The Annals of Ann Read online

  CHAPTER II

  You hear a heap of talking these days about "the divine mission ofwoman," especially from long-haired preachers that don't believe inladies voting; and another heap of talk about the "rights" of womenfrom the ladies themselves.

  There was so much of it going on last winter when I was at Rufe's thatI told some of it to Mammy Lou when I came home. She says it's everyspeck a question of dish-washing when you sift it down to the bottom.The women are tired of their job and the men are too proud to do itunless the window shades are pulled down.

  I don't blame the men for being proud. They have something to be proudof, for they can do exactly as they please, from wearing out theseats of their trousers when they're little to being president whenthey're big. When I was right little I used to think that the heathenover the sea that threw the girl babies to the crocodiles were doingit in hopes of killing out the girl breed, so the little new babieswould have to be boys. A heathen is anybody that lives on the otherside of the map from us.

  Another good thing about a man is he can say, "Damn that telephone!"Rufe says it whenever he's busy and it bothers him, but Cousin Eunicecan't. All she can do is to have sick headache when she gets worn out.

  I know one tired lady whose husband is a busy doctor and whose baby isa busy baby, and lots of times the lady has to stop up her ears to sayher prayers. And she hardly ever has time to powder her face unlesscompany is coming, but, sick or well, she has to answer thattelephone! She says it is a disheartening thing to have to take herhands out of the biscuit dough when the cook's brother has died and goto the telephone in a big hurry where folks tell her every symptom ofeverything they have, from abscess on the brain to ingrowingtoe-nails. And she never gets the baby well lathered in his bath of amorning but what some of her lady friends call her up and she has tosit and talk for politeness' sake till the baby almost drowns and getssoap in his eyes.

  She tries to believe in New Thought though, and some days she "goesinto the silence." This means wrapping the telephone up in acounterpane and stuffing up the door-bell until it can make only ahoarse, choking noise. Then she spanks the baby and puts him to bed,and that house is like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty.

  Yes, women certainly seem to have a hard time in this life. Even whenthey marry rich and live in a hotel and never have any babies theyseem to be worse tired than the ones that warm bottles of milk andpeel potatoes. Some of them that Cousin Eunice knows are called"bridge maniacs," and they shrug their shoulders and say "What's theuse?" if you suggest anything to them.

  I have been home from Cousin Eunice's now for two weeks, for thestylish, private school I went to up there lets out soon. Mammy Lousays I'm the worst person to break out in spots she ever saw, and oneof my "spots" last summer was keeping this diary, which I did for awhile very hard and fast. Now a whole year has passed and it is summeragain and I am so lonesome that I believe I'll write a little everyday and tell some of the things we did at Rufe's last winter. If anyof you grandchildren who read are afflicted with that trouble of doingthings by fits and starts you may know who you inherited it from. I'mnot really to blame so much for neglecting you, my diary, for all thetime I needed you most last winter you were lost. This is a terriblehabit that all my things have--getting lost. My garters do itespecially and I have to tear great holes in my stockings by pinningthem up and then forgetting to stand stiff-kneed.

  Rufe told mother last fall that I was so precocious, which I looked upin the dictionary and admired him very much for, that I ought to bewhere I could have good teachers. So after he and Cousin Eunice hadbeen married long enough to be able to bear the sight of a third partyat the breakfast table they wrote for me to come and I went.

  I was kinder disappointed to see them looking like every-day folksagain, for the last time I had seen them they were looking as they hadnever looked before and never will look again, for Rufe says he'll behanged if anybody can get him to appear in that wedding suit any more.

  But oh, that wedding! And oh, that wedding march played on athundering pipe-organ that makes cold chills run up and down your backthinking what if it was happening to you! When the time comes for "Iwill" you nearly smother, you're so afraid they might change theirminds at the last minute and embarrass you half to death right therebefore all those people.

  They didn't change their minds then, though, nor since then either, Ihonestly believe. They married safe and sound, and Cousin Eunice'sfavorite book now is _1,001 Tried Recipes_. And Keats is lots of timescovered with dust.

  I got this far last night when Mammy Lou passed by my window on herway to her house from the kitchen and stopped long enough to make mego to bed. She says it takes a sight of sleep and a "passel o'victuals" for a girl of my age, and I don't have enough of either.

  "I'se shore goin' 'er tell Mis' Mary how you set up uv a night," shesaid, very fiercely, but she couldn't shake her finger at me for ittook both hands to hold the big pan she had under her apron. "An' asfer eatin'! Why, a red bug eats more! An' such truck! Candy and applesand fried chicken and fried Saratoga chips! _Fries_ nuvver was no goodfor nobody at the gawky age, nohow. It takes _boils_ to fatten them!"

  I promised I'd go on to bed and eat nothing but "boils" to please herif she wouldn't tell father and mother how late I sit up, so shepromised. She never would tell anyhow.

  I believe the next thing I wanted to mention about was the theatersthey used to take me to on Friday night when there wasn't any lessons.I just love the theater. I believe if I don't decide to be a trainednurse, although I am sure that is what I was cut out for, I may be anactress. When they used to tell me pitiful tales at Sunday-schoolabout the heathen I was sure I wanted to be a missionary to Japan.Mother used to take me to a tea store with her every time we went intothe city to buy things we couldn't get at home and the walls werecovered with pictures of Japan. I never will forget how blue the skywas nor how white the clouds, and it seemed the loveliest country inthe world to me, except home. And I would look at mother and wonderhow she would feel if I told her that some day I was going to leaveher and father and sail away to that beautiful land where the poor,ignorant people didn't know how to wear corsets nor eat hog meat. Ofcourse they needed somebody to tell them what they were missing and Iwas eager to be that one!

  That was a long time ago! I know more about Japan now! I know moreabout America too! Doctor Gordon said one night last winter that ifsome of the missionaries were to go all over this country and tellfolks to open their windows and stop murdering their babies with candyand bananas they would do more good than trying to teach the Japaneseso much. He said he didn't know which was the more heathenish, tothrow children in the river and let them have a quick death or stuffthem on fried meat and pickles and let them die by slow torture.

  The mothers are hard to teach, he says, because they don't more thanleave the doctor's office with a poor little pale baby than they meetan old woman who tells them not to let the child be doctored to death,to "feed 'im." They will tell the mother "Didn't _I_ have eleven? Andeverything _I_ et, _they_ et!"

  He told us so many stories of murdered babies that I got to feelinglike I'd prefer being a nurse in a day home. I love babies! And DoctorGordon has the loveliest eyes!--But I haven't got to him yet.

  Speaking of the theater, I got to see many notorious people on thestage this winter. Rufe said I would get a great variety of ideas fromthe best plays. I did. I got a great variety of Ideals too. One timehe would be tall, fair and brave, with a Scotch name, like MarmadukeCameron, or Bruce MacPherson. Then the very next time I'd go he'dchange his looks and disposition.

  I loved some of the operas, too, especially _Il Trovatore_. I wish thesingers were slender, though. It hurts your feelings to have the"voice that rang from that donjon tower" belonging to a great fat manwith no head to speak of, and what he has consisting mainly of jaws.Of all the songs on record (not phonographic record) next to _Dixie_and _La Paloma_ I believe I love _Ah, I have sighed to rest me!_ Thewords to this are not so loving, but the tune
is so pitiful.

  I wish my name was Dolores Lovelock, or Anita Messala, and I could getshut up in a tower. I have a girl friend in the city and every time wewrite to each other we sign the name we're wishing most was ours atthat very minute. Her last letter was signed "Undine Valentine," but Idon't think that's half as pretty as Mercedes Ficediola.

  It wouldn't hardly be worth while for me to change my name now,because I change my mind so often. I'm a great hand to start a thingand then branch off and start something entirely different, such aslearning how to make the table walk, and pyrography. Cousin Eunicesaid one day when she looked around at the things I had in my roomthat it reminded her of Pompeii when they dug it up--so many thingsstarted that never would be finished.

  One of the things we enjoyed most at Cousin Eunice's was walking outto a lovely old cemetery not very far from her house. It is so old andso beautiful that you're sure all the people in the graves must havegone to Heaven long ago. Along in April, when the iris andlilies-of-the-valley are in bloom and the birds and trees and sky allseem to be so happy, you look around at those peaceful graves and youdon't believe in hell one bit. You think God is a heap better thanfolks give Him credit for being. But I hope this will never come toBrother Sheffield's ears, for he thinks you're certainly going thereif you don't believe in a hell worse than the Standard Oil Company onfire.

  While I'm on this kind of subject I want to tell something that Rufesaid last winter, but I'm afraid to, for if mother ever saw it shewould get Brother Sheffield to hold a special meeting for Rufe. Imight risk it and then lock my diary up tight. Rufe said one time whenI remarked that I liked St. John better than St. Paul: "No wonder! St.John's _liver_ was in good working order!"

  Cousin Eunice and Rufe are still very earnest and study deep things,even if they don't read Keats so much. They know a jolly crowd ofpeople that call themselves "Bohemians." Lots of nights some of themwould come to Cousin Eunice's and we would cook things in thechafing-dish and "discuss the deeper problems of life." They are notreal Bohemians though, for, from what they said, I learned that a realBohemian is a person that is very clever, but nobody knows it. He"follows his career," eating out of paper sacks and tin cans andsleeping on an article that is an oriental couch in the daytime. Thenfinally some rich person finds him and invites him to dinner, and thisis called "discovering a genius."

  When our friends would come we would talk about the "Brotherhood ofMan" and the North Pole and such things as that. I listen toeverything I can hear about the North Pole for I never have got overthe idea that Santa Claus lives there. And the "Brotherhood of Man"means we're all as much alike as biscuits in a pan, the onlydifference being in the place where we're put; and we ought to actaccordingly.

  Some of the young ones talk a great deal about how the children of thenation ought to be brought up, and they tell about what their familylife is going to be like, though Rufe says most of them haven't gotsalary enough to support a cockroach.

  I think the "Brotherhood of Man" business is a good thing to teachchildren, for I wasn't taught it and I shall never forget my feelingswhen I first learned that Christ was a Jew! I thought it couldn't beso, and if it was so I could never be happy again. So the Bohemiansare going to teach their children that the Jew is our brother and thathe hath eyes and if you prick him he will bleed. These are their ownwords. I'm sure the Jews are lovely people since I've seen Ben-Hur onthe stage and the picture of Dis-Disraeli. That's all I know about himand I'm not sure how to spell that. I'll skin my children if I evercatch them saying "Sheenie" in my presence.

  And we make limericks! We don't make them in the chafing-dish though,as I thought when I first went there. A limerick is a very differentthing from what you'd think if you didn't know. It's a verse of poetrythat's very clever in every line.

  Among the Bohemians I liked best were a married couple and AnnLisbeth. Besides having the same name as mine, Ann Lisbeth is abeautiful foreign girl who was living across the ocean when she wasborn. Her last name is something that _Disraeli_ is not a circumstanceto, and I'd never spell it, so I won't waste time trying. She's goingto get rid of that name pretty soon and I don't blame her, althoughCousin Eunice says it is a noble one across the ocean. _Still_ Idon't blame her, for the man is a young doctor, Doctor Gordon thatI've already mentioned, and perfectly _precious_. Next to a prince Ibelieve a young doctor is the most thrilling thing in the world!

  Ann Lisbeth lived near Cousin Eunice and they were great friends. Sheand her mother were very poor because they got exiled from their homefor trying to get Ann Lisbeth's father out of prison where the kinghad put him. Oh, the people across the ocean are so much more romanticthan we are in this country! Now, father wouldn't ever get put inprison in a lifetime!

  Ann Lisbeth has to work for a living. She does embroidery--exquisiteembroidery, and lace work that looks like charlotte russe. She is thekind of looking girl that you'd expect to have a dressing-tablecovered with silver things and eat marshmallows and ice-cream all thetime. She is what Cousin Eunice calls a "lotus-eater." This like tohave worried me to death at first, for I misunderstood it and imaginedit was something like eating roaches. I wasn't going to blame AnnLisbeth for it even if it _was_ like roaches, for I thought maybe itwas the style in her country across the ocean. What is _one_ nation'sstyle would turn another's stomach; and everybody likes what he wasraised on, even Chinese rats and Limburger cheese.

  It was very romantic the way Ann Lisbeth met Doctor Gordon. She hadgone down to the florist's one slippery day to spend her last quarterfor white hyacinths to cheer her mother up when she had the goodfortune to slip down and break her arm. Doctor Gordon happened to bepassing at the time in his automobile and he carried her to thehospital and fixed the arm. He said white hyacinths were his favoriteflower, too, so he sends them to her and her mother every day.

  Poor Doctor Gordon! He's having a hard time to make a living likeevery other young doctor. He says sometimes he has a whole month ofblue Mondays come right together. And he says every time he happens towake up with a headache he also has a blowout in his best tire andgets a notice from the bank that he's overdrawn the same day.

  I liked him extremely well myself for a while, and he seemed to likeme. He called me his little sweetheart, but I soon saw that a littlesweetheart has to take a big back seat when there's a grown onearound.

  Mother and I have been laughing all day about a little affair thathappened here last winter while I was away at school.

  After Christmas mother and father went back to stay at Rufe's with mea few days, for they said the place was so lonesome when I left theycouldn't stand it. Of course they met Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbeth,for we were always at each other's house, either to learn a MountMellick stitch or to play a piece from a new opera. Mother liked AnnLisbeth's sweet ways so much that she said she just must come downand make her a visit before she _thought_ of getting married.

  About the time for the first jonquils to bloom, early in February,mother wrote that they reminded her so much of me and made her solonesome, that she wished Ann Lisbeth would come on then. So shepacked her suit-case and went.

  Everybody knows how the people in a little place will look at astranger that comes in, because they're so tired of looking at eachother. So they stared at her from the station clear up to the house.Now, city people never get any enjoyment out of staring unless theysee somebody in trouble, such as an unfortunate young man with hisshoulder to the wheel, trying to repair a puncture, by the side of amuddy road. Then they stare, and giggle too.

  There were several young men at the station that day, and, as AnnLisbeth went down there not breathing to a soul that she was engaged,they came near losing their minds over her beautiful skin and foreignaccent.

  The one of them that seemed to be most impressed was a bore--no, hewasn't just an every-day kind of bore that asks you if this is yourfirst visit to that place and tells you afterward that he never hasbeen so impressed in his life on short acquaintance. I've heard CousinEunice talk about them,
but this man wasn't like that sort of bore. Hewas a perfect _auger_. Many a time when he has dropped in to seefather of an evening and I would have to put my book down forpoliteness' sake, I've sat there and pinched my face, the side thatwas turned away from him, till it was black and blue, to keep awake.Pinching your arm or leg wouldn't have done any good with thisman--you had to pinch up close to your brain.

  All the time Ann Lisbeth was there he showed so plainly that he wascoming to see _her_ that mother and father would go out and leave themalone, though father said he felt so sorry for her that he promisedalways to do something to run him off by ten o'clock. Every man knowshow to do these things, I believe, such as taking off his shoes loudand telling mother to wind the clock, in a stagey voice, and making agreat racket around the front door. And when the young man would hearthese signs he would leave.

  Right in the midst of Ann Lisbeth's visit one day she got a telegramfrom Doctor Gordon saying that he was coming down that evening andleave on the midnight train. This is a sure sign a man cares. Hecouldn't stand it any longer. Well this Mr. W. (I'll call him that forfear his grandchildren might feel hard toward mine if it ever got totheir ears that I had spelt his name right out) had said he was comingover that night to bring some new records for the talking machine, totry them; but, when Ann Lisbeth told mother about Doctor Gordoncoming, mother telephoned him, Mr. W., I mean, not to come till thenext night when father would be at home, as he wanted to hear therecords.

  Sure enough father did have some business out in the country thatafternoon and didn't get home until about ten o'clock that night. Heheard voices as he passed the parlor door, and thinking of course itwas Mr. W., decided that he would run him off right away so poor AnnLisbeth could get some sleep.

  Mother was already asleep and there was no way for him to know who itreally was in the parlor, so he took his shoes off and slammed themdown in vain, and rattled out the ashes, and wound the clock, andcoughed and sneezed. By this time he was awfully sleepy, for it was acold night and he had had a long drive, so he went to bed and tosleep.

  Along about twelve o'clock father woke up, and seeing a light still inthe parlor, tried to get mother roused up long enough to ask her whatelse she supposed he might use besides _dynamite_ to run that fellowoff. Mother was still so sleepy that she didn't say anything, sofather got out of bed and opened his bedroom door. There were voicestalking very easy in the parlor, so father, thinking that surely AnnLisbeth would be ready to commit suicide by this time, decided hewould walk to the front door and open and shut it real loud, knowing_that_ would run him off, without waiting to slip on his trousers.

  Now, father is long and lank, and wears old-timey bob-tailnight-shirts, winter and summer; and all the rooms of our house open_square_ into that one big hall--and there are no curtains to hidebehind!

  Just as father reached the front door and began tampering with thelock, out walked the happy pair from the parlor and they must have hada mighty tumble off of Mount Olympus or Pegasus, or whatever thatplace is called. They jumped back as quickly as they could, but ofcourse they couldn't get back quickly enough to suit all partiesconcerned.

  Father finally got the door open and, to keep from having to pass theparlor door again, he ran _clear_ around that big, rambling house,bare-footed, and with the February moon shining down on him and theFebruary wind whistling through his little bob-tail night-shirt.

  The noise of so many doors opening and shutting made mother wake up ina hurry, and, being used to father's ways of leaping, then lookingafterward, she realized what had happened.

  Poor father came around to the side porch and scratched on the bedroomdoor for mother to let him in. By this time she was so near dead fromlaughing that she could hardly speak, but managed to use her voice alittle, just to pay him back for doing such an idiotic thing, shesaid.

  She opened the bedroom door a little, so Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbethcould hear, then called out in a loud, distressed voice:

  "Oh, Dan! _Have_ you come home in _that condition_ again?"

  Everybody that knows father knows that he never drank a drop ofanything stronger than soothing-syrup in his life; and when he had metDoctor Gordon in the city they hadn't been able to get off the subjectof prohibition, they both were so temperate. It was a terrible thingto be called "in that condition" before _him_!

  But mother let him in, and Doctor Gordon caught his train back to thecity where he sent father at least _two_ dozen funny post-cards on thesubject of "that condition."