It was not so bad outside. The little playhouse Mr. Penny had built in the spruce corner, looking like a real house in miniature, WAS a very interesting place and the little pigs and the new foal were "just sweet." As for the litter of mongrel puppies they were as woolly and delightful as if they had belonged to the dog caste of Vere de Vere. One was especially adorable, with long brown ears and a white spot on its forehead, a wee pink tongue and white paws.
Di was bitterly disappointed to learn that they had all been promised.
"Though I don't know as we could give you one even if they weren't," said Jenny. "Uncle's awful particular where he puts his dogs. We've heard you can't get a dog to stay at Ingleside AT ALL.
There must be something queer about you. Uncle says dogs KNOW things people don't.”
"I'm sure they can't know anything nasty about US!" cried Di.
"Well, I HOPE not. Is your pa cruel to your ma?”
"No, of course he isn't!”
"Well, I heard that he beat her ... beat her till she SCREAMED.
But of course I didn't believe THAT. Ain't it awful the lies people tell? Anyway, I've always liked you, Di, and I'll always stand up for you.”
Di felt she ought to be very grateful for this, but somehow she was not. She was beginning to feel very much out of place and the glamour with which Jenny had been invested in her eyes was suddenly and irrevocably gone. She did not feel the old thrill when Jenny told her about the time she had been almost drowned falling in a millpond. She DID NOT BELIEVE IT ... Jenny just IMAGINED those things. And likely the millionaire uncle and the thousand-dollar diamond ring and the missionary to the leopards had just been imagined too. Di felt as flat as a pricked balloon.
But there was Gammy yet. Surely Gammy was real. When Di and Jenny returned to the house Aunt Lina, a full-breasted, red-cheeked lady in a none-too-fresh cotton print, told them Gammy wanted to see the visitor.
"Gammy's bed-rid," explained Jenny. "We always take everybody who comes in to see her. She gets mad if we don't.”
"Mind you don't forget to ask her how her backache is," cautioned Aunt Lina. "She doesn't like it if folks don't remember her back.”
"And Uncle John," said Jenny. "Don't forget to ask her how Uncle John is.”
"Who is Uncle John?" asked Di.
"A son of hers who died fifty years ago," explained Aunt Lina. "He was sick for years afore he died and Gammy kind of got accustomed to hearing folks ask how he was. She misses it.”
At the door of Gammy's room Di suddenly hung back. All at once she was terribly frightened of this incredibly old woman.
"What's the matter?" demanded Jenny. "Nobody's going to bite you!”
"Is she ... did she really live before the flood, Jenny?”
"Of course not. Whoever said she did? She'll be a hundred, though, if she lives till her next birthday. Come on!”
Di went, gingerly. In a small, badly cluttered bedroom Gammy lay in a huge bed. Her face, unbelievably wrinkled and shrunken, looked like an old monkey's. She peered at Di with sunken, red- rimmed eyes and said testily:
"Stop staring. Who are you?”
"This is Diana Blythe, Gammy," said Jenny ... a rather subdued Jenny.
"Humph! A nice high-sounding name! They tell me you've got a proud sister.”
"Nan isn't proud," cried Di, with a flash of spirit. Had Jenny been running down Nan?
"A little saucy, ain't you? I wasn't brought up to speak like that to my betters. She IS proud. Anyone who walks with her head in the air, like Young Jenny tells me she does, IS proud. One of your hoity-toitys! Don't contradict ME.”
Gammy looked so angry that Di hastily enquired how her back was.
"Who says I've got a back? Such presumption! My back's my own business. Come here ... come close to my bed!”
Di went, wishing herself a thousand miles away. What was this dreadful old woman going to do to her?
Gammy hitched herself alertly to the edge of the bed and put a clawlike hand on Di's hair.
"Sort of carroty but real slick. That's a pretty dress. Turn it up and show me your petticoat.”
Di obeyed, thankful that she had on her white petticoat with its trimming of Susan's crocheted lace. But what sort of a family was it where you were made to show your petticoat?
"I always judge a girl by her petticoats," said Gammy. "Yours'll pass. Now your drawers.”
Di dared not refuse. She lifted her petticoat.
"Humph! Lace on them too! That's extravagance. And you've never asked after John!”
"How is he?" gasped Di.
"How is he, says she, bold as brass. He might be dead, for all you know. Tell me this. Is it true your mother has a gold thimble ... a solid gold thimble?”
"Yes. Daddy gave it to her her last birthday.”
"Well, I'd never have believed it. Young Jenny told me she had, but you can't never believe a word Young Jenny says. A solid gold thimble! I never heard the beat of that. Well, you'd better go out and get your suppers. Eating never goes out of fashion.
Jenny, pull up your pants. One leg's hanging below your dress.
Let us have decency at least.”
"My pant--drawer leg isn't hanging down," said Jenny indignantly.
"Pants for Pennys and drawers for Blythes. That's the distinction between you and always will be. Don't contradict ME.”
The whole Penny family were assembled around the supper table in the big kitchen. Di had not seen any of them before except Aunt Lina, but as she shot a glance around the board she understood why Mother and Susan had not wanted her to come here. The tablecloth was ragged and daubed with ancient gravy stains. The dishes were a nondescript assortment. As for the Pennys ... Di had never sat at table with such company before and she wished herself safely back at Ingleside. But she must go through with it now.
Uncle Ben, as Jenny called him, sat at the head of the table; he had a flaming red beard and a bald, grey-fringed head. His bachelor brother, Parker, lank and unshaven, had arranged himself at an angle convenient for spitting in the wood-box, which he did at frequent intervals. The boys, Curt, twelve, and George Andrew, thirteen, had pale-blue, fishy eyes with a bold stare and bare skin showing through the holes in their ragged shirts. Curt had his hand, which he had cut on a broken bottle, tied up with a blood- stained rag. Annabel Penny, eleven, and "Gert" Penny, ten, were two rather pretty girls with round brown eyes. "Tuppy," aged two, had delightful curls and rosy cheeks, and the baby, with roguish black eyes, on Aunt Lina's lap would have been adorable if it had been CLEAN.
"Curt, why didn't you clean your nails when you knew company was coming?" demanded Jenny. "Annabel, don't speak with your mouth full. I'm the only one who ever tries to teach this family any manners," she explained aside to Di.
"Shut up," said Uncle Ben in a great booming voice.
"I won't shut up ... you can't make me shut up!" cried Jenny.
"Don't sass your uncle," said Aunt Lina placidly. "Come now, girls, behave like ladies. Curt, pass the potatoes to Miss Blythe.”
"Oh, ho, MISS Blythe," sniggered Curt.
But Diana had got at least one thrill. For the first time in her life she had been called Miss Blythe.
For a wonder the food was good and abundant. Di, who was hungry, would have enjoyed the meal ... though she hated drinking out of a chipped cup ... if she had only been sure it was clean ... and if everybody hadn't quarrelled so. Private fights were going on all the time ... between George Andrew and Curt ... between Curt and Annabel ... between Gert and Jen ... even between Uncle Ben and Aunt Lina. THEY had a terrible fight and hurled the bitterest accusations at each other. Aunt Lina cast up to Uncle Ben all the fine men she might have married and Uncle Ben said he only wished she had married anybody but him.