Holiday Stories for Young People | Page 3

everlasting trouble about servants, who are forever changing their places and going away, and complaining that the town is dull, and their church too distant, and life inconvenient; and so every one envies my mother, who has kept Hetty all these years, and never had any trouble at all.
At least I fancied that to be so, till I was a housekeeper myself, and found out that Aunt Hetty had spells of temper and must be humored, and was not perfect, any more than other people vastly above her in station and beyond her in advantages.
I stopped for Linda Curtis, and she jumped into the phaeton and went with me. We asked Jeanie Cartwright, Veva Fay, Lois Partridge, Amy Pierce and Marjorie Downing to tea the next day, and every girl of them promised to come bright and early.
When I reached home I ran to grandmamma to ask her if I had done right, and to get her advice about what I would better have for my bill of fare.
"Thee is too precipitate, dear child," said grandmamma. "Why not have waited two or three days before having a company tea? I fear much that Hetty will be contrary, and not help as she ought. And I have one of my headaches coming."
"Oh, grandmamma!" I exclaimed. "Have you taken your pills?" I was aghast.
"Thee needn't worry, dear," replied grandmamma, quite unruffled. "I have taken them, and if the headache does not vanish before dark, I'll sleep in the south chamber to-night, and be out of the way of the stir to-morrow. I wish, though, Aunt Hetty were not in a cross fit."
"It is shameful," I said. "Aunt Hetty has been here so long that she does not know her place. I shall not be disturbed by her moods."
So, holding my head high, I put on my most dignified manner and went to the kitchen. Aunt Hetty, in a blue gingham gown, with a gay kerchief tied on her head, was slowly and pensively rocking herself back and forth in her low chair. She took no notice of me whatever.
"Aunt Hetty!"
No answer.
"Aunt Hetty!" This time I spoke louder.
Still she rocked back and forth, apparently as deaf as a post. I grew desperate, and, going up to her, put my hand on her shoulder, saying:
"Aunt Hetty, aren't we to have our dinner? The fire seems to be out."
She shook off my hand and slowly rose, looking glum and preoccupied.
"Didn't hear no orders for dinner, Miss Alice."
"Now, Aunt Hetty," I remonstrated, "why will you be so horrid? You know I am the housekeeper when mother is away, and you're going to spoil everything, and make her wish she hadn't gone. How can I manage if you won't help? Come, be good," I pleaded.
But nothing moved her from her stony indifference, and I went back to grandmamma in despair. I was about to pour all my woes in her ear, but a glance at her pale face restrained me.
She was going to have a regular Van Doren headache.
"We never have headaches like other people."
How many times I have heard my aunts and uncles say this in just these words! They do not think me half a Van Doren because, owing to my mother's way of bringing me up, I have escaped the family infliction. In fact, I am half a Neilson, and the Neilsons are a healthy everyday set, who do not have aches and pains, and are seldom troubled with nerves. Plebeian, perhaps, but very comfortable.
I rushed back to the den of Aunt Hetty, as I now styled the kitchen. She was pacing back and forth like a lioness in a cage at a show, singing an old plantation melody. That was a sign that her fit of temper was worse than ever. Little I cared.
"Hetty Van Doren," I said, "stop sulking and singing! There isn't time for either. Poor grandmamma has a fearful headache, and you and I will have to take care of her. Put some water on to boil, and then come up to her room and help me. And don't sing 'Go down, Moses,' another minute."
I had used two arguments which were powerful with Aunt Hetty. One was calling her Hetty Van Doren. She liked to be considered as belonging to the family, and no compliment could have pleased her more. She often said she belonged to the Kentucky noblesse, and held herself far above common trash.
The other was my saying you and I. She was vexed that mother had left me--a baby, in her opinion--to look after the house, and rather resented my assuming to be the mistress. By my happy form of speech I pleased the droll old woman, who was much like a child herself. Then, too, she was as well aware as I was that grandmamma's pain