Hildegarde's Home Part 19

"'Peach Marmalade.

Made by John Grahame, Viscount Dundee. Gold Medal.'

"This ought to be mine."

"It shall be yours, greedy viscount. Get a spoon and eat it at once, if you like."

"Thank you so much. I would rather take it home, if I may. I say, what is that brown stuff out on the porch, with mosquito netting over it?

Nothing very valuable, I hope?"

"Oh, _Jack_!" cried Hildegarde, springing up, "my peach leather! What have you--did you fall into it? Oh, and I thought you were improving so much! I must go--"

"No, don't go," said her cousin. "I--I only knocked down one plate.

And--Merlin was with me, you know, and I don't believe you would find any left. I am very sorry, Hilda. Can I make some more for you?"

"I think not, my cousin. But no matter, if it is only one plate, for there are a good many, as you saw. Only, do be careful when you go home, that's a good boy."

"What is it, anyhow?"

"Why--you cook it with brown sugar, you know."

"Cook what? Leather?"

"Oh, dear! the masculine mind is _so_ obtuse--peaches, O sacred bird of Juno!"

"The eagle?"

"The goose. You really _must_ study mythology, Jack. You cook the peaches with brown sugar, and then you rub them through a sieve,--it's a horrid piece of work!--and then spread them on plates, just as you saw them, and cover them to keep the flies off."

"And leave long ends trailing to trip up your visitors."

"One doesn't expect giraffes to make morning calls. So after a few days it hardens, if it has the luck to be left alone, and then you roll it up."

"Plates and all?"

"Of course! and sprinkle sugar over it, and it is really delicious. I might have given you that plate you knocked over, but now--"

"It was the smallest, I remember."

"And, Jack, I made it all myself. No one else touched it. And all this marmalade, and three dozen pots of currant jelly, and four dozen of crab-apple."

"Sacred bird of Juno!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed her cousin.

"Do you dare call _me_ a goose, sir?"

"She drove peac.o.c.ks, didn't she? I do know a _little_ mythology.

"But, Hildegarde, be serious now, will you? I'm in a peck of trouble, as Biddy says. I want consolation, or advice, or something."

"Sit down, and tell me," said Hildegarde, full of interest at once.

Jack sat down and drummed on the table, a thing that Hildegarde had never been allowed to do.

"I got a letter from Daddy, yesterday," he said, after a pause. "Herr Geigen is going to Germany now, in a week, and Daddy says I may go if Uncle Tom is willing."

"And he isn't willing?" Hilda said. "Oh!"

Jack got up and moved restlessly about the room, laying waste the chairs as he went. "Willing? He only roars, and says, 'Stuff and nonsense!'

which is no answer, you know, Hilda. If he would just say 'No,'

quietly, I--well, of course you can make up your mind to stand a thing, and stand it. But he won't listen to me for five minutes. If he could realise--one can get as good an education at Leipsic as at Harvard. But his idea of Germany is a country inhabited by a crazy emperor and a 'parcel of Dutch fiddlers,' and by no one else. I shall have to give it up, I suppose."

"Oh, no!" cried Hildegarde hopefully. "Don't give it up yet. You know when mamma spoke to him, he didn't absolutely say 'No.' He said he would think about it. Perhaps--she might ask him if he had thought about it.

Wait a day or two, at any rate, Jack, before you write to your father.

Can you wait?"

"Oh, yes! but it won't make any difference. I suppose it's good for me.

You say all trouble is good in the end. Have you ever had any trouble, I wonder, Hilda?"

"My father!" said Hildegarde, colouring.

"Forgive me!" cried her cousin. "I am a brute! an idiotic brute! What shall I do?" he said in desperation, seeing the tears in the girl's clear eyes. "It would do no good if I went and shot myself, or I would in a minute. You will forgive me, Hilda?"

"My dear, there is nothing to forgive!" said Hildegarde, smiling kindly at him. "Nothing at all. I shouldn't have minded--but--it is his birthday to-morrow," and the tears overflowed this time, while Jack stood looking at her in silent remorse, mentally heaping the most frantic abuse upon himself.

The tears were soon dried, however, and Hildegarde was her cheerful self again. "You must go now," she said, "for I have all these jam-pots to put away, and it is nearly dinner-time. See! this jar of peach marmalade is for Hugh, because he is fond of it. Of course Mrs. Beadle can make it a great deal better, but he will like this because his Purple Maid made it. Isn't he a darling, Jack?"

"Yes, he's a little brick, certainly. Uncle Tom calls him the Phoenix, and is more delighted with him every day. Now _there's_ a boy who ought to go to Harvard."

"He will," said Hildegarde, nodding sagely. "Good-by, Jack dear!"

"It is very early. I don't see why I have to go so soon! Can't I help you to put away the jam-pots?"

"You can go home, my dear boy. Good-by! I sha'nt forget--"

"Oh, good-by!" and Jack flung off in half a huff, as auntie would have said.

Hildegarde looked after him thoughtfully. "How young he is!" she said to herself. "I wonder if boys always are. And yet he is two years older than I by the clock, if you understand what I mean!" She addressed the jam-pots, in grave confidence, and began to put them away in their own particular cupboard.

CHAPTER XV.

AT THE BROWN COTTAGE.

HILDEGARDE'S mind was still full of her cousin and his future, as she sat that afternoon in Mrs. Lankton's kitchen, with her sewing-school around her. The brown cottage with the green door had been found the most central and convenient place for the little cla.s.s, and it was an object of absorbing interest to Mrs. Lankton herself. She hovered about Hildegarde and her scholars, predicting disease and death for one and another, with ghoulish joy.

"Your ma hadn't ought to let you come out to-day, Marthy Skeat. You warn't never rugged from the time you was a baby; teethin' like to have carried you off, and 'tain't too late now. There's wisdom teeth, ye know. Well, it's none o' my business, but I hope your ma's prepared.