LETTERS AND THE POST OFFICE
JEANIE DEAR:
Your letter was lovely. I forget what you are like between times
a little, and then I look at your picture or get a letter from
you, and know. I can hardly believe you love me, after all you
know about me, but I guess you do. I wish I could see you, but I
am glad you are at the Point again this summer. I tried out
Mother about my coming to visit you, without asking in so many
words, but her idea is that she would like to have me stay put.
My brother may get well enough to come down here at any time,
and when he does I want to be chief nurse and bottle
washer--medicine bottles.
I've been doing quite a lot of things. I spend a great deal of
time with Peggy Farraday. She is very nice. Nicer than I am, but
not as nice as you, Jeanne of Arc. She is as nice as a Peggy
Farraday can be. She has a sister Ruth, who is as sweet as
peaches. She is about nineteen and a half, and blonde, with big
blue eyes and long golden lashes, and one of those soft voices
low in the throat, with a kind of thrill in it. You know--like
contralto singing. You would love her. I am wild about her, and
Buddy knows her. Don't mention that to any one. It's a secret.
If you were here I think I could hint to you some things about
it, but I can't on paper. Somebody might read a letter some time
that you didn't expect. Buddy is very unhappy, and writes me one
cross letter to every pleasant one. He is afraid I shall not be
discreet, but discreet is my middle name, to use slang. Oh, I
long to tell you what I mean. He won't write to her and she
won't to him, and I am trying to make them. You can see how
exciting it is.
Well, I must give you a brief résumé of what I have been doing,
before I close. Monday we went in swimming, and afterwards, in
the Farraday car, to Wianno, which is a very attractive summer
colony farther up the Cape. We stopped at Hyannis and had
ice-cream with a frozen pudding sauce. Tuesday, after swimming,
Grandfather took us to Chatham in the noble Ford--me and
Peggy--and we stopped at an attractive little tea room, where we
had chocolate ice-cream. Wednesday we went swimming and then we
walked to the adjoining town where we got some wonderful
ice-cream sodas, three apiece. Peggy and I have each got over
thirty Negroes. I told you how we were counting them in order to
find out our fate. I am glad you have begun, too. I love you
dearly.
Your own ELIZABETH-ELSPETH.
(Peggy calls me that. She sends her love even though she doesn't
know you.)
Elizabeth was in a letter-writing mood, and sealing Jean's letter with
her favourite sky-blue sealing wax, stamped with her monogram signet
ring, she opened her letter-case again. She began:
DEAR DADDY:
We don't write very many letters to each other this summer. At
least, I don't write many separate ones to you, but all the
letters that go to Mother are meant for you, too. My special
particular efforts go to Buddy. Poor Buddy! I hope you will soon
be able to bring him to his own grandmother's hunting ground. He
keeps writing me about going to Russia. I guess I should want to
go to Russia if my health was as discouraging as Buddy's. I
worry about him, and, Daddy, dear, I worry about you. I have
made the great discovery that a Daddy is a Daddy, and that it
has to work pretty hard buying wardrobe trunks and Japanese
kimonas and almond nut bars for its female offspring.
When I think of you sweltering in that hot city whether you want
to or not, I get quite upset. You have to work every day, don't
you, whether you feel like it or not? I never thought of that
before till last evening, and it made me a little bit ill, it
struck me with such force. I have just never happened to think
of it in that light. I can tell you, Daddy, it made me love you
harder than ever, and that's pretty hard. Well, all I can say is
that I respect you more than anybody, and I hope you are never
sorry you got married and got this family on your hands.
Now for a few words to cheer you up. Monday we went in swimming,
Peggy and I, and afterwards in the Farraday car to Wianno. I
guess you know all about Wianno. We stopped at Hyannis and had
some ice-cream with frozen pudding sauce. Tuesday we swam and
Grandfather took us to Chatham in the Grand Old Ford, and we had
chocolate ice-cream there. Wednesday we went in swimming and
then walked to Harwich and got three ice-cream sodas. Also we
counted quite a lot of Negroes. I wrote Mother that we had to
get ninety-nine Negroes etc. for a stunt we are doing.
Portuguese count, if they are dark enough.
I love you more than my old scratchy pen can tell. There goes
the station barge, with the morning mail. So here goes I after
it.
YOUR BABY.
You write an awful lot of letters, Elizabeth," said Peggy, as the two
met at the post-office steps. "You get a lot, too. I'm not much good at
correspondence. Did you ever write to a boy, Elizabeth?"
"No, not really. Only thank-you letters and answering invitations and
things like that."
"Well, don't you ever tell, Elizabeth, because I might get teased, but
I'm writing to a boy right now. That is, I am going to be when I've
answered his letter. It isn't a silly boy, though, it's a sensible
boy--a boy that knows a lot of things I want to learn about. Chester
Reynolds, you know, that I've told you about winning the tennis cups. I
got a letter from him last night. It isn't supposed to be very nice to
show letters, but if you'd like to see this one, I'll bring it around
to-morrow, and then I'll bring my answer to it, and let you see what you
think of that."
"All right," Elizabeth agreed.
"Isn't it a funny thing, he is the only boy that I ever thought I'd like
to correspond with, and now he has just sat himself down and written to
me."
"I think that's very nice." Elizabeth said. "There's a boy in New York
that I felt that same way about. He sort of offered to send me a copy of
'Prometheus Bound,' but I knew if he did that I should have to write and
thank him, and I didn't know whether Mother would approve of my writing
him like that when I was away from home, so I didn't say anything more
about it."
"What is 'Prometheus Bound,' anyway?" Peggy inquired.
"Well, I think it is a kind of a blank verse poem or book, something
like Whittier's 'Snow Bound,' but I'm not sure. That was one reason that
I wanted him to send it--so I could find out. He was quite a literary
boy, one of Jeanie's friends. He's very good looking, though."
"I don't like literary boys as a rule, though, do you?" Peggy asked.
"They usually wear rubbers and horn rims, and have to mind their
mothers."
"Not any friend of Jeanie's. Her friends are always all-around boys.
They must have brains, too."
"Oh!" Peggy said, impressed.
The crowd on the post-office steps was beginning to thicken. The big
bags, bulging with mail, had been passed behind the glass façade of the
mail-box section, and behind the closed wicket that indicated the
distribution was taking place the silent postmaster and his assistant
worked with grim, accustomed rapidity.
"Let's go and watch them put the things into the boxes," Elizabeth said.
"It's the most exciting thing to see the letters go in. Ours is 178.
See, here it is," she cried, as Peggy followed her into the stuffy
office. "There's a card from Buddy already, and one for Grandfather from
the Bass River Savings Bank, and one fat one that I can't see the face
of that I hope is from Jean. She doesn't always wait to get answers, you
know. She writes when the spirit moves and so do I. I've just been
writing her."
"When you go back to New York, let's write to each--I mean one
another--like that, only I'm afraid you'll get the worst of the bargain.
When the spirit moves me to write a letter, it mostly only moves me to
say, 'Dear Elspeth,' or whoever it is, 'Hello! Yours frantically fondly,
Peggy.' It's funny, when I like to talk so much, that I don't like to
write more."
"There's my thirty-first," Elizabeth whispered, as a solemn black
chauffeur made his appearance in the post office.
"My thirty-third," Peggy said, "and outside is a white horse. What a
pity we have got to get the white horses in sequence. They are so hard
to find, especially when you are looking for them. But when we do get
them all, I am going to keep my hands behind me all the time, until I
find somebody I am willing to shake hands with!"
"It would be awful, after all this trouble, if we didn't shake hands
with the right one, wouldn't it, Peggy? There goes a postcard right into
my box. It's for Judidy. She has a young man. Did you know it? He's
almost as fat as she is, and not nearly so good looking."
"I hope she gets somebody very nice, and marries them, and has a whole
backyard full of fat pink babies, though I don't know what Grandmummy
would do."
"Grandfather says she'd get the work done quicker if she didn't have
Judidy to look out for, and I think perhaps she would. Isn't it funny,
when I first came, Judidy just seemed to me like a kind of queer person
that I felt not quite right about eating at the table with, and now
she's my friend."
The gate in the wicket flew up, and in an instant it was surrounded.
"See all the mail-hungry fiends," Peggy said. "Oh, goody, Mother's got a
letter from my cousin in Rome--and Ruth has a letter from that Chambers
fellow."
"What Chambers fellow?" Elizabeth asked, quickly.
"Piggy Chambers I call him. He's got loads of money and he is very good
looking, and he just pesters Ruthie to death."
"What does she do?"
"She lets him. She likes it, rather."
"Oh, dear!" Elizabeth said.
"You don't have to worry. She's my sister. Piggy Chambers isn't so bad.
He's just kind of a bore, you know, and awfully fond of writing letters
to Piggy Chambers, Esquire. Lots of grown-up fellows are like that."
"She's your sister, but I love her, too."
"Shouldn't think much of you if you didn't."
They were on their way home by this time, and the post-office crowd had
begun to melt away, streaming up and down the street, and into all the
cross roads.
"I wish my grandmother would let me come after the mail at night,"
Elizabeth said. "I have to wait till Judidy or Zeke are ready to come,
or Grandfather will take me. As if I wasn't old enough to go out after
six o'clock alone."
"It isn't your being old enough, it's the general reputation of the post
office being a place where the crowd goes in the evening to--start
something. You know yourself that lots of things that go on there don't
look very well. It's such a mixed crowd, too."
"As long as you behave yourself, I don't see what difference it makes."
"I've thought a lot about going to the post office at night," Peggy
said, "and I've argued a lot about it with Ruthie and Mother, and the
conclusion that I've come to is that it's just as well to keep away. All
the girls that aren't nice hang around there. Some of the girls that are
nice stay away. When I grow up, my niceness is going to be so much a
matter of course that I won't have to look out for it so hard. Just now
I am going to obey Grandmummy's rule to 'avoid the appearance of evil'."
"I guess you are just about right, Peggy," Elizabeth said after
reflection. "Sometimes you talk a lot like Jeanie. Would you like to
hear some of her letter?"
"I should say I would, but don't read it to me unless you really want
to."
"I do," Elizabeth said, "and the reason I do is that I think you are
like Jean in some ways. You are both of you way beyond me in the way you
look at things."
"The way I look at things is better than the way I act sometimes."
"I'm inclined to be just the other way around. The way I look at things
is worse than the way I act most generally."
"I'm disobedient," Peggy said, "and sloppy weather, and always late to
places. I do as I'm told about things like going to the post office at
night, but not about trying to run the car or getting home on time."
"I'm just the other way," Elizabeth reflected. "I wouldn't monkey with
anything I was told not to touch, but I'd make a big fuss, if only in my
own mind, about obeying a grown-up rule that I didn't understand."
"Either way gets you into trouble at times," Peggy said, sagely. "Don't
look round, but there are two boys trailing behind us."
"What kind of boys?"
"Two of the boys that were down at the Aviation Camp all last summer."
"Are they all right?"
"Yes, but I don't know them."
"They are speaking to us. Don't look round."
"_Oh, girls!_"
"I suppose they'll get tired and go away."
"Don't look round."
"_Oh, girls!_"
"Now, look here," Peggy suddenly wheeled on the two followers. "We
haven't met you. We're not going to have you trailing around after us."
The older of the two boys whipped off his hat.
"I--I beg your pardon," he said, colouring. "We were only joking.
We--we----"
"It puts us in an embarrassing position," Elizabeth contributed.
"Well, some of the girls, they--we----" the other boy also found
explanation more difficult than he had anticipated.
"There's a difference in girls," Peggy said, severely.
"We were only going to ask you the way to the beach." The first boy's
hair was a blazing, splendid red. Elizabeth liked red-headed boys.
"I've seen you there almost every day this summer," Peggy challenged.
"So've I seen you." The second boy had a wide, ingratiating grin. "We
want to get acquainted, that's all," he admitted, "so we were pursuing
what seems to be the usual way down here."
"That isn't the way to get acquainted with us," Elizabeth said.
"What is the way, then?"
"Don't ask _us_." Peggy gathered Elizabeth's arm under hers, and hurried
her along.
"They are sort of nice," she admitted, when they had put several yards
between them and the objects of their encounter. "If they are really
nice, I suppose they will get introduced the way they ought to. If they
aren't, well, we won't see them."
"It's a sort of strain waiting to find out such things," Elizabeth said.
"Read me Jean's letter, and that will take our minds off them," Peggy
demanded, practically. "One reason that I don't like to have much to do
with boys is that when you get thinking about them it's hard to get your
mind on other things. If they are silly, they aren't any fun."
"On the other hand," Elizabeth argued, "if they aren't just a little
bit--silly or--something--they aren't so much fun."
"Well, they have to be interested in you some," Peggy admitted.
"Now I'll read you Jean's letter. We'll sit down under this tree by the
gate. See how pretty her handwriting is. Doesn't she make fascinating
E's and R's?"
"I think there is a lot of character in handwriting," Peggy said,
bending her head over the letter. "See this one from Piggy Chambers. He
writes like a pig and he is one."
"See this card from my brother Buddy. He writes like a perfect
gentleman, and he is one, though I say it as shouldn't."
"Oh, I've seen your brother's handwriting before, but not for a long
time. Why don't you write him to write Ruthie? I'd a whole lot rather
she was hearing from him regularly than from Piggy."
"Has she a friendship with Mr.--Mr. Piggy?"
"No, she hasn't. He just wants her to marry him, and that's all there is
about it. If your brother is her friend, it would be the part of a good
friend to stick around just now, if only by correspondence."
"There are things about my brother that you don't understand, Peggy,"
Elizabeth said, solemnly.
"Thirty-four," Peggy said, her gaze diverted to the street, "count that
one, Elizabeth. It may be that same chauffeur, but never mind. We don't
know positively that it is."
"Well, now for Jean," Elizabeth said, after these formalities were
finished.
ELSPETH-ELIZABETH DEAR:
I've had your long letter, the one that told about the Steppe
children (and how I laughed!), for a week, and your two
postcards. I wrote you one serious letter in answer to a serious
one from you, and now I'll just tell you about the way things
are going here. It's just the same thing--sailing, teas, dances,
bathing, and then begin all over and do it again. I like it
all--especially the sailing--"a wet sheet and a flowing sea,"
you know, is one of my ideals. Another ideal is getting
realized, too. I'm learning to drive the car. I bogged it
yesterday, and a farmer with whiskers to his knees, and a long
rope, like the funny papers, came and pulled us out. The
chauffeur was with me. He ought to have prevented it, but he
said I was too quick for him. Anyhow, won't it be wonderful when
I learn? Then you and I can "ride together, forever ride," as
Browning says.
I went into New York on Thursday, and what do you think, I went
to see your brother Buddy. I called up your mother from the
station and she suggested it, so I did, as we had the car and
were going out of New York from his end of the town, anyway. I
felt two ways about doing so. One way was, that it was hard on
you for me to see him first, and the other way was that if you
couldn't see him, I could represent you. He is quite a
sick-looking Buddy, but very, very sweet and dear. I hope you
can get him down to the Cape and take care of him. They won't
discharge him, will they, until they get good and ready to? He
looks a lot like you and a lot like some of those Rembrandt
portraits of himself. I suppose it's his beard that makes him
look so sort of shady and shadowy. He said he didn't think he
would ever be any better, but that if he did, he hoped he could
go to Russia. He seemed to want me to think that this and
everything else he said was a joke. I must interrupt myself now,
and say au revoir, because the car is waiting, and Mother is
being very polite in it. I can see her back getting politer
every minute.
'bye--
JEAN.
P. S. I love you.
"I didn't know that your brother was as sick as all that," Peggy said.
"Why haven't you told me so?"
"He doesn't want anybody told. He doesn't want to appear like a
confirmed invalid."
"I'd like to tell Ruthie."
"I--I'll tell you what you do. You take Jeanie's letter and read it to
her. That won't be either of us telling her."
"All right, I will."
"I don't know what excuse you can give for having a strange girl's
letter with you."
"I won't need any excuse. I'll just say to Ruth that I've got a letter
from a friend of yours about John Swift. She'll just grab the
letter--that's all. I'll say you were willing."
"You come around and tell me what she says afterwards."
"All right." Peggy was making a prolonged departure, kicking at the turf
as she stood at the gate. "I'll come around this afternoon, anyway, and
we'll go and get some tutti-frutti ice-cream."
"All right, and if you hear anything more about who those boys were, you
can tell me then."
"All right, and I'll bring around that letter I was telling you about,
from Chester Reynolds."
"All right. I guess my dinner's ready. I heard the bell when we first
got in sight of the house."
At this point Grandfather appeared at the door and seeing Elizabeth
still looking in the direction of her departing friend, he approached
firmly and grasped her by the ear, and led her, protesting, into the
house.