“Tell him nothing,” rejoined Dorothy, with spirit. “He’s got some old fogy notions about your house being a sacred spot where everybody in creation can impose on you if they want to, just because it is your house. I suppose he got it by being related to poor old uncle.”
“Do I have to go, too?” queried Elaine, rubbing her soft cheek against Dorothy’s.
“Not much,” answered Mrs. Carr, with a sisterly embrace. “You’ll stay, and Dick ’ll stay, and that old tombstone in the kitchen will stay, and so will Claudius Tiberius, but the rest—MOVE!”
Consequently, Elaine looked forward to the dinner-hour with mixed anticipations. Mr. Perkins, Uncle Israel, Mrs. Dodd, and Mrs. Holmes each found a note under their plates when they sat down. Uncle Israel’s face relaxed into an expression of childlike joy when he found the envelope addressed to him. “Valentine, I reckon,” he said, “or mebbe it’s sunthin’ from Santa Claus.”
“Queer acting for Santa Claus,” snorted Mrs. Holmes, who had swiftly torn open her note. “Here we are, all ordered away from what’s been our home for years, by some upstart relations who never saw poor, dear uncle. Are you going to keep boarders?” she asked, insolently, turning to Dorothy.
“No longer,” returned that young woman, imperturbably. “I have done it just as long as I intend to.”
Harlan was gazing curiously at Dorothy, but she avoided his eyes, and continued to eat as though nothing had happened. Dick, guessing rightly, choked, and had to be excused. Elaine’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkled, the flush deepening when Mrs. Dodd inquired where her valentine was. Mr. Perkins was openly dejected, and Mrs. Dodd, receiving no answer to her question, compressed her thin lips into a forced silence.
But Uncle Israel was moved to protesting speech. “’T is queer doin’s for Santa Claus,” he mumbled, pouring out a double dose of his nerve tonic. “’T ain’t such a thing as he’d do, even if he was drunk. Turnin’ a poor old man outdoor, what ain’t got no place to go exceptin’ to Betsey’s, an’ nobody can’t live with Betsey. She’s all the time mad at herself on account of bein’ obliged to live with such a woman as she be. Summers I’ve allers stayed here an’ never made no trouble. I’ve cooked my own food an’ brought most of it, an’ provided all my own medicines, an’ even took my bed with me, goin’ an’ comin’. Ebeneezer’s beds is all terrible drafty—I took two colds to once sleepin’ in one of ’em—an’ at my time of life ’t ain’t proper to change beds. Sleepin’ in a drafty bed would undo all the good of bein’ near the sanitarium. Most likely I’ll have a fever or sunthin’ now an’ die.”
“Shut up, Israel,” said Mrs. Dodd, abruptly. “You ain’t goin’ to die. It wouldn’t surprise me none if you had to be shot on the Day of Judgment before you could be resurrected. Folks past ninety-five that’s pickled in patent medicine from the inside out, ain’t goin’ to die of no fever.”
“Ninety-six, Belinda,” said the old man, proudly. “I’ll be ninety-six next week, an’ I’m as young as I ever was.”