Kate Langley Bosher - Kitty Canary
K >>
Kate Langley Bosher >> Kitty Canary
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8
Of course, all of Miss Susanna's boarders, which are only four besides
myself, had something to say in general about the faithlessness of men
and the flirtatiousness of girls, and how times had changed, and how
you couldn't put your hand on any human being and feel you could trust
him in these days, and how men were gobbled up before they had got
their breath good after painful experiences, and dozens of other things
on that order. And I had such a good time listening to them, though
they didn't talk directly to me, that I'd forget at times and nearly
screech out loud at the tones of voice in which they did me up, and
then I would remember and try to look serious. But seriousness doesn't
seem to fit my face--that is, seriousness over sillinesses--and it
wouldn't stay on very long.
They thought it very indelicate in me to walk away with Elizabeth's
sweetheart right before her eyes--that is, Mrs. General Games did, but
Miss Araminta Armstrong, who is over fifty and by nature sentimental
and sympathetic, said she supposed it was natural for youth to seek
consolation, and Whythe, poor dear, had been so heartbroken at
Elizabeth's behavior that he had been receptive to other influences of
a pleasing nature, and she didn't think they ought to be so hard on
him. And then, after more talk of that sort, she would sigh and look
away at the mountains in the distance with a loved-and-lost look in her
eyes, and Miss Bettie Simcoe would sit up and snort.
There's nothing sentimental or sympathetic about Miss Bettie. Neither
is there anything in the earth below or the heavens above that she has
not an opinion of her own about, but the one concerning which she has
the most decided opinions is Man. She doesn't mince matters when she
gets on him. Also, she is an authority on God. She can tell you
exactly why He does things, and she quotes Him as if He were her most
confidential friend, and the only thing which stumps her is why He made
such a mess of what is considered His most important work. Mention a
male person's name and up go her eyebrows and down come the corners of
her lips and on the side goes her head, and nothing need be said for
her opinion to be understood. She is positively triumphant over
Whythe. She goes around with a "Didn't-I-tell-you-so?" expression
oozing out of every feature of her face, and I think she tells
Elizabeth she is fortunate to have discovered his fickleness so soon.
If Elizabeth thinks she is fortunate she has a queer way of showing it.
She must cry a good deal at night, judging by her eyes in the morning,
but the thing that's most the matter with her is madness. She can't
take it in that Whythe is showing no signs of anxiousness to make up.
She imagined, I suppose, when they had their fuss that it wouldn't last
very long and that he would give in to whatever she wanted, and now
that he isn't giving in she is so freezingly furious with me she barely
speaks to me. She seems to think it is my fault and that my coming
just when I did is the cause of the whole trouble. Though she never
says anything directly to me, she makes remarks in my presence about
the way men flirt in Twickenham Town and how dangerous it is,
especially for young girls who have never had any experience in things
of that sort and are deceived by it; and as she talks I just rock and
rock if in a chair, and swing and swing if in a hammock, until she has
said a good many nasty things, and then I get up and go up-stairs and
bring down a box of candy Whythe has sent me and offer it to her with
my most Christian forgiveness and most understanding smile, and,
strange to say, she never takes a piece!
I don't mind her remarks. They're natural, and if she wasn't such a
horrid little teapot I'd do anything I could to straighten out things;
but until she behaves herself I won't. I am having a very interesting
time being in love, and why should I stop just because a man she broke
with isn't grieving, but is keeping himself in practice saying to me
what he used to say to her? I am not going to stop until I think it is
time and until both have learned a few things they ought to know before
they get married. She is a vain, selfish, pretty piece of spoiledness,
and I don't believe she knows what real loving means. She is the sort
that wants what it hasn't got, and all the more if she thinks anybody
else is apt to get it. If she had any sense she would get a beau _pro
tem_. That is the best thing on earth to bring a man back to the
straight and narrow, and Whythe is the kind of man who needs to be
brought every now and then.
I gave her that for nothing one morning--I mean the suggestion in
general, though of course not personal--and she looked at me as if
trying to understand. And then something came in her face that must
have been an idea in her brain (her brain is slow), for, two days
afterward, she said she was going away. A week later she went to see a
rich aunt on her father's side who has a summer home somewhere and
corrals young men and compels them to come to it, Miss Bettie Simcoe
says. When she was gone a great weight seemed lifted off everybody,
and even the servants breathed better. As for Miss Susanna, she was
that lightened and relieved, though naturally not saying so, that she
looked ten years younger, and I know now it is true that some people in
a house are like fruit-cake on a weak stomach. They make life hard. I
didn't say my prayers that night. I just sang the Doxology three times
as loud as I could and jumped into bed. Praise is prayer.
CHAPTER VI
I have been here four weeks to-day. If there are any people in or
around Twickenham Town that I do not know, it is because they are not
knowable. I love people, and, being naturally sociable and not very
particular, I have had a perfectly grand time making acquaintances with
the high and the low and, the in-betweeners; and the sick and well, and
the dear and the queer, and the ancestrals and up-comers, and the rich
and the poor, and every other variety that grows; and now I am as
familiar with most of the family histories as the oldest inhabitant.
That's the nice part of living in a small place. Something depends on
you and you depend on all the rest of the town, but at home you're lost
in numbers and only a few know you're living. Here everybody knows,
also they know some things that perhaps had better be unknown. As for
talk, they are the best talkers on earth, and there's no subject under
the sun they won't talk about. It's an inheritance, Father says, and
has been handed down from ages past, and, though they don't read very
much, they can do more with a little knowledge than most learned people
with their information, and they make anything they mention interesting
from the way they mention it. I love to hear them, and I've heard a
good deal.
Dear, precious Miss Susanna in the secrecy of my bedroom gave me a
little talk a few nights ago, and said she hoped I wouldn't mind, but
as I was young and inexperienced she thought it her duty to tell me
that I must be careful and not too informal, for certain people
wouldn't understand; and that while the Holts were a very good,
respectable family, still they were not-- She stopped and coughed a
little, and of course I understood, but I pretended I didn't, and told
her they were perfectly healthy and I had had more fun with the Holt
children than with any in town, but if she preferred they should not
come to her house to see me I would just stop in theirs sometimes, as I
would not like them to think I was afraid to go with them. I wasn't,
for while I knew they were not historic, they were the most interesting
children I'd ever seen, and it seemed pretty cruel that they were left
out of things because they didn't have forefathers to hang on to, or
money, which of course would speak for itself. And dear, angelic Miss
Susanna, who is so worn out with boarders and their special kind of
human-nature horridness at times that she's hardly got body enough to
cover her soul, said I mustn't misunderstand her, but the Holts had
never gone in the same circles as the other people I had met, and that
customs, though unkind, were hard to overcome, and the oldest son--
I told her not to worry about the oldest son. He could go anywhere he
wanted and with any one he wanted by the time he was through college,
which his parents were working themselves to death to send him through,
and it was very probable that several girls in town would be glad to
add their grandfathers to his natural endowments before many years were
over. But if she didn't care for me to accept his attentions, as Miss
Araminta Armstrong called them, I could always have an engagement when
he asked me to go anywhere. She looked so shocked and distressed that
I told her I didn't approve of telling stories any more than she did,
and for most sorts people ought to be branded, but I'd much rather tell
one of that land than hurt a person's feelings. And it wouldn't be
untrue to say I had an engagement, for I always had one to go
everywhere and anywhere, even if I didn't keep it; and again she
coughed and looked so pained that I took her in my arms and whirled
around the room with her and told her not to worry about me, either. I
wouldn't disgrace her by knowing the wrong people too well, but
everybody had their peculiarities and one of mine was I was going to
know anybody I wanted to. I always thought a lady could, and, besides,
I liked any kind of person who was interesting, and the best born ones
were often very stupid, which of course was the wrong thing to say. So
I had to give her another whirl, and by the time she got her breath it
was time to see about supper, and she has never referred to the subject
since.
Miss Susanna is a darling little lady of the old school (whatever the
old school was) and I love her, but I am of my time as she is of hers,
and I don't see her way any more than she sees mine. She ought to wear
hoop-skirts and brocaded silks and lace fichus and mits, and sit with
her beautiful hands folded in her lap and her tiny little feet on a
footstool, and instead she works from morning to night trying to help
the good-for-nothingest servants that were ever hired by tired ladies,
except Uncle Henson, and Aunt Mandy, the cook, who have been with her
for years and years. She's worn out. That's what's the matter with
Miss Susanna, and that selfish, lazy little piece of pinkness who is
now away doesn't lift her hand to help her unless it is to make a cake
occasionally. I don't know how to make cake and never expect to know,
as very good kinds can be bought, but I can wash dishes. I do it every
morning and she dries them, so limp Eliza can go up-stairs and clean up
the bedrooms, and we have a beautiful time talking about what a change
comes over human beings when they board. That is, I do the talking and
she shakes her head at me, but it does her good, as it gives sound to
things she can't say. Most of her time has to be spent in thinking
what to put in people's stomachs and fixing it to be put; and, from the
quantity that goes in, boarders must have much better appetites than
people who keep house. They eat and yet are never full. There'll be
no hope of heaven for me if I ever have to keep boarders. I'd sweep
them out with a broom certainly once a week. That is, in my mind, if
my hands didn't. But Miss Susanna will never sweep them out. The
sanctuary in which I let out for her is the pantry, and all the things
she won't say I say for her. Yesterday she laughed so she broke a cup.
CHAPTER VII
Father is coming to-morrow! I am so excited and happy that to-day,
after I was safely out of Twickenham Town and there was no one to see
me, I stood up on Skylark's back and held the bridle with one hand and
waved the other in the air; and then I tried standing on one foot with
the other one out, but I came near losing my balance and just did catch
myself in time. Seeing a woman coming down the road in a buggy, with a
baby in her lap, I got back in place before she saw what I was doing,
but I needn't have done it, for it was just Mrs. Pettigrew, and she
wouldn't have cared whether it was my head or my heels which were on
the horse. She has eleven children and no husband to speak of, and
what people do or don't do doesn't bother her. We stopped for a little
talk and she told me about the roof leaking and the pig eating the
baby's bonnet which Miss Katie Spain had given it last Christmas, and
which was too small for its head, but was all it had; and that a kettle
of soft soap had fallen off the stove and burned two toes of Sammy, the
next to the youngest boy, and she would still be telling me things, but
I told her Father was coming and I had to attend to something, and so
she drove on.
I did have something to attend to, but I didn't attend right away, for
the day was so wonderful I couldn't go in for a long time. The
sunshine looked as if it had been washed and ironed, it was so clear
and clean and crisp, and the wind in the trees said all sorts of lovely
things to me, and I made up my mind that, no matter what happened in
life, I was always going to remember that warm and sweet and sunny
things are sure to come again, if at times they seem dead and buried,
and that I would try not to see the cranks and queernesses of people as
much as I was by nature inclined to do; and then I went right back to
Miss Susanna's, and before I knew it I had said something I oughtn't,
and to Mr. Willie Prince.
Every time I see Mr. Willie I thank God he is no relation of mine. He
is the only man boarder in the house, which is another thing to be
thankful for; but, though he is hard to stand, he is nearly sixty and a
human being, and I ought to remember what I forget and yesterday I
didn't remember. He was the only son of his mother and should have
been a daughter, and in trying to make him one his maternal parent
succeeded better than in anything else she ever attempted, Miss Bettie
Simcoe says--and she ought to know, being his first cousin. His
business is telling people what they don't want to hear; and, though he
doesn't do any work, a hound dog couldn't run a rabbit down quicker
than he can a piece of gossip, and when he isn't sitting on somebody's
front porch fanning himself with a palm-leaf fan, from which he is
never separated in summer, he is down at the drug-store hearing and
being heard. He thinks he is handsome, and he is as proud of his pink
cheeks as a goose of her gander, and I'm sure he puts something on them
on cool days. If he could wear some blue ribbon on his sandy hair and
have trousers and coats to match his fancy vests he would be perfectly
happy. As a man he is a poor job, but as a Miss Nancy he is perfect,
and when yesterday I came in from my ride he made me so mad that I
popped out something I shouldn't have popped and before I knew I was
going to do it.
He was sitting on the porch when I came up, fanning as hard as he could
fan, and as I went by he stopped me. "I would advise you to be more
careful when you go in wading at the creek, Miss Kitty," he said, "It
isn't customary for young ladies in Twickenham Town to do such things
and--"
"And where I came from it isn't customary for gentlemen to follow young
ladies and see what they do," I said, and the minute the words were out
I knew I shouldn't have said them, for his face got as red as a beet
and he jumped up and walked into the house.
I don't know that he really followed Sallie Sclater, who's a visiting
girl, and myself to see if we went wading, but we certainly went and
had a good time doing it, though we had to dry our feet with my
petticoat. But from the way his face went he must have made it
convenient to walk in that direction and must have seen us, or he
wouldn't have known anything about our going, as we were careful to
look around before we took off our shoes and stockings. I can't endure
him, but he is nearly sixty and I am only sixteen, and I shouldn't have
spoken as I did; and possibly because I was so happy over Father's
coming I told him last night that if I had said anything I shouldn't I
hoped he would forget it and I, too, would forget what had been said.
And that, of course, I knew gentlemen in Twickenham Town never did
anything gentlemen shouldn't, and that my quickness of speech was
always getting ahead of me; and he looked so relieved that I am
perfectly certain he followed us. But, anyhow, he was very pleasant
last night and told a scream of a story about poor little Miss Lily Lou
Eppes when she thought she had a beau. She had almost landed him when
he got away. He's never been heard from since.
CHAPTER VIII
It's over--Father's visit is. He has been gone a week, and it will be
a whole month before he can come again. He has to divide up between
Mother and the girls and me, and he can only get away once in two
weeks, because his partner is ill and business has something the matter
with it and has to be watched, which is why he could stay only four
days in Twickenham Town. I don't see why fathers have to work so hard,
and why wives and daughters must have so many unnecessary things, and
such big houses and so many new clothes and automobiles and parties and
pleasures, which aren't real fun after you have them. But most women
seem to want them, and keep on scrambling for what other people
scramble for, and only a few have sense enough to see how foolish it
all is and stop. Maybe they are wound up so tight they can't stop. I
don't know. I only know I do not want to live the life a lot of women
I know live, and I am not going to do it.
I wish Father could see it the way I do--about working so hard, I
mean--and I think he might, for he says I am a chip off the block and
he is the block, and in almost everything we feel alike; but there's
Mother and the girls, who care for things I don't care for, and of
course they must have them. He gives them everything they want, but he
looked so awfully tired the day he came I could think of nothing else
the night he left, which is why I cried so under the sheet, and then
when the tears were out and I felt lighter I got up and wrote him a
long letter and told him I loved him so it hurt, and that he was the
best and dearest father on all this big, big earth, and if he would let
me come and keep house for him I would fly back. But he wouldn't let
me come. He wrote me a letter, though, that I shall keep with my
treasures, and I wish what he said was so. It isn't so. He just
thinks it, but it does your heart good to know somebody cares an awful
lot about you and no matter what you do is going to stand by. What he
wrote me was this:
_Dear little Nut-brown Maid all mine, of course you would come, but you
mustn't. It is too hot and you need what you are getting, and nothing
could help me here so much as to know of that wonderful color of yours
and that you are so well and strong again. That you are getting health
and happy memories for the winter of work and study ahead is the best
tonic I can take, and every morning when I go to my desk I get out that
little picture of you and, nobody being by, I kiss it and send you my
love, and it is a breath of life-giving air to know you are mine.
Since the first time I saw you--you were exactly one hour old and
laughing even then--you have been the joy and delight of my heart, and
I can't afford to run any risk with summer heat and the joy of my
heart. I didn't deserve you, for I wanted a son so badly, and was
fearfully disappointed that you were not a boy. You seemed to
understand and did not get mad about it, and I've often wanted you to
know that no son could mean to me now what my little harum-scarum
daughter means. There has never been a day since you first looked into
my eyes that I haven't thanked God for you, and the thing I am most
afraid of in life is that you may get sick or not be strong, and that
is why I am so glad for you to be in such a charming old place as
Twickenham Town. You were wise, little daughter of mine, to choose so
quaint and queer and dear a place in which to spend your summer, for
there real things still count, and there is more time for the fine
courtesies of life, and the hurry and rush of it, the push and scramble
for place and power, is out of key with its quiet serenity and the
poise that comes from a sense of values that by many of us is to-day
forgotten. I am coming back as soon as I can, for I, too, want the
refreshment and novelty of being where money is not talked and
apologies never made for the absence of things that money gets. Miss
Susanna Mason is a liberal education in herself and no "Course in
Culture" could equal the advantage of being in her society. I have
written her, of course, but tell her again of my sense of privilege,
and my great pleasure, in being a guest in her home, and remember
always you are in your father's heart. Always he is thinking of you._
Now wasn't that a nice letter to get from a father? I'm nothing to be
thankful for; but, if he thinks I am, I am thankful for that, and it
makes life a different thing to know somebody is thankful for you. And
another thing I think would make life nicer, make working and living
not so hard, is to tell people you like them and you believe they are
trying to do their best, even if their best is powerful poor. Of
course, all people don't try to do their best. Some are by nature and
practice mean and horrid and ought to have facts handed out to them,
but most people try to do right, and maybe they would try harder if
they got a little encouragement now and then. Anyhow, I've often
noticed it makes a person take fresh hold again for somebody to give
them a lift in the way of a friendly word or so, and it doesn't cost
much--kindness doesn't. I wonder why we don't have more of it.
The reason why Father liked Twickenham Town so much was that nobody
talked business to him, and if anybody knew he was the head of Bird &
Roller, bankers and brokers, they never mentioned it to him or talked
shop at all, and for four days he forgot stocks and bonds and the ups
and downs of the money-market and let go. And yet I am almost sure Mr.
Willie Prince knows all about him--the business part, I mean--and that,
of course, will mean everybody in Twickenham will know pretty soon.
The reason I think he knows is that I went into the bank to get a check
cashed the morning after Father got here, and I saw Mr. Willie sitting
at a table in a corner of the bank with a copy of Bradstreet open
before him and his eyes close to it. I made it convenient to walk up
to the table and look down at the book, and I saw he was running his
finger down the letter "B," and when he saw me he shut the book quick.
I just smiled and passed on. But not talking business is only one of
the reasons Father liked Twickenham Town so much. Another was because
everybody was so nice to him. He had so many invitations to dinner and
supper, and even breakfast, that he was on a dead go from morning until
night, and he never ate so much in his life as he ate in those four
days. It did him good, and he didn't look tired a bit when he left.
CHAPTER IX
The day Father got here was a beautiful day. The train was due at
six-thirty in the morning, but it never hurries and has only been on
time three times since it has been running, and Uncle Henson said there
was no use getting to the station until seven o'clock, but I told him
if he wasn't in front of the porch by six o'clock I'd send for Mr.
Briggs and go down in his automobile, and there was no need to say
anything more. Mention automobile to Uncle Henson and his back begins
to go up just like a cat's. There are only a few automobiles in town,
though a good many people have Fords, and several offered to lend me
theirs, but not wanting to hurt Miss Susanna, who has been sending the
same carriage to the station for over thirty years, I didn't accept
their offers, but went down in the coach, as Uncle Henson calls it.
Its top is still upholstered in a sun-shaped thing which was once
yellow satin and now tattered and torn, and hardly anybody ever rides
in it, but when a new boarder comes Miss Susanna always says, in that
queenly way of hers, "You will take the carriage to the station,
Henson," and Uncle Henson's old gray head bows as if at royal orders,
and they do not know they are playing a part that belongs to the days
that are no more. That is what Tennyson, I think, calls a time that
will never be the same again.
Uncle Henson's coachman's coat, long and faded and once brass-buttoned,
and a battered hat to match, are always put on to meet the train; and
when he held the door open for Father to get in the old, ramshackle
thing he did it in a way that could be sold for big money, if manner
could be bought, and Father got inside with equal elegance. After he
was in and Uncle Henson couldn't see him, he looked at me as if to ask
if I thought it would stand, and I nodded back yes, and slipped my hand
in his and hugged him again, I was so glorious glad to see him! He is
such a splendid Father--my Father is, I am so sorry for girls who
haven't one like mine, and not one of them has. He is the only one of
his kind on earth.
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8