Christmas played the part of a confidante and friend, not to the
Wescotts alone but to many other children in their village and in
other villages along the coast of Maine. So many in fact were there
that these pages cannot attempt to chronicle them; but one other they
must relate because of its immediate importance to at least one of the
Wescotts, and its later tremendous significance to the family at large.
That year in the life of Mary Christmas which so stupendously marked
the advent of the pushcart and the red hat marked in the lives of Mary
and Cynthia Wescott their graduation from the academy. Orgetorix, chief
of the Helvetians, and the wholly infamous Catiline had given place
to Æneas, his aged father Anchises, and his little son Ascanius, and
Cyrus the Younger with his ten thousand Greeks had marched both up and
down, moving on at last to make way for Achilles, sulking in his tent.
Reciting their carefully prepared essays in the church to the village
at large, the one on “Clara Barton, Her Life and Work,” the other a
clarion call to achievement, entitled “_Trans Alpes Italia Est_,”
they were not in the least unaware that their white graduation frocks
eclipsed all the others by reason of the yards of lace which embraced
their shoulders in a kind of bertha, and which from waist to hem
encircled their wide skirts. Mary Christmas, with the help of little
Mary, had woven that lace through the long winter evenings in Portland,
and had sent it as a forerunner of her own arrival. When she came,
pushing the red cart down the hill, and again drawing the anxious
attention of the Wescotts by the deepening lines in her face, the
graduation was a thing of the past, and the hearts of Mary and Cynthia
were beating excitedly at the thought of college in the fall.
But it was not only the thought of college which was quickening the
heart of Mary Wescott in those early days of her nineteenth year;
and this Mary Christmas discovered on the late afternoon of the day
when she said good-bye to John and set forth along the familiar road.
Reaching the bars which heretofore had given her access to the short
cut through the pasture, she stopped, realizing for the second time
that day that a pushcart has its disadvantages. But desiring a drink
from the spring that bubbled up at the foot of the boulder, and a
glimpse of the freshness of the woods before she must again take to the
dusty highway, she drew the red cart to the side of the road, carefully
lifted her new skirt to escape the roughness of the gray fence-poles,
and crawled between the bars. A few steps through the alders and over
the moist green hummocks, starred here and there with the blue of
violets, and she emerged into the path that led to the boulder and the
spring.
She did not drink from the spring, however, thirsty though she was, nor
was she conscious of the freshness of the woods with their sun-flecked
shadows; for there on the boulder above her, and facing the vista that
afforded a sight of the crab-apple tree, sat Mary Wescott with her
bright head resting against the dark shoulder of William Howe--the
selfsame William who had once played the part of Mary’s father in the
Etchmiadzin miracle, and who had but just returned triumphant after a
year with the Alma Mater of Mr. Longfellow and Father Wescott.
Mary Christmas leaned against the great rock in sheer surprise. The
realization that Mary Wescott was a little girl no longer was in itself
a shock; and this outward and visible sign that a new door in life
had suddenly swung wide for her was quite too overwhelming. Entirely
unprepared for both, Mary Christmas stood still and vaguely discerned
as through a mist what the two on the rock saw with such intensity--the
white tree with its full-blown, drifting blossoms. She did not hear
their whispered confidences, did not know that Mary Wescott was finding
it the easiest and most satisfying thing in the world to tell William
how the crab-apple tree had made her feel and to receive from him
the perfect assurance that he had felt exactly the same way! She was
concerned solely, once she had come to herself, with the question of
whether she could reach the shelter of the alders without attracting
their notice. Then William bent his head toward Mary, for he was all at
once seized with the most absurd idea that there were secrets in the
corners of her mouth; but in that instant, instead of assuring himself
that he was right, he caught sight of Mary Christmas’ red hat. For that
hat had been designed to arrest, even at such a moment as this, the
most wandering attention.
It is, perhaps, just as well not to describe all that followed--the
confusion, the embarrassment, the confession, the explanations, the
pleas for secrecy. It is quite enough to say that William, standing
with his arm around Mary in the shadow of the great boulder, led the
conversation, as was entirely fitting and proper, and that Mary
Christmas, in spite of earlier misgivings, the result no doubt of
surprise, felt her heart warm toward him as he professed his intentions
the most honorable in the world and maintained his decision to
interview Father Wescott as a gentleman should, just as soon as another
year of college should have added dignity and certainty to their dream.
Mary Wescott, on her part, cried a little, as I believe girls did on
similar occasions a quarter of a century ago, absurd as it doubtless
was; and then as the lengthening shadows foretold the evening light,
Mary Christmas gave her promise and her blessing. They all went back
to the pushcart together, where Mary Wescott straightened the red hat
and perked up the daisies. It was all in vain, however; for when Mary
Christmas again started on her way, the hat lurched in such reckless
abandon that Mary and William both wished the daisies had been allowed
to retain their former modest expression.
That evening, as she journeyed along the cool, fragrant roads, Mary
Christmas sang, not now the songs of Vartan or of the Virgin’s
festival, but one of wedded love. How clearly the unfamiliar, musical
words rose and fell in the still air, accompanied by the monotonous
undertone of the pushcart:--
“It rained showers of gold when Artasches became a bridegroom;
It rained pearls when Satenik became a bride.”
IX
FOLKLORE 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 objection that 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 miraculously supplied. 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 vocational adviser. 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 to college 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 gracious heavens
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 Cynthia and 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 was obviously 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--I _do_--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
father _is_ unreasonable. 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 two friends
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 it _all_--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!
X
WAYSIDE SACRAMENTS
The five years that followed Mary Wescott’s wedding brought many
changes into the lives of the persons who make this story. From the
Wescott parents in partnership they exacted the unpleasant necessity
of becoming accustomed to an empty house, although they did offer
some compensation in the presentation of two grandsons, who, since
they early favored their Grandfather Wescott in features, might very
probably have inherited also his manner of looking at certain important
matters. To Father Wescott himself those years were nothing short of
cataclysmic. The entire West, he told Mrs. Wescott daily, was going
crazy, the middle portion over that unsound principle of coöperation,
and certain far States in their unprecedented stand upon the recall
of judges. As though a party, dedicated from its early infancy to
Progress, could look upon such extremists, at their best, as anything
short of anarchists! The East must stand firm! Father Wescott accepted
this decision as his battle-cry, and, with many misgivings, bought
an automobile, a vehicle which itself demanded in those days no
small amount of coöperation on the part of its owner. By means of
this locomotion Father Wescott could exhort the county at least to
stand firm in its loyalty to the safe and sane gentleman then in the
presidential chair. This he did while Mrs. Wescott sat by his side in
numberless dooryards, a patient listener to conversations which, she
feared, must ultimately prove useful to her also, if someone did not
stop those absurd women in Washington.
To Cynthia the years were kind, for not only did they convince her
that she was doing the thing she loved most, which conviction is in
itself no mean possession, but one of them took her to far places--to
England, where she studied at Oxford and dreamed away long hours under
the great trees at Iffley Church; to Germany, where she walked in the
Harz Mountains and in Nuremberg ate cakes frosted with fairy tales;
and to Paris, where she wandered for days through the Louvre, lived
in the Latin Quarter, and in every other shop bought presents for
her nephews. John and Roger, beneath the elms and in the echoing old
halls of their father’s and Mr. Longfellow’s college, found life not
unfriendly, though Greek was passing away and though a new and strange
variety of poetry had begun to replace in the affection of students the
long cadences of Mr. Algernon Swinburne. Indeed, John, who had taken to
writing verses in private, composed in these new, uncertain measures
some lines descriptive of an ancient church, standing within gray walls
and bathed in more ancient moonlight.