Then to think of seeing England! Me, Azalea! I don’t believe it. I cannot bring myself to see that it can possibly be true.
Carin, that reminds me: Why don’t you ask Annie Laurie to go abroad with you? Do you know, I think she would do it. I remember hearing your mother say to her, years and years ago, that some day she and Annie Laurie would be together in Europe, listening to great music. And why not? Annie Laurie could easily afford it. Sam Disbrow is through with school now, and he could look after Annie Laurie’s dairy. Propose it, do. Perhaps we could all meet over there.
I must run down to see Mother McBirney before I go. Father McBirney is almost well and hopes to reach home in March to do the plowing. He will get someone to help him of course, for Jim is to stay on at school. I have placed a certain sum in the bank for Jim—enough to last him till he has graduated if he is careful. And Jim is careful. I made up my mind that whatever happened, I was going to see that Jim got what he wanted in the way of an education. He really is wonderfully bright and learns so fast that I don’t see how he can remember all that he crams into his head.
Keefe doesn’t write. That was a part of the bargain that he made with Uncle David—that he was not to write.
But I write to him.
Is that terribly bold?
But you wouldn’t think so if you could see the letters. Anyway, sometimes they aren’t letters. They are just envelopes with little poems in them that I find in the magazines or newspapers and the like. Of course, sometimes I write a poem, too. About daffodils, you know, or sunsets, or rainy days. Never anything sentimental. Not at all. Or personal. I wouldn’t be personal. I merely remind Keefe that I am alive. A couple of violets in a blank sheet of paper will do that nicely. Aunt Lorena knows. She doesn’t approve. Not quite, that is. She says it is foolish. So since then I’ve only been sending little drawings—pictures of people who call, and one of the Grévy’s parrot, and another of some geese I saw flying north. They are such bad drawings that they are quite sure to annoy Keefe. I pointed out their badness to Aunt Lorena.
“Wouldn’t it be a good idea to annoy him?” I asked. “Now just look at this sketch of a cat which I mean to send him. That cat will make him furious. I tried to foreshorten it, but I seem to have performed a surgical operation on it instead.”
“He’ll have you arrested for cruelty to animals,” she agreed. “But really, Azalea, I wish you would keep perfectly silent. This young man does not write to you. Are you doing what is dignified?”
“Aunt Lorena,” I said, shaking my finger at her, “my own private opinion is that he is writing to me every night of his life, and filing the letters away for future reference.”