"Girls, I've got a scheme!" exclaimed Zebedee one evening after dinner.

"I want to send a special correspondent to South Carolina to write up the political situation and I am thinking about sending myself. If I do, I am going to take all of you. I have written your father, Page, and an answer came from him today. He says you may go, as he knows it would do you good. I haven't said anything about it to you girls until I was sure I could work it."

"Oh goody, goody, goody! Where will we go first?"

"Charleston first! I may leave you there awhile, as I have to do some knocking around, but it will not be for very long, not more than a day at a time."

We plunged into shopping the very next day. Father had sent me a check for necessary clothes, and the all-important matter had to be attended to speedily.

"Let's get all of our things exactly alike and pa.s.s for triplets! It would be such a scream on Zebedee," suggested Dee.

"Triplets, much! We'd just look like a blooming orphan asylum and get in a book. It seems to me that every book I pick up lately is about orphan asylums. Chauffeurs and orphans and aviators form the theme for every book or magazine story I read. No, indeed! Let's get our clothes just as different as possible," said Dum, rapidly turning the pages in _Vogue_.

"All right. Then we can wear each other's. I'm going to get brown."

"I'm crazy for dark green, if you don't think it will make my freckles show on my nose too much. My nose and its freckles are a great trial to me."

"Nonsense! You've got the cutest nose in Virginia and Zebedee says he likes freckles," said Dee, always tactful.

"Well, he can have them, I'm sure I don't want them. What color are you going to get, Dum?"

"Anything but blue. There is a refinement about blue that I can't stand right now. I want something dashing and indicative of my sentiments of its being my bounden duty to have a good time."

"Red?"

"No, red's too obvious! I think I'll get lavender or mauve. Then I can wear violets (when I can get them). I think lavender suits my mood all right. It is kind of widowish and widows when they get into lavender are always out for a good time. I tell you when widows get to widding they are mighty attractive. I don't see why they don't stay in their pretty white crepe linings, though. They are so terribly becoming. I mean to make a stunning widow some day."

"First catch your flea before you kill him," taunted Dee.

"Well, I can't see the use in having your hair grow in a widow's peak on your forehead if you can't ever be a widow. It seems such a waste."

"There's time yet! You are only seventeen," I laughed.

"Seventeen is old enough to know what style suits me best. Weeds are my proper environment."

In spite of Dum's conviction about weeds she purchased a most becoming and suitably youthful suit in a soft mauve. Dee got exactly the same style in brown and I in green. We deviated in hats, however, and each girl thought her own was the prettiest, which is a great test of hats.

Hats are like treats at soda fountains: you usually wish you had ordered something you didn't order and something your neighbor did.

Spring was late in making its appearance in Virginia that year, but since we were going to South Carolina we bravely donned our new suits and hats. Zebedee declared he was proud of us, we were so stylish.

"I have a great mind to grow some whiskers so people won't think I am your little nephew," he said as he settled us in our section. The three of us girls were to occupy one section, two below and one above, lots to be cast how we were to dispose ourselves.

"Nephew, much! You've got three gray hairs in your part now," declared Dee.

"Each of you is responsible for one of them." Mr. Tucker often cla.s.sed me with his own girls and really when I was with them I seemed to be a member of the family. He treated me with a little more deference than he did Tweedles because he said I seemed to be older. I was really a few days younger.

Dee got the upper berth in the casting of lots and Dum and I slept in the lower, at least, Dum slept. I was conscious of much jerking and b.u.mping of the train, and Dum seemed to be demonstrating the batty-cake flipflapper all night.

We had left Richmond with a belated sprinkling of snow, but as we were nearing Charleston at about five-thirty in the morning we ran through a fine big thunder storm, and then torrents of rain descended, beating against the windows. Of course some bromide who got off the train with us, said something about "the back-bone of winter."

What a rain! It seemed to be coming down in sheets, and such a thing as keeping dry was out of the question. Tweedles and I regretted our new spring suits and straw hats, but since we had been so foolhardy as to travel in them we had to make the best of it and trust to luck that they would not spot.

The train had reached Charleston at six and by rights it should have been dawn, but it was as dark as pitch owing to the thunder clouds that hung low over the city.

Zebedee hustled us into a creaking, swaying bus that reminded us somewhat of the one at Gresham. Other travelers were there ahead of us and as everyone was rather damp the odor of the closed vehicle was somewhat wet-doggish.

We rattled over the cobblestones through narrow streets, every now and then glimpsing some picturesque bit of wall when we came to one of the few and far between lamp posts. But it was generally very dim and would have been dreary had we not been in a frame of mind to enjoy everything we saw and to look at life with what Dee called "Behind-the-clouds-the-sun's-still-shining" spirit.

The bus turned into better lighted streets with smoother paving.

"Meeting Street," read Dum from a sign. "Doesn't that sound romantic? Do you reckon it means lovers meet here?"

"It may, but I am very much afraid it just means the many churches that abound on this street," laughed Zebedee.

I wondered who the people were in the bus with us, but they seemed to take no interest at all in us. There were two pale old ladies in black crepe veils drawn partly over their faces; a dignified old gentleman in a low-cut vest and a very high collar with turned-down flaps that seemed especially designed to ease his double chin; and a young girl about sixteen or seventeen who had evidently been in a day coach all night and was much rumpled and tousled therefrom. She seemed to belong to the pompous old gentleman, at least I gathered as much, as I had seen him meet her at the station and noticed he gave her a fatherly peck of greeting. Not a word did they utter however on that b.u.mpy bus ride, and although the two pale old ladies in crepe veils had stiffly inclined their shrouded heads as father and daughter entered the vehicle and they in turn had acknowledged the bow, not one word pa.s.sed their lips.

Evidently a public conveyance was not the proper place for Charlestonians to converse. The girl, who was very pretty in spite of being so tired and dishevelled, smiled a sympathetic smile when Dum enthused over Meeting Street. I had a feeling if we could get her by herself she would chatter away like any other girl.

Perhaps the old man won't be so stiff when he gets his breakfast. It is hard to be limber on a wet morning and an empty stomach. When one has so much stomach it must be especially hard to have it empty, I thought.

It seemed very impertinent of the omnibus to b.u.mp this dignified old gentleman so unmercifully. He held on to his stomach with both hands, an expression of indignation on his pompous countenance, while his double chin wobbled in a manner that must have been very trying to his dignity.

The pale old ladies in crepe veils took their b.u.mping with great elegance and composure. When the sudden turning of a corner hurled one of them from her seat plump into Zebedee's arms, if she was the least disconcerted she did not show it. A crisp "I beg your pardon!" was all she said as she resumed her seat. She did pull the crepe veil entirely over her face, however, as though to conceal from the vulgar gaze any emotion that she might have felt. Of course we giggled. We always giggled at any excuse, fancied or real. The pretty girl giggled, too, but turned it into a cough as her father pivoted his fat little person around and looked at her in evident astonishment.

The bus backed up to our hotel where a grinning porter was in readiness to capture our bags. Our fellow travelers were evidently relieved at our departure. I saw through the window that both ladies put back their stuffy veils and that the old gentleman relaxed his dignified bearing somewhat and entered into conversation with them. The young girl, however, peered rather wistfully through the drenched pane at us as we gaily took possession of the hotel lobby.

"Wasn't she sweet! Maybe we will see her again sometime," said Dee.

"I couldn't see her at all from where I sat," declared Zebedee. "Her old father's embonpoint obstructed my view."

The hotel where Zebedee had decided to take us was not the newest and most fashionable in Charleston, but he had heard it was the most typical and that the cooking was quite good. It had been built years before the famous earthquake, and had still marks of that calamity. The floors, many of them, had a down-hill tendency, and there were cracks under the doors and I believe not one right angle in a single wall of the house.

The room we girls were to occupy was a great square chamber with a large window looking out on a cobbled street. There were picturesque doors, and walls with mysterious shuttered windows, where one could occasionally see eyes peering forth. It is against the Charleston code of manners to open shutters or raise the blinds of windows that look out on the street.

The floor of our room was on a decided slant and this caused a very amusing accident. There was a large armchair with broad substantial rockers into which Dum sank to rest her weary bones until breakfast. The chair was pointed down-hill and over Dum went backwards, and nothing in the world but her fine new spring hat saved her from getting a terrible b.u.mp on her head.

"It's like living in the Tower of Pisa!" she exclaimed as we pulled her up.

"You had better remember to rock up-hill next time," admonished Dee. "I bet you, we will all develop a mountain leg living on such a slant. But isn't it fascinating? As soon as breakfast is over, let's go out and explore. I want to peep in the shutters all along the way and see what everybody is having for breakfast and going to have for dinner."

"That's just the way I feel! If anything is shut, I want to peep in. If it is locked, I want to get in."

Our hotel was run on the American plan and our grinning waiter insisted upon bringing us everything on the bill of fare. I think he saw in Zebedee the possibilities of a liberal tip. In South Carolina there is a law against tipping. In all of the rooms of hotels the guests are reminded of this by large printed placards, but like most laws of the kind it seems made only to be broken.

"The tight-wads who kicked against tipping the poor colored servants now have the law on their side and can get out of it gracefully, but the people who tip because they feel that the servants have earned some little acknowledgment of their faithful services, go on tipping just as though no law had been made," said Zebedee, as he slipped some silver under the side of his plate in view of the watching darky, who pounced upon it with a practiced hand, while making a feint of removing finger bowls.

"I am going to turn you girls loose now to find your way around and seek out the wonders of Charleston. I have work to do and politicians to see."

"All right! Don't worry about us!" tweedled the twins.