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diff --git a/40202-0.txt b/40202-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ebd2ce2 --- /dev/null +++ b/40202-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4951 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40202 *** + +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. By Bettina von Hutten. + Jerry Junior. By Jean Webster. + The Powers and Maxine. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson. + The Balance of Power. By Arthur Goodrich. + Adventures of Captain Kettle. By Cutcliffe Hyne. + Adventures of Gerard. By A. Conan Doyle. + Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle. + Arms and the Woman. By Harold MacGrath. + Artemus Ward's Works (extra illustrated). + At the Mercy of Tiberius. By Augusta Evans Wilson. + Awakening of Helena Richie. By Margaret Deland. + Battle Ground, The. By Ellen Glasgow. + Belle of Bowling Green, The. By Amelia E. Barr. + Ben Blair. By Will Lillibridge. + Best Man, The. By Harold MacGrath. + Beth Norvell. By Randall Parrish. + Bob Hampton of Placer. By Randall Parrish. + Bob, Son of Battle. By Alfred Ollivant. + Brass Bowl, The. By Louis Joseph Vance. + Brethren, The. By H. Rider Haggard. + Broken Lance, The. By Herbert Quick. + By Wit of Women. By Arthur W. Marchmont. + Call of the Blood, The. By Robert Hitchens. + Cap'n Eri. By Joseph C. Lincoln. + Cardigan. By Robert W. Chambers. + Car of Destiny, The. By C. N. and A. N. Williamson. + Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine. By Frank R. Stockton. + Cecilia's Lovers. By Amelia E. Barr. + Circle, The. By Katherine Cecil Thurston (author of "The + Masquerader," "The Gambler"). + Colonial Free Lance, A. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. + Conquest of Canaan, The. By Booth Tarkington. + Courier of Fortune, A. By Arthur W. Marchmont. + Darrow Enigma, The. By Melvin Severy. + Deliverance, The. By Ellen Glasgow. + Divine Fire, The. By May Sinclair. + Empire Builders. By Francis Lynde. + Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. By A. Conan Doyle. + Fighting Chance, The. By Robert W. Chambers. + For a Maiden Brave. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. + Fugitive Blacksmith, The. By Chas. D. Stewart + God's Good Man. By Marie Corelli. + Heart's Highway, The. By Mary E. Wilkins. + Holladay Case, The. By Burton Egbert Stevenson. + Hurricane Island. By H. B. Marriott Watson. + In Defiance of the King. By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. + Indifference of Juliet, The. By Grace S. Richmond. + Infelice. By Augusta Evans Wilson. + Lady Betty Across the Water. By C. N. and A. M. Williamson. + Lady of the Mount, The. By Frederic S. Isham. + Lane That Had No Turning, The. By Gilbert Parker. + Langford of the Three Bars. By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles. + Last Trail, The. By Zane Grey. + Leavenworth Case, The. By Anna Katharine Green. + Lilac Sunbonnet, The. By S. R. Crockett. + Lin McLean. By Owen Wister. + Long Night, The. By Stanley J. Weyman. + Maid at Arms, The. By Robert W. Chambers. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Annals of Ann, by Kate Trimble Sharber + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40202 *** |