Chapter 3 No.3

I always did admire surprises, my diary, so when mother came in from the station one day not long ago and said there was a surprise for me I thought sure it must be a dessert for dinner, or a package come by express, as it isn't Christmas for anything to be in the toe of my stocking. But mother shook her head and smiled at all of these. She said it was a heap better, and it is.

A curious thing has happened in this family. It's happened a little to father, for he's kept awake by it; a good deal to mother, for she has to tell how to tend to it; an awful lot to Dilsey, for she has to walk it and feed it and get it to sleep; but it has happened most of all to Bertha, for it's to her that the stork (or the doctor, or out of the rose bush-they tell you so many different tales you never know which to believe) brought it. Just about that time Bertha happened not to be feeling very well, so mother wrote for her to come down to our house where the air would be good for her, and then she would have Dilsey to tend to it. You'd never guess what it is, my diary, so I'll tell you. It's a baby! A live one with open and shut eyes, and can cry; you don't have to pull a string to make it, either. This makes it better than even the finest doll, and, as I'm above dolls anyhow, a baby is more suitable to one of my age. The only bad part about it is that you can't lock it up in the wardrobe when you get through playing with it. Sometimes I have wished it was the kind you had to pull a string to make cry, and then I'd cut the string off so we would have a few peaceful nights, but apt as not this wouldn't be healthy for it, for I guess the stork (or the doctor, or out of the rose bush) knew best how to fix it.

Mr. Parkes is the baby's father, and also Bertha's husband. He is one of the nicest men you ever saw, pleasant all the time, which people say is because he's a drummer which sells things. He carries valises full of lovely crackers and little cakes with icing on the top, and calls it his "line." I've heard Rufe and Cousin Eunice talk about "lines falling in pleasant places," and I think it must mean something like this, for our house has been a pleasant place since Saturday night when he came to spend Sunday with us and Bertha. Some days he sells as much as five hundred dollars worth of cake to one man, though I don't see what keeps him from dying that bought them of stomach ache, for I've had it myself since he's been here considerable. He and father talk a heap about Mr. Parkes' "house" in the city. He writes to the house every day and it writes back to him, and he is always saying what he'll do "when he hears from the house," just like it was folks.

He wears an elk's head on the lapel of his coat for an ornament and another on his watch chain, and even has a pair of purple socks with white elks on them, and laughs a good deal, which has been a benefit to Bertha's disposition since she married him. If the baby wakes up and cries for her bottle as late as eleven o'clock at night, which would give most men room to say things, he's just as jolly as if it was broad daylight, and says so loud you can hear him in the next room: "Tonsound her little skin! Her is her daddy's own kid-her knows that eleven o'clock calls for a bottle, only daddy wants his cold, and her wants hers warmed!" And out to the kitchen he goes and warms it like a gentleman. I believe Mr. Parkes would be a gentleman even if he had twins.

Of course there never is any good happens to your family without something bad happening along with it. A misfortune was sent to us one morning when the train came. It was Aunt Laura, mother's sister, and Bertha's and my aunt. It is a habit of hers to come to our house every summer, but this time she came before we were looking for her, having got mad at the relatives where she was. So she has changed her will and is going to leave all her money to Bertha's baby, and she told mother that she came right on down as soon as she decided on this to see if the baby was a nice, well-behaved child, as it didn't run in the family for the children to be any too well-behaved; and she looked at me when she said the last. Bertha was in a flutter when she heard it, but mother just laughed and said the baby was equally as well-behaved as most eight-weeks-old children.

Aunt Laura has spit-curls, but a great deal of money, having been a school teacher ever since she was born, and never spending her money buying her little nieces candy and pretty dresses. She admires church and preachers more than anything, but I don't, and when the money was willed to me one time I lost my chance by saying at the table when Brother Sheffield was there eating chicken and said he liked the gizzard, right quick, before I thought of manners, "Father, don't give it to him-he ain't little!" The money has been willed to every member of the family, for she gets mad at one and unwills it away from them onto another, until we've all had a trial.

But the poetry books say it's a black cloud that don't blow somebody a silver lining, and I guess the silver lining to Aunt Laura is that she's in love with Brother Sheffield, which will give me a good many new thoughts to write about; for before when I was writing about couples it was always the man that was trying to marry the lady, but now it's the other way, which you can always count on when you see spit-curls. Even this is better to write about than just a baby, though, for they mostly do the same thing day after day; but you can never tell what a loving person will do to thrill your diary.

It was till plumb breakfast time this morning before Aunt Laura made known to us what new thing she's got up to talk about all the time. Father calls it a "fad." He said the minute he saw her come he was willing to bet on anything, from the latest breakfast food to an Aunty Saloon League, but mother told him it was sinful to bet about such things, for last summer it was foreign missions. It is just as well that he didn't bet, for he would have lost, it being the heart disease which she has very bad. She said she didn't tell us right at first because she knew we didn't care anything about hearing it, but she thought we better be prepared in case a spell came on her suddenly, for she had felt worse symptoms lately than ever before. Bertha had acted awful good all day and not let the baby cry nor slobber on Aunt Laura for the sake of the will.

I guess I've been worse this last week than ever before, for it is the first time I've been ashamed to tell what I've done in my diary. Bertha knows if Aunt Laura could get Brother Sheffield to marry her she would unwill the money from the baby; so she thinks up things to tell me to do to keep them from being together, and I've been doing them. One time I hid her purple Sunday bonnet, then her curls to keep her from going to prayer-meeting, but I'm glad to say that I have never taken the dimes which Bertha said she would give me for doing them. I hate Aunt Laura enough to do mean things to her myself, which is a better principle than to do them just for dimes.

This is Sunday again and I have to go to church. Somehow, during the summer, Sunday smells like black silk, for mother and all the ladies that can afford it wear it to church to let the others see how well off they are. When I was right little and got tee-ninsy cards at Sunday-school I imagined Heaven looked like those cards, all lilies-of-the-valley and little pink lambs, but since I've grown older my views have changed. Preachers always think you can't go to Heaven unless you do just like they do, and I couldn't be like a preacher to save my life, except about chicken.

Aunt Laura had to look all over the place for her black silk waist this morning and then not find it, so she got into a bad spell and couldn't go to church. After the sermon was over and we were trying to forget it by standing around and telling the other ladies how much fruit we had put up this past week, Brother Sheffield came up and asked mother if Aunt Laura was sick, not being out to services. Mother said she was, but she hoped to find her all right when we got home, as she never was sick very long, and I knew she would be well because it was ice-cream for dinner. He said then he'd be over to see her this afternoon as he hadn't seen her in so long.

Well, it was awfully hot all the afternoon, and, as he wouldn't be over till late so as to be invited to supper, Aunt Laura decided to take off her front hair and have a nap after dinner. Now, up to this time I have been afraid to mention even in my diary about Bertha's bad habit. I really like Bertha better than I did before she was married, and I knew if Aunt Laura was to catch on to it she would change from the baby right away, for Brother Sheffield calls it "the trade-mark of Jezebel," which is a Bible lady, though the preachers always throw her up to anybody they don't like. So Bertha keeps this locked away good in the little left-handed drawer of her bureau, and don't anybody but me know it's there.

It was getting late when brother Sheffield drove up to the gate. He is an old man and his knees are so poor that they look like they would punch through his trousers legs if he was to get down on them to ask a lady to marry him, as they do in books. In fact, I have stayed around the parlor and watched considerable, thinking how mortified I'd feel if they were to punch through, but he hasn't ever got down on them yet. His name is Gideon, which makes it worse for him, too. Cousin Eunice said Ann Lisbeth's name is a very old one in the country across the ocean where she used to live, but I know there ain't an older name on earth than Gideon. Aunt Laura ought to have been named the feminine of it, instead of that beautiful name that has so much lovely poetry written about it.

Anyhow, I was surprised that she wasn't dressed up in a clean waist and down on the front porch to meet him, but I went up-stairs right quick to tell her he was there. She was still asleep and woke up as mad and red as folks always do that go to sleep in the summer. I told her he was already on the porch.

"Well, help me get dressed, won't you, instead of standing there staring at me as if you never saw anybody with their front hair off and their upper plate out before? Run to the well and bring me some fresh water, and, say, come back by your mother's room and bring me her box of powder and puff. I spilt all of mine looking in the drawer this morning for that pestiferous waist. Hurry!"

I ran to the well and got the water, but coming back by mother's room I saw that Brother Sheffield was facing the door and would have seen me, which wouldn't have been nice to bring out a box and puff before a man, much less a preacher, so I didn't get the powder. I told Aunt Laura to get Bertha's, when she commenced fussing, for I had passed her room and saw that she had dressed in a big hurry and left the bureau unlocked, the room being very hot and dark, the baby being asleep, on account of the flies. She hushed then and said for me to go down and tell him that she would be out in a few minutes, which I did. I left him on the porch fanning while I went out to a little place I have under the porch where it is nice and quiet and they can't find you reading fairy tales when they want you for something; but you can hear them talking.

Pretty soon Aunt Laura came out, and in her dressed-up voice commenced telling him how sorry she was that she kept him waiting. But before she had more than got it said he asked her excited-like what was the matter with her. It seemed like when he got excited she did too, so she grabbed her stomach (not that I saw her, but I know she always does it here lately when she gets mad or scared) and said:

"Oh, my heart! It must be the heart disease!"

He interrupted her again, a heap too quick and sharp for a preacher:

"Your heart nothing! Go and look at your face!"

That was more than I could stand, so out from under the porch I slid, just in time to see Aunt Laura, with her face as red as the Indians they have in sideshows, turn and run into the hall where she could look at herself in the hat-rack looking-glass. She gave one tremendous yell which woke the baby and made the rest of the family come flying in from where they were. It wasn't a minute before me and Brother Sheffield were in the hall with her and mother and father running in off of the back porch, and Dilsey with the baby in her arms leaning over the banisters to see what was the matter.

"It's my death stroke," Aunt Laura said, just like she knew what she was talking about. "The doctor's books say it comes on this way," she kept on, while the preacher fanned her and we were all flying around doing things for her, and me standing still wondering how on earth come her face so fiery red. "Thank Heaven, I die in the conviction of having lived a good life, and willed all my money to the only member of my family that has ever treated me with any respect." This did look kinder like the truth, for the baby was the only member of the family which was crying over this sad occasion; but she was very loud and hard.

"I've been visited by Providence with a curious family," poor Aunt Laura said, looking very mad toward father and mother, "but they will soon have cause to regret all their strange ways with me. If there was one person in this world that did care for me, to that one should my will be changed, for there is little consolation in leaving your property to a baby."

Brother Sheffield here spoke up and said as Aunt Laura "so fully realized her hopeless condition he thought they better have some conversation together as to her spiritual welfare. He desired a few moments alone with her."

"Yes," said Aunt Laura right quick, "private conversation. My soul's safety is not to be discussed in the presence of my enemies!"

So out we all got, me along with the rest of them, which was a great disappointment, for I could have learned a good deal if there had been any way of staying in there. They talked a long time and we could hear a few remarks now and then, being as we couldn't think of anything to say ourselves, and it was very still on the porch. Once or twice we heard her say very decided-like that indeed she wasn't mistaken, for every book she had read on the subject said it was exactly that kind of a symptom. And then he would talk some, and one time he seemed to doubt her word so that she fairly yelled out, the way she does when he ain't around: "Can you doubt the hideous mark of death that has this hour appeared upon my face? Isn't it proof that my flesh is being prepared for the worms?" which did sound pitiful and scary, too, it being kinder dark on the porch. This seemed to do the work, for in a few minutes she called us in and told us that Brother Sheffield had asked her to marry him, and although she had never before considered him in the light of a lover, still she was going to do it if the Lord let her live an hour, while father could ride over for a preacher and she could change her will. Brother Sheffield was crying like he does when he is calling mourners, and his voice would hardly talk, but he managed to say:

"Yes, she has done me the honor to accept me; she, a woman of intellect and wealth, and me, only a poor, humble worker--" He couldn't get any further, but I had heard it so many times before that I knew it was "humble worker of the vineyard," though father says he is more of a hungry eater of the barnyard.

When Aunt Laura mentioned about being married in an hour Brother Sheffield seemed to take a second thought, and spoke up kinder weak and said he didn't know whether it was exactly right to be married on Sunday or not. When Aunt Laura saw him begin to weaken it brought on such a hard spell that she laid back on the sofa with her eyes shut, like she was sure enough dead. This really scared mother, and she told Mammy Lou, who had her head poked in at the back door, to run for some water. Mammy brought the bucket in off the back porch and commenced sousing it over Aunt Laura by the handsful, which didn't bring her to; but a strange thing happened, which, if it wasn't me that saw it, anybody would think it was a story, but I cross my heart that the water that dribbled down off her face on to her clean waist was pink!

"Jumping Jerusalem!" father said, "the heart disease is washing off!" This made Aunt Laura open her eyes, and by that time Mammy Lou had got a towel and was wiping her face off all over, which seemed to make it look natural again. Not one of us knew what to think of such a strange disease till all of a sudden I remembered Bertha's bad habit! And then I knew it was all off with Aunt Laura and the marrying. It wasn't very long till they all caught on to what it was on her face; and the worst part of it was that Brother Sheffield said he believed she did it a-purpose. He rose up very proud, and looking kinder relieved and said he could never marry a woman who would "defile herself with the trade-mark of Jezebel."

When he commenced throwing up Jezebel to Aunt Laura she threw up Esau to him, which sold himself for a "mess of pottage," though this never did sound lady-like to me, even coming from the pulpit. So Esau went out and drove straight home, and Jezebel went up-stairs and packed her trunk to go home early in the morning, never having been so insulted by relatives before in her life.

So the marrying is off and the baby is disinherited, which will be a relief to it when it gets big enough to understand. But the worst part is that Aunt Laura blames the whole thing on me, for she says I had her ruination in mind when I sicked her on to that little left-handed drawer. Of course it ain't so, but it proves that people ought to raise the blind and be sure it's whitening they're spreading on, even if the baby is asleep.