The Last of the Peterkins Part 11

He had been in a boat that was behind them on the Nile, had met them often, had climbed the ruins with them, joined their excursions, and had finally proposed at Edfu.

Elizabeth Eliza had then just written to consult the lady from Philadelphia with regard to the offer of a German professor they had met, and she could give no reply to the Count.

Now, however, it was necessary to make a decision. She had meanwhile learned a few words of Russian. The Count spoke English moderately well, made himself understood better than the Professor, and could understand Elizabeth Eliza's French. Also the Count knew how to decide questions readily, while the Professor had to consider both sides before he could make up his mind.

Mrs. Peterkin objected strongly at first. She could not even p.r.o.nounce the Russian's name. "How should she be able to speak to him, or tell anybody whom Elizabeth Eliza had married?" But finally the family all gave their consent, won by the attention and devotion of Elizabeth Eliza's last admirer.

The marriage took place in Constantinople, not at Santa Sophia, as Elizabeth Eliza would have wished, as that was under a Mohammedan dispensation. A number of American residents were present, and the preceptor sent for his other pupils in Athens. Elizabeth Eliza wished there was time to invite the lady from Philadelphia to be present, and Ann Maria Bromwick. Would the name be spelled right in the newspapers?

All that could be done was to spell it by telegraph as accurately as possible, as far as they themselves knew how, and then leave the papers to do their best (or their worst) in their announcements of the wedding "at the American Consulate, Constantinople, Turkey. No cards."

The last that was ever heard of the Peterkins, Agamemnon was on his way to Madagascar, Solomon John was at Rustchuk, and the little boys at Gratz; Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, in a comfortable sledge, were on their way from Tobolsk to Yakoutsk; and Elizabeth Eliza was pa.s.sing her honeymoon in the neighborhood of Moscow.

OTHERS OF THEIR KIN.

IX.

LUCILLA'S DIARY.

MONDAY.--I spent some time this morning watching for the rag-man. I wish I had taken down a note which day it was I saw him before. I remember it was washing-day, for I had to take my hands out of the tub and wipe the suds off when Johnnie came to tell me that the rag-man was on the street. He was just turning the corner by the Wylies when I got to the front gate. But whether we washed on Monday I can't think. It rained that Monday, or the week before, and we had to wait till Tuesday; but which it was I couldn't say. I was in such a whirl fitting Artemas off, and much as ever I made him hear; and he wasn't the right man after all, for he wouldn't give more than a cent and a half a pound for the papers, and Mrs. Carruthers got two cents. She could not remember what was his day for coming, but agreed to send him if she should see him again.

Mrs. Carruthers sent the rag-man to-day; but I can't say much for the bargain, though he was a different man from the one that came Monday, and it seems it was Monday. He agreed to give me the same he gave Mrs.

Carruthers,--two cents a pound. And I had a lot of newspapers,--all the papers Artemas has been taking through the winter; for he doesn't like me to take them for kindlings, says he would rather pay separate for kindlings, as I might burn the wrong one. And there were the papers that came around his underclothes and inside the packing boxes he has taken away. So I expected to make something; but he gave me no more than forty-five cents! He weighed them, and said himself there were thirty pounds. That ought to have come to sixty cents at least, according to my arithmetic. But he made out it was all right, and had them all packed up, and went off, though I followed him out to the gate and told him that it didn't amount to no more than I might have got from the other man at a cent and a half. He said it was all they were worth; that he wished he could get as much for them. Then I asked him why he took the trouble to come for them, under the circ.u.mstances. But by that time he was off and down the street.

I was just sitting at the window this morning, and there were Mr. and Mrs. Peebles walking down the street,--he on one side and she on the other. I do wonder why they didn't go on the same side! If they hadn't got so far past the gate, I'd have asked them. I never heard there was any quarrel between them, and it was just as muddy this side of the street as that. They have been spending their winters in the city lately, and perhaps it's some new fashion.

I declare it's worth while to sit at the window now and then, and see what is going on. I'm usually so busy at the back of the house, I don't know. But now Lavinia has taken to going to school with the boys, and they are willing to take care of her, half my work seems taken out of my hands. Not that she was much in the way for a girl of four, but she might slip out of the gate at any time, as there are so many of those grinding organs around with their monkeys.

Mrs. Carruthers was in yesterday afternoon, and she said the Peebles were looking up the numbers on the doors to find the Wylies. They got puzzled because the numbers go up one side of the street and down the other, and they haven't but just been put on. And it seems that up in the city they have them go across. It does appear to me shiftless in our town officers, when they undertook to have the streets numbered as they do elsewhere, that they didn't number them the same way. But I can't see but our way is as good, and more sensible than having to cross a muddy street to look up the next number.

Artemas has been gone a whole week. I told him I would put down the most important things in a diary, and then he can look at it, if he has time, when he comes home. He thinks it is a more sensible way than writing letters every week.

He expects to be up and down in Texas, and perhaps across the mountains; and in those lawless countries letters would not stand much chance,--maybe they wouldn't ever reach him, after I'd had the trouble of writing them. There's the expense of stamps too,--not so very much for one letter, but it counts up.

Nothing worries me more than getting a letter, unless it's having a telegraph come,--and that does give one a start. But even that's sooner over and quicker read; while for a letter, it's long, and it takes a good while to get to the end. I feel it might be a kind of waste of time to write in my diary; but not more than writing letters, and it saves the envelopes and hunting them up. I'm not likely to find much time for either, for the boys are fairly through their winter suits; if I can only keep them along while the spring hangs off so.

Mrs. Norris was in yesterday, just as I was writing about the boys'

suits, to know if I would let Martha off to work for her after the washing is over. I told her I didn't like to disoblige, but I couldn't see my way clear to get along without Martha. The boys ought to be having their spring suits this very minute, and Martha was calculating to make them this week; and they'd have to have their first wear of them Sundays for a while before they start on them for school. I never was so behindhand; but what with fitting off Artemas and the spring cleaning being delayed, I didn't seem to know how to manage. Martha is good at making over, and there are two very good coats of Artemas's that she would do the right thing by; while there was a good many who could scrub and clean as well as she,--there was that Nora that used to live at Patty's. But Mrs. Norris did not take to Nora. The Wylies tried her, but could make nothing out of her. I said I thought it would be hard to find the person Mrs. Wylie could get on with. Not that I ever knew anything about her till she came to live on our street last winter, but they do say she's just as hard on her own family; for there's a story that she won't let that pretty daughter of hers, Clara, marry Bob Prince's son, Larkin.

Mrs. Norris said she didn't wonder, for Larkin Prince hadn't found anything to do since he came home. I thought there was enough to live upon in the Wylie family, even if Larkin didn't find something the first minute he'd got his education.

I can see that Mrs. Norris didn't take it well that I was not willing to give up Martha; but I don't really see why I should be the one to give up. But I must say I haven't got on as well with the work as I had hoped, Lavinia's going with the boys so much keeps her clothes half torn off her back, and I can't seem to see how to make her tidy. I was real ashamed when I went to lift her out of a mud-puddle yesterday outside the gate; and there was Clara Wylie looking as clean as a white lily, and she stopped to help her out. It seemed that Lavinia had left her boot in the last mud-puddle, and I would have liked to have gone through the ground. I hope it will be a lesson to Lavinia, for Miss Wylie oughtn't to have touched her with her hand. But she did, yellow gloves and all, and said it was dreadful walking now, the frost so late coming out of the ground, and she had quite envied Lavinia running across the fields after the boys. But Lavinia has taken to envying Miss Wylie, and wishes she could wear that kind of boots she has, with high heels that keep her out of the mud-puddles.

I am thinking of having my ruby cashmere colored over. I don't seem to feel like ripping it all up, pleatings and all; but Mrs. Peebles says it can be dipped just as well made up, and I needn't take out a seam.

I might have it a kind of dark olive, like Mrs. Carruthers' dress.

I have had a start! It is a letter from Artemas; nothing particular about himself, only I should say he was well. But he wants to take out a young man farther west with him,--somebody with something of an education, who understands chemicals or engineering, and he wants me to pick out somebody. There's my brother Sam, of course. I thought of him the first thing. But Artemas never took to Sam, though he is my brother.

Still, I dare say he would do right by him. And Sam don't seem to find the work here that suits, and I hate to have him hanging round. But he don't know more than I about chemicals, as much as even what they are, though I dare say he could find out, for Sam is smart and always could make out if he chose to lay his hands to anything. And I dare say Artemas thought of Sam, and that is why he sent to me to give him a chance. From what he says it must be a pretty good chance, exactly what Sam would like if he knew anything about the business. I dare say he'd do quite as well as half the fellows who might go. He can be steady if he's a mind to.

But I can't but think of Larkin Prince; how he's taken all the pains to get an education, and his father for him laying up money for the very purpose, and that pretty Clara Wylie waiting to be married till he should get something fit to do, and maybe her father wanting to marry her off to some rich man while she's waiting, when her heart is set on Larkin. And he'd be just the man for Artemas, seeing as he's been studying just such things.

It wasn't no use taking up the time writing in my diary, as Artemas must have a telegraph before night, and the boys home from school to know if they might go to the swamp after checkerberries, and Lavinia with them, and I let her go, clean ap.r.o.n and all, and I put on my bonnet to go over to Mrs. Prince's. It made my heart b.u.mp to think how much Sam would set on having the situation, and Artemas kind of expecting him; but I said to myself, if Larkin should be out of town, or anything, that would settle the matter for Sam.

As it happened, who should I meet but Larkin just at the gate! and I asked him if he would turn back and step in with me for a minute. He looked kind of provoked, and I shouldn't wonder if he hadn't expected to meet Clara Wylie coming out of her gate just below, as it's natural she should at this time. But he came in, and I gave him Artemas's letter to read, for there wasn't anything in it except particulars of the work. He quite started as he read it, and then he looked at me inquiring, and I asked him if he had the kind of knowledge Artemas wanted. I supposed he might have it, as he'd been to the new schools. It told in the letter about the expenses, and what the pay would be, and where he would find the free pa.s.s, and that he'd have to telegraph right off, and perhaps he noticed he'd have to start to-night. Well, I guess he needn't care even to thank me; for that look in his face was enough, and I shan't forget it. He wanted to know was it Artemas thought of him. But before I could answer, he saw somebody out in the street, and went to rushing out, only he gave me another of those looks as he went, and said he'd see me before he sent the telegraph, and would take any message from me to Artemas.

I hadn't more than time to write this yesterday, when Mrs. Norris came in to inquire about some garden seeds, but I guess she expected to find out what Larkin Prince had been in for, for she was calling over at Mrs.

Carruthers'. I offered her some squash seeds, and took her out the back way, through the garden, to show her how the squashes were likely to spread. Last summer they were all over the garden. It seems the only thing the boys let to grow.

She hadn't more than gone when Larkin came in. It was all settled, and other things seemed to be settled too; for who should come in with him but Clara Wylie, crying and smiling all at once. She had to come and help Larkin to thank me because he had got the place. After he was gone she came back for a little cry. She didn't seem to wonder that Larkin was the one chosen, and supposed Artemas must have known all about him, she said, as well as the company he is working for. They probably had seen his name in the papers, she thought, when he graduated so honorably from the school.

I didn't tell her that there wasn't any company; that Artemas never had time to read that kind of thing in the newspapers, and would not have noticed it if he had; and that he'd left it all to me.

I can't but say after it was all settled I had a kind of a turn myself, to think that Sam might have gone just as well, and I had been standing in his way.

I shall have to let down Lavinia's gowns full two inches this summer.

Lucky I put tucks in them all last year. Mrs. Carruthers wanted me to finish them off with a frill; lucky I didn't, it would have been up to her ears this summer. As for the boys, I can take them in turn,--last year's clothes for the next boy all the way down, and Cyrus can have his father's. But it seems harder to fit out Lavinia. The ruby cashmere is as good for me as new; it is dipped.