“Well–it’s awfully kind of you, I’m sure! Aren’t you afraid we’ll make you wetter, though, if we ride in the same carriage? I am flooding the floor at this moment. It’s terrible, Mrs. Mills. Isn’t there a shed we could go into, and not make such a lot of work for you?”
173“Deary me, Miss Osgood, it’s a pleasure to me to have you here. But I wisht you’d come into the parlor, all of you, you and your friends. I’ll lay papers down on the carpet, and you can just walk in.”
They all protested, but as it soon became clear that it was as much a desire to display the beauties of her room as hospitality that prompted the invitation, they yielded and filed damply along the newspaper path into the gaudy parlor. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had come up, and the sun was shining through the flowers in the lace curtains at the windows, and striking the bright pink morning-glory of the graphophone, which was the most conspicuous object in the room. Mrs. Mills, preceding her wet guests, turned the track a little past the telephone, resplendent in oak and nickel, so that the whole procession could be inside the room at once. Then she called their respectful attention to her framed marriage certificate, and a similar document declaring the late Jacob Quincy Mills a Grand Something or Other in some lodge. Beneath these, on a shelf, were two tall lava jars filled with pampas grass, a pink china vase and a wreath of Easter lilies made of spangled paper.
“I’d like to show you the pictures in the family album,” said Mrs. Mills hospitably, resting her hand upon the fat plush volume on the center table, “but I don’t see how more’n two or three of you 174 can look at it at a time.” She frowned a moment, puzzled. Then her face lighted. “I’ll just set the graphophone goin’ for the rest of you to entertain yourselves with,” she said eagerly, and in a moment the room was filled with the wheezing and strident strains of “You Look Good to Father,” against which Mrs. Mills raised her own voice in explanatory remarks to Archie and Frieda, who happened to be within the album’s range:
“This is Mr. Mills’ sister’s first husband. That was their baby that died. This here is Miss Evelyn Mills of Chicago. She’s a singer there at the Orpheum. She was my husband’s own cousin, once removed. This was my father’s aunt,–” and so on.
“Look at Algernon,” whispered Max to Polly. “He’s as contented as a lamb. He’s learning all there is to know about poultry, and doesn’t even know that infernal machine is going or that Mr. Mills had any relatives.” And sure enough Algernon, standing beside the bookcase, on a portion of the newspaper track, was reading, even devouring, the pages of a scientific farming journal, with an expression of perfect satisfaction on his face.
The long half hour came at last to an end. Mrs. Mills conducted the procession back to the kitchen, helped tuck the girls into the robes, and disclaiming all right to their earnest thanks, watched the wagon out of sight.
175“Which is worse, a soaking or a fourth-class phonograph?” queried Archie from his corner.
Bert, humming “Waltz me Around Again, Willie,” paused to remark:
“Why, I rather liked that. Didn’t the rest of you?”