CHAPTER XXIV
A BREAD-AND-BUTTER LETTER
Milton, Va., August 3, 19 – .
Dear Tuckers:
How can I ever tell you what a good time I have had with you? Maybe you know already by the glowing countenance I must have presented for the last month, only I can't believe it is really a month, it went flying by so fast. It took June tenants going out of Mrs. Rand's cottage and August tenants coming in to convince me that July was really gone, and still I don't see where it went.
Father met me at Milton, driving the colt as usual, only the colt is getting to be quite a staid and respectable roadster. Father says a country doctor's horse that can stay skittish very long is a wonder, with all of the hard driving he is forced to give him. He still shies at automobiles, but I truly believe it is nothing but jealousy. I don't think he is in the least afraid of them, but he thinks the automobile is snorting and puffing at him, and like a spirited animal, he wants to let the car know that he is perfectly ready to fight and orders coffee and pistols for two.
Mammy Susan was pathetically glad to see me. She is very grieved, however, over the new freckles on my nose and tried to make me bind cucumber peelings on that much-abused and perfectly inoffensive member. The dough mask is too fresh in my memory, however, for me to get myself messed up with anything else.
Our neighbor, Jo Winn, was at the station and in his shy, husky voice actually had the spunk to inquire after Dee. He says his cousin, Mr. Reginald Kent, is making good in New York, and in every letter he writes he has something to say of the deer hunt and the wonderful Miss Tucker who shot the stag. His sister, Sally Winn, is at her old trick of trying to die. It is her midnight hurry calls that have tamed the colt, so Father declares.
Bracken is looking very lovely and peaceful. Some of Father's old-maid cousins have just left; they were nice, soft ones, so Father really enjoyed having them. Next week Cousin Park Garnett is coming for her annual visitation. I told Father about Judge Grayson and the Turkey-tail Fan and he nearly died laughing. He says he is going to try reading his new book of Alfred Noyes to her and see what effect it will have on her.
Dear Cousin Sue Lee is coming tomorrow and all of us are delighted. She is the dearest and sweetest in the world. I do hope you will all motor down to Bracken while she is here. You simply must get to know one another.
Father is still regretting that he could not get to Willoughby. I think he works too hard and he says he knows he does, but what is a doctor to do? The people will get sick and will send for him.
Good-bye, my dear friends! I would feel depressed that our wonderful vacation together is over, if I did not have the future to look forward to and know that I will soon be back at school with the Tucker Twins!
Your best friend,PAGE ALLISON.
CHAPTER XXV
BRACKEN IN AUGUST
It was good to be home and how easily I slipped back into being a child again! I could hardly believe I had been so grown-up for a month, going to hops and having a proposal and what not. I spent a great deal of my time driving around with Father, who was very pleased to have me. Sometimes we squeezed Cousin Sue Lee into the narrow-seated buggy and then we would have a jolly time. Cousin Sue seemed younger even than the year before. It was incredible that she should be nearly fifty. It was not that she looked so young, as her hair was turning quite gray, but she was so young in her attitude towards life.
We had to have our annual confab on the subject of clothes, and a catalogue from the mail order house was soon the chief in interest of all our literature.
"I can't think what I would have done last year if you had not taken hold for me, Cousin Sue. My clothes were so satisfactory."
I told her of poor Annie Pore and at her suggestion sent my little English friend a catalogue with things marked that I was going to order.
My order was almost a duplicate of the year before except that I did not need quite so many things, as I had a goodly number of middies left over and some shirt waists.
Miss Pinky Davis, our country sempstress, was sent for, and again Cousin Sue spent hours planning how best to cut up and trim the bolts of nainsook she had ordered from Richmond. She laughed at my awkwardness with a needle and declared I did regular "nigger sewing." I tried to whip lace, but no matter how clean my hands were when I started, I ended with a dirty knotted thread and the lace went on in little bunches with plain, tightly drawn spaces intervening.
"I declare, child, I don't believe Jimmy Allison himself could have done it any worse," she said, looking at my attempt to whip lace on a petticoat. Cousin Sue always called Father, Jimmy. "How do you get it so grubby?"
"It gets itself! I don't get it!" I exclaimed. "I washed my hands with lye soap so as to be sure they were clean, but they just seem to ooze dirt when I begin to sew."
"Well, in the first place you are sewing with a needle as big as a tenpenny nail and who ever heard of whipping on lace with thirty-six thread?" And my dear cousin patiently threaded me a finer needle with the proper thread and started me again. "Go from left to right, honey, you are not a Chinaman."
"No, you are a Zulu, my dear, and should go clothed as such," said Father, coming in to view our operations. "I believe even you could string beads for your summer costume and cut a hole in a blanket for winter."
"Well, I do hate to sew so, no wonder I can't do it. I want the clothes but I don't want them bad enough to make 'em myself."
"The time will come when you will like to sew," said Miss Pinky, her mouth full of pins.
"That sounds terribly sad," laughed Father. "What is going to make her like it, Miss Pinky?"
"Oh, the time will come when she will find it soothing to sew."
Miss Pinky snipped away with a great pair of sharp shears as nonchalantly as though she were cutting newspapers instead of very sheer organdy for another white dress that Cousin Sue had decided I must have. I never could see how she could tell where the scissors were going to cut next, they were so big and she was so little. Miss Pinky always reminded me of a paper doll, somehow. She seemed to have no thickness at all to her. Her profile was like a bas-relief and rather low relief at that. I remember when I was quite a little girl I examined her dress very carefully to see if it could be fastened on the shoulders in the manner of my paper dolls, with little folded-over flaps.
"Maybe it will, but it is certainly not soothing now. It makes me want to scream."
"Don't do it! Just put up that flimsy foolishness and come drive over to Milton with me. I think I'll drop in on poor Sally Winn before supper and maybe she will get through the night without me. We can call for the mail, too, and beat R. F. D. to it."
The Rural Free Delivery is a great institution in the country where persons cannot go for the mail, but sometimes it was a great irritation to us. Our mail was taken from the Post Office very early in the morning and did not reach us until quite late in the afternoon, the carrier circling all around the county before he landed at our box. "Come on, Sue, you can squeeze in and we can have a jolly drive."
We found Sally Winn up and very busy. As she had been snatched from a yawning grave only two nights before, we were rather astonished.
"Comp'ny's coming and I had to get up and put things to rights. I've stirred up a cake and set some Sally Lunn for supper, and while I was up I thought I had better preserve those peaches on the tree by the dairy before they got too ripe. They make the best tasting preserves of any peaches I ever saw. I am certainly going to fix a jar for you, Doctor. Don't let me forget it. I've got two of Aunt Keziah's children, she is raising, here helping me, but they are not much good for anything but just to run to the spring and wring the frying size chickens' necks." In writing I am perforce compelled to use a few periods, but not so Sally. She poured forth this flow of conversation with never a pause for breath or reply.
"The company that's coming is Reginald Kent, son of my first cousin once removed. He is a great hand at eating and made so much fuss over my cooking that it seemed like an awful pity for me to lay up in bed when he was here, although it may be the death of me to be up and doing and no doubt will bring on one of my spells."
"If it does," broke in my wily parent, "take a teaspoonful of that pink medicine out of the low flat bottle and repeat in half an hour. Be sure you do not take more than a teaspoonful and be very careful to have half an hour between doses."
Father told us afterwards that there was nothing in the pink medicine in the flat bottle but a most harmless and attenuated mixture of bromide, but he warned her to take the exact dose and wait the full half hour to make her feel it was a potent medicine that she must handle with great care so she would think it would make her well. There was nothing much the matter with Sally Winn but imagination; but imagination is sometimes more powerful than the most potent drugs, and Sally was just as sick as she thought she was, so Father said. He was wonderfully patient with her and treated her ailments as seriously as though they really existed. She had a leaky heart but there was a chance of her outliving her whole generation. Of course there was also a chance of her being taken away at any time, but Father considered the chance quite small as she seemed to be growing better as time went on instead of worse.
"Reginald Kent is hoping that those Tuckers will be back here when he comes on this visit, though he doesn't exactly say so. He just intimates it by asking if the Allisons have any visitors. He is a mighty likely young fellow and is getting on fine with his work. He really is coming down here on business in a way. He wants to get some illustrations of some of these views around here. He says he wants Aunt Keziah's cabin and some of the little darkeys, and he wants an inside view of old Aunt Rosana's and Uncle Peter's house."
Here Father stopped her long enough to say that he would go over to Milton for the mail and come back for Cousin Sue and me. We had not got in a word edgewise, but I never tried to when Sally once started. I should think that anyone who saw as few persons as she did would want to listen and find out things instead of imparting knowledge, but Sally just seemed to be full to overflowing and she simply had to let off steam before she could take on anything more. She wanted to know but she wanted more to let you know.
She told us all she could about Reginald Kent, which was on the whole rather interesting. Then she began on her turkeys and chickens and enlarged somewhat on the subject of Jo and his irritating way of keeping news to himself, and then with a bound she leapt upon her symptoms. I knew it was coming and bowed my head in resignation.
"It looks like if I get to studying about things that one of my spells is sure to follow. Now I have been thinking a lot lately about Reginald Kent's mother, my first cousin once removed, and the more I think of her the more I get to brooding. If you would believe me, in the night I got to trembling so that I could have sworn there was an earthquake going through the county. My bed fairly rocked. I had to call Jo. He gave me a dose of my pink medicine and it ca'med me some. Each time I get one of those attacks I hope it means the end, but somehow I always come back."
"But, Sally, why do you hope it is the end?" I asked. "I don't see why you want to die. It would be very hard on Jo if you should leave him."
"Why, child, dying is one of the things I have always wanted to do. I somehow feel that in the other life I'm going to be so happy. I dream I am dead sometimes and, do you know, I am always real pretty and have curly hair in that dream and lots of young folks around me who seem somehow to belong to me."
Poor Sally! I felt very sorry for her and so did Cousin Sue, whom I saw wiping a furtive tear away. I fancy Sally's life had been a very stale, flat and unprofitable one and she had formed the habit of looking upon death as at least a change, an adventure where she would be the heroine for once. I determined to come to see her oftener and try to bring some young life into her middle-aged existence.
Father brought us quite a bunch of mail. In it was a letter from Dee telling the good news that they were going to motor down to Bracken on Friday, the very next day, and stay over Sunday with us.
"Now you will know them and they will know you," I exclaimed, hugging Cousin Sue. "I am going to bring them over to see you, too," I promised Sally, noting her wistful expression.
Silent Jo Winn, who had come back from the station with Father, grinned with delight when he heard that the Tuckers were coming. I remembered on our memorable deer hunt of the winter before how Dee had won his shy heart and had actually made him talk just like other folks.
"I tell you what let's do," he ventured. "This young cousin of ours, Reginald Kent, is to be here to-night and he has to go over to Uncle Peter's cabin to take some pictures. What's the reason we couldn't all go on a picnic? We might fish in the river near Uncle Peter's, where Miss Dum Tucker shot her deer."
"Splendid!" from Cousin Sue and me. Cousin Sue was always in for a picnic.
Sally Winn gasped and clutched her heart until I thought we'd have to run for her pink medicine; but she pulled herself together. It was nothing but astonishment at the long speech from Jo. Jo actually stringing words together and getting up a picnic! It was too much for Sally, but she rose to the occasion with plans for a big lunch.
"I've a ham all cooked – and some blue Dominicker chickens that have just reached the frying size – I'll make some fried pies – and some light rolls – some Columbus eggs would eat good – and my pear pickle can't be beat, and a stem to every one so you can eat it without messing yourself up – "
"I have some news that is not quite so entrancing as yours, my dear," said Father, interrupting Sally's flow of eatables as he read from a fat, crested, vellum letter. "Cousin Park Garnett will be with us to-morrow, also."
"But she said Monday next, in her last letter!"
"She has changed her mind. She arrives on the afternoon train and will bring her pug with her."
"Pug!"
"Yes, it seems the pug is the reason for her coming sooner. The doctor thinks he needs a change of air."
"Heavens! And Dee is bringing Brindle, too!"
"Well, they'll have to fight it out."
"But, Father," I wailed, "can we go on and have the picnic?"
"Yes, my dear," broke in Cousin Sue. "I'll stay with Cousin Park."
"Indeed you won't!" declared Father. "Cousin Park can be invited to go to the picnic, which of course she will not do. She can just stay at home with Mammy Susan to wait on her and Miss Pinky Davis to listen to her, while the pug dog breathes in great chunks of change of air. I have some business to attend to over in the neck of the woods near Uncle Peter's, so I can land at the ford for dinner with you."
Father was a great comfort to me. He always took such a sane view of subjects. I was very uneasy for fear he might think we would have to stay at home because of Cousin Park, as he was very strict with himself and me, too, where hospitality to disagreeable relatives was concerned. Cousin Park, however, could be perfectly well taken care of at Bracken without us and there was no reason why we could not go on with our plans; certainly no reason why dear little Cousin Sue should have to forego the pleasure of the picnic to stay with a person who never lost an occasion to mention her Lee nose and her spinsterhood.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PICNIC
The Tuckers arrived right on the dot with Cousin Park. I had hoped they would get in first, but Henry Ford had a blow out and they had to stop for repairs.
We always had to send for Cousin Park in a great old sea-going rockaway that was never pulled out of the carriage house except on state occasions. Father and I hated to ride in it as it always reminded us of funerals and Cousin Park. It was a low swung vehicle with high, broad mud guards and a peculiar swaying motion that was apt either to put you to sleep or make you very seasick, if you were inclined that way. It took two large strong plow horses to propel it. I don't know where Father got it but I do know that he had always had it. I believe there are no more built like it but its counterpart may be seen in museums. I used to play dolls in it when I was a kid, and on rare hilarious occasions when I had a companion we would get up great games of Jesse James and Dick Turpin and other noted highwaymen who would stop the coach and rob all the dolls.
Cousin Park came riding up in state, her ugly, cross old pug placed between her and Cousin Sue, who had most generously offered to go to Milton to meet our august relative so I could be at home to receive the Tuckers. As the rockaway made its ponderous way down the drive, the plow horses foaming painfully after their twelve-mile pull, six to Milton and six back, I spied Henry Ford, in a swirling cloud of dust, turn into the avenue, and in a trice he was whizzing up behind the old sea-going rockaway. Pug wrinkled his fat neck and whimpered when he saw Brindle, who occupied the back seat with Dee; Cousin Park gave an audible snort. Brindle paid no attention at all to Pug but sat like a bulldog done in bronze and for the time being even refrained from snuffling.
I dreaded the meeting between my dear friends, the Tuckers, and Cousin Park, knowing that lady's overbearing manner when things did not go to suit her. But I really had not fathomed the depth of Zebedee's mixing powers. I remembered what Dee had said about his being able to make crabs and ice cream agree if he set his mind to it.
All the Tuckers looked rather aghast as they drew up near the rockaway from which Cousin Park was emerging, Pug clasped in her arms. They composed their countenances quickly, however, at least Dee and Zebedee did; Dum was never able to pull her social self together quite so quickly as her father and sister. Zebedee shut off his engine and in a moment was assisting my dignified relative with her many traveling necessities: small pillows of various sizes and shapes, designed to ease different portions of one's anatomy on trains and in carriages (she carried four of them); several silk bags bulging with mysterious contents; a black sunshade; her turkey-tail fan; Pug and a box of dog biscuit.
Zebedee got them all safely into the house, even taking Pug tenderly in his arms, much to the astonishment of that dull-witted canine. He assured Cousin Park that Brindle would not hurt Pug, provided Pug did not try to get too intimate with him and bore him.
"We can count on Brindle up to a certain point, but if he gets very bored he is apt to be cross," another human attribute my dear Tuckers gave their pet. Cousin Park rather bridled at the idea of her precious dog's boring anything, but Zebedee's manner was so deferential and his solicitude so apparent that mortal woman could not have withstood him.
Cousin Sue and the Tuckers took to one another from the beginning. I had thought they would, but sometimes the friends that you expect to like one another are the very ones that act "Dr. Fell" and develop a strange and unreasoning dislike.
The picnic was under discussion and was approved of unanimously. I thought Dum blushed a little when I announced that Mr. Reginald Kent was back in the county. She undoubtedly had a soft spot in her girl's heart for the good looking young illustrator who had been so enamoured of her the winter before.
One thing occurred to mar our pleasant anticipations: Cousin Park, instead of declining the invitation to go on the picnic, which Father and I pressed upon her, expecting of course that she would refuse, accepted with alacrity, announcing that the piney air would be good for Pug. We told her the road was impossible for the rockaway and that she would have to go in a spring wagon; but that made no difference, go she would and go she did, four little cushions, bulging silk bags, purple and black knitting, Pug and package of dog biscuit, turkey-tail fan and all.
We made an early start to avoid the heat of the August day. Mammy Susan had packed a hamper with every conceivable good thing the countryside afforded, and the floor of the spring wagon was filled with watermelons, the pride of my dear father's heart. Next to his library, Father loved his watermelon patch. My earliest remembrance is watermelon seed spread out on letter paper to dry, with a description of that particular melon written on the paper. Every good melon must have some seed saved from it for the purpose of reproducing the species. "Very rich in colour with black seeds and thin rind. Sweet and juicy," would be one; then another: "Small, round, dark green, – meat pale in colour but mealy and very delicious;" another: "Large, striped rattlesnake variety, – good if allowed to ripen, but great favourite with niggers."
On that hot day in August small round ones rubbed noses with large rattlesnake varieties and the rich red ones with thin rinds and black seeds jostled each other in the bottom of the wagon as we bumped over the none too smooth roads that our country boasted.
Cousin Park required a whole back seat for herself and Pug and her many belongings. Zebedee drove with Cousin Sue Lee and Brindle on the front seat with him, and we three girls sat in the back with the tail gate down and our legs a-dangling. It was thoroughly selfish of Cousin Park to allow us to do it but we enjoyed it hugely. Father had many morning calls to make but was to land at the ford for dinner.
Jo Winn was waiting at the cross roads in his knock-about, his favourite setter between his knees and his handsome cousin by his side. Mr. Kent could hardly wait for the vehicle to stop to jump out and speak to us. Again he seemed to think we needed masculine protection so Dee changed places with him and joined the grinning and delighted Jo, and the young advertising artist squeezed in between Dum and me.
A jolly ride we had in spite of the many bumps in the road and the fact that at every bump the watermelons would roll against our backs. Cousin Park sat in solemn silence, but Zebedee and Cousin Sue kept up a lively conversation on the front seat and we three with our legs a-dangling never paused a moment in our lively chatter.
I think Cousin Park regretted many times that she had not decided to spend the day quietly at Bracken with Miss Pinky Davis for company and Mammy Susan to wait on her. We had not let her come without informing her of the bad roads and the long drive to Uncle Peter's cabin and then the rough walk to the ford, but nothing would keep her from coming and now she was making the best of it. She emitted an occasional groan but never a word of complaint, which was quite fine of her in a way.
We found Uncle Peter hoeing his tobacco but glad of an excuse to stop. Aunt Rosana was as fat as ever and her cabin just as clean. She was overjoyed to see us and flattered beyond measure when Mr. Kent told her he had come all the way back from New York just to get another picture of the inside of her house. This time he wanted to make a drawing, not being satisfied with the time exposure he had taken before. Of course he could not possibly find his way to the ford alone, so the wily youth persuaded Dum to wait with him while he made his sketch. She seemed nothing loath and even made a sketch herself.
"Lawsamussy, Rosana! Come look at dese here watermillions Docallison done sent to de pickanigger!" exclaimed Uncle Peter, his eyes rolling in delight. Aunt Rosana waddled out.
"Great Gawd! They mus' be one apiece."
"So they are, Aunt Rosana, and you must have one left here for you so you can have your share. Which kind do you like best?" I asked.
"Well, all watermillions is good but some is scrumptious, and I low I'll take a chanct on one er dem striped rattlers. If it do prove to be scrumptious they will be so much er it. I is jes' lak a lil' pig wif a million – whin he'll eat a whole bucket er slop an' thin git in de bucket. I eats all they is an' thin jes' fair wallows in de rime."
"I can't raise no millions, it looks like," said Uncle Peter sadly. "Dem dere swamp niggers comes an' gathers 'em whin dey's no bigger 'n cowcumbers." He reached into the back of the wagon and thumped every melon with his horny forefinger, a smile of extreme satisfaction lighting his kindly features. "I tell yer, Docallison ain't a gwine ter hab no millions on his plantation pulled green. He knows de music ub a ripe un 'bout as well as he reckernizes de soun' ub pneumony in a sick man's chist. Whin I comes to think ub it they is similar sounds. I'll be boun' Docallison done got up hisself an' pulled dese here millions wif de dew on 'em. Dey's still cold in spite of the heat dey done been in."
That was so. Father always pulled the watermelons himself and always did it very early in the morning when the dew was still on them.
We started on our walk to the ford, the same walk we had taken the winter before on our memorable deer hunt. Uncle Peter loaded the melons into his wheelbarrow and Zebedee and Jo Winn swung the baskets on a stout pole which they carried between them. Cousin Park got between Dee and me and taking an arm of each proceeded on her ponderous way. I would gladly have wheeled the watermelons or carried the hampers. It would have been child's play beside the load we carried. Pug and Brindle trotted along, Brindle still ignoring the existence of Pug and Pug whimpering every time he caught Brindle's eye. Jo's setter kept well in advance and pretended he was none of us.
"Why do we go so far? Why not sit down right here and have our repast?" panted poor Cousin Park.
"But we are to fish at the river," suggested Cousin Sue, who was laden with Cousin Park's many cushions and bags and the knitting and dog biscuit.
"And there is such a fine spring there, too," I said, and added, knowing Cousin Park's weakness: "We can't make the coffee unless we get near a spring." And so we trudged on, Zebedee and Uncle Peter taking down the worm fences to let Cousin Park and the watermelons through, and then patiently building them up again.
There was the deep cathedral peace in the pine woods and our presence seemed almost a sacrilege as we tramped heavily over the soft bed of fragrant pine needles. Cousin Park had to sit down and rest every now and then and it took the combined effort of all the males, white and coloured, to get her on her feet after one of these pauses.
At last we reached our camping ground. The kindly and resourceful Zebedee made a bed for my august relative of pine boughs and with the help of the different sized and shaped pillows she was quite comfortable. With her various bags distributed around her and her knitting and her stupid Pug by her side she went off into a deep sleep, much to the relief and delight of all of us.
"Now we can be ourselves!" exclaimed Zebedee, turning handsprings like a boy; and Cousin Sue and Dee and I caught hold of hands and ran to the spring which sparkled and gurgled in a beautiful stone grotto at the foot of the hill near the river ford. Uncle Peter put all the melons into the little branch flowing from the spring and there they cooled to a queen's taste.
We made the camp fire and prepared the coffee well away from Cousin Park and we devoutly hoped that she would sweetly sleep until her favourite beverage was ready.
What a good time we did have that day! We fished in the river, and while our catch was nothing to be proud of, we had fun all the same. Dee caught a catfish that pulled and tugged at her line like a veritable whale. She finally landed it with a shriek that made Cousin Park stir uneasily from her bed of pine boughs and brought on herself, Dee, a good shaking from Zebedee.
"Wake her up, and I declare you will have to entertain her! It's your turn, anyhow."
I caught what Uncle Peter called "a mud turkle." We threw him back into his delectable mud and he went in with a grateful "kerchunk," sending back many bubbles of appreciation.
"Almost as good at making bubbles as a young lady I know," said Zebedee, re-baiting my hook for me.
Enough small river perch were caught to make a little mess which Uncle Peter cleaned with great skill and fried on our camp fire. Dum and her cavalier, having finished the sketching, joined us with such a racket that Cousin Park really waked up and confessed herself much refreshed when she detected the odour of coffee in the air. She was much more of a sport than I had expected to find her and not such a bad picnicker after all.
Father got there in time to sit down to as good a dinner as was served in all the land on that hot day in August, I am sure. Sally Winn had put on the big pot and the little, and Mammy Susan had out-Susaned herself. We had no forks for our fried fish, but the person who can't eat a fried fish without a fork deserves to go fishless. Cousin Park drank so much strong coffee that she was really boozy and actually flirted with Zebedee.
The watermelons were – well, there are no words to describe those melons. Watermelons are like sunsets – no words can picture them. You have to be on the spot with both wonders to appreciate them. Father's pockets were bulging with seeds, saved for next year's planting. Uncle Peter, who sat over behind a pine tree having his dinner, declared himself "fittin' fur to bust!"
All of us had reached our limit of endurance and when the food was all disposed of decided we should either have to go on a long walk or drop to sleep. Cousin Park again sought her pine bough couch where she sat in state, dozing and knitting on her ugly black and purple shawl. Uncle Peter acted as body guard to her while all the rest of us went on a long tramp on the other side of the river.