A Great Transformation
It was unbelievable that a lumbering coach, with two fat horses, an
old lady in a hoop skirt and a bow-legged coachman, could have
disappeared from the face of the earth. Nevertheless, this seemed the
case. Nobody knew where Cousin Ann had gone. Telephones were ringing
into the night in vain attempts to trace the old lady. It had never
made much difference to anyone before where Miss Ann had gone. For
many years she had been leaving one relation's home and arriving at
another's, and the comings and goings of Cousin Ann had created but a
small ripple in family affairs. She had never deigned to say where
next she intended to visit, so why now should the cousins be so
disturbed over her whereabouts?
"I am so afraid something has happened to her," said Mr. Bob Bucknor.
"I'll never forgive myself if Cousin Ann is in trouble, when I have
literally driven her from my house."
"But, my dear, you have not driven her from your home," comforted his
wife. "You had only intended to inform her that we were planning a
trip abroad and she would have to visit somewhere else until
arrangements could be made for her to be established in an old ladies'
home. There was nothing cruel in that."
"Ah, but Cousin Ann is so proud and Buck Hill has always been a refuge
for her."
The other cousins were likewise agitated. For Cousin Ann to have
disappeared just as they were contemplating wounding her made them
think that they had already wounded her. "Poor old lady!" was all they
could say, and all of them said it until their women-folk were
exceedingly bored with the remark.
Mr. Bob Bucknor determined to send for Jeff, if something definite was
not heard of the missing cousin within the next twenty-four hours. He
vaguely felt that it might be time for the law to step in and help in
the search.
In the meantime Miss Ann was very happy in the house built by Ezra
Knight; and Uncle Billy was even happier in the cabin built by the
Bucks of old. The Peyton coach stood peacefully in the carriage house,
with the bees buzzing sleepily, free to come and go in their subway
nest somewhere under the back seat. Cupid and Puck wandered in the
blue-grass meadow, content as though they had been put to graze in
the Elysian fields.
The first night under the roof of her newly recognized cousins was a
novel one for Miss Ann. She had gone to bed not in the least bored,
but very tired--tired from actual labor. In the first place, she had
helped wipe all the many dishes accumulated from the motormen's
dinners and then put them away. That task completed, she had become
interested in Judith's work of mounting photographs--an order lately
received and one that must be rushed.
"Want to help?" Judith had asked, and soon deft old fingers were vying
with young ones.
"Why, Cousin Ann, you have regular fairy fingers," said Judith, and
the old lady had blushed with delight. They worked until the task was
completed, while Mrs. Buck nodded over "Holy Living and Dying."
In the morning, when Judith made her early way to the kitchen, she
found a fire burning briskly in the stove, the kettle ready to boil
and the wood box filled. Uncle Billy, smiling happily, was seated in
the doorway. Judith thanked him heartily and he assured her he liked
to help white ladies, but didn't hold much to helping his own race.
"They's ongrateful an' proudified an' the mo' you holps 'em the mo'
they shifts. Me'n Miss Ann has been visitin so long we ain't entered
much inter housekeepin', but somehow we seem so sot an' statiumnary
now that it comes nachul ter both er us ter len' a han'."
"That's nice," laughed Judith. "I do hope you and Cousin Ann and Cupid
and Puck will all feel at home. I wish you would keep your eye open
for a nice, respectable woman who could help me, now that I have so
many dinners to serve to the trolley men."
"I sho' will--an', Miss Judy, I'm wonderin' if you ain't got a little
bitser blue cloth what I mought patch my pants with. If my coattails
wa'n't so long I wouldn't be fitten ter go 'mongst folks."
After some discussion with her mother, in which the girl tried to make
Mrs. Buck see the difference between saving and hoarding, Judith
finally produced for old Billy many leftovers of maternal and paternal
grandfathers.
"Mumsy, you are a trump. Now, you see you saved these things so
someone deserving could use them, but if they had stayed in the attic
until the moths had eaten them up while old Billy went ragged then
that would have been wasteful hoarding."
"I'm not minding so much about your Grandfather Buck's things, but
somehow it seems a desecration for that old darkey to be wearing your
Grandfather Knight's trousers."
"That's what makes me say you are a trump, Mumsy. I know you look upon
those broadcloth pants as a kind of sacred trust, and I just love you
to death for giving in about them."
"And my father was tall and straight of limb, too," wailed Mrs. Buck.
"It seems worse because old Billy's legs are so short and crooked."
Crooked they may have been, but short they were not. By the time the
broadcloth trousers traveled the circuitous route of the old man's
legs everything came out even.
"Fit me like they was made fer me," he exclaimed, showing himself to
Judith.
"Perhaps they were," mused Judith. "And now the coat!"
It was a rusty coat, long of tail and known at the time of its
pristine glory as a "Prince Albert." Ezra Knight had kept it for
funerals and other ceremonious occasions.
"Is there ary hat?"
There was--a high silk hat with a broad brim. Mrs. Buck rather thought
it was one that had belonged to her grandfather and not her father.
At any rate, it rested comfortably on Billy's cotton white wool.
"Now, Uncle Billy, trim your beard and nobody will know you,"
suggested Judith. So trim his beard he did, much to the improvement of
his appearance.
"Reform number one!" said Judith to herself.
Miss Ann slept the sleep of industry that first night at the Bucks',
and the sun was high when she opened her tired old eyes. She lay still
for a moment, wondering where she was. This room was different from
any of the other guest chambers she had occupied. There was a kind of
austerity in the quaint old furniture that was lacking in the bedrooms
where modern taste held sway. Nothing had been taken from or added to
the Bucks' guest chamber since Grandmother Knight had reverently
placed there her best highboy and her finest mahogany bed and candle
stand. On the mantel was the model of a ship that tradition said the
Norse sailor had carved, and on the walls steel engravings of Milton
and Newton--Milton looking up at the stars seeking the proper rhymes,
and Newton with eyes cast down searching out the power of gravity from
the ground.
Miss Ann looked on her surroundings and smiled peacefully. She thought
over the happenings of yesterday and again she realized that it was a
pleasant thing to be wanted. There was a knock at the door. Billy, no
doubt with hot water and maybe an early cup of coffee.
"Come in!"
It was Judith bearing a tray of breakfast.
"Not a bit of use in your getting up early, Cousin Ann, but every
reason for you to have breakfast while it is fresh and hot, so I just
brought it in to you. I often make my mother stay in bed for breakfast
if she is not feeling very strong. There is nothing like starting the
day with something in your tummy. It is a lovely day with a touch of
autumn in the air. I do hope you slept."
Judith chattered on, ignoring the fact that Miss Ann was evidently
embarrassed that she had been caught minus her wig. The girl opened
wide the shutters, letting the sunlight stream into the room.
"Oh, Cousin Ann, what wonderful hair you have! Why it is like the
driven snow and as soft as silk! Please, please let me arrange it for
you sometimes. I don't know whether you ought to wear it piled on your
head in coils and puffs, like a French beauty of way back yonder, or
parted in the middle and waved on each side and drawn back into a
loose knot."
"Oh, child, you can't think gray hair pretty."
"Why, it is the loveliest thing in the world. If I had hair like yours
I'd never cover it up. You will let me try to dress it won't you? I
just love to touch it," and Judith fondled one of the silvered plats.
"Yes," faltered the old lady. How long had it been since anyone but
old Billy had complimented her? And when had anyone said her hair
might be soft to the touch? Wigs do not last forever and Miss Ann had
begun to realize that before many weeks a new one would be imperative.
A new wig meant even greater scrimping than usual for Billy and his
mistress. Funds must be very carefully handled when such an outlay
became necessary. It was next in importance to a new horse, and
greater than renewing a wheel on the coach. She had never dreamed that
she might get along without a wig. She had begun wearing a wig many
years ago, when her hair turned gray in spots. She had always
considered dyed hair rather vulgar and so had resorted to a wig and,
true to her character for keeping up a custom, she had never discarded
the wig, although her hair had long since turned snow-white from root
to end.
"Reform number two," Judith said to herself as she viewed her
handiwork on Cousin Ann's hair. It was decided to part it in the
middle and wave it on the sides and sweetly the old lady's face was
framed in the soft, silver locks.
"You look different from yourself, but lovely," cried Judith. "You
make me think of a young person trying to look old."
She might have added: "Instead of an old person trying to look young,"
but she did not.