CHAPTER I.
LEAVING HOME
Leaving home to go to boarding school was bad enough, but leaving on a damp, cold morning before dawn seemed to be about the worst thing that could befall a girl of fifteen. I have noticed that whatever age you happen to be seems to be the age in which hardships are the most difficult to bear.
Anyhow, there I was, only fifteen, facing the necessity of saying early morning farewells, the first one of all to my comfortable bed, where I had slept off and on, principally on, for those fifteen years. And now I and my bed must part.
"Day done bus'ed, Miss Page. The doctor is stirrin' an' you'd better rise an' shine," and kind old Mammy Susan leaned yearningly over me. "I hate to wake up my lamb. I knowd dis day would come when dey'd take you 'way from me, but I nebber did think 'twould be 'fo' dawn wif all de long day 'head er me to be studyin' 'bout you. What yo' mammy goin' ter do 'thout you, chile?"
"Well, Mammy, we'll have to grin and bear it. I'll be home Christmas, and that isn't so far off." I jumped out of bed and pulled my hat-tub into the middle of the floor, ready for my daily cold sponge bath. Probably I had inherited the habit of the cold bath from my English grandfather along with the big hat-tub.
"Law, chile, can't you leave off punishin' yo'self jes' dis onct? You can't be to say dirty, an' dis here water is pow'ful cold."
Mammy and I had had this discussion about my cold bath every morning since I had been old enough to bathe myself. It was only after many battles that she had stopped sneaking warm water into my big can. That morning I let it pass, although the water was lukewarm.
"Y'ain't mad wif yo' ole Mammy, is yer, honey chile? Looks like I didn't have de heart to plunge my baby lamb into sho'nuf cold water on sech a dark chilly day, wif her a-leavin' an' all. 'Tain't ter say warm now. I jes' tempered it a leetle."
"That's all right, Mammy. 'God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb' and you, it seems, temper the water. They say there are lots of bathrooms at Gresham, and I can have the water as deep and cold as I want it."
"Well, don't you go drown yo'self in any er dem new-fashioned plumbin' tubs, an' fer de lan's sake, Miss Page, don't you let yo'self be drawed down inter none er dem was'e pipes," and Mammy Susan hurried off to bring in the all too early breakfast.
I dressed in my usual haste, putting on my nice blue traveling suit, ordered by mail from New York. It was quite long, well down to my shoe tops, and I felt very stylish and grown-up. I had never given any thought to my appearance, and no one else in my life seemed to have except Cousin Sue Lee and Mammy. I don't know just what Cousin Sue thought about me, but Mammy thought I was the most beautiful creature in the world and freely told me so. That morning as I put on the little black velvet toque, also purchased by mail, I looked at myself very critically in the mirror.
"Page Allison, are you pretty or not? I, for one, think not. You've got freckles on your nose and your mouth is simply huge. I'd like to say something about your eyes to take the conceit out of you, but they look so like Father's that I'd feel just like I was sassing him if I did. Anyhow, I'm glad your hair curls."
I had intended to sentimentalize over leaving my room and going out into the world, but I forgot all about it, and grabbing my ready-packed suitcase, also a mail order, I raced downstairs as Mammy Susan rang the breakfast bell.
Father was already in the dining-room, standing with his back to the little wood fire that Mammy had kindled to cheer us up with. Mammy always seemed to feel that when we were in any distress she must warm us and feed us whether we were cold and hungry or not. That morning we were neither, but we warmed by her fire and tried to choke down a great deal of her batter bread and roe herring to show her we appreciated her efforts.
Father looked up as I came in and for a moment regarded me in speechless amazement.
"Why, honey, you almost took my breath away! You look so grown-up in the new dress and hat. I didn't know you were so like your Mother, child," and he drew me to him and kissed me.
Father and I were as a rule not very demonstrative, but I clung to him for a moment and he held me close with his long, wiry arm.
"I wish I could take you to Gresham, honey, but old Mrs. Purdy is very low and she expects me to be with her at the end."
"That's all right, Father, don't you worry. There are certain to be other girls on the train who are going to Gresham and I'll butt in on them," I answered much more bravely than I felt. It did seem terribly lonely and forlorn to be going off and installing myself in boarding school. "I think it's fine that you can drive me over to Milton and put me on the train. Last night when I heard such a knocking at the door I was afraid I wouldn't see you in the morning because you'd be off on some life or death mission. What was the matter?"
"Oh, just Sally Winn's bread pills had given out and she was afraid she would not last through the night without them." Father always took me into his confidence about the bread pills he administered to the hypochondriacs.
"Do you know, Father, I believe if you charged midnight fees for those bread-pill and pink-well-water prescriptions, that Sally Winn and some more just like her would at least wait until morning to die."
"Oh, well, little daughter, Sally's got lots of good in her, and trying to die is the only excitement she has ever had in her whole life."
"Well, I won't begrudge it to her but I do hate to have your rest broken. Mammy," I said to Mammy Susan as she came in bearing a plate of red-hot flannel cakes, "don't you let Father be too late getting into his heavy underwear; and make a row every time he drives the colt until he will stop it from sheer weariness. And, Father, you make Mammy take her tonic; and don't let her go out in the wet dew waddling around after her ducks. She will catch her death."
"Susan, you hear Miss Page? Don't dare go in anything but dry dew. A few inches on her skirt and her curls tucked up under her bonnet make her think she's been taking care of us all these years instead of our taking care of her."
"Law, ain't she the spit of her Ma, Doc Allison? 'Cep fer yo' eyes. Ain't quite so tall; but she's young yit in spite er sich a long trailin' skirt. I's sorry to be de one to break de news, but de colt is out dere a-prancin' an' pawin', an' ef you's a-goin' you'd better go."
I had often pictured my going away and had always seen myself with difficulty restraining my tears; but now the time had come and the colt was cutting up, so I forgot to cry even when I told the dogs good-by; and just as I was giving Mammy Susan a last hug, and if tears were ever to come they must hurry, Father called to me to jump in, for he couldn't hold the colt another minute. And in I was and away and not crying at all but laughing, as we turned around on one wheel and went skimming down the drive.
The sun was all the way up at last and it wasn't a cold, damp day at all, but promised to be fair and clear. We had a six-mile drive to the station at Milton and the colt saw to it that we got there in plenty of time.
"Now, Page, be certain when you make the change at Richmond, if you have to ask any questions to ask them of a man in brass buttons."
"Yes, Father," and I smiled demurely, remembering how I always acted as courier when we went on our trips. Father, being the most absent-minded of men except where his profession was concerned, was not to be trusted with a railroad ticket.
Moving away on the train at last and waving good-by to his long, sad face, made me realize that the knot was cut. What a good father he was! How had we ever been able to make up our minds to this boarding school scheme? Nothing but the certainty that my education was a very one-sided affair and that I must broaden out a bit had determined Father; and as for me, I longed to know some girls.
I, who yearned for friends, was growing up without any. Fifteen years old and I had never had a real chum! I couldn't remember my mother, but I am sure she would have been my chum if she had lived. Mammy Susan did her best and so did Father, but a little girl wants another little girl. We had neighbors in plenty, but our county seemed to be composed of old maids and childless widows with a sparse sprinkling of gray-bearded men.
My mother's people were English and she had no relatives on this side of the water. Father belonged to a huge family, all of them great visitors, but so far as I knew, no children among them. All kinds of old maids: rich and poor, gentle and stern, soft and hard, big and little, they all managed once a year to pay their dear cousin, Dr. Allison, a visit at Bracken. I did not mind their coming. The soft ones seemed to have been little girls once, which was something. I used to think when I was quite a little thing that the hard ones must have been little boys, because of the statement in my Mother Goose that little boys were made of "Snaps and snails and puppy dog tails," – not nice soft collie pups' tails, either, but the tight, hard kind that grew on Cousin Park Garnett's pug.
Cousin Park Garnett was the rich, hard one whom I visited in Richmond the winter before. On her annual visitation to us she had remarked to my father:
"Cousin James, are Page's teeth sound? White teeth like that are, as a rule, not very strong. Her mouth is so enormous you had better look to it that her teeth are preserved," and she pursed up her own thin lips and put on her green persimmon expression.
"Perfectly sound, I think, Cousin Park. Of course her teeth must be preserved. As for her mouth being big, she'll grow up to it." But the outcome of the conversation was that I had to visit Cousin Park and take in the dentist. Think of the combination! Cousin Park took me to the Woman's Club in the afternoon where we listened to a lecture on "The Influence of Slavic Literature on the Culture of the Day." I was longing for the movies but managed to keep my big mouth shut and listen to the lecture, so I could tell Father about it and make him laugh. I stayed in Richmond three days and did not speak to one single soul under fifty. Even the dentist was old and tottering, so shaky that I was afraid he would fall into my mouth.
I saw loads of nice girls my own age skating on the sidewalk or walking arm-in-arm chattering away very happily, but Cousin Park didn't know who they were or did know and knew nothing to their credit. I was glad to get back to Bracken where there were no girls to know. There were at least the dogs at Bracken that I could talk to and race over the hills with. Even Cousin Park could not doubt their royal pedigrees.
It was dear little Cousin Sue Lee who persuaded Father and me both that I ought to go to boarding school. Cousin Sue was the best of all Father's female relatives. She was gentle and poor and had a job in the Congressional Library in Washington. With all her gentleness, she was sprightly and had plenty of what Father called "Lee spunk"; and with all her poverty, she wore the sweetest clothes and always brought me a lovely present every year and a nice shawl for Mammy or a black silk waist or something or other to delight the old woman's heart. Cousin Park never gave me anything, – not that I wanted her to. She would visit us two weeks and then present Mammy with a dime, using all the pomp and ceremony that a twenty-dollar gold piece would have warranted.
"Jimmy," Cousin Sue had said one day (she was the only one of all the cousins who called Father Jimmy), "I know you and Page will think I am an interfering old cat, but that child ought to go to school. I am not going to say a word about her education. She has an excellent education in some things. I have never seen a better read girl of her age. But the time may come when she will regret knowing no French, and she tells me she stopped arithmetic last year and never started algebra."
"Well, what good did algebra ever do you or me?" quizzed Father.
"Now, Jimmy, don't ask such foolish questions. It's just something all of us have to have. What good does your cravat do you? None; it's not even a thing of beauty, but you have to have one all the same."
"Oh, you women," laughed Father, "there's no downing you with argument."
"But as I was saying," continued Cousin Sue, "it is not dear little Page's education I am thinking of. It's something much more important. I want her to know a whole lot of girls and make a million friends. Why, I'm the only young friend the child has, and I am getting to be nearer fifty than forty."
And so we wrote for catalogues of schools and settled on Gresham. And Cousin Sue sent for a bolt of nainsook and yards and yards of lace and insertion and made up a whole lot of pretty underclothes for me.
"Girls need a lot of things in this day and generation," I heard her say to Father. "A great deal more than they used to when I was young. I am determined Page shall not go off to school looking like an 'Orphan Annie.'"
"But, Sue, your holiday won't do you any good if you spend it all sewing on the machine for my child," objected Father.
"We'll get in Miss Pinky Davis to help and in a week's time Page will have enough clothes to last her until she gets married, – that is, if she does not follow the traditions of the family and be an old maid."
It was a pretty well known fact that Cousin Sue had been a belle in her day, and even now when she came back to visit in the County several weather-beaten bachelor farmers would manage to have business at Bracken. I have always noticed that an old maid who is so from choice does not mind joking about it, but the others do.
A country doctor is seldom a bloated bond-holder; so Cousin Sue and I ordered, with great care and economy, the necessary things from New York: suit, hat, gloves, shoes, up-to-date shirt waists and plenty of middies, a raincoat, umbrella, etc.
"Now, my dear," said my sweet cousin, "you can be perfectly sure that your outfit is appropriate at least. Your clothes are stylish, well-made and suitable to your age. I have always felt that young people's clothes should be so right that they do not have to think about them."
As I sped away on the train to Richmond, I remembered what Cousin Sue had said before she went back to the grind in Washington, and had a feeling of intense satisfaction that my little trunk in the baggage car held such a complete wardrobe that I would not have to bother my head about it any more. Up to this summer, clothes had been my abomination, but I had at last waked up to the fact that it made some difference how I looked; and now I was going to look all right without any trouble to myself.
Train pulling into Richmond and still not a tear! "What is the matter with you, Page Allison? When girls leave their childhood's home in books they always weep suds. Don't you love your home as much as a stick of a heroine in a book?" I knew I loved my home, but somehow it was so delightful to be going somewhere and maybe getting to know a million people, as Cousin Sue said I must.
An hour's wait in Richmond! I rechecked my trunk, having purchased a ticket to Gresham; then I seated myself to possess my soul in patience until the 10.20 train should be called. The station in Richmond was familiar enough to me, as Father and I took some kind of a trip every year and always had to come through Richmond. As I have said before, I attended to tickets and baggage when I traveled with Father, so I was not in the least nervous over doing it now.
"I must keep my eye open for girls who are likely to be going to Gresham," I thought. "They'll all have on dark blue suits." That was a rule of the school, the dark blue suit. "There's one now! But can she be going?" And I thought of what Cousin Sue had said of "Orphan Annie."
The girl was seated opposite me in the waiting room. She had just come up the steps lugging a huge telescope, stretched to its greatest capacity, and looking nervously around had sunk on a bench. She searched feverishly through a shabby little hand-bag she was carrying and having satisfied herself that the ticket she had just purchased was safe she seemed to be trying to compose herself; but one could see with half an eye that she was nervous and frightened. She glanced uneasily at the clock every few minutes and constantly compared with it an Ingersoll watch which each time she had to search for in her bag. Several trains were called and every time she got up and made a rush for the gates, but each time came back to her seat opposite me.
Her blue dress was evidently homemade. The skirt dragged in the back and the jacket was too short for the prevailing fashion. Her hat had been worn as mourning and still had a little fold of crêpe around the edge, making a suitable setting for that tear-stained face. I couldn't tell whether she was pretty or not, her features were so swollen with weeping. Helen of Troy herself looked homely crying, I am sure. I noticed that her throat was milk white and that the thick plait of hair that hung down her back, mercifully concealing somewhat the crooked seams of the ill-made jacket, was as yellow as ripe wheat.
"Poor thing," I thought, "I believe I'll speak to her and see if I can cheer her up some." But my philanthropic resolution was forgotten because of the entrance into the waiting room and into my life, I am glad to add, of the three most delightful and original persons I have ever seen or known.
CHAPTER II.
ENTER THE TUCKERS
Two girls about my age and a youngish man were the arrivals. The girls were dressed in blue serge, and I felt in my bones that they were going to Gresham. They had an independent, easy way with them, and evidently considered the youngish man a person whom they had a right to boss.
"Let's sit here, Zebedee, and you go get the milk chocolate for me," exclaimed one of the girls.
"Don't forget my salted peanuts and a copy of 'Life,'" called the other, as Zebedee hurried off to make the purchases at the newsstand in a corner of the waiting room.
"Elder brother," thought I, "and pretty good-natured to wait on those girls so much." What nice looking girls they were, though. At the first glance, they looked singularly alike, but as I examined them more closely while Zebedee was gone, I saw points of dissimilarity. "They are twins, for sure," I said to myself, "but I believe I am going to be able to tell them apart." The one whom her sister called Dum had red lights in her almost black hair and her eyes were hazel, while the one who answered to the name of Dee had blue lights in her coal black hair and her eyes were gray. Both of them had sharply defined brows, straight noses, and broad, laughing mouths. Dum's chin was square and determined, but in Dee's there lurked a dimple. They were exactly the same height and both of them had fine athletic figures.
"There you are, Tweedles," said the youngish man, addressing them both as he pitched his purchases into their laps. "Who's going to wait on you at boarding school, I'd like to know?"
"Well, if you will make us have a roommate, I reckon she'll have to," laughed Dee.
"By the way, Zebedee, that is something I want to discuss with you," and Dum squared her chin. "You make a great mistake in forcing a roommate on Dee and me. We are not used to it, and we are not going to stand it."
Zebedee squared his chin, too, and his blue eyes took on a stern expression. "Not going to stand it, eh? Well, I say you are going to stand it. We have discussed the matter threadbare already, and you must trust me to know what is best for you sometimes."
The stern light went out of his eyes and into them came a look of infinite tenderness as he put an arm around Dum and held her close to him. I certainly liked the looks of Zebedee, but what a name! He, too, had an athletic figure, but not very tall, not much taller than the girls, who were very well grown for fifteen. He had Dum's red black hair, also her square chin, but Dee's dimple had found a place in the middle of that determined chin. The three mouths were so alike that they might have belonged to triplets, but his eyes were his own; ice blue they were in color but there was nothing cold about them. They were the kindest, merriest eyes; they seemed to see everything and feel everything. Just now they were feeling very sorry for Dum, and as he hugged her, big tears gathered in them.
"Oh, Dum," exclaimed Dee, "now you have made him cry!"
"No such thing. I'm not crying," and he shamelessly blew his nose.
I afterwards learned that one of the characteristics of this delightful trio was that they thought there was no more shame in crying than laughing. They laughed in church if there was anything to laugh at, and cried at a picnic or farce-comedy if anything turned up to move them to tears. "We don't bawl," Dee said to me once, "we just leak. It is all a matter of tear ducts. We can't help it any more than you could help sneezing if someone shook pepper in your face."
A train was called. It was not ours, but "Orphan Annie" jumped nervously from her seat. She dropped her shabby little hand-bag, which she had just opened for the hundredth time to make sure her ticket was safe or to compare her Ingersoll watch with the clock in the station, and the contents of the bag rolled to the floor. I dived to assist her and the person called Zebedee did the same. Of course we bumped heads, and while we were apologizing, Dum and Dee picked up the scattered belongings and returned them to the poor, abashed girl.
"I just knew you were going to Gresham," said Dee, handing her the much-thumbed ticket, "and wondered how long it would take us to get to the point of speaking to you."
"You are for Gresham, too," said Dum, turning to me. "I have been longing to know you. I might have known that old Zebedee would end by butting in."
Here Zebedee took off his hat and bowed to "Orphan Annie" and me as though we were of the blood royal, and said with a most engaging manner:
"We had best introduce ourselves and then all the conventionalities will be observed. Conventionality is a mighty important thing for boarding school girls to observe. These are the Tucker twins, called Tweedles when you want both of them or aren't particular which one answers. This red-headed one is Dum; this blue-headed one, Dee. They have other official names, but somehow I can't remember them to-day. I am Jeffry Tucker, at your service, the father of the Heavenly Twins."
"Father! You, their father!" I gasped.
"Certainly. Whose father did you think I was?"
"James' and John's," I answered flippantly.
"That's the reason we called him Zebedee," chorused the twins. "You know the old gag: 'Who is the father of Zebedee's children?' No one ever believes he is really a parent."
I burst out laughing and so did "Orphan Annie." I was certainly glad to see that she could laugh. Already the genial atmosphere that surrounded the Tuckers had had its effect on her. The drawn expression was leaving her countenance and the hearty laugh dispelled the mist in her eyes. The knowledge that there were two other passengers for Gresham set her mind at rest, and she evidently felt relieved.
"My name is Page Allison."
"Daughter of Dr. James Allison of Milton, I bet anything," ventured Mr. Tucker. "Oh, do you know my father?" I asked joyfully.
"Of course I do. We are of the same fraternity. Your eyes are so like his, I came mighty near slipping you the grip. He was in the class of '85 and I was in that of '99, but we have met at many fraternity conventions. I am certainly glad to know his daughter." And while he did not give me the fraternity grip, he gave me some kind of a grip that tingled all the way up to my heart.
"And won't you tell us your name?" said Dee kindly to the other stranger.
"Annie Pore," said the girl in a voice singularly full and rich. "I have never been anywhere alone and I am so afraid I'll miss my train. That is the reason I dropped my bag. I am so much obliged to all of you for picking up my things."
Her timidity seemed to disappear as she realized she was making friends. As for me, I have never known what it was to be timid, and I felt at home with the three Tuckers from the moment they entered the waiting room; and from the time that Mr. Tucker and I bumped heads, I counted them as the first three on the list of the million friends that Cousin Sue said I must make.
"Well, since we are all going to Gresham, suppose you young ladies hand over your tickets to me and I will be courier for the crowd," said Mr. Tucker.
I gave him my ticket, also my reservation in the parlor car. It made no difference how poor payments were, Father and I always traveled in comfort. "It saves in the end to ride in a clean, comfortable coach," Father declared. "Saves wear and tear on clothes and nerves."
Annie Pore handed him her rumpled ticket.
"This is all you have?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, isn't that all right?" she entreated. "The man at the ticket window assured me it was right."
"Of course it is all right. Now there are five minutes before the train will be called, so if you young ladies will excuse me, I'll run downstairs to see that Tweedles' trunks are safe. By the way, have you attended to your luggage?" he asked me. "And you?" turning to Annie Pore.
"Thank you, yes," I answered; but the other girl looked piteously at her bursting telescope. "I haven't a trunk," she said simply.
I felt mighty sorry for Annie. The Tucker twins did, too. I could tell by their eyes. Dee's filled and Dum turned and walked to the steps with her father.
Dee whispered to me as she pretended to show me a picture in "Life":
"He's gone to get her a ticket in the parlor car. Just like him! Such a thoughtful Zebedee as he is! We mustn't let him know we are on. That would make him raging. He will carry it off perfectly naturally, and he is fully capable of any deceit to keep Annie Pore from finding it out."
He had done exactly as Dee said he would do: got a chair in the parlor car for "Orphan Annie." Right there I took myself to task for thinking of the poor girl as "Orphan Annie," and I determined to control my thoughts if possible and give her her proper name in my mind. Not that Annie Pore sounded much more cheerful than the name I had given her.
Our train was called and our kind courier bundled up bag and baggage and hustled us through the gates and into the chair car before Annie Pore had time to ask about it; and then he gave the Pullman conductor our tickets and settled us and the train started, and the girl never did know she was being treated to a privilege her ticket did not give her.
We had a jolly trip and before it was over I knew a great deal about the Tuckers, and they, in turn, a great deal about me, in fact, about all there was to know. It was many a day, however, before we broke through Annie Pore's reserve and learned that she was of English parentage, that her mother had recently died and her father had a country store in a lonesome little settlement on the river. No wonder the girl was so scary. This was actually her first railroad journey. What traveling she had done had been by boat, an occasional trip to Norfolk or Richmond when her father went to town to buy his stock.
There was an unmistakable air of breeding about her. Her accent was pure and her English without flaw. In spite of her timidity, she had a certain savoir faire. For instance, when Mr. Tucker announced that we were to have lunch with him and ordered the porter to bring two tables and put them up, Annie accepted the invitation with a quiet grace that many a society woman could not have equaled. When she took off her ugly hat, disclosing to view a calm white forehead with heavy, ripe-wheat hair rippling from a part, I had no doubt of the fact that Annie Pore, if not already a beauty, was going to be one when she grew up.
It was only a buffet luncheon and there was not much on the menu to choose from: baked beans, canned soup, potted meats, etc.
"Not much to eat here," grumbled Mr. Tucker.
"Eat what's put before you, Zebedee, and stop grouching," admonished Dum.
"Well, it's a pretty hard state of affairs when a fellow wants to give a party and there is nothing to eat but these canned abominations."
"I have a lunch box in my grip," I ventured; "maybe that would help out some."
"Trot it out, do!" cried Dee.
And then Annie had the hardihood to untie the rope around her telescope and bring out a bag of the very best and rosiest wine-sap apples I ever tasted. She also produced a box of doughnuts she had made herself which were greeted with enthusiasm. My lunch had been put up by kind old Mammy Susan, and in her tenderness she had packed in enough to feed a regiment.
"Fried chicken!" exclaimed Dee, clapping her hands.
"Columbus eggs!" shouted Dum.
"Not really country ham?" questioned Mr. Tucker. "That is too good to be true. You must excuse Tweedles and me, but we have been living in an apartment and eating in the café, and some real home food has just about got us going. When I asked you young ladies to lunch, I did not dream that I would be able to treat you so royally."
"Look, Zebedee, look! Clover-leaf rolls!" chorused the twins.
"Stop tweedling and look over the menu and see what we shall order to supplement with." Mr. Tucker called it tweedling when the girls spoke in chorus as was their habit.
We decided on cream of tomato soup, iced tea and butter, with Neopolitan ice cream to top off with. I was certainly glad that, as usual, Mammy Susan had paid no attention to my commands, and had done her own sweet will in giving me enough lunch for half a dozen girls.
"It's bes' to err on de side er plenty, honey baby," the old woman had said when I demurred at the size of the lunch boxes. "Even ef you is goin' to a land flowin' wif milk an' honey, a few rolls to sop in de honey won't go amiss an' some chicken an' ham to wash down wif de milk won't hurt none."