Judith Makes a Hit
Judith reached home in time to prepare an excellent basket supper for
her motormen customers. She was determined that her food should be so
good it would advertise itself and every employe on the line would
demand service. All of the potatoes were not peeled when she was ready
for them, but her mother's explanation was that it seemed a pity to
peel potatoes because there was so much waste in that method. It
really was better to cook them in the skins. Judith kissed her and
laughed.
"Another time we'll cook them in their jackets, Mumsy dear, but I
cleared enough money this morning to afford to waste a few potato
peelings. If I have a week of such luck, I'll have to get in more
supplies. The girls in this county are just eating up my vanishing
cream and my liquid powder that won't rub off. I've made a great hit
with my anti-kink lotion with the poor colored people. Half the female
world is trying to get curled and the other half trying to get
uncurled. I have got rid of dozens and dozens of marcel wavers, the
steel kind that must dig into you fearfully at night, and bottle after
bottle of that quince seed lotion, warranted to keep hair in curl for
an all-day picnic, where it usually rains, and, if it doesn't, you
fall in the creek to even up."
"Judy, you take my breath away with such talk and such goings on. I
can't bear to think of your selling things to negroes. There is no
telling what might happen to you if you don't look out."
Mrs. Buck had an instinctive dislike for the colored race. She never
trusted them and was opposed even to employing them for farm work. She
preferred the most disreputable poor white to the best negro. It was a
prejudice inherited from her father and mother, who on first coming to
Kentucky had done much talking about the down-trodden blacks, but
being unable to understand them had never been able to get along with
them.
Old Dick Buck had said of Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Knight, "They've got
mighty high ideas about negroes but they ain't got a bit of use for a
nigger."
Judith shared none of this prejudice. She liked colored people and
they liked her and respected her. As she went speeding along the
roads in her little blue car, there was never a darkey old or young
who did not wish her well and bow low to her friendly greeting. Only
that morning she had given a lift to a bent old man who was on his way
to Mr. Big Josh Bucknor's, and thereby saved him many a weary mile.
"I'd take you all the way, Uncle Peter, but I can't trust my left hind
tire up that bumpy lane," Judith explained.
"Ain't it the truf, Missy? If Mr. Big Josh would jes stop talkin'
'bout it an' buil' hisse'f a road! He been lowin' he wa' gonter git
busy an' backgammon that lane fer twenty-five years an he ain't never
tech it yit. That's the reason they done sent fer me. The ladies in
the fambly air done plum wo' out what with cookin' fer comp'ny an'
washin' up an' all. It looks like comp'ny air the only thing what
don't balk at that there lane. They done sint a hurry call fer ol'
Peter, kase they got a notion Miss Ann Peyton air on the way. They
phoned down ter the sto' fer me ter put my foot in the pike an' come
erlong. They done got a phome message from way over yonder at
Throckmorton's that dus' from Miss Ann's coach wa' a risin'. They
ain't mo'n got shet er a batch er visitings when here come news that
Miss Ann air a comin'. The ladies air sho' peeved an' they done up an'
said they ain't a gonter stay home an' Mr. Big Josh tell 'em ter go
'long if they's a min' an' he'n me'll look arfter Miss Ann."
"But she is at Buck Hill," said Judith. "I am sure of it. I saw her
carriage turning in there this morning. Poor old lady!"
"I ain't seein' that she air so po'."
"It seems very pitiful to me for her never to be wanted, always coming
and always having to pack up and leave. I'd love to have her come
visit me. You know she and I are of the same blood, Uncle Peter--or
did you know it?"
"Land's sake, Missy, I mus' a made a mistake. I been a thinkin' all
along that I wa' a ridin' with ol' Dick Buck's gran'baby. You mus'
scuse me."
"So you are, Uncle Peter, I am Judith Buck, but I have just as good a
right to be Judith Bucknor as Mr. Bob Bucknor or Mr. Big Josh Bucknor,
or any of them."
"Well, bless Bob! Do tell!" was all the old man had time to ejaculate,
as they came to the mouth of the lane, bumpy in dry weather and muddy
in wet, and he must leave the swiftly moving car and again trust to
his old limbs to carry him on his way. His step was lighter, however,
as he was the bearer of good tidings to all the white folks at Mr. Big
Josh's. Miss Ann Peyton was not coming, but was making a visit at Buck
Hill. He was full of other news, too, but was not quite sure whether
it would be so welcome to the family.
"Not that she ain't mo' likelier than mos' er the young genderation,"
he muttered.
Judith had a slap-dash impressionistic manner of cooking all her own,
following no rules or recipes, but with an unerring instinct that
produced results. She said she cooked by ear. Whatever her method, the
motormen were vastly pleased with the hot suppers she brought them and
the word was passed that the pretty red-headed girl at the last stop
before you got to Ryeville would furnish a basket supper at a
reasonable figure and soon almost every man on the line was eager to
become one of her customers.
The first supper was difficult because she was determined to have it
absolutely perfect, and her mother would insist upon getting in her
way, offering various suggestions that might save a tenth of a cent.
"I tell you, Mumsy, I am not saving but making. Please sit down in
this chair by the table, while I behave like the man in the lunatic
asylum who thought he was a steam engine. I'm afraid I might get off
the track and run over you. If you just stay still in one spot I'll
get through. I can't go over you, I can't go around you and I can't go
under you.
"There's the whistle blowing for two stops before ours and I'm ready.
Hurrah for a fortune, Mumsy!" and with a kiss Judith was off, bearing
a basket in one hand and a tin cooler of buttermilk in the other.
The Bucks' farm was a triangle, bounded on two sides by converging
roads and the other by the pasture lands of Buck Hill. The trolley
line skirted the back of the farm, but turned sharply toward Ryeville
before reaching the corner where the two roads met. The track curved
about five hundred feet beyond the location of the stop where Judith
had promised to meet the car with the suppers. There was a short cut
from the rear of the house and Judith always took short cuts. Through
the orchard, down the hill, across a stream, up the hill, skirting a
blackberry thicket, through a grove of beeches, dark and peaceful with
lengthening shadows falling on mossy banks, went the girl. She stopped
a moment in the grove and looked out across the fertile
country--everywhere more fertile than the Buck farm but nowhere more
beautiful, she thought.
"I wish I had time to stop here longer," she sighed, putting down her
basket and patting a great beech tree. "Thank goodness the Bucks were
too lazy to cut you down and the Knights too slow." The honk of an
automobile horn startled her. A seven-seated passenger car was coming
down the road and in the distance could be seen the approaching
trolley.
"Got to run after all," she cried. "That's what I get for making love
to a tree." She flew along the path by the fence and reached the small
station before the trolley slowed down for the stop. Breathless but
triumphant she stood, large basket in one hand, buttermilk cooler in
the other.
The big motor car, which was driven by Jeff Bucknor, was parked by the
roadside. From it emerged Mildred and Nan in all the glory of fresh
and frilly lawns and the latest in hats from a Louisville milliner.
"Now, Jeff," said Mildred, "you must get out and meet the bunch, and
be sure you make no mistake. You are to fall in love with Jean Roland
and no one else. She is the smallest and the darkest and much the best
dressed. I do hope and trust it will be love at first sight. She is
already just wild about you, without ever even seeing you, and when
she sees you she is sure to topple over completely."
"What nonsense," scoffed Jeff.
Mildred ignored the presence of Judith Buck, although they could not
help seeing her, since her blue cotton dress and her red gold hair
made a spot of color that would surely have affected the optics of a
stone blind person. Her color was naturally high, and frying chicken
over a hot wood stove and sprinting for the trolley had added to it.
Nan did worse than ignore the presence of her neighbor, as she openly
nudged her sister and whispered audibly:
"Look at her! What do you suppose she has in her basket?"
"Hot rolls, fried chicken, hashed brown potatoes, damson jam, radishes
and young onions. Can't you smell 'em?" answered Judith quite
casually, as though announcing a menu at a restaurant. At the same
time she smiled brightly and looked at the Misses Bucknor with no
trace of either embarrassment or resentment. Jeff, who was plainly
mortified at Nan's rudeness, laughed in spite of himself.
One of the things that irritated Mildred more than anything else about
Judith Buck was that she seemed never to take offense, nor even to
know when an insult was intended. Sometimes she would wear for a
moment a quizzical smile, but usually she presented what she called a
duck's back to intentional slights. Having satisfied Nan's curiosity
concerning what was in her basket, she stepped forward to the platform
and swung the cooler of buttermilk back and forth in the manner of a
brakeman with a red lantern.
"I think they will stop here anyhow, Miss Buck," said Jeff. "Do let me
help you on with your basket. I know it is heavy. I am Jefferson
Bucknor. Perhaps you don't remember me, but I have seen you often when
you were a child. I've been away from home a long time."
While Jeff was introducing himself to Judith the trolley had slowed up
and stopped. Three young women and two young men were standing on the
platform ready to alight. They were part of the house party and
delighted greetings were exchanged between them and Mildred and Nan.
One of the young men, catching sight of Judith, gave only a hurried
handshake to his hostesses and then sauntered towards the end of the
platform where the girl in blue cotton was standing. He was a handsome
youth, dressed in the latest and most pronounced style. His manner
and general carriage were indefinably impudent. He came quite close to
Judith and peered into her face and only turned to join the others at
a sharp call from Mildred.
"Tom Harbison, come here this minute!"
At Jeff's proffers of assistance Judith had smilingly thanked him.
"But I'm not getting on myself--only my basket and can of milk," she
said.
"Then I'll help them on," said Jeff, although Judith assured him she
was quite able to do it herself.
"Yonder she is!" the conductor shouted to the motorman. "I knew she
would come. I never knew a red-headed gal to disappoint a fellow
yet."
Eagerly the basket was seized by the hungry men and loud was their
shout of joy over the can of ice-cold buttermilk.
"You'll find a note inside explaining how you can phone me if you want
extras," called Judith. "See you to-morrow at the same time. Be sure
and bring back my basket and dishes."
The trolley moved off, leaving the house party grouped at one end of
the platform, Judith and Jeff at the other. It was plain that
something was vexing Mildred and the smart young beauty by her side.
Jeff, however, was perfectly unconscious of being the cause of their
annoyance.
"Thank you ever so much," said Judith. "You are a grand assistant to
the chief cook."
"I am delighted to have helped you, but please tell me what on earth
you mean by bringing food to motormen."
"Mean? Why, it's my business. I am caterer-in-ordinary to the
six-thirty trolley and perhaps others," she laughed and looked him
squarely in the eyes. For a moment, in spite of the persistent demand
from Mildred for him to hurry, Jeff gazed into hers. He flushed a
little and then with a hurried good-bye joined his sisters and their
guests.
Mildred managed to have Jean Roland occupy the front seat by the
driver. Jean was pretty, well-dressed and no doubt was fascinating.
Jeff remembered he was supposed to fall in love with her at first
sight. Therefore he looked at her critically. She was all Mildred had
promised, but Jeff found himself gazing over the head of his companion
at a slender figure in blue gingham, disappearing over the hill.
It was a distinct annoyance to him that Tom Harbison should lean far
out of the back of the car and wave his forty-dollar panama hat at
Judith Buck's retreating figure, and even a greater annoyance that
Judith should turn around when she got to the brow of the hill and see
the fine hat doing obeisance to her.