"For yesterday is but a dream,And to-morrow is only a vision;But to-day well-lived, makesEvery yesterday a dream of happinessAnd every to-morrow a vision of hope.Look well, therefore, to this day!Such is the Salutation of the Dawn."
The Ware breakfast-table seemed to be the place where they all gathered to get a good start for the day. It was Mrs. Ware who gave it, and gave it unconsciously, not so much by what she said, aswhat she was. One felt her hopefulness, her serenity of soul, as one feels the cheer of a warm hearthstone.
Pink could not recall one word she had said to stimulate his ambition, but when he rode away on one horse, leading the other, he was trying to adjust himself to a new set of standards. He felt that there was something to live for besides taking in dimes over the counter of a country store. One thing happened at breakfast which made him glow with pleasure whenever he thought of it. It was the quick look of approval which Mary flashed him when he answered one of her sallies by a quotation about green spectacles.
"Oh, you know the old Vicar too!" she exclaimed, as if claiming mutual acquaintance with a real friend. "Don't you love him?"
Pink was glad that some interruption spared him the necessity of an enthusiastic assent. He had not been specially thrilled by the book, so far as he had read, but he attacked it manfully again that night, feeling that there must be more in it than he had wit to discover, else the Wares would not have adopted it as "guide, philosopher and friend."
Snow lay deep over Lone-Rock, muffling every sound. It was so still in the cozy room where Jack sat reading by the lamp, that several times he found himself listening to the intense silence, as if it had been a noise. No one moved in the house. He and Mary were alone together, and she on the other side of the table was apparently as interested in a pile of letters which she was re-reading as he was in his story. But presently, when he finished it and tossed the magazine aside, he saw that his usually jolly little sister was sitting in a disconsolate bunch by the fire, her face buried in her hands.
She had pushed the letters from her lap, and the open pages lay scattered around her on the floor. There were five of them, from different employment agencies. Jack had read them all before supper, just as he had been reading similar ones at intervals for the last two months and a half. The answers had always been disappointing, but untilto-day they had come singly and far apart. Undismayed, she had met them all in the spirit of their family motto, insisting that fortune would be compelled to change in her favor soon. She'd be so persistent it couldn't help itself.
Five disappointments, however, all coming by the same post, were more than she could meet calmly. Besides, these were the five positions which seemed the most promising. The thought that they were the last on her list, and that there was no clue now left for her to follow, was the thought that weighed her down with the heaviest discouragement she had ever felt in all her life. She had made a brave effort not to show it when Jack came home to supper earlier in the evening. The two ate alone for the first time that she could remember, Mrs. Ware and Norman having been invited to take supper with the Downs family. It was a joint birthday anniversary, Billy Downs and his mother happening to claim the same day of the month, though many years apart.
Mary talked cheerfully of the reports Billy had brought of the two cakes that were to adorn the table, one with fifteen candles for him and the boys, and one with forty-eight icing roses for his mother and her friends. She had put on a brave, even ajolly front, until this last re-reading of her letters. Now she had given away to such a sense of helplessness and defeat that it showed in every line of the little figure huddled up in front of the fire.
Jack noticed it as he tossed aside his magazine and sat watching her a moment. Then he exclaimed sympathetically, "Cheer up, Mary. Never mind the old letters. You'll have better luck next time."
There was no answer. A profound silence followed, so deep that he could hear the ticking of a clock across the hall, coming faintly through closed doors.
"Cheer up, Sis!" he exclaimed again, knowing that if he could only start her to talking she would soon drag herself out of her slough of despond.
"Don't all the calendars and cards nowadays tell you tosmile, no matter what happens? Don't you know that
"'The man worth while is the man who can smileWhen everything goes dead wrong?'"
His question drew the retort he hoped for, and she exclaimed savagely, "Ihatethose silly old cheerfulness calendars! And deliver me from people who follow their advice! It's just as foolish to go through life smiling at every kind of circumstances that fate hands out as it would be to wearfurs in all kinds of weather, even the dog-days. What's the use of pretending that the sun is shining when everybody can see that the rain's simply drenching you and that you're as bedraggled as a wet hen?"
"Well, the sunisshining," persisted Jack. "Always, somewhere. Our little rain clouds don't stop it. All they can do is to hide it from us awhile."
"You tell that to old Noah," grumbled Mary, her face still hidden in her hands. "Much good the sun behind his rain clouds did him! If he hadn't had an ark he'd have been washed off the face of the earth like the other flood sufferers. Seems to me it's sort of foolish to smile when you've been swept clean down and out. Five turn-downs in one day—"
Her voice broke, and she gave the scattered letters an impatient push with her foot. Her tone of unusual bitterness stopped Jack's playful attempt to console her. He sat looking into the fire a little space, considering what to say. When he spoke again it was in a firm, quiet tone, almost fatherly in its kindness.
"There's no reason, Mary, for you to be so utterly miserable over your disappointments. There is no actual need for you to go out into the worldto make your own living and fight your own way. It was different when I was a helpless cripple. Then I had to sit by and watch you and Joyce and mother struggle to keep us all afloat. But I'm able to furnish a very comfortable little ark for you now, and I'd be glad to have you stay in it always. I didn't interfere when you first announced your intention of starting out to seek your fortune, because I knew you'd never be satisfied to settle down in this quiet mining camp until you'd tried something different. But now the question of your staying here seems to have been settled for you, there's no use letting the disappointment down you so completely. What's your big brother for if not to take care of you?"
"Oh, Jack! You're an old darling!" she cried, with tears in her eyes. "It's dear of you to put it that way, and I do appreciate it even if I don't seem to. But—there's something inside of me that just won't let me settle down to be taken care of by my family. I have my own place to make in the world. I have my own life to live!"
She saw his amused, indulgent smile and cried out indignantly, "Well, you'd scorn aboywho'd be satisfied with that kind of life. Just because I'm a girl is no reason that I should be dependenton you the rest of my days. You wouldn't want Norman to."
"No," admitted Jack, "but that is different. I should think you could understand how a fellow feels about his little sister when he's the head of the family. He regards her as one of his first responsibilities, to look out for her and take care of her."
Mary straightened up in her chair and looked at him with a perplexed expression, saying in a slow, puzzled way, "Jack, it makes me almost cross-eyed trying to see your way and my way at the same time. Your way is so dear and sweet and generous that I feel like a dog to say a word against it, and yet—pleasedon't get mad—itisan old-fashioned way. Nowadays girls don't want to be kept at home on a shelf like a piece of fragile china. When they're well and strong and capable of taking care of themselves they want a chance to strike out and realize their ambitions just as a boy would. Joyce did it, and look what she's doing for herself and how happy she is."
"Yes," he admitted. "Her work is her very life, and her success in it means just as much to her as mine here at the mines does to me. But I can't see what particular ambition you'd be realizing in filling any of the positions you've applied for. You couldn't do more than drudge along and make a bare living at first. There'd be very little time and energy left for ambitions."
"Well, I'd be satisfying one of them at any rate," she persisted. "I'd be at least 'paddling my own canoe' and making a place for myself where I'd be really needed. Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say," she added hurriedly, as he tried to interrupt her. "Just what mamma said, that you do need me here to keep things stirred up and lively. That might be all right if we were going to live along this way always. If you'd settle down to be a nice comfortable old bachelor, I could try to be an ideal old-fashioned spinster sister. But you'll be getting married some day, and then I won't be needed at all, and it'll be too late for me to strike out then and be a modern, up-to-date bachelor maid like Miss Henrietta Robbins. I know that Captain Doane says that old maid aunts are the salt of the earth," she added, a twinkle in her eyes taking the place of the tear which she hastily dashed away with the back of her hand, "but I don't want to be one in somebody else's home. If I have to be one at all I want to be the Miss Henrietta kind. But," she admitted honestly,"I'd rather marry some day, after I'd done all the other things I've planned to, and no Prince Charming will ever find his way to Lone-Rock. You know that perfectly well."
Jack threw back his head to laugh at the dolorous tone of her confession, and then grew suddenly sober, staring into the fire, as if her remarks had started a very serious train of thoughts. The snow-muffled silence was so deep that again the ticking of the distant clock sounded through closed doors.
"Sometimes," he began presently, "when I see the way you chafe at the loneliness here, and hate the monotony and long so desperately to get away, I wonder if any girl would be happy here. If I would have a right even to ask one to share such a life with me."
Mary gave him a keen, penetrating glance, her pulses throbbing at this beginning of a confidence. She hesitated to say anything, for fear her reply might stop him, but when he seemed waiting for her answer she said with a worldly-wise air, "That depends on the girl. If it were Kitty Walton or Gay or Roberta, they'd be simply bored to death up here. They're so used to constant entertainment. But if it were somebody like Betty, it wouldbe different. Lone-Rock isn't any lonesomer than the Cuckoo's Nest was, and she loved that place. And this would be a good quiet spot where she could go on with her writing, so she wouldn't have to give up her ambition."
Then, feeling that perhaps she was expatiating too much in the direction of Betty, she added hastily, "But there's one thing I hadn't thought of. Of course that would make it all right for any kind of a girl, even for a Gay or a Roberta.You'dbe her Prince Charming, so of course you'd 'live happily ever after.'"
Again Jack laughed heartily, lying back in the big Morris chair. Then reaching out for the paper cutter on the table, he began toying with it as he often did when he talked. But this time, instead of saying anything, he sat looking into the fire, slowly drawing the ivory blade in and out through his closed fingers.
The fore-log burned through, suddenly broke apart between the andirons, and falling into a bed of glowing coals beneath, sent a puff of ashes out on to the hearth. Mary leaned forward to reach for the turkey-wing hanging beside the tongs. There had always been a turkey-wing beside her Grandmother Ware's fireplace. That is why Maryinsisted on using one now instead of a modern hearth-broom. It suggested so pleasantly the housewifely thrift and cleanliness of an earlier generation which she loved to copy. She had prepared this wing herself, stretching and drying it under a heavy weight, and binding the quill ends into a handle with a piece of brown ribbon.
"'I WISH WE COULD SETTLE THINGS BY A FEATHER, AS THEY USED TO IN THE OLD FAIRY TALES.'""'I WISH WE COULD SETTLE THINGS BY A FEATHER, AS THEY USED TO IN THE OLD FAIRY TALES.'"
Now as she flirted it briskly across the hearth, a tiny fluff of down detached itself from one of the stiff quills, and floated to the rug. When she picked it up it clung to her fingers, and only after repeated attempts did she succeed in dislodging it, and in blowing it into the fire.
"I wish we could settle things by a feather, as they used to in the old fairy tales," she said wistfully, looking after the bit of down. "Just say:
"'Feather, feather, when I blowPoint the way that I should go.'
Then there would be no endless worry and waiting and indecision. It would be up to the feather to settle the matter."
"Why not wish for your 'witch with a wand,' as you used to do?" asked Jack. "There used to be a time when scarcely a day passed that you did not make that wish."
Mary's answer was a sudden exclamation anda clasping of her hands together as she turned towards him, her face radiant.
"Jack, you've given me an idea! Don't you remember that's what we took to calling Cousin Kate after she gave Joyce that trip abroad, and did so many lovely things for all of us—our witch with a wand! I've a notion to write to her and I ask her if she can't help me get a position of some kind. Didn't she endow a library in the little village where she was born? Seems to me I remember hearing something about it a long time ago. Maybe I could get a position in it."
Jack shook his head decidedly. "No, Mary, I don't like your idea at all. She did endow a library, and she's interested in so many things of the kind that she could doubtless pull strings in all directions. But mother wouldn't like to have you ask any favors of her, I'm sure. I wouldn't do it myself, and I shouldn't think you'd want to, after all she's done for us."
"But I'd not be asking her for money orthings," declared Mary. "I'd only ask her to use her influence, and I don't see why she wouldn't be as willing to do it for her own 'blood and kin' as she would for working girls and Rest Cottage people and fresh-air babies. I'm going to try it anyhow.I'll take all the blame myself. I'll tell her that mamma doesn't know I'm writing, and that you told me not to."
"But she's been out of touch with us for so long," persisted Jack, frowning. "She promised once, that if Joyce reached a certain point in her work she'd give her a term or two in Paris, and Joyce reached it a year ago. Cousin Kate knows it, for she was at the studio and saw for herself what Joyce was doing, but she was so interested in two blind children that she had taken under her wing, that she couldn't talk of anything else. She had gone down to New York to consult some specialist about them, and she was considering adopting them. She told Joyce that she wouldn't hesitate, only she had made such inroads on her capital to keep up her social settlement work, that there was danger of her ending her own days in some kind of an asylum or old ladies' home. She nearly lost her own sight several years ago. That is why she takes such an especial interest in those two children."
Mary considered his news in silence a moment, then remarked stubbornly, "She might like to have me come on and help take care of the blind children. At any rate it will cost only a postage stamp to findout, and I can afford that much of an investment. I'll write now, before mamma gets back."
Knowing that the composition of such a letter would be a long and painstaking affair, Mary did not risk beginning it on her precious monogram stationery. She brought out some scraps of paper instead, and with the arm of her chair for a desk, scribbled down with a pencil a rough draft of all she wanted to say to this Cousin Kate, who had been the good fairy of her childhood. Many erasures and changes were necessary, and it was nearly an hour later when she read it all over, highly pleased with her own production. She wondered how it would affect Jack, and glanced over at him, so sure of its excellence that she was tempted to read it aloud. But Jack, having read himself drowsy, had gone to sleep in his chair, and she knew that even if she should waken him by clashing the tongs or upsetting the rocker, he would not be in a mood to appreciate her epistle as it deserved.
So she sat jabbing the paper with her pencil till it had a wide border of dots and dashes, while she pictured to herself the probable effect of the letter on her Cousin Kate. Hope sprang up again as buoyant as if it had not been crushed to earth a score of times in the last few months, and shethought exultingly, "Nowthiswill surely bring a satisfactory reply!"
A far-away jingle of sleigh-bells sounded presently, coming nearer and nearer down the snowy road, then stopped in front of the house. Mr. Downs was bringing the birthday banqueters home in his sleigh, according to promise.
Mary sprang up to open the door. At the first faint sound of the bells she had folded the sheet of paper into a tiny square, and tucked it into her belt. She had a feeling that Jack was wrong about her writing to Cousin Kate, and that her mother would not disapprove as strongly as he seemed to think she would, if the matter could be put properly before her. But she intended to take no risks. There would be time enough to confess what she had done when the answer came, promising her the coveted position.
Mrs. Ware and Norman came in glowing from their sleigh-ride.
"You certainly must have had a good time," exclaimed Mary, noticing the unusual animation of her mother's face. "You ought to go to a birthday dinner every night if it can shake you up and make you look as young and bright-eyed as you do now."
"Oh, it isn't that," laughed Mrs. Ware, as Jack took her heavy coat from her and Mary her furs. "We did have a beautiful time, but it isthiswhich has gone to my head."
She took a letter from the muff which Mary had just laid on a chair, and as soon as she could slip off her gloves, began to unfold it without waiting to lay aside her hat.
"It's a letter from Joyce which that naughty Norman has been carrying around all day. He didn't remember to give it to me until he was putting on his overcoat to start home, and discovered it in one of the pockets. I justhadto open it while the other guests were making their adieus, and I've read enough to set me all in a whirl. Joyce's long dreamed of happiness has come at last! She's to go to Paris in a few weeks, but first—she's coming home to spend Christmas with us!"
Mrs. Ware paused to enjoy the effect of her announcement. She was in such a quiver of delight herself that Mary's happy cry of astonishment and Jack's excited exclamation did not do justice to the occasion. Only long-legged Norman's demonstration seemed adequate. Standing on his head he turned one somersault after another across the room, till he landed perilously near Mary, who gavehim a sharp tweak of the ear as he came up in a sitting posture beside her.
"Oh, you wretch!" she exclaimed. "To keep such news in your pocket all day! I'm going to tell Captain Doane never to give you any letters again, if you can't deliver them more promptly than that!"
"Sh!" she added, as Norman began a string of excuses for his forgetfulness. "Mamma is going to read it aloud."
"Beloved Family," the letter began. "Ere you have recovered from the shock of the announcement I am about to make, we shall be dismantling the studio, packing our trunks and making preparations to shift our little establishment from New York to Paris. At least, Miss Henrietta and I expect to go to Paris and carry on the same kind of studio-apartment housekeeping that we have done here. Mrs. Boyd and Lucy have gone to Florida, but they may join us next summer."But first, before I put the ocean between us, I'm going home for a glimpse of you all. It is a long journey for such a short visit, but I can't go so far without seeing you all once more, just at Christmas time too, when we've been separated somany Christmases. It is Cousin Kate who has made all this possible. She did not adopt those little blind children after all. She was taken with a spell of typhoid fever while she was trying to make up her mind, and has never been well enough since to consider burdening herself in such a way. She sailed yesterday with her maid for the south of France, by the doctor's orders. Later, if she is better, she is going back to Tours, where she and I had such a happy year. Old Madame Gréville is no longer living in the villa near the Gate of the Giant Scissors, but Cousin Kate hopes to find lodgings near there. She has just spent a week with us while she was making preparations for her journey, and the visit revived all her old interest in my work. She was pleased to find that I am doing practical money-making things like designing book-covers, etc., but she wants me to widen my field, she says."She insists on giving me this year abroad, and says it is pure selfishness on her part, because she may want to attach herself to our Paris establishment later on. She is so alone in the world. I am sure that I can make it up to her some day, all that she is doing for me now, in the way that will make her very happy. So I am accepting as cordially as she is giving. When I told her how long I have been away from you all, and that I thought I'd take part of my savings for a flying visit home, she thought I ought to do so by all means, and said that she wanted to add to the happiness of the family, especially mamma's, by sending a handsome Christmas present back with me."For several days it seemed as if she would not be able to get exactly what she wanted, but it was finally arranged, just at the last moment, after much trouble on her part. It's perfectly grand, but I've sworn not to even hint at what it is. So expect me Christmas Eve with The Surprise. I'll not write again in the meantime, as I am so very, very busy. Till then good-bye."Yours lovingly and joyfully,"Joyce."
"Beloved Family," the letter began. "Ere you have recovered from the shock of the announcement I am about to make, we shall be dismantling the studio, packing our trunks and making preparations to shift our little establishment from New York to Paris. At least, Miss Henrietta and I expect to go to Paris and carry on the same kind of studio-apartment housekeeping that we have done here. Mrs. Boyd and Lucy have gone to Florida, but they may join us next summer.
"But first, before I put the ocean between us, I'm going home for a glimpse of you all. It is a long journey for such a short visit, but I can't go so far without seeing you all once more, just at Christmas time too, when we've been separated somany Christmases. It is Cousin Kate who has made all this possible. She did not adopt those little blind children after all. She was taken with a spell of typhoid fever while she was trying to make up her mind, and has never been well enough since to consider burdening herself in such a way. She sailed yesterday with her maid for the south of France, by the doctor's orders. Later, if she is better, she is going back to Tours, where she and I had such a happy year. Old Madame Gréville is no longer living in the villa near the Gate of the Giant Scissors, but Cousin Kate hopes to find lodgings near there. She has just spent a week with us while she was making preparations for her journey, and the visit revived all her old interest in my work. She was pleased to find that I am doing practical money-making things like designing book-covers, etc., but she wants me to widen my field, she says.
"She insists on giving me this year abroad, and says it is pure selfishness on her part, because she may want to attach herself to our Paris establishment later on. She is so alone in the world. I am sure that I can make it up to her some day, all that she is doing for me now, in the way that will make her very happy. So I am accepting as cordially as she is giving. When I told her how long I have been away from you all, and that I thought I'd take part of my savings for a flying visit home, she thought I ought to do so by all means, and said that she wanted to add to the happiness of the family, especially mamma's, by sending a handsome Christmas present back with me.
"For several days it seemed as if she would not be able to get exactly what she wanted, but it was finally arranged, just at the last moment, after much trouble on her part. It's perfectly grand, but I've sworn not to even hint at what it is. So expect me Christmas Eve with The Surprise. I'll not write again in the meantime, as I am so very, very busy. Till then good-bye.
"Yours lovingly and joyfully,"Joyce."
As Mrs. Ware looked up from her reading, everybody spoke at once. "It's almost too good to be true," was Jack's quick exclamation. "What do you suppose the surprise will be?" Norman's eager question. While Mary, clasping her elbow with her hands, as if hugging herself in sheer ecstasy, cried, "Oh, I justloveto be knocked flat and have my breath taken away with unexpectednews like that! It makes you tingle all over and at the same time have a queer die-away feeling too, like when you swoop down in a swing!"
Mrs. Ware took down the almanac hanging in the chimney corner, and began to turn the pages, looking for the one marked December.
"Oh, you needn't count the days till Christmas," said Mary. "I've been marking them off my calendar every morning and can tell you to a dot. Not that I had expected to take much interest in celebrating this year, but just from force of habit, I suppose. But now we'll have to 'put the big pot in the little one,' as they say back in Kentucky, in honor of our being all together once more."
"All but Holland," corrected Mrs. Ware sadly, with the wistful look which always came into her eyes whenever his name was mentioned. "That's the worst of giving up a boy to the Navy. One has to give him up so completely."
There was such a note of longing in her voice that Jack hastened to say, "But the worst of it is nearly over now, little mother. He'll be home on his first furlough next summer."
"Yes, but the years will have made a man of him," answered Mrs. Ware. "He'll not be the same boy that left us, and he'll be here such a shorttime that we'll hardly have time to make his acquaintance."
"Oh, but think of when he gets to be a high and mighty Admiral," exclaimed Mary, comfortingly. "You'll be so proud of him you'll forget all about the separation. Between him and the Governor I don't know what will happen to your pride. It will be so inflated."
Mary had laughingly called Jack the Governor ever since Mrs. Ware's complacent remark that day on the train, that it would not surprise her to have such an honor come to her oldest son some day.
"And Joyce, don't forgether," put in Norman, feeling in his pocket for a handful of nuts which he had carried away from the birthday feast. "The way she's started out she'll have a place in your hall of fame, too. And me—don't forgetthisAbou Ben Adhem. Probably my name'll lead all the rest. Where doyouexpect to come in, Mary? What willyoudo?"
As he spoke he placed a row of pecans under the rocker of his chair, and bore down on them until the shells cracked. When he had picked out a handful of kernels, he popped them into his mouth all at once.
"We'll write your name as the Great AmericanCormorant," laughed Mary, ignoring his question about herself. "You remember that verse, don't you?
"'C, my dear, is the Cormorant.When he don't eat more it's because he can't.'
"Mamma, didn't he eat anything at all at the Downs'? He's been stuffing ever since he came back—cake and candy, and now those nuts. It's positively disgraceful to carry food away in your pockets the way you do, Norman Ware."
"I always do when I go to Billy's house," answered Norman, undisturbed by her criticism, and crashing his rocker down on a row of almonds. "And Billy always does the same here. We're not company. We're home folks at both places."
The shells which he threw toward the fire missed their aim and fell on the hearth. Mary pointed significantly toward the turkey-wing, and he as significantly shrugged his shoulders, in token that he would not sweep up the mess he had made. They kept up a playful pantomime some time, while Jack and his mother went on discussing Joyce's home-coming, before he finally obeyed her peremptory gesture. He thought she was in one of her jolliest moods, induced by the glorious news ofthe letter. But all the time she was silently repeating his question, "Where doyouexpect to come in, Mary? What willyoudo?"
Here she was, baffled again. The time she had spent in writing that letter, now tucked away under her belt, was wasted. It was out of the question to appeal to Cousin Kate now, just when she had done so much for another member of the family, and especially when she had sailed away to so vague a place as the south of France, by the doctor's orders. Even if Mary had her address, she felt it would be wrong to bother her with a request which would require any "pulling of strings." For that could not be done without letter writing, and in her state of health even that might be some tax on her strength, which she had no right to ask. Hope, that had soared so buoyantly an hour before, once more sank despairingly to earth. What was she to do? Which way could she turn next?
When bedtime came a little later, Mrs. Ware went in to Norman's room to take some extra cover. Mary lingered to pin some newspapers around her potted plants and move them away from the windows. Jack, standing in front of the fireplace, winding the clock on the mantel, saw her slip a folded paper from under her belt, and toss it intothe fire with such a tragic gesture, that he knew without telling that it was the letter on which she had worked so industriously. She saw that he understood and she was grateful that he said nothing.
While they were undressing, Mrs. Ware talked so happily of Joyce's return, that Mary's own glow of anticipation came back. She was not jealous of her sister's good fortune. She had never been that. She was wholly, generously glad for every good thing that had ever come into Joyce's life, and she was so thrilled with the thought of her coming home that she was sure she should lie awake all night thinking about it. But when she snuggled down under the warm covers, it was Norman's question which kept her awake. "Where doyouexpect to come in, Mary? What areyougoing to do?"
What happened in the Christmas holidays which followed is best told in the letter which Mary wrote to Phil Tremont on the last day of the old year.
"Dear Best Man:" it began. "Mamma has asked me to write to you this time in her place, as she has succumbed to an attack of 'reunionitis.' She doesn't call it that, but we know well enough that it is nothing but the excitement and unexpectedness of having a whole family reunion which has frazzled her out so completely. She wrote you that Joyce was coming home, but none of us knew that Holland would be with her.Hewas the surprise—Cousin Kate's Christmas gift to the family. His furlough is not due till next summer, but she said by that time Joyce would be in Paris, and the chances are that if we didn't get together now we might never again be able to; at least for years and years."Cousin Kate is such a solitary soul herself, no relatives nearer than cousins, that she has an immense amount of sentiment for family gatherings, and that is why she gave us such a happy one. She had to go to Washington to arrange it. She has a friend at court in the shape of a senator who was once an intimate school chum of the President's. (We think he was one of her many bygone suitors. Isn't that romantic?) Among them they managed to untie enough red tape to let Holland out."You can imagine our astonishment when he walked in. We almost swooned with joy, and I thought for a moment that mamma really was going to, the surprise was so great. You saw him just before you went to Mexico, so you know how big he has grown, and how impressively dignified he can be on occasion. And polite— My! What a polish the Navy can give! He was so polite that I was awestruck at first, and it was two whole days before I felt familiar enough to dare to refer to the time that he dragged me down the hay-mow by my hair because I wouldn't come any other way."It has been a wonderful week; yet, isn't it queer, as I look back on it, there is nothing at all in it really worth putting into a letter. It is justthat after the first strangeness wore off, we seemed to slip back into the dear old good times of the Wigwam days. You know better than any one else in the world what they were, for you shared them with us so often. You know how we have always enjoyed each other and what entertainment we found in our own conversation and jokes and disputes, so you'll understand exactly what that week was to us, when I say that it was a slice out of the old days."It was better in some ways, however. The future is not such a distressingly unknown quantity as it was then. We don't have to say, 'Let X (a very slim X at that) equal Jack's chances, and minus Y equal Joyce's.' If we could only determine the value of the chances of Mary, we'd soon know the 'length of the whole fish.' 'Member how you moiled and toiled over that old fish problem in Ray's Algebra, to help me to understand it?"Well, I am the puzzling element in the Ware family's equation. It's our problem to find the extent of my resources. I was dreadfully discouraged before Christmas, when every application I sent out was turned down. It seemed to me that if I had one more disappointment I couldn't possibly bear it. But Joyce has almost persuaded meto give up the quest for awhile, at least until spring. I am a year younger than she was when she went away from home, and she thinks that I owe it to mamma to stay with her till I am out of my teens. Mamma hasn't been very well lately. Sometimes I think I could have a very pleasant winter here after all, if I'd just make up my mind to settle down and forget my ambitions. There are mild social possibilities in two of the new families who moved here last fall, and Pink Upham does everything he can think of to make it pleasant. We are going skating to-night, and have a big bonfire on the bank. To-morrow, being New Year's Day, consequently a holiday for him, we are to have a long sleigh-ride over to Hemlock Ridge. The ladies of some lodge in the settlement over there are to serve a turkey dinner in the school-house."I have begun this letter backwards. What I set out to do, first and foremost, was to thank you for the lovely book which you sent with your Yuletide greeting. I read over half of it aloud last night after our Christmas guests departed, and was glad that we had such an interesting story. It kept us from getting doleful."By the way, the heroine is called Bonnie, after the song,Bonnie Eloise. And Joyce said that Eugenia told her that there is an American girl visiting the doctor's family near your construction camp, whom you refer to in your letters as Bonnie Eloise. Eugenia says that she plays the guitar and sings duets with you, and is altogether charming. Is Eloise her real name, or do you call her that because she is bonny like the girl in the book? And does she sing as well as Lloyd Sherman? Do tell us about her the next time you write! Your sayings and doings would interest us even if we were looping the loop socially in gay Gotham and dwelt continually 'in the midst of alarms.' But in the Selkirkian stillness of these solitudes our interest in our friends deepens into something amazing."Mamma says to tell you that we all spoke of you and quoted you many times this week, and wished daily that you were with us. She sends her love and will write as soon as she is able. With all good wishes for your New Year from each of us,Yours, downcast but still inflexible,"Mary."
"Dear Best Man:" it began. "Mamma has asked me to write to you this time in her place, as she has succumbed to an attack of 'reunionitis.' She doesn't call it that, but we know well enough that it is nothing but the excitement and unexpectedness of having a whole family reunion which has frazzled her out so completely. She wrote you that Joyce was coming home, but none of us knew that Holland would be with her.Hewas the surprise—Cousin Kate's Christmas gift to the family. His furlough is not due till next summer, but she said by that time Joyce would be in Paris, and the chances are that if we didn't get together now we might never again be able to; at least for years and years.
"Cousin Kate is such a solitary soul herself, no relatives nearer than cousins, that she has an immense amount of sentiment for family gatherings, and that is why she gave us such a happy one. She had to go to Washington to arrange it. She has a friend at court in the shape of a senator who was once an intimate school chum of the President's. (We think he was one of her many bygone suitors. Isn't that romantic?) Among them they managed to untie enough red tape to let Holland out.
"You can imagine our astonishment when he walked in. We almost swooned with joy, and I thought for a moment that mamma really was going to, the surprise was so great. You saw him just before you went to Mexico, so you know how big he has grown, and how impressively dignified he can be on occasion. And polite— My! What a polish the Navy can give! He was so polite that I was awestruck at first, and it was two whole days before I felt familiar enough to dare to refer to the time that he dragged me down the hay-mow by my hair because I wouldn't come any other way.
"It has been a wonderful week; yet, isn't it queer, as I look back on it, there is nothing at all in it really worth putting into a letter. It is justthat after the first strangeness wore off, we seemed to slip back into the dear old good times of the Wigwam days. You know better than any one else in the world what they were, for you shared them with us so often. You know how we have always enjoyed each other and what entertainment we found in our own conversation and jokes and disputes, so you'll understand exactly what that week was to us, when I say that it was a slice out of the old days.
"It was better in some ways, however. The future is not such a distressingly unknown quantity as it was then. We don't have to say, 'Let X (a very slim X at that) equal Jack's chances, and minus Y equal Joyce's.' If we could only determine the value of the chances of Mary, we'd soon know the 'length of the whole fish.' 'Member how you moiled and toiled over that old fish problem in Ray's Algebra, to help me to understand it?
"Well, I am the puzzling element in the Ware family's equation. It's our problem to find the extent of my resources. I was dreadfully discouraged before Christmas, when every application I sent out was turned down. It seemed to me that if I had one more disappointment I couldn't possibly bear it. But Joyce has almost persuaded meto give up the quest for awhile, at least until spring. I am a year younger than she was when she went away from home, and she thinks that I owe it to mamma to stay with her till I am out of my teens. Mamma hasn't been very well lately. Sometimes I think I could have a very pleasant winter here after all, if I'd just make up my mind to settle down and forget my ambitions. There are mild social possibilities in two of the new families who moved here last fall, and Pink Upham does everything he can think of to make it pleasant. We are going skating to-night, and have a big bonfire on the bank. To-morrow, being New Year's Day, consequently a holiday for him, we are to have a long sleigh-ride over to Hemlock Ridge. The ladies of some lodge in the settlement over there are to serve a turkey dinner in the school-house.
"I have begun this letter backwards. What I set out to do, first and foremost, was to thank you for the lovely book which you sent with your Yuletide greeting. I read over half of it aloud last night after our Christmas guests departed, and was glad that we had such an interesting story. It kept us from getting doleful.
"By the way, the heroine is called Bonnie, after the song,Bonnie Eloise. And Joyce said that Eugenia told her that there is an American girl visiting the doctor's family near your construction camp, whom you refer to in your letters as Bonnie Eloise. Eugenia says that she plays the guitar and sings duets with you, and is altogether charming. Is Eloise her real name, or do you call her that because she is bonny like the girl in the book? And does she sing as well as Lloyd Sherman? Do tell us about her the next time you write! Your sayings and doings would interest us even if we were looping the loop socially in gay Gotham and dwelt continually 'in the midst of alarms.' But in the Selkirkian stillness of these solitudes our interest in our friends deepens into something amazing.
"Mamma says to tell you that we all spoke of you and quoted you many times this week, and wished daily that you were with us. She sends her love and will write as soon as she is able. With all good wishes for your New Year from each of us,
Yours, downcast but still inflexible,"Mary."
Phil answered this letter the day it was received, replying to her question about Eloise in a joking postscript, as if wishing to convey the impression that his interest in her was less than Mary's.
"I forgot to say that Eloise is a name I have bestowed upon the young lady who is visiting the Whites, in exchange for the compliment of her having given my name to her dog. He is a lank, sneaking greyhound which never leaves her side, and was called merely Señor, when she brought him to Mexico. Now she has added Tremonti to his title. She herself is baptized Eliza. She is a pretty, kittenish little thing, deathly afraid of cock-roaches and caterpillars, devoted to frills and fetching furbelows, and fond of taking picturesque poses in the moonlight with the slinky greyhound. No, her voice is not to be compared to the Little Colonel's, but it is sweet and sympathetic, very effective in ballads and simple things. We sing together whenever I happen to drop in at the doctor's, which is several times a week, and I am indebted to her for many pleasant hours, which are doubly appreciated in this desert waste of a place."Now will you answer a few questions for me? Who is this Pink Upham who is 'doing everything to make the winter pleasant' for you? What is his age, his business and his ultimate aim in life? Is he the only available escort to all the social functions of Lone-Rock? You never mention any other. Don't forget what I told you when I said good-byein Bauer, anddon't forget what you promised me then."
"I forgot to say that Eloise is a name I have bestowed upon the young lady who is visiting the Whites, in exchange for the compliment of her having given my name to her dog. He is a lank, sneaking greyhound which never leaves her side, and was called merely Señor, when she brought him to Mexico. Now she has added Tremonti to his title. She herself is baptized Eliza. She is a pretty, kittenish little thing, deathly afraid of cock-roaches and caterpillars, devoted to frills and fetching furbelows, and fond of taking picturesque poses in the moonlight with the slinky greyhound. No, her voice is not to be compared to the Little Colonel's, but it is sweet and sympathetic, very effective in ballads and simple things. We sing together whenever I happen to drop in at the doctor's, which is several times a week, and I am indebted to her for many pleasant hours, which are doubly appreciated in this desert waste of a place.
"Now will you answer a few questions for me? Who is this Pink Upham who is 'doing everything to make the winter pleasant' for you? What is his age, his business and his ultimate aim in life? Is he the only available escort to all the social functions of Lone-Rock? You never mention any other. Don't forget what I told you when I said good-byein Bauer, anddon't forget what you promised me then."
Mary was in the kitchen when that letter was brought in to her. She had just slipped a pan of gingersnaps into the oven, and was rolling out the remainder of the dough to fill another pan. Not even stopping to wipe her floury hands, she walked over to the window, tore open the envelope and began to read. When she came to the end of the postscript she stood gazing out of the window at the back fence, half buried in the drifted snow. What she saw was not the old fence, however. She was gazing back into a sunny April morning in the hills of Texas. She was standing by a kitchen window there, also, but that one was open, and looked out upon a meadow of blue-bonnets, as blue as the sea. And outside, looking in at her, with his arms crossed on the window-sill, was Phil. There was no need for him to write in that postscript, "Don't forget what I told you when I said good-bye in Bauer." She had recalled it so many times in the nine months that had passed since then, that she could repeat every word.
It still seemed just as remarkable now as it hadthen that he should have asked her to promise to let him know if anybody ever came along trying to persuade her "to join him on a new trail," or that he should have said that he wanted "a hand in choosing the right man," and above all that he should have added solemnly, "I have never yet seen anybody whom I considered good enough for little Mary Ware."
If Mary could have known what picture rose up before Phil's eyes as he wrote that postscript, she would have been unspeakably happy. She had so many mortifying remembrances of times when he had caught her looking her very worst, when he had come upon her just emerging from some accident that had left her drenched or smoked or bedraggled, mud-spattered, ink-stained or dust-covered. Holland's recent reminiscences had deepened her impression that she must have been in a wrecked condition half her time, for he had kept the family laughing all one evening, recalling various plights he had rescued her from.
It would have been most soul-satisfying to her could she have known that Phil thought of her oftenest as he had last seen her, standing at the gate in a white and pink dress, fresh as a spring blossom, her sweet sincere eyes looking gravelyinto his as he insisted on a promise, but her dear little mouth smiling mischievously as she vowed, "I'll keep my word. Honest, I will!"
As she recalled that promise now, her face dimpled again as it had then over the absurdity of such a thing. "The idea of Phil's thinking that Pink Upham is anybody to be considered seriously!" she exclaimed, as she recalled his uncouth laugh, his barbaric taste in dress, his provincial little habits and mannerisms, which in the parlance of the Warwick Hall girls, would have stamped him "dead common" according to their standards. She was still looking dreamily out into the snowy yard when Mrs. Ware came to the door to inquire with an anxious sniff,
"Mary, isn't something burning?"
Suddenly recalled to herself, Mary sprang to open the oven door, wailing, "My cookies, oh, my cookies! Burnt to a crisp! And the gingerbread man I promised to little Don Moredock, black as a cinder! I'll have to make him another one, but there won't be time to stick in all the beautiful clove buttons that I had this one's suit trimmed with. His coat was like Old Grimes', 'all buttoned down before.' It was Phil's letter that caused the wreck," she explained to her mother, as she emptied the burnt cakes into the fire. "There it is on the table."
Phil's letters were family property. Mrs. Ware carried it off to read, and Mary, taking another pan, proceeded to shape another gingerbread man. As she did so, her thoughts went from it to little Don Moredock for whom it was intended, and then to Pink Upham, who had been the devoted slave of the little fellow with the broken leg ever since the accident occurred. As she recalled Pink's patience and gentleness with the child, she wondered just what sort of an impression he would make on Phil. The more she pondered the more certain she was that Phil would see him through Jack's eyes and little Don's, rather than through hers. And somehow, thinking that, she began to get a different view of him herself.
It was nearly sundown before she found time to run over to the Moredocks' with the gingerbread man, and tell Don the story which it was intended to illustrate. He had never heard it before, and insisted upon her repeating it over and over. He kept her much later than she had intended to stay, and a young moon was shining on the snow when she started home again. Pink Upham, stopping on his way home to supper to leave a feather whirligig he had made for Don, met her going out of the gate as he went in.
Two minutes later he had caught up with her, and was walking along beside her. There was to be a Valentine party at Sara Downs on the fourteenth, he told her. A fancy dress affair. He wanted her to go with him, as his valentine. Now if it had not been for Phil's letter, Mary's eyes might not have been opened quite so soon to the fact that Pink regarded her as the right girl, no matter what she thought of him. But all at once she realized that he was looking down at her as no one had ever looked before. There was something in his glance like the dumb wistfulness that makes a hunting dog's eyes so pathetic, and she felt a little shiver run over her. She didn't want him to care likethat!It was perfectly thrilling to feel that she had aroused a deep regard in any one's heart, but, oh,whydid it have to be some one who fell so short of her standard of what a true prince must measure up to?
Embarrassed and troubled, she hurried away from him as soon as they reached the gate. The lamps were lighted and supper was ready when she went into the house. She began talking the moment she sat down at the table, but somehow shecould not put Pink out of her mind. She kept seeing him as he had stood there at the gate in the snow with the young moon lighting it up. She knew that he had stood and watched her pass up the path and into the house, for she had stolen a hasty glance over her shoulder as she opened the door, and the tall, dark figure was still there.
She talked vivaciously of many things: of little Don's pleasure in her gift, of her fall on the ice on the way over, of Sara Downs' Valentine party, of Phil's letter. When the last subject was mentioned Mrs. Ware remarked, "That snap-shot of 'Eloise' shows her to be a very pretty girl, I think."
"Snap-shot of Eloise!" echoed Mary blankly. "I didn't see it. Where is it?"
"In the envelope. I didn't see it either, until I started to shove the folded sheet back into it. Something inside prevented its going more than half way, and I found it was the little unmounted picture curled up inside. It's on the mantel. Norman, get it for your sister, please."
Mary held the picture under the lamp for a careful scrutiny. So that was Eloise. A slim, graceful girl posing in a hammock, with one hand resting on the guitar in her lap, the other on the head of Señor Tremonti. Her face was in shadow, but shelooked dangerously attractive to Mary, who spoke her opinion openly.
"She's an appealing little thing, the clinging-vine sort. If Phil saw her only in the daylight and called her plain Eliza, and could remember that she's a little 'fraid cat whose chief interest in life is frills and fetching furbelows, he wouldn't be in any danger. But you see, he hasn't any of his kind of girls down there—I mean like the Little Colonel and Betty and Gay, and the moonlight and musical evenings will give her a sort of glamor that'll make her seem different, just as calling her Eloise makes her seem more romantic than when he says Eliza."
"Don't you worry," laughed Jack. "Phil is old enough to look out for himself, and to know what he wants. You can trust him to pick out the kind of wife that suits him, better than you could do it for him."
"But I don't want him to be satisfied with that kind after all the lovely girls he's known," grumbled Mary, putting the picture aside and going on with her supper. Her motherly concern was even greater over this situation than it had been when she thought of him as "doomed to carry a secret sorrow to his grave." She pinned the picture ofEloise to the frame of her mirror when she went to her room that night, and studied it while she slowly brushed her hair.
Once she paused with brush in air as a comforting thought suddenly occurred to her. "Why, I'm in the same position that Phil is. Pink doesn't measure up to my highest ideal of a man any more than Eliza measures up to Lloyd, but he's my chief source of amusement here, just as she is Phil's there. Maybe she lets him see that she's fond of his company and all that, and he hates to hurt her feelings as I hate to hurt Pink's. I'll intimate as much in my letter when I answer his questions, if I can think of the right way to do it."
It was because she could not find the right words to express these sentiments that she delayed answering from day to day, then other things crowded it out of her mind. The Valentine party required that much time and thought be spent on the costumes, and she helped Jack with his. He went as a comic Valentine. Pink begged her to dress as the Queen of Hearts, and she was almost persuaded to do so, thinking that would be the easiest of costumes to prepare, till she guessed from something he let fall that he intended to personate the King himself. Then nothing would have induced her todo it. She knew it would give occasion for the coupling of their names together in the familiar and teasing way they have in little country towns.
So she dressed as an old-fashioned lace-paper valentine. The dress was made of a much-mended lace curtain. The front of the bodice had two square lapels wired at the edges, so that they could be folded together like the front of a real valentine, or opened back like shutters to show on her breast a panel of pale blue satin, on which was outlined two white doves perched above a great red heart. Mrs. Ware painted it, and although it may sound queer in the description, it was in reality a very pretty costume, and the touch of color made it so becoming that Mary's cheeks glowed with pleasure many times during the evening at the comments she overheard on all sides.
Pink's eyes followed her admiringly everywhere she went, but he had little to say to her, except once, as he finished singing a song which Sara Downs had begged for, he leaned over and whispered significantly, "That'syoursong."
It was Kathleen Mavourneen, and she wondered why he called it hers. On the way home he was so strangely silent that Mary wondered what was the matter. She rattled along, talking with evenmore vivacity than usual, to cover his silence, and walked fast to keep within speaking distance of several others who were going down their road. They all walked Indian file, the path beaten through the snow was so narrow. Jack had started much earlier, as he was taking old Captain Doane's niece home. The cottage was in sight when the others turned off into another road, and Pink and Mary were left crunching through the snow alone.
Then Pink suddenly found his voice. Clearing his throat he began diffidently, "Mary, I want to ask you something. I want to ask a favor of you."
His tone was so ominous that Mary's heart gave a thump like a startled rabbit's.
"I wish you wouldn't call me 'Pink' like everybody else does. I wish you'd call me a name that no one would use but you. Just when we're by ourselves, you know. I wouldn't want you to any other time. I'd love for you to have your own special name for me just as I have for you."
"What's that?" asked Mary, crunching steadily on ahead, determined to laugh him out of his serious tone if possible. "What name do you have for me? 'Polly-put-the-kettle-on? 'That's my usual nickname. It used to be 'Mother-bunch' and 'Gordo' when I was little and fat."
"I didn't mean a nickname," answered Pink a little stiffly. He was in no humor for joking, and he rather resented her light reply. Her rapid pace had quickened almost into a dog-trot. With a few long strides he put himself even with her, walking along in the deep snow beside the narrow path. Evidently he felt the witchery of the still winter night, with the moonlight silvering the snowy world around them, even if Mary did not. For in spite of the brisk, business-like pace she set, he said presently:
"I've been making up my mind all evening to tell you this on my way home. You've never seemed like an ordinary girl to me. You're so much nicer in every way, that long ago I gave you a name that I always call you to myself. And I wanted to ask you if you wouldn't do the same for me. Of course I couldn't expect you to give me the same sort of a name that I have for you, but I'd be content if you'd just call me by my first name,Philip."
"Philip!" repeated Mary blankly, turning short in the narrow path to stare at him. "Why, I didn't know that that wasyourname. It's a name that has always seemed to belong especially to just one person in the world. I never dreamed that itwasyourname. Somehow I had the impression that that first P in it stood for Peter."
"I don't know why," answered Pink in a hurt tone. "I was named for my grandfather, Philip Pinckney, so I don't see why I haven't as good a right to it as any one."
"Oh, of course you have," cried Mary. "I was just surprised, that's all. It's only that I've always regarded it as the especial property of one of my very best friends, I suppose."
"Well, I rather hoped that you countedmeas one of your very best friends," was the gloomy response. To Mary's unspeakable relief Jack came swinging up behind them just then with some jolly remark that saved her the necessity of an answer, and the good nights were spoken without any further reference to personal matters.
It was so late that she undressed as quickly and quietly as she could, in order not to awaken her mother in the next room. As she did so she kept thinking, "I wonder what it is he always calls me to himself? I'd give a fortune to know. But I suppose I never will find out, for I'm sure that I hurt his feelings saying what I did about Phil's name. Why, I could no more call him Philip than I could call himmother!Those names belong soentirely to the people I've always given them to."
It was not until she had been tucked warmly in bed for some time, with her eyes closed, that she thought of something which made her sit bolt upright, regardless of the icy wind blowing in through her open windows.
"Philip and Mary on a shilling!Merciful heavens!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "It can't be that that old shilling that I drew out of Eugenia's bridecake really has any power to influence my destiny!"
There was something vaguely alarming in the knowledge that Pink claimed the name of Philip. Long ago Mary had taken the story ofThe Three Weaversto heart, and vowed that no one could be her prince who did not fit her ideals "as the falcon's feathers fit the falcon." Now she exclaimed almost savagely to herself:
"Why, Pink Upham no more measures up to my ideals than, than—anything!It's ridiculous to believe that an old shilling could influence my destiny that way. It can't! Itsha'n't!I simply won't let it!"
Then, as she lay back on her pillow again and pulled the blankets over her shivering shoulders, she thought drearily, "But, oh, dear, this is goingto interfere with my only good times! Whenever he is nice to me I'll think of that dreadful old shilling in spite of myself. I wish I could go away from Lone-Rock this very week!"
On the way to the post-office next morning, Mary determined that if she should meet Pink there, as she sometimes did, not even the flicker of an eyelash should show that she remembered last night's conversation. But when she saw the back of a familiar fur overcoat through the post-office window, she felt the color rush into her face.
When she went in, not only was she conscious from his greeting thatheremembered, but the look in his eyes said as plainly as words that the name which he kept for her alone had risen almost to his lips. It made her uncomfortable, but she was burning with curiosity to know what that name could be.
There were several people in the line ahead of her, and Pink emptied his locked box before her turn came at the window. She knew that he was waiting outside the door for her, so, when she passed him, she was purposely absorbed in openingthe only letter which had fallen to her share. It was a tough-fibred envelope, hard to tear, and her heavily gloved hands made clumsy work of it. Finally she thrust a forefinger under the flap and wrenched it apart. A ragged scrap of yellowed paper fluttered out on to the step. Pink stooped and handed it to her.
"Why, how queer! That's all there is in the envelope," she exclaimed, shaking it, then holding out the jagged bit of paper so that Pink could examine it with her. It was only a scrap torn from a sheet of music, or some old song-book. They read the bars together: