Dick and Dolly
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Then Hannah and the two ladies flew ’round like mad. They put leaves in the table until it was as long as possible; they set it with all the best china and glass and silver for the Reading Circle’s tea. For the feast was not a tea at all, but a most elaborate supper, and Aunt Nine’s coming had sadly delayed the preparations.
Meantime, that elderly dame was walking round the children’s playground. She was greatly pleased with their gardens, and was surprised to learn that they tilled and weeded them all themselves.
“You’re really very smart little people,” she said, “and quite worthy to bear the Dana name.”
The twins were flattered, for they well knew how highly all their aunts thought of the Dana name, and, too, they had already begun to like the peculiar old lady who had scolded them so harshly at the very beginning of their acquaintance.
When it was nearly time for the ladies of the Reading Circle to arrive, Aunt Rachel told the twins they must go out to their playground and stay there all the afternoon.
“For,” she said, “I cannot run the risk of having some ridiculous thing happen during our programme. You don’t mean to do wrong, but you’re just as likely as not to stand Lady Eliza up beside our President when she’s making her address. So take Eliza with you, and go out to the garden, and stay there until Delia rings the bell, or Hannah comes to call you.”
“All right,” said Dick, “and if any of the boys or girls come over, may Hannah send them out there to us?”
“Yes, I’ll tell her. Now, run along.”
They ran along, though slowly, because of Lady Eliza’s difficult transportation. But at last they reached the playground, and stood Eliza in a corner, ready for action when they needed her.
“Jiminy Crickets!” remarked Dick, “but Aunt Nine’s the funny old lady, isn’t she, Doll?”
“Yep; but I sort of like her. After she got through blowing us up, she was real jolly.”
“Yes, and wasn’t Auntie Rachel the brick to stand up for us at dinner time?”
“She was so. I wonder how long Aunt Nine is going to stay.”
“I dunno. A week, I guess. Hello, here comes Pinkie. Hello, Pinkie!”
“Hello!” she returned, and then almost before she and Dolly had said “Hello!” Jack Fuller came.
This quartette were almost always together on pleasant afternoons, and as Dana Dene had attractions that the other homes didn’t possess, they played there oftener than elsewhere.
“Hello, Lady Eliza Dusenbury,” said Jack, shaking hands with that silent partner.
Of course, all the boys and girls knew Lady Eliza now, and indeed the citizens of the village had ceased to be surprised when the twins rode to town in the farm wagon, with Eliza accompanying them.
The servants at Dana Dene took her as a matter of course, and Michael was fond of bowing politely, and saying, “The top of the mornin’ to ye, ma’am!”
“Let’s build a throne and crown Eliza queen,” suggested Jack, and the rest at once agreed.
“What shall we make the throne of?” asked Dolly.
“I’ll ask Michael,” said Dick, “he always helps us out.”
But Michael was busy with some extra work connected with the visit of the Reading Circle, and had no time for bothering with youngsters.
“Throne, is it?” he said; “I’ve no time to be buildin’ ye royal palaces! Take the wheelbarry fer a throne, shure!”
It was a chance suggestion, but it served, and Dick returned to the waiting group, trundling the wheelbarrow.
“We can’t bother Michael much,” he said, “’cause he has to run that Reading Circle thing. But I guess we can fix up this wheelbarrow with flowers and greens and make it do. Hello, Maddy; Hello, Cliff!”
Madeleine and Clifford Lester had arrived during Dick’s absence, but greetings were soon spoken, and the more the merrier.
Then the half dozen went to work with a will, using both heads and hands to devise ingenious plans for the coronation of Eliza.
“She ought to be dressed in white,” said Dolly, looking disapprovingly on Eliza’s blue dress; “but she hasn’t a white frock to her name.”
“Hasn’t your aunt any?” asked Pinkie, realising the real need of white.
“I can’t bother her to-day,” said Dolly, decidedly; “she’s got the Reading Circle and Aunt Nine both at once; and she told me to keep out.”
“Couldn’t you get a big white apron from Delia,” suggested Maddy Lester.
“No; queens don’t wear aprons.”
Then Dolly’s eye lighted on the clothes line, full of the Monday wash, which busy Delia had not yet taken in, though it was thoroughly dry.
“I might get something there!” she cried. “Come on, girls!”
The three girls ran to the big, sunny bleaching ground, where three long lines of white clothes waved in the breeze.
“They’re all too little,” said Pinkie, as she viewed Dolly’s own dresses and petticoats.
“No, here’s Aunt Rachel’s nightgown! This will do!” cried Dolly, and in a jiffy she had the clothespins pulled off, and the voluminous, ruffled garment in her arms.
“Just the thing!” cried Maddy, and they raced back to the playground.
It made a beautiful white robe for Eliza, and when belted with a large bath-towel, also brought from the clothes line, Eliza looked like an Oriental princess.
“Get another towel and make a turban,” said Clifford, and this gave their queen a still more foreign look.
“The throne thing ought to be white, too,” said Pinkie, who had an eye for color effect. “It’ll be a lot prettier to pin the flowers and greens on, if it’s white first. Let’s get sheets, – shall we, Dolly?”
“I don’t care,” said Dolly, absorbed in making Eliza’s turban stay on her head.
So Pinkie and Madeleine flew for the sheets, and stripped the clothesline of all there were there.
“Now!” they exclaimed, coming back triumphantly, with their arms full of billows of white linen.
“Now!” cried Dick, and they fell to work, and draped and twisted the sheets, until the wheelbarrow was a lovely white throne. This they decked with their flower garlands, and then lifted Queen Eliza up on it. As she, too, had been decked with blossoms and garlands, it was really a pretty sight, and the children clapped their hands and danced about in glee at their own success.
“Now, we’ll crown her,” said Dick, “but I say, Dollums, we all ought to be in white, too!”
“That’s easy,” said Dolly, recklessly; “there’s lots of things on the clothesline yet.”
Back there they all ran, and chose costumes to please their varying tastes.
The three girls chose more ruffled nightgowns like Eliza’s and looped them up with flowers on either side, like fancy overskirts.
The boys selected lace-ruffled petticoats that belonged variously to the aunts or to Hannah and Delia, and round their shoulders they draped tablecloths or pillowshams in toga fashion.
Some table centrepieces and carving-scarfs formed fine head-gear, and by the time all the costumes were completed, the clotheslines looked as if the wash had been taken in after all.
The white-garbed half dozen pranced back to the queen on her throne, and the ceremonies began.
“First, we sing a dirge,” said Jack Fuller.
“Not a dirge,” said Dolly. “Don’t you mean a chant?”
“Well, some waily kind of a thing, anyway.”
So they all droned an inharmonious series of wailings that might have been imitative of Chinese tom-toms, only it wasn’t meant to be.
“Now we must have a speech,” said Pinkie; “you make it, Dick; you’re good at that.”
“All right,” said Dick, and stepping forward, while his tablecloth toga trailed in the dust, he began:
“Oh, Queen Eliza Dusenbury, we beg you to accept this crown. We want you for our beloved queen, and we will obey all your rules and reggilations. We bow our hominage – ”
“Homage,” corrected Jack.
“’Taint, it’s hominage! bow, anyway!”
So they all bowed in token of homage to their queen.
“Now we have to back away,” said Maddy; “they always do at court.”
The six backed away from the queen’s throne, but as backing with long trailing robes is not to be neatly done without practice, they one and all tripped over their trains and togas and went tumbling around on the ground.
“Get up, all of you!” cried Dick, who had scrambled to his feet. “Now we must sing.”
“What shall we sing?”
“I don’t care – ‘John Brown’s Body,’ I guess.”
So they all sang “John Brown’s Body” with great gusto, and then the coronation ceremonies were declared over.
And none too soon, for just then they saw Michael coming with a huge trayful of good things, which he placed on the table in the arbour.
“Fer the land’s sake!” he exclaimed as the children crowded round. “Whativer have yez been up to now! The clean clo’es from the line, as I’m a sinner! Arrah, but ye’ll catch it, ye bad babies!”
“Wow! they did get dirty, didn’t they?” exclaimed Jack, realising for the first time how they had tumbled about on the ground.
“Yes, they’re all dirt and grass stains. Will your aunts mind, Dolly?”
“I don’t know,” said Dolly, “but anyway it isn’t your fault, any of you. Let’s take ’em off and eat supper now.”
It was characteristic of Dolly to spare her guests’ feelings, though she had herself a sudden uneasy sense of naughtiness at having taken the clean clothes to play with. But it was also her nature to put off an evil hour, if possible, so the children gaily scrambled out of their white raiment and sat down to the feast with good appetites.
“The girls is waitin’ on the Readin’ ladies,” said Michael, as he came out with a second trayful, “so ye’re to wait on yerselves with these things.”
Then Dolly and Pinkie arranged the table, and soon the group were eating sandwiches and cakes and strawberries and ice cream, and all the good things that went to make up a Reading Circle feast.
“The little raskills!” said Michael, as he gathered up the sheets and garments they had thrown off. “Whativer is the rayson, I dunno, but Miss Dolly and Masther Dick is just the baddest little shpalpeens I iver saw, an’ yet I love ’em, ivery breath they draws!”
CHAPTER XV
PUNISHMENT
The Reading ladies had departed, and the younger guests of Dana Dene had also trotted homeward.
“It’s too bad to take those things off of Eliza,” said Dolly, “she looks so pretty in ’em. Let’s take her, wheelbarrow and all, to show to the aunties.”
“I’m ’fraid Aunt Nine will faint again,” objected Dick.
“Oh, no, she won’t; it was the carving knife that scared her.”
So the twins trundled the white-draped wheelbarrow, and its white-garbed occupant straight up to the front door of the house.
“Come out, aunties!” they called. “The queen wants you to salute her majesty!”
Hearing the commotion, the three ladies came out on the veranda, and this time Aunt Penninah did not faint, but seemed greatly interested in the majestic Eliza.
“What have you put on her?” the old lady cried. “Why, they’re clothes, – rough-dry! Did you take them from the clotheslines? Rachel, do you allow these children to act up like that? I am ashamed of them, and you, too!”
Just then Delia came out to the veranda with a clothes-basketful of the garments the children had played with. Good-natured Delia rarely minded the twins’ mischief, but it had been a specially hard day, and the extra work and company had tired her out completely. Also, it was annoying to find her carefully washed clothes all muddied and grass-stained!
“Will ye look at this, Miss Rachel!” she exclaimed, her face red and angry. “It’s too much to ask of a gur-rl to hurry up her wash an’ cook for comp’ny on a Monday, an’ thin to go fer her clothes, an’ find ’em like this!”
Aunt Rachel and Aunt Abbie looked at the twins. So did Aunt Penninah. Dick and Dolly looked at the clothes in Delia’s basket. They were a sorry sight, but the twins seemed surprised rather than ashamed.
“Why, Delia Maloney!” cried Dick. “Are you sure we spoiled those clothes like that! Why, we just wore them to the coronation. I didn’t ’spect it would hurt ’em a bit!”
“Neither did I!” cried Dolly. “I’m awful sorry, Delia. I s’pose we ought not to have taken ’em; but truly, I never thought about their getting dirty. Will you have to wash ’em all over again?”
“Will I!” said Delia, grimly; “that I will, Miss Dolly; an’ a foine time I’ll have gettin’ the green stains out, for-bye the mud; an’ to say nothin’ of their being torn to bits!”
She held up a sheet and a tablecloth, each of which showed a jagged tear.
“I’ll mend those,” said Dolly, cheerfully, “they’ll be good practice, for Aunt Rachel is just teaching me darning in my sewing lessons.”
Soft-hearted Delia couldn’t help smiling at the earnest little face; Aunt Rachel and Aunt Abbie looked perplexed; but Aunt Penninah was unable to restrain expression of her feelings.
“You’re the worst children I ever saw!” she exclaimed; “the very worst! At nine years old you should know better than to cut up such naughty, wicked tricks! You must be severely punished. Rachel, if you don’t punish them, I shall do so myself!”
Now Dick and Dolly were quite unaccustomed to this sort of scolding. Aunt Rachel, though severe in principle, was very lenient in practice, and Aunt Abbie was gentleness itself. So it was with real curiosity that the twins drew nearer, to look at the reddening face and flashing black eyes of their great-aunt, and Dick said, very seriously:
“We were naughty, Aunt Nine; and if you punish us, how are you going to do it?”
The question was not at all impertinent, Dick’s round little face showed only a justifiable interest, and Aunt Penninah looked a little baffled, as both twins waited eagerly for her answer.
“Do just what you please in the matter, Aunt Nine,” said Miss Rachel, who had never quite outlived her youthful awe of the stern old lady. Miss Abbie clasped her hands in alarm, as if fearing the twins would be subjected to torture, and they all awaited Miss Penninah’s dictum.
“I think,” said the old lady, slowly, – and then she paused, a little disconcerted at the earnest gaze of the four brown eyes, that were so like those of the children’s father, her favourite nephew.
“I think,” she went on, more gently, “that I shall forbid you to go outside the house all day to-morrow.”
She didn’t say that she had had a far more severe punishment in mind, but had been deterred from inflicting it by those appealing eyes.
“Whew!” cried Dick, “stay in the house a whole day!”
“Yes,” said Aunt Nine, her ire returning as she noted the other aunts’ sorrowful looks, and Delia’s woe-begone face. “You children need discipline. It’s terrible the way you’re let to run wild! Rachel, you’ve no idea of training children properly, and as for you, Abbie, you’re simply a tool in their hands!”
Dolly took a step nearer to the old lady.
“Aunt Nine!” she cried, with flashing eyes, “don’t you talk like that about my Aunt Abbie, or my Aunt Rachel, either! They know how to bring up children just splendid! And they’re doing the best they can with me and Dick, but, as you know yourself, we’re the worst children ever, – so what can you ’spect?”
“Yes,” said Dick, taking his sister’s part, as usual. “We’ll do your old punishment, and we’re sorry we were naughty; – but you can’t jump on our aunties like that!”
The youngest inheritors of the celebrated Dana “spunk,” faced bravely the oldest member of the proud old family, and she realised the justice of their reproof.
“The children are partly right,” she said, turning to her older nieces with a short, sharp laugh; “and the matter must not be discussed further in their presence. Dick and Dolly, you will obey my orders about to-morrow, and now come and kiss me, and we will drop the subject.”
Dick stared at his aunt and hesitated, but quicker-witted Dolly appreciated that, in Aunt Penninah’s mind, the coming punishment wiped out even remembrance of the fault, and she willingly kissed her. Not the spontaneous, loving sort of embraces they gave the other aunties, but a whole-hearted, honest kiss of truce.
Dick followed her example, and then the twins were excused, and they raced out in the kitchen after Delia.
“The intherferin’ ould lady!” cried Delia, as she snatched the children in her arms. “Sorra the day I iver wint to Miss Rachel wid thim clo’es; but I was that put about, Miss Dolly, dear.”
“Oh, pooh, Delia,” cried Dick; “you were all right, and we’ve come to ’pollergize for spoilin’ your wash all up. We’re awful sorry.”
“Yes,” chimed in Dolly, as Delia embraced them both; “we’ll never do it again; but, truly, Delia, we didn’t think!”
“Av coorse ye didn’t, ye blissid babies! Shure ye niver think! An’ what’s a wash, more or less? I wish ould Miss Penninah had to do it hersilf fur teasin’ ye.”
“Now, Delia,” said Dick, “you mustn’t talk that way. Aunt Nine is our aunt, and we must love and respect her just as we do the other aunties.”
“It’s a thrue Dana ye are, Masther Dick; both of yez. An’ ye’re right, too. Miss Penninah is the grand old lady, and the rale head of the fambly. So do yez take yer punishment like the shwate childher ye be.”
And having duly made good their reputation as “true Danas” Dick and Dolly trotted off to bed.
The next day proved to be the very loveliest day of the whole Spring.
The sun incessantly winked an invitation for the twins to come out and play. The blue sky smiled the same plea, and the soft breeze whispered it again and again.
The flowers nodded at them as they looked out of the windows, and the trees spread their branches, as in a welcoming embrace.
The birds twittered, “Come, come!” and, though too far away to be heard, Dolly knew, her pet chicken was peeping the same words.
But worst of all was to see Pat watering their own flower-beds, – their pansies and daffodils that had never drank from any hands save the twins’ own!
This sight nearly made the tears come, but Dick said bravely:
“We must make the best of it, Dollums. There’s no use of getting all weepy-waily when it won’t do any good.”
“No, but Dick, don’t you s’pose she’d just let us go and water our plants, – if we came right back?”
“Sha’n’t ask her; and don’t you ask that, either. Now we’ll both do our practising, – I guess I’ll practise another hour while you’re doing your old sewing, – and then let’s go up in the attic to play.”
Dolly brightened a little. “All right; we’ve always been going to fish around up there, and we never had a good chance before.”
So Dolly went to one piano, and Dick to the other, and they practised so diligently and painstakingly, that Aunt Penninah, who listened at the doors, was greatly pleased with their thorough work.
“There’s good stuff in those children, Rachel,” she said; “if you don’t spoil them by your foolish leniency and over-indulgence.”
“I don’t mean to, Aunt Nine,” said Miss Rachel, a little meekly, “but you know they’re never purposely mischievous. The Danas are all impulsive and thoughtless, and Dick is exactly like his father was at his age.”
“Yes, I know all that; but they need a strong hand to rule them, and though you and Abbie are firm enough in some ways, you give right in to those twins. Now, I don’t!”
“No,” said Miss Rachel, grimly, “you don’t. How long are you going to stay this time, Aunt Nine?”
“I planned to stay only a day or two; but as I’ve become interested in John’s children, I shall remain a week at least. I want to learn their natures, and, incidentally, I can help you with my judgment and advice.”
Miss Rachel groaned in spirit, but made no audible objection to her aunt’s decree.
Dolly’s sewing hour that day was devoted to mending the clothes she and her little friends had torn, and by dint of much instruction from the three aunts, and honest industry on her own part, she achieved some very creditable darns and patches.
During the sewing hour, Aunt Penninah sought out Dick, and had a talk with him. She was rather severe, but the clan feeling was strong in both, and after their conversation Dick felt a loyalty and respect toward the old lady, if not a deep affection.
Then, Dolly’s sewing hour being over, the twins scampered for the attic.
“It’s horrid,” said Dick, “to be shut up in this stuffy old place on a day like this; but let’s get all the fun we can out of it.”
“Let’s,” agreed Dolly, and as a starter they rambled through the old, unused rooms, and looked at the old pictures and discarded furniture stored there.
“Awful poky!” said Dick as they sat down on a haircloth sofa, and stared at each other.
“Yes,” said Dolly, with a scowl. “I think Aunt Nine is a horrid – ”
“Don’t talk that way, Doll,” said Dick, remembering his conversation with the old lady; “just forget it, – forget outdoors and flowers and everything, – and let’s play something nice.”
“What can we play?” asked Dolly, disconsolately.
“I dunno; but isn’t it funny why we can’t think of something? If it was a rainy day and we couldn’t go outdoors, we’d have lots of fun in the house.”
“Well, let’s play it’s raining then.”
This was a distinct suggestion, and Dick caught it at once.
“Wow!” he cried, looking out of the window; “what a storm! It’s just pouring!”
“So it is!” said Dolly, gleefully; “we couldn’t go out to-day even with umbrellas! Do you s’pose it’ll clear by to-morrow?”
“Yes, I guess so. But it won’t stop all day to-day.”
“No, I don’t believe it will. So we’ll play up here to-day.”
Then the twins went into the big lumber room, where all sorts of old things were stored away.
“What’s that big boxy thing, face to the wall?” asked Dolly, looking at a plain black walnut affair, about as high as herself.
“Dunno; let’s turn it around.”
Dick pulled the thing out from the wall, which was quite easy, as it rolled on casters, and it proved to be entirely open on the other side.
It was about four feet high, and about three feet wide, and though something like a small wardrobe, it was divided into six equal compartments, each of which was lined with wallpaper.
“Why, Dick!” cried Dolly, “it’s a playhouse! A doll’s house, you know. I believe it was Aunt Abbie’s when she was a little girl. Do you s’pose there’s any furniture for it?”
“Must be; somewheres. Isn’t it gay? See the windows, they have real glass in ’em. This must be the kitchen with oilcloth on the floor.”
“Yes; and the other floors are all bare. I s’pose the carpets are put away somewhere, with the furniture. Let’s hunt them.”
The twins were not long in discovering three or four good-sized boxes tied together, which proved to contain the furniture of the doll’s house.
“Oh, what fun!” cried Dolly, as they took out little beds and tables and chairs. “But we can’t put these in place till we find the carpets. Oh, here comes Aunt Rachel. Auntie, was this your babyhouse when you were a little girl?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Rachel, coming toward the twins. “I meant to fix it up for you some day, Dolly, but perhaps you’ll like to fix it yourselves just as well.”
“Yes, we will, Auntie!” cried Dolly, tumbling into her aunt’s arms for a few caresses before they looked for the carpets.
“Who made the house, Auntie?” said Dick, snuggling into her other arm, and patting her cheek.
“Why, a carpenter, I suppose. Father had it made for me when I was ten years old, and your father was a toddling baby. He used to creep up to it, and pull out the things that he could reach.”
“Did he look like us?” asked Dolly.
“He looked like Dick. You both have eyes like his, but his hair was in dark ringlets all over his head, like Dick’s is. Now, let’s find the carpets, and fix up the house. Wouldn’t you rather have it down in the playroom?”
“Oh, yes,” said Dick. “It’s pretty hot and dry up here. The playroom is lovely and airy, ’most like outdoors.” He gave a little sigh, and Aunt Rachel remembered that the children were undergoing punishment.
Her eyes twinkled a little, as she said:
“Aunt Nine didn’t make any other stipulation, except that you were to stay in the house all day, did she?”
“No’m,” said Dick. “And, Auntie Rachel, we’re awful sorry we spoiled the clean clothes.”
“Yes, terrible sorry,” added Dolly, while they both fondled their aunt half-unconsciously.
“You can be the sorriest pair of twins I ever saw, after your mischief is accomplished,” said Miss Rachel. “Why doesn’t your sorriness begin beforehand, I’d like to know?”