"Three great hulking cousins," said she, closing her gray eyes
disdainfully.
We accepted the rebuke in astonished silence. Presently she opened her
eyes, and seemed surprised to see us there yet.
"O," she said, "if you think I am going to stay here until you make up
your minds----"
"I've made up mine," said Donald. "We will go to the links. You may
come."
"I shall not," she announced. "Walter, what do you propose?"
Walter looked at his cartridge belt and then at the little
breech-loader standing in a corner of the arbour.
"Oh, I know," she said, "but I won't! I won't! I won't!"
The uncles and aunts on the piazza turned to look at us; her mother
arose from a steamer-chair and came across the lawn.
"Won't what, Sweetheart?" she asked, placing both hands on her
daughter's shoulders.
"Mamma, Walter wants me to shoot, and Don wants me to play golf, and
I--won't!"
"She doesn't know what she wants," said I.
"Don't I?" she said, flushing with displeasure.
"Her mother might suggest something," hazarded Donald. We looked at our
aunt.
"Sweetheart is spoiled," said that lady decisively. "If you children
don't go away at once and have a good time, I shall find employment for
her."
"Algebra?" I asked maliciously.
"How dare you!" cried Sweetheart, sitting up. "Oh, isn't he mean! isn't
he ignoble!--and I've done my algebra; haven't I, mamma?"
"But your French?" I began.
Donald laughed, and so did Walter. As for Sweetheart, she arose in all
the dignity of sixteen years, closed her eyes with superb insolence,
and, clasping her mother's waist with one round white arm, marched out
of the arbour.
"We tease her too much," said Donald.
"She's growing up fast; we ought not to call her 'Sweetheart' when she
puts her hair up," added Walter.
"She's going to put it up in October, when she goes back to school,"
said Donald. "Jack, she will hate you if you keep reminding her of her
algebra and French."
"Then I'll stop," said I, suddenly conscious what an awful thing it
would be if she hated me.
Donald's two pointers came frisking across the lawn from the kennels,
and Donald picked up his gun.
"Here we go again," said I. "Donny's going to the coverts after grouse,
Walter's going up on the hill with his dust-shot and arsenic, and I'm
going across the fields after butterflies. Why the deuce can't we all
go together, just for once?"
"And take Sweetheart? She would like it if we all went together," said
Walter; "she is tired of seeing Jack net butterflies."
"Collecting birds and shooting grouse are two different things," began
Donald. "You spoil my dogs by shooting your confounded owls and humming
birds."
"Oh, your precious dogs!" I cried. "Shut up, Donny, and give Sweetheart
a good day's tramp. It's a pity if three cousins can't pool their
pleasures for once."
Donald nodded uncertainly.
"Come on," said Walter, "we'll find Sweetheart. Jack, you get your
butterfly togs and come back here."
I nodded, and watched my two cousins sauntering across the lawn--big,
clean-cut fellows, resembling each other enough to be brothers instead
of cousins.
We all resembled each other more or less, Donald, Walter, and I. As for
Sweetheart, she looked like none of us.
It was all very well for her mother to call her Sweetheart, and for
her aunts to echo it in chorus, but the time was coming when we saw we
should have to stop. A girl of sixteen with such a name is ridiculous,
and Sweetheart was nearly seventeen; and her hair was "going up" and
her gowns were "coming down" in October.
Her own name was pretty enough. I don't know that I ought to tell it,
but I will: it was the same as her mother's. We called her Sweetheart
sometimes, sometimes "The Aspen Beauty." Donald had given her that name
from a butterfly in my collection, the Vanessa Pandora, commonly known
as the Aspen beauty, from its never having been captured in America
except in our village of Aspen.
Here, in the north of New York State, we four cousins spent our summers
in the family house. There was not much to do in Aspen. We used the
links, we galloped over the sandy roads, we also trotted our several
hobbies, Donald, Walter, and I. Sweetheart had no hobby; to make up for
this, however, she owned a magnificent team of bêtes-noires--Algebra
and French.
As for me, my butterfly collection languished. I had specimens of
nearly every butterfly in New York State, and I rather longed for new
states to conquer. Anyway, there were plenty of Aspen beauties--I mean
the butterflies--flying about the roads and balm-of-Gilead trees, and
perhaps that is why I lingered there long enough to collect hundreds of
duplicates for exchange. And perhaps it wasn't.
I thought of these things as I sat in the sun-flecked arbour, watching
the yellow elm leaves flutter down from the branches. I thought, too,
of Sweetheart, and wondered how she would look with her hair up. And
while I sat there smoking, watching the yellow leaves drifting across
the lawn, a sharp explosion startled me and I raised my head.
Sweetheart was standing on the lawn, gazing dreamily at the smoking
débris of a large firecracker.
"What's that for?" I asked.
"It proclaims my independence," said Sweetheart--"my independence
forever. Hereafter my cousins will ask to accompany me on my walks;
they need no longer charitably permit me to accompany them. Are you
three boys going to ride your hobbies?"
"We are," I said.
"Then good-bye. I am going to walk."
"Can't we come too?" I asked, laughing.
"Oh," she said graciously, "if you put it in that way I could not
refuse."
"May we bring our guns?" asked Donald from the piazza.
"May I bring my net?" I added, half amused, half annoyed.
She made a gesture, indifferent, condescending.
"Dear me!" murmured the aunts in chorus from the piazza as we trooped
after the Aspen beauty, "Sweetheart is growing very fast."
I smiled vaguely at Sweetheart. I was wondering how she would look in
long frocks and coiled hair.