Part 12 (1/2)

”You mean Josh? He is not my brother.”

”Oh, cousin, then?”

”No, he is no relation to me. I live with his mother, though, Aunt Mandy. I have lived with her for five years. I am very fond of Josh, but if he were my brother, I'd simply make him take baths.”

”Can't you anyhow as it is?”

”No,” sadly. ”He thinks it is foolishness. Teacher has told him time and time again and even sent him home, five miles across the mountains, but he won't wash for her or for me. Aunt Mandy thinks it is foolishness, too, but she makes him bathe oftener than he used to in summer.”

”Boys will be boys and it is hard to make them anything else. I remember the time well when bathing was something that I thought grown-ups wished on me just for spite, and now a cold shower every morning is as necessary to my happiness as dirt used to be when I was a kid. Bill and I are going to pipe from the spring up there and concoct a shower somehow under the pavilion.”

”That will be glorious. Father always meant to use that spring and get a shower at the cabin.”

”Your father!”

”Yes, my father was the man who built the Englishman's cabin. He died five years ago.”

”Gee whilikins! Now I understand!”

CHAPTER IX.

SOME LETTERS.

From Lewis Somerville to Douglas Carter.

Greendale, Va., May --, 19--.

Dear Douglas:

Bill and I are coming on finely. Already the n.o.ble palace is rearing its head. We've got the posts planted and the uprights and rafters in place and will begin on the roof to-morrow. Bill is a perfect glutton for work. Speaking of gluttons--we've got a cook. A perfect gem of a cook who has been born and bred at Lonesomehurst and doesn't mind the country. We are going to hang on to her like grim Death to a dead n.i.g.g.e.r.

The funny thing about her is she is a real lady. I spotted it from the beginning from a certain way she had with her. She is only fourteen and her father, who, by the way, was the Englishman who built this cabin and used to own the side of the mountain, has been dead five years; but before he died this child evidently learned to eat with a fork and to take a daily bath and to keep her hair smooth. She handles the King's English with the same respect and grace she does a fork, and her speech is very marked because of the contrast between it and the we uns and you uns and you allses of the ordinary mountaineer. She has lived ever since her father's death with Aunt Mandy, a regular old mountain character who looks as though she might have stepped out of one of John Fox's books. She is the same back and front, concave both ways--slightly more convex in the back than the front. She stands a good six feet in her stocking feet (although I doubt her ever having on a pair). I have never seen her without a snuff stick in her mouth except once and then she had a corn-cob pipe. She is as sharp as a tack and woe be to the one who engages her in a contest of wit.

Josh is her son and Josephus her mule. Mr. Mandy is dead, and Aunt Mandy and Josh, who is twelve, I think, have scratched a living out of their ”clarin'” with the help of Josephus, who is as much of a character as Aunt Mandy and Josh.

When the Englishman died, Aunt Mandy took the little orphan Gwendolin to her house, never dreaming that there was anything for her to do but take her. She has been as good as gold to the girl and shared her corn pone and drippings with a heart of charity. Gwen is surely making up to her now for all her kindness as she does all the housework for her foster mother and all kinds of sewing and knitting, which she sells to the summer boarders down at the hotel at Greendale. I am crazy to engage Gwen and Josh for you girls but am afraid of b.u.t.ting in on your arrangements.

Josh is delicious. He did not learn to wash from an English father nor to handle a fork, nor yet to speak the King's English--but good old Aunt Mandy has endowed him plentifully with a keen wit and as good and kind a heart as she herself has. Maybe he does not speak the King's English but one thing sure: the King himself could not boast a finer sense of honor and pride.

I have done one thing that may be b.u.t.ting in, but it seems to me to be so necessary that I am sure you will forgive me: I have had Josh and Josephus plow up a piece of land on top the mountain, where the Englishman once had a garden, and there I have planned to set out a lot of vegetables. It is late to start a garden but there are lots of things that will come in mighty handy for you when you have a camp full of boarders. This was Gwen's suggestion. Aunt Mandy and Josh are enlarging their garden with a hope of selling things to you and they are also planning to sell you milk. I say all right to that, provided Gwen does the milking, but I am sure if Josh does it, it will look like cocoa by the time we get it, no matter how much it is strained. He is certainly one dirty boy but I comfort myself with the thought that it is clean Mother Earth dirt, the kind Bobby gets on him, and, after all, that isn't so germy.

We are having glorious weather and I do wish you girls could be here, but no doubt if you were, we would not eat up work quite so fast as we are doing now. We are enjoying ourselves greatly and are getting over our terrible disappointment. If Uncle Sam doesn't want us to soldier for him in times of peace we will show him what we are good for in times of war. I did think right seriously of enlisting with the Canadians and going over to help the Allies, but somehow I have a feeling I won't b.u.t.t in on Europe's troubles but wait for one of our own which is sure to turn up sooner or later. In the meantime, thanks to you girls, we work so hard in the day time that when night comes there is nothing to do but sleep. I could sleep on a rock pile I am so tired, but instead of a rock pile, a nice canvas cot serves me very well. We have all kinds of schemes for comfort but I am not going to tell you of them as they may not pan out as we expect, and then if they do come right, we can surprise you with them.

Bill sends his regards. He stayed awake for a little while one night trying to decide which one of you was the most beautiful, but as he had to give it up, he has lost no more sleep on the subject. One thing that makes us work so hard is that we feel that as soon as we get the place habitable you will come and inhabit. My love to the girls and Bobby. Tell him there is so much mischief he can get in up here, I know he is going to have the time of his life.

Your devoted cousin, LEWIS SOMERVILLE.