CHAPTER XVIII
OVER THE DARNING BASKET
On that fine summer afternoon, neither too hot nor too cold but justright, when Caroline sewed her silken seam and dreamed of foreign lands,Jacqueline sat in the shabby hammock in the Conways' scuffed-upside-yard, and darned stockings.
"I know now," murmured Jacqueline, "why the worst thing you can say ofanything is 'darn it!'"
There were not a great many stockings, for the little Conways, andJacqueline, too, went barelegged as much as possible, but every stockinghad at least one hole, and often the holes came in places that had beendarned before. Then you must be most particularly careful not to do thedull work hurriedly and leave rough places that would blister tenderheels and little toes.
"There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything," said GrandmaConway, as she pulled out the threads that Jacqueline in her haste haddrawn all puckery. "It's as easy to do it right as wrong."
Jacqueline pouted a little as she took back the ugly brown stocking,with her work all undone, but none the less she wove her needlecarefully in and out of the frayed threads, as Grandma expected her todo. For Jacqueline, you see, liked Grandma, as she had never liked theteachers or the governesses that she had always managed to "get round."You couldn't "get round" Grandma, any more than you could "get round" abas-relief. And if she made you do your work just so, she treated theboys in the same fashion. There was no partiality at the Conway farm.
So Jacqueline darned stockings on that sunny afternoon, and Grandma, inthe worn rocker that Jacqueline had dragged out for her, patchedgarments already so often patched that you had to hunt to find theoriginal fabric. Great wafts of warm, odorous air came from the acres ofonions. The bees were murmurous about their squat, white hives. Awoodpecker tapped in the tree above Jacqueline's head. Then with a greatclatter an ancient Ford came bounding along the dirt road and vanishedultimately in a cloud of silvery dust.
"My land," chuckled Grandma, and her old eyes twinkled behind hersteel-bowed spectacles. "Wouldn't our great-grandfathers have had aconniption fit, if they'd seen a thing like that go rattlety-bangingthrough the Meadows? They'd have jailed somebody for witchcraft, sureenough. 'Carriages without horses', same as old Mother Shiptonprophesied."
"Weren't they cruel and stupid in those old times?" said Jacqueline,with her mind still full of the slaughterous doings and inhumanpunishments of "The Prince and the Pauper." "Think of anybody beingsilly enough to think some poor old woman was a witch!"
"Well, perhaps we wouldn't have done much better, if we'd been livingthen," said Grandma tolerantly. "You've got to judge folks according totheir circumstances. Now take those old, ancient folks, living here onthe edge of what was then a howling wilderness, and not knowing whatmight pop out on 'em any minute--a catamount, maybe, or like as not apainted Indian, with a scalping knife. You can't blame 'em if theirnerves got kind of raw, and they began to see things that weren't thereand believe things that weren't so, and then raise the cry of 'Witch!'and go persecuting some poor neighbor."
"Were there really ever any Indians here in Longmeadow?" askedJacqueline, round-eyed. That there should have been Indians in the wildCalifornia canyons and in the somber deserts she could easily believe,but this New England village, with its orderly meadows and itswell-trained elms, seemed the last place where gruesome tragedy couldever have been staged.
"Well, I guess there was a few, off and on," said Grandma placidly."Didn't your Pa, and he a Longmeadow boy, ever tell you 'bout old AuntHetty Tait, that was your ever so many times great-grandmother?"
With conviction Jacqueline shook her head. How should she ever haveheard of Caroline's ancestresses?
"Well, now!" said Grandma pityingly, and wiped her spectacles.
"Tell me, please--please!" cried Jacqueline, bouncing up and down in theaged hammock.
"Land sakes, child, it's lucky that hammock is strung up good andstrong, or you'd come down ker-flummocks! Just you go on with yourdarning, whilst I tell you what there is to tell. 'Taint much. HettyTait wasn't aunt to anybody then, nor was she old. She was a young,blooming girl from down river, born in Allingham, that Nathan Taitfetched here a bride, when first this settlement was made. Their farmwas up to the north end of town, and the woods ran right down into theirpasture land. One day Hetty was making soft soap at the big fireplace inthe kitchen, with her two babies asleep in the cradle right at hand."
"Grandma! Don't say anything happened to the babies!" cried Jacqueline,with a swift thought of Annie's golden head.
Sphinx-like, Grandma went on:
"It was a balmy day in spring, and the door stood wide open. Nathan Taithad gone into town. Hetty was alone on the place. All at once, thoughshe hadn't heard a sound, she sensed she wasn't alone. She whirled roundquick as scat, and lo and behold you! there was a great big six-footsavage, with a scalp tied to his belt and a knife in his hand, juststepping cat-footed into her kitchen, and his eyes on her babies."
"Go on, Grandma! Go on, or I'll scream!"
"That's just what Hetty didn't waste time a-doing, Jackie. Quicker 'nyou can say Jack Robinson, she scooped up the scalding hot soap in thegreat huge ladle she had in her hand, and let drive fair and square atthe Indian's face. He didn't linger after that. He took out at the door,and Hetty bestowed another ladleful upon his naked back, to speed hisfootsteps. Then she double barred the door and took down her husband'sfowling piece and kept watch till her husband's return, not knowing, ofcourse, whether he would return, or whether he'd be ambushed on the roadfrom town, as many a man was in those old days. You can't blame thosefolks, Jackie, if they were sort of hard. Life wasn't what you mightcall soft with them."
"I'll play that game to-morrow," Jacqueline announced with snappingeyes. "I'll be Hetty, and Freddie and Annie can be the babies, and Neilshall be the Injun--only of course I'll throw cold water on him, not hotsoap. It won't hurt him really, Grandma."
"I'll trust Neil to take care of himself," chuckled Grandma.
The peace of the hot afternoon, murmurous with bees, descended againupon the side-yard. Jacqueline's eyes were thoughtful.
"And did that all happen really right here in Longmeadow?"
"Just as sure as you're a-sitting in that hammock, Jackie."
"Tell me some more about those old times--ah, please do!"
"Not now, Jackie. Sun's getting low and I must mix up a batch ofJohnny-cake for supper."
With a sigh Grandma began to fold away the little overalls that she hadnot yet finished patching.
"Let me make the Johnny-cake," Jacqueline offered suddenly. "I did itday before yesterday, and you telling me what to do. Let me try italone! Please!"
Grandma considered for a second.
"The receipt is all written out in the brown book back of the clock,"she said. "Mind you flour the pan after you've greased it, and don't betoo lavish with the sugar."
"I will--I won't," Jacqueline made two promises almost in one breath.
In her worn sneakers (Caroline's sneakers!) she flashed away into thebig, tidy kitchen. Corn-meal in the big tin, eggs and butter from thecool cellar. Milk in the blue and white pitcher. Sugar in the browncrock. She was going to cook! At school, in cooking class, in a neatruffled apron, with aluminum and white-enamel bowls, and spoons ofapproved pattern, she had made apricot-whip and fudge. But now in theConway kitchen, with a yellow mixing bowl and an iron spoon, she reallymade something that her family would like to eat, and she sang joyouslyas she measured and stirred.
She had two big pans of Johnny-cake in the oven that she had craftilyheated, and she wasn't looking at them more than twice every fiveminutes, when the family began to gather. First came Nellie, leadingFreddie, and asking if supper wasn't most ready, and Jacqueline, quiteas if she ran the house, so important she now felt, told Nellie to washher hands and Freddie's, too, before she thought of supper. Then cameGrandma, to take up Annie and freshen her against mealtime, and then thefamily Ford came gallantly in
to the yard, and here were Aunt Martha andNeil, back from Baring Junction, with three sacks of grain.
"Oh, Aunt Martha!" Jacqueline bounded to meet her. "Supper's ready, andI made the Johnny-cake all alone, and fixed the oven by myself."
And do you know, Caroline with her party in prospect, felt no happierthan Jacqueline felt, when tired, dusty Aunt Martha (who wasn't heraunt!) smiled at her and said:
"Well, of all things! You got the supper yourself? You spelled Grandma?I guess my bones were all right, Jackie, when they said you were thesort that would be a real little helper in the house."
The Turned-About Girls Page 19