“I must be going, Aunt Mary,” said Kent, taking the old woman’s withered hand in his strong grasp. “I’ll be home again in a few weeks, I fancy, maybe sooner.”
“They’s one thing I ain’t arsked you yit: whar’s that there Judy gal? I been a dreamin’ you would bring her back with you.”
“She is the thing I am going back to France for, Aunt Mary.”
“Sho nuf? Well, well! They do tell me they’s fightin’ goin’ on in some er them furren parts. Sholy Miss Judy ain’t nigh the fightin’ an’ fussin’?”
“Yes, I am afraid she is. That’s the reason I must go for her.”
“Oh, Kent son! Don’t you git into no scrap yo’sef. It’s moughty hard fer young folks ter look on at a scrap ’thout gittin’ mixed up in it. Don’t you git too clost, whin you is lookin’, either. Them what looks on sometimes gits the deepes’ razor cuts with the back han’ licks. You pick up that gal an’ bring her back ter you’ maw jes’ as fas’ as yo’ legs kin carry you.”
“I’ll try to,” laughed Kent.
“Don’t try! Jes’ do it! That there Judy gal is sho nice an’ ’ristocratic, considerin’ she ain’t never had no home. She done tell me whin she was here to little Miss Milly’s weddin’ that she an’ her folks ain’t never lived in nothin’ but rented houses. That’s moughty queer to me, but ’cose niggers don’t understan’ ev’y thing. Well, you tell her that ole Mary Morton say she better pick up an’ come back to Chatswuth.”
“I certainly will, Aunt Mary, and good-by!”
The old woman put her hand on his bowed head for a moment, and while she said nothing, Kent took it for a benediction.
CHAPTER IV.
AFTERNOON TEA
Molly had established the custom of afternoon tea in her orchard home, and while she had been greatly teased by her brothers for introducing this English custom into Kentucky country life, they one and all turned up on her porch for tea if they were in the neighborhood.
“It is one place where a fellow can always find some talk and a place to air his views,” declared John, as he reached for another slice of bread and butter. “It isn’t the food so much as the being gathered together.”
“Well, you are gathering a good deal of food together in spite of your contempt for it,” put in Paul. “That’s the sixth slice! I have kept tab on you.”
“Why not? I always think plain bread and butter is about the best thing there is.”
“Yes, why not?” asked Molly, calling her little cook Kizzie to prepare another plate of the desirable article. “Aunt Clay, you had better change your mind and have some tea and bread and butter.”
Mrs. Sarah Clay had driven over in state from her home when she heard Kent had arrived. She wanted to hear the latest news, also to tender her advice as to what he was to do now. She presented the same uncompromising front as of yore, although her back had given way somewhat to the weight of years. Judy Kean always said she had a hard face and a soft figure. This soft figure she poured into tight basques, evidently determined to try to make it live up to her face.
“Tea!” she exclaimed indignantly. “I never eat between meals.”
“But this is a meal, in a way,” said Molly hospitably bent, as was her wont, on feeding people.
“A meal! Whoever heard of tea and bread and butter comprising a meal?” and the stern aunt stalked to the end of the porch where the baby lay in her basket, kicking her pink heels in the air in an ecstasy of joy over being in the world.
“Molly, this baby has on too few clothes. What can you be thinking of, having the child barefooted and nothing on but this muslin slip over her arms? She is positively blue with cold.”
Molly flew to her darling but found her glowing and warm. “Why, Aunt Clay, only feel her hands and feet! She is as warm as toast. The doctor cautioned me against wrapping her up too much. He says little babies are much warmer than we are.”
“Well, have your own way! Of course, although I am older than your mother, I know nothing at all.”
“But, Aunt Clay – ”
“Never mind!”
Poor Molly! She could never do or say anything to suit her Aunt Clay. She looked regretfully at the old lady’s indignant back as she left her and joined Kent, who was sitting on a settle with his mother, holding her hand, both of them very quiet amidst the chatter around the tea table. They made room for their relative, who immediately began her catechism of Kent.
“Why did you not come home sooner?”
“Because I had some work to do, sketches illustrating an article on French country houses.”
“Humph! Did you get paid for them?”
“Yes, Aunt Clay!”
“Now, what are your plans?”
“I have landed a job in New York with a firm of architects, that is, I had landed it, but I am not so sure now since – ”
“Good! You feel that you had better stay at home and look after Chatsworth.”
“Oh, no! I am sure I could not be much of a farmer.”
“Could not because you would not! If I were your mother, I would insist on one of you staying at home and running the place.”
“Ernest is thinking of coming back, giving up engineering and trying intensive farming on Chatsworth.”
“Ernest, indeed! And why should he have wasted all these years in some other profession if he means to farm?”
“Well, you see,” said Kent very patiently because of the pressure he felt from his mother’s gentle hand, “farming takes money and there wasn’t any money. Ernest always did want to farm, but it was necessary for him to make some money first. Now he has saved and invested and has something to put in the land, and he is devoutly hoping to get out more than he puts in.”
“If putting something in the land means expensive machinery, I can tell him now that he will waste money buying it. But there is no use in telling Ernest anything – he is exactly like Sue: very quiet, does not answer back when his elders and betters address him, but, like Sue, goes his own way. Sue is very headstrong and simply twists my husband’s nephew around her finger. I was very much disappointed in Cyrus Clay. I thought he had more backbone.”
Sue Brown, now Mrs. Cyrus Clay, had been the one member of the Brown family who always got on with the stern Aunt Clay; and Kent and his mother were sorry to hear the old lady express any criticism of Sue. It seemed that Sue had done nothing more serious than to persuade Cyrus to join the Country Club, but it was against Mrs. Sarah Clay’s wishes, and anything that opposed her was headstrong and consequently wicked.
“But to return to you – ” Kent let a sigh escape him as he had hoped he had eluded further catechism, “what are you going to do now?”
“Well, to-night I go back to New York, and day after to-morrow I take a French steamer for Havre.”
“Havre! Are you crazy?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you going to do in France with this war going on?”
“I am not quite sure.”
This was too much for the irate old lady, so without making any adieux, she took her departure, scorning the polite assistance of her three nephews. Professor Green called her coachman and helped her into the great carriage she