MINERVA’S MANŒUVRES

The balloon, Minerva, a shriek and a shout.

Minerva’s Manœuvres

The Cheerful Facts of a “Return to Nature”

By

CHARLES BATTELL LOOMIS

Author of “Cheerful Americans,”

Etc.

Illustrated by Frederic R. Gruger

New York

A. S. Barnes & Company

1905

Copyright, 1905 by

A. S. BARNES & CO.

Published August, 1905

To

J. B.

PREFACE.

When a play makes a tremendous hit the author is called before the curtain and after bowing and allowing his heart (and his head) to swell more and more, he generously points to the actors and actresses who are grouped around him as much as to say, “They did it.”

And then the audience goes wild at such unselfishness and cries of “Speech, speech!” rend the air and the author has arrived at the happiest moment of his life. He feels that all creation was evolved just for this supreme moment and his knees shake and (in a voice surcharged with emotion) he says things that do not read well in print, but which rouse the house to greater enthusiasm, and he wishes that William Shakespeare could have lived to see this night, and goes home to dream happy dreams.

Sometimes he can’t contain his speech any longer than the end of the third act, and with comparatively little applause, and, it may be, only one solitary call of “Author” (from his devoted brother in the front row) he rushes to the footlights and delivers himself of his pent up eloquence. And then perhaps the critics jump on the piece and kill it, and the next day he wishes he hadn’t spoken.

But no dramatic author would think of going out before the gray asbestos curtain had been raised on the overture to say to the cold, sternly critical audience that this was the proudest moment of his life and that he hoped the actors would see their duty and do it. That would be considered assurance.

And yet we writers of—novels—do rush on before the first chapter has been reached and sometimes we tell how it is going to end and sometimes we give the names of the authorities from whom we lifted our central idea, and sometimes we strike an attitude of timid uncertainty and bespeak the indulgence of the reader—but always without response of any kind.

Not a hand, not a cry of “Author”: nothing but the gray asbestos curtain of silence.

Of course there are cases when a book runs into the “six best selling class” and people get into the habit of buying it and the habit is not broken for weeks and weeks; and then, after the twentieth edition is exhausted the author comes out with a “Preface to the twenty-first edition,” and as he smells the fragrance of the bouquets that the critics have handsomely handed out and hears the plaudits of those who have thronged to read him he says brokenly, “I thank you. You have raised me from a point where I was living on my brother in the front row to a position where I can take my pick of motor cars” (Not automobiles, mind you), “and while I never thought of money while I was writing the book, now I both think and have a good deal of it. Thank you! Thank you!”

But I, (rather than not come out at all) am going to squeeze before the gray asbestos and say “Thank you. Critics, readers; gentle and otherwise, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

“If there is anything good in this book, believe me it is the characters who are responsible for it.

“And let me take this occasion to say that the book would never have been written if I had not been encouraged by one who has the faculty of making a man do his best. She is here to-night, but I am not permitted to mention her.

“I have had great fun writing ‘Minerva’s Manœuvres,’ and this is really the proudest moment of my life. (Cheers.) My heroine, Minerva, is a good girl and I can give her a fine character if she should ever seek a place—in your hearts.

“Thank you! Thank you!”

(Curtain goes up.)

C. B. L.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
A COERCED COOK.

AT the last minute we learned that the girl we had counted upon to do our cooking at Clover Lodge had scarlet fever, and as she was the only local girl that we could hire—New England girls preferring to work in a “shop” to domestic service—we were at our wits’ end.

In our extremity Mrs. Vernon (my wife) made a last appeal to Minerva. She went into the kitchen of our New York flat and said,

“Minerva, Mamie Logan, the girl we expected to have up at Clover Lodge, has scarlet fever.”

Minerva was blacking the stove (as I could see from the dining room), but she stopped and turned around as she always did when her mistress spoke to her, and said “Yas’m.”

“Well, do you know what that means, Minerva?”

“Means she’s sick, ma’am.”

“Yes, but it also means that I haven’t anybody to cook for me up there.”

“Yas’m.”

“Well, don’t you think you could go up if we gave you five dollars a month more than you’re getting now?”

Minerva rubbed her already black arm with the blacking brush in an absent-minded sort of way as she said,

“’Deed I hate the country. It’s so dismal.”

I would have given up trying to get her to come then, as her tone sounded final to me, but Mrs. Vernon caught a gleam of willingness in her expression, and she said,

“Some country places may be doleful, Minerva, but Clover Lodge is in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and there’s a light kitchen and you can take ‘Miss Pussy,’ you know. I’m sure you’ll like it and the work won’t be as hard as it is here and there’s lots of fresh air. And I’ll lend you books to read. If you won’t come we’ll have to give up going, as I won’t take a stranger up from the city.”

“Yas’m,” said Minerva, turning to the stove and beginning to use the brush again.

“Well, will you go, Minerva?”

“Yas’m.”

“Oh, you dear good thing,” said my wife, and I fully expected her to hug Minerva.

She came in to where I was finishing my second cup of coffee and said,

“Minerva is a jewel. She’s going up. Do you know, in some ways it’s better than if we had Mamie Logan because Minerva is a much better cook and she won’t have any beaux from the village to make a noise in the kitchen in the evening—”

“No, but you may have to import beaux from Thompson Street to solace her loneliness,” said I. “If I know the kind at all, Minerva will die one day away from New York.”

“Nonsense,” said Ethel. “She can’t help falling in love with the view from the kitchen windows. That lovely old purple Mount Nebo.”

I had my doubts of a New York born and bred colored cook falling in love with any view that did not comprehend a row of city houses somewhere in its composition, but I said nothing. The doctor had told me that Ethel absolutely needed a long rest in the “real country,” hill country preferred, and even if I had to go out and help Minerva in the kitchen I was going up.

We had spent a delightful week at Clover Lodge the year before with the Chauncey Wheelocks, but this year they were going to Europe and had proposed our renting it furnished and had promised Mamie Logan as cook. But a cordon bleu is not immune from scarlet fever, as we had found to our vexation—although I doubt if we felt it as much as Mamie did. She, by the way, had actually liked scenery and had told Mrs. Vernon that the distant old mountain peak was company for her while she was washing dishes. But a purple peak would not take the place of the yellow lights of a great city to Minerva and I looked forward to varied experiences, although I said nothing about my expectations to Ethel.

I half expected Minerva to back out when it came to going, but she did not. Possibly the excitement of going on the cars had something to do with her fortitude. Possibly the diversion that “Miss Pussy” afforded made her forget that she was leaving her beloved city.

The cat was a startler and no mistake. While the train was in motion she kept quiet, but whenever we stopped at a station she let forth ear splitting shrieks, acting exactly as if she were being tortured. More than one non-smoking man sought refuge in the smoker and many were the black looks cast at Minerva.

I was glad that she sat behind us, for I did not wish to be mixed up in the affair. As for her she shrieked with laughter every time that the cat shrieked with dismay, and I felt that the cat, though unpleasant, was really making our journey easier, as it kept Minerva from dwelling upon her exile.

We took a branch road at Springfield and a half hour later we were in a wagon, climbing the steep ascent that leads to Clover Lodge.

The cat, sniffing fresh air and longing to be at liberty, redoubled its howls, but Minerva no longer laughed. She looked at the distant hills in an awed sort of way and sighed.

I sat with the driver, and Mrs. Vernon told Minerva interesting bits about the locality through which we were passing, but a languid “Yas’m” was the only reply she vouchsafed. She was fast falling a prey to nostalgia.

Upon our arrival at Clover Lodge there was enough to do to keep every one busy. The frantic cat was set free as soon as we arrived and she scudded under the house and we saw no more of her for some time. I did not think much of it at the moment, but when after our somewhat picnic dinner I heard Minerva at the back of the house calling in heart breaking tones “Miss Pussy, Miss Pussy, woan’ you come out? Come ou—t,” I realized that I should have chained the cat in the kitchen. It might stay away for a day or two in order to express its contempt for people who could subject it to such humiliation.

I was enjoying a smoke and Ethel was lying down. Oh, what a blessed relief this was from the noise and odours and bustle of the city!

“I can’t get out. Mist. Vernon! Mist. Vernon! I can’t get out. Ow.”

The sounds seemed to come from under the kitchen. I side-tracked my peaceful thoughts, laid my cigar on the railing of the piazza and ran around to the kitchen door and beheld Minerva wedged fast under the house. Clover Lodge has a very diminutive cellar which does not extend as far as the kitchen. There is a space of some two feet between the kitchen floor and the ground, used as a receptacle for various odds and ends in the way of boxes, clothes poles and the like, and our stout Minerva had attempted to creep under there in order to get Miss Pussy, whose tell-tale eyes gleamed at her from the darkness. She had failed to take into account the fact that her head could go where her body could not follow and she had become stuck.

“It’s all right, Minerva. I’ll get you out. There’s very little room for promenading there. I’ll have to knock a board out. I’ll get an axe.”

She kept up her groaning and at last Ethel was aroused by it, and, somewhat alarmed, hurried into the kitchen and saw the sprawling figure of Minerva with Clover Lodge on her back. The spectacle appealed to her sense of humour and she retreated to where she could laugh.

I had a somewhat ticklish job to get Minerva out unhurt. It was awkward splitting the board without touching her, but I compassed it at last, although each stroke of the axe was followed by a groan from Minerva, a spit from the cat and a suppressed laugh from Ethel, who was viewing the proceedings from a little distance.

When the board fell away and had been removed, Minerva, like an alligator, crawled in a little farther, so as to turn around, and then she crawled out face foremost, leaving Miss Pussy saying most ungenerous things there in the dusk.

“The cat will come out in a while, Minerva,” said I. “Are you hurt?”

Minerva was sitting on the ground, listening intently.

“What’s dem noises?” said she; “Oh, dis ain’ no place for me. Heah dem moanin’s in de grass.”

“Dem moanin’s in de grass” were bull frogs in a little pond not far away, but I dare say she pictured the meadows as full of people who had been enticed from the city and were now expiring under the evening sky, far from their friends.

I explained what the noise was and she returned to the kitchen, while I resumed consumption of my cigar and Ethel returned to her room, but in a few minutes:

“Mis. Vernon. Mis. Vernon. Ain’t there no more lights?”

Ethel had dropped asleep, so I went out into the kitchen. Minerva had lighted two lamps, and to me the kitchen looked like a ball room, it was so light, but the dusky maid from the Metropolis was seeing New York in her mind’s eye, and two kerosene lamps did not take the place of the firmament of gas and electric lights to which she had been used all her life.

“It is the first night and I will humour her,” thought I, and so I brought out a lamp from the parlour and another from the sitting room. I had the light from my cigar and needed no other.

When all four lamps had united to cast their radiance upon the kitchen Minerva was satisfied and thanked me in a die-a-way tone that, being interpreted, meant “Give me back New York with its crowds, and its noise and its glitter and its entertaining ‘gentlemen’ and its ice cream and soda.” Poor Minerva! Our joy and happiness came from the very things that were the abomination of desolation to her.

Meanwhile Ethel awoke from her nap and came down stairs. “Mercy, how dark it is. Why didn’t you light a lamp? Where are you, Philip?”

“I’m out on the piazza. Come out?”

“No, dear, I want to finish that story of Mrs. Everard Cotes’. I’m fascinated with it.”

“Ethel, come here,” said I, in a tone full of meaning.

She felt her way out.

“Minerva needed the gleam of many lights in the kitchen and I’ve plucked a lamp from every room. You’ll tire your eyes reading. Come and sit with me.”

Ethel gave a little chuckle and sat down in the chair I provided.

“Dear, it will end by our becoming her slaves.”

“Anything to keep her,” said I. “Who wants a light but the great light of stars. I suppose that to-night on all this broad continent there is no soul so wretched as poor Minerva, deprived of her elevator man and the girl across the hall—and all, that we may live in comfort. Who are we, Ethel, that we should do this thing?”

“Oh, stop your nonsense. Minerva will be all right when the sun shines.”

The light from the kitchen window shone away down the hill and lighted up the pool in which the bull frogs were “moaning.” Above their chorus we heard a wail.

“What’s that, an owl?”

“No, Ethel, that’s a howl. It’s Minerva again.”

We could now distinguish “So dismal!”

“You go and hold her in your lap and rock her to sleep. I can’t,” said I.

Ethel sighed herself. It was becoming monotonous. She rose and went into the kitchen, feeling her way cautiously through the dark sitting room, yet stumbling over a foot stool.

It looked to me as if we would be forced to take turns sitting outside of Minerva’s bedroom door, guarding her against the horrors of a country night, but after a time Ethel returned to me and told me that “Miss Pussy” had come in for dinner and that Minerva was perfectly happy and was going to take her to bed with her.

Soon after that she retired, and, being tired out with the labours and tribulations of the day, she slept like a log all night, and we were enabled to enjoy our repose undisturbed.

I rose early next morning and sang gaily, and I sang with a purpose. It might disturb Mrs. Vernon’s last nap, but it could not fail to make Minerva realize that she was not alone in the country, whereas if she had risen first and had seen nothing in the world but the great silent mountain she might have fled incontinently to the city.

When she came down to the kitchen, carrying the cat in her arms, I had already started the fire.

“Good morning, Minerva,” said I. “I haven’t built a kitchen fire since I was a small boy, and I wanted to see if I could do it. Excellent draught. Did you sleep well?”

“Yas’r.”

The laconic answer was in itself a symptom that she felt better.

“And the cat came back?” said I.

“Yas’r.”

I left the kitchen and took a walk in the cool morning air. All was well with the world. Minerva had slept and had learned that a night in the country was not fatal and Miss Pussy had recovered her equanimity. I sought for an appetite in the pine woods, and I found one.

CHAPTER II
MINERVA STUDIES NATURE.

I BLESSED Heaven for the lovely day that had come to us. If it had been rainy or even gray we should have had a hard time to keep Minerva. But even a hidebound cockney like herself could tolerate the sweetness of the air and the softness of the clouds and the brightness of the sun.

Ethel made cake so that she could be in the kitchen. I did not exactly approve of it, because the day was meant to be spent in the open, and I wanted to swing hammocks out in the pine woods and read a new novel which had been recommended to me as excellent for reading aloud, but I well knew the wisdom of getting Minerva started right, and I dare say that Ethel’s amiable conversation made her forget that the cook on the “other side of the hall” was nearly two hundred miles away.

At lunch time, Ethel looked very much heated and worn, and I said to myself, “Better me in the kitchen making impossible cake and regaling Minerva with anecdotes than Ethel neutralizing all the effects of this delicious country air in her efforts to keep our cook contented.” So, after lunch, I put up the hammocks and then I insisted on Ethel’s taking her embroidery and coming out to the woods.

“And what will Minerva do? She is afraid of the crickets, and I dare not leave her all the afternoon alone until she is acclimated.”

“No, of course she can’t be left. I didn’t intend her to be left. I will go and learn how to make bread, or, better still, I will paint the floor. Doesn’t the floor need painting?”

“Now, Philip, don’t be foolish. Of course you can’t stay in the kitchen. It’s no place for a man—”

“Nor is it any place for a woman who has come to the country for her health. And yet Minerva won’t stay here alone. What’s to be done?”

Ethel thought a minute and then said:

“I have some plain sewing that I want done and Minerva is very handy with her needle. She makes all her own clothes. She shall come to the pine woods with us and sew a fine seam until it’s time to start dinner, and then we can go back to the house and sit on the piazza. It’s not as pleasant as the woods, but we’ll be within ear call.”

This seemed preposterous, but if I disapproved and Minerva left, Ethel would be apt to blame me, so I consented and we all went to the grove, like a happy family of three. I read out loud from the new novel, but I don’t think that Minerva cared much for it, because when Miss Pussy, who had accompanied us, brought a bird and laid it at her mistress’ feet, Minerva broke right into my reading with:

“Why, Mis. Vernon, Miss Pussy has a bird, and it ain’t a sparrer an’ it ain’t a canary. What other kinds is there?”

Then the reading was stopped while Ethel gave a lesson in ornithology to the child of the city streets. I did not mind her absorbing all the learning she could, but I resented the interruption and I arose and walked away, wondering how long this thing was going to last. I had no doubt that in another week we would be giving a party in Minerva’s honour, and that we should take out a subscription for her in the Booklovers’ seemed foreordained. She must learn “How to Know the Trees,” and “How to Become a True Nature Lover in Six Lessons,” and “How to Listen to Birds,” and particularly “How to Forget the City.” If I could get her that book I would be willing to pay almost any price for it. Also, “How to Teach a Cook to Depend on Herself for Her Joys.” This traipsing around after us was not what I had expected.

My way led out to the road that runs below the pine grove, and I had barely emerged from the wood when I was hailed with a “Well, well, we are in luck! Where’s the Missus?” and there were Harry Farnet and his wife Rose, looking lost in a three-seated wagon drawn by two horses.

“Where did you drop from?” said I, for Harry Farnet is a New Yorker who generally runs over to Europe in the summer.

“Why, we’re at South Edgeley for a couple of weeks,” said he, “and the Longleys, who are staying at the Hillcrest, told us you had taken a cottage here for the summer, and so we thought we’d chance finding you in and take you back to dine and spend the evening, and then ride home in the moonlight. How’s Ethel?”

“Ethel is middling well, but she’s playing nurse girl to our cook and it is wearing on her just a little—and on me a great deal.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rose.

“Why, we brought up Minerva, you know—the treasure that we’ve had for three winters, and we find that she needs a city setting to be a jewel of the first water. She is so lonesome that we spend most of our time coddling her. She’s afraid of the frogs and moans for the delights of Gotham.”

“Poor thing! Well, she won’t have to bother with dinner to-night, so just give her a book—here, give her this box of candy. It’s quite dreadful, but I’m sure she’ll like it, and it’ll keep her mind off her troubles for quite a while. Jump in and take us to your house. Is Ethel there?”

“No, we’re all just up in the woods above. I’ve been reading to her, with interruptions from Minerva. Minerva and Kate Douglas Wiggin do not appear to be twin souls. Ethel! Ethel!” I called, and she answered, and a minute later she came in view and was both surprised and overjoyed to see the Farnets. Rose and she went to school together and they have always kept up an intimacy.

“Hello, you dear thing! You’re going riding with us—going to take dinner with us—we’re at South Edgeley, and in the evening we’ll drive you back.”

“Lovely!” cried Ethel, enthusiastically, and I was glad that the Farnets had come. Ethel needed company just as much as Minerva.

I heard a dead limb cracking in the woods above, and, looking up, saw Minerva, her eyes wide open and fearful, as if she thought we were going to leave her to perish in nature’s solitudes. For Ethel was just stepping into the carriage.

“That’s Minerva,” said Ethel to Rose. “Our cook. You know her, don’t you? Perfect jewel, but it’s the first time she has ever been away from New York, and she is very mournful.”

“So Philip was saying,” said Rose. “I tell him to give her a box of this dreadful chewing candy. It’s some we got at the only store in South Edgeley, and if she starts a piece it will keep her busy chewing for an hour at least. You’re not afraid to leave her, are you?”

“No, I’m not afraid,” said Ethel; “but I’m afraid she will be. She’s a hare for timidity. Oh, Minerva! we’re going for a ride and you needn’t get dinner to-night. We’ll be back before bed time.”

“Go’n’ to leave me alone in that God-forsaken house?” said Minerva, in such evident terror that Ethel shook her head at Rose and said, “I can’t do it. It would be heartless. You stay here and dine with us. We have loads of provisions.”

“No, Mamma will expect us. We told her we were going to get you and she’ll expect us. Our landlady has two seats waiting for you. You must come.”

Here was a vexing situation. It would be downright cruel to maroon Minerva, and yet we didn’t like to give up our anticipated pleasure.

There was more noise in the woods and “Miss Pussy” jumped out of a tree with a chipmunk in her mouth.

“Oh, Mis. Vernon, look at Miss Pussy! She’s got a striped rat. I never see sich a place for wild animals. I couldn’ no more stay alone—”

She paused for a phrase strong enough, and Rose clapped her hands and said,

“I have it. Minerva shall be your maid and ride on the back seat. This old ark was the only thing we could get, but now the third seat will be of some use.”

Miss Pussy dropped the chipmunk at Minerva’s feet, and Minerva jumped backward pretty nearly a yard.

“She’s killed it, Minerva. That chipmunk will never have a chance to hurt you,” said I in a consolatory tone. That reminded me of “Miss Pussy.”

“We can’t take the cat along,” said I to Ethel. “When the cat travels I prefer to be doing something else. I can still hear her cries on the train.”

“Well, shut her up in the house,” said Harry. He looked at his watch. “Come, it’s time we were starting. It’s up hill half the way back.”

“You can say that of any drive around here,” said I.

Minerva climbed in much as a mountain would have done it, and we started for the house to get wraps.

“The time we came up and this time are the on’y times I was ever in an open wagon,” said Minerva.

“Minerva is getting loquacious,” said I to Ethel.

Minerva overheard me and said,

“No, I ain’t, sir, not when they’s any one around. I’ll git used to it if there’s somethin’ doin’ all the time.”

“You’ve got your work cut out for you,” said Harry to me. “Master of the Revels. You might give her a lawn party—”

Rose shook her head warningly at her husband and we changed the subject, but it was plain to be seen that all Minerva needed was the excitement of society. If we made her our guest and I did the cooking we would have no difficulty in keeping her contented.

There was nothing worthy of note regarding Minerva during our ride to South Edgeley. She sat on the back seat and tangled her jaws in the candy, and I presume that she had a good dinner at the Farnet’s boarding house. Certainly we did and we enjoyed that and the ride back very much, and rejoiced that we had friends so near, although as Harry did not own the horses and the haying season was “on,” it was not likely that the Farnets and we would often meet, unless we walked toward each other and met at some half way point—and there again Minerva would be in the way. A three-mile walk with Minerva tagging behind like a younger sister was not a tempting idea.

However, the doctor had said that Ethel must have a good long rest in the country, and her needs were paramount. Without Minerva to cook she could not rest, and we must keep Minerva though the heavens should fall.

We were talking quietly about Minerva that evening after the Farnets had driven home, when the light in her bedroom that had been shining out on an elm at the side of the house, suddenly disappeared, there came a shriek, and then,

“Oh, Lordy, oh Lordy, leggo my hair.”

I thought of tramps, but Ethel, being a woman, divined what had happened and bade me light a lantern quickly. I rushed to the kitchen and lighted it. The house was not on fire, that was certain. Minerva was either having a fit or an encounter with a burglar, for there was a sound as of heavy foot-falls and choking ejaculations.

I seized the kitchen poker, expecting to sell my life at a bargain, but Ethel looked at me commiseratingly and with the one word “Bat,” she hurried up the back stairs.

I must say that at first I took the word to mean that Minerva had been imbibing and I wondered at Ethel’s using so idiomatic an expression, but when she entered the room and the sounds almost immediately stopped, to be followed by sobbing, I suddenly divined what she meant.

“No, Minerva, it isn’t poisonous.” (More lessons in Natural History.) “Probably the poor thing was more frightened than you are.”

I did not think it at all likely. At any rate, it had been far more reticent.

“I’ll give you a screen from the spare room to put in your window. It was attracted by the light. It’s a sort of mouse with wings.”

“Striped rats and mice with wings! Lordy, the country’s awful!”

Poor Minerva! She must have been surprised to see that country horses were just like those of the city. Certainly a horse has more evil potentiality than a stupid little bat, but when a beast has you by the hair and you see him, as it were, through the back of your head, he is apt to loom large and terrifying.

Quiet was soon restored and Ethel came down with the lantern. I put away the poker which I had been holding ever since I picked it up.

“It’s the greatest mercy in the world that the lamp went out. She knocked it over when the bat hit her.”

“What next? Is the room moth miller proof? Could she survive a June bug?”

“Well, really, it’s nothing to laugh at. If you ever have a bat in your back hair you’ll not think of laughing.”

As my back hair is fast going to join the snows of yesteryear, I considered this a most unkind cut, but I was above retaliating—as I could not think of anything to say.

“Well, Minerva has now been here a whole day and she’s hardly been out of our sight. I admit that she is an excellent cook and a hard worker, but as a steady visitor who, rides with us and sews with us she is likely to pall. Hasn’t she a mother who can come and visit her?”

“No,” Ethel answered, “Minerva is an only child.”

“And a child only,” said I.

CHAPTER III
AN EAST WIND.

THE next morning broke with an east wind blowing and a wet rain falling, but Ethel said that the two days in the country had made her feel like a different woman already, so I did not mind the rain, although a rainy day in the country, unless one be well fortified, either by inner grace or outer books and the good things of life, is apt to be a dreary affair.

Breakfast was delicious. We have never had a cook who had so much—well, you might call it temperament, as Minerva has. She will toss off a roll with the lightness that makes it a work of art, and her fried chicken is better than the broiled chicken of most cooks.

Ethel already better, and the breakfast such a poem: why, I felt that I was to be envied, and I wondered how people could be content to spend their summers on alien piazzas, eating hotel dinners and watching hotel dwellers dress and pose and gossip.

There had been no more bats in Minerva’s belfry, and as she had always seemed like a sensible girl in the city, I made up my mind that she was reconciled to the country and that in a few days she would begin to have very much the same feeling for it that we have—for Ethel and I were born in the city, and the country is an acquired taste with us.

But while I was browsing around in the Wheelocks’ library, Ethel came to me and said:

“The worst has happened, Philip. Minerva says she won’t stay—that she just can’t. She wants you to get a horse and take her to the station right away.”

I laid down my book with a sigh. “What’s the matter now?” said I. “More wild animals?”

“No, it’s the rain and the east wind. She says the moaning of it through the shutters is awful and she can’t stand it.”

“Might have known it,” said I, bitterly. “I might have known it. You’re beginning to feel better and the worst seems to be over, and then Minerva plays her trump card and takes the cake.”

My metaphors were sadly mixed, but I didn’t care. I was not at that moment trying to construct logical metaphors. I foresaw what would happen if Minerva left and Ethel went into the kitchen permanently. A sanitarium for her and I an enforced bachelor in some city room—for we had let our flat for the summer.

I do not often interfere with the household work, for my business keeps me at home most of the time, and I hold that when man and wife are both at home it is better to have but one housekeeper and that one a woman, but now I went out into the kitchen to try to mend matters, and I found Minerva looking at the steadily falling rain that was making Mount Nebo look like a ghost of itself. Now and again the blind rattled and always the wind moaned through it with a wintry effect that would have been admirably adapted to the return of the prodigal daughter.

And with each wail of the wind Minerva answered antiphonally, almost as if she were taking lessons in keening.

“Oh, myomy, myomy!”

Back and forth she rocked, her eyes glued to the dismal prospect (dismal to her, but with a surpassing beauty to sympathetic eyes), and the tears rolling down her face.

“Why, Minerva, what’s the matter? Got a toothache?” said I, affecting to be unwitting of the cause of her sorrow.

“’Deed, suh, it’s wuss’n a toothache. It’s the heartache. I knowed better when I said I’d come. Nance Jawnson told me how haw’ble the country was, but I felt sorry for Mis. Vernon, and so I come. Please get me away in a wagon. That wind whines like it was a dawg howlin’ an’ I can’t stand dawgs howlin’ ’cause my sisteh died of one.”

Her words were ambiguous, but I was in no mood to carp or criticise. She was suffering as acutely as a little child suffers when you throw her doll over the fence and I felt I must cheer her up and keep her if it—if it took all summer.

“Well, Minerva, we can soon stop the wind’s howling by opening the blinds.” I suited the action to the words and the wild moaning of the wind ceased. It was really almost as if the wind had been asking to have the blinds opened.

“Now you see, Minerva, that’s stopped and the rain will stop after awhile.”

“Yas’r, but it’s lonesome an’ I didn’t bring my ’cordeen. I forgot it till now.”

I knew she was a great hand to be trying patent medicines and supposed she referred to some bottled stuff, so I said,

“Oh, well, if that’s all, I can send for your medicine, or perhaps I can get some at Egerton.”

She looked at me in surprise as she said,

“I didn’ say nothin’ ’bout med’cine. I said I left my ’cordeen—”

“Oh, your accordeon. Can you play that?” said I, thankful that she had forgotten it.

“Yes indeedy.”

Her face grew pensive as she thought of the dreadful musical instrument which she had mercifully forgotten. I had never heard her use it at home, but Ethel told me afterward that she had been in the habit of going up on the roof with other cooks and the janitor, and that her departure was always followed by weird strains which Ethel had supposed was the janitor discoursing music that had the dyingest fall of anything ever heard. But it seems that Minerva was the performer, and among those whose ears are ravished by the “linked sweetness long drawn out”—and then pushed back again, she was accounted an adept.

Perhaps I could hold her by means of the accordeon. It was worth trying.

“Minerva,” said I, “Mrs. Vernon tells me that you want me to drive you down to the station and get you a ticket for New York. Now, if you go it will be a discreditable performance and an act unworthy of one who has always been well treated.”

I paused. The words were some of them a little beyond her, but they had made the more impression for that very fact.

“Mrs. Vernon is not strong enough to do the work and she came up here to gain strength. You are a very good cook, but if you left us now we would not care to have you when we returned to the city, and you will not find mistresses like Mrs. Vernon everywhere. There are those who forget that a servant is a human being, and you might happen to get such a mistress as that. I repeat that your going would be distinctly discreditable, utterly reprehensible and in the nature of a bad act. Now, if you must go, I am not the one to keep you, but if you go you go for good, which is not likely to be good for you.”

“Yas’r,” said Minerva, blinking at me.

“Now, if I send for your accordeon, will you give me your word of honour to stay your month out?”

I had used such a severe tone, mingled with what sorrow I could weave into it, and spotted with incomprehensible words, that Minerva was much impressed, and she said in a tone that was already more hopeful, “I give you my word, Mist. Vernon. My ’cordeen is like human folks to me.”

“Very well, I will write for it by the next mail. Where shall I tell Mr. Corson to look for it?”

“Mr. Corson ain’t got it. I lent it to the jan’ter the night befo’ I lef’ an’ he fo’got to give it back an’ I fo’got about it till the wind began to moan at me an’ then I got mo’ homesick ’an ever an’ thought of it.”

Think of being willing to swap the music of the wind for the cacophony of an accordeon! And yet, when some composer of the future introduces one in his Afro-American symphony and Felix Weingartner gives the symphony in Carnegie Hall, there may come a rage for accordeons and we shall no longer associate them with tenement houses and itinerant toughs, white and black.

I hastened to write the letter to the janitor, whose name was George W. Calhoun Lee, and Ethel, being housebound anyway, went into the kitchen to preserve some blueberries. I do not like preserved blueberries; neither does she, but there was nothing else she could think of to do in the kitchen, and Minerva needed “human folks” pending the arrival of the ’cordeen.

The Dalton boy came for the mail at noon and he had with him a string of trout. They were fresh from the brook and were still wriggling. I saw him pass into the house, and I followed him into the kitchen; for a string of trout is a joy to the eye—and I had a suspicion that Minerva would not know what to do with them.

She stared at them with the interest of a child, giggling every time one twitched its tail.

“Wha’ makes ’em move that way?” asked she of no one in particular.

“Why, they’re not dead yet,” I answered.

“An’ come all the way from New York?”

“Why, Minerva, these were caught in the brook down there in the valley. Weren’t they, Bert?”

“Yes, sir. Ketched all five inside an hour.”

Minerva’s eyes opened wider. “What’s a nower?” asked she.

Bert looked puzzled and so did Ethel, but I was able to explain and somehow the explanation struck Minerva as being very funny. She went off into a fit of laughter just like those she had had on the train when the cat howled.

“Inside a nower. That’s one awn me. Inside an hour.”

Ordinarily one does not go into the kitchen and provide amusement for the cook, but the events of the past few hours had so altered the complexion of things that I felt distinctly elated at having, in however humble a way, ministered to the joy of one as leaden hearted as Minerva and her laughter was so unctious, once it had got fairly started that first the Dalton boy, then Ethel, and at last I joined in and the east wind must have been astonished at his lack of power over our temperaments.

After the laughter had subsided and Bert had gone on his way with the precious letter to G. W. C. Lee, I was about to leave the kitchen, forgetful of my errand, when Minerva, in a tone of delightful camaraderie, said,

“Mist. Vernon, I can’t skin them fishes alive. They always come skinned from the fish store.”

“Well, I’ll kill them and scale them and clean them, and you can watch me, and the next time you’ll know how.”

Ethel had finished her berry canning and she now left the kitchen, winking at me as she did so as much as to say it was now my turn at the wheel. It was years since I had dressed a fish, but I snapped each one on the head as I had been taught to do by country boys in my own boyhood, and then I prepared them for the pan, scraping off much of their beauty in the process.

“Do they have North River shad out in that brook?” asked Minerva as I worked.

I thought at first it was a little pleasantry, but, looking at her, I saw she was perfectly serious—in fact, very serious, and I explained to her that cod and blue fish and sturgeon and sword fish never penetrated to these mountain brooks, preferring the sea; and so, with cheerful chat on both our parts, we bridged over the end of the morning and a half a day was gone with Minerva in a better frame of mind than she had been the day before with the sun shining. So valuable a thing is diplomacy.

While I was washing my hands, preparatory to lunch, Ethel being engaged in fixing her hair, I heard Minerva break out into song, and a moment later someone began to whistle in the kitchen.

Our window commanded a view of the side path, and no one had entered the kitchen since I had left it, but nevertheless two people were giving a somewhat unpleasant duet in the kitchen. The whistle did not accord with the voice, which had considerable of the natural coloured flavour—if flavour can have colour.

“Who can it be?” said I. “Minerva doesn’t know a soul up here, and no one up here would be apt to know ‘In the Good Old Summer Time.’”

“It’s positively uncanny,” said Ethel, taking the last hair pin out of her mouth and putting it into her hair. “I’m going to see. I want Minerva to make chocolate for lunch, and I forgot to tell her.”

Ethel went down and I hastily dried my hands and followed. If this fellow musician could be caged I would keep him for Minerva’s delectation. He should hang in the kitchen—so to speak. Minerva was evidently enjoying the duet—even more than we were.

I hurried and came within sight of the kitchen just as Ethel entered it. Ethel turned and came quickly toward me, her hand over her mouth to pen up her mirth.

We both rushed up stairs and sat down and had our second laugh of the morning in spite of the east wind. There was only one person in the kitchen, Minerva by name, and she was providing an obligato for her singing with her own lips. Minerva was performing the hitherto impossible feat of singing and whistling at the same time.

“When the ’cordeen comes,” said Ethel, “Minerva will be a trio.”

CHAPTER IV
A FRIENDLY BURGLAR.

WE retired that night feeling that our hold on Minerva was stronger than it had been hitherto, and we slept the sleep of the unworried.

But we were awakened at a little past midnight by a noise as of a somewhat heavy cat coming up stairs. Miss Pussy is heavy, but her tread is absolutely noiseless, so it could not be she, and we could hear Minerva snoring in her room, so it was not she.

“It’s a burglar,” whispered Ethel, wide awake in an instant.

I did not like the thought, which waked me wide also. I like burglars in books, but in real life there are too many possibilities wrapped up in them to make them agreeable companions of the night.

I hope I am not a coward, but I am not war-like. If a burglar has resolved on entering my house I say let him get away with the goods and then I’ll lose no time in putting in burglar alarms so as to be prepared thereafter, but to get up and attack a burglar with a chair or to attempt to expostulate with him lies outside of my province, and I hoped that these sounds would prove to be caused by shrinking wood or cracking plaster.

Creak, creak, creak. There was not a shadow of a doubt that some one was coming up the stairs. Ethel pulled the pillow over her face and I could feel her trembling. I sat up in bed and tried to feel brave. Tried it two or three times in obedience to the old saying anent succeeding but to be honest I did not feel brave.

The steps came nearer and Ethel, whose hearing is wonderfully acute, suddenly threw off the pillow, and sat up in bed also, saying:

“Philip, we must not let Minerva hear him or she will leave in the morning.”

“Sh!” said I, “be still. There he is.” We both put on the semblance of slumber.

The moon was shining into the room and we now saw a burly looking fellow with a bag over his shoulder walk past our door and peer into the spare room.

The Wheelock furnishings are plain and our own belongings would pack in small space and bring little in open market and it struck both Ethel and myself in spite of our fears that it was very funny for a burglar to be looking for plunder in our cottage.

I fancy that he himself saw he had picked out a poor house, for he left the spare room, contented himself with a casual glance into our sparsely furnished bedroom and then went creaking down the stairs again. Burglars in books make no noise, but I am sure I could have gone down stairs more quietly than he did and I was in an agony of fear—no longer of him but that Minerva might wake up and become panic stricken.

The burglar went as far as the kitchen and then he actually stumbled over a chair and this brought about the dreaded result. Minerva waked up and the next instant we heard a husky,

“Is that you, Mis. Vernon?”

Next we heard steps in her hall and the query repeated in a louder tone,

“Is that you, Mis. Vernon?”

Then came a shriek. She had evidently encountered the burglar.

“Oh, Philip, what shall we do?” said Ethel. “Don’t you think it will be safe to go and tell the burglar to go away? Minerva will surely go into hysterics and leave in the morning.”

“She’s gone there now. Hear her!”

The noise occasioned by the advent of the bat was as nothing compared to the din that Minerva let out upon the midnight air.

And now we heard a man’s voice, the voice of the burglar.

“Be quiet. I’m not going to hurt you. I made a mistake in the house.”

Made a mistake in the house and the next one half a mile away!

“Philip, if he were a dangerous burglar he would have shot her by this. Go and speak to him and tell him to go away.”

It was a risky proceeding, but after all we had gone through I was determined to keep Minerva with us at any risk, so pulling a dressing gown over my pajamas and leaping into my slippers, I went down stairs choking down my rising heart.

I met the burglar coming down the back stairs with his hands in his ears to shut out the shrieks that arose from Minerva.

When he saw me he sat down on the stairs and said, “I thought so. I thought she’d waken the house.”

Now this was a queer way for a burglar to act and it gave me heart. By all the rules of burglary the man should either have given me one in the jaw or a bit of lead in the lung or else he should have rushed past me and escaped, but he sat down on the top step and reminded me of Francis Wilson by the quaintness of his intonation and the expression that came over his face.

“Come here. I won’t hurt you,” said I, much as I might talk to a huge mastiff whose intentions were problematical. “Are you a family man?”

“Yes,” said he, astonished by the question into answering it.

“Well, then, you will understand my position when I tell you that the girl whom you have started into hysterics up there is our cook, our only cook, and if we lose her we’ll be absolutely cookless. You’re a burglar, are you not? Be frank.”

“Well, if you appeal to me that way, I am,” said he.

“Well, she’s frightened stiff. Even if you go away now and nothing further happens she will follow in the morning because she will expect burglars every night. Now I’m going to try to convince her that you stopped in here to ask the way to the village or to borrow a book—anything but that you’re a burglar, and I want you to help me out.”

“The idea is farcical,” said he smiling quite as if we were having a friendly chat after a dinner in his honour.

“No doubt it is farcical,” said I, “but if I can overcome Minerva’s fears by any means I’m going to do it. She’ll go into a fit pretty soon if the cause is not removed.”

“She’s most there now,” said the burglar. And he told the truth. Minerva had not ceased to use each breath in the manufacture of wild yawps that outdid her performances the evening of the bat.

“I’ll go and tell her to dress and come down and I’ll explain it all to her. We have to handle her with gloves on account of cooks being so scarce. You understand?”

“I understand. I have a little home in Pittsfield and half the time my wife does the cooking although ‘business’ is unusually good.”

“What is your busin—?”

I noticed his bag and stopped. How absent minded of me to ask.

“I don’t believe it is always as bad as it is to-night,” said I with a laugh. “My income doesn’t admit of anything for burglars. I only make enough for myself and my wife.”

“I believe you,” said he. “I saw that when I got up stairs and if I had not kicked over that cursed chair I would have been a mile away by now.”

I started to call up stairs to Minerva when the burglar’s eyes moved to a point behind me and turning, I saw Ethel, fully dressed and very calm. Her fear of losing Minerva had overcome her fear of the burglar and she had come down to see what she could do.

“Ethel, this is the burglar who woke us up, but he has taken nothing, and he’s going to fib a little so that Minerva may be brought out of her hysterical state. Please go up stairs and tell her to dress and come down; that there’s no danger, but I want to see her about something.”

With excitement and amusement struggling for the mastery on her features Ethel went up stairs and in a few moments the shrieks subsided.