Speed Nell
Tripping with the Tucker Twins

CHAPTER V
A TRIP TO CHARLESTON

My ankle improved rapidly and in another week I was able to walk and still another to dance. I had been patience itself, so my friends declared, and I am glad they thought so. I had really been impatience itself but had kept it to myself.

"Girls, I've got a scheme!" exclaimed Zebedee one evening after dinner. "I want to send a special correspondent to South Carolina to write up the political situation and I am thinking about sending myself. If I do, I am going to take all of you. I have written your father, Page, and an answer came from him today. He says you may go, as he knows it would do you good. I haven't said anything about it to you girls until I was sure I could work it."

"Oh goody, goody, goody! Where will we go first?"

"Charleston first! I may leave you there awhile, as I have to do some knocking around, but it will not be for very long, not more than a day at a time."

We plunged into shopping the very next day. Father had sent me a check for necessary clothes, and the all-important matter had to be attended to speedily.

"Let's get all of our things exactly alike and pass for triplets! It would be such a scream on Zebedee," suggested Dee.

"Triplets, much! We'd just look like a blooming orphan asylum and get in a book. It seems to me that every book I pick up lately is about orphan asylums. Chauffeurs and orphans and aviators form the theme for every book or magazine story I read. No, indeed! Let's get our clothes just as different as possible," said Dum, rapidly turning the pages in Vogue.

"All right. Then we can wear each other's. I'm going to get brown."

"I'm crazy for dark green, if you don't think it will make my freckles show on my nose too much. My nose and its freckles are a great trial to me."

"Nonsense! You've got the cutest nose in Virginia and Zebedee says he likes freckles," said Dee, always tactful.

"Well, he can have them, I'm sure I don't want them. What color are you going to get, Dum?"

"Anything but blue. There is a refinement about blue that I can't stand right now. I want something dashing and indicative of my sentiments of its being my bounden duty to have a good time."

"Red?"

"No, red's too obvious! I think I'll get lavender or mauve. Then I can wear violets (when I can get them). I think lavender suits my mood all right. It is kind of widowish and widows when they get into lavender are always out for a good time. I tell you when widows get to widding they are mighty attractive. I don't see why they don't stay in their pretty white crêpe linings, though. They are so terribly becoming. I mean to make a stunning widow some day."

"First catch your flea before you kill him," taunted Dee.

"Well, I can't see the use in having your hair grow in a widow's peak on your forehead if you can't ever be a widow. It seems such a waste."

"There's time yet! You are only seventeen," I laughed.

"Seventeen is old enough to know what style suits me best. Weeds are my proper environment."

In spite of Dum's conviction about weeds she purchased a most becoming and suitably youthful suit in a soft mauve. Dee got exactly the same style in brown and I in green. We deviated in hats, however, and each girl thought her own was the prettiest, which is a great test of hats. Hats are like treats at soda fountains: you usually wish you had ordered something you didn't order and something your neighbor did.

Spring was late in making its appearance in Virginia that year, but since we were going to South Carolina we bravely donned our new suits and hats. Zebedee declared he was proud of us, we were so stylish.

"I have a great mind to grow some whiskers so people won't think I am your little nephew," he said as he settled us in our section. The three of us girls were to occupy one section, two below and one above, lots to be cast how we were to dispose ourselves.

"Nephew, much! You've got three gray hairs in your part now," declared Dee.

"Each of you is responsible for one of them." Mr. Tucker often classed me with his own girls and really when I was with them I seemed to be a member of the family. He treated me with a little more deference than he did Tweedles because he said I seemed to be older. I was really a few days younger.

Dee got the upper berth in the casting of lots and Dum and I slept in the lower, at least, Dum slept. I was conscious of much jerking and bumping of the train, and Dum seemed to be demonstrating the batty-cake flipflapper all night.

We had left Richmond with a belated sprinkling of snow, but as we were nearing Charleston at about five-thirty in the morning we ran through a fine big thunder storm, and then torrents of rain descended, beating against the windows. Of course some bromide who got off the train with us, said something about "the back-bone of winter."

What a rain! It seemed to be coming down in sheets, and such a thing as keeping dry was out of the question. Tweedles and I regretted our new spring suits and straw hats, but since we had been so foolhardy as to travel in them we had to make the best of it and trust to luck that they would not spot.

The train had reached Charleston at six and by rights it should have been dawn, but it was as dark as pitch owing to the thunder clouds that hung low over the city.

Zebedee hustled us into a creaking, swaying bus that reminded us somewhat of the one at Gresham. Other travelers were there ahead of us and as everyone was rather damp the odor of the closed vehicle was somewhat wet-doggish.

We rattled over the cobblestones through narrow streets, every now and then glimpsing some picturesque bit of wall when we came to one of the few and far between lamp posts. But it was generally very dim and would have been dreary had we not been in a frame of mind to enjoy everything we saw and to look at life with what Dee called "Behind-the-clouds-the-sun's-still-shining" spirit.

The bus turned into better lighted streets with smoother paving.

"Meeting Street," read Dum from a sign. "Doesn't that sound romantic? Do you reckon it means lovers meet here?"

"It may, but I am very much afraid it just means the many churches that abound on this street," laughed Zebedee.

I wondered who the people were in the bus with us, but they seemed to take no interest at all in us. There were two pale old ladies in black crêpe veils drawn partly over their faces; a dignified old gentleman in a low-cut vest and a very high collar with turned-down flaps that seemed especially designed to ease his double chin; and a young girl about sixteen or seventeen who had evidently been in a day coach all night and was much rumpled and tousled therefrom. She seemed to belong to the pompous old gentleman, at least I gathered as much, as I had seen him meet her at the station and noticed he gave her a fatherly peck of greeting. Not a word did they utter however on that bumpy bus ride, and although the two pale old ladies in crêpe veils had stiffly inclined their shrouded heads as father and daughter entered the vehicle and they in turn had acknowledged the bow, not one word passed their lips. Evidently a public conveyance was not the proper place for Charlestonians to converse. The girl, who was very pretty in spite of being so tired and dishevelled, smiled a sympathetic smile when Dum enthused over Meeting Street. I had a feeling if we could get her by herself she would chatter away like any other girl.

Perhaps the old man won't be so stiff when he gets his breakfast. It is hard to be limber on a wet morning and an empty stomach. When one has so much stomach it must be especially hard to have it empty, I thought.

It seemed very impertinent of the omnibus to bump this dignified old gentleman so unmercifully. He held on to his stomach with both hands, an expression of indignation on his pompous countenance, while his double chin wobbled in a manner that must have been very trying to his dignity.

The pale old ladies in crêpe veils took their bumping with great elegance and composure. When the sudden turning of a corner hurled one of them from her seat plump into Zebedee's arms, if she was the least disconcerted she did not show it. A crisp "I beg your pardon!" was all she said as she resumed her seat. She did pull the crêpe veil entirely over her face, however, as though to conceal from the vulgar gaze any emotion that she might have felt. Of course we giggled. We always giggled at any excuse, fancied or real. The pretty girl giggled, too, but turned it into a cough as her father pivoted his fat little person around and looked at her in evident astonishment.

The bus backed up to our hotel where a grinning porter was in readiness to capture our bags. Our fellow travelers were evidently relieved at our departure. I saw through the window that both ladies put back their stuffy veils and that the old gentleman relaxed his dignified bearing somewhat and entered into conversation with them. The young girl, however, peered rather wistfully through the drenched pane at us as we gaily took possession of the hotel lobby.

"Wasn't she sweet! Maybe we will see her again sometime," said Dee.

"I couldn't see her at all from where I sat," declared Zebedee. "Her old father's embonpoint obstructed my view."

The hotel where Zebedee had decided to take us was not the newest and most fashionable in Charleston, but he had heard it was the most typical and that the cooking was quite good. It had been built years before the famous earthquake, and had still marks of that calamity. The floors, many of them, had a down-hill tendency, and there were cracks under the doors and I believe not one right angle in a single wall of the house.

The room we girls were to occupy was a great square chamber with a large window looking out on a cobbled street. There were picturesque doors, and walls with mysterious shuttered windows, where one could occasionally see eyes peering forth. It is against the Charleston code of manners to open shutters or raise the blinds of windows that look out on the street.

The floor of our room was on a decided slant and this caused a very amusing accident. There was a large armchair with broad substantial rockers into which Dum sank to rest her weary bones until breakfast. The chair was pointed down-hill and over Dum went backwards, and nothing in the world but her fine new spring hat saved her from getting a terrible bump on her head.

"It's like living in the Tower of Pisa!" she exclaimed as we pulled her up.

"You had better remember to rock up-hill next time," admonished Dee. "I bet you, we will all develop a mountain leg living on such a slant. But isn't it fascinating? As soon as breakfast is over, let's go out and explore. I want to peep in the shutters all along the way and see what everybody is having for breakfast and going to have for dinner."

"That's just the way I feel! If anything is shut, I want to peep in. If it is locked, I want to get in."

Our hotel was run on the American plan and our grinning waiter insisted upon bringing us everything on the bill of fare. I think he saw in Zebedee the possibilities of a liberal tip. In South Carolina there is a law against tipping. In all of the rooms of hotels the guests are reminded of this by large printed placards, but like most laws of the kind it seems made only to be broken.

"The tight-wads who kicked against tipping the poor colored servants now have the law on their side and can get out of it gracefully, but the people who tip because they feel that the servants have earned some little acknowledgment of their faithful services, go on tipping just as though no law had been made," said Zebedee, as he slipped some silver under the side of his plate in view of the watching darky, who pounced upon it with a practiced hand, while making a feint of removing finger bowls.

"I am going to turn you girls loose now to find your way around and seek out the wonders of Charleston. I have work to do and politicians to see."

"All right! Don't worry about us!" tweedled the twins.

"I want to get a map of the city first," said Dee, "so we can get our bearings," but Dum and I cried down this project.

"Let's find out things for ourselves and then get a map and guide book to verify us. It's lots more fun to go at it that way."

"Well, all I know is that this hotel is on Meeting Street, and on our right is Church Street and on our left King. The street under your window is Queen, and if you walk south down Meeting you come to the Battery. You can't get lost and can't get in any trouble unless you try to climb the spiked fences or get over the walls covered with broken bottles. I'll meet you at luncheon at one," and Zebedee took himself off to find out things from some of the political lights of the city.

We were left to our own devices. The sun had come out and if we had not been in the rain we would not have believed it could have come down in such torrents only a short while ago. Our dresses did not spot.

"Let's not go in any place this morning but just walk around and see from the outside. It would be low of us to do the graveyards and things without Zebedee. He loves those things and will want to see them," said Dee.

It was a strange taste for one so cheerful, but it was the truth that Mr. Tucker was especially fond of poking around musty old churches and reading epitaphs on tombstones.

We walked to St. Michael's, looking longingly through the iron gates at the quaint old tombstones, but refrained from going in for Zebedee's sake. We passed many beautiful old houses, some of them in perfect repair, brave in fresh paint, with trimmed hedges and gravel walks in their lovely old gardens that we could see by peering through the wrought-iron gates. Some of the houses, though, looked as though they had not been painted since the Revolution, and their gardens were grown up with weeds, with ragged, untrimmed hedges and neglected paths.

Almost every house, big or little, boasts a southern gallery or porch. The houses are built right on the street, but the large door opens from the street to the porch and not to the house. The gardens are to the side and back, and, as a rule, are surrounded by great brick walls with either iron spikes across the top or ferocious broken bottles cemented to the bricks. The windows, opening on the street, are kept shuttered closely, and iron bars give you to understand that there is no breaking into Charleston society by night or day. The corners of the houses, where the porches are, also are protected from possible interlopers by great iron spikes, a foot long and sharp enough to pierce the hide of a rhinoceros. The porches are also shuttered, partly to protect the inmates from the rude gaze of the passer-by and partly to protect them from the ruder gaze of the southern sun.

There was almost no one on the street. The Charleston men had gone to their places of business, leisurely to pursue a desultory living, and Charleston ladies do not go on the street in the morning, so we were afterwards told. We met several darkies crying their wares and saw an occasional housewife making a furtive purchase from some of these hucksters. These ladies, we judged, only came out because their establishments did not boast servants. As a rule, however, the old cooks seemed to do the buying.

The Charleston darky has a very peculiar lingo, so peculiar, in fact, that Tweedles and I found it difficult to understand. It is very different from the speech of our Virginia negroes. They seem to clip the words off very short, and their voices are lighter and higher than our colored people's.

A shrimp seller was very interesting to us. We did not know what he had or what he was calling, and followed him down the street trying to find out. He held up high on his open hand a great flat basket and he sounded as though he were trying to give a college yell:

"Rah, rah, rah, Shrimpy! Rah, rah, Shrimpy! Rah!"

"What on earth are you selling?" asked Dum.

"Rah shrimp! Rah shrimp! Buysome, Missy! Buysome, Missy!"

Then we saw his squirming wares and understood.

"But we couldn't do anything with raw shrimps," we declared regretfully.

"Well den, Missy lak nig sing fer heh?"

"Why, yes, that would be fine," and the boy held high his basket of squirming raw shrimps and sang in a strange falsetto the following song:

 
"Shrimpy, Shrimpy; rah, rah, Shrimpy!
Who wants Shrimp ter-day?
When you hear de Shrimp man holler,
Better come dis way.
 
 
"Shrimpy, Shrimpy; rah, rah, Shrimpy!
Sho' I'll heap de plate.
Ain't I see my gal dere waitin'
Stannin' by de gate?
 
 
"Shrimpy, Shrimpy; rah, rah, Shrimpy!
All de cooks in town,
When I holler 'I got Shrimpy'
Mus' be tunnin' roun'."
 

We applauded him vigorously and each one gave him a dime, thereby doing a very foolish thing, as ever after during our stay in Charleston we were pursued by the little darkies who wanted to sing to us.

CHAPTER VI
THROUGH THE GRILLE

None of us had ever been so far south before and the palmetto trees were a great astonishment to us.

"They don't look natural to me, somehow," declared Dum, "but kind of manufactured. The trunks with that strange criss-cross effect might have been made by kindergarten children and as for the leaves – I don't believe they are real."

"It does seem ridiculous for people to have these great things twenty feet high, growing in their back yards when we nurse them with such care at home and are so proud if we can get one to grow three feet. Mammy Susan has a palm, 'pa'm' she calls it, that she has tenderly cared for for four years and it is only about up to my waist now. I wish she could see these trees."

"I feel like the lady from Minnesota who came on a visit to Richmond and was so overcome by the magnolia trees. She remarked: 'I have never seen such large rubber plants.' But don't these palmetto trees have a strange swishy sound? They make me feel like 'somebody's a-comin',' kind of creepy."

Dee was peering into a garden belonging to one of the old houses that had not known paint since the Revolution. The garden, however, was not neglected but evidently cared for with loving hands. There were borders of snowdrops and violets; purple and white hyacinths primly marked the narrow gravel walk, and clumps of rhododendron and oleander were so well placed that one felt that a landscape gardener must have had the planting of them. Two large palmetto trees stood like sentinels on each side of the wrought-iron gate, which was hung from great square brick pillars. A massive brick wall surrounded the garden with an uninviting coping of ferocious spikes.

We had our faces close to the grille trying to see a little more of the garden while the above conversation was going on. All of us longed to get in like Alice in Wonderland. How to do it was the problem!

If that we could see was so enchanting, what we couldn't see must be even more so.

 
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye pipes play on."
 

No doubt it was very rude of us to stand there peering in, but we were so enthralled by the beauty of the garden and so filled with the desire to get in that we forgot Mr. Manners entirely. Just as Dee said that the palmetto trees made her feel like somebody was coming, somebody did come. We heard a voice, a very irate voice indeed, behind the wall declaiming in masculine tones:

"There is no use in discussing the matter further, Claire! I tell you I shall never give my consent to Louis' going into such a profession. Planting gardens, forsooth! That is work for negroes, negroes directed by women."

"But, papa, it is a very honorable profession, and Louis has such a love for flowers and such marvelous taste in arranging them. Just see what he has done for our garden! He could do the same for others, and already he is being sought by some of the wealthy persons of Charleston to direct the planting of their gardens."

The second voice evidently belonged to a young girl. There was a sweet girlishness about it and the soft, light accent of the Charlestonian was very marked. I don't know how to give an idea of how she said Charleston, but there was no R in it and in its place I might almost put an I. "Chailston" is as near as I can come and that seems 'way off.

"Bah! Pish! Nouveau riches! Parvenues! What business have they to ask a Gaillard to dig in their dirt? It is not many generations since they have handled picks themselves and now they want to degrade one of the first Charleston families."

"But, papa, what is he to do? Louis is nineteen and you know there is no money for college. He cannot be idle any longer. He must have a profession."

It was a strange thing that three girls who prided themselves on being very honorable should have deliberately stopped there and listened to a conversation not intended for their ears, but in talking over the matter later we all agreed that we did not realize what we were doing. It seemed like a bit out of a play, somehow: the setting of the garden, the strange ante-bellum sentiments of the old gentleman and all.

"What is he to do? There have never been but three ways for a gentleman to earn a living: the Church, Law, the Army. Now, of course, the last avenue is closed to a Southern gentleman as he could hardly ally himself with the enemies of his land. The Church and the Law are all that are left for one of our blood. Since, as you are so quick to inform me, there is no money for Louis to go to college and a degree is quite necessary for one expecting to advance himself by practice of law, I see nothing for him to do but go into the ministry."

"Louis be a preacher, papa! Why, he has not the least calling."

"He has more calling to occupy a pulpit than to be down on his hands and knees planting gardens for these vulgar Yankees."

"But, papa, what pulpit? Are we not Huguenots? Has not Louis been brought up in that faith and how could he preach any other? The Huguenot church here is the only one in the United States, and it has only forty members, and you know yourself now that so many of those members live in other cities that we often have a congregation of only six, counting our own family. There certainly is no room for him in that pulpit."

And then the old man did what men often do when they are worsted in an argument, he became very masculine and informed the girl that she had much better attend to her household duties and leave man's business to man.

"But, papa, I must say one more thing, – I think Louis is very despondent and needs encouragement. He hates to be idle and he is forced to be. I was shocked by his appearance this morning. I am very sorry I went on the visit to Aunt Maria. I am afraid he has needed me."

Papa gave a snort and then we had a shock. He had evidently walked away from Claire in disgust, and suddenly there loomed in sight a familiar low-cut waistcoat enveloping the portly embonpoint of our early morning companion in the bus.

We did not wait to see his double chin. The glimpse we had of the low-cut vest made us beat a hasty retreat. We walked down the street with what dignity we could assume.

"I'm pretty ashamed of myself," said Dum.

"Me, too! Me, too!" from Dee and me.

"I don't know what made us stay and listen, it was so thrilling somehow. Aren't you sorry for Claire? And poor Louis! To think of having only one profession open to you and that to be preaching to six persons including your own family."

"Yes, and no doubt there is already an incumbent," I suggested. "I'd love to know Claire. Didn't she sound spunky and at the same time respectful. I hope she can bring the old fat gentleman around."

"She might bring him around, but she can't get around him, he's too fat," laughed Dee. "I tell you I'd like to know Louis. I fancy he must be interesting. Isn't their name romantic? Gaillard sounds like it ought to go with poignard: Louis Gaillard drew his poignard and defended himself from the cannaille."

"Isn't it funny that we should have peeped into the very garden belonging to the pretty rumpled girl in the bus? Now I s'pose we will run against the pale old dames in the crêpe veils."

I had hardly spoken before we did run against the very old ladies. They had darted out of a large shabby old house about a block from the Gaillard's home and were in the act of purchasing "Rah, rah, rah, Shrimpy! Shrimpy! Rah, rah, rah!"

Their veils were off now but they still had an air of being shrouded in crêpe, although their dresses were made of black calico. It seemed to take two of them to buy a dime's worth of shrimps, and the shrimp vender stood patiently by while they picked over his wares.

"They are quite small, Sam," complained the taller of the two.

"Yes, Miss Laurens, but yer see dese hyar is shrimpys, dey ain't crabs, nor yit laubsters."

"Poor things! I just know they have a hard time getting along," sighed Dee. "They look so frail and underfed. Just look back at their house! It is simply huge. And look at their porches! Big enough for skating rinks! Do you suppose those two little old ladies live there all by themselves?"

"I fancy they must have a lot of servants," ventured Dum.

"Of course they haven't any or they wouldn't be buying shrimps themselves. They live all alone in that great house and eat a dime's worth of shrimps a day. They have just been off burying their last relative who did not leave them a small legacy that they have, in a perfectly decent and ladylike way, been looking forward to. I have worked out their whole plot and mean to write 'em up some day."

"Oh, Page, you are so clever! Do you really think that is the truth about them? What are they going to do now?" asked Dum.

"Do? Why, of course they are going to take boarders, 'paying guests.' Don't you know that there are only two ways for a Charleston lady to make a living? The men have three according to his Eminence of the Tum Tum. Women as usual get the hot end of it and there are only two for them: taking boarders and teaching school."

"Well, I only wish we could go board there. I am dying to get into one of these old houses. I bet they are lovely. Did you notice they had an ugly, new, unpainted, board gate? I wonder where their wrought-iron one is. They must have had one sometime. Their house looks as though a beautiful gate must have gone with it." Dum had an eye open for artistic things and the iron gate had taken her fancy more than anything we had yet seen in Charleston.

"When I write them up I am going to use that, too, in my story. Of course they sold the gate to some of the parvenu Yankees, that the old gentleman scorned so. I can write a thrilling account of their going out at night to bid the beautiful gates good-by forever, those gates that had played such an important part in their lives. Through their portals many a coach (claret-colored, I think, I will have the coaches be) has rolled, bearing to their revels the belles of the sixties. (Everyone in the sixties was a belle.) I have an idea that the smaller Miss Laurens was once indiscreet enough to kiss her lover through the bars of that gate but the taller one never got further than letting her young man lightly touch her lily hand with his lips."

"Oh, Page, you are so ridiculous to make up all of that about two snuffy old ladies. Now I want you to write a real story about Claire and her brother Louis. I am sure they are interesting without making up. I still wish I could see Louis. I'd tell him to spunk up and go dig for the nice people all he wants to. I know they are nice if they are only twice removed from a pick and shovel, according to old Mr. Gaillard," said Dee, ever democratic.

We had reached the Battery, a beautiful spot with fine live-oaks and palmettos. Spanish moss hung in festoons from some of the trees. It was the first any of us had seen.

"They say it finally kills the trees if too much of it grows on them, but it is certainly beautiful," said Dum.

"It is like these old traditions, worn out and senseless; a few of them are all right and give a charm to the South, but when they envelop one as they do his Eminence of the Tum Tum they simply prove deadly," philosophized Dee.

"Good for you, Dee! Please remember what you have just said and when I get home I'm going to put it in my note book. It would come in dandy in the story I am going to write about the old ladies and their gate." I had started a note book at the instigation of Mr. Tucker, who said it might prove invaluable to me in after years if I meant to write.

I believe Charleston is the only city in the United States that has a direct view of the ocean. You can look straight out from the Battery between Fort Sumter and Sullivan's Island to the open sea. Fort Moultrie is on Sullivan's Island and on the Battery is a fine statue of Sergeant Jasper who stands with hand extended, pointing to the fort where he so gallantly rescued and replaced the flag, with the words: "We cannot fight without a flag!"

Fort Sumter is a spot made famous by the war between the States. It was bombarded in 1861 and I believe is noted as having stood more bombarding than any port in history up to the time of Port Arthur.

"Now don't you wish we had a guide book and map? I want to know what those places are out in the harbor. Next time I am going to do my way!" exclaimed Dee, but a kindly park policeman, the only living creature on the Battery, told us all we could have got out of a guide book and more perhaps. He pointed out where the steps had been that Princess Louise descended to embark with her brilliant cortège after her memorable visit to Charleston in '83. He showed us Sullivan's Island, nothing more than a misty spot on the horizon, where Poe laid the scene of "The Gold Bug." He led us up to the old gun from the Keokuk, patting it lovingly and reverently. He was a charming old man and seemed to take a personal interest in everything on the Battery. His accent was fine and had the real Charleston softness. I wondered if he, too, did not belong to a fine old family and unlike Mr. Gaillard had discovered that there were more ways than three for a gentleman to earn a living.