Part 7 (1/2)
”This despatch came last night for Geoff,” he explained, dismounting, ”and there were a lot of letters besides, so I thought I'd better bring them out. I left the newspapers and the rest at the house, and fetched your share on. Euphane told me where you two were. So this is where the young Youngs are going to live, is it?”
He stepped in at the door and took a critical survey of the interior, while Clover and Elsie examined their letters.
”This telegram is for Geoff,” explained Clover. ”The Youngs are here,”
and she read:--
Safely landed. We reach Denver Thursday morning, six-thirty.
LIONEL YOUNG.
”So they will get here on Thursday afternoon. It's lucky we came up to-day. My letters are from Johnnie and Cecy Slack. Johnnie says--”
She was interrupted by a joyful shriek from Clover, who had torn open her letter and was eagerly reading it.
”Oh, Elsie, Elsie, what do you think is going to happen? The most enchanting thing! Rose Red is coming out here in August! She and Mr.
Browne and Roslein! Was there ever anything so nice in this world! Just hear what she says:”--
BOSTON, June 30.
MY DUCKY-DADDLES AND MY DEAR ELSIE GIRL,--I have something so wonderful to tell that I can scarcely find words in which to tell it. A kind Providence _and_ the A. T. and S. F. R. R. have just decided that Deniston must go to New Mexico early in August. This would not have been at all delightful under ordinary circ.u.mstances, for it would only have meant perspiration on his part and widowhood on mine, but most fortunately, some angels with a private car of their own have turned up, and have asked all three of us to go out with them as far as Santa Fe. What _do_ you think of that? It is not the Daytons, who seem only to exist to carry you to and fro from Burnet to Colorado free of expense, this time, but another batch of angels who have to do with the road,--name of Hopkinson.
I never set eyes on them, but they appear to my imagination equipped with the largest kind of wings, and nimbuses round their heads as big as shade-hats.
I have always longed to get out somehow to your Enchanted Valley, and see all your mysterious husbands and babies, and find out for myself what the charm is that makes you so wonderfully contented there, so far from West Cedar Street and the other centres of light and culture, but I never supposed I could come unless I walked. But now I _am_ coming! I do hope none of you have the small-pox, or pleuro-pneumonia, or the ”foot-and-mouth disease” (whatever that is), or any other of the ills to which men and cattle are subject, and which will stand in the way of the visit. Deniston, of course, will be forced to go right through to Santa Fe, but Roslein and I are at your service if you like to have us. We don't care for scenery, we don't want to see Mexico or the Pacific coast, or the buried cities of Central America, or the Zuni corn dance,--if there is such a thing,--or any alkaline plains, or pueblos, or b.u.t.tes, or buffalo wallows; we only want to see you, individually and collectively, and the High Valley. May we come and stay a fortnight? Deniston thinks he shall be gone at least as long as that.
We expect to leave Boston on the 31st of July. You will know what time we ought to get to St.
Helen's,--I don't, and I don't care, so only we get there and find you at the station. Oh, my dear Clovy, isn't it fun?
I have seen several of our old school-set lately, Esther Dearborn for one. She is Mrs. Joseph P.
Allen now, as you know, and has come to live at Chestnut Hill, quite close by. I had never seen her since her marriage, nearly five years since, till the other day, when she asked me out to lunch, and introduced me to Mr. Joseph P., who seems a very nice man, and also--now don't faint utterly, but you will! to their seven children! He had two of his own when they married, and they have had two pairs of twins since, and ”a singleton,” as they say in whist. Such a houseful you never did see; but the twins are lovely, and Esther looks very fat and happy and well-to-do, and says she doesn't mind it a bit, and sees more clearly every day that the thing she was born for was to take the charge of a large family. Her Joseph P. is very well off, too. I should judge that they ”could have cranberry sauce every day and never feel the difference,” which an old cousin of my mother's, whom I dimly remember as a part of my childhood, used to regard as representing the high-water mark of wealth.
Mary Strothers has been in town lately, too. She has only one child, a little girl, which seems miserably few compared with Esther, but on the other hand she has never been without neuralgia in the face for one moment since she went to live in the Hoosac Tunnel, she told me, so there are compensations. She seems happy for all that, poor dear Mary. Ellen Gray never has married at all, you know. She goes into good works instead, girls'
Friendlies and all sorts of usefulnesses. I do admire her so much, she is a standing reproach and example to me. ”Wish I were a better boy,” as your brother Dorry said in his journal.
Mother is well and my father, but the house seems empty and lonely now. We can never get used to dear grandmamma's loss, and Sylvia is gone too.
She and Tom sailed for Europe in April, and it makes a great difference having them away, even for a summer. My brother-in-law is such a nice fellow, I hope you will know him some day.
And all this time I have forgotten to tell you the chief news of all, which is that I have seen Katy.
Deniston and I spent Sunday before last with her at the Torpedo station. She has a cosey, funny little house, one of a row of five or six, built on the spine, so to speak, of a narrow, steep island, with a beautiful view of Newport just across the water. It was a superb day, all s.h.i.+mmery blue and gold, and we spent most of our time sitting in a shady corner of the piazza, and talking of the old times and of all of you. I didn't know then of this enchanting Western plan, or we should have had a great deal more to talk about. The dear Katy looks very well and handsome, and was perfectly dear, as she always is, and she says the Newport climate suits her to perfection.
Your brother-in-law is a stunner! I asked Katy if she wasn't going out to see you soon, and she said not till Ned went to sea next spring, then she should go for a long visit.
Write at once if we may come. I won't begin on the subject of Roslein, whom you will never know, she has grown so. She goes about saying rapturously, ”I shall see little Geoff! I shall see Phillida! I shall see Aunt Clovy! Perhaps I shall ride on a horse!” You'll never have the heart to disappoint her. My ”milk teeth are chattering with fright” at the idea of so much railroad, as one of her books says, but for all that we are coming, if you let us. Do let us!
YOUR OWN ROSE RED.
”Let them! I should think so,” cried Clover, with a little skip of rapture. ”Dear, dear Rose! Elsie, the nicest sort of things do happen out here, don't they?”