Part 3 (1/2)

But you know more about that than I do. Do you think they will make white places on the lawn, Mr. Fenelby?”

”I don't know,” he said, abstractedly. ”I mean, yes, of course they will. But they will get rained on. You don't want your trunks rained on, you know. Trunks aren't meant to be rained on. It isn't good for them.” A thought came to him suddenly. ”You and Laura haven't quarreled, have you?” he asked, for he thought that perhaps that was why Kitty would not have her trunks carried up.

”Indeed not!” cried Kitty, putting her arm affectionately around Laura's waist.

”I--I thought perhaps you had,” faltered Mr. Fenelby. ”I thought--that is to say--I was afraid perhaps you were going away again. I thought you were going to make us a good, long visit--”

”Indeed I am,” said Kitty, cheerfully. ”I am going to stay weeks, and weeks, and weeks. I am going to stay until you are all tired to death of me, and beg me to begone.”

”That is good,” said Mr. Fenelby, with an attempt at pleasure. ”But don't you think, since you are going to do what we want you to do, and stay for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, that you had better let your trunks be taken up to your room? Or--I'll tell you what we'll do! Suppose we just take the trunks into the lower hall?”

He felt pretty certainly, now, that Kitty must have had a little touch of, say, sunstroke, or something of that kind, and he went on in a gently argumentative tone.

”Just into the lower hall,” he said. ”That would be different from having them in your room, and it would save my gra.s.s. I worked hard to get this lawn looking as it does now, Kitty, and I cannot deny that big trunks like these will not do it any good. Let us say we will put the trunks in the lower hall. Then they will be safe, too.

No one can steal them there. A front lawn is a rather conspicuous place for trunks. And what will the neighbors say, too, if we leave the trunks on the lawn? Why shouldn't we put the trunks in the lower hall?”

”Well,” said Kitty, ”I can't afford it, that is why. Really, Mr.

Fenelby, I can't afford to have those three trunks brought into the house.”

”And yet,” said Mr. Fenelby, with just the slightest hint of impatience, ”you girls could afford to give the man a dollar _not_ to take them in! That is woman's logic!”

”Oh! a dollar!” said Kitty. ”If it was only a matter of a dollar! I hope you don't think, Mr. Fenelby, that I travel with only ten dollars' worth of baggage! No, indeed! I simply cannot afford to pay ten per cent. duty on what is in those trunks, and so I prefer to let them remain on the lawn. I wrote Laura that I expected to be treated as one of the family while I was visiting her, and if the Domestic Tariff is part of the way the family is treated I certainly expect to live up to it. Now, don't blame Laura, for she was not only willing to have the trunks come in without paying duty, but insisted that they should.”

Mr. Fenelby looked very grave. He was in a perplexing situation. He certainly did not wish to appear inhospitable, and yet Laura had had no right to say that the trunks could enter the house duty free. The only way such an unusual alteration in the Domestic Tariff could be made was by act of the Family Congress, and he very well knew that if once the matter of revising the tariff was taken up it was beyond the ken of man where it would end. He preferred to stand pat on the tariff as it had been originally adopted.

”I told her,” said Kitty, ”that she had no right to throw off the duty on my trunks, at all, and that I wouldn't have it, and I didn't.”

”Well, Tom,” said Mrs. Fenelby, ”you know perfectly well that we can't leave those trunks out on the lawn. It would not only be absolutely foolish to do that, but cruel to Kitty. A girl simply can't visit away from home without trunks, and it is absolutely necessary that Kitty should have her trunks.”

”'Necessities, ten per cent.,'” quoted Kitty.

”But, my dear,” said Mr. Fenelby, softly, ”we really can't break all our household rules just because Kitty has brought three trunks, can we? Kitty does not expect us to do that, and I think she looks at it in a very rational manner. I like the spirit she has evinced.”

”Very well, then,” said Mrs. Fenelby, ”you must find some way to take care of those trunks, for we cannot leave them on the lawn.”

”Why can't we take them to some neighbor's house?” asked Kitty. ”I am sure some neighbor would be glad to store them for me for awhile.

Aren't you on good terms with your neighbors, Laura?”

”The Rankins might take them,” said Laura, thoughtfully. ”They have that vacant room, you know, Tom. They might not mind letting us put them in there.”

”I don't know the Rankins,” said Kitty, ”but I am sure they are perfectly lovely people, and that they would not mind in the least.”

”I know they wouldn't,” said Mr. Fenelby. ”Rankin would be glad to do something of that sort to repay me for the number of times he has borrowed my lawn-mower. I will step over after dinner and ask him.”

”Are you sure, very sure, that you do not mind, Kitty?” asked Mrs.

Fenelby. ”You will not feel hurt, or anything?”

”Oh, no!” said Kitty, lightly. ”It will be a lark. I never in my life went visiting with three trunks, and then had them stored in another house. It will be quite like being s.h.i.+pwrecked on a desert island, to get along with one s.h.i.+rt-waist and one handkerchief.”