"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."
"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 thatprinciple. 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 peopleareengaged. 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 abouther 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 theMayflower."
"Well, so're you. Don't you know it?"
"Have we really gotMayflowerblood?"
"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 theMayflower. 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 youthinkso. 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 wehad 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, theyaren'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'sElspeth.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 Judidyatewith us. Aren't I a pig?Elspethagain.
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, theyaren'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 Judidyatewith us. Aren't I a pig?
Elspethagain.
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 aapartment 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 dollarswent 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 luckseemed 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 saidyoulooked good enough to eat, Madget."
"Iamgoing 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," Elizabethsaid, "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 beansupper. 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 childrenup 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-reachinghand 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 hadmanaged 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 wouldhave 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 treesPlaying celestial symphonies.I see their branches downward bent,Like keys of some great instrument,"
"I hear the wind among the treesPlaying 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 eatifI wanted to."
"Idideat 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 tohave 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.
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-riddenBuddy.Buddy, my own darling, dear, dearBuddy: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. Youdidgo 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 beansupper. 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.Elspeth.
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, dearBuddy:
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. Youdidgo 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 beansupper. 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.
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.
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 manypies 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.
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 manypies 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—youaren'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,andsuch 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.
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—youaren'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,andsuch 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.
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 Peggygood-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.