“I want Joanna!” roared Peter with the voice of an infant bull.
“So we all do. It’s because she had to go that I’m darning stockings.”
The net tightened round Peter’s defenceless body and he hurled himself against his rocking, horse and dragged it brutally to a corner. Having disposed of most of his strength and temper in this operation, he put away the rest of his goods and chattels more quietly, but with streaming eyes and heaving bosom.
“Splendid!” commented Mother Carey. “Joanna couldn’t have done it better, and it won’t be half so much work next time.” Peter heard the words “next time” distinctly, and knew the grim face of Duty at last, though he was less than five.
The second and far more tragic time was when he was requested to make himself ready for luncheon,—Kathleen to stand near and help “a little” if really necessary. Now Peter au fond was absolutely clean. French phrases are detestable where there is any English equivalent, but in this case there is none, so I will explain to the youngest reader—who may speak only one language—that the base of Peter was always clean. He received one full bath and several partial ones in every twenty-four hours, but su-per-im-posed on this base were evidences of his eternal activities, and indeed of other people’s! They were divided into three classes,—those contracted in the society of Joanna when she took him out-of-doors: such as sand, water, mud, grass stains, paint, lime, putty, or varnish; those derived from visits to his sisters at their occupations: such as ink, paints, lead pencils, paste, glue, and mucilage; those amassed in his stays with Ellen in the kitchen: sugar, molasses, spice, pudding sauce, black currants, raisins, dough, berry stains (assorted, according to season), chocolate, jelly, jam, and preserves; these deposits were not deep, but were simply dabs on the facade of Peter, and through them the eyes and soul of him shone, delicious and radiant. They could be rubbed off with a moist handkerchief if water were handy, and otherwise if it were not, and the person who rubbed always wanted for some mysterious reason to kiss him immediately afterwards, for Peter had the largest kissing acquaintance in Charlestown.
When Peter had scrubbed the parts of him that showed most, and had performed what he considered his whole duty to his hair, he appeared for the first time at the family table in such a guise that if the children had not been warned they would have gone into hysterics, but he gradually grew to be proud of his toilets and careful that they should not occur too often in the same day, since it appeared to be the family opinion that he should make them himself.
There was a tacit feeling, not always expressed, that Nancy, after mother, held the reins of authority, and also that she was a person of infinite resource. The Gloom-Dispeller had been her father’s name for her, but he had never thought of her as a Path-Finder, a gallant adventurer into unknown and untried regions, because there had been small opportunity to test her courage or her ingenuity.
Mrs. Carey often found herself leaning on Nancy nowadays; not as a dead weight, but with just the hint of need, just the suggestion of confidence, that youth and strength and buoyancy respond to so gladly. It had been decided that the house should be vacated as soon as a tenant could be found, but the “what next” had not been settled. Julia had confirmed Nancy’s worst fears by accepting her aunt’s offer of a home, but had requested time to make Gladys Ferguson a short visit at Palm Beach, all expenses being borne by the Parents of Gladys. This estimable lady and gentleman had no other names or titles and were never spoken of as if they had any separate existence. They had lived and loved and married and accumulated vast wealth, and borne Gladys. After that they had sunk into the background and Gladys had taken the stage.
“I’m sure I’m glad she is going to the Fergusons,” exclaimed Kathleen.
“One month less of her!”
“Yes,” Nancy replied, “but she’ll be much worse, more spoiled, more vain, more luxurious than before. She’ll want a gold chicken breast now. We’ve just packed away the finger bowls; but out they’ll have to come again.”
“Let her wash her own finger bowl a few days and she’ll clamor for the simple life,” said Kathleen shrewdly. “Oh, what a relief if the Fergusons would adopt Julia, just to keep Gladys company!”
“Nobody would ever adopt Julia,” returned Nancy. “If she was yours you couldn’t help it; you’d just take her ‘to the Lord in prayer,’ as the Sunday-school hymn says, but you’d never go out and adopt her.”
Matters were in this uncertain and unsettled state when Nancy came into her mother’s room one evening when the rest of the house was asleep.
“I saw your light, so I knew you were reading, Muddy. I’ve had such a bright idea I couldn’t rest.”
“Muddy” is not an attractive name unless you happen to know its true derivation and significance. First there was “mother dear,” and as persons under fifteen are always pressed for time and uniformly breathless, this appellation was shortened to “Motherdy,” and Peter being unable to struggle with that term, had abbreviated it into “Muddy.” “Muddy” in itself is undistinguished and even unpleasant, but when accompanied by a close strangling hug, pats on the cheek, and ardent if somewhat sticky kisses, grows by degrees to possess delightful associations. Mother Carey enjoyed it so much from Peter that she even permitted it to be taken up by the elder children.
“You mustn’t have ideas after nine P.M., Nancy!” chided her mother.
“Wrap the blue blanket around you and sit down with me near the fire.”
“You’re not to say I’m romantic or unpractical,” insisted Nancy, leaning against her mother’s knees and looking up into her face,—“indeed, you’re not to say anything of any importance till I’m all finished. I’m going to tell it in a long story, too, so as to work on your feelings and make you say yes.”
“Very well, I’m all ears!”
“Now put on your thinking cap! Do you remember once, years and years ago, before Peter it was, that father took us on a driving trip through some dear little villages in Maine?”
(The Careys never dated their happenings eighteen hundred and anything.
It was always: Just before Peter, Immediately after Peter, or A Long
Time after Peter, which answered all purposes.)
“I remember.”
“It was one of Gilbert’s thirsty days, and we stopped at nearly every convenient pump to give him drinks of water, and at noon we came to the loveliest wayside well with a real moss-covered bucket; do you remember?”
“I remember.”
“And we all clambered out, and father said it was time for luncheon, and we unpacked the baskets on the greensward near a beautiful tree, and father said, ‘Don’t spread the table too near the house, dears, or they’ll cry when they see our doughnuts!’ and Kitty, who had been running about, came up and cried, ‘It’s an empty house; come and look!’”
“I remember.”
“And we all went in the gate and loved every bit of it: the stone steps, the hollyhocks growing under the windows, the yellow paint and the green blinds; and father looked in the windows, and the rooms were large and sunny, and we wanted to drive the horse into the barn and stay there forever!”
“I remember.”
