"I"ll buck up when I get home. Two weeks of feeding will fill out my belt again," I laughed.
I left the Tuckers at Richmond and went on that day to Milton where Father met me and drove me over to Bracken. My, it was good to be home!
Mammy Susan almost ate me up for joy, and the dogs actually threw me down in their efforts to get first lick.
"Why, honey, chile, you is sho thin and peaked lookin"," declared my dear old friend. "You ain"t no bigger"n a minute. What all them teacher"s been a doin" to you?"
"She is thin, Mammy Susan," broke in Father, "and I am going to put her on an iron tonic right away. She tells me she has no appet.i.te."
"Well, now, that"s too bad! I done made a mess er chicken gumbo fer dinner and some er them lil bits er thin biscuit. I done knocked up a blackberry roll, too, with hard sauce that is as soft and fluffy as a cloud in Spring. It"s too bad my baby ain"t got no applet.i.te."
It was too bad surely, but if I had had one I don"t know what I would have done, as without one I ate like a field hand.
"Looks lak she is able to worry down somethin"," said Mammy Susan with a sly twinkle in her eye as she brought in another plate of hot biscuit.
"Don"t forgit, honey chile, to save a little spot on you innards fer the blackberry roll. It sho do smell toothsome. I is moughty glad them twinses is comin" down fer Christmas an" they paw, too. Did Docallison tell you that Blanche is goin" to be here enduring of the holidays?"
Blanche was Mammy Susan"s relative who had cooked for the Tuckers during the memorable house-party at Willoughby.
The Tuckers were to come to Bracken on Christmas Eve. We were expecting Stephen White, also, and Mammy Susan said Blanche was to arrive on that day, too. I busied myself helping Mammy Susan prepare for the guests.
There was much to be done in the way of fresh curtains in the bed rooms, rubbing silver and furniture, and dusting books. Mammy Susan had plum pudding, fruit cake and pies to make, and I helped with all of them.
The kitchen at Bracken was a wonderful place. I believe I loved it more than any spot on earth. It was not under the same roof as the house but connected with it by a covered porch, enclosed in gla.s.s. This pa.s.sage way had been my nursery as a child. Mammy Susan always had it filled with flowers in winter, gay geraniums in old tomato cans, begonias, heliotrope, ferns and a citronella, that furnished slips for half the county. The more slips that were taken from it, the more vigorous it would become.
"That there limon verbeny "minds me of Docallison," said Mammy. "The mo"
it do give er itself, the mo" it do seem to have ter give. It looks lak as soon as yo" paw done finished wearing hisself out fer somebody, another pusson is a callin" on him; an" jes lak the limon verbeny, he branches out mo" the mo" he does."
"He is thinking of having some one to help him, Mammy Susan. Don"t you think it would be a good plan?"
"Well, "twill an" "twon"t! Ef"n he gits a man young enough ter take the bossin" that a helper"s boun" ter git, he"ll be too young ter suit the dead an" dyin". Whin folks is sick they don"t want no chilluns a feelin" of they pulps."
"But he has in mind a young man who might take the bossing and make a good impression on the patients, too. He is coming on Christmas Eve for a visit and you must tell me what you think of him."
"Is he yo" beau, honey?"
"Why, Mammy Susan, how absurd!"
""Tain"t so terruble absurd. Beaux is lak measles an" mumps. If you don"t have "em young, you mought go through life "thout ever havin" "em, but you is always kinder spectin" tew catch "em. Ef you take "em young, you don"t take "em quite so hard."
Mammy Susan"s philosophy always delighted me and I encouraged her to go on. I was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen where I could smell the heliotrope and citronella while I chopped apples and meat for the mince pies. Mammy was seeding raisins. She never would let the seeded raisins come in the house, scorning them as some kind of new-fangled invention that would ruin her pies and puddings.
"Them unseedless raisins make lazy folks pies "thout no virtue or suption in "em."
The kitchen was a low ceilinged room about twenty feet square. A range and great wood box occupied one side, with a copper sink and a pump.
There was no plumbing in Bracken and this primitive pump connected with the well was all we could boast in the way of conveniences. In the broad window sills were more tomato cans of geraniums and various slips that Mammy was starting for neighbours. Skillets and pots and pans of various sizes were inverted on the many shelves, which were covered with newspapers with fancy scalloped borders and beautiful open-work patterns that it had always been my duty and pleasure as a child to cut out for Mammy Susan. Festooned from the rafters were long strings of bright red peppers, dried okra, onions and bunches of thyme and bay. Pots of parsley and chives occupied one of the sunny windows. Mammy Susan held that: "Seasonin" is the maindest thing in cookin", that an" "lowin"
victuals to simper and not bile too hard."
"Mammy, is this going to be enough mince meat?"
"Sho, chile! That"s the quant.i.ty fer six full pies, none of yo" skimpy kin" wif the top pastry sticking to the bottom, lookin" lak some folks what don"t boast no insides ter speak of,--but the full fleshed kind--them"s what I call pies. I"m goin" ter make that there Blanche stir up a Lady Balmoral cake soon"s she gits here. The Twinses and they paw kin git on the ou"side of a pa.s.sel er victuals, and the saftest thing is ter have a plenty of them cooked up fer "mergencies. Kin this new beau, Mr. White, eat as much as Mr. Tucker?"
"Why, I don"t know. I never noticed."
"Well, then you ain"t considerin" of him very serious lak. Whin a gal is studyin" "bout a man, the very fust thing she takes notice on is his applet.i.te. She"ll know that whin she ain"t quite sho what colour his eyes is, an" she"ll want ter dish up his fav"rite victuals ev"y chanct she gits."
I laughed and went on chopping apples. How peaceful and happy everything was at Bracken! The wind was blowing up cold and it looked like snow but the kitchen was warm, so warm that it easily spared heat for the gla.s.s porch and all the growing plants. The delicious smell of Mammy"s fruit cake, baking in the range, mingled with the citronella and the wine sap apples I was chopping. Mammy reached up and broke off a pod of red pepper to drop in the bean soup that was bubbling in a great iron pot.
"Put a little bay in, too, Mammy, I love it." Instead of needing iron tonic as Father had thought, I really needed a restraining hand. I felt as though I could never get enough to eat. Bean soup, so despised at Gresham, was being made at my request,--but then, there is bean soup and bean soup. "Please, Mammy Susan, have batter bread at least twice a day while Mr. Tucker is here. He is just crazy about it."
"All right, honey chile!" I wondered what made Mammy Susan look at me so long and searchingly.
"Is there anything more I can do for you, Mammy?"
"No, chile, the cookery is about "complished. All I"ve got ter do now is straighten up my shelbs with clean papers."
"Oh, please let me cut the papers!"
""Deed you kin!" exclaimed the old woman delightedly. "I was afeerd you done got so growd-up with beaux an" things that you done los" yo" tase fer makin" pretty patterns fer the shelbs."
So she got out some big shears and a pile of newspapers and I outdid myself in wonderful lacy patterns and scallops that made the old kitchen beautiful for Christmas.
CHAPTER XV.
CHRISTMAS GUESTS.
It began to snow before dawn on Christmas Eve and kept it up steadily all morning. It was a fine dry snow that gave promise of good sleighing, and Father and I were delighted. He loved snow like a boy, provided it was the kind of snow that meant good sleighing. The colt was. .h.i.tched to a little red cutter and they whizzed off to the sick folks with such a merry ringing of the bells that just the sound of them must have made the sufferers feel better.
The Tuckers were to arrive on the three train, also Stephen White and perhaps Blanche. The roads were in a bad fix between Milton and Richmond and we feared to trust Henry Ford, so our friends were forced to travel by rail. The big wood sled was put into commission, with an old wagon bed screwed on top of it, and when this was filled with hay, I am sure no limousine in the world could offer more luxurious transportation.
It had stopped snowing and the sun was trying to shine when I clambered into my equipage with Peg and one of the younger plow horses. .h.i.tched to it. I stood up to drive, knee-deep in hay. Peg and the plow horse acted like two-year-olds and did the six miles to Milton almost as easily as Father and the colt. When the train came puffing up, they actually had the impertinence to shy and prance, much to the delight of our guests who came tumbling out of the last coach so laden with bundles that you could not tell which was which.
Such excitement on the little station of Milton, usually so quiet and sedate! First came Dee carrying Brindle, wrapped in a plaid shawl, looking, as Zebedee said, like an emigrant baby, then Zebedee and Wink, with suit cases and great boxes and paper parcels; then Dum with more valises and more boxes and parcels.
I was astonished to see Mr. Reginald Kent bringing up the rear. He, too, was almost completely concealed with baggage and bundles, but I could see his smiling, ruddy countenance above his load.
"Why, Mr. Kent, I saw Jo yesterday and he did not tell me you were coming!" I exclaimed as he dropped some of his packages so he could shake my hand.
"I did not let him know. I find when Cousin Sally expects me she makes herself sick cooking for me, so I thought I would surprise them."
I certainly liked his spirit of unselfishness. Not many young men would have thought of sparing a middle-aged, complaining cousin whose one attraction was her cooking. Just then Jo Winn came gliding up in his little cutter, ostensibly for the mail but in reality to catch a glimpse of Dee who was the one female I have ever seen the shy man at his ease with. Of course he was at his ease with me, having known me since I was a baby, but I somehow never think of myself as a female to make the males tremble.
Our hilarious greetings were under way and the train had begun to move when an agonizing screech came from the coloured coach, the one nearest the engine. There was a great ringing of the bell and then there emerged the portly form of "poor dear Blanche," as Zebedee always called the girl who had cooked for us at Willoughby the summer before,--not to her face, of course.
Her great black-plumed hat was all awry, and from the huge basket, that she always carried in lieu of a valise, there dragged long green stockings and some much belaced lingerie. She was greatly excited, having come within an ace of pa.s.sing the station.
"I was in the embrace of Morphine, as it were, Miss Page, and had no recognizance of having derived at our predestination, whin I was sudden like brought to my sensibleness by hearing the dulsom tones of Miss Dum a greeting you. I jumped up and called loud and long for the inductor to come to my resistance. The train had begun to prognosticate! I was in respiration whin a dark complected gentleman in the seat opposing mine, very kindly impeded the bell by reducing the rope."