Good-bye

Elizabeth was making a round of farewell calls. Her summer on Cape Cod was over. Her trunk had already been packed and sent by express to New York, with all the other family baggage excepting the light motor trunk and bags that they were to carry in the car.

Moses and Madget and Mabel surrounded her when she arrived at the Steppes.

"You look like a lady in them clothes," Moses said, "I didn't know you."

"She's got gloves on," Mabel said, "and a pink hat."

"Loverly gloves," said Madget, dreamily. "I want a pink hat."

"I want flowers on my hat," said Mabel, critically.

"How nice your house looks," Elizabeth said. "The kitchen floor is clean, and everything put away."

"Mis' Laury Ann, she's learning me how to do housework, and I learn Mabel pretty good. Marmer she bought some dishes. See 'em there. Mabel and me, we like to keep 'em shined up."

On the two shelves over the pump an array of formidably coloured, coarse crockery had made its appearance. Large pink roses heavily smeared with gilt were the prevailing decoration. Three pink coffee cups, with a gilded moustache protector in each, occupied a place of honour.

"Me and Marmer and Mabel has these," Moses informed her proudly. "Madget, she drinks out of a mug. It's only a plain white mug, so we don't put it where it will show. Ma, she says she had just as soon we would eat out o' them dishes if we'll clean 'em up after."

"Who does the cooking?"

"I told you I done the cooking once," Moses said, "how many times have you got to be said it over to?"

"Moses!"

"Well," said Moses, argumentatively, "if you was old enough to boss me, it would be different, but you ain't."

"I'm bigger than you are, Moses, and you are not big enough to boss me."

"No," said Moses, "but I'm big enough to fight you to see who's got the most strength. Only girls can't fight."

"Only morally," said Elizabeth.

"Huh?" said Moses, staring blankly.

"Well, never mind. You take care of your mother and sister and be a nice, clean boy, and—and learn your lessons at school."

"Then what'll I get?"

"You'll get to be comfortable and happy by your own efforts."

"Well, I ain't going to do what anybody tells me—much."

"Tell yourself, Moses. Tell yourself to be good, and then mind yourself. I do."

"But you'm a girl," Moses said.

"It doesn't make any difference who you are, Moses. If you don't try to learn that lesson about minding yourself, you won't get on very well."

"Who says so?"

"Miss Laury Ann says so, for one."

"Did she tell you to mind yourself?"

"She—she showed me how to do it."

"Does she mind herself?"

"Always, that's what makes her—so nice and kind. You see, Moses, you are the man of the family, and the man of the family has to be responsible for it and have a good control of it. So you've got to have a good control of yourself." The word was unfortunate.

"Ma's got a control," Moses said. "Little Eva."

"I didn't mean that kind of control, Moses. I meant—well, you just think what I meant. I want you to promise me that you will watch yourself and tell yourself what's right and wrong, just as if you were telling it to somebody else."

"Well, I'll see about it," said Moses, "but if I do it, they got to," he pointed to his sisters.

"Try it a while for yourself, and then if it works, teach it to them," said Elizabeth with sudden inspiration.

"Well, I'll teach it to them, anyway," Moses decided.

"Here comes Marmer," Mabel cried.

"I just slipped over to Mis' Hawes'," Mrs. Steppe explained, apologetically. "I had a matter I wanted to consult her about. My spine kinder give way last night, and I thought when she was going into a trance, she might see if Little Eva had anything to say about it. It ain't important enough for her to go into one special for."

Elizabeth stared at the vision in purple velvet—a tight-fitting basque of obsolete make gripped the eighteen-inch waist inexorably, and the skirt, cut to the prevailing eight inches above the floor, exposed high white canvas shoes with knotted laces, shoes that had apparently never been cleaned in the course of their long and useful existence. Mrs. Steppe had not prefaced this elaborate toilet by arranging her hair, and the light strands stood out from her face, straggling and unkempt as usual.

"I'm glad to see you," Elizabeth said, a little confusedly. "I just came in to say good-bye. I'm going away to-night, you know."

"What train be you taking?"

"I'm not taking any train. We're motoring."

"Well," said Mrs. Steppe. "I'm glad you got an automobile to go in. I'm one of those that likes to see my friends get on in the world."

"So—so do I," said Elizabeth. "What a pretty colour that dress is."

"I like to wear silks and velvets," Mrs. Steppe said, with the slightest emphasis on the I. "Some people don't care nothing about it."

"I love silks and velvets myself, and that's a lovely quality."

"When I put my money in anything, I like to put it in something good."

"Yes, indeed. I think that's my brother tooting his horn for me, so I'll have to say good-bye."

"It's quite a little car, ain't it?" Mrs. Steppe surveyed the new roadster from the vantage point of the window. "For my taste, I like these limousines, but anything that will go is better than nothing."

"Yes, indeed," said Elizabeth, "good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Mrs. Steppe, "take care of yourself. I hope you'll find me in better health next summer than you have this."

"Good-bye, Mabel. Good-bye, Madget."

"Good-bye," said Mabel, "come again."

"Kiss me again, Madget," said Elizabeth, "aren't you a little sorry I am going? Oh, be good children, won't you?"

"Bring me a present some time," said Mabel.

"I will."

"Well, if you say you will, you will—I know that," said Mabel.

"Leggo," said their mother, "leggo. That little automobile out there is waiting for her. Tell Moses to get off that front seat and come back into the house. I don't know where the boy's manners is. I ain't never seen any sign of them."

"Oh, dear!" said Elizabeth, as she drove away with Buddy, "it doesn't seem as if anybody with so little intelligence could be so selfish as that Mis' Steppe is. It saddens me every time I go there. I know I've had a funny call, but it doesn't seem funny to me. It never does."

"Now, you want to be dropped at Peggy's, don't you?"

"Yes, please."

"Give Peggy my love and tell her to keep us informed about her sister."

"I guess you've kept informed about her ever since she left."

"A little additional information at times won't do any harm. I don't want her to spring anything on me—like getting out of the country."

"She's getting ready to go abroad."

"She thinks she's getting ready to go abroad. I just want about ten days before the day she thinks she's going."

"She's getting her passport."

"I want her to," said Buddy, affectionately, "I want her to have everything go the way she thinks she wants it to go, and then at the end I want to step right in and smash it."

"Just like that?" said Elizabeth.

"Just like that," said Buddy, happily.

"I don't believe I'm going to be able to bear this," said Peggy. "I thought it was going to be all right to say good-bye. Everybody has to at this time of the year, but—but that doesn't make it any easier. I don't want to part with you at all. I couldn't sleep last night, thinking of it."

"Neither could I," said Elizabeth.

"It's a whole year till next summer."

"I know it."

"I figured it out. It will be at least two hundred and seventy-two days before we are down here together again."

"Will it? We might visit each other in the winter."

"We might, but will we? You know my parents and I know yours. They always have other plans for their offspring in the vacations."

"How is your mother?" Elizabeth asked.

"She's pretty good. I did Mother an injustice. She's a better loser than I thought she'd be. She's been awfully decent to Ruth. Elizabeth, do you know what I found out about Ruth?"

"Oh, what?"

"I found out why she broke her engagement. I would have broken mine. She found out that he falsified his income tax report. He bragged about it to her. He thought it was smart. She wouldn't stand for it, that's all. If he hadn't given himself away, she'd be Mrs. Millionaire-slacker-Piggy Chambers, and half over to Europe by this time."

"I don't like to think of it."

"Well, then, think of me," said Peggy. "You don't care as much as I care. You are going back to your Jean and you like her best. There, I said I would bite my tongue out before I said that to you, and now I've gone and said it."

"Let's not care what we say," Elizabeth said. "I do love Jean. Grandmother always says it doesn't make any difference how many children a woman has, she always has a different place in her heart for every one. I guess that's the way it is with friends. None of them can occupy the same place."

"I only have one in my place," said Peggy, "you are my most intimate friend and I am not yours. Well, I guess I'll have to get reconciled to it."

"I have two most intimate friends," said Elizabeth, "don't cry, Peggy."

"Well, you're crying yourself, that's something. It's—it's a great deal."

"Good-bye," said Elizabeth, "there's Buddy's horn again."

"Good-bye," said Peggy. "Oh, I won't say good-bye. I—I guess I'll come over there and see you off."

"She won't," Elizabeth thought, "she's just saying that to postpone the evil hour. All right, Peggy, dear," she said aloud, "good-bye till—good-bye!" and she flung her arms around Peggy's neck in a suffocating embrace.

In the old valanced rocking chairs before the living-room windows Grandfather and Grandmother Swift sat alone in the gathering darkness.

"House seems kinder lonesome to-night, don't it, Mother? Hard lines to lose the whole family all to once. They ought to gone off one by one, so's we wouldn't notice it so much."

"Times come and seasons change," said Grandmother. "We have to expect to let 'em go. We are lucky to have them coming, even if we do have to let them go again."

"Young John—Buddy she calls him—is as likely a young feller as I ever see."

"And as handsome."

"John—he's made a fine job of his business and a fine job of his life, as far as I can see. He keeps remarkable young for a man of his way of living, too. Don't dissipate none. I expect that's the secret of it. He picked himself up a pretty likely wife, too—good looking and sweet natured and no nonsense about her. She looks like her, too."

"She's going to be about her mother's size, I should say, when she gets her growth. She ain't quite so fair, but she's got the same eyes, and the same long, light-coloured lashes."

"But her mouth's all Swift," said Grandfather. "You know that tintype we got of John. Why, cut her hair off, and put her in a boy's shirt and necktie and she'd be the image of him."

"When they stood up there together by the door just before they started, and he put his arm around your shoulder, the likeness stood out plain then."

"Where's Judidy to-night? Gone out with her feller?"

"No, not to-night. The poor critter felt so bad when she see that car pulling out of the yard that she burst out into a fit of crying, and put her apron over her head and run off. She hasn't been heard from since."

"Judidy was fond of her, and she had cause to be. I guess she give her almost a complete wedding outfit out of her own fixings that she brought down."

"It was pretty cunning of her to give away the silk things she set such a store by. She washed 'em all out herself and run new ribbons in them, and then went and laid them out on Judidy's bed, with her eyes full of tears because she was parting with them. She found out that Judidy had set her heart on silk underwear for her wedding outfit, and she thought it all out that she had ought to give them to her. 'I have about everything I want, Grandma,' she said, 'and I've had a summer's wear out of them.' She don't exaggerate nothing much, that she does."

"She's been pretty plucky, the way she took right hold helping you in the kitchen. She's helped me, too. When we was getting in the hay, and Zeckal was busy all the time she mixed up the hog's vittles and fed the hens, and carted big pails of water around. Faith, Hope, and Charity, they've been squealing considerable to-night, I notice. I guess they kinder feel the absence of a friend."

"You remember the first night she come, Father? You was kind o' disappointed in her."

"So was you, but you didn't let on nothing."

"You said that you kinder hoped that John's girl was going to be a little more like folks."

Grandfather chuckled.

"Did I?" he said. "Well, she turned out to be a good deal more like folks than most people ever gets to be."

Grandmother wiped her eyes.

"There," she said, "I'm most always able to be philosophical about everything, but to tell the truth, I don't know how I am going to be able to get along without that child."

"Well—" Grandfather took off his spectacles and wiped them carefully before he transferred his attention to the process of mopping his forehead—"well, I don't know how I'm going to get along without her, either," he said.

THE END