44CHAPTER IVThe Energy of Judith
“Mother, Cousin Ann Peyton is at Buck Hill. I saw her old carriage on the road when I went in for my express parcels.”
“Why will you insist upon saying Cousin Ann, Judith?” drawled Mrs. Buck. “I’d take my time about calling anybody cousin who scorned to do the same by me.”
As Judith’s mother took her time about everything, the girl smiled indulgently, and proceeded in the unpacking of the express packages.
“I’m so glad I am selling for this company that sends all goods directly to me instead of having me take orders the way the other one did. I’m just a born peddler and I know I make more when I can deliver the goods the minute they are bought and paid for. I’m going to take Buck Hill in on my rounds this year and see if all of my dear cousins won’t lay in a stock of sweet soap and cold cream.”
“There you are, calling those Buck Hill folks cousin again. Here child, don’t waste that45string. I can’t see what makes you so wasteful. You should untie each package, carefully pick out the knots, and then roll it up in a ball. I wonder how many times I’ve told you that.”
“So do I, Mother, and how many times I have told you that my time is too precious to be picking out hard knots. I bet this minute you’ve got a ball of string as big as your head, and please tell me how many packages you send out in a year.”
The girl’s manner was gay and bantering. She stopped untying parcels long enough to kiss her mother, who was laboriously picking the knots from the cut twine.
Mrs. Buck continued, “Wasting all of that good paper too! Here, let me fold it up. My mother and father taught me to be very particular about such things and goodness knows I’ve tried to teach you. I don’t know where we’d be if I didn’t save and if my folks before me hadn’t done so.”
It was a well-known fact that Judith’s maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Knight, had been forced to abandon their ancestral farm in Connecticut and had started to California on a hazard of new fortunes but had fallen by the wayside, landing in Kentucky where their habits of saving string and paper certainly had not46enriched them. Such being the case a whimsical smile from the granddaughter was pardonable.
“There is no telling,” she laughed, “but you go on saving, Mother dear, and I’ll try to do some making and between us we’ll be as rich as our cousins at Buck Hill.”
“There you are again! I’d feel ashamed to go claiming relations with folks that didn’t even know I existed. I can’t see what makes you do it.”
“Oh, just for fun! You see we really and truly are kin. We are just as close kin as some of the people Cousin Ann Peyton visits, because you see she takes in anybody and everybody from the third and fourth generation of them that hate to see her coming. Yesterday in Louisville I looked up the family in some old books on the early history of Kentucky at the Carnegie Library and I found out a lot of things. In the first place the Bucks weren’t named for Buck Hill.”
The land owned by Mrs. Buck had at one time been as rich as any in Kentucky, but it had been overworked until it was almost as poor as the deserted farm in Connecticut. As Judge Middleton had said, the price of the right-of-way through the place sought by the trolley company had enabled her to lift the47long-standing mortgage. She had inherited the farm, mortgage and all, from her father, who had bought it from old Dick Buck. The house was a pleasant cottage of New England architecture, built closer to the road than is usual on Kentucky farms. Old Mr. Knight had also followed the traditions of his native state by building his barn with doors opening on the road. The barn was larger than the house, but at the present time Judith’s little blue car and an old red cow were its sole inhabitants. The hay loft, which was designed to hold many tons of hay, was empty. Sometimes an errant hen would find her way up there and start a nest in vain hopes of being allowed to lay her quota and begin the business of hatching her own offspring in her own way, but Judith would rout her out and force her to comply to community housekeeping in the poultry-house.
The Knights’ motto might have been: “Lazy Faire” and the Buck’s “’Nuff Said,” as a wag at Ryeville had declared, but such mottoes did not fit Miss Judith. Nothing must be left as it was unless it was already exactly right and enough was not said until she had spoken her mind freely and fearlessly. Everything about this girl was free and fearless—her walk, the way she held her head, her unflinching hazel48eyes and ready, ringing laugh. Even her red gold hair demanded freedom and refused to stay confined in coil, braid or net.
“I’m sure I don’t know where you came from,” Mrs. Buck drawled. “You’re so energetic and wasteful like. Of course my folks were never ones to sit still and be taken care of like the Bucks,” and then her mild eyes would snap a bit, “but the Knights believed in saving.”
“Even energy?” asked Judith saucily.
“Well, there isn’t any use in wasting even energy. My father used to say that saving was the keynote of life as well as religion. I reckon you must be a throw back to my mother’s grandfather, who was a Norse sailor, and reckless and wasteful and red-headed.”
“Maybe so! At any rate I’m going to plough some guano into these acres, even though I can’t plough the seas like my worthy grandpap, Sven Thorwald Woden, or whatever his name was. Just look at our wheat, Mother! It isn’t fit to feed chickens with because our land is so poor. I’m tired of this eternal saving and no making. There is no reason why our yield shouldn’t be as great per acre as Buck Hill, but we don’t get half as much as they do. I’ve got to make a lot of money this summer so as to buy bags and bags of fertilizer. I’ve got a new scheme.”49
“I’ll be bound you have,” sighed Mrs. Buck.
“But you’ll have to help me by making cakes and pies and things and peeling potatoes.”
“All right, just so you don’t hurry me! I can’t be hurried.”
“What a nice mother you are to say all right without even asking what it is.”
“There wasn’t any use in wasting my breath asking, because I knew you’d tell me without asking.”
“Well, this is it: I’m going to feed the motormen and conductors. I got the idea yesterday when I was coming up from Louisville by trolley, when I saw the poor fellows eating such miserable lunches out of tin buckets with everything hot that ought to be cold and cold that ought to be hot. I heard them talking about it and complaining and the notion struck me. I went up and sat by the men and asked them how they would like to have a supper handed them every evening, because it seems it is the night meal they miss most, and they nearly threw a fit with joy. I’m to begin this very day.”
Mrs. Buck threw up her hands in despair. “Judy, you just shan’t do any such thing.”
“Now, Mother, honey, you said you’d help and the men are not bringing any supper from50home and you surely wouldn’t have them go hungry.”
“But you said I would not have to hurry.”
“And neither will you. You can take your own time and I’ll do the hurrying. I only have two suppers to hand out this evening, but I bet you in a week I’ll be feeding a dozen men and they’ll like it and pay me well and before you know it we’ll be rich and we can have lots better food ourselves and even keep a servant.”
“A servant! Heavens, Judith, not a wasteful servant!”
“No indeed, Mother, a saving one—one who will save us many steps and give me time to make more money than you can save. I’ll give them fried chicken this evening and hashed brown potatoes and hot rolls and plum jam and buttermilk. The radishes are up and big enough to eat and so are the young onions. All conductors eat onions. They do it to keep people from standing on the back platform. I am certainly glad the line came through our place and we have a stop so near us. I’ll have to order a dozen baskets with nice, neat covers and big enough to hold plates and cups and saucers. Thank goodness we have enough china to go around what with the Buck leavings and the51Knight savings. I’m going to get some five and ten cent store silver and a great gross of paper napkins. I tell you, Mother, I’m going to do this up in style.”
Mrs. Buck groaned out something about waste and sadly began paring potatoes, although it was then quite early in the forenoon and the trolleymen’s supper was not to be served until six-thirty.
“That child’ll wear herself out,” she said, not to herself but to an old blue hen who was scratching around the hollyhocks, clucking loudly. The hen had a motherly air, having launched so many families, and Mrs. Buck felt instinctively she might sympathize with her.
“Thank goodness I ain’t got but one to worry about,” she continued as the repeated clucks brought Old Blue’s brood around her. “Now just look at that poor old hen! I wonder if she’d rather be a hen and have so many large families to raise or if she wishes she’d been a rooster and maybe been fried in her youth.”
Deep thinking was too much for Mrs. Buck. She stopped peeling potatoes and fell into a brown study. The side porch was a pleasant place to sit and dream. Judith had sorted out her wares and stored them in the back of her52blue car. She had caught two chickens and dressed them and set a sponge for the hot rolls. She had promised herself the pleasure of serving the motorman and conductor a trial supper whose excellence she was sure would bring in dozens of orders.
A whirr from the barn and in a moment Judith was off and away, leaving a cloud of dust behind her.
“No hurry about the potatoes!” she called as she passed the house, and then her voice trailed off with, “I’ll be back by and by.”
“Just like the old woman on a broomstick in Mother Goose,” Mrs. Buck informed the hen and then since there was no hurry about the potatoes she fell to dreaming again. It was very peaceful on the shady porch with that whirlwind of a Judy gone for several hours on one of her crazy peddling jaunts. What a girl she was for plunging! Again the mother wondered where she came from and for the ten thousandth time agreed with herself that it must be the blood of the Norse sailor cropping out in her energetic daughter.
“It might have been the Bucks way back yonder somewhere. Certainly she didn’t get any up-and-doing from old Dick Buck or my poor husband.” Mrs. Buck always thought and53spoke of her husband as her poor husband. That was because he had died in the first year of their marriage. Perhaps a merciful Providence had taken him off before he had time to develop to any great extent the traits that made his father, old Dick Buck, a by-word in the county as being the laziest and most altogether no-account white man in Kentucky.
Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood in New England. She could barely remember the old white farmhouse with its faded green shutters that rattled so dismally in the piercing winds that seemed to single out the Knight house as it swept down between the hills. She recalled vividly the discussion carried on between her parents in regard to their mode of moving West—whether by wagon or rail—and the final decision to go by wagon because in that way they might save not only railroad fare but the bony team. Furniture was packed ready for shipment and stored in a neighbor’s barn until they were sure in just what part of the West they would settle. California had been their goal, but Kentucky seemed far enough. They had stopped for a while in Ryeville with an old neighbor from New England and, hearing of a farm owned by one Dick Buck that was to be sold for taxes, they54determined to abandon the journey to California and put what savings they had on this farm.
The mortgage went with the farm. That Ezra Knight bargained for, but what he had not bargained for was that old Dick Buck and his son, young Dick, also were included in the purchase. They lived in a two-room log house, a little behind the site Ezra had selected for his own domicile. This was the natural place to build, since the land sloped gently from it, giving a proper drainage, and then the well was already there and a wonderfully good well it was.
The new house was built, the plan following the old house they had left in Connecticut as closely as possible, but still old Dick Buck stayed on in his log cabin. Every day he told Ezra Knight he was planning to move, but always some unforeseen event would arise to make it necessary for him to postpone his departure. The houses were not fifty feet apart, the back yard of the New England cottage serving as a front yard to the cabin. The days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months. Ezra grew impatient and the old Dick took to his bed with a mysterious malady that defied the skill of the country doctor. Mrs. Knight, a kindly soul, ministered to his wants, saying she couldn’t let55a dog suffer if he was a neighbor. The months stretched into years. Every time Ezra approached the one time owner of the farm on the subject of his finding some other place of abode, old Dick had an attack of his mysterious malady and Ezra would have to give up for the time being.
In the meantime young Dick was growing into a likely lad and little Prudence Knight had let down her skirts and put up her hair. Dick was employed on the Knight farm, and what was more natural than he should take his meals with them? Old Dick found it equally natural that he should also make one at the frugal board. When Ezra died, which he did ten years after he moved to Kentucky, old Dick and young Dick kindly offered to sit up with the corpse. The bereaved wife made the bed in the low-ceilinged attic room for them and what more natural than they should stay on? Stay on they did until young Dick and Prudence were married; until young Dick died. Then old Dick stayed on and Mrs. Knight died and his daughter-in-law and the little flame-haired Judith were left to fend for themselves.
After the death of Mrs. Knight of course leaving was impossible. Old Dick even spoke of himself as the sole support of his daughter-in-law56and her little Judith. He began to look upon hunting and fishing as a duty and seemed to feel that they would have been destitute without his occasional donation of a small string of perch or a rabbit. Mrs. Knight tolerated him because she was used to him. Judith had a real affection for the old man and, when he died, mourned for him sincerely. To be sure he had been a very untidy old person who had never done a day’s work in all his life but at least he had a nimble wit which had appealed to the child.
After his death Judith trapped rabbits and caught fish. She did many things besides, however, as by that time family funds were so low and the farm so unproductive it was necessary for some member of the family to begin to make money. She was fourteen at the time her grandfather died—a slim long-legged girl giving promise of the beauty that the old soldiers and the drummer on the Rye House porch acknowledged later on. Even then the wire-spring energy was hers that still puzzled her mother—energy and an ever-present determination to get ahead. Sometimes she caught enough fish to sell a few. Sometimes she carried rabbits into the town for sale. In blackberry season she was an indefatigable picker. She went in for57chickens and had steady customers in Louisville for her guaranteed eggs. School was looked upon as part of the business of getting ahead. Nothing in the way of weather daunted her. She went through the high school with flying colors and got a medal for not having missed a single day in four years.
At nineteen she was teaching school for eight months of the year and the other four peddling toilet articles and a few side lines and now planning to feed the motormen on the interurban trolleys.
“Well, well! I guess she got it from the Norse sailor,” sighed Mrs. Buck picking up another potato.
58CHAPTER VUncle Billy’s Diplomacy
The hall bedroom at Buck Hill was not such a small room, except in comparison with the other rooms, which were enormous. There was plenty of space in it for Miss Ann and a reasonable amount of luggage, but not for Miss Ann and three trunks and the numerous bags and bundles and boxes, which Billy stowed away, endeavoring to make the place as comfortable as possible for his beloved mistress.
“I’ll unstrop yo’ trunks an’ we kin git unpacked an’ then I’ll tote the empties up in the attic ’ginst the time we ’cides ter move on,” he said, looking sadly at Miss Ann as she sank listlessly in a chair. Miss Ann allowed herself to be listless in the presence of Billy, and Billy alone. At the sound of a step on the stairs she stiffened involuntarily. Nobody must find Ann Peyton slouching or down-hearted. It was only Mildred going up for a last look at the guest chamber, to make sure everything was in readiness for her company. She did not come to59her old cousin’s room so Miss Ann felt at liberty to relax once more.
“Billy, I am not going to unpack yet,” she faltered. “I—I—perhaps we may have to start off again in a hurry.”
“Don’t say it, Miss Ann! We won’t never be called on ter depart from Buck Hill ’til we’s good an’ ready—not whilst Marse Bob Bucknor’s prodigy is livin’, an’ Mr. Jeff the spitin’ image of his gran’dad. I’s sho Miss Milly done put you in this pretty lil’ room kase she thought you’d like it, bein’ so handy to the stairs an’ all, an’ the windy right over the baid so’s you kin lay an ’look out at the trees an’ flowers—an’ if there ain’t a wishteria vine a comin’ in the casement an’ twinin’ aroun’ jes’ like a pixture. I tell you Miss Ann, this here room becomes you powerful much. I wonder they ain’t never give it ter you befo’. It’s a heap mo’ homey like than the gues’ chamber an’ I’m thinkin’ it’s agonter be quieter an’ cooler an’ much mo’ habitationable.”
“Yes, Billy, I’m sure it will be.” There was a plaintive suggestion of tears in her voice.
“Now, Miss Ann, you git in yo’ wropper an’ lay down a spell an’ I’m gonter fotch you a cup er tea. You’s plum tuckered out what with sech a early start an’ mo’n likely no sleep las’ night.60You ain’t called on ter be a botherin’ yo’ little haid ’bout nothin’. Jes’ you res’ yo’se’f an’ after you rests you kin come down on the po’ch an’ git the air.”
If he had been a mammy coaxing a child Billy’s tone could not have been more gentle or loving. He busied himself unstrapping the trunks and valises and then hurried off for the cup of tea, declaring he would be back in a moment although he well knew that a trial of will with Aunt Em’ly lay before him. Tea and toast he determined to have for his mistress—if over the cook’s dead body. Aunt Em’ly was queen of the kitchen and nothing irritated her more than having extra food to prepare.
“Let ’em eat they victuals when they’s served, three times a day without no stint or savin’ an’ not be peckin’ in between times,” she hurled at poor old Billy when he meekly demanded a tray for the hall bedroom.
“I’ll fix it myself, Sis Em’ly, an’ I won’t make a mite er dirt. Miss Ann air plum flabbergasted what with sech a long trip an’ no breakfas’.”
“I thought you done boas’ you et at a hotel,” sniffed the old woman. “How come she air hongry fer tea an’ toas’ if she done et at a hotel.”
“Sho—sho—but you see it done got jolted61down an’ Miss Ann—Please, Sis Em’ly. I ain’t a arskin’ nothin’ fer myse’f, but jes’ for my Miss Ann. You done won out consarnin’ gues’ chambers an’ hall bedrooms so you mought be willin’ ter give a po’ tired lady a cup er tea.”
Aunt Em’ly was really a very kind person, but there was something about old Billy’s long beard tied up in innumerable plaits, his bow legs and general air of superiority, that had always irritated her. For years she had been held in the subjection of politeness by this unwelcome guest by the attitude of her white people to his mistress, but now the barriers were down and Mrs. Bucknor had openly expressed her impatience at this too-frequent visitor and had been persuaded by her daughters to give Miss Ann the hall room, no longer need she assume cordiality to the old servant. Of course she intended to make the tea for Miss Ann but she also intended to be as disagreeable as possible while the kettle boiled.
The old man sat meekly in the corner of the kitchen, watching Aunt Em’ly while she scalded the small Rebecca pot and measured out the tea. He was glad to see that she put in an extra spoonful as that meant that he too might find some much-needed refreshment. She made quite a stack of toast and buttered it generously,62although all the time she grumbled and frowned.
“Here, take it, an’ git out’n my kitchen. I don’t much mo’n git the breakfus dishes washed befo’ I haster begin gittin’ dinner an’ if I’s gonter have ter be a stoppin’ every five minutes ter fix trays I like ter know when I will git through.”
“Thank you, Sis Em’ly, thank you!” cried old Billy, seizing the coveted tray and making a hasty exit. “Her bark air wus’n her bite,” he chuckled, “an’ I do hope Miss Ann ain’t gonter take away her appletite for dinner by eatin’ all this toas’ an’ drinkin’ this whole pot er tea, kase I tell you now ol’ Billy’s stomic air done stuck to his back with emptiness.”
The tea and toast did put heart in the weary travelers. Miss Ann left half the simple feast for Billy, commanding him to go sit in the corner of the room and devour his share.
“Now I’m gonter rub down my hosses an’ wash the ca’ige, and if you’s got any little odd jobs fer me ter do I’ll mosey back this way arter dinner. Praise Gawd, the Buck Hill folks has dinner in the middle of the day, an’ plenty of it. These here pick-up, mid-day canned salmon lunches air bad enough for the white folks but by the time they gits ter the niggers th’ain’t nothin’ lef but the can. I63hear tell the young ladies air ’spectin’ of comp’ny so I reckon you’ll be a needin’ yo’ sprigged muslin ter take the shine out’n all the gatherin’. I’m a gonter press it fer you, even if a hot iron air arskin’ a big favor with some er these free niggers.”
“Oh, Billy, you needn’t bother to press my gown. It makes very little difference what I wear. I don’t believe I can appear this evening.”
“Miss Ann, air you sick? Ain’t yo’ tea picked you up none?”
“No, Billy, I’m not sick. I’m just so miserable. I’m beginning to see that we are no longer wanted—even here at Buck Hill.” The old woman’s voice quavered piteously. “They used to want us—everywhere. At least, if they didn’t they pretended they did. I don’t know when it started—this drawing back—this feeling we are a burden. When did it begin, Billy?”
“’Tain’t never begun. You’s jes’ so blue-blooded you is sensitive like, Miss Ann. You is wanted mo’n ever. You-all’s kin is proud ter own you. You air still the beauty of the fambly, Miss Ann. I knows, kase I done seed every shemale mimber of the race er Peytons an’ Bucknors an’ all. Th’ain’t never a one64what kin hol’ a can’le ter you. Don’t you go ter throwin’ off on my Miss Ann or you’ll be havin’ ol’ Billy ter fight. I ain’t seed nothin’ in this county ter put long side er you, less’n it wa’ that pretty red-headed gal what went whizzin’ by us up yonder on the pike in a blue ortermobubble. I ain’t knowin’ who she air but one thing that made her so pretty wa’ that I member the time when you wa’ jes’ like her. She turned her head aroun’ ter look at us an’ she give me sech a start I pretty nigh fell off’n my box.
“I ain’t meanin’ no disrespec’ ter Marse Bob an’ Miss Milly’s daughters, but they ain’t nothin’ by the side er that there young gal what dusted us this mornin’. The bes’-lookin’ one er their daughters is Mr. Jeff. He air sho growed ter a likely young man. He air certainly kind an’ politeful too. Didn’t he say pintedly he wa’ glad ter see you? Didn’t he ketch a holt an’ help me tote ev’y las’ one er these here trunks up here? When the young marster air so hospitle I don’t see whe’fo’ you gits notions in yo’ haid.”
“Perhaps you are right, Billy,” and Miss Ann again held up her head. She must not let herself slump. The will that had carried her through all the long years of visiting must65carry her still. She had demanded and hence received homage and respect from her kinsmen for two generations and she must continue to do it. It would be fatal at this point to show weakness or truculence. She had been and intended to be always the honored guest at the various homes that she visited. The unfortunate occurrence at Cousin Betty Throckmorton’s was to be ignored—forgotten. Billy was right; she must dress with care. The matter of the hall bedroom must be treated lightly and accepted as a compliment. It wasn’t as though she had been put out of the guest chamber. She knew in her heart that in times that were past any youthful visitors expected at Buck Hill must have made way for her, but she did not acknowledge it to herself or to Billy.
She shook out the sprigged muslin and gave it to the old man to press. Then, with meticulous care, she began the business of unpacking. It was with some irritation that she found only the top drawer of the bureau empty. In the other drawers Mrs. Bucknor had put away sundry articles which she had forgotten about—remnants of cloth, old ribbons and laces and photographs. The hall room was used only when there was an overflow of guests and only transient visitors put there. For transients one66drawer was sufficient. In the wardrobe there hung an old hunting suit of Jeff’s and several dancing frocks belonging to Mildred and Nan, that had been temporarily discarded to await future going over by the seamstress.
“They might have spared me this,” Miss Ann muttered, as she endeavored to make hanging room for her voluminous skirts.
She snatched the offending garments from the hooks and put them in a pile on the floor. Then she pulled out the lower bureau drawers and dumped the contents on top of the old hunting suit and dancing frocks.
“There! I shall give them to understand I am not to be treated with ignominy. I am Ann Peyton. I have always been treated with consideration and I always intend to be.”
The old eyes flashed and the faded cheeks flushed. She gave the pile of debris a vicious little kick. The blow dislodged from the mass a small, old-fashioned daguerreotype. There was something about the little picture that was familiar. She stooped and picked it up. It was her own likeness, taken at seventeen, a slender, charming girl whose expression gave one to understand that she could not be still much longer. She would have been a better subject for a motion-picture camera than the67invention of Daguerre. Youth looked into the eyes of age and Miss Ann put her hands over her own poor face as though to hide from youth the ravages of time. It seemed to her that the young Ann looked out on the old Ann and said, “What have you done with me? Where am I? You needn’t tell me that you and I are one and the same.”
Slowly she walked to the bureau and slowly she raised her eyes to the mirror and then gazed long and sadly at her face.
“Ann Peyton, you are a fool. You have always been a fool. It is too late to be anything else now and you will go on being a fool until the end of time. This child had more sense than you have.”
Reverently she placed the little daguerreotype in her handkerchief box. It was the picture she had given Bob Bucknor, the father of the present owner of Buck Hill and the grandfather of Jeff. He had prized it once but now it was thrown aside and forgotten by all. She then stooped over and gathered up the articles on the floor and carefully put them back in drawers and wardrobe. She washed her face and hands, straightened her auburn wig, changed her traveling dress to a more suitable one and then sailed majestically down the stairs.
68CHAPTER VIA Question of Kinship
Jefferson Bucknor had been away from home, except for flying visits, for five years. Like most of the young men of his age, the World War had broken in on his college course. He had gone into training at the first suggestion of his country’s need. He was then in his junior year at the University of Virginia. Law had been his goal and at the close of the war he hastened back to finish what he had begun. Determined to hang out his shingle as soon as possible, he had studied summer and winter until he got his degree. He was now at home, taking a much-needed rest and getting acquainted again with his family. The sisters had grown up while he was away, and his father and mother were turning gray. He had only arrived the day before the coming of Cousin Ann, and could not help regretting that his sisters were having this house party. It would have been pleasant to be quietly at home for a while.
“When does your company come?” Jeff69asked Mildred. Cousin Ann had joined them on the front porch, where the family awaited the summons to dinner. “Mildred and Nan are having a swarm of guests,” he explained to the old cousin.
“Ah, indeed!” said Cousin Ann.
“Some of them come at six-thirty and the rest at seven from Louisville. We are to meet them at the trolley. You’ll go with us, won’t you, Jeff?” asked Mildred.
“Of course, if you need me.”
“Need you! I should say we do need you. Why, you are to fall madly in love with Jean Roland. We’ve fixed it all up. She’s rich and beautiful.”
“Yes, and we put linen sheets on the bed in the guest chamber,” broke in Nan. “Jean Roland is used to grand things, but she’ll have to sleep three in the bed and so will all of us—now.”
“Hush!” from Mrs. Bucknor. There was an embarrassed silence. Cousin Ann’s backbone stiffened. Mrs. Bucknor looked reproachfully at her daughters, who giggled helplessly. It was a relief to have the head of the house arrive at that moment.
Mr. Bucknor was a hale and hearty man of fifty, florid and handsome, slightly dictatorial in70manner, but easily influenced by his wife, who was all softness and gentleness. He was generous and hospitable, priding himself on keeping up the reputation in which Buck Hill had gloried in the past—that of an open house with bed and board for all of the blood. He greeted his Cousin Ann with a cordiality that might have been balm to her wounded feelings had she not been aware that that was Cousin Bob’s manner to everybody.
“And where do you come from, Cousin Ann?” he demanded. “I hope all were well. Cousin Betty Throckmorton’s? Well, well! I thought Sister Sue was to have the honor of your company. It will keep! It will keep! Measles at Cousin Betty’s? Heavens! I hope none of them will go off in pneumonia. You must give us a nice long visit. Always glad to have you, Cousin Ann. Glad to have any of my kin come and stay as long as they choose. Blood is thicker than water, I say, and blue blood is thicker than red blood.”
“Thank you, cousin,” was all Miss Ann could say.
“By the way, Mildred, speaking of falling in love, who is that pretty girl I saw on the trolley yesterday?” asked Jeff. “I can’t remember ever having seen her around here71before, but then the girls have all grown beyond me since I left home. She has what some people call auburn hair, but I like to call it red, although it had lots of gold in it. She got on the last stop before you get into Ryeville. Seemed to know everybody on the car—even the motorman and conductor. At least, I saw her chatting with them—the ones who were relieved at the last switch and were eating their suppers. She was as lively as a cricket—was just bubbling over with energy—”
“Oh, I know who that was,” said Mildred. “It sounds like that forward Judith Buck. She has no idea of her place. I never saw such a girl. She rides around the country in a ridiculous looking little home made blue Ford with a spring wagon back and puts on all the airs of sporting a Stutz racer. She never stops for anybody but just whizzes on by. Sometimes she even bows to us, although she gets mighty little encouragement from me, I can tell you.”
Suddenly there flashed upon Miss Ann’s inward eye a picture of a bright-haired girl in a little blue car who had passed her coach only that morning, and with the picture came the remembrance of Uncle Billy’s words: “I ain’t seed nothin’ in this county ter put ’long side er you lessen it wa’ that pretty red-headed gal72what went whizzin’ by us up yonder on the pike in a blue ortermobubble.” She remembered that he had declared the girl looked as she had looked in her youth.
Mildred continued her diatribe concerning the lively Judith: “Surely you remember her, Jeff. She used to come here selling blackberries when she was a kid—a little barefooted girl and as pert as you please even then. After old Dick Buck died she used to trap rabbits and bring them here for sale and sometimes fish. It always made me mad for Aunt Em’ly to encourage her by making Mother buy the things. I think poor persons should be taken care of all right but they should know their place.”
“But what is her place?” asked Jeff, a flush slowly spreading over his handsome, rather swarthy countenance.
“Well, I should say her place was at the back door,” declared Mildred. “Old Dick Buck’s granddaughter needn’t expect to get any social recognition from me.”
“Me either!” chimed in Nan.
“Of course not!” said Mrs. Bucknor. Mr. Bucknor was reading the morning paper and seemed oblivious to the conversation.
“She doesn’t look to me like a girl who cared a whit for social recognition,” said Jeff quietly,73although his lip had a curl that showed his disapproval of his family’s snobbishness.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Mildred, with rather more violence than the subject under discussion warranted. “I went to high school with her for a year and then thank goodness Father sent me to a private school. She was the greatest smart Aleck you ever saw. Had herself elected president of the class and was always showing off, getting medals for never being late and never missing a single day of school since she started. She was always acting in plays and getting up class entertainments for devastated Europe. Some of the girls in Ryeville wanted to ask her to join our club, but I just told them they could count me out if they did any such thing.”
“Me too!” said Nan.
“And I tell you Buck Hill is too nice a place for parties for the set to let Nan and me out. She’s got a place as teacher now, out in the county near Clayton. I can’t abide her. She even had the impertinence to tell some of the girls once that the original name of her family was the same as ours—that her old grandfather, Dick Buck, had told her so. The idea! Next she’ll be claiming kin with us Bucknors.”
“What’s that? What’s that?” asked Mr.74Bucknor, dropping his paper. “Who claims kin with us?”
“Old Dick Buck’s granddaughter. Isn’t it ridiculous?”
“Not at all,” spoke Cousin Ann, coming into the conversation as a ship in full sail might break into a fleet of fishing boats. “Not ridiculous at all. In fact, quite the proper thing for the young woman in question to do. She, too, may have pride of birth and there is no reason why she should not claim what is due her.”
“But—” interrupted Mildred. Miss Ann Peyton paid no attention at all to the girl. She addressed her remarks to Jeff, who was all respectful attention.
“Yes, cousin, the Bucks are descended from the Bucknors quite as much as you or I are. I recall it all now, although I have not thought of it for many, many years. I can remember hearing my grandfather tell of a brother of his Grandfather Bucknor who, out of pure carelessness, dropped the last syllable of his name. It was in connection with a transfer of property. The deed was recorded wrongly, naming Richard Buck. He was a lazy man and rather than go to the trouble of having the matter corrected he just allowed himself to be called Richard Buck. He left Kentucky after that, but his75son returned later on. My grandfather told me a slump in fortune began from that time and the Buck branch of the family has been on the downward road ever since. Perhaps, having reached the bottom, this young person is now ascending. But low or high, the fact remains that she is kin.”
“Bless my soul!” exclaimed Mr. Bucknor, “I didn’t dream that old tale had a word of truth in it. I’ve heard old Dick Buck, when he was drunk, insisting that he belonged to my family, but it sounded ridiculous on the face of it.”
“Exactly!” chorused Mildred and Nan.
“However, I must look into the matter,” the father continued somewhat pompously. “If the girl is kin we must claim her.”
“Oh, Bob, I beg of you to do no such thing,” said Mrs. Bucknor gently, laying a restraining hand lightly on her husband’s arm. Her touch was soft and light but it held Bob Bucknor as effectively as iron handcuffs might have. “If this girl is as forward as Mildred and Nan say she is, it would be very embarrassing to have her constantly asserting her kinship with our girls. I am sure I do not know her at all. She is pretty and no doubt is good, but she is naturally common and evidently very pushing.”76
“All right, my dear, all right! You know best,” responded Mr. Bucknor.
At this juncture Kizzie announced dinner, which was a relief to all of them.
“Take my arm, Cousin Ann,” said Jeff gallantly.
For a moment the old woman and the young man stood looking off over the rolling meadows of blue grass. Cutting the lush green pasture lands was the white limestone turnpike. Far off in the distance a blue speck appeared on the white road. In a twinkling it grew into a car and then went whizzing by, leaving a cloud of white dust in its wake. Jeff smiled and, glancing down at his old cousin, caught an answering smile on her face.
“I’m rather glad she’s kin,” he whispered, and she gave his arm a tiny squeeze.
Then the thought came to him: “I wonder if she is as bold and forward as Mildred says she is. I wish she hadn’t been so familiar with those motormen. That wasn’t very ladylike to go up and engage them in conversation. Perhaps Mildred is right. You could hardly expect old Dick Buck’s granddaughter to be very refined—but, gee, she’s a good looker!”
77CHAPTER VIIJudith Makes a Hit
Judith reached home in time to prepare an excellent basket supper for her motormen customers. She was determined that her food should be so good it would advertise itself and every employe on the line would demand service. All of the potatoes were not peeled when she was ready for them, but her mother’s explanation was that it seemed a pity to peel potatoes because there was so much waste in that method. It really was better to cook them in the skins. Judith kissed her and laughed.
“Another time we’ll cook them in their jackets, Mumsy dear, but I cleared enough money this morning to afford to waste a few potato peelings. If I have a week of such luck, I’ll have to get in more supplies. The girls in this county are just eating up my vanishing cream and my liquid powder that won’t rub off. I’ve made a great hit with my anti-kink lotion with the poor colored people. Half the female world is trying to get curled and the78other half trying to get uncurled. I have got rid of dozens and dozens of marcel wavers, the steel kind that must dig into you fearfully at night, and bottle after bottle of that quince seed lotion, warranted to keep hair in curl for an all-day picnic, where it usually rains, and, if it doesn’t, you fall in the creek to even up.”
“Judy, you take my breath away with such talk and such goings on. I can’t bear to think of your selling things to negroes. There is no telling what might happen to you if you don’t look out.”
Mrs. Buck had an instinctive dislike for the colored race. She never trusted them and was opposed even to employing them for farm work. She preferred the most disreputable poor white to the best negro. It was a prejudice inherited from her father and mother, who on first coming to Kentucky had done much talking about the down-trodden blacks, but being unable to understand them had never been able to get along with them.
Old Dick Buck had said of Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Knight, “They’ve got mighty high ideas about negroes but they ain’t got a bit of use for a nigger.”
Judith shared none of this prejudice. She liked colored people and they liked her and79respected her. As she went speeding along the roads in her little blue car, there was never a darkey old or young who did not wish her well and bow low to her friendly greeting. Only that morning she had given a lift to a bent old man who was on his way to Mr. Big Josh Bucknor’s, and thereby saved him many a weary mile.
“I’d take you all the way, Uncle Peter, but I can’t trust my left hind tire up that bumpy lane,” Judith explained.
“Ain’t it the truf, Missy? If Mr. Big Josh would jes stop talkin’ ’bout it an’ buil’ hisse’f a road! He been lowin’ he wa’ gonter git busy an’ backgammon that lane fer twenty-five years an he ain’t never tech it yit. That’s the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in the fambly air done plum wo’ out what with cookin’ fer comp’ny an’ washin’ up an’ all. It looks like comp’ny air the only thing what don’t balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol’ Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They phoned down ter the sto’ fer me ter put my foot in the pike an’ come erlong. They done got a phome message from way over yonder at Throckmorton’s that dus’ from Miss Ann’s coach wa’ a risin’. They ain’t mo’n got shet er a batch er visitings80when here come news that Miss Ann air a comin’. The ladies air sho’ peeved an’ they done up an’ said they ain’t a gonter stay home an’ Mr. Big Josh tell ’em ter go ’long if they’s a min’ an’ he’n me’ll look arfter Miss Ann.”
“But she is at Buck Hill,” said Judith. “I am sure of it. I saw her carriage turning in there this morning. Poor old lady!”
“I ain’t seein’ that she air so po’.”
“It seems very pitiful to me for her never to be wanted, always coming and always having to pack up and leave. I’d love to have her come visit me. You know she and I are of the same blood, Uncle Peter—or did you know it?”
“Land’s sake, Missy, I mus’ a made a mistake. I been a thinkin’ all along that I wa’ a ridin’ with ol’ Dick Buck’s gran’baby. You mus’ scuse me.”
“So you are, Uncle Peter, I am Judith Buck, but I have just as good a right to be Judith Bucknor as Mr. Bob Bucknor or Mr. Big Josh Bucknor, or any of them.”
“Well, bless Bob! Do tell!” was all the old man had time to ejaculate, as they came to the mouth of the lane, bumpy in dry weather and muddy in wet, and he must leave the swiftly moving car and again trust to his old limbs to81carry him on his way. His step was lighter, however, as he was the bearer of good tidings to all the white folks at Mr. Big Josh’s. Miss Ann Peyton was not coming, but was making a visit at Buck Hill. He was full of other news, too, but was not quite sure whether it would be so welcome to the family.
“Not that she ain’t mo’ likelier than mos’ er the young genderation,” he muttered.
Judith had a slap-dash impressionistic manner of cooking all her own, following no rules or recipes, but with an unerring instinct that produced results. She said she cooked by ear. Whatever her method, the motormen were vastly pleased with the hot suppers she brought them and the word was passed that the pretty red-headed girl at the last stop before you got to Ryeville would furnish a basket supper at a reasonable figure and soon almost every man on the line was eager to become one of her customers.
The first supper was difficult because she was determined to have it absolutely perfect, and her mother would insist upon getting in her way, offering various suggestions that might save a tenth of a cent.
“I tell you, Mumsy, I am not saving but making. Please sit down in this chair by the82table, while I behave like the man in the lunatic asylum who thought he was a steam engine. I’m afraid I might get off the track and run over you. If you just stay still in one spot I’ll get through. I can’t go over you, I can’t go around you and I can’t go under you.
“There’s the whistle blowing for two stops before ours and I’m ready. Hurrah for a fortune, Mumsy!” and with a kiss Judith was off, bearing a basket in one hand and a tin cooler of buttermilk in the other.
The Bucks’ farm was a triangle, bounded on two sides by converging roads and the other by the pasture lands of Buck Hill. The trolley line skirted the back of the farm, but turned sharply toward Ryeville before reaching the corner where the two roads met. The track curved about five hundred feet beyond the location of the stop where Judith had promised to meet the car with the suppers. There was a short cut from the rear of the house and Judith always took short cuts. Through the orchard, down the hill, across a stream, up the hill, skirting a blackberry thicket, through a grove of beeches, dark and peaceful with lengthening shadows falling on mossy banks, went the girl. She stopped a moment in the grove and looked out across the fertile country—everywhere more83fertile than the Buck farm but nowhere more beautiful, she thought.
“I wish I had time to stop here longer,” she sighed, putting down her basket and patting a great beech tree. “Thank goodness the Bucks were too lazy to cut you down and the Knights too slow.” The honk of an automobile horn startled her. A seven-seated passenger car was coming down the road and in the distance could be seen the approaching trolley.
“Got to run after all,” she cried. “That’s what I get for making love to a tree.” She flew along the path by the fence and reached the small station before the trolley slowed down for the stop. Breathless but triumphant she stood, large basket in one hand, buttermilk cooler in the other.
The big motor car, which was driven by Jeff Bucknor, was parked by the roadside. From it emerged Mildred and Nan in all the glory of fresh and frilly lawns and the latest in hats from a Louisville milliner.
“Now, Jeff,” said Mildred, “you must get out and meet the bunch, and be sure you make no mistake. You are to fall in love with Jean Roland and no one else. She is the smallest and the darkest and much the best dressed. I do hope and trust it will be love at first sight.84She is already just wild about you, without ever even seeing you, and when she sees you she is sure to topple over completely.”
“What nonsense,” scoffed Jeff.
Mildred ignored the presence of Judith Buck, although they could not help seeing her, since her blue cotton dress and her red gold hair made a spot of color that would surely have affected the optics of a stone blind person. Her color was naturally high, and frying chicken over a hot wood stove and sprinting for the trolley had added to it. Nan did worse than ignore the presence of her neighbor, as she openly nudged her sister and whispered audibly:
“Look at her! What do you suppose she has in her basket?”
“Hot rolls, fried chicken, hashed brown potatoes, damson jam, radishes and young onions. Can’t you smell ’em?” answered Judith quite casually, as though announcing a menu at a restaurant. At the same time she smiled brightly and looked at the Misses Bucknor with no trace of either embarrassment or resentment. Jeff, who was plainly mortified at Nan’s rudeness, laughed in spite of himself.
One of the things that irritated Mildred more than anything else about Judith Buck was that she seemed never to take offense, nor even85to know when an insult was intended. Sometimes she would wear for a moment a quizzical smile, but usually she presented what she called a duck’s back to intentional slights. Having satisfied Nan’s curiosity concerning what was in her basket, she stepped forward to the platform and swung the cooler of buttermilk back and forth in the manner of a brakeman with a red lantern.
“I think they will stop here anyhow, Miss Buck,” said Jeff. “Do let me help you on with your basket. I know it is heavy. I am Jefferson Bucknor. Perhaps you don’t remember me, but I have seen you often when you were a child. I’ve been away from home a long time.”
While Jeff was introducing himself to Judith the trolley had slowed up and stopped. Three young women and two young men were standing on the platform ready to alight. They were part of the house party and delighted greetings were exchanged between them and Mildred and Nan.
One of the young men, catching sight of Judith, gave only a hurried handshake to his hostesses and then sauntered towards the end of the platform where the girl in blue cotton was standing. He was a handsome youth,86dressed in the latest and most pronounced style. His manner and general carriage were indefinably impudent. He came quite close to Judith and peered into her face and only turned to join the others at a sharp call from Mildred.
“Tom Harbison, come here this minute!”
At Jeff’s proffers of assistance Judith had smilingly thanked him. “But I’m not getting on myself—only my basket and can of milk,” she said.
“Then I’ll help them on,” said Jeff, although Judith assured him she was quite able to do it herself.
“Yonder she is!” the conductor shouted to the motorman. “I knew she would come. I never knew a red-headed gal to disappoint a fellow yet.”
Eagerly the basket was seized by the hungry men and loud was their shout of joy over the can of ice-cold buttermilk.
“You’ll find a note inside explaining how you can phone me if you want extras,” called Judith. “See you to-morrow at the same time. Be sure and bring back my basket and dishes.”
The trolley moved off, leaving the house party grouped at one end of the platform, Judith and Jeff at the other. It was plain that something was vexing Mildred and the smart young87beauty by her side. Jeff, however, was perfectly unconscious of being the cause of their annoyance.
“Thank you ever so much,” said Judith. “You are a grand assistant to the chief cook.”
“I am delighted to have helped you, but please tell me what on earth you mean by bringing food to motormen.”
“Mean? Why, it’s my business. I am caterer-in-ordinary to the six-thirty trolley and perhaps others,” she laughed and looked him squarely in the eyes. For a moment, in spite of the persistent demand from Mildred for him to hurry, Jeff gazed into hers. He flushed a little and then with a hurried good-bye joined his sisters and their guests.
Mildred managed to have Jean Roland occupy the front seat by the driver. Jean was pretty, well-dressed and no doubt was fascinating. Jeff remembered he was supposed to fall in love with her at first sight. Therefore he looked at her critically. She was all Mildred had promised, but Jeff found himself gazing over the head of his companion at a slender figure in blue gingham, disappearing over the hill.
It was a distinct annoyance to him that Tom Harbison should lean far out of the back of the88car and wave his forty-dollar panama hat at Judith Buck’s retreating figure, and even a greater annoyance that Judith should turn around when she got to the brow of the hill and see the fine hat doing obeisance to her.