CHAPTER VI
"Yuletide in the Southland" is what Professor Young calls it, but youwould never know from the sound how nice it really is. It means thatthe Youngs have come down to the bungalow to spend Christmas and havebrought his brother, Julius, to spend it too. Now, I admire Mr. JuliusYoung, both his name and his ways. He noticed me the minute he got offthe train and said I would have to be his sweetheart. Although I havelearned, from being so deceived by Doctor Gordon's remarks like that,you mustn't depend on what they say, still you can't help but like aperson when they say it to you.
He is not a college professor like his brother, but he makes hisliving drawing pictures. Now, the bad part about making your livingout of poetry or art is that so _often_ you don't do it. This is theway with Julius. He draws fully as good as other artists, but he neverhas been able to get people to notice it. Professor Young says hiswork lacks "the divine spark," and so the poor young man has to heathis coffee over the gas-jet, like they always have to do in pitifulmagazine stories. So much poetry and art have made him real thin, withstrange flannel shirts, and he looks half like a writing person andhalf like a hero which was raised out West. He doesn't act as peculiaras he looks, though, laughing as jolly as Mr. Parkes if anything funnyhappens. And he knows so much about horses, having traveledconsiderable, that father thinks he is very clever. Father says youcan excuse an artist with horse sense better than you can just a plainartist.
Rufe and Cousin Eunice are down in the country too, partly at ourhouse and partly at Rufe's folks'. This makes a nice reunion forthem, being as Marcella, Rufe's sister, is home for the first time inthree Christmases, having been off studying how to play on the piano.
Ever since during the chestnuts getting ripe Marcella has been goodfriends with me, for she loves the outdoors, and there wasn't anybodybut me that had the time to spare to go with her through the woods.She felt sorry for me, too, not getting to go back to school in thecity this fall, and so she has taught me a lot. Mother and father saidthey just couldn't spare me, being the only one that lived, and bornto them in their old age. It looks like if my brothers and sisters hadknown how inconvenient it was for me to be the only child they wouldhave tried a little harder to live.
Marcella is not pretty in a blonde-headed way, like Ann Lisbeth andBertha, but her hair and eyes are as dark as chocolate candy whenyou've grated a whole half a cake in it, and her skin looks like creamdoes when it's nearly ready to churn. She wouldn't go with me and Rufeand Cousin Eunice to meet the Youngs at the train, being ashamed onJulius' account, I reckon, both being single. But _we_ went andProfessor and Mrs. Young said they were too happy for anything to beback in the country again for a regular old-fashioned Christmas. Theysaid they were going to do everything just like it used to be in oldEngland, which Professor Young had brought a book along to read about.They said this book would "infuse a genuine Yule spirit," but if theyhad scraped as many cake pans and seeded as many raisins as I havethey would have more of that spirit now than they could hold without adose of cordial.
Well, this morning we collected on the other side of the creek to goafter holly to decorate the bungalow with, me, the Youngs, and Rufeand Cousin Eunice. Julius said a good many compliments about thenature you could see all over the hills, but Rufe said shucks, if hehad _plowed_ over that nature as often as _he_ had it wouldn't look sopretty.
Cousin Eunice said let's go straight up through the woods and maybe wewould meet Marcella coming back from a poor person's house where shehad been to carry sick folks' things to. This plan must have been madeup between them, for, sure enough, when we got to the tip-top of thehill we found Marcella sitting under some cedar trees resting, andleaning back against one, just like it was done for a purpose. She hadon her red hat and her little red jacket, which set off her pale looksconsiderable, and if she _did_ do it for the sake of Julius she knewthe right way to get on the good side of an artist, for he commencedacting impressed from the start. If a person is trying to be romanticit is a better plan to meet a man under a cedar tree with a tiredexpression than it is to sprain your ankle so they will have to carryyou home in their arms, like they do in books. I don't know _why_authors sprain so many of their characters' ankles, and then let themmake love smelling of liniment.
Mother says in olden times people married each other because theladies were pretty and could make good cakes and the young men wereable to take care of them, but nowadays they marry because they "feel"the same way about things. This is called congenial, and an _overly_congenial person is an "affinity." Cousin Eunice and Rufe felt thesame way about Keats and married. Doctor Gordon and Ann Lisbeth bothloved white hyacinths and married, and this morning I heard Marcellaand Julius say they felt the same way about music. Marcella wasplaying on the piano in our parlor and we were all listening whenJulius remarked:
"Oh, isn't it rare to find a woman who can properly interpretBeethoven?"
Father was in the room and spoke up. "Yes," he said, "and rarer still,in these days, to find one who can properly interpret the_bake-oven_."
Marcella thinks the world and all of Beethoven and Wagner and otherpersons whose names are not spelt the way you would think.
For the sake of Julius _Page 108_]
Later, when there wasn't anybody present but just those two, I heardJulius ask Marcella if she would "sit" to him. I thought at first hemust be proposing, for the folks around here say that Widow Hollis is"setting up to" anybody when she's trying to marry. But Marcella saidright away that she would be delighted, which I knew couldn't meanmarrying, for when a young lady gets proposed to she never even _letson_ how glad she is, much less says _delighted_ right out in plainwords. He said her face was the purest Greek he ever saw, which didn'tmake her mad, although it would me, for a Greek is a smiling,oily-looking person which runs a candy kitchen.
When he mentioned her face looking like a Greek's face she acted sopleased that he went on to tell her he had never been so impressedwith anybody's looks in his life as he was with hers that first dayunder the cedar tree. He said oh, if he had such a model he could do_anything_, for he was sure she had soul as well as beauty. The ideaof him telling her she had a soul--as if anybody but foreign heathensdidn't have! She said she thought it would be a noble life to be amodel and inspiration to a man of lofty ideals--like Dan T. GabrielRosetty's wife was, only sometimes the _woman_ was starved. If I'dbeen Marcella I'd been ashamed to mention such a thing as not gettingenough to eat, but it seemed to please Julius, for he got over closerand commenced making a sketch of her on the back of an envelope.
This morning early Mrs. and Professor Young came over to ask fatherwhere they could find a Yule log and a peacock. They said in the"eternal fitness of things" they must have a log to burn all Christmasnight and a peafowl to serve with "brilliant plumage" at the dinnertable. Mrs. Young went around to the kitchen to ask Mammy Lou if sheknew how to prepare the peacock the way they wanted it and brought tothe table in its feathers with the tail spread. Mammy wasn't a speckmore polite than she was last summer about the roosters.
"No, _ma'am_," she told her, "Mis' Mary won't let even so much as apin feather come on her table, much less a whole crittur covered with'em. Looks like _that_ would turn a nigger's stomach, let alone whitefolks; but there ain't no 'countin' for the taste o' _Yankees_."
Professor Young tried to explain that he was cooked without thefeathers which was put on afterward and an old English custom, butthat wouldn't pacify mammy.
"Well, all I can say for the old English is that they must havestomachs on 'em like _buzzards_," mammy told them.
The Yule log was easier and so they got that, but it isn't to be littill to-morrow night with ceremony.
Julius and Marcella had a long walk through the woods aftersarsaparilla vines this afternoon, and talked a good deal about howthey would like a house furnished if they were going to furnish one.They never got as far as the kitchen and smokehouse, but they bothagreed that they would love better than anything in the world to havea dark green l
ibrary with dull brass jardinieres. (I had a _terrible_time with that word.) Julius then spoke up and said _any_ kind of alibrary that had her in it would be artistic enough for _him_, which Ithought was saying a great deal, for artists make out like they can'tlive without their "atmosphere," meaning battered-up tea-kettles anddirty curtains from Persia. Marcella must have thought he meantsomething by it, too, for she turned as red as when you have abreaking out.
I helped mother and mammy considerable this morning by tasting all thethings to see if they were just right, for we are going to have a bigdinner to-morrow and invite them all.
To-night we all went over to the bungalow to hear Professor Young readabout how they used to do Christmas things in England before thePilgrim Fathers. It sounded awful nice about the waifs singing, "Godrest you, merry gentlemen," on the outside of your window, and theservants at dinner bringing in the boar's head, singing too. ProfessorYoung said he thought these old customs ought to be revived,especially in the South, where we had old-timey houses and old familyservants. Father laughed and said, well, we _might_ get Mammy Lou tobring in the turkey to-morrow to the tune of "There _wuz_ er moanin'lady, she _lived_ in er moanin' lan'," which was all the tune she knewbesides Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, one being about as Christmasyas the other.
After a while Mrs. Young started up the chafing-dish and called Juliusfrom over in the corner where he and Marcella were talking very easy,to help her with the coffee. She hadn't more than said coffee whenProfessor Young picked up his book again.
"Why, Marie, my love," he interrupted her, "coffee is not at all adrink in keeping with the season. To preserve the unities we ought tohave a wassail bowl." Then he read us how easy it was to make up thewassail. All you have to do is to take wine, or ale, and sugar andnutmeg, mixed with ginger and spice, then have apples and toast androasted crabs floating around in it. You must mix it up in an oldsilver bowl that has been in your family a hundred years with the coatof arms on it. A coat of arms is two peculiar animals standing ontheir hind legs pawing at each other.
Mrs. Young said she was as anxious to preserve the unities asAugustus, but how could she when there wasn't any wine or ale orginger or crabs, to say nothing of the silver bowl with the coat ofarms marked on it. Rufe said not to worry, for we might find it hard,along toward midnight and day, to preserve much unity between wassailand Welsh rabbit, if we ate them together, so the wassail bowl wasdropped.
All during my diary there hasn't been a thing as thrilling to happenas what happened to-day, Christmas Day, to Julius and Marcella.Getting your arm broken and carried to the hospital by your futurehusband wasn't anything to compare with this.
Everybody was happy at the dinner table, me especially, for besidesall the books I wanted I got a pyrography set and a pearl ring. Idon't think any girl is complete without a pearl ring. The company allpraised mammy's cooking and Julius remarked that after such a dinneras that it would be pretty tough on a fellow to go back to town thenext day and live on coffee heated over the gas-jet and crackers. Welaughed considerable over the gas-jet, all but Marcella, who didn'tlook funny.
Just as we got the plum pudding burning and Julius had said he wishedhe could paint a picture of it Dilsey came into the dining-room with atelegram addressed to Mr. Julius Young. This excited Mammy Lou, whoadmires him very much, so she nearly spilt all the sauce, saying,"Thar! I jes' _know_ it's some of yo' folks dead!"
Julius laughed and told her he reckoned not, as all the folks he hadon earth were right there at the table, and he looked at Marcella whenhe said it in preference to his own brother! Much to all of ourdisappointment Julius never even opened his telegram and read it,although we didn't say anything about it. He put it in his pocket andwent on eating pudding like it wasn't any more to be proud of thanjust a plain mail letter.
After dinner father took them all out in the garden to look at somenew hotbeds he was having made and Julius and Marcella went into theparlor. I stayed in the hall by the door, not being wanted in theparlor and not admiring hotbeds much. They didn't sit down, but wentover and stood by the piano and all of a sudden Marcella saidnervous-like:
"Why don't you read your telegram? It might contain good news."
"It _is_ good news, I feel sure," he told her, "and I wanted you to bethe first one to know it--that's the reason I didn't mention it atthe table."
She said well hurry up and tell her, so he did. He said the day he sawher leaning against the cedar tree he thought she was so beautifulthat he went straight back to the bungalow and made a picture of herlike she was then and sent it to a large magazine up North which hadpromised to give five thousand dollars to the person which sent themthe best picture by Christmas, and he believed the telegram was to saythat his was it. Marcella told him well, he had a high opinion of hiswork to take it for granted that it had won such a prize as _that_.
"Not at all," he said, catching her hand in his, "for it was a pictureof _you_."
This sounded so loving that I wasn't prepared for what came next. Iheard them tear open the telegram and Marcella said, "_Good-ness_;"and he said, "Well, I'll be--I wasn't looking for this!" and it mademe so interested that before I knew it I was in the parlor, though soeasy and it nearly dark that I don't think they saw me.
As near as I could make out the telegram told Julius they thought hispicture was so good they were not only going to give him the prizelike they promised, but wanted to engage him to draw for them all thenext year and how much salary would he do it for.
"Why, you can have your green library and brass jardinieres _now_,"Marcella said, still holding hands and her voice like it was about tocry. He just looked at her and looked a long time without saying aword. Finally he put both hands on her shoulders and looked down intoher eyes.
"I can have nothing without you," he said in the most devoted voice Iever heard. "It is your beauty that has made my picture succeed. If Iamount to anything you will have to come with me--will you?"
"You want me for your model?" she asked very quivery and making outlike she didn't know what he was driving at, but she put her hands upon his shoulders too, which was enough to give her away.
"True, I can not draw without you for my model," he said so grand andsweet that it made you feel very strange listening to it, "but I cannot _live_ without you for my wife."
This won her. It was enough to win _anybody_, coming from an artist,and good looking at that.
The Annals of Ann Page 6
