The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna Part 7

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 girl _should_ be 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 does _she_ know?" 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 G.o.d!"

"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. "Is _that_ a 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 G.o.dmother, 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, n.o.body knows them apart----"

"And that's another foolish thing!" exclaimed Aunt Dora. "To allow two girls to reach their age and have n.o.body 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.

"_They_ wished!" exclaimed Aunt Dora. "Is it _their_ place 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 hara.s.sed 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!"

CHAPTER VI

WHICH IS WHICH?

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 n.o.body, 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 eyegla.s.ses, 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.