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Let sister do it for you, honeybee, said the newcomer. Wont the eye open? Well! well make it there!
This was Ruth, the oldest of the four Kenway sisters. She was dark, not particularly pretty, but, as Tess often said, awfully good! Ruth had a smile that illuminated her rather plain face and won her friends everywhere. Moreover, she had a beautiful, low, sweet voice a mother voice, Agnes said.
Ruth had been mothering her three younger sisters for a long time now ever since their real mother had died, leaving Agnes and Tess and Dot, to say nothing of Aunt Sarah Maltby, in the older girls care. And faithfully had Ruth Kenway performed her duty.
Agnes was the pretty sister (although Tess, with all her gravity, promised to equal the fly-away in time) for she had beautiful light hair, a rosy complexion, and large blue eyes, of an expression most innocent but in the depths of which lurked the Imps of Mischief.
Little Dot was dark, like Ruth; only she was most lovely her hair wavy and silky, her little limbs round, her eyes bright, and her lips as red as an ox-heart cherry!
The little girls went on stringing the popcorn, and Ruth and Agnes began to trim the tree, commencing at the very top. Nestling among the pointed branches of the fir was a winged cupid, with bow and arrow.
Thats so much better than a bell. Everybody has bells, said Agnes, from the step-ladder, as she viewed the cupid with satisfaction.
Its an awfully cunning little fat, white baby, agreed Dot, from the floor. But I should be afraid, if I were his mother, to let him play with bows-an-arrows. Maybe hell prick himself.
Well speak to Venus about that, chuckled Agnes. Dont believe anybody ever mentioned it to her.
Venus? repeated Dot, gravely. Why, thats the name of the lady that lives next to Uncle Rufus Petunia. She couldnt be that little babys mother for shes oh! awful black!
Aggie was speaking of another Venus, Dot, laughed Ruth. Fasten those little candle-holders securely, Aggie.
Sure! agreed the second, and slangy, sister.
I really wish we could light the whole room with candles, and not have the gas at all, Ruth said. It would be much nicer. Dont you think so?
It would be scrumptious! Aggie cried. And youve got such a lot of those nice, fat, bayberry candles. Lets do it!
But there are not enough candlesticks.
You can get em at the five-and-ten-cent store, proposed Tess, who favored that busy emporium, because you can get such a lot for your money!
Goosey! exclaimed Agnes. We dont want cheap ones. How would they look beside those lovely old silver ones of Uncle Peter Stowers? and she turned to look at the great candelabra on the highboy.
Just then the door from the butlers pantry opened slowly and a grizzled, kinky head, with a shiny, brown, bald spot on top, was thrust into the room.
I say, missie! drawled the voice belonging to the ancient head, is yo done seen anyting ob dat denim bag I has fo de soiled napkins? Pechunia, she done comin fo de wash, an I got t collect togeddah all I kin fin dis week. Dat fool brack woman, Uncle Rufus added with disgust, wont do but dis one wash twill happen New Years nawm! She jes got t celbrate, she say. Ma soul! whats a po, miserble nigger woman got t celbrate fo Ah asks ye?
Why, Uncle Rufus! cried Agnes. Christmas is a birthday that everybody ought to celebrate. And Im sure Petunia has many things to make her happy.
Just look at all her children! put in Tess.
Alfredia, and Jackson Montgomery Simms, and little Burne-Jones Whistler and Louise Annette, Dot began to intone, naming the roll of Petunia
On a broken-legged chest of drawers, held up by a brick in place of the missing leg, stood a row of heavy brass candlesticks.
And see here! cried Agnes, snatching up a faded, fat, plush-covered volume, moth-eaten and shabby, from which Ruth had just removed two of the candlesticks. What can this be? The family album, I declare!
She flirted several of the leaves. Others stuck together. There seemed to be some kind of illustrations, or pictures, between the pages.
Throw that dusty old thing down, Aggie, said Ruth, and help me carry these heavy candlesticks. They are just the things.
Ill help carry them, agreed her sister. Here, Dottums. You can just about lug this old book. I want to look at it. I shouldnt wonder if it held daguerreotypes and silhouettes of all the Stowers since Adam.
What are da da-gert-o-tops and and silly-hats, Aggie? demanded Dot, toiling along at the end of the procession with the big book, as the four girls started down stairs again. Are are they those awful animals Ruth was reading about that used to in infest the earth so long ago?
Oh, mercy me! gasped Agnes, laughing. Pterodactyls and the giant sloth! See what it means to tell these kids about the Paleozoic age and sich, Ruthie! Yes, child. Maybe youll find pictures in that old book of those critters, as Mrs. Mac calls them.
Dot sat right down on the upper flight and spread the book out upon her small lap. She had heard just enough about the creatures of the ancient world to be vitally curious.