Part 15 (1/2)

”I'll buck up when I get home. Two weeks of feeding will fill out my belt again,” I laughed.

I left the Tuckers at Richmond and went on that day to Milton where Father met me and drove me over to Bracken. My, it was good to be home!

Mammy Susan almost ate me up for joy, and the dogs actually threw me down in their efforts to get first lick.

”Why, honey, chile, you is sho thin and peaked lookin',” declared my dear old friend. ”You ain't no bigger'n a minute. What all them teacher's been a doin' to you?”

”She is thin, Mammy Susan,” broke in Father, ”and I am going to put her on an iron tonic right away. She tells me she has no appet.i.te.”

”Well, now, that's too bad! I done made a mess er chicken gumbo fer dinner and some er them lil bits er thin biscuit. I done knocked up a blackberry roll, too, with hard sauce that is as soft and fluffy as a cloud in Spring. It's too bad my baby ain't got no applet.i.te.”

It was too bad surely, but if I had had one I don't know what I would have done, as without one I ate like a field hand.

”Looks lak she is able to worry down somethin',” said Mammy Susan with a sly twinkle in her eye as she brought in another plate of hot biscuit.

”Don't forgit, honey chile, to save a little spot on you innards fer the blackberry roll. It sho do smell toothsome. I is moughty glad them twinses is comin' down fer Christmas an' they paw, too. Did Docallison tell you that Blanche is goin' to be here enduring of the holidays?”

Blanche was Mammy Susan's relative who had cooked for the Tuckers during the memorable house-party at Willoughby.

The Tuckers were to come to Bracken on Christmas Eve. We were expecting Stephen White, also, and Mammy Susan said Blanche was to arrive on that day, too. I busied myself helping Mammy Susan prepare for the guests.

There was much to be done in the way of fresh curtains in the bed rooms, rubbing silver and furniture, and dusting books. Mammy Susan had plum pudding, fruit cake and pies to make, and I helped with all of them.

The kitchen at Bracken was a wonderful place. I believe I loved it more than any spot on earth. It was not under the same roof as the house but connected with it by a covered porch, enclosed in gla.s.s. This pa.s.sage way had been my nursery as a child. Mammy Susan always had it filled with flowers in winter, gay geraniums in old tomato cans, begonias, heliotrope, ferns and a citronella, that furnished slips for half the county. The more slips that were taken from it, the more vigorous it would become.

”That there limon verbeny 'minds me of Docallison,” said Mammy. ”The mo'

it do give er itself, the mo' it do seem to have ter give. It looks lak as soon as yo' paw done finished wearing hisself out fer somebody, another pusson is a callin' on him; an' jes lak the limon verbeny, he branches out mo' the mo' he does.”

”He is thinking of having some one to help him, Mammy Susan. Don't you think it would be a good plan?”

”Well, 'twill an' 'twon't! Ef'n he gits a man young enough ter take the bossin' that a helper's boun' ter git, he'll be too young ter suit the dead an' dyin'. Whin folks is sick they don't want no chilluns a feelin' of they pulps.”

”But he has in mind a young man who might take the bossing and make a good impression on the patients, too. He is coming on Christmas Eve for a visit and you must tell me what you think of him.”

”Is he yo' beau, honey?”

”Why, Mammy Susan, how absurd!”

”'Tain't so terruble absurd. Beaux is lak measles an' mumps. If you don't have 'em young, you mought go through life 'thout ever havin' 'em, but you is always kinder spectin' tew catch 'em. Ef you take 'em young, you don't take 'em quite so hard.”

Mammy Susan's philosophy always delighted me and I encouraged her to go on. I was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen where I could smell the heliotrope and citronella while I chopped apples and meat for the mince pies. Mammy was seeding raisins. She never would let the seeded raisins come in the house, scorning them as some kind of new-fangled invention that would ruin her pies and puddings.

”Them unseedless raisins make lazy folks pies 'thout no virtue or suption in 'em.”

The kitchen was a low ceilinged room about twenty feet square. A range and great wood box occupied one side, with a copper sink and a pump.

There was no plumbing in Bracken and this primitive pump connected with the well was all we could boast in the way of conveniences. In the broad window sills were more tomato cans of geraniums and various slips that Mammy was starting for neighbours. Skillets and pots and pans of various sizes were inverted on the many shelves, which were covered with newspapers with fancy scalloped borders and beautiful open-work patterns that it had always been my duty and pleasure as a child to cut out for Mammy Susan. Festooned from the rafters were long strings of bright red peppers, dried okra, onions and bunches of thyme and bay. Pots of parsley and chives occupied one of the sunny windows. Mammy Susan held that: ”Seasonin' is the maindest thing in cookin', that an' 'lowin'

victuals to simper and not bile too hard.”