At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins

"It was simply splendid of you to come in and help us out," exclaimed Dee. Dee was usually the one who knew what to say and when to say it. Some persons call it tact, but I have always thought it was just a kind heart that made her know what people wanted her to say. Cousin Sue Lee was the same kind of natural-born social wonder. "I think your voice is beautiful, and how on earth did you happen to know our tune?"

"Why, child, your father and I made up that tune on a picnic once years before you were born. Do you remember, Jeff, when we went to Monticello, and how it rained? We composed the tune and improvised a Lobster Quadrille to cheer up the bedraggled crowd. How Virginia did laugh! I haven't thought of that tune for ages. Perhaps it is because I have not been with the kind of people who would enjoy 'Alice in Wonderland.'"

"Zebedee has put us to sleep with it ever since we were born," said Dum. "I mean the tune."

"And I have been reading Alice in Wonderland ever since I was born," I ventured.

"Well, I'm certainly glad to meet some kindred spirits at Gresham," said Miss Cox, "and now, girls, I'm going to ask a great favor of the three of you. I want you to keep to yourselves that I broke loose as I did. I have hard enough work as it is keeping order during study hour when that task falls to me, and if the girls ever found out that I was capable of such high-jinks, I'd lose all control of them." We promised, but I, for one, thought that the more human you find your pastors and masters to be, the more apt you are to want to make things easy for them. Miss Jane Cox was much older than I, but she had yet to learn that wisdom.

"We'll all promise," we declared in unison.

"But please break loose again, sometimes, Jinny," begged Mr. Tucker. "The idea of your calling yourself an old maid! I bet you are not thirty-five yet. I'm only thirty-six myself, and, goodness knows, I am nothing but a kid!"

"Teaching is a very aging occupation," sighed Miss Cox. "I don't mind the singing, but it's teaching mathematics to the backward pupils that adds ten years a season to my already full years. Do your girls sing, Jeffry?"

"Not so's you can notice it. Dum, here, is going to be a great sculptor; and Dee is uncertain whether she wants to be a trained nurse or a veterinary surgeon."

"Vet'rinary surgeon? Surely you wouldn't let her go into such a profession?" exclaimed Miss Cox with her twisted smile.

"Why not? I'll let my girls go into any profession that appeals to them. Dum loves to make mud pies and Dee loves to nurse sick puppies. Both of them rather dirty arts, but 'Every man to his taste.'"

Miss Cox had to leave us and go to attend to various duties, but before going she assured Mr. Tucker that she would take especial care of all three of his girls. You can fancy what it meant to me to be included. I almost called him Zebedee, but I was afraid it might make him feel like the father of triplets, so I refrained.

It was almost time for the train which Mr. Tucker was to catch, as he intended to take a sleeper back to Richmond that night. I felt the tactful thing for me to do would be to leave the girls alone with their father, so I told him good-by and went off to see how Annie Pore was faring.

I found her sitting in a forlorn heap in one of the neighboring rooms, her hat and jacket still on; her disreputable telescope in the middle of the room; and the expression on her face suited to the tragic muse.

"Who's your cellmate, Annie?" said I, bursting in on her.

"I don't know, but I know she will hate me."

"Hate you, indeed! No one could hate you. Why don't you unpack and get your things in order? I am going to stay with you until Mr. Tucker leaves, so Tweedles can get a chance to be alone with him for a while. I am rooming with them, you know. Our room is quite near you and we can all be real chummy."

The rooms were all perfectly bare and bleak-looking: white walls, white iron beds, curtainless windows and carpetless floors. The pupils were supposed to decorate their own rooms if they wanted them decorated. Annie Pore had been put into a two-girl room a bit smaller than the one assigned to the Tuckers and me, but otherwise exactly like it.

"I am dreading a roommate," sighed the girl. "I have never slept in the room with any one in my life."

"Neither have I, but I am crazy about it. Just think what fun it will be to have some one to talk to and giggle with."

I could not fancy giggling with Annie Pore in her present melancholy frame of mind, but I was sure that was a phase that would pass and she would end by being as girlish as the next. She had too keen a sense of humor to be lost in gloom forever.

CHAPTER V.

LETTERS

From Caroline Tucker to her father, Jeffry TuckerGresham, Sept. 18, 19 – .

Dearest Zebedee:

You would have to be your own daughter to know how much you can be missed. After you left the other day, Dum and I cried so much we came mighty near getting sick, but Page Allison came back and was so ridiculous in her description of Annie Pore sitting up in the bus full of Seniors with her crêpe hat cocked on one side, that we got to laughing; and you know how easy it is to be cheerful if someone only starts the ball a-rolling. Page is splendid and takes the most interest in life of anybody I ever saw. She makes a lot of fun, but somehow it is never at anyone but always with them. She loves dogs, too, so I am sure to get on with her.

I do think it was wise in you, dearest Zebedee, to make us have a roommate, since that roommate happens to be Page, because she certainly does do us good; and already I find I am trying to "exert more self-control," as you say when you are trying to be Mr. Tuckerish. She hates blubbering and never cries except when the dogs die or her father reads poetry to her. I tell her that we don't usually cry, either, that is, we don't bawl, but just leak a bit. She says just leaking is rather fascinating and shows temperament, and she wishes she wasn't so dry-eyed and could express her emotions in such a graceful way.

Page has read a whole lot and knows reams and quires of history, but never has studied any French at all and has to go with the kids in mathematics. She is real spunky about it, though, and doesn't say a word about how humiliating it must be to have to sit in a class with children of twelve and even younger.

She can write Latin like a house afire, but when she translates we can hardly keep from giggling outright, as she uses the funny old pronunciation that Grandpa Tucker does. It seems she has learned Latin entirely from her father. Miss Sears, the Latin teacher, is trying to get her out of this pronunciation, but she compliments her very much on her knowledge of English derivatives. Page says that is the side of Latin that interested her father and he consequently taught it to her.

Dum and I have had only one serious set-to since you left us. I licked her. I wish you would send Dum a dollar box of plasticine. She is restless sometimes and I know she is itching to create, and if she had the mud she could do it. Dum is being awfully good about holding on to herself, and is just as nice and polite to Page as can be, although she did vow and declare that she was going to make it so hot for any roommate we got that the poor thing would have to leave. Of course that was before we knew it was going to be our luck to draw such a prize. There's the bell, so good-by, dear old Zebedeedlums.

Your own Tweedledeelums.Virginia Tucker to her father, Jeffry TuckerGresham, Sept. 19, 19 – .

My darling Zebedee:

Dee wrote yesterday so I waited until to-day, although she declared she was not writing the kind of thing to you that I was going to. I don't see how she knew what I was going to write when I don't know myself.

There is one thing I want to say and that is: "the old man always knows best." A roommate is a great institution when she is as bully as Page Allison. I was awfully afraid Dee was going to be rude, but she hasn't been a bit. As for me, I have been a little tin angel. You can ask Dee if I haven't.

I am mighty sorry for Dee. She not only misses you just as much as I do, but she misses old Brindle almost as much as she does you. I don't see why they won't let a bulldog go to boarding school. I asked Dee if she gave you any more directions about how to take care of Brindle, and she said she hadn't even mentioned him she was so afraid of splashing on her letter.

Your friend Miss Cox has been in to see us and was just as jolly as could be, but when the other girls are around she treats us like perfect strangers. The truth of the matter is she is afraid of girls and does not understand them, nor do they understand her. I got that from Page, who is very analytical. Page says if she would let herself go she would be the most popular teacher in school, but as it is, while she is not unpopular, she is not regarded at all. She is awfully interesting but the girls don't know it. They know she has a good voice and teaches with good method but she might as well be a phonograph for all the human interest they have in her. She is coach for the backward and wayward in Math. I believe Page Allison will have to have her, and I bet on Page for drawing her out.

I tell you that girl has done wonders with Annie Pore. Every time she finds her crying she makes her laugh, and you know no one but old Zebedee can laugh and cry at the same time without going into hysterics. Right to her face she calls her "Melancholy Dane" and "Old Rain in the Face" and all kinds of ridiculous names, and Annie simply has to smile. There is one thing about Page: you can always know she is going to say what she's got to say right to your face. Usually when people are that way their conversation is "yea, yea, and nay, nay," but Page is not that way a bit.

Dee and I have had only one bout and then Dee knocked me out. It was a funny thing the way I let down my guard, but I got to thinking about Dee's dimple in her chin and how some day I was going to make a stunning bust of her. You see Dee looks mighty handsome when she boxes, with her head thrown back, her neck like a column. I had sure got her going that day and she had backed way up in the corner, when the idea of making the bust took possession of me – well, Dee made a stunning bust of me, that's all. She tapped me on the nose and drew the claret.

The row was all about you. Dee said you must be pretty near middle-aged and I said she was all the way a plumb idiot, you were no such thing and never would be. The fact that she tapped me does not prove that you are or ever will be any such thing. Page came in at the crucial moment and was somewhat shocked to see us boxing, and was broken up over the gore; but when she heard what the row was about, she sympathized with me and offered to put on the gloves and fight it out with Dee; but she decided in her amusing way to argue it out instead.

She said: "If the pen is mightier than the sword, surely the tongue is mightier than a pair of boxing gloves." She proved to Dee's perfect satisfaction that age was a matter of temperament and that yours was eternal youth. Dee was convinced and offered the amende honorable, confessing herself beaten in argument. I begin to think trial by combat not such a good way of settling things, after all. It seems to me a quiet debate is much the better way.

Write to us soon. I heard one of the Seniors say you were the most attractive-looking man she ever saw. She thought you were our big brother and meant for me to hear it and of course wanted me to repeat it to you. Good-by, my darling old Zebedeedidlums. I am sorry I made you cry twice on the day you brought us up here.

Your own,Dumplingdeedledums.Annie Pore to her Father, Mr. Arthur Pore, Price's Landing, VaGresham, Sept. 19, 19 – .

My dear Father:

I am writing to you at my earliest opportunity. I made the journey without any mishaps and in great comfort. I was astonished to find how luxurious traveling by rail is. I shall have to confess to you that I talked to some persons I met on the train. They were all of them going to Gresham and were very kind to me. I found myself conversing with them before I remembered your admonitions to be very careful about making acquaintances. I know in England it is very bad form, but I felt somehow it would have been much worse form to hold myself aloof when they were one and all so kind to me.

The Institute of Gresham is admirable in every particular. My instruction has been so thorough, thanks to your unceasing efforts, that I find I can take a very good stand. I have not divulged that an Oxford graduate has been my teacher. I am well up in Algebra, Latin and French, although my French accent is not all that it should be.

Miss Cox, the singing teacher, takes a great interest in my voice but evidently has no personal feeling for me. I am very grateful to you for the sacrifices you have made to send me to boarding school, and am endeavoring to take advantage of every opportunity to perfect my education.

Very respectfully,Annie de Vere Pore.Page Allison to her father, Dr. James Allison, Milton, VaGresham, Sept. 19, 19 – .

My dear old Father:

I can hardly believe it is only a few days since I left Bracken. It seems ages and eons. I have a million things to tell you. I made friends with some delightful people on the train, Mr. Jeffry Tucker and his twin daughters, Dum and Dee. Mr. Tucker says he knows you; and my eyes were so like yours he came mighty near giving me the fraternity grip. He is the youngest man to be grown up and have almost grown-up daughters I ever saw. Their mother is dead, too. So many mothers seem to be dead.

We made friends with another girl on the train, Annie Pore from Price's Landing. She had never been on the train before, but although she seemed terribly shy and was dressed in a most pathetic get-up, still she had all the bearing a and carriage of a grande dame. She is a half-orphan, too, and I have a kind of idea that her father is not to say so intimate with his daughter as some other fathers who shall be nameless. She has been writing to her paternal parent for the last hour, and she actually copied the letter and seemed to be writing with as much care as though it had to be handed in. You don't want me to write that way to you, do you?

Gresham is splendid. It is a beautiful building, red brick with great white columns, giving it the look of a modern Parthenon. It is on top of a hill overlooking the little town and has a beautiful lawn with great chestnut trees and oaks. But best of all is the view of the mountains. When it is clear they seem quite close, almost as though we could walk to them, and at other times they disappear altogether.

The first day or two the girls seemed to think if they did not do a lot of bawling and blubbering some one might think they did not love their homes. Some of them cried because they could not help it, but some of them, I verily believe, rubbed onions in their eyes like the heartless sisters in "Beauty and the Beast." I know no home could be more beautiful than Bracken and I'll wager anything that there isn't a dad in the world better or more beloved than mine. And was there ever a mammy like mine? I'm not even mentioning the dogs, although they are not the least of my blessings. And still, not a visible tear have I shed.

The first morning when I waked up in the strange room and stared at the blank bare wall, it seemed to me as though I simply could not stand it. I was dreaming about Mammy Susan. I thought she was pouring hot water into my tub again. My roommates were still asleep, having wept themselves into a state of coma. (I haven't told you that I am rooming with Dum and Dee Tucker and I like it a lot.) Well, I got up and went to the bathroom and had the coldest bath I ever had in my life and then I dressed in a hurry. I felt as though I must get out before any one saw me. If I could have a little run, maybe I could stave off the great wave of homesickness that was going to swallow me up in a minute. I raced along the corridor.

I got onto a covered walk connecting the dormitory with the main building, and there serene and beautiful were the mountains stretched before me. I didn't want to cry any more. A feeling of deep peace and happiness came to me. I chanted aloud: "I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help," etc. You mustn't think I don't love you and Mammy Susan just as much as ever, for I do; but I am having a good time and am going to learn a few things, and am going to make loads and loads of friends.

My love to all the dear dogs and please give them an extra bone for me. And tell dear Mammy Susan that all of us on the train would have starved to death if she hadn't put up all that good lunch. I'll tell you about what I am studying in my next letter. Good-by,

Your own Page.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOUNDLING

"Well, Miss Peyton is some mobilizer," sighed Dee as she snuggled down in her bed after our first study hall had been lived through at Gresham. "Just to think, here we are hard at work when we have been here only two days."

"Well, I'm glad, for one," said Dum. "If they work us hard enough, we won't get Zebedee-sick. That's what Dee and I call homesick. Wherever Zebedee is, is home for us."

"My Father and Bracken and Mammy Susan and the dogs are so mixed up in my mind that I can't tell what or which or whom I miss most," and I scrambled into bed in a great hurry just as the bell rang to warn us that lights must be out in five minutes. I had not been twenty-four hours with other girls before I had learned many things that girls know. One of them was that the last one up has the chores to do, such as raising the window at the bottom and pulling it down at the top, a mighty chilly performance when clothed in nothing but a nightgown; also, the tardy one has the light to put out.

"Oh, you foxy creatures!" cried Dum. "I bet you haven't cleaned your teeth, you've been in such a hurry to beat me to bed."

"'Deed we have," we declared, "while you were calling on Annie Pore."

"You haven't said your prayers, then," persisted Dum.

"I have," I said. But Dee had neglected this means of grace and had to crawl out of her nice, warm bed; and she and Dum knelt together. There was silence for about three minutes; then Dum bounced into bed and pulled the covers up to her square chin. There she lay, with eyes closed.

"Dum Tucker, you skipped something. I don't believe you said a single thing but 'NowIlayme,'" and Dee stood over her sister like an avenging angel.

"What's it to you?" yawned Dum. "That's a matter between me and my conscience. Open the window; and turn out the light; and crawl into bed before our room gets reported."

"Well, it was a matter between my conscience and me whether I said my prayers at all; and you went and butt in on us. Now you take that toploftical stand about you and your conscience! Well, you and your conscience can just lie on the floor together." With which tirade, Dee yanked Dum and all her bed clothes out on the floor. She then whisked off the light and, quickly raising the window, jumped into bed.

I wondered what would be the outcome of this battle and if it would have to be settled according to the Tuckers' code of honor: a duel with boxing gloves. But just then there was a sharp rap on the door.

"Less noise, please," said a determined voice outside, "or I shall have to report 117 to the principal."

Dum lay on the floor convulsed with giggles. "Sh-h – ." I warned. "Be careful, or we'll all have to write pages from the dictionary for two hours."

"You won't have to, surely, when Dum and I made all the racket," whispered Dee.

"The teacher said '117,' and that means me, too. Can you get back into bed? Is the foot untucked?"

"I believe I can if I don't start giggling again," and Dum began to squirm out of the covers.

"Let me help," said the penitent Dee, and Dum was soon back in her cot and silence reigned supreme. After a while I heard Dum whisper:

"Say, Dee, I did skip. Conscience bids me confess to thee."

"Well, Dum, I'll give it to you that you and your conscience are perfect gentlemen," said Dee admiringly.

"Thanks awfully," yawned Dum. "I know one thing, I'm a mighty sleepy gentleman;" and in a trice the quiet breathing from the disheveled bed told that Dum and her conscience were at rest.

There were constant surprises in store for one who shared a room with the Tucker twins. They certainly had the gift of infinite variety in the kind of scrapes they could get themselves into. They usually got out of scrapes as easily as they got into them by a certain frankness and directness that would disarm Miss Peyton herself. They didn't break rules, because they did things that nobody had ever thought of making rules about. The principal at Gresham was not so farseeing as the teacher in "Mary Had a Little Lamb," who seems to have made a rule about lambs in school:

It followed her to school one day,Which was against the rule.It made the children laugh and playTo see a lamb in school.

One day when we were taking a sedate walk, the school out in full force with two teachers to keep order along the blue-coated, black-hatted lines, we saw by the roadside a little kitten, so young its eyes were hardly open.

"Poor little foundling!" "I wonder where it came from!" "I'd like to pick him up!" ejaculated several of the girls, but Dee Tucker was the one who acted. She was bringing up the rear with Miss Sears, the Latin teacher. As they were passing the forlorn little feline, Miss Sears stepped forward to admonish a couple who were talking too loudly. Dee stooped and quickly scooped into her muff the poor pussy. No one saw her and kitty very considerately said nothing. He lay there warm and contented, dreaming he was back with his soft, loving mother, and forgetting the rude hand that had put him into a bag with his brothers and sisters. The bag had had a merciful hole, and he, being the runt of the family, had fallen through before the proposed drowning came off.

We marched on, all unconscious of the addition to our ranks. When we got back to school and went up to our room to take off our hats, etc., I noticed that Dee had very shining eyes and her dimple seemed to be deeper, but she did not divulge to Dum and me what she had up her sleeve, or rather her muff. I also noticed at supper that she swiped some bread and very adroitly concealed it in her middy blouse. She also very cleverly called the attention of every one at our table to the autumn moon, that was peeping into the dining room window, and while they were looking the other way, she filled a little vial with milk from her glass.

Naturally I said nothing, but adopted the watchful, waiting attitude, certain that sooner or later I'd find out what Dee was up to. And I did, all right.

After supper we had an hour before study hall which we usually spent in the gymnasium dancing. Dum and Dee had undertaken to teach Annie Pore and me the new dances. All dances were new to poor Annie and me. I could cut the pigeon wing and dance "Goin' to Church," which is a negro classic (but the Tango and Maxixe with all of the intricate steps and side-stepping seemed very difficult). But I must learn, and learn I did. As for Annie, her sense of rhythm was so great that she took to dancing as a duck does to water. She had to get over a certain self-consciousness that was her ruling fault, but when the Victrola was started in one of the tunes that would make a dead darkey want to get up and pat, why, Annie would forget all about Annie and her ill-fitting clothes and would sway to the music with the utmost abandon.

I believe I have forgotten to tell whom Annie got for a roommate. It was none other than Josephine Barr, the good-natured, dressy Senior, for whom Miss Sayre felt so sorry because of her great wealth. I fancy Jo, as we soon called her, was not very well pleased at first at having to share a room with such a seemingly dismal person; but it was either Annie or Mabel Binks, as all the other rooms were filled and Jo had not registered in time to have much choice.

She couldn't bear Mabel Binks; and she did feel sorry for the poor little new girl who seemed so ready to dissolve into tears. Jo was the best old thing in the world, with a heart as big as all outdoors and an optimistic nature that was bound to influence Annie and make her more cheerful; at the same time, Annie's breeding and careful speech had its good effect on the husky Jo. Before the year was up, they were as intimate as a Senior and Sophomore could be.