CHAPTER XV.
CHRISTMAS GUESTS.
It began to snow before dawn on Christmas Eve and kept it up steadilyall morning. It was a fine dry snow that gave promise of good sleighing,and Father and I were delighted. He loved snow like a boy, provided itwas the kind of snow that meant good sleighing. The colt was hitched toa little red cutter and they whizzed off to the sick folks with such amerry ringing of the bells that just the sound of them must have madethe sufferers feel better.
The Tuckers were to arrive on the three train, also Stephen White andperhaps Blanche. The roads were in a bad fix between Milton and Richmondand we feared to trust Henry Ford, so our friends were forced to travelby rail. The big wood sled was put into commission, with an old wagonbed screwed on top of it, and when this was filled with hay, I am sureno limousine in the world could offer more luxurious transportation.
It had stopped snowing and the sun was trying to shine when I clamberedinto my equipage with Peg and one of the younger plow horses hitched toit. I stood up to drive, knee-deep in hay. Peg and the plow horse actedlike two-year-olds and did the six miles to Milton almost as easily asFather and the colt. When the train came puffing up, they actually hadthe impertinence to shy and prance, much to the delight of our guestswho came tumbling out of the last coach so laden with bundles that youcould not tell which was which.
Such excitement on the little station of Milton, usually so quiet andsedate! First came Dee carrying Brindle, wrapped in a plaid shawl,looking, as Zebedee said, like an emigrant baby, then Zebedee and Wink,with suit cases and great boxes and paper parcels; then Dum with morevalises and more boxes and parcels.
I was astonished to see Mr. Reginald Kent bringing up the rear. He,too, was almost completely concealed with baggage and bundles, but Icould see his smiling, ruddy countenance above his load.
"Why, Mr. Kent, I saw Jo yesterday and he did not tell me you werecoming!" I exclaimed as he dropped some of his packages so he couldshake my hand.
"I did not let him know. I find when Cousin Sally expects me she makesherself sick cooking for me, so I thought I would surprise them."
I certainly liked his spirit of unselfishness. Not many young men wouldhave thought of sparing a middle-aged, complaining cousin whose oneattraction was her cooking. Just then Jo Winn came gliding up in hislittle cutter, ostensibly for the mail but in reality to catch a glimpseof Dee who was the one female I have ever seen the shy man at his easewith. Of course he was at his ease with me, having known me since I wasa baby, but I somehow never think of myself as a female to make themales tremble.
Our hilarious greetings were under way and the train had begun to movewhen an agonizing screech came from the coloured coach, the one nearestthe engine. There was a great ringing of the bell and then there emergedthe portly form of "poor dear Blanche," as Zebedee always called thegirl who had cooked for us at Willoughby the summer before,--not to herface, of course.
Her great black-plumed hat was all awry, and from the huge basket, thatshe always carried in lieu of a valise, there dragged long greenstockings and some much belaced lingerie. She was greatly excited,having come within an ace of passing the station.
"I was in the embrace of Morphine, as it were, Miss Page, and had norecognizance of having derived at our predestination, whin I was suddenlike brought to my sensibleness by hearing the dulsom tones of Miss Duma greeting you. I jumped up and called loud and long for the inductor tocome to my resistance. The train had begun to prognosticate! I was inrespiration whin a dark complected gentleman in the seat opposing mine,very kindly impeded the bell by reducing the rope."
"What did the conductor say?" I knew that it was a terrible offense fora non-official to pull the bell rope.
"Say! Why, Miss Page, 'twould bring the blush of remortifycation to mymaiden meditations to repetition that white man's langige."
It was cheering indeed to hear Blanche's inimitable conversation oncemore. Thank goodness, there were enough other things to laugh at for hernot to know we were overcome by her remarks. We bundled her into the farback corner of the sled, where she sat like a Zulu queen on a throne.Good-byes were called to Jo Winn and his cousin, who said they wouldcome over to Bracken after supper to help decorate the house. I hadpromised Tweedles not to decorate until they came, but I had had somegreat boughs of holly cut ready for the rite. I had gathered quantitiesof running cedar myself and, at the risk of my foolish neck, had climbedup a great walnut tree and sawed off a stumpy branch literally loadedwith mistletoe.
"I bid to drive," cried Zebedee as soon as the crowd was packed in thesled. "Do you stand up to it?"
"Yes, you always stand in a wood sled." I should have said: "Becareful!" as the art of driving standing is not one acquired in amoment, but I was so accustomed to Mr. Tucker's doing things well that Inever even thought of it.
"Gee up!" he called, cracking the whip.
The plow horse and Peg geed all right and Zebedee, accustomed to runninga small automobile or driving a light buggy, had no idea of the skillnecessary to stand up on a large wood sled and safely turn it aroundwithout turning over. We twisted around on one runner and nothing butthe fact that Blanche's great weight was on the upper side saved us froma very neat turnover. Zebedee lost his balance and, still clutchingwildly at the reins, shot over our heads into the soft and comfortablesnow. Pegasus and the plow horse fortunately took it all as a matter ofcourse in their day's work, and although Zebedee's flying leap jerkedthem back on their haunches in a very rude and unmannerly way, theynever budged, but waited for their crestfallen Jehu to pick himself upout of the snow bank and climb back into place.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he reproached me as we roared with laughter.
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me to use the knowledge I have obtained as a strap hanger ontrolley cars to keep my balance in a wood sled!"
"This is the way to stand: put your feet far apart, so," said I, suitingthe action to the word; and taking the reins in my hands, clucked to myteam and we started gaily off, the sleigh bells jingling merrily.
Everybody had to have a turn at driving standing up, and in the sixmiles we had to go to reach Bracken, they had more or less mastered theart.
I love Bracken and am always proud of it, but there are times when itseems more beautiful and lovable than at others, and on that ChristmasEve it never had been more attractive. Fires glowed in every grate.Indeed, Bill, the yard boy, whose duty it was to keep the wood choppedand the fires going, said he had "done got lop-sided a totin' wood." Thehouse shone with cleanliness and smelt of all kinds of delicious things:Christmas greens, mince pies, spiced beef, and dried lavender. Lavenderwas always kept between the sheets in the linen press and when many bedshad just been freshly made the whole place would smell of it.
My Mammy Susan was a rather unique specimen of her race. As a rule,darkeys need a boss to be kept up to a certain standard. They are farfrom orderly, and wastefulness is their watchword. Now Mammy did to aletter everything that my mother, with all the enthusiasm of a younghousekeeper, had thought necessary and that, combined with the solidtraining she had received at the hands of my paternal grandmother, towhose family she had belonged before the war, meant a very well kepthouse. Father and I were so accustomed to her wonderful management thatwe would not have known how wonderful it was if it had not been for themany summer visiting cousins who sang Mammy's praises while telling oftheir own vicissitudes with domestics.
Mammy's one fault was that she could not abide having an assistant inthe house, and the consequence was we were in daily and hourly dread ofher giving out and being ill. She had tried girl after girl, but theyhad always been found wanting. She preferred having a boy to help her,so the yard boy was called on whenever she needed him. She bossed Billand Bill "sassed" her, but they were on the whole very fond of eachother. Bill was about twenty, very black and bow-legged, and sogood-natured that it was impossible to anger him. Bill was fitted outwith white coats and Mammy and I had been endeavouring to train him towait
on the table, with most ludicrous results. He had once been on asteamboat and so aped the airs of the steamboat waiters. He wouldbalance a tray on his five fingers and, holding it above his head, wouldactually cake walk into the dining room.
"This here ain't no side show Docallison is a runnin'," Mammy would say."What the reason you feel lak you got ter walk lak a champinzee? All youneeds is a monkey tail stickin' out from that ere new coat ter make youlook jis' lak a keriller I done seed onct at a succus. Come on here,nigger, and take in dese victuals I done dished up befo' dey is stonecold."
And Bill would grin and reply, "You come on and put dis ice I done dugout de ice house in de frigidrater befo' it gits hot;" and so waged themerry war between the old woman and the boy.
Blanche was quite a favourite of Mammy's and she looked forward to hervisit with enthusiasm. The girl, being on the footing of a guest, didnot come in for her share of abuse that the old woman usually felt boundto administer to the young coloured girls who came her way.
She came out to the driveway to meet us on that Christmas Eve, her dearold head bound up in the gayest of bandannas and her purple calicostarched to a stiffness that would easily have permitted it to standalone.
The Tuckers greeted her with the greatest affection. I introducedStephen White, who showed himself to be the gentleman I knew he was byhis very kind and cordial manner in speaking to the old woman. Nothingis a greater test of breeding than a person's manner on such anoccasion.
The old woman looked at him keenly and kindly. Wink was very goodlooking with his clear brown eyes and the rather stubborn mouth that thecarefully tended moustache was doing its best to hide. Wink's moustachewas really getting huge and it gave him very much the air of a boymasquerading as a man with a false moustache. Every time I looked at itI had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. If he would only trim itdown a little!
"My little miss is done named you to me befo'," said Mammy with greatcordiality.
"Oh, has she really? That certainly was kind of her."
"Well, it warn't much trouble fer her to do it," explained Mammy,fearful that she might be giving the young man too much encouragement."What she done said was that she ain't never noticed whether you is muchof a hand fer victuals or not."
"Well, I can tell you he is," laughed Dee. "He is almost as good a handas the Tuckers."