Vacation with the Tucker Twins Part 22

"Ready in a minute!" we chorused, and so we were.

Richmond was looking singularly attractive, I thought, as we spun along Franklin Street, in spite of the fact that most of the houses were closed for the summer and the female inhabitants off to the seash.o.r.e or springs. Here and there a lone man could be seen spreading himself and his afternoon papers over his empty porch and steps, and occasionally a faithful wife was conspicuous by reason of the absence of other faithful wives. Usually she bore a conscious air of virtue and an expression that plainly said: "Am I not a paragon to be sticking it out with John?"

The trees, however, seemed to be flourishing in the masculine element, and in many places on that most beautiful of all streets the elms met overhead, forming a dark-green arch. There was a delicious odour of freshly watered asphalt and the streets were full of automobiles, all seeming to be on pleasure bent now that the day's work was over. A few carriages were making their stately way, but very few. The occupants of the carriages were as a rule old and fat. I thought I saw Cousin Park Garnett in one, with her cross, stupid, old pug dog on the seat by her, but we were just then engaged in placing ourselves liable to arrest by breaking the speed law, so I could not be quite sure. Dum was running the car and she always seemed to court arrest and fine.

"When I see a clear stretch of road in front of me I simply have to whoop her up a bit," she explained when Zebedee remonstrated with her.

"That's all right if you are sure you are out of sight of a cop, but I have no idea of going your bail if you are hailed to the Juvenile Court for speeding. A one hundred dollar fine would just about break me right now. I don't set much store by the eleventh commandment in anything but motoring, but in this thing of running a car it is mighty important: 'Don't get found out.' There's a cop now!"

Dum slowed up and looked very meek and ladylike as a mounted policeman approached us, touching his cap to Mr. Tucker in pa.s.sing.

"Zebedee knows every policeman on the force," said Dum teasingly. "There is nothing like keeping in with the law."

"Certainly not, if a man happens to own two such harum-scarums as I do."

The Country Club was delightful, but they always are. When people club together to have a good out-door time and to give others a chance to do the same, a success always seems to be a.s.sured. Certainly that particular club was most popular and prosperous and although we heard repeatedly that everybody was out of town, there were, to my mind, a great many left. The tennis courts were full to overflowing before the evening light became too dim to see the b.a.l.l.s, and the golf links had so many players it resembled more a croquet ground. I had never played golf and while the Tuckers all could, they did not care much for it, preferring the more strenuous game of tennis.

"I'm saving up golf for that old age that they tell me is sure to come some day," sighed Zebedee. "I don't really believe them."

None of us did, either. How could old age claim such a boy as Jeffry Tucker?

However, time itself was flying, and the one day and night I was to spend in Richmond with my friends pa.s.sed in the twinkling of an eye.

Before I realized it, it was really over, my vacation with the Tucker Twins was finished, and I was on the train for Milton, a volume of Alfred Noyes' latest poems in my suitcase for Father and a box of Martha Washington candy for Mammy Susan, who thought more of "white folkses'

sto' candy" than of all the silks of the Orient or jewels of the Sultan of Turkey.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A BREAD-AND-b.u.t.tER LETTER.

Milton, Va., August 3, 19--.

Dear Tuckers:

How can I ever tell you what a good time I have had with you? Maybe you know already by the glowing countenance I must have presented for the last month, only I can't believe it is really a month, it went flying by so fast. It took June tenants going out of Mrs. Rand's cottage and August tenants coming in to convince me that July was really gone, and still I don't see where it went.

Father met me at Milton, driving the colt as usual, only the colt is getting to be quite a staid and respectable roadster. Father says a country doctor's horse that can stay skittish very long is a wonder, with all of the hard driving he is forced to give him. He still shies at automobiles, but I truly believe it is nothing but jealousy. I don't think he is in the least afraid of them, but he thinks the automobile is snorting and puffing at him, and like a spirited animal, he wants to let the car know that he is perfectly ready to fight and orders coffee and pistols for two.

Mammy Susan was pathetically glad to see me. She is very grieved, however, over the new freckles on my nose and tried to make me bind cuc.u.mber peelings on that much-abused and perfectly inoffensive member. The dough mask is too fresh in my memory, however, for me to get myself messed up with anything else.

Our neighbor, Jo Winn, was at the station and in his shy, husky voice actually had the s.p.u.n.k to inquire after Dee. He says his cousin, Mr.

Reginald Kent, is making good in New York, and in every letter he writes he has something to say of the deer hunt and the wonderful Miss Tucker who shot the stag. His sister, Sally Winn, is at her old trick of trying to die. It is her midnight hurry calls that have tamed the colt, so Father declares.

Bracken is looking very lovely and peaceful. Some of Father's old-maid cousins have just left; they were nice, soft ones, so Father really enjoyed having them. Next week Cousin Park Garnett is coming for her annual visitation. I told Father about Judge Grayson and the Turkey-tail Fan and he nearly died laughing. He says he is going to try reading his new book of Alfred Noyes to her and see what effect it will have on her.

Dear Cousin Sue Lee is coming tomorrow and all of us are delighted. She is the dearest and sweetest in the world. I do hope you will all motor down to Bracken while she is here. You simply must get to know one another.

Father is still regretting that he could not get to Willoughby. I think he works too hard and he says he knows he does, but what is a doctor to do? The people will get sick and will send for him.

Good-bye, my dear friends! I would feel depressed that our wonderful vacation together is over, if I did not have the future to look forward to and know that I will soon be back at school with the Tucker Twins!

Your best friend, PAGE ALLISON.

CHAPTER XXV.

BRACKEN IN AUGUST.

It was good to be home and how easily I slipped back into being a child again! I could hardly believe I had been so grown-up for a month, going to hops and having a proposal and what not. I spent a great deal of my time driving around with Father, who was very pleased to have me.

Sometimes we squeezed Cousin Sue Lee into the narrow-seated buggy and then we would have a jolly time. Cousin Sue seemed younger even than the year before. It was incredible that she should be nearly fifty. It was not that she looked so young, as her hair was turning quite gray, but she was so young in her att.i.tude towards life.

We had to have our annual confab on the subject of clothes, and a catalogue from the mail order house was soon the chief in interest of all our literature.

"I can't think what I would have done last year if you had not taken hold for me, Cousin Sue. My clothes were so satisfactory."

I told her of poor Annie Pore and at her suggestion sent my little English friend a catalogue with things marked that I was going to order.

My order was almost a duplicate of the year before except that I did not need quite so many things, as I had a goodly number of middies left over and some shirt waists.

Miss Pinky Davis, our country sempstress, was sent for, and again Cousin Sue spent hours planning how best to cut up and trim the bolts of nainsook she had ordered from Richmond. She laughed at my awkwardness with a needle and declared I did regular "n.i.g.g.e.r sewing." I tried to whip lace, but no matter how clean my hands were when I started, I ended with a dirty knotted thread and the lace went on in little bunches with plain, tightly drawn s.p.a.ces intervening.

"I declare, child, I don't believe Jimmy Allison himself could have done it any worse," she said, looking at my attempt to whip lace on a petticoat. Cousin Sue always called Father, Jimmy. "How do you get it so grubby?"

"It gets itself! I don't get it!" I exclaimed. "I washed my hands with lye soap so as to be sure they were clean, but they just seem to ooze dirt when I begin to sew."

"Well, in the first place you are sewing with a needle as big as a tenpenny nail and who ever heard of whipping on lace with thirty-six thread?" And my dear cousin patiently threaded me a finer needle with the proper thread and started me again. "Go from left to right, honey, you are not a Chinaman."

"No, you are a Zulu, my dear, and should go clothed as such," said Father, coming in to view our operations. "I believe even you could string beads for your summer costume and cut a hole in a blanket for winter."

"Well, I do hate to sew so, no wonder I can't do it. I want the clothes but I don't want them bad enough to make 'em myself."

"The time will come when you will like to sew," said Miss Pinky, her mouth full of pins.

"That sounds terribly sad," laughed Father. "What is going to make her like it, Miss Pinky?"

"Oh, the time will come when she will find it soothing to sew."

Miss Pinky snipped away with a great pair of sharp shears as nonchalantly as though she were cutting newspapers instead of very sheer organdy for another white dress that Cousin Sue had decided I must have.

I never could see how she could tell where the scissors were going to cut next, they were so big and she was so little. Miss Pinky always reminded me of a paper doll, somehow. She seemed to have no thickness at all to her. Her profile was like a bas-relief and rather low relief at that. I remember when I was quite a little girl I examined her dress very carefully to see if it could be fastened on the shoulders in the manner of my paper dolls, with little folded-over flaps.

"Maybe it will, but it is certainly not soothing now. It makes me want to scream."