Real Folks, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney [the reader ebook txt] 📗

table, for the eating and the reading. Mr. Geoffrey and Uncle Titus sat talking European politics together, a little aside. The sugar-plums lasted a good while, with the chatter over them; and then, before they quite knew what it was all for, they had got slips of paper and lead pencils before them, and there was to be a round of "Crambo" to wind up.

"O, I don't know how!" and "I never can!" were the first words, as they always are, when it was explained to the uninitiated; but Miss Craydocke assured them that "everybody could;" and Hazel said that "nobody expected real poetry; it needn't be more than two lines, and those might be blank verse, if they were _very_ hard, but jingles were better;" and so the questions and the wards were written and folded, and the papers were shuffled and opened amid outcries of, "O, this is awful!" "_What_ a word to get in!" "Why, they haven't the least thing to do with each other!"

"That's the beauty of it," said Miss Craydocke, unrelentingly; "to _make_ them have; and it is funny how much things do have to do with each other when they once happen to come across."

Then there were knit brows, and desperate scratchings, and such silence that Mr. Geoffrey and Uncle Titus stopped short on the Alabama question, and looked round to see what the matter was.

Kenneth Kincaid had been modestly listening to the older gentlemen, and now and then venturing to inquire or remark something, with an intelligence that attracted Mr. Geoffrey; and presently it came out that he had been south with the army; and then Mr. Geoffrey asked questions of him, and they got upon Reconstruction business, and comparing facts and exchanging conclusions, quite as if one was not a mere youth with only his eyes and his brains and his conscience to help him in his first grapple with the world in the tangle and crisis at which he found it, and the other a grave, practiced, keen-judging man, the counsellor of national leaders.

After all, they had no business to bring the great, troublesome, heavy-weighted world into a child's party. I wish man never would; though it did not happen badly, as it all turned out, that they did a little of it in this instance. If they had thought of it, "Crambo" was good for them too, for a change; and presently they did think of it; for Dorris called out in distress, real or pretended, from the table,--

"Kentie, here's something you must really take off my hands! I haven't the least idea what to do with it."

And then came a cry from Hazel,--

"No fair! We're all just as badly off, and there isn't one of us that has got a brother to turn to. Here's another for Mr. Kincaid."

"There are plenty more. Come, Mr. Oldways, Mr. Geoffrey, won't you try 'Crambo?' There's a good deal in it, as there is in most nonsense."

"We'll come and see what it is," said Mr. Geoffrey; and so the chairs were drawn up, and the gray, grave heads looked on over the young ones.

"Why, Hazel's got through!" said Lois, scratching violently at her paper, and obliterating three obstinate lines.

"O, I didn't bother, you see! I just stuck the word right in, like a pin into a pincushion, and let it go. There wasn't anything else to do with it."

"I've got to make my pincushion," said Dorris.

"I should think you had! Look at her! She's writing her paper all over! O, my gracious, she must have done it before!"

"Mother and Mr. Geoffrey are doing heaps, too! We shall have to publish a book," said Diana, biting the end of her pencil, and taking it easy. Diana hardly ever got the rhymes made in time; but then she always admired everybody's else, which was a good thing for somebody to be at leisure to do.

"Uncle Oldways and Lilian are folding up," said Hazel.

"Five minutes more," said Miss Craydocke, keeping the time with her watch before her. "Hush!"

When the five minutes were rapped out, there were seven papers to be read. People who had not finished this time might go on when the others took fresh questions.

Hazel began reading, because she had been ready first.

"'What is the difference between sponge-cake and doughnuts?' 'Hallelujah.'"

"Airiness, lightness, and insipidity; Twistiness, spiciness, and solidity. Hallelujah! I've got through! That is the best that I can do!'"

There was a shout at Hazel's pinsticking.

"Now, Uncle Titus! You finished next."

"My question is a very comprehensive one," said Uncle Titus, "with a very concise and suggestive word. 'How wags the world?' 'Slambang.'"

"'The world wags on With lies and slang; With show and vanity, Pride and inanity, Greed and insanity, And a great slambang!'"

"That's only _one_ verse," said Miss Craydocke. "There's another; but he didn't write it down."

Uncle Titus laughed, and tossed his Crambo on the table. "It's true, so far, anyway," said he.

"_So far_ is hardly ever quite true," said Miss Craydocke

Lilian Ashburne had to answer the question whether she had ever read "Young's Night Thoughts;" and her word was "Comet."

"'Pray might I be allowed a pun, To help me through with just this one? I've tried to read Young's Thoughts of Night, But never yet could come it, quite.'"

"O, O, O! That's just like Lilian, with her soft little 'prays' and 'allow me's,' and her little pussy-cat ways of sliding through tight places, just touching her whiskers!"

"It's quite fair," said Lilian, smiling, "to slide through if you can."

"Now, Mr. Geoffrey."

And Mr. Geoffrey read,--

"'What is your favorite color?' 'One-hoss.'"

"'Do you mean, my friend, for a one-hoss shay, Or the horse himself,--black, roan, or bay? In truth, I think I can hardly say; I believe, for a nag, "I bet on the gray."

"'For a shay, I would rather not have yellow, Or any outright, staring color, That makes the crowd look after a fellow, And the little _gamins_ hoot and bellow.

"'Do you mean for ribbons? or gowns? or eyes? Or flowers? or gems? or in sunset skies? For many questions, as many replies, Drops of a rainbow take rainbow dyes.

"'The world is full, and the world is bright; Each thing to its nature parts the light; And each for its own to the Perfect sight Wears that which is comely, and sweet, and right.'"

"O, Mr. Geoffrey! That's lovely!" cried the girl voices, all around him. And Ada made a pair of great eyes at her father, and said,--

"What an awful humbug you have been, papa! To have kept the other side up with care all your life! Who ever suspected _that_ of you?"

Diana and Hazel were not taken so much by surprise, their mother had improvised little nursery jingles for them all their baby days, and had played Crambo with them since; so they were very confident with their "Now, mother:" and looked calmly for something creditable.

"'What is your favorite name?'" read Mrs. Ripwinkley. "And the word is 'Stuff.'"

"'When I was a little child, Looking very meek and mild, I liked grand, heroic names,-- Of warriors, or stately dames: Zenobia, and Cleopatra; (No rhyme for that this side Sumatra;) Wallace, and Helen Mar,--Clotilda, Berengaria, and Brunhilda; Maximilian; Alexandra; Hector, Juno, and Cassandra; Charlemagne and Britomarte, Washington and Bonaparte; Victoria and Guinevere, And Lady Clara Vere de Vere. --Shall I go on with all this stuff, Or do you think it is enough? I cannot tell you what dear name I love the best; I play a game; And tender earnest doth belong To quiet speech, not silly song.'"

"That's just like mother; I should have stopped as soon as I'd got the 'stuff' in; but she always shapes off with a little morriowl," said Hazel. "Now, Desire!"

Desire frantically scribbled a long line at the end of what she had written; below, that is, a great black morass of scratches that represented significantly the "Slough of Despond" she had got into over the winding up, and then gave,--

"'Which way would you rather