Tabitha's Vacation Part 4

"Potato and beans first," insisted Tabitha.

"Dingerbread!" stubbornly repeated the child, so sleepy and cross that the weary older girl said no more, but slid a large slice of the savory cake into the little plate, and proceeded to help the other children in the same liberal manner. No one wanted beans and potato, but at the first mouthful of the tempting-looking gingerbread, everyone paused, looked inquiringly at her neighbor, chewed cautiously a time or two, and then eight hands went to eight pair of lips.

"I thought we stoned raisins for this cake," cried Susie, half indignantly.

"So you did," replied Gloriana, her face flushed crimson as she bent over her plate, intently examining her slice of cake.

"Oh, and put the stones in the cake! What did you do with the raisins?" demanded Inez.

Before Glory could frame a reply, or offer any excuse for the accident, Irene slid hurriedly off her chair, flew through the doorway and down the path toward town, but she was back in a moment, and in her hand she held a cup of raisins.

"Why, Irene McKittrick!" cried Mercedes, lifting her hands in horror.

"What made you hide them?"

"I didn't hide them," the twin indignantly protested. "The cup was in my lap when Rosslyn called that Janie was lost, and I forgot to put it down when I ran out-doors. I remembered it by the time we reached our playhouse, so I set it down there and that's where I found it now."

"Janie wasn't lost," interrupted that small maiden in drowsy tones.

"Me went to get a letter."

"To get a letter!" chorused her sisters. "Where?"

"To the store where Mercy goes. A man dave me one, too," she finished triumphantly, squirming down from her high chair to search about the room for the missing epistle, while the rest of the family forgot both pie and gingerbread in joining in the hunt. Rosslyn found it at last under the stove where it had fallen when Janie began her investigation of the oven; and the girls exclaimed in genuine surprise, "Why, it _is_ a real letter!"'

"Addressed to mamma," said Mercedes, "Do you suppose Janie really went to the post-office all alone?"

But Janie was fast asleep in her chair where she had retired when convinced that Rosslyn had actually found her precious letter; so the sisters once more bent curious eyes upon the soiled envelope.

"Better re-address it to your mother," suggested Tabitha, remembering that in her written instructions, Mrs. McKittrick had failed to mention the matter of mail which might come to Silver Bow for her.

"Mamma told me to open all her letters, and not even to send papa's to Los Angeles, unless 'twas something _very_ important."

"Then why don't you open it?" cried Susanne impatiently.

"And see who wrote it," added Inez.

"I--I--guess I will." Deliberately she tore open the envelope, spread out the brief letter it contained, and with a comically important air, read the few short lines. Then beginning with the heading, she read it the second time, her face growing graver at each word, until impatient Inez could stand the strain no longer, and burst out, "Well, what's it all about? Does it take you all night to read that teenty letter?"

"It's from Aunt Kate, Uncle Dennis' wife," Mercedes slowly retorted.

"She is going to Europe for something, and wants to send the boys out here to us."

"Williard and Theodore?"

"Yes."

"But how can they, with papa hurt and mamma gone?"

"She says that they will pay good board and she knows mamma will be glad enough to get the money, seeing that papa's still unable to work."

Tabitha's face darkened. "It's an imposition!" she exploded wrathfully.

"I sh'd say so!" agreed Susanne. "They are dreadful noisy boys. We had 'em here once before, and Aunt Kate got awful mad 'cause papa licked 'em when they touched a match to the old shed to see how the people on the desert put out fires."

"She said they never should come again," added Inez, "but I guess she's forgot."

"How old are they?" ventured Gloriana.

"Williard's between me and Susie," Mercedes answered, "and Theodore's between Susie and the twins."

"Are you going to let them come?" demanded Irene.

Mercedes turned helplessly toward Tabitha. "What would you do, Kitty?"

she asked. "Shall I write and ask mamma?"

"I shouldn't," Tabitha promptly replied. "Your mother has her hands full now, and it would only worry her to know how nervy your Aunt Kate is. I'd write her,--your aunt, I mean,--and tell her just how things stand, your father in the hospital and your mother with him. She ought to know more than to send them then. Still, I believe I'd just say that the boys can't come. She would understand that all right. And I'll be responsible, Mercedes, if your mother should think we ought to have told her about it first."

"_I'd_ telegraph, so's to be sure," said Susanne. "Aunt Kate doesn't think much about other folks' wishes, and if she wanted to go to Europe bad enough, she'd ship the boys to us if we all had smallpox."

"That's a good idea," Tabitha acknowledged. "We'll telegraph at once, and then she will have no excuse for not knowing how sick your father is. Where is there a pencil and paper? I'll write out a telegram now, and we'll slip down town, and send it to-night."

She hastily scribbled the words:

"Mrs. Dennis McKittrick, Jamaica Plains, Ma.s.s.

Don't send boys. Father in Los Angeles hospital. Mother with him.

MERCEDES McKITTRICK."

Then taking Irene as company, she carried the message to the telegraph station that same evening, to make sure it reached its destination in time to prevent the threatened visit from the unwelcome cousins.

"Perhaps I acted in a high-handed manner," she confessed to Gloriana, as they were preparing for bed that night, "but I couldn't bear to think of that selfish old cat--yes, that's what she is,--imposing upon Mrs. McKittrick again. I remember the boys, though it was quite a while ago that they were here. They were only little shavers then, too. I never met them, but one doesn't have to in order to know all they want to know about their antics."

"And judging from our first day's experiences as housekeepers in this family, we shall have all _we_ want to do, without two terrors of boys added."

"To-day has been rather hard and disappointing," Tabitha acknowledged with a gusty sigh.

"But to-morrow will be better," Gloriana comforted her. "And it is only for two weeks. That's one consolation."

"Thank fortune!" Tabitha exclaimed with fervor; and the tired eyelids closed over the drowsy black eyes and the gray.

CHAPTER III