CERTAIN PEOPLE OF NO IMPORTANCE
I
The Crabtree family is ancient and honorable. Though the beginnings of the American branch are obscure, the family’s origin is undoubted. Its founder was the well-known Adam Crabtree, a landed proprietor whose country estate was notable for its extent and magnificence, but especially for a certain famous tree, which bore beautiful but bitter apples, called crabs, whence the family took its name. He had perhaps the largest private zoölogical garden ever assembled, unequaled for completeness, until one of his descendants, Noah Crabtree, built up his collection.
Adam Crabtree lived in Eden, Mesopotamia, where, in 4004 B. C., he married his second wife, Eve Sparerib. Their third son, Seth, was the ancestor of the American branch of the family.
Though a man of large means, Adam Crabtree’s taste in dress was simple. He commonly wore only a sort of sporran made of fig-leaves. His second wife, Eve, was more given to dress than his first, Lilith, but was really unostentatious. Her costume was a mere surcingle of the same material, edged with scallops of geraniums. It is regrettable that her quiet taste was not inherited by her American descendants.
The dominant family trait of restlessness was early displayed in the departure of the Adam Crabtrees from Eden, shortly after their marriage. Longevity was also a characteristic, emphasized in the case of old Methuselah Crabtree. At the time of his death he was the oldest inhabitant of his home town.
Noah Crabtree was an eminent shipmaster. He was the genius who put the ark in archæology. Successive Crabtrees kept on the move, Arphaxad, grandson of Noah, Terah, his descendant in the seventh generation, and Abraham, son of Terah, were notable travelers.
Abraham’s great-grandson was the first Reuben Crabtree. The first to engage in the business so successfully conducted years afterward in San Francisco, the dealing in spices, was Solomon Crabtree, an importer in a large way of business.
The coming of the family to England, whence the founder of the American branch emigrated, is wrapped in the mists of history. But at the Round Table, it seems, the family was represented by the knight known by the family’s commonest pseudonym, Bors.
Throughout this distinguished line of ancestors there were displayed the Crabtree characteristics of longevity, frequent change of abode, large families and complicated kinships. These are especially observable in the Earlier Eastern line but persist remarkably to the present day. No Crabtree can ever confidently state his relationship to any other without consulting the family tree, which each carries about with him.
II
The Reuben Crabtree family mansion at San Rafael was a large house with three floors and as many ceilings. It also had a cellar, four walls, a roof, numerous bay-windows, a kitchen and a sink. It was fully furnished with chairs, tables, beds, bureaus, carpets, wallpapers, stationary washstands and daughters. It was surrounded, as well as inhabited, by wallflowers, also by syringas, fuchsias and fences.
Reuben’s daughter, May Brewer, lived in the house and was responsible for its upkeep, also, in part, for the daughters. Mrs. Brewer had a high bosom and many fine costumes, descriptions of which may be found in Godey’s Lady’s Book and Harper’s Bazaar of appropriate dates.
The chief occupation of the Brewer household was husband hunting. Just what the girls would do with their husbands after they were caught, they did not know, having been brought up very carefully.
“Tina,” said Vicky, who wore a figured lavender foulard, pleated and flounced over a small bustle, its skirts sweeping the ground, its tight sleeve ending below the elbow and above the wrist, the other sleeve doing the same, “do you think Vernon Yelland will marry you?”
“Well,” answered Tina, who wore a girlish white muslin and no bustle, her broad uncorseted waist merely indicated by a sash of satin ribbon, “I’ve looked at the family tree and find that he has to marry Grace Fairchild first, but that she will die in 1894 and then he marries me.”
“What a long time to wait,” said Esme, in a pleated pink challis gown, trimmed with blue cashmere, cut on the bias, hemstitched with broad bands of guipure lace, with flounces of dimity and old rose brocade.
“Yes,” said Tina, “but it’s a cinch at that, compared with your chance or Vicky’s.”
“A what, my dear?” asked her mother, who wore a costume of purple cloth, ornamented with festoons of flowered satine en brochette, from which hung elegant tabs of peau de soie, garnished with paillettes of crimson plush and organdie, the panniers cut en train and looped over the bustle with ropes of blue sarsenet, pleated with rosemary chenille. “Do not let Mamma hear you use that naughty word again. Say—‘I’m sorry, Mamma.’”
Lou, the fourth daughter, clad in scarlet tapestry, trimmed with jet chignons and basques of green corduroy, interrupted the conversation.
“Sh-h-h! there’s someone coming up the drive.”
“A man?” they cried in unison.
“I think so.”
“To your stations, girls!” said their mother. “Whose turn is it to-day?”
“Vicky’s,” said Esme reluctantly.
Vicky seized the lasso which hung ready to hand and, clambering through the window, stretched herself prone upon the porch roof, over the front steps. Her mother, holding the end of the rope, braced herself against the window sill for a strong pull at the proper moment.
The others scurried down the back-stairs and circled the house. Two of them took up positions in the shrubbery bordering the drive, Esme with a shot-gun, Lou with a pitchfork, to prevent the evasion of their prey. Tina reached the gate unseen, closed it, locked it and chained to it the man-eating watch-dog.
There was a moment of tense excitement, then Esme’s voice calling, “Sold again, Vicky. It’s only Papa.”
Mr. Brewer approached the house. His face was simply dressed in a full beard, à la Russe, garnished with sidewhiskers of the same.
“Anybody married since I left this morning?” he asked hopefully. There was no response. A look of deep melancholy overspread his features, his shoulders sagged visibly, the wrinkles in his bombazine coat showed plainly his desperation.
III
Aunt Fanny and Aunt Lucy came over to San Rafael to spend the day. They had taken the nine-forty-five ferry to Sausalito and the ten-thirty train hence. There had been a change in the schedule the previous week, the boat formerly leaving at nine-forty now left at nine-forty-five, and the train, whose time had been ten-fifteen, now departed at ten-thirty. They had with difficulty adjusted themselves to these innovations.
All the female members of the Brewer family and their guests were assembled in the parlor. The Brewer girls ranged in age from twenty-four to twenty-eight years.
Aunt Fanny was an old maid with a flexible nose, which, when agitated, she used to beat. By the intervals between the blows and by their force, one could measure the depth of her agitation. She wore a blue foulard, trimmed with camel’s hair, flounced with calico and broadcloth and ornamented with passementrie and passepartout in contrasting colors.
Aunt Lucy was garbed in a crazy-quilt which she had made out of her former husband’s discarded neckties.
Mrs. Brewer and the girls wore the dresses described in the previous chapter.
“Have you heard of Amelia lately?” asked Mrs. Brewer.
“Who is Amelia?” asked Vicky, aged twenty-eight.
“Vicky, dearest, you shouldn’t ask Mamma such questions,” chided Mrs. Brewer. “Mamma doesn’t like it. Amelia is your third cousin once removed, the daughter of Aunt Caroline’s first husband, who was the son of his father, one of the Brewers of Milwaukee.”
“No,” replied Aunt Fanny, beating her nose gently. “But Rebecca’s mother, who was old Hannibal Crabtree’s niece by his marriage to Belinda Johnson, the sister of Cicero Tompkins, who was divorced from her uncle’s sister.”
“What about her?” said Esme.
“Nothing,” answered Fanny.
“How do you make that delicious fruit cake, May?” asked Lucy.
“Two cups of flour, four eggs, a spoonful of saleratus and two cups of horseradish. Break the eggs gently, add the gravy drop by drop, stir from left to right. Let it simmer on the back of the stove for two days and fry in a colander over a slow fire,” said May.
“Lou,” interjected Tina. “Did you know our cat has kittens?”
“Teeny-weeny!” cried her mother. “Don’t you know that such things should never be alluded to in Mamma’s presence? Mamma is deeply grieved. Perhaps a few days in your room on bread and water will be needed.”
“Yes, Mamma,” said Tina meekly.
“How about Pa Crabtree?” asked Mrs. Brewer of Fanny. “Any prospects of his dying soon?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Fanny, beating her nose staccato. “He does hang on so.”
“Girls,” said Mrs. Brewer, “go out on the porch for a few minutes.” Obediently they trooped out.
“Is—Alice?”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “December.”
“And—Nellie?”
“November.”
“And—Dessie?”
“October.”
“Lola is—January,” said Mrs. Brewer. “Mrs. Yelland, February and Mrs. Torrey, March. The cat, yesterday. I hope my daughters will never be so unladylike.”
Aunt Fanny beat her nose violently, expressing chagrin.
“Come in, girls,” called Mamma. “Tell Auntie Fanny how you make that delightful new salad.”
“Four cups of vinegar,” began Vicky, “a pound of macaroons, nine artichokes, two peppers and a turnip. Crumble the eggs in a warming pan, add the glycerine, chop the tomatoes into small pieces and serve in patty-pans garnished with ostrich feathers.”
“How lovely,” said Lucy.
“This whole thing,” whispered Lou to Tina, “sounds to me like two pages out of the Ladies’ Home Journal.”
Father’s footsteps were heard in the hall.
“Anybody married yet?” he asked. “Hello, Fanny. Is your Pa dead?” He read the answers in their faces, groaned audibly and left the room.
IV
It was a fine bright day in the latter part of the last chapter. May Brewer and Stephen, her husband, were busy in the kitchen. She washed the dishes at the sink. He dried them.
“Well,” said she, “it’s about finished.”
“Yes,” he replied, “Esme’s dead. Vicky’s working her head off at Napa to keep the wolf from their door. Tina’s married to a poor preacher and has three step-children beside her own brood. Lou married that old fellow in Buenos Aires. Bertie’s thoroughly unhappy with his wife. Lucy’s left Harry and he’s living on George. Nelly’s husband is a drunkard. Alice’s beats her. Bob’s wife’s dead. The family business is bankrupt, and I’ve got nothing to do but wash dishes in this mortgaged house and live on remittances from Lou’s husband. It’s been a great life.”
“There are compensations, dear,” said May.
“Yes, to be sure,” admitted Stephen. “Your Pa’s dead. That helps some.”