Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

Sam rented his corner grocery, bought a new suit of clothes, went to the hills of Vermont and said good-bye to Miranda; and then he joined Carl and Paul in New York, and with them sailed away to Europe, shocking Carl sometimes with his broad Yankee dialect, but proving the most faithful and loyal servant a man ever had, and, when it was necessary, the most efficient of nurses.

With Paul gone and Jack still away, Annie was very lonely. Carl had, in a delicate way, made everything as easy for her as possible, depositing to her account what seemed to her a large sum in a Richmond bank where she kept her small funds. He had also insisted that a young girl should be hired, and as Phyllis approved the plan, a bright mulatto named Rachel was installed in the house as maid, though really she waited upon Phyllis more than upon Annie. But she was young and full of life, and sang as she worked, and often brought Annie bits of gossip from the outside world, which kept her from stagnating. Paul’s letters were a great comfort to her. He had early learned to write a childish irregular hand, and every week there came a letter from him, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but very dear to the Annie-mother, who he wished could be with him and see all he was seeing. He was under treatment, with the prospect that he would be cured in a little while, and this was comforting. He was at the Grand Hotel in Paris, where they talked the queerest talk he ever heard. Even the children spoke French, and he was going to learn it, too,—and Sam, at whom everybody looked so funny, especially the English, who sometimes laughed at him. But Sam didn’t care a su-mar-kee for one of them, and Paul didn’t care a su-mar-kee either. Sam was just as nice as he could be, and had learned every ’bus line in Paris, and knew that couplet did not mean a place, as he had first thought it did, trying in vain to go there, and hunting all over the map of the city to find it. He hadn’t seen Katy, and didn’t know when he should. She had been to the North Pole to see the sun rise,—then to Stockholm and Russia, and was now in Berlin and was going to Egypt in the winter. Fan-er-nan was in Switzerland, but was coming to Paris by and by. All this was in his first letter.

Later on he wrote: “They’ve put me in a plaster jacket and it hurts me some; but I try not to cry, and Sam takes me in a chair along the boulevards and down to the Palais Royal, and everywhere, and yells like a panther at the cabmen when he wants to cross the street and they are aiming at us. ‘Git back, you scallywags, don’t you see the little boy is lame?’ he says, and they git every time. You ought to hear him try to talk French. He can say ‘Ong-tray’ and Com-bee-ang, and Petty garsong,’ and some more words, and screams when he talks to the people, and they scream at him. I am learning French and teaching English to a nice lady, and this is how it happened. I was sitting in my chair in the court with Sam and my French primer, when there came up to me a very handsome lady with great black eyes and yellow hair and rosy cheeks, which Sam said were painted, but I don’t believe it. She put her hand on my head and said something I couldn’t understand. I knew it was French and answered, ‘I nee parl paw French’—I had learned so much from my primer—and was very proud when the lady laughed and said, ‘Tray be-ang;’ she meant very good, or very well. Then she tried Sam, but he shook his head and said, ‘Nix cum arouse,’ at which she stared awfully. She staid until Carl came up. He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him, but she bowed and he bowed, and they talked some, and Carl made her understand what ailed me. She looked real sorry, and put her hand on my head again and kissed me and went away. I saw her at dinner, where she sat near us, dressed oh! so beautiful, and everybody looked at her, and she didn’t care.

“Carl said she was Madame Felix, and the little fussy-looking old gentleman with her was her husband, and was ill; that’s why he looked so yellow and shut his lips so hard as if he didn’t feel well. I like him, and so does Sam. He came to me after dinner and talked English very bad, but I understood him. Madame Julee he calls her, wants me to teach her English words and she will teach me French. Carl is willing, and every morning now she comes to me and tells me French and I tell her English, which she pronounces sometimes real good, as if she knew it before,—then awfully, and I laugh, and she laughs, and Carl laughs. He is always with us, learning French with me and teaching her English, too. Sam sits and listens and catches on, he says. I’ve thought sometimes Carl wanted him to go away, but he won’t. He don’t like Madame. He says she makes eyes at Carl, and once, when he saw her talking and laughing with him, he said, ‘What tarnal fools.’ I told Carl, and he was mad.

“Sam is going to learn French as fast as he can so as to know what Carl and Madame Julee say to each other, but I am not to tell. I said I wouldn’t, though I don’t see why Carl shouldn’t know that Sam can understand. Do you?”

In Paul’s last letter he wrote: “The little old man, Monsieur Felix, has gone to his chateau in Passy. Madame asked Carl and me to go, too, and we wanted to, but Sam looked like a thunder cloud, and had some high words with Carl, and said how was I to be treated in Passy. So we didn’t go, nor Madame either. The little man told her to stay if she wanted to, and she staid. She told Carl it was so lonesome in Passy,—treest, I think she said, and the housekeeper and servants would take good care of Monsieur, and she could not bear to be shut up in a sick-room with camphire and odor-cologne and nerves; it made her head ache. And Carl said he didn’t much blame her and should miss her awful. I am getting to understand pretty well and faster than Sam, and made this out, but didn’t tell him, he hates Madame so.

“My plaster jacket hurts me sometimes and I cry, but Sam is so good, and says if I bear it like a man I will one day be tall and straight like Carl. He is splendid, and I’d bear anything to be like him. We get on beautiful in French, and Madame beautiful in English. Queer, how well she pronounces at times. I told her so, and she said I was not to tell Carl, because he’d think if she pronounced well once she might always, and she is pretty bad when he is with us. Two secrets I have now,—her’s and Sam’s,—and they make my head ache. Madame has taken me to drive two or three times, and once she had a box at the Opera and took Carl and me. Oh, it was beautiful,—the house and everything, except the ballet. I didn’t like that,—the girls’ dresses were so short and thin, and they whirled so fast and threw their feet so high that I didn’t dare look at them much till I heard everybody cheer, Carl and Madame with the rest. Carl looked at them through an opera glass, although he was pretty near the stage. I had heard Fan-er-nan say something about Katy going on the stage, and I whispered to Carl, “Would Katy do like that?”

“‘God forbid!’ he said, and turned white, and I said I’d get right down on the floor and hide if she did.

“Madame laughed,—seems as if she understands all I say. She was splendid that night,—nothing on her neck but diamonds, which glittered so in the light. Ever so many glasses were aimed at her, and she liked it. After the opera we went for supper to Bean-yon’s, an awful dear place. But Carl didn’t mind. He ordered everything Madame wanted and a bottle of wine. But he didn’t drink. He’d promised his sisters not to, he said. Madame shrugged her shoulders and drank to the health of his sisters. I was so tired I fell asleep in my chair, and when they tried to wake me up they couldn’t. So they sent for Sam, who carried me home in his arms. It isn’t far from Bean-yon’s to the hotel. I slept late next morning, and when I woke Sam was cross as a bear,—not to me, but at Carl, who had gone to Passy with Madame to call on Monsieur. Sam slatted things round and said he wished to Cain that Katy or Fan-er-nan would come and stop it. I asked him ‘Stop what?’ and he said, ‘Stop your asking questions.’

“Sam is funny. Carl has come back and Madame hasn’t. I guess the little old man is pretty sick. I miss Madame and so does Carl, but Fan-er-Nan will be here soon.”