I BLESSED Heaven for the lovely day that had come to us. If it had been rainy or even gray we should have had a hard time to keep Minerva. But even a hidebound cockney like herself could tolerate the sweetness of the air and the softness of the clouds and the brightness of the sun.
Ethel made cake so that she could be in the kitchen. I did not exactly approve of it, because the day was meant to be spent in the open, and I wanted to swing hammocks out in the pine woods and read a new novel which had been recommended to me as excellent for reading aloud, but I well knew the wisdom of getting Minerva started right, and I dare say that Ethel’s amiable conversation made her forget that the cook on the “other side of the hall” was nearly two hundred miles away.
At lunch time, Ethel looked very much heated and worn, and I said to myself, “Better me in the kitchen making impossible cake and regaling Minerva with anecdotes than Ethel neutralizing all the effects of this delicious country air in her efforts to keep our cook contented.” So, after lunch, I put up the hammocks and then I insisted on Ethel’s taking her embroidery and coming out to the woods.
“And what will Minerva do? She is afraid of the crickets, and I dare not leave her all the afternoon alone until she is acclimated.”
“No, of course she can’t be left. I didn’t intend her to be left. I will go and learn how to make bread, or, better still, I will paint the floor. Doesn’t the floor need painting?”
“Now, Philip, don’t be foolish. Of course you can’t stay in the kitchen. It’s no place for a man—”
“Nor is it any place for a woman who has come to the country for her health. And yet Minerva won’t stay here alone. What’s to be done?”
Ethel thought a minute and then said:
“I have some plain sewing that I want done and Minerva is very handy with her needle. She makes all her own clothes. She shall come to the pine woods with us and sew a fine seam until it’s time to start dinner, and then we can go back to the house and sit on the piazza. It’s not as pleasant as the woods, but we’ll be within ear call.”
This seemed preposterous, but if I disapproved and Minerva left, Ethel would be apt to blame me, so I consented and we all went to the grove, like a happy family of three. I read out loud from the new novel, but I don’t think that Minerva cared much for it, because when Miss Pussy, who had accompanied us, brought a bird and laid it at her mistress’ feet, Minerva broke right into my reading with:
“Why, Mis. Vernon, Miss Pussy has a bird, and it ain’t a sparrer an’ it ain’t a canary. What other kinds is there?”
Then the reading was stopped while Ethel gave a lesson in ornithology to the child of the city streets. I did not mind her absorbing all the learning she could, but I resented the interruption and I arose and walked away, wondering how long this thing was going to last. I had no doubt that in another week we would be giving a party in Minerva’s honour, and that we should take out a subscription for her in the Booklovers’ seemed foreordained. She must learn “How to Know the Trees,” and “How to Become a True Nature Lover in Six Lessons,” and “How to Listen to Birds,” and particularly “How to Forget the City.” If I could get her that book I would be willing to pay almost any price for it. Also, “How to Teach a Cook to Depend on Herself for Her Joys.” This traipsing around after us was not what I had expected.
My way led out to the road that runs below the pine grove, and I had barely emerged from the wood when I was hailed with a “Well, well, we are in luck! Where’s the Missus?” and there were Harry Farnet and his wife Rose, looking lost in a three-seated wagon drawn by two horses.
“Where did you drop from?” said I, for Harry Farnet is a New Yorker who generally runs over to Europe in the summer.
“Why, we’re at South Edgeley for a couple of weeks,” said he, “and the Longleys, who are staying at the Hillcrest, told us you had taken a cottage here for the summer, and so we thought we’d chance finding you in and take you back to dine and spend the evening, and then ride home in the moonlight. How’s Ethel?”
“Ethel is middling well, but she’s playing nurse girl to our cook and it is wearing on her just a little—and on me a great deal.”
“What do you mean?” asked Rose.
“Why, we brought up Minerva, you know—the treasure that we’ve had for three winters, and we find that she needs a city setting to be a jewel of the first water. She is so lonesome that we spend most of our time coddling her. She’s afraid of the frogs and moans for the delights of Gotham.”
“Poor thing! Well, she won’t have to bother with dinner to-night, so just give her a book—here, give her this box of candy. It’s quite dreadful, but I’m sure she’ll like it, and it’ll keep her mind off her troubles for quite a while. Jump in and take us to your house. Is Ethel there?”
“No, we’re all just up in the woods above. I’ve been reading to her, with interruptions from Minerva. Minerva and Kate Douglas Wiggin do not appear to be twin souls. Ethel! Ethel!” I called, and she answered, and a minute later she came in view and was both surprised and overjoyed to see the Farnets. Rose and she went to school together and they have always kept up an intimacy.
“Hello, you dear thing! You’re going riding with us—going to take dinner with us—we’re at South Edgeley, and in the evening we’ll drive you back.”
“Lovely!” cried Ethel, enthusiastically, and I was glad that the Farnets had come. Ethel needed company just as much as Minerva.
I heard a dead limb cracking in the woods above, and, looking up, saw Minerva, her eyes wide open and fearful, as if she thought we were going to leave her to perish in nature’s solitudes. For Ethel was just stepping into the carriage.
“That’s Minerva,” said Ethel to Rose. “Our cook. You know her, don’t you? Perfect jewel, but it’s the first time she has ever been away from New York, and she is very mournful.”
“So Philip was saying,” said Rose. “I tell him to give her a box of this dreadful chewing candy. It’s some we got at the only store in South Edgeley, and if she starts a piece it will keep her busy chewing for an hour at least. You’re not afraid to leave her, are you?”
“No, I’m not afraid,” said Ethel; “but I’m afraid she will be. She’s a hare for timidity. Oh, Minerva! we’re going for a ride and you needn’t get dinner to-night. We’ll be back before bed time.”
“Go’n’ to leave me alone in that God-forsaken house?” said Minerva, in such evident terror that Ethel shook her head at Rose and said, “I can’t do it. It would be heartless. You stay here and dine with us. We have loads of provisions.”
“No, Mamma will expect us. We told her we were going to get you and she’ll expect us. Our landlady has two seats waiting for you. You must come.”
Here was a vexing situation. It would be downright cruel to maroon Minerva, and yet we didn’t like to give up our anticipated pleasure.
There was more noise in the woods and “Miss Pussy” jumped out of a tree with a chipmunk in her mouth.
“Oh, Mis. Vernon, look at Miss Pussy! She’s got a striped rat. I never see sich a place for wild animals. I couldn’ no more stay alone—”
She paused for a phrase strong enough, and Rose clapped her hands and said,
“I have it. Minerva shall be your maid and ride on the back seat. This old ark was the only thing we could get, but now the third seat will be of some use.”
Miss Pussy dropped the chipmunk at Minerva’s feet, and Minerva jumped backward pretty nearly a yard.
“She’s killed it, Minerva. That chipmunk will never have a chance to hurt you,” said I in a consolatory tone. That reminded me of “Miss Pussy.”
“We can’t take the cat along,” said I to Ethel. “When the cat travels I prefer to be doing something else. I can still hear her cries on the train.”
“Well, shut her up in the house,” said Harry. He looked at his watch. “Come, it’s time we were starting. It’s up hill half the way back.”
“You can say that of any drive around here,” said I.
Minerva climbed in much as a mountain would have done it, and we started for the house to get wraps.
“The time we came up and this time are the on’y times I was ever in an open wagon,” said Minerva.
“Minerva is getting loquacious,” said I to Ethel.
Minerva overheard me and said,
“No, I ain’t, sir, not when they’s any one around. I’ll git used to it if there’s somethin’ doin’ all the time.”
“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” said Harry to me. “Master of the Revels. You might give her a lawn party—”
Rose shook her head warningly at her husband and we changed the subject, but it was plain to be seen that all Minerva needed was the excitement of society. If we made her our guest and I did the cooking we would have no difficulty in keeping her contented.
There was nothing worthy of note regarding Minerva during our ride to South Edgeley. She sat on the back seat and tangled her jaws in the candy, and I presume that she had a good dinner at the Farnet’s boarding house. Certainly we did and we enjoyed that and the ride back very much, and rejoiced that we had friends so near, although as Harry did not own the horses and the haying season was “on,” it was not likely that the Farnets and we would often meet, unless we walked toward each other and met at some half way point—and there again Minerva would be in the way. A three-mile walk with Minerva tagging behind like a younger sister was not a tempting idea.
However, the doctor had said that Ethel must have a good long rest in the country, and her needs were paramount. Without Minerva to cook she could not rest, and we must keep Minerva though the heavens should fall.
We were talking quietly about Minerva that evening after the Farnets had driven home, when the light in her bedroom that had been shining out on an elm at the side of the house, suddenly disappeared, there came a shriek, and then,
“Oh, Lordy, oh Lordy, leggo my hair.”
I thought of tramps, but Ethel, being a woman, divined what had happened and bade me light a lantern quickly. I rushed to the kitchen and lighted it. The house was not on fire, that was certain. Minerva was either having a fit or an encounter with a burglar, for there was a sound as of heavy foot-falls and choking ejaculations.
I seized the kitchen poker, expecting to sell my life at a bargain, but Ethel looked at me commiseratingly and with the one word “Bat,” she hurried up the back stairs.
I must say that at first I took the word to mean that Minerva had been imbibing and I wondered at Ethel’s using so idiomatic an expression, but when she entered the room and the sounds almost immediately stopped, to be followed by sobbing, I suddenly divined what she meant.
“No, Minerva, it isn’t poisonous.” (More lessons in Natural History.) “Probably the poor thing was more frightened than you are.”
I did not think it at all likely. At any rate, it had been far more reticent.
“I’ll give you a screen from the spare room to put in your window. It was attracted by the light. It’s a sort of mouse with wings.”
“Striped rats and mice with wings! Lordy, the country’s awful!”
Poor Minerva! She must have been surprised to see that country horses were just like those of the city. Certainly a horse has more evil potentiality than a stupid little bat, but when a beast has you by the hair and you see him, as it were, through the back of your head, he is apt to loom large and terrifying.
Quiet was soon restored and Ethel came down with the lantern. I put away the poker which I had been holding ever since I picked it up.
“It’s the greatest mercy in the world that the lamp went out. She knocked it over when the bat hit her.”
“What next? Is the room moth miller proof? Could she survive a June bug?”
“Well, really, it’s nothing to laugh at. If you ever have a bat in your back hair you’ll not think of laughing.”
As my back hair is fast going to join the snows of yesteryear, I considered this a most unkind cut, but I was above retaliating—as I could not think of anything to say.
“Well, Minerva has now been here a whole day and she’s hardly been out of our sight. I admit that she is an excellent cook and a hard worker, but as a steady visitor who, rides with us and sews with us she is likely to pall. Hasn’t she a mother who can come and visit her?”
“No,” Ethel answered, “Minerva is an only child.”
“And a child only,” said I.