“When will that trunk be up to the house, expressman?” the Northerners say, not so much as looking at him.
Then you ought to hear Hi drawl. You know his drawl! But it’s grown worse.
“Sometime along in the forenoon, I reckon, ma’am.”
“Aren’t you sure of it? Because if you aren’t, I shall get another man to bring it up.”
“Yessum. Only I’m the only one in town jest now that does trunk haulin’. But don’t you worry, ma’am. I feel tollable sure that there trunk will git up to you-all’s house some time before evenin’.”
You can just hear the Northerners pant when he says that.
I know you and your people are Northerners, Carin, dear, but you’re not the snap-turtle variety.
I do wish you’d been down here this summer. I had so much to tell you. The Shoals looked very lonely with none of you in it. Was it so lovely up there in Maine that you forgot our purple mountains? I know it must be beautiful up there. I look at the map, and follow all the queer little inlets and outlets, and think how bright the water must be as it breaks on the rocks.
Well, we have had wonderful things to look at ourselves. Why, only to-day the mountains looked like gigantic plums, with rich purple bloom all over them; and the sky went to the trouble to try to match them. But I’d have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t been so poor. Not that I’m any poorer than usual, but I feel poorer because I see that at last it is “up to me” to be the money-maker. And I don’t know how to begin.
I have explained to you distinctly a number of times, my dear Carin, that when I write this way I do it to ease my feelings. I want your advice. But that is all I do want of you, except, of course, your love and sympathy. I know you ache to play fairy godmother. You’ve tried to do that many times. But I think you understand pretty well by now that that wouldn’t really help me out. I want my own fight, my own life, my own victories. Just at present I’m terribly puzzled, because I want to help Father and Mother McBirney and Jim.
I can’t write it all to Keefe, because—well because he might be able to think of a way to help me out, but not of a way to help the others. Keefe is terribly impulsive, and he will not realize how young he is. He is disgracefully young. So am I. That extreme youthfulness of ours gets in the way of some of his plans. No, I can’t write him. He isn’t sensible. Perhaps that is one of the reasons he paints so well. Did I tell you he was making rather a specialty of portraits? He sent me one of a young Jewish girl who is in his color class at the Academy of Design. He says her name is Miriam. She fits the name.