Chapter 3

Solomon John suggested that measurements might be made by seeing how much grass the Bromwicks’ cow, opposite them, eat up in a day.

The little boys agreed to go over and spend the day on the Bromwicks’ fence, and take an observation.

“The trouble would be,” said Elizabeth Eliza, “that cows walk about so, and the Bromwicks’ yard is very large. Now she would be eating in one place, and then she would walk to another. She would not be eating all the time, a part of the time she would be chewing.”

The little boys thought they should like nothing better than to have some sticks, and keep the cow in one corner of the yard till the calculations were made.

But Elizabeth Eliza was afraid the Bromwicks would not like it.

“Of course, it would bring all the boys in the school about the place, and very likely they would make the cow angry.”

Agamemnon recalled that Mr. Bromwick once wanted to hire Mr. Peterkin’s lot for his cow.

Mr. Peterkin started up.

“That is true; and of course Mr. Bromwick must have known there was feed enough for one cow.”

“And the reason you didn’t let him have it,” said Solomon John, “was that Elizabeth Eliza was afraid of cows.”

“I did not like the idea,” said Elizabeth Eliza, “of their cow’s looking at me over the top of the fence, perhaps, when I should be planting the sweet peas in the garden. I hope our cow would be a quiet one. I should not like her jumping over the fence into the flower-beds.”

Mr. Peterkin declared that he should buy a cow of the quietest kind.

“I should think something might be done about covering her horns,” said Mrs.

Peterkin; “that seems the most dangerous part. Perhaps they might be padded with cotton.”

Elizabeth Eliza said cows were built so large and clumsy, that if they came at you they could not help knocking you over.

The little boys would prefer having the pasture a great way off. Half the fun of having a cow would be going up on the hills after her.

Agamemnon thought the feed was not so good on the hills.

“The cow would like it ever so much better,” the little boys declared, “on account of the variety. If she did not like the rocks and the bushes, she could walk round and find the grassy places.”

“I am not sure,” said Elizabeth Eliza, “but it would be less dangerous to keep the cow in the lot behind the house, because she would not be coming and going, morning and night, in that jerky way the Larkins’ cows come home. They don’t mind which gate they rush in at. I should hate to have our cow dash into our front yard just as I was coming home of an afternoon.”

“That is true,” said Mr. Peterkin; “we can have the door of the cow-house open directly into the pasture, and save the coming and going.”

The little boys were quite disappointed. The cow would miss the exercise, and they would lose a great pleasure.

Solomon John suggested that they might sit on the fence and watch the cow.

It was decided to keep the cow in their own pasture; and as they were to put on an end kitchen, it would be perfectly easy to build a dairy.

The cow proved a quiet one. She was a little excited when all the family stood round at the first milking, and watched her slowly walking into the shed.

Elizabeth Eliza had her scarlet sack dyed brown a fortnight before. It was the one she did her gardening in, and it might have infuriated the cow. And she kept out of the garden the first day or two.

Mrs. Peterkin and Elizabeth Eliza bought the best kind of milk-pans, of every size.

But there was a little disappointment about the taste of the milk.

The little boys liked it, and drank large mugs of it. Elizabeth Eliza said she could never learn to love milk warm from the cow, though she would like to do her best to patronize the cow.

Mrs. Peterkin was afraid Amanda did not under stand about taking care of the milk; yet she had been down to overlook her, and she was sure the pans and the closet were all clean.

“Suppose we send a pitcher of cream over to the lady from Philadelphia to try,” said Elizabeth Eliza; “it will be a pretty attention before she goes.”

“It might be awkward if she didn’t like it,” said Solomon John. “Perhaps something is the matter with the grass.”

“I gave the cow an apple to eat yesterday,” said one of the little boys, remorsefully.

Elizabeth Eliza went over, and Mrs. Peterkin too, and explained all to the lady from Philadelphia, asking her to taste the milk.

The lady from Philadelphia tasted, and said the truth was that the milk was sour!

“I was afraid it was so,” said Mrs. Peterkin; “but I didn’t know what to expect from these new kinds of cows.”

The lady from Philadelphia asked where the milk was kept.

“In the new dairy,” answered Elizabeth Eliza.

“Is that in a cool place?” asked the lady from Philadelphia.

Elizabeth Eliza explained it was close by the new kitchen.

“Is it near the chimney?” inquired the lady from Philadelphia.

“It is directly back of the chimney and the new kitchen-range,” replied Elizabeth Eliza. “I suppose it is too hot!”

“Well, well!” said Mrs. Peterkin, “that is it! Last winter the milk froze, and now we have gone to the other extreme! Where shall we put our dairy?”

THE PETERKINS’ CHRISTMAS-TREE.

EARLY in the autumn the Peterkins began to prepare for their Christmas-tree.

Everything was done in great privacy, as it was to be a surprise to the neighbors, as well as to the rest of the family. Mr. Peterkin had been up to Mr.

Bromwick’s wood-lot, and, with his consent, selected the tree. Agamemnon went to look at it occasionally after dark, and Solomon John made frequent visits to it mornings, just after sunrise. Mr. Peterkin drove Elizabeth Eliza and her mother that way, and pointed furtively to it with his whip; but none of them ever spoke of it aloud to each other. It was suspected that the little boys had been to see it Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. But they came home with their pockets full of chestnuts, and said nothing about it.

At length Mr. Peterkin had it cut down and brought secretly into the Larkin’s barn. A week or two before Christmas a measurement was made of it with Elizabeth Eliza’s yard-measure. To Mr. Peterkin’s great dismay it was discovered that it was too high to stand in the back parlor.

This fact was brought out at a secret council of Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, Elizabeth Eliza, and Agamemnon.

Agamemnon suggested that it might be set up slanting; but Mrs. Peterkin was very sure it would make her dizzy, and the candles would drip.

But a brilliant idea came to Mr. Peterkin. He proposed that the ceiling of the parlor should be raised to make room for the top of the tree.

Elizabeth Eliza thought the space would need to be quite large. It must not be like a small box, or you could not see the tree.

“Yes,” said Mr. Peterkin, “I should have the ceiling lifted all across the room; the effect would be finer.”

Elizabeth Eliza objected to having the whole ceiling raised, because her room was over the back parlor, and she would have no floor while the alteration was going on, which would be very awkward. Besides, her room was not very high now, and, if the floor were raised, perhaps she could not walk in it upright.

Mr. Peterkin explained that he didn’t propose altering the whole ceiling, but to life up a ridge across the room at the back part where the tree was to stand.

This would make a hump, to be sure, in Elizabeth Eliza’s room; but it would go across the whole room.

Elizabeth Eliza said she would not mind that. It would be like the cuddy thing that comes up on the deck of a ship, that you sit against, only here you would not have the sea-sickness. She thought she should like it, for a rarity. She might use it for a divan.

Mrs. Peterkin thought it would come in the worn place of the carpet, and might be a convenience in making the carpet over.

Agamemnon was afraid there would be trouble in keeping the matter secret, for it would be a long piece of work for a carpenter; but Mr. Peterkin proposed having the carpenter for a day or two, for a number of other jobs.

One of them was to make all the chairs in the house of the same height, for Mrs. Peterkin had nearly broken her spine by sitting down in a chair that she had supposed was her own rocking-chair, and it had proved to be two inches lower. The little boys were now large enough to sit in any chair; so a medium was fixed upon to satisfy all the family, and the chairs were made uniformly of the same height.

On consulting the carpenter, however, he insisted that the tree could be cut off at the lower end to suit the height of the parlor, and demurred at so great a change as altering the ceiling. But Mr. Peterkin had set his mind upon the improvement, and Elizabeth Eliza had cut her carpet in preparation for it.

So the folding-doors into the back parlor were closed, and for nearly a fortnight before Christmas there was great litter of fallen plastering, and laths, and chips, and shavings; and Elizabeth Eliza’s carpet was taken up, and the furniture had to be changed, and one night she had to sleep at the Bromwicks’, for there was a long hole in her floor that might be dangerous.

All this delighted the little boys. They could not understand what was going on.

Perhaps they suspected a Christmas-tree, but they did not know why a Christmas-tree should have so many chips, and were still more astonished at the hump that appeared in Elizabeth Eliza’s room. It must be a Christmas present, or else the tree in a box.

Some aunts and uncles, too, arrived a day or two before Christmas, with some small cousins. These cousins occupied the attention of the little boys, and there was a great deal of whispering and mystery, behind doors, and under the stairs, and in the corners of the entry.

Solomon John was busy, privately making some candles for the tree. He had been collecting some bayberries, as he understood they made very nice candles, so that it would not be necessary to buy any.

The elders of the family never all went into the back parlor together, and all tried not to see what was going on. Mrs. Peterkin would go in with Solomon John, or Mr. Peterkin with Elizabeth Eliza, or Elizabeth Eliza and Agamemnon and Solomon John. The little boys and the small cousins were never allowed even to look inside the room.

Elizabeth Eliza meanwhile went into town a number of times. She wanted to consult Amanda as to how much ice-cream they should need, and whether they could make it at home, as they had cream and ice. She was pretty busy in her own room; the furniture had to be changed, and the carpet altered. The “hump” was higher than she expected. There was danger of bumping her own head whenever she crossed it. She had to nail some padding on the ceiling for fear of accidents.

The afternoon before Christmas, Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and their father collected in the back parlor for a council. The carpenters had done their work, and the tree stood at its full height at the back of the room, the top stretching up into the space arranged for it. All the chips and shavings were cleared away, and it stood on a neat box.

But what were they to put upon the tree?

Solomon John had brought in his supply of candles; but they proved to be very “stringy” and very few of them. It was strange how many bayberries it took to make a few candles! The little boys had helped him, and he had gathered as much as a bushel of bayberries. He had put them in water, and skimmed off the wax, according to the directions; but there was so little wax!

Solomon John had given the little boys some of the bits sawed off from the legs of the chairs. He had suggested that they should cover them with gilt paper, to answer for gilt apples, without telling them what they were for.

These apples, a little blunt at the end, and the candles were all they had for the tree!

After all her trips into town Elizabeth Eliza had forgotten to bring anything for it.

“I thought of candies and sugar-plums,” she said; “but I concluded if we made caramels ourselves we should not need them. But, then, we have not made caramels. The fact is, that day my head was full of my carpet. I had bumped it pretty badly, too.”

Mr. Peterkin wished he had taken, instead of a fir-tree, an apple-tree he had seen in October, full of red fruit.

“But the leaves would have fallen off by this time,” said Elizabeth Eliza.

“And the apples, too,” said Solomon John.

“It is odd I should have forgotten, that day I went in on purpose to get the things,” said Elizabeth Eliza, musingly. “But I went from shop to shop, and didn’t know exactly what to get. I saw a great many gilt things for Christmas-trees; but I knew the little boys were making the gilt apples; there were plenty of candles in the shops, but I knew Solomon John was making the candles.”

Mr. Peterkin thought it was quite natural.

Solomon John wondered if it were too late for them to go into town now.

Elizabeth Eliza could not go in the next morning, for there was to be a grand Christmas dinner, and Mr. Peterkin could not be spared, and Solomon John was sure he and Agamemnon would not know what to buy. Besides, they would want to try the candles to-night.

Mr. Peterkin asked if the presents everybody had been preparing would not answer. But Elizabeth Eliza knew they would be too heavy.

A gloom came over the room. There was only a flickering gleam from one of Solomon John’s candles that he had lighted by way of trial.

Solomon John again proposed going into town. He lighted a match to examine the newspaper about the trains. There were plenty of trains coming out at that hour, but none going in except a very late one. That would not leave time to do anything and come back.

“We could go in, Elizabeth Eliza and I,” said Solomon John, “but we should not have time to buy anything.”

Agamemnon was summoned in. Mrs. Peterkin was entertaining the uncles and aunts in the front parlor. Agamemnon wished there was time to study up something about electric lights. If they could only have a calcium light! Solomon John’s candle sputtered and went out.

At this moment there was a loud knocking at the front door. The little boys, and the small cousins, and the uncles and aunts, and Mrs. Peterkin, hastened to see what was the matter.

The uncles and aunts thought somebody’s house must be on fire. The door was opened, and there was a man, white with flakes, for it was beginning to snow, and he was pulling in a large box.

Mrs. Peterkin supposed it contained some of Elizabeth Eliza’s purchases, so she ordered it to be pushed into the back parlor, and hastily called back her guests and the little boys into the other room. The little boys and the small cousins were sure they had seen Santa Claus himself.

Mr. Peterkin lighted the gas. The box was addressed to Elizabeth Eliza. It was from the lady from Philadelphia! She had gathered a hint from Elizabeth Eliza’s letters that there was to be a Christmas-tree, and had filled this box with all that would be needed.

It was opened directly. There was every kind of gilt hanging-thing, from gilt pea-pods to butterflies on springs. There were shining flags and lanterns, and birdcages, and nests with birds sitting on them, baskets of fruit, gilt apples and bunches of grapes, and, at the bottom of the whole, a large box of candles and a box of Philadelphia bonbons!

Elizabeth Eliza and Solomon John could scarcely keep from screaming. The little boys and the small cousins knocked on the folding-doors to ask what was the matter.

Hastily Mr. Peterkin and the rest took out the things and hung them on the tree, and put on the candles.

When all was done, it looked so well that Mr. Peterkin exclaimed:--“Let us light the candles now, and send to invite all the neighbors to-night, and have the tree on Christmas Eve!”

And so it was that the Peterkins had their Christmas-tree the day before, and on Christmas night could go and visit their neighbors.

MRS. PETERKIN’S TEA-PARTY.

TWAS important to have a tea-party, as they had all been invited by everybody,--the Bromwicks, the Tremletts, and the Gibbonses. It would be such a good chance to pay off some of their old debts, now that the lady from Philadelphia was back again, and her two daughters, who would be sure to make it all go off well.

But as soon as they began to make out the list, they saw there were too many to have at once, for there were but twelve cups and saucers in the best set.

“There are seven of us, to begin with,” said Mr. Peterkin.

“We need not all drink tea,” said Mrs. Peterkin.

“I never do,” said Solomon John. The little boys never did.

“And we could have coffee, too,” suggested Elizabeth Eliza.

“That would take as many cups,” objected Agamemnon.

“We could use the every-day set for the coffee,” answered Elizabeth Eliza; “they are the right shape. Besides,” she went on, “they would not all come. Mr. and Mrs. Bromwick, for instance; they never go out.”

“There are but six cups in the every-day set,” said Mrs. Peterkin.

The little boys said there were plenty of saucers; and Mr. Peterkin agreed with Elizabeth Eliza that all would not come. Old Mr. Jeffers never went out.

“There are three of the Tremletts,” said Elizabeth Eliza; “they never go out together. One of them, if not two, will be sure to have the headache. Ann Maria Bromwick would come, and the three Gibbons boys, and their sister Juliana; but the other sisters are out West, and there is but one Osborne.”

It really did seem safe to ask “everybody.” They would be sorry, after it was over, that they had not asked more.

“We have the cow,” said Mrs. Peterkin, “so there will be as much cream and milk as we shall need.”

“And our own pig,” said Agamemnon. “I am glad we had it salted; so we can have plenty of sandwiches.”

“I will buy a chest of tea,” exclaimed Mr. Peterkin. “I have been thinking of a chest for some time.”

Mrs. Peterkin thought a whole chest would not be needed: it was as well to buy the tea and coffee by the pound. But Mr. Peterkin determined on a chest of tea and a bag of coffee.

So they decided to give the invitations to all. It might be a stormy evening and some would be prevented.

The lady from Philadelphia and her daughters accepted.

And it turned out a fair day, and more came than were expected. Ann Maria Bromwick had a friend staying with her, and brought her over, for the Bromwicks were opposite neighbors. And the Tremletts had a niece, and Mary Osborne an aunt, that they took the liberty to bring.

The little boys were at the door, to show in the guests, and as each set came to the front gate, they ran back to tell their mother that more were coming.

Mrs. Peterkin had grown dizzy with counting those who had come, and trying to calculate how many were to come, and wondering why there were always more and never less, and whether the cups would go round.

The three Tremletts all came, with their niece. They all had had their headaches the day before, and were having that banged feeling you always have after a headache; so they all sat at the same side of the room on the long sofa.

All the Jefferses came, though they had sent uncertain answers. Old Mr. Jeffers had to be helped in, with his cane, by Mr. Peterkin.

The Gibbons boys came, and would stand just outside the parlor door. And Juliana appeared afterward, with the two other sisters, unexpectedly home from the West.

“Got home this morning!” they said. “And so glad to be in time to see everybody,--a little tired, to be sure, after forty-eight hours in a sleeping-car!”

“Forty-eight!” repeated Mrs. Peterkin; and wondered if there were forty-eight people, and why they were all so glad to come, and whether all could sit down.

Old Mr. and Mrs. Bromwick came. They thought it would not be neighborly to stay away. They insisted on getting into the most uncomfortable seats.

Yet there seemed to be seats enough while the Gibbons boys preferred to stand.

But they never could sit round a tea-table. Elizabeth Eliza had thought they all might have room at the table, and Solomon John and the little boys could help in the waiting.

It was a great moment when the lady from Philadelphia arrived with her daughters. Mr. Peterkin was talking to Mr. Bromwick, who was a little deaf. The Gibbons boys retreated a little farther behind the parlor door. Mrs. Peterkin hastened forward to shake hands with the lady from Philadelphia, saying:--“Four Gibbons girls and Mary Osborne’s aunt,--that makes nineteen; and now”--It made no difference what she said; for there was such a murmuring of talk that any words suited. And the lady from Philadelphia wanted to be introduced to the Bromwicks.

It was delightful for the little boys. They came to Elizabeth Eliza, and asked:--

“Can’t we go and ask more? Can’t we fetch the Larkins?”

“Oh, dear, no!” answered Elizabeth Eliza. “I can’t even count them.”

Mrs. Peterkin found time to meet Elizabeth Eliza in the side entry, to ask if there were going to be cups enough.

“I have set Agamemnon in the front entry to count,” said Elizabeth Eliza, putting her hand to her head.

The little boys came to say that the Maberlys were coming.

“The Maberlys!” exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza. “I never asked them.”

“It is your father’s doing,” cried Mrs. Peterkin. “I do believe he asked everybody he saw!” And she hurried back to her guests.

“What if father really has asked everybody?” Elizabeth Eliza said to herself, pressing her head again with her hand.

There were the cow and the pig. But if they all took tea or coffee, or both, the cups could not go round.

Agamemnon returned in the midst of her agony.

He had not been able to count the guests, they moved about so, they talked so; and it would not look well to appear to count.

“What shall we do?” exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza.

“We are not a family for an emergency,” said Agamemnon.

“What do you suppose they did in Philadelphia at the Exhibition, when there were more people than cups and saucers?” asked Elizabeth Eliza. “Could not you go and inquire? I know the lady from Philadelphia is talking about the Exhibition, and telling how she stayed at home to receive friends. And they must have had trouble there! Could not you go in and ask, just as if you wanted to know?”

Agamemnon looked into the room, but there were too many talking with the lady from Philadelphia.

“If we could only look into some book,” he said,--“the encyclopaedia or the dictionary, they are such a help sometimes!”

At this moment he thought of his “Great Triumphs of Great Men,” that he was reading just now. He had not reached the lives of the Stephensons, or any of the men of modern times. He might skip over to them,--he knew they were men for emergencies.

He ran up to his room, and met Solomon John coming down with chairs.

“That is a good thought,” said Agamemnon. “I will bring down more upstairs chairs.”

“No,” said Solomon John; “here are all that can come down; the rest of the bedroom chairs match bureaus, and they never will do!”

Agamemnon kept on to his own room, to consult his books. If only he could invent something on the spur of the moment,--a set of bedroom furniture, that in an emergency could be turned into parlor chairs! It seemed an idea; and he sat himself down to his table and pencils, when he was interrupted by the little boys, who came to tell him that Elizabeth Eliza wanted him.

The little boys had been busy thinking. They proposed that the tea-table, with all the things on, should be pushed into the front room, where the company were; and those could take cups who could find cups.

But Elizabeth Eliza feared it would not be safe to push so large a table; it might upset, and break what china they had.

Agamemnon came down to find her pouring out tea, in the back room. She called to him:--“Agamemnon, you must bring Mary Osborne to help, and perhaps one of the Gibbons boys would carry round some of the cups.”