Speed Nell
Vacation with the Tucker Twins

CHAPTER XIV
A LETTER AND ITS ANSWER

Miss Sue Lee, Congressional Library, Washington, D. C., from Page Allison.

Dearest Cousin Sue:

I can hardly believe that July is more than half over and I have not written you. I have thought about you a lot, my dear cousin, and often wished for you. We have had just about the best time girls ever did have and more things have happened! I have learned to swim; we have been upset in a cat boat called the Goop, right out in the middle of Chesapeake Bay; our chaperone, Miss Cox, has become engaged and expects to be married in a few weeks; and last and most exciting of all (at least most exciting to me), I have had a proposal; I, little, freckled-nosed, countrified Page Allison! It was the greatest shock of my life, as I wasn't expecting anything like that ever to happen to me, at least not for years and years.

You see, it was this way: We went to a hop last night, the very first hop of my life, and we naturally dressed up for it in our best white muslins, low necks, short sleeves, silk stockings, tucked-up hair and all, and we looked quite grown-up. All of us are sixteen, except Mary Flannagan, who is just fifteen. We went with a goodly number of escorts: Harvie Price and Shorty Hawkins, who are staying in the house with us; Mr. Tucker and Mr. Gordon, who is Miss Cox's lover; and four boys from a camp near us who have been very nice to us since we have been at Willoughby.

One of these boys, Stephen White (Wink for short), is studying medicine at the University. He is very good looking and has lots of sense. He and I have had a great many very pleasant times together, but it never entered my head that he thought of me as anything but a kid. In fact, I thought he was in love with a girl in Charlottesville; Mabel Binks, his cousin, told me he was. I also thought that Dee was his favourite among all of us girls. I know Dee likes him a lot. You see, Dee is so interested in sick kittens and babies and physiology that she just naturally takes to medical students. But last night Wink gave me what might be termed a rush. He broke in dances and claimed dances and did all kinds of things that were rather astonishing. He is not a very good dancer and as Mr. Tucker (I call him Zebedee now) is a splendid one I did not relish Wink's constantly taking me away from him nor did Zebedee seem overjoyed to lose me. I thought all the time Wink was doing it to tease Mabel Binks, who just naturally despises me and of course would not like to see her good looking cousin paying me too much attention. He asked me to sit out a dance with him and as he is a much better talker than dancer I was glad to do it, although I must confess I could not keep my feet still all the time he was talking to me. He took me to a nice corner of the porch looking out over the water and began. I hope you don't think it is wrong of me to tell you this, Cousin Sue. You see I would bite out my tongue before I would tell any of the other girls, but I feel as though I would simply have to tell some one or – well, bust! He started this way:

"What do you think of long engagements?" and I said:

"I don't think at all; but I heard one of Father's old maid cousins say once when someone was discussing long engagements, 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.'"

And then Wink went on telling me of his prospects and his ambitions. He seems to have little prospects and big ambitions, which after all is the best thing for a young man, I believe. He asked me if I thought it was too much to ask a girl to wait, say, five years. I thought of course he was talking about the Charlottesville girl, who turns out to be a myth, and I said that I did not suppose true love would set any limit on waiting. He said he was almost twenty and had one more year at the University and expected to have a year in a New York hospital, and then his ambition was to become a first class up-to-date country doctor.

He loves the country and says he has never yet seen a good country doctor who was not overworked. I agreed with him there and said that my father was certainly overworked. I also told him that I had in a measure suggested him to my father as a possible assistant. That pleased him so much that he impulsively seized my hand. I thought of course he was still thinking of the Charlottesville girl and wondered if she would be a pleasant addition to our neighbourhood, when Wink began to pour forth such an impassioned appeal that I could no longer think he was talking about the Charlottesville girl but was actually addressing me. I felt mighty bad and very foolish. When I told him he had known me but a little over two weeks he said that made no difference, that there was such a thing as "love at first sight."

"But," I said, "you did not love me at first sight."

"Yes I did, but I did not realize it until tonight when I saw you for the first time with your hair tucked up, and dressed in an evening dress."

"Well, when I let it down tomorrow and get back into a middy you will find out what a mistake you have made."

"Oh, Page, please don't tease me! It makes no difference now what you wear or how you do your hair, I am going to love you forever and forever. Don't you love me just a little?" And a spirit of mischief still prompting me, I answered:

"I can't tell until I see you with a moustache." And then, Cousin Sue, I realized that I was not being my true self but was doing something that I had never expected to do in my whole life: flirting outrageously. So I up and told Wink that I did not care for him except as a friend (I came mighty near saying "brother," but it sounded too bromidic). I said I was nothing but a kid and had no business thinking about lovers for years to come. I said a lot of things that sound too silly to write and he said a lot of things, or rather he said the same thing over and over.

I never saw such a long dance. I thought the music would never stop. Wink wanted to hold my hand all the time he was talking, but I just shook hands with him and thought that was enough. It seemed to me to be too sudden to be very serious. Of course in books people do that way, Romeo and Juliet, for instance, but in real life my idea of falling in love is first to know someone very well, well enough to be able to talk to him without any restraint at all and then gradually to feel that that person is the one of all others for you. The idea of knowing a girl two weeks and then seeing her with her hair done up like a grown-up and deciding between dances that life could not be lived without her! Of course Wink thinks he is in dead earnest and it hurts just as bad for a while as though he were, but it won't last much longer than it did for him to make up his mind. He will be like a man who has had a nightmare: very trying while it lasts but not so bad but that he can eat a good breakfast the next morning and forget all about it, only wondering what made him have such a bad dream and what was it all about, anyhow!

Goodness, I was glad to see Zebedee when he came around the corner of the porch looking for me to dance a particular one-step that he and I had evolved together. I believe Zebedee (Mr. Tucker) knew what had been going on, because Wink was looking so sullen and I, I don't know how I was looking, but I was certainly feeling very foolish. He tucked my arm in his and looked at me rather sadly just as he had at Dum last winter when Mr. Reginald Kent, the young artist from New York, asked her for a lock of her hair. I know Zebedee hates for any of us to grow up, me as well as the twins. I wanted awfully to tell him it was all right but I did not know how to do it without giving Wink away, so I just said nothing. I did not see Wink again last night and the boys tell me he has gone over to Newport News today with Mabel Binks to call on their relatives.

I have written a terribly long letter and still have not told you that Cousin Park Garnett is stopping at the hotel here in Willoughby. She is the same Cousin Park, only a little more tightly upholstered, if possible. I wish I could like her better, but she always makes me feel all mouth and freckles.

Good-bye, Cousin Sue, and if I should not have told you all of this nonsense about Wink and me, please forgive me. Lots of girls would tell other girls if they got a proposal, but I would never do that; but you have been so like my mother to me that somehow I do not feel it is indelicate to tell you.

With best love,

PAGE.

From Miss Sue Lee, Washington, D. C., to Page Allison.

My Dearest Little Page:

I was overjoyed to get your very interesting letter and I hasten to answer it and to tell you that you must always feel at perfect liberty to tell me anything and everything that comes up in your life. I am a little sorry for Wink, but you were right not to encourage him. Do not be too sure, however, that he will get over this malady as quickly as he took it. Shakespeare was a very wise and true artist and you may be sure that when he made Romeo fall in love with Juliet as he did without a moment's warning, – and already in love with someone else, as Romeo thought he was, – such a thing can come to pass. We find as much truth in fiction as in fact, everlasting truths. But then, I am a sentimental old maid and you must not take me too seriously.

I want to know your friends, the Tuckers, very much indeed. I hope to spend August at Bracken and perhaps I can meet them then. Washington is very hot and I am quite tired out and will be glad of the quiet and peace of Bracken as well as the sane, delightful talks with your dear father. I hope Cousin Park will not choose the same time to make her visit. If she makes you feel all mouth and freckles, she makes me feel all nose and wrinkles. She told me once that she was confident my nose was the cause of my spinsterhood. As my nose is a perfectly good Lee nose, and as spinsterhood is as much a mark of my family as my nose, I shouldn't mind her remark, but somehow I do.

 

I am sending you a pair of blue silk stockings and a tie to match, to wear with white duck skirts and lingerie waists. No doubt you will be so captivating in this colour that proposals will come pouring in. Please tell me about them if they do. Don't grow up yet, little Cousin Page! There is time enough for lovers and such like, and sixteen is o'er young for taking things very seriously. I am glad indeed that you sent poor Wink about his business and hope he will grow a moustache and a flowing beard before he addresses you again.

With much love,

COUSIN SUE.

CHAPTER XV
THE JUDGE

The morning after the hop we slept late. Of course we did not go to sleep as soon as we got into bed, as the best part of going to a dance is talking it over with the girls afterwards. We had much to tell and I for one had much that I couldn't tell. One and all we pronounced it a very delightful and successful party. Had we not, everyone of us danced every dance, except the fatal one that I sat out? Did we not have "trade lasts" enough to last 'til morning if sleep had not overtaken us? Hadn't Annie been freely spoken of as the prettiest girl there; the twins as the most popular; Mary as by all odds the brightest and funniest; and had not I overheard someone say that I had a nameless charm that was irresistible? Altogether, we were well pleased with ourselves and one another and slept the sleep of the just and healthy until late in the morning, when we heard Miss Cox singing at our door:

 
"'Kathleen Mavourneen! the gray dawn is breaking,
The horn of the hunter is heard on the hill;
The lark from her light wing the bright dew is shaking, —
Kathleen Mavourneen! what, slumbering still?
Oh, hast thou forgotten how soon we must sever?
Oh, hast thou forgotten this day we must part?
It may be for years and it may be forever!
Oh, why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
Oh, why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?
 
 
"'Kathleen Mavourneen, awake from thy slumbers!
The blue mountains glow in the sun's golden light;
Ah, where is the spell that once hung on my numbers?
Arise in thy beauty, thou star of my night!
Mavourneen, Mavourneen, my sad tears are falling,
To think that from Erin and thee I must part!
It may be for years and it may be forever!
Then why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
Then why art thou silent, Kathleen Mavourneen?'"
 

There was a storm of applause from our porch and a great clapping of hands from down stairs as Zebedee entered with old Judge Grayson. Miss Cox had an excellent voice and a singularly true one.

"Well, all of us Kathleens had better rise and shine after that appeal," yawned Dum. "It must be almost time for luncheon." And so it was. We just had time for a hasty dip in the briny and a hastier toilet in the way of middies and khaki skirts, when Blanche appeared to announce that our repast was reserved.

"Well, Gawd love us!" she exclaimed, when she beheld us dressed in our customary girlish middies. "Ef'n the butterflies ain't chrystalized agin into plain grubs! When I beholden you last night in all the begalia of sassioty I ruminated to myself that our young misses had done flew the coop, hair turned up and waistes turned down, an' here you is nothin' but gals agin. I'll be bound ef'n the beau lovers of the evenin' recently relapsed could see you now they would wonder how come they felt so warmed to'ds you. Not that you ain't as sweet as sugar now," she hastily added, fearing for our feelings, "but you is jes' sugar 'thout the proper ingredients to make you what you might call intoxicational."

Every single girl except Mary looked a little conscious while Blanche was talking, and I could not help wondering if there had not been others besides myself who had been the recipient of tender nothings. Zebedee overheard Blanche's remarks and I saw him go into the kitchen and a little later the girl came forth beaming, tying into the corner of her handkerchief a shiny new half dollar.

"Every time poor, dear Blanche opens her mouth diamonds and pearls of wisdom come forth," he whispered to me. "It seems a shame to buy such priceless gems for fifty cents. I would not take anything for what she has just handed to all of my girls."

The Judge proved to be a delightful old man and all of us were charmed with his courtly manners and compliments. He seemed to think we were lovely and quite grown-up in spite of what Blanche had just "handed" us. He quoted poetry to us with an old world grace and seemed to have a verse ready for every occasion. Even Blanche came in for her share of poetry as the Judge helped himself to another and yet another popover:

 
"'My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh, my soul is white!'"
 

Blanche smiled on him as though at last she had found someone who really understood her.

After luncheon we repaired to the piazza where Zebedee and the Judge could enjoy their cigars and the family guitar was produced at the instigation of the host, hoping to persuade the Judge to give us some of his fine old ballads. The Tucker guitar was something of a joke, as none of them could really play on it; but it was always kept in perfect order if not in perfect tune and placed in a conspicuous place. "Ready for an emergency if one should arise in anyone else," explained Dum. Dee could thrum out an accompaniment, if it happened to be a very simple one with only one or two changes. Dum knew part of the Spanish Fandango, learned from a teacher who had struggled with the family once when they had determined that a musical education was necessary. Zebedee, who had a very good voice and a true ear, could tell when the guitar was out of tune but never could tune it to his satisfaction; but when someone else got it in tune he could put up a very good imitation of following himself in his favourite song of "Danny Deever."

The Judge jumped to the instrument as a trout to a fly and held it with a loving embrace.

"Gad, Tucker, but this is a good guitar!" and with a practiced hand and ear he quickly had it in tune.

"Sing, do sing!" we pleaded.

"All right, I'll sing to all of you five girls if you will excuse an old man's faults. My voice is not what it used to be, but the heart is the same and

 
"'No matter what you do if your heart be true,
And his heart was true to Poll.'
 

"This song I am going to sing is one I have always loved and it seems to be singularly appropriate for all of you young ladies, who, last night as I peeped into the ballroom, showed promise of what you might be. But this morning I find you back 'Where the brook and river meet.' I can't tell whether it is because of the absence of the gallant swains or a mere matter of rearrangement of tresses."

Harvie and Shorty had gone to the camp for luncheon and to go crabbing with the boys, which was rather a relief, as Dum declared we could not have boys all the time without getting bored. Certainly on the morning after the hop we were glad just to be little girls again and not have to play "lady come to see" for a while at least. Dear old Judge Grayson and Zebedee were singularly restful after the friskings of the youths, and Miss Cox very calming as she sat on the piazza, an exalted expression on her good face, stitching, stitching on wedding clothes. All of us had undertaken to help her but mighty botches I am afraid we made of it, all except Annie Pore. She could take tiny stitches if shown exactly where to put them, but she was afraid to take the initiative even in sewing. Dum could design patterns for embroidery and Dee could tie wonderful bows; Mary was great on button-holes; I could not even sew carpet rags together well enough to pass muster, but I was very willing and did my poor best.

In his high, sweet old tenor the Judge began to sing:

 
"'My love she's but a lassie yet,
A lightsome, lovely lassie yet;
It scarce wad do
To sit and woo
Down by the stream sae glassy yet.
 
 
"'But there's a braw time coming yet,
When we may gang a-roaming yet;
An' hint wi' glee
O' joys to be,
When fa's the modest gloaming yet.
 
 
"'She's neither proud nor saucy yet,
She's neither plump nor gaucy yet;
But just a jinking,
Bonny blinking,
Hilty-skilty lassie yet.
 
 
"'But O, her artless smile's mair sweet
Then hinny or than marmalete;
An' right or wrang,
Ere it be lang,
I'll bring her to a parley yet.
 
 
"'I'm jealous o' what blesses her,
The very breeze that kisses her,
The flowery beds
On which she treads,
Though wae for ane that misses her.
 
 
"'Then O, to meet my lassie yet
Up in yon glen sae grassy yet;
For all I see
Are naught to me,
Save her that's but a lassie yet.'"
 

All of us sat very quietly as the old man finished his quaint, sweet song. Zebedee looked very shiny-eyed and I rather guessed he was thinking of his Tweedles, although he did look at me. I fancy he knew that I understood him and his anxiety about his dear girls. It is no joke to be the father of sixteen-year-old twins and only about thirty-six yourself. Dum and Dee were developing very rapidly and they had looked so grown-up at the hop and had conducted themselves so like young ladies that their anxious parent was troubled for fear their womanhood was upon him. He would rather see them romping hoydens than the sedate young ladies they seemed to be turning into. No wonder he had tipped Blanche with the shiny fifty-cent piece. Had she not put his mind at rest for the time being at least? They were certainly girlish enough looking on that day, even boyish looking as they crowded each other out of the hammock, both intent on getting the middle.

"That's fine, Judge, give us another!" begged Zebedee, but the bard insisted upon Miss Cox's putting down her sewing and singing; and then Annie Pore must give us Annie Laurie; and so the lazy afternoon passed with songs and many good stories drawn from our guest by the tactful Zebedee.

Judge Grayson just naturally loved horses and next to being with them was talking about them. He had many delightful stories to tell of horses he had known and horses he had owned. He insisted that no horse was naturally vicious but always ruined in some way by its trainer, and no horse was irretrievably ruined if just the right person could get hold of it and by kindness bring it to reason. I had always felt that and of course this theory appealed to Dee, who thought much worse of humanity than animality, as she called it.

"The first horse I ever owned was the first horse I ever loved and he was in a way the best horse I ever owned," said the Judge, addressing his remarks to Dee who was all attention. "Dobbin was the very ordinary name for a very extraordinary horse. My father gave him to me when I was six years old. I say gave him to me but what really occurred was that I was presented to Dobbin. For if ever man was owned by an animal, Dobbin owned me. He was an old circus horse and his intelligence was far beyond that of the average human. He was milk white with pink nostrils and eyes, a real Albino, in fact. His legs were perfectly formed, his head small and very well shaped, his back broad and flat as though especially made for bare-back riding. If you fell off him it was your own fault, and no more was he to be blamed than a bed that you happen to roll out of. Indeed his gaits were so smooth that you might easily go to sleep on him. His temper was perfect and his character very decided and firm. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and he also knew that his judgment was much better than a child's. I shall never forget the first time I got on his back. My father was going to have me taught to ride by our old coachman, but in the meantime I was given the duty and pleasure of feeding my horse myself. I had only owned him a day and already I would have foundered him on oats if it had not been for his own superior intelligence and judgment. He ate what he considered proper and then deliberately turned over the bucket and puffed and blew and pawed until even the chickens had a hard time pecking up the scattered grain."

And here the old man laughed and took another cigar Zebedee offered him, pausing in his narrative while he bit off the end and lit it.

"But how about the first time you rode him?" demanded Dee.

"I'm coming to that. He was a very high horse, was Dobbin, so high that it was a tall mount for a grown man and of course it was seemingly impossible for a little boy to climb up on such a mountain, but get up I did. My father came out on the gallery and there I was as proud as Punch perched on the broad back of my snow-white steed. 'You rascal!' he shouted. 'Who put you up there?' 'Dobbin put me here,' I answered, and so he had, but my father could not believe it until Dobbin and I demonstrated the fact for him. I slid down the shapely leg of my circus horse and then he lowered his head and I nimbly climbed up his neck and landed safely on his back. I can still hear my father laugh and then all the household was called out to witness this great feat, and my mother brought out sugar to feed my pet. She pulled down his head and whispered in his ear, 'Be careful of my boy, Dobbin! I am going to trust him to you, do you understand?' and Dobbin whinnied an answer and blew in my mother's hair with his pink nostrils. After that he felt that he was a kind of nurse for me and he certainly did make me walk chalk," and the old man chuckled in delighted memory.

"Tell us more about him," pleaded Dee. "He must have been darling."

"Well, sometimes he was right annoying. For instance, he saw to it that I minded my black mammy. One of Mammy's rules was that I could play in the mud all I wanted to in the morning, but in the afternoon when I was dressed in my clean linen shirt and little white piquet pants, I had to keep clean. The mud attracted me as much in the afternoon as morning, and sometimes I would lose track of time and would begin to mix my delectable pies in spite of my spotless attire. Do you know that old horse many and many a time has come up behind me and gently but firmly caught me by my collar or the seat of my breeches, whichever presented itself handiest, and after giving me a little shake put me out of temptation? He never was known to do it in the morning when I was in my blue jean jumpers. Why, that horse knew morning from afternoon and jeans from white linen. He was a great disciplinarian, I can tell you. My mother would let me go anywhere just so Dobbin was of the party. She knew perfectly well he would take care of me. Had he not told her so as plainly as a horse could speak, and that is pretty plain to those who understand horse talk."

Dee nodded approval and muttered: "Dog talk, too!"

"We had an old basket phaeton with a rumble (they don't make them now-a-days) and in the afternoon in summer my sister and I would hitch up old Dobbin and go off for a picnic in the beech woods. Sam, my body servant and private property, perched in the rumble and Dilsey, my sister's maid, crouched at our feet. Dobbin would jog along until he found what he considered a suitable spot for a picnic and then he would stop, and no matter how we felt about it, out we had to get. Nothing would budge Dobbin. He would look at us and whinny as much as to say that he had forgotten more about picnic places than we could ever hope to know and no doubt he was right.

"He usually stopped at a very nice spot where there was plenty of shade and a spring and maybe some luscious blue grass for him to nibble at. He was never tied but allowed to roam at his own sweet will. When the shadows lengthened, he would turn the phaeton around, with his nose headed for home, and as the sun touched the horizon he would send forth a warning neigh, gentle at first but if his voice was not hearkened to, more peremptory and then quite sharp. He would give us about five minutes and then he would start for home. I tell you there would be scrambling then to get in the phaeton, as none of us relished the thought of walking home, getting in late to supper and making the necessary explanations to the grown-ups. One time Dilsey almost got left, having loitered behind in a fit of stubbornness. 'I's plum wo' out wif dis here brute beas' a bossin' er me!' she panted as she clambered over the wheel and sank on the floor of the phaeton. 'Ef'n he was mine I'd lay him out.' With that ole Dobbin turned his head around in the shafts, looked sternly at the girl, and deliberately switched her with his tail until she cried out for mercy, 'Lawsamussy, Marse Dobbin, I's jes a foolin',' and then that old horse gave a whinny more like laughing than anything you ever heard and trotted peacefully home."

The old man stopped and shook the ashes from his cigar. "Yes, yes, I loved that old horse as much as I did Mammy, and God knows Mammy was next to my parents in my affection. Not have souls! Why, I as firmly believe I am going to meet Dobbin when I cross the river as I am Mammy."

At that, Dee Tucker got up out of the hammock and went over and hugged and kissed the old Judge, and Zebedee and Dum both wiped the tears from their eyes. I felt like it, too, but then tears are not mine to command as they are the Tuckers'.

Certainly the Judge had touched us all with his story. I wanted to ask him more about Dobbin but I was afraid the next thing would be Dobbin's death, as he must have been old when he was presented to the little boy, and somehow I felt none of us could bear up over the dear old horse's death. It must have been more than sixty years since those picnics in the beech woods, but you felt that in Judge Grayson's mind it was but as yesterday.