At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins

THE SPREAD

Saturday night was a great time for spreads as there was no study hall on that evening and the girls could come early and stay late. A grand feast was in preparation at 117 Carter Hall. Mr. Tucker had sent a box that had passed inspection at the office, although it was filled with contraband articles; but as he wrote Tweedles, they wouldn't make rules if they did not expect them to be broken.

"My, I'm glad Miss Peyton doesn't put us on our honor not to have cake and such," said Dee as she opened up a box stamped with the name of a well-known drygoods firm and plainly marked in a masculine hand: "Virginia's Shoes, the fourth pair she has had since Spring and she must be more careful and have her old ones half-soled."

"Isn't old Zebedee a peach? Look! Tango sandwiches!" (The catalogue to Gresham plainly says: "Nothing but crackers, fruit and simple candy is allowed to be eaten in the rooms.")

"Here are olives done up to look like shoe polish," said I, diving into the big box. "And what is this big round parcel at the bottom?" On it I read: "Caroline's winter hat. I think you are a very vain girl to insist on your winter hat just to wear it home on the train for Christmas. I hope it is not mashed but think it would serve you right for thinking so much about your appearance." The hat proved to be a great caramel cake, stuck all over with English walnuts, packed so carefully it was not a bit mashed. Jars of pickle masqueraded shamelessly as Uneeda Biscuit, being ingeniously pasted up in the original wrappers. Cream cheese and pimento sandwiches came dressed as graham wafers; and a whole roasted chicken had had a very comfortable journey buttoned up in Dum's old sweater, with a note pinned over its faithful breast saying that Dum must make out with that sweater for another season as Mr. Tucker could not put up with her selfish extravagance.

We heard afterward that Miss Sears, whose duty it had been to inspect this box before it was delivered to the girls, had said that she was surprised to find that Mr. Jeffry Tucker did not spoil the twins nearly so much as she had been led to believe. In fact, he seemed to be rather strict with them and quite critical. For instance, an old sweater that he expected Dum to wear through the season was not really fit to be seen in!

There were several boxes of candy, besides all the other goodies. They were all marked peppermint but were really candied fruit, chocolates, nougat and what not.

"I tell you, Zebedee is some provider when he gets started," said Dee. "I'm glad I didn't eat much dinner and I intend to eat no supper at all."

We were taking stock of our eatables before supper bell so we could see how many girls we could invite to the spread. It was etiquette at Gresham to give a girl fair warning when a spread was under way, so she could save space and not go and fill up in the dining-room. We wanted to avoid feeling like the old countryman who had his first experience with a table d'hôte dinner. Not knowing there was to be so much following the first course, he ate too much of it, and afterward loudly lamented: "Thar I sot chock full er soup."

Annie Pore was, of course, on the list and funny little Mary Flannigan and the two Seniors, Sally Coles and Josephine Barr. They had been especially nice to our crowd and we were anxious to show them some attention. That made seven in all.

"We've really got food for one more or even two," declared Dee, "but maybe we had better go easy because there is really not room for more."

117 was rather crowded with the three beds, two bureaus, three chairs and a table, and seven girls would just about fill it to overflowing. It did not look like the bare cell that had so appalled us on our day of entering Gresham. We now had a scrim curtain at the window; rugs on the floor; Tweedles had pretty Roman blankets on their beds with bright sofa cushions; while I had a beautiful log cabin quilt that Sally Winn had pieced for me in between her different death throes. The walls were literally covered with pennants from many schools and colleges with a few pictures that Dum had stuck in her trunk, purloined from their apartment in Richmond.

"I don't believe Zebedee will ever miss them, and they mean a lot to me," she had said when Dee had expressed astonishment on her producing them from her trunk. "I am so constituted that I've just got to have something beautiful to look at every now and then." The room was pleasant and cozy but the crowded walls rather got on my nerves. Bracken was so big and simple (some people would have called it bare) that I could not get used to such a conglomeration in a bedroom. I kept my taste to myself, however, as they were two to one, and no doubt my ideas of decoration were very old-fashioned and out of date.

Sally Coles and Jo Barr, whom we sought out before supper, were glad to accept and vowed they would eat not a bite before the feast so that they could come perfectly empty. Of course Annie Pore and Mary Flannigan were holding themselves in readiness for the arrival of the promised box from Mr. Tucker, and the news of its having come safely to hand was greeted with enthusiasm.

You get tired of any steady food except home food and sometimes you think you are tired of that, but as a rule you are pretty glad to get back to it. I fancy the table at Gresham was kept up about as well as any boarding school, but we knew that as sure as Tuesday was coming, roast veal was coming, too; and Wednesday would bring with it veal potpie; Thursday, beefsteak; and Friday, fish; Saturday, lamb stew with dumplings; Sunday, roast chicken; and Monday, not much of anything. This certainty bored us, and sometimes I used to think if I couldn't find something in the potpie besides veal, I'd scream. I had to do a lot of looking at the mountains on Wednesday, somehow.

A spread was a godsend, and an invitation to one was not as a rule given in vain. As Sally Coles and I fox-trotted together in the Gym after supper, she whispered in my ear: "It's certainly good of you kids to ask Jo and me. We're crazy about coming."

"We think it's pretty nice of you Seniors to come. You didn't even know we are to have caramel cake, either, did you?" I answered.

"Heavens, no! I'm mighty glad we didn't accept Mabel Binks's bid to a Welsh rarebit in her room. We fibbed and told her we had a partial engagement. It was just with each other but we didn't tell her that, and now you Sophomores have saved our souls by making our imaginary engagement a real one. I hate to tell even a white lie, but I'd hate a deal more to have to go to a spread of Mabel Binks's giving. Don't you know the hammers will be flying to-night? Can't you hear Mabel and those rapid Juniors she runs with knocking everything and everybody?"

"Yes, I reckon the only way to save your skin is to stay with her and help knock. But how does she manage a rarebit when we are not allowed to have chafing dishes?"

"Manages the same way you and the Tuckers manage to have caramel cake, I fancy. We are not allowed to have cake, either. Of course it is easier to hide a cake than it is a chafing dish, especially if the cake is sliced and there are a half-dozen empty girls to help. I believe some of the girls keep their chafing dishes under their mattresses. Did you hide your cake well before you came down to supper? It would be the psychological moment for some busybody to make an inspecting tour – and then, good-by, cake!"

"Oh, you scare me to death!" and I grabbed Dee, who was whirling by, trying a brand new step with a giddy Junior, and, whispering Sally's warning to her, we beat a hasty retreat. Our beloved cake was on the table covered with a napkin just as we had left it, seemingly, but on raising the cloth we discovered that a great wedge had been cut out of it.

"Well, of all the mean tricks!" spluttered Dee. "Who do you s'pose – ?"

"Thank goodness, they only took about a fourth! What is left is enough to give all seven of us fever blisters. Caramel cake with nuts in it always gives me fever blisters," I laughed.

"But I don't mind. I'll take the cake, fever blisters and all, every time."

"Me, too! Well, I hope that the thief will have a mouth full of them," said Dee vindictively.

"Well, honey, it's a sight better to have some mean girl take off one fourth than some teacher in her mistaken zeal take off the whole thing and give us demerits, besides. Here's your handkerchief," I said, picking up a little pink crêpe de Chine one from the floor.

"Not mine, I don't possess such a thing. Don't you know Zebedee and Dum and I use the same sized handkerchiefs? When we want a handkerchief, we want a handkerchief, not a little pink dab. It must be yours."

"No, I haven't any crêpe de Chine ones. Here's an initial – B. It certainly is scented up." The finishing touch to Mabel Binks's costume on the afternoon we had seen the game at Hill-Top came back to me suddenly: the strong odor of musk. The handkerchief smelt exactly the same way.

"Well, Dee, I reckon it won't take a Sherlock Holmes to say who took the cake, now. Let's not give her back her hanky until to-morrow. If we took it to her to-night she would know that we are on to her, and she would be just mean enough to peach on us and have our cake seized." So we determined, like Dee and Prosper le Gai, to "bide our time."

What a spread we did have and what fun! Dum turned up with two more girls, members of our class, and there was enough and to spare. Mr. Tucker was as lavish as Mammy Susan herself. We had no plates or glasses, but we had plenty of box tops for dishes and our toothbrush mugs served as loving cups to drink the very sour lemonade Dee made in the water pitcher. The same knife carved the chicken, then cut the cake. The olives, always difficult to extract from the bottle, were poured into the soap dish which I had scoured hard enough to suit the most squeamish.

"My, what good eats!" exclaimed Jo Barr. "And how did you ever smuggle that cake within the lines?" We showed her the wrapper it had come in and the stern note from Mr. Tucker.

"Well, if that doesn't beat all! I tell you there is nothing like being smart enough to keep the eleventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not get found out.' I had a whole fruitcake taken bodaciously from me last year. I am always breaking the eleventh." And that was so. Poor Jo always got caught up with.

"Well, I tell you one thing," said the wise Sally, "that cake had better skidoo until danger of inspection passes. Teachers are a suspicious lot."

I just got it whisked under a down cushion on Dee's bed when there was a sharp rap on the door. "Come in," we called in a chorus. It was Miss Sears, rather astonished at our ready invitation to enter.

"Oh, girls, having a spread, are you," glancing sharply at the innocent-looking packages of crackers and peppermint candy without coming all the way into the room. "Well, I hope you will have a nice time."

"Won't you join us, Miss Sears?" asked Dum sweetly.

"Oh, thank you, no. I am on inspection duty to-night," and she closed the door, never seeing that Jo had wrapped the roasted chicken up in a spangled scarf she was sporting. That chicken had had all kinds of dressing in its fat, young life: first its own feathers; then the dressing, which is really the un-dressing; then the dressing, which is really the stuffing; then Dum's old sweater; and now Jo's fine scarf.

We proceeded then to put the good, appetizing food where nothing short of an X-ray could inspect. So thorough were those nine girls that not a crumb of cake nor scrap of sandwich was left to tell on us. The chicken bones were some problem but we decided that if each girl took a bone and disposed of it, it would simplify matters somewhat. Sally got the wishbone and said she was going to gild it and put it on her "memory string."

When we had eaten to repletion, we demanded stunts from those gifted that way. Mary did a dog fight and new turn she had just mastered: going like a mouse.

"I wish I could think it was a mouse who nibbled the cake," sighed Dum. "It kind of hurts me all over to feel that somebody did it."

"Well, if it was a mouse, I bet it sounded like this," and Mary imitated Mabel Binks's nasal speech until we almost had hysterics.

"Why do you fancy she took only a hunk instead of the whole cake?" I asked. "It would have been so much more like her to take it all."

"That's the reason she only took part. She thought by behaving out of character she would throw us off the scent," suggested Sally.

"Well, if she wanted to throw us off the scent, she shouldn't have dropped her handkerchief," said Dee. "But let's forget it and think of something pleasant. Annie, you sing, please," and she handed Jo's guitar to the blushing Annie. Annie was always embarrassed when she had to sing before a few persons. She got her "stage presence" when there was a real audience.

"What shall it be?" asked Annie.

"Oh, something real sentimental and lovesick," demanded Sally, who was supposed to be engaged; and with a little humorous twinkle in her usually sad eyes, Annie sang "Sally in our Alley."

Of all the girls that are so smartThere's none like pretty Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.There is no lady in the landIs half so sweet as Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.Of all the days that's in the weekI dearly love but one day —And that's the day that comes betwixtA Saturday and Monday;For then I'm dressed all in my bestTo walk abroad with Sally;She is the darling of my heart,And she lives in our alley.

Then Dum and Dee stood back to back and buttoned themselves up in their sweaters, which they had put on hindpart-before and impersonated the two-headed woman, Milly-Christine, singing a duet, "The mocking bird is singing o'er her grave," in two distinct keys. That was an awfully funny stunt and one the Tuckers had made up themselves. Before we had half exhausted the talent of the assembled guests, the bell rang to warn us that lights must soon be out and we had to break up.

The next morning there was a fine crop of fever blisters due to the very rich cake. Annie Pore and Sally Coles were the only ones who escaped with a whole skin. When I handed Mabel Binks her smelly, pink, crêpe de Chine handkerchief, I noticed that her rather full lips were decorated with a design similar to my own.

"Here's your handkerchief," I said. "Cake with caramel and nut filling is awfully rough on the complexion, isn't it?" And the girl had the decency to blush.

CHAPTER XV.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

I could hardly believe that it was I, Page Allison, who had been off to boarding school. Bracken was so exactly as I left it and I dropped so easily into my old habits and customs, that I felt as though I had only dreamed I had been away. The dogs almost ate me up for joy, and Mammy Susan had three kinds of hot bread for supper. Father and I chatted away for dear life for a while, and then we just as naturally settled down to a quiet evening of reading, as though I had merely been over to Milton to mail a letter. He was vastly pleased to have me back, and every now and then looked over his glasses at me with a very happy smile on his dear, old, lean, weather-beaten face; and I lay curled up in a big Sleepy-Hollow chair simply devouring the last "Saturday Evening Post" that I had bought on the train coming from Gresham, feeling that I had about the pleasantest home and the best father and kindest Mammy Susan and the finest dogs on earth.

"Mr. Tucker tells me you have asked him down to hunt," I said as I surprised a loving glance from Father.

"Yes, yes, I thought it would be nice if he could come when his girls pay you their promised visit. He is mighty good company. I declare he can keep a whole party in a good humor," and Father chuckled, evidently in remembrance of some witticism of Mr. Tucker's. "We are thinking of getting up a deer hunt over in the swamp. Jo Winn shot a good-sized buck last month and I am told a great many persons have seen deer in the distance lately."

This was over in a corner of our county where many small rivers and creeks formed a perfect network, making very inaccessible, marshy land. The hunting was as a rule pretty good and during the winter we feasted quite royally on wild turkey, partridge and rabbit. Deer, of course, were not so plentiful, but an occasional one was shot. It seems strange that Virginia, the first state settled, should still be boasting big game.

"I wish you could take us. Dum and Dee would like it a lot."

"And you, I fancy, would just go along out of politeness," he teased.

"Well, you know I'd rather get killed myself than kill anything, but the Tuckers have their own guns and often go hunting with their father. I believe they are very good shots."

"If you think they can stand the trip, we'll take them. I know you can stand what I can stand, unless boarding school has made you soft. Let me feel your arm – ah, as hard as ever."

"That's basketball and gym work. I'd have been soft, indeed, if I hadn't gone in for athletics. I'm so glad we can go. I'll write to the twins to bring their guns and rough clothes."

Christmas day came and went with plenty of good cheer and happiness, but none of the hurry and bustle of the present-day Christmas in town. At Bracken we knew nothing about white tissue paper and Christmas seals and bolts of red and green ribbon. Our simple gifts to one another were exchanged without much ceremony; and then Father and I got into his buggy, with the colt ready to run twenty miles if he could get the bit between his teeth, and distributed baskets and bags of candy, nuts and oranges to our many poor neighbors, colored and white. We always had a box of oranges for the holidays and simple candy and mixed nuts by wholesale quantities.

"I'd like to take these things around on Christmas Eve and let the little children think Santa Claus brought them, but I know the mothers would give them their share right away and then there would be nothing for Christmas day."

"Well, I believe they think 'Docallison' is a kind of Santy, anyhow," I said, as we whizzed up to a particularly poor-looking cabin that seemed to be simply running over with little nigs. The grimy window was black with their dusky faces and the doorway was so full that the children in front were being pushed out onto the rickety excuse for a porch.

"Howdy, Aunt Keziah! I hope you and your family are well this beautiful morning," called Father, pulling in the colt and taking from between his knees a large hamper literally running over with sweets.

"Chris'mus gif'! Chris'mus gif'!" came in a chorus from all the little mouths. Aunt Keziah hobbled out, smacking the little blacks as she came with a very horny hand; but they seemed to take it as a kind of pleasantry and bobbed up grinning from ear to ear.

"Shet ep, yer lims er Satan! Cyarn't yer see Docallison's colt ain't go'nter stan fer no sich yellin's? Chris'mus gif', Docallison! Chris'mus gif', Miss Page!"

This last came with a voice as soft as the wings of a dove, while the tone in which she had admonished the little darkies had been as rough as a nutmeg grater. You could hardly believe the two voices had issued from the same lips. Aunt Keziah was the neighborhood "Tender": that is, she minded the children whose natural guardians had gone away for one reason or another, – sometimes to work in the cities, sometimes as house servants for the county families, where such encumbrances as offspring were not welcome. She was paid a small sum for each child and always spoke of them as "bo'ders."

Aunt Keziah had her charity, too, (as who has not?) and supported several orphans. These she treated with especial kindness, and always made the "bo'ders" wait until the objects of charity were helped to "ash-cake an' drippin's."

Father lifted out the heavy basket and the pickaninnies swarmed like flies around a molasses barrel.

"Git back, thar, you kinky-haided Gabe. You know you ain't nothin' but a bo'der. You let dis here lil orphant Minnie git fust grab," and Gabe got back and Minnie came proudly up and got her bag of candy and nuts. We had tied the treat up in separate packages so there could be no broken hearts. Mammy Susan had reported that Aunt Keziah had two new ones, Milly Jourdan's twins, making fourteen in all.

"What did you name the twins, your new boarders, Aunt Keziah?" I asked.

Aunt Keziah demanded one thing from her patrons and that was that she be allowed to name her charges. No matter what their names had been up to the time they entered her domain, they had to be rechristened. A big boy who had been called Bill for eight winters was now known as Clarence. Mary Banks was Chrystobel and Mump Davis, a raw-boned, fiery-looking boy, part Indian, seethed and chafed under the nom de guerre of Fermentation. The charity orphans kept the names their mothers had seen fit to give them, out of respect for the departed.

"Well, Miss Page, I studied a long time 'bout them thar twins. Naming is moughty important fer boys special, sence matrimony cyarn't in no way improve 'em, an' I done decided to call 'em Postle Peter an' Pistle Paul."

"Capital, capital!" laughed Father. "I hope Postle Peter and Pistle Paul are healthy. You raise the strongest children in the county, Aunt Keziah."

"Yassir, Docallison," said the old woman with a toothless grin. "They's a right likely pair. The reason my bo'ders an' all is so healthy is 'cause I make 'em wash theyselves. An' ev'y las' one er 'em is gotter have two shuts or shifts to they backs er I won't tend 'em. An' what they ain't a wearin', I puts in a pot an' biles. De boys gits a big washin' on Chusdays an' Fridays, an' de gals on Wednesdays an' Sat'days. Sometimes whin de lil gals all gits washed of a Sat'day night, it looks like it's a kinder pity to was'e all them hot suds what ain't ter say dirty, so I picks out a boy er so dat done got siled some, and makes him take a extra scrub, jist fer luck. As fer eatin's, dey don't git nothin' but corn braid an' drippin's wif lasses on Sunday ef I kin make out to have 'em, but dey gits a plenty of what dey do git and de victuals 'grees wif 'em, an' I don't never have a nigger a month 'fo he's as fat as a possum."

"Well, Aunt Keziah, you are doing a fine work, raising healthy citizens. I hope you will have a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. There are toys enough to go around in the bottom of the basket and here's a pound of tea for you and some tobacco for your pipe and some chocolate drops that are easy to chew."

"Thank yer, thank yer. Docallison, specially fer de sof' candy. I always did useter have a sweet tooth but now I ain't got nothin' but a sweet gum, but I's got dat all right."

Just then the colt, tired of standing, made a bolt and all we could do was to wave good-by to the funny old woman and her fourteen charges.

"Old Aunt Keziah is bringing up those children according to the teachings of modern science, even to sterilizing their shirts and shifts, and she doesn't know there is such a word as germ. I fancy the many cracks in the cabin wall where you can see daylight are partly responsible for the health of the 'bo'ders.' I find more sickness among the colored people where their cabins are better built and airtight. Ventilation is avoided like the plague," said Father as he got the colt under control and we went spinning off to some more "pensioners," as he called them.

The doctor's buggy was finally emptied of its load and we skimmed back home with the colt as fresh as ever, agreeing that we would not give up horses for all the automobiles under the sun. There is an exhilaration that comes from driving a good horse that I do not believe a car can give one, no matter how fine the car or expert the driver.

Mammy Susan had a dinner for us that was fit for kings and queens. It seemed a pity to cook so much for just Father and me, but some of that dinner found its way to many a cabin where Father felt it was most needed; and then on Christmas Day the dogs were given extra rations and not limited to their one big feeding of corn meal and salt, scalded and baked in a great pan until it was crisp. On this day of days they had a bone apiece and all kinds of good scrapings.

After dinner we settled ourselves to enjoy the Christmas books, of which there were many, as our tastes were well known. Father's patients were considerate enough not to send for him all afternoon. Not a soul got sick on this happy Christmas day. Even poor Sally Winn did not try to die.