Nell Speed - Tripping with the Tucker Twins

Dum came bursting in just as the maid brought a tray laden with food. "Lord love us, but I'm tired! I have had a rip-roaring time, though. I can get off a spiel that would sell household novelties to Fiji Islanders. Mrs. Rand has taken like hot cakes, and the batty-cake turner went with it to turn those cakes." She had with her a disreputable-looking canvas telescope that contained her samples. Her job was to go from house to house and take orders, to be delivered later. Her pocket was bursting with signed agreements to pay for said wares on delivery. "Here, Page, please count 'em up and see how rich I am. What did you make, Dee? I am dying to hear all about your morning! You tell first and then I'll tell."

"I made four dollars and fifteen cents. I can't tell you about my morning now because I've got to eat with my mouth. I'm missing fares until it makes me sick," and Dee jumped into her lunch with such vim that Dum and I deemed it wiser to eat, too, for fear there would be nothing left from the voracious jitneur.

"Henry did not have to be cranked but once, and that was when we were at the end of the line up at Robinson Street and there were no passengers in. I bumped over a high car track, and you know how indignant that makes old Henry. I was awfully glad I had just dumped my last fare. Not a soul saw my skirts." This was mumbled with a full mouth as Dee steadily stoked up, accomplishing in about ten minutes one of the largest meals I ever saw.

"Dee, I am afraid you will have apoplexy or something," Dum remonstrated.

But Dee declared that a workingman must eat a lot. She could easily digest anything she could accommodate, and she was not quite full yet. Finding I had not tasted my consommé, for being shut up as I was my appetite was nothing to boast of, Dee drank it down on top of cocoanut pie and currant jelly, the dessert she had just finished.

"To fill up the cracks!" she exclaimed, and with a whirl she was out of the apartment and back in her jitney once more, alert for fares.

"Isn't she a great girl, though?" said Dum, a little wistfully. "Four-fifteen was a good haul. Have you counted up my pledges yet?"

"Yes, you have twenty-seven. At five cents apiece that makes one dollar thirty-five cents. That's not a bad morning's work."

"No, that's not so bad, and maybe I can do better this afternoon. I am going to kick for another part of town tomorrow. They gave me the swellest part of Franklin Street, and so many of the houses were where our friends live that it was hard to be businesslike. I put it up to them as a perfectly businesslike proposition, however, and would not let them sign up unless they wanted my wares for their own sake, not mine. I had an awful time with your cousin, Park Garnett. She made out she did not know me, and I did not force my acquaintance on her, but I just talked and talked and made her look at everything I had – Mrs. Rand, batty-cake flapper, and all the needle-threaders, spot-knockers, and silver polish – and, what's more, I did not leave her ugly, ponderous old house until I had made her sign up for fifteen cents' worth of household necessities – I mean fifteen cents for me. I expatiated on Mrs. Rand until there was nothing for her to do but own one, and I played battledore and shuttlecock with her ball of gray yarn (of course she was knitting another shawl with purple scallops) and the batty-cake turner until she was dizzy and would have signed up to get me out of the house, I think. She bought some silver polish, too, because I took her fat old pug up in my lap and showed her how much his collar needed rubbing. Jeremiah, the blue-gummed butler, was fascinated by my wares, and kept tiptoeing back into the room to fix the fire or pretend he heard the bell or something. That put it into my head to make the rest of the rounds in the backs of the houses, where the servants can see my novelties, and I had fine luck. I am going to stick to the alleys and back doors all afternoon."

Dum was, as usual, perfectly open and straightforward, with absolutely no idea of concealing her identity. I had not dreamed that she was contemplating going into the homes of her friends and acquaintances with her peddling job. I couldn't help wondering what Mr. Tucker would say to it. He was accustomed to the scrapes of his progeny and used to say just so long as they told the truth and kept out of jail, he could stand it; but these new escapades did seem to be a little more serious than any they had heretofore plunged into. They were certainly not doing anything wrong from a moral standpoint, but they were giving Mrs. Grundy a chance to do a lot of gabbling. I could not help laughing over Cousin Park, although I secretly wished that Dum could have started her back-door canvassing before she reached that ponderous edifice belonging to my relative. It merely meant that Mrs. Garnett would have some tangible grievance against my friends, for whom she held a prejudice that no politeness on their part seemed to do away with. Certainly Zebedee had been very kind and pleasant to her on several occasions, and he had been quite attentive to her on that memorable picnic the summer before. He had also done all that was required of him toward entertaining her guest, Mabel Binks, in the early part of the winter. In fact, Tweedles and I felt that he had done more than common politeness required toward the amusement of that flashy young woman.

"Did you tell Cousin Park I was in town?" I asked.

"No, indeed; I never claimed acquaintance with her, I tell you! She made out that she had never seen me before and I fell in with her mood and just be'ed an agent, only that and nothing more. Sometimes I think maybe she really did not know me. You know she won't wear glasses all the time and I believe her eye-sight is bad."

I devoutly hoped this to be the case. I had not informed Cousin Park of my presence in Richmond and had father's consent to this concealment, as we both of us knew that she would be tearing around and drag me out of the Tuckers' apartment and incarcerate me in her prison-like mansion, whether I would or no. Father and I felt the same way about her house. Father always said he was afraid the butler, Jeremiah, would bite him, and every one brought up by a mammy knew that "to be bit by a blue-gummed nigger was certain death." Jeremiah was really a very nice old man in spite of his lugubrious air of officiating at your funeral while he was actually serving the very heavy viands with which Mrs. Garnett's oiled walnut table was laden.

"Maybe she didn't know you, after all," I ventured cheerfully.

"Well, if she didn't or did, it is all one to me. I don't have to deliver the novelties, as that is done by some trustworthy person employed steadily by the boss, and in the meantime I have earned fifteen cents at the funereal mansion. I must tear myself away now and begin a systematic visiting of the back doors of the homes fronting Monroe Park. Good-by, honey," and Dum, too, was gone.

Brindle and I were left to watch for the meteoric appearances of Dee and to get through the afternoon as best we might.

Dee did a thriving business. As the afternoon went on she never passed without a car full and sometimes running over. Her face was tense and as often as not she forgot to look up and salute Brindle and me.

"She will be a tired little girl when the day is over," I said to Brindle, and he wagged his tail and snuffled his appreciation of my noticing him. Dee had just passed, the back seat of Henry two-deep with passengers and on the front seat a very dressy looking young woman who seemed to be sitting very close to the stern young jitneur. That was one of the times Dee had forgotten to look up and poor Brindle was in deep distress.

It was almost dark and still the twins had not returned. The maid came in and turned on the electric light and brought me the menu from the café. I ordered a substantial dinner for the three of us and with the assistance of the good-natured girl got myself into another dress and smoothed myself up a bit.