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diff --git a/36046.txt b/36046.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3fddb26 --- /dev/null +++ b/36046.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6932 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Vacation with the Tucker Twins, by Nell +Speed, Illustrated by Arthur O. Scott + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Vacation with the Tucker Twins + + +Author: Nell Speed + + + +Release Date: May 6, 2011 [eBook #36046] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VACATION WITH THE TUCKER TWINS*** + + +E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan, Emmy, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 36046-h.htm or 36046-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36046/36046-h/36046-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36046/36046-h.zip) + + + + + +[Illustration: Annie Pore has bloomed forth into a regular English +rose!--_Page 89_] + + +VACATION WITH THE TUCKER TWINS + +by + +NELL SPEED + +Author of "At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins," "The Molly Brown +Series," etc. + +With Four Half-Tone Illustrations by Arthur O. Scott + + + + + + + +New York +Hurst & Company +Publishers + +Copyright, 1916, +by +Hurst & Company + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. THE BEACH 5 + II. "SLEEPY" 18 + III. OUR FIRST NIGHT AT THE BEACH 28 + IV. BUBBLES 36 + V. BLANCHE 45 + VI. A ROMANCE 57 + VII. OH, YOU CHAPERONE! 67 + VIII. LETTERS 83 + IX. THE START 91 + X. THE FINISH 102 + XI. CAPE HENRY 111 + XII. FRECKLES AND TAN 126 + XIII. THE TURKEY-TAIL FAN 134 + XIV. A LETTER AND ITS ANSWER 150 + XV. THE JUDGE 158 + XVI. AN AXE TO GRIND 175 + XVII. MR. ARTHUR PONSONBY PORE 187 + XVIII. THE MACHINATIONS OF MABEL 198 + XIX. THE WEDDING 205 + XX. THE AFTER-MATH 225 + XXI. SETTLING UP 241 + XXII. GOOD-BYE TO THE BEACH 261 + XXIII. UNTIL NEXT TIME 268 + XXIV. A BREAD-AND-BUTTER LETTER 282 + XXV. BRACKEN IN AUGUST 285 + XXVI. THE PICNIC 298 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + Annie Pore has bloomed forth into a regular English + rose _Frontispiece_ + + A tousled head emerged and then a hot, fat, red face 19 + + Peeping in, we saw the game in full swing 145 + + "Why don't you speak up, girl?" 255 + + + + +Vacation with the Tucker Twins. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE BEACH. + + +My first impression of Willoughby Beach gave me keen disappointment. It +was so sandy, so flat, and so absolutely shadeless. I longed for the +green hills far away and in my heart felt I could not stand a month of +the lonesome stretches of sand and the pitiless glare of the summer sun. +It took great self-control and some histrionic ability for me to conceal +my emotions from my enthusiastic hostesses. + +The Tuckers had been coming to Willoughby for years and loved every +grain of sand on the beach. They could hardly wait for the trolley from +Norfolk to stop before they jumped out and raced down to the water's +edge just to dabble their hands in the ocean. + +"My gracious me! How I hate to grow up!" exclaimed Dum. "One year ago I +would have had off my shoes and been in bliss by this time." + +"Well, maybe you are too grown up to wade, but I'm not," declared Dee. +"However, since Zebedee has trusted us to come down and open up the +cottage, I fancy we had better go do it and get things ready for our +guests." + +We three girls were the fore-runners of the famous beach house-party +that Mr. Jeffry Tucker, father of the "Heavenly Twins," had promised to +give us the winter before as reward of merit if we passed all of our +exams at Gresham and got through the year without any very serious +mishaps. Mishaps we had had in abundance, but not very serious ones, as +all of us were alive to tell the tale; and Mr. Tucker, with his +eternally youthful outlook on life, seemed to feel that a scrape that +turned out all right was not such a terrible matter after all. + +"Just so you can look me in the eye while you are telling me your +troubles, it's all right," I have heard him say to his daughters. + +The cottage proved to be very attractive. The lower floor was chiefly a +large living room with French windows that opened upon three deep, shady +verandas. A kitchen and bath rooms were in the rear. A staircase came +down into the living room from a low-hung balcony that went around the +four sides of the room. Doors from this balcony opened into dressing +rooms and they in turn led to the sleeping porches. This style of +architecture was new to me and very pleasing. There was a spaciousness +to the living room with its high, raftered ceiling that appealed to me +greatly. I have never been able to be happy in little, chopped-up rooms. +The wood-work, rafters, roof and all, were stained a dark moss green, as +were also the long mission dining table and the chairs and settles. At +one end was a great fireplace made of rough, grey boulders, with heavy +iron fire-dogs and fender. There was no attempt at ornamentation with +the exception of several old blue platters and a tea pot on the high +mantelpiece and a long runner of Japanese toweling on the table. + +"Oh!" burst from us in chorus as we came through the hospitably open +door. "Isn't it lovely?" + +Just then there emerged from the kitchen a woman with a pail in one hand +and broom in the other. Her long, pale face with the sandy hair drawn +tightly back into a Mrs. Wiggs knot had no trace of welcome, but rather +one of irritation. + +"Well, land's sakes! You is greedy fer yo' rights. The fust of July +don't mean the fust thing in the morning. The last tenants ain't been +gone mor'n a hour an' here you come a-turn-in' up before I kin mor'n +turn 'round." + +"Well, everything looks lovely," said the tactful Dee. + +"Y' aint seen it yet. It's right enough in this here room where I've +done put in some licks, but that there kitchen is a mask of grease. +These June tenants was jist a passel of boys and I can tell you they +pretty near ripped things wide open. They had a triflin', no-'count +black man fer cook and if ther' is one thing I hate more'n a nigger +woman, it's a nigger man. Sometimes I think I will jist natchally refuse +to rent my house to anybody that hires niggers." + +"Your house!" escaped from Dum before she could stop herself. + +"Yes, Miss, my house! Did you think I'd be cleaning up after a nigger in +anybody's house but my own?" + +"Then you are Mrs. Rand?" inquired Dee. + +"The same! Did you think I might be Capt. Rand?" + +"No'm; I--I----" + +"You jist didn't expect to see a lady who owns a grand house like this +workin' like any common person. Well, you are right, young lady. But if +I didn't work like this, ther' wouldn't be no house to rent. Where's +your brother?" + +"Brother?" + +"Yes; him what come down last winter to see after rentin' the house. He +was a powerful likely young man. Me 'n Capt. Rand took to him from the +first minute we clapt eyes on him. I'd a-knowed you two were his sisters +anywhere; and this other young lady," indicating me, "I reckon she's his +girl, 'cause she sho ain't no kin." + +The twins spluttered and I blushed but managed to put Mrs. Rand right as +to the Tucker family, explaining to her that Mr. Tucker was the father +of my friends and that I was merely a schoolmate who was invited to come +to the beach on a visit. + +"Well, you may be putting something over on me, as these wild June +tenants used to call it. I can't believe that the young man who came +down here is the paw of these strapping twins any more than I could +believe that you are their maw. Maybe he sent his office boy." That made +all of us laugh. + +"We've been coming here for years, Mrs. Rand," said Dee. "It is strange +we do not know each other. I can't remember ever seeing you before and +you never saw us." + +"Good reason! I never come here 'til this last fall, when Capt. Rand and +I left Virginia Beach. He's been a lifesaver ever since he was a-put +inter pants, but his jints is too stiff now. The Government has +pensioned him but it looks like so long as we live near the old Life +Saving Station that every time there is any cause for gittin' out the +boats, Capt. Rand sees some good excuse why he's beholden to go 'long. +So I jist up 'n' moved him away from temptation over inter these quiet +waters. But when is that so-called paw of yourn comin'?" + +"He will be along this evening with Miss Cox, our chaperone, and we want +to get everything in order before he comes," said Dum. + +"Well, that bein' the case, I'd better get a hump on and finish up the +kitchen that greasy nigger left in such a state; and then I'll come +right on up to the bedrooms. This lapping and slamming of tenants is +right hard on me, but it is the only way I can get my fifteen per cent +out of my investment." + +"Did you plan the house yourself, Mrs. Rand?" questioned Dum. "It is so +pretty." + +"What, me? Do I look crazy? When I builds, I builds a house with a +parlor and nice, tight bedrooms. I don't 'low the builder to waste no +lumber on porches that's nothin' but snares fer lazy folks. I owns three +houses over to Virginia Beach, as snug little homes as you ever seed; +but somehow it looks like I can't git rich tenants fer 'em, in spite of +they bein' on the water front. Rich folks what is got the money to sleep +in nice, close bedrooms is all took to sleepin' out doors like tramps; +an' when they is got all the time there is to set in the parlors and +rock, they ain't content in the house but must take theyselves out in +the wind and sun 'til they look like Injuns! + +"No, sirree! I had a mortgage on this house an' foreclosed. It was built +and owned by a architect from Norfolk. I had a chattel mortgage, too, so +I got all his fixin's. I felt real sorry fer him. It looked like he +loved the place as if'n it was his own flesh and blood. It is a strange, +misshapen lookin' house to me; but they do say if any of yo' children is +afflicted, you loves 'em more'n all the others. I wanted to decoration +this barn a little with some real fine pictures a lightnin' artist over +to Hampton struck off for me while I waited, but the man took on so, +jist like he thought I might a-been desecratin' the grave of his child! +And he kinder made me promise to leave this room jist as it is with that +common old blue chany on the mantel an' this strip of blue and white rag +on the table. So that's how it comes to be so bare-like." + +"We don't think it is bare, Mrs. Rand, but beautiful," said Dum +reverently, and Dee took off her hat and held it just as I had seen her +father do when a funeral was passing. "May we go upstairs and see the +sleeping porches, and maybe we can help you some?" + +"Snoop around all you've a mind to; but I wouldn't ask you to help. When +I rents a furnished house I sees that it is turned over to tenants in +apple-pie order, and if'n you'd 'a' come in the afternoon instid of +morning you'd 'a' found it ship-shape." + +"But we'd simply adore helping," urged Dee. + +"All right, if you must you must! Here's a basket of clean sheets an' +sich, an' here's clean bags fer the mattresses. I never asks one tenant +to sleep on the same tick cover that the one before it used, certainly +not when boys is been the fore-runners. These was likely boys if'n they +was a leetle harum-scarum, but boys at the best is kinder goatish. Jist +bundle up the s'iled bedclothes an' trun 'em down the steps, an then +when you've buttoned up the mattresses in their clean covers make up the +cots to suit your fancy. By that time I'll be up with my broom and +rags." And Mrs. Rand bustled out to the kitchen to clean up after her +abomination. + +We could hardly wait for her to get out of the room to have a good +giggle. She was a type that was new to me. Dee declared that she was a +real out and out "po' white" if she did own three houses at Virginia +Beach and one at Willoughby, and got 15 per cent on her investments. Her +dialect was, in some instances, like the coloured people's, but her +voice was high and nasal and every sentence ended in a kind of whine. +With our coloured friends the dropping of a "g" or "d" makes their +speech soft and mellow, but with this so-called "poor white" it seemed +to make it only dry and hard. Certainly Mrs. Rand's exterior was not +very attractive, but there was a kind of frankness about her that I +rather liked. I had an idea that she was going to prove a good and just +landlady, which, after all, is very important when one is renting a +furnished house for a month at the sea shore. + +"Thank goodness, we are spared the lightning artist's pictures," sighed +Dum. "Isn't this room wonderful?" + +It had indeed the repose and calm of a forest. The light was soft and +subdued after the glare of sand and water. The high, vaulted, +unplastered ceiling with its heavy green beams and rafters made me think +of William Morris's description of the hall of the Nibelungs when the +eagles screamed in the roof-tree. + +We carried the heavy basket of clean bed linen upstairs and made our way +through the dressing rooms, which were little more than closets, to the +spacious sleeping porches, overlooking the bay. We found the place in +very good order, considering boys had been keeping bach there for a +month, and it was not at all "goatish," as we had been led to expect to +find it. On the first porch we discovered an old checked cap on a hook, +and some discarded tennis shoes in a corner, under one pillow a wallet, +rather fat with bank bills, and under another a large gold watch. + +"Aren't boys the limit, though?" exclaimed Dee as she carefully placed +the valuables in a drawer. "That means they'll be coming back for their +treasures. Maybe we had better save the old hat and shoes, too;" which +we did with as much care as we had shown the watch and wallet. We +bundled up the bed clothes according to instructions and decided to +visit the other porches and get rid of all the soiled linen before we +commenced to make up the cots. There were three large porches, with two +dressing rooms to each porch, and two small porches in the back, one of +them, we fancied, intended for the servant and the other one for some +person who preferred solitude to company, as there was room for only one +bed on it. + +This porch was the last one we visited and we found it in terrible +disarray. There were clothes and shoes all over the floor and the bed +was piled high with a conglomeration of sweaters, baseball suits and +what not. + +"My, what a mess!" I cried, being the first to enter. "And this is the +room of all others to get in order, as I fancy Miss Cox, our chaperone, +will occupy it." + +"Yes, this would be best," said Dum. "She could have more privacy, and +then, too, she would escape the morning sun. Here, you girls, catch hold +of the corners of the sheet and let's take up all of this trash and +'trun' it down the steps and let Mrs. Rand sort it out." + +We laid hold with a good will, but it proved to be very heavy, so heavy, +in fact, that just as we got it off the bed, Dee let go her end and the +contents fell to the floor with a resounding bump. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +"SLEEPY." + + +[Illustration: A tousled head emerged and then a hot, fat, red +face.--_Page 19_] + +The mass of bed clothes and sweaters and shoes went through a great +upheaval, and an arm, encased in a striped pajama sleeve, was thrust +forth. We did what girls always do, we screamed and then we giggled. + +"Gee, it's hot!" came in muffled tones. "It's hard enough to be waked +before daybreak but you fellows might at least wake me like gentlemen +and not pull me out of bed, keeping up such an infernal cackling, too, +sounding like a lot of fool girls." + +Of course, the thing to do was to get out of the room, or rather off the +porch, as fast as we could, but, as Dee and I were at the foot of the +bed and the floor space was occupied by the squirming mass, we had no +chance to make a graceful exit. + +"Jump!" came in a sibilant whisper from Dum, and we got ready for a +feat not very difficult for two girls as athletic as we were; but a fit +of giggles attacked us and we were powerless to do anything but cling to +each other in limp helplessness. + +"I'm afraid we would step on it," I managed to squeak out through my +convulsions. + +"I just dare you to!" spluttered the owner of the arm, and a tousled +head emerged and then a hot, fat, red face. It was a rather good-looking +face in spite of the fact that it was swollen with sleep and crimson +with heat and distorted with rage at having been "awakened before dawn." +I never expect again in all my life to see anything half so ludicrous as +that boy's expression when it dawned on him that the rude awakening was +not the work of his erstwhile companions, but of a lot of "fool girls." +His eyes, half shut with sleep and blinking with the glare of unexpected +daylight, were blinded for a moment, but as Dee and I still clung to +each other and giggled, the youth's eyes began to widen and the mouth, +sullen from heavy slumber, formed itself into a panic-stricken O. His +face had seemed as red as a face could get, but, no! It took on several +shades more of crimson until it was really painful to behold. He did the +wisest thing he could possibly have done under the circumstances: hid +his head and burrowed deep under the cover. + +"Now, jump!" cried Dum; and jump we did, clearing the hurdle in great +shape, and then we raced down to Mrs. Rand to tell her of our ridiculous +predicament. + +"Well, land's sake! Don't that beat all? And you was fixin' to gather +him up with the s'iled clothes! 'Twould 'a' served him right if'n you +had a-trunned him down the steps and let him take his chanct with the +la'ndry." And the old woman laughed until her Mrs. Wiggs knot came down +and she had to put down her scrubbing brush and twist it up. "I'm about +through here and I'll go up and 'ten' to him." + +"Oh, Mrs. Rand, I am sure he is up by this time, and the poor fellow is +embarrassed enough. Don't say anything to him," begged Dee. + +"I ain't so sho 'bout that. I spec it's the one they call 'Sleepy,' an' +if'n it is, he's mo'n apt to be gone back to bed," and she stalked like +a grenadier up the steps to rout out poor "Sleepy." + +Two boys came up on the piazza as we turned from viewing the now +spotless kitchen, and, caps in hand, asked to see Mrs. Rand. They were +what that lady would have called a "likely pair." Both were dressed in +white flannels and had the unmistakable look of clean-living athletes. + +Mrs. Rand's voice was heard from the balcony as she rapped sharply on +the dressing-room door: + +"You, there! Git up! This ain't no tramps' hotel." + +Then a growl came from the den as from a wounded, sore-headed bear. + +"Sleepy!" gasped the boys, and they went off into roars of laughter in +which we perforce joined them. "Not up yet!" + +Mrs. Rand, coming down the steps from her valiant attack on the back +sleeping porch, espied the laughing boys and renewed the offensive: + +"Now what's bringing you here? This here cottage ain't yourn no longer. +If'n youse after that fat sleepy-head up thar you is welcome to him, +but what's the reason you didn't take him with you, I can't see." + +"You see, Mrs. Rand, it's this way," said the taller of the two boys, +approaching Mrs. Rand with an engaging smile. "We did wake up Sleepy and +then piled all his clothes on top of him, thinking the weight and heat +of them would make it impossible for him to sleep longer. We had to go +get our tents pitched and provision our camp and we couldn't stay to see +that our scheme worked. We are mighty sorry if it has caused you any +trouble or annoyance." + +"No trouble to me," and Mrs. Rand gave a snaggled-tooth smile at the +polite young man, "but it was some trouble for these young ladies; which +no doubt is the reason, these young ladies, I mean, that t'other young +fellow is so busy winking at me about, kinder specting me to hand out a +interduction. Well, as I'm what you might call chaperoon 'til their paw +comes, I'll favor you and make you acquainted;" which she did with stiff +formality. The tall boy was named James Hart, and the other one, the +winker, Stephen White, but he was never again to be known as Stephen, +or even Steve, for on and after that first day of July he was known as +"Wink." Boys are quick to give a nickname and slow to relinquish a joke +on one of their companions. + +"Mrs. Rand," said Wink, (I'll begin now to call these boys by the names +we soon knew them by,) "we simply hate to be a nuisance to you and to +these young ladies but we can't provision our camp for the reason that +we have lost all our money. I was almost sure I had put the money in my +pocket, but now that I can't find it, I am hoping maybe I left it here +somewhere." + +"No, you didn't, young man. Th' ain't no money loose 'round here," and +Mrs. Rand got ready for battle. + +"Oh, the wallet!" we cried in chorus, and Dee rushed upstairs and came +down in a trice bearing the wallet, watch, old cap and shoes. + +"My, what a relief!" sighed Wink. "I am supposed to be the careful +member of the crowd, so they intrusted me with all the funds, and this +is the way I behaved. Your watch, Jim! I fancy your great-grandfather +would turn in his grave if he knew how careless you were. And old Rags +left his cap and shoes! I am glad I wasn't the only forgetter." + +"Well, I'm a-thinking, young men, that it's a good thing this here +cottage is owned by a respectable woman an' the July tenants is what +they is, or you'd be minus some prop'ty. That there Sleepy up there come +mighty near being bundled up in the s'iled linen an' sent to the +la'ndry, an' if'n these young ladies hadn't a-been what they is yo' camp +never would 'a' been provisioned. But now I must git to work an' clear +out that there upstairs," and Mrs. Rand betook herself to the regions +above. + +"Please tell us about Sleepy," begged Jim Hart. "Did he get mixed up +with the laundry?" But the Tuckers and I felt that poor Sleepy had had +embarrassment enough and were mum as to our experience with him that +morning. + +"Come on, Jim, let's go up and see him. Maybe he is too shy to come +out," and the two boys went up two steps at a time to rout out their +embarrassed friend. + +The bird had flown. There was no trace of the poor fat boy. The clothes +which had filled the room were gone; the boy was gone; and only a hole +in the sand below gave silent witness to his manner of flight. + +"Well, poor Sleepy, if he hasn't jumped off the porch and gone, bag and +baggage! He almost dug a well in the process of going. That was some +jump, I can tell you," and Jim and Wink came down in a broad grin. + +"What is Sleepy's real name?" I asked. + +"George Massie, a perfectly good name, and he is the best old fellow in +the world, especially when he is asleep, which he is on long stretches. +In fact, most of the time, except in football season, and then you bet +he is awake and up and doing. He is on the University Eleven and is sure +to be captain next year," answered Jim. + +I was rather glad to hear of his prowess in football as it meant that +the poor, sleepy boy could take care of himself if his companions teased +him too much in their anxiety to hear what had occurred. A centre rush +on a college eleven does not have to submit to much teasing. + +"We are certainly obliged to you ladies for your kindness in finding our +belongings, and when we get our camp in order we hope you will come to +see us. We understand there is to be quite a party of you," said Wink, +preparing to depart. + +"Yes, besides Miss Cox, our chaperone, there are to be two more girls +with us for the whole month and our father is to bring down week-end +parties from Richmond. We are to have some boys for part of the time but +we can't stand them as steady things," blundered Dum. + +"Well, come on, Jim, we don't want to get in bad the first thing. To +become popular with this young lady we must make ourselves scarce," and +they went gaily off, while we returned to assist Mrs. Rand until our +luggage arrived. When it came, we unpacked at once, and then were ready +for the lunch which we had brought with us from Richmond. + +We had a busy afternoon visiting the little shops, laying in our +housekeeping supplies and interviewing the swarm of hucksters and fish +mongers that sprang up like magic the moment the word had gone forth +that a new tenant had arrived. Our cook was not to come until the next +day so we were very cautious in ordering, being well aware of our +limitations in the culinary art. Dum wanted to have baked, stuffed red +snapper the first night because Zebedee was so fond of it, but Dee and I +vetoed it and we got Spanish mackerel to broil instead. + +"We simply live on fish at the beach. I hope you like it, Page," said +Dee, "because you fare pretty badly down here if you don't." + +"Of course I do; and I am going to eat a lot of it so I can become fishy +and learn to swim. It is a terrible mortification to me that I can't +swim." + +"Why, honey, Zebedee can teach you in one lesson, just so you are not +timid," and Dee put her arm around me. "There is certainly nothing to be +ashamed of. You could hardly have learned to swim in your grandfather's +hat-tub." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +OUR FIRST NIGHT AT THE BEACH. + + +By the time Mr. Tucker and Miss Cox arrived, late that evening, Tweedles +and I felt as though we had been keeping house for years. Mrs. Rand had +the cottage in apple-pie order and had taken herself off, very much +concerned for fear we were not going to have a good supper for "that +there so-called 'paw'." But we did have a very good one by careful +division of labour. Dum set the table and looked after the butter and +ice water; Dee attended to the coffee, baked potatoes and salad; and to +my lot fell the broiling of the fish and toasting of the bread. + +We had had a long and eventful day and very tired and hungry were the +three of us when the trolley from Norfolk finally arrived with Miss Cox +and Mr. Tucker, also tired and hungry and very dirty after a trip on a +soft coal train. Miss Cox had come all the way from the mountains of +Albemarle on a local train and she seemed to be about all in; but she +declared that supper and bed would make her over and we must not worry +about her. + +"It would be a pretty piece of business for me to come down here as a +chaperone and then be a baby," she said. + +"Well, a baby is about as good a chaperone as one could want," laughed +Mr. Tucker; "and now, Jinny, I am going to insist upon your being a baby +for a few days until you get yourself all rested up. We appreciate your +coming to us more than we can tell you and one and all mean to wait on +you." + +"We do, indeed, Miss Cox, and I bid to bring your breakfast up to your +room," said Dee. + +"And I bid to unpack for you," put in Dum. + +"And I--I--I don't know what I will do for you, but please let me help +some," I begged. + +"Oh, people, people! Don't be too good to me or I'll cry," and Miss Cox +gave a wan smile. She had been tutoring all during the month of June, +beginning just as soon as her labours were over at Gresham; and having +had no rest at all she was in a state of exhaustion pitiable to behold. +I believe her nerves would have snapped if it had not been for that +timely trip to the beach. + +"Well, I call this a pretty good supper for three girls just turning +sixteen to get up all by their lonesomes," said Mr. Tucker, giving a +sigh of complete satisfaction as he got out a cigar for an after-dinner +smoke. + +"Page did all the real cooking," tweedled the twins. + +"Why, Dee, you cooked the potatoes and the coffee, and Dum did a million +other things that are much more tedious than cooking. I love to cook but +I hate the scullery part." Then I was sorry I had said that because they +utterly refused to let me help wash the dishes and I felt like an awful +shirker. + +Miss Cox was escorted to her sleeping porch which she pronounced +"Heaven." It presented a different appearance than it had in the morning +when poor Sleepy had been concealed in the soiled linen like a modern +Falstaff (not that we seemed much like the Merry Wives of Windsor). + +"Now stay in bed in the morning so I can bring your breakfast up to +you," begged Dee. + +"And don't dare to unpack yourself, but let me do it," demanded Dum. + +"I hope the mantle of Sleepy will fall on you, Miss Cox, and you will +slumber as peacefully as he did," said I, lowering the striped awning to +keep the early morning light from waking the poor, tired lady. + +"Well, good night to all of you. I only hope I can get undressed before +I fall asleep." + +It was a wondrous night, and since the girls would not let me help with +the dishes, I accepted Mr. Tucker's invitation to stroll on the beach +with him while he finished his cigar. How pleasant the night was after +the terrible glare of the day! For the first time I began to feel that +the beach was going to be what I had dreamed it to be. The sun had set +but there was a soft afterglow. + + "And in the Heavens that clear obscure, + So softly dark and darkly pure, + Which follows the decline of day, + As twilight melts beneath the moon away," + +quoted Mr. Tucker. "I am afraid you are pretty tired, too, Page. You do +not seem to have your usual spirits. I bet a horse I know what it is! +You are disappointed in Willoughby Beach." + +"Oh, please don't think it, Mr. Tucker----" + +"I don't think it, I just know it. You must not feel bad about it. +Everybody always is disappointed in it at first, and then in a few days +wonders how he could have been anything but in love with it. You +question now how anyone could be contented without trees or grass, and +in a week's time you wonder what is the good of trees and grass, anyhow. +I know today you felt like old Regulus when his captors cut off his +eyelids and exposed him to the sun. You'll get used to the sun, too, and +even scorn a hat as Tweedles do." + +I was really embarrassed at Mr. Tucker's divining my feelings as he did, +but it was no new thing, as he often seemed to be able to guess my +thoughts. I, too, often found that I had thought out something just as +he was in the act of giving voice to it. I _had_ been desperately +disappointed in the beach. The great stretches of unbroken sand, the +cloudless sky and a certain flatness everywhere had given me a sensation +of extreme heaviness and dreariness; but now that the blessed darkness +had come and I no longer had to scrooch up my eyes, I began to feel that +it was not such a stale, flat, unprofitable place after all. And it was +certainly very pleasant out there, pacing up and down on the sand with +Mr. Tucker, who treated me just like one of his daughters in a way but +at the same time gave me a feeling that he thought I was quite grown-up +enough to be talked to and listened to. He had called me "Miss Page" at +first, but now that he had dropped the "Miss" and I was just plain Page +I seemed more of a companion to him than before. + +Tweedles soon came racing out, having finished the dish washing. + +"We didn't wipe 'em, but scalded 'em and let 'em dreen. Dee broke two +cups--I broke a saucer!" exclaimed Dum. "It's entirely too lovely a +night to waste indoors." + +"So it is, but it is also a mighty good night for sleeping and I think +all of us had better turn in pretty early," said Mr. Tucker. + +"Oh, not yet, Zebedee!" tweedled the girls, "we are not a bit sleepy. +You are always wanting people to go to bed before they are ready." And +with that they flopped themselves down on the sand, Dum with her head on +my knee and Dee with hers on her father's shoulder and in one minute +they were fast asleep. + +"Now what are we going to do with these babies, Page?" + +"I hate to wake them but they will be sure to catch cold," I replied. +And so wake them we had to and lead them stumbling to the cottage and up +the steps to the east porch, where they were with difficulty persuaded +to go through what they considered, in their sleepy state, to be the +unnecessary formality of undressing. + +I had been sleeping pretty well for almost sixteen years but after that +first night at Willoughby Beach on a sleeping-porch, I knew that I had +never really realized what sleep meant. No matter how many windows you +may have open in your bedroom, it is still a room, and no matter how +much you may protect a porch, it is still out-of-doors. We were in bed +by nine o'clock and we were asleep almost before we were in bed, and +while my sleep was perfectly dreamless I was, in a measure, conscious of +a delicious well being, _a sentiment de bien etre_. All through the +night I was rocked in this feeling and I was then and there reconciled +to the beach, flatness, glare and all. A place that had such +sleep-giving powers was one to be loved and not scorned, and forthwith I +began to love it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +BUBBLES. + + +The sun finds an east porch very early in the morning and five o'clock +was late enough to sleep, anyhow, when one has gone to bed at nine. +Tweedles and I had many duties to perform and we were glad enough to be +up and doing. + +"Me for a dip in the briny, before I grapple with the day!" exclaimed +Dum. That sounded good to Dee and me, so we all piled into our bathing +suits. I felt rather strange in mine and very youthful, never before +having had one on. Father and I had had several nice trips together but +we had always gone to some city and had never taken in a seaside resort. +I had a notion I was going to like the water and almost knew I would not +be afraid. I determined to look upon the ocean as just a large-sized +hat-tub. + +"Hadn't we better start the kitchen fire before we go out, Dum?" I +asked. + +"I'm not Dum! I'm Dee! Dum's gone to peek at Zebedee to see if he is +awake." For the first time in my acquaintance with the Tucker Twins I +found myself at a loss to tell them apart. Of course it was Dee. The +eyes were grey and there was a dimple in her chin, but the bathing cap +concealed her hair and forehead; and, after all, the colour of the +twins' hair and the way it grew on their foreheads were the chief points +of difference. Their eyes were exactly the same shape if they were of +different colours, and a difference that you had to stare at to find out +was not much of a difference after all. + +Dum came back to announce that Zebedee was awake and would join us in a +moment, so we raced down to the kitchen, careful not to make any noise +and wake up poor Miss Cox. We started the fire and put on the tea kettle +and, as an afterthought, I went back and filled the Marion Harland +percolator, putting in plenty of coffee. The morning was rather chilly +and I knew that when we got back from our dip, coffee would not go +amiss. + +"Front door wide open! What kind of a locker-up are you, Zebedee, +anyhow?" chided Dum. + +"Well, I could have sworn I shut it last night and locked it. In fact, I +can swear it." + +"Well, if we had burglars they didn't burgle any. The pure German silver +is all intact and the blue tea-pot is still on the mantelpiece. Come on, +I'll race you to the water's edge," and Dum and Zebedee were off like +two children, while Dee and I followed. + +"Someone's out ahead of us," said Zebedee, pointing to a head far out in +the bay. "Some swimmer, too! Just look how fast he's going!" The swimmer +was taking long, even strokes and was shooting through the water like a +fish. + +How I did envy that swimmer! I felt very slim and very shy as I walked +gingerly to the water's edge and let the waves creep up on my feet and +ankles. The Tuckers wanted to stay with me but I would not hear of it. I +knew that they were longing to get out into deep water and I have always +had a wholesome dread of being a nuisance. They plunged in and were off +like a school of porpoise, one minute under water and the next leaping +high into the air. They seemed to be truly amphibious animals while I +felt very much of an earthworm. I walked out in the bay up to my chin +and then decided that I would try to swim back, although I had no more +idea of how a body went to work to swim than to fly. + +I lay down on the water and felt my feet rising to the surface and then +a panic seized me, and such another struggling and splashing and +gurgling as I was guilty of! My head went under and my feet refused to +leave the surface. I thought I would surely drown, although I knew +perfectly well I was not beyond my depth. Foolish poetry flashed into my +brain: + + "You are old, Father William," the young man said, + "And your hair has become very white, + And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- + Do you think, at your age, it is right?" + + "In my youth," Father William replied to his son, + "I feared it might injure the brain; + But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, + I do it again and again." + +From that I went on with Clarence's dream: + + "O Lord! methought what pain it was to drown! + What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears! + What sights of ugly death within mine eyes! + Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; + A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon; + Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, + Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, + All scattered in the bottom of the sea, + Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes + Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept + (As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems, + That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, + And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. + + . . . . but still the envious flood + Kept in my soul and would not let it forth + To seek the empty, vast and wandering air; + But smothered it within my panting bulk, + Which almost burst to belch it in the sea." + +All this time that my brain was busy in this absurd way, my legs and +arms were busy, too, and just when I got to the last line, quoted above, +I felt a strong hand on the back of my bathing suit and I was pulled +from the briny deep. + +"Why, Page, why are you making a little submarine of yourself? You +scared me to death, child. I was way out in the bay when I looked back +to see what you were up to and not a sign of your precious little head +could I see, nothing but bubbles to mark the spot where my dear little +friend had gone down. But oh, such big bubbles! I thought you had +ventured out beyond your depth, and here it is not much more than four +feet of water," and Zebedee held me up while I spluttered and gurgled. +Only the night before Zebedee had demanded that I should stop calling +him Mr. Tucker, so now I was to think of him and speak of him as +Zebedee. I had been thinking of him as Zebedee for a long time and it +was very easy to stop calling him by the formal name of Mr. Tucker. + +"Lend me a handkerchief!" I demanded just as soon as I could stop +spluttering enough to speak, and then we both burst out laughing, as +naturally he did not have one. + +"I tell you what you do, little girl, you trot on up to the house and +get into dry clothes, and I'll collect those water dogs as soon as I can +and we will join you. I don't approve of staying in the water too long +in the early morning, certainly not on the first day at the beach. The +morning swim should be nothing more than a dip." + +"Well, that's all mine was," and I scrambled out. My wet suit felt very +heavy but my body felt light and there was a delicious tingle all over +me as the morning air, a little cooler than the water, struck me. I +raced to the cottage and into the downstairs bathroom--which had an +outside entrance--where we had put our bath gowns so we would be able to +drop our wet suits there. It took me only a few minutes to rub down and +get into some dry clothes (thanks to middy blouses, which were surely +invented for girls in a hurry). I was dressed and in the kitchen before +Zebedee was able to collect his water dogs. The coffee was in a state of +perfection, and glad indeed was I for a cup of the beverage which shares +with tea the quality of cheering without inebriating. + +The oven to the little range was piping hot so I made so bold as to stir +up a pan of batter bread, Mammy Susan's kind with lots of eggs, and I +then proceeded to set the table for breakfast. + +"See here, this is a shame for you to be slaving so!" exclaimed Zebedee. +"I simply won't have it--but gee, what a grand smell of coffee! You +don't mean you've got some all made?" and he came through the living +room and back into the kitchen in his wet suit, although he was the one +who had made the rule the night before that bathers must enter from the +rear and leave their wet suits in the bathrooms. I hadn't the heart to +remind him; besides, I knew Tweedles would take great joy in doing so. I +gave him a cup of steaming coffee and then made him hurry off to get +into his clothes by letting him have a peep at my batter bread, which +was behaving as batter bread should when it is made with plenty of eggs +and the oven is piping hot--that is, it was rising like an omelette and +a delicate brown was appearing over the surface. + +"It must be eaten hot, so you had better hurry," I said as I put the +sliced bacon in the frying pan and then cracked ice for the cantaloupe. + +"All right, Mammy Susan, I'll show you what a lightning change artist I +can be. I know I can beat Tweedles. They are still in the bathroom. By +the way, do you know who the swimmer was we saw out in the bay? None +other than our chaperone, Miss Jinny Cox! I just knew I had locked the +door. You see, Jinny opened it. She has decided not to let anybody wait +on her, after all. Tweedles are quite disconsolate. They have been +planning to be so unselfish and here Jinny is refusing to be ill, and +here you are, the honored guest, cooking breakfast on this, our first +morning at the beach." He started up the steps but came down again, and, +taking me impulsively by both hands, he exclaimed: "I am mighty glad you +did not succeed in drowning yourself in four feet of water, little +friend. You made very beautiful bubbles but I am going to teach you how +to swim before the week is out." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +BLANCHE. + + +"Who is to go over to Norfolk with me to meet the guests, also the cook +lady from Keysville?" demanded Zebedee as he scraped the very last +vestige of batter bread sticking to the sides of the pan. Annie Pore and +Mary Flannagan, our schoolmates, were to arrive on a James River boat +and our much needed cook on the train. + +The cook was a great niece of Mammy Susan's dead husband, who was being +educated at an industrial school for coloured boys and girls. I had +never seen her, but Mammy Susan had been rather impressed by what she +had heard of the girl and it was because of her recommendation that the +Tuckers had determined to employ her. + +"She's got good Afgan blood in her," declared Mammy, "but th' aint no +tellin' what schoolin' is done did to'ds spilin' of her." + +We were willing to gamble on the good "Afgan" blood and now we were to +meet the girl, Blanche Johnson by name. I had written her telling her +exactly what train to take and to be sure to pin a red bow on her left +shoulder as a means of identification. + +"Page must go because she did so much work this morning, besides getting +most drowned," and Dum got up from the devastated breakfast table and +began clearing off the dishes. + +"And Miss Cox must go----" + +"Why don't you all go?" put in Zebedee. "Leave these stupid old dishes +for the lily fair Blanche." + +"Oh, Jeffry Tucker, never!" exclaimed Miss Cox. "If she found us with +dirty dishes she would think we like 'em dirty and give 'em to us for +the rest of the time. No, you girls go on with your irresponsible parent +and I will stay and do this little dab of dish washing. I don't want to +go to Norfolk. In fact, I never do want to go to Norfolk." I detected a +slight trembling of her lip and a painful flush on her countenance, but +as she turned away quickly I thought I was the only person who had +noticed it. + +"But I can't allow you to do so much, Jinny," objected Zebedee. + +"Well, we've got at least fifteen minutes before the trolley leaves. +Let's all of us turn in and get it done before the time is up," and I +set the example by grabbing the batter bread pan from Zebedee, who was +trying to find just one more crumb. "Come on and help. I'll make you +some more this evening for supper." + +Such another bustling and hurrying as then went on! The dishes were +already scraped by the voracious swimmers, so there was nothing to do +but plunge them into the hot, soapy water where Miss Cox officiated with +a dish mop, and then into the rinse water. Dee was ready with a tea +towel and Dum put them away, while I put butter and milk in the +refrigerator and wiped off the table. Zebedee stood around in +everybody's way doing what he called "head work." + +"If it takes one lone chaperone one hour to do the dishes, how long will +it take her to do them with the assistance of one learned gentleman and +three charming young ladies, when two of them are twins and the other +one the most famous blower of bubbles in the world? Answer, teacher!" + +"Just twelve minutes by the clock, and it would have been only ten if +the learned gentleman had not made us walk around him so much," laughed +Miss Cox. "Now off with you or you'll have to run for your car. Don't +worry about me. I may go back to sleep." + +The boat was in when we reached Norfolk but the girls had been +instructed to stay aboard until we got there. We could see dear old Mary +Flannagan's red head as we put foot on the pier and as soon as she saw +us she began to crow like chanticleer. What fun it was to see these +girls again! + +We were a strangely assorted quintette. The Tucker twins, Annie Pore, +Mary Flannagan and I; but our very difference made us just that much +more congenial. The twins were not a bit alike in disposition. +Dum,--Virginia,--was artistic, sometimes a trifle moody, very impulsive +and hot-tempered but withal the most generous and noble-minded person I +knew, quite like her father in lots of ways. Dee,--Caroline,--was more +practical and even-tempered with a great deal of tact prompted by her +kind heart, the tenderest heart in all the world, that took in the whole +animal kingdom from elephants to ants. + +Annie Pore, our little English friend, had developed so since our first +meeting that she seemed hardly the same person who had sat so forlornly +in the station in Richmond only ten short months before. + +She had lost the timid, nervous look and was growing more beautiful +every day. She had had thirty days of such growing since I had last +beheld her and she had made good use of her time. I had a feeling the +minute I saw her that perhaps she had come to some more satisfactory +understanding with her father. In fact, she must have, since he had +permitted her to join the house party at Willoughby Beach. + +Mary Flannagan was the same old Mary, red head, freckled face, bunchy +waist and all; but there never was a more good-natured, merry face than +Mary's. Her blue eyes had a twinkle in them that was better than mere +beauty and her frequent laughs disclosed a set of perfectly clean, +white teeth. On the whole, Mary was not so very homely and to us, her +best friends, she was almost beautiful. + +As for me, Page Allison, I was just a girl, neither beautiful nor ugly, +brilliant nor stupid; but I was still as determined as I had been on +that morning in September when I started out from Bracken for boarding +school, not to rest until I had made a million friends. I had made a +pretty good start and I intended to keep it up. + +"Well, we are glad to see you!" exclaimed Zebedee, shaking hands with +both girls at once as he met them on the gangway. "I hope your father is +well, Miss Annie, and is favourably considering joining us for a week +end at Willoughby." + +"I don't know, Mr. Tucker, what he will do," answered Annie, smiling; +"he enjoyed seeing you so much that I shall not be astonished if he +takes you at your word and comes to visit you." + +That was the most wonderful conquest ever made! Zebedee had been down to +Price's Landing and deliberately captivated the stiff, unbending +Englishman, Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore. I asked him to tell me about it +and he answered quite simply in the words of Caesar: "'Veni! Vidi! Vici!' +Why, Page, the man is peculiar but he is more lonesome than anything +else. All I did was to treat him like a human being and take for granted +he would treat me the same way, and sure enough he did. And here is poor +little Annie, to show the wisdom of taking it for granted that a man is +going to be kind. I asked him to let her come to the house party as +though he would of course be delighted to give his daughter this +pleasure, and he complied with the greatest cordiality." + +After seeing to the girls' trunks and transferring them to the baggage +trolley for Willoughby Beach (and this time Annie, having a neat, new +little trunk which she called a "box," was not embarrassed by the +bulging telescope she had taken to Gresham), we then went to the station +to await the arrival of the precious cook. + +"S'pose she doesn't come!" wailed Dum. + +"Well, if it would mean more of Page's batter bread, I shan't mind +much," declared Zebedee as the train puffed in. + +"Look for a girl with a red bow on her shoulder," said I, peering at +every passenger who got out of the coloured coach. There were many as +there was an excursion to Ocean View and a picnic given by "The Sons and +Daughters of the Morning." The dusky crowd swarmed by, laden with boxes +and baskets of lunch, all of them laughing and happy and any of them +looking as though she might be a good cook, but not one of them was +Blanche. Red there was in abundance but never in the form of a bow on +the left shoulder. Red hats, red cravats, red parasols passed us by, and +even a stair-steps row of six little nigs in rough-dry white dresses +with all of their pigtails tightly "wropped" with red string and a big +red bow of ten-cent store ribbon on top of each happy, woolly head,--and +still no Blanche. + +"Ah, I see visions of more and more batter bread of the Page brand," +murmured Zebedee. "I'm going to purchase a big baking dish so you can +mix up twice as much." + +"Look, there is a girl coming back! Could that be Blanche?" and Dee +pointed to a very fat, good-looking, brown-skinned girl, dressed in the +very latest and most extreme style of that summer. She wore a very tight +skirt of black and white silk with stripes about an inch and a half +broad, slit up over a flounced petticoat of royal purple. Her feet, +substantial, to say the least, were encased in white canvas shoes with +purple ties, and purple cotton stockings were stretched to their utmost +over her piano legs (I mean the old square pianos), stretched so tight, +in fact, that they took on the gloss of silk. A lavender crepe de Chine +blouse very much open, exposing her capacious chest, and a purple straw +hat trimmed with black roses, perched on top of a towering, shiny +pompadour, completed the colour scheme. Pinned on her left shoulder was +an artificial orchid with a purple bow. In her hand she carried a huge +basket covered with a newspaper. + +"Are you Blanche Johnson?" I questioned. + +"I was about to propound the same inquisition to you when I seen you +approaching I," she answered with a mincing manner. "I am consigned to +the kind ospices of Mr. Tucker and Miss Page Allison, a young lady who +has been since infantry under the jurisprudence of Mrs. Susan Black, my +great arnt once removed by intermarriage." + +"Well, Blanche, I am Miss Page Allison and this is Mr. Tucker, and Mr. +Tucker's daughters, Miss Virginia and Miss Caroline. We came very near +missing you as we were looking for the red bow, pinned on your left +shoulder." + +"Well, now, Miss Page, it was very disappointmenting for me not to be +compliable to your requisition, but I belong to an uplifting club at my +school and one of our first and most important relegations is that the +mimbers must never do nothing nigrified. An' they have decided that the +unduly bedizenment of yourself in red garments is the first and foremost +nigrification of the race. Hence, therefore, I resolutioned to trust +that my kind frinds would indemnify me with this orchard." + +"And so we have, Blanche, and now we will go take the electrics for +Willoughby," and Zebedee, his face crimson from suppressed merriment, +led the way to the car line, while Blanche kept up a steady fire of +polite talk. + +"There was another reason for my abandonment of the red bow, Miss Page, +and that was that I am in kinder sicond mournin' for the disease of my +only brother's offspring." + +"Oh, I am sorry, Blanche! How old was the child? Was it a boy or girl?" + +"Well, it wa'nt to say any age, as the angel was borned daid, and as for +the slight differentation in sex, I was so woeful I done forgot to arsk +my po' bereaved brother whether it were the fair sex or the inversion." + +"Well, if the little thing had to die, it must have been a relief for +your brother to know it had never lived." + +"No'm, no'm! 'Twould a been a gret comfort if'n it had lived a while. +You see Mandy, Jo's wife, is sickly and her offspring is cosequentially +sickly and Jo always has heretoforth been able to collect a little +insuriance on his prodigy by bein' very promptitude in the compilation +of the policies. Yes! Yes! Po' Jo! I felt that it was the least I could +do to show respec' for his great bereavement by puttin' on the traps of +woefulness," and she smoothed with pride her striped skirt and looked +with evident admiration at her fearfully and wonderfully clad feet. + +"How old does a child have to be to collect insurance?" I asked. + +"Well, some companies is agreeable to the acceptance of infantry at a +very tinder age and will pay at their disease if the contractioning +parties can prove there ain't no poultry play." + +"Poultry play?" I gasped. + +"Yes'm, poultry play! That is to say, foul play. You see, Miss Page, one +of our club relegations is to use the word with the most syllabubs as we +seem to feel more upliftable. And poultry sounds much mo' elegant than +jis' foul." + +I was bursting for a laugh but had to hold in, while all of those bad +girls with the disgraceful Zebedee pretended to see something in a shoe +shop window that was sufficiently funny to keep them in a gale of +mirth. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A ROMANCE. + + +As we waited for our car, a very pleasant looking man, seemingly much +older than Zebedee, glanced at our crowd rather curiously (and Blanche +was enough to make anyone glance at us curiously) and then his face lit +up as he recognized Zebedee. He hastened to his side and grasped him by +the hand, exclaiming: + +"Jeffry Tucker! I'm glad to see you! What are you doing in Norfolk?" + +"Well, I'm getting out of it as fast as I can on my way down to +Willoughby. Have taken a cottage down there for a month,--let me +introduce you to my girls and their friends." + +The gentleman was Mr. Robert Gordon, a classmate of Zebedee's at the +University. He was not really more than a year or so older than Zebedee, +but his hair and moustache were iron grey and his fine eyes were tired +and sad looking. He had been for years teaching at a school in South +Carolina but had recently been given the chair of English at a college +in Norfolk. + +"You must come over and stay with us, Bob. The girls can tell you what +heaps of room we have." + +"Oh, heaps and heaps!" tweedled the twins. + +"Make it this evening, Bob, and stay over Sunday. You are your own +master this time of year surely, while I have to go back to the grind on +Monday. I'll get my holiday a little later on, however. Now come on! I +want you to know my girls and my girls to know you." + +"I have a great mind to take you up," and Mr. Gordon looked admiringly +at the twins. "I can hardly believe they are yours, Jeff. Yes, I'll come +this evening." + +"Good boy! That's the way to talk. We will expect you before supper. By +the way," whispering, "this is our new cook we are taking out. I hope +she won't scare you off. We've got an old friend of yours out there, +too, Jinny Cox,----" + +"I really think, Jeff, I had better not come this evening," stammered +Mr. Gordon, turning quite pale and showing extreme agitation. "I--I----" + +"Now look here, Bob, you have accepted and we are going to expect you." +The trolley arrived just then and we hurriedly got aboard while Zebedee +shouted hospitable imprecations on the head of his old friend if he +should fail to keep his word. "That was a strange way for Bob Gordon to +behave," he said, sinking into the seat by me. "First he said he would +come and seemed delighted and then when I cracked a joke about our poor, +dear Blanche, he suddenly decided he had better not come. While poor, +dear Blanche is certainly some dresser, she is very clean looking and +has a good face, and I can't see anything about her to make a man behave +as Bob did." + +Zebedee always thereafter spoke of Blanche as "poor, dear Blanche," and +there was something so ludicrous in his way of saying it that for the +entire month we were at the beach and ever after, in fact, when our +vacation of that July was mentioned, he could set all of us in a perfect +gale by his "poor, dear Blanche." + +I looked at Zebedee in amazement. He really seemed to think that it was +Blanche who had made Mr. Gordon turn so pale and stammer so strangely. +Men are funny animals. Here was Zebedee, a "so-called paw" of girls as +old as I was, a man of the world and a newspaper man with a nose for +news that was unsurpassed in the South, so my father thought, and still +he had not had the intuition to see that his friend Bob had turned pale +when he found Miss Cox was with us. I could have wagered anything that +all the girls knew what was the matter, even Blanche. I said nothing to +Zebedee, feeling perhaps that it would be a little unkind to Miss Cox to +give voice to my convictions to a mere man, but I was dying to get with +one of the girls and see if the subject would not be immediately +broached. + +Zebedee went out on the back platform to smoke and Dee made a dive for +his seat. "Page, I'm dying to find out if you noticed Mr. Gordon's +agitation over Miss Cox's being with us!" + +"Surely I did!" + +"Oh, isn't it exciting? And didn't she blush, though, when she said she +never wanted to go to Norfolk?" So Dee had noticed that, too. "Dum +thought it was because she had had some kind of love affair there three +years ago and could not bear the place and all around it, but I kind of +hoped maybe it was because the man lived there still. I wonder if he +will come and if we had better warn her. I am so afraid she will run +away if she finds out he is coming, and then the romance cannot be +completed." + +"Well, I think we had better keep out of it altogether and let your +respected parent put his foot in it, which he is sure to do. He thinks +Mr. Gordon held back because of Blanche's appearance." + +"He doesn't! Well, of all the stupids! Got his start, too, as what he +calls 'a gum-shoe reporter' doing detective work on his paper. If I had +no more insight into human nature than that, I'd take to cracking rock +as a profession," and Dee sniffed scornfully. She agreed with me that we +would say nothing to Zebedee as it wouldn't be quite fair to our sex to +gossip with a man about a love affair. + +Annie and Mary had been as quick to see the possible romance as we had +been, so we had to tell them of Miss Cox's agitation when Norfolk was +mentioned, and one and all we pitied poor Zebedee's masculine blindness. +We had always liked Miss Cox, but now we had a tenderness for her that +amounted to adoration. Our surmises were many as to the reason for her +separation from her lover. + +"Maybe there was insanity in the family," suggested Mary. + +"Perhaps she had a very stern father who scorned her lover," and Annie +blushed that her mind should run on stern fathers. + +"I believe it was just a matter of spondulix," said the practical Dee. + +"Oh, no! surely not!" exclaimed Dum. "I don't believe Miss Cox is the +kind of woman to give up a man because he is poor. I believe it was +because she thought she was so homely." + +"Well, he must have been a pretty poor stick of a lover if he could not +persuade her that she was beautiful. I'd hate to think that of Mr. +Gordon. Maybe he gave her up because he was poor. School teaching is +'mighty po' pickin's,' as Mammy Susan says." + +"Well, I hope they won't keep us waiting very long, because I'm simply +dying to know," sighed Dum. + +This conversation was held after we got back to the beach and were +installing the guests in their quarters. We had decided to sleep, all +five of us, on one porch, as it was so much more fun. It made the cots +come rather close together but that made giggling and whispering just so +much simpler. + +Miss Cox had had a pleasant morning, she declared, and had the table all +set for luncheon with tempting viands thereon. We had brought a supply +of delicacies from Schmidt's in Richmond and I had a fine ham, cooked by +Mammy Susan's own method, which I produced from my trunk as a surprise +for Zebedee, so "poor, dear Blanche" did not have to officiate at this +meal but could spend her time getting her sleeping porch in order and +unpacking her huge basket of clothes. + +We had been rather concerned about how a sleeping porch would be looked +on by the cook, but she set our minds at rest with great tact. + +"Yes'm, I is quite customary to air in my sleeping department. At +school the satinary relegations is very strengulous and we are taught +that germcrobes lurks in spots least inspected. And now I will take off +my begalia of travel and soon will be repaired to be renitiated into the +hysterics of domestic servitude." And we were going to have to listen to +this talk for a whole month and keep straight faces or perhaps lose the +services of "poor, dear Blanche"! + +"I simply can't stand it!" exploded Dum as soon as she got out of +earshot. "It will give me apoplexy." + +Luncheon was a merry meal that day as Zebedee was in an especially +delightful mood and Mary Flannagan had many funny new stories to tell. +She was an indefatigable reader of jokes and could reel them off by the +yard, but all the time our romantic souls were atremble to see how Miss +Cox would take the news of the proposed visit of her one-time lover. We +half hoped and half feared that Zebedee would mention the fact that he +had extended this invitation to Mr. Gordon, and perhaps she might faint. +We did not want her to faint, but if she did faint we hoped we would be +there to see it. We kept wondering why Zebedee did not tell her and +finally quite casually he asked: + +"Where do you think we had better put Gordon, Jinny?" + +"Gordon? Gordon who?" + +"Why, Bob Gordon! Didn't the girls tell you he is coming out to stay +over Sunday?" + +"No--we--we--you--we thought----" but no one ever found out what we did +think nor did we find out what Miss Cox thought of the return of her +supposed lover, for just at this juncture Blanche came into view ready +for the "hysterics of domestic servitude." In taking off her "begalia of +travel" she had also removed the large, shiny pompadour and disclosed to +view a woolly head covered with little tight "wropped" plaits. She had +on a blue checked long-sleeved apron made by what is known as the +bungalow pattern, her expression was quite meek and she looked very +youthful and rather pathetic. I realized that her vast amount of +assurance had come entirely from her fine clothes, and now that she had +taken them off she was nothing more nor less than a poor, overgrown +country darkey who had been sent to school and taught a lot of stuff +before she had any foundation to put it on. It turned out later that she +could neither read nor write with any ease, and all of her +high-sounding, mispronounced words she had gathered from lectures she +had attended in the school. She was suffering from this type of +schooling as I would have suffered had I gone straight from Bracken to +college without getting any training at Gresham. + +The effect was so startling, to see this girl whom we had left only a +few minutes ago arrayed in all her splendor, now looking for all the +world like a picked chicken, that Miss Cox and her romance were for the +moment forgotten and all our energies were taken up in trying to compose +our countenances. Then Mary Flannagan swallowed a sardine whole and had +to be well thumped, and by that time Miss Cox was able to control her +voice (if she had ever lost control of it), and she asked, in a most +matter-of-fact way, questions about the expected guest; and if her +colour was a little heightened, it might have been Blanche who had +caused it. Were we not all of us as red as roses? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +OH, YOU CHAPERONE! + + +Dum and Dee were to take turns keeping house but I had a steady job as +the Advisory Board and we hoped to manage without worrying Miss Cox. The +girls had tossed up to find out who should begin, and Dee had first go, +which meant breaking in Blanche. We were glad to see that she seemed to +understand dish washing and that she moved rapidly considering her size +and shape. + +"Now, Blanche," said Dee with a certain pardonable importance, "my +father is to have a guest this evening and we want to have a very nice +supper, so you must tell us what are the dishes you can make best." + +"Well, Miss Tucker, I is had great successfulness with my choclid cake +and blue mawnge." + +"Oh, I did not mean dessert but the substantial part of the supper," +gasped Dee. Blanche was always making us gasp, as she was so +unexpected. + +"Well, as for that my co'se is not took up many things as yit, but I is +mastered the stuffin' of green peppers and kin make a most appetizement +dish. Up to the presence, the the'ry of domesticated silence has been +mo' intrusting to me than the practization." + +Dee looked forlornly to me for help and indeed I felt it was time for +the Advisory Board to step in. + +"Blanche," I said, rather sternly, "did you ever cook any before you +went to school?" + +"Cook? Of co'se I did, Miss Page. I'se been a-cookin' ever sence I could +take a ask cake out'n the fire 'thout burnin' myse'f up." + +"Good! Now see here, Blanche, we want you to cook for us the way you +cooked before you ever went to school. Just forget all about domestic +science and cook." + +"Don't you want no choclid cake an' no blue mawnge?" + +"Not tonight," said Dee gently as Blanche's countenance was so sad. "We +want some fried fish and some batter bread and perhaps some hot biscuit +or waffles. There are some beautiful tomatoes in the refrigerator and +some lettuce and we can have peaches and cream for dessert." + +"'Thout no cake?" + +"Well, I tell you what you can do," said the tender-hearted Dee. "You +can make us a chocolate cake for Sunday dinner if your supper turns out +well this evening." + +"Oh, thank you, Miss Tucker. I is got so much sentiment fer cake. Now +which do you choose to have, biscuit or waffles?" + +We thought biscuit would be best to start Blanche on and after +cautioning her to call us if she was in doubt about anything, we left +her to work her own sweet will. + +Her own sweet will turned out to be a pretty good one and we were wise +to leave her to it. I did get out in the kitchen just in time to keep +her from putting sugar in the batter bread, something she had picked up +in school from her Northern teachers. I thought it best to take the +batter bread in my own hands after that, and to Zebedee's great +comfort, made it until I felt sure Blanche could do it as well as I +could. + +Zebedee and I were on the porch waiting for supper and Mr. Gordon to +arrive, while Dee went out to put the finishing touch to her +housekeeping. Dum and the two other girls had strolled in the direction +of the trolley to meet the guest whom we rather expected to come on the +next car. Miss Cox had not yet made her appearance after the second dip +we had had that day. + +"Have you known Mr. Gordon very long?" I queried. + +"Ever since our first year at the University. He's a bully good fellow +but awfully queer in a way. Used to be very quick-tempered, but I fancy +all these years of teaching have rather toned down his temper. Jinny Cox +used to be a perfect pepper pot; but temper and teaching don't go very +well together and she is as mild as a May morning now." + +"Did Miss Cox know Mr. Gordon very well in those old days?" + +"Why, bless me if I remember. We all of us ran in a crowd. As well as I +can recall, it seems to me that Bob Gordon and Jinny Cox were always +rowing about one thing or another. You see I was so in love with my +little Virginia that all I can remember of those days is just what +touched us," and Zebedee wiped his eyes, which had filled with tears as +they always did when he spoke of his little wife who had lived such a +short time. "I do kind of half remember that one day we spent at +Montecello on a picnic when it rained cats and dogs, Jinny and Bob had +such a row they could not go back together although he was her escort. +That was the time Jinny and I made up the tune and danced the Lobster +Quadrille," and Zebedee was laughing before he had quite dried his +tears, as was the way with all the Tuckers. "Bob left the University +soon after that,--some financial difficulties at home because his father +had lost his fortune,--and then I believe old Bob got a job in a +district school and has been teaching ever since--Look here, Page, do +you know I believe my soul Bob and Jinny were engaged then! I have a +kind of half memory that my little Virginia told me they were, on the +way home from Montecello. Well, if I'm not an ass! Why, it was not poor, +dear Blanche, after all, that was scaring off Gordon, but Jinny Cox! +Well, well!" + +I couldn't help smiling in rather a superior way and Zebedee exclaimed: + +"I believe you knew it all the time," but just then the girls returned, +bringing Mr. Gordon with them and what I knew or did not know had to +keep for another time. + +Mr. Gordon was very much spruced up and did not look nearly so old and +tired as he had in the morning. His light grey suit and hat were in +excellent taste, setting off his iron-grey hair and moustache, and on +the whole his appearance was so distinguished that we were more thrilled +than ever at the thought of just how Miss Cox was going to treat him. + +I fancy there is no human so romantic as a sixteen-year-old girl and +here were five girls all in the neighbourhood of sixteen and all simply +bubbling over with sentimentality. Miss Cox came out on the porch and +there we stood fully prepared for any outburst. We all of us noted that +Miss Cox looked remarkably well in a blue and white lawn that showed off +her really very good figure to perfection. I had long ago found out that +Miss Cox was not so very homely, after all. To be sure her face was +rather crooked, and her smile very twisted, but her head was well set, +and her hair thick and glossy, and her figure athletic and graceful. + +"Hello, Bob!" + +"Hello, Jinny!" and that was all! They shook hands in quite a +matter-of-fact way. + +"I believe we were mistaken," whispered Dum to me. + +"Wait and see," I cautioned, "they could not fall on each other's necks +right before all of us." + +"Maybe not, but they need not greet each other like long lost fish," +grumbled Dum. + +But I knew very well if they had been nothing at all to each other but +just acquaintances who had not met for about seventeen years, they would +have had some conventional remarks to make and not just said "Hello!" + +At this crucial moment poor, dear Blanche appeared announcing supper: + +"Your repast is reserved, Miss Tucker," and in we went to a very good +meal. Blanche had evidently found it no trouble to forget what she had +learned at school in the way of domestic science and she had cooked as +good a Virginia supper as one could wish. The Hampton spots were done to +a turn; the biscuit were light and fluffy, and as I had seen to the +batter bread, if I do say it who shouldn't, it was about perfect. + +Mr. Gordon may have been suffering with lovesickness of seventeen years' +standing, but he certainly proved himself a good trencher knight. + +"All of you have some excuse for appetites as I wager anything you have +been in the water twice today, but I have no excuse except that the food +is so good and I am so tired of boarding," said our guest as he helped +himself to another fluffy biscuit that poor, dear Blanche was handing +around with an elegant air like a duchess at a tea. + +"Well, we did go in twice today, although it is supposed to be a bad +thing to do. Somehow I never can resist it myself and naturally I don't +expect the girls to resist what I can't myself," said Zebedee. + +"How was the water; pretty warm?" + +"Oh, fine this morning before breakfast but rather brillig this +afternoon," answered Dum. + +"Brillig?" + +"Yes, brillig! Don't you know your Alice? + + "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves + Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: + All mimsy were the borogoves, + And the mome raths outgrabe.'" + +And then a strange thing happened. Before Dum got half through her +quotation Miss Cox's face was suffused with blushes, and Mr. Gordon +first looked pained and then determined and when he answered he spoke to +Dum but he looked at Miss Cox. + +"Well, I don't know my Alice as well as I might, but I have read it and +re-read it and think it a most amusing book. I don't remember that +strange verse, however,---- Do you know, Miss Dum, I used to be such a +silly ass as to think there was nothing amusing in Alice in Wonderland, +and once a long time ago I fell out with the very best friend I ever +had in the world because I said the Lobster Quadrille was the kind of +thing that no one but a child could find anything funny in? And she +thought differently, and before we knew it we were at it hammer and +tongs, and both of us said things we did not really mean (at least I did +not mean them)----" + +"Neither did I, Bob," said Miss Cox, frankly. I certainly liked Miss Cox +for the way she spoke. She was what Tweedles calls a "perfect +gentleman." + +"And what is more, Jinny, the Lobster Quadrille is my favourite poem +now," and Mr. Gordon looked very boyish, "or it might be unless you +think the charming bit Miss Dum has just recited is better." + +"How do you like this?" said Dum, rather bent on mischief I fancied: + + "'In winter when the fields are white, + I sing this song for your delight-- + + In spring, when woods are getting green, + I'll try and tell you what I mean. + + In summer, when the days are long, + Perhaps you'll understand the song. + + In autumn, when the leaves are brown, + Take pen and ink and write it down. + + I sent a message to the fish: + I told them, 'This is what I wish.' + + The little fishes of the sea, + sent an answer back to me. + + The little fishes' answer was, + 'We cannot do it, Sir, because----' + + I sent to them again to say, + 'It will be better to obey.' + + The fishes answered with a grin, + 'Why, what a temper you are in!' + + I told them once, I told them twice; + They would not listen to advice. + + I took a kettle, large and new, + Fit for the deed I had to do. + + My heart went hop, my heart went thump; + I filled the kettle at the pump. + + Then someone came to me and said, + 'The little fishes are in bed.' + + I said to him, I said it plain, + 'Then you must wake them up again.' + + I said it very loud and clear; + I went and shouted in his ear. + + But he was very stiff and proud; + He said, 'You need not shout so loud!' + + And he was very proud and stiff, + He said, 'I'll go and wake them, if----' + + I took a corkscrew from the shelf; + I went to wake them up myself. + + And when I found the door was locked, + I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked. + + And when I found the door was shut, + I tried to turn the handle, but----'" + +Dum recited this poem with fervor and great elocutionary effects and +simply convulsed the crowd. The whole thing was said directly to Mr. +Gordon and the naughty girl seemed to have some personal meaning when +she said, "My heart went hop, my heart went thump," and when she ended +up with a hopeless wail, "I tried to turn the handle, but----," Mr. +Gordon actually went to Miss Cox, as we arose from the supper table, +drew her hand within his arm and deliberately led her out on the beach, +and in plain hearing of all of us, said: + +"The door isn't shut for good, is it, Jinny?" + +And we heard her answer: "No, Bob, not if you 'pull and push and kick +and knock.'" + +Well, Bob certainly did "pull and push and kick and knock." I have +never imagined a more persistent lover. He seemed to be trying to catch +even for all he had lost in those seventeen years. He told Zebedee that +after the foolish quarrel he and Miss Cox had had on that wet, wet +picnic, he had been called home by the financial disaster of his father, +and while he knew he had been hard-headed in the affair, he felt she had +been unreasonable, too, in demanding that he should agree with her about +the absurd poem in Alice in Wonderland; and so had left the University +without trying to right matters. Then when he had realized the +tremendous difficulty his family was in, and found that not only would +he have to go immediately to work but that his mother and sister would +be dependent on his exertions, he felt that it was on the whole best +that he and Miss Cox should separate. The engagement was already broken +and he went off to his long and up-hill work saddened and forlorn; +and Miss Cox, rather embittered by the experience, feeling that she +had been hasty and exacting but too proud to make a move towards a +reconciliation, had spent all the long years in vain regrets. + +"Well, I hope they will be very happy," sighed Dum when we were +discussing the matter while we lay on our closely packed cots the first +night of Mr. Gordon's visit. "It does seem terribly unromantic for the +separation to have been caused by the Lobster Quadrille." + +"It might have been a permanent separation if it had been just plain +lobster, 'specially in cans," said funny Mary Flannagan. + +"Didn't Miss Cox look sweet in that blue dress? I thought she was almost +pretty but maybe it was the love-light in her eyes," sentimentalized +Annie Pore. + +"Isn't it a pity they are so old?" deplored Dee. "His hair is real +grey." + +"It's trouble that has done it," said Mary. "I wondered, Dum, you didn't +get off that verse on him about the voice of the lobster. Maybe that +would have been too personal: + + "'Tis the voice of the lobster, I heard him declare, + 'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.' + As a duck with his eyelids, so he with his nose, + Trims his belt and his buttons and turns out his toes.' + +It would have been rather personal because Mr. Gordon's hair does look +rather sugared and certainly Miss Cox has baked him pretty brown." + +"What do you s'pose your Cousin Park Garnett would say, Page, if she +knew that our chaperone for the house party had gone and got herself as +good as engaged the very second evening?" laughed Dee. + +"I fancy with her characteristic elegance she would exclaim: 'Oh, you +chaperone!'" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +LETTERS. + + + To Dr. James Allison from Page Allison. + + Willoughby Beach, + July--, 191--. + + My Dearest Father: + + We are having the grandest time that ever was and + all we want now is for you to take a little + holiday and come down to see us. It would do you + worlds of good and surely your patients can let + you go for a little while. Sometimes I think you + should get an assistant or try to persuade some + young doctor to settle in the neighbourhood. You + never have any fun. I feel very selfish to have + gone off and left you and Mammy Susan when I have + been away all winter, but I promise to come back + the first of next month and not to budge from + Bracken until it is time to go to school the + middle of September. I hope Cousin Sue Lee will be + with us then, as I should hate to miss her visit, + one moment of it. On the other hand I devoutly + hope that Cousin Park Garnett will pay her yearly + visitation while I am away. I heard a rumor that a + Mrs. Garnett was expected at the hotel here, but I + am trusting in my hitherto lucky stars that it is + not Cousin Park. If she comes to Willoughby, I am + going to bury my head in the sand, like an + ostrich, and pretend I'm somebody else. + + There is a camp of boys near us and they are just + as nice as can be and seem to think it is their + affair to give all of us girls a good time. They + rented this cottage for last month and liked + Willoughby so much that when their time was up + they started a camp. They are James Hart, Stephen + White, George Massie and Ben Raglan. They are + called Jim, Wink, Sleepy and Rags, and as we have + come to know them pretty well and they are not the + kind of boys one stands on ceremony with, we call + them by their nicknames, too. Wink White is + studying medicine and so is Sleepy, when he is not + playing foot-ball or sleeping. Wink is very clever + and intensely interested in his work. + + Mr. Tucker (only I call him Zebedee now) is + teaching me how to swim. He says I am a very apt + pupil because I am not a bit afraid; although he + teases me a great deal because one day, the very + first time I went in, I politely went to the + bottom, and he says I made the biggest bubbles he + ever saw. He calls me "Sis Mud Turkle," but I + don't mind a bit. There is some kind of joke on + all of us, even Annie Pore, who is so touchy we + have to be careful. But Zebedee just has to tease + and he says he can't leave out Annie, as it might + make her feel bad. + + Of course Mary Flannagan has a joke on everybody + and everybody has a joke on her. She is a + delightful person to be on a house party with, + always so full of fun and always starting + something. + + Dum and Dee are the same old Tweedles, the very + most charming and agreeable persons in the world. + I have saved up the most important to the + last:--our chaperone, Miss Cox, has gone and got + herself engaged! It is an old lover she used to + have when she was a girl and he has turned up in + the most unexpected and romantic way, and all of + us girls are so excited over it we can hardly eat + and sleep. We are going to miss her terribly at + Gresham. She can make me understand mathematics, + which is going some, and how I am to proceed into + quadratic equations without her, I cannot see. We + do not know when they are to be married, but + rather think it will be soon. Zebedee bids to be + flower girl. + + You may be sure that Miss Cox and Mr. Gordon come + in for their share of teasing. I used to think + Miss Cox was very old but since she got engaged + she does not seem to be any older than we are, and + while Mr. Gordon has very grey hair, he is really + not old at all, not much older than Zebedee, who + is the youngest person of my acquaintance. + + All the old girls at Willoughby run after Zebedee, + much to Tweedles' disgust. I believe it would + about kill the twins if their father should ever + marry again, and indeed I think it would be hard + on them and I hope he never will, certainly not + any of these society girls who are down here at + the beach. I don't believe they would any of them + make him happy. + + Tell Mammy Susan that her great niece is doing + very well and everyone likes her. Do not tell her + that she is a perfect scream, using the longest, + most ridiculous words in the world, never by any + accident pronounced properly or in the right + place. She is certainly proof positive of a little + learning being a dangerous thing; but she is a + kindly, sweet-tempered creature and as soon as we + persuaded her to cook as she did before she went + to school, we found her very capable. + + Good-bye, my dearest Father, and please come see + us. We are one and all longing for you. Give my + best love to Mammy Susan and the dogs. + + Your devoted daughter, + PAGE. + + + From Blanche Johnson to Mammy Susan. + + Willerbay beech. + + Dere ant Susen-- + + i Take my pen in han to enform you that this leves + me in pore helth and hopes it finds You in the + same. The son of the C show is very hard on my + complexshun and i think the endsewing yer i will + spind my vocation in the montings. the yung ladys + my hostages is most kind and considerable to me + and Mis page tretes me like her own sister. Our + shapperoon is in the throws of coarting and all of + us maidens is very rheumatic in consequince + thereof. Mis page and the other young female ladys + who is engaged in this visitation declares they is + got little if no use for the opposition sect but + that is one thing i do not give very cerus + credentials to as our pieazzer is one mask of + yuths who no doubt would be spry to leve if they + did not suspicion they was welcum. My kind + empoyerer is now taken what he designs as his + much kneaded rest but I cannot see that he rests + none as he keeps up with all the other boys and + dances and frolix just like he was the parient of + nothin. I ask Mis page if he want her bow and she + took on so dignifidedly that i done see i ain't + made no mistake, ennybody ken see that Mis page is + the favoright of the party, The twinses is plum + crazzy about her but i dont bleive they suspicion + that they pa is so intrusted. They keeps + theyselves quite busy shoein off some fine ladys + what is most attentave to they pa and never seems + to see what is under they feet, uv cose i no Mis + page is yung yit but evy day she is making out to + grow a little older and it looks lak mister Tucker + is standin still or even gittin some younger. i + bleive they will meet in this path of life (as a + pote done said) and then proceed together. No more + from yose at presence. Mis page has done invitided + me to stop at Bracken to pay you a visitation + before i return to the cemetary of learning and if + nothin ocurs to prevint me i will take gret + plesure in compiling with her request. + + your gret nease, + BLANCHE JOHNSON. + + + From Annie Pore to her father, Mr. Arthur + Ponsonby Pore, of Price's Landing. + + My Dear Father: + + I should have written you immediately on my + arrival at Willoughby Beach, but we had so many + delightful pleasures planned for us by our kind + host that I found very little time for + correspondence. + + I can never thank you enough for permitting me to + join this charming house party. Everyone is so + very kind to me, I find myself gradually + overcoming my habit of extreme shyness and now + endeavour to join in the gaieties and to make + myself as agreeable as possible, feeling that that + is the way I can repay my friends for their + hospitality. + + I am learning to swim but am not so quick at it as + Page Allison. Already she is able to keep up for + many strokes. Mr. Tucker himself is teaching us + and his patience is wonderful. He first taught us + to float, as he says if we are in an accident and + can float we will surely be saved, as anyone can + tow a floating person to safety. The Tucker twins + and Mary Flannagan are fine swimmers and Miss Cox + is the strongest swimmer on the beach. + + We are all quite excited over the fact that Miss + Cox is to be married. I am very glad of her + happiness but very sorry that she will not be at + Gresham next year as she was so interested in my + voice and encouraged me so kindly. Page feels + badly, too, as Miss Cox is the only teacher she + has ever had who could make her comprehend + mathematics. + + Mr. Tucker sends you many messages and repeats his + invitation for you to come to Willoughby for a + week-end. I do sincerely hope you will do so. It + would be a pleasant change for you and no doubt + your assistant could take care of the shop in your + absence. Harvie Price is to be here next week, + also another boy who attended Hill Top, Thomas + Hawkins. The cottage is quite roomy so there is no + danger of crowding, and I can assure you it would + be splendid if you could come. + + Your devoted daughter, + ANNIE DE VERE PORE. + + + Miss Josephine Barr from Miss Caroline Tucker. + + Willoughby Beach, + July -- ----. + + My dear old Jo: + + If you only could have come! We are having such + times and such heaps of them. In the first place, + all five of us girls are sleeping on the same + porch with our cots so close together the cover + hasn't room to slip. We go in the water twice a + day, although every day Zebedee says it must be + the last day, but every day he is the first one in + and the last one out. Our before-breakfast swim is + nothing more than just in and out, and such + appetite as it gives us! I am dying to tell you + the great news, and Miss Cox says I may tell you. + She is going to be married!!! A lovely man that + used to be stuck on her ages and ages ago! I tell + you he is stuck still, all right, all right. He + goes by the name of Robert Gordon and looks like a + _vrai_ hero of romance, iron-grey hair and + moustache and the most languishing gaze you ever + beheld. We are right silly about him because he + certainly does know how to make love. As for Coxy, + she is simply great and rises to the occasion in + fine shape. She looks real young here lately and + has given up looking as though she were trying not + to smile. Instead of that, she laughs outright, + which is certainly much more becoming. + + I wish you could see your little room-mate, Annie + Pore. She has bloomed forth into a regular English + rose! I never saw anything like the way the boys + swarm around her, just like bees! She is not + nearly so shy as she used to be, but she is still + very quiet and demure and has a kind of + sympathetic way of listening that surely fetches + the hemales. She is really beautiful and is always + so anxious to help and is so considerate of + others. I fancy her selfish old father has been + good for her disposition in a way. We are rather + expecting Mr. Pore to come see us. I hope if he + does come he will not cast a damper over Annie's + spirits. + + Mary Flannagan is simply splendid. Page calls her + our clown dog, and the name suits her to a T. She + is the funniest girl in the world and her good + nature is catching. She is a good swimmer and how + she does it in the bathing suit she wears, I + cannot see. Fancy swimming with three yards of + heavy serge gathered around your waist! I think + Mary and Annie will room together next year at + Gresham since you are not to be there. They will + be good for one another, but no one could do for + Annie what you did. + + I have not told you anything about Page, but you + know what Page always is--just Page. She is still + busy making her million friends, but she never + gives up her old friends for the new ones. + + Guess who is here at Willoughby! That Mabel + Binks! She arrived yesterday and is stopping at + the hotel. I hope she will keep herself to herself + but I 'most know she won't. She is bent on getting + in with Zebedee and he is so dead polite where + girls are concerned that he is sure to submit. She + is kin to one of the boys in the camp near us and + is pushing the relationship for all it is worth. + Poor Stephen White (Wink for short) is the cousin + and I have an idea he is not very proud of the + connection, but is too much of a gentleman to say + so. Wink and Page are great friends, have been + from the first minute they met, and I bet you a + hat Mabel Binks butts in on that friendship and + tries to break it up. She has had it in for Page + ever since the time the caramel cake gave all of + us fever blisters and Page used the blisters, of + which Mabel boasted a huge one, as circumstantial + evidence that Mabel had stolen a hunk of our cake. + + Good bye, dear Jo. All the girls send you lots of + love and Dum says she will write next time. + + Very affectionately, + DEE TUCKER. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE START. + + +"Well, I've a great mind not to go!" exclaimed Dum pettishly. "I can't +see why that old Mabel Binks always has to go where we go. We can't even +spend a month at Willoughby without her traipsing here after us." + +"Yes! And for her to make out to Wink that we are her very best friends +at Gresham just so he will ask her on the sailing party! Gee, I can't +stand her. I'll stay at home if you do, Dum," and Dee began to take off +the clean middy blouse she was in the act of donning to go on a sailing +party that the boys from the camp were getting up for our benefit. + +"Well, that will certainly leave Mabel with a clear field for action. +Didn't we agree last winter that the best thing to do with Mabel was to +be very polite to her? What excuse could you give the boys?" I asked, +hoping to bring Tweedles to reason. + +"Tell them the truth!" + +"The truth! Well, I must say it would sound fine to say to Wink: 'We +just naturally despise your cousin and since she is to be on this party +that you have been so kind as to get up for us, we will have to decline. +Besides, this cousin of yours is so dead set after our father that we +can't sit by and watch her manoeuvres, but feel that the best thing +for us to do is to leave him to her tender mer----'" I was not allowed +to finish, but Tweedles immediately saw how impossible it would be to +stay off the party. Dee put her clean middy back on and in a jiffy we +were down on the porch with the rest of the crowd. + +It was irritating for Mabel Binks to come as a discordant element in our +little circle, but as for her being at Willoughby, she certainly had as +much right there as we had and it was absurd for the twins to take the +stand that she had come there because of them. Zebedee seemed to have +very little use for the dashing Mabel but the sure way to enlist his +sympathy for her was to be rude to the girl. She was very polite to all +the Tuckers but had it in for Annie Pore and me; and as for Mary +Flannagan: she simply ignored Mary's existence, much to that delightful +person's amusement. Mary could imitate her until you could declare that +Mabel was there and sometimes she would do it when you least expected +it, as on this morning while we were waiting for the boys to come for +us. They were to go by for Mabel first and then pick us up on the way to +the landing where the two boats were in readiness for us, a cat boat and +a naphtha launch. Neither boat was big enough for the whole crowd so we +had decided to divide the party. + +"I have determined how we are to sit," said Mary in the coarse, nasal +tone that belonged to Mabel, "I prefer the naphtha launch, as cat boats +are so dirty. I intend that the Tuckers, especially Mr. Tucker, shall +accompany me, also Stephen White and Mr. Hart. Page and Annie and Mary +must find room in the cat boat while I will allow Sleepy and Rags to +look after them. Oh! Miss Cox! I forgot her! She can go in the cat boat, +too, but we will make room for Mr. Gordon in the launch." + +We were convulsed at this remark. Mary had not only imitated her tone +but had clearly voiced the character of Mabel, who by the way had not +been told of Miss Cox's engagement and had amused all of us very much by +her endeavours to attract Mr. Gordon. + +"What's the joke?" demanded Wink, arriving with Mabel and the boys while +we were still laughing at Mary's mimicry. + +"Oh, the kind of joke that would lose in repetition," declared Dum. + +"I bet it was something on me," said poor Sleepy, "but if it was, I'm +sure to hear of it, though. There is one thing certain, if there is a +joke on me it is obliged to come out." + +"Not if you can keep it to yourself," laughed Dum. "You know perfectly +well the time you got mixed up with the laundry you told on yourself. +None of us was going to breathe a word of it." + +"Well, how did I know? I thought girls always told and I was determined +that the fellows should understand exactly how it happened and so--and +so----" + +"And so you will never hear the last of it. Well, next time trust the +girls a little and you will fare better." + +It had taken Sleepy some time to get over his extreme embarrassment +occasioned by his natural shyness combined with the unfortunate +occurrence of our first meeting with him. He was something of a +woman-hater, anyhow, according to his friends, but we decided that he +was really more afraid of us than anything else; and when he found out +that we were not going to bite him nor yet gobble him up whole, he made +up his mind to be friends with us; and when he once made up his mind to +like us, he outdid even the courtly Jim, and the genial Wink, and the +sympathetic Rags, in his attentions. Wherever we went, the young giant +could be seen hunching along in our wake with that gait peculiar to +football players. + +"It looks like old Sleepy had waked up at last," Wink said to me. "To my +certain knowledge he never said two words to a girl before and now, look +at him! I wish he would fall in love and maybe it would give him some +ambition to get ahead in his studies. You see, Sleepy's people have got +oodlums of chink and Sleepy knows that he has got a living without +making it. The old fellow has a wonderfully good mind but absolutely no +ambition, except of course to make the team and to keep up his football +record. He is supposed to be studying medicine, but I'll wager anything +he does not yet know the bones in the body." + +"Maybe he is going to be an oculist and won't have to know the bones in +the human body," I ventured. "He seems to be vastly interested in +Annie's eyes lately." Indeed there was something of the clinging vine in +our little English friend that appealed to George Massie's great +strength, and he had assumed the attitude of protector and forest oak, +one singularly becoming to him. + +"You had better go in the naphtha launch," I heard him say to Annie. "It +is ever so much safer, and you can't swim." + +"Well, let me go wherever the rest think best. I don't want to take any +one else's place," said Annie, anxious as usual to efface herself. + +She need have had no fear of being allowed to take any one else's place +with Mabel Binks the self-elected chief cook and bottle washer of the +occasion. That young woman was looking extremely handsome in a white +linen tailored suit with a red parasol, Panama hat of the latest cut, +red tie, red belt and red silk stockings. The seashore was a very +becoming place for Mabel, as sunburn brought out her good points, giving +an added glow to her rather lurid beauty. She looked really magnificent +on that morning of the sailing party and her grown-up, stylish clothes +made all of us feel rather childish in our middy blouses and khaki +shirts and hats. + +Miss Cox was dressed very much as we were except that she tucked in her +middy, and Mabel's effulgence seemed to take all the colour from our +beloved chaperone, who had been seeming to us almost beautiful lately +because of the love-light in her eyes. Mabel's brilliancy outshone even +love-light. I became very conscious of the many new freckles on my nose +and Dee said afterwards hers seemed so huge to her that they actually +hurt her eyes. Dee and I always got freckled noses and it was a source +of some distress to both of us. As for Mary, the freckles had met long +ago on her turkey-egg countenance, while Dum had long streamers of +peelings hanging from her nose. She did not freckle but declared she +grew fifteen brand new skins every summer. + +Annie was a great comfort to me as I took a quick inventory of my +friends, who on that day compared so unfavourably with the glowing +beauty. Annie looked as lovely as ever. She had that very fair skin that +neither tans nor freckles, and her ripe wheat hair was curling in little +tendrils around her white neck and calm forehead. + +"Thank goodness my hair curls, too," I thought, "and the dampness won't +make me look too stringy," and then I took myself to task for thinking +about such foolish things, as though it made any difference what we, a +lot of kids, looked like, anyhow. + +Zebedee was carrying Mabel's parasol and they seemed to be having a most +intimate conversation, certainly a very spirited one into which she +constantly drew Mr. Gordon; and as Miss Cox had hooked her arm in Mary's +and everyone else was coupled off, Mr. Gordon soon fell into step with +the gay pair. + +"Disgusting!" I heard Dum mutter, but I hoped she would not let anyone +see how furious she was. I noticed she closed her eyes and I saw her +lips move and knew she was praying, "Don't let me biff Mabel Binks, +don't let me biff her," just as she had at the football match at Hill +Top the fall before. We reached the landing where the boats were +anchored and as Dum had not biffed Mabel, I suppose her prayer was +answered. + +"Oh, there are the boats! What a darling little launch! Dum and Dee and +I bid to go in that. Mr. Gordon, will you please arrange those cushions +in the stern for me? Be sure and don't lose me, Mr. Tucker, and I will +finish that delicious yarn I was in the midst of. Stephen, you will run +the launch, I know, as that will give you such a good chance to be near +Dee, and, Mr. Hart, here is a nice seat for you right by Dum." + +Her words were so exactly what Mary had said they would be, that we who +had heard Mary's prophetic imitation could hardly contain our merriment; +and strange to say, the twins, in a measure hypnotised by her +determination to carry out her schemes, stepped with unaccustomed +docility into the pretty launch; but the polite Mr. Gordon arranged the +cushions and then got out determined not to be separated from his +inamorata for the sail. Wink and Jim naturally complied with the +arrangement as far as being near the Tuckers was concerned, but Wink +said: + +"Put me where I look best, but I think Sleepy had better run his own +launch, especially since I don't know the first thing about it." + +And Sleepy thought so, too, but he quietly determined that Annie Pore +should go along. The girl was too sensitive to be willing to risk the +withering scorn of Mabel's black-eyed glance and begged to be allowed to +take a seat in the cat boat. Just as the launch was ready to start, +Zebedee, who had been stowing the bathing suits away under the seats, +made a flying leap for the landing, calling back: + +"That story will have to keep, Miss Binks, as I have been promising +myself the pleasure of giving Page a sailing lesson today," and for +once in their lives I feel sure that Tweedles were glad to have their +beloved father leave them. + +Mabel lay back on her cushions like a sulky Cleopatra with the +expression that the queen herself might have worn had Antony refused to +ride in the royal barge, choosing instead to paddle his own mud scow +down the Nile. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE FINISH. + + +We were a merry party in spite of this little _contretemps_. The day was +perfect and a fresh breeze gave promise of good sailing. Our destination +was Cape Henry, where we planned to have a dip in the surf and then a +fish dinner at the pavilion. The launch could make much better time than +the cat boat, so Sleepy was to run over ahead of us and give the order +for dinner. Sleepy was not greatly pleased with the arrangement of +guests and I heard him mutter something about being the goat, but his +good nature was never long under a cloud and Dum and Dee, being in a +state of extreme hilarity over the outcome of Mabel's machinations, kept +the male passengers on the launch in a roar of laughter. Jim told me +afterwards that he had never seen the twins more amusing and even the +sullen beauty finally decided that the day was too pretty to keep up +her ill humour. After all, there were other fish in the sea besides +Zebedee: namely, Mr. George Massie, alias Sleepy; so she moved her seat +from the comfortable stern and exercised her fascinations on the shy +engineer by demanding a lesson in running the motor. + +Sailing was a new and exciting experience to Annie and me. I never +expect to be more thrilled until I am finally allowed to fly. The boat +was a very light one. Zebedee thought the sail was a little heavy for +the hull but we went skimming along like a swallow. Tacking was a +mysterious performance that must be explained to me and I was even +allowed to help a little. Zebedee endeavoured to make me learn the parts +of the boat but I was singularly stupid about it, having a preconceived +notion of what a sheet meant and a hazy idea of which was fore and which +aft, which starboard and which port. + +Occasionally the launch circled around us and got within hailing +distance and we would exchange pleasantries, but Mabel never deigned to +notice us. She was sitting by Sleepy and seemed to have mastered the +art of running a naphtha launch. Tweedles told me afterwards that she +made a dead set at the young giant but that he seemed to be perfectly +unconscious of what she was after, and as soon as she had learned the +extremely simple engine, after warning her to keep well away from the +cat boat, he curled himself up on a pile of sweaters and went fast +asleep. They say it was too funny for anything when Mabel realized the +desertion of her teacher. She addressed a honeyed remark to him and +received no answer but a smothered snort; she turned, and there he was +lying prone on the deck, an expression on his rosy countenance like a +cherub's, while he emitted an occasional soft, purring snore. + + "There was a young lady named Fitch, + Who heard a loud snore, at which + She raised up her hat + And found that her rat + Had fallen asleep at the switch," + +sang Wink. "Hard luck, Mabel, but that is the way Sleepy always does. +You must not take it personally. He even falls asleep when Miss Page +Allison is entertaining him. The more amused he is, the quicker he is +overcome with sleep. Miss Annie Pore is the only person who can keep him +awake for any length of time, and that is because she is so quiet it is +up to him to talk; and while he may be talking in his sleep, it doesn't +sound like it." + +"Awful pity we didn't insist on her coming in the launch if for no other +reason than to keep him awake," said Jim. "She is a wonderfully charming +girl and so pretty, don't you think so, Miss Binks?" + +"Pretty and charming! You can't mean Orphan Annie! Why, she is the +laughing stock of Gresham,--namby, pamby cry-baby!" + +"Mabel Binks, you must have forgotten that Annie is our guest and one of +our very best friends," stormed Dum. + +"And no one ever laughed at her except persons with neither heart nor +breeding. I will not say who they were as I respect Wink too much to be +insulting to his guest," said Dee, tears of rage coming into her eyes. + +"Oh, don't mind me!" exclaimed Wink uneasily, fearing a free fight was +imminent. + +All this time the two boats were coming nearer and nearer together. We +were on the starboard tack and several times before during the morning +we had come quite close to the launch and then the faster boat had +swerved out of our way and we had gone off on a new tack, after calling +out some form of repartee to our friends. + +I never did believe Mabel meant to do it, but Tweedles to this day +declares it was with malice of forethought that she deliberately held +the launch in its course, and it was only by the most lightning of +changes that Zebedee avoided a collision. The sail swung around without +the ceremony of warning us to duck, and as we realized the danger we +were in of being struck by the faster boat we instinctively crowded to +the other side of our little vessel; and what with the sudden swerving +of the heavy sail and the shifting of its human cargo and the added +swell of waves made by the launch, we turned over as neatly as Mammy +Susan could toss a flap jack. + + "Down went Maginty to the bottom of the sea, + Dressed in his best suit of clothes." + +There was no time to think, no time to grab at straws or anything else; +nothing to do but just go down as far as your weight and bulk +scientifically took you and then as passively come up again. I wasn't +nearly as scared as I had been when I went under in four feet of water, +as I just knew I could float and determined when I got to the top to lie +down on my back and do it, as Zebedee had so patiently taught me. My +khaki skirt was not quite so easy to manage as a bathing suit had been, +but it was not very heavy material and my tennis shoes were not much +heavier than bathing shoes. I spread out my limbs like a starfish and +without a single struggle found myself lying almost on top of the water +looking up into a blue, blue sky and hoping that Annie Pore would +remember just to let herself float and not struggle. Everyone else could +swim and a turnover was nothing to them. I floated so easily and felt so +buoyant, as one does always feel in very deep water, that if I had only +known that Annie was safe I would have been serenely happy. Annie was +safe because Sleepy, awakened by the screams from the women and shouts +from the men, had rolled out of the launch much more quickly than he had +ever rolled out of bed (except perhaps on that memorable occasion when +we had dumped him out), and with swift, sure strokes had reached the +spot where Annie had gone down; and when her scared face appeared above +water he was there to grab her. Wink and Jim had dived in, too, both +intent on saving me, and Zebedee was by me in a moment, praising me for +a grand floater. + +Mary Flannagan was paddling around like a veritable little water spaniel +with her red head all slick with the ducking, and Miss Cox and Mr. +Gordon were gaily conversing as they tread water side by side. It did +not seem at all like an accident, but more like a pleasant tea party +that we happened to be having out in the middle of the bay. + +"Look here, Dum, we are missing too much fun," declared Dee. "Come on! +Let's jump in, too. It will be low to be dry when everybody else is wet. +That is, everybody we care anything about." And those crazy girls slid +into the water, too, leaving the crestfallen Mabel to man the launch. + +"Tweedles! What do you mean?" exclaimed their father. "Aren't we wet +enough without you?" + +"Yes, but you seem to forget that the cat boat is going to have to be +righted and all of you men are paddling around here while the poor Goop +is slowly filling and sinking." Goop was the singularly appropriate name +for our top-heavy craft and sure enough she was in imminent danger of +going down for good. + +Annie and I were helped into the launch and Sleepy took his place with +his hand on the little engine. Mabel was silently consigned to the stern +and the Cleopatra cushions, where she very humbly sat to the end of our +voyage. It did not take very long to right the Goop, and when she was +bailed out, half of the wet crowd clambered back into her and the rest +into the launch and we headed for Cape Henry, the hot sun doing its best +to dry our soaking wet clothes. + +"Wasn't that grand?" exclaimed Mary. "I simply adore to swim in deep +water." + +"Splendid," said Zebedee. "If I were not so modest, I should suggest a +rising vote of thanks to the person who so ably brought about this +disaster." + +"Why modest?" inquired Dee. "It was certainly not your fault." + +"Oh, yes it was, honey," and Zebedee looked meaningly at his daughter; +and she understood that it would be certainly pleasanter all around if +he took the blame. "I did it on purpose, too. I wanted to see if my +pupils would remember what I had told them about floating. I see Page +did remember,--or perhaps she is a born floater, just as she is a bubble +maker. I don't believe you remembered any of my instructions at all, did +you, Annie?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, I did. I was just going to try to lie down on the water, +although I was terribly scared, when George came to my assistance. +I--I--was very glad to see him." + +"Thank you, ma'am," and Sleepy blushed a deeper crimson than the sun had +already painted him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +CAPE HENRY. + + +We were still rather damp when we disembarked at Cape Henry and it was +decided that the best thing to do was to get into our bathing suits +immediately and spread out our clothes to dry. Bath houses were engaged +and with them a coloured maid who took charge of our wet things. + +"Lawd love us! You is sho' wettish! White folks is pow'ful strange, +looks lak dey jes' tries to fall in de water. An' now you is goin' in +agin'. You must a got so-so clean out yander in de bay." + +"Don't you ever go in bathing?" asked Dum. + +"Who, me? No'm, not me! I hets up some water of a Sat'day night efen I +ain't too wo'out, an' I takes a good piece er lye soap an' I gibs myse'f +a scrubbin' dat I specks to las' me 'til nex' time," and with a rich +chuckle the girl added: "An' so fer it has." + +"But all of us simply adore the water!" exclaimed Dum. "Don't you like +the feel of it?" + +"No'm, it don't feel no way but jes' wet to me. You all what likes it is +welcome to it. I reckon it's a good thing niggers is black so de dirt +won't show an' dat white folks is fond er water, 'cause any little siled +place on 'em looms up mighty important. Yessum, I's goin' ter hab yo' +clothes good an' dry when you feel lak you is done got clean 'nuf to +come outn de ocean," and the grinning darkey carried off our damp things +to hang on a line and we joined the masculine members of our party to +take a dip in the surf. + +The bathing at Willoughby is quiet, with rarely any surf, but at Cape +Henry great waves come rolling in, seemingly from the other side of the +ocean. There is a long sand bar running parallel with the beach, which +at high tide is submerged but at low tide shines out dry and white like +the back of an enormous sea monster. This bar forms a lovely little +pool, calm and clear, in strong contrast to the dashing waves outside. +As soon as the tide begins to recede, which it was doing when we emerged +from the bath houses, many little children come to play in this pool, +being as safe there as they would be in their bath tubs at home. Curious +shells are to be found there and wonderful pebbles, dear to the hearts +of children. I sometimes wonder what finally becomes of children's +treasures, the things they gather so laboriously and guard so carefully. +They always disappear in spite of the care the tots give them. I used to +think when I was a little thing that the brownies stole my treasures and +took them to the baby fairies to play with while their mothers were off +painting the flowers or mending the butterflies' wings. I hoped that the +baby fairies enjoyed my precious bits of coloured glass and the pieces +of shining mica, and wondered if they knew what little girl had owned +them, and if, some day, when they would grow up to be full-sized +fairies, they would not do something very nice for me because I had let +the brownies steal my toys. + +Some of the older children had on bathing suits and were playing in the +shallow water, while the younger ones in rompers were seated on the +beach, digging for dear life in the warm, dry sand, filling their +brightly painted pails, patting down the contents and then turning out +the most wonderful and appetizing cakes. Meanwhile, their mammies +gossiped together, interfering occasionally when some childish vandal +knocked over a prize cake or made off with a purloined spade. + +"'Ook, Mammy! ain' my ittle take pitty?" said a dumpling of a baby in +pink rompers and a pink beach bonnet tied on over a perfect riot of +golden curls. + +"Yes, honey chile, it sho' is booful. Mammy's doll baby kin make de +pootiest cakes on dis here sand pile. Ain't you gonter gib yo' Mammy a +bite? Mammy is pow'ful fond er choclid cake." And the old woman looked +at her little charge as though she could eat her up, too, pink rompers +and all. + +"I'll dive oo a ittle bit, Mammy, but oo mustn't eat much. It might make +oo sick an den baby hab to gib oo nas'y med'cine," and the little one +scooped up some of the sand cake in a shell and her old nurse pretended +to eat it with a great show of enjoyment. "Don't oo want some?" and she +held out a tempting shell full to Dee. Dee always attracted all children +and animals and was attracted by them. + +"Delighted, I'm sure!" and she dropped down on the sand beside the +darling baby. For a time even the joys of surf bathing had to be +postponed while she played with her newly made conquest. + +Annie Pore decided to keep in the shallow pool, having had enough of +deep water for the day, and Sleepy stayed with her as though she must be +protected from even two feet of water, which was the greatest depth of +the pool. + +I found that I had learned to swim in some mysterious way. I struck +boldly out and took the waves as though I had always been surf bathing. + +"Bravo!" exclaimed Zebedee, "how well you are coming on!" + +"It is getting turned over that has done it," I declared. "You see, I +have found out that I can keep up and I am no longer afraid. I verily +believe I could swim over to Africa." + +"Well, please don't leave us yet," begged Wink. + +It was a wonderful sensation to find myself actually swimming without +the least fear. Swimming was after all nothing more than walking and +water was a medium to be used and not feared. Confidence was all that +was needed and my spill in the bay had given me that. + +"I am very proud of my pupil," boasted Zebedee. "If the worst comes to +the worst and I lose my newspaper job, I'll give swimming lessons for a +living." + +"Will you always employ the Venetian method and throw the babies out in +deep water and let them sink or swim?" I teased. + +"Yes, and I'll take Miss Binks into partnership as an expert wrecker," +he whispered. + +That young woman was looking even finer than before in a very handsome +black silk bathing suit, slashed and piped in crimson. She had restored +herself to good humour and was having a very pleasant time with some +acquaintances she had met on the beach. We hoped her good humour would +last until she got safely back to Willoughby, as that meant more or less +good manners, too, and all we wanted from the belligerent Mabel was +peace at any price. At least, that was all I wanted and surely all +Annie Pore wanted. Tweedles were ready to give battle at any moment and +Mary Flannagan looked full of mischief. + +"Do you s'pose Mabel is going to content herself with a sand bath?" +whispered Mary to me. "Maybe her suit is too fine to get wet." + +"She certainly looks very stunning under that red parasol, posing up +there on the beach," said Dum, riding a wave and landing almost on top +of me. "I can't abide her but I must confess she is very paintable, +especially the red parasol. I'll never cease to regret that I did not +hook my foot in the handle and drag it overboard with me when I dived +off the launch. I thought about it while I was slipping off my shoes and +it would have been as easy as dirt to make out it was an accident; but +it would have been too Mabelesque an act and I could not quite make up +my mind to do it." + +"I should say not, but if it could have happened and been a real +accident it would certainly have been fun," I exclaimed. "I can see you +leaping into the air with your toe hitched to the parasol like a kind +of a parachute. Who are her friends?" + +"Search me! but I notice she does not see fit to introduce them. I +wonder whether she is ashamed of them or ashamed of us." + + "'Mother dear, may I go swim?' + 'Yes, my darling daughter, + Hang your clothes on a hickory limb + But don't go near the water,'" + +sang Mary, throwing her voice so it seemed to come from behind Mabel. +Then we dived under the water and our giggles came up in the form of my +specialty, bubbles. Mabel never did wet her suit, however. + +When we had had all the swim we wanted, we raced back to the bath houses +and found the humorous maid had our clothes all nicely dried. The effect +was rather rough-dried, but we were not in a position to be choosy. + +"Well, here you is back agin! I can't sees dat you look no cleaner dan +you did befo'. I low all dat soakin' will draw de suption outn yo' bones +an' dey ain't nuf strength lef' in you to make a pot er soup." + +And the truth was, I did feel a little feeble from the two swims and +realized that I was only fit for _soupe maigre_ or some very weak broth. +Food was what I needed; and as soon as we got into our rumpled clothes, +dinner was ready. What a dinner it was! Clam chowder first, with +everything in it that the proprietor could find, and seasoned to a +king's taste; then soft shell crabs with tartar sauce; then baked +blue-fish with roasted corn and creamed potatoes; then tomato salad; +then any kind of pie your fancy dictated. + +"All I ask of you is not to eat ice cream," begged Zebedee; "it is fatal +along with crabs." And so we refrained, although it did seem to me with +all the layers of food between the crabs and dessert, it would have been +safe. + +Dinner over, we determined to explore the Cape. It was a tremendously +interesting spot. In the first place it was at Cape Henry that the +English first disembarked in 1607. A stone tablet now supplants the old +wooden cross raised by the first settlers to mark the spot where the +adventurers landed on American soil. It is a bleak place with little +vegetation of any sort, nothing but the beach grass and a few stunted +oaks that look as though they had bowed their heads to invincible storms +from the moment that their little lives had burst from the acorns. + +"They remind me of poor little factory children trying to grow to +manhood," I said to Zebedee who was showing us the sights. "When I think +of the oaks at Bracken and see these, it is difficult to realize that +they are all trees and all sprung from acorns. It is like a little +factory child by the side of George Massie, for instance." Zebedee the +sympathetic wiped his eyes at the thought of all the little mill hands +that we seemed to be powerless to help. + +The old light-house built in 1690 was thrilling and I could hardly tear +myself away from it to go view the modern, up-to-date one that was open +for inspection. The wireless telegraph station, the first I had ever +seen, was not far from the old light-house, and it seemed strange to +think of the tremendous strides science had made since those sturdy +pioneers had built that picturesque old tower. + +The sand dunes at Cape Henry are famous. They over-topped the cottages +in places and the little church was almost buried at one end. They say +this loose sand drifts like snow and the big wind storms in winter pile +it up into great hills so that the cottagers, returning for their summer +holidays, often have to dig out their homes before they can get to +housekeeping. + +We had great larks sliding down these dunes and we got so dusty we were +ashamed to face the maid who had dried our clothes, knowing she would +have some invidious remarks to make about the uselessness of our having +washed, as she designated our sea bathing. + +And now it was time to go home. We bade the grinning maid farewell, much +richer from our visit, as she was handsomely tipped by Wink, the +purse-bearer from the camp, and Zebedee, the ever lavish. + +"When you gits dirty agin they's always plinty er water here," she +called out. + +We changed places going back, as it was deemed not quite safe for Annie +and me to travel in the cat boat again. "Even if you can swim to +Africa," said Jim. + +Annie was glad enough to get into the safer boat, but I enjoyed sailing +more than motoring, although that was delightful enough. Miss Cox and +Mr. Gordon came with us and Mary and Rags. Sleepy ran the boat and +although we were very quiet on the trip, everyone feeling a little tired +and very peaceful, I noticed that Sleepy did not go to sleep; when he +was not running the engine, he seemed to be taken up with looking after +Annie's comfort. + +Once when our craft came close to the cat boat, Dum called out: + +"Sing, Annie, sing!" and all of the rest, with the exception of Mabel, +joined in the request. And Annie sang: + + "'Sweet and low, sweet and low, + Wind of the western sea, + Low, low, breathe and blow, + Wind of the western sea! + Over the rolling waters go, + Come from the dying moon and blow, + Blow him again to me; + While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. + + "'Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, + Father will come to thee soon: + Rest, rest, on mother's breast, + Father will come to thee soon; + Father will come to his babe in the nest, + Silver sails all out of the west + Under the silver moon: + Sleep my little one, sleep my pretty one, sleep.'" + +"Ah, ha, Miss Page Allison!" broke in Mabel's strident voice as we +disembarked at Willoughby, after the very smooth, peaceful journey, +"'The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.'" + +"That's so, but why this remark?" I asked. "What race has there been and +what battle?" The men were making all ship-shape in the boats while we +girls strolled on ahead. I had not the slightest idea what Mabel was +talking about. + +"Why, I got your middle-aged beau, all right, all right! I fancy he was +glad enough to get away from you bread-and-butter school girls and have +some sensible conversation with a grown-up." I could not help smiling at +this, having often listened entranced to Mabel's methods of entertaining +men. If that was what she called sensible conversation, Zebedee must +have been truly edified. + +"Well, it was a good thing Mr. Tucker, if that is the middle-aged beau +in question, was wise enough to take his bread-and-butter first before +he indulged in the rich and heavy mental food that you fed him on. If he +had taken it on an empty head, as it were, it might have seriously +impaired his mental digestion." I fired this back at Mabel, angered in +spite of myself. + +"And so, Miss, you say Mr. Tucker has an empty head! How should you like +for me to tell him you said so?" + +"Tell him what you choose," I answered, confident of Zebedee's knowing +me too well to believe I said anything of the sort. "And how would you +like me to tell Mr. Tucker you called him middle-aged?" and I left the +ill-natured girl with her mouth wide open. I wanted peace, but if Mabel +wanted battle then I was not one to run away. No one had heard her +remark and I felt embarrassed at the thought of repeating it. I could +hardly tell Tweedles that Mabel called their father "my middle-aged +beau," and certainly I could not repeat such a thing to Zebedee +himself. Mabel was evidently bent on mischief but I felt pretty sure +that in a battle of wits I could come out victorious. All I feared was +that she would do something underhand. Certainly she was not above it. +Like most deceitful persons, she was fully capable of thinking others +were as deceitful as herself. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +FRECKLES AND TAN. + + +The next day we were lazy after the excitement of the sail to Cape +Henry. All of us slept late and when we did wake, we seemed to be not +able to get dressed. + +"Let's have a kimono day," yawned Dee. "Zebedee and Miss Cox have gone +to Norfolk and there is not a piece of a hemale or grown-up around, so +s'pose we just loaf all day." + +"That will be fine, not to dress at all until time to go to the hop!" we +exclaimed in chorus. There was to be a hop that night at the hotel, to +which we were looking forward with great enthusiasm. Zebedee was to meet +Harvie Price and Thomas Hawkins (alias Shorty) in Norfolk and bring them +back to Willoughby, where they expected to stay for several days. These +were the two boys we had liked so much at Hill Top, the boys' school +near Gresham, and Zebedee had taken a great fancy to both of them. + +"I do wish my hateful, little, old nose wasn't so freckled," I moaned. +"I know I got a dozen new ones yesterday,--freckles, not noses. I'd like +to get a new nose, all right." + +"Me, too!" chimed in Dee. "What are we going to look like at a ball with +these noses and necks?" + +"Thank goodness, my freckles all run together," laughed Mary, "and the +more freckled I get the more beautiful I am," and she made such a +comical face that we burst out laughing. + +"But look how I am peeling!" said Dum, examining her countenance in a +hand mirror. "Now freckles look healthy but these great peelings +streaming from my nose make me look as though I were just recovering +from scarlet fever. I do wish I could pull them all off before night." + +Annie was the only one of us neither tanned nor freckled. Miss Cox had +taken on a healthy brown, which was rather becoming to her. + +"If you young ladies is begrievin' over the condition of yo' cutlecles, +I is in a persition to reform you of a simple remedy that will instore +yo' complictions to they prinstine frishness," said Blanche who, coming +upstairs with the mail, had overheard our jeremiads on the subject of +our appearances. + +"What is it! What is it!" + +"You must first bedizen yo' count'nances in buttermilk, which will be +most soothing to the imbrasions, an' then you must have some nice dough, +made of the best flour an' lard, with yeast and seas'ning same as for +light rolls; an' this must be rolled out thin like, with holes cut fer +the nostrums fer the purpose of exiling. Then you must lie down fer +several hours and whin you remove this masquerade, you will find the +yeast is done drawed the freckles an' sun burn, an' all of you will be +as beautiful as the dawning." + +"Oh, Blanche, please mix us up some dough right off! And is there any +buttermilk here?" asked Dum. + +"Yes, Miss Dum, we've been gittin' it reg'lar fer waffles an' sich. I'll +bring up a little bucket of it fer yo' absolutions an' then I'll mix up +the dough." + +"Be sure and make plenty, Blanche! I want to put it on my neck, too," +said Dee. + +"Well, we is mos' out er flour but I'll stretch it bes' I kin. The +impersonal 'pearance of female ladies is of more importation than +economics, an' I'm sure yo' paw will not be the one to infuse to buy +another bag of flour for the beautyfaction of his twinses an' they lady +guests." + +Well, we washed and washed in buttermilk until we smelled like old +churns. Then we lay down while Blanche placed tenderly on each burning +countenance a dough mask. Annie did not need it, but she must have one, +too, even though it was in a measure "gilding the lily." + +"Let me have a mouth hole instead of one for my nostrils," I demanded. +"I can breathe through my mouth for a while and I don't want to do +anything to keep the dough from doing its perfect work on my poor nose." + +We must have presented a ridiculous appearance, lying stretched out on +our cots, each girl with her countenance supporting what looked like a +great hoe cake. + +"Well, I tell you, one has to suffer to be beautiful!" exclaimed Mary. + +"I don't mind it as much on my face as my neck," declared Dee. "It feels +like a great boa constrictor throttling me, but it would never do to +have my face as fair as a lily and my neck as red as a rose." + +The air was fresh and soothing and we were tired anyhow; our masks were +not conducive to conversation, so one by one we dropped off to sleep +while the dough was getting in its perfect work. We slept for hours I +think, and while the dough was busy, the yeast was not idle but +responded readily to the warmth occasioned by our poor faces. The +air-holes, seemingly too large in the beginning, gradually began to +close in as the little leaven leavened the whole lump. Lying on your +back is sure to make you snore at any rate, and lying on your back with +almost all air cut off from you will cause stertorious breathing fearful +to hear. + +I do not know how long we had been lying there, but I know I was having +a terrible dream. I dreamed I was under water, and the water was hot. I +was trying to get to the top, knowing I could float if I could only get +to the top, but every time I would come to the surface Mabel Binks would +sit on my face and down I would sink again. I was struggling and +clutching wildly at the air and trying to call Zebedee, and then Zebedee +pulled Mabel off me and I floated into the pure air. Incidentally I +opened my eyes to find the real Zebedee bending over me simply convulsed +with laughter, while Miss Cox pulled the mask off of Mary, who was +making a noise like a little tug trying to get a great steamer out of +harbour. Dum and Dee were sitting up rubbing their eyes and Annie was +blinking at the light and wondering where she was and what it was all +about. + +"Well, it is a good thing we came home when we did or our whole house +party would have broken up in asphyxiation. When we opened the door down +stairs there was no sign of Blanche, but such noise as was issuing from +this sleeping porch! Sawing gourds was sweet music compared to it What +on earth do you mean by this peculiar performance?" and Zebedee burst +out into renewed peals of laughter and Miss Cox sank helpless on the +foot of my cot. + +"If you could have seen yourselves!" she gasped. "Five girls in kimonos, +lying prone, and each one, in the place of a head, sporting a great +dumpling." + +We looked woefully at our prized masks and to be sure each one had risen +to three times its original bulk. Little wonder breathing had been +difficult. + +Dee still had the remedy around her neck, puffed out like an enormous +goitre, her chin resting comfortably on it. All of us felt as foolish as +we looked and that was saying a good deal. + +"You certainly smell like a dairy lunch up here," sniffed Zebedee. +"Please tell me if you were assisting poor, dear Blanche and raising her +dough for her. Is this the method you housekeepers have employed all +summer to have such good bread? I wondered how you did it. But don't I +smell buttermilk, too?" We knew we were in for a good teasing and we got +it, although Miss Cox did her best to make Zebedee call a halt. "Is all +of this beautifying for the benefit of Harvie and Shorty, who by the +way are coming out in about an hour? I feel sad that you did not think I +was worth making yourselves pretty for, but maybe you knew that I like +freckles. If you did, I feel sadder than ever that you should have taken +away what I consider so charming." + +I don't believe one single freckle was removed by our torture; but our +skin felt soft and satiny, and Dum's peelings all came off with her +mask. Then the long sleep had rested all of us so, after all, there was +no harm done except that all the flour was used up. That night we had no +bread but batter bread for supper, but since Blanche had mastered the +mixing of that dish, dear to the heart of all Virginians, we none of us +minded, just so she made enough of it, which she did. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE TURKEY-TAIL FAN. + + +Harvie and Shorty arrived in due time and very glad we were to see them. +Mary and Shorty rushed together like long lost brother and sister. They +made a pony team it was hard to beat. + +"Gee, I'm glad to see you!" exclaimed the boy. "You and I don't have to +be grown up, do we, Mary?" + +"Not on your life! No one will expect the impossible of us. The boys we +know here are real grown-ups, lots older than Harvie Price, real college +men. They are very nice but I feel like an awful kid with them. Of +course Mr. Tucker is as young as any of us." + +"Of course!" echoed Shorty. "Isn't he just great?" + +"You bet." + +When we were all dressed for the hop, Zebedee declared we looked pretty +well in spite of our tan and freckles. He kept us on needles and pins +all the time, threatening to tell the boys of our dough masks. At supper +he repeatedly asked Blanche for hot rolls, insisting that she must have +them. + +"I certainly smelled hot rolls when I got back from Norfolk and it seems +to me I saw batch after batch rising. Couldn't you spare me just one, +Blanche?" And when the girl rushed from the room to explode in the +kitchen, he said in a tone of the greatest concern: "Why, what is the +matter with poor, dear Blanche? Do you think perhaps she has eaten them +all herself?" + +"Mr. Tucker come mighty near infectin' my irresistibles," Blanche said +to us after supper was over. "I tell you a kersplosion was eminent! +'Twas all I could do to keep from bringing disgracement on us all, in +fact, to speak in vulgar langige, I was nigh to bus'in'. I certainly do +think you young ladies looks sweet an' whin you puts a little talcim on +yo' prebosseses the sunburn won't be to say notificationable. I'll be +bound that ev'y las' one of you will be the belledom of the ball." All +we hoped for was not to be wall flowers. + +A hop was quite an event to most of us. Annie and I had never been to +one in our lives, not a real hop. The dance at the Country Club when I +visited the Tuckers in Richmond was the nearest I had ever come to a +hop, and if this was to come up to that, I was expecting a pretty good +time. Annie was very nervous as her dancing had all been done at Gresham +and with girls, but we assured her that she was sure to do finely. The +Tucker twins had been going to hops ever since they could hop, almost +ever since they could crawl, so they were not very excited, but Mary was +jumping around like a hen on a hot griddle, trying new steps all the +time I was tying her sash. You may know that Mary would wear a great +bulging sash, instead of a neat girdle or belt. Chunky persons with +thick waists always seem to have a leaning towards sashes with huge +bows. Mary looked very nice, although her dress did have about twice as +much material in it as was necessary and she had put on an extra +petticoat for luck and style. Since it was the summer of very narrow +skirts, the effect was rather voluminous. She looked like the hollyhock +babies I used to make for my fairy lands, only their heads were green +while Mary's was red; but Mary's looks were the least thing about her. +It was her good cheerful disposition and her ready, kindly wit and +humour that counted with her friends. + +Annie was lovely in the beautiful white crepe de Chine, the dress that +had been her mother's and that she had worn at the musicale at Gresham +where she had charmed the audience with her old ballads. It was a pity +for her to wear this dress to dance in on a hot night as it was really +very handsome though so simple, but poor Annie had very few clothes and +her father seemed to think that a girl her age needed none at all. + +The Tuckers were appropriately dressed in white muslin, Dum with a pink +girdle, Dee with a blue. + +"Not that I should wear pink," grumbled Dum, "nor that Dee should wear +blue, as I look better in blue and Dee looks better in pink; but Zebedee +cuts up so when we go anywhere with him and don't dress in the colours +we were born in, that to keep the peace we have to do as he wants us +to. They tied pink ribbons on me and blue ribbons on Dee to tell us +apart, and Zebedee declares he still has to have something tied on us to +tell, which is perfectly absurd, as we do not look the least alike." + +"You never have looked much alike to me, but I took such a good look at +you the first time I saw you that I never have got you mixed up except +once when I first saw you in bathing caps. I really do not think you +look as much like each other as you both look like your father. Now he +has Dee's dimple in his chin; and his hair grows on his forehead just +like Dum's, in a little widow's peak; and all three of you have exactly +the same shoulders." + +"Well, all I know is I can tell myself from Dum on the darkest night." +With which Irish bull, Dee, having hooked on the offending blue girdle, +hustled us downstairs where the boys from the camp were awaiting our +coming. + +"Let me see, eight escorts for six ladies!" exclaimed Zebedee. "That +means a good time all around!" And that is just what we had, a good time +all around. + +The ballroom at the hotel was quite large with a splendid floor, and if +there was a breeze to be caught, it caught it. Seated on chairs ranged +around the wall were what Zebedee called the non-combatants, many old +ladies: maids, wives and widows, some with critical eyes, some with +kindly, but one and all bent on seeing and commenting on everything that +was doing. + +The first person I beheld on entering the ballroom was no other than +Cousin Park Garnett, sitting very stiff and straight in a tight +bombazine basque, at least, I fancy it must have been bombazine--not +that I know what bombazine is; but bombazine basque sounds just like +Cousin Park looked. With majestic sweeps she fanned herself with a +turkey-tail fan, and her general expression was one of conscious +superiority to her surroundings. How I longed for a magic cap so that I +might become invisible to my relative! All sparkle went out of the scene +for me. I felt that it would not be much fun to dance with the critical +eye of Mrs. Garnett watching my every step and her unnecessarily frank +tongue ready to inform me of my many defects. If I could only dissemble +and pretend not to see her maybe she would not recognize me! But +conscience whispered: + +"Page Allison, aren't you ashamed of yourself? You know perfectly well +what your father would say: 'She is our kinswoman, daughter, and proper +respect must be shown her.' Go up and speak to her and give her no real +cause for criticism." So, in the words of somebody or other, "I seen my +duty and done it." + +"How burned and freckled you are, child!" was her cheerful greeting, as +she presented a hard, uncompromising cheek for me to peck. + +"Yes, I've been on the water a good deal," I ventured meekly. "When did +you come?" + +"I have been here only a few hours but I have heard already of the very +irregular household in which you are visiting." + +"Irregular! Why, we have our meals exactly on time. Who said we didn't?" + +"I was not referring to meals but morals," and the bombazine basque +creaked anew as she once more took up the task of cooling herself with +the turkey-tail fan. I felt myself getting very hot with a heat that a +turkey-tail fan could not allay. + +"Morals, Cousin Park! Why, Blanche is a very respectable coloured girl +highly recommended by the president of her industrial school and Mammy +Susan, besides." + +"Blanche! I know nothing of Mr. Tucker's domestic arrangements. What I +mean is that I hear from Miss Binks that you are absolutely unchaperoned +and I consider that highly immoral." + +"Unchaperoned! How ridiculous! Miss Jane Cox is our chaperone and there +never was a lovelier one. Mabel Binks knows perfectly well Miss Cox is +there with us and she herself would give her eyes to be one of the +party," and then I bit my lip to keep from saying anything else about +the mischief-making girl. + +"I understood from Miss Binks that there were only five young girls in +the cottage and that a camp of boys spent most of their time there and +that the carryings on were something disgraceful. She had some tale to +tell of your going up to wake one of the boys yourselves and dragging +him out of bed." + +And so Mabel had distorted the truth about Sleepy to suit her own ends. +I flushed painfully and to the best of my ability told the story, but it +sounded very flat and stupid recounted to the unsympathetic, unhumorous +ears of Mrs. Garnett. I brought up Miss Cox and introduced her to the +turkey-tail fan, and our chaperone's quiet manner and dignity did much +to reassure my strict relative. I was laughing in my boots when I +realized that Mabel did not know of Miss Cox's engagement and so had not +told Cousin Park of it, or that irate dame would have considered our +chaperone not much of a chaperone, after all. + +Zebedee claimed the first dance with me, speaking cordially to Cousin +Park, but she gave him a curt nod and turned with unexpected amiability +and condescension to converse with a faded little gentlewoman at her +side who had up to that time been overshadowed by that lady's conscious +superiority. + +"Oh, my whole evening is ruined!" I wailed in Zebedee's ear. "It won't +be a bit of fun to dance, no matter how many or how few partners I may +get, while Cousin Park sits there and watches my every step, making +mental notes of the disagreeable truths she will get off to me or poor +Father the first time she gets a chance at him." + +"Why, you poor little girl! Do you think I am going to let your first +hop be a failure? I am going to get that old Harpie out of this room if +I have to carry her out myself and propose to her in the bargain." + +When the dance was over, Zebedee might have been seen eagerly looking +around the hotel as if in search of someone, on the porches, in the +lobby and finally in the smoking room, and then to pounce on a certain +old Judge Grayson of Kentucky, who was there poring over the afternoon +paper and smoking a very bad cigar. Judge Grayson was judge by courtesy +and custom, as Zebedee afterwards told me. He had never been on any +bench but the anxious bench of the grand stand, being a great judge of +horses. + +"Ha, Judge, I am glad to see you! Have a cigar." The Judge accepted with +alacrity, first carefully extinguishing the light on the poor one he was +engaged in consuming and economically putting it back into his cigar +case, quoting in a pleasant, high old voice: "'For though on pleasure +she was bent, she had a frugal mind.' How are you, Tucker? Gad, I'm glad +to see you, boy! Dull hole this!" + +[Illustration: Peeping in, we saw the game in full swing--_Page 145_] + +"Do you find it so? Why don't you get up a game of auction? I wish I +could join you, but I've got my daughters and some of their young +friends here and dancing is the order of the evening for me." + +"Gad, I'd like a game but don't know a soul. Fool to come to such a +place. I'll be off to Virginia Beach tomorrow." + +"Now don't do that; you come see us tomorrow. I'll be bound you will +fall in love with all my girls and no doubt they will fight over you." + +"Why, that would be nice, Tucker. No doubt this place is all right but I +have been lonesome," and the old fellow beamed on Zebedee. + +"Of course you have. Come on, I'll introduce you to some ladies and you +can have a good game of auction bridge;" and before the Judge could find +any objection, Zebedee had steered him across the ballroom floor and had +him bowing and scraping in front of the haughty Mrs. Garnett. She +unbent at his courtly, old-fashioned compliments, and I distinctly saw +her tap him playfully with her turkey-tail fan. The faded gentlewoman +was next introduced and readily joined in the proposed game. A fourth +was easily found and before the next dance was over, Zebedee was beaming +on me, as I danced around with Wink, delighted as he afterwards declared +in having got the Harpie out of the room without having either to carry +her out or propose to her himself. The rest of the evening I could enjoy +to my heart's content with no hypercritical glances following me around. +Cousin Park had a good time, too. Auction bridge was her dissipation and +I have heard she played a masterly game. So Zebedee felt he had been a +real all 'round philanthropist. + +Once between dances Zebedee and I were out on the porch getting a breath +of air and our steps took us near the window of the card room. Peeping +in, we saw the game in full swing. Cousin Park had just made a little +slam and she looked quite complacent and cheerful. The courtly Judge was +dealing compliments with the cards, there was a flush of pleasure on the +cheeks of the faded gentlewoman, and Cousin Park wielded her fan with +almost a coquettish air, announcing her bids with elephantine +playfulness. + +Once Judge Grayson picked up the fan and, looking sentimentally at it, +began to quote in his high, refined old voice the following poem. It was +between rubbers so the card devotees listened with polite attention, but +Zebedee and I were indeed thrilled: + + "'It owned not a colour that vanity dons + Or slender wits choose for display; + Its beautiful tint was a delicate bronze, + A brown softly blended with gray. + From her waist to her chin, spreading out without break, + 'Twas built on a generous plan: + The pride of the forest was slaughtered to make + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + "'For common occasions it never was meant: + In a chest between two silken cloths + 'Twas kept safely hidden with careful intent + In camphor to keep out the moths. + 'Twas famed far and wide through the whole country side, + From Beersheba e'en unto Dan; + And often at meeting with envy 'twas eyed, + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan. + + "'A fig for the fans that are made nowadays, + Suited only to frivolous mirth! + A different thing is the fan that I praise, + Yet it scorned not the good things of earth. + At bees and at quiltings 'twas aye to be seen. + The best of the gossip began + When in at the doorway had entered serene + My grandmother's turkey-tail fan.'" + +Zebedee clapped a vociferous but silent applause and I wiped a tiny tear +from my eye. Poetry is the only thing that ever makes me weep but there +is something about verse, recited in a certain way, that always makes me +leak a little. The Judge knew how to recite that way and while there was +nothing in "My Grandmother's Turkey-tail Fan" to make one want to weep, +still that one little tear did find its way out. The faded gentlewoman +was affected the same way and even Cousin Park's bombazine basque unbent +a bit. + +"Isn't he a sweet old man?" I exclaimed. + +"Just the sweetest in the country. I have known the Judge for many years +and I have never seen him anything but a perfect, courtly gentleman. He +is to have luncheon with us tomorrow." + +"Oh, won't that be fine! Maybe he will recite some poetry for us." + +"I haven't a doubt but that he will, and sing you some songs, too." + +"Well, he has my undying gratitude for taking Cousin Park out of the +ballroom;" and just then Harvie came to hunt for me to claim his dance. + +I danced every single dance that evening except one that I sat out with +Wink, and hardly ever got through a dance without having to change +partners several times. They say it is a southern custom, this thing of +breaking in on a dance. It is all very well if you happen to be dancing +with a poor dancer and a good one takes you away, but it is pretty sad +if it happens to be the other way. Sometimes I would feel as you might +if an over-zealous butler snatched your plate from under your nose +before you had finished, and you saw him bearing off some favourite +delectable morsel and in its place had to choke down stewed prunes or +mashed turnips or something else you just naturally could not abide. As +a rule, however, the "delectable morsel" would not go away for good, +but hover around and break in again in time to let you finish the dance +with some pleasure and at least get the taste of stewed prunes or mashed +turnip out of your mouth. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +A LETTER AND ITS ANSWER. + + + Miss Sue Lee, Congressional Library, Washington, + D. C., from Page Allison. + + Dearest Cousin Sue: + + I can hardly believe that July is more than half + over and I have not written you. I have thought + about you a lot, my dear cousin, and often wished + for you. We have had just about the best time + girls ever did have and more things have happened! + I have learned to swim; we have been upset in a + cat boat called the Goop, right out in the middle + of Chesapeake Bay; our chaperone, Miss Cox, has + become engaged and expects to be married in a few + weeks; and last and most exciting of all (at least + most exciting to me), I have had a proposal; I, + little, freckled-nosed, countrified Page Allison! + It was the greatest shock of my life, as I wasn't + expecting anything like that ever to happen to me, + at least not for years and years. + + You see, it was this way: We went to a hop last + night, the very first hop of my life, and we + naturally dressed up for it in our best white + muslins, low necks, short sleeves, silk stockings, + tucked-up hair and all, and we looked quite + grown-up. All of us are sixteen, except Mary + Flannagan, who is just fifteen. We went with a + goodly number of escorts: Harvie Price and Shorty + Hawkins, who are staying in the house with us; Mr. + Tucker and Mr. Gordon, who is Miss Cox's lover; + and four boys from a camp near us who have been + very nice to us since we have been at Willoughby. + + One of these boys, Stephen White (Wink for short), + is studying medicine at the University. He is very + good looking and has lots of sense. He and I have + had a great many very pleasant times together, but + it never entered my head that he thought of me as + anything but a kid. In fact, I thought he was in + love with a girl in Charlottesville; Mabel Binks, + his cousin, told me he was. I also thought that + Dee was his favourite among all of us girls. I + know Dee likes him a lot. You see, Dee is so + interested in sick kittens and babies and + physiology that she just naturally takes to + medical students. But last night Wink gave me what + might be termed a rush. He broke in dances and + claimed dances and did all kinds of things that + were rather astonishing. He is not a very good + dancer and as Mr. Tucker (I call him Zebedee now) + is a splendid one I did not relish Wink's + constantly taking me away from him nor did Zebedee + seem overjoyed to lose me. I thought all the time + Wink was doing it to tease Mabel Binks, who just + naturally despises me and of course would not like + to see her good looking cousin paying me too much + attention. He asked me to sit out a dance with him + and as he is a much better talker than dancer I + was glad to do it, although I must confess I could + not keep my feet still all the time he was + talking to me. He took me to a nice corner of the + porch looking out over the water and began. I hope + you don't think it is wrong of me to tell you + this, Cousin Sue. You see I would bite out my + tongue before I would tell any of the other girls, + but I feel as though I would simply have to tell + some one or--well, bust! He started this way: + + "What do you think of long engagements?" and I + said: + + "I don't think at all; but I heard one of Father's + old maid cousins say once when someone was + discussing long engagements, 'Hope deferred maketh + the heart sick.'" + + And then Wink went on telling me of his prospects + and his ambitions. He seems to have little + prospects and big ambitions, which after all is + the best thing for a young man, I believe. He + asked me if I thought it was too much to ask a + girl to wait, say, five years. I thought of course + he was talking about the Charlottesville girl, who + turns out to be a myth, and I said that I did not + suppose true love would set any limit on waiting. + He said he was almost twenty and had one more year + at the University and expected to have a year in a + New York hospital, and then his ambition was to + become a first class up-to-date country doctor. + + He loves the country and says he has never yet + seen a good country doctor who was not overworked. + I agreed with him there and said that my father + was certainly overworked. I also told him that I + had in a measure suggested him to my father as a + possible assistant. That pleased him so much that + he impulsively seized my hand. I thought of course + he was still thinking of the Charlottesville girl + and wondered if she would be a pleasant addition + to our neighbourhood, when Wink began to pour + forth such an impassioned appeal that I could no + longer think he was talking about the + Charlottesville girl but was actually addressing + me. I felt mighty bad and very foolish. When I + told him he had known me but a little over two + weeks he said that made no difference, that there + was such a thing as "love at first sight." + + "But," I said, "you did not love me at first + sight." + + "Yes I did, but I did not realize it until tonight + when I saw you for the first time with your hair + tucked up, and dressed in an evening dress." + + "Well, when I let it down tomorrow and get back + into a middy you will find out what a mistake you + have made." + + "Oh, Page, please don't tease me! It makes no + difference now what you wear or how you do your + hair, I am going to love you forever and forever. + Don't you love me just a little?" And a spirit of + mischief still prompting me, I answered: + + "I can't tell until I see you with a moustache." + And then, Cousin Sue, I realized that I was not + being my true self but was doing something that I + had never expected to do in my whole life: + flirting outrageously. So I up and told Wink that + I did not care for him except as a friend (I came + mighty near saying "brother," but it sounded too + bromidic). I said I was nothing but a kid and had + no business thinking about lovers for years to + come. I said a lot of things that sound too silly + to write and he said a lot of things, or rather he + said the same thing over and over. + + I never saw such a long dance. I thought the music + would never stop. Wink wanted to hold my hand all + the time he was talking, but I just shook hands + with him and thought that was enough. It seemed to + me to be too sudden to be very serious. Of course + in books people do that way, Romeo and Juliet, for + instance, but in real life my idea of falling in + love is first to know someone very well, well + enough to be able to talk to him without any + restraint at all and then gradually to feel that + that person is the one of all others for you. The + idea of knowing a girl two weeks and then seeing + her with her hair done up like a grown-up and + deciding between dances that life could not be + lived without her! Of course Wink thinks he is in + dead earnest and it hurts just as bad for a while + as though he were, but it won't last much longer + than it did for him to make up his mind. He will + be like a man who has had a nightmare: very trying + while it lasts but not so bad but that he can eat + a good breakfast the next morning and forget all + about it, only wondering what made him have such a + bad dream and what was it all about, anyhow! + + Goodness, I was glad to see Zebedee when he came + around the corner of the porch looking for me to + dance a particular one-step that he and I had + evolved together. I believe Zebedee (Mr. Tucker) + knew what had been going on, because Wink was + looking so sullen and I, I don't know how I was + looking, but I was certainly feeling very foolish. + He tucked my arm in his and looked at me rather + sadly just as he had at Dum last winter when Mr. + Reginald Kent, the young artist from New York, + asked her for a lock of her hair. I know Zebedee + hates for any of us to grow up, me as well as the + twins. I wanted awfully to tell him it was all + right but I did not know how to do it without + giving Wink away, so I just said nothing. I did + not see Wink again last night and the boys tell me + he has gone over to Newport News today with Mabel + Binks to call on their relatives. + + I have written a terribly long letter and still + have not told you that Cousin Park Garnett is + stopping at the hotel here in Willoughby. She is + the same Cousin Park, only a little more tightly + upholstered, if possible. I wish I could like her + better, but she always makes me feel all mouth and + freckles. + + Good-bye, Cousin Sue, and if I should not have + told you all of this nonsense about Wink and me, + please forgive me. Lots of girls would tell other + girls if they got a proposal, but I would never do + that; but you have been so like my mother to me + that somehow I do not feel it is indelicate to + tell you. + + With best love, + PAGE. + + + From Miss Sue Lee, Washington, D. C., to Page + Allison. + + My Dearest Little Page: + + I was overjoyed to get your very interesting + letter and I hasten to answer it and to tell you + that you must always feel at perfect liberty to + tell me anything and everything that comes up in + your life. I am a little sorry for Wink, but you + were right not to encourage him. Do not be too + sure, however, that he will get over this malady + as quickly as he took it. Shakespeare was a very + wise and true artist and you may be sure that when + he made Romeo fall in love with Juliet as he did + without a moment's warning,--and already in love + with someone else, as Romeo thought he was,--such + a thing can come to pass. We find as much truth in + fiction as in fact, everlasting truths. But then, + I am a sentimental old maid and you must not take + me too seriously. + + I want to know your friends, the Tuckers, very + much indeed. I hope to spend August at Bracken and + perhaps I can meet them then. Washington is very + hot and I am quite tired out and will be glad of + the quiet and peace of Bracken as well as the + sane, delightful talks with your dear father. I + hope Cousin Park will not choose the same time to + make her visit. If she makes you feel all mouth + and freckles, she makes me feel all nose and + wrinkles. She told me once that she was confident + my nose was the cause of my spinsterhood. As my + nose is a perfectly good Lee nose, and as + spinsterhood is as much a mark of my family as my + nose, I shouldn't mind her remark, but somehow I + do. + + I am sending you a pair of blue silk stockings and + a tie to match, to wear with white duck skirts and + lingerie waists. No doubt you will be so + captivating in this colour that proposals will + come pouring in. Please tell me about them if + they do. Don't grow up yet, little Cousin Page! + There is time enough for lovers and such like, and + sixteen is o'er young for taking things very + seriously. I am glad indeed that you sent poor + Wink about his business and hope he will grow a + moustache and a flowing beard before he addresses + you again. + + With much love, + COUSIN SUE. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE JUDGE. + + +The morning after the hop we slept late. Of course we did not go to +sleep as soon as we got into bed, as the best part of going to a dance +is talking it over with the girls afterwards. We had much to tell and I +for one had much that I couldn't tell. One and all we pronounced it a +very delightful and successful party. Had we not, everyone of us danced +every dance, except the fatal one that I sat out? Did we not have "trade +lasts" enough to last 'til morning if sleep had not overtaken us? Hadn't +Annie been freely spoken of as the prettiest girl there; the twins as +the most popular; Mary as by all odds the brightest and funniest; and +had not I overheard someone say that I had a nameless charm that was +irresistible? Altogether, we were well pleased with ourselves and one +another and slept the sleep of the just and healthy until late in the +morning, when we heard Miss Cox singing at our door: + + "'Kathleen Mavourneen! the gray dawn is breaking, + The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill; + The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking,-- + Kathleen Mavourneen! what, slumbering still? + Oh, hast thou forgotten how soon we must sever? + Oh, hast thou forgotten this day we must part? + It may be for years and it may be forever! + Oh, why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart? + Oh, why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen? + + "'Kathleen Mavourneen, awake from thy slumbers! + The blue mountains glow in the sun's golden light; + Ah, where is the spell that once hung on my numbers? + Arise in thy beauty, thou star of my night! + Mavourneen, Mavourneen, my sad tears are falling, + To think that from Erin and thee I must part! + It may be for years and it may be forever! + Then why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart? + Then why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?'" + +There was a storm of applause from our porch and a great clapping of +hands from down stairs as Zebedee entered with old Judge Grayson. Miss +Cox had an excellent voice and a singularly true one. + +"Well, all of us Kathleens had better rise and shine after that appeal," +yawned Dum. "It must be almost time for luncheon." And so it was. We +just had time for a hasty dip in the briny and a hastier toilet in the +way of middies and khaki skirts, when Blanche appeared to announce that +our repast was reserved. + +"Well, Gawd love us!" she exclaimed, when she beheld us dressed in our +customary girlish middies. "Ef'n the butterflies ain't chrystalized agin +into plain grubs! When I beholden you last night in all the begalia of +sassioty I ruminated to myself that our young misses had done flew the +coop, hair turned up and waistes turned down, an' here you is nothin' +but gals agin. I'll be bound ef'n the beau lovers of the evenin' +recently relapsed could see you now they would wonder how come they felt +so warmed to'ds you. Not that you ain't as sweet as sugar now," she +hastily added, fearing for our feelings, "but you is jes' sugar 'thout +the proper ingredients to make you what you might call intoxicational." + +Every single girl except Mary looked a little conscious while Blanche +was talking, and I could not help wondering if there had not been others +besides myself who had been the recipient of tender nothings. Zebedee +overheard Blanche's remarks and I saw him go into the kitchen and a +little later the girl came forth beaming, tying into the corner of her +handkerchief a shiny new half dollar. + +"Every time poor, dear Blanche opens her mouth diamonds and pearls of +wisdom come forth," he whispered to me. "It seems a shame to buy such +priceless gems for fifty cents. I would not take anything for what she +has just handed to all of my girls." + +The Judge proved to be a delightful old man and all of us were charmed +with his courtly manners and compliments. He seemed to think we were +lovely and quite grown-up in spite of what Blanche had just "handed" us. +He quoted poetry to us with an old world grace and seemed to have a +verse ready for every occasion. Even Blanche came in for her share of +poetry as the Judge helped himself to another and yet another popover: + + "'My mother bore me in the southern wild, + And I am black, but oh, my soul is white!'" + +Blanche smiled on him as though at last she had found someone who really +understood her. + +After luncheon we repaired to the piazza where Zebedee and the Judge +could enjoy their cigars and the family guitar was produced at the +instigation of the host, hoping to persuade the Judge to give us some of +his fine old ballads. The Tucker guitar was something of a joke, as none +of them could really play on it; but it was always kept in perfect order +if not in perfect tune and placed in a conspicuous place. "Ready for an +emergency if one should arise in anyone else," explained Dum. Dee could +thrum out an accompaniment, if it happened to be a very simple one with +only one or two changes. Dum knew part of the Spanish Fandango, learned +from a teacher who had struggled with the family once when they had +determined that a musical education was necessary. Zebedee, who had a +very good voice and a true ear, could tell when the guitar was out of +tune but never could tune it to his satisfaction; but when someone else +got it in tune he could put up a very good imitation of following +himself in his favourite song of "Danny Deever." + +The Judge jumped to the instrument as a trout to a fly and held it with +a loving embrace. + +"Gad, Tucker, but this is a good guitar!" and with a practiced hand and +ear he quickly had it in tune. + +"Sing, do sing!" we pleaded. + +"All right, I'll sing to all of you five girls if you will excuse an old +man's faults. My voice is not what it used to be, but the heart is the +same and + + "'No matter what you do if your heart be true, + And his heart was true to Poll.' + +"This song I am going to sing is one I have always loved and it seems to +be singularly appropriate for all of you young ladies, who, last night +as I peeped into the ballroom, showed promise of what you might be. But +this morning I find you back 'Where the brook and river meet.' I can't +tell whether it is because of the absence of the gallant swains or a +mere matter of rearrangement of tresses." + +Harvie and Shorty had gone to the camp for luncheon and to go crabbing +with the boys, which was rather a relief, as Dum declared we could not +have boys all the time without getting bored. Certainly on the morning +after the hop we were glad just to be little girls again and not have to +play "lady come to see" for a while at least. Dear old Judge Grayson and +Zebedee were singularly restful after the friskings of the youths, and +Miss Cox very calming as she sat on the piazza, an exalted expression on +her good face, stitching, stitching on wedding clothes. All of us had +undertaken to help her but mighty botches I am afraid we made of it, all +except Annie Pore. She could take tiny stitches if shown exactly where +to put them, but she was afraid to take the initiative even in sewing. +Dum could design patterns for embroidery and Dee could tie wonderful +bows; Mary was great on button-holes; I could not even sew carpet rags +together well enough to pass muster, but I was very willing and did my +poor best. + +In his high, sweet old tenor the Judge began to sing: + + "'My love she's but a lassie yet, + A lightsome, lovely lassie yet; + It scarce wad do + To sit and woo + Down by the stream sae glassy yet. + + "'But there's a braw time coming yet, + When we may gang a-roaming yet; + An' hint wi' glee + O' joys to be, + When fa's the modest gloaming yet. + + "'She's neither proud nor saucy yet, + She's neither plump nor gaucy yet; + But just a jinking, + Bonny blinking, + Hilty-skilty lassie yet. + + "'But O, her artless smile's mair sweet + Then hinny or than marmalete; + An' right or wrang, + Ere it be lang, + I'll bring her to a parley yet. + + "'I'm jealous o' what blesses her, + The very breeze that kisses her, + The flowery beds + On which she treads, + Though wae for ane that misses her. + + "'Then O, to meet my lassie yet + Up in yon glen sae grassy yet; + For all I see + Are naught to me, + Save her that's but a lassie yet.'" + +All of us sat very quietly as the old man finished his quaint, sweet +song. Zebedee looked very shiny-eyed and I rather guessed he was +thinking of his Tweedles, although he did look at me. I fancy he knew +that I understood him and his anxiety about his dear girls. It is no +joke to be the father of sixteen-year-old twins and only about +thirty-six yourself. Dum and Dee were developing very rapidly and they +had looked so grown-up at the hop and had conducted themselves so like +young ladies that their anxious parent was troubled for fear their +womanhood was upon him. He would rather see them romping hoydens than +the sedate young ladies they seemed to be turning into. No wonder he had +tipped Blanche with the shiny fifty-cent piece. Had she not put his mind +at rest for the time being at least? They were certainly girlish enough +looking on that day, even boyish looking as they crowded each other out +of the hammock, both intent on getting the middle. + +"That's fine, Judge, give us another!" begged Zebedee, but the bard +insisted upon Miss Cox's putting down her sewing and singing; and then +Annie Pore must give us Annie Laurie; and so the lazy afternoon passed +with songs and many good stories drawn from our guest by the tactful +Zebedee. + +Judge Grayson just naturally loved horses and next to being with them +was talking about them. He had many delightful stories to tell of horses +he had known and horses he had owned. He insisted that no horse was +naturally vicious but always ruined in some way by its trainer, and no +horse was irretrievably ruined if just the right person could get hold +of it and by kindness bring it to reason. I had always felt that and of +course this theory appealed to Dee, who thought much worse of humanity +than animality, as she called it. + +"The first horse I ever owned was the first horse I ever loved and he +was in a way the best horse I ever owned," said the Judge, addressing +his remarks to Dee who was all attention. "Dobbin was the very ordinary +name for a very extraordinary horse. My father gave him to me when I was +six years old. I say gave him to me but what really occurred was that I +was presented to Dobbin. For if ever man was owned by an animal, Dobbin +owned me. He was an old circus horse and his intelligence was far beyond +that of the average human. He was milk white with pink nostrils and +eyes, a real Albino, in fact. His legs were perfectly formed, his head +small and very well shaped, his back broad and flat as though especially +made for bare-back riding. If you fell off him it was your own fault, +and no more was he to be blamed than a bed that you happen to roll out +of. Indeed his gaits were so smooth that you might easily go to sleep on +him. His temper was perfect and his character very decided and firm. He +knew exactly what he wanted to do and he also knew that his judgment was +much better than a child's. I shall never forget the first time I got on +his back. My father was going to have me taught to ride by our old +coachman, but in the meantime I was given the duty and pleasure of +feeding my horse myself. I had only owned him a day and already I would +have foundered him on oats if it had not been for his own superior +intelligence and judgment. He ate what he considered proper and then +deliberately turned over the bucket and puffed and blew and pawed until +even the chickens had a hard time pecking up the scattered grain." + +And here the old man laughed and took another cigar Zebedee offered him, +pausing in his narrative while he bit off the end and lit it. + +"But how about the first time you rode him?" demanded Dee. + +"I'm coming to that. He was a very high horse, was Dobbin, so high that +it was a tall mount for a grown man and of course it was seemingly +impossible for a little boy to climb up on such a mountain, but get up I +did. My father came out on the gallery and there I was as proud as Punch +perched on the broad back of my snow-white steed. 'You rascal!' he +shouted. 'Who put you up there?' 'Dobbin put me here,' I answered, and +so he had, but my father could not believe it until Dobbin and I +demonstrated the fact for him. I slid down the shapely leg of my circus +horse and then he lowered his head and I nimbly climbed up his neck and +landed safely on his back. I can still hear my father laugh and then all +the household was called out to witness this great feat, and my mother +brought out sugar to feed my pet. She pulled down his head and whispered +in his ear, 'Be careful of my boy, Dobbin! I am going to trust him to +you, do you understand?' and Dobbin whinnied an answer and blew in my +mother's hair with his pink nostrils. After that he felt that he was a +kind of nurse for me and he certainly did make me walk chalk," and the +old man chuckled in delighted memory. + +"Tell us more about him," pleaded Dee. "He must have been darling." + +"Well, sometimes he was right annoying. For instance, he saw to it that +I minded my black mammy. One of Mammy's rules was that I could play in +the mud all I wanted to in the morning, but in the afternoon when I was +dressed in my clean linen shirt and little white piquet pants, I had to +keep clean. The mud attracted me as much in the afternoon as morning, +and sometimes I would lose track of time and would begin to mix my +delectable pies in spite of my spotless attire. Do you know that old +horse many and many a time has come up behind me and gently but firmly +caught me by my collar or the seat of my breeches, whichever presented +itself handiest, and after giving me a little shake put me out of +temptation? He never was known to do it in the morning when I was in my +blue jean jumpers. Why, that horse knew morning from afternoon and jeans +from white linen. He was a great disciplinarian, I can tell you. My +mother would let me go anywhere just so Dobbin was of the party. She +knew perfectly well he would take care of me. Had he not told her so as +plainly as a horse could speak, and that is pretty plain to those who +understand horse talk." + +Dee nodded approval and muttered: "Dog talk, too!" + +"We had an old basket phaeton with a rumble (they don't make them +now-a-days) and in the afternoon in summer my sister and I would hitch +up old Dobbin and go off for a picnic in the beech woods. Sam, my body +servant and private property, perched in the rumble and Dilsey, my +sister's maid, crouched at our feet. Dobbin would jog along until he +found what he considered a suitable spot for a picnic and then he would +stop, and no matter how we felt about it, out we had to get. Nothing +would budge Dobbin. He would look at us and whinny as much as to say +that he had forgotten more about picnic places than we could ever hope +to know and no doubt he was right. + +"He usually stopped at a very nice spot where there was plenty of shade +and a spring and maybe some luscious blue grass for him to nibble at. He +was never tied but allowed to roam at his own sweet will. When the +shadows lengthened, he would turn the phaeton around, with his nose +headed for home, and as the sun touched the horizon he would send forth +a warning neigh, gentle at first but if his voice was not hearkened to, +more peremptory and then quite sharp. He would give us about five +minutes and then he would start for home. I tell you there would be +scrambling then to get in the phaeton, as none of us relished the +thought of walking home, getting in late to supper and making the +necessary explanations to the grown-ups. One time Dilsey almost got +left, having loitered behind in a fit of stubbornness. 'I's plum wo' out +wif dis here brute beas' a bossin' er me!' she panted as she clambered +over the wheel and sank on the floor of the phaeton. 'Ef'n he was mine +I'd lay him out.' With that ole Dobbin turned his head around in the +shafts, looked sternly at the girl, and deliberately switched her with +his tail until she cried out for mercy, 'Lawsamussy, Marse Dobbin, I's +jes a foolin',' and then that old horse gave a whinny more like laughing +than anything you ever heard and trotted peacefully home." + +The old man stopped and shook the ashes from his cigar. "Yes, yes, I +loved that old horse as much as I did Mammy, and God knows Mammy was +next to my parents in my affection. Not have souls! Why, I as firmly +believe I am going to meet Dobbin when I cross the river as I am Mammy." + +At that, Dee Tucker got up out of the hammock and went over and hugged +and kissed the old Judge, and Zebedee and Dum both wiped the tears from +their eyes. I felt like it, too, but then tears are not mine to command +as they are the Tuckers'. + +Certainly the Judge had touched us all with his story. I wanted to ask +him more about Dobbin but I was afraid the next thing would be Dobbin's +death, as he must have been old when he was presented to the little boy, +and somehow I felt none of us could bear up over the dear old horse's +death. It must have been more than sixty years since those picnics in +the beech woods, but you felt that in Judge Grayson's mind it was but as +yesterday. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +AN AXE TO GRIND. + + +Harvie and Shorty came in that afternoon with a great basket of crabs +for supper and countenances like boiled lobsters. Sunburn is as much a +part of the seashore as sand and water, and sometimes it is even more in +evidence. You can escape from the sand and water by going indoors and +pulling down the blinds, but your sunburned nose you have to take with +you. + +The boys also brought the mail, a letter for Annie and one for me. My +letter contained the bad news that my dear father could not come to the +beach, after all, as Sally Winn was trying in dead earnest to die, and +could not do it without Dr. Allison. Annie's letter had, I am ashamed to +say, not such very good news, either, as it said that Mr. Pore had +decided to come to Willoughby for a few days. We girls secretly dreaded +this visit. We could not help knowing that Mr. Pore was very stiff and +strait-laced, and we feared the effect he might have on poor little +Annie. Annie was having such a good time and it did seem a pity to +interrupt it. + +"I do wish Zebedee would not be so promiscuous with his invitations," +stormed Dum, who was escorting me as far as the hotel where I was going +to pay a duty call on Cousin Park. "He was certainly not called on to +ask this old dried-up Englishman down here. He could have been polite +without being so effusive. It is going to ruin things for Annie, I just +know." + +"Maybe it won't," I suggested, speaking for moderation that I did not +feel. "Harvie Price says he is a very cultivated, interesting man." + +"Oh, yes, I know the kind! I bet you he says position for job; and +rabble for mob; retires when he goes to bed; and arises when he gets up; +calls girls, maidens; women, females; ladies, gentlewomen; birds, +feathered songsters; and dogs, canines. Ugh! I just know he is going to +be a wet blanket." + +"Well, Dum, your father got on with him and seemed to like him very +much. Maybe we can hit it off with him, too." + +"Oh, that's nothing! Zebedee can get on with human oysters and clams and +make animated pokers unbend. Why, that young father of ours is such a +mixer he could even make ice cream and crabs agree. But that's no sign +that Annie's paternal parent is not going to be a difficult guest. If it +only had been dear Dr. Allison coming instead!" + +I agreed with her there, but I tried to make impulsive, hot-headed Dum +feel that the best thing we could do was to try to see the good in Mr. +Pore for Annie's sake if not for his own. I was dying to tell her of the +interesting things that Annie had divulged to me about her family, but a +confidence is a confidence and must be respected as such. For my part, +it seemed foolish to keep such an item as being kin to the nobility so +strictly a secret. I don't believe that many Virginians would feel that +being granddaughter to a baronet and great-granddaughter to an earl, +something to be hid under a bushel. I fancy that Annie felt her clothes +and general manner of living to be rather incongruous to such +greatness. + +We found Cousin Park ensconsed on the porch in a steamer chair, knitting +an ugly grey shawl with purple scallops, while Mabel Binks, who had +returned from her expedition to Newport News with Wink, danced +attendance on the pompous lady. + +"I bet she's got an axe to grind!" muttered Dum. "What do you fancy +Mabel wants to get out of your cousin?" + +"I can't imagine, but I'll take my hat off to her if she gets it," I +laughed. "Please come on and call with me. I can't face Mabel and Cousin +Park at the same time," I begged Dum, and she good-naturedly complied, +although I know she hated it. + +Cousin Park greeted us with what was meant to be a cordial manner, and +Mabel was almost effusive as she got us chairs and took upon herself to +do the honours of the hotel porch. + +"I rather expected you this morning, Page," said Cousin Park, looking +over her spectacles at me. This habit of my relative of looking over +her spectacles at you would have made a person as mild as a May morning +appear fierce, and its effect on Cousin Park's far from mild countenance +was disconcerting in the extreme; but I did not feel nearly so +uncomfortable with her as I had heretofore. Had I not seen her tap Judge +Grayson with her turkey-tail fan, and listen with a pleasure that seemed +almost human to the old man's recitation of the poem? + +"We slept so late after the dance that there was no time to do anything +this morning, and then Judge Grayson came to luncheon and that kept us +all the early part of the afternoon. I also had a letter to write +today." + +"Ah, a very pleasant, well-mannered man, the Judge," said Cousin Park. +"The legal profession should be proud of such a representative." Dum and +I smothered a giggle at this, as Zebedee had confided to us that our +charming old friend was only judge by courtesy. We said nothing, +however. Far be it from us to lessen his dignity by one jot or tittle. + +"We are to have another guest tomorrow," broke in Dum, in order to +change the subject from Judge Grayson's doubtful legal rights. "Mr. +Pore, Annie's father, is coming to visit us." + +Mrs. Garnett snorted and Mabel's lip curled, but they said nothing to +Dum. However, the minute my friend left us, which she did after a moment +to speak to an acquaintance she spied at the other end of the long +porch, their eloquence was opened up on me. + +"I can't see why Jeffry Tucker should ask such a man to stay in the +house with an Allison. I am told he is nothing but a little country +store-keeper, just the commonest kind of Englishman, lower middle class, +no doubt. It is bad enough to have his daughter, although she is very +pretty and seems well mannered; but such acquaintances that cannot be +continued in later life should be discouraged. I never did approve of +your going to Gresham, but Sue Lee, with the democratic notions that she +has picked up in Washington, insisted that it would be best for you to +make a wide acquaintance. I thought a select home school where there +were accommodations for very few girls would be much more desirable. One +would at least know who the persons were you were meeting and you would +be spared such embarrassing situations as you are now finding yourself +in. I think you had better excuse yourself and come to the hotel and +visit me. I could take you in my room without much inconvenience to +myself." + +"Thank you, Cousin Park! I would not inconvenience you even a little bit +for the world, nor would I leave my friends until my visit with them is +finished. Annie Pore is as much my friend as she is the Tuckers', and I +love her dearly and have found her a perfect lady on all occasions. Mr. +Tucker is acquainted with Mr. Pore and his judgment as to who is a +suitable person to introduce to us is to be relied on implicitly. Mr. +Pore is not a common Englishman at all but a very cultivated, +highly-educated gentleman." How I did long to spring Sir Isaac Pore and +the Earl of Garth on them! There are times when I wish I did not have +such a keen sense of honour. It certainly does restrict your actions and +words at very inconvenient moments. + +"He may be educated but hardly a gentleman," said Cousin Park, dropping +stitches in her indignation. "One would hardly find a gentleman +weighing out lard and drawing kerosene from a barrel for his darkey +customers, and that is what Miss Binks tells me this Pore is accustomed +to do." + +"Ah!" I thought, "I fancied I could see Mabel Binks' fine Italian hand +in this. She has never forgiven Annie since the Seniors gave her a cheer +when she arrived at Gresham, all because the shy little English girl +stood up for herself and downed the dashing Mabel with the retort +courteous." + +"I quite agree with you, Mrs. Garnett, about Gresham's being entirely +too democratic. My mother was shocked when I told her of some of the +ordinary looking, badly dressed girls Miss Peyton had allowed to enter. +It used to be quite select. I am glad I am through. I am dying to come +out this next winter," continued Mabel. "Richmond society is so +charming. I envy these girls who can come out there. I have a cousin who +lives there but she is not one bit sociable and it is not very much fun +to visit her." I was beginning to see Mabel's axe as her grinding was +quite evident. + +"I shall be glad to have you visit me," said Cousin Park. "I have not +chaperoned a girl for some years, but no doubt I could make you have a +very nice time." + +"Oh, how lovely of you!" and Mabel's expression was indeed triumphant as +she picked up Cousin Park's ball of purple yarn and restored it to that +lady's rather precarious lap. I could have told Mabel that it was not +such a sweet boon as she fancied: to visit the grand Garnett mansion. I +thought of Jeremiah, the blue-gummed butler, with his solemn air of +officiating at a funeral; of the oiled walnut furniture with its heavy +uncomfortable carving, sure to hit you in the small of the back if you +sought repose in one of the stiff hair cloth covered chairs, or to find +a tender place on your shins when you passed a bureau or bed. I thought +of the interminable, heavy dinners: roast mutton and starchy vegetables +topped off with plum pudding or something equally rich and filling. I +could fancy the line of family portraits, hung high against the ceiling, +looking their disapproval at the far from dignified Mabel and plainly +showing their wonderment that she should have found her way into their +august presence. + +Those old portraits will little dream how much Mabel had fetched and +carried for that invitation; how many cushions she had arranged and +rearranged behind the plump back of the present owner of the portraits; +how many tiresome moments she had spent holding the skeins of grey and +purple yarn for Mrs. Garnett to wind her fat knitting balls. She had +also gathered bits of pleasing gossip to retail to the willing ear of my +relative. Cousin Park was the type ever ready and delighted to be +scandalized. The day after the sail that we had spent in dough masks, +Mabel had evidently spent in the mask of a lively, agreeable, obliging +girl, doing everything in her power to make herself attractive to her +possible hostess. Success was hers! A long visit in Richmond in her +debutante winter with one of the wealthiest members of society meant a +good deal to that young lady. Mabel's mother belonged to a very good +family but her father's name, Binks, is enough to show that at least he +was not of the F. F. V's. Wink White, who was a cousin of Mrs. Binks, +had confided to me that he rather preferred Mr. Binks to Mrs. + +"The fact that she married old Binks for his money and now is ashamed of +him shows about what kind Cousin Florence is," he had said. + +Having said all I could say in defense of Mr. Pore, and having played so +well into Mabel's hands that, by giving her a chance to agree so readily +and heartily with Cousin Park, her invitation had come much more easily +than she had dared to hope, I felt sure, I now took my departure with +Dum. It should have made no difference to me how many visits Mabel Binks +would pay in Richmond, but it did. I well knew what her game was there: +she was determined to attract Mr. Jeffry Tucker, and had been from the +moment she had seen him at Gresham, when he took Tweedles there to enter +them at school. I well knew that Zebedee gave her not a moment's +thought, but if she pursued him enough he might change his mind about +her. She was certainly handsome and quite bright and entertaining. +Tweedles would not be there to protect their young father and he was but +human, very human, in fact. I felt depressed on the way back to our +cottage, so much so that Dum noticed it and begged me to cheer up. + +"Your cousin is enough to make you blue, but remember that everyone has +some scrubby kin. Just think of poor Annie and what oceans of spirits we +will have to produce to drown her sorrow and depression when her +respected parent arrives!" + +I threw off my gloom the best I could and let Dum go on thinking it was +Cousin Park who had cast the spell over me. I knew quite well that if I +even hinted at Mabel and her machinations, Tweedles would refuse to go +back to Gresham but stay in Richmond all winter to guard their precious +Zebedee. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +MR. ARTHUR PONSONBY PORE. + + +Mr. Pore was much more attractive than we had expected. Things in this +life hardly ever come up to your expectations, either good or bad, which +sounds as though I were still brooding over Mabel's proposed visit to +Cousin Park and the possible enthralling of Zebedee. I remind myself of +the Irishman who had raised a particularly fat pig from which he +expected to realize great wealth. He took it to town on market day to +sell. On the way home he met a neighbour who genially inquired: + +"And how mooch did your pig be after weighing, Paddy?" + +"Not as mooch as I thart it would,--and I thart it wouldn't," added +Paddy pessimistically. + +In the first place, Mr. Pore was handsome. He had a stately dignity and +an aristocratic bearing that all the weighing of lard and drawing of +molasses in the world could not lessen. His forehead was intellectual; +his eyes piercing; his nose aquiline and rather haughty; his mouth a +little petulant with a pathetic droop at the corners; and his chin +(rather indicative of his character, I fancy, and explaining why he was +keeping a country store at Price's Landing instead of taking that place +in the world to which by birth and education he was entitled), his chin +decidedly receded. In doing so, however, it gave you to understand that +it retreated in good order and was unconvinced. I mean that it had that +stubborn look that receding chins sometimes do have. After all, +stubbornness was the key-note of Mr. Pore's character, rather than +weakness. I had gathered that much from what Annie had divulged to me +that night at Gresham when she had opened the box with her dead mother's +dress in it and found the note from her mother, with the twenty-five +dollars pinned in the sleeve. + +He was dressed in what books call decent black. Certainly there was +nothing about him to make anyone doubt he was a perfect gentleman, even +had they been unaware of the fact that only one life stood between him +and a title. He was so excessively English that it was hard to believe +that he had spent the last fifteen years in a little settlement on the +James River, never hearing his native tongue in all that time, perhaps. +Our spoken language was very different from his, although I have heard +it said that Virginians and Kentuckians and Bostonians come nearer to +speaking the real English than any other Americans. We may come nearer +than others but we are still far off from the kind of English that Mr. +Arthur Ponsonby Pore spoke. I thought of Cousin Park and her "lower +middle class" to which she had consigned the gentleman, and wished that +he might just once look at her and Mabel through the gold _pince nez_ +that straddled his aristocratic, aquiline nose! + +Zebedee had gone over to Norfolk to meet his guest, and under his genial +influence I fancy Mr. Pore had somewhat melted; but his demeanor was +still rather icy. He went through the introduction to Miss Cox and all +of us girls as though it had been a court ceremony, and then turning to +Annie, he gave her a little Arthur Ponsonby peck in lieu of a kiss. +Shaking his hand, Dee declared was like grasping an old pump handle when +the sucker is worn out. You take hold thinking you are to meet with some +resistance, but instead, the handle flies up and you find yourself +foolishly shaking it up and down with no chance of getting any returns +for your trouble. The Tuckers were famous hand-shakers, as all their +friends knew, but doubtless Mr. Pore was unprepared for such a vigorous +grasp from young ladies. + +I found nothing to complain of in his manner of greeting me. Not being +such a hearty hand-shaker as Tweedles, I put my hand in his and left him +to do the shaking. This he did not do, but he gave my hand a slight +pressure and gazed earnestly into my eyes. So earnest and burning was +his glance that I felt almost confused, but I thought that no doubt +Annie had told him of her confiding in me about her birth and he felt +some interest because of her affection for me. + +As we took our seats on the porch, Mr. Pore's chair was by mine and +still he gazed at me with his piercing, melancholy eyes. + +"Did I hear your name aright? Was it not Miss Page Allison?" + +"Yes, sir! I am Annie's friend from Gresham. We have been intimate from +the day we entered school." + +"Yes, yes! I know much of you and your courtesy. But tell me, Miss +Allison, are you American?" (His American was so different from ours one +could almost spell it A-m-e-h-r-i-k-e-n.) + +"Yes, Mr. Pore, I am American, but my mother was English." + +"Ah! I thought as much. Her name was Lucy Page, was it not?" + +"Yes," I answered, wondering at his knowledge of my mother's name. + +"Oh, Page! Page! Only think of it!" exclaimed Annie impulsively. "Lucy +Page was my mother's little friend, the one who lent her the slippers to +wear to the Charity Bazaar," and her enthusiasm went unrebuked by her +father. Indeed, he seemed almost as excited as Annie. The poor man had +been a long time away from persons who knew him and whom he knew and he +had the absurd notion that very few "Amehrikens" were his social equal; +now he found that his daughter had made friends with the child of his +wife's old friend. + +"To think of it, to think of it! My word, but it is strange! I knew the +moment I saw you that I had seen either you or your counterpart before. +Tell me, child, all about your mother, and your grandfather, Major Page. +What a fine old soldier he was!" + +And so I sat on the porch by this strange, stiff Englishman, no longer +stiff, but positively limber, Dum declared, and told all I knew of my +poor little mother and the fine old soldier, her father. They had come +to America to look up some investments made by the retired Army officer, +had settled near Warrenton and there had met my father,--and the +marriage had ensued. + +"All I have left of my old English grandfather is his hat-tub, which I +still use when I am at Bracken," I said. + +"My word, how I should like to own one! I have not seen a hat-tub for +twenty years," he sighed. "But tell me, Miss Allison, do you never see +nor hear from your mother's family in England?" + +"I think all correspondence with them died a natural death many years +ago. Father used to write once a year to a great-aunt, Gwendoline was +her name, but she died; after that some of her daughters wrote once or +twice and then stopped. I don't even know whether they are alive and I +fancy they neither know nor care whether I am." + +"I have never seen a more striking likeness than you have to your +mother. She was much younger than my wife when I knew her. We had all +been visiting at the home of the Earl of Garth, my wife's uncle. Little +Lucy Page was really not old enough to be out of the nursery, certainly +should have been in charge of a governess; but Major Page had his own +ideas about such things and took his daughter wherever he went. She was +about sixteen, I fancy." + +"Just your age!" tweedled the Tuckers, who had been listening, with open +mouths and eyes, in speechless silence to Mr. Pore's revelations. When +he spoke of the Earl of Garth as his wife's uncle they looked, as poor +dear Blanche expressed it, "fittin' to bust." And then when in the most +casual manner he let drop that his own father was a baronet, I know it +was a relief to them that the hammock rope broke at the crucial moment +and they were precipitated to the floor with Mary Flannagan who was +between them. + +"If something had not happened and happened pretty quick 'a kersplosion +was eminent,'" whispered Dee to me. "And now I am going to beat it to +the hotel as fast as my legs can carry me and let that hateful Mabel +Binks know that she has been nasty to the nobility. Oh, I am going to be +tactful and not let her know I came for the express purpose. I am going +to ask her to tea and be generally sweet, and then just casually let it +drop that Mr. Pore knew your mother while all of them were visiting at +an earl's, and that said earl was Mrs. Pore's uncle. I'll rub in that it +means that our modest, little English friend, called by Mabel and her +ilk Orphan Annie, is the great-granddaughter of an earl on her mother's +side and the granddaughter of a baronet on her father's." + +All this Dee whispered to me while the hammock was being tied up more +securely by Zebedee. The solemn Englishman was evidently much amused by +the mishap, as he laughed in a manner almost hilarious for one so +dignified and sober. I have always heard an accident like that spoken of +as an English joke, and truly it did seem to strike him as very funny. + +Harvie Price and Shorty made their appearance soon after. Harvie greeted +Mr. Pore with great respect and in a few moments they were conversing +most affably about Harvie's grandfather, General Price, and news of the +settlement. + +Mr. Pore seemed to like the boy and Harvie evidently liked him. Once he +had told me that he admired Mr. Pore greatly as one who could think in +Latin. + +It was easy to see that Mr. Pore was not going to be such a difficult +visitor, after all. He had evidently decided that we were good enough +socially for him, because of my mother's having been at the Earl of +Garth's. He had already admitted Harvie to his exclusive circle since he +had permitted Annie to play with him when they were children. He liked +Zebedee and Zebedee's cigars and Zebedee's children, who cracked such +delicious jokes in falling out of hammocks. Altogether he intended to +have a very pleasant weekend. I fancied he was a little sorry that he +had spoken of his connections, as it was a subject he evidently had not +touched on to strangers, but it had slipped out in his delight in +meeting someone he considered of his world, that world that he had +turned his back on so many years before but the world to which he still +belonged. He had never identified himself with his "Amehriken" +neighbours and had always held himself as an alien among them. + +Annie looked a little startled and very happy. This was a new father to +her, a genial gentleman who actually talked to her friends and admitted +having titled connections in the old country. He had not censured her +once and now he was talking to Harvie with actual affability. + +"Oh, Page," she whispered to me, "how glad I am I accepted your slippers +that night of the musicale at Gresham. You remember I said to you that +my mother had borrowed slippers, too, when she had worn that dress, and +that she did not mind borrowing them because she knew her friend loved +her. To think of that friend's being your mother! Oh, Page, I am so +happy!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE MACHINATIONS OF MABEL. + + +Dee must have laid it on rather thick with Mabel Binks, as anything like +that young woman's change of manner towards Annie could not have been +brought about by a light touch. I am afraid Dee represented Mr. Pore's +brother, the present baronet, as in the last stages of some wasting +disease, and by some juggling of facts in regard to English titles gave +the impression that Annie was in a fair way to become the Duchess of +Marlborough or at least the Honourable Anne. She afterwards told Dum and +me when we accused her of not having drawn it mild, that she had +neglected to tell Mabel the exact connection with the earl, but had +hinted that it was very close and one likely to lead to untold honours +to our little friend. + +"I saw to it that your haughty relative, Mrs. Garnett, was informed of +the coincidence of Annie's mother and your mother being friends and of +their being at the house party of the big bugs together. Mrs. Garnett +was duly impressed and somewhat astonished, intimating that her cousin, +Dr. Allison, had picked up an English wife with no connections to speak +of. She will evidently have a higher opinion of you now that she knows +that your mother and grandfather were on visiting terms with an earl." + +Dee pretended to be in jest about Cousin Park, but it was the truth that +she had always rather looked down on my mother for not being Virginian. +She never lost the chance to inform any stranger when I was introduced +that my name was not the Virginia Pages. With her, F. F. V's were the +first and last and only families worth considering in the Union or out +of it. Of course, English nobility was in a way admirable, since it had +given birth to F. F. V.dom, but the claim of inhabitants of any other +state to aristocracy was brushed aside with scornful disdain. + +I remember a story my father used to tell of an old gentleman who said +he considered it very bad taste to ask any man where he came from. "If +he is a Virginian, he is sure to let you know it without your asking, +and if he is not, there is no use in rubbing it in on the poor fellow by +making him own up to it." + +Mabel's being invited to supper was a question that had been discussed +up and down by the Tuckers, principally down; but they had finally +determined that it was on the whole up to them. Dee had been appointed +inviter as being the tactful member of the team, and Mabel naturally +jumped at the chance, overlooking the fact that she did not consider us +properly chaperoned. + +Her politeness and cordiality to Annie were entirely unlooked for by +that shy maiden, who almost fainted from astonishment; and she actually +gushed over Mr. Pore. He looked at her for a moment through his ultra +gold glasses and then, deciding that she was nothing but a vulgar +"Amehriken," he never seemed to see her again, although he was forced to +hear her very often. She addressed many remarks to him and tried in +every way to make him notice her, but an "Aw, reahly!" was about all she +could get from him. + +"I simply adore the English!" she exclaimed. "They have so much +reserve. Do you know, my grandfather Binks was English, and indeed he +never lost his accent although he lived in this country for a great many +years. I remember so well how he dropped his aitches and put them on in +the most unexpected places." + +"Aw, reahly now!" + +"Aren't you and your sweet daughter going back to England soon? You +don't know how we dote on your little Annie," and so on and so on, until +it was indeed sickening. It was easy to see that Miss Binks was as +anxious to get an invitation to England as she had been to Richmond, +while Mr. Pore was entirely unconscious of what she was driving at. He +looked upon her as some kind of escaped lunatic and Annie sat in +open-eyed wonderment, expecting every moment to be insulted as of yore. + +They did not dream of Dee's having turned the tables on Mabel Binks as +she had done. Mr. Pore was still the country store-keeper and Annie was +the same shy girl with her wardrobe as limited as ever, but the wily Dee +had turned them into dukes and duchesses in Mabel's eyes, and the +snobbish creature was grovelling at the feet of the nobility. I have +never seen two persons have as much fun as Tweedles did that evening. +They were very quiet but spent the time "sicking Mabel on," as Dee +expressed it. + +I was pleased to see that Annie did not unbend in the least to her +one-time persecutor. In spite of Annie's shyness she had a dignity that +was most admirable; and while she was perfectly polite to Mabel, she +permitted no advances. Getting invitations to England to visit in grand +country houses that still belong to older brothers was certainly up-hill +work. Winding purple and grey yarn for Mrs. Garnett and fetching and +carrying for her, even agreeing with her at every point, was child's +play to this thing of flattering a middle-aged Englishman who seemed to +have no conversation at his command but "Aw, reahly!" or "My word!" and +trying to undo the work of the last year and make a little English girl +forget all the rudeness she had suffered at the hands of her persistent +tormentor. + +I kept wondering how about the lard and molasses that the middle-aged +Englishman would perhaps spend the rest of his life weighing out and +drawing from the barrel for his negro customers as well as white; also +if Mrs. Binks would still think Gresham too democratic in the class of +pupils it enrolled. I so naturally hate a snob that I did not have a +pleasant evening at all, and I could not quite see the fun in it that +Tweedles did. + +I was glad when it was over and we could stretch out on our cots with +the pure sea air blowing on us, and, lulled by the soothing sound of the +waves lapping the shore, sleep the sleep of the just. We could be +thankful, at least, that Mabel Binks was, after all, none of us and when +we left Willoughby Beach we might never have to see her again. + +As we lay side by side, all of us so quiet that one would have thought +sleep held us fast, there was a sudden upheaval from Mary's cot and a +sound that might have been sobbing. + +"Mary! Mary! What is it?" we demanded. "Are you ill?" And then the +possible sobs turned into unmistakable giggles. + +"Oh! Oh! Oh! I can't get to sleep for thinking of Mr. Pore's +countenance when Mabel told him of her Binks grandfather who dropped his +aitches." Then we all went off into shrieks of laughter that very little +would have turned into hysterics, if Zebedee had not knocked sternly on +our dressing-room door and bade us remember that we had other guests. Of +course he meant we must not do anything to make Mr. Pore think we were +not perfect ladies, so we subsided with only an occasional upheaval and +a smothered snicker. + +And while we lay there I thought of a title for a short story and almost +got a plot worked out; but I went to sleep before it was quite clear. +The title was: "The Machinations of Mabel." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +THE WEDDING. + + +July was almost over and it seemed but yesterday since we had come to +the Beach and taken possession of Mrs. Rand's cottage and made +preparations for the continuous house-party. So many pleasures and +excitements had been crowded into that month that really might have been +spread over six months and still not have been stupid! It seems a pity +that pleasant happenings make time pass quickly and sad and boresome +things make it drag. How much better if it could only be the other way. +I know Miss Cox felt that the month had gone very quickly and would have +been glad of a few more weeks to give to preparations for matrimony, but +Mr. Robert Gordon had got the bit between his teeth and there was no +holding him in. + +"Haven't I been waiting for years and years? Isn't my hair white with +waiting?" he would say, shaking his exceedingly becoming, iron-grey +locks. + +We girls privately thought that he might have spunked up a little sooner +instead of spending all those weary years in growing grey, no matter how +becoming it had proven to be; but Zebedee told me he rather felt that +Miss Cox and Mr. Gordon were more suited to each other than they had +been in their youth. The years of separation had taught them a lesson +they might never have learned together: how to control their tempers and +bridle their tongues. + +I have never seen a couple who seemed to be in greater accord and +harmony. It was a harmony of the soul and one that would last through +eternity, not just a superficial agreement caused by the "glamor of the +amour." Perhaps Zebedee was right and their happiness was more certain +now that suffering and experience had instilled in their hearts the +wisdom of moderation and self-control. + +It was to be a very quiet wedding at old St. Paul's in Norfolk, but we +girls were in a state of excitement that made Miss Cox appear calm in +contrast. The boys from the camp were invited and a half dozen of Mr. +Gordon's most intimate friends. + +Miss Cox was singularly alone in the world except for some very dear +friends who were not getatable. Mr. Gordon's mother was dead and his +sister married and living in California, so we were, after all, the +nearest thing to a family they could scrape up. The groom wanted Zebedee +for his best man but Miss Cox had to have him to give her away and a +next best man must needs be chosen. + +Blanche, of course, had to be included in the wedding party, and it was +with a great deal of finesse that we persuaded her not to wear the +fearful and wonderful costume she had arrived in. Zebedee solved the +problem of how to do it by presenting her with a very large new black +mohair skirt and a plain, tailored linen shirt waist and a black sailor +hat. + +"If poor, dear Blanche has a hankering for her gorgeous finery, tell her +that she must wear this sober costume to please me. I know she would not +hurt my feelings for anything. Also tell her that it would be perfectly +_au fait_ for her to go to this gay function after the recent +bereavement in her family, the untimely death of the brother's baby, +provided she is suitably attired. There is a new white apron, too," said +Zebedee, handing the box to Dum. + +"For goodness' sake, don't ask me to do it!" exclaimed Dum. "Dee is the +diplomat and is fully capable of soft-soaping Blanche into thinking that +her striped skirt and purple waist are too fine to wear to a mere +wedding but must be saved for funerals. I'd do it all wrong and make a +mess of it." So Dee consented to be the fashion dictator to the cook if +I would go with her and uphold her in her arguments. + +"Well, now the generositiness of my employerer is well nigh +asphyxiating!" cried the girl. "I have always heard a simplifaction of +costumery was the quintillion of excellency. But would it not be more +respectful like to Miss Cox if we female maidens adorned of ourselves in +more gorgeous affectations?" + +"Oh, no! Not at all!" declared Dee quickly. "You see--you see--Miss Cox +is going to wear a very simple gown herself--just a traveling +dress--and it would not be fair for any of us to dress too finely +and--and--attract attention to ourselves when all eyes should be drawn +to the bride." + +This was a knock-down argument and with a sigh Blanche put away her +finery. Donning the plain and appropriate clothes Zebedee had purchased, +she made herself ready for what she designated as "the wedding corsage." + +I had been to very few weddings, as I believe I have said before. Our +part of the country was like the Hereafter in that the inhabitants +neither married nor gave in marriage, being composed chiefly of +bachelors and old maids, with a sprinkling of widowers and widows who +seemed to have found once enough. This wedding was even more exciting to +me than my first hop. All of us were nervous except Miss Cox, who was +singularly composed. Blanche forgot to put any salt in the batter bread +that morning, and Dum came down to breakfast in odd stockings, one black +and one tan. As for Zebedee, anyone would think it was his own wedding, +he was so upset. + +"I don't see why they don't have undertakers for weddings as well as +funerals," he exclaimed. "Someone to take all the responsibility and not +leave the matter to amateurs! Here I am scared to death for fear the +sexton won't remember to open the church in time; that the preacher +won't come; that I might lose the ring--by Jove! I have lost it! I told +Bob to keep it himself!" and he slapped his pockets frantically and +began to turn them inside out. Of course it was in the particular place +it should have been, safe in his pocket book; but I know I saw him at +least a dozen times go through exactly the same search during the +morning, his eyes big with fright and his hands trembling. + +I don't know what there is about a wedding to make the masculine gender +so panic-stricken, but I am told that there never was a man living who +could go through a ceremony (whether it be his own or another's) without +showing the white feather. Maybe Brigham Young and Solomon got so used +to it they could at least assume composure, but I have my doubts about +even those much-married gentlemen. + +The trolley was not considered good enough by Mr. Gordon and Zebedee for +the wedding party, so we were conveyed to Norfolk in automobiles; and in +spite of our host's lugubrious prognostications that we were going to be +very late and the preacher would be gone, we arrived many minutes before +we were due. + +There were a few persons in the church attracted by curiosity and the +rumour of a wedding, and Mr. Gordon was waiting for us with his next +best man, who had just arrived from South Carolina. + +"Gee whiz, I'm glad to see that man!" breathed Zebedee, looking as +though a great weight had fallen from him. "Now he can take charge of +this confounded ring. This is not in my jurisdiction, anyhow. Whoever +heard of the father of the bride having to take care of the ring?" Then +he began his usual search for the offending little circlet of gold, +crying nervously: "I've lost it! I've lost it this time for sure!" But I +reminded him of the pocket book and with a relieved sigh he handed the +ring over to the next best man, who assumed the expression of Hercules +when Atlas got him to hold the world for a while. + +As the bells rang out high noon, we seated ourselves sedately in the +front pews. The minister took his stand in the pulpit and the organ +pealed forth the wedding march. A little stir in the back and an almost +inaudible titter from the strangers who were scattered about the church, +caused us to turn to see what was going on, and who should be marching +up the aisle, the observed of all observers, but poor, dear Blanche, +heading the "wedding corsage"! Only a few yards behind her was Miss Cox +on the arm of Zebedee. It was awfully funny, but we were too taken up +with the serious matter in hand to know how funny it was until +afterwards. "Thank goodness, she hasn't got on her 'costumery'!" +whispered Dee. + +Mr. Gordon was standing at the altar waiting for his bride, and the best +man produced the ring at the proper time without much fumbling. Zebedee +gave the bride away with an air of great generosity and then wept +shamelessly as was his habit. Miss Cox kept her composure even until +she was Mrs. Robert Gordon. The groom shook like an aspen leaf but +managed to make his responses in a loud, determined voice. + +Over at last, the knot safely tied and Miss Jane Cox no more! By a word +from the minister she had been miraculously turned into Mrs. Gordon. She +looked very happy as she came down the aisle on the arm of her beaming +husband, who had stopped trembling and had begun to prance, at least +that is what Dee declared he was doing. Zebedee had stopped weeping and +was now in a broad grin, and the next best man was evidently overjoyed +to have shifted the burden of the ring to the rightful owner. + +How pretty the table was in the private room at the Montecello Hotel +where Zebedee gave the wedding breakfast! We all suddenly discovered we +had eaten next to no breakfast, and now did our best to make up for lost +time. There never were such brisk and attentive and omnipresent waiters +anywhere before, I am sure. In addition, now and then we could see the +delighted countenance of Blanche, peeping in from an adjoining room +where she had assumed the office of ladies' maid to help us off with +our imaginary wraps. She felt that at last she was moving in high +society and I think bitterly regretted the tabooed finery, especially +when she saw the gleaming shirt fronts and Tuxedos of the waiters. + +The breakfast was perfect. Had not Tweedles and I spent days going over +the menu to be sure we forgot nothing and had everything we should and +nothing we shouldn't? Dum came very near spoiling the whole effect +because she insisted upon having cakes and molasses. + +"You know Zebedee and I like them better than anything and always order +them when we eat at hotels. I can't see that it would not be perfectly +appropriate. The Montecello hotel would not have them on its menu if it +wasn't elegant," she declared as we pored over the printed bill of fare +that Zebedee had brought to Willoughby several days before the wedding. + +"But, Dum," we explained, "this is not a real breakfast, just a wedding +breakfast. It is to be luncheon instead of breakfast." + +"All right then, let's have pan-cakes instead of plain cakes! They have +those on the luncheon menu." + +It took much persuading and arguing to convince Dum that even pan-cakes +would not do at a wedding breakfast. I thought once she and Dee would +have to resort to trial by combat, a measure they had not had to employ +for a long time. They still practiced with the boxing gloves but had not +put them on to settle disputes for many a month. They finally appealed +to Zebedee, who confessed himself to be no Ladies' Home Advisor as to +the proper food to be eaten on such occasions, but said: + +"What does Page think?" + +"Well, I think that there is nothing in the world better than plain +cakes and molasses except maybe pan-cakes and syrup, but somehow it does +not seem to me to be very romantic eating for a wedding breakfast." + +"The ultimatum is delivered," laughed Zebedee. "If you must have +pan-cakes, Dum, for a wedding breakfast you will have to wait until you +get a bridegroom of your own,--and I hope that will be many a day, +honey." + +"All right, if you are all against me," sighed Dum, "I'll give in; but I +can't see that broiled chicken and English peas are any more romantic +than cakes and molasses,--not as much so, in fact. What could be more +romantic than a nice passionate hot cake all smothered in sweet, sticky, +loving molasses?" + +What we did agree to have was canteloupe, then filet de sole with Parker +House rolls, then broiled chicken and peas with pop-overs, a fruit salad +with mayonnaise, and last but not least, a great cake with all of the +things baked in it that are usual to wedding cakes, and wonderful ice +cream in molds appropriate for the occasion. + +If anyone felt like kicking, his or her feelings were carefully +concealed. Even the bride and groom ate, and as for the boys from the +camp,--you would suppose they had been living on hard tack from the way +they devoured that wedding breakfast. + +Just before the cake was to be cut, the head waiter himself came in, a +broad grin on his good-natured countenance and in his hands a great tray +laden with orders of hot pan-cakes, a surprise and joke of Zebedee's. +It wasn't such a joke, after all, as every last one of those steaming +cakes disappeared as if by magic. One would have thought that the guests +had had enough, more than enough, in fact, but as Sleepy said, no doubt +voicing the sentiment of the crowd: + +"When there is no room in me for pan-cakes, then you fellows had better +get ready for a funeral. It would be a sure indication of the last +stages of a wasting disease." + +"Consumption!" suggested Wink. "Consumption of food!" + +Zebedee told me he had ordered the cakes because he hated to see Dum +disappointed; and then, too, he had a terrible fear that she might get +married some time just so she could have pan-cakes at a wedding +breakfast. + +"I want to keep my girls with me as long as I can, and certainly don't +want one of them to marry for the sake of a hot cake. Dum is fully +capable of going any lengths to carry her point. Did you see how she +squared her chin when you and Dee talked her down?" I hadn't seen it, +but I knew full well that when Dum did square her chin she meant +business. + +Pan-cakes and all were finally cleared away and the cake was cut, with +many jests and much laughter. Dee got the ring, Annie the piece of money +and Wink the thimble, thereby causing many a merry bit of banter from +his friends. He came very near swallowing it, not expecting to find +anything in his slice of cake as usually, by some miraculous juggling, +the females get the things in the wedding cake. + +I had not seen Wink since the night of the hop. He had absented himself +from Willoughby, visiting various friends in Suffolk and on the Eastern +Shore, and only getting back to the camp in time for the wedding. His +absence had been somewhat of a relief to me. I did not know just how he +would behave nor was I certain what my attitude should be. I felt that I +must treat him as though nothing had happened; but if he was going to +show hurt feelings or be silly, I knew I would get embarrassed and +stiff. + +I had not had a good look at him until we were seated at the table. +Then, to my dismay, he was placed next to me. I knew it was up to me to +be pleasant, so I waltzed in to be agreeable but not too charming. If +only I could make Wink feel as I did! He looked different, somehow, but +for a moment I could not account for it; and then it suddenly came over +me that Wink was growing a moustache! + +I felt like crawling under the table but instead I turned to the +gentleman seated on my other side, no other than the next best man, and +I am sure that Mabel Binks herself could not have got off a greater fire +of small talk than I managed to pour forth. When I told Wink that he +would have to grow a moustache before I could be sure of the state of my +feelings towards him, I was not in real earnest and he might have known +it! I was quite sure at that wedding breakfast what my feelings were: +decided resentment. Why could he not realize that I was nothing but a +little girl who occasionally played lady? + +At any rate I was not going to let a little old moustache composed of a +few struggling hairs spoil either my pleasure or my appetite. The next +best man proved to be most agreeable and very easy to talk to, and the +breakfast was good enough to occupy one without conversation had it been +necessary to give your attention only to the matter in hand. + +Wink looked rather ruefully at the thimble. + +"You'll be darning your own socks 'til Kingdom Come," laughed Sleepy, +glad that the joke for once was not on him. Wink sadly acquiesced, and +then Zebedee kindly added: + +"Maybe that means the kind of thimble Wendy gave Peter Pan, Wink. You +remember in that delightful fantasy a thimble was a kiss." + +"Well, anyhow, one can't wear a thimble and a mitten at the same time," +muttered Wink so that no one heard him but me; and to my dying day I +shall hate myself for the way I blushed. It was one of those blushes +that hurt. I had a feeling that even my eyes were red. I had just taken +the first mouthful of a wonderful molded ice: a pair of white +turtle-doves billing and cooing, perched in the heart of a great +raspberry sherbet rose. I choked (it must have been on the billing and +cooing) and the next best man had to beat me in the back until I could +get my breath. I was thankful for the choke and hoped no one had +noticed that my crimson countenance had preceded the accident. + +And now the toasts were in order. Everyone had to say something no +matter how bromidic. "Long life and happiness!" "May your shadows never +grow less!" And Dum blurted out: "May you have many more wedding +breakfasts!" which caused a perfect storm of applause, as it sounded +very much as though she meant marriages for the newly wedded couple. +Mary Flannagan got off an impromptu limerick that amused us Gresham +girls very much, because we were well aware of the fact that Miss Cox +was very unconventional in her ideas and always irritated by narrowness +in religion or anything else: + + "There was a young lady named Coxy, + Who wished to be married by proxy. + When asked why this wuz, + She said: 'Oh, becuz + I never could stand orthodoxy.'" + +Then Wink, who was very clever at everything but growing moustaches, +came back very quickly with: + + "The groom then he swore and he cust; + 'I hate to begin saying "must," + But I know my dear Jane + Will surely be sane + And be married in church, or I'll bust.'" + +There had been some discussion about where they were to be married, Miss +Cox rather leaning towards going to some friends in Albemarle, but we +had joined Mr. Gordon in talking her out of it. + +Zebedee made a wonderful toast master, encouraging the bashful members +of the party with so much tact and kindliness that even the timid Annie +actually got upon her feet and made a very graceful little speech before +she seemed to be aware of the fact that she was really doing it. + +Then Sleepy, feeling that if Annie did, he must, too, raised his bulky +form, and very much in the tone of a schoolboy saying his piece, almost +choking with embarrassment, managed to get out the following: + + "May joy and happiness be your lot, + As down the path of life you trot." + +We expressed ourselves in various ways, but we were all sincere in +wishing well for the Gordons. I, for one, regretted exceedingly that +the one person who had ever made me comprehend mathematics was no longer +to teach me. I dreaded the coming year, certain that I would have a +terrible time with that bug-bear of a subject. + +Zebedee's speech was: "There are many kinds of toasts I have always +known, dry toast, milk toast, French toast and buttered toast, and these +may be hot or cold,--but bless me if we haven't more variety of toasts +at this nuptial banquet than were ever dreamed of in my philosophy. One +thing I can assert: No one has offered a dry toast nor proffered a cold +one. Each has been buttered and piping hot, and the best thing I can +wish my two dear friends is that their toast may always be buttered and +piping hot!" And he added feelingly: "May you always eat it together!" + +Then Mr. Gordon made a very graceful little concession: he actually +quoted "Alice in the Looking Glass," substituting Jinny for Alice. This +was pretty nice of him, considering that their early and lasting +disagreement had been all because of Lewis Carroll's nonsense verses. + + "'Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can, + And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran; + Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea-- + And welcome Queen Jinny with thirty-times-three. + + "'Then fill up your glasses with treacle and ink, + Or anything else that is pleasant to drink; + Mix sand with the cider and wool with the wine-- + And welcome Queen Jinny with ninety-times-nine!'" + +Then Miss Cox arose to answer the toast, and one would have supposed it +was some great sonnet in her honour that her new husband had composed, +so graciously did she accept the tribute paid her. + + "'O Looking Glass creatures,' quoth Jinny, 'draw near! + 'Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear; + 'Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea + Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!'" + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE AFTER-MATH. + + +They took a steamer to New York, that Mecca of the newly-wed, and we all +adjourned to the pier to wish them God-speed. As the vessel pulled out, +Rags produced from his pocket the self-same old tennis shoes that we had +found the morning we took possession of Mrs. Rand's cottage, and threw +them after the departing couple. They looked very comical as they +floated along for a moment like veritable gun-boats and then filled and +sank. + +"_Requiescat in Pace!_" muttered Wink. "At least you can't forget them +again." + +The boys were breaking camp next day, and the day after we were to get +ready to turn over the cottage to Mrs. Rand's next tenants. Zebedee +bitterly regretted that he had not taken the place for two months, but +it was too late now. Besides, his holiday was over and we all well knew +that Willoughby would not be quite the same thing with our kind host not +there, the boys no longer in their camp, and good Miss Cox married and +gone. + +Zebedee had to go back to Richmond that night, ready for harness the +next morning. + +"My, but I dread it!" he exclaimed as he took us over to the trolley to +start us back to Willoughby Beach. "I almost wish I had never had a +holiday, it is so hard to go back to work. What are stupid old +newspapers for, anyhow? Who wants to read them?" This made us smile, as +Zebedee is like a raging lion until he gets the morning paper, and then +goes through the same rampageous humour later in the day until the +afternoon paper appears to assuage his agony. "We journalists get no +thanks, anyhow. I agree with the Frenchman who says that a journalist's +efforts are no more appreciated than a cook's; no one remembers what he +had for yesterday's dinner or what was in yesterday's newspaper." + +Blanche listened to Mr. Tucker's words with rapt attention. She always +stood at a respectful distance but within easy ear-shot of the +conversation, which she eagerly drank in and then commented on later to +Tweedles and me. But this too nearly touched her heart for her to wait +until we were alone to make her original and characteristic comments. + +"Oh, Mr. Tucker, it is so considerable of you to find a symbolarity +between the chosen professions of master and handymaiden! Sense I have +been conductoring of the curlinary apartment of your enstablishment, I +have so often felt the infutility of my labours. What I do is enjoyed +only for the momentariness of its consumption, and is never more thought +of unless it is to say too rich or something; and then, if it disagrees, +poor Blanche is remembered again, and then not to say agree'bly. +Sometimes whin I have been placin' clean papers on the kitchen shelves, +the same sentimentality has occurred to me that you so apely quotetioned +a moment ago, Mr. Tucker; namely, in relation to journalists and cooks. +I see all that pretty printin' going to was'e jes as a restin' place for +pots 'n pans, and then in the garbage pail I see the cold waffles that +was once as fresh and hot as the next, one no more considered than the +other, and I could weep for both of us. Our electrocution teacher used +to say a piece about 'Impervious Caesar, dead and turned to clay doth +stop the crack to keep the wind away.'" + +We stood aghast during this speech. Dum looked as though she would +welcome Death, the Deliverer, with joy, anything to relieve the strain +she was on to keep from exploding with laughter; but Zebedee did not +seem to think it was funny at all. He listened with the greatest +courtesy and when she had finished with her quotation (which we +afterwards agreed was singularly appropriate, since Caesar had been made +"impervious" enough to keep out water as well as wind), he answered her +very kindly: + +"I thank you, Blanche, for understanding me so well. I can tell you that +I, for one, will always remember your waffles; and had I known at the +time that there was any more batter, there would not have been any cold +ones to find their last ignominious resting place in the garbage pail." + +"I also have saved some of your writings, Mr. Tucker,--an editorial that +Miss Dum said you had written before you came for your holiday,--and I +will put it in my mem'ry book as an epitaph of you." + +Then Dum did explode. She made out that she was sneezing and even +insisted upon purchasing a menthol inhaler before she went back to +Willoughby, declaring she felt a head cold coming on. + +The Beach seemed stale, flat and unprofitable somehow when we got back. +We missed Miss Cox and above all we missed Zebedee. + +"I'm glad we couldn't get the cottage for another month," yawned Dum. +"Old Zebedeelums couldn't be here more than once or twice in that time +and it would surely be stupid without him;" and all of us agreed with +her in our hearts. + +The cottage was in a terrible state of disorder. We had been too excited +in the morning to do our chores. Beds were unmade, the living-room messy +and untidy with sweaters on chairs, crumbs on the table and floor and +shades some up, and some down, and some crooked (nothing to my mind +gives a room a more forlorn look than window shades at sixes and +sevens); the kitchen, usually in the pink of perfection, just as +Blanche had left it after cooking what she had termed, a somewhat +"forgetable" breakfast. + +"Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow," said Dee. "Let's +leave this mess and take a dip before supper. We will have fifteen +minutes at least before Blanche can get the funeral baked meats on the +table." + +We were to have a very simple repast and we told Blanche just to put it +on the table and we would wait on ourselves. The girl was as tired as we +were and we felt we must spare her. We determined to get the cottage in +perfect order the next day and just to "live keerless" for that evening +and night, as Blanche expressed it. + +Five hats and five pairs of gloves, dropped where the owners happened to +fancy, did not help to make the living-room look any more orderly. Dum +took off her white kid pumps, that had been pinching a little all day, +and left them in the middle of the floor. The morning paper, despised of +Zebedee but eagerly devoured nevertheless, was scattered all over the +divan and floor, and a bag of bananas Blanche had been intrusted with +was in a state of dishabille on the crummy table. It was surely a place +to flee from and flee we did. + +Such a swim as we had! It seemed the best of the whole month. The water +was perfect, just a little cooler than the air, and the setting sun +turned it to liquid gold. + +"Why, look at Annie! She is swimming, really swimming!" called out Mary +Flannagan. And sure enough there was Annie staying on top of the water +and calmly paddling around like a beautiful white swan. + +"Of course I can swim in golden water! Who couldn't? I do wish Mr. +Tucker could see me. Isn't it too bad after all his patience with me +that I wait until he is gone to show what I can do? Somehow this seems +like a dream, and the water is fairy water." + +"Let's all catch hold of hands and lie on our backs and float," I +suggested. + +"If you won't leave me when the tide comes, to turn over and swim in," +pleaded Annie. + +"I will stay with you until your shoulders grate against the shore," +promised Mary. + +And so we lay all in a row on top of the water, faces upturned to the +wonderful evening sky, our bodies as light as air and our hearts even +lighter. + +"Gee, Dee! I am glad you suggested this!" sighed Dum. "I never felt more +peaceful in my life than I do this minute, and I know I never felt more +forlorn than I did when we first got back to the cottage." + +"Me too! Me too!" we chorused. + +"Let's float to Spain and never come back," suggested Annie. + +"And this from a little lady who has been afraid to get her toes wet all +month! Well, I'm game if the rest of you are," and Mary gave a few +vigorous kicks that sent the line some distance from shore; and still +Annie with her white-swan expression floated peacefully on. We lay there +chatting and dreaming, washing off "the cares that infest the day," +planning the future and gazing into the clear obscure of the darkening +sky. + + "'Star light, star bright, first star I've seen tonight! + I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight,'" + +sang Dum, and sure enough there was a star. + +"Look here, girls, it's getting late! I hate to awaken you from this +dream of eternal bliss, but we've got to go in," and Dee turned over on +her face to swim in, thereby causing some commotion in the hearts of the +two swimmers newly initiated in the art. + +"Don't leave me!" gasped Annie. + +"Didn't your faithful Mary swear to take you safe to shore? Just lie +still and I'll tow you in;" and in they came, Mary steaming away like a +tug boat and Annie floating like an ocean liner, until her shoulders +grated on the sand and then and only then was she convinced that she +could touch bottom. + +We raced back to the cottage, hungry and happy, the fifteen minutes that +we had meant to stay having turned into an hour in the twinkling of an +eye. From afar we espied Blanche on the porch, shooing us back with one +hand and beckoning with the other. We obeyed the beckoning one and +eagerly demanded what was the matter. Her face was so pale that the name +of Blanche was almost appropriate. + +"What is it, Blanche? What has happened?" we cried. + +But she was speechless except for gasping: "Oh, the disgrace, the +disgrace!" + +We followed her trembling form into the living room, wet suits and all, +feeling that the exigency of the case was sufficient cause for +suspension of rules and for once we would bring dripping bathing suits +into the house. The cause of Blanche's perturbation of mind was easily +understood when we beheld the portly figure of Cousin Park Garnett +stiffly seated in a dusty chair (on Dum's Panama hat it was discovered +later). She was indignantly waving her turkey-tail fan, and such an +expression of disgust I have never seen on a human countenance. + +The room looked no better than when we had left it and even a little +worse, as the pickup supper we were to have had been dumped on the table +in great confusion and not at all in Blanche's usual careful style. We +had told her not to set the table and she had taken us at our word. The +odour of sardines left in the opened boxes mingled with that of the +bananas, still in the bursting bag. The bread was cut in thick, uneven +slices. A glass jar of pickle and one of olives added to the sketchiness +of the table. It was "confusion worse confounded." + +"Oh!" I gasped, on viewing my indignant relative, "I thought you had +gone!" + +"No, I have not yet departed," stiffly from Cousin Park. "This is rather +an unusual time for bathing, is it not?" + +"Yes'm, but----" and I began to stammer out something, fully aware of +the dismal figure I cut, standing limply in front of that august +presence, my wet clothes sending forth streams of water that settled in +little puddles on the floor. I was well aware of the fact that Cousin +Park had never approved of my friendship with the Tuckers, and now, +coming on us in this far from commendable state, she would have what she +would consider a handle for her hitherto unfounded objections. + +But Dee, who by some power that she possessed in common with her father, +the power by a certain tact to become master of any situation, no matter +how embarrassing, came forward and with all the manners of one much +older and clothed in suitable garments, so that you lost sight of her +scant and dripping bathing suit, she said: + +"We are very glad to see you, Mrs. Garnett, and are extremely sorry to +have missed any of your visit. You have found us in some disarray from +the fact that we are preparing to move and at the same time have just +been engaged in having a wedding in the family." + +"A wedding! Whose wedding?" The wily Dee had taken her mind off of the +disorder in the room and now she felt she could soon win her over to +complacency at least. The wetting paled to insignificance beside the +wedding. + +"Why, our dear friend and chaperone, Miss Cox." + +"Your chaperone! Goodness gracious, child! Did she marry your father?" + +"Heavens, no!" laughed Dee. "Mr. Bob Gordon is the happy man!" + +"Miss Binks did not tell me a word of it," said Mrs. Garnett rather +suspiciously. + +"No, she did not know about it." "Not know about it? That is strange! +Was there any reason for keeping it secret?" + +"No especial reason for keeping it secret except that it was to be a +very quiet affair and the invited guests included only the most intimate +friends. Mabel Binks has a way of getting herself invited by hook or +crook, and we just decided not to tell her about the matter." + +"How long were they engaged? It seems strange behaviour in a chaperone." + +"I tell you what you do, Mrs. Garnett. If you won't mind the informality +of a picnic supper, you stay and have supper with us. We will run up and +get dressed and be down in a moment and then we will tell you the whole +thing, how they got engaged and all about it." And so anxious was my +cousin for a bit of news to retail to the ladies on the hotel porch that +she actually stayed. + +When we got down stairs after very hasty toilets, we found the +good-natured Blanche had brought some order out of the chaos of the +supper table and with an instinct truly remarkable had made a pot of +delicious, fragrant coffee. Coffee, I had often heard Cousin Park +declare to be her one weakness. Now you may be sure that what Cousin +Park, with her smug self-satisfaction, considered a weakness in herself +would really have been a passion in anyone else. + +As Dee, who was doing the honours at the head of the table, it being her +week as housekeeper, poured the coffee and our still far from mollified +guest saw the beautiful golden brown hue that it assumed the minute it +mingled with the cream, her expression softened and she looked very much +as she had when Judge Grayson recited, "My Grandmother's Turkey-tail +Fan." The colour of coffee when it is poured on cream is a never failing +test of its quality, and the colour of Blanche's coffee was beyond +compare. + +The food was very good if not very elegantly served, and I really +believe Mrs. Garnett enjoyed herself as much as she was capable of +doing. When anyone's spinal column has solidified she can't have much +fun, and I truly believe that was the case with hers. + +What she enjoyed as much as the coffee and even more, perhaps, was the +delightful news she was gathering in every detail to take back to the +old hens roosting on the hotel porch. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon had made no +secret of their affairs, even their former engagement and cause of the +break being known now to some twenty persons; so we felt that it would +be all right if we told the whole thing to our eager listener. + +She agreed with the young lover that the Lobster Quadrille (of which she +had never heard before) was nonsense pure and simple. Dum had to recite +it twice and finally we all got up and danced it and sang it for her. +Then she did acknowledge that it might appeal to some persons, but that +a girl with as irregular features as the former Miss Cox had been very +foolish to let such twaddle as that stand in the way of matrimony, and +she was surely exceedingly fortunate, when Time had certainly done +nothing to straighten her face, to be able to catch a husband after all. + +We well knew that while Time had not had a beautifying effect on our +beloved Miss Cox's countenance, it had made more lovely her character +and soul, and that was after all what Mr. Gordon loved more than +anything else. We kept our knowledge to ourselves, however, as Cousin +Park was not the kind of person to talk metaphysics to. + +She finally departed, much to our relief, as we were one and all ready +for bed. We escorted her to the hotel and before we were out of earshot +we could hear her cackling the news to the other old hens very much as a +real barnyard fowl will do when she scratches up some delectable morsel +too large to swallow at one gulp. She immediately bruits it abroad, +attracting all the chickens on the farm, and then such another noise, +pecking, grabbing and clucking ensues, until the choice bit is torn to +shreds. + +We were very tired but not too tired to applaud Mary Flannagan, who +imitated Cousin Park to the life as she recounted the tale to her +cronies. Then Mary followed the gossipy monologue with her favourite +stunt of barnyard noises, finally ending up with Cousin Park's parting +speech anent the Lobster Quadrille and Miss Cox's imprudence in not +taking a husband when she had a chance, even if their taste in the +classics did not coincide. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +SETTLING UP. + + +The next day, our last at the Beach, such scrubbing, sweeping and +dusting went on as was never seen before I am sure. We were determined +that Mrs. Rand should not say that girls at best were "goatish." Blanche +insisted that she could do all the cleaning herself, but we thought it +but fair to turn in and help. + +"How could people in one short month collect so much mess?" demanded +Dum, as she turned bureau drawers out on the beds and did what she +called "picking rags." "Do you s'pose on a desert island we would find +ourselves littered up with a lot of doo-dads?" + +"Well, Robinson Crusoe collected Friday, besides several other days of +the week that I can't remember," answered Dee, "and it seems to me he +got a dog and a cat and a parrot, and he certainly 'made him a coat of +an old Nannie goat.' He had no luggage at all on his arrival and had +much to cart away. And look at Swiss Family Robinson! There was nothing +they did not collect in the way of belongings on their desert island, +even a wife for one of the boys." + +"Do you know, I used to think Swiss Family Robinson was the best book +that had ever been written," said I, emerging from the closet with an +arm full of shoes. + +"Well, I don't know but that it is still," declared Dum. "Wouldn't it be +just grand to be cast on a desert island? Of course I mean if Zebedee +could be cast along, too." + +"Of course we wouldn't be cast without him," said Dee, "Heaven would be +more like the other place if Zebedee wasn't there. Goodness, I wish he +didn't have to work and we could all stay together all the time!" + +"When I grow up a little more and learn how, I am going to sculp such a +wonderful statue that Zebedee can stop working." Dum forgot all about +the rags she was picking and with the dreamy expression we knew so well, +began to ball up a perfectly clean shirt waist as though it were clay +and with her sculptor's thumb shape it into I don't know what image of +surpassing beauty. + +She was rudely awakened from her dream by Dee, who snatched the +imaginary clay from her twin, exclaiming: + +"Since that happens to be my shirt waist, the one I am going to travel +back to Richmond in, I'll thank you to get-rich-quick on one of your own +... or this dirty middy blouse might prove a good medium," and she +tossed a very soiled article over Dum's head. It happened to be a middy +that she had gone crabbing in, so it was not overly pleasant. Anything +was enough to start Tweedles in a romp, and in a minute the air was +black with shoes and white with pillows, and what work we had +accomplished was in a fair way to be done over. + +Annie and I took to the farthest cot for safety and Mary perched upon +the railing and egged the warriors to fiercer battle by giving her +inimitable dog fight with variations. As is often the case, the +non-combatants got the worst of the fight. Dee ducked a pillow, thrown +with tremendous force by her opponent, and Annie got it square on her +dainty nose, causing that aristocratic feature to bleed profusely. + +"Oh, Annie, Annie, I'm so sorry!" wailed Dum. + +"It is altogether my fault!" declared Dee. "I had no business ducking!" + +"Id's dothing adall," insisted Annie, tightly grasping her offending +member, "by old dose always bleeds. Jusd a liddle dab will draw de +clared." + +"Oh, but I just know it hurts awfully," and Dee raced off for a basin of +cold water while Dum rummaged in the debris for some of the gentleman's +handkerchiefs that she and Dee always used in common with their father. + +Mary insisted upon dropping a large brass door key down the sufferer's +back, declaring that nothing stopped nose-bleed so effectively as the +shock occasioned by a brass door key dropped down the back. + +"I just know it is going to disfigure you for days to come!" exclaimed +Dee. + +"Oh, I don't bind the loogs but id's just the bordification of being +such a duisance," answered the poor girl, as usual embarrassed over +being the observed of all observers. And just then in spite of the basin +of gore and Annie's pitiful expression and Tweedles' great solicitude, +Mary and I went off into uncontrollable giggles. + +"I'm not laughing at you, Annie, but at your 'bordification,'" gasped +Mary, holding her own nose to give the proper accent; and then everybody +laughed and it had the effect described in the nursery rhyme: + + "Little Tommy Grace + Had a pain in his face + So bad he couldn't learn a letter. + In came Dicky Long, + Singing such a funny song, + Tommy laughed and his face felt much better." + +Blanche arrived on the scene with a bottle of witch hazel and Annie was +made to lie down in the farthest corner with healing cloths bound round +her injuries. + +"I never heard sech carryings on!" exclaimed the girl. "Mo' like a +passel of boys. I couldn't believe my yers that 'twas my young missusses +making sech hullybullyboo. That there rent woman come by jes' then, and +she rubbered 'til I thought she would sho' twis' her po' white neck +off." + +Blanche had as frank a dislike to Mrs. Rand as that good woman had for +all darkeys, and it was only with the most tactful management that we +could keep them from coming to blows on the few occasions when Mrs. Rand +came over to inspect our cottage. The white woman was very free in her +use of the very objectionable term "nigger," and Blanche on the other +hand had an insolent bearing in her presence that was entirely foreign +to her usual polite manner and gentle disposition. It seemed strange +that two persons as excellent in their way as Mrs. Rand and Blanche +should be so antagonistic. They were like two chemicals, innocent and +mild until brought together and then such a bubbling and boiling and +exploding! Mrs. Rand always entered the house through the kitchen, which +in itself was an irritation to Blanche. + +"I don't hold to no back-do' company. If'n she calls herself a lady, +wherefore don't she entrance like one? What call is she got to be +pryin' and appearin' auspiciously into all my intensils? I ain't goin' +to leave no mo' dirt than I found." + +"Did she come in just now?" asked Dee as Blanche got off the foregoing +tirade after having administered to Annie. + +"No'm, she never come in! I squared myself in the do'way and she +couldn't git by me and she couldn't git over me and Gawd knows she +couldn't git under me. I wa'n't goin' to let her or no one else come in +my kitchen 'til I got the dislocation indigent to the undue disordinary +of yesterday somewhat abated." + +"Did she say anything?" laughed Dum. + +"Yessum, she said a absolute piece of po'try what I would not defame my +lips by repeating to you." + +"Oh, please tell us what it was!" we begged. + +"Well, 'twas: + + "'Nigger, nigger, never die, + Black face and shiny eye, + Flat nose and crooked toes, + That's the way the nigger goes.'" + +"Wasn't that horrid of her?" we cried. "And what did you say?" + +"Well, I held my head up same as a white lady, an' I answered her back +same as a white lady, an' I called out to her: + + "'I had a little dog + An' his name was Dash, + 'Druther be a nigger + Than po' white trash!'" + +"Well, I'm glad you got back at her; and now come on and let's get the +cottage in such good order that we won't care which way the owner comes +in," and Dee gave Blanche a friendly pat on her broad shoulder. The girl +left us, her good-humour restored by our sympathy, and if there was a +speck of dirt left in that kitchen it would have taken a magnifying +glass to find it. + +Trunks were soon packed, and we had proceeded to the business of +dismantling beds (all but on our porch), when we heard the rasping voice +of Mrs. Rand in the living room below, that wily woman having slipped in +through the kitchen while Blanche's back was turned. + +"Hey--Miss Tucker Twins!! Where's that so-called paw of yours? I come +over to go over the inventory with him." + +"Inventory! What inventory?" asked Tweedles from the balcony. + +"What inventory? Why, land's sakes alive, what are you handin' out to +me? Didn't I give him a list of my goods and chattels to be returned to +me in the same condition in which they was delivered to him on the fust +of the month?" + +"Oh, I believe there is a list of things in the blue tea-pot," and Dee +raced down the steps and drew out the important document from the +beautiful old blue tea-pot on the mantelpiece. + +"But, Mrs. Rand, our father has gone back to Richmond, went yesterday, +and he told me to tell you to send him the bill for anything that was +broken or missing." + +"Bill, indeed!" she sniffed. "I don't trust to bills with any of these +here tenants. Richmond is Richmond and Willoughby is Willoughby." + +"Certainly, Mrs. Rand," said Dee with great dignity, "we will not ask +you to trust us for any sum provided we have cash enough to reimburse +you. There have been very few things broken and I fancy nothing will be +missing. A few water glasses and some cups, I think, are the only things +broken." + +"Not with a nigger in the kitchen!" said our landlady, rudely. "Yer +can't tell me a nigger has gone through a month without bustin' mo' +things than that." + +"Why, Blanche didn't break the things that have been broken. We did it +ourselves. I don't believe Blanche has broken a single thing," exclaimed +Dum. + +"You is quite exactitude in yo' statement, Miss Dum," said Blanche, +appearing in the kitchen door, where she had overheard all of Mrs. +Rand's not too complimentary remarks. "I is not been the instructive +mimber of the household, and what brokerage has been committed has been +performed by you young ladies or yo' papa. I is fractured but one object +since I engaged in domestic disuetude and that was a cup without no +saucer, and before Gawd it was cracked whin I come." + +Blanche no longer looked the mild and peaceful character we had found +her to be. Her pleasant gingerbread coloured face was purple with rage, +and one of her pigtails, usually tightly wrapped, had come unbound and +was standing up in a great woolly bush on the top of her head, giving +her very much the appearance of a Zulu warrior in battle regalia. A +rolling pin in one hand and a batter cake turner in the other added to +her warlike aspect. + +"I never seed a nigger yet that didn't say everything she broke was +cracked when she come," sniffed Mrs. Rand scornfully. + +"Blanche is quite right!" exclaimed Dum. "The cup she broke was cracked, +because I cracked it myself. I cracked the cup and broke the saucer the +first night at the beach, didn't I, Dee?" + +"No, you didn't. I did it myself," said Dee. + +"Well, hoity-toity! It looks like you both think you done something fine +to bust up the chiny," and Mrs. Rand smiled grimly as she gave an extra +twist to her Mrs. Wiggs knot and got out of her capacious pocket a huge +pair of brass-rimmed spectacles. "Come on, now, and go over this here +inventory. Business is business, and if the chiny is busted, no matter +who done it, it is the business of the renters to make good. I ain't +a-saying the nigger done it, but I'm a-saying if'n she didn't, she's the +fust nigger I ever seed that didn't behave like a bull in a chiny shop, +bustin' and breakin' wherever she trod." + +But Blanche had not had her say out and she took up the ball and +continued: + +"I is large, 'tis true, but I is light to locomotion, and brokerage is +never been one of my failures. My kitchen is open fer yo' conception at +any time, Miss Dee. You kin bring in the rent woman when it suits yo' +invention," and with a bow that took in all of us and left out Mrs. +Rand, Blanche retired to her domain and lifted up her voice in a doleful +hymn. + +[Illustration: "Why don't you speak up, girl?"--_Page 255_] + +Everything in the cottage was carefully checked off, living room first +and then the sleeping porches. We were thankful indeed that we had +cleaned up so well and had all of our accumulated mess out of the way. +The old woman complimented us on the appearance of everything. She was +not at all an unkind person, except where coloured people were +concerned. She seemed to take a motherly interest in us and highly +approved of Zebedee. + +"Well, you gals is sho' kept my house nice and I must say it is some +surprise to me. You look like such harum-scarums that I was fearing you +would be worser tenants than them boys---- Land sakes, if'n the tick +covers ain't clean enough ter use agin. I always changes 'em fer a new +tenant, but looks like it would be foolishness to take off perfectly +clean things, 'thout spot or speck on 'em. Of course, I'll take off the +nigger's tick." + +Every time Mrs. Rand said nigger it made me wince. Mammy Susan had +brought me up to think that that was a word not to be used in polite +society or anywhere else. + +"Niggers is the onliest ones what kin say nigger," she used to tell me. +"Whin white folks says niggers they is demeaning of themselves, an' they +is also paintin' of the nigger blacker than his Maker done see fit to +make him." + +Blanche's room was in perfect order and I wondered if Mrs. Rand would +not give her some praise, but that stern person only sniffed and passed +on. + +Dishes were next on the list and we ticketed them off easily. Four cups +were broken, three saucers and a plate and six water glasses, about a +dollar's worth in all, as the china and glass were of the plainest. Then +came the kitchen and cooking utensils. We hoped Blanche would go out, +but she stood to her guns bravely and refused to desert the ship. Mrs. +Rand poked her nose into every crack and crevice and seemed to be +hunting dirt which she could not discover. The tins were counted and +found O. K.; and then the kitchen spoons and forks were as carefully +gone over as though they had been of the finest silver. One iron spoon +was worn on the edges and a little bent from the vigorous beating and +stirring the batter bread had undergone, and the strictly business Mrs. +Rand looked at it dubiously, but finally let it pass along with the +"sheep," although her expression was very much what Peter's might be +if a goat had butt his way into Paradise. + +"Where's that there can-opener, a perfectly good one that I bought from +a peddler? I wouldn't lose it for a pretty! I never seed one like it +before and the man I bought it from said he was the sole agent for it +and mor'n likely would not be back this way for years to come," and Mrs. +Rand rummaged in the table drawer like some lady who feared she had lost +some precious jewel. + +Blanche stood back abashed and was silent, and Tweedles and I looked at +one another guiltily. + +"Why don't you speak up, girl? You needn't think you can get off with my +can-opener, 'cause you can't." Still Blanche held to the policy of the +Tar Baby and said nothing, and Tweedles and I were as dumb as fish. "It +was one of these here combination implements, a cork-screw and +can-opener, beer-opener and knife-sharpener, with a potato-parer at one +end and apple-corer at the other, and in the middle a nutmeg-grater. I +never seen a finer thing, and besides it had a attachment fer the +slicin' of Sarytogy chips." + +"I am very sorry, Mrs. Rand, but your can-opener is--is--lost," said +Dee. "Blanche is not responsible for it, as she had nothing to do with +it. Here is a very good can-opener, however, that our father brought +back from Norfolk," and she took from its accustomed nail a sturdy +little affair of the old-fashioned kind, meant to open cans and to do +nothing but open cans, and in consequence one that did open cans. "Here +is a cork-screw, and here is a nutmeg-grater! We never did know what all +the other parts of the thing were meant for or I am sure my father would +have got those, too, as he did not wish to defraud you in any way." + +"You talk like that there so-called paw of yours had lost it, and I +believe you is just trying to shield this nigger. I never seed a nigger +yet who had the gumption to use one of these here labor-saving devices." + +The purple colour again rose in Blanche's dusky countenance and the tuft +of unwrapped wool began to shake ominously, but still she held her +peace, showing that she was a lady at heart. She knew as well as we did +what had become of the prized and priceless implement, but her loyalty +made her keep silence. + +The situation was tense and the irate owner looked from one to another +of our solemn countenances, trying to solve the riddle of the lost +can-opener. Annie and Mary had come to the kitchen door, Annie with her +nose not much the worse for the blow, but with her pretty face very pale +from the loss of blood, Mary with the whimsical expression that she +always wore when she was taking mental notes of anyone whom she intended +to imitate later on. + +We all of us could recall with the keenest delight the memorable evening +when Zebedee undertook to open the sardines at a beach party we were +having and his scornful remarks anent our can-opener. + +"Look at this thing!" he had said indignantly. "Pretends to do so much +and can't do a single thing right! Broke the cork in the olive bottle! +Won't cut anything but a little round, jagged hole in this square can of +sardines! I have cut a biscuit out of my hand with this butt end that +is meant for the Lord knows what!" (That must have been the end that was +meant for an apple-corer.) He continued, "If it's the last act of my +life, I intend to take this abomination out in the bay and drop it down +ten fathoms deep." + +He was as good as his word, and the very next morning when we went out +for our usual before-breakfast dip, Zebedee appeared with the can-opener +in his mouth (to leave his hands free for swimming) and with strong, +rapid strokes shot out far into the bay, there to consign the hated +abomination to its watery grave. + +And now what was to be said to Mrs. Rand? It wouldn't do to stand like +Patience on a monument smiling at Grief, indefinitely. We looked to Dee, +our social deliverer, to save us, and I only hoped that Mary and I would +not disgrace the crowd by going off into our usual giggles. + +"As I said before, Mrs. Rand, it is lost and we are as sorry as can be. +I will either reimburse you for your property or I'll send you another +from Richmond." We were mighty proud of Dee, her reimburse sounded so +grown-up and business-like, but Mrs. Rand seemed not one whit +impressed. + +"How kin you git something when they ain't no more of them, and how kin +you pay fer something when it is valued for its bein' so useful and so +rare? I wouldn't a lef' it here if'n I hadn't 'a' thought you was all +girls and had been raised proper, not to lose or break other folkses' +things." + +"Well then, Mrs. Rand, all I can say is that we are sorry, and if you +will make out a receipted bill for the china and glass that is broken, +we will pay you immediately and wish you good-morning, as we have a +great deal to do on this our last day at the beach." Dee's dignity was +wonderful. How often I have seen her father behave in exactly that way: +do all he could to keep the peace, exercise all his tact to smooth +things over and, that failing, take on a dignity and a toploftical +manner that would reduce the offender to pulp. + +"Well, now, you needn't get so huffy about it! Business is just +business----" + +"Exactly, so please make out the receipted bill and let us pay you what +we owe you." + +"Well, I never said I was goin' to charge you fer those few bits of +broken chiny. I reckon I kin make my fifteen per cent. off my +investment, anyhow," and the old woman gave her rare snaggle-toothed +grin. "I'll give it to you that you is leaving my house as clean as you +found it, and that's something I can't say of most tenants." + +"Cleaner!" muttered Blanche, but if Mrs. Rand heard, she pretended not +to. Dee's grande dame manner had had its effect and she now treated us +with great cordiality, shaking hands and expressing a wish to see all of +us again at the beach and complimenting us again and again on the +neatness of the cottage. She sent messages to "that so-called paw" and +was almost genial as she bade us good-bye. + +Mary and I managed to wait until she got away before we were shaken by +the inevitable storm of giggles. "All of that row about an old +can-opener," gasped Mary, "and after all it was a can't-opener." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +GOOD-BYE TO THE BEACH. + + +How we did hate to say good-bye to Willoughby! When I remembered my +feelings on our arrival and compared them to my feelings on departure, I +could hardly believe I was the same person or that it was the same +place. I no longer missed trees and grass; my eyes were accustomed to +the glare; and as for the dead monotony of sand and water: I had learned +to see infinite variety in the colour of the land and sea; no two days +had been alike, no two hours, indeed. Dum had taught me to see these +shifting effects, and now land and water and sky instead of seeming as +they had at first, like three hard notes that always played the same +singsong tune, were turned into three majestic chords that with changing +and intermingling could run the whole gamut of harmony. + +We had spent a perfect month with so little friction that it was not +worth naming, and the friendship of the five girls was stronger than +ever. It would be impossible to sleep five on a porch, with cots so +close together that the covers had no room to slip between, without +finding out each other's faults and virtues. + +Dee, for instance, who was an exceptionally rapid dresser, had a habit +of using more than her share of hair-pins. She always insisted that they +were hers or that she had not used them, and she would not take down her +hair to see. Then when she finally undressed at night and plaited her +thick, blue-black rope, she would be much abashed as we claimed our +share of hair-pins. + +Mary Flannagan snored louder and more persistently than anyone I have +ever known; she also had a habit of talking in her sleep. + +Annie Pore did take a little longer to arrange her ripe-wheat hair than +was quite fair where there was only one mirror and four other girls +trying to beautify themselves in front of it, but there is no telling +how long any of us would have taken to prink had we been as pretty as +Annie. + +Dum's fault was putting on anybody's and everybody's clothes, especially +stockings, and then wild horses could not drag them off her when once +she had them on. She had a habit of undressing and throwing her clothes +on top of other people's. No matter where you put your clothes or how +carefully you folded them, you were sure to find something of Dum's on +top of them in the morning. I was careless enough myself, so this did +not bother me much, but it was a continual irritation to Dee, who was +much more orderly than Dum; and poor little Annie suffered greatly from +this habit of dear old Dum's. Annie had very few clothes and she was +painfully neat and careful with them, and I have seen her turn away her +head to hide her emotion when she found Dum's wet stockings, that she +had been clamming in the day before, balled up on top of her clean shirt +waist, and her muddy shoes resting fondly in the lap of her, Annie's, +last fresh white skirt. + +I know I had many faults as a room-mate, but I believe my habit of +selfishly hogging the bathroom was the worst. I think people born and +brought up without plumbing are always piggy about bath tubs when once +they come in contact with them. I was irreverent enough to wish with all +my heart that Mr. Pore had my grandfather's hat-tub and that Bracken, my +beloved home, could have water put into it with an altogether, all-over, +all-at-once bath tub. + +One last look through all the dressing rooms and porches, to be sure +that we were not leaving any valuables for the next tenants to find, a +lingering glance at the quiet, peaceful living-room where we had spent +so many delightful hours, and we went out of the front door as Mrs. Rand +came in the back, pail and broom in hand, to make ready for the incoming +hordes. + +"She won't find no use in that there kitchen fer buckets an' brooms. +It's clean enough to ask any potentiate of Europe to eat off'n any spot +in it. The King of France himself could make no claimant of the +perdition of my kitchen," and Blanche's countenance began to take on the +purple hue of rage. + +"Oh, don't mind her, Blanche! She just likes for a new tenant to find +her busy. Here come the new tenants, too! Isn't it a good thing we got +out so early in the morning?" + +Sure enough, as Dee spoke there loomed on the horizon a large family, +coming to take possession of the cottage: a mother and father, four +boys, two little girls, two young coloured maids and an old mammy +carrying a baby. The last sound we heard as we hurried to catch the +trolley was Mrs. Rand berating them for coming so early in the morning +before she had time to clean up after the last tenants. + +"Of course I know it is the fust of August, but the fust of August don't +mean the fust thing in the morning. Tenants is all alike, skeered to +death for fear they ain't going to git all that's coming to them. I +never understood when you come dickerin' for my house that you had three +niggers. I ain't partial to rentin' to folks that keeps nigger help. Now +these last folks what jest left didn't keep but one nigger, but----" but +what, we never knew, as we got out of earshot. Blanche's countenance +lost its purple hue as we settled ourselves on the Norfolk trolley. We +hoped that Mrs. Rand would realize that to make fifteen per cent. on an +investment means one must be willing to put up with many things. + +The boys who had been at the camp met us in Norfolk and engineered us to +the pier to see Annie and Mary off on the James River boat, and then +took Tweedles and me to the station and put us on the train for +Richmond. + +At the boat Sleepy shook hands with Annie until I really thought the +Captain would have to interfere. With his face a fiery red, I heard him +implore her to write to him. I don't know what she said, but I can't +fancy Annie in an adamant mood, and as I saw Sleepy give her his card +and hastily write something in a memorandum book, I have an idea she +granted his request. + +Wink's moustache was getting quite bushy, but his manner was still +grand, gloomy and peculiar. He would walk by me, but would not talk to +me, although I made every effort to make myself agreeable. He tugged +viciously at his little moustache until I felt like telling him: "Kill +it, but don't worry it to death!" + +Just before we got on the train he said to me in a cold and formal +tone: "May I write to you, Miss Allison?" + +"Certainly, Mr. White!" + +"But will you answer my letters?" He looked so sad and melodramatic that +I burst out laughing. + +"Of course I will, Wink! Don't be so silly!" + +The last I saw of him he was trying seemingly to pull his poor little +moustache out by the roots. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +UNTIL NEXT TIME. + + +Zebedee met us at the station in Richmond with the faithful Henry Ford, +quite spruced up (I mean Henry) with a new coat of paint, put on while +the family was at the beach. Brindle, Dee's precious dog, was perched on +the front seat with the air of injured dignity he always assumed, so Dee +said, when they went off to the seashore and left him behind. His +damson-jam eyes were moist and sad and his breathing even more +stertorous than usual. + +"Well, you know yourself how you hate the water and how grouchy you were +the last time you went with us!" said Brindle's mistress, hugging the +old dog and speaking to him as though in answer to the reproach in his +eyes. "If you would learn to be a more agreeable traveling companion and +eat fish like a respectable canine, we would never leave you. Goodness +knows, I miss you and long for you every minute of the day and night." +Brindle snorted and gurgled and licked Dee's ear in token of +forgiveness. + +"I am sure any physician would say that Brindle's adenoids should be +removed," commented Dum from the back seat. "Did you ever hear such a +noise in your life as that old dog makes just simply living? Every +breath he draws seems to require all the force and strength he can +muster." + +"Virginia Tucker, I will thank you not to be personal with Brindle. His +breathing shows his breeding, which is more than your conversation does. +You know how easy it is to hurt his feelings," and Dee looked daggers at +her twin. + +"Oh, excuse me, Brindle, I was merely joking!" + +"You know perfectly well that Brindle's one fault is that he has no +sense of humour." + +"Well, I had forgotten it for the moment.--I saved him a chocolate +peppermint out of the box we bought on the train. Do you think that +would serve as balm to his wounded feelings?" + +"It might!" said Dee dubiously. "Brindle is very fond of chocolate +peppermints, but he does hate to be guyed." It did, however, and peace +was restored before Zebedee finished attending to the trunks and +cranking up Henry. + +Blanche's brother, "Po' Jo," had met her at the station, much to the +relief of all of us. + +"I am no snob," declared Zebedee, "but I'll be hanged if I was relishing +the prospect of running poor, dear Blanche uptown in Henry Ford, +bedecked as she was in all that glory of second mourning." + +Blanche's feelings were so hurt when we suggested that she should travel +in the decent black skirt and plain shirtwaist bought for the wedding +that we had to give in and let her return in the costume in which she +had arrived. + +"Po' Jo" was quite as comfortable in figure as his sister. He was, in +fact, as fat and sleek as a 'possum, and like that animal he had a +perpetual grin on his coffee-coloured countenance. His portly form +stretched the seams of a Palm Beach suit, on the left sleeve of which +was stitched a large black heart in honour of his recent bereavement. +Brother and sister beamed on each other with family pride written all +over their good-natured faces. + +"Well, Sister Blanche, you is looking quite swanky, as a English +gentleman at the Club is contingently saying." Jo was waiter at the +Club. + +"And you, Brother Jo, you is bearin' up wonderful an' lookin' mighty +well in yo' new Palm Leaf suit," and she smoothed the sleeve with the +black heart stitched thereon with an air of conscious pride that she +could boast such a wonderful brother. + +We were sorry to tell Blanche good-bye. She had endeared herself to all +of us, and in spite of the fun we got out of her peculiarities, we were +really very fond of her. She was perfectly honest and faithful, and +above and beyond all that, as Zebedee said, she was a born cook. She was +to stay a while with Jo and then go down to pay Mammy Susan a visit +before returning to her school. + +I was to spend one night with the Tuckers and then go back to my beloved +Bracken. I was reproaching myself for staying even the one night longer +away from Father, but Zebedee had planned all kinds of things for my +pleasure, and Tweedles were so persistent in their entreaties that I had +submitted, although I was getting very homesick for Father and Mammy +Susan, to say nothing of the dogs and Peg, my old horse. + +Lunch first! Dee made all of us eat beefsteak, ordering a huge +porterhouse so she could get the bone for Brindle. "I know he is tired +of the food at that old cafe," she said. "He does not look nourished to +me and I intend to give him some building-up food." + +"Why, Dee, he is as fat as a pig," insisted Dum. + +"Yes, I know he is fat, but I don't like the colour of his tongue. Flesh +is not always an indication of health, Dum Tucker." + +"That's so," put in Zebedee, "I've seen many a fat corpse, but my +opinion is that Brindle needs exercise. He is so lazy." + +After lunch as we spun up Broad Street, we noticed quite a crowd +gathered near the marketplace. Zebedee, with an eye ever open and nose +ever twitching for news, slowed up his car. + +"Nothing but a street fakir, but he must have something fine or be a +very convincing talker." + +Just then Henry indulged in his little habit of stopping altogether, and +Zebedee had to get out and crank up. This enabled us to hear the fakir +and see his wares. + +"This, ladies and gentlemen, is a most remarkable implement, taking the +place of a whole chest of tools! This is a potato-parer! This is an +apple-corer! This is a cork-screw! This is a can-opener! This is a +nutmeg-grater! This is a knife-sharpener! This----" But Dum leapt from +the car and without any ceremony interrupted the man's stream of +convincing eloquence. With every "this" he had illustrated the virtues +of his wares by slicing potatoes, coring apples, opening bottles and +cans, etc. + +"How much?" she asked excitedly. + +"Ten cents! Ten cents! Eight perfect implements in one for ten cents! I +am the sole agent in the United States and Canada and you miss the +chance of a lifetime if you do not purchase one. I am now on my way to +California and will not return to Virginia for many years." + +"Give me five," demanded Dum recklessly, producing her last fifty cents. + +The delighted and mystified salesman counted them out to her and the +crowd began to buy excitedly, as though they thought that the wonderful +magic implements would start on their trip to California and back by the +Great Lakes and through Canada and they might be old men and women +before another chance came to own one of these rare combinations. + +"Mrs. Rand's lost treasure," gasped Dee. + +"Here's another for good measure!" and the man tossed an extra one into +Dum's lap as Henry got up steam and moved off. "You started my sales and +I won't have a one left by night at this rate." + +"I am going to send all of these to that hateful old Mrs. Rand," and Dum +settled herself on the cushions, her lap full of can-openers. + +We had told Zebedee of Mrs. Rand's carryings-on over her precious tool +and he had been vastly amused. + +"Don't send them all," I pleaded. "Take one back to Gresham. It would be +invaluable at boarding school to get olives out of the bottles, and to +open trunks when the keys got lost. As a shoe-horn I am sure it could +not be surpassed, for the apple-corer end would do for that. As for a +finger-nail file, what could equal the nutmeg-grater?" + +So Dum sent only five to Mrs. Rand, and one we took to boarding school +with us, where it ever after played an important part in the curriculum +under the pseudonym of "Mrs. Rand." + +The Tuckers' apartment seemed especially crowded after the large +simplicity of the living-room at Willoughby. As a family they usually +managed to get anything they wanted very much, and they had had some +sixteen years of wanting and satisfying their desires. It was a +fortunate thing that they had, one and all, innate good taste. Mr. +Tucker had wanted pictures and prints; Dum had wanted bronzes, carved +curios of all sorts and casts of masterpieces; Dee had a leaning towards +soft Persian rugs, old china and pets. The pets had some of them been +mercifully overtaken by fate or I am sure we could not have squeezed +into the apartment on that hot afternoon in early August. All of them +had wanted books and the books wanted shelves, so wherever there wasn't +anything else there were book shelves. Small pictures were actually hung +on the doors, as there was no wall space available, and the rugs lapped +over each other on the floors. + +"We usually have the rugs stored for the summer, but Brindle misses them +so much that I wouldn't let Zebedee do it this year. He loves to lie on +them and I truly believe he appreciates their colour as well as their +softness," and Dee leaned over and patted her beloved dog, who had +chosen a particularly wonderful old blue rug on which to take his +after-lunch nap. + +"Well, I only hope they won't get moths in them with your and Zebedee's +foolishness," sniffed Dum. + +"Oh, no, Brindle promised me to catch all the moths, didn't you, +Brindle, old boy?" Brindle, as though in answer to his mistress, looked +solemnly up and snapped at some tiny-winged creature which had +recklessly come too close to his powerful jaws. + +"Look here, girls! Do you realize that our vacation is more than half +over? Before we can turn around we will be back at Gresham," I said, +fearing a discussion was imminent. I had heard the subject of moths and +Brindle's fondness for Persian rugs thoroughly threshed out before and +the gloves had had to be resorted to to prove the point that Brindle's +comfort was more important than mere rugs. + +"Oh, Page, don't introduce such sad subjects!" exclaimed Dum. "Gresham +is all right in its way, but I can't bear to contemplate another winter +there. Still, I know it is up to us to go back." + +"We'll be Juniors, too--and Juniors are always in hot water," sighed +Dee. + +"Well, anyhow, we won't be beau-crazy Juniors like last year's class," +declared Dum. "Did you ever see such a lot of boy grabbers in your +life?" + +"I can't fancy our being grabby about boys, but I tell you one thing," I +laughed, "we are certainly much fonder of the male sex than we were a +year ago. Boys are nice and I do like 'em, and I don't care who knows +it, so there!" + +Zebedee came in from his afternoon work just then and overheard the last +of my remarks. "What's all this? Page confessing to a fondness for the +opposite sex? You like boys, do you? Well, I am glad indeed of my +eternal youth. I am nothing but a boy, eh, Dum," he said, tweaking his +daughter's ear. + +"Boy, indeed! You are nothing but a baby!" + +"Well, I am a tired and hot baby and I thought I would find all of you +old ladies dressed and ready to go to the Country Club with me for a +game of tennis, a shower bath and supper afterwards on the terrace." + +"Ready in a minute!" we chorused, and so we were. + +Richmond was looking singularly attractive, I thought, as we spun along +Franklin Street, in spite of the fact that most of the houses were +closed for the summer and the female inhabitants off to the seashore or +springs. Here and there a lone man could be seen spreading himself and +his afternoon papers over his empty porch and steps, and occasionally a +faithful wife was conspicuous by reason of the absence of other faithful +wives. Usually she bore a conscious air of virtue and an expression that +plainly said: "Am I not a paragon to be sticking it out with John?" + +The trees, however, seemed to be flourishing in the masculine element, +and in many places on that most beautiful of all streets the elms met +overhead, forming a dark-green arch. There was a delicious odour of +freshly watered asphalt and the streets were full of automobiles, all +seeming to be on pleasure bent now that the day's work was over. A few +carriages were making their stately way, but very few. The occupants of +the carriages were as a rule old and fat. I thought I saw Cousin Park +Garnett in one, with her cross, stupid, old pug dog on the seat by her, +but we were just then engaged in placing ourselves liable to arrest by +breaking the speed law, so I could not be quite sure. Dum was running +the car and she always seemed to court arrest and fine. + +"When I see a clear stretch of road in front of me I simply have to +whoop her up a bit," she explained when Zebedee remonstrated with her. + +"That's all right if you are sure you are out of sight of a cop, but I +have no idea of going your bail if you are hailed to the Juvenile Court +for speeding. A one hundred dollar fine would just about break me right +now. I don't set much store by the eleventh commandment in anything but +motoring, but in this thing of running a car it is mighty important: +'Don't get found out.' There's a cop now!" + +Dum slowed up and looked very meek and ladylike as a mounted policeman +approached us, touching his cap to Mr. Tucker in passing. + +"Zebedee knows every policeman on the force," said Dum teasingly. "There +is nothing like keeping in with the law." + +"Certainly not, if a man happens to own two such harum-scarums as I do." + +The Country Club was delightful, but they always are. When people club +together to have a good out-door time and to give others a chance to do +the same, a success always seems to be assured. Certainly that +particular club was most popular and prosperous and although we heard +repeatedly that everybody was out of town, there were, to my mind, a +great many left. The tennis courts were full to overflowing before the +evening light became too dim to see the balls, and the golf links had so +many players it resembled more a croquet ground. I had never played golf +and while the Tuckers all could, they did not care much for it, +preferring the more strenuous game of tennis. + +"I'm saving up golf for that old age that they tell me is sure to come +some day," sighed Zebedee. "I don't really believe them." + +None of us did, either. How could old age claim such a boy as Jeffry +Tucker? + +However, time itself was flying, and the one day and night I was to +spend in Richmond with my friends passed in the twinkling of an eye. +Before I realized it, it was really over, my vacation with the Tucker +Twins was finished, and I was on the train for Milton, a volume of +Alfred Noyes' latest poems in my suitcase for Father and a box of Martha +Washington candy for Mammy Susan, who thought more of "white folkses' +sto' candy" than of all the silks of the Orient or jewels of the Sultan +of Turkey. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +A BREAD-AND-BUTTER LETTER. + + + + Milton, Va., August 3, 19--. + + Dear Tuckers: + + How can I ever tell you what a good time I have + had with you? Maybe you know already by the + glowing countenance I must have presented for the + last month, only I can't believe it is really a + month, it went flying by so fast. It took June + tenants going out of Mrs. Rand's cottage and + August tenants coming in to convince me that July + was really gone, and still I don't see where it + went. + + Father met me at Milton, driving the colt as + usual, only the colt is getting to be quite a + staid and respectable roadster. Father says a + country doctor's horse that can stay skittish very + long is a wonder, with all of the hard driving he + is forced to give him. He still shies at + automobiles, but I truly believe it is nothing but + jealousy. I don't think he is in the least afraid + of them, but he thinks the automobile is snorting + and puffing at him, and like a spirited animal, he + wants to let the car know that he is perfectly + ready to fight and orders coffee and pistols for + two. + + Mammy Susan was pathetically glad to see me. She + is very grieved, however, over the new freckles on + my nose and tried to make me bind cucumber + peelings on that much-abused and perfectly + inoffensive member. The dough mask is too fresh in + my memory, however, for me to get myself messed up + with anything else. + + Our neighbor, Jo Winn, was at the station and in + his shy, husky voice actually had the spunk to + inquire after Dee. He says his cousin, Mr. + Reginald Kent, is making good in New York, and in + every letter he writes he has something to say of + the deer hunt and the wonderful Miss Tucker who + shot the stag. His sister, Sally Winn, is at her + old trick of trying to die. It is her midnight + hurry calls that have tamed the colt, so Father + declares. + + Bracken is looking very lovely and peaceful. Some + of Father's old-maid cousins have just left; they + were nice, soft ones, so Father really enjoyed + having them. Next week Cousin Park Garnett is + coming for her annual visitation. I told Father + about Judge Grayson and the Turkey-tail Fan and he + nearly died laughing. He says he is going to try + reading his new book of Alfred Noyes to her and + see what effect it will have on her. + + Dear Cousin Sue Lee is coming tomorrow and all of + us are delighted. She is the dearest and sweetest + in the world. I do hope you will all motor down to + Bracken while she is here. You simply must get to + know one another. + + Father is still regretting that he could not get + to Willoughby. I think he works too hard and he + says he knows he does, but what is a doctor to + do? The people will get sick and will send for + him. + + Good-bye, my dear friends! I would feel depressed + that our wonderful vacation together is over, if I + did not have the future to look forward to and + know that I will soon be back at school with the + Tucker Twins! + + Your best friend, + PAGE ALLISON. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +BRACKEN IN AUGUST. + + +It was good to be home and how easily I slipped back into being a child +again! I could hardly believe I had been so grown-up for a month, going +to hops and having a proposal and what not. I spent a great deal of my +time driving around with Father, who was very pleased to have me. +Sometimes we squeezed Cousin Sue Lee into the narrow-seated buggy and +then we would have a jolly time. Cousin Sue seemed younger even than the +year before. It was incredible that she should be nearly fifty. It was +not that she looked so young, as her hair was turning quite gray, but +she was so young in her attitude towards life. + +We had to have our annual confab on the subject of clothes, and a +catalogue from the mail order house was soon the chief in interest of +all our literature. + +"I can't think what I would have done last year if you had not taken +hold for me, Cousin Sue. My clothes were so satisfactory." + +I told her of poor Annie Pore and at her suggestion sent my little +English friend a catalogue with things marked that I was going to order. + +My order was almost a duplicate of the year before except that I did not +need quite so many things, as I had a goodly number of middies left over +and some shirt waists. + +Miss Pinky Davis, our country sempstress, was sent for, and again Cousin +Sue spent hours planning how best to cut up and trim the bolts of +nainsook she had ordered from Richmond. She laughed at my awkwardness +with a needle and declared I did regular "nigger sewing." I tried to +whip lace, but no matter how clean my hands were when I started, I ended +with a dirty knotted thread and the lace went on in little bunches with +plain, tightly drawn spaces intervening. + +"I declare, child, I don't believe Jimmy Allison himself could have done +it any worse," she said, looking at my attempt to whip lace on a +petticoat. Cousin Sue always called Father, Jimmy. "How do you get it +so grubby?" + +"It gets itself! I don't get it!" I exclaimed. "I washed my hands with +lye soap so as to be sure they were clean, but they just seem to ooze +dirt when I begin to sew." + +"Well, in the first place you are sewing with a needle as big as a +tenpenny nail and who ever heard of whipping on lace with thirty-six +thread?" And my dear cousin patiently threaded me a finer needle with +the proper thread and started me again. "Go from left to right, honey, +you are not a Chinaman." + +"No, you are a Zulu, my dear, and should go clothed as such," said +Father, coming in to view our operations. "I believe even you could +string beads for your summer costume and cut a hole in a blanket for +winter." + +"Well, I do hate to sew so, no wonder I can't do it. I want the clothes +but I don't want them bad enough to make 'em myself." + +"The time will come when you will like to sew," said Miss Pinky, her +mouth full of pins. + +"That sounds terribly sad," laughed Father. "What is going to make her +like it, Miss Pinky?" + +"Oh, the time will come when she will find it soothing to sew." + +Miss Pinky snipped away with a great pair of sharp shears as +nonchalantly as though she were cutting newspapers instead of very sheer +organdy for another white dress that Cousin Sue had decided I must have. +I never could see how she could tell where the scissors were going to +cut next, they were so big and she was so little. Miss Pinky always +reminded me of a paper doll, somehow. She seemed to have no thickness at +all to her. Her profile was like a bas-relief and rather low relief at +that. I remember when I was quite a little girl I examined her dress +very carefully to see if it could be fastened on the shoulders in the +manner of my paper dolls, with little folded-over flaps. + +"Maybe it will, but it is certainly not soothing now. It makes me want +to scream." + +"Don't do it! Just put up that flimsy foolishness and come drive over to +Milton with me. I think I'll drop in on poor Sally Winn before supper +and maybe she will get through the night without me. We can call for +the mail, too, and beat R. F. D. to it." + +The Rural Free Delivery is a great institution in the country where +persons cannot go for the mail, but sometimes it was a great irritation +to us. Our mail was taken from the Post Office very early in the morning +and did not reach us until quite late in the afternoon, the carrier +circling all around the county before he landed at our box. "Come on, +Sue, you can squeeze in and we can have a jolly drive." + +We found Sally Winn up and very busy. As she had been snatched from a +yawning grave only two nights before, we were rather astonished. + +"Comp'ny's coming and I had to get up and put things to rights. I've +stirred up a cake and set some Sally Lunn for supper, and while I was up +I thought I had better preserve those peaches on the tree by the dairy +before they got too ripe. They make the best tasting preserves of any +peaches I ever saw. I am certainly going to fix a jar for you, Doctor. +Don't let me forget it. I've got two of Aunt Keziah's children, she is +raising, here helping me, but they are not much good for anything but +just to run to the spring and wring the frying size chickens' necks." In +writing I am perforce compelled to use a few periods, but not so Sally. +She poured forth this flow of conversation with never a pause for breath +or reply. + +"The company that's coming is Reginald Kent, son of my first cousin once +removed. He is a great hand at eating and made so much fuss over my +cooking that it seemed like an awful pity for me to lay up in bed when +he was here, although it may be the death of me to be up and doing and +no doubt will bring on one of my spells." + +"If it does," broke in my wily parent, "take a teaspoonful of that pink +medicine out of the low flat bottle and repeat in half an hour. Be sure +you do not take more than a teaspoonful and be very careful to have half +an hour between doses." + +Father told us afterwards that there was nothing in the pink medicine in +the flat bottle but a most harmless and attenuated mixture of bromide, +but he warned her to take the exact dose and wait the full half hour to +make her feel it was a potent medicine that she must handle with great +care so she would think it would make her well. There was nothing much +the matter with Sally Winn but imagination; but imagination is sometimes +more powerful than the most potent drugs, and Sally was just as sick as +she thought she was, so Father said. He was wonderfully patient with her +and treated her ailments as seriously as though they really existed. She +had a leaky heart but there was a chance of her outliving her whole +generation. Of course there was also a chance of her being taken away at +any time, but Father considered the chance quite small as she seemed to +be growing better as time went on instead of worse. + +"Reginald Kent is hoping that those Tuckers will be back here when he +comes on this visit, though he doesn't exactly say so. He just intimates +it by asking if the Allisons have any visitors. He is a mighty likely +young fellow and is getting on fine with his work. He really is coming +down here on business in a way. He wants to get some illustrations of +some of these views around here. He says he wants Aunt Keziah's cabin +and some of the little darkeys, and he wants an inside view of old Aunt +Rosana's and Uncle Peter's house." + +Here Father stopped her long enough to say that he would go over to +Milton for the mail and come back for Cousin Sue and me. We had not got +in a word edgewise, but I never tried to when Sally once started. I +should think that anyone who saw as few persons as she did would want to +listen and find out things instead of imparting knowledge, but Sally +just seemed to be full to overflowing and she simply had to let off +steam before she could take on anything more. She wanted to know but she +wanted more to let you know. + +She told us all she could about Reginald Kent, which was on the whole +rather interesting. Then she began on her turkeys and chickens and +enlarged somewhat on the subject of Jo and his irritating way of keeping +news to himself, and then with a bound she leapt upon her symptoms. I +knew it was coming and bowed my head in resignation. + +"It looks like if I get to studying about things that one of my spells +is sure to follow. Now I have been thinking a lot lately about Reginald +Kent's mother, my first cousin once removed, and the more I think of her +the more I get to brooding. If you would believe me, in the night I got +to trembling so that I could have sworn there was an earthquake going +through the county. My bed fairly rocked. I had to call Jo. He gave me a +dose of my pink medicine and it ca'med me some. Each time I get one of +those attacks I hope it means the end, but somehow I always come back." + +"But, Sally, why do you hope it is the end?" I asked. "I don't see why +you want to die. It would be very hard on Jo if you should leave him." + +"Why, child, dying is one of the things I have always wanted to do. I +somehow feel that in the other life I'm going to be so happy. I dream I +am dead sometimes and, do you know, I am always real pretty and have +curly hair in that dream and lots of young folks around me who seem +somehow to belong to me." + +Poor Sally! I felt very sorry for her and so did Cousin Sue, whom I saw +wiping a furtive tear away. I fancy Sally's life had been a very stale, +flat and unprofitable one and she had formed the habit of looking upon +death as at least a change, an adventure where she would be the heroine +for once. I determined to come to see her oftener and try to bring some +young life into her middle-aged existence. + +Father brought us quite a bunch of mail. In it was a letter from Dee +telling the good news that they were going to motor down to Bracken on +Friday, the very next day, and stay over Sunday with us. + +"Now you will know them and they will know you," I exclaimed, hugging +Cousin Sue. "I am going to bring them over to see you, too," I promised +Sally, noting her wistful expression. + +Silent Jo Winn, who had come back from the station with Father, grinned +with delight when he heard that the Tuckers were coming. I remembered on +our memorable deer hunt of the winter before how Dee had won his shy +heart and had actually made him talk just like other folks. + +"I tell you what let's do," he ventured. "This young cousin of ours, +Reginald Kent, is to be here to-night and he has to go over to Uncle +Peter's cabin to take some pictures. What's the reason we couldn't all +go on a picnic? We might fish in the river near Uncle Peter's, where +Miss Dum Tucker shot her deer." + +"Splendid!" from Cousin Sue and me. Cousin Sue was always in for a +picnic. + +Sally Winn gasped and clutched her heart until I thought we'd have to +run for her pink medicine; but she pulled herself together. It was +nothing but astonishment at the long speech from Jo. Jo actually +stringing words together and getting up a picnic! It was too much for +Sally, but she rose to the occasion with plans for a big lunch. + +"I've a ham all cooked--and some blue Dominicker chickens that have just +reached the frying size--I'll make some fried pies--and some light +rolls--some Columbus eggs would eat good--and my pear pickle can't be +beat, and a stem to every one so you can eat it without messing yourself +up----" + +"I have some news that is not quite so entrancing as yours, my dear," +said Father, interrupting Sally's flow of eatables as he read from a +fat, crested, vellum letter. "Cousin Park Garnett will be with us +to-morrow, also." + +"But she said Monday next, in her last letter!" + +"She has changed her mind. She arrives on the afternoon train and will +bring her pug with her." + +"Pug!" + +"Yes, it seems the pug is the reason for her coming sooner. The doctor +thinks he needs a change of air." + +"Heavens! And Dee is bringing Brindle, too!" + +"Well, they'll have to fight it out." + +"But, Father," I wailed, "can we go on and have the picnic?" + +"Yes, my dear," broke in Cousin Sue. "I'll stay with Cousin Park." + +"Indeed you won't!" declared Father. "Cousin Park can be invited to go +to the picnic, which of course she will not do. She can just stay at +home with Mammy Susan to wait on her and Miss Pinky Davis to listen to +her, while the pug dog breathes in great chunks of change of air. I have +some business to attend to over in the neck of the woods near Uncle +Peter's, so I can land at the ford for dinner with you." + +Father was a great comfort to me. He always took such a sane view of +subjects. I was very uneasy for fear he might think we would have to +stay at home because of Cousin Park, as he was very strict with himself +and me, too, where hospitality to disagreeable relatives was concerned. +Cousin Park, however, could be perfectly well taken care of at Bracken +without us and there was no reason why we could not go on with our +plans; certainly no reason why dear little Cousin Sue should have to +forego the pleasure of the picnic to stay with a person who never lost +an occasion to mention her Lee nose and her spinsterhood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE PICNIC. + + +The Tuckers arrived right on the dot with Cousin Park. I had hoped they +would get in first, but Henry Ford had a blow out and they had to stop +for repairs. + +We always had to send for Cousin Park in a great old sea-going rockaway +that was never pulled out of the carriage house except on state +occasions. Father and I hated to ride in it as it always reminded us of +funerals and Cousin Park. It was a low swung vehicle with high, broad +mud guards and a peculiar swaying motion that was apt either to put you +to sleep or make you very seasick, if you were inclined that way. It +took two large strong plow horses to propel it. I don't know where +Father got it but I do know that he had always had it. I believe there +are no more built like it but its counterpart may be seen in museums. I +used to play dolls in it when I was a kid, and on rare hilarious +occasions when I had a companion we would get up great games of Jesse +James and Dick Turpin and other noted highwaymen who would stop the +coach and rob all the dolls. + +Cousin Park came riding up in state, her ugly, cross old pug placed +between her and Cousin Sue, who had most generously offered to go to +Milton to meet our august relative so I could be at home to receive the +Tuckers. As the rockaway made its ponderous way down the drive, the plow +horses foaming painfully after their twelve-mile pull, six to Milton and +six back, I spied Henry Ford, in a swirling cloud of dust, turn into the +avenue, and in a trice he was whizzing up behind the old sea-going +rockaway. Pug wrinkled his fat neck and whimpered when he saw Brindle, +who occupied the back seat with Dee; Cousin Park gave an audible snort. +Brindle paid no attention at all to Pug but sat like a bulldog done in +bronze and for the time being even refrained from snuffling. + +I dreaded the meeting between my dear friends, the Tuckers, and Cousin +Park, knowing that lady's overbearing manner when things did not go to +suit her. But I really had not fathomed the depth of Zebedee's mixing +powers. I remembered what Dee had said about his being able to make +crabs and ice cream agree if he set his mind to it. + +All the Tuckers looked rather aghast as they drew up near the rockaway +from which Cousin Park was emerging, Pug clasped in her arms. They +composed their countenances quickly, however, at least Dee and Zebedee +did; Dum was never able to pull her social self together quite so +quickly as her father and sister. Zebedee shut off his engine and in a +moment was assisting my dignified relative with her many traveling +necessities: small pillows of various sizes and shapes, designed to ease +different portions of one's anatomy on trains and in carriages (she +carried four of them); several silk bags bulging with mysterious +contents; a black sunshade; her turkey-tail fan; Pug and a box of dog +biscuit. + +Zebedee got them all safely into the house, even taking Pug tenderly in +his arms, much to the astonishment of that dull-witted canine. He +assured Cousin Park that Brindle would not hurt Pug, provided Pug did +not try to get too intimate with him and bore him. + +"We can count on Brindle up to a certain point, but if he gets very +bored he is apt to be cross," another human attribute my dear Tuckers +gave their pet. Cousin Park rather bridled at the idea of her precious +dog's boring anything, but Zebedee's manner was so deferential and his +solicitude so apparent that mortal woman could not have withstood him. + +Cousin Sue and the Tuckers took to one another from the beginning. I had +thought they would, but sometimes the friends that you expect to like +one another are the very ones that act "Dr. Fell" and develop a strange +and unreasoning dislike. + +The picnic was under discussion and was approved of unanimously. I +thought Dum blushed a little when I announced that Mr. Reginald Kent was +back in the county. She undoubtedly had a soft spot in her girl's heart +for the good looking young illustrator who had been so enamoured of her +the winter before. + +One thing occurred to mar our pleasant anticipations: Cousin Park, +instead of declining the invitation to go on the picnic, which Father +and I pressed upon her, expecting of course that she would refuse, +accepted with alacrity, announcing that the piney air would be good for +Pug. We told her the road was impossible for the rockaway and that she +would have to go in a spring wagon; but that made no difference, go she +would and go she did, four little cushions, bulging silk bags, purple +and black knitting, Pug and package of dog biscuit, turkey-tail fan and +all. + +We made an early start to avoid the heat of the August day. Mammy Susan +had packed a hamper with every conceivable good thing the countryside +afforded, and the floor of the spring wagon was filled with watermelons, +the pride of my dear father's heart. Next to his library, Father loved +his watermelon patch. My earliest remembrance is watermelon seed spread +out on letter paper to dry, with a description of that particular melon +written on the paper. Every good melon must have some seed saved from it +for the purpose of reproducing the species. "Very rich in colour with +black seeds and thin rind. Sweet and juicy," would be one; then another: +"Small, round, dark green,--meat pale in colour but mealy and very +delicious;" another: "Large, striped rattlesnake variety,--good if +allowed to ripen, but great favourite with niggers." + +On that hot day in August small round ones rubbed noses with large +rattlesnake varieties and the rich red ones with thin rinds and black +seeds jostled each other in the bottom of the wagon as we bumped over +the none too smooth roads that our country boasted. + +Cousin Park required a whole back seat for herself and Pug and her many +belongings. Zebedee drove with Cousin Sue Lee and Brindle on the front +seat with him, and we three girls sat in the back with the tail gate +down and our legs a-dangling. It was thoroughly selfish of Cousin Park +to allow us to do it but we enjoyed it hugely. Father had many morning +calls to make but was to land at the ford for dinner. + +Jo Winn was waiting at the cross roads in his knock-about, his favourite +setter between his knees and his handsome cousin by his side. Mr. Kent +could hardly wait for the vehicle to stop to jump out and speak to us. +Again he seemed to think we needed masculine protection so Dee changed +places with him and joined the grinning and delighted Jo, and the young +advertising artist squeezed in between Dum and me. + +A jolly ride we had in spite of the many bumps in the road and the fact +that at every bump the watermelons would roll against our backs. Cousin +Park sat in solemn silence, but Zebedee and Cousin Sue kept up a lively +conversation on the front seat and we three with our legs a-dangling +never paused a moment in our lively chatter. + +I think Cousin Park regretted many times that she had not decided to +spend the day quietly at Bracken with Miss Pinky Davis for company and +Mammy Susan to wait on her. We had not let her come without informing +her of the bad roads and the long drive to Uncle Peter's cabin and then +the rough walk to the ford, but nothing would keep her from coming and +now she was making the best of it. She emitted an occasional groan but +never a word of complaint, which was quite fine of her in a way. + +We found Uncle Peter hoeing his tobacco but glad of an excuse to stop. +Aunt Rosana was as fat as ever and her cabin just as clean. She was +overjoyed to see us and flattered beyond measure when Mr. Kent told her +he had come all the way back from New York just to get another picture +of the inside of her house. This time he wanted to make a drawing, not +being satisfied with the time exposure he had taken before. Of course he +could not possibly find his way to the ford alone, so the wily youth +persuaded Dum to wait with him while he made his sketch. She seemed +nothing loath and even made a sketch herself. + +"Lawsamussy, Rosana! Come look at dese here watermillions Docallison +done sent to de pickanigger!" exclaimed Uncle Peter, his eyes rolling in +delight. Aunt Rosana waddled out. + +"Great Gawd! They mus' be one apiece." + +"So they are, Aunt Rosana, and you must have one left here for you so +you can have your share. Which kind do you like best?" I asked. + +"Well, all watermillions is good but some is scrumptious, and I low +I'll take a chanct on one er dem striped rattlers. If it do prove to be +scrumptious they will be so much er it. I is jes' lak a lil' pig wif a +million--whin he'll eat a whole bucket er slop an' thin git in de +bucket. I eats all they is an' thin jes' fair wallows in de rime." + +"I can't raise no millions, it looks like," said Uncle Peter sadly. "Dem +dere swamp niggers comes an' gathers 'em whin dey's no bigger 'n +cowcumbers." He reached into the back of the wagon and thumped every +melon with his horny forefinger, a smile of extreme satisfaction +lighting his kindly features. "I tell yer, Docallison ain't a gwine ter +hab no millions on his plantation pulled green. He knows de music ub a +ripe un 'bout as well as he reckernizes de soun' ub pneumony in a sick +man's chist. Whin I comes to think ub it they is similar sounds. I'll be +boun' Docallison done got up hisself an' pulled dese here millions wif +de dew on 'em. Dey's still cold in spite of the heat dey done been in." + +That was so. Father always pulled the watermelons himself and always did +it very early in the morning when the dew was still on them. + +We started on our walk to the ford, the same walk we had taken the +winter before on our memorable deer hunt. Uncle Peter loaded the melons +into his wheelbarrow and Zebedee and Jo Winn swung the baskets on a +stout pole which they carried between them. Cousin Park got between Dee +and me and taking an arm of each proceeded on her ponderous way. I would +gladly have wheeled the watermelons or carried the hampers. It would +have been child's play beside the load we carried. Pug and Brindle +trotted along, Brindle still ignoring the existence of Pug and Pug +whimpering every time he caught Brindle's eye. Jo's setter kept well in +advance and pretended he was none of us. + +"Why do we go so far? Why not sit down right here and have our repast?" +panted poor Cousin Park. + +"But we are to fish at the river," suggested Cousin Sue, who was laden +with Cousin Park's many cushions and bags and the knitting and dog +biscuit. + +"And there is such a fine spring there, too," I said, and added, knowing +Cousin Park's weakness: "We can't make the coffee unless we get near a +spring." And so we trudged on, Zebedee and Uncle Peter taking down the +worm fences to let Cousin Park and the watermelons through, and then +patiently building them up again. + +There was the deep cathedral peace in the pine woods and our presence +seemed almost a sacrilege as we tramped heavily over the soft bed of +fragrant pine needles. Cousin Park had to sit down and rest every now +and then and it took the combined effort of all the males, white and +coloured, to get her on her feet after one of these pauses. + +At last we reached our camping ground. The kindly and resourceful +Zebedee made a bed for my august relative of pine boughs and with the +help of the different sized and shaped pillows she was quite +comfortable. With her various bags distributed around her and her +knitting and her stupid Pug by her side she went off into a deep sleep, +much to the relief and delight of all of us. + +"Now we can be ourselves!" exclaimed Zebedee, turning handsprings like a +boy; and Cousin Sue and Dee and I caught hold of hands and ran to the +spring which sparkled and gurgled in a beautiful stone grotto at the +foot of the hill near the river ford. Uncle Peter put all the melons +into the little branch flowing from the spring and there they cooled to +a queen's taste. + +We made the camp fire and prepared the coffee well away from Cousin Park +and we devoutly hoped that she would sweetly sleep until her favourite +beverage was ready. + +What a good time we did have that day! We fished in the river, and while +our catch was nothing to be proud of, we had fun all the same. Dee +caught a catfish that pulled and tugged at her line like a veritable +whale. She finally landed it with a shriek that made Cousin Park stir +uneasily from her bed of pine boughs and brought on herself, Dee, a good +shaking from Zebedee. + +"Wake her up, and I declare you will have to entertain her! It's your +turn, anyhow." + +I caught what Uncle Peter called "a mud turkle." We threw him back into +his delectable mud and he went in with a grateful "kerchunk," sending +back many bubbles of appreciation. + +"Almost as good at making bubbles as a young lady I know," said +Zebedee, re-baiting my hook for me. + +Enough small river perch were caught to make a little mess which Uncle +Peter cleaned with great skill and fried on our camp fire. Dum and her +cavalier, having finished the sketching, joined us with such a racket +that Cousin Park really waked up and confessed herself much refreshed +when she detected the odour of coffee in the air. She was much more of a +sport than I had expected to find her and not such a bad picnicker after +all. + +Father got there in time to sit down to as good a dinner as was served +in all the land on that hot day in August, I am sure. Sally Winn had put +on the big pot and the little, and Mammy Susan had out-Susaned herself. +We had no forks for our fried fish, but the person who can't eat a fried +fish without a fork deserves to go fishless. Cousin Park drank so much +strong coffee that she was really boozy and actually flirted with +Zebedee. + +The watermelons were--well, there are no words to describe those melons. +Watermelons are like sunsets--no words can picture them. You have to be +on the spot with both wonders to appreciate them. Father's pockets were +bulging with seeds, saved for next year's planting. Uncle Peter, who sat +over behind a pine tree having his dinner, declared himself "fittin' fur +to bust!" + +All of us had reached our limit of endurance and when the food was all +disposed of decided we should either have to go on a long walk or drop +to sleep. Cousin Park again sought her pine bough couch where she sat in +state, dozing and knitting on her ugly black and purple shawl. Uncle +Peter acted as body guard to her while all the rest of us went on a long +tramp on the other side of the river. + +We came back feeling fine and no longer full to "stuffifaction," as poor +dear Blanche used to say. Zebedee held up two fingers, the sign all the +world over among boys that a swim would be in order. Father responded +with a boyish laugh and all the men trooped off to a swimming hole that +Jo knew of a little way down the river. We could hear their shouts of +laughter and a great splashing. + +They were hardly out of sight when we were out of our shoes and +stockings and in wading, Cousin Sue as eager as any of us. How good it +felt! I'd rather wiggle my toes in a clear brown stream with a sandy +bottom than do anything in the world. We took bits of bark and slender +twigs and scraps of stray paper and sailed them down the swift-flowing +water, watching to see which reached the tiny eddying rapids first and +cheering the winners. Then at Dee's suggestion we picked up little +pieces of wood and named them _Volunteer_, _Valiant_, _Vixen_, and +_Valkyrie_ and held an exciting cup race. + +We dabbled our hands in the cool water. We splashed and sang. We romped +and ran. You know what we did and what fun we had if you ever spent part +of an August day in such a lovely spot. + +But bye and bye we heard laughter again and voices, and we knew the men +were coming back. So we scrambled out of the stream, dried our feet on +the sunny bank and popped them again into demure and proper coverings. + +We sighed a little that it was over--that glorious bit of freedom--but +argued that it must stop sometime. + +And that reminds me: this book, too, must stop, and it might as well be +now, although the picnic story is not quite ended. + +I had thought of telling how Uncle Peter took Cousin Park back to the +spring wagon in his wheelbarrow, and something of the wonderful drive +home with the crescent moon shining in the glow of the sunset. How +Father drove Cousin Sue in his buggy and I sat on the front seat with +Zebedee,--but I must stop. + +I wonder,--shall I meet you all again when I am "Back at School with the +Tucker Twins?" + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Obvious punctuation errors were corrected. + +Varied hyphenation was retained. This includes words such as cork-screw +and corkscrew; football and foot-ball. This text spells the more usual +"Monticello" as "Montecello." + +Table of Contents, chapter VIII actually begins on page 82 instead of +the 83 that the original prints. This was changed. + +Page 51, "Dun" changed to "Dum" (come!" wailed Dum) + +Page 226, "dinnor" changed to "dinner" (for yesterday's dinner) + +Page 270, "po'" changed to "Po'" ("Po' Jo," had met her) + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VACATION WITH THE TUCKER TWINS*** + + +******* This file should be named 36046.txt or 36046.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/4/36046 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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