"I can't remember why I told him about Mother Carey's chickens," said
Nancy reflectively. "It just seemed to come in naturally. The Yellow
Peril must be rather nice, as well as his father, even if he is our
enemy. That was clever of him, putting his grandmother in the brick
oven!" And here Nancy laughed, and laughed again, thinking how her last
remark would sound if overheard by a person unacquainted with the
circumstances.
"A delightful, warm, kind, friendly letter," said Mother Carey, folding
it with a caressing hand. "I wish your father could have read it."
"He doesn't say a word about his children," and Nancy took the sheets
and scanned them again.
"You evidently gave him the history of your whole family, but he
confines himself to his own life."
"He mentions 'my son Tom' frequently enough, but there's not a word of
Mrs. Hamilton."
"No, but there's no reason there should be, especially!"
"If he loved her he couldn't keep her out," said Nancy shrewdly. "She
just isn't in the story at all. Could any of us write a chronicle of any
house we ever lived in, and leave you out?"
Mrs. Carey took Nancy's outstretched hands and was pulled up from the
greensward. "You have a few 'instinks' yourself, little daughter," she
said with a swift pat on the rosy cheek. "Now, Peter, put your marbles
in the pocket of your blue jeans, and take the milk pail from under the
bushes; we must hurry or there'll be no chowder."
As they neared Garden Fore-and-Aft the group of children rushed out to
meet them, Kitty in advance.
"The fish man didn't come," she said, "and it's long past his time, so
there's no hope; but Julia and I have the dinner all planned. There
wasn't enough of it to go round anyway, so we've asked Olive and Cyril
to stay, and we've set the table under the great maple,--do you care?"
"Not a bit; we'll have a real jollification, because Nancy has some good
news to tell you!"
"The dinner isn't quite appropriate for a jollification," Kitty observed
anxiously. "Is the news good enough to warrant opening a jar or a can of
anything?"
"Open all that doth hap to be closed," cried Nancy, embracing Olive
excitedly. "Light the bonfires on the encroaching hills. Set casks
a-tilt, and so forth."
"It's the German letter!" said Gilbert at a venture.
"What is the dinner, Kitty?" Mother Carey asked.
"New potatoes and string beans from the aft garden. Stale bread made
into milk toast to be served as a course. Then, not that it has anything
to do with the case, but just to give a style to the meal, Julia has
made a salad out of the newspaper."
Nancy created a diversion by swooning on the grass; a feat which had
given her great fame in charades.
"It was only the memory of Julia's last newspaper salad!" she murmured
when the usual restoratives had been applied. "Prithee, poppet, what
hast dropped into the dish to-day?"
Julia was laughing too much to be wholly intelligible, but read from a
scrap in her apron pocket: "'Any fruit in season, cold beans or peas,
minced cucumber, English walnuts, a few cubes of cold meat left from
dinner, hard boiled eggs in slices, flecks of ripe tomatoes and radishes
to perfect the color scheme, a dash of onion juice, dash of paprika,
dash of rich cream.' I have left out the okra, the shallot, the
estragon, the tarragon, the endive, the hearts of artichoke, the
Hungarian peppers and the haricot beans because we hadn't any;--do you
think it will make any difference, Aunt Margaret?"
"It will," said Nancy oracularly, "but all to the good."
"Rather a dull salad I call it," commented Gilbert. "Lacks the snap of
the last one. No mention of boned sprats, or snails in aspic, calves'
foot jelly, iced humming birds, pickled edelweiss, or any of those
things kept habitually in the cellars of families like ours. No dash of
Jamaica ginger or Pain-killer or sloe gin or sarsaparilla to give it
piquancy. Unless Julia can find a paper that gives more up-to-date
advice to its country subscribers, we'll have to transfer her from the
kitchen department to the woodshed."
Julia's whole attitude, during this discussion of her recent culinary
experiments, was indicative of the change that was slowly taking place
in her point of view. The Careys had a large sense of humor, from mother
down as far as Peter, who was still in the tadpole stage of it. They
chaffed one another on all occasions, for the most part courteously and
with entire good nature. Leigh Hunt speaks of the anxiety of certain
persons to keep their minds quiet lest any motion be clumsy, and Julia's
concern had been of this variety; but four or five months spent in a
household where mental operations, if not deep, were incredibly quick,
had made her a little more elastic. Mother Carey had always said that if
Julia had any sense of humor she would discover for herself what a
solemn prig she was, and mend her ways, and it seemed as if this might
be true in course of time.
"What'll we do with all the milk?" now demanded Peter, who had carried
it all the way from the Pophams', and to whom it appeared therefore of
exaggerated importance.
"Angel boy!" cried Nancy, embracing him. "The only practical member of
the family! What wouldst thou suggest?"
"Drink it," was the terse reply.
"And so't shall be, my liege! Fetch the beaker, lackey," identifying
Cyril with a royal gesture. "Also crystal water from the well, which by
the command of our Cousin Ann will speedily flow in a pipe within the
castle walls. There are healths to be drunk this day when we assemble
under the Hamilton maple, and first and most loyally the health of our
American Consul at Breslau, Germany!"