The Comings of Cousin Ann Part 22

"I'll never forgive myself if Cousin Ann is in trouble, when I have literally driven her from my house."

"But, my dear, you have not driven her from your home," comforted his wife. "You had only intended to inform her that we were planning a trip abroad and she would have to visit somewhere else until arrangements could be made for her to be established in an old ladies'

home. There was nothing cruel in that."

"Ah, but Cousin Ann is so proud and Buck Hill has always been a refuge for her."

The other cousins were likewise agitated. For Cousin Ann to have disappeared just as they were contemplating wounding her made them think that they had already wounded her. "Poor old lady!" was all they could say, and all of them said it until their women-folk were exceedingly bored with the remark.

Mr. Bob Bucknor determined to send for Jeff, if something definite was not heard of the missing cousin within the next twenty-four hours. He vaguely felt that it might be time for the law to step in and help in the search.

In the meantime Miss Ann was very happy in the house built by Ezra Knight; and Uncle Billy was even happier in the cabin built by the Bucks of old. The Peyton coach stood peacefully in the carriage house, with the bees buzzing sleepily, free to come and go in their subway nest somewhere under the back seat. Cupid and Puck wandered in the blue-gra.s.s meadow, content as though they had been put to graze in the Elysian fields.

The first night under the roof of her newly recognized cousins was a novel one for Miss Ann. She had gone to bed not in the least bored, but very tired--tired from actual labor. In the first place, she had helped wipe all the many dishes acc.u.mulated from the motormen's dinners and then put them away. That task completed, she had become interested in Judith's work of mounting photographs--an order lately received and one that must be rushed.

"Want to help?" Judith had asked, and soon deft old fingers were vying with young ones.

"Why, Cousin Ann, you have regular fairy fingers," said Judith, and the old lady had blushed with delight. They worked until the task was completed, while Mrs. Buck nodded over "Holy Living and Dying."

In the morning, when Judith made her early way to the kitchen, she found a fire burning briskly in the stove, the kettle ready to boil and the wood box filled. Uncle Billy, smiling happily, was seated in the doorway. Judith thanked him heartily and he a.s.sured her he liked to help white ladies, but didn't hold much to helping his own race.

"They's ongrateful an' proudified an' the mo' you holps 'em the mo'

they s.h.i.+fts. Me'n Miss Ann has been visitin so long we ain't entered much inter housekeepin', but somehow we seem so sot an' statiumnary now that it comes nachul ter both er us ter len' a han'."

"That's nice," laughed Judith. "I do hope you and Cousin Ann and Cupid and Puck will all feel at home. I wish you would keep your eye open for a nice, respectable woman who could help me, now that I have so many dinners to serve to the trolley men."

"I sho' will--an', Miss Judy, I'm wonderin' if you ain't got a little bitser blue cloth what I mought patch my pants with. If my coattails wa'n't so long I wouldn't be fitten ter go 'mongst folks."

After some discussion with her mother, in which the girl tried to make Mrs. Buck see the difference between saving and h.o.a.rding, Judith finally produced for old Billy many leftovers of maternal and paternal grandfathers.

"Mumsy, you are a trump. Now, you see you saved these things so someone deserving could use them, but if they had stayed in the attic until the moths had eaten them up while old Billy went ragged then that would have been wasteful h.o.a.rding."

"I'm not minding so much about your Grandfather Buck's things, but somehow it seems a desecration for that old darkey to be wearing your Grandfather Knight's trousers."

"That's what makes me say you are a trump, Mumsy. I know you look upon those broadcloth pants as a kind of sacred trust, and I just love you to death for giving in about them."

"And my father was tall and straight of limb, too," wailed Mrs. Buck.

"It seems worse because old Billy's legs are so short and crooked."

Crooked they may have been, but short they were not. By the time the broadcloth trousers traveled the circuitous route of the old man's legs everything came out even.

"Fit me like they was made fer me," he exclaimed, showing himself to Judith.

"Perhaps they were," mused Judith. "And now the coat!"

It was a rusty coat, long of tail and known at the time of its pristine glory as a "Prince Albert." Ezra Knight had kept it for funerals and other ceremonious occasions.

"Is there ary hat?"

There was--a high silk hat with a broad brim. Mrs. Buck rather thought it was one that had belonged to her grandfather and not her father.

At any rate, it rested comfortably on Billy's cotton white wool.

"Now, Uncle Billy, trim your beard and n.o.body will know you,"

suggested Judith. So trim his beard he did, much to the improvement of his appearance.

"Reform number one!" said Judith to herself.

Miss Ann slept the sleep of industry that first night at the Bucks', and the sun was high when she opened her tired old eyes. She lay still for a moment, wondering where she was. This room was different from any of the other guest chambers she had occupied. There was a kind of austerity in the quaint old furniture that was lacking in the bedrooms where modern taste held sway. Nothing had been taken from or added to the Bucks' guest chamber since Grandmother Knight had reverently placed there her best highboy and her finest mahogany bed and candle stand. On the mantel was the model of a s.h.i.+p that tradition said the Norse sailor had carved, and on the walls steel engravings of Milton and Newton--Milton looking up at the stars seeking the proper rhymes, and Newton with eyes cast down searching out the power of gravity from the ground.

Miss Ann looked on her surroundings and smiled peacefully. She thought over the happenings of yesterday and again she realized that it was a pleasant thing to be wanted. There was a knock at the door. Billy, no doubt with hot water and maybe an early cup of coffee.

"Come in!"

It was Judith bearing a tray of breakfast.

"Not a bit of use in your getting up early, Cousin Ann, but every reason for you to have breakfast while it is fresh and hot, so I just brought it in to you. I often make my mother stay in bed for breakfast if she is not feeling very strong. There is nothing like starting the day with something in your tummy. It is a lovely day with a touch of autumn in the air. I do hope you slept."

Judith chattered on, ignoring the fact that Miss Ann was evidently embarra.s.sed that she had been caught minus her wig. The girl opened wide the shutters, letting the sunlight stream into the room.

"Oh, Cousin Ann, what wonderful hair you have! Why it is like the driven snow and as soft as silk! Please, please let me arrange it for you sometimes. I don't know whether you ought to wear it piled on your head in coils and puffs, like a French beauty of way back yonder, or parted in the middle and waved on each side and drawn back into a loose knot."

"Oh, child, you can't think gray hair pretty."

"Why, it is the loveliest thing in the world. If I had hair like yours I'd never cover it up. You will let me try to dress it won't you? I just love to touch it," and Judith fondled one of the silvered plats.

"Yes," faltered the old lady. How long had it been since anyone but old Billy had complimented her? And when had anyone said her hair might be soft to the touch? Wigs do not last forever and Miss Ann had begun to realize that before many weeks a new one would be imperative.

A new wig meant even greater scrimping than usual for Billy and his mistress. Funds must be very carefully handled when such an outlay became necessary. It was next in importance to a new horse, and greater than renewing a wheel on the coach. She had never dreamed that she might get along without a wig. She had begun wearing a wig many years ago, when her hair turned gray in spots. She had always considered dyed hair rather vulgar and so had resorted to a wig and, true to her character for keeping up a custom, she had never discarded the wig, although her hair had long since turned snow-white from root to end.

"Reform number two," Judith said to herself as she viewed her handiwork on Cousin Ann's hair. It was decided to part it in the middle and wave it on the sides and sweetly the old lady's face was framed in the soft, silver locks.

"You look different from yourself, but lovely," cried Judith. "You make me think of a young person trying to look old."

She might have added: "Instead of an old person trying to look young,"

but she did not.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Lost Is Found

Two days pa.s.sed and still the Bucknor clan was in ignorance of the whereabouts of Cousin Ann. It had so happened that Judith had been busy at home and had not gone into Ryeville for several days and n.o.body had called at her home, although since the famous debut party the Bucks had many more visitors than formerly.

Cousin Ann could not have concealed herself from the world more effectually had she tried. Concealment was far from her thoughts, however. She had no idea that a hue and cry would be raised for her.

The Fates, in the shapes of Billy, Cupid and Puck, had taken her destiny in hand and landed her with this golden girl, who wanted her and loved her and petted her and made her feel at home. Here she would stay. How long? She would not let herself dwell on that subject.

What the rest of the family would think of her claiming kin with the hitherto impossible Bucks made little difference to the old lady. She determined never to divulge that old Billy had engineered the visit, but intended, when the question came up with her kinsmen, to let it be understood that she, Ann Peyton, had ruled that Judith Buck belonged to the family and had as good a right to the name of Bucknor as any person bearing the name.