Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1894-08-31
A GOOD TIME.


ginning of it. The ending was the best
part, but you have to have beginnings first,
and there never would have been any part
at all if it hadn't been for her. We're The
minister's children, and there's an awful
lot of us, so Saran Butts says. Saran is
our hired girl, and guess she's pretty old
for a girl, but she's good-only washing
days, and baking-days, and Sunday morn
ings, and times when she scrubs the kitch-
en- floor. That's the time she mostly calls
us an awful lot. But she likes us, special
ly Barbara. Barbaras the oldest, and
she's a dear, but she's lame and has to
go with a cane. 1t used to be a crutch,
but she got over that. She never will get
over the cane, because they had to do
something to her leg and / can't talk
about that it makes me all kind of choky
in my throat. The twins come next. I'm
twin, and Larry's the other of me, but
Saran says they might just as well be only
one of us and save clothes, because we al
ways do just the same. Then there's Jes
sica and Dan and Marjory-thats all.
It's most year now since papa had to
go away to Europe because he got to stay
ing awake nights instead of sleeping; and
just when it was going to be vacation, and
mamma was going to take us all to Long
Meadows, she got a letter that grandma
was sick, and she had to go right away.
First along we thought she'd be back in a
few days, but when you begin putting
things off they most always keep on that
way, and don't happen at all mean fun
and good times, because the more you put
off bad things the worse they get. When
the letter really came to say that mamma
couldn' come ba TX, and we must be patient
and cheerful and get all the good we could
out of our vacation, everybody felt pretty
bad. Jessica and MarjOry cried and l
guess i wont tell what did and Larry, be-
cause Saran said we ought to have good
whipping instead of vacation, and she
just wished there was some way to make
us preciate our mercies. After a while
Barbara went out in the kitchen, and there
was Saran, with her head on the table,
crying as hard as she could cry. And Bar
bara found out all about it; Barbie always
does. She kind of cOaXes and comforts,
and first you know you tell. We never
thought about Saran having folks and
wanting a vacation, bus she's got sister
that's a dressmaker and sews in a shop,
and she has to leave her two little children
shut up all day in a little room. They had
it all planned that when mamma took us
to Long Meadows Saran was going to take
these children somewhere in the country to
have real good time, and maybe the
mother could get vacation for a few days
and come to. And now they couldn't do
it, because Saran must stay and take care
of us After Saran told she wiped her
eyes on her apron and said, as cross as any
thing:
Don't stand there looking at me- l
shall git used to it; poor folks has to put
up with things the way they're fixed; but
when ! think of them poor babies and hear
you children making fuss about having to
stay with this nice house and yard and gar
den, it makes me mad
Barbie wrote a long letter to mamma
that very day. and when the answer came
she told us about her plan, and read US the
letter. Mamma said Il think you can get
as much fun out of it as going to Long
Meadows, but the way TO make it a really
happy vacation will be to try and see how
much happiness you can get into it for
Others
That was what Barbe thought of: trying
to make good times for those little children
at Midtown. Saran baked us a lot OF
good things-little round apple pies, and
ginger cookies, and bread, but tba: doesn't
count because you have TO have that any
way; and then she went to Ililltown and
got the children. We thought they'd be
pretty, but they VAIN a mite The boy
was about as big as Dan but he had the
slimsiest legs and arms, and the girl was
older than MGriory and ever so much
smaller. Put you ought to have seen how
proud Saran was of them. She brushed
the gi;l's hair so slick you couldn't hardly
sec 1t, and Barbie said she sat up most all
night to make some white aprons for her.
Out in the back yard there's long grape
arbor over the path, with seats on each
side of it, Papa had the seats made SO
you could lift them up, and undersde were
boxes, all clean ard dry. That was so Jes-
sica and MarjOry could play house out
there and have nice place to keep their
dolls and things, and to put books in when
you wanted to stop reading,
just a little way beyond the arbOr was
a splendid great oak tree that you could
climb up into, and seats almost in the very
top. We used to have a board fixed with
ropes so we could let it down and draw
anybody up to the top, but you had to pull
carefully or it would tip and after Larry
broke his arm papa thought We better not
try it.
wen, DdIDlt udu a man come ana put
up the tent that papa went camping with
right beyond the end of the grape arbor,
where the tree shaded it, and fix some
hunks along the sides with nice clean hay
in them, and we set up the camp stove, and
had the camp chest with all the dishes and
things, and we went to camping in the
back yard. ! tell you we had fun. The
girls didn't want to sleep in the hunks, but
~ 4 ov,I 1.
that was Saran's boy. He was the pluck
lest kind of a fellow. We thought we'd
stand guard one night, and he had the first
watch. When it came time for Dan TO re-
lieve him, Dan wouldn't wake up, and he
just walked back and forwards most all
night, till Larry happened to see him.
We dug an oven, and roasted corn and
potatoes, and we made pancakes in a fry
ing-pan, and learned how TO turn 'em by
tossing EN- up in the air, only we wasted a
good many that way because sometimes
they wouldn't come down in the pan, and
once real skwushy one came down on top