Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
The five McAlisters were gathered in the dining-room, one rainy night in late August. In view of the respective dimensions of the family circle and the family income, servants were few in the McAlister household, and division of labor was the order of the day. Old Susan had cleared away the table and brought in the lamp; then she retired to the kitchen, leaving the young people to themselves.
Hope was darning stockings. She had one of Hubert's socks drawn on over her hand, which showed, white and dainty, through the great, ragged hole. Hubert sat near her with little Allyn on his knee, tiding over a crisis in the young man's temper by showing him pictures in the dilapidated Mother Goose which had done duty for successive McAlisters, from seventeen-year-old Hope down.
"Stop kicking brother," he commanded, as Allyn lifted up his voice and his heels in vigorous protest against things in general, and the approach of the sandman in particular. "Listen, Allyn,—
'There was a little man,And he had a little gun,And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead.'"
Theodora appeared on the threshold of the great china closet, where she was washing the cups and plates. She had a dish-cloth in one hand and three or four spoons in the other.
"You don't put enough emphasis into it, Hu," she said mockingly. "This is the way it should sound, like this,—
'There was a little cow,And it had a little calf,And it wouldn't ever go to bed, bed, bed.'
Never mind, Allyn, sister will come in a few minutes and put your nightie on. Oh, Babe, I wish you'd hurry and put away these dishes."
But Babe, baptismally known as Phebe, was engaged in tickling Allyn's toes, with the praiseworthy intention of making him kick the harder. Accordingly, she was deaf to the voice of Theodora, who was forced to put away the cups herself. She did it with a bumping impatience, grumbling the while.
"I do wish that everlasting old Susan would wash these things. The idea of my being tied to a dish-pan, all my days, and Babe never will help a bit! It's not fair." She set down a cup with a protesting whack which threatened to wreck its handle.
"Oh, Teddy?" Hubert called, from the next room.
"Well?" Her face cleared, as it always did at the voice of her twin brother.
"Drop something?"
"No. Wish I had. I'd like to throw this dish-pan into the street."
"'Most through?"
"Never shall be. Do put Allyn down and come to help me."
He settled the child, book and all, in a corner of the old haircloth sofa which ran across the end of the room, and, with his hands in his pockets, he sauntered into the china closet and sat down on the little step-ladder that stood there, ready to lead to an ascent to the upper shelves.
"What's the matter, to-night, Teddy?" he asked, sympathetically tweaking the end of her long brown pigtail.
"The weather, I think," she replied, as she threw a dish-towel at him. "I don't like to wash dishes, and I don't like rainy days, and I don't like—"
"Nothin' nor nobody. Never mind filling up the list. You've a crick in your temper, that's all. It will be gone in the morning. Here, give me a towel, and I'll help wipe."
It was a service he had often performed before. The twins were close friends, and some of their most confidential talks had been held over the steaming dish-water. They finished their task together; then Hubert linked his arm in that of his sister and came out into the dining-room, where Hope, with the stocking still drawn on over her hand, was vainly trying to rescue Allyn from the torments imposed on him by Phebe.
"Don't, Babe," she urged. "Don't you see how it makes him cry? Why can't you let him alone? He is always cross at bedtime."
"So are you," Phebe retorted defiantly. "When she comes, Hope McAlister, I do hope she'll give it to you good."
Hope flushed, and her sensitive chin quivered a little....