Holiday Stories for Young People | Page 2

and very lovely, and I was feeling
half-sad and half-glad, with the gladness surpassing the sadness,
because I had never before been half so proud and important.
Father and mother, after talking and planning and hesitating over it a
long while, were actually going on a journey just by themselves and
without me; and I, being now considered old enough and steady enough,
was to stay at home, keep house, and take care of dear grandmamma.
With Aunt Hetty at the helm, the good old servant, whose black face
had beamed over my cradle fifteen years ago, and whose strong arms
had come between mother and every roughness during her twenty years
of housekeeping, it really looked as if I might be trusted, and as if
mother need not give me so many anxious directions. Did mother think
me a baby? I wondered resentfully. Father always reads my face like an
open page.
"Thee may leave something to Milly's discretion, dear," he said, in his
slow, stately way.
"Thee forgets her inexperience, love," said my gentle mother.
Father and mother are always courtly and tender with one another,
never hasty of speech, never impatient. They have been lovers, and

then they are gentlefolk. Father waited, and mother kept on telling me
about grandmamma and the cat, the birds and the best china, the fire on
the hearth in cool evenings, and the last year's canned fruit, which
might as well be used up while she was away, particularly the cherries
and plums.
"May the girls come over often?" I asked.
"Whenever you like," said mother. "Invite whom you please, of
course."
Here father held up his watch warningly. It was time to go, if they were
to catch the train. Arm in arm they walked down the long avenue to the
gate, after bidding me good-bye. Grandmamma watched them, waving
her handkerchief from the window of her room over the porch, and at
the last moment I rushed after them for a final kiss and hug.
"Be good, dear child, and let who will be clever," said father, with a
twinkle in his eye.
"Don't forget to count the silver every morning," said mother.
And so my term of office began. Bloomdale never wore a brighter face
than during that long vacation--a vacation which extended from June
till October. We girls had studied very diligently all winter. In spring
there had been scarlet fever in the village, and our little housekeepers,
for one cause or another, had seldom held meetings; and some of the
mothers and older sisters declared that it was just what they had
expected, our ardor had cooled, and nothing was coming of our club
after all that had been said when we organized.
As president of the Bloomdale Clover Leaf Club I determined that the
club should now make up for lost time, and having _carte-blanche_
from mother, as I supposed, I thought I would set about work at once.
Cooking was our most important work, and there's no fun in cooking
unless eating is to follow; so the club should be social, and give
luncheons, teas and picnics, at which we might have perfectly lovely
times. I saw no reason for delay, and with my usual impulsiveness,

consulted nobody about my first step.
And thus I made mistake number one. Cooking and housekeeping
always look perfectly easy on paper. When you come to taking hold of
them in real earnest with your own hands you find them very different
and much harder.
Soon after I heard the train whistle, and knew that father and mother
were fairly gone, I harnessed old Fan to the phaeton, and set out to visit
every one of the girls with an invitation to tea the very next evening. I
did put my head into grandmamma's chamber to tell her what I thought
of doing, but the dear old lady was asleep in her easy-chair, her knitting
lying in her lap, and I knew she did not wish to be disturbed. I closed
the door softly and flew down stairs.
Just as I was ready to start, Aunt Hetty came to the kitchen door,
calling me, persuasively: "Miss Milly, honey, what yo' done mean to
hab for dinner?"
"Oh, anything you please, aunty," I called back, gathering up the reins,
chirping to Fan, and taking the road to the Curtis girls' house. Certainly
I had no time to spend consulting with Aunt Hetty.
Mother knew me better than father did. I found out later that this wasn't
at all a proper way to keep house, giving no orders, and leaving things
to the discretion, of the cook. But I hadn't really begun yet, and I was
wild to get the girls together.
Bloomdale is a sort of scattered up-hill and down-dale place,