Family life -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Saving and investment -- Fiction
"Well," he said, "I suppose it is all right, Laura, but I can't see
why you wouldn't let him take them up. You know I don't enjoy that
kind of work, and that I don't think it is good for me."
"Kitty didn't want them taken up," said Mrs. Fenelby, gently.
"She--she wanted them left down here."
"Down here?" asked Mr. Fenelby, as if dazed. "Down here on the
grass?"
"Yes," said Kitty, lightly. "It was my idea. Laura had nothing to do
with it at all. I thought it would be nice to have the trunks down
here on the lawn. Everywhere I visit they always take my trunks up
to my room, and it gets so tiresome always having the same thing
happen, so I thought that this time I would have a variety and leave
my trunks on the lawn. I never in my life left my trunks on a front
lawn, and I wanted to see how it would be. You don't think they will
hurt the grass do you, Mr. Fenelby?"
Kitty asked this with such an air of sincerity that Mr. Fenelby
seated himself on one of the trunks and looked up at her anxiously.
He could not recall that he had ever heard of any weakness of mind
in Kitty or in her family, but he could not doubt his ears.
"But--but--" he said, "but you don't mean to leave them here, do
you?"
Kitty smiled down at him reassuringly.
"Of course, if it is going to harm the grass at all, Mr. Fenelby, I
sha'n't think of it," she said. "I know that sometimes when a board
or anything lies on the grass a long time the grass under the board
gets all white, and if the trunks are going to make white spots on
your lawn, I'll have them removed, but I thought that if we moved
the trunks around to different places every day it would avoid that.
But you know more about that than I do. Do you think they will make
white places on the lawn, Mr. Fenelby?"
"I don't know," he said, abstractedly. "I mean, yes, of course they
will. But they will get rained on. You don't want your trunks rained
on, you know. Trunks aren't meant to be rained on. It isn't good for
them." A thought came to him suddenly. "You and Laura haven't
quarreled, have you?" he asked, for he thought that perhaps that was
why Kitty would not have her trunks carried up.
"Indeed not!" cried Kitty, putting her arm affectionately around
Laura's waist.
"I--I thought perhaps you had," faltered Mr. Fenelby. "I
thought--that is to say--I was afraid perhaps you were going away
again. I thought you were going to make us a good, long visit--"
"Indeed I am," said Kitty, cheerfully. "I am going to stay weeks,
and weeks, and weeks. I am going to stay until you are all tired to
death of me, and beg me to begone."
"That is good," said Mr. Fenelby, with an attempt at pleasure. "But
don't you think, since you are going to do what we want you to do,
and stay for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, that you had better let
your trunks be taken up to your room? Or--I'll tell you what we'll
do! Suppose we just take the trunks into the lower hall?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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