CAMERON FARM
Elliot opened her eyes to bright sunshine. For a minute she couldn't
think where she was. Then the strangeness came back with a stab, not
so poignant as on the night before but none the less actual.
"Oh," said a small, eager voice, "do you think you're going to stay
waked up now?"
Elliott's eyes opened again, opened to see Priscilla's round,
apple-cheeked face at the door.
"It isn't nice to peek, I know, but I'm going to get your breakfast,
and how could I tell when to start it unless I watched to see when you
waked up?"
"_You_ are going to get my breakfast?" Elliott rose on one elbow in
astonishment. "All alone?"
"Oh, yes!" said Priscilla. "Mother and Laura are making jelly, and
shelling peas in between--to put up, you know--and Trudy is pitching
hay, so they can't. Will you have one egg or two? And do you like 'em
hard-boiled or soft; or would you rather have 'em dropped on toast?
And how long does it take you to dress?"
"One--soft-boiled, please. I'll be down in half an hour."
"Half an hour will give me lots of time." The small face disappeared
and the door closed softly.
Elliott rose breathlessly and looked at her watch. Half an hour! She
must hurry. Priscilla would expect her. Priscilla had the look of
expecting people to do what they said they would. And hereafter, of
course, she must get up to breakfast. She wondered how Priscilla's
breakfast would taste. Heavens, how these people worked!
As a matter of fact, Priscilla's breakfast tasted delicious. The toast
was done to a turn; the egg was of just the right softness; a saucer
of fresh raspberries waited beside a pot of cream, and the whole was
served on a little table in a corner of the veranda.
"Laura said you'd like it out here," Priscilla announced anxiously.
"Do you?"
"Very much indeed."
"That's all right, then. I'm going to have some berries and milk right
opposite you. I always get hungry about this time in the forenoon."
"When do you have breakfast, regular breakfast, I mean?"
"At six o'clock in summer, when there's so much to do."
Six o'clock! Elliott turned her gasp of astonishment into a cough.
"_I_ sometimes choke," said Priscilla, "when I'm awfully hungry."
"Does Stannard eat breakfast at six?" Elliott felt she must get to the
bed-rock of facts.
"Oh, yes!"
"What is he doing now?"
Priscilla wrinkled her small brow. "Father and Bruce and Henry are
haying, and Tom's hoeing carrots. I _think_ Stan's hoeing carrots,
too. One day last week he hoed up two whole rows of beets; he thought
they were weeds. Oh!" A small hand was clapped over the round red
mouth. "I didn't mean to tell you that. Mother said I mustn't ever
speak of it, 'cause he'd feel bad. Don't you think you could forget
it, quick?"
"I've forgotten it now."
"That's all right, then. After breakfast I'm going to show you my
chickens and my calf. Did you know, I've a whole calf all to
myself?--a black-and-whitey one. There are some cunning pigs, too.
Maybe you'd like to see them. And then I 'spect you'll want to go out
to the hay-field, or maybe make jelly."
"Oh, yes," said Elliott, "I can't see any of it too soon." But she was
ashamed of her double meaning, with those round, eager eyes upon her.
And her heart went down quite into her boots.
But the chickens, she had to confess, were rather amusing. Priscilla
had them all named and was quite sure some of them, at least, answered
to their names and not merely to the sound of her voice. She appealed
to Elliott for corroboration on this point and Elliott grew almost
interested trying to decide whether or not Chanticleer knew he was
"Chanticleer" and not "Sunflower." There were also "Fluff" and
"Scratch" and "Lady Gay" and "Ruby Crown" and "Marshal Haig" and
"General Pétain" and many more, besides "Brevity," so named because,
as Priscilla solicitously explained, she never seemed to grow. They
all, with the exception of Brevity, looked as like as peas to Elliott,
but Priscilla seemed to have no difficulty in distinguishing them.
Priscilla's enthusiasm was contagious; or, to be more exact, it was so
big and warm and generous that it covered any deficiency of enthusiasm
in another. Elliott found herself trailing Priscilla through the barns
and even out to see the pigs, meeting Ferdinand Foch, the very new
colt, and Kitchener of Khartoum, who had been a new colt three years
before, and almost holding hands with the "black-and-whitey" calf,
which Priscilla had very nearly decided to call General Pershing. And
didn't Elliott think that would be a nice name, with "J.J." for short?
Elliott had barely delivered herself of a somewhat amused affirmative
(though the amusement she knew enough to conceal), when the small
tongue tripped into the pigs' roster. Every animal on the farm seemed
to have a name and a personality. Priscilla detailed characteristics
quite as though their possessors were human.
It was an enlightened but somewhat surfeited cousin whom Priscilla
blissfully escorted into the summer kitchen, a big latticed space
filled with the pleasant odors of currant jelly. On the broad table
stood trays of ruby-filled glasses.
"We've seen all the creatures," Priscilla announced jubilantly "and
she loves 'em. Oh, the jelly's done, isn't it? Mumsie, may we scrape
the kettle?"
Aunt Jessica laughed. "Elliott may not care to scrape kettles."
Priscilla opened her eyes wide at the absurdity of the suggestion.
"You do, don't you? You must! Everybody does. Just wait a minute till
I get spoons."
"I don't think I quite know how to do it," said Elliott.
The next minute a teaspoon was thrust into her hand. "Didn't you
_ever_?" Priscilla's voice was both aghast and pitying. "It wastes a
lot, not scraping kettles. Good as candy, too. Here, you begin." She
pushed a preserving-kettle forward hospitably.
Elliott hesitated.
"_I'll_ show you." The small hand shot in, scraped vigorously for a
minute, and withdrew, the spoon heaped with ruddy jelly. "There!
Mother didn't leave as much as usual, though. I 'spect it's 'cause
sugar's so scarce. She thought she must put it all into the glasses.
But there's always something you can scrape up."
"It is delicious," said Elliott, graciously; "and what a lovely
color!"
Priscilla beamed. "You may have two scrapes to my one, because you
have so much time to make up."
"You generous little soul! I couldn't think of doing that. We will
take our 'scrapes' together."
Priscilla teetered a little on her toes. "I like you," she said. "I
like you a whole lot. I'd hug you if my hands weren't sticky. Scraping
kettles makes you awful sticky. You make me think of a princess, too.
You're so bee-yeautiful to look at. Maybe that isn't polite to say.
Mother says it isn't always nice to speak right out all you think."
The dimples twinkled in Elliott's cheeks. "When you think things like
that, it is polite enough." In the direct rays of Priscilla's shining
admiration she began to feel like her normal, petted self once more.
Complacently she followed the little girl into the main kitchen. It
was a long, low, sunny room with a group of three windows at each end,
through which the morning breeze pushed coolly. Between the windows
opened many doors. At one side stood a range, all shining nickel and
cleanly black. Opposite the range, at a gleaming white sink, Aunt
Jessica was busying herself with many pans. At an immaculately scoured
table Laura was pouring peas into glass jars. On the walls was a
blue-and-white paper; even the woodwork was white.
"I didn't know a kitchen," Elliott spoke impulsively, "could be so
pretty."
"This is our work-room," said her aunt. "We think the place where we
work ought to be the prettiest room in the house. White paint requires
more frequent scrubbing than colored paint; but the girls say they
don't mind, since it keeps our spirits smiling. Would you like to help
dry these pans? You will find towels on that line behind the stove."
Elliott brought the dish-towels, and proceeded to forget her own
surprise at the request in the interest of Aunt Jessica's talk. Mrs.
Cameron had a lovely voice; the girl did not remember ever having
heard a more beautiful voice, and it was used with a cultured ease
that suddenly reminded Elliott of an almost forgotten remark once made
in her hearing by Stannard's mother. "It is a sin and shame," Aunt
Margaret had said, "to bury a woman like Jessica Cameron on a farm.
What possessed her to let Robert take her there in the first place is
beyond my comprehension. Granting that first mistake, why she has let
him stay all these years is another enigma. Robert is all very well,
but Jessica! I would defy any one to produce the situation _anywhere_
that Jessica wouldn't be equal to."
That had been a good deal for Aunt Margaret to say. Elliott had
realized it at the time and wondered a little; now she understood the
words, or thought she did. Why, even drying milk-pans took on a
certain distinction when it was done in Aunt Jessica's presence!
Then Aunt Jessica said something that really did surprise her young
guest. She had been watching the girl closely, quite without Elliott's
knowledge.
"Perhaps you would like this for your own special part of the work,"
she said pleasantly. "We each have our little chores, you know. I
couldn't let every girl attempt the milk things, but you are so
careful and thorough that I haven't the least hesitation about giving
them to you. Now I am going to wash the separator. Watch me, and then
you will know just what to do."
The words left Elliott gasping. Wash the separator, all by herself,
every day--or was it twice a day?--for as long as she stayed here! And
pans--all these pans? What was a separator, anyway? She wished flatly
to refuse, but the words stuck in her throat. There was something
about Aunt Jessica that you couldn't say no to. Aunt Jessica so
palpably expected you to be delighted. She was discriminating, too.
She had recognized at once that Elliott was not an ordinary girl.
But--but--
It was all so disconcerting that self-possessed Elliott stammered. She
stammered from pure surprise and chagrin and a confusing mixture of
emotions, but what she stammered was in answer to Aunt Jessica's tone
and extracted from her by the force of Aunt Jessica's personality. The
words came out in spite of herself.
"Oh--oh, thank you," she said, a bit blankly. Then she blushed with
confusion. How awkward she had been. Oughtn't Aunt Jessica to have
thanked her?
If Aunt Jessica noticed either the confusion or the blankness, she
gave no sign.
"That will be fine!" she said heartily. "I saw by the way you handled
those pans that I could depend on you."
Insensibly Elliott's chin lifted. She regarded the pans with new
interest. "Of course," she assented, "one has to be particular."
"Very particular," said Aunt Jessica, and her dark eyes smiled on the
girl.
The words, as she spoke them, sounded like a compliment. It mightn't
be so bad, Elliott reflected, to wash milk-pans every morning. And in
Rome you do as the Romans do. She watched closely while Aunt Jessica
washed the separator. She could easily do that, she was sure. It did
not seem to require any unusual skill or strength or brain-power.
"It is not hard work," said Aunt Jessica, pleasantly. "But so many
girls aren't dependable. I couldn't count on them to make everything
clean. Sometimes I think just plain dependableness is the most
delightful trait in the world. It's so rare, you know."
Elliott opened her eyes wide. She had been accustomed to hear charm
and wit and vivacity spoken of in those terms, but dependableness? It
had always seemed such a homely, commonplace thing, not worth
mentioning. And here was Aunt Jessica talking of it as of a crown
jewel! Right down in her heart at that minute Elliott vowed that the
separator should always be clean.
The separator, however, must not commit her indiscriminately, she saw
that clearly. Perhaps in fact, it would save her. Hadn't Aunt Jessica
said each had her own tasks? Ergo, you let others alone. But she had
an uncomfortable feeling that this reasoning might prove false in
practice; in this household a good many tasks seemed to be pooled. How
about them?
And then Laura looked up from her jars and said the oddest thing yet
in all this morning of odd sayings: "Oh, Mother, mayn't we take our
dinner out? It is such a perfectly beautiful day!" As though a
beautiful day had anything to do with where you ate your dinner!
But Aunt Jessica, without the least surprise in her voice, responded
promptly: "Why, yes! We have three hours free now, and it seems a
crime to stay in the house."
What in the world did they mean?
Priscilla seemed to have no difficulty in understanding. She jumped up
and down and cried: "Oh, goody! goody! We're going to take our dinner
out! We're going to take our dinner out! Isn't it _jolly_?"
She was standing in front of Elliott as she spoke, and the girl felt
that some reply was expected of her. "Why, can we? Where do we go?"
she asked, exactly as though she expected to see a hotel spring up out
of the ground before her eyes.
"Lots of days we do," said Priscilla. "We'll find a nice place. Oh,
I'm glad it takes peas three whole hours to can themselves. I think
they're kind of slow, though, don't you?"
Laura noticed the bewilderment on Elliott's face. "Priscilla means
that we are going to eat our dinner out-of-doors while the peas cook
in the hot-water bath," she explained. "Don't you want to pack up the
cookies? You will find them in that stone crock on the first shelf in
the pantry, right behind the door. There's a pasteboard box in there,
too, that will do to put them in."
"How many shall I put up?" questioned Elliott.
"Oh, as many as you think we'll eat. And I warn you we have good
appetites."
Those were the vaguest directions, Elliott thought, that she had ever
heard; but she found the box and the stone pot of cookies and stood a
minute, counting the people who were to eat them. Four right here in
the kitchen and five--no, six--out-of-doors. Would two dozen cookies
be enough for ten people? She put her head into the kitchen to ask,
but there was no one in sight, so she had to decide the point by
herself. After nibbling a crumb she thought not, and added another
dozen. And then there was still so much room left that she just filled
up the box, regardless. Afterward she was very glad of it. She
wouldn't have supposed it possible for ten people to eat as many
cookies as those ten people ate after all the other things they had
eaten.
By the time she had finished her calculations with the cookies, Aunt
Jessica and Laura and Priscilla were ready. When Elliott emerged from
the pantry, the little car was at the kitchen door, with a hamper and
two pails of water in it, and on the back seat a long, queer-looking
box that Laura told Elliott was a fireless cooker.
"Home-made," said Laura, "you'd know that to look at it, but it works
just as well. It's the grandest thing, especially when we want to eat
out-of-doors. Saves lots of trouble."
Elliott gasped. "You mean you carry it along to cook the dinner in?"
"Why, the dinner's cooking in it now! Hop on, everybody. Mother, you
take the wheel. Elliott and I will ride on the steps."
Away they sped, bumpity-bump, to the hay-field, picking up the
carrot-hoers as they went. It is astonishing how many people can cling
to one little car, when those people are neither very wide nor, some
of them, very tall. From the hay-field they nosed their way into a
little dell, all ferns and cool white birches, and far above, a canopy
of leaf-traceried blue sky. In the next few minutes it became very
plain to the new cousin that the Camerons were used to doing this kind
of thing. Every one seemed to know exactly what to do. The pails of
water were swung to one side; the fireless cooker took up its position
on a flat gray rock. The hamper yielded loaves of bread--light and
dark, that one cut for oneself on a smooth white board--and a basket
stocked with plates and cups and knives and forks and spoons. Potted
meat and potatoes and two kinds of vegetables, as they were wanted,
came from the fireless cooker, all deliciously tender and piping hot.
It was like a cafeteria in the open, thought Elliott, except that one
had no tray.
And every one laughed and joked and had a good time. Even Elliott had
a fairly good time, though she thought it was thoroughly queer. You
see, it had never occurred to her that people could pick up their
dinner and run out-of-doors into any lovely spot that they came to, to
eat it. She wasn't at all sure she cared for that way of doing things.
But she liked the beauty of the little dell, the ferny smell of it,
and the sunshine and cheerfulness. The occasional darning-needles, and
small green worms, and black or other colored bugs, she enjoyed less.
She hadn't been accustomed to associate such things with her dinner.
But nobody else seemed to mind; perhaps the others were used to taking
bugs and worms with their meals. If one appeared, they threw him away
and went on eating as though nothing had happened.
And of course it was rather clever of them, the girl reflected, to
take a picnic when they could get it. If they hadn't done so, she
didn't quite see, judging by the portion of a day she had so far
observed, how they could have got any picnics at all. The method
utilized scraps of time, left-overs and between-times, that were good
for little else. It was a rather arresting discovery, to find out that
people could divert themselves without giving up their whole time to
it. But, after all, it wasn't a method for her. She was positive on
that point. It seemed the least little bit common, too--such
whole-hearted absorption as the Camerons showed in pursuits that were
just plain work.
"Stan," she demanded, late that afternoon, "is there any tennis
here?"
"Not so you'd notice it. What are you thinking of, in war-time,
Elliott? Uncle Samuel expects every farmer to do his duty. All the men
and older boys around here have either volunteered or been drafted. So
we're all farmers, especially the girls. _Quod erat demonstrandum_.
Savvy?"
"Any luncheons?"
"Meals, Lot, plain meals."
"Parties?"
Stannard threw up his hands. "Never heard of 'em!"
"Canoeing?"
"No water big enough."
"I suppose nobody here thinks of motoring for pleasure."
"Never. Too busy."
"Or gets an invitation for a spin?"
"You're behind the times."
"So I see."
"Harry told me that this summer is extra strenuous," Stannard
explained; "but they've always rather gone in for the useful, I take
it. Had to, most likely. They'd be all right, too, if they didn't live
so. They're a good sort, an awfully good sort. But, ginger, how a
fellow'd have to hump to keep up with 'em! I don't try. I do a little,
and then sit back and call it done."
If Elliott hadn't been so miserable, she would have laughed. Stannard
had hit himself off very well, she thought. He had his good points,
too. Not once had he reminded her that she hadn't intended to spend
her summer on a farm. But she was too unhappy to tease him as she
might have done at another time. She was still bewildered and inclined
to resent the trick life had played her. The prospect didn't look any
better on close inspection than it had at first; rather worse, if
anything. Imagine her, Elliott Cameron pitching hay! Not that any one
had asked her to. But how could a person live for six weeks with these
people and not do what they did? Such was Elliott's code. Delightful
people, too. But she didn't wish to pitch hay and she loathed washing
dishes. There was something so messy about dish-washing, ordinary
dish-washing; milk-pans were different.
Then suddenly Elliott Cameron did a strange thing. By this time she
had shaken off Stannard and had betaken herself and her disgust to the
edge of the woods. She was so very miserable that she didn't know
herself and she knew herself less than ever in this next act. Alone in
the woods, as she thought, with only moss underfoot and high green
boughs overhead, Elliott lifted her foot and deliberately and with
vehemence stamped it. "I don't like things!" she whispered, a little
shocked at her own words. "I don't _like_ things!"
Then she looked up and met the amused eyes of Bruce Fearing.
For a minute the hot color flooded the girl's face. But she seized the
bull by the horns. "I am cross," she said, "frightfully cross!" And
she looked so engagingly pretty as she said it that Bruce thought he
had never seen so attractive a girl.
"Anything in particular gone wrong with the universe?"
"Everything, with my part of it." What possessed her, she wondered
afterward, to say what she said next? "I never wanted to come here."
"That so? We've been thinking it rather nice."
In spite of herself, she was mollified. "It isn't quite that, either,"
she explained. "I've only just discovered the real trouble, myself.
What makes me so mad isn't altogether the fact that I didn't want to
come up here. It's that I hadn't any choice. I _had_ to come."
The boy's eyes twinkled. "So that's what's bothering you, is it? Cheer
up! You had the choice of _how_ you'd come, didn't you?"
"How?"
"Yes. Sometimes I think that's all the choice they give us in this
world. It's all I've had, anyway--how I'd do a thing."
"You mean, gracefully or--"
"I mean--"
"Hello!" said Stannard's voice. "What are you two chinning about
before the cows come home?"