Part 12

She blew them a kiss and went off smiling. After a dejected silence Dora took up the forget-me-not wreath and replaced it.

"I suppose we might as well finish out this evening," she said. "But the revolution has begun, Cora!"

"The revolution has begun," Cora echoed.

In the drawing-room they found Mrs. Baldwin talking with Mr. Morton and Mr. White. They were evidently trying to say good night, but she was holding them as inexorably as if she had laid hands on their coats; or so it seemed to the troubled twins. She summoned her daughters with her bright, amused glance.

"My dears," she said, "these two good friends were going to run away just because they do not dance the cotillion. We can't allow that. Suppose you take them to the library and make them wholly comfortable. Indeed, they have danced enough, Mr. White; I am thankful to have them stop. I will take the blame if their partners are angry."

She nodded a smiling dismissal. Disconcerted, wholly ill at ease, the four went obediently to the library, deserted now that the cotillion was beginning. The two men struggled valiantly with the conversation, but the twins sat stricken to shamed dumbness: no topic could thrive in the face of their mute rigidity. Silences stalked the failing efforts. Mr. White's eyes clung to the clock while his throat dilated with secret yawns; Mr. Morton twisted restlessly and finally let a nervous sigh escape. Dora suddenly clasped her hands tightly together.

"We hate it just as much as you do," she said distinctly.

They turned startled faces toward her. Cora paled, but flew to her sister's aid.

"We knew you didn't want to come," she added with tremulous frankness. "We would have let you off if we could. If you want to go now, we won't be--hurt."

They rose, and so did the bewildered visitors.

"I am afraid you have--misunderstood," began Mr. White.

"No; we have always understood--everybody," said Dora, "but we pretended not to, because mother--But now we have done with society. It is a revolution, and this is our last party. Good night." She held out her hand.

"Good night," repeated Cora, offering hers. The guests took them with the air of culprits; relief was evidently drowned in astonishment.

"Well, good night--if we must," they said awkwardly.

Mrs. Baldwin, looking into the library half an hour later, found the twins sitting there alone.

"Where are your cavaliers?" she demanded.

"They left long ago," Dora explained sleepily. "Mayn't we go to bed?"

"Oh, for pity's sake--go!" was the exasperated answer.

In the morning the twins appeared braced for revolution. When a reception for that afternoon was mentioned, they announced firmly that they were not going.

"I think you are wise," said Mrs. Baldwin amiably. "You both look tired."

They were conscious of disappointment as well as relief; it was the establishment of a principle they wanted, not coddling. Three weeks went by in the same debilitating peace. The twins were smiled on and left wholly free. They had almost come to believe in a bloodless victory, when Mrs. Baldwin struck--a masterly attack where they were weakest. Her weapon was--not welcome temper, but restrained pathos.

"A mere fourteen at dinner and a few coming in to dance afterward, and I do want you twinnies to be there. Now I have not asked one thing of you for three weeks; don't you think you owe Mother some little return?"

"But--!" began the twins, with a rush of the well-known arguments. Mrs. Baldwin would not combat.

"I ask it as a favor, dear girls," she said gently. They clung to their refusal, but were obviously weakening when she rose to her climax: "Mr. White and Mr. Morton have accepted!" She left them with that, confident and humming to herself.

The twins stared at each other in open misery. Reappear now, after the solemn declaration they had made to those two! Their cheeks burned at the thought. They mounted to their room to formulate their resistance, and found two exquisite new gowns, suitable for fairy princesses, spread out like snares. "To please Mother" seemed to be written on every artful fold. And Mrs. Baldwin was not a rich woman, for her way of life; such gowns meant self-denial somewhere. The twins had tears in their eyes.

"But if we give in now, we're lost!" they cried.

Nothing more was said about the dinner, Mrs. Baldwin gaily assuming success, but avoiding the topic. The twins wore a depressed and furtive air. On the fatal day they had a long interview with Miss Browne, of the Browne School, and came away solemn with excitement, to shut themselves in their room for the rest of the afternoon.

A few minutes before the dinner-hour Mrs. Baldwin, triumphant in satin and lace, paused at their door.

"Ready, twinnies?" she began, then stared as though disbelieving her eyes. In the glow of the student-lamp sat the twins, books in their hands and piled high on the table beside them; their smooth, dark hair was unpompadoured, their shoulders were lost in the dark blouses of every day.

"What does this mean?" Mrs. Baldwin asked shortly, fire in her eyes.

"Mother, we told you we could not go to any more parties, and why," Cora answered, a note of pleading in her voice.

"We begin teaching on Monday in Miss Browne's school," added Dora more stoutly. "We have tried your way for years and years, mother. Now we have to try ours."

Mrs. Baldwin's lace bertha rose and fell sharply.

"Indeed. I am sorry to disappoint you, but so long as you live under my roof, you will have to conform to the ways of my household."

"Then, mother, we can not stay under your roof."

"As you please! I leave the choice entirely to you." She swept out, leaving them breathless but resolute.

"I am glad of it!" said Dora with trembling lips.

In explaining their absence at dinner, Mrs. Baldwin was lightly humorous about the twins' devotion: one could not weather a headache without the other. Mr. White and Mr. Morton exchanged glances, and showed interest in the topic, as if they were on the track of some new sociological fact.

Later in the evening, the twins, their spirits restored, stole to the top of the stairs and peered down at the whirling couples, exultant not to be among them. Mr. White was standing just below, and he glanced up, as if he might have been listening. His face brightened.

"May I come up?" he signaled, and mounted two steps at a time, keen interest in his thin, intellectual face.

"Is it really headache, or is it revolution?" he asked without preface. "Morton and I have been longing to know, all the evening."

"Revolution," said the twins.

"How very interesting! Do you know, we came to-night just to see if you would be there. You--you staggered us, the other evening. We were glad when you didn't appear--if you won't misunderstand. It is so unexpected, in this environment. I shall be curious to see how far you can carry it out." He was leaning against the banister, looking at them as if they were abstract propositions rather than young girls, and they felt unwontedly at ease.

"To the very end," Dora asserted. "We begin teaching Monday, and--and we have to find a place to board." Her color rose a little, but she smiled.

"That _is_ plucky," he commented. "We can help you there; I know a number of places. When do you want to move?"

"To-morrow," they answered in unison.

He consulted an engagement-book, reflected a few moments, then made a note.

"Morton or I will call for you to-morrow at three," he announced with business-like brevity. "I think I know just the place, but we will give you a choice. If you really wish to move in at once, you could have your things packed, ready to be sent for."

"Oh, we do!" said Cora. He glanced meditatively at their fine and glowing faces.

"Of course you won't be comfortable, luxurious, as you are here," he warned them, with a nod toward the great paneled hall. Mrs. Baldwin passed the drawing-room door below with the stately tread of a reviewing officer.

"Oh, we don't care!" they exclaimed eagerly.

The next day their mother treated the twins as if they were not. She spoke no word to them and did not seem to hear their husky little efforts at reconciliation. They found it hard to remember persistently that they were revolutionists rather than children in disgrace. She was unapproachable in her own room when Mr. White and Mr. Morton came for them.

"Well, we can't help it," they said sadly as they locked their two trunks and went down the stairs.

Three hours later the twins had entered a new world and were rapturously making an omelet in a kitchen that had begun life as a closet, while Mr. Morton put up shelves and hooks and Mr. White tacked green burlap over gloomy wall-paper. Groceries and kitchen utensils and amusing make-shift furniture kept arriving in exciting profusion. They had not dreamed that there was such happiness in the world.

"If only mother will forgive us, it will be simply perfect!" they told each other when they settled down for the night in their hard little cots. They said that many times in the days that followed. The utter joy of work and freedom and simplicity had no other blemish.

For five weeks Mrs. Baldwin remained obdurate. Then, one Sunday afternoon, she appeared, cold, critical, resentful still; lifted her eyebrows at the devices of their light housekeeping; looked disgusted when they pointed out from the window the little cafe where they sometimes dined; and offered to consent to their social retirement if they would give up the teaching and come home. The twins were troubled and apologetic, but inflexible. They had found the life they were meant for; they could not give it up. If she knew how happy they were!

"How, with your bringing up, you can enjoy this!" she marveled. "It isn't respectable--eating in nasty little holes alone at night!"

"But it is a nice, clean place, and Mr. White and Mr. Morton are nearly always with us," Dora began, then broke off at an expression of pleased enlightenment that flashed across her mother's face. "They are just very good friends," she explained gravely; "they don't take us as girls at all--that is why we have such nice times with them. We are simply comrades, and interested in the same books and problems."

"And they bother about us chiefly because we are a sort of sociological demonstration to them," Cora added. "They like experiments of every kind."

"Ah, yes, I understand," assented Mrs. Baldwin. "Well, you certainly are fixed up very nicely here. If you want anything from home, let me know. After all, it is a piquant little adventure. If you are happy in it, I suppose I ought not to complain."

She was all complacence and compliment the rest of her visit. When she went away, the girls glanced uneasily at each other.

"She took a wrong idea in her head," said Dora. "I do hope we undeceived her. It would be hard for her to understand how wholly mental and impersonal our friendship is with those two."

"Well, she will see in time, when nothing comes of it," said Cora confidently. "That's their ring, now. Oh, Dora, isn't our life nice!"

Mrs. Baldwin, passing down the shabby front steps, might have seen the two men approaching, one with an armful of books and the other with a potted plant; but she apparently did not recognize them, for she stepped into her carriage without a sign. The visit seemed to have left a pleasant memory with her, however; her bland serenity, as she drove away, was not unlike that of the cat which has just swallowed the canary.

FALL STYLES IN FACES[5]

BY WALLACE IRWIN

Faces this Fall will lead the styles More than in former years With something very neat in smiles Well trimmed with eyes and ears. The Gayer Set, so rumor hints, Will have their noses made In all the famous Highball Tints-- A bright carnation shade.

For morning wear in club and lobby, The Dark Brown Taste will be the hobby.

In Wall Street they will wear a gaze To match the paving-stones. (This kind, Miss Ida Tarbell says, John Rockefeller owns.) Loud mouths, sharp glances, furtive looks Will be displayed upon The faces of the best-groomed crooks Convened in Washington.

Among the Saints of doubtful morals Some will wear halos, others laurels.

Checkered careers will be displayed On faces neatly lined, And vanity will still parade In smirks--the cheaper kind. Chins will appear in Utah's zone Adorned with lace-like frizzes, And something striking will be shown In union-labor phizzes.

The gentry who have done the races Show something new in Poker Faces.

Cheek will supplant Stiff Upper Lips And take the place of Chin; The waiters will wear ostrich tips When tipping days begin. The Wilhelm Moustache, curled with scorn, Will show the jaw beneath, And the Roosevelt Smile will still be worn Cut wide around the teeth.

If Frenzied Finance waxes stronger Stocks will be "short" and faces longer.

But if you have a well-made face That's durable and firm, Its features you need not replace-- 'Twill wear another term. Two eyes, a nose, a pair of ears, A chin that's clean and strong Will serve their owner many years And never go far wrong.

But if your face is shoddy, Brother, Run to the store and buy another!

FOOTNOTES:

[5] From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield & Co.

HAD A SET OF DOUBLE TEETH

BY HOLMAN F. DAY

Oh, listen while I tell you a truthful little tale Of a man whose teeth were double all the solid way around; He could jest as slick as preachin' bite in two a shingle-nail, Or squonch a molded bullet, sah, and ev'ry tooth was sound.

I've seen him lift a keg of pork, a-bitin' on the chine, And he'd clench a rope and hang there like a puppy to a root; And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank up on the line, But he couldn't do no business with that double-toothed galoot.

He was luggin' up some shingles,--bunch, sah, underneath each arm,-- The time that he was shinglin' of the Baptist meetin'-house; The ladder cracked and buckled, but he didn't think no harm, When all at once she busted, and he started down kersouse.

His head, sah, when she busted, it was jest abreast the eaves; And he nipped, sah, quicker 'n lightnin', and he gripped there with his teeth, And he never dropped the shingles, but he hung to both the sheaves, Though the solid ground was suttenly more 'n thirty feet beneath.

He held there and he kicked there and he squirmed, but no one come; He was workin' on the roof alone--there war'n't no folks around-- He hung like death to niggers till his jaw was set and numb, And he reely thought he'd have to drop them shingles on the ground.

But all at once old Skillins come a-toddlin' down the street; Old Skil is sort of hump-backed, and he allus looks straight down; So he never seed the motions of them number 'leven feet, And he went a-amblin' by him--the goramded blind old clown!

Now this ere part is truthful--ain't a-stretchin' it a mite,-- When the feller seed that Skillins was a-walkin' past the place, Let go his teeth and hollered, but he grabbed back quick and tight, 'Fore he had a chance to tumble, and he hung there by the face.

And he never dropped the shingles, and he never missed his grip, And he stepped out on the ladder when they raised it underneath; And up he went a-flukin' with them shingles on his hip, And there's the satisfaction of a havin' double teeth.

PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES

BY BRET HARTE

Which I wish to remark-- And my language is plain-- That for ways that are dark, And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar, Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name, And I shall not deny In regard to the same What that name might imply; But his smile it was pensive and childlike, As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third, And quite soft was the skies; Which it might be inferred That Ah Sin was likewise; Yet he played it that day upon William And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game, And Ah Sin took a hand; It was euchre--the same He did not understand; But he smiled as he sat at the table With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked In a way that I grieve, And my feelings were shocked At the state of Nye's sleeve, Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played By that heathen Chinee, And the points that he made Were quite frightful to see, Till at last he put down a right bower, Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye, And he gazed upon me; And he rose with a sigh, And said, "Can this be? We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor;" And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued I did not take a hand, But the floor it was strewed Like the leaves on the strand With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long, He had twenty-four packs, Which was coming it strong, Yet I state but the facts; And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent in tapers--that's wax.

Which is why I remark-- And my language is plain-- That for ways that are dark, And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar, Which the same I am free to maintain.

POSSESSION

BY WILLIAM J. LAMPTON

Oh, give me whatever I do not possess, No matter whatever it be; So long as I haven't it that is enough, I fancy, to satisfy me.

No matter whatever I happen to have, I have it; and what I have not Seems all that is good of the good things of earth To lighten the lack of my lot.

No covetous spirit incites the desire To have what I haven't, I'm sure; Because when I have what I haven't, I want What I haven't, the same as before.

So, give me whatever I do not possess, No matter whatever it be; And yet-- To have what I haven't is having, and that Destroys all the pleasure for me.

HER BROTHER: ENFANT TERRIBLE[6]

BY EDWIN L. SABIN

This is Her brother; angel-faced,-- Barring freckles and turned-up nose,-- Demon-minded--a word well based, As nearer acquaintance will disclose. From outward guise the most sage of men Would never guess what within lies hid! If years we reckon, in age scant ten; If cunning, old as a pyramid.

This is Her brother, who sticks and sticks Tighter than even a brother should; Brimming over with teasing tricks, Hardened to bribe and "_please_ be good"; And who, when at last afar we deem, In some sly recess but lurks in wait To note the progress of love's young dream-- And we learn of his presence too late, too late!

This is Her brother, with watchful eyes, Piercing, shameless, and indiscreet, With ears wide open for soft replies And sounds that are sibilant and sweet! With light approach (not a lynx so still), With figure meanly invisible, With threatening voice and iron will, And shrill demands or he'll "go and tell!"

This is Her brother--and I submit To paying out quarters and sundry dimes; This is Her brother--whose urchin wit Moves me to wrath a thousand times; This is Her brother--and hence I smile And jest and cringe at his tyranny, And call him "smart"! But just wait a while Till he's _my_ brother--and then we'll see!

FOOTNOTES:

[6] Lippincott's Magazine.

THE JACKPOT

BY IRONQUILL

I sauntered down through Europe, I wandered up the Nile, I sought the mausoleums where the mummied Pharaohs lay; I found the sculptured tunnel Where quietly in style Imperial sarcophagi concealed the royal clay. Above the vault was graven deep the motto of the crown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."

It's strange what deep impressions Are made by little things. Within the granite tunneling I saw a dingy cleft; It was a cryptic chamber. I drew, and got four kings. But on a brief comparison I laid them down and left, Because upon the granite stood that sentence bold and brown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."

I make this observation: A man with such a hand Has psychologic feelings that perhaps he should not feel, But I was somewhat rattled And in a foreign land, And had some dim suspicions, as I had not watched the deal. And there was that inscription, too, in words that seemed to frown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."

These letters were not graven In Anglo-Saxon tongue; Perhaps if you had seen them you had idly passed them by. I studied erudition When I was somewhat young; I recognized the language when it struck my classic eye; I saw a maxim suitable for monarch or for clown: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."

Detesting metaphysics, I can not help but put A philosophic moral where I think it ought to hang; I've seen a "boom" for office Grow feeble at the root, Then change into a boomlet--then to a boomerang. In caucus or convention, in village or in town: "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down."

DUM VIVIMUS VIGILAMUS

BY JOHN PAUL

Turn out more ale, turn up the light; I will not go to bed to-night. Of all the foes that man should dread The first and worst one is a bed. Friends I have had both old and young, And ale we drank and songs we sung: Enough you know when this is said, That, one and all,--they died in bed. In bed they died and I'll not go Where all my friends have perished so. Go you who glad would buried be, But not to-night a bed for me.

For me to-night no bed prepare, But set me out my oaken chair. And bid no other guests beside The ghosts that shall around me glide; In curling smoke-wreaths I shall see A fair and gentle company. Though silent all, rare revelers they, Who leave you not till break of day. Go you who would not daylight see, But not to-night a bed for me: For I've been born and I've been wed-- All of man's peril comes of bed.

And I'll not seek--whate'er befall-- Him who unbidden comes to all. A grewsome guest, a lean-jawed wight-- God send he do not come to-night! But if he do, to claim his own, He shall not find me lying prone; But blithely, bravely, sitting up, And raising high the stirrup-cup. Then if you find a pipe unfilled, An empty chair, the brown ale spilled; Well may you know, though naught be said, That I've been borne away to bed.

AT AUNTY'S HOUSE

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY