It was Bee who suggested giving one, but then Bee thought up so many things for us to do while she was staying with us!
She invited her friends, Sir Wemyss and Lady Lombard, to spend a week at Peach Orchard, and when they accepted she said, to soothe my fright at being asked to entertain such grand personages, that if I would invite other people and make a house-party, it would take much of the responsibility off my shoulders, as then the guests would entertain each other.
Then she mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie, Artie Beguelin and his wife, Cary Farquhar, and Captain Featherstone, which would make ten of us in all.
To those who did not know Jimmie, this would seem a small number for a house-party, but Jimmie in a house all by himself would seem to fill it to overflowing with people, but they would all be Jimmie.
As I knew how much solid satisfaction it would be to Mrs. Jimmie to be for a whole week in the same house with so famous a beauty as Lady Lombard, I acted on Bee's suggestion, and all my people said they would come.
Bee came gracefully down-stairs one morning before our guests came.She held a letter in her hand.
"Coffee, Bee?" I asked.
"No, thank you. I had mine in bed."
She wrinkled her brow in perplexity.
"I don't know what to do about it," she murmured.
"About what?"
"Billy. He wants to see me so much, mother writes. She thinks I ought to come home immediately."
"Let's see," I said. "It's only eight months since you saw your child.Isn't mother rather absurd?"
Bee lifted her eyes.
"Don't be nasty," she said. "You learned that tone from Aubrey."
Aubrey smiled pleasantly at our guest.
"I didn't!" I said, warmly. "I used to be quite nasty at times beforeI was married."
Bee showed her little white teeth in a smile.
"I'm glad to hear you admit it," she said, sweetly.
"If you would like to see Billy so much," said Aubrey, politely, "why not bring him on here?"
"Could you?" I cried, in delight. To think of having Billy! The lamb had never been in the country in his life, and he was wild over my letters about Peach Orchard.
"I can arrange it, if you like," Aubrey went on—mostly to me, forBilly's mother was silently thinking.
"Do have him, Bee!" I cried. "I won't let him get in your way. He needn't even sleep in your room. I'll have Norah put up a cot in the alcove of the rose room. She can sleep there, and dress him and everything. You won't be annoyed the least bit."
"Well," said Bee, with graceful reluctance, "if you are sure he won't be in your way, and if Aubrey's cousin will bring him, I see no reason why he mightn't come."
I almost squealed in my delight. It would certainly be worth while to see the child's eyes when he first saw the calves and little chickens.
I left both Aubrey and Bee at the table while I rushed up-stairs to see if the rose room would be just right for him. I made Aubrey promise to arrange everything by telegraph. Norah loved children, and entered into my plans with delight. Then I flew out to interview old Amos. He had told me only a few days before that the boys on the estate next ours wanted to sell their goats and goat carriages.
The days passed rapidly in preparations, but of all my guests, titled or otherwise, it was Billy—my Billy—I wanted to see worst. In two days I got a letter.
"Dear Miss Tats," it ran, "I only write to say that I shall be glad to come. If I had not written you a long letter so soon ago, I would write more now. Tell mother to be sure to meet me at the station. Don't let her forget that I shall arrive at four-sixteen. Your affectionate little nephew, Billy."
I wept tears of delight over this effusion, and "so soon ago" passed into the Jardine vocabulary.
In looking back, I think I can safely say that if Bee had known what would happen at that house-party to shock her English friends, she would have preferred to discharge her obligations to them by a nice little Sunday afternoon at Coney Island or an evening in Chinatown. But fortunately the English are a sensible race, and Sir Wemyss and his bride, perhaps because of the reasonable way the duchess came around when she found her daughter bent upon marrying Sir Wemyss, were so good-humoured and so plainly determined to see naught but good in America and naught but fun in Americans that they took everything in good part.
Aubrey, Jimmie, and Sir Wemyss got on capitally from the start, for before they came Aubrey said:
"What shall I say to them at first—when they come aboard of us, and before I have got my sea legs on?"
"Why," said Jimmie, "that's dead easy. Say to Lady Mary, 'Let my wife give you some tea,' and to Sir Wemyss say, 'Old man, how would a whiskey and soda go?' and there you are right off the bat."
Aubrey said precisely these words, with the most satisfactory result, for over her third cup of tea I felt very friendly with the beautiful English woman, and after four whiskies the men were almost sociable.
To our delight, Sir Wemyss was enchanted with Peach Orchard. He visited the uttermost corners of it. He was charmed with the cows, admired their breed, almost raved over Jack, the bulldog, whose pedigree was nearly as long as that of Lady Mary, who was the daughter of a hundred earls. He gave me many hints about my fine poultry, and wrote that first night for a pair of his very finest buff cochins to be sent over from his place in England, which he had just inherited from his uncle. He showed us where the apple-trees needed pruning, and was so interested in my attempts at an old-fashioned garden, which Bee had hidden behind a tall hedge, that he went to fetch Lady Mary to look at it, and they both volunteered to send me some plants and shrubs from England, which they declared I needed to complete it.
Bee's face was a study during those few hours. She had honestly tried to have everything as English as possible for them, and had trained my poor servants almost to death, with instructions as to what they were to do during this week. They were outwardly obedient, but inwardly disrespectful, as I overheard Norah, the housemaid, say to the cook:
"Katie, oh, Katie! We're wor-rkin' for the Four Hundhred now!"
"How do you know we ar-re?" asked Katie.
"The ladies all shtrip fur dinner!"
Jimmie simply shrieked when I told him, but Bee failed to see anything in it but an excellent reason why Norah should be discharged. Poor Bee!
She had given me specific directions about serving the meals, and had made me lay in a supply of jam for breakfast, and had implored me to serve cold meats and joints and things as the English do, and to please her I had promised. But that first night at dinner Lady Mary turned to me and said, with a sweetness and grace not to be reproduced:
"Mrs. Jardine, I have come over here to live among you and to be as little unlike you Americans as possible. I cannot forget that it was the American dollar that made it possible for Wemyss to gain poor dear mamma's consent to our marriage, and I am correspondingly grateful. Now, won't you do me a favour? Won't you please leave off doing anything for us in the English manner, because of your desire to please us, and mayn't I see in your house just how Americans live. Particularly your breakfasts. I have heard that they were so jolly—not a bit like ours, and I am keen to taste your hot breads! Fancy! I never saw any in my life."
I fairly gasped with delight, and as for the maids, I was afraid they were going to kiss Lady Mary. It removed an awful strain.
"Certainly," I beamed. "I will do anything I can for you."
"If she does," declared Jimmie, "there won't be a queer American thing for you to learn after you leave Peach Orchard. You'll have seen 'em all."
"That is what I should like," said Lady Mary, in her deep, beautiful voice. "And Wemyss would, too."
Sir Wemyss, who spoke but seldom, here removed his cigar, for we had gone into the billiard-room after dinner, and said:
"Jardine, you don't know how a little place like this appeals to me. Now our places in England are all so large that they take an army of servants to run them, and the gardening and all that are done by one's men. But here with only yourselves you can do so much. You can feed your own chickens, you can prune your own trees, you can do such a lot yourselves. I should think it would be great fun."
We were much flattered by this view of it, and Mrs. Jimmie and Bee were plainly impressed.
"My sister is very fond of her life here," declared Bee. "I foundPeach Orchard a perfect pastoral when I first came."
Jimmie had been smoking thoughtfully, with a frown of perplexity on his brow. Suddenly he spoke.
"I think Sir Wemyss is right," he answered. "Now, why not all of us take a hand at farming, so to speak, while we are here? I never have, but I know I could. Anyhow I mean to try. To-morrow, let's go at it and prune the trees."
"It is not the proper season to prune trees," observed Sir Wemyss."That should be done in the early spring, before the sap begins to run."
Jimmie looked disappointed.
"Those apple-trees are no good," said the Angel, with tact, "so it couldn't possibly hurt to prune them or cut them down if you want to. They are a perfect eyesore to me the way they are."
To my surprise, both Jimmie and Sir Wemyss looked pleased. It was so palpably the wrong thing to do that I should have supposed as good a husbandman as Sir Wemyss would refuse. But the joy of doing evidently led him to accept the Angel's tactful permission to ruin our apple-trees, if by so doing he could interest our guests.
"The very thing!" said Sir Wemyss, with the nearest approach to enthusiasm I ever had seen in him. "Let's prune the trees by all means."
"How charming!" said Bee. "Isn't it delightful to be your own gardener! You have no idea how domestic my sister is, Lady Mary. She superintends her house quite like an Englishwoman. Did you know that we make all our own butter here at Peach Orchard, Sir Wemyss? And I verily believe that Faith knows every chicken on the place by name. She is really at her best on a farm."
Jimmie's cigar blinked as if he had winked with it. Mrs. Jimmie almost permitted herself a wry face at the idea of turning her one week with the Lombards to such poor account, and at first I feared that this plan would quite spoil her pleasure, to say nothing of Bee's. But if you have noticed, the hostess has very little to do with a modern house-party, except to get her people together. After that, they manage things to suit themselves.
At any rate, it occurred that way at my house-party. I had little to do except to trot uncomplainingly in the rear of the procession, for when once Lady Mary made farming fashionable by her personal interest, Bee, who always out-Herods Herod, became so bucolic that she nearly drove the hens off their nests in order to hatch the eggs personally.
On the second day from the date of his letter, Billy arrived. Bee and I went to meet him. The train did not stop at Clovertown, so we had to drive about ten miles. I shall never forget that child's face as he saw his mother. It twitched with feeling, but he felt himself too great a boy to cry—especially over joy.Icried heartily. I always do! And Billy comforted me in his sweet, babyish fashion that I remembered he used when he was in kilts.
Billy became friends with old Amos that first evening, and that sufficed, for Amos had enriched my own childhood, and I knew that nothing which could amuse or instruct would be omitted.
Billy felt that he and Jimmie, Aubrey, Captain Featherstone, and Sir Wemyss constituted the men of the household. When I asked him why he did not include Mr. Beguelin, he put his hands behind him, spread his short legs apart, and said:
"Well, you see, Miss Tats, Mr. Beguelin has just been married, and bridegrooms don't count."
Things went smoothly enough that first day while my people were becoming acquainted. Then it was Jimmie, dear blessed old, maladroit, hot-tempered Jimmie, always so completely at home in a business deal, and always so pathetically awkward and so confidently bungling in domestic crises, who supplied us with sufficient material for a book on "How Not to Prune Trees Properly."
We all went out to the apple-trees early in the morning. As usual, Sir Wemyss was dressed for the part. Why is it, I wonder, that the British always find themselves dressed for the occasion? I believe, if an Englishman were wrecked in mid-ocean, with only a hat-box for baggage, that out of that box he could produce bathing-trunks in which to drown properly.
The Angel was frankly and simply disreputable, his idea of being properly clad for farm-work being to be ragged wherever possible and faded all over. Jimmie, however, wore his ordinary business clothes, patent leather shoes, and a derby hat. And as events transpired, I was glad of it. I love to think of Jimmie pruning trees in patent leathers and a derby.
Being, as I say, confident, Jimmie, who never had seen a tree pruned, waited for no instructions, but sprang nimbly upon a barrel, and, standing on his tiptoes, reached up and snipped at the lower branches. Sir Wemyss took a ladder and his pruning-knife, and disappeared from view into the thickest part of the tree. But hearing the industry of Jimmie's scissors, he parted the branches and called out:
"I say there, old man! You are cutting off twigs. These are the things which need to go—these suckers. See?"
"Yes, Jimmie," I said, pleasantly. "You are not trimming a hedge, you know. You are—"
Alas, that accidents are always my fault! Jimmie turned to glare at me, and the treacherous barrel-head gave way, letting him down most ungently into its middle, and rasping his shins in the descent in a manner which must have been particularly trying to one of delicate sensibilities.
I sank down suddenly in gasps of unregenerate laughter, for the barrel-head was a tight fit, and as Jimmie endeavoured to climb out, the barrel climbed too, giving him a strange hoop-skirt effect, which went but sadly with the derby hat.
Jimmie grinned sheepishly as the Angel extricated him, and placed a strong board on the barrel for him to stand upon in safety.
Then Jimmie decided to saw a dead limb off, and leave the pruning to Sir Wemyss. So he took the saw and went valiantly to work, but it was tiresome, so he leaned his weight against the limb and industriously sawed his prop off, which sent him flying almost into Lady Mary's lap. He saved himself by his nimbleness, but this time Jimmie was mad—uncompromisingly mad.
He said little, however, but seated himself in the cooling and tranquil vicinity of his Madonna-faced wife, while watching the Angel and Sir Wemyss reduce the refractory tree to symmetry and healthfulness without effort and without disaster.
His failure and particularly Bee's and my ghoulish laughter had nettled him, however, and he was determined to recover himself as well as regain his place in our esteem.
All day he wandered around, seeking a suitable opportunity, all the while watching me craftily to see if I suspected his design. But I gave no sign, which plainly lightened the burden he was carrying.
Lady Mary trained my crimson rambler rose over the dining-room window and cut flowers for all the vases. This was ordinarily my work, and I loved it, but it gave her pleasure, and above all it gave her a home pleasure which she had missed. I asked her if she would train the roses every day while she was with us, taking the work off my hands. She coloured softly as she gladly consented, and went prettily and importantly to work.
Artie Beg, having just come home from a prolonged honeymoon, was frequently obliged to go into town for a few hours' conference with his partner, and Cary, from being one of the most energetic of guests, had developed a tendency to talk of nothing in the world except her husband, and, when no one would listen to her, of sitting apart with her hands folded in her lap and a dreamy look in her eyes as if only her body were present at my house-party. Her mind was plainly in Wall Street.
I may not be believed, but Christianity and the love of God were working in my heart when the next afternoon I asked Jimmie's help in a piece of work which it did not seem possible for him to fail in.
The side porch has a great curving, bulging iron trellis for the honeysuckle, and I keep the vines so thinned out that I can have boxes of flowers growing on the porch railing, which only need what sunlight comes filtering through the honeysuckle. By cutting the blossoms every day I obtain the result I wish, and on this occasion I had cut all I could reach, and I asked Jimmie to cut those which were beyond me.
These boxes at the bottom were only as wide as the porch railing, but flared out on both sides in order to hold more earth, and all were painted green. Now in that particular box, shaded by the honeysuckle, I had, with infinite care, coaxed sun-loving dwarf nasturtiums to grow, because their gorgeous colouring looked so well next to the box which held my ferns.
I had planted the nasturtiums in early spring in the box in the greenhouse, shading the colours from pale yellow at each end to a glorious orange and crimson in the middle. Each plant was perfect of its kind and growing and blooming riotously before I took the box, which was some fourteen feet long, and with my own hands nailed it to the porch railing, and its ends to two pillars.
It never occurred to me that Jimmie would be foolish enough to try tostandon the edge of that box, for of course, while I am no carpenter, I drove my nails to cope with wind-storms, not a great man, who—oh, well! I might have known that Jimmie would do something.
He could have reached all I wanted from the porch, but of course, though I only stepped through the French window to lay my flowers down, in that instant Jimmie had sprung upon that slanting edge of my poor, frail little box, and in that instant the mischief was done. The box tilted and flung Jimmie forward against the curving trellis, which began to creak and groan alarmingly. All my precious nasturtiums were pitched headlong into the flower-beds below, and for once Jimmie shrieked my name in accents of the acutest entreaty.
"Faith!" he shouted, below his breath. "Faith, for God's sake run here and catch me! This damned thing is giving way. Haul me back. Oh, my coat won't save me! Leggo my coat-tails. Put your arms around my waist. Stop laughing! Put—your—arms—around my waist—I say—and haul me back! Brace your feet and pull!"
I did as he desired, bracing my feet and dragging him back to safety by his leather belt.
We were detected, however, by Bee and Captain Featherstone, who came strolling gracefully around the corner of the house just as Jimmie's convulsed clutch loosened from the trellis and set all the vines to dancing and trembling, as if a wind-storm had passed over them.
There was no need of their asking what had happened. The ruin spoke for itself. Captain Featherstone gallantly helped me to pick up and replant my poor nasturtiums, but they had been so bruised and their feelings so wounded by their undignified tumble that they did nothing but sulk all the remainder of the summer, never once blooming out handsomely as they should, although I carefully explained to them just how it happened. They seemed to think that it was my fault, and they never forgave me. Sometimes flowers are as unreasonable as people.
Three days after Billy's arrival, when he had thoroughly mastered all the details of Peach Orchard and knew personally all the cows, the horses, the white bulldog, the cats, the chickens, the little calves, and the reachable branches of every tree on the place, old Amos came in to speak to me.
He stood before me, bowing, with his hat in his hand:
"Well'm, Miss Faith honey, I reckon de time's about ripe foh de goats. Dat boy's investigated every nook an' cornder ob de place, an' ef you tink bes' I'll go after de goats dis afternoon."
"Very well, Amos," I said. "We are all going to Philadelphia to-day to attend the launching of Mr. Beguelin's yacht, and we are going to take Billy. You can bring the goats up while we are away, and tomorrow morning we can give them to him."
"Yas'm," said Amos, bowing. "I'll have 'em hyah when y'all gets back."
I will say nothing of the ceremony of the launching of the yacht, although, from Cary's uplifted face, you would have thought it was the christening of a first-born child. Jimmie says we needn't say anything. We were worse!
Billy was wildly excited over the breaking of the bottle of champagne, and asked a thousand questions about it.
The next morning we all went out to the barn to see him receive his goats. His face fairly beamed when he saw them. He clapped his hands.
"Oh, Uncle Aubrey! Miss Tats! Are they for me?"
Then he flung his arms around his mother's neck—Bee's neck, mind you!—and cried out:
"Oh, mother, I do think I have the kindest relatives in all the world! What other little boys' relatives would think of the kindness of giving them goats?"
"That's right, my boy," said Captain Featherstone, looking with open admiration at Bee's motherly attitude, on her knees beside her boy and his arms around her neck, "always be grateful. It's a rare virtue these days."
Jimmie, however, who always spoils things, winked at Aubrey. ButBilly's next remark threw us all into fits of laughter.
"Oh, Uncle Aubrey, can't we have a ceremony of launching the goats, and mayn't I break a bottle of champagne over their horns?"
Jimmie fairly yelled. Billy looked distressed.
"Their horns are very strong!" he urged. "I don't believe it would hurt them one bit. And you might give me one of those little bottles I saw Mr. Jimmie open—you remember the little one you had after the two big ones, don't you, Mr. Jimmie?"
"Oh, yes, Billy," I said. "Mr. Jimmie remembers. (You'd be ashamed not to, wouldn't you, Jimmie?)"
"You think you're funny," growled Jimmie, witheringly, as Sir Wemyss and Captain Featherstone broke out afresh, and even Artie Beg left off looking at Cary long enough to smile at Jimmie's scarlet face and Mrs. Jimmie's anxious one. She moved quietly over to where Jimmie was standing with his hands in his pockets, and slipped her arm through his. She did not know quite what it was all about, but she felt that they were laughing at her Jimmie, and, as usual, she looked reproachfully at me.
Billy's plaintive voice recalled us.
"Yes, dearie," I hastened to say. "You may have a small bottle of champagne—or perhaps Apollinaris water would be better, it sparkles just the same, and if it flew in the goats' eyes it wouldn't make them smart, and the champagne would."
Billy beamingly acquiesced.
"Now I must just think up some good names for them," he said, with an air of importance, "and perhaps I'll have to ask Uncle Aubrey and Mr. Jimmie to help me. It's awful hard to think up suitable names for goats."
"All right, old man," said Aubrey. "Come along. We'll think 'em up now, and have the launching this afternoon, and invite some people to the ceremony."
So he and Billy and Jimmie took leave of us, and strolled away together, Billy with his hands in his trousers' pockets and striving to take just as long steps as they did. He would have given his kingdom for a pipe!
We got up quite a little party, and worked very hard over it. Bee and Captain Featherstone delivered the invitations, and people thought it was a most delicious joke, and came in a mood of the utmost hilarity. At first Billy wanted to break the bottle himself, but upon being told that girls always did it, he invited a bewitching little maid of seven, Kathleen Van Osdel, to christen them, while Billy valiantly sat in the goat-carriage, waiting for Aubrey and Amos to let go of the goats' horns.
The names were kept a profound secret, but Jimmie had a fashion of going purple in the face, and pretending he was only going to sneeze. He walked around among the guests trying to appear unconcerned—which made me watch him closely.
He had appointed himself master of ceremonies. He it was who put the Apollinaris bottle into Kathleen's hands, and held her in his arms while she leaned down and broke the bottle over the horns of the gentler goat.
Then her childish treble shrilled out:
"I christen thee, Roosevelt and Congress!" she cried out.
"Let go!" shouted Billy, standing up in the goat carriage, his cheeks like scarlet flowers.
Amos and Aubrey released their hold, Kathleen screamed with excitement, and away bounded the goats down the driveway, with Sir Wemyss after them on horseback, for fear anything might happen.
But nothing did happen, and in ten minutes back they came to receive congratulations from everybody.
"Are they all right, Billy?" I cried.
"Yes, Miss Tats. Congress is just as gentle as can be when you let him alone. They go splendidly, except when Roosevelt butts. You know he is always butting into Congress and making trouble."
At that I understood, for Jimmie deliberately rolled on the grass.
"I noticed that peculiarity of the goats," he gasped, when he could speak, "but if I had trained that child a month, he couldn't have put it better. It's—it's simply too good to be true!"
Then he went away to explain the joke to Lady Mary.
I think Bee enjoyed the house-party in spite of its gardening flavour, for we entertained quite a little. At another time I gave a musicale, and had people out from town; we were invited about while automobiles snorted and chunked into Peach Orchard at all hours of the day to the everlasting terror of the cats, who streaked by us and flashed up trees in simple lines of long gray fur.
It was strange how the cat family resembled human beings, for it was the young cats, Puffy and Pinkie and Fitz and Corbett, who got used to the automobiles first, and ceased to run at their approach. Youth is ever progressive and adaptable, while poor old Mitnick crouched in the fork of a high pine, and glared with her yellow eyes and waved her great tail in furious revolt at those puffing, snorting monsters which she never could abide anyway,—and she was glad she couldn't.
We had no automobile, but the sorrels were there in the height of their glory and slimness, and we still basked in the refulgence of the coachman and footman of Bee's own selection, so her soul was at peace.
Only one thing happened to mar our pleasure. Jimmie fell ill.
Mrs. Jimmie hunted me up one blistering morning, and said, anxiously:
"Faith, I am very much worried about Jimmie. He is lying down."
"Well, what of it?" I said, with unintentioned brutality. "Does he always sit up that you seem so surprised?"
She looked at me reproachfully.
"He always sits up when he is well," she said, gently.
"Is he ill?" I exclaimed, dropping my gardening shears and hastily wiping my hands on my apron. "Can I do anything for him? Does he need a doctor? I'll go right up."
Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her soft creamy face. She laid her hand on my arm.
"Don't be offended, will you, dear?" she begged, "but—Jimmie—you know how unreasonable sick men are—"
She paused helplessly.
I waited.
"Well, out with it! What does he want?"
"He said—I didn't realize how difficult it would be to tell you when he said it—but he said—"
Again she stopped.
"I shall evidently have to go and ask him what he wants," I said, moving toward the house.
"No, no, dear! I will tell you! Don't go near him!" pleaded Mrs. Jimmie. "That is just what he doesn't want. He said on no account were you to come near him."
She paused with a gasp. Evidently she expected me to burst into tears.
"The brute!" I remarked, pleasantly. "I hope he is suffering!"
Mrs. Jimmie's beautiful face became instantly grave.
"He is suffering, Faith," she said, quietly.
"Then why won't he see me? Perhaps I could do something. Aubrey always lets me try. Has he a headache?"
"He has a splitting headache, he says, and a high fever, and his collar hurts him."
"His collar hurts him! Then why doesn't he take it off?"
"That's just it. He won't. He says he always wears it and it never hurt him before, and he'll be—well, he says he won't take it off for anybody."
I turned away and bit my lip.
Poor old sick, obstinate Jimmie! In my mind's eye I could just see him lying there with all his hot clothes on and swearing he would not take them off and be made comfortable.
But I could do nothing. He would see none of us. I sent tea and lemonade and ice and hot-water bags and every conceivable remedy to his rooms, but with no effect. Nor would he hear of our calling a doctor.
About four o'clock Mrs. Jimmie left him for a few moments, and this was my chance.
I slipped into the room. He was lying on the couch with his feet in patent leather shoes,—even his coat and waistcoat on, and a high, tight collar which rasped his ears.
He grinned sheepishly when he saw me.
"You told me to keep out, I know, but I never do as I'm told, so I came anyhow."
"I know that," growled Jimmie.
"Your head's as hot as fire," I said. "And those shoes are drawing like a mustard plaster."
"I don't care. I won't take 'em off," said Jimmie, savagely, raising himself on his elbow.
I turned on him.
"You always were a fool, Jimmie," I said. "You don't have to take them off if you don't want to." (He sank back with a groan of pain.) "But I'm going to do it, and if you kick while your foot is in my lap you'll hurt me."
Before he could wink I had pulled off those abominable things, and slipped his narrow silk-stockinged feet into cool slippers. He couldn't restrain a sigh of comfort. I went in the closet to put his shoes on their trees, and brought out a white linen coat.
"Sit up and put this on," I commanded.
"I will not!" he answered, flatly.
I looked around and there stood Mrs. Jimmie. If she had stayed away another ten minutes, I would have got him comfortable. But in spite of our combined efforts he insisted upon lying there as he was.
I went out and telephoned for the doctor, and when he came it pleased Jimmie no end that he didn't say a word about taking off those hot clothes.
"You see," he said to his wife, "that doctor knows his business. He doesn't devil me the way you women do."
Mrs. Jimmie was wise enough to make no reply.
"He said if you would go to sleep for an hour you would feel better," she said. "So put on this thin coat, then I'll close the blinds and go out."
Jimmie looked at her quizzically. Then he slowly sat up and changed his coat without a word.
When he wakened his headache was gone. But he was unable to come down to dinner, and we saw him no more that day.
As he went to bed that night he said:
"I suppose you and Faith chuckled over getting your own way with my shoes and coat. But I want you to tell Faith that I stuck it out on the collar and that I only took it off when I went to bed!"
He was all right the next day, so we were spared the grief of being obliged to bury him in that collar.
So it came to be the last day of the Lombards' stay.
We had all grown exceedingly fond of the dear English people who had come so sweetly into the midst of an American home and adapted themselves to our way of living with such easy grace. No one would have believed, to see Lady Mary in her simple garden hat and cotton gown, that she was a court beauty, over whose hand royalty had often bent in gracious admiration. But it was true.
Nor was she deficient in a sense of humour, for she openly doted on Jimmie, and listened intently for his jokes, with the laudable intention of seeing them before they were explained to her, if she could.
His absurd misadventures, however, came well within her ken, and this last one so tickled her fancy that—I blush to say it, but it is true—our imported Guernsey cow is responsible for Jimmie's invitation to Combe Abbey to visit the Duchess of Strowther, when Lady Mary goes home to her mother next May.
This is how it happened.
We were all out on the tennis-court one afternoon, when our attention was attracted by the strange antics of the Guernsey. She was generally quite shy and would allow no one to whom she was not accustomed to come near her. But on this occasion she lurched up near where we were standing, and crossed her forefeet and leered at us in such a way that we women instinctively moved backward and put the men between us and her.
We all stared at her, and she stared back and switched her long tail and hung her tongue out and rolled from side to side, until Jimmie said:
"I'm blessed if the old girl doesn't look drunk!"
Just then old Amos ambled up, his fat sides shaking.
"Dat's jest what!" he exclaimed. "You sho'ly am a jedge ob jags, Mistah Jimmie, tah be able tah tell 'em in man er beas'! Dat cow's drunk. Dat's what she is. Jest plain drunk an' disorderly. She broke her rope dis mornin' en got at de apples en filled hersif full ob dem. And apples always mek a cow drunk!"
"I never heard of such a thing," said Captain Featherstone.
Amos scratched his head.
"Well, Mars Captain, I reckon dere's a heap o' tings about a farm dat army ossifers never hearn tell of—meaning no onrespect to dere book larnin'. But jes' de same, dat air Guernsey am drunk."
We all looked at her with interest.
"But what will she do?" I said. "How does being drunk affect a cow?"
"Jes' same as er man, Miss Faith, honey. Jes' look at her! She used to be de shyest, mos' ladylake cow awn de place. She always seemed to 'member dat she'd had a calf en was a lady ob quality. Now look at her! She don' keer! She'd jes' as soon lean her head on de Boss's shoulder en ax him fer a drink er de loan ob his cee-gyar. She's done forgot dat she's a mudder. She feels lake she don' know which is de odder side ob de street en she don' want to be tol'! Dat's what drink does for man or beas'."
"But will it hurt her milk?" I said, soberly, for the rest were screaming at the imbecile expression of the Guernsey while Amos thus diagnosed her case.
"No'm, no'm. Leastways hit won't hurt huh none. It'll dry her up, dough. Such a jag as dat Guernsey's got will dry up her milk for two weeks er mo'. En I wouldn't keer to be de one ter milk huh, neider!"
Here was Jimmie's opportunity.
"Nonsense!" he said. "I'll milk her! I'm not afraid of what a drunken cow will do. Let me know, Amos, when you want her milked."
"All right, Mistah Jimmie. I sho will let you know, yas, sir. Now den, Missus fool cow! Ef you can leab off chattin' wid de quality long enough to go teh yo' stall, I'll show you de way."
I repeat—the Guernsey used to be our best-behaved, most intelligent and ladylike cow, but when Amos endeavoured to lead her away, she calmly sank down just where she was, and went to sleep.
This was too much for Amos. Fun was fun, to be sure, and he seemed glad we were pleased by the Guernsey's antics, but his wrath at a cow's taking the tennis-court for her afternoon nap upset his ideas of propriety.
"Doesn't she remind you for all the world," cried Jimmie, with tears in his eyes, "of a man who sinks to sleep with his arm affectionately around a lamp-post? Her feet are in an attitude that a painter would call 'one of unstudied grace!'"
But Amos, in a fury, pushed, pulled, slapped, and shoved her into a sitting posture, and, by dint of leaning upon each other as if both were under the weather, he finally got her started toward the barn, she, every once in awhile, pausing to lift a fore foot hilariously before planting it on her next uncertain step.
Several hours later I saw Jimmie, with a shining new milk-pail on his arm, followed by Amos with the milking-stool in his hand and his tongue in his cheek, go toward the Guernsey's stall.
We all looked expectantly at each other, then rose, as if by common consent, and followed.
Lady Mary tucked her arm under Mrs. Jimmie's, and gurgled deliciously.
"Oh, dear Mrs. Jimmie! Is your husband always as amusing as he has been here at Peach Orchard? If he is, I am sure mamma would just delight in him—only things aren't always happening at Combe Abbey to show him off as they are at Mrs. Jardine's."
Mrs. Jimmie looked dubious at the first part of this remark, flushed with pleasure at the middle of it, and looked reproachfully at me at the last.
Why is everything always my fault, I wonder?
"Well, I don't know," she said, slowly, "but it does seem as if Jimmie always gets into more troub—I mean, has more adventures when he and Faith are together than when he and I are alone. Oh, oh! What can be the matter with that cow! Oh, I wonder if she has killed my husband!"
We all looked just in time to see the Guernsey gallop madly across the garden, plough her way through the sweet corn, and disappear gaily over the fence, heading for the trolley-tracks, with Amos a close second as she took the hurdle.
Bee's English coachman, who took great pride in the kitchen-garden, hastily followed to see what damage she had done, but at Mrs. Jimmie's agonized entreaty to know what had become of Jimmie, I called him, and he came, respectfully touching his forelock in a way which Jimmie always said "was worth the price of admission."
"I think she has about done for the Country Gentleman, ma'am. She has trampled it so it will never be any good."
Mrs. Jimmie turned white, and leaned gaspingly on Lady Mary.
"Trampled him!" she cried. "Oh, come! Come quickly, and see if she has killed him!"
"My dear!" I cried, almost hysterical over her mistake. "The CountryGentleman is a kind of sweet corn—not Jimmie! See, there he is now.Look, dearest!"
Sure enough, there came Jimmie, a trifle sheepish, but defiant. His derby hat was without a brim, the milk-pail was jammed together like a folding lunch-box, and had a little foam on the outside, as the sole product of his milking prowess.
We asked no questions, but our eager faces demanded an explanation.
He gave it,—terse as was his wont.
"Well, I'll bet that damned cow never switches her tail in anybody's face again!"
We needed no further description of what had happened. The picture was complete.
Strange to say, Lady Mary seemed to comprehend better than any of us. She gurgled with laughter the whole evening, and lavished attentions upon Jimmie so flatteringly that he ceased to look furtively at me and became quite cocky before the evening was over, pretending that he had done all these things to help me entertain my guests.
As we went up-stairs that night, Mrs. Jimmie clutched my arm, and, with eyes as big as stars, said, in a tense whisper:
"My dear, we are invited to Combe Abbey! Think of it! To visit the Duchess of Strowther! Lady Mary is going to write to her mother immediately!"
If it had been anybody except dear Mrs. Jimmie, I should have said:
"Is she going to invite the cow, too?"
But as it was, I squeezed back, and said, earnestly:
"I am so glad, dear Mrs. Jimmie!"
On the last day of the house-party we decided to hold a family gathering in the evening, to which each guest must bring a written sketch of some member of the household. It was to be a very short sketch, not to consume over ten minutes in the reading, and no one was to get angry, and no one was to get his feelings hurt.
Aubrey had to go into New York to attend a dress rehearsal of his new play, but he promised to write something on the train, and have it ready. His absence left me at once to play hostess and to receive the queer, curious, and inconsequent persons who flock to the door of the successful playwright, with every wish from obtaining his autograph to an offer to stage his plays.
My time was all taken up until eleven o'clock, in ordering and setting the servants at work, righting their wrongs, and pottering around among my large family. At three I had an engagement. This left me but a short time in which to write my sketch. I begged Bee to help me out, but never yet have I succeeded in impressing Bee with any respect for my working hours. For this reason I laid down the law with open energy to Billy, hoping that Bee would see that I meant her.
I began the campaign at breakfast. Bee and Billy and I were alone.
"At eleven o'clock I am going to begin to write," I announced, firmly, "and, Billy, I want you distinctly to understand that you are not to run your engine in my hall. Do you hear?"
"Um—huh," said Billy, smiling at me like a cherub.
Bee leaned over and wiped the butter off Billy's chin.
"Before I go to town to-day I want to talk over that blue silk with you," she said. "I don't know how much to get, and Eugenie is so extravagant unless I get the stuff and tell her I got all there was in the piece. Then she makes it do. Would you have it made up with lace?"
"Now, look here, Bee," I said, "I am not going to get my head all muddled with dressmaking before I begin to write. I have all my ideas ready to write that article for to-night. I am going to tell about Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury. Don't you remember what happened? You know if you side-track me on clothes I simply cannot do a thing."
"I know," said Bee, placidly. "No, Billy, not another lump of sugar. Be quiet while mamma talks to Tattah. I know, but it seems to me you might have selected another day to write. You know I wanted to consult you about the dinner Thursday."
"I didn't select the day. The day selected me."
"Why didn't you write yesterday?"
"I didn't have any time."
"Why don't you wait until afternoon?"
"You know they are to be read tonight."
"Oh, very well, go ahead, and I won't bother you. I dare say the dinner will be all right. But if you would just tell me which to use, lace or chiffon with the blue?"
"Lace," I said, in desperation.
Bee half-way closed her eyes and took Billy's hand out of the cream-pitcher.
"I think I'll use chiffon," she said.
The only use my advice is to Bee is to fasten her on to the opposite thing. She says I help her to decide because I am always wrong.
"Now will you keep Billy away and excuse me to all visitors, and don't come near my door for three hours and send my luncheon up at one o'clock, anddon't send after the tray! Leave it there until I have finished writing."
"It is so untidy," murmured Bee.
"Well, who will see it?"
I am one of those who cleanse the outside of the desk and the bureau.
"Now, Billy, my precious, if you will keep away from Tattah all the morning, I will give you some candy directly after dinner. You will find it on the sconce just where I always put it," I said.
The sconce is where Billy and I put things for each other. He is only three and a half—"thrippence, ha'penny," he says if you ask him, but beguiling—oh, as beguiling as Cleopatra, or the serpent in the Garden of Eden, or—or as his mother!
Billy and I went to look at the sconce on my way up-stairs, and he called me back twice, saying, "Tattah, I want to kiss you," which I could but feel was something due to the promised candy on the sconce.
I sat down and began to write:
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
Mrs. Jimmie, having been presented at the Court of St. James, always has more to do in London than she can attend to. As Jimmie hates functions with all the hatred of the American business man who looks upon gloves as for warmth only, this leaves Jimmie and me to roam around London at will. Mrs. Jimmie loathes the top of a "'bus" and absolutely draws the line at "The Cheshire Cheese." She lunches at Scott's and dines at the Savoy, while Jimmie and I are never so happy as in the grill-room at the Trocadero or in a hansom, threading the mazes of the City, bound for a plate of beefsteak pie at "The Cheshire Cheese" or on top of a 'bus on Saturday night, going through the Whitechapel region, creepy with horrors of "Jack the Ripper."
"What in all the world is a beefsteak pie?" she asked us, when she heard our unctuous exclamations.
"Why, it is a huge meat pie, made out of ham and larks and pigeons and beef, with a delicious gravy or sauce and a divine pastry. And you eat it in a little old kitchen with a sanded floor and deal tables, and where the bread is cut in chunks and where the steins are so thick that it is like drinking your beer over a stone wall, and where Dr. Samuel Johnson used to sit so often that the oil from his hair has made a lovely dirty spot on the wall, and they have it under glass with a tablet to his memory, so that if you like you can go and kneel down and worship before it, with your knees grinding into the sand of the floor," I said.
"Dear me," said Mrs. Jimmie, faintly. "Couldn't they have cleaned it off?"
At this juncture Bee came in with her hat on. "Excuse me for interrupting you," she said, with a far-away look in her eyes. "But do you mind if I copy that pink negligee? It hangs so much better than those I got in Paris. I won't take a moment. Just stand up and let me see. You needn't look so despairing, I am not going to stay. No, Billy, you stay there. Mother will be down directly. Oh, baby, why will you step on poor Tattah's gown? See, you hurt her. Didn't I tell you to stay with Norah? Six, eight, ten—don't, Billy. Don't touch any of Tattah's papers. Twelve—and four times seven—I think thirty yards of lace—Billy, take your engine off the piano. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Dick just telephoned, and wants us to make up a party for the theatre, with a supper afterward, next Monday. I telephoned to Freddie and asked him, and he is delighted, and so I told Dick that we would all come with pleasure. Now come, Billy, we must not interrupt Tattah. This is one of the days when she must not be disturbed."
She closed the door with the softness one uses in closing the door of a death-chamber, in order, I suppose, "not to disturb" me. I pulled myself together, and went on.
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
"Clean it off? What sacrilege! Why, there are persons who would like to buy the whole wall, as Taffy tried to buy the wall on which Little Billee had drawn Trilby's foot," I exclaimed.
Mrs. Jimmie looked incredulous. She is so deliciously lacking in a sense of humour that in the frivolous society of Jimmie and me she is as much out of place as the Venus de Milo would be in vaudeville.
"We had such a delightful day at Stoke Pogis Monday, how would you like to spend Sunday at Canterbury?" she said. "It seems to me that it would be a most restful thing to wander through that lovely old cathedral on Sunday."
Before I could reply, Jimmie dug his hands down in his pockets, thrust his legs out in front of him, dropped his chin on his shirt-bosom and chuckled.
"What I like are cheerful excursions," he said. "On Monday we went to Stoke Pogis. It rained, and we had to wear overshoes, and we carried umbrellas. We lunched at a nasty little inn where we had to eat cold ham and cold mutton and cold beef, when we were wet and frozen to start with. What I wanted was a hot Scotch and a hot chop and hot potatoes—everythinghot. Then—"
"Wait," I cried. "It was the inn where John Storm and Glory Quayle lunched that day when she led him such a dance."
"John Fiddlesticks!" said Jimmie. "As if that counted against that cold lunch! Then we arranged to go in the wagonette, but you got into such a hot argument with me—"
"I thought you said we didn't have anything hot," I murmured.
"Then we missed the wagonette, and spent an hour finding a cab. Then when we got there we were waylaid by an old woman in a little cottage, who showed us a register of tourists, and who artfully mentioned the sums they had given toward the restoration of Stoke Pogis, and you made me give more than the day's excursion cost. Then we went along a wet, bushy lane that muddied my trousers, and when we arrived at Gray's grave, you found the solemn yew-tree, and perched yourself on a wet, cold gravestone, and read Gray's Elegy aloud, while I held an umbrella over your heads and enjoyed myself. Now you want to put in Sunday at Canterbury, where, if it isn't more cheerful, you will probably have to bury me."
"Jimmie, you haven't any soul!" I said, in disgust.
Jimmie grunted.
A knock on the door.
"Please excuse me for interrupting you," said Mary, "but there are two reporters down-stairs, who want to know if they may photograph the front of the house for the SundayBattle Ax."
"Yes, I don't care. Tell them to go ahead."
She shut the door and went away.
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
"Oh, Jimmie," sighed his wife.
Another knock.
"Mary, whatdoyou want?" I said, savagely.
She stuttered.
"And please, Missis, they want to know if you will just come and sit on the doorstep a moment with a book in your hand. I told them Mr. Jardine wasn't at home, so they said you would do!"
"No, I won't. Tell my sister to put on my hat and hold the book in front of her face and be photographed for me."
"Very well, Missis."
She went out, and again I numbered the page and essayed to write. But I could not. I was rapidly becoming mired. I stonily refused to leave my desk, but sat staring at the wall, trying to get the thread of my narrative, when—Mary again.
She was in tears.
"I am afraid to speak to you, and I am afraidnotto speak to you," she stammered.
"Well, what is it?"
"Indeed, I try, Missis, but I can't seem to help you any. There are two young girls in the drawing-room, who want to know if Mr. Jardine will give his autograph to the Highland Alumnae Club. It has 472 members. They sent up their cards."
I simply moaned.
"That will be a whole hour's work! I can't do it now. (Mary knows I always write Aubrey's autographs for him!) Tell them to leave the cards and call for them to-morrow."
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
"How in the world, Mrs. Jimmie, did you come to throw yourself away onJimmie?" I said, with an impertinence which was only appreciated byJimmie.
Mrs. Jimmie took me with infinite seriousness, and looked horrified at the sacrilege. She got up and crossed the room and sat down beside Jimmie on the sofa, without saying a word. Her tall, full figure towered above the gentlemanly slouch of Jimmie's boyish proportions, and her thus silently arraying herself on Jimmie's side as a wordless rebuke to my impertinence was so delicious that Jimmie gave me a solemn wink, as he said:
"Now she has only voiced the opinion of the world. Let us face the question once for all. Why did you marry me?"
Mrs. Jimmie coloured all over her creamy pale face. She looked in distress from me to Jimmie, divided between her desire to express in one burst of eloquence the fulness of her reasons for marrying the man she adored, and her reluctance to display emotion before me. She took everything with such edifying gravity. It never dawned on her that he was teasing her.
"Don't torment her so!" I said. "Mrs. Jimmie, I admire your taste, butI admire Jimmie's more."
"Thank you, dear," she said, seriously, but still with that soft blush on her cheeks. Then she added, quietly, "Jimmie never torments me."
"Mon Dieu," I said, under my breath, with a fierce glance at Jimmie. But he only shook his head, as one would who had not "fetched it" that time, but who meant to keep on trying.
Another knock. Mary again, with the mail. She was swallowing violently, and her eyes were full of tears. I took up the letters and tore them open.
Sixteen requests for autographs, only one enclosing a stamp. Twelve letters from young girls, telling Aubrey their stellar capabilities. Four requests for photographs. Some personal letters, and this choice effusion, which I copyverbatim et spellatim.
"DEAR SIR: Please tell me how you Study human natur do you travle extensively through close Social relations or do you Study phenology. You illustrate it So accrately that I would be pleased to know your method and if you don't think I am too cheeky, would be pleased to know your income. I remain yours with respect."
I gave a little shriek of delight, and rushed back to the Jimmies with renewed enthusiasm. This unknown man had inspired me afresh.
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
But although Jimmie growls, there is no one in the world who is so excellent a travelling companion as he, for he is always ready for everything. You cannot suggest any jaunt too wild or too impossible for Jimmie not to bend his energies toward making it possible. The chief reason that Mrs. Jimmie likes me so much is because I admire Jimmie, and the reason that Jimmie likes me is because I adore Mrs. Jimmie.
So I was not at all surprised to find ourselves at Canterbury on Saturday afternoon, after a short run from London through one of the loveliest counties of England. Such bewitching shades of green. Such lovely little hills,—friendly, companionable little hills. I can't bear mountains. It is like trying to be intimate with queens and empresses. They overpower me.
Canterbury was enchanted ground to me. We found the very old cellar over which stood the Canterbury Inn. I could picture the whole thing to myself. I even reconciled Chaucer's spelling with the quaintness and curiousness of the old, old town.
We strolled up to St. Martin's Church, said to be the oldest church in England, and wandered around the churchyard, filled with glorious roses creeping everywhere over tombs so old that the lettering is illegible. When the sun set, we had the most beautiful view of Canterbury to be had anywhere, and one of the most beautiful in all England.
We sat down to a cold supper that night in a charming little inn with diamond-paned windows. But as Jimmie loves Paris cooking and would almost barter his chances of heaven for a smoking dish ofsole à la Normandeat the Café Marguery, he cast looks of deep aversion at a side table loaded with all sorts of cold and jellied meats. His choice of evils finally fell upon chicken, and to the purple-faced waiter with blue-white eyes, who asked what part of the fowl he would prefer, Jimmie said:
"The second joint."
The waiter frowned and went away. Presently he came back and askedJimmie over again, and again Jimmie said, "The second joint."
He went away and came back with a fine cut of beef.
"What's this?" said Jimmie. "I ordered chicken."
"Yes, sir!" said the waiter, mopping his brow, "What part would you like, sir?"
"The second joint," said Jimmie, with ominous distinctness. "That is if English chickensgrowany."
"Yes, sir, yes, sir," said the poor waiter.
He hurried away, and finally brought up the head waiter.
"What part of the fowl would you like, sir? This man did not understand your order."
Jimmie leaned back in his chair, and looked up at the waiters without speaking.
"How many parts are there to a chicken?" said Jimmie. "As your man does not seem to speak English, you name them over, and when you come to the one I want, I'll scream."
Both waiters shifted their weight to the other foot and looked embarrassed.
"I want the knee of the chicken," said Jimmie. "From the knee-cap to the thigh. That part which supports the fowl when it walks. Not the breast nor the neck nor the back nor yet the ankle, but the upper, the superior part of the leg. Do you understand?"
"The upper part of the leg? I beg pardon, sir, but the waiter understood that you wanted a cut from the second joint on that table, sir."
Jimmie simply looked at him.
"The English speak a dialect somewhat resembling the American language,Jimmie," I said, soothingly.
A knock at the door, and Bee appeared.
"Should Wives Work?" she said. "Answer that offhand! There is a reporter down-stairs for theSunday Gorgon, who wants five hundred words from you which he is prepared to take down in shorthand. Should Wives Work?"
"Should wives work?" I cried, ferociously. "Would they if they got a chance? Oh, Bee, for heaven's sake, go down and tell him I'm out. Please, Bee."
"No, just give me a few ideas, and I'll go down and enlarge on them, and make up your five hundred words. Your opinion is so valuable. You don't know a single thing about it!"
I got rid of her by some diplomacy, and returned to the Jimmies.
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
"Never mind her, dear," said Mrs. Jimmie. "Think what a beautiful, restful day we shall have to-morrow, wandering about Canterbury cathedral. I can't think of a more beautiful way to spend Sunday. London is simply dreadful on Sunday."
"London is simply dreadful at any time," said Jimmie. "Every restaurant, even the Savoy, closes at midnight. I got shut into the Criterion the other evening in the grill, and had to come out through the hotel, and they unlocked more doors and unclanked more chains than I've heard since I was the prisoner of Chillon. Talk about going wrong in London. You simply couldn't. Goodness is thrust upon you, if you are travelling. If you are a native and belong to the clubs—that's different. But the way they close things in England at the very time of all others that you want them to be open—"
Bee entered.
"Excuse me," she said, in a whisper. Bee thinks if she whispers it is not an interruption. "A committee from the Jewish Hospital would like to know if Aubrey will present a set of his books to the Hospital Library."
"If he does, that will be sixty dollars that he will have paid out this week, for his own books, for the privilege of giving them away. But as this is the last hospital in town that he hasnotcontributed to, tell them yes, and then set the dog on them!" I said, savagely.
"You poor thing!" said Bee. "It's a shame the way people torment you."
Billy crowded past his mother, and climbed into my lap.
"Tell me a story, dear Tattah," said this born wheedler, patting my face with his little black paw.
"No, now Billy—" began Bee.
"Let him stay," I cried, casting down my pen. "It is so seldom that he cuddles that I'll sacrifice myself upon the altar of aunthood. Well, once upon a time, Billy, there was a dear little blue hen who stole away—sit still now! You've more legs than a centipede!—who stole away every day and went under the barn where it was so cool and shady, and laid a lovely little smooth, cream-coloured egg. Then when she had laid it, she was so proud that she could never help coming out and cackling at the top of her voice, 'Cut-cut-cut-ka-dah-cut!' And then the lady of the house would run out and say, 'Oh, there's that naughty little blue hen cackling over a new-laid egg which I did want so much to make an omelette, but I don't know where she has laid it. The naughty little blue hen!' So the poor lady would be obliged to use the red hen's eggs for the omelette, because the little blue hen laidhersunder the barn.
"Well, after the little blue hen had laid six beautiful cream-coloured eggs, she began to sit on them day after day, covering them with her feathers, and tucking her lovely little blue wings down around the edges of her nest to keep the eggs warm, and day after day she sat and dreamed of six darling little yellow, fluffy chickens with brown wings and sparkling black eyes and dear little peepy voices, and she was so happy in thinking of her little children that she was as patient as possible, and never seemed to care that all the other hens and chickens were running about in the warm yellow sunshine and snapping up lively little shiny bugs with their yellow beaks.
"Well, after awhile, this dear little patient blue hen heard the funniest little tapping, tapping, tapping under her wings." Billy's eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he tapped the arm of the chair as I did. "And then she felt the most curious little fluttering under her wings—oh, Billy,whatdo you think this little blue hen felt fluttering under her wings?"
"Aomelette!" said Billy, excitedly.
I finished the Jimmies as an anticlimax.
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury.
It did not disturb Jimmie the next day to discover that CanterburyCathedral isclosed to visitors on Sunday.
Wesaw it on Monday.
After such a day it was no surprise to me to have Aubrey come home so dead tired that our strenuous evening was given up, and we all went out in Cary's new motor-car instead.