"Id"s dothing adall," insisted Annie, tightly grasping her offending member, "by old dose always bleeds. Jusd a liddle dab will draw de clared."
"Oh, but I just know it hurts awfully," and Dee raced off for a basin of cold water while Dum rummaged in the debris for some of the gentleman"s handkerchiefs that she and Dee always used in common with their father.
Mary insisted upon dropping a large bra.s.s door key down the sufferer"s back, declaring that nothing stopped nose-bleed so effectively as the shock occasioned by a bra.s.s door key dropped down the back.
"I just know it is going to disfigure you for days to come!" exclaimed Dee.
"Oh, I don"t bind the loogs but id"s just the bordification of being such a duisance," answered the poor girl, as usual embarra.s.sed over being the observed of all observers. And just then in spite of the basin of gore and Annie"s pitiful expression and Tweedles" great solicitude, Mary and I went off into uncontrollable giggles.
"I"m not laughing at you, Annie, but at your "bordification,"" gasped Mary, holding her own nose to give the proper accent; and then everybody laughed and it had the effect described in the nursery rhyme:
"Little Tommy Grace Had a pain in his face So bad he couldn"t learn a letter.
In came d.i.c.ky Long, Singing such a funny song, Tommy laughed and his face felt much better."
Blanche arrived on the scene with a bottle of witch hazel and Annie was made to lie down in the farthest corner with healing cloths bound round her injuries.
"I never heard sech carryings on!" exclaimed the girl. "Mo" like a pa.s.sel of boys. I couldn"t believe my yers that "twas my young missusses making sech hullybullyboo. That there rent woman come by jes" then, and she rubbered "til I thought she would sho" twis" her po" white neck off."
Blanche had as frank a dislike to Mrs. Rand as that good woman had for all darkeys, and it was only with the most tactful management that we could keep them from coming to blows on the few occasions when Mrs. Rand came over to inspect our cottage. The white woman was very free in her use of the very objectionable term "n.i.g.g.e.r," and Blanche on the other hand had an insolent bearing in her presence that was entirely foreign to her usual polite manner and gentle disposition. It seemed strange that two persons as excellent in their way as Mrs. Rand and Blanche should be so antagonistic. They were like two chemicals, innocent and mild until brought together and then such a bubbling and boiling and exploding! Mrs. Rand always entered the house through the kitchen, which in itself was an irritation to Blanche.
"I don"t hold to no back-do" company. If"n she calls herself a lady, wherefore don"t she entrance like one? What call is she got to be pryin" and appearin" auspiciously into all my intensils? I ain"t goin"
to leave no mo" dirt than I found."
"Did she come in just now?" asked Dee as Blanche got off the foregoing tirade after having administered to Annie.
"No"m, she never come in! I squared myself in the do"way and she couldn"t git by me and she couldn"t git over me and Gawd knows she couldn"t git under me. I wa"n"t goin" to let her or no one else come in my kitchen "til I got the dislocation indigent to the undue disordinary of yesterday somewhat abated."
"Did she say anything?" laughed Dum.
"Yessum, she said a absolute piece of po"try what I would not defame my lips by repeating to you."
"Oh, please tell us what it was!" we begged.
"Well, "twas:
""n.i.g.g.e.r, n.i.g.g.e.r, never die, Black face and shiny eye, Flat nose and crooked toes, That"s the way the n.i.g.g.e.r goes.""
"Wasn"t that horrid of her?" we cried. "And what did you say?"
"Well, I held my head up same as a white lady, an" I answered her back same as a white lady, an" I called out to her:
""I had a little dog An" his name was Dash, "Druther be a n.i.g.g.e.r Than po" white trash!""
"Well, I"m glad you got back at her; and now come on and let"s get the cottage in such good order that we won"t care which way the owner comes in," and Dee gave Blanche a friendly pat on her broad shoulder. The girl left us, her good-humour restored by our sympathy, and if there was a speck of dirt left in that kitchen it would have taken a magnifying gla.s.s to find it.
Trunks were soon packed, and we had proceeded to the business of dismantling beds (all but on our porch), when we heard the rasping voice of Mrs. Rand in the living room below, that wily woman having slipped in through the kitchen while Blanche"s back was turned.
"Hey--Miss Tucker Twins!! Where"s that so-called paw of yours? I come over to go over the inventory with him."
"Inventory! What inventory?" asked Tweedles from the balcony.
"What inventory? Why, land"s sakes alive, what are you handin" out to me? Didn"t I give him a list of my goods and chattels to be returned to me in the same condition in which they was delivered to him on the fust of the month?"
"Oh, I believe there is a list of things in the blue tea-pot," and Dee raced down the steps and drew out the important doc.u.ment from the beautiful old blue tea-pot on the mantelpiece.
"But, Mrs. Rand, our father has gone back to Richmond, went yesterday, and he told me to tell you to send him the bill for anything that was broken or missing."
"Bill, indeed!" she sniffed. "I don"t trust to bills with any of these here tenants. Richmond is Richmond and Willoughby is Willoughby."
"Certainly, Mrs. Rand," said Dee with great dignity, "we will not ask you to trust us for any sum provided we have cash enough to reimburse you. There have been very few things broken and I fancy nothing will be missing. A few water gla.s.ses and some cups, I think, are the only things broken."
"Not with a n.i.g.g.e.r in the kitchen!" said our landlady, rudely. "Yer can"t tell me a n.i.g.g.e.r has gone through a month without bustin" mo"
things than that."
"Why, Blanche didn"t break the things that have been broken. We did it ourselves. I don"t believe Blanche has broken a single thing," exclaimed Dum.
"You is quite exact.i.tude in yo" statement, Miss Dum," said Blanche, appearing in the kitchen door, where she had overheard all of Mrs.
Rand"s not too complimentary remarks. "I is not been the instructive mimber of the household, and what brokerage has been committed has been performed by you young ladies or yo" papa. I is fractured but one object since I engaged in domestic disuetude and that was a cup without no saucer, and before Gawd it was cracked whin I come."
Blanche no longer looked the mild and peaceful character we had found her to be. Her pleasant gingerbread coloured face was purple with rage, and one of her pigtails, usually tightly wrapped, had come unbound and was standing up in a great woolly bush on the top of her head, giving her very much the appearance of a Zulu warrior in battle regalia. A rolling pin in one hand and a batter cake turner in the other added to her warlike aspect.
"I never seed a n.i.g.g.e.r yet that didn"t say everything she broke was cracked when she come," sniffed Mrs. Rand scornfully.
"Blanche is quite right!" exclaimed Dum. "The cup she broke was cracked, because I cracked it myself. I cracked the cup and broke the saucer the first night at the beach, didn"t I, Dee?"
"No, you didn"t. I did it myself," said Dee.
"Well, hoity-toity! It looks like you both think you done something fine to bust up the chiny," and Mrs. Rand smiled grimly as she gave an extra twist to her Mrs. Wiggs knot and got out of her capacious pocket a huge pair of bra.s.s-rimmed spectacles. "Come on, now, and go over this here inventory. Business is business, and if the chiny is busted, no matter who done it, it is the business of the renters to make good. I ain"t a-saying the n.i.g.g.e.r done it, but I"m a-saying if"n she didn"t, she"s the fust n.i.g.g.e.r I ever seed that didn"t behave like a bull in a chiny shop, bustin" and breakin" wherever she trod."
But Blanche had not had her say out and she took up the ball and continued:
"I is large, "tis true, but I is light to locomotion, and brokerage is never been one of my failures. My kitchen is open fer yo" conception at any time, Miss Dee. You kin bring in the rent woman when it suits yo"
invention," and with a bow that took in all of us and left out Mrs.
Rand, Blanche retired to her domain and lifted up her voice in a doleful hymn.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Why don"t you speak up, girl?"--_Page 255_]
Everything in the cottage was carefully checked off, living room first and then the sleeping porches. We were thankful indeed that we had cleaned up so well and had all of our acc.u.mulated mess out of the way.
The old woman complimented us on the appearance of everything. She was not at all an unkind person, except where coloured people were concerned. She seemed to take a motherly interest in us and highly approved of Zebedee.
"Well, you gals is sho" kept my house nice and I must say it is some surprise to me. You look like such harum-scarums that I was fearing you would be worser tenants than them boys---- Land sakes, if"n the tick covers ain"t clean enough ter use agin. I always changes "em fer a new tenant, but looks like it would be foolishness to take off perfectly clean things, "thout spot or speck on "em. Of course, I"ll take off the n.i.g.g.e.r"s tick."
Every time Mrs. Rand said n.i.g.g.e.r it made me wince. Mammy Susan had brought me up to think that that was a word not to be used in polite society or anywhere else.
"n.i.g.g.e.rs is the onliest ones what kin say n.i.g.g.e.r," she used to tell me.
"Whin white folks says n.i.g.g.e.rs they is demeaning of themselves, an" they is also paintin" of the n.i.g.g.e.r blacker than his Maker done see fit to make him."
Blanche"s room was in perfect order and I wondered if Mrs. Rand would not give her some praise, but that stern person only sniffed and pa.s.sed on.