DRUSILLA'S REMINISCENCES
One afternoon immediately after school, Suzanna, taking Maizie with her,
went to call on Drusilla. Twice since her first visit in July she had
gone to the little home, but on both occasions Drusilla had been ill,
unable to see anyone. But today the pleasant faced maid admitted the
children.
"Go right up to the attic," she said. "Mrs. Bartlett is there looking
over some old trunks."
In the attic, a tiny place with slanting roof and unfinished walls, the
children found Mrs. Bartlett, sitting on the floor beside a huge,
overflowing trunk. Old-fashioned dresses, high-heeled satin slippers,
dancing programs, painted fans, were all heaped together.
"We've come to see you, Drusilla," said Suzanna at once. "I've been
twice before, but you didn't know it. This is my sister, Maizie. I've
got a very important question to ask you."
Drusilla rose from the floor. "I'm glad to see you both. I've often
thought of you, Suzanna. Close the lid of that trunk and sit on it and
your little sister Maizie can sit in that old easy chair in the corner.
That is, if you want to stay up here in the attic."
Suzanna looked about her. The attic was rather sad-looking, she thought,
not full of its own importance as the one at home, but still, very
interesting. Old portraits hung on the slanting walls. In corners were
piles of old furniture looking strangely lifelike in the shadows.
"We'd rather stay up here, Drusilla," she said. "And we'll stay a long
time with you, if you like."
"Very good," said Drusilla. She drew forth a low rocker and seated
herself.
Suzanna suddenly remembered her manners. "Perhaps we shouldn't have come
today anyway," she said. "You were busy with your trunk when we came
up."
"I was just looking over some old dresses and relics I've kept for many
years," said Drusilla. "There's a dress in there," she said, "that I
wore when as a young girl I lived with my parents way back across the
ocean."
"A big city?" asked Maizie. "Not like Anchorville?"
"A big city," returned Drusilla. "You see that glass case in the corner?
Go and look at it."
Suzanna and Maizie sprang up and went to the dusky corner. On a table
stood the glass case, and under it was an apple, a pear, a bunch of
grapes, and a banana, all made of wax.
"That came from the city across the water," said Drusilla. "It was given
to my grandmother by our old herb woman."
The children left the wax fruit and went and stood quite close to
Drusilla. "What's an old herb woman?" asked Maizie, interestedly.
"Why, she was our doctor in those days. She had an old shop buried away
in a part of the town that we reached by crossing a canal. Many is the
time my grandmother took me to that old shop with its rows of dried
herbs hanging from the ceiling; with its old worn corners, and its
barrel of white cocoanut oil standing near the door. Oh, I loved that
place. I loved the smell of the herbs and I loved the little old woman
who could brew teas from her herbs that would cure any ailment in the
world, I thought. And then right next to the old herb shop was a pawn
shop with three tarnished golden balls above the door."
"A pawn shop?" The children wanted to know the meaning of that kind of
shop.
"A shop," said Drusilla, warming to her keen audience, "to which you
could bring anything, from a worn out dress to a piece of jewelry, and
get money for it and a ticket. And if you wanted the dress or the
jewelry back again, then you brought the ticket and the money and a
little interest.
"The old pawn shop was a landmark. It had stood next to the herb shop,
my grandmother told me, for a hundred years; during all these years
owned by the same family. When I was a little girl a woman kept the
shop. She was very tall, very thin, with quantities of black hair
braided and wound round and round her head. She wore always a Paisley
shawl of faded colors, and her hair coiled as it was made me think
always of a crown.
"The shop was long and narrow and full of wonderful rare, old
curios--old violins, cameos, and uncut stones. I was allowed to go all
over the shop; to open quaint cases, to go upstairs and out upon an old
gallery and to lift from their drawers silken crapes, and to find,
buried away, whispering sea-shells and crystal bottles, and irregular
pieces of blue-veined marble and alabaster. Oh, the happy, thrilling
hours I spent in that place! My grandmother told me that scholars came
from every part of the country to see this tucked-away, historic old
pawn shop."
Drusilla paused, but in a moment to the children's relief she went on:
"Then on a quite busy street, back this side of the canal, the side we
lived on, was a large place called an ovenry. And there we sent our
bread to be baked."
The children's eyes widened.
"Yes," went on Drusilla, "we put our dough to rise at home, made it into
little loaves, pricked our initial--or some other distinguishing
mark--on top when it lay in its pans, and then a big red-faced man with
a wagon drawn by a donkey called for our bread. Once my grandmother let
me ride with him, and I stayed all afternoon in his ovenry, though the
fire from the big ovens made it uncomfortably hot. I watched him and his
helpers put the pans of bread on big shovels and heave them into yawning
caves of flames. When they were finished, another red-faced man
delivered them baked brown, and smoking, to the customers. We paid a
penny a loaf for having our bread baked."
"Oh, and that saved you buying so much coal, didn't it?" asked Maizie.
"I wish we had an ovenry in Anchorville."
"Yes," said Drusilla, "I think, myself, some of these old-fashioned
ideas were economical."
"There isn't a pawn shop anywhere near, is there?" asked Suzanna. She
was thinking about the shoes and what a blessing it would be to dispose
of them.
"I don't believe so," Drusilla answered. "Anyway, there couldn't be
another like that wonderful shop of my youth."
There ensued a silence. Suddenly leaning forward, Suzanna began very
earnestly:
"Drusilla, I have a very important question to ask you. Which would you
rather do, be honest or suffer?"
"Be honest or suffer?" repeated Drusilla. "I don't quite understand."
"Well, you see, it's this way," said Suzanna. "Now, Maizie, I see you're
listening with your eyes wide open, and I want to tell you now that you
mustn't say anything to father of what I'm going to tell Drusilla."
Having delivered this ultimatum, she went on and told of the Indian
Drill and of the costumes, and then of her father's recent purchase of
the shoes. "I can't tell daddy that the shoes would be different from
everybody's else," she said, "because it will hurt his feelings. But,
oh, Drusilla! My heart jumps into my throat when I think of wearing
those shoes so different from everyone else's."
"The shoes cost forty-eight cents," elaborated Maizie, "and so you can
see Suzanna has to wear them whether she likes them or not."
"Yes," said Suzanna, "forty-eight cents is very near to half a dollar
and we can't afford to lose that. I thought, Drusilla, that you could
give me some advice. That's all I want, just that you tell me which is
best, to be honest or to suffer. You told me once about the little
silver chain and that has helped me a lot."
Drusilla looked puzzled. "The silver chain?" she asked.
"Yes, don't you remember that day you were queen and told me about the
chain?" asked Suzanna.
In a second a remarkable change came over the old lady. She rose to her
feet. Then she turned to Suzanna, her shoulders straight and her head
held high.
"My crown," she demanded. "Is that to be lifted from me in these the
full years of my queenhood?"
"I've never seen you with a crown on," said Suzanna.
"Enough, serf!" cried the queen haughtily. "Procure me my crown."
Suzanna looked about her. An old dried-up Christmas wreath hanging on a
rafter attracted her attention. Quickly she procured it and held it out
to Drusilla. "Here is your crown, Queen," she said. And then, her voice
changing, she said: "You'd better let me put it on, Drusilla, it's
liable to crumble if you're not careful. Lower your head, please."
The old lady did so and Suzanna placed the crown upon the silver hair.
"Now," said the old lady, "if you have sought me to gain advice, repeat
your question, that I may answer in a manner worthy my exalted station."
"Well," said Suzanna for the third time, "I want to know whether it's
best to be honest or to suffer?"
"What shall be your course if you are honest?" asked the queen.
Suzanna pondered. "I think I'll tell daddy, perhaps tonight," she said
at last, "that to wear the shoes will hurt my feelings dreadfully; that
I tremble when I think of being the only girl in the drill without low
shoes with two straps. Something like moccasins. If I tell daddy this,
then I'll be honest."
"And if you decide to suffer?"
"Then I'll wear the shoes at the drill and from the time I put them on
till the drill is over, I'll be full of pain. I'll know that everybody
will be just looking at my feet, and I'll not enjoy the dance one bit."
The queen knit her brows. Then her answer came: "Be not honest in the
way you describe, neither suffer."
"But, Drusilla," Suzanna objected, "I don't understand."
"_And can you not be brave?_" asked the queen with a note of scorn in
her voice. "Is it left to one who feels the time approaching when she
will be deposed from her throne and all she holds dear, alone to have
courage?" She looked straight into Suzanna's dark eyes. "Your father
knows joy in thinking he has given you your heart's desire. Why, then,
hurt him by telling him that the shoes are not your desire? Why not,
with head held high, lead the dance you speak of, and forget shoes, and
remember only the movement of the dance, the lilt of the music?"
"Is that bravery?" asked Suzanna.
"The greatest bravery," returned the queen, "will be to say to yourself,
'Am I so poor a maid that I cannot by the very beauty of my dancing keep
the eyes of the watchers lifted clear above my shoes? For shoes, what
are shoes? Leather and wood. Inanimate, unthinking _stuff_! They are not
worth one heart pang, one moment of misery to me or mine. But _I, I am
alive_. I can see and think and understand. I can go so joyously through
the mazes of the dance that the watchers may forget their sordid
cares.'"
Suzanna, listening, was carried away. She cried with eager response:
"Why the night of the Indian Drill I can believe I am a fairy, dancing
over snow-topped mountains, and singing, flying clear up into the
clouds!"
"You might fall, Suzanna," said Maizie, "you know you haven't wings."
But on this occasion Suzanna was not to be recalled to earth, and
besides in her queen's interested, understanding face, she felt a quick
fellowship to the spirit that dwelt within her.
And then breaking harshly into the wonder of this moment came the
tinkle, tinkle of the electric bell.
"Oh," cried Maizie, "someone is coming."
"I shall brook no intruders," cried the queen.
"No matter who it is?" asked Suzanna.
"No matter who it is. I desire to be alone with my court. However, you
can peep over the banisters and see who dares come thus upon us."
Suzanna went to the top of the stairs. The maid was ushering in a lady
and a boy.
"Go right upstairs," Suzanna heard the maid say. "Mrs. Bartlett's in
the attic with two of the Procter children."
The visitors appeared at the top of the stairs and paused to glance in.
The lady was beautifully dressed, quite exquisitely, from the dainty
little toque upon her haughty head to her small gray cloth shoes. Her
eyes, flashing from pansy shades to lightest blue, were cold. Her white
skin seemed to hold no possibility of color. Yet, even as she stood, the
milk of it turned to rose when Drusilla gazed at her with no warmth of
recognition in her glance.
The boy, about twelve, Suzanna surmised correctly, stood forward. There
was some of his mother's haughtiness in his bearing, a great deal of her
beauty. But added to both, a rare, high look as though always he were
seeking what lay beyond his grasp, and perhaps his comprehension. He
seemed altogether like a child whose emotional values did not stand
clear. He gazed half prayerfully at his grandmother, as though asking
and bestowing at the same time.
Breaking into the embarrassing silence, Suzanna spoke:
"Drusilla has her crown on," she said. "You see, she's a queen now, and
she's been answering some questions of mine."
The lady in the doorway looked at Suzanna meditatively. Then she spoke
directly to Drusilla.
"May I come in, mother?" she asked. "You see I've brought Graham."
Drusilla began: "Court was in session. However, I shall be glad to have
you remain." The boy, who had remained quiet, now spoke.
"Oh, bully, mother; grandmother's playing again. I want to stay."
But his mother put out a detaining hand as he attempted to enter the
attic.
"No--we can't stay now--" She spoke directly again to Drusilla. "We'll
come again--when you are more--yourself."
In a moment she was gone down the stairs, leaving after her a soft
fragrance. The boy obediently followed her. In the hall below she
encountered the maid. She whispered a few hurried words before taking
her departure.
The maid went up immediately into the attic.
Drusilla was again talking eloquently while Suzanna and Maizie stood
listening spellbound.
"I think," said the maid, breaking in quietly but firmly, "that you
little girls had better go home now. Mrs. Bartlett is tired and I want
her to lie down."
She approached the queen. "Come, Mrs. Bartlett," she said, "you must
rest now." She raised her hand as though to remove the crown of faded
leaves.
"What means this sacrilege?" cried the queen, stepping backward.
"She likes to wear her crown when she's a queen," said Suzanna, much
distressed.
"But she can't lie down in her crown, you know, little girl, it will
hurt her."
"Well, that's true, Drusilla," Suzanna conceded. "Will you put your head
down and I'll take the crown off very carefully and we'll put it away
for another day."
The queen obediently lowered her silver head to Suzanna. Suzanna very
carefully removed the wreath and hung it on its old nail.
"I _am_ tired," said the old lady, now in a voice that trembled a
little. "But you'll come again soon, won't you?" she asked, appealing to
Suzanna.
"Yes, just as soon as I can," said Suzanna. "Come, Maizie. Good-bye,
Drusilla, and thank you very much for helping me."
Drusilla brightened. "That's nice, to know that I can still help
someone," she said.