CHAPTER XVIIJIM CROW
“WHAT in the world have you there?” inquired Mrs. Selden as Joanne set down the basket containing her patient.
“Jim Crow,” responded Joanne.
“You do say such silly things, Joanne,” returned her grandmother. “I suppose that is some of the slang you have picked up from those boys, like calling frankfurter sausages ‘hot dog.’ I wish you wouldn’t use those unpleasant expressions, and I wish you would answer my questions seriously.”
“Well, if it isn’t Jim Crow it is a crow,” replied Joanne.
“Of all things.”
“He has a broken leg, and I couldn’t leave him in the woods for some savage creature to get, so I brought him home so Grad could see his leg is properly set.”
“That is another thing. Of course you couldn’t let any creature suffer.”
“Where is Grad?”
“In the library. I have been worried to death about you. What made you so late?”
“The crow,” Joanne answered picking up the basket and walking out of the room. Why was it her grandmother so often rubbed her the wrong way? She had come home feeling happy and amiable and now was all ruffled up. Well, Claudia had advised her not to be snappish, but to cultivate a sweet serenity, for her grandmother couldn’t help not having a keen sense of humor, and there was no way to mend matters, except by controlling one’s temper. “It isn’t possible for your grandmother to see things as you do, but it is possible for you not to get mad about it,” Claudia had told her.
“Well, well, well,” her grandfather greeted her. “Back again safe and sound. Have a good time?”
“We had a perfectly scrumptious time, and almost all our greens are spoken for. What the families and friends of the girls and boys don’t take the churches will, so we feel we have done a good day’s work.”
Here Jim Crow spoke up from his basket. “Caw, caw,” he said protestingly.
“What have you got there?” inquired Dr. Selden curiously.
Joanne lifted the lid of the basket and produced the crow. “A patient for you. Hal fixed his leg the best he could but I want you to look at it and see if it is all right. We found him in the woods.” She took thebird over to her grandfather who examined it carefully, not, however, without some objection on the part of Jim Crow.
“Hal did a pretty good job,” pronounced Dr. Selden, “but I’ll put on some better splints and he’ll come out all right, I think. What are you going to do with him?”
“Keep him. He will make such a funny pet.”
Dr. Selden shook his head. “I don’t think your grandmother will approve of such a pet. Crows are very mischievous, you know.”
“But not more so than monkeys, and my father had a monkey, you told me.”
“Yes, to be sure,” Dr. Selden smiled reminiscently, “and many a prank he played.”
“Tell me some.”
“Well, I remember on one occasion when your grandmother was giving a dinner to some distinguished guests that the meal was delayed nearly an hour because Master Monkey got into the dining-room just before the meal was to be served. The butler had left the room for a moment and in the twinkling of an eye Toots, that was the monkey’s name, had made havoc of the butler’s careful preparations, flowers, nuts, candies overturned, water streaming over everything, glasses upset, the table in a perfect mess.”
Joanne laughed. “What did poor Gradda do?”
“What did the poor butler do? He came to your grandmother and asked her what he should do. Therewas but one thing to do and that was to lay the table again and delay the dinner. It was a mercy it wasn’t utterly spoiled.”
“And what happened to the monkey?”
“He was banished the next day, much to your father’s sorrow, but this was the climax of many trials, and your grandmother’s endurance was at an end. I must say I was sorry, but when I came home from my next trip I brought a dog to your father and he was comforted, for he could keep the dog out-of-doors and could make a great companion of him.”
“I wish I could remember my father,” said Joanne wistfully.
“I wish you could, my dear,” returned her grandfather gravely. “You are much like him.”
“Temper and all?” asked Joanne with a little deprecating smile.
Her grandfather nodded, then answered. “He learned to control his temper just as you are trying to do.”
“Oh, Grad, do you really notice that?”
“Of course; I am not blind.”
“It’s a great comfort to know that my father was just as fiery as I am, and that he did improve. Well, Grad, I suppose I must give up Jim Crow if Gradda says so, but I hope I can keep him till he gets well. Will you put in a good word for him?”
“I will, for I don’t think he can do much damage with only one leg to stand on.”
Mrs. Selden yielded gracefully when the question was put before her. She was too kind-hearted to do otherwise and really showed great interest in the wounded bird. As for Joanne, her trials began that very first night when the crow insisted upon leaving the nest she had made for him in the basket, and hobbled about the room making strange noises, and getting hold of all manner of things, till, after being awakened many times, Joanne finally shut him up in her bathroom. She discovered him the next morning in the act of carrying off a teaspoon which he had found on the wash-stand, to which place he had flown.
His broken leg soon mended, but before it was quite healed Joanne carried him to the gymnasium where the girls gathered to make up the greens into wreaths and garlands. Here he distinguished himself by picking the red berries from the holly, by flying off with the string, by trying to hide the scissors or any other bright object he spied, and though at first this was amusing at last it came to be rather a nuisance, for it interfered with the work.
“I don’t believe we want him for a mascot,” decided Miss Chesney. “There’s no telling what trouble he’ll make for us.”
“But he’s so funny and so tame,” protested Winnie. “I love to see him hopping around.”
“Then he mustn’t come when he would interfere with any work we may want to do,” Miss Chesney compromised.
“Is your grandmother going to let you keep him for good?” inquired Winnie turning to Joanne.
Joanne shook her head sadly. “I’m afraid not. He carried off her thimble the other day and we were hours finding it.”
It was quite true that Mrs. Selden soon declared that she would have none of Jim Crow; he was far too mischievous to admit into the household, so back he went to his native heath where Pablo gladly took possession of him, clipped his wings and made a great pet of him, so the next time Joanne saw him he was riding around on Chico’s back and hob-nobbing with the cats in the barn and the chickens in the barn-yard.
Christmas came and went bringing all sorts of excitement and pleasures to Joanne. One of her chief joys was in a letter she received from Mrs. Marriott with a photograph of herself in her home, Bob standing by her side with the quizzical look upon his face which Joanne knew so well. Joanne paraded the picture around rapturously, and acknowledged it in a letter distinguished not only for its enthusiasm but for its length. It brought a prompt reply just after New Year, giving Joanne something to look forward to, for Mrs. Marriott said she expected to be in Washington before the year was up, and that she hoped to see much of her little friend while she was there.
“She is so perfectly adorable,” said Joanne after she had read the letter to Winnie. “I should like to carry her photograph around with me all the time,only it is too big. I am going to devote some of my Christmas money to having it framed, and I shall hang it in my room where I can see it first thing when I wake up.”
Winnie laughed. “You crazy thing, to go into such ecstasies over a mere woman.”
“She isn’t a mere woman; she is the queen of women.”
“Crazy again. I don’t see why you want to have so many pictures of her in your room. Let me see; there is one on the dressing bureau, one on the mantelpiece, one on that little table, and another on the wall, and I know perfectly well that you carry around one with you in your purse.”
“But they are all snap shots, and this new one is so much larger and more important, besides the one in my pocketbook is nearly worn out and I shall have to replace it pretty soon. You needn’t talk, for you have shoals of pictures of Marguerite Clark and Esther has just as many of Mary Pickford.”
“But Marguerite Clark is a Girl Scout; she is captain of a troop.”
“Well, so is Mrs. Marriott, at least she was; if it hadn’t been for her I would never have become one, and I should never have met you, so no wonder I adore her.”
“Oh, well, if you put it that way, of course,” responded Winnie. “Let me have another look at the big photograph.”
Joanne gladly produced it. “You can’t say she isn’t lovely,” she remarked.
“Her face is very familiar, but I can’t think why. Either I have seen her or she reminds me of some one I have seen. Oh, now I know; it is Madame Risteau, the concert singer. I have heard her once or twice. She has a lovely voice, and she is very good looking.”
“I don’t believe she is as good looking as my dear Mrs. Marriott, even if there is a resemblance,” returned Joanne putting away the photograph. “She is musical, too, and her son, Bob, plays on the violin like an angel.”
“That reminds me of something. Did you know we girls are to give a concert or have a minstrel show, or something?”
“Hadn’t heard of it. When is it to be?”
“I don’t think there is any date fixed. They are skirmishing around to get performers, and make up a programme. I promised to sell some tickets. It is to be for some worthy object, tuberculosis hospital, I believe. Come, let’s go hunt up Clausie; it was she who told me about it; Miss Chesney told her.”
“Miss Dodge told Miss Chesney, no doubt. It’s a regular Henny Penny sort of tale, isn’t it? There’s a box of fudge, Win. Help yourself while I dress.”
“Did you make it?” inquired Winnie, picking up a square of fudge and looking at it critically.
“I did, child of an inquiring mind, and if you say it isn’t good, I shall cut your acquaintance.”
Winnie nibbled off a corner of the square. “It’s prime. How many things have you learned to cook in the past year, Jo?”
“Mercy me! I don’t know. Ask me what I don’t know how to cook. You remember my experience in being chief cook and bottle washer last fall when Gradda was ill and we had no maid. After that I don’t believe anything can ever feaze me again, not in the way of housekeeping at least.”
“You certainly have had your ups and downs, blithe spirit,” replied Winnie, finishing her piece of fudge and helping herself to another. “The way you have bounced along through all sorts of jobs is a caution.”
“Do blithe spirits bounce?” said Joanne vigorously brushing her hair.
“Don’t be hypercritical, my child. If you prefer it I will say the way you have airily flitted. Honest to goodness, Jo, you are a wonder. This time next year I expect to see you sporting around as a Golden Eaglet.”
“If I don’t fall down on the rest of my tests I’m beginning to have hopes myself.”
“Why should you fall down?”
“Oh, I don’t know. One has to get into deep waters sometime, I suppose. I’m sorter, kinder scared of the health things. It’s tremendously hard to be prudent always, and I do love sweet things.”
Winnie looked ruefully at the third piece of fudgewhich she had just extracted from the box. “Why did you say that?” she lamented. “I was having such a nice free time with this fudge and now I am confronted by the word Duty with a large D. Get thee back, foul fiend!” she exclaimed dropping the fudge back into the box.
“How dare you call my fudge a foul fiend,” cried Joanne laughing.
“Put it away! Lock it up!” cried Winnie jumping up and going to the window. “I am a poor weak sister, and as long as it is in sight I shall not be able to resist the temptation of eating on and on and on. When it comes to home-made fudge I am a perfect pig. I know so much isn’t good for me. Already I have eaten too many Christmas candies, and now I act as if I had not had a sweet thing for ages. I shall keep on looking out the window till you assure me that box is safely hidden from view.”
“I call that noble self-denial,” said Joanne as she skurried the box into a drawer. “The only trouble is that now I shall have to be the martyr and eat what you have left. No, I will not,” she added drawing forth the box again. “I will take what’s left to Clausie. I will have the strength of mind to withstand temptation.”
“And make poor Clausie go through the same agonies,” said Winnie with a little giggle.
Joanne looked down at the box undecidedly. “Then what shall I do? throw it away?”
“Oh, never, never,” cried Winnie with such feeling that both laughed. “Take it to some one who never has anything of the kind and who has grown beyond the temptations of youth.”
“Do you suppose there exists any one who could grow beyond the temptation of eating candy of any kind?” asked Joanne.
“Of course. I know ever and ever so many who spurn it.”
“I don’t wish to doubt your veracity, but that is hard to believe,” returned Joanne with a sigh. “My grandparents don’t. Tell me where to find a spurner and off goes this box post haste.”
“Why not send it to your friend, Mrs. Marriott? She will have the judgment to know when to stop eating it.”
“The very thing!” declared Joanne. “You have saved my life, Win. I will do it up at once and we can mail it on our way to Clausie’s.”
“Mrs. Marriott will think it a pretty attention,” Winnie went on, “and if she is such a person as you describe she will be discreet. Moreover you won’t have to see it standing around where you can cast longing looks at it.”
“You don’t think I should keep it for the grandparents?” asked Joanne pausing in her act of tying a string.
“Haven’t they had any?”
“Oh, yes, a lot.”
“As much as is good for them, probably. You can make some more when this has passed out of their memories.”
So the fudge went to Mrs. Marriott and if Bob ate the most of it he was of that age and of that healthy condition when a box of fudge more or less had no effect upon him.
From Clausie the girls heard more of the prospective concert. The chief performer, a friend of Miss Dodge, was said to be a fine violinist and upon him they would depend for the best numbers of their programme, but he could not be with them as yet and so the concert would have to be deferred.
“We all think now that it will have to be put off till the Easter holidays,” said Claudia. “Better so, for that will give more time for rehearsing. It is foolish to dash into a thing before you have made the proper preparations.”
“Dear me,” said Joanne regretfully, “I thought we would have something to get excited over, and now it is all slumped.”
Claudia laughed. “I don’t call it a slump. For my part I’m rather glad it is put off, for we shall all be busy enough with school work, exams, and all that.”
“Not to mention our scout work,” Winnie put in. “We’ll have excitement enough, never you fear.”
Joanne looked sober. “That reminds me,” she said, “that I haven’t made my star map. I fully intended making it this winter, and here the winter is leapingalong like a rabbit. Grad gave me a wonderful constellation finder at Christmas with a perfectly adorable map, and I have scarcely looked at them. There was so much going on during the holidays, and then came school, besides it is stupid to do things alone.”
“Why don’t we do them together, then?” said Claudia. “Neither Winnie nor I have finished our star maps, and I’m sure I don’t know the ‘Song of the Fifty Stars,’ do you, Win?”
“Indeed I do not. Let’s start in now. Get your handbook, Clausie. No time like the present.”
Claudia went off for her book. “I don’t believe I know further than Capella,” she announced as she came back, open book in hand.
“Oh, I can do better than that,” declared Winnie. “I am sure I have learned as far as Spica. What about you, Jo?”
“I’ve scarcely begun. Of course I know a few of the stars. Grad is wonderful in his knowledge of them, being a sailor man, and he has pointed out some. He’ll be perfectly delighted if I finish a map.”
“Your grandfather is such an old dear,” remarked Winnie. “I’d love to have one just like him; I can say that as I do not remember either of mine. Where shall we meet, Clausie, and when?”
“Why not meet here on Friday nights, unless something special comes up? You know our upper porch is a fine lookout place, to say nothing of the cupola. If it is cold we can wrap up, and if it rains or is toocloudy we’ll do something else. You girls can stay all night and we’ll have a joyous time.”
“I think that’s the loveliest plan ever,” cried Joanne, “and I think you are a perfect dear, Clausie, to suggest it. I hope Gradda won’t object; she’s sort of queer about my getting from under her wing, you know. Last summer was the first time she ever consented to it, and then it was only after Grad read her the Riot act.”
“He’ll have to do it again, I think,” returned Winnie laughing. “He’ll approve of your studying the stars, I am sure, so it will be easy to get him around to your side.”
“Oh, you must come,” insisted Claudia. “I’m really crazy about the plan. I don’t see why we didn’t think of it sooner.”
Joanne looked thoughtful. “I’m afraid Gradda will argue that I can study stars with Grad any old time.”
“But you can’t do it half so well in a shut-in street as out here,” protested Claudia.
“True, O queen. Well, I’ll do my best. Come on, Winnie; if we want to get home before dark we’d better ‘git goin’,’ as Unc’ Aaron says.”
After several delays they started off full of the project suggested by Claudia. “I didn’t like to confess it,” said Joanne when they were on their way, “but do you know I have never stayed over night with girls? For some reason Gradda is set against it, and I amjust crazy to do it. Of course last summer up at camp was much the same thing, but not exactly.”
“It doesn’t seem possible,” exclaimed Winnie. “I thought all girls did. I’ve spent the night at Claudia’s scores of times. I don’t see what could be the objection.”
“Neither do I,” responded Joanne; “it is only one of Gradda’s little idiosyncrasies.”
They parted at the corner, Winnie’s parting charge being: “Try your grandfather first.”