Part 9 (2/2)

”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 will smear cranberry sauce on her if she sits near me,” stormed Dum.

I thought Tweedles made a great mistake in nagging so about Mabel. I had known very few men in my life, not near as many as the twins, but I had learned with the few I did know that a bad way to manage them was to let them know you were trying to. I, myself, felt rather blue about the way Mabel was monopolizing Zebedee, but I would have bitten out my tongue by the roots before I would have let him know it. Of course fathers are different from just friends. I don't know what I should have done if some flashy, designing person had made a dead set at Father. There weren't any flashy, designing females in our part of the county, and if there had been, I fancy they would not have aspired to the quiet, simple life that being the wife of a country doctor insured. For my part I should have liked a stepmother since I could not have my own mother. I often thought how nice it would have been if Father could have had a sweet wife to be with him while I was off at school. I trusted Father's good taste and judgment enough to know he would choose the right kind of woman if he chose at all. He never chose at all, however, although the many relatives who visited us during the summer made many matches for him 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 to play Cupid and get Docallison to marry; but he used to say:

”No, no! Matrimony is too much of a lottery and the chances are against a 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 so many well meaning friends were constantly suggesting to them the possibility and suitability of Zebedee's taking unto himself another wife.

”Well, we'll make it hot for her all right, whoever she may be,” they would declare. I never had a doubt that they would, too.

I felt it was really an insult to Mr. Tucker to think he could become infatuated with such a person as Mabel Binks, but then, on the other hand, I knew how easy it is to flatter men; and while Zebedee did not like to be run after, Mabel's evident admiration and appreciation of him would, as a matter of course, soften his heart.

Mabel was, however, not asked to make the twelfth at that Thanksgiving feast. Whether it was the dread of the battle royal that Dum was prepared to fight with cranberry sauce or just simply that Zebedee did not want her himself I did not know, but I was certainly relieved to find 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 fict.i.tious gentleman was always invited in when any rudeness was in evidence. Dum certainly had been rude about the cranberry 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 to learn from him.” So peace was restored.

We had entered the Jefferson Hotel while Dum and her father were having the little sparring match, and as we came into the enclosure where the fountain plays and the baby alligators and turtles splash among the ferns and the beautiful statue of Thomas Jefferson stands in all its quiet peace and dignity, it seemed to me that quarreling was entirely unnecessary and I said as much.

”You are right, Page,” said Mr. Tucker. ”There is always something singularly soothing and peaceful about this spot and it seems kind of an insult to Thomas Jefferson to be anything but well-bred in his presence.”

Our table was laid in the large dining-room and we were hungry enough to go right in to dinner, but the lobby was so full of excited and boisterous people rus.h.i.+ng back and forth and greeting each other, hunting lost friends, finding old acquaintances, etc., that we hung over the balcony looking at the gay throng and forgetting that we were short one meal for the day, having crowded breakfast and luncheon into one.

”Service is mighty slow on a crowded day like this, so you had better come eat,” and Zebedee led the way to our table, where Stephen White, Harvie Price and George Ma.s.sie immediately joined us. We had picked up Judge Grayson in the lobby.

Of course George, alias Sleepy, was the toast of the occasion, and he blushed so furiously that he looked as though Dum had carried out her threat against Mabel and smeared poor, inoffensive and modest Sleepy with cranberry juice. We asked him so many questions and paid him so much attention that Zebedee finally interfered and made us let him alone.

”You won't let the boy eat and I know he is starving,” and so he was,--and so were all of us. We ate right through a long table d'hote dinner, ordering every thing in sight from blue points to cafe noir.

Wherever there was a choice of dainties we took both, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the very swell waiter, whose black face shone with delight in antic.i.p.ation of the handsome tip he knew by experience was forthcoming when Jeffry Tucker gave his girls a party.

”Pink ice cream for me!” exclaimed Father, when the question of dessert arose.

”And me! And me!” from Mary and Annie and me.

”Don't stop with that,” begged Dee. ”Dum and I always get everything on the menu for dessert except pumpkin pie. We can't go that.”

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