Back at School with the Tucker Twins

"'Ah! happy years! Once more, who would not be a boy?'" Of course the dear old man had to greet us with a quotation. "Gad, Tucker, it is good to see you and your young ladies once more! Are you sure I won't crowd you, getting up in your car this way?"

"Crowd us, indeed! We've got room for a dozen friends if they were as welcome as you, eh, girls?" We agreed, but the rented car gave another groan.

Then the teams came trotting in, twenty-two stalwart giants.

"I can't tell one from the other," I said.

"There's George Massie, there, standing by himself to the left! Sleepy! Sleepy! Massie! Massie!" yelled Zebedee like a Comanche Indian. We all took it up until the object of our excitement heard his name above the roar of the crowd and looked our way. We were not so very far from him and he saw us and he said afterwards that the sun shone on Annie's hair so that he just knew who we were.

"Hello, peoples!" Who but Wink White and Harvie Price should come clambering in our car from the back? Some good-natured passerby had given them a leg-up over the lowered top. The car gave another moan of agony. She was built to seat seven not to stand twenty, but stand at least twenty she had to.

I was still dignified with Wink and Harvie for the position they had put us in at Gresham, but they were so contrite and so jolly that I had to cave in and be pleasant. It was too bright a day to have a grouch with any one, and besides, they had not really got us into trouble after all. Zebedee thought as I did, that they were certainly selfish and thoughtless to place us where sure expulsion would have been the outcome had the authorities discovered that boys had come to the dance, and we had been in a measure party to the crime.

Harvie and Wink had not heard of how the escapade had turned out, as we had had no opportunity of informing them. We had been very careful in speaking of the matter at all and had only divulged our part in the affair to a chosen few who had sworn never to tell a soul. It was too good a story to keep indefinitely, however, and now Dum and Dee together told the whole thing while the teams were trotting around, making senseless looking passes (senseless to the uninitiated, at least). The automobile rocked with laughter at their description of Wink's tan shoes, No. 8, that were much in evidence under the drapery, and Harvie's falsetto giggle that at one time turned into a baritone guffaw.

"What's the joke? What's the joke?" A strident voice broke into our gaiety. It could belong to only one person of my acquaintance. Sure enough, there stood Mabel Binks with all the glory of a grown-up society beau in her wake and all the manner a month of débutanting could give her. "Let me introduce Mr. Parker, girls. You just adore girls, don't you, Mr. Parker?"

Mr. Parker, who was in a measure the Beau Brummel of Richmond, assured us he did and immediately took stock of our charms, at least that was his air, as Mabel, with many flourishes, presented us. She was quite impressive in her manner of introducing Tweedles and Annie Pore, and I heard her whisper behind her hand that Annie was a "descendant of nobilities." She almost ignored me altogether, but finally brought me in as "little Miss Allison from the country," and pretended to have entirely forgotten Mary's name.

Mr. Parker was a type I had never met before. He was good looking and clever in a way, always knowing the latest joke and the last bit of gossip and retailing his knowledge to his greatest advantage, that is, never getting it off to one person but saving himself for an audience worthy of his wit. He was older than Zebedee, in his forties I should say, but his countenance was as rosy as a boy's. Dee declared she knew for a fact that he had his face massaged every day. His attire was as carefully thought out as any belle's: socks and tie to match, shoes and gloves also to match, and scarf pin and jewelled wrist watch in harmony with his general get-up.

He was a man, I was told, not of the F.F.V.'s, but from his earliest youth Society with a big S had been his object and he had made good. He was invited everywhere but went only to those places that he felt would help him in his great object, that of being Dictator, as it were, to Society. He controlled the vote as to whether or not a débutante was a success. If he said she was to be the rage, she was the rage, and if her charms did not appeal to him, it was a very wonderful thing for her to get by with them. He was a man of no wealth, having held for many years the same position in a bank at a comfortable salary. It was no more than enough to enable him to belong to all clubs, to live in bachelor apartments, to support thirty pairs of trousers and a suitable number of coats and various grades of waistcoats, fancy and otherwise, and shoes and shoe-trees that mighty forests must have been denuded to obtain.

Mr. Parker had smiled on the effulgent beauty of Mabel Binks, and her social fortune was made. Any girl with social ambition would rather be seen at the ball game with Hiram G. Parker than any other man in Richmond, although he was never known to have seats in the grandstand or to take a girl in an automobile. The honour of being with him was sufficient, and the prestige gained by his favour was greater than all the boxes in the grandstand could give or the delight of riding in a year-after-next model of the finest car built.

Mr. Parker made no excuses, they say he never did, but just handed his lady fair up into our car and stepped in after her as though they had received written invitations. The car was already full to overflowing and so overflow it did. Father and Wink spilled out and were soon walking arm-and-arm, evidently striking up quite a friendship. Mabel made her usual set at Zebedee, who was willy-nilly engrossed by her favour.

Mr. Parker eyed all of us with the air of an appraiser and Dum said afterwards she felt as a little puppy in a large litter must feel when the hard-hearted owner is trying to decide which ones must be drowned. Before he could decide which ones of us, if any, would make successful débutantes, the game was in full swing and even Mr. Parker had to let the social game give way to that of football.

My, how we yelled! We yelled when Virginia came near making a point, and we yelled when she came near losing one. When we could yell no longer we blew our horns until throats were rested enough to take up the burden of yelling once more. Zebedee, standing out on the engine to make room for his many guests, invited and otherwise, behaved like a windmill in a cyclone. He waved his arms and legs and shouted encouragement to our side until they could not have had the heart to be beaten.

Father's behaviour was really not much more dignified than Zebedee's. Love for his Alma Mater was as strong as ever and he rooted with as much fervor as any one on the grounds.

Sleepy's playing was wonderful. I could hardly believe he was the same man we had known at Willoughby. There was nothing sleepy about him now; on the contrary, he was about as wide awake a young man as one could find. He seemed to have the faculty of being in many places at one time, and if he once got the ball in those mighty hands, it took eleven men to stop him. When he would drop, great would be the fall thereof. Sorry, indeed, did I feel for the one who was under him when he fell. He must have weighed a good two hundred pounds and over. He certainly did the best playing on the Virginia team, so we thought, and when he made a touch-down that Zebedee said should go down in history, we were very proud of being friends with the great Massie.

We won! Everybody in our car was wild with delight, but I must say my pleasure was somewhat dampened when I saw the people in the car next to us, the one decorated in light blue and white, in such deep dejection. A middle-aged man was openly weeping and his nice, pleasant-looking wife was trying to console him and at the same time wiping her own eyes. Their son was on the Carolina team. It seems strange for non-combatants to take defeat so much to heart, but it is just this kind of enthusiasm that makes the annual game between Virginia and Carolina what it is: something to live for from year to year in the minds of a great many persons. If Father, with no son to root for, could have tears of joy in his eyes because Virginia won, why should not the father of the Carolina player weep copiously when his state lost?

The victorious team were picked up bodaciously by the shouting crowd and borne on their shoulders to the waiting cars. The great Massie, begrimed almost beyond recognition, passed us in a broad grin. Zebedee leaped over the fence and shook the young giant's dirty hand.

"Come to dinner with us! Got a table reserved at the Jefferson! Dinner at six! Dance after!" Of course Sleepy was pleased to come, having espied the sun glinting on Annie's hair.

"Of all sights the rarest
And surely the fairest
Was the shine of her yellow hair;
In the sunlight gleaming,
Each gold curl seeming
A thing beyond compare.

Oh, were it the fashion
For love to be passion,
And knights still to joust for the fair,
There'd be tender glances
And couching of lances
At the shine of her golden hair."

I know Sleepy felt like a knight of old, way down in his shy heart, as he grabbed that football and turned over all his doughty opponents making for the goal. In his heart he wore Annie's colours and in his mind he kissed her little hand. Annie had been receiving Harvie's devotion with much politeness, but now that Sleepy was the hero of the hour, she turned from her more dapper admirer and waved her hand to the delighted and blushing George. Girls all love a football player. They are simply made that way. I think perhaps it is some old medieval spirit stirring within us, and we, too, fancy ourselves to be the ladyes faire and idealize the tumbling, rolling, sweating, swearing boys into our own true knights.

After the Virginia team, borne by in triumph, came the poor Carolina men. They had put up a splendid fight and there had been moments when their success seemed possible. They took their defeat like the gentlemen they were, but I saw their mouths were trembling and one enormous blond with a shock of hair resembling our big yellow chrysanthemums, had his great hands up before his mud-caked face and his mighty shoulders were shaking with sobs, sobs that came from a real broken heart. I hope a hot bath and a cold shower and a good Thanksgiving dinner helped to mend that heart, but it was certainly broken for the time being if ever heart was.

Now we all of us yelled for Carolina, yelled even harder than we had for our own team, and they gave us a sickly smile of gratitude.

During the game Mr. Parker had been very busy in his polite attentions to all of us, and from his generally agreeable manner it looked as though he thought we were all worth saving and none of the litter was to be drowned. Mabel had renewed her attack on Zebedee and had crawled out on the engine by him, where she stood clutching his arm for support and generally behaving as though he were her own private property.

"She makes me sick!" declared Dum. "And Zebedee acting just as though he liked it!"

"Well, what must he do? Let her fall off?" I asked.

"Yes, let her fall off and stay off!"

All was over at last and the automobiles were busy backing out of their places. Mr. Parker gathered in the pushing Mabel, who had done everything in her power to be asked to dinner with us at the Jefferson, but Zebedee had had so many quiet digs from Tweedles that even had he considered her an addition to the party, he would have been afraid to include her.

Our car was the last one out of the grounds because Mabel took so long to make up her mind to get off the engine and accept an invitation from some acquaintances who passed and asked her to let them take her home.

"See you to-night!" she called affectionately to Tweedles as she finally took advantage of the offer.

"Not if we see you first!" they tweedled, in an aside.

CHAPTER XI

THANKSGIVING DINNER

"Just an hour for you girls to rest up and beautify yourselves and it will be time to break our fast at the Jefferson!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker as we swung up in our rocking old car to the door of the apartment house. "We will be eleven strong, counting White, Price and Massie. The Judge is to join us in the lobby of the hotel. I'll see if I can find some one to make it twelve."

"All right, but not Mabel Binks!" warned Dee.

"Why not? She isn't so bad. I find her quite agreeable," teased Zebedee. "I think she would be quite an addition to the party – "

"Well, you just get her if you want to, but I'll let you know I will smear cranberry sauce on her if she sits near me," stormed Dum.

I thought Tweedles made a great mistake in nagging so about Mabel. I had known very few men in my life, not near as many as the twins, but I had learned with the few I did know that a bad way to manage them was to let them know you were trying to. I, myself, felt rather blue about the way Mabel was monopolizing Zebedee, but I would have bitten out my tongue by the roots before I would have let him know it. Of course fathers are different from just friends. I don't know what I should have done if some flashy, designing person had made a dead set at Father. There weren't any flashy, designing females in our part of the county, and if there had been, I fancy they would not have aspired to the quiet, simple life that being the wife of a country doctor insured. For my part I should have liked a stepmother since I could not have my own mother. I often thought how nice it would have been if Father could have had a sweet wife to be with him while I was off at school. I trusted Father's good taste and judgment enough to know he would choose the right kind of woman if he chose at all. He never chose at all, however, although the many relatives who visited us during the summer made many matches for him in their minds. I hoped if he did make up his mind to go "a-courting" that the stepmother would wear my size shoes and gloves, and maybe her hats would be becoming to me. Even Mammy Susan tried to play Cupid and get Docallison to marry; but he used to say:

"No, no! Matrimony is too much of a lottery and the chances are against a man's drawing two prizes in one lifetime."

Tweedles fought the idea of a stepmother with all their might and main. I think one reason that it was ever uppermost in their minds was that so many well meaning friends were constantly suggesting to them the possibility and suitability of Zebedee's taking unto himself another wife.

"Well, we'll make it hot for her all right, whoever she may be," they would declare. I never had a doubt that they would, too.

I felt it was really an insult to Mr. Tucker to think he could become infatuated with such a person as Mabel Binks, but then, on the other hand, I knew how easy it is to flatter men; and while Zebedee did not like to be run after, Mabel's evident admiration and appreciation of him would, as a matter of course, soften his heart.