The Annals of Ann Part 3

I guess I've been worse this last week than ever before, for it is the first time I've been ashamed to tell what I've done in my diary.

Bertha knows if Aunt Laura could get Brother Sheffield to marry her she would unwill the money from the baby; so she thinks up things to tell me to do to keep them from being together, and I've been doing them. One time I hid her purple Sunday bonnet, then her curls to keep her from going to prayer-meeting, but I'm glad to say that I have never taken the dimes which Bertha said she would give me for doing them. I hate Aunt Laura enough to do mean things to her myself, which is a better principle than to do them just for dimes.

This is Sunday again and I have to go to church. Somehow, during the summer, Sunday smells like black silk, for mother and all the ladies that can afford it wear it to church to let the others see how well off they are. When I was _right_ little and got tee-ninsy cards at Sunday-school I imagined Heaven looked like those cards, all lilies-of-the-valley and little pink lambs, but since I've grown older my views have changed. Preachers always think you can't go to Heaven unless you do just like they do, and I couldn't be like a preacher to save my life, except about chicken.

Aunt Laura had to look all over the place for her black silk waist this morning and then not find it, so she got into a bad spell and couldn't go to church. After the sermon was over and we were trying to forget it by standing around and telling the other ladies how much fruit we had put up this past week, Brother Sheffield came up and asked mother if Aunt Laura was sick, not being out to services. Mother said she was, but she hoped to find her all right when we got home, as she never was sick very long, and I knew she would be well because it was ice-cream for dinner. He said then he'd be over to see her this afternoon as he hadn't seen her in so long.

Well, it was awfully hot all the afternoon, and, as he wouldn't be over till late so as to be invited to supper, Aunt Laura decided to take off her front hair and have a nap after dinner. Now, up to this time I have been afraid to mention even in my diary about Bertha's bad habit. I really like Bertha better than I did before she was married, and I knew if Aunt Laura was to catch on to it she would change from the baby right away, for Brother Sheffield calls it "the trade-mark of Jezebel," which is a Bible lady, though the preachers always throw her up to anybody they don't like. So Bertha keeps this locked away good in the little left-handed drawer of her bureau, and don't anybody but me know it's there.

It was getting late when brother Sheffield drove up to the gate. He is an old man and his knees are so poor that they look like they would punch through his trousers legs if he was to get down on them to ask a lady to marry him, as they do in books. In fact, I have stayed around the parlor and watched considerable, thinking how mortified I'd feel if they were to punch through, but he hasn't ever got down on them yet. His name is Gideon, which makes it worse for him, too. Cousin Eunice said Ann Lisbeth's name is a very old one in the country across the ocean where she used to live, but I know there ain't an older name on earth than Gideon. Aunt Laura ought to have been named the feminine of it, instead of that beautiful name that has so much lovely poetry written about it.

Anyhow, I was surprised that she wasn't dressed up in a clean waist and down on the front porch to meet him, but I went up-stairs right quick to tell her he was there. She was still asleep and woke up as mad and red as folks always do that go to sleep in the summer. I told her he was already on the porch.

"Well, help me get dressed, won't you, instead of standing there staring at me as if you never saw anybody with their front hair off and their upper plate out before? Run to the well and bring me some fresh water, and, say, come back by your mother's room and bring me her box of powder and puff. I spilt all of mine looking in the drawer this morning for that pestiferous waist. Hurry!"

I ran to the well and got the water, but coming back by mother's room I saw that Brother Sheffield was facing the door and would have seen me, which wouldn't have been nice to bring out a box and puff before a man, much less a preacher, so I didn't get the powder. I told Aunt Laura to get Bertha's, when she commenced fussing, for I had pa.s.sed her room and saw that she had dressed in a big hurry and left the bureau unlocked, the room being very hot and dark, the baby being asleep, on account of the flies. She hushed then and said for me to go down and tell him that she would be out in a few minutes, which I did.

I left him on the porch fanning while I went out to a little place I have under the porch where it is nice and quiet and they can't find you reading fairy tales when they want you for something; but _you_ can hear _them_ talking.

Pretty soon Aunt Laura came out, and in her dressed-up voice commenced telling him how sorry she was that she kept him waiting. But before she had more than got it said he asked her excited-like what was the matter with her. It seemed like when he got excited she did too, so she grabbed her stomach (not that I saw her, but I know she always does it here lately when she gets mad or scared) and said:

"Oh, my heart! It must be the heart disease!"

He interrupted her again, a heap too quick and sharp for a preacher:

"Your heart _nothing_! Go and look at your _face_!"

That was more than I could stand, so out from under the porch I slid, just in time to see Aunt Laura, with her face as red as the Indians they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could look at herself in the hat-rack looking-gla.s.s. She gave one tremendous yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying in from where they were. It wasn't a minute before me and Brother Sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in off of the back porch, and Dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning over the banisters to see what was the matter.

"It's my death stroke," Aunt Laura said, just like she knew what she was talking about. "The doctor's books say it comes on this way," she kept on, while the preacher fanned her and we were all flying around doing things for her, and me standing still wondering how on earth come her face so fiery red. "Thank Heaven, I die in the conviction of having lived a good life, _and_ willed all my money to the only member of my family that has ever treated me with any respect." This did look kinder like the truth, for the baby was the only member of the family which was crying over this sad occasion; but she was very loud and hard.

"I've been visited by Providence with a curious family," poor Aunt Laura said, looking very mad toward father and mother, "but they will soon have cause to regret all their strange ways with me. If there was _one_ person in this world that _did_ care for me, to _that_ one should my will be changed, for there is little consolation in leaving your property to a baby."

Brother Sheffield here spoke up and said as Aunt Laura "so fully realized her hopeless condition he thought they better have some conversation together as to her spiritual welfare. He desired a few moments alone with her."

"Yes," said Aunt Laura right quick, "_private_ conversation. My soul's safety is not to be discussed in the presence of my enemies!"

So out we all got, me along with the rest of them, which was a great disappointment, for I could have learned a good deal if there had been any way of staying in there. They talked a long time and we could hear a few remarks now and then, being as we couldn't think of anything to say ourselves, and it was very still on the porch. Once or twice we heard her say very decided-like that indeed she _wasn't_ mistaken, for every book she had read on the subject said it was exactly that kind of a symptom. And then he would talk some, and one time he seemed to doubt her word so that she fairly yelled out, the way she does when he ain't around: "Can you doubt the hideous mark of death that has this hour appeared upon my face? Isn't it proof that my flesh is being prepared for the worms?" which _did_ sound pitiful and scary, too, it being kinder dark on the porch. This seemed to do the work, for in a few minutes she called us in and told us that Brother Sheffield had asked her to marry him, and although she had never before considered him in the light of a lover, still she was going to do it if the Lord let her live an hour, while father could ride over for a preacher and she could change her will. Brother Sheffield was crying like he does when he is calling mourners, and his voice would hardly talk, but he managed to say:

"Yes, she has done me the honor to accept me; she, a woman of intellect and _wealth_, and me, only a poor, humble worker----" He couldn't get any further, but I had heard it so many times before that I knew it was "humble worker of the vineyard," though father says he is more of a _hungry_ eater of the _barnyard_.

When Aunt Laura mentioned about being married in an hour Brother Sheffield seemed to take a second thought, and spoke up kinder weak and said he didn't know whether it was exactly right to be married on Sunday or not. When Aunt Laura saw him begin to weaken it brought on such a hard spell that she laid back on the sofa with her eyes shut, like she was sure enough dead. This really scared mother, and she told Mammy Lou, who had her head poked in at the back door, to run for some water. Mammy brought the bucket in off the back porch and commenced sousing it over Aunt Laura by the handsful, which didn't bring her to; but a strange thing happened, which, if it wasn't me that saw it, anybody would think it was a story, but I cross my heart that the water that dribbled down off her face on to her clean waist was _pink_!

"Jumping Jerusalem!" father said, "the heart disease is was.h.i.+ng off!"

This made Aunt Laura open her eyes, and by that time Mammy Lou had got a towel and was wiping her face off all over, which seemed to make it look natural again. Not one of us knew what to think of such a strange disease till all of a sudden I remembered Bertha's bad habit! And then I knew it was all off with Aunt Laura and the marrying. It wasn't very long till they all caught on to what it was on her face; and the worst part of it was that Brother Sheffield said he believed she did it _a-purpose_. He rose up very proud, and looking kinder relieved and said he could never marry a woman who would "defile herself with the trade-mark of Jezebel."

When he commenced throwing up Jezebel to Aunt Laura she threw up Esau to him, which sold himself for a "mess of pottage," though this never did sound lady-like to me, even coming from the pulpit. So Esau went out and drove straight home, and Jezebel went up-stairs and packed her trunk to go home early in the morning, never having been so insulted by relatives before in her life.

So the marrying is off and the baby is disinherited, which will be a relief to it when it gets big enough to understand. But the worst part is that Aunt Laura blames the whole thing on me, for she says I had her ruination in mind when I sicked her on to that little left-handed drawer. Of course it ain't so, but it proves that people ought to raise the blind and be sure it's _whitening_ they're spreading on, even if the baby is asleep.

CHAPTER IV

You remember, my diary, a good many pages back I mentioned in here a pair of Bohemians that were married to each other and were friends of ours and would come to Rufe's every week and we would all do funny things? Well, I couldn't write about them then, for I didn't have any s.p.a.ce for married people, wanting to save it purely for folks that loved each other. But now it does seem like Providence that they've come down here to spend the summer in the country, for there's not a single loving soul left to write about, Aunt Laura being gone and Brother Sheffield never very loving when she was here, except chicken.

Their name is Mrs. Marie and Augustus Young. Father says that Adam or the legislature knew a thing or two when it named them _Young_. He is a professor and owns a chair in a college that must either have gold nails in it or sit extra good, for Rufe says it is worth five thousand dollars a year. Mrs. Young sings vocal. I wish she didn't, especially in a parlor. If anybody is singing or reciting a speech on a platform and flowers and electric lights it thrills you and you really enjoy it; but if they do it in a close room, especially if it trills high or has to kneel down and get red in the face, it makes you so ashamed for the one that's doing it, and for yourself, too, that you look straight at the carpet. Even then the blood rushes to your head.

They have built a house with such a wide porch running all around it that it reminds you of a little, tiny boy with a great big hat pulled down over his eyes, which is called a bungalow. They said they had brought a "complete outfit for light housekeeping" along with them, but when mother saw it she laughed considerable on the outside of the bungalow, for it was fifty-three books, mostly ending in "ology," a hammock and some chairs that lean away back, a guitar apiece, a great many little gla.s.s cases that you stick bugs and b.u.t.terflies in if you can catch them, a picture of the Apostle Hosea, with his head all wrapped up like an old lady with the neuralgia, which they both said they could not live without, and a punching-bag, which they punched a great deal in the city, not having any baby to amuse themselves with, which was a good thing for the baby I reckon. So mother sent them over a great many things and Professor Young said she was the most sensible woman he ever saw, including a biscuit board and a sifter. They have been here a few days now and are delighted with the country air and the green scenery, and, although it does seem proud to say it, _me_.

They thought very highly of me at Cousin Eunice's and said I was the most "interesting revelation of artless juvenile expression" they ever saw, which I wrote down on paper and when I came home taught it to Mammy Lou to give in at the experience meeting.

One morning early, while mammy was beating the biscuit for breakfast, and I was up in the pear tree right by the kitchen door I nearly fell out with surprise when I saw Professor Young coming around the house with a pretty s.h.i.+rt open at the neck that he admires and two _great big_ dominecker roosters up in his arms which were both squawking very loud. Mammy Lou came to the door to see what all the noise was about, and he said she was the very person he wanted to see.

"Auntie," he commenced, trying to get into his pocket and wipe his face with his handkerchief, which was greatly perspiring, but he couldn't do it for the roosters, "my wife and I are in a quandary. We are both ignorant of the preferred method of inflicting a painless yet instantaneous death upon a fowl."

Mammy's eyes began to s.h.i.+ne, for she loves big words like she loves watermelons, and without a sign of manners she never even tried to answer his question, but looked up at me in the tree and says:

"Baby, kin you rickollect all that to write it down?"

Professor Young then looked up into the tree too and says: "Why, Mistress Ann, how entirely characteristic!" And then he wanted to know what book I was reading and I told him, _John Halifax, Gentleman_, which I have had for my favorite book since I was eleven years old; and the roosters continued to squawk. I got down then and asked Professor Young if he wouldn't come into the house, but he said no and asked his question to mammy over again. She looked at me and to save her manners I told her right quick what the meaning of it was, me understanding it on account of being precocious and also at Rufe's last winter, where they use strange words.

"_Thar now!_ Is _that_ all it's about?" she asked awfully disappointed, for she thought from the words "painless death" it must be something about preaching. Then in a minute, when she saw that he was still waiting, she turned around to him and said: "Whar is the chicken _at_ that you want killed?"

He held the roosters away from him and, looking at them as proud as a little boy looks at a bucket of minnows, he said:

"These are they!"

This tickled mammy so, and me too, though I remembered my manners, that she began to laugh, which shook considerable under her ap.r.o.n, and said:

"Well, gentle_men_! Whut do you want to kill _them_ for?"

"For breakfast," he said; and, noticing her laughing, his face got to looking so pitiful all in a minute that it made me just wish that Cinderella's fairy G.o.dmother would come along and turn those roosters into nice little pullets all fried and laying on parsley.

"Why, Mr. Professor," mammy told him, "them roosters is so old that they will soon die a natural death if you leave them alone; and they're so big that you might fry 'em frum now till breakfast time on Jedgment Day, and then they wouldn't be fitten!"

When she told him this he did manage to get out his handkerchief, I thought maybe to cry on, he looked so disappointed, but it was just to perspire on.

"I--er, observed that they were unduly large," the poor man told her, "but I--er, thought maybe the larger a country thing was the better!"

I thought of horse-flies and ticks, but was too mannerly to mention them, especially so near breakfast time. Just then mother and father came out of the back door, and when they heard the tale of the roosters they both invited him to come right in and have breakfast with us, and said they would tie their legs together so they could flop around the back yard, but couldn't get away, and I could run over and bring Mrs. Young.

Last night when I got home I was too tired to write or anything else, for it was the night of the glorious Fourth! Professor Young and Mrs.

Young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able to spend the Fourth of July in a cool ravine instead of in the horrid city where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys.

They said they must have me go along for the woods wouldn't really be woodsy without me, as I was the genius loci. I didn't know at first what that was, but I know now that it makes you tired and perspiry to be the genius loci of eight miles of woods on the Fourth of July. Rufe and Cousin Eunice couldn't think of half as many peculiar things to do when they were courting as the Youngs.

We ate a number of stuffed eggs which kinder made up for the tiredness, me being very fond of them, but Professor Young is crazy about Mrs. Young's singing voice and every time we'd come to an extra pretty place he would say: "Marie, my love, sing something just here,"