Mr. Bucknor was a hale and hearty man of fifty, florid and handsome, slightly dictatorial in 70 manner, but easily influenced by his wife, who was all softness and gentleness. He was generous and hospitable, priding himself on keeping up the reputation in which Buck Hill had gloried in the past—that of an open house with bed and board for all of the blood. He greeted his Cousin Ann with a cordiality that might have been balm to her wounded feelings had she not been aware that that was Cousin Bob’s manner to everybody.
“And where do you come from, Cousin Ann?” he demanded. “I hope all were well. Cousin Betty Throckmorton’s? Well, well! I thought Sister Sue was to have the honor of your company. It will keep! It will keep! Measles at Cousin Betty’s? Heavens! I hope none of them will go off in pneumonia. You must give us a nice long visit. Always glad to have you, Cousin Ann. Glad to have any of my kin come and stay as long as they choose. Blood is thicker than water, I say, and blue blood is thicker than red blood.”
“Thank you, cousin,” was all Miss Ann could say.
“By the way, Mildred, speaking of falling in love, who is that pretty girl I saw on the trolley yesterday?” asked Jeff. “I can’t remember ever having seen her around here 71 before, but then the girls have all grown beyond me since I left home. She has what some people call auburn hair, but I like to call it red, although it had lots of gold in it. She got on the last stop before you get into Ryeville. Seemed to know everybody on the car—even the motorman and conductor. At least, I saw her chatting with them—the ones who were relieved at the last switch and were eating their suppers. She was as lively as a cricket—was just bubbling over with energy—”
“Oh, I know who that was,” said Mildred. “It sounds like that forward Judith Buck. She has no idea of her place. I never saw such a girl. She rides around the country in a ridiculous looking little home made blue Ford with a spring wagon back and puts on all the airs of sporting a Stutz racer. She never stops for anybody but just whizzes on by. Sometimes she even bows to us, although she gets mighty little encouragement from me, I can tell you.”
Suddenly there flashed upon Miss Ann’s inward eye a picture of a bright-haired girl in a little blue car who had passed her coach only that morning, and with the picture came the remembrance of Uncle Billy’s words: “I ain’t seed nothin’ in this county ter put ’long side er you lessen it wa’ that pretty red-headed gal 72 what went whizzin’ by us up yonder on the pike in a blue ortermobubble.” She remembered that he had declared the girl looked as she had looked in her youth.
Mildred continued her diatribe concerning the lively Judith: “Surely you remember her, Jeff. She used to come here selling blackberries when she was a kid—a little barefooted girl and as pert as you please even then. After old Dick Buck died she used to trap rabbits and bring them here for sale and sometimes fish. It always made me mad for Aunt Em’ly to encourage her by making Mother buy the things. I think poor persons should be taken care of all right but they should know their place.”
“But what is her place?” asked Jeff, a flush slowly spreading over his handsome, rather swarthy countenance.
“Well, I should say her place was at the back door,” declared Mildred. “Old Dick Buck’s granddaughter needn’t expect to get any social recognition from me.”
“Me either!” chimed in Nan.