Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (iphone ebook reader .TXT) 📖

very conscientious people.

 

Elizabeth Ann, however, had no grocer brother. She had, it is true, a

great many relatives, and of course it was settled she should go to some

of them till Aunt Frances could take her back. For the time being, just

now, while everything was so distracted and confused, she was to go to

stay with the Lathrop cousins, who lived in the same city, although it

was very evident that the Lathrops were not perfectly crazy with delight

over the prospect.

 

Still, something had to be done at once, and Aunt Frances was so frantic

with the packing up, and the moving men coming to take the furniture to

storage, and her anxiety over her mother—she had switched to Aunt

Harriet, you see, all the conscientiousness she had lavished on

Elizabeth Ann—nothing much could be extracted from her about Elizabeth

Ann. “Just keep her for the present, Molly!” she said to Cousin Molly

Lathrop. “I’ll do something soon. I’ll write you. I’ll make another

arrangement … but just NOW … .”

 

Her voice was quavering on the edge of tears, and Cousin Molly Lathrop,

who hated scenes, said hastily, “Yes, oh, yes, of course. For the

present …” and went away, thinking that she didn’t see why she should

have ALL the disagreeable things to do. When she had her husband’s

tyrannical old mother to take care of, wasn’t that enough, without

adding to the household such a nervous, spoiled, morbid young one as

Elizabeth Ann!

 

Elizabeth Ann did not of course for a moment dream that Cousin Molly was

thinking any such things about her, but she could not help seeing that

Cousin Molly was not any too enthusiastic about taking her in; and she

was already feeling terribly forlorn about the sudden, unexpected change

in Aunt Frances, who had been SO wrapped up in her and now was just as

much wrapped up in Aunt Harriet. Do you know, I am sorry for Elizabeth

Ann, and, what’s more, I have been ever since this story began.

 

Well, since I promised you that I was not going to tell about more

tears, I won’t say a single word about the day when the two aunts went

away on the train, for there is nothing much but tears to tell about,

except perhaps an absent look in Aunt Frances’s eyes which hurt the

little girl’s feelings dreadfully.

 

And then Cousin Molly took the hand of the sobbing little girl and led

her back to the Lathrop house. But if you think you are now going to

hear about the Lathrops, you are quite mistaken, for just at this moment

old Mrs. Lathrop took a hand in the matter. She was Cousin Molly’s

husband’s mother, and, of course, no relation at all to Elizabeth Ann,

and so was less enthusiastic than anybody else. All that Elizabeth Ann

ever saw of this old lady, who now turned the current of her life again,

was her head, sticking out of a second-story window; and that’s all that

you need to know about her, either. It was a very much agitated old

head, and it bobbed and shook with the intensity with which the

imperative old voice called upon Cousin Molly and Elizabeth Ann to stop

right there where they were on the front walk.

 

“The doctor says that what’s the matter with Bridget is scarlet fever,

and we’ve all got to be quarantined. There’s no earthly sense bringing

that child in to be sick and have it, and be nursed, and make the

quarantine twice as long!”

 

“But, Mother!” called Cousin Molly, “I can’t leave the child in the

middle of the street!”

 

Elizabeth Ann was actually glad to hear her say that, because she was

feeling so awfully unwanted, which is, if you think of it, not a very

cheerful feeling for a little girl who has been the hub round which a

whole household was revolving.

 

“You don’t HAVE to!” shouted old Mrs. Lathrop out of her second-story

window. Although she did not add “You gump!” aloud, you could feel she

was meaning just that. “You don’t have to! You can just send her to the

Putney cousins. All nonsense about her not going there in the first

place. They invited her the minute they heard of Harriet’s being so bad.

They’re the natural ones to take her in. Abigail is her mother’s own

aunt, and Ann is her own first-cousin-once-removed … just as close as

Harriet and Frances are, and MUCH closer than you! And on a farm and

all … just the place for her!”

 

“But how under the sun, Mother!” shouted Cousin Molly back, “can I GET

her to the Putneys’? You can’t send a child of nine a thousand miles

without …”

 

Old Mrs. Lathrop looked again as though she were saying “You gump!” and

said aloud, “Why, there’s James, going to New York on business in a few

days anyhow. He can just go now, and take her along and put her on the

right train at Albany. If he wires from here, they’ll meet her in

Hillsboro.”

 

And that was just what happened. Perhaps you may have guessed by this

time that when old Mrs. Lathrop issued orders they were usually obeyed.

As to who the Bridget was who had the scarlet fever, I know no more than

you. I take it, from the name, she was the cook. Unless, indeed, old

Mrs. Lathrop made her up for the occasion, which I think she would have

been quite capable of doing, don’t you?

 

At any rate, with no more ifs or ands, Elizabeth Ann’s satchel was

packed, and Cousin James Lathrop’s satchel was packed, and the two set

off together, the big, portly, middle-aged man quite as much afraid of

his mother as Elizabeth Ann was. But he was going to New York, and it is

conceivable that he thought once or twice on the trip that there were

good times in New York as well as business engagements, whereas poor

Elizabeth Ann was being sent straight to the one place in the world

where there were no good times at all. Aunt Harriet had said so, ever so

many times. Poor Elizabeth Ann!