Flood Tide Part 29

"Oh, I don't know," was the provoking answer.

Robert Morton bit his lip and moved toward the door, but he had not got further than the sill before she whispered:

"Bob!"

Resolutely he held his peace.

"Please be nice, Bob," she cooed.

Ah, he was back again, but she had retreated behind the tall rocker.

"I suppose," she observed, hurtling the words over Jezebel's sleeping form, "that your aunt will be heartbroken to miss this party. Why don't you run upstairs and let her read the note? Then we can send our regrets when Mr. Snelling goes back to Belleport this noon."

Obediently the young man sped to do her bidding, and soon Delight heard his voice calling from the upper hall.

"She won't send her regrets. She says she's going. I tell her they will ask her another time, but she insists she feels lots better and was thinking of getting up, anyway. She wants to start putting fresh cuffs on her black cashmere this minute, and do I don't know what.

You'd better come up and stop her."

But Celestina was not to be stopped. Go she would!

"My shoulder's 'most well anyhow," she affirmed, "an' I had planned to go down to supper. Do you think for one minute I'd miss a junket like this? Why, I'd go if it killed me! The Galbraiths are nice folks an'

have been good to Bob and Willie. Besides," she added with ingratiating candor, "I want to see where they live. An' they're goin'

to send the automobile for us, that great red one--imagine it! I ain't been in an automobile more'n six times in my whole life. Do you think I'd send my regrets? I'd go if I had to be carried on a stretcher!"

Delight and Robert Morton laughed at her enthusiasm.

"Now you trot straight down stairs, Bob," went on Celestina energetically, "an' write Mis' Lee we'll admire to come, all of us."

"But Aunt Tiny," put in Delight, "I'm not going. Somebody must stay here and look after the house."

"What for?" Celestina demanded. "The house won't run away, an' if thieves was to ransack it from attic to cellar they'd find nothin'

worth carryin' away. Ridiculous!"

"She says she hasn't anything to wear," interrupted Bob.

"Delight Hathaway! For shame!" said the elder woman, raising a reproving finger. "You always look pretty as a picture in anything.

Some folks need fine clothes to set 'em off but you don't. Don't be silly! Why, half the pleasure of Willie an' me would be wiped out if you didn't go, an' likely Bob would be disappointed, too."

"You bet I would!"

"W--e--ll," the girl yielded.

"There, that's right, my dear." Celestina reached out and patted the slender hand. "Now, Bob, you go along an' write your letter,"

commanded she. "An' Delight, you bring me up some hot water an' fetch my clean print dress from the hall closet. I kinder think, come to mull it over, that there's fresh cuffs on my cashmere already, but you might look an' see. An' hadn't we better furbish up my bonnet this afternoon? It ain't been touched this season."

CHAPTER XV

A REVELATION

The morning of the pilgrimage to Belleport was a hectic one in the gray cottage on the bluff. Before breakfast Celestina began preparations, appearing in the kitchen without trace of invalidism and helping Delight hurry the housework out of the way, that the precious hours might be spent in retr.i.m.m.i.n.g the hat of black straw which already had done duty four seasons.

"Ain't it too vexatious," complained the irritated convalescent, "that I don't wear out nothin'? This hat, now--it's as good as the day it was bought, despite my havin' had it so long. I can't in conscience throw it away an' get another, much as I'd like to. The trimmin' was on the front the first summer, don't you remember? Then we tried it on behind a year; an' there was two seasons I wore it trimmed on the side.

What are we goin' to do with it now, Delight? I've blacked it up an'

can see no way for it this time but to turn it round hindside-before.

What do you think?"

The amateur milliner shook her head.

"I've a plan," she smiled mysteriously. "Don't you worry, Aunt Tiny."

"Oh, I shan't worry, child, if you take it in hand. I know that when you get through with it it's goin' to look as if it had come straight out of Mis' Gates's store over at the Junction. It does beat all what a knack you have for such things. You could make your fortune bein' a milliner. I s'pose you wouldn't want to face it in with red, would you? Willie likes red, an' there's a sc.r.a.p of silk in the trunk under the eaves that could be stretched into a facin' with some piecin'."

"I'm afraid you wouldn't like red, Aunt Tiny," the girl replied gently.

"Mebbe I wouldn't," was the prompt answer. "Well, do it as you think best. You never put me into anything yet that warn't becomin', an' I reckon I can risk leavin' it to you."

"Wouldn't you rather I helped you clear up the kitchen before I began hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.g?"

"Mercy, no! Don't waste precious time sweepin' up an' washin' dishes; I can do that. Like as not 'twill take some of the stiffness out of me. Besides, the work an' the millinery ain't the worst ahead of us.

There's Willie to get ready. To coax him out of that shop an' into his Sunday suit is goin' to take some maneuverin'. I know, 'cause I have it to do once in a while when there's a funeral or somethin'. It's like pullin' teeth. There's times when I wish all his jumpers was burned to ashes. An' as for his hair, he rumples it up on end 'till there's no makin' it stay down smooth an' spread round like other folks's."

"Oh, we mustn't try to dress Willie up too much," protested Delight.

"I like him best just as he is."

"Mebbe you do," the elder woman grumbled, "but the Galbraiths ain't goin' to feel that way. Why, what do you s'pose they'd think if Willie was to come prancin' over there for a dish of tea lookin' as he does at home? They'd be scandalized! Besides, ain't you an' me goin' to be dressed up? Ain't I got my new hat?"

"Not yet," was the mischievous retort.

"But I am goin' to have. No, sir! If I begin indulgin' Willie by lettin' him go all wild to this party in his old clothes, the next time there's a funeral there'll be no reinin' him in. He'll hold it up forevermore that he went to the Galbraiths in his jumper. I know him better'n you do."

"I suppose so."

"An' I'm firmer with him, too," went on Celestina. "You'd have him clean spoiled. I ain't sure but you've spoilt him already past all help durin' these last ten days. Did you hear him at breakfast askin'

me to open his egg? He knows perfectly well I never take off the sh.e.l.l. All I ever do for him is to put in the b.u.t.ter, pepper, an'

salt; an' I only do that 'cause he's squizzlin' so to get out in that shop that he ain't a notion whether there's fixin's on his egg or not.

Let him get one of these ideas on his mind an' it's a wonder he don't eat the egg, sh.e.l.ls an' all."

"Poor dear!" The girl's face softened.

"You pet him too much," said Celestina accusingly.

"Don't you pet Willie a little yourself, Aunt Tiny?" teased Delight.

"You know you do. Everybody does. We can't help it. People just love him and like to see him happy."

"I know it," the woman admitted. "Why, there's folks in Wilton (I could name 'em right now) who would run their legs off for Willie.

Look at Bob an' this Mr. Snellin' sweatin' in that shop like beavers over somethin' that ain't never goin' to do 'em an ounce of good--mebbe ain't never goin' to do anybody no good. There's somethin' in him that sorter compels people to stand on their heads for him like that. I often try to figger out just what it is," she mused. Then in a brisker tone she asked: "How's the hat comin'?"