We had great larks sliding down these dunes and we got so dusty we were ashamed to face the maid who had dried our clothes, knowing she would have some invidious remarks to make about the uselessness of our having washed, as she designated our sea bathing.
And now it was time to go home. We bade the grinning maid farewell, much richer from our visit, as she was handsomely tipped by Wink, the purse-bearer from the camp, and Zebedee, the ever lavish.
"When you gits dirty agin they"s always plinty er water here," she called out.
We changed places going back, as it was deemed not quite safe for Annie and me to travel in the cat boat again. "Even if you can swim to Africa," said Jim.
Annie was glad enough to get into the safer boat, but I enjoyed sailing more than motoring, although that was delightful enough. Miss c.o.x and Mr. Gordon came with us and Mary and Rags. Sleepy ran the boat and although we were very quiet on the trip, everyone feeling a little tired and very peaceful, I noticed that Sleepy did not go to sleep; when he was not running the engine, he seemed to be taken up with looking after Annie"s comfort.
Once when our craft came close to the cat boat, Dum called out:
"Sing, Annie, sing!" and all of the rest, with the exception of Mabel, joined in the request. And Annie sang:
""Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.
""Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon: Rest, rest, on mother"s breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep my little one, sleep my pretty one, sleep.""
"Ah, ha, Miss Page Allison!" broke in Mabel"s strident voice as we disembarked at Willoughby, after the very smooth, peaceful journey, ""The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.""
"That"s so, but why this remark?" I asked. "What race has there been and what battle?" The men were making all ship-shape in the boats while we girls strolled on ahead. I had not the slightest idea what Mabel was talking about.
"Why, I got your middle-aged beau, all right, all right! I fancy he was glad enough to get away from you bread-and-b.u.t.ter school girls and have some sensible conversation with a grown-up." I could not help smiling at this, having often listened entranced to Mabel"s methods of entertaining men. If that was what she called sensible conversation, Zebedee must have been truly edified.
"Well, it was a good thing Mr. Tucker, if that is the middle-aged beau in question, was wise enough to take his bread-and-b.u.t.ter first before he indulged in the rich and heavy mental food that you fed him on. If he had taken it on an empty head, as it were, it might have seriously impaired his mental digestion." I fired this back at Mabel, angered in spite of myself.
"And so, Miss, you say Mr. Tucker has an empty head! How should you like for me to tell him you said so?"
"Tell him what you choose," I answered, confident of Zebedee"s knowing me too well to believe I said anything of the sort. "And how would you like me to tell Mr. Tucker you called him middle-aged?" and I left the ill-natured girl with her mouth wide open. I wanted peace, but if Mabel wanted battle then I was not one to run away. No one had heard her remark and I felt embarra.s.sed at the thought of repeating it. I could hardly tell Tweedles that Mabel called their father "my middle-aged beau," and certainly I could not repeat such a thing to Zebedee himself. Mabel was evidently bent on mischief but I felt pretty sure that in a battle of wits I could come out victorious. All I feared was that she would do something underhand. Certainly she was not above it.
Like most deceitful persons, she was fully capable of thinking others were as deceitful as herself.
CHAPTER XII.
FRECKLES AND TAN.
The next day we were lazy after the excitement of the sail to Cape Henry. All of us slept late and when we did wake, we seemed to be not able to get dressed.
"Let"s have a kimono day," yawned Dee. "Zebedee and Miss c.o.x have gone to Norfolk and there is not a piece of a hemale or grown-up around, so s"pose we just loaf all day."
"That will be fine, not to dress at all until time to go to the hop!" we exclaimed in chorus. There was to be a hop that night at the hotel, to which we were looking forward with great enthusiasm. Zebedee was to meet Harvie Price and Thomas Hawkins (alias Shorty) in Norfolk and bring them back to Willoughby, where they expected to stay for several days. These were the two boys we had liked so much at Hill Top, the boys" school near Gresham, and Zebedee had taken a great fancy to both of them.
"I do wish my hateful, little, old nose wasn"t so freckled," I moaned.
"I know I got a dozen new ones yesterday,--freckles, not noses. I"d like to get a new nose, all right."
"Me, too!" chimed in Dee. "What are we going to look like at a ball with these noses and necks?"
"Thank goodness, my freckles all run together," laughed Mary, "and the more freckled I get the more beautiful I am," and she made such a comical face that we burst out laughing.
"But look how I am peeling!" said Dum, examining her countenance in a hand mirror. "Now freckles look healthy but these great peelings streaming from my nose make me look as though I were just recovering from scarlet fever. I do wish I could pull them all off before night."
Annie was the only one of us neither tanned nor freckled. Miss c.o.x had taken on a healthy brown, which was rather becoming to her.
"If you young ladies is begrievin" over the condition of yo" cutlecles, I is in a persition to reform you of a simple remedy that will instore yo" complictions to they prinstine frishness," said Blanche who, coming upstairs with the mail, had overheard our jeremiads on the subject of our appearances.
"What is it! What is it!"
"You must first bedizen yo" count"nances in b.u.t.termilk, which will be most soothing to the imbrasions, an" then you must have some nice dough, made of the best flour an" lard, with yeast and seas"ning same as for light rolls; an" this must be rolled out thin like, with holes cut fer the nostrums fer the purpose of exiling. Then you must lie down fer several hours and whin you remove this masquerade, you will find the yeast is done drawed the freckles an" sun burn, an" all of you will be as beautiful as the dawning."
"Oh, Blanche, please mix us up some dough right off! And is there any b.u.t.termilk here?" asked Dum.
"Yes, Miss Dum, we"ve been gittin" it reg"lar fer waffles an" sich. I"ll bring up a little bucket of it fer yo" absolutions an" then I"ll mix up the dough."
"Be sure and make plenty, Blanche! I want to put it on my neck, too,"
said Dee.
"Well, we is mos" out er flour but I"ll stretch it bes" I kin. The impersonal "pearance of female ladies is of more importation than economics, an" I"m sure yo" paw will not be the one to infuse to buy another bag of flour for the beautyfaction of his twinses an" they lady guests."
Well, we washed and washed in b.u.t.termilk until we smelled like old churns. Then we lay down while Blanche placed tenderly on each burning countenance a dough mask. Annie did not need it, but she must have one, too, even though it was in a measure "gilding the lily."
"Let me have a mouth hole instead of one for my nostrils," I demanded.
"I can breathe through my mouth for a while and I don"t want to do anything to keep the dough from doing its perfect work on my poor nose."
We must have presented a ridiculous appearance, lying stretched out on our cots, each girl with her countenance supporting what looked like a great hoe cake.
"Well, I tell you, one has to suffer to be beautiful!" exclaimed Mary.
"I don"t mind it as much on my face as my neck," declared Dee. "It feels like a great boa constrictor throttling me, but it would never do to have my face as fair as a lily and my neck as red as a rose."
The air was fresh and soothing and we were tired anyhow; our masks were not conducive to conversation, so one by one we dropped off to sleep while the dough was getting in its perfect work. We slept for hours I think, and while the dough was busy, the yeast was not idle but responded readily to the warmth occasioned by our poor faces. The air-holes, seemingly too large in the beginning, gradually began to close in as the little leaven leavened the whole lump. Lying on your back is sure to make you snore at any rate, and lying on your back with almost all air cut off from you will cause stertorious breathing fearful to hear.
I do not know how long we had been lying there, but I know I was having a terrible dream. I dreamed I was under water, and the water was hot. I was trying to get to the top, knowing I could float if I could only get to the top, but every time I would come to the surface Mabel Binks would sit on my face and down I would sink again. I was struggling and clutching wildly at the air and trying to call Zebedee, and then Zebedee pulled Mabel off me and I floated into the pure air. Incidentally I opened my eyes to find the real Zebedee bending over me simply convulsed with laughter, while Miss c.o.x pulled the mask off of Mary, who was making a noise like a little tug trying to get a great steamer out of harbour. Dum and Dee were sitting up rubbing their eyes and Annie was blinking at the light and wondering where she was and what it was all about.
"Well, it is a good thing we came home when we did or our whole house party would have broken up in asphyxiation. When we opened the door down stairs there was no sign of Blanche, but such noise as was issuing from this sleeping porch! Sawing gourds was sweet music compared to it What on earth do you mean by this peculiar performance?" and Zebedee burst out into renewed peals of laughter and Miss c.o.x sank helpless on the foot of my cot.
"If you could have seen yourselves!" she gasped. "Five girls in kimonos, lying p.r.o.ne, and each one, in the place of a head, sporting a great dumpling."
We looked woefully at our prized masks and to be sure each one had risen to three times its original bulk. Little wonder breathing had been difficult.
Dee still had the remedy around her neck, puffed out like an enormous goitre, her chin resting comfortably on it. All of us felt as foolish as we looked and that was saying a good deal.
"You certainly smell like a dairy lunch up here," sniffed Zebedee.
"Please tell me if you were a.s.sisting poor, dear Blanche and raising her dough for her. Is this the method you housekeepers have employed all summer to have such good bread? I wondered how you did it. But don"t I smell b.u.t.termilk, too?" We knew we were in for a good teasing and we got it, although Miss c.o.x did her best to make Zebedee call a halt. "Is all of this beautifying for the benefit of Harvie and Shorty, who by the way are coming out in about an hour? I feel sad that you did not think I was worth making yourselves pretty for, but maybe you knew that I like freckles. If you did, I feel sadder than ever that you should have taken away what I consider so charming."
I don"t believe one single freckle was removed by our torture; but our skin felt soft and satiny, and Dum"s peelings all came off with her mask. Then the long sleep had rested all of us so, after all, there was no harm done except that all the flour was used up. That night we had no bread but batter bread for supper, but since Blanche had mastered the mixing of that dish, dear to the heart of all Virginians, we none of us minded, just so she made enough of it, which she did.