Part 27 (1/2)
”Chaperoned! Oh, Zebedee, you make me laugh. What boarding-house keeper has time to chaperone? Besides, isn't Page along to chaperone?”
”What do you think about it, Page? Come along now with that sage advice,” teased Father.
”I have never boarded and don't know how I'd like it, but it seems to me the best thing for us to do would be to board when we first get there, and then if we can't stand it, take a little flat and keep house, or rather, flat.”
”Ah, I see why your advice is so sought after by our worthy friends, the Tuckers; you are as wise as Solomon and cut the baby in two and satisfy all parties. You will go to boarding to suit Tucker and then get a flat to suit the daughters, eh, honey?”
”Fifty-fifty is a safe course to pursue, and safety first is best and wisest for an official umpire,” I maintained.
”I must say that the oracle has spoken well,” said Zebedee. ”Of course, if they are not happy boarding they must not keep to it, but it is better for them to start that way. They can learn the ropes and decide later on to get a flat if it seems wiser. We can go on with them and establish them, eh, doctor?”
”I reckon so, if my patients behave. Now that old Mrs. Reed is dead, I can leave perhaps--Ellen Miller's baby safely here, too!”
”Oh, Father, that will be simply grand, if you can only go!”
”I haven't had a trip for a long, long time, and I think it is up to me to treat myself.”
All of us thought so, too. It made it easier for me if Father was contemplating going with us for a little recreation. He worked so hard, had so little fun in his life. What fun there was he made for himself by treating life as something very amusing when all was told. His patience was only equalled by his sense of humor.
”Don't give out that you are going on a trip, Father, and then all of your cranky patients won't have time to trump up any illnesses. If Sally Winn hears of your intended departure, she will get up seven fits of heart failure and more fluterations and smotherines than enough to keep you at home.”
”Poor Sally! I wish she could go on a trip herself. It would do more towards curing her than all the pink, pump water in the world.”
Sally Winn was Father's hypochondriacal patient who called him up at all hours of the day and night for an imaginary heart trouble that was supposed to be carrying her off. She did not feel safe with Father out of the county and never let him get away if she could help it.
”Why don't you suggest it to her? She might come on and visit her cousin, Reginald Kent.”
”Reginald Kent! By Jove, I forgot that fellow when I proposed New York as a good place for you girls to top off your very incomplete education,” and Zebedee groaned.
”Well, what is the matter with Reginald Kent?” bridled Dum.
”Matter! Nothing's the matter, that's what's the matter. See here, Dum Tucker, if you go to New York and fall in love with that good-looking, clever young man I'll kill myself,” declared the desperate Zebedee, always afraid that some man would come along and cut him out with his girls.
”Nonsense, Zebedeedlums! Reginald Kent will have to fall in love with me before I fall in love with him.”
”Well, if that's so, I'll fix him! I'll tell him what a bad proposition you are: mean, ungenerous, deceitful, secretive. I'll put him on to you.” As these were all the things Dum was not, we felt safe.
”Shan't we let Mary Flannagan know our plans? She may want to join us there,” suggested Dee.
”Of course we want dear old Mary,” Dum and I cried together.
We all of us thought with regret of what a winter like the one we were planning to have would have meant to Annie Pore.
Mary was a great favorite with both Father and Mr. Tucker, so they readily consented to our writing to her, suggesting that she should join us in New York if her mother thought well of the plan.
”She can go on with her movie stunts, and take up dancing and gym work in real earnest under the right instructors,” said Dee.
”I hope she won't try to climb down any walls in New York,” I laughed.
”We mustn't get in a flat with ivy on the walls.”