THE NEW LUCY
In the week that followed, the education of Lucy Haines progressed
rapidly. After that first afternoon when the time had slipped away
without her knowing it, she kept her eye on the clock and was careful
not to over-stay the hour. But as she came every day, and her enthusiasm
for learning fully matched Peggy's enthusiasm for teaching, the results
were all that could be wished.
Then one afternoon her pupil failed to appear, and Peggy wondered. A
second afternoon brought neither Lucy nor an explanation of her absence.
"I'm afraid she's sick," said Peggy, who never thought of a
discreditable explanation for anything till there was no help for it.
"Sick of algebra, more likely," suggested Claire. "I thought such zeal
wouldn't last."
"She doesn't seem like that sort of a girl," declared Amy, who was
developing a tendency to disagree with Claire on every possible pretext.
"She's one of the stickers, or I don't know one when I see it."
A little assenting murmur went the rounds, and Claire glanced
reproachfully at Priscilla, who had sided against her. "Two souls with
but a single thought," represented Claire's ideal of friendship. That
two people could love each other devotedly, and yet disagree on a
variety of subjects, was beyond her comprehension. She was ready at a
moment's notice to cast aside her personal convictions, and agree with
Priscilla, whatever stand the latter cared to take, and it seemed hard,
in view of such unquestioning loyalty, that Priscilla should persist in
having opinions of her own.
But Claire's hour of triumph was on its way. When Jerry Morton came in
the morning with a string of freshly caught fish, he produced from the
depths of an over-worked pocket a folded paper, which, to judge from its
worn and soiled appearance, had served as a hair-curler or in some
equally trying capacity. This he handed to Peggy, who regarded it with
natural misgiving.
"That Haines girl sent it," Jerry explained. "I put it in the pocket
where I carry the bait, but I guess the inside is all right."
Thus encouraged, Peggy unfolded the dingy scrap, but the changes of her
expressive face did not bear out Jerry's optimistic conjecture that the
"inside" was all right. Judging from Peggy's crestfallen air, it was all
wrong. The note was not written in Lucy's usual regular hand. The
letters straggled, the lines zig-zagged across the page, and the name
signed was almost an unintelligible scrawl. But Peggy thought less of
these superficial matters than of the unwelcome news communicated.
"Dear Friend:--I shan't come to study algebra any more. I've given
up the idea of going to school any longer. I thank you very much
for trying to help me, but it's no use.
"Yours truly,
"Lucy Haines."
"I thought it was something like that," Claire remarked triumphantly
when the note was read aloud, and she reflected with some satisfaction
that she alone had suggested the rightful explanation of Lucy's action.
"I must say I'm disappointed in that girl," declared Peggy, absently
smoothing out the crumpled paper. Her bright face was clouded.
"Wednesday she was just as interested and ambitious as she could be. And
now she's given up. It doesn't seem like her."
"I must say she doesn't show a great deal of gratitude," exclaimed Ruth,
always ready to rush to Peggy's defence. "Here you've been using your
vacation to teach her, when you might have been enjoying yourself, and
then all at once she gets tired of it. It doesn't seem to occur to her
that if you were like most girls, you'd be the one to give up."
The expression of Peggy's face suggested that she was rather absorbed in
her own thoughts, and giving but scant heed to the words of her
champion.
"Do you know, girls," she said slowly, "I'm going over to see Lucy and
find out what this means."
There was a chorus of protests. "Don't you do it, Peggy," Amy cried
indignantly. And Priscilla remarked, "I wouldn't tease her into
accepting a kindness that she hadn't the sense to appreciate."
"It was too much for you to do anyway," Ruth chimed in. "I think it's a
good thing she's tired of it, myself." But Peggy was not to be dissuaded
from her purpose. Under the uncompromising statements of the bald little
note, there was something that claimed her sympathy. Even the straggling
lines, so little suggestive of the Lucy Haines she knew, carried the
suggestion of appeal. "I'm not going to coax her into doing anything,"
Peggy explained. "But--" and this with unmistakable firmness--"I'm going
to find out."
After dinner, when the other girls were indulging in afternoon naps, or
lounging on the porch, Peggy donned a broad-brimmed shade hat, and with
Hobo at her heels, started toward Lucy's home. The zig-zag path crossing
the pastures was both shorter and pleasanter than the road, and Peggy
rather enjoyed getting the better of such obstacles as snake fences and
brooks that must be crossed on stepping stones. Such things gave to an
otherwise prosaic ramble the fine flavor of adventure.
She was flushed and warm, and looking, had she known it, unusually
pretty, with her moist hair curling in rings about her forehead, when
she came in sight of Lucy's home, a straggling cottage which would have
been improved by paint and the services of a carpenter. Both lacks were
partially concealed by vines which climbed over its sagging porch, and
tall rows of hollyhocks, generously screening with their showy beauty
its weather-beaten sides. A girl was in the back yard chopping wood, a
rather slatternly girl with disordered hair. Peggy descended on her
briskly to ask if Lucy were at home.
Hatchet in hand, the girl faced about. Peggy's head whirled. She made a
confused effort to recall whether Lucy had ever mentioned a sister, a
sister considerably older, and not nearly so nice. Then her momentary
confusion passed, and she realized she was facing Lucy herself. The
shock of her discovery showed in her voice as she exclaimed, "Why, it's
you!"
"Of course," said Lucy a little coldly, but she cast a half-apologetic
downward glance at her untidy dress, and her color rose. With obvious
reluctance she asked, "Won't you come in?"
Peggy was conscious of a thrill of righteous indignation. She stood very
straight and her eyes met those of the other girl squarely. "Lucy, are
you angry with me?"
Lucy Haines did not answer immediately. Her bared throat twitched
hysterically and all at once the eyes which looked into Peggy's brimmed
over.
"Don't, please!" she said in a choked voice. "Me angry! Why, you're the
kindest girl I ever dreamed of. Till I'm dead I'll love to think about
you and how good you are. But it's no use."
Peggy seated herself on the woodpile. Her native cheerfulness had
returned with a rush.
"Now, Lucy Haines, let's talk like two sensible people. If I'm as nice
as all that, you ought to be willing to trust me a little. What's the
reason it's no use? What's made all the difference since Wednesday?"
Lucy's silence was like a barrier between them. If it had not been for
the tears upon her cheeks, Peggy would have been inclined to distrust
her memory of that momentary softening. The girl's confidence came at
last reluctantly, as if dragged from depths far under the surface, like
water raised in buckets from a well.
"My money's gone."
Peggy had an uncomfortable feeling that she must grope her way. "Your
money's gone?" she repeated, to gain time.
"Yes, the money I've been saving up. The money that was to help me get
through school next year. You know how I've worked this summer. And
there isn't a thing to show for it."
"How much was it?"
"Forty dollars."
All at once Peggy felt an insane desire to laugh. The impulse was
without doubt, purely nervous. For though there seemed to her a
surprising discrepancy between the sum named and the despair for which
it was responsible, the humorous aspect of the case was not the one
which would naturally appeal to a disposition like Peggy's. Desperately
she fought against the impulse, coughed, bit her twitching lips, and
finally acknowledged defeat in a little hysterical giggle. Lucy stared
at her, too astonished to be angry.
"There!" Now that the mischief was done, Peggy felt serious enough to
meet all the requirements of the case. "I've laughed and I'm glad of it.
For it's a joke. Forty dollars! A girl as bright as you are, ready to
sell out for forty dollars. It's enough to make anybody laugh."
Lucy put her hand to her forehead. "But it was all I had," she said
rather piteously.
"All you had. But not all you can get. Why, I had a friend who went into
a business office last winter. She's earning forty dollars a month now,
and they'll raise her after she's been with them a year. Forty dollars
means a month's work for a beginner. You've lost a month, and you talk
as if everything had been lost."
The rear door of the cottage opened, and a young man appeared, a
distinctly unprepossessing young man, whose shabby clothing somehow
suggested a corresponding shabbiness of soul. He stood irresolute for a
moment, then turned and struck off across the fields, his shambling gait
increasing the unfavorable impression that Peggy had instantly formed.
Lucy regarded her visitor with burning eyes.
"I didn't mean to tell anybody," she said. "I thought my pride wouldn't
let me, but what's the use of my being proud? That was my brother, and
he drinks. I guess you'd know it to look at him, wouldn't you? It was he
who stole my money. That's the kind of people I belong to."
Peggy got to her feet. She had an odd feeling that she could not do her
subject justice sitting on a woodpile, with her feet dangling.
"Lucy Haines," she said with a severity partly contradicted by the
kindness of her eyes, "I'm ashamed of you. I can tell just by the little
I know of you, what kind of ancestors you had, and you ought to be
thankful for them every day you live. Think of all the sickly people in
the world, that can't more than half live at best, and you with your
splendid, strong body. And think of the stupid ones, who try to learn
and can't, and you seeing through everything like a flash. I know what
kind of people you belong to, Lucy Haines, and you ought to be proud and
thankful, too."
The immediate effect of this outburst was a surprise. Lucy Haines sat
down on the chopping-block and began to cry. She cried as if the pent-up
sorrows of her life were at last finding outlet, cried as if she never
meant to stop. Peggy in her dismay tried coaxing, scolding, petting,
each in turn, and at last gave up the vain endeavor, and took her old
place on the woodpile, to wait till Lucy should have come to the end of
her tears.
At last the figure in the soiled calico was no longer shaken by
convulsive sobs. Lucy turned toward the patient watcher on the woodpile,
and in spite of her swollen lids and blood-shot eyes, Peggy knew it was
the old Lucy looking up at her. "Well?" she demanded cheerfully. "It's
all right, isn't it?"
"Yes," Lucy agreed hesitatingly. "I'm going to try again, if that's what
you mean."
"And you'll come to-morrow?"
"Yes, I'll come to-morrow, if you're not too disgusted to bother with me
any longer," said Lucy humbly.
"Well, it's time for Hobo and me to be going home." Peggy jumped to her
feet, crossed briskly to the unkempt figure, and stooping, kissed a
tear-stained cheek. And then Lucy's arms went about her, and clasped her
close in passionate gratitude.
"Peggy Raymond," said a stifled voice, "I can't do anything to pay you
back, but this. I promise you I'll make you proud of me yet. You were
ashamed of me to-day, but if I live, I'll make you proud of me." And
Peggy had one more bewildering impression to add to the varied catalogue
of characteristics which made up the Lucy Haines, whom she was beginning
to think she had never known till that day.
In spite of this triumphant conclusion to her enterprise, Peggy returned
to the cottage heavy of heart. There is always a danger that the
sensitive and sympathetic will find the revelation of the misery in the
world overwhelming, bringing the temptation to shut one's eyes to
suffering, or else in its contemplation, to lose the joy out of life.
And as it only takes an added drop to cause a full cup to brim over,
Peggy's dejection reached the overflowing point, through no other agency
than the yellow hen.
The girls all noticed that Peggy was silent, as well as uncommunicative.
She fenced skilfully to evade direct answers to their questions, but she
did not seem inclined to introduce new topics of conversation. And when
Amy called her from the kitchen, where she and Ruth were getting supper,
Peggy sat staring abstractedly ahead of her till the call was repeated.
Priscilla glanced up from her magazine. "Say, Peggy, the girls are
calling you. Probably they are having trouble with the muffins."
"Oh, I didn't hear," Peggy sprang to her feet, and went hastily through
the house to the kitchen. But it was not domestic difficulties which
accounted for Amy's summons. She stood at the window, flattening her
nose against the screen.
"Peggy, I wish you'd tell me what this old vixen is about. Is she trying
to punish one of the chickens, or is it only a game?"
For ten days past the yellow hen had been freed from the restraints of
the coop, and by day had led her brood in adventurous quest of
grasshoppers, and at sunset had conducted them to the waiting nest in
the rear of the woodshed. But at the present moment, a peculiar scene
was being enacted. At the open door of the woodshed, a sleepy brood
huddled close, awaiting the return of their mother, who with an air of
determination was pursuing a squawking chick, running as if for his
life.
Around the cherry-tree they circled, once, twice, thrice. Then the
pursuer overtook her foster-child, and pecked him savagely. It was not a
game.
The yellow hen strutted off in the direction of her peeping brood,
clucking complacently, as if she congratulated herself on solving some
problem satisfactorily. The poor little outcast followed with a piteous
pipe, which caused the Spartan mother to turn and repeat her admonition.
For a moment Peggy was at a loss for an explanation. Then she
understood. "I know," she cried. "He's a different breed from the
others, and he's outgrown them, and the senseless old creature thinks he
doesn't belong to her. She's just got to be nice to him, that's all."
But Peggy's efforts at discipline were unavailing. The speckled chicken
surreptitiously introduced under the yellow hen's hovering wings,
enjoyed the briefest possible period of maternal protection. Before
Peggy could get back into the house, the yellow hen was chasing him all
around the woodshed, and Peggy found it necessary to make him
comfortable for the night in a basket set behind the stove.
And this was the little drop which made her cup overflow. The forlorn
peeping of the outcast chicken seemed to blend with poor Lucy's sobs.
Peggy wondered if it could be that the voice of earth's suffering was
like the hum of the insects on a summer night, so constant that one
might not hear it at all, but an overwhelming chorus if one listened.
"Peggy Raymond, do you think you're coming down with anything?" Amy
demanded crossly, at half-past nine o'clock that evening. "Because
you're about as much like yourself as chalk is like cheese."
Peggy stood up.
"No, I'm not coming _down with_ anything," she said lightly, "but
I'm going _up to_ something, and that's my bed. I believe I'm
sleepy."
Before she climbed the stairs, she went out into the kitchen to be sure
that the speckled chicken was comfortable. As she touched the basket he
answered with a soft, comfortable sound like the coo of a baby, or the
chirp of a sleepy little bird, the sound that speaks of warmth and
contentment. Peggy stood beside the basket thinking.
"There! I knew something was wrong." Amy had followed her friend out
into the kitchen. "You're crying over that chicken. Why, you silly Peg!"
But Amy had misinterpreted the moist eyes. That little contented sound
from the basket back of the stove had brought a message to Peggy. She
had made the chicken comfortable in spite of its unnatural mother. She
had rekindled ambition in Lucy's heart in spite of her thieving brother.
All at once Peggy understood that the compensation for insight is the
joy of helpfulness. It was not meant for any heart to bear the burden of
earth's grief, but only to lighten it as one can, and be glad.
And so, after all, Peggy went up to bed comforted.