She did not, however, volunteer any explanation. Aggie and I were driven to speculation, in which we indulged on our way home, Aggie being my guest at the time, on account of her janitor"s children having measles, and Aggie never having had them, although recalling a severe rash as a child, with other measly symptoms.
"She has something in mind for next summer," said Aggie apprehensively, "and she is preparing her strength for it. Tish is forehanded if nothing else."
"Well," I remarked with some bitterness, "if we are going along it might be well to prepare us too."
"Something," Aggie continued, "that requires landing on one foot with the other in the air."
"Don"t drivel," said I. "She"s not likely going into the Russian ballet.
She"s training her muscles, that"s all."
But the mystery was solved the following morning when Charlie Sands called me up.
"I"ve got it, beloved aunt," he said.
"Got what?" said I.
"What the old lady is up to. She"s a wonder, and no mistake. Only I think it was stingy of her not to let you and Aunt Aggie in."
He asked me to get Aggie and meet him at the office as soon as possible, but he refused to explain further. And he continued to refuse until we had arrived at our destination, a large brick building in the center of the city.
"Now," he said, "take a long breath and go in. And mind--no excitement."
We went in. There was a band playing and people circling at a mile a minute. In the center there was a cleared place, and Tish was there on ice skates. An instructor had her by the arm, and as we looked she waved him off, gave herself a shove forward with one foot, and then, with her arms waving, she made a double curve, first on one foot and then on the other.
"The outside edge, by George!" said Charlie Sands. "The old sport!"
Unluckily at that moment Tish saw us, and sat down violently on the ice.
And a quite nice-looking young man fell over her and lay stunned for several seconds. We rushed round the arena, expecting to see them both carried out, but Tish was uninjured, and came skating toward us with her hands in her pockets. It was the young man who had to be a.s.sisted out.
"Well," she said, fetching up against the railing with a bang, "of course you had to come before I was ready for you! In a week I"ll really be skating."
We said nothing, but looked at her, and I am afraid our glances showed disapproval, for she straightened her hat with a jerk.
"Well?" she said. "You"re not tongue-tied all of a sudden, are you?
Can"t a woman take a little exercise without her family and friends coming snooping round and acting as if she"d broken the Ten Commandments?"
"Breaking the Ten Commandments!" I said witheringly. "Breaking a leg more likely. If you could have seen yourself, Tish Carberry, sprawled on that ice at your age, and both your arteries and your bones brittle, as the specialist told you,--and I heard him myself,--you"d take those things off your feet and go home and hide your head."
"I wish I had your breath, Lizzie," Tish said. "I"d be a submarine diver."
Saying which she skated off, and did not come near us again. A young gentleman went up to her and asked her to skate, though I doubt if she had ever seen him before. And as we left the building in disapproval they were doing fancy turns in the middle of the place, and a crowd was gathering round them.
Owing to considerable feeling being roused by the foregoing incident, we did not see much of Tish for a week. If a middle-aged woman wants to make a spectacle of herself, both Aggie and I felt that she needed to be taught a lesson. Besides, we knew Tish. With her, to conquer a thing is to lose interest.
On the anniversary of the day Aggie became engaged to Mr. Wiggins, Tish asked us both to dinner, and we buried the hatchet, or rather the skates. It was when dessert came that we realized how everything that had occurred had been preparation for the summer, and that we were not going to Asbury Park, after all.
"It"s like this," said Tish. "Hannah, go out and close the door, and don"t stand listening. I have figured it all out," she said, when Hannah had slammed out. "The muscles used in skating are the ones used in mountain-climbing. Besides, there may be times when a pair of skates would be handy going over the glaciers. It"s not called Glacier Park for nothing, I dare say. When we went into the Maine woods we went unprepared. This time I intend to be ready for any emergency."
But we gave her little encouragement. We would go along, and told her so. But further than that I refused to prepare. I would not skate, and said so.
"Very well, Lizzie," she said. "Don"t blame me if you find yourself unable to cope with mountain hardships. I merely felt this way: if each of us could do one thing well it might be helpful. There"s always snow, and if Aggie would learn to use snowshoes it might be valuable."
"Where could I practice?" Aggie demanded.
But Tish went on, ignoring Aggie"s sarcastic tone. "And if you, Lizzie, would learn to throw a la.s.so, or lariat,--I believe both terms are correct,--it would be a great advantage, especially in case of meeting ferocious animals. The park laws will not allow us to kill them, and it would be mighty convenient, Lizzie. Not to mention that it would be an accomplishment few women possess."
I refused to make the attempt, although Tish sent for the clothesline, and with the aid of the encyclopaedia made a loop in the end of it.
Finally she became interested herself, and when we left rather downhearted at ten o"clock she had caught the rocking-chair three times and broken the clock.
Aggie and I prepared with little enthusiasm, I must confess. We had as much love for the rocks and rills of our great country as Tish, but, as Aggie observed, there were rocks and rocks, and one could love them without climbing up them or falling off them.
The only comfort we had was that Charlie Sands said that we should ride ponies, and not horses. My niece"s children have a pony which is very gentle and not much larger than a dog, which comes up on the porch for lumps of sugar. We were lured to a false sense of security, I must say.
As far as we could see, Tish was making few preparations for the trip.
She said we could get everything we needed at the park entrance, and that the riding was merely sitting in a saddle and letting the pony do the rest. But on the 21st of June, the anniversary of the day Aggie was to have been married, we went out to decorate Mr. Wiggins"s last resting-place, and coming out of the cemetery we met Tish.
She was on a horse, astride!
She was not alone. A gentleman was riding beside her, and he had her horse by a long leather strap.
She pretended not to see us, and Aggie unfortunately waved her red parasol at her. The result was most amazing. The beast she was on jerked itself free in an instant, and with the same movement, apparently, leaped the hedge beside the road. One moment there was Tish, in a derby hat and breeches, and the next moment there was only the gentleman, with his mouth open.
Aggie collapsed, moaning, in the road, and beyond the hedge we could hear the horse leaping tombstones in the cemetery.
"Oh, Tish!" Aggie wailed.
I broke my way through the hedge to find what was left of her, while the riding-master bolted for the gate. But to my intense surprise Tish was not on the ground. Then I saw her. She was still on the creature, and she was coming back along the road, with her riding-hat on the back of her head and a gleam in her eye that I knew well enough was a gleam of triumph.
She halted the thing beside me and looked down with a patronizing air.
"He"s a trifle nervous this morning," she said calmly. "Hasn"t been worked enough. Good horse, though,--very neat jump."
Then she rode on and out through the gates, ignoring Aggie"s pitiful wail and scorning the leading-string the instructor offered.
We reached Glacier Park without difficulty, although Tish insisted on talking to the most ordinary people on the train, and once, losing her, we found her in the drawing-room learning to play bridge, although not a card-player, except for casino. Though nothing has ever been said, I believe she learned when too late that they were playing for money, as she borrowed ten dollars from me late in the afternoon and was looking rather pale.
"What do you think?" she said, while I was getting the money from the safety pocket under my skirt. "The young man who knocked me down on the ice that day is on the train. I"ve just exchanged a few words with him.
He was not much hurt, although unconscious for a short time. His name is Bell--James C. Bell."
Soon after that Tish brought him to us, and we had a nice talk. He said he had not been badly hurt on the ice, although he got a cut on the forehead from Tish"s skate, requiring two st.i.tches.
After a time he and Aggie went out on the platform, only returning when Aggie got a cinder in her eye.
"Just think," she said as he went for water to use in my eye-cup, "he is going to meet the girl he is in love with out at the park. She has been there for four weeks. They are engaged. He is very much in love. He didn"t talk of anything else."
She told him she had confided his tender secret to us, and instead of looking conscious he seemed glad to have three people instead of one to talk to about her.
"You see, it"s like this," he said: "She is very good looking, and in her town a moving-picture company has its studio. That part"s all right.
I suppose we have to have movies. But the fool of a director met her at a party, and said she would photograph well and ought to be with them.