Back at School with the Tucker Twins
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I felt it was really an insult to Mr. Tucker to think he could become infatuated with such a person as Mabel Binks, but then, on the other hand, I knew how easy it is to flatter men; and while Zebedee did not like to be run after, Mabel's evident admiration and appreciation of him would, as a matter of course, soften his heart.
Mabel was, however, not asked to make the twelfth at that Thanksgiving feast. Whether it was the dread of the battle royal that Dum was prepared to fight with cranberry sauce or just simply that Zebedee did not want her himself I did not know, but I was certainly relieved to find that our host had decided to leave the seat vacant.
"We can let Mr. Manners sit in it," he said, squaring his chin at Dum. The Tuckers had played a game, when they were younger, called "Mr. Manners." That fictitious gentleman was always invited in when any rudeness was in evidence. Dum certainly had been rude about the cranberry sauce.
"Yes, do!" snapped Dum, "and let him sit next to you – you started it – "
"All right, honey, we'll put him between us and both of us will try to learn from him." So peace was restored.
We had entered the Jefferson Hotel while Dum and her father were having the little sparring match, and as we came into the enclosure where the fountain plays and the baby alligators and turtles splash among the ferns and the beautiful statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in all its quiet peace and dignity, it seemed to me that quarreling was entirely unnecessary and I said as much.
"You are right, Page," said Mr. Tucker. "There is always something singularly soothing and peaceful about this spot and it seems kind of an insult to Thomas Jefferson to be anything but well-bred in his presence."
Our table was laid in the large dining-room and we were hungry enough to go right in to dinner, but the lobby was so full of excited and boisterous people rushing back and forth and greeting each other, hunting lost friends, finding old acquaintances, etc., that we hung over the balcony looking at the gay throng and forgetting that we were short one meal for the day, having crowded breakfast and luncheon into one.
"Service is mighty slow on a crowded day like this, so you had better come eat," and Zebedee led the way to our table, where Stephen White, Harvie Price and George Massie immediately joined us. We had picked up Judge Grayson in the lobby.
Of course George, alias Sleepy, was the toast of the occasion, and he blushed so furiously that he looked as though Dum had carried out her threat against Mabel and smeared poor, inoffensive and modest Sleepy with cranberry juice. We asked him so many questions and paid him so much attention that Zebedee finally interfered and made us let him alone.
"You won't let the boy eat and I know he is starving," and so he was, – and so were all of us. We ate right through a long table d'hôte dinner, ordering every thing in sight from blue points to café noir. Wherever there was a choice of dainties we took both, much to the amusement of the very swell waiter, whose black face shone with delight in anticipation of the handsome tip he knew by experience was forthcoming when Jeffry Tucker gave his girls a party.
"Pink ice cream for me!" exclaimed Father, when the question of dessert arose.
"And me! And me!" from Mary and Annie and me.
"Don't stop with that," begged Dee. "Dum and I always get everything on the menu for dessert except pumpkin pie. We can't go that."
"Now pumpkin pie is all I want," put in the dear old Judge. "I feel sure you do not know the delights of pumpkin pie or you would not speak so slightingly of it. Do you happen to know this piece of poetry?
"'Ah! on Thanksgiving DayWhen from East and from West,From North and from SouthCome the pilgrim and guest;When the care-wearied manSeeks his mother once more;And the worn matron smilesWhere the girl smiled before:What moistens the lip,And what brightens the eye,What brings back the pastLike the rich pumpkin pie?'""Brava! Brava! Bring me some pumpkin pie along with the pink ice cream," cried Father.
"And me!"
"And me!"
"And me!"
The cry echoed from first one and then the other, all down the line. The waiter came in bearing great stacks of quarters of pies, since every one of the eleven guests had demanded it.
"Th'ain't no mo'!" he said solemnly, as he put down the last slice in front of Zebedee. And that sent us off into such a gale of merriment that all the dining-room turned to see what was the matter. But the Richmond public seemed to think that what Jeffry Tucker and his twins did was all right, and if they chose to have a party and laugh so loud that one could not hear the band play, it was a privilege they were entitled to and no one must mind.
I know we sat at that table two hours, as the service was slow with so many guests in the hotel. The food was good and we had plenty of time and when our ravenous appetites were somewhat appeased by the first courses, we cared not how long it took. We were having a jolly time with a congenial crowd, and a table in the big dining-room at the Jefferson was just as good a place to have it as any.
The ball was not to begin until ten, so when we had devoured the last crumb of the bountiful repast we adjourned to a motion picture show to fill in the time.
Wink White seemed rather anxious to have a talk with me, evidently desirous of making peace in regard to the masquerade on Allhalloween, but just as he was with some formality offering me his escort to the movies, Zebedee came up and without further ado or "by your leave," tucked my arm in his and led off the procession with me.
"I haven't seen a thing of you, little friend, on this mad trip and I want to talk to you," and talk to me he did, about everything under the sun, but principally about whether I thought Gresham was helping Tweedles and bringing out the best that was in them.
"They seem to me to be slangier than ever," which amused me very much as Mr. Tucker himself was the slangiest grown-up person I had ever known, and why he should have expected anything else of his girls I could not see.
"All of us are slangy, but I can't see that it is taught to us at Gresham. In fact, I believe that Tweedles introduce all the newest slang and we sit at their feet to learn. I don't know where they get it, but every now and then they come out with a choice bit that is immediately gobbled up and incorporated into our lexicon of slang."
"I'm afraid they get it from me," and Zebedee looked so solemn and sad that I could not help laughing. I knew they got it from him, and while I thought Gresham was not the place it had been under Miss Peyton's management, I did not think it should be blamed for the things that it was not responsible for.
"Sometimes I think it would have been better for them if I had married again. Some real good settled stepmother would have taught them how to behave but, somehow, I have never had a leaning myself towards real good settled persons who might have been good for Tweedles. When the possibility of marrying again has ever come into my head, and I must confess that sometimes it does when I am lonesome, I can only think of some bright young girl as the one for me, some one near the age of Tweedles; and then I know that Tweedles would raise Cain. And no matter how fond they might have been of the girl beforehand, the moment they should get a suspicion that I am interested in her they would – well, they might smear her with cranberry sauce."
"But Tweedles never did like Mabel Binks!"
"Of course not! I was not thinking about Mabel Binks," and Zebedee went off into a roar of laughter. "I just meant that that form of revenge might be handed out to any luckless lady who met with my approval. I think Miss Binks could do as much damage with cranberry sauce as the twins combined. She seems to me a person singularly fitted to look out for Number One."
"I think she is, but in a battle royal I bet on Tweedles," and so I did.
I was greatly relieved to hear Zebedee say that he was not talking about Mabel in connection with a nice settled stepmother for his girls, but I wondered who it could be. Maybe she would be at the ball that night and I could have an opportunity of judging whether or not she might get on with my dear friends. I felt sorry for them, terribly sorry, and I felt sorry for Zebedee's little Virginia, the poor little wife who had lived such a very short time. How did she feel about having a successor? "How faithless men are!" I thought, forgetting entirely that I had rather wanted my own father to marry again.
Anyhow, it was not Mabel Binks!
CHAPTER XII
THE BALL
I can't fancy that the time will ever come when I shall be too jaded to be thrilled at the mere mention of a ball. On that Thanksgiving evening it seems to me I had every thrill that can come to a girl. I had been to but few dances – the one at the Country Club the winter before and the hop at Willoughby were the only real ones, and this grown-up ball with the lights and music and the handsomely gowned women and dapper men made me right dizzy with excitement. The twins took a ball as rather a matter of course, having been dancing around with their young father ever since they could toddle, but Annie's eyes were sparkling with joy and Mary Flannagan, who was very bunchy in "starch paper blue" taffeta, the very stiff kind with many gathers around her waist, was jumping up and down, keeping time to the music.
Mary, with all her bunchiness, was an excellent dancer and as light on her feet as a gas balloon, (if a gas balloon could have feet). Sometimes her voluminous skirts had quite the appearance of a balloon and seemed to buoy her up. Mary was so frank and honest and gay that every one had to like her, and, strange to say, boys, who as a rule are quite snobbish about appearances and insist on a certain amount of beauty or style in the girls they go with, all liked Mary and she never lacked for a partner at a dance. She was so amusing and witty that they lost sight of her freckled face and scrambled red hair. Mary had good hard common sense, too, and such a level head that we were very apt to ask her advice on every subject in spite of the fact that she was many months younger than any of us.
A cross-eyed cow would have had a good time at that Thanksgiving ball. There were so many stags and all of them seemed so eager to dance that the girls were really overworked. Wink and Harvie introduced many University of Virginia men to us and we had the honour of dancing with every member of the football team who was able to hobble. George Massie, poor Sleepy, who had been so wide awake on the gridiron and so unconscious of himself, in the ball room was overcome with shyness. He was a very good dancer if he did break through a crowd with somewhat the manner of a centre rush. He danced with Annie Pore wherever he could get to her and when some eager swain tried to break in he would seize her in his mighty grasp and bear her away with about the same ease he would a football. If opponents went down under and before him, why then next time they would know better than get in his way.
Annie looked very lovely. The faithful white crêpe de chine had been cleaned and was still doing its duty. I heard many persons ask who she was and especially eager did the public seem to establish her identity when the great and only Hiram G. Parker singled her out for his attentions.
"Does she belong in Richmond?"
"She is sure to be a next year's belle with this start she is getting with Hiram G."
"I can't see what he sees in her. She has no style to speak of and that dress is plainly last year's model," this from a lady whose daughter was what put in my mind the remark I just made about cross-eyed cows. You felt she was led out to dance only because of the superfluity of males. "Now that Miss Binks from Newport News," continued the mystified lady, "that girl has some style and you can see why Hiram G. took a fancy to her. Of course those Binkses are common as pig tracks but the mother is well connected and they do say that old Binks has made money hand over fist. Mrs. Garnett met her at Willoughby and asked her up to visit her. You may be sure she is rich because we know she has no claim to being an aristocrat. Park Garnett demands either blood or money."
All of this I overheard between dances. I was standing on the edge of the crowd with Wink White with whom I had been laboriously dancing. I never could dance with Wink; we never seemed to be able to get in step. I knew it was his fault and he thought it was mine. He would persist, however, in asking me to dance. The conversation of the chaperones was rather embarrassing to both of us as Mabel was Wink's cousin, his family being the good connection that Mrs. Binks could boast of, and Mrs. Garnett was my cousin. We were forced, though, to hear more as we were wedged in near them for a few moments.
"They do say that Jeffry Tucker is paying Miss Binks a lot of attention. I saw her in his car at the game to-day and my daughter tells me that the girl is begigged about him. She actually broke a partial engagement with Hiram G. Parker to go somewhere with Mr. Tucker last week."
"Well, well! She looks fit to cope with those Heavenly Twins!"
"Oh! They aren't so bad now. They do say they are toned down a lot. School has been good for them."
"They never were to say bad – just wild and harum-scarum. I'd hate to think Jeffry Tucker would give his girls such a young stepmother. They need some middle-aged person."
"Yes, but poor Jeffry! Can't you see him tied to some middle-aged person? He is too young a man to marry for his children's sake."
"Well, he's too old a man to marry a girl right out of school and expect his daughters to respect her."
I was certainly glad to start dancing again even with the four-footed Wink. It is a strange thing what makes a good dancer. Some of the most awkward-looking persons dance beautifully and, vice versa, some very graceful ones are as stiff as pokers on the ballroom floor. Now Wink was a very well set up young man, tall, broad shouldered, with an erect carriage, almost soldierly in his bearing. It is all right to walk like a soldier but to dance the way a soldier walks is not so exemplary. Wink always had a kind of "Present arms! March!" manner and a girl does not like to be held and carried around like a musket.
Dee declared she thought Wink was a good dancer and she could make out finely with him, and thank goodness, Wink had found this out and broke in on Dee more than he did on me. I liked to talk to him; he was a very bright, agreeable young man with original ideas and lots of ambition. If only his ambition had not directed his attentions to me! I could not get over a certain embarrassment with him occasioned by the ridiculous proposal he had made me while we were at Willoughby. He had said to me then that he did not know how much he loved me until he saw me with my hair done up like a grown-up, and I had joked and told him that I could not judge of my feelings for him until he grew a moustache. He had immediately left off shaving his upper lip and now, to my confusion, every time I looked at him there bristled a very formidable moustache.
Wink was very good looking, with nice blue eyes and a straight nose. I don't know why it seemed such a huge jest for him to be trying to make love to me. Lots of girls my age had devoted lovers, at least according to their accounts they did. I was almost seventeen and it would be rather fun, I thought, to encourage him and even have a ring to put very conspicuously on my left hand on the engagement finger, but when I thought of his "lollapalussing" ways that night on the piazza at Willoughby I just knew I could not stand it.
"Lollapalussing" was a Tweedles word and meant sentimental spooning and a hand-holding tendency. We used that word at Gresham to describe the girls who have a leaning, clinging-vine way of flopping on you. Our quintette was very much opposed to lollapalussers, male or female. I fancy when you are very much in love that lollapalussing is not so bad, but then I wasn't at all in love, certainly not with Wink.
Father had taken a great fancy to Wink and the attraction seemed mutual. They talked together a great deal, and even at the ball when the young man was not dancing with either Dee or me, he would seek out Father, who was looking on at the dancing with great interest, and the two evidently found much to converse about.
"Page," said Father, coming up to me as I was standing for a moment with Mr. Tucker, after a most glorious dance in which not once had we missed step or bumped into any one, "I have asked Mr. White down to Bracken for a visit during the Christmas holidays. I want him to see the country," putting his hand affectionately on Wink's shoulder. "He is thinking of settling in the country after he gets his M.D., and has some hospital practice, and I am looking out for some one to throw my mantle on, as it were."
"Oh – ye – that would be fine," I stammered, and I hate myself yet for blushing like a fool rose. Zebedee saw it and he looked so sad, just exactly as he had the winter before when Mr. Reginald Kent asked Dum for a lock of her hair. I did wish I could make him understand that it made not a whip stitch of difference to me where Wink White settled. That I was nothing but a little girl and did not care a bit for beaux, except, of course, for dancing partners, and maybe a candy beau or two. Every girl wants that kind. But as for serious, young, would-be doctors growing moustaches and coming to settle in our end of the county – it made me tired. I did not know how to let my kind friend know it did, though, and as just then the chrysanthemum-headed giant from Carolina, the one I had seen weeping on the field after the game, came up to claim a dance, I had to leave. A moment afterwards I had the doubtful pleasure of seeing Zebedee engaged in the gyrations of some new fangled dance with the beaming Mabel Binks in his arms.
Mabel was certainly looking handsome. "I'll give it to her," as Mammy Susan says when she admits something pleasant about any one for whom she has no regard. She was dressed in a flame-coloured chiffon that set off her fiery beauty which was accentuated by the many diamonds, rather too many for a young girl, but I think it is usually the tendency of those who have no diamonds to wear to think that the ones who do have them wear too many. Needless to say that I have no diamonds to wear.
"Isn't she the limit?" hissed Dum, as we stopped dancing near each other and Zebedee and his partner kept on for a moment after the music had stopped. "I call it lollapalussy to dance after the band quits."
"She is looking mighty handsome, don't you think?"
"Handsome! She looks oochy koochy to me! Too like the Midway to suit my taste."
Well, we had certainly had a wonderful time and I was not going to let anything ruin it for me. Stephen White could grow a moustache as big as a hedge and come and settle all over the county if he wanted to, and Mr. Jeffry Tucker could dance with a loud-mouthed girl in flame-coloured chiffon until he scorched himself if he wanted to. I had been to a ball and been something of a belle and now I was tired and sleepy and wanted to get to bed and talk over things with the girls, – I did wish though that I had not blushed like a fool rose just at the wrong time and that Zebedee had not seen me.
CHAPTER XIII
NODS AND BECKS
"'Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with theeJest and youthful jollity,Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,Nods and Becks, and Wreathèd Smiles,Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,And love to live in dimple sleek.'"quoted Mary Flannagan. "There is a name for our magazine, right there in sober-sided old Milton."
"Why, that's as hackneyed as can be," objected Dum. "It seems to me that every school magazine I ever read was called 'Quips and Cranks.' Let's get something real original and different and try to make the mag the same way."
"Of course I didn't mean 'Quips and Cranks.' I mean 'Nods and Becks.' I think that would be a bully name."
And so did all of us, and "Nods and Becks" was unanimously elected as the name for the school paper that we were striving to get out before Christmas.
I was chosen editor-in-chief, much to my astonishment. It seemed to me that one of the Tuckers should have had that job, with their father a real live editor. They must have inherited some of his ability; but the Lit. Society would have me and I had to turn in and do the best I could. I didn't mind the writing end of it so much as the part I had in turning down some of the effusions that were handed in by members of the society. Our object in the publishing of this magazine was to make it as light and gay as possible.
We had chosen Christmas as our season for publication and that meant getting very busy after our Thanksgiving jaunt. We really had intended to use the little holiday we were to have at that time to get our magazine in shape. We called it a magazine for dignity, but it was really more of a newspaper.
I am going to publish the whole thing just to show what girls can do at school. Every one thought it was very creditable. We had lots of ads from the tradespeople at Gresham and a few from Richmond firms, enough to pay for the printing.
CHRISTMAS NUMBER OFNODS AND BECKSGRESHAM, VASonnet to Santa ClausBY PAGE ALLISONPan may be dead, but Santa Claus remains,And once a year he riseth in his might.Oft have I heard, in silences of night,Tinkling of bells and clink of reindeer chainsAs o'er the roof he sped through his domains,When youthful eyes had given up the fightTo glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight,Who in a trusting world unchallenged reigns.Last and the greatest of all Gods is he,Who suffereth little children and is kind;And when I've rounded out my earthly spanAnd face at last the Ancient Mystery,I hope somewhere in Heaven I shall findRest on the bosom of that good old man.BEAUTY HINTS AND ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTSBy Mary FlannaganDear Editor:
I have cut two sleeves for the wrong arm in trying to make my new velour coat out of half a yard less goods than the pattern called for. I can't match the goods now. What must I do?
(signed) Agitated Kate.Dear Kate:
Put one sleeve in hind part before and then get a Teddy Bear or a plush monkey matching your coat as near as possible or in pleasing contrast to it if you can't get it to match, and tack it under your arm. It will hide the discrepancy and at the same time give a chic, stylish punch to your costume. It would be better to sew it as you would find it something of a strain on bargain days to have to hold it and you might forget.
(signed) Editor of Beauty Hints.Dear Editor:
I am losing my good figure. What can I do to keep it?
(signed) Sylvia.Dear Sylvia:
Pin it on tighter. Try black safety pins, they seem to be stronger than white.
(signed) Editor of Beauty Hints.FACTS ABOUT FATIMAIt is the style to be tall and slender. Assume a virtue if you have it not and you who are short and fat, don't grow any shorter and fatter.
The following obesity rules will prove very helpful to my correspondent who signs herself, Miss Rosy Round:
Stand up for twenty minutes after meals (if you must have meals).
Eat no potatoes.
Eat no bread.
Avoid all starchy food.
Avoid meats of all kinds.
Fish is fattening.
Never touch sweets or pastry.
Eat no fruit for fear of uric acid.
Never drink water with your meals, but between meals do nothing but drink water, all the time that you can spare from the gymnastics that must be kept up to keep down the disfiguring fat.
Always leave the table hungry, but take a pickle with you, a large dill pickle is the best for your purpose. Eat a great deal of pickle; it may ruin your complexion but a good complexion is only skin deep while fatness goes straight through.
Sleep in your stays if you can, but if you can't just don't sleep. Sleep is a fattening habit at best. Keep a pickle under your pillow and take a bite when you think of it.
Lose your temper on all occasions, as nothing is more conducive to stoutness than placidity.
Stop speaking of yourself as a Fatty, and begin to speak of yourself as slender. Remember the power of Mind over Matter. Lead a lean life and think thin thoughts; dress in diaphanous gauze; make hair-splitting distinctions; talk and think much of your slender purse; walk the narrow way and have ever in your mind the eye of the needle through which you shall finally have to pass. – Before you know it you will lose pounds and pounds of flesh.