Nell Speed - Tripping with the Tucker Twins

"You didn't really keep it?" exclaimed Dum.

"Keep it! O course I did! It would have been very melodramatic to hurl it after her. I was not driving a jitney for my health. I was out for money – rocks – spondulix – tin – the coin – and that idiot's dime was just as good as any man's. Besides, she had taken up more than her share of room and owed me something for letting the sneak get off.

"That dollar bill! I bet you can't guess who paid me that, – Mrs. Barton Alston. She got in and handed me the dollar and said: 'Here, boy! Just ride me until that is used up!' It was ten round trips so she was with me a good part of the afternoon. She said she never did get out in automobiles much these days, that her friends sometimes come and drive her out to the cemetery, but she is tired of graveyards and wants to cheer up some. She told me all this when we were having a little spin alone, but I heard her telling some of the fares the same thing. She was real nice and jolly and took people on her lap and did the honors of the jitneys with as much graciousness as she used to entertain before they lost their money. I was sorry she was so broad-beamed, as it was difficult to get three on the seat while she stayed with me, and of course when you are running a jitney every inch counts. When her ten round trips were up, I hated to tell her and took her another for luck. Some day let's go get her, Zebedee, and take her out to the Country Club or something and give her a good time. She is mighty tired of being supposed to be in retirement, mourning for Mr. Alston. She never did recognize me, although I talked to her quite freely. She called me 'Boy' all the time. Gee whilikins, but she can talk!"

"There are others!" put in Dum. "Do you know you have not stopped once for half-an-hour?"

"Well, I'm not out of gas yet."

"No, I reckon not! You are some self-starter, too. Nobody has to get out and crank you up and persuade you to get going. Funerals don't stop you. You go in high all the time, go so fast a traffic cop can't see your number."

"Well, I'm afraid I have monopolized the conversation some but it has been a very exciting day. I'm going to divide up with you, Dum. I believe between us we can get all of those debts paid."

"Oh, Dee, that would be too good of you!"

"Nonsense! You worked just as hard as I did. I believe in an equal distribution of wealth. Count up, Page, and see where we stand."

"Let's see! You made ten dollars and fifty cents; Dum made two dollars and ten cents – that makes twelve dollars and sixty cents. You owe five dollars and seventy-three cents – Dum owes seven dollars and twenty-three cents. That makes twelve dollars and ninety-six cents. You are thirty-six cents short."

"Oh, but I've got thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket. That leaves a penny over, to say nothing of the ticket. Hurrah! Hurrah!" and those irresponsible Tuckers, all three of them, got up and danced the lobster quadrille with me in the middle. When they stopped, completely out of breath, Dee exclaimed:

"Oh, Zebedee! I am awfully sorry, but I am afraid you will have to pay for the gas after all. I charged it."

And all Zebedee said was: "I'll be – " and just as Dee said would be the case, what he said does not bear repetition and certainly is not to be printed.

Mrs. Barton Alston had many a treat from the Tuckers. Dum did not collect her two dollars and ten cents until she had made many trips to the boss. He tried to persuade her to accept a steady job with him as an agent for household novelties, and while she naturally could not do it, she declared it gave her a very comfortable feeling that if she should have to earn her living there was at least one avenue open to her.

The day after Dee's success as a jitneur the paper came out with headlines that the jitneys were no longer within the law. Bonds must be furnished, licenses must be paid, etc. Dee had been not a day too soon in her venture.

Zebedee never said one word of reproach to Tweedles. When he gave voice to the unprintable remark above he was through.

"I know I ought to do something about it," he moaned to me several days after when he caught me alone. "It was a very risky thing for both of my girls – they might have got in no end of scrapes – but what am I to do? If I row with them and get Mr. Tuckerish even you get out with me, and somehow I feel as long as the girls tell me everything, that they can't get into very serious mischief. I know I have not done my part by them. If I had been the right kind of unselfish father I would have married long ago when they were tiny little tots and have had some good, sensible woman bring them up."

"They don't look at it that way."

"Well, you could hardly expect them to 'kiss the rod'."

I laughed aloud at that.

"What's the matter?"

"I am wondering what the 'good, sensible woman' would think at being called a rod. I wonder if there is any woman good enough to undertake the job of rod."

"Perhaps not," he said ruefully. "You see when my little Virginia died, all my friends and hers got busy and found a roomful of worthy ladies that they considered the proper persons to marry me and bring up the twins, but all of them were rather rod-like in a way, and somehow I never could make up my mind to kiss 'em either. The trouble about me is I can't grow up, and anyone whom my friends consider a suitable age for me now, I look upon as a kind of mother to me."

"I think Tweedles are getting on pretty well without a stepmother," I managed to say. I felt about as bad as the twins themselves would have at the thought of Zebedee's marrying again. "They never do anything too bad to tell you, but they do lots of things I fancy they would not tell a stepmother."

"Well, little friend, if you think that, I reckon I'll worry along 'in single blessedness' for a while yet."

The Tucker Twins had been living in dread of a stepmother ever since they had been conscious of living at all. It was a theme with all of their relations and friends and one that was aired on every occasion. "Jeffry Tucker should marry again!" was the cry and sometimes the battle cry of every chaperone in Richmond. As Mr. Tucker said, it was always some good, settled lady who needed a home and was willing to put up with the twins who was selected as his mate.

"I don't want to run an old ladies' home. If I ever marry I shall do it for some reason besides furnishing a stepmother to my family and giving a haven of refuge to some deserving lady."

"I don't want to seem disloyal to Dum and Dee, but I think it might be rather salutary if you talk to them just as you have to me, I mean about stepmothers and things. It might make them a little more circumspect."

"All right, I'll try; but I am afraid I have cried 'Wolf!' too often and they would just laugh at me."

Tweedles did listen to him quite seriously when he broached the subject of his duty to marry again and give them the proper chaperonage.

"Oh, Zebedee, please don't talk about such terrible things. We'll be good and learn how to sew," wailed Dum. "I'm going to make some shirts the very first thing."

"Oh please, please spare me! I couldn't bear for you to get so good that I'd have to wear home-made shirts!" And so the threat of a stepmother was withdrawn for the time being.

My ankle improved rapidly and in another week I was able to walk and still another to dance. I had been patience itself, so my friends declared, and I am glad they thought so. I had really been impatience itself but had kept it to myself.

"Girls, I've got a scheme!" exclaimed Zebedee one evening after dinner. "I want to send a special correspondent to South Carolina to write up the political situation and I am thinking about sending myself. If I do, I am going to take all of you. I have written your father, Page, and an answer came from him today. He says you may go, as he knows it would do you good. I haven't said anything about it to you girls until I was sure I could work it."