TURNED-ABOUT GIRLS
It was thoroughly wrong, the deception that Jacqueline had suggested.
She knew it was wrong, but she didn't care. As for Caroline, her mind
was such a jumble of cows and boys and fierce half-aunts (so much more
ogreish in suggestion than whole aunts!) and an Institution, looming in
the background, that she hardly knew right from wrong.
Only as she followed Jacqueline's example and began to unfasten her
rumpled frock, she mustered the spirit to falter:
"But they'll find out right away----"
"No, they won't, unless you're a silly."
"But some day your Aunt Edith who knows you will come----"
"Not before September," said Jacqueline cheerily, "and by that time
summer will be over, and we'll have had our fun. Think of the piano!"
"Oh, I don't know what to do!" wailed Caroline. She was a shivering
little figure, barelegged, in her underclothes, with her soiled and
mussed checked gingham in a heap at her feet.
"Now you do as I tell you," counseled Jacqueline in her most masterful
manner. "Why, Caroline, it's nothing but a joke, and just the minute you
want to, we'll change back. Be a good sport now! Come on!" When
Jacqueline smiled she was irresistible. She smiled now. Caroline
wavered.
"If you don't," said Jacqueline sweetly, "you're a quitter, and I'll
never speak to you again."
To lose Jacqueline, the one friend she had in this new world into which
she was being cast, was more than Caroline could bear.
"I'm not a quitter," she vowed. "I'll show you. Wait till I get out some
clothes."
The big shabby much-traveled suitcase that was Caroline's, and the smart
black leather case that was Jacqueline's, alike held fresh changes of
clothes. In these the little girls dressed themselves from the skin out.
Caroline gasped a little at the silk socks, the delicate undergarments,
the knickers and the frock of henna-colored crêpe in which she rather
guiltily encased herself. Jacqueline tumbled gleefully into cotton
socks, much-mended plain cotton underwear, and a fresh frock of brown
and white gingham, with a big patch in the back breadth.
"I'm bigger than you," she chuckled. "These clothes look awful skimpy on
me. I'll tell your half-aunt that I shot up last winter. I did really,
so it isn't a fib."
"Your clothes look--nice on me," said Caroline, as she caught a glimpse
in the mirror of the strange child into which she had turned herself.
"They fit me."
"That's because they're short for me," Jacqueline told her. "Aunt Edie
has 'em made that way--it's the smartest thing, this year. She'd think
you looked dowdy with your skirt way down to your knees, but probably
Great-aunt Eunice won't mind."
In a businesslike way she restrapped the black leather suitcase.
"That's yours now, remember," she told Caroline, "and the hatbox, and
the black hat, and the coat, and my watch here,--don't forget to wind
it!--and those two books, and the vanity bag. Hang on to it! The check
for my trunk--your trunk it will be now--and the key to it are there in
the little purse."
"But there's money in it, too," protested Caroline. "Oh, Jackie, I can't
take your money."
"You won't take much of it," Jacqueline assured her. "I shall slip three
dollars to the porter, and tell him not to give us away."
Caroline looked at her admiringly. She hadn't thought of the porter. She
felt quite sure that if ever a woman became president of the United
States, as she had heard was now possible, Jacqueline would be that
woman.
"Now sit down," bade Jacqueline, and poked Caroline into a seat. "We're
only half an hour from Baring Junction----"
"Oh!" Caroline softly squeaked.
"Don't _oh_! We've got to get things straight because they may ask
questions. Now your father was John Gildersleeve----"
"No, he wasn't!" protested Caroline.
"You ninny! Don't you see--you're me now--Jacqueline Gildersleeve. Your
father was John Gildersleeve. He was born and brought up in Longmeadow,
and he and Cousin Penelope went to school together. By and by he grew
up, and his father and mother died, and he went out to California. He
was in the oil business. My mother--I mean, she's your mother now--was
Marion Delane. Her father had a big ranch, with horses and things, and
Aunt Edith is her sister. And she died--not Aunt Edith, but my mother
that you must call your mother--when my baby brother came, and he died,
too, and my father was killed the next autumn in the oil fields. I've
lived with Aunt Edith ever since, and our place is called Buena
Vista--that's Spanish for Fair View--and first I had governesses, but
last year I went to boarding school. Aunt Edith married my new uncle
Jimmie Knowlton on the fifth day of June. He's Colonel Knowlton--he was
in the air service--and he took me up twice in his plane, and we did a
tailspin--oh, boy! He's some uncle. But they didn't want me on their
honeymoon--they've gone to Alaska--that's why I'm going to Great-aunt
Eunice. She's wanted me to spend a summer with her for years and years.
I don't believe she likes Aunt Edith much."
Jacqueline paused at last for breath, and fixed her eyes on the
trembling Caroline.
"Can you remember all that?" she asked sternly.
"I--I guess so," Caroline answered dubiously.
"You'll be all right," Jacqueline encouraged. "Aunt Edie hardly ever
wrote letters to Great-aunt Eunice, so she doesn't really know much
about us. Now see if I remember what I've got to know. I'm you
now--Caroline Tait. My father was Henry Tait, and he was born in
Longmeadow, and he came to Chicago years ago and was on a newspaper when
he died. And he met my mother out there, and her name was Frances Meade,
and she was a music teacher, and none of the Longmeadow folks ever saw
her. And I've been living with her cousin, Delia Meade, and I'm going to
my father's half-sister, and her name is Martha Conway. Is that all
right?"
"Yes," Caroline nodded, "but oh! I've just thought. Won't we have to
write letters back to your Aunt Edith and my Cousin Delia--and they'll
see that the handwriting isn't ours?"
For as much as half a second, Jacqueline hesitated. Then she rose to the
occasion.
"I've got two post-cards shut up in my Robin Hood book. Quick! Write to
your Cousin Delia on this one that you've got safe to Baring Junction,
and your half-aunt met you and is very nice."
"But I don't know if she is!" protested truthful Caroline.
"You've got to take chances sometimes," Jacqueline silenced her. "Hurry
up and write, and I'll write one, too, to my Aunt Edie."
Hastily and in pencil the post-cards were written. From a recess in the
vanity bag Jacqueline dug out two stamps, the worse for wear but still
stickable. These she fixed upon the cards.
"The porter'll post 'em," she said. "That'll satisfy your Cousin Delia
and my Aunt Edie--and we've simply got to get out of writing them any
more letters, somehow."
Then the black porter hammered at the door, and Jacqueline bade him
enter, and in her lordly manner permitted him to brush her off.
"Ain' yo' done mix yo' clothes up, Missy?" he asked with interest.
Caroline quaked. Jacqueline merely dimpled.
"Of course we have," she said. "We're going to put something over on our
relations. You see, I know her folks just like she knows mine."
(Which was true in the letter, but not in the spirit. Jacqueline might
as well have told a fib and been done with it.)
The porter seemed to hesitate.
"It will be all right," Jacqueline told him loftily. "Here's something
for you. Take off that young lady and her luggage as soon as the train
stops. I'll look out for myself."
So sure of herself she was that the porter, like Caroline, was put to
silence. He pocketed the money that she gave him, chuckled, muttered
that she was "de beatermost," and went his way.
"We'll be there in five minutes now," said Jacqueline. "Put on this hat.
Here, give me yours. Take the books. Give me the doll."
"Oh, no!" cried Caroline, and clasped Mildred to her.
"But look here," said Jacqueline, "I'm you and the doll is yours, so
I've got to have her."
"Oh, I can't--I can't!" cried Caroline. "Not Mildred! Don't you see?
Daddy gave her to me--the Christmas before he died--and Muzzy made all
her clothes--I can't give her up, Jackie--not even to you--she'd be
homesick."
"Now stop it!" commanded Jacqueline. "I don't want your silly old doll!
Take her along with you. It won't give us away."
"But her clothes--they're in my suitcase--your suitcase--"
Already Jacqueline was tearing open the shabby suitcase.
"You shan't gum the show now," she panted. "We'd look like--like a
couple of boobs. Here are the clothes. Take 'em, quick!"
"I can't get your suitcase open," chittered Caroline.
The train was slowing down for Baring Junction. Moments counted.
Jacqueline seized the nearly emptied satin candy box and crammed its
remaining contents into the pockets of the brown and white gingham that
she wore.
"I told you her clothes would go into the candy box," she said as she
hastily crushed Mildred's wardrobe into the satin receptacle. "Take it
quick--here's the porter--I'll strap the suitcase."
"Oh, Jackie!" Caroline turned wildly to her friend, like a frightened
kitten that doesn't know which way to run.
"Wipe your eyes, kid, and don't weaken!" bade Jacqueline stoutly.
"Porter, take the books, too--her hands are full. Beat it now, Carol!
Ask for Mrs. Eunice Gildersleeve and don't forget there's sure to be a
piano!"