CHAPTER XIII
It seems to me that the writing habit is kinder like poison oak; it'ssure to break out on you in the spring, and you can never get itentirely out of your system.
I've tried my best to keep from writing, and when you have done yourbest and failed, why I don't believe even Robert Bruce's spider couldhave done any more.
I promised mother I would stop writing in my diary and I have--forsuch a long time that every one of the hems in my dresses has had tobe let out since I wrote last. But now I just must break my promise,and I reckon if you are going to break a promise at all you might aswell break it all to pieces. So I'll just dive in and tell all thathappened since I wrote last.
You remember that fluffy-skirted widow that I told you about beingdown here, my diary, and I sharpened seventeen pencils for--a longtime ago? Well, she said that _she_ believed every minute of this lifewas made for enjoyment. She told it to a young man that told it tofather that told it to mother and I happened to hear. She said youought to do the things you enjoy most, as long as they didn't botheranybody else, and if you did things you had to repent of afterward,why, even then, you ought to cut out your sackcloth by a becomingpattern!
Everybody in town heard that she said it, and Brother Sheffield saidit was a _heathenish_ thing to say! He preached his Jezebel sermon thevery next Sunday, although it wasn't due until nearer Easter bonnettime. Maybe he wasn't to blame so much, though, for the presidingelder was due that Sunday and found out at the last minute he couldn'tget there in time for the morning service; so Brother Sheffield had topreach the first sermon he could get his hands on, I reckon. Thepresiding elder (I _wonder_ if you ought to begin him with a capitalletter? I never wrote "presiding elder" before in my life and maybenever will again, so it's no use getting up to go and look for it inthe dictionary) well, he got in late that afternoon and spent thenight at our house where he kept the supper table in a roar tellingfunny tales about the ignorance and tacky ways of the country brethrenhe had stayed with the night before. He was an awfully popularpresiding elder with his members.
But what I started out to say when I commenced writing to-night wasthat surely mother wouldn't be so cruel as not to want mygrandchildren to know a few little last things about all the friendsI've written of in here, and also a few little last things about me. Ialways like to read a book that winds up that way. For instance, youwill enjoy hearing that Miss Irene is spending every minute of hertime just about now running baby blue ribbon in her underclothes. AndMiss Merle has long ago quit running it in hers!
Miss Irene has stopped being a "pseudo-Poe in petticoats," as fatherone time called her, but not to her face. Doctor Bynum told her thathe thought one bright magazine story that would make a "T.B." patientsit up in bed and laugh was worth all the graveyard gloom that Poeever wrote.
And before I get clear away from the subject of Miss Merle I must tellyou that Mr. St. John is still the most bashful, though married, man Iever heard of. I never shall forget the time he wouldn't let us seehis undershirt--when it was hanging in an up-stairs window, too. ButJean wrote me not long ago that when the census man came around to seehow many folks lived there and how many times each one had beenmarried and if they kept a cow, etc., Mr. St. John happened to be theone to go to the door and answer the man's questions. Now, it doesseem that if he and Miss Merle have been married long enough for herto leave off the ribbon he might leave off the blushes; but they wereall standing around looking at him, which of course made it worse. Sowhen the census man said, "How many children is your wife the motherof?" instead of speaking out boldly, "None!" Jean said his face turnedevery color in the curriculum and he stammered, "Not any--that _I_know of!" And then he looked around at them as if to see whether ornot _they_ knew of any lying around loose about the house.
I haven't seen Jean since she was down here, but we write eighteenpages a week. I didn't get to go on my visit to her house as Iexpected, for we went to Florida instead. We all went, that is, usthree, and Waterloo and his family besides Ann Lisbeth and DoctorGordon.
Doctor Gordon was the one that started it. He caught pneumonia onedreary day in the early spring when he was already sick in bed, butgot up and went out to the hospital to operate for appendicitis. AnnLisbeth almost went into catalepsy, trying to keep him from going,but it was a very expensive appendix, he said, so he got up and wentout and bottled it. The changing from his warm room to the cold airgave him pneumonia, although the doctors say it is caused by a germ.I'll never believe this, not even if I marry one!
Well, he finally got over his spell by "lysis" instead of "crisis,"but I hope this will never come to Mammy Lou's ears, or she willfairly long for more twins in the Dovie family.
When Doctor Gordon got able to be out a little all the other doctorstold him that he had better go to a warm climate for a month or two,for it was still so cold, so he and Ann Lisbeth persuaded Rufe andCousin Eunice to go too, and they all wrote for us to hurry up and getready so we could go with them.
Mother said she'd just _love_ to go, but she didn't see how wepossibly could, for none of us had any clothes and she had alwaysheard that Florida was fairly alive with rich Yankees! Mammy Louspoke up then and said, well, she was sure Ann looked exactly like arich Yankee, and she was the only one that folks was going to look atanyhow! So mother took heart and we went.
Father had to have a new overcoat, for the weather has been colderthis spring than ever the oldest inhabitant can tell about, and asthey wrote us to get ready in such a hurry, on account of poor DoctorGordon's cough, he didn't have time to have one made at his regularplace, so he bought one ready-made, a light tan one, the poor dear!And it had two long "heimer" names from Chicago printed on the labelat the collar.
We got ready in such a rush that none of us had time to rip this labelout, though I lived to regret it many a time! It was too hot to wearit when we got down there, but father had got scared up about catchingpneumonia, so he insisted on carrying it around on his arm all thetime, inside out; and there was not one millionaire, not one tennischampion, nor famous authoress we met, but what I saw the eyes offixed, at one time or another, on those "heimer" names!
That's one delightful thing about Florida--you get to see so manypeople that you never would see at home. And everybody mixes likecandidates! For instance, you may have a mosquito on you one minutethat you will see on a Russian anarchist the next. The mosquitoes downthere are so big that you can easily recognize their features. And aptas not you'll go in bathing every day with a person _so famous_ whenhe's at home that he is never invited to dine with anybody that hasn'tgot monogram china and _pate de foie gras_.
I've noticed that the things people tell about after they come homefrom a trip depend a good deal on the disposition they carry with themon it. It's the way with Florida. If you're an optimist you'll comeback and tell about the palms, roses and sunsets. If you're apessimist you'll mention snakes, hotel bills and buzzards. The honesttruth is there's quite enough of them all to go around.
You're impressed with the country from the first morning that you getinto it and raise up (half way) in your berth and look out the carwindow. At first there seems to be a mighty lot of just flat scenery,with tall trees that have all their branches at the tiptop. Thesetrees remind you of pictures of the Holy Land that you used to see inthe big Bible your mother and father would give you on Sundayafternoons to keep you quiet while they could take a nap.
You begin to think that what you're seeing is too beautiful to betrue, though, from the first minute you look out on a blue bay that isdeep green in places, and has purple streaks in it. But when you rowover to an island all covered with palms and find a strip of beachthat has bushels and bushels of tiny shells, that the mermaids used tomake necklaces out of--why, nothing on earth but your _feet_ hurtingso bad makes you believe it is not a dream!
Florida has all the things in it that you see when you shut your eyesand smell a jasmine flower!
The climate is fine for the lungs, but very bad on the
alimenary canaland curling-iron hair!
We stopped at all the points of interest as we went on down. A pointof interest is a place that the post-cards tell lies about. Still I dothink Florida cards come nearer telling the truth than those of mostplaces, for the country is very nearly as many colors as they make itout to be.
Cousin Eunice said she thought sending post-cards was the _one_melancholy pleasure of traveling, and so I bought a quarter's worth atevery place.
Traveling _is_ a melancholy pleasure when you have a baby that youwon't let drink a drop of water unless it has had the germs all stewedin it. Waterloo is getting to be such a big boy now, too; but hestill talks like a telegram--just the most important words of what hewants to say, with all the others left out. He's crazy aboutfoot-ball, chewing-gum and billy-goats. And you just ought to hear himchew gum!
Among the points of interest we saw was the oldest house in America.It is a _very_ interesting place. It has a marble bust of Lord Byronin it!
I don't remember another thing, I believe, except that! Oh yes, I do,too! I do remember a startling thing I heard about a very old bed inthat house. I heard the guide telling that this was the bed thatWilliam the Conqueror and Maria Theresa slept on! I hate to hear folksget their history mixed, so I had just opened my mouth to say "Why,they were not _married_," when I spied the bust of his lordship in thenext room. After that I didn't care how many tales they made up onWilliam and Maria!
Poor little Waterloo didn't much fancy the oldest house, but when wedrove up to "The Fountain of Youth," and he saw the clear, sparkling"drink" that helped Ponce get rid of his double chin and crow's-feethe commenced to howl for some. Doctor Gordon had told us before we gotthere that we mustn't dare drink any of it unless there was a signedcertificate that there wasn't any "coli" in it.
We looked all around, but as we didn't see any sign, Rufe thoughtmaybe he'd better not give him any. There didn't _look_ to be any"coli," either, but still Rufe didn't like the idea of his drinkingit. When Waterloo saw that they didn't intend to give him any hecommenced to kick and squall and get so red in the face with hisdancing up and down that Rufe finally screamed back to the carriagethat Doctor Gordon was in and asked him if he thought one little glasswould hurt Waterloo. Cousin Eunice screamed back at the same time andsaid for Doctor Gordon to give his _honest_ opinion, for she wouldn'thave the little angel catch anything so far away from home for thewhole of the East coast.
Doctor Gordon, who had been made nervous by his spell, screamed backto them for Heaven's sake let the little imp drink till he_busted_--only he hoped it wouldn't make him stay as _young_ as he wasthen!
So Rufe motioned for the lady that hands you the water, with aNorth-of-the-Mason-and-Dixon accent, to hush talking about her friend,Ponce de Leon, long enough to give the glass an extra scrubbing andhand Waterloo some water, which she did. This didn't do as much good,though, as we had hoped for. Rufe was in such a hurry to get away from"The Fountain of Youth" that his hand trembled some and he spilt thefirst glassful down Waterloo's little front. This made the darling somad, and I don't blame him either, that he slapped the second glassfulout of Rufe's hand. He washed Teddy Bear's face with the third, andthrew the fourth in Cousin Eunice's white linen lap, when she tried tosoothe him.
Rufe ran his hand down into his pocket before he told the driver todrive on, for he knew that milk was fifteen cents a quart in Florida,and water was almost priceless. The lady told him that she would haveto collect fifty cents for the water that Waterloo had wasted, andthat washing out the glass was twenty-five cents extra.
Rufe handed her a twenty-dollar bill, but she couldn't change it. Sohe called back to Doctor Gordon to ask him if he could.
"_Change!_" said Doctor Gordon, looking surprised that Rufe shouldhave asked him such an embarrassing question. "Why, I haven't a_thing_ left but my watch-fob and thermometer-case and wouldn't havehad them if I hadn't worn them in a chamois bag around my neck!"
So Rufe told the lady he would mail her a check for the amount withinterest.
Later on we saw ostrich farms and the biggest cigar factory in theworld. I _think_ they said it was the biggest. Anyway, if there's abigger one I don't care about smelling it!
It's long past time for the lights to go out, mine especially, forthey never want me to sit up until I get really interested inanything; but I believe I will throw a black sateen petticoat up overthe transom, which I have found out you can do very well if you havetwo nails up there to hang it on, and tell one more little thing thathappened on that trip. I say "little thing," but it seemed a monstrousbig thing to me at the time.
When we were about half-way through Georgia on our way home, some ofus commenced having chills. Doctor Gordon had his first, but he didn'tsay anything about it to Ann Lisbeth until he got to shaking so thatshe saw something was the matter. Then mother and Cousin Eunice hadone apiece. Doctor Gordon said it wasn't anything to be alarmed about,for it was just a little malaria cropping out, but I felt so sorryfor them that I told Ann Lisbeth if she would go with me I would go upto the baggage car and see if we could get out some heavy underclothesfrom our trunk.
We had to stagger through a long string of sleepers, for we were inthe backest one, but we were rewarded when we finally did get to thebaggage car. There was a merry-eyed express messenger in there whosaid he would be _glad_ to pull and haul those fifteen or twentytrunks that were on top of ours! May the gods reward him, for it wasan awful job! And so we got out enough clothes for our cold anddestitute families.
Now, you may have noticed before this, my diary, that I am a forgetfulperson. I can remember the last words of Charles II, or anything likethat, but I forget what I did yesterday.
I had entirely forgotten about stuffing oranges in with all ourclothes when I helped mother pack our trunks! And we were in such ahurry in the express car that we didn't stop to shake the clothes outas we fished them up from the trays; it wouldn't have been polite to,anyway, in front of that good-looking express messenger, and we didn'thave room enough. So we had just lifted things out as we came to themand eased them up in our arms as we started on back on our walk to oursleeper.
But the oranges hadn't forgotten about being there! I reckon theywanted to see what all that disturbance was about for, I cross myheart, _just_ as I got opposite the swellest-looking man in that wholestring of sleepers, a man with silk socks and golf sticks, a longsleeve of mother's knit corset-cover dropped down against the seat infront of him and four oranges rolled out! They rolled slowly, one byone, and dropped to the floor with muffled thuds. Then they rolledsome more and didn't stop until they reached his feet.
That's how I knew he had on silk socks.
CHAPTER XIV
I'm as lonesome as _Marianna in the Moated Grange_ to-night! Isn'tthat the lonesomest poem on earth? Everything about it is unsanitary,too, from the rusty flower-pots to the blue fly "buzzing in the pane."No wonder it got on Marianna's nerves, in her condition, too! But shehad one thing to be thankful for--she didn't know how many germs thatfly had on its feet!
I'm lonesome for Jean--or somebody! Thank goodness it is nearly timefor Waterloo to come! Cousin Eunice said in a letter that we had fromher to-day she was trying to raise Waterloo right, but he was a trialto her feelings! Now, poor Cousin Eunice has read Herbert Spencer forthe sake of Waterloo's future education ever since he has been born,and she has never let him out of her sight with a nurse for fear shewould feed him chewed-up chestnuts and teach him about the Devil. Ireckon you spell him with a capital letter, if you don't waste them onpresiding elders. But Waterloo doesn't always show how carefully he'sbeen brought up. He is of nervous temperament and told a woman who wassewing on the machine right loud the other day: "Hus', hus'! God'ssake, make noise _easy_!"
This is disheartening after all the trouble she has taken with hismorals and diet and things like that! She never lets him eat the"deadly" things that Doctor Gordon is always talking about, but she_does_ keep a little pure sugar candy on hand all the time to be usedonly
as a last resort. When she can't make him do any other way onearth she uses the candy.
Speaking of deadly things reminds me of Doctor Bynum's friends, thegerms. He has told Miss Irene so many stories about their unpleasantways that she got to not believing in kissing, but he said pshaw! itlooked like we all had to die of germs anyhow, and so he'd rather dieof that kind than any other!
Cousin Eunice's letters always tell us so many interesting thingsabout all our friends in the city. She and Ann Lisbeth still liveclose neighbors, but they have both bought beautiful places out on oneof the pikes and each one is claiming to be more countrified than theother. One day Ann Lisbeth ran over and told Cousin Eunice that DoctorGordon had heard an owl in their yard the night before, but CousinEunice told her that wasn't anything! She and Rufe had had a _bat_ intheir bedroom!
Doctor Gordon has two automobiles now. He had them the last time I wasin the city and I got to find out exactly what "limousine" means. Ihad an idea before that it meant _dark green_, because--oh, well, Ineedn't tell the reason; it was silly enough to think such a thingwithout making excuses for it. But you know so many swell cars _are_painted dark green, and so many swell cars are limousines!
Ann Lisbeth is a great help to Doctor Gordon in his practice, he says.She always remembers the different babies' names and looks up subjectsfor him in his surgical books that would knock the knee-cap off ofJean's little word, "genuflections."
No matter how fine a doctor a lady's husband is she is never permittedto mention it to her friends, for this is called "unethical." But ifshe's expecting company of an afternoon she can happen to have abottle with a queer thing inside setting on the mantelpiece and whenthe company asks what on earth that thing is she can say, "Forgoodness' sake! My husband must have forgotten that! Why that'sSenator Himuck's appendix!"
Ann Lisbeth seems to get sweeter every year and you would never knowshe has a foreign accent now except on Sunday night when the cook'saway and the gas stove doesn't do right.
Another good piece of news Cousin Eunice wrote to-day was that theYoungs are going to try it again at the bungalow this summer.Professor Young has to go somewhere to rest up from his studies. Fornearly eighteen months now he's been sitting up late at night andspending the whole of Saturdays, even taking his coffee out to thelaboratory in a thermos bottle, studying pharmacy. He is delightedwith the progress he has made, for he says he has not only learned howto make a perfectly splendid cold cream for his wife's complexion, buthas discovered just which bad-smelling stuff put with anotherbad-smelling stuff is best to develop his films. He says his knowledgeof pharmacy has saved him a lot of money in this way.
Speaking of curious couples reminds me of the Gayles. They're not halfas queer now as they were before they married though. At present theyare neither in Heaven, nor on earth, exactly, but they are cruising onthe Mediterranean. They send me post-cards from every place and Istick them in my album with great pride.
Another family that we're always glad to hear from is the Macdonalds.Poor little fluffy-haired Miss Cis! I reckon the very last of herdimples will soon be changed into wrinkles, for there's _another_ onesince the twins! Nobody can say that Miss Cis is not bearing upbravely, though. She does all she can to present a stylish,straight-front appearance when she goes out, which isn't often. But athome they are all perfectly happy together, Mr. Macdonald getting downon the floor to play bear, and if he _does_ look more like a devil'shorse while he's doing it, with his long arms and legs, the twinsdon't know the difference.
Marrying has helped Julius' looks more than anybody I ever saw. Hischeeks have filled out until he's as handsome as a floor-walker. Andthey're so contented that Marcella says actually when she finds a pinpointing toward her she doesn't know what to wish for.
You may have caught on to it before now, my diary, that the reason I'mtelling you this very last news of all our friends is because I'mgoing to stop writing _sure enough_ to-night! I'm ashamed to keepbreaking my promise to mother.
The only ones I've left out, I believe, are Aunt Laura and Bertha. Iwish I had forgotten them for I don't like to say anything hateful inmy diary.
Aunt Laura has joined some kind of New Thoughters and has grownquantities of new brown hair on the strength of it. And she dresses inchampagne silk all the time.
As for Bertha--she _lives_ to keep up with the "best people," meaningby this that she runs up to the hairdresser's every other day to seeif she can learn how many "society men" have thrown their wives downthe steps or poured boiling coffee over them since she last heard.
I'm sorry I thought of Bertha so near the last, for I don't want toleave you with a bad taste in your mouth, my diary. So I'll branchoff and mention something sweet right away.
That blessed Waterloo! He's the sweetest thing I know anything about!Just about this time I reckon he's begging his "Daddy-boy" to singFeep Alsie, Ben Bolt, for that's been his precious little sleepy songever since he's been born.
When I think of those three and how happy they are, and how satisfiedthey are just to be together, I know that Rufe told me the truth thatday, a long, long time ago! There is only one subject worth writingabout--or one object worth living for! May every one of yougrandchildren find just such an object, and be as happy as they arewhile living for it!
It does seem that I ought to be able to think of something beautifulto wind up my diary with! Everything about me is beautiful! Thehoneysuckle is smelling like the very soul of spring and love justoutside my window--and there's a bust of Lord Byron on my mantelpiececlose by. Such a tiny bust--the curly head just fits into the palm ofmy hand--when I get grown I'm going to have one big enough to burncandles before! Not that I shall burn candles before it--for, to tellthe truth, I'd much rather be burning my fingers cooking oatmeal forsome big, brown-eyed "Daddy-boy" and tiny, brown-eyed Waterloo!
Mammy Lou came to my window just as I wrote this last and stuck herhead in.
"Name o' Deuteronomy!" she said in a loud whisper when she saw thisbook open before me. "What good'll your _gran'children_ do you, I'dlike to know--if you set up all night and lose your looks so you'llnuvver fin' a husban'?"
THE END
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