“Is he really doing it? What makes him? And does it hurt you very much?”
“Doing what, Fritz?”
“Taking the light out of your eyes.”
“Nay, nay! not wholly so!” cried Grandmother Amy, bending her face upon the sturdy little shoulder of the child; “he cannot do that, little one, while he leaves me thee.”
Then Fritz climbed up into her lap, and scowled ferociously at Uncle Fritz, who—terrified, it may be—went quickly out and closed the door.
But the hubbub of the kitchen did not extend to the other parts of the great house; though, strangely enough, Aunt Ruth seemed to have found plenty of occupation for everybody’s hands; though she assigned the various tasks with a sort of gentle sadness which surprised the toilers, so different was it from her usual brisk activity. And when Octave had finished her allotted portion she sped to Melville’s room to talk it over.
“My son, there is another ‘Mystery’ afoot. I know it, I feel it! It’s ‘borne in on me.’ There has been food enough cooked to feed a regiment, and every nook and cranny of this mansion has been swept and garnished. Strangest part of all, Aunt Ruth is in it; and I’m inclined to think that Fritzy Nunky is too, for he acts so queer! A few minutes ago he met me in the hall, and he stopped me and kissed me. ‘I wonder if I am doing right by thee, my child,’ he said, in the gravest fashion. I told him I considered that he was doing exactly right; for this very morning he called me into his room and gave me a pretty silver watch, and a pocket-book with ten whole dollars in it. Think of that, Melville Capers! I, Octave Pickel, the impecunious, with ten real dollars all my very own!”
“It is almost incredible. But don’t worry; you’ll not have them long; you have no liking for money,” answered Melville, consolingly.
“Humph! I do so like it—to spend!”
“I, too, think there is another ‘Mystery’; but it can never be half so splendid as ours. I think your Uncle Fritz is in it even more deeply than Aunt Ruth. This morning, it must have been after he had given you the pocket-book, he came in to see me; and he talked to me so seriously about my responsibility as the ‘head of the family in America,’ that I couldn’t believe my own ears. It didn’t seem at all like his jolly self; and, ‘Mystery’ or not, I don’t believe that these other conspirators are getting half as much fun, or good either, out of it as we did out of ours. There is a lot of company coming, though, I know. Grandmother never had so much cooked before, Abry-ham says, even for ‘yearly meeting,’ when she has a houseful of thees and thous.”