CHAPTER XI.
THANKSGIVING DINNER.
"Just an hour for you girls to rest up and beautify yourselves and itwill be time to break our fast at the Jefferson!" exclaimed Mr. Tuckeras we swung up in our rocking old car to the door of the apartmenthouse. "We will be eleven strong, counting White, Price and Massie. TheJudge is to join us in the lobby of the hotel. I'll see if I can findsome one to make it twelve."
"All right, but not Mabel Binks!" warned Dee.
"Why not? She isn't so bad. I find her quite agreeable," teased Zebedee."I think she would be quite an addition to the party--"
"Well, you just get her if you want to, but I'll let you know I willsmear cranberry sauce on her if she sits near me," stormed Dum.
I thought Tweedles made a great mistake in nagging so about Mabel. I hadknown very few men in my life, not near as many as the twins, but I hadlearned with the few I did know that a bad way to manage them was to letthem know you were trying to. I, myself, felt rather blue about the wayMabel was monopolizing Zebedee, but I would have bitten out my tongue bythe roots before I would have let him know it. Of course fathers aredifferent from just friends. I don't know what I should have done ifsome flashy, designing person had made a dead set at Father. Thereweren't any flashy, designing females in our part of the county, and ifthere had been, I fancy they would not have aspired to the quiet, simplelife that being the wife of a country doctor insured. For my part Ishould have liked a stepmother since I could not have my own mother. Ioften thought how nice it would have been if Father could have had asweet wife to be with him while I was off at school. I trusted Father'sgood taste and judgment enough to know he would choose the right kind ofwoman if he chose at all. He never chose at all, however, although themany relatives who visited us during the summer made many matches forhim in their minds. I hoped if he did make up his mind to go"a-courting" that the stepmother would wear my size shoes and gloves,and maybe her hats would be becoming to me. Even Mammy Susan tried toplay Cupid and get Docallison to marry; but he used to say:
"No, no! Matrimony is too much of a lottery and the chances are againsta man's drawing two prizes in one lifetime."
Tweedles fought the idea of a stepmother with all their might and main.I think one reason that it was ever uppermost in their minds was that somany well meaning friends were constantly suggesting to them thepossibility and suitability of Zebedee's taking unto himself anotherwife.
"Well, we'll make it hot for her all right, whoever she may be," theywould declare. I never had a doubt that they would, too.
I felt it was really an insult to Mr. Tucker to think he could becomeinfatuated with such a person as Mabel Binks, but then, on the otherhand, I knew how easy it is to flatter men; and while Zebedee did notlike to be run after, Mabel's evident admiration and appreciation of himwould, as a matter of course, soften his heart.
Mabel was, however, not asked to make the twelfth at that Thanksgivingfeast. Whether it was the dread of the battle royal that Dum wasprepared to fight with cranberry sauce or just simply that Zebedee didnot want her himself I did not know, but I was certainly relieved tofind that our host had decided to leave the seat vacant.
"We can let Mr. Manners sit in it," he said, squaring his chin at Dum.The Tuckers had played a game, when they were younger, called "Mr.Manners." That fictitious gentleman was always invited in when anyrudeness was in evidence. Dum certainly had been rude about thecranberry sauce.
"Yes, do!" snapped Dum, "and let him sit next to you--you started it--"
"All right, honey, we'll put him between us and both of us will try tolearn from him." So peace was restored.
We had entered the Jefferson Hotel while Dum and her father were havingthe little sparring match, and as we came into the enclosure where thefountain plays and the baby alligators and turtles splash among theferns and the beautiful statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in all itsquiet peace and dignity, it seemed to me that quarreling was entirelyunnecessary and I said as much.
"You are right, Page," said Mr. Tucker. "There is always somethingsingularly soothing and peaceful about this spot and it seems kind of aninsult to Thomas Jefferson to be anything but well-bred in hispresence."
Our table was laid in the large dining-room and we were hungry enough togo right in to dinner, but the lobby was so full of excited andboisterous people rushing back and forth and greeting each other,hunting lost friends, finding old acquaintances, etc., that we hung overthe balcony looking at the gay throng and forgetting that we were shortone meal for the day, having crowded breakfast and luncheon into one.
"Service is mighty slow on a crowded day like this, so you had bettercome eat," and Zebedee led the way to our table, where Stephen White,Harvie Price and George Massie immediately joined us. We had picked upJudge Grayson in the lobby.
Of course George, alias Sleepy, was the toast of the occasion, and heblushed so furiously that he looked as though Dum had carried out herthreat against Mabel and smeared poor, inoffensive and modest Sleepywith cranberry juice. We asked him so many questions and paid him somuch attention that Zebedee finally interfered and made us let himalone.
"You won't let the boy eat and I know he is starving," and so hewas,--and so were all of us. We ate right through a long table d'hotedinner, ordering every thing in sight from blue points to cafe noir.Wherever there was a choice of dainties we took both, much to theamusement of the very swell waiter, whose black face shone with delightin anticipation of the handsome tip he knew by experience wasforthcoming when Jeffry Tucker gave his girls a party.
"Pink ice cream for me!" exclaimed Father, when the question of dessertarose.
"And me! And me!" from Mary and Annie and me.
"Don't stop with that," begged Dee. "Dum and I always get everything onthe menu for dessert except pumpkin pie. We can't go that."
"Now pumpkin pie is all I want," put in the dear old Judge. "I feel sureyou do not know the delights of pumpkin pie or you would not speak soslightingly of it. Do you happen to know this piece of poetry?
"'Ah! on Thanksgiving Day When from East and from West, From North and from South Come the pilgrim and guest; When the care-wearied man Seeks his mother once more; And the worn matron smiles Where the girl smiled before: What moistens the lip, And what brightens the eye, What brings back the past Like the rich pumpkin pie?'"
"Brava! Brava! Bring me some pumpkin pie along with the pink ice cream,"cried Father.
"And me!"
"And me!"
"And me!"
The cry echoed from first one and then the other, all down the line. Thewaiter came in bearing great stacks of quarters of pies, since every oneof the eleven guests had demanded it.
"Th'ain't no mo'!" he said solemnly, as he put down the last slice infront of Zebedee. And that sent us off into such a gale of merrimentthat all the dining-room turned to see what was the matter. But theRichmond public seemed to think that what Jeffry Tucker and his twinsdid was all right, and if they chose to have a party and laugh so loudthat one could not hear the band play, it was a privilege they wereentitled to and no one must mind.
I know we sat at that table two hours, as the service was slow with somany guests in the hotel. The food was good and we had plenty of timeand when our ravenous appetites were somewhat appeased by the firstcourses, we cared not how long it took. We were having a jolly timewith a congenial crowd, and a table in the big dining-room at theJefferson was just as good a place to have it as any.
The ball was not to begin until ten, so when we had devoured the lastcrumb of the bountiful repast we adjourned to a motion picture show tofill in the time.
Wink White seemed rather anxious to have a talk with me, evidentlydesirous of making peace in regard to the masquerade on Allhalloween,but just as he was with some formality offering me his escort to themovies, Zebedee came up and without further ado or "by your leave,"tucked my arm i
n his and led off the procession with me.
"I haven't seen a thing of you, little friend, on this mad trip and Iwant to talk to you," and talk to me he did, about everything under thesun, but principally about whether I thought Gresham was helpingTweedles and bringing out the best that was in them.
"They seem to me to be slangier than ever," which amused me very much asMr. Tucker himself was the slangiest grown-up person I had ever known,and why he should have expected anything else of his girls I could notsee.
"All of us are slangy, but I can't see that it is taught to us atGresham. In fact, I believe that Tweedles introduce all the newest slangand we sit at their feet to learn. I don't know where they get it, butevery now and then they come out with a choice bit that is immediatelygobbled up and incorporated into our lexicon of slang."
"I'm afraid they get it from me," and Zebedee looked so solemn and sadthat I could not help laughing. I knew they got it from him, and while Ithought Gresham was not the place it had been under Miss Peyton'smanagement, I did not think it should be blamed for the things that itwas not responsible for.
"Sometimes I think it would have been better for them if I had marriedagain. Some real good settled stepmother would have taught them how tobehave but, somehow, I have never had a leaning myself towards real goodsettled persons who might have been good for Tweedles. When thepossibility of marrying again has ever come into my head, and I mustconfess that sometimes it does when I am lonesome, I can only think ofsome bright young girl as the one for me, some one near the age ofTweedles; and then I know that Tweedles would raise Cain. And no matterhow fond they might have been of the girl beforehand, the moment theyshould get a suspicion that I am interested in her they would--well,they might smear her with cranberry sauce."
"But Tweedles never did like Mabel Binks!"
"Of course not! I was not thinking about Mabel Binks," and Zebedee wentoff into a roar of laughter. "I just meant that that form of revengemight be handed out to any luckless lady who met with my approval. Ithink Miss Binks could do as much damage with cranberry sauce as thetwins combined. She seems to me a person singularly fitted to look outfor Number One."
"I think she is, but in a battle royal I bet on Tweedles," and so I did.
I was greatly relieved to hear Zebedee say that he was not talking aboutMabel in connection with a nice settled stepmother for his girls, but Iwondered who it could be. Maybe she would be at the ball that night andI could have an opportunity of judging whether or not she might get onwith my dear friends. I felt sorry for them, terribly sorry, and I feltsorry for Zebedee's little Virginia, the poor little wife who had livedsuch a very short time. How did she feel about having a successor? "Howfaithless men are!" I thought, forgetting entirely that I had ratherwanted my own father to marry again.
Anyhow, it was not Mabel Binks!