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[Illustration: SLEEPY TOOK HER BY THE ARM AND CARRIED HER OFF,
PROTESTING, * * * BUT HAPPY IN BEING COERCED. Page 37.]
A HOUSE PARTY WITH THE TUCKER TWINS
By
NELL SPEED
_Author of "The Molly Brown Series," "The Carter
Girls Series," "At Boarding School With
the Tucker Twins," etc., etc._
With Four Illustrations
by
ARTHUR O. SCOTT
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1921
BY
HURST & COMPANY
Contents
I. MAXTON 7
II. THE COUNTRY STORE 19
III. ENGAGING IN MERCANTILE PURSUITS 35
IV. DEE TUCKER MAKES A SALE 51
V. THE HUMAN FLY 63
VI. "BIG MEETIN'" 78
VII. THE REASON WHY 96
VIII. THE CIRCUS 113
IX. THE PERFORMANCE 128
X. THE GHOST OF A GHOST 140
XI. THE PICNIC 148
XII. THE SHOPPER-ROON 165
XIII. TANGLEFOOT 185
XIV. A YOUNGER SON 203
XV. SLEEPY WAKES UP 219
XVI. THINGS HAPPENING 231
XVII. MORE THINGS HAPPENING 246
XVIII. THE END OF AN EVENTFUL DAY 259
XIX. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 271
XX. A LETTER FROM ANNIE PORE TO PAGE ALLISON 283
XXI. A LETTER FROM GEORGE MASSIE TO PAGE ALLISON 296
XXII. A LETTER FROM PAGE ALLISON TO THE TUCKER TWINS 300
A House Party With the Tucker Twins
CHAPTER I
MAXTON
THERE may be more fun than a house-party, but I doubt it. Certainly I,
Page Allison, have never had it. What could be more delightful than to
spend two weeks in a beautiful old country home with such a host as
General Price, and to have as fellow guests all the girl friends you
care for most in the world,--to say nothing of some of the male
persuasion that at least you don't hate?
Harvie Price had been promised this house-party by his grandfather as
reward of merit, and, like most things earned by hard labor, it proved
to be worth the work expended. The Tucker Twins of course were there,
Mary Flannagan, Shorty Hawkins, George Massie (alias Sleepy), Wink
White, Jim Hart, and Ben Raglan, whose other name was Rags. There were
two men from the University whom we did not know before, but it did not
take long for us to forget that they were new acquaintances. They fitted
in wonderfully well and a few hours found them behaving like old and
tried friends. Their names were Jack Bennett and Billy Somers, and both
of them hailed from Kentucky. There was a new girl in the party, Jessie
Wilcox. She wasn't quite so easy to know as the new boys.
I always feel like crying when I think of dear little Annie Pore's
connection with that house-party. She was of course the very first
person Harvie asked, the one he wanted most. I think in his mind the
party was given to Annie, and when Mr. Pore with characteristic
selfishness and stubbornness refused to let her go, it was a blow
indeed.
His plea was that he needed her to keep the store for him. He had hired
a clerk after Annie went to boarding-school, and owing to his growing
business, had kept the boy on through vacation, but on the eve of the
house-party had seen fit to get rid of him, having sent him on an
unasked for and undesired holiday.
"I found it out only this morning," said Harvie gloomily.
He had come to meet us at the landing, most of us having arrived by boat
from Richmond. He was doing his best to look cheerful, feeling that a
cloud must not be cast over the entire party because one member could
not be there. He said he felt he knew me well enough to speak out on the
subject of Mr. Pore, and speak out he did.
"But has your grandfather tried to persuade him to let her come?"
"No! You see Grandfather is a great believer in State's Rights, and he
carries his theories down to the individual. He says that Mr. Pore is a
wrong-headed father but it is his own affair and he refuses to
interfere. He takes the stand that he has no more right to dictate to
Mr. Pore how to run his household, than Massachusetts had to interfere
in our own little matter of slavery here in Virginia, back in the
sixties."
"Poor Annie! We shall have to work out some kind of a scheme for her.
I'll tell Mary and the Tuckers. I am sure we can get the tiresome old
Englishman to come around somehow."
"I wish I thought so, but I tell you that Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore has
never been known to change his mind. Besides he is leaving to-day for
Richmond to be gone several days."
That is often the way with persons who have not much mind to change;
they seem to have none to spare; but Mr. Pore was a cultivated, learned
gentleman,--surely he was amenable to reason.
Price's Landing was a quiet little wharf almost hidden by the
overhanging willows. It took the boat only a moment to drop one mail bag
and take on another, or to do the same by the occasional passengers. It
seemed hardly worth while to go through the motions of landing for such
small traffic, but Harvie assured us that in watermelon time or when
tobacco was being shipped they were a very important trading point, one
of the busiest along the James.
The village was about an eighth of a mile back from the landing and it
looked as though not even watermelon time could wake it up. There were
two stores, Mr. Pore's and a rival concern; a blacksmith shop, sprawling
far out in the road; a schoolhouse; three churches; a post-office; and
four residences.
"I'd like to stop and have all of you see Annie now, but Grandfather is
expecting us and perhaps we had better come back later on," said Harvie,
who was driving one of the vehicles sent to meet us.
The road to Maxton, the Prices' place, skirted the village and then went
directly up quite a steep elevation. The house was built on top of the
hill commanding a fine view of the river. The lawn sloped down to the
water's edge where one could see a very attractive boat-house and
several boats riding at anchor.
"Lovely! Lovely!" we exclaimed.
"I'm mighty afraid I'm going to run down that hill and jump in the
water," cried Dum.
"Well, hills are certainly made to run down and water to jump in,"
declared one of the new acquaintances, Billy Somers, who was standing on
the springs of the vehicle in the rear holding on by the skin of his
teeth and the back seat. "I bid to do what you do."
The mansion (one could not call it just plain house) was a perfect
specimen of colonial architecture, red brick of a rich rare tone with a
great gallery across the front, the roof of which was supported by huge
white pillars. The front door was a marvel of beautiful proportions,
line and detail. A great ball might have been given on the porch, or
gallery, as it is called in the South. Indeed, a sizable party might
have been held on each one of the broad stone steps that led to the
lawn. Only a very long-legged person could go up or down those stairs
without taking two steps to a tread.
A house like Maxton is very wonderful and beautiful but somehow never
seems very homelike to me. Every time you go in and out of your front
door to have to tackle those stairs would take from the homey feeling.
Now at my home, Bracken, you are closer to Mother Earth and not nearly
so grand and toploftical.
Standing on the gallery to greet the guests were General Price and his
maiden sister Miss Maria, the general tall and stately and Miss Maria
short and fat. It was easy for the brother to look aristocratic and
dignified, in fact he could not have looked any other way, so deserved
no credit; but for the sister to look equally so was a marvel. Her
figure reminded me of Mammy Susan's tomato pincushion, a treasure I had
been allowed to play with in my childhood. She was quite as round in the
back as the front and her waist was like the equator: an imaginary line
extending from east to west. Her face was in keeping with her figure,
round and fat, but through those rolls of flesh the high born lady
looked out. Her voice was very sweet and the hand that she extended to
us was as white as snow. She must have been about seventy years old, but
thanks to her rotundity there were no wrinkles on her pink and white
face. Of course she was dressed in black silk and old lace! How else
could she have been clothed?
The general would have served as a model for the make-up of a movie
actor in a before-the-war film. The Tuckers and Mary and I decided later
on that we felt just like a movie as we went up those grand broad steps
with our host and hostess at the top.
The hall carried out our feeling of being on the screen.
"My, what a place to dance!" whispered Dee to me, but General Price
heard her and smiled his approval. He was dignified himself but we were
thankful he did not expect us to be.
"You shall dance here to your heart's content, my dear. Many a measure
has been trod in this hall."
Dee looked a little depressed at being expected to tread a measure. That
sounded rather minuetish to the modern ear. We wondered what he would
think of the dances of the day.
Maxton was laid out in the form of a cross with two great wings, one on
each side of the hall. The girls were lodged upstairs in one wing, the
boys in the other. Downstairs in the boys' wing were the parlors and
smoking room and General Price's chamber and office; in the girls', the
dining room, breakfast room, sewing room, chamber, linen room,
storeroom, Miss Price's chamber and her small sitting room where she
directed her household. There was a basement with more storerooms,
pantries, a billiard room and a winter kitchen, but in the summer an
outside kitchen was used. All of these things we found out later on a
tour of inspection with our hostess.
The great hall ran through the house and the back door was exactly like
the front. Thanks to the lay of the land, however, there was not quite
such a formidable array of steps. It seemed much more homelike in the
back than the front. From the rear gallery one stepped into a formal
garden, gravel paths, box hedges, labyrinth and all.
"Oh, ain't it great, ain't it great?" cried Mary, dancing up and down
the waxed floor of the great bedroom she and I were to occupy. Dum and
Dee Tucker were put in the room with the other girl, Jessie Wilcox. If
Annie could have come she was to have been with Mary and me.
"I've got no business calling it great, though," she said as she stopped
prancing, "when Annie can't be here. What are we to do about it, Page
Allison?"
"Let's call Tweedles in consultation. They can think up things."
Tweedles were very glad to come. Miss Wilcox, who had motored over to
Maxton several hours ahead of us, had already taken possession of the
room and had begun to unpack her many fluffy clothes. Miss Maria had
introduced all of us to our fellow visitor and had graciously expressed
a desire that we should be good friends. We were willing, but it
remained to be seen whether the stranger would meet us half way. She was
a beautiful little creature with dark eyes and hair. Evidently she was
very dressy or she would not have had to take up two double beds and
all the chairs with her clothes. She seemed to have no idea of making
room for the Tuckers nor did she make any excuse for spreading herself
so promiscuously.
"She needn't think I am going to move them," said Dum. "If they aren't
off my bed by bedtime, I'll just go to sleep on them. I wish we could
come in with you girls."
"Of course that would never do," declared Dee. "We must stay where Miss
Price put us."
"Maybe Miss Wilcox will turn out to be fine," I suggested, hoping to
turn the tide of Dum's disapproval.
"Fine! She's too fine. I wish you could see her fluffy ruffles. But this
isn't thinking up something to do about poor little Annie. My, I wish
Zebedee could have come!"
We all wished the same thing, but since he couldn't come we felt we must
think up something for ourselves.
"He could have talked old Ponsonby Pore into letting Annie come, I just
know," said Dee.
"Maybe we could do the same thing," I suggested.
"Harvie says nothing will move him."
"Well, one thing sure, we can go to see Annie and he can't drive us out,
not after he has visited us at the beach. He'll just have to be polite
to us."
"Can't she come up in the evening? Surely she must stop keeping store
sometimes," asked Mary.
"Country stores never close. At least the one near us never does. They
might miss the sale of a box of matches or a stick of candy. I used to
think, when I was a little girl, that I would rather keep a store than
do anything in all the world. I talked about it so much that Mammy Susan
got right uneasy about me."
"Well, Harvie and Sleepy are blue enough about it, so we must cheer up,"
said Dee. "We are to be here two weeks and if we behave real well maybe
they will ask us for longer, and surely in that time we can make that
old stickinthemud come around. Zebedee could think up a way in a
minute."