The Tuckers arrived, and Tucker-like, neither at the time nor by the route expected. I was just calling Sam to hitch Peg (short for Pegasus) to the surrey to drive to Milton to meet them, when the unaccustomed toot of an automobile attracted my attention. It was tearing down our avenue at breakneck speed. Dee was at the wheel with Mr. Tucker beside her, and Dum was bouncing around alone on the back seat.

"Beat the train! By Jove, I thought we could!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker, when he spied me at the yard gate. "We were so afraid you might have started for Milton. That's the reason we were violating the speed limit," and they all piled out, the girls hugging me and kissing me and Mr. Tucker almost hugging me and not quite kissing me.

"It was such a grand day we couldn't resist coming in the car," tweedled the twins, "but if you had started for Milton before we got here, we would have died of mortification."

When I told them I had not even had Peg hitched up yet, they were delighted.

"A mounted policeman chased us just as we were leaving Manchester, but we dusted him so Tweedles and I are hoping he did not get our number," said Mr. Tucker.

I called Sam to bring in the grips and rugs.

"I am sorry he can't take your steed around to the stable, Mr. Tucker, but we don't know a thing about automobiles at Bracken."

"Leave it where it is, maybe we can have a spin later on."

We went into the house, where the open wood fires made everything bright and cheerful, although not very warm for persons who are accustomed to steam heat. Mammy Susan in a stiffly starched purple calico dress with a gay bandanna handkerchief on her head was ready to greet the guests.

"Well, bress the Lord, an' you done come all the way from town in that there fire wagon. I hearn the horn a tootin' and a rushin' like mighty wings, and I says, says I: 'Susan Collins, 'tis the Angel Gabr'el a comin' fer you.' So I clap on my clean head hankcher an' a starched apron tow be ready fer the Resrection."

"Mammy Susan, we've heard a lot about you. Page talks about you all the time at school," said the twins, shaking the old woman warmly by the hand.

"Well, now, does she? Mammy's baby don't fergit her any more'n Mammy fergits her baby. An' is this your pa? Well, save us, ef you don't look more like somebody's great-grandson than anybody's pa."

"Well, they do treat me like a stepson, sometimes, Mammy," laughed Mr. Tucker. "If I could only take on the looks of years without the years, I'd be glad, and maybe I could command more respect."

"Why don't you grow some whiskers, then? They ain't nothin' so ageyfying as whiskers on a young man."

"I'll do it, I'll do it!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker.

"Yes, and you do and we'll pull 'em out," Tweedles declared.

"Well, here am I a-gassin' when I ought to be settin' a little lunch fer the travelers."

"Oh, we had lunch on the way," the three of them declared. "We were not going to be any trouble to you by coming so much earlier than we were expected."

"Oh, now, you must be hungry," I said. "It won't take Mammy Susan a minute."

"Cose they's hungry, child. Can't I tell hungry folks soon as I claps eyes on 'em? Maybe they did eat a snack in that there chariot of fire, but the way they come down the abenue was enough to jolt down a Christmus dinner, plum puddin' an' all, an' plum puddin' takes a heap er joltin'," and Mammy Susan hastened out to "set a little lunch,"—which the Tuckers later declared was a feast.

They were hungry and cold, in spite of their protestations to the contrary, and cold turkey and country ham with the delicious little cornmeal cakes that Mammy could stir up and bake in half a minute disappeared like magic.

"Such coffee!" and Mr. Tucker rolled up his eyes in ecstasy. "And real cow cream! I tell you, Tweedles, as soon as you finish getting this much needed education, we've got to get out of an apartment and into a house where we can do some real housekeeping and have some home cooking."

"You ought to be made to eat at Gresham for a month or so, Zebedee, and you would think the cafÉ is pretty fine," said Dee. "The grub at Gresham is not so bad, but there is such a deadly sameness to it."

"Well, the grub may be tejus," broke in Mammy, who had just come in with a heaped-up plate of corn cakes, "but it must hab suption in it, 'cause lil Miss Page is growd in width as well as wisdom, and you two young twin ladies is got cheeks like wine-saps."

"You are right, Mammy, the food must be pretty good to keep them so fat and rosy," said Mr. Tucker, helping himself plentifully to the dainty little cakes.

"Yassir," and Mammy had a sly twinkle in her kind old eyes, "an' that there caffy whar you gits yo' victuals mus' be dishin' out some nourishment, too, 'cause you ain't to say peaked lookin'."

How we did laugh at Zebedee, and as for him, he got up and gave Mammy a little hug. The Tuckers all knew how to take jokes on themselves.

"She certainly did get you, Zebedee," teased Dum. "You were trying to be so Mr. Tuckerish, too, admonishing Dee and me for complaining about the food at Gresham."

Father came in soon from his rounds and greeted the visitors in his kindly hospitable way. Mr. Tucker was to have several days' holiday from his newspaper and Father said the neighborhood was in an extremely healthy condition, owing to the clear, cold weather, and he did not expect to be overworked; so the gentlemen began immediately to plan their hunts. Dum and Dee were wild at the prospect of going on the deer hunt.

"I saw Jo Winn this morning, daughter," said Father, "and he will go with us. He has a cousin from New York who is visiting him and he wants to take him."

"Well, if the cousin has no more conversation than Jo he certainly will not bore us with his chatter," I said. "Now, how about lunch, Father? We must give Mammy some warning, because she gets flustrated if we come at her too suddenly."

"To-morrow suits Jo and his kinsman, and it will suit us, too, I think. Tell Mammy how many of us there are and tell her to put up twice as much lunch as you think she should. That ought to be 'most enough. We'll want the big camping coffee pot and a skillet and some salt; also some sliced bacon, ground coffee and sugar, and a little flour to roll the rabbits in. We may make a fire and cook some if we get cold and have good luck in the morning."

I went out to the kitchen to interview Mammy, Tweedles following me, and then we had to go see the dogs. Dee approved of them and they heartily approved of her. Dum did not have the passion for them that Dee and I had, but she liked them well enough. The dogs licked her hand respectfully and then jumped up on Dee and knocked her down and had a big romp.

How delightful it was to have some companions of my own age at my beloved Bracken! The Tuckers wanted to see everything and go everywhere. We visited the horses in the stable and the cows in the pen and climbed up in the hay loft to hunt for eggs that a sly old blue hen refused to lay in the proper place.

"It's just like Grandpa Tucker's, only nicer," declared Dum. "Grandpa treats us as though we were about two years old and treats Zebedee as though he had just arrived in his teens, so when we go there, while we have splendid times, we are being told what not to do from morning till night."

"Well, nobody ever has told me not to do things," I said. "Mammy Susan grumbles when she thinks I am too venturesome, but she has always ended by letting me have my own way; and Father says he thinks my way is about as good as anybody's way."

"Well, isn't it funny you are not spoiled?" tweedled the girls.

"I believe I used to be spoiled when I was a tiny thing; but Father says if people grow up spoiled, it is because they lack sense, and he always said he knew I had sense enough to live down the spoiling that he and Mammy Susan just couldn't help giving me."

"I believe Dr. Allison is right, Dee," said Dum very solemnly, "and when we are unruly with Zebedee I know it is not the fault of our early training that we love to lay it on, but just plain lack of sense."

"Well, I'm going to try to be mighty good, then," exclaimed Dee. "If there is anything in the world I hate, it's stupidity."