NODS AND BECKS.
"'Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods and Becks, and Wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek.'"
quoted Mary Flannagan. "There is a name for our magazine, right there in
sober-sided old Milton."
"Why, that's as hackneyed as can be," objected Dum. "It seems to me that
every school magazine I ever read was called 'Quips and Cranks.' Let's
get something real original and different and try to make the mag the
same way."
"Of course I didn't mean 'Quips and Cranks.' I mean 'Nods and Becks.' I
think that would be a bully name."
And so did all of us, and "Nods and Becks" was unanimously elected as
the name for the school paper that we were striving to get out before
Christmas.
I was chosen editor-in-chief, much to my astonishment. It seemed to me
that one of the Tuckers should have had that job, with their father a
real live editor. They must have inherited some of his ability; but the
Lit. Society would have me and I had to turn in and do the best I could.
I didn't mind the writing end of it so much as the part I had in turning
down some of the effusions that were handed in by members of the
society. Our object in the publishing of this magazine was to make it as
light and gay as possible.
We had chosen Christmas as our season for publication and that meant
getting very busy after our Thanksgiving jaunt. We really had intended
to use the little holiday we were to have at that time to get our
magazine in shape. We called it a magazine for dignity, but it was
really more of a newspaper.
I am going to publish the whole thing just to show what girls can do at
school. Every one thought it was very creditable. We had lots of ads
from the tradespeople at Gresham and a few from Richmond firms, enough
to pay for the printing.
CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF
_NODS AND BECKS_.
GRESHAM, VA.
SONNET TO SANTA CLAUS.
BY PAGE ALLISON.
Pan may be dead, but Santa Claus remains,
And once a year he riseth in his might.
Oft have I heard, in silences of night,
Tinkling of bells and clink of reindeer chains
As o'er the roof he sped through his domains,
When youthful eyes had given up the fight
To glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight,
Who in a trusting world unchallenged reigns.
Last and the greatest of all Gods is he,
Who suffereth little children and is kind;
And when I've rounded out my earthly span
And face at last the Ancient Mystery,
I hope somewhere in Heaven I shall find
Rest on the bosom of that good old man.
BEAUTY HINTS AND ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
BY MARY FLANNAGAN.
Dear Editor:
I have cut two sleeves for the wrong arm in trying
to make my new velour coat out of half a yard less
goods than the pattern called for. I can't match
the goods now. What must I do?
(signed) AGITATED KATE.
Dear Kate:
Put one sleeve in hind part before and then get a
Teddy Bear or a plush monkey matching your coat as
near as possible or in pleasing contrast to it if
you can't get it to match, and tack it under your
arm. It will hide the discrepancy and at the same
time give a chic, stylish punch to your costume.
It would be better to sew it as you would find it
something of a strain on bargain days to have to
hold it and you might forget.
(signed) EDITOR OF BEAUTY HINTS.
Dear Editor:
I am losing my good figure. What can I do to keep
it?
(signed) SYLVIA.
Dear Sylvia:
Pin it on tighter. Try black safety pins, they
seem to be stronger than white.
(signed) EDITOR OF BEAUTY HINTS.
FACTS ABOUT FATIMA.
It is the style to be tall and slender. Assume a virtue if you have it
not and you who are short and fat, don't grow any shorter and fatter.
The following obesity rules will prove very helpful to my correspondent
who signs herself, Miss Rosy Round:
Stand up for twenty minutes after meals (if you must have meals).
Eat no potatoes.
Eat no bread.
Avoid all starchy food.
Avoid meats of all kinds.
Fish is fattening.
Never touch sweets or pastry.
Eat no fruit for fear of uric acid.
Never drink water with your meals, but between meals do nothing but
drink water, all the time that you can spare from the gymnastics that
must be kept up to keep down the disfiguring fat.
Always leave the table hungry, but take a pickle with you, a large dill
pickle is the best for your purpose. Eat a great deal of pickle; it may
ruin your complexion but a good complexion is only skin deep while
fatness goes straight through.
Sleep in your stays if you can, but if you can't just don't sleep. Sleep
is a fattening habit at best. Keep a pickle under your pillow and take a
bite when you think of it.
Lose your temper on all occasions, as nothing is more conducive to
stoutness than placidity.
Stop speaking of yourself as a Fatty, and begin to speak of yourself as
slender. Remember the power of Mind over Matter. Lead a lean life and
think thin thoughts; dress in diaphanous gauze; make hair-splitting
distinctions; talk and think much of your slender purse; walk the narrow
way and have ever in your mind the eye of the needle through which you
shall finally have to pass.--Before you know it you will lose pounds and
pounds of flesh.
RECIPES TRIED IN MY OWN KITCHEN (NIT).
BY CAROLINE TUCKER.
A GRESHAM CLUB SANDWICH.
Take two tender new pupils (Freshmen preferred, Juniors out of the
question), stick them together in a corner, with a thin slice of reserve
between them, season to taste with some spicy gossip and a little
lollapalusser. After a year in a cool place they will be fit to eat.
* * * * *
BROWN BETTY A LA FACULTY.
Take two crusty members of the faculty and let them grate against each
other until both are reduced to crumbs. Place in baking dish a layer of
crumbs and a layer of tart apples of discord well chopped. Sweeten well
with high-toned politeness, veiled with sarcasm. Serve piping hot with
the same kind of sauce you give to the gander.
* * * * *
FRENCH DRESSING AS SERVED AT GRESHAM.
Let the ingredients stay in bed until ten minutes before breakfast, then
in a wild scramble cover with a thin layer of clothes without the
formality of bathing or even taking off nightgown when breakfasting _en
famille_. Do hair with a lick and a promise and beat all the other girls
to the table.
* * * * *
FASHION NOTES.
BY VIRGINIA TUCKER.
The newest fad among the women who know and know they know, is to have
their perfume harmonize with their costumes. An up-to-date society woman
would no more wear a blue dress and smell of lavender sachet than she
would wear a lavender hat with said blue dress. Vera Violet must go with
a purple dress; Attar of Roses with a pink; New Mown Hay with
green,--and so on.
One very smart grande dame at a fine function, given lately at Gresham,
gowned in a biscuit-coloured broadcloth, had a faint, delicious odour of
hot rolls.
* * * * *
Hats are still worn hind part before and veils are put on to stay with
no visible opening. One wonders sometimes "how the apple got in the
dumpling."
Some of the newest veils have a sliding dot, to be worn over or near the
mouth. This can be opened by one knowing the combination and then a
small aperture is discovered that will admit of a straw. The soft drink
drugstore man need not despair.
* * * * *
It is not considered good taste to wear more than three shades of false
hair at one time, and a similarity in the texture of the material used
should be aimed at. The puffs must be of one shade and material although
it would be too much to expect of a woman to have them match absolutely
with the switch, rat, pompadour and bun.
Rats are no longer in vogue but traps are now considered the sanitary
and proper things. This steel construction lowers the fire rates, which
is much in its favour. If we keep on with this false hair craze what
will we come to? Perhaps to the fate of:
"This old man with a very long beard,
Who said: ''Tis just as I feared,
A lark and a wren,
Two owls and a hen
Have builded a nest in my beard.'"
If you have not hair enough of your own to cover the springs, there are
plenty of kinds, colours and materials resembling human hair to be
bought for a song. Goat hair is used a great deal as it is very durable
and strong,--too strong in one sense, as:--
"You may break, you may shatter
The vase as you will,
But the scent of the roses
Will cling 'round it still."
* * * * *
JOKES AND NEAR JOKES.
NANCY BLAIR, EDITOR.
The son of an eminent preacher was greatly interested in the story of
Adam and Eve. One night the child seemed very restless, tossing and
turning in his crib. The father leaned over him, asking: "My child, what
is the matter? Why don't you go to sleep?"
"Oh, Father, I can't! I've got such a pain in my ribs. I'm awful 'fraid
God is sending me a wife."
* * * * *
Little Anne, aged five, was asked what she was fasting on during Lent.
She answered, "Washing my hands."
* * * * *
A little girl who had never been to a wedding was greatly excited when
one was going on across the street. She was especially interested in the
little flower girls as they tripped out of the carriage in their dainty
white frocks.
"Mother!" she exclaimed. "If Daddy dies, will you marry again?"
"No, my dear! Never! Why do you ask?"
"'Cause, Mother, I do so hope you will and let me be your little flower
girl."
* * * * *
Customer--That was the driest, flattest sandwich I ever tried to chew
into!
Waiter--Why, here is your sandwich! You ate your check.
* * * * *
One of the Sophomores wants to take Psychology because she says she
understands that a course in it teaches you to do your hair up in a
lovely Psyche knot--A Psychic Phenomenon!
* * * * *
Jean Rice has burst into poetry, viz.:
"Come to my arms,
You bundle of charms!
With the greatest enthusiasm
I will clasp you to my bosiasm."
Lines written to Miss Polly Kent:
There was a young lady named Kent,
Who declared she had not a cent,
She remembered a quarter
She had hid in her garter,
But on looking found that, too, had went.
* * * * *
A touching poem addressed to Miss Grace Greer, of Chicago, Ill.
Miss Greer is the champion gum-chewer of Gresham.
There was a young maid from the West,
Who chewed gum with such marvelous zest,
That they named a committee,
Both tactful and witty
Who suggested she let her jaws rest.
* * * * *
THE CORRESPONDENCE CURE.
BY PAGE ALLISON.
CHAPTER I.
"That's just what I'll do for you, Hal. I'll write to this Uncle Sam
person and get him to give you one of his letter treatments," said Mr.
Allen, Hal's daddy.
Jo Allen was so young that his incorrigible young son called him by his
first name and regarded him as "one of the fellers" instead of a
father; consequently he thought his own judgment as reliable as his
Dad's and paid as much heed to his orders and requests as he would to
one of the "fellers."
"Thunder! I ain't sick. What I gotter have a treatment for?"
"I didn't mean anything like paregoric, or milk and eggs and a
teaspoonful of this in half a glass of water after meals. It seems to be
something like this: an old man, calling himself 'Uncle Sam,' advertises
in the _Times_ that he will write fatherly letters to difficult boys for
$50.00 a course."
"Aw, Jo! I swear, I bet it's a lot of stuff about 'do unto others.'" Hal
always objected to other people's suggestions.
"Well, we'll take a chance on it. You don't like my methods, if you can
call 'em that. You are my first and only offspring and I don't seem to
have much maternal instinct and no judgment where you are concerned.
Son, it is as hard for you not to have your mother as it is for me not
to have my wife."
"It's all right, Jo, you know more 'bout being a father than I do 'bout
being a son. But bring on your Uncle Sam and we can see what will
happen. I don't have to read the letters if he writes a lot of rot."
"Nine o'clock! I ought to be at the office and and you ought to be at
school. Don't play hookey again to-day," Jo Allen said as he reached for
his hat.
Jo was a corporation lawyer and when he told the other members of his
firm about his latest plans for bringing up his son, they all laughed.
"What next, Jo? 'Sons put on the right path by mail.' It's a joke all
right and so are you and Hal. You can't do a thing with that kid! When
he stole the preacher's white horse and painted 'Hell' on it you just
laughed. Why don't you beat him up a little?" inquired Jones
good-naturedly.
"But he is not downright bad, he is just mischievous and full of life. I
can't do anything to him because it is all just what I used to do when
I was a kid,--behold the monument!"
"He looks so much like you that I always think something has happened to
the clock and it is twenty years ago whenever I see him. He's got your
snappy grey eyes and black hair and Sally's Greek instead of our honored
partner's 'Roaming.'"
Jo was always pleased when it was said that his son looked like him, for
he knew that they were both of them extremely goodlooking. And, too, he
was secretly proud of his slightly Roman nose, which did add a certain
air of distinction to such a young man.
He dictated a letter to Uncle Sam and two days later Hal got the first
installment.
"Dear Hal:
"When I was a boy of twelve, just your age, I had
just about the reputation you have. But my father
had a family of seven children, of which I was the
youngest, so when I cut up he knew just what to do
with me. He realized that I had a great deal of
surplus energy and having no good way of working
it off, I always got into mischief and sometimes
into rather serious trouble.
"Your Dad told me about your stealing the
minister's horse and putting a large red 'Hell' on
one of his sides. When I was a boy I remember that
I made a bomb out of a little powder and an old
sock and put it under the porch of a Negro church
(Hal, as man to man, I trust you not to try this
stunt). Of course I stayed to watch the fun. I
thought the fuse was longer than it was and came
closer to adjust it--Bang! and I was left with no
eyebrows. I was too scared to run and the darkeys
began to pour out, threatening darkly as to the
future welfare of my soul. They caught me and took
me to the county lockup. That evening my brother
came and bailed me out. My father asked me where
my eyebrows were, and I said, 'I reckon part of
them are by the Nigger church.' Of course he
gradually got the details and a very thick silence
followed. Then he told me just what I am going to
tell you. But first,--Hal, don't you think it's
funny what a passion all boys have to torment the
parsons of both the white and black race? I do.
"Dad said that I needed to be kept busy and with
something that gave me pleasure. He was never
strong on punishment and he suggested something
that pleased me mightily. He said that if I would
build a canoe and a pair of paddles by the last of
May he would give me and three of my friends a
camp for two weeks by the river. I was glad my
eyebrows were gone, for who doesn't like to camp?
"Now, Son, you ask your dad if he won't make this
same agreement. You have a month to do it in and I
reckon you can have a dandy canoe made by that
time.
"Let me know what Mr. Allen says.
"Sincerely,
"UNCLE SAM."
Hal looked over the letter at his daddy and thought a minute. Then he
said: "Jo, this here Uncle Sam ain't so worse. Here's a pretty decent
thought that rattled out of his head." Mr. Allen took the letter and
read it and then he, too, thought a minute.
"I'm on, Son," he said, "and you can have your friends to help you."
"All right! Then shall I write and tell our darling Unkil that it's a
go?"
And this was the letter Uncle Sam got from the "wayward youth he was
trying to straighten out":
"Mr. Uncle Sam,
---- Building,
New York.
"Dear Uncle S.:
"Yours of the inst. rec'd., first. Jo--that's my
dad and He's a peach too let me tell you--says
your idea suits him fine and anyway he always goes
to New York the first two weeks in June on
business and then I have to stay with Aunt Maria
at Sunny Glen and I hate it because she is so
clean. I hate to milk too and she is so afraid
I'll get drowned when I swim in the icepond. She
is a terrible nut because I can swim fine. I've
got a monogram for my sweater for swimming at the
Y. M. C. A. pool and that's bigger and deeper than
old spit-in-the-fire Aunt Maria's dinky little
icepond. Daddy took me in the roadster over to the
next town to order the stuff for the canoe. What
do you think would be a good name for her after we
finish it? We've put up part of the skeleton
already. Sometimes on a straight road Jo lets me
run the roadster--it's a Mercer. Do you like
Mercers? I like them the best and so does Jo. I
can't change gear very good yet and I am too young
to get a license but I am strong enough to crank
it. I've got right much muscle. Did you like to
fight when you were a boy? I love my black eyes on
other people. Jo says it is tough to fight, so he
boxes with me. He can box fine, too. He can beat
me swimming and diving all to pieces, too. I've
got to stop now because Pete is whistling for me
to come catch with him.
"Rept. HAL ALLEN."
CHAPTER II.
"Jo, I wish you would bring me a Remington rifle from New York. I'm old
enough to have a good one now, and tell my reformer I named the canoe
'Uncle Sam'. I like that old man so much I wish he'd come down here to
live."
"So long, Son! I hope you will have a peach of a time at your camp. Oh,
yes! Aunt Maria told me to be sure and tell you not to go swimming but
once a day, but I always lived in my bathing suit--at least we will say
I had a bathing suit--and you can do the same."
It was only an hour's trip to New York and Jo was busy thinking about
the change in Hal and wondering if Uncle Sam would consider it strange
for him to invite him to go home on a visit. He decided he would go by
Uncle Sam's office and speak to him and make an engagement for the
theatre that night.
Jo Allen stopped a minute in front of Uncle Sam's office door to get out
a card and then he rang the bell. A very handsome, auburn-haired,
green-eyed girl answered his ring and he gave her his card with a rather
bewildered smile, for he wondered why such an old man as Uncle Sam kept
such a darned good-looking female to tickle the keys.
"May I see Uncle Sam?" he asked.
"Why, certainly!" she said. "Please come in."
Her "Certainly" sounded Southern to Jo. He might have thought some more
but he was interrupted by the girl.
"You will sit down, won't you?" she smiled at him from her swivel chair.
"Thank you! Will Uncle Sam be along soon do you think?" he queried.
"Oh! I thought you understood. Why, Mr. Allen, I am Uncle Sam."
"Ohgoodlord!" Jo said it very loud and as though it were all one word.
Then after a minute, "What the devil will Hal say when he finds his
Uncle Sam is a woman?"
"I see no reason why he should know." Uncle Sam was very calm and
unconcerned.
"But you see I swore I'd bring Uncle Sam back on a visit. I had it all
planned out that Uncle Sam and I would take in a show to-night...."
"I don't reckon Uncle Sam would mind going to the theatre, Mr. Allen.
You might ask him," said the girl very frankly.
"Good for you, Uncle Sam,--you are a peach, after all. Hal may be
disappointed, but, believe me, I am not. I wish you would tell me your
name."
Jo was looking much happier now. He had forgotten what Hal would say
when he got home Uncle Samless,--but really her hair and eyes were
enough to make him forget and her voice was very musical with its
Southern accent.
"Page Carter," she told him, "and I suppose you want to know the whys
and wherefores of Uncle Sam's business. Well, you can probably tell from
my name that I am a Virginian and from my occupation that I am poor, and
if you could see my brain at work or my poor attempts at sewing, you
would see why I had to choose this way of making a living. Yes, I had to
do it. You see, my mother and father are dead and I could not accept my
friends' kind invitations to come and be their barnacles."
"Miss Carter, you need not worry about the workings of your brain. That
was a dandy bluff you put up. I could see you with white hair, seated at
a desk, writing Hal about your boyhood scrapes. Let's make it a supper
before the theatre. Are you game?"
"Sure," she said.
Jo noticed she did not have to look in a mirror to make her hat
becoming.
"Mr. Allen, your son has written me so much about you that I feel as
though I knew you. That is very bromidic, but it is so."
Jo never knew what they had for dinner and Page Carter did not get many
of the lines of the play. She had always been strong for black hair and
grey eyes. She knew, too, that he was successful from his clothes and
Hal's remarks about the Mercer, and he surely was an amusing companion.
Hal interested her. New York wasn't much when you were in it by yourself
and it was very evident that Jo liked her and his grey eyes were
beginning to look....
The play was over; and she had promised to meet him for lunch and
afterwards to pick out a rifle for Hal.
A week later Hal jumped out of the canoe and rushed up to the boys in
camp and waved a yellow slip of paper before them. "Listen," he yelled,
"'Be home to-morrow. Got rifle. Uncle Sam with me. Dad.'"
CHAPTER XIV.
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
_Nods and Becks_ met with great favour and we felt after our labours
that we had earned the good times we meant to have during the holidays.
The Tuckers had decided to come to Bracken for Christmas, so we were in
the seventh heaven of bliss. Annie and Mary could not accept the
invitation that Father had told me to give them as they had to go to
their respective homes, Annie to be with her dignified paternal
relative, and Mary with what she assured us was a far from dignified
maternal one.
We had never met any of Mary's people but hoped to some day, as all she
told us of them sounded pretty nice. She had no father but was unique
among us as she actually could boast a mother. She had one little tiny
sister and a big brother who was a mining engineer. The Flannagans
lived in the valley of Virginia. They were of rugged Scotch-Irish stock,
very different from the softer, aristocratic types to be seen in the
tide-water section. Their home was in Harrisonburg and we knew
afterwards that they were well off but no word from Mary ever gave us to
understand it. She always was quick to pay her share and more than her
share in any jaunt we went on together, but I believe I never heard Mary
mention money. Tweedles and I used to wonder if they were not fabulously
wealthy because of all the material that was wasted in Mary's voluminous
skirts. It seems that Mary's mother always wore full skirts and she just
had Mary's made the same way.
The last night before the holidays we broke about all the rules we could
remember. Some may have escaped us, but I doubt it. We cooked in our
rooms; visited in other girls' rooms; laughed and made a racket in the
halls; slid down the bannisters; and were generally obstreperous,--so
much so that Miss Plympton said we would have to work off our demerits
when we got back from the holidays. This pleasing bit of news she
imparted to us at the very early breakfast we had on the morning of our
departure. But we were going home, and threatened demerits after the
holidays had no more effect on our spirits than a sermon on hell fire
would have had on the ardour of a new-born babe.
On the way to the station we passed our dear old friend, Captain Pat
Leahy, who was faithfully keeping the gate at the railroad crossing. He
stumped out on his peg leg to give us the "top o' the morning."
"An' phwat do ye hear of that poorrr sick angel, Miss Peyton? Bless her
heart!"
"We believe she is recovering, Captain Leahy. We miss her terribly."
"Miss her! I should say ye would, with her winnin' ways and the kind
smile of her. And phwat does the managemint mene by hoistin' a lady on
ye poorr lambs with the manners of a Tammany boss? Whin I saw her
schtriding off of the trrain last Siptimber in her men's clothes, all
but the pants, and a voice like a trrain butcherr, I said to meself:
'Pat Leahy, ther'll be trooble oop at Gresham this sission!' I knew it
more than iver whin she pushed me cats away with her oombrella that she
carried like a shillalah. A lady, whin she has no use for cats, is
either a very timid lady and surely no fit person to look arfter a
girls' school, or ilse she is that hard-hearted that she ought to have
the job of dhriving a team of mules to a rock waggon."
"How are the cats, Captain?" asked Dee.
"Foine, missy, foine! And here is Oliverr, grown to sich a great schize
ye woud scarcely know him. He got over his runtiness jist as soon as you
young ladies took oop with him."
Oliver came running out of the little gate house at sound of his name.
He had indeed grown to be a handsome cat. Dee, of course, had to stop
and take him in her arms for a moment. Oliver was the kitten, grown into
a great cat, that Dee had taken to her room the winter before. We would
never forget the night he spent with us nor our efforts to feed him
milk, heated over a candle.
"I wonder what Miss Plympton would have said if we had gone to her and
confessed about the kitten, as we did to Miss Peyton," said Dum.
"Said!" exclaimed Captain Leahy. "Why, phwat she would have said would
not be fit to print!" and he gave a great laugh which rang pleasantly in
our ears as we ran to catch the train that was coming around the curve.
The train was full of girls going home for the holidays and a very gay
crowd we were in spite of its being so very early in the morning. We had
come off with so little breakfast that it was not worthy of the name.
Crackers and jam and weak coffee, heated over from last night's brewing,
but not much heated over, just warmed up to the tepid temperature of a
baby's bath, is not very satisfying to the growing girl.
I can't see why the food at boarding school for both boys and girls
seems to be the last thing considered. Their minds and morals are looked
after with great care but their inner men are simply ignored. All the
catalogues say: "Food wholesome and plentiful," but to my mind that at
Gresham was neither. When it was poor it was plentiful and when it was
plentiful it was poor, but if something was served very good and
palatable, it usually gave out. Under Miss Plympton's regime it was much
worse than when Miss Peyton wielded the scepter. Miss Peyton insisted on
a certain balance of diet at least and had many a talk with the dull old
housekeeper, who, I am sure, was the only person in the world who
preferred Miss Plympton to Miss Peyton. Miss Plympton did not at all
object to three kinds of beans being served at one meal, or sweet
potatoes and Irish potatoes with no touch of green food. On the other
hand when the housekeeper chose to have turnip salad and cabbage on the
same day, so that we felt like Nebuchadnezzar when he ate grass like an
ox, our principal said nothing. Girls' insides must be disciplined, too.
If skim milk was served with their cereal that was more than they
deserved.
During that first half of my second term at Gresham I had to remember
very often what Margaret Sayre had said to me about looking at the
mountains when things did not go just exactly to suit me. I looked at
them a great deal that first half. I had a good appetite as a rule but
had been spoiled by Mammy Susan, whose one idea seemed to be to give me
what I wanted, and the consequence was that unless food was well cooked
and seasoned, I simply did not eat. Tweedles ate anyhow, but long
stretches of cafes or boarding houses had inured them to cooking that I
simply could not stomach.
"You are a regular princess, Page," said Dee to me on that morning when
we were leaving for the holidays. "Of course the food is bum but it is
better than going empty."
"Maybe it is, but I can't swallow bad coffee."
"But you are looking as pale as a little ghost and you are so thin you
can't keep on your skirts."
This I could not deny as at that minute I had my skirt lapped over two
inches and pinned with a large safety pin to keep it from dropping off
altogether.
"I'll buck up when I get home. Two weeks of feeding will fill out my
belt again," I laughed.
I left the Tuckers at Richmond and went on that day to Milton where
Father met me and drove me over to Bracken. My, it was good to be home!
Mammy Susan almost ate me up for joy, and the dogs actually threw me
down in their efforts to get first lick.
"Why, honey, chile, you is sho thin and peaked lookin'," declared my
dear old friend. "You ain't no bigger'n a minute. What all them
teacher's been a doin' to you?"
"She is thin, Mammy Susan," broke in Father, "and I am going to put her
on an iron tonic right away. She tells me she has no appetite."
"Well, now, that's too bad! I done made a mess er chicken gumbo fer
dinner and some er them lil bits er thin biscuit. I done knocked up a
blackberry roll, too, with hard sauce that is as soft and fluffy as a
cloud in Spring. It's too bad my baby ain't got no appletite."
It was too bad surely, but if I had had one I don't know what I would
have done, as without one I ate like a field hand.
"Looks lak she is able to worry down somethin'," said Mammy Susan with
a sly twinkle in her eye as she brought in another plate of hot biscuit.
"Don't forgit, honey chile, to save a little spot on you innards fer the
blackberry roll. It sho do smell toothsome. I is moughty glad them
twinses is comin' down fer Christmas an' they paw, too. Did Docallison
tell you that Blanche is goin' to be here enduring of the holidays?"
Blanche was Mammy Susan's relative who had cooked for the Tuckers during
the memorable house-party at Willoughby.
The Tuckers were to come to Bracken on Christmas Eve. We were expecting
Stephen White, also, and Mammy Susan said Blanche was to arrive on that
day, too. I busied myself helping Mammy Susan prepare for the guests.
There was much to be done in the way of fresh curtains in the bed rooms,
rubbing silver and furniture, and dusting books. Mammy Susan had plum
pudding, fruit cake and pies to make, and I helped with all of them.
The kitchen at Bracken was a wonderful place. I believe I loved it more
than any spot on earth. It was not under the same roof as the house but
connected with it by a covered porch, enclosed in glass. This passage
way had been my nursery as a child. Mammy Susan always had it filled
with flowers in winter, gay geraniums in old tomato cans, begonias,
heliotrope, ferns and a citronella, that furnished slips for half the
county. The more slips that were taken from it, the more vigorous it
would become.
"That there limon verbeny 'minds me of Docallison," said Mammy. "The mo'
it do give er itself, the mo' it do seem to have ter give. It looks lak
as soon as yo' paw done finished wearing hisself out fer somebody,
another pusson is a callin' on him; an' jes lak the limon verbeny, he
branches out mo' the mo' he does."
"He is thinking of having some one to help him, Mammy Susan. Don't you
think it would be a good plan?"
"Well, 'twill an' 'twon't! Ef'n he gits a man young enough ter take the
bossin' that a helper's boun' ter git, he'll be too young ter suit the
dead an' dyin'. Whin folks is sick they don't want no chilluns a
feelin' of they pulps."
"But he has in mind a young man who might take the bossing and make a
good impression on the patients, too. He is coming on Christmas Eve for
a visit and you must tell me what you think of him."
"Is he yo' beau, honey?"
"Why, Mammy Susan, how absurd!"
"'Tain't so terruble absurd. Beaux is lak measles an' mumps. If you
don't have 'em young, you mought go through life 'thout ever havin' 'em,
but you is always kinder spectin' tew catch 'em. Ef you take 'em young,
you don't take 'em quite so hard."
Mammy Susan's philosophy always delighted me and I encouraged her to go
on. I was sitting in the doorway of the kitchen where I could smell the
heliotrope and citronella while I chopped apples and meat for the mince
pies. Mammy was seeding raisins. She never would let the seeded raisins
come in the house, scorning them as some kind of new-fangled invention
that would ruin her pies and puddings.
"Them unseedless raisins make lazy folks pies 'thout no virtue or
suption in 'em."
The kitchen was a low ceilinged room about twenty feet square. A range
and great wood box occupied one side, with a copper sink and a pump.
There was no plumbing in Bracken and this primitive pump connected with
the well was all we could boast in the way of conveniences. In the broad
window sills were more tomato cans of geraniums and various slips that
Mammy was starting for neighbours. Skillets and pots and pans of various
sizes were inverted on the many shelves, which were covered with
newspapers with fancy scalloped borders and beautiful open-work patterns
that it had always been my duty and pleasure as a child to cut out for
Mammy Susan. Festooned from the rafters were long strings of bright red
peppers, dried okra, onions and bunches of thyme and bay. Pots of
parsley and chives occupied one of the sunny windows. Mammy Susan held
that: "Seasonin' is the maindest thing in cookin', that an' 'lowin'
victuals to simper and not bile too hard."
"Mammy, is this going to be enough mince meat?"
"Sho, chile! That's the quantity fer six full pies, none of yo' skimpy
kin' wif the top pastry sticking to the bottom, lookin' lak some folks
what don't boast no insides ter speak of,--but the full fleshed
kind--them's what I call pies. I'm goin' ter make that there Blanche
stir up a Lady Balmoral cake soon's she gits here. The Twinses and they
paw kin git on the ou'side of a passel er victuals, and the saftest
thing is ter have a plenty of them cooked up fer 'mergencies. Kin this
new beau, Mr. White, eat as much as Mr. Tucker?"
"Why, I don't know. I never noticed."
"Well, then you ain't considerin' of him very serious lak. Whin a gal is
studyin' 'bout a man, the very fust thing she takes notice on is his
appletite. She'll know that whin she ain't quite sho what colour his
eyes is, an' she'll want ter dish up his fav'rite victuals ev'y chanct
she gits."
I laughed and went on chopping apples. How peaceful and happy
everything was at Bracken! The wind was blowing up cold and it looked
like snow but the kitchen was warm, so warm that it easily spared heat
for the glass porch and all the growing plants. The delicious smell of
Mammy's fruit cake, baking in the range, mingled with the citronella and
the wine sap apples I was chopping. Mammy reached up and broke off a pod
of red pepper to drop in the bean soup that was bubbling in a great iron
pot.
"Put a little bay in, too, Mammy, I love it." Instead of needing iron
tonic as Father had thought, I really needed a restraining hand. I felt
as though I could never get enough to eat. Bean soup, so despised at
Gresham, was being made at my request,--but then, there is bean soup and
bean soup. "Please, Mammy Susan, have batter bread at least twice a day
while Mr. Tucker is here. He is just crazy about it."
"All right, honey chile!" I wondered what made Mammy Susan look at me so
long and searchingly.
"Is there anything more I can do for you, Mammy?"
"No, chile, the cookery is about 'complished. All I've got ter do now is
straighten up my shelbs with clean papers."
"Oh, please let me cut the papers!"
"'Deed you kin!" exclaimed the old woman delightedly. "I was afeerd you
done got so growd-up with beaux an' things that you done los' yo' tase
fer makin' pretty patterns fer the shelbs."
So she got out some big shears and a pile of newspapers and I outdid
myself in wonderful lacy patterns and scallops that made the old kitchen
beautiful for Christmas.
CHAPTER XV.
CHRISTMAS GUESTS.
It began to snow before dawn on Christmas Eve and kept it up steadily
all morning. It was a fine dry snow that gave promise of good sleighing,
and Father and I were delighted. He loved snow like a boy, provided it
was the kind of snow that meant good sleighing. The colt was hitched to
a little red cutter and they whizzed off to the sick folks with such a
merry ringing of the bells that just the sound of them must have made
the sufferers feel better.
The Tuckers were to arrive on the three train, also Stephen White and
perhaps Blanche. The roads were in a bad fix between Milton and Richmond
and we feared to trust Henry Ford, so our friends were forced to travel
by rail. The big wood sled was put into commission, with an old wagon
bed screwed on top of it, and when this was filled with hay, I am sure
no limousine in the world could offer more luxurious transportation.
It had stopped snowing and the sun was trying to shine when I clambered
into my equipage with Peg and one of the younger plow horses hitched to
it. I stood up to drive, knee-deep in hay. Peg and the plow horse acted
like two-year-olds and did the six miles to Milton almost as easily as
Father and the colt. When the train came puffing up, they actually had
the impertinence to shy and prance, much to the delight of our guests
who came tumbling out of the last coach so laden with bundles that you
could not tell which was which.
Such excitement on the little station of Milton, usually so quiet and
sedate! First came Dee carrying Brindle, wrapped in a plaid shawl,
looking, as Zebedee said, like an emigrant baby, then Zebedee and Wink,
with suit cases and great boxes and paper parcels; then Dum with more
valises and more boxes and parcels.
I was astonished to see Mr. Reginald Kent bringing up the rear. He,
too, was almost completely concealed with baggage and bundles, but I
could see his smiling, ruddy countenance above his load.
"Why, Mr. Kent, I saw Jo yesterday and he did not tell me you were
coming!" I exclaimed as he dropped some of his packages so he could
shake my hand.
"I did not let him know. I find when Cousin Sally expects me she makes
herself sick cooking for me, so I thought I would surprise them."
I certainly liked his spirit of unselfishness. Not many young men would
have thought of sparing a middle-aged, complaining cousin whose one
attraction was her cooking. Just then Jo Winn came gliding up in his
little cutter, ostensibly for the mail but in reality to catch a glimpse
of Dee who was the one female I have ever seen the shy man at his ease
with. Of course he was at his ease with me, having known me since I was
a baby, but I somehow never think of myself as a female to make the
males tremble.
Our hilarious greetings were under way and the train had begun to move
when an agonizing screech came from the coloured coach, the one nearest
the engine. There was a great ringing of the bell and then there emerged
the portly form of "poor dear Blanche," as Zebedee always called the
girl who had cooked for us at Willoughby the summer before,--not to her
face, of course.
Her great black-plumed hat was all awry, and from the huge basket, that
she always carried in lieu of a valise, there dragged long green
stockings and some much belaced lingerie. She was greatly excited,
having come within an ace of passing the station.
"I was in the embrace of Morphine, as it were, Miss Page, and had no
recognizance of having derived at our predestination, whin I was sudden
like brought to my sensibleness by hearing the dulsom tones of Miss Dum
a greeting you. I jumped up and called loud and long for the inductor to
come to my resistance. The train had begun to prognosticate! I was in
respiration whin a dark complected gentleman in the seat opposing mine,
very kindly impeded the bell by reducing the rope."
"What did the conductor say?" I knew that it was a terrible offense for
a non-official to pull the bell rope.
"Say! Why, Miss Page, 'twould bring the blush of remortifycation to my
maiden meditations to repetition that white man's langige."
It was cheering indeed to hear Blanche's inimitable conversation once
more. Thank goodness, there were enough other things to laugh at for her
not to know we were overcome by her remarks. We bundled her into the far
back corner of the sled, where she sat like a Zulu queen on a throne.
Good-byes were called to Jo Winn and his cousin, who said they would
come over to Bracken after supper to help decorate the house. I had
promised Tweedles not to decorate until they came, but I had had some
great boughs of holly cut ready for the rite. I had gathered quantities
of running cedar myself and, at the risk of my foolish neck, had climbed
up a great walnut tree and sawed off a stumpy branch literally loaded
with mistletoe.
"I bid to drive," cried Zebedee as soon as the crowd was packed in the
sled. "Do you stand up to it?"
"Yes, you always stand in a wood sled." I should have said: "Be
careful!" as the art of driving standing is not one acquired in a
moment, but I was so accustomed to Mr. Tucker's doing things well that I
never even thought of it.
"Gee up!" he called, cracking the whip.
The plow horse and Peg geed all right and Zebedee, accustomed to running
a small automobile or driving a light buggy, had no idea of the skill
necessary to stand up on a large wood sled and safely turn it around
without turning over. We twisted around on one runner and nothing but
the fact that Blanche's great weight was on the upper side saved us from
a very neat turnover. Zebedee lost his balance and, still clutching
wildly at the reins, shot over our heads into the soft and comfortable
snow. Pegasus and the plow horse fortunately took it all as a matter of
course in their day's work, and although Zebedee's flying leap jerked
them back on their haunches in a very rude and unmannerly way, they
never budged, but waited for their crestfallen Jehu to pick himself up
out of the snow bank and climb back into place.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he reproached me as we roared with laughter.
"Tell you what?"
"Tell me to use the knowledge I have obtained as a strap hanger on
trolley cars to keep my balance in a wood sled!"
"This is the way to stand: put your feet far apart, so," said I, suiting
the action to the word; and taking the reins in my hands, clucked to my
team and we started gaily off, the sleigh bells jingling merrily.
Everybody had to have a turn at driving standing up, and in the six
miles we had to go to reach Bracken, they had more or less mastered the
art.
I love Bracken and am always proud of it, but there are times when it
seems more beautiful and lovable than at others, and on that Christmas
Eve it never had been more attractive. Fires glowed in every grate.
Indeed, Bill, the yard boy, whose duty it was to keep the wood chopped
and the fires going, said he had "done got lop-sided a totin' wood." The
house shone with cleanliness and smelt of all kinds of delicious things:
Christmas greens, mince pies, spiced beef, and dried lavender. Lavender
was always kept between the sheets in the linen press and when many beds
had just been freshly made the whole place would smell of it.
My Mammy Susan was a rather unique specimen of her race. As a rule,
darkeys need a boss to be kept up to a certain standard. They are far
from orderly, and wastefulness is their watchword. Now Mammy did to a
letter everything that my mother, with all the enthusiasm of a young
housekeeper, had thought necessary and that, combined with the solid
training she had received at the hands of my paternal grandmother, to
whose family she had belonged before the war, meant a very well kept
house. Father and I were so accustomed to her wonderful management that
we would not have known how wonderful it was if it had not been for the
many summer visiting cousins who sang Mammy's praises while telling of
their own vicissitudes with domestics.
Mammy's one fault was that she could not abide having an assistant in
the house, and the consequence was we were in daily and hourly dread of
her giving out and being ill. She had tried girl after girl, but they
had always been found wanting. She preferred having a boy to help her,
so the yard boy was called on whenever she needed him. She bossed Bill
and Bill "sassed" her, but they were on the whole very fond of each
other. Bill was about twenty, very black and bow-legged, and so
good-natured that it was impossible to anger him. Bill was fitted out
with white coats and Mammy and I had been endeavouring to train him to
wait on the table, with most ludicrous results. He had once been on a
steamboat and so aped the airs of the steamboat waiters. He would
balance a tray on his five fingers and, holding it above his head, would
actually cake walk into the dining room.
"This here ain't no side show Docallison is a runnin'," Mammy would say.
"What the reason you feel lak you got ter walk lak a champinzee? All you
needs is a monkey tail stickin' out from that ere new coat ter make you
look jis' lak a keriller I done seed onct at a succus. Come on here,
nigger, and take in dese victuals I done dished up befo' dey is stone
cold."
And Bill would grin and reply, "You come on and put dis ice I done dug
out de ice house in de frigidrater befo' it gits hot;" and so waged the
merry war between the old woman and the boy.
Blanche was quite a favourite of Mammy's and she looked forward to her
visit with enthusiasm. The girl, being on the footing of a guest, did
not come in for her share of abuse that the old woman usually felt bound
to administer to the young coloured girls who came her way.
She came out to the driveway to meet us on that Christmas Eve, her dear
old head bound up in the gayest of bandannas and her purple calico
starched to a stiffness that would easily have permitted it to stand
alone.
The Tuckers greeted her with the greatest affection. I introduced
Stephen White, who showed himself to be the gentleman I knew he was by
his very kind and cordial manner in speaking to the old woman. Nothing
is a greater test of breeding than a person's manner on such an
occasion.
The old woman looked at him keenly and kindly. Wink was very good
looking with his clear brown eyes and the rather stubborn mouth that the
carefully tended moustache was doing its best to hide. Wink's moustache
was really getting huge and it gave him very much the air of a boy
masquerading as a man with a false moustache. Every time I looked at it
I had an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. If he would only trim it
down a little!
"My little miss is done named you to me befo'," said Mammy with great
cordiality.
"Oh, has she really? That certainly was kind of her."
"Well, it warn't much trouble fer her to do it," explained Mammy,
fearful that she might be giving the young man too much encouragement.
"What she done said was that she ain't never noticed whether you is much
of a hand fer victuals or not."
"Well, I can tell you he is," laughed Dee. "He is almost as good a hand
as the Tuckers."
CHAPTER XVI.
CHRISTMAS EVE AT BRACKEN.
"Do all of you want to go to-morrow morning with Page and me to play
Santa Claus to our poor neighbours?" asked Father at supper.
"Yes! Yes!" they chorused.
"I feel bad about all these little nigs who know I bring them the things
and so they don't believe in Santa Claus at all. I always think that
belief in Santa Claus is one of the perquisites of childhood. Sometimes
I have been tempted to dress up and play Santy for them, but I believe
they would know me. Docallison is seen too often to have any mystery
about him."
"I have it! I have it!" and Dum clapped her hands in glee at the idea
that had come to her. "Let's dress Zebedee up and let him go and give
the kiddies their things."
"Good!" exclaimed Father. "Will you do it, Tucker?"
"Sure I will, if Page will do something I ask her."
"What?"
"I want you to recite your sonnet that Tweedles tell me you published in
_Nods and Becks_. They have not been able to find their copies in the
maelstrom of their trunks. I think from what they say of it, it might
inspire me to act Santa Claus with great spirit."
"Sonnet! What sonnet?" asked Father.
"You don't mean you have not shown it to your father!" tweedled the
twins.
"Well, Father is so particular about poetry--somehow--I--I--"
"Why, daughter!"
"You know you are! You can't abide mediocre verse."
"Well, that's so," he confessed, "but you might let me be the judge."
And so I recited my sonnet, which I will repeat to save the reader the
trouble of turning back so many pages to refresh her memory.
"Pan may be dead, but Santa Claus remains,
And once a year, he riseth in his might.
Oft have I heard, in silences of night,
Tinkling of bells and clink of reindeer chains
As o'er the roofs he sped through his domains,
When youthful eyes had given up the fight
To glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight,
Who in a trusting world unchallenged reigns.
Last and the greatest of all Gods is he,
Who suffereth little children and is kind;
And when I've rounded out my earthly span
And face at last the Ancient Mystery,
I hope somewhere in Heaven I shall find
Rest on the bosom of that good old man."
When I finished, Father sat so still that I just knew he thought it was
trash. I could hardly raise my eyes to see, I was so afraid he was
laughing at me. Father, while being the kindest and most lenient man in
the world, was very strict about literature and demanded the best. I
finally did get my eyes to behave and look up at him and to my amazement
I found his were full of tears. He held out his arms to me and I flew
to them, thereby upsetting a plate of Sally Lunn muffins that bow-legged
Bill was just bringing into the dining room. Zebedee caught them,
however, before they touched the ground, so no harm was done.
"Page! You monkey!" was all Father could say, but I knew he liked my
sonnet and I was very happy. He told me afterwards when we were alone
that he liked it a lot and how I must work to do more and more verse. If
I felt like writing, to write, no matter what was to pay.
"I have got so lazy about it myself," he sighed. "When I was a boy I
wanted to write all the time and did 'lisp in numbers' to some extent,
but I got more and more out of it, did not put my thoughts down, and now
I can only think poetry and don't believe I could write a line. Don't
let it slip from you, honey."
I had done my part, and now Zebedee was to be diked out as Santa Claus
and give the little darkeys a treat that they would remember all their
lives. Some of the bulky bundles the guests had brought from Richmond
contained presents for our coloured neighbours. I had told Dum and Dee
of the way Father and I always spent Christmas morning, and they had
remembered when they did their Christmas shopping. They had gone to the
five and ten cent store and, with what they declared was a very small
outlay, had bought enough toys to gladden the hearts of all the nigs in
the county.
"Wouldn't it be more realistic if Mr. Tucker should go to-night?"
suggested Wink.
"No, no! 'Twould never do at all!" objected Father violently. "If Tucker
goes to-night, I won't have a minute's peace all day to-morrow--What's
more, young man," shaking his finger at Wink, "neither will you--I'll
force you into service. Why, those little pickaninnies will stuff candy
and nuts all night and lick the paint off the jumping-jacks and Noah's
arks, and by morning they will be having forty million stomachaches. No,
indeed, wait until morning. Let them eat the trash standing and they
have a better chance to digest it." So wait we did.
Jo Winn and his cousin, Reginald Kent, came to call after supper, and
we all of us turned in to beautify Bracken. The great bunch of mistletoe
we hung from the chandelier in the library, and holly and cedar was
banked on bookcases and mantel. Dum deftly fashioned wreaths of running
cedar and swamp berries, and Mr. Reginald Kent seemed to think he had to
assist her to tie every knot. Bunches of holly and swamp berries were in
every available vase, and Mammy Susan proudly bore in some blooming
narcissus that she had set to sprout just six weeks before so that they
would bloom on Christmas day. She had kept them hid from me so I could
be surprised.
I wondered how Father would take this interruption of his "ancient and
solitary reign," and if he would regret the peaceful, orderly Christmas
Eves he and I had always spent together. His quiet library was now
pandemonium, and if it was turned up on the day before Christmas, what
would it be on Christmas Day? He was sitting by the fire very
contentedly, smoking his pipe and talking to Mr. Tucker, who had refused
to help us decorate, and as was his way when he, Zebedee, did not want
to enter into any of our frolics, he called us: "You young people" and
pretended to be quite middle-aged.
"Look at Zebedee!" said Dee to Wink. "Look at him Mr. Tuckering and
trying to make out he's grown-up!" Wink, who looked upon Mr. Tucker as
quite grown-up, even middle-aged, was rather mystified. I was very glad
to see Wink and Dee renewing the friendship that had started between
them at Willoughby. They were much more congenial than Wink and I were.
If Wink would only stop looking at me like a dying calf and realize that
Dee was a thousand times nicer and brighter and prettier than I was! It
seemed to me that if it had been nothing more than a matter of noses, he
was a goose not to prefer Dee. All the Tuckers had such good noses,
straight and aristocratic with lots of character, and my little freckled
_nez retrousse_ was so very ordinary.
My nose has always been a source of great annoyance to me, but I felt
then that I would be glad to bear my burden if Wink would just see the
difference between Dee's nose and mine. I remember what Gwendolen's
mother, in "Daniel Deronda," said to her when Gwendolen said what a
pretty nose her mother had and how she envied her: "Oh, my dear, any
nose will do to be miserable with in this world!" Well, I did not feel
that way exactly, but I did feel that any nose would do to be happy with
in this world if Wink would just stop "pestering" me. I was always
afraid somebody would know he was whispering the silly things to me that
he seemed to think I was very cruel not to respond to. I almost knew
Zebedee understood, but I had kept very dark about it to all the girls.
What irritated me was that I knew all the time what a very intelligent,
nice fellow Wink was, and would have liked so much to have the good
talks with him that our friendship had begun with at Willoughby; but now
sane conversation was out of the question. Tender nothings were the
order of the day whenever I found myself alone with Mr. Stephen White.
The outcome was that I saw to it that I was alone with him as little as
possible. Tender nothings are all right, I fancy, when it is a
two-sided affair, but when it is all on one side--deliver me!
Jo Winn followed Dee around with the "faithful dog Tray" expression in
his eyes and was pleased as Punch when Dee gave him some difficult task
to perform, such as festooning running cedar on the family portraits,
hung high against the ceiling as was the way of hanging pictures in
antebellum days. Father and I were determined to change their hanging
just as soon as we could afford to have the walls done over, but they
had to stay where they were until that time as they had hung so long in
the same spots that the paper all around them was several shades lighter
than behind them.
The decorations finished, we drew up around the fire to tell tales and
pop corn and chestnuts until a late hour, when Jo Winn and Reginald Kent
made a reluctant departure with assurances that they would see us again
the next morning. They had asked to be allowed to make themselves useful
in the Santa Claus scheme we had on foot, and we readily agreed to their
company.
CHAPTER XVII.
SANTA CLAUS.
"Well, what on earth are you schemers going to dress me in?" demanded
Zebedee at breakfast the next morning. "I have no idea of playing Santa
Claus unless I am properly attired."
"Oh, we stayed awake half the night planning a costume for you. You are
going to be beautiful, you vain, conceited piece!" exclaimed Dee. "Dr.
Allison has a red dressing gown--"
"I knew I would be the goat," said Father ruefully. "My red dressing
gown is only ten years old, Tucker, so do be easy on it."
"Oh, we won't hurt it, Doctor," insisted Dum. "We are going to sew
imitation ermine all around the bottom and front and sleeves,--and his
whiskers--"
"Yes, do tell me about my whiskers! That is the most important factor
in a Santa Claus costume."
"They are to be the flap off of an old white muff I had when I was a
kid. Mammy Susan is digging it out of the old chest in the attic now."
"And your embonpoint is to be a down cushion out of the library," put in
Dee.
"And your hat--my red silk toboggan cap with some of Page's tippet, that
matches the muff, sewed in for hair!" from Dum.
"Your boots--Father's duck-hunting rubber ones!"
"Well, among you I reckon I'll be dressed in great shape. I fancy I had
better get ready."
"Just as soon as we sew on the ermine."
We got to work, all hands at once, and sewed on the imitation ermine,
made of bands of canton flannel with artistically arranged smuts at
irregular intervals spotted around it, giving it very much the
appearance of ermine.
We adjourned to the library so Mammy Susan could begin on the dining
room for Christmas dinner, which was the one great function of the year
with Mammy. The table must be set with great precision with all the
silver and cut glass that Bracken boasted, which was not any great
amount. The best table cloth made its appearance on this occasion, a
wonderful heavy damask that had been sent to my mother from England,
with napkins to match that would easily have served for table cloths on
ordinary occasions. Mammy always kept this linen wrapped in blue tissue
paper, and after almost twenty years of use on grand occasions, it was
still as beautiful as the day my mother received it as a bridal present.
The library had been one great swirl of tissue paper and red ribbon and
Christmas seals, something new for Bracken, as Father and I never
thought of doing up our presents to each other at all. But the Tuckers
spent almost as much on the things to wrap up the presents with, as they
did on the presents, so Zebedee said. With the help of Blanche, who
carefully saved every inch of ribbon or string, every piece of paper, no
matter how rumpled or torn, and all the Christmas seals, I got the
place cleared out enough for us to get to work on Santa Claus' costume.
Father was oblivious to everything as he could not get his nose out of
the wonderful book Mr. Tucker and the twins had given him. It was about
4,000 pages of poetry, every well known poem that ever was written
almost, with every form of index. He was feverishly looking for half
remembered poems of long ago and would hail with delight every now and
then something entirely forgotten.
"Listen to this, Tucker! By Jove, I haven't seen this since I used to
recite it at school:
"'I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast;
Let thine arms, O Queen, enfold me,
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear,
Listen to the great heart-secrets
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.
* * * * *
"'And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian--
Glorious sorceress of the Nile!--
Light the path to Stygian horrors,
With the splendor of thy smile;
Give the Caesar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine:
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.
"'I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Hark! the insulting foeman's cry;
They are coming--quick, my falchion!
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah, no more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell;
Isis and Osiris guard thee
Cleopatra--Rome--Farewell!'"
Father had arisen from his chaise longue and was declaiming like a
school boy. We applauded him violently. I loved to see him so happy and
so carefree. He usually had so many sick and poor people to bother him,
but on this day, thanks in part to his foresight in saving up the Santa
Claus act for Christmas morning, he had not been sent for, and he hoped
the day would pass in idleness.
It took two down cushions to give Zebedee's embonpoint the proper "bowl
full of jelly" contour. The red dressing gown was snugly belted in
around it, and, having been considerably turned up before we sewed on
the imitation ermine, it reached in graceful folds to the top of the
hunting boots. The beard was a masterpiece and was kept in place by a
bit of elastic fastened in the back. We made a moustache out of the
little tails on the old tippet and he was forced to submit to surgeon's
plaster to hold that on.
"But s'pose I give a Tucker sneeze! This contraption certainly does
tickle my nose;" and forthwith Santa Claus did explode into a regular
Tucker sneeze, thereby bursting his belt and unpinning his tum-tum so
that much of the work had to be done over.
"Now, Zebedee, stop!" commanded Dum. "You know perfectly well you do not
have to sneeze so loud."
"All right, Miss Plympton," teased the offender, and gave another
sneeze.
"We might just as well wait until he gets through," sighed Dee. "It
always takes at least three to satisfy a Tucker."
So we waited until the third and last explosion shook the house and then
pinned on the down pillows again and put his belt back in place. The
toboggan cap with the tippet sewed in for hair gave the proper finishing
touch, and Zebedee stood forth as lovable and charming a Santy as one
could find.
"Well, we can 'glimpse for once the rotund, jolly wight,'" quoted Wink.
"I almost wish I were a little nig so I could experience the sensations
they will have when they see you driving up to the cabin, Mr. Tucker."
"Now for the 'bundle of toys he had flung on his back'," and Dum hung
over his shoulder a laundry bag stuffed full of lumpy, bumpy stockings.
Putting the things in a stocking was a plan Zebedee had suggested,--one
they use in the cities for Christmas. A mate to the stocking must be put
in the toe and that means that each child gets a pair of stockings as
well as its share of candy, nuts, toys, etc.
"I bet Aunt Keziah will be pleased with this thing of bringing
stockings, too. It will save the old woman lots of darning," said
Father, who looked up from his poetry book to admire our handiwork.
Dum was putting the finishing touches to Zebedee's countenance. I did
not think he needed paint as his cheeks were rosy enough, but Dum loved
to fix up people's faces and black their eyebrows, and Zebedee liked
nothing better than being fixed up.
"It gives you the feeling that you can make as big a monkey of yourself
as you want to, if you just are disguised a little," and our Santa Claus
bristled his great white moustache and patted his down pillows
approvingly.
Mammy Susan and Blanche and bow-legged Bill were called in to see old
Santy, and great was their delight and joy.
"Lord!" said Bill. "If'n he don' look jis' lak a picture er Santy I seed
one time whin I was on de steamboat on de Mississip."
"Aw, you allus got ter tell 'bout dat time you went a trabblin' on a
boat. I low you wa'nt nothin' but a low lived roustabout at best," said
Mammy Susan, anxious to keep Bill in his place, which, in her
estimation, was way in the back.
"You is sho mo' natural than life, Mr. Tucker. The infantry of the area
of this vicinity should elevate theyselves and denounce you as blessed.
'As much as you have done the least of my little ones you have kep' my
remandments.'"
Mammy accepted the effusions of Blanche with perfect composure. Bill
looked at her with admiration in his rolling stewed-prune eyes. I would
have been glad of Santa Claus' beard to laugh behind. Zebedee took
advantage of it, but the rest of us had to keep straight faces until the
coloured contingent took their departure.
"Hitch Peg to the cutter!" called Father to Bill. "I am afraid there
will be too much hilarity for the colt, Tucker, otherwise I'd give you
the pleasure of driving him this brisk morning."
"Drive! Do you think I could drive anything around this protuberance?"
he laughed, patting his make-up. "Why, I can't reach the buttons on my
own waistcoat. Page will have to drive me."
"But then they'll all of them know you are not Santa Claus if they see
me."
"Nonsense, daughter! They'll think he is Santa Claus if you are along.
The only Christmas they have ever had has come through us, and they will
just think we have invited Santy here to amuse them. I think we can
trust Mr. Tucker to act the part. I am going to beg off and stay home
with my book," and the dear man sank back in his chaise longue and
buried his nose once more in his four thousand pages of poetry.
So I drove Zebedee, and the girls and Wink went with Jo Winn and the New
York cousin in a great old double sleigh that must have been in the Winn
family as long as our family coach had been in ours.
Father put down his beloved book long enough to see us off, and then
with a great sigh of content, mixed with relief, sank back on his
cushions and resumed his search for old favourites.
What a merry crowd we were! Zebedee cracked his whip and
"Whistled and shouted and called them by name.
On, Dasher and Dancer! On, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet and Cupid! On, Dunder and Blitzen!"
Old Peg did not know exactly what to make of all her new names, but like
the intelligent beast she was, she divined that it meant to go as fast
as she could, so she snow-dusted Jo Winn's team until they had to drop
back a few yards. If it had not been for me, I think Zebedee's turn out
would have fooled any one inclined to believe in St. Nick. Of course Peg
did not look much like eight tiny reindeer, but then, he might have left
his reindeer team in the Antarctic Circle and picked up a mere horse for
the rest of the journey, which would have been a most thoughtful thing
for our beloved Saint to have done.
The little pickaninnies were on the lookout for Docallison, and as we
neared Aunt Keziah's cabin a shout went up from the bushes where some of
the little boys were hiding, watching the bend in the road. The window
was black with expectant faces and Zebedee said he thought their smiles
were more beautiful than any Christmas wreaths he had ever seen. You
remember that Aunt Keziah was the neighbourhood "Tender," that is, she
looked after all the children whose mothers were away in service. She
was quite an institution and Father said did much to lower the death
rate of her race. She raised a healthy crowd of children and as a rule
they turned out to be a mannerly lot as well.
"Perliteness is cheap an' a smile don' cos' no mo'n a frown," she would
say, "an' you kin sho' buy mo' wif it if you is a tradin' wif white
fo'ks."
Certainly there were smiles to spare that Christmas morning and
politeness to burn. The children, fourteen in all, came tumbling out of
the cabin when the boys in the bushes gave warning of our approach. They
thought it was Docallison until we were upon them, and then such a
shouting and scrambling as was never seen. One of the strangest things
that ever happened was that Aunt Keziah herself believed in Santa Claus
and no power on earth could shake her faith in him.
"'Cose I b'lieves in him! If'n I ain't nebber seed him befo' what dat
got to do wif it? I ain't nebber yit laid eyes on Gawd an' de blessed
Sabior but I b'lieves; an' now I done seed Santy Claus wif my own eyes.
What's mo', he done brung me gif's wif his own han'. De preacher ub a
Sunday done said dat Gawd would gib me honey an' de honey com', an' I
will git gold, yea, fin' gold,--but I ain't nebber foun' none yit, an'
all de honey dis here ole nigger done tas'ed fer yars an' yars is some
bum'le bee honey what de chillun foun' in de woods. Cose I ain't a
blamin' uf de Almighty,--I reckon he'll do fer me someday whin he gits
to it, but so fer I done ebby thing fer myse'.--But Santy here he done
foun' me and is a doin' fer me now," and the old woman munched her
chocolate marshmallows, that seemed designed especially for her
toothless state, and pulled around her lean old shoulders the nice warm
shawl that Santa Claus had drawn from his bursting pack.
The cabin, boasting only two rooms and a low attic where the male
"boders" slept, was full to overflowing when all of us piled in, but we
were anxious to see how the little darkeys took Santa Claus and if they
really believed in him. They did, every last one of them. There was not
a doubting Thomas among them. With no incredulity to overcome, Zebedee's
task was a simple one. He told his cheerful and kindly lies with much
gusto, to the delight of all his listeners, black and white.
"Well, children, I thought I would never get here! I had so many places
to go. I was coming last night down your chimney, which is the proper
way to come after you are all asleep at night, but my reindeer got so
tired I had to put them in a stable way up at Richmond and get down here
just the best I could, and then borrow a horse from Docallison and get
Miss Page to drive me over here. By the way, Docallison sent his kindest
regards to all of you,--" Here some of the little nigs made bobbing
curtseys and the ones who did not got soundly smacked by Aunt Keziah.
"He couldn't come this morning but he thought you wouldn't mind since I
was coming."
At that, Little Minnie, who was one of the charity orphans Aunt Keziah
was raising, began to blubber:
"I ain't gwine take no castor ile from Santy. Docallison done tell me he
gwine gib me a pinny if I tak castor ile."
"Why, if I didn't almost forget!" exclaimed the ever-ready Zebedee. "I
have a whole dime here for a little girl who was to take castor oil,"
and he began a frantic search for his pockets but the down pillows and
dressing gown were too much for him and Wink came to his relief with the
necessary coin. "Now you must promise to take your medicine right away."
"But I ain't sick now!" wailed the little girl, clutching her dime. "I
means whin I do git sick."
"Now listen to that there lil' orphant Minnie!" exclaimed Aunt Keziah.
"What cause she got to worrit about ile whin she ain't got ache or
pain?"
"But I'se thinkin' 'bout what I'se gonter git whin I done gits through a
stuffin'," wailed Minnie. "I lows thin I gotter take ile."
"Well, you've got your dime now and if you get sick you must take the
oil," laughed Zebedee.
"But Docallison gibs me a pinny. I ain't got no use fer a dime. Aunt
Keziah won't let chilluns spen' nothin' but pinnies!"
So Wink had to go through his pockets for the desired penny before
little Orphan Minnie would be comforted. Aunt Keziah stood by with a
tolerant smile on her wrinkled old face. It was a well known fact that
the old woman spoiled all the little charity children, the ones she took
for nothing, while she made the "bo'ders" toe the line and walk chalk.
The twins she was raising, Milly Jourdan's twins, whom she had so
euphoniously named Postle Peter and Pistle Paul, emboldened by the
success of Minnie, now set up a whine for pennies, too, but Aunt Keziah
knocked their heads together without ceremony.
"You Postle Peter! You Pistle Paul! I'll learn you some manners, you
lim's er Satan. Ain't you got sinse ernuf to know Santy Claus didn't
come way down here from North 'Merica jis' ter listen ter yo' gabble? As
fer gittin' pinnies fer a takin' castor ile,--you know jis' as well as I
do that you lick de spoon ev'y chanct you git, you is dat fon' of ile.
De ve'y las' time Docallison was here he done sayed you mak him sick to
his stomach a guzzlin' ile de way you done."
The old woman's tirade caused a general laugh, and Tweedles and I were
really uneasy for fear Santy would shake off his bowl full of jelly he
roared so loud. Wink found some more pennies which he surreptitiously
handed to the crestfallen twins.
"Here, Pistle Peter and Postle Paul! Here's some pennies for you, to
make up for your names," he whispered to the grinning little nigs.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHRISTMAS FOR SALLY WINN.
There were other cabins to visit and we had to tear ourselves away from
Aunt Keziah's. Mr. Kent took many photographs of Santa Claus with the
little darkeys crowding around him.
"This will be a gold mine to me," he averred. "I can see myself filling
pages of advertising matter with illustrations from this morning."
Everywhere we went, Santa Claus was hailed with delight. We left many
packages at many cabins and finally ended up at Sally Winn's. This was
at Dee's instigation. Indeed it was a kindly thought that took us there.
Poor Sally had been exercising unwonted self-control in not sending for
Father at midnight on Christmas Eve. Jo said she had felt all kinds of
flutterations but had submitted to a dose of the "pink medicine," and
that, with the comfort she had derived from a hot water bottle, had
tided her through the night. Then she had felt it incumbent upon her to
get up and make waffles for breakfast because of the guest from New
York.
We had some gifts for Sally tied up in the Tucker's best style, with
sheets on sheets of tissue paper, yards and yards of red and green
ribbon, and dozens and dozens of Christmas seals. Mammy Susan had been
growing a citronella slip for her and it had reached quite a pretentious
size and begun to branch out like the parent plant.
Sally's delight was really pathetic to see. She, poor woman, had very
little of interest in her life, so little that she had to make a real
pleasure and excitement over her "spells." A visit from Santa Claus was
almost as much fun to her as a visit from the Angel Gabriel would have
been, and the sleigh bells were only next in cheer to the last trump.
Sally, you will remember, was our neighbour at Milton who spent her life
trying to die.
Our coming was a great surprise to her. Any pleasure that happened to
come her way always took her unawares. She was certainly one of the
Mrs. Gummidges of this world and was "a poor lone lorn critter" if I
ever saw one. She was a grateful soul and was profuse in her thanks for
the gifts. I had never seen her more enthusiastic although Father and I
had never missed a Christmas in giving her some nice present. I verily
believe it was the festive wrappings that appealed to her.