The Annals of Ann Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  You remember, my diary, a good many pages back I mentioned in here apair of Bohemians that were married to each other and were friends ofours and would come to Rufe's every week and we would all do funnythings? Well, I couldn't write about them then, for I didn't have anyspace for married people, wanting to save it purely for folks thatloved each other. But now it does seem like Providence that they'vecome down here to spend the summer in the country, for there's not asingle loving soul left to write about, Aunt Laura being gone andBrother Sheffield never very loving when she was here, except chicken.

  Their name is Mrs. Marie and Augustus Young. Father says that Adam orthe legislature knew a thing or two when it named them _Young_. He isa professor and owns a chair in a college that must either have goldnails in it or sit extra good, for Rufe says it is worth five thousanddollars a year. Mrs. Young sings vocal. I wish she didn't, especiallyin a parlor. If anybody is singing or reciting a speech on a platformand flowers and electric lights it thrills you and you really enjoyit; but if they do it in a close room, especially if it trills high orhas to kneel down and get red in the face, it makes you so ashamed forthe one that's doing it, and for yourself, too, that you look straightat the carpet. Even then the blood rushes to your head.

  They have built a house with such a wide porch running all around itthat it reminds you of a little, tiny boy with a great big hat pulleddown over his eyes, which is called a bungalow. They said they hadbrought a "complete outfit for light housekeeping" along with them,but when mother saw it she laughed considerable on the outside of thebungalow, for it was fifty-three books, mostly ending in "ology," ahammock and some chairs that lean away back, a guitar apiece, a greatmany little glass cases that you stick bugs and butterflies in if youcan catch them, a picture of the Apostle Hosea, with his head allwrapped up like an old lady with the neuralgia, which they both saidthey could not live without, and a punching-bag, which they punched agreat deal in the city, not having any baby to amuse themselves with,which was a good thing for the baby I reckon. So mother sent them overa great many things and Professor Young said she was the most sensiblewoman he ever saw, including a biscuit board and a sifter. They havebeen here a few days now and are delighted with the country air andthe green scenery, and, although it does seem proud to say it, _me_.They thought very highly of me at Cousin Eunice's and said I was themost "interesting revelation of artless juvenile expression" they eversaw, which I wrote down on paper and when I came home taught it toMammy Lou to give in at the experience meeting.

  One morning early, while mammy was beating the biscuit for breakfast,and I was up in the pear tree right by the kitchen door I nearly fellout with surprise when I saw Professor Young coming around the housewith a pretty shirt open at the neck that he admires and two _greatbig_ dominecker roosters up in his arms which were both squawking veryloud. Mammy Lou came to the door to see what all the noise was about,and he said she was the very person he wanted to see.

  "Auntie," he commenced, trying to get into his pocket and wipe hisface with his handkerchief, which was greatly perspiring, but hecouldn't do it for the roosters, "my wife and I are in a quandary. Weare both ignorant of the preferred method of inflicting a painless yetinstantaneous death upon a fowl."

  Mammy's eyes began to shine, for she loves big words like she loveswatermelons, and without a sign of manners she never even tried toanswer his question, but looked up at me in the tree and says:

  "Baby, kin you rickollect all that to write it down?"

  Professor Young then looked up into the tree too and says: "Why,Mistress Ann, how entirely characteristic!" And then he wanted to knowwhat book I was reading and I told him, _John Halifax, Gentleman_,which I have had for my favorite book since I was eleven years old;and the roosters continued to squawk. I got down then and askedProfessor Young if he wouldn't come into the house, but he said no andasked his question to mammy over again. She looked at me and to saveher manners I told her right quick what the meaning of it was, meunderstanding it on account of being precocious and also at Rufe'slast winter, where they use strange words.

  "_Thar now!_ Is _that_ all it's about?" she asked awfullydisappointed, for she thought from the words "painless death" it mustbe something about preaching. Then in a minute, when she saw that hewas still waiting, she turned around to him and said: "Whar is thechicken _at_ that you want killed?"

  He held the roosters away from him and, looking at them as proud as alittle boy looks at a bucket of minnows, he said:

  "These are they!"

  This tickled mammy so, and me too, though I remembered my manners,that she began to laugh, which shook considerable under her apron, andsaid:

  "Well, gentle_men_! Whut do you want to kill _them_ for?"

  "For breakfast," he said; and, noticing her laughing, his face got tolooking so pitiful all in a minute that it made me just wish thatCinderella's fairy godmother would come along and turn those roostersinto nice little pullets all fried and laying on parsley.

  "Why, Mr. Professor," mammy told him, "them roosters is so old thatthey will soon die a natural death if you leave them alone; andthey're so big that you might fry 'em frum now till breakfast time onJedgment Day, and then they wouldn't be fitten!"

  When she told him this he did manage to get out his handkerchief, Ithought maybe to cry on, he looked so disappointed, but it was just toperspire on.

  "I--er, observed that they were unduly large," the poor man told her,"but I--er, thought maybe the larger a country thing was the better!"

  I thought of horse-flies and ticks, but was too mannerly to mentionthem, especially so near breakfast time. Just then mother and fathercame out of the back door, and when they heard the tale of theroosters they both invited him to come right in and have breakfastwith us, and said they would tie their legs together so they couldflop around the back yard, but couldn't get away, and I could runover and bring Mrs. Young.

  Last night when I got home I was too tired to write or anything else,for it was the night of the glorious Fourth! Professor Young and Mrs.Young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able tospend the Fourth of July in a cool ravine instead of in the horridcity where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys.They said they must have me go along for the woods wouldn't really bewoodsy without me, as I was the genius loci. I didn't know at firstwhat that was, but I know now that it makes you tired and perspiry tobe the genius loci of eight miles of woods on the Fourth of July. Rufeand Cousin Eunice couldn't think of half as many peculiar things to dowhen they were courting as the Youngs.

  We ate a number of stuffed eggs which kinder made up for thetiredness, me being very fond of them, but Professor Young is crazyabout Mrs. Young's singing voice and every time we'd come to an extrapretty place he would say: "Marie, my love, sing something just here,"so we'd have to stand still on our legs, it often being too snaky tosit down, while she sang. One time she thought up part of a songwithout a speck of tune to it, and it was in a language across theocean. All I could make out was "Parsifal," and every once in a whileshe would stop a minute in the song and say a word that sounded like"Itch," though I don't suppose it was, being in a song. Every time shewould say itch he would scratch, for the poor man was covered withticks.

  But the most trying thing was the bugs and butterflies, which being"naturalists" they caught. We had to run all over the ground and sidesof the hills for them, and empty our dinner out on a nice, shady rock,so we could use the lunch box to put them in. When we got back wefound it all covered with ants, but we were so hungry we thought we'dbrushed them all off, though in the cake we found we _hadn't_. If aperson hasn't ever eaten an ant, my diary, there ain't any use intrying to make them understand what they taste like, so I won't dwellon that. Professor Young said though he was willing to eat them forthe sake of his beloved science, though I don't see how it helpedscience any.

  Toward evening we got to a fine place in the branch to wade and Mrs.Young said, oh, let's do it; it would remind us of our
childhood days.So we soon had our feet bare, with our thoughts on our childhood days,and never once stopping to remember that we didn't have a thing towipe them on. Nobody said so much as towel until we got out, and thenit was too late, so we were very much pained and annoyed every step ofthe way home on account of our gritty feet.

  Another morning early we decided to go out and see the sun rise, likeThoreau. (They tell me how to spell all the odd words.) We went up tothe tiptop of a high hill, and when the sun was just high enough tomake you squint your eyes Mr. Young remarked that he realized his lifewas "replete with glorious possibilities," and he said in such momentshe felt that he could "encompass his heart's desire." He said he fainwould be a novelist. Now, this is the only subject they ever fall outabout, for he's always wanting to be something that he is not. Lastwinter when he met Doctor Gordon at Rufe's he decided he wanted to bea doctor, for he said they could always make a living, no matter wherethey were, while a poor college professor had to stay wherever he hada chair to sit in. So he went to a store where you buy rubber arms andlegs and things and bought a long black bag like Doctor Gordon's, fullof shiny, scary-looking scissors and knives which cost seventy-fivedollars, to lay away till fall when the doctor's school opened upagain. In two weeks Mrs. Young had got the store man to take thethings back for half price because Professor Young had decided hewanted to study banjo playing instead of doctoring and had bought abanjo trimmed with silver.

  She knew whenever he said he wanted to _be_ anything it would cost asmuch as two new dresses, and then have to be exchanged for somethingelse, so she asked him if he would have to buy anything to begin thisnovel-writing business with. He proudly told her no, for his "MotherNature had endowed him with a complete equipment," and he thumped hisforehead between his eyes and his straw hat. Then she told him to goon. He said it would be a good time to get material from the study ofthe "primitive creatures" around here in the country.

  I hoped these "primitive creatures" were not the kind of insects youwould have to empty the lunch box for, nor be careful not to pull offtheir hind legs while you were catching them, not knowing just whatthey were.

  I was scared good when he said he thought the girl that milked Mrs.Hedges' cows would be a good one to begin on. He said if Marie didn'tmind he would go over to the farthest pasture where he could see herthen and _draw her out to see what was in her_! This sounded terribleto me, knowing that he used some sickly smelling stuff on the bugsthat killed them before they had time to say a word, and I thoughtmaybe because Emma Belle was a poor servant girl he was going to doher the same way.

  He had always seemed such a kind-hearted man to me, and I saw him andEmma Belle standing at the fence talking and he was not trying to holdanything to her nose, still I didn't feel easy till he got back. Mrs.Young asked him what he had learned, and if his novel would be along"socialistic lines" or a "romance in a simple bucolic setting." That"bucolic" reminded me of Bertha's little innocent baby, and I wished Iwas at home nursing it even if it did cry, rather than be outsun-rising with such a peculiar man. He said it would be a "pastoral,"and that the girl's eyes were exactly like his first sweetheart's,which was remarkable. Mrs. Young spoke up right quick and said therewasn't anything remarkable in _that_, because all common, countrygirls looked alike and they all had about as much expression as asquash.

  We haven't been out early acting like Thoreau any more, for Mrs. Youngsaid it was the most foolish of all the foolish things Augustus hadmade her do, and he could continue to associate with milkmaids byhimself if he wanted to, which he has. This morning she came over toour house early to ask mother if you singed a picked chicken over ablaze or what, and if she didn't think Thoreau was an idiot. Mothersaid yes, you did, if it had pin feathers on it, and she didn't knowmuch about Thoreau, but she preferred men that paid taxes and ate offof white tablecloths. Mrs. Young said she thought all men that readbugology and admired pictures like Hosea were a little idiotic and shewished she had married a man like father. Mother said well, shebetter not be too sure, for they all have their faults.

  After a good long time Professor Young came in, not finding Marie atthe bungalow, looking awful hot and cross. The sight of him seemed tomake Mrs. Young feel worse than ever and she told him she had justcome over to consult mother about her journey home to-morrow, althoughshe hadn't mentioned it to us before. She went on to say that _he_might spend the rest of the summer, or the rest of his life if hewanted to, boarding over at Mrs. Hedges' where he could see Emma Bellemorning, noon and night, instead of only in the morning. He said why,he was utterly surprised for she hadn't mentioned such a thing to himbefore, but she told him he hadn't spent enough time with _her_ latelyeven to know whether or not she still retained the power of speech. Hesaid right quick, oh, he never doubted _that_! She said, well, _she_was going and he needn't argue with _her_. He said he wasn't going toargue, he was only too glad to leave such a blasted place, for hewanted material for his novel, but the farmer's girl he had talkedwith the _first_ morning, and the _plow-boys_ he had been associatingwith ever since were all such fools he couldn't get any material fromthem.

  The minute he said that she seemed to feel better and change her mind.She said Augustus ought to be ashamed to talk that way about poorignorant things which never had any opportunities! He said he wantedto go back to the city anyway where there was a bath-tub, but she toldhim he was very foolish to think about leaving such a cool, "Arcadian"spot; their friends would all laugh at them for coming back so soon.She said she had merely mentioned going back for _his_ pleasure, forall the world knew how she _loved_ the country. He finally said heloved it too, so they would stay, but he would be forced to give upnovel-writing because the country people around here are all fools.

  I've heard Professor Young talk about sitting in a college chair beinga hard life, and Doctor Gordon says doctoring is a hard life, and Rufesays that editing is a hard life, but, my diary, between you and me,from the looks of things this morning, I kinder believe that marryingis a hard life, too.