The Annals of Ann

by Kate Trimble Sharber

So Rufe motioned for the lady that hands you the water, with a North-of-the-Mason-and-Dixon accent, to hush talking about her friend, Ponce de Leon, long enough to give the glass an extra scrubbing and hand Waterloo some water, which she did. This didn't do as much good, though, as we had hoped for. Rufe was in such a hurry to get away from "The Fountain of Youth" that his hand trembled some and he spilt the first glassful down Waterloo's little front. This made the darling so mad, and I don't blame him either, that he slapped the second glassful out of Rufe's hand. He washed Teddy Bear's face with the third, and threw the fourth in Cousin Eunice's white linen lap, when she tried to soothe him.

Rufe ran his hand down into his pocket before he told the driver to drive on, for he knew that milk was fifteen cents a quart in Florida, and water was almost priceless. The lady told him that she would have to collect fifty cents for the water that Waterloo had wasted, and that washing out the glass was twenty-five cents extra.

Rufe handed her a twenty-dollar bill, but she couldn't change it. So he called back to Doctor Gordon to ask him if he could.

"Change!" said Doctor Gordon, looking surprised that Rufe should have asked him such an embarrassing question. "Why, I haven't a thing left but my watch-fob and thermometer-case and wouldn't have had them if I hadn't worn them in a chamois bag around my neck!"

So Rufe told the lady he would mail her a check for the amount with interest.

Later on we saw ostrich farms and the biggest cigar factory in the world. I think they said it was the biggest. Anyway, if there's a bigger one I don't care about smelling it!

It's long past time for the lights to go out, mine especially, for they never want me to sit up until I get really interested in anything; but I believe I will throw a black sateen petticoat up over the transom, which I have found out you can do very well if you have two nails up there to hang it on, and tell one more little thing that happened on that trip. I say "little thing," but it seemed a monstrous big thing to me at the time.

When we were about half-way through Georgia on our way home, some of us commenced having chills. Doctor Gordon had his first, but he didn't say anything about it to Ann Lisbeth until he got to shaking so that she saw something was the matter. Then mother and Cousin Eunice had one apiece. Doctor Gordon said it wasn't anything to be alarmed about, for it was just a little malaria cropping out, but I felt so sorry for them that I told Ann Lisbeth if she would go with me I would go up to the baggage car and see if we could get out some heavy underclothes from our trunk.

We had to stagger through a long string of sleepers, for we were in the backest one, but we were rewarded when we finally did get to the baggage car. There was a merry-eyed express messenger in there who said he would be glad to pull and haul those fifteen or twenty trunks that were on top of ours! May the gods reward him, for it was an awful job! And so we got out enough clothes for our cold and destitute families.

Now, you may have noticed before this, my diary, that I am a forgetful person. I can remember the last words of Charles II, or anything like that, but I forget what I did yesterday.