Vacation with the Tucker Twins

"Consumption!" suggested Wink. "Consumption of food!"

Zebedee told me he had ordered the cakes because he hated to see Dum disappointed; and then, too, he had a terrible fear that she might get married some time just so she could have pan-cakes at a wedding breakfast.

"I want to keep my girls with me as long as I can, and certainly don't want one of them to marry for the sake of a hot cake. Dum is fully capable of going any lengths to carry her point. Did you see how she squared her chin when you and Dee talked her down?" I hadn't seen it, but I knew full well that when Dum did square her chin she meant business.

Pan-cakes and all were finally cleared away and the cake was cut, with many jests and much laughter. Dee got the ring, Annie the piece of money and Wink the thimble, thereby causing many a merry bit of banter from his friends. He came very near swallowing it, not expecting to find anything in his slice of cake as usually, by some miraculous juggling, the females get the things in the wedding cake.

I had not seen Wink since the night of the hop. He had absented himself from Willoughby, visiting various friends in Suffolk and on the Eastern Shore, and only getting back to the camp in time for the wedding. His absence had been somewhat of a relief to me. I did not know just how he would behave nor was I certain what my attitude should be. I felt that I must treat him as though nothing had happened; but if he was going to show hurt feelings or be silly, I knew I would get embarrassed and stiff.

I had not had a good look at him until we were seated at the table. Then, to my dismay, he was placed next to me. I knew it was up to me to be pleasant, so I waltzed in to be agreeable but not too charming. If only I could make Wink feel as I did! He looked different, somehow, but for a moment I could not account for it; and then it suddenly came over me that Wink was growing a moustache!

I felt like crawling under the table but instead I turned to the gentleman seated on my other side, no other than the next best man, and I am sure that Mabel Binks herself could not have got off a greater fire of small talk than I managed to pour forth. When I told Wink that he would have to grow a moustache before I could be sure of the state of my feelings towards him, I was not in real earnest and he might have known it! I was quite sure at that wedding breakfast what my feelings were: decided resentment. Why could he not realize that I was nothing but a little girl who occasionally played lady?

At any rate I was not going to let a little old moustache composed of a few struggling hairs spoil either my pleasure or my appetite. The next best man proved to be most agreeable and very easy to talk to, and the breakfast was good enough to occupy one without conversation had it been necessary to give your attention only to the matter in hand.

Wink looked rather ruefully at the thimble.

"You'll be darning your own socks 'til Kingdom Come," laughed Sleepy, glad that the joke for once was not on him. Wink sadly acquiesced, and then Zebedee kindly added:

"Maybe that means the kind of thimble Wendy gave Peter Pan, Wink. You remember in that delightful fantasy a thimble was a kiss."

"Well, anyhow, one can't wear a thimble and a mitten at the same time," muttered Wink so that no one heard him but me; and to my dying day I shall hate myself for the way I blushed. It was one of those blushes that hurt. I had a feeling that even my eyes were red. I had just taken the first mouthful of a wonderful molded ice: a pair of white turtle-doves billing and cooing, perched in the heart of a great raspberry sherbet rose. I choked (it must have been on the billing and cooing) and the next best man had to beat me in the back until I could get my breath. I was thankful for the choke and hoped no one had noticed that my crimson countenance had preceded the accident.

And now the toasts were in order. Everyone had to say something no matter how bromidic. "Long life and happiness!" "May your shadows never grow less!" And Dum blurted out: "May you have many more wedding breakfasts!" which caused a perfect storm of applause, as it sounded very much as though she meant marriages for the newly wedded couple. Mary Flannagan got off an impromptu limerick that amused us Gresham girls very much, because we were well aware of the fact that Miss Cox was very unconventional in her ideas and always irritated by narrowness in religion or anything else:

"There was a young lady named Coxy,
Who wished to be married by proxy.
When asked why this wuz,
She said: 'Oh, becuz
I never could stand orthodoxy.'"

Then Wink, who was very clever at everything but growing moustaches, came back very quickly with:

"The groom then he swore and he cust;
'I hate to begin saying "must,"
But I know my dear Jane
Will surely be sane
And be married in church, or I'll bust.'"

There had been some discussion about where they were to be married, Miss Cox rather leaning towards going to some friends in Albemarle, but we had joined Mr. Gordon in talking her out of it.

Zebedee made a wonderful toast master, encouraging the bashful members of the party with so much tact and kindliness that even the timid Annie actually got upon her feet and made a very graceful little speech before she seemed to be aware of the fact that she was really doing it.

Then Sleepy, feeling that if Annie did, he must, too, raised his bulky form, and very much in the tone of a schoolboy saying his piece, almost choking with embarrassment, managed to get out the following:

"May joy and happiness be your lot,
As down the path of life you trot."

We expressed ourselves in various ways, but we were all sincere in wishing well for the Gordons. I, for one, regretted exceedingly that the one person who had ever made me comprehend mathematics was no longer to teach me. I dreaded the coming year, certain that I would have a terrible time with that bug-bear of a subject.

Zebedee's speech was: "There are many kinds of toasts I have always known, dry toast, milk toast, French toast and buttered toast, and these may be hot or cold, – but bless me if we haven't more variety of toasts at this nuptial banquet than were ever dreamed of in my philosophy. One thing I can assert: No one has offered a dry toast nor proffered a cold one. Each has been buttered and piping hot, and the best thing I can wish my two dear friends is that their toast may always be buttered and piping hot!" And he added feelingly: "May you always eat it together!"

Then Mr. Gordon made a very graceful little concession: he actually quoted "Alice in the Looking Glass," substituting Jinny for Alice. This was pretty nice of him, considering that their early and lasting disagreement had been all because of Lewis Carroll's nonsense verses.

"'Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can,
And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran;
Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea —
And welcome Queen Jinny with thirty-times-three.

"'Then fill up your glasses with treacle and ink,
Or anything else that is pleasant to drink;
Mix sand with the cider and wool with the wine —
And welcome Queen Jinny with ninety-times-nine!'"

Then Miss Cox arose to answer the toast, and one would have supposed it was some great sonnet in her honour that her new husband had composed, so graciously did she accept the tribute paid her.

"'O Looking Glass creatures,' quoth Jinny, 'draw near!
'Tis an honour to see me, a favour to hear;
'Tis a privilege high to have dinner and tea
Along with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me!'"

CHAPTER XX

THE AFTER-MATH

They took a steamer to New York, that Mecca of the newly-wed, and we all adjourned to the pier to wish them God-speed. As the vessel pulled out, Rags produced from his pocket the self-same old tennis shoes that we had found the morning we took possession of Mrs. Rand's cottage, and threw them after the departing couple. They looked very comical as they floated along for a moment like veritable gun-boats and then filled and sank.

"Requiescat in Pace!" muttered Wink. "At least you can't forget them again."

The boys were breaking camp next day, and the day after we were to get ready to turn over the cottage to Mrs. Rand's next tenants. Zebedee bitterly regretted that he had not taken the place for two months, but it was too late now. Besides, his holiday was over and we all well knew that Willoughby would not be quite the same thing with our kind host not there, the boys no longer in their camp, and good Miss Cox married and gone.

Zebedee had to go back to Richmond that night, ready for harness the next morning.

"My, but I dread it!" he exclaimed as he took us over to the trolley to start us back to Willoughby Beach. "I almost wish I had never had a holiday, it is so hard to go back to work. What are stupid old newspapers for, anyhow? Who wants to read them?" This made us smile, as Zebedee is like a raging lion until he gets the morning paper, and then goes through the same rampageous humour later in the day until the afternoon paper appears to assuage his agony. "We journalists get no thanks, anyhow. I agree with the Frenchman who says that a journalist's efforts are no more appreciated than a cook's; no one remembers what he had for yesterday's dinner or what was in yesterday's newspaper."

Blanche listened to Mr. Tucker's words with rapt attention. She always stood at a respectful distance but within easy ear-shot of the conversation, which she eagerly drank in and then commented on later to Tweedles and me. But this too nearly touched her heart for her to wait until we were alone to make her original and characteristic comments.

"Oh, Mr. Tucker, it is so considerable of you to find a symbolarity between the chosen professions of master and handymaiden! Sense I have been conductoring of the curlinary apartment of your enstablishment, I have so often felt the infutility of my labours. What I do is enjoyed only for the momentariness of its consumption, and is never more thought of unless it is to say too rich or something; and then, if it disagrees, poor Blanche is remembered again, and then not to say agree'bly. Sometimes whin I have been placin' clean papers on the kitchen shelves, the same sentimentality has occurred to me that you so apely quotetioned a moment ago, Mr. Tucker; namely, in relation to journalists and cooks. I see all that pretty printin' going to was'e jes as a restin' place for pots 'n pans, and then in the garbage pail I see the cold waffles that was once as fresh and hot as the next, one no more considered than the other, and I could weep for both of us. Our electrocution teacher used to say a piece about 'Impervious Cæsar, dead and turned to clay doth stop the crack to keep the wind away.'"

We stood aghast during this speech. Dum looked as though she would welcome Death, the Deliverer, with joy, anything to relieve the strain she was on to keep from exploding with laughter; but Zebedee did not seem to think it was funny at all. He listened with the greatest courtesy and when she had finished with her quotation (which we afterwards agreed was singularly appropriate, since Cæsar had been made "impervious" enough to keep out water as well as wind), he answered her very kindly:

"I thank you, Blanche, for understanding me so well. I can tell you that I, for one, will always remember your waffles; and had I known at the time that there was any more batter, there would not have been any cold ones to find their last ignominious resting place in the garbage pail."

"I also have saved some of your writings, Mr. Tucker, – an editorial that Miss Dum said you had written before you came for your holiday, – and I will put it in my mem'ry book as an epitaph of you."

Then Dum did explode. She made out that she was sneezing and even insisted upon purchasing a menthol inhaler before she went back to Willoughby, declaring she felt a head cold coming on.

The Beach seemed stale, flat and unprofitable somehow when we got back. We missed Miss Cox and above all we missed Zebedee.