CHAPTER IV
A MOTHER'S SECRET
The first days of autumn brought back school days. Aunt Sarah had gone to visit a nephew in lower Maryland, leaving behind her mementoes in the form of the coat of paint for the front fence, a new cover for the living-room table, and many stitches put in made-over garments for the children. She had further dispensed her bounty in a direction of which the children as yet knew nothing, and it was Nan who first heard of it from her mother.
Aunt Sarah's absence was felt in more ways than one. Mrs. Corner was her favorite niece. A tiny grave in the old churchyard marked the resting place of her namesake, Nan's elder sister, who was her mother's first-born and who lived but three short months. It may have been that Aunt Sarah's heart went out more tenderly toward her own sister's child because of this loss which was so heavy a grief to them both, but whether it was because of this bond between them or because they mutually loved and respected each other, it is true that any sacrifices which Miss Dent felt she could make she made for the Corner family, and when she was with them no task was too heavy for her, and her wise counsel and helpful hands were greatly missed by Mrs. Corner.
It was just after Aunt Sarah's departure, and while school was still a novelty, that Nan, running in to tell her mother of the day's doings, noticed that Mrs. Corner was sewing not for one of the children but for herself. This was so unusual that Nan remarked it, and forgetting her school gossip exclaimed, "Why, mother, you are making a new frock! Where did you get it?"
Her mother dropped her work with a sigh. Nan noticed that the dear face was pale and sad. "Aunt Sarah gave it to me," was the answer. There was silence for a few moments after this, while Mrs. Corner went on with her work of measuring off the black breadths. "I have something to tell you, little daughter," she then said. "You had a secret to tell me a little while ago, and now I have one to tell you." She paused. "It isn't a happy secret, Nan," she went on, "but as you are my eldest and my staff to lean upon, you must try to help me bear it without rebelling."
Nan grew very sober. This was such a melancholy beginning that she feared what might follow, but being a young person who never thrust aside unpleasant things when she knew they must be met she said firmly, "Don't bother about me, mother; I'll be as brave as a lion."
The scissors snipped along the edges of the pattern while Mrs. Corner bent over her work. Presently she said, "It is this, Nannie: that I must leave you for awhile."
All sorts of notions flew to Nan's mind. Was her mother perhaps going to Europe to hunt up her Aunt Helen? Was she going to see Cousin Henry Dent in Maryland? "Oh, mother," she cried, "tell me quick. Where are you going?"
"I am going to the Adirondacks, Nannie."
"The Adirondacks?" Nan looked the surprise she felt. "Why in the world are you going there? You don't know any one up in those regions, do you?"
"No, and that makes it harder. I am going for my health, Nannie."
The blood forsook Nan's cheeks. She felt as if she were sinking down, down, and it took all her effort to check a rising sob. All she did, however, was to hold her nether lip closely between her teeth and to draw a quivering sigh. Then she gasped out: "Oh, mother, mother, it doesn't mean – it can't mean – "
"It doesn't mean anything very serious – yet," said Mrs. Corner dropping her scissors and sitting down by Nan's side. "But the doctor says if I go now the tendency will probably be overcome. If I stay it may mean that the disease will get the better of me, and dear Aunt Sarah has made it possible for me to go. Only a few months, Nan, and Aunt Sarah will come and stay with you while I am away. Now, I want you to stand by Aunt Sarah. She has made, and will continue to make every sacrifice for your mother, and you must make sacrifices for her."
"Oh, I will," cried Nan. "I won't touch the melodeon, and I won't nag the others any more than I can help. Aunt Sarah is good. Oh, I know she is so good, but she isn't – she isn't – you." This time the tears would have their way and they began to course down Nan's cheeks though she sat up straight and tried to blink them away. "And – and" – she went on, "she doesn't – it's hard to make her understand things like it's not always being a waste of time to do what you like and all that."
"I know, but, dear, remember that persons are very likely to respond to what you expect of them, and you will find Aunt Sarah very sympathetic if you take her the right way."
Nan was not at all sure that she could find that right way but she did not say so. She only looked at her toes very mournfully and wondered if it had happened to be Aunt Helen instead of great-aunt Sarah who was to be left in charge whether she would have minded it so much.
"No mother could have had my interests more at heart," continued Mrs. Corner. "Think how she has toiled and sacrificed herself for me, and it is entirely due to her that I am able to go, for not only has she provided the money for my journey, an expensive one, but she has thought of a way to pay my board while I am away, and it is just here, Nan, that I shall have to depend upon you to stand by Aunt Sarah. Cousin Tom Gordon's two boys are to board here and go to school. They want to prepare for the University and it seems a godsend that they are coming this year, for it will make my going away possible. Of course this is a new element. Two boys coming into a family will make new conditions and you must consider that Aunt Sarah is very unselfishly and devotedly undertaking a greater responsibility than we have any right to ask of her. So, Nan, try to play the part of peacemaker always. Be the sweetener of tart speeches; be the sunshine that drives away the clouds. Aunt Sarah loves you and appreciates you, though she has a little crisp way which your over-sensitiveness finds harsh. Never mind that. Be patient and wise and sweet, so will you help your mother and bring her back speedily."
"I'll try, oh, I'll try," said Nan. This was a secret indeed. What plans! What changes! "When do the boys come, and when do you go?" she asked.
"I go next week. Aunt Sarah will try to be here before I leave and before the boys arrive. They expect to get here on the fifteenth."
"Such a little while; such a little while." Nan caught her mother's hand and covered it with kisses. "And when shall you be back?" she asked.
"That I cannot say. It will depend upon what the doctors say."
Nan sat holding her mother's hand against her cheek. It would be their first separation and it would be a hard one. Every now and then the tears gushed to her eyes, though she tried to force them back. "Are you going to tell the others why you are going?" she asked.
"No," returned Mrs. Corner slowly. "I think we will not tell them just why." That we gave Nan a sense of partnership in these schemes. It elevated her to a place beside her mother and Aunt Sarah. She was their confidante and it behooved her to adjust her shoulder to a certain burden of responsibility.
"Tell me about the boys," she said. "Are they nice boys?"
"I hope so. If they are not you must try to make them so. Their names are Randolph and Ashby. Randolph is a year older than you and Ashby a year younger."
"Where will they sleep?" asked Nan, coming down to practical things.
"They can have the room Aunt Sarah always occupies and she can sleep in my room with Jean and Jack."
"Will she like that? Couldn't Mary Lee and I go into your room and let the boys have ours? Your room is so big and with two double beds in it we could do very well. Aunt Sarah always likes that southwest room and it would be warmer in winter."
Mrs. Corner looked pleased at this evidence of consideration. "I am sure that would be a much more comfortable plan for all but you and Mary Lee. It would be some trouble to move all your belongings. I thought the other way would be more convenient; still, if you don't mind – "
"Oh, no, we won't let ourselves mind," said Nan; then, a little shamefacedly, "besides, it would seem more like being near you to sleep in your bed."
Her mother gave the hand that held hers a little squeeze. "Now, I must go on with my work," she said. "I shall have to get this done before I go."
"Can't I help?" asked Nan eagerly.
"Not on this, I'm afraid."
"Then I'll do the other things that you do. I'll go see if Mitty has everything out for supper." She picked up the key basket but paused before leaving the room. "May I tell Mary Lee and the twins about the boys coming and your going if I don't tell why?"
"Yes, I shall be glad if you would." And Nan flew to assume the important office of giving information which would cause a sensation.
She found Mary Lee placidly nursing a decrepit duck which had fallen into the slop barrel, showing in her pursuit of dainties an eagerness which did not accord with her age. Having been rescued and well washed by Mary Lee, she was now lying in that young person's lap rolled in an old bit of horse blanket, her restless eyes alone giving evidence of her uncurbed ambition.
"Come here, Mary Lee, I have a mighty big piece of news to tell you," cried Nan. "I'm going to tell you first."
"You come here," said Mary Lee. "I can't put the duck down till she gets dry."
"How ridiculous! As if a duck cared whether she was wet or dry," said Nan, going up and giving the duck a friendly poke, eliciting a remonstrative "Quack!"
"You'd care if you had fallen into a slop barrel and had to be dipped out in a bucket and lathered all over and rinsed off," said Mary Lee.
"I wouldn't be so foolish as to fall into a slop barrel in the first place. Ducks are such greedy things. I don't see how she got up there."
"She walked up a board like anybody," returned Mary Lee.
"Well, anywhere that she could swim would have done for her bath. It was silly to go through all that fuss of bathing her when she's just a duck that loves water like any other duck."
"What is your news?" asked Mary Lee, changing the subject. "I don't believe it's anything much. You always get so excited over trifles."
"I reckon you won't call this a trifle," replied Nan, "when I tell you that mother is going away for weeks and that Aunt Sarah is coming back to look after us, and that Randolph and Ashby Gordon are coming here to board all winter. I should think that was something to get excited over," she said triumphantly.
Mary Lee stared. "You're making it all up just to fool me."
"I'm not, either. What in the world would I want to do that for? It's true, every word of it. You can ask mother if it isn't."
"What's she going for?" asked Mary Lee.
"Oh, just because. Grown people have their reasons for doing things and we can't always be told them," replied Nan, with, it must be said, rather a condescending air.
"Do you know why?" asked her sister, determined upon getting to the heart of the matter.
"Maybe I do, and maybe I don't."
"If you do, I think you are downright mean not to tell me. I'm 'most as old as you, and she's my mother as much as she is yours."
These latter facts Nan could not deny, so she answered weakly, "Well, anyhow, I shan't tell."
Mary Lee was slow to wrath, but once aroused she did not hesitate to speak her worst. She deposited her roll of horse blanket upon the ground and the duck with satisfied quacks waddled forth from the encumbering folds, glad of her freedom. "You are altogether too high and mighty, Nancy Weston Corner," said Mary Lee, quite outraged by Nan's refusal. "You're a scurvy old pullet, so there!"
"I like your way of calling names," returned Nan contemptuously. "I should think any one could tell that you had been near a slop barrel; you talk like it."
Mary Lee did not wait for further words, but fled to her mother, Nan following, taking the shorter way and reaching her mother first. "I tried to tell Mary Lee without saying why," she began breathlessly, "and she called me a horrid name, so I don't know how it will turn out."
"I think we shall have to tell her," said Mrs. Corner. "I did not realize that it might be difficult for you."
"She's coming now," said Nan.
Mary Lee's footsteps were hastily approaching. She burst into the room with, "Mother, is it true that you are going away?"
"Yes, dear child."
"What for? Nan was so mean and wouldn't tell me."
"I didn't give Nan permission to tell you why I was going."
"She needn't have been so disagreeable about it though," said Mary Lee. "Why didn't she say that you told her not to tell?"
"You didn't give me a chance," put in Nan. "You called me a scurvy old pullet before I could explain."
"What a name, Mary Lee," said Mrs. Corner reprovingly. "Where did you hear it?"
"Phil says it."
"Don't say it again. If you lose your temper like that and cannot bridle your tongue, I am afraid your mother will have many sorry moments while she is away trying to regain her health."
In an instant Mary Lee was on her knees by her mother's side. "Are you ill, mother?" she asked anxiously.
"Not very, but I may be if I do not have a change of climate, so I am going to take a trip. I have hardly left this place for eight years and more. I shall come back trig as a trivet, Mary Lee, so don't be troubled about me."
Nan left her mother to explain matters further and sought the twins who were amicably swinging under a big tree. As she unfolded her news to them the point which at first seemed to be most important was the coming of the two boys. Jack objected to their arrival, Jean welcomed it, and straightway they began a discussion in the midst of which Nan left them. Her brain was buzzing with the many thoughts which her interview with her mother suggested. She determined to be zealous in good works, and immediately hunted up Mitty that she might see that all was going well in the kitchen.
Mitty had not much respect for one younger than herself and paid no attention when Nan entered, but kept on singing in a high shrill key:
"Whe-e-en Eve eat de apple,
Whe-e-e-en Eve eat de apple,
Whe-en Eve eat de apple,
Lord, what a try-y-in' time."
"Mitty, have you everything out for supper?" asked Nan with her mother's manner.
Mitty rolled her eyes in Nan's direction, but vouchsafed no reply, continuing to sing in a little higher key:
"When she-e gabe de co' to Adam,
Whe-en she gabe de co' to Adam,
Whe-e-en she gabe de co' to Adam,
Lord, what a try-y-yin' time."
"I want to know," repeated Nan severely, "if you have everything out for supper?"
"I has what I has," returned Mitty, breaking some splinters of wood across her knee.
"I wish you'd answer me properly," said Nan, impatiently.
"Yuh ain' de lady ob de house," returned Mitty, provokingly. "Yuh ain' but jest a little peepin' chick. Yuh ain' even fryin' size yet."
"I think when mother sends me with a message, it is your place to answer me," said Nan with her head in the air. "I will see if Unc' Landy can get you to tell me what mother wants to know." And she stalked out.
As Unc' Landy was Mitty's grandfather, and the only being of whom she stood in awe, this had its effect. "I tell yuh, Miss Nan, 'deed an' 'deed I will," cried Mitty, running after her and hastily enumerating the necessary articles to be given out from the pantry. "'Tain' no buttah, 'tain' no sugah, jest a little bit o' co'n meal. Oh, Miss Nan!"
But Nan had passed beyond hearing and was resolutely turning her steps toward Unc' Landy's quarters, a comfortable brick cabin which stood about fifty yards from the house. The old man was sitting before its door industriously mending a hoe-handle. It was not often that Nan complained of Mitty, for she, too, well knew the effect of such a course. Upon this occasion, however, she felt that her future authority depended upon establishing present relations and that it would never do to let Mitty know she had worsted the eldest daughter of the house. "Unc' Landy, I wish you'd speak to Mitty," said Nan. "She wouldn't tell me what to give out for supper and mother gave me the keys to attend to it for her; she's busy sewing."
Unc' Landy seized the hoe-handle upon which he was at work, and made an energetic progress toward the kitchen, catching the unlucky Mitty as she was about to flee. Brandishing his hoe-handle, he threateningly cried: "Wha' yo' mannahs? I teach yuh show yo' sassy ways to one of de fambly!"
Up went Mitty's arm to defend herself from the impending blow while she whimpered forth: "I done say 'tain' no buttah; 'tain' no sugah; the's a little bit o' meal; an' Miss Nan ain' hyah me."
"Ef I bus' yo' haid open den mebbe she kin hyah yuh nex' time," said Unc' Landy catching the girl's shoulder and beginning to bang her head against the door.
But here Nan, feeling that Mitty was scared into good behavior interfered. "That will do, Unc' Landy. If she told me, it is all right."
"She gwine speak loudah an' quickah nex' time," said Unc' Landy, shaking his hoe-handle at Mitty. "Yuh tell Miss Nan what she ast yuh, er I'll fetch Mr. Hoe ober hyah agin an' try both ends, so yuh see which yuh lak bes'." And he went off muttering about "dese yer no 'count young niggahs what so busy tryin' to be sma't dey ain' no time to larn sense."
The thoroughly humbled Mitty meekly answered all Nan's questions and Nan felt that she was fortified with authority for some time to come.
Nan was always shocked and repelled by Unc' Landy's methods, and only in extreme cases was she willing to appeal to him. Such appeals, sometimes bringing swifter and more extreme punishment, so affected Nan as to make her avoid Unc' Landy for days. He was always so very tender and courteous to every member of the "fambly" that it seemed almost incredible that he should be so merciless to one of his own flesh and blood, but such was a common attitude of the older negroes toward the younger ones, and his was not an unusual case. When Mrs. Corner was on hand she never permitted the old man to exercise his rights toward Mitty, but once or twice when the girl had overstepped bounds in his presence, he had meted out punishment to her later on, so she feared him while she respected him, praising him lavishly to her boon companions.
"Gran'daddy got a pow'ful long ahm," she would say, "an' man, I say he swif' an' strong, mos' lak angel Gabr'el wid he swo'd an' trumpet. I mos' as feared o' gran'daddy as I is o' angel Gabr'el. Ef gran'daddy call me an' angel Gabr'el blow he trumpet at de same time I don' know which I bleedged to min'. I specs I run a bilin' to gran'daddy fust."
Having established her position in the kitchen, Nan returned to her mother. Every moment seemed precious now, and that night after Mary Lee was asleep, Nan crept softly from her bed and laid herself down by her mother whose arms clasped her close, but who did not allow her to remain. "It is not well for you to sleep with me, dear," she said. "It will be better for us both if you go back to your own room." Nan obeyed, but it was an anxious hour that she spent before sleep visited her. The night hours brought her many forebodings, and she felt that her young spirit was stretching beyond the limits of childhood toward that larger and less happy region of womanhood.
CHAPTER V
HOUSEWIFELY CARES
The day for Mrs. Corner's departure came around all too soon. Aunt Sarah was to have arrived the evening before, but up to the last moment she had not come, and Mrs. Corner felt that she could not wait since all her arrangements were made. "I am positive she will be here to-day," she told Nan, "probably by the noon train, and the boys will not come till to-morrow, so you will have no trouble, even if Aunt Sarah should not come till night."
There were many tears and embraces at the last moment. Even Jean's placidity was disturbed and when the train which held her mother, moved out of sight, she flung herself in Nan's arms sobbing, "Oh, I didn't want her to go, I didn't."
Jack rubbed her eyes with none too clean fists and reiterated: "I promised I'd be good; I promised I'd be good." As for Mary Lee she slipped an arm around her elder sister, but "Oh, Nan! Oh, Nan!" was all she could say. Nan herself bravely kept back the tears but her feeling of helplessness and desolation was almost more than she could bear. Mother, who had never left them for so much as a night, gone far away where they could not and should not reach her. No one to advise, to comfort, to sympathize. No one to confide in. It was all blackness and darkness without that blessed mother.
Four very sober children returned to the house to eat their dinner alone. Even the importance of sitting at the head of the table brought no joy to Nan, and the fact that Phil's mother had sent them over a dish of frozen custard brought none of them any great enjoyment.
Mitty had taken advantage of the occasion to announce that she was going to a "fessible." She informed Nan that she had asked Mrs. Corner's consent weeks before and had been told that when the Sons and Daughters of Moses and Aaron had their "fessible" she could go. There was really nothing to say, and Mitty, adorned in a rattling, stiffly starched petticoat over which as stiffly a starched pink lawn stood out magnificently, started forth, bearing her purple parasol and wearing her brilliant yellow hat trimmed with blue roses.
"She certainly is a sight," remarked Mary Lee, watching Mitty's exit. "Wouldn't her feathers drop if she should get wet? Oh, Nan, I do believe a thunder-storm is coming up. Look at that black cloud."
"Now don't begin to be scary," said Nan, coming to the window. If there was one thing above another of which Mary Lee was scared it was a thunder-storm; it completely demoralized her, and she would always retire to the darkest corner, crouching there in dread of each flash of lightning and clap of thunder. Nan scanned the sky and then said calmly, "Well, I think it is very likely we will have a shower; we generally do when the Sons and Daughters have their festival."
It had been a sultry day, and the low-hanging clouds began to increase in mass, showing jagged edges, and following one another up the sky, black, threatening, rolling forms. In the course of half an hour, the first peal of distant thunder came to their ears and Mary Lee began to tremble. "It seems a thousand times worse when mother isn't here," she complained. "It seems dreadful for us four children to be here all alone. Suppose the lightning should strike the house."
"Then mother would be safe," said Nan, exultantly.
"But it wouldn't do her any good if we should all be killed," Mary Lee returned lugubriously.
"Suppose it should strike the train mother is in?" said Jean in a frightened tone.
"Oh, it couldn't," Nan reassured her. "It goes so fast that it would get beyond the storm. The sun is probably shining bright where mother is by this time."
This was more comforting; nevertheless Mary Lee's fears increased in proportion to the loudness of the thunderclaps. "I'm sure we are not safe here," she declared. "It is getting worse and worse, Nan." A terrific crash which seemed to come from directly overhead gave proof to the truth of her words. Jean clung to her and even Jack looked scared. Mary Lee cowered down in the corner and covered her face.
"Come, I'll tell you what we'll do," said Nan, though by no means unaffrighted herself; "we'll do what Aunt Sarah's grandmother used to do; we'll all go up-stairs; it's safer there, and we'll pile all the pillows on mother's bed – we'll pull it into the middle of the room first – and then we'll all get on it and say hymns. There isn't any feather-bed like they used to have, but the pillows will answer the same purpose. Come, Mary Lee." They all rushed up-stairs, and, between thunderclaps, gathered pillows from the different rooms, and then established themselves upon them in the middle of the bed.
"Aunt Sarah said they never used to feel afraid when their grandmother commenced to say the hymns, and she taught me the best one to say. Keep still, Jack, and I'll say it." A second violent crash of thunder drowned her words and Mary Lee threw herself prone upon her face, calling out: "Put some pillows over me so I can't see nor hear."
"We can't; we're sitting on them," returned Nan. "You are perfectly safe, Mary Lee. Now listen and you won't mind the thunder." And she began the fine old hymn:
"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,
He plants His footsteps on the sea,
And rides upon the storm."
"It scares me for Him to ride upon the storm," faltered Jean.
"But you know if He is in the storm, He is right here to take care of us," said Nan, reassuringly. Jean was satisfied. Even Mary Lee raised her head when Nan had finished the hymn. "Now it is your turn," said Nan. "What will you say, Mary Lee?"
"I think I like 'Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' but I don't know it very well. Do you dare get down and bring me my hymnal, Nan? I wouldn't ask you only I could no more leave this spot than fly."
"I don't mind, I'm sure," responded Nan readily. "I think the worst is over anyhow." But she had scarcely returned with the book when another loud peal sent her scrambling to her nest in the pillows and it was some moments before Mary Lee could gain courage to sit up and repeat the hymn, which she could not do without frequent peepings at the page before her.
"Now Jack, it's your turn," Nan prompted.
Jack was always ready and she began and said through without faltering the hymn beginning: "Dear Jesus ever at my side." There was a most uplifted and saintlike expression on the child's face as, with clasped hands, she repeated the closing lines:
"But when I sleep, Thou sleepest not,
But watchest patiently."
One would have supposed Jack to be a most lovely and angelic person, and, in truth, for the time being, she was angelic.
Jean's turn came last. "I can't fink of anyfing but 'Jesus, tender Shepherd, Hear Me,' and it isn't bedtime yet," she said.
"Never mind if it isn't," said Nan; "it is quite dark and that will do very nicely." So Jean added her hymn while the storm still raged. However, they were all comforted, and finding that the plan of Aunt Sarah's grandmother worked so well, Nan proposed that they should not stop but should take another round of hymns.
"It would be nicer to sing them I think," said Jack.
"So it would," the others agreed, "and then nobody would have to remember all, for, if one should forget the hymnal will be right here."
"Let's sing 'Now the day is over,'" said Jack.
"But it isn't over," objected the literal Jean. However as this was a general favorite, they sang it through and by that time the storm was passing over and they felt they could safely leave the feather pillows.
"It was a splendid plan," declared Mary Lee. "Once or twice I almost forgot to be afraid, though I do wish Unc' Landy could have been somewhere in the house."
"I don't know how he could have helped matters," returned Nan, "though I shouldn't have minded his being on hand. I don't believe he has gone to the festival and very likely has been out in all the storm stopping leaks in the barn; it's what he generally does. Gracious! what's that?"
A thundering knock at the door stopped them in their work of returning the pillows to their places. "Who can it be?" said Nan.
"Maybe it's some one from Cousin Mag Lewis's to see if we are all right," said Mary Lee. "I shouldn't wonder if it were Phil."
"Well, you go see."
Mary Lee ran down-stairs to the door. It was still raining a little as the puddles in the front walk showed. The vines were dripping and the flowers hung heavy heads. Mary Lee did not notice these things, however, for two strange lads stood before her. She at once surmised who they were. "Come right in," she said. "Just put your umbrellas in that corner of the porch. I'll tell Nan you are here."
"We are Randolph and Ashby Gordon," said the boys.
"I know," returned Mary Lee, and sped up the stairs leaving the boys to deposit their wet umbrellas on the porch. "Nan, Nan," called the girl, "they've come, and Aunt Sarah isn't here."
"Who has come?" Nan questioned from the top of the steps.
"The boys, our cousins, Randolph and Ashby. They are at the front door."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Nan. "What did you say to them, Mary Lee?"
"I didn't say anything except to tell them where to put their umbrellas. Come right down, please, Nan."
"Their bed isn't made or anything," said Nan, pausing to look across at the open doorway which disclosed a room not yet in good order. "I'll have to explain, I suppose."
She went sedately down-stairs to find the two boys standing in the front hall. "Oh, how do you do?" she began. "We didn't expect you to-day" – and then feeling that this was scarcely a welcoming speech, she hesitated, blushing at not being ready for the occasion.
"I know," said the elder boy, "and we must apologize for being ahead of time, but we found that we could get here to-day and have company all the way. A friend of father's, one of the professors at the University, was coming, and he insisted upon our taking the same train. I hope it doesn't make any difference to you."
"No," Nan faltered, "only Aunt Sarah hasn't come yet and your room isn't quite ready."
"Oh, no matter," returned the boy, courteously enough, but rather distantly.
"You see, mother went away only this morning," Nan continued her explanations, "and Mitty, our girl, has gone out, but if you will just walk into the living-room and make yourselves at home, I can soon get everything in order. I'm Nan, you know. It was Mary Lee who opened the door and the twins are up-stairs. We had a heavy storm, didn't we?"
"We certainly did," replied Randolph, following her into the room. His brother silently entered with him.
"Please make yourselves at home," repeated Nan.
Having established her guests, she flew up-stairs. "They're here sure enough," she said. "You all will have to help me get the room ready; fortunately it has been swept. Jean, get some clean towels and the piece of soap from mother's room. I suppose we shall have to give them soap. Jack, I wish you would get some water. No, you'd better not," she called. But Jack, finding a chance to help and rather liking the task imposed upon her, was already half way down-stairs. With Mary Lee's assistance, the bed was made and the room was soon tidy. Then Nan returned below stairs to decide what to have for supper. She would put the best foot forward, and, though she was racking her brains for a proper bill of fare, she would not show her anxiety. Her own efforts in the way of cooking had been limited, for her mother had always been there to take the weight of responsibility. She could make tea, but perhaps the boys didn't drink it; she would find out. She would have to attempt either biscuits or batter bread, for, of course, cold bread was out of the question. There was no cold meat. She would fry some bacon. Bacon and eggs would do nicely. She would set Mary Lee to paring and cutting up some peaches. There could be sliced tomatoes, too. If the bread question could be settled, they would do very well. She would bake some potatoes in case her bread was a failure. She sent Jean to find Mary Lee and tell her to come to the kitchen and then she set to work.