Tripping with the Tucker Twins

CHAPTER XXI

THE SUMMING UP

Charleston had taken a strong hold on all our affections. The spirit of the place seemed to possess us as we lazed away the hours in Miss Arabella's tangled old garden or in Louis' more combed and brushed one. Our friendship for the Greens grew stronger and deeper, and we were soon addressing Mrs. Green as Molly and her husband as 'Fessor. All of us were staying in the beautiful old Southern city longer than we had intended. Zebedee said he had no excuse for lingering longer, as he had threshed out the political situation to his own satisfaction and the dissatisfaction of the South Carolina "ring." He should be back on his job in Richmond, but he said he felt like one of the lotus-eaters and nothing much made any difference to him.

'Fessor also had overstayed his holiday, but he declared that his assistant at Wellington could do the work as well as he could, which amused Molly greatly as she said it was the first time he had acknowledged that his assistant could do anything at all; he looked upon him usually as purely ornamental and not intended for use.

I knew father and Mammy Susan were wondering if I had forgotten them entirely, but my conscience, too, was lulled to rest, and I felt as though I could spend the rest of my days dreaming and dozing. Tweedles, of course, had nothing to do but stay with a light heart as no one was expecting them home but poor Brindle; and as Brindle was left in care of the elevator boy, who spoiled him outrageously, even treating him to ice cream cones, I really believe he did not mind being left nearly so much as Dee liked to think he did.

Every day we lengthened our stay in Charleston was as another pearl on the string to poor Louis, and to Claire, too, I think. Thanks to Molly and Zebedee, his Eminence of the Tum Tum had accepted the whole crowd as desirable, and that meant that we could see as much of his children as we wanted to; and as we wanted to see them all the time, we did.

We went on wonderful jaunts with them, and saw everything that could be seen, Louis acting as guide. Sometimes we even persuaded one of the dear old ladies to go with us. I am sure they saw things they had not seen for a decade. We noticed one thing, that when Zebedee was along they always left their pokers behind.

Sullivan's Island thrilled us, and Dum and Zebedee tried to work out the whole scene of Poe's "Gold Bug," but as the island is now a popular summer resort, it was not an easy matter to do.

There is no use in trying to describe the Magnolia Gardens. The azaleas were in full bloom, and nowhere else in the world, I verily believe, is there such a sight. Some of the bushes are thirty feet high and look like giant bouquets.

"I feel like the country woman at the circus the first time she saw a hippopotamus," declared Zebedee; "I don't believe there's no sich thing! It doesn't seem possible that these are growing plants and that in Richmond at Easter I have had to pay five dollars for a little azalea not much more than two feet high."

The dark green of the magnolia and live-oak trees enhanced the glory of the flowers. It was so beautiful it hurt. Molly said it made her feel as she did the first time she ever saw an opera at the Metropolitan in New York. It was her freshman year at Wellington, and she had been invited to visit in New York during the Christmas holidays.

"It was 'Madame Butterfly,' and the scenery was so wonderful to me I could hardly listen to the music. I fancy cherry-blossom time in Japan must be almost as beautiful as this, but I can't believe it is quite so brilliant."

Magnolia Cemetery, which is just outside of Charleston and which Dee had refused to see without Zebedee, certainly would be a nice place to be buried in. It was sadder to visit because of the new graves there, and Zebedee had to abandon his usual cheerful graveyard spirits. He was quite solemn and kept his hat off all the time.

Louis skirted us around the outer edge of the cemetery first and saved the great old oak for the last. It burst upon us with such force that as a crowd we were left breathless. The beauty of the azaleas at Magnolia gardens, compared to this hoary old monarch, were as a cheap obituary poem to the twenty-third psalm. And in saying that I do not mean to belittle the beauty of the gardens, but I have to put them in that category to make a place high enough in the scale of comparison for that tree.

It was huge, but bent over with years like some old man, and one great limb was resting on the ground, giving it the look of one kneeling in prayer. The foliage was vigorous and glossy, deeper and richer in color than that of many younger trees, just as the wonderful words of some grand old man, John Burroughs or his ilk, will make the utterances of younger men seem pale and feeble.

In kneeling and coming so in touch with Mother Earth, this Father of the Forest had borrowed of her fullness, and now his trunk and huge limbs were covered with an exquisite ferny growth. Wild violets and anemones bloomed happily in the crotches of his great arms, and I saw a tiny wild strawberry ripening on his knee, having escaped the vigilance of the many birds nesting in the upper branches. Spanish moss hung in festoons from some of the limbs, seeming like a venerable beard.

I have never had anything affect me as that tree did. It was so gallant and brave, so kindly and beneficent! It had the spirit of youth and the kindliness of old age; the playfulness of a child and the wisdom of centuries. It must have seen the Indians crowded out by the white men; looked out across the harbor at the storming of Fort Moultrie, and almost a century later at the defence of Fort Sumter. Wars and rumors of wars were nothing to this veteran. While we were there a perky wren pounced down on the defenceless strawberry and gobbled it up, and I am sure the gray beard thought no more of the gobbling up of the redmen than he did of that red berry. His comparisons were of æons and not of decades or mere centuries.

"There is no use in talking about it!" exclaimed Zebedee. "I've got to climb that tree, if it means one hundred dollars' fine and a month in jail."

That was exactly the way I felt. It seemed to me as though I simply had to get up that tree. The park policeman was nowhere in sight, and Zebedee ran lightly up the bent back of the ancient giant, Dum after him. It was easy climbing, and I would have followed suit in spite of my ankle, that I could not yet quite trust, if I had not seen the helmet of the policeman looming up over a near-by sepulchre.

Claire was shocked at what seemed to her a desecration, but Louis said afterward he knew just how Mr. Tucker felt. He had always wanted to get up that tree, and he considered it a kind of homage due the old oak. Trees were meant to climb, and it was no more a desecration to climb one even if it did happen to be in a cemetery, than it was to smell a rose that bloomed there.

The policeman, all unconscious of the coons he had treed, came ambling up and stood and talked to us for quite a while until Dee tactfully drew him off to descant on the glories of the William Washington monument. Zebedee and Dum sat very still in their leafy bower, so still that Zebedee declared a bird came and tweaked some of Dum's hair out to help line his nest; but Dum said he did it himself until she had to make a noise like a catbird to make him stop.

There is no telling what fine and punishment would have been imposed on the miscreants. It was not that it was such a terribly naughty thing to do, but just that it had never been done before. They slipped down, however, while the policeman's back was turned and came up smiling around the other side with the innocent expression a cat assumes when he has been in the cream jug.

"It was worth it," whispered Zebedee to me; "I am so sorry you couldn't get up, too. The old fellow was glad to have us up there. He told me that no children had climbed up to hug him for at least a hundred years. I didn't tell him that I was grown up, but just let him treat me like a little child. He didn't know the difference."

"I shouldn't think he would," I laughed, "when there isn't any difference."

And now it is time to stop, and I shall have to close my story of Charleston. All of us wanted to dream on there forever. It had been a wonderful time. We had made lifelong friends of Molly Brown and 'Fessor Green. We had flopped into the lives of the Gaillards and expected to stay. We had made our way into one of the most difficult and exclusive homes in the city of exclusive homes, and Miss Judith and Miss Arabella Laurens had taken us to their fluttering hearts.

Their thin pocketbooks had also opened to take in a fair and generous recompense for their kind hospitality – but it had been Zebedee and not Edwin Green who had finally and tactfully completed our business arrangements.

Now Zebedee said he must get back to his newspaper. He felt it calling him, as he had discovered an advertisement on the editorial page – a crime in newspaperdom that was deserving of capital punishment. He must get back and chop off somebody's head.

Then 'Fessor Green began to fear his assistant was not able to do his work, and Molly couldn't wait another day to see little Mildred, her baby. I knew it was selfish for me to stay any longer from father, who did have a stupid time of it when all was told.

Dee began to feel that Brindle missed her. Dum said it was because Louis had the same expression in his eyes that Brindle did and it made Dee feel that she must get back to her pet.

We parted from our friends with many assurances of meeting again. The Greens asked us to visit them at Wellington or in Kentucky, where they spent their summers, and of course we asked them to come see us in Virginia. Molly was to send us letters of introduction to her friends in New York, and Louis was planning to stop in Richmond on his way to Exmoor. Parting was only planning for future meetings.

I was to stay at Bracken for several months and then meet my friends at Price's Landing, so sometime I shall tell you my experiences there, in "A House Party with the Tucker Twins."