The crank stopped and all of the oil flowed through the funnel while Nan softly turned the leaves of Marston’s “Last Harvest.”
“Yes, honey, it is beautiful, but you had better read a livelier form of verse or your salad dressing will go back on you.”
“Heavens, you are right! I’ve got ‘Barrack Room Ballads’ here ready in case I get to dawdling,” laughed Nan.
“I want to talk about something very important, Nan. Can you turn your crank and listen?”
“Yes, indeed, but you’ll have to talk fast or else I’ll get to poking again. You see, I have to keep time.”
So Douglas rapidly repeated the conversations she had had with her mother and later with Helen.
“What are we to do? Must I tell Dr. Wright? I am afraid to get them started for fear father will be mixed up in it. He must not know mother wants to go to White Sulphur—he would be sure to say let her go and then he would try to work again before he is fit for it, and he would certainly get back into the same state he was in last spring.”
“Poor little mumsy! I was sure she would not understand,” and once more the mixer played a sad measure.
“I was afraid she wouldn’t,” sighed Douglas, “but I did think Helen had been taught a lesson and realized the importance of our keeping within our earnings and saving something, too, for winter.”
“Helen—why, she is too young for the lesson she learned to stick. She is nothing but a child.”
“Is that so, grandmother?” laughed Douglas, amused in spite of her trouble at Nan’s ancient wisdom (Nan being some two years younger than Helen).
“Why, Douglas, Helen has just been play-acting at being poor. She has no idea of its being a permanency,” and Nan filled the funnel again with oil and began to turn her crank with vigor.
“But what are we to do? I am not going to White Sulphur and I am not going to make my debut—that’s sure. I have never disobeyed mother that I can remember, but this time I shall have to. I don’t know what I am to say about the trip to the White. Helen is saying she has helped to earn the money and she means to spend her share giving poor mumsy a little fun after her tiresome long journey on the water. I wish we had never told her we were able to put something in the bank last month. It was precious little and Helen’s share would not keep them at White Sulphur more than two or three days. Helen thinks I am stingy and mother thinks I am stubborn and ugly and sunburned—and there’s the train with all the week-enders——” and poor Douglas gave a little sob.
“And I have turned my wheel until this old mayonnaise is done—just look how beautiful it is! And you, poor old Doug, must just leave it to me, and I’ll think up something to keep them here if I have to break out with smallpox and get them quarantined on the mountain.”
“Oh, Nan! Is there some way out of it without letting father know that mother wants something and cannot have it for lack of money?”
“Sure there is! You go powder your nose and put on a blue linen blouse and give a few licks to your pretty hair while I hand over the mayonnaise to Gwen and see that Lucy has counted noses for the supper tables. I’ve almost got a good reason already for mumsy’s staying here aside from the lack of tin, but I must get it off to her with great finesse.”
“I knew you would help!” and Douglas gave her little sister and the mayonnaise bowl an impartial hug, and then hastened to make herself more presentable, hoping to find favor in the eyes of her fastidious mother.
August, the month for holidays, was bringing much business to the proprietresses of Week-End Camp. Such a crowd came swarming up the mountain now that Lucy, who had set the tables with the assistance of her chum, Lil Tate, and the two sworn knights, Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, and had carefully counted noses according to the calculations Nan had made from the applications she had received, had to do it all over to make room for the unexpected guests.
“Just kilt-plait the places,” suggested Lil.
“If they keep on coming we’ll have to accordeon-plait ’em,” laughed Lucy.
“Gee, I’m glad your eats don’t land in your elbows!” from Skeeter.
“Me, too!” exclaimed Frank. “Miss Helen tipped me a wink that there’s Brunswick stew made out of the squirrels we got yesterday. And there is sho’ no elbow room at these tables.”
“Look at ’em swarming up the mountain. Where do you reckon they’ll sleep?” asked Lil.
“Have to roost in the trees.”
“I bet more than half of them didn’t bring their blankets,” hazarded Lucy.
“Yes, that’s the way they do, these town fellows,” said Skeeter, forgetting that he too had been a town fellow only a few weeks before that time.
The summer in the mountains was doing wonders for these youngsters. Sleeping in the open had broadened their chests. They were wiry and tanned and every day brought some new delightful duty that was never called a duty and so was looked upon by all of them as a great game. Theirs was the task of foraging for the camp, and no small job was it to find chickens and vegetables and fruit for the hungry hordes that sought the Week-End Camp for holiday and recreation.
They had found their way to many a remote mountain cabin and engaged all chickens hatched and unhatched. They had spread the good news among the natives that blackberries, huckleberries, peaches, apples, pears and plums were in demand at their camp. Eggs were always needed. Little wild-eyed, tangled-haired children would come creeping from the bushes, like so many timid rabbits, bringing their wares; sometimes a bucket of dewberries or some wild plums; sometimes honey from the wild bees, dark and strong and very sweet, “bumblebee honey,” Skeeter called it. All was grist that came to the mill of the week-enders. No matter how much was provided, there was never anything to speak of left over.
“These hyar white folks is same as chickens,” grumbled old Oscar. “They’s got no notion of quittin’ s’long as they’s any corn lef’ on the groun’.”
“They sho’ kin eat,” agreed Susan, “but Miss Douglas an’ Miss Helen done said we mus’ fill ’em up and that’s what we is hyar fur.”
The above is a conversation that, with variations, occurred during almost every meal at the camp. Oscar and Susan, the faithful servants the Carters had brought from Richmond, were proving more and more efficient now that the first sting of the country was removed and camp life had become a habit with them. They were creatures of habit and imbued with the notion that what was good enough for white folks was good enough for them. Their young mistresses were contented with the life in the camp, so they were, too. Their young mistresses were not above doing any work that came to hand, so they, too, must be willing to do what fell to their lot. Susan forgot the vows she had so solemnly sworn when she became a member of the housemaids’ league, to do housework and nothing else. She argued that a camp wasn’t a house and she could do what she chose. Oscar had, while in town, held himself above any form of labor not conducive to the dignity of a butler serving for many years in the best families. But if Mr. Lewis Somerville and Mr. Bill Tinsley, both of them belonging to fust famblies, could skin squirrels, why then, he, Oscar, must be a sport and skin them, too.
These week-ends in August were hard work for all concerned and now there was talk of some of the guests staying over for much longer and spending two weeks with them. That meant no cessation of fillin’ ’em up. Previous to this time, Monday had been a blessed day for all the camp, boarders gone and time to take stock and rest, but now there was to be no let up in the filling process.
Susan, for the time completely demoralized by the return of her beloved mistress, had left her work to whomsoever it might concern and had constituted herself lady’s maid for Mrs. Carter. She unpacked boxes and parcels, hovering over the pretty things purchased in New York; she fetched and carried for that dainty lady, ignoring completely the steady stream of week-enders climbing up the mountain or being carried up by the faithful and sturdy mountain goat, with the silent Bill as chauffeur.
Helen had reluctantly torn herself from the delectable boxes and parcels and was busily engaged in concocting a wonderful potato salad, something she always attended to herself. Gwen was making batter bread after having put to rise pan after pan of rolls. Oscar had begun to fry the apples, a dish ever in demand at camp. The Brunswick stew had been safely deposited in the fireless cooker early in the day and all was going well.
“There!” exclaimed Helen, putting the finishing touch to the last huge bowl of salad and stepping back to admire her handiwork. “That substantial salad unites beauty and utility.”
“It sho’ do, Miss Helen, it sho’ do!” declared Oscar, adroitly turning his apples just as they reached the proper stage of almost and not quite being candied. “They’s nothin’ like tater salid fer contitutioning a foumdation stone on which to build fillin’ victuals. It’s mo’ satisfying to my min’ than the staft of life itself. All I is a-hopin’ is that they won’t lick the platter befo’ I gits to it.”
“You are safe there, Oscar, as I made this extra dishful to be kept back so you and Susan will be sure to get some.”
“Susan, indeed!” sniffed her fellow-servant. “She ain’t called on to expect no favors at yo’ han’. To be foun’ by the wayside, a fallin’ down wantin’ jes’ at this crucible moment!”
“I think she is helping mother.”
“Then I’s got nothin’ to say—but I ’low she helpin’ yo’ maw with one han’ an’ Susan Jourdan with yudder.”
Mr. Carter and Dr. Wright looked into the kitchen a moment. Dr. Wright had been showing his patient over the camp, as all of the daughters were occupied. Mr. Carter was delighted with the arrangements and amazed at the scope of the undertaking. Could this be his Helen, the queen of the kitchen, attending to the preparation of this great quantity of food? He never remembered before seeing Helen do any more strenuous work than play a corking good game of tennis, and here she was handling a frying pan with the same skill with which she had formerly handled a racquet, looking after the apples while Oscar cracked ice and carried up into the pavilion the great pitchers of cold tea destined to quench the thirst of the week-enders.
Helen was looking wholly lovely in her becoming bungalow apron, with her flushed cheeks and hair a bit dishevelled from the hurry of getting things done without the assistance of the capable Susan. Robert Carter looked in amazement at the great bowls of potato salad and the pans of rolls, being taken from the oven to make room for other pans.
“In heaven’s name, what is all this food for?” he asked, laughing.
“Have you seen the week-enders swarming up the mountain?”
“Why yes, but they couldn’t eat all this.”
“Don’t you fool yourself!” and Helen gave her dear father a fried apple hug. She was very happy. The beloved parents were back with them. Dr. Wright assured her that her father was improving. The camp had been her very own idea and it was successful. They were making money and she was going to take her share of the profits and give her mother a trip. She, Helen Carter, only eighteen, could do all of this! She had no idea what the profits amounted to, but Nan and Douglas had only the week before congratulated themselves that they were putting more money in the bank than they were drawing out. She cared nothing for money in the bank except as a means of gratifying the ones she loved. The poor little mumsy had been shut up on shipboard for months and surely she deserved some recreation. She was astonished at Douglas for being so stingy. It was plain stinginess that would make her think more of having some paltry savings than of wanting to give to their charming, beautiful little mother her heart’s desire, so Helen thought.
Dr. Wright was smiling on her, too. He seemed to think she was a very remarkable girl, at least that was what one might gather from his expression as he stood by the kitchen and gazed in through the screening at the bright-eyed, eager young cook.
“Where are the other girls?” asked Mr. Carter.
“Oh, they have a million things to do! We always divide up and spread ourselves over the whole camp when the train gets in. Lucy has just finished setting the tables, and that is some job, I can tell you, but Lil Tate and Frank Skeeter always help. Nan has been making mayonnaise enough to run us over Sunday, and now she has gone with Douglas to receive the week-enders and show them their tents and cots. Douglas is the great chief—she does all the buying and supervising, looks after the comfort of the week-enders and sees that everything is kept clean and sanitary. Nan writes all the letters, and believe me, that is no little task. She also makes the mayonnaise and helps me here in the kitchen when I need her, but Gwen is my right hand man. But what am I thinking of? You haven’t even met Gwen!”
The young English girl was looking shyly at the big man and thinking what she would give to have her own father back again. Dr. Wright had told Mr. Carter of Gwen and her romantic history, how Helen had found the wallet in the scrub oak tree containing all of the dead Englishman’s papers, of old Abner Dean’s perfidy in taking the land from Gwen when the receipt had not been found, although the child was sure her father had paid for the side of the mountain before he had built his cabin there. Mr. Carter had been greatly interested in the recital and now his kind friendliness brought a mist to the eyes of the girl.
“I am very glad to know you, my dear. Dr. Wright has told me of you and now I hope to be numbered among your friends.”
Gwen looked so happy and grateful that Helen had to give her father one more fried apple hug before she pushed him out of the kitchen to make room for the important ceremony of dishing up supper.
“Where did I ever get them, Doctor, these girls? Why, they are perfect bricks! To think of my little Helen forgetting the polish on her fingernails and actually cooking! I don’t see where they came from.”
It was rather wonderful and George Wright was somewhat at a loss himself to account for them as he watched the dainty mother of the flock trip lightly across the rough mountain path connecting the cabin with the pavilion. Robert Carter himself had character enough to go around, but when one considered that his character had been alloyed with hers to make this family it was a wonder that they had that within them that could throw off tradition and environment as they had done and undertake this camp that was proving quite a stupendous thing for mere girls.
“Well, Dr. Wright,” trilled Mrs. Carter, “isn’t this a delightful adventure for my girls to have amused themselves with? The girl of the day is certainly an enterprising person. Of course a thing like this must not be carried too far, as there is danger of their forgetting their mission in life.”
“And that mission is——?”
“Being ornaments of society, of course,” laughed the little lady.
Mrs. Carter had long ago overcome the fear she had entertained for the young physician. He had been so unfailingly kind to her and his diagnosis of her husband’s case had been so sure and his treatment so exactly right that she could have nothing but liking and respect for him. She even forgave him the long exile he had subjected her to on that stupid ship. It had cured her Robert and she was willing to have cut herself off from society for those months if by doing so she had contributed to the well-being of her husband. She had been all devotion and unselfishness in the first agony of his illness. The habits of her lifetime had been seemingly torn up by the roots and from being the spoiled and petted darling she had turned into the efficient nurse. As his health returned, however, it had been quite easy to slip back into her former place of being served instead of serving. It was as much Robert Carter’s nature to serve as it was hers to be served. The habits had not been torn up by the roots, after all, but only been trimmed back, and now they were sprouting out with added vigor from their pruning.
Very lovely the little lady looked in her filmy lace dress. Her charming face, framed by its cloud of blue-black hair, showed no trace of having gone through the anxiety of a severe illness of one whom she loved devotedly. Nothing worried her very long and she had the philosophy of a young child, taking no thought of the yesterdays or of the morrows. Dr. Wright looked on her in amazement. Her speaking of the camp as an adventure chosen by the girls as something with which to amuse themselves would have been laughable had it not been irritating to the young man. And now, forsooth, their business in life was to become ornaments of society!
“Humph!” was all he said, although he had to turn on his heel and walk off to keep from asserting that their mission in life should be to become useful members of society. He had a dread of appearing priggish, however, and then this was Helen’s mother and he wanted to do nothing to mar in any way the friendship that had sprung up between that elusive young person and himself.
“Where are all the children, Robert?” asked Mrs. Carter, wondering in her well-bred mind why Dr. Wright should be so brusque.
“There aren’t any children, Annette,” sighed Mr. Carter, “but I shouldn’t sigh but be glad and happy. Why, they are perfect wonders! Helen is in the kitchen, not eating bread and honey, but cooking and bossing, and all the other girls are flying around taking care of the boarders.”
“Boarders! Oh, Robert, what a name to call them! I can’t contemplate it. Who are all those people I saw coming up the road?”
“They are the boarders.”
“Not all that crowd! I thought they had only a select few.”
“No, indeed, they take all that come and I can tell you they have made the place very popular. I did not know they had it in them. I believe it was a good thing I went off my hooks for a while, as it has brought out character in my girls that I did not dream they had.”
“It seems hardly ladylike for them to be so—so—successful at running a boarding place. I wonder what people will say.”
“Why they will say: ‘Hurrah for the Carter Girls!’ At least, that is what the worth-while people will say.”
“Well, if you think it all right, I know it must be,” sighed the poor little lady, “but somehow I think it would be much better for them to have visited Cousin Elizabeth Somerville until we got back or had her visit them in Richmond. I don’t at all approve of their renting my house. Douglas is so coarsened by this living out-of-doors. She has the complexion that must be guarded very carefully or she will lose her beauty very early. I think the summer before a girl makes her debut should be spent taking care of her complexion.”
Robert Carter laughed. He was always intensely amused by his wife’s outlook on life and society and looked upon it as one of her girlish charms. Common sense had not been what made him fall in love with her twenty years before, so the lack of it did not detract in any way from his admiration of her in these latter years. She was what she had always been: beautiful, graceful, sweet, charming; made to be loved, served and spoiled.
“Where is Bobby? He, at least, cannot be busy with these awful boarders.”
“Bobby? Why, he is now engaged in helping Josh, the little mountain boy who is serving as expressman for the girls, to curry Josephus, the mule. These boarders are not awful, my dear. You will find many acquaintances among them. Jeffry Tucker came with his two girls, the twins, and a friend of theirs from Milton, Page Allison is her name. There are several others whom you will be glad to see, I know. I think it would be well for us to go up in the pavilion where they dine and then dance, and you can receive them there as they arrive.”
Mrs. Carter patted her creamy lace dress with a satisfied feeling that she was looking her best. It was a new creation from a most exclusive shop in New York—quite expensive, but then she had had absolutely no new clothes for perfect ages and since the proprietor of the shop had been most pleased to have her open an account with him, the price of the gown was no concern of hers. It set off her pearly skin and dusky hair to perfection. She was glad Jeffry Tucker was at the camp. He was a general favorite in Richmond society and his being there meant at least that her girls had not lessened themselves in the eyes of the elite. Surely he would not bring his daughters to this ridiculous camp unless he felt that it would do nothing toward lowering their position.
The pretty, puzzled lady took her place at one end of the great long dining pavilion as the week-enders swarmed up the steps, attracted hither by the odor of fried apples and hot rolls that was wafted o’er the mountainside.
There had been general rejoicing at Week-End Camp when Nan had announced that Jeffry Tucker and his daughters were to come up for a short stay. The Tuckers were great favorites and were always received with open arms at any place where fun was on foot. Mr. Tucker had written for accommodations for himself and daughters and their friend, Miss Allison.
No one would have been more astonished than Jeffry Tucker, the father of the Heavenly Twins, at the kind of reputation he had with a society woman of Mrs. Carter’s standing. For her to think that his bringing his daughters to the camp meant that he considered it to their social advantage—at least not to their social detriment—would have convulsed that gentleman. He thought no more of the social standing of his daughters Virginia and Caroline (Dum and Dee) than he did of the fourth dimension. He came to the camp and brought his daughters and Page Allison just because he heard it was great fun. He had known Robert Carter all his life and admired and liked him. His daughters had gone to the kindergarten and dancing school with Douglas and Helen and when rumor had it that these girls were actually making a living with week-end boarders at a camp in Albemarle, why it was the most natural thing in the world for the warm-hearted Jeffry Tucker immediately to write for tent room for his little crowd.
I hope my readers are glad to see the Tuckers and Page Allison. The fact of the business is that they are a lively lot and it is difficult to keep them in the pages of their own books. They might have stayed safely there had not the Carter girls started this venture in the mountains. That was too much for them. Zebedee had promised Tweedles again and again to take them camping, and since what they did Page must do too, of course she was included in the promise. This is not their own camp and not their own book but here they are in it!
“Douglas Carter, we think you are the smartest person that ever was!” enthused Dum Tucker as Douglas showed them to their tent where three other girls were to sleep, too. “Isn’t this just too lovely?”
“I’m not smart, it’s Helen who thought up this plan,” insisted Douglas. “We are so glad you have come and we do hope you will like it.”
“Like it! We are wild about it,” cried Dee, and Page Allison was equally enthusiastic.
“Where is Helen?” demanded Dum.
“She is chief cook and can’t make her appearance until she has put the finishing touches to supper.”
“Does she really cook, herself?” cried Dee. “How grand!”
“Sometimes she cooks herself,” drawled Nan, coming into the tent to see the Tuckers, who were great favorites with her, too, “sometimes when we get out of provisions, which we are liable to do now as six persons have come who had not written me for accommodations.”
“Mother and father got here from a long trip this afternoon,” explained Douglas, “and we are so upset over seeing them that we are rather late. Helen usually does all she has to do before the week-enders come.”
“Let us help!” begged Dee. “Dum and I can do lots of stunts, and Page here is a wonderful pie slinger.”
“Well, we would hardly press Miss Allison into service when she has just arrived,” smiled Douglas.
“Please, please don’t Miss Allison me! I’m just Page and my idea of camping is cooking, so if I can help, let me,” and Page, who had said little up to that time, spoke with such genuine frankness that Douglas and Nan felt somehow that a new friend had come into their circle.
“We’ll call on all three of you if we need you,” promised Douglas, hastening off with Nan to see that other guests had found their tents and had what they wanted in the way of water and towels.
“Isn’t this great?” said Dee. “I’m so glad Zebedee thought of coming. I think Douglas Carter looks healthy but awful bothered, somehow.”
“I thought so, too. I’m afraid her father is not so well or something. Think of Helen Carter’s cooking!” wondered Dum.
“Why shouldn’t she?” asked Page. “Is she so superior?”
“No, not that,” tweedled the twins.
“Helen’s fine but so—so—stylish. Mrs. Carter is charming but she is one butterfly and we always rather expected Helen to be just like her—more sense than her mother, but dressy,” continued Dee.
“You will know what Mrs. Carter is, just as soon as you look at her hands,” declared Dum. “If the lilies of the field were blessed with hands they would look exactly like Mrs. Carter’s.”
“Well, come let’s find Zebedee. I smelt apples frying,” and the three friends made their way to the pavilion where Mrs. Carter was receiving the week-enders with all the charm and ceremony she might have employed at a daughter’s debut party.
Her reception of the Tuckers was warm and friendly. It had been months since she had seen anyone who moved in her own circle and now there were many questions to ask of Richmond society. Jeffry Tucker, who could make himself perfectly at home with any type, now laid himself out to be pleasant to his hostess. He told her all the latest news of Franklin street and recounted the gossip that had filtered back from White Sulphur and Warm Springs. He turned himself into a society column and announced engagements and rumors of engagements; who was at the beach and who was at the mountains. He even made a stagger at the list of debutantes for the ensuing winter.
“I mean that Douglas shall come out next winter, too,” said the little lady during the supper that followed. Nan, seeing that her mother was having such a pleasant time with the genial Jeffry Tucker, arranged to have the Tuckers placed at the table that had been set aside for their mother and father. The Carter girls made it a rule to scatter themselves through the crowd the better to look after the hungry and see that no one’s wants were unsatisfied.
“Ah, is that so? I had an idea she was destined for college. It seems to me that Tweedles told me she had passed her Bryn Mawr exams.”
“So she did, but I am glad to say she has given up all idea of that foolishness. I am very anxious for her to make her debut.”
Nan, who was making the rounds of the various tables to see that everyone was served properly, overheard her mother’s remark and glanced shyly at Mr. Tucker. She caught his eye unwittingly but there was something in the look that he gave her that made her know he understood the whole situation and was in sympathy with Douglas, who was very busy at the next table helping hungry week-enders to the rapidly disappearing potato salad.
There was a rather pathetic droop to Douglas’ young shoulders as though the weight of the universe were getting a little too much for her. Mr. Tucker looked from her to Robert Carter who seemed to be accepting things as he found them with an astonishing calmness. He was certainly a changed man. Remembering him as a person of great force and energy, who always took the initiative when any work was to be done or question decided, his old friend wondered at his almost flabby state. Here he was calmly letting his silly wife, because silly she seemed to Jeffry Tucker, although charming and even lovable, put aside his daughter’s desires for an education and force her into society. He could see it all with half an eye and what he could not see for himself the speaking countenance of the third Carter, Nan, was telling him as plainly as a countenance could. He determined to talk with the girl as soon as supper was over and see if he could help her in some way, how, he did not know, but he felt that he might be of some use.
The supper was a very merry one in spite of the depression that had seized poor Douglas. She tried not to let her gloom permeate those around her. Helen was in a perfect gale and the Tucker Twins took their cue from her and the ball of good-humored repartee was tossed back and forth. Tillie Wingo was resplendent in a perfectly new dancing frock. The beaux buzzed around her like bees around a honey pot. The silent Bill Tinsley kept on saying nothing but his calf eyes were more eloquent than any words. He had fallen head over heels in love with the frivolous Tillie from the moment she offered to tip him on the memorable occasion of her first visit to the camp. Lewis Somerville, usually with plenty to say for himself, was almost as silent as his chum, Bill. It seemed as though Douglas’ low spirits had affected her cousin.
“What is it, Douglas?” he whispered, as he took the last plate of salad from her weary hand. “You look all done up. Are you sick?”
“No, indeed! Nothing!”
“When the animals have finished feeding, I want to talk to you. Can you give me a few minutes?”
“Why, of course, Lewis, as many as you want.”
Douglas and Lewis had been friends from the moment they had met. That had been some eighteen years before when Douglas had been crawling on the floor, not yet trusting to her untried legs, and Lewis, just promoted from skirts to breeches, had proudly paraded up and down in front of his baby cousin. There never had been a problem in Douglas’ life that she had not discussed with her friend, but she felt a delicacy in talking about this trouble that had arisen on her horizon because it would mean a certain criticism of both her mother and sister.
“Walk after supper?” Bill whispered to Tillie. “Something to say.” Tillie nodded an assent.
Supper over, the tables and chairs were piled up in a twinkling and the latest dance record put on the Victrola.
“Why, this is delightful!” exclaimed Mrs. Carter, looking around for Mr. Tucker to come claim her for the first dance, but she saw that gentleman disappearing over the mountainside with Nan.
“Nan is entirely too young for such nonsense!” she exclaimed with some asperity, but partners were forthcoming a-plenty so she was soon dancing like any girl of eighteen, while her indulgent husband smoked his pipe and looked contentedly on.
Susan and Oscar washed the dishes with more rattling than usual as Oscar had much grumbling in store for the delinquent Susan.
“Wherefo’ you done lef’ yo’ wuck to Miss Helen?”
“I’s a-helpin’ Mis’ Carter. She kep’ me a-openin’ boxes an’ hangin’ up things. I knowed Miss Helen wouldn’t min’. She thinks her maw oughter have what she wants. I done heard her tell Miss Douglas that she means to see her maw has her desires fulfilled. Sounded mos’ lak qua’llin’ the way the young missises was a-talkin’.”
“Well, all I got to say is that Mis’ Carter ain’t called on to git any mo’ waitin’ on than the young ladies. They’s as blue-blooded as what she is an’ even mo’ so as they is got all the blood she’s got an’ they paw’s beside. I bet she ain’t goin’ to tun a han’ to fill any of these folks up. There she is now a-dancin’ ’round like a teetotaller a-helpin’ the boarders to shake down they victuals. I’ll be boun’ some of these here Hungarians will be empty befo’ bed time.”
It was a wonderful night. The sun had set in a glory of clouds while Oscar was still endeavoring to fill ’em up. The moon was full and “round as the shield of my fathers.” It was very warm with not a breeze stirring. Jeffry Tucker drew Nan down on the first fallen log they came to out of reach of the noise from the pavilion.
“It is fine to be able to leave the city for a while,” he said, drawing in deep breaths of mountain air. “And now, Miss Nan Carter, I want you to tell me what was the reason for the S. O. S. that you sent out to me as plain as one pair of eyes can speak to another. I am a very old friend of your father, have known him ever since I was a little boy at school where I looked up to him and admired him as only a little boy can a big one. I see he is in poor health, at least in a nervous state, and I am wondering if there isn’t something I can do. I don’t want to butt in—you understand that, don’t you? But if I can help, I want to.”
And then Nan Carter did just exactly what everybody always did: she took Jeffry Tucker into her confidence and told him all of the troubles of the family. He listened attentively.
“I see! The rent from the house in Richmond is the only income you can depend upon just now, and your mother wants to live at home again and have Miss Douglas make her debut in state. She has given up college for lack of funds, but she is to make her debut instead—a much more expensive pastime, I fancy. What does your father say?”
“Oh, that is the terrible part of it! We don’t want anyone to appeal to father—he is sure to say that mother must do just as she chooses. He always has said that and he thinks that he is put on earth just to gratify mother’s every wish. Mr. Tucker, please don’t think mother is selfish—it isn’t that—she is just inexperienced.”
“Certainly not! Certainly not!” But that gentleman crossed his fingers and quickly possessed himself of a bit of green leaf, which was the Tucker twins’ method, as children, when they made a remark with a mental reservation, the remark for politeness and the mental reservation for truth.
“You see, if father begins to think that mother wants things that it will take more money to buy, he will go back to work, and Dr. Wright says that nothing but a complete rest will cure him—rest and no worries.”
“Can’t Dr. Wright have a plain talk with your mother and explain matters to her?”
“Ye-e-s, but there is a kind of complication there, too. You see, Dr. Wright had a horrid time at first trying to beat it into us that father was in a bad way. Helen kicked against his diagnosis like I don’t know what, treated Dr. Wright mighty badly. He was fine about it and so patient that by and by Helen came to her senses, and began to appreciate all he had done for father, and she and Dr. Wright are real good friends. Now Helen is siding with mother and thinks that whatever mother wants to do she should do. She even wants Douglas to go to White Sulphur with mother for several weeks, right now in our very busiest season.”
Mr. Tucker could not help laughing at the child by his side, so seriously discussing the trials of her family and now talking about their busiest season like some veteran hotel keeper.
“White Sulphur would mean an added expense, too,” he suggested.
“Of course, and Helen says she will take her share of the summer’s earnings and send mother. Helen is very generous and very impulsive, with no more idea of saving for winter than a grasshopper.”
“This is what I take it you want me to do: make your mother change her mind about going to White Sulphur and decide of her own accord that this winter it would be a mistake to bring Miss Douglas out to make her bow before Richmond society.”
“Exactly! Oh, Mr. Tucker, if you only could without having father even know that mother is not having everything she wants!”
“I’ll do my best. I may have to take Dr. Wright into consultation before I get through. Already a plan is surging in my brain.”
“Let’s fly back to the pavilion then and you start to work!”
Nan forgot to be shy in her eagerness to thank Mr. Tucker for his interest in their affairs and her hurry to get him launched in the undertaking of coercing her mother without that little lady’s knowledge. She wondered if she had spoken too plainly about Dr. Wright and Helen. Nan was sentimental, as one of her poetic nature would be apt to be, and the budding romance that she thought she could spy springing up between Dr. Wright and her sister, far be it from her to blight. She felt sure Dr. Wright would feel it to be his duty to protect his patient from mental worry, but she was also sure that Helen would be quite impatient if Dr. Wright ventured to criticize her mother. What a relief it was to have unbosomed herself to this dear, kind Mr. Tucker, who understood her so readily and still did not seem to think her poor little mother was selfish or silly! (The crossing of fingers and holding something green had escaped her notice.)
“I won’t tell Douglas I have said anything to him,” she promised herself. “It would be difficult to explain that I caught his eye at the supper table and he divined that I was in trouble. That is the truth, though, no matter how silly it sounds.”
She wondered what the plan was that had begun to surge but she determined to leave it to Mr. Tucker. That gentleman, whatever his idea of attack, did not immediately approach her mother but made his way to the middle of the pavilion where he awaited his chance to break in on a dance with Page Allison, his daughters’ friend.
“She may be part of his plan! Who knows? At any rate, I believe he is going to get us out of the trouble somehow.”
As Douglas and Lewis left the pavilion they took the path straight up the mountain. “Let’s go this way and shake the crowd for a little while,” suggested Lewis.
“But we mustn’t be long. Helen will have too much entertaining to do. We can’t get it out of our heads that we must treat these boarders as though we were having a house-party.”
“Well, I reckon that’s the reason you have been so successful. I have heard some of the fellows say that they never hear the chink of coin here. It really seems like a house-party.”
“I am so glad, but I am glad of the chink of coin, too.”
“But, Douglas, I did not bring you out here to talk about boarders and coin—I have got something else to say. Bill and I have just been waiting until Cousin Robert and Cousin Annette got back because we couldn’t leave you without any protection——”
“Leave us! Oh, Lewis!”
“Do you mind really, Douglas?”
“Mind? Why, I can’t tell you how much I mind!”
“We know we have no business staying here indefinitely and we feel we must get to work. We are going to enlist for the Mexican border. We have got over our grouch against Uncle Sam for firing us from West Point and now that he needs us, we are determined to show him we are ready to serve him in any capacity. You know we are right, don’t you?”
“Ye-e-s, but——”
By that time Lewis had taken possession of Douglas’ hands and with a voice filled with emotion, he said:
“I can’t bear to leave you, but now Cousin Robert is here he will make it safe for you. I have tried to help some——”
“Oh, and you have! We couldn’t have done a thing without you and Bill.”
“I don’t know about that. I believe there is no limit to what you Carter girls can do—but, Douglas—honey—before I go to Mexico—I—I just have to tell you how much I love you. I don’t mean like a cousin—I’m not such close kin to you after all—I mean I love you so much that the thought of leaving you is agony. You knew all the time that it was no cousin business, didn’t you, Douglas?”
“Why, Lewis, I never thought of such a thing. You are almost like my brother,” and Douglas devoutly wished the moon would hurry up and get behind a big black cloud that was coming over the mountain.
“Brother much! I’m not the least little bit like a brother. Bill’s got sisters and I don’t believe he is bothering about leaving them one-tenth as much as he is leaving Tillie Wingo. Why, honey, ever since I can remember I have been meaning to get you to marry me when we both grew up. Of course, I can’t ask you to marry me now as I haven’t a piece of prospect and will have to enlist in the ranks and work up, but I mean to work up fast and be so steady that I’ll be a lieutenant before Carranza and Villa can settle their difficulty. Won’t you be engaged to me so I’ll have something to work for until I can see you again?”
“Engaged to you! Why, Lewis, I—I—how can I be when it is so sudden? You never told me before that you cared for me the least little bit.”
“Told you before! Ye Gods and little fishes! I’ve been telling you for pretty near eighteen years.”
“Well, I never heard you!”
“Why don’t you say you don’t give a hang for me and let me go?”
“But, Lewis, I give a whole lot of hangs for you and I don’t want you to go.”
“Oh, I know the kind of hangs you give: just this brother and sister business,” and the young man dropped the girl’s hands.
Douglas felt like crying, but Lewis was so absurd she had to laugh. What time had she to think about getting engaged? She felt as though the whole world rested on her young shoulders. Here was her mother wanting her to make a debut, and Helen wanting to spend on a silly trip the pitiful little money they had begun to save from their boarding camp. And now Lewis Somerville and Bill Tinsley, the brawn and sinew of their undertaking, suddenly deciding that they must enlist and hike out for the Mexican border!
“We must go back to the pavilion,” she said wearily. Her voice sounded very tired and she stumbled a little as she turned to go down the path.
“Now, Douglas, I have distressed you,” and Lewis was all thoughtfulness and consideration. “I didn’t mean to, honey—I just want you to say you love me the way I love you.”
“And I can’t say it, because I never thought of your caring for me in any different way. You are the best friend I have in the world.”
“Well, that is something and I am going to keep on being it. Maybe when I come back from Mexico you will think differently. You will write to me, won’t you?”
“Why, of course I will, Lewis! Haven’t I always written to you?”
“Douglas, don’t you think you could love me a little?”
“But, Lewis, I do love you a whole lot!”
“But I mean be engaged to me?”
“Lewis Somerville, would you want me to be engaged to you when you know perfectly well that I have never thought of you except as the very best friend I’ve got in the world, and if not as a brother, at least as a cousin who has been almost like a brother? If I did engage myself to you, you wouldn’t have the least bit of respect for me and you know you wouldn’t; would you?”
But Lewis would not answer. He just drew her arm in his and silently led her back to the pavilion. The big cloud had made its way in front of the moon and he took advantage of the darkness to kiss her hand, but he was very gentle and seemingly resigned to the brother business that he had so scorned. His youthful countenance was very sad and stern, however, as he turned and made his way to the tent that he shared with Bill and Bobby.
Bill Tinsley and Tillie Wingo, too, were walking on the mountainside, Bill as silent as the grave but in a broad grin while Tillie kept up her accustomed chatter. It flowed from her rosy lips with no more effort than water from a mountain spring.
“Do you know, Mr. Tinsley, that I have danced out five dresses this summer? As for shoes! If Helen had not given me some of her slippers, I would be barefooted this minute. I don’t mind this rough dressing in the day time, but I must say when evening comes I like to doll up. I believe Mrs. Carter feels the same way. Isn’t that a lovely dress she has on this evening? There is no telling what it cost. If their mother can buy such a frock as that, I think it is absurd for the girls to be working so hard—and believe me, they are some workers. Now, I’m real practical and know how to dress on very little and, if I do say it that shouldn’t, I bet there is not a girl in Richmond who makes a better appearance on as little money as I spend, but I know what things cost—you can’t fool me—and I’m able to tell across the room that that filmy lace effect that Mrs. Carter is sporting set her back a good seventy-five.”
“Whew!” from Bill.
“Easy, seventy-five, I say, and maybe more! It would take a lot of week-enders to pay for it and I bet she no more thinks about it than she does about the air she breathes. Now she wants to bring Douglas out and you know she wouldn’t be willing to let her come out like a poor girl—no sirree! Douglas would have to have all kinds of clothes and all kinds of parties. She would have to come out in a blaze of glory if her mother has a finger in it. Girls who come out that way don’t have such a lot on the ones who just quietly crawl out—like I did, f’instance. I just quietly crawled—you could not call it coming——”
Here Bill gave one of his great laughs, breaking his vow of silence. At least it seemed as though he must have made such a vow as through all of Tillie’s chatter he had uttered not one word more than the “Whew” over Mrs. Carter’s extravagance. The picture of Tillie’s quietly crawling got the better of his risibles.
“You needn’t laugh! I can assure you I came out in home-made clothes and during the entire winter I had not one thing done for me to push me in society—not a cup of tea was handed in my name. One lady did put my card in some invitations she got out, trying to relaunch a daughter who had been out for three seasons and gone in again, but she had an inconvenient death in the family and had to recall the invitations; so I got no good of it after all. Not that I cared—goodness no! I had all the fun there was to have and I’m still having, although I’m not able to keep in the swim, giving entertainments and what not. Of course, I was not included in select luncheons and dinner dances and the like. Those expensive blowouts are given with a view of returning all kinds of obligations or of putting people in your debt so you are included in theirs—but I got to all the big things and got there without the least wire-pulling or working. Of course, I did get to some of the small things because I was run in a lot as substitute when some girl dropped out. I wasn’t proud and did not mind in the least being second or third choice. People who never entertain need not expect to be on the original list. I just took a sensible view of the matter. I tell you, if a girl wants to have a good time she’s got no business with a chip on her shoulder. Society is a give-and-take game and if you are poorish and want to get without giving, you’ve got to be willing to do a lot in the way of swallowing your pride. At least, I had no slights offered me where the dancing men were concerned. I made every german and that is something many a rich debutante can’t say for herself.”
Tillie paused for breath and then Bill opened his mouth to speak, but the loquacious Tillie got in before he could begin and he had to wait.
“Now I believe Douglas would have lots of attention even if her mother did nothing to help on, but Mrs. Carter would enjoy having a daughter in society more than a daughter would enjoy being there, I believe, and she would be entertaining and spending money from morning until night. Of course, Lewis Somerville would be lots of help as he would stand ready to take Douglas anywhere that she did not get a bid from some other man——”
“But Lewis’ll be gone,” broke in Bill.
“Gone! Nonsense! Now that he is out of West Point I’ll be bound he will just dance attendance on Douglas. He is dead gone on her. That helps a lot in a girl’s first year: to have a devoted—that is, if he is not silly jealous.”
“He’ll be gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Mexican border!”
“But he is out of soldiering.”
“Both of us enlisting!” Tillie was absolutely silenced for a moment and Bill went on: “See here, Miss Wingo, Tillie! I’d be glad if you would—if—I’m stuck on you for sure.”
“Oh, come off! You know you think I’m the silliest ever.”
“I think you are about the prettiest, jolliest ever. I wish you would let me go off to Mexico engaged to you. It would make it lots easier to work and I mean to work like a whole regiment and make good. Won’t you, Tillie?”
“Well, I don’t care if I do. You are a fine dancer and I think a heap of you, Bill. I’d rather keep it dark, though, if you don’t mind, as it queers a girl’s game sometimes if she gets engaged.”
“Lord, no! I don’t mind just so I know it myself,” and the happy Bill enfolded his enamorata in his arms, although she carefully admonished him not to crush her new dress.
“I never dreamed you were thinking about me seriously,” she confessed as she emerged from his embrace.
“Honest? Been dotty about you ever since you took me for a jitney driver and tipped me a quarter. Got it yet.”
“Look how dark it is! I believe we are going to have a storm. What a great black cloud! Let’s hurry, as I have no idea of getting my frock wet.”
Hurry they did and reached the pavilion just as great drops began to fall. Bill was in a state of happy excitement over his engagement, although it was something he must keep to himself. He felt like shouting it on the housetops, but instead he gave one of his great laughs that startled Mrs. Carter so she stopped dancing and hunted up Bobby.
“It sounded like bears and lions,” she declared, “and I felt uneasy about my baby.”
She found that youngster fast asleep cuddled up in his father’s arms, the father looking very happy and peaceful. Robert Carter felt quite like a little child himself with his great girls taking care of him.
That storm was always known as “The Storm” by everyone who was at the Week-End Camp on that night in August. Greendale had been singularly free from severe storms that season and the Carters had had no difficulty up to that time in keeping dry. They had had rain in plenty but never great downpours and their mountain had escaped the lightning that on several occasions had played havoc not many miles from them.
The day had been exceptionally warm but very clear. The full moon had taken the place of the sun when night came on and so brilliant was the glow from that heavenly orb, one could almost fancy heat was reflected as well as light. The great black cloud that came rolling over the mountain was as much an astonishment to the dancers in the pavilion as it was to the moon herself. They refused to recognize the fact that a storm was coming up and the moon also held her own for some time after the downpour was upon them. She kept peeping out through rifts in the clouds and once when the storm was at its fiercest she sailed clear of all clouds for a few moments, and then it was that the rarest of all beauties in Nature was beheld by the damp and huddled-up crowd of week-enders: a lunar rainbow.
It stretched across the valley, a perfect arc with the colors as clearly defined as a solar bow but infinitely more delicate than any rainbow ever beheld before.
There was no such thing as keeping dry. When Lewis Somerville and Bill Tinsley built the pavilion, they had kept exactly to the architect’s plans, drawn so carefully by Robert Carter’s assistant, Mr. Lane. The roof projected so far on every side that they had remarked at the time that nothing short of horizontal rain could find its way under that roof. Well, this rain was horizontal and it came in first one direction and then another until every bit of floor space was flooded. The thunder sounded like stage thunder made by rolling barrels of bricks down inclined planes and helped out with the bass drum. Great clouds rested on the mountain tops and a wind, that seemed demoniacal in the tricks it played, bent over great forest trees as though they were saplings and then let them snap back into place with a deafening crack.
“Save the Victrola,” whispered Tillie to Bill. “I want to dance with you once before you go off, and water will ruin it.”
That was enough for the devoted Bill. He took off his coat and wrapped it tenderly over the top of the Victrola, which was still playing a gay dance tune as no one had had the presence of mind to stop it. Then he made a dash for the kitchen just as a river of water was descending and in a twinkling was back bearing in his arms a great tin tub. This he placed over the top of the precious music-maker. He felt very tender toward Tillie just then for although her new dress was being ruined, still her first thought had been for the Victrola so she could dance with him.
The storm having come up so suddenly found the crowd totally unprepared. Tent flys had been left up and the windows and door of the cabin, where Mrs. Carter was installed, were wide open for the four winds of heaven to blow through. Sad havoc they played with the dainty finery that Mrs. Carter and Susan had left spread out on the bed. The wonderful hat, brought as a present for Douglas, was picked up the next morning half way down the mountain; at least the ruin was supposed to be that hat but it was never quite identified as it had lost all semblance to a hat.
Lewis, after hearing the ultimatum from Douglas, as I have said, made his solitary way to his tent where he threw himself on his cot to fight it out with his disappointed self. A dash of rain on his tent aroused him and then a mighty gust of wind simply picked up the tent and wafted it away like thistledown.
“Well, of all——” but Lewis never finished of all the what, but in a twinkling he had rolled up the bed clothes belonging to himself and his tent mates, and then rushing to the neighboring tents that were still withstanding the raging hurricane he rolled up blankets found there and piled cots on top of the bundles.
It was a real fight, strong man that he was, to make his way to the pavilion. Trees were bending before the wind and he found the only way to locomote was to crawl.
“Just suppose the pavilion doesn’t hold!” was ringing in his mind; but the young men “had builded better than they knew.” It did hold although the roof was straining at the rafters and Lewis and Bill feared every moment it might rise up and float off as their tent had done.
Lewis came under cover wetter than he would have been had he been in swimming, he declared. Swimming just soaks the water in but the rain had beat it in and hammered it down. The wind was still driving the rain in horizontal sheets and the pavilion was getting damper and damper. The week-enders were a very forlorn looking crowd and no doubt the majority of them were far from blessing the day that had brought them to the camp in Albemarle. They ran from corner to corner trying to get out of the searching flood.
“I know they are blaming it on us!” cried Nan to Mr. Tucker.
“Who is blaming it on you?” laughed Page Allison. “Why, honey, it may be doing worse things in other places. We should be thankful we are on a mountain top instead of in a valley.” Then she drew Mr. Tucker aside and whispered to him: “See here, Zebedee, don’t you think it is up to us somehow to relieve this situation? If we get giddy and act as though it were a privilege to be wet to the skin, don’t you think we might stir up these people and make a lark of this storm instead of a calamity? You remember you told me once that you and Miss Jinny Cox saved the day for a picnic at Monticello when a deluge hit you there?”
Zebedee was the Tucker Twins’ pet name for their father, and Page Allison, their best friend, was also privileged to use the name for that eternally youthful gentleman.
“I’ve been thinking we must do something, but the lightning is so severe that somehow I think I must wait.”
“You are like Mammy Susan who says: ’Whin the Almighty is a-doing his wuck ain’t the time fur a po’ ole nigger ter be a-doin’ hern.’”
“Exactly! But it is letting up a bit now, that is, the lightning is, but the rain is even more terrific.”
A great crash of thunder, coming simultaneously with a flash of lightning that cracked like a whip, put a stop to conversation, and Page, in spite of her bravery, for she was not the least afraid of storms as a rule—clung to Mr. Tucker. Everybody was clinging to everybody else and in the stress of the moment no one was choosy about the person to cling to. Bill cursed his stars that Tillie was hanging on to Skeeter, as pale as a little ghost, when she might just as well be hanging on to him, while he, in turn, was supporting a strange person he had never even met.
“That hit close to us!” exclaimed someone.
“I believe it hit me!” screamed a girl.
“Where are Susan and Oscar?” cried Douglas. “They will be scared to death.”
“When I went down in the kitchen after the tub for the Victrola, Oscar was under the table and Susan was trying to get in the fireless cooker, head first,” volunteered Bill. “The kitchen is really the dryest place on the mountain, I fancy.”
“You forget the shower bath,” suggested Helen. “Turn it on full force and it would still be a thousand times dryer than any place here.”
“I tell you what let’s do!” spoke Dum Tucker with an inspiration that all regretted had not come sooner. “Let’s climb up and sit on the rafters!”
Suiting the action to the word, she lightly ascended the trunk of the huge tulip poplar tree that had been left in the center of the pavilion as a support to the roof. The branches had been sawed off, leaving enough projecting to serve as hat racks for the camp. These made an admirable winding stair which an athletic girl like Dum Tucker made nothing of climbing.
“Splendid!” and Dee Tucker followed her twin. In short order many of the more venturesome members of the party were perched on the rafters where they defied the rain to reach them. Even poor Mrs. Carter, her pretty lace dress, if not absolutely ruined, at least with all of its first freshness gone, was persuaded to come up, too, and there she sat trembling and miserable.
“Come on up, Page!” shouted Dee to her chum.
“I’ll be there soon,” but Page had an idea that she meant first to propose to Douglas.
Poor Douglas, this was a fitting ending to a day of worry and concern. She felt like one