The Open Question Part 23

"Emmie says she only lets cousin Ethan climb trees."

"Oh-a, well--a--I dare say there are plenty of other things. Aren't the peaches nearly ripe?"

"I don't know."

"Have you seen my Indian arrowheads and stone hatchets down-stairs in the cabinet?"

Val shook her head despairingly.

"They're in _her_ room."

Her father seemed not to notice.

"And to-morrow I must show you the great slab of stone at the back door.

The oldest inhabitant of this place told me when I first came to New Plymouth that he remembered cracking nuts there at recess in 1800, when he went to school here. There aren't many little girls who have such a wonderful old house to live in."

"N--no. I liked the little trees and houses in the silver at supper."

"You'll like lots of things. I've got an old fiddle somewhere about--"

"_Have_ you? Oh, _that_'ll be fun!"

She crept up under his arm and nestled down against him.

It is no part of the office of this plain chronicle to attempt to justify any person in it. Mrs. Gano herself was too little touched by other people's opinions for one who sets about reporting her to dare belittle her robust errors, or omit the defects of her qualities. Few things would have bothered her so much as "being universally beloved,"

as the phrase goes; and yet, or perhaps because of this, her family affections struck such deep root that plucking them up was like tearing asunder the very fibres of her life. Even now, even to her son, she could not speak of Valeria. Her long hands shook when she touched the dead woman's books. When chance would bring to light a sc.r.a.p of the familiar writing, she would look away hurriedly, that she might not break down utterly and lose herself in that ocean of agonized regret that had threatened to sweep her, too, out of the world after Valeria's death. It could never have occurred to her as possible that she should set about winning anybody's affections. She would probably have regarded it as a slavish and far from upright procedure. Affection was not a thing to set snares for. It was the duty of children to love their parents (she would probably have said to "honor" them); it was the duty of parents to train the children in the way they should go. That was "the law and the prophets." She could never have quite realized the impression she made on the young or guilty-minded, but she would not have denied that she belonged to a generation disposed to treat healthy children on more or less Spartan principles. She had from time to time obtained a sufficiently all-round view of the spoiling process that had, to her thinking, wellnigh ruined Val Gano.

She had come quickly to the conclusion that she would say nothing more to the child's nervous and ailing father, but was quite definitely minded to set to work quietly and vigorously to correct in Val's upbringing the pernicious mixture of sentimentality and neglect that had made the child a _revoltee_ and a household terror. Already in New York there had been a battle royal on the subject of the proper bedtime for a little girl. Val had announced herself in no uncertain note as mortally opposed to retiring at eight, or even nine. If there was one thing more than another that she objected to utterly it was this going to bed at all. Her mother had been helpless to prevent her from ranging the house till remorseless sleep struck her down in the midst of her delights. If she could manage to keep her eyes open, or to wake up after a brief oblivion, she had made no bones about descending during the evening in her night-gown, entirely prepared for the rapturous reception she knew awaited her from her father. Val had early, then, come to a.s.sociate her grandmother with tyrannical designs on the liberty of the free-born child after the hour of eight. She also had cause to know her repulsive opinions on the value of a milk and cereal diet for the young. These, and a general sense of radically opposed interests, not unmixed with astonishment at, and fear of, the alarming old lady, made up the sum of Val's dismay when she came calmly to consider what life was going to be like here at the Fort.

She woke up on the morning after her arrival with a vague sense of a duty to perform. She rubbed her eyes and kicked Emmie. Ah, yes, that was it--her grandmother had not understood. She had condemned Val, who was accustomed to her own room, with all her "things" about her, just as she liked them, and no one to interfere--she had put Val in "another person's room," with a single big bed in it, and condemned her to sleep with Emmie. Her grandmother must be brought to a better understanding.

The child made no further announcement of her frame of mind till she sat down to a barren breakfast with the despised Emmie. There was no coffee. There was tea going up to her father, as usual. The silent Emmie quaffed her mug of milk serenely. For a year now Val had demanded and been given her morning cup of coffee.

"Ask for some for me, please," she said, after making inquiries of Venie.

"Gamma says cawfee will make you an old woman before you're a young one," said Emmie, showing her milk-white teeth in a pleased smile. "You can't have any cawfee."

"Tell the cook, please," said Val, in a loud voice, "that I'm waitin'

for my coffee."

An' Jerusha put in a turbaned head.

"Lordy, missy! don' yer yell like dat, an' I'll make yo' some cambric tea."

"I won't drink cambric tea. I'm the oldest of the famerly, and my father always let me have coffee."

"Yo' father ve'y ill, missy. Yo' mustn't worrit yo' father."

"I _never_ worry my father--I settle everything for myself. Are you going to get my coffee?"

"Can't do dat, missy, widout leab."

"Isn't grandma coming to breakfast?"

"No; she always habs it in her own room since Miss Valery died."

The child pushed back her chair and marched out. The two women called remonstrance after her, but a mighty indignation swept her on. She halted before her grandmother's room, knocked loudly, and opened the door without further waiting.

Midway in her valiant advance upon the enemy she stood still. Mrs. Gano was sitting propped with huge feather pillows in an ancient four-poster.

She wore a small shrunken cotton nightcap awry on her wonderful thick hair, which tumbled out in a tangle of silver and lay dishevelled over the white flannel jacket that was b.u.t.toned crooked over her night-gown, the sleeves hanging loose and armless. In her long taper fingers she held an open letter. Envelopes, notes, the _Baltimore Sun_, and other papers were strewn thick over the silk patchwork quilt. A breakfast tray stood on a table by the bedside. It wasn't her attire, it wasn't even the shrunken, rakish nightcap (self-conscious and uneasy at its obvious shortcomings), that made the old lady's aspect so arresting. She had not said a word at the child's irruption, but she lowered her chin and looked over her heavy gold-rimmed spectacles with a strange cold stare, singularly disconcerting, even slightly paralyzing. But Val's was a bold heart. And she realized that a blow must be struck for liberty.

"They haven't given me any coffee for my breakfast," she announced, with equal directness and warmth.

The piercing eyes bored into her, but the stern mouth uttered no word.

The child began to wish she'd waited till her grandmother were properly dressed and looked more human.

"I'm in my eighth year," she went on with dignity, "and I'm accustomed--"

"'Good-morning!' is the custom in this house," said the old lady.

"Oh! Good-morning!" Slight pause. "The servant says you told her I wasn't to have coffee."

"Well?"

"I always have it at home."

"You're not at home now."

"But I can't eat breakfast without--"

"There's no need for you to eat breakfast if you're not hungry."

"_Why_ can't I have coffee?"

"Because I think it injurious"--the keen old eyes caught the swift disdain of the child's glance at the half-empty cup on the tray--"very injurious for children," she added.

"My mother didn't think so," Val said, feeling her throat swell.

"But I am your grandmother, you see."

She had lowered her chin again; her eyes were shooting out over her spectacles, her eyebrows terrifically high. This grandmother of hers could move her eyebrows about as easily as other people moved their arms and legs. It was a fearsome accomplishment.

"In _my_ house," she went on, after the awful pause, "the thing to be considered is what _I_ think. Among other matters I consider your way of entering a room might be improved. Now, you may see how quietly you can go out."

Seldom has a child been more surprised at an unexpected turn in affairs than was this one when she found herself on the outside of the door. She stood irresolute a moment. Why had she obeyed? She gritted her little white teeth in self-contempt. Should she go back? There were loads of things she had forgot to say. The idea of being sent out like that! She went slowly up-stairs and angrily tumbled some of her clothes out of her trunk. There were three cookies, a cruller, and some chocolates in a box near the bottom. Oh, wise precaution of provident childhood! Still, her present lot was a most unhappy one.

"No breakfast! How angry my poor sainted mother would be!" She shed two tears. "No mother, no coffee, nothing but a cruel grandmother."