold
+in it. She got on the last stop before you get into Ryeville. Seemed
+to know everybody on the car--even the motorman and conductor. At
+least, I saw her chatting with them--the ones who were relieved at the
+last switch and were eating their suppers. She was as lively as a
+cricket--was just bubbling over with energy--"
+
+"Oh, I know who that was," said Mildred. "It sounds like that forward
+Judith Buck. She has no idea of her place. I never saw such a girl.
+She rides around the country in a ridiculous looking little home made
+blue Ford with a spring wagon back and puts on all the airs of
+sporting a Stutz racer. She never stops for anybody but just whizzes
+on by. Sometimes she even bows to us, although she gets mighty little
+encouragement from me, I can tell you."
+
+Suddenly there flashed upon Miss Ann's inward eye a picture of a
+bright-haired girl in a little blue car who had passed her coach only
+that morning, and with the picture came the remembrance of Uncle
+Billy's words: "I ain't seed nothin' in this county ter put 'long side
+er you lessen it wa' that pretty red-headed gal what went whizzin' by
+us up yonder on the pike in a blue ortermobubble." She remembered that
+he had declared the girl looked as she had looked in her youth.
+
+Mildred continued her diatribe concerning the lively Judith: "Surely
+you remember her, Jeff. She used to come here selling blackberries
+when she was a kid--a little barefooted girl and as pert as you please
+even then. After old Dick Buck died she used to trap rabbits and bring
+them here for sale and sometimes fish. It always made me mad for Aunt
+Em'ly to encourage her by making Mother buy the things. I think poor
+persons should be taken care of all right but they should know their
+place."
+
+"But what is her place?" asked Jeff, a flush slowly spreading over his
+handsome, rather swarthy countenance.
+
+"Well, I should say her place was at the back door," declared Mildred.
+"Old Dick Buck's granddaughter needn't expect to get any social
+recognition from me."
+
+"Me either!" chimed in Nan.
+
+"Of course not!" said Mrs. Bucknor. Mr. Bucknor was reading the
+morning paper and seemed oblivious to the conversation.
+
+"She doesn't look to me like a girl who cared a whit for social
+recognition," said Jeff quietly, although his lip had a curl that
+showed his disapproval of his family's snobbishness.
+
+"Don't you believe it," said Mildred, with rather more violence than
+the subject under discussion warranted. "I went to high school with
+her for a year and then thank goodness Father sent me to a private
+school. She was the greatest smart Aleck you ever saw. Had herself
+elected president of the class and was always showing off, getting
+medals for never being late and never missing a single day of school
+since she started. She was always acting in plays and getting up class
+entertainments for devastated Europe. Some of the girls in Ryeville
+wanted to ask her to join our club, but I just told them they could
+count me out if they did any such thing."
+
+"Me too!" said Nan.
+
+"And I tell you Buck Hill is too nice a place for parties for the set
+to let Nan and me out. She's got a place as teacher now, out in the
+county near Clayton. I can't abide her. She even had the impertinence
+to tell some of the girls once that the original name of her family
+was the same as ours--that her old grandfather, Dick Buck, had told
+her so. The idea! Next she'll be claiming kin with us Bucknors."
+
+"What's that? What's that?" asked Mr. Bucknor, dropping his paper.
+"Who claims kin with us?"
+
+"Old Dick Buck's granddaughter. Isn't it ridiculous?"
+
+"Not at all," spoke Cousin Ann, coming into the conversation as a ship
+in full sail might break into a fleet of fishing boats. "Not
+ridiculous at all. In fact, quite the proper thing for the young woman
+in question to do. She, too, may have pride of birth and there is no
+reason why she should not claim what is due her."
+
+"But--" interrupted Mildred. Miss Ann Peyton paid no attention at all
+to the girl. She addressed her remarks to Jeff, who was all respectful
+attention.
+
+"Yes, cousin, the Bucks are descended from the Bucknors quite as much
+as you or I are. I recall it all now, although I have not thought of
+it for many, many years. I can remember hearing my grandfather tell of
+a brother of his Grandfather Bucknor who, out of pure carelessness,
+dropped the last syllable of his name. It was in connection with a
+transfer of property. The deed was recorded wrongly, naming Richard
+Buck. He was a lazy man and rather than go to the trouble of having
+the matter corrected he just allowed himself to be called Richard
+Buck. He left Kentucky after that, but his son returned later on. My
+grandfather told me a slump in fortune began from that time and the
+Buck branch of the family has been on the downward road ever since.
+Perhaps, having reached the bottom, this young person is now
+ascending. But low or high, the fact remains that she is kin."
+
+"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Bucknor, "I didn't dream that old tale
+had a word of truth in it. I've heard old Dick Buck, when he was
+drunk, insisting that he belonged to my family, but it sounded
+ridiculous on the face of it."
+
+"Exactly!" chorused Mildred and Nan.
+
+"However, I must look into the matter," the father continued somewhat
+pompously. "If the girl is kin we must claim her."
+
+"Oh, Bob, I beg of you to do no such thing," said Mrs. Bucknor gently,
+laying a restraining hand lightly on her husband's arm. Her touch was
+soft and light but it held Bob Bucknor as effectively as iron
+handcuffs might have. "If this girl is as forward as Mildred and Nan
+say she is, it would be very embarrassing to have her constantly
+asserting her kinship with our girls. I am sure I do not know her at
+all. She is pretty and no doubt is good, but she is naturally common
+and evidently very pushing."
+
+"All right, my dear, all right! You know best," responded Mr.
+Bucknor.
+
+At this juncture Kizzie announced dinner, which was a relief to all of
+them.
+
+"Take my arm, Cousin Ann," said Jeff gallantly.
+
+For a moment the old woman and the young man stood looking off over
+the rolling meadows of blue grass. Cutting the lush green pasture
+lands was the white limestone turnpike. Far off in the distance a blue
+speck appeared on the white road. In a twinkling it grew into a car
+and then went whizzing by, leaving a cloud of white dust in its wake.
+Jeff smiled and, glancing down at his old cousin, caught an answering
+smile on her face.
+
+"I'm rather glad she's kin," he whispered, and she gave his arm a tiny
+squeeze.
+
+Then the thought came to him: "I wonder if she is as bold and forward
+as Mildred says she is. I wish she hadn't been so familiar with those
+motormen. That wasn't very ladylike to go up and engage them in
+conversation. Perhaps Mildred is right. You could hardly expect old
+Dick Buck's granddaughter to be very refined--but, gee, she's a good
+looker!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Judith Makes a Hit
+
+
+Judith reached home in time to prepare an excellent basket supper for
+her motormen customers. She was determined that her food should be so
+good it would advertise itself and every employe on the line would
+demand service. All of the potatoes were not peeled when she was ready
+for them, but her mother's explanation was that it seemed a pity to
+peel potatoes because there was so much waste in that method. It
+really was better to cook them in the skins. Judith kissed her and
+laughed.
+
+"Another time we'll cook them in their jackets, Mumsy dear, but I
+cleared enough money this morning to afford to waste a few potato
+peelings. If I have a week of such luck, I'll have to get in more
+supplies. The girls in this county are just eating up my vanishing
+cream and my liquid powder that won't rub off. I've made a great hit
+with my anti-kink lotion with the poor colored people. Half the female
+world is trying to get curled and the other half trying to get
+uncurled. I have got rid of dozens and dozens of marcel wavers, the
+steel kind that must dig into you fearfully at night, and bottle after
+bottle of that quince seed lotion, warranted to keep hair in curl for
+an all-day picnic, where it usually rains, and, if it doesn't, you
+fall in the creek to even up."
+
+"Judy, you take my breath away with such talk and such goings on. I
+can't bear to think of your selling things to negroes. There is no
+telling what might happen to you if you don't look out."
+
+Mrs. Buck had an instinctive dislike for the colored race. She never
+trusted them and was opposed even to employing them for farm work. She
+preferred the most disreputable poor white to the best negro. It was a
+prejudice inherited from her father and mother, who on first coming to
+Kentucky had done much talking about the down-trodden blacks, but
+being unable to understand them had never been able to get along with
+them.
+
+Old Dick Buck had said of Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Knight, "They've got
+mighty high ideas about negroes but they ain't got a bit of use for a
+nigger."
+
+Judith shared none of this prejudice. She liked colored people and
+they liked her and respected her. As she went speeding along the
+roads in her little blue car, there was never a darkey old or young
+who did not wish her well and bow low to her friendly greeting. Only
+that morning she had given a lift to a bent old man who was on his way
+to Mr. Big Josh Bucknor's, and thereby saved him many a weary mile.
+
+"I'd take you all the way, Uncle Peter, but I can't trust my left hind
+tire up that bumpy lane," Judith explained.
+
+"Ain't it the truf, Missy? If Mr. Big Josh would jes stop talkin'
+'bout it an' buil' hisse'f a road! He been lowin' he wa' gonter git
+busy an' backgammon that lane fer twenty-five years an he ain't never
+tech it yit. That's the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in
+the fambly air done plum wo' out what with cookin' fer comp'ny an'
+washin' up an' all. It looks like comp'ny air the only thing what
+don't balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol'
+Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They
+phoned down ter the sto' fer me ter put my foot in the pike an' come
+erlong. They done got a phome message from way over yonder at
+Throckmorton's that dus' from Miss Ann's coach wa' a risin'. They
+ain't mo'n got shet er a batch er visitings when here come news that
+Miss Ann air a comin'. The ladies air sho' peeved an' they done up an'
+said they ain't a gonter stay home an' Mr. Big Josh tell 'em ter go
+'long if they's a min' an' he'n me'll look arfter Miss Ann."
+
+"But she is at Buck Hill," said Judith. "I am sure of it. I saw her
+carriage turning in there this morning. Poor old lady!"
+
+"I ain't seein' that she air so po'."
+
+"It seems very pitiful to me for her never to be wanted, always coming
+and always having to pack up and leave. I'd love to have her come
+visit me. You know she and I are of the same blood, Uncle Peter--or
+did you know it?"
+
+"Land's sake, Missy, I mus' a made a mistake. I been a thinkin' all
+along that I wa' a ridin' with ol' Dick Buck's gran'baby. You mus'
+scuse me."
+
+"So you are, Uncle Peter, I am Judith Buck, but I have just as good a
+right to be Judith Bucknor as Mr. Bob Bucknor or Mr. Big Josh Bucknor,
+or any of them."
+
+"Well, bless Bob! Do tell!" was all the old man had time to ejaculate,
+as they came to the mouth of the lane, bumpy in dry weather and muddy
+in wet, and he must leave the swiftly moving car and again trust to
+his old limbs to carry him on his way. His step was lighter, however,
+as he was the bearer of good tidings to all the white folks at Mr. Big
+Josh's. Miss Ann Peyton was not coming, but was making a visit at Buck
+Hill. He was full of other news, too, but was not quite sure whether
+it would be so welcome to the family.
+
+"Not that she ain't mo' likelier than mos' er the young genderation,"
+he muttered.
+
+Judith had a slap-dash impressionistic manner of cooking all her own,
+following no rules or recipes, but with an unerring instinct that
+produced results. She said she cooked by ear. Whatever her method, the
+motormen were vastly pleased with the hot suppers she brought them and
+the word was passed that the pretty red-headed girl at the last stop
+before you got to Ryeville would furnish a basket supper at a
+reasonable figure and soon almost every man on the line was eager to
+become one of her customers.
+
+The first supper was difficult because she was determined to have it
+absolutely perfect, and her mother would insist upon getting in her
+way, offering various suggestions that might save a tenth of a cent.
+
+"I tell you, Mumsy, I am not saving but making. Please sit down in
+this chair by the table, while I behave like the man in the lunatic
+asylum who thought he was a steam engine. I'm afraid I might get off
+the track and run over you. If you just stay still in one spot I'll
+get through. I can't go over you, I can't go around you and I can't go
+under you.
+
+"There's the whistle blowing for two stops before ours and I'm ready.
+Hurrah for a fortune, Mumsy!" and with a kiss Judith was off, bearing
+a basket in one hand and a tin cooler of buttermilk in the other.
+
+The Bucks' farm was a triangle, bounded on two sides by converging
+roads and the other by the pasture lands of Buck Hill. The trolley
+line skirted the back of the farm, but turned sharply toward Ryeville
+before reaching the corner where the two roads met. The track curved
+about five hundred feet beyond the location of the stop where Judith
+had promised to meet the car with the suppers. There was a short cut
+from the rear of the house and Judith always took short cuts. Through
+the orchard, down the hill, across a stream, up the hill, skirting a
+blackberry thicket, through a grove of beeches, dark and peaceful with
+lengthening shadows falling on mossy banks, went the girl. She stopped
+a moment in the grove and looked out across the fertile
+country--everywhere more fertile than the Buck farm but nowhere more
+beautiful, she thought.
+
+"I wish I had time to stop here longer," she sighed, putting down her
+basket and patting a great beech tree. "Thank goodness the Bucks were
+too lazy to cut you down and the Knights too slow." The honk of an
+automobile horn startled her. A seven-seated passenger car was coming
+down the road and in the distance could be seen the approaching
+trolley.
+
+"Got to run after all," she cried. "That's what I get for making love
+to a tree." She flew along the path by the fence and reached the small
+station before the trolley slowed down for the stop. Breathless but
+triumphant she stood, large basket in one hand, buttermilk cooler in
+the other.
+
+The big motor car, which was driven by Jeff Bucknor, was parked by the
+roadside. From it emerged Mildred and Nan in all the glory of fresh
+and frilly lawns and the latest in hats from a Louisville milliner.
+
+"Now, Jeff," said Mildred, "you must get out and meet the bunch, and
+be sure you make no mistake. You are to fall in love with Jean Roland
+and no one else. She is the smallest and the darkest and much the best
+dressed. I do hope and trust it will be love at first sight. She is
+already just wild about you, without ever even seeing you, and when
+she sees you she is sure to topple over completely."
+
+"What nonsense," scoffed Jeff.
+
+Mildred ignored the presence of Judith Buck, although they could not
+help seeing her, since her blue cotton dress and her red gold hair
+made a spot of color that would surely have affected the optics of a
+stone blind person. Her color was naturally high, and frying chicken
+over a hot wood stove and sprinting for the trolley had added to it.
+Nan did worse than ignore the presence of her neighbor, as she openly
+nudged her sister and whispered audibly:
+
+"Look at her! What do you suppose she has in her basket?"
+
+"Hot rolls, fried chicken, hashed brown potatoes, damson jam, radishes
+and young onions. Can't you smell 'em?" answered Judith quite
+casually, as though announcing a menu at a restaurant. At the same
+time she smiled brightly and looked at the Misses Bucknor with no
+trace of either embarrassment or resentment. Jeff, who was plainly
+mortified at Nan's rudeness, laughed in spite of himself.
+
+One of the things that irritated Mildred more than anything else about
+Judith Buck was that she seemed never to take offense, nor even to
+know when an insult was intended. Sometimes she would wear for a
+moment a quizzical smile, but usually she presented what she called a
+duck's back to intentional slights. Having satisfied Nan's curiosity
+concerning what was in her basket, she stepped forward to the platform
+and swung the cooler of buttermilk back and forth in the manner of a
+brakeman with a red lantern.
+
+"I think they will stop here anyhow, Miss Buck," said Jeff. "Do let me
+help you on with your basket. I know it is heavy. I am Jefferson
+Bucknor. Perhaps you don't remember me, but I have seen you often when
+you were a child. I've been away from home a long time."
+
+While Jeff was introducing himself to Judith the trolley had slowed up
+and stopped. Three young women and two young men were standing on the
+platform ready to alight. They were part of the house party and
+delighted greetings were exchanged between them and Mildred and Nan.
+
+One of the young men, catching sight of Judith, gave only a hurried
+handshake to his hostesses and then sauntered towards the end of the
+platform where the girl in blue cotton was standing. He was a handsome
+youth, dressed in the latest and most pronounced style. His manner
+and general carriage were indefinably impudent. He came quite close to
+Judith and peered into her face and only turned to join the others at
+a sharp call from Mildred.
+
+"Tom Harbison, come here this minute!"
+
+At Jeff's proffers of assistance Judith had smilingly thanked him.
+"But I'm not getting on myself--only my basket and can of milk," she
+said.
+
+"Then I'll help them on," said Jeff, although Judith assured him she
+was quite able to do it herself.
+
+"Yonder she is!" the conductor shouted to the motorman. "I knew she
+would come. I never knew a red-headed gal to disappoint a fellow
+yet."
+
+Eagerly the basket was seized by the hungry men and loud was their
+shout of joy over the can of ice-cold buttermilk.
+
+"You'll find a note inside explaining how you can phone me if you want
+extras," called Judith. "See you to-morrow at the same time. Be sure
+and bring back my basket and dishes."
+
+The trolley moved off, leaving the house party grouped at one end of
+the platform, Judith and Jeff at the other. It was plain that
+something was vexing Mildred and the smart young beauty by her side.
+Jeff, however, was perfectly unconscious of being the cause of their
+annoyance.
+
+"Thank you ever so much," said Judith. "You are a grand assistant to
+the chief cook."
+
+"I am delighted to have helped you, but please tell me what on earth
+you mean by bringing food to motormen."
+
+"Mean? Why, it's my business. I am caterer-in-ordinary to the
+six-thirty trolley and perhaps others," she laughed and looked him
+squarely in the eyes. For a moment, in spite of the persistent demand
+from Mildred for him to hurry, Jeff gazed into hers. He flushed a
+little and then with a hurried good-bye joined his sisters and their
+guests.
+
+Mildred managed to have Jean Roland occupy the front seat by the
+driver. Jean was pretty, well-dressed and no doubt was fascinating.
+Jeff remembered he was supposed to fall in love with her at first
+sight. Therefore he looked at her critically. She was all Mildred had
+promised, but Jeff found himself gazing over the head of his companion
+at a slender figure in blue gingham, disappearing over the hill.
+
+It was a distinct annoyance to him that Tom Harbison should lean far
+out of the back of the car and wave his forty-dollar panama hat at
+Judith Buck's retreating figure, and even a greater annoyance that
+Judith should turn around when she got to the brow of the hill and see
+the fine hat doing obeisance to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Cousin Ann Looks Backward
+
+
+Mildred was right. Buck Hill was a perfect place for parties--of all
+kinds. There was a long, broad hall leading into double parlors on one
+side and on the other the dining-room and sitting-room. The satiny
+floors--ideal for dancing--reflected in their polished surfaces rare
+pieces of old mahogany. French windows opened on the porches, where
+comfortable wicker chairs and hammocks were plentiful.
+
+The garden to the south of the house was noted in a county famous for
+gardens. Mr. Bucknor prided himself on having every kind of known rose
+that would grow in the Kentucky climate. The garden had everything in
+it a garden should have--marble benches, a sun dial, a pergola, a
+summer house, a box maze and a fountain around which was a circle of
+stone flagging with flowering portulacca springing up in the cracks.
+The shrubs were old and huge, forming pleasant nooks for benches--now
+a couple of syringa bushes meeting overhead, now lilacs, white and
+purple extending an invitation to lovers to come sit on the bench. Oh,
+Buck Hill was a place for lovers! The garden a place of all places!
+
+The house party was in full swing. Five guests had arrived on the
+six-thirty and three more on the seven o'clock trolley and a car of
+six had driven over from Lexington in time for supper. The mansion was
+filled and running over, but the overflow could always be taken care
+of in "The Office," a cottage near the house, a building quite common
+in old southern homes, often set aside for young male visitors.
+
+Cousin Ann had been lying down all afternoon in response to the
+earnest pleadings of old Billy. He had pressed the sprigged muslin and
+it hung on a hook behind the door in readiness for the mistress. Then
+he brought her a pitcher of water, fresh from the well, and a funny
+little tight bouquet of verbenas.
+
+"I thought you mought w'ar 'em in yo' ha'r, Miss Ann," he said. "I
+'member how you uster always w'ar verbeny in yo' ha'r."
+
+"So I did, Billy." Miss Ann raised her hand to her hair, but quickly
+dropped it, remembering suddenly that her own snowy locks were exposed
+to view. She did not relish having even old Billy see her without her
+wig. She drew a scarf over her head and Billy turned his away,
+pretending he had not seen what she did not want him to see.
+
+"Now you dress up pretty, Miss Ann, an' 'member th'ain't gonter be
+nary pusson here what kin hol' a can'le to you."
+
+"Have they come yet, Billy?"
+
+"Some air come an' mo' air comin', so I reckon you'd bes' rise an'
+shine, Miss Ann. Kin I he'p you none?"
+
+Such was the old man's devotion to his mistress that he would gladly
+have served her as lady's maid had he been called on to do so.
+
+"I hope the fuss these young folks kick up ain't gonter 'sturb you
+none," he said as he opened the door and shrieks of gay laughter
+floated up from the hall below.
+
+The business of dressing was a serious one for Miss Ann Peyton. In the
+first place she was exquisitely neat and particular and every article
+of clothing must be exactly right. Her clothes were old and worn and
+every time she dressed some break was discovered that must be darned.
+Her hoop skirt was ever in need of repair, with tapes that had broken
+from their moorings or strings that had come loose. On this evening
+she discovered a small hole in her little satin slipper that must be
+adroitly mended with court plaster. The auburn wig must be combed and
+curled. A touch of rouge must be rubbed on the poor old cheeks. The
+Peyton pearls must be taken from the strong box--a necklace, earrings,
+breastpin and tiara. When all was over Miss Ann really did look
+lovely. With the dignity and carriage that any queen might have envied
+she swept down the broad stairway.
+
+"Heavens! Mildred, why didn't you let us know you were to have a fancy
+dress ball?" cried Jean Roland, and all of the gay young things
+gathered in the broad hall looked up as Miss Ann descended. To most of
+them she was but a figure of fun.
+
+"Oh, that's nobody but old Cousin Ann Peyton," explained Mildred.
+"She's our chronic visitor. She always dresses like a telephone
+doll."
+
+Miss Ann heard both remarks, but gave no sign of annoyance, except to
+hold her head with added dignity. A chronic visitor could not afford
+to show resentment at the thoughtless rudeness of young persons. It
+seemed to the old lady that young cousins in all the homes where she
+visited were growing more and more outspoken and rude and less and
+less considerate of her. She still deemed it her right to be honored
+guest wherever she chose to bestow the privilege of her company,
+although her self-esteem had had many a quiet dig and a few hard
+knocks in the recent months.
+
+Sometimes the thought came to Cousin Ann that the young cousins were
+perhaps taking their cue from the older generation. Were the older
+ones quite as polite and cordial as they had been? Of course one might
+expect brusqueness from Betty Throckmorton, but was there not a change
+of manner even here at Buck Hill--not just rudeness from Mildred, who
+was nothing but a spoiled child, but from Mr. and Mrs. Bucknor
+themselves? Then there was Big Josh and Little Josh, both of whom had
+made excuses about having her and had assured her they would write for
+her to come to them later on and she had heard from neither of them.
+
+She paused a moment and looked down on the happy young people. She
+wondered if they realized how happy they were or if it would be
+necessary to be old to appreciate the blessing of merely being young.
+Suddenly a picture of her youth came back to her with a poignancy that
+almost hurt. It was in that very hall and she was standing on those
+very stairs--perhaps in that self-same spot. There was a house party
+at Buck Hill and she had come from Peyton only that morning in a brand
+new carriage with Billy driving the spanking pair of nags. Billy was
+young then, but so trustworthy that her father had been willing to let
+him take charge of his daughter. She remembered the rejoicing in the
+family when she arrived. How they gathered around her and embraced
+her! Robert Bucknor, the father of the present owner, was then a young
+man. How gentle and tender he was with her, how courtly and kind!
+
+When he saw her standing alone on the stairs looking down on the
+assembled company he had sprung up the steps, two at a time, and taken
+her hand in his: "Oh, Cousin Ann, how beautiful you are! If I could
+only feel that the time might come when this would be your home--yours
+and mine."
+
+And she had answered, "Not yet, Cousin Robert, please don't talk about
+it yet," because the memory of Bert Mason, the young lover who had
+been killed in the war, was still too vivid for her to think of other
+ties. "But you are very dear to me and if ever--" Thus she had put him
+off.
+
+While she had stood there talking to Robert Bucknor--young then and
+now old and dead and gone--Billy, with ashen face, had come to her
+with the news that Peyton, her beloved home, was completely destroyed
+by fire. She had fainted. Young ladies usually fainted in those days
+when overcome by emotion. How the friends and cousins rallied around
+her with offers of assistance! They actually quarreled about her, so
+eager were they for her to visit them.
+
+"You must make your home with me."
+
+"No, with me!"
+
+"I must have part of her."
+
+"My turn is next," and so on.
+
+And then the owner of Buck Hill and his sweet wife had told her that
+their home was hers and she was ever to feel as free to be there as
+though she had been truly a daughter of the house. Then had begun the
+years of visiting for Ann Peyton. Her father had died a few weeks
+after the fire and later an only brother. She had more invitations to
+visit than she knew what to do with. Billy had been welcome, too, and
+there was always stable room for her horses and a place in the coach
+house for her carriage, no matter where she visited.
+
+How many years had passed since that evening in June when she had
+stood in that spot and looked down on the crowd of young men and
+women? She dared not count, but there was the grandson of that Robert
+Bucknor, standing in the great hall and trying hard to pretend to be
+interested in what a beautiful girl was saying to him. The beautiful
+girl was the one who had made the remark about a fancy dress ball. The
+grandson of Robert Bucknor had not heard her say it nor had he heard
+his sister's cruel answer, as he had come into the hall the moment
+afterward. Now he was plainly bored, but trying to conceal it. The
+girl was chattering like a magpie. Suddenly Jeff looked up and saw
+Miss Ann.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Ann!" he cried, bounding up the steps, two at a time,
+quite as his grandfather had done on that day so many, many years ago,
+"how lovely you look! I'd like to dance a minuet with you." Then he
+gave her his arm and escorted her down the stairs. Supper was
+announced immediately and Jeff marched in with his aged cousin, much
+to the chagrin of Mildred, who had planned otherwise for her
+good-looking brother.
+
+"Horrid old thing!" she said to Tom Harbison, who was dancing
+attendance on her. "Grabbing Jeff that way! How does she expect the
+men to go around if she takes one of the beaux?"
+
+"And did you see her with flowers in her hair?" asked Nan in a stage
+whisper. "Verbenas!" and then a fat boy who sang tenor and passed as
+something of a wag sang:
+
+                         "Sweet Evelina,
+                         Last time I seen her
+                         Stole a verbena
+                         Out of her hair."
+
+At this all the young folks laughed. Miss Ann heard Nan's stage
+whisper, and felt Mildred's glance of disapproval and was quite
+conscious that the fat boy's song was meant to make game of her, but
+nothing mattered much except that Robert Bucknor's grandson, who
+looked so like him, had run up the steps to meet her and had told her
+she looked lovely and was now holding her hand tightly clasped against
+his warm young heart. She saw old Billy peeping from the pantry door
+as they entered the dining-room and she caught his glance of pride and
+gratification when she appeared with the young master.
+
+"What I tell you?" he muttered. "Ain't my Miss Ann the pick er the
+bunch?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Veterans' Big Secret
+
+
+"Mumsy dear," said Judith, "I'm going over to Buck Hill this morning
+and sell all kinds of things to my cousins and their guests."
+
+"Judith, you are not! How can you go near those people when they treat
+you like the dust under their feet?"
+
+"But, Mumsy, they don't. People can't treat you like dust under their
+feet unless you are beneath them, and I'm not in the least teensy
+weensy bit beneath the Bucknors of Buck Hill. Now they might treat me
+like the dust in the air--the dust they have to breathe when the wind
+blows--breathe that or stop breathing altogether. They might not like
+to breathe me in. I might be a little thick for them, but breathe me
+they must. I did not make myself kin to them. I just _am_ kin to them.
+I don't know that it makes any great difference to me to know that I
+am. I rather like to think that, way back yonder, what is now me had
+something to do with building Buck Hill, because it is beautiful. The
+part that's me may have planned the garden. Who knows?
+
+"But I'm not going there to sell things because they are my cousins.
+I'm not going to mention such a disagreeable subject. I'm too good a
+salesman for that. I am merely going there because I think I might
+make some money. They have a house party on and when people go
+visiting they always forget their tooth brushes and hairpins. I don't
+exactly enjoy having Mildred Bucknor pretend I'm not around when I
+know I'm very much in evidence. She had that way with her at school
+and then it would have hurt me, if I had not been perfectly conscious
+of the fact that she couldn't tell the difference between nouns and
+verbs in Latin and got gender and case and tense all mixed up.
+
+"Yes, Mumsy, I'm going to Buck Hill and clear about five dollars, even
+though I may have to take a good snubbing. I want to go less than ever
+since Jefferson Bucknor was so nice to me yesterday evening. I didn't
+tell you he helped boost my basket on the trolley and actually took
+the can of buttermilk in his own aristocratic hands and swung it on to
+the platform. Well, he did, and he made his sister furious--and he
+bored a pretty girl with whom he is supposed to fall in love--one of
+the house party. I don't want poor Mr. Jeff Bucknor to have to take up
+for me--which he is sure to do if the hammers begin to knock--but even
+to spare his feelings I will not quit trying to sell my wares."
+
+"Judith, you must not lower yourself."
+
+"I'm not lowering myself one bit, Mumsy. Just look at it this way:
+Suppose I had a shop in Ryeville. Wouldn't I serve any customers who
+came to the shop, whether they were kin and refused to admit kinship
+or not--whether they called me red-head, when everybody knows my hair
+is auburn, or not? I'd hardly refuse to sell to those persons who did
+not consider me their social equal and did not ask me to house parties
+or to dances when my feet are just itching to dance. I'd sell to any
+and everybody who came in the shop. Exactly! Well, now you see I have
+a shop on wheels. I must go to any and every body who might have use
+for my wares. I'd have a very limited clientele if I stuck to those
+who considered me on their level and whom I considered on mine. So
+give me your blessing, Mumsy, and wish me well."
+
+"Judith, how you do run on! Aren't you afraid that that Jeff Bucknor
+will think you are running after him?"
+
+"Not in the least. He's not that kind of a man. I know by the way his
+ears are set and the way his hair grows on his forehead and the way
+his eyes crinkle up at the corners as though he never missed a joke.
+People who never miss jokes don't go around thinking other persons are
+running after them all the time. I know by the way he looks out of his
+eyes. It isn't only his eyes that look at you but there is something
+behind them that looks at you. I reckon if I were a sissy girl I'd say
+his eyes were soulful, but you see I'm not. I tell you, Mumsy, my
+Cousin Jeff is a powerful likely young man and I'm quite proud of him.
+Too bad he doesn't know he's my kin."
+
+Mrs. Buck sighed. "I guess he wouldn't claim relationship with you if
+he did know. Those Bucknors of Buck Hill are a proud-stomached lot.
+They've been dusting me on the pike ever since I was a little
+girl--dusting me and never even seeing me."
+
+"Did you ever speak to them?"
+
+"Of course not. I was never one to put myself forward."
+
+"Well, why should they speak to you any more than you speak to them?
+Aren't you as good as they are? Surely, and a great deal prettier. You
+are as much prettier than Mrs. Bucknor as a day lily is prettier than
+a cabbage rose," declared Judith.
+
+"Oh, how you do talk, Judy! Of course, when I say they didn't ever
+speak I mean they never went out of their way to speak. When we had
+deaths over here they kind of acted neighborly like and sent word to
+call on them if we needed anything, but we never did, as my mother and
+I always saved mourning from time to time. I guess they'd have been a
+little more back-and-forth friendly if it hadn't have been for your
+Grandfather Buck. He was kind of difficult like when he was drinking
+and that was most times. He was either drinking or getting over drunks
+as a general thing. Then he was mighty lazy and shiftless."
+
+"Poor Mumsy! You've had a right hard time with us Bucks. Grandfather
+Buck was so lazy he worried you to death and I'm so energetic I know I
+annoy you terribly. But all this talking isn't selling toilet articles
+to house parties. By the way, I got a 'phone message from my motormen.
+They want six suppers this evening. That means I must run into
+Ryeville and buy some more baskets and lay in provisions of all kinds.
+I wish I'd been triplets, or at least twins. I could accomplish so
+much more."
+
+"Land sakes, Judy! Surely you do enough as it is. All six dinners at
+once?"
+
+"Oh no! Two on the six, two on the six-thirty and two for the seven.
+I'm afraid I'll wear the path into a ditch. I'm glad to see the beets
+are big enough to eat and before you know it we'll have some snap
+beans and peas. I'm going to get a little darkey to work the garden,
+because I simply can't give the time for it. Besides, my time is
+really too valuable for digging just now. Did I tell you I had taken
+the contract to develop all the amateur photographic films for Baker &
+Bowles? I saw them about it the other day. They have an awful time
+getting it done right and they knew I had done a lot of that work for
+school, so they asked me to try. Of course I couldn't let such a
+chance slip and since I can do it at night I accepted. It will take
+only one or two evenings a week. They furnish all the chemicals and it
+pays very well. I'll do it through the summer anyhow, until school
+starts."
+
+"What a child! What a child!" was all Mrs. Buck could say. "I don't
+believe even the Norse sailor could have beat her."
+
+Again the old men on the hotel porch were treated to a sight of Judith
+Buck. She parked her little blue car directly across the street from
+the Rye House and began the business of shopping.
+
+"What you reckon that Judy gal is up to now?" queried Judge Middleton.
+"I betcher she's goin' in the butcher shop."
+
+"I betcher she ain't," said Pete Barnes for the sake of argument. "I
+betcher she's going in the Emporium to buy herself a blue dress."
+
+"Maybe," ruminated Major Fitch. "I always did hold to women folks that
+had sense enough to wear blue. That blue that Miss Judith Buck wears
+is just my kind of blue too--not too light and not too dark--kinder
+betwixt and between, like way-off hills or--"
+
+"Kittens' eyes," suggested Colonel Crutcher with a twinkle.
+
+"Cat's foot! Nothin' of the kind! Anyhow, that kind of blue is mighty
+becomin' to Miss Judith."
+
+They all agreed to this and when Judith appeared again with her arms
+laden with bundles to be stowed in the back of the car the old men
+called in chorus:
+
+"Hiyer, Miss Judith?"
+
+"Hiyer, yourselves?" she answered.
+
+"Come over and tell us the news," they begged, and she ran across the
+street and perched on the railing of the Rye House, while she
+recounted what news she had picked up on her peddling trip of the day
+before.
+
+"Uncle Peter Turner has gone over to cook and wash dishes for the
+ladies at Mr. Big Josh Bucknor's. They haven't had a servant for
+weeks. They thought Miss Ann Peyton was coming but she turned in at
+Buck Hill, I saw her. She has been visiting the Throckmortons and left
+there in a hurry. Old Aunt Minnie, over at Clayton, has just had her
+hundredth descendant. She had sixteen children of her own and all of
+them have had their share of children and grandchildren. I know it's
+so because I just sold one of the great-granddaughters some hair
+straightener and a box of flea powder and she thought of getting some
+talcum powder for the new baby, but decided to use flea powder
+instead."
+
+The old men laughed delightedly. "Tell us some more," they demanded.
+
+"The widow Simco, at Nine Mile House, asked me what had become of Mr.
+Pete Barnes. I sold her some henna shampoo and a box of bronze
+hairpins."
+
+Pete grinned sheepishly, but straightened his cravat and pulled his
+whiskers in a way men have when complimented by the fair sex.
+
+"How's your business?" asked Major Fitch.
+
+"Which business?" asked Judith. "I've got so many you'll have to say
+which one. But all of them are coming on pretty well. I must be going.
+So long!" She was up and away like a blue flash.
+
+"Now ain't she likely?" quavered old Judge Middleton. "There ain't
+many pretty gals like her'd stop an' gossip with a bilin' of ol'
+has-beens like us."
+
+"Yes, that's the truth," said Colonel Crutcher. "Did you see Bob
+Bucknor's oldest girl going by in her father's car while Miss Judy was
+cheering us up? She had a young blood in with her--that young Harbison
+from Louisville. He nearly fell out of the car, rubbering at Miss
+Judy. That Bucknor miss hardly more than glanced this way, but she was
+showing the whites of her eyes in that glance. My granddaughter,
+Betty, was telling me only last night that the only reason Judy Buck
+wasn't asked to join their dancing club was that the Bucknor gals got
+their backs up about asking her and kind of talked them down--calling
+Judy common and poor white trash and such like. Betty says the girls
+all like her better than they do the Bucknors, but you know how it is
+with the folks from Buck Hill--they just naturally take the lead in
+social matters and nobody ever has crossed them. I wish I had a house
+of my own. I tell you I'd give that Judy Buck a comin' out party that
+would make your hair curl," declared the Colonel.
+
+"Well, I've got a house, but it wouldn't be big enough to ask all the
+people I'd want to have to Miss Judy's ball," spoke up Major Fitch.
+
+"By golly, I got a idee!" exclaimed Pete Barnes, letting his chair
+that had been tilted against the wall drop on all four legs and
+bringing his feet, which had been draped over the railing, to the
+floor at the same time with a resounding stamp. "I got an idee for
+sure."
+
+"Well?" asked Major Fitch.
+
+"Let's all of us ol' ones get together an' hire the skating rink an'
+give Miss Judy Buck a party that this county won't ever forget."
+
+The other chairs came down on all fours and the veterans of the Rye
+House porch drew together in solemn conclave. Old tongues clicked and
+old beards wagged, while Pete Barnes' idea took constructive shape.
+
+"We'll ask all the neighborhood and even some out of the neighborhood.
+We'll have the band up from Louisville and a caterer from there and
+do the thing up brown," chuckled Pete.
+
+"Maybe society will hold back when we ask them to come to old Dick
+Buck's granddaughter's ball," suggested one.
+
+"Don't tell 'em whose ball it is until they get there. That's the way
+to catch the snippy ones. Let's don't even tell Miss Judy. It might
+make her kind of shy. Just let 'em all get to dancin' an' kinder
+warmed up an' then when we got 'em where they can't back out without
+bein' mighty rude we'll up an' make speeches an' let the county know
+how we stand for that girl an' what she is an' how proud we are of
+her," suggested Judge Middleton.
+
+"We'll get all the old boys in town to come in on it. I mean our
+crowd, and there won't be one who will give the secret away. And we'll
+give that gal a rush that would turn her pretty red head if it
+belonged to anybody else--but there is no turning a wise head like
+hers."
+
+"We won't let any women in on it either," said Pete.
+
+"Not even the Widow Simco?" asked Major Fitch.
+
+"The women oughter have looked after the gal long ago, and now we men
+folks will take it on us. What'll we call the ball?" asked Mr.
+Barnes, ignoring the Major's thrust.
+
+"Call it a dayboo party, but jes' don't say whose it is," suggested
+Colonel Crutcher. "There'll be plenty of jokes about it an' the smart
+Alecks will try to get the laugh on us because they'll be a thinkin'
+we don't know what dayboo means an' we'll take the laugh an' keep it
+'til we need it. Lets go get the invites struck off over to the
+Ryeville Courier right now."
+
+The old men got busy immediately, although it was a lazy morning in
+June and the Rye House porch was shady and cool. Recruits were
+mustered in until they numbered ten, all anxious and eager to share
+expense and glory. First, the skating rink was engaged for the
+following Friday night. A caterer in Louisville was next called up by
+telephone and supper ordered, "with all the fixin's" that the latest
+thing in debut parties demanded. The band was engaged and the
+invitations set up in type and printed before the noon whistles blew
+for dinner. To be sure, the invitations did somewhat resemble notices
+of an auction sale, but what did it matter to the old men of Ryeville,
+who were undertaking this party for their favorite girl? This was the
+card:
+
+ You Are Invited to Attend a Debut Ball
+ At the Skating Rink on Friday Night
+     By the Old Men of Ryeville
+   Dancing and Refreshments Free
+ R. S. V. P.                   P. D. Q.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Judith Scores Again
+
+
+The house party at Buck Hill was not proving the great success that
+Mildred and Nan had hoped for. All of the elements of pleasure and
+gaiety were present but to the anxious hostesses the affair seemed to
+drag somewhat. In the first place, brother Jeff utterly refused to
+fall in love with their prize guest and the prize guest, being
+accustomed to conquest, was peevish in consequence. Not that Jeff was
+in the least rude. On the contrary, he was especially polite and
+charming to all of his sisters' friends, fetching and carrying for
+them, dancing with them, playing tennis with the athletic, talking
+sentimental nothings with the romantic, and gravely discussing the
+Einstein theory with the high-brows. He did everything that was
+required of him but fall in love with Jean Roland.
+
+The young people were gathered at one end of the long piazza. At the
+other end sat Miss Ann Peyton and Mrs. Bucknor. Miss Ann was engaged
+in her favorite occupation of crocheting thread lamp-mats and Mrs.
+Bucknor vainly endeavoring to get to the bottom of the family stocking
+basket. The forenoon is always a difficult period in which to
+entertain a house party. It seems almost impossible to start anything,
+at least so Mildred and Nan felt. Even the most frivolously inclined
+do not want to flirt in the morning.
+
+Everybody was feeling a little dull, perhaps from having eaten more
+breakfast than is usual in this day and generation, but Buck Hill held
+to the custom of olden times of much and varied food with which to
+start the day. One can't be very lively after shad roe, liver and
+bacon, hot rolls and corn cakes all piled on top of strawberries and
+cream, and the whole washed down with coffee.
+
+Jean Roland smothered a yawn, a deliberate yawn--not the kind you
+can't repress because the air is close and you feel like a goldfish
+when the water in the bowl has not been changed and you must gape for
+breath. The fat boy had been dancing attendance on her for the last
+hour and she was wearied with his witty sallies. Jeff and Willis
+Truman, a former classmate, had started a game of bridge with two of
+the more serious-minded girls.
+
+"Bridge is one of the things I can't play," Jean had announced, and
+it was hardly complimentary that the game was being played in spite of
+her.
+
+"By the way, Jeff, you know the Titian-haired queen you were so taken
+up with at the station last evening that you couldn't greet your
+guests?" asked Tom Harbison. "I saw her again this morning."
+
+"That little country person!" exclaimed Jean Roland. "No style at all
+to her."
+
+"Not a particle!" echoed Nan.
+
+"Oh, that little cousin of ours?" said Jeff, pausing in his game.
+
+"Jeff, how can you?" cried Mildred. "She's a very common person who
+happens to be named Buck and now they are trumping up some foolish old
+tale that they were Bucknors 'way back yonder in the middle ages and
+that they are related to us. It is too ridiculous for words."
+
+"Our kin all the same," teased Jeff, going on with his game.
+
+"Right fetching skirt!" said Tom. "She was flirting with some men on
+the hotel porch when we drove by this morning. I reckon they were all
+cousins, too."
+
+Jeff looked up from his game with a gleam of anger in his eye. He lost
+track of the cards, got confused, played from the wrong hand, blocked
+himself from a re-entry and promptly got set. All because Tom Harbison
+intimated that Judith Buck was not conducting herself with propriety.
+
+"Here comes somebody! I saw a car turn in from the pike," announced
+Nan. "I hope it isn't any more company."
+
+The attention of everyone was focused on the approaching vehicle. It
+was Judith's little blue car, skimming down the avenue with the usual
+speed exacted of it by its stern young mistress, who seemed bent on
+getting at least thirty-six hours out of the twenty-four. No one could
+have said she did not have style in her manner of turning a curve and
+neatly landing at the yard gate.
+
+"Speak of the devil," muttered Mildred, "if it isn't that Judith Buck.
+What on earth can she want?"
+
+Judith, with her usual expedition, was out of the car and with sample
+case in hand was through the gate and half way up the walk before any
+one attempted to answer Mildred's query.
+
+"Come to see your brother, perhaps," suggested Jean Roland.
+
+"Ah, be a sister to me," sighed the fat boy, "please be a sister to
+me, Mildred."
+
+Judith faltered not a moment, but marched straight up the steps. The
+young men all jumped from their seats and Jeff came forward with
+outstretched hand, but the girl pretended not to see the gesture. With
+a businesslike "Good-morning," she proceeded to open up her sample
+case and begin her salesman's patter: "I have here--" She was
+determined that the call should be purely a commercial one and that
+the Bucknors could none of them think for a moment that she sought or
+even desired any social dealings with them.
+
+"Perhaps you had better take your wares to the back door. The servants
+may want to buy some," suggested Mildred, with more insolence than her
+family dreamed she was capable of showing.
+
+"Thank you. A little later on I shall take advantage of your kind
+suggestion. I have a line of wares especially put up for back doors.
+These things I have been telling you about are intended for front
+doors. Unlike most of the companies who have similar goods on the
+market, this one allows the agent to deliver the article the moment
+the sale is made," Judith continued in her salesman's manner. "I have
+a complete stock of goods in my car and while I sell by sample you do
+not have to wait for days and weeks to enjoy the really excellent
+bargains I am enabled to offer you. This now is a cleansing cream. No
+matter how clean you may think your face is, you will find after
+applying this you are vastly mistaken. Yes, disconcerting for the
+moment but comforting when you realize how much cleaner you are to be
+than your neighbor."
+
+The young people had gathered around her and even Miss Ann Peyton and
+Mrs. Bucknor put down their work and came to see what Judith had to
+sell.
+
+"Will any one of you young ladies let me prove the value of this cream
+by applying it to the countenance?"
+
+"Anoint me," suggested the fat boy.
+
+"Oh, no, this is intended solely for ladies. I have a masculine brand
+to which I am coming later. I will give a sample jar to any one who
+will let me demonstrate on her."
+
+Judith's manner was businesslike and impersonal, but her color was
+heightened by excitement that she was determined not to show.
+
+"Why don't you try it on yourself?" said Nan. "I bet yours will come
+off, all right."
+
+Judith dipped her fingers in the jar and daubed her glowing cheek with
+the cleansing cream. Everybody laughed. "And now while we leave this
+cream on for a minute or two I will endeavor to interest you in my
+various powders." She gave an animated recommendation of powders from
+talcum to insect.
+
+"And now we will see the miraculous powers of the cleansing cream."
+She took a handkerchief from her pocket and after a vigorous rubbing
+of the anointed cheek submitted the evidence to the audience.
+
+"That is excellent," said Mrs. Bucknor. "Let me have a jar."
+
+Next Judith demonstrated the virtues of a vanishing cream and made
+several sales. Then the men must be told of an excellent shaving soap
+and healing powder. Scented soaps of all kinds were then displayed,
+shampoos, hair tonics, pocket combs, tooth brushes and paste.
+
+The lassitude which had held the house party in thrall was dispelled.
+It was almost as though Judith had applied a cleansing fluid to the
+atmosphere. She stood in their midst, displaying her wares with an
+earnestness and simplicity that was most convincing. Who could help
+but buy from the girl?
+
+Miss Ann looked at her long and searchingly. So this was the girl that
+old Billy thought resembled his mistress. Her thoughts went back to
+her girlhood. When she was the age of this Judith could she have so
+demeaned herself as to go around peddling cosmetics and soaps?
+Certainly not! She would have starved before she would have stooped to
+such an occupation. Starved! What did she know about starving? The
+morning she had gone away from Cousin Betty Throckmorton's without her
+breakfast was the first time in her life she had ever missed a meal.
+Visitors in the blue-grass regions of Kentucky are not apt to be
+hungry. Would it have been better if, when she was young and strong,
+she, too, had endeavored to help herself instead of visiting,
+eternally visiting?
+
+All of this flashed through the old lady's mind. Suppose there had
+been no cousins and aunts and uncles to visit--what then? Suppose she
+had been as this girl was, with no relations on whom she might depend
+for assistance. Suppose her relations had been poor. Suppose they had
+not wanted her. Not wanted her! Did they want her? Did anybody want
+her? So intently did she gaze on Judith's face that the girl's eyes
+were drawn in the direction of the old lady. Miss Ann would have liked
+to buy some of the toilet articles, but the quarterly allowance from
+her small estate was not due for many days and never was there money
+enough for her to indulge herself in the kind of wares Judith offered
+for sale. For a moment Judith stopped her salesman's patter and gazed
+into the eyes of Cousin Ann Peyton.
+
+"Poor old lady!" was her thought. "It must be terrible to be old and
+idle. I wish I could do something for her just to let her know I like
+her. I believe I might even love her."
+
+The sales had been larger than Judith in her fondest dreams had
+imagined they could be. Even the scornful Mildred purchased a few
+things that took her fancy and the young men, one and all, remembered
+they were sadly in need of shaving cream and tooth brushes, or if they
+were not in immediate need it was just as well to lay in a supply.
+There was much laughing and talking and badinage, but through it all
+Judith held herself with a certain poise that gave all of the buyers
+to understand that she was merely the store-keeper and did not wish to
+be regarded in any other light.
+
+Jeff was singularly silent while Judith was crying up her wares. He
+stood moodily aside, looking on but never offering to purchase shaving
+cream or other masculine requirements. He wished she had not come. He
+resented her placing herself in a position for all of these wretched
+persons to patronize her. He hated the look on Tom Harbison's face as
+he edged closer and closer to the girl, insisting upon putting down
+his name for one of every article offered for sale.
+
+Judith, however, was so bent on being a salesman that she was
+absolutely unaware of the admiration she had evidently created in the
+eyes of young Harbison. When she went to her car to get the wares
+stored in the back it was Harbison who sprang forward to assist her.
+Jeff watched the couple as they went down the walk to the yard gate
+and a suppressed fury gripped him when he noticed that Tom was much
+closer to Judith than was necessary. He knew perfectly well that Tom
+Harbison always walked too close to any girl, and had a habit of
+leaning over any member of the fair sex with a protecting air,
+occasionally touching her elbow as though to assist her over anything,
+even so small as a pebble, that might be in her way. When they reached
+the yard gate one might have supposed a dragon threatened the ladye
+faire, so solicitous was his manner, so brave his bearing.
+
+Jeff could stand it no longer. He ran down the steps and with long
+strides arrived in time to assist the supposedly helpless maiden.
+
+"I want to help you," he said shortly.
+
+"That's very kind, but really the things are not heavy," and Judith
+began busily picking out the articles from the back of her car and
+putting them in a basket.
+
+But Jeff had come to help, and help he would. He assumed a cousinly
+air that put Tom Harbison's courtliness entirely in the shade. If any
+protecting was to be done he, Jeff Bucknor, was going to do it. He was
+the proper person to carry the basket of toilet articles as heir
+apparent to Buck Hill and an avowed kinsman of the lady. He even
+managed to crowd Harbison from the walk as, with basket in one hand,
+he protected the astonished Judith with the other. When the back-door
+customers were visited, the young master insisted upon accompanying
+Judith, and there he stood guard while she talked concerning the
+virtues of her anti-kink lotion and scented soaps.
+
+She wished he would leave her for a moment, as she had a little
+private business to transact with Uncle Billy, but he stuck closer
+than any brother was ever known to stick and she must let him see her
+hand to the old man a package, saying:
+
+"Please, Uncle Billy, give this to Miss Ann Peyton and tell her it is
+from a sincere admirer. It is just a bottle of lavender water, but I
+thought she might like it."
+
+Uncle Billy bowed so low that his beard almost touched the ground.
+
+"Thank you, thank you, missy! I been a sayin' that you air the onlies'
+one in the whole county what kin hol a can'le to what my Miss Ann wa'
+in ol' days--an' air now fer that matter."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A Surprise for Cinderella
+
+
+The Ryeville Courier reported that the county was "agog" over the ball
+to be given by the veterans of the Rye House porch. Invitations were
+delivered with the same expedition that they had been printed and by
+nightfall of the day the scheme was hatched everybody who was anybody,
+and a great many who made no pretense of being, had received a notice
+that he or she was expected to come to the skating rink on Friday
+night to a debut party.
+
+"We'll show 'em," boasted Judge Middleton, who with Colonel Crutcher
+had driven about town in his buggy, delivering invitations. "First,
+we'll stop at the Buck place and ask Judith. We can't have a party
+without our Cinderella."
+
+Judith had returned from her peddling trip, and was busily engaged in
+preparing the motormen's supper, when her old admirers arrived.
+
+"Hi, Miss Judy!" they called from the buggy.
+
+"Hi, yourself!" she cried, appearing around the side of the house with
+floury hands and flushed face.
+
+"We're gonter give a ball and we want to ask you to come to it," said
+the Colonel. "It is to be this Friday night coming."
+
+"Oh, I wish I could, but you know I never leave my mother at night.
+You see, she is all alone."
+
+"Of course you don't, but your mother is especially invited to this
+ball. See her name is written over yours on the envelope. Why, child,
+it wouldn't be a ball unless you came. We--we--" but here Judge
+Middleton dug an elbow into the Colonel's ribs and took the
+conversation in his own hands.
+
+"The fact is, Miss Judy, all of us old fellows think a lot of you and
+we are kind of 'lowing you'd dance with us and make it lively for us.
+We'll take it as a special favor if you stretch a point and come--you
+and your mother."
+
+Judith glowed with appreciation and put a floury hand on the old man's
+arm.
+
+"Oh, Judge Middleton, you are good--all of you are so kind to me. I'd
+rather come to your party than do anything in the world. I never have
+been to a real ball--a picnic is about the closest I've come to one,
+that and some school entertainments, but you see I haven't a suitable
+dress. You wouldn't like me to come looking like Cinderella after the
+clock struck twelve, would you now?"
+
+"Well, you'd look better than most even if you did," put in Colonel
+Crutcher, "but you needn't be coming the Flora McFlimsey on us. Don't
+we see you running around here in a blue dress all the time? And if
+that ain't good enough I bet you've got a white muslin somewhere with
+a blue sash and maybe a blue hair ribbon."
+
+Judith laughed. "Well, I reckon I have and, after all, nobody is going
+to look at me and I do want to go. I'll say yes and I can bulldoze
+Mother into accepting, too, I am sure. I think it is the grandest
+thing that ever happened for all of you to be giving a debut party,
+and I'm going to come, and what's more, I intend to dance every
+dance."
+
+"Now you are talkin'," shouted the old men. "Save some dances for
+us."
+
+After they had driven away, the buggy enveloped in the inevitable
+cloud of limestone dust, Judith still stood in the yard until she saw
+the cloud, little more than a speck in the distance, turn into the
+Buck Hill avenue.
+
+"I reckon they'll all laugh at the dear old men and make fun of their
+having a debut party for themselves, but I think it is just too sweet
+of them. Oh, oh, oh, if I only had a new dress!"
+
+There was a general invitation for Buck Hill, family and visitors, and
+an especial one for Miss Ann Peyton, to whom the old men of Ryeville
+wished to show marked respect as being of their generation.
+
+"Of course, we shall all go," announced Mr. Bucknor.
+
+"It sounds rather common," objected Mildred. "And only look at the
+invitations! Did anyone ever see such ridiculous-looking things?"
+
+But everyone wanted to go in spite of Mildred's uncertainty, so R. S.
+V. P.'s were sent P. D. Q. and old Billy got busy greasing harness and
+polishing the coach so that his equipage might be fit for the first
+lady of the land to go to the ball.
+
+"Air you gonter 'pear in yo' sprigged muslin?" he asked Miss Ann, "or
+is the 'casion sech as you will w'ar yo' black lace an' diments?"
+
+"Black lace and diamonds," said Miss Ann, "but I shall have to begin
+darning immediately. Lace is very perishable."
+
+"It sho' is," agreed Billy. Far be it from him to remind his mistress
+that the black lace had been going long enough to deserve a pension.
+So Miss Ann darned and darned on the old black lace and with ammonia
+and a discarded tooth brush she cleaned the diamond necklace and
+earrings and the high comb set with brilliants and her many rings. It
+was exciting to be going to a ball again. It had been many a year
+since she had even been invited to one. She was as pleased as a child
+over having an invitation all to herself--not that she would let
+anyone know it, but she let old Billy express his gratification.
+
+"I tell you, Miss Ann, that there Colonel Crutcher air folks, him an'
+Judge Middleton both. They don't put on no airs but they's folksy
+enough not ter have ter. I reckon they knowed you's a gonter be the
+belle er the ball wheresomever it air an' that's the reason they done
+brung you a spechul invite."
+
+The old men of the town met on the Rye House porch after supper that
+night to report progress.
+
+"Everything's goin' fine," was the general report.
+
+"Not an out-and-out refusal yet."
+
+"Came mighty near not getting Miss Judith," said Colonel Crutcher.
+"First she couldn't leave her mother and then when we told her Mrs.
+Buck was especially invited she put up a plea of not having the right
+kind of dress. Said she'd look like Cinderella after the clock struck
+twelve. But the Judge and I looked so miserable over it that the child
+finally said she'd come, but I reckon she'll be wearing an old
+dress."
+
+"Looks like she's got so many businesses she might buy herself a
+dress," suggested one.
+
+"Not her. She's saving every cent to put guano on the land."
+
+"Well, beauty unadorned is adorned the most," mused Major Fitch.
+
+"Say, I got a idee," put in Pete Barnes.
+
+"Go to it, Pete! Your idees are something worth while here lately.
+What is it?"
+
+"What's the reason we can't get little Judy a dress over to
+Louisville? Us old men can all chip in an' it wouldn't amount to mor'n
+a good nights losin' at poker."
+
+"She's right proud. Do you reckon she'd get her back up and decline to
+accept it?" asked Judge Middleton.
+
+"Not Judith. She's not the kind to be hunting slights, but suppose we
+send it to her anonymous like and pretend her fairy godmother had
+something to do with it," suggested Pete.
+
+"And who's gonter buy it? We don't want any of the Ryeville women in
+on this," said Colonel Crutcher.
+
+"I got another idee," said Pete. "Let's get the motormen to get their
+wives down at the other end to shop for us. I was talkin' to one only
+this mornin' an' he said Miss Judy cooked the best dinner he ever et
+an' I'm pretty sure they'd be glad to help us out."
+
+"But they might help us out too gaudy like."
+
+"Gee, they couldn't go wrong if we told them it must be white--white
+with a blue sash."
+
+"I'd like it to be white tarlatan or something thinnish and gauzy like
+and kind of stand-outy without being stand-offish."
+
+"And I think a few gold beads, kind of trimming it up, would be
+becoming to our debutante."
+
+"And we ought to get her slippers and stockings to match."
+
+"How about the size?"
+
+That was a stumper until Pete Barnes had another idee, and that was
+that old Otto Schmidt, the trusty shoe repairer of Ryeville, might
+know. He did. In fact, even then he had a pair of Judith's shoes to be
+half soled.
+
+"She's schlim and long," said Otto, "five and a half touble A."
+
+So five and a half double A it was. "And make 'em gold," suggested the
+Colonel.
+
+The motorman approached was delighted to undertake the commission. "My
+wife's pretty grateful not to have to be worrying herself to death
+about my supper and she'll be tickled stiff to have a chance to go
+spend some money even if it isn't for herself. She used to be
+saleslady in the biggest shop in Louisville, before she married me.
+She's just about Miss Buck's size, too," he said.
+
+Minute directions were given the kindly motorman as to the dress being
+white and thinnish and standoutish, with a blue sash and gold bead
+trimming, the slippers long and slim and gold.
+
+"A blue ribbin for her hair, if you don't mind, too," said Pete
+Barnes. "I been always a holdin' that there ain't anything so tasty as
+a blue ribbin in a gal's hair."
+
+"They don't wear ribbons in their hair any more," said Major Fitch. "I
+believe they all are using tucking combs nowadays."
+
+"Well, then, I give in. Our gal must be stylish, but I'd sure like a
+blue ribbin in her hair. Get her a good tuckin' comb then."
+
+The ball was to be on Friday. Judith's mind was so full of it she
+found it difficult to attend to her many self-imposed duties.
+
+"Actually, Mumsy, I tried to sell anti-kink to a bald-headed white
+man. I really believe I shall have to give up my peddling job until
+after the ball is over," she said.
+
+Mrs. Buck had entered only half-heartedly into the plan of going to
+the ball, and had agreed to go only because Judith had pleaded so
+earnestly with her. Her best and only black silk must be taken out and
+sunned and aired and pressed.
+
+"I declare, I've had it so long the styles have caught up with it
+again," she exclaimed.
+
+"Well, I wish I could say the same for my white muslin," sighed
+Judith. "I've a great mind to wear it hind part before, to make a
+little change in it. Anyhow, I intend to have just as good a time in
+it as though it were white chiffon, embroidered in gold beads. My
+white pumps aren't so bad looking. I'll take time to-morrow to shampoo
+my hair. Do you know, Mumsy, Cousin Ann Peyton's wig is just the color
+of my hair. Poor old lady! Pity she can't lose it!"
+
+It was Thursday night. The day's work was over, the last dish from the
+motormen's supper washed and put away and Mrs. Buck and her daughter
+were having a quiet chat, seated on the side porch. It was a pleasant
+spot, homelike and comfortable. It was on this porch that the summer
+activities of the farm were carried on. Here they prepared fruit for
+preserving and even preserved, as a kerosene stove behind a screen in
+the corner gave evidence. Here they churned, in a yellow cradle churn,
+and worked the butter.
+
+"It saves the house if you can do most of your work in the open," Mrs.
+Buck had said.
+
+Judith had stretched a hammock across the corner of the porch, and now
+she was allowing herself to relax for awhile before going to bed. She
+pushed herself gently to and fro with one slender foot on the porch
+floor, and looked out dreamily over the fields flooded with
+moonlight--fields bought by her grandfather Knight from her
+grandfather Buck, inherited by him from his father, who had inherited
+from his father. Each generation had done what it could to impoverish
+the land and never to improve it. Now it was up to her, nothing but a
+slip of a girl nineteen years old, to buy guano and bring the land
+back to its original value.
+
+"Ho, hum! If Grandfather Buck hadn't wasted so much and Grandfather
+Knight hadn't saved so much I could put my earnings in a new georgette
+dress to wear to the old men's debut ball," she sighed.
+
+A few vehicles passed the house--now an old-fashioned buggy, now a
+stylish touring car--each one leaving a trailing cloud of limestone
+dust.
+
+"Listen, Judith, I heard the gate click."
+
+"Nothing but an owl clucking, Mumsy. I heard it, too, but nobody would
+be coming to see us this time of night."
+
+"It might be some young beaux coming to see you," suggested Mrs. Buck.
+"You'd have plenty of them if you weren't so--so--businesslike."
+
+Judith laughed merrily. "Well, I reckon they'd come anyhow if they
+wanted to, but I must say, Mumsy, I'm kind of snobbish about your
+so-called beaux. I might like the boys if they would only stop being
+so silly and understand that I'm a human being with a mind and soul. I
+reckon I've always been too busy to play much with the boys around
+Ryeville. The old men like me though."
+
+"That's not getting anywhere," complained Mrs. Buck, who frankly hoped
+for a husband for her daughter, although her own matrimonial venture
+had not been any too successful.
+
+"That was a knock!" insisted the mother a moment later. Judith jumped
+up from the hammock. "I'll go outside and see who it is."
+
+"Indeed you won't! If it's callers you've got to receive them in the
+house. Just light the lamp in the parlor and then open the door. I
+ain't fit to see anybody so I won't go in."
+
+Judith did as her mother directed, lit the lamp in the parlor and then
+cautiously opened the door. Nobody was there, but a large dress box
+was leaning against the door and fell into the hall when the door was
+opened. The girl picked it up and carried it into the parlor.
+
+"Mumsy! Come quick! I don't know what it is but it isn't a beau. Never
+mind your dress, but just come!"
+
+The string was broken by eager young hands, although Mrs. Buck begged
+to be allowed to pick out the knots. The top of the box was snatched
+off, disclosing much white tissue paper with a folded note pinned in
+the center.
+
+"It must be flowers," cried Judith. "I'm so excited I can't make up my
+mind to take off the wrappings.
+
+"Well, read the note! It's addressed to you," said Mrs. Buck.
+
+"It says: 'To Miss Judith Buck, from her old fairy god-fathers.' Oh,
+Mumsy, my old men are sending me some flowers, to wear to the ball, I
+guess. I'll clip the stems to keep them fresh."
+
+"Well, why don't you open 'em up?"
+
+Layer by layer Judith removed the tissue paper. At last the precious
+contents of the box were revealed--a white chiffon dress, delicately
+broidered with tiny gold beads, with a twisted girdle of blue with
+cloth of gold, a dainty blue comb set with brilliants. In a separate
+wrapper at one end of the box, gold slippers and stockings were
+discovered.
+
+"Oh, Mumsy! I'm going to cry," and Judith did shed a few tears and sob
+a few sobs.
+
+"Surely you are not going to accept clothes from any man, Judith."
+Mrs. Buck's tone was stern and disapproving.
+
+"Of course not from any one man, but this is from about ten men--the
+dear old men who are giving the ball! I wouldn't be so mean as not to
+accept this gift. What's more, I'm going to try the things on this
+minute. Look! There's even a silk slip to wear under it. Whoever
+bought this outfit knew how to buy. Mumsy, Mumsy! The slippers fit.
+Oh, I'm a real Cinderella, but the best thing about it is that the old
+men must truly love me, the dears."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Jeff Gives a Pledge
+
+
+Until recently it had been the custom for Miss Ann Peyton, on every
+fine afternoon, to have old Billy drive her forth for an airing. It
+exercised the horses and gave Billy a definite occupation, besides
+affording some change of scene for his mistress. This habit of a
+lifetime had been abandoned because Miss Ann and Billy had come to a
+tacit understanding that the less the old coach was used the better
+for all concerned. Like the hoop skirt, little of the original
+creation remained. It had been repaired here and renewed there through
+the ages, until the body was all that the carriage maker would have
+acknowledged and that had many patches.
+
+The coach had been a very handsome vehicle in its day, with heavy
+silver mountings and luxurious upholstery. The silver mounting was
+Billy's pride and despair. No fussy housekeeper ever kept her silver
+service any brighter than Billy did the trimmings of the old carriage,
+but in late years there never seemed to be room in any carriage house
+for Miss Ann's coach and it took much rubbing to obliterate the stains
+caused by continual exposure. Billy often found a new rent in the
+cushions, from which the hair stuffing protruded impertinently. He
+would poke it back and take a clumsy stitch only to have it burst
+forth in a fresh place.
+
+There had always been a place in the carriage house at Buck Hill for
+Cousin Ann's coach until the family had gone in largely for
+automobiles and then the carriage house had been converted into a
+garage, the horse-drawn vehicles in a great measure discarded and now
+the ancient coach must find shelter under a shed, with various farming
+implements. Billy felt this to be as much of an insult as putting his
+mistress out of the guest chamber, but he must make the best of it and
+never let Miss Ann know. Of course the coach must be ready to take the
+princess to the ball. Wheels must be greased and silver polished.
+
+"I wisht my mammy done taught me howter sew," old Billy muttered, as
+he awkwardly punched a long needle in and out of the cushions, vainly
+endeavoring to unite the torn edges.
+
+"What's the matter, Uncle Billy?" asked Jeff Bucknor, who had just
+crawled from under one of the cars, where he had been delightfully
+employed in a manner peculiar to some males, finding out what was
+wrong with the mysterious workings of an automobile.
+
+"Nothin' 'tall, Mr. Jeff! I wa' jes' kinder ruminatin' to myse'f. I
+din't know nobody wa' clost enough ter hear me. I wa' 'lowin' ter sew
+up this here cushion so's it would las' 'til me'n Miss Ann gits time
+ter have this here ca'ige reumholzered. We're thinkin' a nice sof'
+pearl gray welwit will be purty. What do you think, Mr. Jeff?"
+
+"I think pearl gray would be lovely and it would look fine with the
+handsome silver mountings, but in the meantime wouldn't you like me to
+give you some tow linen slips that belong to one of the cars. You
+could tack them on over your cushions and it would freshen things up a
+lot."
+
+"Thankee, Marster, thankee! If it wouldn't unconwenience you none."
+Old Billy's eyes were filling with tears. It was seldom in late years
+that anyone, white or colored, stopped to give him kind words or
+offers of assistance. The servants declared the old man was too
+disobliging himself to deserve help and the white people seemed to
+have forgotten him.
+
+Jeff got the freshly laundered linen covers and then climbed into the
+old coach and deftly fastened them with brass headed tacks.
+
+"Now I do hope Cousin Ann will like her summer coverings," he said.
+
+"She's sho' too--an' we's moughty 'bleeged ter you, Marse Jeff. Miss
+Ann an' me air jes' been talkin' 'bout how much you favors yo'
+gran'pap, Marse Bob Bucknor as war. I don't want ter put no disrespec'
+on yo' gran'mammy, but if Marse Bob Bucknor had er had his way Miss
+Ann would er been her."
+
+"I believe I have heard that Grandfather was very much in love with
+Cousin Ann. Why did she turn him down?" asked Jeff, trying not to
+laugh.
+
+"Well, my Miss Ann had so many beau lovers she didn't know which-away
+ter turn. Her bes' beau lover, Marse Bert Mason, got kilt in the wah
+an' Miss Ann got it in her haid she mus' grieve jes' so long fer him.
+But the truf wa' that Miss Ann wouldn't a had him if he had er come
+back. She wa'n't ready ter step off but she wa' 'lowin' ter have her
+fling. Then the ol' home kotched afire an' then me'n Miss Ann didn't
+have no sho' 'nough home an' we got ter visitin' roun' an' Marse Bob,
+yo' gran'pap, kep a pleadin' an' Miss Ann she kep' a visitin', fust
+one place then anudder, an' Marse Bob he got kinder tired a followin'
+aroun' takin' our dus' an' befo' you knowd it he done tramsfered his
+infections ter yo' gran'mammy, an' a nice lady she wa', but can't none
+er them hol' a can'le ter my Miss Ann, then or now--'cept'n maybe that
+purty red-headed gal what goes a whizzin' aroun' the county an' don't
+drap her eyes fer nobody. 'Thout goin' back a mite on my Miss Ann, I
+will say that that young white gal sho' do run Miss Ann a clost
+second."
+
+"You mean Miss Judith Buck, Uncle Billy?" and Jeff's face flushed. He
+had been thinking a great deal about Judith Buck and he was trying to
+school himself to stop thinking about her. Yet it pleased him that the
+old darkey should thus mention her.
+
+"Yes sah, Miss Judith Buck."
+
+"Goodness, Uncle Billy, what is that strange rumbling and buzzing I
+hear?" interrupted Jeff. "Your carriage sounds as though you had
+installed a motor in the rear."
+
+"Lawsamussy, Mr. Jeff, that ain't nothin' but a bumbly bee nes', what
+we done pick up somewhere on our roun's. Them bees sho' do give me
+trouble an' it looks like I can't lose 'em. 'Course I could smoke 'em
+out but somehow I hates ter make the po' things homeless an' I reckon
+they's got a notion that the hollow place in the back er this here
+ca'ige b'longs ter them an' the knot hole they done bored is the
+front do'. When me'n Miss Ann has ter drive on I jes' sticks a cawn
+cob in the hole an' the bees trabels with us. Sometimes their buzzin'
+air kinder comp'ny ter me. I ain't complainin' but times I'm lonesome
+an' I wisht I mought er had a little cabin somewheres an' mebbe some
+folks er my own."
+
+"Yes, Uncle Billy, I know you must get tired of not having a real home
+of your own. Didn't you ever marry and haven't you any kin?"
+
+"No sah, I ain't never married an' as fer as I knows I ain't got any
+kin this side er the grabe. You see, sah, it wa' this a way. I been
+kinder lookin' arfter Miss Ann sence she wa' a gal an' I always said
+ter myself, 'Now when my mistis marries I'll go a courtin' but not
+befo'.' I had kinder took up with Mandy, a moughty likely gal back
+there jes' after the wa' and me'n her had been a talkin' moughty sof'
+befo' Miss Ann lef' home that time when the ol' place burnt up. It
+looks like I never could leave Miss Ann long enuf to go back an'
+finish my confab with Mandy. An' arter a while Mandy must er got tired
+of waitin' fer me an' she took up with a big buck nigger from Jeff'son
+County an' they do say she had goin' onter twenty chilluns an' about
+fo' husbands."
+
+"Uncle Billy, you have certainly been faithful to Cousin Ann. I don't
+see what she would have done without you."
+
+"Gawd grant she won't never have ter, Marse Jeff! It'll be a sad day
+fer this ol' nigger when Miss Ann goes but I'm a hopin' an' prayin'
+she'll go befo' I'm called. If I should die they would'n be nobody ter
+fotch an' carry fer Miss Ann. She gits erlong moughty fine here at
+Buck Hill, but some places I have ter kinder fend fer us-alls right
+smart. Miss Ann air that proudified she don't never demand but ol'
+Billy he knows an' he does the demandin' fer her. An' I presses her
+frocks an' sometimes I makes out to laundry fer her in some places
+whar we visits an' the missus don't see fit ter put Miss Ann's siled
+clothes along with the fambly wash. An' I fin's wil' strawberries fer
+her, an' sometimes fiel' mushrooms, an' sometimes I goes out in the
+fall an' knocks over a patridge an' I picks an' briles it an' sarves
+it up fer a little extry treat fer my lady."
+
+"She certainly would be lost without you, Uncle Billy, but I'm going
+to make you a promise. If you should be called before my cousin I do
+solemnly swear that I'll see to it that she has every comfort. The
+family owes you that much and I for one will do what I can for Cousin
+Ann. On the other hand, if Cousin Ann should go first, I'll do what I
+can to help you."
+
+"Oh, Marse Bob--I mean Marse Jeff--you air lif' a load from a ol'
+man's heart. Yo' gran'pap air sho' come ter life agin in his prodigy.
+Nothin' ain't gonter make much diffunce ter me arfter this. I been a
+thinkin' some er my burdins wa' mo' than I kin bear, but 'tain't so.
+My back air done fitted ter them, kase you done eased me er my load."
+The old man wept, great tears running down his furrowed brown cheeks
+and glistening on his long, grotesque beard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+The Debut Party
+
+
+Everything was propitious for the debut party, even the weather. A
+brisk shower in the morning, followed by refreshing breezes, gave
+assurance of a night not too hot for dancing but not too cool for
+couples so inclined to sit out on the balcony and enjoy the
+moonlight.
+
+The ten old men were very much excited as the time approached for
+their ball. The skating rink was swept and garnished and decorated
+with bunting and flags, and wreaths of immortelles rented from the
+undertaker. Extra chairs were also furnished by that accommodating
+person. The caterer from Louisville came in a truck, bringing with him
+stylish negro waiters and many freezers and hampers. The musicians
+arrived on the seven o'clock trolley, almost filling one car with
+their great drums and saxophones and bass fiddles.
+
+The women who were either supported by, or supported, the ten old men
+were kept busy by their aged relatives hunting shirt studs and collar
+buttons, pressing broadcloth trousers, letting out waistcoats or
+taking them up, sewing on buttons and laundering white ties. The
+barber had to call in extra help, because of the trimming of beards
+and shaving of chins and cutting of hair that the party entailed.
+
+Judge Middleton was chosen to make the speech naming the guest of
+honor for whom the debut party was given.
+
+"He's got the gift of gab," Pete Barnes had said, "but I hope he ain't
+gonter forget 'twas my idee."
+
+One of the many virtues that belong to country people is that they
+come on time. At eight o'clock the fiddles were tuning up, the skating
+rink lights were on and already Main Street was crowded with a varied
+assortment of vehicles--automobiles, buggies, wagons, surreys,
+rockaways and even a large hay wagon that had brought a merry party of
+young folks from Clayton.
+
+Buck Hill arrived, three automobiles strong, besides Miss Ann Peyton's
+coach. Behind them came Judith Buck and her mother, the little blue
+car brave from a recent bath and Judith's eyes shining and dancing
+like will-o-the-wisps.
+
+"Mumsy, listen! They are tuning up! I'm going to dance every dance if
+I have to do it by myself. I don't know any of the new dances, but it
+won't take me a minute to learn. It's the golden slippers that make me
+feel so like flying."
+
+"Now, Judy, don't take on so. It ain't modest to be so sure you'll be
+asked to dance. Besides, you must save your dress and slippers and not
+wear them out this first time you wear them."
+
+Judith laughed happily. "Oh, Mumsy, what a spendthrift you are with
+your breath! I'm going to dance my dress to a rag. Did you ever think
+that Cinderella may have just danced her dress to rags by twelve
+o'clock and after all the fairy godmother had nothing to do with it?
+Cinderella danced every dance with the prince and perhaps he was an
+awkward prince and tangled his feet in her train. In fact, I am sure
+he was awkward or he would have caught up with her when she tried to
+run away, and she with one shoe off and one shoe on like 'Diddle,
+diddle, dumpling, my son John!'"
+
+"Let me help you out, Mrs. Buck." It was Jeff Bucknor, leaning over
+the little blue car. He had heard every word of Judith's foolishness
+and seemed to be much pleased with it, considering he was a learned
+young lawyer getting ready to hang out his shingle, and supposed to
+be above fairy stories and nursery jingles.
+
+Jeff had noticed, as he passed Judith's home, that the little blue car
+was parked in front and his surmise was that the girl was going to the
+ball but had not yet gone. He registered the determination to hurry
+his own crowd into the skating rink and wait and speak to Judith. This
+decision had come immediately after his promising himself that he
+wasn't even going to think any more about the girl, and that if she
+happened to be one of the guests at the debut party he was going to
+spend the evening being pleasant to his sisters' friends and not even
+ask her to dance.
+
+Mrs. Buck accepted his offer of assistance with shy acquiescence. The
+blue car was not easy to get out of, as the seat was low and there was
+no step, so Jeff must swing the lady out, lifting her up bodily and
+jumping her to the curbing. She came down lightly but flustered.
+
+Unreasoning anger filled Jeff Bucknor's heart when he released the
+blushing Mrs. Buck to find Tom Harbison had pushed his way in between
+the sidewalk and the blue car and was insisting upon helping Judith to
+alight.
+
+"Thanks awfully, but I am accustomed to getting out by myself," she
+said.
+
+"And I am accustomed to helping beautiful young ladies out of cars,"
+said Tom. "You don't know what a past master I am in the art."
+
+"If there were any beautiful young ladies around I am sure they would
+be delighted, but since there are not any in sight your art will have
+to languish for lack of exercise," flashed Judith.
+
+Mrs. Buck and her daughter had both covered their finery with old
+linen dusters, which they had planned to discard before entering the
+hall. It was a distinct annoyance to Mrs. Buck that these two handsome
+young cavaliers should see them thus enveloped.
+
+"They'll get the wrong impression of my girl," was her thought, and
+now here was Judith wasting her time and the precious dancing hours
+bantering with a strange young man as to whether she should be allowed
+to jump from her car unassisted or should be helped out in a ladylike
+manner.
+
+"Well, Judith, come along one way or the other," Mrs. Buck drawled.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Buck would take one of my hands and one of yours,"
+suggested Jeff to Tom.
+
+"Perhaps the decrepit old lady will," laughed Judy, making a flying
+leap between their outstretched hands without touching them and
+landing lightly on the sidewalk by her mother. "Thank you both very
+much," she said, and clutching her mother's arm she hurried into the
+lobby of the skating rink and was lost to view in the crowd of
+arriving guests.
+
+"Here's the dressing-room, Mumsy, and we can leave our awful old
+dusters in there. Weren't you furious at being seen in the horrid
+things and that by the best beaux of the ball? Now, Mumsy, you just
+stick to me and we'll go say howdy to the dear old men and thank them
+for my dress and shoes and stockings and then you can go sit by some
+of your nice church members, while I find somebody to dance with me."
+
+"But, Judy, surely you are not going to thank the old men right out
+before everybody, and surely you are not going to ask anybody to dance
+with you!"
+
+"Of course not, Mumsy! I'm going to use finesse about both things. You
+just see how tactful I am. Oh! Oh! Oh! I'm so excited! Just look at
+the streamers and flags and all the funny funeral wreaths, and only
+listen to the music! I'm about sure there are wings on my golden
+slippers. Really and truly, Mumsy, they do not touch the ground when I
+walk. I'm simply floating in a kind of nebulous haze--in fact I
+believe I am charged with electricity."
+
+"Charged with foolishness, you mean!"
+
+"Oh, but Mumsy, look, we are right behind my cousins from Buck Hill.
+Let's don't go in too close to them. I'm entirely too happy to take a
+snubbing from Mildred Bucknor. Doesn't Cousin Ann Peyton look
+beautiful?"
+
+"You mean the old lady in hoop skirts? She's terribly behind the
+times, ain't she? But, Judy, who was the young man who was so bent on
+helping you out of the car? You didn't pretend to introduce him."
+
+"Mr. Harbison. I have not met him myself yet. I believe he is Mildred
+Bucknor's special property."
+
+The ten old men of the receiving line were drawn up in battle array,
+in all the glory of their best clothes. Pete Barnes was gorgeous in
+checked trousers and Prince Albert coat, with his bushy iron-gray hair
+well oiled and combed in what used to be known as a roach, a style
+popular in his early manhood. Some of the veterans were in
+uniform--the blue or the gray. All wore white carnations in their
+button-holes. The guests shook hands with the hosts and then moved on.
+Those who had come merely to look on sought the chairs ranged against
+the wall; others who wanted to dance were eagerly arranging for
+partners if they were men, while the fair sex assumed a supreme
+indifference. Colonel Crutcher busied himself giving out dancing cards
+and seeing that the young people were introduced.
+
+The first sensation of the evening was the entrance of Miss Ann
+Peyton. With slow grace and dignity she sailed into the ballroom and
+approached the receiving line alone. Mr. and Mrs. Bucknor had stopped
+a moment to speak to some acquaintances and Mildred had intentionally
+held back the crowd of young people comprising the house party from
+Buck Hill, whispering that they really need not mix with the others.
+
+"Of course we must speak to those ridiculous old men, but after that
+we can just stay together. It will be lots more fun."
+
+"Here comes Miss Ann Peyton!" the whisper went around the hall.
+
+"Well, if it isn't Cousin Ann!" Big Josh Bucknor boomed to his
+daughters.
+
+"For goodness sake don't ask her to go home with us," begged those
+ladies.
+
+Big Josh slapped his leg and laughed aloud. Everything about Big Josh
+was loud and hearty. He was a short, fat man with a big, red face and
+a perfectly bald head. The Misses Bucknor were tall and aristocratic
+in figure and bearing. They were constantly being mortified by their
+father's tendency to make a noise and his unfailing habit of diverging
+from the strict truth. But Big Josh was more popular in the county
+than his conscientious daughters.
+
+Old Billy had wormed his way into the ballroom with the pretext of
+having to carry Miss Ann's shawl. Quietly he slipped up the stairs
+into the balcony and, hiding behind the festooned bunting, he peeped
+down on his beloved mistress as she stood, a quaint, old-fashioned
+figure, making her bow to the receiving line.
+
+"By gad, Miss Ann, you are looking fit," said Major Fitch. "We are
+proud to have you with us. I hope you will save me a dance. Yes, yes!
+We are going to have some reels and lancers and some good old time
+quadrilles. If the young uns don't like it they can lump it. Here,
+Colonel Crutcher, give Miss Ann a dance card. How about giving me the
+first square dance?"
+
+"And put me down for the next," begged the Colonel gallantly. "It
+won't be the first quadrille I have stepped with you."
+
+All down the line Miss Ann was greeted with kindness and courtesy. Old
+Billy almost fell out of the balcony, so great was his joy when he saw
+Miss Ann's card in demand and realized that his mistress was being
+sought after. A flush was on the old lady's cheeks as she swept across
+the ballroom floor and seated herself in the outer row of chairs,
+reserved for the dancers. A little titter arose.
+
+"What a funny-looking old woman!" was the general verdict.
+
+"By the great jumping jingo, they shan't laugh at her!" exclaimed Big
+Josh. "She's kin--hoop skirt and all."
+
+His daughters held him back a moment: "Remember! Don't dare invite her
+home with you."
+
+Big Josh made a wry face but he immediately went to speak to his aged
+cousin, looking threateningly at the crowd who had dared to giggle at
+anyone related to him.
+
+"How do you do, Cousin?" he said, pushing her voluminous skirts aside
+so that he might slide into the chair next to her. "Glad to see you
+looking so spry. Thought we couldn't come to-night because the lane is
+so bad after the rain this morning. Dust three feet deep yesterday
+and to-day puddles big enough to drown a pig. I'm gonter get me a
+flying machine. Lots cheaper than trying to put that road in
+condition. Yes--I'll get a family machine for the girls and a light
+little fly-by-night for myself. I believe in the latest improvements
+in everything.
+
+"Oh, yes, I have flown often. Every time I go to Louisville a friend
+takes me up. Not afraid a bit--love it. Of course I know how to run
+the motor--simplest thing in the world. All you have to remember is
+not to sneeze while you are up in the air. Sneezing is sometimes
+fatal. It destroys your equilibrium as nothing else does and you are
+liable to make a disastrous nose dive. Running an airplane is much
+easier than an automobile. Nerve? Not a bit of it. I tell you, Cousin
+Ann, when I get my flying machine I'll come get you and ride you to my
+place and then you will be spared the bumps of that devilish lane.
+Just as soon as I get it I'll drop you a line. Of course, old Billy
+can bring the carriage and horses up at his convenience. You are at
+Buck Hill now, I understand. I tell you, I'll 'phone over just as soon
+as my airplane comes and you can get yourself ready for a flight. Be
+sure to wrap up warm and put something over your head."
+
+Miss Ann assured him she would.
+
+"By crickity! Who is that girl speaking to the old men now? That
+red-headed girl in the fairy queen dress? Bless Bob, if it ain't old
+Dick Buck's granddaughter. I used to give her a lift into school when
+she was a kid. I tell you she's got some style about her. Looks more
+born and bred than any gal here. I don't see where she got it from."
+
+"From the Bucknors!" announced Miss Ann, firmly.
+
+"Bucknors! Oh, come now, Cousin Ann, you aren't going to come that old
+gag on me. Old Dick Buck used to boast he was our kin when he got
+drunk, but it is absurd. Drunk or sober, he was no relation of ours."
+
+"He was your cousin, both drunk and sober. I've heard my grandfather
+tell--" and Miss Ann launched into the tale.
+
+"Well, by gad, if she's of the blood we ought to recognize her!"
+declared Big Josh, smiting his thigh with a resounding smack. "I'll
+speak to the family about it. Little Josh will be here to-night and
+Cousin Betty Throckmorton's Philip and no doubt many of the clan. I
+tell you I wouldn't mind claiming kin with a gal like that, especially
+now that old Dick Buck is dead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+On With the Dance
+
+
+Others besides Big Josh had noticed Judith as she came forward to
+speak to her old friends. Her dress, a shimmer of white and gold,
+might have been wished on her by a fairy godmother, a thing of
+gossamer and moonbeams.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"Who can it be?"
+
+"Nobody but little Judy Buck, you say?"
+
+"Where did she get her clothes?"
+
+"Worked like a nigger and bought 'em! Why not? She's the best little
+worker in town. Got a bunch of irons in the fire and she surely ought
+to get some clothes out of it."
+
+"But old Dick Buck's granddaughter's got no right to be mixing with
+county society."
+
+"The Knights were a good sort and Dick wasn't anything but lazy and
+trifling and sometimes a little tipsy. There wasn't anything mean
+about old Dick."
+
+"Well, she's a humdinger for looks, is all I've got to say."
+
+So the talk went around. Judith, all unconscious of having attracted
+attention, shook hands gaily with the old men and all but kissed them
+in her joy, and promised to dance with every one of them and
+immediately had her card filled with trembly-looking autographs.
+
+"Won't you dance, Mrs. Buck?" suggested Colonel Crutcher, but Mrs.
+Buck declined with agitated blushes, declaring her health was too
+feeble for such carryings-on.
+
+"Well, I'm going to put you in a front seat so you won't miss anything
+and then Miss Judy can sit by you when she is not dancing. That's all
+right, I'll get some of your church members to keep you company."
+
+Colonel Crutcher conducted mother and daughter across the ballroom
+and, much to the confusion of Mrs. Buck, placed them next to Miss Ann
+Peyton. That lady was seated in solitary grandeur, Big Josh having
+departed to look up other members of the family.
+
+"Miss Peyton, this is a little friend of mine I want to introduce to
+you, Miss Judith Buck, and her mother, Mrs. Buck."
+
+Miss Ann bowed with what might be called gracious stiffness, and moved
+her skirts a fraction of an inch to make room for Judith.
+
+Mrs. Buck was thankful that some church friends were found by whom
+she might sit and be as inconspicuous as possible. She would have been
+frightened beyond words if she had been forced to sit by Miss Ann
+Peyton. Not so Judith! The girl looked levelly into the old woman's
+eyes and then sat down.
+
+"I want to thank you for the toilet water you sent to me by my
+servant. It was very kind of you," said Miss Ann.
+
+"I loved to do it."
+
+"Why did you?"
+
+"I don't know. Perhaps because ever since I was a tiny little girl I
+have watched you go driving by on the pike and I've always wanted to
+give you a present. Sometimes I used to pick flowers and hide behind
+the fence, thinking maybe I could stop your carriage and give them to
+you, but I was too shy, and old Billy always looked so fierce--as
+though he were taking the Queen to Windsor. But I used to make up
+stories about you and your coach and now I am too big and old to make
+up silly stories and no longer shy and hiding behind hedges, but I
+kind of felt that the toilet water might be the essence of the flowers
+I used to pick for you when I was a little girl--the ones you never
+got."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" was all Miss Ann said, but she sought the girl's hand
+and held it a moment in the folds of her billowing lace dress.
+
+Then the music started and the ball had begun and Major Fitch was
+bowing low in front of Miss Ann, claiming the first quadrille, and
+Colonel Crutcher was holding out his hands for Judith.
+
+"Dance in the set with me," Miss Ann whispered to Judith, as though
+they were girls together.
+
+Of course nobody dances quadrilles in these jazz days, but the old men
+had stipulated that the band from Louisville must know how to play for
+quadrille and lancers and dusty old music had been unearthed and now
+the ball was opened with an old-fashioned quadrille, with Pete Barnes
+calling the figures with the gusto of one practiced in the art.
+
+"Swing your partner! Balance all! Swing the corners! Ladies change!
+Sashay all! First couple to the right, bow and swing! Second couple to
+the right--do the same thing! Bow and swing! Bow and swing! Third
+couple to the right--do the same thing! Bow and swing! Bow and swing!
+Right and left all around--bow to your partner! Promenade all!"
+
+Miss Ann and her partner glided and dipped and bowed, Miss Ann
+tripping and mincing and Major Fitch pointing his toes and crooking
+his elbows with much elegance and occasionally taking fancy steps to
+the edification of all beholders.
+
+Judith gave herself up to the dance with abandon. The music took
+possession of her and she swayed and rocked to its beat and cut pigeon
+wings with Colonel Crutcher, much to the delight of that veteran. She
+smiled at Miss Ann and Miss Ann smiled at her as Pete Barnes called,
+"Ladies change." They squeezed hands as they passed and Judith
+whispered, "Isn't it lovely?" and Miss Ann murmured, "Lovely!"
+
+There was no doubt about it that the set in which Miss Ann and Judith
+was dancing was the popular one. The spectators moved to that end of
+the hall and when the dancers indulged in any particularly graceful
+steps they were applauded. Old Billy crept from the balcony and hid
+himself behind a palm, where he could look out on his beloved mistress
+and declare to himself over and over, "She am the pick er the bunch."
+
+Jeff Bucknor, although he had resolved to give the evening up to
+making his sisters' friends enjoy themselves, found himself taken up
+with watching Judith Buck. He had fully intended to ask Jean Roland to
+dance the first dance with him, but had seen her led forth by the fat
+boy without once offering a rescuing hand. While the quadrille was
+being danced he stood by a window and looked on. As soon as the
+quadrille was over he hurried to Judith's side.
+
+"Please let me have the next dance, Miss Buck."
+
+"I believe I have an engagement," panted Judith, looking at her card.
+"Yes, it's a waltz and dear old Mr. Pete Barnes has put his name down.
+See!" She held it up for Jeff's inspection. Pete had written, "Set
+this dance out with your true admirer, Pete Barnes."
+
+"Nonsense," cried Jeff. "You mustn't sit out dances with old men when
+young men are dy--want to dance with you."
+
+"Mustn't I though? Not when old men have been good to me beyond
+belief? These are my old men and I wouldn't break an engagement with
+one of them for a pretty. Mr. Pete Barnes had a sabre cut once that
+made him a little lame and he can't dance, so I promised to sit out
+the waltz with him," explained Judith.
+
+"All right, then the next dance on your card!"
+
+"That is with Major Fitch and the next with Judge Middleton--that's
+the Lancers--then the Virgina Reel with old Captain Crump. I'm very
+sorry, but I believe I am booked up until the intermission, which I
+hope means supper."
+
+"You can't mean you are going to give up the whole evening to those
+old fellows. Miss Buck, Judith! Yes, I have a perfect right to call
+you Judith. You are my cousin. I--I--just found it out the other day.
+In fact, I am your nearest male relative," Jeff said whimsically, "and
+as such I forbid you to spend the whole evening wasting your sweetness
+on the old men. They may be very fine old chaps, but--"
+
+"May be! But! There is no maybe and no but about it. They are the
+loveliest old men in the world. You got to be a cousin too suddenly,
+Mr. Bucknor. Kinship is something deeper than a sudden flare. The old
+men are my fairy godfathers and that is closer than forty-eleventh
+cousins. Why, they even gave me my lovely dress so I could come to the
+ball. No, Mr. Barnes, I haven't forgotten," she said, tucking her hand
+in the old man's arm as he came up to claim her promise. She looked
+over her shoulder and laughed at Jeff Bucknor. "Good-bye, Cousin!" she
+called.
+
+Jeff moodily sought refuge behind Cousin Ann's draperies. He knew he
+was behaving rudely, not to dance with the girls of the house party.
+He was sure Mildred and Nan would berate him, but he felt as though
+there were weights on his feet. Miss Ann graciously made room for
+him.
+
+"A very charming ball, Cousin," she said.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Why are you not dancing?"
+
+"Nobody to dance with--unless you will favor me," he added gallantly.
+
+"No, my dear cousin, I have danced once to-night and I am afraid I had
+better not venture again. I am very fatigued from the unwonted
+exertion." Indeed, the old lady did look tired, although very happy
+and contented. "Why do you not endeavor to engage my charming
+vis-a-vis? I see she is not dancing either."
+
+"Humph! She has given me to understand she preferred talking to old
+Pete Barnes to dancing with me. She's a strange girl, Cousin Ann, and
+I can't make her out."
+
+At least Jeff had the satisfaction of seeing Judith refuse to dance
+with Tom Harbison. That young man had crossed the floor with his
+accustomed assurance, had bowed low in front of Judith and begged her
+to favor him, even taking her by the hand and endeavoring to draw her
+from her chair, but she had refused him in short order.
+
+Judith danced and danced with the old men. Whatever the step they
+decided to take the girl followed. She was a born dancer and, after a
+few paces, could adapt herself to any partner. There were other young
+men besides Jeff and Tom who sought her hand in the dance, but she was
+always engaged to some one of the ten old men. The only chance for the
+young ones was for the old ones to fall by the wayside, which they did
+occasionally when their old legs refused to carry them farther.
+
+"I'd break in on them if they weren't so old," declared one young
+farmer.
+
+"It wouldn't do a bit of good," said a young doctor. "I tried and she
+turned me down--said she had promised the old duffer the whole
+dance."
+
+So it happened that Judith's time was fully taken up by her fairy
+godfathers until the supper-time intermission.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Cinderella Revealed
+
+
+The rattle of china and silver had begun in a room beyond the dancing
+hall and an aroma of coffee and a suggestion of savory food was in the
+air. Dancers and spectators sniffed in anticipation. The music
+stopped. Judge Middleton walked towards the end of the hall. He had
+Judith Buck by his side, her hand resting lightly on his arm. She was
+chatting gaily, but the Judge looked rather serious.
+
+When the couple reached a spot near the bass drum, the Judge stopped
+and, borrowing the stick from the musician, he rapped sharply on the
+side of the drum.
+
+"He's going to make a speech!"
+
+"Be quiet!"
+
+"Judge Middleton is going to talk!"
+
+The other nine old men called for order. Another sharp rap on the drum
+and all was still.
+
+"Friends," the Judge said, "I have something to say to you." One could
+have heard a pin drop. "Of course all of us old men know that you
+have had a very good time, laughing at us because we sent out
+invitations calling this a debut party. We are pleased to have given
+so many of our friends a good laugh. We did it on purpose, because we
+have all of us lived a long time and we know how popular it makes you
+to furnish a good laugh. We are proud and happy that so many persons
+have seen fit to come to our party and we hope you are having a
+pleasant time to repay you for your trouble."
+
+"Hear! Hear!"
+
+"The best this year!"
+
+"Do it again!"
+
+"I wonder if any of you noticed that our invitation did not say to
+whom we were giving this debut party? We left that out on purpose,
+because we were afraid it might scare off the person whom we are
+delighted to honor. Up to this moment the dear child whose debut party
+this is has been entirely ignorant that it is hers."
+
+Judith, who had been standing by her old friend, utterly unconscious
+of self, wholly absorbed in his speech, now looked at him with an
+expression of startled amazement. She gave a little gasp and blushed
+violently.
+
+"Friends of Ryeville and our county, we, the old men of the
+neighborhood, wish to tell you that this debut ball is in honor of our
+fairy godchild, Miss Judith Buck."
+
+A ripple of applause ran around the room.
+
+"We know that we are not doing the conventional thing in the
+conventional way," the Judge continued, "but we wanted to do something
+different for a girl who is different. Only a few days ago we were
+sitting, talking, discussing matters and things, when the thought came
+to us that we should like to do something for a girl who has never
+been too busy to stop and have a pleasant word with us old men. It was
+my friend, Pete Barnes, who thought of this way."
+
+"Yes, my idee, my idee!" cried Pete.
+
+"I am sure a great many of you already know our young friend. You have
+seen her grow from childhood to young womanhood--watched her trudging
+in to school in all weathers, determined to get an education at any
+cost--noted her record at school, always at the top or near the top.
+Perhaps others in Ryeville besides the old men have been cheered by
+her happy face and ready wit and sympathy."
+
+"Hear! Hear!"
+
+"And now we old men wish to present formally to society Miss Judith
+Buck. If you have any criticism to make of our method, please blame us
+and not our guest of honor. This is a surprise party for her."
+
+"Well, I call that right down pretty," said Big Josh to his Cousin
+Bob. "I have been wanting all evening to get in a word with some of
+the crowd concerning this young lady, but it looks like it's hard to
+get away from the women folk long enough to talk sense."
+
+"I believe I know what you mean," said Mr. Bucknor uneasily. "It won't
+do, Josh, it won't do."
+
+"The dickens it won't do, if we decide to claim her!"
+
+"But the ladies, Josh, the ladies! I fancy Cousin Ann has told you
+what she told me. The tale got my madam and the girls up in arms and I
+can't cope with the whole biling of them. I'd say no more about it if
+I were you. Of course we must go up and shake hands with the girl, and
+do the polite, but the least said the soonest mended--about her being
+related to us. You know well enough if the women folk are opposed it
+would be harder on the girl than just letting the matter drop right
+where it is."
+
+"Well, I reckon I can control the ladies in my family," blustered Big
+Josh.
+
+"Ahem!" said Mr. Bob Bucknor, with a significant glance at his cousin,
+"I must confess that I can't always do so. I find that entertaining
+Cousin Ann Peyton, for months at a time, is about all I can do in the
+way of coercion where the ladies of my family are concerned."
+
+"I'm going to relieve you of that burden, Bob," declared Big Josh. "I
+fully realize you have had more than your share lately, but the truth
+of the matter is my lane is in mighty bad shape here lately. I have
+just been talking to Cousin Ann about coming to us for a spell. In
+fact, I've been telling her I'd come and fetch her before so very
+long."
+
+Judith stood demurely between Judge Middleton and Major Fitch and made
+her bow to Ryeville society. They had asked Mrs. Buck to stand by her
+daughter, but that lady begged to be excused.
+
+"I'm just a private person," she said, "and it would flustrate me so
+I'd be sure to have one of my attacks."
+
+Everybody went up and shook hands with the guest of honor--even
+Mildred Bucknor, although she did not enjoy it at all.
+
+"It is the silliest thing I ever saw in my life," she declared. "As
+though that Judith Buck wasn't forward enough as it is, without those
+ridiculous old men forcing her on people this way. If we had known the
+party was given to her, we never should have come, but now that we are
+here we naturally must behave as gentle folk and be decent."
+
+"Of course," echoed Nan. "We couldn't leave just as supper is
+announced either. That would be impolite."
+
+"Very!" said the fat boy.
+
+The knowledge that the debut party was given to little Judith Buck in
+no way served to throw a damper on the festivities. On the contrary,
+the gaiety of the guests increased. Supper was a decided success and
+the stylish waiters from Louisville saw to it that everyone was served
+bountifully. Old Billy crept from behind the decorations and insisted
+upon waiting on his mistress.
+
+"She am the queen er the ball," he said arrogantly to the young darkey
+who objected to giving up his tray to the old man.
+
+"You mean the young lady who's havin' her comin' out?"
+
+"No, I don't mean her, but my Miss Ann, who air a settin' over yonder
+all kivered with di'ments."
+
+Miss Ann was weary and tremulous. She had been strangely moved by
+Judge Middleton's speech. Why, she did not know exactly, but all
+evening she had been putting herself in Judith's place, wondering what
+life would have held for her if at the turning point she had shown the
+character and spunk of this young girl. She had gone with the rest to
+shake hands with the girl after Judge Middleton's speech. She longed
+to declare their relationship, but was afraid to until the family
+accepted Judith. So Miss Ann merely took Judith's hand in hers and
+pressed it gently. All she said was, "I am so happy to have met you."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Miss Peyton. I am indeed glad to know you." Judith had
+almost called her cousin. She devoutly hoped nobody had noticed it,
+but there was no time for repinings because one was stand-offish. Too
+many persons must be introduced to the debutante. Even had Mildred
+Bucknor been inclined to chat with her former schoolmate she would not
+have been allowed to do it. There were others who pressed forward to
+greet the fairy godchild of the old men of Ryeville.
+
+The general attitude of the assembly was good natured and
+congratulatory. The aristocratic contingent was inclined to be a
+little formal, but polite and not unkindly. The aristocrats were more
+or less related to one another, and most of them were connected,
+closely or distantly, with the Bucknors. Their formality in greeting
+Judith might easily have been accounted for by the fact that Big Josh
+Bucknor had kept the ball rolling in regard to old Dick Buck's kinship
+with the family. From the moment Miss Ann Peyton had made the
+statement that the Bucks and Bucknors were originally the same people,
+Big Josh had been spreading the news. All of them had heard it before,
+but nobody had ever given serious thought to it. To be related to
+slovenly, lazy, dissipated old Dick Buck was out of the question. The
+possibility of such a connection was laughably preposterous. It was
+quite a different matter, however, to contemplate receiving into the
+charmed circle a beautiful young girl who was everything her unworthy
+old grandparent had not been.
+
+"But we must go slowly," Little Josh Bucknor had said, when approached
+by his cousin, Big Josh. "It's a great deal easier to get relations
+than it is to get rid of them. Ahem--Cousin Ann, for instance! Cousin
+Ann is so distantly related to us that one cannot trace the kinship,
+but we got started wrong with her in old days and now you would think
+she was as close as a mother or something.
+
+"I'm mighty bothered about Cousin Ann, Big Josh. The fact of the
+matter is, my wife won't stand for her. I can't even make her go up
+and speak to the old lady. She's been talking to Cousin Betty
+Throckmorton and they've been hatching up a scheme to freeze out
+Cousin Ann and fix it so she'll have to go to an old ladies' home.
+Cousin Mildred Bucknor is in on it, too, and from the way they've had
+their heads together all evening I believe your daughters are in the
+plot."
+
+"The minxes! I don't doubt it. Poor Cousin Ann! She's never done
+anybody any harm in her life," and Big Josh's round, moon-like face
+expressed as much sorrow as it was capable of.
+
+"No--never any harm--but I reckon Cousin Ann hasn't done much good in
+her time. When you come right down to it, chronic visiting is a poor
+way to spend your time, unless you are a powerful good visitor, which
+Cousin Ann isn't. She got started wrong and never has got put on the
+right road. I don't see what we are going to do about it. Bob Bucknor
+is having more than his share, but I can't do a thing with my wife.
+You see, she made her own living before she married me and she's got
+no use for what she calls the unproductive consumer. She says that's
+what Cousin Ann is. Mrs. Bob is getting worn out with it, too,
+because her girls are grown now and they are kicking at having the
+poor old lady come down on them on all occasions. It looks as though
+we'd have to call a meeting of the family and thresh the thing out."
+
+Little Josh, who had acquired the diminutive title merely because he
+had been born two years later than his cousin, Big Josh, showed
+despondency in every line of his six-feet-two.
+
+"The women will all be banded against her and want to send her to a
+home, but we can't stand for that," said Big Josh. "The women'll have
+to get it into their heads that they can't boss the whole shooting
+match. Well, come on and let's speak to our little cousin. Oh, you
+needn't worry. I'm going to be as careful as possible and never say a
+word I shouldn't. I can't take her into the family unless all the
+others do. When we have the family meeting about Cousin Ann we might
+bring up this business of Miss Judith Buck at the same time."
+
+"Good idea! Good idea!" agreed Little Josh.
+
+What Big Josh said to Judith was, "And how do you do, Miss Buck?
+Remember you? Of course I remember you, but do you remember me?"
+
+"And how could I forget you when you have given me many a lift on the
+road? You never passed me by without picking me up." Judith's manner
+was so frank and sweet and she smiled so brightly at Big Josh,
+returning his vigorous handshake with a strong, unaffected clasp, that
+the good-natured fellow was won over completely.
+
+"Well, well! We've pretty near got the same name," he cried heartily.
+"You are Buck and I am Bucknor. I wouldn't be astonished if we had
+been the same in the beginning. Either your folks knocked the _nor_
+off or my folks stuck it on. Ha! Ha! We may be related for all we
+know."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+The Morning After
+
+
+"All over and paid for!" yawned Colonel Crutcher the morning after the
+debut party. "I tell you I couldn't do it every night."
+
+"Neither could I--nor every week, nor every month, nor even every
+year," agreed Major Fitch. "But I tell you, Crutcher, it was worth it,
+I mean digging in our jeans for the money and getting so tired out and
+feeling our age and everything. It was worth it all, just to see our
+girl's eyes shining and to prove what she is made of. I tell you she
+stood up there and received with as much dignity as Queen Victoria
+herself."
+
+The old men were gathered together on the Rye House porch, chairs
+tilted back and feet on railing as usual.
+
+"I tell you, she's a thoroughbred, all right," declared Pete Barnes.
+"Why, that gal turned down two of the best-looking beaux at the
+hop--Jeff Bucknor and that young Harbison--just to sit down an' talk
+with me, old Pete Barnes. Jeff Bucknor was sore, too. He up an'
+claimed kin with her an' she just gave him the merry ha ha."
+
+"Well, my j'ints are mighty stiff, but I'm proud to have trod a
+measure with Miss Judith Buck," said Colonel Crutcher.
+
+"It was worth a lot to see Miss Ann Peyton again, too," said Judge
+Middleton. "I heard a good deal of talk on the side about Miss Ann
+last night. It seems that the family is getting together on the
+subject. The women folks are reading the riot act and simply refusing
+to have the old lady visit them any more. Big Josh was shooting off
+his lip pretty lively because the women of the family want to send her
+to an old ladies' home. I say poor Miss Ann, but at the same time I
+can see the other side."
+
+Others beside the old men were aweary after the ball. Miss Ann spent a
+sleepless night and could not drag herself from her bed in time for
+breakfast. When old Billy came to her room with a can of hot water for
+her morning ablutions, he found his mistress limp and forlorn.
+
+"Jes' you lay still, my pretty, an' ol' Billy will bring you up some
+breakfus'. You had so many beaux las' night, hoverin' roun' you like
+bees 'roun' a honey pot, no wonder you air tuckered out this mornin'.
+I reckon you couldn't sleep with yo' haid so full er music an'
+carryin's on."
+
+"I didn't sleep very well, Billy, because I am worrying. I am thinking
+perhaps we had better move on."
+
+"Don't say it, Miss Ann, don't say it! Buck Hill air sho' the gyardin
+spot er all our visitations. What put you in min' er movin' on?"
+
+"I overheard, without meaning to in the least, but they spoke quite
+loudly--I overheard Cousin Milly talking on the subject with some of
+the others at the ball and I am afraid we are not welcome here."
+
+"Why, Miss Ann, 'twas only yistiddy that young Marse Jeff Bucknor up
+an' made me a solemn promise that you wouldn't never want fer nothin'
+so long as he mought live an' be able ter do fer you."
+
+"That's very sweet of him, Billy, but this isn't his home alone. His
+mother is the mistress here. I think we might go visit Mr. Big Josh
+Bucknor for a while. He was very cordial and even said he would come
+for me in a flying machine because of the bad road leading into his
+place. What do you think of that, Billy? He said you could follow
+after with the carriage and horses."
+
+"Well, Miss Ann, I think Marse Big Josh air as good as gol' an' as
+kind as custard, but I can't help a feelin' that he don't mean
+ev'y-thing he says. Not that he ain't a thinkin' at the time that he
+will do what he promises, but ev'ybody knows you have ter take what
+Marse Big Josh says with a dose of salts. I don't mean he wouldn't be
+proud an' glad ter have us-alls come an' visit him, but I mean he
+ain't liable ter be a flyin' any time soon er late in this here world
+er yet the world ter come. He ain't ter say sanctified."
+
+"Well, we'll stay on here a while longer then, Billy, but far be it
+from me to have it said we had worn out our welcome."
+
+"Now, Miss Ann, that there ain't possible here at Buck Hill. The house
+pawty air a breakin' up this day an' mo'n likely the gues' chamber
+will be returned to its rightful habitant. You mus' a hearn wrong
+'bout Miss Milly not wantin' you. Miss Milly's all time stoppin' an'
+tellin' me how proud she air ter have you here under her roof an' how
+glad she air ter have sech a zample as you fer her gals ter foller in
+the footsteps er 'portment an' 'havior. An' Marse Bob air continuously
+singin' yo' praises. I hearn him tellin' Mr. Philip Throckmorton las'
+night that you were a gues' it wa' his delight ter honor. An' Mr.
+Philip Throckmorton said as how as soon as he had a home er his own
+you would be the fust pusson ter occupew his gues' chamber. An' then
+Mr. Little Josh he said how noble an' 'stinguished you were an'
+s'perior. I tell you, Miss Ann, these here folks air all proud er
+bein' yo' kin. They's all quarrelin' 'bout whar you air gonter visit
+nex'."
+
+Thus the old man soothed her troubled spirit and lulled it into a
+semblance of repose. At any rate it was easier to pretend that she
+believed him. At least it made him happy, and in pretending she almost
+persuaded herself that her kinsmen were glad and anxious to have her.
+She drank the coffee her old servant brought her and settled herself
+for a morning of rest, although the house was buzzing with the
+breaking up of the house party.
+
+The young people, too, were feeling the effect of last night's
+dissipation. The ball was not over at twelve o'clock, as the
+invitations had intimated it would be, but had gone on into the wee
+small hours of morning. It was not often that Ryeville had the chance
+to trip the light fantastic toe to the music of a Louisville band and
+the eager dancers had begged for more and more. The old people had
+dropped out, one by one, but the youngsters danced on and on.
+
+Then it was that Judith had come into her own as it were, and all of
+the young men who had been denied before supper seemed determined to
+make up for lost time. The most persistent of the clamoring swains
+were Jeff Bucknor and Tom Harbison. This popularity of a person who
+had always rubbed her the wrong way was wormwood to Mildred Bucknor,
+and for her brother and Tom Harbison to be rivals for Judith's favor
+added gall to the wormwood. Not that Mildred was not having a very
+good time herself. Indeed, she was always something of a belle and
+never lacked for partners, but she had other plans for her brother on
+the one hand and on the other Tom Harbison had paid her enough
+attention for her to consider him in a measure her property. She had
+even announced to several of her friends, in the strictest confidence,
+that she was engaged to him--or "as good as engaged."
+
+The ball of the night before was under discussion at the breakfast
+table. It was pronounced, on the whole, to have been a very good ball
+and a fitting climax to the house party.
+
+"Of course it is perfectly absurd for the old men to think they can
+put that Buck girl into society by merely giving her a debut party,"
+said Mildred. "It takes something besides good clothes and an
+introduction to place people."
+
+"How about beauty and intelligence and character?" asked Jeff.
+
+"Well, tastes differ as to beauty, and if she had any sense she would
+know enough not to try to push herself where she isn't wanted. I don't
+think it is indicative of a very good character to accept clothes from
+a man. I heard, on very good authority, that a man gave her her dress.
+He paid a pretty penny for it, too, I am sure. Nan and I looked at
+some gowns like hers when we were in Louisville and they were too
+steep for us, I can tell you."
+
+"I know about the dress. She told me," said Jeff.
+
+"Ah, things have progressed pretty far with you," sneered his sister.
+"Perhaps she was letting you know she was by way of receiving gifts of
+such a character from her admirers."
+
+Jeff couldn't trust himself to speak calmly in rebuttal of Mildred's
+accusations and so he left the room. One thing he had determined, and
+that was to cut his time of recreation short and knuckle down to the
+practice of law immediately. A spirit of antagonism was developing
+between brother and sister that greatly distressed Jeff. He had no
+doubt that he was somewhat to blame, but at the same time Mildred was
+spoiled and petulant and overbearing. He doubted her kindness of
+heart, too, since he had witnessed her cruelty in regard to Cousin Ann
+Peyton and Judith Buck. He also decided to try a hazard of new
+fortunes in Louisville rather than Ryeville as his family had
+planned.
+
+Jeff was glad that the house party was breaking up. Perhaps now Buck
+Hill would settle down into peace and quiet and he would have a chance
+to discuss his affairs with his father and mother. He was glad that he
+would no longer be called upon to do the impossible--to fall in love
+with the dark beauty, Jean Roland, when for days and nights, in his
+mind's eye, was ever the picture of a fair girl with a halo of
+red-gold hair. He was glad, too, that the obnoxious Tom Harbison would
+be leaving. It was only lately that he had felt Tom to be obnoxious.
+If Harbison was in love with Mildred, as he had been led to believe
+was the case, what right had he to be so persistent in his attentions
+to Judith? Well, at any rate he was leaving the county and would have
+no more chance to hover around the girl. Any hovering that was done
+Jeff was determined to do himself.
+
+"I have seen this girl but four times in all, unless I can count those
+times when she was a little, barefooted kid selling blackberries and
+I was such a fool I couldn't understand what she was to grow to be,
+and still I'm as sure as I shall ever be of anything in my life that
+she is the only girl for me." Thus he mused after he had left the room
+rather than listen to his sister's gossip. He was standing on the
+porch, looking through the trees at the garden beyond, and thinking
+what an appropriate background it would be for Judith's rare beauty.
+How he would like to lead her through the box maze and then sit beside
+her on the marble bench under the syringa bushes! If he could prevail
+upon the independent girl to listen to him, would his family receive
+her? Would it not be best for all concerned if he could forget Judith?
+Anyhow, he would not try to see her again, and he would soon be
+settled in Louisville, making only occasional visits home. Life looked
+dreary to Jeff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Uncle Billy Makes a Call
+
+
+Judith and her mother were also the victims of the morning after. Mrs.
+Buck was pale and listless, complaining of shortness of breath, while
+Judith felt it impossible to accomplish the many duties she had
+planned for Saturday forenoon.
+
+"The truth of the matter is I can't stop dancing. If I only had some
+quick music I could work to it. I wonder if Cinderella swept the
+hearth clean the morning after the ball. Mumsy, do you think the
+prince was there last night?" she asked.
+
+"Prince! What prince?"
+
+"Oh, just any old prince! Prince Charming! I think--in fact I am
+sure--I liked my Cousin Jeff Bucknor better than any of the men who
+danced with me."
+
+"Now, Judith, please don't start up that foolishness. Jeff Bucknor may
+dance with you because everybody else wanted to, but he would be very
+much astonished if he heard you calling him cousin."
+
+"Well, he heard me last night, but he started it. He wanted to boss
+me, because he said he was my nearest of kin. I just laughed at him
+and called out, 'Good-bye, Cousin!' Mr. Big Josh Bucknor almost
+claimed kin with me, too. Wouldn't it be funny, Mumsy, if all of them
+got to doing it? It would be kind of nice to have some kinfolks who
+knew they were kin. I know you think I am conceited, but somehow I
+believe the men would be more pleased about it than the women. Maybe
+the women are afraid I'd take to visiting them like poor Cousin Ann!"
+
+"Humph! Cousin Ann indeed!"
+
+"But, Mumsy, she was real cousinish last night. There was a look in
+her eyes that made me feel that she was almost claiming relationship.
+She squeezed my hand in the quadrille, and when she came up to speak
+to me after the darling old men let the cat out of the bag about its
+being my debut party she was very near to kissing me."
+
+"Well, I don't hold much to kissing strangers."
+
+Mother and daughter were on the side porch, engaged in various
+household duties, while this desultory discussion was going on.
+Suddenly there appeared at the corner of the house old Uncle Billy. In
+his hand he carried a small package wrapped in newspaper. He bowed and
+bowed, wagging his head like a mechanical toy.
+
+"You mus' 'scuse me, ladies, fer a walkin' up on you 'thout no
+warnin', but I got a little comin' out gif fer the young lady, if she
+don't think ol' Billy air too bold an' resumtious. It air jes' a bit
+er jewilry what air been, so's ter speak, in my fambly fer goin' on a
+hun'erd or so years. Ol' Mis, the gran'maw er my Miss Ann--Miss
+Elizabeth Bucknor as was--gib it to ter my mammy fer faithfulness in
+time er stress. It were when smallpox done laid low the white folks
+an' my mammy nuss 'em though the trouble when ev'ybody, white and
+black, wa' so scairt they runned off an' hid."
+
+"Why, Uncle Billy, I think you are too lovely to give it to me. But
+you ought to keep it."
+
+"Well, it ain't ever been much use ter me, seein' as I can't wear a
+locket, but I reckon you mought hang it roun' yo' putty neck
+sometime."
+
+He took off the newspaper wrapping, disclosing a flat velvet box much
+rubbed and soiled. Touching a spring the lid flew open, disclosing a
+large cameo of rare and intricate workmanship, with a gold filigree
+border and gold back.
+
+"I'd like ter give it ter you, if you won't be a thinkin' it's
+free-niggerish of me."
+
+"Why, I think it is perfectly lovely of you. It is a beautiful
+locket--the most beautiful I ever saw. See, Mumsy, I can put it on my
+little gold chain."
+
+"No doubt!" Mrs. Buck looked distrustfully at Billy, but the old man
+held himself so meekly and his manner was so respectful that her heart
+was somewhat softened.
+
+"You sho' air got a pleasant place here. I allus been holdin' th'ain't
+no place so peaceful an' homelike as a shady side po'ch, with plenty
+er scrubbery an' chickens a scratchin' under 'em. I'd be proud to have
+a po'ch er my own, with a box er portulac a bloomin' in front er it
+an' plenty er nice red jewraniums sproutin' 'roun' in ol' mattersies
+cans--but, you see, me'n Miss Ann air allus on the jump--what with all
+the invites we gits ter visitate."
+
+"Let me show you what a nice vegetable garden I have planted, Uncle
+Billy, and what a lovely well we have, with the coldest water in the
+county. Maybe you would like a drink of cold water, or perhaps you
+would like some fresh buttermilk. I have just churned and the
+buttermilk is splendid," said Judith.
+
+"Thankee, thankee kindly, missy! I's a great han' fo' buttermilk." The
+old man followed Judith to the dairy and watched with admiring eyes as
+she dipped the creamy beverage from the great stone jar and poured it
+into a big glass mug.
+
+"This was Grandfather Buck's mug. He liked to drink buttermilk from
+it, but he always called it a schooner. That was his house, back
+there. He never lived in it after Grandfather Knight died, so my
+mother tells me, but we always have called it his house. It still has
+his furniture in it, but nobody stays there."
+
+"I hearn my Miss Ann a talkin' bout yo' fambly not so long ago. She
+say the Bucks an' Bucknors were one an' the same in days gone by but
+one er yo' forebears done mislaid the tail en' of his name. But Miss
+Ann say that don't make no mind ter her--that you is of one blood jes'
+the same. She even done up an' state that you air as clost kin ter her
+as the Buck Hill folks air. She air allus been a gret han' for geology
+an' tracin' back whar folks comed from."
+
+"She--she didn't tell you to tell me that, did she, Uncle Billy?"
+Judith looked piercingly at the old man. He tried to say Miss Ann knew
+he was going to tell the girl of their kinship but her clear gaze
+confused him.
+
+"Well, well, no'm, she didn't 'zactly tell me, but--No'm, she don't
+even know I done come a' callin'. She jes' thinks I'm out a exercisin'
+of Puck an' Coopid. Them's the names er my hosses."
+
+"Perhaps she would not like your telling me this," persisted Judith.
+
+"Well, missy, if you ain't a mindin' I believe I'll arsk you not ter
+mention what I done let slip. I ain't ter say sho' what the fambly air
+gonter do 'bout the matter. I done hear tell they air gonter hab a
+meetin' er the whole bilin' an' decide."
+
+"Do!" fired Judith. "They will do nothing. You can tell them for me
+that I don't give a hang whether they want to claim kin with me or
+not. They did not have the making of me and I am what I am regardless
+of them. I know perfectly well that I am descended from the same
+original Bucknors but I'm glad my ancestor mislaid part of the name
+and I wouldn't have the last syllable back for anything in the
+world."
+
+"Yassum!" gasped Billy.
+
+"Uncle Billy, I didn't mean to be cross with you," laughed Judith, her
+anger gone as quickly as it had come, "but it does rile me for the
+family to think themselves so important and to feel they can have a
+meeting and make me kin to them or not as they please."
+
+Billy, mounted on Cupid and leading Puck, rode slowly off. He wagged
+his great beard and talked solemnly to himself.
+
+"Well now, you ol' fool nigger, you done broke yo' 'lasses pitcher.
+Whe'fo' you so nimble-come-trimble ter tell little missy 'bout the
+fambly confab? 'Cause you done hearn Marse Big Josh 'sputin' with
+Marse Bob Bucknor at the ball consarnin' the Bucks an' Bucknors ain't
+no reason whe'fo' you gotta be so bigity. Ain't yo' mammy done tell
+you, time an' agin, that ain't no flies gonter crawl in a shet mouf?
+All you had ter do wa' ter go an' give Miss Judy Buck the trinket an'
+kinder git mo' 'quainted an', little by little, git her ter look at
+things yo' way. You could er let drop kinder accidental like that she
+wa' kinfolks 'thout bein' so 'splicit. She done got her back up now
+an' I ain't a blamin' her. She sho' did put me in min' er my Miss Ann
+when she wa' a gal, the way she hilt up her haid an' jawed back at the
+fambly. An' she would er talked the same way if Marse Big Josh an'
+Marse Little Josh an' Marse Bob Bucknor theyselves had 'a' been there
+an' all the women folk besides. That little gal ain't feared er
+nobody. She done tol' me ter say she wouldn't have back that extry
+syllabub on her name fer nothin'. I reckon if I'd tell Marse Jeff that
+he'd go up in the air for fair. But this nigger is done talkin'--done
+talkin'."
+
+He rode on, his brown old face furrowed with trouble. His bowed legs
+stuck out comically and the long tails of his blue coat spread
+themselves out on Cupid's broad back.
+
+"An' that putty little cabin in the back, with po'ch an' all, an'
+little missy done say it got furnisher in it too," he murmured
+plaintively.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A Cavalier O'erthrown
+
+
+The house party departed and Buck Hill settled into normalcy. Jeff had
+tried very hard to be what Mildred had expected him to be for the last
+few days. He had even said tender nothings to Jean Roland and
+expressed an eager desire to see her in Louisville, where she was to
+visit before returning to Detroit. So flattering was his manner that
+the girl forgave him for his inattention during her stay at Buck Hill
+and was all smiles at the parting.
+
+The guests who did not leave by automobile took the noon trolley to
+Louisville. Among the latter was Tom Harbison. Mildred had rather
+hoped he would stay over Sunday at Buck Hill. He pleaded an
+engagement, however, but with melting eyes declared he would soon be
+back.
+
+Jeff heaved a great sigh of relief when they were all gone, especially
+Miss Jean Roland. What a nuisance black-headed girls were, anyhow! He
+began to wonder what Judith was doing. Was she wearied after the ball?
+Was she on the road in her little blue car selling toilet articles?
+Would she feed the motormen and conductors, in spite of having been up
+until morning? Of course she would! Judith was not the kind of girl to
+fail in an undertaking and to let men go hungry.
+
+"Half past five! She furnishes dinner for the men on the six-thirty. I
+wonder what she is giving them to-day?" Jeff smiled when he remembered
+how Judith had satisfied Nan's impertinent curiosity concerning what
+was in her basket. "I've a great mind to find out. Foolishness! I'll
+do nothing of the sort." The young man tried to lose himself in the
+intricate plot of a detective story but he had to confess he was not
+half so much interested in the outcome of the tale as he was in what
+Judith was to carry in her basket.
+
+"I'll go help her lift the heavy load on the trolley," he decided,
+slinging aside the stupid book and starting across the meadows to the
+trolley station. He must traverse the broad acres of Buck Hill to the
+dividing line of Judith's mother's farm, then through a swampy creek
+bottom, up a hill to the grove of old beech trees, and then down to
+the trolley track.
+
+"Can't make it! There's the whistle blowing for the next station," he
+said as he reached the grove. He stopped and, leaning against the
+smooth trunk of a great beech, looked out across the fields. There was
+Judith in a blue dress, standing on the little platform, a cooler of
+buttermilk in one hand, swinging it as before as a signal to the
+approaching trolley. She wore no hat and her hair shone like spun
+gold.
+
+"I'll wait here for her and maybe I can persuade her to sit down a
+minute and talk to me." Lazily he settled himself on a mossy bank,
+leaning against the friendly trunk.
+
+The trolley car stopped. Eager hands were ready to receive the heavy
+cooler and laden basket. Only one passenger--a man--alighted and then
+the car sped on. Judith picked up the basket of empty dishes and milk
+can that had been deposited on the platform and turned to follow the
+path homeward. Jeff sprang to his feet, meaning to hasten to her and
+relieve her of her burden, when his intention was changed by seeing
+the man who had just alighted from the trolley walk quickly to her
+side.
+
+The beech grove was too far off for Jeff to hear what was said but he
+could plainly see the couple, although not discernible to them because
+of the dense shade of the beeches. It was a shock to him to recognize
+the man as Tom Harbison. What was he doing back again when he had
+told Mildred he had an important engagement? Was his engagement with
+Judith Buck? She had not looked as though she expected anyone as she
+stood swinging her cooler. But then one can never tell. Young men
+don't go gallivanting after girls unless they are encouraged. On the
+other hand, what encouragement had Judith given him, Jeff Bucknor?
+None!
+
+However, Tom Harbison certainly had no right to play fast and loose
+with his sister, Mildred. Jeff tried to persuade himself that his
+anger against Tom was solely the righteous anger of a brother.
+
+Judith and her cavalier followed the path that led directly to the
+beech grove. Jeff Bucknor again seated himself on the mossy bank and
+watched their approach. He was totally unconscious of his own
+invisibility. Again he felt extreme annoyance with Tom Harbison
+because of his protecting manner. Anyone might have surmised the
+fields were full of raging bulls, vicious rams or wild boars, judging
+from Tom's solicitude for Judith's safety. Tenderly he assisted the
+active girl up the hill. Just as they got within earshot of Jeff, who
+was endeavoring to calm himself sufficiently to meet the couple with
+some appearance of equanimity, Judith paused.
+
+"Now, Mr. Harbison, I appreciate very much your kindness in wishing to
+help me with this basket of dishes, which is not at all heavy, but I
+think you had much better go directly to your friends at Buck Hill.
+That path to the left will take you through the gap and over the
+meadow. I go to the right."
+
+"Ah, but I am not going to Buck Hill this evening. I came back to
+Ryeville only to see you. I told you, my beauty, that I was going to.
+Don't you remember?"
+
+"I am not your beauty and I do not remember."
+
+"Well, I did and I have and you are."
+
+"Maybe you have but I am not. I bid you good evening, Mr. Harbison.
+Give me my basket."
+
+"No, no! Not so fast! You don't understand, my dearest girl. I really
+have come up here to see you and a fellow doesn't take that beastly
+ride twice in one day without some reward. Come on, like the peach
+that you resemble, and sit down here in this grove of trees with me. I
+tell you, honey, I'm loving you good and right."
+
+"Nonsense! You don't know me and besides I have no time to sit down
+as I have two more trolley cars to meet with hot suppers for the
+motormen. Give me my basket! I must hurry home. I cannot let my
+customers go hungry."
+
+"But I am hungry for love," cried Tom, seizing the hand Judith had
+stretched out for her basket. In the other hand she carried the empty
+milk can. Up to this time the girl had been half laughing. She was
+evidently amused by the gallantries of Tom and had met his advances
+with badinage, thinking he was in jest. However, when he grasped her
+hand and attempted to draw her towards him, she grew angry.
+
+"Let me go, Mr. Harbison. You are forgetting yourself."
+
+"I am not forgetting myself. I am just remembering myself. Here I have
+been in the same neighborhood with you for days and never once have I
+had so much as a kiss. Please! Please!" He caught the resisting Judith
+to him.
+
+Tom was making a fool of himself and no doubt he would have realized
+it had he known that another man was hearing his pleading. Jeff on the
+other hand was so conscious of himself that he had not realized, until
+Harbison plunged into the frantic love-making, that the couple were
+not aware of his presence. Under the circumstances, what should he do?
+He certainly could not beat up a man for asking a beautiful girl to
+sit down in the shade of a beech tree with him, especially since he
+had meant to do that very thing himself had not Tom got there ahead of
+him. Should he make his presence known? Did Judith need his help?
+
+The scene progressed so rapidly that before Jeff could make up his
+mind exactly what he should do Judith raised her empty milk can and
+gave the persistent Tom such a whack on the side of his head that the
+cavalier dropped the basket of china and, losing his balance, fell and
+rolled down the hill.
+
+Evidently Judith did not need anyone's help. Tom picked himself up
+ruefully. Without a word he retraced the path he had so blithely taken
+a moment before and, hearing the outgoing trolley whistling for the
+station, he speeded up and boarded the car for Louisville.
+
+Then Judith proceeded to sit down by her basket of broken china and
+burst into tears.
+
+"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried Jeff, no longer uncertain of what he
+should do. "Don't! Please don't! I wish I had wrung his neck."
+
+"You! Where did you come from?" gasped Judith. "I didn't see you. You
+needn't think I am crying because--because--"
+
+"Because you have been insulted?"
+
+"No. I'm just so miserable because last night I was so happy, and all
+day I have been happy and now I am not." She looked like a little girl
+who had just found out her doll was stuffed with sawdust.
+
+"Look at my dishes! As long as they had to be broken I wish I might
+have had the pleasure of hitting that man with them instead of making
+a dent in my perfectly good milk cooler." She laughed and began
+picking up the pieces of china.
+
+Was this the staid young lawyer who had determined to see no more of
+this red-haired girl--to nip in the bud any feeling he might have
+developed for her? Was this the same man, running down dale and up
+hill with a basket of broken china on his arm, while the red-haired
+girl chased on ahead with an empty milk can, running to make up for
+lost time and not be late with the motormen's supper? He must wait and
+help Judith carry the basket. She had no time to wrangle with him
+about whether he should or should not wait. Supper was cooked but it
+must be packed properly and the finishing touches put to it. Mrs. Buck
+was wandering around the kitchen making futile attempts to help.
+Jeff, who was sitting outside on a bench under the syringa bushes,
+could hear her querulous drawl and Judith's quick, good-natured
+replies.
+
+"Never mind the china, Mumsy. Some of the pieces can be used as soap
+dishes and some maybe we can mend. I'll tell you all about how it
+happened some day but now I must hurry. There's a young man waiting in
+the back yard to help me carry my basket. If you look out the side
+window you can see who it is, but don't let him see you peeping."
+
+Then there was the mad race back to the station. There was no time or
+breath for talk. They reached the platform several minutes before the
+seven o'clock trolley.
+
+"Heavens! I came mighty near forgetting what I came all the way from
+Buck Hill to find out," declared Jeff.
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"I got to wondering what you would have in your baskets this
+evening."
+
+"Ham croquettes, buttered beets, potato salad and hot muffins.
+Blackberry dumpling for dessert!" Judith smiled, as she chanted the
+menu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Miss Ann Moves On
+
+
+The Bucknors of Buck Hill were going abroad. It was all settled and
+they were to start as soon as necessary arrangements could be made.
+The plan had been born in Mildred's mind and she had influenced her
+mother, who in turn had persuaded her husband and now passage was
+engaged and it was only a matter of a few weeks before they would
+sail.
+
+It had all come about because Jeff had felt in duty bound to inform
+his sister that Tom Harbison had come back to Ryeville with the
+intention of calling on another girl, and that girl Judith Buck.
+
+"I always said she was a forward minx," stormed Mildred.
+
+"Right forward with her milk can," laughed Jeff, and then he told of
+Tom's rebuff and of the blow he had received instead of the kiss he
+demanded. "He's not worthy of you, little sister, and you must not
+bother your head about him," said Jeff.
+
+But Mildred did worry and sulk and feel miserable. Tom had made more
+impression on Mildred's heart than Jeff had dreamed possible. The girl
+was suffering from blighted affections as well as mortification--both
+of which no doubt would be dispelled by the European trip.
+
+Jeff was to settle in Louisville and the home would be closed, with
+Aunt Em'ly as caretaker. But what was to become of Cousin Ann?
+
+"We can't leave until her visit with us is completed," objected Mr.
+Bucknor.
+
+"But, my dear, her visit to us will never be finished, unless we cut
+it short," sighed Mrs. Bucknor.
+
+"Let her go visit some of the others," suggested Nan, "She's needing a
+change by this time anyhow."
+
+"We must not be unclannish," admonished Mr. Bucknor. "Blood is--"
+
+"Well, mine is not," interrupted Mildred. "I'm just fed up on all of
+this relationship business. Old Cousin Ann isn't very close kin to us
+anyhow, if you stop and think. She wasn't even more than a third
+cousin to Grandfather Bucknor, and when it comes down to us she is so
+far removed it wouldn't count if we lived anywhere but in Kentucky or
+maybe Virginia. I thought you were going to have a meeting and come
+to some conclusion about Cousin Ann."
+
+"So we are! So we are! I have been talking to Big Josh lately about
+it. Quite a problem! Big Josh does nothing but talk and laugh and we
+never get anywhere. However, we are going to have a gathering of the
+clan to-morrow in Ryeville and I shall bring up the subject."
+
+"Well, don't let them persuade you to give up our trip just to have
+old Cousin Ann have a place to visit. We've had more than our share of
+her already. If she had a spark of delicacy she would go now and not
+wait until we are all upset with packing and all. I know you have not
+told her that we are going abroad, but you know she snoops around
+enough to have heard us talking. I bet she knows what our plans are as
+well as we know ourselves."
+
+Mildred was right. Miss Ann did know the plans of her host and
+hostess. With windows and doors wide open and a whole family freely
+discussing their trip, it would have been difficult for one who
+retained the sense of hearing not to be aware that something was
+afoot. Miss Ann had heard and had determined to move on, but to which
+relation should she go? The faithful Billy was called in
+consultation.
+
+"Billy, you have heard?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Ann, I done hearn. I couldn't help a hearin' with niggers
+as full of it as whites."
+
+"I wonder why they did not talk openly to me of their plans."
+
+"Well, I reckon they's kinder shy, kase me'n you's a visitin'. I 'low
+we's gotter move on, Miss Ann." The old man's face was drawn with woe.
+"I kinder felt it a bad sign when Marse Jeff Bucknor up'n took hisse'f
+off to Lou'ville, an' now this talk 'bout the fambly a goin' ter
+furren parts an' a shuttin' up Buck Hill. Th'ain't no good gonter come
+of it--but howsomever we's gotter pack up an' leave."
+
+"But where are we going, Billy? Cousin Big Josh--"
+
+"Lawsamussy, Miss Ann, please don't mention that there domercile! Our
+ca'ige ain't good fer that trip. That lane would be the endin' er
+us-all. Don't you reckon we'd better rise an' shine to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes, Billy, but where? There's Cousin Little Josh and Cousin Sue and
+Cousin Tom and Philip Throckmorton and Cousin David's oldest daughter,
+whose married name has escaped me, but she is living in Jefferson
+County. Could the horses go so far?"
+
+"Miss Ann, I ain't so sho' 'bout the ca'ige, but I reckon if you don't
+hurry Cupid an' Puck none they's got a lot er go in them yet. I hear
+tell Miss Milly an' the two young ladies air a' contemplatin' a trip
+in ter Lou'ville in the mawnin' an' I done hear Marse Bob say he wa'
+a' gonter spen' the day in Ryeville with some er the kin folks, eatin'
+at the hotel. I 'low they'll git a right airly start."
+
+"Exactly! Well, so will we, Billy. As soon as they are gone we will go
+too."
+
+Miss Ann rather liked to make a mystery of her departure. One of her
+idiosyncrasies was that she seldom divulged the name of her next host
+to her last one. She would depart as suddenly as she had arrived,
+leaving a formal note of farewell if the head of the house happened to
+be away or asleep. She liked to travel early in the morning.
+
+"Where are we going, Billy?" Miss Ann's voice was tremulous and her
+eyes were misty.
+
+"Now, Miss Ann, s'pose you jes' leave that ter ol' Billy an' the
+hosses. We's gonter git somewhar an' they ain't no use'n worryin'
+whar. You go down an' set on the po'ch an' I'll pack yo' things an'
+I'll do it as good as anybody an' we'll crope out'n here in the
+mawnin' befo' Marse Bob an' Miss Milly's dus' air settled on the
+pike. I ain't a worryin' 'bout but one thing an' that is that a ol'
+dominicker hen air took ter settin' on the flo' er our coach an' I'm
+kinder hatin' ter 'sturb her when she feels so nice an' homelike. I
+reckon I kin lif her out kinder sof' an' maybe she kin hatch jes the
+same. She ain't got mo'n a day er so ter go."
+
+"Billy, I am sorry to leave the neighborhood without seeing that
+lovely girl--the one who sent me the gift and to whom the ball was
+tendered. She is in reality my kinswoman. I have been tracing the
+relationship and find she is the same kin as my cousins here at Buck
+Hill--the young people I mean. I am sorry I did not tell her so."
+
+"Yassum! Maybe some day you kin claim kin with her. I reckon she would
+be glad an' proud ter be cousins ter you, Miss Ann."
+
+Billy had never told his mistress of his visit to Judith. That young
+person had impressed him as being not at all proud of being of the
+same blood as the Bucknors, or in the least desirous of claiming the
+relationship. "But she wa'n't speakin' er my Miss Ann," he said to
+himself.
+
+Silently and swiftly old Billy packed his mistress's belongings. Every
+trunk, suitcase and telescope was in readiness for an early flitting.
+As he had boasted, they were starting almost before the dust raised by
+the departing car of Mr. and Mrs. Bucknor had settled.
+
+"Hi, what you so nimble-come-trimble 'bout this mawnin'?" asked Aunt
+Em'ly, as she met Billy laden with baggage, sneaking out the back way,
+planning to load his coach before hitching up.
+
+"Miss Ann an' me is done got a invite ter a house pawty an' we air
+gonter hit the pike in the cool er the mawnin'."
+
+"Wha' you goin'?"
+
+"Heaben when we die," was all Billy would divulge.
+
+"Miss Milly an' Marse Bob ain't said nothin' 'bout Miss Ann leavin'.
+Fac' is Miss Milly lef' word fer me ter dish up a good dinner fer Miss
+Ann whilst they wa' away an' serve it on a tray bein' as she wa' all
+alone."
+
+"Well, I 'low we'll be settin' down in the dinin'-room at the house
+pawty come dinner time," declared the old man, veiled insolence in his
+tone.
+
+"What I gonter tell Marse Bob an' Miss Milly when they axes wha' Miss
+Ann done took herself?"
+
+"I ain't consarned with what you tells 'em. My Miss Ann air done writ
+a letter ter Miss Milly an' if you ain't got a lie handy you kin jes'
+han' her the billy dux."
+
+"I allus been holdin' ter it an' I'll give it ter you extry clarified,
+you's a mean nigger man--mean an' low lifed. I axes you, politeful
+like, wha' you an' Miss Ann a goin' an' all you kin give me is sass."
+Aunt Em'ly was full of curiosity and was greatly irritated not to have
+her curiosity satisfied. But Billy was adamant and Miss Ann more
+dignified than usual, as she doled out her small tips--all the poor
+old lady could afford, but presented to the servants whenever she
+departed with the air of royalty.
+
+"Well, skip-ter-ma-loo, she's gone agin!" laughed Aunt Em'ly, as she
+stood with Kizzie and watched the old coach rolling down the avenue.
+"I reckon Marse Bob's gonter be right riled that I can't tell him wha'
+she goin' but you couldn't git nothin' outer that ol' Billy with an
+ice pick. I laid off ter ax Miss Ann herself but when she come a
+sailin' down the steps like she done swallowed the poker an' helt out
+this here dime ter me like it wa' a dollar somehow she looked kinder
+awesome an' I couldn't say nothin' but 'Thanky!' Kizzie, did you
+notice which-away the coach took when they reached the pike?"
+
+"I think it went up the road to'ds Marse Big Josh's," said Kizzie,
+"but the dus' air pow'ful thick right now, owin' ter ortermobiles
+goin' both ways, so I ain't quite sho'."
+
+"I wa' pretty night certain ol' Billy p'inted his hosses' heads to'ds
+Ryeville, but I ain't sho'. It air sech a misty, moisty mornin' an'
+what with the dus' it air hard ter punctuate. I reckon you's right,
+Kizzie, an' they's hit the pike fer Marse Big Josh's. Anyhow we'll say
+that when Marse Bob axes us. If you tells one tale an' I tells anudder
+Marse Bob'll be mad as a wet hen."
+
+The old coach, creaking ominously, lumbered and rolled down the
+avenue. The bees, with their front door blocked by the corn cob,
+hummed furiously. Miss Ann, ensconced behind the barricade of luggage,
+gazed out on the rolling meadows of Buck Hill and thought bitterly of
+the old days when devoted cavaliers accompanied her coach, eager to
+escort her on her journey and vying with one another for a smile from
+the careless girl within.
+
+She tried to remember the intervening years but could not. She was a
+beautiful young girl, sought after, welcomed everywhere. Then she was
+an old woman, unloved, unwelcome, nobody wanting her, nobody loving
+her. She did not know where Billy was driving her. She did not care.
+The old man had taken matters into his own hands and no doubt he would
+leave the decision to Cupid and Puck. She put her head against the
+upholstered back of the seat and dozed. The morning air came sweet and
+fresh across the blue-grass meadows. She had a dream, vague and
+uncertain, but in some unexpected and shadowy way she was happy. She
+awoke and dozed again. Again a sweet dream of peace and contentment.
+
+The horses came to a standstill. Miss Ann awoke with a start. She did
+not know whether she had slept moments or hours. Billy had opened the
+door and was saying: "Miss Ann, we done arriv!" and then he began to
+unpack his beloved mistress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A Heart-warming Welcome
+
+
+"Mumsy, here comes Cousin Ann!"
+
+"There you are at it again, Judith. I say shame on you for calling
+people cousin who don't even know they are related."
+
+"Anyhow, here comes Cousin Ann!"
+
+"Comes where? Along the pike? I don't see that that is anything to get
+excited over."
+
+"But it is not along the pike. She is coming here--here in our home.
+Old Billy has stopped the horses and is down off his box and has
+opened the door and is unpacking the luggage. After a little while he
+will come to Cousin Ann.
+
+"Do you know what that means, Mumsy? It means that we are to be taken
+into the bosom of the family, as it were. Cousin Ann only visits
+relations. I reckon I'm a snob but I can't help being glad that I am
+to belong. I won't let anybody but you know that, Mumsy, but I'm going
+to be just as nice and kind to poor Cousin Ann as can be. You will
+too, won't you, dear Mumsy?"
+
+"Well, I guess I know how to treat company," bridled Mrs. Buck.
+
+Miss Ann sat, dazed and wondering, while Billy pulled out the luggage
+and piled it up by the white picket fence. She did not know where the
+old coachman had brought her. She wondered vaguely if it could be the
+home of Cousin David's oldest daughter whose married name had escaped
+her. Could she have slept a whole day?
+
+Suddenly a red-haired girl in a blue dress came running down the walk
+and before Billy could get his mistress unpacked this girl had sprung
+into the coach and putting her arms around Miss Ann's neck kissed her
+first on one cheek and then on the other.
+
+"Mother and I are real glad to see you and we hope you and Uncle Billy
+will stay with us just as long as you are comfortable and happy," said
+Judith. "Howdy, Uncle Billy!"
+
+"Howdy, missy!" Great tears were coursing down the old brown face.
+
+"The guest chamber is all ready, except for being sheeted and that
+won't take me a minute. Just bring the things right in, Uncle Billy.
+Here, I'll help and then Miss Ann can get out."
+
+"Cousin Ann, child! I am your Cousin Ann Peyton." Miss Ann spoke from
+the depths of the coach. And then Mrs. Buck, having hastily tied on a
+clean apron, came down the walk and was introduced to the visitor,
+greeting her with shy hospitality.
+
+"I'm pleased to meet you. Judith and I'll be right glad of your
+company."
+
+How long had it been since anybody had said that to Miss Ann? The old
+lady flushed with pleasure.
+
+"You are my cousin-in-law, but I don't know your name."
+
+"Prudence--Prudence Knight was my maiden name."
+
+"Ah, then, Cousin Prudence! It is very kind of you and your daughter
+to greet me so cordially. I hope Billy and I will not be much trouble
+during our short stay with you. Are you certain it is convenient to
+have us?"
+
+Now be it noted that in all of the long years of visiting Miss Ann
+Peyton had never before asked whether or not her coming was
+convenient. Hitherto she had simply come and stayed until it suited
+her to move on.
+
+"Indeed it is convenient," cried Judith. "Mother and I are here all
+alone and we have loads of room."
+
+When Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Knight broke up housekeeping in New England
+they moved every stick of furniture they possessed to their new home.
+This furniture had been in the family for generations. There were old
+highboys of polished mahogany and chaste design, four-poster beds and
+gate-legged tables, a Sheraton sideboard and Chippendale chairs, a
+claw-footed secretary with leaded glass doors and secret drawers.
+There were hooked rugs and patchwork quilts of intricate and wonderful
+design, hand woven bedspreads of a blue seldom seen and Chinese
+cabinets and strange grotesque brasses, no doubt brought to New
+England by the Norse sailor man who had left his mark on the family
+according to Mrs. Buck.
+
+Miss Ann Peyton felt singularly at home from the moment she entered
+the front door. The guest chamber, where old Dick Buck had made it
+convenient to spend the last years of his life, was so pleasant one
+hardly blamed the old man for establishing himself there. A
+low-pitched room it was, with windows looking out over the meadow and
+furnished with mahogany so rare and beautiful it might have graced a
+museum.
+
+"Now, Cousin Ann, please make yourself absolutely at home. If you want
+to unpack immediately there is a dandy closet here, and here is a
+wardrobe and here is a highboy and here a bureau. Uncle Billy can
+take your trunks to the attic when you empty them. I wish I could help
+you, but Mumsy and I are up to our necks canning peaches and we can't
+stop a minute. If you want to come help peel we'd be delighted. We are
+on the side porch and it is lovely and cool out there," and Judith was
+gone.
+
+Help peel peaches! Why not? Miss Ann smiled. Nobody ever asked her to
+help. It was a new experience for her. She decided not to unpack
+immediately, but donned an apron and hastened to the side porch.
+
+It was pleasant there. Mrs. Buck was peeling laboriously, anxious not
+to waste a particle of fruit. She stopped long enough to get a paring
+knife and bowl for the visitor.
+
+"Judith has gone to show your servant where to put the carriage and
+horses and then to open up the house in the back for him. It was the
+old house the Bucks had before my father bought this place--a good
+enough house with furniture in it. Judith gives it a big cleaning now
+and then and I reckon the old man can move right in."
+
+Old Billy was in the seventh heaven of delight. A stable for Cupid and
+Puck, with plenty of good pasture land, a carriage house for the
+coach, shared with Judith's little blue car, but best of all, a house
+for himself!
+
+"A house with winders an' a chimbly an' a po'ch wha' I kin sot cans er
+jewraniums an' a box er portulac! I been a dreamin' 'bout sech a house
+all my life, Miss Judy. Sometimes when I is fo'ced ter sleep in the
+ca'ige, when Miss Ann an' me air a visitin' wha' things air kinder
+crowded like, I digs me up a little flower an' plants it in a ol' can
+an' kinder makes out my coachman's box air a po'ch. Miss Judy, it air
+a sad thing ter git ter be ol' an' wo' out 'thout ever gittin' what
+you wanted when you wa' young an' spry."
+
+"Yes, Uncle Billy, I know how you feel, but now you have a little
+house and you can live in it as long as it suits you and grow all the
+flowers you've a mind to. Nobody has lived in it for years and years
+but I used to play down here when I was a little girl and had time to
+play. Every now and then I give it a good cleaning, though, and you
+won't have to do much to start with."
+
+It was a rough, two-roomed cabin, with shabby furniture, but it seemed
+like a palace to the old darkey.
+
+"I reckon I'll put me up a red curtain," he sighed. "I been always a
+wantin' a red curtain, an' bless Bob, if they ain't already a row of
+skillets an' cookin' pots by the chimbly. I am moughty partial ter a
+big open fiah place wha' you kin make yo' se'f a ol' time ash cake."
+
+"Can you cook, Uncle Billy?"
+
+"Sho' I kin cook, but I ain't git much chanct ter cook, what with
+livin' roun' so much."
+
+"Well, you can help me sometimes when I get pushed for time," and
+Judith told the old man of the task she had undertaken of feeding the
+motormen.
+
+"Sholy! Sholy!" he agreed and then the thought came to him as it had
+to Miss Ann--When before had he been asked to help?
+
+Judith found the two ladies busily engaged in paring peaches. She was
+amused to discover that Miss Ann was quicker than her mother and more
+expert. The old lady's fingers were nimble and dainty and she handled
+her knife with remarkable skill.
+
+"My goodness! You go so fast I can begin to can," cried Judith. Miss
+Ann's face beamed with happiness as she watched her young cousin
+weighing sugar and fruit and then lighting the kerosene stove which
+stood behind a screen in the corner of the porch.
+
+Judith kept up a lively chatter as she sterilized glass jars and
+dipped out the cooked fruit. Miss Ann worked faster and faster and
+even Mrs. Buck hurried in spite of herself. Uncle Billy's amazement
+was ludicrous when he came upon his mistress making one of this busy
+family group. But in an instant the old man was helping, too.
+
+The morning was gone but the peaches were all canned, the table filled
+with amber-colored jars. Billy must carry them to the storeroom and
+place them on the shelves. He ran back and forth looking like a little
+brown gnome and actually skipping with happiness. Miss Ann smiled
+contentedly while Mrs. Buck gathered up the peach skins and stones
+which she had saved with a view to making marmalade, although Judith
+assured her that the peach crop was so big that year there would be no
+use in such close economy.
+
+"Now, we'll have luncheon and then everybody must take a nap,"
+commanded Judith and everybody was very glad to, after the strenuous
+morning's work, but first Billy slipped out to the carriage house and
+pulled the corn cob out of the bumble bees' hole.
+
+"There now, you po' critters! I reckon you kin call this home too an'
+jes' buzz aroun' all you'se a min' ter," the old man whispered
+happily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+The Clan In Conclave
+
+
+Mr. Bob Bucknor was troubled. He had always prided himself on keeping
+an open house for his relations and to him Cousin Ann was a kind of
+symbol of consanguinity. He paid very little attention to her as a
+rule, except to be scrupulously polite. He had been trained in
+politeness to Cousin Ann from his earliest childhood and had
+endeavored to bring his own children up with the same strict regard to
+hospitality and courtesy to his aged relative. His son had profited by
+his teaching and was ever kindly to the old lady, but his daughters
+had rebelled, and it could not be denied were even openly rude to the
+chronic visitor. Now this project of European travel was afoot and the
+problem of what to do with Cousin Ann must be settled. The masculine
+representatives of the family were meeting in Ryeville and the matter
+was soon under discussion.
+
+"It's the women," declared Big Josh. "They are kicking like steers
+and they say they won't stand for her any longer."
+
+"My wife says she has got a nice old cousin who would like to come and
+stay with us, and that she does all the darning wherever she stays and
+looks after the children besides. Nobody ever heard of Cousin Ann
+turning a hand to help anybody," said Little Josh.
+
+"Well, I fancy you have heard the news that I am taking my wife and
+daughters abroad this month and I cannot keep the poor old lady any
+longer," sighed Bob Bucknor.
+
+"Sure, Bob, we think you've had too much of her already," said Sister
+Sue's husband, Timothy Graves, "but Sue says she can't visit with us
+any more. The children are big enough now to demand separate rooms and
+our house is not very large--not as large as it used to be somehow. In
+old days people didn't mind doubling up, but nobody wants to double up
+with Cousin Ann and her horses are a nuisance and that old Billy
+irritates the servants and--"
+
+"My mother says an old ladies' home is the only thing for her," said
+David Throckmorton.
+
+"So do all the women. But who's going to bell the cat?" asked Big
+Josh.
+
+"I reckon we'll have to go in a body and speak in chorus," suggested
+Little Josh. It was thus decided, after much argument. All the
+cousins were willing to contribute something towards the support of
+the old lady, but nobody was willing or able to take her in his home.
+
+"Of course, we must provide for old Billy, too."
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Well, after dinner all of you ride out to Buck Hill and there wait on
+the poor old thing and together we can break the news to her. It's
+going to make me feel awfully bad," declared Mr. Bob Bucknor.
+
+"I reckon we'll all feel bad, but none of us must weaken," blustered
+Big Josh. "And while we are discussing family matters, how about this
+talk about that pretty Miss Judith Buck being a cousin?"
+
+"The women folk have settled that. At least mine have; and since we
+are the closest neighbors there at Buck Hill--" began Bob Bucknor.
+
+"You may be the closest neighbors, but you are not the closest kin.
+I'm for taking her into the clan. By golly, we haven't got too many
+pretty women in our family to be turning any down. I tell you, I'm
+going to call on her. Owe her a party call anyhow." Thus rumbled Big
+Josh.
+
+"Better not," warned Mr. Bob Bucknor and then, since the clan were
+having dinner at the hotel where "you could" and a feeling of good
+cheer had begun to permeate the diners, Mr. Bucknor proceeded to tell
+the story, of course in the strictest confidence, about Tom Harbison
+and the milk can, all of which went to convince others beside Big Josh
+that Judith might prove a valuable acquisition to the family.
+
+"I reckon she's coped with worse than our women," said Little Josh.
+"With poverty staring her in the face and old Dick Buck for a
+grandfather, she's kept her head up and made a living and got a tidy
+bank account, so I hear. All by herself, too! I think I'll call when
+you do, Big Josh, but I'll fight shy of the milk cans."
+
+So it was voted that Judith was to be received into the family, Mr.
+Bob Bucknor making a mental reservation that he would not divulge the
+news to his wife and daughters until they were well out of Kentucky.
+He had strong hopes that European travel might soften the hearts of
+his daughters towards their pretty, red-haired cousin and neighbor.
+
+"While we've got a little Dutch courage left, let's go on out to Buck
+Hill and tackle Cousin Ann," said Big Josh. "Now remember, all at
+once and nobody backing out and coughing. Everybody speak up strong
+and all together."
+
+A handsome family of men they were, taken all in all--handsome and
+prosperous, good citizens, honorable, upright, courageous--but this
+thing of deliberately getting together to inform a poor old woman that
+no longer would their several homes be ready to receive her made them
+seem to themselves anything but admirable.
+
+"Darn the women folks, I say!" rumbled Big Josh. "If they weren't so
+selfish and bent on their own pleasure we would not have to be doing
+this miserable thing."
+
+"Perhaps if we had helped them a little with Cousin Ann they wouldn't
+be kicking so," humbly suggested Little Josh.
+
+"Help them! Help them! How in Pete's name could we help them any more?
+I am sure I have allowed Cousin Ann to give me a lamp mat every
+Christmas since I was born and my attic is full of her hoop skirts." A
+smile went the rounds and Big Josh subsided.
+
+Buck Hill never looked more hospitable or attractive, as the cousins
+speeded up the driveway--two cars full of Kentucky blue blood. The
+gently rolling meadows dotted with grazing cattle, the great friendly
+beech trees on the shaven lawn, the monthly roses in the garden, the
+ever-blooming honeysuckle clambering over the summer-house seemed to
+cry out, "Welcome to all!"
+
+"Gee! Poor Cousin Ann!" muttered one. "No wonder she likes to stay
+here."
+
+An unwonted silence fell on the group, as they tiptoed up the front
+walk. They could not have said why they walked so quietly, but had
+they been called on to serve as pall bearers to their aged relative
+they would not have entered into the duty with any greater solemnity.
+
+Aunt Em'ly appeared at the front door.
+
+"Lawsamussy, Marse Bob, you done give me a turn," she gasped, bobbing
+a courtesy to the assembled gentlemen. "Is you done et?"
+
+"Yes, yes, Aunt Em'ly, we have had dinner, but we should like to--"
+
+"Yassir! I'll git the ice cracked in no time an' sen' Kizzie fer some
+mint."
+
+"Not yet, Aunt Em'ly," faltered her master miserably. "A little later,
+perhaps, but now--"
+
+"I know! You done had a po' dinner an' come home fer some 'spectable
+victuals. It ain't gonter take me long."
+
+"Not at all, Aunt Em'ly, we had an excellent dinner, but now--"
+
+"Call Miss Ann Peyton," blustered Big Josh. "Tell her her cousins all
+want to see her," and then he swelled his chest with pride. He for one
+wasn't going to back out.
+
+"Miss Ann done gone," grinned Aunt Em'ly.
+
+"Gone where?" they asked in chorus.
+
+"Gawd knows! She an' ol' Billy an' the hosses done took theyselves off
+this mawnin' jes' 'bout five minutes after my white folks lef."
+
+"Didn't she say where she was going?" asked Mr. Bucknor.
+
+"She never said 'peep turkey!' ter man or beast. She lef' a dime fer
+me an' one fer Kizzie an' she went a sailin' out, an' although I done
+my bes' ter git that ol' Billy ter talk he ain't done give me no
+satisfaction, but jes' a little back talk, an' then he fotch hisself
+off, walkin' low an' settin' high an' I ain't seed hide or har of them
+since. Miss Ann done lef' a note fer you an' Miss Milly, though."
+
+The note proved to be nothing more than Miss Ann's usual formal
+farewell and did not mention her proposed destination.
+
+"By the great jumping jingo, I hope she didn't try my lane with her
+old carriage!" exclaimed Big Josh. "That lane, with the women in my
+family at the end of it, would be the undoing of poor old Cousin Ann.
+May I use your phone, Bob? I think I'll find out if she's there
+before I go home."
+
+Every man rang up his home and every man breathed a sigh of relief
+when he found that Miss Ann had not arrived. Wild and varied were
+their surmises concerning where she had gone.
+
+"This is the most disgraceful thing that ever happened in the family,"
+declared Timothy Graves. "Of course I know I am only law-kin, but
+still I feel the disgrace."
+
+"You needn't be so proud of yourself, Tim, because you were some kin
+already before you married Sister Sue," chided Brother Tom. "I can't
+see that you are not in on it too."
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"Yes, but you said it because you really felt it in your favor that
+you were law-kin," put in Little Josh.
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Come, come," pleaded Mr. Bob Bucknor, "rowing with each other isn't
+finding out where Cousin Ann has gone. Kizzie! Aunt Em'ly!" he
+shouted, "get that cracked ice and mint now. Come on, you fellows, and
+let's see if we can find any inspiration in the bottom of a frosted
+goblet."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A Great Transformation
+
+
+It was unbelievable that a lumbering coach, with two fat horses, an
+old lady in a hoop skirt and a bow-legged coachman, could have
+disappeared from the face of the earth. Nevertheless, this seemed the
+case. Nobody knew where Cousin Ann had gone. Telephones were ringing
+into the night in vain attempts to trace the old lady. It had never
+made much difference to anyone before where Miss Ann had gone. For
+many years she had been leaving one relation's home and arriving at
+another's, and the comings and goings of Cousin Ann had created but a
+small ripple in family affairs. She had never deigned to say where
+next she intended to visit, so why now should the cousins be so
+disturbed over her whereabouts?
+
+"I am so afraid something has happened to her," said Mr. Bob Bucknor.
+"I'll never forgive myself if Cousin Ann is in trouble, when I have
+literally driven her from my house."
+
+"But, my dear, you have not driven her from your home," comforted his
+wife. "You had only intended to inform her that we were planning a
+trip abroad and she would have to visit somewhere else until
+arrangements could be made for her to be established in an old ladies'
+home. There was nothing cruel in that."
+
+"Ah, but Cousin Ann is so proud and Buck Hill has always been a refuge
+for her."
+
+The other cousins were likewise agitated. For Cousin Ann to have
+disappeared just as they were contemplating wounding her made them
+think that they had already wounded her. "Poor old lady!" was all they
+could say, and all of them said it until their women-folk were
+exceedingly bored with the remark.
+
+Mr. Bob Bucknor determined to send for Jeff, if something definite was
+not heard of the missing cousin within the next twenty-four hours. He
+vaguely felt that it might be time for the law to step in and help in
+the search.
+
+In the meantime Miss Ann was very happy in the house built by Ezra
+Knight; and Uncle Billy was even happier in the cabin built by the
+Bucks of old. The Peyton coach stood peacefully in the carriage house,
+with the bees buzzing sleepily, free to come and go in their subway
+nest somewhere under the back seat. Cupid and Puck wandered in the
+blue-grass meadow, content as though they had been put to graze in
+the Elysian fields.
+
+The first night under the roof of her newly recognized cousins was a
+novel one for Miss Ann. She had gone to bed not in the least bored,
+but very tired--tired from actual labor. In the first place, she had
+helped wipe all the many dishes accumulated from the motormen's
+dinners and then put them away. That task completed, she had become
+interested in Judith's work of mounting photographs--an order lately
+received and one that must be rushed.
+
+"Want to help?" Judith had asked, and soon deft old fingers were vying
+with young ones.
+
+"Why, Cousin Ann, you have regular fairy fingers," said Judith, and
+the old lady had blushed with delight. They worked until the task was
+completed, while Mrs. Buck nodded over "Holy Living and Dying."
+
+In the morning, when Judith made her early way to the kitchen, she
+found a fire burning briskly in the stove, the kettle ready to boil
+and the wood box filled. Uncle Billy, smiling happily, was seated in
+the doorway. Judith thanked him heartily and he assured her he liked
+to help white ladies, but didn't hold much to helping his own race.
+
+"They's ongrateful an' proudified an' the mo' you holps 'em the mo'
+they shifts. Me'n Miss Ann has been visitin so long we ain't entered
+much inter housekeepin', but somehow we seem so sot an' statiumnary
+now that it comes nachul ter both er us ter len' a han'."
+
+"That's nice," laughed Judith. "I do hope you and Cousin Ann and Cupid
+and Puck will all feel at home. I wish you would keep your eye open
+for a nice, respectable woman who could help me, now that I have so
+many dinners to serve to the trolley men."
+
+"I sho' will--an', Miss Judy, I'm wonderin' if you ain't got a little
+bitser blue cloth what I mought patch my pants with. If my coattails
+wa'n't so long I wouldn't be fitten ter go 'mongst folks."
+
+After some discussion with her mother, in which the girl tried to make
+Mrs. Buck see the difference between saving and hoarding, Judith
+finally produced for old Billy many leftovers of maternal and paternal
+grandfathers.
+
+"Mumsy, you are a trump. Now, you see you saved these things so
+someone deserving could use them, but if they had stayed in the attic
+until the moths had eaten them up while old Billy went ragged then
+that would have been wasteful hoarding."
+
+"I'm not minding so much about your Grandfather Buck's things, but
+somehow it seems a desecration for that old darkey to be wearing your
+Grandfather Knight's trousers."
+
+"That's what makes me say you are a trump, Mumsy. I know you look upon
+those broadcloth pants as a kind of sacred trust, and I just love you
+to death for giving in about them."
+
+"And my father was tall and straight of limb, too," wailed Mrs. Buck.
+"It seems worse because old Billy's legs are so short and crooked."
+
+Crooked they may have been, but short they were not. By the time the
+broadcloth trousers traveled the circuitous route of the old man's
+legs everything came out even.
+
+"Fit me like they was made fer me," he exclaimed, showing himself to
+Judith.
+
+"Perhaps they were," mused Judith. "And now the coat!"
+
+It was a rusty coat, long of tail and known at the time of its
+pristine glory as a "Prince Albert." Ezra Knight had kept it for
+funerals and other ceremonious occasions.
+
+"Is there ary hat?"
+
+There was--a high silk hat with a broad brim. Mrs. Buck rather thought
+it was one that had belonged to her grandfather and not her father.
+At any rate, it rested comfortably on Billy's cotton white wool.
+
+"Now, Uncle Billy, trim your beard and nobody will know you,"
+suggested Judith. So trim his beard he did, much to the improvement of
+his appearance.
+
+"Reform number one!" said Judith to herself.
+
+Miss Ann slept the sleep of industry that first night at the Bucks',
+and the sun was high when she opened her tired old eyes. She lay still
+for a moment, wondering where she was. This room was different from
+any of the other guest chambers she had occupied. There was a kind of
+austerity in the quaint old furniture that was lacking in the bedrooms
+where modern taste held sway. Nothing had been taken from or added to
+the Bucks' guest chamber since Grandmother Knight had reverently
+placed there her best highboy and her finest mahogany bed and candle
+stand. On the mantel was the model of a ship that tradition said the
+Norse sailor had carved, and on the walls steel engravings of Milton
+and Newton--Milton looking up at the stars seeking the proper rhymes,
+and Newton with eyes cast down searching out the power of gravity from
+the ground.
+
+Miss Ann looked on her surroundings and smiled peacefully. She thought
+over the happenings of yesterday and again she realized that it was a
+pleasant thing to be wanted. There was a knock at the door. Billy, no
+doubt with hot water and maybe an early cup of coffee.
+
+"Come in!"
+
+It was Judith bearing a tray of breakfast.
+
+"Not a bit of use in your getting up early, Cousin Ann, but every
+reason for you to have breakfast while it is fresh and hot, so I just
+brought it in to you. I often make my mother stay in bed for breakfast
+if she is not feeling very strong. There is nothing like starting the
+day with something in your tummy. It is a lovely day with a touch of
+autumn in the air. I do hope you slept."
+
+Judith chattered on, ignoring the fact that Miss Ann was evidently
+embarrassed that she had been caught minus her wig. The girl opened
+wide the shutters, letting the sunlight stream into the room.
+
+"Oh, Cousin Ann, what wonderful hair you have! Why it is like the
+driven snow and as soft as silk! Please, please let me arrange it for
+you sometimes. I don't know whether you ought to wear it piled on your
+head in coils and puffs, like a French beauty of way back yonder, or
+parted in the middle and waved on each side and drawn back into a
+loose knot."
+
+"Oh, child, you can't think gray hair pretty."
+
+"Why, it is the loveliest thing in the world. If I had hair like yours
+I'd never cover it up. You will let me try to dress it won't you? I
+just love to touch it," and Judith fondled one of the silvered plats.
+
+"Yes," faltered the old lady. How long had it been since anyone but
+old Billy had complimented her? And when had anyone said her hair
+might be soft to the touch? Wigs do not last forever and Miss Ann had
+begun to realize that before many weeks a new one would be imperative.
+A new wig meant even greater scrimping than usual for Billy and his
+mistress. Funds must be very carefully handled when such an outlay
+became necessary. It was next in importance to a new horse, and
+greater than renewing a wheel on the coach. She had never dreamed that
+she might get along without a wig. She had begun wearing a wig many
+years ago, when her hair turned gray in spots. She had always
+considered dyed hair rather vulgar and so had resorted to a wig and,
+true to her character for keeping up a custom, she had never discarded
+the wig, although her hair had long since turned snow-white from root
+to end.
+
+"Reform number two," Judith said to herself as she viewed her
+handiwork on Cousin Ann's hair. It was decided to part it in the
+middle and wave it on the sides and sweetly the old lady's face was
+framed in the soft, silver locks.
+
+"You look different from yourself, but lovely," cried Judith. "You
+make me think of a young person trying to look old."
+
+She might have added: "Instead of an old person trying to look young,"
+but she did not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+The Lost Is Found
+
+
+Two days passed and still the Bucknor clan was in ignorance of the
+whereabouts of Cousin Ann. It had so happened that Judith had been
+busy at home and had not gone into Ryeville for several days and
+nobody had called at her home, although since the famous debut party
+the Bucks had many more visitors than formerly.
+
+Cousin Ann could not have concealed herself from the world more
+effectually had she tried. Concealment was far from her thoughts,
+however. She had no idea that a hue and cry would be raised for her.
+The Fates, in the shapes of Billy, Cupid and Puck, had taken her
+destiny in hand and landed her with this golden girl, who wanted her
+and loved her and petted her and made her feel at home. Here she would
+stay. How long? She would not let herself dwell on that subject.
+
+What the rest of the family would think of her claiming kin with the
+hitherto impossible Bucks made little difference to the old lady. She
+determined never to divulge that old Billy had engineered the visit,
+but intended, when the question came up with her kinsmen, to let it be
+understood that she, Ann Peyton, had ruled that Judith Buck belonged
+to the family and had as good a right to the name of Bucknor as any
+person bearing the name.
+
+The old men of Ryeville were seated in tilted chairs on the hotel
+porch. The little touch of autumn in the air made it rather pleasant
+when the sun sought out their feet resting on the railing.
+
+"What's this I hear about the disappearance of Miss Ann Peyton?" asked
+Major Fitch. "Someone told me that she has not been heard of now for
+several days and Bob Bucknor is just about having a fit over it. He
+and Big Josh are scouring the country for her, after having burnt up
+all the telephone wires in the county trying to locate her."
+
+"It's true," chuckled Colonel Crutcher. "My granddaughter says Mildred
+Bucknor is raising a rumpus because her father is saying he can't go
+abroad until Cousin Ann is found. First, he can't go because the old
+lady is visiting him and now he can't go because she isn't visiting
+him."
+
+"Well, a big, old ramshackledy rockaway like Miss Ann's, with a pair
+of horses fat enough to eat and the bow-leggedest coachman in
+Kentucky, to say nothing of Miss Ann herself with her puffy red wig
+and hoop skirts as wide as a barn door, couldn't disappear in a rat
+hole. They must be somewhere and they must have gone along the road to
+get where they were going. Certainly they haven't passed this way or
+we'd have seen them," said Judge Middleton.
+
+"I hear tell Bob Bucknor has sent for Jeff to come and advise him,"
+drawled Pete Barnes. "And I also hear tell that the Bucknor men were
+gettin' ready to let poor ol' Miss Ann know that she was due to settle
+herself in an ol' ladies' home. They were cookin' it up that day they
+all had dinner here last week."
+
+"Yes, and what's more, I hear our Judy gal knocked that Tom Harbison
+down the hill with a milk bucket," laughed Pete. "I got it straight
+from Big Josh himself."
+
+So the old men gossiped, basking in the autumn sunshine. They still
+quarreled over the outcome of the war between the states, but now they
+had a fresh topic of never-ending interest to discuss and that was
+their own debut party. Congratulations were ever in order on their
+extreme cleverness in giving the ball.
+
+Pete Barnes was ever declaring, "It was my idee, though, my idee! And
+didn't we launch our little girl, though? I hear tell she is going to
+be asked to join the girls' club. That's a secret. I believe the girls
+are going to wait until Mildred and Nan Bucknor are on the rolling
+deep. As for the young men--they are worse than bears about a bee
+tree. Judy won't have much to do with them though. But you needn't
+tell me she doesn't like it."
+
+"Sure she does. She's too healthy-minded not to like beaux. There she
+comes now! I can see her car way up the street--just a blue speck,"
+cried Judge Middleton.
+
+"Sure enough! There she is! She's got her mother in with her."
+
+"That's not Mrs. Buck. Mrs. Buck always sits in Judy's car as though
+she were scared to death--and she hasn't white hair either."
+
+"Hi, Miss Judy!"
+
+"Hi, yourself!" and Judith stopped her car in front of the hotel.
+
+"Boys, that's Miss Ann Peyton!" cried Major Fitch. "Miss Ann or I'll
+eat my hat!"
+
+"She's already eaten her wig. No wonder we didn't know her! And she's
+left off her hoops!" cried the Judge.
+
+The old men removed their feet from railing, dropped their chairs to
+all fours, sprang up and, standing in a row, made a low bow to the
+occupants of the little blue car. Then they trooped off the porch and
+gathered in a circle around the ladies.
+
+"The last I heard of you, Miss Ann, was that you were lost," said
+Judge Middleton.
+
+"Not a bit of it," declared Judith. "She is found."
+
+"Yes--and I think I've found myself, too," said Miss Ann softly. "I am
+visiting my dear young cousin, Judith Buck."
+
+"At my urgent invitation," explained Judith.
+
+"I am staying on at her invitation, but I followed my usual habit and
+went uninvited," said the old lady firmly.
+
+The old men listened in amazement. What was this? Miss Ann Peyton
+openly claiming relationship with old Dick Buck's granddaughter and
+riding around--minus wig and hoops--with the new-found cousin in a
+home-made blue car! Miss Ann was meek but happy.
+
+"Well, I swan!" exclaimed Pete Barnes.
+
+"What do you suppose he meant by saying they thought you were lost?"
+Judith asked on the way home from Ryeville. "Didn't they know you were
+coming to me?"
+
+"No," faltered Miss Ann. "I seldom divulge where I intend to visit
+next. That is my affair," she added with a touch of her former
+hauteur--a manner she had discarded with the wig and hoop skirt. Wild
+horses could not drag from her the fact that she had not known herself
+where she was going.
+
+"That's all right, Cousin Ann, but if you ever get tired of staying at
+my house I am going to be hurt beyond measure if you go off without
+telling me where you are going. Promise me you'll never treat me that
+way."
+
+"I promise. I have never told the others because it has never made any
+difference to them."
+
+When the blue car disappeared up the street the old men of Ryeville
+went into conference.
+
+"Don't that beat bobtail?"
+
+"Do you fellows realize that means our gal is recognized for good and
+all? Miss Ann may be played out as a visitor with her kinfolks, but
+she's still head forester of the family tree," said Judge Middleton.
+
+"Don't you reckon we'd better 'phone Buck Hill or Big Josh or some of
+the family that Miss Ann is found?" asked Pete Barnes.
+
+"No, let's let 'em worry a while longer. They've been kinder careless
+of Miss Ann to have mislaid her, and mighty snobbish with our gal not
+to have claimed kin with her long ago. My advice is let 'em worry, let
+'em worry," decreed Major Fitch.
+
+Miss Ann wasn't lost very long, however. That same evening, when
+Judith made her daily trip to the trolley stop with the men's dinner,
+Jefferson Bucknor stepped from the rear platform of the six-thirty.
+
+"In time to carry your 'empties' for you," he said, shaking Judith's
+hand with a warmth that his casual greeting did not warrant. Judith
+surrendered the basket, but held on to the empty milk can.
+
+"Your trusty weapon," said Jeff, and they both laughed. "Have you
+knocked anybody down lately?" the young man asked.
+
+"Not many, but I am always prepared with my milk can. It is a deadly
+weapon, with or without buttermilk."
+
+"I wonder if you are anywhere near so glad to see me as I am to see
+you. I have been sticking to business and trying to make believe that
+Louisville is as nice as Ryeville, and Louisville girls are as
+beautiful as they are reputed to be, and that the law is the most
+interesting thing in the world, but somehow I can't fool myself. Are
+you glad to see me?"
+
+"Of course," said Judith.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't swing that milk can so vigorously. I think a
+cousin might be allowed to ask if you are glad to see him without
+being in danger of having to take the same medicine Tom Harbison had
+to swallow. I've come home on a rather sad mission, in a way, and
+still I wanted to see my little cousin so much I can't help making a
+kind of lark of it. I am really worried very much, and should go to
+Buck Hill immediately, but if you don't mind, I'll hang around while
+you get the seven o'clock dinners packed and then help you carry
+them."
+
+Judith did not mind at all. "I hope nobody at Buck Hill is ill," she
+said.
+
+"No, but my father is in a great stew over old Cousin Ann Peyton. She
+is lost and he seems to feel I can find her. Why, I don't know, if he
+and Big Josh can't, even with the help of the marshal."
+
+"I am sure you can," declared Judith demurely, and Jeff thought
+happily how agreeable it was to have someone besides a father have
+such faith in his ability.
+
+"You must come in and wait," insisted Judith. "There is a fire in the
+dining-room. It is cold for September and a little fire towards
+evening is pleasant."
+
+Jeff entered the home of his newly claimed cousin with a feeling of
+some embarrassment. It seemed strange that he had lived on the
+adjoining farm all his early years and that this was the first time he
+had been in the Bucks' house. There was a chaste New England charm
+about the dining-room that appealed to him. It was a fit background
+for the tall, white-haired old lady who was busily engaged in setting
+the table as the young people entered. She was smiling and humming a
+gay little minuet, as she straightened table mats and arranged forks
+and knives in exactly the proper relation to each other and the
+teaspoons.
+
+Stooping and placing wood on the fire was an old negro man. His back
+was strangely familiar to Jeff and there was something about the lines
+of the white-haired old lady that made him stare. She was like Cousin
+Ann but couldn't be she. Not only the snowy hair and the simple,
+straight skirt of her gown were not those of the lost cousin, but the
+fact that she was engaged in household duties was even more convincing
+of a case of mistaken identity. It was old Billy that had flashed
+through his mind, when he noticed the fire maker, but old Billy never
+engaged in any form of domestic labor any more than his mistress.
+
+"Someone to see you, Cousin Ann," said Judith, putting her arm around
+the old lady's waist.
+
+Jeff choked and gasped.
+
+That evening the telephone wires were again kept hot by the Bucknors
+and their many kinsmen. Everybody who had been informed of Miss Ann's
+being lost must be informed of her being found. Big and Little Josh
+drove over to Buck Hill to hear the story of Jeff's discovery.
+
+"And what were you doing at the Bucks'?" Big Josh asked Jeff.
+
+"I was calling on Miss Judith. In fact, I had jumped off the trolley
+at that stop because I hoped she would be there," said Jeff, his face
+flushing but his eyes holding a steady light as he looked into those
+of his father's cousin. He even raised his voice a little so as to
+make sure that everyone in the room might hear him.
+
+"Well, well!" exploded Big Josh. "You have beat me to it. I was
+planning to go to-morrow to call on our Cousin Judith Buck. You know
+she is our cousin, Jeff--not too close, but just close enough. She has
+been voted into the family when we sat in solemn conclave and now to
+think of her proving she is kin before we had time to let her know of
+her election--prove it by taking poor Cousin Ann in and making her
+welcome! By jingo, she is a more worthy member of the clan than any
+woman we have in the family. I was all for taking her in because she
+is so gol darned pretty and up-and-coming. I must confess I wouldn't
+have been so eager about it if she had been jimber-jawed and
+cross-eyed, but, by the great jumping jingo, I'd say be my long-lost
+cousin now if she had a wooden leg, a glass eye and china teeth!"
+
+"Cousin Ann has left off her wig and her hoop skirts, too," said Jeff,
+"and old Billy has trimmed his beard, and, what is more, both of them
+were busy helping--Cousin Ann setting the table and Uncle Billy
+bringing in wood and mending the fire."
+
+"Did Judith Buck make them do it," asked Mildred. "She was a great
+boss at school."
+
+"That I don't know, but they seemed very happy in being able to help.
+Mrs. Buck told me she was glad to have a visitor. Her daughter is away
+so much and she gets lonely. Old Uncle Billy is established in a cabin
+behind the house--"
+
+"The one old Dick Buck lived in," interrupted Big Josh.
+
+"And the old man told me he was planning to do the fall ploughing with
+Cupid and Puck. He says they have plenty of pull left in them and my
+private opinion is that Cousin Ann's old coach will not stand another
+trip."
+
+"See here," spoke Little Josh, who was the practical member of the
+family, "this is all very well, but we Bucknors can't sit back and let
+this little Judy Buck support our old cousin. The girl works night and
+day for a living and to try to pull the farm her Grandfather Knight
+left her and her mother back into some kind of fertility. Old Billy
+and Cousin Ann may set the table and make the fires, but that isn't
+bringing any money into the business. We've got to reimburse the girl
+somehow."
+
+"She wouldn't stand for it," said Jeff. "She is as proud as can be to
+be able to have Cousin Ann visit her."
+
+"Well, then we'll have to find a way that won't hurt her pride. Let's
+send things to Cousin Ann. It will please the old lady and at the same
+time help on our Cousin Judith."
+
+"What kind of things?" asked Mr. Bob Bucknor, who had been singularly
+quiet and thoughtful ever since his mind was relieved as to his
+cousin's not being lost.
+
+"The kind of things neighbors and kinsmen do for one another in our
+state and all other states where neighbors are neighborly and where
+blood is thicker than water, and blue blood thicker than any other
+kind," exclaimed Big Josh. "When you kill mutton don't you send me a
+quarter? Well, send one to the Bucks instead. When your potato crop
+was a failure owing to the bugs getting ahead of you, didn't I share
+with you? Well, let me share with this girl. When I harvest, aren't
+all the relations ready to send hands to help if I need help? Who ever
+helped Judith Buck?
+
+"I bet your smokehouse is full and running over this minute. I know
+mine is. Well, let them run over in the right channel. We can't do
+enough for this young cousin. Gee, man, just to think of our being
+spared the humiliation of having to go to Cousin Ann and, tell her
+that we couldn't look after her any longer! I break out in a cold
+sweat whenever I think of how near we came to it.
+
+"If Cupid and Puck can't pull the plough, how about sending your
+tractor over and getting Cousin Judith's few acres broken up for her
+in three shakes of a dead sheep's tail? I'd do it if I were closer.
+Why, jiminy crickets! We owe her an everlasting debt of gratitude just
+for persuading Cousin Ann to step out of her wig and hoops, and
+another one for making that old Billy trim his beard. I believe his
+beard was what made the other darkeys hate him so, and I know if it
+hadn't have been for Cousin Ann's hoop skirt and wig she would have
+been helping the women folk around the house long before this. What
+they had against her was that she was always company wherever she
+stayed. I tell you, give me a red-headed girl for managing!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Blessings Begin to Flow
+
+
+"Well, I say it's a good thing these cousins of yours didn't decide
+sooner to recognize you, Judy, because if they had we wouldn't have
+had a single chair with a bottom left in it and the hooked rugs your
+Grandmother Knight brought to Kentucky would have been nothing but
+holes," declared Mrs. Buck. "I never saw so much company in my born
+days and constant setting wears out chairs and constant rocking wears
+out rugs.
+
+"I don't say as it isn't nice to have company. I've been lonesome, in
+a way, all my life, because my mother and father weren't much hands at
+mixing, feeling themselves to be kind of different from the folks here
+in Kentucky, and then I married young, and trouble came early, and my
+poor dear husband's father wasn't the kind to attract the kind of
+people my mother felt were our equals--but now, sakes alive, never a
+day passes but it isn't cousin this and cousin that, coming to call
+or ringing the 'phone or sending some kind of present to Miss Ann.
+
+"What do they expect Miss Ann to do with a bushel of winter onions and
+a barrel of potatoes and a keg of cider and a barrel of flour and six
+sides of bacon, two jowls and three hams, besides two barrels of
+apples and a hind quarter of the prettiest mutton I've seen for many a
+day? This morning a truck drove up with enough wood to last us half
+through the winter--the best kind of oak and pine mixed and all cut
+stove length ready for splitting. That old Billy is mighty nice about
+splitting the wood and bringing it in. He's the most respectful
+colored person I ever saw and the only one I'd ever have around."
+
+Mrs. Buck paused for breath and then proceeded: "While you were off
+teaching to-day somebody Miss Ann called Cousin Betty Throckmorton
+came to call and brought two daughters and a grandchild. I was mighty
+sorry for them to miss you and I told them so. I think Mrs.
+Throckmorton rather thought I ought to have said I was sorry for you
+to miss her, but being as she had come to see you and not you to see
+her and being as you are a sight better looking than she is or her
+daughters or the grandchild, I put it the other way. Anyhow, she was
+a very fine lady and couldn't say enough in praise of some of our
+furniture.
+
+"She asked me where the secretary in the parlor came from and when I
+told her it belonged to my mother's side of the house--the
+Fairbankses--and came over on the third trip of the Mayflower she said
+no doubt she and I could claim relationship, as she, too, was a
+Fairbanks. And then she said to Miss Ann that people in the south paid
+so much more attention to relationship than they did in the north and
+no doubt she was as close to me as Miss Ann was to you.
+
+"Then I got out that book your Grandmother Knight set such store by,
+with all of her family written down in it and a picture of the old
+original Fairbanks home, and Mrs. Throckmorton nearly fell over
+herself reading it and hunting out where she belonged in it and
+finally she found her line and then, sure enough, she and I are closer
+relations than you and Miss Ann. Then she called me Cousin Prudence
+and asked me to call her Cousin Betty. I'm afraid I can never get the
+courage to do that, but it does kind of tickle me for them to be
+claiming relationship with me too. We are the same folks we have
+always been."
+
+"So we are, Mumsy, but perhaps the other fellow has had a change of
+heart. Does Cousin Ann like having so many callers?"
+
+"Indeed she does, and she never stops telling them what a fine girl
+you are. Sometimes I can't believe she is really talking about my
+little Judy, she makes you out so wonderful. Mrs. Throckmorton--Cousin
+Betty--said she had got a letter from Mrs. Robert Bucknor, written
+from Monte Carlo, telling all about the good times they are having. It
+seems that that Mildred has caught a real beau. Cousin Betty's
+daughter said she hoped he'd be more faithful than Tom Harbison, and
+Cousin Betty hushed up. Evidently she didn't want me to know about Tom
+Harbison--not that I want to know. This beau is a count and rich and
+middle aged. It looks as though it might be a match. All of the
+ladies, even Miss Ann, thought it would be a good thing if Mildred
+married rich and lived abroad. They didn't want anything but good
+fortune for her, but I could tell they'd like to have her good fortune
+fall in foreign parts.
+
+"At first Miss Ann was right stand-offish with Mrs. Throckmorton, but
+that lady went right up to her and kissed her and said, 'See here,
+Cousin Ann, you might just as well be glad to see me, because I am
+very glad to see you, and to see you looking so well and so
+comfortable and I'm also glad to see your pretty white hair and to
+know you've got some legs.' And Miss Ann laughed and said, 'Thank you,
+Cousin Betty,' and then they began to visit as sweet as you please.
+Old Billy went out and made the colored chauffeur go back and see his
+house and of all the big talking you ever heard, that old man did the
+biggest. I came back to the pantry to get out a little wine and cake
+for the company and I could hear him just holding forth."
+
+"Poor old Uncle Billy! He is proud of having a house," laughed Judith.
+"His turkey red curtains are up now and his geranium slips started. He
+has put on a fresh coat of whitewash, within and without, and his
+floor is scrubbed so clean you could really make up biscuit on it. It
+is gratifying, Mumsy, that we have been able to make two old people as
+happy as we have Cousin Ann and old Uncle Billy. I only hope Cousin
+Ann doesn't bother you."
+
+"Lands sakes, child, she is a heap of company for me and she is a
+great help. I don't see how such an old person can step around so
+lively. She stirred up a cake this morning. She says she has been
+clipping recipes out of newspapers for years and years but they have
+always made company of her wherever she has visited before and she has
+never been able to try any of her recipes. Her cake has got a little
+sad streak in it, owing to the fire getting low while it was baking,
+but that wasn't to say her fault altogether, as I told her I'd look
+after the fire while she picked out walnuts for the icing.
+
+"We had a right good time though while the cake-making was going on
+and Mr. Big Josh Bucknor came to pass the time of day. He could not
+stop but a minute but he nearly split his sides laughing at Miss Ann
+in a big apron, turning her hand to cooking. She laughed, too, and
+made as if she was going to hit him with the rolling pin, like that
+woman in the newspaper named Mrs. Jiggs. Mr. Big Josh brought some
+fine fish as a present. He said he'd been fishing and had caught more
+than he could use."
+
+That evening, after the dishes were washed, Judith, instead of
+beginning on the photographic work as was her custom, sat silent with
+folded hands, her head resting against the back of the winged chair.
+Her eyes were closed and her face was tense.
+
+"Child, you look so tired," said Miss Ann. "You do too much. I am
+afraid my being here puts more on you than you can stand."
+
+In all her many decades of visiting, that was the first time Miss Ann
+had ever suggested to a hostess that she might be troublesome. Judith
+insisted she was not tired and that Miss Ann was a help and no
+trouble, but the old lady could but see that there were violet shadows
+under the girl's eyes and that the contour of her cheek was not so
+rounded as it had been in the summer.
+
+That night, when Billy came to her room to see if she needed anything
+before retiring--an unfailing custom of the old man--Miss Ann was on
+the point of discussing with him the evident fatigue of their beloved
+young hostess, but before she could open the subject Billy said:
+
+"Miss Ann, I done got a big favor ter ax you. I ain't 'lowin' ter
+imconvemience you none, but I air gonter go on a little trip. It air
+goin' on ter fifty years sence I had a sho' 'nuf holiday, bein' as I
+ain't never been ter say free ter leave you when we've been a visitin'
+roun', kase I been always kinder feard you mought need ol' Billy
+whilst you wa'n't ter say 'zactly at home, but somehows now you seem
+ter kinder b'long here with Miss Judy an' her maw an' my feets air
+been eatchin' so much lately th'ain't nothin' fer me ter do but follow
+the signs an' go on a trip."
+
+"But, Billy--" began Miss Ann.
+
+"Yassum, I ain't gonter be gone long. It ain't gonter be mo'n three or
+fo' days, or maybe five or six, but anyhow I's gonter be back here in
+three shakes er a dead sheep's tail. I kin see, as well as you kin,
+that Miss Judy air kinder tuckered out what with teachin' an' servin'
+up them suppers to the street cyar men. I'm a thinkin' that when I
+goes on my trip I mought fin' a good cook ter holp Miss Judy out. Her
+maw am p'intedly 'posed ter nigger gals, but she ain't called on ter
+be. Me'n you knows by lookin' on with one eye that Mrs. Buck air mo'
+hindrance than help ter Miss Judy. You ain't gonter put no bans on my
+goin' air you, Miss Ann? Looks like it ain't 'zactly grabby fer me ter
+git a holiday onct every fifty years."
+
+"Well, if--" Miss Ann tried again.
+
+"Yassum, I done filled all the wood boxes in the house an' on the
+po'ch. I done split up enough kindlin' ter las' a week. I done
+scrubbed the kitchen an' cleaned out the cow shed an' put fresh straw
+in Cupid and Puck's stalls. I done pick a tu'key fer Miss Judy an'
+blacked the stove. I ain't lef nothin' undone, an' she ain't gonter
+have no trouble till ol' Billy gits back. I done already ax her what
+she thinks 'bout my goin' on a trip an' she say fer me ter git a move
+on me 'kase I needs it an' what's mo' she done rooted out'n the attic
+a top coat an' a pair er boots an' I'm a gonter go off dressed up as
+good as a corpse."
+
+So Billy departed on his trip. When he had been gone four days and no
+message from him had come, Miss Ann was plainly a little uneasy about
+the old man.
+
+"You ain't called on to be worried," said Mrs. Buck. "That old man can
+take care of himself all right. I must say I never expected the time
+to come when I'd confess to missing a darkey, but Uncle Billy is a
+heap of help around the place. He saves Judy a lot of work--things she
+never would let me do. I certainly hope nothing has happened to him."
+
+Nothing had--at least nothing that his mistress or Mrs. Buck could
+have feared. When Judith went to the kitchen on Sunday morning, the
+one day she allowed herself to relax, she found the fire crackling in
+the stove and the kettle filled and ready to boil. Standing by the
+table, rolling out biscuit, was a small, old mulatto woman, wiry and
+erect. She was dressed in a stiff, purple calico dress and on her
+head was a bandanna handkerchief, the ends tied in front and standing
+up like rabbit ears.
+
+Uncle Billy looked at Judith and grinned sheepishly. "Miss Judy, this
+air Mandy!"
+
+"How do you do, Aunt Mandy? I am so glad you have come to help me. You
+have come for that, have you not?"
+
+The old woman continued to roll the dough and cut out the biscuit with
+a brisk motion, at the same time looking keenly at Judith.
+
+"Yes, I reckon that's what I come for mostly, and at the same time I
+come somewhat to be holped myself. As soon as I git these here
+biscuits in the oven I'll tell you what Billy air too shamefaced to
+own up to."
+
+She whisked the biscuits into the oven and then proceeded, "Billy air
+kinder new to this business, but bein' as it's my fifth I'm kinder
+used to it. Billy an' me done got ma'id yesterday."
+
+"Got what?"
+
+"Ma'id! I'm his wedded wife. He done come down to Jefferson County
+courtin', an' bein' as I done buried my fo'th jes' las' year I up'n
+says yes as quick as a flash. I reckon Billy's been 'lowin' that so
+long as he couldn't be my fust, owin' to delays an' happenin's, he'd
+make out to be my las'. I been kinder expectin' that Billy'd come
+along for fifty-odd years an' every time I'd git a chance to git ma'id
+I'd kinder put it off, thinkin' he mought turn up, an' every time I'd
+bury a husband I'd say to myself, 'Now maybe this time Billy'll be
+comin' along.' I been namin' my chilluns arfter him off an' on.
+There's Bill an' Billy an' Bildad an' William an' Willy an' one er my
+gals is named Willymeeter. Of course I knowed he wa' kinder 'sponsible
+fer Miss Ann, an' I ain't never blamed him none, but I sho' wa' glad
+ter see him when he come walkin' in las' Wednesday an' jes' tol' me he
+wa' a needin' me an' he had a home er his own with a po'ch an' all.
+An' so we got ma'id."
+
+Old Billy had realized his dream at last--a house he could call his
+own, with a porch and geraniums growing on it, and married to Mandy.
+It mattered not to him that he was her fifth venture in matrimony.
+
+"Come next summer, we'll have a box of portulac a bloomin' befo' the
+house," he said to Judith. "I'm pretty nigh scairt ter be gittin' so
+many blessings ter onct. Sometimes I kinder pinch myself ter see if I
+ain't daid an' gone ter Heaben."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Uncle Billy Smiles
+
+
+Judith stood on the platform, swinging her cooler of buttermilk as a
+signal to the six-thirty trolley to stop and be fed. Thanks to the
+help of Aunt Mandy and Uncle Billy she had been able to furnish
+dinners to the motormen and conductors all during the snows of winter
+and the rains of spring. It was June again, and a year since she began
+keeping what she called a basket boarding-house. It had proved a
+profitable business. At the same time she had the undying gratitude
+and admiration of her boarders.
+
+The trolley stopped and eager hands relieved her of the basket and
+cooler. A young man swung from the platform of the rear car. Aunt
+Mandy had fried the chicken and Judith had not had to hurry to meet
+the six-thirty, so there was no excuse for the heightened color of her
+cheeks when she saw it was Jeff Bucknor.
+
+"In time to carry your 'empties'," he said, taking the basket from
+her. "Are you glad to see me?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Very glad?"
+
+"Yes, very glad!"
+
+They followed the path through the beech grove. "Can't we sit down a
+minute?" begged the young man. Judith complied. It was a venerable
+tree that sheltered them, with dense foliage on twisted limbs, the
+lower ones almost touching the ground.
+
+"I so often think of this tree and this mossy bank," said Jeff. "I
+have been wondering all the way up from Louisville if you would sit
+here with me a while."
+
+"You might have employed your time better."
+
+"Yes, I might have wondered what you were giving the motormen for
+dinner. Judith, will you do me a favor? Please put down that milk can.
+I want to ask you something and I'd be much happier and feel much
+safer if you'd let the buttermilk can roll down the hill. There now,
+that's a good girl!" He gave the can a push and it rolled away, with
+much banging and jangling.
+
+"First, let me ask your advice. The old men of Ryeville have sent for
+me to come and talk with them. It seems they want me to run for the
+office of county attorney. They say they are sure their candidate will
+be elected and I believe they can control the politics of the county
+from their hotel porch. I'll accept their proposition if you will tell
+me to."
+
+"Why should I decide?"
+
+"Oh, Judith, can't you see that life isn't worth living in Louisville
+or anywhere else if you are not with me? I have been loving you from
+the minute I first saw you standing on the platform swinging your milk
+can. In fact, I believe I have been loving you from the time I saw you
+on the trolley that day I got back home. Why I didn't love you when
+you were such a spunky little kid, tramping around peddling fish and
+rabbits and blackberries, I don't know. I must have been a blind fool
+or I would have. Anyhow, I love the memory of you when you were a
+little girl. Can't you care for me a little, Judith?"
+
+"I believe I can."
+
+"And you won't mind putting the _nor_ back on your name?"
+
+"No, Jeff. I won't mind."
+
+Long the lovers sat under the great tree. The seven o'clock trolley
+whistled for the next to the last stop, but Jeff and Judith did not
+hear it. Fortunately for the hungry men, Uncle Billy had seen from
+afar the young people seeking the shade of the beech grove and when
+Judith did not return to the house he had astutely reasoned that
+matters of import were detaining her.
+
+"Here, Mandy, give me that there basket er victuals an' I'll make
+tracks fer the platform. Miss Judy an' Marse Jeff air a co'tin' an'
+when folks air a co'tin' time ain't mo'n the win' blowin'."
+
+Miss Ann received the news of the engagement with happy tears and Mrs.
+Buck said that it was Judith's business and she had always known what
+she wanted from the time she was born. If she wanted Jeff Bucknor,
+Mrs. Buck reckoned it was all right. He seemed a likely enough young
+man, but she hoped he knew how to save, because Judith did not.
+
+The old men of Ryeville were satisfied when Jeff Bucknor told them he
+would run for the office of county attorney if they so wished it. At
+the same time he broke to them the news of his engagement. The
+veterans exchanged sly glances and laughed delightedly. Little did the
+young man dream that they had planned this political coup for the sole
+purpose of bringing to the county the person they considered the most
+suitable as a husband for their protege.
+
+"It was my idee, my idee!" Pete Barnes declared.
+
+The happiest of all the friends of the young couple was old Billy.
+
+"Marse Jeff done tol' me Miss Ann wa'n't never ter want an' now, bless
+Bob, he's gonter come an' live with us-alls an' look arfter the whole
+bilin'. I sho' air glad he's gonter come here instead er us havin' ter
+pick up an' go wharever he is. The portulac air comin' up so pretty in
+my box an' my jewraniums air a bloomin', an' I done made Mandy one
+willin' husband, an' Miss Ann air so brisk an' happy it would go hard
+on us all ter have ter be movin'. A ol' hen air took ter settin' in
+the ca'ige which makes it seem moughty homified. I'd sho' be proud ter
+think me'n Miss Ann could live ter see the day that little chilluns
+would be playin' stage coach an' injun in Miss Ann's ol' rockaway."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Comings of Cousin Ann, by Emma Speed Sampson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMINGS OF COUSIN ANN ***
+
+***** This file should be named 28439.txt or 28439.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/4/3/28439/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.