Hildegarde's Harvest Part 12

"You must be pretty good-looking!" cried Gertrude. "Is that what you were going to say, Hilda?"

"No, you absurd child, it was not. But--well, girls, of course it is different when people have two or three places, in town and country, and move about as you do, to and from school and college, and all that. But this, you see, is my home, my only home and abiding-place; and so my own things grow to be very real to me, and very much a part of my life. I suppose that is it. I know--you will understand what I mean, Bell--whenever I go out of this room, it seems as if one part of me stayed here, and was ready to greet me when I came back. But that is enough about me," she added, lightly. "Here is the box! Now we shall see how nicely all Bell's prettinesses will fit into the corners!

"This is Mamma's present for Cousin Ursula. A nice, fat down puff, for her feet in winter; it is very cold there, and she is not strong, poor dear. And I trimmed this hat for Mary, the daughter. Rather pretty, do you think?"

"Rather pretty!" cried both girls. "Hilda, it is a perfect beauty! Oh, how did you learn to do these things? Will you trim all our hats for us, for the rest of our lives?"

"I should be delighted," said Hildegarde, laughing. "I learned all I know from my mother. She _is_ clever, if you will. I cannot compare with her in skill. Yet I was once offered a position as a.s.sistant to a milliner. These things underneath are things we have worn, but they are all good."

"This has never been worn!" exclaimed Bell, lifting a pretty gray silk blouse, trimmed with knots of cherry-coloured ribbon. "This is just out of the box, Hildegarde. Oh, what a pretty, dainty thing!"

Hildegarde laughed. "I am proud of that!" she said. "I made that out of an old underskirt of Mamma's. Yes, I did!" as the girls exclaimed with one accord. "It was good silk to begin with, you see. I washed it, and pressed it, and made it up on the other side; and it really does look very nice, I think. The ribbon is some that Mamma had had put away ever since the last time they wore cherry colour,--twenty-five years, she says. Lovely ribbon! Well, and I knew that Mary, the daughter, is just my age, so I had to 'run for luck,' and make it to fit me. I do hope she will like it!"

"Like it!" exclaimed Bell. "If she does not like it, she deserves to wear brown gingham all her life. It is as pretty a blouse as I ever saw."

"What is the matter with brown gingham?" asked Hildegarde. "One of my pet dresses, a year or two, was a brown gingham."

"Oh, but not like _our_ brown gingham!" said Bell. "You see--well, it is treasonable, I know, Gerty, but Hildegarde is almost like ourselves. You see, our blessed Mammy (this was long ago, when Toots was a baby, and the boys still in kilts) got tired of all our clothes, and felt as if she could not bear to think about them for a while. So she got a whole piece of brown check gingham,--forty mortal yards,--and had it all made up into clothes for us. Oh, dear! Shall I ever forget those clothes? It was a small check, rather coa.r.s.e, stout gingham, because she thought that would wear better than the Scotch. It did! I had four frocks of it, and the boys each had three kilt suits, and even the baby wore brown slips. You cannot remember it, Toots?"

Gertrude shook her head.

"I remember the effect on the family mind," she said, laughing.

"Yes," said Bell. "I don't know whether you have ever noticed, Hildegarde, that none of us ever wear brown? Well, we never do! Pater will never see it. He did not realise for some time what had been done.

But one day,--oh, you ought to hear the Mammy tell about this! I can't begin to make it as funny as she does. One day he came home, and the twinnies were playing in the front yard. He stood and looked at them for a while.

"'Are you making mud pies, boys?'

"'No, Papa!'

"'Then why have you on these clothes?'

"The boys didn't know much about their clothes; he looked at them a little more, and then he came into the house. There was I, in my brown gingham, playing with my doll.

"'Great Caesar!' says Papa. 'Here's another! Been making mud pies, p.u.s.s.y?'

"'No, Papa! I am playing with my dolly.'

"'Do you get dirty, playing with your dolly?'

"'Why, no, Papa!'

"'Then why do you wear such things as this?'

"I was just going to tell him that 'this' was the dress I was wearing every day and all day, when dear Mammy came out of the sitting-room with the baby. And, Hilda, the baby wore a brown gingham slip, and Mammy had on a long, brown gingham ap.r.o.n.

"'Napoleon Bonaparte!' said Papa. 'Here's two more of 'em.' Then he sat down on the stairs, and looked from one to the other. Then he went to the door and called the boys; and he took us all into the sitting-room, and stood us in a row, and sat and looked at us.

"'Miranda,' he said, 'What have you been doing here?'

"'Doing, my dear Miles?' said Mamma. 'What should I have been doing?

Dressing baby after her afternoon nap, to be sure.'

"'Dressing her!' says Pater. '_Dressing_ her!' Then he broke off, Mammy says, and put his hand to his forehead, as if he were in a kind of dream.

"'Miranda,' he said, 'I have been greatly occupied for the last few weeks, and have not fully realised what was going on. I have been dimly aware that, when I came home, the whole world seemed to turn brown and dingy. At first I thought it was the weather; then I thought it was the condition of business; at last I began to think that my sight must be failing, and cataracts forming, or something of the kind, so that I could see nothing without a brownish tinge over it. Now, I--I realise what the matter is; and I ask what--_what_ is this stuff in which my family is masquerading?'

"'Masquerading, Miles? I don't understand you. This is brown gingham, a most excellent material, inexpensive, durable, and neat. I bought forty yards of it, so that the children might all be dressed alike, and without all this fuss and expense of different materials. You know you said we must economise this summer, and I--'

"'Yes,' said Pater. 'Yes, I understand now. Miranda, you are a good woman, but you have your limitations.'

"He would not say another word, but went off into the garden to smoke.

We forgot all about what he said, all but Mammy, and she thought he would get used to the brown gingham in time, and, anyhow, she had meant to do the best, dear darling.

"Hildegarde, the next morning, when we all came to dress, our clothes were gone."

"Gone!" repeated Hildegarde.

"Gone,--vanished; frock and kilt, slip and ap.r.o.n. Not an atom of brown gingham was to be found in the house. And the rest of the piece, which Mammy had meant to make into a gown for herself, was gone, too. Mammy looked everywhere, but in a few minutes she understood how it was. She didn't say a word, but just put on our old dresses, such as were left of them. They were pretty well outworn and outgrown, but we were glad to get into them. We hardly knew how we had hated the brown gingham ourselves, till we got out of it. Well, that day there came from one of the big shops a box of clothes; an enormous box, big as a packing-case.

Oh! dresses and dresses, frocks and pinafores and kilts, everything you can imagine, and all in the brightest colours,--pink and blue, yellow and green,--a perfect flower-garden. White ones, too, three or four apiece; and the prettiest slips for Baby, and a lovely flowered silk for Mammy. You can imagine how I danced with joy; the boys were delighted, too, and as for old Nursey, she beamed all over like an Irish sun. When Papa came home that afternoon, we were all dressed up, the boys in little white sailor suits, I in a ruffled pink frock, and Mammy and Baby most lovely in white and flowers. He looked us all over again. 'Ha!' he said, 'once more I have a family, and not a shoal of mud-fish. Thank you, my dear.' And none of us has ever worn brown since that day, Hildegarde."

"Poor, _dear_ Mrs. Merryweather!" cried Hildegarde, laughing. "I think it was pretty cruel, all the same. And--did you ever find the brown gingham?"

"Oh, that _was_ naughty!" cried Gertrude. "He buried it all in the back garden. That was truly naughty of Papa. Mammy found them there a week after, when she was setting out the asters. They were all neatly laid in a box, and buried quite deep down. But Mammy took them up, and sent them to the Orphans' Home. Dear Mammy!"

CHAPTER IX.

AN EVENING HOUR.

"AND what shall we play this evening?" asked Mrs. Merryweather.

Hildegarde and her mother had been taking tea at Pumpkin House. Hugh was there, too, and now Colonel Ferrers had come in, so the cheerful party was nearly complete.

"If we only had Roger and Papa!" sighed Bell. "Nothing seems just right without the whole clan together."

"We shall have them soon," said her mother. "Meanwhile let us be merry, and honour their name. It is too soon after tea for charades, I suppose.

Why not try the Alphabet Stories?"

"Alphabet Stories?" repeated Hildegarde. "Is that a new game? I don't seem to remember it."

"Brand-new!" cried Gerald. "Mater invented it one evening, to keep us quiet when Pater had a headache. Jolly good game, too. Tell Hildegarde one or two of yours, Mater, to show how it's played."

"Let me see! Can I remember any? Oh, yes, here is one! Listen, Hilda, and you will catch the idea at once. This is called 'The Actions of Alcibiades:' Alcibiades, brilliant, careless, dashing, engaging fop, guarded h.e.l.las in jeopardy, king-like led many n.o.bles on. Pouncing quite rashly, stole (though unduly, violently wailing) Xerxes's young zebra.

"That is the story. You see, it must have twenty-six words, no more, no less; each word beginning with a successive letter of the alphabet."