Джин Уэбстер - Much Ado About Peter

Peter clapped his hand over his mouth and Nora cast him a warning look.

"You're goin' to the beach with Pete to see the fireworks, that's where you're goin' to-night," she said. "I'll help Ellen with her dishes."

"Thank ye, Nora," said Ellen. "'Tis a kind heart ye've got, an' that's more 'n I can say for Mr. Jasper, for all I've worked for 'im thirteen years. 'Tis soup, an' fish, an' roast, an' salad, an' dessert the man's after wantin' for dinner to-night, an' no one but me to wash a kettle. If it wasn't for Annie, I'd be leavin', I would." Ellen wrung the skirt out and splashed it up and down in the rinsing water. "An' now while this dress is dryin' ready to iron, I'll just run home an' stir up a bit o' puddin' for dessert, if ye'll be lendin' me some vanilla, Nora dear. That fool of a grocery b'y–"

"Oh, take your vanilla an' get along wit' you! We've had all we wants o' your soup an' your fish an' the rest o' your fixin's."

Nora dived into the pantry after the bottle, while the attention of the others was attracted by a gay laugh outside the window. Annie's face clouded at the sound, and they all looked out.

Miss Ethel was coming across the lawn on her way to the bay. Mr. Lane, who was visiting at Willowbrook, strolled at her side, dressed in white boating flannels with some oars over his shoulder. A little way behind walked Mr. Harry, a second pair of oars over his shoulder, and his eyes somewhat surlily bent on the ground. Miss Ethel, pretty and smiling in her light summer gown, was talking vivaciously to Mr. Lane, apparently having forgotten that Mr. Harry existed.

"I'd show her pretty quick if I was Mr. Harry!" Ellen muttered vindictively.

Miss Ethel paused and shaded her eyes with her hand.

"It's awfully sunny!" she complained. "I'm afraid I want a hat." She glanced back over her shoulder. "Harry," she called, "run back and get my hat. I think I left it on the front veranda, or maybe at the tennis-court. We'll wait for you at the landing."

For a moment Mr. Harry looked black at this peremptory dismissal; but he bowed politely, and whirling about strode back to the house while Miss Ethel and Mr. Lane went on laughing down the hill.

"An' she never so much as said please!" whispered Annie.

"I'll be darned if I'd do it," said Peter.

"We got three kids visitin' to our house, and there won't be nothin' left o' Willowbrook by the time they goes away. Hold up, Trixy! What are ye tryin' to do?"

Peter paused to hook the line out from under Trixy's tail, and then re-cocking his hat at a comfortable angle and crossing his legs, he settled himself for conversation. Peter loved to talk and he loved an audience; he was essentially a social animal. His listeners were two brother coachmen and a bandy-legged young groom, who were waiting, like himself, for "ladies' morning" to draw to its usual placid termination—sandwiches and lemonade on the club veranda after a not too heated putting contest on the first green.

"Yes, we got three visitin' kids; with Master Bobby it makes four, and I ain't drawed an easy breath since the mornin' they arrived. They keep up such an everlastin' racket that the people in the house can't stand them, an' we've had them in the stables most o' the time. Mrs. Brainard, that's their mother, is Mr. Carter's sister, and I can tell ye she makes herself to home.

"That's her over there with the lavender dress and the parasol"—he jerked his head in the direction of a gaily dressed group of ladies trailing across the links in the direction of the first green. "She's mournin' for her husband—light mournin', that is; he's dead two years."

"She picked me the first day to look after the la-ads. 'Peter,' she says, 'me dear boys are cr-razy to play in the stables, but I can't help worryin' for fear they'll get under the horses' feet. I have perfect confidence in you,' she says, 'and I'll put them under yer special care. Just keep yer eye on the la-ads an' see that they don't get hur-rt.'

"'Thank ye, ma'am,' says I, flattered by the attention, I'll do the best I can.' I hadn't made the acquaintance o' the little darlin's yet, or I would 'a' chucked me job on the spot.

"Master Augustus—he's the youngest—has gold curls an' blue eyes and a smile as innocint as honey. He's the kind the ladies stops an' kisses, and asks, 'Whose little boy is you?' At the first glance ye'd think to see a couple o' wings sproutin' out behind, but when ye knowed him intimately, ye'd look for the horns an' tail. I've pulled that little divvil three times out o' the duck pond, and I've fished him out from the grain chute with a boat hook. I couldn't tell ye the number o' trees he's climbed after birds' eggs and got stuck in the top of; we keeps a groom an' ladder on tap, so to speak. One afternoon I caught the four o' them smokin' cigarettes made o' dried corn silk up in the hay loft as comfortable as ye please—'tis many a stable-boy as has been bounced for less. Between them they finished up the dope the vet'rinary surgeon left when Blue Gipsy had the heaves, thinkin' it was whisky—an' serves them right, I say. I didn't tell on 'em, though, when the doctor asked what I thought the trouble was; I said I guessed it was green apples.

"But them's only the minor divarsions that occupy their leisure; they're nothin' to the things they think of when they really get down to business. The first thing they done was to pretend the victoria was a pirate ship; an' they scratched the paint all up a-tryin' to board her. Joe turned 'em out o' doors to play, an' they dug up the whole o' the strawberry bed huntin' for hidden treasure. Their next move was to take off their shoes an' stockin's, turn their clothes wrong side out, an' dirty up their faces with huckleberry juice—ye would have sworn they was a lot o' jabberin' Dagoes. They went beggin' in all the houses o' the neighbourhood, includin' Willowbrook, an' Nora never knew them an' give them some cold potatoes.

"One day last week they nearly broke their blame young necks slidin' down the waggon-shed roof on a greased tea-tray. There's a pile o' straw at the bottom that kind of acted as a buffer, but Master Augustus didn't steer straight an' went over the edge. 'Twas only a drop o' four feet, but he come up lookin' damaged.

"That ain't the worst though. Last Sunday afternoon they frightened the cow into hysterics playin' she was a bull, an' they was matydoors or torydoors, or whatever ye call them. They stuck pins into her with paper windmills on the end, and she ain't give more 'n six quarts at any milkin' since. I was mad, I was, an' I marched 'em to the house an' tole their mother.

"'It grieves me,' she says, 'to think that me boys should be so troublesome; but they didn't mean to be cruel to the poor dumb brute. They're spirited la-ads,' she says, 'an' their imaginations run away wid them. What they needs is intilligent direction. Ye should try,' she says, 'to enter into the spirit o' their innocint divarsions; an' when ye see them doin' somethin' dangerous, gintly turn their thoughts into another channel. Their grattytood,' she says, 'will pay ye for yer trouble.'

"'Wery well, ma'am,' says I, not too enthusiastic, 'I'll do the best I can,' and I bows meself out. I've been superintendin' their innocint divarsions ever since, and if there's any one as wants the job, I'll turn it over to him quick."

Peter paused to back his horses farther into the shade; then having climbed down and taken a drink at a near-by hydrant, he resumed his seat and the conversation.

"But ye should have seen them this mornin' when I drove off! They was a sight if there ever was one. Joe's away with Mr. Carter and I'm takin' charge for the day. When I went into the carriage-house to give Billy orders about hitchin' up, what should I find but them precious little lambkins gambolin' around in stri-ped bathin' trunks, an' not another stitch. They was further engaged in paintin' their skins where the trunks left off—an' that was the most o' them—with a copper colour foundation and a trimmin' o' black stripes.