Part 22 (1/2)

”I'll never forgive myself if Cousin Ann is in trouble, when I have literally driven her from my house.”

”But, my dear, you have not driven her from your home,” comforted his wife. ”You had only intended to inform her that we were planning a trip abroad and she would have to visit somewhere else until arrangements could be made for her to be established in an old ladies'

home. There was nothing cruel in that.”

”Ah, but Cousin Ann is so proud and Buck Hill has always been a refuge for her.”

The other cousins were likewise agitated. For Cousin Ann to have disappeared just as they were contemplating wounding her made them think that they had already wounded her. ”Poor old lady!” was all they could say, and all of them said it until their women-folk were exceedingly bored with the remark.

Mr. Bob Bucknor determined to send for Jeff, if something definite was not heard of the missing cousin within the next twenty-four hours. He vaguely felt that it might be time for the law to step in and help in the search.

In the meantime Miss Ann was very happy in the house built by Ezra Knight; and Uncle Billy was even happier in the cabin built by the Bucks of old. The Peyton coach stood peacefully in the carriage house, with the bees buzzing sleepily, free to come and go in their subway nest somewhere under the back seat. Cupid and Puck wandered in the blue-gra.s.s meadow, content as though they had been put to graze in the Elysian fields.

The first night under the roof of her newly recognized cousins was a novel one for Miss Ann. She had gone to bed not in the least bored, but very tired--tired from actual labor. In the first place, she had helped wipe all the many dishes acc.u.mulated from the motormen's dinners and then put them away. That task completed, she had become interested in Judith's work of mounting photographs--an order lately received and one that must be rushed.

”Want to help?” Judith had asked, and soon deft old fingers were vying with young ones.

”Why, Cousin Ann, you have regular fairy fingers,” said Judith, and the old lady had blushed with delight. They worked until the task was completed, while Mrs. Buck nodded over ”Holy Living and Dying.”

In the morning, when Judith made her early way to the kitchen, she found a fire burning briskly in the stove, the kettle ready to boil and the wood box filled. Uncle Billy, smiling happily, was seated in the doorway. Judith thanked him heartily and he a.s.sured her he liked to help white ladies, but didn't hold much to helping his own race.

”They's ongrateful an' proudified an' the mo' you holps 'em the mo'

they s.h.i.+fts. Me'n Miss Ann has been visitin so long we ain't entered much inter housekeepin', but somehow we seem so sot an' statiumnary now that it comes nachul ter both er us ter len' a han'.”

”That's nice,” laughed Judith. ”I do hope you and Cousin Ann and Cupid and Puck will all feel at home. I wish you would keep your eye open for a nice, respectable woman who could help me, now that I have so many dinners to serve to the trolley men.”

”I sho' will--an', Miss Judy, I'm wonderin' if you ain't got a little bitser blue cloth what I mought patch my pants with. If my coattails wa'n't so long I wouldn't be fitten ter go 'mongst folks.”

After some discussion with her mother, in which the girl tried to make Mrs. Buck see the difference between saving and h.o.a.rding, Judith finally produced for old Billy many leftovers of maternal and paternal grandfathers.

”Mumsy, you are a trump. Now, you see you saved these things so someone deserving could use them, but if they had stayed in the attic until the moths had eaten them up while old Billy went ragged then that would have been wasteful h.o.a.rding.”

”I'm not minding so much about your Grandfather Buck's things, but somehow it seems a desecration for that old darkey to be wearing your Grandfather Knight's trousers.”

”That's what makes me say you are a trump, Mumsy. I know you look upon those broadcloth pants as a kind of sacred trust, and I just love you to death for giving in about them.”

”And my father was tall and straight of limb, too,” wailed Mrs. Buck.

”It seems worse because old Billy's legs are so short and crooked.”

Crooked they may have been, but short they were not. By the time the broadcloth trousers traveled the circuitous route of the old man's legs everything came out even.

”Fit me like they was made fer me,” he exclaimed, showing himself to Judith.

”Perhaps they were,” mused Judith. ”And now the coat!”

It was a rusty coat, long of tail and known at the time of its pristine glory as a ”Prince Albert.” Ezra Knight had kept it for funerals and other ceremonious occasions.

”Is there ary hat?”

There was--a high silk hat with a broad brim. Mrs. Buck rather thought it was one that had belonged to her grandfather and not her father.