Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
"DO YOU KNOW, IT WAS LIKE A PIRATE'S SHIP"]
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LAUGHING LAST
BY
JANE ABBOTT
AUTHOR OF HIGHACRES, KEINETH, RED ROBIN, Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY E. CORINNE PAULI
GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
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COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
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TO FRANCES STANTON SMITH WHOSE LOYAL INTEREST IN MY WORK IS AN UNFAILING HELP TO ME, I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THIS BOOK
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CONTENTS
I THE EGG II REBELLION III POLA LIFTS A CURTAIN IV SIDNEY DIGS FOR COUSINS V THE SUMMER WILL TELL WHO LAUGHS LAST VI SUNSET LANE VII WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE VIII MR. DUGALD EXPLAINS IX SIDNEY TELLS "DOROTHEA" X MAIDS XI INDEPENDENCE XII SIDNEY BELONGS XIII PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS XIV WORDS THAT SING XV CAP'N PHIN XVI POLA XVII PEACOCKS XVIII "HOOK" XIX THE GLEAM XX "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG" XXI WHAT THE NIGHT HELD XXII "YOU NEED A BIG BROTHER" XXIII DIAMONDS XXIV WHAT THE DAY HELD XXV NO ONE LAUGHS LAST
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ILLUSTRATIONS
"Do You Know, It was Like a Pirate's Ship"
Her Eyes Fell Upon an Entry on Another Page
Captain Davies Drew a Letter from His Pocket and Tapped It with His Finger
She Spied Approaching Figures--Trude and Mr. Dugald, Walking Slowly
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LAUGHING LAST
CHAPTER I
THE EGG
"I beg your pardon, but it's _my_ turn to have the Egg!"
Three pairs of eyes swept to the sunny window seat from whichvantage-ground Sidney Romley had thrown her protest. Three mouths gaped.
"_Yours--_"
"Why, Sid--"
"Fifteen-year-olders don't have turns!" laughed Victoria Romley, whowas nineteen and very grown up.
Though inwardly Sidney writhed, outwardly she maintained a calmfirmness. The better to impress her point she uncurled herself from thecushions and straightened to her fullest height.
"It's because I _am_ fifteen that I am claiming my rights," sheanswered, carefully ignoring Vicky's laughing eyes. "Each one of youhas had the Egg twice and I've never had a cent of it--"
"Sid, you forget I bought a rug when it was my last turn and you enjoythat as much as I do," broke in her oldest sister.
Sidney waved her hand impatiently. She had rehearsed this scene in theprivacy of her attic retreat and she could not be deflected by mentionof rugs and things. She must keep to the heart of the issue.
"It's the principle of the thing," she continued, loftily. "We'realways fair with one another and give and take and all that, and Ithink it'd be a blot on our honor if you refused me my lawful turn atthe Egg. I'm willing to overlook each one of you having it twice."
"That's kind of you. What would you do with it, anyway, kid?"interrupted Vicky, quite unimpressed by her sister's seriousness. Shelet a chuckle in her voice denote how amused she was.
Sidney flashed a withering look in Vicky's direction.
"I wouldn't spend it all on one party that's over in a minute andnothing to show for it!" she retorted. Then: "And what I'd do with itis my own affair!" She swallowed to control a sob that rose in herthroat.
"Tut! Tut!" breathed the tormenting Vicky.
"Why, Sid, dear!" cried Trude, astonished. She put a tray of dishesthat she was carrying to the kitchen down upon the old sideboard andturned to face Sid. At the tone of her voice Sidney flew to her andflung her arms about her.
"I don't care--I don't _care_! You can laugh at me but I'm _sick_ ofbeing different. I--I want to do things like--other girls do. H-havefun--"
Over her head Trude's eyes implored the others to be gentle. Sheherself was greatly disturbed. Even Vicky grew sober. In a twinklingthis lanky, pigtailed little sister seemed to have become an individualwith whom they must reckon. They had never suspected but that she wasas contented with her happy-go-lucky way as any petted kitten.
Isolde, the oldest sister, frowned perplexedly.
"Sidney, stop crying and tell us what you want. As far as _fun_ isconcerned I don't think you have any complaint. Certainly you do nothave anything to _worry_ about!" Isolde's tone conveyed that she did.
"If it's just the Egg that's bothering you, why, take it!" cried Vicky,magnanimously.
Only Trude sensed that the cause of Sidney's rebellion lay deeper thanany desire for fun. She was not unaware of certain dissatisfactionsthat smoldered in her own breast. The knowledge of them helped her tounderstand Sidney's mood. She patted the girl's head sympathetically.
"I guess we haven't realized you're growing up, Sid," she laughedsoftly. "Now brace up and tell us what's wrong with everything."
Trude's quiet words poured balm on Sidney's soul. At last--at _last_these three sisters realized she was fifteen. It _hadn't_ been the Eggitself she had wanted--it had been to have them reckon her in on theirabsurd family cogitations. She drew the sleeve of her blouse across hereyes and faced them.
"I want to go somewhere, to live somewhere where I won't be JosephRomley's daughter! I want to wear clothes like the other girls and goto a boarding school and never set eyes on a book of poetry. I wantadventure and to do exciting things. I want--"
Isolde stemmed the outpour with a shocked rebuke.
"Sid, I don't think you realize how disrespectful what you are sayingis to our father's memory! He has left us something that is far greaterthan wealth. A great many girls would gladly change places with you andenjoy being the daughter of a poet--"
"Oh, tush!" Quite unexpectedly Sidney found an ally in Vicky. "Issy,you've acted your part so often, poor dear, that you really think we_are_ blessed by the gods in having been born to a poet. And poor aschurch mice! I wish someone _would_ change places with me long enoughfor me to eat a few meals without hearing you and Trude talk about howmuch flour costs and how we're going to pay the milk bill. Yes, a_fine_ heritage! Poor Dad, he couldn't help being a poet, but I'll bethe wishes now he'd been a plasterer or something like that--for _our_sakes, of course. I'm not kicking, I'm as game as you are, and I'mwilling to carry on about Dad's memory and all that--it's the least_we_ can do in return for what the League's done for us, but just amongourselves we might enjoy the emotion of sighing for the things othergirls do and have, mightn't we?"
Sidney had certainly started something! The very atmosphere of thefamiliar room in which they were assembled seemed charged with strangecurre
nts. Never had any family council taken such a tone. Sidneythrilled to the knowledge that she was now a vital part of it. Hereyes, so recently wet, brightened and her cheeks flushed. So interestedwas she in what Issy would answer to Vick that she ignored the openingVick had made for her.
But it was Trude who answered Vicky--Trude, the peaceful.
"Come! Come! First thing we know we'll actually be feeling sorry forourselves! I sometimes get awfully tired living up to Dad's greatness,but I don't think that's being disrespectful to his memory. I don'tsuppose there are any girls, even rich ones, who don't sigh forsomething they haven't. But just to stiffen our spines let's sum up ourassets. We're not quite as poor as church mice; we have this old housethat isn't half bad, even if the roof does leak, and the governmentbonds and the royalties and living the way we had to live with Dadtaught us to have fun among ourselves which is something! We're notdependent upon outsiders for _that_. You, Issy, have your personalitywhich will get you anywhere you want to go. And Vick's better dressedon nothing than any girl in Middletown. We older girls do have a littlemore than Sid, so I vote she has the Egg this time all to herself to doexactly as she pleases with it--go 'round the world in search ofadventure or any old thing. How's that, family?"
The tension that had held the little circle broke under Trude'spractical cheeriness. Isolde smiled. Vick liked being told she lookedwell-dressed, she worked hard enough to merit that distinction. Sid hadthe promise of the Egg, which, be it known, was the royalty accruingeach year from a collection of whimsical verse entitled "Goosefeathers"and which these absurd daughters of a great but improvident man setaside from the other royalties to be spent prodigally by each in turn.
"I'm quite willing," Isolde conceded. "I was going to suggest that weagree to use it this time to fix the roof where it leaks but if Sid'sheart is set on it--"
"It would have been my turn--that is not counting Sid," Vick remindedthem, "and I'd have used it having that fur coat Godmother Jocelyn sentme made over. But let the roof leak and the coat go--little Sid musthave her fling! I hope you're happy now, kid. What will you really dowith all that money?"
At no time had Sidney definitely considered such a question. Her pointwon she found herself embarrassed by victory. She evaded a directanswer.
"I won't tell, now!"
"Oh--ho, mysterious! Well, there won't be so much that you'll hurtyourself in your youthful extravagance. Now that this momentous_affaire de famille_ is settled, what are you girls going to do thismorning?"
"As soon as these dishes are out of the way I'm going to trim that vineon the front wall. It's disgustingly scraggly."
"Oh, Trude--you _can't_! You forget--_it's Saturday_!"
Trude groaned. Vicky laughed naughtily. Saturday--that was the day ofthe week which the Middletown Branch of the League of American Poetskept for the privilege of taking visitors to the home of Joseph Romley,the poet. In a little while they would begin to come, in twos andthrees and larger groups. First they'd stand outside and look at theold house from every angle. They would say to the strangers who werevisiting the shrine for the first time: "No, the house wasn't in hisfamily but Joseph Romley made it peculiarly his; it's as though hisancestors had lived there for generations--nothing has beenchanged--that west room with the bay window was his study--yes, hisdesk is there and his pencils and pens--just as he left them--even hisold house jacket--of course we can go in--our League paid off themortgage as a memorial and we have Saturday as a visiting day--thereare four girls, most interesting types, but Isolde, the oldest, is theonly one of them who is at all like the great poet--"
They would come in slowly, reverently. Isolde, in a straight smock ofsome vivid color, with a fillet about the cloudy hair that framed herthin face like a curtain, would meet them at the door of the study. Shewould shake hands with them and answer their awkward questions in herslow drawl which always ended in a minor note. They would look atIsolde much more closely than at the desk and the pens and pencils andthe old swivel chair and the faded cushion. On their way out they'dpeep inquisitively into the front room with its long windows, bared tothe light and the floor looking dustier for the new rug, and the twofaded, deep chairs near the old piano. They would see the dust and thebareness but they wouldn't know how gloriously, at sunset time, theflame of the sky lighted every corner of the spacious room or whatjolly fires could crackle on the deep hearth or what fun it was tocuddle in the old chairs--they could hold four--while Vicky's cleverfingers raced over the cracked ivory keys in her improvisations thatsometimes set them roaring with laughter and sometimes brought mist totheir eyes. The intruders would find some way to look into the diningroom which for the girls was living room and sewing room, too, andthey'd say: "How quaint everything is! These old houses have _so_ muchatmosphere;" when in their hearts they'd be thinking about theshabbiness of everything and they'd be rejoicing that _their_ fathersand husbands were not poets! Vicky claimed to have heard onesacrilegious young creature, plainly on a honeymoon, exclaim: "I'm gladI'm not a poet's daughter and have to live in that old sepulcher! Giveme obscurity in a steam-heated three bathroom apartment, any day!"
Of course there could be no trimming the vines and Trude's fingersitched for the task--not so much that she minded the unkempt growth asthat she longed to be active out-of-doors. She had planned to plantanother row of beans, too. The girls wouldn't poke fun at her when theyate fresh vegetables right out of a garden all of their own! But theladies of the League must not find her, earth-stained and disheveled,in the garden on Saturday!
"I'll have to change my dress. I forgot it was Saturday when I put thisold thing on."
"Vick, dear, you haven't taken your sketching things from Dad's desk,"admonished Isolde a little frightenedly and Vicky jumped with a lowwhistle. "Good gracious! What if a High Lady Leaguer found _my_ truckon that sacred shrine!" She rushed off to the study.
Trude having gone kitchenward with her dishes, Isolde and Sidney facedone another. Sidney grew awkwardly aware of a constraint in hersister's manner. She was regarding her with a curious hardness in hergrave eyes.
"You said you were sick of being different!" Isolde made Sidney's wordssound childish. "Well--I don't know just how you can escape it--anymore than the rest of us can. Look at me--look at Trude--" Then sheshut her lips abruptly over what she had started to say. "What had youplanned to do this morning, Sid?"
"I told Nancy Stevens I'd go swimming with her though I don't much carewhether I go or not."
"Well--as long as you _have_ claimed a share in our little scheme oflife, kitten--perhaps _you'd_ better receive the League visitors thismorning. I have some letters to write and I want to dye that old silk.Don't forget to enter the date in the register!"
With which astounding command Isolde walked slowly out of the roomleaving Sidney with a baffled sense of--in spite of the promise of theEgg--having been robbed of something.