CHAPTER VIII

Concerns a Camera

Winona went home at Christmas with a whole world of new experiences to call her own.  Her first term had indeed been an epoch in her life, and though the holidays were naturally welcome, she felt that she could look forward with pleasure to the next session of school.  Her family received her with a certain amount of respect.  The younger ones listened enviously to her accounts of hockey matches and symposiums, and began to wish Fate had wafted their fortunes to Seaton.  They had left Miss Harmon’s little school, and next term were expecting, with some apprehension, a governess whom Aunt Harriet had recommended.  Winona, who after thirteen weeks at Abbey Close found the home arrangements rather chaotic, could not help privately endorsing Miss Beach’s wisdom in instituting such a change.  Poor Mrs. Woodward had been greatly out of health for the last few months, and kept much to her bedroom, while the children had been running wild in a quite deplorable fashion.  Letty, who ought to have had some influence over the others, was the naughtiest of all, and the ringleader in every mischievous undertaking.  Having occupied the position of “eldest” for thirteen weeks, she was not at all disposed to submit to her sister’s authority, and there were many tussles between the two.

“You’ll have to do as your governess tells you, when she comes!” protested Winona on one particularly urgent occasion.

“All right, Grannie!” retorted Letty pertly.  “I’ll settle that matter with the good lady herself, and in the meantime I’m not going to knuckle under to you, so don’t think it!  You needn’t come back so precious high and mighty from your High School, and expect to boss the whole show here.  So there!”

And Winona, who aforetime had been able to subdue her unruly sister, found herself baffled, for their mother was ill, and must not be disturbed, and Percy, who might have been on her side, would only lie on the sofa and guffaw.

“Fight it out, like a pair of Kilkenny cats!” was his advice.  “I’ll sweep up the fragments that remain of you afterwards.  No, I’m not going to back either of you.  Go ahead and get it over!”

Percy had grown immensely during this last term.  He was now seventeen, and very tall, though at present decidedly lanky.  The Cadet Corps at his school absorbed most of his interests.  He held emphatic opinions upon the war, and aired them daily to his family over the morning paper.  According to his accounts, matters seemed likely to make little progress until he and his contemporaries at Longworth College should have reached military age, and be able to take their due part in the struggle, at which happy crisis the Germans would receive a setback that would astonish the Kaiser.

“Our British tactics have been all wrong!” he declared.  “I can tell you we follow things out inch by inch at Longworth, and you should just hear what Johnstone Major has to say.  Some of those generals at the Front are old women!  They ought to send them home, and set them some knitting to do.  If I’d the ordering of affairs I’d give the command to fellows under twenty-five!  New wine should be in new bottles.”