At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins
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On that famous evening which was afterward known as the "Kitten Evening," Dee kept disappearing between dances. She would come back, flushed and a little troubled-looking, but would go on with the dance with a do-or-die expression. Study hour in the assembly hall from eight to ten and then half an hour to get to bed before the bell rang for lights out: that was the order of procedure. As we studied, I noticed how Dee kept fidgeting and twisting. Dum noticed it, too, and the fidgets seemed to be catching. We were on our honor not to speak during study hour, and of course that settled the matter for the Tuckers and me. Dee could squirm herself into a bowknot and Dum and I could die of curiosity, and still honor forbade our making a sign to find out what was the matter.
I never spent such a long and unprofitable two hours in my life. I tried to concentrate my attention on my lessons, but it was impossible with Dee at the desk in front of me never still a minute.
"The bell at last!" exclaimed Dee.
"Well, your lessons have been Reeling and Writhing, Dee Tucker. I never saw such a wiggler in my life." But Dee was off like a whirlwind, without a word to Dum and me. She didn't even take her books with her or gather up the scattered papers that were strewn over her desk. We mercifully saved her some demerits by putting things in order for her.
"What do you reckon is up with Dee?" said Dum anxiously. "She is either brewing some mischief or is already in a scrape."
We found the door to 117 carefully closed and Dee already in bed. How she ever managed to get in so rapidly, I could not see, unless she followed the plan of "Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son, John."
"Now, Dee Tucker, what is the matter with you?" begged Dum anxiously.
"The matter with me?" said Dee with feigned coolness. "Nothing on earth, my dear sister. What should be the matter with me? I am simply sleepy and thought I would get into bed."
"How about your teeth and your prayers?"
"Cleaned 'em and said 'em," said Dee laconically, and she turned over rather gingerly, I noticed, and pretended to have fallen into a deep sleep.
"She won't be able to keep it to herself very long," whispered Dum to me. "If it is any fun, she can't be low enough not to share it; and if it is trouble of some sort, she is sure to let us in on it. I'll take the motto of Prosper le Gai: 'I bide my time.'"
Respecting Dee's evident desire for silence, Dum and I went very quietly to bed and had the light out long before it was time.
A knock at the door! "Come in," called Dum. It was Annie Pore, very apologetic at disturbing us.
"It is ten minutes before lights out bell. I had no idea you had all gone to bed. I was worried about Dee. Is she all right? She looked so feverish."
"Oh, yes, she's all right; just sleepy," said Dum politely. "Thank you all the same, Annie."
Annie softly closed the door. I heard strange sounds from Dee's bed but could not tell whether she was laughing or crying.
Another knock!
"Come in," a little wearily from Dum.
Miss Jane Cox this time!
"Oh, girls, excuse me! I did not know you were in bed, I was a little anxious about Dee." A snore from Dee's bed, rather melodramatic in tone. "She seemed so upset during study hour. I was on duty and I did not know whether she needed castor oil or a demerit." The snoring stopped. The snorer was evidently deliberating.
"I think she is all right now, Miss Cox," I ventured. "She went right off to bed as soon as study hour was over. Maybe she won't have to have either, demerit or oil. My private opinion is she had a flea down her back, but she says she was just tired and sleepy." A gratified snore from Dee and Miss Cox with a little snicker went to her room.
"Night, Sable Goddess, from her ebon throne,
Now stretches forth a leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world."
Lights out bell had rung, and the girls all along the corridors in Carter Hall had gone to bed and to sleep. I had a feeling of impending something, not necessarily evil, but excitement, at least. Dum was breathing gently and regularly like a sleeping infant. Dee stirred every now and then and occasionally muttered an unintelligible something. I dozed but waked with a start.
"Mieuw – mieuw – mieuw!" came in a heart-rending wail from Dee's bed.
"Shhhh-shhhh! Poor ittle titty puss! Don't you cwy, honey child! Shhh – "
"Mieuw – mieuw-mieuw-mieuw!!!!" More subdued endearments from Dee. Dum slept on, but I heard a door open way down the hall! Some teacher, with sharp ears, no doubt.
"Dee," I whispered, "put your little finger in its mouth and let it suck until that busybody down the hall goes back into her room." There was the sound of a door closing.
"What is your advice, Page?"
"Have you anything for it to eat?"
"Bread and milk, but it won't eat."
"Of course not, it is too little. Did you warm the milk?" I inquired.
"No, how could I with no stove?" One of the rules of the institution was: no alcohol stoves.
"Wait a minute. I've got a candle that Mammy Susan put in my bag in case of accidents." How I blessed the kind old woman who had thought of everything. "Them newfangled lights may be mighty fine but if they 'cide not to wuck some night, a good ole tallow can'le 'll come in mighty handy, chile, also some saftest matches," she had said as she overrode all my objections and tucked the life-saving candle and matches in my already overworked grip.
I got up, donned slippers and dressing gown, gently closed the window, as the night was decidedly frosty, and found the matches and candle. We did not dare to light the electric light because of the transom over the door. Pussy might at any moment let out another wail, and then the wakeful teacher, seeing the light, would make for our room. In feeling for the table, I touched Dum's foot and she waked with a start.
"What's the matter, Dee? Are you sick?" And Dum sat up in bed.
"Shhh – No, Dum, she's not sick but the little kitty is hungry," I whispered.
"The what is hungry?"
"Not so loud, Dum dear, please! It's just a poor, miserable little foundling of a kitty puss that I simply could not leave by the roadside. I've got it in bed with me here."
"Oh, Caroline Tucker! A nasty little cat in bed with you? What would Zebedee say?" and Dum sniffed the air disdainfully.
"He would say just what I say, Virginia Tucker, that it is a mighty funny thing that you, who were in line before me and must have seen the poor little wretched kitten first, didn't feel it your duty to rescue it from its misery. I am ashamed of you, belonging to the S. P. C. A., too," and Dee gave her little charge a brand new finger to suck.
Things were looking rather serious: Dum and Dee calling one another Virginia and Caroline and that in no modulated tones; and the candle making such a bright light that I expected every minute to hear a teacher rapping on our door.
"Now, look here, Tweedles, both of you stop your fussing and 'tend to the business in hand. You can fight it out to-morrow, but for Heaven's sake, put all of your surplus energy now on getting the kitten fed and quiet and 117 not in a deluge of demerits. Dum, get up and pin two middy ties over the transom."
Dum obediently carried out my instructions while I warmed the milk that Dee had purloined from the supper table over the blessed candle. I sweetened it a little and diluted it with water. I warmed it in Dee's silver pin-tray, as we had no pan of any sort.
"Dip your finger in here, Dee, and let the kitten taste it so it can realize succor is near. It is lots too young to lap and will have to suck a rag."
Dum tore up an old handkerchief for me and in a little while kitty was tugging away for dear life, one end of the bit of cambric in its pink flannel mouth and the other in the pin-tray of milk.
Dum was soon won over to the helpless little thing. "It is sweet, Dee, I declare; let me hold it a minute."
Dee magnanimously handed it over to her sister who held the pin-tray very carefully and let kitty feed as tenderly as any young mother. It soon got its fill and curled up and purred "just like a fairy buzz-saw," Dum declared.
"To think of a tiny cat like that knowing how to purr!" exclaimed Dee.
"To think of a tiny cat like that having such enormous fleas on it," shuddered Dum. "Here, take the beastie, I'm going back to bed before I get full of 'em."
"Yes, they are something awful," sighed Dee, "I am literally eaten alive."
"Poor old Dee! Change your nightgown and leave your bed to the pussy and come snuggle in with me," said Dum.
Pussy slept very well in Dee's bed, waking only about every two hours and mewing for nourishment. Dee and I would get wearily up, warm the milk and administer.
"Oh, who could be a cat with kittens?" sighed Dee.
Morning finally came and the problem of what to do with our adopted child had to be faced.
"Do you know what I'd do if I were you, Dee? I'd go right to Miss Peyton and tell her all about it. I'll go with you. She would sympathize with you, I really believe, and help you find a home for pussy," I said.
"I'll go, too," cried Dum.
Miss Peyton was fine. She seemed to think Dee had merely been imprudent, not at all naughty. She agreed with Dee that it was a strange thing that the whole line of girls and teachers should have passed the little waif by.
"Girls, I am proud and happy that you should have felt I was the person to confide in. If all the school could only understand that I am their friend and not just the principal and dealer in demerits. Of course you can't keep the kitten in your room, but I will see that a good home is found for it with someone who will take the trouble to feed it until it can lap for itself. I think I know exactly the right person in the village."
We went from the principal's office in very happy and exalted states of mind.
"Isn't she wonderful?" exclaimed Dee. "Wasn't she splendid to us?"
"She was fine," enthused Dum. "I am certainly relieved."
I said to myself: "Miss Peyton was awfully nice, but it is plain to be seen she is fond of cats. I wonder how she would have felt if it had been an orphan snake or an abused Billy-goat!"
CHAPTER VII.
KITTY'S FOSTER-FATHER
Tweedles and I were excused from the Gym exercises that afternoon with the request that we meet Miss Peyton in her office at three o'clock. We were there on time, you may be sure, and Dee had the kitty all done up in a shoe box ready for the trip. We had christened him Oliver Twist, because he kept on "hollering for more" all the weary night.
Miss Peyton laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks over the description of our trials during the night. When we found out that she did not think it was so terribly wicked of Dee, we felt we could tell her everything, even the middy ties over the transom and the fleas in Dee's bed.
"You poor girls must be nearly dead, aren't you?" she asked kindly.
"Page and I feel right scrooch-eyed, but after the first feeding, Dum slept through it all," laughed Dee. "I have more sympathy than ever for poor Zebedee. That's what we call our Father, you know, Miss Peyton. He had to bring up Dum and me on bottles as our little Mother died when we were tiny babies. If one kitten could keep two girls awake most of the night heating milk for it, don't you fancy two twins, like Dum and me, could keep one man awake all the time?"
"Didn't you have a nurse?" I asked.
"Of course we did, all kinds and colors, but Dum and I wouldn't drink unless Zebedee gave us the bottles. He says he was afraid the nurse might not be sanitary and trusted no one but himself to fix the milk."
"Poor old Zebedee!" sighed Dum, her eyes filling. "I don't see how we could have been so mean to him."
We had started on our quest for a friend for kitty, Miss Peyton leading the way down toward the village. She seemed to be enjoying the little outing as much as we were.
"Your Father must be very patient," she said, putting her arm in Dum's when she saw the hazel eyes filling at the thought of her Father.
"Well, the funny part of it is, he is not one bit patient except with Dee and me. Do you know, once he got dreadfully mad with the telephone girl who kept on cutting him off when he was in the midst of some most important business that could not wait, and every time he would try to get connection again, the operator would say 'Line busy.' Now he knew the line was not busy and the person on the other end was just as anxious to be got as he was to get him, and, as I was saying, he got so mad he pulled the telephone out by the roots."
"Well, that was, to say the least, impulsive," and Miss Peyton laughed like any schoolgirl.
"You mustn't think Zebedee is bad-tempered," put in Dee. "He's got the sweetest disposition in the world. He's just quick-tempered. He has learned to control himself wonderfully but you know he is real young yet."
"Yes, I know," said Miss Peyton solemnly.
"Tell us whom you are going to get to be kitty's foster father, Miss Peyton," I said, purposely changing the subject. Not that I did not take the keenest interest in everything pertaining to Mr. Tucker, but I could see that the twins were both getting leaky, and it did seem a pity to have a cloud cast over our delightful walk with Miss Peyton.
"Indeed, I will," she said, giving me an approving nod. "It is dear old Captain Pat Leahy. I hope you girls will like him as much as I do. He is sure to like you. Of course he may not be able to keep the little thing and then I don't know what we will do. Anyhow, let's not borrow trouble. I know the dear man will do it for me if he possibly can. When I first came to Gresham as a pupil – "
"Oh, were you a pupil here?" we exclaimed in one breath.
"Yes, indeed, I came here before I went to college. Gresham had not such a grand building then and accommodated only about fifty girls. It was more like a home school. Captain Leahy was then conductor on the local train and took an especial interest in the Gresham girls. I shall never forget how good he was to me on my first trip. I was lonesome and shy – "
"You, shy! Oh, Miss Peyton, were you, really?"
"I should say I was. Why, Annie Pore is brazen beside what I was as a child. Captain Leahy sat by me between stations and with his ready Irish tongue cheered me up immensely. He treated me to peanuts and made me laugh and gave me a new outlook on life. The poor fellow lost a leg in a railroad accident about ten years ago, and ever since then has kept the gate where the track crosses the main street of Gresham."
"Does he like cats?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, he adores them. That is the great bond of sympathy between us. He loves cats and he loves flowers. He also has a great fondness for young people. Here we are," and Miss Peyton pointed out the gate-house where her old friend lived.
It was just an ordinary little square box of a house painted the pumpkin yellow that railroads are so partial to, but all around it were window boxes, some of them filled with geraniums, some with Norway spruces and English ivy. A moon flower had completely covered one side of the little house, but the frost had touched the big leaves and they were dropping off one by one.
A grizzled old man with a long red beard and a peg leg was digging around the geraniums as we approached. "Captain, I have brought some of my girls to meet you," said Miss Peyton, holding out her hand to the old man and introducing us.
"And I am that proud to meet all of yez; and so will me cats be. The poor critters long for some petticoats to cuddle oop to. A peg leg is but cold comfort to a pussy when she is hankering for some women folk," and with a hearty laugh the old fellow stumped to the door of his little gate-house and called to the cats. Out they came, seven in all and a motley crew. The Captain was very democratic and not particular about the pedigree of his friends.
"All cats are aristocratic if you just give 'em a chance," he would declare when some cat snob would suggest that he go in for pure breeds.
Six of the cats came to him and rubbed their backs against his good leg; but the seventh, a large gray one with a mournful look in her eyes, began to sharpen her claws on a long strip of sand paper he had tacked to his wooden leg. We burst out laughing. It was the most comical thing I had ever seen.
"A little invintion of me own. There are no trees handy for the poor critters to sharpen their claws on and I find this device saves me furniture many a scratch." He stooped and laid his hand lovingly on the mournful one, but she arched her back and moved over to the protection of Dee's skirts.
"What, schtill angry wid me, poor Bett? I had to have her kittens drowned, all but one, and she can't forgive me, not that I blame her. But what am I to do, Miss Peyton? Me house is schmall and Bett is that prolific she could furnish kittens for all the ould maids in Christendom in little or no toime."
"Well, it is a problem, Captain Leahy, but I am sorry for Bett. Aren't there enough old maids in Gresham to help you out some?" Miss Peyton stooped down and picked up the poor bereaved mother who nestled comfortably in her arms and began to purr loudly.
"The demand doesn't come oop to Bett's supply, niver in the world," laughed the old man. "But what am I thinking of keeping yez waiting out here so long? Come in, come in!" I have never heard such a rich, delicious voice as Captain Leahy's; and his brogue was as soft as the purr of his cats.
"Before we go in, I might as well tell you what has brought us to you especially, Captain," said Miss Peyton.
"What? You must schnatch me from me Fool's Paradise? I was after thinking all the time you had come to see the ould man himself," and his eyes twinkled mischievously.
"So we did, dear Captain. We have come to see you because you are you, and we need your help," answered Miss Peyton with her engaging smile that somehow made one feel that her way was the best way.
"Well, sitting is as cheap as standing and I want this peg leg to last as long as I do. It is astonishing how fast they wear out. Come in, come in, and tell me what it is you want me to help yez about," and he led the way into his little house.
It did not seem so small when you got in because it was so orderly. The lower berth from a wrecked Pullman served him as seat by day and bed by night. The very smallest cooking stove imaginable, almost a doll baby size, polished like the boots of a dandy, was at one side. Over it was a shelf with some blue and white china on it, and under the shelf a few cooking utensils and a dish pan and biscuit board.
"Sit down, sit down, and while the kittle is biling for tay, I can listen to your trroobles." We seated ourselves on the Pullman seat while the dear old man busied himself with the tea kettle. Bett, the bereaved mother, still nestled in Miss Peyton's arms, but after a moment she wriggled out and got into the box behind the stove. "You'd better look after your baby, you ould rip. I'm thinking these ladies are that fond of cats that they might be making off wid it."
"That's just it, Captain Leahy, these ladies are fond of cats, one of them especially," indicating Dee. "So fond of them that yesterday when the whole school was out on the Valley Road taking the dignified walk that is required, what should Miss Caroline Tucker do but rescue a poor little lost kitten, mewing by the roadside, carry it home in her muff without teacher or fellow pupil seeing her, and actually take it to bed with her. But, girls, you tell Captain Leahy about it yourselves," which we did at Miss Peyton's command.
He enjoyed the prank as much as Miss Peyton and laughed until the blue and white china danced on the little shelf.
"And now I know very well what ye have come for. Ye want me to take a boarder."
"Oh, will you, please?" implored Dee.
Bett, having nourished her lone offspring, now carried it in her mouth for Miss Peyton's inspection, and Dee, seeing her, jumped up in great excitement, dropping the box she had been holding so carefully and waking up Oliver Twist in the fall. "Look, look! Bett's kitten looks just like Oliver! I thought it was him at first." Dee was excited and we all excused her English. Oliver began to cry aloud and Bett tore around like one demented.
"Well, Bett, old girl, your baby has been restored to yez. If this don't beat all! On the Valley Road, yesterday, you say? I told that boy to be careful of the hole in the bag, that the runt might fall through it, and so he did. You call him Oliver, you say? Well, that is a handsome name for such a poor mite, but maybe it will give him some ambition to grow oop to it. There's an ould saying: 'If you escape drowning, you'll live to be hanged.' I hope not, Oliver, I hope not."
Now Bett, having one of her babies back, forgave her master and rubbed herself against his good leg; and then such another washing as she did give Oliver before she considered him fit to get into the box that she called home!
The kettle was boiling and the tea soon steeping in the pretty teapot. The Captain put up a little table exactly like the ones on the train and we had the merriest kind of a party.
"Your cats are so fat, Captain, what do you feed them on?" asked Dee, in her element with two cats in her lap.
"An ould frind of mine, who is schteward on a diner saves me all the schraps and the cats live high, higher than their master, by a long shot. But do you know the windfall I have had lately, Miss Peyton?"
"No; do tell me. I am so glad of any good fortune that comes to you, Captain."
"Bless your schwate heart for thim words! Well, I have always had a hard toime about my shoes since I lost me limb. Such an accumulation of rights as you never saw wid no one wanting of thim and no place to put thim and feeling it was to say the least a sin to be throwing thim away, when no doubt there was somewhere in the worrld a man who had lost his lift leg who would give anything for thim. Well, I came on this advertisement in a Washington paper: 'A man who has lost his left leg would like to get into communication with one who has lost his right. 11½ E.' I knew soon as I clapped eyes on it that some poor fellow was in exactly me own dilimma. I did get into communication wid him and now I am no longer trying to find a place for the right shoes I have no use for and on the other hand I have enough of the lifts to last me a lifetime. 11½ E's too, exactly my size."
"Well, that was a windfall surely," said Miss Peyton. ("More like a footfall," muttered Dum.) "But, Captain, I thought you were going to buy a fine jointed leg with a foot and then you would need your own right shoes."
"Oh, I have given oop the notion. You see my cats would miss the peg something awful, wid no place to sharpen their little claws; and thin I have found a poor widdy woman living down the track a piece and the right leg of me pants do come in so handy for the poor thing to make schuits for her little byes. It would seem a sin to use that warm cloth to cover cork, whin some poor little lamb is shivering in the cold."
"Ah, Captain, always thinking how you can be good to children and cats," said Miss Peyton.
Then with many thanks to the old Irishman for his hospitality and his kindness and the good time he had given us, we took our departure. I noticed that Dum, who had been very quiet and whose eyes had been misty several times, especially when the Captain told of the fate of his trouser legs, stepped back into the little house and I heard her whisper to the old man: "Please, Captain, take this half dollar and buy some toys for the little lambs who wear the pant legs." I happened to know it was the whole of her week's allowance, too.
CHAPTER VIII.
ABOUT MATHEMATICS AND ME
I was a very difficult pupil to place, having been overeducated in some subjects and absolutely neglected in others. I might have gone with the seniors in English and History; was normal in Latin, that is, sophomore, where girls of my age were put; was just beginning French; and had to go with the kids in Mathematics. I had never played a game of tennis in my life nor even seen a game of basketball, but I was naturally athletic from the free country life I had led, and it was soon realized in athletic circles that I would be on the team with a little coaching.
I was glad to see that Miss Cox was to teach me Arithmetic. Miss Peyton hoped I could get into Algebra by Christmas and then, with hard study and earnest coaching, perhaps catch up with the class. I had a feeling that Miss Cox and I were going to pull together if she could just let herself go. Her manner in the class was rather wooden, but she was an excellent teacher and the girls were quick to recognize that, so while she was not popular, she was not disliked.