We began the game again, seating ourselves very properly in the porch chairs that we had arranged side by side, imagining them to be on the deck of a ship.
"How do you do," I said to Austin, holding my fingers around an imaginary teacup. "What a lovely day it is."
"Yes," he replied. "How do you do. My name is Mr. Larchmont."
I kicked his chair and whispered, "You can't be. That ' s the boat' s name."
He puffed on an imaginary cigar. "They named this ship after me," he explained in a loud voice.
"Oh," I replied, sipping my tea. "How nice. And isn't it a lovely ocean? Such beautiful water."
"Yes indeed," he said. "But I believe I can see another ship coming dangerously close."
"I do hope it doesn't strike us."
"I ' m sure it won ' t," Austin said. "Would you like to dance, or stroll?"
"Stroll," I decided. So he took my arm and we walked slowly across the porch. He puffed some more on his cigar.
"Here it comes!" I called out. "Collision!"
"To the lifeboat!" Austin cried, and we scurried to the porch railing.
"Tragedy and disaster!" we shouted together. We climbed the railing, held hands, and jumped down onto our boards.
"I think it' s supposed to be only women and children," I said, after we were afloat in the yard.
Courageously Austin said, "I ' ll make room for them." He leapt into the sea and prepared to drown.
"Wait!" I said. I jumped from my lifeboat and shook a branch of the nearby forsythia bush. Its few remaining yellow blossoms broke loose and fluttered down. "Treasure," I announced, and returned to my boat. "Falling into the sea."
"I drown surrounded by gold!" Austin shouted heroically. Then he added, "Also sharks." Those were his last words before he flopped over and was still.
I noticed that a splinter from the lifeboat boards had torn my stocking and scratched my leg. Bravely, ignoring my injury, I picked up a small stick and used it as a paddle, stabbing at the earth of my yard to propel myself to safety while Austin floated nearby, his eyes open, golden forsythia blossoms in his hair. Pepper once again lifted his head curiously and ambled down the porch steps, sniffing at us to see what was wrong.
"No dogs allowed in the lifeboat," Austin announced from where he drifted dead in the sea, so I shoved Pepper away and floated on alone.
10. APRIL 1911
"Katy, wake up!" Peggy shook my shoulders, and I opened my eyes. It was very early on a Sunday morning.
"I have a surprise for you!" she said, as I sat up and yawned. "Hurry and dress."
"For church? It ' s too early."
"No, not church." Peggy was getting my underclothes from the drawer.
"The baby! Has the baby come?"
"No—whatever made you think that? Here, stand up. I'll help you with your nightgown."
"I thought I heard something in the night." I tried to remember, but it was blurred now. "Father waswalkinginthehall,Ithink.AndIheard Mother ' s voice."
"You must have dreamed it."
She was right; it was as hazy as a dream and already disappearing from my memory the way a dream does.
"Look out the window. Levi has the horses hitched up. Your father called him to come."
I glanced down and it was true. The buggy was waiting in the driveway beside the house, and Levi was there holding the harness reins. Jed and Dahlia stood patiently. The neighborhood houses were silent. The sun was just rising. The light was pink.
"Are we going someplace? It's Sunday. I'm supposed to go to Sunday school. These are the wrong clothes." She was buttoning my dress, an old one that I wore for play, not even to school, because it was faded and patched. Then she held up a pinafore and directed my arms through. "These are play clothes, Peggy."
"We have a vacation today," she said, and pulled the brush deftly through my hair. "Now go into the bathroom and wash your face and brush your teeth. Be quiet. Don ' t wake your mother."
I thought I could hear Mother and Father stirring in their bedroom, behind the closed door, but I obeyed Peggy. I was quick and quiet, and then I hurried down the stairs and was surprised to find that we were not even stopping for breakfast. Peggy had a basket packed already with toast and jam, which she said we would eat in the buggy. I drank a glass of milk quickly, put on my jacket, and we were off.
Off to the Stoltzes ' farm! Peggy said we were going to visit her family.
She took the reins and to my surprise she could managethehorsesaswellasFatherorLevi.She chuckled to find that I was surprised.
"I ' m a farm girl, Katy!" she reminded me. "Eat your toast now so you won't be hungry. My ma will give us breakfast but it'll be awhile."
"Why don't we take Nellie, too? She could come, and Austin."
"Just us," Peggy said. "Nellie doesn ' t like the farm. She's too fancy, she thinks, for farms. And Austin? He's still asleep. It's just us today, Katy."
We had already passed the Bishops house and moved down our quiet street; soon we were on the main street headed out of town. It was so early that no one was out.
"Want some toast?" I handed Peggy a half a slice of the toast smeared with blackberry jam.
She took it and nibbled. "Nellie never goes home," she said. "It really frets my ma."
"Never? But she has her days off, like you! All hired girls do!"
Peggy shrugged. "She finds other things to do. You know she goes to the pictures."
"She should go to the library instead," I decided aloud, but Peggy scoffed at the thought.
"Really," I insisted. "She never does, and she might like it. She could go with us. We could stop afterward at Corcoran ' s and have a ginger beer, with straws."
I loved drinking straws. And Corcoran's served tea biscuits, too. It was a treat to go there after the library.
Peggy clucked at the horses to remind them to lift their feet. "Nellie don't like to read," she said. "Even in school, she never did."
"Your sister Nellie doesn't like to, and your brother, Jacob, can't," I pointed out. "Isn't that strange?"
Peggy smiled and agreed that it was strange.