“Oh, oh! How outlandish! Why, we never think of bed in the city until eleven,—and later if we go to the theatre, you know.”
“That’s why everyone has pasty complexions and has to resort to rouge. If folks would keep decent hours they’d be healthier and deprive the doctors and druggists of an income. We will begin to live in the country as country people do, and then we will show city folks what we gain by such living,” replied Mrs. James, mildly but firmly.
So they prepared to retire that first night on Green Hill Farm, when the hands on the old grandfather’s clock pointed to eight-forty-five. Even Rachel laughed as she started up-stairs back of her young mistress, and after saying good-night, added: “Ef I onny could grow roses in m’ cheeks like-as-how you-all kin! But dey woulden show, nohow, on my black face!”
She laughed heartily at her joke and went to the small room over the kitchen, still shaking with laughter.
CHAPTER VI—NATALIE BEGINS HER PLANTING
The singing of the birds, nested in the old red maple tree that overshadowed the house on the side where Natalie’s room was, roused her from the most restful sleep she had had in months. No vibration of electricity such as one constantly hears and feels in the city, no shouting of folks in the streets, no milkman with his reckless banging of cans, no steamboat’s shrieks and wails such as one hears when living on the Drive, disturbed the peace and quietude of the night in the country.
“Oh my! I hope I haven’t overslept,” thought Natalie, as she sat up, wide awake. She looked at the clock on the table and could scarcely believe it was but five minutes of five.
“Why, it feels like eight to me!” she said to herself, as she sprang from bed and ran to sniff the delightful fresh air that gently waved the curtains in and out of the opened windows.
“I’m going to surprise Jimmy! I’ll be dressed and out in the garden before she wakes up,” giggled the girl, hastily catching up her bath-towel and soap, and running stealthily along the hall to the bathroom.
But her plans were not realized, because Mrs. James was up and down-stairs before Natalie ever heard the birds sing. She sat on the piazza sorting some bulbs and roots she had brought from the city in her trunk.