CHAPTER XI.
LETTERS AND SEVERAL KINDS OF FATHERS
From Page Allison to Miss Sue Lee, Washington, D. C
My dearest Cousin Sue:
You told me not to write to you until I had got real settled and could give you some decided opinions about the place and the people. I am settled now and feel as though I had been born and bred here. I just love it and am making loads and loads of friends.
First thing I must tell you how right my clothes are. It is splendid not to have to think about them, but just to put them on and know that they are suitable. Some of the girls here are great dressers, in spite of the endeavors of the directors to put them into a kind of uniform, but I can't see that their fine clothes make them any more popular than the others. Do you know, Cousin Sue, I'd rather be popular than be president?
My roommates, the Tucker twins, are awfully popular, but they don't care nearly so much about it as I do. You see, they have been knowing lots of people all their lives and I haven't. Sometimes I am afraid I'll get kind of mealy-mouthed in my anxiety to have people like me, and the only thing that saves me from it is my hatred of fools and snobs. I know I shouldn't hate fools because they can't help it, but I think snobs ought to be hated.
We have become acquainted with some boys from Hill-Top, the academy on the other side of the town. They are real nice and I find I am not at all embarrassed with them. They are not a bit beauy or lovery (the Tuckers and I would hate that), but they are just boys and have got lots more sense than I expected to find in the male sex.
The Juniors here at Gresham are lots of them beau crazy. They talk about boys from morning till night. I do hope when I get to be a Junior I won't go through that stage. Miss Sayre, a lovely girl and too nice to me for anything, a pupil teacher and at least nineteen, says she has never known but one girl in her life who arrived at her age without going through the stage of talking about boys all the time, and she says that poor girl was dumb and she took it out in making eyes. Dum and Dee and I told her we'd cut out our tongues before we'd make boys our sole topic of conversation, and Miss Sayre just laughed and asked us if we would gouge out our eyes, too.
I am doing very well in my studies, and working awfully hard. You see, we have to spend a certain time over our books and learn in spite of ourselves. French is coming easy to me and I believe it is because Father has drilled me so thoroughly in Latin. I am getting on top of Mathematics by the hardest kind of climbing. At first I felt as though I'd have to remove mountains ever to learn a thing, but now I realize I don't have to remove mountains, but just climb them; and certainly as you climb you get an outlook that you never dreamed of.
Father writes very cheerfully but I am afraid he is mighty lonesome. I feel very selfish to be off here having such a good time when I know how hard it is for him. I wish you would write him a nice long letter. Your letters always do him good.
I like Miss Peyton, our principal, ever and ever so much; she is so just. All of the teachers are pretty nice, but I am not getting quite as much from the English Literature teacher as I hoped I would. She is a good teacher, I have no doubt, but not interesting. I have the feeling that she likes what the textbooks tell her to, and has no taste of her own. Her knowledge of poetry, for instance, stops with the age of Tennyson.
You know Father's extravagance and relaxation is poetry, past, present and even future. He has been reading poetry to me since before I could talk, and a new poet is more interesting to him than a new disease. He had never told me that poetry had to arrive at a certain age, like veal or cheese, before it was worthy to be taken in; and I brought down the scorn and wrath of Miss Prince on my devoted head and came mighty near getting enough demerits to keep me in bounds a week, because I asked her if she did not think Masefield's poem of "The Dauber" had more atmosphere of the deep sea in it than "The Ancient Mariner." She looked at me very severely through her visible bi-focals and said: "Miss Allison, this is a class in English Literature; and matters foreign to the subject are not to be discussed."
I rather miss the reading I have always done. We study so hard there is no time to read, and the library is one of these donated ones. It has sets of Dickens and Scott in such fine print that you can't keep your place, a few odd volumes of Thackeray, Milton and Pope, and the rest of the shelves are crowded with books that some generous patron evidently has had no use for himself. They are the kind of books that Father says are good enough to keep the doors open with or to put under a rocker when you don't want to rock.
There is a good encyclopedia and dictionary and our textbooks are very complete. I believe it is good for me to have to confine myself to the textbooks for a while, but I shall be glad to be at Bracken again and curl up on the sofa with the dogs some dull old rainy day and read as long as I can see.
Some day I hope you will know my friends. I have told them all about you and they think you are splendid. The Tucker twins are going to stay a few days at Bracken during the holidays, and I am to be with them for a week-end in Richmond. It will be a more agreeable visit than the time I spent with Cousin Park Garnett, I fancy. By the way, Cousin Park sent me a present the other day. You could never guess what it is: a black and purple crocheted shoulder shawl! I'm real glad to have it because we are going to have a dicker party and it will be the very thing to contribute.
You don't know how much obliged I am to you for the huge box of marshmallows. We have not opened it yet, as we are saving up for a grand spread that Dum and Dee and I are going to give. Good-by, dear Cousin Sue.
Yours devotedly,Page.
Mr. Jeffry Tucker to the Misses Virginia and Caroline Tucker
Richmond, Va.November 28, 19 —
My dearest Tweedles:
How am I ever to get through Thanksgiving without you? Of course I'm going to the game to root for Virginia, but I'll be mighty lonesome. I've been invited to join several parties, but I believe I'll take old Brindle and go by my lonely. The only pleasure I take in Thanksgiving is that it is just a little nearer to Christmas, when I'll have my babies back with me for a delirious three weeks.
I miss you so much that I can't remember what my reason was for thinking it best for you to go to boarding school. I must have had some good reason, but it is swallowed up in misery over your absence. Could it have been that you needed training and to learn to control yourselves? Foolish notion! When you come home you can fight all over the shop if you've a mind; and sass your pa until he crawls under the bed with Brindle; and get late to your meals; and go around with holes in your stockings; do anything, in fact, that your fancy dictates. All I ask of you is to come home the same old Tweedles, loving your poor, lonesome, old Zebedee as much as ever.
I am delighted that you are making so many good friends. There is nothing in all the world like friends and the ones made in early years are worth all the others put together.
Please remember me to Miss Page Allison and tell her I saw her father the other day, and he was looking mighty fit, considering he has not had her to take care of him for so long. He had come up to Richmond for a medical convention. I am glad you are enjoying Miss Page so much. I liked her on short acquaintance better than any friend you have ever had. I am delighted that you have invited her to spend some of the holidays with us. I asked Dr. Allison if he could spare her to us for a few days, and he said of course he could. You girls seem to have a mutual admiration society. Miss Page, according to Dr. Allison, is as enthusiastic about my girls as my girls are about his girl.
I am intensely gratified that the three of you have kept up with the poor scared child we met on the train. Such a wholesome trio would be sure to be good for the timid, miserable little thing. You must ask her to come to see us in Richmond if you have not already done so.
I am sending you a box of goodies for your day-after-Thanksgiving spread. I am afraid some of the things are contraband, but people who make rules would not make them unless they expected schoolgirls and their outrageous young fathers to break them. I fancy I have concealed the true nature of the contents of the box, and unless the supervision is very thorough, it will pass muster and the contraband articles find the way to their destination – your little insides. Love to Jinny Cox.
Good-by,Zebedee.
Dr. James Allison to Miss Page Allison
Bracken, Sunday aft.
My dear little daughter:
I saw young Jeffry Tucker in Richmond last week and what he had to tell me of my girl gratified me greatly. I am not going to divulge to you what he said, but you may know it was something pretty nice.
I miss you very much, my dear Page, but poor old Mammy Susan is worse off than I am because she is at home all the time and I am off on my rounds, and when I am at home, thank God, I have books. I do not mean to say that books take the place of my girl, but I mean I can bury myself in them and for the time being be oblivious to everything else.
Sally Winn is still trying to die, poor woman. I was called out in the wee small hours this morning to help her cross the Styx. She has been more determined than ever since Mrs. Purdy passed over. She is very jealous and said this morning: "Betty Purdy always was a pushing thing. She made out all the time she didn't want to go but that's not so, I know. She's been getting ahead of me all her life. Pretended she married Purdy because he was so bent on it that she had to. Everybody knows it was just the other way, she was so bent on it, Purdy had to." Of course you must have heard that Mr. Purdy courted Sally first. I suggested that it would be well if she tried to live and perhaps she might console the widower; and do you know, I left her with a much stronger pulse.
I hope your Thanksgiving will go off finely. I cannot tell you how we long for you, my dear; but Christmas will soon be here, and in the meantime I am going to bury myself in a new book I got in Richmond last week.
I am so glad for you to make these good friends you write of. The Twins sound delightful. Tucker is one of the best fellows I know. He is ridiculously young to be the father of girls as old as you. He is one of the cleverest newspaper men in the South, so clever I wonder the South keeps him. New York newspapers seem to suck in all the bright men sooner or later.
I am so glad your friends will come to Bracken for a visit with you during the holidays, and I will of course let you go to them for a visit. I may run up to the city at the same time. Cousin Park Garnett has made me promise to stay with her the first time I go to Richmond, so I am afraid the trip will not be altogether hilarious for me.
The dogs send love to their mistress in yaps, yowls and whines. Mammy says she hopes "you ain't done wash all de meat off'n you in dem plumbin' tubs."
With much love,Father.
From Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore to Miss Annie de Vere Pore
Price's Landing, Va.
My dear Annie:
I am most gratified at the account you give of the progress you are making in your studies. The authenticity of your account is verified by the report I have received from the principal of the institution.
I am surprised and grieved that you should find your wardrobe not sufficient for your needs. There is a vulgar tendency among all Americans to overdress which you must avoid. Remember that in your veins flows the blood of Ponsonby and de Vere and that is more to be considered than all the fine clothes in the world of the nouveau riche. I will send you the box containing some old lace and a white dress of your Mother's. If that is not suitable, I think you had better not appear at the concert of which you write.
I also wish to warn you against undue intimacies with persons of whom you know little or nothing. The sacrifice I am making in sending you to boarding school is not that you may amuse yourself with friends no doubt beneath you in birth and breeding but that you may perfect yourself in your studies and cultivate your voice, which may prove of material benefit to you.
General Price called on me yesterday and told me he had received a letter from his grandson, Harvie, in which he had mentioned the fact that he had met you at a football game. I hope you are not wasting much of your time in such frivolous pursuits.
Yours truly,Arthur Ponsonby Pore.
CHAPTER XII.
ANNIE'S MOTHER
We were rather troubled about Annie Pore and what on earth she was going to wear to the concert. Her wardrobe, not being extensive, was well known to all of her friends and certainly there was nothing suitable in it for a girl who was going to have to stand up on the stage and sing.
"If she would only not be so proud," groaned Dum; "but who could say to Lady Clara Vere de Vere, 'Let me lend you some of my duds?' Now I shouldn't in the least mind borrowing anything from anybody if I thought the person cared for me. Don't I wear the Liberty scarf your Cousin Sue sent you every time I find it idle, and if I could borrow from you, Page, why shouldn't Annie?"
"Well, it is different, Dum, because Annie hasn't got anything. You borrow the scarf just as a frill, but if it were a necessity I don't believe you would." I had intense sympathy for Annie because I could fancy what my own clothes would have been if dear Cousin Sue Lee had not had them in charge. Miss Pinky Davis, our country dressmaker, would have turned out just such another crooked seamed suit as Annie's if Cousin Sue had not insisted on a mail order, and I know my shirtwaists would have been big where they should have been little, and little where they should have been big: and as for Middy blouses, there is no telling what they would have looked like: rick-rack trimming on the collar, no doubt, and ruffles around the tail. Cousin Sue did let Miss Pinky make me some white evening dresses and they turned out all right because Cousin Sue bridled Miss Pinky's fancy.
"Let me see," said Dee, "as far as I can remember Annie has a blue serge skirt, two white shirtwaists, one blue poplin one and a plaid silk blouse for Sunday. I can't bear to think of her on the stage in any of that array. Of course it makes no difference to any of us, but think of that nasty Mabel Binks and her following! Ugh! I tell you one thing," she added excitedly, "if any of them make Annie feel bad, they've got me to fight."
"Me, too," chimed in Dum.
"Well, I can't see that that would help Annie's clothes much," I laughed, "but it might keep you, Tweedles, from having apoplexy."
"Dee, you've got so much tact, you go see Annie and find out what she is going to wear," suggested Dum.
"Oh, no, not me! I'm so afraid I might leak, and that would never do," and Dee got out a handkerchief ready for emergencies. "You see, I feel so bad about Annie and so desperately sorry for her that I have to cry just thinking about her, and what would it be if she should get out her poor little blouses and ask my advice? Just think of all the clothes Jo Barr has, simply going to waste and how old Jo would love to dress Annie up in them! Still, we all know that Annie would be cut to the quick at the suggestion of such a thing. Oh, dear, oh, dear! I wonder what Zebedee would do."
"Well, I know what I am going to do," I said, uncurling myself from the window sill where I could, by a good deal of craning of the neck, catch a glimpse of my beloved mountains; "I'm going in and have it out with Annie. She knows I love her and I don't believe I'll hurt her feelings. I think she trusts us, and when you really trust people they simply can't hurt your feelings unless you have a natural born chip on your shoulder, which Annie hasn't."
"Oh, Page, you are just like Zebedee," tweedled the twins. "That's what he would do."
I found Annie looking very like old Rain-in-the-Face. She was in a forlorn heap on the floor; her eyes red; her ripe-wheat hair all disheveled; and in her hand a crumpled letter. On the floor by her was an unopened box which had just come by parcels post.
Her "Come in" in answer to my knock had been more like a sob than an invitation to enter.
"What is it, dear Annie? Tweedles and I have just been talking about you and we wonder if you know how much we love you. Do you?"
"Oh, Page, I don't see how you can!"
"Well, we do, and I said I believed you loved us enough to trust us. I mean to understand that we could never hurt your feelings in any possible way, just because we'd rather be boiled alive than hurt you."
Annie looked up and smiled a rather watery smile, but a smile all the same.
"Now s'pose you trust me and tell me what is the matter. What are friends for if you can't tell them your troubles?"
"Oh, Page, I'd like to tell you, but it would seem so disloyal to my Father."
"You understand, Annie, that if you tell me anything it would be just like telling it to a Father Confessor. I mean I'd never breathe a word of it." It sounded as though I were full of curiosity, but while of course I did want to know, my reason for pressing Annie was that I felt she needed to let off steam, that is, her pent-up emotions.
"I know you are the best friend any girl ever had and I believe I will tell you all about everything."
"Well, wash your face first and let me brush your hair while you talk."
So Annie got up and bathed her face, and while I combed and brushed her thick, yellow hair, she told me the following tale:
"You see, Page, my Father is an Englishman and he is awfully proud. He does not understand a little girl a bit nor did he understand my beautiful Mother. He loved her, though, adored her, in fact, and I know has never been happy one minute since she died; that's been about four years now. He does not love me, though, I am afraid; but maybe I do him an injustice and don't understand him. Anyhow, he is never chummy and chatty with me like Mr. Tucker is with Tweedles."
"I bet he does love you, Annie. My Father is not so intimate with me as Mr. Tucker is with his girls, but I know he loves me. You see, Mr. Tucker is almost the same age as his daughters and I fancy your Father is much older than you are, just as mine is." And I went on brushing her hair, knowing she was becoming calmer and beginning rather to enjoy talking about herself.
"My Father, you know, is very well born; in fact, his Father was a baronet of very ancient stock and his elder brother now has the title and estates. Father was educated for the church. He has an Oxford degree and is very scholarly. However, after all his education, he did not want to take orders. He felt that he had no vocation for the ministry, and he and my grandfather had an awful row about it. You see, English younger sons have to do something. Mother told me all this. Father has never mentioned it to me. He occasionally reminds me that I am of good birth and that is his only reference to England. Immediately after this row with Grandfather, he met Mother and fell in love with her at first sight. It was at a Charity Bazaar."
"Oh – !" I exclaimed involuntarily, but made out I was sneezing. I remembered the conversation I had held with Harvie Price about Mrs. Pore and the Charity Bazaar.
"Mother's people are noble, too. She was the daughter of a younger son of the Earl of Garth, but she had not a penny to her name. When she met my Father, she was visiting some very wealthy relatives who were interested in her and preparing to launch her on the concert stage. Mother had a wonderful voice, you know."
"Yes, Harvie Price told me that all the old sinners in your county went to church to hear her sing."
"Well, Mother fell in love, too, and in spite of all that her rich relatives had to say about her career, she married Father; and then what did Grandfather, Sir Isaac Pore, do but stop Father's allowance? It was not very much but it was enough for the young couple to live on if they lived very simply. Sir Isaac thought he could force Father into taking orders; but Father was opposed to doing this, feeling he was not suited to the Church, and Mother upheld him in his resolve."
"They were right, I think. It seems an awful sin to me for a man just to go into the ministry for a living," I ventured.
"Of course they were right. Then my parents were in a quandary. Father had about two thousand dollars to his name and that wouldn't go very far. They decided to come to America, he to go into some kind of business and Mother to do something with her voice. They stayed in New York for a year. He got some teaching, coaching boys for college, and she sang in a church. Mother said they had a hard time. Father's manner was proud and overbearing and he was so intolerant of Americans that he lost pupils constantly. Then my brother was born and Mother had to give up her position in the church."
"Oh, I did not know you had a brother!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, he died before I was born. He lived five years, I believe. I think that is one reason Father does not love me more. You see, all of his hopes were settled on the boy, who was in line for the title. My uncle, the present baronet, has no boys. Well, they got on the best they could until the boy died. They went from place to place, Father always able to get pupils because of his talents and education and always losing them because of his proud intolerance. Mother had lots of tact and charm and she was always smoothing things over and pacifying Father."
"She must have loved him a whole lot not to have pacified him with a big stick," I thought, but I did not give utterance to my reflection.
"They finally landed in Norfolk. I was born there, so you see, I am a Virginian. While at Norfolk, Mother heard of the country store at Price's Landing which could be bought for very little. She had come into possession of a small legacy, and she immediately bought the store and all the stock and we moved there and have been there ever since."
"English people are always getting small legacies. I never heard of Americans getting them," I said as I plaited Annie's hair in the great rope that was the envy of us all.
"We really have prospered at Price's Landing. Mother took charge of the store a great deal and by her graciousness won customers, and when once people get used to Father, they don't seem to mind his stiffness so much; everybody but me; somehow, I'm always afraid of him," and Annie looked very sadly at the crumpled letter in her lap.
"Mother was so gay and cheerful; I wish I could be like her. She would sing at her work and Father would smile and look almost happy when he would hear her voice."
"Don't you sing at your work ever?" I asked.
"No, no, I am so afraid of disturbing Father."
"I bet he'd like it. Why don't you try? Your voice must be like your Mother's."
"Oh, I couldn't – really, Page. Well, to go on:
"Mother used to play a lovely game with me, and no one knew we were playing it, which made it just so much more fun. We used to pretend while we were keeping store that it was a Charity Bazaar – " (I laughed aloud) "especially when dear old General Price came in for anything. You see, most of the people at Price's Landing, while very kind and good, are quite ordinary; but General Price is very aristocratic and fine, and we could play the game with him to perfection. He had so much manner that sometimes it almost seemed that he was playing, too." This was too delicious, and here was I sworn to secrecy! I certainly did want to tell Harvie Price, but a Father Confessor must keep many good things to himself.
"Mother died when I was eleven." I made a rapid calculation how long poor Annie must have been wearing the old crêpe hat. "Since then, Father and I have looked after the store together and now we have a clerk," only Annie called it "clark." "We are not so poor as we used to be and the books show we are making a very comfortable living, but Father saves and saves. He started doing it before Mother died and it worried her a lot. She said he used to be a great spender and she had to do the saving, but when money began to come more easily he seemed to hate to part with it. She made him promise before she died that I should go to boarding school or I know it would never have come about. Of course he doesn't know how girls of the day dress and how odd I look, but even if he did know I believe he would let me be ridiculous rather than spend money on anything that he considered unnecessary." Annie's eyes flashed, which was an improvement on the eternal tears she seemed so prepared to shed.
"I am going to let you read this letter from him so you can see," and she handed me the crumpled sheet. It was the letter which is in the last chapter.
It was certainly some letter. I could not help comparing it with the one I had just received from my Father, and also one that Tweedles had read me from their Zebedee. I hardly knew what to say but I knew what to think, and that was that one of the so-called "vulgar Americans" ought to give him a good beating!
"Well, Annie, I wouldn't mind that letter. Your Governor evidently doesn't understand girls. Let's have a look in the box." We cut the string and took off the outside wrapper. The box was tightly corded.
"It is just as Mother left it," sighed Annie. "He didn't even open it to see if the things in it were of any value for me. I'm glad he didn't, because I like to feel that I am untying her knots myself."
We didn't cut those strings, but Annie carefully and reverently picked loose the knots. When the top was taken off the box, there was a faint smell of dried rose leaves. The contents were carefully wrapped in blue tissue paper. "To keep the things from turning yellow with age," whispered Annie.
I felt somehow as though I were at a funeral. Annie didn't cry, though, as one might have expected, but her countenance shone with a kind of subdued light and she looked like an angel. She shook out a soft, white, crêpe de Chine dress made over silk. It looked as fresh as though it had just come from the dressmaker's. In another wrapper was a lovely real lace scarf and in yet another some white silk stockings.
"Oh, Annie, Annie!" and I jumped up and down for joy. "They are exactly right for you! And see how carefully they have been packed! Not a wrinkle in the dress! Here, take off your clothes and try it on."
"Mother wore it at the Charity Bazaar where she met Father. Her rich cousin had just had it made for her," and the excited child began to take off her shabby blouse and skirt.
"All you will need for the concert is white slippers and you will surely wear mine just to let me know you love me," I begged.
Annie flushed and I was afraid her stubborn pride was going to master her, but she astonished me by saying: "Yes, I will wear them if you will lend them to me. I remember Mother told me she had to borrow slippers from a friend that night, but she knew her friend loved her and so did not mind."
I slipped the dress over her head, but as she pushed her arm into the sleeve she stopped and drew her hand quickly out.
"Wait, the sleeve is pinned." So it was, and pinned through a letter that was sealed and addressed to Annie.
"From Mother!" exclaimed the girl, trembling with excitement. "Every now and then I find a little note from her. She knew she could not live for a long time before she died." Out fluttered two ten-dollar bills and a five wrapped in a tiny penciled note.
My Darling:
The time may come when you will wish to wear this dress that I have saved so carefully for you; and when that time comes you may also want a little money that perhaps you will not have, money for clothes, I mean. I give you this twenty-five dollars for your very own, to spend as your needs require. It is not much, but it may help you to look like other girls. Fathers do not always understand what girls need, but Mothers know. I earned this money myself, giving singing lessons to the blacksmith's daughter and you helped me by keeping store while I taught, so you can take added pleasure in spending it.
Mother.
Something happened right here that was to say the least unexpected: I, Page Allison, gave up and cried like a baby. I know I hadn't cried so since old Buster, my pointer, died. And Annie Pore, instead of bawling, which she would have been perfectly justified in doing, never shed a tear; but with that exalted look on her face, which she had worn from the time she opened the box, she actually comforted me by patting me on the back and smoothing my hair.
"Page, Page, it's all right; don't be so miserable," she said as she endeavored to soothe me. So I blew my blooming nose and made her go on trying on the dress. It was a wonderful fit, just a little too long for a girl of fifteen, but we hemmed it up in no time. Strange to say, although the dress was more than twenty years old, it was not out of style but cut very much according to the prevailing mode. The truth of the matter is that Dame Fortune is quite like the old preacher who wrote a barrel of sermons, and when he had preached them all, he just turned the barrel up-side-down and began again. Fashions and styles get put in the barrel only to appear again after so many years.
"Have you a catalogue for a mail-order house, Page? Because I want to spend my money right off."
"Yes, I'll get it for you just as soon as my nose dies down a little. I don't want Tweedles to know I've been crying. What are you going to get?"
"Plenty of middy blouses and a good skirt to wear with them, some dancing slippers and some kind of simple dress I can put on in the evening, if the money can be stretched to it."
I was sure it could with careful ordering; and in a few minutes I thought my nose would bear inspection, so I went back to 117 to get the catalogue. Tweedles was out visiting, so I did not have to run the gauntlet of their curiosity.