QUENTINA
Quite the most absorbing topic of conversation Monday was, of course,
the coming visit to Quentina Jones.
"But what _is_ her name?" demanded Mr. Hartley at last, almost
impatiently. "It isn't 'Quentina,' of course. I _know_ that man who was
here Sunday would never have named a daughter of his 'Quentina.'"
"Her name is 'Clorinda Dorinda,'" replied Genevieve. "She told us so in
her letter; but she said she was always called 'Quentina.' I don't know
why."
"Whew! I should think she would be," laughed Mr. Hartley. "Only fancy
having to be called 'Clorinda Dorinda' whenever you were wanted!"
"Sounds like a rhyming dictionary to me," chuckled Tilly. "'Clorinda,
Dorinda, Lucinda, Miranda,'" she chanted.
Mr. Hartley laughed, and walked off.
"Well, I'll leave her to you, anyhow, whatever she is," he called back.
"I'll bet he's just dying to go with us, all the same," whispered Tilly,
saucily.
Cordelia frowned, hesitated, then spoke.
"Auntie says ladies don't bet," she observed, in her severest manner.
"Oh, don't they?" snapped Tilly; then she, too, frowned, and hesitated.
"All right, Cordy--Cordelia; see that you don't do it, then," she
concluded good-naturedly.
Monday was a very quiet day for the girls at the ranch. Mrs. Kennedy had
insisted from the first upon this. She said that the next two days would
be quite exciting enough to call for all the rest possible beforehand.
So, except for the usual watching of the boys' morning start to work,
there was little but music, books, and letter-writing allowed.
Tuesday dawned clear, but very warm. The girls were all awake at
sunrise, and were soon ready for the early breakfast. Almost at once,
afterward, they stowed themselves--with little crowding but much
giggling--in the carriage, and called gayly to Carlos: "We're all
ready!"
"Yes, we're all aboard, Carlos," cried Genevieve.
"Good, Senorita! It is ver' glad I am to see you so prompt to the
halter," grinned Carlos. "_Quien sabe?_--mebbe I didn't reckon on
corrallin' the whole bunch of you so soon!"
Genevieve laughed, even while she made a wry face.
"I'm afraid Carlos remembers that I was never on time, girls," she
pouted. "But you don't know, Carlos, what a marvel of promptness I've
become back East--specially since somebody gave me a watch," she
finished, smiling into the old man's face.
"All ready!" grinned Carlos, climbing into his seat.
"Let's give our Texas yell," proposed Tilly, softly, as she looked back
to see Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hartley, and Mammy Lindy on the gallery steps.
"Now count, Cordelia!"
And Cordelia did count. Once again her face expressed a tragedy of
responsibility, and once again the resulting
"Texas, Texas, Tex--Tex--Texas!
Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah!
GENEVIEVE!"
was the glorious success it ought to have been. So to a responsive
chorus of shouts, laughter, and hand-clapping, the Happy Hexagons drove
away from the ranch house.
It was a pleasant drive, though a warm one. It did seem a little long,
too, so anxious were they to reach their goal. The prairie sights and
sounds, though interesting, were not so new, now. Even the two or three
herds of cattle they met, and the groups of cowboys they saw galloping
across the prairies, did not create quite the excitement they always had
created heretofore. Quentina and the minister's home were so much more
interesting to think of!
"What do you suppose she'll be like?" asked Elsie.
"_Quien sabe?_" laughed Genevieve.
"There! what does that mean?" demanded Tilly. "I've heard it lots of
times since I've been here."
"'Who knows?'" translated Genevieve, smilingly.
"Yes, who does know?" retorted Tilly, not understanding. "But what does
it mean?"
Genevieve laughed outright.
"That's just what it means--'Who knows?' The Mexicans and the cowboys
use it a lot here, and when I come back I get to saying it, too."
"I should think you did," shrugged Tilly. "Well, anyhow, let's talk
straight English for a while. Let's talk of Quentina. What do you
suppose she's like, girls?"
"Let's guess," proposed Genevieve. "We can, you know, for Miss Jones was
too sick to tell us anything, and we haven't a thing to go by but
Quentina's letter, and that didn't tell much."
"All right, let's guess. Let's make a game of it," cried Tilly. "We'll
each tell what we think, and then see who comes the nearest. You begin,
Genevieve."
"All right. I think she's quiet and tall, and very dark like a
Spaniard," announced Genevieve, weighing her words carefully.
"I think she's bookish, and maybe stupid," declared Tilly. "Her letter
sounded queer."
"I think she's little, and got yellow hair and light-blue eyes," said
Bertha.
"I think she's got curls--black ones--and looks lovely in red," declared
Elsie Martin.
"We can trust you, Elsie, to get in something about her clothes,"
chuckled Tilly.
"Well, I think she's got brown eyes like Genevieve's, and brown hair
like hers, too," asserted Alma Lane.
"Now, Cordelia," smiled Genevieve, "it's your turn. You haven't said,
yet."
"There isn't anything left for me to say," replied Cordelia, in a
slightly worried voice. "You've got all the pretty things used up. I
should just have to say I think she's fat and homely--and I don't think
I ought to say that, for it would be a downright fib. I don't think
she's that at all!"
There was a general laugh at this; then, for a time, there was silence
while the carriage rolled along the prairie road.
Carlos had no difficulty in finding the home of the Rev. Mr. Jones in
Bolo. It proved to be a little house, unattractive, and very plain. It
looked particularly forlorn with its bare little front yard, in which
some one had made an attempt to raise nasturtiums and petunias.
"Mercy! I guess we'll _have_ to stand up in corners to sleep," gurgled
Tilly, as the carriage stopped before the side door.
"Sh-h!" warned Genevieve. "Tilly, isn't it awful? Only think of our
Quentina's living here!"
At that moment the door of the little house opened, and Mr. Jones
appeared. From around his feet there seemed literally to tumble out upon
the steps several boys of "assorted sizes," as Tilly expressed it
afterward. Then the girls saw her in the doorway--Quentina. She was
slender, not very tall, but very pretty, with large, dark eyes, and fine
yellow hair that fluffed and curled all about her forehead and ears and
neck.
"O Happy Hexagons, Happy Hexagons, welcome, welcome, Happy Hexagons!"
breathed the girl in the doorway ecstatically, clasping her hands.
"Sounds almost like our Texas yell," giggled Tilly, under her breath.
Genevieve was the first to reach the ground.
"Quentina--I know you're Quentina; and I'm Genevieve Hartley," she
cried, before Mr. Jones had a chance to speak.
"Yes, this is Quentina," he said then, cordially shaking Genevieve's
hand. "And now I'll let you present her to your young friends, please,
because you can do it so much better than I."
They were all out now, on the ground, hanging back a little diffidently.
It was this, perhaps, that made Cordelia think that something ought to
be said or done. She came hurriedly forward as she caught Genevieve's
eye and heard her own name called.
"Yes, I'm Cordelia, and I'm so glad to see you," she stammered; "and I'm
so glad you're not fat and homely, too--er--that is," she corrected
feverishly, "I mean--we didn't any of us get you right, you know."
"Get me--right?" Quentina opened her dark eyes to their fullest extent.
Cordelia blushed, and tried to back away. With her eyes she implored
Tilly or Elsie to take her place.
It was Genevieve who came to the rescue.
"We'll have to own up, Quentina," she laughed. "On the way here we were
trying to picture how you look; and of course we each had to guess a
different thing, so we got all kinds of combinations."
"Yes, but we didn't get yours," chuckled Tilly, coming easily forward,
with outstretched hand.
"Indeed we didn't," echoed Elsie, admiringly.
"Why, of course we couldn't," stammered Cordelia, still red of face. "We
never, never _could_ think of anything so pretty as you really are!"
Quentina laughed now, and raised hurried hands to hide the pretty red
that had flown to her cheeks.
"Oh, you funny, funny Happy Hexagons!" she cried, in her sweet, Southern
drawl.
Naturally there could be nothing stiff about the introductions, after
that, and they were dispatched in short order, even to Mr. Jones's
pulling the boys into line, and announcing:
"This is Paul, with the solemn face. And this grinning little chap is
Edward--Ned, for short; and these are the twins, Bob and Rob."
"Are they both 'Robert'?" questioned Tilly, interestedly.
Mr. Jones smiled.
"Oh, no. Bob is Bolton, and Rob is Robert. The 'Rob and Bob' is
Quentina's idea--she likes the sound of it."
"I told you!--she _is_ a rhyming dictionary," whispered Tilly, in an
aside that nearly convulsed the two girls that heard her.
Inside the house they all met "mother."
Mother, in spite of her lame foot, was a very forceful personality. She
was bright and cheery, too, and she made the girls feel welcome and at
home immediately.
"It's so good of you to come!" she exclaimed. "Poor Quentina has been
shut up with me for weeks. But I'm better, now--lots better; and I shall
soon be about again."
"I think it was very good of you to let us come," returned Genevieve,
politely, "specially when you aren't well yourself. But we'll try not to
make you any more trouble than we can't help."
"Trouble, dear child! I reckon we don't call _you_ trouble," declared
the minister's wife, fervently, "after all your kindness to my daughter,
Alice." Genevieve raised a protesting hand, but Mrs. Jones went on
smilingly. "And then that letter to Quentina--she's never ceased to talk
and dream of the girls who sent it to her."
"Oh, I did like it so much--indeed I did," chimed in Quentina. "Why,
Genevieve, I made a poem on it--a lovely poem just like Tennyson's
'Margaret,' you know; only I put in 'Hexagons,' and changed the words to
fit, of course."
Tilly nudged Elsie violently, and Elsie choked a spasmodic giggle into a
cough; but Quentina unhesitatingly went on.
"It began:
"'O sweet pale Hexagons,
O rare pale Hexagons,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Why sent you, loves, so full and free,
Your letter sweet to little me?'
That's just the first, you know," smiled Quentina, engagingly, "and of
course when I wrote it I didn't know you weren't really 'pale,' at all;
but then, we can just call that part poetic license."
Genevieve laughed frankly. Tilly giggled. Cordelia looked nervously from
them to Quentina.
"I'm sure, that--that's very pretty," she faltered.
Mrs. Jones smiled.
"I'm afraid, for a little, you won't know just what to make of
Quentina," she explained laughingly. "We're used to her turning
everything into jingles, but strangers are not."
"Oh, mother, I don't," cried Quentina, reproachfully. "There's heaps and
heaps of things that I never wrote a line of poetry about. But how could
I help it?--that beautiful letter, and the Happy Hexagons, and all! It
just wrote itself. I sent it East, too, to a magazine, two or three
times--but they didn't put it in," she added, as an afterthought.
"Why, what a shame!" murmured Tilly.
Genevieve looked up quickly. Tilly was wearing her most innocent, most
angelic expression, but Genevieve knew very well the naughtiness behind
it. Quentina, however, accepted it as pure gold.
"Yes, wasn't it?" she rejoined cheerfully. "I felt right bad,
particularly as I was going to send you all a copy when it was
published."
"You can give us a manuscript copy, Quentina. We would love that,"
interposed Genevieve, hurriedly. Behind Quentina's back she gave Tilly
then a frowning shake of the head--though it must be confessed that her
dancing eyes rather spoiled the effect of it.
"Maybe it's because her name rhymes--'Clorinda Dorinda,'" suggested
Tilly, interestedly; "maybe that's why she likes to write poetry so
well."
Mrs. Jones laughed.
"That's what her father says. But Clorinda herself changed her own name
about as soon as she could talk. She couldn't manage the hard 'Clorinda'
very well, and I had a Mexican nurse girl, Quentina, whose name she much
preferred. So very soon she was calling herself 'Quentina,' and
insisting that every one else should do the same."
"But it's so much prettier," declared the minister's daughter,
fervently. "Of course 'Clorinda Dorinda' are some pretty, because they
rhyme so, but I like 'Quentina' better. Besides, there are lots more
pretty words to make that rhyme with--Florena, Dulcina, Rowena, and
verbena, you know."
"And 'you've seen her,'" suggested Tilly, gravely.
Quentina frowned a moment in thought.
"Y-yes," she admitted; "but I don't think that's a very pretty one."
It was Genevieve this time who choked a giggle into a cough, and who, a
moment later, turned very eagerly to welcome an interruption in the
person of the Rev. Mr. Jones.
Soon after this Quentina suggested a trip through the house.
"You see I want to show you where you're going to sleep," she explained.
"Oh, Mr. Jones told us that," observed Tilly, as the seven girls trooped
up the narrow stairway. "He said we were to stand up in the corners."
Tilly spoke with the utmost gravity.
Quentina turned, wide-eyed.
"Why, you couldn't! You'd never sleep a bit," she demurred concernedly.
"Besides, it isn't necessary."
All but Tilly and Genevieve tittered audibly. Tilly still looked the
picture of innocence. Genevieve frowned at her sternly, then stepped
forward and put her arm around Quentina's waist.
"Tilly was only joking, Quentina," she explained. "When you know Tilly
better you'll find she never by any chance talks sense--but always
nonsense," she finished, looking at Tilly severely.
Tilly wrinkled up her nose and pouted; but her eyes laughed.
"There, here's my room," announced Quentina, a moment later. "We've put
a couch in it, and if you don't mind my sleeping with you, three can be
here. Then across the hall here is the twins' room, and two more can
sleep in this; and Paul and Ned's room down there at the end of the hall
will take the other two. There! You see we've got it fixed right well."
"Oh, yes--well for us; but how about the boys?" cried Genevieve. "Where
will they sleep?"
Quentina's lips parted, but before the words were uttered, a new thought
seemed to have come to her. With an odd little glance at Tilly, she
drawled demurely:
"Oh, they are going to sleep in the corners."
They all laughed this time.
"Well, now we've done the whole house, and we'll take the yard,"
proposed Quentina, as, a little later, she led the way down-stairs and
out of doors. "There! aren't my nasturtiums beautiful?" she exulted,
with the air of a fond mother displaying her first-born. She was
pointing to a bed of straggling, puny plants, beautifully free from
weeds, and showing here and there a few brilliant blossoms.
Tilly turned her back suddenly. Cordelia looked distressed. Bertha cried
thoughtlessly:
"Oh, but you ought to see Genevieve's, Quentina, if you want to see
nasturtiums!"
"Oh, but I have Carlos," cut in Genevieve, hurriedly, "and Carlos can
make anything grow. What a pretty dark one this is," she finished,
bending over one of the plants.
Quentina's face clouded.
"I don't suppose they are much, really," she admitted. "But I've worked
so hard over them! Father says the earth isn't good at all. I was so
pleased when that big red one came out! I made a poem on it right off:
"'O nasturtium, sweet nasturtium,
Did you blossom just for me?
Where, oh, where did you unearth 'em--
All those colors that I see?'
That's the way it began. Wasn't I lucky to think of that 'unearth 'em?'
Besides, it's really true, you know. They do unearth 'em, and 'twas such
a nice rhyme for nasturtium. Now there's petunia; I think that's a
perfectly beautiful sounding word, but I've never been able to find a
single thing that rhymed with it. I do love flowers so," she added,
after a moment; "but we've never had many. They always burn up, or dry
up, or get eaten up, or just don't come up at all. Of course we've never
had a really pretty place. Ministers like us don't, you know," she
finished cheerfully.
There was no reply to this. Not one of the Happy Hexagons could think of
anything to say. For once even Tilly was at a loss for words. It was
Quentina herself who broke the silence.
"Now tell me all about the East. Let's go up on the gallery and sit
down. I do so want to go East to school; but of course I can't."
"Why not?" asked Bertha.
"Oh, it costs too much," returned Quentina. "You know ministers don't
have money for such things." Her voice was still impersonally cheerful.
"How old are you?" asked Elsie, as they seated themselves on chairs and
steps.
"Sixteen last month."
"Oh, I wish you could go," cried Genevieve. "Wouldn't it be just lovely
if you could come to Sunbridge and go to school with us!"
"Where is Sunbridge? I always thought of it as just 'East,' you know."
"In New Hampshire."
"Oh," said Quentina, with a sigh of disappointment. "I hoped it was in
Massachusetts, near Boston, you know. I thought Alice said it was near
Boston."
"Well, we aren't so awfully far from Boston," bridled Tilly. "It only
takes an hour and a half or less to go there. I go with mother every
little while when I'm home."
Quentina sprang to her feet.
"Boston! Oh, girls, you don't know how I want to see Boston, and Paul
Revere's grave, and the Common, and the old State House, and Bunker
Hill, and that lovely North Church where they hung the lantern, you
know.
'Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,'"
she began to chant impressively. "Oh, don't you just love that poem?"
"Who was Paul Revere?" asked Tilly, pleasantly.
"Paul Revere!" exclaimed Quentina, plainly shocked. "Who was _Paul
Revere_!"
"Tilly!" scolded Genevieve, as soon as she could command her voice.
"Quentina, that's only some of Tilly's nonsense. Tilly knows very well
who Paul Revere was."
"Yes, of course she does; and we all do," interposed Elsie Martin. "But
I'll own right up, I don't know half as much about all those historical
things and places as I ought to."
"Neither do I," chimed in Bertha. "Just because they're right there
handy, and we can go any time, we--"
"We _don't_ go any time," laughed Alma Lane, finishing the sentence for
her.
"I know it," said Elsie. "We had a cousin with us for two weeks last
summer, and she just doted on old relics and graveyards. She made us
take her into Boston 'most every day, and she asked all sorts of
questions which I couldn't answer."
"Yes, I know; but excuse me, please," put in Tilly, flippantly. "I don't
want any graveyards and relics in mine."
"That's slang, Tilly," reproved Cordelia.
"Is it?" murmured Tilly, serenely.
"Besides, people come from miles and miles just to see those things that
we neglect, right at our doors, almost."
"But how can you neglect them?" remonstrated Quentina. "Why, if I ever
go to Boston, I sha'n't sleep nor eat till I've seen Paul Revere's
grave!"
"Well, I shouldn't sleep nor eat if I did," shuddered Tilly.
"You mean you've _never_ seen it?" gasped Quentina, unbelievingly.
"Guilty!" Tilly held up her hand unblushingly.
"Never you mind, Quentina," soothed Genevieve. "We are interested in
those things, really."
"Then you have seen it?"
"Er--n-no, not that one," confessed Genevieve, coloring. "But I've seen
heaps of other graves there," she assured her hopefully, as if graves
were the only open door to Quentina's favor.
"Oh, you've had such chances," envied Quentina. "Just think--Boston! You
_said_ you were near Boston?"
"Oh, yes."
"Less than two hours away?"
"Why, yes," exclaimed Tilly, "I told you. We're less than an hour and a
half away."
"And are you a D. A. R., and Colonial Dames, and Mayflower Society
members, and all that?"
"Dear me! I don't know," laughed Genevieve. "Why?"
"And do you read the _Atlantic Monthly_, and eat beans Saturday night,
and fishballs Sunday morning?" still hurried on Quentina. "You don't any
of you wear glasses, and I don't think you speak very low."
"Anything else?" asked Tilly politely.
"Oh, yes, lots of things," answered Quentina, "but I've forgotten most
of them."
"Quentina, what _are_ you talking about?" laughed Genevieve.
Quentina smiled oddly, then she sighed.
"It wasn't true, of course. I knew it couldn't be."
"What wasn't true?"
"Something I found in one of father's church papers about Rules for
Living in New England. I cut it out. Wait a minute--it's here,
somewhere!" And, to the girls' amazement, she dived into a pocket at the
side of her dress, pulling out several clippings which seemed, mostly,
to be verse. One was prose, and it was on this she pounced. "Here it is.
Listen." And she read:
"'Rules for Living in New England. You must be descended from the
Puritans, and should belong to the Mayflower Society, or be a D. A. R.,
a Colonial Dame, or an S. A. R. You must graduate from Harvard, or
Radcliffe, and must disdain all other colleges. You must quote Emerson,
read the _Atlantic Monthly_, and swear by the _Transcript_. You must
wear glasses, speak in a low voice, eat beans on Saturday night, and
fishballs on Sunday morning. Always you must carry with you a green bag,
and you should be a professional man, or woman, preferably of the
literary variety. You should live not farther away from Boston than two
hours' ride, and of course you will be devoted to tombstones, relics,
and antiques. You may tolerate Europe, but you must ignore the West. You
must be slow of speech, dignified of conduct, and serene of temper. You
must never be surprised, nor display undue emotion. Above all, you must
be _cultured_.'
"Now you see you haven't done all those things," she declared, as she
finished the article.
"I reckon there are a few omissions--specially on my part," laughed
Genevieve.
"But you are happy there?"
"Indeed I am!"
"How I do wish I could go," sighed Quentina. "I should love Boston, I
know. Alice did--though she still liked Texas better."
"Well, I know Boston would love you," chuckled Tilly, unexpectedly.
"Girls, wouldn't she be a picnic in Sunbridge? She'd be more of a circus
than you were, Genevieve!"
"Thank you," bowed Genevieve, with mock stiffness.
"Oh, we loved you right away--and we should Quentina, of course."
"Thank you," bowed Quentina, in her turn, laughingly.