Tripping with the Tucker Twins Part 22

"I hate to wake you up when I have to, and goodness knows I am not going to do any gratuitous waking," I laughed. "Girls! I have had the time of my life, and have got to know Miss Arabella real well. She is simply a darling!" and I rummaged for my notebook.

I was afraid to put off for a moment jotting down in my little book some of the impressions of the morning. If I should forget anything Miss Arabella had told me I would never forgive myself. I wrote like mad all the time the twins were dressing, but it is strange about the things Miss Arabella divulged to me that morning; although I know that what an author or a would-be author hears in this life belongs to him, and is his property to be twisted and turned in his writing as he sees fit to use it, somehow those memories I have held sacred always, and I can't believe in my writing I could ever get so hard-pressed that I'd feel at liberty to make copy of what Miss Arabella told me on that enchanted morning in the garden.

CHAPTER XVIII

A CHANCE FOR LOUIS

Contrary to our expectations, Zebedee did not tease us at all for engaging board without knowing what it was. He said he was in thorough sympathy with all of us for shying at the subject, and for his part he was perfectly willing to trust the dear old ladies to do exactly the right thing.

He blew in, his usual manner of arriving, while we were at luncheon, and as we might have known, took the Misses Laurens by storm. The hereditary pokers melted as if by magic and even Miss Judith succ.u.mbed to his charms and promised to go to a moving picture show with him some night.

As for Miss Arabella: her poker was only an imitation one, anyhow, and it did not take much to limber her up. It was rather astonishing, though, to find her unbending to the extent that she and Zebedee sang Gilbert and Sullivan operas together that evening in the garden, Zebedee doing d.i.c.k Deadeye with his usual abandon and Miss Arabella singing:

"I'm called little b.u.t.tercup, dear little b.u.t.tercup, Though I could never tell why-- But still I'm called b.u.t.tercup, dear little b.u.t.tercup, Sweet little b.u.t.tercup, I."

"I wouldn't be at all astonished to see Miss Judith dance a jig after this," whispered Dum to me. "Isn't our young father a wonder?"

He was certainly that. Professor Green looked on in envy and amazement, still bitterly regretting the sugar-on-the-rice episode. It is a strange thing what makes a "mixer." Professor Green was quite as kind as Zebedee, and quite as eager to make people happy. He was as intelligent, as well-bred, better educated, more traveled, but when the time came to make old persons forget their dignity and years or make young persons forget their youth and callowness, Zebedee certainly could put it all over the learned professor. I remember hearing one of the twins say that he could make crabs and ice cream agree, and surely I believe he could.

"I have never met any one like him but once," said Mrs. Green as the singers finished a duet from "Pinafore" and began humming some tunes from "Patience," while Miss Judith sat smiling, and even occasionally supplying a missing word. "I used to know a young newspaper man named Jimmy Lufton, and he could keep a crowd happy and make the most impossible people mingle and enjoy themselves. It is only a very kind-hearted person who can do it, but of course, having a kind heart does not mean you have that power."

"Thank you, my dear, for that," said Professor Green, smiling whimsically if somewhat ruefully. "I remember very well how miserable that very Jimmy Lufton made me on that hay ride we went on in Kentucky, you remember, when it poured so that the creek almost carried us away, four-horse wagon and all. He made everybody gay and happy but me. I was so green with jealousy I almost sprouted."

Mrs. Green blushed one of her adorable blushes that always made her look so lovely, we did not blame her husband for gazing at her as though she were a ripe peach and meant to be eaten up that moment.

"If you girls go to New York to pursue your studies I am going to write to Jimmy Lufton and send him a letter of introduction to you, that is, if you would care to meet him."

"If he is anything like Zebedee, I should say we would!" exclaimed Dee.

"I don't mean he is like him in every way, but just that he has that quality of mixing. I don't know how it is done. It is a talent as elusive as that of a born mayonnaise maker. I have seen persons who labored to have guests enjoy themselves, taking the greatest pains to seat them a certain way and introduce subjects congenial to all present, and still have the most dismal and doleful failures of parties; while others seem to be perfectly haphazard in their methods, and with a certain social charm make the lion and the lamb get on finely. The same way with mayonnaise makers--some people can have the oil ice cold, the eggs on ice for days, chill the bowl and the fork even, drop the oil in half a minim at the time and beat and stir like the demented, and still turn out runny dressing, not fit for axle grease. Others can waive all precautions of having everything cold and pour in oil with perfect recklessness, stirring leisurely, dump in vinegar or lemon at the psychological moment with a pinch of salt and a dash of cayenne, and, behold! a smooth, beautiful mayonnaise is the result."

"Speaking of lemons! Who's here?" from Dum.

It was his Eminence of the Tum Tum, in all the glory of a starched pique vest, followed by Claire and Louis, both of them rather ill at ease in their father's presence. Miss Judith introduced the paying and non-paying guests with all the ceremony of a presentation at the Court of St. James.

"Now I am afraid Mr. Tucker's mayonnaise is going back on him,"

whispered Mrs. Green to me; "I don't believe he and Jimmy Lufton together could beat in that old man and make him into a smooth, palatable mixture."

But I was betting on Zebedee.

Miss Judith and Miss Arabella were looking around for their pokers so they could swallow them again, but Zebedee had hidden them, and with his inimitable good nature and tact he drew old Mr. Gaillard into his charmed circle. By some strange legerdemain he soon had the stiff old man telling tales of Charleston before the earthquake. He drew from him his opinion of the political situation of South Carolina and agreed with him that it was a pity that politics was no longer a gentleman's game. I happened to know that he felt it was the duty of every man to make it his game, but he evidently deemed it not the part of wisdom to voice his conviction to the old man.

We had agreed that we would do all in our power to make Mr. Gaillard like us, as in that way we hoped to be of some use to Louis. Zebedee and Professor Green had been discussing the boy quite seriously that very afternoon, and had thought of several ways to benefit him. They had decided, however, to make friends with the father first and not spring their plans too suddenly.

Mr. Gaillard was evidently enjoying himself hugely. The Greens were most flattering in their attention as he pompously recounted his tales. Mrs.

Green was looking her loveliest, and one could see with half an eye that he soon began to direct his conversation to her. He pulled down his starched vest that had an annoying way of riding up over his rotundity, and smoothed his freshly shaven double chin with the air of being quite a ladies' man. Tweedles and I drew Claire and Louis over to the summer house away from their father's disconcerting presence. Their easy manners returned then and we spent a merry, happy hour.

Professor Green joined us after a while. He seemed anxious to make friends with Louis and to fathom the boy. I felt sure he had some plan for helping him and was sounding him, in a way. Louis was natural and simple in his att.i.tude toward Professor Green, and I could see was making a very good impression.

"You would like to go to college, would you not?"

"Beyond everything. I am prepared to enter college now, but I am nineteen and feel if I do not go soon it will be too late. I am rather late graduating at the high school but had to miss a year because of an illness."

"I think nineteen is a very proper age to enter college," said the professor kindly. "I wonder if you would like my old college, Exmoor? It is a small college, but of excellent standing."

"I am sure I should like any college," and Louis sighed.

"I am commissioned by the faculty of Exmoor to find a young Southern gentleman to take pity on a scholarship that has been endowed for their college. It seems that this scholarship can only be used by a Southerner, and he must be a gentleman born and bred. It was presented four years ago by a man whose only son was rescued from drowning by a daring young Southern boy. The father had more money than he could use, and he wanted to send the brave youth to college to show in some measure his appreciation of what he had done. To make the gift one that the boy could not hesitate to accept, he established a permanent scholarship at Exmoor. Of course no one is too proud or high-born to accept a scholarship. That boy graduates this year with high honors after four very creditable years at college, and now the faculty must find another Southerner to fill his place. The president asked me to be on the lookout for one while I am on this trip, and if you would like to take it, I should be proud and gratified to be the means of presenting it to you."

Through this long speech Louis stood wide-eyed and flushed. Claire caught him by one hand and impulsive Dee by the other.

"Oh, sir!" was all he could falter.

"You must, you must!" exclaimed Dee.

"Louis, Louis, if you only can!" and Claire raised his hand to her cheek.

"But what will my father say?"

"We are going to leave him to Mr. Tucker, at least he is going to prepare the way. I have had a long talk with Tucker this afternoon, and we have mapped out a plan of campaign."

"But your father surely could have no objection," said Dum. "A scholarship is something that everybody accepts."

"But father is very--very--well--proud, I might say," and poor Claire looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

"Well, this can make him prouder than ever," I put in. "He can be proud that his son is chosen to have this scholarship because of his being the nice Southern gentleman he is."

By this time Louis could command his voice, and he said:

"I can hardly tell you, sir, how much I appreciate the interest you have shown in me and your kindness in making this offer, and I hope to be able to accept it. I wish it might have been because of something I am in myself, and not just because I am the descendant of gentlemen."

"But you are what you are partly because of that descent," I insisted.

"Persons of low extraction accomplish something in spite of it sometimes; but I must say it is pleasant to have scholarships thrust upon one because of being a Southern gentleman. I think in this day and generation our ancestors do precious little for us--just sit back in their gilt frames and make us uncomfortable--I am glad for some of them to be getting to work."

Louis laughed and said he didn't know but that I was right. We all of us wanted to hear more of Exmoor, and Professor Green told us it was a small college, quite old and of excellent standing among educators, and that it was in walking distance of Wellington, where he occupied the chair of English. It turned out, however, that the professor was a great walker, and that Exmoor and Wellington were more than ten miles apart.

"Exmoor has a very fine course in agriculture and one of the greatest landscape gardeners in the United States is a graduate of that college, and boasts that he got his start there."

"Oh, Louis, that will be splendid, and you can specialize in that and come back to Charleston and do all the things you dream of doing!"

exclaimed Dee, who still had Louis by the hand but was totally oblivious of the fact.

She was so excited over the offer Professor Green had made her friend that she might even have hugged him without knowing she was doing it.

Louis was not quite so unconscious as Dee, but was making the best of his opportunity. Dee's att.i.tude toward Louis was very much one that she had toward Oliver, the kitten she saved from drowning our first year at boarding-school, a purely maternal feeling, looking upon herself as his protector and elderly friend (being about two years his junior). Louis, however, was tumbling head over heels in love with her, as Dum and I could plainly see. There had not been many meetings, but when there were he stuck much closer than a brother to her side.

Claire could see it as plainly as we could, and no doubt went through all the heartaches an only sister would. She evidently liked Dee very much, however, and was willing to efface herself completely if it would make Louis happy. But Dee would have been quite as astonished if the kitten, Oliver, had stood up on his hind legs and sworn undying love for her; or Pharaoh's daughter, if the infant Moses had burst forth in amorous rhapsodies from his wicker basket after she had saved him from the waters of the Nile. She dropped his hand to pick up Grimalkin, and I am sure at the time she had no more sensations about the one than the other.