During that first half of my second term at Gresham I had to remember very often what Margaret Sayre had said to me about looking at the mountains when things did not go just exactly to suit me. I looked at them a great deal that first half. I had a good appetite as a rule but had been spoiled by Mammy Susan, whose one idea seemed to be to give me what I wanted, and the consequence was that unless food was well cooked and seasoned, I simply did not eat. Tweedles ate anyhow, but long stretches of cafés or boarding houses had inured them to cooking that I simply could not stomach.
"You are a regular princess, Page," said Dee to me on that morning when we were leaving for the holidays. "Of course the food is bum but it is better than going empty."
"Maybe it is, but I can't swallow bad coffee."
"But you are looking as pale as a little ghost and you are so thin you can't keep on your skirts."
This I could not deny as at that minute I had my skirt lapped over two inches and pinned with a large safety pin to keep it from dropping off altogether.
"I'll buck up when I get home. Two weeks of feeding will fill out my belt again," I laughed.
I left the Tuckers at Richmond and went on that day to Milton where Father met me and drove me over to Bracken. My, it was good to be home! Mammy Susan almost ate me up for joy, and the dogs actually threw me down in their efforts to get first lick.
"Why, honey, chile, you is sho thin and peaked lookin'," declared my dear old friend. "You ain't no bigger'n a minute. What all them teacher's been a doin' to you?"
"She is thin, Mammy Susan," broke in Father, "and I am going to put her on an iron tonic right away. She tells me she has no appetite."
"Well, now, that's too bad! I done made a mess er chicken gumbo fer dinner and some er them lil bits er thin biscuit. I done knocked up a blackberry roll, too, with hard sauce that is as soft and fluffy as a cloud in Spring. It's too bad my baby ain't got no appletite."