THE SPREAD.
Saturday night was a great time for spreads as there was no study hall on that evening and the girls could come early and stay late. A grand feast was in preparation at 117 Carter Hall. Mr. Tucker had sent a box that had passed inspection at the office, although it was filled with contraband articles; but as he wrote Tweedles, they wouldn't make rules if they did not expect them to be broken.
"My, I'm glad Miss Peyton doesn't put us on our honor not to have cake and such," said Dee as she opened up a box stamped with the name of a well-known drygoods firm and plainly marked in a masculine hand: "Virginia's Shoes, the fourth pair she has had since Spring and she must be more careful and have her old ones half-soled."
"Isn't old Zebedee a peach? Look! Tangosandwiches!" (The catalogue to Gresham plainly says: "Nothing but crackers, fruit and simple candy is allowed to be eaten in the rooms.")
"Here are olives done up to look like shoe polish," said I, diving into the big box. "And what is this big round parcel at the bottom?" On it I read: "Caroline's winter hat. I think you are a very vain girl to insist on your winter hat just to wear it home on the train for Christmas. I hope it is not mashed but think it would serve you right for thinking so much about your appearance." The hat proved to be a great caramel cake, stuck all over with English walnuts, packed so carefully it was not a bit mashed. Jars of pickle masqueraded shamelessly as Uneeda Biscuit, being ingeniously pasted up in the original wrappers. Cream cheese and pimento sandwiches came dressed as graham wafers; and a whole roasted chicken had had a very comfortable journey buttoned up in Dum's old sweater, with a note pinned over its faithful breast saying that Dum must make out with that sweater for another season as Mr. Tucker could not put up with her selfish extravagance.
We heard afterward that Miss Sears, whose duty it had been to inspect this box before it was delivered to the girls, had said that she was surprised to find that Mr. Jeffry Tucker did not spoil the twins nearly so much as she had been led to believe. In fact, he seemed to be rather strict with them and quite critical. For instance, an old sweater that he expected Dum to wear through the season was not really fit to be seen in!
There were several boxes of candy, besides all the other goodies. They were all marked peppermint but were really candied fruit, chocolates, nougat and what not.
"I tell you, Zebedee is some provider when he gets started," said Dee. "I'm glad I didn't eat much dinner and I intend to eat no supper at all."
We were taking stock of our eatables before supper bell so we could see how many girls we could invite to the spread. It was etiquette at Gresham to give a girl fair warning when a spread was under way, so she could save space and not go and fill up in the dining-room. Wewanted to avoid feeling like the old countryman who had his first experience with a table d'hôte dinner. Not knowing there was to be so much following the first course, he ate too much of it, and afterward loudly lamented: "Thar I sot chock full er soup."
Annie Pore was, of course, on the list and funny little Mary Flannigan and the two Seniors, Sally Coles and Josephine Barr. They had been especially nice to our crowd and we were anxious to show them some attention. That made seven in all.
"We've really got food for one more or even two," declared Dee, "but maybe we had better go easy because there is really not room for more."
117 was rather crowded with the three beds, two bureaus, three chairs and a table, and seven girls would just about fill it to overflowing. It did not look like the bare cell that had so appalled us on our day of entering Gresham. We now had a scrim curtain at the window; rugs on the floor; Tweedles had pretty Roman blankets on their beds with bright sofacushions; while I had a beautiful log cabin quilt that Sally Winn had pieced for me in between her different death throes. The walls were literally covered with pennants from many schools and colleges with a few pictures that Dum had stuck in her trunk, purloined from their apartment in Richmond.
"I don't believe Zebedee will ever miss them, and they mean a lot to me," she had said when Dee had expressed astonishment on her producing them from her trunk. "I am so constituted that I've just got to have something beautiful to look at every now and then." The room was pleasant and cozy but the crowded walls rather got on my nerves. Bracken was so big and simple (some people would have called it bare) that I could not get used to such a conglomeration in a bedroom. I kept my taste to myself, however, as they were two to one, and no doubt my ideas of decoration were very old-fashioned and out of date.
Sally Coles and Jo Barr, whom we sought out before supper, were glad to accept and vowed they would eat not a bite before the feast sothat they could come perfectly empty. Of course Annie Pore and Mary Flannigan were holding themselves in readiness for the arrival of the promised box from Mr. Tucker, and the news of its having come safely to hand was greeted with enthusiasm.
You get tired of any steady food except home food and sometimes you think you are tired of that, but as a rule you are pretty glad to get back to it. I fancy the table at Gresham was kept up about as well as any boarding school, but we knew that as sure as Tuesday was coming, roast veal was coming, too; and Wednesday would bring with it veal potpie; Thursday, beefsteak; and Friday, fish; Saturday, lamb stew with dumplings; Sunday, roast chicken; and Monday, not much of anything. This certainty bored us, and sometimes I used to think if I couldn't find something in the potpie besides veal, I'd scream. I had to do a lot of looking at the mountains on Wednesday, somehow.
A spread was a godsend, and an invitation to one was not as a rule given in vain. As Sally Coles and I fox-trotted together in the Gymafter supper, she whispered in my ear: "It's certainly good of you kids to ask Jo and me. We're crazy about coming."
"We think it's pretty nice of you Seniors to come. You didn't even know we are to have caramel cake, either, did you?" I answered.
"Heavens, no! I'm mighty glad we didn't accept Mabel Binks's bid to a Welsh rarebit in her room. We fibbed and told her we had a partial engagement. It was just with each other but we didn't tell her that, and now you Sophomores have saved our souls by making our imaginary engagement a real one. I hate to tell even a white lie, but I'd hate a deal more to have to go to a spread of Mabel Binks's giving. Don't you know the hammers will be flying to-night? Can't you hear Mabel and those rapid Juniors she runs with knocking everything and everybody?"
"Yes, I reckon the only way to save your skin is to stay with her and help knock. But how does she manage a rarebit when we are not allowed to have chafing dishes?"
"Manages the same way you and the Tuckers manage to have caramel cake, I fancy. We arenot allowed to have cake, either. Of course it is easier to hide a cake than it is a chafing dish, especially if the cake is sliced and there are a half-dozen empty girls to help. I believe some of the girls keep their chafing dishes under their mattresses. Did you hide your cake well before you came down to supper? It would be the psychological moment for some busybody to make an inspecting tour—and then, good-by, cake!"
"Oh, you scare me to death!" and I grabbed Dee, who was whirling by, trying a brand new step with a giddy Junior, and, whispering Sally's warning to her, we beat a hasty retreat. Our beloved cake was on the table covered with a napkin just as we had left it, seemingly, but on raising the cloth we discovered that a great wedge had been cut out of it.
"Well, of all the mean tricks!" spluttered Dee. "Who do you s'pose——?"
"Thank goodness, they only took about a fourth! What is left is enough to give all seven of us fever blisters. Caramel cake with nuts in it always gives me fever blisters," I laughed.
"But I don't mind. I'll take the cake, fever blisters and all, every time."
"Me, too! Well, I hope that the thief will have a mouth full of them," said Dee vindictively.
"Well, honey, it's a sight better to have some mean girl take off one fourth than some teacher in her mistaken zeal take off the whole thing and give us demerits, besides. Here's your handkerchief," I said, picking up a little pink crêpe de Chine one from the floor.
"Not mine, I don't possess such a thing. Don't you know Zebedee and Dum and I use the same sized handkerchiefs? When we want a handkerchief, we want a handkerchief, not a little pink dab. It must be yours."
"No, I haven't any crêpe de Chine ones. Here's an initial—B. It certainly is scented up." The finishing touch to Mabel Binks's costume on the afternoon we had seen the game at Hill-Top came back to me suddenly: the strong odor of musk. The handkerchief smelt exactly the same way.
"Well, Dee, I reckon it won't take a Sherlock Holmes to say who took the cake, now. Let's not give her back her hanky until to-morrow. If we took it to her to-night she would know that we are on to her, and she would be just mean enough to peach on us and have our cake seized." So we determined, like Dee and Prosper le Gai, to "bide our time."
What a spread we did have and what fun! Dum turned up with two more girls, members of our class, and there was enough and to spare. Mr. Tucker was as lavish as Mammy Susan herself. We had no plates or glasses, but we had plenty of box tops for dishes and our toothbrush mugs served as loving cups to drink the very sour lemonade Dee made in the water pitcher. The same knife carved the chicken, then cut the cake. The olives, always difficult to extract from the bottle, were poured into the soap dish which I had scoured hard enough to suit the most squeamish.
"My, what good eats!" exclaimed Jo Barr. "And how did you ever smuggle that cake withinthe lines?" We showed her the wrapper it had come in and the stern note from Mr. Tucker.
"Well, if that doesn't beat all! I tell you there is nothing like being smart enough to keep the eleventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not get found out.' I had a whole fruitcake taken bodaciously from me last year. I am always breaking the eleventh." And that was so. Poor Jo always got caught up with.
"Well, I tell you one thing," said the wise Sally, "that cake had better skidoo until danger of inspection passes. Teachers are a suspicious lot."
I just got it whisked under a down cushion on Dee's bed when there was a sharp rap on the door. "Come in," we called in a chorus. It was Miss Sears, rather astonished at our ready invitation to enter.
"Oh, girls, having a spread, are you," glancing sharply at the innocent-looking packages of crackers and peppermint candy without coming all the way into the room. "Well, I hope you will have a nice time."
"Won't you join us, Miss Sears?" asked Dum sweetly.
"Oh, thank you, no. I am on inspection duty to-night," and she closed the door, never seeing that Jo had wrapped the roasted chicken up in a spangled scarf she was sporting. That chicken had had all kinds of dressing in its fat, young life: first its own feathers; then the dressing, which is really the un-dressing; then the dressing, which is really the stuffing; then Dum's old sweater; and now Jo's fine scarf.
We proceeded then to put the good, appetizing food where nothing short of an X-ray could inspect. So thorough were those nine girls that not a crumb of cake nor scrap of sandwich was left to tell on us. The chicken bones were some problem but we decided that if each girl took a bone and disposed of it, it would simplify matters somewhat. Sally got the wishbone and said she was going to gild it and put it on her "memory string."
When we had eaten to repletion, we demanded stunts from those gifted that way. Mary did adog fight and new turn she had just mastered: going like a mouse.
"I wish I could think it was a mouse who nibbled the cake," sighed Dum. "It kind of hurts me all over to feel that somebody did it."
"Well, if it was a mouse, I bet it sounded like this," and Mary imitated Mabel Binks's nasal speech until we almost had hysterics.
"Why do you fancy she took only a hunk instead of the whole cake?" I asked. "It would have been so much more like her to take it all."
"That's the reason she only took part. She thought by behaving out of character she would throw us off the scent," suggested Sally.
"Well, if she wanted to throw us off the scent, she shouldn't have dropped her handkerchief," said Dee. "But let's forget it and think of something pleasant. Annie, you sing, please," and she handed Jo's guitar to the blushing Annie. Annie was always embarrassed when she had to sing before a few persons. She got her "stage presence" when there was a real audience.
"What shall it be?" asked Annie.
"Oh, something real sentimental and lovesick,"demanded Sally, who was supposed to be engaged; and with a little humorous twinkle in her usually sad eyes, Annie sang "Sally in our Alley."
Of all the girls that are so smartThere's none like pretty Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.There is no lady in the landIs half so sweet as Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.Of all the days that's in the weekI dearly love but one day—And that's the day that comes betwixtA Saturday and Monday;For then I'm dressed all in my bestTo walk abroad with Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.
Then Dum and Dee stood back to back and buttoned themselves up in their sweaters, which they had put on hindpart-before and impersonated the two-headed woman, Milly-Christine, singing a duet, "The mocking bird is singing o'er her grave," in two distinct keys. That wasan awfully funny stunt and one the Tuckers had made up themselves. Before we had half exhausted the talent of the assembled guests, the bell rang to warn us that lights must soon be out and we had to break up.
The next morning there was a fine crop of fever blisters due to the very rich cake. Annie Pore and Sally Coles were the only ones who escaped with a whole skin. When I handed Mabel Binks her smelly, pink, crêpe de Chine handkerchief, I noticed that her rather full lips were decorated with a design similar to my own.
"Here's your handkerchief," I said. "Cake with caramel and nut filling is awfully rough on the complexion, isn't it?" And the girl had the decency to blush.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
I could hardly believe that it was I, Page Allison, who had been off to boarding school. Bracken was so exactly as I left it and I dropped so easily into my old habits and customs, that I felt as though I had only dreamed I had been away. The dogs almost ate me up for joy, and Mammy Susan had three kinds of hot bread for supper. Father and I chatted away for dear life for a while, and then we just as naturally settled down to a quiet evening of reading, as though I had merely been over to Milton to mail a letter. He was vastly pleased to have me back, and every now and then looked over his glasses at me with a very happy smile on his dear, old, lean, weather-beaten face; and I lay curled up in a big Sleepy-Hollow chair simply devouring the last "Saturday Evening Post" that I hadbought on the train coming from Gresham, feeling that I had about the pleasantest home and the best father and kindest Mammy Susan and the finest dogs on earth.
"Mr. Tucker tells me you have asked him down to hunt," I said as I surprised a loving glance from Father.
"Yes, yes, I thought it would be nice if he could come when his girls pay you their promised visit. He is mighty good company. I declare he can keep a whole party in a good humor," and Father chuckled, evidently in remembrance of some witticism of Mr. Tucker's. "We are thinking of getting up a deer hunt over in the swamp. Jo Winn shot a good-sized buck last month and I am told a great many persons have seen deer in the distance lately."
This was over in a corner of our county where many small rivers and creeks formed a perfect network, making very inaccessible, marshy land. The hunting was as a rule pretty good and during the winter we feasted quite royally on wild turkey, partridge and rabbit. Deer, of course, were not so plentiful, but an occasional one wasshot. It seems strange that Virginia, the first state settled, should still be boasting big game.
"I wish you could take us. Dum and Dee would like it a lot."
"And you, I fancy, would just go along out of politeness," he teased.
"Well, you know I'd rather get killed myself than kill anything, but the Tuckers have their own guns and often go hunting with their father. I believe they are very good shots."
"If you think they can stand the trip, we'll take them. I know you can stand what I can stand, unless boarding school has made you soft. Let me feel your arm—ah, as hard as ever."
"That's basketball and gym work. I'd have been soft, indeed, if I hadn't gone in for athletics. I'm so glad we can go. I'll write to the twins to bring their guns and rough clothes."
Christmas day came and went with plenty of good cheer and happiness, but none of the hurry and bustle of the present-day Christmas in town. At Bracken we knew nothing about white tissue paper and Christmas seals and bolts ofred and green ribbon. Our simple gifts to one another were exchanged without much ceremony; and then Father and I got into his buggy, with the colt ready to run twenty miles if he could get the bit between his teeth, and distributed baskets and bags of candy, nuts and oranges to our many poor neighbors, colored and white. We always had a box of oranges for the holidays and simple candy and mixed nuts by wholesale quantities.
"I'd like to take these things around on Christmas Eve and let the little children think Santa Claus brought them, but I know the mothers would give them their share right away and then there would be nothing for Christmas day."
"Well, I believe they think 'Docallison' is a kind of Santy, anyhow," I said, as we whizzed up to a particularly poor-looking cabin that seemed to be simply running over with little nigs. The grimy window was black with their dusky faces and the doorway was so full that the children in front were being pushed out onto the rickety excuse for a porch.
"Howdy, Aunt Keziah! I hope you and yourfamily are well this beautiful morning," called Father, pulling in the colt and taking from between his knees a large hamper literally running over with sweets.
"Chris'mus gif'! Chris'mus gif'!" came in a chorus from all the little mouths. Aunt Keziah hobbled out, smacking the little blacks as she came with a very horny hand; but they seemed to take it as a kind of pleasantry and bobbed up grinning from ear to ear.
"Shet ep, yer lims er Satan! Cyarn't yer see Docallison's colt ain't go'nter stan fer no sich yellin's? Chris'mus gif', Docallison! Chris'mus gif', Miss Page!"
This last came with a voice as soft as the wings of a dove, while the tone in which she had admonished the little darkies had been as rough as a nutmeg grater. You could hardly believe the two voices had issued from the same lips. Aunt Keziah was the neighborhood "Tender": that is, she minded the children whose natural guardians had gone away for one reason or another,—sometimes to work in the cities, sometimes as house servants for the county families,where such encumbrances as offspring were not welcome. She was paid a small sum for each child and always spoke of them as "bo'ders."
Aunt Keziah had her charity, too, (as who has not?) and supported several orphans. These she treated with especial kindness, and always made the "bo'ders" wait until the objects of charity were helped to "ash-cake an' drippin's."
Father lifted out the heavy basket and the pickaninnies swarmed like flies around a molasses barrel.
"Git back, thar, you kinky-haided Gabe. You know you ain't nothin' but a bo'der. You let dis here lil orphant Minnie git fust grab," and Gabe got back and Minnie came proudly up and got her bag of candy and nuts. We had tied the treat up in separate packages so there could be no broken hearts. Mammy Susan had reported that Aunt Keziah had two new ones, Milly Jourdan's twins, making fourteen in all.
"What did you name the twins, your new boarders, Aunt Keziah?" I asked.
Aunt Keziah demanded one thing from herpatrons and that was that she be allowed to name her charges. No matter what their names had been up to the time they entered her domain, they had to be rechristened. A big boy who had been called Bill for eight winters was now known as Clarence. Mary Banks was Chrystobel and Mump Davis, a raw-boned, fiery-looking boy, part Indian, seethed and chafed under thenom de guerreof Fermentation. The charity orphans kept the names their mothers had seen fit to give them, out of respect for the departed.
"Well, Miss Page, I studied a long time 'bout them thar twins. Naming is moughty important fer boys special, sence matrimony cyarn't in no way improve 'em, an' I done decided to call 'em Postle Peter an' Pistle Paul."
"Capital, capital!" laughed Father. "I hope Postle Peter and Pistle Paul are healthy. You raise the strongest children in the county, Aunt Keziah."
"Yassir, Docallison," said the old woman with a toothless grin. "They's a right likely pair. The reason my bo'ders an' all is so healthy is'cause I make 'em wash theyselves. An' ev'y las' one er 'em is gotter have two shuts or shifts to they backs er I won't tend 'em. An' what they ain't a wearin', I puts in a pot an' biles. De boys gits a big washin' on Chusdays an' Fridays, an' de gals on Wednesdays an' Sat'days. Sometimes whin de lil gals all gits washed of a Sat'day night, it looks like it's a kinder pity to was'e all them hot suds what ain't ter say dirty, so I picks out a boy er so dat done got siled some, and makes him take a extra scrub, jist fer luck. As fer eatin's, dey don't git nothin' but corn braid an' drippin's wif lasses on Sunday ef I kin make out to have 'em, but dey gits a plenty of what dey do git and de victuals 'grees wif 'em, an' I don't never have a nigger a month 'fo he's as fat as a possum."
"Well, Aunt Keziah, you are doing a fine work, raising healthy citizens. I hope you will have a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. There are toys enough to go around in the bottom of the basket and here's a pound of tea for you and some tobacco for your pipe and some chocolate drops that are easy to chew."
"Thank yer, thank yer. Docallison, specially fer de sof' candy. I always did useter have a sweet tooth but now I ain't got nothin' but a sweet gum, but I's got dat all right."
Just then the colt, tired of standing, made a bolt and all we could do was to wave good-by to the funny old woman and her fourteen charges.
"Old Aunt Keziah is bringing up those children according to the teachings of modern science, even to sterilizing their shirts and shifts, and she doesn't know there is such a word as germ. I fancy the many cracks in the cabin wall where you can see daylight are partly responsible for the health of the 'bo'ders.' I find more sickness among the colored people where their cabins are better built and airtight. Ventilation is avoided like the plague," said Father as he got the colt under control and we went spinning off to some more "pensioners," as he called them.
The doctor's buggy was finally emptied of its load and we skimmed back home with the colt as fresh as ever, agreeing that we would notgive up horses for all the automobiles under the sun. There is an exhilaration that comes from driving a good horse that I do not believe a car can give one, no matter how fine the car or expert the driver.
Mammy Susan had a dinner for us that was fit for kings and queens. It seemed a pity to cook so much for just Father and me, but some of that dinner found its way to many a cabin where Father felt it was most needed; and then on Christmas Day the dogs were given extra rations and not limited to their one big feeding of corn meal and salt, scalded and baked in a great pan until it was crisp. On this day of days they had a bone apiece and all kinds of good scrapings.
After dinner we settled ourselves to enjoy the Christmas books, of which there were many, as our tastes were well known. Father's patients were considerate enough not to send for him all afternoon. Not a soul got sick on this happy Christmas day. Even poor Sally Winn did not try to die.
A VISIT FROM THE TUCKERS.
The Tuckers arrived, and Tucker-like, neither at the time nor by the route expected. I was just calling Sam to hitch Peg (short for Pegasus) to the surrey to drive to Milton to meet them, when the unaccustomed toot of an automobile attracted my attention. It was tearing down our avenue at breakneck speed. Dee was at the wheel with Mr. Tucker beside her, and Dum was bouncing around alone on the back seat.
"Beat the train! By Jove, I thought we could!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker, when he spied me at the yard gate. "We were so afraid you might have started for Milton. That's the reason we were violating the speed limit," and they all piled out, the girls hugging me and kissing me and Mr. Tucker almost hugging me and not quite kissing me.
"It was such a grand day we couldn't resist coming in the car," tweedled the twins, "but if you had started for Milton before we got here, we would have died of mortification."
When I told them I had not even had Peg hitched up yet, they were delighted.
"A mounted policeman chased us just as we were leaving Manchester, but we dusted him so Tweedles and I are hoping he did not get our number," said Mr. Tucker.
I called Sam to bring in the grips and rugs.
"I am sorry he can't take your steed around to the stable, Mr. Tucker, but we don't know a thing about automobiles at Bracken."
"Leave it where it is, maybe we can have a spin later on."
We went into the house, where the open wood fires made everything bright and cheerful, although not very warm for persons who are accustomed to steam heat. Mammy Susan in a stiffly starched purple calico dress with a gay bandanna handkerchief on her head was ready to greet the guests.
"Well, bress the Lord, an' you done come allthe way from town in that there fire wagon. I hearn the horn a tootin' and a rushin' like mighty wings, and I says, says I: 'Susan Collins, 'tis the Angel Gabr'el a comin' fer you.' So I clap on my clean head hankcher an' a starched apron tow be ready fer the Resrection."
"Mammy Susan, we've heard a lot about you. Page talks about you all the time at school," said the twins, shaking the old woman warmly by the hand.
"Well, now, does she? Mammy's baby don't fergit her any more'n Mammy fergits her baby. An' is this your pa? Well, save us, ef you don't look more like somebody's great-grandson than anybody's pa."
"Well, they do treat me like a stepson, sometimes, Mammy," laughed Mr. Tucker. "If I could only take on the looks of years without the years, I'd be glad, and maybe I could command more respect."
"Why don't you grow some whiskers, then? They ain't nothin' so ageyfying as whiskers on a young man."
"I'll do it, I'll do it!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker.
"Yes, and you do and we'll pull 'em out," Tweedles declared.
"Well, here am I a-gassin' when I ought to be settin' a little lunch fer the travelers."
"Oh, we had lunch on the way," the three of them declared. "We were not going to be any trouble to you by coming so much earlier than we were expected."
"Oh, now, you must be hungry," I said. "It won't take Mammy Susan a minute."
"Cose they's hungry, child. Can't I tell hungry folks soon as I claps eyes on 'em? Maybe they did eat a snack in that there chariot of fire, but the way they come down the abenue was enough to jolt down a Christmus dinner, plum puddin' an' all, an' plum puddin' takes a heap er joltin'," and Mammy Susan hastened out to "set a little lunch,"—which the Tuckers later declared was a feast.
They were hungry and cold, in spite of their protestations to the contrary, and cold turkey and country ham with the delicious little cornmeal cakes that Mammy could stir up and bake in half a minute disappeared like magic.
"Such coffee!" and Mr. Tucker rolled up his eyes in ecstasy. "And real cow cream! I tell you, Tweedles, as soon as you finish getting this much needed education, we've got to get out of an apartment and into a house where we can do some real housekeeping and have some home cooking."
"You ought to be made to eat at Gresham for a month or so, Zebedee, and you would think the café is pretty fine," said Dee. "The grub at Gresham is not so bad, but there is such a deadly sameness to it."
"Well, the grub may be tejus," broke in Mammy, who had just come in with a heaped-up plate of corn cakes, "but it must hab suption in it, 'cause lil Miss Page is growd in width as well as wisdom, and you two young twin ladies is got cheeks like wine-saps."
"You are right, Mammy, the food must be pretty good to keep them so fat and rosy," said Mr. Tucker, helping himself plentifully to the dainty little cakes.
"Yassir," and Mammy had a sly twinkle in her kind old eyes, "an' that there caffy wharyou gits yo' victuals mus' be dishin' out some nourishment, too, 'cause you ain't to say peaked lookin'."
How we did laugh at Zebedee, and as for him, he got up and gave Mammy a little hug. The Tuckers all knew how to take jokes on themselves.
"She certainly did get you, Zebedee," teased Dum. "You were trying to be so Mr. Tuckerish, too, admonishing Dee and me for complaining about the food at Gresham."
Father came in soon from his rounds and greeted the visitors in his kindly hospitable way. Mr. Tucker was to have several days' holiday from his newspaper and Father said the neighborhood was in an extremely healthy condition, owing to the clear, cold weather, and he did not expect to be overworked; so the gentlemen began immediately to plan their hunts. Dum and Dee were wild at the prospect of going on the deer hunt.
"I saw Jo Winn this morning, daughter," said Father, "and he will go with us. He has a cousinfrom New York who is visiting him and he wants to take him."
"Well, if the cousin has no more conversation than Jo he certainly will not bore us with his chatter," I said. "Now, how about lunch, Father? We must give Mammy some warning, because she gets flustrated if we come at her too suddenly."
"To-morrow suits Jo and his kinsman, and it will suit us, too, I think. Tell Mammy how many of us there are and tell her to put up twice as much lunch as you think she should. That ought to be 'most enough. We'll want the big camping coffee pot and a skillet and some salt; also some sliced bacon, ground coffee and sugar, and a little flour to roll the rabbits in. We may make a fire and cook some if we get cold and have good luck in the morning."
I went out to the kitchen to interview Mammy, Tweedles following me, and then we had to go see the dogs. Dee approved of them and they heartily approved of her. Dum did not have the passion for them that Dee and I had, but she liked them well enough. The dogs licked herhand respectfully and then jumped up on Dee and knocked her down and had a big romp.
How delightful it was to have some companions of my own age at my beloved Bracken! The Tuckers wanted to see everything and go everywhere. We visited the horses in the stable and the cows in the pen and climbed up in the hay loft to hunt for eggs that a sly old blue hen refused to lay in the proper place.
"It's just like Grandpa Tucker's, only nicer," declared Dum. "Grandpa treats us as though we were about two years old and treats Zebedee as though he had just arrived in his teens, so when we go there, while we have splendid times, we are being told what not to do from morning till night."
"Well, nobody ever has told me not to do things," I said. "Mammy Susan grumbles when she thinks I am too venturesome, but she has always ended by letting me have my own way; and Father says he thinks my way is about as good as anybody's way."
"Well, isn't it funny you are not spoiled?" tweedled the girls.
"I believe I used to be spoiled when I was a tiny thing; but Father says if people grow up spoiled, it is because they lack sense, and he always said he knew I had sense enough to live down the spoiling that he and Mammy Susan just couldn't help giving me."
"I believe Dr. Allison is right, Dee," said Dum very solemnly, "and when we are unruly with Zebedee I know it is not the fault of our early training that we love to lay it on, but just plain lack of sense."
"Well, I'm going to try to be mighty good, then," exclaimed Dee. "If there is anything in the world I hate, it's stupidity."
DEER HUNTING.
It was a glorious morning. Of course we had to get up before the sun thought of such a thing. Indeed, there was a crazy, old, lop-sided, dissipated-looking, gibbous moon still hanging on to life when we came piling out of the warm, lighted house and climbed into the two vehicles waiting for us. Father and Mr. Tucker were to go in Father's buggy, and the girls and I were very snug, three on the seat of the runabout, with the lunch and coffee pot bouncing around in the back, and the Tuckers' guns carefully stowed under the seat.
Jo Winn joined us at Milton, the New York cousin in the buggy with him. We were curious to see the cousin, whom Father had reported as being "quite likely." Jo was as good as gold and perfectly intelligent with a keen sense of humor, but he was as silent as the tomb. Hissister Sally was the greatest chatterbox in the world, I am sure. She simply never stopped talking except on those occasions when she was doing her best to "shuffle off this mortal coil," and then she seemed to be not able to stop talking long enough to die thoroughly. Just when the grave was yawning for her (or maybe because of her) she would think of something she simply had to talk about and come back to life.
The Winns were F. F. V.'s, in that they were among the first families in Virginia, if not of Virginia. They were not aristocrats, certainly. They came of good pioneer stock who were tillers of the soil in the seventeenth century and still were in the twentieth. They had lived on the same tract of land for two centuries and a half, and in America that should stand for aristocracy, but somehow with the Winns it never had. They had no desire to be considered great folk and so they never were. The war between the states had left them as it had found them, in fairly prosperous circumstances. Never having owned slaves, the emancipation of the negroes did not affect them one way or the other. Havingalways done their own sowing and reaping, they could still do it. The family had never been much on marrying, and now there were none left but the hypochondriacal old maid Sally and her younger brother Jo.
I had given the twins a history of the Winns as we spun over to Milton. Pegasus was in fine feather, which seems a strange thing to say of a horse, but of one whose name suggests wings, perhaps it is appropriate.
"I fancy Jo is so silent because Sally talks so much," suggested Dum.
"Maybe it is the other way and Sally talks so much to make up for Jo's silence," I said; "but I hope the cousin from New York will strike a happy medium."
"A 'cousin from New York' always sounds so exciting and just as like as not he'll come from Hoboken. Dr. Allison says he is about twenty-five, so I reckon he'll not notice us kids, anyhow. It won't break our hearts, that's sure," and Dee tossed her blue-black head in disdain of all males.
Jo and the cousin were waiting for us at thecrossroads. The cousin was a good-looking young man with blue eyes and light hair, very picturesque in a brand new hunting suit, leggins and all.
"They won't stay new long," I whispered to the girls, "with Jo's hounds flopping all over them."
Jo was forced to open his mouth and speak, as it was up to him to introduce the cousin, but he did it in as few words as possible.
"Mr. Kent—Miss Allison." And then an appealing glance at me gave me to understand that the matter was in my hands, so I took up the social burden and introduced Jo and Mr. Kent to the Tuckers. Mr. Reginald Kent,—that was the picturesque name that went with the picturesque corduroy suit,—proved himself to be a young man of resources. He had no idea of taking the long drive to the spot of the possible deer alone with the silent Jo, the hounds wallowing all over his new clothes.
"See here," he exclaimed, "I think one of us fellows ought to get in with the young ladies.They might need some protection on the trip." Jo looked very much amused at my needing protection and the twins certainly looked buxom enough to take care of themselves without the help of Mr. Reginald Kent.
"Well, sort yourselves in a hurry," called Father. "The colt won't stand another minute and I don't want to get too far ahead of the rest of you."
"Let me get in with Mr. Winn," begged Dee. "I'm crazy to ride with the dogs." Jo's dogs were the only ones going, although the pack at Bracken plead piteously to be allowed to join the party. It seemed best not to take too many, and Jo's dogs were so well trained that the men had decided on them.
Mr. Reginald Kent squeezed his new corduroys between Dum and me, and Dee jumped into the buggy with the grinning Jo. Dee declared later that Jo talked as much as most men and was a very agreeable person; but I fancy the real truth of the matter was that Dee chattered away at her usual rate, and that Jo was such an eloquent listener Dee never did discover that shewas doing all the talking. Certainly they found a topic of interest to both of them in the dogs, and as talking about the dogs meant patting the dogs, the dogs naturally were pleased.
Our cavalier proved to be very cheerful and very complimentary. He was evidently much pleased to escape the silent Jo. We liked him in spite of his fulsome compliments, and when we gave him to understand that flattery was not the way to curry favor with us, he became more natural and we had a very amusing time with him. It turned out that he did not live in Hoboken as Dee had predicted, but in the heart of New York City. He was employed by an advertising firm, not only as a writer of advertisements, but also as illustrator.
"Of course there is no pleasant way of making a living," he said, "but I long to get out of this commercial art and into regular illustrating."
"But I adore ads," exclaimed Dum. "Dee and Zebedee and I always read every word of them and Zebedee says you can find more pure fiction in them than in the magazine proper—or improper."
"Well, after this I shall do my work more enthusiastically and more conscientiously, knowing there is a chance of its coming under such eyes," and Mr. Kent's glance of admiration into Dum's hazel eyes gave her to understand he was speaking of those particular eyes and not Dee's and Zebedee's. I rather expected to see Dum give him a back-hander, but instead she blushed in rather a pleased way, just as any young girl should on receiving such a compliment from a handsome young man from New York.
The roads in our county are much improved, thanks to the automobilists who have worked such reforms throughout the whole country. On that morning they were hard and dry, even dusty, and we went spinning along through the frosty air, Father ahead with the colt behaving as though it were a hurry call and every moment counted. I was next in line and Peg was giving me all I could do to hold her in. She seemed to want to let us all see that an upstartish colt could trot no faster than she could. I was rather glad that Mr. Reginald Kent had taken a fancy to hazel eyes instead of gray, asI needed my gray eyes to pick a smooth road for Peg. Jo Winn and Dee were just far enough behind us to keep out of our dust, and occasionally we could hear Dee's ringing laugh and an unusual guffaw from the silent Jo.
"You see now why we couldn't come in your automobile, as Mr. Tucker wanted," I said to Dum, as Father wheeled the colt sharply to the left into a forest of pines where scrub oaks and chinquepins almost concealed a very poor excuse for a road.
"Come on, Daughter," Father called back to me; "we'll keep close together through the woods, as there is no dust."
I really believe that the road through that pine forest is the very worst road in Virginia, and that is saying a good deal, as my beloved state has only recently awakened to the fact that it reflects on her standing to be noted as having the worst roads in the Union. That particular road had great granite bowlders; ruts that threatened to swallow us; gnarled tree roots that stretched across the path as though they meant to trip us up; and sometimes even a fallen trunkover which we would have to bounce, testing the springs of our vehicles to their utmost endurance.
"Well, I reckon little Henry Ford" (that is what the Tuckers called their car), "would have been ditched long before this," gasped Dum, as one wheel took a bowlder and the other a deep rut.
"Miss Allison, I haven't asked you to let me assist you in driving, just because I know you can do it so much better than I can," said Mr. Kent. "I'd have turned over there as sure as I'm born."
"Well, I came mighty near doing it," I laughed. "If Dum's hat had not been on the side and tilted toward the bowlder, we would have landed in the ditch, I know. We had just about an ounce's weight in our favor."
"I guess it's a good thing I part my hair in the middle in these hairbreadth escapes. Just think, suppose it had been parted on the left side and had counterbalanced Miss Dum's hat tipped toward the right! Over we would have gone."
Just then a Molly Cotton-tail jumped up outof the bracken and the dogs set up a fearful howling. It was all Jo Winn and Dee could do to hold them in their places. Mr. Tucker and Dum looked longingly at their guns but the colt would not stand for shooting going on so close to him, and, besides, when people go out for deer they do not want to begin on rabbits. So little Miss Molly got off for that time at least.
I was glad. There is something in my make-up that recoils from killing anything. To be sure, I am fond of a rabbit's hind leg, about as good eating as one can find, but when I am picking on one of those hind legs I have to close my mind carefully to the fact that that same hind leg has helped to carry some Bre'r Rabbit through many a briar patch. If the image comes to me of a perky little white tail scurrying through the bushes with the eager dogs in pursuit, I simply have to give up eating the delectable morsel and Mammy Susan has to broil me some bacon.
"Hi, there, Uncle Peter," called Father to an old negro man approaching on a mule, a great sack of corn balanced on his pommel, "don't tellme you are not at home when we are coming to see you."
"Well, Docallison, I done tech bottom in de meal bag dis very mawnin', an' I was jes' a takin' some cawn to de mill; but efn de quality folks is a comin' ter see me, I kin sho make out wif de scrapin's till anudder day."
"We are going to try our luck with the deer, Uncle Peter, and I thought we would leave our teams at your cabin and get you to bring our provisions over to Falling Water in your wheelbarrow."
"'Visions, you say? Well, efn you's goin' ter have 'visions, dey ain't no us'n my goin' ter de mill fer days ter come. 'Visions from Bracken means dat Mammy Susan done had her say-so, and dat ole nigger 'oman is sho a amplified perfider. They'll be 'nuf leavins ter feed de multitude on Mount Aryrat." And Uncle Peter turned his willing mule's head around and led the way to his cabin.
Click! Click! went Mr. Kent's pocket camera. "Exactly the type I am looking for! Now, Miss Dum, when you look through the advertisementsseveral months from now, be sure to notice a certain molasses that is to be put on the market. Uncle Peter will be there taking his corn to the mill so he can have a 'pone to sop in de 'lasses.' Oh, look at the cabin! Isn't it charming?"
It was indeed a typical log cabin. It was old, very old, but Uncle Peter kept it in good repair, patching the mortar in the chinks from time to time and propping up the great stone chimney that stood at about the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. On the door and walls were tacked many coon skins. That is the method employed for curing the skins, and Uncle Peter made quite a little money selling coon skins. He had only a small clearing around his cabin but a good cornfield down in the creek bottom.
"'Light, 'light," said Uncle Peter, "Rosana will be that proud ter 'ceive you. She been throwing rocks all mornin' at that ole Shanghai rooster who would crow fer comp'ny. Co'se Rosana didn't know de comp'ny was a goin' ter be white folks. She done' low it would be some er dem low-down niggers tother side er deswamp what is always a-comin' empty and gwine away full."
Aunt Rosana squeezed herself sideways through the cabin door. She was a mountain of flesh, with about as much shape as a football. Indeed, she looked very like the potato babies Mammy Susan used to make me: a big potato for the body; a little potato for a head, stuck on with a match; feet and arms of peanuts; and a face scratched on with a kitchen fork. Her voice sounded like hot mashed potato as she bade us welcome.
"Well, efn I won't hab ter gib dat ole Shanghai rooster a extry handful er wheat! Here I been a-was'in' time all mornin' tryin' ter make him shet up his 'nostigatin' fer comp'ny, not thinkin' he was a-crowin' fer quality. I mought a-knowed he wouldn't er crowed so loud an' clear fer nuthin' but niggers, an' swamp niggers, at dat," and a laugh shook her huge body, reminding me of the "bowl full of jelly."
We were glad to stretch ourselves after the long drive, and Aunt Rosana took us into her cabin while the men of the party attended to unhitchingthe horses. The cabin was spotless, although the one room it boasted was kitchen, parlor and bedroom in one. A great fireplace almost the entire length of one side of the room was really the kitchen. Aunt Rosana scorned iron stoves and still did her cooking with pot-hooks and Dutch ovens. Even now, hanging from one hook, was a singing black iron kettle and from another a covered pot from which issued an aroma that told me that Uncle Peter was going to have cabbage for dinner. Homemade rag rugs covered the floor almost entirely, but wherever a spot of oak flooring showed, it was gleaming white with much scrubbing.
A great four-poster had the place of honor opposite the fireplace. It was a bed fit for the slumbers of kings and princes. Many families in Virginia will exhibit just such beds and proudly tell you that in those beds Lafayette and Washington had slept. I don't know how Uncle Peter and Aunt Rosana happened to have it, but I know that the beautiful old bed had never harbored a more worthy couple. The patchwork quilt, with its intricate rising-sun pattern, wasAunt Rosana's handiwork. The walls were decorated with brilliant chromos, calendars dating back into the 'seventies and on up to date.
The twins were charmed with the place and their interest was most flattering to Aunt Rosana. She showed them all her treasures, even her photograph album.
"And who are all of these people?" asked Dum, who was politely looking at every photograph.
"Lor', chile, I dunno. Peter bought dat ere album at a sale ober in de nex' county. Ev'ybody in de book is white, an' dey looks like quality ter me; but dese days yer can't tell. Some er de quality is lookin' moughty stringy an' de oberseer class is pickin' up so dey is kinder mergin' inter great folks."
"What's this up your chimney?" queried Dee, peering up the great flue.
"Oh, dat's whar I smokes my meat. They's some shoulders up dar; an' some sides er baking wif a streak er fat an' a streak er lean as pretty as any you kin buy in de city. An' them's my little chany valuebowles what I been colleckingof sence I was a baby," said Aunt Rosana to Dum, who was examining a great array of little china ornaments on top of a large old highboy.
There were little china girls kissing little china boys; little baskets with turtle doves on the handles; pink puppies and green cats, some of them meant for match safes and some of them purely ornamental; little cups and saucers of every shape and hue; little pitchers with big ears and some with no ears at all. I have never been in a cabin of self-respecting colored people where there was not a chest of drawers or a table filled with similar treasures. I know Aunt Rosana thought as much of her "chany valuebowles" as Father did of his books, and her sensations when Dum almost dropped a little shell-covered box was just what Father's would have been if he had seen a careless reader turn down a page in one of his beloved books, or bend back the covers of one of his first editions.
"Do look at this," begged Dum of Mr. Kent, who had just entered the cabin. She held up in her hand a china cow of a decidedly lavender hue with horns and hoofs of gilt, and quoted: