Tripping with the Tucker Twins.

by Nell Speed.

CHAPTER I

a.s.sETS AND LIABILITIES

After our boarding-school burned on that memorable night in March, it seemed foolish to start to school again so late in the season; at least it seemed so to the Tucker twins and me. Their father and mine were rather inclined to think we had better enter some inst.i.tute of learning in Richmond or take extra cla.s.ses, do something besides loaf; but we earnestly pleaded to be let off for the rest of the year, and they succ.u.mbed to our entreaties.

My ankle gave me a good deal of trouble. You remember, no doubt, how I sprained it getting out of the second-story window when the false alarm of fire rang, the afternoon before the real _bona fide_ fire. Dee's first aid to the injured was all very well for the time being, but when we arrived in Richmond a surgeon had to be called to attend to it, and the ankle was put in plaster.

"A sprain can be much more serious than a break," the surgeon said solemnly as he looked at the much swollen foot and ankle. "I shall have to take an X-ray of this to be sure no bones are broken, and then, young lady, you will have to be quiet for some days, how many I can't yet tell."

Never having been disabled in my life, I had no idea how irksome it could become. On no account to put your foot to the ground and to feel perfectly well is about as hard a job as could be given me, an active country girl. Father came up from Milton and heartily agreed with the surgeon in charge.

"I have set a carload of broken legs in my time and bandaged a wagonful of ankles, and I am sure I have had less trouble from the legs than the ankles. It is because, as a rule, a sprain is not treated seriously enough. Now, honey, you have got to sit still and take it."

I sat still all right, although it nearly killed me to do it. Not even crutches were allowed for a week for fear I might be tempted to bear my weight on the offending member.

The Tuckers, father and twins, were goodness itself to me. I was afraid to express a wish, because no matter how preposterous it was they would immediately rush off and try to get whatever silly thing I had in a careless moment expressed a desire for. For instance, one day Dum came in enthusiastic over a new drugstore drink she had discovered:

"Vanilla ice cream with fresh pineapple mixed up with it, orange syrup and lots of bubbly soda! The best mess you ever sucked through a straw!"

"Ummm-ummm! Sounds good to me! When I can trust this old limb of Satan I am going to make straight for that drugstore and drink three of them."

Mr. Tucker had just arrived from the newspaper office where he labored many hours a day. He must have been tired sometimes, but he never looked it and never complained of work. Eternal youth seemed to belong to him, and undying energy.

"Good? I think it sounds awful!" he exclaimed. "You girls must astonish your poor little insides with the impossible mixtures you put in 'em."

"I think it sounds fine, and I am surely going to have three of them just as soon as I can toddle."

Mr. Tucker laughed and left the room, and I wearily resumed a not very interesting book I was reading while Dum followed her father. I read on, hoping to come to something better. I fancy not more than ten minutes had elapsed when father and daughter burst into the room, Dum carrying two foaming soda-water gla.s.ses and Zebedee one. The dauntless pair had actually cranked up Henry Ford, as they dubbed their little old automobile, and speeded down to the drugstore where they knew how to make that particular mixture, and brought them back to me.

"Your blood be on your own head if you drink them. They look pizen to me."

But drink them I did, all three, much to the wonderment of Zebedee, who declared that girls were fearfully and wonderfully made. I did feel slightly fizzly, but after my kind friends had brought them to me and even braved the danger of arrest and fine for speeding, trying to get the drinks to me with the foam on, I felt it was up to me to show my appreciation. The only way to show it was to drink the soda. What if I did burst in the effort?

The Tucker twins and I were almost seventeen, our birthdays coming quite near together, and their father, now Zebedee to all of us, was about thirty-seven, I think, almost thirty-eight. The Tuckers were so irresponsible in some ways that I often felt myself to be older than any of them, although I was certainly not very staid myself. Zebedee always declared he was just grown up enough to keep out of debt, but keep out of debt he would no matter what temptations he had to withstand.

Tweedles regarded debt as the only lawful state, and hard they found it to keep within their allowance, but the one time when Zebedee was really severe was when they exceeded that allowance. Dum was worse about it than Dee, as her artistic temperament made it hard for her to keep up with money.

"It just goes, and I don't know where!" she would exclaim.

When we got back to Richmond after the fire, one day when Zebedee was in Norfolk attending a convention of newspaper men, to be gone several days, the sisters realized that a day of reckoning had arrived and they must take stock of their a.s.sets and liabilities. Each one had borrowed small sums from various friends at school, intending to pay back out of allowances forthcoming, and also expecting to realize large sums from old clothes that our washerwoman would sell on commission to the colored contingent in the village. Colored people for some unknown reason would much rather have clothes that have been worn by white people than new ones out of shops. Of course the fire had interrupted this traffic and Tweedles never expected to see the money owed them by our washerwoman's clients.

"I could have worn that corduroy skirt for months longer, but I thought I could get two dollars and a half for it at least and help get out of debt," wailed Dee.

"And I just loved my blue linen shirtwaist and the frayed cuffs hardly showed at all, and now the old washerwoman has got my shirt and the fifty cents, too--to say nothing of my old-rose dinner dress that I am scared to death about every night for fear Zebedee will ask me why I don't wear it. He always liked the color of it so much," and Dum looked ready to weep.

"Well, girls, count it all up and see where you stand; maybe I can lend you enough to get you out," I said.

"You sound like we were in jail," declared Dee ruefully. "I don't see how on earth you keep on top so yourself. You seem to do as many things as we do and always pay your share, and still you don't get in debt."

"I don't know how it is," I laughed, "unless I am like the Yankee who left his wife a large fortune, much to the astonishment of his neighbors, who did not know he had anything. When questioned as to the way her husband had made the money, the wife said: 'Wal, you see my husband was powerful fond of oysters, and whenever he went up to the city he just didn't get any.' You girls don't know how free you are with money. If you buy a paper that costs a penny you always say, 'Keep the change!' And then when a tip of ten cents is all that is necessary, you invariably give twenty-five."

"I know that's so," they contritely tweedled.

"Count up and see where you're at," and then they figured in silence for a few minutes.

"I owe five dollars and seventy-three cents," said Dee, getting hers added up first and emptying her purse; "I've got just thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket between me and the penitentiary."

"And I owe seven dollars and twenty-three cents and I haven't got anything but a green trading stamp and a transfer to Ginter Park that I did not use," and Dum searched in the corners of her purse for a possible penny that might have escaped her.

"I've three dollars and will have some more soon, as father is going to send me a check for a spring suit. You let me pay you both out of debt."

"We just can't. It only puts off the evil hour. We can't let you give us the money, and how will we ever pay it back?"

"Why don't you earn it?" I ventured.

"Earn it! Splendid! But how? Dum earned fifty cents once making paper dolls to sell at the Arts and Crafts, and Zebedee pays us both to dust the books and put them back in the right places, something the housemaids are incapable of doing; but this money we must earn without letting Zebedee get on to it. Where's the morning paper?"

But Dum had already got it and was poring over the want ads. Dee had to content herself with the news section, while Dum monopolized the "Help Wanted--Female" part.

"What's this?" demanded Dee, reading headlines: "'Ordinance to prohibit the drivers of jitney cars!' That is a sin and a shame. I can't see why they can't let the poor men make a little money without issuing ordinances. Oh, it is only under consideration! They may not pa.s.s it----

"By the great Jumping Jingo, I've got a scheme! I'm going to turn Henry Ford into a jitney bus. Zebedee'll be away for two more days, and by the time he comes back I bet I'll have enough to pay my debts and blow us all to the swellest supper at Rueger's."

Jitneys had just reached Richmond that spring, and every man or boy out of work who could beg, borrow or steal an old tumbled-down car had gone into the business of running a jitney. The streets were swarming with them, and the public, pleased with the novelty, patronized them to the neglect and chagrin of the trolleys. Of course there were some drivers who would hardly have been trusted with coal carts, and there were many accidents by reason of this. We adored the jitneys. Of course, I had not been able to ride in them because of my ankle keeping me house-bound, but I loved to see them swing around the corner, and always had my chair or sofa in the bay window where I could get a good view of them. There seemed to be such a happy, good-natured crowd of pa.s.sengers; and certainly many a shopgirl and workingman got to ride in a jitney who had despaired before of ever being fortunate enough to get into an automobile. The Tuckers were strong upholders of the poor man's rights and patronized the jitneys whenever their own Henry Ford was out of commission or in use by some other member of the family.

"But what will your father say?"

"More than likely he will say something that won't bear repet.i.tion, but by that time I will have paid my debts."

"But will they let girls run one?"

"How are they going to help it? The ones who are running them are liable to be stopped any day, but so far there are no laws one way or the other about it, and I am going to get in my licks before they have time to make any. Besides, I am not going to look very feminine."

"That's what I get for being a pig and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the want column before you could get it. Now if I had let you have it like a lady I could have got the jitney scheme first," grumbled Dum.

"What difference does that make? You can go in on it, you goose!"

"But I'm not going in. I think I ought to earn something my own way.

That was your scheme, and I am not going to b.u.t.t in on it."

"Well, you know you are welcome; but suit yourself."

"But, Dee, you say you are not going to look very feminine. Surely you are not going to wear pants?" I asked, aghast at what these Heavenly Twins would do next.