CHAPTER XII
NEW RELATIONS
Over the covered bridge and into Longmeadow Street the Ford panted,where the limousine some time before had silently and sumptuouslyrolled. But in Longmeadow Street Jacqueline's way parted fromCaroline's. Before they reached the Gildersleeve place they turned tothe left into a road of trodden dirt. Soon they had left the well-keptvillage houses, with their trim lawns and flower-beds, behind them. Theydrove now through vast level fields which were green with the tops ofonions. In the distance were mountains, such as Caroline was studyingfrom her north window. Overhead the blue sky was losing some of its hardbrilliance, as the sun jogged downward toward the western hills.
Along the dirt road were strung a few farms, wide apart, with clustersof buildings, houses, barns, and sheds. Around each farmhouse grewtrees, beeches and elms and nut-trees. But the road itself wasshadeless, running straight as a builder's line between the green andpungent-smelling fields of onions.
"My, but it's hot!" panted Jacqueline.
"You just wait till winter," boasted Nellie. "The wind comes justa-whooping down from the north, and the snow is that high. Last winter Igot in a drift up to my waist, going to school. Ralph, he hauls me on mysled but----"
"Tell Caroline about the blizzard later," Aunt Martha interrupted. "Herewe are now, and she's got other things to think about."
They turned from the road into a dirt track. On the right was a squareold white house, badly in need of paint, with huge bushes of lilac thathid its front door from the road, and elms that towered above theweather-worn dark roof. At the left was untidy grass where red hensscratched among rusty croquet wickets; poplar trees, with a shabbyhammock hung between two of them; a swing that lacked a seat, droopingfrom a butternut tree. Then the car stopped in the irregular plot oftrodden dirt at the side-door of the house. A great slab of granite wasthe doorstone, and round it grew bachelor's buttons and phlox, fencedhigh with wire to keep out the chickens.
Jacqueline noticed that if they drove on, they would land in a barn,with a wide open door, and beside the barn was a lane, which ran offtoward the western mountains, and there was an orchard, and sheds, and afenced, small cow-yard. She didn't have time for more than a fleetingglimpse.
"Here's Grandma, Caroline," Aunt Martha claimed her attention.
Jacqueline turned her head and saw an old lady come briskly out upon thedoorstone. She was weather-brown and small and spry, as they say in NewEngland. She had very dark eyes and a thin, delicate nose, and she wasas neat as wax, in a gray alpaca dress, and a big white apron. A littletow-headed boy in blue overalls, who must be Freddie, came trotting ather side, but as soon as he saw Jacqueline, he clutched at Grandma'sskirts and hid his head in their folds.
Jacqueline opened the door of the Ford and jumped out.
"How do you do, Mrs. Conway," she began.
"Guess you'd better say Grandma, and have it over with," the old ladysaid, and kissed her. "My, but you're a fine big girl for ten yearsold--not a bit spindle-legged like some city children. You come right innow and wash up while they're getting the things out of the car. I gotsome water hot on the oil stove."
At Grandma's side, with Freddie peeping at her round Grandma's skirts,Jacqueline went into the kitchen of the old Conway house. It was a longroom, with many-paneled doors, and windows set with little lights ofglass. On the well-scoured floor were mats of braided rags. At one sidea huge fireplace had been bricked up, and projecting from what had beenits hearth, stood a big cookstove, ornamented with polished nickel,which was quite cold. At the other side of the room, between thewindows, was an iron sink with two pumps, and near it a big three-burneroil stove, on which a kettle gently simmered.
"Hard water in the right-hand pump," Grandma rapidly explained toJacqueline. "Cistern water in the left-hand. Cistern water is good forthe complexion--but that will interest you more a few years later.There's the hand basin--don't ever take the tin one--it's for thevegetables. Don't touch that yellow soap--leave it for the dishes andsuch like. Here's the white soap for your hands, and you'll find theclean roller towel on the closet door."
Why, this was roughing it, thought Jacqueline. She had known nothinglike it since she went camping in the Yosemite. She washed her face andhands in a blue enamel basin, with a white lining--soft water from theleft-hand pump, warm water from the kettle.
"Don't waste none of it!" warned Grandma. "Martha and Nellie and theboys will want a lick before supper."
She dried her face and hands on the clean, coarse roller towel, and thenwith great bumping and thumping her trunk (Caroline's trunk!) wasbrought into the kitchen, and she met Caroline's cousins, who had servedas baggage smashers. Of course she knew them at once from their mother'sdescription. The tallest one, with the direct gray eyes like AuntMartha's and the cowlick, was Ralph, and the thin brown one with the bigmouth was Dickie, and the red-head who grinned at her engagingly wasNeil. Ralph wore long pants and shirt of khaki and heavy shoes andstockings, but Dickie and Neil were barelegged in sneakers, and theirold shirts and knickers, like their hands, might have been cleaner. Butthey looked nice boys, and even if they hadn't been, Jacqueline wasn'tin the least afraid of boys.
She shook hands all round, and then Nellie wished her to look at Annie,the wonderful baby. Off the kitchen was a little bedroom, which had beenGrandma's for years and years, and here in a little crib besideGrandma's bed with its white dimity cover, sat Annie. She was ablue-eyed, serious person, in faded pink rompers, and she divided herattention between a string of empty spools and her own toes. Jacquelinefelt sorry for her. Poor baby, with so little to play with! She sat downbeside her and dangled the spools before her eyes. Then the seriousAnnie suddenly gurgled and clutched at them and clapped her hands andlaughed, with adorable dimplings. She was more fun than a kitten. No,she wasn't like a kitten. With her firm little body she was much morelike a wriggling, happy, affectionate small puppy.
"Bring her along, Caroline," called Grandma, from the kitchen. "Supper'sready."
Jacqueline didn't know much about babies, but she wouldn't admit herignorance, especially before Nellie. She picked Annie up in her arms,and holding her tight--for to drop her would be more dreadful even thanto drop a puppy--she followed Nellie to the supper table.
Jacqueline had rather expected that the Conways, being poor people,would eat in the kitchen, but she found the table laid in the big squareroom off the kitchen that looked into both the side-yard and the lilacbushes at the front of the house. It was a shabby room, with faded brownwall-paper and a painted floor. There was a well-worn couch in onecorner, a wicker armchair, and a couple of rockers, a sewing machine bythe side-window, and a whatnot in the farthest corner, filled withschool books and farm papers. The table was spread with a checkered redand white cloth, and the dishes were of three or four differentpatterns. The silver was plated, and the glasses were thick. But thetable was neatly set, Jacqueline realized, and everything was spotlesslyclean.
Annie sat in a highchair beside Aunt Martha, and Freddie sat on ahassock placed on a chair at Grandma's right hand. Jacqueline satbetween Grandma and Dickie. It was Aunt Martha, of course, who broughtin the supper. Such a supper Jacqueline had never heard tell of--a hugeshortcake, made of two layers of biscuit-dough that must have been bakedin the grandfather of all drip pans. Luscious red strawberries, crushedto a pulp and mixed with sugar, were between the layers and oozed theirrichness, as Aunt Martha cut great squares for her hungry family.Besides the shortcake there was milk for the children, and tea in thinwhite cups, adorned with jocund green dragons, for Grandma and AuntMartha. That was all the supper.
Jacqueline looked questioningly round her. Was there nothing else tobegin with--or to end with? But her cousins (Caroline's cousins!) werewading into the shortcake, as if it were all that they asked orexpected. She took a bite--a large one. Oh, but she found it good!
She looked sidewise at Dickie, and Dickie, with his mouth full, lookedat h
er. She nodded toward the juicy piece of shortcake on the platterthat was all ready and waiting for the first child who should ask for asecond helping.
"Bet you I'll beat you to it," murmured Jacqueline. Instinct told herthat invasions of decorum had best not be shouted aloud in Aunt Martha'spresence.
"G'on!" said Dickie softly.