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diff --git a/old/53788-0.txt b/old/53788-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1384276..0000000 --- a/old/53788-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9075 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Elizabeth, Her Folks, by Barbara Kay - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Elizabeth, Her Folks - -Author: Barbara Kay - -Illustrator: The Donaldsons - -Release Date: December 22, 2016 [EBook #53788] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETH, HER FOLKS *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ernest Schaal, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - -[Illustration: "'Nothing ever tasted so good to me in my life'"] - - - - - _ELIZABETH, HER BOOKS_ - - ELIZABETH - HER FOLKS - - BY - BARBARA KAY - - [Illustration] - - _ILLUSTRATED - BY - THE DONALDSONS_ - - GARDEN CITY NEW YORK - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - 1920 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY - DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION - INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. JOHN'S GIRL 3 - - II. THE STEPPE CHILDREN 16 - - III. THE LITTLE ROOM--AND PEGGY 28 - - IV. THE BIRTHDAY 44 - - V. NINETY-NINE NEGROES 58 - - VI. THE BEAN SUPPER 71 - - VII. THE LOCKED CLOSET 87 - - VIII. LETTERS AND THE POST OFFICE 102 - - IX. HUCKLEBERRIES AND NEW FRIENDS 117 - - X. PROVINCETOWN AND A WALK IN THE WOODS 134 - - XI. LITTLE EVA 147 - - XII. BUDDY WANTS TO KNOW 164 - - XIII. CRABBING 180 - - XIV. ELIZABETH IS RUDE 192 - - XV. PICKING CHICKENS 207 - - XVI. MOTHER 220 - - XVII. ELIZABETH IS SCARED 234 - - XVIII. ELIZABETH SHAKES HANDS 249 - - XIX. RUTH 265 - - XX. GOOD-BYE 278 - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - "'Nothing ever tasted so good to me in my - life'" _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - "'Do open it. I can hardly wait to see what - you think of it.'" 50 - - "'Oh! let's try them on'" 98 - - "'I can't help being afraid of what's in this - particular letter'" 202 - - - - - ELIZABETH, HER FOLKS - - - - - ELIZABETH, HER FOLKS - - - CHAPTER I - - JOHN'S GIRL - - -A little girl in a short-sleeved, blue ruffled nightgown flung herself -across the foot of Grandmother Swift's great guest-chamber bed, and -sobbed as if her heart would break. - -Downstairs, each in an old-fashioned, valanced rocking chair before one -of the living-room windows, Grandfather and Grandmother Swift were -discussing the newcomer. - -"I think she seems real glad to be here," Grandmother was saying. "She -looks a little pale and peaked, but we'll soon have her fed up and as -brown as a berry." - -"I never see any brown berries. All the berries I ever had anything to -do with was red or blue, but there must be berries that is brown, if you -say so, Mother." - -Grandmother's amber needles flew. - -"She seemed real pleased at the things I had cooked up for her," she -said, "especially the chocolate cake. She didn't more than sample the -lemon pie." - -"I thought she seemed a little high-toned about her vittles. She kinder -turned up her nose at your ginger tea, Mother. She was used to having -her dinner at night, she said, and drunk nothing but a demi-tassy after -it." - -"You hadn't ought to have begun your teasing before she was fairly in -the house, Father--it made her feel strange. She hasn't been here for -four years, and four years, when a child is just getting into her teens, -is a long while." - -"An inch in a man's nose is considerable." - -Grandmother surveyed him severely over the top of her bi-focal glasses. - -"Speaking of noses," she said, "you be careful how you try pulling -Elizabeth's nose or chuck her under the chin, or any such actions. -Growing girls is particular about such things." - -"And I'm particular who I chuck under the chin. I'm afraid you are going -to ruin your eyes with those glasses, Mother, you have to strain so hard -to look over the top when you want to see anything at a distance, and -work so hard trying to look under 'em when you want to see anything nigh -to." - -He chuckled at Grandmother's sudden effort to concentrate her keen brown -eyes within the space of the glass half-moon through which she was -supposed to focus her knitting. - -"I just wanted to bind off the sleeve before the light faded," she said. - -"When Congress repeals this here light-saving scheme, it'll hurt your -feelings two ways, won't it, Mother? You won't have the satisfaction of -expressing your mind at the Administration for setting the clock back, -and you won't have a extry hour of light to strain your eyes in." - -The old lady--she was seventy-five, but in a strong light when she was -not quite becomingly dressed, which was not often, she looked -sixty--drew her rocking chair closer to the small window, and knitted in -silence. All the windows in that remarkable old house were small, and -divided into little, square panes. Grandfather drew _his_ rocking chair -closer to _his_ window, and made a great pretence of reading, but he did -not turn or rattle his paper. - -"You trying to prove that your eyes is just as good as mine? Well, I -don't know as I blame you, Father, but your glasses is out in the barn -on the feed box. If you could read a line without 'em, I'd know the -contents of the whole paper by this time." - -Grandfather Swift grinned, and unbuttoned a lower button on the -immaculate linen waistcoat he had put on in his granddaughter's -honour--he wore no coat. - -"Got back at me that time, didn't you, Mother? I always feel uneasy -after I get the better of you till you've worked the laugh round to me -again. Well, I thought we'd be setting up till all hours of the night, -entertaining John's girl, and hearing all the news of the family. I -wonder if she always goes to bed before sundown. She didn't look a mite -sleepy to me." - -"She travelled all the way from New York--of course she was sleepy." - -"Her father brought her all the way from New York to Boston, and she -rested there a couple of days before he put her on the Cape train. All -she had to do was to sit among her bags and boxes till she got here. -Three shiny black bags, she had, and as proud of 'em as if she had made -'em herself--and a wardrobe trunk. I thought myself that all trunks was -wardrobe trunks until she told me different." - -"You can't hardly judge the child till she gets settled down a little." - -Grandfather Swift let his paper fall to the floor. Then he picked it up -and folded it carefully, and made a place for it on the stand between -the two windows under the wide fronds of Grandmother's pet fern, which -was supposed never to be displaced for such a purpose. - -"I did hope John's girl was going to be a little more like folks," he -admitted. - -The dimity curtains in the guest chamber puffed in the light night -breeze. An insect with the voice of a bird set up a cheerful chirping -just under her window, but Elizabeth Swift, in a little, huddled heap on -the four-poster bed that had belonged to her great-grandmother, with her -head smothered in the best goose-feather pillows to shut out the sound -she was making, was still sobbing as if she could never stop again. - -"They don't even speak the English language," she was saying to herself. -"They are just countrified and ordinary, and I've got to have them for -my grandparents just as if they were like other people, and eat great -hunks of corn beef and drink ginger tea, and never see my parents, or my -dear, dear brother." - -The goose-feather pillow got wetter and wetter until Elizabeth, still -very miserable but quieter now, began to be concerned about the damage -she was doing, and finally dragged herself up on the edge of the bed to -examine it. - -"I mustn't do damage to property, no matter how anguished I am," she -thought. "People's things aren't to blame, if they do say 'hadn't -oughter,' and 'ain't,' but I don't see how my own mother and my own -Father John could have sent me here." - -She groped for the second pillow, and the tears started afresh, but -presently she began to try to stop them. The soft wind that was pushing -the dimity curtains into the room brought with it a heavy breath of -honeysuckle and roses. Her mind began to stray away from her immediate -trouble. - -"Honeysuckle toilet water might be the very best toilet water that any -one could have. I wonder if you couldn't make some with honeysuckle -blossoms and wood alcohol. There's a bird going to bed in that tree. -Maybe it's an oriole." - -She had never seen an oriole except in pictures, but that was one of the -things she had wanted to come to Cape Cod for, when she had thought she -was coming with her mother and her big soldier brother to a cottage on -the beach, before they had realized how sick he was going to be when he -got home from France. The bird chirped drowsily once more, and the -insect in the grass drew its string over its bow again. She almost went -to the window to look, but she had cried so long that she wasn't quite -willing to think of pleasant things yet. Her head ached and her nose was -sore, and the second pillow was almost as wet as the first. She hung -them both over the foot-board to dry. - -"I suppose it is a little funny to cry quarts into old family -goose-feather pillows. I might have cried so long I would have had to -use a whole feather-bed, too. I wonder if Grandmother would scold me -just as if I were a child. I told her I was going to have my fourteenth -birthday here. I told my horrid grandfather, when he pinched me, that I -wasn't in the habit of being teased. What would Jean Forsyth say if she -could see me now? I guess I'll get up and put some talcum powder on my -nose." - -There was a knock on the door as she began to move around the room. She -scrambled back into bed meaning to pretend to be asleep, but her -grandmother opened the door and came in just as if she had spoken. - -"Are you asleep, Elizabeth?" - -"No, Grandma." - -"I thought you might like a glass o' milk to kinder stay your stomach -between now and breakfast." - -"Thank you, Grandma." - -"Would you like a cookie to go with it? I made up a whole jar full o' -sugar-molasses cookies so's you could go and help yourself to them -whenever you was a mind to. I'll set the milk right here on the stand, -and then I'll go fetch the cookie." - -"Thank you for the milk, Grandmother, but I don't care for the cookie. I -never eat between meals." - -"Your grandfather and I had a little spell o' argument about that -cookie. He claimed you wouldn't be used to eating sugar-molasses -cookies, but I thought you might of inherited your father's taste for -them." - -"I have inherited a great many of Father's tastes." - -"Your brother Johnny, he used to like 'em, too, when he was a little -feller. He was a real good little boy, Johnny was. He spent every summer -of his life with me and Grandpa till he began to go to that college." - -"We don't called him Johnny. We called him Junior when he was growing -up, and I called him Buddy, but now we call him John--or John Junior -when we wish to distinguish him from Father." - -"Well, your grandfather and I always called him Johnny. It seemed to -suit him. I hope he'll get well enough to get down to Gran'ma's before -the summer is over. Gran'ma could help him to get well." - -"He is quite sick now, and unable to see any one at all. He is very -devoted to me, but he is in such a weakened condition that even I wasn't -allowed to see him. He won the D. S. C.--the Distinguished Service -Cross, you know." - -"I don't know so much about this new-fangled soldiering. I lost two -brothers in the Civil War--your great uncles they would have been. Only -eighteen and twenty, but grown men they seemed to be in them days. Your -father favoured my brother William more'n he did anybody on his father's -side o' the house. Johnny, he looked like Sam when he was a little -feller. Well, I'm real glad Johnny got home safe." - -"Of course, we can't be sure that he is safe yet, but the recent reports -have been very encouraging." - -"Your father's proud of his boy, I guess. It was a great thing for him -to have a grown boy to go. The next best thing to going himself." - -"I don't think he cared about going himself." - -"Did he ever say anything about not caring to go?" - -"I don't think I ever heard him express himself on the subject; but the -work he was doing here, of course, was very important. Anybody who was -connected with steel production in any way felt that they were being a -great deal more useful on this side of the ocean." - -"Whatever your father was doing on this side of the ocean, I guess his -soul and his spirit was all the way across it." - -"I think you are mistaken, Grandmother." - -Grandmother Swift looked at her granddaughter over the rim of her -bi-focal glasses, and smiled. - -"It's one o' the easiest things in this world to be mistaken, -Elizabeth," she said. - -Elizabeth put out her hand for her glass of milk, and began to drink it -with a sudden meekness. - -"You go and set yourself in the chair by the bed, and finish your milk, -and I'll lay back your bed for you. There's a golden robin has a nest in -that tree, and I guess there'll be a family there pretty soon." - -"You mean an oriole, don't you, Grandmother? Oh, I'm crazy to see one." - -"Some folks calls it that. Golden robin means more to me. I like to have -things called by their prettiest names." She was busying herself about -the bed. "I'm going to turn these pillows over on their dry side," she -said, as if Great-grandmother's goose-feather pillows had always one -tear-dampened surface. - -"Oh!" Elizabeth said, "I--I----" - -But her grandmother wasn't looking at her. - -"Speaking o' names," she was saying, "I'll tell you a conundrum that my -grandmother used to tell me, a real appropriate conundrum, seeing that -it's about a namesake o' yours. See how long it takes you to guess it. - - "Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy and Bess, - All went together to seek a bird's nest, - They found a bird's nest with four eggs in it, - They each took one and left three in it." - -"But how could they?" Elizabeth cried. - -"Well, they did, and now's a good chance to show how smart you are, so's -Gran'ma needn't make any mistake about it." - -Something in the eyes over the bi-focal glasses made Elizabeth squirm a -trifle. - -"The girls at home," she said, rapidly, "often call me Betsy. Oh, I know -now. That's the answer. It was all one girl--Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy, -and Bess--all nicknames for Elizabeth. I never heard of any one called -Elspeth, but I'm called all the others myself." - -"Your great-grandmother was always called Elspeth. She always called you -that when you was a baby." - -"Did she? I didn't know that I ever saw Great-grandmother." - -"She saw you. She loved you better than any grandchild she lived to see, -because you was named after her, I suppose. She used to say that -conundrum was wrote about her, because she was four or five different -characters all in one. Elizabeth when she was feeling high and mighty, -Elspeth when she was good, Betsy when she had trouble keeping herself -in, and Bess when she put on her airs and graces. Bessie was a real -stylish name in her day." - -"Why, I have different names for myself--Beth you know, and Betty, they -are contractions of Elizabeth, too, but I never knew any one else who -thought of themselves in different characters." - -"Your great-grandmother was quite a remarkable woman. She was your -grandfather's mother, but she seemed like my own. You look considerable -like her, Elizabeth." - -"I've always thought I resembled my own mother more than any one. She -was an Endicott, you know." - -"Your great-grandmother was a Jones. The Joneses had the name o' being -one of the likeliest families in Crocker Neck." - -"Did they?" - -"And she had the reputation of having the prettiest manners and the -kindest ways of any girl from here to Chatham. Your father takes after -her in that. It was the first trouble that ever come to him when his -gran'ma died, and he took it hard. He went out behind the henhouse and -lay there a whole night; just the way he used to when he had trouble as -a boy." - -"But he was a grown man then, and I was born." - -"He wasn't so much of a grown man that he didn't lay and blubber all -night. He ain't so much of a grown man now that he wouldn't do the same -thing if he was in the same kind of trouble." - -"He--he didn't when we thought we had lost Buddy." - -Grandmother's eyes looked kindly over the tops of her ridiculous -glasses, but all that she said was, - -"You come and hop into bed now. You'll get cold setting by that open -window." - -"I guess I know how my own father felt and acted last winter," Elizabeth -said, but not aloud, as she slipped between the creamy linen sheets, and -her grandmother tucked her under the blue-and-white comfortable. She -closed her eyes for the good-night kiss that she expected to submit to, -but it did not come. Instead, her grandmother made her way to the door -and stood holding it open, as she looked back to say: - -"Your grandfather and I are real glad to have you with us, Elizabeth. -It's always a day of rejoicing to us when we have our own flesh and -blood under our roof. No matter what you start out in life thinking, the -conclusion you kinder come to, when all's said and done, is that blood -is thicker than water." - -Her tone was exactly as gentle as before, but alone in the darkening -room Elizabeth felt a slow wave of crimson mount to her forehead, and -spread hot over her face. - -"Grandmother doesn't think I am very nice," she said. - - - - - CHAPTER II - - THE STEPPE CHILDREN - - -"Dear Buddy:" Elizabeth was writing, "dear, dear, dear, _dear_ Buddy: -Mother says I may write you real letters, now, all about everything, -because you are in a condition to bear it. So I am starting in bright -and early this morning to go into details about my existence here, and -my rejoicings at your convalesence. (I spelled that right, I know. I am -naturally a good speller, but I have such a poor example set by my -brother the Harvard gradjuate, that I fall into bad ways at the -slightest provocation.) - -"First let me testify that I love you best--best--best in the world next -to and including Father John and Mother Darby. You know that already, -but if you are like me, the things you like to be told best are the -things you know already. You know also already how I feel about your -being sick. Please get better and come down here quick. I want you here, -oh! so very, very much. Father and Mother thought I had better get the -benifit of country air, but they don't know that I can't get much -benifit from country air while you are breathing cloriform and bandige -lint all the time. I am not as comfortable in my mind as I should be in -stuffy New York, in the hotel with Mother and Father. I know you will -suspect my motives in yearning for hotel life, but it is really you and -Mother and Father I want more even than life at the Holland House. Of -course, I can't help feeling that if the house in Jersey is going to be -closed and the family moved into town, though even in the dead of -summer, that I ought to be moved with it, instead of being shoved off -down here. - -"Buddy, I know you used to like it here, but I am miserable. I know you -would think it was awful of me if you knew how I felt inside all the -time, but I am not half-civilized or savage enough to like the primative -way things are down here. I think girls are more sensitive and refined -than boys and care what they eat more, and how things sound that are -said to them. - -"I suppose that sounds horrid. Grandmother thinks I am horrid, though -she is very tactful, I will say;--but Grandfather teases me from morning -till night, and has no respect for my years. I don't see why he thinks I -am such a child. He was engaged to Grandmother when she was sixteen, and -that is only two years and forty-one days older than I am. But oh! -Buddy, I wish my other grandparents had lived. I think I am all -Endicott, really, because I feel like a stranger in a strange land. -Children and little girls keep coming to call on me. The girls of my own -age that I used to play with keep their distance, and I am not sorry. -It's hard enough to be polite as it is. Life is one eternal round of -corn beef and cabbage and fried fish hash. I hope you get plenty of -steaks and chops and delicacies. Grandmother won't let me go in bathing -unless I have someone to go with, and I haven't any one to go with. The -motors whizz by all day, but Grandfather's Ford is in the repair shop, -and so I don't get anywhere. Tennis? All the boys own the courts around -here, and won't let the girls on them for fear they will mess them up -for the tournaments. I don't know any girls to play with, so that -doesn't affect me, but you can see what a good time I am having. - -"Well, 'a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.' We -used to have good times together, Buddy, befo' de war. - - "Your affectionate, but very blighted sister, - "ELIZABETH--ELIZA--ELSPETH--BESS-- - BESSIE--LIZZIE--BETSY--BETH, ETC." - -As she folded the closely written sheets of lilac-tinted notepaper and -crowded them into their envelope, her grandmother's voice summoned her -to the head of the stairs. - -"The step-children are here," was what she seemed to be saying; "shall I -send them up or are you ready to come down?" - -"I beg your pardon, Grandmother?" - -"The step-children are here." - -"If you wish, Grandmother. It sounds just as if you said the -step-children." - -"I did say the step-children. I'm going to send them up for you to amuse -them. Go right on upstairs, children. She ain't a bear. She won't bite -you." - -"I--" pant--pant--"see a bear yesterday, a dancing bear. Didn't I see a -bear, Mose?" - -"Hush, babe," another breathy voice answered. "You don't want to talk so -much when you go a-visiting." - -A mysterious single file of chubby children, considerably more ragged -than dirty, made a cautious way up the steep stairs, panting as they -came. Elizabeth led the way into the big chamber where she had been -writing, and the three followed her solemnly. Her first instinct was to -give them each a friendly pat, as if they were so many little dogs who -had been running hard. - -"Good morning, children," she said. She was fond of children, and these -were adorable specimens, despite their superfluous fringes. - -"Good morning, teacher," they answered, with unexpected promptitude. - -"Well, I'm not exactly a teacher, you know. I'm just Miss--I -mean--Elizabeth." - -"We know who you be," the eldest, a boy, volunteered. "You'm Miss Laury -Ann's granddaughty, that's who you be. We come to see you." - -"That was very kind of you," Elizabeth smiled, "but I don't know who you -are." - -"We'm the step-children." - -"You are just about like steps," said Elizabeth, "but that seems a funny -name to call you just the same." - -"'Tis our _name_," the second child, a girl with long red curls, met -Elizabeth's eyes and subsided instantly. - -"S-T-E-P-P-E," the boy spelled out. "'Tain't a joke. It's our name. It's -Parper's name and Marmer's name." - -"Steppe-father and Steppe-mother," Elizabeth said to herself, "and the -Steppe children." - -"You have other names?" she said aloud. - -"I'm Moses." - -"I'm Mabel." - -"I'm Madget." - -"Her real name is Margery, but she calls herself Madget, and so we call -her that. Madget means a dwarft, and she's little for her age. I'm -nine." - -"I'm seven." - -"I'm four," said Madget. - -All this had so much the effect of a recitation that Elizabeth asked -them if they spoke pieces. - -"I speak 'Shavings,'" Moses said. "I--I mean Excelsior." - -"I speak 'Baby's Evening Prayer.'" - -"I speak, 'Little drops o' water--little grains o' sand--make a mighty -ocean--an' a pleasant land,'" Madget contributed. - -"She didn't ask you to speak it," Moses said, witheringly, "she only -asked did you speak it." - -"And you went and spoke it," Mabel added, accusingly. - -The wail that Madget set up at being accused of this breach of polite -usage sent Elizabeth's arms straight around her. - -"You must remember she's only a baby," she said. - -"That's what we tell her," Mabel said, "but we can't make her pay no -attention to it." - -"You must pay attention to it, and take care of her." - -"Oh! we take care of her, all right," Moses agreed, darkly. "We gotter." - -"Doesn't your mother take care of her sometimes?" - -"No, ma'am." - -"Is she sick--or something?" - -"Yes, ma'am. She's sick o' living, she says." - -"What does she do all the time?" - -"Nothin'." - -"Does she have to stay in bed?" - -"Yes, ma'am, when she ain't up." - -"What does the doctor say is the matter with her?" - -"She don't have no doctor. She reads novels." - -"All the time?" - -"Yes, ma'am." - -"Who does the cooking?" - -"We don't have no cooking." - -"What do you eat?" - -"Bread and molasses, and doughnuts out the cart." - -"Don't you ever have any meat or chicken or fish hash or anything?" - -"When my a'nt comes we do." - -"Then your mother isn't really sick?" - -"She feels as if she was, and she says that's just as bad." - -"I'm going to be a hired girl when I grow up, and go out to work where I -can make pies and cakes," Mabel said. - -"I'm going to be a cook on a vessel," Moses said, "and get learned how -to make vittles." - -"I'm going to be a bake-cart," Madget said. - -"Listen to her. Don't you know you can't be a bakery cart?" Moses -jeered. - -"You gotter be the one that drives it," Mabel contributed. - -"I wanter _be_ a bake-cart and curry the food around all the time." - -"All right, you may." Elizabeth spoke just in time to avert another -tearful crisis. "What would you like to do to amuse yourselves, -children? Would you like to have me tell you a story?" - -"No, ma'am," Moses said, promptly. He indicated the row of shiny -travelling bags by the mahogany what-not. Elizabeth had long since -unpacked them, but they were such proud possessions that she could not -bear to put them out of sight. "I want to see what's in _that_," he -said, selecting the hat-box. - -"I want to see what's in that," Mabel said, choosing the suitcase in her -turn. - -Madget fell upon the overnight bag. - -"I wanner see that," she said. - -Elizabeth's laugh rang out gayly. - -"You are acting just like the story of the three bears," she said. -"There isn't anything inside of the bags now, but I'll show them to you, -just the same. This is my hat-box, see, and these silver letters on the -outside are my initials, E. S." - -"There is, too, something inside," Mabel cried, as the brightly flowered -lining was disclosed. "Trimming. Now open mine. There's trimming in all -of them." - -"And a pocket, too," Elizabeth said. - -"Now me," said Madget. - -"There isn't any trimming in this," Elizabeth said, hastily, "but there -are lots of pockets, and see, in this pocket there is a little cake of -lovely smelling soap, and I'm going to give it to you. You can wash your -face and hands with it." - -"She ain't a very good one to give soap to," Moses said. "Water makes -her nervous." - -"I'll give you all a piece of soap if you'll promise to use it every -day--the big bear and the middle-sized bear, and the baby bear." - -"I ain't going to be no bear," Moses said, "I was a bear in a -canatartar. Zibe Hunt--he had me on a string, and he sang a song." - -"What kind of a song?" - - "I am an animal trainer, - This is my polar bear. - He comes from the far-distant mountains, - Out of his icy lair." - -Mabel obliged, "And then he done some tricks," she added, "and Zibe hit -him; and Parper licked him." - -"Why should your father lick him?" - -"For what he done to Zibe after the canatartar. He don't like to play -bears now." - -"I see a dancing bear," Madget said. "Didn't I, Mose?" - -"You better stop talking about bears," Moses hinted, darkly. - -"If you'll bring the children downstairs, Elizabeth," Grandmother called -from the foot of the staircase, "they can have some milk and cookies." - -Madget made directly for the staircase, and as promptly fell all the way -into Grandmother's arms, from which position she scowled and freed -herself. - -"She always falls downstairs," Mabel said, tolerantly. "It don't hurt -her." - -"It does her good," Moses explained. - -"Milk," said Madget, "and cookies." - -"The little thing is really hungry," Grandmother said. "How long ago did -she have her breakfast, Mose?" - -"We don't have no breakfast to our house. She wouldn't eat her bread -because she said she was skeered of it." - -"Scared of it?" - -"Well, some of it had gray fur on it, and she was afraid it was going to -crawl out on her." - -"Grandmother," Elizabeth cried, "why are these children neglected like -this? Are they so poor or what?" - -"They ain't no poorer than a great many other folks. Their mother won't -do anything for them--that's all." - -"But why?" - -"She don't like work. Mercy me! They've et a dozen cookies already. You -fill up their glasses, Elizabeth. I stirred half a cup o' cream into the -pitcher so's to be sure they was nourished." - -"Why isn't something done about them? The Charity Organization Society, -or somebody, ought to take up the case." - -"The only organization society we got is the fire department. These -children don't need putting out, they need taking in more, I should say. -If one person in the world lays down and refuses to do what the Lord -requires of him he puts a powerful lot o' machinery out o' gear. Mis' -Steppe--she just refuses to do her part in the Lord's scheme." - -"Is she old and ugly?" - -"She's young and pretty if she'd fix herself up some. She come from real -good folks, too, but when she see how hard it was to live and take care -o' her children like other folks, she just decided to lay down, and down -she lay. Most all of us feels inclined to shirk our responsibilities at -one time or another, but most of us thinks better of it after a spell. -She thought worse of it, Mis' Steppe did. Too bad you don't like -sugar-molasses cookies, Elizabeth." - -"I do," Elizabeth blushed. "I was only just waiting for the children to -get all they wanted." - -"They'll never do that, but they got all they can hold. You open the -screen door, Elizabeth----Scat, out you go," she said, shooing at the -Steppe family as if they were so many chickens, and the children -scattered instantly, chickenwise, onto the lawn, and down the path to -the gate. "Too much of anything is good for nothing," she concluded, -tranquilly. - - * * * * * - -"Buddy, my darling, I have broken into my letter again to say that I am -a pig--the piggiest kind of pig, and this letter to you is a piggy -letter. I will send it because I wrote it, and because I haven't got any -time to write another, better one. I only wish to add that in certain -ways I am as bad as 'Mis' Steppe,' that's a good pun you see, whether -you know who I'm talking about or not. I'm going to be a better sister -to you, and a better daughter to Father John and Mother Darby. I've -found out that one poor mother can do so much damage in the world that I -don't want to be a poor--anything. Get well, and write me a letter, -Buddy.--SISTER BET." - - - - - CHAPTER III - - THE LITTLE ROOM--AND PEGGY - - -The golden robins woke first, and demanded their breakfast in weak, -insistent voices. Then the blue counterpane slid to the floor and two -ruffled blue dimity sleeves were flung out at right angles. The clear -bell of the schoolhouse clock struck six times. - -"Dear me, I must hustle," Elizabeth said. - -She flew to the wash-stand and poured the creamy, gilt-edged bowl of the -best room set full of well water, in which she laved and splashed. An -aroma of bacon and coffee and the inimitable savour of raised biscuits -helped to accelerate her progress. She sang as she dressed, but she -thought of nothing at all but her breakfast. - -Her grandfather, in his shirt sleeves and sand-coloured waistcoat, was -already at the table when she took her place there, and unfolded her -red-fringed, damask napkin from the napkin ring that was her father's, -and marked with his name. It was on a standard, and supported by twin -boys, wreathed and carrying trumpets. Elizabeth always tried to hide it -behind some dish as she ate. - -"Good morning, Miss Betsy." - -"Good morning, Grandfather." - -The hired girl, who was sixteen and the daughter of a neighbour, wiped -her immaculate pink hands on a more immaculate and pinker apron, and -took her seat opposite Elizabeth. She was an enormously fat blonde, who -never spoke without blushing. Grandmother was bustling about with plates -of biscuit and coffee cups. - -"The reason we don't have more help around the place is that Mother -wears herself all out waitin' on them," Grandfather observed. "Judidy, -ain't you got no control over Mis' Swift? Can't you make her set down to -the table when breakfast is ready?" - -"No, sir," Judidy blushed. "She told me to set down, so I set." - -"Well, whenever she tells me to set down--I set, but I thought maybe you -had more independence of spirit." - -"No, sir." - -"Elizabeth, here--she don't pay much attention to what anybody says. She -sets all the time, so's to be on the safe side. Well, I guess we're in -for a spell o' bad weather. I see old Samuel Swift out bright and early -this morning, and when Samuel comes out of his hiding that means rain -sure enough." - -Elizabeth shuddered. Samuel Swift was an unbelievably unkempt individual -who lived in a hermit's shack in the woods, and was locally known as a -"weather breeder." Whenever he harnessed his ancient mare to his -antiquated buggy and emerged into the light of day the wind changed, -according to neighbourhood tradition, and the fog and rain swept in. She -quoted: - - "There was an old man with a beard, - Who said, 'it is just as I feared, - Three rats and a hen, - An owl and a wren - Have all made their nests in my beard!'" - -"That's poetry," her grandfather explained with a wink at Judidy. "Fall -to," he said as he served the last plateful of golden eggs and crisp -bacon. "Here's Mother with her last chore done, and we ain't more than -half through our breakfast. If that coffee's for Elizabeth, Mother, you -can give it to me." - -"I thought Elizabeth could have a little--very weak." - -"Not at my table," Grandfather said. - -Elizabeth poured a glass of milk and drank it in silence, but her -grandfather gave her one sharp look from under his bushy brows. - -"I see old Samuel's crawled out," he said, turning to Grandmother. "I -guess we'll have some wet weather, now." - -"He's a disgusting creature," Elizabeth said, looking resentfully at the -jug of milk--and taking a second glass of it. - -"He's a kind of relation of yours. His mother was my father's cousin. I -think he'd be better off at the poor farm, but he's so dirty, the -selectmen kinder hate the job o' trying to get him there." - -"A relation?" Elizabeth cried. "Oh!" - -"You don't know much about your Cape Cod relations, do you, Elizabeth?" - -"I guess I'm a kind o' relation, too," Judidy simpered. "Everybody's -relation on Cape Cod, I guess." - -"Elizabeth would be proud to have you for a relation, Judidy," -Grandfather said, gravely. This time Elizabeth saw the sharp glance that -appraised her, and she turned quickly toward Judidy. - -"Anybody would be proud to have a--a cousin with such a lovely -complexion," something urged her to say. - -"Don't!" Judidy protested. "I'm all tanned up." - -"I have a friend in New York, Jean Forsyth," Elizabeth said, presently, -"whose sister married a count." - -"And when you get back to New York, you can tell her all about your -cousin Samuel," her grandfather twinkled. "My, what good times you can -have, comparing notes." - -"Father!" said Grandmother Swift, warningly. "You run along upstairs, -Elizabeth, and I'll come up there as soon's I take one more swaller o' -coffee. I got something I want to say when there ain't no men-folks -about." - -Upstairs again, Elizabeth took the photograph of a deep-eyed girl in a -silver frame out of the drawer in her wardrobe trunk and gazed at it -with gathering woe. - -"Oh, dear, Jeanie," she said, "the only thing that would make me any -less miserable in these surroundings would be to sit down and write you -just exactly how things are, and that I can never do." - -"You come with me," her grandmother called suddenly from the threshold. -"I got an idea." - -She led the way past the landing and tiny hall into which the steep -stairway debouched, into the regions in the rear of the three bedrooms -that Elizabeth was familiar with. There seemed to be a chain of small, -stuffy rooms dimly stored with old furniture and boxes, and not all on -the same level, and beyond them a low room, with a slanting roof, half -chamber, half hallway. - -"I never knew you had all these rooms," Elizabeth said. "Why, the old -house is enormous, isn't it?" - -"The front o' the house is new; it hasn't been built more'n fifty years -at the outset, but these back chambers belong to the old house--the one -your great-grandfather built to go to housekeeping in." She flung open a -door that led into a little room still beyond. - -"Oh, what a darling, what a sweetheart of a room!" Elizabeth cried. -"Whose was it?" - -"It was your Aunt Helen's room. She had it papered in this robin's egg -blue paper, and she got a lot o' old, painted furniture, and fixed it up -real cunning. I thought maybe you might like to do the same thing." - -There was only one portion of the room in which Elizabeth could stand -upright. The roof sloped gradually until it met the partition about -shoulder high, where two tiny, square windows, of many panes, were set; -but the main part of the chamber, in spite of its low ceiling, was big -enough to hold all the essentials of comfortable furnishing. - -"You could hunt around through the house and the attic chamber until you -found the things you wanted to put in it, and furnish it just according -to your taste, and nobody would ever set foot inside of it unless you -happened to want them to. I know girls. That's what they want." - -"I guess you do know girls, Grandma," Elizabeth said. "I guess Aunt -Helen must have had a good time growing up if you let her do things like -this. I don't remember her much." - -"Well, that ain't so remarkable. She's lived in China since before you -was born. I ain't never let anybody use this room, but now I kinder -think her lease has expired. She's got daughters as big as you, and sons -that's grown men now." - -"I'll be just as good to her room!" - -"I guess you can't help it. There's a good spirit in it. You rummage -around in these different rooms here, and then you go up in the barn -chamber and look till you find the things that suits you. There's a -powerful lot of what some folks calls antiques around this place. -Dealers and what-not is always coming around and begging to look through -my pantry and my attic, wanting to buy all Grandmother's pretty dishes, -and a good many that warn't so pretty, but I tell 'em all that when I'm -ready to part with 'em I'll let 'em know." - -"The Washington Vase china that you use all the time is really valuable, -isn't it?" - -"Well, so those collectors say. It's valuable to me, because I was -brought up on it. Money value ain't everything. The value of a dollar is -one thing--the joy it brings to you is another. You just rummage around -and find the things that you like, and we'll get Grampa or Zeckal to -move 'em up for you." - -"How did you ever think of such a thing, Grandmother?" - -"Well, your grandpa thought he hadn't seen you looking around the house -much, and s'long's it's full o' the kind o' things that most city folks -goes so wild about, I kinder figured you might like something to get -your interest started. Helen, she was never very much interested in -anything she didn't have to do with. You favour her in some ways." - -"I suppose I haven't seemed very much interested in the house and -things, I've--had other things on my mind." - -"You've been worried about your brother, and a little homesick." - -"I didn't think I showed it." - -"You don't always have to show your feelings to Grandma. You better -start in the barn chamber, and then work on through the house. When you -get all the furniture you want, you can come to me and get the key to -that closet some day." She indicated a door that might have been a panel -set in the wall, except for the keyhole, where a knob might have been. -"There's a closet there, that runs clear under the eaves. I guess you -might find some fol-de-rols you would like." - -"It might be fun to start in the closet," Elizabeth suggested. - -"It might," her grandmother agreed, "but better save that till the -last." - -"I will," said Elizabeth. - -The barn chamber, reached by a rickety stairway leading from the region -of the stalls, from which a white mare poked a friendly nose as she went -by, proved to be a storehouse of the most heterogeneous assemblage of -objects Elizabeth had ever imagined. The overflow of fifty years of -housecleaning and readjustment had been brought together under those -dusty rafters. - -"Poor things," Elizabeth thought, looking about at the old settees and -rocking chairs, broken backed and legless. "A horse in that condition is -put out of its misery. I don't suppose they could blindfold and shoot an -old sofa, but they might cremate it, or something." - -She came upon the wreck of a little old rocking chair, a child's chair, -with a back beautifully decorated with grape clusters and leaves, and -two limp, broken arms stuck out helplessly. These she tied up with -strips of faded blue cambric that were lying about, and set the little -chair gallantly rocking. - -There were innumerable cracked china jugs, big bowls, and strange wooden -utensils and cabinets; beds that had been taken apart, forlorn, carved -old posters minus springs or mattresses that were merely being used as -pens to keep forlorn chairs and tables herded together. These things -were all draped with dust and spiders' webs; and in a corner, from a -pile of ancient straw, Elizabeth heard a faint, continuous rustling. - -"Mice!" she said, "but they can't frighten me unless they get a good -deal nearer. Still, I guess I'll look carefully around and choose my -nearest exit." - -Her first discovery for her house furnishing was a flag-bottomed chair -with rockers about two inches long. It was perfectly preserved. It -wasn't a child's chair, though it was very little of its age, she told -herself. The next was a spinning wheel, which was the first one she had -ever seen outside of a picture book. - -"I'm going to get Grandmother to teach me to spin on it," she said. - -There was a writing desk, a rosewood box with inlaid corner pieces, and -a short-legged, square stand to set it on; and then more rustling in the -straw sent Elizabeth suddenly downstairs again, though not until she had -segregated her chosen furniture. - -"Zeckal, whoever he may be, can come and get it," she said. - -She went back to the little blue room under the eaves, and began a -diagram of arrangement. Standing against the wall was a long, panelled -picture in a black frame, that had made its appearance there in her -absence. Elizabeth lifted it to the light and disclosed three barefooted -ladies in flowing garments of gauze, who were standing on a light turf -from which lilies of the valley were springing. One of these ladies was -reclining on the breast of another, and the third was standing erect and -aloof, with shining eyes. - -"'The Christian Graces,'" Elizabeth said. "For goodness' sake!" and -beneath, the curious inscription, simulating letters cut into stone, was -engraved in a neat, Spencerian hand, "Faith, Hope, and Charity." - -"For goodness' sake!" said Elizabeth, again. - -She turned the picture around, and found on the board at its back -another inscription, written in a round, childish hand, "Helen Swift, -aged eleven, hung in my room to help me to remember." - -"I guess I'll hang it in my room, to help me to remember," Elizabeth -said. - -She was a little self-conscious about going down to dinner. She knew -that her grandfather had found a good many things to chuckle at in her -breakfast-table conversation. She always knew afterward just what things -she had said that Grandfather would consider most typical of what he -referred to as her "city manner." This time she realized that her -allusion to Jean Forsyth's brother-in-law would be the subject of many -sly, humorous thrusts for a long time to come. However, when she reached -the table again, her grandfather had not yet come in, but he appeared -almost instantly, with a tall, freckled girl hanging on his arm--a girl -with a turned-up nose and a bronzed pigtail the size of her doubled fist -hanging down her back. - -"But, Granddaddy Swift," she was saying, earnestly, "don't you see that -I can't come and meet a brand-new city granddaughter, and sit down to a -respectable person's dinner table, attired in a bloomer suit? Don't you -know it isn't done in the circles in which we move? Make him let go of -my ear, Grandmummy." - -Elizabeth rose shyly, and then she sat down again, but the stranger -eluded Grandfather's masterful grip, and slipped around to her side, -with a hand out-stretched in greeting. - -"Isn't he dreadful?" she said, indicating her tormentor affectionately. -"When I heard you were here, I was going back to the cottage, to put on -my best bib and tucker and make a proper call upon you, but Granddaddy -wouldn't hear of it. He insisted on dragging me hither by the hair. So -here I am--Peggy Farraday, at your service, and am very glad to meet -you, too." - -"I'm glad to meet you," Elizabeth said. "I haven't seen any girls for a -long time." - -"The woods down here are full of them." - -"Well, I guess I haven't been into the woods very much." - -"Elizabeth ain't a tomboy, like you, into everybody else's business, all -day long. She stays at home with me and Gra'ma, and minds her p's and -q's." - -"Well, we'll change all that. Attractive as you and Grandmummy are, you -can't expect to monopolize her forever. Now it's my turn." - -Elizabeth saw that both her grandfather and grandmother were beaming at -this tall girl's impulsive chattering. She felt her own stiffness -relaxing under the sunny influence of the stranger's smile. - -"I adopted Grandmummy and Granddaddy three years ago, when I came over -to this ducky old house, on my very first day on the Cape, to beg a pint -of milk and a pail of water for my hungry, unkempt family. I saw that -they were just the grandparents I was looking for, and so I took them -on, and I've been the plague of their existence every summer since. -Haven't I, Granddaddy? Isn't he a lamb? You know, my one ambition is to -squeeze him to pieces, but he's so woolly and scratchy and cantankerous, -that it's almost impossible to get your arms around him, isn't it?" - -"Yes, it is," Elizabeth said, crimsoning, with a quick glance at her -grandfather. - -To her surprise, he took no notice of her discomfiture. Both he and -Grandmother seemed unaware of the delicate ground upon which Miss Peggy -Farraday had set her enthusiastic little heels. - -"I'm fifteen," that young lady continued, with very little pause either -between her mouthfuls of food or of conversation--"You're fourteen, -aren't you? I had more fun the year I was fourteen than I ever had -before, or ever expect to have again." - -"I'll be fourteen next Thursday," Elizabeth said. - -"I took on an entirely new character the day I was fourteen. I became -very sedate and dignified, and changed my name from Peg to Peggy. Do you -expect to do that?" - -"I think perhaps I shall," Elizabeth said. "I guess my character does -need improving." - -She expected some retort from her grandfather at this, but he only held -out his hand for her plate, and heaped it high with roast lamb and -tender green peas from the kitchen garden. - -"I envy you the scrumptious things you have to eat all the time over -here. We bring our fat cook down with us. She cooks all right in town in -the winter, but she always sulks on Cape Cod, and we have a dreadful -time getting anything. We're not lucky enough to have Judidy." - -"Don't!" that flattered young lady protested. "Land, think of anybody -feeling lucky to have me! I _kin_ cook, though, whenever Mis' Swift is -willing." - -"Mother, she don't let our help do much work. She's afraid they'd get -the habit, and kinder get in her way whenever she wanted to make a day -of it. When she's cooking, Judidy she generally sets down and reads the -newspaper." - -"I'm so fat," Judidy explained, "that I kinder make hard work getting -around." - -To Elizabeth's surprise, Peggy Farraday went off into peals and spasms -of laughter at this. - -"They are such loves," she explained. "They are such darlings! I adore -the way they do things. Grandmummy--I call her that, because she was -jealous of Granddaddy for a name--is a lot like the Peterkins in her -domestic arrangements." - -"I ought to be like Elizabeth Eliza. That's my name." Elizabeth was glad -that she had read the "Peterkin Papers" with Buddy the summer before. -She had never met any other girl who was familiar with them. - -"I'll tell you later what character in fiction I think you're like. It -takes me a while to make up my mind about things like that. I seem to -jump at conclusions a good deal quicker than I do." - -"Can you always tell whether you like people or not, at first meeting?" - -"Yes, I can. Can't you?" - -"Yes." - -Peggy looked up quickly, and then her eyes dropped to her plate and she -began eating rapidly. - -"She's shy, too," Elizabeth thought. - -"If you'll come upstairs after dinner," she said, aloud, "I've got -something I want to show you. You've come just in time to give me your -advice about something pretty exciting." - -As she was leaving the dining room something made her turn and look back -at her grandmother, who was smiling broadly to herself, like the -Cheshire cat in "Alice in Wonderland." - -"The something I was going to show you was _her_ surprise to me," -Elizabeth whispered to Peggy. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - - THE BIRTHDAY - - -Elizabeth sat in her little blue room, and shivered. - -It was the afternoon of her birthday, and although she hadn't mentioned -the fact to any one, she had dressed herself to do honour to the -occasion. Every undergarment, chemise, camisole, and petticoat, was of a -soft, flesh-tinted silk. Her dress was of the finest white muslin -trimmed only with infinitesimal tucks and Valenciennes beading, and she -was wearing a blue ribbon sash with a big butterfly bow at the back. - -"My pride ought to keep me warm," she thought, "what a pity it doesn't." - -Before she bought her silken lingerie she had deliberated a long time -between that magnificence and a light blue wool sweater and had finally -succumbed to the lure of the lacy garments which had taken every penny -of her month's allowance and all that she was allowed to borrow on her -next. - -She looked around her room with a glow of satisfaction, having only that -morning put the finishing touches on it. She had draped the windows with -an old-fashioned print, a blue groundwork with tiny pink roses wandering -over it, that her grandmother had produced from an ancient chest stored -with remnants of the popular fabrics of an older generation. The -furniture she had chosen was mostly painted black, or a very dark stain. -She had found another flag-bottomed chair, a twin to the first, and a -wonderful old settee on rockers, which had a deep seat with an -adjustable rack running along the outside of it, as if to prevent its -being used except for the one person who chose to sit in the space that -was clear at the end. This she had piled with cushions made from little -square pillows that her grandmother kept for "children who came -a-visiting." Her desk and her spinning wheel were in opposite comers, -and a miniature organ, the keyboard of which comprised two octaves -exactly, occupied a position under the eaves between the two farther -windows. - -The morning mail had brought her a writing-case from her mother, a check -for five dollars from her father, and a letter, her first, from her -Buddy. She had taken a high resolution not to shed one tear on her -birthday, and the mild faces of Faith and Charity smiled down on her as -if to strengthen her will. - -"Hope looks a little teary, herself," she said. - -There was a sound of altercation on the stairway that led directly out -of the passage from the dining room of her new suite. - -"You _shall_ come upstairs, Grandmummy, and give it to her yourself. She -doesn't want your present by way of me. She wants it handed out, with -your own personal and private blessing. Besides, I've got a present for -her myself. I can't give her two presents." - -Peggy Farraday, with her hands sternly set on Grandmother Swift's -shoulders, marched her firmly into Elizabeth's chamber. - -"Here's Grandmummy with a beautiful present for your birthday. She was -going to send it upstairs by me, but I declined the honour." - -"Young folks like to open packages by themselves, without anybody -standing around counting the Ohs and Ahs, and waiting to be thanked for -something that may not exactly suit. If Elizabeth likes what I've made -her, I guess she can make out to tell me so." Grandmother, entirely -unruffled by the recent coercion to which she had been submitted, put -down a bulky tissue-wrapped package and departed. - -"Isn't she funny?" Peggy said. "But do open it. I can hardly wait to see -what you think of it. It's copied from one of mine, the only sweater -I've ever really loved. And it's in your colour, and everything." - -[Illustration: "'Do open it. I can hardly wait to see what you think of -it.'"] - -Elizabeth, scarcely crediting her senses, shook out from the folds of -tissue the lovely, fleecy garment of her dreams, a wool sweater in her -own colour of "Heaven's blue." She gave it one comprehensive glance, -then she slipped after her grandmother, caught up with her halfway down -the stairs, and kissed her on the nape of an astonished neck. - -"You're not a grandmother, you're an angel," she said, and flew back, in -a panic, to Peggy. - -"Here's my present," that young lady informed her. "It's something very -practical, but I made it myself. I thought you might like it. I always -give away the kind of thing I adore, don't you? That's doing the very -best you can to show love--and one person's sure to be suited." - -"It's a laundry bag," Elizabeth said, "and I haven't got one. You dear." -She put out her hand toward Peggy, and missed her. Then they both put -out their hands together, and kissed. - -"The beauty of this creation is that you don't have to fish down into -it," Peggy explained. "It buttons all the way across the bottom, and can -be dumped that way. I made the buttonholes myself." - -"And it's my colour, too. Have you made this since you were here last -week?" - -"No, I made it the first week I came down, to be sure to have it ready." - -"Before you even saw me. How did you know you'd like me well enough to -give it to me when it was done?" - -"I was willing to take my chances. When I heard about your brother being -sick, and your disappointment about the cottage, I thought you might be -feeling kind of low when you first got here. So I prepared for it." - -"How kind you are! How kind everybody is." - -"Well, don't get the weeps. See here, do you know what this bar on this -settee was put on for? It's a kind of a cradle arrangement. Mother makes -up baby's bed on the lower end, puts up the bar, sits herself up at the -head, and rocks and knits. Grandmother told me. She was rocked there -herself when she was a baby. She remembers having scarlet fever on it. -Aren't these old things fascinating? You're an awfully lucky girl to -have grandparents like this. Mine live in a Back Bay apartment, and are -just like everybody else, only a lot more so." - -"You're a lot nicer than I am," Elizabeth said, suddenly. - -"Well, I don't have such nice clothes. I thought you might like this -clo', though." Peggy stood up to be admired. "It's my best bib and -tucker. See, this is the bib," she indicated the square of cobwebby lace -and lawn under her bronze chin, "and this is the tucker." She turned -around, to show its counterpart in the back. "That's really what I -bought it for, I couldn't decide between this pink linen and a gray -dotted swiss until I realized that this was a bib and tucker. Which of -course settled it at once. By the way, I know something very funny." -Peggy barely took a breath between sentences. "I wonder if you know it, -too. My sister Ruth knows your brother John quite well. They wrote to -each other all the time that he was abroad. I just found out that he was -your brother by the merest accident." - -"You don't mean that Ruth Farraday is your sister! Why, Buddy's known -her for years." - -"Can't he have known my sister for years?" - -"Yes, I suppose so, but it doesn't seem possible. I thought he met that -girl in Boston." - -"I live in Boston. If you've got a sample of your brother's handwriting, -I can prove to you that my Ruth is the girl. I've taken in his letters -for years." - -Elizabeth produced the precious morning missive by the simple process of -diving into the neck of her blouse. Peggy bent over the letter. - -"It's the same," she said. "Oh, is he going to be an awful lot better -soon? Ruthie has been dreadfully worried, I know, though she hasn't said -much about it. She's the still member of the family, you see." - -"What does she look like?" - -"Oh, she's darlingly pretty, with great blue eyes and long golden -lashes, and lovely colour that comes and goes, and she dresses sort of -quaintly. She looks well in fringes and sashes and droopy things. I have -to wear boys' clothes, almost, to set off my peculiar style of beauty, -but you mustn't judge Ruthie by me. She's really a star." - -"I think I'd like you best." - -"Oh, you wouldn't if you could see Ruth. You'd just call for the incense -and get busy worshipping. Everybody does." - -"Has she many suitors?" - -"Flocks and herds of them, but she doesn't care. She's kind of booky and -dreamy. I don't mean she doesn't play a stunning game of tennis, and -drive a car, and all that. She was motor corps for a while, and just -crazy to get over, but Dad wouldn't hear of it. She'll be on the Cape -bye and bye, and you can judge for yourself--I'm going to stay to -supper, did you know it? Your grandmother sent over and invited me -yesterday." - -"I didn't know she even remembered my birthday, and now--only think!" - -"She said to me that you were as blue as indigo, and putting up a good -old struggle not to be, and she wanted you to have something pleasant to -remember. That festive sound from below stairs is Judidy taking her turn -at the handle of the ice-cream freezer. Do you know what they make the -ice-cream of here? Just pure Jersey cream and fruit juice. I never -tasted anything like it in my life." - -"Didn't I hear something outside the door? It sounded just as if -somebody had crept up and then crept away again." - -"I didn't hear anything." Peggy threw open the door like a flash. "It -_was_ someone. More birthday surprises." She held up the package that an -unseen hand had deposited on the threshold. "Open it quick, Elizabeth." - -"Why, it's the Kipling 'Birthday Book,'" Elizabeth said, "that -red-leather edition that I've been crazy for. Who do you suppose could -have got it for me?" - -"Who is there left to give you a present?" - -"Nobody." - -"Grandpa hasn't been heard from." - -"Grandpa?" - -"He's capable of anything. You don't half appreciate him, Elizabeth." - -"I know I don't, Peggy, but I think I'm beginning to." - -At the supper table they cornered him. - -"Well," he admitted to Peggy, "I didn't know as you was upstairs, and I -calculated to have Elizabeth blame it on you, but seeing as I'm caught, -I'll own up to what I can't hide. I asked that girl in the apothecary -shop in Hyannis what was the best kind of a birthday present, and she -said a birthday book. I thought that was likely, so I asked to see one. -She fetched out a Longfeller book and a Emerson book, and then I see -this one standing all alone in a corner, and I took to it right away. -Kipling, he writes about things I know something about. So I took him." - -"And you are going to put your name in the book the first thing--before -any one," Elizabeth declared: "What's your birthday?" - -"What day is to-day?" - -"The thirtieth of June." - -"That's it." - -"You don't mean that you were born on my birthday?" - -"I always kind o' calculated you were born on mine." - -When Judidy, attired in a purple and yellow silk gown over which -she wore a black silk apron embroidered in blue forget-me-nots, -rose to change the plates, with an expression of the most intense -self-consciousness, Grandmother rose also, and the two exchanged -signals. - -"If I understood dumb show a little better," Grandfather said, slyly, "I -might be inclined to think that Mother had something hid out in the -kitchen, and Judidy had an errand in the pantry, but o' course I -probably got it all mixed up." - -"Well," Grandmother smiled, "seeing as the same thing has come o' the -pantry every June thirtieth for forty-five years, it ain't anyways -likely that you know anything about it." She bustled off to the kitchen, -to reappear with a mound of ice-cream in which the strawberries were -embedded, like so many perfect emeries. - -"I like ice-cream better than anything in the world," Elizabeth said. - -"I like it better than fathers and mothers and sisters and intimate -friends, but not better than grandparents, especially not grandparents -when one of them is celebrating its birthday," Peggy declared, "Now, I'm -getting silly. Will somebody stop me, please? Oh, look! Look at Judidy!" - -That flushed and excited young woman was approaching the table with the -air of a standard bearer. In her arms she carried a big tray lined with -white paper lace, and on it was set a marvellous erection of cake--a big -round of chocolate confection lettered in pink, and further adorned by -blazing pink candles. She placed it in front of Elizabeth. - -"Time was when I had a cake to myself on my birthday," Grandfather -grumbled. - -"The time ain't so fur off." Grandmother appeared, with a round loaf of -fruit cake on which one candle burned brightly. "You can take the candle -right off if you want to. I only put it on for a joke. The cake is just -what I always bake for you." - -"Elizabeth can eat all the candle grease." Grandfather made an effort to -frown, in which he succeeded only indifferently. - -"I made it myself," Judidy cried, as Elizabeth counted her candles, -"fourteen, and one to grow on." - -"And did you make all the letters--'Elizabeth With Love?'--I think -that's the nicest thing any birthday cake ever said on it." - -"I was going to put on 'Elizabeth-aged-fourteen,' and then I thought -that the candles would tell how old you were," the blushing Judidy -hovered over her masterpiece, "and then I thought it was better to put -on a kind of a message. I couldn't write a very long one, but I guess -that says just as much as a whole sheet of paper." - -"How did you make the letters so clear?" - -"With a cornycopia. You colour your white frosting with strawberry -juice, and then you make this here cornycopia out of letter paper, and -then you sort of dribble it along and write with it." - -"It looks lovely," Elizabeth said. "Thank you. Thank you, Judidy." - -"Don't let your ice-cream melt," Peggy warned. - -"You haven't let yours melt," Grandmother said, putting out her hand for -the empty dish Peggy was waving. - -"I never had all the ice-cream I wanted," Peggy acknowledged, sadly. "I -never shall have, I know I shan't, because I can't hold it." - -When Elizabeth made her wish, and blew out her candles, tears of pure -delight stood in Judidy's eyes. - -"I've give you luck," she said. "Oh, I hope it was a good wish!" - -"It was the best wish anybody could wish," Elizabeth smiled. "I shall -never forget this birthday, and this cake, Judidy, nor any of the dear -things that have been done for me." - - * * * * * - -That night, as her grandmother tucked her into bed, she caught one of -the kindly hands and clung to it. - -"That was the most beautiful sweater in all the world," she said. "Do -you think I could go down and kiss Grandfather good-night, too?" she -asked, shyly. - -"I guess it could be managed. I'll go downstairs with you, and see." - -And presently Grandfather, with his glasses sitting low on his nose, and -his nose in the morning paper, was attacked from behind and kissed -breathlessly; but when Elizabeth tried to escape, she found herself -caught by a blue dimity sleeve, and drawn into an energetic embrace. - -"No, you don't," he said, placing her on his knee. "You're going to set -here a while, and talk to Grandpa." - -But the eminence of his knee proved such an embarrassing vantage ground -that he soon let her go. - -"Good-night," she said, slipping her hand into his. "Good-night, -Granddaddy, dear," and she kissed him again, a real kiss this time, as -if he were her father, or Buddy. - -"Well, well," he said, "well, well!" and sat holding her by the -shoulders so long that he almost seemed to have forgotten she was there. -Then he picked her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs again, -tucking her into bed with a hand as accustomed as Grandma's. - -"Fourteen years old and letting her grandfather put her to bed the way -he did when she was a baby. Ain't you ashamed?" he asked, playfully, in -a tone she had never heard him use before. - -"No, I'm proud," Elizabeth said, and she meant it. - -Under her pillow was her brother's letter, and she lit a flickering -bedside lamp to read it by before she went finally to sleep. It was a -short letter, slanting down the paper, as he was not yet able to sit up -in his bed long enough to write properly. He said: - - DEAR SISTER-ON-HER-BIRTHDAY: - - I'd be willing to eat a German helmet to be able to spend this - day with you. But the U. S. base hospital--base is the word--has - got me for the present. I send you my respects, and fourteen and - one half kisses to grow on. - - For the love of Michael, don't get priggish in your old age. - Some of your letters have made me wonder if there was nobody - home where my sister lived, but lately they've seemed more - the real thing. Get acquainted with your grandfather and - grandmother. Grandfather once told me that he had come to the - conclusion there was only one person in the world he had to keep - an eye on, and that was himself. Good talk, Sis. - - Which endeth the lesson. - - BUDDY. - -As she tucked the letter back in its envelope, she realized that the -sheet which had been wrapped around it to prevent its scrawly surface -from showing through the transparent envelope was not blank as she -had at first supposed; she spread it out before her, thinking to -find a postscript to her own letter, but it was not that. It was -evidently a sheet of a letter begun and discarded. Elizabeth had read -it before she realized that it was not meant for her eyes to see. -"Sweetheart--Sweetheart--Sweetheart--" it ran, "I have never called you -this, and I have no right to call you so now, or any other name. At -least, not for many years to come. I'm done for. I love you, and I can't -try for you. That's something the war has done for a lot--more----" Here -it broke off, abruptly. - -"Oh, Buddy, Buddy," Elizabeth cried, "I didn't mean to snoop. How -perfectly, perfectly terrible!" - -It was two in the morning before she slept. She lay wide eyed in the -darkness, thinking of her brother and Peggy Farraday's sister. It -couldn't be anybody else--she knew that much about Buddy. For the first -time in her life she was feeling the weight of a trouble that did not -make her want to cry. - -"I guess that's what it means to be fourteen and grown up," she said. - - - - - CHAPTER V - - NINETY-NINE NEGROES - - -Peggy and Elizabeth were lying on the beach in their bathing suits. -Peggy had hollowed out a careful seat in the sand, and built arm rests -and a slanting support for the head, which she was trying to recline on -and enjoy. Elizabeth, who had made no such elaborate preparations for -relaxation, was really comfortable. She was wearing a black mohair suit -with a patent leather belt and silk stockings, and a blue rubber cap put -on with great care, so that tendrils of soft brown hair framed her face. -Peggy wore a rubber diving cap that made her look as if she had been -scalped, but her blue jersey suit was trimmed with blue and green -stripes and slashed up the side and laced fetchingly. - -"Did you get your birthday wish, or did you wish for a handsome husband -in the sweet bye and bye?" Peggy asked, lazily. "I always wish for -things that will happen right away, because I can't stand the strain of -not knowing whether I'm going to get them or not." - -"I didn't wish to get anything. I wished to be something. I can't tell -yet whether I'm going to succeed in being it." - -"Oh, I know--occasions like that always make you feel noble, but I hate -to waste a wish on wanting to be a better girl. You can't tell your -wish, and if you don't, there's nobody that can judge whether you've got -it or not." - -"Can't we judge for ourselves?" - -"I suppose we can, but it's kind of embarrassing to award yourself -prizes for virtue." - -"I know it, but in a kind of general way you have to keep tabs on your -own piggishness, because you're the only one that can." - -"Did you say pig or fig?" Peggy had all of "Alice in Wonderland" on the -tip of her tongue. - -"I said pig, but I guess prig was what I meant, really. You're not a -prig--but I am." - -"Well, speaking of wishes," Peggy said, "do you know the very latest way -of telling who you'll marry? You count ninety-nine niggers, twenty-seven -white horses, and three red-heads, and then the next man you shake hands -with, you'll marry. Let's begin and do it. I've been meaning to for a -long time, but I wanted to wait until I had somebody to do it with. -Those things are not so much fun alone. Kindly remove that inquisitive -sand flea from my back. Oh! Ouch! Lots of people claim they don't bite." -Elizabeth took the offender between thumb and forefinger. - -"He's a funny looking beastie," she said. "He's got a kind of solemn, -long face." - -"I think he looks interrupted," Peggy said. "I guess he liked my -flavour. Shall we start counting to-day?" - -"There aren't many Negroes on the Cape, unless you count Portuguese." - -"There are two kinds of Portuguese--black Portuguese and white -Portuguese. We'll have to count the black ones. My mother once went to -the Azores--that's inhabited by Portuguese, you know--she says that the -high-class women all wear a kind of nun's costume, with a huge black -head-dress made exactly like a pea-pod, and they are all quite -light-skinned in spite of their black hair and eyes. Well, let's go in -swimming." - -Elizabeth swam her hundred strokes, and then stood breast high, watching -Peggy's fearless performance as that young person displayed all the -latest spectacular swimming feats, diving and wallowing and spouting -like a young whale. The raft, which was usually rocking in at least -seven feet of water, had at first filled Elizabeth with terror, but -Peggy's adventurous spirit was beginning to animate her, and she -followed courageously when Peggy cried, "Now, the raft," and climbed up -its slippery sides with very little hesitation. - -"You're an amphibious animal," Elizabeth said. "I don't just know what -kind, but I do know what your mind is like--the way it flies around, up -one thing and down another. It's exactly like a squirrel." - -"I don't know whether that's a compliment or not. Look who's here, -Elizabeth. A little fish, see. A perfectly good fish. I wonder how he -got here." - -"Is he dead?" Elizabeth asked, shrinking a little. - -"He's either dead or sleeping. I think he's alive. He hasn't any eyes, -that's his trouble. Let's put him back in the water--but let's wish on -him first." - -"Wait a minute," Elizabeth cried. "I know a perfectly lovely poem out of -the Kipling book. I'll try it on the poor little thing. - - "Little blind fish, thou art marvelous wise. - Little blind fish, who put out thine eyes? - Open thy eyes, while I whisper my wish; - Bring me a lover, thou little blind fish." - -"He couldn't very well open his eyes, on account of never having any, -but I guess he got the general idea. Back you go into the water, you -little blind fish." - -"You wish, too." - -"I did--one of my next week wishes. You know how they tell your fortune -with cards. 'What you expect, What you don't expect, What's sure to come -true. Next week.' My wishes are all on that principle. There goes -fishie, swimming away for dear life." - -"Bring me a lover, thou little blind fish." The raft was rocking gently -under a fleece-lined sky, and the water was blue-green and full of -little thrills and ripples. Peggy took off her cap, and let her black -hair stream on the breeze. - -"Have you ever thought much about lovers?" Elizabeth said. - -Peggy blushed. "Have you?" - -"Not about my own. That is, I mean not about anybody I ever knew or saw, -but have you ever thought about anybody else having a lover? Any -relation of yours?" - -"About Ruthie, yes, but I don't believe she would ever really care about -that. Except in a very friendly way. All the engaged people I ever knew -were so mushy! I can't imagine Ruth being mushy." - -"I never think about the engaged people I know. That isn't what I call -being engaged--the way people _are_ engaged. I always think of the way -people in books get engaged, and that makes it easier to imagine." - -"Yes, it does. That would be the only way Ruth would ever do it. But I -don't think she would." - -"Do you think she would be the kind of girl to get engaged by letter?" - -"Well, I don't know. I don't like to think about her getting engaged. -She's too useful around the house. You wouldn't like to think of your -brother being engaged, would you?" - -"I might, if he were very unhappy." - -"Well, don't you worry about your brother being unhappy. The thing about -being grown up is that you can do just about what you please. If a man -wants to get married, he can do it, when he's as old as that." - -"There might be things to prevent him--health and things." - -"Say, I wouldn't worry about my brother and any girl if I were you. He -isn't the marrying kind. I heard Sister tell Mother that. Mother was -quizzing her, I guess; you know how mothers are about this suitor -proposition. Well, Ruth said that John Swift was the one man she knew -that was perfectly satisfied to be a friend, and a good friend to a -girl, and that he had told her so. She said she had a perfectly -tranquil, lovely friendship with him." - -"Oh, dear!" Elizabeth thought. - -"Buddy has got a very beautiful nature," she said aloud. "I think a girl -of his own age would like him very much, and he would make a good friend -to her." - -"Ruth would make the best little friend in the world. I think friendship -is much more beautiful than love. I don't think I should altogether like -it, if my sister and your brother were the other kind, and wanted to -behave, well, you know--that way. Would you?" - -"I don't know," said Elizabeth, faintly. - -On the way home she was very silent, while Peggy chattered, but at her -own gate she looked at her friend speculatively. - -"Do you know, Peggy," she said, "that there are ways in which I feel a -whole lot older than you are?" - -"Are there?" said Peggy, uncertainly. "Look, Elizabeth, there's the -third Negro. I'll bet we'll really get our fate settled before the -summer is over." - -That afternoon Elizabeth took her knitting--she was making a scarf for -Buddy, who had demanded one to bind himself round, soldier fashion, -during the period of his anticipated convalescence on Cape Cod--and sat -in Grandfather's chair by the living-room window. Her grandmother was -darning stockings on the other side of the branching fern. Elizabeth's -knitting would have progressed more rapidly if she had not been keeping -a sharp eye on the street, in order that no Negroes should escape her. - -"Did you ever do any stunts to see who you would marry?" she asked her -grandmother. - -"My sister and I used to hang horseshoes over the door, and the first -one that passed under them was supposed to be the one we was going to -marry." - -"Did somebody pass under?" - -"We did it a good many times. I remember one time we did it, and the -first one that passed under was to be my husband, and the second was to -be Alviry's. The first one turned out to be young Pork Joe, who was one -o' the unlikeliest boys that ever put his waistcoat on hind-side before; -he never would dress himself proper. I was pretty well discouraged at -the idea of young Pork Joe for a husband, but Alviry she made me hang -around watching for her beau to turn up, and lo and behold the very next -person to set foot over that threshold was your grandfather. I thought I -felt bad enough before, but when I saw John Swift's shoulders thrusting -themselves through that door frame, I just bolted off upstairs and had a -good cry. Alviry she wasn't pleased, either. She had her eye on Martin -Nickerson at the time." - -"Maybe it was the second one you were to marry, and the first didn't -count. Who was young Pork Joe?" - -"Old Pork Joe's son. He used to keep pigs to sell, and so they finally -got calling him that." - -"The way they call the plumber Pump Peter. I think Cape Cod is the -funniest place." - -"It ain't so different from other places." - -"In other places you don't associate so much with--the baker and the -butcher." - -"Maybe they ain't so well worth associating with." - -"My friend Jeanie Forsyth is a direct descendant from the _Mayflower_." - -"Well, so're you. Don't you know it?" - -"Have we really got _Mayflower_ blood?" - -"Those old pewter spoons on the dining-room mantle, that you was -examining the other day, was made from a mold that Peregrine White -brought over on the _Mayflower_. My mother was a White, you know." - -"I didn't know. I guess I don't know much about anything, Grandmother." - -"Live and learn. Babies ain't born with any great amount of contrivance, -nor yet much of an idea of what's what." - -"I've learned a lot since I've been down here." - -"You ain't so sure as you was about the way things was meant to be. At -first, we're pretty sure that things was meant to be just one way, and -that way the one we've picked out. After living along a while, we get to -realize that the other feller has his way, too. Then we have to kinder -arrange our ideas again." - -"Buddy thinks I'm a snob." - -"Well, what do you think?" - -"I--I think Buddy's right." - -"Well, he ain't going to be right very long if you _think_ so. When I -was growing up, I used to have a stylish city friend that I spent a good -deal of time with. She was the daughter of the biggest man we had had -from these parts, and she used to spend her summers at home, in the big -white house on Main Street--the one with the pillars and the cedar -hedge, just opposite the post office. She used to get her dresses from -Paris, and let me make copies of them, too, and she was courted by a -member of the governor's staff. I don't know as she ever had a -brother-in-law that was a count----" - -"Oh, Grandmother!" - -"Well, let Grandma have her joke--as long as she can keep Grandpa quiet. -Well, when we was little girls, she used to love to go to my grandma's -with me." - -"Not Grandmother Elspeth's?" - -"No, my grandmother; Grandmother White. Well, Mary's folks mostly lived -away from here, and most of the ways and doings of home folks was a -novelty to her. She liked to get Grandma telling about old times on Cape -Cod. You see, when Grandmother was a little girl, her mother was -bedridden, and the whole family was taken care of by her and a -neighbour's daughter, a little girl called Hopey D.--I never knew what -the rest of her name was. As fast as the babies come along, they was put -in the old settee cradle, and she and Hopey used to have to change -places sitting and rocking there all the time they wasn't doing -housework. That's the same settee you got in your room upstairs. Grandma -used to tell how the fire would go out in the old fireplace, on account -of she and Hopey not keeping it going right. Those were the days before -matches, you know; and she used to have to run through the woods to the -nearest neighbour, who lived a mile away, to borrow fire and bring it -home in a swinging pail." - -"Oh," Elizabeth cried. "Oh, that doesn't seem possible. I thought that -the days before matches were way back in Columbus's time, or something." - -"No. I've got a piece o' flint and a tinder box upstairs somewhere that -came from Grandma's. Supposing you had to strike a spark from a piece o' -flint before you could get the kettle to boiling." - -"Supposing I had a bedridden mother, like poor Grandma White. Oh, I hope -that Hopey D. was a nice little girl, and that she and great--no, -great-great-grandmother had good times together." - -"When Grandma used to tell all those old stories to my stylish friend, -do you know how I felt? I felt mortified at having a grandma that wasn't -more high toned, and I used to try to get Mary not to go there, so's we -wouldn't have no more talk about running after a pail of fire, and -rocking babies on the old settee and such." - -Elizabeth bent her head over her knitting, and the colour mounted slowly -to her forehead, but she did not speak. - -"So you see, girl nature is pretty much girl nature, wherever you find -it." - -"I was going to write a letter to-night, Grandmother," Elizabeth said, -after a period of silence, "and it wasn't going to be a very nice kind -of a letter, because it--it was going to misrepresent things some. Now, -I am going to write entirely differently, because things you've been -saying have set me to thinking. I'd be willing to show you the letter, -if you thought you ought to see it," she added, anxiously, but her -grandmother only smiled. - -"I ain't never very particular about reading other folks' letters," she -said. "I have trouble enough reading those I write myself, and those -that is sent to me." - -"All right," Elizabeth said, in a very small voice, "I guess it's going -to be hard enough to write it, anyway." This was the fateful epistle: - - DEAR JEANIE: - - I want to begin by correcting an impression I was snobby enough - to give you when I first came down here. I wrote you about this - place and my grandparents in an entirely false way. I did it - because I was too proud to own up the truth. I was surprised and - shocked when I got here, to find how things really were. I - hadn't been here since I was a little girl, and then only for - very brief visits. I imagined a kind of Farm de-luxe and a - grandmother in real lace and mitts, and a kind of Lord - Chesterfieldian grandfather, and all the comforts of a château. - Instead, my dear Granddaddy and dearest Grandmother are - just--natives. They murder the President's English, and they sit - around in their shirt sleeves--the former, not the latter--and - they, well, they aren't like anything I've ever known. So I got - started pretending, in my letters to you, and kept right on. The - "car" is an old, rattletrap Ford, and Granddaddy drives it in - his suspenders when he wants to. The chauffeur I sort of gave - you the impression we had is a regular, farm hired man. Our - hired girl sits at the table with us, and she is nice, too. They - are all nice, nice people--nicer than I am. My grandmother is - beautiful looking. I wish you could see her. I didn't care for - any one to see her, for a while. Now, I am getting anxious for - everyone to. - - Jeanie, can you understand me or not? I'm just a prig, snob, - liar, and I don't feel fit to live. I don't know what got into - me. I always tell you everything, and now I deliberately did - this awful thing, and I've got something else that I can't tell - you, but that is not my secret. - - Can you love me any more? I ask this seriously, because I know - you won't mind my humble origin half as much as the deception. I - knew this all the time, and yet I could not seem to help the way - I was behaving. - - I am afraid to read your letter in answer to this, so don't - write me one. Let me hear from you by return mail, but don't say - anything, not much, about this anyway. If you love me, though, - please begin your letter by saying so. I don't deserve you for - my most intimate friend. I've taken a new name. My - great-grandmother's name, and I am going to live up to it. I - took it so to be thoroughly part of my family, and to cultivate - the old-fashioned virtues with. It's - - ELSPETH. - - P. S.--Call me by it. Everything I told you about my birthday - was so. They did all those beautiful things for me. I slightly - camouflaged details, but it was all the way I said, except that - Judidy _ate_ with us. Aren't I a pig? - - ELSPETH again. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - - THE BEAN SUPPER - - -The three Steppe children stood in the centre aisle of the local -department store, in a state of unembarrassed good humour, while Peggy -and Elizabeth drew apart in consultation. The saleswoman busied herself -with folding up a series of small garments that had been discussed and -rejected by the two young shoppers. - -"Six dollars and thirty-three cents, and a stamp." Elizabeth counted the -contents of her purse again, distractedly. "Your three dollars and my -three, and the thirty-three cents we both saved on ice-cream cones, and -the stamp makes it thirty-five. I had no idea that children's clothes -were so expensive. We can hardly buy shoes for them." - -"Well, they can't go to that supper unless they have shoes. Look at -their feet, Elizabeth--I mean Elspeth----" - -"I know it," Elizabeth said, colloquially. - -"I want to go to bean supper," Madget wailed. "I said I would go." - -"Hush up, Baby," Mabel warned her, "you're in a apartment store. The -lady will throw you right out the door if you don't be good and quiet." - -Madget turned large, disturbed eyes on the lady indicated, and -discovered in her calm countenance nothing to rouse alarm. - -"I want to go to bean supper!" she wailed, even louder than before. - -"We have some laced canvas shoes with rubber bottoms that are a dollar -and a dollar and a half," the clerk volunteered. "You might get them for -the little girls, and a pair of sneakers for the boy. We have them in -black and brown," she added, with a hasty glance toward the grimy toes -and scratched ankles protruding from his nondescript footwear. "We have -stockings and socks that are reasonable, too." - -"Well, let's get their feet covered," Peggy said, "and trust to luck for -the rest." - -Madget and Mabel were accordingly fitted to brown shoes and socks and -Moses to black sneakers and long, black ribbed stockings. Nothing that -could be said to him, even the argument of the financial inconvenience -of covering his long legs, would induce him to put on socks like those -of his sisters. It was stockings or nothing with Moses, though he was -perfectly willing to do without them entirely. - -"One dollar and eight cents. Could we buy this little boy any kind of -trousers or bloomers for that, do you suppose? You wouldn't mind taking -a stamp to make up the difference, would you?" Peggy asked, anxiously. - -"Not in the least. We have some khaki bloomers that might fit him for -seventy-five cents." - -"I ain't agoing to wear bloomers," Moses said, decisively. "I want pants -or nothing." - -"Nothing is what you've got on now," Peggy said, severely, "or very near -nothing. You can't go to that bean supper in rags, you know. Don't you -want to have some cake and ice-cream, and corned beef----" - -"And potato salud," Mabel put in, helpfully, "and beans----" - -"And ice-cream and cake and potato salud," Madget droned, "and coffee -and ice-cream and cake----" - -"You said that before," Moses said. "Don't you ever get tired of hearing -things over and over?" - -"We can get a Butterick pattern and make him a shirt," Peggy suggested. - -"We can get Grandmother to give us some cambric and things to make the -little girls dresses. See here, Moses, you've just got to have a pair of -those bloomers. All boys wear them. You can't go to the supper if you -don't---- Do you mind measuring him?" - -Moses stood up and was measured; and five dollars went into the cash -drawer of the Hamlin Department Store, while the two girls, laden with -their purchases, steered their young charges toward home. - -Grandmother produced goods enough to make Moses a blouse of brown -striped shirting and each of the little girls a print dress. She also -found some old petticoats, yellowed with age, but daintily made, and -some waists with which they could be worn, complete to the very last -button. - -"So far, so good," Peggy said, "but we've got to hustle to get this -family covered before five o'clock to-morrow night. Moses' shirt is -going to be the worst. The dresses we can mostly make on the sewing -machine. You play around here in the yard all day to-morrow, children, -so we can try on the things whenever we need you." - -They started with their dressmaking bright and early the next morning. - -Moses' shirt went very well, for after it was cut and basted, -Grandmother offered to do all the necessary finishing, but Madget's -dress kept both the girls busy almost all the rest of the day. It was a -very effective garment, despite the fact that the seams were not -finished. The hem was done beautifully by hand, the little sleeves were -lace trimmed, and the pink chambray of which the dress was made hung in -graceful folds about the small figure. Madget's toilet was very -successful, but as for Mabel, ill luck seemed to blight her costume from -the very start. One side of the dress was cut shorter than the other, -both sleeves turned out to be for one arm, and there was no more -material to cut another, and to add dismay to discomfiture, Elizabeth -spilt a whole bottle of ink over the front breadth just as she was -getting it ready for the machine. - -"I don't know what we are going to do," Peggy cried. "It's nearly four -o'clock. We've just about got time to wash and dress them and get them -started." - -Grandmother appeared at this juncture with a little white, frilly -garment in her hands. - -"Here's an apron that would just about fit the oldest girl," she said. -"I know it ain't the style to wear aprons, and this would cover all her -new dress up, but I found it, and I just thought I'd show it to you." - -Elizabeth looked at it speculatively. - -"She could wear that for a dress," she cried. "We could just sew in lace -at the armholes, and nobody would ever know." - -"Have I got to be washed?" Moses demanded. "I can wash myself, and I -will, too. Kin I borry an old tablecloth or something?" - -"Here's a towel," Peggy said. - -"I want an old tablecloth, _too_." - -"You come downstairs and I'll give you one. Children takes notions," -Grandmother said. "He probably has an idea of some kind. You come along -with me, Moses." - -Thus relieved of Moses, Peggy and Elizabeth each took a little girl and -scrubbed and polished and combed till the result was miraculous. With -the wonderful, red curls smoothed and a big yellow bow on top of them, -Mabel looked like the distinctive child she was meant to be. The apron -proved a great success. - -"She looks just as well as Madget, in spite of all our trouble," -Elizabeth said a little dolefully. "There's nothing to cry about in -that, Madget. You want your sister to look as well as you do, don't you, -dear?" - -"No, I don't," Madget answered, concisely. - -"She's awfully cunning, if she is bad," Peggy said, standing off to view -the effect of her finishing touches. "She looks good enough to eat." - -"Ice-cream and potato salud, and beans and coffee an' ice-cream," Madget -began, at the suggestion. - -"I said _you_ looked good enough to eat, Madget." - -"I _am_ going to eat." - -"Where do you suppose Moses is? It's time he was dressing." - -"No, he went downstairs with Grandma. There he comes now, I think." - -Trailing up the front stairs into the guest chamber, which was the -centre of activities, Moses appeared, swaddled in the folds of a red -damask tablecloth, holding his clothes in his hand. His hair was -dripping, but from the rest of his person there emanated an atmosphere, -even an odour, of shining cleanliness. - -"Want to know how I washed?" he inquired, proudly. "I went out by the -back door, and I took off all my clothes, and then I rubbed myself all -over with yaller soap, and then I turned the hose on till I come nice -and clean. I don't like to take no baths in the house. You can't get the -water to squizzling." - -"Well, I guess it squizzled, all right," Peggy said. "Now get yourself -into these clothes quickly." - -It was two thoroughly exhausted girls that finally marshalled their -charges into the Town Hall, where the bean supper was to take place, but -they felt that their efforts to improve the Steppe children were -justified by the result. Moses in a brown shirt, bloomers and stockings -to match them, with his not unshapely feet encased in black sneakers, -and a red Windsor tie--he had demanded red--headed the little -procession. Then Mabel, proudly pinned into her white apron, with a -yellow sash about her middle, and the lace frills of her improvised -sleeves draped elegantly about her elbows, and lastly the resplendent -Madget--a complete product in pink chambray and ribbons to match. - -"Their colours all swear at each other," Elizabeth said, "I never -thought of that, did you, Peggy? We'll put Moses between. His tie -doesn't go with pink or yellow, but there isn't very much of it, thank -goodness!" - -"Where are the beans?" Mabel asked, practically, as they seated her at -one end of a long, deal table decorated with bunches of small American -flags--the occasion was patriotic--clustered in cups and glasses, like -stiff-stemmed flowers, and vases of dahlias and asters and rambler roses -flanking them. - -"Don't show your ign'rance," Moses said, witheringly. "It's a bean -_supper_. You don't have no more beans than you do supper. See the -chocolate cake, Madget, and the custid pie, and the potato salud?" - -"What's that yellar stuff, with leaves growing out of it?" Mabel -inquired. - -"That's potato salud. Ain't you never seen potato salud before? Where -you been all your life?" - -"To home," Mabel answered, literally. - -Madget, elevated on a wooden box with Peggy's coat thrown over it, sat -speechless between her brother and Elizabeth. The hall began to fill -rapidly. A young girl mounted the platform and started a few uncertain -notes on the wheezy organ. - -"That's going to be the 'Star-Spangled Banner,' Peggy groaned. "We've -got to get these children up again." But one of the bustling waitresses -hurried to the side of the young organist, and arrested her in -mid-career. - -"Don't play that," she was heard protesting. "We want to feed this lot, -and get them out in time to set the tables twice. We haven't got time -for them to stand up through the anthem." - -The young musician switched obediently to "I am always blowing -bubbles--blowing bubbles in the air," which Moses sang with her -nonchalantly. - -Plates of cold ham and corned beef began to circulate up and down the -table. The portly waitresses, family matrons in white duck and muslin, -enveloped in huge white aprons with long strings tied imposingly behind, -began to pass the beans, and to distribute thick mugs of golden-brown -coffee. - -Madget still gazed ahead, with unseeing eyes and quivering lips. - -"You eat your supper," Moses said, not unkindly, "or brother'll land you -one when he gets you home. Ain't you thankful for all that Miss Laury -Ann and Elizabeth and Peggy Farraday has done for you? See me eat." - -"See me," Mabel contributed, encouragingly, but Madget's miserable -silence was unbroken. - -"Let's not pay any attention to her," Peggy whispered. "She's got stage -fright. I don't believe she's ever been in a crowd before." - -"And such a crowd," Elizabeth groaned. "Where did they all come from?" - -"Oh, from all around. These suppers are awfully popular, because you are -allowed to eat all you can for thirty-five cents. All these women that -have to do their own cooking all the time are so glad to have a meal -that somebody else gets ready. Lots of poor old hermits that live alone -like to come and stuff themselves in a civilized manner once in a -while." - -"Civilized!" Elizabeth cried, looking down at the three-pronged fork -with which she had been vainly trying to spear her beans. "Sheets for -tablecloths, and paper napkins, and these implements of torture." - -"Civilization, as my history teacher loves to remark, is all a matter of -comparison. Don't eat with your knife, Moses, dear. Nice little boys -don't eat with their knives." - -Moses looked around inquiringly. - -"I ain't got no spoon," he said. - -"Why don't you try a fork?" - -"I ain't never et with a fork," he said. "Forks is for women." - -"He's about right," Peggy said. "Look down the table, -Elizabeth--Elspeth, I mean." - -A long line of men and boys, with only an occasional woman sandwiched in -between, faced them. They were all eating steadily and industriously -with their knives. At intervals they would stretch a far-reaching hand -for more supplies, or nudge a neighbour, and indicate with a grunt a -plate of food that was out of their reach. Peggy began to choke with -suppressed merriment. - -"Look, look, there comes old Samuel Swift," she said. "Would you think -they would let him in? Oh, isn't he an outrageous old creature? Who is -he, anyway, Elspeth? Do you know? Where did he come from?" - -"He's a sort of--of relation of mine," Elizabeth said, bravely. - -"Cousin Samuel," Peggy cried. "Do you think we ought to invite him to -come and sit beside us? Oh, dear, I wish you'd pinch me. I'm afraid I'll -have hysterics if I don't stop seeing the funny side of everything." - -"I'm having--having trouble on my own account," giggled Elizabeth. - -"Where's Madget?" Peggy gasped. - -Madget's empty seat confronted them accusingly. - -"She got bashful, and went under the table," Mabel said. "She has those -bashful spells. I give her a piece of bread and butter." - -Madget, secure from embarrassment in this seclusion, ate everything that -her thoughtful brother and sister provided her with, impartially. Her -pink chambray suffered from contact with the dusty floor and the butter -and chocolate icing. - -"What's the odds, so long as she's happy?" Peggy cried. "That's better -than having her cry into her plate. See Moses. Isn't he wonderful? I -don't suppose he ever really got enough to eat before in his life." - -"I suppose he is wonderful," Elizabeth said, "but I wish he'd keep his -bloomers up, or else not get up from the table when he passes food down -to Madget. You'd think he'd feel them slipping, wouldn't you?" - -"It would be all right if he had something on under them," Peggy said. - -"I didn't think of that, did you?" - -"I've busted in my back," Mabel informed them, cheerfully, "I guess I've -et so much." - -"I wish we'd sewed her in, instead of pinning her in," Elizabeth said, -"but never mind. I'll take my school pin. She's lost one of the blue -enamel baby pins." - -"I've got a pin down my back," Mabel said, wriggling. "Shall I git it -for you?" - -"No, no, not here, dear." - -"I'd just as soon." - -"Well, we wouldn't just as soon have you. After the ice-cream comes, -we'll go." - -But when this condition had been fulfilled, Madget presented an -unexpected obstacle to their departure. She had her ice-cream in her -hiding place, and spilled a great deal of it down the front of her -dress. By some unique manipulation of her spoon she had managed to smear -her hair with it also. It was not because of these casualties that she -refused to make a second public appearance, however. She merely -preferred not to see the light of day again, having successfully sought -sanctuary from an intimidating multitude. Finally, Elizabeth picked her -up, and bore her kicking and screaming from the hall, Woodrow Wilson, -under the protection of his flag, looking down at her with some -criticism implied in his glance, and the unfriendly crowd of Madget's -imagination seemed to be boring a hole in her back with its composite -gaze. - -"It was a relief to get Moses out without his trousers falling off," -Peggy declared. "Mabel's apron was entirely undone, and her hair came -down." - -"Think how well their shoes and stockings looked," Elizabeth said, -philosophically. "I'm glad we gave them a treat, but I think I should -have lived ten years longer if the bean supper hadn't occurred. Madget's -got an awfully shrill voice." - -"I can hear her yet," Peggy laughed, "'I won't come out. I won't go -home. I won't stay here. I won't be good.' Honestly, Elspeth, it was -screamingly funny if we wanted to look at it that way." - -"But we didn't do it to be funny," Elizabeth wailed. "We did it to be -kind. Did you ever stop to think, Peggy, how different things are in -real life from the way they are in books? In a book it would have come -out that the children's clothes were a great success, and the children -had a lovely time, and the two young heroines were greatly admired for -their philanthropy. Or if it had been a funny book, the children would -have said funny things that you could have enjoyed. In real life, you -just get tired and hot, and things seem flat and stupid." - -They were walking home as they talked, with the three children solemnly -herded in front of them. The arch of maple trees that shaded the main -street of the town swayed softly in the breeze. The birds were still -busy calling to each other. - -"I don't know that life is so much different from books," Peggy said. -"It sometimes seems to me much more beautiful. You can't see the colour -of the trees in a book. Walking down Main Street doesn't mean a thing if -you read about it, but when you are doing it, you can smell the flowers -and hear the birds sing and see the trees waving in the breeze." - - "I hear the wind among the trees - Playing celestial symphonies. - I see their branches downward bent, - Like keys of some great instrument," - -Elizabeth quoted. "They do look a little like a great harp, don't they?" - -"I can't say that they do," Peggy returned, candidly, "but they sound -like one. You know a lot of poetry, don't you, Elizabeth?" - -"I'd like to know a lot of poetry. My friend Jean Forsyth knows almost -all the poetry that was ever written. She is really literary, you know. -I think she'll be a great poetess when she grows up." - -"I'd like to meet her some time," Peggy said. "Oh, listen to Moses." She -beckoned Elizabeth nearer the children, who were engaged in animated -discussion of the afternoon's festivities. - -"I could go back there and eat a whole pot o' beans and a plate o' corn -beef, and a freezer of ice-cream, and a six-quart measure of coffee." - -"Well, why don't you go back then?" the practical Mabel inquired, "it -was paid for you to eat all you wanted to." - -"I did eat all I wanted to. I was only saying how much more I could eat -_if_ I wanted to." - -"I _did_ eat a freezer of ice-cream, didn't I, Mabel?" Madget insisted. - -"You didn't have no freezer of ice-cream to eat." - -"I did so. A big bear crawled under the table, and gave it to me." - -Mabel lifted a sisterly hand to chastise her for the sin of -prevarication, but Elizabeth arrested the blow. - -"Madget knows she didn't see a big bear. She is only having her little -joke." - -"A dancing bear, with a great big little monkey on its back," Madget -offered in corroboration. - -"I don't like jokes," Mabel said. "I ain't agoing to have her make 'em. -I'd rather talk about what I had to eat, and I can't if Moses and the -baby won't give me any chance to." - -"I'll tell you what you do," Peggy said, "you run home and tell your -marmer and your parper all about it. The one that gets there first can -talk the most, you know. Now we'll go and tell Grandmummy," she added, -as the children took to their heels. - -"I wonder what she'll say," Elizabeth mused. "She always says something -that you don't quite expect, but that somehow settles things." - -What she did say, after listening to the complete recital of the affair -with an almost suspiciously long face, was merely: - -"There's a great satisfaction in undertaking a thing and going straight -through to the end, no matter how it comes out. What's worth doing is -worth doing well, and I was real proud of the way you two girls stuck it -out." - -"Well, that's something," Peggy said to Elizabeth, "but deep down in the -bottom of her soul, she's laughing at us, just the same." - -"She's laughing at us--some," Elizabeth acknowledged. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - - THE LOCKED CLOSET - - - SISTER DEAR: - - Your epistles of late show a great improvement. I don't refer to - the spelling and rhetoric. You are not one of these fancy - spellers, I am thankful to state, and you subject the English - language to only an average amount of ill treatment. What I am - referring to is your morale. Your morale has certainly looked - up. Your letters from the farm leave nothing to be desired, - though they create an atmosphere of yearning for the farm, and - all the livestock inclusively. This is a flattering statement. - Being weakened by long suffering, I don't mind admitting right - out in writing that I'd rather see my sister than even Old Dog - Tray. - - It's good of you to return this compliment. You did in your last - letter, you know, but I'm afraid, if you once got me down there, - you would repent of your bargain. Even sisters have their - limits, and, to tell you the secret that is preying on my damask - cheek (See Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)--like the worm in the - well-known bud--no girl but you cares a tinker's damn what - becomes of me. No girl but you answers my letters. To be sure, - you are the only girl I write to, but I don't think that ought - to make a real difference, do you? You'd write your Buddy--if he - was your Buddy--no matter what stood in the way, wouldn't you? - If he wasn't your Buddy, you wouldn't. _Voilà l'obstacle._ - That's Sarah Bernhardt for "Aye, there's the rub," if anybody - should ask you. - - All of which is complete nonsense. The general idea is that I am - not getting well very fast, and I don't care very much if I am - not. France was France, and I made it--Dieu merci! If I never - make anything else, I hope I shan't do much hollering, but I, - too, was young once, little sister. So whenever you feel it's a - hardship to milk six cows before sunrise--as I suppose of course - you are doing--give a thought to your bed-ridden - - BUDDY. - - * * * * * - - BUDDY, my own darling, dear, dear BUDDY: - - I love you best, best, best, which doesn't include the other - generation, on account of its being so unflattering to our - mutual mother and father, but is almost completely true, all the - same. I hate to love anybody so much, because there is a hurt in - loving all that. My hurt is in your not getting better, and not - feeling more encouraged about it. Mother writes that your - discouragement is worse than your sickness. Oh, dear, Buddy, - don't be discouraged. Please, please, please don't. You _did_ go - over to France and fight. You did get a D. S. C. that all your - family are so proud of, their hats will hardly fit any more. You - are perfectly lovely yourself, and better looking than any one, - and have perfectly fascinating manners. Isn't that something? - Any girl would be crazy about you, and if there is any girl you - want to be crazy about you, I'll bet you could get her without - half trying. I know that if you only wanted to be a girl's - friend, you would be a perfectly beautiful, tranquil friend to - her, and she would like it better to have you be that than to - have a lover of any kind. Also I believe that if ever you wanted - to get engaged just by letter, you could do that, too. - - Peggy Farraday's sister Ruth is expected down here any time. I - believe that she is the girl you used to correspond with before - you went to France. Perhaps you have forgotten all about her by - this time. Peggy and I took the Steppe children to a bean - supper. I will describe this at length anon. It made them quite - sick. As I remarked before, I like you better than ice-cream or - pink silk underclothing. - - Your Sister, - ELSPETH. - -Elspeth waited anxiously for the answer to this letter, for she had -tried to be very tactful and helpful, and to handle strategically the -secret that she had surprised, but Buddy's answer was a blow. He wrote: - - DEAR SIS: - - I'm duly appreciative of the soft stuff. I sure do appreciate - your letters, and I know you like the way I look. (We might be - mistaken for twins, save for the slight accident of a few years' - handicap.) But I'd be willing to can that Everywoman stuff, if - it's all the same to you. Don't go getting ideas in your head - about the girls I'm clubby with. My first letter was all a joke, - and I gave you the credit for understanding a joke. That's all. - Keep on the subject of the old farm, and this year's crop of - brass tacks, and you will suit me fine. - - I am no better, but a lot worse. Don't, however, mention me to - any one but Grandpa and G-ma. If any one wants to know how I am, - say that I am aces up, and anxious to get discharged and go to - Russia. Yes, if I can get my old job back, I might get a chance - at Russia, and that's what I want. To get as far out of this - country as I can get. If this letter sounds grouchy--it's - because I am grouchy, and not that I don't like my relations. I - do, and here's a kiss to prove it. - - BUD. - -"I don't see why a tactful letter like mine made him sore," Elizabeth -thought, forlornly, and inelegantly. But a communication from her -mother, a day or two later, made her understand her brothers state of -mind and body a little more clearly. - - ELIZABETH DEAR: - - Be careful how and what you write to Junior--John, I mean. He is - in a highly excitable condition, and little things worry him out - of all proportion. Recently his great fear seems to be that you - will gossip about his condition to friends of his that you may - meet on the Cape. As far as I can find out, he has no friends - there except his immediate family, but he says that you don't - understand how a fellow hates to have his physical condition - discussed, and he seems to be in terror lest you tell someone - whom he doesn't care to have informed just what a state he is - in. I am writing you this for two reasons: First, I don't want - you to mind if John writes you irritably, and second, I promised - him that I would ask you not to talk about him to any one at - all. - - Your father and I are as comfortable as we can be with this - anxiety upon our minds, but New York is very uncomfortable just - at present, and keeping cool is an occupation in itself. I miss - my little girl. I didn't realize, Elizabeth, dear, how many - things you do for me, how many steps you save me, and how many - thoughtful little things you contribute to my comfort. - - I know it is hard for you to be away from us, but I am so - thankful for your brave and helpful spirit and the real - character building that I feel you are accomplishing. Every - letter I get I am prouder of, and so is your father. You could - make it so much harder for us if you were not trying to get - through the summer right. - - Do be careful when you go into the water, and don't ever stay in - too long. Take plenty of wraps to the beach to put on when you - come out. Don't let Grandmother feed you too many pies and - cakes, but obey and trust her in every other way. She is a very - wise woman. Mother knows in just what ways this summer is hard - for you, and she loves you dearly--dearly. - - MOTHER. - -"I thought I had got all over the habit of crying at Mothers letters, -but it seems that I haven't," Elizabeth said. "I know what Buddy's -afraid of now. I shall just have to use my own judgment and try to make -it the best old judgment I ever used in my life." She wrote again: - - DEAR BUDDY: - - I am very snubbed, but I guess I shall survive. I will can the - Everywoman stuff, but after all, I know more about it than you - do, even at my very immature age, because some day I am going to - grow up to be a woman, and in spite of your very great and - boasted superiority--_you_ aren't. - - I won't talk about you to any one except to G-pa and G-ma, and - not them if you don't want me to. But I shall say that I love - you, and why. You're a dear darling, that's why, and if I was - cross a little bit at your letter, I got right over it, on - account of your being such a dear, _and_ such a darling. - - I am glad you can sit up some. I ate a whole pint of ice-cream - and a quarter of a chocolate cake to-day, and thought of our - childhood days when you did the same thing. Peggy Farraday's - sister came yesterday, and I think she is a peacherine. She - inquired for you and I said you were getting better, and thanked - her. Buddy, I won't say nothing to nobody that will make you out - an invalid or not an invalid. When asked, I shall open my mouth - wide, and say nothing, nothing, nothing. - - I do, I do, I do love you. - - ELSPETH. - - -The answer to this was brief: - - DEAR SIS: - - Consider yourself patted on the back, and congratulated for - being the nicest girl. Enclosed find two dollars which will buy - six or eight pints of vanilla girl-exterminator, and don't, - after taking the dose, leave a letter telling how you met your - fate. - - Yours, - The mean old Grouch, BUD. - - P. S. Tell Peggy Farraday's sister anything you please. - -It was not long after this exchange of letters that Elizabeth asked her -grandmother for the key of the locked closet. - -"I thought you had forgot all about it," her grandmother said. - -"No, but I was rash enough to promise Peggy that she could be with me -when I opened it, and we've been doing so many things out of doors -together that we haven't had any other time." - -"Well, here it is. You can play with anything you find, as long as you -want to, but hang the clothes up again, come night." - -"I will, Grandmother. I'm so excited, and I've got to go upstairs and -twirl my thumbs until Peggy comes. Send her right up, won't you?" - -Waiting upstairs in her little blue room, Elizabeth began reading over -her brother's letters, and pondering on his sudden change of mood. - -"When he heard that Ruth Farraday was coming down here he was afraid I -would say something to her. Before he knew that, he was willing to be -just as mushy as I was. I suppose being in love is a pretty terrible -feeling." - -"Oh, Elizabeth-Elspeth," sang Peggy from the bottom of the stairs, "can -I bring my sister Ruth up with me?" - -"Cert-certainly." Elizabeth flew to straighten the pillows on the cradle -settee, and to pick up some stray threads from the braided rug in front -of it. "I shall be very glad to see her." - -Ruth Farraday, in a rose-and-white striped satin sports skirt, with a -fleecy, rose-coloured sweater and hat to match, made a very pretty -picture against the background of Elizabeth's little room. "Like a rose -against the blue of the sky," Elizabeth thought. "Her name ought to be -Rose, anyway. How becoming she would be to Buddy's dark eyes and -colouring." - -"This is the room, Ruth," Peggy said, "you can look at it for two -minutes, and then you've got to stop looking at it, because we are -gathered together to-day for quite another purpose, to wit, to penetrate -the mysteries of Blue Beard's closet." - -"It's a lovely room," Ruth said, smiling. "I wouldn't have intruded on -this very special occasion, except that it began to rain as I was -bidding Peggy good-bye at the gate, and Peggy thought you would rather -shelter me than have me run away through the flood." - -"Yes, indeed," Elizabeth said, "and it will be fun to have you see -what's in the closet if you don't mind." - -"I shall adore it." - -"I adore you," Elizabeth said to herself, "already." - -"We'd better hurry," Peggy cried. "Ruth is getting ready to rave about -the cradle settee and the flag-bottomed chairs. If we get started -telling her the history of all the things in the room, we shan't get a -look at Blue Beard's wives. Ruthie, dear, this is the key to the -enchanted closet. Doesn't it look spooky? This house is a hundred and -twenty-five years old, and see, all the doors have latches instead of -knobs. Which leads us to this one particular door." Peggy linked an arm -through that of her sister on one side and her friend on the other, "And -presto! Here we are. Now, Elizabeth-Elspeth." - -"One, two, three!" Elizabeth turned the big key in the ponderous lock, -and the door swung wide. - -"Blue Beard's wives' trousseaux!" Peggy said. "One hundred and one -thousand two hundred and forty-three silk dresses of the Georgian -period. I don't know when the Georgian period was, but I guess this is -it." - -Ruth stepped inside the closet. - -"These things run from about eighteen fifty to the early nineties; -mostly Victorian, if you must be educated, Peggy," she said. - -"I suppose I must, but look, look, look, at all these beauties." - -On rows of little pegs driven into the low rafters of the irregular -triangle that formed the closet were the carefully preserved relics of -three generations of dainty feminine finery. Dresses of taffeta and -dimity and poplin, in all the flower-like gradations of colour that our -grandmothers remember their mothers and grandmothers looking most -distinguished in. Not only gowns, but capes and dolmans and dressing -sacques, and, packed away in a barricade of old-fashioned, flowered -bandboxes, were the bonnets and hats, and even some of the gay little -bags and muffs that complemented the costumes. - -"I never saw anything so wonderful in my life," Ruth Farraday said. - -"Oh, let's try them on. Let's get Grandmummy to tell us about them. -Let's dress Ruth up and take a snapshot of her. Let's----" Peggy's -breath failed her. - -[Illustration: "'Oh! let's try them on'"] - -"Here's Grandmother now," Elizabeth said. - -Grandmother, making her placid way through the outer chamber, smiled, -and held out her hand to Ruth Farraday. - -"Peggy's sister," she said, "well, well, it's good to have Peggy bring -her sister along--to play in the garret." - -"This--this is Miss Farraday, Grandmother," Elizabeth said. "She--she -isn't----" - -"Elizabeth is trying to say that I am not a little girl, but I'm not -really so very far from it. I'm not so grown up that I want to be sent -out of the attic now I've just seen all these lovely things. You don't -mind if I stay?" - -"I'd mind if you didn't stay. You are the kind o' sight that sore eyes -is aching for all the world over." The old woman and the girl smiled at -each other as if they had been friends all their lives. - -"First, tell me who this belonged to, Grandmummy," Peggy dragged at her -sleeve imploringly, "and then tell me who every single dress here -belonged to." - -"Well, they belonged to a number of people, all told. Some of my wedding -things is there. That rose lavender silk in your hand, Peggy, was the -dress I appeared out to meeting in the Sunday after I was married. The -blue silk with the black velvet ribbon scallops around the basque was -the dress my sister Alviry wore to my wedding. She had long, pink ribbon -streamers on her hat, a chip hat trimmed with pink roses, and she was a -picture, I can tell you. My appearing-out hat is here somewhere--like -Alviry's, only trimmed with little lavender plumes. I had a black silk -trimmed with jet. That's it, that Elizabeth has her hand on. That's too -old for me yet, but everybody had to have a black silk dress that was -heavy enough to stand alone in those days." - -"What's this little love of a pink muslin with all these tiny, tiny -ruffles on it, Grandmother dear? See these bell-shaped white -undersleeves, and this figured pink sash, Peggy. Wouldn't your sister -look a dream in it?" - -"That was the dress I wore when I give your grandfather my promise. I -liked it better than any dress I ever had." - -"I should think you would have," Peggy put in, fervently. - -"I should have liked it best if your grandfather had never been born in -the world. Leastways, that's what I've always said. It was the first -dress my mother ever let me have all the say about. Dresses had to be -chose for their wearing qualities when I was a girl. If they wouldn't -wash and turn, year out and year in, we warn't allowed to have 'em, but -I had set my heart on a pink muslin with dolman undersleeves, and after -I went and nursed Grandmother White through scarlet fever, and just -barely lived after I caught it myself, Mother said I could have anything -I wanted as a present to get well on. Land, I begun to improve from the -day that dress was promised me." - -"I should think you would have," Peggy said, again. - -"It was pretty brave of you to go into a house where they had scarlet -fever, and nurse your grandmother through it," Elizabeth said. "Weren't -you deadly afraid?" - -"I don't remember much about that part. My father sent me, and so I -went, but I shall never forget the day when I first put on the dress. -Your grandfather he was calling on my brother Jonas when I come down the -stairs drawing my train after me. Jonas he started to stare at me, and -then he began to say poetry. An old poem he used to say whenever he -wanted to tease me: - - "Here she goes, there she goes, - All dressed up in her Sunday clothes, - High-heeled boots and a cashmere shawl, - Grecian bend and a waterfall. - -I was so put out, I run upstairs and didn't come down again till he -coaxed me down with the promise of a drive to Bass River by moonlight." - -"But how about Grandfather? You said that was the very dress he proposed -to you in." - -"So t'was." - -"Did he propose that evening?" - -"No, he didn't. I was so put out at Jonas that I wouldn't have a word to -say to your grandpa for a whole week." - -"That was hard on Grandfather." - -"He went and got another girl and took her to the Harvest Dance. Eliza -Perkins, and she wore a mahogany-coloured silk that made her look as -sallow as a pumpkin. I was so sorry for him that I kinder made it up to -him. I suppose girls will always be high and mighty with the boys they -like best. I never took the trouble to plague any other of the young -men, but your grandfather I used to make life a burden to." - -"Nowadays it's the young men that are high and mighty," Ruth Farraday -said, "they go into the service, and their uniforms turn their heads, -and then they--forget." - -"I guess the young men to-day ain't so different from the men in my -time, if you come right down to it. I guess liking is liking--just the -same as it always was. Love will go where it's sent." - -"Do you believe it comes once to every man, as the saying goes?" - -"I know it. There's a lot of talk about loving this one and that one, -but when you get right down to it, the second time is a pretty poor -imitation of the first. There is natures that's different, of course, -but true natures find their own and cling to it." - -"Oh, I don't know that I like that for a philosophy," Ruth said, "it's -all right--if it isn't one-sided, but if only one feels it----" - -"It ain't so often one-sided as you think--the real thing ain't. If it -ain't real--why, that's another story." - -"But how is anybody going to tell if it is real?" - -"There ain't really any way of not telling." - -"Grandmummy," Peggy begged, "can we dress Ruth up in your pink muslin -and take a snapshot of her?" - -"Certain, but you ought to curl her hair. I made a hundred and twenty -curls when I wore that dress." - -"That's where Elizabeth inherits her curly locks. Please dress up in -Grandmother's muslin, Ruth. Don't you want her to, Grandmummy?" - -"It would do my heart good to see her pretty face shining out over my -pink muslin." - -"If you feel like that, then you shall," Ruth said. - -"I have a kind o' feeling that it will bring you luck," Grandmother -said, when the soft hair had been loosened and curled about the face, -and the pink muslin had been hooked and buttoned and tied till it -undulated in delicate folds and curves all about the girl's slender -body. - -On the lawn under the honeysuckle arbour, on the gate post, on the front -steps of the old house, which followed the old-time habit of facing the -south, though the street was due north, Peggy took picture after -picture, and Ruth Farraday smiled up at the sun like an old-fashioned -blush rose blooming in an old-time garden. - -"There comes Father," Grandmother said, "let's see how much he'll -notice." - -Grandfather, approaching, took in the tableau under the honeysuckles. -Elizabeth and Peggy watched breathlessly as he made straight for the -little figure in Grandmothers pink muslin gown and stood staring down at -it. - -"I don't know who you be," he said, slowly, "nor where you got the dress -you're wearing, but I know what you make me feel like." He swept his hat -to his breast with a courtly, old-time bow, and bent over Ruth's little -hand and saluted it. - -Then he put out his other hand to his wife and drew her arm within his. - -"Mother," he said, softly. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - - LETTERS AND THE POST OFFICE - - - JEANIE DEAR: - - Your letter was lovely. I forget what you are like between times - a little, and then I look at your picture or get a letter from - you, and know. I can hardly believe you love me, after all you - know about me, but I guess you do. I wish I could see you, but I - am glad you are at the Point again this summer. I tried out - Mother about my coming to visit you, without asking in so many - words, but her idea is that she would like to have me stay put. - My brother may get well enough to come down here at any time, - and when he does I want to be chief nurse and bottle - washer--medicine bottles. - - I've been doing quite a lot of things. I spend a great deal of - time with Peggy Farraday. She is very nice. Nicer than I am, but - not as nice as you, Jeanne of Arc. She is as nice as a Peggy - Farraday can be. She has a sister Ruth, who is as sweet as - peaches. She is about nineteen and a half, and blonde, with big - blue eyes and long golden lashes, and one of those soft voices - low in the throat, with a kind of thrill in it. You know--like - contralto singing. You would love her. I am wild about her, and - Buddy knows her. Don't mention that to any one. It's a secret. - If you were here I think I could hint to you some things about - it, but I can't on paper. Somebody might read a letter some time - that you didn't expect. Buddy is very unhappy, and writes me one - cross letter to every pleasant one. He is afraid I shall not be - discreet, but discreet is my middle name, to use slang. Oh, I - long to tell you what I mean. He won't write to her and she - won't to him, and I am trying to make them. You can see how - exciting it is. - - Well, I must give you a brief résumé of what I have been doing, - before I close. Monday we went in swimming, and afterwards, in - the Farraday car, to Wianno, which is a very attractive summer - colony farther up the Cape. We stopped at Hyannis and had - ice-cream with a frozen pudding sauce. Tuesday, after swimming, - Grandfather took us to Chatham in the noble Ford--me and - Peggy--and we stopped at an attractive little tea room, where we - had chocolate ice-cream. Wednesday we went swimming and then we - walked to the adjoining town where we got some wonderful - ice-cream sodas, three apiece. Peggy and I have each got over - thirty Negroes. I told you how we were counting them in order to - find out our fate. I am glad you have begun, too. I love you - dearly. - - Your own ELIZABETH-ELSPETH. - - (Peggy calls me that. She sends her love even though she doesn't - know you.) - -Elizabeth was in a letter-writing mood, and sealing Jean's letter with -her favourite sky-blue sealing wax, stamped with her monogram signet -ring, she opened her letter-case again. She began: - - DEAR DADDY: - - We don't write very many letters to each other this summer. At - least, I don't write many separate ones to you, but all the - letters that go to Mother are meant for you, too. My special - particular efforts go to Buddy. Poor Buddy! I hope you will soon - be able to bring him to his own grandmother's hunting ground. He - keeps writing me about going to Russia. I guess I should want to - go to Russia if my health was as discouraging as Buddy's. I - worry about him, and, Daddy, dear, I worry about you. I have - made the great discovery that a Daddy is a Daddy, and that it - has to work pretty hard buying wardrobe trunks and Japanese - kimonas and almond nut bars for its female offspring. - - When I think of you sweltering in that hot city whether you want - to or not, I get quite upset. You have to work every day, don't - you, whether you feel like it or not? I never thought of that - before till last evening, and it made me a little bit ill, it - struck me with such force. I have just never happened to think - of it in that light. I can tell you, Daddy, it made me love you - harder than ever, and that's pretty hard. Well, all I can say is - that I respect you more than anybody, and I hope you are never - sorry you got married and got this family on your hands. - - Now for a few words to cheer you up. Monday we went in swimming, - Peggy and I, and afterwards in the Farraday car to Wianno. I - guess you know all about Wianno. We stopped at Hyannis and had - some ice-cream with frozen pudding sauce. Tuesday we swam and - Grandfather took us to Chatham in the Grand Old Ford, and we had - chocolate ice-cream there. Wednesday we went in swimming and - then walked to Harwich and got three ice-cream sodas. Also we - counted quite a lot of Negroes. I wrote Mother that we had to - get ninety-nine Negroes etc. for a stunt we are doing. - Portuguese count, if they are dark enough. - - I love you more than my old scratchy pen can tell. There goes - the station barge, with the morning mail. So here goes I after - it. - - YOUR BABY. - -You write an awful lot of letters, Elizabeth," said Peggy, as the two -met at the post-office steps. "You get a lot, too. I'm not much good at -correspondence. Did you ever write to a boy, Elizabeth?" - -"No, not really. Only thank-you letters and answering invitations and -things like that." - -"Well, don't you ever tell, Elizabeth, because I might get teased, but -I'm writing to a boy right now. That is, I am going to be when I've -answered his letter. It isn't a silly boy, though, it's a sensible -boy--a boy that knows a lot of things I want to learn about. Chester -Reynolds, you know, that I've told you about winning the tennis cups. I -got a letter from him last night. It isn't supposed to be very nice to -show letters, but if you'd like to see this one, I'll bring it around -to-morrow, and then I'll bring my answer to it, and let you see what you -think of that." - -"All right," Elizabeth agreed. - -"Isn't it a funny thing, he is the only boy that I ever thought I'd like -to correspond with, and now he has just sat himself down and written to -me." - -"I think that's very nice." Elizabeth said. "There's a boy in New York -that I felt that same way about. He sort of offered to send me a copy of -'Prometheus Bound,' but I knew if he did that I should have to write and -thank him, and I didn't know whether Mother would approve of my writing -him like that when I was away from home, so I didn't say anything more -about it." - -"What is 'Prometheus Bound,' anyway?" Peggy inquired. - -"Well, I think it is a kind of a blank verse poem or book, something -like Whittier's 'Snow Bound,' but I'm not sure. That was one reason that -I wanted him to send it--so I could find out. He was quite a literary -boy, one of Jeanie's friends. He's very good looking, though." - -"I don't like literary boys as a rule, though, do you?" Peggy asked. -"They usually wear rubbers and horn rims, and have to mind their -mothers." - -"Not any friend of Jeanie's. Her friends are always all-around boys. -They must have brains, too." - -"Oh!" Peggy said, impressed. - -The crowd on the post-office steps was beginning to thicken. The big -bags, bulging with mail, had been passed behind the glass façade of the -mail-box section, and behind the closed wicket that indicated the -distribution was taking place the silent postmaster and his assistant -worked with grim, accustomed rapidity. - -"Let's go and watch them put the things into the boxes," Elizabeth said. -"It's the most exciting thing to see the letters go in. Ours is 178. -See, here it is," she cried, as Peggy followed her into the stuffy -office. "There's a card from Buddy already, and one for Grandfather from -the Bass River Savings Bank, and one fat one that I can't see the face -of that I hope is from Jean. She doesn't always wait to get answers, you -know. She writes when the spirit moves and so do I. I've just been -writing her." - -"When you go back to New York, let's write to each--I mean one -another--like that, only I'm afraid you'll get the worst of the bargain. -When the spirit moves me to write a letter, it mostly only moves me to -say, 'Dear Elspeth,' or whoever it is, 'Hello! Yours frantically fondly, -Peggy.' It's funny, when I like to talk so much, that I don't like to -write more." - -"There's my thirty-first," Elizabeth whispered, as a solemn black -chauffeur made his appearance in the post office. - -"My thirty-third," Peggy said, "and outside is a white horse. What a -pity we have got to get the white horses in sequence. They are so hard -to find, especially when you are looking for them. But when we do get -them all, I am going to keep my hands behind me all the time, until I -find somebody I am willing to shake hands with!" - -"It would be awful, after all this trouble, if we didn't shake hands -with the right one, wouldn't it, Peggy? There goes a postcard right into -my box. It's for Judidy. She has a young man. Did you know it? He's -almost as fat as she is, and not nearly so good looking." - -"I hope she gets somebody very nice, and marries them, and has a whole -backyard full of fat pink babies, though I don't know what Grandmummy -would do." - -"Grandfather says she'd get the work done quicker if she didn't have -Judidy to look out for, and I think perhaps she would. Isn't it funny, -when I first came, Judidy just seemed to me like a kind of queer person -that I felt not quite right about eating at the table with, and now -she's my friend." - -The gate in the wicket flew up, and in an instant it was surrounded. - -"See all the mail-hungry fiends," Peggy said. "Oh, goody, Mother's got a -letter from my cousin in Rome--and Ruth has a letter from that Chambers -fellow." - -"What Chambers fellow?" Elizabeth asked, quickly. - -"Piggy Chambers I call him. He's got loads of money and he is very good -looking, and he just pesters Ruthie to death." - -"What does she do?" - -"She lets him. She likes it, rather." - -"Oh, dear!" Elizabeth said. - -"You don't have to worry. She's my sister. Piggy Chambers isn't so bad. -He's just kind of a bore, you know, and awfully fond of writing letters -to Piggy Chambers, Esquire. Lots of grown-up fellows are like that." - -"She's your sister, but I love her, too." - -"Shouldn't think much of you if you didn't." - -They were on their way home by this time, and the post-office crowd had -begun to melt away, streaming up and down the street, and into all the -cross roads. - -"I wish my grandmother would let me come after the mail at night," -Elizabeth said. "I have to wait till Judidy or Zeke are ready to come, -or Grandfather will take me. As if I wasn't old enough to go out after -six o'clock alone." - -"It isn't your being old enough, it's the general reputation of the post -office being a place where the crowd goes in the evening to--start -something. You know yourself that lots of things that go on there don't -look very well. It's such a mixed crowd, too." - -"As long as you behave yourself, I don't see what difference it makes." - -"I've thought a lot about going to the post office at night," Peggy -said, "and I've argued a lot about it with Ruthie and Mother, and the -conclusion that I've come to is that it's just as well to keep away. All -the girls that aren't nice hang around there. Some of the girls that are -nice stay away. When I grow up, my niceness is going to be so much a -matter of course that I won't have to look out for it so hard. Just now -I am going to obey Grandmummy's rule to 'avoid the appearance of evil'." - -"I guess you are just about right, Peggy," Elizabeth said after -reflection. "Sometimes you talk a lot like Jeanie. Would you like to -hear some of her letter?" - -"I should say I would, but don't read it to me unless you really want -to." - -"I do," Elizabeth said, "and the reason I do is that I think you are -like Jean in some ways. You are both of you way beyond me in the way you -look at things." - -"The way I look at things is better than the way I act sometimes." - -"I'm inclined to be just the other way around. The way I look at things -is worse than the way I act most generally." - -"I'm disobedient," Peggy said, "and sloppy weather, and always late to -places. I do as I'm told about things like going to the post office at -night, but not about trying to run the car or getting home on time." - -"I'm just the other way," Elizabeth reflected. "I wouldn't monkey with -anything I was told not to touch, but I'd make a big fuss, if only in my -own mind, about obeying a grown-up rule that I didn't understand." - -"Either way gets you into trouble at times," Peggy said, sagely. "Don't -look round, but there are two boys trailing behind us." - -"What kind of boys?" - -"Two of the boys that were down at the Aviation Camp all last summer." - -"Are they all right?" - -"Yes, but I don't know them." - -"They are speaking to us. Don't look round." - -"_Oh, girls!_" - -"I suppose they'll get tired and go away." - -"Don't look round." - -"_Oh, girls!_" - -"Now, look here," Peggy suddenly wheeled on the two followers. "We -haven't met you. We're not going to have you trailing around after us." - -The older of the two boys whipped off his hat. - -"I--I beg your pardon," he said, colouring. "We were only joking. -We--we----" - -"It puts us in an embarrassing position," Elizabeth contributed. - -"Well, some of the girls, they--we----" the other boy also found -explanation more difficult than he had anticipated. - -"There's a difference in girls," Peggy said, severely. - -"We were only going to ask you the way to the beach." The first boy's -hair was a blazing, splendid red. Elizabeth liked red-headed boys. - -"I've seen you there almost every day this summer," Peggy challenged. - -"So've I seen you." The second boy had a wide, ingratiating grin. "We -want to get acquainted, that's all," he admitted, "so we were pursuing -what seems to be the usual way down here." - -"That isn't the way to get acquainted with us," Elizabeth said. - -"What is the way, then?" - -"Don't ask _us_." Peggy gathered Elizabeth's arm under hers, and hurried -her along. - -"They are sort of nice," she admitted, when they had put several yards -between them and the objects of their encounter. "If they are really -nice, I suppose they will get introduced the way they ought to. If they -aren't, well, we won't see them." - -"It's a sort of strain waiting to find out such things," Elizabeth said. - -"Read me Jean's letter, and that will take our minds off them," Peggy -demanded, practically. "One reason that I don't like to have much to do -with boys is that when you get thinking about them it's hard to get your -mind on other things. If they are silly, they aren't any fun." - -"On the other hand," Elizabeth argued, "if they aren't just a little -bit--silly or--something--they aren't so much fun." - -"Well, they have to be interested in you some," Peggy admitted. - -"Now I'll read you Jean's letter. We'll sit down under this tree by the -gate. See how pretty her handwriting is. Doesn't she make fascinating -E's and R's?" - -"I think there is a lot of character in handwriting," Peggy said, -bending her head over the letter. "See this one from Piggy Chambers. He -writes like a pig and he is one." - -"See this card from my brother Buddy. He writes like a perfect -gentleman, and he is one, though I say it as shouldn't." - -"Oh, I've seen your brother's handwriting before, but not for a long -time. Why don't you write him to write Ruthie? I'd a whole lot rather -she was hearing from him regularly than from Piggy." - -"Has she a friendship with Mr.--Mr. Piggy?" - -"No, she hasn't. He just wants her to marry him, and that's all there is -about it. If your brother is her friend, it would be the part of a good -friend to stick around just now, if only by correspondence." - -"There are things about my brother that you don't understand, Peggy," -Elizabeth said, solemnly. - -"Thirty-four," Peggy said, her gaze diverted to the street, "count that -one, Elizabeth. It may be that same chauffeur, but never mind. We don't -know positively that it is." - -"Well, now for Jean," Elizabeth said, after these formalities were -finished. - - ELSPETH-ELIZABETH DEAR: - - I've had your long letter, the one that told about the Steppe - children (and how I laughed!), for a week, and your two - postcards. I wrote you one serious letter in answer to a serious - one from you, and now I'll just tell you about the way things - are going here. It's just the same thing--sailing, teas, dances, - bathing, and then begin all over and do it again. I like it - all--especially the sailing--"a wet sheet and a flowing sea," - you know, is one of my ideals. Another ideal is getting - realized, too. I'm learning to drive the car. I bogged it - yesterday, and a farmer with whiskers to his knees, and a long - rope, like the funny papers, came and pulled us out. The - chauffeur was with me. He ought to have prevented it, but he - said I was too quick for him. Anyhow, won't it be wonderful when - I learn? Then you and I can "ride together, forever ride," as - Browning says. - - I went into New York on Thursday, and what do you think, I went - to see your brother Buddy. I called up your mother from the - station and she suggested it, so I did, as we had the car and - were going out of New York from his end of the town, anyway. I - felt two ways about doing so. One way was, that it was hard on - you for me to see him first, and the other way was that if you - couldn't see him, I could represent you. He is quite a - sick-looking Buddy, but very, very sweet and dear. I hope you - can get him down to the Cape and take care of him. They won't - discharge him, will they, until they get good and ready to? He - looks a lot like you and a lot like some of those Rembrandt - portraits of himself. I suppose it's his beard that makes him - look so sort of shady and shadowy. He said he didn't think he - would ever be any better, but that if he did, he hoped he could - go to Russia. He seemed to want me to think that this and - everything else he said was a joke. I must interrupt myself now, - and say au revoir, because the car is waiting, and Mother is - being very polite in it. I can see her back getting politer - every minute. - - 'bye-- - JEAN. - - P. S. I love you. - -"I didn't know that your brother was as sick as all that," Peggy said. -"Why haven't you told me so?" - -"He doesn't want anybody told. He doesn't want to appear like a -confirmed invalid." - -"I'd like to tell Ruthie." - -"I--I'll tell you what you do. You take Jeanie's letter and read it to -her. That won't be either of us telling her." - -"All right, I will." - -"I don't know what excuse you can give for having a strange girl's -letter with you." - -"I won't need any excuse. I'll just say to Ruth that I've got a letter -from a friend of yours about John Swift. She'll just grab the -letter--that's all. I'll say you were willing." - -"You come around and tell me what she says afterwards." - -"All right." Peggy was making a prolonged departure, kicking at the turf -as she stood at the gate. "I'll come around this afternoon, anyway, and -we'll go and get some tutti-frutti ice-cream." - -"All right, and if you hear anything more about who those boys were, you -can tell me then." - -"All right, and I'll bring around that letter I was telling you about, -from Chester Reynolds." - -"All right. I guess my dinner's ready. I heard the bell when we first -got in sight of the house." - -At this point Grandfather appeared at the door and seeing Elizabeth -still looking in the direction of her departing friend, he approached -firmly and grasped her by the ear, and led her, protesting, into the -house. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - - HUCKLEBERRIES AND NEW FRIENDS - - -Grandfather came out of the north door and shaded his eyes with his -hand. He gazed searchingly at Elizabeth's favourite tree by the gate -under which she and Peggy were sitting with their embroidery. - -"Well, well, I'm disappointed," he murmured to himself. "I thought if I -see anything of those two girls I'd ask them to go huckleberrying, but I -s'pose they've gone off down to the shore, or somewhere." - -"Oh, do ask us to go huckleberrying," Elizabeth cried. - -"I thought they'd be right out here, sitting under that tree, like -enough, doing some chore o' fancy work. It does beat all where they find -to hide themselves." - -"Oh, what fun!" Peggy cried. "He took me huckleberrying last year, and I -got four quarts in about two hours." - -"Well, well, I am disappointed. I might's well make up my mind to go -alone." - -"He will, too, if we don't hurry," Elizabeth said, stuffing her crochet -work into the pocket of her blue linen dress. "Run and get into the -Ford." - -Grandfather, equipped with as many shining pails as a tinware peddler, -approached the car and stared at it gravely, though Peggy and Elizabeth -were already in possession of the back seat. - -"Too bad I couldn't find those girls," he said. "Mother's put a great -heap of sweaters and aprons under the seat, so's if I should be lucky -enough to pick them up on the way. Well, Lizzie"--this to the -machine--"how cranky are you to-day? Crank by name and crank by nature," -he made half a dozen ineffectual attempts at starting, and then -succeeded suddenly, jumped into the car, and they were off with a snort -and a flourish. - -"You darling Granddaddy," Elizabeth said in his ear, "we're crazy to go -huckleberrying, and Peggy says you know all the spots where they grow -thickest." - -"Well, well, how did you get here? I dusted my car out carefully just -before I started. It don't seem as if I could overlook a couple o' girls -o' that size." - -"You didn't have your glasses on, Granddaddy." - -They took the road to the north, winding white into the hazy distance. - -"The road is like a white ribbon," Elizabeth said, "and those little -scrubby pines, sitting low all along the way, are like--well, I don't -know what they are like, but I like _them_. I don't complain if the -trees on the Cape are not majestic, as they are in other summer resorts. -You see a lot more sky when the trees are low." - -"You stand up for Cape Cod," her grandfather said. "It's a pretty good -place. You know the story of the old farmer who was driving back from -his wife's funeral. 'I lived with that woman forty year,' he said, 'and -toward the last, I really got to like her.'" - -"Is that the way you feel about Cape Cod?" Peggy asked, mischievously. -"I thought it was the way you felt about Lizzie." - -"Lizzie's got her good qualities, like most o' the rest of us. She ain't -got much natural pride about the way she looks, and she hates to admit -that a man is stronger than she is, but when he once gets the best of -the argument she goes along peaceable. There's a lot o' human nature to -Lizzie." - -"I'm so excited about these huckleberries I can't wait to get there. -Don't you love to see those clumps and clusters of dusky blue berries -just waiting to be jingled into the pail? The woods smell so sweet, too, -with the wild honeysuckle and wild roses." - -"And wild bog cranberry and wild turnip and wild beech plums," -Grandfather added. "Well, here we are." - -They had switched from the macadam to a road deep with sand through -which the light car had been ploughing for the last several minutes. -There was a cleared space before them and a path leading into the woods -beyond. - -"Foller your nose," Grandfather said, "and you'll find berries enough to -make huckleberry dumplings for a regiment." - -Elizabeth and Peggy slipped into the big gingham aprons that Grandmother -had provided, and each slung a pail over an arm. - -"I'll bet I can get more than you do," Peggy said. - -"If you do, it's because your fingers are longer." Elizabeth looked -ruefully at her small, chubby hands. - -"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp," Peggy said. "I can -quote poetry as well as your friend, Jean, but don't ask me what that's -out of, because I don't know. My fingers are longer. I don't know -whether that makes any difference or not, but I'll give you a handicap." - -"I scorn your handicaps. One, two, three, go. May the best girl win." -Elizabeth shot down the path, and the sound of the fruit beginning to -spatter into her pail was heard almost immediately. - -"I never saw so many blue or huckleberries in my life. I've got the -loveliest, thickest patch--come over here, Elizabeth," Peggy shouted -from her retreat. - -"I've got all the blue or huckleberries in the world right here," -Elizabeth mimicked. - -"I'll pick a couple o' minutes, and then I'll lie in the bushes and rest -a while," Grandfather said, vanishing with a six-quart cranberry -measure. - -Later when the girls came into the clearing again with their laden pails -they found him stretched at full length and apparently fast asleep, but -beside him was his heaping measure of berries. - -"Granddaddy Swift," Peggy cried, "when did you pick all those?" - -"Those?" he said, yawning. "Oh, a couple of hours back." - -"I bet you've been working your head off every minute. We've got three -quarts apiece. Elizabeth beat me after all, and then turned around and -helped me get mine." - -"I nearly killed myself doing it. I never want to _eat_ another -huckleberry, but I am thirsty for water or something. Don't I hear a -spring?" - -"There might be one through the trees there. I don't know nothing about -it." Grandfather pointed, however, in a definite direction. - -Peggy parted the branches, and slipped into a thread of a path which led -them directly to a pool of crystal clear water fed by a tiny stream that -was bubbling and gushing out of the earth. Protruding from the spring -were three bottles of ginger ale that had been so placed that the cool -water splashed upon them as it fell. On a rock close by were spread two -paper napkins with a pile of bread-and-butter sandwiches on one and a -stack of sugar-molasses cookies on the other. Between the two, holding -them down, was a box of chocolates from New York's most popular candy -manufacturers. - -"I don't know nothing about it," Grandfather said, when they dragged him -to the feast, "I've been fast asleep back there for upwards of two -hours." - -"You're a story-teller," Peggy said, "and for a punishment you've got to -tell us a real story as soon as you've had your party." - -"Nothing ever tasted so good to me in my life," Elizabeth said, as they -were brushing off the crumbs. - -"That's what she says after every meal she eats," her grandfather -chuckled. - -"But it's always true. Now here's your pipe and here's your baccy, and -while you're filling it, you've got to be thinking of a story to tell -us." - -"I can't tell stories," he protested. "I'd sing a song if I knew any. -There was a song my grandfather used to sing to us when we were -children, but I can't remember it. The chorus went like this," he made a -great pretence of getting the pitch, and then, rocking himself gently, -sang in a solemn, sing-song voice: - - "Injun pudding and pumpkin pie - The gray cat scratched out the black cat's eye." - -I never knew the rights of it, or what the trouble was. Some kind of a -disagreement they had." - -"But where did the injun pudding and pumpkin pie come in?" Peggy asked. -"And what is injun pudding?" - -"Don't show your ign'rance, as Moses says," Elizabeth put in. "It's -Indian pudding, and you make it out of Indian meal and molasses, and it -cooks all day and makes whey, and eaten with ice-cream it's perfectly -heavenly. Grandma is going to show me how to make it. I made a cake, you -know." - -"I heard about that cake," said Peggy, hastily. - -"Who's Grandma?" Grandfather inquired, innocently. "I thought we only -had grandmothers around our place." - -"Grandma likes it better for me to call her that," Elizabeth answered, -blushing. - -"You needn't think you are getting out of telling us that story," Peggy -cried, "tell us about the time you went courting Grandmummy." - -"I don't remember nothing about it." - -"Tell us about the time you took Eliza Perkins to the Harvest Dance," -Elizabeth said, daringly. - -"Well, apparently you know something about it already. Women do beat the -Dutch, gossiping along about things that happened near fifty years ago -as if 'twere yesterday." - -"You needn't blame Grandma. I worm all her secrets out of her." - -"I'll warrant you do. I calculated for her to remember that Harvest -Dance as long as she lived. Did she tell you how she was dressed?" - -"Was it a fancy dress party?" - -"Certain it was, and I went as King of the Harvest. I had a velvet suit -with corn tassels all down the seams, and a velvet tam o'shanter with a -big tassel on that. Your gram'ma she was going to be Queen o' the -Harvest, till we had a little tiff, and she refused to have anything to -do with me." - -"She didn't tell us that." - -"I calculated she hadn't. Well, she went as an apple, root and branch, -all decked out in apple blossoms, with a staff, with artificial apples -growing on it, and looking like an apple blossom herself, with her -pretty pink cheeks and all the lacy fixings in the world trailing after -her. I took Eliza Perkins, who was the best-natured and biggest-hearted -girl I ever set eyes on, and the homeliest. Lord have mercy, wasn't she -homely! I knew 'twould never do to take a pretty girl, so I picked her -out to make your grandma jealous with, and I told her so. She was -willing. 'I'll make Laury Ann just about jealous enough,' she said. -''Twouldn't do to have her too jealous.' And she certain played her part -well. Your grandma asked me to come around to a candy pull to her house, -before the evening was over." - -"She didn't tell me any of this, the wretched woman!" Peggy cried. "Did -you go to the candy pull?" - -"Oh, I went sure enough." - -"Did you have a nice time?" Elizabeth asked. - -"I didn't have the kind of time I expected," Grandfather twinkled. - -"Why not?" - -"There wasn't any candy, and there wasn't any pull." - -"What was there?" - -"Your grandma was there." - -"Oh, what did happen? Granddaddy, don't you see me shaking with -excitement and suspense?" Peggy demanded. - -"Well, Mother and me, we kind of come to an understanding. I guess it's -about time I hitched up Lizzie and we started along. She's been a -whining and a whinnying back there for some time now. Besides, your -grandma calculates to make huckleberry dumplings for supper. She gave me -special directions not to ask anybody in to eat 'em. She allowed she was -only going to have enough for the immediate family." - -"That means I'm coming!" Peggy cried. "I _am_ the immediate family." - -"I know what dress Grandma had on that night-- her pink muslin with -dolman undersleeves, the one that Ruth tried on the other day," -Elizabeth said, "and you kissed her in." - -"Well, force o' habit is strong. Get your berries together and hop back -into the car, or I'll have to start without you." Grandfather led the -way through the branches into the clearing where they had left the -machine. - -"I half expected to see Lizzie grazing around without her harness on," -Peggy said. "Grandfather is so convincing." - -"You take good care o' that sister of yours." Grandfather was using most -of his breath in the effort to crank Lizzie. "Don't let any o' these fat -boys that is hanging around her try to run away with her. She's too -precious." - -"He must have seen Piggy," Peggy said in an undertone to Elizabeth. - -"There was a fat boy hanging around your grandma once." He jumped into -his seat with the agility of a boy himself, a thin boy, "Giddap, giddap, -Lizzie." - -"I know," Elizabeth leaned over the seat to say into his ear, "Pork -Joe." - -"You're a remarkable good guesser after you've been told. Well, Peggy, -as I was saying, don't let any young Pork Joe get that pretty sister of -yours." - -"Did she say anything more to you about that letter from Jean?" -Elizabeth asked, snuggling down into the seat beside Peggy again. - -"Not a word," Peggy said. "Piggy Chambers is around all the time since -he came down, and so I can't get much action. By the way, they want us -to go to Provincetown with them to-morrow. Can you go? You'd better. -They need chaperoning." - -"I think I can. I'll have to ask, of course." - -"Provincetown is way down on the tip toe of the Cape, you know. We live -in the elbow." - -"Whoa, Lizzie." Grandfather threw in his clutch and stopped with a -flourish just behind two figures who, laden with pails full of berries, -and apparently oblivious of the oncoming machine, were plodding ahead in -the dust. "Want a ride, boys?" - -Two caps were whipped off with an amazing suddenness, exposing one -blazing head of bright red hair and one inimitable grin. - -"Yes, thank you, sir," two voices spoke as one. - -"One will have to ride behind and one with me," Grandfather said. -"Elizabeth, these boys are Jim Robbins' grandsons, and if they are -anything like old Jim, they are good young fellows to know. They'll tell -you their own names, I guess." - -The red-headed boy on the front seat turned and smiled a trifle -mischievously. - -"I'm Tom Robbins, and this is my cousin, Will Dean, Miss Elizabeth Swift -and Miss Peggy Farraday." - -"How do you do?" Peggy said, gravely. - -"How do you do?" Elizabeth echoed, demurely. - -"Captain Swift is pretty good about picking up passengers on the road, -isn't he?" asked the boy with the grin. - -"When you see two boys limping along in front of you everywhere you go, -something's got to be done about it," Grandfather said good humouredly, -"anybody might almost think you boys follered me on purpose. Yesterday -and day before and day before that, I come across them hoofing it along -the road," he explained, "going the same direction I was, and scurse -able to take another step." - -"We didn't ask you for a ride _to-day_," the red-headed boy blushed. "We -didn't even know you were on the road till we looked up and saw you -about a minute before you caught up to us." - -"What's those girls giggling about?" Grandfather inquired. "I can't have -a minute's serious conversation with anybody without this -giggle-giggle-giggle business going on." - -"I guess I know what you are smiling about," the Dean boy lowered his -voice, "but honest, don't misjudge us just on account of that -post-office business. We kind of wanted a chance to square it, you know. -Your grandfather thinks we're all right." - -"It's been pretty dry weather for the gardens, hasn't it?" Tom Robbins -was saying to Grandfather. "Have your vegetables suffered much?" - -"Just about all they're capable of." - -"Do you see much prospect of a rainy spell?" - -"As fur as I'm concerned, I don't know as it will ever rain again." - -"That's too bad." - -"Ankle getting better?" - -"What ankle?" - -"The one you sprained the day before yesterday." - -"Oh, yes, sir, thank you." - -"Which ankle was it, now?" - -"The left--I mean, the right." - -"I suspected as much," said Grandfather, gravely. "Well, they are pretty -nice, clever little girls, ain't they?" - -"Yes, indeed." - -"Ever play checkers?" - -"Yes, sir." - -"Your cousin play checkers?" - -"Yes, he does." - -"Well, it might be good for lame ankles for you to come around and have -a game o' checkers with an old man once in a while. Always ask for me in -particular because when anybody comes around to the house, especially -when I've got a young girl visiting me, I like to be the one that has -the privilege of saying whether I'm to home or not." - -"Thank you, Captain Swift. We--we will be glad to come." - -"Our girls don't go to the post office at night, but Saturday night -around mail time they'll probably be dishing out Indian pudding and -ice-cream to anybody that might happen along." - -"I know two fellows that might happen in," Tom Robbins said. - -"I think those boys are really quite nice," Peggy said, as they sat -under their favourite tree after supper. - -"I think they are," Elizabeth said, "but it was rather mortifying the -way they followed us in the first place. They ought to have known -better." - -"But it only needed a hint from us to make them realize." - -"I think boys need those hints. It's the fault of girls if they aren't -kept right up to the standard." - -"Some of the girls on the Cape are not very particular. They are just -out after a good time and don't care how they get it." - -"I guess that's mostly just thoughtlessness. Anyhow, these boys haven't -been a bit--well--you know--familiar since that first minute." - -"No, they haven't one bit. I think Will is quite good fun. Did you -notice how he wouldn't sit on the seat with us for fear of crowding us, -but just got right down on the floor and stuck his feet out? I think -that's the way they really are, and the other was just showing off." - -"I think so, too," Elizabeth said. "Anyway, I'm awfully glad we told -Grandmother about it. She knew who they were right away, and everything. -I wouldn't have known whether I ever ought to speak to them again or -not." - -"It isn't every grandmother that you could tell a thing like that to," -Peggy reflected. "I didn't tell my mother. She just wouldn't have -thought it was much account. She trusts me to know the right thing, and -that's fine of her when I do know it, but when I don't, it's -embarrassing." - -"The thing about Grandmother," Elizabeth said, "is that she remembers -back so well. She knows what it's like to be a girl, and she thinks all -the things that girls think are important. Lots of grown people don't. -She imagines right into things, but she doesn't poke around them. She -doesn't say much, either, but when you tell her a thing she listens to -it." - -"I wish any of my relations did that. Father just says, 'All right, -Peggy, I'll take it all on trust--where's the morning paper?' whatever I -say to him, and Mother says, 'Put in that little wisp of hair, darling,' -or 'Look at your nails,' no matter what I say to her. Sister doesn't -listen to anything anybody says any more." - -"Not even to Mr. Chambers?" - -"Him less than anybody, but she spends all her time with him." - -"Peggy, don't you think she's got a heart?" - -"I don't know what she's got. She kept me awake last night by snivelling -for about an hour, and when I got so sorry for her that I couldn't help -it, I went in and tried to put my arms around her, and she just turned -me out as if I'd been an interloper. I don't know what to make of her -lately. If you're looking for a nasty grown-up sister, I'd dispose of -her cheap." - -"I'm glad she's not happy," Elizabeth said, soberly. - -"Well, I'm not. I'm just sore at her about last night, but I'll get over -that. You remember that in 'Little Women' about not letting the sun go -down upon your wrath. Well, I scarcely ever do." - -"I try not to," Elizabeth said. "It isn't getting angry so much that -afflicts me. It's a lot of horrid, sensitive ideas that I have. I want -to be loved the best, and have things just the way I think is about -right--and if I don't, I brood over it." - -"Well, I'm a more active nature," Peggy said. "Haven't we had fun -to-day?" - -"Weren't the huckleberries fun--from bush to kettle, as it were? Weren't -those boys cute, to get acquainted with Grandfather?" - -"Wasn't it funny we happened to pick them up, when they'd been -huckleberrying, too?" - -"And oh! Wasn't Grandfather a darling all day--so funny--telling stories -and making little surprises, and so nice with the boys and everything. -Oh, Peggy, don't you--love my grandfather?" - -"I certainly do," said Peggy, solemnly. - - - - - CHAPTER X - - PROVINCETOWN AND A WALK IN THE WOODS - - -Elizabeth enjoyed her ride to Provincetown much more than she expected -to. - -The objectionable Mr. Piggy Chambers shared with Ruth the soft cushions -of the back seat of the big touring car while the two girls occupied the -folding seats forward, which were, as Peggy said, as luxurious as most -stationary seats in machines of an ordinary make. The chauffeur was in a -smart buff livery that matched the upholstery, and on either side of -Peggy and Elizabeth were sliding panels that revealed at the touching of -a button a vanity box and a smoking kit respectively. Peggy had found a -green leather driving coat with buff facings for herself tucked away -under the chauffeur's seat, and Mr. Chambers had produced a brown and -blue coat of soft scotch wool for Elizabeth. Ruth was wearing a white -wool cape of her own, and steadily refused any of the additional -luxuries that the owner of the big car offered to produce. - -"I feel like an absolute traitor to Buddy to be taking a minute's -comfort," Elizabeth thought, trying to keep firmly in mind the fact that -Mr. Piggy Chambers had claimed industrial exemption from the service -through which her brother had lost his health, and perhaps the girl he -loved, "but the car does roll smoothly, and the country is beautiful, -and I'm lucky to have a chance to see it, though my motives in coming -were quite unmixed." - -"You see, the Cape has everything," Peggy said with the air of a -showman, "salt-water ponds, and fresh-water ponds, and hills and woods -and sand-dunes. If you want a walk through the pines to a leafy glade, -walk this way, ladies and gentlemen. If you want rocks and breakwaters -and sand-dunes and inlets, look out of the car on the other side. Every -town has at least two or three of the oldest windmills on Cape Cod, and -dancing pavilions and moving-picture palaces stare at us from every -side, without in the least interfering with the general panorama." - -"Don't you think you have talked enough, Peggy?" Ruth suggested. - -"No, I honestly don't, but perhaps Mr. Chambers does." - -"This is Miss Ruth's party," Mr. Chambers smiled diplomatically. "This -country makes me think of English country, in one way," he added, -smoothly. "It is, of course, altogether different, but in England, -especially in the north, you get a varied landscape in a limited area, -as you do here. This is the only place in the states where you find just -that." - -"The Cape is only eight miles across at its widest point," Ruth said, -"and of course the whole scenic effect is miniature in proportion. We'll -begin to see the sea on both sides of us presently." - -"What amuses me is the way the townships are cut up; a township of -fifteen hundred people is cut into almost what you might call house -lots. North, South, East, West Harwich, Harwich Port, Harwich Centre, -and it doesn't take ten minutes to run through any one of these little -villages, and get into the next." - -"They are all very attractive," Elizabeth said, defensively, but not -very loudly. - -"I'd like to show you England," Mr. Chambers continued, in a lowered -voice. "I think you'd like it over there, say in a year or two, after -the children begin to get back their rosy cheeks again, and the gardens -are flourishing a bit more. The war has left it all a bit ragged." - -"It hasn't left _you_ ragged," Elizabeth thought. "It's only left you -fatter and complacenter and richer. I wish Buddy had a million." - -"You look like a snow maiden in those white clothes," Piggy Chambers was -saying to Ruth. - -"'Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart,'" Elizabeth repeated to herself. -"'I have never called you this and I have no right to call you so now.'" -That was what her Buddy had written to Ruth Farraday, and Ruth Farraday, -not knowing, was leaning back in Piggy Chambers' great French car, and -letting him tell her that she looked like a snow maiden. - -"My brother says that southern France is much more beautiful--_was_ much -more beautiful than England," she said aloud. "He--he helped to break -the Hindenburg Line, you know." - -"Did he?" said Mr. Piggy Chambers, civilly. - -"My--my father would have gone, I think, but he wasn't able to get away -from his business." - -"If he was in the steel business, he would have been industrially -exempted, anyway." - -"He--he wouldn't have wanted to be industrially exempted," was on the -tip of Elizabeth's tongue, but she remembered that she was talking to -her host of the day. "It won't get me very far to be ill-bred and -impolite all of a sudden," she thought, sensibly. "Mr. Piggy Chambers -might just as well think that the members of our family are well brought -up." Provincetown reminded Mr. Chambers a little of a Dutch fishing -village, which he described at great length. - -"Anybody would think he had just discovered Abroad," Peggy scolded in an -undertone. "Ruth likes all that travelogue stuff, because she was so -crazy to get there and couldn't. Now we are going to get out and walk, I -am thankful to say, but if he tries to lose us, don't let him, that's -all!" - -Mr. Chambers did try to lose them. He tried bribing them with ice-cream -and they took the ice-cream, but consumed it in time to join the two -before they had strolled more than three blocks. He suggested that the -chauffeur take the two girls in the car to examine the Truro lights a -mile or two back from the course over which they had just come, while he -and Miss Ruth strolled along the shore. - -"I'd rather stay here with Ruthie," Peggy insisted, flatly, and -Elizabeth could not determine whether Ruth was pleased or displeased, -for she made no display of either emotion. - -"If she wanted us to go, I think perhaps she would say so, but I don't -know. Grown-up girls don't seem to think they can say what they mean, -the way children do," she thought. - -Presently they were all walking along the beach, and Elizabeth found -herself walking with Ruth, though she could not tell exactly how it had -come about. No one seemed to have planned to pair off in that way. It -just happened, though both Peggy and Mr. Chambers seemed to be very much -dissatisfied with the arrangement. - -"Buddy would love a day like this," Elizabeth said. "He's shut up in -that old hospital, you know, and he can't get out till he gets better, -and he can't get better till he gets out. I want to get him down to the -Cape, where I can take care of him." - -"You must be very worried about him," Ruth said. "I didn't even know -that he wasn't discharged or anything about him, until Peggy found out -all these things through you." - -"He's been too sick to write much." - -"He writes to you, doesn't he?" Ruth said, so very carelessly that -Elizabeth's heart sank. - -"Yes, he does. He says that I'm the only girl that answers his letters -whether he writes to them or not." - -"Does he expect to have girls write to him that he doesn't take the -trouble to inform of his whereabouts?" - -"I think he would be very pleased if they did." - -"Why should they?" - -"Why--why shouldn't they?" Elizabeth stammered. - -"He's probably devoted to dozens of girls," Ruth said, lightly, "all -waiting for a personal word from him. He's probably quite a Lothario, -only little sisters aren't supposed to know that." - -"I don't exactly remember what a Lothario is," Elizabeth said, "but if -you mean that he's a flirt and I don't know it, you're just awfully -mistaken. I know things about Buddy that nobody else knows, that he -doesn't even know that I know. I know what he's like, too, inside." - -"You think he's very nice inside, don't you?" - -"Yes," said Elizabeth, a little hostilely. - -"Well, I'll tell you a secret," said Ruth Farraday, still very lightly -and gayly. "I do, too." - -"Then why--why do you go to Provincetown and things with Mr. Piggy -Chambers?" - -"Mr--Mr. _who_? Really, that's too bad of Peggy. I'll have to speak to -her." Ruth Farraday seemed to have a sudden little coating of ice all -over her. "Would you mind telling Peggy that I want to speak to her -alone a minute?" - -Elizabeth obeyed meekly and so miserably that Mr. Chambers, at whose -side she lingered, since there was nothing to do but take Peggy's place -with him, asked her what was wrong. - -"I'm not feeling very well," Elizabeth said, "the sun is so bright." - -"I find her rather bright myself," Mr. Piggy Chambers murmured. "Would -you like to do me a great favour?" - -"Yes, yes, indeed," Elizabeth said, untruthfully. - -"Will you take Miss Peggy and go back to the drug store where you had -your ice-cream, and buy a five-pound box of the very best chocolates -they have? If they haven't a five-pound box, get five one-pound boxes. -Just use your own judgment about it." - -"I will," said Elizabeth, "of course, Peggy might not want to go. -She--I--we don't care very much about chocolates." - -"But Ruth does," said Mr. Chambers, decisively. "I should very much -appreciate it, and we'll come along and pick you up presently. You might -like some more ice-cream." He slipped a five-dollar bill into her hand. - -"He asked me if I would do him a great favour," Elizabeth explained to -the protesting Peggy, as they turned toward the quaint street on which -the little shops were set, "and I couldn't say no, could I? I couldn't -say, 'Thank you for your lovely ride, but I don't feel obliging.'" - -"I just wish he'd asked me. I would have said 'No!' right out. Sister -has been giving me fits because you told her that I called him Piggy." - -Elizabeth's eyes filled. - -"I'm not blaming you. I know you didn't spill the beans on purpose. I -just wanted to know how it happened." - -"I just called him that. That's all," Elizabeth said, miserably. - -"Well, don't you care, darling," Peggy advised. "Ruth was only upset -about something else, and wanted to take it out on me. It will serve her -right if Mr. Hoggy Chambers proposes while we're gone. I promised her I -wouldn't call him Piggy any more." - -"I think he means to." - -"Well, if he does, I wonder what he'll say. Love me and the world is -mine. I guess that's about what he will say. The world is my oyster and -I'll let you keep it in your stew, if you'll be good." - -"Mr. Piggy Chambers," said Elizabeth, "Oh!" - -"If she says 'yes' to that freak, I'll--I'll disown her." - -"Oh, let's not think of it." - -"There isn't much else I can think of," Elizabeth said. "Oh, but look! -Sixty-four, sixty-five. Those are black Portuguese, and they count." Two -swarthy fishermen in bright blouses were passing them on the narrow -street. - -"You've caught up with me," Peggy said. "I was four ahead of you for a -long time." - -"We'll probably get them all just in time to shake hands with Tommy -Robbins and Billy Dean." - -"I won't," said Peggy. - -"You might have to," Elizabeth argued. "Supposing we were going away and -they came to say good-bye, and held out their hands to shake hands. We'd -have to shake them." - -"I'd say I had a sore finger." - -"We couldn't both say we had sore fingers. Besides, they could see we -hadn't." - -"We might both have lame wrists, if we had been doing the same thing, -rowing or playing tennis." - -"It would look rather suspicious." - -"Wouldn't it be better to look a little suspicious than to tie yourself -up for life that way, or run the chance of it? I know who you want to -shake hands with. That Reynolds boy." - -"I don't want to shake hands with anybody," Peggy said. "We may like Tom -and Bill a good deal better before the summer is over, though." - -"They really are quite nice," Elizabeth reflected. - -"Mr. Chambers is trying to get us to ride home in the front seat, with -the chauffeur. He says the front seat is the most comfortable in the -car, and was designed for three. I told him I'd think it over." - -"I don't see what difference it makes now. He's talking to her alone, -anyway." - -"I think it's a terrible responsibility. They are both old enough to be -married, and they ought to be old enough to know just what they want to -do, instead of keeping a couple of kids--I mean children--worried to -death all the time." - -"I think Mr. Chambers knows what he wants to do." - -"Yes, but he ought to know better than to keep bothering a girl that -doesn't." - -Elizabeth and Peggy managed to eat a plate of ice-cream apiece in spite -of their dejection, but Elizabeth steadfastly refused to break Mr. -Chambers' five-dollar bill, even to pay for the five pounds of candy she -purchased for him. - -"He can pay me the way he would a grown-up person," she said. "I prefer -to buy our own ice-cream, and do his errands on a strictly business -basis." - -"My goodness," Peggy said, "I feel as if we had suffered enough, without -having to buy our own refreshments." - -They rode with the chauffeur only a part of the way home, because when -they had travelled twenty miles of the forty between the tip and the -elbow of the crooked right arm of Massachusetts a tire gave way and they -all stepped out of the car and took a walk in the woods while they were -waiting for repairs to be made. - -Mr. Chambers and Ruth slipped into a thread of a path going in the -opposite direction from that taken by the two girls, but evidently made -a detour and turned again toward them, for the moment in silence. When -they heard the sound of voices just beyond Peggy put her finger to her -lips. - -"I am the kind of man who always gets what he wants," Mr. Chambers was -saying. "You won't give me the chance to tell you what I want, but you -know pretty well what it is, and I think you know that I am going to get -it." - -"No," said Ruth Farraday. - -"You know that I want you to marry me?" - -"Yes, I know that." - -"You know that I love you?" - -"I--I don't know much about love." - -"I can teach you," - -"Nobody can teach me anything that I can't find out for myself. If I -don't know what this--this feeling people call Love is, from the inside, -nobody can come and throw it over me, like a cloak." - -"Oughtn't we to stuff our fingers in our ears?" Elizabeth pantomimed. - -"No," Peggy shook her head, fiercely. - -"Wrapping it around you like a cloak is just what I should like to do. I -should like to keep you warm and comfortable for the rest of your life." - -"And happy?" - -"I know I could make you happy." - -"Warmth comes from within, doesn't it? You wouldn't want an icicle of a -woman." - -"I am not afraid that you would be an icicle." - -Peggy was showing strong signs of disgust, but Elizabeth was listening -with parted lips and shining eyes. She had forgotten that she was -eavesdropping, forgotten everything except that Buddy's girl did not -want to give up her chance of learning something that Buddy could teach -her. She expected the next words when they came. - -"I would be an icicle--to you." - -The suitor did not seem to realize the significance of this statement. - -"All I want is a chance to melt the icicle," he said, complacently. - -"Goop!" said Peggy in a loud whisper. Then she sneezed, but fortunately -the speakers had passed far enough beyond to confuse the sound with the -general blend of forest sounds, the whirring of wings in the underbrush, -or the rustling in the trees overhead. - -"I guess he thought I was a startled quail," Peggy said, "though I -wouldn't have cared much if he had found me. I never heard such -silliness, did you?" - -"I didn't think it was silliness," Elizabeth said. "It was quite a lot -the way people talk in books, you know." - -"It wasn't really mushy," Peggy agreed, "only sort of peculiar. Well, I -guess I am not going to have a new brother-in-law right away. Still, I -notice she's keeping a string tied to him, just the same." - -When they got back into the car Ruth suggested that the girls take the -folding seats in the tonneau again, and Mr. Chambers quietly acquiesced -in this arrangement. As they took their places Peggy gave her friend the -benefit of a long, significant wink, and then subsided into the silence -that encompassed them all during the remainder of the long drive home. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - - LITTLE EVA - - -I come to tell you that my mother's sick," Moses said. "She's hollering -something awful. She said to tell Miss Laury Ann, but I can't find her -nowhere." - -"She's out with Grandfather," Elizabeth said, "and I don't know when -she'll be back." - -"Maybe Marmer'll be dead by that time. She's kind of turned green -already." - -"She can't be going to die." - -"I arsked her was she going to die, and she said she guessed she was. I -dunno nothing about it." - -"I'll go home with you," Elizabeth resolved suddenly. "I'll get Judidy, -and we'll go and see what we can do." - -"Marmer didn't tell me to get no girls," Moses said, doubtfully, "she -told me to get Miss Laury Ann." - -"I'll be better than nobody, Moses." - -"Well, if you do come over to my house, I ain't agoing to wear no -bloomer suit." - -"Oh, I shan't expect you to," Elizabeth said, hastily. - -Judidy was nowhere to be found, so leaving word with Zeckal, the -good-natured hired man, to send either Judidy or her grandmother to the -rescue as soon as possible, Elizabeth followed Moses to the tumbledown -little red house that was his home. On an old horsehair sofa in the -middle of the kitchen, which was the first room they entered, a young -woman with her blonde hair straggling into blue eyes swimming with pain -was lying in a huddled heap. In the middle of the floor was a wash-tub -full of dirty water and half-submerged, grimy garments. - -"I was trying to git some washing done when the pain struck me," a weak -voice said. "I ain't in no condition to receive visitors." - -"I didn't come to visit," Elizabeth said, gently. "I came to help." - -A spasm of pain racked the sick woman. Elizabeth was down on her knees -beside her in an instant. - -"You're all corseted up!" she said. "I'm going to rip these things off," -for under the trailing, ragged garments that overlaid Mrs. Steppe she -was wearing a corset like a board. Elizabeth tore at the strings until -she released her. - -"You shouldn't lace like that," she said, in horror. - -"I don't lace," the sick woman breathed, "my waist is -only--eighteen--inches--around. It's naturally--small. I guess if I -could only get a little hot water to drink I would feel better." - -Elizabeth found a one-wick kerosene stove so begrimed and choked with -soot that she could scarcely light the sputtering wick, but thanks to -her recent investigations in her grandmother's kitchen, she was able to -heat a little water over it. - -"A month ago I didn't even know there was such a thing as a one-wick -kerosene stove," she thought. She caught sight of what at first glance -looked like a small gray animal on the floor under the table. "It's -nothing but a piece of moldy bread, the kind that poor Madget was afraid -would crawl out on her. Oh, dear!" - -"Where are the little girls?" she asked, as the sufferer sat up and -drank the steaming water in the cracked blue cup that was the only china -receptacle of any kind that Elizabeth could find. - -"I wasn't able to get them any breakfast, so they went out to see if -they could pick some blue berries." - -"Madget is so little she ought to have milk in the morning." Elizabeth -could not refrain from making this superfluous suggestion. - -"Milk sours so." The spasm of pain that attacked her was of longer -duration this time. Elizabeth began rubbing the afflicted area, and -calling to Moses, who presently appeared, and gazed at his mother -speculatively as she winced and writhed in agony. - -"Go and get a doctor, Moses. Any doctor you know about." - -"I don't believe in doctors," Mrs. Steppe breathed. "I--I believe in -spirit healing. Get a medium." - -"You get a doctor, Moses," Elizabeth said. "Tell him that I--Captain -John Swift's granddaughter--will settle the bill." - -"Oh, all right," Moses said. - -"I don't know much about mediums," she explained to the sick woman, "but -I know that a doctor would be able to help you right away." - -"I--I don't believe in medical healing," the woman moaned, "but if you -want to spend your money that way--the last time--I had a sick spell, -Mis' Abithy Hawes, she's a fine medium, she--come here and went into a -trance--and had me cured in half an--hour. No doctor--could do--do like -that. Her control is--Little Eva." - -"Don't try to talk," Elizabeth said, mystified. - -The next half hour was one that she remembered all her life. The spasms -of pain increased. Elizabeth's experience of acute illness was so -limited that she earnestly believed she had a dying woman on her hands. -Madget and Mabel came in whimpering and hungry, and Madget cried -steadily and consistently from the moment when she caught her first -glimpse of her mother's tortured face. Mrs. Steppe continued to call for -Mis' Abithy Hawes, and Elizabeth finally thought of sending Mabel to -look for that lady. Mabel returned from this quest with amazing -promptitude. - -"She had her hands in the flour dough," Mabel explained, "and she can't -come. She sent word that she couldn't have no trances till she got her -work done up, and then she'd see. She give me a cookie." - -"Did you explain to her how sick your mother was?" - -"Yes, she said she couldn't have no trances now. She said Little Eva was -cranky to-day." - -By the time Moses appeared, with the word that the doctor would follow -him shortly, Elizabeth was at the limit of her endurance and her -ingenuity. She had been heating water in a leaky lard pail, and -stripping off her own white petticoat to make hot compresses to relieve -the increasing pain of her patient, quieting the ubiquitous Madget for a -few seconds at a time only to provoke the din again as soon as she set -her down from her lap; and trying in the intervals to reduce the -slovenly room to something like order. - -"Is she dead yet?" Moses inquired, solemnly. - -Elizabeth shook her head. - -"Moses, dear," she said, "you mustn't talk like that. It's unfeeling." - -"All right," he said with unexpected docility, "I won't. I just wanted -to make some plans, that's all. I thought I might come to live with you, -if Marmer died." - -Elizabeth put her arms around the forlorn little figure. - -"She isn't going to die," she said, "at least, I don't think she is." - -"Well, you can't tell," said Moses, skeptically. - -The doctor, who proved to be a portly being with a red beard and the -kindest eyes Elizabeth had ever seen, as she told Peggy afterward, -explained that the seizure was nothing more serious than neuralgia -complicated with a slight gastric attack. - -"Lack of nourishment, lack of exercise, lack of any sort of proper care -for mind or body," he said. - -"What is neuralgia?" Elizabeth asked. - -"Starved nerves in revolt is one way of putting it." - -"I thought she had appendicitis or pleurisy or something." - -"She has nothing that a week's care won't bring her out of. If she isn't -looked out for at least for that length of time the trouble is likely to -increase. There isn't anybody to take care of her, is there?" - -"Well, there is nobody but me," said Elizabeth. - -The doctor looked at her under quizzical eyebrows with an expression -that reminded her of her grandfather. - -"Give her this medicine regularly," he said, as if he found nothing -remarkable in her statement, "and see that she has three nourishing -meals a day and keep her quiet." - -"It's easier to keep her quiet when you are here," Elizabeth said, -indicating the awestruck Madget, Moses, and Mabel, who stood in a -respectful row, at a respectful distance from the great man. - -"I understand these children are always quiet when they're asleep or -when the doctor comes." - -"Well," Elizabeth said, "the better they feel that they know you the -more noise they make. They treat me like an old friend now." - -"I used to live in New York myself," the doctor observed, "and I miss it -a good deal more than most people suspect. I know all about you, you -see. I know pretty well all the news of the comings and goings in town." - -"You're a New Yorker, and yet you stay down here all the year round," -Elizabeth said. "I don't see how you can, if you really liked New York." - -"I liked New York," he said, "but you can't be a country doctor on -Broadway. I'd rather take care of these people than those." - -"Oh, why?" - -"They need it more," he said, simply. "In a big city you don't get the -same chance to find out what people do need. It isn't always sick bodies -a doctor is called in to look out for, you know. A doctor down here has -to be a kind of a lawyer and a justice of the peace and a plumber, into -the bargain. In New York he doesn't get that kind of an opportunity." - -"That seems a funny kind of thing to call an opportunity, I think." - -"It is one, though," the doctor said. "Where is these children's -father?" - -"He's on a coal barge. He only gets home once in a while." - -"He must make pretty good money." - -"He does, only she--" Elizabeth, who had walked to the door with him, -and was standing just outside it as they talked, indicated the woman in -the room beyond--"spends it on candy and novels and things, and then he -gets discouraged, and doesn't send it to her, or drinks." - -"Well, call me again if you need me. No, I won't send you the bill. -There isn't any bill. I'm paid already." - -"I hope he didn't mean that it paid him just to see me here doing good," -Elizabeth thought, when she realized that that was what he did mean. "I -don't want him thinking I'm always looking after the poor when this is -the first time I ever did it." - -The children crowded around her when the doctor left. - -"Your mother is going to be well in a week," she told Moses. "I'm going -to wash your face, Mabel--and Madget, if you don't stop crying, do you -know what I'm going to do to you?" - -"Spank me!" wailed Madget. - -"No, I'm not. I'm going to kiss you, but I guess it would be more to the -purpose to feed you. What does your mother make oatmeal in when she -makes it?" - -"She don't make none," Mabel said. "Can you make oatmeal?" - -"I could follow the directions on the package, I guess. I can make -cake." - -"I want some cake," cried Madget, promptly. - -Elizabeth was trying to get some water "boiling, foaming, scalding hot," -according to directions, when Judidy appeared at the door, her moon face -beaming over various pails and packages. - -"Land o' Liberty!" she said. "You up here a-tending the sick, and me out -skylarking with my feller. I brought some milk and sandwiches for the -children. I guess she ain't sick much, is she?" - -"I'm dretful sick, Judidy," a voice from the couch said, weakly; "I had -the doctor." - -"I thought you was a spiritualist, and didn't believe in no medicine." - -"I don't believe that no doctor could doctor me as well as Little Eva -could, but Mis' Hawes she couldn't come. I was too sick to depend on a -contrary control, so we called the doctor, and he left me some kinder -dark stuff to take, and some light-coloured pills that's kind o' -quieting." - -"_Do_ tell," said Judidy, politely. "Now you drink to where I've got my -finger," she instructed Madget, as she held out the milk bottle, which -the children were trying to reach, "then Mabel, then----" - -"Pour a little out in this cup, and I'll feed Madget myself," Elizabeth -said. "I guess the other children had better drink out of the bottle." - -Judidy looked at Elizabeth admiringly as she lifted the little girl on -her lap. - -"My, ain't you a pretty picture," she said, heartily. "You was just as -stuck up, when you first came, with your ideas about having a demi-tassy -after you had et, and laffing at the pump in the kitchen, and never -eating anything between meals, and to see you now, a-taking up with the -town's poor as if they was own relations." - -"Don't you call us town's poor," Mrs. Steppe said, sitting up suddenly, -and then falling back with a groan. "I ain't never been called such a -name, Judidy Eldredge." - -"You just lay still," Judidy said, "and don't you worry. I'll stay now, -Elizabeth, and you can go home and get ready for your dinner. It's a -lucky thing I had it all arranged to have a day off on account of my -feller being home. Miss Laury Ann she told me to send you as soon as I -got here." - -"But I don't want you to have to lose a day with your--feller," -Elizabeth said, trying not to be guilty of the rudeness of correcting -Judidy's pronunciation. "I'll come back as soon as Grandma will let me." - -Madget began to whimper as she set her down, but Moses assured her that -if his marmer died, he would "come over there right away and tell her -about it." - -"I don't know whatever makes him so pleased to think of my dying," his -mother said, plaintively, "he has never known anybody that died or -anything, if he is always burying birds with regular funeral preaching." - -"He doesn't want you to die," Elizabeth said, "he just gets ideas in his -mind." - -"Well, they aren't very cheerful ideas for a sick woman to hear." - -"No, they aren't," Elizabeth agreed. - -"If I can get Mis' Hawes over here, Little Eva will tell me if I'm going -to die. I'd like to lick Moses once, anyway, whether I'm going to die or -not." - - * * * * * - -"I don't think anybody could 'a' done any better," her grandmother said, -when she told her the story. "Hot compresses is the thing that always -relieves pain, and what the whole situation needed was somebody to take -charge and send for the doctor. You was a pretty brave, practical girl, -I should say. The Swifts always had good contrivance, and come out -strong when there was anything real to be done." - -"I don't think that I managed so very well. The children kept crying and -I couldn't stop them, and Mrs. Steppe kept asking for a medium that I -couldn't get for her. What does she mean by Little Eva being Mrs. Hawes' -control?" - -To her surprise her grandmother began to laugh, and laughed until the -tears ran down her cheeks. - -"I suppose it _is_ funny," Elizabeth said, "but I never thought of it -that way. I suppose it's funny about Moses keeping on asking if his -mother was going to die, but it didn't seem funny at the time, it just -seemed queer and--and awfully hard to manage. I--I----" to her chagrin, -her lip began to tremble. "What--what is a control, anyway?" she wailed. - -"It ain't nothing that you got to bother with just at present," her -grandmother said, "you come here." She sank into one of the numerous -valanced rockers conveniently placed about the house, and held out her -arms. "You come here--to Grandma," she said. - -"You'll think I'm an awful baby," Elizabeth sobbed on the comfortable -bosom, snuggling a little closer in the protecting embrace. "It isn't so -much what I've done that I mind, but what I've got to do. It isn't very -brave of me, but I dread taking care of that awful woman for a whole -week. She--she isn't very grateful, or anything. She'd rather have a -medium. But--but the children--they love me." - -"Elizabeth," her grandmother said, "I ain't a-going to let you go there -for any week." - -"But it's my duty, Grandmother. You aren't going to stop me doing my -duty, are you? You can't spare Judidy, and there isn't anybody else. -There aren't any real servants or charity organization societies here. I -don't see what there is to do but just what Doctor Hartly does, go -around and be anything that the people need you for." - -"You can't be all things to all men, Elizabeth," her grandmother said, -sagely. "If you can be like that Holland boy I've heard tell of, that -put his hand through a hole in the wall and kept the water from -destroying a whole town, that's one thing, but the kind of a hole that -the water'll roll through forever, the minute you take your arm out, is -another. The Steppe family is going to be in need of any person's full -strength as long as Mis' Steppe continues to breathe, and we can't wish -anybody's breath to stop, in spite of Moses. The best you can do for any -set o' people in that condition is just what you went and done to-day. -Look out for 'em when they get way down, give 'em what extry strength -and vittles you got at all times, but don't try to lift 'em up unless -you can lift 'em all the way out. Mis' Steppe will always sag back from -her own weight." - -"Oh, dear," Elizabeth sighed. "Don't you think she could be reformed?" - -"She might, and then again she mightn't. I should say she couldn't be. -She's always trying to get something for nothing, that woman is. This -business of getting a medium to get her control to fix up things she's -too lazy to fix for herself that's Mis' Steppe all over." - -"But what is a control?" - -"A control is a spirit guide that takes possession of a medium when she -goes into a trance. Somebody that has lived and died, usually somebody -kind o' tricky, that has a hard time getting into communication with -whoever 'tis they want to talk to." - -"But that's just pure faking, isn't it?" - -"I don't know whether 'tis or not. I don't understand it. My idea is, -never to make too light of a thing that I don't understand." - -"You don't think there is a Little Eva, do you, Grandma?" - -"No, I don't, but Mis' Hawes does." - -"I shouldn't think there was anything to do but laugh at Little Eva." - -"So wouldn't anybody, first off, but spiritualism is some people's -religion. It ain't mine, but in general it ain't a good idea to laugh at -anybody's religion, not even the cannibals'." - -"What shall we do about the Steppes, then?" - -"I'm going to get Judidy's sister to go over there and stay what she -can. What she can't, you and me and Judidy'll make up between us. We'll -have a kind of general care of 'em till they get out o' this particular -patch o' woods. Then they'll have to go on their own gait again." - -"It does seem sort of awful, not to really do anything." - -"Yes, it does, but the thing to do is to keep people like that in the -back of your mind, and when any chance comes that might benefit 'em, not -to be too lazy to pass it along. I'm kind of arguing with your -grandfather about taking Moses to come and live with us. I ain't pushing -the matter, but kind o' working along easy. I've got an idea of getting -Mis' Steppe interested in a different class o' books. Any woman that'll -get the notion out of a book that she can wear a eighteen-inch corset -around her waist under her rags and stick to it can get some other more -practical notion through her head in time. Anyhow, that's one thing to -work on. I ain't very hopeful, but I thought of it. I keep at the -Steppes, and little by little I hope to get something accomplished. I -see that the children is fed up about once a day anyway, but I don't -stick my wrist through the hole o' their shiftlessness, I just bail out -a little water as often as I can." - -"That _is_ the way, isn't it?" said Elizabeth. "I just thought I'd have -to go there and practically live for weeks. It--it seemed like a -bottomless pit." - -"There ain't really no such thing as a bottomless pit," Grandmother -said, sagely; "there are only pits that we can't plumb the bottom of." - - * * * * * - -She told the story of Elizabeth's activities to Grandfather that night -and this time she did not laugh, even in recapitulating the difficulties -the little girl had encountered in relation to Mrs. Steppe's religious -convictions and her constant demand for Little Eva. On the contrary, she -wiped her eyes quite openly. - -"She was calculating to go there," she said, "and take entire charge of -that miserable Steppe family without any help from anybody, nurse that -sick woman and feed those children for a week and longer if it was -required of her. She would have done it, too, if I hadn't put a stop to -it. I wish you could have seen that pretty, anxious little face, and -those great eyes of hers brim full o' tears but game as a fightin' cock. -I do wish you could have seen her, Father." - -"I wish I could of," said Grandfather, gravely. - -"Just one thought come into my mind as I set there talking to her, and -it come so strong I almost up and said it aloud before I caught myself. -I was thinking o' that first night she come, and the dejected way you -sat in that chair there, after she had gone up to bed, and I said to -myself, holding her there in my lap all exhausted and quivering, after a -whole forenoon spent doing battle with the slothfulness of the Steppe -family, 'Father Swift,' I said to myself, 'what do you think o' John's -girl now?' I said." - -"Didn't you hear what I spoke up and answered? Well, you couldn't 'a' -been listening very hard. When you said that, I had my answer ready to -the dot. 'I think a whole lot better of her,' that's what I said, 'and I -have been doing so for some time back'." - - - - - CHAPTER XII - - BUDDY WANTS TO KNOW - - -Elizabeth had been to tea with the Farradays. The big, closed-in porch, -which was practically their summer living room, gay with chintzes and -strewn with all the appurtenances of luxurious modern existence, always -gave her a little feeling of homesickness for the life to which she was -used in town. The trim maid, quietly manipulating the tea wagon laden -with the delicacies of the usual teatime meal, took on an almost -pathetic glamour to the little exile. - -Mr. Chambers was in possession of the wicker chaise-longue. Ruth had -poured tea with deft and dainty fingers, though she was unusually -silent, even for her. Mrs. Farraday, who was as unlike Elizabeth's -mother as it was possible for her to be, had yet, in a gown of blue -linen, with rose-coloured net cuffs and neck piece, managed to suggest -her vividly. - -Peggy had behaved abominably. In intervals of passing cakes she had -managed to get out of the line of vision and stand grimacing and -contorting her face at Elizabeth. Usage demanded that Elizabeth return -these impudent salutations in kind, and twice Peggy nearly made her do -so. - -"I should have been mortified," she thought, "if Mr. Piggy Chambers had -caught me making faces, especially since I would naturally make that -kind of faces about him, if it happened so. I guess Ruth would never -speak to me again." - -"I can't help it," Peggy whispered, "these tea fights on the veranda, -with Piggy--I mean Hoggy--Chambers and Mother knitting as if she had -just eaten the canary, and Ruthie saying nothing and sawing wood, and -the other self-sufficient member of our little circle sitting there and -owning the universe--they just make me wild. I feel as if I would like -to get an Indian tomahawk and scalp 'em all." - -"I--I like tea on your veranda, though," Elizabeth couldn't help -admitting. "Grandmother would think afternoon tea was ridiculous, and I -am used to it in my own home. I'm used to having my own mother around, -too." - -"If your own mother were aiding and abetting the slaughter of your -innocent sister," Peggy said, "you might not feel so excruciatingly fond -of her. I didn't make that remark all up. Father said it first. Our -family is just completely mixed up over the whole affair. There's one -ray of light. Ruthie isn't mushy about any of it. Only she makes me -nervous." - -"I don't see how you can bear it at all," Elizabeth said. "I can't, -hardly." - -"Can hardly, Miss Swift," Peggy mocked. "You are more sensitive to -things than I am, I guess. I throw 'em off after I've howled for a -while. My idea would be to fill Piggy's bed with flour and hair-brushes, -or to stick a hair-pin in his tires. You'd just give him mental -treatment and take it awfully to heart." - -"I guess that's why we get on so well together. Opposites attract -opposites." - -"If I were a man I think I should want to marry you, Elizabeth, but if I -were a girl, I don't think I should want to be just like you." - -"That's not very flattering, because you are a girl already, and you -couldn't be a man if you wanted to." - -"I mean for myself I would like to be like you. You take things harder -than I do. I can always go out and punch something." - -"There never seems to be anything I can punch," said poor Elizabeth. - - * * * * * - -Peggy had walked with her as far as her own gate, and then she had gone -in to get her belated morning mail. She had been so sure that there was -no one to write to her until she had answered the letters with which her -portfolio was stuffed that she had neglected to go to the post office as -usual. She found, however, a long letter from her brother and one from -her mother. Buddy wrote: - - DEAR LITTLE SISTER: - - I am going to take you into my confidence in an important matter - because, well, there is nobody else that I can ask any help of. - You needn't get peeved at this way of putting it, because it - stands to reason that if you weren't a pretty reliable little - sport I wouldn't trust you. I don't have to. I only do.--Hope to - die, and cross your heart?--Thank you. - - Well, the thing is, I want to know something about Ruth - Farraday. For reasons of my own I haven't been writing to her. - Now, I might like to write to her once or twice, a friendly - little note, you understand. A fellow gets so doggone lonesome. - They won't let me go until they're satisfied I'm fixed up. How - you are going to fix up a fellow who has got some of the things - I've got the matter with me, I don't know. They think it's shell - shock, among other things. Well, among other things, it isn't - shell shock, it's----Oh, well, it isn't shell shock. It's darned - old discouragement, and homesickness for the things that never - were on land or sea. That's poetry, my darling sister. I have - some of that in my system, too. - - Well, I've been here alone so long that I want to know - everything--_everything_ about the people I care about. Ruth - Farraday is one that I do care something about. She was mighty - nice to me before I went to be a soldier. I think she would have - been nicer if I had worked it around to get a commission instead - of just plain enlisting, but this is only just conjecture. She - is a beautiful girl, and her heart is in the right place - wherever it is, but Sister, that's what I want to know. You're - fooling around with the Farradays so much, you ought to get some - line on this. I don't want to be idiot enough to start the poor, - sick old friend stuff, _if_ she's got her mind all off me or - anybody that looks like me, and on somebody that doesn't. Does - she wear a ring, and is she reported to be free or _cinched_, or - _what_? - - I can't stand not knowing any longer. That's the point. I may - have been a darn fool in the way I've warned you against talking - to her about me. I've just had all these notions one after - another, kind of feverishly. I'm going to write to her if you - advise me to. Don't go making up anything. Tell me the truth. - I've got to know it, Kid. I'm just all in--that's all. - - BUDDY. - -She opened her Mothers letter with eyes so full of tears she could -scarcely distinguish its import. - - ELIZABETH DEAR. - - It is getting harder and harder to be away from you, especially - since there is no immediate hope of Buddy's release. The poor - boy doesn't get better. It is difficult to understand all the - intricacies of the doctor's diagnosis. New conditions of warfare - and of life breed new conditions of disease, physical and - mental, he says, as well as new kinds of wounds and injuries, to - be patiently handled by the new medicine and surgery. To a - mother's eye, Buddy seems to be suffering from an old-fashioned - set of causes and effects. But I don't know. All I know is that - Buddy is not getting better, and that he has to be handled more - carefully than ever. Elizabeth, dear, let me warn you again to - be careful what you write him. He looks forward to your letters - with the greatest interest, and yet when they come, to be - perfectly frank, they often seem to fret him or to make him - irritable. Perhaps you had best not mention your friends the - Farradays. He used to know Ruth Farraday quite well, and - sometimes the mention of these boys and girls that he used to - have so many gay times with seems to make him morose. At other - times he likes to look back at things he used to do. He is only - a little boy, after all. Twenty-three doesn't seem much more to - me than fourteen does, in spite of that stern look he has that - all the men who have done any real fighting seem to come back - with. - - My darling, take care of your health. Don't go out in all - weathers without being suitably attired for cold or wet, as the - case may be. Your letters are a great comfort to me. You are - good to help Grandmother so much. She appreciates it, and so does - - MOTHER. - - P. S. I wish I might have tasted that cake you made. - -"Oh, Mother," Elizabeth cried. "Oh, you can't help me the least little -bit in this, can you? What is the best thing for me to do for my Buddy?" - -She tried to talk with her grandmother, very carefully, for fear of -betraying Buddy's confidence, but for once her grandmother did not help -her. - -"It isn't a very good idea for little girls to think too much about such -things," she said. "Love is a mystery. One heart kinder gets clinging to -another heart, and nobody knows how it all come about, or how to stop -it. When your time comes it is about like your time coming to die or be -born, and you can only pray that it ain't going to be too hard, with -anybody concerned in it." - -"But, Grandmother, if you loved anybody and you were a man, and--and -didn't tell her so because you were poor or anything, and she was all -mixed up with somebody else, and----" - -"Well, I ain't going to be called on to be a man just at present," -Grandmother said, "and I guess that's just as well, for anybody that's -got to make blueberry cake and biscuits for supper. Your grandfather is -going to Hyannis to get a watermelon, perhaps you'd like to go with him -for the ride." - -"I would, only I've got to write a letter to Buddy. He--he wants me to -write him right away about something." - -"Well, give him Grandma's love and tell him to come down to the old -place and get well." - -"I'm going to write Buddy just the way I would want to be written to if -I was in love with Ruth Farraday," Elizabeth decided, "only I am going -to remember that he is sick. Supposing I was sick and supposing I was in -trouble about something that was making me sicker, how would I want to -be written to? Oh, dear Lord," she said, closing her eyes, suddenly, -"help me to write that kind of a letter and to get it right." - -She climbed the stairs slowly and opened the desk in her little room. -The sisters Faith, Hope, and Charity smiled benignly down at her, as she -began to write: - - DEAR BUDDY: - - Cross my heart and hope to die. I am quite a lot more grown up - than I was when you knew me, and I understand the sacredness of - confidences as I didn't at that time. You don't need to worry - about trusting me. I love Ruth Farraday very much, and I should - think anybody might. - - Well, she is not a happy girl. There is a man called Mr. Piggy - Chambers--that is what Peggy calls him, anyway--who is in love - with her and asked her to marry him. I heard him that day that I - went to Provincetown with him in his car. I did not tell you - that I went to Provincetown with him, because I do not like him - anyway, and I did not want you to think I would go motoring with - a man like that. The fact was that I went to chaperone him and - her. Well, she told him that he could not teach her love because - she would be an icicle to him, and she said she did not know - much about love anyway, but he insisted, to no purpose. I ought - to have stuffed my ears, and so had Peggy, but some way we - didn't. - - The only drawback is that he is around the place all the time, - and does not seem to be discouraged in any way. Peggy is furious - at him. Whenever I see him on their porch eating, in that wicker - chaise-longue they have, I cannot tell you how I despise him, in - spite of his being really very nice, if you like that kind. He - doesn't seem to have any neck, to speak of, and his collars look - as if they would choke him. His eyes are small, though bright - and animated looking. - - Ruth Farraday comes here a great deal, and she asks for you - sometimes, too. She loves Grandmother more than anybody does - outside of the family. Their eyes look lovingly at each other - even when they are not speaking, you know, like cousins or - something. She is very kind to me, and never neglects a chance - to do nice things for me. I told you how Granddaddy kissed her. - She is sweet. She is just sweet. If I loved her, Buddy--(you - told me not to talk this way to you once, but I am going to)--I - would tell her I did, in some way. She is awfully little, for a - girl as old as she is, and people protect her. Peggy protects - her in a great many ways, and I know she is not happy. - - I guess there is one thing that I ought to repeat. Yesterday she - said, "How is your brother?" and I said, "He is about the same," - and she said, "I've just discovered how ill he has been. I wish - I had known it before," and I said, "Well, he might get - discharged soon," because I didn't know what else to say. She - said, "I should have written him, if I had thought he cared." - Well, what could I say? I didn't say anything, because you have - warned me so against blabbing. Then she said, "I can't write him - now very well. I can't." - - Well, so this is about all I know. I wish it were something - helpful, but it seems like nothing at all. I am only trying to - write as I would be written by. (See the Golden Rule.) If I have - not made you sicker, and you love me into the bargain, please - tell me so. When you are fourteen, responsibility frightens you - a good deal. At fifteen or sixteen, you throw it off better. If - you tell me anything to say to Ruth Farraday, I will say it. She - is certainly sweet, and I certainly love her, and she is - certainly not a happy girl. - - Your sister - ELIZABETH. - - P. S. That day we went to Provincetown, when I was walking alone - with her, she said you were probably devoted to dozens of girls, - and I said positively that you weren't. She said she would tell - me a secret, and that was, that she thought you were very nice. - It doesn't sound much to write it, but I think she meant it, in - spite of laughing at it when she said it. She is certainly - sweet. I would write to her, if it was me. - -She made a special trip to the post office to mail this letter, and as -she dropped it into the slot, she had a moment of dizziness, as if the -floor of the post office had suddenly shaken itself under her feet. Even -the blueberry cake did not tempt her to eat very heartily at supper. - -"Elizabeth is growing up too fast," her grandmother complained, -"watermelon and blueberry cake don't interest her." - -"I been trying to interest her with the account of the young red-head -that rode with me to Hyannis when she wouldn't go along. He's a pretty -likely young chap, mad about electricity, he says, and going to study to -be an electrical engineer, but Elizabeth is too old for such light talk. -Can't we think o' something solid that'll kind o' get her attention?" - -"She don't feel very well to-night, I guess. Leave her alone, Father." - -"I don't feel sick," said Elizabeth, "but I feel about ninety years old. -I'll just go and sit in Granddaddy's lap after supper and braid his -beard, so there won't be any hard feeling." She liked nowadays to make -her grandfather the kind of answer that would please him. - -She crept away to bed as early as she could, and lay with throbbing -temples against the cool white pillows in Great-grandmother's -guest-chamber bed, wondering if she had written wisely to her sick -brother and praying that she might have helped, not hindered, his -recovery. - -It was two days later that Peggy came to her with a troubled face. - -"We've been having ructions over at our house," she said, "and I'm -frightened. Mother and Ruth have had an awful row. I don't know how it's -coming out. Mother is trying to egg Ruthie on to take Piggy for her -lawful wedded. Anyhow, she claims Ruth ought to take him or leave him, -with an accent on the _take_. Mother doesn't believe much in this soft -stuff, you know. She wants everybody comfortable, without any rowing -over expenses. She likes people to settle down and have large families, -and large limousines, and large dinner parties, and so on. Her cry is -that the country is going to the dogs, and our young men are all lame, -halt, and blind from the late war, so why not pick a soft spot and let -yourself down in it? She would. She wants Ruth to." - -"Oh, Peggy, would you?" - -"I don't know what I should do," Peggy said. "I like the people I like -awfully. I'd rather be with them than be bothered. I don't see much use -in being married, anyway." - -"Sometimes," Elizabeth said, "I've thought it might be rather nice to be -_just_ married." - -"Well, Ruth, she's a puzzle to me. Something's eating her--'scuse my -elegance--I don't know whether it's wanting to be married, or not -wanting to be. She told Mother that she'd rather be the wife of a poor -man that she was keen on, than to have a million. Mother said that Piggy -Chambers had four million. Ruth said that made about two, or one and one -half, since the purchasing power of a dollar was so reduced. I didn't -know Ruthie had it in her to talk back that way. Mother said that the -purchasing power of a dollar was reduced for our family as well as -anybody's, did she ever think of that? And that girls were an expensive -luxury nowadays. Whereupon Ruthie said that she hadn't thought of that, -but she would, if that was the way Mother looked at it. Mother said it -wasn't, but that was the way somebody a little more practical than -Ruthie might have looked at it for themselves. Then she said that Ruth -had been playing with Piggy, or nobody would have had any reason to -think of the matter at all. It was all pretty raw, you know. I wouldn't -tell any other soul on earth, but someway you are different." - -"A lot of people tell me things," Elizabeth said, "and I love Ruth." - -"Your family is different," Peggy sighed. "If Ruthie and I lived all -alone, we'd be different. I wish you'd come on over to the house with -me, Elizabeth. I'm honestly almost afraid to go home. The atmosphere is -so thick, you couldn't cut it with a knife unless it had just been -sharpened." - -"All right, I will," said Elizabeth. "I was coming over there anyway. -Grandma thought it would cheer me up. I've been sort of mopey, myself." - -"Well, it's about as cheerful in the cottage as if it was a nice, cozy -morgue, but perhaps we can amuse ourselves with croquet and raspberry -shrub. Truth compels me to state that Cook has just completed a -mocha-frosted cake with an icing about six feet high. Do we get any of -that? The answer is, probably not, but while there is life there is -hope." - -"Do you know that you have an awfully funny mind, Peggy? Amusing, I -mean, and brilliant." - -"That's a pretty embarrassing way for you to talk to an old friend," -Peggy said, but she blushed in spite of her light laugh. - -"Hello! Daddy's come," she cried, as they approached the Farraday porch. -"That makes it even more exciting, doesn't it?" - -Mr. and Mrs. Farraday were engaged in earnest conversation as the two -girls opened the screen door and stepped into the dainty space within. - -"Hello, Daddy, dearest," Peggy cried, flying to kiss him, "this is a -darling, unexpected pleasure." - -Mr. Farraday had a nice smile. He looked very much like his younger -daughter. - -"Ruth phoned me to come down," he said. "How's my son?" - -"She's feeling a lot better, dear, since she knows you're in the house," -Peggy flashed back. "I'm the only son he's got, you know." - -"Your father and I were talking, dear," Mrs. Farraday's smooth tones -intervened. - -"Elizabeth and I only looked in to see Cook, _in re_ a large cake she's -been making." - -Mrs. Farraday looked up. "Here comes Ruth and Mr. Chambers, so you may -as well stay here. I've told Cook to serve that cake with our tea -to-day." - -"You have your good points, Mother," Peggy said, saucily. - -Ruth threw up her small head as she came out of the house. She was very -pale, Elizabeth noticed, and Mr. Chambers was very red. He was smiling, -but Ruth's face was entirely grave. - -"I am glad you are here, Father," she said, "for I have an announcement -to make to you." - -"Shall I go?" Elizabeth asked. - -"No, dear, I want you to stay. It's not a secret. It is merely that Mr. -Chambers has asked me to marry him, and I have said that I would." - -"Oh, Lord!" Peggy cried. - -"Don't you want me for a brother-in-law, Miss Peggy?" Mr. Chambers -asked. "You don't sound very much pleased at our news." - -"I don't want any brother-in-law very much," Peggy said, "but I do want -my sister to do what she wants to, and--and to be happy," she finished, -lamely. - -"I don't know what to say," Mr. Farraday said. "I feel just about the -way Peggy does. If--if you're both sure, you have my blessing." - -"What nonsense!" Mrs. Farraday cried. "Of course they are both sure, and -of course they have our blessing." - -"How about you, little Miss Elizabeth?" Piggy Chambers smiled at her and -held out his hand. - -"I--I congratulate you," Elizabeth said. - -"And me?" asked Ruth. - -"And you," Elizabeth said, not quite able to keep her voice steady, "if -you want to be congratulated by me." - -"Kiss me, dear." Mrs. Farraday slipped an arm around her daughter's -shoulders. - -"No," said Ruth, sharply, "no." - -"I don't see why anybody should want to kiss anybody," Peggy said. "It's -too exciting, anyway." - -"It's rather usual," Mr. Farraday murmured, "or it used to be, before -this modern generation." - -"A telegram for Miss Ruth," the maid came in and crossed the porch to -present it. - -Ruth looked a little dully at the yellow envelope on the silver tray. - -"Who can be telegraphing now?" she said. - -"Shall I open it, Sister?" Peggy put out her hand protectingly. - -"No." - -Ruth tore the crackling paper slowly, her mouth set in pinched, tense -lines which changed suddenly and quivered for an instant piteously. Then -she regained her composure. - -"It's just a telegram from your brother," she said to Elizabeth, "a few -lines to inquire about me and wish me good luck. It's funny it should -have come _now_--isn't it?" - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - - CRABBING - - -Elizabeth's first impulse the next morning was to write to Jean. It was -Jean who always helped her to think out her problems, and this was the -greatest problem that she had ever been called to face. She could not -entirely confide in her friend, still she was comforted by the mere act -of opening her birthday writing-case, and filling the fountain pen with -which she was going to write. - -She wondered if the Christian Graces, when they looked down on her Aunt -Helen, had ever found her in such a state of real trouble and dismay. - -"Hope can't do me much good," she thought, "and there is nobody to have -any Charity for but Mr. Piggy Chambers. It's Faith I need for my guide, -and she is the saddest looking sister of the lot." - - DEAR JEAN: - - All I can say is, I wish you were here, and I don't see how I am - going to stop saying that and write anything else. Letters are - such cold and far-away things. I hope you do know how I love - you, and how the thought of you comforts me. I told you about - Faith, Hope, and Charity. Well, there they stand grinning above - me, and they don't offer much consolation. - - I am in trouble, Jean. I can tell you this much. Ruth Farraday - is going to marry Mr. Chambers, and she was Buddy's girl. I - can't tell you the ins and outs of it, because they are other - people's different secrets, but I am afraid that this will kill - Buddy, and I don't see one single thing to do about it. I feel - like a criminal and a German spy, to tell you even this much, - but I feel as if I should burst with grief--really burst. You - know that feeling of suffocating you get after you have eaten a - lot too much. I have that same feeling emotionally. I know this - is a funny way to say it, but it's the only way I can express - it. I wish we could be together, and I could hear you reading - poetry or something soothing, and you could help me think how to - break it to Buddy. It will have to be told him. After I write - you, I am going to write him. So you see how much I value - writing to you. - - I will answer your questions some other time, when my mind is - more free. Though I can only doubt if that time will ever come. - I wish you could see Ruth Farraday. There is something about her - that makes me think of the girl in the "First Violin," though - she isn't in the least like her. I don't know what it is. I - guess it is the sadness that hangs about that book. There is a - sadness hanging about her, and about me, too, - Jeanie-that-I-love. - - I am glad your friend Neil Seymour is at the Point. I liked him - very much. If he still wants to send me "Prometheus Bound," he - may, Mother says. I guess she thinks anything that will keep me - contented is a good idea. I think "Prometheus Bound" would help - me, if it is anything like what I think it is. - - When I write you, I feel a little as if I were right in the room - with you. What I am doing now is to hang onto the door, not to - have to shut it, and go into another room, where my sick Buddy - is. Life is a strange thing. Good-bye--good-bye--good-bye. I - love you--hard. - - That old-fashioned girl, - ELSPETH. - - MY DEAR BROTHER: - - - I have got to use my own judgment about writing to you. I am to - blame for writing you the way I did, but I did not know any - better at that time. I only told you the truth. Now I have more - truth to tell you. Buddy, will you brace up as if you were in - the trenches again? You are a soldier, you know, and you've got - to fight another battle. - - Mother said I was not to tell you anything that might trouble - you, but I have got to trouble you the worst of all. Buddy, Ruth - Farraday is engaged to marry that goop, and her family have - egged her on till she did not know which way to turn, and has - turned this way. She told me and her family, and her face looked - like death. I am not making this up. Peggy says so, and she - knows. She loves Ruthie with all her heart, and she would not - make anything up. She is not that kind. I am more that kind, but - this is really and truly so. Ruth is not a happy girl, and we - both know it. She has lost her lovely pink cheeks, and is a - white apple blossom now. A pear blossom is more like it, only - not pretty enough for her. - - Well, Buddy, I have never had any real, grown-up trouble, but - the kind of fourteen-year-old trouble I have had has seemed - pretty hard sometimes. Grandmother says that you've always got - to live, whether you can or not. I know you don't want my - condolences, but I love you so that I can't help being sick over - this. It's hard work for me to eat and sleep. I hope you can - swear a little, because that will help you. - - SISTER. - -"I don't feel very much like going to Swan Pond crabbing," she thought, -as she sealed her two letters, and set them before her on the desk, "but -I suppose people mustn't give up to things. Even if my heart is -breaking, the Robbins boy and his cousin and Peggy ought not to have -their plans spoiled." - -She made her way through the chain of little rooms between her den and -her sleeping chamber, unfastening, as she went, the blue linen gown, -buttoned all the way down the back, that, with its pink twin, was her -regular morning uniform. In her bed room she slipped into a blouse cut -like a boy's, and dark blue woollen bloomers with wool stockings to -match. With this she put on, very carefully, a blue tam o' shanter. She -saw in the glass that her face was drawn, and her eyes had dark shadows -beneath them. - -"If Tom Robbins notices how I look and asks me any questions, I shall -only tell him that I am in deep trouble," she thought. "I won't say -anything like that to Bill. He would only grin and be embarrassed, but I -think Tom Robbins would understand more about grief." - -She was a little ashamed of having thought so much of her own trouble -when she saw Peggy's stricken face. - -"Don't ask me what has happened," Peggy whispered, as they clambered -into the car and Grandfather started for the cross-roads where they were -to pick up the two boys. "I don't know what hasn't happened. Ruth has -shut herself into her room, after some sort of a tragic heart-to-heart -talk with Father, and Mother and Father are scarcely speaking, and the -cook is mad, and ruined the breakfast muffins and gave us bad eggs, or -baddish eggs, for breakfast, and Sister won't see me. Piggy sent her a -huge box of flowers this morning. I've got to stop calling him Piggy and -call him Albert, I suppose. Wouldn't you know his name would be Albert? -Isn't he the most Albertish person? Elizabeth, I never hated anybody so -much in all my life. He never did me any harm, but I would be pleased -and proud to--to choke him to death." - -"So would I," sighed Elizabeth. - -"Wasn't it funny, her getting that telegram from your brother just when -she did? Sometimes I think she was keen on your brother, and sort of -peeved because he didn't ever write to her when he got back. You don't -suppose she'd get herself engaged to Piggy just out of pride, do you?" - -"Oh, I don't know," Elizabeth cried. - -"Anyhow, she took that telegram to bed with her, and it was all mussed -up under her pillow. I know, because I made the beds this morning. Our -treasure of a second maid went to mass, and stayed out to breakfast." - -"What's all that whispering about?" Grandfather inquired, looking over -his shoulder. "I've a great mind to just reach over and tech the whip to -you," he made a movement toward an invisible whip socket. "I guess I -won't. It makes Lizzie nervous to have me flourishing a whip around. I -suppose you are trying to get all giggled and whispered up before you -have to stop it and talk to the boys." - -"We aren't giggling much this morning," Elizabeth said. "There they are -on the corner, waving to us." - -"Did you ever see such red hair?" Peggy said. "I like red-headed -children and boys. I don't think I like red-headed girls so much. I -think Mabel is awfully cunning with her red curls." - -"Mabel? Oh, she has real auburn hair," Elizabeth said, "and it's -beautiful. How do you do?" she returned Tom Robbins' greeting with more -than a touch of her customary shyness as he scrambled for a place on the -floor of the car at her feet. - -"It's my turn," he insisted, as his friend Bill tried to argue the -matter. "You ride with Captain Swift, and mind the rakes." - -"You've got real nets!" Peggy cried. "How scrumptious! We just take -rakes, you know." - -"I don't know as the Swan Pond crabs will consent to do anything but be -raked in," Grandfather said. "I heard of a boy once that caught a crab -in one of those store nets, but it was a bad one." - -"You wait and see," Tom said. "Our object is to catch crabs, and we are -going to catch them." - -"So am I," said Grandfather. - -They left the machine in a clearing by the roadside, and, laden with -nets and bait, made their way through a path among the underbrush, until -they stood on the shore of Swan Lake. A blue sky, with here and there a -winging cloud, met the low horizon, skirted with the dense green of -low-set pine and oak trees. The gray-green water lapped the shore -alluringly. - -There was a general scramble to remove encumbering shoes and stockings. - -"If anybody says, 'Come on in, the water's fine,' they'll owe me a -pineapple college ice," Peggy declared, "or, if you prefer it in New -York-ese, a pineapple sundae--though why they should think over there -that by spelling Sunday with an e, they can make it a soda-fountain -dish, I don't know." - -"Don't you go jeering at the manners and customs of my native town," -Elizabeth cried. - -"Did your ancestors own most of New York?" Grandfather asked, -innocently. "I thought most of Manhattan Island belonged to the Dutch." - -"I don't know what my ancestors owned," Elizabeth said. - -"They owned this, for instance," her grandfather waved a nonchalant hand -at the beautiful country about him, "forty or fifty acres around these -parts. My Great-grandfather Swift, he got kinder tired of having so much -property, and he sold a chunk to the town for a cemetery, and one thing -and another." - -"Where did he live?" Elizabeth asked. - -"Up the road apiece, in a great house that was burnt down long before my -time. He was quite a likely old fellow, though, from all I can hear of -him. He had a lot of stories told about him. He started a bank, and all -his money was carted up to it in ox teams, because they didn't have -anything but silver money in those days." - -"Quite an influential old party, wasn't he?" Peggy said. "Doesn't it -make you feel creepy, Elizabeth, to descend from the very oldest -settlers, the way you do? I don't know anything about my ancestors." - -"I never did before," Elizabeth said. - -"The time is going to come when Elizabeth will be proud of what she -comes from," her grandfather said. "Well, if anybody really wants to go -crabbing with me, I'd advise them to----" - -"Come in while the water's fine," the boys chanted together. - -"I owe you a pineapple college ice," Bill grinned at Peggy. - -"I owe you a pineapple sundae," Tom told Elizabeth. - -"I wasn't betting," Elizabeth said. - -"But I was," Tom's grin was almost as broad as his cousin's. "You can -have a maple marshmallow sundae if you prefer it. I do." - -"Well, it's hard to choose," Elizabeth temporized. - -"You can have both," Tom decided. "I'll show you how to use the crab -catcher. You float the bait on this line, and when the crab comes to the -surface, you----" - -But Grandfather, scorning artificial allurements, caught the first crab. -The crab was scurrying away over the pebbles and shells at the bottom of -the transparent water when Grandfather's inexorable implement caught him -in mid-career, and he was imprisoned in the covered basket they had -brought for the purpose. - -"I didn't know that you could catch them so near the shore," Elizabeth -said, looking down at her bare toes in some dismay, "do they hurt when -they bite you?" - -"The game is not to let them bite you," Peggy said. "Hooray! One for -me--us, I mean." - -"Three," said Grandfather, landing another. - -"I've got the father and mother of all crabs here," Bill Dean said, as -he dragged at the handle of his net. "Look at old Grandfather Crab." - -"He isn't very pretty," Elizabeth said, "but I prefer him to a raw -lobster. I never saw a green lobster till the other day." - -"She was just making Judidy throw it out when I caught her at it," -Grandfather laughed, "she said it was sick, and would give us all -ptomaine poisoning, and the lobster was so mad when he heard it that he -tried to claw poor Judidy's hand off." - -"It _is_ strange that they turn bright red after being bright green," -Elizabeth said. "I think I prefer crabs." - -"Come with me, and we'll get some," Tom said, taking possession of her. - -"I guess we can rest now," he said a little later, "we got more than any -of them." - -"Did we?" - -"Well, we got as many, anyhow. I'm hot, aren't you?" - -Elizabeth mopped her forehead and smiled by way of answer. - -"Look here," Tom said, "there is something I want to ask you, Miss -Swift. If you don't like it you just have to say so, and I will -understand and not ask you again. I was just wondering if I couldn't -call you Elizabeth. Bill he's going to ask Peggy, I mean Miss Farraday, -the same thing." - -"I didn't know you had been calling me anything," Elizabeth said. - -"Well, I haven't. I think last names are rather stiff, you know, and I -didn't like to use your first name without permission." - -"I'd just as soon have you call me by my first name," Elizabeth said, -"if--if only----" - -"You've got something in your mind about me that you aren't saying. If -you think it's--well--fresh--of me, to ask you that question about first -names, you can say so." - -"I don't think that's fresh of you," Elizabeth said, "but I--well, I -don't feel like talking in any way but a very straightforward and -truthful way to-day. The thing I don't like, really, is the way you -tried to get acquainted with us. Every time I think of that, I feel as -if--well, I wish it hadn't happened, that's all." - -"So do I," said Tom Robbins, soberly, "but I'll tell you something. I -have never done anything like that before. We just made up our minds -that we would, that's all. You know the way you make up your mind to try -something that you've seen other people do." - -"But I don't see why you tried it on us," said Elizabeth. - -"I don't see why we did, either, except that we wanted to know you the -most of any girls." - -"I don't like to have a boy make me feel that he thinks I am a girl he -can scrape acquaintance with," Elizabeth said. "It hurts my feelings." - -"I wouldn't hurt your feelings for anything, and you ought to know now -that I am not the kind of boy that does things like that, except for a -lark. Don't you?" - -"Don't I what?" - -"Know that?" - -"Yes, I guess I do." - -"Well, then?" - -"All right, you can call me Elizabeth." - -"Peggy and I have caught more than you have," Bill shouted, as he came -up with crawling crabs in his net. - -"I guess it worked all right," Tom whispered to Elizabeth, "with them." - -"Bill asked if he could call me Peggy," that young lady whispered to -Elizabeth, on the way home. "I was so surprised I nearly fell over. I -thought he always had. I've always called him Bill." - -"I think boys sort of make up their minds to do a certain kind of thing, -and then they do it," said Elizabeth, "without thinking whether it is -really appropriate or not." - -"I guess you are right," Peggy said, "and now that we've had this -pleasant afternoon, we'll just have to take up the burden of our gloomy -thoughts again." - -"I know it," said Elizabeth, forlornly. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - - ELIZABETH IS RUDE - - -Elizabeth and Moses took the shore road, and finally struck off across -the fields and through the woods to make a short cut for the bathing -beach. Moses was going to initiate the new bathing suit Elizabeth had -bought him, and Elizabeth to sit on the beach and knit on a sweater she -was making for Madget. - -It was a rehabilitated Moses that alternately darted and jogged along by -her side. He was wearing one of the half-dozen shirts that Grandmother -had cut and made by the famous Butterick pattern from which the girls -had fashioned the garment he wore on his appearance at the bean supper. -His trousers were the veritable "pants" of his dreams, and the rudiments -of suspenders, with which he would not part, were tucked in under his -belt. His face was comparatively clean, and he had allowed Elizabeth to -brush his heavy, upstanding hair until it looked almost personable. - -"What are those things around your neck?" Elizabeth cried, catching -sight of an extraordinary decoration only partially concealed by his -shirt collar. - -"Shark's teeth. I wear 'em for luck. I cut 'em out myself." - -"Cut them out of what?" - -"Sharks. What'd you think I got 'em from? Cats or something?" - -"Moses, you've got to learn to be a little more respectful to me. I -don't like the way you speak to me." - -"All right," he agreed, amiably. - -"Where did you get those teeth from?" - -"I told you I got 'em from sharks. I go down to the shore when the boats -come in from their weir. You know, the men bring in a lot of fish every -day. Well, yesterday they brought in four sharks and they let me cut out -these teeth. I could of got more if my knife had been sharper, or I'd -had more time. Every night they give me a fish, too." - -"That doesn't sound a bit probable, about the sharks. Still, I never -caught you telling a lie, Moses. What do you do with the fish they give -you?" - -"I take 'em home and I cook 'em. Mis' Laury Ann, she showed me how, one -time. Mabel, I'm learning her to cook, and Madget she wants I should -learn her, but I don't think I shall." - -"Oh, dear, I'm afraid I've rather neglected you lately," Elizabeth said. -"I haven't been to see your mother for a long time." - -"Well, Mis' Laury Ann she comes, and Judidy. Mother says neglecting is -all you can expect from girls." - -"She's a whole lot better, isn't she?" Elizabeth asked, hastily. - -"Sure. Mis' Abithy Hawes she come around and got Little Eva to going it, -and Little Eva she said that Mother had water on her lungs." - -"Mercy!" - -"But Mother she got to reading a book that said housework was a good -cure for sickness. About sweeping bein' good for the spine, and washing -bein' good for the stomick, and housecleaning a good thing for the -figger. So she thought she'd try that, too." - -"Where did she get the book?" - -"It was one that Mis' Laury Ann lent her." - -"I guess Grandmother is working along the way she said she was going -to," Elizabeth thought. "Does your mother really do housework?" she -asked, aloud. - -"Most every day," Moses said, proudly, "she bought me these pants, too." - -"Does she do any cooking?" - -"She don't like to cook, and she ain't never learned. I kin learn her -when I've learned myself some more." - -"It does seem as if there were _some_ improvement in your family's -condition, doesn't it, Moses?" - -"Judidy, she told Ma she was the town's poor, and Ma says she ain't. -That kind of stuck in Ma's crop, and Madget cried and said she wouldn't -go to the poor house. Now Ma says she is going to buy tea and coffee -enough to git a premium set o' dishes. I don't know whether she will or -not. If she don't I'm going to earn them. Captain Swift is going to let -me sell some corn and string beans out of his garden." - -The path emerged on the beach, and Moses disappeared abruptly in the -direction of his favourite clump of pines, scorning a bath-house. He -reappeared almost immediately, clad in a single garment of blue jersey -that glistened with newness. - -"You watch me pretending to be a whale," he said, "first I'll dive. Then -I'll come up spouting a whole mouthful of water." - -"He's a good little swimmer," Elizabeth thought, as she watched his -antics. "I guess he'll turn out all right. How wonderful Grandmother is, -always keeping her eye on them. It's so much easier to do a thing like -that as hard as you can sometimes, and then drop it, than it is to keep -pegging along at it all the time." - -She was knitting so busily that she did not see Ruth Farraday -approaching along the beach, and it was not until a long shadow fell -across her work that she realized Ruth was near. Ruth in a pink voile -frock, with a frilly, rose-coloured parasol, smiled down at her--a smile -of the lips only. - -"Shall I sit down beside you?" she asked, in her low, clear voice. -"Peggy couldn't come down to the beach to-day. I was too lazy to go in -swimming, but I thought I'd like a smell of the sea, all the same." - -"I--I'm very glad to see you," Elizabeth said. - -"I'm glad to see you. I haven't seen you since that other day at tea." - -"No," said Elizabeth, gravely. - -"I haven't been feeling very well since then. It was--nice of your -brother to wire me, wasn't it?" - -"I told Buddy that I thought you would be pleased to hear from him. It -was my fault. I shouldn't have told him, if I had known." - -"If you had known what?" asked Ruth Farraday, lightly. - -"That you were going to marry somebody else." - -"Somebody else?" she laughed. - -"Somebody that wasn't Buddy," Elizabeth said, bravely. - -"There never was any question of my marrying your brother. We were very -good friends before he went abroad. Then he seemed to let it--our -friendship, die a natural death." - -"I told you about his being sick," Elizabeth said, "and I told you that -there weren't any other girls." - -"There not being any other girls doesn't--didn't necessarily mean----" - -"Oh, yes, it does, with Buddy." - -"That's putting it rather ambiguously." - -"I don't know how it's putting it," Elizabeth cried, "but I do know that -there wasn't any other girl." - -"He didn't tell you so, did he?" - -"He--he----" Elizabeth stammered. - -"You--you said that you told him to communicate with me?" Ruth was -having almost as much difficulty in speaking as Elizabeth. - -"He wrote and asked my advice, and I told him I would, if I were he, and -that was why he did it, and then I had to write him that you were -engaged." - -"Oh, you've written him that already?" - -"I had to," Elizabeth said, miserably. "I had just told him that you -weren't engaged to anybody else, and that you inquired about him, and -that you--you might want to hear from him. He's very sick, and he wrote -and asked me what to do." - -"When did he write that?" - -"Just the other day." - -"And you wrote just the other day?" - -"There was time for him to get my letter before he telegraphed to you." - -"And then you wrote again to say that I was engaged?" - -"Yes." - -"Well, I'm still engaged," Ruth Farraday said, lightly. "When you write -to him, won't you tell him that I thank him for remembering me so--so -pleasantly, but that I'm a good deal occupied just at present." - -"No, I won't," said Elizabeth. - -"Indeed?" - -"He's too sick, and it would bother him too much." - -"Oh, very well," said Ruth Farraday. - -"I didn't mean to be rude," Elizabeth said. - -"You were, rather. I'd like to send your brother a message, you see, and -I--I can't write to him. I've tried, and I can't. I don't want him to -think I am altogether unappreciative. What message shall I send him, -Elizabeth?" - -"Send him your love, if you really mean it, and then not any message." - -"I will. I do send him my love. I'm sorry he's sick. Wouldn't it be wise -to say that?" - -"I think so." - -"Send him my love and tell him--oh, tell him he was a day too late." - -"I will," said Elizabeth. - -With one long, indrawn breath, Ruth Farraday turned and walked back -along the beach. - -"She's shivering as if she were cold," Elizabeth thought, as she watched -the diminishing figure. - -It was high tide, and the deep blue waves were foam-crested. The wide -sky was streaked with clouds, and a bright sun lay hot upon the sands. -Elizabeth looked first at Moses' bobbing head, and then at the bobbing, -rose-coloured parasol dwindling in the distance. - -"Life is a curious thing," she said to herself, slowly, "it keeps -changing so, getting better or worse all the time. Here's Moses and the -Steppes, who were so perfectly hopeless and helpless, and there is an -improvement in them. They are my friends and my responsibility--if I -don't live up to it very well. Then here is Ruth Farraday, that I truly -love, and everything about her is getting worse every minute, and it's -all mixed up with me, somehow. I don't do much good, or anything, but -it's mixed up with me all the same." - -She knitted to the end of her row and pulled out her needle. She gave -another long look at sea and sky. - -"Everything is a part of everything," she said, a little confusedly. -"Poor Buddy, dear." - -She wrote him a long letter that night, and told him what Ruth had said, -and then she tried not to think about him at all for the next few days. -She was afraid for what she had done. She had had no word from him in -answer to her letter announcing Ruth's engagement, and only the briefest -line from her mother, who was evidently gravely anxious about her son's -condition. She knew that Buddy was worse, and she knew that the letter -she had written him had made him worse; how much worse, Elizabeth could -not bear to think. - -It was five days after her meeting with Ruth upon the beach that the -evening mail brought her two letters, one in her mother's handwriting -and one in Buddy's. Judidy brought them in and put them in her lap. - -"We are going to lose Judidy next winter," her grandmother said when -that young woman had blushed, giggled, and withdrawn to the back porch, -from which the sound of a drawling, masculine voice was heard at -intervals, interspersed with Judidy's high-pitched protestations. "She's -going to be married, she tells me." - -"Is she?" said Elizabeth, trying to subdue the dizziness she felt at the -sight of Buddy's familiar scrawl. - -"Your grandfather and I thought we'd give them a wedding. Judidy's folks -won't. They are nice enough people, but peculiar--odd. They believe in -saving trouble and expense on everything." - -"Oh, Grandmother," Elizabeth said, trembling, "will you hold my hand -while I read these letters? I--I am so worried about Buddy." - -"Certain." Grandmother drew out the little footstool that matched the -particular valanced rocker she was sitting in. "You come here." - -Elizabeth leaned her head against her grandmother's knee, with the -feeling of faintness still upon her. Her grandmother stroked her hair -gently. - -"I can't read them out loud, Grandma. They are private in a way. -It's--it's the private things in them that frighten me." - -"There ain't nothing in this world to be afraid of. There ain't," said -Grandmother. "Fear once killed a cat, you know." - -"Don't you ever get afraid, Grandma?" - -"Certain I get afraid, but when I do, I just think that there ain't -nothing in this world to be afraid of so much as of being afraid, and -that kind of stops me." - -"I can't help being afraid of what's in this particular letter." - -[Illustration: "'I can't help being afraid of what's in this particular -letter'"] - -"What are you afraid it's going to do to you?" - -"I--I don't know." - -"Well, you just open it up and read it, and after you've opened it up, -you'll just find you're sitting here the way you were before, with your -grandma's arms around you." - -Elizabeth pulled the kindly hand down to meet her lips. - -"Well," she said, "I'm going to read it now." - - DEAR LITTLE SISTER: - - I can't tell you how much I thank you for your two letters. They - cured me. I've been seeing ghosts, but "being gone, I am a man - again." I'm going to get my discharge if I have to bust the - whole darned hospital, and I'm coming down to Cape Cod. While - there, I shall tell you what I think of several things, - including the opinion I have of a man who sits in a cloud of - vapour all day in a United States Base Hospital, and lets things - go some other man's way. - - You tell Miss Ruth Farraday that it's never too late. No, don't - tell her anything, but whenever you see the man in the case, - stick out your sweet little tongue at him. I'm sick--sure I'm - sick, but I'm a well man, just the same. You wait and see. I - broke the news to Mother and she doesn't believe it. She thinks - that I'm probably delirious. Father sees that something - significant has happened, but doesn't believe that I can bust - out so easy. You wait, dear. - - Keep your eye on Ruth and report to me. - - I love and admire you, and you are my own darling sister, for - whom and which I devoutly thank whatever gods there be. I am the - Captain of my Soul. - - YOUR BUDDY. - -Elizabeth buried her face in the ample folds of her grandmother's white -apron. - -"He's better. He's going to get well," she sobbed. "Oh, dear, I was -afraid I had killed him, but I didn't. I did him good." - -"He needed something to rouse him," Grandmother said, "your mother says -the doctor has been saying that for some time. I don't know how you've -done it, but I guess you've turned the trick." - -"He says he's going to get out and come down here right away." - -"I thought 'twas about time." - -"He's so sweet and dear and handsome, and he was so brave, and oh, I -love him so!" - -"That don't seem to me to be anything to sob over." - -"I--I can't help it." - -"I always cried more tears of joy than I ever cried of sorrow. It runs -in the family." - -"I guess I can read Mother's letter aloud. It's longer than Buddy's." - - ELIZABETH DEAR: - - The strangest thing has happened to your brother. He has - suddenly taken a new lease of life. Night before last I left him - just as dull and discouraged and apathetic as ever, and this - morning when I went to see him, at about ten o'clock, he was - another boy. The nurse said he had been that way ever since he - got a letter from you in the morning mail. I suppose that was - merely a coincidence. I don't mean to say that I found him in - any seraphic mood. He was literally fighting mad at the hospital - authorities, and his whole mind seemed concentrated on getting - out. At first I thought his fever had risen, but the doctor - assures me that the subtle cloud that has been resting over his - mind has lifted. He says he has never known a case where the - patient provided his own stimulus before, that usually it has - come from the outside in the form of some kind of shock, - pleasant or unpleasant. - - It hasn't been entirely a nervous case, you understand. He would - probably have less trouble in getting away, if it had been just - a matter of mind, but his mind has kept his body sick. It's been - a vicious circle. He has believed, it now develops, that the - physical matter was incurable. His old job was gone, you know, - and that seemed to depress him. Your father was perfectly - willing to keep him at home indefinitely, and we kept telling - him so, but in his poor, tortured mind he had construed our - doing so into an admission that we never expected him to get - well. - - At any rate, the worst is over now. I believe we'll have our boy - restored in mind and body very soon. I don't dare to hope we'll - all get down to Cape Cod as soon as he thinks we shall but I am - inclined to think that he is too lively a character for the - United States Government to hold very much longer. - - You have been my brave, darling daughter, and I love you more - than I can tell you. I am sending your shoes by this post. - - MOTHER. - -"I hope he'll get here while it's still cucumber season," Grandmother -said. "My, how that boy used to eat herrings and cucumbers! I cooked a -whole half dozen once, and I vow he et the whole lot, and I don't know -how many cucumbers. He was a dretful one to eat. He used to like to -climb up in the pear tree in pear season, and pick the topmost pear on -the tree and eat his way down." - -"Do you mind if I cry a little more, Grandma? I can stop, but I don't -want to," Elizabeth sniffled. - -"It will be good for the fern to have a little dampness in the air. You -cry, and I'll knit a spell." - -"You tease just about as much as Grandfather does, don't--don't you? -Only you're so--so sly about it, nobody realizes it." - -"Ain't that our ring on the telephone?" - -"I don't know. I just sit here and let it ring all the time. I forget to -count whether it's fifteen or fourteen." - -"Land, fourteen will wake me up out of a sound sleep when I'm to bed -upstairs. And I don't never hear fifteen no more'n if it hadn't -sounded." - -"It _is_ fourteen," Elizabeth said, as the imperious instrument sounded -one long and four short signals distinctly. "I'll answer." - -"Elizabeth, where have you been all day?" Peggy's voice inquired. "I -particularly want to see you about something, but Mother insists it's -too late for me to come over." - -"I went swimming with Moses," Elizabeth said, "and finished Madget's -sweater, and made a chocolate cake. What is it that you've got to tell -me?" - -"I can't tell you very well over the phone." - -"Is it pleasant or unpleasant?" - -"Unpleasant," Peggy whispered, with her mouth close to the receiver. - -"Tell me." - -"I can't." - -"Hint it. Is it about Ruthie?" - -"Yes." - -"And it's unpleasant?" - -"Well, there is something pleasant about it. The festivities will be -pleasant." - -"Oh, Peggy, tell me. I've just about got to know." - -"Well, listen close. It's going to be hurried up." - -"What is?" - -"The--well--you know. Somebody's receiver is down. They are listening -in. Don't you hear that clock ticking?" - -"Oh, don't mind that. Tell me." - -"They've hung up, I think. Guess what I mean. The festivities are going -to be hurried up. We want you to take part in them. It's going to be in -two weeks. Now do you know? It begins with w." - -"You mean Ruth is going to be----" - -"Yes, but don't breathe it. We want you at it--you know--the w. You and -me, dressed alike in blue dimity. There won't be many people." - -"Oh, Peggy, I couldn't." - -"Yes, you can. The way I look at it is that we might as well be -philosophical about it and have a good time, even if our hearts do hang -down to our boots. Don't you say so? Mother is calling me and I've got -to go. Don't breathe a word. I'll tell you all about it to-morrow. I'll -be over. Good-bye." - -"Oh, good-bye!" said Elizabeth. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - - PICKING CHICKENS - - -Do you want to come out and set with me in the woodshed while I pick a -couple o' chicken?" Grandfather asked one morning at the breakfast -table. - -"Ye--es," said his granddaughter. - -"I don't mind picking a chicken, but I do like encouragement while I'm -a-doing of it. All the pesky little pin feathers stick twice as tight -when I'm alone with 'em." - -"When do you begin?" Elizabeth faltered. - -"Soon's I can get to it. First I catch my chickens. After you have heard -them squawking for a while, you get your knitting and come out to the -shed." - -"When he cuts off their heads, I just about pass into Kingdom Come," -said Judidy. "I hate to hear them squawking as much as I hate to hear a -pig stuck." - -"Oh, do you cut off their heads?" Elizabeth asked, faintly. - -"Well, I wring their necks first." - -"Don't take Jehoshaphat, will you, Captain Swift? I've fed him about -every day this year, and he eats out o' my hand just as cute's the next -one." - -"Don't take Speckletop, will you, Grandfather?" Elizabeth moaned. - -"She's a setting hen. I don't calculate to eat no chicken pie made out -o' setting hens." - -"It's dretful hard to eat your own hens," Grandmother said. "You raise -'em from chickens, and you get to know every one from every t'other one, -and then some fine morning Father he puts their heads on the chopping -block, and that's the last of them, but they do stick, going down, when -I try to eat them." - -"You don't have to worry, Mother. I know this is a pretty middling -tender-hearted family, so I bought this pair o' roosters over to -Battletown." - -"Where's Battletown?" Elizabeth asked. - -"That's the old-fashioned name for the region over yonder. This here was -called Crocker Neck. You remind me and I'll tell you some poetry about -it." - -"I hate to eat anybody else's hens," Grandmother said, "you don't know -how they been raised." - -"They say old Uncle Jonathan Swift won't take his vittles hot nor cold," -Grandfather chuckled. "Either way they hurt his teeth, he says." - -"If you feel too squeamish about seeing those chickens picked, you just -tell Grandfather, Elizabeth," her grandmother said after he had left the -table. "I used to feel pretty delicate about such things myself, till I -decided I'd got to get hardened." - -"How did you get hardened?" - -"Well, I took a spell to think about it. I can stand most anything if I -can get my ideas fixed up about it." - -"Oh, so can I," Elizabeth cried. "I guess I inherited it." - -"I couldn't stand the sight o' blood, or hearing about killing a pig or -a chicken, much less seeing the carcasses around. Well, I come to the -conclusion that every time a chicken was killed somebody'd have to pick -it, and I could pick a chicken if anybody else could. I figured out that -if it wasn't me, it would have to be somebody else, probably just as -squeamish. So I went ahead and caught a chicken and wrung its neck. I -couldn't of chopped off its head if I suffered, but after Father helped -me out that far, I cleaned it and picked it just like a storekeeper." - -"I suppose that's the way you do get character, just by doing things -that you can't do--all the time." - -"Well, Providence sees that you have plenty of things to do that can't -be done. I kinder hate to see young folks forcing themselves into it." - -"I guess I'll go and see that chicken picked all the same, Grandmother," -Elizabeth said. - -She did not even put her fingers in her ears to shut out the sounds of -attack and slaughter in the chicken yard when she went out to the -woodshed and took her place determinedly on the step, companionably near -the three-legged stool that her grandfather had drawn up to the door. - -"What was the poetry you said you were going to say to me?" she began, -"that poetry about Crocker Neck?" - -"It's just what the girls used to say to the boys when they went -a-courting: - - "Hasty pudding in the pot, - Pumpkin in the lantern, - If you hadn't come from Crocker Neck, - You wouldn't be so handsome." - -"It doesn't rhyme very well, does it?" Elizabeth said. - -"It used to kinder tickle the young folks. We used to have one that we -said to the girls: - - "The Cape Cod girls they have no combs. - They comb their hair with the codfish bones. - -I don't know as that rhymes any better, but young folks get up things -that don't have much rhyme or reason." - -The air was full of the scent of wet feathers. Elizabeth looked up in -time to see him lift a dripping fowl from the pail of hot water at his -side, and then hastily looked away again. - -"Grandfather, what did you do when you were a young man?" she said. - -"I went to sea." - -"How old were you when you first went?" - -"'Long about nine or ten. I started in by going cook." - -"Cook?" Elizabeth cried. "Cook? How--how did that happen?" - -"All the boys went cook summers. We used to go to district school in the -winter and then go to sea in the summer. I cooked for seventeen men my -first trip, and I hadn't nothing to cook in but a baking kettle, -neither." - -"What kind of boat did you go in?" - -Grandfather industriously plucked at the carcass in his hand. - -"A fishing vessel. She was called the _Good Intent_. I used to make -seven loaves of bread at a time, and we had to eat it every scrap up -before we could touch the new. It didn't make much difference, though, -because we carried four bushels of meal, part Indian and part rye, and -it all soured before we was out long, but we et it just the same. We -used to stay out two or three weeks at a time, and bring in seven or -eight thousand fish." - -"I can't believe that you used to be a cook. It doesn't seem possible." - -"I didn't used to be a cook," said Grandfather, quietly, "I used to go -cook on my grandfather's vessel. Have you heard from that friend of -yours lately whose brother-in-law is a count?" - -"No. Yes, that is. She writes me quite regularly." Elizabeth blushed -crimson. "She's an awfully nice girl, with no nonsense about her at -all." - -"'Taint so much her that I'm interested in as her brother-in-law," -Grandfather said, solemnly, "he must have been a pretty smart man, to -earn that title of count by his own efforts." - -"I--I don't think he did," Elizabeth said, before she caught the twinkle -in her grandfather's eye. - -"Your grandmother's father he was a sailmaker, you know," he continued, -soberly. "He used to have a sail loft where he sat and sewed on sails. -He used to pay your grandmother by the dozen for threading for him." - -"I didn't know," said Elizabeth. She looked up from her knitting for an -instant, and saw the strange, prickly surface of the denuded fowl. "I -didn't realize that the reason they called it goose flesh when they got -chilled was because your flesh looked like a goose's flesh--I mean a--a -geese's," she added, hastily. - -"Yes, and sometimes the reason they call a young girl a little goose is -that all of a sudden she begins to act like one. Pesky things, these -little pin feathers!" - -"I--I can help you do that," Elizabeth said. - -"Well, put that towel over your lap and don't get any blood on you. Sure -it won't make you sick?" - -"I'm just about sure that it will," said Elizabeth, "but--but what do I -care? Did it make you sick when you first went to sea, Grandfather?" - -"Sick as a dog," said her grandfather, heartily, "and the smell of that -souring meal, and mouldy corn beef, and dead fish--well, I----" - -"Oh, you poor, poor granddaddy," Elizabeth cried, "you poor little boy, -why did they make you go?" - -"That was my father's idea of bringing me up. I ain't so sure it wasn't -a pretty good one." - -"Did you get paid for it?" - -"Six dollars a month and found. I had the promise of a new hat in the -fall, but I never saw it. Times has changed considerable since I was a -boy." - -"I should think they had," said Elizabeth, fervently. - -"You see, Grandfather he owned a fleet of fishing vessels, he owned a -dozen himself, and he was part owner with your grandmother's father in -as many more." - -"But I thought you said Grandmother's father was a--was just a -sailmaker?" - -"So he was, but he was a shipowner, too. He had to have an interest in a -good many vessels in order to get the business of making sails for -them." - -"Did he make them all by himself?" - -Grandfather smiled. - -"Well, not exactly. His will was good, but he couldn't manage to fit out -more than a few hundred boats single-handed." - -"You laugh at me every word you say, Grandfather." - -"About every other word, I should call it. He went to sea a good part of -his life, but he had learned his trade at sailmaking. Boys learned a -trade those days, if they was real enterprising. My father he learned -the cooper's trade when he was a boy." - -"How big were these boats?" - -"They carried from ten to twenty-five men. Grandfather he built a -sailing vessel down here at the mouth of Herring River that went all -around the world nearabout. 'Twas his boast that he built it from timber -cut on his own land. I was on board of her just off New Bedford when the -steamer _Morning Star_ struck her amidships. She sunk in less'n fifteen -minutes." - -"But you--were saved?" - -"I woke up when she struck, and I come up from below just as I was, in -my underclothes. I saw a dark shape coming alongside, and that was all I -knew. I jumped for her. They said I was the first one over the side. -'Twas the old coastwise steamer that saved us, nosing along in the dark. -She was good enough for me to land on." - -"All these things don't seem possible, Grandfather. I can't believe -them. You must have been a brave little boy." - -"I don't know. I don't think boys is born brave, but they get the fear -o' God put into them one way or another, the same as little girls." - -"But all these things are like--story books." - -"Like enough. Story books is imitated from real life, as near as I can -make out." - -"I didn't think any things like these could happen to anybody I knew. I -mean, things so exciting." - -"You never thought to sink so low as to be picking pin feathers out of -the same fowl with a feller that had been cook on a fishing schooner." - -This time Elizabeth met his twinkling gaze. She rose from her task long -enough to deposit an emphatic kiss on the top of a shiny, bald pate. - -"Who called me a goose?" she said. - -"In the circles you're accustomed to, I suppose they don't call such -names?" - -"This is the circle in which I move," Elizabeth said, "this circle of -you and Grandmother and Judidy. Now I know where I inherited my cooking -ability from--you, sir." - -"Well, there was times when the crew could get their teeth into my pie -crust," grandfather admitted. - -Elizabeth slipped up to her room that afternoon, after her noonday -dinner, and wrote to Jean: - - JEANIE DEAR: - - I have learned so much since I came to Cape Cod, that I don't - see how there is going to be much more in the world to learn. I - suppose there will be, but I don't think it can possibly be so - important. I was an untried child when I came here, and now look - at me. You can't, but I wish you could. I have grown a little - taller and, I think, a lot sadder looking. Also, I am healthier. - I feel a lot like Alice in Wonderland, mentally, however--I have - to keep running and running, to stay in the same place, and then - I don't. - - I have some things in my mind that I can hardly bear, and some - that I can hardly wait for, and some that I can hardly believe. - You know what they are all about. The first is Buddy's girl and - her approaching wedding. I am to stand up with them. I couldn't - refuse; how could I, Jean? It's just a terrible, terrible thing. - Buddy doesn't know it, because he is coming out of the hospital - and down here just as soon as he can, and I am afraid it would - retard his recovery if I wrote him. So I am not telling him till - he gets here. Do you wonder, Jean, that I feel like a so much - older girl than I did when I first came down here? Sometimes I - think that my hair ought to be quite gray, with all my - responsibility. I lit a light once, in the middle of the night, - and got up to see if I hadn't really got gray hair, I felt so - gray. I keep having to decide what to tell Buddy and what not. I - can't ask Mother, because Buddy would never forgive me if I did, - and what he would do to me would turn me gray for a fact, I - guess. I've hinted it all out to you to keep from bursting, but - Jeanie, it isn't the same thing as talking to you. It's only - like saying my prayers or writing a diary. Besides, I haven't - told you details. Only the general facts. - - The things I can hardly wait for are my parents and Buddy - coming--my own brother, that has come out of the jaws of death - in two senses, since I have seen him. Once from the Trenches and - once from the U. S. Base Hospital. Having a brother is the - strangest, sweetest thing. I'd rather have one than a sister, - though I do think Ruth Farraday is beautiful, and Peggy's lot - is, next to mine, the most fortunate in that respect. I ought - not to crow like this to an only child, though. - - The things I can hardly believe are the things I've been hearing - about my ancestors. In a way, you know, I think it is more - interesting to be an American than even to be a count. I've - lived along all my life with the idea that I was a New Yorker, - or rather a New Jerseyite with one foot on Broadway or Fifth - Avenue, and I thought the cook was the cook and the butcher the - butcher, and that was all there was to it. I had a grandfather - and grandmother that I had idealized in my imagination, all - dressed up in city clothes and manners. I didn't stop to think - what I came from, except that Mother was an Endicott, and that - all her relations lived abroad most of the time. - - You know the rude shock I got when I came down here. The corner - grocer is my distant uncle. The hired girl is a kind of cousin. - The butcher that goes out selling things in a cart, meat all raw - and pig pork that he has killed himself, is the family's friend. - It seemed just plain awful to me at first. I didn't know what - any of it _meant_. But now I'm getting to. I talked with - grandfather, who quite rightly understands my horrid scruples - and teases me to pieces about them, and I talked with Peggy, - whose father tells her a lot of things. (Those girls get their - niceness from their father.) - - He says this early settlers' blood is a wonderful thing. It was - mostly the younger sons of aristocrat families that settled - here, and a great many of them married their cooks or serving - maids. (Perhaps that's why cooking is such a general talent.) - They had to hew a living out of a very sterile soil, and to - learn all the virtues of thrift and prudence from actual - practise. They didn't have any houses or money or matches or - anything. They just had to make them, and learn not to be - aristocrats, instead of learning to be. They had to _make_ New - England. Well, my grandparents and my great-great-great-greats - did an awful lot about this. There wouldn't be any Cape Cod, if - it hadn't been for these Industries that they were engaged in, - and it's the most romantic thing, the way even young children - lived this seagoing, hardy life in the school of hard knocks. My - grandfather was a cook at a very early age, and was lost at sea, - only he jumped into a coastwise steamer instead of being - drowned. - - It's all wonderful, about grandmother's being courted at a - Harvest Ball, and her grandmother running to get fire in a - swing-pail, and funny little old songs they sing. Do you know - what I feel as if I had done? I feel my roots pushing right down - into the ground, and I love the ground, and it loves my roots. - - Also, I love you, my own Jeanie, and more so all the time as I - grow better. Some time I am going to show you all this Cape. - Well, now I must take up my cross and my scare again. I almost - forgot it when I was writing. - - Your - ELIZABETH. - -When she had finished and stamped this letter, Elizabeth took it in her -hand and went slowly down the stairs. It was nearly time for the -auto-bus from the morning train, the rumble of which could be heard -distinctly on the street beyond that on which the old house stood. -Elizabeth always waited for this before she went to the post office. She -had heard the whistle of the train some time since. - -Her grandmother stood at the door. - -"The barge has turned in on our street, and it's stopping here," she -said, "I guess we're going to have company. I'm dretful glad Father -killed those roosters this morning. There's plenty cooked." - -"Who do you suppose it is?" Elizabeth said. - -"Some o' Father's folks. They're always turning up when least expected." - -Elizabeth watched the high-set, curtained vehicle, a hybrid motor truck -and picnic carryall that had been converted to its present use by the -exigencies of "depot" traffic. A boy in overalls had descended from the -driver's seat, and was lifting out a small motor trunk by its handle, -and a big, pig-skin suitcase. - -"Why, that's like Mother's trunk," Elizabeth said, "and that suitcase is -like her suitcase." - -A tall, blonde woman in a blue tailored suit and a blue veil jumped -lightly out of the unwieldy conveyance, her hand touching that of the -boy in overalls. - -"Shall I lift these here baggages into the house for you?" he said. - -"Yes, thank you. Thirty-five cents, isn't it? Oh, don't bother to make -change. That's all right." - -"For the Land o' Liberty!" Grandmother exclaimed. "For the land sakes!" - -"Why, it _is_ Mother!" cried Elizabeth. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - - MOTHER - - -Madget was sitting on the floor, and singing to herself: - - "I am a little love, and I'm sitting on the floor. - They put me here to sit and sing, - Eating cookies as I sing, - On Grandma Swiftie's lovely floor. - A little girl I used to be - Is sitting on the floor." - -"Don't you think you have sung almost enough, Madget?" Mrs. Swift said. -"What's the matter, Elizabeth? Don't _you_ think she has?" - -"Oh, I don't know. I was just listening to the sound of your voice, -Mother. It's so good to hear it again--saying anything." - -"No, I don't," said Madget, pausing between selections only long enough -to reply literally to the question addressed to her: - - "A little girl with yellow teeth - Was sitting on the kitchen floor. - She sat and sang most all day long, - And et some cookies all day long, - On Grandma Swiftie's lovely floor." - -"She certainly has a keen sense of rhythm," Mrs. Swift laughed. "You've -grown up so, Elizabeth, I hardly know my child." - -"I'm not really a child any longer, Mother, dear." - -"I don't suppose you would care to walk down to the block and get a -quart of ice-cream so soon after breakfast, would you, dear?" - -"Oh, yes, Mother, I can always eat ice-cream." Elizabeth swept the -gingham frock she was making for Madget out of her lap and rose hastily. - -"I don't think I've quite lost my little girl," Mrs. Swift smiled. - -"For that, Mummy, darling, I won't go. You are just playing tricks on -me, the way you always do, and I fall right into the trap the way I -always do, and oh, it's so good to have it happening again!" - -"You may go for ice-cream if you like, but a maturer Elizabeth might -prefer to wait until it was a little nearer dinner time. When you sat -down, you were going to whip all the seams in that dress before you -moved again." - -"I want some ice-cream!" wailed Madget. - -"You shall have some bye and bye, dear. Don't you know that nice little -girls don't shriek like that?" Elizabeth said. - -"Dear me," Mrs. Swift laughed, "I think I'll have to make a kindergarten -teacher out of you. You have the professionally maternal manner." - -"But I have grown older, Mother, and soberer." - -"You've taken hold of life better. To tell you the truth, I was worried -about you this spring, you seemed to be getting your sense of values so -wrong. You were running around with nice, wholesome children enough, but -your ideas of life seemed to be growing very artificial. That was one -reason I sent you down here by yourself. I was pretty sure that you -would learn some of the essential lessons." - -"I guess you would have been disappointed if I hadn't, Mother. I might -not have. At first I just thought it was all horrid and--common." - -"And what, dear?" - -Elizabeth hung her head. - -"Don't you know that nice little girls don't use that word?" - -"There isn't any other that says it." - -"That is one of the words which reflect on the user. It's one mostly -used by people who have just come to realize that there is a difference -in manners." - -"It's awful to be a snob, isn't it, Mother?" - -"It's unfortunate." - -"I've just discovered that I was one. Mother, what do you suppose made -me so snobbish about the Cape when I first came down? You're not a snob, -and Father isn't, nor Jeanie." - -"I am afraid it was the disadvantage of your bringing up, my dear. We -had some pretty hard knocks when you were growing up. Your father's -advancement came late. We always lived nicely and had the same standards -as other people, but we had a greater struggle to maintain them. Our -lean years gave you a little sense of inferiority, my dear, that's all." - -"Oh, Mother, how much you know and how wise you are! There is something -I wish I could tell you about, Mother, dear, but I can't." - -"You mean about Buddy and Ruth Farraday?" - -"I didn't know you knew," Elizabeth gasped. - -"I didn't until the night I came away, and then Buddy told me. It was -very brave and dear of him." - -"Oh, Mother, what shall we do?" Elizabeth wailed. "Ruthie is going to be -married next week. Maybe before Buddy gets here." - -"Grandmother told me so last night. I don't think there is anything to -do, excepting to let matters take their course." - -"But couldn't you go and see Ruth, and tell her?" - -"Tell her what? That my boy loves her and that she should have loved -him?" - -"Well, she should. She almost does, I think. She's just marrying because -her dreadful mother----" - -"Elizabeth!" - -"She _is_ a dreadful mother." - -"So are we all sometimes, but it takes our contemporaries to judge us." - -"But you are so nice, and she isn't, Mother, dear." - -"Elizabeth, if you are in the confidence of the Farraday family in any -way that I am not, you must not share that confidence with me." - -"But it's Buddy's future we are talking about, and if I know things that -will help us to work it out, I think I ought to be allowed to tell -them." - -"I think I can manage to get a perspective on Buddy's future without -gossiping about the Farradays." - -"Well, why can't you go and tell Ruthie about Buddy? Tell her he--he -loves her, right out?" - -"Why didn't you do that, dear?" - -"I--I was scared to; besides, it would have been sneaky to Buddy, -and----" - -"Exactly." - -"But now she'll be married if somebody doesn't do something." - -"I am afraid there is nothing to be done but sit still and let her _be_ -married." - -"But how can you, Mother?" - -"I don't know how I can, to tell the truth. That's about the hardest -thing any mother does, to sit still and let things happen that involve -her children, but as your father says, a man's first duty is to mind his -own business, and if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." - -"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth. - -"Oh, dear!" echoed Madget. - -"Aren't you happy, Madget?" - -"I want some ice-cream and some doughnuts and some cookies and some -boiled ham, and I want to come and sit on your lap." - -"You may have some ice-cream pretty soon and you may come and sit on my -lap now. Will that do?" - -"I know who I love," Madget said, pushing aside the folds of gingham and -climbing into the coveted place, "but I won't tell." - -"Do you want to see the beautiful present that my mother brought me, -Madget?" - -"I want a beautiful present," said Madget. - -"I am going to give you a present," Elizabeth said, "but not now, -because you asked for it. It isn't nice to ask for things. You must just -wait until people give them to you." - -"All right," Madget said, unexpectedly. - -"That's the way those children are," Elizabeth explained, seriously, -"Moses especially. You tell them what isn't nice, and then they agree -with you, and there isn't any argument. It just leaves you feeling -flat." - -"Madget is only waiting seraphically for her present to come without -asking," Mrs. Swift said. - -"See what I have!" Elizabeth took a gayly-coloured rubber cape and -bathing cap to match from the back of the chair on which she was -sitting, and spread them out for the child's inspection. "I carry them -around everywhere I go, Mother." - -"Rainbows," said Madget, ecstatically. - -"It is all the rainbow colours," Elizabeth said, "isn't it lovely, -Mother, dear?" - -"I'm so glad you like it. I had a bad time making up my mind what to -get." - -"These capes look so grand when you come out of the water, and it's -cold, too, running up to the bath-house. You really need something. Look -here." - -Madget had insinuated her bobbing curls into the depths of the cap, and -then, standing, was swathing herself in the folds of the bright cape. - -"She looks like one of the Stewart babies. I don't know why, but I -suppose it's that dressed-up look they have. Her hair is clean, because -I washed it myself. What are you laughing at, Mother?" - -"It seems so extraordinary to have you in charge of a family of -children." - -"Well, somebody had to take an interest in them. It's Grandmother that -takes the real care of them, though. I only help as I can." - -Mrs. Swift smiled a smile of deep satisfaction into her embroidery. - -"I am very pleased with you, dear," she said. - -"Mother," Elizabeth's gaze became fixed out of the window, "a boy comes -to call on me sometimes. I don't think you would disapprove, because -Grandfather invited him--but there he comes now." - -"He looks like a nice boy." - -"He is. He's quite sensible, when you get to know him." - -"Well, go to the door, Elizabeth. He looks as if he might run away if he -wasn't admitted instantly." - -"I guess he has heard you're here." - -"How do you do?" Tom Robbins said to the widening crack that gave him -his glimpse of Elizabeth, "I can't wait till you get the door open." - -"How do you do?" said Elizabeth. - -"Is Captain Swift at home? I don't want to see him, but I have to ask -for him because he told me to." - -"No, but my mother is," Elizabeth said. - -"Well, I want to see _her_." - -"Here she is, then. Mother," Elizabeth led the way into the living room, -"this is Mr. Robbins." - -"I'm glad to meet Mr. Robbins. I think that his other name is Tom, or if -it isn't it ought to be, for he's the image of the Tom Robbins I knew." - -"Father remembers you," Tom cried. "He used to see you when you were -first married." - -"Take some chairs," Elizabeth said. - -"That's our joke," Tom explained, "the first time I came here Captain -Swift was so full of fun, and everything----" - -"That, well, I got rattled," Elizabeth explained, "so I said, 'take some -chairs,' and we always say it now." - -"Taking chairs just about describes me when I go into a place. I move -around a good deal," Tom said. - -"If I could have my present," Madget interrupted from the sofa, "I -_would_ be good." - -"At dinner time I am going to give it to you." - -"All right," Madget said, "I'll go ask Grandma Swift to have my dinner." - -"Isn't she cunning?" Tom looked after her as she trotted off. "Oh, -Elizabeth, I'm going to give Moses my old bicycle. It isn't doing any -one any good now. I'm making him a rack to go in front, that he can -carry milk bottles on." - -"Grandfather will give him a job carrying milk then," Elizabeth said. -"Won't that be fine?" - -"It seems to me that you children are quite practical philanthropists. I -think you are doing wonders for the Steppes." - -"It's all Elizabeth," Tom said, "she's the one that got us all thinking -of it. What I came in this morning for is this, Mrs. Swift. Our family -is going to give a big, old-fashioned clambake on the beach the first -pleasant day after Monday, and we wanted--that is, I did--we thought -perhaps Peggy and Elizabeth might like to come. It'll be great fun. Bill -and I are going to help dig the clams. Of course it's just a family -affair, and I don't know whether Father knows you are in town, Mrs. -Swift, but I am sure if you would like to come, too, we should all be so -very glad. We thought of Elizabeth and Peggy first, you see." Tom was -very confused. - -"That's very kind of you, Tom, but I shouldn't be able to go. I am -expecting my husband and my sick son almost any day now, and my object -in coming ahead of them is to get everything in running order for them, -but I am sure Elizabeth would be delighted to go, and I should be very -glad for her to." - -"Oh, thank you. Mrs. Farraday said that Peggy could come if Elizabeth -could. I think it will be pretty good sport. It will be a regular, -old-fashioned clambake, you know, with the clams banked in bricks and -sand, and all the things wrapped in seaweed and steamed in--in their own -steam. We have one every year, and some of our family comes from a long -way to be there." - -"I think it will be beautiful," Elizabeth said. "I am so glad Mummy will -let me go." - -"I wish I had my twenty-seven white horses," she sighed, as she watched -Tom's retreating figure. "He's nice mannered, isn't he? He always whips -off his hat at the gate, just like that. He'd count for one red-head so -nicely. I got my ninety-nine Negroes, but the white horses are very hard -to get. I've only got four and a half, and I'm not sure it wasn't the -same white horse all the time." - -"Four and a half white horses?" Mrs. Swift looked up inquiringly. - -"A white goat. That's what I mean by half. We saw him one way down in -Chatham. I don't really mean to count him unless we get desperate. I -don't suppose it's quite fair." - -"We have to make a good many compromises in this day and age, but it -doesn't seem to me that a goat would make an efficient substitute for a -horse. Why stop there? Why not a pig or a bear?" - -"Well, I didn't really mean to count him. Peggy and I get discouraged, -and then we try to think of encouraging things." - -"I haven't seen Peggy yet." - -"She's coming soon, but she has to help Ruth make that dreadful -trousseau. I'm going upstairs and get Madget's doll, and then I'm going -to telephone and see where she is." - -Solemnly seated on the floor in the guest chamber, Elizabeth found -Madget contemplating the Little Red Riding Hood doll that Mrs. Swift had -brought for her. It stood upright on the bureau and returned her gaze -complacently. - -"Is that my present?" Madget said. "I want it." - -"You shouldn't have come upstairs without being sent, Madget." - -"I was sent. You sent me for a thimble." - -"But that was yesterday." - -"Here it is," Madget said, producing it with a wide smile. - -"Yes, that's your present," Elizabeth said in despair. "Take it." - -Madget took it. - -"My baby dolly!" she cried. - -As Elizabeth started downstairs again, she heard Peggy's voice. - -"You don't need to telephone," Peggy cried, from the sitting room, "I -came and I brought the bride along with me, what there is left of her." - -"I didn't know it was going to be quite so much trouble to be married," -Ruth Farraday was saying, "perhaps if I had, I wouldn't have attempted -it." - -"Well, this is the last marriage I can ever have in my family," Peggy -said, "unless I ever take the fatal step myself, which I won't. You're -just the same, aren't you, Elizabeth? You can only have one outside of -your own." - -"I don't think Buddy will ever marry," Elizabeth said, looking at Ruth -Farraday. - -"My son is coming to-morrow or the next day," Mrs. Swift said, hastily, -"we hope that Cape Cod is really going to make him well again." - -"He'll be here in time for the wedding," Peggy said, "if he is invited." - -"We were planning to have only the family," Ruth said, "but not having -two sisters to add the proper touch of picturesqueness, I asked -Elizabeth to stand with Peggy." - -"She never opened her mouth," said the incorrigible Peggy, indicating -herself, "excepting to put her foot into it." - -"Hush, Peggy," said Ruth, whitening a little, "Mrs. Swift understands. -Peggy regards this wedding as a sort of cross between a picnic and a -visit to the dentist's." - -"I certainly do," said Peggy, "only you don't have to have so many -clothes on those occasions. I don't see why you can't just be married in -what you've got. Well, anyway, that clambake is going to be a ray of -light through the gloom. That's something we can enjoy without any -mixture of our emotions." - -"I shall have to come some day without Peggy," Ruth said, rising, "this -time we were just going by to the post office and she dragged me in." - -"She gets a letter every mail," Peggy explained, "and sometimes two a -mail. If you think I've said awful things, Mrs. Swift, I'm sorry, -but--but----" - -"I assure you they are nothing to the things she could say," Ruth -laughed. "I'm glad she has Elizabeth's restraining influence. I suppose -the two are so different that that's the reason they get on so well." - -"Elizabeth's a perfect lady," Peggy said. - -Mrs. Swift stood at the window and watched the two girls go down the -path, Ruth's pink linen and close-fitting white sweater outlining her -extreme slenderness and her little feet set with a delicate deliberation -as she moved. - -"She _is_ an apple-blossom girl," she said, thoughtfully, "poor Buddy!" - -"Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother," Elizabeth wailed, flinging her arms around -her, "isn't it perfectly terrible? I am so glad you are here. I don't -believe I could have borne it another minute without you." - -"Well, now, I guess you're satisfied," Grandfather said, coming in on -this tableau. "I guess you've got about all you need to make you happy, -ain't you?" - -Elizabeth threw a forlorn glance at her mother. - -"I need other things to make me happy," she said, "but I'm perfectly -satisfied with this darling person, all the same." - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - - ELIZABETH IS SCARED - - -"Well, Baby." - -"Well, Daddy." - -Elizabeth and her father were the first ones down to breakfast on the -morning after his arrival with Buddy--the first of the visiting family, -at least. Grandfather had been outside and at work since dawn, and -Grandmother and Judidy had been in the kitchen almost as long, employed -in magnificent preparations for feasting the returned sons of the house. - -"What is all this radiance for this morning, Elizabeth? Me or Buddy or -the new roadster?" - -"You _and_ Buddy _and_ the new roadster, Father, darling. The roadster -was the completest surprise, but I am more intimately fond of you and -Buddy. I just can't believe you are here. I gave myself a good hard -pinch every time I woke up in the night, to try to make myself believe -it. The last time, I got up and sneaked to your door and listened to -hear if you were breathing." - -"Well, was I?" - -"You were doing more than that, Daddy." - -"Where did you sleep when they turned you out of your room for John?" - -"I'll show you bye and bye, Daddy. I've got a room of my own, and all I -had to do was to put a tiny, weeny little bed in it. I thought that was -going to crowd it dreadfully. Instead, it is very becoming to it. Faith, -Hope, and Charity guard my slumbers, only I couldn't slumber, I was so -excited." - -"Faith, Hope, and Charity?" her father looked inquiring. - -"They are my guardian angels, borrowed from Aunt Helen by permission of -Grandmother. Would you like to go out and see the pigs, Daddy?" - -"I'd like to but I don't think we've time before breakfast." - -"Well, their names are Faith, Hope, and Charity, also--this new litter, -I mean. Grandfather let me name them. They are excruciatingly cunning, -Daddy. Faith and Hope keep themselves a little messily, but Charity is -as clean as a kitten. She knows her name, too, and comes when you call -her by it." - -"Her?" - -"Well, him or her. All their names are nice and non-committal. They can -be boys or girls, whichever they like." - -"I should think they were committed to a great deal, in either event." - -"Well, children," Grandmother appeared behind a platter heaped high with -crisp, hot doughnuts, "have you got a good appetite for your breakfast?" - -"It seems so funny to think of your being Grandmas child," Elizabeth -said. - -"But I am." - -"Well, it's hard to believe it." - -Grandfather, who had followed on his wife's heels, took his place at the -head of the table, and shook out his napkin. - -"I've heard tell of a feller that went driving down Chatham way one -day," he said, "and he come to an old house in the woods, and there he -found a little old man sitting on the doorstep that was so old and -palsied and shaky, he could hardly make out to speak at all. Well, this -feller he wanted to find out how the old man happened to be left alone -at his great age, with no care nor companionship nor nothing, so he -asked him; he says 'Do you live all alone here?' he says. The little old -man he was so deaf he couldn't hardly hear nothing, but this feller he -asked him again, and he put his hand up to his ears and just made out to -catch the question. 'No,' he says in his high-pitched, quavering voice, -'No, I don't live here all alone, I live here with my father.'--'Your -father?' this feller says, all taken aback, 'Your father? Have you got a -father? Where is he?' The little old man he hardly made out to get this -question at all, but after a long time, when it had been repeated to him -over and over again, he managed to understand it. 'Where's Father?' he -says. 'You ask me where my father is? Well, where should he be, 'cepting -upstairs, putting Grandfather to bed.'" - -Mr. Swift laughed immoderately. - -"I suppose it does look a little like that to Elizabeth," he said. -"She's used to thinking of me as being about as old as that kind of -relative gets to be." - -"Grandfather's whole life is spent in teasing me," Elizabeth said, "it's -bread and butter and pie and cake to him." - -"By the way, Father, where is your pie this morning? I didn't know that -you ever started the day without it, but I don't see it on the table." - -"Now, I am going to tell something on Father," Grandmother said, slyly. -"He ain't had a piece o' pie for his breakfast since Elizabeth come, and -he wouldn't let me put none on the table, either." - -"I was afraid she'd get to making it the way she makes cake, and I'd -have to eat it whether or no." Grandfather mopped his brow with a great -show of vigour. - -"It warn't that," Grandmother smiled. "He was just sprucing up for his -city granddaughter a little. He went down street and got two new -neckties and a white cotton vest before she'd been here a week. He had -to kind of jerk Elizabeth down a peg and jerk himself up several to meet -her." - -"Why, Granddaddy _Swift_," Elizabeth said, "have you been going without -your breakfast pie on my account?" - -"Who said breakfast pie?" a gaunt figure in khaki appeared in the -doorway, and Elizabeth, with one admonishing finger still uplifted, -turned from her grandfather and with one leap hurled herself upon it. -"I'm going to get out of these clothes to-morrow," Buddy continued, -calmly, holding his sister off with one hand, "but I have forgotten how -to get into regular trousers before breakfast. Emerson, the well-known -sage of Concord, used to eat pie for his breakfast--pumpkin pie, and it -goes very well with coffee." - -"Grandfather won't let me have so much as a snitch of coffee," Elizabeth -pouted, still clinging to him. - -"Not even a demi-tassy," Grandfather put in, slyly. - -"And a good thing, too," Buddy said. "Granddad, your ideas of bringing -up Elizabeth are a good deal like my own--a firm, strong hand applied -wherever necessary." - -"And last but not least--Mother," said Elizabeth, pausing in the midst -of a grimace at her brother. "I never knew you to be the last one at the -breakfast table in my life before, Mother." - -"I'm glad," Mrs. Swift said, as she took her place between her children, -"and oh, John and I have our napkin rings! I was going to bear it with -resignation if we didn't, but I am so glad to see them again. We had -them on our honeymoon, you know." - -"Elizabeth had one for a while, but she didn't seem to admire it, not -what you might call beyond reason," Grandfather said. - -"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth, "the instances keep piling up of the way he -has seen right through me from the first minute of my coming, but now -I'm beginning to see through him," she added, triumphantly. - -"When anybody makes up their mind they are beginning to see through -Father, there is generally breakers ahead for them," Grandmother said, -thoughtfully. - -"It's from Father that I get whatever business acumen I have," John -Swift said; "let the other fellow think he is getting away with -everything, and then when he has given himself entirely away, never let -up on him." - -"Yes, that's my principle," Grandfather said, complacently. - -"I'm going into Father's office, did you know it?" Buddy said. "Until -day before yesterday I might just as well have thought of getting a job -with J. P. Morgan, and then suddenly this opening came, and my old boss -recommended me for it." - -"We lost a good man suddenly," John Swift explained, "and yesterday -morning old Howard came in to me and asked me what I knew of a youngster -named John Smith that used to be with the Urner Company. I was pretty -sure he had got the name wrong, so I told him I'd call up the Urner -office and find out if he was the one I thought he was. In the -afternoon, just before I left, Howard asked me if I found out anything -about the boy, and if I knew anything to his advantage or disadvantage. -'I do,' I said, 'both. He's my son.' 'We'll take him in,' Howard said, -'I guess you know how to handle him by this time.'" - -"You see," Buddy explained, "I began to get busy on the hospital wire -just as soon as I realized I was cured, and my old boss is a white man, -if ever there was one." - -"Not going to Russia just at present?" his father asked. - -"Not going to Russia," Buddy said, steadily. - -After breakfast Elizabeth had her first minute alone with her brother. -They were in the living room, in Grandmother's and Grandfather's chairs -respectively, with the big fern branching between them. - -"Well, Sister?" Buddy said. - -"Well, Buddy!" - -"What do you know about Ruth, now?" - -"About Ruth?" - -"Yes, Sister, darling, you heard me the first time." - -"You mean how--how is she?" - -"I mean, tell me everything you know that you haven't told me before." - -"Haven't you talked with Mother about her since you came?" - -"Not a word." - -"Hasn't she told you----" - -"Nothing." - -"Well, then, I've got to." - -"You certainly have--and quick," said Buddy. "What is it? Fire away." - -"Ruth--Ruth is going to--to get married next week--Thursday." - -"Oh!" Buddy's jaw shut on the monosyllable. - -"It was hurried up all of a sudden. I saw her and talked with her on the -beach once, and she said to tell you that your telegram was a day too -late." - -"Thanks," said Buddy, briefly. - -"She sent her love, and said you were a day too late." - -"We'll see about that. Is this Chambers fellow around?" - -"No, he is in Boston, but he comes down to see her all the time." - -"We'll see about that, too. What's her telephone number?" - -"Thirty-two, ring eleven. You have to ring in, you know--that handle on -the box, and ask Central." - -"Oh, I know," said Buddy, "telephone is nice and convenient, isn't it? -Anybody on the farm can hear from this location," he picked up the -instrument from the desk in the corner. - -"Shall I go?" Elizabeth asked. - -"No, dear." - -"I want to speak to Miss Ruth Farraday--Mr. Swift." He put his hand over -the mouthpiece, the fingers trembled slightly, but his voice was cool, -"I guess that was your friend Peggy. Sounded like a flapper's voice. -She's gone to call her. Oh, hello, Ruth," he said into the instrument, -"this is John. Yes, I managed to squirm out. Fine, thank you. A little -under weight, that's all. I want to see you. Now, this morning, may I -come over there? I wouldn't take up much time. Yes it _is_ important. -Oh, all right, that will be better yet. I am perfectly able to make it, -but I'd rather have you here if you'll come. All right. In about half an -hour. All right. Good-bye." - -"She's coming here," he explained to Elizabeth, "she was starting out to -do some errands. She didn't want me there, at any rate. Perhaps Chambers -is expected." - -"The walls of that house are as thin as paper," Elizabeth said, "and I'm -glad you don't have to go there. Her mother might be around." - -"It's awfully decent of her to come here." - -"She _is_ awfully decent." - -"She's scared." - -"Who wouldn't be?" Elizabeth said. "My gracious!" - -"I suppose I ought to try to get into some kind of decent clothes." - -"No," said Elizabeth, "stay in those." - -"But I've been mustered out. I ought to be in 'cits'." - -"She'd like you better in those," Elizabeth said, positively. - -"How do you know?" - -"I don't know how I know, but I know," Elizabeth said. "I'm a girl, and -I know." - -"I guess you are," Buddy said. "I never thought of it before, but you're -a girl and you've got a line on girls. Do I look pretty punk to you? -Cadaverous and all that?" - -"You are the handsomest thing," Elizabeth cried, "that I ever saw, -Buddy. You used to be good looking, but now you've got a kind -of--look--a soulful look--that----" - -"That'll do. I was only interested in my physical aspect." - -"Well, that's perfect," Elizabeth said. - -"Is my face clean?" - -"Let me see. Yes, it is, perfectly." - -"Then I won't go upstairs at all. You just sit around and help me kill -time till she comes." - -"Oh, Buddy, can I kiss you just once?" - -"You cannot," said Buddy. "I've changed a good deal in a great many -ways, but I haven't got to the point where I like to be kissed after -breakfast yet." - -"You used to write pretty affectionately from those old trenches." - -"There was an ocean between us then, and it was perfectly safe." - -"I think men are the funniest things," Elizabeth said. "It isn't that -they don't want to be loved----" - -"No, it isn't," said Buddy. "So tell Mother to keep the coast clear, -will you, and then come back. No, don't come back. I'll watch for Ruth -and let her in. No, you watch for Ruth and let her in. You bring her in -here, and then get out unless I tell you to stick around. See?" - -"You can't tell me that before her." - -"I can tell anybody anything before her." - -"All right," Elizabeth said, "but--but I'm scared, Buddy." - -"You--you go to the deuce," her brother said, and only then did -Elizabeth realize the strain under which he was labouring. - -It was with a face nearly as white as Buddy's own that she opened the -door to Ruth a few minutes later. - -"Buddy's in there," she said, weakly, to Ruth's inquiry. - -"Come and show me," Ruth said. - -"Right this way," Elizabeth said, superfluously. "Buddy, here's Ruth." - -"All right," said Buddy, unfolding his long legs from the rocking chair, -and advancing so slowly that Elizabeth knew he was trembling with -weakness, "you may go now, Elizabeth." - -"Please," said Ruth Farraday in her low voice, "let her stay." - -"All right," said Buddy, "you may stay, Elizabeth." - -"I'd rather go," said Elizabeth, miserably. But neither of the two paid -any more attention to her. - -Ruth put out her hand, and then when Buddy would have taken it, withdrew -it. - -"I am going to be married," she said, "next week. Did Elizabeth tell -you?" - -"Yes," said Buddy. "It's me you should be marrying. You know that, don't -you?" - -"No," said Ruth Farraday. "Yes, I do know it, I think. But it's too late -now." - -"It's not too late." - -"You don't seem to understand that I am going to be married--married -next week." - -"I heard you the first time," said Buddy, grimly. - -"Well?" - -"You are my girl," said Buddy, "and you know it." - -"Supposing I do," said Ruth Farraday, "what then?" - -"Then this marriage is a lie. It can't happen." - -"It has--happened, as far as I am concerned. I have given my word." - -"Ruth, you can't mean that." - -"But I do." - -"It means a lifetime of misery for three people." - -"But it's all done, now. That's all there is to say." - -"You mean, you haven't the courage to break away?" - -"I mean more than that. This has happened, that's all, I've given my -word. I've let things get where they are. If you wanted to marry me, you -should have told me when I was free. I waited for you, for just a word -or a line from you." - -"I was sick." - -"I wasn't waiting for you to get well, and write me you were well. I -wanted to know that you thought of me when you were sick." - -"Oh, Ruth, I didn't think of anything else." - -"I waited as long as I could, that was all." - -"Ruth----" Buddy said, "Ruth----" He took a long step toward her, "Get -out of this room, Elizabeth," he said, steadily, "you are willing for -her to go, dear, aren't you?" he said, as Ruth put out a restraining -hand. - -"Oh, I don't know. Oh, I don't know." - -"I'd better go," said Elizabeth, and Buddy nodded to her as she slipped -out. Before the door had closed on her, he had walked across the floor -and taken Ruth Farraday in his arms. - -It was nearly half an hour later that Elizabeth, watching from the room -above, saw Buddy walk with Ruth to the gate, open it for her, and stand -with his head bared as she walked down the street. She ran down the -stairs breathlessly to meet him as he came in. - -"Is it all right?" she asked. "Oh, Buddy, is it all right?" - -"It's all right, little sister," Buddy said, "it's all right anyway, the -way she wants it. She won't break it off. She thinks it wouldn't be -honourable." - -"But she must break it off, Buddy. It'll kill you if she doesn't." - -"No, it won't. She must do what she wants to do." - -"But she doesn't know what she wants," Elizabeth cried. - -"She knows what's right for her." - -"I don't believe she does at all." - -"You don't know." - -"I do know this," Elizabeth cried, "you can't stand it, Buddy, it will -kill you. It will kill you." - -"All right, then," said Buddy, "let it. But I don't think it's going to. -She wouldn't want it to, you see." - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - - ELIZABETH SHAKES HANDS - - -"Well," Peggy said, surveying the picnic tables set up in the pine grove -beyond their customary bathing beach, "this is certainly some party. I -never saw so many pumpkin pies in conclave assembled in all my life." - -"Pumpkin pies are just the background," Elizabeth said, "all these -regular New England dishes don't count; they always have them. Brown -bread and biscuits and cake and watermelon. They always have them. The -stuff they are baking is the real party." - -"This being your first clambake, you are just repeating what you've been -told. I know. It was nice of the boys to send for us, so we could be -sure and be here early, but where are they?" - -"Mrs. Something-or-other Robbins, that tall woman with the earrings, -told me the boys had been sent to Harwich for some more provisions, but -they will be back right away." - -"Rather a good-looking crowd of people, aren't they? And what a lot of -work they've done. These tables were put up last night, and every family -contributed some of this milder grub--I mean these foods on the tables, -if I must be polite. The men dug the clams and furnished all the other -things. I asked Tom how they managed. Look, there are Mabel and Madget -down on the beach, right in the heart of the bake. I'll bet Tom told -them they could hang around." - -"Do you know what, Peggy?" - -"What particular what?" - -"Mabel is my last red-head." - -"Well, she's my next to the last, come to think of it. It was lucky we -went to the cattle show, and got all those white horses at once." - -"I am not going to shake hands with anybody to-day. It's hard to -remember, though. Just now I shook hands with Tom's father and his -uncle." - -"Those old men don't count, anyway." - -"Are you sure? Tom's uncle is quite a young widower, Mother says." - -"Well, you don't have to worry, because you didn't have Mabel when you -shook hands. Now is the time to look out." - -"You are safe until you see another red-head." - -"Let's go down on the beach and see what the mound builders have -accomplished," Peggy said, "that large woman in the yellow skirt is -going to come over here and entertain us if we don't." - -"I think we will go down on the beach," Elizabeth said to the large -woman, as they turned to walk in her direction, "of course we would like -to help if we could, but Mrs. Robbins said there wasn't anything left to -do." - -"We have everything done, I think," said the woman, whose name they did -not know. "The boys are going to bring back some vines to trail over the -table, and some paper napkins to twist up in the glasses. We do -everything the same way every year, to keep up the tradition." - -"I think it's awfully nice," said Peggy, "and we appreciate being -included." - -"We always have a table of young people. The boys are always privileged -to invite their--friends. Dear me, I must count noses." - -"There she bustles off, counting noses," Peggy said. "I don't like her -so much, but I guess she's a good-hearted one. Now's our chance to break -away." - -They scrambled down the steep embankment to the beach. - -"That's the only time I ever didn't slide down, sitting," Peggy said. "I -don't believe in being civilized unless you have to. I only ate a -cross-section of burnt toast this morning, and drank some feeble cocoa. -I'll be too hungry to eat pretty soon. We now approach the most -celebrated of all the relics of the mound builders, a perfectly intact -mound about six feet long and broad in proportion. This mound is a -perfect specimen of the mound builders art. It is made of bricks and -sand. A huge fire was first built on the base of this erection, in the -ashes of which are baking, at the present moment, luscious ears of corn -dressed in their original wrappers, huge sweet, or garden potatoes, -clams by the galore, as our cook says, and, I strongly suspect, lobsters -and bluefish, to complete the assortment. Dost like the picture, Love?" - -"What's all that seaweed sticking out?" - -"The things are steamed in seaweed, darling. That's what gives them -their galumptious flavour." - -Mabel and Madget drew near as they saw their friends approaching. - -"Is it a grave?" Madget asked in an awed whisper, as she indicated the -erection respectfully. - -"It's a giant's grave," Peggy said. "Fee, foo, fi, fum. Can't you smell -the blood of an English giant?" - -"No, I can't," said Mabel, "them's just clams, and we'm going to have -some. Moses has gone to ride with Tom and he told me to stay here and -watch, to see if the clams didn't burn. They ain't burnt yet." - -"How's your mother?" Elizabeth asked, hastily, as she saw the rising -laughter in Peggy's eyes. - -"She's better, and she's got a purple velvet dress," Mabel said, "she -got breakfast to-day, too." - -"What did she get for breakfast?" - -"Fried fish and potatoes, and elderberry wine." - -"I shall choke," Peggy cried, "anything anybody says to-day strikes me -so funny." - -"You can laugh at me," Mabel said, unexpectedly, "I don't care. I ain't -funny." - -Peggy sank on the sand and gave way to merriment. Mabel regarded her -kindly, and Elizabeth took advantage of the occasion to tie four -shoe-strings in double bows, and comb two curly heads with the side comb -of which she relieved the helpless Peggy. - -"This week has been such an awful strain," Peggy said, wiping her eyes, -"that whenever I get a reaction, I'm off. Oh, there come the boys, now." - -"Awfully sorry," Tom said, hurrying down the beach. He gave a hand to -Peggy, which she shook heartily, and then extended it to Elizabeth, who -was a little farther away. - -Elizabeth gave a little shriek, and put her own hands behind her back. - -"I've got a kind of a sore finger," she said. - -"I'll remember and not scrunch it," Tom said, "if I get the chance, that -is." - -"It's going to be sore all the week, isn't it, Elizabeth?" asked the -irrepressible Peggy. "I'm all right, because I'm--oh!--oh!" she -shrieked, glancing at Tom's blazing hair. - -"What's all this mystery?" Bill said, joining the group. - -"Peggy is just slightly indisposed, as usual," Tom said. "She has one of -her light attacks of mental derangement." - -"I'm a psycho--psycho--whatever--it--is case," Peggy said. "I'll be all -right when I have had most of what's under there." - -"It's a giant's grave full of clams and oysters and ice-cream and potato -salud and pumpkin pie," Madget elucidated in a sing-song voice, "and I -am going to have some of all of it." - -"Doesn't leave much room for the giant, does it, Madget?" Tom said, "but -you are right about having some of all of it. We have a nice New York -guy coming pretty soon. I asked him specially for you, Elizabeth. I know -you have a warm spot in your heart for anybody that lives around Grant's -Tomb." - -"Is he your cousin?" Elizabeth said. - -"No, he's just a fellow I see around the town sometimes. We hit it off -pretty well, and he doesn't know many people." - -"What's his name?" - -"Stoddard, Robert Stoddard." - -"Where does he live?" - -"New York City, New York State, Manhattan Island." - -"I mean, what part of New York?" - -"Oh, I don't know that. New York's all New York to me." - -"I'm going to live in New York next year," Elizabeth said. - -"I thought you always had." - -"No, we lived in New Jersey, but now we're going to take an apartment in -town. It's just been decided, and I am so excited about it, I can hardly -breathe." - -"What about school?" Peggy asked. - -"I am going to study with Jean this winter. She has always had private -teachers, you know." - -"That will be fine for you," Peggy said, "but don't let's think about -next winter. When do we eat, Bill?" - -"In about half an hour, or less." - -"Come on up to the grove," Tom said. "I told Bob I'd meet him by the -road and kind of work him in among the crowd. We sure have a raft of -relations when they are all got together." - -"Shall we bring Madget and Mabel?" - -"Sure. Moses is up there now, right in the heart of the picnic. He was -trying to catch watermelon juice between the cracks of the table, where -they were cutting it, the last I saw of him." - -"I want some watermelon," said Madget, leading the procession. - -"Did you see what I did?" Peggy whispered to Elizabeth as they followed -the others. "I shook hands with Tom. I never thought. I just did, that's -all." - -"But you didn't have your last red-head." - -"He made the last red-head, don't you see?" - -"I never thought of that. Do you think he counts that way?" - -"I don't know whether he does or not. I don't want to count him, but I -want to play fair. Only I shouldn't think, as a general proposition, -that shaking hands with your last red-head mattered one way or the -other. I didn't even consciously remember that he was my last red-head." - -"Well, then, I don't think he's the one. If you had really counted him -first as a red-head and then shaken hands with him, you'd have to call -him the first boy you shook hands with, but he really isn't, as it -stands. Now that you've counted him, if you shook hands with him again, -why----" - -"Well, you bet I won't. I'll put my hands behind me the way you did." - -"I thought just in time." - -Tom dropped behind his friends. - -"Bill wants you to walk with him," he said to Peggy. - -"Sure I do, but Tom said it first," Bill grinned, "he wants to walk with -you, Elizabeth." - -"I'll beat you climbing up the bank," Peggy cried, making for the sheer -wall of soil and roots ahead of them. - -"You won't beat me," Elizabeth said, "I'll go round by the road, thank -you." - -"Some people have a great amount of superfluous energy," Tom said, "Bill -and Peggy are pretty well matched for that." - -"Peggy is only a tomboy at times," Elizabeth said, "she really has quite -an old mind, when you get to know her as well as I do." - -"I'd rather get to know you as well as she does." - -"Well, she sees me every day, almost." - -"I wish it hadn't been almost halfway through the summer before you and -I met. I've got to go home Monday," Tom said, mournfully. - -"I didn't know that. I thought you were going to stay through September, -like the rest of us." - -"Well, it's all decided for Monday." - -"That's too bad. It will break up our summer crowd, sort of." - -"Is that all you care?" - -"I--I'm sorry," said Elizabeth. - -"Well, I suppose I ought to be thankful for small favours. I haven't -hardly seen you, except around at your grandfather's, and with Peggy and -everything." - -"I think we've had a good time," Elizabeth said. - -Tom kicked out at a giant horseshoe that obstructed his path. - -"Darn the good time," he said. - -"Well," said Elizabeth, hastily, "we'd better catch up with the -children. I don't know what they'll be into." - -"They'll be all right," Tom muttered. - -"Isn't that your friend waiting up there by the path?" - -"Oh, I suppose so." - -"Tom," Elizabeth said, "don't be cross. I haven't done anything, have -I?" - -"No, and you won't do anything. That's the trouble. Even say a kind -word. Come ahead, I suppose I've got to collect that guy and drag him -round among the animals." - -"That isn't a very nice way to speak of your relations." - -"Elizabeth, there's Bill and Peggy talking to Bob--he'll keep a minute. -Aren't you sorry that I'm going away Monday?" - -"Of course I am." - -"How sorry?" - -"Quite a lot." - -"Will you write?" - -"If Mother'll let me." - -"Does she usually let you?" - -"Well, she never has." - -"You told me yourself that Peggy wrote to a boy. Bill's going to get her -to write to him." - -"I said I would if my mother will let me." - -"The question is--will she?" - -"If she does, I will. Aren't you satisfied?" - -"No, you are just saying that to please me!" - -"Don't you want to be pleased?" - -"Not like that." - -"I don't know what you want me to say." - -"Would you say it if you did?" - -"How do I know?" - -"Girls are the hardest things to get anything out of--Elizabeth"--little -beads of dampness stood out on Tom's forehead--"Elizabeth, will you, I -mean, do you, I mean, would you care----" - -"Hurry up there," Peggy called. - -"Everybody's supposed to take their places," Bill cried, "come ahead, -you two." - -"They want us," Elizabeth said, relieved that the tête-à -tête was -over. - -"We're all introduced," Peggy said, "but Elizabeth." - -"Miss Swift, I want you to meet my friend Mr. Stoddard," Tom said, doing -the honours. - -The tall boy standing between Peggy and Bill put out his hand, and -Elizabeth slipped hers into it. - -"I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Stoddard," she said. - -The warning cry from Peggy came too late. - -"Now, you've done it!" she said. - -"What has she done?" the tall boy asked. His eyes were brown and amused, -and he had to look down several inches even to reach the level of the -lanky Peggy. - -"Nothing, really. She had a--sore finger, and I was afraid----" - -"I've heard about that sore finger before," Bill said, "there's some -kind of a mystery about it." - -"We're just full of the dickens to-day," Peggy explained, hastily, "this -sparkly air has gone to my head--our heads, I guess. Elizabeth always -behaves better than I do, but she's as far gone as she ever is to-day. -We've just been giggling at nothing all the morning." - -"If you can call Mabel and Madget nothing," Elizabeth supplemented. - -"Let's go eat, let's go eat, let's go eat," Bill chanted. "I am so -starved, I am weak. Tom and I didn't eat any breakfast this morning." - -"I guess that's what's the matter with him," Elizabeth smiled at him. - -"All right," Tom said in an undertone. "I'll come out of it--for you." - -"It was me that you went into it for," Elizabeth whispered, saucily. - -The Steppe children in a comparatively decorous row were much more -nearly a social success than on their first public appearance. They ate -steadily and conscientiously, and their table manners compared not -unfavourably with those of the other children of the party. Most of -these ate with their parents. Two boys of thirteen, twins, and two girls -a little younger than Peggy and Elizabeth were at the low table, at the -end of the two long rows of family tables that Tom had designed for his -guests. - -"Bet you I can eat more clams than you can," Bill challenged Peggy. - -"I hope you can," said Peggy, "my idea is to go easy on the clams, eat -two sweet potatoes, one lobster, a soupçon of bluefish, all the corn I -can hold, because that's the best of all, with that grand, sea-weedy -taste it's got, and this lovely, gooey, trickly butter. Then I shall -really fill up on cake and pie. I'm not going to eat any bread, because -that takes room." - -"You are going to eat watermelon?" Bill asked, anxiously. - -"I'm going to take one of those boatshaped pieces and get in," Peggy -said. - -"The beauty of this party," Bob Stoddard said, "is that you can treat -everything like that. You can snuggle right down into all the edibles." - -"I'm snuggling into my clams," Elizabeth said. "Isn't it funny that the -clams you get in New York are so distinct from these clams? They are -just like different animals." - -"They _are_ different animals," Bob said. "You like New York, don't -you?" - -"Love it." - -"Well, here's to it, then," he lifted his clam shell gayly, and -Elizabeth gravely lifted one of her own. They drained the liquor -ceremoniously. - -"I hope I shall see you in the winter," Bob Stoddard said. - -"You'll see me," Tom interposed quickly, "I'm coming on to visit you in -my Christmas vacation." - -"You said that last year." - -"Well, this year I'm coming." - -"I'm in a comatose condition," Peggy complained at dusk, as they -lingered under their favourite tree to talk over the events of the day. -"I hope nobody will ever mention any kind or variety of food to me -again. If Tom hadn't brought all that candy, I should feel better, and I -think those ice-cream cones we had on the way were nasty." - -"They tasted nice and cooling at the time," Elizabeth said. "I wouldn't -want another one right now." - -"And your family are all in the house there, eating," Peggy said. "Can't -you hear the merry clatter of their knives and forks?" - -"Don't mention it, Peggy. Do you realize what happened to me?" - -"You shook hands with that boy, you mean. I tried to warn you, but it -was all over before I could even cough." - -"I know it, and I had been fortifying myself all summer long against -doing anything like that." - -"Well, you won't have to remain in suspense like me." - -"Maybe it's Tom for you, after all." - -"No, I know it isn't. That's a nice boy, though. It would be funny if -you really did grow up and marry him." - -"I'd rather marry somebody that I knew a little better." - -"Well, if you do marry him, you will know him better, that's one -comfort. How's your brother?" - -"He's pretty good. He--he----Oh, he's the best we could hope for him to -be." - -"He's awfully handsome. Do you know what's happened over at my house? My -sister is getting ready to marry a man she isn't even on speaking terms -with. They had some kind of a ruction last night about the war or -something. He drove down, meaning to stay two or three days, and they -had this row, and he just turned around and went back. Meantime, we -merrily make trousseau and wedding chest." - -"I wish that he'd never come," said Elizabeth. - -"Oh, but he will. He'll be back to-morrow morning, with the bells on, -and the flags flying, and a footman on the step of his car to show how -classy he is. Just you wait." - -"Oh, dear," said Elizabeth, with a glance toward the open window of the -dining room where her brother was sitting, "oh, dear, Peggy!" - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - - RUTH - - -The small reception room in the Farraday cottage had been converted into -a temporary sewing room, and here Elizabeth and Peggy were sewing on -their own blue dimity frocks, fitted to them by the Boston seamstress, -who had been working in the house, and finished except for the -hemstitching to be done on sleeves and collar. Peggy sewed neatly but -erratically, exploding into violent protestations when her thread -knotted or her scissors fell. Elizabeth found the steady rhythm of -hemming rather soothing to her, especially to-day, when her heart was so -heavy for her brother. - -"Piggy's--I mean, Mr. Chambers' parents have sent the flat silver," -Peggy announced, "and to my taste it's very hideous. It's the kind with -a beading all around it. If you are going to have elaborate silver, -why--have it. Have Cupids and little birds building nests, but if you -are going to have it simple, why, then it's a crime, I think, to have a -_little_ trimming on it." - -"You've got very good natural taste, Peggy--my mother says so." - -"I know it. So's Ruth. I bet she hates this. Just think, Elizabeth, if -you marry a man it's not only for keeps, but it's for every day, all the -time, whether he likes the things you loathe or not." - -"Have you shaken hands with anybody yet, Peggy?" - -"No, I haven't. Have you seen your future husband again?" - -"I passed him on the street yesterday. I like a boy that really takes -his hat off, instead of fumbling at it." - -"Tom certainly takes his hat off--like a streak." - -"Too much like a streak. Besides, he always wears a cap." - -"I like caps," said Peggy. - -"I don't. I like hats. Bob Stoddard had a hat even at the picnic." - -"Look here, Elizabeth," Peggy said, seriously, "I hope you really won't -get interested in that Stoddard boy. It would be kind of uncanny, and I -should feel too awfully responsible." - -"You didn't do anything about it." - -"I got you into this counting business. I don't really think there is -anything in it, but if there was, I should feel guilty all the rest of -my life. I don't want to have your marital unhappiness to consider, the -way I expect to consider Ruth's." - -"Mr. Chambers came back, didn't he?" - -"I told you he would. They are on the porch now, having a pow-wow. -Mother was so rejoiced over the prodigal's return that it was pitiful." - -"Peggy, don't you wish that Ruth had just happened to fancy my Buddy, -and to have married him instead?" - -"Goodness, yes. Anybody. That doesn't sound very flattering. You know I -would have adored it, but that's too great a piece of luck even to -contemplate. I'd rather she'd marry--Bill Dean than Piggy Chambers. - - "I do not like you, Doctor Fell (Chambers) - The reason why I cannot tell, - But this alone I know full well, - I do not like you, Doctor Fell (Chambers)." - -"It would be nice to have lots of money," Elizabeth said, "and to have -chauffeurs, and butlers, and tall, elegant footmen in green livery, and -estates and things." - -"Oh, yes, it would, if you didn't have to take any incumbrances with -them. If you had to be handcuffed to a fat man, in addition, that would -be something else again." - -"Life is very bewildering. Don't you think so, Peggy?" - -"It doesn't bewilder me. It disgusts me sometimes. All these mixups -could be avoided, if people only wouldn't be short-sighted." - -"Some trouble seems to come from other sources." - -"Yes, but most all the things that people suffer from could be avoided -if they weren't so silly. I notice that all the time." - -"Well, so do I." - -"Hark," said Peggy, "they're at it again. If they row like that before -they are married, what will happen to them in their honeymoon stages?" - -"He's going," Elizabeth said; "she's letting him out of the front door." - -"Good riddance to perfectly good rubbish," said Peggy, "till dinner -time." - - * * * * * - -"No," Ruth's clear voice rose, distinctly, "no, no. I mean what I say." - -"So do I mean what I say. I'll see you at dinner." - -"If you like." - -"Oh, I like!" - -"At seven then." - -"At seven." - -The door closed after him, and Ruth, looking wearier and paler than -Elizabeth had ever seen her, opened the door that led from the reception -room to the hallway, and came in. - -"Take some seats," said Peggy, hospitably. - -Ruth sank into a big wicker armchair without speaking. - -"Lovely weather we're having for this time of year," Peggy continued, -conversationally. "Ruth, dear, I love you." - -"I'm glad of that," Ruth said. - -"So do I!" said Elizabeth, timidly. - -"I'm glad of that, too," said Ruth Farraday, with her charming, wistful -smile. "Well, children, you don't need to go on with those dresses. You -won't have occasion to wear them." - -"What?" said Peggy. - -"I've just told Mr. Chambers that I won't marry him." - -"Does he know it?" - -"Well, not exactly, Peggy--that's his trouble--but he will know it. -I'm--I'm through." - -"I don't believe it," Peggy said. - -"I do, and that's the principal thing," Ruth said. "I never realized how -he felt about certain things before. I hadn't given much thought to his -attitude about the war and all that. I knew he had been a sort of -pacifist, and that he had German friends and business connections. I -like men to be broad-minded. I don't mind a man that sticks to honest -conclusions, if they're sincere, but when I find they are coloured by -physical or moral cowardice, why, then I--I'm through. Albert Chambers -is a coward, and he's a selfish coward. We've had it all out and I -know." - -"Hooray," said Peggy, "I could have told you that any time this summer." - -"And I'm through with marriage or any idea of marriage, so there we -are." - -"I don't envy you the sweet task of breaking it to Mother." - -"Haven't you got any feeling, Peggy? Don't you care how hard the things -are I've been going through?" - -"Don't I?" said Peggy. She flung the folds of muslin wide, and made an -impetuous dive for her sister. "Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie, Ruthie," she cried, -"I'm so glad, I'm trying not to believe it, for fear it isn't so." - -Ruth clung to her wordlessly. - -"I love you, I love you," Peggy whispered. - -"I tried to do the right thing," Ruth said. "It's been hard to know what -was right." - -"_You're_ all right," said Peggy, feebly. "Excuse these tears all down -your back, Ruthie." - -"I've got to be at home for lunch," Elizabeth said. "I--I--they're -expecting me." - -"Don't mind us," Peggy said, "this is only a small family reunion." - -"I think I'd really better go." - -"I'll write a note to your brother, Elizabeth, when it's settled. Mr. -Chambers doesn't even understand it yet, you know." - -"I wouldn't have told Buddy unless you had told me to," Elizabeth said. - -Ruth smiled. - -"I might have known you wouldn't," she said, "your own kind of people -have your own sense of decency, and the others never have." - -"I'm so glad I seem to you like your own kind of people." Elizabeth took -Ruth Farraday's out-stretched hand gratefully. - -"Well, you do, dear, and you always have. On your own account, I mean." -she added, quickly. - -"That's what I meant, too," said Elizabeth, shyly. - - * * * * * - -It was hard to sit through the mid-day meal with the secret that would -change Buddy's world for him locked in her breast, still Elizabeth -managed it somehow. He looked very pale and worn, but the three men kept -up a lively discussion of the impending Presidential campaign and other -political matters. She noticed the respect that both her father and -Buddy paid to Grandfather's opinions on all these subjects. - -Elizabeth wondered how it could be that Buddy could laugh his hearty -laugh, before he knew the thing that she could have told him or how, -when the conversation turned to the question of bait for a day's fishing -on the banks that the three men contemplated, he could discuss worms and -fishing tackle so eagerly. - -"Speaking of fish," Buddy said, "it seems to me that these are -extraordinarily good herrings we are eating. I don't suppose there is -any difference in herrings, but----" - -"Well, you don't suppose right, then," Grandfather said, "there is as -much difference in the herrings that come from Herring River and those -you get over to the westward as there is between some folks. The meat's -whiter and sweeter in the Herring River herrings. I used to think it was -a great thing to go after them in the spring. It don't make no -difference where a herring has been putting in his time in the other -seasons, come spring he makes for the river bed where he was born. I've -seen them so thick on their way up Herring River that they couldn't swim -straight, but had to kind of flop over one side to make way for t'other. -I used to get five cents a hundred for 'em, and kitch 'em as fast as I -could haul 'em out." - -"That isn't true, is it?" asked Elizabeth. "Do herrings go back to the -place where they were born?" - -"Yes, and sometimes they swim a great many hundreds of miles to get -there. They seek the Southern waters in the cold weather, you know, but -they always come back once a year to the stream in which they were -born," Elizabeth's father explained to her. - -"The place where their great-grandfathers were spawned. It's natural," -Grandfather said. - -"I guess it is natural," Elizabeth said, soberly. - -"You bet it is," said Buddy. - -They took a drive in the new roadster that afternoon, and Buddy seemed -so happy and so free during the entire course of the day that Elizabeth -was entirely unprepared to find him, as she found him some time after -supper, flung across the bottom of the big four-poster bed in the guest -room, with his head buried in his hands. - -"Buddy," she said, "Buddy, dear." - -"Oh, I'm all right, Sis. Run along." - -"I thought perhaps you wanted to walk with me to the post office." - -"I do, but it isn't time yet." - -"It's nearly time." - -"When it's time, we'll go." - -"Buddy, I wouldn't feel too bad. Things mightn't be so dreadful as you -think." - -"They might, and then again they mightn't." - -"I wouldn't give up." - -"I've given up everything I can give up." - -"You seem--pretty much all right." - -"Live or die, sink or swim, survive or perish. Them's my slogans. I'll -come through all right. I _am_ all right. Got to be." - -"Oh, Buddy," Elizabeth said, "you _will_ be all right." - -"It's a funny thing, little sister, that you don't irritate me more. It -seems to me that you used to be quite an irritating child, and now I -scarcely mind you, no matter how Paul Pryish or Polly Anna-ish you get." - -"I could irritate you more if I wanted to." - -"I'm perfectly willing to take that for granted." - - * * * * * - -Just as they reached the post office they met the Chambers' car piled -with a full luggage equipment. Albert Chambers sat in lonely state -within, looking neither to right nor left. - -"He didn't go back to dinner, after all," Elizabeth thought, "or at any -rate, he didn't stay." - -Buddy made no comment on this encounter, but he walked composedly -through the crowd overflowing the little building, his head held high, -and all the colour drained from his white face. He even insisted on -stopping at the drug store and regaling Elizabeth with her favourite -marshmallow and maple nut sundae, though he refused all refreshment for -himself. - -"One thing that the life over there taught you was that you've got to -get through every day somehow," he said, thoughtfully. "I wish ice-cream -soda didn't drip so much. There's a row of pink rings and chocolate -rings all along this counter. I don't like them." - -"He thinks everything is perfectly horrid," Elizabeth said to herself, -"and yet he doesn't give in. Oh, I think he's perfectly splendid!" - -They made a detour and came out by the Flatiron field, where the station -road divided itself into two separate byways in the crux of which was a -letter box. Ruth Farraday was in the act of mailing a letter there. It -dropped inside as Elizabeth and Buddy approached. - -"I was just mailing you a letter," Ruth said. - -"Can't I get it out?" Buddy asked. - -"No," Ruth said, "turn and walk with me home, and I'll tell you. -Elizabeth knows already. I've broken my engagement. No, don't say -anything. I--I just want to tell you, that's all." - -"There is so much I _might_ say!" Buddy said. - -"The reason I broke it has nothing to do with anything else--except that -I broke it," she explained, incoherently. "It doesn't mean anything but -that. I shall never marry now, I'm going into reconstruction work -abroad." - -"Not--not right away," Buddy said. - -"As soon as I can make my plans--but there is one thing I want you to -believe. I've written it in the letter, but I don't know whether I've -managed to make it as clear as I meant to. I've broken my engagement -only because Mr. Chambers and I were not suited to each other." - -"I--know that," Buddy said. - -"So this might just as well be good-bye between us." - -"If you wish it so?" - -"Do you doubt I wish it?" - -"No," Buddy said, "I know how you feel." - -"Then--then good-bye." - -"Right here?" said Buddy. "I thought we were going to walk home with -you." - -"I'm nearly home," Ruth said. "Say it now, please." - -"Good-bye," said Buddy. He stood looking at her for a moment, levelly -into her eyes. Then he turned away, wheeling as if he were under orders -to march. - -"Tell me what you know, Elizabeth," he said, as they walked on, and -Elizabeth told him of what had happened at the Farradays that morning. - -"But I thought things were going to be all fixed," she concluded, -miserably, "and now they seem to be in a worse tangle than ever. I don't -see what she's sending you away for." - -"That's all right," said Buddy. "I see." - -"But she said it was good-bye between you." - -"That's all right. It's an ethical question with her. She split up with -him because she couldn't stand him, not because she wanted me. It's like -a gentleman's agreement, you see. You enter into a mutual arrangement -under the supposition that the other fellow is as decent as yourself. -When you find he isn't, that releases you, unless the contract is -actually signed. If he'd been all right, she would have stuck. She wants -me to understand that." - -"But you do understand it, and I don't see why she has to be so cool." - -"I want her to be cool," said Buddy. "What do you think I wanted? To go -in and spend the evening?" - -"Well, that would be better than this." - -"No, it wouldn't," said Buddy. - -"I don't understand you," Elizabeth said. "Perhaps you are not feeling -very well, Buddy. You looked awfully pale there in the post office." - -"I'm not pale now, am I?" - -"No-o, but you look so kind of queer, and you act queer, too, Buddy. I -understood why you respected her feelings when she wouldn't break her -engagement, but now that she has, I don't see why you go right on -respecting them. I--I thought you wanted to marry her yourself." - -"Marry her? Why, I'm going to," said Buddy. "That's the point." - -"When--when?" said Elizabeth. - -"Just as soon as I can get three weeks' salary in my jeans." - -"But she said she was going away, and--and everything." - -"Oh, I'll attend to all that!" said Buddy, happily. "Don't you worry, -Sister." - - - - - CHAPTER XX - - GOOD-BYE - - -Elizabeth was making a round of farewell calls. Her summer on Cape Cod -was over. Her trunk had already been packed and sent by express to New -York, with all the other family baggage excepting the light motor trunk -and bags that they were to carry in the car. - -Moses and Madget and Mabel surrounded her when she arrived at the -Steppes. - -"You look like a lady in them clothes," Moses said, "I didn't know you." - -"She's got gloves on," Mabel said, "and a pink hat." - -"Loverly gloves," said Madget, dreamily. "I want a pink hat." - -"I want flowers on _my_ hat," said Mabel, critically. - -"How nice your house looks," Elizabeth said. "The kitchen floor is -clean, and everything put away." - -"Mis' Laury Ann, she's learning me how to do housework, and I learn -Mabel pretty good. Marmer she bought some dishes. See 'em there. Mabel -and me, we like to keep 'em shined up." - -On the two shelves over the pump an array of formidably coloured, coarse -crockery had made its appearance. Large pink roses heavily smeared with -gilt were the prevailing decoration. Three pink coffee cups, with a -gilded moustache protector in each, occupied a place of honour. - -"Me and Marmer and Mabel has these," Moses informed her proudly. -"Madget, she drinks out of a mug. It's only a plain white mug, so we -don't put it where it will show. Ma, she says she had just as soon we -would eat out o' them dishes if we'll clean 'em up after." - -"Who does the cooking?" - -"I told you I done the cooking once," Moses said, "how many times have -you got to be said it over to?" - -"Moses!" - -"Well," said Moses, argumentatively, "if you was old enough to boss me, -it would be different, but you ain't." - -"I'm bigger than you are, Moses, and you are not big enough to boss me." - -"No," said Moses, "but I'm big enough to fight you to see who's got the -most strength. Only girls can't fight." - -"Only morally," said Elizabeth. - -"Huh?" said Moses, staring blankly. - -"Well, never mind. You take care of your mother and sister and be a -nice, clean boy, and--and learn your lessons at school." - -"Then what'll I get?" - -"You'll get to be comfortable and happy by your own efforts." - -"Well, I ain't going to do what anybody tells me--much." - -"Tell yourself, Moses. Tell yourself to be good, and then mind yourself. -I do." - -"But you'm a girl," Moses said. - -"It doesn't make any difference who you are, Moses. If you don't try to -learn that lesson about minding yourself, you won't get on very well." - -"Who says so?" - -"Miss Laury Ann says so, for one." - -"Did she tell you to mind yourself?" - -"She--she showed me how to do it." - -"Does she mind herself?" - -"Always, that's what makes her--so nice and kind. You see, Moses, you -are the man of the family, and the man of the family has to be -responsible for it and have a good control of it. So you've got to have -a good control of yourself." The word was unfortunate. - -"Ma's got a control," Moses said. "Little Eva." - -"I didn't mean that kind of control, Moses. I meant--well, you just -think what I meant. I want you to promise me that you will watch -yourself and tell yourself what's right and wrong, just as if you were -telling it to somebody else." - -"Well, I'll see about it," said Moses, "but if I do it, _they_ got to," -he pointed to his sisters. - -"Try it a while for yourself, and then if it works, teach it to them," -said Elizabeth with sudden inspiration. - -"Well, I'll teach it to them, anyway," Moses decided. - -"Here comes Marmer," Mabel cried. - -"I just slipped over to Mis' Hawes'," Mrs. Steppe explained, -apologetically. "I had a matter I wanted to consult her about. My spine -kinder give way last night, and I thought when she was going into a -trance, she might see if Little Eva had anything to say about it. It -ain't important enough for her to go into one special for." - -Elizabeth stared at the vision in purple velvet--a tight-fitting basque -of obsolete make gripped the eighteen-inch waist inexorably, and the -skirt, cut to the prevailing eight inches above the floor, exposed high -white canvas shoes with knotted laces, shoes that had apparently never -been cleaned in the course of their long and useful existence. Mrs. -Steppe had not prefaced this elaborate toilet by arranging her hair, and -the light strands stood out from her face, straggling and unkempt as -usual. - -"I'm glad to see you," Elizabeth said, a little confusedly. "I just came -in to say good-bye. I'm going away to-night, you know." - -"What train be you taking?" - -"I'm not taking any train. We're motoring." - -"Well," said Mrs. Steppe. "I'm glad you got an automobile to go in. I'm -one of those that likes to see my friends get on in the world." - -"So--so do I," said Elizabeth. "What a pretty colour that dress is." - -"I like to wear silks and velvets," Mrs. Steppe said, with the slightest -emphasis on the _I_. "Some people don't care nothing about it." - -"I love silks and velvets myself, and that's a lovely quality." - -"When I put my money in anything, I like to put it in something good." - -"Yes, indeed. I think that's my brother tooting his horn for me, so I'll -have to say good-bye." - -"It's quite a little car, ain't it?" Mrs. Steppe surveyed the new -roadster from the vantage point of the window. "For my taste, I like -these limousines, but anything that will go is better than nothing." - -"Yes, indeed," said Elizabeth, "good-bye." - -"Good-bye," said Mrs. Steppe, "take care of yourself. I hope you'll find -me in better health next summer than you have this." - -"Good-bye, Mabel. Good-bye, Madget." - -"Good-bye," said Mabel, "come again." - -"Kiss me again, Madget," said Elizabeth, "aren't you a little sorry I am -going? Oh, be good children, won't you?" - -"Bring me a present some time," said Mabel. - -"I will." - -"Well, if you say you will, you will--I know that," said Mabel. - -"Leggo," said their mother, "leggo. That little automobile out there is -waiting for her. Tell Moses to get off that front seat and come back -into the house. I don't know where the boy's manners is. I ain't never -seen any sign of them." - -"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth, as she drove away with Buddy, "it doesn't -seem as if anybody with so little intelligence could be so selfish as -that Mis' Steppe is. It saddens me every time I go there. I know I've -had a funny call, but it doesn't seem funny to me. It never does." - -"Now, you want to be dropped at Peggy's, don't you?" - -"Yes, please." - -"Give Peggy my love and tell her to keep us informed about her sister." - -"I guess you've kept informed about her ever since she left." - -"A little additional information at times won't do any harm. I don't -want her to spring anything on me--like getting out of the country." - -"She's getting ready to go abroad." - -"She thinks she's getting ready to go abroad. I just want about ten days -before the day she thinks she's going." - -"She's getting her passport." - -"I want her to," said Buddy, affectionately, "I want her to have -everything go the way she thinks she wants it to go, and then at the end -I want to step right in and smash it." - -"Just like that?" said Elizabeth. - -"Just like that," said Buddy, happily. - - * * * * * - -"I don't believe I'm going to be able to bear this," said Peggy. "I -thought it was going to be all right to say good-bye. Everybody has to -at this time of the year, but--but that doesn't make it any easier. I -don't want to part with you at all. I couldn't sleep last night, -thinking of it." - -"Neither could I," said Elizabeth. - -"It's a whole year till next summer." - -"I know it." - -"I figured it out. It will be at least two hundred and seventy-two days -before we are down here together again." - -"Will it? We might visit each other in the winter." - -"We might, but will we? You know my parents and I know yours. They -always have other plans for their offspring in the vacations." - -"How is your mother?" Elizabeth asked. - -"She's pretty good. I did Mother an injustice. She's a better loser than -I thought she'd be. She's been awfully decent to Ruth. Elizabeth, do you -know what I found out about Ruth?" - -"Oh, what?" - -"I found out why she broke her engagement. I would have broken mine. She -found out that he falsified his income tax report. He bragged about it -to her. He thought it was smart. She wouldn't stand for it, that's all. -If he hadn't given himself away, she'd be Mrs. Millionaire-slacker-Piggy -Chambers, and half over to Europe by this time." - -"I don't like to think of it." - -"Well, then, think of me," said Peggy. "You don't care as much as I -care. You are going back to your Jean and you like her best. There, I -said I would bite my tongue out before I said that to you, and now I've -gone and said it." - -"Let's not care what we say," Elizabeth said. "I do love Jean. -Grandmother always says it doesn't make any difference how many children -a woman has, she always has a different place in her heart for every -one. I guess that's the way it is with friends. None of them can occupy -the same place." - -"I only have one in my place," said Peggy, "you are my most intimate -friend and I am not yours. Well, I guess I'll have to get reconciled to -it." - -"I have two most intimate friends," said Elizabeth, "don't cry, Peggy." - -"Well, you're crying yourself, that's something. It's--it's a great -deal." - -"Good-bye," said Elizabeth, "there's Buddy's horn again." - -"Good-bye," said Peggy. "Oh, I won't say good-bye. I--I guess I'll come -over there and see you off." - -"She won't," Elizabeth thought, "she's just saying that to postpone the -evil hour. All right, Peggy, dear," she said aloud, "good-bye -till--good-bye!" and she flung her arms around Peggy's neck in a -suffocating embrace. - - * * * * * - -In the old valanced rocking chairs before the living-room windows -Grandfather and Grandmother Swift sat alone in the gathering darkness. - -"House seems kinder lonesome to-night, don't it, Mother? Hard lines to -lose the whole family all to once. They ought to gone off one by one, -so's we wouldn't notice it so much." - -"Times come and seasons change," said Grandmother. "We have to expect to -let 'em go. We are lucky to have them coming, even if we do have to let -them go again." - -"Young John--Buddy she calls him--is as likely a young feller as I ever -see." - -"And as handsome." - -"John--he's made a fine job of his business and a fine job of his life, -as far as I can see. He keeps remarkable young for a man of his way of -living, too. Don't dissipate none. I expect that's the secret of it. He -picked himself up a pretty likely wife, too--good looking and sweet -natured and no nonsense about her. _She_ looks like her, too." - -"She's going to be about her mother's size, I should say, when she gets -her growth. She ain't quite so fair, but she's got the same eyes, and -the same long, light-coloured lashes." - -"But her mouth's all Swift," said Grandfather. "You know that tintype we -got of John. Why, cut her hair off, and put her in a boy's shirt and -necktie and she'd be the image of him." - -"When they stood up there together by the door just before they started, -and he put his arm around your shoulder, the likeness stood out plain -then." - -"Where's Judidy to-night? Gone out with her feller?" - -"No, not to-night. The poor critter felt so bad when she see that car -pulling out of the yard that she burst out into a fit of crying, and put -her apron over her head and run off. She hasn't been heard from since." - -"Judidy was fond of _her_, and she had cause to be. I guess she give her -almost a complete wedding outfit out of her own fixings that she brought -down." - -"It was pretty cunning of her to give away the silk things she set such -a store by. She washed 'em all out herself and run new ribbons in them, -and then went and laid them out on Judidy's bed, with her eyes full of -tears because she was parting with them. She found out that Judidy had -set her heart on silk underwear for her wedding outfit, and she thought -it all out that she had ought to give them to her. 'I have about -everything I want, Grandma,' she said, 'and I've had a summer's wear out -of them.' She don't exaggerate nothing much, that she does." - -"She's been pretty plucky, the way she took right hold helping you in -the kitchen. She's helped me, too. When we was getting in the hay, and -Zeckal was busy all the time she mixed up the hog's vittles and fed the -hens, and carted big pails of water around. Faith, Hope, and Charity, -they've been squealing considerable to-night, I notice. I guess they -kinder feel the absence of a friend." - -"You remember the first night she come, Father? You was kind o' -disappointed in her." - -"So was you, but you didn't let on nothing." - -"You said that you kinder hoped that John's girl was going to be a -little more like folks." - -Grandfather chuckled. - -"Did I?" he said. "Well, she turned out to be a good deal more like -folks than most people ever gets to be." - -Grandmother wiped her eyes. - -"There," she said, "I'm most always able to be philosophical about -everything, but to tell the truth, I don't know how I am going to be -able to get along without that child." - -"Well--" Grandfather took off his spectacles and wiped them carefully -before he transferred his attention to the process of mopping his -forehead--"well, I don't know how I'm going to get along without her, -either," he said. - - - THE END - - [Illustration: THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS - GARDEN CITY, N. Y.] - - - - -Transcriber Notes: - -Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_. - -Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS. - -Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the -speakers. Those words were retained as-is. - -The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up -paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. - -Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected -unless otherwise noted. - -In the caption of the illustration on page 46, a period was added at the -end of the last sentence. - -On page 6, "look a might" was replaced with "look a mite". - -On page 40, "strangers smile" was replaced with "stranger's smile". - -On page 60, "Peggy s!" was replaced with "Peggy's". - -On page 181, "Promethueus Bound" was replaced with "Prometheus Bound". - -On page 185, a single quotation mark was replaced with a double -quotation mark. - -On page 207, a quotation mark was added before "Do you want to come". - -On page 279, "overt he pump" was replaced with "over the pump". - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Elizabeth, Her Folks, by Barbara Kay - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELIZABETH, HER FOLKS *** - -***** This file should be named 53788-8.txt or 53788-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/7/8/53788/ - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ernest Schaal, and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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