Vacation with the Tucker Twins

A lightsome, lovely lassie yet;
It scarce wad do
To sit and woo
Down by the stream sae glassy yet.

"'But there's a braw time coming yet,
When we may gang a-roaming yet;
An' hint wi' glee
O' joys to be,
When fa's the modest gloaming yet.

"'She's neither proud nor saucy yet,
She's neither plump nor gaucy yet;
But just a jinking,
Bonny blinking,
Hilty-skilty lassie yet.

"'But O, her artless smile's mair sweet
Then hinny or than marmalete;
An' right or wrang,
Ere it be lang,
I'll bring her to a parley yet.

"'I'm jealous o' what blesses her,
The very breeze that kisses her,
The flowery beds
On which she treads,
Though wae for ane that misses her.

"'Then O, to meet my lassie yet
Up in yon glen sae grassy yet;
For all I see
Are naught to me,
Save her that's but a lassie yet.'"

All of us sat very quietly as the old man finished his quaint, sweet song. Zebedee looked very shiny-eyed and I rather guessed he was thinking of his Tweedles, although he did look at me. I fancy he knew that I understood him and his anxiety about his dear girls. It is no joke to be the father of sixteen-year-old twins and only about thirty-six yourself. Dum and Dee were developing very rapidly and they had looked so grown-up at the hop and had conducted themselves so like young ladies that their anxious parent was troubled for fear their womanhood was upon him. He would rather see them romping hoydens than the sedate young ladies they seemed to be turning into. No wonder he had tipped Blanche with the shiny fifty-cent piece. Had she not put his mind at rest for the time being at least? They were certainly girlish enough looking on that day, even boyish looking as they crowded each other out of the hammock, both intent on getting the middle.

"That's fine, Judge, give us another!" begged Zebedee, but the bard insisted upon Miss Cox's putting down her sewing and singing; and then Annie Pore must give us Annie Laurie; and so the lazy afternoon passed with songs and many good stories drawn from our guest by the tactful Zebedee.

Judge Grayson just naturally loved horses and next to being with them was talking about them. He had many delightful stories to tell of horses he had known and horses he had owned. He insisted that no horse was naturally vicious but always ruined in some way by its trainer, and no horse was irretrievably ruined if just the right person could get hold of it and by kindness bring it to reason. I had always felt that and of course this theory appealed to Dee, who thought much worse of humanity than animality, as she called it.

"The first horse I ever owned was the first horse I ever loved and he was in a way the best horse I ever owned," said the Judge, addressing his remarks to Dee who was all attention. "Dobbin was the very ordinary name for a very extraordinary horse. My father gave him to me when I was six years old. I say gave him to me but what really occurred was that I was presented to Dobbin. For if ever man was owned by an animal, Dobbin owned me. He was an old circus horse and his intelligence was far beyond that of the average human. He was milk white with pink nostrils and eyes, a real Albino, in fact. His legs were perfectly formed, his head small and very well shaped, his back broad and flat as though especially made for bare-back riding. If you fell off him it was your own fault, and no more was he to be blamed than a bed that you happen to roll out of. Indeed his gaits were so smooth that you might easily go to sleep on him. His temper was perfect and his character very decided and firm. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and he also knew that his judgment was much better than a child's. I shall never forget the first time I got on his back. My father was going to have me taught to ride by our old coachman, but in the meantime I was given the duty and pleasure of feeding my horse myself. I had only owned him a day and already I would have foundered him on oats if it had not been for his own superior intelligence and judgment. He ate what he considered proper and then deliberately turned over the bucket and puffed and blew and pawed until even the chickens had a hard time pecking up the scattered grain."

And here the old man laughed and took another cigar Zebedee offered him, pausing in his narrative while he bit off the end and lit it.

"But how about the first time you rode him?" demanded Dee.

"I'm coming to that. He was a very high horse, was Dobbin, so high that it was a tall mount for a grown man and of course it was seemingly impossible for a little boy to climb up on such a mountain, but get up I did. My father came out on the gallery and there I was as proud as Punch perched on the broad back of my snow-white steed. 'You rascal!' he shouted. 'Who put you up there?' 'Dobbin put me here,' I answered, and so he had, but my father could not believe it until Dobbin and I demonstrated the fact for him. I slid down the shapely leg of my circus horse and then he lowered his head and I nimbly climbed up his neck and landed safely on his back. I can still hear my father laugh and then all the household was called out to witness this great feat, and my mother brought out sugar to feed my pet. She pulled down his head and whispered in his ear, 'Be careful of my boy, Dobbin! I am going to trust him to you, do you understand?' and Dobbin whinnied an answer and blew in my mother's hair with his pink nostrils. After that he felt that he was a kind of nurse for me and he certainly did make me walk chalk," and the old man chuckled in delighted memory.

"Tell us more about him," pleaded Dee. "He must have been darling."

"Well, sometimes he was right annoying. For instance, he saw to it that I minded my black mammy. One of Mammy's rules was that I could play in the mud all I wanted to in the morning, but in the afternoon when I was dressed in my clean linen shirt and little white piquet pants, I had to keep clean. The mud attracted me as much in the afternoon as morning, and sometimes I would lose track of time and would begin to mix my delectable pies in spite of my spotless attire. Do you know that old horse many and many a time has come up behind me and gently but firmly caught me by my collar or the seat of my breeches, whichever presented itself handiest, and after giving me a little shake put me out of temptation? He never was known to do it in the morning when I was in my blue jean jumpers. Why, that horse knew morning from afternoon and jeans from white linen. He was a great disciplinarian, I can tell you. My mother would let me go anywhere just so Dobbin was of the party. She knew perfectly well he would take care of me. Had he not told her so as plainly as a horse could speak, and that is pretty plain to those who understand horse talk."

Dee nodded approval and muttered: "Dog talk, too!"

"We had an old basket phaeton with a rumble (they don't make them now-a-days) and in the afternoon in summer my sister and I would hitch up old Dobbin and go off for a picnic in the beech woods. Sam, my body servant and private property, perched in the rumble and Dilsey, my sister's maid, crouched at our feet. Dobbin would jog along until he found what he considered a suitable spot for a picnic and then he would stop, and no matter how we felt about it, out we had to get. Nothing would budge Dobbin. He would look at us and whinny as much as to say that he had forgotten more about picnic places than we could ever hope to know and no doubt he was right.

"He usually stopped at a very nice spot where there was plenty of shade and a spring and maybe some luscious blue grass for him to nibble at. He was never tied but allowed to roam at his own sweet will. When the shadows lengthened, he would turn the phaeton around, with his nose headed for home, and as the sun touched the horizon he would send forth a warning neigh, gentle at first but if his voice was not hearkened to, more peremptory and then quite sharp. He would give us about five minutes and then he would start for home. I tell you there would be scrambling then to get in the phaeton, as none of us relished the thought of walking home, getting in late to supper and making the necessary explanations to the grown-ups. One time Dilsey almost got left, having loitered behind in a fit of stubbornness. 'I's plum wo' out wif dis here brute beas' a bossin' er me!' she panted as she clambered over the wheel and sank on the floor of the phaeton. 'Ef'n he was mine I'd lay him out.' With that ole Dobbin turned his head around in the shafts, looked sternly at the girl, and deliberately switched her with his tail until she cried out for mercy, 'Lawsamussy, Marse Dobbin, I's jes a foolin',' and then that old horse gave a whinny more like laughing than anything you ever heard and trotted peacefully home."

The old man stopped and shook the ashes from his cigar. "Yes, yes, I loved that old horse as much as I did Mammy, and God knows Mammy was next to my parents in my affection. Not have souls! Why, I as firmly believe I am going to meet Dobbin when I cross the river as I am Mammy."

At that, Dee Tucker got up out of the hammock and went over and hugged and kissed the old Judge, and Zebedee and Dum both wiped the tears from their eyes. I felt like it, too, but then tears are not mine to command as they are the Tuckers'.

Certainly the Judge had touched us all with his story. I wanted to ask him more about Dobbin but I was afraid the next thing would be Dobbin's death, as he must have been old when he was presented to the little boy, and somehow I felt none of us could bear up over the dear old horse's death. It must have been more than sixty years since those picnics in the beech woods, but you felt that in Judge Grayson's mind it was but as yesterday.

CHAPTER XVI

AN AXE TO GRIND

Harvie and Shorty came in that afternoon with a great basket of crabs for supper and countenances like boiled lobsters. Sunburn is as much a part of the seashore as sand and water, and sometimes it is even more in evidence. You can escape from the sand and water by going indoors and pulling down the blinds, but your sunburned nose you have to take with you.

The boys also brought the mail, a letter for Annie and one for me. My letter contained the bad news that my dear father could not come to the beach, after all, as Sally Winn was trying in dead earnest to die, and could not do it without Dr. Allison. Annie's letter had, I am ashamed to say, not such very good news, either, as it said that Mr. Pore had decided to come to Willoughby for a few days. We girls secretly dreaded this visit. We could not help knowing that Mr. Pore was very stiff and strait-laced, and we feared the effect he might have on poor little Annie. Annie was having such a good time and it did seem a pity to interrupt it.

"I do wish Zebedee would not be so promiscuous with his invitations," stormed Dum, who was escorting me as far as the hotel where I was going to pay a duty call on Cousin Park. "He was certainly not called on to ask this old dried-up Englishman down here. He could have been polite without being so effusive. It is going to ruin things for Annie, I just know."

"Maybe it won't," I suggested, speaking for moderation that I did not feel. "Harvie Price says he is a very cultivated, interesting man."

"Oh, yes, I know the kind! I bet you he says position for job; and rabble for mob; retires when he goes to bed; and arises when he gets up; calls girls, maidens; women, females; ladies, gentlewomen; birds, feathered songsters; and dogs, canines. Ugh! I just know he is going to be a wet blanket."

"Well, Dum, your father got on with him and seemed to like him very much. Maybe we can hit it off with him, too."

"Oh, that's nothing! Zebedee can get on with human oysters and clams and make animated pokers unbend. Why, that young father of ours is such a mixer he could even make ice cream and crabs agree. But that's no sign that Annie's paternal parent is not going to be a difficult guest. If it only had been dear Dr. Allison coming instead!"

I agreed with her there, but I tried to make impulsive, hot-headed Dum feel that the best thing we could do was to try to see the good in Mr. Pore for Annie's sake if not for his own. I was dying to tell her of the interesting things that Annie had divulged to me about her family, but a confidence is a confidence and must be respected as such. For my part, it seemed foolish to keep such an item as being kin to the nobility so strictly a secret. I don't believe that many Virginians would feel that being granddaughter to a baronet and great-granddaughter to an earl, something to be hid under a bushel. I fancy that Annie felt her clothes and general manner of living to be rather incongruous to such greatness.

We found Cousin Park ensconsed on the porch in a steamer chair, knitting an ugly grey shawl with purple scallops, while Mabel Binks, who had returned from her expedition to Newport News with Wink, danced attendance on the pompous lady.

"I bet she's got an axe to grind!" muttered Dum. "What do you fancy Mabel wants to get out of your cousin?"

"I can't imagine, but I'll take my hat off to her if she gets it," I laughed. "Please come on and call with me. I can't face Mabel and Cousin Park at the same time," I begged Dum, and she good-naturedly complied, although I know she hated it.

Cousin Park greeted us with what was meant to be a cordial manner, and Mabel was almost effusive as she got us chairs and took upon herself to do the honours of the hotel porch.

"I rather expected you this morning, Page," said Cousin Park, looking over her spectacles at me. This habit of my relative of looking over her spectacles at you would have made a person as mild as a May morning appear fierce, and its effect on Cousin Park's far from mild countenance was disconcerting in the extreme; but I did not feel nearly so uncomfortable with her as I had heretofore. Had I not seen her tap Judge Grayson with her turkey-tail fan, and listen with a pleasure that seemed almost human to the old man's recitation of the poem?

"We slept so late after the dance that there was no time to do anything this morning, and then Judge Grayson came to luncheon and that kept us all the early part of the afternoon. I also had a letter to write today."

"Ah, a very pleasant, well-mannered man, the Judge," said Cousin Park. "The legal profession should be proud of such a representative." Dum and I smothered a giggle at this, as Zebedee had confided to us that our charming old friend was only judge by courtesy. We said nothing, however. Far be it from us to lessen his dignity by one jot or tittle.

"We are to have another guest tomorrow," broke in Dum, in order to change the subject from Judge Grayson's doubtful legal rights. "Mr. Pore, Annie's father, is coming to visit us."