The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

She didn’t approve at all, but for once her husband asserted himself and said it should go, and it went.

“We’ve heard the last from Mrs. Tracy we ever shall,” Mrs. Taylor said, but she was mistaken. Within three days there came a dainty little note written by Miss Helen Tracy, the daughter, and directed to “Zacheus Taylor Esq., Prospect House, Ridgefield, Mass.,” and was as follows:

“Dear Sir:—

“Your kind letter is received, and I hasten to write for mother and say that we shall be glad to become your guests. I know we shall be pleased, whether there are two faucets in your house, or ten,—one bathroom or twenty,—and you may expect us on Thursday, the —th day of the month.

Yours truly,

Helen Tracy.”

Not in years had Uncle Zacheus been as pleased as he was with that note. It was his own, which he could open himself and keep. He usually went for the mail which he took unopened to Dorothy, although it might be addressed to the “Proprietor of the Prospect House.” No one wrote to him; he was a cypher in the management of affairs and the correspondence of the house. But this note was directed to him personally. He was “Zacheus Taylor, Esq.,” and “Dear Sir,” and it made him feel several inches taller than his real height. He read it on his way home from the office, and then gave it to his wife with a flourish, saying exultingly, “I told you honesty was the best policy. They are coming without hot and cold fassets and bath tubs in every room. Read that.”

Dorothy read it while her husband watched her, holding the envelope in his hand and taking the note from her the moment she had finished it. It was his property, and after showing it to Mark and giving his opinion of Miss Helen Tracy as “a gal with a head on her,” he went up to the garret and deposited his treasure in the square trunk with Taylor’s Tavern and Johnny’s blanket and went down with a feeling of importance and dignity which showed itself in his going fishing after dinner without a word to his wife.

She was in a state of unusual excitement. She had heard of the Tracys as people who made a great show at Saratoga and other watering places and had never dreamed they would honor her. But they were coming, and her voice rang like a clarion through the house as she issued her orders and began to look over her linen and rub up her silver forks not in use. Four of them had been appropriated to the Masons. Four more were to be given to the Tracys,—possibly five,—as they were to have their meals in private, and paid handsomely for it. Finally, as the honor grew upon her, she decided that the whole eight were none too many for New Yorkers. They would look well upon the table, and she could hide them away at night from any possible thief. The rooms Mrs. Tracy was to have adjoining the bathroom were occupied when her daughter’s letter was received, and were not vacated until the morning of the day when she was to arrive. Consequently, there was not much time for preparations. But Mrs. Taylor was equal to the emergency and took the helm herself and gave her commands like a brigadier general, first to her maids, then to the carpet-beaters, and then to a small, fair-haired boy whom she called Jeff, and who ran for dusters and brooms and brushes, showing a most wonderful agility in jumping over pails and chairs and whatever else was in his way, and further exercising himself by turning summersaults when there was sufficient space among the pieces of furniture crowding the piazza. A box on his ears from a maid in whose stomach he had planted his bare feet brought him to an upright position, and he stood whirling on one foot and asking what he should fly at next.

Mrs. Taylor, who was mounted on a stepladder and passing her hand over the top of a window to see if any dust had been left there, bade him go up town after Mr. Taylor, who had been sent for a bottle of ammonia more than an hour ago.