Ever since my last birthday there has a great change come over me for
I have not kept my diary. Mother took me to one side that morning and
said it was time for me to act like I was growing up now. She said
many a girl as big as me could pick a chicken and I couldn't do a
thing but write a diary; and would even run and stop up my ears every
time Mammy Lou started to wring one's head off. She said all the
ladies of the neighborhood nearly worried her to death advising her to
teach me how to work and saying it was simply ridiculous for a great
big girl like me to lie flat on her stomach reading a book all day in
the grass. This shows how I am misunderstood by my family, and I told
mother so, but she said for goodness' sake not to get _that_ idea
into my head, for girls that were always complaining about being
"misunderstood" were the kind that got divorces from their husbands
afterward. I know this won't be the way with me, though, for I expect
to live on good terms with Sir Reginald, always wearing pink satin and
spangles even around the castle; and never getting mussy-looking when
I give the children a bath in hopes of retaining his affections, like
they tell you to in ladies' magazines. But I didn't mention Sir
Reginald to mother, or she would have misunderstood me worse than
ever.
Goodness! I reckon the neighbors would have a fit if they could see me
of a night when I dress up and step out on the porch roof, making like
I'm Juliet in Shakespeare. I wear a lace thing over my head and let a
pair of Cousin Eunice's last year's bedroom slippers represent Romeo
with fur around the top. They are the kind he wore the night they took
me to see him and are all I can find in the house that looks at all
like him. Nobody gets to see me doing this, though, for I lock the
door. Somehow I think it would be a nicer world if you could always
lock the door on your advising friends.
Last summer Rufe said I was so clever for my age (_he_ said) that I
ought to be in the city (I like this kind of advice) at a good school;
so father and mother decided to move to the city and take Mammy Lou
and spend the winter and all the other winters until I could get
educated and live in a flat. So we went, me writing much sorry poetry
about leaving my old home. The older I get the more I think of poetry
and I reckon by the time I'm engaged I'll be crazy about it!
Our leaving was very sad, poor little Lares and Penates crying so hard
at the depot where they went to tell Mammy Lou good-by that a drummer
who was traveling with a kind heart gave them a quarter apiece to
hush.
I never admired the name of flat from the first and when we started to
rent one I admired it less than ever. It consists of a very large
house, divided up, and no place to kill a chicken. There is also no
place to warm your feet, nor to pop corn. In fact, there are more
places where you _can't_ do things than where you can. Rufe took us to
every one in town nearly, and mammy paid particular attention to how
the kitchens were fixed and asked what became of the potato peelings
with no pigs to eat them up. Finally, after everything had been
explained to her, she spoke up in the midst of a lady's flat with
tears in her eyes and said:
"Mis' Mary, le's go back to the country whar slop is called _slop_; up
here it's '_gawbage_!'"
Father and mother were both delighted that going back had been
mentioned without either one of _them_ saying it first, for both of
their feet were sore from looking for flats; and they like to have
fallen over each other in agreeing with mammy.
"God never intended for _human beings_ to live in flats," father said,
after the elevator had put us down on dry land once more, drawing a
deep breath.
"Nor in cities either," Rufe agreed, with a far-away look in his eyes,
like he might be thinking of the chestnut hunts and black haws of his
boyhood.
That night they said well, they had found out they couldn't live in
the city, and they weren't going to be separated from me, and I _had_
to be educated; so Rufe then told them that a governess was the next
best thing. This sounded so much like a young girl in a book that at
first I was delighted. A governess is a very clean person that always
expects you to be the same. Only in books they are usually
drab-colored young ladies without any nice clothes or parents, but the
son of the family falls in love with them, much to their surprise, and
they lose their job. Then the son gets sent away to India with his
regiment, where he hopes he can meet sweet death through a bullet
hole. This is the way they are in books.
Mine, though, is not anything like that, being very pretty and pink,
and with a regular father and mother like other folks have. But there
is a great mystery connected with her. Don't anybody but me know about
it, and I don't know _all_ about it. From the very first she seemed to
have something on her mind; this is very unusual for a young girl, so
I tried to find out what the cause of it was. One day at the dinner
table when she had been here about two weeks father remarked that I
was learning faster from her than I ever had, and he hoped that she
would stay here with us until I was finished being educated and not be
wanting to get married, like most young ladies. Miss Wilburn, instead
of laughing as one would expect, turned red in the face (her first
name is Louise) and said something that sounded like "Oh no!"
Mammy, who was in the room at the time, spoke up as she usually does
and said well, there must be something wrong with her if she didn't
want to marry, as all right-minded women married once and extra smart
ones married as often as there was any occasion to! Instead of smiling
Miss Wilburn looked more painful than ever; so mammy, who thinks
enough of her to _even_ do up her shirtwaists, changed the subject.
That night when I went into the kitchen to talk to mammy during the
cooking her mind was still on the subject of Miss Wilburn and
marrying.
"Honey," she said to me, flipping over the cakes with great
conviction, "I've been thinking it over and the long and short of it
is that pore child's been _fooled_! I know them _symptoms_! She's been
fooled and she's grievin' over it. Though thar ain't no use for a
woman to grieve over nary _one_ man so long's she under forty and got
good front teeth!"
I said oh, I hoped not. I hated to think about the lover of my
governess proving false! I told mammy maybe he had just died or
something else he couldn't help. But she interrupted me.
"Died nothin'! That ain't no excuse, for thar's allus time to marry no
matter what you're fixin' to do. Thar ain't nothin' no excuse for not
marryin' in this world," she kept on, "be it male or female. You
needn't be settin' thar swingin' your legs and arguin' with _me_ about
the holy estate!"
The very first minute I thought there was anything of a loving nature
connected with Miss Wilburn I got out my diary to write it down, as
you see. She had told mother anyhow to let me keep it as it would
"stimulate my mental faculties" and they would never be able to make a
chicken-picking person out of me. I'm going to keep it right here in
the drawer and jot down everything I see, although I am _convinced_
that the lover is dead. Julius and Marcella are down here now for the
first time since they were married. We see them a great deal, for they
love to go walking through the woods with Miss Wilburn and me; but I
can't waste my diary writing about them _now_.
I just happened to think what a pity it was that I didn't try to find
out the mystery about Miss Wilburn from Rufe and Cousin Eunice when we
was up there last summer, for they knew her real well before we got
her. In fact, for the first few days she and I didn't have any
congenial things to talk about except them and tiny Waterloo.
Waterloo's little name by rights is Rufus Clayborne, Junior, and he
occurred at a time when I wasn't keeping my diary; but my
grandchildren would have known about him anyhow, he being their little
fifth cousin. He is very different from Bertha's baby, for he is a
boy. I thought when I first saw him that if there was anything sweeter
in this world than a girl baby it is a boy one!
Rufe and Cousin Eunice have lately been kinder New Thought persons,
which think if you have "poise" enough there can't anything on earth
conquer you. Rufe bragged particularly about nothing being able to
conquer _him_ or get him in a bad temper, he had so much poise. But
when little Rufus was just three nights old and he had walked him the
other _two_ and he was still squalling he threw up his job.
"Poise be hanged!" Cousin Eunice told us he said, "I've met _my_
Waterloo!" And they've called him that ever since.
When we were up there in the summer Waterloo was giving his father
considerable trouble about the editorials. An editorial is a smart
remark opposite the society column; and Rufe couldn't think up smart
things while he was squalling.
"Oh, for a desert island!" he said one night when he was awful busy
and couldn't get anything done. "Oh, for a mammoth haystack where I
might thrust my head to drown the noise--I've read that Jean Jacques
Rousseau used to do so! Listen, I've made a rhyme!"
"'Tis not rhymes but dimes we need most just now; so go on with your
work," Cousin Eunice said, gathering Waterloo together to take him
up-stairs.
"Merely removing the location of the noise will lessen it but
slightly," Rufe called to her as she got to the door. "Seriously, do
you know of a hayloft in the neighborhood where I might go?"
"You might go next door to the Williams' garage and thrust your head
into their can of gasolene--_that's_ the latter-day equivalent for
hay!" Cousin Eunice answered kinder-mad, for _she_ admires Waterloo,
no matter how he acts.
So Miss Wilburn and I talked over all we knew about the little fellow;
and I thought what a mistake I'd made in not asking Cousin Eunice what
Miss Wilburn's lover's name was and where he is buried and a few other
things like that. But then I couldn't, because I didn't know that
there was a lover. Still, Mammy Lou can talk till her hair turns
straight and she won't get me to believe that he's anything else but
dead. Everything seems to point to it, from the fact of her not
getting any letters from young men and looking lonesome at times and
not wearing any diamond engagement ring. I'm sure he gave her one,
but maybe his wicked kinfolks made her give it back to them after the
funeral. Or maybe she buried it in his grave. I don't know why Miss
Wilburn never talks about him for one of our neighbors talks all the
time about her husband which was killed in the war. I used to be
delighted to hear her commence telling about him. He was killed at the
battle of Shiloh and was the tallest and handsomest man in the army.
She takes a great deal of pleasure in talking about him, and when
there are summer boarders at her house he grows to be nearly seven
feet tall and so handsome that it hurts your eyes to look at him. Her
second husband is stone deaf and can't hear it thunder, which makes it
nicer for them, for while it amuses her to talk about her first
husband's good looks it ain't hurting to the second one's feelings.
The autumn leaves are just lovely now and make you want to write a
book, or at least a piece of poetry. It's right hard on you, though,
not to have anything to write about but a girl without a beau. It's
kinder like eating sweet potatoes without butter. I decided this
morning that I better make the most of what I have got as a subject,
so I started to writing one called _The Maiden Widow_. I've heard of a
book by that name, but I don't reckon they'll have me arrested for
writing just a short poem by the same name. We have some nature study
every morning in the woods, which is one of the best things about
having a governess. She lets me do just as I like, so I took my tablet
and while she was writing some history questions I composed on my
poem. It is very discouraging work, though, to write about widows, for
there's nothing on earth that will rhyme with them. I got one line,
"The maiden widow, she wept, she did, oh!" which was sorry enough
sounding, but I didn't know whether or not it was exactly fair to have
two words rhyming with just one. After a while I thought maybe a
regular poet could do a better job by it than even I could, so I
decided to ask Marcella to ask Julius to write me a few lines as a
copy to go by, for anybody that can draw such lovely pictures ought to
be able to write poetry.
Marcella came over this afternoon and I took her up-stairs very
secretly to ask her about it. She said why, what on earth made me
think that Miss Wilburn was grieving over a dead lover, and I told her
that _everything_ made me think it. After studying about it for a
little while she said well, it might be that I was right, for the girl
did seem to have something preying on her mind. But she said such
subjects were not suitable for children of my age to be writing about
and that I ought to write about violets and sparrows. I said then
would she please find out from Julius whether or not there was a rhyme
for widow, for I might want to write a poem on them when I got grown,
but she said, "Ann, you are incorrigible," which I keep forgetting to
look up in the dictionary, although it looks like I would, for it has
been said to me so many times.
A thing happened this morning which made me understand what
Shakespeare must have meant when he said "Much Ado About Nothing." It
reminded me of the time Cousin Eunice rushed to the telephone and
called Rufe up and said, "Oh, dearest, the baby's got a tooth!" This
was harmless enough in itself, but it is when things are misunderstood
that the trouble comes in. Rufe misunderstood and thought she said,
"The baby's got the croup," which is very dangerous. So he didn't stop
to hear another word, but dropped the telephone and grabbed his hat.
It was night, for Rufe's paper is a morning one that works its men at
night, and didn't wait for a car, but jumped into a carriage, which
costs like smoke. He drove by Doctor Gordon's house and told the
driver to run in and tell Doctor Gordon to come right on and drive to
his house with him, as his baby was very sick, although Doctor Gordon
has an automobile of his own. He and Ann Lisbeth happened to have a
few friends in to play cards with them that night, but when she heard
the news about the baby she told the company that Cousin Eunice was
one of the best friends she had in the world and she would have to go
on over and see if she could help any. So the card party was broken up
and they all drove as hard as they could tear over to Rufe's house,
where they found Cousin Eunice tickled to death over the tooth and
washing Waterloo's little mouth out with boric acid water, which is
the proper thing. This is what I call much ado about nothing, and I'm
sure Shakespeare would if he was living to-day.
What happened this morning was equally as exciting and a long story,
so I'm going to stop and sharpen my pencil, for I despise to write
exciting things with a pencil that won't half write.
I reckon some people might lay the blame on me for what happened, but
it ain't so at all, if people hadn't just misunderstood me. Anyhow, it
may make me "curb my imagination," as Julius says, for that is what
they blamed it all on.
When we started out for our nature study this morning father said if
we could stand the sight of human nature a little would we go down
town right after train time and get the mail? We said yes and
Marcella, who was with us, said she would be glad to go in that
direction, for Julius was there and we could meet him and he would
walk home with us. She still likes to see him every few minutes in the
day.
There are usually several very handsome drummers and insurance men and
things like that standing around the post-office which have just got
off of the train at this hour, but this morning there wasn't anybody
but one strange man and he was talking to Julius like he knew him.
When we passed by Julius spoke to us and I noticed that the strange
man looked at Miss Wilburn and looked surprised. All in a minute I
thought maybe he was the lover which had just returned from some
foreign shore, instead of being dead, and would run up with open
hands and say, "Louise," and she would say, "Marmaduke," and all would
be well.
I learned afterward, though, that his name is Mr. White and he lives
in the city and has come down here on business and knew Julius. After
we had passed he remarked that he was surprised to see Miss Wilburn
down here as he didn't know she was away from home. Julius asked him
if he knew Miss Wilburn and he said no, but he knew Paul Creighton,
the fellow she was going to marry, mighty well. Julius, instead of not
saying anything as a person ought, spoke up and said why he understood
that Miss Wilburn's sweetheart was dead. The strange man said why he
was utterly shocked for he had seen Creighton on the streets only a
few days before, but he _had_ looked kinder pale and worried then. He
said it made him feel weak in the knees to hear such a thing, and
Julius commenced saying something about it must be a mistake then, but
Mr. White said no, he guessed it was so, for Mr. Creighton had looked
awful pale and thin, like he might be going into consumption. Julius
said well he was certain his wife had told him something about Miss
Wilburn having a dead lover, but he hadn't paid much attention to what
she was saying, like most married men; but it surely couldn't be so.
By that time Mr. White was moving down the street to where we were and
was asking Julius to introduce him to Miss Wilburn, so he could find
out the particulars about poor old Creighton. I _will_ give Julius
credit for trying to stop him, but he is one of the kind of persons
that never knows when to say a thing and when not to, Mr. White, I
mean. And before Julius could get him side-tracked they had caught up
with us and there wasn't anything else to do but introduce him. Miss
Wilburn smiled very joyfully when she heard his name, and in a minute
he had got her off to one side and I heard him saying something about
how horrified he was to hear the news about poor Creighton. In just
an instant Miss Wilburn was the one that looked horrified and said why
_what_? This seemed to bring Mr. White to his right mind a little and
instead of going ahead and telling it he turned around to Julius and
said:
"Why our friend, Young, here, was telling me that----"
"I _told_ you that it must be a mistake," Julius spoke up, looking
awfully uncomfortable, "but I remember my wife saying that--oh, say,
Marcella, explain--will you?"
"Why, Julius Young," Marcella commenced in a married-lady tone, "you
promised me that you wouldn't say a word about it; anyway we only
suspected----"
"Will _nobody_ tell me what has happened to Paul?" Miss Wilburn said
in a low, strangled voice, like she couldn't get her breath good.
"Ain't anything happened to him that _we_ know of," I told her, for
Julius and the rest of them looked like they were speechless. "We
thought _you_ knew it!"
"Knew _what_? Oh, for the love of Heaven, tell me!" she said, poor
thing! And I felt awful sorry for us all, but for Miss Wilburn and me
in particular.
I just couldn't tell her we thought he was _plumb_ dead, so I told her
we thought he must be very sick or something.
"He may be," she answered, not looking any happier. "I haven't heard
from him since I've been here! Oh, it serves me right for acting such
an idiot as to run off down here and forbid his writing to me! He may
be desperately ill! How did you hear it?"
"Ain't anybody heard it _yet_!" I told her, feeling so angry at
Marcella and Julius and Mr. White for telling such a thing and so
ashamed of myself for making it up that I couldn't think very well. I
kept wishing in my mind that it was the first day of April so I could
say "April Fool," or an earthquake would happen or _anything_ else to
pass it off; but didn't anything happen, so I had to stand there with
all of them looking at me and tell Miss Wilburn how Mammy Lou said
_she_ believed she had been fooled because she looked so sad at the
mention of marrying, but _I_ believed the gentleman was dead.
Well, it took every one of us every step of the way home to explain it
to her and to each other, each one of us talking as hard as we could;
and Julius remarked what he'd do the next time he heard any such
"sewing-society tales" under his breath.
Just as we got in sight of the house poor Miss Wilburn was so worn out
with grief and anxiety that she sat down on the big stump and laughed
and cried as hard as she could. Mother saw her from the window and she
and mammy ran down to where we were to see what it was all about. She
patted Miss Wilburn on the back and on the head and said, "poor dear,"
while mammy said she would run right back to the house and brew her
some strong tea, which was splendid when a body was distressed about a
man.
"There, dear, talk to us about him," mother said, after the whole
story was told, "tell us about him, for talking will do you good.
You've been unnaturally quiet about him since you've been here!"
"I was trying to find out whether or not I really loved him," Miss
Wilburn said, after Julius and Marcella had left us and we were going
on up the walk. "It was silly of me, for all the time I've been so
lonesome for him that I felt as if I should scream if anybody
suggested men or marrying to me!"
"Yes, you pore lamb," mammy said, walking on fast to make the tea,
"you loves him, you shore do. I knows them symptoms!"