Читать книгу A House Party with the Tucker Twins - Speed Nell - Страница 2

The Prices had the right idea about entertaining a crowd of young people: that was to let them entertain each other. If a dozen boys and girls can't have a good time just because they are girls and boys then there is something very dull about them and the combination is hopeless. There was nothing dull about this crowd gathered in the hospitable Price mansion. Harvie was too well bred to let the disappointment about the non-appearance of one guest make him neglect the others. Poor George Massie was the one who could not conceal his feelings. Annie was the first and only girl he had ever cared for and now he sat, a mountain of woe, consuming large quantities of luncheon as though the business of eating were the only solace in life.

"Wake up, Sleepy, the worst is yet to come!" teased Rags.

Sleepy only groaned and dismally accepted another hot biscuit. The funny thing about Sleepy was that he was so in love with Annie that he did not at all mind being teased.

"I am going down to see Annie right after luncheon. Don't you want to go too?" I whispered to Sleepy who was next to me.

"Sure!"

"We are trying to think up a plan by which we can get her hateful old father to let her join us here."

"Brute!"

"Don't you think the girl is pretty, sitting next to Wink?"

Miss Wilcox had plunged into a flirtation with that budding young doctor, placed on her right, not forgetting to turn to her left quite often to include Jack Bennett in her chatter.

"No! Like blondes best!"

Miss Wilcox looked up quickly. I was almost sure she had heard Sleepy. She glanced quite seriously around the table, regarding each girl intently. Certainly there were no decided blondes there except Mary Flannagan, whose hair was red, and even the best friends of dear old Mary could not call her beautiful. The Tucker twins were more brunette than blonde, Dum's hair being red black and Dee's blue black. As for me, Page Allison, I was neither one thing nor the other. My hair was neither light nor dark and my eyes were grey. She need not look at me so hard. I wasn't the blonde that Sleepy liked best.

Farther acquaintance with Jessie Wilcox explained her concern over Sleepy's remark. She was a very nice girl just so long as she was "it," but she could not brook a rival of any sort. She must be the center of attraction, admired by all, praised by all. The minute she felt that there was someone who was considered more beautiful than she was, could dance better, sing better, do anything better, that minute she was a changed being.

Her previous visits to Maxton had been very delightful as she had always been praised and petted to her heart's content. Both General Price and his sister were devoted to her and she was ever a welcome visitor. Her grandfather's home was about ten miles from Price's Landing, and whenever she came from New York to see him she must spend part of her time with the old people at Maxton. Harvie admired her very much, as who would not? She was beautiful, intelligent, very quick-witted and charming. He had never seen her with any other girl except her best friend, who on one occasion had been at Maxton with her, and this friend, being hopelessly plain and rather slow of wit, but served as a foil to the little beauty.

After overhearing Sleepy's announcement about blondes, she looked at me so steadily that I began to blush. I was suddenly very conscious of my tip-tilted nose and of the added toll of freckles that the summer always exacted from it. I wondered if anyone else was noticing the almost disagreeable expression of her usually sweet countenance.

I was glad when Miss Maria arose as a signal for us to leave the table.

"Make yourselves at home!" the general said in his hospitable way. "Maxton is yours to do with as you please. There are horses in the stables for any of you who want to ride or drive; there are boats on the river; there are swings on the lawn; the tennis court is in condition for matches if you care to play. All I ask of you is not to fall off the horses or let them run away with you and kill you; and not to tumble into the river and drown."

"That seems a reasonable request," I laughed. "How about falling out of the swings or beating each other up with tennis rackets?"

"Oh, well! I must not put too many restrictions on youth," he said, pinching my ear.

Jessie looked at me again rather severely and once more I felt mighty freckled.

"Let's get a rig and go see Annie," suggested Sleepy.

"All right! Tweedles and Mary want to go, too."

"Let's get in ahead of them," he pleaded.

"Come on, Page!" shouted Dum. "We want you in a set of tennis."

"Now I was just going to ask her to come for a row," cried Dee. "Wink and Jim told me to engage you. They have gone to see about the boat."

"Sorry, but I've got a date with Sleepy."

"Humph! Miss Allison seems to be rather in demand," said Jessie to Jack Bennett. She said it in a low voice but I heard quite distinctly.

"Yes! They say she is the most popular girl at her school."

"Oh, is that so? I can't see the attraction."

"Well, she must have it because girls like her as well as the fellows. They say Dr. White is terribly smitten on her."

"Absurd!"

I quite agreed with her. The sooner Wink White stopped hypnotizing himself into thinking he was in love with me, the better I would have liked it. Of course every girl likes to have attention, but I thought entirely too much of Wink to be pleased to have him looking at me like a dying calf. He was such a nice boy, so good looking, so clever, so agreeable, – except when he was alone with me. Then his whole nature seemed to undergo a change. I dreaded being left with him and usually managed to avoid it. He was my fly in the ointment of this house-party. I did not at all relish having this young Kentuckian state it as a fact that Wink was interested in me. Jessie Wilcox was welcome to him if she could persuade him to transfer his affections.

Sleepy and I skimmed away in a spruce red-wheeled buggy with a young horse that evidently liked to be moving.

"Fierce about Annie!" he said. "I'd like to wring that old duffer's neck."

"I hope he has gone before we get there, then," I laughed. "If Mr. Tucker could only get hold of him, I bet he could bring him around."

Mr. Pore had not gone, however, when we drew up at the cross roads where the country store stood. He was engaged in trying to sell a large rake to a farmer, while Annie was busily employed in measuring off two yards and three-quarters of unbleached cotton for the farmer's wife and then computing the amount due when the cotton was worth eight and two-third cents a yard. She completed the calculation just as we came in.

How glad she was to see us! Mr. Pore seemed pleased to renew my acquaintance, too. He gave only a formal greeting to Sleepy but shook my hand in what he meant to be a cordial way. The fact that I was part English and that part of me came up to his idea of social equality, made him look upon me as desirable. He had not forgotten that my mother and his wife had been friends in England. He honestly felt that there were no Americans who were his equals. General Price might be almost so, but not quite. He saw no reason why his beautiful daughter should not spend her young life weighing out lard and measuring calico for negroes, but every reason why she should not demean herself by mixing socially with any but the highest.

Mr. Pore's store was like every other country store except that it was perhaps a little more orderly, not much though. Order in a country store seems to be impossible. The stock must be so large and so varied to suit all demands that there never is room for it. I have never seen a country store that was not crowded. How the keepers of such stores ever take stock of their wares is a mystery to me. Perhaps they never do, but just go on buying when the supply gets low, and selling off as they can, putting money in the till until it gets full and then sending it to the bank. Usually they run their affairs in a haphazard manner and their books would defy an expert to straighten out. No matter from what walk of life the country storekeepers are drawn, they are all more or less alike, whether they are younger sons of the nobility as was Mr. Pore or elder sons of the soil (with much soil sticking to them) as was old Blinker, who ran the rival emporium at Price's Landing. They always have more stock than they have store, and their books usually look as though entries had been made upside down.

The Pores' store had shelves stretching from one end to the other, down both sides and reaching as high as the ceiling. On these shelves were piled dry-goods of all grades and material, lamps, shoes, harness, hardware, canned goods of every description, crackers, soap, starch, axle grease, false hair, perfume, patent medicines, toys, paint brushes, brooms, tobacco, writing paper, china and glass ware, jars, pots and pans, pokers, baseball bats, millinery, overalls, etc., etc.

The things that were too tall for the shelves, like Grandfather's clock, consequently stood on the floor. The aisle between the counters was blocked with sewing machines, kitchen tables, chairs, lawn mowers, crates of eggs and cases of ginger ale and sarsaparilla. There were barrels of coarse salt and great tins of lard, firkins of mackerel and herring, barrels of flour and sacks of meal. One would think that everything in the world that could be bought or sold was in that little store, but no! A door to one side led into another room and this room was also full to overflowing. There were more barrels of provisions for man and beast; sacks of chicken feed and bran; stoves of all kinds; poultry netting; coils of wire fencing; gardening implements and away back in a corner I spied a coffin.

What a setting for such a jewel as Annie Pore! Her beauty shone resplendent from its background of apron gingham and butter crocks. I fancied I could detect a little redness to her eyelids as though the disappointment in not being at Maxton with her friends had caused some weeping, but her manner was calm and her expression one of resignation to fate and the decrees of a selfish father. I could not help thinking how I would have behaved under the circumstances, or the Tucker twins. I would not have cried, to be sure, but neither would my expression have been resigned. As for Dum and Dee: they would no doubt have broken up the shop.

"We are so sorry Annie can't come to the house-party," I ventured as the farmer who had been haggling for the rake decided not to take it.

Why Mr. Pore was ever able to sell anything I could not see. His manner was so superior and condescending. Harvie told me afterwards that Mr. Pore had succeeded in spite of himself. He was scrupulously honest in the first place and then he always carried the best line of goods. As for the science of salesmanship: he had yet to learn its rudiments. He looked sore and irritated at having failed to make the sale but put on more than ever the manner of insulted royalty. I saw the farmer making for the rival store where a little later he emerged. Blinker had made the sale.

When I ventured the above remark, Annie looked as though she wished I wouldn't, and her father, I am sure, regretted the fact that I was part English, and that English of good blood; otherwise he could easily have annihilated me.

"It is a matter I do not care to discuss," he said with a freezing hauteur.

"Oh, I am not discussing with you, my dear Mr. Pore! I am merely telling you. All of us are so devoted to Annie and we have looked forward to being with her on this house-party all summer. I am sure if Harvie had known earlier that you would not be able to spare Annie at this time, he would have been glad to postpone the party."

"Ahem – I – am compelled to take this occasion for a business trip. When one is engaged in mercantile pursuits, it is necessary to make periodical visits to the city to replenish one's wares."

"Oh, certainly, I understand, but we still are dreadfully sorry about Annie. Of course we know that you want her to have all the pleasure on earth. That is the way fathers are made. We are sure you will make your stay as brief as possible so that Annie can join us at Maxton."

He looked somewhat taken aback and murmured something more about mercantile pursuits. Sleepy sat on a keg of nails with eyes as big as saucers while Annie had the startled expression of one who sees her friend enter the cage of a man-eating lion.

"You see I am an only child, too, Mr. Pore, and my mother is dead, just like Annie's. I know better than anyone how much a father can be to a little motherless daughter, and how that father can plan and deny himself for his child. You can't tell me anything about the love of a father."

As Mr. Pore had never attempted to tell of any such thing, this was most audacious of me. Annie was actually gasping and Sleepy choked, but Mr. Pore looked at me quite solemnly through his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Sometimes my father is called away; you see a country doctor's time is not his own, either, and he has had to leave me just when I felt I most needed him – on birthdays – and – and – all kinds of holidays, but he comes back to me just as fast as he can. My father is thinking of getting an assistant and then he can have more time, I hope. You have had an assistant, too, have you not?"

He bowed gravely.

"Where is he, then?"

"He is away on leave."

"Ill? That is too bad!"

"No, not ill! He is having a much-needed holiday."

"Oh, then he has gone on a trip?"

"I fancy not."

"Why, then I am sure he would be glad to come back and relieve Annie so she can come to Maxton. Oh, Mr. Pore, do please write for him to come on back and take his holiday later!"

"Really, Miss Allison – " he began in his most dignified Oxford donnish manner.

"Oh, I just know you will! You and Father and Mr. Tucker are all just alike. You can't bear to deny your girls any pleasure."

His expression was comical at having these virtues thrust upon him.

"I – er – I – shall endeavor to return from this enforced journey, necessary to replenish the stock which one engaged in mercantile pursuits in the rural districts finds it expedient to carry, and on my return if all goes well with the business, I shall permit my daughter to enjoy the hospitality extended to her by my neighbor, General Price."

"I knew you would! I knew you would!" and I shook his limp hand which Dee Tucker had once said reminded her of nothing so much as an old pump handle that had lost the sucker. Everybody knows how that feels, at least everybody who has had dealings with pumps. You grasp the handle expecting some resistance and a flow of water in response; but when the sucker has disappeared, the handle will fly up in a strange limp manner and unless the pumper is wary there is danger of getting a lick in the nose.

I cared not for a response. If no flow of kindliness was the result of my enthusiasm, I cared not a whit. Annie was to be one of the house-party and I had saved the day. I remembered how Mr. Tucker, dear old Zebedee, had declared that he had won over Mr. Pore by treating him like a human being, that time he had persuaded him to let Annie come to Willoughby to the vacation party. I had treated him as I would any ordinary kind father and he had been so astonished and pleased at his portrait that he had unconsciously accepted it as a likeness and begun to pose to look like it.