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Updated: May 4, 2025
Colorado sunsets covered the west with glory, and then came quick coolness. Dry as it was, the cottonwood leaves made a sound like refreshing rain, and the cicadas hummed comfortably. All the Beechams stayed outside till far into the night, for the chicken-house was miserably hot at the end of every day.
The result was that the Beecham pocketbooks were as flat as pancakes. "Yet we've worked like horses," Daddy said heavily. "And, worse than that, we've let Gramma and the kids work as I never thought Beechams would." "But we can't blame Farmer Lukes," said Grandpa. "With all the planting and digging and hauling he's done, he says he hasn't a cent to show for it, once he's paid for his seed.
I told her long yarns of how I had spent my time at the Beechams; of the deafening ducts Harold and I had played on the piano; and how he would persist in dancing with me, and he being so tall and broad, and I so small, it was like being stretched on a hay-rack, and very fatiguing.
That trip to Florida surprised the Beechams, but not happily. First, the driver shook his head at featherbeds, dishes, trunk. "I take three grown folks, three kids, one baby, twenty-eight dollars," he growled. "No furniture." Argument did no good. Hastily the family sorted out their most needed clothing and made it into small bundles. The driver scowled at even those.
The Beechams resided at Five-Bob Downs, twelve miles from Caddagat, and were a family composed of two maiden ladies and their nephew, Harold. One of these ladies was aunt Helen's particular friend, and the other had stood in the same capacity to my mother in days gone by, but of late years, on account of her poverty, mother had been too proud to keep up communication with her.
"I belong to a girls' club that meets every day after school; in the Meth'dis' church. We got a sure good school, too, good as any white school, up the road a piece." The Beechams said good-by to Pauline's family, who had become their friends. Then they said good-by to Miss Abbott. That was hard for Jimmie. He butted his shaven little head against Her and then limped away as fast as he could.
"Uh-ah! quite right, Doctah, quite right! Fine young lady, fine young lady. Old stock, yes indeed! Beechams o' Fehginny. Too bad Cousin Sarann Clayton keeps heh so close like. She fitten to be received, sah, to be received!" "Yes, indeed," assented the doctor. "Yes, sah. Now, ain't that the young lady a-comin' down the walk?"
Before the one empty cottage the sedan stopped. The Beechams and Miss Joyce went in. There was little furniture in the clean house, but Grandma, dropping down on a wooden chair, looked around her with bright eyes. "A sitting room!" she said. "A sitting room! Seems like we were real folks again, just for a little while. Grampa, you fetch in the clock and set it on that shelf, will you?"
The Beechams were nearing the salt-water inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the ocean-of which the inlets were part. The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the settlement of Oystershell. The rows of wooden houses, the oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts, and most people wore rubber boots.
My uncle Julius, the only other member of the family besides the servants, was away "up the country" on some business or another, and was not expected home for a month or so. The Bossiers and Beechams were leaders of swelldom among the squattocracy up the country, and firm and intimate friends.
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