Читать онлайн
A House Party with the Tucker Twins
A House Party with the Tucker Twins
CHAPTER I
MAXTON
There may be more fun than a house-party, but I doubt it. Certainly I, Page Allison, have never had it. What could be more delightful than to spend two weeks in a beautiful old country home with such a host as General Price, and to have as fellow guests all the girl friends you care for most in the world, – to say nothing of some of the male persuasion that at least you don't hate?
Harvie Price had been promised this house-party by his grandfather as reward of merit, and, like most things earned by hard labor, it proved to be worth the work expended. The Tucker Twins of course were there, Mary Flannagan, Shorty Hawkins, George Massie (alias Sleepy), Wink White, Jim Hart, and Ben Raglan, whose other name was Rags. There were two men from the University whom we did not know before, but it did not take long for us to forget that they were new acquaintances. They fitted in wonderfully well and a few hours found them behaving like old and tried friends. Their names were Jack Bennett and Billy Somers, and both of them hailed from Kentucky. There was a new girl in the party, Jessie Wilcox. She wasn't quite so easy to know as the new boys.
I always feel like crying when I think of dear little Annie Pore's connection with that house-party. She was of course the very first person Harvie asked, the one he wanted most. I think in his mind the party was given to Annie, and when Mr. Pore with characteristic selfishness and stubbornness refused to let her go, it was a blow indeed.
His plea was that he needed her to keep the store for him. He had hired a clerk after Annie went to boarding-school, and owing to his growing business, had kept the boy on through vacation, but on the eve of the house-party had seen fit to get rid of him, having sent him on an unasked for and undesired holiday.
"I found it out only this morning," said Harvie gloomily.
He had come to meet us at the landing, most of us having arrived by boat from Richmond. He was doing his best to look cheerful, feeling that a cloud must not be cast over the entire party because one member could not be there. He said he felt he knew me well enough to speak out on the subject of Mr. Pore, and speak out he did.
"But has your grandfather tried to persuade him to let her come?"
"No! You see Grandfather is a great believer in State's Rights, and he carries his theories down to the individual. He says that Mr. Pore is a wrong-headed father but it is his own affair and he refuses to interfere. He takes the stand that he has no more right to dictate to Mr. Pore how to run his household, than Massachusetts had to interfere in our own little matter of slavery here in Virginia, back in the sixties."
"Poor Annie! We shall have to work out some kind of a scheme for her. I'll tell Mary and the Tuckers. I am sure we can get the tiresome old Englishman to come around somehow."
"I wish I thought so, but I tell you that Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore has never been known to change his mind. Besides he is leaving to-day for Richmond to be gone several days."