"Chaperoned! Oh, Zebedee, you make me laugh. What boarding-house keeper has time to chaperone? Besides, isn"t Page along to chaperone?"
"What do you think about it, Page? Come along now with that sage advice," teased Father.
"I have never boarded and don"t know how I"d like it, but it seems to me the best thing for us to do would be to board when we first get there, and then if we can"t stand it, take a little flat and keep house, or rather, flat."
"Ah, I see why your advice is so sought after by our worthy friends, the Tuckers; you are as wise as Solomon and cut the baby in two and satisfy all parties. You will go to boarding to suit Tucker and then get a flat to suit the daughters, eh, honey?"
"Fifty-fifty is a safe course to pursue, and safety first is best and wisest for an official umpire," I maintained.
"I must say that the oracle has spoken well," said Zebedee. "Of course, if they are not happy boarding they must not keep to it, but it is better for them to start that way. They can learn the ropes and decide later on to get a flat if it seems wiser. We can go on with them and establish them, eh, doctor?"
"I reckon so, if my patients behave. Now that old Mrs. Reed is dead, I can leave perhaps--Ellen Miller"s baby safely here, too!"
"Oh, Father, that will be simply grand, if you can only go!"
"I haven"t had a trip for a long, long time, and I think it is up to me to treat myself."
All of us thought so, too. It made it easier for me if Father was contemplating going with us for a little recreation. He worked so hard, had so little fun in his life. What fun there was he made for himself by treating life as something very amusing when all was told. His patience was only equalled by his sense of humor.
"Don"t give out that you are going on a trip, Father, and then all of your cranky patients won"t have time to trump up any illnesses. If Sally Winn hears of your intended departure, she will get up seven fits of heart failure and more fluterations and smotherines than enough to keep you at home."
"Poor Sally! I wish she could go on a trip herself. It would do more towards curing her than all the pink, pump water in the world."
Sally Winn was Father"s hypochondriacal patient who called him up at all hours of the day and night for an imaginary heart trouble that was supposed to be carrying her off. She did not feel safe with Father out of the county and never let him get away if she could help it.
"Why don"t you suggest it to her? She might come on and visit her cousin, Reginald Kent."
"Reginald Kent! By Jove, I forgot that fellow when I proposed New York as a good place for you girls to top off your very incomplete education," and Zebedee groaned.
"Well, what is the matter with Reginald Kent?" bridled Dum.
"Matter! Nothing"s the matter, that"s what"s the matter. See here, Dum Tucker, if you go to New York and fall in love with that good-looking, clever young man I"ll kill myself," declared the desperate Zebedee, always afraid that some man would come along and cut him out with his girls.
"Nonsense, Zebedeedlums! Reginald Kent will have to fall in love with me before I fall in love with him."
"Well, if that"s so, I"ll fix him! I"ll tell him what a bad proposition you are: mean, ungenerous, deceitful, secretive. I"ll put him on to you." As these were all the things Dum was not, we felt safe.
"Shan"t we let Mary Flannagan know our plans? She may want to join us there," suggested Dee.
"Of course we want dear old Mary," Dum and I cried together.
We all of us thought with regret of what a winter like the one we were planning to have would have meant to Annie Pore.
Mary was a great favorite with both Father and Mr. Tucker, so they readily consented to our writing to her, suggesting that she should join us in New York if her mother thought well of the plan.
"She can go on with her movie stunts, and take up dancing and gym work in real earnest under the right instructors," said Dee.
"I hope she won"t try to climb down any walls in New York," I laughed.
"We mustn"t get in a flat with ivy on the walls."
"Oh, so it is to be a flat, is it? I understood you were to board first," said Zebedee, pretending to be insulted.
"So we are, but of course we will end up in a flat, and I fancy Mary will stand in awe of the boarding-house keeper enough to keep her from scaling her walls."
Our whole evening was spent in talking over our plans for topping off our education in New York. Father and Zebedee were like two boys in the suggestions they made. They had perfect faith in us, knowing that we had sense enough to bring us safely through the experience. I have wondered since if our mothers had been alive if they would have consented to the plan, but, of course, if our mothers had been alive, our education would not have been quite so loose-jointed. Mothers are much more particular than fathers about their daughters" education.
To be sure, Mrs. Flannagan did consent to Mary"s going, but then she was rather a haphazard lady herself, looking upon life with a humorous twinkle in her Irish eye. She believed heartily in the doctrine of live and let live, and, forsooth, if Mary had mapped out for herself a career as a movie actress, why let her work it out! She, her mother, was certainly not going to block her game.
Mammy Susan was the one who kicked up about my going. For once she and Cousin Park Garnett were of the same mind. Cousin Park almost got out an injunction on Father to restrain him as one who was not in his right mind. A lunacy commission would have had him locked up in the State Asylum, according to that irate dame.
She never would have known about my going if she had not chosen to make a visitation at Bracken just when I was in the throes of getting ready to spend the winter in New York. Her own house was having some repairs, so she had made a convenience of our hospitality to escape the discomforts of paperhangers and painters. I was afraid at first that she would stay so long Father could not get away, but a lawsuit she was engaged in came to court and she was forced to cut her untimely visit short. I found out afterwards that the case, which was a trifling matter of back-yard fences, was put up first on the docket by some adroit wire-pulling done by no less a person than Mr. Jeffry Tucker, the ever ready. It was done so silently that Cousin Park never found it out.
She was forced to return to her dismantled house, much to the regret of the workmen who were revelling in the absence of an exacting housekeeper.
Mammy Susan, however, had her say out in regard to my going away from home: "I"s gonter speak my min" if"n it"s the las" ac" er my life. Gals ain"t called on ter be a-trapsin" all the time. Mammy"s baby ain"t never gonter be content at Bracken no mo". Always a-goin" an" never a-comin".
An" me"n Docallison so lonesome, too. I wisht you was twins--I "low I"d keep one er you at home."
"Which one, Mammy Susan?"
"T"other one!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: MAMMY SUSAN, HOWEVER, HAD HER SAY OUT IN REGARD TO MY GOING AWAY FROM HOME.
Page 282.]
CHAPTER XX
A LETTER FROM ANNIE PORE TO PAGE ALLISON
_Grantley Grange,_ _Grantley, England._
MY DEAREST PAGE:
It takes such an interminable time to get mail in these war times that I am afraid my letter will seem like last year"s almanac by the time it reaches you. I must begin at the beginning and tell you of our journey across the ocean, but before I plunge into the lengthy recital I must inform you that I am very happy in my new home. I could not be anything but happy when I realize how much better off poor Father is. Of course the family is in the deepest mourning because of the death of Uncle Isaac and my cousin Grant, and there is an air of sadness in the whole village of Grantley; but everybody is very kind to us and I am sure I shall soon grow to love my aunts, the Misses Grace and Muriel Pore. These ladies are older than my father but they are quite strong and robust and it is wonderful what they can accomplish in the way of work.
All the women of England are busy at one thing or another. Women, great ladies who have never done any form of work before, not even dressed their own hair, are washing dishes in hospitals or doing other menial tasks.
Uncle Isaac was a widower, so the aunts have had entire charge of the housekeeping at Grantley Grange for many years. I think they are very kind to me in not looking upon me as an interloper.
Aunt Grace tells me that their father, my grandfather, bitterly regretted his sternness towards my father and mother and was willing at any time to make amends, but my father would never answer his letters. Poor Father is so sensitive. That has always been his trouble. I live in constant terror now for fear someone will hurt his feelings and he will refuse to see people or make himself miserable. He is to make himself useful and serve his country by teaching the boys in a school at Grantley. All of the young teachers have gone to the front and the nation needs teachers for the boys and girls. I am so happy that Father is to serve his country, somehow, and this is, after all, a very n.o.ble service as it is for the future good of the British Empire.
I know you wonder what I am going to do. I was willing to nurse if my aunts thought it wise, but was relieved when they decided that I could be of more use doing other things that life has already trained me to do. I know I should fail at the crucial moment as a nurse. I am so timid and do not seem to be able to shake off this shyness. It has been decided that I shall go every day to sing to the soldiers in the neighboring hospitals. That sounds like very little to do but when I tell you that I spend on an average of seven hours a day going to the various hospitals, you will realize that while it is very little to do, it takes a great deal of time to do it.
So many of the old estates near here have been turned over to the Government for hospitals that one can motor from one to the other in a short time. The wounded soldiers are very kind to me and express themselves as liking very much to hear me sing. They like the American songs, especially the darky songs. I sang "Clar de Kitchen" to them yesterday and they made me give them three encores. I thought of the last time I sang it when we had the circus at Maxton, and I choked with emotion at the remembrance of all of my dear friends.
Life at Price"s Landing seems very far off and unreal, although there are times when this life seems to be the unreal thing and I expect any moment to awaken and find it all a dream. I remember in my little room over the store how low the ceiling was, so low over my bed where it sloped to the dormer window that I could lie there and touch it with my hand, and many a time have I b.u.mped my head when I sprang too hurriedly from my bed. I learned to put up my hand and gauge the distance before I got up, in that way saving my poor head many a b.u.mp. I find myself now, when morning comes and the sun peeps in the windows of my great bedroom, reaching up expecting to touch the low ceiling of my little room in Virginia. It gives me a strange sensation, almost as great a shock as when you take one more step up when you have reached the top of the stairs.