The Comings of Cousin Ann Part 8

"Judith, you must not lower yourself."

"I'm not lowering myself one bit, Mumsy. Just look at it this way: Suppose I had a shop in Ryeville. Wouldn't I serve any customers who came to the shop, whether they were kin and refused to admit kins.h.i.+p or not--whether they called me red-head, when everybody knows my hair is auburn, or not? I'd hardly refuse to sell to those persons who did not consider me their social equal and did not ask me to house parties or to dances when my feet are just itching to dance. I'd sell to any and everybody who came in the shop. Exactly! Well, now you see I have a shop on wheels. I must go to any and every body who might have use for my wares. I'd have a very limited clientele if I stuck to those who considered me on their level and whom I considered on mine. So give me your blessing, Mumsy, and wish me well."

"Judith, how you do run on! Aren't you afraid that that Jeff Bucknor will think you are running after him?"

"Not in the least. He's not that kind of a man. I know by the way his ears are set and the way his hair grows on his forehead and the way his eyes crinkle up at the corners as though he never missed a joke.

People who never miss jokes don't go around thinking other persons are running after them all the time. I know by the way he looks out of his eyes. It isn't only his eyes that look at you but there is something behind them that looks at you. I reckon if I were a sissy girl I'd say his eyes were soulful, but you see I'm not. I tell you, Mumsy, my Cousin Jeff is a powerful likely young man and I'm quite proud of him.

Too bad he doesn't know he's my kin."

Mrs. Buck sighed. "I guess he wouldn't claim relations.h.i.+p with you if he did know. Those Bucknors of Buck Hill are a proud-stomached lot.

They've been dusting me on the pike ever since I was a little girl--dusting me and never even seeing me."

"Did you ever speak to them?"

"Of course not. I was never one to put myself forward."

"Well, why should they speak to you any more than you speak to them?

Aren't you as good as they are? Surely, and a great deal prettier. You are as much prettier than Mrs. Bucknor as a day lily is prettier than a cabbage rose," declared Judith.

"Oh, how you do talk, Judy! Of course, when I say they didn't ever speak I mean they never went out of their way to speak. When we had deaths over here they kind of acted neighborly like and sent word to call on them if we needed anything, but we never did, as my mother and I always saved mourning from time to time. I guess they'd have been a little more back-and-forth friendly if it hadn't have been for your Grandfather Buck. He was kind of difficult like when he was drinking and that was most times. He was either drinking or getting over drunks as a general thing. Then he was mighty lazy and s.h.i.+ftless."

"Poor Mumsy! You've had a right hard time with us Bucks. Grandfather Buck was so lazy he worried you to death and I'm so energetic I know I annoy you terribly. But all this talking isn't selling toilet articles to house parties. By the way, I got a 'phone message from my motormen.

They want six suppers this evening. That means I must run into Ryeville and buy some more baskets and lay in provisions of all kinds.

I wish I'd been triplets, or at least twins. I could accomplish so much more."

"Land sakes, Judy! Surely you do enough as it is. All six dinners at once?"

"Oh no! Two on the six, two on the six-thirty and two for the seven.

I'm afraid I'll wear the path into a ditch. I'm glad to see the beets are big enough to eat and before you know it we'll have some snap beans and peas. I'm going to get a little darkey to work the garden, because I simply can't give the time for it. Besides, my time is really too valuable for digging just now. Did I tell you I had taken the contract to develop all the amateur photographic films for Baker & Bowles? I saw them about it the other day. They have an awful time getting it done right and they knew I had done a lot of that work for school, so they asked me to try. Of course I couldn't let such a chance slip and since I can do it at night I accepted. It will take only one or two evenings a week. They furnish all the chemicals and it pays very well. I'll do it through the summer anyhow, until school starts."

"What a child! What a child!" was all Mrs. Buck could say. "I don't believe even the Norse sailor could have beat her."

Again the old men on the hotel porch were treated to a sight of Judith Buck. She parked her little blue car directly across the street from the Rye House and began the business of shopping.

"What you reckon that Judy gal is up to now?" queried Judge Middleton.

"I betcher she's goin' in the butcher shop."

"I betcher she ain't," said Pete Barnes for the sake of argument. "I betcher she's going in the Emporium to buy herself a blue dress."

"Maybe," ruminated Major Fitch. "I always did hold to women folks that had sense enough to wear blue. That blue that Miss Judith Buck wears is just my kind of blue too--not too light and not too dark--kinder betwixt and between, like way-off hills or--"

"Kittens' eyes," suggested Colonel Crutcher with a twinkle.

"Cat's foot! Nothin' of the kind! Anyhow, that kind of blue is mighty becomin' to Miss Judith."

They all agreed to this and when Judith appeared again with her arms laden with bundles to be stowed in the back of the car the old men called in chorus:

"Hiyer, Miss Judith?"

"Hiyer, yourselves?" she answered.

"Come over and tell us the news," they begged, and she ran across the street and perched on the railing of the Rye House, while she recounted what news she had picked up on her peddling trip of the day before.

"Uncle Peter Turner has gone over to cook and wash dishes for the ladies at Mr. Big Josh Bucknor's. They haven't had a servant for weeks. They thought Miss Ann Peyton was coming but she turned in at Buck Hill, I saw her. She has been visiting the Throckmortons and left there in a hurry. Old Aunt Minnie, over at Clayton, has just had her hundredth descendant. She had sixteen children of her own and all of them have had their share of children and grandchildren. I know it's so because I just sold one of the great-granddaughters some hair straightener and a box of flea powder and she thought of getting some talc.u.m powder for the new baby, but decided to use flea powder instead."

The old men laughed delightedly. "Tell us some more," they demanded.

"The widow Simco, at Nine Mile House, asked me what had become of Mr.

Pete Barnes. I sold her some henna shampoo and a box of bronze hairpins."

Pete grinned sheepishly, but straightened his cravat and pulled his whiskers in a way men have when complimented by the fair s.e.x.

"How's your business?" asked Major Fitch.

"Which business?" asked Judith. "I've got so many you'll have to say which one. But all of them are coming on pretty well. I must be going.

So long!" She was up and away like a blue flash.

"Now ain't she likely?" quavered old Judge Middleton. "There ain't many pretty gals like her'd stop an' gossip with a bilin' of ol'

has-beens like us."

"Yes, that's the truth," said Colonel Crutcher. "Did you see Bob Bucknor's oldest girl going by in her father's car while Miss Judy was cheering us up? She had a young blood in with her--that young Harbison from Louisville. He nearly fell out of the car, rubbering at Miss Judy. That Bucknor miss hardly more than glanced this way, but she was showing the whites of her eyes in that glance. My granddaughter, Betty, was telling me only last night that the only reason Judy Buck wasn't asked to join their dancing club was that the Bucknor gals got their backs up about asking her and kind of talked them down--calling Judy common and poor white trash and such like. Betty says the girls all like her better than they do the Bucknors, but you know how it is with the folks from Buck Hill--they just naturally take the lead in social matters and n.o.body ever has crossed them. I wish I had a house of my own. I tell you I'd give that Judy Buck a comin' out party that would make your hair curl," declared the Colonel.

"Well, I've got a house, but it wouldn't be big enough to ask all the people I'd want to have to Miss Judy's ball," spoke up Major Fitch.

"By golly, I got a idee!" exclaimed Pete Barnes, letting his chair that had been tilted against the wall drop on all four legs and bringing his feet, which had been draped over the railing, to the floor at the same time with a resounding stamp. "I got an idee for sure."

"Well?" asked Major Fitch.

"Let's all of us ol' ones get together an' hire the skating rink an'

give Miss Judy Buck a party that this county won't ever forget."

The other chairs came down on all fours and the veterans of the Rye House porch drew together in solemn conclave. Old tongues clicked and old beards wagged, while Pete Barnes' idea took constructive shape.

"We'll ask all the neighborhood and even some out of the neighborhood.

We'll have the band up from Louisville and a caterer from there and do the thing up brown," chuckled Pete.

"Maybe society will hold back when we ask them to come to old d.i.c.k Buck's granddaughter's ball," suggested one.

"Don't tell 'em whose ball it is until they get there. That's the way to catch the snippy ones. Let's don't even tell Miss Judy. It might make her kind of shy. Just let 'em all get to dancin' an' kinder warmed up an' then when we got 'em where they can't back out without bein' mighty rude we'll up an' make speeches an' let the county know how we stand for that girl an' what she is an' how proud we are of her," suggested Judge Middleton.

"We'll get all the old boys in town to come in on it. I mean our crowd, and there won't be one who will give the secret away. And we'll give that gal a rush that would turn her pretty red head if it belonged to anybody else--but there is no turning a wise head like hers."

"We won't let any women in on it either," said Pete.

"Not even the Widow Simco?" asked Major Fitch.

"The women oughter have looked after the gal long ago, and now we men folks will take it on us. What'll we call the ball?" asked Mr.

Barnes, ignoring the Major's thrust.