mrs. forman and her two daughters, ray and florence, were in the attic studying the possibilities of certain stowed-away pieces of furniture; also arguing as to the merits—or possibly demerits—of a set of old curtains.
florence was sure that they would not do at all for aunt elsie's room, although while she said it she was oppressed by the thought that new curtains were not even to be mentioned. only that morning her mother had tried to impress them with the fact that even very small expenditures must be carefully guarded; they really must not for the present spend an unnecessary penny. it evidently comforted the poor lady to use that phrase "for the present," although they knew she had a haunting fear that the future would not make the pennies more plentiful.
"if we had a new edge to replace this dreadfully frayed one, we might make these curtains answer for the present," she thought aloud, rather than said, and the sentence closed with that much-worked word "but," which is capable of eloquently leaving unsaid many things.
"oh, mother!" was florence's dismayed protest, but ray intercepted her.
"i'll crochet an edge for them. don't you know that little lace edge i made for jean's waist? with coarser cotton it would make a pretty curtain trimming, and the pattern is so simple i can make it very fast. i'll begin it to-night; i have the cotton."
"florence," said mrs. forman, "if i should declare that i didn't know how to get along another day without a new house, don't you think ray would say, 'i'll make you one?'"
by way of answer florence said grimly that if ray had been one of those old israelites she would have had no trouble at all in making bricks without straw.
then the front door opened and closed with a bang, and derrick's shout was heard through the hall. "mother! ray! where are you all? say, mother, don't you think they are coming to-day, on the two-fifty!"
"who are?" florence asked, appearing at the head of the stairs.
"uncle evarts and aunt elsie, and i don't know how many more. where's mother? say, mommie, daddy had a telegram; here it is; he sent over to our school for me to get excused and skip home with it and stay here and help. what do you want first?"
by this time mrs. forman had the telegram in hand and read it aloud: "compelled to go east to-night; must bring elsie. reach welland afternoon train friday. evarts."
"the idea!" said florence. "isn't that cool? he hasn't even given us time to write and say that she could come."
"that's what he's after," derrick explained. "says he to himself: 'i'll rush the old lady off before they have a chance to say no, then they'll just have to take her in.' see? trust uncle evarts for being sharp, every time." but no one was heeding him. mother and daughters were making a rush for that downstairs room to try to accomplish in breathless haste the dozen or more "last things" that were waiting for a leisure hour.
left to himself the boy, with hands thrust into his pockets, tramped about the attic for a few minutes, curious to see what the great unfurnished room, which he seldom visited, had, stowed away in its keeping. he passed a number of interesting-looking packages, from whose bulging ends he caught glimpses of things that he could utilize in his "shop," and mentally resolved to forage here some day and see what he could find. but he carried a divided mind, and although he whistled a few bars as he ran downstairs it was a rather gloomy-faced fellow who presently appeared before his mother for orders.
being a boy who was distinctly loyal to his father, derrick forman had made very few remarks aloud about the family innovation; nobody but himself, at least so he fondly believed, knew how utterly he disliked the thought of it. he did not in the least remember his aunt elsie, although there was a tradition in the family that once in his very early childhood she had kissed him fervently and declared that he "looked enough like father" to be her brother.
"i'm awfully glad that i'm not!" he told himself, savagely, as he recalled the incident, "and i wish she were in jericho. she isn't a speck like my father, i know that; none of 'em are; but that's something to be glad over. a fellow can afford to shout over the fact that he isn't a bit like any of them."
he had a distinct boyish recollection of his aunt caroline and his uncle evarts, and disliked them both. aunt caroline, as he remembered her, was always saying: "dear me! why do you yell so when you talk? none of your family is deaf." or: "if you were my boy i should give you a good whipping every time you rolled down stairs in that lubberly fashion." or: "for pity's sake, dick, don't whistle all the time! your family do not seem to have any nerves." "an ever-lasting nagger," was the phrase with which he summed up her defects.
yet after all, the real thorn in his heart was the fact that his aunt had not confined her "nagging" to the girls and himself, but was given to much advising his mother, and finding fault with her ways. he had a vivid memory of aunt caroline's voice, high and insistent, as it came out to him when he stood in the hall waiting for a chance to speak to his mother: "you really ought to insist on joseph's having things fixed conveniently for you in the kitchen, at least; you can't expect to keep a girl unless you furnish her with some of the modern conveniences; in these days they won't stand it. joseph ought to know that there are labor-saving devices that all respectable people use. he doesn't understand, of course; men never do; but you ought to be firm about it; because he chose to trust a man that nobody else would, and so lost all his money, is no reason why he should let his family go without ordinary comforts. i'll risk that he could raise some money for you if he knew he had to." then his mother's voice, too low for him to hear, and his aunt's again, in reply: "oh, now, louise, there is no use in getting on your dignity just because i mentioned joseph; i'm sure i didn't say anything against him; i said not a word more than i would of my own husband if he had been such a fool as to place confidence in that man. you need to remember that i knew joseph long before you did, and, in some respects, i think i know him better now than you do."
how the boy waiting in the hall hated her! he wanted to burst in upon her and say, fiercely: "you let my mother alone! she knows a great deal more than you do about everything; and don't you dare to say another word about my father; he is the best father in the world, and we all think so; and i'm awful glad that he isn't the least little speck like you."
of course, he did nothing of the kind; instead, he gave over the hope of a word with his mother, and went noisily down the hall, whistling very loud, and banged the door as hard as he could; these demonstrations being for his aunt caroline's benefit. but he nursed his dislike of his aunt through the years; nothing in his after experiences helping to change his impressions of either her or his uncle evarts. he was all ready to dislike his aunt elsie as soon as she appeared. even the memory of those early kisses rankled in his thoughts. what if she should think she could kiss him now, when he was taller than his father?
"if she tries it on me," he muttered, "i'm afraid i'll shake her. o yah! what a mess! wish i was to be done with high school to-morrow, and could get out of this town. home is spoiled, anyhow."
his sister ray, as she watched him a few minutes later swing down the street on an errand for his mother, had a shadow on her face over this very fear. it had been troubling her thoughts for days. were they spoiling home for derrick? if they were—ought it to be done? derrick, the heedless, noisy, fun-loving boy, who rarely stopped to consider whether his fun was a pleasure or an annoyance to even his best friends. derrick, who was inclined to be—gay; she had almost thought that hateful word "fast!" already he liked the streets at night too well, and was chafing a little even under the very mild restraints that they had tried to throw around him. if this unknown aunt were like her sister and brother, might she not drive him from home altogether?
ray forman could not have told the precise time in her life when she began to shoulder responsibilities and try to devise ways for relieving the family burdens. it seemed to her that she had always known that both father and mother had more work and care than they ought, and that florence and jean, and especially derrick, were not old enough to realize it, but she was, and must help. right royally she had been doing it for years. the winning of a scholarship had enabled her to spend two years in an institution far in advance of the local college where she had expected to graduate. she had paid her board during this time by teaching for two hours each day in the preparatory department; and her incidental expenses had been so much less than her sister's as to call from their father the dry remark that they ought to have sent florence also, for economy's sake.
it was not alone in money matters that ray helped. to both jean and derrick she had been more like a mother than a sister. derrick especially, since the time when she had followed him patiently through the long, bright days of his second summer while her mother lay ill, had seemed to be her very special charge. he had accepted her watchful care with cheerfulness, even with satisfaction; often, from force of habit, rushing in search of her—when in need of help—instead of his mother.
it was only quite recently that she had begun to feel a foreshadowing of restiveness under her suggestions. not that he had outspokenly rebelled; nor referred to her fretfully as the others did occasionally. more than once florence had been heard to exclaim: "oh, ray, don't be so awfully old maidish! what's the harm?" the utmost that derrick had allowed himself was a good-humored drawling jibe, like: "oh, yes, grandma, i'll be careful; i won't even get my feet wet when i go in swimming," or some kindred sarcasm intended to emphasize the folly of her solicitude; yet ray understood and puzzled over it all, questioning sometimes as to whether she was helping, or hindering.
that hint of "old maidishness" touched a sorer spot in her heart than her sister realized. there were hours when she assured herself that there was no prospect of her being able to leave her mother with a daily increasing burden of work and care upon her, and set up a home of her own; the only honorable course for her was to explain this to kendall forsythe and beg him to give up even hope; it was more than a year since she had promised to be his wife, and at that time they had hoped and believed that the way would very soon open for them, but instead it had seemed to close even more securely with each passing month. kendall's mother, who had been his housekeeper and daily companion since the time when they two were suddenly left alone together, front being a very efficient and capable woman had dropped into permanent invalidism, to be cared for by the son, who was still struggling with an insufficient salary and the promise of a larger one when conditions permitted; and there were no present indications of a rise.
notwithstanding all this the young man steadily urged immediate marriage; he had gone over the whole ground carefully, he assured ray, and with pencil and paper and eloquence he tried to convince her how much better the salary could be managed if she were there to help. when, after careful where consideration and the shedding of some bitter tears, she reached the point where she urged upon him honorable freedom, representing it as the only wise course, he merely scoffed, not considering the suggestion worthy of being treated seriously. she might talk to him about that, he said, on his hundredth birthday; certainly before that date he should not be ready to give it the slightest attention. nevertheless, ray, glad over his unhesitating refusal to listen to her, was yet seriously considering that she ought to take steps which would compel him to do so. in all his rose-colored plans for their mutual spending of his salary, ray had given no voice to the one word that loomed before her portentously; that fateful word—clothes. she knew that she realized, as he could not, that ray forman, one of the girls in her father's unpretentious house, could be clothed respectably on a much smaller sum of money than would suffice for mrs. kendall forsythe, who would enter a family that had for generations made a bride the excuse for all manner of social functions, of which she was expected to be the centre. the forsythe family, at least that portion of it to which kendall belonged, were no longer wealthy, but they were aristocratic, and were looked upon as one of the oldest and most honored of the "first families"; as often as ray tried to imagine herself making ready to be the lady of honor at one of their dinner parties she shivered and thought of her father's burdens. certainly they must not marry yet, not for a long time, probably; and the probability grew to certainty in her own mind as she watched the trend of circumstances. now here was coming aunt elsie to add to the household duties and expenses! certainly she ought to have that emphatic break with kendall that would mark her hereafter as one who had a right to be "old maidish."
her thoughts were hovering about matters like these when she heard a suppressed shout from jean: "ray! ray forman! where on earth are you? they've come! two hours before the train is due. did you ever! florence says you are to come down quick and see to them; she hasn't got the room ready yet, and mother is in the oven."
