The Comings of Cousin Ann Part 17

Judith and her mother were also the victims of the morning after. Mrs.

Buck was pale and listless, complaining of shortness of breath, while Judith felt it impossible to accomplish the many duties she had planned for Sat.u.r.day forenoon.

"The truth of the matter is I can't stop dancing. If I only had some quick music I could work to it. I wonder if Cinderella swept the hearth clean the morning after the ball. Mumsy, do you think the prince was there last night?" she asked.

"Prince! What prince?"

"Oh, just any old prince! Prince Charming! I think--in fact I am sure--I liked my Cousin Jeff Bucknor better than any of the men who danced with me."

"Now, Judith, please don't start up that foolishness. Jeff Bucknor may dance with you because everybody else wanted to, but he would be very much astonished if he heard you calling him cousin."

"Well, he heard me last night, but he started it. He wanted to boss me, because he said he was my nearest of kin. I just laughed at him and called out, 'Good-bye, Cousin!' Mr. Big Josh Bucknor almost claimed kin with me, too. Wouldn't it be funny, Mumsy, if all of them got to doing it? It would be kind of nice to have some kinfolks who knew they were kin. I know you think I am conceited, but somehow I believe the men would be more pleased about it than the women. Maybe the women are afraid I'd take to visiting them like poor Cousin Ann!"

"Humph! Cousin Ann indeed!"

"But, Mumsy, she was real cousinish last night. There was a look in her eyes that made me feel that she was almost claiming relations.h.i.+p.

She squeezed my hand in the quadrille, and when she came up to speak to me after the darling old men let the cat out of the bag about its being my debut party she was very near to kissing me."

"Well, I don't hold much to kissing strangers."

Mother and daughter were on the side porch, engaged in various household duties, while this desultory discussion was going on.

Suddenly there appeared at the corner of the house old Uncle Billy. In his hand he carried a small package wrapped in newspaper. He bowed and bowed, wagging his head like a mechanical toy.

"You mus' 'scuse me, ladies, fer a walkin' up on you 'thout no warnin', but I got a little comin' out gif fer the young lady, if she don't think ol' Billy air too bold an' resumtious. It air jes' a bit er jewilry what air been, so's ter speak, in my fambly fer goin' on a hun'erd or so years. Ol' Mis, the gran'maw er my Miss Ann--Miss Elizabeth Bucknor as was--gib it to ter my mammy fer faithfulness in time er stress. It were when smallpox done laid low the white folks an' my mammy nuss 'em though the trouble when ev'ybody, white and black, wa' so scairt they runned off an' hid."

"Why, Uncle Billy, I think you are too lovely to give it to me. But you ought to keep it."

"Well, it ain't ever been much use ter me, seein' as I can't wear a locket, but I reckon you mought hang it roun' yo' putty neck sometime."

He took off the newspaper wrapping, disclosing a flat velvet box much rubbed and soiled. Touching a spring the lid flew open, disclosing a large cameo of rare and intricate workmans.h.i.+p, with a gold filigree border and gold back.

"I'd like ter give it ter you, if you won't be a thinkin' it's free-n.i.g.g.e.rish of me."

"Why, I think it is perfectly lovely of you. It is a beautiful locket--the most beautiful I ever saw. See, Mumsy, I can put it on my little gold chain."

"No doubt!" Mrs. Buck looked distrustfully at Billy, but the old man held himself so meekly and his manner was so respectful that her heart was somewhat softened.

"You sho' air got a pleasant place here. I allus been holdin' th'ain't no place so peaceful an' homelike as a shady side po'ch, with plenty er scrubbery an' chickens a scratchin' under 'em. I'd be proud to have a po'ch er my own, with a box er portulac a bloomin' in front er it an' plenty er nice red jewraniums sproutin' 'roun' in ol' mattersies cans--but, you see, me'n Miss Ann air allus on the jump--what with all the invites we gits ter visitate."

"Let me show you what a nice vegetable garden I have planted, Uncle Billy, and what a lovely well we have, with the coldest water in the county. Maybe you would like a drink of cold water, or perhaps you would like some fresh b.u.t.termilk. I have just churned and the b.u.t.termilk is splendid," said Judith.

"Thankee, thankee kindly, missy! I's a great han' fo' b.u.t.termilk." The old man followed Judith to the dairy and watched with admiring eyes as she dipped the creamy beverage from the great stone jar and poured it into a big gla.s.s mug.

"This was Grandfather Buck's mug. He liked to drink b.u.t.termilk from it, but he always called it a schooner. That was his house, back there. He never lived in it after Grandfather Knight died, so my mother tells me, but we always have called it his house. It still has his furniture in it, but n.o.body stays there."

"I hearn my Miss Ann a talkin' bout yo' fambly not so long ago. She say the Bucks an' Bucknors were one an' the same in days gone by but one er yo' forebears done mislaid the tail en' of his name. But Miss Ann say that don't make no mind ter her--that you is of one blood jes'

the same. She even done up an' state that you air as clost kin ter her as the Buck Hill folks air. She air allus been a gret han' for geology an' tracin' back whar folks comed from."

"She--she didn't tell you to tell me that, did she, Uncle Billy?"

Judith looked piercingly at the old man. He tried to say Miss Ann knew he was going to tell the girl of their kins.h.i.+p but her clear gaze confused him.

"Well, well, no'm, she didn't 'zactly tell me, but--No'm, she don't even know I done come a' callin'. She jes' thinks I'm out a exercisin'

of Puck an' Coopid. Them's the names er my hosses."

"Perhaps she would not like your telling me this," persisted Judith.

"Well, missy, if you ain't a mindin' I believe I'll arsk you not ter mention what I done let slip. I ain't ter say sho' what the fambly air gonter do 'bout the matter. I done hear tell they air gonter hab a meetin' er the whole bilin' an' decide."

"Do!" fired Judith. "They will do nothing. You can tell them for me that I don't give a hang whether they want to claim kin with me or not. They did not have the making of me and I am what I am regardless of them. I know perfectly well that I am descended from the same original Bucknors but I'm glad my ancestor mislaid part of the name and I wouldn't have the last syllable back for anything in the world."

"Ya.s.sum!" gasped Billy.

"Uncle Billy, I didn't mean to be cross with you," laughed Judith, her anger gone as quickly as it had come, "but it does rile me for the family to think themselves so important and to feel they can have a meeting and make me kin to them or not as they please."

Billy, mounted on Cupid and leading Puck, rode slowly off. He wagged his great beard and talked solemnly to himself.

"Well now, you ol' fool n.i.g.g.e.r, you done broke yo' 'la.s.ses pitcher.

Whe'fo' you so nimble-come-trimble ter tell little missy 'bout the fambly confab? 'Cause you done hearn Ma.r.s.e Big Josh 'sputin' with Ma.r.s.e Bob Bucknor at the ball consarnin' the Bucks an' Bucknors ain't no reason whe'fo' you gotta be so bigity. Ain't yo' mammy done tell you, time an' agin, that ain't no flies gonter crawl in a shet mouf?

All you had ter do wa' ter go an' give Miss Judy Buck the trinket an'

kinder git mo' 'quainted an', little by little, git her ter look at things yo' way. You could er let drop kinder accidental like that she wa' kinfolks 'thout bein' so 'splicit. She done got her back up now an' I ain't a blamin' her. She sho' did put me in min' er my Miss Ann when she wa' a gal, the way she hilt up her haid an' jawed back at the fambly. An' she would er talked the same way if Ma.r.s.e Big Josh an'

Ma.r.s.e Little Josh an' Ma.r.s.e Bob Bucknor theyselves had 'a' been there an' all the women folk besides. That little gal ain't feared er n.o.body. She done tol' me ter say she wouldn't have back that extry syllabub on her name fer nothin'. I reckon if I'd tell Ma.r.s.e Jeff that he'd go up in the air for fair. But this n.i.g.g.e.r is done talkin'--done talkin'."

He rode on, his brown old face furrowed with trouble. His bowed legs stuck out comically and the long tails of his blue coat spread themselves out on Cupid's broad back.

"An' that putty little cabin in the back, with po'ch an' all, an'

little missy done say it got furnisher in it too," he murmured plaintively.

CHAPTER XVIII

A Cavalier O'erthrown

The house party departed and Buck Hill settled into normalcy. Jeff had tried very hard to be what Mildred had expected him to be for the last few days. He had even said tender nothings to Jean Roland and expressed an eager desire to see her in Louisville, where she was to visit before returning to Detroit. So flattering was his manner that the girl forgave him for his inattention during her stay at Buck Hill and was all smiles at the parting.

The guests who did not leave by automobile took the noon trolley to Louisville. Among the latter was Tom Harbison. Mildred had rather hoped he would stay over Sunday at Buck Hill. He pleaded an engagement, however, but with melting eyes declared he would soon be back.

Jeff heaved a great sigh of relief when they were all gone, especially Miss Jean Roland. What a nuisance black-headed girls were, anyhow! He began to wonder what Judith was doing. Was she wearied after the ball?

Was she on the road in her little blue car selling toilet articles?

Would she feed the motormen and conductors, in spite of having been up until morning? Of course she would! Judith was not the kind of girl to fail in an undertaking and to let men go hungry.

"Half past five! She furnishes dinner for the men on the six-thirty. I wonder what she is giving them to-day?" Jeff smiled when he remembered how Judith had satisfied Nan's impertinent curiosity concerning what was in her basket. "I've a great mind to find out. Foolishness! I'll do nothing of the sort." The young man tried to lose himself in the intricate plot of a detective story but he had to confess he was not half so much interested in the outcome of the tale as he was in what Judith was to carry in her basket.

"I'll go help her lift the heavy load on the trolley," he decided, slinging aside the stupid book and starting across the meadows to the trolley station. He must traverse the broad acres of Buck Hill to the dividing line of Judith's mother's farm, then through a swampy creek bottom, up a hill to the grove of old beech trees, and then down to the trolley track.

"Can't make it! There's the whistle blowing for the next station," he said as he reached the grove. He stopped and, leaning against the smooth trunk of a great beech, looked out across the fields. There was Judith in a blue dress, standing on the little platform, a cooler of b.u.t.termilk in one hand, swinging it as before as a signal to the approaching trolley. She wore no hat and her hair shone like spun gold.