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Old Mrs. HarrisVII
Only Mrs. Harris saw the boys go out next morning. She slipped a bread-and-butter sandwich into the hand of each, but she said nothing, and they said nothing.
The boys did not get home until their parents were ready to leave the table. Mrs. Templeton made no fuss, but told them to sit down and eat their breakfast. When they had finished, she said commandingly:
"Now you march into my room." That was where she heard explanations and administered punishment. When she whipped them, she did it thoroughly.
She followed them and shut the door.
"Now, what were you boys doing this morning?"
"We went off to bury Blue Boy."
"Why didn`t you tell me you were going?"
They looked down at their toes, but said nothing. Their mother studied their mournful faces, and her overbearing expression softened.
"The next time you get up and go off anywhere, you come and tell me beforehand, do you understand?"
"Yes`m."
She opened the door, motioned them out, and went with them into the parlour. "I`m sorry about your cat, boys," she said. "That`s why I don`t like to have cats around; they`re always getting sick and dying. Now run along and play. Maybe you`d like to have a circus in the back yard this afternoon? And we`ll all come."
The twins ran out in a joyful frame of mind. Their grandmother had been mistaken; their mother wasn`t indifferent about Blue Boy, she was sorry. Now everything was all right, and they could make a circus ring.
They knew their grandmother got put out about strange things, anyhow. A few months ago it was because their mother hadn`t asked one of the visiting preachers who came to the church conference to stay with them. There was no place for the preacher to sleep except on the folding lounge in the parlour, and no place for him to wash--he would have been very uncomfortable, and so would all the household. But Mrs. Harris was terribly upset that there should be a conference in the town, and they not keeping a preacher! She was quite bitter about it.
The twins called in the neighbour boys, and they made a ring in the back yard, around their turning-bar. Their mother came to the show and paid admission, bringing Mrs. Rosen and Grandma Harris. Mrs. Rosen thought if all the children in the neighbourhood were to be howling and running in a circle in the Templetons` back yard, she might as well be there, too, for she would have no peace at home.
After the dog races and the Indian fight were over, Mrs. Templeton took Mrs. Rosen into the house to revive her with cake and lemonade. The parlour was cool and dusky. Mrs. Rosen was glad to get into it after sitting on a wooden bench in the sun. Grandmother stayed in the parlour with them, which was unusual. Mrs. Rosen sat waving a palm-leaf fan,--she felt the heat very much, because she wore her stays so tight--while Victoria went to make the lemonade.
"De circuses are not so good, widout Vickie to manage them, Grandma," she said.
"No`m. The boys complain right smart about losing Vickie from their plays. She`s at her books all the time now. I don`t know what`s got into the child."
"If she wants to go to college, she must prepare herself, Grandma. I am agreeably surprised in her. I didn`t think she`d stick to it."
Mrs. Templeton came in with a tray of tumblers and the glass pitcher all frosted over. Mrs. Rosen wistfully admired her neighbour`s tall figure and good carriage; she was wearing no corsets at all today under her flowered organdie afternoon dress, Mrs. Rosen had noticed, and yet she could carry herself so smooth and straight,--after having had so many children, too! Mrs. Rosen was envious, but she gave credit where credit was due.
When Mrs. Templeton brought in the cake, Mrs. Rosen was still talking to Grandmother about Vickie`s studying. Mrs. Templeton shrugged carelessly.
"There`s such a thing as overdoing it, Mrs. Rosen," she observed as she poured the lemonade. "Vickie`s very apt to run to extremes."
"But, my dear lady, she can hardly be too extreme in dis matter. If she is to take a competitive examination with girls from much better schools than ours, she will have to do better than the others, or fail; no two ways about it. We must encourage her."
Mrs. Templeton bridled a little. "I`m sure I don`t interfere with her studying, Mrs. Rosen. I don`t see where she got this notion, but I let her alone."
Mrs. Rosen accepted a second piece of chocolate cake. "And what do you think about it, Grandma?"
Mrs. Harris smiled politely. "None of our people, or Mr. Templeton`s either, ever went to college. I expect it is all on account of the young gentleman who was here last summer."
Mrs. Rosen laughed and lifted her eyebrows. "Something very personal in Vickie`s admiration for Professor Chalmers we think, Grandma? A very sudden interest in de sciences, I should say!"
Mrs. Templeton shrugged. "You`re mistaken, Mrs. Rosen. There ain`t a particle of romance in Vickie."
"But there are several kinds of romance, Mrs. Templeton. She may not have your kind."
"Yes`m, that`s so," said Mrs. Harris in a low, grateful voice. She thought that a hard word Victoria had said of Vickie.
"I didn`t see a thing in that Professor Chalmers, myself," Victoria remarked. "He was a gawky kind of fellow, and never had a thing to say in company. Did you think he amounted to much?"
"Oh, widout doubt Doctor Chalmers is a very scholarly man. A great many brilliant scholars are widout de social graces, you know." When Mrs. Rosen, from a much wider experience, corrected her neighbour, she did so somewhat playfully, as if insisting upon something Victoria capriciously chose to ignore.
At this point old Mrs. Harris put her hands on the arms of the chair in preparation to rise. "If you ladies will excuse me, I think I will go and lie down a little before supper." She rose and went heavily out on her felt soles. She never really lay down in the afternoon, but she dozed in her own black rocker. Mrs. Rosen and Victoria sat chatting about Professor Chalmers and his boys.
Last summer the young professor had come to Skyline with four of his students from the University of Michigan, and had stayed three months, digging for fossils out in the sandhills. Vickie had spent a great many mornings at their camp. They lived at the town hotel, and drove out to their camp every day in a light spring-wagon. Vickie used to wait for them at the edge of the town, in front of the Roadmaster`s house, and when the spring-wagon came rattling along, the boys would call: "There`s our girl!" slow the horses, and give her a hand up. They said she was their mascot, and were very jolly with her. They had a splendid summer,--found a great bed of fossil elephant bones, where a whole herd must once have perished. Later on they came upon the bones of a new kind of elephant, scarcely larger than a pig. They were greatly excited about their finds, and so was Vickie. That was why they liked her. It was they who told her about a memorial scholarship at Ann Arbor, which was open to any girl from Colorado.
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