HUMAN FREIGHT ON THE DUMMY
Tavia almost fell over Ned. Dorothy grasped the door. The maid ruffled up
her nice white apron!
They all scrambled into the living room and there was more, for with
them, in fact, in Ned's strong arms, was a child, a boy with blazing
cheeks and defiant eyes.
"Look, mother! He came up on the dumb waiter!" said Ned, as soon as he
could speak.
"Yes, and I nearly killed him," blurted Tavia. "I thought the place was
haunted!"
"On the dumb waiter?" repeated Dorothy.
The maid nodded her head decidedly.
"Why!" ejaculated Mrs. White, sitting up very straight.
"I didn't mean anything," said the boy, reflecting good breeding in
choice of language, if not in manner of transportation. "I was just
coming up to fly kites."
"But on the dummy!" queried Ned.
"Well, we wouldn't dare come up any other way. This apartment was not
rented before and we had to sneak in on the janitor. This is the best
lobby for kites," and his eyes danced at the thought.
"But where's the kite?" questioned Ned.
"Talent's got it."
"Talent?" repeated Dorothy.
"Yes, he's the other fellow--the smartest fellow around. His real name--"
he paused to laugh.
"Is what?" begged Tavia, coming over to the little fellow, with no hidden
show of admiration.
"It's too silly, but he didn't choose it," apologized the boy. "It's
C-l-a-u-d!"
"That's a pretty name," interposed Mrs. White, feeling obliged to say
something agreeable.
"But he can't bear it," declared the boy. "My name is worse. Mother
brought it from Rome."
"Catacombs?" suggested Tavia, foolishly.
"No," the lad lowered his voice in disgust. "But it's Raphael."
"That was the name of a great painter," said Mrs. White, again feeling
how difficult it was to talk to a small and enterprising New York boy.
"Maybe," admitted the little one, "but I have Raffle from the boys, and
that's all right. Means going off all the time."
Everyone laughed. Raffle looked uneasily at the door.
"But where's that kite?" questioned Ned.
"Talent was waiting until I got up. Then I was to pull him up. He has the
kites."
"As long as I didn't kill you, Raffle," said Tavia, "I guess we won't
have to have you arrested for false entering."
"Dorothy caught the rope just in time," Ned explained, in answer to his
mother's look of inquiry. "Tavia was so scared she was going to let it
drop."
"We had ordered things," Tavia explained further, "and thought they were
coming up. I was just crazy to have something to do with all the machines
in the place, so went to get the things. Imagine me seeing something
squirm in the dark!"
"But you weren't afraid," said Raffle to Dorothy. "You just hauled me
out."
"Your coat got torn," Dorothy remarked to divert attention. "What will
your mother say?"
"She will never see it," declared the little fellow. "She goes to
rehearsal all day and sings all night. Tillie--she's the girl--she likes
me. She won't mind mending it," and he bunched together in his small hand
the hole in the short coat.
"I'll tell you," interposed Ned, "they say dark haired people fetch good
luck, and you are our first caller. Suppose we get Talent, and bring him
up properly, kites and all. Then perhaps, when I get something to eat,
you may show me how to fly a kite over the Hudson."
"Bully!" exclaimed Raffle. "I'll get him right away. If John--the
janitor--catches him waiting with the kites--"
But he was gone with the rest of the sentence.
Ned slapped his knees in glee. Tavia stretched out full length, shoes and
all, on the rose-colored divan, Dorothy shook with merry laughter, but
Martha, the maid with the ruffled-up apron, turned to the kitchenette to
hide her emotion.
"New York is certainly a busy place," said Ned, finally. "We may get a
wireless from home on the clothes line. Tavia, I warn you not to hang
handkerchiefs on the roof. It's tabooed, for--country girls."
Tavia groaned in disagreement. The fact was she had made her way to the
roof before she had explored her own and Dorothy's rooms, and even Ned
did not relish the idea of her sight-seeing from that dangerous height.
But New York was actually fascinating Tavia. She would likely be looking
for "bulls and bears" on Wall Street next, thought Ned.
"Aunty, we are going to have the nicest lunch," interrupted Dorothy. "We
all helped Martha; it was hard to find things, and get the right dishes,
you know. I guess the last folks who had this apartment must have had a
Chinese cook, for everything is put away backwards."
"Yes, the pans were on the top shelves and the cups on the bottom," Tavia
agreed. "I took to the pans--I love to climb on those queer ladders that
roll along!"
"Like silvery moonlight," Ned helped out, "only the clouds won't
develop."
"Wouldn't I give a lot to have had all the boys share this fun," said
Dorothy. Then, realizing the looks that followed the word "boys," she
blushed peach-blow.
A Japanese gong sounded gently in the place called hall.
"There's the lunch bell," declared Dorothy. "And isn't that little
Aeolian harp on the sitting room door too sweet!"
"The sitting room is a private room in an apartment," explained Ned,
mischievously, "and it's a great idea to have an alarm clock on the
door."
"There comes the boy with the kite," Tavia exclaimed. "I don't believe I
care for lunch."
"Oh, yes you do, my dear," objected Mrs. White. "There are two boys and
we will have to trust them on the balcony with their kites. The rail is
quite high, and they look rather well able to take care of themselves."
Tavia looked longingly at the boys, who now were making their way to what
Dorothy had termed the Dove Cote. Ned insisted upon postponing his lunch
until they got their strings both untied and tied again--first from the
stick then to the rail. Martha said things would be cold, but Ned was
obdurate.
At last Mrs. White and her guests were seated at the polished table in
the green and white room. She glanced about approvingly, while Martha
brought in the dishes.
"I made the pudding," Dorothy confessed. "I remember our old housekeeper
used to make that Brown Betty out of stale cake, and as Martha could get
no other kind of cake handy I thought it would do."
"A cross between pudding, cake and pie," remarked Tavia, "but mostly
sweet gravy. It smells good, however. And I--cleaned the lettuce. If you
get any little black bugs--lizards or snails--"
"Oh, Tavia, don't!" protested Dorothy, who at that moment was in the act
of putting a lettuce leaf between her lips.
"But I was only going to say that these reptiles had been properly bathed
and are perfectly wholesome. In fact they have been sterilized," Tavia
said, calmly.
"At any rate," put in Mrs. White, "you all have succeeded in getting a
very nice luncheon together. I had no idea you and Dorothy could be so
useful. We might have gotten along with one more maid to help Martha.
Then we would have had more house room."
"I should think you could get the janitor to do odd jobs," suggested
Tavia, over a mouthful of broiled steak.
"Janitor!" exclaimed Mrs. White. "My dear, you do not know New York
janitors! They are a set of aristocrats all by themselves. We will have
to look out that we please the janitor, or we may go without service a
day or two just for punishment."
"Then I will have to be awfully nice to ours," went on Tavia, in the way
she had of always inviting trouble of one kind if not exactly the kind
under discussion. "I saw him. He has the loveliest red cheeks. Looks like
a Baldwin apple left over from last year."
A rush through the apartment revealed Ned and the two kite boys.
"Anything left?" asked Ned. "These two youngsters have to wait until two
o'clock for a bite to eat, and I thought--"
"Of course," interrupted his mother, pleasantly, as she touched the bell
for Martha. "We will set plates for them at once. Glad to have our
neighbors so friendly."
The little fellows did not look one bit abashed--another sign of New
York, Dorothy noted mentally. Talent, or Tal, as they called him, managed
to get on the same chair with Raffle, as they waited for the extra places
to be made at the table.
Tavia gazed at them with eyes that showed no wonder. She expected so many
things of New York that each surprise seemed to have its own niche in her
delighted sentiments.
"You see," said Raffle, "Tillie goes out for a walk about noon time, then
mother gets in sometimes at two, and sometimes later. A feller always has
to wait for someone."
"Does Tillie take--a baby out?" ventured Dorothy.
"Baby!" repeated the boy. "I'm the baby. She never takes me out," at
which assertion the two boys laughed merrily.
"She just takes a complexion walk," Ned helped out.
Martha did not smile very sweetly when told to make two more places at
the table, but she did not frown either. In a short time Ned, Raffle and
Talent, with Tavia for company, and Dorothy assisting Martha, were left
by Mrs. White to their own pleasure, while she excused herself and went
off to write some notes. She remembered even then what Ned had said about
boys liking to have things to themselves, and was not sorry of the
excuse.
But Tavia held to her chair. She knew the strangers would say something
interesting, and her "bump" of curiosity was not yet reduced.
"My big brother goes to the university," Raffle said. "But he eats at the
Grill. He never has to wait."
"Your brother?" repeated Tavia, as if that was the very remark she had
been waiting for.
"Now Tavia," cautioned Ned.
"Now Ned," said Tavia, in a tone of defiance.
"I only wanted to say," continued Ned, "that this big brother is probably
studying law, and he may know a lot about--well, the number of persons in
whom one person may be legitimately interested."
The small boys were too much absorbed in their meal to pay attention to
such a technical discussion. Tavia only turned her eyes up, then rolled
them down quickly, in a sort of scorn, for answer to Ned.
"Now for your pudding," announced Dorothy, who came from the kitchenette
with three large dishes of the Brown Betty on a small tray.
"Um-m-m!" breathed the boys, drawing deep breaths so as to fully inhale
the delicious aroma.
"What's that?" asked Ned, as the outside door bell rang vigorously.
In reply Martha announced that the janitor wanted to know if anyone had
tied a kite to the lobby rail.
"The janitor!" exclaimed both small boys in one breath. Then, without
further warning, they simultaneously ducked under the table.