“oh! jack, ellen, come here this instant!” cried jane pellew in so excited a manner that the mail rider almost fell out of his jumper in his effort to see what it was that made miss jane “take on so.” she was dancing around the broad old veranda waving one of the letters he had just handed her.
“too hot, sis, and we are too comfortable,” came jack’s lazy voice from under the big ash tree that shaded one side of the porch.
“you have enough energy for all of us, so s’pose you come to us,” ellen called.
“you won’t be hot for long, but you are going to be very uncomfortable in a minute.” with the warning, jane jumped off the porch and landed in ellen’s lap, then pulled herself up quickly by means of one hand entwined in jack’s thick chestnut hair.
“shut up and listen!” commanded jane.
“nobody has a chance to do anything else with you around,” jack reminded his sister.
“who could do anything else but listen after having a hundred and thirty pounds of buoyant young kentucky girl hurled on top of you from a distance of some ten feet? i don’t believe i shall ever get my breath again,” groaned ellen.
“i’ll say you manage pretty well without it,” jane laughed. “but, as i was saying, listen and you will hear the most wonderful piece of news that has happened in the history of mankind,” and she started reading from the letter she had still managed to keep in her hand:
“dearest jane:”
“bet it is from one of the camp fire girls,” interrupted her brother.
“keep quiet, i have a good mind not to tell you after all. but i am such a nice girl i suppose i’ll have to. it’s from mabel wing. now, let me finish,” pleaded jane.
“dearest jane:
“as long as ellen birch is staying with you, read this to her, as i am so busy i’ll never have time to write two letters saying exactly the same thing. i am sending one to ruth garnier with the request that she read hers to frances bliss, who is staying at her home.
“and telegraph me whether you will or won’t, but please do. i always do things backwards even in letters. what i mean is daddy is going to give me a cruise on his yacht and i want you and ellen and jack to come. we will leave city island, n. y., july the first, and go till we get bored, up to the maine coast and poke around all those little islands that daddy says grow in the new england waters.
“don’t bring any clothes, as there never is any place to stow more than the bare essentials. and make jack bring his banjo and, of course, your bathing suits and camp fire clothes.
“i’ll be so disappointed i’ll die if you don’t.
hastily,
“mabel.”
“as if you couldn’t tell it was ‘hastily, mabel,’” jack laughed. “but i have no idea of bringing your bathing suits and camp fire regalia.”
“goose! that is just the mabel of it. she writes just as she talks,” explained his sister.
“what fun for all of us! but we must telegraph right away,” said the practical ellen.
“here comes father now,” and jane pointed to a red-wheeled buggy and a briskly trotting bay horse driven up the shady approach to the pellews’ home by the master of the house.
the three of them ran across to meet mr. pellew, a man beloved by his children’s friends as much as he was respected and loved by his own.
“daddy dear, mabel wants—” began jane.
“it will be wonderful!” put in ellen.
“is it all right with you if i go too, dad?” jack interrupted both girls.
mr. pellew put his hands up to his ears and screamed above the hubbub: “how can i tell whether it will be wonderful for ellen and all right for you or even what mabel wants if the bunch of you try to rival the builders of the tower of babel?”
“ellen,” suggested jack, “you tell him; jane gets too excited.”
ellen put one hand over jane’s mouth and told mr. pellew of the interesting trip mabel and her father had planned for them.
squirming away from ellen, jane flung her arms around her father’s neck and said, “but we don’t like leaving you when we have been home from school for only such a short while.”
“it never seems to enter your scatter-brained heads that i might oppose you in anything,” mr. pellew smiled at his daughter.
“you always are keen for us to have a good time,” jack explained.
“and you went and had such clever good children that they know just exactly what to do and what is good for them and what is bad for them,” added jane.
“of course you can go and i’ll be mighty glad for my children to have such a wonderful summer. when do you expect to leave and from what point?” inquired mr. pellew.
“first of july, city island!” came in chorus from the three.
“henceforth all my conversation will be nautical. yo-ho-ho and a bottle of two per cent substitute. jack, do you have to have a horn or a pipe for stage property when you want to execute a briny jig?” and jane began to cavort around in what she considered a truly seafaring manner.
“‘shiver my timbers!’ and ‘scuttle her amidships!’ is my contribution to this, but i am the only person to be allowed to use these choice phrases until some one can think up better ones. then, of course, i’ll be glad to cash in my old ones for the new ones,” was ellen’s generous offer.
“son, you had better order some horses saddled directly after dinner so you kids can ride over and send the necessary telegrams,” said mr. pellew to jack.
with an “aye, aye, sir,” jack raced toward the stable.
“home is so beautiful in the summer that i can hardly bear to leave it,” sighed jane.
she and her father and ellen were walking over the close-cut grass and she cast a rather wistful eye around the lovely lawn that stretched before the pellew house. there were great trees whose spreading branches had shaded her grandparents, her own father and the mother she couldn’t remember, but loved because of the sweet pictures her father had of her. where the lawn stopped the rolling fields of blue grass began and jane could see the old mare, on which she and jack had learned to ride, grazing contentedly. it was a hobby of her father’s never to sell the old horses on the place but to treat them as worthy old pensioners and turn them out on the rich bluegrass pasture lands that bordered his place. mr. pellew had a string of race horses famous throughout kentucky, and as jane put it, she and jack had “fallen from the cradle into a saddle.” their father kept a model stable and aunt min, who took charge of the pellew home, often complained that the expense of upkeep for the stable was far greater than that of their exceedingly well run home.
“well, of course, i won’t force you to go,” teased her father.
“why, jane, i thought you were perfectly wild to go,” ellen said.
“oh, that is the way i always behave about leaving home. i am terribly sentimental over it and always indulge in dramatics when i go away. you see, i am bats about all the horses and dogs on the place and i can’t help thinking about atta boy, the denmark colt dad was letting me break for my own,” jane explained. “all the work i have put in on him will come to nothing if he isn’t ridden regularly this summer, and daddy doesn’t have time to do it for me and i wouldn’t trust anybody else with such a peach of a colt.”
“you honor me, daughter.” mr. pellew made a low mocking bow. “to show my deep appreciation of the fact that you put my horsemanship on the level with your own, i suppose i will have to promise to ride atta boy every other day for you.”
“i love kentucky too, jane, and you can’t know how much it has meant to me to stay with you. last summer it was too wonderful with the other girls here but this summer it has been just splendid with you and jack.” ellen blushed after mentioning jack, because he had just been telling her what a wonderful summer it was for him with her visiting jane.
“ellen, did you ever hear this little tribute to our state?” mr. pellew asked and began:
“ever see kentucky grass
or hear about its blueness?
looks as if the whole derned earth
was bursting out in newness.
skies and folks alike all smiles.
gracious! you are lucky
if you spend a day in june
down in old kentucky.”
“and the more days you spend in kentucky the luckier you are,” stated jane. “but goodness, i sound like that girl from virginia who was at hillside last year.”
aunt min came out on the porch and interrupted the eulogy on the charms of kentucky by telling them that dinner was ready. but anyone seeing the great platter of fried chicken on the table before aunt min would have said that the eulogy might well have been continued in the spacious old dining room.
