You remember, my diary, a good many pages back I mentioned in here a
pair of Bohemians that were married to each other and were friends of
ours and would come to Rufe's every week and we would all do funny
things? Well, I couldn't write about them then, for I didn't have any
space for married people, wanting to save it purely for folks that
loved each other. But now it does seem like Providence that they've
come down here to spend the summer in the country, for there's not a
single loving soul left to write about, Aunt Laura being gone and
Brother Sheffield never very loving when she was here, except chicken.
Their name is Mrs. Marie and Augustus Young. Father says that Adam or
the legislature knew a thing or two when it named them _Young_. He is
a professor and owns a chair in a college that must either have gold
nails in it or sit extra good, for Rufe says it is worth five thousand
dollars a year. Mrs. Young sings vocal. I wish she didn't, especially
in a parlor. If anybody is singing or reciting a speech on a platform
and flowers and electric lights it thrills you and you really enjoy
it; but if they do it in a close room, especially if it trills high or
has to kneel down and get red in the face, it makes you so ashamed for
the one that's doing it, and for yourself, too, that you look straight
at the carpet. Even then the blood rushes to your head.
They have built a house with such a wide porch running all around it
that it reminds you of a little, tiny boy with a great big hat pulled
down over his eyes, which is called a bungalow. They said they had
brought a "complete outfit for light housekeeping" along with them,
but when mother saw it she laughed considerable on the outside of the
bungalow, for it was fifty-three books, mostly ending in "ology," a
hammock and some chairs that lean away back, a guitar apiece, a great
many little glass cases that you stick bugs and butterflies in if you
can catch them, a picture of the Apostle Hosea, with his head all
wrapped up like an old lady with the neuralgia, which they both said
they could not live without, and a punching-bag, which they punched a
great deal in the city, not having any baby to amuse themselves with,
which was a good thing for the baby I reckon. So mother sent them over
a great many things and Professor Young said she was the most sensible
woman he ever saw, including a biscuit board and a sifter. They have
been here a few days now and are delighted with the country air and
the green scenery, and, although it does seem proud to say it, _me_.
They thought very highly of me at Cousin Eunice's and said I was the
most "interesting revelation of artless juvenile expression" they ever
saw, which I wrote down on paper and when I came home taught it to
Mammy Lou to give in at the experience meeting.
One morning early, while mammy was beating the biscuit for breakfast,
and I was up in the pear tree right by the kitchen door I nearly fell
out with surprise when I saw Professor Young coming around the house
with a pretty shirt open at the neck that he admires and two _great
big_ dominecker roosters up in his arms which were both squawking very
loud. Mammy Lou came to the door to see what all the noise was about,
and he said she was the very person he wanted to see.
"Auntie," he commenced, trying to get into his pocket and wipe his
face with his handkerchief, which was greatly perspiring, but he
couldn't do it for the roosters, "my wife and I are in a quandary. We
are both ignorant of the preferred method of inflicting a painless yet
instantaneous death upon a fowl."
Mammy's eyes began to shine, for she loves big words like she loves
watermelons, and without a sign of manners she never even tried to
answer his question, but looked up at me in the tree and says:
"Baby, kin you rickollect all that to write it down?"
Professor Young then looked up into the tree too and says: "Why,
Mistress Ann, how entirely characteristic!" And then he wanted to know
what book I was reading and I told him, _John Halifax, Gentleman_,
which I have had for my favorite book since I was eleven years old;
and the roosters continued to squawk. I got down then and asked
Professor Young if he wouldn't come into the house, but he said no and
asked his question to mammy over again. She looked at me and to save
her manners I told her right quick what the meaning of it was, me
understanding it on account of being precocious and also at Rufe's
last winter, where they use strange words.
"_Thar now!_ Is _that_ all it's about?" she asked awfully
disappointed, for she thought from the words "painless death" it must
be something about preaching. Then in a minute, when she saw that he
was still waiting, she turned around to him and said: "Whar is the
chicken _at_ that you want killed?"
He held the roosters away from him and, looking at them as proud as a
little boy looks at a bucket of minnows, he said:
"These are they!"
This tickled mammy so, and me too, though I remembered my manners,
that she began to laugh, which shook considerable under her apron, and
said:
"Well, gentle_men_! Whut do you want to kill _them_ for?"
"For breakfast," he said; and, noticing her laughing, his face got to
looking so pitiful all in a minute that it made me just wish that
Cinderella's fairy godmother would come along and turn those roosters
into nice little pullets all fried and laying on parsley.
"Why, Mr. Professor," mammy told him, "them roosters is so old that
they will soon die a natural death if you leave them alone; and
they're so big that you might fry 'em frum now till breakfast time on
Jedgment Day, and then they wouldn't be fitten!"
When she told him this he did manage to get out his handkerchief, I
thought maybe to cry on, he looked so disappointed, but it was just to
perspire on.
"I--er, observed that they were unduly large," the poor man told her,
"but I--er, thought maybe the larger a country thing was the better!"
I thought of horse-flies and ticks, but was too mannerly to mention
them, especially so near breakfast time. Just then mother and father
came out of the back door, and when they heard the tale of the
roosters they both invited him to come right in and have breakfast
with us, and said they would tie their legs together so they could
flop around the back yard, but couldn't get away, and I could run
over and bring Mrs. Young.
Last night when I got home I was too tired to write or anything else,
for it was the night of the glorious Fourth! Professor Young and Mrs.
Young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able to
spend the Fourth of July in a cool ravine instead of in the horrid
city where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys.
They said they must have me go along for the woods wouldn't really be
woodsy without me, as I was the genius loci. I didn't know at first
what that was, but I know now that it makes you tired and perspiry to
be the genius loci of eight miles of woods on the Fourth of July. Rufe
and Cousin Eunice couldn't think of half as many peculiar things to do
when they were courting as the Youngs.
We ate a number of stuffed eggs which kinder made up for the
tiredness, me being very fond of them, but Professor Young is crazy
about Mrs. Young's singing voice and every time we'd come to an extra
pretty place he would say: "Marie, my love, sing something just here,"
so we'd have to stand still on our legs, it often being too snaky to
sit down, while she sang. One time she thought up part of a song
without a speck of tune to it, and it was in a language across the
ocean. All I could make out was "Parsifal," and every once in a while
she would stop a minute in the song and say a word that sounded like
"Itch," though I don't suppose it was, being in a song. Every time she
would say itch he would scratch, for the poor man was covered with
ticks.
But the most trying thing was the bugs and butterflies, which being
"naturalists" they caught. We had to run all over the ground and sides
of the hills for them, and empty our dinner out on a nice, shady rock,
so we could use the lunch box to put them in. When we got back we
found it all covered with ants, but we were so hungry we thought we'd
brushed them all off, though in the cake we found we _hadn't_. If a
person hasn't ever eaten an ant, my diary, there ain't any use in
trying to make them understand what they taste like, so I won't dwell
on that. Professor Young said though he was willing to eat them for
the sake of his beloved science, though I don't see how it helped
science any.
Toward evening we got to a fine place in the branch to wade and Mrs.
Young said, oh, let's do it; it would remind us of our childhood days.
So we soon had our feet bare, with our thoughts on our childhood days,
and never once stopping to remember that we didn't have a thing to
wipe them on. Nobody said so much as towel until we got out, and then
it was too late, so we were very much pained and annoyed every step of
the way home on account of our gritty feet.
Another morning early we decided to go out and see the sun rise, like
Thoreau. (They tell me how to spell all the odd words.) We went up to
the tiptop of a high hill, and when the sun was just high enough to
make you squint your eyes Mr. Young remarked that he realized his life
was "replete with glorious possibilities," and he said in such moments
he felt that he could "encompass his heart's desire." He said he fain
would be a novelist. Now, this is the only subject they ever fall out
about, for he's always wanting to be something that he is not. Last
winter when he met Doctor Gordon at Rufe's he decided he wanted to be
a doctor, for he said they could always make a living, no matter where
they were, while a poor college professor had to stay wherever he had
a chair to sit in. So he went to a store where you buy rubber arms and
legs and things and bought a long black bag like Doctor Gordon's, full
of shiny, scary-looking scissors and knives which cost seventy-five
dollars, to lay away till fall when the doctor's school opened up
again. In two weeks Mrs. Young had got the store man to take the
things back for half price because Professor Young had decided he
wanted to study banjo playing instead of doctoring and had bought a
banjo trimmed with silver.
She knew whenever he said he wanted to _be_ anything it would cost as
much as two new dresses, and then have to be exchanged for something
else, so she asked him if he would have to buy anything to begin this
novel-writing business with. He proudly told her no, for his "Mother
Nature had endowed him with a complete equipment," and he thumped his
forehead between his eyes and his straw hat. Then she told him to go
on. He said it would be a good time to get material from the study of
the "primitive creatures" around here in the country.
I hoped these "primitive creatures" were not the kind of insects you
would have to empty the lunch box for, nor be careful not to pull off
their hind legs while you were catching them, not knowing just what
they were.
I was scared good when he said he thought the girl that milked Mrs.
Hedges' cows would be a good one to begin on. He said if Marie didn't
mind he would go over to the farthest pasture where he could see her
then and _draw her out to see what was in her_! This sounded terrible
to me, knowing that he used some sickly smelling stuff on the bugs
that killed them before they had time to say a word, and I thought
maybe because Emma Belle was a poor servant girl he was going to do
her the same way.
He had always seemed such a kind-hearted man to me, and I saw him and
Emma Belle standing at the fence talking and he was not trying to hold
anything to her nose, still I didn't feel easy till he got back. Mrs.
Young asked him what he had learned, and if his novel would be along
"socialistic lines" or a "romance in a simple bucolic setting." That
"bucolic" reminded me of Bertha's little innocent baby, and I wished I
was at home nursing it even if it did cry, rather than be out
sun-rising with such a peculiar man. He said it would be a "pastoral,"
and that the girl's eyes were exactly like his first sweetheart's,
which was remarkable. Mrs. Young spoke up right quick and said there
wasn't anything remarkable in _that_, because all common, country
girls looked alike and they all had about as much expression as a
squash.
We haven't been out early acting like Thoreau any more, for Mrs. Young
said it was the most foolish of all the foolish things Augustus had
made her do, and he could continue to associate with milkmaids by
himself if he wanted to, which he has. This morning she came over to
our house early to ask mother if you singed a picked chicken over a
blaze or what, and if she didn't think Thoreau was an idiot. Mother
said yes, you did, if it had pin feathers on it, and she didn't know
much about Thoreau, but she preferred men that paid taxes and ate off
of white tablecloths. Mrs. Young said she thought all men that read
bugology and admired pictures like Hosea were a little idiotic and she
wished she had married a man like father. Mother said well, she
better not be too sure, for they all have their faults.
After a good long time Professor Young came in, not finding Marie at
the bungalow, looking awful hot and cross. The sight of him seemed to
make Mrs. Young feel worse than ever and she told him she had just
come over to consult mother about her journey home to-morrow, although
she hadn't mentioned it to us before. She went on to say that _he_
might spend the rest of the summer, or the rest of his life if he
wanted to, boarding over at Mrs. Hedges' where he could see Emma Belle
morning, noon and night, instead of only in the morning. He said why,
he was utterly surprised for she hadn't mentioned such a thing to him
before, but she told him he hadn't spent enough time with _her_ lately
even to know whether or not she still retained the power of speech. He
said right quick, oh, he never doubted _that_! She said, well, _she_
was going and he needn't argue with _her_. He said he wasn't going to
argue, he was only too glad to leave such a blasted place, for he
wanted material for his novel, but the farmer's girl he had talked
with the _first_ morning, and the _plow-boys_ he had been associating
with ever since were all such fools he couldn't get any material from
them.
The minute he said that she seemed to feel better and change her mind.
She said Augustus ought to be ashamed to talk that way about poor
ignorant things which never had any opportunities! He said he wanted
to go back to the city anyway where there was a bath-tub, but she told
him he was very foolish to think about leaving such a cool, "Arcadian"
spot; their friends would all laugh at them for coming back so soon.
She said she had merely mentioned going back for _his_ pleasure, for
all the world knew how she _loved_ the country. He finally said he
loved it too, so they would stay, but he would be forced to give up
novel-writing because the country people around here are all fools.
I've heard Professor Young talk about sitting in a college chair being
a hard life, and Doctor Gordon says doctoring is a hard life, and Rufe
says that editing is a hard life, but, my diary, between you and me,
from the looks of things this morning, I kinder believe that marrying
is a hard life, too.