The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

“I had a big marble for you, but it done slipt out’n my pocket,” said Bobby, and then he had to give a big hug and a kiss, which Helen declared was better than even a marble.

“But you haven’t opened your big box, the one at the bottom,” insisted Nan. It had got covered up with papers and Helen had overlooked it. “Please hurry up and open it because Lucy and I have to beat it. It will be train time before we know it.”

As Helen untied the strings and unwrapped the tissue paper that was packed around the contents of the big box you could have heard a pin drop in that dining-room at Valhalla. She eagerly pulled aside the papers and then shook out the glimmering gown.

“Oh, Douglas! Douglas! You shouldn’t have done it! It is even prettier than I remembered it to be!”

“Mind out, don’t splash on it,” warned Nan just in time to keep the two great tears that welled up into Helen’s eyes from spotting the exquisite creation.

“My Miss Helen’s gwinter look like a angel whin she goes ter de count’s jamboree,” declared Chloe.

“Well, your Miss Douglas is the angel and she’s going to have to have a new dress with slits in the shoulder-blades to let her wings come through,” sobbed Helen, laughing at the same time as she held the dress up in front of her and danced around the table. She had thought nobody remembered her eighteenth birthday and now found nobody had forgotten it.

“You shouldn’t have afforded it, Douglas. I can’t keep it. It would be too selfish of me.”

“Marked down goods not sent on approval,” drawled Nan.

CHAPTER XV

BLACK SOCIALISM

Sergeant Somerville and Private Tinsley accepted the invitation to the count’s ball with alacrity. Their company had been mustered out just in the nick of time for them to obtain indefinite leave. It was rumored that they were to be taken in again, this time as regulars, but the certainty of having no military duties to perform for the time being was very pleasant to our two young men.

The Carter girls had taken the count at his word and invited several friends from Richmond to stay at Valhalla and attend the ball. Dr. Wright was eager to come and with the recklessness of physicians who use their cars for business and not for pleasure, he made the trip in his automobile. He had a new five-seated car, taking the place of his former runabout.

“M. D.’s and R. F. D.’s have to travel whether roads are good or bad,” he had declared.

The two young soldiers and Tillie Wingo had the hardihood to risk their necks with him, and at the last minute he picked up Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, who had been invited by Lucy so that she and Mag would not have to be wall flowers. Six persons in a five-passenger car insures them from much jolting, as there is no room to bounce.

Tillie was in her element with five pairs of masculine ears to chatter in. She and Bill were still engaged “in a way,” as she expressed it, although neither one of them seemed to regard it very seriously. Tillie insisted upon making a secret of it as much as she was capable, so that in Bill’s absence she might not be laid on the shelf.

“The fellows don’t think much of an engaged girl,” she said frankly, “and I have no idea of taking a back seat yet awhile.”

The recklessness of the guests in coming over Virginia roads in an automobile in the month of February was nothing to the recklessness of the Carters in inviting six persons to spend the night with them when they possessed but one small guest chamber.

“We can manage somehow,” Helen declared, “and, besides, we will be out so late dancing there won’t be much use in having a place to sleep, because we won’t have any time to sleep.”

“Only think of all of those bedrooms at Grantly with nobody in them!” exclaimed Lucy. “Those old ladies might just as well ask some of us up there, but they will never think of it, I know.”

“If they do, they will disagree about which ones to ask and which rooms to put them in, and we will never get the invitation,” laughed Helen. “Anyhow, they are dear old ladies and I am mighty fond of them.” Helen often ran up to the great house to ask advice from the Misses Grant about household affairs and was ever welcome to the lonely old women.

“They are certainly going to the ball, aren’t they?” asked Douglas.

“They wouldn’t miss it for worlds. They are having a time just now, though, because Tempy has left them. They can’t find out what her reason is and feel sure she didn’t really want to go; now her sister Chloe is so near she seemed quite content, but for weeks she has been in a peculiar frame of mind and the last few days they have caught her in tears again and again. They sent for Dr. Allison, who lives miles and miles from here, but Miss Ella and Miss Louise will trust no other doctor. He says as far as he can tell she is not ill. Anyhow, she has gone home, and today their man-servant departed, also. Of course they might draw on the field hands for servants, but they hate to do it because they are so very rough. They have had this man-servant for years and years, ever since he was a little boy, and they can’t account for his going, either. He had a face as long as a ham when he left them and gave absolutely no excuse except that his maw was sick, and as Miss Ella says, ‘His mother has been dead for ten years, and she ought to know, since she furnished the clothes in which she was buried.’ Miss Louise said she had only been dead eight, and they were her clothes, but they agree that she is dead at least, and can’t account for Sam’s excuse.”

“Poor old ladies, I am sorry for them,” said Douglas.

On the day of the ball, there was much furbishing up of finery at Valhalla. Mr. Carter’s dress suit had to be pressed and his seldom used dress studs unearthed. Mrs. Carter forgot all about being an invalid and was as busy and happy as possible, trying dresses on her daughters to see that their underskirts were exactly the right length and even running tucks in with her own helpless little hands.

“It is a good thing I don’t have to think about my own outsides,” said Helen, “as all of my time must be spent in planning for our guests’ insides. I tell you, six more mouths to fill is going to keep Chloe and me hustling.”

“It sho’ is an’ all them dishes ter wash is goin’ ter keep me hustlin’ some mo’,” grumbled Chloe. “An’ then I gotter go ter the count’s an’ stir my stumps.”

“I am sorry, but I am going to give you a nice holiday after it is all over,” said her young mistress kindly. The count had asked Helen to bring Chloe to look after the ladies in the dressing-room.

“I ain’t a-mindin’ ’bout dishes. I’s jes’ a-foolin’ – Say, Miss Helen, what does potatriotic mean?”

“Patriotic? That means loving your country and being willing to give up things for it and help save it. Everybody should be patriotic.”

“But s’posin’ yer ain’t got no country?”

“Why, Chloe, everybody has a country, either the place where you were born or the place where you have been living long enough to love and feel that it is yours.”

“But niggers is been livin’ here foreveraneveramen, an’ still they ain’t ter say got no country.”

“Why, you have! Don’t you think Uncle Sam would look after you and fight for you if you needed his help?”

“I ain’t got no Uncle Sam, but I hear tell that he wouldn’t raise his han’ ter save a nigger, but yit if’n they’s a war that he’ll ’spec’ the niggers ter go git shot up fer him.”

“Why, Chloe! How can you say such a thing?”

“I ain’t er sayin’ it – I’s jes’ a-sayin’ I hears tell.”

“Who told it to you?”

“Nobody ain’t tol’ it ter me. I jes’ hearn it.”

“Well, it’s not true.”

“I hearn, too, that they’s plenty er money ter go ’roun’ in this country, but some folks what thinks they’s better’n other folks has hoarded an’ hoarded ’til po’ folks can’t git they han’s on a nickel. An’ I hearn that they’s gonter be distress an’ misery, an’ wailin’ an’ snatchin’ er teeth ’til some strong man arouses an’ makes these here rich folks gib up they tin. Nobody ain’t a-gonter know who dat leader will be, he mought be white an’ thin agin he mought be black, but he’s a-gonter be a kinder sabior.”

“How is he going to manage?” asked Helen, amused at what sounded like a sermon the girl might have heard from the rickety pulpit of the brick church.

“I ain’t hearn, but I done gib out ter all these niggers that my white folks ain’t got no tin put away here in this Hogwallow or whatever Miss Nan done named it. They keeps their money hot a-spendin’ it, I tells ’em all.”

Helen laughed, and with a final touch at the supper table and a last peep at the sally lunn muffins, which were rising as they should, she started to go help her mother with the dancing frocks and their petticoats that would show discrepancies.

“Say, Miss Helen, is you sho’ Miss Ellanlouise is goin’ ternight?” asked Chloe, following her up the steps.

“Yes, Chloe, I’m sure.”

“An’, Miss Helen, if’n folks ain’t got no country ter love what ought they do?”

“Why, love one another, I reckon. Love the people of their own race, and try to help them.”

“Oughtn’t folks ter love they own color better’n any other?”

“Why, certainly!”