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"So I hear! I'm gettin' the mule hitched up fast as I can to go over."
And then a masculine voice took it up evidently from another section:
"They say they are peaches, too!"
"That you, Dick Lee? Where'd you hear about them?"
"Saw Lem Baker on the way, goin' for salt. He got it from Jim Cullen."
"I bet you'll be there soon yourself," broke in the voice of Milly.
"Sure! My car is already cranked up gettin' up speed for the run. S'long!"
"Wait! What you goin' to buy, Dick? Your sister told me you went to the store yesterday and laid in enough for a week."
"Well, I may get a coffin," laughed the gay voice of Dick as he hung up the receiver.
CHAPTER IV
DEE TUCKER MAKES A SALE
"Page! I've been eavesdropping! I declare I never meant to do it. I got into the swim of the conversation and somehow couldn't get out of it," cried Dee, blushing furiously. "I don't know what Zebedee would say if he knew it."
"Why, honey, that isn't eavesdropping!" I laughed. "Country people always listen to everything they can over the 'phone. That is the only way we have of spreading the news. I can assure you that perfectly good church members in our county make a practice of running to the telephone every time a neighbor's bell rings. How many were on the line when you cut in?"
"Three or four, I should say, I couldn't quite tell."
Then Dee told me the conversation she had overheard, making me a party to the crime of eavesdropping.
"Here comes Dick now, I do believe. He was the one who was all cranked up ready to come."
There was a great buzzing and hissing on the road as a disreputable looking Ford came speeding down the hill. I have never seen such a dilapidated car, and still it ran and made good time, too. There was not a square inch of paint left on its faithful sides, and the top was hanging down on one side, giving it the appearance of a broken-winged crow. The doors flapped in the breezes, and the mud-guards were bent and twisted as though they had had many a collision.
Dick, however, was spruce enough to make up for the appearance of his car. He had on a bright blue suit, the very brightest blue one can imagine coming in any material but glass or china; a necktie made of a silk U. S. flag, with a scarf pin which looked very like an owl with two great imitation ruby eyes; but I found on inspection it was the American Eagle. His shoes were very gay yellow and his socks striped red and white, carrying out the color scheme of his cravat.
I ducked behind my side of the counter leaving the field clear for Dee. She stood to her guns and gave the newcomer a radiant smile. She was there to sell goods for Annie Pore and sell them she would.
"Evenin'!"
"How do you do? What can I do for you?"
"Pretty day!"
"Yes, fine! Is there something I can show you?"
"Not so warm as yesterday and a little bit cooler than the day before!"
"Yes, that is so. We've got in a fresh cheese, – maybe you would like a few pounds of it."
"Looks like rain but the moon hangs dry."
"Oh, I hope it won't rain, – but maybe it will – let me sell you an umbrella, – they are great when it rains."
"We don't to say need rain for most of the crops, but it wouldn't hurt the late potatoes."
"Oh, I'm glad of that!"
"But the watermelons don't need a drop more. They are ripening fine, – rain would make them too mushy like. I'm going to ship a load of them next week. I 'low I'll get about three hundred off of that sandy creek bottom."
"Fine! Watermelons are my favorite berry."
Right there I exploded and the young man let out a great haw! haw! too that helped to break the ice, and also enabled Dee to stop her painful rejoinders to his polite small talk, and then he began to buy. I heard Annie and Sleepy as they hitched the horse at the post and I hoped devoutly the festive Dick would buy out the store before they got in.
Already he had purchased six cravats, a new coal skuttle, a much-decorated set of bedroom china, a bag of horse cakes, some canned salmon and a box of axle grease when Annie made her appearance.
She was looking so lovely that I did not blame Sleepy for having the expression of a hungry man. She was certainly good enough to eat.
"Oh, Page, we had such a wonderful drive! I am so afraid we were gone too long, but George simply would not turn around." Annie was the only person who always called Sleepy by his Christian name.
"He was quite right. I have had the time of my life. Dee is helping me. She is in the other room now, selling a young man named Dick everything in the store. Don't butt in on her; let her finish her sales. Here come the others! They said they would be back to see you."
In came all the house-party and such a hugging and kissing and handshaking ensued as I am sure that little country store had never before witnessed.
"Oh, Annie, we miss you so!" cried Mary.
"Indeed we do!" from the others.
"Maybe I can be with you in a day or so," said Annie. "Father is going to try to return in a very little while."
"Well, until he does come back one of us is going to be with you every day," declared Dum. "Page and Dee need not think they are the only ones who are going to help."
Annie's eyes were full of happy tears. "What have I done to deserve so many dear friends?" she whispered to me.
"Nothing but just be your sweet self!" I answered. "I must peep in and see what Dee is doing to that poor defenseless Dick. I bet she has sold him a kitchen stove by this time."
Annie and I made our way into the outer room, where at the far end we could see Dick and Dee in earnest converse.
"It is a very excellent one," she was declaiming. "In fact, I am sure there is not a better one to be bought. It is air tight and water tight; of the best material; the latest style; the workmanship on it is very superior; the price is ridiculously low. Really I think all country people ought to have one in the house for emergencies. One never can tell when one will be needed and sometimes they are so difficult to get in a hurry."
"That's so!" agreed the enamored Dick. "But I reckon I could get this any time from old man Pore if I should need it."
"Oh, no! You see this is the only one in stock and somebody might come for this this very night, and then where would you be if you needed it? Then even if you could get another one, it might not be nearly so attractive as this one. They are going up, too, all the time, – effect of the war. Of course this was bought when they were not so high, and I am letting you have advantage of the price we paid for it. After this they will be up at least forty per cent. – that's the truth. The war prices are something fierce."
"Ain't it the truth?"
"Yes, and then you might not be able to get another lavender one. I just know lavender would be becoming to you. I'd like to see you in a lavender one."
"Would you really now? That settles it then! I'll have to get old Pore to trust me, though, until I sell my melons."
"Oh, that's all right. Just whenever you feel like paying."
I was completely mystified. What on earth was that ridiculous girl selling to the young farmer? Annie was reduced to the limpness of a wet dishrag by what we had overheard. The giggles had her in their clutches and she could not speak.
"Do you think you can help me out with it?" asked the young man.
"Sure! It is not heavy yet."
Around the labyrinth made by the farming implements, stoves, etc., came the buyer and seller, he backing and she carefully guiding him. Between them they carried a long something; I, at first, could not make out what.
"A coffin!" I gasped.
Through the door they made their way into the store proper. Some colored customers had just come in and these fell back with expressions of curiosity and awe equally mingled on their black faces.
"Who daid? Who daid?" they whispered, but no one vouchsafed any information. Dee looked supernaturally solemn and Dick only wanted to get his latest purchase safely landed in his car.
The house-party had adjourned to the porch in front, and when the lugubrious procession emerged from the store the gaiety suddenly ceased. As Dick backed out, the young men doffed their caps and the girls bowed their heads. What was their amazement when Dee turned out to have hold of the other end. Every man sprang forward to take her place, but she sadly shook her head and held on to her job.
"It isn't heavy," she whispered.
Dum's eyes filled with tears. She thought with sadness that in a short while it would be heavy when it fulfilled its destiny. She was very proud of her twin that she should be so kind and helpful at such a time. How like Dee it was to be assisting this poor young man, who had perhaps lost some one near and dear to him!
No one spoke, but all remained reverently uncovered while the coffin was hoisted on the back seat of the ragged old car. The young men assisted in this, although Dee would not resign her place as chief mourner.
"Who daid? Who daid?" clamored the darkies who seemed to spring up from the ground, such a crowd of them appeared in the twinkling of an eye.
"I don't know," said Dum in a teary voice, "but isn't it sad?"
"'Tain't Miss Rena Lee 'cause I jes' done seed her headin' fer the sto'," declared a little pickaninny.
"She ain't a-trus'in' her bones ter Mr. Dick's artermobe. She done sayed she gonter dribe her ole yaller mule whar she gwinter go."
"Ain't de Lees got a boardner? Maybe it's de boardner," suggested a helpful old woman.
"Well, I wonder if it is! Here he come! I'm a-gwinter arsk him."
Dick came out laden with his other purchases.
"Lawsamussy! It mus' be de boardner an' all er her folks is a-comin' down, 'cause how come Mr. Dick hafter buy all them things otherwise? Look thar chiny an' coal skuttles an' what not!"
"Who daid, Mr. Dick? Who daid?"
"Nobody I know of!" grinned the young man.
"Ain't it de boardner?"
"What boarder?"
"Miss Rena's boardner!"
"Sister Rena hasn't any boarder that I know of. Here, get out of the road or I'll let you know who is dead!"
He took a fond farewell of Dee and cranking up his noisy car, he jumped to his seat and speeded home with the coffin and the coal skuttle bouncing up and down right merrily.
"Ain't nobody daid?" grieved a sad old woman.
"No! Nobody ain't daid!" snapped an old man. "Nobody ain't eben a-dyin'. Now that thar Dick Lee done bought up th' only carsket in the sto' an' my Luly is mighty low – mighty low."
"Sho-o' nuf I ain't heard tell of it. Is she in de baid?"
"Well, not ter say in de baid – but on de baid, on de baid. Anyhow 'tain't safe to count on her fer long. White folks is sho' graspin' these days. They is sho' graspin'."
The old man departed on his way grumbling.
"Caroline Tucker, what did you sell that coffin to that young man for?" demanded Dum sternly.
"Just to see if I could, Virginia Tucker. I told him I'd like to see him in a coffin lined with lavender, and he was so complimented, he immediately bought it to keep for a rainy day."
Dee and I had made so many sales that Annie had to send a telegram informing her father of the diminished stock. It was necessary to order another coffin immediately in case the ailing Luly might need it.
CHAPTER V
THE HUMAN FLY
General Price was vastly amused over the account of Dee's sale of the coffin to the amiable Dick. Miss Maria was frankly shocked, and Miss Wilcox amazed and a little scornful.
"I never cared for slumming," she announced that night when we had retired to the girls' wing.
"But helping Annie Pore keep store is not slumming," said Dee, the dimple in her chin deepening.
Dee Tucker had a dimple in her chin just like her father. When father and daughter got ready for a fight, those dimples always deepened.
"Most kind of you, I am sure, although that sort of adventure never appealed to me. I have taught in the mission school in New York's East Side, but when the class is over I always leave. I can't bear to mix with the lower classes. It is all right to help them but not by mixing."
"But you don't understand, – Annie Pore is one of our very best friends. She is not the lower classes. She is better born than any of us and prettier and better bred and more accomplished – "
"Ah, indeed! I should like to behold this paragon."
"Well, you shall behold her all right! She is going to join us here in a day or so."
Jessie Wilcox looked very much astonished and quite haughty. She could not understand the Prices asking such a person to meet her. The daughter of a country storekeeper was hardly one whom she cared to know socially. Dee had gone about it the wrong way to make the spoiled beauty look with favor on the little English girl: – prettier, better born, better bred, indeed! As for accomplishments: what accomplishments could a dowdy little country girl have that she had not?
The Tuckers and Jessie Wilcox were not hitting it off very well in the great bedroom which they shared. Dum had declared she would not move the fluffy finery which was spread out on her bed and she stuck to her word.
"What are you going to do with these duds?" she asked rather brusquely.
"Oh, you just put them back in my trunk," drawled the spoiled roommate.
"Humph! You had better ring for your maid. I'm not much on doing valet work."
