A REMARKABLE HOUSEHOLD
Everybody in Cedarville knew and respected General Haines. His
ancestors for four generations had lived and died in the fine old
mansion which he now occupied. The General was commonly considered a
"character." He was dignified in appearance and irascible in temper; a
perfect martinet on the subject of deportment in the rising generation;
a stern enemy to cowardice and untruthfulness, while in many other
matters he was as impracticable as a babe and as timorous as an old
lady. His face was bearded and stern; his voice terrible. Whenever he
lost his temper, which was every other minute, he shouted as though
he had been at the head of an army. His heart was tender withal, and
altogether he was as remarkable a gentleman as one often meets.
He was unmarried because he had never known a woman the equal of his
mother, whose memory he adored. He had lived, since his mother's death,
a life of comparative isolation in the old Haines' mansion, which was
conducted as nearly as possible after the fashion of the last century,
for the General hated innovations. He rarely left home, and he had not
seen the Walcott twins since their babyhood.
In his housekeeper, Sarah, General Haines had a counterpart to
the full as eccentric as himself. Warm-hearted, quick-tempered,
and sharp-tongued, Sarah was the only person for whom the General
felt wholesome awe. She ruled him completely; strangely enough she
considered him the reverse of forbidding. This is not so singular,
perhaps, in the light of the fact that the General seldom made a move
without first consulting Sarah; when he did he generally regretted it!
His letter to Mr. Walcott was an instance where he had acted without
orders, and when his nephew telegraphed that Gay would arrive on
the noon train from New York, on the 8th of August, the doughty
General realized what he had done. He had bidden a guest, possibly a
troublesome one, to his house without Sarah's knowledge. No wonder he
trembled and carried Mr. Walcott's telegram crumpled in his pocket two
hours before he mentioned it!
On the eventful evening that May and Gay received their sentence of
banishment, and at about the same hour, General Haines paced back and
forth on the broad porch of his house, with the terrible telegram in
his pocket. As he walked, he called himself a coward, and declared
over and over again that he would be master in his own house!
This device for promoting courage he repeated several times, but it
would not work. At the end of a half hour he was no better prepared to
face Sarah than he had been in the beginning. Just as he was repeating
for the fiftieth time the dreadful fib that he would be master in his
own house or he would know the reason why, Sarah passed the porch. She
wore a white dimity sunbonnet, although the sun had gone down in the
west, and carried a small watering-pot. She had been giving her asters
a shower-bath by way of encouraging them to flower early. She did not
appear to notice General Haines.
"Sarah," said the General.
The sunbonneted head turned in his direction, but there was no other
evidence of interest.
"Sarah, let us take tea in the library, this evening," the General
continued, in what he believed to be a persuasive tone.
"Very well," came from the depths of the sunbonnet.
The General had intended to speak of the telegram, but there was
something ominous in the movements of that hidden head, and he decided
to temporize. "Ahem!" he began, "I shall have something to say to you,
then."
Thus ended the dialogue between the General and the sunbonnet, for
Sarah passed on without replying.
"I wonder what mischief he's in, now?" she said to herself, a minute
later. "Something, I'll be bound!"
One would have said that she spoke of a child of tender years, instead
of an old gentleman of sixty, with a temper so peppery that no one in
the village dared oppose it.
Little maid Phyllis, whose life Sarah made a burden by perpetual
instruction in housewifery, brought the tea into the library, just as
the General entered. Sarah was already there, seated at the tea-table,
brushing imaginary shreds of lint off the burnished surface of the
copper tea-kettle.
"Phyllis, you should never wipe this kettle with a cloth that is the
least mite damp," Sarah said.
"Yes'm," Phyllis answered.
"You may go," Sarah added.
"Yes'm," and the door closed after Phyllis. Phyllis' vocabulary was
reduced to the single word "Yes'm;" it was the only word that did not
give offense to her mistress, who had her own views concerning humility
in serving maids.
Sarah at the tea-table made an exceedingly pleasing picture. Her comely
figure was clad in a remarkable flowered brilliant, of a style so
ancient, as to suggest the thought that she had robbed the cedar chest
of an old-time gentlewoman to procure it. A fine lawn kerchief and an
apron of the same material completed an attire as picturesque as that
of _Mistress This_ or _Dame That_ in some old comedy.
Nor was General Haines' appearance less picturesque than that of his
housekeeper. He prided himself upon being and looking "a gentleman
of the old school." His attire was modeled after that of his
great-grandfather, a redoubtable general of Washington's time. He wore
knee breeches, satin waistcoat, black silk hose, and low shoes with
handsome buckles. He even went so far in his imitation of the "old
school" as to carry a snuff-box of fine workmanship, but he was too
modern in his taste to use the snuff.
Picturesque and comely as were these figures at the tea-table, one at
least, was as uncomfortable as it would be possible for any one to be
in clothes of the latest mode. After three cups of tea General Haines
had not acquired sufficient courage to produce the telegram that fairly
burned in his pocket. He had hoped that Sarah might be curious enough
to ask what he desired to say to her, but this was precisely what she
did not intend to do. She had measured lances with the General a good
many times, and knew the transparent tricks he employed to get the
better of her. "If he's got anything to say let him say it, not try to
make me commit myself before he has opened his head!" her thoughts ran.
At length he had to "say it," and he began,—
"I—expect—I expect a—a—boy on the noon train to-morrow!" He tried to
speak carelessly, just as if he had been in daily receipt of boys by
the noon train for years!—but his attempt was not a success, and he
knew it.
"So that's what he's been up to!" thought Sarah. She said, "We don't
need a boy; we've help enough on the place."
"He isn't help, he's a visitor."
"Oh!"
"My grand nephew."
"Oh!"
"His mother is the lady whose portrait hangs in my study."
"Oh!"
It was plain that Sarah was deeply offended. She rose and swept toward
the door like a tragedy queen, and the General did not venture to ask
her to remain.
"I should think," she said, pausing on the threshold, "that you would
know by this time—deep emphasis on "this time,"—"that I am not always
ready for a great houseful of company."
"Great houseful of company!" shouted the General, who had kept his
temper as long as he was able. "One small boy is not 'a houseful of
company,' madam!"
"He is worse!" retorted Sarah, "one small boy is worse than a barrel of
monkeys!—you will see!"
She went out, closing the door after her with considerable unnecessary
force—it would have been a genuine slam in one of less mature
years—leaving the General wiping his brow with his flowered silk
handkerchief.