The Annals of Ann

by Kate Trimble Sharber

  CHAPTER XI

  "Come on in, the egg-nog's fine," Rufe called out to us as we came upthe walk to the side gate this morning, a beautiful Christmas morning,after a long tramp down through the wood lot and up the ravine.

  "Come on out, the ozone's finer," Cousin Eunice sang back at him; thenstopped still, leaned against the gate-post and looked up at themistletoe hanging in the trees all about.

  "You can get ozone three hundred and sixty-five days in the year,egg-nog but one!" he hollered again, but I saw him set his glass downand start to swing Waterloo up on his shoulder. No matter how longthey have been married you can always find Rufe wanting to be whereCousin Eunice is, and vice versa.

  Long ago anybody reading in my diary would have seen that mother isthe kind of woman who loves to mother anything that needs it, from alittle chicken with the gapes to a college professor out in a stormwithout his rubbers; and the latest notion she has taken up is to seethat Miss Martha Claxton, one of the teachers in a girls' school thathas been opened up near here, shall not get homesick during theweek-ends. We all like her, Mammy Lou even saving the top of thechurning every Friday to make cottage cheese for her; and CousinEunice said she knew she was a kindred spirit as soon as she said shecould eat a bottle of olives at one sitting and _loved_ Baby Stuart'spicture. So we invited her to go walking with us this morning andCousin Eunice told her all about her courting in the ravine.

  _I_ also knew about her _peculiarity_, which Cousin Eunice didn't; butI didn't like to mention it, for Miss Claxton had smashed hereye-glasses all to pieces yesterday and was wearing an embroideredwaist and a string of coral, so instead of looking intellectual, asshe usually does, she looked just like other girls. But the men of ourfamily all laugh at her behind her back and call her "The Knocker,"because she carries a hammer with her on all her rambles instead of apoetry book, and knocks the very jiblets out of little rocks to see ifthey've got any fossils on their insides. In other words, she is ageologist. A person ought not to blame her though until she has hadtime to explain to them that her father was professor of it and had achair in a college when she was born. So he taught her all about rockysubjects when she was little, and she's crazy about it. Still, I wouldrather be with a person that is crazy about geology than one thatisn't crazy at all. I hate _medium_ people. But, as I have said, weare all very fond of her, although she has never done anything sinceI've known her that would be worth writing about in this book, nothaving any lover; so it has been lying on the shelf all covered withdust ever since Jean left. Sometimes I think I'll never find anotherJean!

  To get back to my subject, though, this morning _was_ lovely--coolenough to keep your hair in curl (if you were a grown lady) and warmenough to make your cheeks pink. Cousin Eunice said she _couldn't_ goback into the house while the sunshine was so golden, so we leaned ourelbows on the fence and Miss Claxton examined a handful of pebbles shehad picked up on our walk. Pretty soon Rufe came out with Waterloo onhis shoulder and in his hands a horse that can walk on wheels and amule that can wag his head, ears, legs and tail and say, "queek,queek," all at the same time.

  "Oh, Rufe, isn't it lovely?" Cousin Eunice said, looking away towardthe hills and sighing that half-sad sigh that rises in you when yousee something beautiful and can't eat it nor drink it nor _squeeze_it.

  "Isn't what lovely, your complexion?" he answered, just to tease her,for Rufe loves the outdoors as much as any of us, and if Waterlootakes after his mother and father both, he will never sleep inanything more civilized than a wigwam.

  "Don't joke," she said. "It's too beautiful--and too fleeting! Justthink, in another week we'll be back, dwelling with the rest of thefools amid the tall buildings!"

  "It is everything you say," he answered soberly, looking in thedirection she pointed, and he seemed to have that happy, hurtingfeeling that comes to you when you look at Lord Byron's picture, orsmell lilies-of-the-valley.

  "Don't you feel light on a morning like this?" Cousin Eunice saidagain, still looking at the hills. "Couldn't you do anything?"

  "Anything!" he echoed. "Even push my paper to the hundred thousandmark--or carry a message to Garcia."

  "Especially the message to Garcia! Now _couldn't_ you?" she said witha bright smile. "I could do that myself, without even mussing up mywhite linen blouse!"

  Miss Claxton looked up at them with a puzzled look, and Rufe andCousin Eunice unhitched hands.

  "Miss Claxton," Rufe began with a half-teasing twinkle in his eyes (Ihad heard father telling him a while ago about Miss Claxton being aknocker), "this little affair about the message to Garcia happened abit this side of the Eocene age, so maybe you haven't bothered yourhead about it. I might explain that----"

  "Nobody asked you to, sir," she said, with such a rainbow of a smileat him that I was surprised. If she could smile like that at a marriedman what would she do at a single one? "I know a lot more things thanI look to--with my glasses on! That carrying the message to Garcia wasa brave thing to do, even aside from the risks. It is heroic to do thething at hand. I'm trying to learn that lesson myself. I'm being aschoolmarm and wearing glasses to look like one, instead of followingmy natural bent in the scientific field," she wound up, still smiling.

  "What's your ambition?" Cousin Eunice said, looking at herwonderingly.

  "Knowing what's to be known about Primitive Man," Miss Claxtonanswered. "He's the only man I ever cared a copper cent about!"

  "Mine's writing a book that will make me famous overnight, I don'twant to wait to awake some morning and find myself so," Cousin Eunicesaid, stooping over to set Waterloo's horse up on his wheels, for hewould come unfixed every time Waterloo would yank him over a gravel;and all the time we were talking he kept up a chorus of "Fick horte!Fick horte!"

  Rufe said his ambition was never to see an editor's paste-pot again,and he was turning to me to ask what mine is when the conversation wasinterrupted. I was glad that it was, for I should hate to tell themjust what mine is. Somehow it is mostly about Sir Reginald deBeverley, and I'm old enough now to know that he may not be an Englishlord after all and dress in a coat of mail. He may be just a plainyoung doctor or lawyer, and we'll have to live in a cottage (onlyexcuse me from a flat, I wouldn't live in a flat with Lord Byron) andmaybe we'll just have chicken on Sunday. But as long as he has browneyes and broad shoulders and lovely teeth I shall manage to do withcrackers and peanut butter through the week. A woman will do_anything_ for the man she loves.

  But I didn't have to tell them all this, for just then we heard thegate click and saw our friend, Mr. Gayle, coming up the walk.

  "There comes old Zephyr," Rufe said with a laugh. "It was the biggestlie on earth to name him Gayle. Even Breeze would have been anexaggeration."

  "He's awfully smart," I told Rufe, for I hate to have my friendslaughed at. "I know you and Julius joke about him on account of hisgentle ways and broad-brimmed hats! Father says it's better to havesomething _under_ your hat than to have so much style in its looks!"

  "Well, he has something under his hat," Cousin Eunice said, "and hatenough to cover twice as much. But I think those old-timey things arebecoming to him!"

  "What is the subject about which he knows so much?" Miss Claxtonasked, following him with her eyes until Dilsey let him in at thefront door.

  "Heaven," Rufe answered her, "and hell. He writes deep psychologicalstuff for the magazines and they pay him ten cents a word for it. Hemust spend his dimes building model tenements, for he certainlydoesn't buy new hats with them."

  "What does he say about Heaven and the other place?" Miss Claxtonasked, much to our surprise, for we had thought she didn't care aboutanything but earth.

  "He says they're both in your own heart. The Heaven side comes upwhen you've done a decent job at your work--and loved your office boyas your own nephew!"

  "And----" Miss Claxton kept on.

  "And the hell part comes into the limelight when you've done anythingmean, such as----"

  "Spanking your Waterloo when the telephone bell make
s younervous--_not_ when he's bad," Cousin Eunice said, gathering Waterlooup in her arms and loving him. "Him's a precious angel, and mudder's anasty lady to him lots of times."

  "Aunt Mary is sending him out here to find us," Rufe said, as we sawMr. Gayle coming out of the dining-room door. "I hope she's filled himso full of egg-nog that we can have some fun out of him!"

  He had on a Sunday-looking suit of black clothes and a soft black tiein honor of the day, and was really nice-looking as he came up towardus. And Miss Claxton threw away the last one of her pebbles, no matterwhat they had on their insides, and commenced wiping her handsvigorously with her handkerchief.

  "Thank goodness!" I thought as I watched her. "I shall go straightup-stairs and wipe the dust off my diary with my petticoat!"

  I reckon Rufe and Cousin Eunice both thought that Mr. Gayle and MissClaxton had met before, for they didn't offer to introduce them, but Iknew they hadn't, so I was the one that had to do it. I had forgottenhow _The Ladies' Own Journal_ said it ought to be done, and I waskinder scared anyway; and when I get scared I always make an idiot ofmyself. So I just grabbed her right hand and his right hand and putthem together and said, "Mr. Gayle, do shake hands with Miss Claxton!"

  Well, they shook hands, but the others all laughed at me. CousinEunice said she was sorry she didn't know they hadn't met before, orshe would have introduced them. But Mr. Gayle smiled at me to keep mefrom feeling bad.

  "Never mind," he said, "I'm sure Ann's introduction is as good asanybody's. What she lacks in form she more than makes up for insincerity."

  I thought it was nice of him to say that, but I was so embarrassedthat I got away from them as soon as I could. I went out to thekitchen to see if Mammy Lou was ready to stuff the turkey. Lares andPenates were on the floor playing with two little automobiles thatJulius had brought them. Mammy Lou was fixing to cut up the liver inthe gravy.

  "Please don't," I began to beg her, "I'll go halves with Lares andPenates if you'll give it to me!"

  "You don't deserve nothin'," she said, trying to look at me and notlaugh. "I seen you out thar by the side gate, aggin' 'em on! Reckonyou're in your glory, now that you've got a pair of 'em to spy on andwrite it all out in that pesky little book!"

  "Oh, they ain't a pair!" I told her, slicing up the liver into threeequal halves.

  "They soon will be if they listen to you!"

  "Never in this world! She says she never has cared for anybody but aperson she calls 'Primitive Man!'"

  "Dar now! I bet he fooled her!" she said with great pleasure, for nextto a funeral she likes a fooling, and she is always excited when sheforgets and says "Dar now." "If he has," she kept on, "she'd better dothe nex' best thing and marry Mr. Gayle. He's got as good raisin' asary man I ever seen, although he's a little pore. But they's _some_things I don't like about fat husban's--they can't scratch they ownback!"

  I was glad to keep her mind on marrying, for I thought I'd get achance at the gizzard too, but she watched it like she watches hertrunk-key when her son-in-law's around. I told her to go to the windowand see what they were doing now, and she did it, poor old soul! Whenshe came back the gizzard was gone, but she was so tickled that shedidn't notice it.

  "They've done paired off and gone down by the big tree to knockmistletoe out'n the top," she told me, her face shining with greaseand happiness. "I knowed 'twould be a match! Needn't nuvver tell nonigger of my experience that folks is too smart to fall in love!Ever'body's got a little _grain_ o' sense, no matter how deep it'scovered with book-learnin'."

  "Oh, they don't have to be smart at all," I told her, talking veryfast to divert her mind from the gravy. "Father says if the back of agirl's neck is pretty she can get married if she hasn't sense enoughto count the coppers in the contribution box."

  "An' he tol' the truth," she said, stopping still with her hands onher hips like she was fixing for a long sermon. "An' furthermore, ifshe's rich she don't need to have neither. But marryin' for riches islike puttin' up preserves--it looks to be a heap bigger pilebeforehan' than afterwards. An' many a man marries a rich girlexpectin' a automobile when he don't git nothin' but a baby buggy!"

  Mr. Gayle has been coming over so early every morning since that firstmorning that he met Miss Claxton, and staying so late that I haven'thad much time to write. I've been too busy watching. I've often heardDoctor Gordon say that diseases have a "period of incubation," but Ibelieve that love is one disease that doesn't incubate. It just comes,like light does when you switch on the electricity. This morning Mr.Gayle came so early that Rufe went into the sitting-room and began topoke fun at him, as usual.

  "Hello, old man," he said, shaking hands with him. "I'm surely glad tosee that it's _you_. Thought of course when the door-bell rang so soonafter breakfast that it was an enlarged picture agent!"

  "No, I'm far from being an enlarged anything," the poor man said,wiping off the perspiration from his forehead, for he must havewalked very fast. "In fact, I'm feeling rather 'ensmalled,' as ourfriend, Ann, might say. I have never before so realized my utterunworthiness!"

  "Bosh," Rufe said, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly way."Why, man, you're on to your job as well as anybody I ever saw. Why,your last article in _The Journal for the Cognoscenti_ made me give upevery idea of the old-fashioned Heaven I'd hoped for--a place where agas bill is never presented, and alarm clocks and society editorsenter not!"

  "Mr. Clayborne would have been worth his weight in platinum as courtjester to some melancholy monarch in the middle ages," Miss Claxtonsaid, looking up from her crochet work which mother is teaching herand Cousin Eunice to do, because it has come back into style, to smileat Mr. Gayle.

  "I'm not what Ann calls 'smart'!" he said in answer to her, "but Iremember enough history to know that the other name for jester isfool. I shan't stay where people call me such names!" So he got up andwent out, which gave Cousin Eunice and Waterloo and me an excuse to gotoo. So we left the lovers alone.

  "Well, he's what I call a damn fool," Rufe said in a whisper as soonas the door was closed so they couldn't hear. "Coming over here everyfew minutes in the day, 'totin' a long face,' as mammy says, andhasn't got the nerve to say boo to a goose!"

  "Saying boo to a goose wouldn't help his suit any," Cousin Eunicesaid; "besides, well-regulated young people don't get engaged in threedays!"

  "What ill-regulated young people you and I must have been!" Rufe said,then dodged Waterloo's ball which she threw at him, saying what a_story_! It was nearly two weeks before they got engaged.

  "I advocate getting engaged in two hours when people are as much inlove as those two we've just left. Gayle hasn't red blood enough inhim to stain a _chigoe's undershirt_!"

  Hasn't anything happened worth writing about until to-day, but it hasbeen happening so thick ever since morning that my backbone is fairlyaching with thrills. And I'm _tired_! Oh, mercy! But I'm going to stayawake to-night until I get it all written out even if I have to sousemy head in cold water, or rouse up Waterloo.

  Right after breakfast this morning Mr. Gayle happened to see CousinEunice go into the parlor by herself to crochet some extra hardstitches, and so he went in after her and said he would like to have alittle talk with her if she didn't mind. Dilsey had left the window upwhen she finished dusting, which I was very glad to see, for I was inmy old place on the porch. He told her he supposed he was theconfoundedest ass on earth, but she said oh no, she was sure he wasn'tso bad as that! Then he plunged right into the subject and said hewas madly in love and didn't know how to tell it. Would she pleasehelp him out?

  "Oh, don't mind that," she answered kindly. "All earnest lovers areawkward. The Byronic ones are liars!"

  He said he knew she would understand and help him with her valuedadvice!---- But, just _what_ was he to say? And _when_ was he to sayit?

  She told him she thought it would be a psychological moment to-night,the last night of the year, and they would all be going theirdifferent ways on the morrow. It would be very romantic to proposethen, say o
n the stroke of twelve, or just whenever he could gethimself keyed up to it. He said oh, she was the kindest woman in theworld. She had taken such a load off his heart! He thought it would bea fine idea to propose just on the stroke of midnight--somehow heimagined the clock striking would give him courage! Oh, he felt somuch better for having told somebody!

  I felt that it would be a weight off my heart if I could tell somebodytoo, and just then I spied Rufe holding Waterloo up to see the turkeysdown by the big chicken coop. I didn't waste a second.

  "Oh, Rufe, you'll be surprised!" I said, all out of breath, and heturned around and looked thrilled. "Mr. Gayle is _red-bloodier_ thanyou think!" Then I told him all about it. "Now aren't you sorry youcalled him a d---- fool?" I wasn't really minding about the cuss word,for Rufe isn't the kind of a man that says things when he's mad. He'sas apt to say 'damn' when he's eating ice-cream as at any other time.

  Rufe was delighted to hear that it was going to happen while they werestill here to see it; and we went right back to the house and plannedto sit up with Cousin Eunice and see them after they came out of theparlor on the glad New Year. Julius and Marcella were coming over tosit up with us anyhow to watch it in, so it wouldn't be hard to do.

  Well, mother put enough fruit cake and what goes with it out on thedining-table to keep us busy as long as we could eat, but along towardten o'clock we got _so_ sleepy (being just married people and me) thatJulius said let's run the clock up two hours. Marcella said no, thatwould cause too much striking at the same time, but she said if_something_ didn't happen to hurry them up and put us out of ourmisery we would all be under the table in another five minutes. Wewere all so sleepy that everything we said sounded silly, so when abright idea struck me it took some time to get it into their heads.

  "Rufe's typewriter!" I said, jumping up and down in my joy, so itwaked them up some just to look at me. "The bell on it can go exactlylike a clock if you slide the top thing backwards and forwards rightfast. I've done it a million times to amuse Waterloo!"

  They said they knew I'd make a mess of it if I tried such a thing, butI told them if they took that view of what a person could do theynever would be encouraged to try to do things. I knew I _could_ do it!Marcella said then for Rufe to place the typewriter close up to theparlor door, and they would all go out on the front porch to keep thelovers from hearing them laugh. So out they all filed.

  Well, it was an exciting moment of my life when I was sliding thatthing backwards and forwards and thinking all sorts of heroicthoughts, but I gritted my teeth and didn't look up until I had gotthe twelve strokes struck. Then I went out on the front porch righteasy and sat down by the others. Julius tucked his big coat around meand we all sat there a little while, laughing and shivering andshaking until I felt that I'd never had such a good time in my life!Then somebody whispered let's go in--and _then_ the unexpectedhappened.

  We heard a sound in the parlor close back of us and the _first_ thingwe knew there was Mr. Gayle raising the window that opens on to theporch, and he and Miss Claxton came over and looked out into thenight. They couldn't see us if we sat still, close up against thewall; and it seemed that none of us could budge to save our lives!

  It was a lovely moonlight night, clear and cold, that always remindsme of the night Washington Irving reached Bracebridge Hall (I justlove it), and so he put his arm around her, Mr. Gayle I mean, notWashington Irving, and his voice was so clear and firm and happy thatwe all knew he had been accepted.

  "Bid good morrow to the New Year, my love," he said and kissed her onthe lips a long, _long_ time. "There has been created for me thisnight not only a new year, but a new _Heaven_ and----"

  "And a new _earth_," she finished up softly, and they closed thewindow down.

  "I hope she won't take her little hammer and knock on her new earth tosee if it has petrified wiggle tails in it," Rufe said, after we hadfiled back into the house and moved the typewriter away from thedoor. But his voice was solemn when he said it, and we all felt like_puppy dogs_ for being out there. And nobody said another word aboutstaying up to see how they looked when they came out of the parlor.

  The next day everybody made like they were very much surprised at theway it had turned out except Mammy Lou. She looked as happy when MissClaxton told us the news as if she had got herself engaged again.

  "You were right after all, mammy," Cousin Eunice told her. "In spiteof all Miss Claxton's scientific knowledge she has preferred a _man_to a career!"

  "An' shows her good sense, too," mammy answered, her old brown facerunning over with smiles, like molasses in the sunshine. "A man's aman, I can tell you; and a career's _a mighty pore thing to warm yourfeet against_ on a cold night!"