The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors

								


Produced by Dianne Bean

THE WHOLE FAMILY,
A NOVEL BY TWELVE AUTHORS
By William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse,
Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jordan, John Kendrick Bangs, Henry
James, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edith Wyatt, Mary Raymond Shipman
Andrews, Alice Brown, Henry Van Dyke

CONTENTS



     I.   The Father by William Dean Howells

     II.  The Old-Maid Aunt by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

     III. The Grandmother by Mary Heaton Vorse

     IV.  The Daughter-in-Law by Mary Stewart Cutting

     V.   The School-Girl by Elizabeth Jordan

     VI.  The Son-in-Law by John Kendrick Bangs

     VII. The Married Son by Henry James

     VIII. The Married Daughter by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

     IX.  The Mother by Edith Wyatt

     X.   The School-Boy by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

     XI.  Peggy by Alice Brown

     XII. The Friend of the Family by Henry Van Dyke

THE WHOLE FAMILY

I. THE FATHER, by William Dean Howells
As soon as we heard the pleasant news--I suppose the news of an
engagement ought always to be called pleasant--it was decided that I
ought to speak first about it, and speak to the father. We had not been
a great while in the neighborhood, and it would look less like a bid
for the familiar acquaintance of people living on a larger scale than
ourselves, and less of an opening for our own intimacy if they turned
out to be not quite so desirable in other ways as they were in the
worldly way. For the ladies of the respective families first to offer
and receive congratulations would be very much more committing on both
sides; at the same time, to avoid the appearance of stiffness, some one
ought to speak, and speak promptly. The news had not come to us directly
from our neighbors, but authoritatively from a friend of theirs, who was
also a friend of ours, and we could not very well hold back. So, in the
cool of the early evening, when I had quite finished rasping my lawn
with the new mower, I left it at the end of the swath, which had brought
me near the fence, and said across it,
“Good-evening!”
My neighbor turned from making his man pour a pail of water on the earth
round a freshly planted tree, and said, “Oh, good-evening! How d'ye do?
Glad to see you!” and offered his hand over the low coping so cordially
that I felt warranted in holding it a moment.
“I hope it's in order for me to say how very much my wife and I are
interested in the news we've heard about one of your daughters? May I
offer our best wishes for her happiness?”
“Oh, thank you,” my neighbor said. “You're very good indeed. Yes, it's
rather exciting--for us. I guess that's all for to-night, Al,” he said,
in dismissal of his man, before turning to lay his arms comfortably
on the fence top. Then he laughed, before he added, to me, “And rather
surprising, too.”
“Those things are always rather surprising, aren't they?” I suggested.