A House Party with the Tucker Twins

by Nell Speed

All the women of England are busy at one thing or another. Women, great ladies who have never done any form of work before, not even dressed their own hair, are washing dishes in hospitals or doing other menial tasks.

Uncle Isaac was a widower, so the aunts have had entire charge of the housekeeping at Grantley Grange for many years. I think they are very kind to me in not looking upon me as an interloper.

Aunt Grace tells me that their father, my grandfather, bitterly regretted his sternness towards my father and mother and was willing at any time to make amends, but my father would never answer his letters. Poor Father is so sensitive. That has always been his trouble. I live in constant terror now for fear someone will hurt his feelings and he will refuse to see people or make himself miserable. He is to make himself useful and serve his country by teaching the boys in a school at Grantley. All of the young teachers have gone to the front and the nation needs teachers for the boys and girls. I am so happy that Father is to serve his country, somehow, and this is, after all, a very noble service as it is for the future good of the British Empire.

I know you wonder what I am going to do. I was willing to nurse if my aunts thought it wise, but was relieved when they decided that I could be of more use doing other things that life has already trained me to do. I know I should fail at the crucial moment as a nurse. I am so timid and do not seem to be able to shake off this shyness. It has been decided that I shall go every day to sing to the soldiers in the neighboring hospitals. That sounds like very little to do but when I tell you that I spend on an average of seven hours a day going to the various hospitals, you will realize that while it is very little to do, it takes a great deal of time to do it.

So many of the old estates near here have been turned over to the Government for hospitals that one can motor from one to the other in a short time. The wounded soldiers are very kind to me and express themselves as liking very much to hear me sing. They like the American songs, especially the darky songs. I sang "Clar de Kitchen" to them yesterday and they made me give them three encores. I thought of the last time I sang it when we had the circus at Maxton, and I choked with emotion at the remembrance of all of my dear friends.

Life at Price's Landing seems very far off and unreal, although there are times when this life seems to be the unreal thing and I expect any moment to awaken and find it all a dream. I remember in my little room over the store how low the ceiling was, so low over my bed where it sloped to the dormer window that I could lie there and touch it with my hand, and many a time have I bumped my head when I sprang too hurriedly from my bed. I learned to put up my hand and gauge the distance before I got up, in that way saving my poor head many a bump. I find myself now, when morning comes and the sun peeps in the windows of my great bedroom, reaching up expecting to touch the low ceiling of my little room in Virginia. It gives me a strange sensation, almost as great a shock as when you take one more step up when you have reached the top of the stairs.

The ceilings at Grantley Grange are quite as high as any I have ever seen. Too high for beauty, I think, but I don't dare say so. My aunts think perhaps there are more wonderfully beautiful places than the Grange, but they have never seen them,—except the great show places, of course. It is very beautiful and the time may come when I shall feel at home, but I still feel strange and something of an alien.

Father is as at home as though he had never left England. I wish all of you could see poor Father in his proper surroundings. He always was so out of place in the store. I think he felt irritated all the time that he was doing what he was doing, but a certain obstinacy in his character kept him from seeking more congenial employment. His sisters are very tender with him and I am hoping that he will begin to show to them the affection that I am sure he feels.

Now haven't I put the cart before the horse? I intended first to tell you all about our voyage over, and then lead up to conditions here, but I have left the first to the last.

In the first place poor Father was dreadfully seasick from the moment we got on the steamer, even before we started. There is something about the smell of machinery and rigging that makes him very ill. I tried to persuade him to stay on deck, but he would go to his stateroom, and there he stayed for the entire crossing.