At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins

by Nell Speed

  CHAPTER XIV.

  THE SPREAD.

  Saturday night was a great time for spreads as there was no study hallon that evening and the girls could come early and stay late. A grandfeast was in preparation at 117 Carter Hall. Mr. Tucker had sent a boxthat had passed inspection at the office, although it was filled withcontraband articles; but as he wrote Tweedles, they wouldn't make rulesif they did not expect them to be broken.

  "My, I'm glad Miss Peyton doesn't put us on our honor not to have cakeand such," said Dee as she opened up a box stamped with the name of awell-known drygoods firm and plainly marked in a masculine hand:"Virginia's Shoes, the fourth pair she has had since Spring and she mustbe more careful and have her old ones half-soled."

  "Isn't old Zebedee a peach? Look! Tango sandwiches!" (The catalogue toGresham plainly says: "Nothing but crackers, fruit and simple candy isallowed to be eaten in the rooms.")

  "Here are olives done up to look like shoe polish," said I, diving intothe big box. "And what is this big round parcel at the bottom?" On it Iread: "Caroline's winter hat. I think you are a very vain girl to insiston your winter hat just to wear it home on the train for Christmas. Ihope it is not mashed but think it would serve you right for thinking somuch about your appearance." The hat proved to be a great caramel cake,stuck all over with English walnuts, packed so carefully it was not abit mashed. Jars of pickle masqueraded shamelessly as Uneeda Biscuit,being ingeniously pasted up in the original wrappers. Cream cheese andpimento sandwiches came dressed as graham wafers; and a whole roastedchicken had had a very comfortable journey buttoned up in Dum's oldsweater, with a note pinned over its faithful breast saying that Dummust make out with that sweater for another season as Mr. Tucker couldnot put up with her selfish extravagance.

  We heard afterward that Miss Sears, whose duty it had been to inspectthis box before it was delivered to the girls, had said that she wassurprised to find that Mr. Jeffry Tucker did not spoil the twins nearlyso much as she had been led to believe. In fact, he seemed to be ratherstrict with them and quite critical. For instance, an old sweater thathe expected Dum to wear through the season was not really fit to be seenin!

  There were several boxes of candy, besides all the other goodies. Theywere all marked peppermint but were really candied fruit, chocolates,nougat and what not.

  "I tell you, Zebedee is some provider when he gets started," said Dee."I'm glad I didn't eat much dinner and I intend to eat no supper atall."

  We were taking stock of our eatables before supper bell so we could seehow many girls we could invite to the spread. It was etiquette atGresham to give a girl fair warning when a spread was under way, so shecould save space and not go and fill up in the dining-room. We wantedto avoid feeling like the old countryman who had his first experiencewith a table d'hote dinner. Not knowing there was to be so muchfollowing the first course, he ate too much of it, and afterward loudlylamented: "Thar I sot chock full er soup."

  Annie Pore was, of course, on the list and funny little Mary Flanniganand the two Seniors, Sally Coles and Josephine Barr. They had beenespecially nice to our crowd and we were anxious to show them someattention. That made seven in all.

  "We've really got food for one more or even two," declared Dee, "butmaybe we had better go easy because there is really not room for more."

  117 was rather crowded with the three beds, two bureaus, three chairsand a table, and seven girls would just about fill it to overflowing. Itdid not look like the bare cell that had so appalled us on our day ofentering Gresham. We now had a scrim curtain at the window; rugs on thefloor; Tweedles had pretty Roman blankets on their beds with brightsofa cushions; while I had a beautiful log cabin quilt that Sally Winnhad pieced for me in between her different death throes. The walls wereliterally covered with pennants from many schools and colleges with afew pictures that Dum had stuck in her trunk, purloined from theirapartment in Richmond.

  "I don't believe Zebedee will ever miss them, and they mean a lot tome," she had said when Dee had expressed astonishment on her producingthem from her trunk. "I am so constituted that I've just got to havesomething beautiful to look at every now and then." The room waspleasant and cozy but the crowded walls rather got on my nerves. Brackenwas so big and simple (some people would have called it bare) that Icould not get used to such a conglomeration in a bedroom. I kept mytaste to myself, however, as they were two to one, and no doubt my ideasof decoration were very old-fashioned and out of date.

  Sally Coles and Jo Barr, whom we sought out before supper, were glad toaccept and vowed they would eat not a bite before the feast so thatthey could come perfectly empty. Of course Annie Pore and Mary Flanniganwere holding themselves in readiness for the arrival of the promised boxfrom Mr. Tucker, and the news of its having come safely to hand wasgreeted with enthusiasm.

  You get tired of any steady food except home food and sometimes youthink you are tired of that, but as a rule you are pretty glad to getback to it. I fancy the table at Gresham was kept up about as well asany boarding school, but we knew that as sure as Tuesday was coming,roast veal was coming, too; and Wednesday would bring with it vealpotpie; Thursday, beefsteak; and Friday, fish; Saturday, lamb stew withdumplings; Sunday, roast chicken; and Monday, not much of anything. Thiscertainty bored us, and sometimes I used to think if I couldn't findsomething in the potpie besides veal, I'd scream. I had to do a lot oflooking at the mountains on Wednesday, somehow.

  A spread was a godsend, and an invitation to one was not as a rule givenin vain. As Sally Coles and I fox-trotted together in the Gym aftersupper, she whispered in my ear: "It's certainly good of you kids to askJo and me. We're crazy about coming."

  "We think it's pretty nice of you Seniors to come. You didn't even knowwe are to have caramel cake, either, did you?" I answered.

  "Heavens, no! I'm mighty glad we didn't accept Mabel Binks's bid to aWelsh rarebit in her room. We fibbed and told her we had a partialengagement. It was just with each other but we didn't tell her that, andnow you Sophomores have saved our souls by making our imaginaryengagement a real one. I hate to tell even a white lie, but I'd hate adeal more to have to go to a spread of Mabel Binks's giving. Don't youknow the hammers will be flying to-night? Can't you hear Mabel and thoserapid Juniors she runs with knocking everything and everybody?"

  "Yes, I reckon the only way to save your skin is to stay with her andhelp knock. But how does she manage a rarebit when we are not allowed tohave chafing dishes?"

  "Manages the same way you and the Tuckers manage to have caramel cake, Ifancy. We are not allowed to have cake, either. Of course it is easierto hide a cake than it is a chafing dish, especially if the cake issliced and there are a half-dozen empty girls to help. I believe some ofthe girls keep their chafing dishes under their mattresses. Did you hideyour cake well before you came down to supper? It would be thepsychological moment for some busybody to make an inspecting tour--andthen, good-by, cake!"

  "Oh, you scare me to death!" and I grabbed Dee, who was whirling by,trying a brand new step with a giddy Junior, and, whispering Sally'swarning to her, we beat a hasty retreat. Our beloved cake was on thetable covered with a napkin just as we had left it, seemingly, but onraising the cloth we discovered that a great wedge had been cut out ofit.

  "Well, of all the mean tricks!" spluttered Dee. "Who do you s'pose----?"

  "Thank goodness, they only took about a fourth! What is left is enoughto give all seven of us fever blisters. Caramel cake with nuts in italways gives me fever blisters," I laughed.

  "But I don't mind. I'll take the cake, fever blisters and all, everytime."

  "Me, too! Well, I hope that the thief will have a mouth full of them,"said Dee vindictively.

  "Well, honey, it's a sight better to have some mean girl take off onefourth than some teacher in her mistaken zeal take off the whole thingand give us demerits, besides. Here's your handkerchief," I said,picking up a little pink crepe de Chine one from the floor.

  "Not mine, I don't possess such a thing. Don't you
know Zebedee and Dumand I use the same sized handkerchiefs? When we want a handkerchief, wewant a handkerchief, not a little pink dab. It must be yours."

  "No, I haven't any crepe de Chine ones. Here's an initial--B. Itcertainly is scented up." The finishing touch to Mabel Binks's costumeon the afternoon we had seen the game at Hill-Top came back to mesuddenly: the strong odor of musk. The handkerchief smelt exactly thesame way.

  "Well, Dee, I reckon it won't take a Sherlock Holmes to say who took thecake, now. Let's not give her back her hanky until to-morrow. If we tookit to her to-night she would know that we are on to her, and she wouldbe just mean enough to peach on us and have our cake seized." So wedetermined, like Dee and Prosper le Gai, to "bide our time."

  What a spread we did have and what fun! Dum turned up with two moregirls, members of our class, and there was enough and to spare. Mr.Tucker was as lavish as Mammy Susan herself. We had no plates orglasses, but we had plenty of box tops for dishes and our toothbrushmugs served as loving cups to drink the very sour lemonade Dee made inthe water pitcher. The same knife carved the chicken, then cut the cake.The olives, always difficult to extract from the bottle, were pouredinto the soap dish which I had scoured hard enough to suit the mostsqueamish.

  "My, what good eats!" exclaimed Jo Barr. "And how did you ever smugglethat cake within the lines?" We showed her the wrapper it had come inand the stern note from Mr. Tucker.

  "Well, if that doesn't beat all! I tell you there is nothing like beingsmart enough to keep the eleventh commandment: 'Thou shalt not get foundout.' I had a whole fruitcake taken bodaciously from me last year. I amalways breaking the eleventh." And that was so. Poor Jo always gotcaught up with.

  "Well, I tell you one thing," said the wise Sally, "that cake had betterskidoo until danger of inspection passes. Teachers are a suspiciouslot."

  I just got it whisked under a down cushion on Dee's bed when there was asharp rap on the door. "Come in," we called in a chorus. It was MissSears, rather astonished at our ready invitation to enter.

  "Oh, girls, having a spread, are you," glancing sharply at theinnocent-looking packages of crackers and peppermint candy withoutcoming all the way into the room. "Well, I hope you will have a nicetime."

  "Won't you join us, Miss Sears?" asked Dum sweetly.

  "Oh, thank you, no. I am on inspection duty to-night," and she closedthe door, never seeing that Jo had wrapped the roasted chicken up in aspangled scarf she was sporting. That chicken had had all kinds ofdressing in its fat, young life: first its own feathers; then thedressing, which is really the un-dressing; then the dressing, which isreally the stuffing; then Dum's old sweater; and now Jo's fine scarf.

  We proceeded then to put the good, appetizing food where nothing shortof an X-ray could inspect. So thorough were those nine girls that not acrumb of cake nor scrap of sandwich was left to tell on us. The chickenbones were some problem but we decided that if each girl took a bone anddisposed of it, it would simplify matters somewhat. Sally got thewishbone and said she was going to gild it and put it on her "memorystring."

  When we had eaten to repletion, we demanded stunts from those giftedthat way. Mary did a dog fight and new turn she had just mastered:going like a mouse.

  "I wish I could think it was a mouse who nibbled the cake," sighed Dum."It kind of hurts me all over to feel that somebody did it."

  "Well, if it was a mouse, I bet it sounded like this," and Mary imitatedMabel Binks's nasal speech until we almost had hysterics.

  "Why do you fancy she took only a hunk instead of the whole cake?" Iasked. "It would have been so much more like her to take it all."

  "That's the reason she only took part. She thought by behaving out ofcharacter she would throw us off the scent," suggested Sally.

  "Well, if she wanted to throw us off the scent, she shouldn't havedropped her handkerchief," said Dee. "But let's forget it and think ofsomething pleasant. Annie, you sing, please," and she handed Jo's guitarto the blushing Annie. Annie was always embarrassed when she had to singbefore a few persons. She got her "stage presence" when there was a realaudience.

  "What shall it be?" asked Annie.

  "Oh, something real sentimental and lovesick," demanded Sally, who wassupposed to be engaged; and with a little humorous twinkle in herusually sad eyes, Annie sang "Sally in our Alley."

  Of all the girls that are so smart There's none like pretty Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. There is no lady in the land Is half so sweet as Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

  Of all the days that's in the week I dearly love but one day-- And that's the day that comes betwixt A Saturday and Monday; For then I'm dressed all in my best To walk abroad with Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

  Then Dum and Dee stood back to back and buttoned themselves up in theirsweaters, which they had put on hindpart-before and impersonated thetwo-headed woman, Milly-Christine, singing a duet, "The mocking bird issinging o'er her grave," in two distinct keys. That was an awfullyfunny stunt and one the Tuckers had made up themselves. Before we hadhalf exhausted the talent of the assembled guests, the bell rang to warnus that lights must soon be out and we had to break up.

  The next morning there was a fine crop of fever blisters due to the veryrich cake. Annie Pore and Sally Coles were the only ones who escapedwith a whole skin. When I handed Mabel Binks her smelly, pink, crepe deChine handkerchief, I noticed that her rather full lips were decoratedwith a design similar to my own.

  "Here's your handkerchief," I said. "Cake with caramel and nut fillingis awfully rough on the complexion, isn't it?" And the girl had thedecency to blush.