How could her mother be so easily influenced? She must consider Mr.
Parker very well worth while to stay at camp just to see him. That was
the reason for all of this extra washing and ironing Susan had on hand.
Nan loved her mother devotedly but she had begun to feel that perhaps
she was a very--well, to say the least--a very frivolous lady. Nan's
judgment was in a measure more mature than Helen's although Helen was
almost two years her senior. Where Helen loved, she loved without any
thought of the loved one's having any fault. She wondered now that her
mother should have known of Mr. Parker's coming without mentioning it,
but as for that little lady's dressing up to see this society man, why,
that was just as it should be. She had absolutely no inkling of her
mother's maneuvering to push Douglas toward a successful debut. Susan's
intimation that Douglas was to preserve her complexion for Mr. Parker's
benefit was simply nonsense. Susan was after all a very foolish colored
girl who had gotten things mixed. Douglas was to protect her delicate
blond skin for all society, not for any particular member of it.
The train arrived bearing many week-enders and among them Zebedee and
the precious Mr. Hiram G. Parker, looking his very fittest in a pearl
gray suit with mauve tie and socks and a Panama hat that had but
recently left the block. Zebedee could not help smiling at the fine
wardrobe trunk that his companion had brought and comparing it with his
own small grip with its changes of linen packed in the bottom and the
boxes of candy for Tweedles and Page squeezed on top.
"Thank Heaven, I don't have a reputation to keep up!" he said to
himself.
The wardrobe trunk was not very large, not much more bulky than a
suitcase but it had to be carried up the mountain by Josephus and its
owner seemed to be very solicitous that it should be stood on the proper
end.
"One's things get in an awful mess from these mountain roads. A
wardrobe trunk should be kept upright, otherwise even the most skillful
packing cannot insure one that trousers will not be mussed and coats
literally ruined."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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