The Annals of Ann

by Kate Trimble Sharber

Doctor Gordon was the one that started it. He caught pneumonia one dreary day in the early spring when he was already sick in bed, but got up and went out to the hospital to operate for appendicitis. Ann Lisbeth almost went into catalepsy, trying to keep him from going, but it was a very expensive appendix, he said, so he got up and went out and bottled it. The changing from his warm room to the cold air gave him pneumonia, although the doctors say it is caused by a germ. I'll never believe this, not even if I marry one!

Well, he finally got over his spell by "lysis" instead of "crisis," but I hope this will never come to Mammy Lou's ears, or she will fairly long for more twins in the Dovie family.

When Doctor Gordon got able to be out a little all the other doctors told him that he had better go to a warm climate for a month or two, for it was still so cold, so he and Ann Lisbeth persuaded Rufe and Cousin Eunice to go too, and they all wrote for us to hurry up and get ready so we could go with them.

Mother said she'd just love to go, but she didn't see how we possibly could, for none of us had any clothes and she had always heard that Florida was fairly alive with rich Yankees! Mammy Lou spoke up then and said, well, she was sure Ann looked exactly like a rich Yankee, and she was the only one that folks was going to look at anyhow! So mother took heart and we went.

Father had to have a new overcoat, for the weather has been colder this spring than ever the oldest inhabitant can tell about, and as they wrote us to get ready in such a hurry, on account of poor Doctor Gordon's cough, he didn't have time to have one made at his regular place, so he bought one ready-made, a light tan one, the poor dear! And it had two long "heimer" names from Chicago printed on the label at the collar.

We got ready in such a rush that none of us had time to rip this label out, though I lived to regret it many a time! It was too hot to wear it when we got down there, but father had got scared up about catching pneumonia, so he insisted on carrying it around on his arm all the time, inside out; and there was not one millionaire, not one tennis champion, nor famous authoress we met, but what I saw the eyes of fixed, at one time or another, on those "heimer" names!

That's one delightful thing about Florida—you get to see so many people that you never would see at home. And everybody mixes like candidates! For instance, you may have a mosquito on you one minute that you will see on a Russian anarchist the next. The mosquitoes down there are so big that you can easily recognize their features. And apt as not you'll go in bathing every day with a person so famous when he's at home that he is never invited to dine with anybody that hasn't got monogram china and pâté de foie gras.

I've noticed that the things people tell about after they come home from a trip depend a good deal on the disposition they carry with them on it. It's the way with Florida. If you're an optimist you'll come back and tell about the palms, roses and sunsets. If you're a pessimist you'll mention snakes, hotel bills and buzzards. The honest truth is there's quite enough of them all to go around.

You're impressed with the country from the first morning that you get into it and raise up (half way) in your berth and look out the car window. At first there seems to be a mighty lot of just flat scenery, with tall trees that have all their branches at the tiptop. These trees remind you of pictures of the Holy Land that you used to see in the big Bible your mother and father would give you on Sunday afternoons to keep you quiet while they could take a nap.

You begin to think that what you're seeing is too beautiful to be true, though, from the first minute you look out on a blue bay that is deep green in places, and has purple streaks in it. But when you row over to an island all covered with palms and find a strip of beach that has bushels and bushels of tiny shells, that the mermaids used to make necklaces out of—why, nothing on earth but your feet hurting so bad makes you believe it is not a dream!