Part 18 (1/2)
A SUFFICIENT time having elapsed since dinner, we decided to go in swimming again; at least the Tuckers decided to and all of us followed suit (bathing suit!). Aunt Milly was becoming accustomed to the ways of her charges and gave her gracious consent when we humbly asked it. She even stopped rolling her eyes at Shorty when she saw that Harvie was not injured, after all, and that he himself bore no malice towards his friend.
Mary, too, had something to do with mollifying the old woman. She went and sat on the sand bank by her side and explained to her how the battle royal started and what fun it had been. Of course ever since the circus, Mary had been a great favorite with all the servants. They looked upon her as a real celebrity. Mary had so many stunts and was always so willing to amuse persons that she was constantly being called on to do her dog fight or get off a feat of ventriloquism or something else.
”Aunt Milly, if you forgive poor Mr. Hawkins for b.l.o.o.d.ying up Mr.
Harvie, I'll go like a little pig caught under the gate for you.”
”Lawsamussy, chil', kin you do that?”
”Sure! Will you forgive him if I do it?”
”Lemme hear you do it fust an' I'll see,” said Aunt Milly with a sly look. She was getting too much capital out of the grudge she had against Shorty to give it up too readily.
So Mary went through all the agony of a little pig caught under the gate and even improved upon it to the extent of introducing another character into the act: she went like two pigs caught under the gate.
Aunt Milly sat in her sand hole entranced.
”Well, bless Bob! If it ain't it to the life! How you do it, honey?” So Mary had to do it once more and then Aunt Milly promised to forgive and forget.
”Come on and help clear up the remains of the feast, Mary,” insisted Dum, who was ever determined that there should be no s.h.i.+rkers.
”I'm busy mollifying,” declared Mary. ”My talents lie more in this direction,” and she could not help mimicking Jessie Wilc.o.x just enough to give Dum the dry grins. Jessie had not helped at all about luncheon but had insisted that Aunt Milly should be made to do whatever we had the hardihood to suggest that she might do. Aunt Milly, however, having been told that she was to do no ”wuck,” did none, and presented a duck back to all insinuations from the haughty Jessie.
”I don't care where your talents lie,” insisted Dum, ”you are going to come help clear these dishes off the cloth so I can fold it up.”
Mary began to sing to a catchy tune this music-hall ballad:
”I want to be a actress, a actress, a actress, I tell you I won't live and die a common serving gal.
I feel I've got the natur'
To act in a the-a-ter, I'm just the kind of stuff to make a star profession-a-l-l.”
”Well, now ain't she cute?” and Aunt Milly shook her fat sides with laughter. ”She ain't ter say purty but she is sho' got a way wid her.
She ain't so handsome as some but she gonter keep her takin' ways til'
Kingdom Come, whilst some folks what ain't nothin' but purty won' hab nothin' lef' a tall whin the las' trump soun's. I ain't a got no 'jections ter purty folks,--now that there little Miss Annie Po' is sho'
sweet lookin' an' sweet tas'in', too, but she is wuth somethin' sides.
But some ain't.” A glance of her rolling eyes in the direction of Jessie gave us to understand who ”some” meant.
Jessie and Wink were having a most desperate flirtation. He had not left her side a moment during the whole day. Jessie glanced occasionally in my direction with a little exultant toss of her head as much as to say: ”See, miss, I've got your beau!” She was more than welcome to him, but I didn't think it kind to lessen her delight in her conquest, so I did my best to make her happy by sighing deeply every time I caught her looking at me.
The pleasure of going in swimming is going in again, so as I said before, as soon as a reasonable time had elapsed since our very filling dinner we again retired to our several tree-formed bath-houses and donned our suits for a farewell dip.
”No more fights now!” commanded Zebedee sternly, just as though he had not been among the mighty warriors of the last fray.
Tweedles promptly caught him and gave him a good ducking until he yelled for mercy and help from Aunt Milly, but that model chaperone had gone off to sleep again and was deaf to his cries.
”That's what you get for being Mr. Tuckerish,” declared Dum.
Jessie Wilc.o.x was a good swimmer but was determined not to get her hair wet, so had not entered very largely into our water sports. Tweedles and Mary and I had lost our bathing caps in the great naval battle, and since our heads were already wet, we decided to get them wetter and let our hair dry on the trip home. As for Annie, getting her feet wet was about all she could make up her mind to do, although her coils of honey-colored hair got a little damp. She would take shuddering steps into the water and when she got about knee-deep would lie down and go through the motions of swimming with one foot on the bottom. She had really learned to keep up on top of the water at Willoughby the summer before, but now had lost all confidence in herself and was content just to paddle around in the shallows.