PREPARATION
MRS. FORMAN and her two daughters, Ray and Florence, were in the
attic studying the possibilities of certain stowed-away pieces
of furniture; also arguing as to the merits—or possibly demerits—of a
set of old curtains.
Florence was sure that they would not do at all for Aunt Elsie’s
room, although while she said it she was oppressed by the thought
that new curtains were not even to be mentioned. Only that morning
her mother had tried to impress them with the fact that even very
small expenditures must be carefully guarded; they really must not
for the present spend an unnecessary penny. It evidently comforted
the poor lady to use that phrase “for the present,” although they
knew she had a haunting fear that the future would not make the
pennies more plentiful.
“If we had a new edge to replace this dreadfully frayed one, we might
make these curtains answer for the present,” she thought aloud,
rather than said, and the sentence closed with that much-worked word
“but,” which is capable of eloquently leaving unsaid many things.
“Oh, mother!” was Florence’s dismayed protest, but Ray intercepted
her.
“I’ll crochet an edge for them. Don’t you know that little lace edge
I made for Jean’s waist? With coarser cotton it would make a pretty
curtain trimming, and the pattern is so simple I can make it very
fast. I’ll begin it to-night; I have the cotton.”
“Florence,” said Mrs. Forman, “if I should declare that I didn’t know
how to get along another day without a new house, don’t you think Ray
would say, ‘I’ll make you one?’”
By way of answer Florence said grimly that if Ray had been one of
those old Israelites she would have had no trouble at all in making
bricks without straw.
Then the front door opened and closed with a bang, and Derrick’s
shout was heard through the hall. “Mother! Ray! where are you all?
Say, mother, don’t you think they are coming to-day, on the
two-fifty!”
“Who are?” Florence asked, appearing at the head of the stairs.
“Uncle Evarts and Aunt Elsie, and I don’t know how many more. Where’s
mother? Say, mommie, daddy had a telegram; here it is; he sent over
to our school for me to get excused and skip home with it and stay
here and help. What do you want first?”
By this time Mrs. Forman had the telegram in hand and read it aloud:
“Compelled to go East to-night; must bring Elsie. Reach Welland
afternoon train Friday. Evarts.”
“The idea!” said Florence. “Isn’t that cool? He hasn’t even given us
time to write and say that she could come.”
“That’s what he’s after,” Derrick explained. “Says he to himself:
‘I’ll rush the old lady off before they have a chance to say no, then
they’ll just have to take her in.’ See? Trust Uncle Evarts for being
sharp, every time.” But no one was heeding him. Mother and daughters
were making a rush for that downstairs room to try to accomplish in
breathless haste the dozen or more “last things” that were waiting
for a leisure hour.
Left to himself the boy, with hands thrust into his pockets, tramped
about the attic for a few minutes, curious to see what the great
unfurnished room, which he seldom visited, had, stowed away in its
keeping. He passed a number of interesting-looking packages, from
whose bulging ends he caught glimpses of things that he could utilize
in his “shop,” and mentally resolved to forage here some day and see
what he could find. But he carried a divided mind, and although he
whistled a few bars as he ran downstairs it was a rather gloomy-faced
fellow who presently appeared before his mother for orders.
Being a boy who was distinctly loyal to his father, Derrick Forman
had made very few remarks aloud about the family innovation; nobody
but himself, at least so he fondly believed, knew how utterly
he disliked the thought of it. He did not in the least remember his
Aunt Elsie, although there was a tradition in the family that once
in his very early childhood she had kissed him fervently and declared
that he “looked enough like father” to be her brother.
“I’m awfully glad that I’m not!” he told himself, savagely, as he
recalled the incident, “and I wish she were in Jericho. She isn’t
a speck like my father, I know that; none of ’em are; but that’s
something to be glad over. A fellow can afford to shout over the fact
that he isn’t a bit like any of them.”
He had a distinct boyish recollection of his Aunt Caroline and his
Uncle Evarts, and disliked them both. Aunt Caroline, as he remembered
her, was always saying: “Dear me! Why do you yell so when you talk?
None of your family is deaf.” Or: “If you were my boy I should give
you a good whipping every time you rolled down stairs in that
lubberly fashion.” Or: “For pity’s sake, Dick, don’t whistle all the
time! your family do not seem to have any nerves.” “An everlasting
nagger,” was the phrase with which he summed up her defects.
Yet after all, the real thorn in his heart was the fact that his aunt
had not confined her “nagging” to the girls and himself, but was
given to much advising his mother, and finding fault with her ways.
He had a vivid memory of Aunt Caroline’s voice, high and insistent,
as it came out to him when he stood in the hall waiting for a chance
to speak to his mother: “You really ought to insist on Joseph’s
having things fixed conveniently for you in the kitchen, at least;
you can’t expect to keep a girl unless you furnish her with some of
the modern conveniences; in these days they won’t stand it. Joseph
ought to know that there are labor-saving devices that all
respectable people use. He doesn’t understand, of course; men never
do; but you ought to be firm about it; because he chose to trust
a man that nobody else would, and so lost all his money, is no reason
why he should let his family go without ordinary comforts. I’ll risk
that he could raise some money for you if he knew he had to.” Then
his mother’s voice, too low for him to hear, and his aunt’s again,
in reply: “Oh, now, Louise, there is no use in getting on your
dignity just because I mentioned Joseph; I’m sure I didn’t say
anything against him; I said not a word more than I would of my own
husband if he had been such a fool as to place confidence in that
man. You need to remember that I knew Joseph long before you did,
and, in some respects, I think I know him better now than you do.”
How the boy waiting in the hall hated her! He wanted to burst in upon
her and say, fiercely: “You let my mother alone! She knows a great
deal more than you do about everything; and don’t you dare to say
another word about my father; he is the best father in the world,
and we all think so; and I’m awful glad that he isn’t the least
little speck like you.”
Of course, he did nothing of the kind; instead, he gave over the hope
of a word with his mother, and went noisily down the hall, whistling
very loud, and banged the door as hard as he could; these
demonstrations being for his Aunt Caroline’s benefit. But he nursed
his dislike of his aunt through the years; nothing in his after
experiences helping to change his impressions of either her or his
Uncle Evarts. He was all ready to dislike his Aunt Elsie as soon as
she appeared. Even the memory of those early kisses rankled in his
thoughts. What if she should think she could kiss him now, when he
was taller than his father?
“If she tries it on me,” he muttered, “I’m afraid I’ll shake her.
O yah! what a mess! Wish I was to be done with high school to-morrow,
and could get out of this town. Home is spoiled, anyhow.”
His sister Ray, as she watched him a few minutes later swing down
the street on an errand for his mother, had a shadow on her face
over this very fear. It had been troubling her thoughts for days.
Were they spoiling home for Derrick? If they were—ought it to be
done? Derrick, the heedless, noisy, fun-loving boy, who rarely
stopped to consider whether his fun was a pleasure or an annoyance
to even his best friends. Derrick, who was inclined to be—gay; she
had almost thought that hateful word “fast!” Already he liked
the streets at night too well, and was chafing a little even under
the very mild restraints that they had tried to throw around him.
If this unknown aunt were like her sister and brother, might she not
drive him from home altogether?
Ray Forman could not have told the precise time in her life when she
began to shoulder responsibilities and try to devise ways
for relieving the family burdens. It seemed to her that she had
always known that both father and mother had more work and care
than they ought, and that Florence and Jean, and especially Derrick,
were not old enough to realize it, but she was, and must help. Right
royally she had been doing it for years. The winning of a scholarship
had enabled her to spend two years in an institution far in advance
of the local college where she had expected to graduate. She had paid
her board during this time by teaching for two hours each day in the
preparatory department; and her incidental expenses had been so much
less than her sister’s as to call from their father the dry remark
that they ought to have sent Florence also, for economy’s sake.
It was not alone in money matters that Ray helped. To both Jean and
Derrick she had been more like a mother than a sister. Derrick
especially, since the time when she had followed him patiently
through the long, bright days of his second summer while her mother
lay ill, had seemed to be her very special charge. He had accepted
her watchful care with cheerfulness, even with satisfaction; often,
from force of habit, rushing in search of her—when in need of help—
instead of his mother.
It was only quite recently that she had begun to feel a foreshadowing
of restiveness under her suggestions. Not that he had outspokenly
rebelled; nor referred to her fretfully as the others did
occasionally. More than once Florence had been heard to exclaim:
“Oh, Ray, don’t be so awfully old maidish! What’s the harm?”
The utmost that Derrick had allowed himself was a good-humored
drawling jibe, like: “Oh, yes, grandma, I’ll be careful; I won’t even
get my feet wet when I go in swimming,” or some kindred sarcasm
intended to emphasize the folly of her solicitude; yet Ray understood
and puzzled over it all, questioning sometimes as to whether she was
helping, or hindering.
That hint of “old maidishness” touched a sorer spot in her heart
than her sister realized. There were hours when she assured herself
that there was no prospect of her being able to leave her mother
with a daily increasing burden of work and care upon her, and set up
a home of her own; the only honorable course for her was to explain
this to Kendall Forsythe and beg him to give up even hope; it was
more than a year since she had promised to be his wife, and at that
time they had hoped and believed that the way would very soon open
for them, but instead it had seemed to close even more securely
with each passing month. Kendall’s mother, who had been his
housekeeper and daily companion since the time when they two
were suddenly left alone together, front being a very efficient and
capable woman had dropped into permanent invalidism, to be cared for
by the son, who was still struggling with an insufficient salary and
the promise of a larger one when conditions permitted; and there were
no present indications of a rise.
Notwithstanding all this the young man steadily urged immediate
marriage; he had gone over the whole ground carefully, he assured
Ray, and with pencil and paper and eloquence he tried to convince her
how much better the salary could be managed if she were there
to help. When, after careful where consideration and the shedding
of some bitter tears, she reached the point where she urged upon him
honorable freedom, representing it as the only wise course, he merely
scoffed, not considering the suggestion worthy of being treated
seriously. She might talk to him about that, he said, on his
hundredth birthday; certainly before that date he should not be ready
to give it the slightest attention. Nevertheless, Ray, glad over his
unhesitating refusal to listen to her, was yet seriously considering
that she ought to take steps which would compel him to do so. In all
his rose-colored plans for their mutual spending of his salary,
Ray had given no voice to the one word that loomed before her
portentously; that fateful word—clothes. She knew that she realized,
as he could not, that Ray Forman, one of the girls in her father’s
unpretentious house, could be clothed respectably on a much smaller
sum of money than would suffice for Mrs. Kendall Forsythe, who would
enter a family that had for generations made a bride the excuse for
all manner of social functions, of which she was expected to be the
centre. The Forsythe family, at least that portion of it to which
Kendall belonged, were no longer wealthy, but they were aristocratic,
and were looked upon as one of the oldest and most honored of the
“first families”; as often as Ray tried to imagine herself making
ready to be the lady of honor at one of their dinner parties she
shivered and thought of her father’s burdens. Certainly they must not
marry yet, not for a long time, probably; and the probability grew
to certainty in her own mind as she watched the trend of
circumstances. Now here was coming Aunt Elsie to add to the household
duties and expenses! Certainly she ought to have that emphatic break
with Kendall that would mark her hereafter as one who had a right
to be “old maidish.”
Her thoughts were hovering about matters like these when she heard
a suppressed shout from Jean: “Ray! Ray Forman! Where on earth
are you? They’ve come! Two hours before the train is due. Did you
ever! Florence says you are to come down quick and see to them;
she hasn’t got the room ready yet, and mother is in the oven.”