My first impression of Willoughby Beach gave me keen disappointment. It was so sandy, so flat, and so absolutely shadeless. I longed for the green hills far away and in my heart felt I could not stand a month of the lonesome stretches of sand and the pitiless glare of the summer sun. It took great self-control and some histrionic ability for me to conceal my emotions from my enthusiastic hostesses.

The Tuckers had been coming to Willoughby for years and loved every grain of sand on the beach. They could hardly wait for the trolley from Norfolk to stop before they jumped out and raced down to the water's edge just to dabble their hands in the ocean.

"My gracious me! How I hate to grow up!" exclaimed Dum. "One year ago I would have had off my shoes and been in bliss by this time."

"Well, maybe you are too grown up to wade, but I'm not," declared Dee. "However, since Zebedee has trusted us to come down and open up the cottage, I fancy we had better go do it and get things ready for our guests."

We three girls were the fore-runners of the famous beach house-party that Mr. Jeffry Tucker, father of the "Heavenly Twins," had promised to give us the winter before as reward of merit if we passed all of our exams at Gresham and got through the year without any very serious mishaps. Mishaps we had had in abundance, but not very serious ones, as all of us were alive to tell the tale; and Mr. Tucker, with his eternally youthful outlook on life, seemed to feel that a scrape that turned out all right was not such a terrible matter after all.

"Just so you can look me in the eye while you are telling me your troubles, it's all right," I have heard him say to his daughters.

The cottage proved to be very attractive. The lower floor was chiefly a large living room with French windows that opened upon three deep, shady verandas. A kitchen and bath rooms were in the rear. A staircase came down into the living room from a low-hung balcony that went around the four sides of the room. Doors from this balcony opened into dressing rooms and they in turn led to the sleeping porches. This style of architecture was new to me and very pleasing. There was a spaciousness to the living room with its high, raftered ceiling that appealed to me greatly. I have never been able to be happy in little, chopped-up rooms. The wood-work, rafters, roof and all, were stained a dark moss green, as were also the long mission dining table and the chairs and settles. At one end was a great fireplace made of rough, grey boulders, with heavy iron fire-dogs and fender. There was no attempt at ornamentation with the exception of several old blue platters and a tea pot on the high mantelpiece and a long runner of Japanese toweling on the table.

"Oh!" burst from us in chorus as we came through the hospitably open door. "Isn't it lovely?"

Just then there emerged from the kitchen a woman with a pail in one hand and broom in the other. Her long, pale face with the sandy hair drawn tightly back into a Mrs. Wiggs knot had no trace of welcome, but rather one of irritation.

"Well, land's sakes! You is greedy fer yo' rights. The fust of July don't mean the fust thing in the morning. The last tenants ain't been gone mor'n a hour an' here you come a-turn-in' up before I kin mor'n turn 'round."

"Well, everything looks lovely," said the tactful Dee.

"Y' aint seen it yet. It's right enough in this here room where I've done put in some licks, but that there kitchen is a mask of grease. These June tenants was jist a passel of boys and I can tell you they pretty near ripped things wide open. They had a triflin', no-'count black man fer cook and if ther' is one thing I hate more'n a nigger woman, it's a nigger man. Sometimes I think I will jist natchally refuse to rent my house to anybody that hires niggers."

"Your house!" escaped from Dum before she could stop herself.

"Yes, Miss, my house! Did you think I'd be cleaning up after a nigger in anybody's house but my own?"

"Then you are Mrs. Rand?" inquired Dee.

"The same! Did you think I might be Capt. Rand?"

"No'm; I – I – "

"You jist didn't expect to see a lady who owns a grand house like this workin' like any common person. Well, you are right, young lady. But if I didn't work like this, ther' wouldn't be no house to rent. Where's your brother?"

"Brother?"

"Yes; him what come down last winter to see after rentin' the house. He was a powerful likely young man. Me 'n Capt. Rand took to him from the first minute we clapt eyes on him. I'd a-knowed you two were his sisters anywhere; and this other young lady," indicating me, "I reckon she's his girl, 'cause she sho ain't no kin."

The twins spluttered and I blushed but managed to put Mrs. Rand right as to the Tucker family, explaining to her that Mr. Tucker was the father of my friends and that I was merely a schoolmate who was invited to come to the beach on a visit.

"Well, you may be putting something over on me, as these wild June tenants used to call it. I can't believe that the young man who came down here is the paw of these strapping twins any more than I could believe that you are their maw. Maybe he sent his office boy." That made all of us laugh.

"We've been coming here for years, Mrs. Rand," said Dee. "It is strange we do not know each other. I can't remember ever seeing you before and you never saw us."

"Good reason! I never come here 'til this last fall, when Capt. Rand and I left Virginia Beach. He's been a lifesaver ever since he was a-put inter pants, but his jints is too stiff now. The Government has pensioned him but it looks like so long as we live near the old Life Saving Station that every time there is any cause for gittin' out the boats, Capt. Rand sees some good excuse why he's beholden to go 'long. So I jist up 'n' moved him away from temptation over inter these quiet waters. But when is that so-called paw of yourn comin'?"

"He will be along this evening with Miss Cox, our chaperone, and we want to get everything in order before he comes," said Dum.

"Well, that bein' the case, I'd better get a hump on and finish up the kitchen that greasy nigger left in such a state; and then I'll come right on up to the bedrooms. This lapping and slamming of tenants is right hard on me, but it is the only way I can get my fifteen per cent out of my investment."

"Did you plan the house yourself, Mrs. Rand?" questioned Dum. "It is so pretty."

"What, me? Do I look crazy? When I builds, I builds a house with a parlor and nice, tight bedrooms. I don't 'low the builder to waste no lumber on porches that's nothin' but snares fer lazy folks. I owns three houses over to Virginia Beach, as snug little homes as you ever seed; but somehow it looks like I can't git rich tenants fer 'em, in spite of they bein' on the water front. Rich folks what is got the money to sleep in nice, close bedrooms is all took to sleepin' out doors like tramps; an' when they is got all the time there is to set in the parlors and rock, they ain't content in the house but must take theyselves out in the wind and sun 'til they look like Injuns!

"No, sirree! I had a mortgage on this house an' foreclosed. It was built and owned by a architect from Norfolk. I had a chattel mortgage, too, so I got all his fixin's. I felt real sorry fer him. It looked like he loved the place as if'n it was his own flesh and blood. It is a strange, misshapen lookin' house to me; but they do say if any of yo' children is afflicted, you loves 'em more'n all the others. I wanted to decoration this barn a little with some real fine pictures a lightnin' artist over to Hampton struck off for me while I waited, but the man took on so, jist like he thought I might a-been desecratin' the grave of his child! And he kinder made me promise to leave this room jist as it is with that common old blue chany on the mantel an' this strip of blue and white rag on the table. So that's how it comes to be so bare-like."

"We don't think it is bare, Mrs. Rand, but beautiful," said Dum reverently, and Dee took off her hat and held it just as I had seen her father do when a funeral was passing. "May we go upstairs and see the sleeping porches, and maybe we can help you some?"

"Snoop around all you've a mind to; but I wouldn't ask you to help. When I rents a furnished house I sees that it is turned over to tenants in apple-pie order, and if'n you'd 'a' come in the afternoon instid of morning you'd 'a' found it ship-shape."

"But we'd simply adore helping," urged Dee.

"All right, if you must you must! Here's a basket of clean sheets an' sich, an' here's clean bags fer the mattresses. I never asks one tenant to sleep on the same tick cover that the one before it used, certainly not when boys is been the fore-runners. These was likely boys if'n they was a leetle harum-scarum, but boys at the best is kinder goatish. Jist bundle up the s'iled bedclothes an' trun 'em down the steps, an then when you've buttoned up the mattresses in their clean covers make up the cots to suit your fancy. By that time I'll be up with my broom and rags." And Mrs. Rand bustled out to the kitchen to clean up after her abomination.

We could hardly wait for her to get out of the room to have a good giggle. She was a type that was new to me. Dee declared that she was a real out and out "po' white" if she did own three houses at Virginia Beach and one at Willoughby, and got 15 per cent on her investments. Her dialect was, in some instances, like the coloured people's, but her voice was high and nasal and every sentence ended in a kind of whine. With our coloured friends the dropping of a "g" or "d" makes their speech soft and mellow, but with this so-called "poor white" it seemed to make it only dry and hard. Certainly Mrs. Rand's exterior was not very attractive, but there was a kind of frankness about her that I rather liked. I had an idea that she was going to prove a good and just landlady, which, after all, is very important when one is renting a furnished house for a month at the sea shore.

"Thank goodness, we are spared the lightning artist's pictures," sighed Dum. "Isn't this room wonderful?"

It had indeed the repose and calm of a forest. The light was soft and subdued after the glare of sand and water. The high, vaulted, unplastered ceiling with its heavy green beams and rafters made me think of William Morris's description of the hall of the Nibelungs when the eagles screamed in the roof-tree.

We carried the heavy basket of clean bed linen upstairs and made our way through the dressing rooms, which were little more than closets, to the spacious sleeping porches, overlooking the bay. We found the place in very good order, considering boys had been keeping bach there for a month, and it was not at all "goatish," as we had been led to expect to find it. On the first porch we discovered an old checked cap on a hook, and some discarded tennis shoes in a corner, under one pillow a wallet, rather fat with bank bills, and under another a large gold watch.

"Aren't boys the limit, though?" exclaimed Dee as she carefully placed the valuables in a drawer. "That means they'll be coming back for their treasures. Maybe we had better save the old hat and shoes, too;" which we did with as much care as we had shown the watch and wallet. We bundled up the bed clothes according to instructions and decided to visit the other porches and get rid of all the soiled linen before we commenced to make up the cots. There were three large porches, with two dressing rooms to each porch, and two small porches in the back, one of them, we fancied, intended for the servant and the other one for some person who preferred solitude to company, as there was room for only one bed on it.

This porch was the last one we visited and we found it in terrible disarray. There were clothes and shoes all over the floor and the bed was piled high with a conglomeration of sweaters, baseball suits and what not.

"My, what a mess!" I cried, being the first to enter. "And this is the room of all others to get in order, as I fancy Miss Cox, our chaperone, will occupy it."

"Yes, this would be best," said Dum. "She could have more privacy, and then, too, she would escape the morning sun. Here, you girls, catch hold of the corners of the sheet and let's take up all of this trash and 'trun' it down the steps and let Mrs. Rand sort it out."

We laid hold with a good will, but it proved to be very heavy, so heavy, in fact, that just as we got it off the bed, Dee let go her end and the contents fell to the floor with a resounding bump.

CHAPTER II
"SLEEPY."

The mass of bed clothes and sweaters and shoes went through a great upheaval, and an arm, encased in a striped pajama sleeve, was thrust forth. We did what girls always do, we screamed and then we giggled.

"Gee, it's hot!" came in muffled tones. "It's hard enough to be waked before daybreak but you fellows might at least wake me like gentlemen and not pull me out of bed, keeping up such an infernal cackling, too, sounding like a lot of fool girls."

Of course, the thing to do was to get out of the room, or rather off the porch, as fast as we could, but, as Dee and I were at the foot of the bed and the floor space was occupied by the squirming mass, we had no chance to make a graceful exit.

"Jump!" came in a sibilant whisper from Dum, and we got ready for a feat not very difficult for two girls as athletic as we were; but a fit of giggles attacked us and we were powerless to do anything but cling to each other in limp helplessness.

"I'm afraid we would step on it," I managed to squeak out through my convulsions.

"I just dare you to!" spluttered the owner of the arm, and a tousled head emerged and then a hot, fat, red face. It was a rather good-looking face in spite of the fact that it was swollen with sleep and crimson with heat and distorted with rage at having been "awakened before dawn." I never expect again in all my life to see anything half so ludicrous as that boy's expression when it dawned on him that the rude awakening was not the work of his erstwhile companions, but of a lot of "fool girls." His eyes, half shut with sleep and blinking with the glare of unexpected daylight, were blinded for a moment, but as Dee and I still clung to each other and giggled, the youth's eyes began to widen and the mouth, sullen from heavy slumber, formed itself into a panic-stricken O. His face had seemed as red as a face could get, but, no! It took on several shades more of crimson until it was really painful to behold. He did the wisest thing he could possibly have done under the circumstances: hid his head and burrowed deep under the cover.

"Now, jump!" cried Dum; and jump we did, clearing the hurdle in great shape, and then we raced down to Mrs. Rand to tell her of our ridiculous predicament.

"Well, land's sake! Don't that beat all? And you was fixin' to gather him up with the s'iled clothes! 'Twould 'a' served him right if'n you had a-trunned him down the steps and let him take his chanct with the la'ndry." And the old woman laughed until her Mrs. Wiggs knot came down and she had to put down her scrubbing brush and twist it up. "I'm about through here and I'll go up and 'ten' to him."

"Oh, Mrs. Rand, I am sure he is up by this time, and the poor fellow is embarrassed enough. Don't say anything to him," begged Dee.

"I ain't so sho 'bout that. I spec it's the one they call 'Sleepy,' an' if'n it is, he's mo'n apt to be gone back to bed," and she stalked like a grenadier up the steps to rout out poor "Sleepy."

Two boys came up on the piazza as we turned from viewing the now spotless kitchen, and, caps in hand, asked to see Mrs. Rand. They were what that lady would have called a "likely pair." Both were dressed in white flannels and had the unmistakable look of clean-living athletes.

Mrs. Rand's voice was heard from the balcony as she rapped sharply on the dressing-room door:

"You, there! Git up! This ain't no tramps' hotel."

Then a growl came from the den as from a wounded, sore-headed bear.

"Sleepy!" gasped the boys, and they went off into roars of laughter in which we perforce joined them. "Not up yet!"

Mrs. Rand, coming down the steps from her valiant attack on the back sleeping porch, espied the laughing boys and renewed the offensive:

"Now what's bringing you here? This here cottage ain't yourn no longer. If'n youse after that fat sleepy-head up thar you is welcome to him, but what's the reason you didn't take him with you, I can't see."

"You see, Mrs. Rand, it's this way," said the taller of the two boys, approaching Mrs. Rand with an engaging smile. "We did wake up Sleepy and then piled all his clothes on top of him, thinking the weight and heat of them would make it impossible for him to sleep longer. We had to go get our tents pitched and provision our camp and we couldn't stay to see that our scheme worked. We are mighty sorry if it has caused you any trouble or annoyance."

"No trouble to me," and Mrs. Rand gave a snaggled-tooth smile at the polite young man, "but it was some trouble for these young ladies; which no doubt is the reason, these young ladies, I mean, that t'other young fellow is so busy winking at me about, kinder specting me to hand out a interduction. Well, as I'm what you might call chaperoon 'til their paw comes, I'll favor you and make you acquainted;" which she did with stiff formality. The tall boy was named James Hart, and the other one, the winker, Stephen White, but he was never again to be known as Stephen, or even Steve, for on and after that first day of July he was known as "Wink." Boys are quick to give a nickname and slow to relinquish a joke on one of their companions.

"Mrs. Rand," said Wink, (I'll begin now to call these boys by the names we soon knew them by,) "we simply hate to be a nuisance to you and to these young ladies but we can't provision our camp for the reason that we have lost all our money. I was almost sure I had put the money in my pocket, but now that I can't find it, I am hoping maybe I left it here somewhere."

"No, you didn't, young man. Th' ain't no money loose 'round here," and Mrs. Rand got ready for battle.

"Oh, the wallet!" we cried in chorus, and Dee rushed upstairs and came down in a trice bearing the wallet, watch, old cap and shoes.

"My, what a relief!" sighed Wink. "I am supposed to be the careful member of the crowd, so they intrusted me with all the funds, and this is the way I behaved. Your watch, Jim! I fancy your great-grandfather would turn in his grave if he knew how careless you were. And old Rags left his cap and shoes! I am glad I wasn't the only forgetter."

"Well, I'm a-thinking, young men, that it's a good thing this here cottage is owned by a respectable woman an' the July tenants is what they is, or you'd be minus some prop'ty. That there Sleepy up there come mighty near being bundled up in the s'iled linen an' sent to the la'ndry, an' if'n these young ladies hadn't a-been what they is yo' camp never would 'a' been provisioned. But now I must git to work an' clear out that there upstairs," and Mrs. Rand betook herself to the regions above.

"Please tell us about Sleepy," begged Jim Hart. "Did he get mixed up with the laundry?" But the Tuckers and I felt that poor Sleepy had had embarrassment enough and were mum as to our experience with him that morning.

"Come on, Jim, let's go up and see him. Maybe he is too shy to come out," and the two boys went up two steps at a time to rout out their embarrassed friend.

The bird had flown. There was no trace of the poor fat boy. The clothes which had filled the room were gone; the boy was gone; and only a hole in the sand below gave silent witness to his manner of flight.

"Well, poor Sleepy, if he hasn't jumped off the porch and gone, bag and baggage! He almost dug a well in the process of going. That was some jump, I can tell you," and Jim and Wink came down in a broad grin.

"What is Sleepy's real name?" I asked.

"George Massie, a perfectly good name, and he is the best old fellow in the world, especially when he is asleep, which he is on long stretches. In fact, most of the time, except in football season, and then you bet he is awake and up and doing. He is on the University Eleven and is sure to be captain next year," answered Jim.

I was rather glad to hear of his prowess in football as it meant that the poor, sleepy boy could take care of himself if his companions teased him too much in their anxiety to hear what had occurred. A centre rush on a college eleven does not have to submit to much teasing.

"We are certainly obliged to you ladies for your kindness in finding our belongings, and when we get our camp in order we hope you will come to see us. We understand there is to be quite a party of you," said Wink, preparing to depart.

"Yes, besides Miss Cox, our chaperone, there are to be two more girls with us for the whole month and our father is to bring down week-end parties from Richmond. We are to have some boys for part of the time but we can't stand them as steady things," blundered Dum.

"Well, come on, Jim, we don't want to get in bad the first thing. To become popular with this young lady we must make ourselves scarce," and they went gaily off, while we returned to assist Mrs. Rand until our luggage arrived. When it came, we unpacked at once, and then were ready for the lunch which we had brought with us from Richmond.

We had a busy afternoon visiting the little shops, laying in our housekeeping supplies and interviewing the swarm of hucksters and fish mongers that sprang up like magic the moment the word had gone forth that a new tenant had arrived. Our cook was not to come until the next day so we were very cautious in ordering, being well aware of our limitations in the culinary art. Dum wanted to have baked, stuffed red snapper the first night because Zebedee was so fond of it, but Dee and I vetoed it and we got Spanish mackerel to broil instead.

"We simply live on fish at the beach. I hope you like it, Page," said Dee, "because you fare pretty badly down here if you don't."

"Of course I do; and I am going to eat a lot of it so I can become fishy and learn to swim. It is a terrible mortification to me that I can't swim."

"Why, honey, Zebedee can teach you in one lesson, just so you are not timid," and Dee put her arm around me. "There is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. You could hardly have learned to swim in your grandfather's hat-tub."