The Comings of Cousin Ann Part 23

The old men of Ryeville were seated in tilted chairs on the hotel porch. The little touch of autumn in the air made it rather pleasant when the sun sought out their feet resting on the railing.

"What's this I hear about the disappearance of Miss Ann Peyton?" asked Major Fitch. "Someone told me that she has not been heard of now for several days and Bob Bucknor is just about having a fit over it. He and Big Josh are scouring the country for her, after having burnt up all the telephone wires in the county trying to locate her."

"It's true," chuckled Colonel Crutcher. "My granddaughter says Mildred Bucknor is raising a rumpus because her father is saying he can't go abroad until Cousin Ann is found. First, he can't go because the old lady is visiting him and now he can't go because she isn't visiting him."

"Well, a big, old ramshackledy rockaway like Miss Ann's, with a pair of horses fat enough to eat and the bow-leggedest coachman in Kentucky, to say nothing of Miss Ann herself with her puffy red wig and hoop skirts as wide as a barn door, couldn't disappear in a rat hole. They must be somewhere and they must have gone along the road to get where they were going. Certainly they haven't pa.s.sed this way or we'd have seen them," said Judge Middleton.

"I hear tell Bob Bucknor has sent for Jeff to come and advise him,"

drawled Pete Barnes. "And I also hear tell that the Bucknor men were gettin' ready to let poor ol' Miss Ann know that she was due to settle herself in an ol' ladies' home. They were cookin' it up that day they all had dinner here last week."

"Yes, and what's more, I hear our Judy gal knocked that Tom Harbison down the hill with a milk bucket," laughed Pete. "I got it straight from Big Josh himself."

So the old men gossiped, basking in the autumn sunshine. They still quarreled over the outcome of the war between the states, but now they had a fresh topic of never-ending interest to discuss and that was their own debut party. Congratulations were ever in order on their extreme cleverness in giving the ball.

Pete Barnes was ever declaring, "It was my idee, though, my idee! And didn't we launch our little girl, though? I hear tell she is going to be asked to join the girls' club. That's a secret. I believe the girls are going to wait until Mildred and Nan Bucknor are on the rolling deep. As for the young men--they are worse than bears about a bee tree. Judy won't have much to do with them though. But you needn't tell me she doesn't like it."

"Sure she does. She's too healthy-minded not to like beaux. There she comes now! I can see her car way up the street--just a blue speck,"

cried Judge Middleton.

"Sure enough! There she is! She's got her mother in with her."

"That's not Mrs. Buck. Mrs. Buck always sits in Judy's car as though she were scared to death--and she hasn't white hair either."

"Hi, Miss Judy!"

"Hi, yourself!" and Judith stopped her car in front of the hotel.

"Boys, that's Miss Ann Peyton!" cried Major Fitch. "Miss Ann or I'll eat my hat!"

"She's already eaten her wig. No wonder we didn't know her! And she's left off her hoops!" cried the Judge.

The old men removed their feet from railing, dropped their chairs to all fours, sprang up and, standing in a row, made a low bow to the occupants of the little blue car. Then they trooped off the porch and gathered in a circle around the ladies.

"The last I heard of you, Miss Ann, was that you were lost," said Judge Middleton.

"Not a bit of it," declared Judith. "She is found."

"Yes--and I think I've found myself, too," said Miss Ann softly. "I am visiting my dear young cousin, Judith Buck."

"At my urgent invitation," explained Judith.

"I am staying on at her invitation, but I followed my usual habit and went uninvited," said the old lady firmly.

The old men listened in amazement. What was this? Miss Ann Peyton openly claiming relationship with old d.i.c.k Buck's granddaughter and riding around--minus wig and hoops--with the new-found cousin in a home-made blue car! Miss Ann was meek but happy.

"Well, I swan!" exclaimed Pete Barnes.

"What do you suppose he meant by saying they thought you were lost?"

Judith asked on the way home from Ryeville. "Didn't they know you were coming to me?"

"No," faltered Miss Ann. "I seldom divulge where I intend to visit next. That is my affair," she added with a touch of her former hauteur--a manner she had discarded with the wig and hoop skirt. Wild horses could not drag from her the fact that she had not known herself where she was going.

"That's all right, Cousin Ann, but if you ever get tired of staying at my house I am going to be hurt beyond measure if you go off without telling me where you are going. Promise me you'll never treat me that way."

"I promise. I have never told the others because it has never made any difference to them."

When the blue car disappeared up the street the old men of Ryeville went into conference.

"Don't that beat bobtail?"

"Do you fellows realize that means our gal is recognized for good and all? Miss Ann may be played out as a visitor with her kinfolks, but she's still head forester of the family tree," said Judge Middleton.

"Don't you reckon we'd better 'phone Buck Hill or Big Josh or some of the family that Miss Ann is found?" asked Pete Barnes.

"No, let's let 'em worry a while longer. They've been kinder careless of Miss Ann to have mislaid her, and mighty sn.o.bbish with our gal not to have claimed kin with her long ago. My advice is let 'em worry, let 'em worry," decreed Major Fitch.

Miss Ann wasn't lost very long, however. That same evening, when Judith made her daily trip to the trolley stop with the men's dinner, Jefferson Bucknor stepped from the rear platform of the six-thirty.

"In time to carry your 'empties' for you," he said, shaking Judith's hand with a warmth that his casual greeting did not warrant. Judith surrendered the basket, but held on to the empty milk can.

"Your trusty weapon," said Jeff, and they both laughed. "Have you knocked anybody down lately?" the young man asked.

"Not many, but I am always prepared with my milk can. It is a deadly weapon, with or without b.u.t.termilk."

"I wonder if you are anywhere near so glad to see me as I am to see you. I have been sticking to business and trying to make believe that Louisville is as nice as Ryeville, and Louisville girls are as beautiful as they are reputed to be, and that the law is the most interesting thing in the world, but somehow I can't fool myself. Are you glad to see me?"

"Of course," said Judith.

"I wish you wouldn't swing that milk can so vigorously. I think a cousin might be allowed to ask if you are glad to see him without being in danger of having to take the same medicine Tom Harbison had to swallow. I've come home on a rather sad mission, in a way, and still I wanted to see my little cousin so much I can't help making a kind of lark of it. I am really worried very much, and should go to Buck Hill immediately, but if you don't mind, I'll hang around while you get the seven o'clock dinners packed and then help you carry them."

Judith did not mind at all. "I hope n.o.body at Buck Hill is ill," she said.

"No, but my father is in a great stew over old Cousin Ann Peyton. She is lost and he seems to feel I can find her. Why, I don't know, if he and Big Josh can't, even with the help of the marshal."

"I am sure you can," declared Judith demurely, and Jeff thought happily how agreeable it was to have someone besides a father have such faith in his ability.

"You must come in and wait," insisted Judith. "There is a fire in the dining-room. It is cold for September and a little fire towards evening is pleasant."

Jeff entered the home of his newly claimed cousin with a feeling of some embarra.s.sment. It seemed strange that he had lived on the adjoining farm all his early years and that this was the first time he had been in the Bucks' house. There was a chaste New England charm about the dining-room that appealed to him. It was a fit background for the tall, white-haired old lady who was busily engaged in setting the table as the young people entered. She was smiling and humming a gay little minuet, as she straightened table mats and arranged forks and knives in exactly the proper relation to each other and the teaspoons.

Stooping and placing wood on the fire was an old negro man. His back was strangely familiar to Jeff and there was something about the lines of the white-haired old lady that made him stare. She was like Cousin Ann but couldn't be she. Not only the snowy hair and the simple, straight skirt of her gown were not those of the lost cousin, but the fact that she was engaged in household duties was even more convincing of a case of mistaken ident.i.ty. It was old Billy that had flashed through his mind, when he noticed the fire maker, but old Billy never engaged in any form of domestic labor any more than his mistress.

"Someone to see you, Cousin Ann," said Judith, putting her arm around the old lady's waist.

Jeff choked and gasped.

That evening the telephone wires were again kept hot by the Bucknors and their many kinsmen. Everybody who had been informed of Miss Ann's being lost must be informed of her being found. Big and Little Josh drove over to Buck Hill to hear the story of Jeff's discovery.

"And what were you doing at the Bucks'?" Big Josh asked Jeff.