136CHAPTER XIIJeff Gives a Pledge
Until recently it had been the custom for Miss Ann Peyton, on every fine afternoon, to have old Billy drive her forth for an airing. It exercised the horses and gave Billy a definite occupation, besides affording some change of scene for his mistress. This habit of a lifetime had been abandoned because Miss Ann and Billy had come to a tacit understanding that the less the old coach was used the better for all concerned. Like the hoop skirt, little of the original creation remained. It had been repaired here and renewed there through the ages, until the body was all that the carriage maker would have acknowledged and that had many patches.
The coach had been a very handsome vehicle in its day, with heavy silver mountings and luxurious upholstery. The silver mounting was Billy’s pride and despair. No fussy housekeeper ever kept her silver service any brighter than Billy did the trimmings of the old carriage, but in late years there never seemed to be room in137any carriage house for Miss Ann’s coach and it took much rubbing to obliterate the stains caused by continual exposure. Billy often found a new rent in the cushions, from which the hair stuffing protruded impertinently. He would poke it back and take a clumsy stitch only to have it burst forth in a fresh place.
There had always been a place in the carriage house at Buck Hill for Cousin Ann’s coach until the family had gone in largely for automobiles and then the carriage house had been converted into a garage, the horse-drawn vehicles in a great measure discarded and now the ancient coach must find shelter under a shed, with various farming implements. Billy felt this to be as much of an insult as putting his mistress out of the guest chamber, but he must make the best of it and never let Miss Ann know. Of course the coach must be ready to take the princess to the ball. Wheels must be greased and silver polished.
“I wisht my mammy done taught me howter sew,” old Billy muttered, as he awkwardly punched a long needle in and out of the cushions, vainly endeavoring to unite the torn edges.
“What’s the matter, Uncle Billy?” asked Jeff Bucknor, who had just crawled from under one of the cars, where he had been delightfully138employed in a manner peculiar to some males, finding out what was wrong with the mysterious workings of an automobile.
“Nothin’ ’tall, Mr. Jeff! I wa’ jes’ kinder ruminatin’ to myse’f. I din’t know nobody wa’ clost enough ter hear me. I wa’ ’lowin’ ter sew up this here cushion so’s it would las’ ’til me’n Miss Ann gits time ter have this here ca’ige reumholzered. We’re thinkin’ a nice sof’ pearl gray welwit will be purty. What do you think, Mr. Jeff?”
“I think pearl gray would be lovely and it would look fine with the handsome silver mountings, but in the meantime wouldn’t you like me to give you some tow linen slips that belong to one of the cars. You could tack them on over your cushions and it would freshen things up a lot.”
“Thankee, Marster, thankee! If it wouldn’t unconwenience you none.” Old Billy’s eyes were filling with tears. It was seldom in late years that anyone, white or colored, stopped to give him kind words or offers of assistance. The servants declared the old man was too disobliging himself to deserve help and the white people seemed to have forgotten him.
Jeff got the freshly laundered linen covers and then climbed into the old coach and deftly139fastened them with brass headed tacks.
“Now I do hope Cousin Ann will like her summer coverings,” he said.
“She’s sho’ too—an’ we’s moughty ’bleeged ter you, Marse Jeff. Miss Ann an’ me air jes’ been talkin’ ’bout how much you favors yo’ gran’pap, Marse Bob Bucknor as war. I don’t want ter put no disrespec’ on yo’ gran’mammy, but if Marse Bob Bucknor had er had his way Miss Ann would er been her.”
“I believe I have heard that Grandfather was very much in love with Cousin Ann. Why did she turn him down?” asked Jeff, trying not to laugh.
“Well, my Miss Ann had so many beau lovers she didn’t know which-away ter turn. Her bes’ beau lover, Marse Bert Mason, got kilt in the wah an’ Miss Ann got it in her haid she mus’ grieve jes’ so long fer him. But the truf wa’ that Miss Ann wouldn’t a had him if he had er come back. She wa’n’t ready ter step off but she wa’ ’lowin’ ter have her fling. Then the ol’ home kotched afire an’ then me’n Miss Ann didn’t have no sho’ ’nough home an’ we got ter visitin’ roun’ an’ Marse Bob, yo’ gran’pap, kep a pleadin’ an’ Miss Ann she kep’ a visitin’, fust one place then anudder, an’ Marse Bob he got kinder tired a followin’ aroun’ takin’ our dus’140an’ befo’ you knowd it he done tramsfered his infections ter yo’ gran’mammy, an’ a nice lady she wa’, but can’t none er them hol’ a can’le ter my Miss Ann, then or now—’cept’n maybe that purty red-headed gal what goes a whizzin’ aroun’ the county an’ don’t drap her eyes fer nobody. ’Thout goin’ back a mite on my Miss Ann, I will say that that young white gal sho’ do run Miss Ann a clost second.”
“You mean Miss Judith Buck, Uncle Billy?” and Jeff’s face flushed. He had been thinking a great deal about Judith Buck and he was trying to school himself to stop thinking about her. Yet it pleased him that the old darkey should thus mention her.
“Yes sah, Miss Judith Buck.”
“Goodness, Uncle Billy, what is that strange rumbling and buzzing I hear?” interrupted Jeff. “Your carriage sounds as though you had installed a motor in the rear.”
“Lawsamussy, Mr. Jeff, that ain’t nothin’ but a bumbly bee nes’, what we done pick up somewhere on our roun’s. Them bees sho’ do give me trouble an’ it looks like I can’t lose ’em. ’Course I could smoke ’em out but somehow I hates ter make the po’ things homeless an’ I reckon they’s got a notion that the hollow place in the back er this here ca’ige b’longs ter them141an’ the knot hole they done bored is the front do’. When me’n Miss Ann has ter drive on I jes’ sticks a cawn cob in the hole an’ the bees trabels with us. Sometimes their buzzin’ air kinder comp’ny ter me. I ain’t complainin’ but times I’m lonesome an’ I wisht I mought er had a little cabin somewheres an’ mebbe some folks er my own.”
“Yes, Uncle Billy, I know you must get tired of not having a real home of your own. Didn’t you ever marry and haven’t you any kin?”
“No sah, I ain’t never married an’ as fer as I knows I ain’t got any kin this side er the grabe. You see, sah, it wa’ this a way. I been kinder lookin’ arfter Miss Ann sence she wa’ a gal an’ I always said ter myself, ‘Now when my mistis marries I’ll go a courtin’ but not befo’.’ I had kinder took up with Mandy, a moughty likely gal back there jes’ after the wa’ and me’n her had been a talkin’ moughty sof’ befo’ Miss Ann lef’ home that time when the ol’ place burnt up. It looks like I never could leave Miss Ann long enuf to go back an’ finish my confab with Mandy. An’ arter a while Mandy must er got tired of waitin’ fer me an’ she took up with a big buck nigger from Jeff’son County an’ they do say she had goin’ onter twenty chilluns an’ about fo’ husbands.”142
“Uncle Billy, you have certainly been faithful to Cousin Ann. I don’t see what she would have done without you.”
“Gawd grant she won’t never have ter, Marse Jeff! It’ll be a sad day fer this ol’ nigger when Miss Ann goes but I’m a hopin’ an’ prayin’ she’ll go befo’ I’m called. If I should die they would’n be nobody ter fotch an’ carry fer Miss Ann. She gits erlong moughty fine here at Buck Hill, but some places I have ter kinder fend fer us-alls right smart. Miss Ann air that proudified she don’t never demand but ol’ Billy he knows an’ he does the demandin’ fer her. An’ I presses her frocks an’ sometimes I makes out to laundry fer her in some places whar we visits an’ the missus don’t see fit ter put Miss Ann’s siled clothes along with the fambly wash. An’ I fin’s wil’ strawberries fer her, an’ sometimes fiel’ mushrooms, an’ sometimes I goes out in the fall an’ knocks over a patridge an’ I picks an’ briles it an’ sarves it up fer a little extry treat fer my lady.”
“She certainly would be lost without you, Uncle Billy, but I’m going to make you a promise. If you should be called before my cousin I do solemnly swear that I’ll see to it that she has every comfort. The family owes you that much and I for one will do what I143can for Cousin Ann. On the other hand, if Cousin Ann should go first, I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“Oh, Marse Bob—I mean Marse Jeff—you air lif’ a load from a ol’ man’s heart. Yo’ gran’pap air sho’ come ter life agin in his prodigy. Nothin’ ain’t gonter make much diffunce ter me arfter this. I been a thinkin’ some er my burdins wa’ mo’ than I kin bear, but ’tain’t so. My back air done fitted ter them, kase you done eased me er my load.” The old man wept, great tears running down his furrowed brown cheeks and glistening on his long, grotesque beard.
144CHAPTER XIIIThe Debut Party
Everything was propitious for the debut party, even the weather. A brisk shower in the morning, followed by refreshing breezes, gave assurance of a night not too hot for dancing but not too cool for couples so inclined to sit out on the balcony and enjoy the moonlight.
The ten old men were very much excited as the time approached for their ball. The skating rink was swept and garnished and decorated with bunting and flags, and wreaths of immortelles rented from the undertaker. Extra chairs were also furnished by that accommodating person. The caterer from Louisville came in a truck, bringing with him stylish negro waiters and many freezers and hampers. The musicians arrived on the seven o’clock trolley, almost filling one car with their great drums and saxophones and bass fiddles.
The women who were either supported by, or supported, the ten old men were kept busy by their aged relatives hunting shirt studs and145collar buttons, pressing broadcloth trousers, letting out waistcoats or taking them up, sewing on buttons and laundering white ties. The barber had to call in extra help, because of the trimming of beards and shaving of chins and cutting of hair that the party entailed.
Judge Middleton was chosen to make the speech naming the guest of honor for whom the debut party was given.
“He’s got the gift of gab,” Pete Barnes had said, “but I hope he ain’t gonter forget ’twas my idee.”
One of the many virtues that belong to country people is that they come on time. At eight o’clock the fiddles were tuning up, the skating rink lights were on and already Main Street was crowded with a varied assortment of vehicles—automobiles, buggies, wagons, surreys, rockaways and even a large hay wagon that had brought a merry party of young folks from Clayton.
Buck Hill arrived, three automobiles strong, besides Miss Ann Peyton’s coach. Behind them came Judith Buck and her mother, the little blue car brave from a recent bath and Judith’s eyes shining and dancing like will-o-the-wisps.
“Mumsy, listen! They are tuning up! I’m going to dance every dance if I have to do it146by myself. I don’t know any of the new dances, but it won’t take me a minute to learn. It’s the golden slippers that make me feel so like flying.”
“Now, Judy, don’t take on so. It ain’t modest to be so sure you’ll be asked to dance. Besides, you must save your dress and slippers and not wear them out this first time you wear them.”
Judith laughed happily. “Oh, Mumsy, what a spendthrift you are with your breath! I’m going to dance my dress to a rag. Did you ever think that Cinderella may have just danced her dress to rags by twelve o’clock and after all the fairy godmother had nothing to do with it? Cinderella danced every dance with the prince and perhaps he was an awkward prince and tangled his feet in her train. In fact, I am sure he was awkward or he would have caught up with her when she tried to run away, and she with one shoe off and one shoe on like ‘Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John!’”
“Let me help you out, Mrs. Buck.” It was Jeff Bucknor, leaning over the little blue car. He had heard every word of Judith’s foolishness and seemed to be much pleased with it, considering he was a learned young lawyer getting ready to hang out his shingle, and147supposed to be above fairy stories and nursery jingles.
Jeff had noticed, as he passed Judith’s home, that the little blue car was parked in front and his surmise was that the girl was going to the ball but had not yet gone. He registered the determination to hurry his own crowd into the skating rink and wait and speak to Judith. This decision had come immediately after his promising himself that he wasn’t even going to think any more about the girl, and that if she happened to be one of the guests at the debut party he was going to spend the evening being pleasant to his sisters’ friends and not even ask her to dance.
Mrs. Buck accepted his offer of assistance with shy acquiescence. The blue car was not easy to get out of, as the seat was low and there was no step, so Jeff must swing the lady out, lifting her up bodily and jumping her to the curbing. She came down lightly but flustered.
Unreasoning anger filled Jeff Bucknor’s heart when he released the blushing Mrs. Buck to find Tom Harbison had pushed his way in between the sidewalk and the blue car and was insisting upon helping Judith to alight.
“Thanks awfully, but I am accustomed to148getting out by myself,” she said.
“And I am accustomed to helping beautiful young ladies out of cars,” said Tom. “You don’t know what a past master I am in the art.”
“If there were any beautiful young ladies around I am sure they would be delighted, but since there are not any in sight your art will have to languish for lack of exercise,” flashed Judith.
Mrs. Buck and her daughter had both covered their finery with old linen dusters, which they had planned to discard before entering the hall. It was a distinct annoyance to Mrs. Buck that these two handsome young cavaliers should see them thus enveloped.
“They’ll get the wrong impression of my girl,” was her thought, and now here was Judith wasting her time and the precious dancing hours bantering with a strange young man as to whether she should be allowed to jump from her car unassisted or should be helped out in a ladylike manner.
“Well, Judith, come along one way or the other,” Mrs. Buck drawled.
“Perhaps Miss Buck would take one of my hands and one of yours,” suggested Jeff to Tom.149
“Perhaps the decrepit old lady will,” laughed Judy, making a flying leap between their outstretched hands without touching them and landing lightly on the sidewalk by her mother. “Thank you both very much,” she said, and clutching her mother’s arm she hurried into the lobby of the skating rink and was lost to view in the crowd of arriving guests.
“Here’s the dressing-room, Mumsy, and we can leave our awful old dusters in there. Weren’t you furious at being seen in the horrid things and that by the best beaux of the ball? Now, Mumsy, you just stick to me and we’ll go say howdy to the dear old men and thank them for my dress and shoes and stockings and then you can go sit by some of your nice church members, while I find somebody to dance with me.”
“But, Judy, surely you are not going to thank the old men right out before everybody, and surely you are not going to ask anybody to dance with you!”
“Of course not, Mumsy! I’m going to use finesse about both things. You just see how tactful I am. Oh! Oh! Oh! I’m so excited! Just look at the streamers and flags and all the funny funeral wreaths, and only listen to the music! I’m about sure there are wings150on my golden slippers. Really and truly, Mumsy, they do not touch the ground when I walk. I’m simply floating in a kind of nebulous haze—in fact I believe I am charged with electricity.”
“Charged with foolishness, you mean!”
“Oh, but Mumsy, look, we are right behind my cousins from Buck Hill. Let’s don’t go in too close to them. I’m entirely too happy to take a snubbing from Mildred Bucknor. Doesn’t Cousin Ann Peyton look beautiful?”
“You mean the old lady in hoop skirts? She’s terribly behind the times, ain’t she? But, Judy, who was the young man who was so bent on helping you out of the car? You didn’t pretend to introduce him.”
“Mr. Harbison. I have not met him myself yet. I believe he is Mildred Bucknor’s special property.”
The ten old men of the receiving line were drawn up in battle array, in all the glory of their best clothes. Pete Barnes was gorgeous in checked trousers and Prince Albert coat, with his bushy iron-gray hair well oiled and combed in what used to be known as a roach, a style popular in his early manhood. Some of the veterans were in uniform—the blue or the gray. All wore white carnations in their151button-holes. The guests shook hands with the hosts and then moved on. Those who had come merely to look on sought the chairs ranged against the wall; others who wanted to dance were eagerly arranging for partners if they were men, while the fair sex assumed a supreme indifference. Colonel Crutcher busied himself giving out dancing cards and seeing that the young people were introduced.
The first sensation of the evening was the entrance of Miss Ann Peyton. With slow grace and dignity she sailed into the ballroom and approached the receiving line alone. Mr. and Mrs. Bucknor had stopped a moment to speak to some acquaintances and Mildred had intentionally held back the crowd of young people comprising the house party from Buck Hill, whispering that they really need not mix with the others.
“Of course we must speak to those ridiculous old men, but after that we can just stay together. It will be lots more fun.”
“Here comes Miss Ann Peyton!” the whisper went around the hall.
“Well, if it isn’t Cousin Ann!” Big Josh Bucknor boomed to his daughters.
“For goodness sake don’t ask her to go home with us,” begged those ladies.152
Big Josh slapped his leg and laughed aloud. Everything about Big Josh was loud and hearty. He was a short, fat man with a big, red face and a perfectly bald head. The Misses Bucknor were tall and aristocratic in figure and bearing. They were constantly being mortified by their father’s tendency to make a noise and his unfailing habit of diverging from the strict truth. But Big Josh was more popular in the county than his conscientious daughters.
Old Billy had wormed his way into the ballroom with the pretext of having to carry Miss Ann’s shawl. Quietly he slipped up the stairs into the balcony and, hiding behind the festooned bunting, he peeped down on his beloved mistress as she stood, a quaint, old-fashioned figure, making her bow to the receiving line.
“By gad, Miss Ann, you are looking fit,” said Major Fitch. “We are proud to have you with us. I hope you will save me a dance. Yes, yes! We are going to have some reels and lancers and some good old time quadrilles. If the young uns don’t like it they can lump it. Here, Colonel Crutcher, give Miss Ann a dance card. How about giving me the first square dance?”
“And put me down for the next,” begged the Colonel gallantly. “It won’t be the first153quadrille I have stepped with you.”
All down the line Miss Ann was greeted with kindness and courtesy. Old Billy almost fell out of the balcony, so great was his joy when he saw Miss Ann’s card in demand and realized that his mistress was being sought after. A flush was on the old lady’s cheeks as she swept across the ballroom floor and seated herself in the outer row of chairs, reserved for the dancers. A little titter arose.
“What a funny-looking old woman!” was the general verdict.
“By the great jumping jingo, they shan’t laugh at her!” exclaimed Big Josh. “She’s kin—hoop skirt and all.”
His daughters held him back a moment: “Remember! Don’t dare invite her home with you.”
Big Josh made a wry face but he immediately went to speak to his aged cousin, looking threateningly at the crowd who had dared to giggle at anyone related to him.
“How do you do, Cousin?” he said, pushing her voluminous skirts aside so that he might slide into the chair next to her. “Glad to see you looking so spry. Thought we couldn’t come to-night because the lane is so bad after the rain this morning. Dust three feet deep154yesterday and to-day puddles big enough to drown a pig. I’m gonter get me a flying machine. Lots cheaper than trying to put that road in condition. Yes—I’ll get a family machine for the girls and a light little fly-by-night for myself. I believe in the latest improvements in everything.
“Oh, yes, I have flown often. Every time I go to Louisville a friend takes me up. Not afraid a bit—love it. Of course I know how to run the motor—simplest thing in the world. All you have to remember is not to sneeze while you are up in the air. Sneezing is sometimes fatal. It destroys your equilibrium as nothing else does and you are liable to make a disastrous nose dive. Running an airplane is much easier than an automobile. Nerve? Not a bit of it. I tell you, Cousin Ann, when I get my flying machine I’ll come get you and ride you to my place and then you will be spared the bumps of that devilish lane. Just as soon as I get it I’ll drop you a line. Of course, old Billy can bring the carriage and horses up at his convenience. You are at Buck Hill now, I understand. I tell you, I’ll ’phone over just as soon as my airplane comes and you can get yourself ready for a flight. Be sure to wrap up warm and put something over your head.”155
Miss Ann assured him she would.
“By crickity! Who is that girl speaking to the old men now? That red-headed girl in the fairy queen dress? Bless Bob, if it ain’t old Dick Buck’s granddaughter. I used to give her a lift into school when she was a kid. I tell you she’s got some style about her. Looks more born and bred than any gal here. I don’t see where she got it from.”
“From the Bucknors!” announced Miss Ann, firmly.
“Bucknors! Oh, come now, Cousin Ann, you aren’t going to come that old gag on me. Old Dick Buck used to boast he was our kin when he got drunk, but it is absurd. Drunk or sober, he was no relation of ours.”
“He was your cousin, both drunk and sober. I’ve heard my grandfather tell—” and Miss Ann launched into the tale.
“Well, by gad, if she’s of the blood we ought to recognize her!” declared Big Josh, smiting his thigh with a resounding smack. “I’ll speak to the family about it. Little Josh will be here to-night and Cousin Betty Throckmorton’s Philip and no doubt many of the clan. I tell you I wouldn’t mind claiming kin with a gal like that, especially now that old Dick Buck is dead.”
156CHAPTER XIVOn With the Dance
Others besides Big Josh had noticed Judith as she came forward to speak to her old friends. Her dress, a shimmer of white and gold, might have been wished on her by a fairy godmother, a thing of gossamer and moonbeams.
“Who is it?”
“Who can it be?”
“Nobody but little Judy Buck, you say?”
“Where did she get her clothes?”
“Worked like a nigger and bought ’em! Why not? She’s the best little worker in town. Got a bunch of irons in the fire and she surely ought to get some clothes out of it.”
“But old Dick Buck’s granddaughter’s got no right to be mixing with county society.”
“The Knights were a good sort and Dick wasn’t anything but lazy and trifling and sometimes a little tipsy. There wasn’t anything mean about old Dick.”
“Well, she’s a humdinger for looks, is all I’ve got to say.”157
So the talk went around. Judith, all unconscious of having attracted attention, shook hands gaily with the old men and all but kissed them in her joy, and promised to dance with every one of them and immediately had her card filled with trembly-looking autographs.
“Won’t you dance, Mrs. Buck?” suggested Colonel Crutcher, but Mrs. Buck declined with agitated blushes, declaring her health was too feeble for such carryings-on.
“Well, I’m going to put you in a front seat so you won’t miss anything and then Miss Judy can sit by you when she is not dancing. That’s all right, I’ll get some of your church members to keep you company.”
Colonel Crutcher conducted mother and daughter across the ballroom and, much to the confusion of Mrs. Buck, placed them next to Miss Ann Peyton. That lady was seated in solitary grandeur, Big Josh having departed to look up other members of the family.
“Miss Peyton, this is a little friend of mine I want to introduce to you, Miss Judith Buck, and her mother, Mrs. Buck.”
Miss Ann bowed with what might be called gracious stiffness, and moved her skirts a fraction of an inch to make room for Judith.
Mrs. Buck was thankful that some church158friends were found by whom she might sit and be as inconspicuous as possible. She would have been frightened beyond words if she had been forced to sit by Miss Ann Peyton. Not so Judith! The girl looked levelly into the old woman’s eyes and then sat down.
“I want to thank you for the toilet water you sent to me by my servant. It was very kind of you,” said Miss Ann.
“I loved to do it.”
“Why did you?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because ever since I was a tiny little girl I have watched you go driving by on the pike and I’ve always wanted to give you a present. Sometimes I used to pick flowers and hide behind the fence, thinking maybe I could stop your carriage and give them to you, but I was too shy, and old Billy always looked so fierce—as though he were taking the Queen to Windsor. But I used to make up stories about you and your coach and now I am too big and old to make up silly stories and no longer shy and hiding behind hedges, but I kind of felt that the toilet water might be the essence of the flowers I used to pick for you when I was a little girl—the ones you never got.”
“Ah, indeed!” was all Miss Ann said, but159she sought the girl’s hand and held it a moment in the folds of her billowing lace dress.
Then the music started and the ball had begun and Major Fitch was bowing low in front of Miss Ann, claiming the first quadrille, and Colonel Crutcher was holding out his hands for Judith.
“Dance in the set with me,” Miss Ann whispered to Judith, as though they were girls together.
Of course nobody dances quadrilles in these jazz days, but the old men had stipulated that the band from Louisville must know how to play for quadrille and lancers and dusty old music had been unearthed and now the ball was opened with an old-fashioned quadrille, with Pete Barnes calling the figures with the gusto of one practiced in the art.
“Swing your partner! Balance all! Swing the corners! Ladies change! Sashay all! First couple to the right, bow and swing! Second couple to the right—do the same thing! Bow and swing! Bow and swing! Third couple to the right—do the same thing! Bow and swing! Bow and swing! Right and left all around—bow to your partner! Promenade all!”
Miss Ann and her partner glided and dipped160and bowed, Miss Ann tripping and mincing and Major Fitch pointing his toes and crooking his elbows with much elegance and occasionally taking fancy steps to the edification of all beholders.
Judith gave herself up to the dance with abandon. The music took possession of her and she swayed and rocked to its beat and cut pigeon wings with Colonel Crutcher, much to the delight of that veteran. She smiled at Miss Ann and Miss Ann smiled at her as Pete Barnes called, “Ladies change.” They squeezed hands as they passed and Judith whispered, “Isn’t it lovely?” and Miss Ann murmured, “Lovely!”
There was no doubt about it that the set in which Miss Ann and Judith was dancing was the popular one. The spectators moved to that end of the hall and when the dancers indulged in any particularly graceful steps they were applauded. Old Billy crept from the balcony and hid himself behind a palm, where he could look out on his beloved mistress and declare to himself over and over, “She am the pick er the bunch.”
Jeff Bucknor, although he had resolved to give the evening up to making his sisters’ friends enjoy themselves, found himself taken161up with watching Judith Buck. He had fully intended to ask Jean Roland to dance the first dance with him, but had seen her led forth by the fat boy without once offering a rescuing hand. While the quadrille was being danced he stood by a window and looked on. As soon as the quadrille was over he hurried to Judith’s side.
“Please let me have the next dance, Miss Buck.”
“I believe I have an engagement,” panted Judith, looking at her card. “Yes, it’s a waltz and dear old Mr. Pete Barnes has put his name down. See!” She held it up for Jeff’s inspection. Pete had written, “Set this dance out with your true admirer, Pete Barnes.”
“Nonsense,” cried Jeff. “You mustn’t sit out dances with old men when young men are dy—want to dance with you.”
“Mustn’t I though? Not when old men have been good to me beyond belief? These are my old men and I wouldn’t break an engagement with one of them for a pretty. Mr. Pete Barnes had a sabre cut once that made him a little lame and he can’t dance, so I promised to sit out the waltz with him,” explained Judith.
“All right, then the next dance on your card!”162
“That is with Major Fitch and the next with Judge Middleton—that’s the Lancers—then the Virgina Reel with old Captain Crump. I’m very sorry, but I believe I am booked up until the intermission, which I hope means supper.”
“You can’t mean you are going to give up the whole evening to those old fellows. Miss Buck, Judith! Yes, I have a perfect right to call you Judith. You are my cousin. I—I—just found it out the other day. In fact, I am your nearest male relative,” Jeff said whimsically, “and as such I forbid you to spend the whole evening wasting your sweetness on the old men. They may be very fine old chaps, but—”
“May be! But! There is no maybe and no but about it. They are the loveliest old men in the world. You got to be a cousin too suddenly, Mr. Bucknor. Kinship is something deeper than a sudden flare. The old men are my fairy godfathers and that is closer than forty-eleventh cousins. Why, they even gave me my lovely dress so I could come to the ball. No, Mr. Barnes, I haven’t forgotten,” she said, tucking her hand in the old man’s arm as he came up to claim her promise. She looked over her shoulder and laughed at Jeff Bucknor. “Good-bye, Cousin!” she called.163
Jeff moodily sought refuge behind Cousin Ann’s draperies. He knew he was behaving rudely, not to dance with the girls of the house party. He was sure Mildred and Nan would berate him, but he felt as though there were weights on his feet. Miss Ann graciously made room for him.
“A very charming ball, Cousin,” she said.
“Yes!”
“Why are you not dancing?”
“Nobody to dance with—unless you will favor me,” he added gallantly.
“No, my dear cousin, I have danced once to-night and I am afraid I had better not venture again. I am very fatigued from the unwonted exertion.” Indeed, the old lady did look tired, although very happy and contented. “Why do you not endeavor to engage my charming vis-a-vis? I see she is not dancing either.”
“Humph! She has given me to understand she preferred talking to old Pete Barnes to dancing with me. She’s a strange girl, Cousin Ann, and I can’t make her out.”
At least Jeff had the satisfaction of seeing Judith refuse to dance with Tom Harbison. That young man had crossed the floor with his accustomed assurance, had bowed low in front of Judith and begged her to favor him,164even taking her by the hand and endeavoring to draw her from her chair, but she had refused him in short order.
Judith danced and danced with the old men. Whatever the step they decided to take the girl followed. She was a born dancer and, after a few paces, could adapt herself to any partner. There were other young men besides Jeff and Tom who sought her hand in the dance, but she was always engaged to some one of the ten old men. The only chance for the young ones was for the old ones to fall by the wayside, which they did occasionally when their old legs refused to carry them farther.
“I’d break in on them if they weren’t so old,” declared one young farmer.
“It wouldn’t do a bit of good,” said a young doctor. “I tried and she turned me down—said she had promised the old duffer the whole dance.”
So it happened that Judith’s time was fully taken up by her fairy godfathers until the supper-time intermission.
165CHAPTER XVCinderella Revealed
The rattle of china and silver had begun in a room beyond the dancing hall and an aroma of coffee and a suggestion of savory food was in the air. Dancers and spectators sniffed in anticipation. The music stopped. Judge Middleton walked towards the end of the hall. He had Judith Buck by his side, her hand resting lightly on his arm. She was chatting gaily, but the Judge looked rather serious.
When the couple reached a spot near the bass drum, the Judge stopped and, borrowing the stick from the musician, he rapped sharply on the side of the drum.
“He’s going to make a speech!”
“Be quiet!”
“Judge Middleton is going to talk!”
The other nine old men called for order. Another sharp rap on the drum and all was still.
“Friends,” the Judge said, “I have something to say to you.” One could have heard166a pin drop. “Of course all of us old men know that you have had a very good time, laughing at us because we sent out invitations calling this a debut party. We are pleased to have given so many of our friends a good laugh. We did it on purpose, because we have all of us lived a long time and we know how popular it makes you to furnish a good laugh. We are proud and happy that so many persons have seen fit to come to our party and we hope you are having a pleasant time to repay you for your trouble.”
“Hear! Hear!”
“The best this year!”
“Do it again!”
“I wonder if any of you noticed that our invitation did not say to whom we were giving this debut party? We left that out on purpose, because we were afraid it might scare off the person whom we are delighted to honor. Up to this moment the dear child whose debut party this is has been entirely ignorant that it is hers.”
Judith, who had been standing by her old friend, utterly unconscious of self, wholly absorbed in his speech, now looked at him with an expression of startled amazement. She gave a little gasp and blushed violently.167
“Friends of Ryeville and our county, we, the old men of the neighborhood, wish to tell you that this debut ball is in honor of our fairy godchild, Miss Judith Buck.”
A ripple of applause ran around the room.
“We know that we are not doing the conventional thing in the conventional way,” the Judge continued, “but we wanted to do something different for a girl who is different. Only a few days ago we were sitting, talking, discussing matters and things, when the thought came to us that we should like to do something for a girl who has never been too busy to stop and have a pleasant word with us old men. It was my friend, Pete Barnes, who thought of this way.”
“Yes, my idee, my idee!” cried Pete.
“I am sure a great many of you already know our young friend. You have seen her grow from childhood to young womanhood—watched her trudging in to school in all weathers, determined to get an education at any cost—noted her record at school, always at the top or near the top. Perhaps others in Ryeville besides the old men have been cheered by her happy face and ready wit and sympathy.”
“Hear! Hear!”
“And now we old men wish to present formally168to society Miss Judith Buck. If you have any criticism to make of our method, please blame us and not our guest of honor. This is a surprise party for her.”
“Well, I call that right down pretty,” said Big Josh to his Cousin Bob. “I have been wanting all evening to get in a word with some of the crowd concerning this young lady, but it looks like it’s hard to get away from the women folk long enough to talk sense.”
“I believe I know what you mean,” said Mr. Bucknor uneasily. “It won’t do, Josh, it won’t do.”
“The dickens it won’t do, if we decide to claim her!”
“But the ladies, Josh, the ladies! I fancy Cousin Ann has told you what she told me. The tale got my madam and the girls up in arms and I can’t cope with the whole biling of them. I’d say no more about it if I were you. Of course we must go up and shake hands with the girl, and do the polite, but the least said the soonest mended—about her being related to us. You know well enough if the women folk are opposed it would be harder on the girl than just letting the matter drop right where it is.”
“Well, I reckon I can control the ladies in my family,” blustered Big Josh.169
“Ahem!” said Mr. Bob Bucknor, with a significant glance at his cousin, “I must confess that I can’t always do so. I find that entertaining Cousin Ann Peyton, for months at a time, is about all I can do in the way of coercion where the ladies of my family are concerned.”
“I’m going to relieve you of that burden, Bob,” declared Big Josh. “I fully realize you have had more than your share lately, but the truth of the matter is my lane is in mighty bad shape here lately. I have just been talking to Cousin Ann about coming to us for a spell. In fact, I’ve been telling her I’d come and fetch her before so very long.”
Judith stood demurely between Judge Middleton and Major Fitch and made her bow to Ryeville society. They had asked Mrs. Buck to stand by her daughter, but that lady begged to be excused.
“I’m just a private person,” she said, “and it would flustrate me so I’d be sure to have one of my attacks.”
Everybody went up and shook hands with the guest of honor—even Mildred Bucknor, although she did not enjoy it at all.
“It is the silliest thing I ever saw in my life,” she declared. “As though that Judith Buck wasn’t forward enough as it is, without those170ridiculous old men forcing her on people this way. If we had known the party was given to her, we never should have come, but now that we are here we naturally must behave as gentle folk and be decent.”
“Of course,” echoed Nan. “We couldn’t leave just as supper is announced either. That would be impolite.”
“Very!” said the fat boy.
The knowledge that the debut party was given to little Judith Buck in no way served to throw a damper on the festivities. On the contrary, the gaiety of the guests increased. Supper was a decided success and the stylish waiters from Louisville saw to it that everyone was served bountifully. Old Billy crept from behind the decorations and insisted upon waiting on his mistress.
“She am the queen er the ball,” he said arrogantly to the young darkey who objected to giving up his tray to the old man.
“You mean the young lady who’s havin’ her comin’ out?”
“No, I don’t mean her, but my Miss Ann, who air a settin’ over yonder all kivered with di’ments.”
Miss Ann was weary and tremulous. She had been strangely moved by Judge Middleton’s171speech. Why, she did not know exactly, but all evening she had been putting herself in Judith’s place, wondering what life would have held for her if at the turning point she had shown the character and spunk of this young girl. She had gone with the rest to shake hands with the girl after Judge Middleton’s speech. She longed to declare their relationship, but was afraid to until the family accepted Judith. So Miss Ann merely took Judith’s hand in hers and pressed it gently. All she said was, “I am so happy to have met you.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Peyton. I am indeed glad to know you.” Judith had almost called her cousin. She devoutly hoped nobody had noticed it, but there was no time for repinings because one was stand-offish. Too many persons must be introduced to the debutante. Even had Mildred Bucknor been inclined to chat with her former schoolmate she would not have been allowed to do it. There were others who pressed forward to greet the fairy godchild of the old men of Ryeville.
The general attitude of the assembly was good natured and congratulatory. The aristocratic contingent was inclined to be a little formal, but polite and not unkindly. The aristocrats were more or less related to one another, and172most of them were connected, closely or distantly, with the Bucknors. Their formality in greeting Judith might easily have been accounted for by the fact that Big Josh Bucknor had kept the ball rolling in regard to old Dick Buck’s kinship with the family. From the moment Miss Ann Peyton had made the statement that the Bucks and Bucknors were originally the same people, Big Josh had been spreading the news. All of them had heard it before, but nobody had ever given serious thought to it. To be related to slovenly, lazy, dissipated old Dick Buck was out of the question. The possibility of such a connection was laughably preposterous. It was quite a different matter, however, to contemplate receiving into the charmed circle a beautiful young girl who was everything her unworthy old grandparent had not been.
“But we must go slowly,” Little Josh Bucknor had said, when approached by his cousin, Big Josh. “It’s a great deal easier to get relations than it is to get rid of them. Ahem—Cousin Ann, for instance! Cousin Ann is so distantly related to us that one cannot trace the kinship, but we got started wrong with her in old days and now you would think she was as close as a mother or something.173
“I’m mighty bothered about Cousin Ann, Big Josh. The fact of the matter is, my wife won’t stand for her. I can’t even make her go up and speak to the old lady. She’s been talking to Cousin Betty Throckmorton and they’ve been hatching up a scheme to freeze out Cousin Ann and fix it so she’ll have to go to an old ladies’ home. Cousin Mildred Bucknor is in on it, too, and from the way they’ve had their heads together all evening I believe your daughters are in the plot.”
“The minxes! I don’t doubt it. Poor Cousin Ann! She’s never done anybody any harm in her life,” and Big Josh’s round, moon-like face expressed as much sorrow as it was capable of.
“No—never any harm—but I reckon Cousin Ann hasn’t done much good in her time. When you come right down to it, chronic visiting is a poor way to spend your time, unless you are a powerful good visitor, which Cousin Ann isn’t. She got started wrong and never has got put on the right road. I don’t see what we are going to do about it. Bob Bucknor is having more than his share, but I can’t do a thing with my wife. You see, she made her own living before she married me and she’s got no use for what she calls the unproductive consumer. She says that’s what Cousin Ann is.174Mrs. Bob is getting worn out with it, too, because her girls are grown now and they are kicking at having the poor old lady come down on them on all occasions. It looks as though we’d have to call a meeting of the family and thresh the thing out.”
Little Josh, who had acquired the diminutive title merely because he had been born two years later than his cousin, Big Josh, showed despondency in every line of his six-feet-two.
“The women will all be banded against her and want to send her to a home, but we can’t stand for that,” said Big Josh. “The women’ll have to get it into their heads that they can’t boss the whole shooting match. Well, come on and let’s speak to our little cousin. Oh, you needn’t worry. I’m going to be as careful as possible and never say a word I shouldn’t. I can’t take her into the family unless all the others do. When we have the family meeting about Cousin Ann we might bring up this business of Miss Judith Buck at the same time.”
“Good idea! Good idea!” agreed Little Josh.
What Big Josh said to Judith was, “And how do you do, Miss Buck? Remember you? Of course I remember you, but do you remember me?”175
“And how could I forget you when you have given me many a lift on the road? You never passed me by without picking me up.” Judith’s manner was so frank and sweet and she smiled so brightly at Big Josh, returning his vigorous handshake with a strong, unaffected clasp, that the good-natured fellow was won over completely.
“Well, well! We’ve pretty near got the same name,” he cried heartily. “You are Buck and I am Bucknor. I wouldn’t be astonished if we had been the same in the beginning. Either your folks knocked thenoroff or my folks stuck it on. Ha! Ha! We may be related for all we know.”