Bud: A Novel. Munro Neil

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      “I know,” said the astounding child. “They think we don’t notice, but I guess God sees them,” and yet she had apparently never glanced at the windows herself, nor looked round to discover passers-by staring over their shoulders at her aunt and her.

      For a moment Ailie felt afraid. She dearly loved a quick perception, but it was a gift, she felt, a niece might have too young.

      “How in the world did you know that, Bud?” she asked.

      “I just guessed they’d be doing it,” said Bud, “‘cause it’s what I would do if I saw a little girl from Scotland walking down the lake front in Chicago. Is it dreff’le rude, Aunt Ailie?”

      “So they say, so they say,” said her aunt, looking straight forward, with her shoulders back and her eyes level, flushing at the temples. “But I’m afraid we can’t help it. It’s undignified – to be seen doing it. I can see you’re a real Dyce, Bud. The other people who are not Dyces lose a great deal of fun. They must be very much bored with each other. Do you know, child, I think you and I are going to be great friends – you and I and Aunt Bell and Uncle Dan.”

      “And the Mosaic dog,” added Bud with warmth. “I love that old dog so much that I could – I could eat him. He’s the becomingest dog! Why, here he is!” And it was indeed Footles who hurled himself at them, a rapturous mass of unkempt hair and convulsive barkings, having escaped from the imprisonment of Kate’s kitchen by climbing over her shoulders and out across the window-sash.

      CHAPTER VI

      I HEARD all about you and Auntie Bell and Uncle Dan from pop – from father,” said Bud, as they walked back to the house. She had learned already from example how sweeter sounded “father” than the term she had used in America. “He was mighty apt to sit up nights talking about you all. But I don’t quite place Kate: he never mentioned Kate.”

      “Oh, she’s a new addition,” explained Ailie. “Kate is the maid, you know: she came to us long after your father left home, but she’s been with us five years now, and that’s long enough to make her one of the family.”

      “My! Five years! She ain’t – she isn’t much of a quitter, is she? I guess you must have tacked her down,” said Bud. “You don’t get helps in Chicago to linger round the dear old spot like that; they get all hot running from base to base, same as if it was a game of ball. But she’s a pretty – pretty broad girl, isn’t she? She couldn’t run very fast; that’ll be the way she stays.”

      Ailie smiled. “Ah! So that’s Chicago, too, is it? You must have been in the parlor a good many times at five-o’clock tea to have grasped the situation at your age. I suppose your Chicago ladies lower the temperature of their tea weeping into it the woes they have about their domestics? It’s another Anglo-Saxon link.”

      “Mrs. Jim said sensible girls that would stay long enough to cool down after the last dash were getting that scarce you had to go out after them with a gun. You didn’t really, you know; that was just Mrs. Jim’s way of putting it.”

      “I understand,” said Alison, unable to hide her amusement. “You seem to have picked up that way of putting it yourself.”

      “Am I speaking slang?” asked the child, glancing up quickly and reddening. “Father pro – prosisted I wasn’t to speak slang nor chew gum; he said it was things no real lady would do in the old country, and that I was to be a well-off English undefied. You must be dreff’le shocked, Auntie Ailie?”

      “Oh no,” said Ailie cheerfully; “I never was shocked in all my life, though they say I’m a shocker myself. I’m only surprised a little at the possibilities of the English language. I’ve hardly heard you use a word of slang yet, and still you scarcely speak a sentence in which there’s not some novelty. It’s like Kate’s first attempt at sheep’s-head broth: we were familiar with all the ingredients except the horns, and we knew them elsewhere.”

      “That’s all right, then,” said Bud, relieved. “But Mrs. Jim had funny ways of putting things, and I s’pose I picked them up. I can’t help it – I pick up so fast. Why, I had scarlatina twice! and I picked up her way of zaggerating: often I zaggerate dreff’le, and say I wrote all the works of Shakespeare, when I really didn’t, you know. Mrs. Jim didn’t mean that she had to go out hunting for helps with a gun; all she meant was that they were getting harder and harder to get, and mighty hard to keep when you got them.”

      “I know,” said Alison. “It’s an old British story, you’ll hear it often from our visitors, if you’re spared. But we’re lucky with our Kate; we seem to give her complete satisfaction, or, at all events, she puts up with us. When she feels she can’t put up with us any longer, she hurls herself on the morning newspaper to look at the advertisements for ladies’-maids and housekeepers with £50 a year, and makes up her mind to apply at once, but can never find a pen that suits her before we make her laugh. The servant in the house of Dyce who laughs is lost. You’ll like Kate, Bud. We like her; and I notice that if you like anybody they generally like you back.”

      “I’m so glad,” said Bud, with enthusiasm. “If there’s one thing under the canopy I am, I’m a liker.” They had reached the door of the house without seeing the slightest sign that the burgh was interested in them, but they were no sooner in than a hundred tongues were discussing the appearance of the little American. Ailie took off Bud’s cloak and hood, and pushed her into the kitchen, with a whisper to her that she was to make Kate’s acquaintance, and be sure and praise her scones, then left her and flew upstairs, with a pleasant sense of personal good-luck. It was so sweet to know that brother William’s child was anything but a diffy.

      Bud stood for a moment in the kitchen, bashful, for it must not be supposed she lacked a childish shyness. Kate, toasting bread at the fire, turned round and felt a little blate herself, but smiled at her, such a fine expansive smile, it was bound to put the child at ease. “Come away in, my dear, and take a bite,” said the maid. It is so they greet you – simple folk! – in the isle of Colonsay.

      The night was coming on, once more with snowy feathers. Wanton Wully lit the town. He went from lamp to lamp with a ladder, children in his train chanting:

      and he expostulating with: “I know you fine, the whole of you; at least I know the boys. Stop you till I see your mothers!” Miss Minto’s shop was open, and shamefaced lads went dubiously in to buy ladies’ white gloves, for with gloves they tryst their partners here at New Year balls, and to-night was Samson’s fiddle giggling at the inn. The long tenement lands, as flat and high as cliffs, and built for all eternity, at first dark gray in the dusk, began to glow in every window, and down the stairs and from the closes flowed exceeding cheerful sounds. Green fires of wood and coal sent up a cloud above these dwellings, tea-kettles jigged and sang. A thousand things were happening in the street, but for once the maid of Colonsay restrained her interest in the window. “Tell me this, what did you say your name was?” she asked.

      “I’m Miss Lennox Brenton Dyce,” said Bud, primly, “but the miss don’t amount to much till I’m old enough to get my hair up.”

      “You must be tired coming so far. All the way from that Chickagoo!”

      “Chicago,” suggested Bud, politely.

      “Just that! Chickagoo or Chicago, it depends on the way you spell it,” said Kate, readily. “I was brought up to call it Chickagoo. What a length to come on New Year’s Day! Were СКАЧАТЬ