DEE TUCKER MAKES A SALE
"Page!I've been eavesdropping! I declare I never meant to do it. I got into the swim of the conversation and somehow couldn't get out of it," cried Dee, blushing furiously. "I don't know what Zebedee would say if he knew it."
"Why, honey, that isn't eavesdropping!" I laughed. "Country people always listen to everything they can over the 'phone. That is the only way we have of spreading the news. I can assure you that perfectly good church members in our county make a practice of running to the telephone every time a neighbor's bell rings. How many were on the line when you cut in?"
"Three or four, I should say, I couldn't quite tell."
Then Dee told me the conversation she had overheard, making me a party to the crime of eavesdropping.
"Here comes Dick now, I do believe. He was the one who was all cranked up ready to come."
There was a great buzzing and hissing on the road as a disreputable looking Ford came speeding down the hill. I have never seen such a dilapidated car, and still it ran and made good time, too. There was not a square inch of paint left on its faithful sides, and the top was hanging down on one side, giving it the appearance of a broken-winged crow. The doors flapped in the breezes, and the mud-guards were bent and twisted as though they had had many a collision.
Dick, however, was spruce enough to make up for the appearance of his car. He had on a bright blue suit, the very brightest blue one can imagine coming in any material but glass or china; a necktie made of a silk U. S. flag, with a scarf pin which looked very like an owl with two great imitation ruby eyes; but I found on inspection it was the American Eagle. His shoes were very gay yellow and his socks striped red and white, carrying out the color scheme of his cravat.
I ducked behind my side of the counter leaving the field clear for Dee. She stood to her guns and gave the newcomer a radiant smile. She was there to sell goods for Annie Pore and sell them she would.
"Evenin'!"
"How do you do? What can I do for you?"
"Pretty day!"
"Yes, fine! Is there something I can show you?"
"Not so warm as yesterday and a little bit cooler than the day before!"
"Yes, that is so. We've got in a fresh cheese,—maybe you would like a few pounds of it."
"Looks like rain but the moon hangs dry."
"Oh, I hope it won't rain,—but maybe it will—let me sell you an umbrella,—they are great when it rains."
"We don't to say need rain for most of the crops, but it wouldn't hurt the late potatoes."
"Oh, I'm glad of that!"
"But the watermelons don't need a drop more.They are ripening fine,—rain would make them too mushy like. I'm going to ship a load of them next week. I 'low I'll get about three hundred off of that sandy creek bottom."
"Fine! Watermelons are my favorite berry."
Right there I exploded and the young man let out a great haw! haw! too that helped to break the ice, and also enabled Dee to stop her painful rejoinders to his polite small talk, and then he began to buy. I heard Annie and Sleepy as they hitched the horse at the post and I hoped devoutly the festive Dick would buy out the store before they got in.
Already he had purchased six cravats, a new coal skuttle, a much-decorated set of bedroom china, a bag of horse cakes, some canned salmon and a box of axle grease when Annie made her appearance.
She was looking so lovely that I did not blame Sleepy for having the expression of a hungry man. She was certainly good enough to eat.
"Oh, Page, we had such a wonderful drive! I am so afraid we were gone too long, but Georgesimply would not turn around." Annie was the only person who always called Sleepy by his Christian name.
"He was quite right. I have had the time of my life. Dee is helping me. She is in the other room now, selling a young man named Dick everything in the store. Don't butt in on her; let her finish her sales. Here come the others! They said they would be back to see you."
In came all the house-party and such a hugging and kissing and handshaking ensued as I am sure that little country store had never before witnessed.
"Oh, Annie, we miss you so!" cried Mary.
"Indeed we do!" from the others.
"Maybe I can be with you in a day or so," said Annie. "Father is going to try to return in a very little while."
"Well, until he does come back one of us is going to be with you every day," declared Dum. "Page and Dee need not think they are the only ones who are going to help."
Annie's eyes were full of happy tears. "Whathave I done to deserve so many dear friends?" she whispered to me.
"Nothing but just be your sweet self!" I answered. "I must peep in and see what Dee is doing to that poor defenseless Dick. I bet she has sold him a kitchen stove by this time."
Annie and I made our way into the outer room, where at the far end we could see Dick and Dee in earnest converse.
"It is a very excellent one," she was declaiming. "In fact, I am sure there is not a better one to be bought. It is air tight and water tight; of the best material; the latest style; the workmanship on it is very superior; the price is ridiculously low. Really I think all country people ought to have one in the house for emergencies. One never can tell when one will be needed and sometimes they are so difficult to get in a hurry."
"That's so!" agreed the enamored Dick. "But I reckon I could get this any time from old man Pore if I should need it."
"Oh, no! You see this is the only one in stock and somebody might come for this this verynight, and then where would you be if you needed it? Then even if you could get another one, it might not be nearly so attractive as this one. They are going up, too, all the time,—effect of the war. Of course this was bought when they were not so high, and I am letting you have advantage of the price we paid for it. After this they will be up at least forty per cent.—that's the truth. The war prices are something fierce."
"Ain't it the truth?"
"Yes, and then you might not be able to get another lavender one. I just know lavender would be becoming to you. I'd like to see you in a lavender one."
"Would you really now? That settles it then! I'll have to get old Pore to trust me, though, until I sell my melons."
"Oh, that's all right. Just whenever you feel like paying."
I was completely mystified. What on earth was that ridiculous girl selling to the young farmer? Annie was reduced to the limpness of a wet dishrag by what we had overheard. Thegiggles had her in their clutches and she could not speak.
"Do you think you can help me out with it?" asked the young man.
"Sure! It is not heavy yet."
Around the labyrinth made by the farming implements, stoves, etc., came the buyer and seller, he backing and she carefully guiding him. Between them they carried a long something; I, at first, could not make out what.
"A coffin!" I gasped.
Through the door they made their way into the store proper. Some colored customers had just come in and these fell back with expressions of curiosity and awe equally mingled on their black faces.
"Who daid? Who daid?" they whispered, but no one vouchsafed any information. Dee looked supernaturally solemn and Dick only wanted to get his latest purchase safely landed in his car.
The house-party had adjourned to the porch in front, and when the lugubrious processionemerged from the store the gaiety suddenly ceased. As Dick backed out, the young men doffed their caps and the girls bowed their heads. What was their amazement when Dee turned out to have hold of the other end. Every man sprang forward to take her place, but she sadly shook her head and held on to her job.
"It isn't heavy," she whispered.
Dum's eyes filled with tears. She thought with sadness that in a short while it would be heavy when it fulfilled its destiny. She was very proud of her twin that she should be so kind and helpful at such a time. How like Dee it was to be assisting this poor young man, who had perhaps lost some one near and dear to him!
No one spoke, but all remained reverently uncovered while the coffin was hoisted on the back seat of the ragged old car. The young men assisted in this, although Dee would not resign her place as chief mourner.
"Who daid? Who daid?" clamored the darkies who seemed to spring up from the ground,such a crowd of them appeared in the twinkling of an eye.
"I don't know," said Dum in a teary voice, "but isn't it sad?"
"'Tain't Miss Rena Lee 'cause I jes' done seed her headin' fer the sto'," declared a little pickaninny.
"She ain't a-trus'in' her bones ter Mr. Dick's artermobe. She done sayed she gonter dribe her ole yaller mule whar she gwinter go."
"Ain't de Lees got a boardner? Maybe it's de boardner," suggested a helpful old woman.
"Well, I wonder if it is! Here he come! I'm a-gwinter arsk him."
Dick came out laden with his other purchases.
"Lawsamussy! It mus' be de boardner an' all er her folks is a-comin' down, 'cause how come Mr. Dick hafter buy all them things otherwise? Look thar chiny an' coal skuttles an' what not!"
"Who daid, Mr. Dick? Who daid?"
"Nobody I know of!" grinned the young man.
"Ain't it de boardner?"
"What boarder?"
"Miss Rena's boardner!"
"Sister Rena hasn't any boarder that I know of. Here, get out of the road or I'll let you know who is dead!"
He took a fond farewell of Dee and cranking up his noisy car, he jumped to his seat and speeded home with the coffin and the coal skuttle bouncing up and down right merrily.
"Ain't nobody daid?" grieved a sad old woman.
"No! Nobody ain't daid!" snapped an old man. "Nobody ain't eben a-dyin'. Now that thar Dick Lee done bought up th' only carsket in the sto' an' my Luly is mighty low—mighty low."
"Sho-o' nuf I ain't heard tell of it. Is she in de baid?"
"Well, not ter say in de baid—but on de baid, on de baid. Anyhow 'tain't safe to count on her fer long. White folks is sho' graspin' these days. They is sho' graspin'."
The old man departed on his way grumbling.
"Caroline Tucker, what did you sell that coffinto that young man for?" demanded Dum sternly.
"Just to see if I could, Virginia Tucker. I told him I'd like to see him in a coffin lined with lavender, and he was so complimented, he immediately bought it to keep for a rainy day."
Dee and I had made so many sales that Annie had to send a telegram informing her father of the diminished stock. It was necessary to order another coffin immediately in case the ailing Luly might need it.
THE HUMAN FLY
General Pricewas vastly amused over the account of Dee's sale of the coffin to the amiable Dick. Miss Maria was frankly shocked, and Miss Wilcox amazed and a little scornful.
"I never cared for slumming," she announced that night when we had retired to the girls' wing.
"But helping Annie Pore keep store is not slumming," said Dee, the dimple in her chin deepening.
Dee Tucker had a dimple in her chin just like her father. When father and daughter got ready for a fight, those dimples always deepened.
"Most kind of you, I am sure, although that sort of adventure never appealed to me. I have taught in the mission school in New York's East Side, but when the class is over I always leave. I can't bear to mix with the lower classes. It is all right to help them but not by mixing."
"But you don't understand,—Annie Pore is one of our very best friends. She is not the lower classes. She is better born than any of us and prettier and better bred and more accomplished——"
"Ah, indeed! I should like to behold this paragon."
"Well, you shall behold her all right! She is going to join us here in a day or so."
Jessie Wilcox looked very much astonished and quite haughty. She could not understand the Prices asking such a person to meet her. The daughter of a country storekeeper was hardly one whom she cared to know socially. Dee had gone about it the wrong way to make the spoiled beauty look with favor on the little English girl:—prettier, better born, better bred, indeed! As for accomplishments: what accomplishments could a dowdy little country girl have that she had not?
The Tuckers and Jessie Wilcox were not hitting it off very well in the great bedroom which they shared. Dum had declared she would notmove the fluffy finery which was spread out on her bed and she stuck to her word.
"What are you going to do with these duds?" she asked rather brusquely.
"Oh, you just put them back in my trunk," drawled the spoiled roommate.
"Humph! You had better ring for your maid. I'm not much on doing valet work."
With that she caught hold of the four corners of the bedspread and with a yank deposited the whole thing adroitly on the floor, butter side up.
Dee told me afterwards that Jessie's expression was one of complete astonishment. She was not used to being treated like the common herd. Much Dum cared! She got into the great four-posted bed with perfect unconcern, while Dee tactfully helped the pouting Jessie to hang up her many frocks.
"She had better be glad I didn't go to bed on them," stormed the unrepentant Dum when she told me about it. "As for Dee: I was disgusted with her for being so mealy-mouthed. Catch me hanging up anybody's clothes! I bet you onething,—I bet you she keeps her fripperies off my bed after this."
I was in a way sorry for Jessie. I know it must be hard to be a spoiled darling turned loose with the Tucker twins. They were always perfectly square and fair in all their dealings, but they demanded squareness and fairness in others. Jessie was evidently accustomed to being waited on and admired, and the Tuckers refused to do either of these things necessary for the happiness of their roommate. She had always chosen her friends with a view to setting off her own charms, girls who were homely, less vivacious, duller. It did not suit her at all to be outshone in any way. She was certainly the prettiest girl in the house-party, that is, before Annie arrived, but she was not the most attractive. There never were more delightful girls in all the world than the Tucker twins, witty, charming, vivacious, and very handsome. I could see their development in the two years I had known them and realized that they were growing to be very lovely women.
Mary Flannagan was nobody's pretty girl butshe had something better than beauty, at least something that proves a better asset in life: extreme good nature and a sense of humor that embraced the whole universe. She had humor enough to see a joke on herself and take it. That, to me, is the quintessence of humor. Wherever Mary was there also were laughter and gaiety. She had a heart as big as all Ireland, from which country she had inherited her wit as well as her name.
Mary was not quite so bunchy as she had been. Two years had stretched her out a bit, but she would always be something of a rolypoly. She was as active as a cat, and so determined was she to end up as a character movie actress she never stopped her limbering-up exercises. After I would get in bed at night she would begin. She would turn somersaults, stand on her head, walk on her hands, do cart-wheels, bend the crab, fall on the floor at full length and do a hundred other wonderful stunts.
"I am so plain I'll have to go in for slap-stick comedy and maybe work up to the legit., but goin I will. Why, Page, there is oodlums of money in movies and think of the life!"
"I can see you, Mary, as a side partner to Douglas Fairbanks. Can you climb up a wall like a fly?" I laughed.
"No-o, not yet but soon! I can't get much practice in wall scaling. I am dying to try this wall outside our window. It is covered with ivy and would be easy as dirt, I know," and she poked her head out the window, gazing longingly at the tempting perpendicularity of the wall beneath.
Mr. Thomas Hawkins, alias Shorty, thought Mary was just about the best chum a fellow could have, and great was his joy when Fate landed him at the same country house with the inimitable Mary. Shorty, too, had made out to grow a bit since first we saw him make the great play in the football game at Hill Top. He was a very engaging lad with his tousled mane, rosy cheeks and clear boy's eyes.
"Is Shorty going to get into the movies, too?" I teased.
"No,—navy!"
"Oh, how splendid! I didn't know he had decided."
"Yes! He has talked to me a lot about it," said Mary quite soberly.
"What do you think about it?"
"Me? Why, I think our navy is going to have to be enlarged and I can't think of anybody better suited to it than Shorty. He is a descendant of Sir John Hawkins, you know, and that means seafaring blood in his veins."
How little did Mary and I think, as we lay in that great four-post bed and wisely discussed preparedness, that our country would really be at war in not so very many months, and that Shorty's entering the navy would be a very serious matter to all of his friends, if not to him.
No thoughts of war were disturbing us. The great war was going on, but then we were used to that and we were too young and thoughtless for it to bother us. It was across the water and no one we knew personally was implicated. Maxton was too peaceful a spot for one to realize thatsuch a thing as bloodshed could go on anywhere in all the world. Our great room with its two huge beds and massive wardrobe, bureau and washstand, had once sheltered Washington and later on Lafayette; and then as the ages had rolled by, General Lee had visited the Prices and had slept in the very bed where Mary and I were lying so sagely and smugly arguing for preparedness. Perhaps the mocking-bird that every now and then gave forth a silvery trill in the holly tree near our window was descended from the same mocking-bird that no doubt had sung to the great warrior as he lay in the four-poster.
How quiet it was! A whippoorwill gave an occasional cry away off in the woods, and once I heard the chugging of a small steamboat puffing its way up the river, and then a little later the swish swash on the shore of the waves made by the stern wheel. But for that, the night was absolutely still.
"Page," whispered Mary, "are you asleep?"
"Fortunately not, or I'd be awake," I laughed.
"I'm thinking about getting up and trying toscale that wall. I am 'most sure I could do it with all that ivy to dig my toes in."
"Why don't you wait until morning?"
"Because I don't want an audience. It is best to practice these stunts without anyone looking."
"Suppose you fall!"
"That's something movie actresses have to expect. I won't fall far if I do fall."
"Will you mind if I look on?"
"No, indeed! I can pretend you are the director."
Everything was as quiet as the grave when Mary bounced out of bed to practice her stunt. I followed, nothing loath to see more of the wonderful night. Some nights are too beautiful to waste in sleeping. It has always seemed such a pity to me that we could not fill up on sleep in disagreeable weather, and then when a glorious moonlight night arrives, be able to draw on that reserve fund of sleep and just sit up all night.
"Isn't it splendid out on the lawn? And only look at the river in the moonlight. I'd certainlylike to be out there in a boat this minute with some very nice interesting person to recite poetry to me," I mused.
"I heard Wink White begging you to take a row with him."
"Yes, but I see myself doing it."
"Don't you like him?" asked Mary, sitting in the window ready for the trial descent.
"Of course I like him, but he's such a goose."
"Shorty thinks he is grand."
"So he is—grand, gloomy, and peculiar. If he'd only not be so sad and lonesome when he is with me."
"Of course all of us have noticed how different he is with you, never laughing and joking as he does with us but sighing like a furnace. But here goes! This is no time for analyzing the character of young Doctor Stephen White,—this is a play of action."
"But, Mary, ought you try to climb down in your nighty? It might get tangled around your feet."
"Oh, but the movie ladies always have to getout of windows in their nighties. I must practice in costume to get used to it."
"Barefooted, too?"
"Of course! I need all these toes to hang on by. Next time I am going to have my ch-e-i-ild, but this first time perhaps I had better not try to carry anything."
"I should think not,—but, Mary, do be careful."
I was looking down the perpendicular wall and it began to seem to me to be a crazy undertaking. The vines were very thick and would no doubt offer a foot-rest to the daring girl, but suppose she lost her head or the vine pulled loose from the wall!
It is a much easier matter to climb up and get in a window than it is to get out of one and climb down. There is something very scary about projecting one's bare foot into the unknown. Mary, however, was too serious in her desire to perfect herself for her chosen profession to stop and wiggle her toes with indecision. She was out of the window in a moment. I held my breath.
I ALMOST BEAT MARY TO THE GROUND I LEANED SO FAR OUT OF THE WINDOW.I ALMOST BEAT MARY TO THE GROUND I LEANED SO FAR OUT OF THE WINDOW.Page 74.
"Oh, God save her! Oh, God save her!" I whispered.
"Fireman, save my ch-e-i-ild!" came back in sibilant tones from Mary.
I couldn't help laughing although I was trembling with fright. I almost beat Mary to the ground I leaned so far out of the window. Sometimes the thick ivy hid her from my sight and again she would loom out very white in the moonlight.
Down at last! I felt like shouting for joy. Now began the ascent which was a small matter compared to the descent.
When the climber was about half-way up, I suddenly became aware of figures on the edge of the lawn. "The servants returning from church," I thought. Harvie had told me that "big meetin'" was going on and his aunt was quite concerned about her servants, as they had a way of taking French leave at "big meetin'" time. With the house-party in session, a paucity of servants would be quite serious. Extra inducements had been offered and thewhole corps had promised to remain, taking turn about in getting off early for night church.
Anyone who has lived in the country, where colored servants are the only ones, knows what a serious time "big meetin'" can be. The whole negro population seems to go mad in a frenzy of religious fervor. Crops that are inconsiderate enough to ripen at that period remain ungathered; the washwoman lets soiled clothes pile up indefinitely; cooks refuse to cook; housemaids have a soul above sweeping; cows go dry for lack of milking; horses go uncurried and vehicles unwashed and ungreased.
I smiled when I saw that straggling group returning from church, knowing they would not be fit for any very arduous tasks the next day. I remembered how Mammy Susan used to berate our darkies for their delinquencies on days following meetings. As the churchgoers approached the house, which they had to pass to reach the quarters on the other side of the great house, they suddenly became aware of Mary'swhite figure hanging midway between heaven and earth.
Shouts and groans arose! One woman fell to the ground and, regardless of her finery, rolled on the grass imploring her Maker to save her. I trembled for fear Mary would fall, but she clung to the vine and scrambled up and in the window. The darkies ran like frightened rabbits.
"They thought you were a ghost, I believe."
"Well, I came mighty near giving up the ghost. When I heard those groans I thought something had me sure," panted the great actress, looking ruefully at a long rent in her very best nighty. "I did it all right, but being a great movie actress who is to play opposite Douglas Fairbanks is certainly hard on one's rags. Look, here's another tear! Another and another! I did that when the first darky squealed."
Of course we went to bed giggling.
"I wish Tweedles had seen you, but they would not have been willing to be mere audience. As for me,—I have no desire to be classified asa human fly. I wonder if we will hear some wild tale from those silly darkies."
But Mary was fast asleep before she could express her opinion. I could not sleep until I got the following limerick out of my system:
The Human Fly
Our Mary, an actress so flighty,Scaled a wall in her very best nighty.A nail proved a snagAnd tore her fine rag,She came back a la Aphrodite.
"BIG MEETIN'"
I awakenedearly the next morning in spite of having been manager of a movie studio at all hours of the night. Mary was sleeping heavily. After all, I fancy climbing up and down a brick wall is harder than merely watching someone else do it. She had a big scratch across her cheek and her thumb had bled on the pillow. She must have snagged it on the same nail she had her best nighty. I peeped out of my eastern window and found Dum Tucker was doing the same thing from hers.
"Hello, honey! I'm so glad you're awake," she whispered. "Let's dress and go out."
"Is Dee asleep?"
"Sound! And the Lady Jessie is likewise snoozing, not looking nearly so pretty with her hair up in curl papers and her face greased with cold cream. I bet I can beat you dressing!"
We sprang from our doors into the hall at the same time and feeling sure we were the only ones awake in all the great mansion, we had the never-to-be-scorned joy of sliding down the bannisters. I'd hate to think I could ever get so old I wouldn't like to slide down bannisters. Of course I know I shall some day get too old to do it, but not too old to want to.
We ran out the great back door which opened on the formal garden.
"My, I'm glad we waked! I was nearly dead to sit up all night," said Dum.
"Me, too! Mary and I were awake very late. Did you hear anything?"
"Did I!"
"What did you hear?"
"A strange scratching along the wall,—I thought it was a whole lot of snakes climbing up to our window. There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of, and that is snakes."
"Mammy Susan says that 'endurin' of the war, they is sho' to be mo' snakes than in peaceable times.' Of course she has no idea that this war isaway off across the water, and if it were inclined to breed snakes, it wouldn't breed them over here. But that snake you heard last night was Mary Flannagan scaling the wall. She is practicing all the time for the movies."
"Pig, not to call us!"
"I was dying to, but was afraid of raising too much rumpus."
The garden was beautiful at all times, but at that early hour it was so lovely it made us gasp. A row of stately hollyhocks separated the flower garden from the vegetables. Banked against the hollyhocks were all kinds of old-fashioned garden flowers: bachelor's buttons, wall-flowers, pretty-by-nights, love-in-a-mist, heliotrope, verbena, etc. There was a thick border of periwinkle whose glossy dark green leaves enhanced the brilliancy of the plants beyond. One great strip was given up entirely to roses,—and such roses!
"Gee! This is the life!" cried Dum, kneeling down among the roses, going kind of mad as usual over the riot of color. Dum's love of colorand form amounted to a passion. "Only look at the shape of this bud and at the color way down in its heart. Oh, Page, I am so glad we came out! Only think, this rosebud might have opened and withered with not a soul seeing it if we had not happened along:
"'Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear—Full many a flower is born to blush unseenAnd waste its sweetness on the desert air.'"
"I wonder where the servants are?" I queried. "At this hour in the country they are usually beginning to get busy. I tell you, Mammy Susan has 'em hustling by this time at Bracken."
"I'm hungry as a bear! Don't you think we might get the old cook to hand us out a crust?" suggested Dum. "Getting up early always makes me famished."
"Sure! She is a nice-looking old party and no doubt would be as pleasant as she looks. Her name is Aunt Milly."
We made our way to the kitchen, determined to return to the garden to enjoy the crust orwhatever the cook might see fit to give us. A covered way connected the summer kitchen with the wing of the house where the dining-room was. This open passage was covered with a lovely old vine, one not seen in this day and generation except in old places: Washington's bower. It is a very thick vine that sends forth great shoots that fall in a shower like a weeping willow. It has a dainty little purple blossom that the bees adore, and these turn later intosquishy, bright red berries. The trunk of this vine is very thick and sturdy and twists itself into as many fantastic shapes as a wisteria.
The kitchen was built of logs; in fact it was the original homestead of the family, having been erected by the earliest settlers at Price's Landing. Later on it had been turned into a kitchen when the mansion had been built. The great old fireplace with its crane and Dutch oven was still there, although the cooking was now done on a modern range. This black abomination of art, but necessity of the up-to-date housekeeper, was smoking dismally as we came in.
"Aunt Milly, please give me a biscuit!" cried Dum to a fat back bending over the table.
The owner of the back straightened up and turned. It was not Aunt Milly, but Miss Maria Price!
"Oh!" was all we could say.
The sedate black-silked and real-laced lady of the day before presented a sad spectacle when we made that early morning raid on the Maxton larder. In place of the handsome black silk she wore a baggy lawn kimono, and the fine lace cap had given place to a great mob cap that set off her moon-like face like a sunflower. Her countenance was so woebegone that it distressed us and two great tears were squeezing their way from her sad eyes.
"Why, Miss Price! Please excuse us," I said, seeing that Dum was speechless.
"Oh, my dear, it is all right now that you have seen me out here in this wrapper. These good-for-nothing darkies have one and all sent me word they are sick this morning and cannot come to work, and here I am with no breakfast cooked.I am so distressed that Harvie's friends should not be well served. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
"Do! Why, let all of us help," exclaimed Dum.
"Let his guests help! Why, my dear, I could not bear to do such a thing."
"Well, you could bear to let us help a great deal better than we could bear having you work yourself to death and let us be idle," said I, putting my arm around her fat neck, that was just about the right height to put one's arm around. Her waist was out of the question, being not only so low down that I should have had to stoop to reach it but invisible at that, since it was, as I have said before, only an imaginary line.
"I have never before in all the fifty years I have been keeping house at Maxton had to make a fire. I have done the housekeeping since Ma died. My sister-in-law, Harvie's grandmother, was too delicate to keep house, so I have always done it. I know exactly how things should be done but I have never had to do them. Therehas always been a cook in the kitchen at Maxton.—This is the first time.—And to think it should come to pass when Harvie's friends are here. I was opposed to having the house-party during big meeting. There is never any depending on the darkies at that time.—Oh me! Oh me!"
"Now, Miss Price," I said, placing a chair behind her and gently pushing her heaving bulk into it, "you are to sit right here and tell Dum Tucker and me what to do. We love to do it."
"But, child——"
"First, let me pull out the dampers," I suggested, suiting the action to the word and thereby stopping the smoking of the range. "Now mustn't the rolls be made down?" I asked, seeing a great pan on the table with the lid sitting rakishly on one side of a huge mass of dough, already risen beyond its bounds.
"Yes, but I——"
"Let me do that. I love to fool with dough."
"But do you know how?"
"Of course I know how."
After a scrubbing of hands made grubby by a weed I had pulled up in the garden, I began to make down the rolls after the manner approved by Mammy Susan, that most exacting of teachers.
"Now what can I do?" demanded Dum.
"You must sit still and tell us what next, and after we get things under way if you want the other girls to help, I'll call them."
"The breakfast table must be set,—but, my dears, I can't bear to have guests working! Such a thing has never been known at Maxton!"
Dum hastened to the dining-room where she exercised her own sweet will in the setting of the table. First she had the joy of cutting a bowl of roses for the center. She found mats and napkins in the great oldSheratonsideboard, and Canton china that Miss Price told her was the kind to use. The silver was still in the master's chamber where it was taken every night by the butler and brought out every morning by that dignified functionary. I think the non-appearance of the butler was almost as greata blow to Miss Price as the defection of the cook.
"Jasper has been with us since before the war and the idea of his behaving this way!" she moaned. "I did not expect anything more from these flighty maids and the yard boy,—they have only been here five or six years,—but Milly and Jasper!"
"But maybe they are ill," I said, trying to soothe her hurt feelings.
"I don't believe a word of it! How could five of them get ill at once? More than likely that trifling Willie, the yard boy, has got religion. Milly told me he was 'seeking' and I have known there was something the matter with him lately, he has been so utterly worthless," and our hostess heaved a sigh with which I could thoroughly sympathize. I well knew that a "seeking" servant was but a poor excuse.
"How well you do those rolls, my child! Who taught you?"
Then I told Miss Maria of my old mammywho had been mother and teacher and nurse for me since I was born.
I shaped pan after pan of turnovers and clover-leaves and put them aside for the second rising.
"What next?"
Miss Maria had decided to give over sighing and bemoaning, also apologizing for letting us work. She evidently came to the conclusion that the headwork had to go on and it was up to her to get busy in that line, at least. Dum and I were vastly relieved that she consented to sit still, as she took up so much room when she moved around that she retarded our progress quite a good deal. Seated in a corner by the table, she could tell us what to do without interrupting traffic.
Herring must be taken out of soak and prepared for frying; batter bread must be made; apples must be fried (she did the slicing); coffee must be ground; chicken hash must be made after a recipe peculiar to Maxton, with green peppers sliced in it and a dash of sherry wine.
The cooking part was easy, but keeping up the fire has always been too much for my limited intelligence. Wood and more wood must be poked in the stove at every crucial moment. In the midst of beating up an omelette one must stop and pile on more fuel. Peeping in the oven the rolls may be rising in regular array with a faint blush of brown appearing on each rounded cheek; the batter bread may be doing as batter bread should do: the crust rising up in sheer pride of its perfection sending forth a delicious odor a little like popcorn;—but just then the joy of the vainglorious cook will take a tumble,—the fire must be fed.
"Now is this what you had planned for breakfast, Miss Maria? You see we have got everything under way, and if there was anything else I can do it," I asked.
"Of course no breakfast is really complete without waffles," sighed the poor lady, "at least, that is what my brother thinks. He will have to do without them this morning, though."
"Why? I can make them and bake them!"
"But, child, you must be seated at the table with the other guests. I could not let you work so hard."
"But I love to cook! Please let me!"
"All right, but who can bring the hot ones in? It takes two to serve waffles. I, alas, am too fat to go back and forth."
"Of course I am going to wait on the table," cried Dum, "and when I drop in my tracks, the other girls can go on with the good work."
"Well, well, what good girls you are! I have been told that the girls of the present time are worthless and I am always reading of their being so inferior to their mothers, but I believe I must have been misinformed."
"I hope you have been," laughed Dum. "My private opinion is that we are just about the same,—some good and some not so good; some bad and some not so bad. Anyhow, I am sure that there is not a girl on this party who would not be proud to help you, or boy, either, for that matter."
"We shall have to call the boys to our aid, too,I am afraid," said Miss Maria, glancing ruefully at the wood-box. "The wood is low and we can't cook without wood, eh, Page?"
"Won't I love to see them go to work," and Dum danced up and down the kitchen waving a dish-cloth.
The quiet mansion was astir now. The rising bell had routed the sleepy heads out of their beds, and from the boys' wing came shouts of the guests who were playing practical jokes on one another or merely making a noise from the joy of living. Dee and Mary found us in the kitchen and roundly berated us for not calling them in time to help. Dee reported that Jessie Wilcox was still in the throes of dressing.
"One of you might go pull some radishes and wash them and peel them," suggested Miss Maria.
Dee was off like a flash and came back with some parsley, too, to dress the dishes.
"Mary, get the ice and see to the water," was the next command from our general. "I must go now and put on something besides this oldwrapper," and our aristocratic hostess sailed to the house, her lawn wings spread.
Our next visitor was General Price himself, very courtly and very apologetic and very admiring. He had just learned of the defection of the servants when he called for his boots and they were not forthcoming. Jasper had blacked his boots and brought them to his door every morning for half a century, but no Jasper appeared on that morning. The boots remained unblacked.
Another duty of the hitherto faithful butler had been to concoct for his master and the guests a savory mint julep in a huge silver goblet. This was sent to the guest chambers and every lady was supposed to take a sip from the loving cup. It was never sent to the boys, as General Price frequently asserted that liquor was not intended for the youthful male, and that he for one would never have on his soul that he had offered a drink to a young man. He seemed to have a different feeling in regard to the females, thinking perhaps that beautiful ladies (and all ladies were beautifulladles in his mind) would never take more than the proffered sip.
On that morning during the big meeting General Price must make his own julep. This he did with much pomp and ceremony, putting back breakfast at least ten minutes while he crushed ice and measured sugar and the other ingredients which shall be nameless. A wonderful frost on the silver goblet was the desired result of the crushed ice. The mint protruding from the top of the goblet looked like innocence itself. The odor of the fresh fruit mingling with the venerable concoction of rye was delicious enough to make the sternest prohibitionist regret his principles.
"Now a sip, my dear; the cook must come first," he said, proffering me the completed work of art.
"Oh no, General Price! I might not take even a sip if I am to cook waffles. I might fall on the stove."
"A sip will do you good, just a sip!" he implored.
It was good and just a sip did not do me any harm. I had not the heart to deny the courtly old man the pleasure of indulging in this rite that was as much a part of the daily routine as having his boots blacked and brought to his door or conducting family prayers.
"Delicious!" I gasped.
"More delicious now than it was," he declared, "since those rosy lips have touched the brim," and then he quoted the following lines with old-fashioned gallantry: