CHAPTER X
MR. HIRAM G. PARKER
Susan had been kept very busy all week doing lady's maid work for hermistress. Susan's usefulness in the kitchen was about over, the Cartergirls feared. There never seemed to be a moment that she was not wantedto wait on Mrs. Carter. When she took the daintily arranged breakfasttray to the cabin she was kept to fetch and carry and do a millionfoolish little nothings that an idle woman can always find to occupyother persons. Then the many new dresses must be pressed and whiteskirts must be laundered. Mrs. Carter always had worn white in thesummer, and although washing was something of a problem at the camp, shestill must wear white. Not a speck must be on those snowy garments evenif it did take all of Susan's time to keep them in condition.
"There is no excuse for letting oneself go even if it is necessary tolive in a camp," she would assert. "I think it is very important to looknice wherever one happens to be."
"It sho' is, Mis' Carter, an' you jes' call on me to washanirn allthe things you need. That's what I'm here fur," and Susan, who muchpreferred the job of lady's maid to that of assistant cook, gathered upan armful of rumpled skirts and blouses and carried them off to launder.She adored her mistress and saw no reason at all why the girls need minddoing extra work so that she could give all of her attention to thewhims of the mother.
"What's all that?" grumbled Oscar, who saw many reasons why Miss Helenshould not be doing Susan's work. "You ain't a-goin' to do nowashinanirnin' in this hyar kitchen today. You know puffectly well thatthem thar week-enders is a-comin' pilin' in hyar this ebenin', all of'em as empty as gourds."
"Well, these here langery is got to be did up, an' I is got to do 'emup, an' as fur as I know thain't no place to do 'em up but in thekitchen. It's jes' because of some of these here week-enders that theyis got to be landered. You is so ign'rant that you don't know that oneof these here week-enders what is a-comin' is what Mis' Carter call aarbitrator of sassiety."
"Well, I may be ign'rant but I knows one thing, that ifn a nice littlegal named Miss Page Allison hadn't a come in an' helped Miss Helen an'I, we wouldn't a got breakfast on the table. Miss Gwen warn't here thismornin' cause that ole po' white mounting ooman what she calls AuntMandy done took with cramps in the night an' Miss Gwen couldn't leaveher. This is a been the busiest week of the camp an' you--you ain't beenwuth standin' room in de bad place all week. You an' yo' mistress withyo' langery an' yo' arbors of sassiety. I don't know who he is a-comin'but whoever he is, he ain't no better'n our folks."
"He's Mr. Hiram G. Parker hisself!"
"What, that little ole Hi Parker? He ain't nuthin'. If he's done riz tothe top er sassiety it's caze he's the scum an' the scum jes natch'lygits on top. Who was his folks? Tell me that, who was they? You don'tknow an' neither do lots er folks but I knows an' he knows. That's thereason he's so partic'lar 'bout who he consorts with. He has to be! Yi!Yi! He has to be! Arbor er sassiety much! Back po'ch er sassiety, mo'lak!" and Oscar chuckled with delight at his wit.
"I betcher Mis' Carter better not hear you a-talkin' thataway."
"Well, she ain't a-goin' ter hear me--'cause I ain't a-goin' ter talkthataway befo' her, but that ain't a-keepin' me from knowin' all aboutlittle Hi Parker's fo-bars. Thain't much ter know 'cause he warn'ttroubled with many. His grandpap had a waggin with a bell on it an' wentaroun' hollerin: 'Ragsoleioncopperanbrass! Ragsoleioncopperanbrass!' I'member it mighty well 'cause my mammy uster say she goin' ter thow mein the waggin an' sell me ter ole Parker if I didn't 'have myself."
"Well, howsomever it might a-been, tain't thataway now! Mis' Carter is'cited over his a-comin'. She done made po' Miss Douglas sleep with somekinder wax on her competence las' night to peel off the remains of thesunburn an' she done made her promus not to wear that there cowboy suitfor supper. Mis' Carter says she thinks Miss Douglas oughter be dressedin diafricanus interial."
"Humph! The missus is all right, but she better let these here youngladies run this here camp like they been doin'. If they take to dressin'up it'll mean all yo' time'll be spent pressin' an' fixin' an' I wantter know who'll be a-doin' yo' work. Not me! By the time I get throughbutlerin' these here week-enders, I ain't got the back ter washanwipeall the dishes."
Susan quietly started the charcoal brazier and put her irons to heat.She knew that the mistress' word was law and that although Oscar mightgrumble until he was even blacker in the face than nature had made him,he would go on washing dishes until he dropped in his tracks rather thanmake a real disturbance.
Nan and Dum Tucker came to the kitchen after breakfast and helped himwhile Susan washed and ironed the many white things that Mrs. Carter haddiscarded as too soiled to appear before Mr. Hiram G. Parker.
"I'll wash and you wipe," suggested Nan.
"No, please let me wash," begged Dum, "I adore sloshing in suds."
"Well, they's lots er suds here ter slosh in," grinned Oscar, bringing agreat steaming dish pan, "an' if you is so enjoyful of suds, mebbe youyoung ladies could spare me altogether an' let me pick them therechickens 'gainst it's time ter fry 'em for supper."
"Yes, indeed! Go!" from Dum. "We can do them in no time, can't we, Nan?"
"We can do them, but not in no time," drawled Nan. "I can't think it isright for people to use so many dishes. Wouldn't it be grand to be likeAeneas and put your food on a little cake and then eat the cake?"
"Yes, but if you can't do that, I think the feeders should at least havethe grace to lick their plates. What on earth do you do with all thescraps?" asked Dum as she vigorously scraped plates, a part of the workthat everyone hates.
"Fatten chickens for killin'," answered Oscar, sharpening a great knifefit for the deed he had to do. "For land's sake, Miss Dum, don't arsknone of the week-enders ter lick they plates. They don't leave nothin'now for my chickens. The gals even eat the tater peelin's. They say itgwine make they har curl, but they eat so much they don't leave no roomfor they har ter curl."
Dum and Nan had become fast friends during that week at camp. Theseveral years' difference in their ages was as nothing. The feelingfor beauty which both of them had to a great degree was what drew themtogether. Nan was so quiet and unostentatious in her unselfishness,few at the camp realized how much she did. For instance: the personwho cooks a meal is usually praised by the hungry ones, but the personwho patiently scrapes and washes dishes is hardly thought of at allby the satiated. On that Friday morning, Helen had, with the help ofPage, produced a wonderful breakfast; and when these two girls came tothat meal flushed but triumphant in the knowledge that their popoverspopped over and that their omelettes had risen to the occasion, thebreakfasters had given them three rousing cheers. No one thought ofwho was going to wash up.
While Dum was sloshing in the suds and Nan was busily drying the dishesthat piled up to such great heights they looked like ramparts, Page andHelen came in to try their hands at pies for Saturday's picnic. Page hadon one of Helen's bungalow aprons and seemed as much at home as thoughshe had been born and bred in camp. Page always had that quality ofmaking herself at home wherever she happened to drop. Dee used to sayshe was just like a kitten and wasn't particular where she was, just soit was pleasant and people were kind.
"What kind of pies shall it be?" asked Helen.
"Something not too squashy!" pleaded Dum. "Nan and I have found the mostadorable spot for a picnic: a fallen tree about half a mile around themountain--not a freshly fallen one but one that must have fallen agesand ages ago as it has decided just to grow horizontally. Any old personcould climb up it, just walk up it in fact--such seats were neverimagined--the limbs all twisted into armchairs."
"Of course if we are going to eat up a tree we had better have mightysolid pies," laughed Page. "How about fried turnovers like Mammy Susanmakes?"
"Grand!" from Dum. "Apple?"
"Yes, apple," laughed Helen, amused at Dum's enthusiasm, "also somelemon pies, don't you think? I mean cheese cakes."
"Splendid and more and more splendid!"
The girls went to
work, Page on the fried turnovers and Helen on thecheese cakes. Such a merry time they were having, all busy and alltalking! Oscar sat outside picking chickens and of necessity Susan wasdriven to the extreme corner of the kitchen with her heap of washingand ironing.
"I think you are awfully clever, Helen, to learn to make pastry soquickly. How did you do it?" said Page, deftly forming a turnover.
"I don't know--I just did it. It seems to me as though anyone can cookwho will follow a recipe. I had a few lessons at the Y. W. C. A. in thespring and I learned a lot there. How did you learn?"
"Well, when I was a kiddie I had no one to play with but Mammy Susan, soI used to stay in the kitchen and play cooking. I've been making thimblebiscuit and eggshell cake ever since I could walk."
"How do you make eggshell cake?"
"Just put the left-over scrapings of batter in the eggshells and bakeit. It cooks in a minute and then you peel off the shell. Scrumptious!"
Dee came running in with the mail, having been to the post office atGreendale with Josh and Bobby and the faithful Josephus.
"A letter from Zebedee and he will be up for sure this evening! Ain'tthat grand? But guess who is coming with him--old Hiram G. Parker! Ibelieve Zebedee must have lost his mind. I am really uneasy about him."
"Why, what is the matter with Mr. Parker?" asked Helen, who had beenmuch interested in what she had heard of that gentleman's charms andgraces.
"'No matter, no matter, only ideas!' as the idealist said when thematerialist saw him falling down stairs, bumping his head at every step,and asked him what was the matter," laughed Dee. "Didn't you ever meetMr. Parker?"
"No, but I have always understood he was all kinds of lovely things."
"Oh, he'll do," put in Dum, "if you like wax works. He wears theprettiest pants in town and has more neckties and socks than an ordinaryman could buy if he went shopping every day. He knows all the latestjokes and when they give out, he starts in on the others. He makes jokesof his own, too--not like Zebedee's--Zebedee always bubbles out in ajoke but Hiram G. leads up to his. First he gets one, a joke I mean, andthen he gets a crowd of listeners. Then he directs the conversation intothe proper channel and dams it up and when it is just right he launcheshis joke."
"You certainly do mix your metaphors," laughed Page, crimping herturnovers with a fork. "You start out with bubbling brooks and end upwith the launching of ships.
"'She starts! she moves! she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel.'"
"Well, Zebedee does bubble and Hiram G. Parker doesn't; neither does aboat, so there. Oh, oh! Look at the goodies. How on earth do you makesuch cute edges to your tarts? Just see them, girls!"
"I did mine with a broken fork but Mammy Susan says she knows an oldwoman who always did hers with her false teeth." After the shout thatwent up from this had subsided, Helen begged to know more of Mr.Parker.
"Is he a great friend of your father?"
"Why no, that is the reason I can't divine why he is bringing him uphere. I believe Zebedee likes him well enough--at least I never heardhim say anything to the contrary. There is no harm in the dude that Iever heard of. Of course he is the Lord High Muck-a-Muck with the buds.He decides which ones are to ornament society and which ones to bepicked for funerals. He has already looked over Dum and me at a hop lastThanksgiving at the Jefferson; Page, too. I believe he thinks we'll do,at least he danced us around and wrote on our back with invisible chalk:'Passed by the Censor of Society.' I believe he thinks a lot of Zebedee,but then everyone does who has even a glimmering of sense," and Deereread her father's letter, a joint one for her and her sister, with apostscript for Page.
"Well, all he says is that he is coming and going to bring theimmaculate Hi and we must behave," declared Dum, reading over Dee'sshoulder. "I don't know whether I am going to behave or not. That Mr.Parker gets on my nerves. He's too clean, somehow. I'm mighty afraid I'mgoing to roll him down the mountain."
"Mis' Carter is fixin' up a lot for the gent," said Susan, who had beenbusily engaged with her wash tub while the girls were talking, "if it'sMr. Hiram G. Parker you is a-speakin' of. She done say he is a veryhigh-up pusson. I do believe it was all on account of him that she donemade Miss Douglas look after her hide so keerful this week."
"Why, does mother know he is coming up?" asked Helen. "She never toldme. Nan, did you know he was coming?"
Nan hadn't known, but she had a great light break on her mind when sheheard that her mother knew he was to come: Mr. Tucker had certainly usedthis visit of Mr. Parker's to persuade her mother to give up the trip toWhite Sulphur.
"No! I never heard a word of it," Nan answered sedately but her eyeswere dancing and it was with difficulty that she restrained a giggle.
How could her mother be so easily influenced? She must consider Mr.Parker very well worth while to stay at camp just to see him. That wasthe reason for all of this extra washing and ironing Susan had on hand.Nan loved her mother devotedly but she had begun to feel that perhapsshe was a very--well, to say the least--a very frivolous lady. Nan'sjudgment was in a measure more mature than Helen's although Helen wasalmost two years her senior. Where Helen loved, she loved without anythought of the loved one's having any fault. She wondered now that hermother should have known of Mr. Parker's coming without mentioning it,but as for that little lady's dressing up to see this society man, why,that was just as it should be. She had absolutely no inkling of hermother's maneuvering to push Douglas toward a successful debut. Susan'sintimation that Douglas was to preserve her complexion for Mr. Parker'sbenefit was simply nonsense. Susan was after all a very foolish coloredgirl who had gotten things mixed. Douglas was to protect her delicateblond skin for all society, not for any particular member of it.
The train arrived bearing many week-enders and among them Zebedee andthe precious Mr. Hiram G. Parker, looking his very fittest in a pearlgray suit with mauve tie and socks and a Panama hat that had butrecently left the block. Zebedee could not help smiling at the finewardrobe trunk that his companion had brought and comparing it with hisown small grip with its changes of linen packed in the bottom and theboxes of candy for Tweedles and Page squeezed on top.
"Thank Heaven, I don't have a reputation to keep up!" he said tohimself.
The wardrobe trunk was not very large, not much more bulky than asuitcase but it had to be carried up the mountain by Josephus and itsowner seemed to be very solicitous that it should be stood on the properend.
"One's things get in an awful mess from these mountain roads. Awardrobe trunk should be kept upright, otherwise even the most skillfulpacking cannot insure one that trousers will not be mussed and coatsliterally ruined."
Mr. Tucker felt like laughing outright but he had an ax to grind andHiram G. Parker was to turn the wheel, so he bridled his inclination. Hehad asked the society man to be his guest for the week-end, intimatingthat he had a favor to ask of him. Parker accepted, as he had an idea hewould, since the summer was none too full of invitations with almost noone in town. His position in the bank held him in town and he must alsohold the position, since it was through it he was enabled to belong toall the clubs and to have pressed suits for all occasions. He had noidea what the favor was but he liked to keep in with these newspaperchaps since it was through the newspapers, when all was told, that hehad attained his success, and through the society columns of thosedailies that he kept in the public eye. He liked Jeffry Tucker, too,for himself. There was something so spontaneous about him. With all ofHiram Parker's society veneer there was a human being somewhere downunder the varnish and a heart, not very big, but good of its kind.
On the train en route to Greendale Mr. Tucker had divulged what thatfavor was. He led up to it adroitly so that when he finally reached itMr. Parker was hardly aware of the fact that he had arrived.
"Long list of debutantes this season, I hear," he started out with,handing an excellent cigar to his guest.
"Yes, something appalling!" answered Mr. Parker, settling himselfcomfortably in
the smoker after having taken off his coat and produceda pocket hanger to keep that garment in all the glory of a recentpressing. "I see many hen parties in prospect. There won't be nearenough beaux to go round."
"So I hear, especially since the militia has been ordered to the border.So many dancing men are in the Blues. I heard today that young Lane isoff. He is Robert Carter's assistant and since Carter has been out ofthe running has been endeavoring to keep the business going. I fancy itwill be a blow to the Carters that he has had to go."
"Yes, too bad! Quite a dancing man! He will be missed in the germans."
Jeffry Tucker smiled as he had been thinking the Carters might miss theassistance that Lane rendered their father, but since Mr. Parker's mindran more on germans than on business that was, after all, what he wasbringing him up to Greendale for.
"Lewis Somerville has enlisted, too."
"You don't say! I had an idea when he left West Point he would be quitean addition to Richmond society."
"I think Mrs. Carter thought he would be of great assistance to hereldest daughter," said Mr. Machiavelli Tucker.
"Oh, I hadn't heard that one of Robert Carter's daughters was to makeher debut. I haven't seen her name on the list. Is she a good looker?"
"Lovely and very sweet! I think it is a pity for her to come out and notbe a success, but her mother is determined that she shall enter the ringthis winter."
"Yes, it is a pity. This will be a bad year for buds. There are alreadyso many of them and such a dearth of beaux I have never beheld. I don'tcare how good-looking a girl is, she is going to have a hard time havinga good time this year," and the expert sighed, thinking of the workahead of him in entertaining debutantes. He was not so young as he hadbeen and there were evenings when he rather longed to get into slippersand dressing gown and let himself go, but a leader must be on the jobconstantly or someone else would usurp his place. Many debutantes and afew society men meant he must redouble his activities.
"I hope you will be nice to this girl, Hi. She is a splendid creature.Since her father has been sick, she has taken the burden of the wholefamily on her shoulders. All of the girls help and the second one,Helen, is doing wonders, too--in fact, all of them are wonders."
"So----" thought the leader of germans, "we are coming to the favor.Tucker wants me to help launch this girl. Well, I'll look her overfirst. No pig in a poke for me!" He took another of the very goodcigars, not that he wanted it at that moment, but he might need it lateron.
"Now this is what I want you to do, this is how I want you to be goodto her." Hi Parker smiled a knowing smile. How many times had he beenapproached in just this way? "I don't want you to ask her to dance agerman with you----"
Oh, what was the fellow driving at, anyhow?
"No, indeed! There is no man living that I would ask to do such a thing.I feel it is a kind of insult to a girl to go around drumming uppartners for her."
Mr. Parker gasped.
"What I want you to do for me is to persuade Mrs. Carter that this is abad year to bring a girl out. You have already said you think it is, soyou would be perfectly honest in doing so. The Carters' finances are ata low ebb and this fine girl, Douglas, is doing her best to economizeand have the family realize the importance of it, and now her mother isdetermined that she shall stop everything and go into society."
Mr. Tucker, during the journey to Greendale, succeeded in convincing Mr.Parker that it was an easy matter to persuade Mrs. Carter to give up theproject.
"I'll do what I can, but if you take the matter so much to heart whydon't you do it yourself, Tucker? I make it a rule not to butt in onsociety's private affairs if I can possibly keep out of it."
"I ask you because I believe in getting an expert when a delicateoperation is needed. You are a social expert and this is a seriousmatter."
The upshot was that Mr. Hiram G. Parker was flattered into making theattempt and Mrs. Carter's opinion of that gentleman's social knowledgewas so great and her faith in him so deep-rooted that she abandoned heridea of forcing Douglas out for that season. She gave it up with a sighof resignation. Anyhow, she was glad she had made Douglas bleach hercomplexion before Mr. Parker was introduced to her. The girl was lookinglovely and the shyness she evinced on meeting that great man was just asit should be. Too much assurance was out of place with a bud and thisintroduction and impression would hold over until another year.