Tripping with the Tucker Twins

by the time we got to Brown Betty and the Roman punch they were quite themselves, ex

ss and hospitality. Mrs. Gordon was or had been our beloved Miss Cox, a teacher at Gresham. She had married Mr. Gordon at Willoughby Beach the summer before while s

een converted into a dinner table when the Tuckers decided to dine in their apartment, which boasted no housekeeping arrangements.

poor old father in out of the cold?" and Z

way--" they started

e, please! Du

ave a red cent and no telling how long before allowances are due, so I just thought I'd try to earn so

starter. Were you going to be

ont doors, but this afternoon I tried the back doors because naturally the servants are more interested in these labor-saving devices than the mistresses; besides, I saw so many people we know when I went in the front way tha

d not really know that gentleman as well as I thought I did. He did not seem to mind in the least if perhaps everyone in Richmond knew that one

have completely worn out my shoes on the cobblestones in the alleys and

llected your

the goods are delivered

does your

every lady in Richmond to have the advantage of these household novelties."

the Sphynx herself. He looked to me rather like a man who was seeing a real good show and was deeply int

let's hea

the poor men who run jitneys were in a fair way to be crowded out of their bus

e long to run withou

ee cents to schoolmates and did not have but thirty-seven cents and a street car ticket. I wanted to let Dum in on my scheme but she said she would get out and earn her own money. I did not dream I could

not counted yet what I took in this afternoon." She turned the pockets of her father's greatcoat inside out into my lap and the bills and coin made such a showing that

that rock the boat, and they will sit on the doors and are liable at any time to go spinning into the street. Then there are some old ladies who always drop their nickels and the

ring what you did

lapalusing all over me, and I had no room to drive. She would talk to me, although I never encouraged her with anything sweeter than a grunt. I had made an awful mash and was up against it. She got me so hacked I let a fare get away from me,-man just got out and walked off without paying. I felt like Rosalind must have felt when Phebe pursued her or like Viola when Olivia got soft, but this girl was more of the Phebe type. I was afraid she was going to spend the afternoon with Henry and me. She had just intimated that she would go on downtown with us again and make a round trip when we struck the funeral. Henry chugged away and then stopped

ally keep it?"

for my health. I was out for money-rocks-spondulix-tin-the coin-and that idiot's dime was just as good as any

e 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 jitn

m. "Do you know you have not

not out o

nd crank you up and persuade you to get going. Funerals don't stop you. Yo

it has been a very exciting day. I'm going to divide up with yo

t would be to

. I believe in an equal distribution of wea

ve dollars and sixty cents. You owe five dollars and seventy-three cents-Dum owes seven dollars and

of the ticket. Hurrah! Hurrah!" and those irresponsible Tuckers, all three of them, got up and danced t

t I am afraid you will have to pay f

Dee said would be the case, what he said does not

e 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

that the jitneys were no longer within the law. Bonds must be furnished,

to Tweedles. When he gave voice to the

hat 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

look at it

ardly expect them

d aloud

s the

ld think at being called a rod. I wonder if there i

idered 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 ki

as bad as the twins themselves would have at the thought of Zebedee's marrying again. "They never d

hat, I reckon I'll worry along 'in s

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 R

all do it for some reason besides furnishing a stepmother to m

rather salutary if you talk to them just as you have to me, I mean abou

aid I have cried 'Wolf!' too often

en he broached the subject of his duty to mar

ings. We'll be good and learn how to sew," wailed Dum.

t so good that I'd have to wear home-made shirts!" And so