IXFOLKLORE AND POLITICS
THAT fall Mary and Cynthia went to college. The preparation for this event of events had been almost more overwhelming than the journey itself and those first over-crowded, uncomfortable days away from home. In extent and quality their new wardrobes were in themselves unbelievable. A half dozen times a day they experienced entirely unaccustomed thrills as they raised the lids of their new trunks and gazed upon outfits in which blue gingham and serge did not predominate. Their graduation frocks with Mary Christmas’ lace were, of course, their best dresses, to be reserved for the gayest of parties; but there was a sprigged muslin apiece for second best and—wonder of wonders!—silk gowns in brown and dark red for Sundays, with wide shoulder-collars of heavy white embroidery. Blue serge, indeed,was absent, except for their sailor suits for everyday and for the most startling innovation of all, their gymnasium suits.
Now those gymnasium suits had caused more problematical musing than all the other effects of the wardrobes combined. The college catalogue had announced them as necessities, and some forceful woman in a high position had sent explicit directions for their manufacture. And yet Father Wescott, when Cynthia and Mary turned around slowly before him, was frankly puzzled, and would, I fear, have been remonstrant had not the realization of his faith in legitimate authority prevented him. As for Mrs. Wescott, it is not too much to say that her sense of rectitude had been outraged. Indeed, upon the first trying on, she remarked with no lack of decision that she almost preferred her daughters to remain uneducated than to appear in such clothing. She became somewhat reconciled, however, when she discovered that if Cynthia and Mary remained perfectly stationary the bloomers might easily be mistaken for short and full skirts; and the girls were wise enough not to raise the objectionthat in all probability they could not stand still indefinitely in a gymnasium. Mrs. Wescott worried also over the local seamstress; for in spite of the tax imposed upon her ingenuity by the modeling of these extraordinary garments, she had taken occasion to express her opinion of them in no uncertain terms, and Mrs. Wescott did not feel that she could so impair her own dignity as to make a plea for secrecy.
But the passage of time had somewhat minimized even these forebodings, and the great day had come and gone, leaving Mrs. Wescott with ample time to study at close range the psychology of boyhood in the early teens, and plunging Mary and Cynthia into a sea of new events and places, new personalities and studies, which, after the first few days, allowed no room for homesickness.
They were, although they did not know it, particularly fortunate in the college life of their age. It was, in a sense, more peculiarly receptive than in these latter days. Like the hungry multitude waiting for the loaves and fishes, students “sat down” in order that they might be fed, and were miraculouslysupplied. In still another scriptural phrase, they “asked”; therefore, they received. And all this largely because the individual had not yet discovered himself through the aid of intelligence tests, vocational guidance, and other encouragements toward self-analysis. If Mary and Cynthia Wescott possessed complexes of various sorts, they were not made aware of the fact; and if they were temperamentally unsuited to quadratic equations, no one incited them to act upon this convenient truth. They and their associates without doubt missed much, but they escaped at least the minute dissection of their own natures, and were thus able in later years to be genially surprised upon the occasional discovery of themselves.
Vocational guidance they entirely escaped. No expert, after an interview of ten exhaustive minutes, told them for what they were best fitted. In those days young men and women did what seemed at the time the nearest and best thing to do. Mary and Cynthia, it is true, were more fortunate than most in this respect. Having known Mary Christmas, they needed no vocationaladviser. Mary Wescott knew before she had been two years at college that the thing she was most interested in (that is, next to William Howe) was the study of races of people, their history, their customs, their possibilities in the light of American citizenship, and that, if she could only forget William, she wanted to work with such people in some great city. As for Cynthia, she had been sure, ever since the day when she played the penitent pilgrim in the snow, that she wanted to study great literature and some day to unlock for others the door to the majesty of its presence. She had another dream, too. Even more than she wanted to show to others the beauty and magic of words, she longed to write them herself—words that should make one feel the calm arrogance of bright noons on high, treeless plains, words that should suggest the intimacy of those same plains, silver-mantled, at midnight. And when she dreamed this dream a blue light, the color of harebells in sunshine, crept into her clear gray eyes and lingered there.
So it was that Mary Christmas went tocollege with Mary and Cynthia Wescott, the presence of her spirit enlightening and coloring their hopes and plans for the future. Once, indeed, she came herself, in gold-laced bodice and red silk handkerchief; for so many of Cynthia’s themes had to do with Armenia, its plains, its saints, its legends, and with Mary Christmas herself, that her teacher, whose one passion in life was folklore, inquired about Mary Christmas and suggested that she be invited to come and sing her songs before a society with a long and learned name. Thereupon, the invitation was sent to Portland and received with much bewildered pride; and Mary Christmas, following Cynthia’s directions to the letter, left her pushcart, her green suit, and her red hat, and journeyed to the college, where she was met by Mary and Cynthia and conducted before the learned society. There, her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes haunted by the same flames which had burned and glowed on that day so long ago beneath the orchard trees, she sang her songs, the songs of Vartan, of the Virgin and her festival, and of Artasches and Satenik, upon whom the graciousheavens showered gold and pearls. She told her stories, too—the old, familiar tales of her childhood and of theirs. Mary and Cynthia, sitting with their friends in the front of the room, were conscious of thousands of memories thronging back upon them. It was then, perhaps for the first time, that they realized fully the part that Mary Christmas had played in their lives; but, conscious of the scholastic atmosphere into which they had been suddenly thrust, they strove, in spite of the tears behind their eyes, to appear extremely academic. Meanwhile, the excited professor took notes furiously, and in due time published his “findings” in an article which left out Mary Christmas entirely, and which, since it was printed in the dullest of periodicals, was read only by himself and by other college professors.
In point of fact, Mary Christmas came once more to college, although this second visit was not generally known. She came one evening in the spring of Mary’s and Cynthia’s last year, and she brought Mary Wescott with her, much to the relief of Cynthiaand of their house-mother, a tall, gaunt woman who felt her responsibilities. Waiting that afternoon in the Boston station for a train that would take her home after an unusual journey to that city for shopping in the larger markets, Mary Christmas was startled by the familiar face of Mary Wescott, now almost unfamiliar through anxiety and fear. She was sitting on the edge of one of the long waiting-seats, her scanty luggage beside her, her large eyes feverishly watching the unceasing line of people who came and went through the great doors. There was something about her strained, eager face, so intent upon the passing hundreds, that made Mary Christmas check her impulsive steps toward her and sit down at the farther end of the long seat just behind, from which, by rising occasionally, she could see without being seen.
Before a few minutes had passed she had become convinced that her own presence was quite safe from discovery. Mary Wescott had not the slightest interest in those about her. Her anxious gaze never for one moment left the great entrance doors. She wasobviously waiting for someone, and, as Mary Christmas studied her face, she was convinced that that someone was no Wescott or chance relative unaccustomed to city ways.
When Mary Christmas heard the big man at the door call her train in his trumpet-like voice, she did not seize her big bundle and go. She waited yet another ten minutes—fifteen—twenty. Then through the station doors, his big suitcase indiscriminately bumping the shins of his fellow men, tore William Howe, with all the anxiety which could not find room on Mary’s face on his own.
Mary Christmas allowed them five hungry minutes for looking at each other before she left her seat behind them. Perhaps she needed that time to swallow something big that had crept into her throat. And when she did approach them, still gazing at each other, the upbraiding words which she had planned quite left her tongue. For all at once, to her who had lived over again the sad passing of so many centuries, Mary and William had become suddenly very young and needy.
Perhaps, as she came with such startling swiftness within their line of vision, they felt a high, classic rage at this retribution-bearing Nemesis; but they looked only like two children, fairly and inextricably caught. Mary Christmas did not say one word as she looked at them, and William felt it again incumbent upon him to manage the conversation, the motif of which, he quickly decided, must be determination at any cost.
“There isn’t a bit of use for you to try to stop us, Mary Christmas,” he began, looking appealingly at Mary, who had suddenly sat down again beside her luggage. “We’re running away together, and we’re going to be married. I’ve got the license, and we’re more than twenty-one. Besides, it’s a necessity. They won’t let us be married this summer—even with all the prospects I’ve got and more than a thousand in the bank. They’ve just told Mary so. It’s an outrage to make us wait! Just as if I couldn’t take care of her! In less than two years I’ll be third vice-president of the company. It’s as good as settled. So we’ve just decided to take matters into our own hands.And I tell you again, Mary Christmas, there isn’t a bit of use for you to interfere.”
Mary Christmas did not interfere. She looked at Mary Wescott, and knew by a prophetic gift of insight that Mary was trying to reconcile romance as she had pictured it with this sinking, frightful feeling in the region of her heart.
“Do you want to run away like this, Mary?” she asked gently.
“Yes,” faltered Mary. “At least—I did—Ido—because I think it’s necessary. William needs me. He lives in a terrible boarding-house—and—”
“That’s not it,” broke in William, “at least it’s not the main thing. The main thing is, they don’t understand how we feel. They’re unreasonable, like my father and mother. If I couldn’t support her, it would be different. But I can. Besides I’ve got reason to think that Mary’s father doesn’t like me anyway.” He looked now at Mary as though ties of blood demanded that she receive this accusation.
“It’s William’s politics,” she faltered again. “He’s a Democrat, and fatherisunreasonable.At Christmas, when I talked with him, he said he hoped William would change. But William won’t!” Decision had crept into her voice. “And I’m glad! I wouldn’t marry a man who would change his politics—even for my father.”
Mary Christmas was quick to detect a quality which had crept into her last words.
“Even for your father.” She repeated Mary’s words. “Your father. How do you suppose he will feel when he hears you would not wait? And your mother, too?”
“It’s not just a case of waiting,” interrupted William, to the relief of Mary, who was in no condition to answer Mary Christmas’ questions. “If we could be sure about a year from now—but we can’t! And it’s right about my politics. Mr. Wescott has insulted my party.” William drew himself up proudly. “He has said openly that no intelligent person could be a Democrat.”
“It’s been awfully hard for William,” said Mary from behind her handkerchief.
William consulted his watch. “There’s no use standing here talking, Mary Christmas.” There was finality in his tone. “I’ve got twofriends waiting for us now, and we’re due at the church at five o’clock. You can tell them that you saw us here if you like. Of course, we’ll telegraph them just as soon as we’re married. And they needn’t any of them worry over Mary. I’ll be good to her all my life—even if I am a Democrat! And I’m not urging her to be married this way. We talked it all over when I was out at college a week ago.”
“They needn’t blame William!” cried Mary with the last spurt of a dying spirit. “I planned itall—myself!”
For a moment Mary Christmas was in a quandary. Here was the time and place for the interference that must come; but how should she interpose it? And then something happened, almost miraculously, which took away all necessity for it.
“You know you haven’t any right to interfere with us, Mary Christmas,” cried William. “Not the least in the world!”
Then down upon Mary Wescott’s tired head there came tumbling her house of romance, as a child’s colored blocks fall which he has put together with too unsteady hands.Mary Christmas no right to interfere! She, who through all these years had lent color and light and reality to their world?She, no right?
“Oh, William!” sobbed Mary Wescott. And that was all.
There were among the guests at Mary Wescott’s wedding, which was held on a Mary Christmas day the year following her graduation from college, those who wondered not a little critically when at the close of the ceremony the bride threw her arms around the neck of Mary Christmas before she had kissed even her own mother and father. There were those, too, who questioned the taste of the Wescotts in inviting Mary Christmas, even in a new suit and hat, to stand within the family circle. But there will always be those, as everyone is aware, and neither they nor anything else could mar the perfection of that Mary Christmas day.
It is quite safe to say also that not a few searching glances studied Father Wescott’s face as he shook hands with his new son-in-law;but not one was keen enough to perceive that for which all had been sent—the assurance that, beneath his cordial acceptance of William, he was sadly reviewing a party’s history from the Spoils System to Free Silver!