She drove up just as I closed my note-book—quite in time to catch me in the act.
“Tsck!” she said in disgust, as she whirled my chair about with a strong hand and wheeled me unceremoniously into the house. “I suppose you want to put your eyes out next, and have everybody pityin’ your afflictions when you’ve made yourself blind layin’ flat on your back an’ scribblin’ nonsense—poetry, like enough!” Contempt could no further go.
“I’m sure you never heard of my writing poetry in your life, Cousin Jane,” I protested meekly.
“No, an’ I don’t want to. I know just the kind of stuff it ’ud be. But I don’t see what else you get to write layin’ out there all by yourself, with nothin’ to see, an’ no sensible occupation to keep you busy. I never could abide an idler.”
“When did you hear from Caro?” I inquired. In the interest of peace, a change of subject seemed advisable.
“Why, Caroline’s careless about writin’—which of course I might have expected, seein’ the way you brought her up. But Bob White’s been up there lately, an’ I saw him when I went to town yesterday. I met him on the street, while I was goin’ to get my new glasses, an’ he took me up to the new hotel to lunch.”
She bridled with pleasure, and I coughed to strangle my laugh of delight. Bob White paying court to Cousin Jane, without my meddling the least little bit!
“We had four courses,” she went on in happy retrospection. “I didn’t know there was such a nice place in town. I don’t eat much lunch usually when I go—looks like it ain’t right to waste the Lord’s money just pamperin’ the flesh, as you might say; an’ besides, I’d rather save it. I never did hold by spendin’ money for foolishness like you an’ John Bird.”
I’m sure the Peon and I haven’t been on the simplest kind of a lark for years; and when we went it was usually a picnic in the woods with the children, and the plainest of home-made lunches; but I received this snub in silence. Cousin Jane plunged on with her news.
“Bob’s heels over head in love with Caroline—that’s easy to see. It ’ud be a good match for her, too.”