Leavening the Bread of Life
“‘A house that is divided against itself cannot stand,’” quoted Linda.
“I must keep in mind what Eileen said, not that there is the slightest
danger, but to fall behind in my grades is a thing that simply must not
happen. If it be true that Peter and Henry can so easily and so cheaply
add a few improvements in my workroom in connection with Peter’s
building, I can see no reason why they shouldn’t do it, so long as I
pay for it. I haven’t a doubt but that there will be something I can
do for Peter, before he finishes his building, that he would greatly
appreciate, while, since I’m handy with my pencil, I _might_ be able
to make a few head and tail pieces for some of his articles that would
make them more attractive. I don’t want to use any friend of mine: I
don’t want to feel that I am not giving quite as much as I get, but I
think I see my way clear, between me and the Bear-cat, to pay for all
the favours I would receive in altering my study.
“First thing I do I must go through Father’s books and get the money
for them, so I’ll know my limitation when I come to select furniture.
And I don’t know that I am going to be so terribly modest when it
comes to naming the sum with which I’ll be satisfied for my allowance.
Possibly I shall exercise my age-old prerogative and change my mind;
I may just say ‘half’ right out loud and stick to it. And there’s
another thing. Since the editor of _Everybody’s Home_ has started my
department and promised that if it goes well he will give it to me
permanently, I can certainly depend on something from that. He has used
my Introduction and two instalments now. I should think it might be
fair to talk payments pretty soon. He should give me fifty dollars for
a recipe with its perfectly good natural history and embellished with
my own vegetable and floral decorations.
“In the meantime I think I might buy my work table and possibly an
easel, so I can have real room to spread out my new material and see
how it would feel to do one drawing completely unhampered. I’ll order
the table to-night, and then I’ll begin on the books, because I must
have Saturday free; and I must be thinking about the most attractive
and interesting place I can take Donald to. I just have to keep him
interested until he gets going of his own accord, because he shall beat
Oka Sayye. I wouldn’t let Donald say it but I don’t mind saying myself
to myself with no one present except myself that in all my life I have
never seen anything so mask-like as the stolid little square head on
that Jap. I have never seen anything I dislike more than the oily,
stiff, black hair standing up on it like menacing bristles. I have
never had but one straight look deep into his eyes, but in that look
I saw the only thing that ever frightened me in looking into a man’s
eyes in my whole life. And there is one thing that I have to remember
to caution Donald about. He must carry on this contest in a perfectly
open, fair, and above-board way, and he simply must not antagonize Oka
Sayye. There are so many of the Japs. They all look so much alike, and
there’s a blood brotherhood between them that will make them protect
each other to the death against any white man. It wouldn’t be safe for
Donald to make Oka Sayye hate him. He had far better try to make him
his friend and put a spirit of honest rivalry into his heart; but come
to think of it, there wasn’t anything like that in my one look into
Oka Sayye’s eyes. I don’t know what it was, but whatever it was it was
something repulsive.”
With this thought in her mind Linda walked slowly as she approached
the High School the next time. Far down the street, over the walks
and across the grounds, her eyes were searching eagerly for the tall
slender figure of Donald Whiting. She did not see him in the morning,
but at noon she encountered him in the hall.
“Looking for you,” he cried gaily when he saw her. “I’ve got my pry in
on Trig. The professor’s interested. Dad fished out an old Trig that
he used when he was a boy and I have some new angles that will keep my
esteemed rival stirring up his gray matter for some little time.”
“Good for you! Joyous congratulations! You’ve got the idea!” cried
Linda. “Go to it! Start something all along the line, but make it
something founded on brains and reason and common sense. But, Donald, I
was watching for you. I wanted to say a word.”
Donald Whiting bent toward her. The faintest suspicion of a tinge of
colour crept into his cheeks.
“That’s fine,” he said. “What was it you wanted?”
“Only this,” she said in almost a breathless whisper. “There is nothing
in California I am afraid of except a Jap, and I am afraid of them, not
potentially, not on account of what all of us know they are planning
in the backs of their heads for the future, but right here and now,
personally and physically. Don’t antagonize Oka Sayye. Don’t be too
precipitate about what you’re trying to do. Try to make it appear that
you’re developing ideas for the interest and edification of the whole
class. Don’t incur his personal enmity. Use tact.”
“You think I am afraid of that little _jiu-jitsu_?” he scoffed. “I can
lick him with one hand.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it,” said Linda, measuring his height and
apparent strength and fitness. “I haven’t a doubt of it. But let me
ask you this confidentially: Have you got a friend who would slip in
and stab him in the back in case you were in an encounter and he was
getting the better of you?”
Donald Whiting’s eyes widened. He looked at Linda amazed.
“Wouldn’t that be going rather far?” he asked. “I think I have some
fairly good friends among the fellows, but I don’t know just whom I
would want to ask to do me that small favour.”
“That is precisely the point,” cried Linda. “You haven’t a friend you
would ask; and you haven’t a friend who would do it, if you did. But
don’t believe for one second that Oka Sayye hasn’t half a dozen who
would make away with you at an unexpected time and in a secluded place,
and vanish, if it would in any way further Oka Sayye’s ambition, or
help establish the supremacy of the Japanese in California.”
“Um-hm,” said Donald Whiting.
He was looking far past Linda and now his eyes were narrowed in
thought. “I believe you’re _right_ about it.”
“I’ve thought of you so often since I tried to spur you to beat Oka
Sayye,” said Linda. “I feel a sort of responsibility for you. It’s to
the honour and glory of all California, and the United States, and the
white race everywhere for you to beat him, but if any harm should come
to you I would always feel that I shouldn’t have urged it.”
“Now that’s foolishness,” said Donald earnestly. “If I am such a dub
that I didn’t have the ambition to think up some way to beat a Jap
myself, no matter what happens you shouldn’t regret having been the one
to point out to me my manifest duty. Dad is a Harvard man, you know,
and that is where he’s going to send me, and in talking about it the
other night I told him about you, and what you had said to me. He’s the
greatest old scout, and was mightily interested. He went at once and
opened a box of books in the garret and dug out some stuff that will be
a big help to me. He’s going to keep posted and see what he can do; he
said even worse things to me than you did; so you needn’t feel that you
have any responsibility; besides that, it’s not proved yet that I can
beat Oka Sayye.”
“Yes, it is!” said Linda, sending a straight level gaze deep into his
eyes. “Yes, it is! Whenever a white man makes up his mind what he’s
going to do, and puts his brain to work, he beats any man, of any other
colour. Sure you’re going to beat him.”
“Fat chance I have not to,” said Donald, laughing ruefully. “If I don’t
beat him I am disgraced at home, and with you; before I try very long
in this highly specialized effort I am making, every professor in the
High School and every member of my class is bound to become aware of
what is going on. You’re mighty right about it. I have got to beat him
or disgrace myself right at the beginning of my nice young career.”
“Of course you’ll beat him,” said Linda.
“At what hour did you say I should come, Saturday?”
“Oh, come with the lark for all I care,” said Linda. “Early morning in
the desert is a mystery and a miracle, and the larks have been there
just long enough to get their voices properly tuned for their purest
notes.”
Then she turned and hurried away. Her first leisure minute after
reaching home she went to the library wearing one of Katy’s big aprons,
and carrying a brush and duster. Beginning at one end of each shelf,
she took down the volumes she intended to sell, carefully dusted them,
wiped their covers, and the place on which they had stood, and then
opened and leafed through them so that no scrap of paper containing
any notes or memoranda of possible value should be overlooked. It was
while handling these volumes that Linda shifted several of the books
written by her father, to separate them from those with which she meant
to part. She had grown so accustomed to opening each book she handled
and looking through it, that she mechanically opened the first one she
picked up and from among its leaves there fell a scrap of loose paper.
She picked it up and found it was a letter from the publishers of the
book. Linda’s eyes widened suddenly as she read:
My dear Strong:
Sending you a line of congratulations. You have gone to the head
of the list of “best sellers” among medical works, and the cheque
I draw you for the past six months’ royalties will be considerably
larger than that which goes to your most esteemed contemporary on
your chosen subject.
Very truly yours,
The signature was that of Frederic Dickman, the editor of one of the
biggest publishing houses of the country.
“Hm,” she said to herself softly. “Now that is a queer thing. That
letter was written nearly five years ago. I don’t know why I never
thought of royalties since Daddy went. I frequently heard him
mention them before. I suppose they’re being paid to John Gilman as
administrator, or to the Consolidated Bank, and cared for with Father’s
other business. There’s no reason why these books should not keep on
selling. There are probably the same number of young men, if not a
greater number, studying medicine every year. I wonder now, about these
royalties. I must do some thinking.”
Then Linda began to examine books more carefully than before. The
letter she carried with her when she went to her room; but she made
a point of being on the lawn that evening when John Gilman came, and
after talking to him a few minutes, she said very casually: “John, as
Father’s administrator, does a royalty from his medical books come to
you?”
“No,” said Gilman. “It is paid to his bank.”
“I don’t suppose,” said Linda casually, “it would amount to enough to
keep one in shoes these inflated days.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said John testily. “I have seen a few of
those cheques in your Father’s time. You should be able to keep fairly
well supplied with shoes.”
“So I should,” said Linda drily. “So I should.”
Then she led him to the back of the house and talked the incident
out of his mind as cleverly as possible by giving him an intensive
botanical study of Cotyledon. But she could not interest him quite so
deeply as she had hoped, for presently he said: “Eileen tells me that
you’re parting with some of the books.”
“Only technical ones for which I could have no possible use,” said
Linda. “I need clothes, and have found that had I a proper place to
work in and proper tools to work with, I could earn quite a bit with
my brush and pencil, and so I am trying to get enough money together
to fit up the billiard room for a workroom, since nobody uses it for
anything else.”
“I see,” said John Gilman. “I suppose running a house is extremely
expensive these days, but even so the income from your estate should
be sufficient to dress a schoolgirl and provide for anything you would
want in the way of furnishing a workroom.”
“That’s what I have always thought myself,” said Linda; “but Eileen
doesn’t agree with me, and she handles the money. When the first of the
month comes, we are planning to go over things together, and she is
going to make me a proper allowance.”
“That is exactly as it should be,” said Gilman. “I never realized till
the other night at dinner that you have grown such a great girl, Linda.
That’s fine! Fix your workroom the way you would like to have it, and
if there’s anything I can do to help you in any way, you have only to
command me. I haven’t seen you often lately.”
“No,” said Linda, “but I don’t feel that it is exactly my fault. Marian
and I were always pals. When I saw that you preferred Eileen, I kept
with Marian to comfort her all I could. I don’t suppose she cared,
particularly. She couldn’t have, or she would at least have made some
effort to prevent Eileen from monopolizing you. She probably was mighty
glad to be rid of you; but since you had been together so much, I
thought she might miss you, so I tried to cover your defection.”
John Gilman’s face flushed. He stood very still, while he seemed deeply
thoughtful.
“Of course you were free to follow your inclinations, or Eileen’s
machinations, whichever you did follow,” Linda said lightly, “but ‘them
as knows’ could tell you, John, as Katy so well puts it, that you have
made the mistake of your young life.”
Then she turned and went to the garage, leaving John to his visit with
Eileen.
The Eileen who took possession of John was an Eileen with whom he was
not acquainted. He had known, the night of the dinner party, that
Eileen was pouting, but there had been no chance to learn from her
what her grievance was, and by the next time they met she was a bundle
of flashing allurement, so he ignored the occurrence. This evening,
for the first time, it seemed to him that Eileen was not so beautiful
a woman as he had thought her. Something had roiled the blood in her
delicate veins until it had muddied the clear freshness of her smooth
satiny skin. There was discontent in her eyes, which were her most
convincing attraction. They were big eyes, wide open and candid. She
had so trained them through a lifetime of practice that she could meet
other eyes directly while manipulating her most dextrous evasion.
Whenever Eileen was most deceptively subtle, she was looking straight
at her victim with the innocent appeal of a baby in her gaze.
John Gilman had had his struggle. He had succeeded. He had watched, and
waited, and worked incessantly, and when his opportunity came he was
ready. Success had come to such a degree that in a short time he had
assured himself of comfort for any woman he loved. He knew that his
appearance was quite as pleasing as that of his friend. He knew that
in manner and education they were equals. He was now handling large
business affairs. He had made friends in high places. Whenever Eileen
was ready, he would build and furnish a home he felt sure would be
equal, if not superior, to what Morrison was planning. Why had Eileen
felt that she would envy any woman who shared life with Peter Morrison?
All that day she had annoyed him, because there must have been in the
very deeps of his soul “a still, small voice” whispering to him that he
had not lived up to the best traditions of a gentleman in his course
with Marian. While no definite plans had been made, there had been
endless assumption. Many times they had talked of the home they would
make together. When he reached the point where he decided that he never
had loved Marian as a man should love the woman he marries, he felt
justified in turning to Eileen, but in his heart he knew that if he had
been the man he was pleased to consider himself, he would have gone to
Marian Thorne and explained, thereby keeping her friendship, while he
now knew that he must have earned her contempt.
The day at Riverside had been an enigma he could not solve. Eileen was
gay to a degree that was almost boisterous. She had attracted attention
and comment which no well-bred woman would have done.
The growing discontent in John’s soul had increased under Linda’s
direct attack. He had known Linda since she was four years old and
had been responsible for some of her education. He had been a large
influence in teaching Linda from childhood to be a good sport, to be
sure she was right and then go ahead, and if she hurt herself in the
going, to rub the bruise, but to keep her path.
A thing patent to the eye of every man who turned an appraising look
upon Linda always had been one of steadfast loyalty. You could depend
upon her. She was the counterpart of her father; and Doctor Strong had
been loved by other men. Wherever he had gone he had been surrounded.
His figure had been one that attracted attention. When he had spoken,
his voice and what he had to say had commanded respect. And then there
had emanated from him that peculiar physical charm which gives such
pleasing and distinguished personality to a very few people in this
world. This gift too had descended to Linda. She could sit and look
straight at you with her narrow, interested eyes, smile faintly, and
make you realize what she thought and felt without opening her lips.
John did not feel very well acquainted with the girl who had dominated
the recent dinner party, but he did see that she was attractive, that
both Peter Morrison and Henry Anderson had been greatly amused and very
much entertained by her. He had found her so interesting himself that
he had paid slight attention to Eileen’s pouting.
To-night he was forced to study Eileen, for the sake of his own comfort
to try to conciliate her. He was uncomfortable because he was unable
to conduct himself as Eileen wished him to, without a small sickening
disgust creeping into his soul. Before the evening was over he became
exasperated, and ended by asking flatly: “Eileen, what in the dickens
is the matter with you?”
It was a new tone and a new question on nerves tensely strung.
“If you weren’t blind you’d know without asking,” retorted Eileen hotly.
“Then I am ‘blind,’ for I haven’t the slightest notion. What have I
done?”
“Isn’t it just barely possible,” asked Eileen, “that there might be
other people who would annoy and exasperate me? I have not hinted that
you have done anything, although I don’t know that it’s customary for a
man calling on his betrothed to stop first for a visit with her sister.”
“For the love of Mike!” said John Gilman. “Am I to be found fault with
for crossing the lawn a minute to see how Linda’s wild garden is coming
on? I have dug and helped set enough of those plants to justify some
interest in them as they grow.”
“And the garden was your sole subject of conversation?” inquired
Eileen, implied doubt conveyed nicely.
“No, it was not,” answered Gilman, all the bulldog in his nature coming
to the surface.
“As I knew perfectly,” said Eileen. “I admit that I’m not feeling
myself. Things began going wrong recently, and everything has gone
wrong since. I think it all began with Marian Thorne’s crazy idea of
selling her home and going to the city to try to ape a man.”
“Marian never tried to ape a man in her life,” said John, instantly
yielding to a sense of justice. “She is as strictly feminine as any
woman I ever knew.”
“Do you mean to say that you think studying architecture is a woman’s
work?” sneered Eileen.
“Yes, I do,” said Gilman emphatically. “Women live in houses. They’re
in them nine tenths of the time to a man’s one tenth. Next to rocking
a cradle I don’t know of any occupation in this world more distinctly
feminine than the planning of comfortable homes for homekeeping people.”
Eileen changed the subject swiftly. “What was Linda saying to you?” she
asked.
“She was showing me a plant, a rare Echeveria of the Cotyledon family,
that she tobogganed down one side of Multiflores Canyon and delivered
safely on the roadway without its losing an appreciable amount of
‘bloom’ from its exquisitely painted leaves.”
Eileen broke in rudely. “Linda has missed Marian. There’s not a
possible thing to make life uncomfortable for me that she is not doing.
You needn’t tell me you didn’t see and understand her rude forwardness
the other night!”
“No, I didn’t see it,” said John, “because the fact is I thought the
kid was positively charming, and so did Peter and Henry because both
of them said so. There’s one thing you must take into consideration,
Eileen. The time has come when she should have clothes and liberty and
opportunity to shape her life according to her inclinations. Let me
tell you she will attract attention in georgette and laces.”
“And where are the georgette and laces to come from?” inquired Eileen
sarcastically. “All outgo and no income for four years is leaving the
Strong finances in mighty precarious shape, I can tell you.”
“All right,” said Gilman, “I’m financially comfortable now. I’m ready.
Say the word. We’ll select our location and build our home, and let
Linda have what there is of the Strong income till she is settled in
life. You have pretty well had all of it for the past four years.”
“Yes,” said Eileen furiously, “I have ‘pretty well’ had it, in a few
little dresses that I have altered myself and very frequently made
entirely. I have done the best I could, shifting and skimping, and it’s
not accomplished anything that I have really wanted. According to men,
the gas and the telephone and the electric light and the taxes and
food and cook pay for themselves. All a woman ever spends money on is
clothes!”
“Eileen,” chuckled John Gilman, “this sounds exactly as if we were
married, and we’re not, yet.”
“No,” said Eileen, “thank heaven we’re not. If it’s come to the place
where you’re siding with everybody else against me, and where you’re
more interested in what my kid sister has to say to you than you are in
me, I don’t think we ever shall be.”
Then, from stress of nerve tension and long practice, some big tears
gushed up and threatened to overflow Eileen’s lovely eyes. That never
should happen, for tears are salt water and they cut little rivers
through even the most carefully and skillfully constructed complexion,
while Eileen’s was looking its worst that evening. She hastily applied
her handkerchief, and John Gilman took her into his arms; so the
remainder of the evening it was as if they were not married. But when
John returned to the subject of a home and begged Eileen to announce
their engagement and let him begin work, she evaded him, and put him
off, and had to have time to think, and she was not ready, and there
were many excuses, for none of which Gilman could see any sufficient
reason. When he left Eileen that night, it was with a heavy heart.