"I am going to be your handy man," he said, putting his arm around Douglas. "Are you well, honey? You look bothered."
"Oh yes, I am as well as can be," said Douglas, trying to smooth her wrinkled brow. How she did want to talk all the troubles over with her father, but he of all persons must not be bothered. The old habit of going to him with every worry was so strong that it was difficult to keep from doing it now, but she bit her lips and held it in.
"I"ll tell Lewis," she thought. "He will at least sympathize."
What was she to do about her mother and Helen? They seemed to have no more gumption about money than the birds. Even then parcels were being carried into the cabin from the cart that must have meant much money spent in New York. Where did mother get it? The rent from the house in town had been sent to Mrs. Carter for running expenses on shipboard and hotels at the many places where they had stopped, but that must have gone for the trip. Could she have charged the purchases in New York?
Poor Douglas! She had felt that the problem of making her sisters see the necessity of economizing had been a great one, but she realized that it was nothing to what she must face now. She felt that all her former arguments had been in vain since Helen was dropping into her mother"s habit of thought and upholding that charming b.u.t.terfly-like person in all her schemes of extravagance. Lucy was sure to follow Helen"s lead and begin to demand clothes, treats, trips and what-not. Nan, dear sensible, unselfish Nan, would be the only one who would sympathize with her older sister in regard to the necessity of continuing the strict economy they had practiced since early in May, when Dr. Wright had declared that the only thing that would save their father"s reason was an immediate change, a long rest and complete cessation of all business worries.
Nan"s tastes were simple, but she had a pa.s.sion for color and beautiful textiles and sometimes indulged that taste in adorning her dainty little person. As a rule, however, she was quite satisfied to behold the color in a Persian rug or the wings of a b.u.t.terfly. Beauty was to the girl the most important thing in life whether it was of line, color, sound or idea. She was perfectly happy with a good book and a comfortable place in which to curl up. Her fault was laziness, a certain physical inertia which her indulgent mother always attributed to her delicate const.i.tution; but the summer in the mountains with the enforced activity had proven that the delicate const.i.tution was due to the inertia and not the inertia to the delicate const.i.tution. Up to that time in her life there had been no especial reason for exerting herself, but Nan was very unselfish and when she realized that her sisters were one and all busying themselves, she threw off her lazy habits as she would an ugly robe, and many tasks at Week-End Camp fell to her share.
Douglas, in this trouble that had arisen, felt that she could go to Nan for comfort and advice. Nan"s mind was as normally active as her graceful little body was inactive and she had a faculty of seeing her way through difficulties that the conscientious but more slowly thinking Douglas much envied her.
"Nan, it"s fifteen minutes before train time when the week-enders will come piling in--I"m dying to have a talk with you."
"Well, don"t die--just talk," drawled Nan, looking up from her book but never stopping turning the crank of the mayonnaise mixer. This was a job Nan loved, making mayonnaise. She had gotten it down to a fine art since she could mix and read at the same time. She declared it was a plain waste of time to use your hands without using your head and since turning a mayonnaise mixer crank required no intelligence beyond that of seeing that the funnel was filled with olive oil, she was able to indulge in her pa.s.sion for poetry while she was making the quarts of mayonnaise that the young housekeepers dealt out so generously to their week-enders.
"Listen to this!" and Nan turned the crank slowly while she read:
""Alas for all high hopes and all desires!
Like leaves in yellow autumn-time they fall-- Alas for prayers and psalms and love"s pure fires-- One silence and one darkness ends them all!""
The crank stopped and all of the oil flowed through the funnel while Nan softly turned the leaves of Marston"s "Last Harvest."
"Yes, honey, it is beautiful, but you had better read a livelier form of verse or your salad dressing will go back on you."
"Heavens, you are right! I"ve got "Barrack Room Ballads" here ready in case I get to dawdling," laughed Nan.
"I want to talk about something very important, Nan. Can you turn your crank and listen?"
"Yes, indeed, but you"ll have to talk fast or else I"ll get to poking again. You see, I have to keep time."
So Douglas rapidly repeated the conversations she had had with her mother and later with Helen.
"What are we to do? Must I tell Dr. Wright? I am afraid to get them started for fear father will be mixed up in it. He must not know mother wants to go to White Sulphur--he would be sure to say let her go and then he would try to work again before he is fit for it, and he would certainly get back into the same state he was in last spring."
"Poor little mumsy! I was sure she would not understand," and once more the mixer played a sad measure.
"I was afraid she wouldn"t," sighed Douglas, "but I did think Helen had been taught a lesson and realized the importance of our keeping within our earnings and saving something, too, for winter."
"Helen--why, she is too young for the lesson she learned to stick. She is nothing but a child."
"Is that so, grandmother?" laughed Douglas, amused in spite of her trouble at Nan"s ancient wisdom (Nan being some two years younger than Helen).
"Why, Douglas, Helen has just been play-acting at being poor. She has no idea of its being a permanency," and Nan filled the funnel again with oil and began to turn her crank with vigor.
"But what are we to do? I am not going to White Sulphur and I am not going to make my debut--that"s sure. I have never disobeyed mother that I can remember, but this time I shall have to. I don"t know what I am to say about the trip to the White. Helen is saying she has helped to earn the money and she means to spend her share giving poor mumsy a little fun after her tiresome long journey on the water. I wish we had never told her we were able to put something in the bank last month. It was precious little and Helen"s share would not keep them at White Sulphur more than two or three days. Helen thinks I am stingy and mother thinks I am stubborn and ugly and sunburned--and there"s the train with all the week-enders----" and poor Douglas gave a little sob.
"And I have turned my wheel until this old mayonnaise is done--just look how beautiful it is! And you, poor old Doug, must just leave it to me, and I"ll think up something to keep them here if I have to break out with smallpox and get them quarantined on the mountain."
"Oh, Nan! Is there some way out of it without letting father know that mother wants something and cannot have it for lack of money?"
"Sure there is! You go powder your nose and put on a blue linen blouse and give a few licks to your pretty hair while I hand over the mayonnaise to Gwen and see that Lucy has counted noses for the supper tables. I"ve almost got a good reason already for mumsy"s staying here aside from the lack of tin, but I must get it off to her with great finesse."
"I knew you would help!" and Douglas gave her little sister and the mayonnaise bowl an impartial hug, and then hastened to make herself more presentable, hoping to find favor in the eyes of her fastidious mother.
CHAPTER IV
ROBERT CARTER"S ASTONISHING GIRLS
August, the month for holidays, was bringing much business to the proprietresses of Week-End Camp. Such a crowd came swarming up the mountain now that Lucy, who had set the tables with the a.s.sistance of her chum, Lil Tate, and the two sworn knights, Skeeter Halsey and Frank Maury, and had carefully counted noses according to the calculations Nan had made from the applications she had received, had to do it all over to make room for the unexpected guests.
"Just kilt-plait the places," suggested Lil.
"If they keep on coming we"ll have to accordeon-plait "em," laughed Lucy.
"Gee, I"m glad your eats don"t land in your elbows!" from Skeeter.
"Me, too!" exclaimed Frank. "Miss Helen tipped me a wink that there"s Brunswick stew made out of the squirrels we got yesterday. And there is sho" no elbow room at these tables."
"Look at "em swarming up the mountain. Where do you reckon they"ll sleep?" asked Lil.
"Have to roost in the trees."
"I bet more than half of them didn"t bring their blankets," hazarded Lucy.
"Yes, that"s the way they do, these town fellows," said Skeeter, forgetting that he too had been a town fellow only a few weeks before that time.
The summer in the mountains was doing wonders for these youngsters.
Sleeping in the open had broadened their chests. They were wiry and tanned and every day brought some new delightful duty that was never called a duty and so was looked upon by all of them as a great game.
Theirs was the task of foraging for the camp, and no small job was it to find chickens and vegetables and fruit for the hungry hordes that sought the Week-End Camp for holiday and recreation.
They had found their way to many a remote mountain cabin and engaged all chickens hatched and unhatched. They had spread the good news among the natives that blackberries, huckleberries, peaches, apples, pears and plums were in demand at their camp. Eggs were always needed. Little wild-eyed, tangled-haired children would come creeping from the bushes, like so many timid rabbits, bringing their wares; sometimes a bucket of dewberries or some wild plums; sometimes honey from the wild bees, dark and strong and very sweet, "b.u.mblebee honey," Skeeter called it. All was grist that came to the mill of the week-enders. No matter how much was provided, there was never anything to speak of left over.
"These hyar white folks is same as chickens," grumbled old Oscar.
"They"s got no notion of quittin" s"long as they"s any corn lef" on the groun"."
"They sho" kin eat," agreed Susan, "but Miss Douglas an" Miss Helen done said we mus" fill "em up and that"s what we is hyar fur."
The above is a conversation that, with variations, occurred during almost every meal at the camp. Oscar and Susan, the faithful servants the Carters had brought from Richmond, were proving more and more efficient now that the first sting of the country was removed and camp life had become a habit with them. They were creatures of habit and imbued with the notion that what was good enough for white folks was good enough for them. Their young mistresses were contented with the life in the camp, so they were, too. Their young mistresses were not above doing any work that came to hand, so they, too, must be willing to do what fell to their lot. Susan forgot the vows she had so solemnly sworn when she became a member of the housemaids" league, to do housework and nothing else. She argued that a camp wasn"t a house and she could do what she chose. Oscar had, while in town, held himself above any form of labor not conducive to the dignity of a butler serving for many years in the best families. But if Mr. Lewis Somerville and Mr. Bill Tinsley, both of them belonging to fust famblies, could skin squirrels, why then, he, Oscar, must be a sport and skin them, too.
These week-ends in August were hard work for all concerned and now there was talk of some of the guests staying over for much longer and spending two weeks with them. That meant no cessation of fillin" "em up. Previous to this time, Monday had been a blessed day for all the camp, boarders gone and time to take stock and rest, but now there was to be no let up in the filling process.
Susan, for the time completely demoralized by the return of her beloved mistress, had left her work to whomsoever it might concern and had const.i.tuted herself lady"s maid for Mrs. Carter. She unpacked boxes and parcels, hovering over the pretty things purchased in New York; she fetched and carried for that dainty lady, ignoring completely the steady stream of week-enders climbing up the mountain or being carried up by the faithful and st.u.r.dy mountain goat, with the silent Bill as chauffeur.