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@@ -1,38 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Annals of Ann, by Kate Trimble Sharber - -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 Annals of Ann - -Author: Kate Trimble Sharber - -Illustrator: Paul J. Meylan - -Release Date: July 10, 2012 [EBook #40202] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNALS OF ANN *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40202 *** Transcriber's Note: @@ -4573,7 +4539,7 @@ that you will see on a Russian anarchist the next. The mosquitoes down there are so big that you can easily recognize their features. And apt as not you'll go in bathing every day with a person _so famous_ when he's at home that he is never invited to dine with anybody that hasn't -got monogram china and _pate de foie gras_. +got monogram china and _pâté de foie gras_. I've noticed that the things people tell about after they come home from a trip depend a good deal on the disposition they carry with them @@ -4982,361 +4948,4 @@ cents per volume. 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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 Annals of Ann - -Author: Kate Trimble Sharber - -Illustrator: Paul J. Meylan - -Release Date: July 10, 2012 [EBook #40202] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNALS OF ANN *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - -Transcriber's Note: - - Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have - been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. - - - - -THE ANNALS OF ANN - - [Illustration: Ann] - - - - -The Annals of Ann - -_By_ KATE TRIMBLE SHARBER - - WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS - BY PAUL J. MEYLAN - -A. L. BURT COMPANY - -PUBLISHERS NEW YORK - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1910 - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - - - - -THE ANNALS OF ANN - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -My Cousin Eunice is a grown young lady and she keeps a diary, which -put the notion into my head of keeping one too. - -There are two kinds of people that keep diaries, married ones and -single ones. The single ones fill theirs full of poetry; the married -ones tell how much it costs to keep house. - -Not being extra good in grammar and spelling, I thought I'd copy a few -pages out of Cousin Eunice's diary this morning as a pattern to keep -mine by, but I was disappointed. Nearly every page I turned to in hers -was filled full of poetry, which stuff never did make good sense to -me, besides the trouble it puts you to by having to start every line -with a fresh capital. - -Cousin Eunice says nearly all famous people keep a diary for folks to -read after they're dead. I always did admire famous people, especially -Lord Byron and Columbus. And I've often thought I should like to be a -famous person myself when I get grown. I don't care so much about -graduating in white mull, trimmed in lace, as some girls do, for the -really famous never graduate. They get expelled from college for -writing little books saying there ain't any devil. But I should _love_ -to be a beautiful opera singer, with a jasmine flower at my throat, -and a fresh duke standing at the side door of the theater every night, -begging me to marry him. Or I'd like to rescue a ship full of drowning -people, then swim back to shore and calmly squeeze the salt water out -of my bathing suit, so the papers would all be full of it the next -morning. - -Things don't turn out the way you expect them to, though, and I -needn't count too much on these things. I might catch cold in my -voice, or cramps in the sea and never get famous; but I'm going to -keep this diary anyhow, and just hand it down to my grandchildren, for -nearly _every_ lady can count on _them_, whether she's famous or -infamous. - -Maybe some rainy day, a hundred years from now, a little girl will -find this book in the attic, all covered with dust, and will sit down -and read it, while the rain sounds soft and pattery on the outside, -and her mother calls and calls without getting an answer. This is not -at all the right way to do, but what can they expect of you when your -attic is such a very delicious place? Ours is high enough not to bump -your head, even if you are as tall as my friend, Rufe Clayborne, and -where a part of the window-pane is broken out an apple-tree sends in a -perky little branch. Just before Easter every year I spend nearly all -my time up here at this window, for the apple blossoms seem to have so -many things to say to me; lovely things, that I can _feel_, but can -not hear, and if I could write them down this would be the most -beautiful book in the world. And great sheets of rain come sometimes; -you can see them coming from the hills back of Mr. Clayborne's house, -but the apple blossoms don't mind the wetting. - -When I wrote "Mr. Clayborne" just then it reminded me of Cousin -Eunice's diary. That was _one_ sensible word which was on every page. -Sometimes it was mixed up close along with the poetry, but I always -knew who she meant, for he is my best friend and the grandest young -man I've ever seen out of a book. His other name is Rufe, and he's an -editor when he's in the city. But before he got to be an editor he was -born across the creek from our farm, and we've always been great -friends. His father and mine are also friends, always quarreling about -whose bird-dogs and hotbeds are the best; and our mothers talk a heap -about "original sin" and chow-chow pickle. - -Maybe my grandchildren would like to know a few little things about -me at the time I started keeping this diary for their sakes, so I'll -stop now and tell them as quickly as I can, for I never did think just -my own self was so interesting. If they have any imagination they can -tell pretty well what kind of a person I was anyhow from the grand -portrait I'm going to have painted for them in the gown I wear when -I'm presented at court. - -Well, I was born in the year--but if I tell that you will know exactly -how old I am, that is if you can count things better than I can. -Anyhow, when I read a thing I'd rather they didn't tell just how old -the heroine is. Then you can have her any age you like best. Maybe if -I were to tell exactly how many birthdays I've had you would always be -saying, like mother and Mammy Lou, "You're a mighty big girl to be -doing such silly things." Or like Rufe says sometimes, "Ann, you're -entirely too young to be interested in such subjects as that." So you -will have to be satisfied when I tell you that I'm at the "gawky -age." And a person is never surprised at anything that a girl at the -"gawky age" does. - -I am little enough still to love puppies and big enough to love -Washington Irving. You might think these don't mix well, but they do. -On rainy mornings I like to take a puppy under one arm and _The -Alhambra_ under the other, with eight or ten apples in my lap, and -climb up in the loft to enjoy the greatest pleasure of my life. I -sling _The Alhambra_ up on the hay first, then ease the puppy up and -take the hem of my skirt between my teeth so the apples won't spill -out while I go up after them. But I never even look at hay when -there's a pile of cottonseed to wallow in. - -As to my ways, I'm sorry to say that I'm what mother calls a "peculiar -child." Mammy says I'm "the curiousest mixtry she ever seen." That's -because I ask "Why?" very often and then lots of times don't exactly -believe that things are that way when they're told to me. One day at -Sunday-school, when I was about four, the teacher was telling about -Jonah. Mother often told me tales, some that I called "make-believe," -and others that I called "_so_ tales." When the teacher got through I -spoke up and asked her if that was a "so tale." She said yes, it was, -but I horrified every other child in the class by speaking up again -and saying, "Well, me don't believe it!" - -Old as I am now, I don't see how Jonah's constitution could have stood -it, but I've got sense enough to believe many a thing that I can't see -nor smell nor feel. An old man out in the mountains that had never -been anywhere might say he didn't believe in electricity, but that -wouldn't keep your electric light bill from being more than you -thought it ought to be at the end of the month. - -Speaking of bills reminds me of father. Father is not a rich man, but -his folks used to be before the war. That's the way with so many -people around here, they have more ancestry than anything else. -Still, we have perfectly lovely smelling old leather books in our -library, and when cotton goes high we go up to the city and take a -suite of rooms with a bath. - -I am telling you all this, my grandchildren, to let you know that you -have blue blood in your veins, but you mustn't let yours get too blue. -Father says it takes a dash of red blood mixed with blue, like -turpentine with paint, to make it go. - -Still, I hope the old place will be just as beautiful when my -grandchildren get old enough to appreciate it as it is now, and not be -sold and turned into a sanitarium, or a girls' school. The walls of -the house are a soft grayish white, like a dear old grandmother's -hair; and the mycravella roses in the far corner of the yard put -_such_ notions into your head! There are rows of cedar trees down the -walk, planted before Andrew Jackson's time; and at night there are the -stars. I love stars, especially Venus; but there are a lot of others -that I don't know the names of. - -Inside, the house is cool and shady; and you can always find a place -to lie down and read. Cousin Eunice says so many people spoil their -houses by selecting carpets and wall-paper that look like they want to -fight. But ours is not like that. Some corners in our library look -like _Ladies' Own Journal_ pictures. - -Cousin Eunice doesn't belong to our house, but I wish she did, for -she's as beautiful as a magazine cover. And I think we have the nicest -home in the world. Besides being old and big and far back in the yard, -there's always the smell of apples up-stairs. And I'm sure mother is -the nicest lady in the world. She wants everybody to have a good time, -and no matter whether you're a man, a young lady, or a little girl, -she lets you scatter your pipes, love-letters and doll-rags from the -front gate to the backest chicken-coop without ever fussing. Mother -admires company greatly. She doesn't have to perspire over them -herself, though, for she has Mammy Lou to do all the cooking and -Dilsey to make up the beds. So she invited Cousin Eunice to spend the -summer with us and asked Bertha, a cousin on the other side, to come -at the same time, for she said girls _love_ to be together. We soon -found out, though, that some girls do and some don't. - -Cousin Eunice said I might always express my frank opinion of people -and things in my diary, so I take pleasure in starting in on Bertha. -Bertha, she is a _cat_! Even Rufe called her one the night she got -here. Not a straight-out cat, exactly, but he called her a kitten! - -You see, when Bertha was down here on a little visit last year she and -Rufe had up a kind of summer engagement. A summer engagement is where -the girl wears the man's fraternity pin instead of a ring. And when -she came again this time it didn't take them two hours to get summer -engaged again, it being moonlight on the front porch and Bertha -looking real soft and purry. - -Then the very next week Cousin Eunice came! And poor Rufe! We all -felt _so_ sorry for him, for, from the _first_ minute he looked at her -he was in love; and it's a terrible thing to be in love and engaged at -the same time, when one is with _one_ girl and the other to another! -And it was so plain that the eyes of the _potatoes_ could see it! But -Bertha hadn't an idea of giving up anybody as good-looking as Rufe to -another somebody as good-looking as Cousin Eunice, which mother said -was a shame, and _she_ never did such a thing when _she_ was a girl; -but Mammy Lou said it was no more than Rufe deserved for not being -more careful. - -But anyway, Cousin Eunice and Bertha hadn't been together two days -before they hated each other so they wouldn't use the same powder rag! -They just couldn't bear the sight of each other because they could -both bear the sight of Rufe so well. This was a disappointment to me, -for I had hoped they would go into each other's rooms at night and -brush their hair, half undressed, and have as good a time as the -pictures of ladies in underwear catalogues always seem to be having. -But they are not at all friendly. They have never even asked each -other what make of corsets they wear, nor who operated on them for -appendicitis. Bertha talks a great deal about Rufe and how devoted he -was to her last summer, but Cousin Eunice won't talk at all when -Bertha's around. She sits still and looks dumb and superior as a -trained nurse does when you are trying to find out what it is that the -patient has got. - -Cousin Eunice has a right to act superior, though, for while other -girls are spending their time embroidering chafing-dish aprons she is -studying books written by a man with a name like a sneeze. Let me get -one of the books to see how it is spelled. N-i-e-t-z-s-c-h-e! There! I -got it down at last! And Cousin Eunice doesn't have just a plain -parlor at home to receive her beaux in; she has a studio. A studio is -a room full of things that catch dust. And the desire of her life is -to write a little brown-backed book that people will fill full of -pencil marks and always carry around with them in their suit-cases. -She doesn't neglect her outside looks, though, just because her mind -is so full of great thoughts. No indeed! Her fountain pen jostles -against her looking-glass in her hand-bag, and her note-book gets -dusted over with pink powder. - -Now, Bertha is entirely different! No matter how the sun is shining -outside she spends all her mornings up in her room shining her -finger-nails; and she wears _pounds_ and _pounds_ of hair on the back -of her head. Father says the less a girl has on the inside the more -she will stick on the outside of her head, and lots of men can't tell -the difference. Bertha certainly isn't at a loss for lovers. She gets -a great many letters from a "commercial traveler." A "commercial -traveler" is a man who writes to his girl on different hotel paper -every day. These letters are a great comfort to her spirit when Rufe -acts so loving around Cousin Eunice; and she always has one sticking -in her belt when Rufe is near by, with the name of the hotel showing. - -Every night just before or just after supper I always go out to the -kitchen and tell Mammy Lou all the news I've seen or heard that day. -She laughs when I tell her about how Bertha is trying to hold on to -Rufe. - - -"'Tain't a speck o' use," she said to-night so emphatically that I was -afraid the omelette would fall. "Why, a camel can dance a Virginny -reel in the eye of a needle quicker than a gal can sick a man back to -lovin' her after he's done took a notion to change the picture he -wears in his watch!" - -Mammy told the truth, I'm sure, for Bertha has worn all her prettiest -dresses and done her hair two new ways, trying to get him back; but he -is still "coldly polite," which I think is the meanest way on earth to -treat a person. Not that Bertha doesn't deserve it, for she knew they -were just joking about that summer engagement, but she still wears -the fraternity pin, which of course causes Cousin Eunice to be "coldly -polite" to Rufe; and altogether we don't really need a refrigerator in -the house this summer. - -Mammy Lou and I had been trying to think up a plan to thaw out the -atmosphere, but this morning a way was provided, and I greatly enjoyed -being "an humble instrument," as Brother Sheffield says. - -Everything was draggy this morning. Bertha was down in the parlor -singing "popular songs" very loud as I came down the steps with my -diary in my hand. I _despise_ popular songs! As I went past the -kitchen door on my way to the big pear tree which I meant to climb and -write in my book I saw that Mammy Lou was having the time of her life -telling Cousin Eunice all about when Rufe was a baby. She had called -her in there to get some fresh buttermilk, and Cousin Eunice was -drinking glass after glass of it with such a rapt look on her face I -knew she didn't realize that she couldn't get on her tight clothes -till mid-afternoon. - -"Of _course_ he's a extry fine young man!" mammy said, dipping for -another glassful. "There never was nary finer baby--an' wasn't I -_right there_ when Mr. Rufe was born?" - -"Sure enough!" Cousin Eunice said, looking entranced. - -This wasn't much more entertaining to me than Bertha's singing, for I -had heard it all so many times before, so I went out to the pear tree -and climbed up, but I couldn't think of even one word that would be of -interest to my grandchildren. So I just wrote my name over and over -again on the fly-pages. I wonder what makes them call them -"fly-pages?" Then I closed my book and climbed down again. I started -back to the house by the side way, and met Rufe coming up the walk -toward the front door. - -"Hello, Rufe," I said, running to meet him and walking with him to the -front steps. "I'm so glad to see you. Everything is so draggy this -morning. Won't you sit on the steps and talk to me a while? Or are you -in a hurry?" - -"I'm always in a hurry when I'm going to your house," he answered with -a look in the direction of Cousin Eunice's window. "And my visits -always seem as short as a wedding journey when the bridegroom's salary -is small." - -He dusted off the step, though, and sat down; and I told him that -Cousin Eunice was drinking buttermilk in her kimono and wouldn't be in -a mood to dress for another hour. Then I told him what a hard time I'd -had trying to think up something interesting to write in my diary. He -said, looking again toward Cousin Eunice's window, that there was only -_one_ thing in the world to write about! But he supposed I was too -young to know anything about that. I spoke up promptly and told him a -girl never _got_ too young to know about love. - -"Love!" he said, trying to look surprised. "Who mentioned love?" - -Just then I heard the flutteration of a silk petticoat on the porch -behind the vines, but Rufe was gazing so hard at the blue hills on the -far side of town that he didn't hear it. So, without saying anything -to him, I leaned over far enough to look under the banisters, and saw -the bottom of Bertha's skirt and a skein of blue silk thread lying on -the floor. So I knew she was sitting there working on that everlasting -chafing-dish apron. Then Satan put an idea into my head. I think it -was Satan. - -"Rufe," I said, talking very loud and quick, so Bertha would just -_have_ to hear me, "what's the difference between a kitten and a cat?" - -Rufe at last got his eyes unfixed from the blue hills and just stared -at me foolishly for a second. - -"Am I the parent of a child that I should have to answer fool -questions?" he said. - -"But the night she came you called Bertha a _kitten_!" I reminded him, -and he looked worse surprised. "And since I've heard her called a -_cat_! How long does it take a kitten to grow into a cat?" - -"Oh, I see! Well, I'm better versed in feline ways now than I was that -night; so I might state that sometimes you discover that a kitten is a -cat! There isn't any difference!" - -We heard a clattering noise behind the vines just then, which I knew -was Bertha dropping her embroidery scissors. Rufe jumped, for he had -no idea anybody was hearing our conversation; and I know he wouldn't -have said what he did about cats except he _thought_ I was too little -to understand such figures of speech. Then he got up to go in and see -who it was. And I decided to disappear around the corner of the house. -I didn't altogether disappear before I heard her say indeed he _had_ -meant to call her a cat; and he said indeed he hadn't, but she hadn't -been "square" with him, and they talked and talked until I got uneasy -that Cousin Eunice would be coming through the hall and hear them. So -I hurried on back to head her off. But Satan, or whoever it was, put -me up to a good job in that, for the next time I saw Rufe he was -wearing his fraternity pin and a happy smile. And Bertha had red spots -on her face, even as late as dinner-time, like consumption that lovely -heroines die of. - - -I've been too disappointed lately to write in my diary. Somehow, I -think like Rufe, that there's only one thing worth writing about, and -there's been very little in that line going on around here lately. -Poor Rufe is having a harder time now than he had when Bertha was on -his hands, for Cousin Eunice has taken it into her head to show him -that she doesn't have to accept him the minute he gets untangled from -a summer flirtation. Those were her very words. - -She and I go for long walks with him every morning, down through the -ravine; and they read poetry that sounds so good you feel like -somebody's scratching your back. And she wears her best-fitting -shirtwaists. One good thing about Cousin Eunice is that her clothes -never look like she'd sat up late the night before to make them. And -when she's expecting him at night her eyes shine like they had been -greased; and I can tell from the way she breathes quick when she hears -the gate open that she loves him. Yes, she adores the sound of his -rubber heels on the front porch; but she won't give in to him. She's -punishing him for the Bertha part of it. Mother says she's very -foolish, for men will be men, especially on nights in June; but Mammy -Lou says she's exactly right; and I reckon mammy knows best, for she's -been married a heap more times than mother ever has. - -"The longer you keep a man feelin' like he's on a red-hot stove the -better he loves you," Mammy Lou told Cousin Eunice to-night, as she -was powdering her face for the last time before going down-stairs and -trying to keep us from seeing that she was listening for a footstep on -the gravel walk. "An' a husban's got to be treated jus' like a lover! -A good, heavy poker's a fine thing to make a husban' know 'is -place--an' Lawk! a lazy husban's like a greasy churn--you have to give -him a thorough scaldin' to do any good!" - - -This morning at the breakfast table, after father had helped the -plates to chicken, saving two gizzards for me, he said: "Times have -changed since I was a young man!" - -As this wasn't exactly the first time we had heard such a remark none -of us paid any attention to it until we saw mother trying to make him -hush. Then we knew he must be starting to say something funny about -Cousin Eunice and Rufe, for mother always stops him on this subject -whenever she can, because she doesn't want Bertha's feelings hurt. But -Bertha never seems to mind. She's decided to marry the commercial -traveler, I'm almost sure, although her people say he's not "steady." -Steady means staying still, so who ever heard of a traveling man who -was steady? - -"Times have changed, especially about courting," father kept on, -pretending that he didn't see mother shaking her head at him. When -father gets that twinkle in his eye he can't see anything else. "Now -in _my_ young days when a girl and a fellow looked good to each other -they usually got engaged at once. But _now_--jumping Jerusalem! No -matter how deeply in love they are they waste days and days trying to -get a 'complete understanding' of each other's nature. They talk about -their opinion of everything under the sun, from woman's suffrage to -Belshazzar's feast." - -"Lord Byron wrote a piece in the Fifth Reader about Belshazzar's -feast," I started to remark, but I remembered in time to hush, for -I've never been able to mention Lord Byron's name to my family in any -peace since they found that I keep a vase of flowers in front of his -picture all the time. They call him my _beau_--the beautiful creature! - -Father didn't notice my remark, however. He was too busy with his -own. "And instead of exchanging locks of hair, as they used to when -Mary and I were young, they give each other limp-backed books that -have 'helped to shape their career,' and beg that they will mark the -passages that impress _them_!" - -"Uncle Dan, you've been eavesdropping!" Cousin Eunice said, looking up -from her hot biscuit and honey long enough to smile at him, but she -didn't quit eating. It has got out of style to stop eating when you're -in love, for a man admires a healthy-looking girl. I know a young man -who had been going to see a girl for a long time and never did -propose. She was a pretty girl, too, slender and wild-rosy-looking. -Well, she took a trip to Germany one summer and drank so much of -_something_ fattening over there that the wild-rose look changed to -American beauty; and when she came home in the fall the young man was -so delighted with her looks that he turned in and married her before -Christmas! - -Cousin Eunice knows these people too, and she does all she can to keep -her digestion good, even to fresh milk and raw eggs. I hope _I_ can -get married without the raw eggs part of it. And she tramps all over -the woods for the sake of her appetite in stylish-looking tan boots. - -As we left the dining-room I noticed that she had on her walking-boots -and a short skirt, so I thought Rufe would be along pretty soon for us -to go down to the ravine and read poetry. They always take me along -because I soon get enough of the poetry and go off to wade in the -branch, leaving them on their favorite big gray rock. - -Sure enough, Rufe wasn't long about coming, and I saw that his -limp-backed book was labeled "Keats" this morning. Cousin Eunice -didn't have a book. She carried a parasol. A parasol is used to jab -holes in the sand when you're being made love to. - -I don't know why I should have felt so, but just as soon as they got -started to reading this morning I had a curious feeling, like you -have when the lights burn low on the stage and the orchestra begins -_The Flower Song_. The way they looked at each other made under my -scalp tingle. Now, if I ever have a granddaughter that doesn't have -this feeling in the presence of _great_ things I shall disinherit her -and leave my diamonds to a society for tuberculosis or pure food or -fresh air, or some of those charitable things. - - [Illustration: Jabbing holes in the sand with her parasol _Page 26_] - -Before long they branched off from Keats to Shelley, and Rufe didn't -need a book with him. Just after he had finished a little verse -beginning, "I can not give what men call love," I had sense enough to -get up and go away from them. Although I have always been crazy to see -a proposal, there was something in the atmosphere around that old gray -rock that made me feel as if I were treading on sacred ground. (I hate -to use expressions like this, that everybody else uses, but I can't -think of anything else and it's getting too late to sit here by myself -and try.) Anyhow it's the feeling you have when you go into a -cathedral with stained glass windows. So I went away from them, but -not very far away, just a little distance, to where I have a lovely -pile of moss collected on the north side of a big tree. And the -smotheration around my heart kept up. - -It seemed to me the _longest_ time before anything happened, for -Cousin Eunice was jabbing holes in the sand with her parasol like she -was being paid to do it by the hour. Finally, without any ado, he put -his hands on hers and made her stop. - -"Sweetheart," I heard him say, so low that I could hardly hear, for -_The Flower Song_ was buzzing through my head so loud. Then he seemed -to remember me for he looked around, and, seeing that I was _clear_ -gone, he said it again, "Sweetheart." She looked up at him when he -said it, and looked and _looked_! Maybe she never had realized before -just how big and broad-shouldered and brown-eyed Rufe really is! -Neither one of them said anything, but he put both arms around her; -and when I saw that they were going to kiss I shut my eyes right tight -and stopped up my ears and buried my face in the pile of moss. Even -then I never felt so much like a yellow dog in my life! - - - - -CHAPTER II - - -You hear a heap of talking these days about "the divine mission of -woman," especially from long-haired preachers that don't believe in -ladies voting; and another heap of talk about the "rights" of women -from the ladies themselves. - -There was so much of it going on last winter when I was at Rufe's that -I told some of it to Mammy Lou when I came home. She says it's every -speck a question of dish-washing when you sift it down to the bottom. -The women are tired of their job and the men are too proud to do it -unless the window shades are pulled down. - -I don't blame the men for being proud. They have something to be proud -of, for they can do exactly as they please, from wearing out the -seats of their trousers when they're little to being president when -they're big. When I was right little I used to think that the heathen -over the sea that threw the girl babies to the crocodiles were doing -it in hopes of killing out the girl breed, so the little new babies -would have to be boys. A heathen is anybody that lives on the other -side of the map from us. - -Another good thing about a man is he can say, "Damn that telephone!" -Rufe says it whenever he's busy and it bothers him, but Cousin Eunice -can't. All she can do is to have sick headache when she gets worn out. - -I know one tired lady whose husband is a busy doctor and whose baby is -a busy baby, and lots of times the lady has to stop up her ears to say -her prayers. And she hardly ever has time to powder her face unless -company is coming, but, sick or well, she has to answer that -telephone! She says it is a disheartening thing to have to take her -hands out of the biscuit dough when the cook's brother has died and go -to the telephone in a big hurry where folks tell her every symptom of -everything they have, from abscess on the brain to ingrowing -toe-nails. And she never gets the baby well lathered in his bath of a -morning but what some of her lady friends call her up and she has to -sit and talk for politeness' sake till the baby almost drowns and gets -soap in his eyes. - -She tries to believe in New Thought though, and some days she "goes -into the silence." This means wrapping the telephone up in a -counterpane and stuffing up the door-bell until it can make only a -hoarse, choking noise. Then she spanks the baby and puts him to bed, -and that house is like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty. - -Yes, women certainly seem to have a hard time in this life. Even when -they marry rich and live in a hotel and never have any babies they -seem to be worse tired than the ones that warm bottles of milk and -peel potatoes. Some of them that Cousin Eunice knows are called -"bridge maniacs," and they shrug their shoulders and say "What's the -use?" if you suggest anything to them. - - -I have been home from Cousin Eunice's now for two weeks, for the -stylish, private school I went to up there lets out soon. Mammy Lou -says I'm the worst person to break out in spots she ever saw, and one -of my "spots" last summer was keeping this diary, which I did for a -while very hard and fast. Now a whole year has passed and it is summer -again and I am so lonesome that I believe I'll write a little every -day and tell some of the things we did at Rufe's last winter. If any -of you grandchildren who read are afflicted with that trouble of doing -things by fits and starts you may know who you inherited it from. I'm -not really to blame so much for neglecting you, my diary, for all the -time I needed you most last winter you were lost. This is a terrible -habit that all my things have--getting lost. My garters do it -especially and I have to tear great holes in my stockings by pinning -them up and then forgetting to stand stiff-kneed. - -Rufe told mother last fall that I was so precocious, which I looked up -in the dictionary and admired him very much for, that I ought to be -where I could have good teachers. So after he and Cousin Eunice had -been married long enough to be able to bear the sight of a third party -at the breakfast table they wrote for me to come and I went. - -I was kinder disappointed to see them looking like every-day folks -again, for the last time I had seen them they were looking as they had -never looked before and never will look again, for Rufe says he'll be -hanged if anybody can get him to appear in that wedding suit any more. - -But oh, that wedding! And oh, that wedding march played on a -thundering pipe-organ that makes cold chills run up and down your back -thinking what if it was happening to you! When the time comes for "I -will" you nearly smother, you're so afraid they might change their -minds at the last minute and embarrass you half to death right there -before all those people. - -They didn't change their minds then, though, nor since then either, I -honestly believe. They married safe and sound, and Cousin Eunice's -favorite book now is _1,001 Tried Recipes_. And Keats is lots of times -covered with dust. - -I got this far last night when Mammy Lou passed by my window on her -way to her house from the kitchen and stopped long enough to make me -go to bed. She says it takes a sight of sleep and a "passel o' -victuals" for a girl of my age, and I don't have enough of either. - -"I'se shore goin' 'er tell Mis' Mary how you set up uv a night," she -said, very fiercely, but she couldn't shake her finger at me for it -took both hands to hold the big pan she had under her apron. "An' as -fer eatin'! Why, a red bug eats more! An' such truck! Candy and apples -and fried chicken and fried Saratoga chips! _Fries_ nuvver was no good -for nobody at the gawky age, nohow. It takes _boils_ to fatten them!" - -I promised I'd go on to bed and eat nothing but "boils" to please her -if she wouldn't tell father and mother how late I sit up, so she -promised. She never would tell anyhow. - -I believe the next thing I wanted to mention about was the theaters -they used to take me to on Friday night when there wasn't any lessons. -I just love the theater. I believe if I don't decide to be a trained -nurse, although I am sure that is what I was cut out for, I may be an -actress. When they used to tell me pitiful tales at Sunday-school -about the heathen I was sure I wanted to be a missionary to Japan. -Mother used to take me to a tea store with her every time we went into -the city to buy things we couldn't get at home and the walls were -covered with pictures of Japan. I never will forget how blue the sky -was nor how white the clouds, and it seemed the loveliest country in -the world to me, except home. And I would look at mother and wonder -how she would feel if I told her that some day I was going to leave -her and father and sail away to that beautiful land where the poor, -ignorant people didn't know how to wear corsets nor eat hog meat. Of -course they needed somebody to tell them what they were missing and I -was eager to be that one! - -That was a long time ago! I know more about Japan now! I know more -about America too! Doctor Gordon said one night last winter that if -some of the missionaries were to go all over this country and tell -folks to open their windows and stop murdering their babies with candy -and bananas they would do more good than trying to teach the Japanese -so much. He said he didn't know which was the more heathenish, to -throw children in the river and let them have a quick death or stuff -them on fried meat and pickles and let them die by slow torture. - -The mothers are hard to teach, he says, because they don't more than -leave the doctor's office with a poor little pale baby than they meet -an old woman who tells them not to let the child be doctored to death, -to "feed 'im." They will tell the mother "Didn't _I_ have eleven? And -everything _I_ et, _they_ et!" - -He told us so many stories of murdered babies that I got to feeling -like I'd prefer being a nurse in a day home. I love babies! And Doctor -Gordon has the loveliest eyes!--But I haven't got to him yet. - -Speaking of the theater, I got to see many notorious people on the -stage this winter. Rufe said I would get a great variety of ideas from -the best plays. I did. I got a great variety of Ideals too. One time -he would be tall, fair and brave, with a Scotch name, like Marmaduke -Cameron, or Bruce MacPherson. Then the very next time I'd go he'd -change his looks and disposition. - -I loved some of the operas, too, especially _Il Trovatore_. I wish the -singers were slender, though. It hurts your feelings to have the -"voice that rang from that donjon tower" belonging to a great fat man -with no head to speak of, and what he has consisting mainly of jaws. -Of all the songs on record (not phonographic record) next to _Dixie_ -and _La Paloma_ I believe I love _Ah, I have sighed to rest me!_ The -words to this are not so loving, but the tune is so pitiful. - -I wish my name was Dolores Lovelock, or Anita Messala, and I could get -shut up in a tower. I have a girl friend in the city and every time we -write to each other we sign the name we're wishing most was ours at -that very minute. Her last letter was signed "Undine Valentine," but I -don't think that's half as pretty as Mercedes Ficediola. - -It wouldn't hardly be worth while for me to change my name now, -because I change my mind so often. I'm a great hand to start a thing -and then branch off and start something entirely different, such as -learning how to make the table walk, and pyrography. Cousin Eunice -said one day when she looked around at the things I had in my room -that it reminded her of Pompeii when they dug it up--so many things -started that never would be finished. - -One of the things we enjoyed most at Cousin Eunice's was walking out -to a lovely old cemetery not very far from her house. It is so old and -so beautiful that you're sure all the people in the graves must have -gone to Heaven long ago. Along in April, when the iris and -lilies-of-the-valley are in bloom and the birds and trees and sky all -seem to be so happy, you look around at those peaceful graves and you -don't believe in hell one bit. You think God is a heap better than -folks give Him credit for being. But I hope this will never come to -Brother Sheffield's ears, for he thinks you're certainly going there -if you don't believe in a hell worse than the Standard Oil Company on -fire. - -While I'm on this kind of subject I want to tell something that Rufe -said last winter, but I'm afraid to, for if mother ever saw it she -would get Brother Sheffield to hold a special meeting for Rufe. I -might risk it and then lock my diary up tight. Rufe said one time when -I remarked that I liked St. John better than St. Paul: "No wonder! St. -John's _liver_ was in good working order!" - -Cousin Eunice and Rufe are still very earnest and study deep things, -even if they don't read Keats so much. They know a jolly crowd of -people that call themselves "Bohemians." Lots of nights some of them -would come to Cousin Eunice's and we would cook things in the -chafing-dish and "discuss the deeper problems of life." They are not -real Bohemians though, for, from what they said, I learned that a real -Bohemian is a person that is very clever, but nobody knows it. He -"follows his career," eating out of paper sacks and tin cans and -sleeping on an article that is an oriental couch in the daytime. Then -finally some rich person finds him and invites him to dinner, and this -is called "discovering a genius." - -When our friends would come we would talk about the "Brotherhood of -Man" and the North Pole and such things as that. I listen to -everything I can hear about the North Pole for I never have got over -the idea that Santa Claus lives there. And the "Brotherhood of Man" -means we're all as much alike as biscuits in a pan, the only -difference being in the place where we're put; and we ought to act -accordingly. - -Some of the young ones talk a great deal about how the children of the -nation ought to be brought up, and they tell about what their family -life is going to be like, though Rufe says most of them haven't got -salary enough to support a cockroach. - -I think the "Brotherhood of Man" business is a good thing to teach -children, for I wasn't taught it and I shall never forget my feelings -when I first learned that Christ was a Jew! I thought it couldn't be -so, and if it was so I could never be happy again. So the Bohemians -are going to teach their children that the Jew is our brother and that -he hath eyes and if you prick him he will bleed. These are their own -words. I'm sure the Jews are lovely people since I've seen Ben-Hur on -the stage and the picture of Dis-Disraeli. That's all I know about him -and I'm not sure how to spell that. I'll skin my children if I ever -catch them saying "Sheenie" in my presence. - -And we make limericks! We don't make them in the chafing-dish though, -as I thought when I first went there. A limerick is a very different -thing from what you'd think if you didn't know. It's a verse of poetry -that's very clever in every line. - -Among the Bohemians I liked best were a married couple and Ann -Lisbeth. Besides having the same name as mine, Ann Lisbeth is a -beautiful foreign girl who was living across the ocean when she was -born. Her last name is something that _Disraeli_ is not a circumstance -to, and I'd never spell it, so I won't waste time trying. She's going -to get rid of that name pretty soon and I don't blame her, although -Cousin Eunice says it is a noble one across the ocean. _Still_ I -don't blame her, for the man is a young doctor, Doctor Gordon that -I've already mentioned, and perfectly _precious_. Next to a prince I -believe a young doctor is the most thrilling thing in the world! - -Ann Lisbeth lived near Cousin Eunice and they were great friends. She -and her mother were very poor because they got exiled from their home -for trying to get Ann Lisbeth's father out of prison where the king -had put him. Oh, the people across the ocean are so much more romantic -than we are in this country! Now, father wouldn't ever get put in -prison in a lifetime! - -Ann Lisbeth has to work for a living. She does embroidery--exquisite -embroidery, and lace work that looks like charlotte russe. She is the -kind of looking girl that you'd expect to have a dressing-table -covered with silver things and eat marshmallows and ice-cream all the -time. She is what Cousin Eunice calls a "lotus-eater." This like to -have worried me to death at first, for I misunderstood it and imagined -it was something like eating roaches. I wasn't going to blame Ann -Lisbeth for it even if it _was_ like roaches, for I thought maybe it -was the style in her country across the ocean. What is _one_ nation's -style would turn another's stomach; and everybody likes what he was -raised on, even Chinese rats and Limburger cheese. - -It was very romantic the way Ann Lisbeth met Doctor Gordon. She had -gone down to the florist's one slippery day to spend her last quarter -for white hyacinths to cheer her mother up when she had the good -fortune to slip down and break her arm. Doctor Gordon happened to be -passing at the time in his automobile and he carried her to the -hospital and fixed the arm. He said white hyacinths were his favorite -flower, too, so he sends them to her and her mother every day. - -Poor Doctor Gordon! He's having a hard time to make a living like -every other young doctor. He says sometimes he has a whole month of -blue Mondays come right together. And he says every time he happens to -wake up with a headache he also has a blowout in his best tire and -gets a notice from the bank that he's overdrawn the same day. - -I liked him extremely well myself for a while, and he seemed to like -me. He called me his little sweetheart, but I soon saw that a little -sweetheart has to take a big back seat when there's a grown one -around. - -Mother and I have been laughing all day about a little affair that -happened here last winter while I was away at school. - -After Christmas mother and father went back to stay at Rufe's with me -a few days, for they said the place was so lonesome when I left they -couldn't stand it. Of course they met Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbeth, -for we were always at each other's house, either to learn a Mount -Mellick stitch or to play a piece from a new opera. Mother liked Ann -Lisbeth's sweet ways so much that she said she just must come down -and make her a visit before she _thought_ of getting married. - -About the time for the first jonquils to bloom, early in February, -mother wrote that they reminded her so much of me and made her so -lonesome, that she wished Ann Lisbeth would come on then. So she -packed her suit-case and went. - -Everybody knows how the people in a little place will look at a -stranger that comes in, because they're so tired of looking at each -other. So they stared at her from the station clear up to the house. -Now, city people never get any enjoyment out of staring unless they -see somebody in trouble, such as an unfortunate young man with his -shoulder to the wheel, trying to repair a puncture, by the side of a -muddy road. Then they stare, and giggle too. - -There were several young men at the station that day, and, as Ann -Lisbeth went down there not breathing to a soul that she was engaged, -they came near losing their minds over her beautiful skin and foreign -accent. - -The one of them that seemed to be most impressed was a bore--no, he -wasn't just an every-day kind of bore that asks you if this is your -first visit to that place and tells you afterward that he never has -been so impressed in his life on short acquaintance. I've heard Cousin -Eunice talk about them, but this man wasn't like that sort of bore. He -was a perfect _auger_. Many a time when he has dropped in to see -father of an evening and I would have to put my book down for -politeness' sake, I've sat there and pinched my face, the side that -was turned away from him, till it was black and blue, to keep awake. -Pinching your arm or leg wouldn't have done any good with this -man--you had to pinch up close to your brain. - -All the time Ann Lisbeth was there he showed so plainly that he was -coming to see _her_ that mother and father would go out and leave them -alone, though father said he felt so sorry for her that he promised -always to do something to run him off by ten o'clock. Every man knows -how to do these things, I believe, such as taking off his shoes loud -and telling mother to wind the clock, in a stagey voice, and making a -great racket around the front door. And when the young man would hear -these signs he would leave. - -Right in the midst of Ann Lisbeth's visit one day she got a telegram -from Doctor Gordon saying that he was coming down that evening and -leave on the midnight train. This is a sure sign a man cares. He -couldn't stand it any longer. Well this Mr. W. (I'll call him that for -fear his grandchildren might feel hard toward mine if it ever got to -their ears that I had spelt his name right out) had said he was coming -over that night to bring some new records for the talking machine, to -try them; but, when Ann Lisbeth told mother about Doctor Gordon -coming, mother telephoned him, Mr. W., I mean, not to come till the -next night when father would be at home, as he wanted to hear the -records. - -Sure enough father did have some business out in the country that -afternoon and didn't get home until about ten o'clock that night. He -heard voices as he passed the parlor door, and thinking of course it -was Mr. W., decided that he would run him off right away so poor Ann -Lisbeth could get some sleep. - -Mother was already asleep and there was no way for him to know who it -really was in the parlor, so he took his shoes off and slammed them -down in vain, and rattled out the ashes, and wound the clock, and -coughed and sneezed. By this time he was awfully sleepy, for it was a -cold night and he had had a long drive, so he went to bed and to -sleep. - -Along about twelve o'clock father woke up, and seeing a light still in -the parlor, tried to get mother roused up long enough to ask her what -else she supposed he might use besides _dynamite_ to run that fellow -off. Mother was still so sleepy that she didn't say anything, so -father got out of bed and opened his bedroom door. There were voices -talking very easy in the parlor, so father, thinking that surely Ann -Lisbeth would be ready to commit suicide by this time, decided he -would walk to the front door and open and shut it real loud, knowing -_that_ would run him off, without waiting to slip on his trousers. - -Now, father is long and lank, and wears old-timey bob-tail -night-shirts, winter and summer; and all the rooms of our house open -_square_ into that one big hall--and there are no curtains to hide -behind! - -Just as father reached the front door and began tampering with the -lock, out walked the happy pair from the parlor and they must have had -a mighty tumble off of Mount Olympus or Pegasus, or whatever that -place is called. They jumped back as quickly as they could, but of -course they couldn't get back quickly enough to suit all parties -concerned. - -Father finally got the door open and, to keep from having to pass the -parlor door again, he ran _clear_ around that big, rambling house, -bare-footed, and with the February moon shining down on him and the -February wind whistling through his little bob-tail night-shirt. - -The noise of so many doors opening and shutting made mother wake up in -a hurry, and, being used to father's ways of leaping, then looking -afterward, she realized what had happened. - -Poor father came around to the side porch and scratched on the bedroom -door for mother to let him in. By this time she was so near dead from -laughing that she could hardly speak, but managed to use her voice a -little, just to pay him back for doing such an idiotic thing, she -said. - -She opened the bedroom door a little, so Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbeth -could hear, then called out in a loud, distressed voice: - -"Oh, Dan! _Have_ you come home in _that condition_ again?" - -Everybody that knows father knows that he never drank a drop of -anything stronger than soothing-syrup in his life; and when he had met -Doctor Gordon in the city they hadn't been able to get off the subject -of prohibition, they both were so temperate. It was a terrible thing -to be called "in that condition" before _him_! - -But mother let him in, and Doctor Gordon caught his train back to the -city where he sent father at least _two_ dozen funny post-cards on the -subject of "that condition." - - - - -CHAPTER III - - -I always did admire surprises, my diary, so when mother came in from -the station one day not long ago and said there was a surprise for me -I thought sure it must be a dessert for dinner, or a package come by -express, as it isn't Christmas for anything to be in the toe of my -stocking. But mother shook her head and smiled at all of these. She -said it was a heap better, and it is. - -A curious thing has happened in this family. It's happened a little to -father, for he's kept awake by it; a good deal to mother, for she has -to tell how to tend to it; an awful lot to Dilsey, for she has to walk -it and feed it and get it to sleep; but it has happened most of all to -Bertha, for it's to _her_ that the stork (or the doctor, or out of -the rose bush--they tell you so many different tales you never know -which to believe) brought it. Just about that time Bertha happened not -to be feeling very well, so mother wrote for her to come down to our -house where the air would be good for her, and then she would have -Dilsey to tend to it. You'd never guess what it is, my diary, so I'll -tell you. It's a baby! A live one with open and shut eyes, and can -cry; you don't have to pull a string to make it, either. This makes it -better than even the finest doll, and, as I'm above dolls anyhow, a -baby is more suitable to one of my age. The only bad part about it is -that you can't lock it up in the wardrobe when you get through playing -with it. Sometimes I have wished it was the kind you had to pull a -string to make cry, and then I'd cut the string off so we would have a -few peaceful nights, but apt as not this wouldn't be healthy for it, -for I guess the stork (or the doctor, or out of the rose bush) knew -best how to fix it. - -Mr. Parkes is the baby's father, and also Bertha's husband. He is one -of the nicest men you ever saw, pleasant all the time, which people -say is because he's a drummer which sells things. He carries valises -full of lovely crackers and little cakes with icing on the top, and -calls it his "line." I've heard Rufe and Cousin Eunice talk about -"lines falling in pleasant places," and I think it must mean something -like this, for our house has been a pleasant place since Saturday -night when he came to spend Sunday with us and Bertha. Some days he -sells as much as five hundred dollars worth of cake to _one_ man, -though I don't see what keeps him from _dying_ that bought them of -stomach ache, for I've had it myself since he's been here -considerable. He and father talk a heap about Mr. Parkes' "house" in -the city. He writes to the house every day and it writes back to him, -and he is always saying what he'll do "when he hears from the house," -just like it was folks. - -He wears an elk's head on the lapel of his coat for an ornament and -another on his watch chain, and even has a pair of purple socks with -white elks on them, and laughs a good deal, which has been a benefit -to Bertha's disposition since she married him. If the baby wakes up -and cries for her bottle as late as _eleven_ o'clock at night, which -would give most men room to say things, he's just as jolly as if it -was broad daylight, and says so loud you can hear him in the next -room: "Tonsound her little skin! Her is her daddy's own kid--_her_ -knows that eleven o'clock calls for a bottle, only daddy wants _his_ -cold, and her wants _hers_ warmed!" And out to the kitchen he goes and -warms it like a gentleman. I believe Mr. Parkes would be a gentleman -even if he had _twins_. - -Of course there never is any good happens to your family without -something bad happening along with it. A misfortune was sent to us one -morning when the train came. It was Aunt Laura, mother's sister, and -Bertha's and my aunt. It is a habit of hers to come to our house -every summer, but this time she came before we were looking for her, -having got mad at the relatives where she was. So she has changed her -will and is going to leave all her money to Bertha's baby, and she -told mother that she came right on down as soon as she decided on this -to see if the baby was a nice, well-behaved child, as it didn't run in -the family for the children to be any too well-behaved; and she looked -at me when she said the last. Bertha was in a flutter when she heard -it, but mother just laughed and said the baby was equally as -well-behaved as most eight-weeks-old children. - -Aunt Laura has spit-curls, but a great deal of money, having been a -school teacher ever since she was born, and never spending her money -buying her little nieces candy and pretty dresses. She admires church -and preachers more than anything, but I don't, and when the money was -willed to _me_ one time I lost my chance by saying at the table when -Brother Sheffield was there eating chicken and said he liked the -gizzard, right quick, before I thought of manners, "Father, don't -give it to him--_he_ ain't little!" The money has been willed to every -member of the family, for she gets mad at one and unwills it away from -them onto another, until we've all had a trial. - -But the poetry books say it's a black cloud that don't blow somebody a -silver lining, and I guess the silver lining to Aunt Laura is that -she's in love with Brother Sheffield, which will give me a good many -new thoughts to write about; for before when I was writing about -couples it was always the man that was trying to marry the lady, but -now it's the other way, which you can always count on when you see -spit-curls. Even this is better to write about than just a baby, -though, for they mostly do the same thing day after day; but you can -never tell what a _loving_ person will do to thrill your diary. - -It was till plumb breakfast time this morning before Aunt Laura made -known to us what new thing she's got up to talk about all the time. -Father calls it a "fad." He said the minute he saw her come he was -willing to bet on anything, from the latest breakfast food to an Aunty -Saloon League, but mother told him it was sinful to bet about such -things, for last summer it was foreign missions. It is just as well -that he didn't bet, for he would have lost, it being the heart disease -which she has very bad. She said she didn't tell us right at first -because she knew we didn't care anything about hearing it, but she -thought we better be prepared in case a spell came on her suddenly, -for she had felt worse symptoms lately than ever before. Bertha had -acted awful good all day and not let the baby cry nor slobber on Aunt -Laura for the sake of the will. - -I guess I've been worse this last week than ever before, for it is the -first time I've been ashamed to tell what I've done in my diary. -Bertha knows if Aunt Laura could get Brother Sheffield to marry her -she would unwill the money from the baby; so she thinks up things to -tell me to do to keep them from being together, and I've been doing -them. One time I hid her purple Sunday bonnet, then her curls to keep -her from going to prayer-meeting, but I'm glad to say that I have -never taken the dimes which Bertha said she would give me for doing -them. I hate Aunt Laura enough to do mean things to her myself, which -is a better principle than to do them just for dimes. - - -This is Sunday again and I have to go to church. Somehow, during the -summer, Sunday smells like black silk, for mother and all the ladies -that can afford it wear it to church to let the others see how well -off they are. When I was _right_ little and got tee-ninsy cards at -Sunday-school I imagined Heaven looked like those cards, all -lilies-of-the-valley and little pink lambs, but since I've grown older -my views have changed. Preachers always think you can't go to Heaven -unless you do just like they do, and I couldn't be like a preacher to -save my life, except about chicken. - -Aunt Laura had to look all over the place for her black silk waist -this morning and then not find it, so she got into a bad spell and -couldn't go to church. After the sermon was over and we were trying to -forget it by standing around and telling the other ladies how much -fruit we had put up this past week, Brother Sheffield came up and -asked mother if Aunt Laura was sick, not being out to services. Mother -said she was, but she hoped to find her all right when we got home, as -she never was sick very long, and I knew she would be well because it -was ice-cream for dinner. He said then he'd be over to see her this -afternoon as he hadn't seen her in so long. - -Well, it was awfully hot all the afternoon, and, as he wouldn't be -over till late so as to be invited to supper, Aunt Laura decided to -take off her front hair and have a nap after dinner. Now, up to this -time I have been afraid to mention even in my diary about Bertha's -bad habit. I really like Bertha better than I did before she was -married, and I knew if Aunt Laura was to catch on to it she would -change from the baby right away, for Brother Sheffield calls it "the -trade-mark of Jezebel," which is a Bible lady, though the preachers -always throw her up to anybody they don't like. So Bertha keeps this -locked away good in the little left-handed drawer of her bureau, and -don't anybody but me know it's there. - -It was getting late when brother Sheffield drove up to the gate. He is -an old man and his knees are so poor that they look like they would -punch through his trousers legs if he was to get down on them to ask a -lady to marry him, as they do in books. In fact, I have stayed around -the parlor and watched considerable, thinking how mortified I'd feel -if they were to punch through, but he hasn't ever got down on them -yet. His name is Gideon, which makes it worse for him, too. Cousin -Eunice said Ann Lisbeth's name is a very old one in the country -across the ocean where she used to live, but I know there ain't an -older name on earth than Gideon. Aunt Laura ought to have been named -the feminine of it, instead of that beautiful name that has so much -lovely poetry written about it. - -Anyhow, I was surprised that she wasn't dressed up in a clean waist -and down on the front porch to meet him, but I went up-stairs right -quick to tell her he was there. She was still asleep and woke up as -mad and red as folks always do that go to sleep in the summer. I told -her he was already on the porch. - -"Well, help me get dressed, won't you, instead of standing there -staring at me as if you never saw anybody with their front hair off -and their upper plate out before? Run to the well and bring me some -fresh water, and, say, come back by your mother's room and bring me -her box of powder and puff. I spilt all of mine looking in the drawer -this morning for that pestiferous waist. Hurry!" - -I ran to the well and got the water, but coming back by mother's room -I saw that Brother Sheffield was facing the door and would have seen -me, which wouldn't have been nice to bring out a box and puff before a -man, much less a preacher, so I didn't get the powder. I told Aunt -Laura to get Bertha's, when she commenced fussing, for I had passed -her room and saw that she had dressed in a big hurry and left the -bureau unlocked, the room being very hot and dark, the baby being -asleep, on account of the flies. She hushed then and said for me to go -down and tell him that she would be out in a few minutes, which I did. -I left him on the porch fanning while I went out to a little place I -have under the porch where it is nice and quiet and they can't find -you reading fairy tales when they want you for something; but _you_ -can hear _them_ talking. - -Pretty soon Aunt Laura came out, and in her dressed-up voice commenced -telling him how sorry she was that she kept him waiting. But before -she had more than got it said he asked her excited-like what was the -matter with her. It seemed like when he got excited she did too, so -she grabbed her stomach (not that I saw her, but I know she always -does it here lately when she gets mad or scared) and said: - -"Oh, my heart! It must be the heart disease!" - -He interrupted her again, a heap too quick and sharp for a preacher: - -"Your heart _nothing_! Go and look at your _face_!" - -That was more than I could stand, so out from under the porch I slid, -just in time to see Aunt Laura, with her face as red as the Indians -they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could -look at herself in the hat-rack looking-glass. She gave one tremendous -yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying -in from where they were. It wasn't a minute before me and Brother -Sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in -off of the back porch, and Dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning -over the banisters to see what was the matter. - -"It's my death stroke," Aunt Laura said, just like she knew what she -was talking about. "The doctor's books say it comes on this way," she -kept on, while the preacher fanned her and we were all flying around -doing things for her, and me standing still wondering how on earth -come her face so fiery red. "Thank Heaven, I die in the conviction of -having lived a good life, _and_ willed all my money to the only member -of my family that has ever treated me with any respect." This did look -kinder like the truth, for the baby was the only member of the family -which was crying over this sad occasion; but she was very loud and -hard. - -"I've been visited by Providence with a curious family," poor Aunt -Laura said, looking very mad toward father and mother, "but they will -soon have cause to regret all their strange ways with me. If there was -_one_ person in this world that _did_ care for me, to _that_ one -should my will be changed, for there is little consolation in leaving -your property to a baby." - -Brother Sheffield here spoke up and said as Aunt Laura "so fully -realized her hopeless condition he thought they better have some -conversation together as to her spiritual welfare. He desired a few -moments alone with her." - -"Yes," said Aunt Laura right quick, "_private_ conversation. My soul's -safety is not to be discussed in the presence of my enemies!" - -So out we all got, me along with the rest of them, which was a great -disappointment, for I could have learned a good deal if there had been -any way of staying in there. They talked a long time and we could hear -a few remarks now and then, being as we couldn't think of anything to -say ourselves, and it was very still on the porch. Once or twice we -heard her say very decided-like that indeed she _wasn't_ mistaken, for -every book she had read on the subject said it was exactly that kind -of a symptom. And then he would talk some, and one time he seemed to -doubt her word so that she fairly yelled out, the way she does when -he ain't around: "Can you doubt the hideous mark of death that has -this hour appeared upon my face? Isn't it proof that my flesh is being -prepared for the worms?" which _did_ sound pitiful and scary, too, it -being kinder dark on the porch. This seemed to do the work, for in a -few minutes she called us in and told us that Brother Sheffield had -asked her to marry him, and although she had never before considered -him in the light of a lover, still she was going to do it if the Lord -let her live an hour, while father could ride over for a preacher and -she could change her will. Brother Sheffield was crying like he does -when he is calling mourners, and his voice would hardly talk, but he -managed to say: - -"Yes, she has done me the honor to accept me; she, a woman of -intellect and _wealth_, and me, only a poor, humble worker----" He -couldn't get any further, but I had heard it so many times before that -I knew it was "humble worker of the vineyard," though father says he -is more of a _hungry_ eater of the _barnyard_. - -When Aunt Laura mentioned about being married in an hour Brother -Sheffield seemed to take a second thought, and spoke up kinder weak -and said he didn't know whether it was exactly right to be married on -Sunday or not. When Aunt Laura saw him begin to weaken it brought on -such a hard spell that she laid back on the sofa with her eyes shut, -like she was sure enough dead. This really scared mother, and she told -Mammy Lou, who had her head poked in at the back door, to run for some -water. Mammy brought the bucket in off the back porch and commenced -sousing it over Aunt Laura by the handsful, which didn't bring her to; -but a strange thing happened, which, if it wasn't me that saw it, -anybody would think it was a story, but I cross my heart that the -water that dribbled down off her face on to her clean waist was -_pink_! - -"Jumping Jerusalem!" father said, "the heart disease is washing off!" -This made Aunt Laura open her eyes, and by that time Mammy Lou had got -a towel and was wiping her face off all over, which seemed to make it -look natural again. Not one of us knew what to think of such a strange -disease till all of a sudden I remembered Bertha's bad habit! And then -I knew it was all off with Aunt Laura and the marrying. It wasn't very -long till they all caught on to what it was on her face; and the worst -part of it was that Brother Sheffield said he believed she did it -_a-purpose_. He rose up very proud, and looking kinder relieved and -said he could never marry a woman who would "defile herself with the -trade-mark of Jezebel." - -When he commenced throwing up Jezebel to Aunt Laura she threw up Esau -to him, which sold himself for a "mess of pottage," though this never -did sound lady-like to me, even coming from the pulpit. So Esau went -out and drove straight home, and Jezebel went up-stairs and packed her -trunk to go home early in the morning, never having been so insulted -by relatives before in her life. - -So the marrying is off and the baby is disinherited, which will be a -relief to it when it gets big enough to understand. But the worst part -is that Aunt Laura blames the whole thing on me, for she says I had -her ruination in mind when I sicked her on to that little left-handed -drawer. Of course it ain't so, but it proves that people ought to -raise the blind and be sure it's _whitening_ they're spreading on, -even if the baby is asleep. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - -You remember, my diary, a good many pages back I mentioned in here a -pair of Bohemians that were married to each other and were friends of -ours and would come to Rufe's every week and we would all do funny -things? Well, I couldn't write about them then, for I didn't have any -space for married people, wanting to save it purely for folks that -loved each other. But now it does seem like Providence that they've -come down here to spend the summer in the country, for there's not a -single loving soul left to write about, Aunt Laura being gone and -Brother Sheffield never very loving when she was here, except chicken. - -Their name is Mrs. Marie and Augustus Young. Father says that Adam or -the legislature knew a thing or two when it named them _Young_. He is -a professor and owns a chair in a college that must either have gold -nails in it or sit extra good, for Rufe says it is worth five thousand -dollars a year. Mrs. Young sings vocal. I wish she didn't, especially -in a parlor. If anybody is singing or reciting a speech on a platform -and flowers and electric lights it thrills you and you really enjoy -it; but if they do it in a close room, especially if it trills high or -has to kneel down and get red in the face, it makes you so ashamed for -the one that's doing it, and for yourself, too, that you look straight -at the carpet. Even then the blood rushes to your head. - -They have built a house with such a wide porch running all around it -that it reminds you of a little, tiny boy with a great big hat pulled -down over his eyes, which is called a bungalow. They said they had -brought a "complete outfit for light housekeeping" along with them, -but when mother saw it she laughed considerable on the outside of the -bungalow, for it was fifty-three books, mostly ending in "ology," a -hammock and some chairs that lean away back, a guitar apiece, a great -many little glass cases that you stick bugs and butterflies in if you -can catch them, a picture of the Apostle Hosea, with his head all -wrapped up like an old lady with the neuralgia, which they both said -they could not live without, and a punching-bag, which they punched a -great deal in the city, not having any baby to amuse themselves with, -which was a good thing for the baby I reckon. So mother sent them over -a great many things and Professor Young said she was the most sensible -woman he ever saw, including a biscuit board and a sifter. They have -been here a few days now and are delighted with the country air and -the green scenery, and, although it does seem proud to say it, _me_. -They thought very highly of me at Cousin Eunice's and said I was the -most "interesting revelation of artless juvenile expression" they ever -saw, which I wrote down on paper and when I came home taught it to -Mammy Lou to give in at the experience meeting. - -One morning early, while mammy was beating the biscuit for breakfast, -and I was up in the pear tree right by the kitchen door I nearly fell -out with surprise when I saw Professor Young coming around the house -with a pretty shirt open at the neck that he admires and two _great -big_ dominecker roosters up in his arms which were both squawking very -loud. Mammy Lou came to the door to see what all the noise was about, -and he said she was the very person he wanted to see. - -"Auntie," he commenced, trying to get into his pocket and wipe his -face with his handkerchief, which was greatly perspiring, but he -couldn't do it for the roosters, "my wife and I are in a quandary. We -are both ignorant of the preferred method of inflicting a painless yet -instantaneous death upon a fowl." - -Mammy's eyes began to shine, for she loves big words like she loves -watermelons, and without a sign of manners she never even tried to -answer his question, but looked up at me in the tree and says: - -"Baby, kin you rickollect all that to write it down?" - -Professor Young then looked up into the tree too and says: "Why, -Mistress Ann, how entirely characteristic!" And then he wanted to know -what book I was reading and I told him, _John Halifax, Gentleman_, -which I have had for my favorite book since I was eleven years old; -and the roosters continued to squawk. I got down then and asked -Professor Young if he wouldn't come into the house, but he said no and -asked his question to mammy over again. She looked at me and to save -her manners I told her right quick what the meaning of it was, me -understanding it on account of being precocious and also at Rufe's -last winter, where they use strange words. - -"_Thar now!_ Is _that_ all it's about?" she asked awfully -disappointed, for she thought from the words "painless death" it must -be something about preaching. Then in a minute, when she saw that he -was still waiting, she turned around to him and said: "Whar is the -chicken _at_ that you want killed?" - -He held the roosters away from him and, looking at them as proud as a -little boy looks at a bucket of minnows, he said: - -"These are they!" - -This tickled mammy so, and me too, though I remembered my manners, -that she began to laugh, which shook considerable under her apron, and -said: - -"Well, gentle_men_! Whut do you want to kill _them_ for?" - -"For breakfast," he said; and, noticing her laughing, his face got to -looking so pitiful all in a minute that it made me just wish that -Cinderella's fairy godmother would come along and turn those roosters -into nice little pullets all fried and laying on parsley. - -"Why, Mr. Professor," mammy told him, "them roosters is so old that -they will soon die a natural death if you leave them alone; and -they're so big that you might fry 'em frum now till breakfast time on -Jedgment Day, and then they wouldn't be fitten!" - -When she told him this he did manage to get out his handkerchief, I -thought maybe to cry on, he looked so disappointed, but it was just to -perspire on. - -"I--er, observed that they were unduly large," the poor man told her, -"but I--er, thought maybe the larger a country thing was the better!" - -I thought of horse-flies and ticks, but was too mannerly to mention -them, especially so near breakfast time. Just then mother and father -came out of the back door, and when they heard the tale of the -roosters they both invited him to come right in and have breakfast -with us, and said they would tie their legs together so they could -flop around the back yard, but couldn't get away, and I could run -over and bring Mrs. Young. - - -Last night when I got home I was too tired to write or anything else, -for it was the night of the glorious Fourth! Professor Young and Mrs. -Young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able to -spend the Fourth of July in a cool ravine instead of in the horrid -city where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys. -They said they must have me go along for the woods wouldn't really be -woodsy without me, as I was the genius loci. I didn't know at first -what that was, but I know now that it makes you tired and perspiry to -be the genius loci of eight miles of woods on the Fourth of July. Rufe -and Cousin Eunice couldn't think of half as many peculiar things to do -when they were courting as the Youngs. - -We ate a number of stuffed eggs which kinder made up for the -tiredness, me being very fond of them, but Professor Young is crazy -about Mrs. Young's singing voice and every time we'd come to an extra -pretty place he would say: "Marie, my love, sing something just here," -so we'd have to stand still on our legs, it often being too snaky to -sit down, while she sang. One time she thought up part of a song -without a speck of tune to it, and it was in a language across the -ocean. All I could make out was "Parsifal," and every once in a while -she would stop a minute in the song and say a word that sounded like -"Itch," though I don't suppose it was, being in a song. Every time she -would say itch he would scratch, for the poor man was covered with -ticks. - -But the most trying thing was the bugs and butterflies, which being -"naturalists" they caught. We had to run all over the ground and sides -of the hills for them, and empty our dinner out on a nice, shady rock, -so we could use the lunch box to put them in. When we got back we -found it all covered with ants, but we were so hungry we thought we'd -brushed them all off, though in the cake we found we _hadn't_. If a -person hasn't ever eaten an ant, my diary, there ain't any use in -trying to make them understand what they taste like, so I won't dwell -on that. Professor Young said though he was willing to eat them for -the sake of his beloved science, though I don't see how it helped -science any. - -Toward evening we got to a fine place in the branch to wade and Mrs. -Young said, oh, let's do it; it would remind us of our childhood days. -So we soon had our feet bare, with our thoughts on our childhood days, -and never once stopping to remember that we didn't have a thing to -wipe them on. Nobody said so much as towel until we got out, and then -it was too late, so we were very much pained and annoyed every step of -the way home on account of our gritty feet. - -Another morning early we decided to go out and see the sun rise, like -Thoreau. (They tell me how to spell all the odd words.) We went up to -the tiptop of a high hill, and when the sun was just high enough to -make you squint your eyes Mr. Young remarked that he realized his life -was "replete with glorious possibilities," and he said in such moments -he felt that he could "encompass his heart's desire." He said he fain -would be a novelist. Now, this is the only subject they ever fall out -about, for he's always wanting to be something that he is not. Last -winter when he met Doctor Gordon at Rufe's he decided he wanted to be -a doctor, for he said they could always make a living, no matter where -they were, while a poor college professor had to stay wherever he had -a chair to sit in. So he went to a store where you buy rubber arms and -legs and things and bought a long black bag like Doctor Gordon's, full -of shiny, scary-looking scissors and knives which cost seventy-five -dollars, to lay away till fall when the doctor's school opened up -again. In two weeks Mrs. Young had got the store man to take the -things back for half price because Professor Young had decided he -wanted to study banjo playing instead of doctoring and had bought a -banjo trimmed with silver. - -She knew whenever he said he wanted to _be_ anything it would cost as -much as two new dresses, and then have to be exchanged for something -else, so she asked him if he would have to buy anything to begin this -novel-writing business with. He proudly told her no, for his "Mother -Nature had endowed him with a complete equipment," and he thumped his -forehead between his eyes and his straw hat. Then she told him to go -on. He said it would be a good time to get material from the study of -the "primitive creatures" around here in the country. - -I hoped these "primitive creatures" were not the kind of insects you -would have to empty the lunch box for, nor be careful not to pull off -their hind legs while you were catching them, not knowing just what -they were. - -I was scared good when he said he thought the girl that milked Mrs. -Hedges' cows would be a good one to begin on. He said if Marie didn't -mind he would go over to the farthest pasture where he could see her -then and _draw her out to see what was in her_! This sounded terrible -to me, knowing that he used some sickly smelling stuff on the bugs -that killed them before they had time to say a word, and I thought -maybe because Emma Belle was a poor servant girl he was going to do -her the same way. - -He had always seemed such a kind-hearted man to me, and I saw him and -Emma Belle standing at the fence talking and he was not trying to hold -anything to her nose, still I didn't feel easy till he got back. Mrs. -Young asked him what he had learned, and if his novel would be along -"socialistic lines" or a "romance in a simple bucolic setting." That -"bucolic" reminded me of Bertha's little innocent baby, and I wished I -was at home nursing it even if it did cry, rather than be out -sun-rising with such a peculiar man. He said it would be a "pastoral," -and that the girl's eyes were exactly like his first sweetheart's, -which was remarkable. Mrs. Young spoke up right quick and said there -wasn't anything remarkable in _that_, because all common, country -girls looked alike and they all had about as much expression as a -squash. - -We haven't been out early acting like Thoreau any more, for Mrs. Young -said it was the most foolish of all the foolish things Augustus had -made her do, and he could continue to associate with milkmaids by -himself if he wanted to, which he has. This morning she came over to -our house early to ask mother if you singed a picked chicken over a -blaze or what, and if she didn't think Thoreau was an idiot. Mother -said yes, you did, if it had pin feathers on it, and she didn't know -much about Thoreau, but she preferred men that paid taxes and ate off -of white tablecloths. Mrs. Young said she thought all men that read -bugology and admired pictures like Hosea were a little idiotic and she -wished she had married a man like father. Mother said well, she -better not be too sure, for they all have their faults. - -After a good long time Professor Young came in, not finding Marie at -the bungalow, looking awful hot and cross. The sight of him seemed to -make Mrs. Young feel worse than ever and she told him she had just -come over to consult mother about her journey home to-morrow, although -she hadn't mentioned it to us before. She went on to say that _he_ -might spend the rest of the summer, or the rest of his life if he -wanted to, boarding over at Mrs. Hedges' where he could see Emma Belle -morning, noon and night, instead of only in the morning. He said why, -he was utterly surprised for she hadn't mentioned such a thing to him -before, but she told him he hadn't spent enough time with _her_ lately -even to know whether or not she still retained the power of speech. He -said right quick, oh, he never doubted _that_! She said, well, _she_ -was going and he needn't argue with _her_. He said he wasn't going to -argue, he was only too glad to leave such a blasted place, for he -wanted material for his novel, but the farmer's girl he had talked -with the _first_ morning, and the _plow-boys_ he had been associating -with ever since were all such fools he couldn't get any material from -them. - -The minute he said that she seemed to feel better and change her mind. -She said Augustus ought to be ashamed to talk that way about poor -ignorant things which never had any opportunities! He said he wanted -to go back to the city anyway where there was a bath-tub, but she told -him he was very foolish to think about leaving such a cool, "Arcadian" -spot; their friends would all laugh at them for coming back so soon. -She said she had merely mentioned going back for _his_ pleasure, for -all the world knew how she _loved_ the country. He finally said he -loved it too, so they would stay, but he would be forced to give up -novel-writing because the country people around here are all fools. - -I've heard Professor Young talk about sitting in a college chair being -a hard life, and Doctor Gordon says doctoring is a hard life, and Rufe -says that editing is a hard life, but, my diary, between you and me, -from the looks of things this morning, I kinder believe that marrying -is a hard life, too. - - - - -CHAPTER V - - -Did you ever think what a dear old thing anybody's black mammy is, my -diary, especially when she's done all the cooking (and raised you) for -twenty-five years? Mammy Lou has belonged to us just like father and -mother ever since we've been at housekeeping, and my heart almost -breaks to-night when I think of the fire in our stove that won't burn -and the dasher in our churn that is still. Ever since I've been -keeping a diary I've been awfully glad to hear about anybody being in -love, and took great pleasure in watching them and writing it all out, -for I could _always_ imagine it was _me_ that was the lady. But I -would rather never keep a diary another day than to have such a thing -happen to Mammy Lou. - -When mother heard about it she said not to be an old fool, but Mammy -Lou said, "either Marse Shakespeare or Marse Solomon said a old fool -was the biggest fool and she wasn't going to make him out no lie. So -marry that Yankee nigger she was!" - -Bill Williams first came here to teach school, being very proud and -educated. Then he got to be Dilsey's beau and they expected to marry. -When he first commenced going to see Dilsey Mammy Lou would cook the -nicest kind of things for her to take to picnics, hoping to help her -catch him in a motherly way. But when he started to promising to give -Dilsey a rocking-chair and take her to "George Washington" if she -would marry him, Mammy Lou changed about. She had always wanted to see -a large city _herself_, and she thought it wasn't any use of letting -Dilsey get all the best things in life, even if she was her child. - -Pretty soon she commenced wearing red ribbon around her neck and -having her hair wrapped fresh once a week. Then she told him she was -the good cook that cooked all the picnic things, and ironed all of -Dilsey's clean dresses; also that she had seventy-five dollars saved -up that she would be willing to spend on a grand bridal trip the next -time she got married. Mammy Lou is a smart old thing, and so she -talked to him until he said, well, he would just as soon marry her as -Dilsey, if she would stop cooking for us, and cook for _him_ and iron -_his_ shirts all the time. She promised him she would do this, like -people always do when they're trying to marry a person, although it -looks very different afterward. None of mammy's other husbands had -been so proud. _They_ would not only let her cook, but would come -around every meal time, in the friendliest kind of way, and help her -draw a bucket of water. This is why the whole family's heart is -breaking and we feel so hungry to-night. She's quit, and the wedding -is to-morrow. - -This morning early she came up to the house to ask mother if it would -be excusable to take off her widow's bonnet, not being divorced from -Uncle Mose but four months; also how she had better carry her money to -keep Bill from getting "a holt" of it. She said she wouldn't trust any -white Yankee with a half a dollar that she ever saw, much less a -coffee-colored one. Mother was so mad at her, and so troubled about -the sad biscuits and the watery gravy at breakfast that she said she -hoped he would steal every cent of the seventy-five dollars before the -ceremony was over, and maybe _that_ would bring her to her senses. - -"And me not to get to go to George Washington!" mammy said in a -hurt-like voice. "Why, Mis' Mary!" - -"Where is this George Washington?" mother took time to ask, thinking -mammy would know she was just poking fun at her, but she didn't. - -"Law! Ain't it surprising how little my white folks do know! Why, it's -the place where the president and his wife lives. Mr. Williams is -mighty well acquainted with the president and says he's shore I could -git a job cooking for the fambly if I was 'round lookin' for jobs. But -I ain't to cook for nobody but _him_ from now on." - -Mother didn't encourage her to talk about her love and matrimony any, -so she took me by the hand and we went out and sat down on the kitchen -doorstep and had a long conversation. She seemed mighty sad at the -notion of leaving us, but was so delighted at the idea of marrying a -young man (as anybody naturally _would be_) that she couldn't think of -giving that up. Pretty soon in our conversation she commenced telling -me about the things that happened many years ago, when I was a little -child, like they say folks do when they're going on a long journey or -die. - -She began from the time I was born, and said I was such a brown little -thing that I looked like I had tobacco-juice running through me -instead of blood. And I made use of a bottle until I was four years -old. Because I was the only one of mother's and father's children that -lived and was born to them like Isaac (_I_ don't know of any special -way that Isaac was born, but two of mammy's husbands have been -preachers, so _she_ knows what she's talking about) they let me keep -the bottle to humor me. It had a long rubber thing to it so I would -find it more convenient. Mammy said the old muley cow was just laid -aside for my benefit, they thought so much of me, and when I got big -enough to walk I'd go with her into the cow-lot every hour in the day -and drag my bottle behind me to be milked into. I enjoyed being milked -into my mouth, too, if my bottle was too dirty to hold it just then. - -Mammy said I always admired the sunshine so much that I would sit out -in it on hot days till my milk bottle would clabber, which was one -cause of my brownness. When I found out I couldn't draw anything up -through the rubber, being all clabbered, I'd begin to cry and run with -my bottle to mammy. And she would quiet me by digging out all the -clabber with a little twig and feed it to the chickens. They got to -knowing the sound of me and my bottle rattling over the gravels so -well that they'd all come a running like they do when they hear you -scrape the plates. - -This, of course, was very touching to us both and we nearly cried when -she talked about going off to Washington where the people are too -stylish to keep a muley cow. They won't even keep a baby in the -families there, but the ladies keep little dogs and get divorces. - -Mother wouldn't go to the wedding, for dinner and supper were worse -than breakfast. The rest of the family all went except Dilsey, who -didn't much like the way her mother had treated her about Bill. -Professor and Mrs. Young went, being still down there and a great -pleasure to us all. They were delighted, being raised up North, and -wanted to take pictures of everything. Whenever we would pass a cabin -door with a nigger and his guitar sitting in it and picking on it -they would stop and say that it was so "picturesque." And the real old -uncles with white hair and the mammies with their heads tied up they -said reminded them of "Aunty Bellum days." - -Everything went off as nice as could be expected under the -circumstances until the preacher said, "Salute your bride." Then, when -Bill started to kiss her, Mammy Lou laid her hand against the side of -his head so hard you could have heard the pop up to the big house and -said she would show him how to be impudent to a woman of sixty, even -if he was a Yankee and educated. Everybody passed it off as a joke, -but the slap didn't seem to set very well with Bill, being nineteen -years old and not used to such. We left right after the ceremony and -Mammy Lou and the others walked on down to her house to wait for the -twelve o'clock train that they were going to leave on. - -Although I always enjoy going to places with the Youngs on account of -the curious words and the camera they use, and although it was the -sixth marriage of my old nurse, which you don't get a chance to see -_every_ day, still when I think of breakfast, I must say it was the -saddest wedding I ever witnessed. - - -This morning when I first woke up and heard that regular old tune, -_Play on Your Harp, Little David_, coming so natural and lifelike from -the kitchen I thought surely it must be a dream, mammy being hundreds -of miles away in Washington. The song kept on, though, just like it -has done every morning for twenty-five years, mother says: - - "_Shad_-rach, _Me_-shach, _Abed_-ne-_go_, - The _Lord_ has _washed_ me _white_ as _snow_," - -so I got up. It never does take me a minute to wash my face of a -morning, and this morning it took even less time. I hopped into my -clothes and flew down-stairs. It wasn't any dream! There was mammy, -not looking like she was married nor anything, and a good, cheerful -fire in the stove, and the bacon smelling like you were nearly -starved. I didn't ask any questions, but just said, "Mammy," and she -said, "Baby," and there I was hugging her fit to turn over the churn. -I asked her if mother knew that she come back and she said no, she had -been easy and not made any noise, so as to surprise us all. I reckon -mother and father are so used to having Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego -wake them up of a morning that they thought it was a dream, too. -Pretty soon they heard us talking though and came in. Mother came -first, for it is the gentleman's place to let the lady go first into -the kitchen, especially when they think that breakfast is to be got. - -Mother said, "What are you doing here?" and Mammy Lou said, "Getting -breakfast, Mis' Mary," which was about as straightforward as they -could have been with each other. Mother asked her if she wasn't still -married, and she said no, for she had "had occasion to give that -uppish Yankee nigger a good whippin' las' night." And then she went on -to say that she told Dilsey _she_ could have him if she still wanted -him, and said she hoped Dilsey would take him for she would just -_admire_ to be mother-in-law to that nigger. - -Just then father came in, hearing the last remark about "that nigger," -and asked Mammy Lou what the trouble was between her and her new -husband. Mammy was breaking eggs into the big yellow bowl which she -was going to scramble for breakfast, and as she commenced telling us -about her marrying troubles she began to beat them very hard, which -seemed to ease her. It is a great help to people to think of their -enemies when they are beating things, for it makes them beat all the -harder and don't really hurt the enemies. - -Mammy said when they got home from the wedding she started to change -her white dress and veil and put on her good cashmere dress to ride -on the train in. Just about that time Mr. Williams spoke up and said -he was sleepy and wanted to get a good night's rest so he was going to -bed, but he wanted mammy to have him a nice rare steak for his -breakfast. Mammy then asked him if he had been born a fool or just -turned that way since he had married so far above his station. He said -he would mighty soon find out who the _fool_ was in that family--and -she better have good beaten biscuits to go with the steak. When he -said this mammy gave him another sample of her strength like she did -in the church and told him to get out of there and change his clothes -to go to George Washington. Then he gave a big ha! ha! laugh in her -face, right before Dilsey and the neighbors and said why, didn't she -know that George Washington had been dead and buried behind the church -door for a hundred years? He kept on laughing and said the "ignorance -of country niggers is really amusable." - -Mammy said she hated to do it with her veil on, being a new veil and -she hadn't used it but twice, but she couldn't wait to take it off, -him grinning like a picture-taking man at his funny joke. All his -teeth were showing, and, as mammy had always admired them for being so -big and white, she decided she would keep a handful to remember him -by; so she gave him one good lick in the mouth with her wedding -slipper, which was large and easy to come off. This broke a good half -of his front tooth, she said, besides drawing a lot of blood to -relieve her feelings. While he was busy wiping away the blood and -trying to open his eyes enough to see candle-light again, mammy sat -down by him, and, before he knew it, she had dragged him across her -lap and was paddling him like he was her own dear son instead of her -husband. Then she called Dilsey and told her she might feel safe about -marrying him now, if she still wanted him, for he had better sense -than to try to fool with any member of _that_ family again. Mammy Lou -said of course _she_ couldn't stay married to a man she could paddle. -She was too much of a lady. But Dilsey turned up her nose and said she -wouldn't have any second-hand nigger, much less a whipped one. - -Father spoke up then and said she couldn't give Bill to Dilsey without -getting a divorce from him first. Mammy Lou said, well, Marse Sheriff -might arrest her and Marse Judge might fine her, but she would see -them all in the place that was prepared for them before she would -waste twenty-five dollars for just _that_ little speck of marrying! - -Father went on out to feed the chickens and mother went to wake up -Bertha (but not the baby) for breakfast, and Mammy Lou scraped the -eggs into the dish I had brought her. - -"Divorce _nothin'_," I heard her remark as she soused the hot skillet -into water that sizzled, "I done bought a hundred dollars' worth o' -divorces _already_, and if the lawyers wasn't all scribes and -Pharisees they'd let _that_ run me the rest o' my days." - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - -"Yuletide in the Southland" is what Professor Young calls it, but you -would never know from the sound how nice it really is. It means that -the Youngs have come down to the bungalow to spend Christmas and have -brought his brother, Julius, to spend it too. Now, I admire Mr. Julius -Young, both his name and his ways. He noticed me the minute he got off -the train and said I would have to be his sweetheart. Although I have -learned, from being so deceived by Doctor Gordon's remarks like that, -you mustn't depend on what they say, still you can't help but like a -person when they say it to you. - -He is not a college professor like his brother, but he makes his -living drawing pictures. Now, the bad part about making your living -out of poetry or art is that so _often_ you don't do it. This is the -way with Julius. He draws fully as good as other artists, but he never -has been able to get people to notice it. Professor Young says his -work lacks "the divine spark," and so the poor young man has to heat -his coffee over the gas-jet, like they always have to do in pitiful -magazine stories. So much poetry and art have made him real thin, with -strange flannel shirts, and he looks half like a writing person and -half like a hero which was raised out West. He doesn't act as peculiar -as he looks, though, laughing as jolly as Mr. Parkes if anything funny -happens. And he knows so much about horses, having traveled -considerable, that father thinks he is very clever. Father says you -can excuse an artist with horse sense better than you can just a plain -artist. - -Rufe and Cousin Eunice are down in the country too, partly at our -house and partly at Rufe's folks'. This makes a nice reunion for -them, being as Marcella, Rufe's sister, is home for the first time in -three Christmases, having been off studying how to play on the piano. - -Ever since during the chestnuts getting ripe Marcella has been good -friends with me, for she loves the outdoors, and there wasn't anybody -but me that had the time to spare to go with her through the woods. -She felt sorry for me, too, not getting to go back to school in the -city this fall, and so she has taught me a lot. Mother and father said -they just couldn't spare me, being the only one that lived, and born -to them in their old age. It looks like if my brothers and sisters had -known how inconvenient it was for me to be the only child they would -have tried a little harder to live. - -Marcella is not pretty in a blonde-headed way, like Ann Lisbeth and -Bertha, but her hair and eyes are as dark as chocolate candy when -you've grated a whole half a cake in it, and her skin looks like cream -does when it's nearly ready to churn. She wouldn't go with me and Rufe -and Cousin Eunice to meet the Youngs at the train, being ashamed on -Julius' account, I reckon, both being single. But _we_ went and -Professor and Mrs. Young said they were too happy for anything to be -back in the country again for a regular old-fashioned Christmas. They -said they were going to do everything just like it used to be in old -England, which Professor Young had brought a book along to read about. -They said this book would "infuse a genuine Yule spirit," but if they -had scraped as many cake pans and seeded as many raisins as I have -they would have more of that spirit now than they could hold without a -dose of cordial. - -Well, this morning we collected on the other side of the creek to go -after holly to decorate the bungalow with, me, the Youngs, and Rufe -and Cousin Eunice. Julius said a good many compliments about the -nature you could see all over the hills, but Rufe said shucks, if he -had _plowed_ over that nature as often as _he_ had it wouldn't look so -pretty. - -Cousin Eunice said let's go straight up through the woods and maybe we -would meet Marcella coming back from a poor person's house where she -had been to carry sick folks' things to. This plan must have been made -up between them, for, sure enough, when we got to the tip-top of the -hill we found Marcella sitting under some cedar trees resting, and -leaning back against one, just like it was done for a purpose. She had -on her red hat and her little red jacket, which set off her pale looks -considerable, and if she _did_ do it for the sake of Julius she knew -the right way to get on the good side of an artist, for he commenced -acting impressed from the start. If a person is trying to be romantic -it is a better plan to meet a man under a cedar tree with a tired -expression than it is to sprain your ankle so they will have to carry -you home in their arms, like they do in books. I don't know _why_ -authors sprain so many of their characters' ankles, and then let them -make love smelling of liniment. - -Mother says in olden times people married each other because the -ladies were pretty and could make good cakes and the young men were -able to take care of them, but nowadays they marry because they "feel" -the same way about things. This is called congenial, and an _overly_ -congenial person is an "affinity." Cousin Eunice and Rufe felt the -same way about Keats and married. Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbeth both -loved white hyacinths and married, and this morning I heard Marcella -and Julius say they felt the same way about music. Marcella was -playing on the piano in our parlor and we were all listening when -Julius remarked: - -"Oh, isn't it rare to find a woman who can properly interpret -Beethoven?" - -Father was in the room and spoke up. "Yes," he said, "and rarer still, -in these days, to find one who can properly interpret the -_bake-oven_." - -Marcella thinks the world and all of Beethoven and Wagner and other -persons whose names are not spelt the way you would think. - - [Illustration: For the sake of Julius _Page 108_] - -Later, when there wasn't anybody present but just those two, I heard -Julius ask Marcella if she would "sit" to him. I thought at first he -must be proposing, for the folks around here say that Widow Hollis is -"setting up to" anybody when she's trying to marry. But Marcella said -right away that she would be delighted, which I knew couldn't mean -marrying, for when a young lady gets proposed to she never even _lets -on_ how glad she is, much less says _delighted_ right out in plain -words. He said her face was the purest Greek he ever saw, which didn't -make her mad, although it would me, for a Greek is a smiling, -oily-looking person which runs a candy kitchen. - -When he mentioned her face looking like a Greek's face she acted so -pleased that he went on to tell her he had never been so impressed -with anybody's looks in his life as he was with hers that first day -under the cedar tree. He said oh, if he had such a model he could do -_anything_, for he was sure she had soul as well as beauty. The idea -of him telling her she had a soul--as if anybody but foreign heathens -didn't have! She said she thought it would be a noble life to be a -model and inspiration to a man of lofty ideals--like Dan T. Gabriel -Rosetty's wife was, only sometimes the _woman_ was starved. If I'd -been Marcella I'd been ashamed to mention such a thing as not getting -enough to eat, but it seemed to please Julius, for he got over closer -and commenced making a sketch of her on the back of an envelope. - - -This morning early Mrs. and Professor Young came over to ask father -where they could find a Yule log and a peacock. They said in the -"eternal fitness of things" they must have a log to burn all Christmas -night and a peafowl to serve with "brilliant plumage" at the dinner -table. Mrs. Young went around to the kitchen to ask Mammy Lou if she -knew how to prepare the peacock the way they wanted it and brought to -the table in its feathers with the tail spread. Mammy wasn't a speck -more polite than she was last summer about the roosters. - -"No, _ma'am_," she told her, "Mis' Mary won't let even so much as a -pin feather come on her table, much less a whole crittur covered with -'em. Looks like _that_ would turn a nigger's stomach, let alone white -folks; but there ain't no 'countin' for the taste o' _Yankees_." - -Professor Young tried to explain that he was cooked without the -feathers which was put on afterward and an old English custom, but -that wouldn't pacify mammy. - -"Well, all I can say for the old English is that they must have -stomachs on 'em like _buzzards_," mammy told them. - -The Yule log was easier and so they got that, but it isn't to be lit -till to-morrow night with ceremony. - -Julius and Marcella had a long walk through the woods after -sarsaparilla vines this afternoon, and talked a good deal about how -they would like a house furnished if they were going to furnish one. -They never got as far as the kitchen and smokehouse, but they both -agreed that they would love better than anything in the world to have -a dark green library with dull brass jardinieres. (I had a _terrible_ -time with that word.) Julius then spoke up and said _any_ kind of a -library that had her in it would be artistic enough for _him_, which I -thought was saying a great deal, for artists make out like they can't -live without their "atmosphere," meaning battered-up tea-kettles and -dirty curtains from Persia. Marcella must have thought he meant -something by it, too, for she turned as red as when you have a -breaking out. - -I helped mother and mammy considerable this morning by tasting all the -things to see if they were just right, for we are going to have a big -dinner to-morrow and invite them all. - -To-night we all went over to the bungalow to hear Professor Young read -about how they used to do Christmas things in England before the -Pilgrim Fathers. It sounded awful nice about the waifs singing, "God -rest you, merry gentlemen," on the outside of your window, and the -servants at dinner bringing in the boar's head, singing too. Professor -Young said he thought these old customs ought to be revived, -especially in the South, where we had old-timey houses and old family -servants. Father laughed and said, well, we _might_ get Mammy Lou to -bring in the turkey to-morrow to the tune of "There _wuz_ er moanin' -lady, she _lived_ in er moanin' lan'," which was all the tune she knew -besides Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, one being about as Christmasy -as the other. - -After a while Mrs. Young started up the chafing-dish and called Julius -from over in the corner where he and Marcella were talking very easy, -to help her with the coffee. She hadn't more than said coffee when -Professor Young picked up his book again. - -"Why, Marie, my love," he interrupted her, "coffee is not at all a -drink in keeping with the season. To preserve the unities we ought to -have a wassail bowl." Then he read us how easy it was to make up the -wassail. All you have to do is to take wine, or ale, and sugar and -nutmeg, mixed with ginger and spice, then have apples and toast and -roasted crabs floating around in it. You must mix it up in an old -silver bowl that has been in your family a hundred years with the coat -of arms on it. A coat of arms is two peculiar animals standing on -their hind legs pawing at each other. - -Mrs. Young said she was as anxious to preserve the unities as -Augustus, but how could she when there wasn't any wine or ale or -ginger or crabs, to say nothing of the silver bowl with the coat of -arms marked on it. Rufe said not to worry, for we might find it hard, -along toward midnight and day, to preserve much unity between wassail -and Welsh rabbit, if we ate them together, so the wassail bowl was -dropped. - - -All during my diary there hasn't been a thing as thrilling to happen -as what happened to-day, Christmas Day, to Julius and Marcella. -Getting your arm broken and carried to the hospital by your future -husband wasn't anything to compare with this. - -Everybody was happy at the dinner table, me especially, for besides -all the books I wanted I got a pyrography set and a pearl ring. I -don't think any girl is complete without a pearl ring. The company all -praised mammy's cooking and Julius remarked that after such a dinner -as that it would be pretty tough on a fellow to go back to town the -next day and live on coffee heated over the gas-jet and crackers. We -laughed considerable over the gas-jet, all but Marcella, who didn't -look funny. - -Just as we got the plum pudding burning and Julius had said he wished -he could paint a picture of it Dilsey came into the dining-room with a -telegram addressed to Mr. Julius Young. This excited Mammy Lou, who -admires him very much, so she nearly spilt all the sauce, saying, -"Thar! I jes' _know_ it's some of yo' folks dead!" - -Julius laughed and told her he reckoned not, as all the folks he had -on earth were right there at the table, and he looked at Marcella when -he said it in preference to his own brother! Much to all of our -disappointment Julius never even opened his telegram and read it, -although we didn't say anything about it. He put it in his pocket and -went on eating pudding like it wasn't any more to be proud of than -just a plain mail letter. - -After dinner father took them all out in the garden to look at some -new hotbeds he was having made and Julius and Marcella went into the -parlor. I stayed in the hall by the door, not being wanted in the -parlor and not admiring hotbeds much. They didn't sit down, but went -over and stood by the piano and all of a sudden Marcella said -nervous-like: - -"Why don't you read your telegram? It might contain good news." - -"It _is_ good news, I feel sure," he told her, "and I wanted you to be -the first one to know it--that's the reason I didn't mention it at -the table." - -She said well hurry up and tell her, so he did. He said the day he saw -her leaning against the cedar tree he thought she was so beautiful -that he went straight back to the bungalow and made a picture of her -like she was then and sent it to a large magazine up North which had -promised to give five thousand dollars to the person which sent them -the best picture by Christmas, and he believed the telegram was to say -that his was it. Marcella told him well, he had a high opinion of his -work to take it for granted that it had won such a prize as _that_. - -"Not at all," he said, catching her hand in his, "for it was a picture -of _you_." - -This sounded so loving that I wasn't prepared for what came next. I -heard them tear open the telegram and Marcella said, "_Good-ness_;" -and he said, "Well, I'll be--I wasn't looking for this!" and it made -me so interested that before I knew it I was in the parlor, though so -easy and it nearly dark that I don't think they saw me. - -As near as I could make out the telegram told Julius they thought his -picture was so good they were not only going to give him the prize -like they promised, but wanted to engage him to draw for them all the -next year and how much salary would he do it for. - -"Why, you can have your green library and brass jardinieres _now_," -Marcella said, still holding hands and her voice like it was about to -cry. He just looked at her and looked a long time without saying a -word. Finally he put both hands on her shoulders and looked down into -her eyes. - -"I can have nothing without you," he said in the most devoted voice I -ever heard. "It is your beauty that has made my picture succeed. If I -amount to anything you will have to come with me--will you?" - -"You want me for your model?" she asked very quivery and making out -like she didn't know what he was driving at, but she put her hands up -on his shoulders too, which was enough to give her away. - -"True, I can not draw without you for my model," he said so grand and -sweet that it made you feel very strange listening to it, "but I can -not _live_ without you for my wife." - -This won her. It was enough to win _anybody_, coming from an artist, -and good looking at that. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - -Being in love with Marcella weighed so on Julius' mind that he -couldn't stay in New York but one week where the magazine is that he -draws for, so he came back and has been here ever since, loving and -drawing and sending them the jobs by mail. Right away they set the -wedding for the eleventh of April, which seems like it _never_ will -come, me being in a big hurry for it. Poor Julius gets more and more -delighted every day, talking a heap about what a happy home they're -going to have, not realizing that Chopin and dish-pan don't go -together. He stays around and advises Marcella about her clothes and -such-like all day long. He says she reminds him of a narcissus, being -tall and creamy-skinned, so he wants all her dresses to be either -white or light green, the color of right young lettuce. But she knows -when really to take his advice and when just to make like she's taking -it, the way most ladies do with men. - -"Why, it would take a little pink milksop like Bertha Parkes to wear -such colors as _those_," she said behind his back one day. But I don't -think Marcella better be calling Bertha a _milksop_ just because she -has to handle baby-bottles all the time, for a person never can tell -what might happen to them. - -One of the nicest things about the wedding is the bridesmaids. They -consist of girls born partly here in the country, partly in the cities -Marcella has visited and made friends with. The one I like best is -Miss Cicely Reeves, though most people around here call her Cis, being -very small, with fluffy hair and cute ways and dimples. She has a good -many lovers of different kinds, but don't seem to like one above -another. She is a great hand to act romantic, such as falling in love -with a man in a streetcar, or expecting her future husband to be a -certain size and comb his hair a certain way and things like that. -This often keeps young ladies from getting married a long time, for -mother says you oughtn't to be too choice about size and hair, but I -can't help being on that order myself. I do hope I can marry a man on -a jet-black charger named Sir Reginald de Beverley who owns _acres_ -and _acres_ of English landed gentry. - -Miss Cis had that experience with the _name_ of Julius' best man. It -happened that we were all sitting on the front step one day when -Julius pulled a letter out of his pocket and told Marcella that he had -just heard from Malcolm Macdonald, and that he was going to be his -best man. - -"_Who?_" asked Miss Cis right quick, looking up from the sprig of -bridal wreath she was pulling the flowers off of. - -Julius told her the name over again and then told her that he was a -very old friend of his and was a fine civil engineer. I used to think -a civil engineer was a _polite_ man who ran the trains, but I know now -he is a man that gets in the middle of the street with a string and a -three-legged thing and measures the road. - -"Is he married?" Miss Cis asked a heap quicker than she had asked who. - -"No, and not likely to be," Julius answered, still looking over the -letter absent-mindedly. - -"The name sounds good," Miss Cis commenced, her eyes sparkling. "I -never heard anything Scotchier. Something tells me he must be my -ideal." - -"Then 'something' must be telling you a lie," Julius said laughing, -"for he couldn't be any woman's ideal. He is very _real_. An old -bachelor, thirty-seven years, stern and precise; and he considers -every woman on earth as a frivolous and _un_necessary evil." - -"The kind of man I adore," Miss Cis said joyfully, though anybody that -knew her well could tell she was fooling. "My life will be a blank -until he comes!" - -"It would be a blankety-blank if you had to live with him, for you are -the kind of woman to torment such a man to death." - -"All the more reason for his falling in love with me, as I have fallen -in love with his name, and if he doesn't I shall consider him a very -_un_civil engineer." Which was just her way of talking. This happened -fully two months ago, but they have talked about it off and on ever -since. And now he is coming to stay with Julius till the wedding, to -cheer him up I suppose. - - -Sure enough he did come to-day, although lots of times I imagine that -I never will get to see a person I have heard spoken of so often and -in such high tones--and sometimes I wish I hadn't. But it wasn't that -way with Mr. Macdonald. Nobody on earth could have been disappointed -in _him_ for he is one of the tallest gentlemen I ever saw with -trousers so smoothly creased that they look like somebody had ironed -them after he put them on. He takes his own time about saying things, -being very careful about saying "of whom" and "by which" like the -grammar tells you to. - -Julius brought him over to Marcella's this afternoon so he could be -making friends with her and the bridesmaids that were collected there. -Remembering how they had been teasing Miss Cis about him I kept my eye -on her from the minute he walked through the door. I was greatly -disappointed though, for she never _seemed_ to notice him. I guess she -took a better look at him than I imagined though, for the minute they -were gone she jumped clear across the room to where Marcella was -standing and grabbed her and danced up and down. - -"Isn't he _beautiful_!" she said all out of breath. "I'm just crazy -about him! Did you ever see such Gibsony feet and legs in your -_life_?" Which mortified her mother, it being impolite to mention feet -and legs in her days. - -Julius is romantic, too, for a man, and says he doesn't want any -flowers used in connection with his wedding except the sweet, early -spring ones that favor Marcella so much. We have a yard full of them -and so mother told them this morning that they better come over and -gather them, knowing that young folks enjoy picking flowers together -and they will stay fresh for several days if you put a little salt in -the water. - -It was the most beautiful morning you ever saw, with birds and peach -blossoms and the smell of plowed ground all making curious feelings -inside of you. Marcella, being a musician, noticed the birds, and -Julius, being an artist, noticed the peach blossoms, but Mr. -Macdonald, being just a man, noticed Miss Cis. She would walk along -without noticing him and take a seat in the farthest corner away from -him, but anyhow she seemed to do the work, which taught me a lesson; -that if you're trying to get a man to notice you it is the best plan -not to notice them except when they ain't looking. - -They sat down on the porch and rested a while after they came while -the narcissuses (narcissi _they_ called them, which sounds stuck up to -me) smelled very sweet from the yard. Julius remarked he wished they -had made Rufe come along with them so he could have said poetry out of -Keats, as it was just the kind of day to make you feel Keatsy; and -pretty soon he and Marcella got on to their favorite subject, "The -Ruby Yacht," which they say is a piece of poetry from Persia. They -talked and talked, which made me very sleepy and pretty soon I noticed -that Mr. Macdonald was getting sleepy too. He leaned over to Miss Cis -and said, kinder whispery: - -"I don't understand poetry, do you?" - -"No, I don't," she answered back, with a smile on her face which I -knew she meant to be "congenial." I knew this was a story, for she -talks about "The Ruby Yacht" as much as anybody when he ain't around, -but I didn't blame her for telling one in a case like this. - -"I never could discover what the deuced Ruby Yacht was about, in the -first place," he said. - -"It looks like, from the name," I said speaking up, "that it would be -about a red ship," but before I could get any further they began to -laugh and tell my remark to Julius and Marcella, which was mortifying. -This broke up the poetry talk and they began gathering the flowers, -Miss Cis and Mr. Macdonald picking in pairs, by which I knew they were -getting affinityfied. - -After they had picked till their backs were tired Mammy Lou came out -on the porch bringing a waiter with some of her best white cake and a -bottle of her year-before-last-before-that's wine setting on it and -her finest ruffled cap, very proud. She was curious to see the young -man "Miss Cis was settin' up to, to see whether the match was a -fittin' one or not." She took a good look at him, then called Miss Cis -into the hall to speak her opinion. - -"He'll _do_," I heard her saying, while Miss Cis was telling her to -"s-s-sh, Mr. MacDonald would hear her." - -"He'll _do_," mammy kept on, not paying any attention to what was told -her, like she always don't. "He must be all right, for bein' a frien' -o' Mr. Juliuses would pass 'im.' But, honey, he _is_ tolerable -_po_-faced, which ain't no good sign in marryin'. If thar's anybody -better experienced in that business than _me_ and King Solomon I'd -like to see the whites o' ther eyes; an' I tell you every time, if you -want to get a good-natured, wood-cuttin', baby-tendin' husban' choose -one that's _fat in the face_!" - -A good many wedding presents commenced to coming in this morning, -which was a sign that the invitations got to the people all right. You -often hear of things being worth their weight in silver, but there's -_one_ thing you can count on it's being true about and that is wedding -invitations. You never saw such delighted people as Julius and -Marcella. They were laid out on tables in the parlor and greatly -admired. - -"They're _ours_, dearest," he said, squeezing her hand right before -everybody, "yours and mine! Our Lares and Penates." - -This greatly impressed me and I looked it up in the back of the -dictionary when I got home, which is a very useful place to find -strange words. It said: "Lares et Penates, household gods," which -didn't make sense, so I knew the dictionary man must have made a -mistake and meant to say household _goods_. - -"Gentle-_men_!" said Mammy Lou when I told the words to her, "if he -thinks up such names as _them_ for his fu'niture what _will_ he do -when he gets to his chil'en?" - -This remark seemed to put an idea into her head, for Lovie, mammy's -other daughter besides Dilsey, has got a pair of two little twins that -have been going around for the last five years in need of a name just -because Mammy Lou and Ike, their father, can't ever agree on one--a -name nor anything else. - -"Them's the very names for the little angels," Mammy said, washing -the dinner dishes deep in thought, "for the twins bein' boys and girls -and the names bein' able to accommodate therselves to ary sect proves -that they're the _very thing_." She studied over it for a good while, -I guess on account of Ike, although mammy is usually what she calls -very plain-spoken with him. A plain-spoken person is one that says -nasty things to your face and expects you not to get mad. When they -say them behind your back they're "diplomatic." But finally she -started off to name them, and, having had so much trouble already with -Ike, I saw her slip her heavy-soled slippers into her pocket before -she started. She stayed away a long, long time, but when she got back -she held her head so high and acted so stuck-up that I just knew she -had got to use both the names and the slippers. - -"Did you name 'em?" I asked her, going to the kitchen to get some -tea-cakes, supper being very late. - -"_Did I?_" she answered back, cutting out the biscuits with a haughty -look, "you just oughter a _saw_ me namin' 'em!" - -"Which did you name which?" I asked. - -"I named the precious boy Penates, because I most know these common -niggers roun' here'll shorten it to 'Peanuts' which would be hurtin' -to a little girl's feelin's." - -"Well," I said, continuing to show a friendly interest, "ain't you -glad they're named at last, so's if they die you could have a -tombstone for them?" - -"Glad!" she answered, putting the biscuits in the pan (but her mind -still on the twins), and sticking holes in the top of them with a -fork, "glad ain't no name for it! Why, I ain't had as much enjoyment -out o' nothin' as I had out o' this namin' sence the night I married -Bill Williams!" - - -It's a very thrilling and exciting thing to be a bride and if you -can't be a bride you can still manage to get a good many thrills out -of just a bridesmaid. All of Marcella's have talked about how nervous -and timid they are going to be--when the men are around--and some say -they nearly faint when a great crowd stares at them, others say they -bet folks will think they've got St. Vituses' dance from trembling so; -anyhow, they're all very modest. But Miss Cis, I believe, ain't -putting on, for all she claims toward modestness is that her knees get -so weak that they nearly let her drop when she acts a bridesmaid, -which is the way a good many persons feel. The maids have laughed a -good deal over her knees among themselves, never dreaming that the men -would catch on to them, but they did in the following manner: - -Miss Cis stayed all night at Marcella's last night to tell secrets for -the last time, for after a lady is married you can't be too careful -about telling her your secrets; and early this morning I ran over and -saw her dressed in a pretty blue kimono, which set off her good looks -greatly, down by the woodpile which they keep in the side yard. There -is a hedge of honeysuckle which runs between the garden and the yard -and she appeared to be searching on the ground for something close to -this hedge. I went up to where she was, admiring her company, and she -smiled when she saw me. - -"Ann," she said, very pleasantly, "can you help me find two nice, -little, smooth, thin boards?" - -I complimented her on her kimono and said yes'm to the board question, -then asked her what she wanted with them. - -"My knees," she answered laughing, "they're so idiotic that when I get -excited they threaten to let me drop. If I could strap two nice little -boards to them, at the back, you know, it would prop them up and be -_such_ a help!" - -"You couldn't walk very good," I told her, but she said oh, yes she -could; and to prove it she commenced whistling the wedding march and -walking stiff-kneed away from the woodpile to the tune of it. She -looked so funny that I started to laugh, when just then I heard -another laugh on the other side of the honeysuckle vines. I found a -place where I could peep through and saw it was Julius and Mr. -Macdonald who had come out to view Mr. Clayborne's hotbeds, and -greatly complimenting them, Julius knowing that it's a fine thing to -stay on the good side of your father-in-law in case you lose your job. - -I knew they heard what Miss Cis had said, for they were laughing very -hard, which caused Mr. Macdonald to look real young, being as his eyes -can twinkle. I knew it would be mortifying for her to see that they -had heard her, so I hollered and told her that I heard Marcella -calling her from the up-stairs window, so she ran right on in without -coming back to the woodpile. I started to go on after her, but just as -I got to the kitchen door I remembered that I had left my pretty white -sunbonnet that Mammy Lou had freshly ironed for me on the woodpile and -ran back to get it. - -Julius and Mr. Macdonald were right where they were, only looking in -the other direction and talking very seriously, so I stayed a minute -out of friendly interest. - -"Although so bright and amusing she is never silly," I heard Mr. -Macdonald's long, slow voice saying. "She is a very lovely, -fascinating little woman." So I took a seat on the woodpile. - -"You'd better fall in love with her," Julius said, cutting the briers -off of a long switch he held in his hand, and talking careless like, -as if he wasn't paying much attention. - -"Your advice comes too late," Mr. Macdonald said, his voice so solemn -that Julius looked up in surprise. - -"What!" Julius remarked. - -"Yes," Mr. Macdonald said, sounding very devoted, "I did that very -thing the first moment I looked at her dear, sweet face." - -Julius stared at him a minute, then laughed a tickled laugh; and I -moved my seat right up to the hedge so I could get a good look at -them--it was the next best thing to a proposal. - -"That's the funniest thing I ever heard of," Julius said after he had -quit laughing. - -"It's devilish funny to _you_," poor Mr. Macdonald said, looking like -he didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "But--what am I to do?" - -"Do?" said Julius very businesslike, like folks talk when they're -telling you to follow _their_ example. "What do men in your situation -usually do? Why, propose to her!" - -"But _she'd_ never marry _me_," he said looking right pitiful, for he -spoke as humble as if he wasn't any taller than me, and him over six -feet tall. "It would be the most absurd thing in the world for a man -like me to propose to a woman like her!" - -"No, you're wrong," Julius told him, still half laughing, "the _most_ -absurd thing would be that she would accept you!" - -I'm awfully tired to-night and it would cramp my hand nearly to death -to write all about the wedding--how Julius looked happy up to the -last, and how Marcella cried just enough to appear ladylike on her -lace handkerchief; and how the family relatives cried a little too. -Weddings are all alike, but proposals are all different, and I think -I'd better use more space on them in my diary, so my grandchildren -won't get sleepy over the sameness. But it would be a waste of -handwriting to tell how Miss Cis tormented poor Mr. Macdonald all day, -making him chase around after her trying to get in a private, loving -word; and me just crazy to see whether she really was going to accept -him or not, although I _might_ have known! - -He followed her up though, looking so brave and determined that he -reminded me of "The boy stood on the burning deck." She worried him so -that all through the ceremony he looked so pale and troubled that -you'd have thought it was _him_ getting married. Finally, just before -it was time for the train that he was going back to town on to blow -she changed about and commenced acting sweet. - - [Illustration: He followed her up though _Page 138_] - -All this was nice enough to watch, but is cramping to write about, -and anyhow, the main thing with me was to see whether she was going to -accept him or not. I stayed close to their heels all day, but he -didn't get a chance to propose until just after dark, down by the -front gate, with nobody around except me and a calecanthus bush -and--well, you just ought to have _seen_ her accepting him! - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - -Ever since my last birthday there has a great change come over me for -I have not kept my diary. Mother took me to one side that morning and -said it was time for me to act like I was growing up now. She said -many a girl as big as me could pick a chicken and I couldn't do a -thing but write a diary; and would even run and stop up my ears every -time Mammy Lou started to wring one's head off. She said all the -ladies of the neighborhood nearly worried her to death advising her to -teach me how to work and saying it was simply ridiculous for a great -big girl like me to lie flat on her stomach reading a book all day in -the grass. This shows how I am misunderstood by my family, and I told -mother so, but she said for goodness' sake not to get _that_ idea -into my head, for girls that were always complaining about being -"misunderstood" were the kind that got divorces from their husbands -afterward. I know this won't be the way with me, though, for I expect -to live on good terms with Sir Reginald, always wearing pink satin and -spangles even around the castle; and never getting mussy-looking when -I give the children a bath in hopes of retaining his affections, like -they tell you to in ladies' magazines. But I didn't mention Sir -Reginald to mother, or she would have misunderstood me worse than -ever. - -Goodness! I reckon the neighbors would have a fit if they could see me -of a night when I dress up and step out on the porch roof, making like -I'm Juliet in Shakespeare. I wear a lace thing over my head and let a -pair of Cousin Eunice's last year's bedroom slippers represent Romeo -with fur around the top. They are the kind he wore the night they took -me to see him and are all I can find in the house that looks at all -like him. Nobody gets to see me doing this, though, for I lock the -door. Somehow I think it would be a nicer world if you could always -lock the door on your advising friends. - -Last summer Rufe said I was so clever for my age (_he_ said) that I -ought to be in the city (I like this kind of advice) at a good school; -so father and mother decided to move to the city and take Mammy Lou -and spend the winter and all the other winters until I could get -educated and live in a flat. So we went, me writing much sorry poetry -about leaving my old home. The older I get the more I think of poetry -and I reckon by the time I'm engaged I'll be crazy about it! - -Our leaving was very sad, poor little Lares and Penates crying so hard -at the depot where they went to tell Mammy Lou good-by that a drummer -who was traveling with a kind heart gave them a quarter apiece to -hush. - -I never admired the name of flat from the first and when we started to -rent one I admired it less than ever. It consists of a very large -house, divided up, and no place to kill a chicken. There is also no -place to warm your feet, nor to pop corn. In fact, there are more -places where you _can't_ do things than where you can. Rufe took us to -every one in town nearly, and mammy paid particular attention to how -the kitchens were fixed and asked what became of the potato peelings -with no pigs to eat them up. Finally, after everything had been -explained to her, she spoke up in the midst of a lady's flat with -tears in her eyes and said: - -"Mis' Mary, le's go back to the country whar slop is called _slop_; up -here it's '_gawbage_!'" - -Father and mother were both delighted that going back had been -mentioned without either one of _them_ saying it first, for both of -their feet were sore from looking for flats; and they like to have -fallen over each other in agreeing with mammy. - -"God never intended for _human beings_ to live in flats," father said, -after the elevator had put us down on dry land once more, drawing a -deep breath. - -"Nor in cities either," Rufe agreed, with a far-away look in his eyes, -like he might be thinking of the chestnut hunts and black haws of his -boyhood. - -That night they said well, they had found out they couldn't live in -the city, and they weren't going to be separated from me, and I _had_ -to be educated; so Rufe then told them that a governess was the next -best thing. This sounded so much like a young girl in a book that at -first I was delighted. A governess is a very clean person that always -expects you to be the same. Only in books they are usually -drab-colored young ladies without any nice clothes or parents, but the -son of the family falls in love with them, much to their surprise, and -they lose their job. Then the son gets sent away to India with his -regiment, where he hopes he can meet sweet death through a bullet -hole. This is the way they are in books. - -Mine, though, is not anything like that, being very pretty and pink, -and with a regular father and mother like other folks have. But there -is a great mystery connected with her. Don't anybody but me know about -it, and I don't know _all_ about it. From the very first she seemed to -have something on her mind; this is very unusual for a young girl, so -I tried to find out what the cause of it was. One day at the dinner -table when she had been here about two weeks father remarked that I -was learning faster from her than I ever had, and he hoped that she -would stay here with us until I was finished being educated and not be -wanting to get married, like most young ladies. Miss Wilburn, instead -of laughing as one would expect, turned red in the face (her first -name is Louise) and said something that sounded like "Oh no!" - -Mammy, who was in the room at the time, spoke up as she usually does -and said well, there must be something wrong with her if she didn't -want to marry, as all right-minded women married once and extra smart -ones married as often as there was any occasion to! Instead of smiling -Miss Wilburn looked more painful than ever; so mammy, who thinks -enough of her to _even_ do up her shirtwaists, changed the subject. - -That night when I went into the kitchen to talk to mammy during the -cooking her mind was still on the subject of Miss Wilburn and -marrying. - -"Honey," she said to me, flipping over the cakes with great -conviction, "I've been thinking it over and the long and short of it -is that pore child's been _fooled_! I know them _symptoms_! She's been -fooled and she's grievin' over it. Though thar ain't no use for a -woman to grieve over nary _one_ man so long's she under forty and got -good front teeth!" - -I said oh, I hoped not. I hated to think about the lover of my -governess proving false! I told mammy maybe he had just died or -something else he couldn't help. But she interrupted me. - -"Died nothin'! That ain't no excuse, for thar's allus time to marry no -matter what you're fixin' to do. Thar ain't nothin' no excuse for not -marryin' in this world," she kept on, "be it male or female. You -needn't be settin' thar swingin' your legs and arguin' with _me_ about -the holy estate!" - -The very first minute I thought there was anything of a loving nature -connected with Miss Wilburn I got out my diary to write it down, as -you see. She had told mother anyhow to let me keep it as it would -"stimulate my mental faculties" and they would never be able to make a -chicken-picking person out of me. I'm going to keep it right here in -the drawer and jot down everything I see, although I am _convinced_ -that the lover is dead. Julius and Marcella are down here now for the -first time since they were married. We see them a great deal, for they -love to go walking through the woods with Miss Wilburn and me; but I -can't waste my diary writing about them _now_. - -I just happened to think what a pity it was that I didn't try to find -out the mystery about Miss Wilburn from Rufe and Cousin Eunice when we -was up there last summer, for they knew her real well before we got -her. In fact, for the first few days she and I didn't have any -congenial things to talk about except them and tiny Waterloo. -Waterloo's little name by rights is Rufus Clayborne, Junior, and he -occurred at a time when I wasn't keeping my diary; but my -grandchildren would have known about him anyhow, he being their little -fifth cousin. He is very different from Bertha's baby, for he is a -boy. I thought when I first saw him that if there was anything sweeter -in this world than a girl baby it is a boy one! - -Rufe and Cousin Eunice have lately been kinder New Thought persons, -which think if you have "poise" enough there can't anything on earth -conquer you. Rufe bragged particularly about nothing being able to -conquer _him_ or get him in a bad temper, he had so much poise. But -when little Rufus was just three nights old and he had walked him the -other _two_ and he was still squalling he threw up his job. - -"Poise be hanged!" Cousin Eunice told us he said, "I've met _my_ -Waterloo!" And they've called him that ever since. - -When we were up there in the summer Waterloo was giving his father -considerable trouble about the editorials. An editorial is a smart -remark opposite the society column; and Rufe couldn't think up smart -things while he was squalling. - -"Oh, for a desert island!" he said one night when he was awful busy -and couldn't get anything done. "Oh, for a mammoth haystack where I -might thrust my head to drown the noise--I've read that Jean Jacques -Rousseau used to do so! Listen, I've made a rhyme!" - -"'Tis not rhymes but dimes we need most just now; so go on with your -work," Cousin Eunice said, gathering Waterloo together to take him -up-stairs. - -"Merely removing the location of the noise will lessen it but -slightly," Rufe called to her as she got to the door. "Seriously, do -you know of a hayloft in the neighborhood where I might go?" - -"You might go next door to the Williams' garage and thrust your head -into their can of gasolene--_that's_ the latter-day equivalent for -hay!" Cousin Eunice answered kinder-mad, for _she_ admires Waterloo, -no matter how he acts. - -So Miss Wilburn and I talked over all we knew about the little fellow; -and I thought what a mistake I'd made in not asking Cousin Eunice what -Miss Wilburn's lover's name was and where he is buried and a few other -things like that. But then I couldn't, because I didn't know that -there was a lover. Still, Mammy Lou can talk till her hair turns -straight and she won't get me to believe that he's anything else but -dead. Everything seems to point to it, from the fact of her not -getting any letters from young men and looking lonesome at times and -not wearing any diamond engagement ring. I'm sure he gave her one, -but maybe his wicked kinfolks made her give it back to them after the -funeral. Or maybe she buried it in his grave. I don't know why Miss -Wilburn never talks about him for one of our neighbors talks all the -time about her husband which was killed in the war. I used to be -delighted to hear her commence telling about him. He was killed at the -battle of Shiloh and was the tallest and handsomest man in the army. -She takes a great deal of pleasure in talking about him, and when -there are summer boarders at her house he grows to be nearly seven -feet tall and so handsome that it hurts your eyes to look at him. Her -second husband is stone deaf and can't hear it thunder, which makes it -nicer for them, for while it amuses her to talk about her first -husband's good looks it ain't hurting to the second one's feelings. - -The autumn leaves are just lovely now and make you want to write a -book, or at least a piece of poetry. It's right hard on you, though, -not to have anything to write about but a girl without a beau. It's -kinder like eating sweet potatoes without butter. I decided this -morning that I better make the most of what I have got as a subject, -so I started to writing one called _The Maiden Widow_. I've heard of a -book by that name, but I don't reckon they'll have me arrested for -writing just a short poem by the same name. We have some nature study -every morning in the woods, which is one of the best things about -having a governess. She lets me do just as I like, so I took my tablet -and while she was writing some history questions I composed on my -poem. It is very discouraging work, though, to write about widows, for -there's nothing on earth that will rhyme with them. I got one line, -"The maiden widow, she wept, she did, oh!" which was sorry enough -sounding, but I didn't know whether or not it was exactly fair to have -two words rhyming with just one. After a while I thought maybe a -regular poet could do a better job by it than even I could, so I -decided to ask Marcella to ask Julius to write me a few lines as a -copy to go by, for anybody that can draw such lovely pictures ought to -be able to write poetry. - -Marcella came over this afternoon and I took her up-stairs very -secretly to ask her about it. She said why, what on earth made me -think that Miss Wilburn was grieving over a dead lover, and I told her -that _everything_ made me think it. After studying about it for a -little while she said well, it might be that I was right, for the girl -did seem to have something preying on her mind. But she said such -subjects were not suitable for children of my age to be writing about -and that I ought to write about violets and sparrows. I said then -would she please find out from Julius whether or not there was a rhyme -for widow, for I might want to write a poem on them when I got grown, -but she said, "Ann, you are incorrigible," which I keep forgetting to -look up in the dictionary, although it looks like I would, for it has -been said to me so many times. - -A thing happened this morning which made me understand what -Shakespeare must have meant when he said "Much Ado About Nothing." It -reminded me of the time Cousin Eunice rushed to the telephone and -called Rufe up and said, "Oh, dearest, the baby's got a tooth!" This -was harmless enough in itself, but it is when things are misunderstood -that the trouble comes in. Rufe misunderstood and thought she said, -"The baby's got the croup," which is very dangerous. So he didn't stop -to hear another word, but dropped the telephone and grabbed his hat. -It was night, for Rufe's paper is a morning one that works its men at -night, and didn't wait for a car, but jumped into a carriage, which -costs like smoke. He drove by Doctor Gordon's house and told the -driver to run in and tell Doctor Gordon to come right on and drive to -his house with him, as his baby was very sick, although Doctor Gordon -has an automobile of his own. He and Ann Lisbeth happened to have a -few friends in to play cards with them that night, but when she heard -the news about the baby she told the company that Cousin Eunice was -one of the best friends she had in the world and she would have to go -on over and see if she could help any. So the card party was broken up -and they all drove as hard as they could tear over to Rufe's house, -where they found Cousin Eunice tickled to death over the tooth and -washing Waterloo's little mouth out with boric acid water, which is -the proper thing. This is what I call much ado about nothing, and I'm -sure Shakespeare would if he was living to-day. - -What happened this morning was equally as exciting and a long story, -so I'm going to stop and sharpen my pencil, for I despise to write -exciting things with a pencil that won't half write. - -I reckon some people might lay the blame on me for what happened, but -it ain't so at all, if people hadn't just misunderstood me. Anyhow, it -may make me "curb my imagination," as Julius says, for that is what -they blamed it all on. - -When we started out for our nature study this morning father said if -we could stand the sight of human nature a little would we go down -town right after train time and get the mail? We said yes and -Marcella, who was with us, said she would be glad to go in that -direction, for Julius was there and we could meet him and he would -walk home with us. She still likes to see him every few minutes in the -day. - -There are usually several very handsome drummers and insurance men and -things like that standing around the post-office which have just got -off of the train at this hour, but this morning there wasn't anybody -but one strange man and he was talking to Julius like he knew him. -When we passed by Julius spoke to us and I noticed that the strange -man looked at Miss Wilburn and looked surprised. All in a minute I -thought maybe he was the lover which had just returned from some -foreign shore, instead of being dead, and would run up with open -hands and say, "Louise," and she would say, "Marmaduke," and all would -be well. - -I learned afterward, though, that his name is Mr. White and he lives -in the city and has come down here on business and knew Julius. After -we had passed he remarked that he was surprised to see Miss Wilburn -down here as he didn't know she was away from home. Julius asked him -if he knew Miss Wilburn and he said no, but he knew Paul Creighton, -the fellow she was going to marry, mighty well. Julius, instead of not -saying anything as a person ought, spoke up and said why he understood -that Miss Wilburn's sweetheart was dead. The strange man said why he -was utterly shocked for he had seen Creighton on the streets only a -few days before, but he _had_ looked kinder pale and worried then. He -said it made him feel weak in the knees to hear such a thing, and -Julius commenced saying something about it must be a mistake then, but -Mr. White said no, he guessed it was so, for Mr. Creighton had looked -awful pale and thin, like he might be going into consumption. Julius -said well he was certain his wife had told him something about Miss -Wilburn having a dead lover, but he hadn't paid much attention to what -she was saying, like most married men; but it surely couldn't be so. -By that time Mr. White was moving down the street to where we were and -was asking Julius to introduce him to Miss Wilburn, so he could find -out the particulars about poor old Creighton. I _will_ give Julius -credit for trying to stop him, but he is one of the kind of persons -that never knows when to say a thing and when not to, Mr. White, I -mean. And before Julius could get him side-tracked they had caught up -with us and there wasn't anything else to do but introduce him. Miss -Wilburn smiled very joyfully when she heard his name, and in a minute -he had got her off to one side and I heard him saying something about -how horrified he was to hear the news about poor Creighton. In just -an instant Miss Wilburn was the one that looked horrified and said why -_what_? This seemed to bring Mr. White to his right mind a little and -instead of going ahead and telling it he turned around to Julius and -said: - -"Why our friend, Young, here, was telling me that----" - -"I _told_ you that it must be a mistake," Julius spoke up, looking -awfully uncomfortable, "but I remember my wife saying that--oh, say, -Marcella, explain--will you?" - -"Why, Julius Young," Marcella commenced in a married-lady tone, "you -promised me that you wouldn't say a word about it; anyway we only -suspected----" - -"Will _nobody_ tell me what has happened to Paul?" Miss Wilburn said -in a low, strangled voice, like she couldn't get her breath good. - -"Ain't anything happened to him that _we_ know of," I told her, for -Julius and the rest of them looked like they were speechless. "We -thought _you_ knew it!" - -"Knew _what_? Oh, for the love of Heaven, tell me!" she said, poor -thing! And I felt awful sorry for us all, but for Miss Wilburn and me -in particular. - -I just couldn't tell her we thought he was _plumb_ dead, so I told her -we thought he must be very sick or something. - -"He may be," she answered, not looking any happier. "I haven't heard -from him since I've been here! Oh, it serves me right for acting such -an idiot as to run off down here and forbid his writing to me! He may -be desperately ill! How did you hear it?" - -"Ain't anybody heard it _yet_!" I told her, feeling so angry at -Marcella and Julius and Mr. White for telling such a thing and so -ashamed of myself for making it up that I couldn't think very well. I -kept wishing in my mind that it was the first day of April so I could -say "April Fool," or an earthquake would happen or _anything_ else to -pass it off; but didn't anything happen, so I had to stand there with -all of them looking at me and tell Miss Wilburn how Mammy Lou said -_she_ believed she had been fooled because she looked so sad at the -mention of marrying, but _I_ believed the gentleman was dead. - -Well, it took every one of us every step of the way home to explain it -to her and to each other, each one of us talking as hard as we could; -and Julius remarked what he'd do the next time he heard any such -"sewing-society tales" under his breath. - -Just as we got in sight of the house poor Miss Wilburn was so worn out -with grief and anxiety that she sat down on the big stump and laughed -and cried as hard as she could. Mother saw her from the window and she -and mammy ran down to where we were to see what it was all about. She -patted Miss Wilburn on the back and on the head and said, "poor dear," -while mammy said she would run right back to the house and brew her -some strong tea, which was splendid when a body was distressed about a -man. - -"There, dear, talk to us about him," mother said, after the whole -story was told, "tell us about him, for talking will do you good. -You've been unnaturally quiet about him since you've been here!" - -"I was trying to find out whether or not I really loved him," Miss -Wilburn said, after Julius and Marcella had left us and we were going -on up the walk. "It was silly of me, for all the time I've been so -lonesome for him that I felt as if I should scream if anybody -suggested men or marrying to me!" - -"Yes, you pore lamb," mammy said, walking on fast to make the tea, -"you loves him, you shore do. I knows them symptoms!" - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - -I think if the person which remarked, "It is not always May," had said -April he would have come nearer hitting it, for I think it is the most -beautiful time of all. There's something in the very feelings at this -time of the year that makes you want to write pretty things, whether -you know what you want to say or not. So I have got out my diary and -dusted it off, it being laid away in the drawer ever since last fall, -when I told about me getting Miss Wilburn's affairs so mixed up -because there hasn't been anything happening. - -One time not long ago I did get out my diary, for I got very excited -over the news that a _widow_ was here, and I sharpened seventeen -pencils so as to be ready for her. But she had the misfortune to -marry, before I could get introduced to her, a man from her same city -which had got on the train and followed her down here. She was a -lovely, high-heeled, fluffy-petticoated kind of a widow and I could -have written _chapters_ out of her I know; because all the time she -was down here the ladies' sewing circle met three times a week and -talked so that father said he heard they had to pass around potash -tablets instead of refreshments for the sake of their sore throats. - -Mammy Lou made fun of me when I told her how disappointed I was over -not getting to meet such a pretty lady and write her experiences. - -"Looks like you'd a knew better than to expect a widow to waste time -a-cou'tin'," she told me with that proud look coming over her face -that always does when she begins to brag on herself. "_They_ don't -cou't; they marries! Thar ain't nobody able to dispute with _me_ over -the ways o' widows, for ain't I done been _six_ of them _myself_?" - -This ain't exactly so, it's just five, for she never has got that -divorce from Bill Williams yet; and she says now that she's going to -spend the money that the divorce would cost in beautifying herself so -she can marry again. She says she wants to buy her a stylish set of -bangs and a pair of kid gloves to go with them, then she is going to -let the next man make her a present of the divorce for a bridal gift. - -"And you needn't be settin' it down in that little dairy book o' -yourn, neither, for your gran'chillen to be makin' spo't o' _me_ about -after I'm done dead an' gone." - -I told her it was diary, not dairy, but she wouldn't listen to me. - -"Go 'long with that stuck-up talk," she told me, "ain't I been knowin' -about dairies all my life? An' I never even heered tell of a _di_-ry -till I learned to my sorrow of that pesky little book that's always -gettin' lost and me havin' to find it." And I couldn't blame her very -much for this, me being a great hand myself to get words mixed up in -my childhood, especially such words as epistle and apostle. I always -thought that ignorant people said "epistle" and smart ones "apostle." - -But as I was saying, a sweetheart is the proper thing to get in the -spring if you _can_ get one; but if you're too little for such a thing -a kindred spirit is the next best thing a girl can have. A kindred -spirit is a girl you lay awake till twelve o'clock of a night telling -secrets to. Of course _men_ never tell secrets, but they often need a -kindred spirit, that is, a close friend, especially when they get so -sick they think they're about to die they want the friend to run quick -to their private office and burn up some letters in their desk that it -wouldn't be healthy for them to let their wife know about, even if -they were dead. So it is a convenient thing to have, male or female. - -The first night I laid awake with mine I told her all about stuffing -my insteps to make them look aristocratic and kissing Lord Byron's -picture good night every night, which I _never_ would have done in -the daylight. At night things just seem to tell _themselves_, although -you are very sorry for it the next day. Men mostly propose at night; I -guess one excuse is that the girls form such beautiful optical -illusions under a pink lamp shade. - -Well, I told her all I knew and she told me the story of her life, -which is as follows: Her name is Jean Everett, her mother's name is -Mrs. Everett and her young lady aunt is named Miss Merle Arnold on her -mother's side. They are down here to spend the summer and are boarding -close to our house. There is another boarder in the house for the -summer which is named Mr. St. John, and Jean says if they had named -him Angel instead of just Saint it wouldn't be any too good for him. -And, if I do say it myself, he is as beautiful as a mermaid. Mammy Lou -says he's got a "consumpted look," but to other people it is the -height of poetry. - -Jean is so full of poetical thoughts herself that her stomach is very -much upset and nothing but chocolate candy will agree with her. She -has promised the next time she stays all night with me she will tell -me the one great secret of her life (as if I hadn't guessed it the -minute she called Mr. St. John's name.) She hasn't got much appetite -and the smell of honeysuckle fills her with strange longings. She says -she either wants to write a great book or live in a marble palace or -marry a duke, she can't tell exactly which. But the poor girl is -cruelly misunderstood by her family, because her mother is giving her -rhubarb to break it out on her. - -Jean came over early this morning and said she just had to talk to -somebody about how spiritual Mr. St. John looked last night with his -fair hair and white vest on. - -"He looked just like a _lily_, Ann," she said, with almost tears in -her eyes, and me remembering Doctor Gordon didn't laugh at her. Then, -before I could comfort her, she had dropped down by the iris bed and -was telling me the one great secret of her life, without waiting to -stay all night and tell it in the moonlight. - -"_Love_ him," she said, gathering up a handful of the purple irises, -"love _him_? I'd _cook_ for that man." - -I didn't hardly know what to say in answer to this secret, which -wasn't much of a secret to me; but she didn't wait for me to say -anything for she went on telling me what big pearl buttons the white -vest had on it and how Mr. St. John said "i-ther and ni-ther," and how -broken her heart was. She said she was the most sinful girl on earth, -for she believed Mr. St. John was about to get struck on her Aunt -Merle, and here she was winning him away from her! - -I asked her if he had ever said anything about loving her and she said -why, no; no well-behaved girl would let a man say such a thing to her -until they had been acquainted at least a month, and they hadn't been -knowing each other but twenty-two days. I then asked her if he had -made any sign that he would like to say things to her when the month -was out, but she said that was just where the trouble came in. She -_knew_ she could win his love if she once got a _chance_ at him; but -no matter how early she got up of a morning to go and sit with him on -the porch before breakfast, which was a habit of his, he would just -ask her how far along she was in geography and if she didn't think -algebra was easier than arithmetic, and such insulting questions as -that. Then he would pace up and down the floor until her Aunt Merle -came out of the front door, acting like a _caged bridegroom_! She -said, oh, it would put her in her grave if she didn't get her mind off -of it for a little while! Then she asked me if we were going to have -strawberries for dinner and said she would run over and ask her mother -if she could stay. - -This morning Jean asked me if I remembered what Hamlet in Shakespeare -said about _words_. I told her I had just got as far as _The Merchant -of Venice_ and was getting ready to start on Hamlet when Miss Wilburn -left. She said well, he remarked "words, words, words," but he didn't -know what he was talking about. She said he meant that there wasn't -anything in mere words, but he was badly fooled, for there was a heap -in them. - -I told her yes, there was something in words, for I had read of a -beautiful Irish poet once that just couldn't think of a word that he -wanted to finish up a song with. He studied over it for about three -months, when all of a sudden one day his carriage upset and bumped his -head so hard that he thought of it. - -Jean said that was a _beautiful_ story and she would be willing to -have her head bumped once for _every_ word, if she could just write -poetry that would touch one cold heart that she knew of. - -I said well, how on earth did all this talk about words come up, and -she told me that all her future happiness depended upon the meaning -of just one word. Then she went on to tell me that this morning she -had seen her Aunt Merle on the porch talking to Mr. St. John; so she -slipped around to the end of the porch like I showed her how to do -when there was anything interesting going on; and she had heard him -tell Miss Merle that she mustn't "condemn the precipitation, but -rather consider how he _could_ do otherwise." Then he had made use of -a word that she never heard of before in her life. It was -_pro-pin-qui-ty_; and Miss Merle's face had turned as red as tomatoes -when he said it. She said if it was a love word she was ready to -commit suicide of a broken heart, but if it was a _hateful_ word and -they were quarreling, then there was great hopes for her. We looked it -up, but the dictionary man didn't explain it hardly a bit. Finally I -told Jean as it was spelled so much like _In-i-qui-ty_ maybe they -meant the same thing, and she went home feeling much easier in her -mind. - -I'm in such a writable mood to-night that I don't know what to begin -on, and I reckon I'll know less about where to stop. Mammy Lou started -us at it, for her mind never runs on a thing except loving and -marrying. She asked me early this morning if we wasn't going to try -our fortunes to-day by looking down into a well at noon, this being -May Day. Me, being of an affectionate nature, of course liked the -idea, so I ran right over to tell Jean, who was simply carried away. -She said it would be such a relief to her to see the face of her -beloved reflected in the well; but I told her that to see _any_ face -would mean that she was going to get a husband, which a girl ought to -be thankful for, and not get her heart set on any particular one. -While we were planning about it Miss Merle came in and asked what it -was. When we told her she smiled and asked if she was too old and -grown-up to join in the game, but I told her no indeed, she didn't act -at all like a grown person. I really think Miss Merle is very -fascinating. Even her name, Merle, sounds soft and sweet to me, like -a right fresh marshmallow. - -Now, naturally anybody would be excited to think that they were going -to see their husband's face at twelve o'clock in the bottom of a well, -and it seemed to us that the time never would come. There is a very -old well down in our pasture close by the fence which ain't covered -over, and a lot of lilac bushes right around it in bloom, so you -couldn't well pick a prettier spot for your future husband's face. - -Mammy Lou said we better all wear white sunbonnets, because they -become you so, and Miss Merle looked awful pretty in hers, with her -dark, curly hair. - -I don't know how the news that we were going to do such a thing ever -got spread, for we didn't tell hardly a soul--just mother and mammy -and Mrs. Everett and the lady they board with and her married -daughter, which all promised that they wouldn't ever tell, but -somebody else found out about it, as you shall see. - -We collected at the pasture gate at exactly a quarter to twelve and -the minute the first whistle blew we raced to the well, for we were -all anxious to see our husband if he was there. They said for me to go -first as it was my well, but I said no, they must go first, because -they were company, but Miss Merle said for me to look first, then she -and Jean would look at the same time, as their husbands wouldn't mind -reflecting together, being that they were kin. - -My heart was beating so that I was about to smother, but I pulled my -bonnet down low over my eyes to shut out any view except what was in -the well, like mammy told us to do, and leaned 'way over and looked. - -Now, up to this time, my diary, whenever I have mentioned Sir Reginald -I was kinder half joking, and never really thought he would come to -pass, as so many things in this life don't; but now I believe it's -_so_. While I couldn't make out his face very well and don't know -whether his eyes are blue or brown, and his nose Roman or not, still -there was something glittering and shining in that well which I firmly -believe was meant to be Sir Reginald de Beverley and his _coat of -mail_! - -They were punching me and saying, "Ann, do you see anything?" till I -couldn't tell whether he smiled at me or not; but I remembered my -manners even on such a critical occasion, so I got up and let them -look. - -They commenced pulling down their bonnets like I did and leaned over -the well. I was on the other side, facing the lilac bushes--and in -less time than it takes me to write it, me being in a hurry and my -pencil short, there was something happening that made me feel like I -was in a fairy tale. I saw those lilac bushes move and the next thing -I knew there was Mr. St. John. Not in a white vest, it's true, but -looking beautiful enough, even in the daylight. He motioned to me not -either to speak or move, though I couldn't have done either one, being -almost paralyzed between seeing him and Sir Reginald at the same -time. He tipped up right easy and leaned over the well, opposite to -Miss Merle. - -When Jean saw his image in the well she gave one overjoyed scream and -leaned farther over to see more. - -"Oh, it's Mr. St. John," she called out to her Aunt Merle, her voice -sounding very deep and hollow, but joyful. "It's _Mr._ St. John! -_He's_ going to be my future husband!" - -He and Miss Merle were about to kill themselves laughing, for Miss -Merle had seen him from the first; but when Jean looked up and saw him -he looked at her so sweet that you felt like you could forgive him -anything he was to do, even the "i-ther and ni-ther." - -"I'd like to accommodate you, Jean," he said, laughing and catching -her hand with an affectionate look, although he is usually very timid -and dignified, "but the fact is--may I tell, Merle?" And the way _he_ -said "Merle" sounded like a whole _box_ of marshmallows. - -Miss Merle smiled at him and then he told Jean if she would every -_bit_ as soon have it that way, he would be her uncle instead of her -future husband. - -I was so afraid that she would faint or die right there in the pasture -that I told them I heard mother calling me and ran as hard as I could -tear. - -She came over this afternoon to tell me all about it and was feeling -strong enough to eat a small basket of wild goose plums. - -"Oh, it was a terrible shock at first," she said, stopping long enough -to spit out a seed, "but the _minute_ he said _uncle_ my love changed. -Why, Ann, an uncle is an _old_ person, almost like a grandpa! Anyway, -they've promised that I shall be in the wedding, dressed in a pair of -beautiful white silk stockings." - - - - -CHAPTER X - - -It ain't any easy matter to keep a diary with a baby in the house, -especially if he's at the _watchable_ age, although he's such a -darling one that you don't begrudge him the trouble he makes. Before -you more than get a sentence set down you have to drop everything and -run and jerk the palm-leaf fan out of his hands, which he takes great -pleasure in ramming the handle of down his throat. Then he eats great -handsful of the Virginia Creeper leaves if you leave him on the porch -for a minute by himself. And at times he won't be satisfied with -anything on earth unless you turn up the mattress and let him beat on -the bed-springs, which I consider a smart idea and think Cousin Eunice -ought to write out and send to a magazine under the head of "Hints -for Tired Mothers." But I say it again, there don't any of us begrudge -him these many little ways, although it's hard to be literary with -them; for when he smiles and "pat-a-cakes" and says "Ah! ah!" you -don't care if you never write another line. - -Mother made Cousin Eunice turn over the raising of him to her the very -day she got here, for everybody knows, my diary, how a lady that's -ever raised a baby feels toward a lady that's just owned one a few -months. - -"No _flannel_ on this precious child!" mother almost screamed the -minute we got him off the train and started to drive home. "Why, it's -positively flying in the face of Providence to leave his band off this -early!" And mother looked at Cousin Eunice like she had done it -a-purpose. - -"Oh, Aunt Mary, please don't," poor Cousin Eunice said like she was -about to cry. "For the last eleven months there has been scarcely a -thing discussed in my presence but _belly-bands_!" (There weren't any -men around.) "It seems if a woman ever has one baby her thoughts never -travel away from flannel bands afterward!" - -"But pneumonia! Cholera infantum! Teething!" Mother kept on, hugging -Waterloo close. - -"That's what _twenty-three_ of my neighbors tell me," Cousin Eunice -answered, "then nineteen others say it's cruel to keep him all swathed -up in this hot weather, while eleven said to leave it off until his -second summer, and fifteen said for me to----" - -"What does Doctor Gordon say?" mother asked, to change the subject off -of the neighbors. - -"He said, '_Damn those old women!_'" Cousin Eunice told her, which -made her jump, although it looks like she has lived with father long -enough not to. - -Right after dinner they started up the talk again. Should Waterloo be -banded or disbanded? They hadn't talked long when Mammy Lou came into -the room holding something under her apron. She looked kinder mad and -dignified at mother and Cousin Eunice because they hadn't asked her -for _her_ say-so about bands. - -"If it's entirely respectable for me to speak before I'm spoke to," -she commenced, her voice very proud and haughty, "I'd like for you all -to pay _me_ some mind. There's _two_ subject's I'm well qualified to -speak about and one is babies. Ain't I done raised a bushel basket -full o' little niggers, let alone that one beautiful little white -angel that's the peartest and sweetest of any in the state?" - -Which made me feel very much embarrassed with modestness. - -"We all know that you made a good job of Ann," Cousin Eunice said very -pleasantly just to pacify her. "What would you suggest about little -Rufus?" - -"_These!_" Mammy Lou said, drawing her hand out from her apron like a -man on the stage dressed in velvet does his sword and we saw a string -of speckled beans. - -"Job's Tears," mammy told the company. "Ther ain't no need to worry -about bands when you've got _these_! Ther nuvver has been a child that -cut teeth hard from Adam on down if his ma put a string of these -aroun' his neck----" - -Cousin Eunice was beginning to say something nice when father spoke up -and asked mammy who it was that put them around Adam's neck, which -made her mad. - -"Poke all the fun you want to," she said, "but the time _will_ come -that you-all 'ull be thankful to me for savin' these for Mr. Rufe's -baby, or I'm a blue-gum nigger!" - -Lots of times I take Waterloo over to make Jean a visit, which is easy -on everybody, for the folks over there love babies so that they -relieve me of his weight the minute I get there and leave me and Jean -free to do whatever we want to. She is teaching me what she calls -"artistic handwriting" now, using an actress' signature for a copy. It -consists of some very large letters and some very small ones, like the -charts in an eye-doctor's office that he uses to see if you're old -enough to wear spectacles. - -Cousin Eunice has time now with so many folks to help tend to Waterloo -to slip off every morning and go to a quiet place down in the yard -with her paper and pencil and compose on a book she's trying to write. -Before she was ever married she wanted to write a book, and if you -once get _that_ idea into your head even marrying won't knock it out. - -Cousin Eunice says I'm such a kindred spirit that I don't bother her -when I go along too, but she has a dreadful time at her own house -trying to write. She don't more than get her soul full of beautiful -thoughts about tall, pale men and long-stemmed roses and other things -like that before a neighbor drops in and talks for three hours about -the lady around the corner's husband staying out so late at night and -what her servants use to scrub the kitchen sink. I told her I knew one -lady that hated so for folks to drop in that she unscrewed the front -doorbell, so she couldn't hear them ring, but she got paid back for it -next day by missing the visit of a rich relation. - - -Rufe and Cousin Eunice may live to be thankful for the string of Job's -Tears, but I reckon to-night Miss Merle and Mr. St. John wish that Job -never shed a tear in the shape of a bean, for they were what a grown -person would call "the indirect cause" of a quarrel between them. It's -queer that such a little thing as Waterloo should be picked out by -Fate to break up a loving couple, but he did; although I ain't saying -that it was _altogether_ his fault. - -This afternoon I took him over to Jean's and we were having a lovely -time out on their front porch, enjoying stories of her former -sweethearts and a bottle of stuffed olives. She told me about one she -had last winter that she was deeply attached to. She would see him at -a big library in the city where she loves to read every afternoon. She -saw him there one time and got to admiring him so much that she would -go up there every afternoon at the time she knew he would be there and -get a book and sit opposite him, making like she was reading, but -really feasting her eyes on his lovely hair and scholarly looking -finger-nails. - -"I never got acquainted with him, so never learned his name," she told -me, jabbing her hat-pin deep down into the olive bottle, like little -Jack Horner, "but he was always reading about 'The Origin of the Aryan -Family,' so I'm sure he was a young Mr. Aryan." - -I told her I certainly had heard the Aryan family spoken of, I -couldn't remember where, but she said oh, yes, she knew it was a swell -family and that I must have read about it in the pink sheet of the -Sunday paper. - -Then she said she had a souvenir of him, and, as I'm crazy about -souvenirs, I begged her to go and get it, hoping very much that it was -a miniature on ivory set in diamonds. - -"What is it?" I kept asking her, as she was trying to get her legs -untangled out of her petticoats to get up and go after it; we were -sitting flat down on the floor, which sometimes tangles your heels -dreadfully. Finally she got up, tearing a piece of trimming out, which -she did up in a little ball and threw away, so her mother would lay it -on the washerwoman when she saw the tear. - -"_Ashes_;" she told me, kinder whispery, after she had reached the -front door, for she was afraid somebody would hear; but it gave me a -terrible feeling and I wondered how she got them away from his -relations and whether she had to go to the graveyard in the middle of -the night to do it or not. I comforted myself with the thought that -they would be in a prettily ornamented urn, even if they were ashes, -for I had read about urns in Roman history; but shucks! when she got -back it wasn't a thing but a pink chewing-gum wrapper full of cigar -ashes that he had thrown away one day right in front of her as they -were going up the steps to the library. - -Before I had time to tell her how disappointed I was there came a -picture-taking man up the front walk and asked us to let him take -Waterloo's picture for some post-cards. If you were pleased you could -buy them and if you weren't you didn't have to. But he knew of course -there wouldn't any lady be hardhearted enough not to buy a picture of -her own baby. - -Nothing could have delighted us more, unless the man had said take -_our_ pictures; and Jean remarked that Waterloo ought to be fixed up -funny to correspond with the string of beads around his neck. She ran -and got a pair of overalls that belonged to the lady she boards with's -little boy and we stuffed Waterloo in. He looked too cute for anything -and we was just settling him down good for the picture when Jean -spoke up again and said oh, wasn't it a pity that he didn't have any -hair on his head, as hair showed up so well in a picture. I told her -it was aristocratic not to have hair when you're a baby, on your head. -She said shucks! how could anything connected with a baby be -aristocratic? This made me mad and I told her maybe she didn't know -what it was to be aristocratic. She said she did, too; it was -aristocratic to have a wide front porch to your house and to eat -sweetbreads when you were dining in a hotel. I was thinking up -something else to say when the picture-taking man said hurry up. There -is a great deal more to this, but it is so late that I'm going to -leave the rest for to-morrow night. Anyhow maybe my grandchildren will -be more interested to go on and read, for magazine writers always chop -their stories off at the most particular spot, when they are going to -be continued, just where you are holding your breath, so as to make -you buy the next number of the magazine. - - -Well, in just a minute after we were talking about the hair Jean said -she knew the _very_ thing! Her Aunt Merle was up on the far back porch -drying her hair that she had just finished washing, and had left her -rat lying on her bureau. She had seen it there when she went to get -the ashes of Mr. Aryan. She said it was a lovely rat, which cost five -dollars, all covered with long brown hair; and she said it was just -the thing to set off Waterloo's bald head fine. So she ran and got it -and we fixed it on. He looked exactly like a South Sea Islander which -you see in the side show of an exposition by paying twenty-five cents -extra. (An exposition is a large place which makes your feet nearly -kill you.) But the picture-man said he looked mighty cute and snapped -him in several splendid positions. - -Now, if Mr. St. John had just stayed where he belonged this would be -the end of the story and I could go on to bed to-night, without having -to sit up by myself writing till the clocks strike eleven, which is a -lonesome hour when everybody else is in bed. - -But Mr. St. John didn't stay away; and, as all the bad things that -happen are laid on Fate, I reckon she was the one that put it into his -head to walk up those front steps and on to that porch before we -noticed him, for we were trying our best to get Waterloo back into -citizen's clothes. - -He stopped to see what it was we were scrambling over, and when he saw -that it was alive he threw up his nice white hands and remarked -"Heavens!" which is the elegant thing to say when you're surprised, -although father always says, "Jumping Jerusalem!" - -"What is the thing?" he asked, after he had looked again. Jean told -him why it was just the lady over at our house's little baby dressed -up. Then he asked what that horrible woolly growth on his head was, -which tickled Jean mightily. Then, just for the fun of seeing what he -_would_ say when he was very much surprised, she jerked it off and -held it up, like the executioner did Mary, Queen of Scot's head, which -gives me a crinkly pain up and down my back even to read about. The -rat was just pinned together and set up on Waterloo's little noggin, -so Jean jerked it off and explained to Mr. St. John that it was her -Aunt Merle's rat. _I_ always knew it wasn't any good idea to talk -about such things before a man that was a person's lover; but I -thought Jean had had more experience in such things than I had and it -wasn't my place to interrupt her. - -I am sure Mr. St. John felt like saying "Jumping Jerusalem" when Jean -told him that the woolly growth was the rat of his beloved. If I was -writing a novel I'd say that he "recoiled with horror," that is, he -jumped back quickly, like he didn't want it to bite him, and sat -down. - -"_Imagine!_" he kept saying to himself like he was dazed; "imagine a -man _touching_ the thing! _Kissing_ the thing!" - -I thought, of course, he was talking about Waterloo, and was ready to -speak up and say, "I thank you, Mr. St. John, my little cousin is not -to be called a '_thing_,'" but Jean spoke first. - -"What would you want to kiss _this_ for?" she asked him. "'Tain't any -harm to kiss in the _mouth_ after you're engaged, is it?" - -We might have been standing there asking him such questions as that -till daylight this morning for all the answers we got out of him, but -while he sat looking at us and we were trying to squirm Waterloo's -little fat legs out of the overalls and him kicking and crying, Miss -Merle walked out on the porch. She saw Mr. St. John first, as you -would naturally expect an engaged girl to do, and started toward him, -but just then she saw us and stopped. - -"Why, what on earth are you children doing with my rat down here?" -she asked, not looking a bit ashamed. - -We told her what we had been doing with it and she just laughed and -said well, it was too hot to wear the thing on such a day anyway, -although she had looked for it high and low. - -All the time we were talking Mr. St. John looked at her in the most -amazed way, like he expected to see her appear looking like a Mexican -dog, but was greatly surprised to see her with such a nice lot of -home-made hair. If he had had any sense he would admire her all the -more for not telling a story about that rat; for I've seen a thousand -young ladies in my life that wouldn't have owned up to it for a -hundred dollars, but would have made their little niece out a story -and then boxed her ears in private. I hope when I get grown I won't be -a _liarable_ young lady, although it does seem like they're twice as -quick to get married as an honest one. - -He didn't act with good sense, though, for they soon got to talking -and we could hear what they said (although we were out of sight) for -they were high-toned remarks. - -He said he _hated_ shams, and she said well, that wasn't any sham for -every blowsy-headed girl wears them nowadays and everybody knows it, -even the poets and novel-writers that always make their heroines so -fuzzy-headed. Then she called him a prig and he said something back at -her and she gave him back the ring, which was a brave thing to do, it -being a grand diamond one with Mizpath marked in it. - - -Of course the next thing that happens after an engagement is broken is -for it to get mended again. All day we have hung around Miss Merle to -see just when she gets the ring back again, but up to a late hour -to-night, as the newspapers say about the election returns, there was -nothing doing. Oh, it does seem a pity that they would let the news go -down to their children or be put on their tombstones that their lives -were blighted on account of a rat! - -I've neglected you, my diary, for the last few days because my mind -has been on other things. It rained all the next day after I wrote -last and I couldn't go over to Jean's, which put me out greatly. I -finally thought about sending a note by Lares and Penates and paid -them in chicken livers, me being so uneasy in my mind that I didn't -have any appetite for them, and knowing that they loved them enough to -fight over them any time. - -I told Jean in the note to fix some kind of signal like Paul Revere to -let me know the minute the ring got back to Miss Merle, for I was -deeply worried, me and Waterloo and Jean being to blame for it. Then, -too, it is dangerous for an engagement ring to stay returned too long -for it might get given to another girl. - -Jean was delighted with my note and said she would certainly hang a -lantern in the garret only she never could undo the chimney of a -lantern to light it, and never saw a lady person that could; but it -was a romantic idea. So she thought hanging a white towel in the -window that faces our house for a signal would do very well, and I -could know by that if it kept on raining and I couldn't get over -there. - -Well, I was so interested that I hardly moved from that side of the -house all day, until it got so dark that I couldn't see the house, -much less a towel. So I went sorrowfully to bed. The next morning I -was delighted to see that I was going to get rewarded for my watching, -for _long_ before breakfast I discovered a white thing, and it was -waving from Mr. St. John's window, which made it all the surer in my -mind. - -Although it was cakes and maple syrup I didn't waste much time over -breakfast, but grabbed my hat and started for Jean's. - -Miss Merle was on the front porch and I noticed Mr. St. John just -inside the hall, looking like he would like to come out, but was -waiting for her to give him lief. She looked up at me quick. - -"Why, Ann," she said, "what are you in such a big hurry about?" - -I've often noticed, my diary, that when people are in a hurry and -can't think of anything else to tell they tell the _truth_, although -they don't intend to. It was that way with me. - -"Oh, I'm _so_ glad you and Mr. St. John have made up!" I told her, -fanning hard with my hat, for I was all out of breath. - -She looked very strange and asked me, "What?" and so I told her over -again. Just then Mr. St. John came out and asked who was that talking -about him behind his back. He looked pitiful, although he tried to -look pleasant, too. - -Jean heard me talking and came running down the stairs just in time to -hear me telling it over again to Miss Merle. - -"Why, there ain't a _sign_ of a towel hanging out the window," she -told me, looking very much surprised and me greatly mortified. "You -must have dreamed it!" - -Miss Merle asked her then what she was talking about and it was their -turn to look surprised when she told them. - -I told them I had felt awfully bad about the rat, because me and -Waterloo was partly responsible, and they kinder smiled. But I -couldn't let them think that I had _made_ up the towel story, so I -told them if they would come around on the side that faces our house -I'd show them. Mr. St. John and Miss Merle looked at each other very -peculiar and he said: - -"It's a shame to disappoint the children!" which she didn't make any -answer to, but she looked _tolerable_ agreeable. Then I begged them to -come on around to Mr. St. John's window and I could show them I wasn't -any story. - -"My window!" he said, looking surprised; then his face turned red. -"Why, it must have been my er--_shirt_ I hung there last night to dry -after I was out in that shower!" - -We couldn't help from laughing, all of us; but he laughs like the -corners of his mouth ain't used to it. That is one bad thing about a -dignified man--they're always afraid to let their mouth muscles -stretch. - -Miss Merle caught me and Jean by the hand with a smile and said let's -go and see what that signal looked like that brought Ann over in such -a hurry. "A shirt is a highly proper thing to discuss--since Thomas -Hood," she said as we started down the steps. - -"Pray don't," he said, the corners of his mouth wrinkling again, but -his face just covered with red. "I'll be the happiest man on earth, -Merle, if you'll just forgive me for my asininity; but--_do_ come -back!---- For it's an _undershirt_!" - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - -"Come on in, the egg-nog's fine," Rufe called out to us as we came up -the walk to the side gate this morning, a beautiful Christmas morning, -after a long tramp down through the wood lot and up the ravine. - -"Come on out, the ozone's finer," Cousin Eunice sang back at him; then -stopped still, leaned against the gate-post and looked up at the -mistletoe hanging in the trees all about. - -"You can get ozone three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, -egg-nog but one!" he hollered again, but I saw him set his glass down -and start to swing Waterloo up on his shoulder. No matter how long -they have been married you can always find Rufe wanting to be where -Cousin Eunice is, and vice versa. - -Long ago anybody reading in my diary would have seen that mother is -the kind of woman who loves to mother anything that needs it, from a -little chicken with the gapes to a college professor out in a storm -without his rubbers; and the latest notion she has taken up is to see -that Miss Martha Claxton, one of the teachers in a girls' school that -has been opened up near here, shall not get homesick during the -week-ends. We all like her, Mammy Lou even saving the top of the -churning every Friday to make cottage cheese for her; and Cousin -Eunice said she knew she was a kindred spirit as soon as she said she -could eat a bottle of olives at one sitting and _loved_ Baby Stuart's -picture. So we invited her to go walking with us this morning and -Cousin Eunice told her all about her courting in the ravine. - -_I_ also knew about her _peculiarity_, which Cousin Eunice didn't; but -I didn't like to mention it, for Miss Claxton had smashed her -eye-glasses all to pieces yesterday and was wearing an embroidered -waist and a string of coral, so instead of looking intellectual, as -she usually does, she looked just like other girls. But the men of our -family all laugh at her behind her back and call her "The Knocker," -because she carries a hammer with her on all her rambles instead of a -poetry book, and knocks the very jiblets out of little rocks to see if -they've got any fossils on their insides. In other words, she is a -geologist. A person ought not to blame her though until she has had -time to explain to them that her father was professor of it and had a -chair in a college when she was born. So he taught her all about rocky -subjects when she was little, and she's crazy about it. Still, I would -rather be with a person that is crazy about geology than one that -isn't crazy at all. I hate _medium_ people. But, as I have said, we -are all very fond of her, although she has never done anything since -I've known her that would be worth writing about in this book, not -having any lover; so it has been lying on the shelf all covered with -dust ever since Jean left. Sometimes I think I'll never find another -Jean! - -To get back to my subject, though, this morning _was_ lovely--cool -enough to keep your hair in curl (if you were a grown lady) and warm -enough to make your cheeks pink. Cousin Eunice said she _couldn't_ go -back into the house while the sunshine was so golden, so we leaned our -elbows on the fence and Miss Claxton examined a handful of pebbles she -had picked up on our walk. Pretty soon Rufe came out with Waterloo on -his shoulder and in his hands a horse that can walk on wheels and a -mule that can wag his head, ears, legs and tail and say, "queek, -queek," all at the same time. - -"Oh, Rufe, isn't it lovely?" Cousin Eunice said, looking away toward -the hills and sighing that half-sad sigh that rises in you when you -see something beautiful and can't eat it nor drink it nor _squeeze_ -it. - -"Isn't what lovely, your complexion?" he answered, just to tease her, -for Rufe loves the outdoors as much as any of us, and if Waterloo -takes after his mother and father both, he will never sleep in -anything more civilized than a wigwam. - -"Don't joke," she said. "It's too beautiful--and too fleeting! Just -think, in another week we'll be back, dwelling with the rest of the -fools amid the tall buildings!" - -"It is everything you say," he answered soberly, looking in the -direction she pointed, and he seemed to have that happy, hurting -feeling that comes to you when you look at Lord Byron's picture, or -smell lilies-of-the-valley. - -"Don't you feel light on a morning like this?" Cousin Eunice said -again, still looking at the hills. "Couldn't you do anything?" - -"Anything!" he echoed. "Even push my paper to the hundred thousand -mark--or carry a message to Garcia." - -"Especially the message to Garcia! Now _couldn't_ you?" she said with -a bright smile. "I could do that myself, without even mussing up my -white linen blouse!" - -Miss Claxton looked up at them with a puzzled look, and Rufe and -Cousin Eunice unhitched hands. - -"Miss Claxton," Rufe began with a half-teasing twinkle in his eyes (I -had heard father telling him a while ago about Miss Claxton being a -knocker), "this little affair about the message to Garcia happened a -bit this side of the Eocene age, so maybe you haven't bothered your -head about it. I might explain that----" - -"Nobody asked you to, sir," she said, with such a rainbow of a smile -at him that I was surprised. If she could smile like that at a married -man what would she do at a single one? "I know a lot more things than -I look to--with my glasses on! That carrying the message to Garcia was -a brave thing to do, even aside from the risks. It is heroic to do the -thing at hand. I'm trying to learn that lesson myself. I'm being a -schoolmarm and wearing glasses to look like one, instead of following -my natural bent in the scientific field," she wound up, still smiling. - -"What's your ambition?" Cousin Eunice said, looking at her -wonderingly. - -"Knowing what's to be known about Primitive Man," Miss Claxton -answered. "He's the only man I ever cared a copper cent about!" - -"Mine's writing a book that will make me famous overnight, I don't -want to wait to awake some morning and find myself so," Cousin Eunice -said, stooping over to set Waterloo's horse up on his wheels, for he -would come unfixed every time Waterloo would yank him over a gravel; -and all the time we were talking he kept up a chorus of "Fick horte! -Fick horte!" - -Rufe said his ambition was never to see an editor's paste-pot again, -and he was turning to me to ask what mine is when the conversation was -interrupted. I was glad that it was, for I should hate to tell them -just what mine is. Somehow it is mostly about Sir Reginald de -Beverley, and I'm old enough now to know that he may not be an English -lord after all and dress in a coat of mail. He may be just a plain -young doctor or lawyer, and we'll have to live in a cottage (only -excuse me from a flat, I wouldn't live in a flat with Lord Byron) and -maybe we'll just have chicken on Sunday. But as long as he has brown -eyes and broad shoulders and lovely teeth I shall manage to do with -crackers and peanut butter through the week. A woman will do -_anything_ for the man she loves. - -But I didn't have to tell them all this, for just then we heard the -gate click and saw our friend, Mr. Gayle, coming up the walk. - -"There comes old Zephyr," Rufe said with a laugh. "It was the biggest -lie on earth to name him Gayle. Even Breeze would have been an -exaggeration." - -"He's awfully smart," I told Rufe, for I hate to have my friends -laughed at. "I know you and Julius joke about him on account of his -gentle ways and broad-brimmed hats! Father says it's better to have -something _under_ your hat than to have so much style in its looks!" - -"Well, he has something under his hat," Cousin Eunice said, "and hat -enough to cover twice as much. But I think those old-timey things are -becoming to him!" - -"What is the subject about which he knows so much?" Miss Claxton -asked, following him with her eyes until Dilsey let him in at the -front door. - -"Heaven," Rufe answered her, "and hell. He writes deep psychological -stuff for the magazines and they pay him ten cents a word for it. He -must spend his dimes building model tenements, for he certainly -doesn't buy new hats with them." - -"What does he say about Heaven and the other place?" Miss Claxton -asked, much to our surprise, for we had thought she didn't care about -anything but earth. - -"He says they're both in your own heart. The Heaven side comes up -when you've done a decent job at your work--and loved your office boy -as your own nephew!" - -"And----" Miss Claxton kept on. - -"And the hell part comes into the limelight when you've done anything -mean, such as----" - -"Spanking your Waterloo when the telephone bell makes you -nervous--_not_ when he's bad," Cousin Eunice said, gathering Waterloo -up in her arms and loving him. "Him's a precious angel, and mudder's a -nasty lady to him lots of times." - -"Aunt Mary is sending him out here to find us," Rufe said, as we saw -Mr. Gayle coming out of the dining-room door. "I hope she's filled him -so full of egg-nog that we can have some fun out of him!" - -He had on a Sunday-looking suit of black clothes and a soft black tie -in honor of the day, and was really nice-looking as he came up toward -us. And Miss Claxton threw away the last one of her pebbles, no matter -what they had on their insides, and commenced wiping her hands -vigorously with her handkerchief. - -"Thank goodness!" I thought as I watched her. "I shall go straight -up-stairs and wipe the dust off my diary with my petticoat!" - -I reckon Rufe and Cousin Eunice both thought that Mr. Gayle and Miss -Claxton had met before, for they didn't offer to introduce them, but I -knew they hadn't, so I was the one that had to do it. I had forgotten -how _The Ladies' Own Journal_ said it ought to be done, and I was -kinder scared anyway; and when I get scared I always make an idiot of -myself. So I just grabbed her right hand and his right hand and put -them together and said, "Mr. Gayle, do shake hands with Miss Claxton!" - -Well, they shook hands, but the others all laughed at me. Cousin -Eunice said she was sorry she didn't know they hadn't met before, or -she would have introduced them. But Mr. Gayle smiled at me to keep me -from feeling bad. - -"Never mind," he said, "I'm sure Ann's introduction is as good as -anybody's. What she lacks in form she more than makes up for in -sincerity." - -I thought it was nice of him to say that, but I was so embarrassed -that I got away from them as soon as I could. I went out to the -kitchen to see if Mammy Lou was ready to stuff the turkey. Lares and -Penates were on the floor playing with two little automobiles that -Julius had brought them. Mammy Lou was fixing to cut up the liver in -the gravy. - -"Please don't," I began to beg her, "I'll go halves with Lares and -Penates if you'll give it to me!" - -"You don't deserve nothin'," she said, trying to look at me and not -laugh. "I seen you out thar by the side gate, aggin' 'em on! Reckon -you're in your glory, now that you've got a pair of 'em to spy on and -write it all out in that pesky little book!" - -"Oh, they ain't a pair!" I told her, slicing up the liver into three -equal halves. - -"They soon will be if they listen to you!" - -"Never in this world! She says she never has cared for anybody but a -person she calls 'Primitive Man!'" - -"Dar now! I bet he fooled her!" she said with great pleasure, for next -to a funeral she likes a fooling, and she is always excited when she -forgets and says "Dar now." "If he has," she kept on, "she'd better do -the nex' best thing and marry Mr. Gayle. He's got as good raisin' as -ary man I ever seen, although he's a little pore. But they's _some_ -things I don't like about fat husban's--they can't scratch they own -back!" - -I was glad to keep her mind on marrying, for I thought I'd get a -chance at the gizzard too, but she watched it like she watches her -trunk-key when her son-in-law's around. I told her to go to the window -and see what they were doing now, and she did it, poor old soul! When -she came back the gizzard was gone, but she was so tickled that she -didn't notice it. - -"They've done paired off and gone down by the big tree to knock -mistletoe out'n the top," she told me, her face shining with grease -and happiness. "I knowed 'twould be a match! Needn't nuvver tell no -nigger of my experience that folks is too smart to fall in love! -Ever'body's got a little _grain_ o' sense, no matter how deep it's -covered with book-learnin'." - -"Oh, they don't have to be smart at all," I told her, talking very -fast to divert her mind from the gravy. "Father says if the back of a -girl's neck is pretty she can get married if she hasn't sense enough -to count the coppers in the contribution box." - -"An' he tol' the truth," she said, stopping still with her hands on -her hips like she was fixing for a long sermon. "An' furthermore, if -she's rich she don't need to have neither. But marryin' for riches is -like puttin' up preserves--it looks to be a heap bigger pile -beforehan' than afterwards. An' many a man marries a rich girl -expectin' a automobile when he don't git nothin' but a baby buggy!" - - -Mr. Gayle has been coming over so early every morning since that first -morning that he met Miss Claxton, and staying so late that I haven't -had much time to write. I've been too busy watching. I've often heard -Doctor Gordon say that diseases have a "period of incubation," but I -believe that love is one disease that doesn't incubate. It just comes, -like light does when you switch on the electricity. This morning Mr. -Gayle came so early that Rufe went into the sitting-room and began to -poke fun at him, as usual. - -"Hello, old man," he said, shaking hands with him. "I'm surely glad to -see that it's _you_. Thought of course when the door-bell rang so soon -after breakfast that it was an enlarged picture agent!" - -"No, I'm far from being an enlarged anything," the poor man said, -wiping off the perspiration from his forehead, for he must have -walked very fast. "In fact, I'm feeling rather 'ensmalled,' as our -friend, Ann, might say. I have never before so realized my utter -unworthiness!" - -"Bosh," Rufe said, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly way. -"Why, man, you're on to your job as well as anybody I ever saw. Why, -your last article in _The Journal for the Cognoscenti_ made me give up -every idea of the old-fashioned Heaven I'd hoped for--a place where a -gas bill is never presented, and alarm clocks and society editors -enter not!" - -"Mr. Clayborne would have been worth his weight in platinum as court -jester to some melancholy monarch in the middle ages," Miss Claxton -said, looking up from her crochet work which mother is teaching her -and Cousin Eunice to do, because it has come back into style, to smile -at Mr. Gayle. - -"I'm not what Ann calls 'smart'!" he said in answer to her, "but I -remember enough history to know that the other name for jester is -fool. I shan't stay where people call me such names!" So he got up and -went out, which gave Cousin Eunice and Waterloo and me an excuse to go -too. So we left the lovers alone. - -"Well, he's what I call a damn fool," Rufe said in a whisper as soon -as the door was closed so they couldn't hear. "Coming over here every -few minutes in the day, 'totin' a long face,' as mammy says, and -hasn't got the nerve to say boo to a goose!" - -"Saying boo to a goose wouldn't help his suit any," Cousin Eunice -said; "besides, well-regulated young people don't get engaged in three -days!" - -"What ill-regulated young people you and I must have been!" Rufe said, -then dodged Waterloo's ball which she threw at him, saying what a -_story_! It was nearly two weeks before they got engaged. - -"I advocate getting engaged in two hours when people are as much in -love as those two we've just left. Gayle hasn't red blood enough in -him to stain a _chigoe's undershirt_!" - - -Hasn't anything happened worth writing about until to-day, but it has -been happening so thick ever since morning that my backbone is fairly -aching with thrills. And I'm _tired_! Oh, mercy! But I'm going to stay -awake to-night until I get it all written out even if I have to souse -my head in cold water, or rouse up Waterloo. - -Right after breakfast this morning Mr. Gayle happened to see Cousin -Eunice go into the parlor by herself to crochet some extra hard -stitches, and so he went in after her and said he would like to have a -little talk with her if she didn't mind. Dilsey had left the window up -when she finished dusting, which I was very glad to see, for I was in -my old place on the porch. He told her he supposed he was the -confoundedest ass on earth, but she said oh no, she was sure he wasn't -so bad as that! Then he plunged right into the subject and said he -was madly in love and didn't know how to tell it. Would she please -help him out? - -"Oh, don't mind that," she answered kindly. "All earnest lovers are -awkward. The Byronic ones are liars!" - -He said he knew she would understand and help him with her valued -advice!---- But, just _what_ was he to say? And _when_ was he to say -it? - -She told him she thought it would be a psychological moment to-night, -the last night of the year, and they would all be going their -different ways on the morrow. It would be very romantic to propose -then, say on the stroke of twelve, or just whenever he could get -himself keyed up to it. He said oh, she was the kindest woman in the -world. She had taken such a load off his heart! He thought it would be -a fine idea to propose just on the stroke of midnight--somehow he -imagined the clock striking would give him courage! Oh, he felt so -much better for having told somebody! - -I felt that it would be a weight off my heart if I could tell somebody -too, and just then I spied Rufe holding Waterloo up to see the turkeys -down by the big chicken coop. I didn't waste a second. - -"Oh, Rufe, you'll be surprised!" I said, all out of breath, and he -turned around and looked thrilled. "Mr. Gayle is _red-bloodier_ than -you think!" Then I told him all about it. "Now aren't you sorry you -called him a d---- fool?" I wasn't really minding about the cuss word, -for Rufe isn't the kind of a man that says things when he's mad. He's -as apt to say 'damn' when he's eating ice-cream as at any other time. - -Rufe was delighted to hear that it was going to happen while they were -still here to see it; and we went right back to the house and planned -to sit up with Cousin Eunice and see them after they came out of the -parlor on the glad New Year. Julius and Marcella were coming over to -sit up with us anyhow to watch it in, so it wouldn't be hard to do. - -Well, mother put enough fruit cake and what goes with it out on the -dining-table to keep us busy as long as we could eat, but along toward -ten o'clock we got _so_ sleepy (being just married people and me) that -Julius said let's run the clock up two hours. Marcella said no, that -would cause too much striking at the same time, but she said if -_something_ didn't happen to hurry them up and put us out of our -misery we would all be under the table in another five minutes. We -were all so sleepy that everything we said sounded silly, so when a -bright idea struck me it took some time to get it into their heads. - -"Rufe's typewriter!" I said, jumping up and down in my joy, so it -waked them up some just to look at me. "The bell on it can go exactly -like a clock if you slide the top thing backwards and forwards right -fast. I've done it a million times to amuse Waterloo!" - -They said they knew I'd make a mess of it if I tried such a thing, but -I told them if they took that view of what a person could do they -never would be encouraged to try to do things. I knew I _could_ do it! -Marcella said then for Rufe to place the typewriter close up to the -parlor door, and they would all go out on the front porch to keep the -lovers from hearing them laugh. So out they all filed. - -Well, it was an exciting moment of my life when I was sliding that -thing backwards and forwards and thinking all sorts of heroic -thoughts, but I gritted my teeth and didn't look up until I had got -the twelve strokes struck. Then I went out on the front porch right -easy and sat down by the others. Julius tucked his big coat around me -and we all sat there a little while, laughing and shivering and -shaking until I felt that I'd never had such a good time in my life! -Then somebody whispered let's go in--and _then_ the unexpected -happened. - -We heard a sound in the parlor close back of us and the _first_ thing -we knew there was Mr. Gayle raising the window that opens on to the -porch, and he and Miss Claxton came over and looked out into the -night. They couldn't see us if we sat still, close up against the -wall; and it seemed that none of us could budge to save our lives! - -It was a lovely moonlight night, clear and cold, that always reminds -me of the night Washington Irving reached Bracebridge Hall (I just -love it), and so he put his arm around her, Mr. Gayle I mean, not -Washington Irving, and his voice was so clear and firm and happy that -we all knew he had been accepted. - -"Bid good morrow to the New Year, my love," he said and kissed her on -the lips a long, _long_ time. "There has been created for me this -night not only a new year, but a new _Heaven_ and----" - -"And a new _earth_," she finished up softly, and they closed the -window down. - -"I hope she won't take her little hammer and knock on her new earth to -see if it has petrified wiggle tails in it," Rufe said, after we had -filed back into the house and moved the typewriter away from the -door. But his voice was solemn when he said it, and we all felt like -_puppy dogs_ for being out there. And nobody said another word about -staying up to see how they looked when they came out of the parlor. - -The next day everybody made like they were very much surprised at the -way it had turned out except Mammy Lou. She looked as happy when Miss -Claxton told us the news as if she had got herself engaged again. - -"You were right after all, mammy," Cousin Eunice told her. "In spite -of all Miss Claxton's scientific knowledge she has preferred a _man_ -to a career!" - -"An' shows her good sense, too," mammy answered, her old brown face -running over with smiles, like molasses in the sunshine. "A man's a -man, I can tell you; and a career's _a mighty pore thing to warm your -feet against_ on a cold night!" - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - -April is here! Jean and April together! No wonder I haven't any sense! -"And the rain it raineth every day," but for just a little while at a -time, and the mud smells so good afterward that you don't care. The -warm air comes blowing through my window so early every morning and -puts such sad, happy thoughts into my head that I have to get up and -wake Jean. Then we dress and go out into the side yard, where I try to -find a calecanthus in bloom that is really sweet enough to go in front -of Lord Byron's picture. And I try to make Jean listen while I tell -her all my sad, happy thoughts, that's what I invited her down here -for, but she hardly ever listens. - -"Isn't everything lovely?" I asked her this morning, after we had -tiptoed through the house and out to the side porch. "And doesn't -April just remind you of a right young girl, about seventeen years -old, with hair made out of sunshine, and cheeks made of -peach-blossoms; and eyes made out of that patch of blue sky over Mrs. -West's big barn?" - -That patch of sky over Mrs. West's barn takes up a heap of my time on -summer afternoons when I lie close to the windows and read. It is so -deep and far-off looking that I get to dreaming about Italy, and I -call it the place where "Tasso's spirit soars and sings." I learned -this long ago out of the Fifth Reader, and I don't know what else -Tasso did besides soaring and singing. - -But Jean wasn't listening to me. She had reached out and gathered a -bunch of snowballs and was shaking the night before's rain off them. - -"Oh, Ann," she said, "don't they remind you of willow plumes? And -don't you wish we were old enough to wear _them_ on our hats instead -of sissy bows? You can get engaged in a minute if you have a willow -plume on your hat!" - -This seemed to remind her of something, for she spoke again the next -minute. - -"Say, I've never told you about Cassius, have I?" - -I told her no, although I knew a little about him myself, even if he -wasn't in that easy Shakespeare that Lamb wrote for kids. And she -seemed to be lost in thought, so I got lost too. It never is hard for -me to. I thought: "Mercy, how I have grown!" When I first commenced -keeping this diary I just despised poetry, and never cared about -keeping my hair tied out of my eyes, nor my hands clean. You know that -age! But I soon got over that, for when you get a little bigger being -in love causes you to admire poetry and also to beautify yourself. -Jean and I tried very sour buttermilk (the sourer the better) to make -our complexion lovely, with tansy mixed in, until it got so sour that -mother said, "Whew! There must be a rat dead in the walls!" So we had -to pour it out. - -In looking over my past life it seems to me that I've been in love -with somebody or other ever since that night so long ago, when Mammy -Lou washed me and dressed me up in my tiny hemstitched clothes. And -with such lovely heroes, too! When I was awfully little I used to be -crazy about the prince that the mermaid rescued while Hans Christian -Andersen stood on the beach and watched them. Then I loved Ben Hur -from his pictures when I was ten, John Halifax when I was eleven, Lord -Byron when I was twelve--I loved him then, do now, and ever shall, -world without end, Amen! It is so much easier to love _good-looking_ -people than good ones! And, oh, every handsome young Moor, who ever -dwelt in "the moonlit halls of the Alhambra!" Washington Irving will -have a heap to answer for in the making of me. And I used to dream -about "Bonny Prince Charlie," although Miss Wilburn never _could_ -hammer it into my head which one of the Stuarts he was. And _actors_! -Well, I would try to make a list and write it on the fly-pages, only -it might be a bad example to my grandchildren; then, too, there are so -very few fly-pages. - -But I started out to tell how much I've changed since I began this -book, for now I not only adore poetry, I write it! Fully a quart jar -full I've written since I found the first buttercup this spring. An -ode to Venus, an ode to Venice, and a world of just plain odes. Mammy -Lou washed out a preserves jar and put it on my desk for me to stick -them in. It saves trouble for her. - -Jean soon woke up out of her brown study and commenced telling about -Cassius. - -"I used to meet him on sunshiny mornings going to school," she said. -"He was about nineteen and so pale and thin and sad-looking that I -named him 'Cassius.' He walked with a crutch. One morning when the -wind blew his hat off I saw that his head was very scholarly looking, -so from that hour I began thinking of him every second of the time. -That is one of the worst features about being in love, you can't get -your mind off of the person, and if you _do_ it's on to somebody else. -Now, just last week I burnt up a great batch of Turkish candy I was -trying to make on account of a person's eyes. They look at you like -they're kissing you!" And she fell again into a study, not a brown one -this time, just a sort of light tan. - -"Whose? Cassius's?" I interrupted, shaking her to bring her to. - -"Pshaw! No! I had almost forgotten about Cassius! I've never seen -anything on earth to equal this other person's eyes! But, anyway, -going back to finish up with Cassius, I thought _of course_, from his -walking with a crutch, that he must have had a bad spinal trouble when -he was a child and used to have to sit still and be a scholar, instead -of chasing cats and breaking out people's window-panes like healthy -boys. I pictured out how lonely he must feel and how he must long for -a companion whose mind was equal to his; and it certainly made a -changed girl of me! I burnt out gallons and gallons of electricity -every night studying deep things to discuss with him when I should get -to know him well." - -"How did you know what kind of things he admired?" I asked, for some -men like mathematics and some Dickens and you can't tell the -difference by passing them on the street. - -"Well, it did make a heap of extra trouble to me," she answered, -sighing as tiredly as if she had been trying on coat suits all day. -"As I didn't know which was his favorite subject I had to study the -encyclopedia so as to be sure to hit it." - -"Gee whiz!" I couldn't help saying. - -"Oh, that ain't all! I wrote down a list of strange words to say to -him so that he could tell at a glance that I was brilliant. They were -terrific words too, from aortic and actinic in the a's to -genuflections in the g's. That's as far as I got." - -Mammy Lou called us to breakfast just then, but I could eat only four -soft-boiled guinea eggs, wondering what on earth Cassius had said in -reply when Jean said genuflections to him. - -"Pshaw! The rest isn't worth telling," she said with a weary look, as -I pulled her down on the steps right after breakfast and begged her to -go on about Cassius. "It ended with a disappointment--like everything -else that has a man connected with it! You're a lucky girl to be in -love with Lord Byron so long, for dead men break no hearts!" - -"Well, tell it!" I begged. - -"Oh, it's too disgusting for words, and was a real blow to a person of -my nature! The idiot didn't have spinal trouble at all, I learned it -from a lady who knew his mother. He had only sprained his knee, just a -plain, every-day knee, with playing basket-ball at school, which was -all the good school ever did him, the lady said. My life has certainly -been full of disillusions!" - -"But, you've learned what genuflections means," I reminded her, for I -think people ought to be thankful for everything they learn by -experience, whether it's from an automobile or an auction house. - -Pretty soon after this we heard the sound of horses' feet (when I saw -who it was riding them I just couldn't say _hoofs_), so Jean and I ran -to the front door. We were very glad when we saw who it was, for if it -hadn't been for this couple we should have had little to talk about -down here in the country except telling each other our dreams and -what's good to take off freckles. - -It was Miss Irene Campbell riding past our house, with Mr. Gerald -Fairfax, her twin flame, in swell tan leggins that come to his knee. -Miss Irene comes down here sometimes to spend the summer with her -grandmother, Mrs. West. She used to know Mr. Fairfax so well when -they were little that there were always several planks off of the -fence so they could visit together without going all the way around to -the gate. But he grew up and went one direction and she went another -and they didn't see each other again until late last summer; but they -saw each other then, oh, so often! And they found that they must be -twin flames from the way their "temperaments accord." - -I had heard Doctor Gordon say that I was of a nervous temperament and -was wondering whether or not this was the kind you could have a twin -flame with; but father says the temperament that Mr. Fairfax and Miss -Irene have is what makes affinities throw skillets at each other after -they've been married two weeks. But these two are not going to marry, -for their friendship is of the _spirit_. They talk about incarnations -and "Karma," which sounds like the name of a salve to me. Sometimes he -seems to like her looks as much as her soul, and says she's a typical -maid of Andalusia. I learned about Andalusia out of Washington Irving -too, so I know he thinks she's pretty. She has some splendid traits of -character, mother says, which means I reckon that she doesn't fix her -hair idiotically just because other women do, nor use enough violet -sachet to out-smell an automobile. - -Miss Irene is very sad, both on account of her liver and her lover. -Mrs. West says the books she reads are enough to give anybody liver -complaint, but she has had a disappointment lately that is enough to -give her appendicitis. - -His name is Doctor Bynum and he's as handsome as Apollo and a -bacteriologist, which is worse than a prohibitionist, for while the -last-named won't let you drink whisky in peace, the other won't let -you drink water in peace. Still, Miss Irene says he has the most -honest brown eyes and the warmest, most comfortable-feeling hands she -ever saw and she was beginning to love him in spite of their souls -being on different planes. - -"He doesn't care for _one line_ in literature," she told mother, who -is very fond of her and would like to see her settled in life. "I've -tried him on everything from Marcus Aurelius to Gray's _Elegy_. When I -got to this last he said, 'Good Lord! Eliminate it! It's my business -to keep folks _out_ of the churchyard instead of droning ditties after -they're in it!' Now, do you call that anything short of savage?" - -"I call it sensible," mother told her. - -"But I hate sensible people--with _no_ nonsense." - -"Oh, nonsense is necessary to the digestion," mother answered quickly, -"we all know _that_. But a little sense, now and then, it takes to pay -the market men." - -"Which, being interpreted, means that you're like grandmother. You -hope I'll marry Doctor Bynum, but you greatly fear that it will be -Gerald Fairfax!" - -"All I have to say is that 'The Raven' is not a good fowl to roast for -dinner," mother answered, with a twinkle in her eye, for Jean had come -home from Mrs. West's the day before and said that Mr. Fairfax had -been reading _The Raven_ so real you were afraid it would fly down and -peck your eyes out. - -"Oh, Gerald and I don't believe in flesh foods!" she said loftily, -then added quickly, "but I'm not going to marry _him_. Neither am I -going to marry a man who calls my reincarnation theory 'bug-house -talk.' I came away down here the very day after he said that, without -telling him good-by or anything. And I'm just disappointed to death -that he has not followed me long ago. I thought sure he would!" - -"You don't deserve that he should ever think of you again," mother -told her, looking as severe as she does when she tells me I'll never -get married on earth unless I learn to be more tidy. - -"I confess the 'conflicting doubts and opinions' _do_ give me -indigestion. Doctor Bynum has the most good-looking face I ever saw. -And he's just lovely when he isn't perfectly hateful, and--mercy me! I -think I'll get Mammy Lou to give me a spoonful of soda in a glass of -warm water. I have an awful heaviness around my heart!" - -This talk took place two or three days ago and we hadn't seen her -again until this morning when she came riding past our house. They -waved at us as they got even with our gate and turned off the main -road to the little path that leads to the prettiest part of the woods. - -"Jean, what would you do if Mr. Fairfax looked at you the way he looks -at her?" I asked, as we sat down and fixed ourselves to watch them out -of sight. - -"I'd marry him quicker than you could hiccough!" she answered, gazing -after them with a yearning look. "What would you do?" - -"I don't know," I told her, and I don't. "Some people seem to be happy -even after they're married, but I think it would be nice to be like -Dante and Beatrice, with no gas bills nor in-laws to bother you." - -"Shoo! Well, I bet she marries him in spite of all that talk about the -spirit. A spirit is all right to marry if he smells like good cigars -and is _on the spot_!" - -"Yes, I'm afraid Doctor Bynum has lost his chance; for a girl will -love the nearest man--when the lilies-of-the-valley are in bloom." - -"But I heard Mrs. West say the other day that Mr. Fairfax would make a -mighty bad husband, in spite of the good looks and deep voice. He'd -always forget when the oatmeal was out." - -"Yes," I answered, "I heard her tell mother the other day that she -would leave all she had to somebody else if she did marry him, for she -believed in every married couple there ought to be at least one that -had sense enough to keep the fences mended up." - -"Why, that old lady's mind is as narrow as a ready-made nightgown," -Jean exclaimed in surprise. "Why, affinities marry in every page of -the pink Sunday papers!" - -"But really who _does_ make the living?" I asked, for I had heard -mother say that that kind of folks never worked. - -"The lawyer that divo'ces 'em makes the livin'," Mammy Lou said then, -popping her black head out through mother's white curtains. "An' them -two, if they marries, will fu'nish him with sev'al square meals! I've -knowed 'em both sence they secon' summer," she said, a brown finger -pointing in the direction they had gone, and a smile coming over her -face, for second summers are to old women what war times are to old -men, only more so. "I said it then and I say it now, he's too pore! -Across the chist! He thinks too much, which ain't no 'count. It leads -to _devilment_! Folks ain't got no business thinkin'--they ought to go -to sleep when they're through work!" - -"But his sympathy----" I started, for that's what Miss Irene is -always talking about, but mammy interrupted me. - -"Sympathy nothin'! How much sympathy do you reckon he'd have on a -freezin' mornin' with wet kin'lin' and the stovepipe done fell down? -She better look out for a easy-goin' man that ain't carin' 'bout -nothin' 'cept how to keep the barn full o' corn and good shoes for -seven or eight chil'en!" - -Mammy Lou mostly knows what's she talking about, but somehow I hate to -think of Miss Irene with seven children. She reminds me so much of a -flower. When I stop to think of it, all the girls I've written about -remind me of flowers. Cousin Eunice is like a lovely iris, and Ann -Lisbeth is like a Marechal Niel rose. Miss Cis Reeves used to look -like a bright, happy little pansy, but that was before the twins were -born. Now her collar to her shirtwaist always hikes up in the back and -shows the skin underneath and her hat (whenever she gets a chance to -put on a hat) is over one ear, and lots of times she looks like she -wishes nobody in her family ever had been born, especially the twin -that cries the loudest. - -When I told Miss Irene that she reminded me of a flower, she said -well, it must be the jasmine flower, or something else like a funeral, -for she was as desolate as everybody was in _Ben Bolt_. (I always -wondered why they didn't bury "Sweet Alice" with the rest of her -family instead of in a corner obscure and alone.) I told her then just -to pacify her that maybe she would feel better after she got married -one way or another and stopped reading books named _The Call -of_----all sorts of things, and thinking that she had to answer all -the calls. Cousin Eunice says her only troubles in matrimony were -stomach and eye teeth and frozen water-pipes. She never gets disgusted -with life except on nights when Rufe goes to the lodge to see the -third degree administered. She can even write a few articles now if -she gives Waterloo a pan of water and a wash-rag to play with, but -she says many of her brightest thoughts never were fountain-penned -because he happened to squall in the midst of them. - -For the last few days Mr. Fairfax has been riding around the country -looking for a little cabin where he can be by himself and fish and -read Schopenhauer. I imagine from what they've read before me that he -must be the man who wrote the post-cards you send to newly engaged -couples saying, "Cheer up! The worst is yet to come!" - -Mr. Fairfax says the blue smoke will curl up from his cabin chimney at -sunset and form a "symphony in color" against the green tree-tops; and -he can lead the "untrammeled life." He is begging Miss Irene to go and -lead it with him, I'm sure; and she's half a mind to do it, but can't -bear the _thoughts_ of it when she remembers Doctor Bynum's eyes and -hands. Altogether the poor girl looks as uncertain as if she was -walking on a pavement covered with banana peelings. - -I think the blue-smoke-cabin idea is very romantic, but when I -mentioned it to Mammy Lou she got mad and jerked the skillet off the -stove so suddenly that the grease popped out and burnt her finger. - -"Blue smoke! Blue _blazes_!" she said, walloping her dish-rag around -and around in it. "I hope that pretty critter ain't goin' to be took -in by no such talk as that! Blue smoke curlin'! Well, _she'll_ be the -one to make the fire that curls it!" - - -It's a good thing that father gave me a fountain pen on my last -birthday, for I should hate to write what happened last night with a -dull pencil. - -Mrs. West had invited Jean and me to spend the night at her house, for -Miss Irene was feeling worse and worse and needed something light to -cheer her up. Well, it was just long enough after supper for us to be -wishing that we hadn't eaten so many strawberries when Mr. Fairfax -came up the walk looking as grand and gloomy as Edgar Allan Poe, right -after he had written a poem to his mother-in-law. He said let's take a -walk in the moonlight for the air was _madding_. I always thought -before it was _maddening_, and should be applied only to nuisances, -like your next-door neighbor's children, or the piano in the flat -above you; but I saw from the dictionary and the way he acted later on -that he was right, both about the word and the way he applied it. - -Not far down the road from Mrs. West's front gate is a very old-timey -school-house, so dilapidated that Jean says she knows it's the one -where the little girl said to the little boy, forty years ago: - - "I'm sorry that I spelt the word, - I hate to go above you; - Because," the brown eyes lower fell; - "Because, you see, I love you!" - -Jean didn't mean a bit of harm when she quoted it, but the sound of -that last line made them look as shivery as if they had malaria. We -soon found a nice place and sat down on a log that looked less like -snakes than the others, and when we saw that there wasn't quite room -enough for us all Jean and I had the politeness to go away out of -hearing and find another log, over closer to the road. Even then we -could hear, for the night was so still and we were so busy with our -thoughts. - -I began thinking: What if _I_ should have such a hard time to find a -lover that is sympathetic and systematic at the same time? Suppose Sir -Reginald de Beverley isn't sympathetic about Lord Byron! Suppose he -likes his parliamentary speeches better than his poetry, like one -husband of a lady that I know does! - -But my mind was diverted just then by hearing words coming from the -direction of Miss Irene and Mr. Fairfax so much like the little girl -said to the little boy forty years ago that I was astonished. I had -been told that a girl could always keep a man from proposing when she -wanted to! But he was saying that she _should_ come with him and lead -the untrammeled life, and she was looking pleased and frightened and -was telling him to hush, but was letting him go on; and they were both -standing up and holding hands in the moonlight. - -"I'm not at all sure it's the untrammeled life I'm looking for," she -said in little catchy breaths; "but I'm so wretched! And you're the -only one who cares! I suppose I may as well--oh, I wish I had somebody -here to keep me from acting an idiot!" - -Now, if Shakespeare or "The Duchess" had written this story they would -have pretended that Doctor Bynum came around the curve in the road at -that very minute and taking off his hat said: "Nay, you shall be my -wife!" - -But it was only Mrs. West coming down the road, carrying a heavy -crocheted shawl to keep Miss Irene from catching her death of cold! -But listen! The minute we got back to the house the telephone bell -rang and it was a long-distance call for Miss Irene. She knew in a -_second_ from the city it was from that Doctor Bynum was at the other -end of the line. She looked at that telephone like a person in the -fourth story of a house afire looks at the hook-and-ladder man. - -Mr. Fairfax said well, he must be going; and we all got out on the -porch while she and Doctor Bynum made up their quarrel at the rate of -two dollars for the first three minutes and seventy-five cents a -minute extra. (I know because father sometimes talks to that city -about cotton.) And he's coming down Sunday. And Jean and I are holding -our breath. - - -We're having the very last fire of the season to-night! A big, -booming, beautiful one that makes you think winter wasn't such a bad -time after all! A cold spell has come, and oh, it is so cold! It makes -you wonder how it had the heart to come now and cause the flowers to -feel so out of place. But it has also caused us to have another fire -and I love a fire. I even like to make them, and lots of times I tell -Dilsey to let me build the fire in my room myself. I sit down on the -hearth and sit and _sit_, building that fire. Then I get to looking -into it and thinking. Thinking is a mighty bad habit, like Mammy Lou -says. - -I can't do this any more though--for to-night we're having the last -fire of the season. To-morrow spring cleaning will be gone through -with and the chimneys all newspapered up. No matter how cold it gets -after _that_ you can't expect to have a fire after you've _sprung -cleaned_! I never _am_ going to spring clean at my house. The dust and -soapsuds are not the worst part of house cleaning, though they are bad -enough, goodness knows! What I hate worst to see is the battered old -bureaus and shabby old quilts that you've kept a secret from the -public for years pulled out from their corners by the hair of their -heads and knocked around in the back yard without any pity for their -poor old bones! I never see a moving van going through the city -streets loaded with pitiful old furniture without thinking "That used -to be _somebody's_ Lares and Penates!" - -By-the-way, Mammy Lou is crazy for Dovie to have some more twins so -she can name them "Scylla and Chrybdis." She hasn't much hopes though, -for she says lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place. Father -says it wouldn't be lightning, it would be _thunder_ to have two more -little pickaninnies always standing around under his feet and have to -explain to everybody that came along how they got their curious names. - -Mammy Lou heard Miss Irene say "Scylla and Chrybdis;" Miss Irene -doesn't say it any more though. Doctor Bynum didn't wait for the train -to bring him down here that Sunday, but whizzed through the country in -his automobile Saturday night. Then he "venied, vidied, vicied" in -such a hurry that everybody in town knew it before nap time Sunday -afternoon. Mr. Fairfax has gone away on a long trip. Jean said if he -had had any sense he would have seen that Miss Irene Campbell wasn't -the only girl in the world, but he didn't see it and he's gone. - -Next week Jean is going home and when I think of how lonesome I'll be -something nearly pops inside of me. They have been writing and writing -for me to go home with Jean and stay until Rufe and Cousin Eunice and -Waterloo get ready to come down this summer, but mother says I may not -go unless Jean and I both promise to reform. We're not to eat any more -stuffed olives nor write any more poetry--and, _think_ of it! I'm to -stop writing in _my diary_! Mother says I'll never have any practical -sense if I don't begin now to learn things. I tell her, "Am I to blame -if I love a fountain pen better than a darning needle?" The Lord made -me so. And I _hate_ sewing. It's as hard for me to sew as it is to -keep from writing. - -Yet if I go home with Jean I must quit writing. Must give up my -diary. Must not write one line of poetry, no matter how much my head -is buzzing with it! Why, if poets couldn't _write_ their poetry they'd -burst a blood vessel! I can't even take you with me to Jean's house -and read over what I have written in happier days, you poor little -forsaken diary! - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - -It seems to me that the writing habit is kinder like poison oak; it's -sure to break out on you in the spring, and you can never get it -entirely out of your system. - -I've tried my best to keep from writing, and when you have done your -best and failed, why I don't believe even Robert Bruce's spider could -have done any more. - -I promised mother I would stop writing in my diary and I have--for -such a long time that every one of the hems in my dresses has had to -be let out since I wrote last. But now I just must break my promise, -and I reckon if you are going to break a promise at all you might as -well break it all to pieces. So I'll just dive in and tell all that -happened since I wrote last. - -You remember that fluffy-skirted widow that I told you about being -down here, my diary, and I sharpened seventeen pencils for--a long -time ago? Well, she said that _she_ believed every minute of this life -was made for enjoyment. She told it to a young man that told it to -father that told it to mother and I happened to hear. She said you -ought to do the things you enjoy most, as long as they didn't bother -anybody else, and if you did things you had to repent of afterward, -why, even then, you ought to cut out your sackcloth by a becoming -pattern! - -Everybody in town heard that she said it, and Brother Sheffield said -it was a _heathenish_ thing to say! He preached his Jezebel sermon the -very next Sunday, although it wasn't due until nearer Easter bonnet -time. Maybe he wasn't to blame so much, though, for the presiding -elder was due that Sunday and found out at the last minute he couldn't -get there in time for the morning service; so Brother Sheffield had to -preach the first sermon he could get his hands on, I reckon. The -presiding elder (I _wonder_ if you ought to begin him with a capital -letter? I never wrote "presiding elder" before in my life and maybe -never will again, so it's no use getting up to go and look for it in -the dictionary) well, he got in late that afternoon and spent the -night at our house where he kept the supper table in a roar telling -funny tales about the ignorance and tacky ways of the country brethren -he had stayed with the night before. He was an awfully popular -presiding elder with his members. - -But what I started out to say when I commenced writing to-night was -that surely mother wouldn't be so cruel as not to want my -grandchildren to know a few little last things about all the friends -I've written of in here, and also a few little last things about me. I -always like to read a book that winds up that way. For instance, you -will enjoy hearing that Miss Irene is spending every minute of her -time just about now running baby blue ribbon in her underclothes. And -Miss Merle has long ago quit running it in hers! - -Miss Irene has stopped being a "pseudo-Poe in petticoats," as father -one time called her, but not to her face. Doctor Bynum told her that -he thought one bright magazine story that would make a "T.B." patient -sit up in bed and laugh was worth all the graveyard gloom that Poe -ever wrote. - -And before I get clear away from the subject of Miss Merle I must tell -you that Mr. St. John is still the most bashful, though married, man I -ever heard of. I never shall forget the time he wouldn't let us see -his undershirt--when it was hanging in an up-stairs window, too. But -Jean wrote me not long ago that when the census man came around to see -how many folks lived there and how many times each one had been -married and if they kept a cow, etc., Mr. St. John happened to be the -one to go to the door and answer the man's questions. Now, it does -seem that if he and Miss Merle have been married long enough for her -to leave off the ribbon he might leave off the blushes; but they were -all standing around looking at him, which of course made it worse. So -when the census man said, "How many children is your wife the mother -of?" instead of speaking out boldly, "None!" Jean said his face turned -every color in the curriculum and he stammered, "Not any--that _I_ -know of!" And then he looked around at them as if to see whether or -not _they_ knew of any lying around loose about the house. - -I haven't seen Jean since she was down here, but we write eighteen -pages a week. I didn't get to go on my visit to her house as I -expected, for we went to Florida instead. We all went, that is, us -three, and Waterloo and his family besides Ann Lisbeth and Doctor -Gordon. - -Doctor Gordon was the one that started it. He caught pneumonia one -dreary day in the early spring when he was already sick in bed, but -got up and went out to the hospital to operate for appendicitis. Ann -Lisbeth almost went into catalepsy, trying to keep him from going, -but it was a very expensive appendix, he said, so he got up and went -out and bottled it. The changing from his warm room to the cold air -gave him pneumonia, although the doctors say it is caused by a germ. -I'll never believe this, not even if I marry one! - -Well, he finally got over his spell by "lysis" instead of "crisis," -but I hope this will never come to Mammy Lou's ears, or she will -fairly long for more twins in the Dovie family. - -When Doctor Gordon got able to be out a little all the other doctors -told him that he had better go to a warm climate for a month or two, -for it was still so cold, so he and Ann Lisbeth persuaded Rufe and -Cousin Eunice to go too, and they all wrote for us to hurry up and get -ready so we could go with them. - -Mother said she'd just _love_ to go, but she didn't see how we -possibly could, for none of us had any clothes and she had always -heard that Florida was fairly alive with rich Yankees! Mammy Lou -spoke up then and said, well, she was sure Ann looked exactly like a -rich Yankee, and she was the only one that folks was going to look at -anyhow! So mother took heart and we went. - -Father had to have a new overcoat, for the weather has been colder -this spring than ever the oldest inhabitant can tell about, and as -they wrote us to get ready in such a hurry, on account of poor Doctor -Gordon's cough, he didn't have time to have one made at his regular -place, so he bought one ready-made, a light tan one, the poor dear! -And it had two long "heimer" names from Chicago printed on the label -at the collar. - -We got ready in such a rush that none of us had time to rip this label -out, though I lived to regret it many a time! It was too hot to wear -it when we got down there, but father had got scared up about catching -pneumonia, so he insisted on carrying it around on his arm all the -time, inside out; and there was not one millionaire, not one tennis -champion, nor famous authoress we met, but what I saw the eyes of -fixed, at one time or another, on those "heimer" names! - -That's one delightful thing about Florida--you get to see so many -people that you never would see at home. And everybody mixes like -candidates! For instance, you may have a mosquito on you one minute -that you will see on a Russian anarchist the next. The mosquitoes down -there are so big that you can easily recognize their features. And apt -as not you'll go in bathing every day with a person _so famous_ when -he's at home that he is never invited to dine with anybody that hasn't -got monogram china and _pâté de foie gras_. - -I've noticed that the things people tell about after they come home -from a trip depend a good deal on the disposition they carry with them -on it. It's the way with Florida. If you're an optimist you'll come -back and tell about the palms, roses and sunsets. If you're a -pessimist you'll mention snakes, hotel bills and buzzards. The honest -truth is there's quite enough of them all to go around. - -You're impressed with the country from the first morning that you get -into it and raise up (half way) in your berth and look out the car -window. At first there seems to be a mighty lot of just flat scenery, -with tall trees that have all their branches at the tiptop. These -trees remind you of pictures of the Holy Land that you used to see in -the big Bible your mother and father would give you on Sunday -afternoons to keep you quiet while they could take a nap. - -You begin to think that what you're seeing is too beautiful to be -true, though, from the first minute you look out on a blue bay that is -deep green in places, and has purple streaks in it. But when you row -over to an island all covered with palms and find a strip of beach -that has bushels and bushels of tiny shells, that the mermaids used to -make necklaces out of--why, nothing on earth but your _feet_ hurting -so bad makes you believe it is not a dream! - -Florida has all the things in it that you see when you shut your eyes -and smell a jasmine flower! - -The climate is fine for the lungs, but very bad on the alimenary canal -and curling-iron hair! - -We stopped at all the points of interest as we went on down. A point -of interest is a place that the post-cards tell lies about. Still I do -think Florida cards come nearer telling the truth than those of most -places, for the country is very nearly as many colors as they make it -out to be. - -Cousin Eunice said she thought sending post-cards was the _one_ -melancholy pleasure of traveling, and so I bought a quarter's worth at -every place. - -Traveling _is_ a melancholy pleasure when you have a baby that you -won't let drink a drop of water unless it has had the germs all stewed -in it. Waterloo is getting to be such a big boy now, too; but he -still talks like a telegram--just the most important words of what he -wants to say, with all the others left out. He's crazy about -foot-ball, chewing-gum and billy-goats. And you just ought to hear him -chew gum! - -Among the points of interest we saw was the oldest house in America. -It is a _very_ interesting place. It has a marble bust of Lord Byron -in it! - -I don't remember another thing, I believe, except that! Oh yes, I do, -too! I do remember a startling thing I heard about a very old bed in -that house. I heard the guide telling that this was the bed that -William the Conqueror and Maria Theresa slept on! I hate to hear folks -get their history mixed, so I had just opened my mouth to say "Why, -they were not _married_," when I spied the bust of his lordship in the -next room. After that I didn't care how many tales they made up on -William and Maria! - -Poor little Waterloo didn't much fancy the oldest house, but when we -drove up to "The Fountain of Youth," and he saw the clear, sparkling -"drink" that helped Ponce get rid of his double chin and crow's-feet -he commenced to howl for some. Doctor Gordon had told us before we got -there that we mustn't dare drink any of it unless there was a signed -certificate that there wasn't any "coli" in it. - -We looked all around, but as we didn't see any sign, Rufe thought -maybe he'd better not give him any. There didn't _look_ to be any -"coli," either, but still Rufe didn't like the idea of his drinking -it. When Waterloo saw that they didn't intend to give him any he -commenced to kick and squall and get so red in the face with his -dancing up and down that Rufe finally screamed back to the carriage -that Doctor Gordon was in and asked him if he thought one little glass -would hurt Waterloo. Cousin Eunice screamed back at the same time and -said for Doctor Gordon to give his _honest_ opinion, for she wouldn't -have the little angel catch anything so far away from home for the -whole of the East coast. - -Doctor Gordon, who had been made nervous by his spell, screamed back -to them for Heaven's sake let the little imp drink till he -_busted_--only he hoped it wouldn't make him stay as _young_ as he was -then! - -So Rufe motioned for the lady that hands you the water, with a -North-of-the-Mason-and-Dixon accent, to hush talking about her friend, -Ponce de Leon, long enough to give the glass an extra scrubbing and -hand Waterloo some water, which she did. This didn't do as much good, -though, as we had hoped for. Rufe was in such a hurry to get away from -"The Fountain of Youth" that his hand trembled some and he spilt the -first glassful down Waterloo's little front. This made the darling so -mad, and I don't blame him either, that he slapped the second glassful -out of Rufe's hand. He washed Teddy Bear's face with the third, and -threw the fourth in Cousin Eunice's white linen lap, when she tried to -soothe him. - -Rufe ran his hand down into his pocket before he told the driver to -drive on, for he knew that milk was fifteen cents a quart in Florida, -and water was almost priceless. The lady told him that she would have -to collect fifty cents for the water that Waterloo had wasted, and -that washing out the glass was twenty-five cents extra. - -Rufe handed her a twenty-dollar bill, but she couldn't change it. So -he called back to Doctor Gordon to ask him if he could. - -"_Change!_" said Doctor Gordon, looking surprised that Rufe should -have asked him such an embarrassing question. "Why, I haven't a -_thing_ left but my watch-fob and thermometer-case and wouldn't have -had them if I hadn't worn them in a chamois bag around my neck!" - -So Rufe told the lady he would mail her a check for the amount with -interest. - -Later on we saw ostrich farms and the biggest cigar factory in the -world. I _think_ they said it was the biggest. Anyway, if there's a -bigger one I don't care about smelling it! - -It's long past time for the lights to go out, mine especially, for -they never want me to sit up until I get really interested in -anything; but I believe I will throw a black sateen petticoat up over -the transom, which I have found out you can do very well if you have -two nails up there to hang it on, and tell one more little thing that -happened on that trip. I say "little thing," but it seemed a monstrous -big thing to me at the time. - -When we were about half-way through Georgia on our way home, some of -us commenced having chills. Doctor Gordon had his first, but he didn't -say anything about it to Ann Lisbeth until he got to shaking so that -she saw something was the matter. Then mother and Cousin Eunice had -one apiece. Doctor Gordon said it wasn't anything to be alarmed about, -for it was just a little malaria cropping out, but I felt so sorry -for them that I told Ann Lisbeth if she would go with me I would go up -to the baggage car and see if we could get out some heavy underclothes -from our trunk. - -We had to stagger through a long string of sleepers, for we were in -the backest one, but we were rewarded when we finally did get to the -baggage car. There was a merry-eyed express messenger in there who -said he would be _glad_ to pull and haul those fifteen or twenty -trunks that were on top of ours! May the gods reward him, for it was -an awful job! And so we got out enough clothes for our cold and -destitute families. - -Now, you may have noticed before this, my diary, that I am a forgetful -person. I can remember the last words of Charles II, or anything like -that, but I forget what I did yesterday. - -I had entirely forgotten about stuffing oranges in with all our -clothes when I helped mother pack our trunks! And we were in such a -hurry in the express car that we didn't stop to shake the clothes out -as we fished them up from the trays; it wouldn't have been polite to, -anyway, in front of that good-looking express messenger, and we didn't -have room enough. So we had just lifted things out as we came to them -and eased them up in our arms as we started on back on our walk to our -sleeper. - -But the oranges hadn't forgotten about being there! I reckon they -wanted to see what all that disturbance was about for, I cross my -heart, _just_ as I got opposite the swellest-looking man in that whole -string of sleepers, a man with silk socks and golf sticks, a long -sleeve of mother's knit corset-cover dropped down against the seat in -front of him and four oranges rolled out! They rolled slowly, one by -one, and dropped to the floor with muffled thuds. Then they rolled -some more and didn't stop until they reached his feet. - -That's how I knew he had on silk socks. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - -I'm as lonesome as _Marianna in the Moated Grange_ to-night! Isn't -that the lonesomest poem on earth? Everything about it is unsanitary, -too, from the rusty flower-pots to the blue fly "buzzing in the pane." -No wonder it got on Marianna's nerves, in her condition, too! But she -had one thing to be thankful for--she didn't know how many germs that -fly had on its feet! - -I'm lonesome for Jean--or somebody! Thank goodness it is nearly time -for Waterloo to come! Cousin Eunice said in a letter that we had from -her to-day she was trying to raise Waterloo right, but he was a trial -to her feelings! Now, poor Cousin Eunice has read Herbert Spencer for -the sake of Waterloo's future education ever since he has been born, -and she has never let him out of her sight with a nurse for fear she -would feed him chewed-up chestnuts and teach him about the Devil. I -reckon you spell him with a capital letter, if you don't waste them on -presiding elders. But Waterloo doesn't always show how carefully he's -been brought up. He is of nervous temperament and told a woman who was -sewing on the machine right loud the other day: "Hus', hus'! God's -sake, make noise _easy_!" - -This is disheartening after all the trouble she has taken with his -morals and diet and things like that! She never lets him eat the -"deadly" things that Doctor Gordon is always talking about, but she -_does_ keep a little pure sugar candy on hand all the time to be used -only as a last resort. When she can't make him do any other way on -earth she uses the candy. - -Speaking of deadly things reminds me of Doctor Bynum's friends, the -germs. He has told Miss Irene so many stories about their unpleasant -ways that she got to not believing in kissing, but he said pshaw! it -looked like we all had to die of germs anyhow, and so he'd rather die -of that kind than any other! - -Cousin Eunice's letters always tell us so many interesting things -about all our friends in the city. She and Ann Lisbeth still live -close neighbors, but they have both bought beautiful places out on one -of the pikes and each one is claiming to be more countrified than the -other. One day Ann Lisbeth ran over and told Cousin Eunice that Doctor -Gordon had heard an owl in their yard the night before, but Cousin -Eunice told her that wasn't anything! She and Rufe had had a _bat_ in -their bedroom! - -Doctor Gordon has two automobiles now. He had them the last time I was -in the city and I got to find out exactly what "limousine" means. I -had an idea before that it meant _dark green_, because--oh, well, I -needn't tell the reason; it was silly enough to think such a thing -without making excuses for it. But you know so many swell cars _are_ -painted dark green, and so many swell cars are limousines! - -Ann Lisbeth is a great help to Doctor Gordon in his practice, he says. -She always remembers the different babies' names and looks up subjects -for him in his surgical books that would knock the knee-cap off of -Jean's little word, "genuflections." - -No matter how fine a doctor a lady's husband is she is never permitted -to mention it to her friends, for this is called "unethical." But if -she's expecting company of an afternoon she can happen to have a -bottle with a queer thing inside setting on the mantelpiece and when -the company asks what on earth that thing is she can say, "For -goodness' sake! My husband must have forgotten that! Why that's -Senator Himuck's appendix!" - -Ann Lisbeth seems to get sweeter every year and you would never know -she has a foreign accent now except on Sunday night when the cook's -away and the gas stove doesn't do right. - -Another good piece of news Cousin Eunice wrote to-day was that the -Youngs are going to try it again at the bungalow this summer. -Professor Young has to go somewhere to rest up from his studies. For -nearly eighteen months now he's been sitting up late at night and -spending the whole of Saturdays, even taking his coffee out to the -laboratory in a thermos bottle, studying pharmacy. He is delighted -with the progress he has made, for he says he has not only learned how -to make a perfectly splendid cold cream for his wife's complexion, but -has discovered just which bad-smelling stuff put with another -bad-smelling stuff is best to develop his films. He says his knowledge -of pharmacy has saved him a lot of money in this way. - -Speaking of curious couples reminds me of the Gayles. They're not half -as queer now as they were before they married though. At present they -are neither in Heaven, nor on earth, exactly, but they are cruising on -the Mediterranean. They send me post-cards from every place and I -stick them in my album with great pride. - -Another family that we're always glad to hear from is the Macdonalds. -Poor little fluffy-haired Miss Cis! I reckon the very last of her -dimples will soon be changed into wrinkles, for there's _another_ one -since the twins! Nobody can say that Miss Cis is not bearing up -bravely, though. She does all she can to present a stylish, -straight-front appearance when she goes out, which isn't often. But at -home they are all perfectly happy together, Mr. Macdonald getting down -on the floor to play bear, and if he _does_ look more like a devil's -horse while he's doing it, with his long arms and legs, the twins -don't know the difference. - -Marrying has helped Julius' looks more than anybody I ever saw. His -cheeks have filled out until he's as handsome as a floor-walker. And -they're so contented that Marcella says actually when she finds a pin -pointing toward her she doesn't know what to wish for. - -You may have caught on to it before now, my diary, that the reason I'm -telling you this very last news of all our friends is because I'm -going to stop writing _sure enough_ to-night! I'm ashamed to keep -breaking my promise to mother. - -The only ones I've left out, I believe, are Aunt Laura and Bertha. I -wish I had forgotten them for I don't like to say anything hateful in -my diary. - -Aunt Laura has joined some kind of New Thoughters and has grown -quantities of new brown hair on the strength of it. And she dresses in -champagne silk all the time. - -As for Bertha--she _lives_ to keep up with the "best people," meaning -by this that she runs up to the hairdresser's every other day to see -if she can learn how many "society men" have thrown their wives down -the steps or poured boiling coffee over them since she last heard. - -I'm sorry I thought of Bertha so near the last, for I don't want to -leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, my diary. So I'll branch -off and mention something sweet right away. - -That blessed Waterloo! He's the sweetest thing I know anything about! -Just about this time I reckon he's begging his "Daddy-boy" to sing -Feep Alsie, Ben Bolt, for that's been his precious little sleepy song -ever since he's been born. - -When I think of those three and how happy they are, and how satisfied -they are just to be together, I know that Rufe told me the truth that -day, a long, long time ago! There is only one subject worth writing -about--or one object worth living for! May every one of you -grandchildren find just such an object, and be as happy as they are -while living for it! - -It does seem that I ought to be able to think of something beautiful -to wind up my diary with! Everything about me is beautiful! The -honeysuckle is smelling like the very soul of spring and love just -outside my window--and there's a bust of Lord Byron on my mantelpiece -close by. Such a tiny bust--the curly head just fits into the palm of -my hand--when I get grown I'm going to have one big enough to burn -candles before! Not that I shall burn candles before it--for, to tell -the truth, I'd much rather be burning my fingers cooking oatmeal for -some big, brown-eyed "Daddy-boy" and tiny, brown-eyed Waterloo! - -Mammy Lou came to my window just as I wrote this last and stuck her -head in. - -"Name o' Deuteronomy!" she said in a loud whisper when she saw this -book open before me. "What good'll your _gran'children_ do you, I'd -like to know--if you set up all night and lose your looks so you'll -nuvver fin' a husban'?" - - -THE END - - - - -Popular Copyright Books - -AT MODERATE PRICES - -Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at 50 -cents per volume. - - The Shepherd of the Hills. By Harold Bell Wright. - Jane Cable. By George Barr McCutcheon. - Abner Daniel. By Will N. Harben. - The Far Horizon. By Lucas Malet - The Halo. 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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 Annals of Ann - -Author: Kate Trimble Sharber - -Illustrator: Paul J. Meylan - -Release Date: July 10, 2012 [EBook #40202] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNALS OF ANN *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40202 ***</div> <div class="tnbox"> <p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></p> @@ -6618,7 +6578,7 @@ their features. And apt as not you'll go in bathing every day with a person <i>so famous</i> when he's at home that he is never invited to dine with anybody that hasn't got monogram -china and <i>pâté de foie gras</i>.</p> +china and <i>pâté de foie gras</i>.</p> <p>I've noticed that the things people tell about after they come home from a trip depend a good @@ -7155,381 +7115,6 @@ bookseller at 50 cents per volume.</p> <li>Maid at Arms, The. By Robert W. Chambers.</li> </ul> - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Annals of Ann, by Kate Trimble Sharber - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANNALS OF ANN *** - -***** This file should be named 40202-h.htm or 40202-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/2/0/40202/ - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - -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. 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