Sister Sue/Chapter 6

were not easy—those first days of adjustment to new conditions. Accustomed all their lives to the luxurious appointments of a house fitted out by an apparently inexhaustible purse, it was not easy to conform to the inconvenient limitations of a small-town house built before the days of electric lights and tiled bathrooms. Accustomed also to rich furnishings, harmonious colors, and fine pictures, it was not easy immediately to feel at home in rooms where hair-wreaths and framed coffin-plates were considered the acme of decorative art.

And as usual the burden of it all fell upon Sister Sue. It was Sister Sue who shamed May into a measurably serene acceptance of the loss of her daily hot water, and who laughed Gordon into learning the way to stop a kerosene lamp from smoking. It was Sister Sue, also, who bore the brunt of Katy's grumpy fault-finding about a kitchen that had no gas, no electricity, no hot water, no anything, Katy said, that a decent, respectable kitchen and pantry ought to have. And it was, of course, Sister Sue who attended to establishing John Gilmore in a daily routine that would not unduly tire him, but that would still keep him comparatively contented.

Then, too, there were the callers; and Sister Sue must see those. Her father certainly could not and her sister May would not. There were the few who came out of sincere sympathy and would-be helpfulness; there were the many who came out of ill-concealed curiosity, but with loud lamentations that were even harder to bear patiently than were the semi-impertinent questions. And Sister Sue saw them all, and smiled, and looked pleasant, and said "Thank you," and that they were very kind, to be sure. And not even May knew that after they were gone Sister Sue shut herself up in her room in a helpless storm of rage and tears.

True, they knew that she often sought the piano after such calls, and they were pretty sure that never had the timid old instrument been made to voice such sentiments as it poured forth now under Sister Sue's overwrought fingers. But they were used to that, even if the piano was not. Besides, it was noticeable that less and less frequently was Sister Sue flying even to that refuge. But if May and Gordon saw this, they did not mention it, even to each other—perhaps because they were quite too busy with their own necessary adjustments to concern themselves overmuch with those of anybody else.

Then came the day when Katy packed her bag and said that she could n't stand it another day, not another minute; and that while she was very sorry to be leaving without a proper notice and all, it was too much to expect any decent, self-respecting girl to put up with what she'd had to put up with ever since she'd left the blessed city and come to this outlandish, God-forsaken country town. And she went.

And as she went, she slammed the door. It was not the first time that Katy had slammed doors and banged tin pans. Gordon had been known to say more than once that doors and tin pans were Katy's "piano"—and he always said it with a mischievous wink toward his sister Sue. And so to-day when the bang of the slammed door reverberated through the house, Gordon shrugged his shoulders and observed:

"I think I hear Katy's piano."

"But what are we going to do?" gasped May.

It was Sister Sue's shoulders that shrugged this time.

"Well, I know some things I shan't have to do." Sister Sue was laughing a little grimly. "I shan't have to explain and apologize every time I go into the kitchen because we have n't a certain kind of fork or spoon or kettle or frying-pan that 'everybody has who pretends to have anything'! And I shan't have to listen to constant bemoanings and bewailings because it's all so different from what it used to be—except from you two children," finished Sister Sue, a little severely.

"But, honestly, Sister Sue, what shall we do?" besought May, disdainfully ignoring the challenging insinuation of the last remark.

"Do? We'll do ourselves, of course," retorted Sister Sue briskly. "I fancy I can do—what other women do, if I have to. Maybe yet I—I'll be making a great name for myself as a cook. Who knows? Anyhow, I ought to be as smart as—Katy!" she finished in a voice that shook a little, in spite of its blithe cheeriness.

"Bully for you!" This from Gordon. "I say, Sister Sue, you make me hungry already. What are you going to give us for luncheon?"

Sister Sue wagged her head playfully.

"I don't know, sir—yet," she retorted, as she turned toward the door leading to the kitchen. "Come, May, it's up to us now."

But May held back.

"Me! Why, Sue, I don't know a thing about cooking, and you know it."

"Perhaps; but you can wash dishes," pointed out Sister Sue, still briskly; "and I'll warrant Katy left plenty of those. Come on! I hereby dub you my chief assistant."

Thus admonished, May went. But that she went crossly and unwillingly was most painfully evident.

In the kitchen Sister Sue found the soiled dishes, plenty of them. May said, indeed, that she did n't believe Katy had washed a dish since she'd been there. But she put on the apron Sister Sue brought her—a fussy little white muslin with bow-adorned pockets (one of two bought at a fair)—and she attacked the dishes with much noise if with but little skill.

Sister Sue, donning the mate to her assistant's apron—for both of which she had rushed upstairs to her bureau drawer—entered the pantry, with high head and high courage.

"I'll have chicken croquettes and creamed peas and grilled sweet potatoes for luncheon, with new apple-pie for dessert," she mused, tingling with a pleasant little excitement. "Gordon loves those. Now where's the cookbook?" she questioned, her roving eyes searching the somewhat untidy shelves before her.

Sister Sue found the cookbook—but Gordon did not have chicken croquettes and creamed peas and grilled sweet potatoes and new apple-pie for luncheon. He had warmed up Irish potatoes (which he abhorred) and a boiled egg (which he cared little for), and a piece of stale cake for dessert.

It is a question whether Gordon was any more disappointed than Sister Sue herself was.

"I was going to have chicken croquettes and creamed peas and grilled sweet potatoes and a new apple-pie for your luncheon, children," she apologized ruefully, as she set the warmed-up potatoes on the table.

"Why didn't you, then?" demanded Gordon, surveying with unfriendly eyes the food before him.

Sister Sue laughed shamefacedly.

"Well, I discovered pretty quick that you have to have something besides a cookbook to make a meal like that a real success."

"What do you mean?" frowned Gordon.

"Well, little things like cooked chicken and some sweet potatoes and a can of peas, and some apples help out, you know."

"But could n't you order them?" demanded May.

Again Sister Sue laughed a bit shamefacedly.

"I was going to till I happened to remember that the man does n't come here for orders until nearly one; and we have n't any telephone, you know. I'm beginning to understand now why Katy was always scolding about 'h'athen folks that don't have no telephone.' Of course we have missed it, all of us; but I never could see why Katy should make such a fuss about it. I do now," she finished, a little ruefully.

That many things besides a cookbook are needed in order to make a success of housekeeping, Sister Sue became increasingly aware of during those first few days after Katy went. She speedily learned that housekeeping is very decidedly more than a laundress who does n't come and a cake of toilet soap that is missing. She learned that such commodities as flour and sugar and tea and coffee and lard and butter and milk were not only frightfully expensive, but that they had an unaccountable way of giving out at the most inopportune times; and that even when every tiresome ingredient called for by that inexorable cookbook was present, there was still an occult something which she seldom seemed to have, yet without which the pies and cakes and puddings and bread and biscuits were a most dismal failure—not at all like Katy's. It began, indeed, to look very much as if she were not as smart as—Katy!

She learned, too, that bow-adorned muslin aprons are a poor protection against the extraordinary untidiness that ensues from the preparation of the simplest meal. While as for dishes—well, May said that if Katy used any more dishes than Sister Sue did just to boil a potato, she would like to know it! May was still washing dishes, though she, too, had long since discarded the twin of the muslin apron, bought at a fair, substituting a stout blue gingham, loaned by Mrs. Preston.

Mrs. Preston! Sister Sue wondered sometimes what she would have done had it not been for Mrs. Preston. Mrs. Preston had not only lovely gingham aprons, but everything else that Sister Sue went to borrow because of lack in her own home. To Sister Sue it was really wonderful how three small rooms could contain so many helpful, absolutely necessary things that one wanted. It was wonderful how one small head—Mrs. Preston's—could contain so inexhaustible a fund of information as to just how much salt to put in, just how long things should be baked or boiled, just how to test those fearsome concoctions in the oven to see if they were done. Mrs. Preston, indeed, seemed to have at her tongue's end all that mysterious, occult something without which anything fashioned to be cooked would later run a very decided risk of being a failure. Very soon Sister Sue discovered this and availed herself of it.

And little by little Sister Sue had her reward. Her biscuits grew less soggy, her cake less heavy, her pie-crust less tough. Her meats grew more tender and her vegetables more palatable. In time, too, it ceased to take all her waking hours to get three meals a day and keep the house in order. She had a few minutes to spare for her father.

But it was not easy. Her feet and her back and her legs and her head ached with the strain; and many a night she was too tired to "hit the bed," she told May. She said she felt as if she were propped up on prongs that held her a foot above the sheet. It was not a comfortable sensation.

She could not find solace or relief even in the piano, these days, for there was always a cut finger or a burned thumb to make playing a torture to her. For that matter, it had been more or less of a torture, anyway, from the very first to play on that piano, so jangling on her sensitive nerves were the tinkling notes that failed so miserably to respond to what she was longing to express. It was becoming almost impossible, therefore, to play upon it, even before the cut fingers and burned thumbs made it a physical torture as well as a mental one.

Yet if ever Sister Sue had felt the need of a piano safety-valve, it was now. She told herself sometimes that she might yet resort to Katy's piano, and slam a door or bang a pan. She felt like it. Certainly her family did not hesitate to do it. Sometimes it seemed to Sister Sue that they did not do anything but bang their doors and slam their pans. Even her father, in a gentle way, fretted a good deal at the many inconveniences of his daily living. He said that he liked Gilmoreville, oh, yes, he liked it very much, for a while; but he fancied they'd better go back to town pretty soon. Patiently, over and over again, Sister Sue would explain to him that their city home was all torn up just now, and that they would be much better off to remain where they were, for the present.

"Oh, yes, yes, I see, I see," the old man would answer with the gentle patience that had become habitual with him, and with the peering eyes that seemed to be trying so hard to penetrate the fog that was benumbing his senses. "Well, then, we had better stay where we are, for the present—yes." And he would turn away manifestly satisfied.

And he would remain satisfied for perhaps ten minutes, for perhaps ten hours. Then again he would tell his daughter Sue that he liked Gilmoreville, oh, yes, he liked it very well; but he fancied they'd better go back to town pretty soon. And his daughter Sue would draw a long breath, and say:

"Yes, Father, but our home there is all torn up, and—" and so on through the long, patient explanation.

It was this necessity for making explanations over and over, and then over again, that made living with John Gilmore so nerve-wearing and wearisome. There was always present, too, the heartache of constant association with the tragedy of a wrecked mind in a familiar, well-loved body. But, fortunately for everybody, John Gilmore was, in the main, fairly happy and content with his picture-cutting and jackstraw-playing, and with his dearly loved puttering about the yard and garden.

May and Gordon, however, were not happy. There was never any doubt about their door-slamming and pan-banging. Gordon said it was the deadest town he ever saw; and that he'd get out of it in the fall if he had to join a circus to do it! And as for expecting a fellow to live, really live, without lights and hot water and bathrooms, and a few decent conveniences like that, it could n't be done! That's all! You just existed! And existing was n't living, not by a long shot! As for fishing and hunting—there was n't any; and he did n't believe the town knew what a golf course or a tennis court was. How his father could have endured to spend his boyhood there he could n't conceive. And he wanted to know why Sister Sue had n't sold that place, and gone somewhere else—anywhere would have been better than there. And why did they let Katy go, too? She'd have stayed if they'd paid her more, he knew she would. As for their thinking he could eat some of those fearful and wonderful concoctions of Sister Sue's—he could n't! That's all! And they ought not to expect him to.

All of which were a few of Gordon's "door slams."

May was not far behind him. True, May washed dishes and dusted occasionally; but she so bemoaned the cruel fate that had cast her lot in such sad lines that Sister Sue was sorely tempted sometimes to do the whole thing herself. May complained, too, that the soapy water and dust were ruining her hands, and the hot kitchen was spoiling her complexion; though she never failed to add that, of course, that did n't matter in Gilmoreville; there was n't anybody there, anyway, who would know or care whether her hands were great red paws or not or her face blistered.

May disliked Gilmoreville only one degree less than did her brother. She said that the few people there who had money were snobs; and that the patronizing airs they put on, just because a person had lost a little money, were sickening, positively sickening. And as for the rest of the people in the town—as if anybody could honestly expect her to find a really congenial companion among Granny Preston, old lady Whittemore, and their friends!

And there was n't a thing to do, not a thing! As for her trying to write stories in a place like that, it was out of the question. Martin Kent might like such people for copy—but not she. So that was impossible! She could n't even go out to walk. She never saw such horrid weather, rain and mud—and only two sidewalks in town really fit to walk on. And as for staying at home all the time, with Father always around in that frightful condition, and you never knew what he was going to do, or when he was going to ask for folks dead and buried years ago—she just simply could not do it! That's all! And how Sister Sue stood it, she did not know. All is, Sister Sue must be very phlegmatic, and not at all sensitive, or she could not do it.

All of which was merely May's way of slamming doors and banging pans.