UNTYING THE APRON-STRINGS
When grandfather got home he was acquainted promptly with the misdoings
of Christopher and Jo Perkins. After the expected thrashing had been
given—much against grandfather’s tender heart—and Perk had had his stern
lecture, without a word in it of dismissal—to his mingled astonishment
and surprised relief—grandfather went into the sitting-room to talk
events over with grandmother. Perk and Christopher both felt that great
loads had been lifted off their minds. They had suffered penitence and
had been punished for their wrong-doing, and they were free agents
again.
“My dear,” said grandmother, after she had described minutely all her
feelings during Christopher’s prolonged absence the afternoon before,
“My dear, I have been thinking.”
“Not really!” interjected grandfather with pretended great astonishment,
and chuckled.
“Yes, I have, seriously, and I have come to the conclusion that we
coddle Kit too much; treat him too much as we treat Jane—too much like a
girl, in fact.”
Grandfather looked genuinely surprised this time.
“I begin to think that there is something in this ‘telepathy’ that the
newspapers talk about,” he said, taking an envelope from his pocket.
“Just read this letter from Kit’s father. I got it at the post-office on
my way home this evening.”
Grandmother took her son’s letter and put on her glasses. Grandfather
pointed out the page to which he wished to draw her special attention.
“That is the part I meant,” he said and grandmother read:
“‘I have been thinking a good deal lately about Kit’s and Jane’s
comradeship. Doesn’t it strike you and mother that we make too little
distinction? We are anxious that the children should be congenial, and
in trying to keep their tastes alike and yet have Jane gentle and
ladylike, isn’t there some danger of making Kit girly-girly?
“‘After all, Kit is a boy and Jane is a girl. They will have to draw
apart some day and I am wondering if the time has not come to begin.
Aren’t there some nice village boys in or about Hammersmith? There used
to be. Suppose you let Kit play with them a bit and rough it like other
fellows do. Now that you have found Letty again and she is as nice a
child as she was three years ago, she will make a nice playmate for
Janey, who won’t miss Kit so much. I really think it will do them both
good.’
“Exactly the opinion I had reached,” declared grandmother, dropping the
letter. “We must untie the apron-strings.”
Grandfather looked puzzled for a moment over this expression, then he
laughed heartily.
“That’s a very good way of putting it, my dear,” he said, “only we must
not untie them all at once. Too much freedom at one time is as bad as an
overdose of anything else. Besides, if we begin all at once to give Kit
full swing, it will set him to thinking of his old restrictions and in
his new liberty he will grow very sorry for himself and consider that he
had been greatly abused.
“We must not let him think he’s been molly-coddled. We must be
diplomatic. I shall tell him, in a day or two, that as long as he has
got on so well with his swimming, he might as well go ahead with it.
We’ll send him off with Perk, too, now and then, to show Perk that we
still trust him; although I shall go along the first time or two to see
how things are. I do trust Perk, my dear. He is a good lad, although
like all boys, he’s fond of a lark.”
Grandmother sighed, but it was not at the thought of Jo Perkins enjoying
a good time.
“Our baby Kit has gone,” she said dolefully, “and a big boy has come in
his stead. I do hope Janey won’t miss him too much. She has seemed a
little offended at times, when Kit goes off with Billy Carpenter, but
just now her heart is so full of Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, Letty, and her
dolly’s new bed, that she is happy even without Kit, bless her.”
“How different boys and girls are, from the very beginning,” said
grandfather soberly, as if he had just made a great discovery. “The
girls love their dollies and the boys their swimming holes.”
“Do you realize that you are quoting Tennyson, after a fashion?” smiled
grandmother, and she recited:
“‘Man for the field and woman for the hearth;
Man for the sword and for the needle she.’
“Something else has taken place while you were away. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones
has taken a great fancy to Letty.”
Grandfather and grandmother exchanged very knowing glances at this. They
had often wondered, since the little circus girl had gone to live with
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, if something more would not come of the
arrangement.
“It would be a great thing for Letty,” said grandmother at last. “Mrs.
Hartwell-Jones believes that the child has a good singing voice.”
“Well, I am sure I should be thankful to see the little girl happy,”
said grandfather. “Letty is a good child and will repay any kindness
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones does for her, I am sure. Have you finished with
Kit’s letter, my dear?”
Grandmother caught up the letter from her lap and turned to the
beginning.
“Do they say anything about the date they are to sail?” She asked the
question with mingled feelings. She would be very glad to see her son
and daughter-in-law again, of course, but their return to America meant
the departure of the twins from Sunnycrest and it really seemed too soon
to end their happy visit. The summer had been very short.
Two or three days later, grandfather opened the new program of events
which he had planned.
“Kit, my boy,” he said at dinner, “as long as you have started in with
this swimming business, I suppose you might as well keep it up. It is a
pity to let that one lesson go to waste.”
Christopher’s face beamed with astonishment and delight.
“You don’t mean to say that you’re going to let me go swimming?” he
cried. “Oh, cricky, that’s bully!”
“Why, yes, it seems to me that I knew how to swim when I was your age,”
went on grandfather. “Suppose we let Janey go into the village with
grandmother this afternoon while you and Perk and I go off on a little
lark of our own. What do you say to the plan, Kit?”
“I think it would be—perfectly splendid, sir!” shouted Christopher in
great excitement.
“All right, then. I’ll have Perk harness the spring wagon. Grandmother,
will you ask Huldah to put us up a bite of something? A pretty liberal
bite, my dear. Learning to swim is hungry work. And I thought we might
pick up Bill Carpenter on the way,” he added to Christopher, “if we see
him about anywhere.”
“Are you going to swim, too, grandfather?” asked Jane, folding her
napkin neatly. “I should think it would be horrid in the cold, weedy
water. Please don’t let Kit drown again.”
“Huh!” sniffed Christopher in his most superior manner, “I just guess
there’s not any danger of me drownin’. I can swim. You just ask Perk if
I can’t.”
“Well, that’s nothing to be so smart about. I could swim, too, if I
chose to learn. Girls are just as clever as boys, every bit, only they
don’t like such silly things.”
“The things a girl likes are heaps sillier,” retorted Christopher.
“Fairies and dolls! Ho! There aren’t any such things as fairies, and
who’d play with a doll? An old painted thing stuffed with sawdust!”
Jane’s face grew red and her eyes filled with tears.
“You have always been glad enough to play with dolls and to talk about
fairies when you hadn’t got any horrid boys around,” she said slowly.
Then her injured feelings overcame her and she ran to her grandmother
and buried her face on her shoulder.
“Oh, grandmother,” she sobbed, “Kit doesn’t love me any more. He talks
to me like other boys talk to girls. I always thought Kit and I would be
just alike forever and ever, but we ain’t—aren’t, I mean—and it’s all
Billy Carpenter’s fault!”
Grandmother whispered comforting words in the little girl’s ear, and
stroked her hair until Jane’s storm of tears was over. Christopher stood
by in awkward silence. He felt sorry and a little taken aback, for he
had not really meant to hurt his sister’s feelings.
“I didn’t mean to be a beast, Jane,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that
about your dolls. Stop crying, do, there’s a good fellow. I’m sorry,
honest Injun. I’ll—I’ll stay home!” he gulped heroically, “and play I’m
Oberon or Puck all the afternoon; or I’ll doctor Sally through the
scarlet fever. Stop crying, I say.”
Jane lifted a tear-stained face.
“I don’t want you to stay home,” she said cruelly. “I am glad you’ve got
something to do, ’cause I was only staying home to keep you company.
I’ve got another engagement for this afternoon,” and lifting her little
square chin loftily, she walked out of the room.
So occurred the first real break between the twins. Jane’s tender little
heart reproached her the minute she had closed the door.
“I was rude to him when he was trying to make up,” she thought
miserably. “I wish I hadn’t. And he’s going to be gone all the whole
afternoon! I hope it won’t spoil his picnic with grandfather.”
Just as grandmother and Jane were about to start, Letty appeared in the
pony carriage to take them. Grandmother decided, therefore, to let Jane
go back with Letty and she could follow later. But she remembered some
jelly that she wished to send to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and asked the
children to wait while she had it packed. Jane was glad of the delay,
for she wanted a chance to make up with Christopher if possible, and he
had gone down to the stable to help Perk harness the horse. They drove
up presently, Christopher looking so supremely happy that Jane was
obliged to acknowledge that her unforgiving words had not altogether
spoiled his afternoon.
“Good-bye, Kit, I hope you’ll have a good time,” she said a little
wistfully.
“Thanks, Janey; wish you were going along,” replied Christopher
graciously. “But girls can’t do everything that boys can, you know. Some
day we’ll have a picnic for the ladies, won’t we, grandfather?” he added
politely.
Grandfather kissed Jane and lifted her into the pony carriage beside
Letty.
“Have a nice time at the author-lady’s, little Jane, and if you miss Kit
very much, just let me know and I’ll make him go along next time to rock
your baby to sleep. He’s not a man quite yet, you know.”
“He thinks he’s awful smart, though,” she replied to her grandfather,
and stuck out her tongue resentfully at Christopher over Mr. Baker’s
shoulder.
“Just the same, you’re not allowed to go alone,” she taunted.
Christopher refused to have his spirits damped.
“Grandfather is only going so that I can show him how well I know how to
swim. And he’s not so bad as having girls tagging along,” he answered
coolly.
And grandfather felt that the apron-strings were indeed untied!