NEXT THINGS.
Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself
into Rosamond's party, although Barbara had had the first thought of
it; for Rosamond quietly took the management of all that was to be
delicately and gracefully arranged, and to have the true tone of high
propriety.
Barbara made the little white rolls; Rosamond and Ruth beat up the
cake; mother attended to the boiling of the tongues, and, when it was
time, to the making of the delicious coffee; all together we gave all
sorts of pleasant touches to the brown room, and set the round table
(the old cover could be "shied" out of sight now, as Stephen said, and
replaced with the white glistening damask for the tea) in the corner
between the southwest windows that opened upon the broad piazza.
The table was bright with pretty silver--not too much--and best glass
and delicate porcelain with a tiny thread of gold; and the rolls and
the thin strips of tongue cut lengthwise, so rich and tender that a
fork could manage them, and the large raspberries, black and red and
white, were upon plates and dishes of real Indian, white and golden
brown.
The wide sashes were thrown up, and there were light chairs outside;
Mrs. Holabird would give the guests tea and coffee, and Ruth and
Barbara would sit in the window-seats and do the waiting, back and
forth, and Dakie Thayne and Harry Goldthwaite would help.
Katty held her office as a sinecure that day; looked on admiringly,
forgot half her regular work, felt as if she had somehow done wonders
without realizing the process, and pronounced that it was "no throuble
at ahl to have company."
But before the tea was the new game.
It was a bold stroke for us Holabirds. Originating was usually done
higher up; as the Papal Council gives forth new spiritual inventions
for the joyful acceptance of believers, who may by no means invent in
their turn and offer to the Council. One could hardly tell how it
would fall out,--whether the Haddens and the Marchbankses would take
to it, or whether it would drop right there.
"They _may_ 'take it off your hands, my dear,'" suggested the
remorseless Barbara. Somebody had offered to do that once for Mrs.
Holabird, when her husband had had an interest in a ship in the Baltic
trade, and some furs had come home, richer than we had quite expected.
Rose was loftily silent; she would not have _said_ that to her very
self; but she had her little quiet instincts of holding on,--through
Harry Goldthwaite, chiefly; it was his novelty.
Does this seem _very_ bare worldly scheming among young girls who
should simply have been having a good time? We should not tell you if
we did not know; it _begins_ right there among them, in just such
things as these; and our day and our life are full of it.
The Marchbanks set had a way of taking things off people's hands, as
soon as they were proved worth while. People like the Holabirds could
not be taking this pains every day; making their cakes and their
coffee, and setting their tea-table in their parlor; putting aside all
that was shabby or inadequate, for a few special hours, and turning
all the family resources upon a point, to serve an occasion. But if
anything new or bright were so produced that could be transplanted, it
was so easy to receive it among the established and every-day
elegances of a freer living, give it a wider introduction, and so
adopt and repeat and centralize it that the originators should fairly
forget they had ever begun it. And why would not this be honor enough?
Invention must always pass over to the capital that can handle it.
The new game charmed them all. The girls had the best of it, for the
young men always gathered up the rings and brought them to each in
turn. It was very pretty to receive both hands full of the gayly
wreathed and knotted hoops, to hold them slidden along one arm like
garlands, to pass them lightly from hand to hand again, and to toss
them one by one through the air with a motion of more or less
inevitable grace; and the excitement of hope or of success grew with
each succeeding trial.
They could not help liking it, even the most fastidious; they might
venture upon liking it, for it was a game with an origin and
references. It was an officers' game, on board great naval ships; it
had proper and sufficient antecedents. It would do.
By the time they stopped playing in the twilight, and went up the wide
end steps upon the deep, open platform, where coffee and biscuits
began to be fragrant, Rosamond knew that her party was as nice as if
it had been anybody's else whoever; that they were all having as
genuinely good a time as if they had not come "westover" to get it.
And everybody does like a delicious tea, such as is far more sure and
very different from hands like Mrs. Holabird's and her daughters, than
from those of a city confectioner and the most professed of private
cooks.
It all went off and ended in a glory,--the glory of the sun pouring
great backward floods of light and color all up to the summer zenith,
and of the softly falling and changing shade, and the slow
forth-coming of the stars: and Ruth gave them music, and by and by
they had a little German, out there on the long, wide esplanade. It
was the one magnificence of their house,--this high, spacious terrace;
Rosamond was thankful every day that Grandfather Holabird _had_ to
build the wood-house under it.
After this, Westover began to grow to be more of a centre than our
home, cheery and full of girl-life as it was, had ever been able to
become before.
They might have transplanted the game,--they did take slips from
it,--and we might not always have had tickets to our own play; but
they could not transplant Harry Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne. They
_would_ come over, nearly every day, at morning or evening, and
practise "coil," or make some other plan or errand; and so there came
to be always something going on at the Holabirds', and if the other
girls wanted it, they had to come where it was.
Mrs. Van Alstyne came often; Rosamond grew very intimate with her.
Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks did say, one day, that she thought "the
Holabirds were slightly mistaking their position"; but the remark did
not come round, westover, till long afterward, and meanwhile the
position remained the same.
It was right in the midst of all this that Ruth astonished the family
again, one evening.
"I wish," she said, suddenly, just as if she were not suggesting
something utterly incongruous and disastrous, "that we could ask
Lucilla Waters up here for a little visit."
The girls had a way, in Z----, of spending two or three days together
at each other's houses, neighbors though they were, within easy reach,
and seeing each other almost constantly. Leslie Goldthwaite came up to
the Haddens', or they went down to the Goldthwaites'. The Haddens
would stay over night at the Marchbanks', and on through the next day,
and over night again. There were, indeed, three recognized degrees of
intimacy: that which took tea,--that which came in of a morning and
stayed to lunch,--and that which was kept over night without plan or
ceremony. It had never been very easy for us Holabirds to do such
things without plan; of all things, nearly, in the world, it seemed to
us sometimes beautiful and desirable to be able to live just so as
that we might.
"I wish," said Ruth, "that we could have Lucilla Waters here."
"My gracious!" cried Rosamond, startled into a soft explosion. "What
for?"
"Why, I think she'd like it," answered Ruth.
"Well, I suppose Arctura Fish might 'like it' too," responded Rose, in
a deadly quiet way now, that was the extreme of sarcasm.
Ruth looked puzzled; as if she really considered what Rosamond
suggested, not having thought of it before, and not quite knowing how
to dispose of the thought since she had got it.
Dakie Thayne was there; he sat holding some gold-colored wool for Mrs.
Holabird to wind; she was giving herself the luxury of some pretty
knitting,--making a bright little sofa affghan. Ruth had forgotten him
at the instant, speaking out of a quiet pause and her own intent
thought.
She made up her mind presently,--partly at least,--and spoke again. "I
don't believe," she said, "that it would be the next thing for Arctura
Fish."
Dakie Thayne's eyebrows went up, just that half perceptible line or
two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next thing?" he
asked.
"It seems to me it must be somebody's fault if they don't," replied
Ruth.
"It is a long waiting sometimes to get the next thing," said Dakie
Thayne. "Army men find that out. They grow gray getting it."
"That's where only one _can_ have it at a time," said Ruth. "These
things are different."
"'Next things' interfere occasionally," said Barbara. "Next things up,
and next things down."
"I don't know," said Rose, serenely unconscious and impersonal. "I
suppose people wouldn't naturally--it can't be meant they should--walk
right away from their own opportunities."
Ruth laughed,--not aloud, only a little single breath, over her work.
Dakie Thayne leaned back.
"What,--if you please,--Miss Ruth?"
"I was thinking of the opportunities _down_," Ruth answered.
It was several days after this that the young party drifted together
again, on the Westover lawn. A plan was discussed. Mrs. Van Alstyne
had walked over with Olivia and Adelaide Marchbanks, and it was she
who suggested it.
"Why don't you have regular practisings," said she, "and then a
meeting, for this and the archery you wanted to get up, and games for
a prize? They would do nicely together."
Olivia Marchbanks drew up a little. She had not meant to launch the
project here. Everything need not begin at Westover all at once.
But Dakie Thayne broke in.
"Did you think of that?" said he. "It's a capital idea."
"Ideas are rather apt to be that," said Adelaide Marchbanks. "It is
the carrying out, you see."
"Isn't it pretty nearly carried out already? It is only to organize
what we are doing as it is."
"But the minute you _do_ organize! You don't know how difficult it is
in a place like this. A dozen of us are not enough, and as soon as you
go beyond, there gets to be too much of it. One doesn't know where to
stop."
"Or to skip?" asked Harry Goldthwaite, in such a purely bright,
good-natured way that no one could take it amiss.
"Well, yes, to skip," said Adelaide. "Of course that's it. You don't
go straight on, you know, house by house, when you ask people,--down
the hill and into the town."
"We talked it over," said Olivia. "And we got as far as the Hobarts."
There Olivia stopped. That was where they had stopped before.
"O yes, the Hobarts; they would be sure to like it," said Leslie
Goldthwaite, quick and pleased.
"Her ups and downs are just like yours," said Dakie Thayne to Ruth
Holabird.
It made Ruth very glad to be told she was at all like Leslie; it gave
her an especially quick pulse of pleasure to have Dakie Thayne say so.
She knew he thought there was hardly any one like Leslie Goldthwaite.
"O, they _won't_ exactly do, you know!" said Adelaide Marchbanks, with
an air of high free-masonry.
"Won't do what?" asked Cadet Thayne, obtusely.
"Suit," replied Olivia, concisely, looking straight forward without
any air at all.
"Really, we have tried it since they came," said Adelaide, "though
what people _come_ for is the question, I think, when there isn't
anything particular to bring them except the neighborhood, and then it
has to be Christian charity in the neighborhood that didn't ask them
to pick them up. Mamma called, after a while; and Mrs. Hobart said she
hoped she would come often, and let _the girls_ run in and be
sociable! And Grace Hobart says '_she_ hasn't got tired of
croquet,--she likes it real well!' They're that sort of people, Mr.
Thayne."
"Oh! that's very bad," said Dakie Thayne, with grave conclusiveness.
"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce.
When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully
stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,--out quite loud,
across everything,--'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never
did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'"
"Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite.
"I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think
they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They
didn't know _what_ to say."
"Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in
that way very often."
"I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are
kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out."
"That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the
neighborhood is getting to be,--full of people that you don't know
what to do with."
"I don't see why we _need_ to go out of our own set," said Olivia.
"O dear! O dear!"
It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all
turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements
made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had
been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now
she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face
to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow
clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard.
"What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!"
Then she knew by the hush that _she_ had astonished them, and she grew
frightened; but she stood just so, and would not let her look shrink;
for she still felt just as she did when the words came.
Mrs. Van Alstyne broke the pause with a good-natured laugh.
"We can't go quite back to that, every time," she said. "And we don't
quite set up to be angels. Come,--try one more round."
And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to
pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do
it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar
grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top,
the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more
dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden
over upon the rest.
[Illustration]
Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not
been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the
party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour
longer.
Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to
Leslie Goldthwaite, "I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba
will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask."
But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the
grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but
they kept on up over the hill.
"Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could
not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute."
"About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the
front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched."
"They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered.
"And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_."
"_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your
lip. I saw it."
"Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I
had spoken then."
"I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure
I don't know how myself so often."
"That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up?
And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out
these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions:
picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind
of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the
lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?"
"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said
Ruth.
"Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie.
"Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems
to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down."
"Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there?
There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just
for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?"
"Just _be_ nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than
with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about
it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the
niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the
fence that keeps out weeds."
"You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to
Leslie as she spoke.
"And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I
should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said
Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after
all."
"If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me
it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody
in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven."
"Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne.
It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise
continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the
Holabirds were nearer next than ever before.
"We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother,
one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and
she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and
interruptions have put back the sewing so lately."
"We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a
family of grasshoppers all summer."
"Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it,"
said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be
busy."
"If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond.
"Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right
into the kitchen with the other servants."
"I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her,"
said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen."
"Barbara, you're a plague!"
"Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be
exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office."
"In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more
convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and
besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life
to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as
not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with
'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies,
and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of
measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why
shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and
gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too
nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her
'crowd.'"
"But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to
be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live
plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind
_without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things."
"But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient
for them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, or
seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content
to be the step we are."
"It's the other thing with us,--con-_as_cension,--isn't it, mother? A
step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs. Ingleside
does it," Ruth added.
"O, Mrs. Ingleside does all sorts of things. She has _that_ sort of
position. It's as independent as the other. High moral and high social
can do anything. It's the betwixt and between that must be careful."
"What a miserably negative set we are, in such a positive state of the
world!" cried Barbara. "Except Ruth's music, there isn't a specialty
among us; we haven't any views; we're on the mean-spirited side of the
Woman Question; 'all woman, and no question,' as mother says; we shall
never preach, nor speech, nor leech; we can't be magnificent, and we
won't be common! I don't see what is to become of us, unless--and I
wonder if maybe that isn't it?--we just do two or three rather right
things in a no-particular sort of a way."
"Barbara, how nice you are!" cried Ruth.
"No. I'm a thorn. Don't touch me."
"We never have company when we are having sewing done," said Mrs.
Holabird. "We can always manage that."
"I don't want to play Box and Cox," said Rosamond.
"That's the beauty of you, Rosa Mundi!" said Barbara, warmly. "You
don't want to _play_ anything. That's where you'll come out sun-clear
and diamond bright!"