"Mr. Tucker come mighty near infectin' my irresistibles," Blanche said to us after supper was over. "I tell you a kersplosion was eminent! 'Twas all I could do to keep from bringing disgracement on us all, in fact, to speak in vulgar langige, I was nigh to bus'in'. I certainly do think you young ladies looks sweet an' whin you puts a little talcim on yo' prebosseses the sunburn won't be to say notificationable. I'll be bound that ev'y las' one of you will be the belledom of the ball." All we hoped for was not to be wall flowers.
A hop was quite an event to most of us. Annie and I had never been to one in our lives, not a real hop. The dance at the Country Club when I visited the Tuckers in Richmond was the nearest I had ever come to a hop, and if this was to come up to that, I was expecting a pretty good time. Annie was very nervous as her dancing had all been done at Gresham and with girls, but we assured her that she was sure to do finely. The Tucker twins had been going to hops ever since they could hop, almost ever since they could crawl, so they were not very excited, but Mary was jumping around like a hen on a hot griddle, trying new steps all the time I was tying her sash. You may know that Mary would wear a great bulging sash, instead of a neat girdle or belt. Chunky persons with thick waists always seem to have a leaning towards sashes with huge bows. Mary looked very nice, although her dress did have about twice as much material in it as was necessary and she had put on an extra petticoat for luck and style. Since it was the summer of very narrow skirts, the effect was rather voluminous. She looked like the hollyhock babies I used to make for my fairy lands, only their heads were green while Mary's was red; but Mary's looks were the least thing about her. It was her good cheerful disposition and her ready, kindly wit and humour that counted with her friends.
Annie was lovely in the beautiful white crêpe de Chine, the dress that had been her mother's and that she had worn at the musicale at Gresham where she had charmed the audience with her old ballads. It was a pity for her to wear this dress to dance in on a hot night as it was really very handsome though so simple, but poor Annie had very few clothes and her father seemed to think that a girl her age needed none at all.
The Tuckers were appropriately dressed in white muslin, Dum with a pink girdle, Dee with a blue.
"Not that I should wear pink," grumbled Dum, "nor that Dee should wear blue, as I look better in blue and Dee looks better in pink; but Zebedee cuts up so when we go anywhere with him and don't dress in the colours we were born in, that to keep the peace we have to do as he wants us to. They tied pink ribbons on me and blue ribbons on Dee to tell us apart, and Zebedee declares he still has to have something tied on us to tell, which is perfectly absurd, as we do not look the least alike."
"You never have looked much alike to me, but I took such a good look at you the first time I saw you that I never have got you mixed up except once when I first saw you in bathing caps. I really do not think you look as much like each other as you both look like your father. Now he has Dee's dimple in his chin; and his hair grows on his forehead just like Dum's, in a little widow's peak; and all three of you have exactly the same shoulders."
"Well, all I know is I can tell myself from Dum on the darkest night." With which Irish bull, Dee, having hooked on the offending blue girdle, hustled us downstairs where the boys from the camp were awaiting our coming.
"Let me see, eight escorts for six ladies!" exclaimed Zebedee. "That means a good time all around!" And that is just what we had, a good time all around.
The ballroom at the hotel was quite large with a splendid floor, and if there was a breeze to be caught, it caught it. Seated on chairs ranged around the wall were what Zebedee called the non-combatants, many old ladies: maids, wives and widows, some with critical eyes, some with kindly, but one and all bent on seeing and commenting on everything that was doing.
The first person I beheld on entering the ballroom was no other than Cousin Park Garnett, sitting very stiff and straight in a tight bombazine basque, at least, I fancy it must have been bombazine—not that I know what bombazine is; but bombazine basque sounds just like Cousin Park looked. With majestic sweeps she fanned herself with a turkey-tail fan, and her general expression was one of conscious superiority to her surroundings. How I longed for a magic cap so that I might become invisible to my relative! All sparkle went out of the scene for me. I felt that it would not be much fun to dance with the critical eye of Mrs. Garnett watching my every step and her unnecessarily frank tongue ready to inform me of my many defects. If I could only dissemble and pretend not to see her maybe she would not recognize me! But conscience whispered: