FullReads

“I know him well,” said Mr. Debrett. “He is rather awful I must admit. And now we’ll talk about the books. Don’t you care at all about ‘Little Men’ and ‘Little Women’ or the ‘Elsie Books?'”

“Jimmie says,” Cecelia Anne made reply, “that ‘Darkest Africa’ is better for me. It tells me just where to hit an elephant to give him the death throes. He says the ‘Elsie Books’ wouldn’t be any help to us even with a buffalo. We’re going to buy ‘The Wild Huntress, or Love in the Wilderness’ next month. Jimmie thinks that’s sure to get my nerve up–being about a girl, you see–“

“And ‘Treasure Island’ now;” said her guardian, “did you enjoy that? It came rather late in my life, but I remember thinking it a great book.”

“It’s great for nerve. Jimmie often reads me parts of it after I go to bed at night. There’s a poem in it–he taught me that by heart–and if I think to say it the last thing before I go to sleep he says I’ll get so’s nothing can scare me.”

“Recite it for Mr. Debrett,” urged Mrs. Hawtry. And Cecelia Anne obediently began, with a jerk of a curtsey and a shake of her delicate embroideries and blue sash.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Mr. Debrett’s astonishment at this lullaby held him silent for some seconds.

“You see, sir,” Cecelia Anne explained, “if you can go to sleep thinking about that it shows your nerve. I can’t. Not yet. But it never makes me cry any more and Jimmie says that’s something.”

“I should say it was!” he congratulated her. “It’s wonderful. And now in the matter of dolls,” he went on referring to the list, “no rag babies, eh?”

“Oh, but she has beautiful dolls, Mr. Debrett,” interposed her mother. “She’ll show them to you to-morrow morning, won’t you honey-child? But she did not buy them. They were given to her at Christmas and other times. But really, since we came out here for the summer they’ve been rather neglected. Their mother has been so busy.”

“And Jimmie made me a house for them!” Cecelia Anne broke in. “And furniture! And a front yard stuck right on to the piazza! But I don’t know, mother, whether I’d have time to show them to Mr. Debrett in the morning. I’m pretty busy now. It’s getting so near the race. And I pace Jimmie every morning.”

“Ah! that reminds me,” said her father, “Jimmie told me to send you to bed at eight o’clock–one of the rules of ‘training’, you know–so say good night to us all and put your little book back in the drawer. You’ve kept it very nicely. I am sure Mr. Debrett agrees with me.”

When the elders were alone, Mrs. Hawtry crossed over into the light and addressed her guest.

“I can’t have you thinking badly of Jimmie,” she began, “or of us, for allowing him to practically spend the baby’s income. Every one of the things on that list mark a stage in Cecelia Anne’s progress away from priggishness and toward health. I don’t know just how much she realizes her own power of veto in these purchases but I am sure she would never exercise it against Jimmie. She’s absolutely wrapped up in him and he’s wonderfully good and patient with her. Of course, you know, they’re twins although no one ever guesses it. They’ve shared everything from the very first.”

“In this combination,” laughed Debrett, “the boy is ‘father to the girl’ and the girl is ‘mother to the boy.'”

“Precisely so,” Mr. Hawtry replied, “and the mother part comes out strong in this race and training affair. An old chap down at the hotel–one of those old white-whiskered ‘Foxey Grandpas’ that no summer resort should be without–has arranged a great race for his friends, the children, on Fourth of July morning. The prize is to be the privilege of setting off the fireworks in the evening.”