Granny had no opportunity to know what would happen if old Peter Simmons
was late for his golden wedding for he came striding in long before the
clock struck twelve on the twenty-second of July. Young Mrs. Simmons
with Mrs. Hiram Bingham and Mrs. Joshua Cabot were assisting the maids
in the pleasant task of arranging the quantities of yellow and white
flowers which came pouring in.
Rebecca Mary in a pretty pink gingham, lent a hand wherever she could,
but she really wasn't of very much help for her thoughts would stray to
Richard and to Count Ernach de Befort. She couldn't keep them on the
yellow and white flowers, and every time her thoughts strayed the color
in her cheeks grew pinker than the color in her frock. She was, oh, so
ashamed and mortified when she remembered that she had locked Count
Ernach de Befort in Major Martingale's office and she told herself that
she hated Richard Cabot when she remembered that he had found her
clinging to the door. She should have been grateful to Richard, but she
insisted that she wasn't, not a bit. Richard had diagnosed her case as
that of a goose, a dear little goose, but she did not agree with him at
all. She told herself that she had been a fool, a perfectly idiotic
fool. And she told herself, also, that she hoped she would never see
either Richard or Frederick Befort again for she wanted to forget what a
perfectly idiotic fool she had been. She wanted to see young Peter and
Wallie and Ben. The line of her lips softened when she thought of them.
What fun they had had at Riverside! She wondered if they had thought of
her at all or if they had been too busy with the great experiment to
think of any girl. With her thoughts roving from Waloo to Riverside it
was no wonder that Rebecca Mary was not of more assistance and that she
put the white flowers where Judy Bingham had planned to place the yellow
flowers.
When old Peter Simmons came striding in like a conqueror, Granny was
just coming down the stairs, and she looked more like an old saint in
her white linen house gown than she did like a woman who had ever run
away from her husband's question.
[Illustration: "HELLO, KITTY!"]
"Where's Mrs. Simmons? Where's my bride?" demanded old Peter Simmons
almost before he crossed the threshold, and then he saw her on the
stairs. "Hello, Kitty!" He met her at the foot of the stairs with
outstretched hands. "You don't look a day older than you did fifty years
ago. And you don't act half as old. Aren't you ashamed of the way you've
been running about the country?" He gave her a little shake before he
kissed her.
"You need stronger glasses, Peter, dear, if you think I don't look older
than I did when we were married. Goodness knows I don't feel as old! I
should say I didn't! Then I was eighteen on the outside and felt at
least seventy on the inside, and now I'm sixty-eight on the outside, and
I don't feel more than eighteen on the inside. But I look sixty-eight.
Yes, Peter, I do, and you look seventy-one. Perhaps a person can cheat
old Time on the inside, but he can't do it on the outside. There are
tattle tales here--and here." And her finger touched the wrinkles which
separated old Peter Simmons' two grizzled eyebrows and the lines which
ran from the corners of his nose to the corners of his mouth. "You
didn't have those when you married me, Peter Simmons!"
Old Peter Simmons laughed as if it were a huge joke to have wrinkles on
his golden wedding day. "I've a lot now that I didn't have when I
married you, old lady. Well, we've had fifty pretty fair years
together, haven't we?" He looked down at her fondly. "Want fifty more?"
Granny never hesitated the fraction of a second. "Mercy, no!" she
declared quickly. "That would be far too much of a good thing, a regular
gilding of a beautiful lily. Just a few more years, Peter, dear, and
we'll be through. We've earned our rest."
"Rest!" roared old Peter. "What does a flighty young thing like you want
of a rest? I heard of your scandalous doings, Mrs. Simmons, running off
in the middle of the night, being locked up by the government. I came
very near letting you celebrate your golden wedding by yourself." He
pinched her cheek. "But Dick Cabot told me a man couldn't do that." He
roared again as he remembered the worried face Richard had worn when he
told him that he must, he simply must, be on time for his own golden
wedding; he couldn't leave Granny to go through that alone. "So I came
back."
"You didn't come empty handed?" demanded Granny quickly. "Don't tell me
you came empty handed, Peter Simmons?"
"No, I didn't do that. I didn't dare. I was afraid you would run away
again, and I need you in this big old house. The only way to keep some
wives is to give 'em trinkets." He bent to kiss Granny again before he
put his hand in his pocket. "I hadn't any idea what you wanted." His
eyes twinkled. "You wouldn't tell me----"
Granny watched him eagerly, anxiously. "I did tell you," she
interrupted. "We've talked it over together a hundred times since our
silver wedding. You know we have. You didn't forget, Peter?" Her voice
told him that she could forgive almost anything but his failure to
remember what they had planned first on their silver wedding day.
"Twenty-five years is a long time for a man to remember a little thing
like a golden wedding present," went on old Peter Simmons in a teasing
voice, and he winked at Rebecca Mary over his wife's head. "I haven't
lost it, have I?" He was feeling in all of his pockets. "I was
sure--Dick saw that I had---- No, here it is!" And from one of the many
pockets he took a long envelop.
Granny gave a little scream which made the decorators draw closer. They
were all interested in Granny's golden wedding present for Granny had
made the gift seem so important.
"And here's mine," she said, and she took a long envelop from the pocket
of her skirt. It was tied with yellow ribbon while old Peter Simmons'
long envelop had a practical rubber band around it. Granny fairly
thrust her envelop into her husband's hands and snatched his from him in
a way which was quite inexcusable in any one, in even a bride of fifty
years. "Peter, you never----you did! If this isn't the greatest! You old
darling!" And she laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.
Old Peter looked at what was in his envelop, and he laughed, too, until
the tears stood in his eyes. "You didn't trust me, old lady!" He shook
his head at Granny. "You thought I had forgotten!"
"I did!" Granny frankly admitted her thought. "You just the same as told
me you had forgotten when you kept asking that foolish question--'What
do you want?' I didn't trust you, and I made up my mind that I shouldn't
be disappointed even if I had to carry out alone the plan we made
together so I went down to Judge Graham yesterday and had him fix things
up. I was so afraid that you'd give me a diamond necklace or a string of
pearls." She sighed happily because he hadn't given her either diamonds
or pearls.
He stopped in the middle of another laugh, and looked at her with a
funny expression as if he wasn't sure, not at all sure. "H-m," was all
he said.
"H-m," replied Granny. "Why did you pester me so if you remembered?"
Old Peter finished his interrupted laugh and had another one before he
pulled her gray hair as he undoubtedly had pulled her brown hair in the
days when she was eighteen on the outside and felt seventy on the
inside. "Because I like to tease you, old lady. You go up in the air
quicker than any one I ever knew, and I like to see you rise. It's meat
and drink to me. You always come down gracefully. I must say that for
you," he added admiringly.
"Not this time," she told him honestly. "I didn't land gracefully this
time, Peter. You got the better of me all around. But whoever would have
imagined that when I ran away from you I should run right into you?"
"It was Fate," old Peter told her emphatically. "And it means that you
can't get away from me, no matter where you run."
Granny kissed his brown wrinkled cheek. "Yes," she said soberly. "I
guess that's what it means. And I'm glad of it!" she went on firmly, "I
could go farther and fare worse even if you are the biggest tease on
earth, Peter Simmons!"
Young Mrs. Simmons and Judy Bingham and Sallie Cabot could bear the
suspense no longer. They had heard so much about the golden wedding
present which Granny wished to receive that they just had to see it.
"What did father give you, Mother Simmons?" Young Mrs. Simmons was an
impatient spokeswoman. "What did she give you, Father Simmons?"
"Yes, what did you give her?" Sallie Cabot drew Rebecca Mary into the
ring around Granny and old Peter Simmons.
Joan did not wait to be drawn, she ran in herself for she, too, was
eager to see what Granny had wanted so much that she had run away from
old Mr. Simmons so that he would be sure to give it to her. It was a
funny way to obtain a present. Joan did not understand the method.
Perhaps she would if she could see the gift.
Granny was laughing so that she could scarcely tell them what it was. So
was old Peter Simmons.
"You see, dears," began Granny, breaking a laugh in two and wiping the
tears from her eyes, "we felt older twenty-five years ago than we do
now, didn't we, Peter? And we wanted to do something for the world that
had been so good to us. We had had twenty-five as perfect years as a man
and woman could have together, and we wanted to show that we appreciated
them. Peter thought of a trade school, and I thought of a children's
home because women naturally think of children, you know, and then we
had an inspiration. I don't remember which thought of it first, do you,
Peter?"
"I expect you did," old Peter suggested handsomely.
"Well, perhaps I did, but it doesn't matter, for when two people live
together for twenty-five years they grow to think the same things. Yes,
they do, Rebecca Mary, as you'll see some day. I often catch myself
thinking of contracts. But this time we thought of a home for old
couples. We were so sorry for the old couples who couldn't grow older
together that we decided that we'd give them a home when we had been
married fifty years and were an old couple ourselves. A home for
friendless old couples. We shouldn't wait until we were dead and some
one would look after it for us. We'd do it ourselves and get to know
some of the old couples. That was why we bought Seven Pines, wasn't it,
Peter? And that was why I wanted to take you to Seven Pines, Rebecca
Mary. I wanted to go there to stay for a few days before my golden
wedding. We've talked and planned a lot about it, and I was a silly old
fool to let Peter tease me with his question. I should have known you,
Peter, but perhaps it was because it meant so much to me that I was
frightened to death for fear you had forgotten or changed your mind. But
you hadn't for---- See!" She held up the envelop old Peter had given
her, and her face was radiant as she told them what was in it. "Here is
the deed all ready for me to sign for the Katherine Simmons Home for Old
Couples."
"And here," old Peter Simmons held up the envelop which had been given
to him, "here is the deed for the Peter Simmons Home for Old Couples all
ready for me to sign. We'll have to compromise on the name, Kitty, and
merge it into the Simmons Home."
"Is that all the present is?" Joan had never been more disappointed in
her life. She could not join in the chorus of admiring approval. But she
could understand why Granny cried. She would want to cry if old Peter
Simmons gave her an old home for old people. There was only one thing
which would make it right to Joan, and she pulled Granny's sleeve. "Will
you give the old couples young hearts, Granny?" she whispered eagerly.
"We'll try," Granny whispered back. "That's exactly what we are going to
try to do, Joan, to make tired old hearts younger. The world would be so
much happier if there were not so many old hearts in it. You keep yours
young, Joan, as long as you live," she advised quite confidentially.
"Bless my soul!" she exclaimed as she heard a machine puff up the
driveway. "Is that young Peter with our jailor? I've been so taken up
with our golden wedding presents, Peter, dear, that I never asked how
your experiment worked. Was it a success?"
"It was a big success." Old Peter Simmons looked as if he was more than
satisfied with the way the great experiment had worked. "We've given it
every sort of try out and it can't go wrong. If we hadn't made sure of
that I couldn't have come to your golden wedding, Kitty. I should have
had to send my regrets." He winked at Rebecca Mary and tickled Joan
under her chin. "Some day, Miss Wyman," he told her more soberly, "you
will be proud to remember that you were a prisoner at Riverside when
Befort's big idea was worked out."
"What will it do?" Joan wanted to know at once. "What can you do with my
father's idea, Mr. Simmons?"
Mr. Simmons tickled her under her chin again. "That would be telling,"
he whispered with a great show of secrecy. "And then you wouldn't be
curious any longer. There is only one way to keep people interested and
that is to keep them guessing," he went on with a twinkle. "If you knew
what to-morrow was going to bring you wouldn't care whether you had a
to-morrow or not. You'd never want to go to bed to-night."
"I'm not going to bed to-night, anyway not until the old people do.
Granny said I needn't, that I could stay up until the last minute of the
golden wedding!" Joan drew herself up with proud importance. "But I'll
tell my father what you said about the way to keep people interested,
and I'll tell Miss Wyman, too," as if she thought old Peter Simmons
wanted his recipe circulated as rapidly as possible.
Old Peter Simmons chuckled. "You may tell your father if you want to,
but I rather think that Miss Wyman knows. The knowledge is born in some
girls. That's what makes them such a puzzle to us men. How about it,
Miss Wyman?" he said teasingly to Rebecca Mary. "You don't need to be
told, do you?"