"You are old, Father William," the young man said,"And your hair has become very white,And yet you incessantly stand on your head—Do you think, at your age, it is right?""In my youth," Father William replied to his son,"I feared it might injure the brain;But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,I do it again and again."
From that I went on with Clarence's dream:
"O Lord! methought what pain it was to drown!What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,All scattered in the bottom of the sea,Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holesWhere eyes did once inhabit there were crept(As 'twere in scorn of eyes) reflecting gems,That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.. . . . but still the envious floodKept in my soul and would not let it forthTo seek the empty, vast and wandering air;But smothered it within my panting bulk,Which almost burst to belch it in the sea."
All this time that my brain was busy in this absurd way, my legs and arms were busy, too, and just when I got to the last line, quoted above, I felt a strong hand on the back of my bathing suit and I was pulled from the briny deep.
"Why, Page, why are you making a little submarine of yourself? You scared me to death, child. I was way out in the bay when I looked back to see what you were up to and not a sign of your precious little head could I see, nothingbut bubbles to mark the spot where my dear little friend had gone down. But oh, such big bubbles! I thought you had ventured out beyond your depth, and here it is not much more than four feet of water," and Zebedee held me up while I spluttered and gurgled. Only the night before Zebedee had demanded that I should stop calling him Mr. Tucker, so now I was to think of him and speak of him as Zebedee. I had been thinking of him as Zebedee for a long time and it was very easy to stop calling him by the formal name of Mr. Tucker.
"Lend me a handkerchief!" I demanded just as soon as I could stop spluttering enough to speak, and then we both burst out laughing, as naturally he did not have one.
"I tell you what you do, little girl, you trot on up to the house and get into dry clothes, and I'll collect those water dogs as soon as I can and we will join you. I don't approve of staying in the water too long in the early morning, certainly not on the first day at the beach. The morning swim should be nothing more than a dip."
"Well, that's all mine was," and I scrambledout. My wet suit felt very heavy but my body felt light and there was a delicious tingle all over me as the morning air, a little cooler than the water, struck me. I raced to the cottage and into the downstairs bathroom—which had an outside entrance—where we had put our bath gowns so we would be able to drop our wet suits there. It took me only a few minutes to rub down and get into some dry clothes (thanks to middy blouses, which were surely invented for girls in a hurry). I was dressed and in the kitchen before Zebedee was able to collect his water dogs. The coffee was in a state of perfection, and glad indeed was I for a cup of the beverage which shares with tea the quality of cheering without inebriating.
The oven to the little range was piping hot so I made so bold as to stir up a pan of batter bread, Mammy Susan's kind with lots of eggs, and I then proceeded to set the table for breakfast.
"See here, this is a shame for you to be slaving so!" exclaimed Zebedee. "I simply won't have it—but gee, what a grand smell of coffee! You don't mean you've got some all made?" and he came through the living room and back into thekitchen in his wet suit, although he was the one who had made the rule the night before that bathers must enter from the rear and leave their wet suits in the bathrooms. I hadn't the heart to remind him; besides, I knew Tweedles would take great joy in doing so. I gave him a cup of steaming coffee and then made him hurry off to get into his clothes by letting him have a peep at my batter bread, which was behaving as batter bread should when it is made with plenty of eggs and the oven is piping hot—that is, it was rising like an omelette and a delicate brown was appearing over the surface.
"It must be eaten hot, so you had better hurry," I said as I put the sliced bacon in the frying pan and then cracked ice for the cantaloupe.
"All right, Mammy Susan, I'll show you what a lightning change artist I can be. I know I can beat Tweedles. They are still in the bathroom. By the way, do you know who the swimmer was we saw out in the bay? None other than our chaperone, Miss Jinny Cox! I just knew I had locked the door. You see, Jinny opened it. She has decided not to let anybody wait on her, afterall. Tweedles are quite disconsolate. They have been planning to be so unselfish and here Jinny is refusing to be ill, and here you are, the honored guest, cooking breakfast on this, our first morning at the beach." He started up the steps but came down again, and, taking me impulsively by both hands, he exclaimed: "I am mighty glad you did not succeed in drowning yourself in four feet of water, little friend. You made very beautiful bubbles but I am going to teach you how to swim before the week is out."
BLANCHE.
"Who is to go over to Norfolk with me to meet the guests, also the cook lady from Keysville?" demanded Zebedee as he scraped the very last vestige of batter bread sticking to the sides of the pan. Annie Pore and Mary Flannagan, our schoolmates, were to arrive on a James River boat and our much needed cook on the train.
The cook was a great niece of Mammy Susan's dead husband, who was being educated at an industrial school for coloured boys and girls. I had never seen her, but Mammy Susan had been rather impressed by what she had heard of the girl and it was because of her recommendation that the Tuckers had determined to employ her.
"She's got good Afgan blood in her," declared Mammy, "but th' aint no tellin' what schoolin' is done did to'ds spilin' of her."
We were willing to gamble on the good"Afgan" blood and now we were to meet the girl, Blanche Johnson by name. I had written her telling her exactly what train to take and to be sure to pin a red bow on her left shoulder as a means of identification.
"Page must go because she did so much work this morning, besides getting most drowned," and Dum got up from the devastated breakfast table and began clearing off the dishes.
"And Miss Cox must go——"
"Why don't you all go?" put in Zebedee. "Leave these stupid old dishes for the lily fair Blanche."
"Oh, Jeffry Tucker, never!" exclaimed Miss Cox. "If she found us with dirty dishes she would think we like 'em dirty and give 'em to us for the rest of the time. No, you girls go on with your irresponsible parent and I will stay and do this little dab of dish washing. I don't want to go to Norfolk. In fact, I never do want to go to Norfolk." I detected a slight trembling of her lip and a painful flush on her countenance, but as she turned away quickly I thought I was the only person who had noticed it.
"But I can't allow you to do so much, Jinny," objected Zebedee.
"Well, we've got at least fifteen minutes before the trolley leaves. Let's all of us turn in and get it done before the time is up," and I set the example by grabbing the batter bread pan from Zebedee, who was trying to find just one more crumb. "Come on and help. I'll make you some more this evening for supper."
Such another bustling and hurrying as then went on! The dishes were already scraped by the voracious swimmers, so there was nothing to do but plunge them into the hot, soapy water where Miss Cox officiated with a dish mop, and then into the rinse water. Dee was ready with a tea towel and Dum put them away, while I put butter and milk in the refrigerator and wiped off the table. Zebedee stood around in everybody's way doing what he called "head work."
"If it takes one lone chaperone one hour to do the dishes, how long will it take her to do them with the assistance of one learned gentleman and three charming young ladies, when two of them are twins and the other one the most famousblower of bubbles in the world? Answer, teacher!"
"Just twelve minutes by the clock, and it would have been only ten if the learned gentleman had not made us walk around him so much," laughed Miss Cox. "Now off with you or you'll have to run for your car. Don't worry about me. I may go back to sleep."
The boat was in when we reached Norfolk but the girls had been instructed to stay aboard until we got there. We could see dear old Mary Flannagan's red head as we put foot on the pier and as soon as she saw us she began to crow like chanticleer. What fun it was to see these girls again!
We were a strangely assorted quintette. The Tucker twins, Annie Pore, Mary Flannagan and I; but our very difference made us just that much more congenial. The twins were not a bit alike in disposition. Dum,—Virginia,—was artistic, sometimes a trifle moody, very impulsive and hot-tempered but withal the most generous and noble-minded person I knew, quite like her father in lots of ways. Dee,—Caroline,—was morepractical and even-tempered with a great deal of tact prompted by her kind heart, the tenderest heart in all the world, that took in the whole animal kingdom from elephants to ants.
Annie Pore, our little English friend, had developed so since our first meeting that she seemed hardly the same person who had sat so forlornly in the station in Richmond only ten short months before.
She had lost the timid, nervous look and was growing more beautiful every day. She had had thirty days of such growing since I had last beheld her and she had made good use of her time. I had a feeling the minute I saw her that perhaps she had come to some more satisfactory understanding with her father. In fact, she must have, since he had permitted her to join the house party at Willoughby Beach.
Mary Flannagan was the same old Mary, red head, freckled face, bunchy waist and all; but there never was a more good-natured, merry face than Mary's. Her blue eyes had a twinkle in them that was better than mere beauty and her frequent laughs disclosed a set of perfectly clean,white teeth. On the whole, Mary was not so very homely and to us, her best friends, she was almost beautiful.
As for me, Page Allison, I was just a girl, neither beautiful nor ugly, brilliant nor stupid; but I was still as determined as I had been on that morning in September when I started out from Bracken for boarding school, not to rest until I had made a million friends. I had made a pretty good start and I intended to keep it up.
"Well, we are glad to see you!" exclaimed Zebedee, shaking hands with both girls at once as he met them on the gangway. "I hope your father is well, Miss Annie, and is favourably considering joining us for a week end at Willoughby."
"I don't know, Mr. Tucker, what he will do," answered Annie, smiling; "he enjoyed seeing you so much that I shall not be astonished if he takes you at your word and comes to visit you."
That was the most wonderful conquest ever made! Zebedee had been down to Price's Landing and deliberately captivated the stiff, unbending Englishman, Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore. Iasked him to tell me about it and he answered quite simply in the words of Cæsar: "'Veni! Vidi! Vici!' Why, Page, the man is peculiar but he is more lonesome than anything else. All I did was to treat him like a human being and take for granted he would treat me the same way, and sure enough he did. And here is poor little Annie, to show the wisdom of taking it for granted that a man is going to be kind. I asked him to let her come to the house party as though he would of course be delighted to give his daughter this pleasure, and he complied with the greatest cordiality."
After seeing to the girls' trunks and transferring them to the baggage trolley for Willoughby Beach (and this time Annie, having a neat, new little trunk which she called a "box," was not embarrassed by the bulging telescope she had taken to Gresham), we then went to the station to await the arrival of the precious cook.
"S'pose she doesn't come!" wailedDum.
"Well, if it would mean more of Page's batter bread, I shan't mind much," declared Zebedee as the train puffed in.
"Look for a girl with a red bow on her shoulder," said I, peering at every passenger who got out of the coloured coach. There were many as there was an excursion to Ocean View and a picnic given by "The Sons and Daughters of the Morning." The dusky crowd swarmed by, laden with boxes and baskets of lunch, all of them laughing and happy and any of them looking as though she might be a good cook, but not one of them was Blanche. Red there was in abundance but never in the form of a bow on the left shoulder. Red hats, red cravats, red parasols passed us by, and even a stair-steps row of six little nigs in rough-dry white dresses with all of their pigtails tightly "wropped" with red string and a big red bow of ten-cent store ribbon on top of each happy, woolly head,—and still no Blanche.
"Ah, I see visions of more and more batter bread of the Page brand," murmured Zebedee. "I'm going to purchase a big baking dish so you can mix up twice as much."
"Look, there is a girl coming back! Could that be Blanche?" and Dee pointed to a very fat, good-looking, brown-skinned girl, dressed in thevery latest and most extreme style of that summer. She wore a very tight skirt of black and white silk with stripes about an inch and a half broad, slit up over a flounced petticoat of royal purple. Her feet, substantial, to say the least, were encased in white canvas shoes with purple ties, and purple cotton stockings were stretched to their utmost over her piano legs (I mean the old square pianos), stretched so tight, in fact, that they took on the gloss of silk. A lavender crêpe de Chine blouse very much open, exposing her capacious chest, and a purple straw hat trimmed with black roses, perched on top of a towering, shiny pompadour, completed the colour scheme. Pinned on her left shoulder was an artificial orchid with a purple bow. In her hand she carried a huge basket covered with a newspaper.
"Are you Blanche Johnson?" I questioned.
"I was about to propound the same inquisition to you when I seen you approaching I," she answered with a mincing manner. "I am consigned to the kind ospices of Mr. Tucker and Miss Page Allison, a young lady who has been since infantryunder the jurisprudence of Mrs. Susan Black, my great arnt once removed by intermarriage."
"Well, Blanche, I am Miss Page Allison and this is Mr. Tucker, and Mr. Tucker's daughters, Miss Virginia and Miss Caroline. We came very near missing you as we were looking for the red bow, pinned on your left shoulder."
"Well, now, Miss Page, it was very disappointmenting for me not to be compliable to your requisition, but I belong to an uplifting club at my school and one of our first and most important relegations is that the mimbers must never do nothing nigrified. An' they have decided that the unduly bedizenment of yourself in red garments is the first and foremost nigrification of the race. Hence, therefore, I resolutioned to trust that my kind frinds would indemnify me with this orchard."
"And so we have, Blanche, and now we will go take the electrics for Willoughby," and Zebedee, his face crimson from suppressed merriment, led the way to the car line, while Blanche kept up a steady fire of polite talk.
"There was another reason for my abandonmentof the red bow, Miss Page, and that was that I am in kinder sicond mournin' for the disease of my only brother's offspring."
"Oh, I am sorry, Blanche! How old was the child? Was it a boy or girl?"
"Well, it wa'nt to say any age, as the angel was borned daid, and as for the slight differentation in sex, I was so woeful I done forgot to arsk my po' bereaved brother whether it were the fair sex or the inversion."
"Well, if the little thing had to die, it must have been a relief for your brother to know it had never lived."
"No'm, no'm! 'Twould a been a gret comfort if'n it had lived a while. You see Mandy, Jo's wife, is sickly and her offspring is cosequentially sickly and Jo always has heretoforth been able to collect a little insuriance on his prodigy by bein' very promptitude in the compilation of the policies. Yes! Yes! Po' Jo! I felt that it was the least I could do to show respec' for his great bereavement by puttin' on the traps of woefulness," and she smoothed with pride her stripedskirt and looked with evident admiration at her fearfully and wonderfully clad feet.
"How old does a child have to be to collect insurance?" I asked.
"Well, some companies is agreeable to the acceptance of infantry at a very tinder age and will pay at their disease if the contractioning parties can prove there ain't no poultry play."
"Poultry play?" I gasped.
"Yes'm, poultry play! That is to say, foul play. You see, Miss Page, one of our club relegations is to use the word with the most syllabubs as we seem to feel more upliftable. And poultry sounds much mo' elegant than jis' foul."
I was bursting for a laugh but had to hold in, while all of those bad girls with the disgraceful Zebedee pretended to see something in a shoe shop window that was sufficiently funny to keep them in a gale of mirth.
A ROMANCE.
As we waited for our car, a very pleasant looking man, seemingly much older than Zebedee, glanced at our crowd rather curiously (and Blanche was enough to make anyone glance at us curiously) and then his face lit up as he recognized Zebedee. He hastened to his side and grasped him by the hand, exclaiming:
"Jeffry Tucker! I'm glad to see you! What are you doing in Norfolk?"
"Well, I'm getting out of it as fast as I can on my way down to Willoughby. Have taken a cottage down there for a month,—let me introduce you to my girls and their friends."
The gentleman was Mr. Robert Gordon, a classmate of Zebedee's at the University. He was not really more than a year or so older than Zebedee, but his hair and moustache were iron grey and his fine eyes were tired and sad looking.He had been for years teaching at a school in South Carolina but had recently been given the chair of English at a college in Norfolk.
"You must come over and stay with us, Bob. The girls can tell you what heaps of room we have."
"Oh, heaps and heaps!" tweedled the twins.
"Make it this evening, Bob, and stay over Sunday. You are your own master this time of year surely, while I have to go back to the grind on Monday. I'll get my holiday a little later on, however. Now come on! I want you to know my girls and my girls to know you."
"I have a great mind to take you up," and Mr. Gordon looked admiringly at the twins. "I can hardly believe they are yours, Jeff. Yes, I'll come this evening."
"Good boy! That's the way to talk. We will expect you before supper. By the way," whispering, "this is our new cook we are taking out. I hope she won't scare you off. We've got an old friend of yours out there, too, Jinny Cox,——"
"I really think, Jeff, I had better not come thisevening," stammered Mr. Gordon, turning quite pale and showing extreme agitation. "I—I——"
"Now look here, Bob, you have accepted and we are going to expect you." The trolley arrived just then and we hurriedly got aboard while Zebedee shouted hospitable imprecations on the head of his old friend if he should fail to keep his word. "That was a strange way for Bob Gordon to behave," he said, sinking into the seat by me. "First he said he would come and seemed delighted and then when I cracked a joke about our poor, dear Blanche, he suddenly decided he had better not come. While poor, dear Blanche is certainly some dresser, she is very clean looking and has a good face, and I can't see anything about her to make a man behave as Bob did."
Zebedee always thereafter spoke of Blanche as "poor, dear Blanche," and there was something so ludicrous in his way of saying it that for the entire month we were at the beach and ever after, in fact, when our vacation of that July was mentioned, he could set all of us in a perfect gale by his "poor, dear Blanche."
I looked at Zebedee in amazement. He reallyseemed to think that it was Blanche who had made Mr. Gordon turn so pale and stammer so strangely. Men are funny animals. Here was Zebedee, a "so-called paw" of girls as old as I was, a man of the world and a newspaper man with a nose for news that was unsurpassed in the South, so my father thought, and still he had not had the intuition to see that his friend Bob had turned pale when he found Miss Cox was with us. I could have wagered anything that all the girls knew what was the matter, even Blanche. I said nothing to Zebedee, feeling perhaps that it would be a little unkind to Miss Cox to give voice to my convictions to a mere man, but I was dying to get with one of the girls and see if the subject would not be immediately broached.
Zebedee went out on the back platform to smoke and Dee made a dive for his seat. "Page, I'm dying to find out if you noticed Mr. Gordon's agitation over Miss Cox's being with us!"
"Surely I did!"
"Oh, isn't it exciting? And didn't she blush, though, when she said she never wanted to go to Norfolk?" So Dee had noticed that, too. "Dumthought it was because she had had some kind of love affair there three years ago and could not bear the place and all around it, but I kind of hoped maybe it was because the man lived there still. I wonder if he will come and if we had better warn her. I am so afraid she will run away if she finds out he is coming, and then the romance cannot be completed."
"Well, I think we had better keep out of it altogether and let your respected parent put his foot in it, which he is sure to do. He thinks Mr. Gordon held back because of Blanche's appearance."
"He doesn't! Well, of all the stupids! Got his start, too, as what he calls 'a gum-shoe reporter' doing detective work on his paper. If I had no more insight into human nature than that, I'd take to cracking rock as a profession," and Dee sniffed scornfully. She agreed with me that we would say nothing to Zebedee as it wouldn't be quite fair to our sex to gossip with a man about a love affair.
Annie and Mary had been as quick to see the possible romance as we had been, so we had totell them of Miss Cox's agitation when Norfolk was mentioned, and one and all we pitied poor Zebedee's masculine blindness. We had always liked Miss Cox, but now we had a tenderness for her that amounted to adoration. Our surmises were many as to the reason for her separation from her lover.
"Maybe there was insanity in the family," suggested Mary.
"Perhaps she had a very stern father who scorned her lover," and Annie blushed that her mind should run on stern fathers.
"I believe it was just a matter of spondulix," said the practical Dee.
"Oh, no! surely not!" exclaimed Dum. "I don't believe Miss Cox is the kind of woman to give up a man because he is poor. I believe it was because she thought she was so homely."
"Well, he must have been a pretty poor stick of a lover if he could not persuade her that she was beautiful. I'd hate to think that of Mr. Gordon. Maybe he gave her up because he was poor. School teaching is 'mighty po' pickin's,' as Mammy Susan says."
"Well, I hope they won't keep us waiting very long, because I'm simply dying to know," sighed Dum.
This conversation was held after we got back to the beach and were installing the guests in their quarters. We had decided to sleep, all five of us, on one porch, as it was so much more fun. It made the cots come rather close together but that made giggling and whispering just so much simpler.
Miss Cox had had a pleasant morning, she declared, and had the table all set for luncheon with tempting viands thereon. We had brought a supply of delicacies from Schmidt's in Richmond and I had a fine ham, cooked by Mammy Susan's own method, which I produced from my trunk as a surprise for Zebedee, so "poor, dear Blanche" did not have to officiate at this meal but could spend her time getting her sleeping porch in order and unpacking her huge basket of clothes.
We had been rather concerned about how a sleeping porch would be looked on by the cook, but she set our minds at rest with great tact.
"Yes'm, I is quite customary to air in my sleepingdepartment. At school the satinary relegations is very strengulous and we are taught that germcrobes lurks in spots least inspected. And now I will take off my begalia of travel and soon will be repaired to be renitiated into the hysterics of domestic servitude." And we were going to have to listen to this talk for a whole month and keep straight faces or perhaps lose the services of "poor, dear Blanche"!
"I simply can't stand it!" exploded Dum as soon as she got out of earshot. "It will give me apoplexy."
Luncheon was a merry meal that day as Zebedee was in an especially delightful mood and Mary Flannagan had many funny new stories to tell. She was an indefatigable reader of jokes and could reel them off by the yard, but all the time our romantic souls were atremble to see how Miss Cox would take the news of the proposed visit of her one-time lover. We half hoped and half feared that Zebedee would mention the fact that he had extended this invitation to Mr. Gordon, and perhaps she might faint. We did not want her to faint, but if she did faint we hopedwe would be there to see it. We kept wondering why Zebedee did not tell her and finally quite casually he asked:
"Where do you think we had better put Gordon, Jinny?"
"Gordon? Gordon who?"
"Why, Bob Gordon! Didn't the girls tell you he is coming out to stay over Sunday?"
"No—we—we—you—we thought——" but no one ever found out what we did think nor did we find out what Miss Cox thought of the return of her supposed lover, for just at this juncture Blanche came into view ready for the "hysterics of domestic servitude." In taking off her "begalia of travel" she had also removed the large, shiny pompadour and disclosed to view a woolly head covered with little tight "wropped" plaits. She had on a blue checked long-sleeved apron made by what is known as the bungalow pattern, her expression was quite meek and she looked very youthful and rather pathetic. I realized that her vast amount of assurance had come entirely from her fine clothes, and now that she had taken them off she was nothing more nor less than apoor, overgrown country darkey who had been sent to school and taught a lot of stuff before she had any foundation to put it on. It turned out later that she could neither read nor write with any ease, and all of her high-sounding, mispronounced words she had gathered from lectures she had attended in the school. She was suffering from this type of schooling as I would have suffered had I gone straight from Bracken to college without getting any training at Gresham.
The effect was so startling, to see this girl whom we had left only a few minutes ago arrayed in all her splendor, now looking for all the world like a picked chicken, that Miss Cox and her romance were for the moment forgotten and all our energies were taken up in trying to compose our countenances. Then Mary Flannagan swallowed a sardine whole and had to be well thumped, and by that time Miss Cox was able to control her voice (if she had ever lost control of it), and she asked, in a most matter-of-fact way, questions about the expected guest; and if her colour was a little heightened, it might have been Blanche who had caused it. Were we not all of us as red as roses?
OH, YOU CHAPERONE!
Dum and Dee were to take turns keeping house but I had a steady job as the Advisory Board and we hoped to manage without worrying Miss Cox. The girls had tossed up to find out who should begin, and Dee had first go, which meant breaking in Blanche. We were glad to see that she seemed to understand dish washing and that she moved rapidly considering her size and shape.
"Now, Blanche," said Dee with a certain pardonable importance, "my father is to have a guest this evening and we want to have a very nice supper, so you must tell us what are the dishes you can make best."
"Well, Miss Tucker, I is had great successfulness with my choclid cake and blue mawnge."
"Oh, I did not mean dessert but the substantial part of the supper," gasped Dee. Blanchewas always making us gasp, as she was so unexpected.
"Well, as for that my co'se is not took up many things as yit, but I is mastered the stuffin' of green peppers and kin make a most appetizement dish. Up to the presence, the the'ry of domesticated silence has been mo' intrusting to me than the practization."
Dee looked forlornly to me for help and indeed I felt it was time for the Advisory Board to step in.
"Blanche," I said, rather sternly, "did you ever cook any before you went to school?"
"Cook? Of co'se I did, Miss Page. I'se been a-cookin' ever sence I could take a ask cake out'n the fire 'thout burnin' myse'f up."
"Good! Now see here, Blanche, we want you to cook for us the way you cooked before you ever went to school. Just forget all about domestic science and cook."
"Don't you want no choclid cake an' no blue mawnge?"
"Not tonight," said Dee gently as Blanche's countenance was so sad. "We want some friedfish and some batter bread and perhaps some hot biscuit or waffles. There are some beautiful tomatoes in the refrigerator and some lettuce and we can have peaches and cream for dessert."
"'Thout no cake?"
"Well, I tell you what you can do," said the tender-hearted Dee. "You can make us a chocolate cake for Sunday dinner if your supper turns out well this evening."
"Oh, thank you, Miss Tucker. I is got so much sentiment fer cake. Now which do you choose to have, biscuit or waffles?"
We thought biscuit would be best to start Blanche on and after cautioning her to call us if she was in doubt about anything, we left her to work her own sweet will.
Her own sweet will turned out to be a pretty good one and we were wise to leave her to it. I did get out in the kitchen just in time to keep her from putting sugar in the batter bread, something she had picked up in school from her Northern teachers. I thought it best to take the batter bread in my own hands after that, and to Zebedee'sgreat comfort, made it until I felt sure Blanche could do it as well as I could.
Zebedee and I were on the porch waiting for supper and Mr. Gordon to arrive, while Dee went out to put the finishing touch to her housekeeping. Dum and the two other girls had strolled in the direction of the trolley to meet the guest whom we rather expected to come on the next car. Miss Cox had not yet made her appearance after the second dip we had had that day.
"Have you known Mr. Gordon very long?" I queried.
"Ever since our first year at the University. He's a bully good fellow but awfully queer in a way. Used to be very quick-tempered, but I fancy all these years of teaching have rather toned down his temper. Jinny Cox used to be a perfect pepper pot; but temper and teaching don't go very well together and she is as mild as a May morning now."
"Did Miss Cox know Mr. Gordon very well in those old days?"
"Why, bless me if I remember. We all of usran in a crowd. As well as I can recall, it seems to me that Bob Gordon and Jinny Cox were always rowing about one thing or another. You see I was so in love with my little Virginia that all I can remember of those days is just what touched us," and Zebedee wiped his eyes, which had filled with tears as they always did when he spoke of his little wife who had lived such a short time. "I do kind of half remember that one day we spent at Montecello on a picnic when it rained cats and dogs, Jinny and Bob had such a row they could not go back together although he was her escort. That was the time Jinny and I made up the tune and danced the Lobster Quadrille," and Zebedee was laughing before he had quite dried his tears, as was the way with all the Tuckers. "Bob left the University soon after that,—some financial difficulties at home because his father had lost his fortune,—and then I believe old Bob got a job in a district school and has been teaching ever since—Look here, Page, do you know I believe my soul Bob and Jinny were engaged then! I have a kind of half memory that my little Virginia told me they were, onthe way home from Montecello. Well, if I'm not an ass! Why, it was not poor, dear Blanche, after all, that was scaring off Gordon, but Jinny Cox! Well, well!"
I couldn't help smiling in rather a superior way and Zebedee exclaimed:
"I believe you knew it all the time," but just then the girls returned, bringing Mr. Gordon with them and what I knew or did not know had to keep for another time.
Mr. Gordon was very much spruced up and did not look nearly so old and tired as he had in the morning. His light grey suit and hat were in excellent taste, setting off his iron-grey hair and moustache, and on the whole his appearance was so distinguished that we were more thrilled than ever at the thought of just how Miss Cox was going to treat him.
I fancy there is no human so romantic as a sixteen-year-old girl and here were five girls all in the neighbourhood of sixteen and all simply bubbling over with sentimentality. Miss Cox came out on the porch and there we stood fully prepared for any outburst. We all of us noted thatMiss Cox looked remarkably well in a blue and white lawn that showed off her really very good figure to perfection. I had long ago found out that Miss Cox was not so very homely, after all. To be sure her face was rather crooked, and her smile very twisted, but her head was well set, and her hair thick and glossy, and her figure athletic and graceful.
"Hello, Bob!"
"Hello, Jinny!" and that was all! They shook hands in quite a matter-of-fact way.
"I believe we were mistaken," whispered Dum to me.
"Wait and see," I cautioned, "they could not fall on each other's necks right before all of us."
"Maybe not, but they need not greet each other like long lost fish," grumbled Dum.
But I knew very well if they had been nothing at all to each other but just acquaintances who had not met for about seventeen years, they would have had some conventional remarks to make and not just said "Hello!"
At this crucial moment poor, dear Blanche appeared announcing supper:
"Your repast is reserved, Miss Tucker," and in we went to a very good meal. Blanche had evidently found it no trouble to forget what she had learned at school in the way of domestic science and she had cooked as good a Virginia supper as one could wish. The Hampton spots were done to a turn; the biscuit were light and fluffy, and as I had seen to the batter bread, if I do say it who shouldn't, it was about perfect.
Mr. Gordon may have been suffering with lovesickness of seventeen years' standing, but he certainly proved himself a good trencher knight.
"All of you have some excuse for appetites as I wager anything you have been in the water twice today, but I have no excuse except that the food is so good and I am so tired of boarding," said our guest as he helped himself to another fluffy biscuit that poor, dear Blanche was handing around with an elegant air like a duchess at a tea.
"Well, we did go in twice today, although it is supposed to be a bad thing to do. Somehow I never can resist it myself and naturally I don'texpect the girls to resist what I can't myself," said Zebedee.
"How was the water; pretty warm?"
"Oh, fine this morning before breakfast but rather brillig this afternoon," answered Dum.
"Brillig?"
"Yes, brillig! Don't you know your Alice?
"'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.'"
And then a strange thing happened. Before Dum got half through her quotation Miss Cox's face was suffused with blushes, and Mr. Gordon first looked pained and then determined and when he answered he spoke to Dum but he looked at Miss Cox.
"Well, I don't know my Alice as well as I might, but I have read it and re-read it and think it a most amusing book. I don't remember that strange verse, however,—— Do you know, Miss Dum, I used to be such a silly ass as to think there was nothing amusing in Alice in Wonderland, and once a long time ago I fell out with thevery best friend I ever had in the world because I said the Lobster Quadrille was the kind of thing that no one but a child could find anything funny in? And she thought differently, and before we knew it we were at it hammer and tongs, and both of us said things we did not really mean (at least I did not mean them)——"
"Neither did I, Bob," said Miss Cox, frankly. I certainly liked Miss Cox for the way she spoke. She was what Tweedles calls a "perfect gentleman."
"And what is more, Jinny, the Lobster Quadrille is my favourite poem now," and Mr. Gordon looked very boyish, "or it might be unless you think the charming bit Miss Dum has just recited is better."
"How do you like this?" said Dum, rather bent on mischief I fancied:
"'In winter when the fields are white,I sing this song for your delight—In spring, when woods are getting green,I'll try and tell you what I mean.In summer, when the days are long,Perhaps you'll understand the song.In autumn, when the leaves are brown,Take pen and ink and write it down.I sent a message to the fish:I told them, 'This is what I wish.'The little fishes of the sea,sent an answer back to me.The little fishes' answer was,'We cannot do it, Sir, because——'I sent to them again to say,'It will be better to obey.'The fishes answered with a grin,'Why, what a temper you are in!'I told them once, I told them twice;They would not listen to advice.I took a kettle, large and new,Fit for the deed I had to do.My heart went hop, my heart went thump;I filled the kettle at the pump.Then someone came to me and said,'The little fishes are in bed.'I said to him, I said it plain,'Then you must wake them up again.'I said it very loud and clear;I went and shouted in his ear.But he was very stiff and proud;He said, 'You need not shout so loud!'And he was very proud and stiff,He said, 'I'll go and wake them, if——'I took a corkscrew from the shelf;I went to wake them up myself.And when I found the door was locked,I pulled and pushed and kicked and knocked.And when I found the door was shut,I tried to turn the handle, but——'"
Dum recited this poem with fervor and great elocutionary effects and simply convulsed the crowd. The whole thing was said directly to Mr. Gordon and the naughty girl seemed to have some personal meaning when she said, "My heart went hop, my heart went thump," and when she ended up with a hopeless wail, "I tried to turn the handle, but——," Mr. Gordon actually went to Miss Cox, as we arose from the supper table, drew her hand within his arm and deliberately led her out on the beach, and in plain hearing of all of us, said:
"The door isn't shut for good, is it, Jinny?"
And we heard her answer: "No, Bob, not if you 'pull and push and kick and knock.'"
Well, Bob certainly did "pull and push andkick and knock." I have never imagined a more persistent lover. He seemed to be trying to catch even for all he had lost in those seventeen years. He told Zebedee that after the foolish quarrel he and Miss Cox had had on that wet, wet picnic, he had been called home by the financial disaster of his father, and while he knew he had been hard-headed in the affair, he felt she had been unreasonable, too, in demanding that he should agree with her about the absurd poem in Alice in Wonderland; and so had left the University without trying to right matters. Then when he had realized the tremendous difficulty his family was in, and found that not only would he have to go immediately to work but that his mother and sister would be dependent on his exertions, he felt that it was on the whole best that he and Miss Cox should separate. The engagement was already broken and he went off to his long and up-hill work saddened and forlorn; and Miss Cox, rather embittered by the experience, feeling that she had been hasty and exacting but too proud to make a move towards a reconciliation, had spent all the long years in vain regrets.
"Well, I hope they will be very happy," sighed Dum when we were discussing the matter while we lay on our closely packed cots the first night of Mr. Gordon's visit. "It does seem terribly unromantic for the separation to have been caused by the Lobster Quadrille."
"It might have been a permanent separation if it had been just plain lobster, 'specially in cans," said funny Mary Flannagan.
"Didn't Miss Cox look sweet in that blue dress? I thought she was almost pretty but maybe it was the love-light in her eyes," sentimentalized Annie Pore.
"Isn't it a pity they are so old?" deplored Dee. "His hair is real grey."
"It's trouble that has done it," said Mary. "I wondered, Dum, you didn't get off that verse on him about the voice of the lobster. Maybe that would have been too personal: