Victor panted up the steps, still clutching at his stocking. His breath came in loud, hiccuping sobs; his face was streaked and furrowed with dust and sweat.
“Wh-where’s Mamma, M-martha? Where’s Mamma?”
“Mah gooness, honey! Pump him a drink, yo’ Albert—let Martha wipe off yo’ face, po’ lamb—an’ den run find his Mamma and tell huh he’s done come home.”
Mamma was in the grape-house with Caesar. The leaves and the heavy bunches of grapes made a broad cool pattern against the sky’s blue dazzle, and there were shadow leaves on her wide straw hat and on her arms, creamy and smooth between her flowing sleeves and her loose gardening gloves.
The air was moist and warm and fragrant. Caesar stood on the old broken chair and cut a heavy bunch of grapes, Mamma lifted up the leaf-lined basket and he laid the bunch in, so gently, as if he were laying a sleeping baby in its cradle. But she let the basket drop and came running, when Albert told her Victor had come home by himself.
He sat on Mamma’s lap, her tender arms around him. He looked at them all with round eyes over the top of the tumbler, silver with coolness. He drank and drank and drank. And they were all there, around him, Mamma and the girls, old Chloe in the doorway still holding the bowl she had been mixing corn bread in, Martha, and Albert, and Caesar with his scissors, and Trusty thumping his tail on the floor. Home drew around him, welcoming him. The little fish was safe in his seaweed again.
VIII
Each year the pencil marks to show how much the children had grown crept up and up by the side door, like a rising tide. And then Maggie’s stopped rising, and she was a grown-up young lady; though you wouldn’t have known it from seeing her in the morning, in her shabby old dress, up in the cherry tree helping Albert pick cherries, or galloping around the meadow bareback on Stella, or, in the woods, pulling off her stockings and dew-soaked shoes to wade knee-deep with Victor in the foam-flecked brown brook.
But, when they drove to evening parties, or rolled up their own parlor carpet and sprinkled candle-shavings over the floor, she blossomed out with bustle and chignon, high heels and long earrings; and every bit of her was young lady then, except the little boy feelings inside of her.
The world was flowing in on them—here a little trickle, there a rush. So many more people than there used to be, and so much to do! Dancing and picnics and tableaux—oh, life was such fun!
May tried to pull Mamma’s gown together at the waist while Mamma looked Maggie and Lily over. She knew May would be all right, but the other two were so careless.
Maggie’s straight brown hair was parted in the middle, and brushed, sleek as satin, over a huge bun of chignon. Her cream and brown striped silk dress cocked up like a wren’s tail behind in a big bustle, and then cascaded off into a little train, and Mamma had lent her a lace frill for her open collar.
Lily was in blue, to match her eyes, and her fair flowing hair, crimped except just at the ends from its tight braiding, was pushed back of ears from which dangled balls of silver filigree as big as cherries. Both the girls looked very neat—but, oh dear, what big waists, thought Mamma with a sigh. May was the only one who managed to have a wasp waist. She didn’t mind how hard they pulled her corset strings. Holding on to the bed post, drawing in her breath, she would get Lily to pull on them with all her strength. She didn’t care how much too small her high-heeled slippers were, either, just so she could squeeze her feet into them. Feeling like the princess in the fairy tale who walked barefoot over fire and swords, she would dance all evening, laughing and talking, though when she got home she would burst into tears from pain and exhaustion.
“Don’t slouch, Lily. Will you ever learn to stand properly?” sighed Mamma.
“Well, but Mamma dear! I do get so tired doing that old Grecian bend!”
“Well, remember to when you’re in company, or I shall die of mortification. Back up to me, Maggie, your pannier’s crooked. Now don’t fidget—”
“Pull in, Mamma!” said May, tugging at Mamma’s grey satin. “There! Oh, I wish you’d let me have a low body like yours—I hate these old high necks!”
Mamma took a placid look in the mirror at her bosom and shoulders bulging out of her black lace and grey ruching—bulging, but with such delicious creaminess. She tried to keep her mouth from quirking up at the corners as she remembered that Mr. Alfred Lacey had told his gentlemanly sister Mrs. Thornton, who good-naturedly told Mamma, that he had never seen finer shoulders. She wondered if he would be there tonight—perhaps she’d better wear her garnet necklace. The dark red made her bosom look even whiter.
“Anyway, you might let me have some evening hair,” May complained, pouting, her mouth a bunched red bud. She was the beauty of the family, with her long lashes and deep warm coloring, her tiny waist and round little bosom; but her hair wouldn’t grow long. It just foamed in short curls all over her head, looking so silly and babyish. If only Mamma would let her have some coronet braids or a rippling switch to flow over her shoulder! But Mamma would only laugh and pinch her cheek gently and say fifteen was too young for evening hair.
Young and warm together under the buffalo robes, while the sleigh-bells rang—merry—mournful—they drove from all over the country for miles around,
