CHAPTER XIII
"CALL ME JACKIE!"
Strawberry shortcake is a bond in common. By the time that supper wasover Jacqueline was no longer a stranger to Caroline's cousins, and whenshe had shared with them the rather squashy chocolates that stillsurvived in her pockets, they were friends.
"I wish you'd call me Jackie," she told them. "That's what they alwayscalled me at school."
"I don't take much stock in nicknames," said Aunt Martha. She had suchan uncanny way of always being there, although you couldn't say shesnooped.
"I'd feel more at home if you called me Jackie," Jacqueline suggestedartfully.
To that plea Aunt Martha yielded, as Jacqueline had guessed she would.
"All right, then--Jackie. Now you can unpack your trunk. That'll bechore enough for to-night."
"But after this Jackie can do the dishes," suggested Neil teazingly,"because she's a girl."
"No, sir," said Aunt Martha promptly, "you can keep right on doing yourshare of dishes, because you're a boy."
Unpacking the trunk was really chore enough, Jacqueline decided, beforeshe was through. To take even a steamer-trunk up the steep stairs thatled from the kitchen was impossible. All Caroline's possessions had togo in armsful (Jacqueline's arms!) to the room that she was to sharewith Nellie.
It was a square room--Nellie thought it a large room--with a bricked upfireplace and a narrow white wood mantel, on which were a china dog,with a basket of matches in his mouth, and a little figure of a boy in ashort tunic, kneeling at his prayers. On the walls was a paper strewnwith baskets of roses. Unfortunately the paper had been hung upsidedown, which gave the room a somewhat rakish atmosphere. There were onlytwo pictures, an engraving of a dog, after Landseer, and aresigned-looking Evangeline seated beside a grave. The floor was coveredwith matting, and there were rag rugs over the thinnest places where theboards showed through. The bed was high and old-fashioned, with a chintzvalance. The bureau and the washstand were of black walnut, with marbletops. The chairs were of painted wood, with slatted backs.
Jacqueline could claim for her own two drawers of the bureau, and mostof the hooks in the shallow closet, and as no one offered to arrange herthings for her, she arranged them herself and took a certain pride indoing so. Only there were so few things in Caroline's battered trunk;socks for summer and stockings for winter, faded and much darned;undergarments, thinned with frequent washing and set with neat patches;skimpy-looking gingham dresses; one dress of wool that had been dyed; awinter coat, with a collar of worn velvet.
"Try on that coat, Jackie," bade Aunt Martha, as she turned fromstraining the milk.
Jacqueline tried it on, and felt that she looked indeed the part of poorchild. Such a shabby, outgrown little coat it was. Wasn't she glad thatshe was only playing at being Caroline?
"Tut, tut!" clucked Aunt Martha, and frowned. "You must have had thatcoat at least two seasons. Well, Nellie will grow to it in another year,and we've got to get you a new coat for winter, somehow. There's an oldulster of mine perhaps I could dye and cut over for you. But winter'ssome ways off, and we won't go crossing bridges till we get to 'em."
Near the bottom of the trunk Jacqueline discovered three pairs of PeggyJanes--overalls such as Aunt Edie would have shrieked aloud to see herwear. She made up her mind to wear them, here at the farm. Maybe shewould go barefoot, too--or at least barelegged and in sneakers, likeDickie and Neil.
In the last armful that Jacqueline carried upstairs was a box ofJapanese lacquer, tied with an old hair-ribbon. Jacqueline had thecuriosity to open it when she was in her room and Nellie's. Then shewished that she hadn't. She felt as if she had walked into a roomwithout knocking. There were in the box a few letters, tied up with abit of worsted, and slipped upon the worsted, and secured with a knot,was a plain gold ring. There were two little pins--not a child'spins--and a slender chain of gold beads. There was a little pair ofscissors, and a bag of crocheted purple silk, which held two spools offine cotton. There was a tiny fine handkerchief, with the letter C halffinished in the corner, and the threaded needle stuck in the place, justas some one had left it. Last of all, wrapped in a piece of white tissuepaper, was a small photograph of a lady with gentle eyes and a sweetmouth, like Caroline's.
Very soberly Jacqueline put back everything as she had found it, andtied up the box, and hid it away in the back of the drawer.
"Those were Caroline's mother's things," she thought, "and she's dead. Iwon't touch 'em again, ever."
By now it was dusky in the little room, as the long June day came to anend. Aunt Martha trudged up the stair, with a well-trimmed oil lamp inher hand. Behind her lagged Freddie and Nellie.
"I'll get 'em to bed," she told Jacqueline. "Freddie sleeps in my room,just across the hall. You go sit in the hammock with the boys. By thetime I'm through up here the water will be ready for you to have a bath,and I guess after that long hot journey, you'll be ready for it."
So Jacqueline sat out in the shabby hammock under the poplars, in thewarm, sweet dusk, and saw the great June stars come out and the distantmountains subside into rims of inky blackness round the silent meadows.She and Neil and Dickie poked and crowded each other fraternally, andDickie boasted about his hunting trips on the mountain with Ralph, andJacqueline raged inwardly because, in her part of Caroline, she couldn'tcap his stories with her account of the Yosemite.
At last Aunt Martha called her into the kitchen. There were two kettleson the oil stove, and a big bath towel, worn rather thin, lay over theback of a chair.
"There's the washroom," Aunt Martha told Jacqueline, and nodded toward adoor at the farther end of the kitchen.
Jacqueline went in. Here were no nickel faucets and no porcelain bath,but just a stationary tub of shiny zinc, which drained into a pipe thatled out of doors. A square, unglazed window, high in the wall, admittedthe light from the kitchen, and the heat.
"Oh, what a funny bath!" cried Jacqueline.
"'Tisn't much like what you're used to in the city," said Aunt Martha,as she bustled in with a kettle of steaming water. "But I tell you itseems like Heaven not to have to lug water both ways. I guess if themthat say 'cleanliness is next to godliness' had had to winter it once inNew England with four young ones, they'd have said cleanliness was nextthing to martyrdom."
Two kettles full of hot water went into the tub, and a bucket of coldwater that Jacqueline pumped.
"By Saturday night I guess you can do for yourself, same as Neil," AuntMartha told her approvingly.
Last of all, into the zinc tub one-third full of warm water, wentJacqueline, and soaped and splashed and chuckled and enjoyed herself. Afunny bath, indeed! If she had to do it all her life, horrible! But justfor two or three days--why, it was a lark.
It was not such a lark though, scrubbing that zinc tub afterward, with arag and warm water and "Clean-o." She hadn't thought of doing it, tillAunt Martha came in and pointed out that cleaning the tub after you usedit had something to do with the Golden Rule.
"I know you won't need to be told twice," said Aunt Martha.
"I guess I won't be here to be told twice," Jacqueline thoughtresentfully as she scrubbed.
She came out of the washroom, glowing and glowering, in Caroline'snightgown and faded kimono and worn bedshoes.
"You can brush your teeth upstairs," said Aunt Martha, who seemed tofind endless last tasks to do in that kitchen, before she should joinGrandma with the darning basket, under the big, hot lamp in the diningroom. "The hard water for your teeth is in the little pitcher on thewashstand."
"I--I----" Jacqueline faced the same difficulty that at about this hourpresented itself to Caroline. "You see--I haven't got the toothbrush Ihad on the train. I must have--lost it."
"Tut, tut!" Aunt Martha clucked again. Then she took heart. "It mighthave been worse. Better lose your toothbrush than your sweater or yourhead, for that matter. You'll have to buy you a new one to-morrow. Luckyyou didn't spend that half-d
ollar on foolishness. I'll mix some cookingsalt and warm water, and you just rinse your mouth out good. It's thebest we can do for now."
Left to herself, Jacqueline would probably have "forgotten" to use thetepid salt and water. But she was not left to herself. Aunt Martha wentupstairs with her, and stood over her till the mouthwash was properlyand thoroughly applied. Then she tucked her into bed beside Nellie, whogrunted sleepily and grudgingly moved over to give the newcomer room.
Having tucked Jacqueline in, Aunt Martha kissed her in a businesslikeand somewhat absent-minded way.
"Have a good sleep," she bade, and took the lamp, and went creaking downthe stair.
Jacqueline lay in the dark, beneath the sheet, in the room that was warmand breathless. She thought of the zinc tub that she had had to scrub,and the dishes that she should have to wash, and of Aunt Martha, whoseemed to have as many rules and standards as if she had dressed in silkand ridden in a limousine, like Great-aunt Eunice.
"I don't like it here," thought Jacqueline. "First thing in the morningI'll hunt up those Gildersleeves."
Nellie beside her turned sleepily and cooed:
"That you, Jackie?"
"Sure!"
"Nice Jackie--kiss me goo' night!"
Jacqueline did so. What a hot little thing Nellie was--but how cunning!That funny baby, too, was a darling, and Freddie, who gurgled when youtickled him. Neil had promised to show her a woodchuck's hole in themorning, and Dickie had boasted about his rabbits.
"It might be worse," Jacqueline reconsidered, "and if I back out, I'llnever get another chance to wear Peggy Janes, and cut on behind carts,and be poor and rowdy. I guess now I'm in, I'd better stick it out for aday or two."