Vacation with the Tucker Twins Part 8

We were convulsed at this remark. Mary had not only imitated her tone but had clearly voiced the character of Mabel, who by the way had not been told of Miss c.o.x's engagement and had amused all of us very much by her endeavours to attract Mr. Gordon.

"What's the joke?" demanded Wink, arriving with Mabel and the boys while we were still laughing at Mary's mimicry.

"Oh, the kind of joke that would lose in repet.i.tion," declared Dum.

"I bet it was something on me," said poor Sleepy, "but if it was, I'm sure to hear of it, though. There is one thing certain, if there is a joke on me it is obliged to come out."

"Not if you can keep it to yourself," laughed Dum. "You know perfectly well the time you got mixed up with the laundry you told on yourself.

None of us was going to breathe a word of it."

"Well, how did I know? I thought girls always told and I was determined that the fellows should understand exactly how it happened and so--and so----"

"And so you will never hear the last of it. Well, next time trust the girls a little and you will fare better."

It had taken Sleepy some time to get over his extreme embarra.s.sment occasioned by his natural shyness combined with the unfortunate occurrence of our first meeting with him. He was something of a woman-hater, anyhow, according to his friends, but we decided that he was really more afraid of us than anything else; and when he found out that we were not going to bite him nor yet gobble him up whole, he made up his mind to be friends with us; and when he once made up his mind to like us, he outdid even the courtly Jim, and the genial Wink, and the sympathetic Rags, in his attentions. Wherever we went, the young giant could be seen hunching along in our wake with that gait peculiar to football players.

"It looks like old Sleepy had waked up at last," Wink said to me. "To my certain knowledge he never said two words to a girl before and now, look at him! I wish he would fall in love and maybe it would give him some ambition to get ahead in his studies. You see, Sleepy's people have got oodlums of c.h.i.n.k and Sleepy knows that he has got a living without making it. The old fellow has a wonderfully good mind but absolutely no ambition, except of course to make the team and to keep up his football record. He is supposed to be studying medicine, but I'll wager anything he does not yet know the bones in the body."

"Maybe he is going to be an oculist and won't have to know the bones in the human body," I ventured. "He seems to be vastly interested in Annie's eyes lately." Indeed there was something of the clinging vine in our little English friend that appealed to George Ma.s.sie's great strength, and he had a.s.sumed the att.i.tude of protector and forest oak, one singularly becoming to him.

"You had better go in the naphtha launch," I heard him say to Annie. "It is ever so much safer, and you can't swim."

"Well, let me go wherever the rest think best. I don't want to take any one else's place," said Annie, anxious as usual to efface herself.

She need have had no fear of being allowed to take any one else's place with Mabel Binks the self-elected chief cook and bottle washer of the occasion. That young woman was looking extremely handsome in a white linen tailored suit with a red parasol, Panama hat of the latest cut, red tie, red belt and red silk stockings. The seash.o.r.e was a very becoming place for Mabel, as sunburn brought out her good points, giving an added glow to her rather lurid beauty. She looked really magnificent on that morning of the sailing party and her grown-up, stylish clothes made all of us feel rather childish in our middy blouses and khaki shirts and hats.

Miss c.o.x was dressed very much as we were except that she tucked in her middy, and Mabel's effulgence seemed to take all the colour from our beloved chaperone, who had been seeming to us almost beautiful lately because of the love-light in her eyes. Mabel's brilliancy outshone even love-light. I became very conscious of the many new freckles on my nose and Dee said afterwards hers seemed so huge to her that they actually hurt her eyes. Dee and I always got freckled noses and it was a source of some distress to both of us. As for Mary, the freckles had met long ago on her turkey-egg countenance, while Dum had long streamers of peelings hanging from her nose. She did not freckle but declared she grew fifteen brand new skins every summer.

Annie was a great comfort to me as I took a quick inventory of my friends, who on that day compared so unfavourably with the glowing beauty. Annie looked as lovely as ever. She had that very fair skin that neither tans nor freckles, and her ripe wheat hair was curling in little tendrils around her white neck and calm forehead.

"Thank goodness my hair curls, too," I thought, "and the dampness won't make me look too stringy," and then I took myself to task for thinking about such foolish things, as though it made any difference what we, a lot of kids, looked like, anyhow.

Zebedee was carrying Mabel's parasol and they seemed to be having a most intimate conversation, certainly a very spirited one into which she constantly drew Mr. Gordon; and as Miss c.o.x had hooked her arm in Mary's and everyone else was coupled off, Mr. Gordon soon fell into step with the gay pair.

"Disgusting!" I heard Dum mutter, but I hoped she would not let anyone see how furious she was. I noticed she closed her eyes and I saw her lips move and knew she was praying, "Don't let me biff Mabel Binks, don't let me biff her," just as she had at the football match at Hill Top the fall before. We reached the landing where the boats were anch.o.r.ed and as Dum had not biffed Mabel, I suppose her prayer was answered.

"Oh, there are the boats! What a darling little launch! Dum and Dee and I bid to go in that. Mr. Gordon, will you please arrange those cushions in the stern for me? Be sure and don't lose me, Mr. Tucker, and I will finish that delicious yarn I was in the midst of. Stephen, you will run the launch, I know, as that will give you such a good chance to be near Dee, and, Mr. Hart, here is a nice seat for you right by Dum."

Her words were so exactly what Mary had said they would be, that we who had heard Mary's prophetic imitation could hardly contain our merriment; and strange to say, the twins, in a measure hypnotised by her determination to carry out her schemes, stepped with unaccustomed docility into the pretty launch; but the polite Mr. Gordon arranged the cushions and then got out determined not to be separated from his inamorata for the sail. Wink and Jim naturally complied with the arrangement as far as being near the Tuckers was concerned, but Wink said:

"Put me where I look best, but I think Sleepy had better run his own launch, especially since I don't know the first thing about it."

And Sleepy thought so, too, but he quietly determined that Annie Pore should go along. The girl was too sensitive to be willing to risk the withering scorn of Mabel's black-eyed glance and begged to be allowed to take a seat in the cat boat. Just as the launch was ready to start, Zebedee, who had been stowing the bathing suits away under the seats, made a flying leap for the landing, calling back:

"That story will have to keep, Miss Binks, as I have been promising myself the pleasure of giving Page a sailing lesson today," and for once in their lives I feel sure that Tweedles were glad to have their beloved father leave them.

Mabel lay back on her cushions like a sulky Cleopatra with the expression that the queen herself might have worn had Antony refused to ride in the royal barge, choosing instead to paddle his own mud scow down the Nile.

CHAPTER X.

THE FINISH.

We were a merry party in spite of this little _contretemps_. The day was perfect and a fresh breeze gave promise of good sailing. Our destination was Cape Henry, where we planned to have a dip in the surf and then a fish dinner at the pavilion. The launch could make much better time than the cat boat, so Sleepy was to run over ahead of us and give the order for dinner. Sleepy was not greatly pleased with the arrangement of guests and I heard him mutter something about being the goat, but his good nature was never long under a cloud and Dum and Dee, being in a state of extreme hilarity over the outcome of Mabel's machinations, kept the male pa.s.sengers on the launch in a roar of laughter. Jim told me afterwards that he had never seen the twins more amusing and even the sullen beauty finally decided that the day was too pretty to keep up her ill humour. After all, there were other fish in the sea besides Zebedee: namely, Mr. George Ma.s.sie, alias Sleepy; so she moved her seat from the comfortable stern and exercised her fascinations on the shy engineer by demanding a lesson in running the motor.

Sailing was a new and exciting experience to Annie and me. I never expect to be more thrilled until I am finally allowed to fly. The boat was a very light one. Zebedee thought the sail was a little heavy for the hull but we went skimming along like a swallow. Tacking was a mysterious performance that must be explained to me and I was even allowed to help a little. Zebedee endeavoured to make me learn the parts of the boat but I was singularly stupid about it, having a preconceived notion of what a sheet meant and a hazy idea of which was fore and which aft, which starboard and which port.

Occasionally the launch circled around us and got within hailing distance and we would exchange pleasantries, but Mabel never deigned to notice us. She was sitting by Sleepy and seemed to have mastered the art of running a naphtha launch. Tweedles told me afterwards that she made a dead set at the young giant but that he seemed to be perfectly unconscious of what she was after, and as soon as she had learned the extremely simple engine, after warning her to keep well away from the cat boat, he curled himself up on a pile of sweaters and went fast asleep. They say it was too funny for anything when Mabel realized the desertion of her teacher. She addressed a honeyed remark to him and received no answer but a smothered snort; she turned, and there he was lying p.r.o.ne on the deck, an expression on his rosy countenance like a cherub's, while he emitted an occasional soft, purring snore.

"There was a young lady named Fitch, Who heard a loud snore, at which She raised up her hat And found that her rat Had fallen asleep at the switch,"

sang Wink. "Hard luck, Mabel, but that is the way Sleepy always does.

You must not take it personally. He even falls asleep when Miss Page Allison is entertaining him. The more amused he is, the quicker he is overcome with sleep. Miss Annie Pore is the only person who can keep him awake for any length of time, and that is because she is so quiet it is up to him to talk; and while he may be talking in his sleep, it doesn't sound like it."

"Awful pity we didn't insist on her coming in the launch if for no other reason than to keep him awake," said Jim. "She is a wonderfully charming girl and so pretty, don't you think so, Miss Binks?"

"Pretty and charming! You can't mean Orphan Annie! Why, she is the laughing stock of Gresham,--namby, pamby cry-baby!"

"Mabel Binks, you must have forgotten that Annie is our guest and one of our very best friends," stormed Dum.

"And no one ever laughed at her except persons with neither heart nor breeding. I will not say who they were as I respect Wink too much to be insulting to his guest," said Dee, tears of rage coming into her eyes.

"Oh, don't mind me!" exclaimed Wink uneasily, fearing a free fight was imminent.

All this time the two boats were coming nearer and nearer together. We were on the starboard tack and several times before during the morning we had come quite close to the launch and then the faster boat had swerved out of our way and we had gone off on a new tack, after calling out some form of repartee to our friends.

I never did believe Mabel meant to do it, but Tweedles to this day declares it was with malice of forethought that she deliberately held the launch in its course, and it was only by the most lightning of changes that Zebedee avoided a collision. The sail swung around without the ceremony of warning us to duck, and as we realized the danger we were in of being struck by the faster boat we instinctively crowded to the other side of our little vessel; and what with the sudden swerving of the heavy sail and the shifting of its human cargo and the added swell of waves made by the launch, we turned over as neatly as Mammy Susan could toss a flap jack.

"Down went Maginty to the bottom of the sea, Dressed in his best suit of clothes."

There was no time to think, no time to grab at straws or anything else; nothing to do but just go down as far as your weight and bulk scientifically took you and then as pa.s.sively come up again. I wasn't nearly as scared as I had been when I went under in four feet of water, as I just knew I could float and determined when I got to the top to lie down on my back and do it, as Zebedee had so patiently taught me. My khaki skirt was not quite so easy to manage as a bathing suit had been, but it was not very heavy material and my tennis shoes were not much heavier than bathing shoes. I spread out my limbs like a starfish and without a single struggle found myself lying almost on top of the water looking up into a blue, blue sky and hoping that Annie Pore would remember just to let herself float and not struggle. Everyone else could swim and a turnover was nothing to them. I floated so easily and felt so buoyant, as one does always feel in very deep water, that if I had only known that Annie was safe I would have been serenely happy. Annie was safe because Sleepy, awakened by the screams from the women and shouts from the men, had rolled out of the launch much more quickly than he had ever rolled out of bed (except perhaps on that memorable occasion when we had dumped him out), and with swift, sure strokes had reached the spot where Annie had gone down; and when her scared face appeared above water he was there to grab her. Wink and Jim had dived in, too, both intent on saving me, and Zebedee was by me in a moment, praising me for a grand floater.

Mary Flannagan was paddling around like a veritable little water spaniel with her red head all slick with the ducking, and Miss c.o.x and Mr.

Gordon were gaily conversing as they tread water side by side. It did not seem at all like an accident, but more like a pleasant tea party that we happened to be having out in the middle of the bay.

"Look here, Dum, we are missing too much fun," declared Dee. "Come on!

Let's jump in, too. It will be low to be dry when everybody else is wet.

That is, everybody we care anything about." And those crazy girls slid into the water, too, leaving the crestfallen Mabel to man the launch.

"Tweedles! What do you mean?" exclaimed their father. "Aren't we wet enough without you?"

"Yes, but you seem to forget that the cat boat is going to have to be righted and all of you men are paddling around here while the poor Goop is slowly filling and sinking." Goop was the singularly appropriate name for our top-heavy craft and sure enough she was in imminent danger of going down for good.

Annie and I were helped into the launch and Sleepy took his place with his hand on the little engine. Mabel was silently consigned to the stern and the Cleopatra cushions, where she very humbly sat to the end of our voyage. It did not take very long to right the Goop, and when she was bailed out, half of the wet crowd clambered back into her and the rest into the launch and we headed for Cape Henry, the hot sun doing its best to dry our soaking wet clothes.