THE WEDDING.
July was almost over and it seemed but yesterday since we had come to the Beach and taken possession of Mrs. Rand's cottage and made preparations for the continuous house-party. So many pleasures and excitements had been crowded into that month that really might have been spread over six months and still not have been stupid! It seems a pity that pleasant happenings make time pass quickly and sad and boresome things make it drag. How much better if it could only be the other way. I know Miss Cox felt that the month had gone very quickly and would have been glad of a few more weeks to give to preparations for matrimony, but Mr. Robert Gordon had got the bit between his teeth and there was no holding him in.
"Haven't I been waiting for years and years? Isn't my hair white with waiting?" he would say,shaking his exceedingly becoming, iron-grey locks.
We girls privately thought that he might have spunked up a little sooner instead of spending all those weary years in growing grey, no matter how becoming it had proven to be; but Zebedee told me he rather felt that Miss Cox and Mr. Gordon were more suited to each other than they had been in their youth. The years of separation had taught them a lesson they might never have learned together: how to control their tempers and bridle their tongues.
I have never seen a couple who seemed to be in greater accord and harmony. It was a harmony of the soul and one that would last through eternity, not just a superficial agreement caused by the "glamor of the amour." Perhaps Zebedee was right and their happiness was more certain now that suffering and experience had instilled in their hearts the wisdom of moderation and self-control.
It was to be a very quiet wedding at old St. Paul's in Norfolk, but we girls were in a state of excitement that made Miss Cox appear calmin contrast. The boys from the camp were invited and a half dozen of Mr. Gordon's most intimate friends.
Miss Cox was singularly alone in the world except for some very dear friends who were not getatable. Mr. Gordon's mother was dead and his sister married and living in California, so we were, after all, the nearest thing to a family they could scrape up. The groom wanted Zebedee for his best man but Miss Cox had to have him to give her away and a next best man must needs be chosen.
Blanche, of course, had to be included in the wedding party, and it was with a great deal of finesse that we persuaded her not to wear the fearful and wonderful costume she had arrived in. Zebedee solved the problem of how to do it by presenting her with a very large new black mohair skirt and a plain, tailored linen shirt waist and a black sailor hat.
"If poor, dear Blanche has a hankering for her gorgeous finery, tell her that she must wear this sober costume to please me. I know she would not hurt my feelings for anything. Also tell herthat it would be perfectlyau faitfor her to go to this gay function after the recent bereavement in her family, the untimely death of the brother's baby, provided she is suitably attired. There is a new white apron, too," said Zebedee, handing the box to Dum.
"For goodness' sake, don't ask me to do it!" exclaimed Dum. "Dee is the diplomat and is fully capable of soft-soaping Blanche into thinking that her striped skirt and purple waist are too fine to wear to a mere wedding but must be saved for funerals. I'd do it all wrong and make a mess of it." So Dee consented to be the fashion dictator to the cook if I would go with her and uphold her in her arguments.
"Well, now the generositiness of my employerer is well nigh asphyxiating!" cried the girl. "I have always heard a simplifaction of costumery was the quintillion of excellency. But would it not be more respectful like to Miss Cox if we female maidens adorned of ourselves in more gorgeous affectations?"
"Oh, no! Not at all!" declared Dee quickly. "You see—you see—Miss Cox is going to weara very simple gown herself—just a traveling dress—and it would not be fair for any of us to dress too finely and—and—attract attention to ourselves when all eyes should be drawn to the bride."
This was a knock-down argument and with a sigh Blanche put away her finery. Donning the plain and appropriate clothes Zebedee had purchased, she made herself ready for what she designated as "the wedding corsage."
I had been to very few weddings, as I believe I have said before. Our part of the country was like the Hereafter in that the inhabitants neither married nor gave in marriage, being composed chiefly of bachelors and old maids, with a sprinkling of widowers and widows who seemed to have found once enough. This wedding was even more exciting to me than my first hop. All of us were nervous except Miss Cox, who was singularly composed. Blanche forgot to put any salt in the batter bread that morning, and Dum came down to breakfast in odd stockings, one black and one tan. As for Zebedee, anyone would think it was his own wedding, he was so upset.
"I don't see why they don't have undertakers for weddings as well as funerals," he exclaimed. "Someone to take all the responsibility and not leave the matter to amateurs! Here I am scared to death for fear the sexton won't remember to open the church in time; that the preacher won't come; that I might lose the ring—by Jove! I have lost it! I told Bob to keep it himself!" and he slapped his pockets frantically and began to turn them inside out. Of course it was in the particular place it should have been, safe in his pocket book; but I know I saw him at least a dozen times go through exactly the same search during the morning, his eyes big with fright and his hands trembling.
I don't know what there is about a wedding to make the masculine gender so panic-stricken, but I am told that there never was a man living who could go through a ceremony (whether it be his own or another's) without showing the white feather. Maybe Brigham Young and Solomon got so used to it they could at least assume composure, but I have my doubts about even those much-married gentlemen.
The trolley was not considered good enough by Mr. Gordon and Zebedee for the wedding party, so we were conveyed to Norfolk in automobiles; and in spite of our host's lugubrious prognostications that we were going to be very late and the preacher would be gone, we arrived many minutes before we were due.
There were a few persons in the church attracted by curiosity and the rumour of a wedding, and Mr. Gordon was waiting for us with his next best man, who had just arrived from South Carolina.
"Gee whiz, I'm glad to see that man!" breathed Zebedee, looking as though a great weight had fallen from him. "Now he can take charge of this confounded ring. This is not in my jurisdiction, anyhow. Whoever heard of the father of the bride having to take care of the ring?" Then he began his usual search for the offending little circlet of gold, crying nervously: "I've lost it! I've lost it this time for sure!" But I reminded him of the pocket book and with a relieved sigh he handed the ring over to the next best man, who assumed the expression of Herculeswhen Atlas got him to hold the world for a while.
As the bells rang out high noon, we seated ourselves sedately in the front pews. The minister took his stand in the pulpit and the organ pealed forth the wedding march. A little stir in the back and an almost inaudible titter from the strangers who were scattered about the church, caused us to turn to see what was going on, and who should be marching up the aisle, the observed of all observers, but poor, dear Blanche, heading the "wedding corsage"! Only a few yards behind her was Miss Cox on the arm of Zebedee. It was awfully funny, but we were too taken up with the serious matter in hand to know how funny it was until afterwards. "Thank goodness, she hasn't got on her 'costumery'!" whispered Dee.
Mr. Gordon was standing at the altar waiting for his bride, and the best man produced the ring at the proper time without much fumbling. Zebedee gave the bride away with an air of great generosity and then wept shamelessly as was his habit. Miss Cox kept her composure even untilshe was Mrs. Robert Gordon. The groom shook like an aspen leaf but managed to make his responses in a loud, determined voice.
Over at last, the knot safely tied and Miss Jane Cox no more! By a word from the minister she had been miraculously turned into Mrs. Gordon. She looked very happy as she came down the aisle on the arm of her beaming husband, who had stopped trembling and had begun to prance, at least that is what Dee declared he was doing. Zebedee had stopped weeping and was now in a broad grin, and the next best man was evidently overjoyed to have shifted the burden of the ring to the rightful owner.
How pretty the table was in the private room at the Montecello Hotel where Zebedee gave the wedding breakfast! We all suddenly discovered we had eaten next to no breakfast, and now did our best to make up for lost time. There never were such brisk and attentive and omnipresent waiters anywhere before, I am sure. In addition, now and then we could see the delighted countenance of Blanche, peeping in from an adjoining room where she had assumed the office of ladies'maid to help us off with our imaginary wraps. She felt that at last she was moving in high society and I think bitterly regretted the tabooed finery, especially when she saw the gleaming shirt fronts and Tuxedos of the waiters.
The breakfast was perfect. Had not Tweedles and I spent days going over the menu to be sure we forgot nothing and had everything we should and nothing we shouldn't? Dum came very near spoiling the whole effect because she insisted upon having cakes and molasses.
"You know Zebedee and I like them better than anything and always order them when we eat at hotels. I can't see that it would not be perfectly appropriate. The Montecello hotel would not have them on its menu if it wasn't elegant," she declared as we pored over the printed bill of fare that Zebedee had brought to Willoughby several days before the wedding.
"But, Dum," we explained, "this is not a real breakfast, just a wedding breakfast. It is to be luncheon instead of breakfast."
"All right then, let's have pan-cakes insteadof plain cakes! They have those on the luncheon menu."
It took much persuading and arguing to convince Dum that even pan-cakes would not do at a wedding breakfast. I thought once she and Dee would have to resort to trial by combat, a measure they had not had to employ for a long time. They still practiced with the boxing gloves but had not put them on to settle disputes for many a month. They finally appealed to Zebedee, who confessed himself to be no Ladies' Home Advisor as to the proper food to be eaten on such occasions, but said:
"What does Page think?"
"Well, I think that there is nothing in the world better than plain cakes and molasses except maybe pan-cakes and syrup, but somehow it does not seem to me to be very romantic eating for a wedding breakfast."
"The ultimatum is delivered," laughed Zebedee. "If you must have pan-cakes, Dum, for a wedding breakfast you will have to wait until you get a bridegroom of your own,—and I hope that will be many a day, honey."
"All right, if you are all against me," sighed Dum, "I'll give in; but I can't see that broiled chicken and English peas are any more romantic than cakes and molasses,—not as much so, in fact. What could be more romantic than a nice passionate hot cake all smothered in sweet, sticky, loving molasses?"
What we did agree to have was canteloupe, then filet de sole with Parker House rolls, then broiled chicken and peas with pop-overs, a fruit salad with mayonnaise, and last but not least, a great cake with all of the things baked in it that are usual to wedding cakes, and wonderful ice cream in molds appropriate for the occasion.
If anyone felt like kicking, his or her feelings were carefully concealed. Even the bride and groom ate, and as for the boys from the camp,—you would suppose they had been living on hard tack from the way they devoured that wedding breakfast.
Just before the cake was to be cut, the head waiter himself came in, a broad grin on his good-natured countenance and in his hands a great tray laden with orders of hot pan-cakes, a surpriseand joke of Zebedee's. It wasn't such a joke, after all, as every last one of those steaming cakes disappeared as if by magic. One would have thought that the guests had had enough, more than enough, in fact, but as Sleepy said, no doubt voicing the sentiment of the crowd:
"When there is no room in me for pan-cakes, then you fellows had better get ready for a funeral. It would be a sure indication of the last stages of a wasting disease."
"Consumption!" suggested Wink. "Consumption of food!"
Zebedee told me he had ordered the cakes because he hated to see Dum disappointed; and then, too, he had a terrible fear that she might get married some time just so she could have pan-cakes at a wedding breakfast.
"I want to keep my girls with me as long as I can, and certainly don't want one of them to marry for the sake of a hot cake. Dum is fully capable of going any lengths to carry her point. Did you see how she squared her chin when you and Dee talked her down?" I hadn't seen it, butI knew full well that when Dum did square her chin she meant business.
Pan-cakes and all were finally cleared away and the cake was cut, with many jests and much laughter. Dee got the ring, Annie the piece of money and Wink the thimble, thereby causing many a merry bit of banter from his friends. He came very near swallowing it, not expecting to find anything in his slice of cake as usually, by some miraculous juggling, the females get the things in the wedding cake.
I had not seen Wink since the night of the hop. He had absented himself from Willoughby, visiting various friends in Suffolk and on the Eastern Shore, and only getting back to the camp in time for the wedding. His absence had been somewhat of a relief to me. I did not know just how he would behave nor was I certain what my attitude should be. I felt that I must treat him as though nothing had happened; but if he was going to show hurt feelings or be silly, I knew I would get embarrassed and stiff.
I had not had a good look at him until we were seated at the table. Then, to my dismay, he wasplaced next to me. I knew it was up to me to be pleasant, so I waltzed in to be agreeable but not too charming. If only I could make Wink feel as I did! He looked different, somehow, but for a moment I could not account for it; and then it suddenly came over me that Wink was growing a moustache!
I felt like crawling under the table but instead I turned to the gentleman seated on my other side, no other than the next best man, and I am sure that Mabel Binks herself could not have got off a greater fire of small talk than I managed to pour forth. When I told Wink that he would have to grow a moustache before I could be sure of the state of my feelings towards him, I was not in real earnest and he might have known it! I was quite sure at that wedding breakfast what my feelings were: decided resentment. Why could he not realize that I was nothing but a little girl who occasionally played lady?
At any rate I was not going to let a little old moustache composed of a few struggling hairs spoil either my pleasure or my appetite. The next best man proved to be most agreeable andvery easy to talk to, and the breakfast was good enough to occupy one without conversation had it been necessary to give your attention only to the matter in hand.
Wink looked rather ruefully at the thimble.
"You'll be darning your own socks 'til Kingdom Come," laughed Sleepy, glad that the joke for once was not on him. Wink sadly acquiesced, and then Zebedee kindly added:
"Maybe that means the kind of thimble Wendy gave Peter Pan, Wink. You remember in that delightful fantasy a thimble was a kiss."
"Well, anyhow, one can't wear a thimble and a mitten at the same time," muttered Wink so that no one heard him but me; and to my dying day I shall hate myself for the way I blushed. It was one of those blushes that hurt. I had a feeling that even my eyes were red. I had just taken the first mouthful of a wonderful molded ice: a pair of white turtle-doves billing and cooing, perched in the heart of a great raspberry sherbet rose. I choked (it must have been on the billing and cooing) and the next best man had to beat me in the back until I could get my breath.I was thankful for the choke and hoped no one had noticed that my crimson countenance had preceded the accident.
And now the toasts were in order. Everyone had to say something no matter how bromidic. "Long life and happiness!" "May your shadows never grow less!" And Dum blurted out: "May you have many more wedding breakfasts!" which caused a perfect storm of applause, as it sounded very much as though she meant marriages for the newly wedded couple. Mary Flannagan got off an impromptu limerick that amused us Gresham girls very much, because we were well aware of the fact that Miss Cox was very unconventional in her ideas and always irritated by narrowness in religion or anything else:
"There was a young lady named Coxy,Who wished to be married by proxy.When asked why this wuz,She said: 'Oh, becuzI never could stand orthodoxy.'"
Then Wink, who was very clever at everything but growing moustaches, came back very quickly with:
"The groom then he swore and he cust;'I hate to begin saying "must,"But I know my dear JaneWill surely be saneAnd be married in church, or I'll bust.'"
There had been some discussion about where they were to be married, Miss Cox rather leaning towards going to some friends in Albemarle, but we had joined Mr. Gordon in talking her out of it.
Zebedee made a wonderful toast master, encouraging the bashful members of the party with so much tact and kindliness that even the timid Annie actually got upon her feet and made a very graceful little speech before she seemed to be aware of the fact that she was really doing it.
Then Sleepy, feeling that if Annie did, he must, too, raised his bulky form, and very much in the tone of a schoolboy saying his piece, almost choking with embarrassment, managed to get out the following:
"May joy and happiness be your lot,As down the path of life you trot."
We expressed ourselves in various ways, but we were all sincere in wishing well for the Gordons.I, for one, regretted exceedingly that the one person who had ever made me comprehend mathematics was no longer to teach me. I dreaded the coming year, certain that I would have a terrible time with that bug-bear of a subject.
Zebedee's speech was: "There are many kinds of toasts I have always known, dry toast, milk toast, French toast and buttered toast, and these may be hot or cold,—but bless me if we haven't more variety of toasts at this nuptial banquet than were ever dreamed of in my philosophy. One thing I can assert: No one has offered a dry toast nor proffered a cold one. Each has been buttered and piping hot, and the best thing I can wish my two dear friends is that their toast may always be buttered and piping hot!" And he added feelingly: "May you always eat it together!"
Then Mr. Gordon made a very graceful little concession: he actually quoted "Alice in the Looking Glass," substituting Jinny for Alice. This was pretty nice of him, considering that their early and lasting disagreement had been all because of Lewis Carroll's nonsense verses.
"'Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran;Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea—And welcome Queen Jinny with thirty-times-three."'Then fill up your glasses with treacle and ink,Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;Mix sand with the cider and wool with the wine—And welcome Queen Jinny with ninety-times-nine!'"
Then Miss Cox arose to answer the toast, and one would have supposed it was some great sonnet in her honour that her new husband had composed, so graciously did she accept the tribute paid her.
"'O Looking Glass creatures,' quoth Jinny, 'draw near!'Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear;'Tis a privilege high to have dinner and teaAlong with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!'"
THE AFTER-MATH.
They took a steamer to New York, that Mecca of the newly-wed, and we all adjourned to the pier to wish them God-speed. As the vessel pulled out, Rags produced from his pocket the self-same old tennis shoes that we had found the morning we took possession of Mrs. Rand's cottage, and threw them after the departing couple. They looked very comical as they floated along for a moment like veritable gun-boats and then filled and sank.
"Requiescat in Pace!" muttered Wink. "At least you can't forget them again."
The boys were breaking camp next day, and the day after we were to get ready to turn over the cottage to Mrs. Rand's next tenants. Zebedee bitterly regretted that he had not taken the place for two months, but it was too late now. Besides, his holiday was over and we all wellknew that Willoughby would not be quite the same thing with our kind host not there, the boys no longer in their camp, and good Miss Cox married and gone.
Zebedee had to go back to Richmond that night, ready for harness the next morning.
"My, but I dread it!" he exclaimed as he took us over to the trolley to start us back to Willoughby Beach. "I almost wish I had never had a holiday, it is so hard to go back to work. What are stupid old newspapers for, anyhow? Who wants to read them?" This made us smile, as Zebedee is like a raging lion until he gets the morning paper, and then goes through the same rampageous humour later in the day until the afternoon paper appears to assuage his agony. "We journalists get no thanks, anyhow. I agree with the Frenchman who says that a journalist's efforts are no more appreciated than a cook's; no one remembers what he had for yesterday'sdinneror what was in yesterday's newspaper."
Blanche listened to Mr. Tucker's words with rapt attention. She always stood at a respectful distance but within easy ear-shot of the conversation,which she eagerly drank in and then commented on later to Tweedles and me. But this too nearly touched her heart for her to wait until we were alone to make her original and characteristic comments.
"Oh, Mr. Tucker, it is so considerable of you to find a symbolarity between the chosen professions of master and handymaiden! Sense I have been conductoring of the curlinary apartment of your enstablishment, I have so often felt the infutility of my labours. What I do is enjoyed only for the momentariness of its consumption, and is never more thought of unless it is to say too rich or something; and then, if it disagrees, poor Blanche is remembered again, and then not to say agree'bly. Sometimes whin I have been placin' clean papers on the kitchen shelves, the same sentimentality has occurred to me that you so apely quotetioned a moment ago, Mr. Tucker; namely, in relation to journalists and cooks. I see all that pretty printin' going to was'e jes as a restin' place for pots 'n pans, and then in the garbage pail I see the cold waffles that was once as fresh and hot as the next, one no more consideredthan the other, and I could weep for both of us. Our electrocution teacher used to say a piece about 'Impervious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay doth stop the crack to keep the wind away.'"
We stood aghast during this speech. Dum looked as though she would welcome Death, the Deliverer, with joy, anything to relieve the strain she was on to keep from exploding with laughter; but Zebedee did not seem to think it was funny at all. He listened with the greatest courtesy and when she had finished with her quotation (which we afterwards agreed was singularly appropriate, since Cæsar had been made "impervious" enough to keep out water as well as wind), he answered her very kindly:
"I thank you, Blanche, for understanding me so well. I can tell you that I, for one, will always remember your waffles; and had I known at the time that there was any more batter, there would not have been any cold ones to find their last ignominious resting place in the garbage pail."
"I also have saved some of your writings, Mr. Tucker,—an editorial that Miss Dum said youhad written before you came for your holiday,—and I will put it in my mem'ry book as an epitaph of you."
Then Dum did explode. She made out that she was sneezing and even insisted upon purchasing a menthol inhaler before she went back to Willoughby, declaring she felt a head cold coming on.
The Beach seemed stale, flat and unprofitable somehow when we got back. We missed Miss Cox and above all we missed Zebedee.
"I'm glad we couldn't get the cottage for another month," yawned Dum. "Old Zebedeelums couldn't be here more than once or twice in that time and it would surely be stupid without him;" and all of us agreed with her in our hearts.
The cottage was in a terrible state of disorder. We had been too excited in the morning to do our chores. Beds were unmade, the living-room messy and untidy with sweaters on chairs, crumbs on the table and floor and shades some up, and some down, and some crooked (nothing to my mind gives a room a more forlorn look than window shades at sixes and sevens); the kitchen, usually in the pink of perfection, just as Blanchehad left it after cooking what she had termed, a somewhat "forgetable" breakfast.
"Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow," said Dee. "Let's leave this mess and take a dip before supper. We will have fifteen minutes at least before Blanche can get the funeral baked meats on the table."
We were to have a very simple repast and we told Blanche just to put it on the table and we would wait on ourselves. The girl was as tired as we were and we felt we must spare her. We determined to get the cottage in perfect order the next day and just to "live keerless" for that evening and night, as Blanche expressed it.
Five hats and five pairs of gloves, dropped where the owners happened to fancy, did not help to make the living-room look any more orderly. Dum took off her white kid pumps, that had been pinching a little all day, and left them in the middle of the floor. The morning paper, despised of Zebedee but eagerly devoured nevertheless, was scattered all over the divan and floor, and a bag of bananas Blanche had been intrusted with was in a state of dishabille on the crummytable. It was surely a place to flee from and flee we did.
Such a swim as we had! It seemed the best of the whole month. The water was perfect, just a little cooler than the air, and the setting sun turned it to liquid gold.
"Why, look at Annie! She is swimming, really swimming!" called out Mary Flannagan. And sure enough there was Annie staying on top of the water and calmly paddling around like a beautiful white swan.
"Of course I can swim in golden water! Who couldn't? I do wish Mr. Tucker could see me. Isn't it too bad after all his patience with me that I wait until he is gone to show what I can do? Somehow this seems like a dream, and the water is fairy water."
"Let's all catch hold of hands and lie on our backs and float," I suggested.
"If you won't leave me when the tide comes, to turn over and swim in," pleaded Annie.
"I will stay with you until your shoulders grate against the shore," promised Mary.
And so we lay all in a row on top of the water,faces upturned to the wonderful evening sky, our bodies as light as air and our hearts even lighter.
"Gee, Dee! I am glad you suggested this!" sighed Dum. "I never felt more peaceful in my life than I do this minute, and I know I never felt more forlorn than I did when we first got back to the cottage."
"Me too! Me too!" we chorused.
"Let's float to Spain and never come back," suggested Annie.
"And this from a little lady who has been afraid to get her toes wet all month! Well, I'm game if the rest of you are," and Mary gave a few vigorous kicks that sent the line some distance from shore; and still Annie with her white-swan expression floated peacefully on. We lay there chatting and dreaming, washing off "the cares that infest the day," planning the future and gazing into the clear obscure of the darkening sky.
"'Star light, star bright, first star I've seen tonight!I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight,'"
sang Dum, and sure enough there was a star.
"Look here, girls, it's getting late! I hate to awaken you from this dream of eternal bliss, but we've got to go in," and Dee turned over on her face to swim in, thereby causing some commotion in the hearts of the two swimmers newly initiated in the art.
"Don't leave me!" gasped Annie.
"Didn't your faithful Mary swear to take you safe to shore? Just lie still and I'll tow you in;" and in they came, Mary steaming away like a tug boat and Annie floating like an ocean liner, until her shoulders grated on the sand and then and only then was she convinced that she could touch bottom.
We raced back to the cottage, hungry and happy, the fifteen minutes that we had meant to stay having turned into an hour in the twinkling of an eye. From afar we espied Blanche on the porch, shooing us back with one hand and beckoning with the other. We obeyed the beckoning one and eagerly demanded what was the matter. Her face was so pale that the name of Blanche was almost appropriate.
"What is it, Blanche? What has happened?" we cried.
But she was speechless except for gasping: "Oh, the disgrace, the disgrace!"
We followed her trembling form into the living room, wet suits and all, feeling that the exigency of the case was sufficient cause for suspension of rules and for once we would bring dripping bathing suits into the house. The cause of Blanche's perturbation of mind was easily understood when we beheld the portly figure of Cousin Park Garnett stiffly seated in a dusty chair (on Dum's Panama hat it was discovered later). She was indignantly waving her turkey-tail fan, and such an expression of disgust I have never seen on a human countenance.
The room looked no better than when we had left it and even a little worse, as the pickup supper we were to have had been dumped on the table in great confusion and not at all in Blanche's usual careful style. We had told her not to set the table and she had taken us at our word. The odour of sardines left in the opened boxes mingled with that of the bananas, still in the burstingbag. The bread was cut in thick, uneven slices. A glass jar of pickle and one of olives added to the sketchiness of the table. It was "confusion worse confounded."
"Oh!" I gasped, on viewing my indignant relative, "I thought you had gone!"
"No, I have not yet departed," stiffly from Cousin Park. "This is rather an unusual time for bathing, is it not?"
"Yes'm, but——" and I began to stammer out something, fully aware of the dismal figure I cut, standing limply in front of that august presence, my wet clothes sending forth streams of water that settled in little puddles on the floor. I was well aware of the fact that Cousin Park had never approved of my friendship with the Tuckers, and now, coming on us in this far from commendable state, she would have what she would consider a handle for her hitherto unfounded objections.
But Dee, who by some power that she possessed in common with her father, the power by a certain tact to become master of any situation, no matter how embarrassing, came forward andwith all the manners of one much older and clothed in suitable garments, so that you lost sight of her scant and dripping bathing suit, she said:
"We are very glad to see you, Mrs. Garnett, and are extremely sorry to have missed any of your visit. You have found us in some disarray from the fact that we are preparing to move and at the same time have just been engaged in having a wedding in the family."
"A wedding! Whose wedding?" The wily Dee had taken her mind off of the disorder in the room and now she felt she could soon win her over to complacency at least. The wetting paled to insignificance beside the wedding.
"Why, our dear friend and chaperone, Miss Cox."
"Your chaperone! Goodness gracious, child! Did she marry your father?"
"Heavens, no!" laughed Dee. "Mr. Bob Gordon is the happy man!"
"Miss Binks did not tell me a word of it," said Mrs. Garnett rather suspiciously.
"No, she did not know about it.""Not know about it? That is strange! Was there any reason for keeping it secret?"
"No especial reason for keeping it secret except that it was to be a very quiet affair and the invited guests included only the most intimate friends. Mabel Binks has a way of getting herself invited by hook or crook, and we just decided not to tell her about the matter."
"How long were they engaged? It seems strange behaviour in a chaperone."
"I tell you what you do, Mrs. Garnett. If you won't mind the informality of a picnic supper, you stay and have supper with us. We will run up and get dressed and be down in a moment and then we will tell you the whole thing, how they got engaged and all about it." And so anxious was my cousin for a bit of news to retail to the ladies on the hotel porch that she actually stayed.
When we got down stairs after very hasty toilets, we found the good-natured Blanche had brought some order out of the chaos of the supper table and with an instinct truly remarkable had made a pot of delicious, fragrant coffee. Coffee, I had often heard Cousin Park declareto be her one weakness. Now you may be sure that what Cousin Park, with her smug self-satisfaction, considered a weakness in herself would really have been a passion in anyone else.
As Dee, who was doing the honours at the head of the table, it being her week as housekeeper, poured the coffee and our still far from mollified guest saw the beautiful golden brown hue that it assumed the minute it mingled with the cream, her expression softened and she looked very much as she had when Judge Grayson recited, "My Grandmother's Turkey-tail Fan." The colour of coffee when it is poured on cream is a never failing test of its quality, and the colour of Blanche's coffee was beyond compare.
The food was very good if not very elegantly served, and I really believe Mrs. Garnett enjoyed herself as much as she was capable of doing. When anyone's spinal column has solidified she can't have much fun, and I truly believe that was the case with hers.
What she enjoyed as much as the coffee and even more, perhaps, was the delightful news she was gathering in every detail to take back tothe old hens roosting on the hotel porch. Mr. and Mrs. Gordon had made no secret of their affairs, even their former engagement and cause of the break being known now to some twenty persons; so we felt that it would be all right if we told the whole thing to our eager listener.
She agreed with the young lover that the Lobster Quadrille (of which she had never heard before) was nonsense pure and simple. Dum had to recite it twice and finally we all got up and danced it and sang it for her. Then she did acknowledge that it might appeal to some persons, but that a girl with as irregular features as the former Miss Cox had been very foolish to let such twaddle as that stand in the way of matrimony, and she was surely exceedingly fortunate, when Time had certainly done nothing to straighten her face, to be able to catch a husband after all.
We well knew that while Time had not had a beautifying effect on our beloved Miss Cox's countenance, it had made more lovely her character and soul, and that was after all what Mr. Gordon loved more than anything else. We keptour knowledge to ourselves, however, as Cousin Park was not the kind of person to talk metaphysics to.
She finally departed, much to our relief, as we were one and all ready for bed. We escorted her to the hotel and before we were out of earshot we could hear her cackling the news to the other old hens very much as a real barnyard fowl will do when she scratches up some delectable morsel too large to swallow at one gulp. She immediately bruits it abroad, attracting all the chickens on the farm, and then such another noise, pecking, grabbing and clucking ensues, until the choice bit is torn to shreds.
We were very tired but not too tired to applaud Mary Flannagan, who imitated Cousin Park to the life as she recounted the tale to her cronies. Then Mary followed the gossipy monologue with her favourite stunt of barnyard noises, finally ending up with Cousin Park's parting speech anent the Lobster Quadrille and Miss Cox's imprudence in not taking a husband when she had a chance, even if their taste in the classics did not coincide.
SETTLING UP.
The next day, our last at the Beach, such scrubbing, sweeping and dusting went on as was never seen before I am sure. We were determined that Mrs. Rand should not say that girls at best were "goatish." Blanche insisted that she could do all the cleaning herself, but we thought it but fair to turn in and help.
"How could people in one short month collect so much mess?" demanded Dum, as she turned bureau drawers out on the beds and did what she called "picking rags." "Do you s'pose on a desert island we would find ourselves littered up with a lot of doo-dads?"
"Well, Robinson Crusoe collected Friday, besides several other days of the week that I can't remember," answered Dee, "and it seems to me he got a dog and a cat and a parrot, and he certainly 'made him a coat of an old Nannie goat.'He had no luggage at all on his arrival and had much to cart away. And look at Swiss Family Robinson! There was nothing they did not collect in the way of belongings on their desert island, even a wife for one of the boys."
"Do you know, I used to think Swiss Family Robinson was the best book that had ever been written," said I, emerging from the closet with an arm full of shoes.
"Well, I don't know but that it is still," declared Dum. "Wouldn't it be just grand to be cast on a desert island? Of course I mean if Zebedee could be cast along, too."
"Of course we wouldn't be cast without him," said Dee, "Heaven would be more like the other place if Zebedee wasn't there. Goodness, I wish he didn't have to work and we could all stay together all the time!"
"When I grow up a little more and learn how, I am going to sculp such a wonderful statue that Zebedee can stop working." Dum forgot all about the rags she was picking and with the dreamy expression we knew so well, began to ball up a perfectly clean shirt waist as though it wereclay and with her sculptor's thumb shape it into I don't know what image of surpassing beauty.
She was rudely awakened from her dream by Dee, who snatched the imaginary clay from her twin, exclaiming:
"Since that happens to be my shirt waist, the one I am going to travel back to Richmond in, I'll thank you to get-rich-quick on one of your own . . . or this dirty middy blouse might prove a good medium," and she tossed a very soiled article over Dum's head. It happened to be a middy that she had gone crabbing in, so it was not overly pleasant. Anything was enough to start Tweedles in a romp, and in a minute the air was black with shoes and white with pillows, and what work we had accomplished was in a fair way to be done over.
Annie and I took to the farthest cot for safety and Mary perched upon the railing and egged the warriors to fiercer battle by giving her inimitable dog fight with variations. As is often the case, the non-combatants got the worst of the fight. Dee ducked a pillow, thrown with tremendous force by her opponent, and Annie got it square onher dainty nose, causing that aristocratic feature to bleed profusely.
"Oh, Annie, Annie, I'm so sorry!" wailed Dum.
"It is altogether my fault!" declared Dee. "I had no business ducking!"
"Id's dothing adall," insisted Annie, tightly grasping her offending member, "by old dose always bleeds. Jusd a liddle dab will draw de clared."
"Oh, but I just know it hurts awfully," and Dee raced off for a basin of cold water while Dum rummaged in the debris for some of the gentleman's handkerchiefs that she and Dee always used in common with their father.
Mary insisted upon dropping a large brass door key down the sufferer's back, declaring that nothing stopped nose-bleed so effectively as the shock occasioned by a brass door key dropped down the back.
"I just know it is going to disfigure you for days to come!" exclaimed Dee.
"Oh, I don't bind the loogs but id's just the bordification of being such a duisance," answeredthe poor girl, as usual embarrassed over being the observed of all observers. And just then in spite of the basin of gore and Annie's pitiful expression and Tweedles' great solicitude, Mary and I went off into uncontrollable giggles.
"I'm not laughing at you, Annie, but at your 'bordification,'" gasped Mary, holding her own nose to give the proper accent; and then everybody laughed and it had the effect described in the nursery rhyme: