Part 1 (2/2)

Certainly I had no time to spend consulting with Aunt Hetty.

Mother knew me better than father did. I found out later that this wasn't at all a proper way to keep house, giving no orders, and leaving things to the discretion, of the cook. But I hadn't really begun yet, and I was wild to get the girls together.

Bloomdale is a sort of scattered up-hill and down-dale place, with one long and broad street running through the centre of the village, and houses standing far apart from each other, and well back from the pavement in the middle of the green lawns, swept into shadow by grand old trees. The Bloomdale people are proud of the town, and keep the gardens beautiful with flowers and free from weeds. Life in Bloomdale would be perfectly delightful, all the grown-up people say, if it were not for the everlasting trouble about servants, who are forever changing their places and going away, and complaining that the town is dull, and their church too distant, and life inconvenient; and so every one envies my mother, who has kept Hetty all these years, and never had any trouble at all.

At least I fancied that to be so, till I was a housekeeper myself, and found out that Aunt Hetty had spells of temper and must be humored, and was not perfect, any more than other people vastly above her in station and beyond her in advantages.

I stopped for Linda Curtis, and she jumped into the phaeton and went with me. We asked Jeanie Cartwright, Veva Fay, Lois Partridge, Amy Pierce and Marjorie Downing to tea the next day, and every girl of them promised to come bright and early.

When I reached home I ran to grandmamma to ask her if I had done right, and to get her advice about what I would better have for my bill of fare.

”Thee is too precipitate, dear child,” said grandmamma. ”Why not have waited two or three days before having a company tea? I fear much that Hetty will be contrary, and not help as she ought. And I have one of my headaches coming.”

”Oh, grandmamma!” I exclaimed. ”Have you taken your pills?” I was aghast.

”Thee needn't worry, dear,” replied grandmamma, quite unruffled. ”I have taken them, and if the headache does not vanish before dark, I'll sleep in the south chamber to-night, and be out of the way of the stir to-morrow. I wish, though, Aunt Hetty were not in a cross fit.”

”It is shameful,” I said. ”Aunt Hetty has been here so long that she does not know her place. I shall not be disturbed by her moods.”

So, holding my head high, I put on my most dignified manner and went to the kitchen. Aunt Hetty, in a blue gingham gown, with a gay kerchief tied on her head, was slowly and pensively rocking herself back and forth in her low chair. She took no notice of me whatever.

”Aunt Hetty!”

No answer.

”Aunt Hetty!” This time I spoke louder.

Still she rocked back and forth, apparently as deaf as a post. I grew desperate, and, going up to her, put my hand on her shoulder, saying:

”_Aunt Hetty_, aren't we to have our dinner? The fire seems to be out.”

She shook off my hand and slowly rose, looking glum and preoccupied.

”Didn't hear no orders for dinner, Miss Alice.”

”Now, Aunt Hetty,” I remonstrated, ”why will you be so horrid? You know I am the housekeeper when mother is away, and you're going to spoil everything, and make her wish she hadn't gone. _How_ can I manage if you won't help? Come, be good,” I pleaded.

But nothing moved her from her stony indifference, and I went back to grandmamma in despair. I was about to pour all my woes in her ear, but a glance at her pale face restrained me.

She was going to have a regular Van Doren headache.

”We never have headaches like other people.”

How many times I have heard my aunts and uncles say this in just these words! They do not think me half a Van Doren because, owing to my mother's way of bringing me up, I have escaped the family infliction. In fact, I am half a Neilson, and the Neilsons are a healthy everyday set, who do not have aches and pains, and are seldom troubled with nerves.

Plebeian, perhaps, but very comfortable.

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