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"Henry did not have to be cranked but once, and that was when we were at the end of the line up at Robinson Street and there were no passengers in. I bumped over a high car track, and you know how indignant that makes old Henry. I was awfully glad I had just dumped my last fare. Not a soul saw my skirts." This was mumbled with a full mouth as Dee steadily stoked up, accomplishing in about ten minutes one of the largest meals I ever saw.
"Dee, I am afraid you will have apoplexy or something," Dum remonstrated.
But Dee declared that a workingman must eat a lot. She could easily digest anything she could accommodate, and she was not quite full yet. Finding I had not tasted my consommé, for being shut up as I was my appetite was nothing to boast of, Dee drank it down on top of cocoanut pie and currant jelly, the dessert she had just finished.
"To fill up the cracks!" she exclaimed, and with a whirl she was out of the apartment and back in her jitney once more, alert for fares.
"Isn't she a great girl, though?" said Dum, a little wistfully. "Four-fifteen was a good haul. Have you counted up my pledges yet?"
"Yes, you have twenty-seven. At five cents apiece that makes one dollar thirty-five cents. That's not a bad morning's work."
"No, that's not so bad, and maybe I can do better this afternoon. I am going to kick for another part of town tomorrow. They gave me the swellest part of Franklin Street, and so many of the houses were where our friends live that it was hard to be businesslike. I put it up to them as a perfectly businesslike proposition, however, and would not let them sign up unless they wanted my wares for their own sake, not mine. I had an awful time with your cousin, Park Garnett. She made out she did not know me, and I did not force my acquaintance on her, but I just talked and talked and made her look at everything I had – Mrs. Rand, batty-cake flapper, and all the needle-threaders, spot-knockers, and silver polish – and, what's more, I did not leave her ugly, ponderous old house until I had made her sign up for fifteen cents' worth of household necessities – I mean fifteen cents for me. I expatiated on Mrs. Rand until there was nothing for her to do but own one, and I played battledore and shuttlecock with her ball of gray yarn (of course she was knitting another shawl with purple scallops) and the batty-cake turner until she was dizzy and would have signed up to get me out of the house, I think. She bought some silver polish, too, because I took her fat old pug up in my lap and showed her how much his collar needed rubbing. Jeremiah, the blue-gummed butler, was fascinated by my wares, and kept tiptoeing back into the room to fix the fire or pretend he heard the bell or something. That put it into my head to make the rest of the rounds in the backs of the houses, where the servants can see my novelties, and I had fine luck. I am going to stick to the alleys and back doors all afternoon."
Dum was, as usual, perfectly open and straightforward, with absolutely no idea of concealing her identity. I had not dreamed that she was contemplating going into the homes of her friends and acquaintances with her peddling job. I couldn't help wondering what Mr. Tucker would say to it. He was accustomed to the scrapes of his progeny and used to say just so long as they told the truth and kept out of jail, he could stand it; but these new escapades did seem to be a little more serious than any they had heretofore plunged into. They were certainly not doing anything wrong from a moral standpoint, but they were giving Mrs. Grundy a chance to do a lot of gabbling. I could not help laughing over Cousin Park, although I secretly wished that Dum could have started her back-door canvassing before she reached that ponderous edifice belonging to my relative. It merely meant that Mrs. Garnett would have some tangible grievance against my friends, for whom she held a prejudice that no politeness on their part seemed to do away with. Certainly Zebedee had been very kind and pleasant to her on several occasions, and he had been quite attentive to her on that memorable picnic the summer before. He had also done all that was required of him toward entertaining her guest, Mabel Binks, in the early part of the winter. In fact, Tweedles and I felt that he had done more than common politeness required toward the amusement of that flashy young woman.
"Did you tell Cousin Park I was in town?" I asked.
"No, indeed; I never claimed acquaintance with her, I tell you! She made out that she had never seen me before and I fell in with her mood and just be'ed an agent, only that and nothing more. Sometimes I think maybe she really did not know me. You know she won't wear glasses all the time and I believe her eye-sight is bad."
I devoutly hoped this to be the case. I had not informed Cousin Park of my presence in Richmond and had father's consent to this concealment, as we both of us knew that she would be tearing around and drag me out of the Tuckers' apartment and incarcerate me in her prison-like mansion, whether I would or no. Father and I felt the same way about her house. Father always said he was afraid the butler, Jeremiah, would bite him, and every one brought up by a mammy knew that "to be bit by a blue-gummed nigger was certain death." Jeremiah was really a very nice old man in spite of his lugubrious air of officiating at your funeral while he was actually serving the very heavy viands with which Mrs. Garnett's oiled walnut table was laden.
"Maybe she didn't know you, after all," I ventured cheerfully.
"Well, if she didn't or did, it is all one to me. I don't have to deliver the novelties, as that is done by some trustworthy person employed steadily by the boss, and in the meantime I have earned fifteen cents at the funereal mansion. I must tear myself away now and begin a systematic visiting of the back doors of the homes fronting Monroe Park. Good-by, honey," and Dum, too, was gone.
Brindle and I were left to watch for the meteoric appearances of Dee and to get through the afternoon as best we might.
Dee did a thriving business. As the afternoon went on she never passed without a car full and sometimes running over. Her face was tense and as often as not she forgot to look up and salute Brindle and me.
"She will be a tired little girl when the day is over," I said to Brindle, and he wagged his tail and snuffled his appreciation of my noticing him. Dee had just passed, the back seat of Henry two-deep with passengers and on the front seat a very dressy looking young woman who seemed to be sitting very close to the stern young jitneur. That was one of the times Dee had forgotten to look up and poor Brindle was in deep distress.
CHAPTER III
A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT
It was almost dark and still the twins had not returned. The maid came in and turned on the electric light and brought me the menu from the café. I ordered a substantial dinner for the three of us and with the assistance of the good-natured girl got myself into another dress and smoothed myself up a bit.
A quick step sounded in the hall just as I settled in my chair and the maid went down to order dinner. Tweedles at last – one of them, anyhow! It turned out to be Mr. Tucker, and I was covered with confusion! What on earth was I to say to him? What business did he have coming home before he was expected?
"Hello, little friend! Where are those girls? You don't mean that both of them have had the heartlessness to go out at one time and leave you all by yourself? I wouldn't have thought it of them!"
"Oh, they – they – I reckon they'll be in soon. I haven't been lonesome at all. Brindle and I have been looking out of the window at the jitneys – " dangerous ground! If the girls wanted to tell their father of their escapades they were to be allowed to do so, but it was not my business. Why didn't they come on in? I knew they would sooner or later divulge to their beloved Zebedee, but they had certainly meant to get all over with their schemes while he was away.
"We weren't looking for you until day after tomorrow," I stammered.
"Well, is that any reason why you shouldn't be glad to see me now?"
"Oh, no! We are glad to see you – that is, I am."
"That is to say, Tweedles will not be?" he questioned.
"Of course they will be." Why, oh, why didn't they come on?
Weary footsteps dragging along the hall and Dum appeared. Her hat was on one side, not at a jaunty angle but just at that hopelessly out-of-plumb slant. Her face was dirty enough to suit Dee's idea of a jitney driver. Her hair was dishevelled and her shoes very dusty.
"Oh, Page, only fifteen orders in all the afternoon and I am nearly dead! I'll never be able to make a living peddling household no – What, – you!" and her mouth formed itself into a round O as she spied her wonderful parent.
"Yes, I!"
"You!"
"Yes, me! If you understand that better."
"Oh!"
"Is that all you can say when I chased back from the meeting in Norfolk expecting to find three lone ladies so glad to see me? Page greets me with an icy mitt, and now all you can say is 'You!' and 'Oh!' Where is Dee? Maybe she will at least ask me how I am."
More tired footsteps dragging along the hall, and in came Dee.
"I am rolling in wealth but I am so tired that nobody had better say 'boo' to me or I'll weep."
"'Boo!'" said Zebedee.
"Oh, you?" and Dee proceeded to burst into tears which certainly did not improve her begrimed countenance.
"Great heavens! What is the matter?" he cried, turning fiercely on Dum.
Dum did the most natural thing in the world for a poor little half-orphan who had been trying to pay her debts by honest toil, selling household novelties at back doors and tramping up and down cobble-stoned alleys until she had worn a blister on her heel – she just burst out crying, too.
Zebedee looked hopelessly at me, evidently expecting me to be dissolved in tears, too, but the ludicrous side of things had struck my risibles and, willy-nilly, I succumbed to laughter. Brindle, however, was sympathetic with his beloved mistress, and set up such a howling as never was heard before.
"By the great Jumping Jingo! What is the matter? Have I done something? Is anybody dead? What do you mean, Dee, by having on my coat and cap? What do you mean, Dum, by fifteen orders? Page, you can speak; tell me what's up."
"I – I – "
"Go on and tell him, Page!" tweedled the twins, trying to control their emotions.
"Well, Tweedles got a little behind with their finances and the fire came along at Gresham at a rather inopportune moment as they were expecting to save up on allowances – "
"And the old clothes! Don't forget the old clothes!" from a very crumpled-up Dee.
"They also were negotiating some sales with the laundress, of cast-off clothing." Zebedee was looking me through and through with his ice-blue eyes. I had never had the least fear of him from the moment I had met him, but now I felt, to say the least, quite confused. He looked stern, and his eyes, which had been only the color of blue, blue ice, but always seemed warm, were now as cold as ice, too.
"Well, go on!"
"The fire broke out and now the old laundress has the clothes and the money, too. So Tweedles were all broken up over owing so much money and I suggested that they turn in and earn some."
"You suggested it?" still very coldly.
"Yes, I suggested it, and I would do the same thing again. I think it is a great deal better for people to get to work and pay off their debts at any honest labor than to keep on owing them – "
I gulped and got red. I was tired of having Mr. Tucker look at me with his cold expression of a criminal judge. I had done nothing wrong, and neither had the girls, for that matter. I felt a great wave of anger rising in me, and I stood up on my bad ankle, forgetting all about having one, and faced my host, ready for battle. He looked rather startled, and the twins stopped sobbing and began to dry their eyes on two very grimy handkerchiefs. I do not often get very angry, but there was something about being looked at as Zebedee looked at me, that made me lose all control of myself. He made me feel that I was a bad little girl while he considered himself a superior old gentleman. Now up to this time the father of my two best friends had always treated me like a grown-up young lady, and had never made me feel that there was any difference to speak of between his age and mine, and he had no right with one wave of his hand to put me back in the kindergarten class.
"Why, Page – "
"Don't 'Why, Page' me! You came back before we expected you and startled us somewhat, as Tweedles hoped to get the money earned before you returned. The girls are dead tired and need their dinner and kind sympathy instead of being bullyragged – "
"Page! Please! I only wanted to know how Tweedles went to work to make all the money you say they owe. I am not a bit angry, not the least little bit. I think you are very unkind to me."
"Well, you looked at me so coldly and sneered so."
"No! You are mistaken!"
"Yes, you did, when I said I suggested it."
"I am awfully sorry, little friend," and now his ice-blue eyes melted, literally melted, as he, too, began to leak, as the Tuckers call their free giving way to tears. You remember, it was a trait of the family. They thought no more of weeping than of laughing or sneezing. They wept when they felt weepy just as they laughed when anything amused them or sneezed when they felt sneezy.
"I tell you what you do, girls: you go on and wash up and change your dresses, and then we'll have dinner, and after dinner we'll talk it all over like sensible people without getting angry or huffy or anything that we might get." Zebedee wiped his eyes and gave his girls a hug and kiss in spite of their grimy, soiled countenances, and then he turned to me as they flew to the bathroom to do his bidding. I had become conscious of my ankle as I stood there disobeying the doctor's commands, and now that it was all over I flopped back in my chair, feeling very grateful for its support.
"Now you have gone and put your weight on your foot and it is all my fault."
"Oh, no! Not at all!"
"It is just as much my fault as that Tweedles came in worn out with making a living and had dirty faces and were hungry – "
"Nobody said that was your fault!"
"Well, what was my fault, then?"
"It was your fault for looking at me so disapprovingly. You were what Tweedles call Mr. Tuckerish. You were so cold and grown-up and made me feel so young and naughty, and as I had not done a thing on earth but just suggest to the girls that they try to earn some money, not specifying how they should go about it, it did seem hard that you should be so hard on me. It hurt my feelings."
"Well, on the other hand, little girl, how about my feelings? Here I had come tearing home from Norfolk expecting to find three charming girls, all of them overjoyed to see me, and what do I find? Nothing but 'What, yous!' from first one and then the other – stammered greetings, and then tears and flashing eyes and false accusations."
At that I burst out laughing, and Zebedee did the same. It was such a tempest in a teapot! I was ahead of him, however, and by my sudden anger over nothing or almost nothing I had unwittingly turned his attention from Tweedles and their misdemeanors, and now I was sure he would be only amused over their escapade.
"We are all of us mighty glad to have you back. I don't see what made you think we weren't."
"Foolish of me, wasn't it? I realize now that it was excess of emotion and delight that made all of you behave as you did."
CHAPTER IV
WHAT ZEBEDEE SAID
We ate dinner very quietly. The twins began to perk up a bit in the salad course, and by the time we got to Brown Betty and the Roman punch they were quite themselves, except for a langour that might have come from overeating as much as from overexertion.
Zebedee avoided the subject of money-making with great tact. He had much to tell us of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gordon and their little home in Norfolk and their happiness and hospitality. Mrs. Gordon was or had been our beloved Miss Cox, a teacher at Gresham. She had married Mr. Gordon at Willoughby Beach the summer before while she was chaperoning us, and all of us felt that we had been instrumental in making the match and were in a measure responsible for the great happiness of the couple.
The maid had removed all traces of dinner and we were seated snugly around the drop light on the library table, a table that had been converted into a dinner table when the Tuckers decided to dine in their apartment, which boasted no housekeeping arrangements. There was a deep silence broken only by a smothered yawn from Dee. Running a jitney for almost eleven hours is some sleep-provoker.
"Well, girls, aren't you going to take your poor old father in out of the cold?" and Zebedee looked appealingly at his daughters.
"Well, it was this way – " they started in the same breath.
"One at a time, please! Dum, you begin."
"Well, you see I owe seven dollars and twenty-three cents to different girls at Gresham and I didn't have a red cent and no telling how long before allowances are due, so I just thought I'd try to earn something. I found an ad for twenty young women to sell household novelties and so I applied for the job."
"That was rather ambitious as a starter. Were you going to be all twenty right from the first?"
"Silly and flippant! I got the job, at least one twentieth of it, and started out this morning at eight o'clock. I am to get five cents on every sale. I went up and down Franklin and Grace streets all morning, going in the front doors, but this afternoon I tried the back doors because naturally the servants are more interested in these labor-saving devices than the mistresses; besides, I saw so many people we know when I went in the front way that I was afraid if they bought from me they would do it from pity or something, and I wanted to be very businesslike and create a burning desire for the really excellent articles I am selling. I didn't want to hold up anyone."
"That's right!" I was trembling for what Zebedee would say about Dum's meeting all the friends on her canvassing jaunt, but I realized that I did not really know that gentleman as well as I thought I did. He did not seem to mind in the least if perhaps everyone in Richmond knew that one of his girls had been out going from house to house in the most fashionable residential districts selling batty-cake flappers and spot-knockers.
"I have made in all on commissions two dollars and ten cents, I think. I have completely worn out my shoes on the cobblestones in the alleys and have got a blister on my heel as big as all my commissions put together."
"Have you collected your money yet?"
"No! I don't get it until the goods are delivered and my customers pay up."
"How long does your job last?"
"Oh, until the whole town is combed with a fine tooth comb. Our boss wants every lady in Richmond to have the advantage of these household novelties." Dum unconsciously took on the tone usual with the house-to-house canvasser.
Zebedee gave a smile but there was no divining what his real thoughts were any more than if he had been the Sphynx herself. He looked to me rather like a man who was seeing a real good show and was deeply interested but reserving his final opinion of the merits of the actors and the playwright until the curtain.
"Now, Dee, let's hear from you!"
"Well, – while Dum was looking at the want column, I saw on the front page that the poor men who run jitneys were in a fair way to be crowded out of their business by all kinds of ordinances and things that were likely to be put on them."
"Yes, they won't have long to run without giving bonds, etc."
"I just knew how much you felt for the poor men and approved of their venture, and so I just decided I'd run a jitney myself for a day or so and get myself out of debt. I owe five dollars and seventy-three cents to schoolmates and did not have but thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket. I wanted to let Dum in on my scheme but she said she would get out and earn her own money. I did not dream I could make so much, and indeed I couldn't have, if I had not speeded like fun. The cops knew Henry in spite of his sign, and I believe they knew me through the dirt and make-up, and they never once stopped me.
"Of course I had to run in high a lot and it took gas, but I am going to pay for that out of my earnings. I made four dollars and fifteen cents this morning and I have not counted yet what I took in this afternoon." She turned the pockets of her father's greatcoat inside out into my lap and the bills and coin made such a showing that I thought it no wonder she had announced she was rolling in wealth. I counted six dollars and thirty-five cents. That made ten dollars and fifty cents for the day's work.
"I think being a jitneur is mighty hard work. There is a nerve-racking something about it that sho' does you up. In the first place there are always some idiots on board, the kind that rock the boat, and they will sit on the doors and are liable at any time to go spinning into the street. Then there are some old ladies who always drop their nickels and then you stand chugging away, scared to death for fear Henry will give up the ghost, and that means getting out to crank up when you have got on skirts and don't want to flaunt them."
"I have been wondering what you did about your skirts."
"Did nothing! Just ignored them! I didn't have to crank up but once this morning, and that was when I hit a hole out on Robinson Street and Henry blinked out; but I had just got rid of my last fare and no one saw my disgrace. This afternoon I had awful bad luck. There were three funerals and every single one of them crossed my route and I had to wait for them to pass. You know how Henry gets mad and stops playing when he has to stand still too long – well, every one of those funerals got me in bad. One of them I was glad to see, as I was having an awful time. A girl dressed up to beat the band had got on the front seat with me and she was lollapalusing all over me, and I had no room to drive. She would talk to me, although I never encouraged her with anything sweeter than a grunt. I had made an awful mash and was up against it. She got me so hacked I let a fare get away from me, – man just got out and walked off without paying. I felt like Rosalind must have felt when Phebe pursued her or like Viola when Olivia got soft, but this girl was more of the Phebe type. I was afraid she was going to spend the afternoon with Henry and me. She had just intimated that she would go on downtown with us again and make a round trip when we struck the funeral. Henry chugged away and then stopped off short. I dropped the plaid shawl I had my skirts wrapped up in and climbed over the foolish virgin, and I tell you I blessed the day I was born a girl then. I wish you could have seen the minx. I cranked up and climbed back, and there was no more lollapalusing from her. She scrouged herself over into her own corner and laughed a scornful laugh. The people on the back seat had been amused by her goings-on before, but when they found out I was a girl, they roared with laughter and my mash got out on the next corner. She gave me a dime and told me I could keep the change, so I did not lose anything after all from the man who sneaked off."
"You didn't really keep it?" exclaimed Dum.
"Keep it! O course I did! It would have been very melodramatic to hurl it after her. I was not driving a jitney for my health. I was out for money – rocks – spondulix – tin – the coin – and that idiot's dime was just as good as any man's. Besides, she had taken up more than her share of room and owed me something for letting the sneak get off.
"That dollar bill! I bet you can't guess who paid me that, – Mrs. Barton Alston. She got in and handed me the dollar and said: 'Here, boy! Just ride me until that is used up!' It was ten round trips so she was with me a good part of the afternoon. She said she never did get out in automobiles much these days, that her friends sometimes come and drive her out to the cemetery, but she is tired of graveyards and wants to cheer up some. She told me all this when we were having a little spin alone, but I heard her telling some of the fares the same thing. She was real nice and jolly and took people on her lap and did the honors of the jitneys with as much graciousness as she used to entertain before they lost their money. I was sorry she was so broad-beamed, as it was difficult to get three on the seat while she stayed with me, and of course when you are running a jitney every inch counts. When her ten round trips were up, I hated to tell her and took her another for luck. Some day let's go get her, Zebedee, and take her out to the Country Club or something and give her a good time. She is mighty tired of being supposed to be in retirement, mourning for Mr. Alston. She never did recognize me, although I talked to her quite freely. She called me 'Boy' all the time. Gee whilikins, but she can talk!"
"There are others!" put in Dum. "Do you know you have not stopped once for half-an-hour?"
