Back at School with the Tucker Twins

"Dum, do you know who that is that just got Dee?" I asked.

"No, I have been wondering who she is and who that tall girl is with Annie Pore."

"Well, get ready to hear something, but don't faint or scream," and I whispered to her the names of the venturesome boys. She only gasped and then went off into convulsions of laughter. "It is all very funny," I continued, "but tell me, what are we going to do if Miss Plympton finds it out?"

"But she mustn't. We must get them out of here before we unmask. Don't you think Annie knows by this time that that is Harvie she is dancing with, and do you think for an instant that Mary and Dee are not on?"

The music stopped just then and our quintette with the partners collected in our corner. Annie was trembling with fright, but was evidently having a pretty good time in spite of her fears, and Mary was in a gale only equalled to Tom Hawkins's.

"Don't stop for adieux," I admonished. "Remember if you are caught all the blame will fall on us, and while I like all of you well enough, I have no desire to be expelled for the sake of having danced with you."

This was rather sobering to their gaiety, and after whispered directions of how best to get out of the building, the three ghostly figures glided off. I was awfully afraid that some one had overheard, but no one seemed to be especially interested in us just then and I could but pray that we had been unobserved.

As Wink had pressed my hand in farewell, he had begged for forgiveness and had said he intended to see us again by hook or crook. He was to be at Hill Top until Sunday night.

"It will be in church, then," I had declared, because I was determined that I was not going to get into any more of a scrape than I was already in. I was very much relieved that the boys were gone, and my anger cooled down, although I was certainly disgusted that they had so little considered us in this mad escapade. I don't see why the pastors and masters of the young make it such a crime for boys and girls to have a good time together if they are off at boarding school. How much better it would have been if Miss Plympton had just invited the boys of Hill Top to come to the party and let us dance all we wanted to. There is certainly no harm in it in the summer, and why should there be harm in it then?

At nine the masks were off and then we had the slight refreshments (very slight), followed by rather tame dancing until the ten o'clock gong warned us that in a few minutes lights would be out.

CHAPTER VII

WHEN GHOST MEETS GHOST

"Gee, but I'm hungry!" exclaimed Dum, as we trailed our sheeted forms up the stairs. "Did you ever see such slim eats in all your life? Why, my cake was cut so thin and my ice cream was so scant, they could not have passed muster even at a church fair!"

"Shh! Don't say a word, but I've got a box under my mattress. You let Annie and Mary know, while I see Jean Rice and Nancy Blair. We'll meet in the Gym at eleven. I believe we will be safe from old Mr. Ryan. He is sure to keep away from there as he knows that the skull lanterns are still up. We had better not try to have the spread in our room as we are so close to teachers. Tell Mary and Annie to get their dummies ready and tell Dee to start on ours. I'll be up just as soon as I put Jean and Nancy on."

Jean Rice and Nancy Blair were two girls we had been seeing a good deal of. They were full of fun and while they were rather a frivolous pair, they were nice and good tempered and always ready for a lark. You could count on them to join in on any hazardous expedition.

When eleven o'clock struck we were ready to repair to the Gym for our secret repast. We kept on our sheets and masks as part of the fun. We had made our dummies ready and tucked them in their little downies before we ventured forth. The corridors were dark and silent. The Gym was at the far end of the building from us, down two flights of stairs. We judged it prudent to separate and go one by one a few seconds apart as, if we should by chance run against any one in authority, it was easier for one to escape than five. I went first, the box of fried chicken clasped in my arms: Dum followed me with the beaten biscuit; then came Mary with ham sandwiches; and Annie close behind her, carefully hugging the caramel cake, too timid to let the space be too great between her and her friend. Dee valiantly brought up the rear with stuffed eggs and pickles.

We found three girls instead of two waiting in the gymnasium. I thought Jean and Nancy had brought a friend and went up to make her welcome. They had lighted some of the pumpkin and skull lanterns and were standing with an air of expectancy.

"Hello, girls!" I whispered, "you beat us to it, didn't you? Which of you is which?"

"You tell us who you are first," demanded one of the figures, "and then we will tell you."

"I am Page Allison. I bet you are Nancy Blair."

There was a giggle from the masks. It was another bunch of Juniors on pleasure bent. They were waiting for five more girls and were going to have a spread and a ghost dance.

It turned out that what one might call the cream of the Junior class was gathered there. If we got caught, it meant the whole class in disgrace, as it would be a well-known fact that the members of the class who were missing were so only because they were not asked to be present. It gave us a great feeling of security to be fifteen strong. We were seven and these eight more girls brought the number of law breakers up to fifteen. There were only twenty-five Juniors in the school and that left ten girls who were either too goody-goody to be included or not sufficiently attractive, which is not in itself a crime but is certainly unfortunate.

The spread was wonderful. The little dabs of ice cream and cake we had been served at the party had only whetted our appetites and in no way diminished them. We ate in silence broken by whispers and giggles. We hoped the teachers and Miss Plympton were safe in their downies and we trusted in Mr. Ryan's superstitious nature to keep him out of the Gym.

The ghost dance began later and was kept up buoyantly, without music except a weird rhythmic whistling that the dancers themselves furnished. This whistling is done by sucking in and never blowing out and the effect is most uncanny. It is very hard on your wind to whistle this way, but when your breath gives out, your partner picks up the tune where you leave off and keeps the ball rolling.

The last candle burned down to its socket and guttered out, and then the spectres flitted back to their rooms. It was pitch black in the corridors and Annie was afraid to go alone, so we formed a cordon by catching hold of hands and crept along, keeping close to the walls. I was in front and once when we were quite near our rooms I came bang against a human hand groping along the wall towards me. I stopped dead still! It was all I could do to keep from squealing right out, but a sound of scurrying down the hall reassured me. It was just a student as afraid of being caught as I was.

"Who goes there?" I demanded in stern and grown-up tones.

No answer but more scurrying and in a moment the sound of a door cautiously closed.

"Some poor girl scared to death," I thought. We found our rooms in the dark and with the help of an electric search light, the pride of Dee's heart, we snatched our poor dummies out of their warm beds and were soon snuggled down in their places.

"How do you reckon it happened there were no lights in the halls?" whispered Dum.

"Nancy Blair told me she had turned them out on purpose," said Dee. "She said she knew we would get caught if there was any light."

"Good for Nance!" I murmured, and knew no more until morning. I can't believe we had done anything so very wrong or we could not have slept so soundly.

The rising gong found us dead to the world and only the telephone call, three knocks on the wall, aroused us.

"Trouble ahead!" whispered Mary Flannagan, "there was some one snooping around last night after we were all in bed."

"Well, we can prove an alibi. Who was it?" I chattered through the 'phone. I had jumped out of bed and was huddled in the closet behind Dum's dress. The window was still up and the heat turned off.

"You sound scared! Do you think they will catch us?"

"Scared! Not a bit of it! I am just cold. Of course, they won't catch us, – thanks to having abolished the honour system," and I hung up the receiver and commenced the Herculean task of getting Tweedles out of bed.

"Get up!" I urged, pulling the cover off of first one then the other. "I don't see what you would have done without a roommate. I'd like to know who would wake you up."

Dee put her head under the pillow like an ostrich trying to evade pursuit and Dum curled up in a little ball like a big caterpillar when you tickle him with a piece of grass.

"Girls! Get up! I tell you Mary says there is some mischief brewing. We had better get up and be down to breakfast in time with smiling morning faces or Miss Plympton will know who was up late feasting. Me for a cold bath!"

"Me, too!" tweedled the twins, coming to life very rapidly.

A cold plunge and vigorous rubbing took off all traces of the night's dissipations, and as a finishing touch we all of us let our hair hang down our backs in plaits. Since the summer we had with one accord turned up our hair. We felt that it added dignity to our years; but now was no time for dignity but for great simplicity and innocence.

As the breakfast gong sounded, I am sure in all Virginia there could not be found five more demure maidens than tripped punctually into the dining room. Miss Plympton looked sharply up as we came in, but we felt we had disarmed her with the very sweet bows we gave her and the gentle "good mornings."

There was an air of repressed excitement running through the school. We were dying to ask what it was but felt that silence on our part was the only course for us to pursue. Certainly there were fifteen very shiny-eyed Juniors and ten very smug-looking ones. I whispered to Nancy Blair as I passed her table on the way out:

"What's up?"

"I am not sure, but I do not believe they are on to our frolic."

"There is something else," declared Jean Rice, who sat next to her chum, Nancy. "The servants are in a great state of excitement over something. I have had an oatmeal spoon and a butter knife spilled down my neck already and I see Miss Plympton's private cream pitcher has found its way to our table."

"Well, we will find out what is the matter in Chapel," I sighed, as I hurried up to my room to put it to some kind of rights. I wanted to get our dummies pulled to pieces, leaving no semblance of human beings. We had twenty minutes between breakfast and Chapel to make our beds and do what cleaning to our rooms we considered necessary to pass inspection. I tell you we cleaned that room with what Mammy Susan called "a lick and a promise." Our dummies we pulled to pieces and scattered their members to the four winds, like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, when the winged monkeys got him. The telephone we concealed even more carefully than usual, draping a sweater over it and smoothing out Dum's dress so no suspicious wrinkle remained.

"We weren't in our beds very long, so let's spread 'em," said Dee, suiting the action to the word and pulling up her sheets in the most approved unhygienic manner. We swept the dirt under the rugs and with a few slaps of a dust rag on bureau, chairs and tables, and a careful lowering of the shade so the light came in sufficiently softened not to show the dust, we betook ourselves to Chapel as the gong sounded, quaking inwardly but with that "butter won't melt in my mouth" expression we considered suitable for the occasion.

Miss Plympton was on the platform waiting for the teachers and pupils to assemble. She had on a stiff, new, dark gray suit that fitted her like the paper on the wall and she was making chins so fast there was no keeping up with them.

"Looks like tin armor and I tell you she is ready for a joust, too!" exclaimed Dum.