CHAPTER XVIII
CHRISTMAS FOR SALLY WINN
There were other cabins to visit and we had to tear ourselves away from Aunt Keziah's. Mr. Kent took many photographs of Santa Claus with the little darkeys crowding around him.
"This will be a gold mine to me," he averred. "I can see myself filling pages of advertising matter with illustrations from this morning."
Everywhere we went, Santa Claus was hailed with delight. We left many packages at many cabins and finally ended up at Sally Winn's. This was at Dee's instigation. Indeed it was a kindly thought that took us there. Poor Sally had been exercising unwonted self-control in not sending for Father at midnight on Christmas Eve. Jo said she had felt all kinds of flutterations but had submitted to a dose of the "pink medicine," and that, with the comfort she had derived from a hot water bottle, had tided her through the night. Then she had felt it incumbent upon her to get up and make waffles for breakfast because of the guest from New York.
We had some gifts for Sally tied up in the Tucker's best style, with sheets on sheets of tissue paper, yards and yards of red and green ribbon, and dozens and dozens of Christmas seals. Mammy Susan had been growing a citronella slip for her and it had reached quite a pretentious size and begun to branch out like the parent plant.
Sally's delight was really pathetic to see. She, poor woman, had very little of interest in her life, so little that she had to make a real pleasure and excitement over her "spells." A visit from Santa Claus was almost as much fun to her as a visit from the Angel Gabriel would have been, and the sleigh bells were only next in cheer to the last trump. Sally, you will remember, was our neighbour at Milton who spent her life trying to die.
Our coming was a great surprise to her. Any pleasure that happened to come her way always took her unawares. She was certainly one of the Mrs. Gummidges of this world and was "a poor lone lorn critter" if I ever saw one. She was a grateful soul and was profuse in her thanks for the gifts. I had never seen her more enthusiastic although Father and I had never missed a Christmas in giving her some nice present. I verily believe it was the festive wrappings that appealed to her.
Of course Mr. Tucker took her by storm. He acted Santa Claus just as he had at Aunt Keziah's and Sally, I know, regretted that her education kept her from joining ranks with the believers.
"Did you ever see anybody look so like himself? I have never seen a Santa Claus before that did not have on an ugly false face – hideous painted things that wouldn't fool a chicken," Sally began with her accustomed volubility. "I can't quite make up my mind that you are not Santy – "
"Well, don't make up your mind to any such treason. I am Santy!"
"Well, Santy or not, I am mighty glad to see all of you. Now you must try some of my eggnog and fruit cake. Dr. Allison says my fruit cake is the best he ever tasted and that it is so well mixed that it is as digestible as sponge cake. My eggnog, too, can't be beat, – made of pure cream and eggs that are so fresh they were warm when I broke them. I waited for those finest Dominickers to get off their nests before I made it. 'Tain't strong of liquor and won't hurt a baby. Jo, bring my best Bohemian glasses. You'll find them on the tray in the dining room all set out on the sideboard. Here's my cake and I am proud to cut it for such company.
"Dr. Allison says he likes the looks of my cake. He says it looks like chewing tobacco, it is so nice and black and fruity, and that it tastes better than it looks. You can't trust all cooks with their fruit cake because it is so dark-like that dirt don't show in it and sometimes things that don't belong there get in it. I remember one time over at Mrs. Purdy's (of course I don't mean to be gossiping about her now that she is dead and gone) – but she cut a cake with all the airs and graces of a good cake-maker, which she never was, and what should I find in my piece – just one piece, mind you – but a shoe button and a bent pin. I just thought to myself: 'Well, if that's what I found, God in Heaven knows what I didn't find.' Now there ain't a thing in my cake but the best ingredients, and I'll wager nobody will ever find anything in my cooking foreign to the human digestion."
We were certain of it, but Sally did not give us time to express our confidence. She plunged into a stream of eloquence concerning her Dominickers and their superior brand of eggs, as she ladled out the eggnog as smooth as a baby's cheek and as fluffy as a summer cloud.
"There are some that hold that a white Leghorn's eggs are more delicate than any other kind, but I say there is a richness about an old-fashioned Dominicker's eggs that nothing can come up to. What do you want with an egg being too delicate, anyhow? Of course, for Angel's Food they might be best, but I have never seen anything that an egg laid by a Leghorn will do that a Dominicker's won't do just as well. Of course nobody wants a duck egg or a goose egg for anything short of ginger bread, – they are coarse! Now a hard boiled guinea egg is my favourite of all eggs. I think a nice hot guinea egg, boiled until it is mealy – it takes a good half hour – and then mashed up with good batter bread made of the fresh meal, ground over at Macy's mill, provided the batter bread is made the right way, – none of your batter bread raised with baking powders, but my kind, raised with eggs and plenty of them, well beaten and baked quickly, – I do say that there is no breakfast better."
The strangest thing about Sally Winn was that she longed for company, not for the good she might get out of it but just so she could pour forth her soul in conversation. We might just as well have been dumb for all she got from us, but all the time we were eating her truly wonderful cake and drinking her eggnog that even she could not praise according to its deserts, she regaled us with a stream of conversation that made our heads swim.
"I understand poor Jo better now," whispered Dee to me. "How can he ever talk? No wonder! He gets out of the habit at home and can't get in it when he goes away."
"Tell Mammy Susan I have got a good starting of rose geranium for her. I would have sent it over by Jo this morning but I was so afraid it might be too cold for it. It looks like Mammy Susan has all the luck with citronella and I have luck with rose geranium. My bush is so big it looks like I'll have to get Jo's watering tub from the barn to plant it in. It has long out-grown its pot. I certainly do like to have plenty of healthy rose geranium on hand when I make apple jelly. Nothing gives it the flavour that a leaf of rose geranium will, – just pour the boiling jelly over a leaf – one to each glass."
"That sounds fine!" exclaimed Santa Claus. "I don't think I ever tasted it."
"Wait a minute! I am going to fix one up for you to take back to Richmond and next summer when I make my jelly, I'll make some for you. It comes in mighty handy for sudden company." Sally bustled off and came back bearing a tumbler of jelly that would have taken a prize at any fair in the world, I feel sure.
"Here it is!" she panted. "Jo is that fond of it that I sometimes hate to think of leaving him because I don't know who will ever make it to suit him."
"But are you thinking of leaving him?" questioned Mr. Tucker.
"Dying! I mean dying!"
"Oh, but you look so well!"
"I think so, too, Sally," I ventured. "You are getting to be right fat."
"Ah, my dear, that has nothing to do with health. The fatter I get the more of me there is to feel bad. I won't be long for this world, I am thankful to say. Fat! Why, I have seen many a fat corpse – more fat ones than lean ones." We could not gainsay such gruesome statistics, but I told her that Father had sent her a prescription that she must take immediately without fail.
"And give up the pink medicine?"
"He says you won't need that for to-day, that is, if you take the other. Father says you are to bundle up and come over to Bracken for dinner. Jo and Mr. Kent are to come, too, of course, and that will mean that you will have no household cares. He says you must come. It is the doctor's orders."
"Well, if I must, I must!" she sighed. "I have great faith in Dr. Allison and am sure he would not prescribe something that would hurt me," and so Sally, with many layers of wraps enveloping her already portly person, and, clasping in her arms the rose geranium for Mammy Susan, was bundled into Jo's already overflowing sleigh and we merrily started off for Bracken.
A very funny thing happened on the way, at least it turned out to be funny although it might have been very serious. Dee, who was on the front seat between Wink and Jo, insisted upon driving. Sally, on the back seat with Dum and Mr. Kent, was so wrapped up that she was oblivious to the speed that the two spirited horses were making. Of course Peg was ready for a race and so were all of us and race we did for most of the trip home. Jo's horses were young and good trotters and Dee, with blazing eyes and glowing cheeks, let them go as fast as they wanted to. My old Peg had seen better days as a racer but had the advantage of a cutter and a small load and so made the best of it. I hugged the road and kept it, while Zebedee hurled defiance at our pursuers.
About an eighth of a mile before the public road turned into the avenue at Bracken, Dee saw a chance to catch up with us and pass us. There was a smooth, unbroken stretch of snow that she thought was part of the road and she swerved her team to cut through it and get in the lead – but snow, like Charity, covers a multitude of sins. This pure mantle covered a great gully. The snow had drifted to that side of the road and the gully was filled and then neatly smoothed over. There was nothing to warn a person unacquainted with the road. Jo was evidently so taken up with Dee's glowing countenance that he was paying no attention to where she was taking them, when over they went as quietly and peacefully as turning over in bed.
The horses were wonderful. They stopped stock-still. The near one was dragged over by the weight of the sleigh but he lay quite still. Peg behaved like the almost thoroughbred she is and not only stood quietly but gave a ringing neigh of encouragement to the other horses.
Zebedee and I were out in a jiffy and running to the assistance of the turnover. I deemed it wiser for me to attend to the horses. If they had struggled, it might have been quite serious. I loosened the traces on the one who had been able to keep his feet, and then the fallen one, and as soon as I had accomplished that, I caught hold of the bridle and got him up in no time. He was not hurt at all. Zebedee was digging out the crowd, who had, one and all, taken headers. A waving sea of legs presented itself to our astonished gaze. One by one they scrambled out, all looking more or less sheepish but all rosy and ready to laugh if they could just be reassured that no one was hurt.
"Jo! Jo! Pull me out! The grey legs are mine!" came in muffled tones from the deepest part of the drift where two fat legs encased in homemade grey woolen stockings were wildly beating the air.
"Sally!" we cried, and in a moment we had her out.
"Oh, Lord!" I groaned. "Poor Father and more pink medicine!" but not a bit of it! Sally was as game as the rest of them, and came up smiling and happy when she, too, found no one was hurt. The snow was as dry as powder and shook off them like so much flour. The sleigh was righted in short order and they all clambered back. Dee penitently handed the reins to Jo.
"I am not to be trusted. You had better drive."
"Not at all! No one could have told that was not perfectly good road. I should have been looking at the road instead of – ahem – ahem – instead of – instead – of – that buzzard, sailing down there," pointing to one of the denizens of the air who had made his appearance in the sky almost as though he had expected some pickings from our turnover.
"Humph! Buzzard, indeed!" grunted Sally. "If I was Miss Dee I shouldn't thank you to be a calling me a buzzard." Which went to show that Sally was not so much wrapped up that she could not see what was right in front of her.
What a dinner we did have! Tweedles and I often spoke of it when we were back at school, especially on the veal pot-pie days. The table was resplendent with its fine old damask and silver and with its load of good things.
"That there gobbler," said Mammy Susan, pointing with pride at the king of the feast sitting on his parsley throne, "don't weigh a ounce less 'n twenty pounds. He was the greediest one of the whole flock an' now see what he done come to! He was always the struttinest fowl and looks lak he is still some pompous with his bosom chuck full of chestnuts."
Blanche and Bill were to wait on the table, but Mammy Susan had to come into the dining room to see that everything went off in proper style. She stood back like a head waiter in some fine restaurant and directed her minions with the airs of a despot.
"Pass that ther macaroni to Miss Dum!" would come in a sibilant whisper. And then as Bill would prance by the old woman with all of the style he had learned on the Mississippi steamboat, she would say in stern undertones: "Don't wait fer folks to lick they plates befo' you gib um a sicond help."
"Blanche, gib Miss Sally Winn some 'scalloped oyschters, and there is Mr. Tucker 'thout a livin' thing on his plate."
Eating was not the only thing we did at that feast. We talked and laughed and cracked jokes until poor Sally Winn forgot all about dying and I think realized there was something in life, after all. What we had for that Christmas dinner was no doubt what every family in the United States who could have it was having, but it seemed to us to be better, and I believe it was. Mammy Susan had a witch's wand to stir things with and whatever she touched was perfect. Her cranberry sauce always jelled; her candied sweet potatoes were only equalled by marrons glacé, so Zebedee said. The cheese on her macaroni always browned just right; and her mashed potatoes always looked like banks of snowy clouds. She seemed to have the power of glorifying egg plant and salsify so that persons often asked what the delicious thing was they were eating.
"Whew!" ejaculated Zebedee, "I am certainly glad I did not have to eat in my embonpoint. I would have touched the table long ago and would have had to stop. As it is, I can still eat about three inches without having a collision."
Our day passed in feasting and merry making. The walls of Bracken rang with merriment. Even Father came out of his book and got quite gay. Sally Winn forgot to hold her heart and laughed like a girl at the jests.
"It will be fatal to sit down after such a dinner," declared Dee. "We had better go out and coast and jolt it down."
There was only one small sled, left from my childhood, but the attic was full of broken chairs, and in a few minutes the eager males had fashioned make-shift coasters out of old rockers and chair backs.
"They are not very elegant but they will slide down the hill, which is the main thing," said Wink, as he lay flat on his stomach and whizzed down the long hill to the spring.
We had a chair back apiece and so did not have to wait turns nor did we have to go double. I must say I like to coast by myself and guide my own sled. The impromptu sleds were not so very strong and it was much safer not to overload. We coasted until the long hill was as slick as glass and, with the exception of an occasional turnover, there were no casualties.
Father and Sally Winn watched us from the library window but after a while they came out, Sally bundled up to within an inch of her life, and what should they do but mount some chair backs and get in the game. Jo Winn fell off his sled when he saw his invalid sister, who only the night before had been on the point of shuffling off this mortal coil, actually straddling a chair back and taking the hill like a native of Switzerland.
"This is a new prescription I have given Sally," whispered Father to Jo. "She is to coast every day as long as the snow lasts, and after it melts we are to think of some other form of exercise for her."
"How about horse-back riding?" I suggested. "Jo's old Bess is just like a comfortable rocker."
"The very thing!" exclaimed Father. "Let her ride around the yard for a few days until she gains confidence, and then she can go on a regular ride. Go to Milton for the mail and even come over here after a little."
"Must we still keep up the pink medicine?" asked Jo.
"Oh, well! Give it to her in emergencies, but not too freely."
Jo had a twinkle in his eye. He knew that the pink medicine was made of perfectly good pump water with a little colouring matter and enough bromide to quiet the nerves of an oyster.
"This Christmas has done something for Sally if for no one else," said Father. "It has taught her that she can go heels over head in the snow without affecting her heart; that she can eat as good a dinner as the next without feeling bad; and that she can coast down a hill without turning a hair."
I looked at Sally settling herself on a chair back that Wink had kindly pulled up the hill for her. Sticking out her fat, woolly, grey legs on each side, she took the hill in great shape. I hoped she was cured of her imaginary ailments and would let my dear Father get many a good night's rest by not sending for him every time she felt her heart beat.
CHAPTER XIX
BACK IN THE TREAD-MILL
That is the way we looked on going back to school. It was not really a tread-mill, nothing nearly so dreadful, but we considered ourselves very much put upon that the holidays could not last forever, that books had to be studied, and rules either obeyed or punishments meted out if they were broken.
We had gone home knowing that demerits were going to have to be worked off after the holidays, but as I have said before, it had had no more effect on our spirits than a threat of hell fire would have on a new-born babe. But babies must grow up and time will pass and holidays come to an end, and here we were paying up for our foolishness on our last night at school before Christmas.
Almost all the Junior class was in bad, and misery loves company, so we lightened our labours all we could with sly jests and notes written to each other instead of the pages of dictionary we were supposed to be copying.
Of all punishments, copying dictionary seems to me to be the most futile. It was disagreeable enough, but of course punishments should be that, but it was not only disagreeable but such a terrible waste of time. I did not mind learning hymns, especially if I already knew them, but the pages of dictionary almost persuaded me to behave myself, – not quite, though.
"When we get out of this, let's be either very good or very careful," said Dum, as we finished up our first day in durance vile while the rest of the school, all the good girls, had gone for a nice walk in the woods. "I am liable to do something desperate if I get in bad again."
"I am going to try," declared Mary, very penitent after having to memorize a very long and very lugubrious hymn. "It may not pay to be good, but you've certainly got to pay to be bad."
All of us tried to be good. We studied like Trojans (not that Trojans ever did study as far as I know). I learned my history by heart and actually won a smile of approval from Miss Plympton. I knuckled down to geometry and if the figure was drawn exactly as it was in the book and the same letters were used to designate the angles, I got on swimmingly. A slight change of letter upset me considerably, however. I never could understand as I had under Miss Cox's reign. I was doing algebra as well, although the Juniors were supposed to be through with that delectable study; but I had started out so far behind that I had to keep on with it if I ever hoped to get my degree.
English under Miss Ball continued to be delightful and all of us did good work with her. She had a power of making knowledge desirable by making it interesting, and she made literature delightful because she loved it herself and was never bored. The parallel reading she gave us to do was well chosen and broadening. One thing that especially pleased me about Miss Ball was her cheerful outlook. She did not believe that all good writing was through with, – that literature had died with Tennyson and Thackeray. She read modern poets with as much pleasure as Father himself and actually gave some of the modern novels for parallel reading. Nor did she scorn the five cent magazines.
She encouraged us to do original work. It was a great relief to have a teacher say: "Write what suits you," rather than to give out one of the time-honoured hackneyed themes, – such as: My Afternoon Walk, or A Quiet Sunday Morning, or Thoughts on a Sunset.
My head was so full of plots I could hardly concentrate on one. The trouble was I so often found my plot not to be so very original after all. Miss Ball would say a story was very good but point out its similarity to noted productions, and I would realize that I had been unconsciously influenced. She endeavoured to make us be ourselves at no matter what cost. "A poor thing but mine own" was to be our motto.
"If you want to be successful be modern at least," she would say. "If you must imitate any one, imitate O. Henry or Ferber, even Montagu Glass. Don't try to write like Edgar Allan Poe. If you are going to write like him, you will do it, anyhow, and a poor imitation of him is terrible. If any of you want to make a living with writing find out what the public likes and what the magazine editors want and do that just as well as you can do it. You need not feel that you are hitching Pegasus to a plough and even if you do, ploughing is a very worthy occupation and there is poetry in it if taken properly." Then she read us some from Masefield's "Everlasting Mercy":
"The past was faded like a dream,
There came the jingling of a team,
A ploughman's voice, a clink of chain,
Slow hoofs, and harness under strain.
Up the slow slope a team came bowing,
Old Callow at his autumn ploughing,
Old Callow, stooped above the hales,
Ploughing the stubble into wales.
His grave eyes looking straight ahead,
Shearing a long straight furrow red;
His plough-foot high to give it earth
To bring new food for men to birth.
O wet red swathe of earth laid bare,
O truth, O strength, O gleaming share,
O patient eyes that watch the goal,
O ploughman of the sinner's soul.
O Jesus, drive the coulter deep
To plough my living man from sleep."
"If you can hitch your Pegasus to a plough and 'bring new food for men to birth' you have done a better deed than if you had soared in the skies all the time in the wake of some great men. I consider O. Henry an unconscious philanthropist. He has opened our eyes to the charm of the usual."
Such lessons as these gave us strength to bear with the extreme boresomeness of other classes.
We worked off the demerits against us, and by being both good and careful we got no more to sadden our days. Our dummies were neatly folded up and seldom brought out. Just to show that we were still human beings, we did have an occasional spread, and once Miss Plympton let Tweedles and me go under the chaperonage of Miss Ball down to tea with dear old Captain Pat Leahy, the one-legged gate keeper at the crossing. He was so glad to see us he almost wept. He had sent us a formal invitation but doubted Miss Plympton's giving her consent.
"An' the poosies have been a lickin' uv their furrr all morning to get rready for the coompany an' I got me neighbourr, Mrs. Rooney, to bake me a poond cake for tay."
"Why, Captain, we did not dream you would go to any trouble for us. But we certainly do adore pound cake, and isn't that a beauty?" enthused Dee.
The little table was set ready for tea. You remember how the Captain's gate house looked. It was very tiny, so tiny that you did not see how any one could live in it, but he declared he had more room than he needed. The lower berth from a wrecked Pullman served him as seat by day and bed by night. A doll-baby-sized cooking stove, very shiny and black, was at one side, while a shelf over it was covered with all the china and cooking utensils he needed. A little table, just like the one on sleepers, was hooked in between the seats and a very dainty repast was spread thereon. There were at least a dozen cats but all of them were handsome and healthy and very polite. There had been eight the winter before, counting Oliver, the one we took back to Captain Leahy.
"They will mooltiply an' I have a harrd time findin' good homes for thim. Bett here behind the stove, has presinted Oliverr wid some schtip brothers and sisters. The good Lorrd knows what I am to do wid 'em."
"Please, please let me hold some of them!" and Dee was down on her knees in the corner near Bett's bed. "Look! Look! Their eyes are open! Four of them! Oh, I do want all of them so bad."
Bett seemed perfectly willing to trust Dee with an armful of kittens, indeed I think she was rather relieved to be rid of the care of them for a while, as she sidled out of the door and went trotting up the road, her large handsome tail waving joyously.
"Now she's gone to the cloob or maybe to a suffragette meetin'. Poor Bett has a schtoopid life, confined as she is to rraisin' sooch larrge families," and the old man gave one of his rich vibrant laughs that warmed the cockles of your heart.
We talked of Miss Peyton and how much we liked her, but since Miss Ball was a member of the faculty, we refrained from our criticisms of Miss Plympton, although we knew that Captain Leahy was dying to hear all about our latest scrapes and how we got out of them and what we had to say of our stern principal. She really was not nearly so stern as we gave her credit for, but we were nothing but girls and young people are always extreme in their opinions. Everybody is either perfectly lovely or perfectly horrid in their eyes. When I look back on my days at Gresham I realize that Miss Plympton's chief fault was that she had no humour, and surely lacking that God-given attribute was not her fault.
We enjoyed that tea greatly. Captain Leahy certainly had his share and more of humour and his keen comments were a never failing source of delight. Miss Ball was young and full of spirits and good stories, and the little gate house actually rocked with laughter.
We devoured every crumb of Mrs. Rooney's pound cake and the host had to fill his little blue tea pot three times before our thirst was quenched. Of course Dee had to save a little milk for the kittens and Captain Leahy seemed to think it was perfectly au fait for her to let them lap from her saucer, although Dum and I are of one mind about eating at the table with cats. Now I don't mind a dog at the table at all, provided it is a polite dog who does not help himself until he is told to; but cats! Ugh! They are entirely too promiscuous, as Mammy Susan says.