A House Party with the Tucker Twins
by Nell Speed · English · Gutenberg #36671 · 315,218 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A House Party with the Tucker Twins
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: A House Party with the Tucker Twins
Author: Nell Speed
Illustrator: A. O. Scott
Release date: July 9, 2011 [eBook #36671]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36671
Credits: Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan,
Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HOUSE PARTY WITH THE TUCKER TWINS ***
Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Rod Crawford, Dave Morgan,
Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net
[Transcriber's Note: Italic text is indicated by _underscores_ and bold
text by =equal signs=.]
[Illustration: SLEEPY TOOK HER BY THE ARM AND CARRIED HER OFF,
PROTESTING, * * * BUT HAPPY IN BEING COERCED. Page 37.]
A HOUSE PARTY WITH THE TUCKER TWINS
By
NELL SPEED
_Author of "The Molly Brown Series," "The Carter
Girls Series," "At Boarding School With
the Tucker Twins," etc., etc._
With Four Illustrations
by
ARTHUR O. SCOTT
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1921
BY
HURST & COMPANY
Contents
I. MAXTON 7
II. THE COUNTRY STORE 19
III. ENGAGING IN MERCANTILE PURSUITS 35
IV. DEE TUCKER MAKES A SALE 51
V. THE HUMAN FLY 63
VI. "BIG MEETIN'" 78
VII. THE REASON WHY 96
VIII. THE CIRCUS 113
IX. THE PERFORMANCE 128
X. THE GHOST OF A GHOST 140
XI. THE PICNIC 148
XII. THE SHOPPER-ROON 165
XIII. TANGLEFOOT 185
XIV. A YOUNGER SON 203
XV. SLEEPY WAKES UP 219
XVI. THINGS HAPPENING 231
XVII. MORE THINGS HAPPENING 246
XVIII. THE END OF AN EVENTFUL DAY 259
XIX. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 271
XX. A LETTER FROM ANNIE PORE TO PAGE ALLISON 283
XXI. A LETTER FROM GEORGE MASSIE TO PAGE ALLISON 296
XXII. A LETTER FROM PAGE ALLISON TO THE TUCKER TWINS 300
A House Party With the Tucker Twins
CHAPTER I
MAXTON
THERE may be more fun than a house-party, but I doubt it. Certainly I,
Page Allison, have never had it. What could be more delightful than to
spend two weeks in a beautiful old country home with such a host as
General Price, and to have as fellow guests all the girl friends you
care for most in the world,--to say nothing of some of the male
persuasion that at least you don't hate?
Harvie Price had been promised this house-party by his grandfather as
reward of merit, and, like most things earned by hard labor, it proved
to be worth the work expended. The Tucker Twins of course were there,
Mary Flannagan, Shorty Hawkins, George Massie (alias Sleepy), Wink
White, Jim Hart, and Ben Raglan, whose other name was Rags. There were
two men from the University whom we did not know before, but it did not
take long for us to forget that they were new acquaintances. They fitted
in wonderfully well and a few hours found them behaving like old and
tried friends. Their names were Jack Bennett and Billy Somers, and both
of them hailed from Kentucky. There was a new girl in the party, Jessie
Wilcox. She wasn't quite so easy to know as the new boys.
I always feel like crying when I think of dear little Annie Pore's
connection with that house-party. She was of course the very first
person Harvie asked, the one he wanted most. I think in his mind the
party was given to Annie, and when Mr. Pore with characteristic
selfishness and stubbornness refused to let her go, it was a blow
indeed.
His plea was that he needed her to keep the store for him. He had hired
a clerk after Annie went to boarding-school, and owing to his growing
business, had kept the boy on through vacation, but on the eve of the
house-party had seen fit to get rid of him, having sent him on an
unasked for and undesired holiday.
"I found it out only this morning," said Harvie gloomily.
He had come to meet us at the landing, most of us having arrived by boat
from Richmond. He was doing his best to look cheerful, feeling that a
cloud must not be cast over the entire party because one member could
not be there. He said he felt he knew me well enough to speak out on the
subject of Mr. Pore, and speak out he did.
"But has your grandfather tried to persuade him to let her come?"
"No! You see Grandfather is a great believer in State's Rights, and he
carries his theories down to the individual. He says that Mr. Pore is a
wrong-headed father but it is his own affair and he refuses to
interfere. He takes the stand that he has no more right to dictate to
Mr. Pore how to run his household, than Massachusetts had to interfere
in our own little matter of slavery here in Virginia, back in the
sixties."
"Poor Annie! We shall have to work out some kind of a scheme for her.
I'll tell Mary and the Tuckers. I am sure we can get the tiresome old
Englishman to come around somehow."
"I wish I thought so, but I tell you that Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore has
never been known to change his mind. Besides he is leaving to-day for
Richmond to be gone several days."
That is often the way with persons who have not much mind to change;
they seem to have none to spare; but Mr. Pore was a cultivated, learned
gentleman,--surely he was amenable to reason.
Price's Landing was a quiet little wharf almost hidden by the
overhanging willows. It took the boat only a moment to drop one mail bag
and take on another, or to do the same by the occasional passengers. It
seemed hardly worth while to go through the motions of landing for such
small traffic, but Harvie assured us that in watermelon time or when
tobacco was being shipped they were a very important trading point, one
of the busiest along the James.
The village was about an eighth of a mile back from the landing and it
looked as though not even watermelon time could wake it up. There were
two stores, Mr. Pore's and a rival concern; a blacksmith shop, sprawling
far out in the road; a schoolhouse; three churches; a post-office; and
four residences.
"I'd like to stop and have all of you see Annie now, but Grandfather is
expecting us and perhaps we had better come back later on," said Harvie,
who was driving one of the vehicles sent to meet us.
The road to Maxton, the Prices' place, skirted the village and then went
directly up quite a steep elevation. The house was built on top of the
hill commanding a fine view of the river. The lawn sloped down to the
water's edge where one could see a very attractive boat-house and
several boats riding at anchor.
"Lovely! Lovely!" we exclaimed.
"I'm mighty afraid I'm going to run down that hill and jump in the
water," cried Dum.
"Well, hills are certainly made to run down and water to jump in,"
declared one of the new acquaintances, Billy Somers, who was standing on
the springs of the vehicle in the rear holding on by the skin of his
teeth and the back seat. "I bid to do what you do."
The mansion (one could not call it just plain house) was a perfect
specimen of colonial architecture, red brick of a rich rare tone with a
great gallery across the front, the roof of which was supported by huge
white pillars. The front door was a marvel of beautiful proportions,
line and detail. A great ball might have been given on the porch, or
gallery, as it is called in the South. Indeed, a sizable party might
have been held on each one of the broad stone steps that led to the
lawn. Only a very long-legged person could go up or down those stairs
without taking two steps to a tread.
A house like Maxton is very wonderful and beautiful but somehow never
seems very homelike to me. Every time you go in and out of your front
door to have to tackle those stairs would take from the homey feeling.
Now at my home, Bracken, you are closer to Mother Earth and not nearly
so grand and toploftical.
Standing on the gallery to greet the guests were General Price and his
maiden sister Miss Maria, the general tall and stately and Miss Maria
short and fat. It was easy for the brother to look aristocratic and
dignified, in fact he could not have looked any other way, so deserved
no credit; but for the sister to look equally so was a marvel. Her
figure reminded me of Mammy Susan's tomato pincushion, a treasure I had
been allowed to play with in my childhood. She was quite as round in the
back as the front and her waist was like the equator: an imaginary line
extending from east to west. Her face was in keeping with her figure,
round and fat, but through those rolls of flesh the high born lady
looked out. Her voice was very sweet and the hand that she extended to
us was as white as snow. She must have been about seventy years old, but
thanks to her rotundity there were no wrinkles on her pink and white
face. Of course she was dressed in black silk and old lace! How else
could she have been clothed?
The general would have served as a model for the make-up of a movie
actor in a before-the-war film. The Tuckers and Mary and I decided later
on that we felt just like a movie as we went up those grand broad steps
with our host and hostess at the top.
The hall carried out our feeling of being on the screen.
"My, what a place to dance!" whispered Dee to me, but General Price
heard her and smiled his approval. He was dignified himself but we were
thankful he did not expect us to be.
"You shall dance here to your heart's content, my dear. Many a measure
has been trod in this hall."
Dee looked a little depressed at being expected to tread a measure. That
sounded rather minuetish to the modern ear. We wondered what he would
think of the dances of the day.
Maxton was laid out in the form of a cross with two great wings, one on
each side of the hall. The girls were lodged upstairs in one wing, the
boys in the other. Downstairs in the boys' wing were the parlors and
smoking room and General Price's chamber and office; in the girls', the
dining room, breakfast room, sewing room, chamber, linen room,
storeroom, Miss Price's chamber and her small sitting room where she
directed her household. There was a basement with more storerooms,
pantries, a billiard room and a winter kitchen, but in the summer an
outside kitchen was used. All of these things we found out later on a
tour of inspection with our hostess.
The great hall ran through the house and the back door was exactly like
the front. Thanks to the lay of the land, however, there was not quite
such a formidable array of steps. It seemed much more homelike in the
back than the front. From the rear gallery one stepped into a formal
garden, gravel paths, box hedges, labyrinth and all.
"Oh, ain't it great, ain't it great?" cried Mary, dancing up and down
the waxed floor of the great bedroom she and I were to occupy. Dum and
Dee Tucker were put in the room with the other girl, Jessie Wilcox. If
Annie could have come she was to have been with Mary and me.
"I've got no business calling it great, though," she said as she stopped
prancing, "when Annie can't be here. What are we to do about it, Page
Allison?"
"Let's call Tweedles in consultation. They can think up things."
Tweedles were very glad to come. Miss Wilcox, who had motored over to
Maxton several hours ahead of us, had already taken possession of the
room and had begun to unpack her many fluffy clothes. Miss Maria had
introduced all of us to our fellow visitor and had graciously expressed
a desire that we should be good friends. We were willing, but it
remained to be seen whether the stranger would meet us half way. She was
a beautiful little creature with dark eyes and hair. Evidently she was
very dressy or she would not have had to take up two double beds and
all the chairs with her clothes. She seemed to have no idea of making
room for the Tuckers nor did she make any excuse for spreading herself
so promiscuously.
"She needn't think I am going to move them," said Dum. "If they aren't
off my bed by bedtime, I'll just go to sleep on them. I wish we could
come in with you girls."
"Of course that would never do," declared Dee. "We must stay where Miss
Price put us."
"Maybe Miss Wilcox will turn out to be fine," I suggested, hoping to
turn the tide of Dum's disapproval.
"Fine! She's too fine. I wish you could see her fluffy ruffles. But this
isn't thinking up something to do about poor little Annie. My, I wish
Zebedee could have come!"
We all wished the same thing, but since he couldn't come we felt we must
think up something for ourselves.
"He could have talked old Ponsonby Pore into letting Annie come, I just
know," said Dee.
"Maybe we could do the same thing," I suggested.
"Harvie says nothing will move him."
"Well, one thing sure, we can go to see Annie and he can't drive us out,
not after he has visited us at the beach. He'll just have to be polite
to us."
"Can't she come up in the evening? Surely she must stop keeping store
sometimes," asked Mary.
"Country stores never close. At least the one near us never does. They
might miss the sale of a box of matches or a stick of candy. I used to
think, when I was a little girl, that I would rather keep a store than
do anything in all the world. I talked about it so much that Mammy Susan
got right uneasy about me."
"Well, Harvie and Sleepy are blue enough about it, so we must cheer up,"
said Dee. "We are to be here two weeks and if we behave real well maybe
they will ask us for longer, and surely in that time we can make that
old stickinthemud come around. Zebedee could think up a way in a
minute."
CHAPTER II
THE COUNTRY STORE
THE Prices had the right idea about entertaining a crowd of young
people: that was to let them entertain each other. If a dozen boys and
girls can't have a good time just because they are girls and boys then
there is something very dull about them and the combination is hopeless.
There was nothing dull about this crowd gathered in the hospitable Price
mansion. Harvie was too well bred to let the disappointment about the
non-appearance of one guest make him neglect the others. Poor George
Massie was the one who could not conceal his feelings. Annie was the
first and only girl he had ever cared for and now he sat, a mountain of
woe, consuming large quantities of luncheon as though the business of
eating were the only solace in life.
"Wake up, Sleepy, the worst is yet to come!" teased Rags.
Sleepy only groaned and dismally accepted another hot biscuit. The funny
thing about Sleepy was that he was so in love with Annie that he did not
at all mind being teased.
"I am going down to see Annie right after luncheon. Don't you want to go
too?" I whispered to Sleepy who was next to me.
"Sure!"
"We are trying to think up a plan by which we can get her hateful old
father to let her join us here."
"Brute!"
"Don't you think the girl is pretty, sitting next to Wink?"
Miss Wilcox had plunged into a flirtation with that budding young
doctor, placed on her right, not forgetting to turn to her left quite
often to include Jack Bennett in her chatter.
"No! Like blondes best!"
Miss Wilcox looked up quickly. I was almost sure she had heard Sleepy.
She glanced quite seriously around the table, regarding each girl
intently. Certainly there were no decided blondes there except Mary
Flannagan, whose hair was red, and even the best friends of dear old
Mary could not call her beautiful. The Tucker twins were more brunette
than blonde, Dum's hair being red black and Dee's blue black. As for me,
Page Allison, I was neither one thing nor the other. My hair was neither
light nor dark and my eyes were grey. She need not look at me so hard. I
wasn't the blonde that Sleepy liked best.
Farther acquaintance with Jessie Wilcox explained her concern over
Sleepy's remark. She was a very nice girl just so long as she was "it,"
but she could not brook a rival of any sort. She must be the center of
attraction, admired by all, praised by all. The minute she felt that
there was someone who was considered more beautiful than she was, could
dance better, sing better, do anything better, that minute she was a
changed being.
Her previous visits to Maxton had been very delightful as she had always
been praised and petted to her heart's content. Both General Price and
his sister were devoted to her and she was ever a welcome visitor. Her
grandfather's home was about ten miles from Price's Landing, and
whenever she came from New York to see him she must spend part of her
time with the old people at Maxton. Harvie admired her very much, as who
would not? She was beautiful, intelligent, very quick-witted and
charming. He had never seen her with any other girl except her best
friend, who on one occasion had been at Maxton with her, and this
friend, being hopelessly plain and rather slow of wit, but served as a
foil to the little beauty.
After overhearing Sleepy's announcement about blondes, she looked at me
so steadily that I began to blush. I was suddenly very conscious of my
tip-tilted nose and of the added toll of freckles that the summer always
exacted from it. I wondered if anyone else was noticing the almost
disagreeable expression of her usually sweet countenance.
I was glad when Miss Maria arose as a signal for us to leave the table.
"Make yourselves at home!" the general said in his hospitable way.
"Maxton is yours to do with as you please. There are horses in the
stables for any of you who want to ride or drive; there are boats on the
river; there are swings on the lawn; the tennis court is in condition
for matches if you care to play. All I ask of you is not to fall off the
horses or let them run away with you and kill you; and not to tumble
into the river and drown."
"That seems a reasonable request," I laughed. "How about falling out of
the swings or beating each other up with tennis rackets?"
"Oh, well! I must not put too many restrictions on youth," he said,
pinching my ear.
Jessie looked at me again rather severely and once more I felt mighty
freckled.
"Let's get a rig and go see Annie," suggested Sleepy.
"All right! Tweedles and Mary want to go, too."
"Let's get in ahead of them," he pleaded.
"Come on, Page!" shouted Dum. "We want you in a set of tennis."
"Now I was just going to ask her to come for a row," cried Dee. "Wink
and Jim told me to engage you. They have gone to see about the boat."
"Sorry, but I've got a date with Sleepy."
"Humph! Miss Allison seems to be rather in demand," said Jessie to Jack
Bennett. She said it in a low voice but I heard quite distinctly.
"Yes! They say she is the most popular girl at her school."
"Oh, is that so? I can't see the attraction."
"Well, she must have it because girls like her as well as the fellows.
They say Dr. White is terribly smitten on her."
"Absurd!"
I quite agreed with her. The sooner Wink White stopped hypnotizing
himself into thinking he was in love with me, the better I would have
liked it. Of course every girl likes to have attention, but I thought
entirely too much of Wink to be pleased to have him looking at me like
a dying calf. He was such a nice boy, so good looking, so clever, so
agreeable,--except when he was alone with me. Then his whole nature
seemed to undergo a change. I dreaded being left with him and usually
managed to avoid it. He was my fly in the ointment of this house-party.
I did not at all relish having this young Kentuckian state it as a fact
that Wink was interested in me. Jessie Wilcox was welcome to him if she
could persuade him to transfer his affections.
Sleepy and I skimmed away in a spruce red-wheeled buggy with a young
horse that evidently liked to be moving.
"Fierce about Annie!" he said. "I'd like to wring that old duffer's
neck."
"I hope he has gone before we get there, then," I laughed. "If Mr.
Tucker could only get hold of him, I bet he could bring him around."
Mr. Pore had not gone, however, when we drew up at the cross roads where
the country store stood. He was engaged in trying to sell a large rake
to a farmer, while Annie was busily employed in measuring off two yards
and three-quarters of unbleached cotton for the farmer's wife and then
computing the amount due when the cotton was worth eight and two-third
cents a yard. She completed the calculation just as we came in.
How glad she was to see us! Mr. Pore seemed pleased to renew my
acquaintance, too. He gave only a formal greeting to Sleepy but shook my
hand in what he meant to be a cordial way. The fact that I was part
English and that part of me came up to his idea of social equality, made
him look upon me as desirable. He had not forgotten that my mother and
his wife had been friends in England. He honestly felt that there were
no Americans who were his equals. General Price might be almost so, but
not quite. He saw no reason why his beautiful daughter should not spend
her young life weighing out lard and measuring calico for negroes, but
every reason why she should not demean herself by mixing socially with
any but the highest.
Mr. Pore's store was like every other country store except that it was
perhaps a little more orderly, not much though. Order in a country store
seems to be impossible. The stock must be so large and so varied to suit
all demands that there never is room for it. I have never seen a country
store that was not crowded. How the keepers of such stores ever take
stock of their wares is a mystery to me. Perhaps they never do, but just
go on buying when the supply gets low, and selling off as they can,
putting money in the till until it gets full and then sending it to the
bank. Usually they run their affairs in a haphazard manner and their
books would defy an expert to straighten out. No matter from what walk
of life the country storekeepers are drawn, they are all more or less
alike, whether they are younger sons of the nobility as was Mr. Pore or
elder sons of the soil (with much soil sticking to them) as was old
Blinker, who ran the rival emporium at Price's Landing. They always have
more stock than they have store, and their books usually look as though
entries had been made upside down.
The Pores' store had shelves stretching from one end to the other, down
both sides and reaching as high as the ceiling. On these shelves were
piled dry-goods of all grades and material, lamps, shoes, harness,
hardware, canned goods of every description, crackers, soap, starch,
axle grease, false hair, perfume, patent medicines, toys, paint brushes,
brooms, tobacco, writing paper, china and glass ware, jars, pots and
pans, pokers, baseball bats, millinery, overalls, etc., etc.
The things that were too tall for the shelves, like Grandfather's clock,
consequently stood on the floor. The aisle between the counters was
blocked with sewing machines, kitchen tables, chairs, lawn mowers,
crates of eggs and cases of ginger ale and sarsaparilla. There were
barrels of coarse salt and great tins of lard, firkins of mackerel and
herring, barrels of flour and sacks of meal. One would think that
everything in the world that could be bought or sold was in that little
store, but no! A door to one side led into another room and this room
was also full to overflowing. There were more barrels of provisions for
man and beast; sacks of chicken feed and bran; stoves of all kinds;
poultry netting; coils of wire fencing; gardening implements and away
back in a corner I spied a coffin.
What a setting for such a jewel as Annie Pore! Her beauty shone
resplendent from its background of apron gingham and butter crocks. I
fancied I could detect a little redness to her eyelids as though the
disappointment in not being at Maxton with her friends had caused some
weeping, but her manner was calm and her expression one of resignation
to fate and the decrees of a selfish father. I could not help thinking
how I would have behaved under the circumstances, or the Tucker twins. I
would not have cried, to be sure, but neither would my expression have
been resigned. As for Dum and Dee: they would no doubt have broken up
the shop.
"We are so sorry Annie can't come to the house-party," I ventured as the
farmer who had been haggling for the rake decided not to take it.
Why Mr. Pore was ever able to sell anything I could not see. His manner
was so superior and condescending. Harvie told me afterwards that Mr.
Pore had succeeded in spite of himself. He was scrupulously honest in
the first place and then he always carried the best line of goods. As
for the science of salesmanship: he had yet to learn its rudiments. He
looked sore and irritated at having failed to make the sale but put on
more than ever the manner of insulted royalty. I saw the farmer making
for the rival store where a little later he emerged. Blinker had made
the sale.
When I ventured the above remark, Annie looked as though she wished I
wouldn't, and her father, I am sure, regretted the fact that I was part
English, and that English of good blood; otherwise he could easily have
annihilated me.
"It is a matter I do not care to discuss," he said with a freezing
hauteur.
"Oh, I am not discussing with you, my dear Mr. Pore! I am merely telling
you. All of us are so devoted to Annie and we have looked forward to
being with her on this house-party all summer. I am sure if Harvie had
known earlier that you would not be able to spare Annie at this time,
he would have been glad to postpone the party."
"Ahem--I--am compelled to take this occasion for a business trip. When
one is engaged in mercantile pursuits, it is necessary to make
periodical visits to the city to replenish one's wares."
"Oh, certainly, I understand, but we still are dreadfully sorry about
Annie. Of course we know that you want her to have all the pleasure on
earth. That is the way fathers are made. We are sure you will make your
stay as brief as possible so that Annie can join us at Maxton."
He looked somewhat taken aback and murmured something more about
mercantile pursuits. Sleepy sat on a keg of nails with eyes as big as
saucers while Annie had the startled expression of one who sees her
friend enter the cage of a man-eating lion.
"You see I am an only child, too, Mr. Pore, and my mother is dead, just
like Annie's. I know better than anyone how much a father can be to a
little motherless daughter, and how that father can plan and deny
himself for his child. You can't tell me anything about the love of a
father."
As Mr. Pore had never attempted to tell of any such thing, this was most
audacious of me. Annie was actually gasping and Sleepy choked, but Mr.
Pore looked at me quite solemnly through his gold-rimmed glasses.
"Sometimes my father is called away; you see a country doctor's time is
not his own, either, and he has had to leave me just when I felt I most
needed him--on birthdays--and--and--all kinds of holidays, but he comes
back to me just as fast as he can. My father is thinking of getting an
assistant and then he can have more time, I hope. You have had an
assistant, too, have you not?"
He bowed gravely.
"Where is he, then?"
"He is away on leave."
"Ill? That is too bad!"
"No, not ill! He is having a much-needed holiday."
"Oh, then he has gone on a trip?"
"I fancy not."
"Why, then I am sure he would be glad to come back and relieve Annie so
she can come to Maxton. Oh, Mr. Pore, do please write for him to come on
back and take his holiday later!"
"Really, Miss Allison----" he began in his most dignified Oxford donnish
manner.
"Oh, I just know you will! You and Father and Mr. Tucker are all just
alike. You can't bear to deny your girls any pleasure."
His expression was comical at having these virtues thrust upon him.
"I--er--I--shall endeavor to return from this enforced journey,
necessary to replenish the stock which one engaged in mercantile
pursuits in the rural districts finds it expedient to carry, and on my
return if all goes well with the business, I shall permit my daughter to
enjoy the hospitality extended to her by my neighbor, General Price."
"I knew you would! I knew you would!" and I shook his limp hand which
Dee Tucker had once said reminded her of nothing so much as an old pump
handle that had lost the sucker. Everybody knows how that feels, at
least everybody who has had dealings with pumps. You grasp the handle
expecting some resistance and a flow of water in response; but when the
sucker has disappeared, the handle will fly up in a strange limp manner
and unless the pumper is wary there is danger of getting a lick in the
nose.
I cared not for a response. If no flow of kindliness was the result of
my enthusiasm, I cared not a whit. Annie was to be one of the
house-party and I had saved the day. I remembered how Mr. Tucker, dear
old Zebedee, had declared that he had won over Mr. Pore by treating him
like a human being, that time he had persuaded him to let Annie come to
Willoughby to the vacation party. I had treated him as I would any
ordinary kind father and he had been so astonished and pleased at his
portrait that he had unconsciously accepted it as a likeness and begun
to pose to look like it.
CHAPTER III
ENGAGING IN MERCANTILE PURSUITS
A WARNING whistle from the up-going steamboat made the dignified Mr.
Pore step lively. With admonitions to Annie to keep an eye to business
and with a limp handshake to Sleepy and me, a peck of a kiss on Annie's
white brow, he seized his ancient Gladstone bag and made for the
landing. That bag must have been a leftover from the old days in
England, and more precious it was in its owner's eyes than the finest
new suitcase that money might buy.
All of us were relieved that he was gone. I giggled with joy and Annie
smiled at Sleepy and me as she had not done since we arrived.
"All the gang is coming down soon to see you, honey. They would have
come with us but we slipped off," said I, going behind the counter to
hug my little friend. I always have had a way of calling Annie my
little friend, which is most absurd as she is inches taller than I am,
but there has been a feeling somehow that she must be protected, and
persons who must be protected seem little even when they are big.
"Gee, I wish I could take you on a little drive before they come!"
exclaimed Sleepy.
"That is very kind of you but of course I can't leave the shop," sighed
Annie.
"Yes, you can! I am here!"
"But I wouldn't let you keep shop for me," laughed Annie.
"I'd like to know why not--I bet I can sell more things than you can.
Just you try me."
"It isn't that! I just couldn't let you. It is something I have to do
but it is not right for you to do it."
"Such nonsense! You just put on your hat and go with Sleepy. How do you
know what is the price of things?"
"Almost all the goods have marks on them but here is a list of prices,
besides,--but Page, dear,--I just couldn't let you do it."
"Well, you just can!" and I took off my own hat and put it on her head.
I hadn't known before what a pretty hat it was. Any hat would be
glorified by Annie's wonderful honey-colored hair. "Now give me your
apron!" and I untied the little frilly affair that Annie wore to keep
shop in and put it on myself.
Sleepy took her by the arm and carried her off, protesting, laughing,
holding back, but happy in being coerced.
"Take her for a long drive, Sleepy! I can run this store and sell it out
of supplies in no time, I am sure."
I heard the sound of the red wheels of the spruce little buggy die away
as the driver let the young horse have free rein. I gave a sigh of joy.
Here I was keeping store at last! What would Mammy Susan say? It is not
often that the acme of one's ambition is reached so young. I smoothed
down my apron and slipped in behind the counter just as a customer
entered.
It was a farmer's wife who had driven over to the landing for
provisions. She hitched her horse and ramshackle buggy in front of the
store and came in prepared to spend a delightful hour. Going to the
store in the country is the event of the week. Her eye had an eager
gleam and there was a flush on her high cheek bones. She was a
gaunt-looking woman with hair slicked up so tight under her stiff straw
hat that it looked as though it must hurt. The hat had all the flowers
that grow in an old-fashioned garden bedecking it, to say nothing of
spiky bows of green ribbon and a rhinestone buckle. She had on a linen
duster which had evidently been hastily donned over a calico house
dress.
"Where's Mr. Pore?"
"He has gone to Richmond."
"Where's Annie?"
"She has stepped out for a moment. Please may I serve you?"
"No, I reckon I'll come again when some of them are in. I'll go over to
Blinker's and trade this morning."
Heavens! Was I to stand still and see customers go over to the rival
store? Had I missed my vocation after all my dreams? Was storekeeping
not what I was cut out for?
"I'm sorry you won't stay and see these new ginghams," I faltered. A
gleam in her eye emboldened me to proceed. "They are making them up so
pretty in Richmond now."
"Well, I wonder if they are! Are you from Richmond?"
"I have been visiting there but I am from Milton. I love to visit in
Richmond. Don't you? It is such a good way to get the new styles."
That had fetched her. She gave up all idea of trading with Blinker. What
did he know of styles and the way ginghams were being made up in the
city? I got down stacks of dry-goods and with my first customer began to
plan a wonderful garment for the protracted meeting soon to take place.
Gingham was decided not to be fine enough for the occasion and a pretty
piece of voile was chosen instead. A silk drop skirt must go with it and
bunches of velvet ribbon must set it off. The farmer's wife was having
the time of her life and I was enjoying myself to the utmost. I
measured off the material in a most professional manner, trembling for
fear the customer would find out what a novice I was. I was thankful
that she was to make it instead of me. With all of my learned talk about
clothes, I could not have sewed up a pillowslip and had it fit the
pillow.
Next on the program was chicken feed. The rats had devoured her supply
of wheat saved for the poultry and the corn had not yet been harvested.
We had to go in the adjoining room for that and I had a chance to peep
at my price list on the way. I persuaded her also into laying in a
supply of canned soups and got her interested in a lawn mower and a
patent churn. She declared she was coming over the next day with her
husband and try to persuade him to purchase both of them for her.
"Men-folks are mighty slow to get implements for the women. I ain't
complaining of my old man, but he thinks he must have every new-fangled
bit of farming machinery that comes along while I am churning with the
same old big-at-the-bottom-and-little-at-the-top-little-thing-in-the-
middle-goes-flippityflop churn that my mother had. As for the bit of
lawn around the house that he 'lows me,--that has to be cut with a
sickle just when I can catch a hand to do it. Now if I had that little
lawn mower I could run it myself and keep things kind of tidy like
'round the house."
"Of course you could," I assented. "Now don't you want some of this
cheese? It is right fresh." I had noted a great new cheese in a glass
case that had evidently been cut only that morning. "Do you ever make
polenta? This cheese would be fine for that."
"No, do tell! I never even heard of it."
"Why, it is a great dish among the Italians and is the best thing you
ever tasted."
"I'm a great hand for cooking and sho' do relish a new recipe."
"Take three cups of boiling water and one cup of corn meal and one cup
of grated cheese, and a teaspoon of salt. Stir the meal into the
boiling water and let it cook until it begins to get thick and then put
in the cheese and salt and bake it in a well-greased pan. It is dandy
eating."
"Well now, doesn't that sound nice? Give me a pound of the cheese and
one of those new pans to bake it in. My pans are all pretty nigh burnt
out."
"Did you ever try any of this glassware for baking? It is so nice and
clean and the crust looks so pretty showing through. To be sure it is
more expensive than tin, but it is so satisfactory."
"I never heard of such a thing! Show it to me."
I had noticed with some surprise that Mr. Pore had a supply of the
fire-proof glass just coming into general use. He was certainly a
progressive buyer for one who was such a poor salesman. I sold her two
glass baking dishes and then more dry-goods. It took three trips for us
to carry out all her packages to the buggy. More purchasers had arrived
in the meantime. I foresaw a busy time.
A little colored girl with three eggs tied up in a rag wanted to trade
them for flour.
"My maw is makin' a cake fur the barsket fun'ral an' she ain't got a
Gawd's mouth er flour in the house. She say if'n she can trade these
here fur some flour she'll be jes' a-kitin'."
"Whar you git them aigs?" asked an old uncle suspiciously. I had just
sold him a plug of "eatin' terbaccer."
"I git 'em out'n the nesses, whar they b'long," she asserted, tossing
her wrapped plaits scornfully.
"Yer ain't got but one hen an' I done see yo' maw a-wringing her naick
this ve'y mawnin'."
"What'n if'n yer did? That ole blue hen been layin' two three times er
day lately, an' my maw she says she mus' about laid out by this time, so
she up'n kilt her fer the barsket fun'ral goin' on at de same time of de
big meetin'. But laws a mussy! Do you know she was that full er aigs
that it war distressful?" The child's eyes were wistful at the
remembrance.
"Well, well! Nobody can't tell 'bout women an' hens. It seems lak
nobody don't speak up an' testify how much good they is in some sisters
'til they is dead an' gone. Same way with hens! Same way with hens! Is
yo' maw gwinter bile it or bake it?"
"Sh'ain't 'cided. If'n yer bile it yer gits soup extry an' if'n yer bake
it yer gits stuffin' an' graby."
I was thankful for the little training I had in mathematics when it was
up to me to convert eggs into flour. Some problem! I put in a little
extra flour to make sure and the child skipped off.
At this juncture the Tucker twins, Mary Flannagan, and a troop of young
men from Maxton blew in. I was secretly relieved that Miss Wilcox was
not of the party. Not that I minded her seeing me keep store, but I had
a feeling she might be a little scornful of Annie Pore.
"Where is Annie?" cried Dum.
"We are nearly dead to see her," declared Dee.
"Gone driving with Sleepy. I am keeping store in her absence. His Lord
High Muck-a-Muck has embarked for Richmond."
"What fun! What fun! We bid to help!"
"Maybe only one had better help, as purchasers coming in might be
overcome by too many clerks," I laughed.
"You are right! Dee must be the one because she is so tactful," said Dum
magnanimously.
So Dee took off her hat and got behind the candy and ginger ale side of
the counter, and then such a buying and selling ensued as that country
store had never witnessed.
Of course everybody treated everybody else and then had to be treated in
turn. I stayed on the dry-goods side, and while I was not doing such a
thriving business as Dee, still I had my hands full. The farmer's wife
had met some acquaintances and sent them to Pore's to see the new clerk
who could tell them so much about Richmond styles. I had to draw a
gallon of kerosene for one customer, but Wink insisted upon doing this
for me. I did not want him to one little bit. If I was to be
storekeeper, I preferred being one, not just playing at it.
"I think you are wonderful, Page, to do this for Annie," he whispered to
me as we made our way to the coal oil barrel.
"Nonsense! What is wonderful about it?"
"You are always kind to everybody but me."
"Do you want me to keep store for you?"
"No, I want you to keep house for me," he muttered.
"But I did not know you had a house," I teased.
He pumped vigorously at the coal oil.
"I intend to have one some day."
"A grand one, surely, if you expect to have a housekeeper!"
"Page, you know what I mean!" He looked longingly into my eyes that I
knew were full of mischievous twinkles.
"All I know is, you have wasted about a quart of kerosene."
The floor was flooded. It is a difficult thing to pump coal oil and make
love at the same time. Poor Wink had done both of his jobs badly. He
looked aghast at the havoc he had caused.
"I am a bungling fool!" he cried.
"No, Wink, you are not that. You are just not an adept at--pumping coal
oil."
"Why are you always different with me? You don't treat other fellows the
way you do me."
"You don't treat other girls the way you do me," I retorted.
"Of course not! I don't feel towards them as I do towards you."
"Well, it is a good thing your feelings don't make you grouchy with
everybody. You just exude gloom as soon as you get with me. But this
isn't keeping shop for Annie," and I grabbed the oil can from him and
ran back into the store.
I was very glad to see Wink make his way to Dee. He usually went to her
after a bout with me. They were great friends and seemed to have a
million things of interest to discuss and nothing to disagree about. I
could have been just as good a friend to him if he had only dropped the
eternal subject and treated me as he did Dee: like an ordinary girl who
was ready for a good time but had no idea of a serious attachment. We
were nothing but chits of girls, after all, and only out of school
because Gresham happened to burn down before we had time to graduate.
"Umm! How you do smell of coal oil!" cried Dee. "Don't dare to touch
anything in my line of groceries until you have washed your hands.
There's a basin back there."
Wink laughed and washed his hands as commanded. Now if I had said to him
what Dee had he would have been furious, and gloom impenetrable would
have ensued.
That afternoon I cut off and planned four different dresses for four
farmers' wives, selling trimming and ribbons and fancy buttons. I made
many trades with persons bringing in eggs and chickens and carrying off
various commodities in exchange. I was never so busy in my life. Dee was
equally so, even after we had persuaded the noisy crowd from Maxton to
depart.
"Goodness! I feel as though I had been serving at a church fair," cried
Dee, sinking down exhausted on a soap box.
She had just wheedled a shy young farmer into thinking that existence
could not continue without a box of scented soap and a new cravat,
although he had made a trip to the store for nothing more ornate than
salt for the cattle.
"How do you reckon Annie ever gets through the day if this one is a
sample? I haven't stopped a minute and here come some more traders."
The fact was that Dee and I had done about three times as much selling
as the Pores usually accomplished. Word had gone forth that we were
keeping shop, and everybody hastened to the country store. Dee found
this out by accident over the telephone. There was such a violent
ringing of the bell that she hastened to answer it, not being on to the
country 'phone where everybody's bell rings at every call. This is what
she overheard:
"Say, Milly! Pore's have got some gals from Richmond clerking there.
They can put you on to the styles."
"So I hear! I'm gettin' the mule hitched up fast as I can to go over."
And then a masculine voice took it up evidently from another section:
"They say they are peaches, too!"
"That you, Dick Lee? Where'd you hear about them?"
"Saw Lem Baker on the way, goin' for salt. He got it from Jim Cullen."
"I bet you'll be there soon yourself," broke in the voice of Milly.
"Sure! My car is already cranked up gettin' up speed for the run.
S'long!"
"Wait! What you goin' to buy, Dick? Your sister told me you went to the
store yesterday and laid in enough for a week."
"Well, I may get a coffin," laughed the gay voice of Dick as he hung up
the receiver.
CHAPTER IV
DEE TUCKER MAKES A SALE
"PAGE! I've been eavesdropping! I declare I never meant to do it. I got
into the swim of the conversation and somehow couldn't get out of it,"
cried Dee, blushing furiously. "I don't know what Zebedee would say if
he knew it."
"Why, honey, that isn't eavesdropping!" I laughed. "Country people
always listen to everything they can over the 'phone. That is the only
way we have of spreading the news. I can assure you that perfectly good
church members in our county make a practice of running to the telephone
every time a neighbor's bell rings. How many were on the line when you
cut in?"
"Three or four, I should say, I couldn't quite tell."
Then Dee told me the conversation she had overheard, making me a party
to the crime of eavesdropping.
"Here comes Dick now, I do believe. He was the one who was all cranked
up ready to come."
There was a great buzzing and hissing on the road as a disreputable
looking Ford came speeding down the hill. I have never seen such a
dilapidated car, and still it ran and made good time, too. There was not
a square inch of paint left on its faithful sides, and the top was
hanging down on one side, giving it the appearance of a broken-winged
crow. The doors flapped in the breezes, and the mud-guards were bent and
twisted as though they had had many a collision.
Dick, however, was spruce enough to make up for the appearance of his
car. He had on a bright blue suit, the very brightest blue one can
imagine coming in any material but glass or china; a necktie made of a
silk U. S. flag, with a scarf pin which looked very like an owl with two
great imitation ruby eyes; but I found on inspection it was the American
Eagle. His shoes were very gay yellow and his socks striped red and
white, carrying out the color scheme of his cravat.
I ducked behind my side of the counter leaving the field clear for Dee.
She stood to her guns and gave the newcomer a radiant smile. She was
there to sell goods for Annie Pore and sell them she would.
"Evenin'!"
"How do you do? What can I do for you?"
"Pretty day!"
"Yes, fine! Is there something I can show you?"
"Not so warm as yesterday and a little bit cooler than the day before!"
"Yes, that is so. We've got in a fresh cheese,--maybe you would like a
few pounds of it."
"Looks like rain but the moon hangs dry."
"Oh, I hope it won't rain,--but maybe it will--let me sell you an
umbrella,--they are great when it rains."
"We don't to say need rain for most of the crops, but it wouldn't hurt
the late potatoes."
"Oh, I'm glad of that!"
"But the watermelons don't need a drop more. They are ripening
fine,--rain would make them too mushy like. I'm going to ship a load of
them next week. I 'low I'll get about three hundred off of that sandy
creek bottom."
"Fine! Watermelons are my favorite berry."
Right there I exploded and the young man let out a great haw! haw! too
that helped to break the ice, and also enabled Dee to stop her painful
rejoinders to his polite small talk, and then he began to buy. I heard
Annie and Sleepy as they hitched the horse at the post and I hoped
devoutly the festive Dick would buy out the store before they got in.
Already he had purchased six cravats, a new coal skuttle, a
much-decorated set of bedroom china, a bag of horse cakes, some canned
salmon and a box of axle grease when Annie made her appearance.
She was looking so lovely that I did not blame Sleepy for having the
expression of a hungry man. She was certainly good enough to eat.
"Oh, Page, we had such a wonderful drive! I am so afraid we were gone
too long, but George simply would not turn around." Annie was the only
person who always called Sleepy by his Christian name.
"He was quite right. I have had the time of my life. Dee is helping me.
She is in the other room now, selling a young man named Dick everything
in the store. Don't butt in on her; let her finish her sales. Here come
the others! They said they would be back to see you."
In came all the house-party and such a hugging and kissing and
handshaking ensued as I am sure that little country store had never
before witnessed.
"Oh, Annie, we miss you so!" cried Mary.
"Indeed we do!" from the others.
"Maybe I can be with you in a day or so," said Annie. "Father is going
to try to return in a very little while."
"Well, until he does come back one of us is going to be with you every
day," declared Dum. "Page and Dee need not think they are the only ones
who are going to help."
Annie's eyes were full of happy tears. "What have I done to deserve so
many dear friends?" she whispered to me.
"Nothing but just be your sweet self!" I answered. "I must peep in and
see what Dee is doing to that poor defenseless Dick. I bet she has sold
him a kitchen stove by this time."
Annie and I made our way into the outer room, where at the far end we
could see Dick and Dee in earnest converse.
"It is a very excellent one," she was declaiming. "In fact, I am sure
there is not a better one to be bought. It is air tight and water tight;
of the best material; the latest style; the workmanship on it is very
superior; the price is ridiculously low. Really I think all country
people ought to have one in the house for emergencies. One never can
tell when one will be needed and sometimes they are so difficult to get
in a hurry."
"That's so!" agreed the enamored Dick. "But I reckon I could get this
any time from old man Pore if I should need it."
"Oh, no! You see this is the only one in stock and somebody might come
for this this very night, and then where would you be if you needed it?
Then even if you could get another one, it might not be nearly so
attractive as this one. They are going up, too, all the time,--effect of
the war. Of course this was bought when they were not so high, and I am
letting you have advantage of the price we paid for it. After this they
will be up at least forty per cent.--that's the truth. The war prices
are something fierce."
"Ain't it the truth?"
"Yes, and then you might not be able to get another lavender one. I just
know lavender would be becoming to you. I'd like to see you in a
lavender one."
"Would you really now? That settles it then! I'll have to get old Pore
to trust me, though, until I sell my melons."
"Oh, that's all right. Just whenever you feel like paying."
I was completely mystified. What on earth was that ridiculous girl
selling to the young farmer? Annie was reduced to the limpness of a wet
dishrag by what we had overheard. The giggles had her in their clutches
and she could not speak.
"Do you think you can help me out with it?" asked the young man.
"Sure! It is not heavy yet."
Around the labyrinth made by the farming implements, stoves, etc., came
the buyer and seller, he backing and she carefully guiding him. Between
them they carried a long something; I, at first, could not make out
what.
"A coffin!" I gasped.
Through the door they made their way into the store proper. Some colored
customers had just come in and these fell back with expressions of
curiosity and awe equally mingled on their black faces.
"Who daid? Who daid?" they whispered, but no one vouchsafed any
information. Dee looked supernaturally solemn and Dick only wanted to
get his latest purchase safely landed in his car.
The house-party had adjourned to the porch in front, and when the
lugubrious procession emerged from the store the gaiety suddenly
ceased. As Dick backed out, the young men doffed their caps and the
girls bowed their heads. What was their amazement when Dee turned out to
have hold of the other end. Every man sprang forward to take her place,
but she sadly shook her head and held on to her job.
"It isn't heavy," she whispered.
Dum's eyes filled with tears. She thought with sadness that in a short
while it would be heavy when it fulfilled its destiny. She was very
proud of her twin that she should be so kind and helpful at such a time.
How like Dee it was to be assisting this poor young man, who had perhaps
lost some one near and dear to him!
No one spoke, but all remained reverently uncovered while the coffin was
hoisted on the back seat of the ragged old car. The young men assisted
in this, although Dee would not resign her place as chief mourner.
"Who daid? Who daid?" clamored the darkies who seemed to spring up from
the ground, such a crowd of them appeared in the twinkling of an eye.
"I don't know," said Dum in a teary voice, "but isn't it sad?"
"'Tain't Miss Rena Lee 'cause I jes' done seed her headin' fer the
sto'," declared a little pickaninny.
"She ain't a-trus'in' her bones ter Mr. Dick's artermobe. She done sayed
she gonter dribe her ole yaller mule whar she gwinter go."
"Ain't de Lees got a boardner? Maybe it's de boardner," suggested a
helpful old woman.
"Well, I wonder if it is! Here he come! I'm a-gwinter arsk him."
Dick came out laden with his other purchases.
"Lawsamussy! It mus' be de boardner an' all er her folks is a-comin'
down, 'cause how come Mr. Dick hafter buy all them things otherwise?
Look thar chiny an' coal skuttles an' what not!"
"Who daid, Mr. Dick? Who daid?"
"Nobody I know of!" grinned the young man.
"Ain't it de boardner?"
"What boarder?"
"Miss Rena's boardner!"
"Sister Rena hasn't any boarder that I know of. Here, get out of the
road or I'll let you know who is dead!"
He took a fond farewell of Dee and cranking up his noisy car, he jumped
to his seat and speeded home with the coffin and the coal skuttle
bouncing up and down right merrily.
"Ain't nobody daid?" grieved a sad old woman.
"No! Nobody ain't daid!" snapped an old man. "Nobody ain't eben a-dyin'.
Now that thar Dick Lee done bought up th' only carsket in the sto' an'
my Luly is mighty low--mighty low."
"Sho-o' nuf I ain't heard tell of it. Is she in de baid?"
"Well, not ter say in de baid--but on de baid, on de baid. Anyhow
'tain't safe to count on her fer long. White folks is sho' graspin'
these days. They is sho' graspin'."
The old man departed on his way grumbling.
"Caroline Tucker, what did you sell that coffin to that young man for?"
demanded Dum sternly.
"Just to see if I could, Virginia Tucker. I told him I'd like to see him
in a coffin lined with lavender, and he was so complimented, he
immediately bought it to keep for a rainy day."
Dee and I had made so many sales that Annie had to send a telegram
informing her father of the diminished stock. It was necessary to order
another coffin immediately in case the ailing Luly might need it.
CHAPTER V
THE HUMAN FLY
GENERAL PRICE was vastly amused over the account of Dee's sale of the
coffin to the amiable Dick. Miss Maria was frankly shocked, and Miss
Wilcox amazed and a little scornful.
"I never cared for slumming," she announced that night when we had
retired to the girls' wing.
"But helping Annie Pore keep store is not slumming," said Dee, the
dimple in her chin deepening.
Dee Tucker had a dimple in her chin just like her father. When father
and daughter got ready for a fight, those dimples always deepened.
"Most kind of you, I am sure, although that sort of adventure never
appealed to me. I have taught in the mission school in New York's East
Side, but when the class is over I always leave. I can't bear to mix
with the lower classes. It is all right to help them but not by
mixing."
"But you don't understand,--Annie Pore is one of our very best friends.
She is not the lower classes. She is better born than any of us and
prettier and better bred and more accomplished----"
"Ah, indeed! I should like to behold this paragon."
"Well, you shall behold her all right! She is going to join us here in a
day or so."
Jessie Wilcox looked very much astonished and quite haughty. She could
not understand the Prices asking such a person to meet her. The daughter
of a country storekeeper was hardly one whom she cared to know socially.
Dee had gone about it the wrong way to make the spoiled beauty look with
favor on the little English girl:--prettier, better born, better bred,
indeed! As for accomplishments: what accomplishments could a dowdy
little country girl have that she had not?
The Tuckers and Jessie Wilcox were not hitting it off very well in the
great bedroom which they shared. Dum had declared she would not move
the fluffy finery which was spread out on her bed and she stuck to her
word.
"What are you going to do with these duds?" she asked rather brusquely.
"Oh, you just put them back in my trunk," drawled the spoiled roommate.
"Humph! You had better ring for your maid. I'm not much on doing valet
work."
With that she caught hold of the four corners of the bedspread and with
a yank deposited the whole thing adroitly on the floor, butter side up.
Dee told me afterwards that Jessie's expression was one of complete
astonishment. She was not used to being treated like the common herd.
Much Dum cared! She got into the great four-posted bed with perfect
unconcern, while Dee tactfully helped the pouting Jessie to hang up her
many frocks.
"She had better be glad I didn't go to bed on them," stormed the
unrepentant Dum when she told me about it. "As for Dee: I was disgusted
with her for being so mealy-mouthed. Catch me hanging up anybody's
clothes! I bet you one thing,--I bet you she keeps her fripperies off
my bed after this."
I was in a way sorry for Jessie. I know it must be hard to be a spoiled
darling turned loose with the Tucker twins. They were always perfectly
square and fair in all their dealings, but they demanded squareness and
fairness in others. Jessie was evidently accustomed to being waited on
and admired, and the Tuckers refused to do either of these things
necessary for the happiness of their roommate. She had always chosen her
friends with a view to setting off her own charms, girls who were
homely, less vivacious, duller. It did not suit her at all to be
outshone in any way. She was certainly the prettiest girl in the
house-party, that is, before Annie arrived, but she was not the most
attractive. There never were more delightful girls in all the world than
the Tucker twins, witty, charming, vivacious, and very handsome. I could
see their development in the two years I had known them and realized
that they were growing to be very lovely women.
Mary Flannagan was nobody's pretty girl but she had something better
than beauty, at least something that proves a better asset in life:
extreme good nature and a sense of humor that embraced the whole
universe. She had humor enough to see a joke on herself and take it.
That, to me, is the quintessence of humor. Wherever Mary was there also
were laughter and gaiety. She had a heart as big as all Ireland, from
which country she had inherited her wit as well as her name.
Mary was not quite so bunchy as she had been. Two years had stretched
her out a bit, but she would always be something of a rolypoly. She was
as active as a cat, and so determined was she to end up as a character
movie actress she never stopped her limbering-up exercises. After I
would get in bed at night she would begin. She would turn somersaults,
stand on her head, walk on her hands, do cart-wheels, bend the crab,
fall on the floor at full length and do a hundred other wonderful
stunts.
"I am so plain I'll have to go in for slap-stick comedy and maybe work
up to the legit., but go in I will. Why, Page, there is oodlums of
money in movies and think of the life!"
"I can see you, Mary, as a side partner to Douglas Fairbanks. Can you
climb up a wall like a fly?" I laughed.
"No-o, not yet but soon! I can't get much practice in wall scaling. I am
dying to try this wall outside our window. It is covered with ivy and
would be easy as dirt, I know," and she poked her head out the window,
gazing longingly at the tempting perpendicularity of the wall beneath.
Mr. Thomas Hawkins, alias Shorty, thought Mary was just about the best
chum a fellow could have, and great was his joy when Fate landed him at
the same country house with the inimitable Mary. Shorty, too, had made
out to grow a bit since first we saw him make the great play in the
football game at Hill Top. He was a very engaging lad with his tousled
mane, rosy cheeks and clear boy's eyes.
"Is Shorty going to get into the movies, too?" I teased.
"No,--navy!"
"Oh, how splendid! I didn't know he had decided."
"Yes! He has talked to me a lot about it," said Mary quite soberly.
"What do you think about it?"
"Me? Why, I think our navy is going to have to be enlarged and I can't
think of anybody better suited to it than Shorty. He is a descendant of
Sir John Hawkins, you know, and that means seafaring blood in his
veins."
How little did Mary and I think, as we lay in that great four-post bed
and wisely discussed preparedness, that our country would really be at
war in not so very many months, and that Shorty's entering the navy
would be a very serious matter to all of his friends, if not to him.
No thoughts of war were disturbing us. The great war was going on, but
then we were used to that and we were too young and thoughtless for it
to bother us. It was across the water and no one we knew personally was
implicated. Maxton was too peaceful a spot for one to realize that such
a thing as bloodshed could go on anywhere in all the world. Our great
room with its two huge beds and massive wardrobe, bureau and washstand,
had once sheltered Washington and later on Lafayette; and then as the
ages had rolled by, General Lee had visited the Prices and had slept in
the very bed where Mary and I were lying so sagely and smugly arguing
for preparedness. Perhaps the mocking-bird that every now and then gave
forth a silvery trill in the holly tree near our window was descended
from the same mocking-bird that no doubt had sung to the great warrior
as he lay in the four-poster.
How quiet it was! A whippoorwill gave an occasional cry away off in the
woods, and once I heard the chugging of a small steamboat puffing its
way up the river, and then a little later the swish swash on the shore
of the waves made by the stern wheel. But for that, the night was
absolutely still.
"Page," whispered Mary, "are you asleep?"
"Fortunately not, or I'd be awake," I laughed.
"I'm thinking about getting up and trying to scale that wall. I am
'most sure I could do it with all that ivy to dig my toes in."
"Why don't you wait until morning?"
"Because I don't want an audience. It is best to practice these stunts
without anyone looking."
"Suppose you fall!"
"That's something movie actresses have to expect. I won't fall far if I
do fall."
"Will you mind if I look on?"
"No, indeed! I can pretend you are the director."
Everything was as quiet as the grave when Mary bounced out of bed to
practice her stunt. I followed, nothing loath to see more of the
wonderful night. Some nights are too beautiful to waste in sleeping. It
has always seemed such a pity to me that we could not fill up on sleep
in disagreeable weather, and then when a glorious moonlight night
arrives, be able to draw on that reserve fund of sleep and just sit up
all night.
"Isn't it splendid out on the lawn? And only look at the river in the
moonlight. I'd certainly like to be out there in a boat this minute
with some very nice interesting person to recite poetry to me," I mused.
"I heard Wink White begging you to take a row with him."
"Yes, but I see myself doing it."
"Don't you like him?" asked Mary, sitting in the window ready for the
trial descent.
"Of course I like him, but he's such a goose."
"Shorty thinks he is grand."
"So he is--grand, gloomy, and peculiar. If he'd only not be so sad and
lonesome when he is with me."
"Of course all of us have noticed how different he is with you, never
laughing and joking as he does with us but sighing like a furnace. But
here goes! This is no time for analyzing the character of young Doctor
Stephen White,--this is a play of action."
"But, Mary, ought you try to climb down in your nighty? It might get
tangled around your feet."
"Oh, but the movie ladies always have to get out of windows in their
nighties. I must practice in costume to get used to it."
"Barefooted, too?"
"Of course! I need all these toes to hang on by. Next time I am going to
have my ch-e-i-ild, but this first time perhaps I had better not try to
carry anything."
"I should think not,--but, Mary, do be careful."
I was looking down the perpendicular wall and it began to seem to me to
be a crazy undertaking. The vines were very thick and would no doubt
offer a foot-rest to the daring girl, but suppose she lost her head or
the vine pulled loose from the wall!
It is a much easier matter to climb up and get in a window than it is to
get out of one and climb down. There is something very scary about
projecting one's bare foot into the unknown. Mary, however, was too
serious in her desire to perfect herself for her chosen profession to
stop and wiggle her toes with indecision. She was out of the window in a
moment. I held my breath.
"Oh, God save her! Oh, God save her!" I whispered.
"Fireman, save my ch-e-i-ild!" came back in sibilant tones from Mary.
I couldn't help laughing although I was trembling with fright. I almost
beat Mary to the ground I leaned so far out of the window. Sometimes the
thick ivy hid her from my sight and again she would loom out very white
in the moonlight.
Down at last! I felt like shouting for joy. Now began the ascent which
was a small matter compared to the descent.
When the climber was about half-way up, I suddenly became aware of
figures on the edge of the lawn. "The servants returning from church," I
thought. Harvie had told me that "big meetin'" was going on and his aunt
was quite concerned about her servants, as they had a way of taking
French leave at "big meetin'" time. With the house-party in session, a
paucity of servants would be quite serious. Extra inducements had been
offered and the whole corps had promised to remain, taking turn about
in getting off early for night church.
[Illustration: I ALMOST BEAT MARY TO THE GROUND I LEANED SO FAR OUT OF
THE WINDOW.
Page 74.]
Anyone who has lived in the country, where colored servants are the only
ones, knows what a serious time "big meetin'" can be. The whole negro
population seems to go mad in a frenzy of religious fervor. Crops that
are inconsiderate enough to ripen at that period remain ungathered; the
washwoman lets soiled clothes pile up indefinitely; cooks refuse to
cook; housemaids have a soul above sweeping; cows go dry for lack of
milking; horses go uncurried and vehicles unwashed and ungreased.
I smiled when I saw that straggling group returning from church, knowing
they would not be fit for any very arduous tasks the next day. I
remembered how Mammy Susan used to berate our darkies for their
delinquencies on days following meetings. As the churchgoers approached
the house, which they had to pass to reach the quarters on the other
side of the great house, they suddenly became aware of Mary's white
figure hanging midway between heaven and earth.
Shouts and groans arose! One woman fell to the ground and, regardless of
her finery, rolled on the grass imploring her Maker to save her. I
trembled for fear Mary would fall, but she clung to the vine and
scrambled up and in the window. The darkies ran like frightened rabbits.
"They thought you were a ghost, I believe."
"Well, I came mighty near giving up the ghost. When I heard those groans
I thought something had me sure," panted the great actress, looking
ruefully at a long rent in her very best nighty. "I did it all right,
but being a great movie actress who is to play opposite Douglas
Fairbanks is certainly hard on one's rags. Look, here's another tear!
Another and another! I did that when the first darky squealed."
Of course we went to bed giggling.
"I wish Tweedles had seen you, but they would not have been willing to
be mere audience. As for me,--I have no desire to be classified as a
human fly. I wonder if we will hear some wild tale from those silly
darkies."
But Mary was fast asleep before she could express her opinion. I could
not sleep until I got the following limerick out of my system:
THE HUMAN FLY
Our Mary, an actress so flighty,
Scaled a wall in her very best nighty.
A nail proved a snag
And tore her fine rag,
She came back a la Aphrodite.
CHAPTER VI
"BIG MEETIN'"
I AWAKENED early the next morning in spite of having been manager of a
movie studio at all hours of the night. Mary was sleeping heavily. After
all, I fancy climbing up and down a brick wall is harder than merely
watching someone else do it. She had a big scratch across her cheek and
her thumb had bled on the pillow. She must have snagged it on the same
nail she had her best nighty. I peeped out of my eastern window and
found Dum Tucker was doing the same thing from hers.
"Hello, honey! I'm so glad you're awake," she whispered. "Let's dress
and go out."
"Is Dee asleep?"
"Sound! And the Lady Jessie is likewise snoozing, not looking nearly so
pretty with her hair up in curl papers and her face greased with cold
cream. I bet I can beat you dressing!"
We sprang from our doors into the hall at the same time and feeling sure
we were the only ones awake in all the great mansion, we had the
never-to-be-scorned joy of sliding down the bannisters. I'd hate to
think I could ever get so old I wouldn't like to slide down bannisters.
Of course I know I shall some day get too old to do it, but not too old
to want to.
We ran out the great back door which opened on the formal garden.
"My, I'm glad we waked! I was nearly dead to sit up all night," said
Dum.
"Me, too! Mary and I were awake very late. Did you hear anything?"
"Did I!"
"What did you hear?"
"A strange scratching along the wall,--I thought it was a whole lot of
snakes climbing up to our window. There is only one thing in the world I
am afraid of, and that is snakes."
"Mammy Susan says that 'endurin' of the war, they is sho' to be mo'
snakes than in peaceable times.' Of course she has no idea that this war
is away off across the water, and if it were inclined to breed snakes,
it wouldn't breed them over here. But that snake you heard last night
was Mary Flannagan scaling the wall. She is practicing all the time for
the movies."
"Pig, not to call us!"
"I was dying to, but was afraid of raising too much rumpus."
The garden was beautiful at all times, but at that early hour it was so
lovely it made us gasp. A row of stately hollyhocks separated the flower
garden from the vegetables. Banked against the hollyhocks were all kinds
of old-fashioned garden flowers: bachelor's buttons, wall-flowers,
pretty-by-nights, love-in-a-mist, heliotrope, verbena, etc. There was a
thick border of periwinkle whose glossy dark green leaves enhanced the
brilliancy of the plants beyond. One great strip was given up entirely
to roses,--and such roses!
"Gee! This is the life!" cried Dum, kneeling down among the roses, going
kind of mad as usual over the riot of color. Dum's love of color and
form amounted to a passion. "Only look at the shape of this bud and at
the color way down in its heart. Oh, Page, I am so glad we came out!
Only think, this rosebud might have opened and withered with not a soul
seeing it if we had not happened along:
"'Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear--
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'"
"I wonder where the servants are?" I queried. "At this hour in the
country they are usually beginning to get busy. I tell you, Mammy Susan
has 'em hustling by this time at Bracken."
"I'm hungry as a bear! Don't you think we might get the old cook to hand
us out a crust?" suggested Dum. "Getting up early always makes me
famished."
"Sure! She is a nice-looking old party and no doubt would be as pleasant
as she looks. Her name is Aunt Milly."
We made our way to the kitchen, determined to return to the garden to
enjoy the crust or whatever the cook might see fit to give us. A
covered way connected the summer kitchen with the wing of the house
where the dining-room was. This open passage was covered with a lovely
old vine, one not seen in this day and generation except in old places:
Washington's bower. It is a very thick vine that sends forth great
shoots that fall in a shower like a weeping willow. It has a dainty
little purple blossom that the bees adore, and these turn later into
squishy, bright red berries. The trunk of this vine is very thick and
sturdy and twists itself into as many fantastic shapes as a wisteria.
The kitchen was built of logs; in fact it was the original homestead of
the family, having been erected by the earliest settlers at Price's
Landing. Later on it had been turned into a kitchen when the mansion had
been built. The great old fireplace with its crane and Dutch oven was
still there, although the cooking was now done on a modern range. This
black abomination of art, but necessity of the up-to-date housekeeper,
was smoking dismally as we came in.
"Aunt Milly, please give me a biscuit!" cried Dum to a fat back bending
over the table.
The owner of the back straightened up and turned. It was not Aunt Milly,
but Miss Maria Price!
"Oh!" was all we could say.
The sedate black-silked and real-laced lady of the day before presented
a sad spectacle when we made that early morning raid on the Maxton
larder. In place of the handsome black silk she wore a baggy lawn
kimono, and the fine lace cap had given place to a great mob cap that
set off her moon-like face like a sunflower. Her countenance was so
woebegone that it distressed us and two great tears were squeezing their
way from her sad eyes.
"Why, Miss Price! Please excuse us," I said, seeing that Dum was
speechless.
"Oh, my dear, it is all right now that you have seen me out here in this
wrapper. These good-for-nothing darkies have one and all sent me word
they are sick this morning and cannot come to work, and here I am with
no breakfast cooked. I am so distressed that Harvie's friends should
not be well served. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
"Do! Why, let all of us help," exclaimed Dum.
"Let his guests help! Why, my dear, I could not bear to do such a
thing."
"Well, you could bear to let us help a great deal better than we could
bear having you work yourself to death and let us be idle," said I,
putting my arm around her fat neck, that was just about the right height
to put one's arm around. Her waist was out of the question, being not
only so low down that I should have had to stoop to reach it but
invisible at that, since it was, as I have said before, only an
imaginary line.
"I have never before in all the fifty years I have been keeping house at
Maxton had to make a fire. I have done the housekeeping since Ma died.
My sister-in-law, Harvie's grandmother, was too delicate to keep house,
so I have always done it. I know exactly how things should be done but I
have never had to do them. There has always been a cook in the kitchen
at Maxton.--This is the first time.--And to think it should come to pass
when Harvie's friends are here. I was opposed to having the house-party
during big meeting. There is never any depending on the darkies at that
time.--Oh me! Oh me!"
"Now, Miss Price," I said, placing a chair behind her and gently pushing
her heaving bulk into it, "you are to sit right here and tell Dum Tucker
and me what to do. We love to do it."
"But, child----"
"First, let me pull out the dampers," I suggested, suiting the action to
the word and thereby stopping the smoking of the range. "Now mustn't the
rolls be made down?" I asked, seeing a great pan on the table with the
lid sitting rakishly on one side of a huge mass of dough, already risen
beyond its bounds.
"Yes, but I----"
"Let me do that. I love to fool with dough."
"But do you know how?"
"Of course I know how."
After a scrubbing of hands made grubby by a weed I had pulled up in the
garden, I began to make down the rolls after the manner approved by
Mammy Susan, that most exacting of teachers.
"Now what can I do?" demanded Dum.
"You must sit still and tell us what next, and after we get things under
way if you want the other girls to help, I'll call them."
"The breakfast table must be set,--but, my dears, I can't bear to have
guests working! Such a thing has never been known at Maxton!"
Dum hastened to the dining-room where she exercised her own sweet will
in the setting of the table. First she had the joy of cutting a bowl of
roses for the center. She found mats and napkins in the great old
Sheraton sideboard, and Canton china that Miss Price told her was the
kind to use. The silver was still in the master's chamber where it was
taken every night by the butler and brought out every morning by that
dignified functionary. I think the non-appearance of the butler was
almost as great a blow to Miss Price as the defection of the cook.
"Jasper has been with us since before the war and the idea of his
behaving this way!" she moaned. "I did not expect anything more from
these flighty maids and the yard boy,--they have only been here five or
six years,--but Milly and Jasper!"
"But maybe they are ill," I said, trying to soothe her hurt feelings.
"I don't believe a word of it! How could five of them get ill at once?
More than likely that trifling Willie, the yard boy, has got religion.
Milly told me he was 'seeking' and I have known there was something the
matter with him lately, he has been so utterly worthless," and our
hostess heaved a sigh with which I could thoroughly sympathize. I well
knew that a "seeking" servant was but a poor excuse.
"How well you do those rolls, my child! Who taught you?"
Then I told Miss Maria of my old mammy who had been mother and teacher
and nurse for me since I was born.
I shaped pan after pan of turnovers and clover-leaves and put them aside
for the second rising.
"What next?"
Miss Maria had decided to give over sighing and bemoaning, also
apologizing for letting us work. She evidently came to the conclusion
that the headwork had to go on and it was up to her to get busy in that
line, at least. Dum and I were vastly relieved that she consented to sit
still, as she took up so much room when she moved around that she
retarded our progress quite a good deal. Seated in a corner by the
table, she could tell us what to do without interrupting traffic.
Herring must be taken out of soak and prepared for frying; batter bread
must be made; apples must be fried (she did the slicing); coffee must be
ground; chicken hash must be made after a recipe peculiar to Maxton,
with green peppers sliced in it and a dash of sherry wine.
The cooking part was easy, but keeping up the fire has always been too
much for my limited intelligence. Wood and more wood must be poked in
the stove at every crucial moment. In the midst of beating up an
omelette one must stop and pile on more fuel. Peeping in the oven the
rolls may be rising in regular array with a faint blush of brown
appearing on each rounded cheek; the batter bread may be doing as batter
bread should do: the crust rising up in sheer pride of its perfection
sending forth a delicious odor a little like popcorn;--but just then the
joy of the vainglorious cook will take a tumble,--the fire must be fed.
"Now is this what you had planned for breakfast, Miss Maria? You see we
have got everything under way, and if there was anything else I can do
it," I asked.
"Of course no breakfast is really complete without waffles," sighed the
poor lady, "at least, that is what my brother thinks. He will have to do
without them this morning, though."
"Why? I can make them and bake them!"
"But, child, you must be seated at the table with the other guests. I
could not let you work so hard."
"But I love to cook! Please let me!"
"All right, but who can bring the hot ones in? It takes two to serve
waffles. I, alas, am too fat to go back and forth."
"Of course I am going to wait on the table," cried Dum, "and when I drop
in my tracks, the other girls can go on with the good work."
"Well, well, what good girls you are! I have been told that the girls of
the present time are worthless and I am always reading of their being so
inferior to their mothers, but I believe I must have been misinformed."
"I hope you have been," laughed Dum. "My private opinion is that we are
just about the same,--some good and some not so good; some bad and some
not so bad. Anyhow, I am sure that there is not a girl on this party who
would not be proud to help you, or boy, either, for that matter."
"We shall have to call the boys to our aid, too, I am afraid," said
Miss Maria, glancing ruefully at the wood-box. "The wood is low and we
can't cook without wood, eh, Page?"
"Won't I love to see them go to work," and Dum danced up and down the
kitchen waving a dish-cloth.
The quiet mansion was astir now. The rising bell had routed the sleepy
heads out of their beds, and from the boys' wing came shouts of the
guests who were playing practical jokes on one another or merely making
a noise from the joy of living. Dee and Mary found us in the kitchen and
roundly berated us for not calling them in time to help. Dee reported
that Jessie Wilcox was still in the throes of dressing.
"One of you might go pull some radishes and wash them and peel them,"
suggested Miss Maria.
Dee was off like a flash and came back with some parsley, too, to dress
the dishes.
"Mary, get the ice and see to the water," was the next command from our
general. "I must go now and put on something besides this old wrapper,"
and our aristocratic hostess sailed to the house, her lawn wings spread.
Our next visitor was General Price himself, very courtly and very
apologetic and very admiring. He had just learned of the defection of
the servants when he called for his boots and they were not forthcoming.
Jasper had blacked his boots and brought them to his door every morning
for half a century, but no Jasper appeared on that morning. The boots
remained unblacked.
Another duty of the hitherto faithful butler had been to concoct for his
master and the guests a savory mint julep in a huge silver goblet. This
was sent to the guest chambers and every lady was supposed to take a sip
from the loving cup. It was never sent to the boys, as General Price
frequently asserted that liquor was not intended for the youthful male,
and that he for one would never have on his soul that he had offered a
drink to a young man. He seemed to have a different feeling in regard to
the females, thinking perhaps that beautiful ladies (and all ladies were
beautiful ladles in his mind) would never take more than the proffered
sip.
On that morning during the big meeting General Price must make his own
julep. This he did with much pomp and ceremony, putting back breakfast
at least ten minutes while he crushed ice and measured sugar and the
other ingredients which shall be nameless. A wonderful frost on the
silver goblet was the desired result of the crushed ice. The mint
protruding from the top of the goblet looked like innocence itself. The
odor of the fresh fruit mingling with the venerable concoction of rye
was delicious enough to make the sternest prohibitionist regret his
principles.
"Now a sip, my dear; the cook must come first," he said, proffering me
the completed work of art.
"Oh no, General Price! I might not take even a sip if I am to cook
waffles. I might fall on the stove."
"A sip will do you good, just a sip!" he implored.
It was good and just a sip did not do me any harm. I had not the heart
to deny the courtly old man the pleasure of indulging in this rite that
was as much a part of the daily routine as having his boots blacked and
brought to his door or conducting family prayers.
"Delicious!" I gasped.
"More delicious now than it was," he declared, "since those rosy lips
have touched the brim," and then he quoted the following lines with
old-fashioned gallantry:
"'Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
"'I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!'"
He bowed low and handed me a beautiful rosebud, the same, I believe,
before which Dum had stood so enthralled earlier in the morning. I took
a long sniff and then pinned it in my hair, much to the old gentleman's
delight.
He turned away to have another fair guest take the prescribed sip, and
that naughty Mary Flannagan buried her nose in my beautiful rose and
whispered:
"But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it blows and smells I swear,
Not of itself but whiskee!"
CHAPTER VII
THE REASON WHY
THAT was a very merry breakfast. From my kitchen fastness I could hear
the peals of laughter as Mary pretended to be a field hand, brought into
the dining-room for the first time, to wait on the table. I even left my
waffles for a moment to peep in the door. Dee, who was helping with the
waiting, spied me and gave the assembled company the tip, and before I
could get away they grabbed me and pulled me into the room where I had
to listen to three rousing cheers for the cook. A batch of waffles burnt
up in consequence, although I ran down the covered way like Cinderella
when the clock struck twelve. A warning smell of something burning gave
me to understand my time was up.
Baking waffles is a very exciting pastime. The metamorphosis that batter
undergoes in almost a twinkling of an eye into beautiful crisp brown
beauties is a never ending delight and joy to the cook. With irons just
hot enough (and that is very hot indeed) and batter smooth and thin,
smooth from much beating and thin from much milk and many eggs, I
believe a baker of waffles can extract as much pure pleasure from her
profession as a great musician can from drawing his bow across a choice
Cremona; or a poet can from turning out successful verse; or a painter
from watching his picture grow under his skilled hands.
The house-party was full up at last, and then the cook and waitress must
be seated in the places of honor and be waited on by the whole crowd.
Not quite all of the crowd, I should have said, as Jessie was superior
to waiting on anybody. She seemed quite scornful of us for being able to
help Miss Maria.
"I have never been an adept at the domestic arts," she said somewhat
stiffly. "I could not cook or wash dishes if my life depended on it."
"Humph!" sniffed Dum, "I reckon you could if you got good and hungry.
Of course you couldn't do it well, that is, not as well as Page, for she
can't be equalled. As for washing dishes,--you can take your first
lesson after Page and Mary and Dee finish breakfast. All of these dishes
have to be washed and there is no one to do it but the house-party."
"Well, I guess not!" and Jessie looked at her pretty soft, beringed
hands.
"Very well then, you can do the upstairs work! Beds must be made, you
know!"
"Absurd! Do you take me for a housemaid?"
"No, I wouldn't have you for one, but you might get a job for a few
hours before the folks found out about you."
Dum's tone was rollicking and good-natured. She seemed to have no idea
that she was insulting the pretty Jessie. It never entered Dum's head
that anyone would shirk a duty that was so apparent as taking the work
of Maxton in hand.
I enjoyed that breakfast very much. Harvie baked waffles for us and Wink
White brought them in. The young men from Kentucky ran back and forth
waiting on us, all of them making more noise and having more collisions
than would have been the case had a regiment been feeding.
Shorty had already begun to grease the buck-saw preparatory to sawing up
wood for Miss Maria. He and Rags had volunteered to supply the fuel.
Then the cows must be milked; the horses curried and fed; in fact, all
the farm work must be done.
I never saw nicer, more considerate boys than were on that party. They
vied with one another in briskness and efficiency. They wanted to help
us with dishwashing and housework, but there was enough outside work to
keep them busy, and with all good intentions in the world, most
men-folks are a hindrance rather than a help when it comes to so-called
woman's work.
How we did fly around! Miss Maria got real gay and giddy in the general
whirlwind that ensued. Dum and Mary undertook to be housemaids, and such
a spreading up of beds and flicking of dusters was never known. The beds
did look a little bumpy, but what difference did it make? The dust they
swished off with the feather dusters settled quietly back on the things,
but why not? Maxton was beautifully kept and very clean but there is
always dust on furniture in the morning, no matter how well it has been
cleaned the day before. Jessie's bed they left unmade, declaring that
she could sleep in the same hole for a month before they would even
spread it up for her.
"Lazy piece!" cried Dum. "I actually believe she does not mean to turn a
hair."
That young lady had taken herself off to the parlor where she was
singing in the most operatic manner with a very well-trained strong
voice with about as much sweetness to it as cut glass. The accompaniment
she was rendering on the piano was brilliantly executed, so much so that
I thought for a moment she had in a pianola record. I peeped in the
parlor and smiled at her, fearing somehow that she must feel herself to
be an outsider and that was why she was not entering into the fun of
helping. I got no answering smile but something of a cold stare, so I
beat a hasty retreat and hastened off to consult with Miss Maria about
future meals.
I found that lady sitting on a bench in the covered passage leading to
the kitchen. Her spirit was willing but her flesh was too much for her.
She must rest. I sank by her, not sorry at all to indulge in a little
sly resting of my own. Cooking is great fun but certainly exhausting.
"What for dinner, Miss Maria?"
"Oh, my dear, I can't contemplate your helping about dinner, too!"
I couldn't help having a little inward fun with myself over her speaking
of my helping. I had certainly cooked breakfast myself, but since she
fooled herself into thinking that I had only helped to cook it, it made
no difference to me.
"But someone will have to cook it unless the servants are miraculously
cured in time for it."
"That's so!" and she sighed a great sigh.
"I know you wish we would all of us go home, but please don't wish it.
We are having such a good time and don't want to leave one little bit."
"Oh, my dear! Don't think I could have such inhospitable sentiments. My
brother would be deeply distressed if he thought you thought I thought
such things."
Both of us laughed at her complicated thinks and then began the serious
matter of dinner.
"Thank goodness, I had those trifling creatures dress the chickens
yesterday. That, at least, is out of the way."
"Oh, good! Have you got them all dressed? Then let's have chicken gumbo.
If we make enough of it, it will be the dinner, with a great dish of
rice to help in each soup plate."
"Splendid!" declared Dee, pausing for a moment to listen to the proposed
menu. "And it will be such an economy in dishes, too. Just a plate and
spoon all around and no frills."
Dee had been as busy as possible washing dishes while Miss Maria wiped,
and I cleared the table.
"But, child, can you make a gumbo? It is very difficult, I am afraid."
"Not a bit of it. I have Mammy Susan's recipe tucked away somewhere in
my brain. I can get to work on it immediately and then it will be done
for dinner. It can't cook too long."
Dee and Wink undertook to gather the vegetables, but they took so long
that a relief and search party had to be sent to the garden after them.
They were so busy discussing the different kinds of bandages that they
had forgotten their mission. Wink had taken a leaf from
Adam's-and-Eve's-needle-and-thread and was demonstrating on Dee's arm
the reverse bandage. Her other arm was already decorated with the figure
eight style made from a long green corn leaf. How I wished Wink would
treat me as sensibly as he did Dee. They seemed to be having such a good
time as I, who was one of the search party, discovered them in the
tomato patch solemnly debating the values of the various styles. Now if
Wink had ever agreed to discuss such a thing as that with me he would
have felt compelled to say all kinds of silly things, and as for
bandaging my arm,--it would have been out of the question, as he would
have felt it necessary to ask to kiss my hand or some such stuff.
The right kind of gumbo must have tomatoes, okra, potatoes, onions and
corn in it, and anyone who has served apprenticeship under Mammy Susan
will make the right kind of gumbo. Miss Maria and I started in preparing
those vegetables at nine o'clock and it took us one solid hour to
finish, working as hard as we could go. I was beginning to be very fond
of the old lady. She was so gentle and sweet. I asked her many questions
about Maxton and its history, and since, like many gentlewomen of her
age, she lived in the past, she was most happy to recount to me tales of
the lovely old place and its aristocratic founders.
"Oh, yes, we have a ghost," she laughed, when I asked her to tell me if
there were any such inhabitants. "It is a lady ghost, too, and inhabits
your wing of the house, as is the way with all the ladies of Maxton. It
is the young sister of my great grandfather,--that makes her my great,
great aunt."
"Oh, please tell me about her!"
"Well, all right, if you promise not to get scared. The darkies keep
such tales going. They firmly believe in ghosts, and when they tell a
ghost story they always say either they themselves have seen the dread
shape or they know someone who has seen it. This ghost has not been seen
at Maxton in my generation, but Jasper and Milly have heard the tale
from their grandparents and they see that it is duly handed down to
their grandchildren. The appearance of this spectre is supposed to
presage dire calamity."
"Do you know anyone who has seen it?" I asked, testing the skillet to
see if it was hot enough to begin frying the chicken. Chicken for gumbo
must be fried before you start the soup, if anything so rich and thick
as gumbo could be called soup.
"I knew an old man who thought he had seen it. Well, to go on with my
tale:--this young great, great aunt of mine was engaged to be married to
a gentleman of high degree, much older than herself. This of course was
back in Colonial days. She had consented to the match in obedience to
her father's commands, but she evidently did not relish it very much.
The day came for the wedding and she was dressed in her white gown and
veil. The company had assembled from miles around. A boat load of guests
from Williamsburg had arrived and the feasting and dancing had begun.
Among them was a young blade from over the seas who had paid court to
the fair Elizabeth,--that was her name. It was whispered that she
returned his love and that was the real reason for her reluctance to
mating with the lord of high degree.
"After being clothed in the wedding gown, Elizabeth had sent the women
from her room on a plea that she must be alone to pray. She locked the
door the moment they were gone and rushed to the window which was open,
it being a warm moonlight night. Standing below the window was the
lover. He called up to her to come down to him. The ivy was thick on the
wall, as it is now, and for an agile young girl I fancy it was not such
a very difficult climb. It must have taken a brave soul though to make
the start. Many a time in my youth," and here Miss Maria blushed as red
as one of the tomatoes she was peeling, "I have sat in that window, it
is the room you are occupying, and tried how it would seem to climb down
that wall. I have never done more than poke my foot out about an inch,
though. Perhaps if the lover had been calling to me, it might have given
me courage. Elizabeth got about half-way down when her long satin dress
and veil got caught on a nail or snag of some sort, and no matter how
she pulled she could not get loose. Just think of it! There the poor
girl hung, with her lover frantically calling to her and the precious
moments flying. Already they were knocking on the door of her chamber
and crying out for admission. His steed was ready to fly with her if
only she could get the gown loose. Material in those days was stouter
than now. I'll wager anything that a piece of white satin could not be
found now that would not tear, or any other material, for that matter."
Remembering Mary's gown of the night before, I readily agreed with her.
"Before the miserable lover could mount to her side to cut the dress
loose, the plot was discovered and the poor girl had the agony of seeing
her true love killed by the infuriated bridegroom to be. She swooned and
it is said she never regained consciousness. Her poor little heart must
have snapped in two. And now it is said that sometimes her white figure
can be seen hanging from the ivied wall. Once in my youth the darkies
thought they saw it as they were coming home from church on a moonlight
night, but on investigation it turned out to be a towel that had blown
out of the window and hung, perhaps on the identical nail that was the
undoing of poor Elizabeth. I remember well," and she laughed like a girl
again, "how scared they all of them were. It was in slave days and they
were forced to come to work the next day, but nothing but being slaves
could have made them come."
"Oh, Miss Maria, Miss Maria!" I cried, dropping the potato I was
peeling, "I know now what is the matter with your servants. They are not
ill but they have seen the ghost!"
And I told her about Mary's ambition and her escapade of the night
before. The old lady almost rolled off her chair she laughed so. She was
not one bit shocked but vastly interested.
"To think of her doing it! No lover was calling her, either."
"I don't know about that. How about it, Mary?" I called to my friend who
had come down to help pick up chips now that the chamber work was
accomplished.
When I told Mary about the family ghost story and that she was no doubt
responsible for the non-appearance of the servants, she was overcome
with confusion. Miss Maria begged her to treat the matter as a joke.
"Why, my dear, I never would have known all you dear girls as I now do
if it had not happened. You would have come and gone as nothing but
Harvie's guests, and now you are my own true friends. I am glad the
reason why is unearthed, though, because now we can at least make those
good-for-nothings come and wash the dinner dishes." She drew Mary down
beside her on the bench.
"But, Mary, you didn't answer me," I teased. "I asked you if a lover was
calling you when you climbed down the wall."
"Yes! He is calling me all the time!" cried Mary, striking an attitude
of one being called by a lover. "His name is Douglas Fairbanks."
"Douglas Fairbanks? I don't know the family," said dear old puzzled Miss
Maria. "Who is Douglas Fairbanks?"
"Why, Miss Maria, he is a movie actor, the very best ever!" explained
Mary.
"Where did you get to know him, child? Who introduced you?"
"I don't know him, never saw him except on the screen!"
"Ah, I see, a hero of romantic fiction!"
"But he's not fiction--he's the realest flesh and blood person you ever
saw in your life."
Then Mary tried to tell our hostess of the wonders of the movie where
Douglas was the star. The old lady endeavored to take it all in, but not
having been to the city since the perfecting of the cineomatograph, it
was up-hill work. Of course she knew that movies existed, but she could
not grasp the joy of them, as she had nothing to go upon but the memory
of a magic lantern.
"Don't you like the theatre?" I asked.
"Yes, indeed, I like it very much. To be sure I have never seen but two
performances, but I got great enjoyment from them. You must remember, my
dears, that I am country bred and have had little chance to see the city
sights."
I never realized before how cut off from the world persons are who
depend on steamboats. Here was this dear lady, born and bred one of the
finest ladies of the land, but being of a naturally retiring disposition
and always having been occupied from her girlhood with keeping house she
had let the world pass her by.
"What were the two things you saw, Miss Maria?" asked Mary gently.
"Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch and the Old Homestead. I was quite
shocked at the latter, was really glad I was with a lady. I think I
would have sunk through the floor from mortification had there been a
gentleman with me."
"The Old Homestead shocking?" I asked wonderingly. "Not the Old
Homestead! It must have been something else."
"Oh, no, I remember the title distinctly. It was when they had that
scene with that naked statue in the parlor. It was terrible to me."
What a compliment to have paid the author and actor of that time-honored
play! Actually the statue of the Venus de Milo had shocked this simple
soul from the country just exactly as Denman Thompson had made it do the
old man in the melodrama. Mary and I didn't laugh, but we almost burst
from not doing so.
"And now I must send Harvie down to the quarters to make those
good-for-nothings return. Sick, indeed! I intend to make every last one
of them take a dose of castor oil and turpentine!"
And the intrepid lady was as good as her word.
CHAPTER VIII
THE CIRCUS
THE gumbo being made and nothing to do but cook it, and that quite
slowly, I was able to run from my self-imposed duties for a while and
join the crowd that had formed to go to the negro quarters and persuade
them that they were not sick, that there was no ghost, and that their
duty and interests lay at Maxton.
The cabins were at least a quarter of a mile from the great house, and
very comfortable and picturesque they were. The road lay through a
beautiful oak forest and then skirted a corn field. Each cabin had a
good piece of ground around it and from every chimney there arose a curl
of blue smoke. They were evidently expecting a visit from the family,
because there were several little pickaninnies waiting at a turn in the
road, and when they saw us they set off in a great hurry shouting:
"Dey's a-comin'! Dey's a-comin'!"
"That's to give them time to get into bed before we get there," said
Harvie sagely. "I wish I knew Latin and Greek as well as I do the
coloreds' methods."
Sure enough, we could see the little nigs running from house to house
shouting the warning.
"I reckon we would all learn Latin and Greek if it was as simple as our
friends' machinations," I said. "I bet you this minute Aunt Milly is
stirring up a cake or something for big meetin' and she will have to
hurry up and get it out of sight."
It so happened Aunt Milly's house was the first one we entered. Harvie
knocked on the door gently and then more briskly when there was no
answer. Finally a smothered sound penetrated the closed door and
windows. "Ummmm! Ummmm!" Taking it to mean we must enter, we opened the
door. I sniffed pound cake.
Aunt Milly's cabin boasted but one room and an attic and a lean-to
kitchen. The old woman, whose bulk was only equalled by Miss Maria's,
was lying in bed. Her coal black face had no look of illness but one of
extreme determination. She was showing the whites of her eyes like a
stubborn horse.
"How you do, Mr. Harbie?" she said thickly. "An' all de yuthers ob you?
Won't you take some cheers and set a while?"
"No, thank you, Aunt Milly, we only came to see how you were getting on
and to tell you that Aunt Maria hopes you will be up in time to wash the
dinner dishes."
"Me? No, Mr. Harbie! I'm feared I is seen my last days er serbice."
"Why, Aunt Milly, are you so ill as all that?"
"Yessir! Yessir! I got a mizry in my back an' my haid is fittin' tow
bus'. I ain't been able to tas'e a mouthful er victuals sence I don'
know whin. My lim's is all of a trimble and looks lak my blood is friz
in my gizzard."
"Have you had the doctor?"
"No, not to say recent! I was that sorry tow lay up whin yo' comp'ny
was a-visitin' of yo' grandpaw, but whin mawnin' come I jes' warn't
fitten tow precede."
"It is strange that all of you should have got sick the same day, Aunt
Milly," said Harvie, his eyes twinkling with his knowledge of the
subject.
"You don't say that that there Jasper an' them gals didn't go do they
wuck?" asked the old woman, but her tone was somewhat half-hearted. She
was evidently not an adept at dissembling.
"Now, Aunt Milly, you know that not a single servant turned up at the
great house this morning, and these young ladies had to do all the
cooking and housework, and we boys did the outside work. You need not
try to make me think you didn't know it. We know exactly what is the
matter with all of you----"
"Laws-a-mussy, Mr. Harbie! Th' ain't nuthin' 'tall the matter with me,
but I's plum wo' out. I been a-cookin' nigh onter mos' a hunnerd years."
"But all these other servants haven't been cooking or anything else
anywhere near that long. We all of us know what is the matter: last
night coming home from big meeting there wasn't a thing the matter. You
all of you meant to come back to work this morning. You came home late,
but you had promised Aunt Maria to stay on while my guests were here,
and you meant to do it. The moon was shining bright and just as you came
over the hill and got out of that bit of pine woods, off there towards
the landing, you saw a ghost----"
"Gawd in heaben, Mr. Harbie! Did you see her, too?" Poor old Aunt
Milly's eyes were almost popping out of her head.
"No, I didn't see her; I wish I had," and Harvie gave Mary a nudge. "But
Miss Page Allison here saw it, and Miss Mary Flannagan knows all about
it because she was the ghost."
"She--she--she was which?"
"It was this way, Aunt Milly," said Mary, going over close to the old
woman's bed. "I wanted to see if I could climb down the ivy on the wall
outside of our window, and just as all of you came home from church
my--my--garment got hung on a nail and I couldn't budge for a moment. I
snagged my thumb, too, see!"
"Well, if that don't beat all!" was all the old woman had strength to
say. She threw back the bedclothes and disclosed her ample person fully
clothed in a purple calico dress. "Hyar, gimme room tow git out'n this
hyar baid. I's got a poun' cake a-cookin' in de oben an' I s'picion it
nigh 'bout time ter take it out." She rolled out of bed and waddled to
the stove. "I's moughty skeered the fire done gonter git low while Mr.
Harbie was a-argufyin'. It would 'a' made a sad streak in my cake, an'
that there is somethin' I ain't never been guilty ob yit."
"Now, Aunt Milly," said Harvie, when our minds were set at rest as to
the perfection of the cake which was done to a beautiful golden brown,
"you send for the rest of the servants and tell them the truth about the
ghost and let them know they must be up at the great house within an
hour."
"Sho'! Sho', child!" she assured him.
Grabbing a broom from the corner she jabbed it under the bed, thereby
causing much squealing. Three little darkies rolled out, looking very
much like moulting chickens from the combination of dust and feathers
they had picked up from their hiding place.
"Here you lim's er Satan! Run an' fotch all de niggers on de plantation
and tell 'em I say come a-runnin' tow my cabin as fas' as they laigs kin
a carry 'em. You kin tell 'em I'se in a fit an' that'll fetch 'em." She
chuckled and sank on a chair to have her laugh out.
The three emissaries made all haste with the joyful news and in an
incredibly short time the cabin was full to overflowing. We went out in
Aunt Milly's little yard and Harvie mounted an old beehive so he could
make a speech. Aunt Milly drove her black guests out, and they, feeling
they had been cheated of their natural rights since she wasn't having a
fit, stood sullenly at attention while the young master told them the
truth about the ghost and gave them the ultimatum about returning to
Maxton.
They were not so easy to convince as Aunt Milly. Mary's thumb might have
been snagged in some other way. Had they not seen the ghost with their
own eyes, the ghost they had been hearing of ever since they were
children? When news came of Aunt Milly's being in a fit they were sure
that the prophetic calamity was upon them presaged by the appearance of
the ghost. Mr. Harvie could talk all he wanted to, but they were from
Missouri. They had seen and were convinced by what they saw. They were
respectful but firm in their attitude of unbelief. Jasper spoke:
"I ain't a-gibin' you de lie, Mr. Harbie, but I've done seed de ghoses
an' you ain't. I's plum skeered ter go up ter de gret house. My
gran'mammy done tell me yars an' yars gone by dat whin dat ghoses comes
fer me to clar out. She say she after some nigger, my gran'mammy did. De
tale runs dat it war a nigger what tole de bridegroom dat her beau lover
was a-fixin' ter tote her off, an' whin dat ere ghoses comes she ain't
come fer no good."
"What would make you believe that it was not a ghost, Uncle Jasper?"
asked Mary, who seemed to feel it was up to her to prove the falsity of
the ghost story.
"Nothin' but seein' it warn't. I b'lieve it war a ghoses 'cause I seen
it war a ghoses, an' whin I see it ain't a ghoses I gonter b'lieve it
warn't, an' not befo'."
Mary drew Tweedles and me off in whispered conference and then mounted
the beehive by the side of Harvie and made her maiden stump speech. The
darkies clapped with delight. They had never seen a female prepare to
make a speech except under the stress and excitement of getting
religion.
"Ladies and gentlemen----" she began.
"Do she mean us?" came in a hoarse whisper from Willie, the yard boy,
who was trying to get religion but who experienced great difficulties
because of certain regulations in the way of not eating and not
laughing.
"Yes, I mean you," cried the orator. "Since I am the person who was
climbing out of the window last night when you were coming from church,
and since you will not believe it was not a ghost unless you see me do
it, I will take the liberty to invite all of you up to the big house to
see the show. It will be a free show, a circus in fact, and there may be
a few other attractions, too. Will you come?"
"Sho' we'll come!" came in a chorus.
"How 'bout big meetin'?" asked one of the housemaids doubtfully.
"Pshaw! This kin' er circus ain't no harm," declared one of the field
hands. "Didn't de young miss say it war a free circus?"
"Sho' it's free an' ain't we free, an' who gonter gainsay us?" and the
other housemaid tossed her bushy head saucily.
"Yes, an' free and free make six an' six days shall we labor an' do all
the wuck, also the play, fur the sebenth is the sabbath of the Lawd my
Gawd!" cried a voice from behind the cabin, and then there came into
view the strangest figure I have ever beheld. It was a tall gaunt old
colored man with a straggly grey beard. He was dressed in wide corduroy
trousers and top boots; instead of a coat he wore a green cloth basque
with a coarse lace fichu and tied around his waist was a long gingham
apron. His hat was a wide brimmed black straw trimmed in purple ribbons
with a red, red rose hanging coyly down over one ear. He was smoking a
corn-cob pipe. In his hand he carried a covered basket.
"Lady John!" exclaimed Harvie. "I am very glad to see you."
"Well, now ain't you growed!" said the crazy old man in a voice as soft
and feminine as one could hear in the whole south; but at that moment
one of the little pickaninnies tried to peep in his basket, and with a
masculine roar, he laid about him vigorously with his stick, and with a
deep bass voice gave the little fellow a tongue lashing that drove him
back into Aunt Milly's cabin.
It seems that the old man had lost his reason many years before and was
now obsessed with the desire to be considered a woman. He lived alone in
a cabin some miles from Price's Landing, growing a little tobacco,
enough corn for his own meal, a little garden truck and a few fruit
trees. He had some chickens and when he could save enough eggs he would
bring them over for Miss Maria Price to buy. The news of the ghost seen
at Maxton had traveled to his cabin in that wonderful way that news in
the country does travel, and he had come over to add his quota of
superstition to the general store.
Harvie introduced the old man to the members of the house-party. He
caught hold of his apron as though it had been a silken gown and made a
curtsey to each one.
"Lady John, we are just asking all of these friends of ours to come up
to the great house to a kind of circus. They won't believe that it was
not a ghost they saw last night clinging to the ivy on the east wall and
we are going to prove it to them. We shall be very glad to see you, too,
if you want to come."
"Thank you kindly, young marster, thank you kindly! I was on my way up
there whin the crowd concoursing here distracted my intention. I'll be
pleased to come, pleased indeed." He spoke in a peculiarly mincing way
in a high voice.
"I thought you was too pious like to go to the circus, Lady John,"
giggled the frivolous housemaid.
"Well, you thought like young niggers think--buckeyes is biscuit!" he
declared in his natural bass. "The Bible 'stinctly states that there was
circuses in them days, an' I ain't never heard er no calamities
a-befallin' them what was minded to intend 'em."
"Is that so?" asked Dee. "I can't remember where it said so, but then I
do not know the Bible as I should."
"Child! Look in the hunnerd chapter er Zekelums an' there you'll fin' at
the forty-'leventh verse that Gawd said to Noah: 'Go ye to the circus
tents of the Fillystimes an' get all the wile animiles that there ye
fin' an' have a p'rade 'til ye gits to the ark of the government.' Now
if'n the Lord Gawd warn't a-tellin' Noah to git them animiles together
for a show, what was it for? What was it for, I say?"
There was no answer to this pointed remark, so he continued:
"An' Brother Dan-i-el! Brother Dan-i-el, I say! What was he a-doin' in a
cage of man-eatin' lions for if he warn't in a circus? Answer me that!
And Brother 'Lige! Who ever hearn tell of a gold chariot out of a circus
p'rade? A chariot of fire! I tell you they was monstous shows in them
days. If them Bible charack'-ters warn't too good to ack in a circus, I
reckon this po' ole nigger ain't a-goin' to set up himanher self as
bein' above lookin' on."
"Maybe you will act in our circus then," suggested one of the boys.
"No, sir! No, sir! I an' Brother 'Lish will be contentment jes' to look
on. Brother 'Lish, he didn't make no move to jine the p'rade whin
Brother 'Lige wint by in his gran' chariot. He was glad to stan' aside
and let Brother 'Lige git all the glory. He caught the velvet cloak with
all the gran' 'broidry and was glad to get it. I bet nobody shouted
louder than him whin Brother 'Lige stood up 'thout no cloak in his pink
tights. I b'lieve that Brother 'Lish was glad to get that cloak an' it
come in mighty handy, 'cause they do say that whin he was a-sittin' in
Brother 'Lige's cabin that very night, the mantel fell on him. No, sir,
it never hurt him at all, but I reckon they couldn't have much fire 'til
they got it put back. But he had the cloak to wrop up in."
This delightfully original interpretation of the scriptures fascinated
all of us. I could see Mary was listening very attentively to Lady John.
He would be another stunt for the clever girl. Mary was a great
impersonator and could mimic anything or anybody.
"Are you going to have the circus after dinner or before?" asked one of
the party.
"Before!" cried Mary. "I'd be afraid to trust the ivy with my weight
plus the gumbo I intend to eat."
CHAPTER IX
THE PERFORMANCE
WHEN we got back to Maxton, whom should we find sitting on the bench by
Miss Maria but Mr. Jeffry Tucker? He looked as though he had known her
all her life and no one would have dreamed that this was his second
meeting with her. His first had been the summer before when that
enterprising gentleman had made a trip to Price's Landing to persuade
Mr. Pore to wake up to the fact that Annie was invited to go to
Willoughby on a beach party and that all he had to do was let her go.
"Zebedee, darling! Where did you come from?" cried Dee, breaking away
from the crowd as she spied her youthful father and racing like a wild
Indian to get the first hug.
"Richmond via Henry Ford!" he managed to get out as Dum scrouged in for
her share of hugging.
"And, Page! Little friend!" he said, freeing one of his hands and
clasping mine.
How I did love to be called his little friend! He never called me that
in a way that made me feel young and silly, either, but somehow he gave
me the impression that he was depending on me, I don't know just for
what but for something. I was as glad to see him as his own Tweedles
were, I am sure.
"Did you come down alone?" I asked.
"No, indeed, I had the pleasure of the learned discourse of Mr. Arthur
Ponsonby Pore on my journey hither."
"Oh, good! He is back, then, and maybe we can have Annie," said Dee.
"She is upstairs now," announced that wonderful man.
"Oh, Zebedee! I just knew you could work it!" and Dee gave him another
bear hug for luck.
Dee had sent a telegram to her father asking him to get hold of Mr. Pore
and persuade him to hurry back and release Annie.
Miss Maria was anxious to hear of our success with the servants and was
delighted to know of their contemplated return. When we told her that
the only way to get them back was to have a circus, she was greatly
amused. Zebedee, of course, entered into the scheme with his usual
enthusiasm.
"When is it to be?"
"Now!" I answered. "The darkies are on their way, ten thousand strong."
"But, my dear, there are only five house servants," said Miss Maria.
"Yes, but all the field hands had laid off, too, because of the ghost. I
fancy all of the colored people from the quarters are coming up to be
convinced against their will that the ghost was not a ghost."
"But suppose Mary can't climb down again. She might kill herself this
time," wailed the poor hostess.
"Not at all!" I reassured her. "It will be much easier to do it in
daylight than in darkness."
"Of course it will!" declared the intrepid movie star. "And, besides,
last night was only the dress rehearsal, and all actors say that the
dress rehearsal is much more nervous work than the real performance. Now
I must go dress my part," and so we raced up to our room where we found
dear Annie unpacking her suitcase with such a happy smile on her face
that she looked like an angel.
How we did chatter! We had to tell her all about our plan for the
society circus. Looking out of the window where Mary was to make her
fearsome descent, Annie shuddered.
"I don't see how you can do it."
"If _you_ only could, what a bride you would make!" exclaimed Mary.
Mary had determined to dress as a bride and now began the work of
finding suitable duds. Miss Maria came in to assist just when we were
beginning to despair. None of us was blessed with enough clothes to be
willing to spare any of them for such a hazardous undertaking, none save
Jessie Wilcox and she had them to spare, but we would not have asked her
for any to save her. That superior young lady had been quite scornful
of us while we were working and then afterwards on the walk to the
quarters. Now she had gone off for a row on the river with Wink, who
seemed to think that when I was so enthusiastic over the arrival of the
father of my best friends he had a personal grievance. He liked Zebedee
a great deal himself but seemed to think I did not have the same right.
I am sure Jessie was a brave girl to go rowing with a man who had such a
one-sided way of looking at things. Anyone with such a biased judgment
could not be trusted to trim a boat, I felt.
When Miss Maria found out our trouble, she had Harvie bring from the
attic a little old haircloth trunk, and throwing it open, told us to
help ourselves. It was filled with all kinds of old-fashioned gowns,
some of them of rich brocade and some of flowered chintz. At the very
bottom we unearthed a wedding dress which had belonged to some dead and
gone Price, Miss Maria did not even know to whom. It was yellow with
age but had not a break in it. It was some squeeze to get the bunchy
Mary in it, but with much pulling in and holding of the breath we
finally got it hooked.
"And here's a veil!" cried Dum, who had been standing on her head in the
trunk hunting for treasures.
It was nothing but a piece of white mosquito netting that had been put
in this trunk by mistake evidently, but it was quite a find to us, and
with a few dexterous twists we had Mary standing before us a blushing
bride.
"How about your shoes, Mary?" I asked. "Last night you said you had to
have bare toes to dig in the wall."
"So I have! Gee, what are we to do about it? It would never do to have a
barefoot bride; but I simply could not climb down in shoes."
"I have it!" cried Dum. "Let's have a cavalier down on the ground, your
'beau lover,' you know, like the Elizabeth of long ago, and you take off
your slippers and throw them down to him."
"Good! Page, please go tell Shorty I need him."
Shorty was game and in a twinkling of an eye we had him rigged out as a
very presentable if rather youthful "beau lover."
The darkies had come and were seated on the ground about twenty feet
from the house. News of a free show had spread like wildfire and I am
sure at least fifteen were gathered there. It seemed hard that we must
amuse fifteen to get five.
The show opened with a boxing match between the young men from Kentucky,
Jack Bennett and Billy Somers. This was most exciting and nothing but
the presence of General Price kept the darkies from putting up bets on
the fight.
Next on the program was the Tuckers' stunt: Dum and Dee, back to back,
were buttoned up in two sweaters which they put on hind part before and
then fastened on the side, Dum's to Dee's and Dee's to Dum's.
"This, Ladies and Gentlemen," said Zebedee, who was doing the part of
showmaster, "is Milly Christine, the two-headed woman. She is the most
remarkable freak of nature in the world to-day. She has two heads, four
legs, four arms, but only one body. She is very well educated and can
speak several languages at the same time. She also can sing a duet with
herself (at least she thinks she can). Fortunately she is in love with
herself, otherwise she would get very bored with herself. There is only
one difficulty about being this kind of a twin: if you don't like what
your twin likes you have to lump it. Now Milly, here, sometimes eats
onions and poor Christine has to go around with the odor on her breath;
and Christine got her feet wet and poor Milly has caught a bad cold from
it." With this Dee sneezed violently, a regular Tucker sneeze which was
as good as a show any time. "Milly is always getting sleepy and wanting
to go to bed when Christine feels like dancing." Dee put her head on her
breast and gave forth stertorous snores while Dum gaily waltzed around
dragging the sleeping twin. There were roars of applause.
Next Harvie came around the house walking on his hands and Jim Hart
doing cartwheels. Rags had the stunt known as "Come on, Eph!" It is a
strange thing, where the performer wiggles and shakes himself until his
clothes seem to be slipping off. All the time he emits sounds from which
one gathers that he wants Eph to come on. This brought down the house
and Rags had an encore.
I had to dance "going to church" while the twins patted for me. I never
did have any little parlor tricks but they would not let me off. The
darkies treated it quite seriously and when I went around shaking hands,
which is part of the dance, they arose and joined the dance. This broke
the ice and warmed them up for the ghost scene soon to follow.
The circus was proving a great success. The rows of happy black faces
gave evidence of that. We had decided to have some music next, but made
the great mistake of putting Annie on the program ahead of Jessie. It
was taken as an insult and that spoiled piece refused to sing at all.
Annie sang charmingly, however. She accompanied herself on a banjo, and
if my dance had started the darkies, her song got them all going. She
sang, "Clar de Kitchen." I wonder if my readers know that old song. It
was famous once on every plantation but in this day of rag time and
imitation darky songs one hardly ever hears it.
CLAR DE KITCHEN
In ol' Kentuck, in de arternoon,
We sweep de flo' wid a bran new broom,
And arter dat we form a ring,
And dis de song dat we do sing:
_Chorus_--
O, clar de kitchen, ol' folks, young folks,
Clar de kitchen, ol' folks, young folks,
Ol' Virginy never, never tire.
I went to de creek, I couldn't get across,
I'd nobody wid me but a ol' blin' horse;
But ol' Jim Crow come a-ridin' by,
Says he, "Ol' fellow, yo' horse will die."
It's clar de kitchen, etc.
My horse fell down upon de spot.
Says he, "Don't you see his eyes is sot?"
So I took out my knife, and off wid his skin,
When he comes to life I'll ride him agin.
So clar de kitchen, etc.
A jay-bird sat on a hickory limb--
He winked at me and I winked at him;
I picked up a stone and I hit his shin,
Says he, "You'd better not do dat agin."
So clar de kitchen, etc.
A bull-frog, dressed in soger's clothes,
Went in de field to shoot some crows;
De crows smell powder and fly away--
De bull-frog mighty mad dat day.
So clar de kitchen, etc.
I hab a sweetheart in dis town,
She wears a yaller striped gown;
And when she walks de streets around,
De hollow of her foot makes a hole in de ground.
Now clar de kitchen, etc.
Dis love is a ticklish ting, you know,
It makes a body feel all over so;
I put de question to Coal-Black Rose,
She's as black as ten of spades, and got a lubly flat nose.
Now clar de kitchen, etc.
"Go away," says she, "wid your cowcumber shin,
If you come here agin I stick you wid a pin."
So I turn on my heel, and I bid her good-bye,
And arter I was gone she began for to cry.
So clar de kitchen, etc.
So now I'se up and off you see,
To take a julep sangaree;
I'll sit upon a tater hill
And eat a little whip-poor-will.
So clar de kitchen, etc.
I wish I was back in ol' Kentuck,
For since I lef' it I had no luck--
De gals so proud dey won't eat mush;
And when you go to court 'em dey say, "O, hush!"
Now clar de kitchen, etc.
Of course before Annie got through, everybody was joining in the chorus,
and the darkies were patting and some of them dancing. There wasn't the
ghost of a ghost in their minds now and really we might have dispensed
with the grand finale as far as they were concerned. Maxton was no
longer a place to be shunned; but Mary was to go through with her act
before lunch and I for one knew that that gumbo was stewing down mighty
thick. I stole off once and stirred it and put it back a little.
CHAPTER X
THE GHOST OF A GHOST
THE last patter occasioned by Annie's spirited tune had died away and a
sudden hush fell upon the seated throng. It was time for the great act.
We thought the impressiveness of the scene would be heightened if
someone would tell the story. General Price suggested Lady John as the
best raconteur of the neighborhood. Of course Lady John was more than
pleased to comply. He loved to be in the lime light and to show off.
This was his opportunity.
"Ladies, gemmen an' niggers, what ain't neither, some er you," he
declaimed, standing up on an ivy-covered stump and making his inimitable
curtsey, "I is a-makin' this speechifying at the inquest of the white
folks an' if respec' is not handed to me it is also infused to them."
That rather silenced the tittering that Lady John's elevation had
caused.
"Gen'l Price is inquested me to lay befo' de meetin' de gospel of de
ghoses what is thought by some to hant these here abode of plenty.
Without more pilaverin' I'll lay holt the shank of the tale.--Mos' about
a thousan' years ago whin my gran'mammy warn't mo'n a baby an' Gen'l
Price here, savin' his presence, warn't even so much as thought about
although his amcestroms were abidin' here, the tale runs they war a
young miss of the family by name Lizzy Betty. Miss Lizzy Betty war that
sweet an' that putty that all the young gemmen war mos' ready to eat her
up. Ev'y steamboat that come a-sailin' up de ribber brought beaux for
Miss Lizzy Betty. One young man come all dressed in gold an' wid a long
feather in his hat an' a sword as long as a hoe han'le. He had no land
an' he had no boat but he come on his hoss a-ridin' ober de hills, an'
Miss Lizzy Betty she done tol' him she would be his'n through sickness
an' through healthfulness.--But, ladies an' gemmen an' you niggers what
is 'havin' better'n I ever seed you 'have befo', ol' Marse Price he got
yuther notions in his haid. He see no reason why Miss Lizzy Betty
shouldn't marry to suit him stid er herse'f. They was a rich ol' man
what didn't carry all his b'longin's on his back, an' ol' Marse Price he
go to de sto' an' come back with a dress an' veil for Miss Lizzy Betty
an' he say fer her to go put it on an' he'd fotch the preacher. An'
'twas all the po' young thing could do to git word to her beau lover.
All the comp'ny was dissembled an' de bride had comb out her har an' put
on de dress an' veil, whin she say to her frien's an' de nigger maid fer
them to lef her alone fer a moment so she could wrastle in prayer. So so
soon as they got out her room, she locked de do' an' thin she peeped
out'n de winder, an' thar, kind an' true, was de beau lover."
At this point Mary poked her head out of the window and Shorty appeared
below brave in all his finery, although it was not of pure gold as in
Lady John's version. This was some astonishment to the old tale teller
and he stopped in his narrative.
"Hist!" called the bride to Shorty below. "Are you there, sweetheart?"
"Aye, aye!" answered the future bluejacket. "Can you climb down the wall
or shall I come up to you and carry you off in my flying machine?"
"I am coming down!" choked Mary. "But, Algernon, I cannot scale the
fearsome wall in shoes and hose; what must I do?"
"Take them off, fair Lizzy Betty, and throw them down to me."
With that, Mary threw down to the faithful Shorty some huge tennis
shoes, the property of Harvie. Shorty caught them, one at a time, and
each catch felled him to the earth, much to the delight of the audience.
Then began the dangerous act. The agile Lizzy Betty was out of the
window in a twinkling of an eye. Her mosquito net veil floated in the
breezes. Her satin train she managed with great dexterity, kicking it
from her, thereby disclosing to view the blue serge gym bloomers she was
wearing. She swung herself down until midway she came upon the fated
snag; there she paused and deliberately hooked her veil in the nail.
Here old Lady John, seeing his chance, took up the tale and began:
"As Miss Lizzy Betty was a-hurryin' down, an' she sho' could clam like a
cat, she got her finery cotched on a rusty nail, an' thar she hung as
helpless as a ol' coon skin tacked on de barn do'. De beau lover he
dance up an' down like he goin' crazy."
Shorty began to prance and cry out to his lady love; but she hung there
weeping in loud boo hoos.
"Bymby ol' Marse Price 'gun ter 'spicion sompen, an' he up'n bang on de
chamber do'. 'Hyar there, Lizzy Betty! Come on an' git married! The
victuals is a-gittin' col' whilst you is a-prayin'.' Po' Miss Lizzy
Betty could a-hear 'em hollerin' and beatin' an' bangin', an' still her
dress it cotch on de nail. Jes' then de rich ol' bridegroom come
a-shamblin' roun' de house, an' he an' de beau lover clasp one anudder
in mortal death grips. De ol' man, he got so clost to him dat de sword
what was as long as a hoe han'le didn' do de beau lover no good
whatsomever, but de lil' penknife what de ol' man carry for to whittle
with went clean home to de beau lover's heart."
At the proper cue, Wink, who had submitted to be dressed up in a red
table cover with a Santa Klaus beard made out of a switch borrowed from
Miss Maria, came sidling around the house.
"Vilyun!" he cried, and grabbing Shorty around the waist, they wrestled
and swayed until Shorty's long silk stockings, borrowed from Dum, came
down and hung around his feet, and his fancy trunks, nothing more nor
less than a bathing suit carefully rolled up, came unrolled and hung
down in a most ludicrous manner. Finally the deadly penknife was dug
into his ribs and he expired, calling to the lovely Lizzy Betty.
"An' de lubly Miss Lizzy Betty, she tuk a fit then an' thar an' if'n her
paw hadn't er got a ladder an' gone up'n unhooked her, she'd a-been
hangin' thar yit, same as in dis hyar circus," and Lady John pointed
impressively at the bunchy figure of Mary clinging to the ivy with
fingers, teeth and toe-nails.
The applause could have been heard down at the landing, I am sure. Mary
unfastened her mosquito net veil from her head and finished her descent,
leaving the veil caught to the snag.
"Now, you black rascals," cried General Price, "you can see the ghost
any night you've a mind. There she hangs, and I reckon I'll leave her
there to shame you with. Now get to work!"
His words were stem but his face wore a smile and his tone was kindly.
The field hands went off to work, the uninvited guests melted away, and
the house servants took up their tasks where we had left off.
Willie, the yard boy, wore a broad grin on his countenance. I heard him
say to one of the housemaids:
"I done mist my chanst for de kingdom dis year. I 'lowed I'd come
through to-night, but these hyar carryin's on done flimflammed me. I
been a-laughin' an' singin' an' what's more a-dancin', an' 'twarn't no
David a-dancin' befo' de Lord, nuther. 'Twas jes' a-pattin' an' Clar de
Kitchen dance. I hear rumors of gumbo for dinner, too, an' I sho' is
glad I done turned from grace. I hope de young misses what concocted of
de gumbo done put my name in de pot. Dis here seekin' is pow'ful
appetizin'."
Our circus had been a decided success. Old and young, black and white
had enjoyed it. Mary felt that she had redeemed herself. Had she not
scared the servants off and then wiled them back? Had she not held
thousands thrilled and breathless while she made her perilous descent?
"It is wonderful for you to be able to climb that way," said our courtly
host. "I have never seen a young lady so agile."
"But I shall have to learn to climb in shoes," sighed our movie star.
"Douglas Fairbanks can."
CHAPTER XI
THE PICNIC
WHEN a crowd of young people get together there is sure to be a picnic
if there is a spark of life in them. There were many sparks of life in
this crowd, enough to supply many picnics.
We had been at Maxton ten days when the picnic came off, and we had had
ten days of unalloyed fun. Of course, we had many gags on each other and
jokes that were only jokes because we were on a house-party together.
Those jokes if told would sound very flat, indeed. I believe there is no
bore so great as the person who has been off with a crowd for a
fortnight and comes back and tries to bring to life all the silly jokes
that were perpetrated. They may have been brilliant and witty at the
time, but it takes the setting and the circumstance to make them appear
so to someone not blessed with an invitation to said house-party.
Mr. Tucker had come and gone and come again when we decided to go on the
picnic. His faithful Henry Ford could bring him to Price's Landing in
about one-fourth of the time it took if one trusted to the deliberate
meanderings of the steamboat. He was a favorite with all of the party,
young and old, and his arrival was hailed with delight. Miss Maria put
on her best and filmiest lace cap for his benefit, and to her delight,
that wonderful man noticed it and talked to her about old lace with a
knowledge that astounded her.
He told me afterwards he found lace a topic which always interested old
ladies, so he had deliberately made it his business to find out about
lace and be prepared to converse on the subject. He also had some
general knowledge of crochet stitches, and knew how much yarn it took to
knit a sweater. It was too ludicrous to see him solemnly talking fancy
work with some ancient dame. Tweedles and I have been sent off into
hysterics when we have found him bending over a rainbow afghan, with
some old lady eagerly asking his advice as to the depth of the border
or something else equally feminine. He seldom went home, after a
week-end spent at some resort, that he did not have a commission to
match embroidery silk for some lady who had calculated wrong, or send
back a bale of wool for some energetic person who had suddenly decided
to knit socks for the poor Belgians or a sweater for a long-suffering
male relative. Certainly Zebedee's interest and knowledge on the subject
of lace caps would have won Miss Maria's affections had they not already
been his.
General Price was as glad to see him as was his old sister. Of course,
the European war was of paramount interest to everyone during those
years, and Jeffry Tucker always brought some item of news to be
recounted and discussed. He came laden with newspapers and magazines,
and the general would bury himself under them, only emerging for meals.
He and Zebedee would spend hours discussing the situation. Topographical
maps were studied until one would think those two gentlemen could have
found their way blindfolded over every inch of the western front.
The Mexican situation, too, must be thoroughly threshed out. The old
warrior was like some ancient war horse that sniffs the battle from
afar. As a veteran of the Civil War he had many experiences to recount
and analogies to bring forth. Mr. Tucker listened to him with an
attention that was most flattering. Naturally General Price freely
announced that Tucker was the most agreeable man of his acquaintance.
Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore spent one evening with us at Maxton and the
general and Zebedee hoped to get some new outlook from their English
acquaintance on the subject of the war that so nearly touched him, since
many of his kinsmen must surely be in the trenches; but Mr. Pore's
interest seemed purely academic, and as his knowledge was principally
gained from two- and three-week-old London _Graphics_, those voracious
gentlemen got but little satisfaction from the hours spent with Arthur
Ponsonby.
"He cares more about what language will finally be spoken on the
Servian border than he does about the submarine menace!" cried Zebedee
indignantly, coming out on the gallery where I was getting a breath of
air after a particularly trying dance with poor Wink, who never had
learned how. We danced almost every night at Maxton,--tread many a
measure, as our dear old host put it. Dee said she thought Wink was a
good dancer and she seemed to be able to keep step with him very well,
but the Gods evidently had ordained that Wink and I could do nothing in
harmony. He either stepped on my toes or I stepped on his,--the latter
arrangement I much preferred.
"Well, when you come right down to it," I said, defending poor Mr. Pore,
"that is, after all, a very important thing. What language is to be
spoken there will mean which side is victorious."
"I know that, little Miss Smarty, but I also know if I have to listen
any longer to that Britisher's rounded periods, what language will be
spoken here,--it will not be fit to print, either. How can a man sit
still down on the banks of a river in a foreign country and feel that it
is not up to him to do a single thing for his country when her very
existence is in peril!"
"But what can he do?"
"Do? Heavens, Page, he can do a million things!"
"He is too old to fight."
"No one is ever too old to fight,--that is, to put up some kind of a
fight. He does not even contribute to a relief fund! He as good as told
me he did not. He says he is afraid that what he sent might fall into
the hands of the Germans and help them, so he considers it more
patriotic not to send anything. I've been taking up for that man against
Tweedles, but ugh! I'm through now."
"Oh no, you are not," I laughed; "if Mr. Pore should come out on the
porch this minute and ask a favor of you, I bet you would be just as
nice to him as you always have been."
"Never! Five pounds of Huyler's if I am not as cold as a fish to His
Nibs!"
At this psychological moment His Nibs appeared.
"Aw, I say, Mr. Tucker, when you return to Richmond, will you be so kind
as to do a little commission for me?"
Zebedee made inarticulate noises in his throat and Mr. Pore continued:
"Some freight has gone astray and if you could look it up from that end,
it would be of great assistance to me."
"Have you written about it?" Zebedee's manner was not quite so
Zebedeeish as I could have wished, since five pounds of Huyler's was at
stake.
"No, I have not corresponded with the wholesale firm from whom I
purchased the goods, as I heard from my daughter that you were expected,
and I considered that it would be much more satisfactory to all
concerned if you could give it your personal attention."
As soon as Mr. Pore mentioned Annie, Zebedee seemed to have a change of
heart. He evidently felt that Annie's father must be cajoled into good
behavior, and nothing must be done or said to make that stubborn parent
have an excuse for taking any pleasures from Annie.
"Certainly, Mr. Pore," he said politely, if a little distantly. "Just
give me your bill of lading and I will look into the matter for you."
In my mind's eye I saw the five pounds of candy. I had certainly won.
But was it fair of me to take advantage of poor Zebedee's tender heart?
Certainly not!
"Shall it be chocolates?" he asked, when Mr. Pore had finished his
transaction and taken himself off.
"It shall be nothing!" I exclaimed. "Don't you know I know why you were
decent to the old fish? It was not just plain politeness that made you
do it, it was your feeling for Annie, poor little thing!"
"How do you know so much?"
"Why, I saw you change your mind the moment he dragged in Annie, and I
knew what you were thinking just as much as though you had said it
aloud: 'Don't do anything to make things hard for Annie.' Now isn't that
so?"
"Page, you are uncanny! Can you read everybody's mind?"
"Of course not! Only yours," I laughed.
"Do you know what I am thinking now?" He looked at me very intently. The
light from the hall was flooding the gallery and I could see way down
into his clear blue eyes.
"N-o!" I hesitated, and I am afraid blushed, too. "But I wish you would
think that it would be nice to go try that new wiggly dance Jessie
Wilcox has just brought from New York."
"I see, if you can't read my mind all the time, you can at least make me
think what you want me to. Come on, honey, and show me the dance."
I got the candy in spite of my protestations of not deserving it.
The picnic was to be at Croxton's Ford, a beautiful spot about three
miles down the river. The naphtha launch held eight quite comfortably
and the rest were to go in rowboats. Mary and Shorty insisted upon
paddling the canoe, although they were warned that it would be a tiring
job, especially coming back.
Miss Maria had planned to go with us although an all day picnic was a
great undertaking for one of her shape, but she was very particular with
girls intrusted to her and chaperoned most religiously. On the very
morning of the picnic, sciatica seized her and she simply could not get
out of bed. The general had business at the court-house and was off very
early in the morning, so his going was out of the question. Miss Maria
lay there groaning and moaning, miserable that her conscience could not
consent to our going on such a jaunt, unchaperoned. As Tweedles and I
had never been overchaperoned, in fact knew very little about such
necessities, it seemed absurd to us.
"Do you really mean we can't go without a chaperone?" wailed Dum, who
had set her heart on a long row in a little red boat that appealed to
her especially.
"My dear, I am so sorry! I would get up if I could."
"But I wouldn't have you get up, dear Miss Maria. I just want you to lie
still and get well. We don't need a chaperone!"
"I know you don't need one, my child, but I have never heard of a picnic
at Croxton's Ford without a chaperone."
"But Zebedee's a grand chaperone," put in Dee. "He is that particular!
Why, Dum and Page and I have never been chaperoned in our lives."
"Zebedee's the strictest thing!" maintained Dum.
"So he may be," smiled the old lady, although one could see that the
twinges in her poor hip were giving her great agony, "but as perfect as
he is, he is not a woman."
"No,--he is certainly not that."
"Jessie Wilcox has never been on a picnic in her life without a
chaperone, and I could not consent to one from Maxton unless it was
perfectly regular."
A tap on the door disclosed the sympathetic Zebedee.
"Please let me come in," he begged.
After a hasty donning of boudoir cap and bed sacque, he was admitted.
"Mr. Tucker, I am so sorry, but I cannot let the girls go on a picnic
without a chaperone," said the old lady.
"Of course not!" and his eyes twinkled. "I'm going, though, and I am a
perfect ogre of a chaperone, eh, Page?"
"Yes, something fierce, but Miss Maria says you are not a woman."
"That's so!" he said, puckering up his brows. We were mortally sure he
was going to find a way. He always did. "How about Aunt Milly? She is
perfectly respectable and would guard the young ladies like gold, I am
sure."
"We-ll, I remember before the war we often went great distances with our
maids. I think she would do. Please send her to me."
Zebedee rushed to do her bidding, but he evidently had an interview with
Aunt Milly before he sent her to Miss Maria, as that old darky entered
the bed chamber in a broad grin, tying something up in the corner of
her bandanna handkerchief as she came.
"Milly, I want you to chaperone for me to-day," said the poor invalid,
groaning as she tried to move a bit in her great mahogany bed.
"Sho', Miss Maria! Does you want me to do it wif goose grease? Or maybe
you'd like dat mixture er coal ile an' pneumonia? Dat's a great mixture.
'Twill bun you up but it sho' do scatter de pain."
"I don't mean massage, I said chaperone," and Miss Maria laughed in
spite of her sciatic nerve.
"Yassum! I 'lowed you meant rub, an' I's mo'n willin' to rub. You'll hab
to 'splain. I ain't quite sho' in my min' what shopper-roonin' is, but
if it'll ease yo' pain, you kin jes' call on ol' Milly."
"It would ease my pain greatly if you would go with the young ladies on
the picnic."
"Cook for 'em?"
"Oh no, Aunt Milly," I interrupted, "we never let the chaperone
cook,--just to look after us and keep us straight."
"Lawsamussy, chile! You all don't need nobody to keep you straight. Th'
ain't nothin' wrong wid you all but jes' you's a little coltish."
"I know they don't need anyone, Milly, but I have never heard of a
picnic at Croxton's Ford without a chaperone, and I wouldn't be willing
for them to go without one."
"All right, Miss Maria! But you ain't thinkin' 'bout sendin' me nowhar
in one er them thar skifty boats, is you?"
"Oh no, Aunt Milly!" said Dee reassuringly. "You must have a comfortable
seat in the stern of the naphtha launch. We will give you the place Miss
Maria would have had could she have gone."
"Well, Gawd save us! I ain't nebber set foot on or in the ribber in all
my life an' I been born an' bred on its banks, too," and the old woman
drew forth a big red bandanna handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
As she did so she came upon the something round and hard tied up in its
corner, and at the same time she glanced up at Mr. Tucker. He, in a
seemingly absent-minded way, put his hand in his pocket and jingled his
keys and coin.
"Well, all right, Miss Maria! If you say I mus' go, I reckon 'tain't fer
me to gainsay you. Who gonter do my wuck at home?"
"There won't be much work to do, Milly, since all of the young people
are going away, and the general has planned to spend the day at the
court-house. The lunch baskets are ready, are they not?"
"Yassum! I been up sence sunup a-packin' 'em. It seemed like ol' times
to be a-packin' all them victuals. I 'member what a gret han' you was
for pickaniggers whin you was a gal. I reckon it's a-cuttin' all them
samwidges yistiddy dat done combusticated yo' hip now. You better let me
rub you befo' I go a shopper-roonin'."
"Thank you, Milly, but if you chaperone, that will be work enough for
you for to-day. You had better get ready now. Tell Willie to take you to
your cabin in the buggy and wait and drive you back. You must hurry and
not keep the young ladies waiting."
Aunt Milly waddled off, filled with importance and pride but secretly
dreading a water trip. Dee insisted upon massaging the poor invalid, who
really was suffering intensely. Dee was a born nurse and was never so
happy as when she could take command in a sick room. She drove all of us
out, insisting the patient must be quiet. Wink, who was really and truly
a doctor now, was called in and readily prescribed and what's more
produced the medicine from a little kit he carried about with him. Dee
rubbed and rubbed until it was time to start on the picnic. Miss Maria
was so soothed that she dozed off and Dee tiptoed out of the room
without making a sound.
No doubt the poor old lady enjoyed her day of quiet and rest. We must
have been a great trial to her, because we were a noisy, hoydenish lot.
Those of us who didn't sit up late at night making a racket, got up
early in the morning to do so, and vice versa. She was so sweet and
good-natured about us that she never let us feel we were a nuisance, but
I am sure we must have been.
CHAPTER XII
THE SHOPPER-ROON
OF course Aunt Milly kept us waiting. There is no telling what rite she
performed in her cabin in preparation for the momentous occasion of
chaperoning. We were all seated in the boats waiting, the lunch stowed
carefully in the locker of the launch and the bathing suits tucked under
the seats, when Willie came racing up in a light red-wheeled buggy, one
side so bent down with Aunt Milly's great weight that the springs were
touching.
"Gawd pertec' me!" she prayed as Harvie and Zebedee between them handed
her into the launch. The little craft did some perceptible sinking with
the extra load and had to be lightened a bit.
"Sleepy, you had better get out," teased Rags.
Poor Sleepy had been having a strenuous week trying to monopolize Annie
Pore. This was a difficult thing to do, as Annie seemed to attract the
male sex willy nilly. She had no idea of flirting and never meant to
hurt anyone, but there was something about her that appealed to the
masculine element irresistibly. Wherever she went she made conquests by
a certain clinging vine attitude she had towards the whole world. Mere
man likes to be looked upon as a protector and Annie's timidity was meat
and drink to his vanity. George Massie, alias Sleepy, was her slave;
Harvie Price thought he looked upon her as a little sister, but I have
never yet seen a big brother quite so anxious for the comfort of nothing
but a sister; Jack Bennett seemed to find her very attractive and
divided his allegiance between her and Dee; nothing but his loyalty to
Sleepy kept Ben Raglan from entering the lists for the favor of the
little English maid. He occasionally teased poor Sleepy, but that young
giant never did know what I knew: that Rags really cared for Annie.
Sleepy, knowing that the launch was the safest place in which to embark
for a picnic and understanding how timid Annie was and how poor a
swimmer, had ensconced her in that vessel in a protected spot, and had
found a place at her feet where he could look up into her pretty face.
"Me get out? Get out yourself!" he cried indignantly.
"But it is not quality they want out but quantity," answered Rags. "You
and Aunt Milly, being in the same boat, can't ride in the same boat."
Now George Massie was not really fat, but because of his great bulk he
was usually thought of as being so. Certainly his bones were well
covered but his muscles were hard as iron. What fat was there was well
hammered down. He must have weighed at that time at least two hundred
and twenty pounds, but then his six feet two inches could carry a good
many pounds. He was cursed with money if ever a young man was. His
father was very wealthy and George had never been denied a single thing
in all his life. His principal ambition had been to make the football
team at the University and even that had been granted him,--not because
of money but because of brawn.
He was studying medicine in a desultory way, taking a year longer to
finish his course than the more ambitious Wink, who was not cursed at
all with money but had unbounded energy and ambition. Sleepy's friends,
and he had many of those necessary things, all adored him. He was so
honest, so straightforward, so sympathetic. They deplored his lack of
ambition, however. I used to feel that Sleepy was a lesson to all of the
young men in his set because they realized that after all too much money
often had a softening effect on character. There seemed to be no
especial use for George Massie to graduate, because after he got his
diploma what difference would it make whether he got patients or not?
His adoration of Annie Pore had had a good effect on him, so Jim Hart
had told me. The last year at the University he had done better studying
than he ever had in his life, and his friends had hopes of his waking up
to the fact that the world might need him, even if he did not need the
world's money in doctor's fees.
"Yes, Sleepy! You'll have to vamoose," insisted Jack Bennett, trying to
squeeze himself down between George Massie and Annie.
"You are as big as any two other passengers," declared Rags.
"If that is the case, then suppose two other passengers take to the
life-boats," suggested Zebedee. "Come on, Page, you are light and easy
to row and there is a nice little brown boat waiting for us."
Dum and Billy Somers had already started in their picturesque red skiff,
and Mary Flannagan and Shorty were well on their way in the canoe. They
had been independent and had not had to wait while Aunt Milly arrayed
herself in all the glories of a brand new purple calico and bright plaid
head handkerchief.
"All right!" I acquiesced to Mr. Tucker's proposal.
After we were transferred to the little brown boat and on our way to
Croxton's Ford, he said:
"I am afraid I was selfish to ask you to come with me. I know I should
not have taken you away from all of your young friends."
"Why, Zebedee! How absurd! You are the youngest friend I have, much the
youngest."
"But you gave a very sad and unenthusiastic 'all right' to my
proposition to come by skiff. Now, didn't you?"
"But it wasn't that I didn't want to come with you," I declared.
"Perhaps not, but merely that you didn't want to leave someone else to
come with me. Now fess up, honey!"
"I have nothing to fess up about."
"Well, then, why did you look so crestfallen when I put it up to you to
leave the launch?" and Zebedee dug his oars in the water with some
viciousness.
"I didn't mean to. I--I----"
"You what?"
"I had a reason for wanting to stay in the launch."
"Didn't I say so? Who was the reason?"
"It wasn't a who, at all--it was a which."
"A which?" he asked somewhat mystified.
"Yes, a which! If you must know, I wanted to be under the awning because
of my freckled nose," and I blushed until it hurt. My nose was a great
annoyance to me. It was such a little nose to get so many freckles on
it. The fact that they disappeared in the winter was but cold comfort to
me.
"But I like freckles," he said quite solemnly, but his eyes were dancing
with amusement.
"But I don't, and it's my nose. You are the only person who does like
'em."
"Who has been telling you he doesn't like them?"
"Nobody to my face, or rather to my freckles, but I heard Jessie Wilcox
talking to someone about me and she called me a speckled beauty,--just
exactly as though I were a trout or a coach dog or a turkey egg or
something. And I know after this day on the water I'll be a sight."
"Do you care what she says?"
"I care what anybody says."
"Why, little friend, I did not dream you put so much value on the
opinion of others, especially where mere personal appearance is
concerned." I thought I detected a note of disappointment in his voice.
"I don't about everything, but one's nose is mighty close to one,
somehow."
"So it is," he laughed, "and I am so sorry to have been the means of
injuring that touchy member. I can't help feeling kind of happy, though,
that it was the awning you were loath to leave and not some one of those
boys. Here's a nice linen handkerchief; why don't you tie that over your
nose?"
Mr. Tucker always had the nicest linen handkerchiefs I ever saw, and he
seemed to have clean, folded ones ready to produce for every emergency.
I accepted his offer and tied it over the lower part of my face.
"Now you look like a little Turkish lady. Please say you are glad you
came in the little brown boat," and my boatman shipped his oars and
drifted with the current.
It was a very easy thing to say because I was very glad. Now that my
poor little nose was protected, I was perfectly happy. I always enjoyed
being with Zebedee. We never talked out and we seldom had a
disagreement; not that we agreed on every subject by any means, but we
could disagree without having a disagreement. We talked about everything
under the sun from Shakespeare to the musical glasses. I couldn't help
comparing this boat ride to the one I had been overpersuaded to take
with Wink only a few days before. We had started out with the best of
intentions on my part to avoid all shoals in conversation, but before we
had been out ten minutes Wink was gnawing his little moustache in fury
and I was wishing I had stayed on shore. A row with Wink was sure to end
in a row (pronounced rou).
The launch arrived at Croxton's Ford long before we did, but we came as
fast as the current allowed, having drifted a good part of the way. The
party had landed and had begun to make the camp for the day. It was a
wonderful spot chosen for the picnic. A large creek, flowing into the
river, broadened out almost into a lake, and in the mouth of this creek
were innumerable small islands. Some of them had large trees growing on
them, lovely sandy beaches and strips of verdure; others were too young
to have trees but were covered with grass. The camp was pitched on the
largest island, right at the mouth of the creek that afforded a landing
for the launch. There was a famous spring on this island that was
thought by the county people to have some great curative power. What it
cured you of I don't know, but it tasted too good to be much good as a
medicine, I imagine.
Aunt Milly, who had proven herself to be an ideal chaperone, having
slept during the entire journey, was now ensconced under a water oak on
a warm sand bank with nothing to do but enjoy herself. This she did
immediately by falling asleep again.
"Whin I ain't a-wuckin', I's a-sleepin'," she droned as slumber enfolded
her.
Of course the camp fire must be made and potatoes and corn put to roast
and the coffee-pot filled with the sparkling spring water. The trip down
had made everybody hungry, whether accomplished without exertion as by
those in the launch; or with the sweat of the brow as by Mary and Shorty
in the canoe, or Dum and Billy Somers in the red skiff; or with just
enough work to keep the boat in the current which was Zebedee's and my
method of locomotion: one and all were hungry.
"While dinner is cooking, let's have a swim," suggested Harvie. "You
girls take this side of the island for a dressing-room and we'll take
the other. Here are some low willows that make splendid walls."
Bathing suits were produced and while our chaperone slumbered and slept,
we got into them and then into the water. Such water! It was clear and
soft, so much more so than the water of the big river. The bottom was
clean sand with no disturbing rocks and snags. The trees shaded the
place chosen for our swim where the sloping beach made it safe for the
timid close to shore, but ten yards of perseverance plunged the bold
swimmer into really deep water.
The shouts of joy would have waked the dead had there been any on the
island, but nothing waked the sleeping Aunt Milly. She had burrowed down
in the unresisting sand almost as deep as some meteoric stone might have
done. There she lay, having the rest that she deserved after the "mos' a
hun'erd years er cookin'" that she declared she had served at Maxton.
"This is my island!" cried Dum, swimming over to a beautiful spot about
twenty yards from camp. She clambered out on the strip of sand and stood
with arms outstretched looking very handsome, her lithe young figure
drawn up to its full height. "I am monarch of all I survey! I'm queen of
this land!"
"Let me come help you rule," pleaded Billy Somers, who had followed her.
"I don't need a prime minister just now, thank you, but you might get in
the waiting list."
"Thanks awfully!" and the young Kentuckian threw himself on the warm
sand at her feet. What nice fellows those Kentuckians were, anyhow!
They were full of life and fun, clean minded, clear thinking,
well-mannered boys. Dum and Billy were friends from the moment they met
and were usually the ringleaders in any larks that were started on the
house-party. The strange thing about the friendship was that they looked
alike, so very much alike that I believe some pioneer ancestor of
Billy's must have come from the Tucker stock.
Billy's hair had a bit more red in it than Dum's, not much, just enough
to make his hair in the shade about the color Dum's was in the sun.
Their foreheads were identical and their chins had the same tendency to
get square when an argument was under way. They really looked quite as
much alike as the twins themselves did. Zebedee declared that Billy made
him feel a hundred years old because he looked so like his son, if he
had ever had one. Billy was about three years older than the twins, and
when we consider that the twins were born when their father was only
twenty, no wonder the possibility of a son at seventeen made poor Mr.
Tucker blue.
[Illustration: "THIS IS OUR ISLAND AND WE ARE GOING TO PERMIT NO ALIENS
TO LAND HERE."
Page 178.]
"This is our island and we are going to permit no aliens to land here,"
called Dum as a challenge to all of us. "I am Queen Dum and Billy is
General Billdad. We have held counsel and herewith make the proclamation
that there is to be no immigration to this kingdom."
It took only a moment for us to answer the challenge. Dee headed the
opposing forces, making a long dive that brought her up almost on the
beach of the little kingdom. Dum was ready to push her back in the water
and kerflop! she went before Zebedee could come to her aid. Then ensued
such a battle as had not been fought in the United States since Custer's
last rally.
Of course Dum and Billy had the advantage of position, but we so far
outnumbered them that it took all of their strength to keep us from
landing.
"Mary! Mary! You and Shorty come be our allies!" called Queen Dum to the
couple who had gone to housekeeping on a small island near her own.
Mary slid into the water like a turtle and Shorty followed. They landed
from the rear and now the battle raged fiercely.
I know I got pitched back into the water at least a dozen times. Having
learned to swim only the summer before at Willoughby, I was not a past
master in the art, but I could keep above water indefinitely, thanks to
Zebedee, my instructor, who had made floating the first requisite.
The odds were in our favor but the vantage they had in position was
well-nigh discouraging us, when Zebedee and Wink made a flank movement
and landed on the other side of the island, immediately pushing over the
opposing forces into the foaming torrent and then pulling all of us onto
dry land.
"Victory! Victory!" we shouted; and then for the first time since the
battle began to rage we remembered our chaperone. She had awakened and
dug herself out of her warm sand nest. What were her charges up to? It
never entered the old woman's head that we were playing a game, and I
fancy we looked in dead earnest.
When she had dozed off after landing we were all of us clothed and in
our right minds, and suddenly she awoke to find us anything but clothed,
according to her strict ideas of propriety among the quality, never
having seen girls in bathing suits; and not only were we in disgraceful
dishabille, but we were engaged in a distressing brawl.
"My Gawd! My Gawd!" she wailed. "Here I been a-slumberin' an' sleepin'
an' Miss Maria done tol' me to shopper-roon. I trus'ed de white folks
an' look at 'em!" She covered her face with her hands and wept aloud.
I fancy we were something to look at. Bathing caps were off and hair wet
and tangled streaming down our backs. Dee had lost a stocking in the
tussle and Rags had been bereft of more than half of his shirt, so that
his white back gleamed forth in a most immodest abandon. Shorty had
tapped Harvie on the nose and that scion of a noble race was bleeding
like a stuck pig. The gore added color to the scene, and had not Aunt
Milly already been certain that this was a real war we were raging, the
blood of her young master would have convinced her.
"Hi, you! You!" she called. "Quit dat!"
The battle being won, we had stopped for repairs but there were still
here and there some fitful hostilities. For instance: Shorty had
determined that Harvie needed some cold water on his bleeding nose and
was rolling him into the creek. Both of them were shouting and
pommelling each other as they rolled.
As they approached the large island where our camp was pitched, Aunt
Milly became very much excited. Who were these vile wretches who had
accepted the hospitality of the Prices and then turned against them, and
while she, the natural protector of the young master, was sleeping, had
well-nigh stripped him of his clothes and then bloodied him all over
with his own blue blood, which was certainly flowing very redly?
"Hi, you! You little low flung, no 'count, bench-legged trash! What you
a-doin' ter Mr. Harbie?" she called to the all-unconscious Shorty, who
was having the time of his life as he and his friend wallowed in the
water, wrestling as they swam.
But Aunt Milly saw no joke in such doings. She looked around for
something to use as a weapon and spied the camp fire where the corn and
potatoes were being prepared to fulfill their mission. They were done to
a turn by that tune and the fire had died down to a bed of red embers.
The old woman grabbed from the ashes a great yam and with an aim that
astonished one, she threw it and hit Shorty a sounding whack on his
back.
"Wow!" yelled that young warrior.
"You'd better wow! An' don' you lan' here; you go back ter dem Injuns
whar you come wid."
"Why, Aunt Milly! What on earth?" gasped Harvie as he saw the old woman
stooping for more ammunition.
"Yo' ol' Milly gwine he'p you, dat's what!" She aimed another at the
astonished Shorty, but that young man turned himself into a submarine
and disappeared.
Harvie clambered out of the water spluttering and laughing. His nose had
stopped bleeding now and the water had washed off all traces of the gory
disaster. He caught the rampant Milly by the arm:
"Aunt Milly, it's all a joke, a game! Nobody was abusing me. Don't throw
away the potatoes, we are so hungry."
"Lawsamussy, chile! You can't fool this ol' nigger. I's seen folks
a-playin' an' I's a-seen folks a-fightin', an' if'n that there warn't a
battle royal, I neber seed one."
By this time all of us were headed for camp. As we came ashore her
expression was still a belligerent one and she had a hot potato which
she tossed from hand to hand ready for an emergency.
It took all the tact the Tuckers could muster among them to convince
Aunt Milly that we had not been fighting, and even after she seemed to
be convinced, she growled a bit when Shorty appeared all dressed and
spruce, with his hair plastered down tight and his arm linked in
Harvie's. She had the fidelity of some old dog for its master and it
would take some time to erase from her mind and heart that terrible
scene of Mr. Harbie being beaten and blooded and pitched into the water.
We led her back to her seat in the sand and brought her dinner to her.
We would not let her help cook or serve, but treated her like a real
chaperone and waited on her right royally. She rolled her eyes a bit
when to Shorty was relegated the task of taking her a cup of coffee. He
pretended to be very much frightened and trembled violently as he handed
her the brimming cup.
"Aunt Milly, how did you learn how to throw so well? You hit me with
that potato just as though you belonged to a baseball nine."
"I been a-practicin' all my life a-throwin' at rats," she growled.
This brought down the house.
CHAPTER XIII
TANGLEFOOT
A SUFFICIENT time having elapsed since dinner, we decided to go in
swimming again; at least the Tuckers decided to and all of us followed
suit (bathing suit!). Aunt Milly was becoming accustomed to the ways of
her charges and gave her gracious consent when we humbly asked it. She
even stopped rolling her eyes at Shorty when she saw that Harvie was not
injured, after all, and that he himself bore no malice towards his
friend.
Mary, too, had something to do with mollifying the old woman. She went
and sat on the sand bank by her side and explained to her how the battle
royal started and what fun it had been. Of course ever since the circus,
Mary had been a great favorite with all the servants. They looked upon
her as a real celebrity. Mary had so many stunts and was always so
willing to amuse persons that she was constantly being called on to do
her dog fight or get off a feat of ventriloquism or something else.
"Aunt Milly, if you forgive poor Mr. Hawkins for bloodying up Mr.
Harvie, I'll go like a little pig caught under the gate for you."
"Lawsamussy, chil', kin you do that?"
"Sure! Will you forgive him if I do it?"
"Lemme hear you do it fust an' I'll see," said Aunt Milly with a sly
look. She was getting too much capital out of the grudge she had against
Shorty to give it up too readily.
So Mary went through all the agony of a little pig caught under the gate
and even improved upon it to the extent of introducing another character
into the act: she went like two pigs caught under the gate.
Aunt Milly sat in her sand hole entranced.
"Well, bless Bob! If it ain't it to the life! How you do it, honey?" So
Mary had to do it once more and then Aunt Milly promised to forgive and
forget.
"Come on and help clear up the remains of the feast, Mary," insisted
Dum, who was ever determined that there should be no shirkers.
"I'm busy mollifying," declared Mary. "My talents lie more in this
direction," and she could not help mimicking Jessie Wilcox just enough
to give Dum the dry grins. Jessie had not helped at all about luncheon
but had insisted that Aunt Milly should be made to do whatever we had
the hardihood to suggest that she might do. Aunt Milly, however, having
been told that she was to do no "wuck," did none, and presented a duck
back to all insinuations from the haughty Jessie.
"I don't care where your talents lie," insisted Dum, "you are going to
come help clear these dishes off the cloth so I can fold it up."
Mary began to sing to a catchy tune this music-hall ballad:
"I want to be a actress, a actress, a actress,
I tell you I won't live and die a common serving gal.
I feel I've got the natur'
To act in a the-a-ter,
I'm just the kind of stuff to make a star profession-a-l-l."
"Well, now ain't she cute?" and Aunt Milly shook her fat sides with
laughter. "She ain't ter say purty but she is sho' got a way wid her.
She ain't so handsome as some but she gonter keep her takin' ways til'
Kingdom Come, whilst some folks what ain't nothin' but purty won' hab
nothin' lef' a tall whin the las' trump soun's. I ain't a got no
'jections ter purty folks,--now that there little Miss Annie Po' is sho'
sweet lookin' an' sweet tas'in', too, but she is wuth somethin' sides.
But some ain't." A glance of her rolling eyes in the direction of Jessie
gave us to understand who "some" meant.
Jessie and Wink were having a most desperate flirtation. He had not left
her side a moment during the whole day. Jessie glanced occasionally in
my direction with a little exultant toss of her head as much as to say:
"See, miss, I've got your beau!" She was more than welcome to him, but I
didn't think it kind to lessen her delight in her conquest, so I did my
best to make her happy by sighing deeply every time I caught her looking
at me.
The pleasure of going in swimming is going in again, so as I said
before, as soon as a reasonable time had elapsed since our very filling
dinner we again retired to our several tree-formed bath-houses and
donned our suits for a farewell dip.
"No more fights now!" commanded Zebedee sternly, just as though he had
not been among the mighty warriors of the last fray.
Tweedles promptly caught him and gave him a good ducking until he yelled
for mercy and help from Aunt Milly, but that model chaperone had gone
off to sleep again and was deaf to his cries.
"That's what you get for being Mr. Tuckerish," declared Dum.
Jessie Wilcox was a good swimmer but was determined not to get her hair
wet, so had not entered very largely into our water sports. Tweedles and
Mary and I had lost our bathing caps in the great naval battle, and
since our heads were already wet, we decided to get them wetter and let
our hair dry on the trip home. As for Annie, getting her feet wet was
about all she could make up her mind to do, although her coils of
honey-colored hair got a little damp. She would take shuddering steps
into the water and when she got about knee-deep would lie down and go
through the motions of swimming with one foot on the bottom. She had
really learned to keep up on top of the water at Willoughby the summer
before, but now had lost all confidence in herself and was content just
to paddle around in the shallows.
From one side of our large island there stretched a long narrow sand
bar. The water just trickled through there, while the great volume of
the creek flowed on the other side where we were swimming. There were
many shallow spots where Annie could be perfectly safe, but she decided
to walk out on the sand bar and there let down her hair and dry it in
the sun. Her cavaliers who seldom left her alone for a moment happened
to be engaged in some swimming stunts just then, so unattended she
crossed the bar and, seating herself on the end of the neck of sand, she
let down her beautiful hair and spread it out in the sun.
"Only look at Annie! Isn't she lovely?" whispered Dum to me. "She looks
like a mermaid or a Rhine maiden."
"Please sing something, Annie!" I called.
"What shall I sing?" laughed Annie, combing her hair with one of her
side-combs and peeping at me through its golden glory.
"Anything, so it has water in it!"
Annie's voice had grown in richness and volume since the days at
Gresham, although she had had no lessons since that time. She had taken
advantage of the teaching she had received from Miss Cox and kept up her
practicing by herself as best she could. Of course she should have been
under some good master, and all of us felt indignant with Mr. Pore that
he did not realize this and make some arrangement for his daughter. The
outlay of money necessary for her musical education would have been
great, but the returns would surely have been fourfold. Everyone who
heard Annie sing could not but admire her voice. Even Jessie Wilcox
praised it, although that young lady was not inclined to think anybody
but herself worthy of compliments.
The lovely thing about Annie was she was always ready to be obliging,
and if her singing gave any pleasure, she was perfectly willing to
contribute it to the general welfare. She never said she didn't have her
music and could not sing without notes; she never gave the excuse of not
being able to sing without accompaniment. When Annie sang, her shyness
left her. She seemed to forget herself and lose all self-consciousness.
As her clear soprano notes arose on the air, the noisy bathers quieted
down and everyone listened.
"On the banks of Allan Water
When the sweet spring-time did fall,
Was the miller's lovely daughter,
Fairest of them all.
For his bride a soldier sought her,
And a winning tongue had he,
On the banks of Allan Water,
None so gay as she.
On the banks of Allan Water
When brown autumn spreads his store,
There I saw the miller's daughter,
But she smiled no more.
For the summer grief had brought her,
And the soldier false was he,
On the banks of Allan Water,
None so sad as she.
On the banks of Allan Water,
When the winter's snow fell fast,
Still was seen the miller's daughter,
Chilling blew the blast.
But the miller's lovely daughter,
Both from cold and care was free;
On the banks of Allan Water,
There a corse lay she."
"Bully!" exclaimed the audience.
"I'd like to meet that soldier," muttered Sleepy.
"Please sing some more," begged Rags.
And so she sang again. Now she stood up, took a few steps, and faced us
as we paddled around.
"Look what a big hole Annie made in the sand, almost as big as Aunt
Milly's," whispered Dee to me.
"Yes, the sand must be awfully soft. I'm glad it's not quicksand,
though. That's so dangerous." But what I knew about the dangers of
quicksand I kept to myself, as Annie had begun:
"To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cow's snort,
And unseen mermaids' pearly song
Comes bubbling up the weeds among----"
And just then a strange thing happened: Annie began to sink. The little
sand island she had chosen as a place of refuge where she might dry her
hair was evidently only an island in the making, and the sand had not
packed down. It was quicksand, but not so quick as it might have been,
as she had been on it some minutes before it began to give way under her
weight. She looked frightened and tried to pull her one foot up, but it
stuck. The last lines of her song were in a fair way to be enacted
before our very eyes if haste was not made.
Annie gave a scream and made desperate struggles to extricate herself.
The swimmers all started to her rescue, George Massie leading the way,
shooting through the water like a shark.
I clutched Zebedee as he went by me. "Get the little brown boat and I'll
help! The sand may be dangerous all around there."
He was a quick thinker and turned without a word, landed on the big
island and I followed. We launched the little brown boat that we had
shoved up among the weeds and in a very short time were floating out
into deep water. With a few strong strokes of the oars we had arrived at
the spot where we were in truth much needed.
Sleepy had grasped Annie, who was now engulfed up to her knees. Of
course he was about the worst person among us to have got first to her
rescue because of his great weight. He gave a tremendous pull, grasping
Annie around her waist. She came out of the sand making a noise like a
whole drove of cattle lifting their hoofs out of the mud. Annie was
perfectly limp with fright. She clung to George Massie like some little
panic-stricken child.
The frantic Rags reached the sand bar immediately behind Sleepy, and
Harvie swam him a close second. The water was quite deep within a few
feet of the fatal spot that the innocent Annie had chosen as the best
place to dry her hair. The beach of quicksand shelved suddenly into
swimming depth. As Harvie and Rags stepped from this swimming hole into
shallow water they realized that they, too, had hurled themselves into
danger. They stuck fast.
Annie clung desperately to George. Her eyes were closed and she was so
pale I thought she must have fainted. It was a few moments before the
rest of the party realized that the three youths were being slowly
sucked down. They knew it, however, from the moment they touched the
bar.
"Throw Annie out into the water!" said Harvie hoarsely. Annie had not
fainted as I had thought, for at these words she clung so desperately to
poor Sleepy that he could not loose her hands.
Harvie reached over and unclasped them, holding them tightly until
Sleepy could raise her up farther in his arms to throw her.
"Float, Annie! You can float!" shouted Dee. "Do as I tell you!"
Annie, ever inclined to obedience, spread her arms out as she struck the
water and floated off as neatly as some well-built yacht launched for
the first time. Of course the others grabbed her as soon as she got to
them.
By this time Zebedee and I had the little brown boat to the rescue. We
came alongside the poor stick-in-the-muds.
"Take Sleepy first!" cried the other two. "He's in worse than we are."
Taking Sleepy first was no joke. He had sunk at least a foot and a half.
Zebedee tugged at him and Sleepy tugged at himself. The little boat
almost capsized and still the young giant could not pull his feet out of
the treacherous mire.
"You are not in far, Rags; come on and help trim the boat," I insisted,
paddling the stern around in reach of Rags. He caught hold and with a
quick spring was in the boat.
"Now, Harvie!" I commanded. "We can't get Sleepy unless you come help."
I knew perfectly well that Harvie had a notion he must not get in the
boat until his friend was saved. In the meantime, Zebedee was
struggling to raise Sleepy and the boat was in sad need of ballast.
Harvie did as I bade him and with a mighty effort extricated himself and
landed in the boat. The legs of both the boys were covered with mire up
to their knees.
All the time we were doing this, the rest of the party was not idle. Of
course some of them had to look after the frightened Annie. Dum and
Billy Somers had struck out immediately for the red boat which was
beached on the far side of the island, realizing as they soon did that
the only way to get the boys out of the quicksand was by boat. Mary and
Shorty also made for the canoe, thinking it might be needed, too.
Glad we were when the red boat came alongside of ours and we could lash
them together to make more purchase for Sleepy. The little brown boat
did not have weight enough to do the job alone. And now with a long pull
and a strong pull and a pull all together, we at last got him out.
If when Annie got her feet out of the sand she made a noise like a
drove of cattle lifting their hoofs out of the mud, you can fancy what
the noise was when Sleepy came out. It was like a great ground swell,
and so much water had that young giant displaced, when he removed his
bulk I am sure the depth of the creek was perceptibly lowered.
Now it was all over we could giggle, which Dum and I did until Zebedee
got really outdone with us and threatened to box us both. It had been a
close shave and he felt it was not a time for giggling, but Dum and I
were no respecters of time or place. When the giggles struck us, giggle
we must.
"If it had not been for your quickness, Page, it might have been a very
serious tragedy," he said solemnly. "I never thought of the boats but
was going to swim to Annie's assistance."
"I have seen this quicksand before. I almost lost one of my dogs several
years ago. He started out in the creek to get a stick I had thrown for
him and as soon as he touched the sand he began to sink. I never heard
such cries as he gave trying to pull his feet out. I got two fence-rails
and crawled out to him and pulled him in. Father nearly had a fit when I
told him about it. He sent men down and had the creek dredged."
"I think we should put a sign up here," said Harvie, and a few days
later he did paint "Danger" on a sign and came back to Croxton's Ford
and planted it at the fatal spot.
It had been a very trying experience, but young people don't brood over
things that might have been serious. That is something left to the
so-called philosophy of old age. By the time we were in dry clothes and
on our way home, the fact that some of our party had been in a fair way
to losing their lives seemed something to be joked about.
Of course poor Sleepy came in for his share, but much he cared. He
stretched himself at Annie's feet, and possessing himself of a little
corner of her sweater, which he clutched tightly in his great hand just
as a little baby might cling to its mother's dress, he dropped off into
a sleep of exhaustion. He looked very peaceful and happy as he lay there
and Annie looked down on his handsome head with affection and admiration
in her blue eyes.
"I know one thing," announced Rags; "I'll never see sticky fly-paper
again without thinking of this day. I felt exactly like a poor fly stuck
fast in tanglefoot. I am sure my legs are a foot longer than they were
when I left Maxton this morning." As Ben Raglan's legs were abnormally
long, we all devoutly hoped that the stretching was not permanent.
Proportioned somewhat like a clothes-pin, he could not stand much
lengthening of limb.
"Shorty, it's too bad you weren't first aid man this time," teased
Harvie. "It might have made a man of you. All you need is a good
stretching."
"Wait until I get you where Aunt Milly can't help you and I'll give you
the pounding you need," answered the boy, as he paddled the canoe in the
wake of the launch.
Aunt Milly was comfortably ensconced in the seat of honor, sleeping the
sleep of the just and generous chaperone.
CHAPTER XIV
A YOUNGER SON
WE found Miss Maria much improved but still bed-ridden. She said Wink's
medicine was the most efficacious she had ever had, as it had given her
a day of rest free from pain. I fancy the quiet had done her as much
good as the medicine. She regretted to report that Mr. Pore had
telephoned a peremptory message to the effect that Annie should come
home the first thing in the morning and bring her clothes.
"Now isn't that the limit?" stormed Dum. "What on earth can he want? We
haven't but three more days here and it seems to me he might----" But
Annie looked so pained that Dum didn't say what he might do.
"He needs me, I fancy," said Annie sadly.
"So do we need you! And how about Sleepy and Harvie and Rags?" But
Annie didn't know how about them, so she only blushed.
"Maybe you can come back," I suggested.
"No, I fancy not, or why should he say I must bring my clothes?"
All of us were at a loss to fathom the behavior of Mr. Pore, but we were
too tired to discuss it farther. We were thankful for the time we had
been able to wrest Annie from his selfish demands. I was sorry, indeed,
that Zebedee had attended to his old freight for him. I heartily agreed
with Dum's sentiments which she muttered under her breath:
"Pig!"
"Anyhow, we are going down with you," declared Mary.
"But I must go before breakfast," said Annie.
"Well, we can travel on an empty stomach quite as well as you can and a
great deal weller," insisted Dum, and Dee and Mary and I agreed.
"Please don't awaken me," said Jessie as she twisted her hair into the
patent curlers that she managed so well nobody but a girl could have
told that her curls were not natural. "I certainly want to sleep in the
morning. Dr. White begged me to go rowing with him before breakfast, but
I can't bear to get up so early in the morning. It seemed to distress
him terribly but then he is such a flirt one can never tell." All this
with many glances in my direction.
We had gathered in the room occupied by Tweedles and Jessie for a little
chat before turning in for the night.
"How cr-u-le!" exclaimed Mary. "What makes you think he is such a
flirt?"
"Ah, that would be telling!" and Jessie began dabbing on the cold cream.
It is strange how indifferent some girls are to what other girls think
of them. Jessie Wilcox, the most careful person in the world to look
well when any males were around, did not mind in the least letting us
see her with her hair twisted up in little wads and clasped with
innumerable arrangements made of wire covered with leather. The things
looked like huge ticks sticking out from her head, not such a shapely
head, either, now that one saw it with the hair drawn back so tightly.
Cold cream may be a future beautifier but certainly not a present one.
She laid it on in generous hunks and then massaged herself, contorting
her countenance in a most disconcerting manner.
"I don't think Wink is a flirt at all," said Dee stoutly. "He is a very
good friend of mine and I reckon I know him about as well as anybody in
the world. Of course he will flirt if it is up to him, but that is not
making him a flirt."
"Ah, indeed!" and Jessie began rubbing cocoa butter on her neck.
"Perhaps you don't know the flirtatious side of him."
"Thank goodness, I don't. He and I talk sense to each other," and Dee
scornfully sniffed the air. She and Dum hated the odor of cocoa butter,
declaring it made their room smell like an apothecary's shop.
"Why don't you and Dum come in our room for to-night?" I suggested,
scenting mischief as well as cocoa butter in the air, since the usually
tactful Dee was on the war-path. "You will be sure to disturb Jessie in
the morning if you sleep in here. Come on! I'll sleep three in the bed
with you and get in the middle at that," and so they came, expressing
themselves privately as glad to get away from their roommate, who did
smell so of cocoa butter and also looked so hideous with her hair done
up in those tick-like arrangements and her face shiny with grease.
"Cat! What does she mean by calling Wink a flirt?" raged Dee, who was
surely a loyal friend.
"Maybe he is one," suggested Dum.
"Virginia Tucker, I am tired unto death but I'll challenge you to a
boxing match if you say that again."
"You are no more tired than I am and I'll say it again!" maintained Dum.
"All I said was: 'Maybe he is,' and maybe he is!" No one of the name of
Tucker ever took a dare, and the twins crawled out of the great bed
where I had taken my place in the middle.
"Girls! Girls! You are so silly," I cried wearily. "You haven't your
boxing gloves and you know you might beat each other up with your bare
fists. This is no fighting matter, Dee, at least nothing to fight Dum
about. Go fight Jessie Wilcox! She is the one who has the proof of
Wink's ways."
We were relieved that my reasoning powers quelled the disturbance.
Tweedles got back into bed. The twins very rarely resorted to trial by
combat now. It had been their childish method of settling difficulties,
as their father had brought them up like boys whose code of honor is to
stop fussing and fight it out.
"I can't see why you think it is such an awful thing to call Wink a
flirt," I said, when all danger of a battle had subsided. "You certainly
flirt sometimes yourself."
"When?" indignantly.
"When you sell coffins to healthy young farmers," I asserted.
No more from Dee that night.
We were up early the next morning to escort Annie home, so early that no
one was stirring, not even the servants. It seemed ridiculous for her
to go so early, but the message from her father was one not to be
lightly ignored. She had told Miss Maria and the general good-by the
night before and Harvie was to drive her home, but when we crept
downstairs there was no Harvie to be found; so we made our way out to
the stable where Mary and I hitched up. As we drove off, all five of us
crowded into a one-seated buggy, we beheld a very sleepy Harvie waving
frantically from the boys' wing and vainly entreating us to wait; but we
weren't waiting for sleepy-heads that morning, and drove pitilessly
away.
There was an air of bustling in the store when we piled out of our small
buggy. Mr. Pore was in his shirt sleeves, his glasses set at a rakish
angle on his aristocratic nose and an unaccustomed flush on his usually
pale countenance. He was busy pulling things off of the shelves and
piling them up on the counters. The clerk (he called him a "clark," of
course, after the manner of Englishmen), was just as busy.
To my amazement I heard Mr. Pore say to a little boy who had been sent
to the store on a hurry call for matches: "Haven't time to wait on you;
go over to Blinker's."
What did this mean? Actually sending customers to the rival store!
"Father!" exclaimed Annie, as Mr. Pore gave her his usual pecky kiss. "I
didn't know you were going to take stock to-day."
"Neither did I, my dear." His tone was a bit softer than I had ever
heard it. And "my dear"! I had never heard him call Annie that before.
"What is it, Father?"
"I have news from England."
"Not bad news, I hope!"
"Well, yes! I might call it bad news."
"Oh, Father, I am so sorry!"
"Ahem! My brother, the late baronet, is--er--no more."
"You mean Uncle Isaac is dead?"
"Yes!"
"What was the matter? When did you hear?"
"A cablegram states he was killed in a recent battle," and Mr. Pore went
on making neat piles on the counter with cans of salmon. I wanted to
shake him for more news that I felt sure he had.
Annie took off her hat and tied on an apron ready to help in the arduous
task of taking stock. Tweedles and Mary and I stood in the doorway as
dumb as fish. Why should a man whose brother had recently died in
England feel a necessity of taking stock in a country store? It was too
much for us. Suddenly it flashed through my brain that maybe Mr. Pore
was going to England. His brother, Sir Isaac Pore, had a son, so Annie
had told me, who was, of course, in line for the title.
Mr. Pore finished with the salmon and then spoke with his usual
pomposity: "The message also states that my brother's only son has met
with an untimely death in the Dardanelles."
Annie dropped a box of soap and stood looking with big eyes at her
father.
"I find it necessary that we go to England, and before we go, I deem it
advisable to make an inventory of our goods and chattels."
"Go to England! When?" gasped Annie.
"I fancy we can arrange to be off in about a week."
This was news that touched all of us. Annie going to England! We might
never see her again, and her dried-up old father was standing there
announcing this fact with as much composure as though he had decided to
move his store across the road or do something else equally ordinary.
"You see," he continued with his grandiloquent manner, "the demise of my
brother and his son, who is unmarried, advance me to the baronetcy,
and----"
"Then you are Sir Arthur Ponsonby Pore!" blurted out Dum.
"Exactly!" he announced calmly, as though he had been inheriting titles
all his life.
"Is Annie Lady Anna then?" asked Mary.
"No, she is still Miss Pore. Only a son inherits a title from a
baronet," he said with a trace of bitterness. I remembered what Annie
had told me of her brother's death and her father's resentment of her
being a girl.
"Well, she would make a lovely Lady Annie all the same," said Dee. "I
bet everybody in England will just about go crazy about her."
"Ah, indeed!" was his supercilious remark to this effusion.
"We are going to come down and help you, Annie," I whispered. "I know
there are lots of things we can do. You will need help about your
clothes. I can't sew, but I can count clothes-pins and chewing-gum while
you sew. Don't you want us to help, Mr. Pore?"
That gentleman was as usual quite dumbfounded by being treated like an
ordinary human being, and with some hemming and hawing he finally
acknowledged that our assistance would be acceptable. His idea was to
sell his business and stock to the highest bidder.
Great was the consternation and surprise at Maxton when we announced the
choice bit of news that we had picked up that morning before breakfast.
Sleepy looked as though he might have apoplexy, his face got so red and
his hand trembled so. Harvie got pale and suddenly realized that Annie
was not just a little sister. Poor Rags put maple syrup in his coffee
and cream on his waffle in the excitement occasioned by the unwelcome
news.
They were at breakfast when we burst in on them, at breakfast and rather
sore with all of us for having run off without them. Jessie was holding
the fort alone, the only female present, as Miss Maria was still unable
to get up. That beautiful young lady was looking lovelier than ever in a
crisp handkerchief-linen frock. Her curls were very curly and her lovely
brunette complexion not at all the worse for the scorching sun of the
day before. My poor nose had six more freckles than when I came to
Maxton, six more by actual count, and there was not room for the extra
ones at all. Mary's freckles were like the stars in the sky, every time
you looked you could find another; Dee had her share, too; and Dum had
begun to peel as was her habit. Jessie was pretty, very pretty, but the
picture of her with her face all greased up and the tick-like curlers
covering her head would arise whenever I looked at her.
"Why doesn't Mr. Pore leave Annie here with us until the submarine
warfare is over with?" asked Mr. Tucker.
"We never thought of suggesting it," tweedled the twins.
"I did think of it but I knew she wouldn't be willing to have Sir Arthur
go alone," I said, rather proud of myself for being the first one to
give him his title.
"How much more suited he is to being a member of English aristocracy
than engaging in mercantile pursuits in America," laughed the general.
"I only wish his lovely wife might have shared the honor with him. Ah
me, what
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/36671