I
Since the very beginnings of Boston my people, who were, as every school
child knows, an integral part of the original colony, had the
commendable habit of recording all those events which bore in a manner
either psychological or physiological upon their households or upon the
affairs of state, in which they were ever active. In truth I make small
doubt that but for the Talbots there would have been no Boston, or at
least certainly no information regarding it recorded in intelligible
English. And though in my girlhood I conceived my ancestors' style to be
a trifle jejune and was myself fond of lighter and more frivolous works
such as those of Emerson and Walter Pater, a weakness to which I confess
with all due humility, I nevertheless realize the importance of the
writings of my family and the desirability of maintaining our tradition
of making an accurate record of such pertinent events as come under my
immediate observation in order that future generations in their search
after truth may have a reliable monument to depend upon. And this
resolve has been greatly strengthened by perusing the ill-written,
outrageously sensational and ill-considered newspaper versions of the
affair which has so recently brought our historic name into the public
notice under such distressingly vulgar and conspicuous circumstances.
Of course Talbot, the chauffeur, has enjoyed it all immensely, thereby
to my mind proving once and for all that he has no genuine claim upon
the name, and that his pretension of belonging to a younger Western
branch is, as I have consistently maintained, absolutely fallacious. But
I show weakness by digression. Permit me to recount the tale from its
true beginning, which was, of course, my unfortunate answering of that
advertisement in the _Transcript_.
When the wretched thing came to my attention Euphemia and I were seated
at the supper table; she at the head and I at the side--a custom she has
insisted upon since our parents' death, her position being that due to
the elder sister and the rightful head of the family; and the table has
continued to be set thus, though at the time of my rebellion I was fifty
and she sixty, and it was absurd that she should maintain a formality
instituted when she was twenty and I was ten. I had often disputed with
her about it, but to no avail.
"My dear Freedom," she would rebuke me, "I am the elder and I know what
is best for youth. So long as I am here this household shall be
conducted properly!"
And nothing served to move her from that point of view.
Well, upon the portentous evening when my rebellion began we were
sitting as usual, promptly at five-thirty, in the cheerful if shabby
dining room of our vast and dilapidated old mansion on Chestnut Street,
with the sun shining brightly upon the neatly darned table linen, the
zinnias from the garden and the few remaining bits of family silver. It
can hardly be said that Old Sol spread his refulgent glory upon very
much to eat, for he did not, there being nothing but a pot of tea, four
very thin half slices of toast and the evening _Transcript_. According
to her custom Euphemia looked at this first herself.
"I perceive that the Republican Party is indignant with the
Administration," she informed me. "And that a mail service is to be
established by air from New York. How shocking! The postman will very
likely drop things from the aëroplane! I don't approve of the Government
taking such risks with other people's letters. It is positively
unseemly. Letters should be brought to one's door by a person with a
blue coat and a whistle."
"They probably will be," I ventured. "The radical changes in life only
affect the big things at first."
Euphemia gave me a sharp look.
"Don't think too much, Freedom," she admonished me. "It is unfeminine in
a younger person. And take care--your jabot almost went into your tea!"
I set down the cup, which I had in truth been holding in such a way that
my lace cravat was endangered. I am occasionally rather given to
daydreaming; a reprehensibly slack mental habit of which I have been
unable wholly to break myself, and I was grateful for the merited
reproof. Well, I set down the cup and put out my hand for the newspaper,
which Euphemia, having glanced at the headlines, had finished reading.
Again she rebuked me, this time with a gesture, and rang the bell. I
subsided until the fourteen-year-old colored girl who constituted our
domestic staff made her appearance, enveloped in a white apron which
gave her a curiously grown-up appearance when viewed from the front, as
it had been intended for an adult and reached the floor, but which, seen
from the rear, revealed her immaturity.
"Galadia, hand this paper to Miss Freedom!" said Euphemia with dignity.
And when the child had complied: "That is all; you may go!"
And Galadia made her exit, slamming the kitchen door behind which her
voice immediately rose in song:
_Kiss yo' Honey-Baby-Doll!_
"Good heavens!" exclaimed my sister, rising in wrath. "What ever will
become of that child?"
And gathering her woolen shawl about her she swept into the kitchen, her
cap strings tremulous with indignation, and I was left to a swift and
guilty perusal of the newspaper. I use the adjective "guilty" because I
knew how thoroughly Euphemia would disapprove of the section to which I,
for the seventh time in as many days, turned. It was the advertising
page that I selected, and my eagerness was resultant from a desperate
resolution which I had secretly made.