"Where's that there can-opener, a perfectly good one that I bought from a peddler? I wouldn't lose it for a pretty! I never seed one like it before and the man I bought it from said he was the sole agent for it and mor'n likely would not be back this way for years to come," and Mrs. Rand rummaged in the table drawer like some lady who feared she had lost some precious jewel.
Blanche stood back abashed and was silent, and Tweedles and I looked at one another guiltily.
"Why don't you speak up, girl? You needn't think you can get off with my can-opener, 'cause you can't." Still Blanche held to the policy of the Tar Baby and said nothing, and Tweedles and I were as dumb as fish. "It was one of these here combination implements, a cork-screw and can-opener, beer-opener and knife-sharpener, with a potato-parer at one end and apple-corer at the other, and in the middle a nutmeg-grater. I never seen a finer thing, and besides it had a attachment fer the slicin' of Sarytogy chips."
"I am very sorry, Mrs. Rand, but your can-opener is – is – lost," said Dee. "Blanche is not responsible for it, as she had nothing to do with it. Here is a very good can-opener, however, that our father brought back from Norfolk," and she took from its accustomed nail a sturdy little affair of the old-fashioned kind, meant to open cans and to do nothing but open cans, and in consequence one that did open cans. "Here is a cork-screw, and here is a nutmeg-grater! We never did know what all the other parts of the thing were meant for or I am sure my father would have got those, too, as he did not wish to defraud you in any way."
"You talk like that there so-called paw of yours had lost it, and I believe you is just trying to shield this nigger. I never seed a nigger yet who had the gumption to use one of these here labor-saving devices."
The purple colour again rose in Blanche's dusky countenance and the tuft of unwrapped wool began to shake ominously, but still she held her peace, showing that she was a lady at heart. She knew as well as we did what had become of the prized and priceless implement, but her loyalty made her keep silence.
The situation was tense and the irate owner looked from one to another of our solemn countenances, trying to solve the riddle of the lost can-opener. Annie and Mary had come to the kitchen door, Annie with her nose not much the worse for the blow, but with her pretty face very pale from the loss of blood, Mary with the whimsical expression that she always wore when she was taking mental notes of anyone whom she intended to imitate later on.
We all of us could recall with the keenest delight the memorable evening when Zebedee undertook to open the sardines at a beach party we were having and his scornful remarks anent our can-opener.
"Look at this thing!" he had said indignantly. "Pretends to do so much and can't do a single thing right! Broke the cork in the olive bottle! Won't cut anything but a little round, jagged hole in this square can of sardines! I have cut a biscuit out of my hand with this butt end that is meant for the Lord knows what!" (That must have been the end that was meant for an apple-corer.) He continued, "If it's the last act of my life, I intend to take this abomination out in the bay and drop it down ten fathoms deep."
He was as good as his word, and the very next morning when we went out for our usual before-breakfast dip, Zebedee appeared with the can-opener in his mouth (to leave his hands free for swimming) and with strong, rapid strokes shot out far into the bay, there to consign the hated abomination to its watery grave.
And now what was to be said to Mrs. Rand? It wouldn't do to stand like Patience on a monument smiling at Grief, indefinitely. We looked to Dee, our social deliverer, to save us, and I only hoped that Mary and I would not disgrace the crowd by going off into our usual giggles.
"As I said before, Mrs. Rand, it is lost and we are as sorry as can be. I will either reimburse you for your property or I'll send you another from Richmond." We were mighty proud of Dee, her reimburse sounded so grown-up and business-like, but Mrs. Rand seemed not one whit impressed.
"How kin you git something when they ain't no more of them, and how kin you pay fer something when it is valued for its bein' so useful and so rare? I wouldn't a lef' it here if'n I hadn't 'a' thought you was all girls and had been raised proper, not to lose or break other folkses' things."
"Well then, Mrs. Rand, all I can say is that we are sorry, and if you will make out a receipted bill for the china and glass that is broken, we will pay you immediately and wish you good-morning, as we have a great deal to do on this our last day at the beach." Dee's dignity was wonderful. How often I have seen her father behave in exactly that way: do all he could to keep the peace, exercise all his tact to smooth things over and, that failing, take on a dignity and a toploftical manner that would reduce the offender to pulp.
"Well, now, you needn't get so huffy about it! Business is just business – "
"Exactly, so please make out the receipted bill and let us pay you what we owe you."
"Well, I never said I was goin' to charge you fer those few bits of broken chiny. I reckon I kin make my fifteen per cent. off my investment, anyhow," and the old woman gave her rare snaggle-toothed grin. "I'll give it to you that you is leaving my house as clean as you found it, and that's something I can't say of most tenants."
"Cleaner!" muttered Blanche, but if Mrs. Rand heard, she pretended not to. Dee's grande dame manner had had its effect and she now treated us with great cordiality, shaking hands and expressing a wish to see all of us again at the beach and complimenting us again and again on the neatness of the cottage. She sent messages to "that so-called paw" and was almost genial as she bade us good-bye.
Mary and I managed to wait until she got away before we were shaken by the inevitable storm of giggles. "All of that row about an old can-opener," gasped Mary, "and after all it was a can't-opener."
CHAPTER XXII
GOOD-BYE TO THE BEACH
How we did hate to say good-bye to Willoughby! When I remembered my feelings on our arrival and compared them to my feelings on departure, I could hardly believe I was the same person or that it was the same place. I no longer missed trees and grass; my eyes were accustomed to the glare; and as for the dead monotony of sand and water: I had learned to see infinite variety in the colour of the land and sea; no two days had been alike, no two hours, indeed. Dum had taught me to see these shifting effects, and now land and water and sky instead of seeming as they had at first, like three hard notes that always played the same singsong tune, were turned into three majestic chords that with changing and intermingling could run the whole gamut of harmony.
We had spent a perfect month with so little friction that it was not worth naming, and the friendship of the five girls was stronger than ever. It would be impossible to sleep five on a porch, with cots so close together that the covers had no room to slip between, without finding out each other's faults and virtues.
Dee, for instance, who was an exceptionally rapid dresser, had a habit of using more than her share of hair-pins. She always insisted that they were hers or that she had not used them, and she would not take down her hair to see. Then when she finally undressed at night and plaited her thick, blue-black rope, she would be much abashed as we claimed our share of hair-pins.
Mary Flannagan snored louder and more persistently than anyone I have ever known; she also had a habit of talking in her sleep.
Annie Pore did take a little longer to arrange her ripe-wheat hair than was quite fair where there was only one mirror and four other girls trying to beautify themselves in front of it, but there is no telling how long any of us would have taken to prink had we been as pretty as Annie.
Dum's fault was putting on anybody's and everybody's clothes, especially stockings, and then wild horses could not drag them off her when once she had them on. She had a habit of undressing and throwing her clothes on top of other people's. No matter where you put your clothes or how carefully you folded them, you were sure to find something of Dum's on top of them in the morning. I was careless enough myself, so this did not bother me much, but it was a continual irritation to Dee, who was much more orderly than Dum; and poor little Annie suffered greatly from this habit of dear old Dum's. Annie had very few clothes and she was painfully neat and careful with them, and I have seen her turn away her head to hide her emotion when she found Dum's wet stockings, that she had been clamming in the day before, balled up on top of her clean shirt waist, and her muddy shoes resting fondly in the lap of her, Annie's, last fresh white skirt.
I know I had many faults as a room-mate, but I believe my habit of selfishly hogging the bathroom was the worst. I think people born and brought up without plumbing are always piggy about bath tubs when once they come in contact with them. I was irreverent enough to wish with all my heart that Mr. Pore had my grandfather's hat-tub and that Bracken, my beloved home, could have water put into it with an altogether, all-over, all-at-once bath tub.
One last look through all the dressing rooms and porches, to be sure that we were not leaving any valuables for the next tenants to find, a lingering glance at the quiet, peaceful living-room where we had spent so many delightful hours, and we went out of the front door as Mrs. Rand came in the back, pail and broom in hand, to make ready for the incoming hordes.
"She won't find no use in that there kitchen fer buckets an' brooms. It's clean enough to ask any potentiate of Europe to eat off'n any spot in it. The King of France himself could make no claimant of the perdition of my kitchen," and Blanche's countenance began to take on the purple hue of rage.
"Oh, don't mind her, Blanche! She just likes for a new tenant to find her busy. Here come the new tenants, too! Isn't it a good thing we got out so early in the morning?"
Sure enough, as Dee spoke there loomed on the horizon a large family, coming to take possession of the cottage: a mother and father, four boys, two little girls, two young coloured maids and an old mammy carrying a baby. The last sound we heard as we hurried to catch the trolley was Mrs. Rand berating them for coming so early in the morning before she had time to clean up after the last tenants.
"Of course I know it is the fust of August, but the fust of August don't mean the fust thing in the morning. Tenants is all alike, skeered to death for fear they ain't going to git all that's coming to them. I never understood when you come dickerin' for my house that you had three niggers. I ain't partial to rentin' to folks that keeps nigger help. Now these last folks what jest left didn't keep but one nigger, but – " but what, we never knew, as we got out of earshot. Blanche's countenance lost its purple hue as we settled ourselves on the Norfolk trolley. We hoped that Mrs. Rand would realize that to make fifteen per cent. on an investment means one must be willing to put up with many things.
The boys who had been at the camp met us in Norfolk and engineered us to the pier to see Annie and Mary off on the James River boat, and then took Tweedles and me to the station and put us on the train for Richmond.
At the boat Sleepy shook hands with Annie until I really thought the Captain would have to interfere. With his face a fiery red, I heard him implore her to write to him. I don't know what she said, but I can't fancy Annie in an adamant mood, and as I saw Sleepy give her his card and hastily write something in a memorandum book, I have an idea she granted his request.
Wink's moustache was getting quite bushy, but his manner was still grand, gloomy and peculiar. He would walk by me, but would not talk to me, although I made every effort to make myself agreeable. He tugged viciously at his little moustache until I felt like telling him: "Kill it, but don't worry it to death!"
Just before we got on the train he said to me in a cold and formal tone: "May I write to you, Miss Allison?"
"Certainly, Mr. White!"
"But will you answer my letters?" He looked so sad and melodramatic that I burst out laughing.
"Of course I will, Wink! Don't be so silly!"
The last I saw of him he was trying seemingly to pull his poor little moustache out by the roots.
CHAPTER XXIII
UNTIL NEXT TIME
Zebedee met us at the station in Richmond with the faithful Henry Ford, quite spruced up (I mean Henry) with a new coat of paint, put on while the family was at the beach. Brindle, Dee's precious dog, was perched on the front seat with the air of injured dignity he always assumed, so Dee said, when they went off to the seashore and left him behind. His damson-jam eyes were moist and sad and his breathing even more stertorous than usual.
"Well, you know yourself how you hate the water and how grouchy you were the last time you went with us!" said Brindle's mistress, hugging the old dog and speaking to him as though in answer to the reproach in his eyes. "If you would learn to be a more agreeable traveling companion and eat fish like a respectable canine, we would never leave you. Goodness knows, I miss you and long for you every minute of the day and night." Brindle snorted and gurgled and licked Dee's ear in token of forgiveness.
"I am sure any physician would say that Brindle's adenoids should be removed," commented Dum from the back seat. "Did you ever hear such a noise in your life as that old dog makes just simply living? Every breath he draws seems to require all the force and strength he can muster."
"Virginia Tucker, I will thank you not to be personal with Brindle. His breathing shows his breeding, which is more than your conversation does. You know how easy it is to hurt his feelings," and Dee looked daggers at her twin.
"Oh, excuse me, Brindle, I was merely joking!"
"You know perfectly well that Brindle's one fault is that he has no sense of humour."
"Well, I had forgotten it for the moment. – I saved him a chocolate peppermint out of the box we bought on the train. Do you think that would serve as balm to his wounded feelings?"
"It might!" said Dee dubiously. "Brindle is very fond of chocolate peppermints, but he does hate to be guyed." It did, however, and peace was restored before Zebedee finished attending to the trunks and cranking up Henry.
Blanche's brother, "Po' Jo," had met her at the station, much to the relief of all of us.
"I am no snob," declared Zebedee, "but I'll be hanged if I was relishing the prospect of running poor, dear Blanche uptown in Henry Ford, bedecked as she was in all that glory of second mourning."
Blanche's feelings were so hurt when we suggested that she should travel in the decent black skirt and plain shirtwaist bought for the wedding that we had to give in and let her return in the costume in which she had arrived.
"Po' Jo" was quite as comfortable in figure as his sister. He was, in fact, as fat and sleek as a 'possum, and like that animal he had a perpetual grin on his coffee-coloured countenance. His portly form stretched the seams of a Palm Beach suit, on the left sleeve of which was stitched a large black heart in honour of his recent bereavement. Brother and sister beamed on each other with family pride written all over their good-natured faces.
"Well, Sister Blanche, you is looking quite swanky, as a English gentleman at the Club is contingently saying." Jo was waiter at the Club.
"And you, Brother Jo, you is bearin' up wonderful an' lookin' mighty well in yo' new Palm Leaf suit," and she smoothed the sleeve with the black heart stitched thereon with an air of conscious pride that she could boast such a wonderful brother.
We were sorry to tell Blanche good-bye. She had endeared herself to all of us, and in spite of the fun we got out of her peculiarities, we were really very fond of her. She was perfectly honest and faithful, and above and beyond all that, as Zebedee said, she was a born cook. She was to stay a while with Jo and then go down to pay Mammy Susan a visit before returning to her school.
I was to spend one night with the Tuckers and then go back to my beloved Bracken. I was reproaching myself for staying even the one night longer away from Father, but Zebedee had planned all kinds of things for my pleasure, and Tweedles were so persistent in their entreaties that I had submitted, although I was getting very homesick for Father and Mammy Susan, to say nothing of the dogs and Peg, my old horse.
Lunch first! Dee made all of us eat beefsteak, ordering a huge porterhouse so she could get the bone for Brindle. "I know he is tired of the food at that old café," she said. "He does not look nourished to me and I intend to give him some building-up food."
"Why, Dee, he is as fat as a pig," insisted Dum.
"Yes, I know he is fat, but I don't like the colour of his tongue. Flesh is not always an indication of health, Dum Tucker."
"That's so," put in Zebedee, "I've seen many a fat corpse, but my opinion is that Brindle needs exercise. He is so lazy."
After lunch as we spun up Broad Street, we noticed quite a crowd gathered near the marketplace. Zebedee, with an eye ever open and nose ever twitching for news, slowed up his car.
"Nothing but a street fakir, but he must have something fine or be a very convincing talker."
Just then Henry indulged in his little habit of stopping altogether, and Zebedee had to get out and crank up. This enabled us to hear the fakir and see his wares.
"This, ladies and gentlemen, is a most remarkable implement, taking the place of a whole chest of tools! This is a potato-parer! This is an apple-corer! This is a cork-screw! This is a can-opener! This is a nutmeg-grater! This is a knife-sharpener! This – " But Dum leapt from the car and without any ceremony interrupted the man's stream of convincing eloquence. With every "this" he had illustrated the virtues of his wares by slicing potatoes, coring apples, opening bottles and cans, etc.
"How much?" she asked excitedly.
"Ten cents! Ten cents! Eight perfect implements in one for ten cents! I am the sole agent in the United States and Canada and you miss the chance of a lifetime if you do not purchase one. I am now on my way to California and will not return to Virginia for many years."
"Give me five," demanded Dum recklessly, producing her last fifty cents.
The delighted and mystified salesman counted them out to her and the crowd began to buy excitedly, as though they thought that the wonderful magic implements would start on their trip to California and back by the Great Lakes and through Canada and they might be old men and women before another chance came to own one of these rare combinations.
"Mrs. Rand's lost treasure," gasped Dee.
"Here's another for good measure!" and the man tossed an extra one into Dum's lap as Henry got up steam and moved off. "You started my sales and I won't have a one left by night at this rate."
"I am going to send all of these to that hateful old Mrs. Rand," and Dum settled herself on the cushions, her lap full of can-openers.
We had told Zebedee of Mrs. Rand's carryings-on over her precious tool and he had been vastly amused.
"Don't send them all," I pleaded. "Take one back to Gresham. It would be invaluable at boarding school to get olives out of the bottles, and to open trunks when the keys got lost. As a shoe-horn I am sure it could not be surpassed, for the apple-corer end would do for that. As for a finger-nail file, what could equal the nutmeg-grater?"
So Dum sent only five to Mrs. Rand, and one we took to boarding school with us, where it ever after played an important part in the curriculum under the pseudonym of "Mrs. Rand."
The Tuckers' apartment seemed especially crowded after the large simplicity of the living-room at Willoughby. As a family they usually managed to get anything they wanted very much, and they had had some sixteen years of wanting and satisfying their desires. It was a fortunate thing that they had, one and all, innate good taste. Mr. Tucker had wanted pictures and prints; Dum had wanted bronzes, carved curios of all sorts and casts of masterpieces; Dee had a leaning towards soft Persian rugs, old china and pets. The pets had some of them been mercifully overtaken by fate or I am sure we could not have squeezed into the apartment on that hot afternoon in early August. All of them had wanted books and the books wanted shelves, so wherever there wasn't anything else there were book shelves. Small pictures were actually hung on the doors, as there was no wall space available, and the rugs lapped over each other on the floors.
"We usually have the rugs stored for the summer, but Brindle misses them so much that I wouldn't let Zebedee do it this year. He loves to lie on them and I truly believe he appreciates their colour as well as their softness," and Dee leaned over and patted her beloved dog, who had chosen a particularly wonderful old blue rug on which to take his after-lunch nap.
"Well, I only hope they won't get moths in them with your and Zebedee's foolishness," sniffed Dum.
"Oh, no, Brindle promised me to catch all the moths, didn't you, Brindle, old boy?" Brindle, as though in answer to his mistress, looked solemnly up and snapped at some tiny-winged creature which had recklessly come too close to his powerful jaws.
"Look here, girls! Do you realize that our vacation is more than half over? Before we can turn around we will be back at Gresham," I said, fearing a discussion was imminent. I had heard the subject of moths and Brindle's fondness for Persian rugs thoroughly threshed out before and the gloves had had to be resorted to to prove the point that Brindle's comfort was more important than mere rugs.
"Oh, Page, don't introduce such sad subjects!" exclaimed Dum. "Gresham is all right in its way, but I can't bear to contemplate another winter there. Still, I know it is up to us to go back."
"We'll be Juniors, too – and Juniors are always in hot water," sighed Dee.
"Well, anyhow, we won't be beau-crazy Juniors like last year's class," declared Dum. "Did you ever see such a lot of boy grabbers in your life?"
"I can't fancy our being grabby about boys, but I tell you one thing," I laughed, "we are certainly much fonder of the male sex than we were a year ago. Boys are nice and I do like 'em, and I don't care who knows it, so there!"
Zebedee came in from his afternoon work just then and overheard the last of my remarks. "What's all this? Page confessing to a fondness for the opposite sex? You like boys, do you? Well, I am glad indeed of my eternal youth. I am nothing but a boy, eh, Dum," he said, tweaking his daughter's ear.
"Boy, indeed! You are nothing but a baby!"
"Well, I am a tired and hot baby and I thought I would find all of you old ladies dressed and ready to go to the Country Club with me for a game of tennis, a shower bath and supper afterwards on the terrace."
"Ready in a minute!" we chorused, and so we were.
Richmond was looking singularly attractive, I thought, as we spun along Franklin Street, in spite of the fact that most of the houses were closed for the summer and the female inhabitants off to the seashore or springs. Here and there a lone man could be seen spreading himself and his afternoon papers over his empty porch and steps, and occasionally a faithful wife was conspicuous by reason of the absence of other faithful wives. Usually she bore a conscious air of virtue and an expression that plainly said: "Am I not a paragon to be sticking it out with John?"
The trees, however, seemed to be flourishing in the masculine element, and in many places on that most beautiful of all streets the elms met overhead, forming a dark-green arch. There was a delicious odour of freshly watered asphalt and the streets were full of automobiles, all seeming to be on pleasure bent now that the day's work was over. A few carriages were making their stately way, but very few. The occupants of the carriages were as a rule old and fat. I thought I saw Cousin Park Garnett in one, with her cross, stupid, old pug dog on the seat by her, but we were just then engaged in placing ourselves liable to arrest by breaking the speed law, so I could not be quite sure. Dum was running the car and she always seemed to court arrest and fine.
"When I see a clear stretch of road in front of me I simply have to whoop her up a bit," she explained when Zebedee remonstrated with her.
"That's all right if you are sure you are out of sight of a cop, but I have no idea of going your bail if you are hailed to the Juvenile Court for speeding. A one hundred dollar fine would just about break me right now. I don't set much store by the eleventh commandment in anything but motoring, but in this thing of running a car it is mighty important: 'Don't get found out.' There's a cop now!"
Dum slowed up and looked very meek and ladylike as a mounted policeman approached us, touching his cap to Mr. Tucker in passing.
"Zebedee knows every policeman on the force," said Dum teasingly. "There is nothing like keeping in with the law."
"Certainly not, if a man happens to own two such harum-scarums as I do."
The Country Club was delightful, but they always are. When people club together to have a good out-door time and to give others a chance to do the same, a success always seems to be assured. Certainly that particular club was most popular and prosperous and although we heard repeatedly that everybody was out of town, there were, to my mind, a great many left. The tennis courts were full to overflowing before the evening light became too dim to see the balls, and the golf links had so many players it resembled more a croquet ground. I had never played golf and while the Tuckers all could, they did not care much for it, preferring the more strenuous game of tennis.
"I'm saving up golf for that old age that they tell me is sure to come some day," sighed Zebedee. "I don't really believe them."
None of us did, either. How could old age claim such a boy as Jeffry Tucker?
However, time itself was flying, and the one day and night I was to spend in Richmond with my friends passed in the twinkling of an eye. Before I realized it, it was really over, my vacation with the Tucker Twins was finished, and I was on the train for Milton, a volume of Alfred Noyes' latest poems in my suitcase for Father and a box of Martha Washington candy for Mammy Susan, who thought more of "white folkses' sto' candy" than of all the silks of the Orient or jewels of the Sultan of Turkey.