Yesterday it poured in torrents all day. None of us could get out of
the house, so while Miss Araminta darned my stockings, which hadn't
been touched since I came to Twickenham Town, I read aloud to the whole
bunch in the library and we had a very nice time. Miss Araminta has
tried to teach me to darn since I have been here, but she has not
succeeded in doing it! I will never be a darner. I have asked Mother
not to get me all-over silk stockings, as the Lisle-thread feet last
much longer, but she doesn't seem to remember, and one of my charities
is giving my nice stockings away when they can no longer be worn with
self-respect. Clarissa, Mother's maid, is supposed to keep them in
order, but she doesn't do it, and she has headaches so often I don't
like to say anything to her, with the result that Mother thinks I wear
out an awful lot, and yet I know she wouldn't want me to wear stockings
with holes in them. I found out early in life that it is foolish to
try to do things you are not by nature fitted to do, and I am not
fitted by nature to sit still for hours and fill up a little hole in a
stocking to save a few cents or a dollar or so. I don't do it. I
would rather save in some other way.
Miss Araminta loves to darn. Also she loves pretty clothes in a way
that is truly pitiful, not having the means to get them, and she has
about as much idea how to have her few things made as a Comanche Indian
has of _vers-libre_. If she would wear those that suited her style she
would look dear, but she wears clothes of many colors made, as she
thinks, in the prevailing fashion, and of course she is a sight for all
beholders. While I was reading _Pendennis_ out loud I was wondering at
the same time what Miss Araminta was going to wear to the reception
Judge and Mrs. Maclean are going to give to their two married daughters
and their husbands on the 17th of August, which is the big thing of the
year for Twickenham Town; but of course I couldn't ask her. I knew she
had nothing suitable or that had not been the subject of nudges and
remarks under the breath, and smiles that could be heard. And I also
knew nothing could keep her away, for she dearly loves to go to parties
and is not often invited, being of an inconvenient age for
entertainments, and I wished something could come to pass that would be
to her interest.
As I read I poked around in my mind trying to think what might be done,
and suddenly something came to me, and after a while I put the book
down and began to talk of the different things that were going on in
town and the many visitors who were already there, and then I asked
Miss Araminta if she didn't think lavender was a lovely color. She
said it was the one she loved best and all her life she had longed for
a lavender satin with everything to match, but she knew now she would
never have it and she rarely let herself wish for things any more. And
she sighed the softest little sigh, like a mother whose baby had died a
long time ago, but who always kept it in her heart, and I said to
myself, "Go up-stairs, Kitty Canary, and think out a way," and
up-stairs I went.
August is The Season in Twickenham Town, and there is hardly a family
in it that doesn't have company or boarders, or whose sons and
daughters don't come home for their holiday, and Miss Bettie Simcoe
says it's perfectly scandalous, the flirting that goes on. Miss Bettie
thinks anything matrimonial is close to scandalous, and she is
continually raising her eyebrows and making a half moon of her mouth at
what she says is the forwardness and freeness of present-day young
people. Miss Susanna always has a crowded house in August. A Doctor
Macafee and his wife and two daughters are here from Florida, and a
Miss LeRoy from New Hampshire, and Judge Lampton and his wife from
Alabama, and how she manages to put them away is known only to herself.
When I heard she was going to give up her room and take a tiny one in
the garret I made up my mind I would have an awful dream that night, a
regular nightmare, that would scare her to death and make her come in
my room to see what was the matter. I had it and she came, and I told
her I was subject to nightmares and ought not to sleep in a room by
myself, though I hadn't mentioned it before, and I wished she would
please sleep in mine with me and take the four-poster, which I thought
gave me bad dreams, as I wasn't accustomed to such high beds. And if
she would I would take the cot, as I liked cots much better. I am
subject to nightmares, or anything else that is advisable to have at
the proper time, and if I had known how many people were coming and
that Miss Susanna was going to give up her room, I would have had one
before, so she wouldn't think they had come on pretty sudden. But she
is not apt to think. She is a darling little old lady, not brought up
to think, and now too busy to do it, and she just works herself to
death with her head up and a smile on her face, and doesn't realize she
is spending all she makes in good things for the people who come here
and nearly kill themselves eating. She never buys herself any
clothes--that is, until Elizabeth has all she needs--and when I went up
to my room yesterday to think out a way of getting that lavender satin
for Miss Araminta, another thought came into my head, which was a black
satin for Miss Susanna.
Feelings are things one has to be awfully careful about in Twickenham
Town, and not for a billion dollars put in my pocket would I hurt
anybody's here, and I couldn't let Miss Araminta or Miss Susanna think
for a moment that their dresses were not all right, and how to get them
new ones I couldn't imagine. I started to pray about it, and then I
remembered I was in an awful hurry and it would be better to get to
work, and, going over to the bureau, I opened its top drawer, and there
looking up at me was my bank-book lying on a pile of handkerchiefs.
Father had put a very respectable sum of money in the Twickenham bank
for me and told me to use it whenever I could do it in the right way,
and he would trust me to find the right way; but though I had tried to
get rid of some of it, there were few opportunities (so it wouldn't be
manifest, I mean), and now one popped right up in my face.
For fear it might pop out again I ran downstairs as quick as I could,
and, seeing Miss Susanna and Miss Araminta were by themselves, I began
to talk about the Pettigrew children and what they had told me they
wanted Santa Claus to bring them Christmas. And that reminded me
suddenly that Christmas would soon be here, and I told them that in
August I always began to think about what to get Mother and Aunt
Celeste, who were my chief Christmas worries, and I wondered if they
thought I could get something in Twickenham that I could take back with
me. I felt, as I talked, that I was on a tight rope forty feet in the
air and mighty little to balance myself with, but I managed to put in
words what I wanted to say, and like little angels they fell in and
never dreamed I had thought the thing out before I spoke.
I told them that Mother and Aunt Celeste had much more than they needed
in life, and it was hard to get anything new and different for them, as
there were so many to give them presents, and that I liked to get
something odd if I could. The things they were crazy about were old
silver and old jewelry, especially old settings, and it was hard to
find them in our town, and I wondered if they could help me get a piece
of silver like one of Miss Susanna's pitchers for Mother, and a set of
sapphires like Miss Araminta's for Aunt Celeste. Also I said I didn't
want to trouble them and I hoped they wouldn't mind my asking them.
Miss Araminta said no indeed, she didn't mind, and that she had got
into the state of mind Miss Virginia Hill was in, and she wasn't going
to keep on keeping a lot of things that were no use just because they
had belonged to long-dead grandmothers. And while she wouldn't go as
far as Miss Virginia, who would sell every ancestor she had for a
million dollars, she would part with some other things for much less,
and if I wanted to buy the sapphire set (pin and ear-rings) she would
be glad to sell them. She would have to tell me, though, they had been
her great-grandmother's, and not her great-great's, as the pearls were,
and that she would take forty-five dollars for them, and if that was
too much she would take forty.
I almost lost my breath at her good sense, not expecting it, but I told
her it would be cheating if I paid less than seventy-five for them (I
had calculated that it would take about that to get the lavender satin
with things to match), and if she would get them for me I would take
them right away, and I was awfully obliged to her, as it would be such
a relief to get Aunt Celeste off my mind. I admitted I didn't always
pay as much as seventy-five for her present (I usually give her a
five-dollar one which Mother pays for), but Father wanted me to bring
her something quaint from Twickenham if I could find it, and he would
be delighted to know of the sapphires.
I fiddled along about other things for a moment or two and then I asked
Miss Susanna if she would think me a very piggy person to want to buy
one of those precious old silver pitchers of hers, as Mother would love
so to have one of that pattern (Mother had never mentioned it, but I
knew she would long for one of that pattern if she could see it), and I
waited with terrible anxiousness in my heart and a hot face for her
answer. Miss Susanna's got a lovely pinky color, and for a moment she
didn't say anything, and then Miss Araminta spoke for her and showed
more sensibleness than I thought was in her.
"Why don't you, Susanna?" she said, and nodded at her. They are first
cousins and very good friends. "Why don't you let the child have one
of those old pitchers? You have too much silver, anyhow, and with
servants of the present day any sort of silver is too great a burden to
be borne, much less ancestral sort. Young people want to buy their own
things, and reverence for the past is a thing of the past; and besides,
you have no one to leave yours to except some one who won't appreciate
it. Why don't you let her have it?"
"I would be glad for her to have it. Glad to help her out with her
Christmas difficulties, but"--Miss Susanna bit her lip and the pink in
her face became rose--"I have never done anything of this sort, and it
does not seem just right. I would be pleased for her mother to have
one of the pitchers. In a sense they are connected with her family as
our great-great-great-grandmothers were the same, and--"
"Oh, you precious person!" I jumped up and took Miss Susanna in my
arms and whirled around the room with her. I was afraid she would get
on the grandparent subject, and I didn't want to hear it. To head her
off I gave her a squeeze and a skip or two and then I sat her down and
kissed her, and asked her if she thought seventy-five dollars was
enough for the pitcher, and if so I would get the checks while Miss
Araminta got the sapphires. And before they had time to change their
minds their things were mine and my money (Father's) was theirs, and we
were all a little more excited than we were willing to admit.