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Page 26
Cousin Hetty would say that I "am eating my white bread now," for it is
nothing but play from morning until night.
At first it seemed so strange,--no beds to make, no dishes to wash, no
churning to do. I like the evenings best of all. Then we sit on the
porch in the twilight, and godmother talks about mamma. I never knew
anything about her before, for I was so little when she died; but now
she seems so real to me and so sweet.
Then we go into the long drawing-room, and the wax tapers are lighted.
Godmother says she always intends to use candle-light in that room,
because it would spoil some of its quaint old-time charm to use modern
lights. And she plays on the piano, and Lloyd on the harp. Lloyd is only
learning, and godmother doesn't seem to think much of her playing, but
to me the music they make seems almost heavenly. They forget that the
only music that I am used to hearing, except what the birds make, is
pumped out of the wheezy little organ at church.
I could sit up all night to listen to them. It makes me feel so strange
that I hardly know how to describe it,--as if I were away off from
everything, and high up, where it is wide and open, and where the stars
are. It makes me want to write. All sorts of beautiful thoughts come to
me, that I can _almost_ put into words. But they are like
will-o'-the-wisps. When I get to the place with my rhyme, where I saw
them shining, they are still beyond my reach.
JUNE 5th.
Rob Moore came over to-day, and he and Lloyd and I went fishing.
We carried our lunch with us, and ate it on a big rock that sticks up
like a sort of island in the middle of the creek. We had to take off our
shoes and stockings to wade out to it, and after we got there the rock
was hardly big enough to hold the basket and all of us comfortably. We
had to hold fast with one hand and grab for our sandwiches with the
other.
It was lots of fun, for Rob and Lloyd kept saying such funny things that
we laughed all the time. I don't know how it happened, but we got to
laughing so hard that Lloyd choked on a piece of chicken. We began
pounding her on the back to help her get her breath, and all of a sudden
off we went from the rock into the creek--kersplash!
It wasn't deep enough to hurt us, but we did look so funny when we stood
up as wet as three frogs, and wiped the water out of our eyes. We
laughed so hard we could scarcely fish the basket out of the creek and
wade to shore. The basket was the only thing we caught except a turtle;
Rob got that, and Lloyd made him let it go again.
Of course our tumble into the water ended the fishing for to-day, for we
all had to hurry home for dry clothes. But Rob came back again in the
afternoon, and he and Lloyd have been giving me my first lesson in
lawn-tennis.
JUNE 6th.
Joyce came to-day on the noon train. She has the blue room across the
hall from mine. It suits her, for she is a blonde like Lloyd, but her
hair doesn't curl any. It is just soft and wavy, and hangs in two long
braids below her waist. Her eyes are gray, with long dark lashes, and
while she isn't exactly pretty, she has a face that you like to keep
looking at. It is so bright and jolly, as if she was always thinking
funny things, and having a good time all to herself.
She came all the way alone, and didn't mind it a bit, although she had
to change cars twice, and was all night on the sleeping-car. She brought
a sketch-book in her satchel that is almost full of pictures she drew on
the train. There is one that is so funny. It is the head of an old man,
gone to sleep with his mouth open. She wrote under that one, "As others
see us." Then she drew two cunning babies playing peek-a-boo in the
aisle. She called that "Innocence abroad." There are ever so many more
that godmother says are really clever, and remarkably well done for a
girl of thirteen. I thought they were perfect.
It didn't take long to get acquainted with Joyce. She has been here only
a part of a day, and already I feel as if I had known her always.
JUNE 7th.
It was nearly six o'clock yesterday when Eugenia came. Godmother and
Lloyd drove down to the station to meet her, but Joyce and I walked up
and down under the locusts, wondering what she would be like.
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