THE BIRTHDAY PARTY.
"Tickets, please!" this from the Pullman conductor, a tall, soldierly
looking person with a very grim mouth.
He punched all of us in sober silence. Harvie and Zebedee had not had
time to buy Pullman seats, as they had been so taken up with the robing
of Brindle. At the last minute Harvie had rushed to the ticket window
and secured their tickets but they had to pay for their seats on the
train. In making the change the conductor dropped some silver, and in
stooping for it he and Zebedee bumped heads. Then the official was
thrown by a lurching of the train against our precious baby's feet. This
was too much for the patient Brindle and he emitted a low and ominous
growl. The conductor looked much startled. We sat electrified. The ever
tactful Dee arose to the occasion.
"Why, honey, Mother didn't tell you to go like a bow wow. I thought my
precious was asleep." Turning to the mystified conductor she continued,
"He has so many cunning little tricks and we never know when he is going
to get them off. He can go moo like a cow, and mew like a kitty, and can
grunt just like a piggy wiggy," and what should that dog, with human
intelligence, do but give a most astounding lifelike grunt. The
conductor's grim mouth broke into a grin and we went off into such
shouts of laughter that if Brindle had not been a very well-behaved
person he would certainly have barked with us.
Zebedee followed the man to the end of the car and with the aid of one
of his very good and ever ready cigars, and a little extra payment of
fare, persuaded him to let our whole crowd move into the drawing-room,
explaining that we were to lunch on the train. When we were once settled
in the drawing-room with a little table ready for the spread to which
all of us were prepared to contribute (remembering from the year before
the meagre bill of fare the buffet on that train offered), Dum disclosed
the contents of the precious big box which she carried. It was a
wonderful Lady Baltimore cake. A single pink candle was tucked in the
side of the box and this was stuck in the centre of the delectable
confection.
"Whose birthday is it? I didn't know it was anybody's," I said.
"Why, this is the birthday of our friendship, yours and Annie's and the
Tuckers'," tweedled the twins.
"We felt like commemorating it somehow," explained Zebedee. "You see, it
is one of the best things that ever happened to us."
"Me, too!" chimed in Annie and I. And so it was.
When, the year before, Annie and I had been sitting in the station
waiting for the train to Gresham, Annie was as forlorn a specimen of
little English girl as could be found in America, I am sure; and while I
was not forlorn, just because I never am forlorn as my interest in
people is so intense that I am always sure something exciting is going
to happen in a moment, no doubt I looked almost as forlorn as Annie,
alone and friendless. The Tuckers, ever charming and delightful, came
bounding into our presence, and they have been doing it ever since. They
always come with some scheme for fun and frolic and their ever ready wit
and good humour has an effect on all with whom they come in contact.
Annie was certainly made over by a year's friendship with them. Some of
the teachers at Gresham thought I had worked the change in Annie, but I
just know it was the twins.
As for Mr. Tucker--Zebedee--he was next to my father in my regard, and
so different from my father that they could go along abreast without
taking from each other. There was never such a man as Mr. Tucker.
Thirty-seven himself and the father of twins of sixteen, he seemed to
have bathed in the fountain of eternal youth,--and yet I have seen him,
when occasion demanded it, assume the dignity of a George Washington.
Occasion did not demand it at that birthday party and so he "frisked and
he frolicked" very like the little rabs in the Uncle Remus story. One
could never tell where he would be next. I knew a great deal of his glee
was assumed to keep up the spirits of his dear Tweedles as the time for
the arrival at the fateful junction was slowly but surely approaching.
It was very early for luncheon but have it we must before Harvie and
Zebedee left us. Mammy Susan had as usual put up enough food for a
regiment in my lunch box. But enough food for a regiment seems to vanish
before a mere squad if it happens to be as good food as my dear old
Mammy Susan was sure to provide.
What fun we had! The little table groaned with good things to eat. Even
the baby's blue veil was carefully removed and he was allowed a large
slice of Lady Baltimore, which he gobbled up in most unseemly haste. The
little pink candle burned merrily and the toasts were most sincere:
that there would be many, many happy returns of the day, as many, in
fact, as there were to be days. Our friendship, now only a year old, was
to live as long as we did, and we determined then and there to celebrate
every year that we could. September fifteenth was to be a red letter day
with us wherever we might be.
The Junction was imminent and it meant telling good-bye to Zebedee,
Harvie and Brindle. Dum grumbled a little about the loss of her veil but
Brindle had to make his return trip in the same role of baby, and
Annie's petticoat and Dum's veil had to be sacrificed. Zebedee promised
to return them in short order. The pain of parting was much lessened by
the amusement caused by the appearance of man and baby. He held the
infant with great and loving care and Brindle chortled and gurgled with
satisfaction.
The Pullman conductor said nothing as Zebedee disembarked but his eyes
had an unwonted twinkle and his grim mouth was twitching at the corners.
I believe he knew all the time but could not bear to break up our
pleasant party by consigning Brindle to the baggage car. The train
conductor was in a broad grin and the porter looked dazed.
"Is you partin' from yo' baby, lady?" he said to Dee.
"Yes!" wept Dee with real Tucker tears, "he has to go back with his
grandfather."
"Grandpaw? That there ain't no grandpaw, that young gent."
"Yes, he is," sobbed Dee. "He is just as much Jo Jo's grandfather as I
am his mother, and I am certainly all the mother he has, poor lamb," and
the kindly coloured man looked very sorry for the grieving young mother.
"Is you fo'ced by circumstantials over which you ain't got controlment
to abandon yo' offspring?" he questioned.
"Yes," blundered Dee, something rare with her, "I have to go to boarding
school and they don't allow do----babies there."
"Well, well, too bad! Too bad! It pears like a pity you couldn't a got
studyin' off'n yo mind befo' you indulged in matrimonial venturesomes.
When a young lady gits married, she--"
"Oh, I'm not married!" The porter's eyes turned white, he rolled them up
so far. Dee saw her break and hastened to her own rescue. The rest of us
were petrified with suppressed merriment. "That is, I'm not to say much
married; you see, my husband is dead."
"Oh! Sorrow is indeed visited you early. But grieve not. One so young as
you is kin git many husbands, perhaps, befo' the day of recognition
arrives."
We were glad when his duties called him off because the laugh in us was
obliged to come out. Our train backed up to get on the other track and
the last we saw of Zebedee and Harvie they were standing in dejected
attitudes, Zebedee grasping a squirming Brindle firmly in his arms while
Harvie, acting as train-bearer, gracefully held aloft the trailing
petticoat. Brindle had espied through the blue veil a possible canine
acquaintance and was struggling with all his might to get down and make
either a friend or enemy as the case might prove.
Dee simply had to stop crying; in fact, she had stopped long before she
felt that she should. She was forced to squeeze tears out to keep up the
deception she had begun.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive."
"You came mighty near making yourself your own grandmother, you got so
mixed up," laughed Dum. "Brindle is so pedigreed I don't believe he
would thank you for the bar sinister you put on him."