"Don"t do it! Just put up that flimsy foolishness and come drive over to Milton with me. I think I"ll drop in on poor Sally Winn before supper and maybe she will get through the night without me. We can call for the mail, too, and beat R. F. D. to it."
The Rural Free Delivery is a great inst.i.tution in the country where persons cannot go for the mail, but sometimes it was a great irritation to us. Our mail was taken from the Post Office very early in the morning and did not reach us until quite late in the afternoon, the carrier circling all around the county before he landed at our box. "Come on, Sue, you can squeeze in and we can have a jolly drive."
We found Sally Winn up and very busy. As she had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from a yawning grave only two nights before, we were rather astonished.
"Comp"ny"s coming and I had to get up and put things to rights. I"ve stirred up a cake and set some Sally Lunn for supper, and while I was up I thought I had better preserve those peaches on the tree by the dairy before they got too ripe. They make the best tasting preserves of any peaches I ever saw. I am certainly going to fix a jar for you, Doctor.
Don"t let me forget it. I"ve got two of Aunt Keziah"s children, she is raising, here helping me, but they are not much good for anything but just to run to the spring and wring the frying size chickens" necks." In writing I am perforce compelled to use a few periods, but not so Sally.
She poured forth this flow of conversation with never a pause for breath or reply.
"The company that"s coming is Reginald Kent, son of my first cousin once removed. He is a great hand at eating and made so much fuss over my cooking that it seemed like an awful pity for me to lay up in bed when he was here, although it may be the death of me to be up and doing and no doubt will bring on one of my spells."
"If it does," broke in my wily parent, "take a teaspoonful of that pink medicine out of the low flat bottle and repeat in half an hour. Be sure you do not take more than a teaspoonful and be very careful to have half an hour between doses."
Father told us afterwards that there was nothing in the pink medicine in the flat bottle but a most harmless and attenuated mixture of bromide, but he warned her to take the exact dose and wait the full half hour to make her feel it was a potent medicine that she must handle with great care so she would think it would make her well. There was nothing much the matter with Sally Winn but imagination; but imagination is sometimes more powerful than the most potent drugs, and Sally was just as sick as she thought she was, so Father said. He was wonderfully patient with her and treated her ailments as seriously as though they really existed. She had a leaky heart but there was a chance of her outliving her whole generation. Of course there was also a chance of her being taken away at any time, but Father considered the chance quite small as she seemed to be growing better as time went on instead of worse.
"Reginald Kent is hoping that those Tuckers will be back here when he comes on this visit, though he doesn"t exactly say so. He just intimates it by asking if the Allisons have any visitors. He is a mighty likely young fellow and is getting on fine with his work. He really is coming down here on business in a way. He wants to get some ill.u.s.trations of some of these views around here. He says he wants Aunt Keziah"s cabin and some of the little darkeys, and he wants an inside view of old Aunt Rosana"s and Uncle Peter"s house."
Here Father stopped her long enough to say that he would go over to Milton for the mail and come back for Cousin Sue and me. We had not got in a word edgewise, but I never tried to when Sally once started. I should think that anyone who saw as few persons as she did would want to listen and find out things instead of imparting knowledge, but Sally just seemed to be full to overflowing and she simply had to let off steam before she could take on anything more. She wanted to know but she wanted more to let you know.
She told us all she could about Reginald Kent, which was on the whole rather interesting. Then she began on her turkeys and chickens and enlarged somewhat on the subject of Jo and his irritating way of keeping news to himself, and then with a bound she leapt upon her symptoms. I knew it was coming and bowed my head in resignation.
"It looks like if I get to studying about things that one of my spells is sure to follow. Now I have been thinking a lot lately about Reginald Kent"s mother, my first cousin once removed, and the more I think of her the more I get to brooding. If you would believe me, in the night I got to trembling so that I could have sworn there was an earthquake going through the county. My bed fairly rocked. I had to call Jo. He gave me a dose of my pink medicine and it ca"med me some. Each time I get one of those attacks I hope it means the end, but somehow I always come back."
"But, Sally, why do you hope it is the end?" I asked. "I don"t see why you want to die. It would be very hard on Jo if you should leave him."
"Why, child, dying is one of the things I have always wanted to do. I somehow feel that in the other life I"m going to be so happy. I dream I am dead sometimes and, do you know, I am always real pretty and have curly hair in that dream and lots of young folks around me who seem somehow to belong to me."
Poor Sally! I felt very sorry for her and so did Cousin Sue, whom I saw wiping a furtive tear away. I fancy Sally"s life had been a very stale, flat and unprofitable one and she had formed the habit of looking upon death as at least a change, an adventure where she would be the heroine for once. I determined to come to see her oftener and try to bring some young life into her middle-aged existence.
Father brought us quite a bunch of mail. In it was a letter from Dee telling the good news that they were going to motor down to Bracken on Friday, the very next day, and stay over Sunday with us.
"Now you will know them and they will know you," I exclaimed, hugging Cousin Sue. "I am going to bring them over to see you, too," I promised Sally, noting her wistful expression.
Silent Jo Winn, who had come back from the station with Father, grinned with delight when he heard that the Tuckers were coming. I remembered on our memorable deer hunt of the winter before how Dee had won his shy heart and had actually made him talk just like other folks.
"I tell you what let"s do," he ventured. "This young cousin of ours, Reginald Kent, is to be here to-night and he has to go over to Uncle Peter"s cabin to take some pictures. What"s the reason we couldn"t all go on a picnic? We might fish in the river near Uncle Peter"s, where Miss Dum Tucker shot her deer."
"Splendid!" from Cousin Sue and me. Cousin Sue was always in for a picnic.
Sally Winn gasped and clutched her heart until I thought we"d have to run for her pink medicine; but she pulled herself together. It was nothing but astonishment at the long speech from Jo. Jo actually stringing words together and getting up a picnic! It was too much for Sally, but she rose to the occasion with plans for a big lunch.
"I"ve a ham all cooked--and some blue Dominicker chickens that have just reached the frying size--I"ll make some fried pies--and some light rolls--some Columbus eggs would eat good--and my pear pickle can"t be beat, and a stem to every one so you can eat it without messing yourself up----"
"I have some news that is not quite so entrancing as yours, my dear,"
said Father, interrupting Sally"s flow of eatables as he read from a fat, crested, vellum letter. "Cousin Park Garnett will be with us to-morrow, also."
"But she said Monday next, in her last letter!"
"She has changed her mind. She arrives on the afternoon train and will bring her pug with her."
"Pug!"
"Yes, it seems the pug is the reason for her coming sooner. The doctor thinks he needs a change of air."
"Heavens! And Dee is bringing Brindle, too!"
"Well, they"ll have to fight it out."
"But, Father," I wailed, "can we go on and have the picnic?"
"Yes, my dear," broke in Cousin Sue. "I"ll stay with Cousin Park."
"Indeed you won"t!" declared Father. "Cousin Park can be invited to go to the picnic, which of course she will not do. She can just stay at home with Mammy Susan to wait on her and Miss Pinky Davis to listen to her, while the pug dog breathes in great chunks of change of air. I have some business to attend to over in the neck of the woods near Uncle Peter"s, so I can land at the ford for dinner with you."
Father was a great comfort to me. He always took such a sane view of subjects. I was very uneasy for fear he might think we would have to stay at home because of Cousin Park, as he was very strict with himself and me, too, where hospitality to disagreeable relatives was concerned.
Cousin Park, however, could be perfectly well taken care of at Bracken without us and there was no reason why we could not go on with our plans; certainly no reason why dear little Cousin Sue should have to forego the pleasure of the picnic to stay with a person who never lost an occasion to mention her Lee nose and her spinsterhood.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PICNIC.
The Tuckers arrived right on the dot with Cousin Park. I had hoped they would get in first, but Henry Ford had a blow out and they had to stop for repairs.
We always had to send for Cousin Park in a great old sea-going rockaway that was never pulled out of the carriage house except on state occasions. Father and I hated to ride in it as it always reminded us of funerals and Cousin Park. It was a low swung vehicle with high, broad mud guards and a peculiar swaying motion that was apt either to put you to sleep or make you very seasick, if you were inclined that way. It took two large strong plow horses to propel it. I don"t know where Father got it but I do know that he had always had it. I believe there are no more built like it but its counterpart may be seen in museums. I used to play dolls in it when I was a kid, and on rare hilarious occasions when I had a companion we would get up great games of Jesse James and d.i.c.k Turpin and other noted highwaymen who would stop the coach and rob all the dolls.
Cousin Park came riding up in state, her ugly, cross old pug placed between her and Cousin Sue, who had most generously offered to go to Milton to meet our august relative so I could be at home to receive the Tuckers. As the rockaway made its ponderous way down the drive, the plow horses foaming painfully after their twelve-mile pull, six to Milton and six back, I spied Henry Ford, in a swirling cloud of dust, turn into the avenue, and in a trice he was whizzing up behind the old sea-going rockaway. Pug wrinkled his fat neck and whimpered when he saw Brindle, who occupied the back seat with Dee; Cousin Park gave an audible snort.
Brindle paid no attention at all to Pug but sat like a bulldog done in bronze and for the time being even refrained from snuffling.
I dreaded the meeting between my dear friends, the Tuckers, and Cousin Park, knowing that lady"s overbearing manner when things did not go to suit her. But I really had not fathomed the depth of Zebedee"s mixing powers. I remembered what Dee had said about his being able to make crabs and ice cream agree if he set his mind to it.
All the Tuckers looked rather aghast as they drew up near the rockaway from which Cousin Park was emerging, Pug clasped in her arms. They composed their countenances quickly, however, at least Dee and Zebedee did; Dum was never able to pull her social self together quite so quickly as her father and sister. Zebedee shut off his engine and in a moment was a.s.sisting my dignified relative with her many traveling necessities: small pillows of various sizes and shapes, designed to ease different portions of one"s anatomy on trains and in carriages (she carried four of them); several silk bags bulging with mysterious contents; a black sunshade; her turkey-tail fan; Pug and a box of dog biscuit.
Zebedee got them all safely into the house, even taking Pug tenderly in his arms, much to the astonishment of that dull-witted canine. He a.s.sured Cousin Park that Brindle would not hurt Pug, provided Pug did not try to get too intimate with him and bore him.
"We can count on Brindle up to a certain point, but if he gets very bored he is apt to be cross," another human attribute my dear Tuckers gave their pet. Cousin Park rather bridled at the idea of her precious dog"s boring anything, but Zebedee"s manner was so deferential and his solicitude so apparent that mortal woman could not have withstood him.
Cousin Sue and the Tuckers took to one another from the beginning. I had thought they would, but sometimes the friends that you expect to like one another are the very ones that act "Dr. Fell" and develop a strange and unreasoning dislike.
The picnic was under discussion and was approved of unanimously. I thought Dum blushed a little when I announced that Mr. Reginald Kent was back in the county. She undoubtedly had a soft spot in her girl"s heart for the good looking young ill.u.s.trator who had been so enamoured of her the winter before.
One thing occurred to mar our pleasant antic.i.p.ations: Cousin Park, instead of declining the invitation to go on the picnic, which Father and I pressed upon her, expecting of course that she would refuse, accepted with alacrity, announcing that the piney air would be good for Pug. We told her the road was impossible for the rockaway and that she would have to go in a spring wagon; but that made no difference, go she would and go she did, four little cushions, bulging silk bags, purple and black knitting, Pug and package of dog biscuit, turkey-tail fan and all.
We made an early start to avoid the heat of the August day. Mammy Susan had packed a hamper with every conceivable good thing the countryside afforded, and the floor of the spring wagon was filled with watermelons, the pride of my dear father"s heart. Next to his library, Father loved his watermelon patch. My earliest remembrance is watermelon seed spread out on letter paper to dry, with a description of that particular melon written on the paper. Every good melon must have some seed saved from it for the purpose of reproducing the species. "Very rich in colour with black seeds and thin rind. Sweet and juicy," would be one; then another: "Small, round, dark green,--meat pale in colour but mealy and very delicious;" another: "Large, striped rattlesnake variety,--good if allowed to ripen, but great favourite with n.i.g.g.e.rs."