TONY ALLEGRETTO AND HISPERFORMING MONKEY
TONY ALLEGRETTO AND HISPERFORMING MONKEY
"Which is the 'monk'?" demanded Lance, in a whisper, when they saw two very gaily dressed figures on the tiny platform before the booth.
The Italian himself was a short, agile young man, but not ill-looking. He had splendid teeth, and they showed white and even behind his smile, for his face was dusky and his mustache as black as jet, as was his hair. He was dressed in a gay, if soiled, Neapolitan costume, and the monkey was dressed in an imitation of his master's get-up. It was a large monkey, with a long tail and a solemn face, not at all the ordinary kind of monkey that appears with organ grinders.
The Italian began to grind his organ when he saw the accession of the young folk from Central High to his crowd of spectators. They made a goodly audience and Tony Allegretto—if that was his name—began his open-air performance.
"Aria from 'Cavalleria Rusticana' to inaugurate the performance of a monkey," chuckled Jess. "How are the mighty fallen!"
Suddenly Tony changed the tune and spoke a sharp word in Italian to the monkey. Instantly the creature went to the front of the platform, took off his cap, bowed to the audience with hand and cap upon his heart, and then began to dance.
It was a rather melancholy dance, but he turned and twisted, while Tony scolded and threatened in a low voice.
"Gee!" exclaimed Lance. "That's the monkey that put the 'tang' in 'tango'—eh, what?"
"Poor little thing!" said the Lockwood twins together.
"I don't believe he likes to do that," said Laura.
"He ought to be taken away from that man and sent to school," declared Chet, with gravity in his face but a twinkle in his eye.
"He'd do quite as well in his classes as some of you boys, I have no doubt," said Jess, quickly. "At least, Professor Dimp says you act like a lot of monkeys sometimes."
"Old Dimple is prejudiced," declared Lance. "He ought to seethismonkey act. Phew! see him whirl. There! that's over. Now what next?"
The dance of the performing monkey had ceased and its owner changed the tune on the piano-organ again. He handed the monkey a little toy gun with one hand while he still turned the crank with the other. The monkey threw the gun down petulantly at first, but Tony threatened him and finally the animal held it when it was thrust into his hands.
"That monk certainly does understand Italian," admitted Lance. "I bet they are related."
"Lance is 'sore' on the Italian because he thinks Laura admires Tony," chuckled Chet.
"Be still!" commanded Laura. "You had better be nice to us girls or we won't keep the secret of how you boys took an involuntary bath to-day."
"'Nuff said," growled Chet. "I'm dumb."
The monkey was changing the gun from hand to shoulder, and holding it in different positions supposedly in imitation of a soldier's drill. But some of the audience laughed at its awkwardness.
"The Italian army must drill differently from ours," said Dora Lockwood.
"Did you ever see anything so funny?" laughed her twin.
Tony overheard them and his eyes flashed. He boxed the poor monkey on the side of the head, and it ran chattering to the end of its line.
"Aw, say!" exclaimed the good natured Lance. "Isn't that mean?"
"It's not a very smart monkey at that," said a man in the crowd.
"Hi!" exclaimed Tony, suddenly, "you think-a da monk can't do anything? He don't lik-a da silly treek—eh? Look now! I lock de door—so," and suiting his action to his words the Italian turned the big brass key in the lock of the booth door. He shook the door to show that it was fastened. Then he turned to the monkey again. "Bébé!" he commanded, harshly, pointing to the door, and rattled off some command in his own language which the audience did not understand. But the monkey seemed to understand it.
He looked at his master, ran to the end of his line, looked back at Tony, chattered, and then seized the big key. He turned it carefully, still looking over his shoulder at Tony, who appeared not to notice him, and ground the organ furiously.
The lock must have been well oiled, for the monkey turned the key very easily. Then he turned the knob of the door quite as carefully, all the time appearing to be afraid that he would be caught at it. For the first time the monkey actually betrayed some ability as an actor.
He pushed open the door, still keeping a sharp watch upon his master. Slowly he wedged his way into the booth. In a moment he had snatched something from the table inside and was back again upon the platform, with his mouth full, and munching rapidly, with his face hidden from his master.
The crowd laughed and applauded. Tony considered this a good time to take up the collection and he gave the monkey his cup. The little fellow made a polite bow to every person who dropped anything into the cup. At those who did not contribute Bébé chattered angrily.
"He's just as cunning as he can be," said Dorothy, as they turned away. "But I don't believe that man treats the monkey kindly."
"Here comes the boat!" exclaimed Chet. "We've got to leave you, girls. Don't get into any trouble, now, paddling home."
"Don't you fear for us," returned Dora, confidently.
"Let's race back to Centerport!" proposed Jess.
"No," said Laura, as the girls tripped down to the landing where they had left their canoes. "It is too far and Mrs. Case warns us not to over-exert, paddling."
"She's a fuss-budget," declared Jess, pouting.
"She's the best physical instructor in Centerport, and we're lucky to have her at Central High," said Dorothy, loyally.
"We're supposed to be in training for the boat races, too," said Dora.
The girls got aboard nicely and started across the lake. It was a calm day and there were scarcely any ripples; therefore there was little likelihood of the girls getting into any trouble. Half way across they saw a second motor-boat towing the burnedDuchesstoward the city. The fire was out, but the girls saw that poor Purt would have to spend some of his money in repairing the craft.
The four girls reached the school boathouse and had their canoes drawn out and put carefully away. Then they separated, for the Lockwood twins did not live on the same street as Laura and her chum.
The Lockwood cottage was set in a rather large plot of ground, which was mostly given up to Mr. Lockwood's nursery and hot-houses. The twins' father was wrapped up in his horticultural experiments, and as they had no mother the two girls were left much to their own devices. Mrs. Betsey Spink kept house for the Lockwoods, and had been the twins' nurse when they were little. She was a gentle, unassuming old lady, who "mothered" the girls as best she knew how, and shielded absent-minded Mr. Lockwood from all domestic troubles. The neighbors declared that the Lockwood household would have been a very shiftless establishment had it not been for Mrs. Betsey.
Mr. Lockwood seldom knew how the bills were paid, what the girls wore, or how the house was run. His mind was given wholly to inventing new forms of plant life. He experimented with white blackberries, thornless roses, dwarf trees that bore several kinds of fruit on different limbs, and, of late, had tried to cultivate a seedless watermelon. He was always expecting to make a fortune out of some of his novel experiments; but as yet the fortune had not materialized.
But he was a most lovable gentleman, and the twins were as proud of him as though he was the most successful man in Centerport. Mr. Lockwood had one cross to bear, however—a thorn in the flesh which troubled him on occasion very much. This was a certain very practical sister—the twins' Aunt Dora. Fortunately Aunt Dora lived in another city; but she was apt to make unexpected visits to her brother, and when she came to the Lockwood house there was no peace for any of the inmates while she stayed.
As the twins on this occasion entered the premises by the back gate they saw certain windows on the second floor of the house wide open, and the curtains drawn back. They halted in something more than astonishment, and looked at each other solemnly.
"That's Aunt Dora's room!" gasped Dora.
"She's here!" returned Dorothy, in the same awe-struck voice.
"Oh, dear!" sighed her twin.
"Nowwe're in for it," rejoined Dorothy.
Then both together they exclaimed: "Poor papa!"
It was a solemn moment for the whole household, and the twins felt it.
"I feel just like running away," said Dora, "and staying until Auntie goes."
"Don't do it," begged Dorothy, "for I shall have to go, too."
"Poor papa!" they both exclaimed again.
"No. We shall have to stay and brace papa up," admitted Dora.
"We've justgotto," groaned her twin.
"And if she begins to nag him again about giving one of us up——"
"We won't leave him," declared Dorothy, very firmly.
"Iwouldn't live at her house for a fortune!" repeated Dorothy.
"Come on! let's see how the land lies," suggested Dora. "Perhaps the worst of it's over."
"No such luck," groaned Dorothy. "There's Betsey."
They ran up the winding path to the kitchen porch. The gentle, pink-faced old lady who met them at the door, had a worried brow.
"Hush, girls! you're aunt is here," she whispered.
"We know it. We saw the windows of the best room wide open. Is she making Mary clean the room all over again?"
"Yes," sighed Mrs. Betsey. "Your aunt declared it smelled musty from being shut up. She hassucha nose," and the little old lady shook her head.
"Interfering old thing!" snapped Dora.
"Hush! you must not speak so," admonished Mrs. Betsey.
"Well, sheis," declared Dorothy, of course agreeing with her twin.
"Where is she?" queried Dora.
"With your father in the hot-house."
"Come on, then," said Dora to her sister. "Let's get it over right away."
They heard voices in the conservatory, for the sashes were open on this warm day. There was the stern, uncompromising tone of Aunt Dora, and the gentle, worried voice of Mr. Lockwood. The twins never liked to hear their father's voice when he was worried, and they saw to it—with Mrs. Betsey—that it did not occur frequently. But there was no help for it when Aunt Dora was about!
First of all, the twins heard their aunt say:
"You're no more fit to bring up girls, Lemuel, than I am to steer one of these dratted airships the papers are full of!"
"No. You are right," said Mr. Lockwood. "The comparison is just. You wouldnotdo well in an airship, Dora."
"Huh! I should think not! And you're as little fit to bring up two girls—and twins, at that!"
"But—but I don't really bring them up," said Mr. Lockwood, apologetically. "Mrs. Betsey does that."
"Mrs. Betsey!" with a sniff.
"And really, they get along very well, Sister."
"They get along well because they are no trouble to you."
"Well, isn't that as it should be? They are good girls—and loving girls."
"I declare to man! Lemuel Lockwood, you haven't any more idea of what those girls need than a babe unborn."
"Whatdothey need, Dora?" asked worried Mr. Lockwood.
"They need a strong hand—a stern and uncompromising spirit to govern them—that's what they need!" declared the militant aunt.
"But Dora, they are good girls and make me no trouble at all."
"Of course they make you no trouble. You let them do exactly as they wish."
"No, no!" urged Mr. Lockwood, hastily. "They don't always do as they wish. Sometimes we haven't the money to let them dowith. I've heard Mrs. Betsey say so. And—and—why, there is one of them who likes three lumps of sugar in her coffee; but I always reprove her for it. That is extravagance."
"Huh!" sniffed Aunt Dora.
"Otherwise they are no trouble to me at all," said Mr. Lockwood, briskly. "They are not, I assure you. We live a very quiet and peaceful life here."
"Yah!" exclaimed his sister. "That is all you want—peace."
"I admit it—I admit it," returned her brother. "I am naturally retiring and of a peaceful disposition, Dora."
"You're a natural born fool, Lemuel!" declared his sister, so sharply that the twins, who were inadvertently listening at the door, hesitating to go in, fairly jumped. "I want to tell you right now that you are a disgrace to manhood! You've never amounted to a row of beans since you were out of pinafores. If your little property wasn't tied up hard and fast so that you could only use the income of it, you would have frittered it all away long ago, and left these children penniless. You've never made a dollar in your life, Lemuel Lockwood!"
"But—but there has never been any real necessity for me to make money," stammered the horticulturist. "And one of these days we are going to have a plenty. I've got a melon started here on the bench, Dora——"
"You needn't show me any of your nasty plants. They're all ridiculous. And it isn't plants we're talking about. It's girls. Mercy knows how an inscrutable Providence ever came to allow two helpless girl babies to fall into your hands, Lemuel. But they're here and you've the burden of them. One would be more than you could manage properly; but two is ridiculous. I'd undertake, as I have told you before, to bring my namesake up as a girlshouldbe brought up—and that will leave more money for you to fritter away on your hot-beds and cold-frames, and the like," she added, slily.
"Dora!" exclaimed Mr. Lockwood, with a quaver in his voice, "do you really think I am not doing my duty by Dora and Dorothy?"
"Think it?" sniffed his sister. "I know it! And everybody else with sense knows it. How can a mere man bring up twin girls and give them a proper start in life?"
"But Mrs. Betsey does her very best——"
"And what doessheknow?" demanded his sister. "Does she ever read papers upon the proper management of girls? Or magazine articles upon what a young girl should be taught by her parents? Or books upon the growth and development of the girlish mind?"
"No—o," admitted Mr. Lockwood. "I am very sure Mrs. Betsey never has time for such reading."
"Then what does she know about it?" demanded Aunt Dora, triumphantly.
"But they are hardly ever sick—and how pretty they both are!" sighed the father of the twins.
"Bah! never sick! pretty!" ejaculated Aunt Dora, staccato. "What about their souls, Lemuel Lockwood? What about the development of their minds? Have you done aught to make them stern and uncompromising when they meet the world on an equal footing—as all women shall in the time to come? Are you preparing them for their work in life? Are they prepared to take the helm of affairs and show Man how Woman can guide affairs of moment?"
"I—I hope not!" murmured Mr. Lockwood, aghast. "They are just girls going to school, and studying, and having fun, and loving each other. No, Dora, the stern duties of life have not troubled them as yet, thank God!"
"But they should be beginning to realize them, Lemuel," declared his sister. "Life is not fun. There is no time to dawdle around with plays, and athletics, and such foolishness. Where are they this minute, Lemuel Lockwood?"
"Why—why, they went out on the lake."
"In what?"
"A canoe, I understand."
"And what's a canoe?" gasped Aunt Dora. "Isthata proper thing for young girls to ride in? Why! it's a savage boat—an Indian boat. A canoe, indeed!"
"But I scarcely can think there is any harm in their paddling a canoe. Many of their schoolmates do so, and their physical instructor, Mrs. Case, approves."
"It is no business for my namesake to be in," declared Aunt Dora. "You named her after me, Lemuel, and I feel that I have some right to her. She having no mother, and I being her godmother, she is more mine than anybody else's. And I am determined to take her home with me."
"Take Dora?" gasped Mr. Lockwood. "Whatever should we do without her?"
"Hah!" exclaimed his sister. "You have the other one."
"But—but it doesn't seem as though one would be complete without the other," said Mr. Lockwood, thoughtfully. "They have always been together. Why, nobody knows them apart——"
"And that's another foolish thing!" exclaimed Aunt Dora. "To allow two girls to reach their age and have nobody able to distinguish between them. Dressing them just alike, and all! It is ridiculous."
"But they have always wished to be just alike, Sister," said the father of the twins.
"Theywished!" exclaimed Aunt Dora. "Is ittheirplace to have their way in such affairs? That is exactly what I say, Lemuel—you're not fit to manage the girls. And I am determined to save one of them from the results of your mismanagement. I have always noticed," added Aunt Dora, a little less confidently, "that Dora is much more amenable in disposition than Dorothy. Naturally, being named after me, she may have taken on more reasonable and practical characteristics than her sister."
Mr. Lockwood was a thin little man, with wisps of gray hair over his ears, a bald crown, on which he always wore a skullcap, and meek side whiskers. But now he stood and stared in perfect amazement at his sister, demanding:
"Do you mean to tell me you have noticed such characteristics in Dora?"
"Certainly," said his sister, complacently.
"Then you know them apart?"
"Well—er—when I have the opportunity of comparing their manner and speech——"
"Here they are!" exclaimed the harassed father, suddenly spying the girls behind his sister. "If you can tell which is which, you are welcome to. I leave it to the girls themselves. If Dora wishes to go with you, she may. I—I wash my hands of the affair!"
Mr. Lockwood had a habit of getting out of difficulties in this way. He frequently "washed his hands" of affairs, finding that they adjusted themselves somehow without his aid, after all.
But on this present occasion there was, perhaps, a special reason why he should tell his sister to go ahead, and leave the matter entirely with her and the twins themselves. Aunt Dora claimed to be able to tell the girls apart—something that nobody, not even Mrs. Betsey, had been able to do since they were little tots and Dora had worn a blue ribbon on her wrist, and Dorothy a pink.
The twins, who had heard all the foregoing conversation, and understood the situation thoroughly, advanced when their Aunt Dora turned to meet them.
"Kiss me, my dears," commanded the militant lady, opening her arms. "Dora, first!"
But the twins ran in together and one kissed her on one cheek while the other placed her salute on the other—and at exactly the same moment. Aunt Dora adjusted her eyeglasses, stood off a yard or so, and stared at the girls.
"Dora," she said, solemnly, "you are going home with me."
Neither girls changed color, or showed in the least that the announcement was either a pleasant one, or vice versa.
"Do you hear?" demanded their aunt.
"Yes, ma'am," they replied, in chorus.
"I spoke to Dora," said the lady, firmly.
Not a word said the twins.
"Which is which, Dora?" asked Mr. Lockwood, from the background, and perhaps enjoying his sister's discomfiture. "I declare nobody inthishouse has been able to tell them apart since they were in their crib. Mrs. Betsey declares she believes they used to exchange ribbons when they were toddlers, for she used to find the bows tied in funny knots."
The two girls looked at each other with dancing eyes, but said nothing. It had been their sport all their lives to mystify people about their several identities. And here was a situation in which they determined—both of them—to keep their aunt guessing.
"This is no matter for flippancy," said Aunt Dora, sternly. "I intend to take my namesake home with me, and to bring her up, educate her, and finally share my fortune with her. Do you understand this fully?"
"Yes, ma'am," replied the twins.
"I am speaking to Dora," their aunt said tartly.
The girls were silent.
"I am separating Dora from her sister for her own good. As you girls grow older you will find that the income your father has remaining will barely support one girl in a proper manner. To divide his responsibility is a kindness to him——"
"That is not so," interjected the mild Mr. Lockwood. "You are more than welcome, girls, to all I have. And—possibly—I might look about and get a little more money for you to use, as time goes on. If you need it——"
"We know all about it, Papa," chimed the twins. "We are satisfied."
"Does that mean you are satisfied to remain here, Dora?" demanded their aunt, insisting upon speaking as though but one girl heard her.
"We are both satisfied," chorused the twins, quickly.
"But I amnotsatisfied with the affair," declared Aunt Dora. "It has long been both my intention and desire to take my namesake—my godchild—away from here. While you two girls were small it was all very well to declare it cruel to separate you. But you are old enough now——"
"We shall never be old enough, Auntie, to wish to be separated," said one of the twins.
"Nonsense, child!" exclaimed Aunt Dora, her eyes sparkling as she thought she had at last obtained an inkling to the identity of the two girls. "You will soon get over all that, Dora—of course you will."
"I am sure I should not so soon get over separation from my sister," said the other girl.
Her aunt wheeled on this one. "Do you mean to tell me that you scorn my offer?"
"If I were Dora I should beg to be excused," returned the niece to whom she had spoken.
Aunt Dora whirled again and transfixed the other with decided satisfaction and a sparkling eye.
"But Dora, I feel sure, will go with her aunt gladly," cried the lady.
"If I were Dora I should beg to be excused," repeated the girl at whom she looked, in exactly the same tone, and with an unmoved countenance, too.
"I declare!" gasped Aunt Dora, in complete exasperation. "You've managed to get me puzzled, now. Which—which of you is t'other?"
"That is for you to find out, Auntie," said both girls in unison.
"You saucy minxes!" began the lady, but one of the girls said, quickly:
"Oh, no. We don't mean to be saucy. But we have agreed not to tell on the other. Father leaves it to us and to you, Auntie. Neither of us wish to leave our dear, dear home. Therefore we shall not tell you which is Dora, and which is Dorothy."
"That is quite true, Auntie," said the other twin.
"Well, I declare to Nature!" exclaimed their Aunt "Here I come offering Dora everything that a girl of her age should count as worthy—a home of wealth, a better education than she can get here in Centerport—college to follow—the open sesame into society—real society——And do you two girls mean to tell me that neither will say which is Dora?"
"That is exactly what we have agreed upon," said one of the twins, quietly.
"Then, let me tell you, Miss, I shall find out for myself!" exclaimed the angry lady. "I consider you at fault for this, Lemuel. Shows your bringing up. It is sheer impudence!"
"I—I have washed my hands of it, Dora," said her brother, weakly.
"Well, you can wipe 'em, too!" snapped the lady. "But I mean to take Dora home with me when I go back—and that will be very soon," and she whisked away in her rustling skirts, leaving the father and his two daughters alone.
They twined around the little man in a moment, the two winsome, loving girls—one upon one side, the other upon the other.
"You don't want to lose Dora, do you, dear?" demanded Dorothy.
"Nor Dorothy either?" demanded Dora.
"I certainly do not, my dear girls," cried the much harassed Mr. Lockwood.
"Then we shall not tell her. We shall tell nobody. Nobody shall know which is which—as long as Aunt Dora remains, that is sure," cried Dora.
"Exactly," agreed her sister. "As long as papa doesn't wish us to go——?"
"Never!" declared Mr. Lockwood.
"Why, we're never even going to get married!" ejaculated the other twin.
"Of course not," said her sister. "There couldn't possibly be two men just alike, and they'd have to be just alike to please us for husbands."
Mr. Lockwood laughed. It was the first happy sound he had made in two hours. His sister had arrived exactly two hours before.
"I know I can safely leave the whole affair to you girls," he said, gratefully. "Have it out with your auntie, if you must. But do,doleave me in peace."
The Lockwood twins were members of the executive committee of the Girls' Branch of Central High and that Saturday an important meeting was to be held in one of the school offices. So Dora and Dorothy stole away after supper, with only a word to Mrs. Betsey as to their goal. They did not want any more words that night with their aunt, who had sat, like a graven image (providing a graven image has a very hearty appetite) all through the evening meal in an attitude of great offense.
The committee, whose actions had to be passed upon by Mrs. Case, the physical instructor, and Franklin Sharp, principal of the school, numbered among its members Laura Belding and her chum, Josephine Morse; Nellie Agnew, Dr. Agnew's daughter; Hester Grimes and Lily Pendleton, all sophomores and in the classes at Central High with the Lockwood twins. Hester Grimes, who was the daughter of a wealthy wholesale butcher, was not so well liked by the twins as some of the other sophomores. Hester could be a very unpleasant person if she wished to be—and on occasions in the past (as related in the previous volume of this series) Hester had lived up to her unhappy reputation. Lily Pendleton, however, usually backed Miss Grimes up in everything the latter said or did.
Although Laura Belding was only finishing her sophomore year at Central High, she had become so popular that she was chairman of this important committee, in which, in fact, the policy of the Girls' Branch Athletics was decided. The moment the old business had been disposed of and the way was open for new matters, Laura burst out with:
"Oh, girls! I've got the most exciting thing to tell you!"
"Don't tell us of any other big robbery," sighed Nellie Agnew. "We've heard nothing but robbery at our house ever since Stresch & Potter were broken into. And poor Billy Long!"
"Humph!" muttered Hester Grimes. "I hope they catch him and that he gets all that is coming to him. He always was a mean little brat!"
"Not at all!" cried one of the seniors. "Billy Long never did a mean thing in his life. But he is full of mischief."
"He'll get it, I fancy if the police catch him," laughed Lily Pendleton, unpleasantly.
"Order!" said Laura, gravely. "I did not introduce my subject in a very proper way, I know; but the trouble of Billy Long is far from our business to-night. As chairman of your committee I have received a communication which originally came from the Luna Boat Club. That is the wealthiest boat club on the lake, you know. They really have more to do with our Big Day than any other organization. And what do you think?"
"Why don't you get to it?" demanded Hester. "You're as slow as cold molasses running up a hill in January."
"Oh, give her a chance," admonished Jess, taking any criticism of her chum—but her own—in ill part.
"Well," said Laura, unruffled, "the secretary of the Luna Boat Club writes that the club as a whole is much interested in the trial of speed between the eight-oared shells of the several Girls' Highs and as a trophy for that particular race will present to the winner a silver cup—and you can just bet, girls, if it is anything the Luna Club presents, it will be a handsome one. Isn't that fine?"
"Oh, if we could only win it!" cried Jess, clasping her hands.
"You've got about as much chance of winning over Keyport as I have of flying," said Hester Grimes.
"If goodness is necessary to your wearing wings, Hester, I am afraid you really haven't much chance," said one of the seniors, sweetly, and there was a little giggle of approval from the younger girls.
"It is a sure thing that we can't win with our old tub," agreed Laura, nodding a thoughtful head.
"Pah!" snapped Hester. "You girls in that eight couldn't win anyway."
"I don't know why you say that, Hester," complained Nellie Agnew, who pulled Number 15 in the eight-oared shell. "We do our very best."
"That's what I say," laughed the Grimes girl. "And your 'very best' is about as slow as anything on the lake."
"Let me tell you that doesn't sound very loyal to the school, Miss," spoke up another senior.
"And who's to teachmehow to talk?" demanded Hester, tossing her head. "I am not asking you, Miss."
"Order, please!" commanded Laura, firmly. "It is not a question of how badly or how well the eight rows. Not just now. We have received a notice of this prize. We must respond properly to the secretary of the Luna Club."
This item was disposed of; but Laura had another thing connected with it on her mind.
"It is quite true," she said, "that with the old shell we have been rowing in, it will be perfectly impossible for our eight to win the race. We are all agreed on that?"
"And all the sane ones are agreed that you couldn't win inanyboat," declared Hester, in her very meanest way.
"Now, I wish you wouldn't talk that way, Hessie," complained Nellie Agnew.
"And it isn't so, either!" exclaimed Jess Morse.
"Give us a good shell and we'll show you," said Dorothy Lockwood.
"That is what we need," agreed her twin.
"Of course we can win under any decent circumstances," said Laura, "now that we have Bobby Hargrew to be coxswain again."
Hester was silenced for the time. "Bobby," or Clara Hargrew, had been in difficulties with the school authorities a few weeks before, and had been debarred from all the after-hour athletics—and Hester Grimes had been partly to blame for Bobby's trouble.
"The point of the whole matter is," said Celia Prime, one of the older girls, who was on the point of graduating from Central High, "that the eight need and must have a new shell. Our present boat is a disgrace."
"I object to our centering all our efforts upon that particular boat and crew," snapped Hester.
"So do I," declared Lily, her chum.
"The canoes and the single and double oars have better chances to win than the eight," pursued Hester. "We are centering on the eight because the bulk of the present crew are members of this committee."
"That is not so, Hessie," declared Mary O'Rourke, another senior who rowed in the eight.
"The whole school is interested," said a junior member of the executive board. "The girls talk more about the eight than about anything else."
"And that talk is all very skilfully worked up by Laura, here, and her friends," declared Hester. "Oh! some of us have eyes and ears, I hope."
"And a tongue that is hung in the middle and wags both ways!" whispered Jess.
"We are wrangling without coming to any conclusion," said Laura, sighing. "What shall we do about the shell? Can we get a new one——"
"Who'll buy it for us?" demanded Lily.
"That's just it," agreed Laura.
"Let's ask our folks to all chip in a quarter," said Jess.
"If the parents of every girl at school did that we'd scarcely be able to buy a new shell," returned the chairman.
"I know that my father will never give a penny toward a new shell—not while the crew remains as inefficient as it is at present," said Hester, tossing her head.
"But if you were in Celia's place, at stroke," snapped Jess, who was rather peppery in temper, "I suppose he would go right down into his pocket and purchase a boat for us himself?"
"Perhaps he would, Miss Smartie!" returned the butcher's daughter.
"Any change in the crew is up to Mrs. Case and the girls of the association—you know that, Hessie," Laura said, gravely. "We all got our positions because the instructor thought we were the better rowers——"
"Oh, bah!" ejaculated the angry Hester. "We all know howyouare favored in everything, Miss! As for the new shell—I sha'n't do a thing toward helping get one; make up your mind to that."
"That certainly is a terrible stroke of bad news, Hester," drawled one of the older girls. "Now, you would better keep still and let some of the rest of us talk a while. For a sophomore, you have a lot to say that is inconsequential."
Some of the younger girls chuckled at this. But the occasion and the dispute itself were too serious to engender much hilarity. The question of the new shell was exhaustively discussed, and it was finally decided that a subscription paper be drawn and presented to the parents and friends of Central High, and a sufficient sum be raised immediately, if possible, to pay for a new eight-oared shell.
At the break-up of the meeting Laura Belding spoke to several of the girls, including the twins, of a little junket that had been planned for Monday afternoon after school. Dora and Dorothy, Jess Morse, Nellie Agnew, and several other sophomores were invited to come to school prepared to ride directly from the school gate in automobiles into the country beyond Robinson's Woods, to a farmer's, whose family some of the girls already knew.
"Eve Sitz's father raises the most luscious berries, and they are right at their height, Eve telephoned me to-day," said Laura. "She wants to give us a real strawberry festival Monday evening—and there is a moon for us to come home by. Chet and Lance and a lot of the boys will go along, too. We're going to have Mr. Purcell's sight-seeing auto as well as our own, and they will hold all of us comfortably."
"Goody!" cried Dora Lockwood. "You are always thinking up the most perfectly scrumptious things to do, Laura!"
"'Most perfectly scrumptious,'" repeated Nellie, laughing. "If Gee Gee heard you say that, Miss——Ahem!—was it Dora or Dorothy?"
The girls laughed, but the other twin shook her head seriously. "There is no Dora at present. We are both Dorothy Lockwood," and when their friends demanded an explanation, the story of Aunt Dora's determination to take her namesake home with her to live came out in a torrent.
"I'm glad I'm not a twin," declared Jess Morse, laughing till her sides ached. "They're lots of fun, these twins; but it's no fun tobeone of them, after all!"
The Lockwood girls really were in a serious mood when they made their way homeward. It was a tragedy, in their minds, to be separated; and Dora and Dorothy vowed to each other, whatever befell, that Aunt Dora should not discover which girl had been named in her honor.
The Lockwood twins were glad of an excuse—and a good one—for dodging Aunt Dora for one afternoon and evening, and they therefore welcomed the invitation to the strawberry festival at the Sitz farm with acclaim. But there intervened the long Sunday when Aunt Dora nagged them—and everybody else about the cottage—all day.
Mary, the hired girl, who had been with them since she had landed at Ellis Island, and who loved the twins as though they were her own, and admired Mrs. Betsey more than anybody else living, came to the verge of "giving notice" whenever Aunt Dora came into view of the house.
"Sure, I was a bogtrotter when Oi landed, and wedidkape the pig in the kitchen—I admit it," declaimed the faithful Mary. "But I've been bred to wor'rk under as clane a housekaper as ever wore shoes—God bless her! And to have that ould ormadoun come here and tell me me flures ar're not clane, and me bedrooms smell musty——Ah—h! bad 'cess to the loikes av her!"
Mrs. Betsey, to save losing Mary altogether, gave her permission to take Sunday afternoon and evening off. That would free her from the "eagle eye" of Aunt Dora for a few hours, at least.
"Aunt Dora is what old-fashioned people used to call 'nasty clean'," grumbled Mr. Lockwood, as he prepared to flee to his beloved plants, despite the sacredness of the day. "She's so clean that she makes everybody else unhappy about it. But have patience, children. It can't last forever."
It was Mrs. Betsey who was put through the "third degree" early in the morning. Couldn't she really tell the twins apart? Wasn't there something in their voices dissimilar? Was there not some mark on their bodies by which Dora could be distinguished from Dorothy? Hadn't one child a scar that the other did not have?
"My dear madam," declared the old housekeeper and nurse, in desperation. "I gave up the question as hopeless ten years and more ago. If those girls do not wish to own up, nobody can tell them apart, you may be sure of that. Yes, theyarestubborn—and theyarepert. They have never been governed by harshness or by fear. The only way that I know to make Dora tell you which she is, is to make her love you enough to tell you."
"Nonsense!" snapped Aunt Dora. "They are children. They must obey."
"In that particular, madam," said Mrs. Betsey, shaking her head, "I fail to see how you are to make them obey."
"They both should be punished."
"Even that would not make them obey you—no matter what the punishment. And you know," added the old lady, with eyes that began to brighten warningly, "Mr. Lockwood would not hear of the twins being punished."
"If they were mine I'd spank them both!" declared Aunt Dora, spitefully.
"And that is perhaps one reason why neither wishes to go home with you," returned Mrs. Betsey, pointedly.
As Mary was gone for the day the twins agreed to get tea; and there being a certain famous recipe, which had been the Lockwood family property for generations, for tea-biscuit, the twins promised Mr. Lockwood he should have them.
"Can't one of you make the biscuit, without the other?" demanded Aunt Dora, her gray eyes beginning to sparkle.
"Dora really makes them the best, I believe," said Mrs. Betsey, placidly, stroking the front of her silk gown, as she sat in her low rocker by the front window.
"Ha!" exclaimed the militant lady. "Then let Dora make them."
"Oh, we'll both make 'em," exclaimed one of the twins, getting up with her sister to go to the kitchen. "One of us can sift the flour while the other is preparing the tins. We'll make you a double quantity, Papa," she added, over her shoulder, her own eyes dancing merrily.
"Now! which wasthat?" demanded Aunt Dora. "Was it Dora—or Dorothy?"
"I really couldn't say," murmured Mr. Lockwood.
"Dorothy usually sifts the flour," offered Mrs. Betsey.
"But Dora makes up the biscuit best," said Mr. Lockwood.
Aunt Dora looked from one unruffled face to the other; then she got up quietly and stole from the room. She tiptoed through the hall to the pantry door. There she waited until she was sure the twins were busy at the dresser and stove.
So she stepped into the pantry and pushed aside the white dimity curtain at the window in the door which opened into the kitchen. One twin was busily buttering the tins while the other was sifting the ingredients of the biscuits in the big yellow mixing bowl.
"So Dorothy usually sifts the flour, does she?" muttered the determined old lady, staring hard at the back of the sifter's head.
But one thing Aunt Dora did not know. Every time the girl sifting the flour glanced up from her work she looked straight into a mirror over the dresser, tipped at such an angle that it showed the pantry door. She saw the curtain drawn back and her aunt's nose appear at the window. At once she said to her sister:
"Are you afraid of the wolf at the door?"
"Eh?" jerked out the other twin, looking up quickly.
"But if poor papa is so poor, you know, maybe one of us ought to go home with Aunt Dora."
The girl buttering the tins saw her sister's wink and nod, and glanced slily in the mirror, too.
"We will fight the wolf at the door and drive it away," she declared, with spirit. "We'll leave school and go to work rather than be separated. Isn't that the way you feel?"
"I should feel that I'd rather work than go home with Auntie, if I were Dora," declared she who was sifting.
"So should I ifIwere Dora," agreed her sister.
A minute later one of the girls, while testing the heat of the oven, screamed.
"Oh, oh!" she cried. "Oh, oh! I'm burned! Look at that!" and she held up her wrist with a white mark across it.
Her sister darted across the kitchen, crying:
"I'll get the witch hazel—you poor dear!"
She had forgotten Aunt Dora, hiding in the pantry, and she collided with her with considerable force.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded the exasperated old lady.
"Nothing with me," returned the hurrying girl. "It'sshewho's burned."
"Who's burned?" cried Aunt Dora. "Which of you is hurt?"
The girl who had stopped recovered her self-possession. "Let me go, Auntie," she said, quietly. "My sisterhas burned her wrist."
And so the anxious and determined aunt did not catch the twins off their guard, neither in war nor peace.
When the girls invited to Evangeline Sitz's "party" hurried out of Central High on Monday afternoon, they found, as Laura Belding had promised, her father's automobile, as well as one of Mr. Purcell's big, three-seated "lumber barges," as the boys called Centerport's sight-seeing autos. There were three seats behind the driver's, each wide enough for four persons.
Laura and Chet (the latter of whom drove the Belding machine) had their own close friends in the smaller auto, and it was well filled. Mr. Purcell stood by the chauffeur of the big car as the Lockwood twins whisked into the front seat, completely filling it. Dora and Dorothy always preferred to keep together, and nobody could get between them here.
The girls heard the automobile owner ask the driver:
"How do you feel now, Bennie? All right?"
"Pretty good, Boss," said the man, who, the twins noticed, was pale.
"Sure you can make it all right? If you feel bad, say so, and I'll take your place."
"I'll be all right, Boss, once we get moving," said the chauffeur.
"Oh, look who's here!" whispered Dorothy, suddenly, to her sister, pinching her arm to attract her attention.
"It's Pretty!" gasped Dora. "Isn't he a vision of loveliness?"
The dandy of the school came mincing along the sidewalk with the evident intention of joining the auto party. He had been excused from classes early to go home and "rig up" for the occasion; and he certainly was—as Lance Darby said from the head automobile—"a sight for gods and men!"
Prettyman Sweet wore a white flannel coat and trousers, with a very fine line of blue running through the goods lengthwise. He wore a canvas hat and canvas shoes, cut low to show open-work crimson silk socks—oh, they were dreams of the hosier's art! He wore a flowing crimson tie, too, and around his waist, instead of an ordinary belt, he wore a new-fangled, knitted, crimson sash-belt, the like of which none of the boys of Central High had ever beheld before.
"Oh, Purt! where did you get it?" cried Lance Darby.
"You're fixed up to flag a freight, with all that red on you," said Chet.
"And wheredidyou get that gorgeous sash, Mr. Sweet?" demanded "Bobby" Hargrew, who was a tease by nature, and had the sharpest tongue of any girl at Central High.
"Oh, now, Miss Clara," said Purt Sweet, carefully climbing into the seat directly behind the twins. "This is the very latest thing—weally! I sent clear to New York for it. You see, it's not so stiff and hard looking as a leather belt. This—er—lends a softness to the whole costume that is—er—quite unobtainable with a belt."
"Oh, gee!" gasped Bobby. "It's soft enough, all right, all right!" and the rest laughed as they piled into the machine.
Purt sat with his back to the twins, and was explaining to the girl beside him that he did not mind riding backward at all. Bobby was still on the ground, and as Dora and Dorothy looked down at her they saw the mischievous one suddenly reach up her thumb and finger and pick at a little frayed place upon the edge of Purt's beautiful sash.
The thing was knitted loosely of some kind of mercerized cotton, and when Bobby seized the end of a broken strand the sash began to unravel with marvelous rapidity. She grinned up at the twins delightedly, and continued to pull on the thread.
"All aboard, young folks!" cried Mr. Purcell. "You ready forward, there, Mr. Chetwood?"
"All right," returned Chet, tripping his self-starter.
Mr. Purcell stooped to crank up his big machine. Bobby, her eyes dancing, also stooped beside the front wheel for a moment, and then whisked into her seat, facing Purt Sweet. But the twins saw what she had done. She had fastened the end of the crimson thread to the head of a bolt upon the wheelbox.
"All right, Bennie!" said Mr. Purcell, stepping back and waving his hand. The big machine began to tremble and shake, and then they pulled out behind the Belding car. There was a lot of noise, and laughter, and fun; but nobody seemed so hilarious as Clara Hargrew and the Lockwood twins.
"Can't you keep your eyes off Purt, Bobby?" demanded the girl sitting next to the Sweet boy. "What's the matter with him?"
"No—nothing!" chortled Bobby, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth.
But she was watching that red thread shooting down to the wheel and winding around and around the box, faster and faster as the big machine got under way. By the time the auto turned into Market Street a great ball of the red worsted, or whatever it was, had formed on the inside of the wheel, and the perfectly unconscious Prettyman Sweet was fast losing his beautiful crimson sash.
The knitted part of the sash overlaid a belt of canvas which really did the service of holding up the exquisite's trousers. But fast, fast indeed, the red thread was running out.
Others saw the unraveling yarn, and joined Bobby and the twins in hilarious laughter. Then a man walking on the sidewalk espied the growing ball of thread on the wheel and followed the strand to its source. His happy chortles attracted the attention of other pedestrians, and soon the big automobile was being accompanied by a chorus of shouts from small boys in the streets, and laughter from an ever-increasing number of bystanders.
"What do you suppose is the matter with all these people?" demanded the unconscious Purt. "I never did see the like. Weally! It's too widiculous."
"That's what it is!" laughed Bobby.
"Why!" exclaimed Purt, "they weally seem to see something about us to laugh at! What can it be?"
"Must be you, Purt," said one of the boys.
"Widiculous! There is nothing about me to laugh at, dear boy."
"Huh!" grunted his schoolmate. "You're one big laugh all the time, Pretty, only you don't know it!"
The way to the farm where the young people were bound was out Market Street to the east, and then through the winding road which bisected Robinson's Woods and up into the hills. Mr. Sitz was a Swiss, and had been used to hilly farms in his youth; therefore the "up hill and down dale" nature of his farming land near Centerport did not trouble him in the least. He and Otto, his son, and the hands he hired, made good crops upon the hilly farm, and the Sitzes were becoming well to do.
In the front auto Laura was speaking about Eve Sitz.
"She's such a big, muscular girl. If she comes to Central High next fall, as I want her to, she'll help us greatly in athletics. You see, she'll enter as a junior, and be in our classes. And she can pull an oar already—and what a fine guard she'd make at basketball! She's a lot lighter on her feet than Hester Grimes, or Mary O'Rourke, in spite of the fact that she's so big."
"Bully!" exclaimed Jess. "She can cut out Hessie, then."
Suddenly Lance, who looked back, raised a shout of surprise and terror.
"Look at that! What's happened to the other car! Stop, Chet!"
The young folks in the Belding car sprang up and looked back. They were just in time to see the man who drove the sight-seeing car fall sidewise from his seat, and slip down until half of his body lay upon the step. He had dropped the wheel and the heavy car was running wild.
The two cars were out of the city now, and running upon a lonely bit of road. The Belding car was, indeed, half way down the long slope, which the heavier one had just begun to descend. The big auto began to wabble from side to side, and those ahead saw one of the Lockwood twins seize the man who had fallen and drag him back into the car. But, meanwhile, the car itself was running away.
Faster and faster it rolled down the hill, and its course was so erratic that those in the first car almost held their breath. The expectation was that the big car would collide with a telegraph pole beside the road, or go into the ditch on the other side.
"Stop, Chet!" yelled Lance again.
But if Chet Belding stopped his car, he knew that the other might run them down. He dared not run that risk.
"Grab the wheel! Shut off the power! Brake her!" yelled Lance, wildly waving his arms at the crowd behind. "Some of you fellows do something!"
But the boy nearest to the steering gear of the big machine was Purt Sweet—and Purt scarcely knew enough about an automobile to keep from being run over by one!
"Oh!" cried Laura, "they will be hurt! There! it's going to smash into that tree——"
But suddenly they saw one of the twins dive into the chauffeur's seat. She seized the wheel and guided the big machine into the straight road again. Then she manipulated the levers and quickly brought the shuddering car to a stop. The driver still lay motionless.
"Oh, oh!" cried Jess, hopping out of the Belding car when Chet stopped it, and running back. "She stopped it! You're a real heroine—Dorothy—Dora—whichever one you are."
But the Lockwood twins looked at each other quickly and that understanding glance made the girl who had played the heroine say:
"It doesn't matter which one of us did it, Jess. We'll divide the heroic act between us. But let's see what's the matter with this poor man; he's fainted, I believe."
There wasn't a house in sight; but not far beyond was the inn at Robinson's Woods, the picnic grounds, and Lance took the management of the big car while the unconscious chauffeur was rushed ahead by Chet in the Belding car. The man was put to bed at the inn and a physician sent for; but Lance agreed to drive the big car himself on to the Sitz place.
When the larger car reached the inn, however, another discovery was made. Even while the auto had followed its erratic course, untended, part way down the hill, Purt Sweet had sat tight and merely squealed. He had not offered to leave his seat.
But now, by the merest chance, he happened to look down at his waist. The greater part of that beautiful crimson sash had disappeared!
"Wha—wha—what's the matter with me?" gasped Purt. "I—I've lost it! Who's taken it?"
He bobbed up suddenly and broke the strand that had been, all this time, winding around and around the wheelbox until there was now a big roll of it.
"What's the matter with you, Purt?" demanded one of the boys, bursting with laughter.
"Why—why—somebody's stolen my sash!" wailed the youth. "Did you see it? Isn't that a mean trick, now?"
The shout that went up from the girls and boys who had been watching the unraveling process brought the crowd from the first automobile back, too. Poor Purt looked ruefully at his lost sash, wound around the wheel, and bemoaned his bad fortune most feelingly. But Lance cut off the ball of red worsted and threw it in the gutter.
"I really wish you wouldn't be so careless, Purt," he said, as though the victim were at fault. "Mussing up the whole machine with your fancy fixin's. Don't you do that any more."
"But, my dear boy, I had no idea of doing it—weally!" exclaimed the unfortunate Purt. "I don't for the life of me see how that could have become attached to that wheel."
And as nobody explained the mystery to him, he was in low spirits all the rest of the way to the farmhouse.
But the preparations at the Sitz farm were likely to raise the spirits of any boy or girl. In the first place the farmhouse was a very pleasant old house indeed, and its big grassy yard, with shade trees and vines, was a delightful spot for an open-air party. Under the grape arbors, now in full leaf, long tables had been spread, and as soon as the automobiles arrived Eve called the girls to the back porch to help hull berries already picked, while Otto, her rather slow-witted brother, took the boys down to the strawberry patch to help pick more of the fruit.
Purt, who was greedy as could be, "picked into his mouth" until Chet and the other boys warned him that he'd be so full he would not be able to do justice to the berries and cream that would come later.
The big kitchen of the farmhouse was a scene of great activity, too. Mother Sitz, who could scarcely speak a word of English, was happy in having the girls about, however; and she had made and frosted and decorated innumerable little cakes such as she had been used to in the old country. Eve put on a big apron and lent Laura one, and the two set about making the biscuit and the old-fashioned dough for the short-cakes.
Laura Belding was fond of Eve for the country girl's own sake; but loyalty to Central High and Laura's deep interest in school athletics caused her to cultivate the girl, too. There was a very good district school which Eve had attended, in which the teacher had brought her older scholars along to a point that enabled them to take the examinations for the Junior grade of the city schools. These examinations were to be held in Centerport within a fortnight, and Laura wished Eve to come to Central High in the Fall, instead of to the Keyport High, which was somewhat nearer to the Sitz place.
"You'll have to take train to Keyport, anyway, Eve," urged her friend, while they were busy making the biscuits. "There is a better train stops at your station, bound for Centerport; and you can get out at the Hill Station and then it is only a five-minute walk to our school."
"I know, Laura," said the big girl. "But do you suppose I can pass?"
"Why not?"
"They say that Mr. Sharp is dreadfullysharpon Latin, and that's my weak point."
"Why, you can cram on Latin in a fortnight. I'll tell you a book to get that will help—and it costs but fifty cents. You can begin right away on it——"
"But I haven't got the book yet."
"You've got the fifty cents, haven't you?" returned her friend.
"Yes."
"Then—what time does your rural delivery man go by the end of the road?"
Eve glanced at the big clock solemnly ticking on the wall.
"In about three-quarters of an hour."
"Run and write your letter to the Keyport bookseller. One of the boys will run out and give the letter to the mail carrier."
"But a fifty cent piece won't be safe in a letter," said Eve, doubtfully.
"We—ell——"
"And I haven't time to run out there and stop Mr. Cheever, and make out a money order—for fifty cents, too!" exclaimed Eve.
"Humph!" ejaculated Laura. "There's fifty ways of sending fifty cents——"
"Sure," laughed Eve. "A penny at a time!"
"No. I'm not joking. Write your letter. Give me the fifty cents. I'll find a safe way. Give me the half dollar now. I'll put the biscuits in the pans. Is the oven hot?"
"Pretty near."
"I'll try it—with one biscuit, anyway," chuckled Laura, seizing the half dollar her friend gave out of her purse.
In ten minutes Eve came dancing back from her room with the letter written.
"How you going to send the money, Laura?" she demanded. "Here's the letter—all ready."
"And the money will be ready in a minute or two. That oven's good and hot," said Laura.
"What do you mean?" gasped Eve. "You're not baking the half dollar?"
"Yes, ma'am," laughed Laura. "That's what I'm doing."
She dropped the range door and showed a small pan with one lonesome little biscuit in it.
"It's baking fine, too. I want it to be a hard, crusty one——"
"And you've baked the half dollar in the biscuit!" screamed Eve.
"That's what I've done. You just add a line to your letter to that effect. Then we'll put the letter and biscuit in that little box, tie it up, address it, and Lance Darby will run out to the road and mail it for you. Be quick now," concluded Laura, whisking the pan out of the oven, "for the half-dollar biscuit is done!'"
"What an original girl you are, Laura," said Eve, doing as she was bid. "Who'd have thought ofthatway to send coin in the mail?"
"Your Aunt Laura thought of it," laughed her friend. "For we want nothing to stand in your way of passing that examination, Eve. We need you at Central High."