I responded that I was.
“Then,” she said, and very cheerfully, “think of the walks you can take in New York! The things you can see! The most beautiful buildings, and parks, and dear knows what all, honey! Why, you’ll have a beautiful time!”
“I sort of hope,” I confided, “that I can get to one of the big league games.” It was hard for me to speak of it, because I did so want to go, and I was afraid it wouldn’t be suitable or something. For, almost invariably, things that are pleasant are not proper to do. I’ve always noticed it.
But Mrs. Crane thought my uncle would take me if I told him how much I cared about going.
“Do you?” I said, and ever so earnestly, for it meant a great deal to me.
“I don’t see how he could help it,” she answered; and then, after kissing me, she told me to hurry on with my dressing and come down to breakfast. And I did. As I did my hair (which was, at that time, a very simple operation, and involved three licks of the comb and one rubber strap), I thought of Mrs. Crane, and I did wish I could stay with her, for I began to see that my clothes did look strange, and I knew that she would help me to fix them without laughing at me or them. Bradly-dear had had them made so that I was too aware of them, and so that no one else could overlook them. It is hard to explain, but the trimmings and the dresses didn’t mix, and the braid drew attention to the dresses, and the dresses drew attention to the braid, which was not all moored on the level. I anchored a good deal of it myself, and I can tell you that it is far easier to pitch against a left-handed batter than to put on a yard of serpentine braid, beside being a great deal more interesting.
Just as I had got my dress on and was trying to hook it under the arm, someone tapped, and after my “Come in,” I found it was Mary Elinor. “Bill’s home,” she said first. “He just got in. He’s glad he’s going to meet you. He likes baseball too. I have something to tell you, but I don’t just know how. It is a delicate thing to say and requires womanly tact, of which I have not much, since father whips us if we tell fibs. That kind of an upbringing is an awful handicap.”
She sat down after this, and began to plait her handkerchief.
“If you feel as if you ought to say it,” I said, “go to it. I won’t mind.” And she did.
“It’s about the bracelet,” she said. “Mother doesn’t believe in such things, but Aunt Eliza (she’s our cook) knows all about them, and she says that probably the ghost of the first owner has put a ‘hant’ on it. . . .”