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Updated: June 16, 2025
In the soft tones of the rugs, the plain and comfortable chairs, the warm glow of a lamp shade, or the gleam of a leather-bound book, there was at once a suggestion of discrimination and of informal ease. And informal yet strangely exhilarating the friends of Doctor and Mrs. Studdiford found it.
Everything would be in readiness, the water twinkling in the little bathtub, soap and powder, fresh little clothes, and woolly bath apron all in order. "But HUSH, Sweetest! How cross she is this morning, Caroline!" "Yes, Mrs. Studdiford. You see she ought to be having her bottle now, it's nearly eleven! Dear little thing, she was SO good and patient."
Caroline anticipated Julia's every need on these occasions: the little heap of discarded apparel was whisked away, band and powder were promptly presented, the bath vanished, the clothes-rack with its tiny hangers was gone, and Julia had a moment in which to hug the weary, sleepy, hungry, fragrant little lump of girlhood in her arms. "Bottle ready, Caroline?" "Yes, Mrs. Studdiford.
Julia's heart thumped as she called the big institution, thumped when after a long wait a crisp voice, out of utter silence, said: "Yes? This is Doctor Studdiford!" She explained as concisely as she could, feeling that he listened attentively. "Keep the child flat, no pillow," he said, as Julia concluded. "Tell my aunt I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
Oh, I do thank God for her!" she ended softly. "I thank God you're so well," said Miss Toland. "Here, you can't keep her!" "Anna, go with Aunt Sanna," Julia said weakly. "Anna, eh?" Miss Toland said, wrapping up the pink blanket. "Anna Toland Studdiford," Jim answered. "Julia had that all fixed up weeks ago!" "Well now you children!"
The shorter they are the smarter they are, remember that." "And if I sign J. P. Studdiford, or Julia P. Studdiford then oughtn't 'Mrs. J. N. go in one corner?" "Oh, NO, you poor webfoot! No. "Thanks," said Julia shyly. "You're welcome," Barbara said, smiling. "Are you ready to go down?"
Presently a woman in the next yard parted these vines, to look over and say pleasantly: "Good-mornin', Mis' Studdiford! I's just looking over an' DEE- spairin' of ever gettin' my backyard to look like yours! It does smell like one big bo'quet mornin's like this!" "Oh, well, there are so many of us to fuss with it," said the young woman addressed, cheerfully.
Doctor Studdiford, Ned, and Richie added their cheerful questions and regrets to the hospitable hubbub, and Sally, who had been at the piano, singing Scotch ballads to her father, took possession of Julia with heartening and obvious pleasure.
Years before, twenty years before, to be exact, Doctor Toland, then unmarried, and unacquainted, as it happened, with the lovely Miss Sally Ford, had been engaged to a beautiful young widow, a Mrs. Studdiford, who had been left with a large fortune and a tiny boy some two years before.
She was presently mothering the baby, in the Kearneys' little hot living-room, while Doctor Studdiford caused the patient in the room beyond to shout with pain. The howling wind had a sinister sound, heard up here within walls, and Julia was glad to be out in it, and going down the hills again. "Well, how do you like sick calls?" asked Jim. "I was glad not to have to see him," Julia confessed.
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