"Crept to de chicken coop on my knees,
Ain't going ter work any more.
Thought Ah heard a chicken sneeze,
Ain't going ter work any more.
"Balm of Gilead! Balm of Gilead!
Balm, Balm, Balm, Balm,
Ain't going ter work any more, Ah tole yer.
Balm of Gilead! Balm of Gilead!
Balm, Balm, Balm, Balm,
Ah ain't going ter work any more."
"That's better," Jean said, with a sigh of relief. "We've got to pull all together, and make the best of things. Dad's sick, and the Queen Mother's worried to death. Let's be the Queen's Privy Council and act accordingly."
CHAPTER V
KIT REBELS
Cousin Roxy departed for Gilead Center, Connecticut, the following Monday.
"I'd take you with me, Jerry, and the nurse too, if it were spring," she said, "but the first of March we get some pretty bad spells of weather, and it's uncertain for anybody in poor health. You stay here and cheer up and get stronger, and gradually break camp. If you need any help, let me know."
It was harder breaking camp than any of them realized. They had lived six years at Shady Cove, near Great Neck on Long Island. Before that time, there had been an apartment in New York on Columbia Heights. As Kit described it with her usual graphic touch: "Bird's-eye Castle, eight stories up. Fine view of the adjacent clouds and the Palisades. With an opera glass on clear days, you could also see the tops of the Riverside 'buses."
It had seemed almost like real country to the girls when they had left the city behind them and moved to Shady Cove. Doris had the measles that year, and the doctor had ordered fresh air and an outdoor life for her, so the whole family had benefited, which was very thoughtful and considerate of Dorrie, the rest said.
But now came the problem of winnowing out what Cousin Roxana would have called the essential things from the luxuries.
"Dear me, I had no idea we had so many of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world," Jean said regretfully, one day. There were sixteen rooms in the big home, all well furnished. Reception-room, library, music-room, and dining-room, with Tekla's domain at the back. Upstairs was a big living-room and plenty of bedrooms, with three maids' rooms in the third story.