Cousin Park came riding up in state, her ugly, cross old pug placed between her and Cousin Sue, who had most generously offered to go to Milton to meet our august relative so I could be at home to receive the Tuckers. As the rockaway made its ponderous way down the drive, the plow horses foaming painfully after their twelve-mile pull, six to Milton and six back, I spied Henry Ford, in a swirling cloud of dust, turn into the avenue, and in a trice he was whizzing up behind the old sea-going rockaway. Pug wrinkled his fat neck and whimpered when he saw Brindle, who occupied the back seat with Dee; Cousin Park gave an audible snort. Brindle paid no attention at all to Pug but sat like a bulldog done in bronze and for the time being even refrained from snuffling.
I dreaded the meeting between my dear friends, the Tuckers, and Cousin Park, knowing that lady's overbearing manner when things did not go to suit her. But I really had not fathomed the depth of Zebedee's mixing powers. I remembered what Dee had said about his being able to make crabs and ice cream agree if he set his mind to it.
All the Tuckers looked rather aghast as they drew up near the rockaway from which Cousin Park was emerging, Pug clasped in her arms. They composed their countenances quickly, however, at least Dee and Zebedee did; Dum was never able to pull her social self together quite so quickly as her father and sister. Zebedee shut off his engine and in a moment was assisting my dignified relative with her many traveling necessities: small pillows of various sizes and shapes, designed to ease different portions of one's anatomy on trains and in carriages (she carried four of them); several silk bags bulging with mysterious contents; a black sunshade; her turkey-tail fan; Pug and a box of dog biscuit.
Zebedee got them all safely into the house, even taking Pug tenderly in his arms, much to the astonishment of that dull-witted canine. He assured Cousin Park that Brindle would not hurt Pug, provided Pug did not try to get too intimate with him and bore him.
"We can count on Brindle up to a certain point, but if he gets very bored he is apt to be cross," another human attribute my dear Tuckers gave their pet. Cousin Park rather bridled at the idea of her precious dog's boring anything, but Zebedee's manner was so deferential and his solicitude so apparent that mortal woman could not have withstood him.
Cousin Sue and the Tuckers took to one another from the beginning. I had thought they would, but sometimes the friends that you expect to like one another are the very ones that act "Dr. Fell" and develop a strange and unreasoning dislike.
The picnic was under discussion and was approved of unanimously. I thought Dum blushed a little when I announced that Mr. Reginald Kent was back in the county. She undoubtedly had a soft spot in her girl's heart for the good looking young illustrator who had been so enamoured of her the winter before.
One thing occurred to mar our pleasant anticipations: Cousin Park, instead of declining the invitation to go on the picnic, which Father and I pressed upon her, expecting of course that she would refuse, accepted with alacrity, announcing that the piney air would be good for Pug. We told her the road was impossible for the rockaway and that she would have to go in a spring wagon; but that made no difference, go she would and go she did, four little cushions, bulging silk bags, purple and black knitting, Pug and package of dog biscuit, turkey-tail fan and all.
We made an early start to avoid the heat of the August day. Mammy Susan had packed a hamper with every conceivable good thing the countryside afforded, and the floor of the spring wagon was filled with watermelons, the pride of my dear father's heart. Next to his library, Father loved his watermelon patch. My earliest remembrance is watermelon seed spread out on letter paper to dry, with a description of that particular melon written on the paper. Every good melon must have some seed saved from it for the purpose of reproducing the species. "Very rich in colour with black seeds and thin rind. Sweet and juicy," would be one; then another: "Small, round, dark green,—meat pale in colour but mealy and very delicious;" another: "Large, striped rattlesnake variety,—good if allowed to ripen, but great favourite with niggers."
On that hot day in August small round ones rubbed noses with large rattlesnake varieties and the rich red ones with thin rinds and black seeds jostled each other in the bottom of the wagon as we bumped over the none too smooth roads that our country boasted.