Vacation with the Tucker Twins
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"Mrs. Rand's lost treasure," gasped Dee.
"Here's another for good measure!" and the man tossed an extra one into Dum's lap as Henry got up steam and moved off. "You started my sales and I won't have a one left by night at this rate."
"I am going to send all of these to that hateful old Mrs. Rand," and Dum settled herself on the cushions, her lap full of can-openers.
We had told Zebedee of Mrs. Rand's carryings-on over her precious tool and he had been vastly amused.
"Don't send them all," I pleaded. "Take one back to Gresham. It would be invaluable at boarding school to get olives out of the bottles, and to open trunks when the keys got lost. As a shoe-horn I am sure it could not be surpassed, for the apple-corer end would do for that. As for a finger-nail file, what could equal the nutmeg-grater?"
So Dum sent only five to Mrs. Rand, and one we took to boarding school with us, where it ever after played an important part in the curriculum under the pseudonym of "Mrs. Rand."
The Tuckers' apartment seemed especially crowded after the large simplicity of the living-room at Willoughby. As a family they usually managed to get anything they wanted very much, and they had had some sixteen years of wanting and satisfying their desires. It was a fortunate thing that they had, one and all, innate good taste. Mr. Tucker had wanted pictures and prints; Dum had wanted bronzes, carved curios of all sorts and casts of masterpieces; Dee had a leaning towards soft Persian rugs, old china and pets. The pets had some of them been mercifully overtaken by fate or I am sure we could not have squeezed into the apartment on that hot afternoon in early August. All of them had wanted books and the books wanted shelves, so wherever there wasn't anything else there were book shelves. Small pictures were actually hung on the doors, as there was no wall space available, and the rugs lapped over each other on the floors.
"We usually have the rugs stored for the summer, but Brindle misses them so much that I wouldn't let Zebedee do it this year. He loves to lie on them and I truly believe he appreciates their colour as well as their softness," and Dee leaned over and patted her beloved dog, who had chosen a particularly wonderful old blue rug on which to take his after-lunch nap.
"Well, I only hope they won't get moths in them with your and Zebedee's foolishness," sniffed Dum.
"Oh, no, Brindle promised me to catch all the moths, didn't you, Brindle, old boy?" Brindle, as though in answer to his mistress, looked solemnly up and snapped at some tiny-winged creature which had recklessly come too close to his powerful jaws.
"Look here, girls! Do you realize that our vacation is more than half over? Before we can turn around we will be back at Gresham," I said, fearing a discussion was imminent. I had heard the subject of moths and Brindle's fondness for Persian rugs thoroughly threshed out before and the gloves had had to be resorted to to prove the point that Brindle's comfort was more important than mere rugs.
"Oh, Page, don't introduce such sad subjects!" exclaimed Dum. "Gresham is all right in its way, but I can't bear to contemplate another winter there. Still, I know it is up to us to go back."
"We'll be Juniors, too – and Juniors are always in hot water," sighed Dee.
"Well, anyhow, we won't be beau-crazy Juniors like last year's class," declared Dum. "Did you ever see such a lot of boy grabbers in your life?"
"I can't fancy our being grabby about boys, but I tell you one thing," I laughed, "we are certainly much fonder of the male sex than we were a year ago. Boys are nice and I do like 'em, and I don't care who knows it, so there!"
Zebedee came in from his afternoon work just then and overheard the last of my remarks. "What's all this? Page confessing to a fondness for the opposite sex? You like boys, do you? Well, I am glad indeed of my eternal youth. I am nothing but a boy, eh, Dum," he said, tweaking his daughter's ear.
"Boy, indeed! You are nothing but a baby!"
"Well, I am a tired and hot baby and I thought I would find all of you old ladies dressed and ready to go to the Country Club with me for a game of tennis, a shower bath and supper afterwards on the terrace."
"Ready in a minute!" we chorused, and so we were.
Richmond was looking singularly attractive, I thought, as we spun along Franklin Street, in spite of the fact that most of the houses were closed for the summer and the female inhabitants off to the seashore or springs. Here and there a lone man could be seen spreading himself and his afternoon papers over his empty porch and steps, and occasionally a faithful wife was conspicuous by reason of the absence of other faithful wives. Usually she bore a conscious air of virtue and an expression that plainly said: "Am I not a paragon to be sticking it out with John?"
The trees, however, seemed to be flourishing in the masculine element, and in many places on that most beautiful of all streets the elms met overhead, forming a dark-green arch. There was a delicious odour of freshly watered asphalt and the streets were full of automobiles, all seeming to be on pleasure bent now that the day's work was over. A few carriages were making their stately way, but very few. The occupants of the carriages were as a rule old and fat. I thought I saw Cousin Park Garnett in one, with her cross, stupid, old pug dog on the seat by her, but we were just then engaged in placing ourselves liable to arrest by breaking the speed law, so I could not be quite sure. Dum was running the car and she always seemed to court arrest and fine.
"When I see a clear stretch of road in front of me I simply have to whoop her up a bit," she explained when Zebedee remonstrated with her.
"That's all right if you are sure you are out of sight of a cop, but I have no idea of going your bail if you are hailed to the Juvenile Court for speeding. A one hundred dollar fine would just about break me right now. I don't set much store by the eleventh commandment in anything but motoring, but in this thing of running a car it is mighty important: 'Don't get found out.' There's a cop now!"
Dum slowed up and looked very meek and ladylike as a mounted policeman approached us, touching his cap to Mr. Tucker in passing.
"Zebedee knows every policeman on the force," said Dum teasingly. "There is nothing like keeping in with the law."
"Certainly not, if a man happens to own two such harum-scarums as I do."
The Country Club was delightful, but they always are. When people club together to have a good out-door time and to give others a chance to do the same, a success always seems to be assured. Certainly that particular club was most popular and prosperous and although we heard repeatedly that everybody was out of town, there were, to my mind, a great many left. The tennis courts were full to overflowing before the evening light became too dim to see the balls, and the golf links had so many players it resembled more a croquet ground. I had never played golf and while the Tuckers all could, they did not care much for it, preferring the more strenuous game of tennis.
"I'm saving up golf for that old age that they tell me is sure to come some day," sighed Zebedee. "I don't really believe them."
None of us did, either. How could old age claim such a boy as Jeffry Tucker?
However, time itself was flying, and the one day and night I was to spend in Richmond with my friends passed in the twinkling of an eye. Before I realized it, it was really over, my vacation with the Tucker Twins was finished, and I was on the train for Milton, a volume of Alfred Noyes' latest poems in my suitcase for Father and a box of Martha Washington candy for Mammy Susan, who thought more of "white folkses' sto' candy" than of all the silks of the Orient or jewels of the Sultan of Turkey.
CHAPTER XXIV
A BREAD-AND-BUTTER LETTER
Milton, Va., August 3, 19 – .Dear Tuckers:
How can I ever tell you what a good time I have had with you? Maybe you know already by the glowing countenance I must have presented for the last month, only I can't believe it is really a month, it went flying by so fast. It took June tenants going out of Mrs. Rand's cottage and August tenants coming in to convince me that July was really gone, and still I don't see where it went.
Father met me at Milton, driving the colt as usual, only the colt is getting to be quite a staid and respectable roadster. Father says a country doctor's horse that can stay skittish very long is a wonder, with all of the hard driving he is forced to give him. He still shies at automobiles, but I truly believe it is nothing but jealousy. I don't think he is in the least afraid of them, but he thinks the automobile is snorting and puffing at him, and like a spirited animal, he wants to let the car know that he is perfectly ready to fight and orders coffee and pistols for two.
Mammy Susan was pathetically glad to see me. She is very grieved, however, over the new freckles on my nose and tried to make me bind cucumber peelings on that much-abused and perfectly inoffensive member. The dough mask is too fresh in my memory, however, for me to get myself messed up with anything else.
Our neighbor, Jo Winn, was at the station and in his shy, husky voice actually had the spunk to inquire after Dee. He says his cousin, Mr. Reginald Kent, is making good in New York, and in every letter he writes he has something to say of the deer hunt and the wonderful Miss Tucker who shot the stag. His sister, Sally Winn, is at her old trick of trying to die. It is her midnight hurry calls that have tamed the colt, so Father declares.
Bracken is looking very lovely and peaceful. Some of Father's old-maid cousins have just left; they were nice, soft ones, so Father really enjoyed having them. Next week Cousin Park Garnett is coming for her annual visitation. I told Father about Judge Grayson and the Turkey-tail Fan and he nearly died laughing. He says he is going to try reading his new book of Alfred Noyes to her and see what effect it will have on her.
Dear Cousin Sue Lee is coming tomorrow and all of us are delighted. She is the dearest and sweetest in the world. I do hope you will all motor down to Bracken while she is here. You simply must get to know one another.
Father is still regretting that he could not get to Willoughby. I think he works too hard and he says he knows he does, but what is a doctor to do? The people will get sick and will send for him.
Good-bye, my dear friends! I would feel depressed that our wonderful vacation together is over, if I did not have the future to look forward to and know that I will soon be back at school with the Tucker Twins!
Your best friend,PAGE ALLISON.CHAPTER XXV
BRACKEN IN AUGUST
It was good to be home and how easily I slipped back into being a child again! I could hardly believe I had been so grown-up for a month, going to hops and having a proposal and what not. I spent a great deal of my time driving around with Father, who was very pleased to have me. Sometimes we squeezed Cousin Sue Lee into the narrow-seated buggy and then we would have a jolly time. Cousin Sue seemed younger even than the year before. It was incredible that she should be nearly fifty. It was not that she looked so young, as her hair was turning quite gray, but she was so young in her attitude towards life.
We had to have our annual confab on the subject of clothes, and a catalogue from the mail order house was soon the chief in interest of all our literature.
"I can't think what I would have done last year if you had not taken hold for me, Cousin Sue. My clothes were so satisfactory."
I told her of poor Annie Pore and at her suggestion sent my little English friend a catalogue with things marked that I was going to order.
My order was almost a duplicate of the year before except that I did not need quite so many things, as I had a goodly number of middies left over and some shirt waists.
Miss Pinky Davis, our country sempstress, was sent for, and again Cousin Sue spent hours planning how best to cut up and trim the bolts of nainsook she had ordered from Richmond. She laughed at my awkwardness with a needle and declared I did regular "nigger sewing." I tried to whip lace, but no matter how clean my hands were when I started, I ended with a dirty knotted thread and the lace went on in little bunches with plain, tightly drawn spaces intervening.
"I declare, child, I don't believe Jimmy Allison himself could have done it any worse," she said, looking at my attempt to whip lace on a petticoat. Cousin Sue always called Father, Jimmy. "How do you get it so grubby?"
"It gets itself! I don't get it!" I exclaimed. "I washed my hands with lye soap so as to be sure they were clean, but they just seem to ooze dirt when I begin to sew."
"Well, in the first place you are sewing with a needle as big as a tenpenny nail and who ever heard of whipping on lace with thirty-six thread?" And my dear cousin patiently threaded me a finer needle with the proper thread and started me again. "Go from left to right, honey, you are not a Chinaman."
"No, you are a Zulu, my dear, and should go clothed as such," said Father, coming in to view our operations. "I believe even you could string beads for your summer costume and cut a hole in a blanket for winter."
"Well, I do hate to sew so, no wonder I can't do it. I want the clothes but I don't want them bad enough to make 'em myself."
"The time will come when you will like to sew," said Miss Pinky, her mouth full of pins.
"That sounds terribly sad," laughed Father. "What is going to make her like it, Miss Pinky?"
"Oh, the time will come when she will find it soothing to sew."
Miss Pinky snipped away with a great pair of sharp shears as nonchalantly as though she were cutting newspapers instead of very sheer organdy for another white dress that Cousin Sue had decided I must have. I never could see how she could tell where the scissors were going to cut next, they were so big and she was so little. Miss Pinky always reminded me of a paper doll, somehow. She seemed to have no thickness at all to her. Her profile was like a bas-relief and rather low relief at that. I remember when I was quite a little girl I examined her dress very carefully to see if it could be fastened on the shoulders in the manner of my paper dolls, with little folded-over flaps.
"Maybe it will, but it is certainly not soothing now. It makes me want to scream."
"Don't do it! Just put up that flimsy foolishness and come drive over to Milton with me. I think I'll drop in on poor Sally Winn before supper and maybe she will get through the night without me. We can call for the mail, too, and beat R. F. D. to it."
The Rural Free Delivery is a great institution in the country where persons cannot go for the mail, but sometimes it was a great irritation to us. Our mail was taken from the Post Office very early in the morning and did not reach us until quite late in the afternoon, the carrier circling all around the county before he landed at our box. "Come on, Sue, you can squeeze in and we can have a jolly drive."
We found Sally Winn up and very busy. As she had been snatched from a yawning grave only two nights before, we were rather astonished.
"Comp'ny's coming and I had to get up and put things to rights. I've stirred up a cake and set some Sally Lunn for supper, and while I was up I thought I had better preserve those peaches on the tree by the dairy before they got too ripe. They make the best tasting preserves of any peaches I ever saw. I am certainly going to fix a jar for you, Doctor. Don't let me forget it. I've got two of Aunt Keziah's children, she is raising, here helping me, but they are not much good for anything but just to run to the spring and wring the frying size chickens' necks." In writing I am perforce compelled to use a few periods, but not so Sally. She poured forth this flow of conversation with never a pause for breath or reply.
"The company that's coming is Reginald Kent, son of my first cousin once removed. He is a great hand at eating and made so much fuss over my cooking that it seemed like an awful pity for me to lay up in bed when he was here, although it may be the death of me to be up and doing and no doubt will bring on one of my spells."
"If it does," broke in my wily parent, "take a teaspoonful of that pink medicine out of the low flat bottle and repeat in half an hour. Be sure you do not take more than a teaspoonful and be very careful to have half an hour between doses."
Father told us afterwards that there was nothing in the pink medicine in the flat bottle but a most harmless and attenuated mixture of bromide, but he warned her to take the exact dose and wait the full half hour to make her feel it was a potent medicine that she must handle with great care so she would think it would make her well. There was nothing much the matter with Sally Winn but imagination; but imagination is sometimes more powerful than the most potent drugs, and Sally was just as sick as she thought she was, so Father said. He was wonderfully patient with her and treated her ailments as seriously as though they really existed. She had a leaky heart but there was a chance of her outliving her whole generation. Of course there was also a chance of her being taken away at any time, but Father considered the chance quite small as she seemed to be growing better as time went on instead of worse.
"Reginald Kent is hoping that those Tuckers will be back here when he comes on this visit, though he doesn't exactly say so. He just intimates it by asking if the Allisons have any visitors. He is a mighty likely young fellow and is getting on fine with his work. He really is coming down here on business in a way. He wants to get some illustrations of some of these views around here. He says he wants Aunt Keziah's cabin and some of the little darkeys, and he wants an inside view of old Aunt Rosana's and Uncle Peter's house."
Here Father stopped her long enough to say that he would go over to Milton for the mail and come back for Cousin Sue and me. We had not got in a word edgewise, but I never tried to when Sally once started. I should think that anyone who saw as few persons as she did would want to listen and find out things instead of imparting knowledge, but Sally just seemed to be full to overflowing and she simply had to let off steam before she could take on anything more. She wanted to know but she wanted more to let you know.
She told us all she could about Reginald Kent, which was on the whole rather interesting. Then she began on her turkeys and chickens and enlarged somewhat on the subject of Jo and his irritating way of keeping news to himself, and then with a bound she leapt upon her symptoms. I knew it was coming and bowed my head in resignation.
"It looks like if I get to studying about things that one of my spells is sure to follow. Now I have been thinking a lot lately about Reginald Kent's mother, my first cousin once removed, and the more I think of her the more I get to brooding. If you would believe me, in the night I got to trembling so that I could have sworn there was an earthquake going through the county. My bed fairly rocked. I had to call Jo. He gave me a dose of my pink medicine and it ca'med me some. Each time I get one of those attacks I hope it means the end, but somehow I always come back."
"But, Sally, why do you hope it is the end?" I asked. "I don't see why you want to die. It would be very hard on Jo if you should leave him."
"Why, child, dying is one of the things I have always wanted to do. I somehow feel that in the other life I'm going to be so happy. I dream I am dead sometimes and, do you know, I am always real pretty and have curly hair in that dream and lots of young folks around me who seem somehow to belong to me."
Poor Sally! I felt very sorry for her and so did Cousin Sue, whom I saw wiping a furtive tear away. I fancy Sally's life had been a very stale, flat and unprofitable one and she had formed the habit of looking upon death as at least a change, an adventure where she would be the heroine for once. I determined to come to see her oftener and try to bring some young life into her middle-aged existence.
Father brought us quite a bunch of mail. In it was a letter from Dee telling the good news that they were going to motor down to Bracken on Friday, the very next day, and stay over Sunday with us.
"Now you will know them and they will know you," I exclaimed, hugging Cousin Sue. "I am going to bring them over to see you, too," I promised Sally, noting her wistful expression.
Silent Jo Winn, who had come back from the station with Father, grinned with delight when he heard that the Tuckers were coming. I remembered on our memorable deer hunt of the winter before how Dee had won his shy heart and had actually made him talk just like other folks.
"I tell you what let's do," he ventured. "This young cousin of ours, Reginald Kent, is to be here to-night and he has to go over to Uncle Peter's cabin to take some pictures. What's the reason we couldn't all go on a picnic? We might fish in the river near Uncle Peter's, where Miss Dum Tucker shot her deer."
"Splendid!" from Cousin Sue and me. Cousin Sue was always in for a picnic.
Sally Winn gasped and clutched her heart until I thought we'd have to run for her pink medicine; but she pulled herself together. It was nothing but astonishment at the long speech from Jo. Jo actually stringing words together and getting up a picnic! It was too much for Sally, but she rose to the occasion with plans for a big lunch.
"I've a ham all cooked – and some blue Dominicker chickens that have just reached the frying size – I'll make some fried pies – and some light rolls – some Columbus eggs would eat good – and my pear pickle can't be beat, and a stem to every one so you can eat it without messing yourself up – "
"I have some news that is not quite so entrancing as yours, my dear," said Father, interrupting Sally's flow of eatables as he read from a fat, crested, vellum letter. "Cousin Park Garnett will be with us to-morrow, also."
"But she said Monday next, in her last letter!"
"She has changed her mind. She arrives on the afternoon train and will bring her pug with her."
"Pug!"
"Yes, it seems the pug is the reason for her coming sooner. The doctor thinks he needs a change of air."
"Heavens! And Dee is bringing Brindle, too!"
"Well, they'll have to fight it out."
"But, Father," I wailed, "can we go on and have the picnic?"
"Yes, my dear," broke in Cousin Sue. "I'll stay with Cousin Park."
"Indeed you won't!" declared Father. "Cousin Park can be invited to go to the picnic, which of course she will not do. She can just stay at home with Mammy Susan to wait on her and Miss Pinky Davis to listen to her, while the pug dog breathes in great chunks of change of air. I have some business to attend to over in the neck of the woods near Uncle Peter's, so I can land at the ford for dinner with you."
Father was a great comfort to me. He always took such a sane view of subjects. I was very uneasy for fear he might think we would have to stay at home because of Cousin Park, as he was very strict with himself and me, too, where hospitality to disagreeable relatives was concerned. Cousin Park, however, could be perfectly well taken care of at Bracken without us and there was no reason why we could not go on with our plans; certainly no reason why dear little Cousin Sue should have to forego the pleasure of the picnic to stay with a person who never lost an occasion to mention her Lee nose and her spinsterhood.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE PICNIC
The Tuckers arrived right on the dot with Cousin Park. I had hoped they would get in first, but Henry Ford had a blow out and they had to stop for repairs.
We always had to send for Cousin Park in a great old sea-going rockaway that was never pulled out of the carriage house except on state occasions. Father and I hated to ride in it as it always reminded us of funerals and Cousin Park. It was a low swung vehicle with high, broad mud guards and a peculiar swaying motion that was apt either to put you to sleep or make you very seasick, if you were inclined that way. It took two large strong plow horses to propel it. I don't know where Father got it but I do know that he had always had it. I believe there are no more built like it but its counterpart may be seen in museums. I used to play dolls in it when I was a kid, and on rare hilarious occasions when I had a companion we would get up great games of Jesse James and Dick Turpin and other noted highwaymen who would stop the coach and rob all the dolls.