Nell Speed - Tripping with the Tucker Twins

"Oh goody, goody, goody! Where will we go first?"

"Charleston first! I may leave you there awhile, as I have to do some knocking around, but it will not be for very long, not more than a day at a time."

We plunged into shopping the very next day. Father had sent me a check for necessary clothes, and the all-important matter had to be attended to speedily.

"Let's get all of our things exactly alike and pass for triplets! It would be such a scream on Zebedee," suggested Dee.

"Triplets, much! We'd just look like a blooming orphan asylum and get in a book. It seems to me that every book I pick up lately is about orphan asylums. Chauffeurs and orphans and aviators form the theme for every book or magazine story I read. No, indeed! Let's get our clothes just as different as possible," said Dum, rapidly turning the pages in Vogue .

"All right. Then we can wear each other's. I'm going to get brown."

"I'm crazy for dark green, if you don't think it will make my freckles show on my nose too much. My nose and its freckles are a great trial to me."

"Nonsense! You've got the cutest nose in Virginia and Zebedee says he likes freckles," said Dee, always tactful.

"Well, he can have them, I'm sure I don't want them. What color are you going to get, Dum?"

"Anything but blue. There is a refinement about blue that I can't stand right now. I want something dashing and indicative of my sentiments of its being my bounden duty to have a good time."

"Red?"

"No, red's too obvious! I think I'll get lavender or mauve. Then I can wear violets (when I can get them). I think lavender suits my mood all right. It is kind of widowish and widows when they get into lavender are always out for a good time. I tell you when widows get to widding they are mighty attractive. I don't see why they don't stay in their pretty white crêpe linings, though. They are so terribly becoming. I mean to make a stunning widow some day."

"First catch your flea before you kill him," taunted Dee.

"Well, I can't see the use in having your hair grow in a widow's peak on your forehead if you can't ever be a widow. It seems such a waste."

"There's time yet! You are only seventeen," I laughed.

"Seventeen is old enough to know what style suits me best. Weeds are my proper environment."

In spite of Dum's conviction about weeds she purchased a most becoming and suitably youthful suit in a soft mauve. Dee got exactly the same style in brown and I in green. We deviated in hats, however, and each girl thought her own was the prettiest, which is a great test of hats. Hats are like treats at soda fountains: you usually wish you had ordered something you didn't order and something your neighbor did.

Spring was late in making its appearance in Virginia that year, but since we were going to South Carolina we bravely donned our new suits and hats. Zebedee declared he was proud of us, we were so stylish.

"I have a great mind to grow some whiskers so people won't think I am your little nephew," he said as he settled us in our section. The three of us girls were to occupy one section, two below and one above, lots to be cast how we were to dispose ourselves.

"Nephew, much! You've got three gray hairs in your part now," declared Dee.

"Each of you is responsible for one of them." Mr. Tucker often classed me with his own girls and really when I was with them I seemed to be a member of the family. He treated me with a little more deference than he did Tweedles because he said I seemed to be older. I was really a few days younger.

Dee got the upper berth in the casting of lots and Dum and I slept in the lower, at least, Dum slept. I was conscious of much jerking and bumping of the train, and Dum seemed to be demonstrating the batty-cake flipflapper all night.

We had left Richmond with a belated sprinkling of snow, but as we were nearing Charleston at about five-thirty in the morning we ran through a fine big thunder storm, and then torrents of rain descended, beating against the windows. Of course some bromide who got off the train with us, said something about "the back-bone of winter."

What a rain! It seemed to be coming down in sheets, and such a thing as keeping dry was out of the question. Tweedles and I regretted our new spring suits and straw hats, but since we had been so foolhardy as to travel in them we had to make the best of it and trust to luck that they would not spot.

The train had reached Charleston at six and by rights it should have been dawn, but it was as dark as pitch owing to the thunder clouds that hung low over the city.

Zebedee hustled us into a creaking, swaying bus that reminded us somewhat of the one at Gresham. Other travelers were there ahead of us and as everyone was rather damp the odor of the closed vehicle was somewhat wet-doggish.

We rattled over the cobblestones through narrow streets, every now and then glimpsing some picturesque bit of wall when we came to one of the few and far between lamp posts. But it was generally very dim and would have been dreary had we not been in a frame of mind to enjoy everything we saw and to look at life with what Dee called "Behind-the-clouds-the-sun's-still-shining" spirit.

The bus turned into better lighted streets with smoother paving.

"Meeting Street," read Dum from a sign. "Doesn't that sound romantic? Do you reckon it means lovers meet here?"

"It may, but I am very much afraid it just means the many churches that abound on this street," laughed Zebedee.

I wondered who the people were in the bus with us, but they seemed to take no interest at all in us. There were two pale old ladies in black crêpe veils drawn partly over their faces; a dignified old gentleman in a low-cut vest and a very high collar with turned-down flaps that seemed especially designed to ease his double chin; and a young girl about sixteen or seventeen who had evidently been in a day coach all night and was much rumpled and tousled therefrom. She seemed to belong to the pompous old gentleman, at least I gathered as much, as I had seen him meet her at the station and noticed he gave her a fatherly peck of greeting. Not a word did they utter however on that bumpy bus ride, and although the two pale old ladies in crêpe veils had stiffly inclined their shrouded heads as father and daughter entered the vehicle and they in turn had acknowledged the bow, not one word passed their lips. Evidently a public conveyance was not the proper place for Charlestonians to converse. The girl, who was very pretty in spite of being so tired and dishevelled, smiled a sympathetic smile when Dum enthused over Meeting Street. I had a feeling if we could get her by herself she would chatter away like any other girl.

Perhaps the old man won't be so stiff when he gets his breakfast. It is hard to be limber on a wet morning and an empty stomach. When one has so much stomach it must be especially hard to have it empty, I thought.

It seemed very impertinent of the omnibus to bump this dignified old gentleman so unmercifully. He held on to his stomach with both hands, an expression of indignation on his pompous countenance, while his double chin wobbled in a manner that must have been very trying to his dignity.

The pale old ladies in crêpe veils took their bumping with great elegance and composure. When the sudden turning of a corner hurled one of them from her seat plump into Zebedee's arms, if she was the least disconcerted she did not show it. A crisp "I beg your pardon!" was all she said as she resumed her seat. She did pull the crêpe veil entirely over her face, however, as though to conceal from the vulgar gaze any emotion that she might have felt. Of course we giggled. We always giggled at any excuse, fancied or real. The pretty girl giggled, too, but turned it into a cough as her father pivoted his fat little person around and looked at her in evident astonishment.