At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins

"Do look at this," begged Dum of Mr. Kent, who had just entered the cabin. She held up in her hand a china cow of a decidedly lavender hue with horns and hoofs of gilt, and quoted:

"'I never saw a purple cow;I never hope to see one;But I can tell you, anyhow,I'd rather see than be one.'""'Ah, yes, I wrote the "Purple Cow" —I'm sorry now I wrote it!But I can tell you, anyhow,I'll kill you if you quote it!'"

laughed Mr. Kent, taking the fearful and wonderful animal in his hands and examining it with great interest. "Isn't this place delightful? If I had only brought my sketching things instead of my gun, I'd stay here and paint. I'm going to ask Aunt Rosana to let me take some time exposures of the interior of her cabin. Just look at that bed and that fireplace! Thank goodness, I've got my camera with a perfectly new film good for twelve exposures."

"Well, Gawd be praised dat ole Shanghai gib me warnin' of comp'ny comin' an' I done stirred my stumps an' straightened up some, efn my room's goin' ter git its Dager'type took," and Aunt Rosana's flesh quivered with delight.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MIGHTY HUNTER

The pictures were soon taken and we were on our way to the low country. Everyone carried a gun but me. Uncle Peter brought up the rear with a wheelbarrow laden with the "'visions."

It was a long walk but such a delightful one that we never once thought of getting tired. Our way lay through a pine forest and was up hill and down dale. Tweedles and I were as well able to take the walk as any of the male persuasion, although it took some time to make Mr. Kent understand that we could get along without his assistance. He would help Dum over a worm fence, much to Dee's and my amusement, as we knew that Dum could vault it with one hand, just as we did.

"I never saw such independent young ladies as you three," he confessed after a daring leap we had made over a gulch. "The girls I know in New York expect to be assisted over every gutter."

"Maybe that's their town manner, and if they were turned loose in the country they might help themselves as well as we can," I suggested. "To tell the truth, it makes me fall down if anyone helps me."

"Do you know," whispered Dee to me, "I verily believe that Reginald Kent person is getting stuck on Dum? I hope he won't shoot her. I don't believe he ever carried a gun before in his life. He handles it like a walking stick."

"He's real nice, don't you think?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, nice enough, but I can't see why Dum lets him boost her over every stick and stone. She's perfectly able-bodied. She looks to me as though she rather liked to be treated like a boneless vertebrate," and Dee looked very disgusted. The fact was that Dum was taking the helping just as she was taking the compliments: in a perfectly natural, girlish way.

"Fond of the country?" asked Mr. Tucker, glancing with an amused twinkle at Mr. Kent's nonchalant manner of holding his gun.

"Oh, yes, fond enough, what I know of it. I've had to stick pretty close to Broadway all my life. I spent a summer down here with the Winns once when I was a kid and that's about the only country I've known."

"Haven't you hunted before?" questioned Dum, jumping back from the barrel of Mr. Kent's new gun that was pointing ominously at her.

"Well, I've shot the 'shoots' at Coney Island, and have practiced at hitting the bull's-eye in the galleries at that gay resort until I can ring the bell every time, but that is the extent of my experience," and Mr. Kent looked a little wistful. "I'd be mighty glad of some pointers from any of you that have had more."

"Well, point your gun, barrel down," tweedled the twins.

"Ah, so, I see," he said, grasping his gun in a more sportsmanlike manner, and all of us breathed a sigh of relief. I had been in terror for fear he might ring a b-e-l-l-e or hit some eye not in a bull ever since we left Aunt Rosana's cabin. "I'm awfully green," continued the young man, modestly. "I cut a poorer figure turned loose here in the country than old Uncle Peter would on the Great White Way."

"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Tucker kindly. He seemed rather impressed by Mr. Kent's frankness and modesty. Indeed, the young New Yorker could not cut a poor figure anywhere. He was well grown and sturdy and had an athletic swing to his walk due not only to much work in a gymnasium but to the "magnificent distances" he had been compelled to walk in New York.

I have noticed that town-bred persons as a rule walk much better than country-bred. When they get on rough ground they walk as though it were smooth, while country people when they strike pavements look as though they were still getting over plowed ground. Reginald Kent, if he did not know how to carry a gun, knew how to carry himself. With shoulders back, chin in and head well up, he stepped along like a West Pointer; while Jo Winn slouched with shoulders bent and head forward.

We chatted away very merrily until we came to the creek where the party was to separate. There was not much chance of any game, big or little, with such a crowd tramping through the woods. It was agreed that Father, Mr. Tucker and Jo Winn should cross the creek and go on to the river, where they were to take a skiff, owned by old Uncle Peter and kept moored at a certain spot, known to Father; from there they were to go into the marshes; and, later on, come down the river and join us at the mouth of the creek. We were to keep on straight down the creek with Uncle Peter and Mr. Kent, who earnestly desired to stay and "take care" of the ladies.

"I'm going to change my loads for rabbits," said Dee, suiting the action to the word. "This big shot would tear a rabbit all to pieces and I believe we are more apt to see rabbits than deer."

Mr. Kent followed suit but Dum kept "loaded fur b'ar," as she expressed it. Dee soon got a rabbit, which she wept over.

"She always does that," explained Dum. "She shoots things for the love of shooting and then bawls because she has taken an innocent life."

We had one of Jo's dogs with us. The other two had gone with the three men to stalk the possible deer. Our dog started up several rabbits and Mr. Kent joyously got two of them.

"Gee, this beats clay pigeons and shooting galleries," he declared. "I feel like a man-eating lion now; since I have tasted blood, I'll never be content to go back to my quiet, uneventful life."

We pitched camp near the mouth of the creek on a cliff overlooking the river. Uncle Peter and I made a fire and skinned the rabbits, while the Tuckers and the cavalier went off in search of more game. Under a great ledge of rock we found some snow left from a storm we had before Christmas, and after washing the rabbits well and letting them stand in cold water long enough to get out the animal heat, we buried them in the snow: "Ter git the fraishness out'n em," explained Uncle Peter.

I always loved to mess around a campfire, and Uncle Peter proved a most delightful companion.

"I like this a lot better than killing things, Uncle Peter," I said.

"Sho, child, so do I. I've been a-huntin' all my life, but it ain't been fer pleasure. I hunts fer a livin' an' I wouldn't shoot nothin' fer the love er killin' any mor'n I'd go dig taters fer exercise. I digs taters fer taters. I done tuck de libbuty of bringin' some sweet taters I made dis year fer ter roas' fer you-alls dinner," and the old man pulled a bag from the wheelbarrow that held great sweet potatoes almost as big as my head.

"They's nothin' so 'lectable as sweet taters what is roasted in de cam'fire. Jes' put 'em down in de ashes and kiver 'em over an' den fergit 'em, jes' fergit 'em. Dey can't cook too long 'kase de mo' de outside burns de mealier de inside is go'nter git," and Uncle Peter piled on more brushwood and raked the hot ashes over the yams.

Every now and then we heard a shot off in the direction of the Amazons and their so-called protector. I did hope the girls were having good luck and would come back with game of some sort. Uncle Peter and I got out the "'visions" and began to prepare for the hunters who, experience told us, would come along soon, hungry as wolves.

"Killin's a mighty ap'tizin' spo't," laughed Uncle Peter, "an' victuals cooked in de open seems ter be mo' tasty-like dan de ones in kitchens."

First we fried the bacon and then put it in a covered pan to keep hot, and used the bacon grease to fry the rabbits, which we had seasoned very highly and rolled in flour. I filled the coffee pot with fresh water from a bubbling spring near by, and, resting it on two stones about six inches apart, I raked out hot coals, and soon it began to heat up. I had just completed this culinary feat when Uncle Peter whispered to me:

"Look, chile, down yander by the ribber!"

The cliff where we had pitched our little camp overlooked the river, and about a hundred yards from the base of our cliff was a graveled ford, or shallows. The scrub growth was close down to the water's edge but stretching out into the stream was a little sandy beach. Beyond the scrub growth rose the dark pines, and an occasional oak with its great bare branches towered above all meaner trees. From the underbrush had stepped a young buck. He was picking his way daintily across the pebbles to the water's edge. How beautiful he was! I wanted our guests to have good sport, but I longed with a longing that was almost a prayer that no one with a gun was seeing what Uncle Peter and I were seeing. What wind there was came from his direction so he got no scent of us, and he drank his fill with unconcern, as though he lived in the "forest primeval." Then he proudly raised his antlered head and stood a moment sniffing the air.

"Bang!" rang out a shot, whizzing close to my ear, and "Bang!" came the echo from the cliff. The young buck stood a moment as though sculptured, and not until the echo answered did he drop. It almost seemed that the echo had been the good shot that had laid low this possible future leader of herds.

"Oh, the pity of it! The pity of it!" my heart cried out. Turning, I saw my friends on a ledge of rock farther down the river; Dum, with her smoking gun still raised to her shoulder, an exalted look on her face and her black hair with the coppery lights tumbling all about her, an Amazon, indeed; Dee, crumpled up in a little heap, her hands over her face.

"Hurrah!" shouted Reginald Kent, beside himself with excitement.

Dee jumped up from her crumpled heap and clambered down the cliff, tears streaming down her face and great sobs shaking her body. She fortunately had on waterproof boots, because she thought no more of water than she did of land. She splashed right across the shallow ford and, kneeling down by the poor deer, she buried her tear-stained face on his twitching shoulder.

Just then the skiff with Mr. Tucker, Father and Jo Winn came round a bend in the river.

"Hello! What's this?" called Mr. Tucker in some alarm, seeing his daughter kneeling on the sand by an expiring stag. "Where's Dum? What's happened?"

"It's just Dee, deedling," called out Dum. "I shot the deer and now Dee's breaking her heart."

"O – h, O – h, but he recognized me just before he died!" sobbed Dee. "I could tell by the way he looked at me."

"It was a good thing he did 'recognize' you," grinned Jo Winn. "If he had not, he might have gored you. An injured buck is a right dangerous thing to fool with."

We comforted Dee as best we could and praised Dum for her shot. Soon we were gathered around our campfire, and then Uncle Peter and I came in for our share of praise for the good dinner we had cooked.

"We'll feast on venison to-morrow," said Father.

"Ah, never!" shuddered Dee. "I couldn't, not after he recognized me."

"Maybe Molly Cottontail, whose hind leg you seem to be enjoying so, would have recognized you, too, if she had ever seen you before," teased Mr. Tucker. "Now, Miss Page, here, has such a tender heart she can't eat rabbit that she has seen running in the woods but contents herself with bacon."

"Have you no pity, then, for the poor faithful hogs?" asked Father. "They no doubt enjoy life as much as the deer or Bre'r Rabbit. That is perhaps bacon from one of old Sally's offspring; and, Page, you used to play with those pigs when they were little as though they were kittens. I have no doubt all of the litter would recognize you. When we begin to sentimentalize about our food, we had better 'open our mouths and shut our eyes,' as there is no telling to what lengths it may lead us."

"But, Doctor, you know 'Pigs is pigs,'" broke in Mr. Tucker, and the discussion ended with a laugh.

After dinner the gentlemen made another excursion across the river but came back without having seen even a deer track. They got a few partridges, however, and some rabbits and were content. We started home through the pine forest a very happy, merry party.

Mr. Reginald Kent stuck closer than a brother to Dum's side, and Mr. Tucker, who was walking with me, and I overheard this conversation between the infatuated young New Yorker and the ingenuous Dum:

"Do you know, Miss Dum, you looked like Diana when you stood on that rock and aimed at the deer? I wanted to paint you awfully bad and did click the camera on you. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, no, I don't mind if it will help you any in your advertising. Are you going to put me in the 'lasses ad, too?"

"Oh, now, Miss Dum, quit your kidding! You know I didn't mean I wanted to paint you for advertising, I meant for myself." And then Dum blushed.

Mr. Tucker frowned. He evidently did not relish his girls getting old enough to be talked to that way.

"Miss Dum, will you do me a great favor?" continued Mr. Kent. "I want more than anything in the world a lock of your hair. It is the most wonderful hair I have ever seen. Sometimes it looks black, and then in another light it is almost red. When it came down while you were aiming at the deer, it was like copper in the sun. Please give me just a little lock to take back to New York with me."

"I am afraid Zebedee would not like for me to cut my hair," answered Dum primly. "But I tell you," she added generously, "I can save you the combings, if you would like them."

Mr. Reginald Kent looked rather nonplused and Mr. Tucker handed me his gun to hold while he rolled in the leaves for very joy. As we were bringing up the rear, nobody saw this pantomime but me, and I was as glad as Dum's father that she was not going to be grown up for a while yet.

Mr. Kent was to go back to New York on the following day; in a little more than a week Dum would be in boarding school; and it would of necessity be many a day before the two could meet again. Perhaps the next time they do meet, Dum will have grown to the age when she will know that to offer a young man combings in lieu of a lock is not conducive to romance.

CHAPTER XIX.

A VISIT TO RICHMOND

Those were certainly three mad, merry days I spent in Richmond with the Tuckers. Poor Father had to go to Cousin Park Garnett's and he just hated it. But he had promised her that the first time he went to Richmond he would stay at her house, and stay he had to.

The Tuckers met us at the station in little Henry Ford. It had been only a few days since they had been with us at Bracken, but we had much to talk about and a great deal of news to exchange.

"Father is having the deer skin tanned to make a rug for our room at Gresham, and the antlers are to be mounted for a hat-rack," exclaimed Dum.

"Sally Winn tried to die last night, and I drove over to Milton with Father, and Jo told me he thought you, Dee, were the most sensible lady he had ever met," I managed to get in.

"He promised me a pointer pup; I hope he won't forget it. Brindle had a fight yesterday and is all bunged up from it. I know you are dying to meet Brindle," said Dee.

"No doubt she is pining away for that honor," teased Mr. Tucker, "but don't you think she could wait until after luncheon? How about it, Miss Page?"

"Well, if Brindle can stand it, I fancy I can," said I. And so we went to a delightful restaurant, where we had a scrumptious luncheon (I know no other word to express it): Lynhaven oysters on the deep shell; Hampton spots so beautifully cooked that it must have made them glad to be caught and fried; shoestring potatoes vying with the fish in charm; Waldorf salad, with everything in it but the kitchen stove, as Dee declared.

Cousin Park was not expecting Father until the afternoon, so he was spared to us for a little while, much to his delight and ours.

"Now, what shall we have for dessert?" asked our genial host. "Tweedles always wants pie, – cocoanut, as a rule."

"Pink ice cream for me," said Father. "Did you ever see a country Jake that didn't want pink ice cream as soon as he hit the city?"

"What seasoning?" laughed Mr. Tucker.

"I don't care, just so it's pink."

"I believe I'll have what Father has. I like it pink, too."

"Well, cocoanut pie for mine," ordered Dum.

"And lemon meringue for mine," ordered Dee.

"You are not like the young man who never ate lemon meringue pie because it messed up his ears so, are you, Dee?" said Mr. Tucker; and so our gay little luncheon proceeded.

"My, how I hate to go to Cousin Park's!" sighed Father. "She is kind in a way, but so – so – ponderous."

"Poor Father!" and I patted his knee under the table, "I do wish you didn't have to go."

"Well, I have plenty of engagements that will keep me busy, and I won't have to do much more than eat and sleep there. But it is her long formal dinners that bore me so."

"Well, you have simply got to have dinner with us to-morrow, Saturday, evening at the Country Club, and no doubt these girls will have you fox-trotting before the evening is over," and Mr. Tucker would not take "No" for an answer, – not that Father was very persistent in his refusal. We dropped the dear man at Cousin Park's great, dark house and he had the look of "Give up all hope ye who enter here."

The Tuckers had a very attractive apartment in a large, new, up-to-date building, but I could fancy the havoc that Dum and Dee caused whenever they resorted to the gloves to settle their disputes. The place was so full of nicknacks that one could hardly turn around. There were really enough of what Mammy Susan called "doodads" to decorate a mansion, and all of these things were crowded into a not very large apartment. Some of the things were very beautiful and all of them were interesting, but if they belonged to me I would pack about half of them away in storage.

I thought of a colored woman in the country who lived in a very small cabin with six little children falling over her feet all the time, and she used to pray fervently, "Oh, Gawd, gimme grace not ter git so pestered dat I'll throw ary one er dem out do's." I am afraid I would have been so pestered with all of the doodads that I would surely have thrown some of them outdoors.

"Miss Page, I have been trying to persuade Tweedles to help me to get rid of some of the mess in these rooms," said Mr. Tucker, almost as though he had read my mind. "I feel the stuffiness of it even more since our visit at Bracken." That was it, the simplicity of Bracken had spoiled me for overcrowded rooms.

"But Zebedee, everything we want to get rid of is just the thing you think most of, and the things that you think superfluous are our special treasures," complained Dum.

"Well, I am afraid we'll have to wait until you get some kind of education, and then, if stocks is riz, we'll move into a house big enough to spread out in."

Their rugs were beautiful and their pictures I have since found out were very fine. At that time, however, they did not seem very good to me. The taste in art of a fifteen-year-old girl who has seen next to no pictures is not to be relied upon; and no doubt my taste was abominable.

Brindle took me to his heart and made me perfectly at home. He was a bow-legged, brindle bull with undershot jaw and eyes like damson jam. Dee loved him next to Zebedee and Dum; and I know cried herself to sleep many a night at boarding school, longing for her pet. He was certainly a very human person, or rather dog, I should say, and ruled the Tuckers with a rod of iron. He actually made Mr. Tucker get out of a chair that he, Brindle, had taken a fancy to, and he curled himself up on the seat with a haughty sniff that made us scream with laughter, until Dee insisted that we control our merriment, as Brindle did not like to be laughed at.

"It is his one fault," she said; "he has not a very keen sense of humor."

"He has one other, Dee," said Mr. Tucker; "he does smell like a dog, you must admit." Dee had to admit it, but declared she thought a dog should smell like a dog and not like a tuberose; so the discussion ended.

We took in the movies that afternoon. I don't know how many of them, but it was great fun.

"Zebedee won't usually let us go without him," said Dee, "but he thinks you are dignified enough to hold us down."

"Me – dignified? Why, father thinks I am as wild as a March hare!"

"Well, Zebedee says you know when to be quiet. Zebedee likes you a lot, Page," declared Dum. "If you weren't exactly what you are, Dee and I would be awfully jealous of you. What you blushing about?" Such a double-barreled compliment would make an old pair of leather saddle bags blush; and a girl of my thin skin naturally took on a rosy hue, that Dee declared put me out of the chaperone class.

That evening we went to a vaudeville performance. Mr. Tucker's newspaper connection gave him the entrée anywhere in the house, so we were very grand in box seats. A particularly amusing black-faced artist was giving a song-and-dance when Dee exclaimed:

"Look up there in the balcony!" And what should we see but Father's dear old lean, solemn face convulsed with merriment. Zebedee – I mean Mr. Tucker – went up and made him join us.

"How did you escape Cousin Park?" I asked.

"Oh, she thinks I am in solemn conclave with some of my professional brethren! I didn't exactly tell a lie, but I acted one. It was either that or burst a blood vessel. You know my Cousin Park, do you not, Mr. Tucker?"

"Y-e-s, I know her, but she never seems to know me. With Mrs. Garnett, one must have either plenty of very blue blood or more than plenty of very yellow gold. I've got blue blood to burn, but no yellow gold, as you know. There must be something radically wrong with me in her eyes. What it is, I don't know; nor do I much care. I was very fond of her husband. Major Peyton Garnett was a good friend to me. I admired him immensely."

"Yes, the Major was a fine old gentleman," said father. He afterward told me that one reason he had to escape from Cousin Park's presence or break a blood vessel was that she had so many unkind things to say of Mr. Jeffry Tucker, the old croaker that she was! "I am sorry for you, Page, but you are in for a Sunday dinner at Cousin Park's." I groaned in agonized anticipation. "I couldn't get out of it for you, my child, she made such a point of it. She is our kinswoman, and we have to show her some respect."

"Well, thank goodness, this time I don't have to go to the dentist's, too! The combination of Cousin Park and the dentist is a strong one, I can tell you. If you can stand her, Father, I reckon I can."

"That's my good girl," said Father, patting my shoulder, and Mr. Tucker gave me a warm and friendly glance and said:

"Tweedles and I will see that you get there late and come away early."

It seems to me I laughed more at that vaudeville performance than anybody in the theater. I had seen very few shows in my life, and everything was new and fresh to me. I was not bored even by the strong man who seemed to be so tiresome to the audience, and no joke was too much of a chestnut to be scorned by me. To have Father with us, too, made my cup of happiness full to the brim.

The next evening, Saturday, we had dinner at the Country Club, and stayed for the dance afterward. The Country Club was a beautiful building with spacious grounds, golf links, tennis courts, and a view of the James River that appealed to me very much. The dinner was fine, and Father and I had a splendid time.

"I am glad to escape all the meals I can at the apartment house café," confessed Mr. Tucker. "When Tweedles are away, I eat anywhere but at home."

"You are an extravagant piece," said Dee.

"But I have my regular meals served for Brindle," laughed Mr. Tucker.