A GUST OF WIND
Winter came down very early this year on Governor's Island, before
the close of November. Autumn did not linger pleasantly as usual, and
Lucy's outdoor project, in which she was so sure she could interest
Marian, had ended almost before it was begun. The two games of golf
they had found time to play, before frost hardened the ground and the
flags were taken in, did not awaken in Marian any great enthusiasm.
Lucy lamented to Julia one day that they had begun the experiment so
late in the season.
"I ought to have tried to make her do outdoor things while it was
warmer," she said regretfully. "Then she wouldn't have been willing
to stop doing them. She hates cold weather and she isn't used to it.
Her father has always taken her away somewhere for winter. Of course
bowling is fun, but it isn't out-of-doors."
Lucy and Julia and Anne Matthews liked to get strenuous exercise in the
bowling-alley at the Officers' Club, which they were allowed to use
at certain hours while the officers were on duty. They were trying
to teach Marian the game, and her few shots had not been bad, but for
the most part she liked better to watch the others play, and was quite
ready to set up the pins every time rather than make the effort needed
to roll the ball.
"Exercise isn't everything, though, Lucy," Julia objected. "We aren't
trying to make a prize-fighter out of her. She's a lot stronger than
she was, except for getting tired so easily. What I think she needs is
company."
"That's what I think," agreed Lucy, warmly. "She ought to go with a
crowd of girls who would persuade her into doing as they did. But you
haven't any idea how hard it is to make her go out on these cold days,
or take the trouble to go to see any one. I simply have to drag her
out for the little walks we take, and you know how short they are.
If I took her around the whole post I think we'd have to stop at the
hospital. The other day I brought her in after a 'long walk'--at least
she was pretty tired--and we had walked so slowly I had to run around
and around the house to warm up, after she had gone in."
"She does poke along," said Julia laughing. "But, Lucy, somehow I can't
help being interested in her, and wanting to get her well."
"That's just it," said Lucy quickly. "I'm so glad you feel that way
too. No matter how mad and provoked she makes me, I like her and I like
being with her. Now that she talks and feels at home with us I'm never
dull with her. She can tell no end about queer things and places she's
seen, and whatever you talk about she's sure to understand."
"Anne Matthews likes her, I know," said Julia thoughtfully. "There's
certainly nothing slow about Marian when it comes to learning lessons.
If she waked up as much to other things we'd have a hard time keeping
up with her."
Lucy was thinking over this conversation on a cold, sunny afternoon
a week before Thanksgiving, when the three girls had gone out on the
sea-wall for their walk, to look at the deep blue water, which had
already begun to form into thin ice along the base of the rocks. Marian
loved the changing waves, with which two voyages across the ocean had
made her very familiar, and the easiest way to coax her out-of-doors
after school on blustery days was to suggest a glimpse at the
white-capped breakers, where the new land lately added to the island
had led the sea-wall far out into the bay.
Marian was warmly dressed in a soft, fur-trimmed coat, with a blue,
woolly cap pulled down over her ears. Her delicate cheeks were bright
pink and her hair, tossed about by the keen wind, blew in gleaming
curls across her face. She looked filled with health and good spirits
as she laughed and pushed her hair out of the way, her bright,
untroubled eyes roaming over the foamy, blue water. Lucy looked at her
with critical admiration, deciding on another effort to help along her
cousin's growing willingness to take part in other girls' pleasures.
"I have an idea, Julia and Marian," she began, sure of Julia's support.
"You know your mother, Julia, wants us to get as many girls as we can,
to-morrow afternoon, to come to the Red Cross and finish up those
clothes for the French orphans. What do you say to my inviting them
all to our house afterward, to play games and have ice-cream? Margaret
loves to make it and we wouldn't have cake--just cookies or something.
It might help to get the girls together."
"It's a fine idea," said Julia, with a vigorous nod. "There are about a
dozen girls, I think, if you ask all on the post from sixteen down to
twelve. What do you think of it, Marian?"
"All right," agreed Marian, mildly interested.
"I'll make some oatmeal cookies for you, Lucy," offered Julia. "I love
to make them."
"Will you? Thanks!" said Lucy, rubbing her red cheek with a wool-gloved
hand. "Suppose we go back now, before Marian gets frozen stiff and
can't be moved."
"I'm nearly that already," remarked Marian, stamping her feet. "We must
have been out an hour by now, Lucy."
"Oh, yes, almost. The wind will be behind us going this way, so you
won't mind it," Lucy called back, leading the single file along the
sea-wall.
Once back from the exposed point of the island the wind died down, and
as the girls left the sea-wall for the grass and neared the Infantry
quarters on Brick Row, skirting the aviation field, Marian raised her
chin from where it was snuggled down into her neck, and straightened
her shoulders a little.
"Phew! What a cold place!" she breathed.
"Bob said in the letter we got yesterday," said Lucy, glancing toward
the aviation sheds, "that it was cold there, too, though the weather
had been good otherwise. He said the poor French people were awfully
hard up for clothes. That's what made me wish to see if we can't get
more things done for them."
"You don't know just where he is, do you, Lucy?" asked Julia.
"No, though Father thinks he can figure it out pretty well. He's not
far from the base headquarters of our army."
"He got our fruit-cake at last, anyhow," said Marian with
satisfaction. "I hate not knowing if things get there after you've sent
them." She still shivered a little, though the brisk walk across the
parade had now quite warmed the others.
"There goes the postman into your house with a big package, Lucy," said
Julia as they crossed the grass from Colonel's to General's Row.
"Perhaps it's the present your father is going to send you for
Thanksgiving, Marian," suggested Lucy.
"Maybe it is," agreed Marian, quickening her steps a little as they
neared the house. "O-oh!" she breathed, once safely inside the Gordons'
front door, "isn't it nice to be where it's warm!"
"Why, it's not so very cold," said Julia, laughing. "You are a regular
pussy-cat, Marian."
"Except that she doesn't like cream--Mother tries to make her,"
remarked Lucy, examining the package the postman had left on the hall
table. "It is for you, Marian. Here you are! Come on up-stairs, Julia,
while we take off our things, and we will see what's inside. Can't we,
Marian?"
"Of course," said Marian, pulling off her warm cap with one hand and
picking up her box.
"I wonder where Mother is. I want to ask her about the party."
"Your mother went out with William, Miss Lucy," answered Margaret, who
was passing through the hall. "She said she wouldn't be gone long."
"All right, thanks," said Lucy, leading the way up to her room.
Seated on Lucy's bed Marian let her cousin untie all the knots in the
string fastening her box, and only took a hand herself when it was time
to raise the lid and lift out sheets of crinkly tissue-paper.
"It's a dress," cried Lucy, much more excited than the present's owner.
"Oh, Marian, it's too lovely!"
Mr. Leslie, who never found enough to do for his lonely little
daughter, had telegraphed to a New York shop for the prettiest dress
they had, suitable to a fourteen-year-old girl. Marian's measurements
were already on hand, and some clever person in the shop, where Marian
was quite well known, had picked out the frock that met Lucy's admiring
eyes. It was a soft rose taffeta silk, with black velvet ribbon girdle
and wide organdy collar, the skirt puffed out into countless little
ruffles that caught the light with a silvery sheen.
Even Marian was charmed She lifted it out, smoothing the soft silk with
her hand and wishing her father were near enough for her to thank him.
"It _is_ pretty, isn't it?" she asked, to which Lucy and Julia gave an
enthusiastic assent.
"Please try it on right now. Won't you?" begged Julia, beginning to
unhook the dress Marian wore, without further delay.
"Oh--well," Marian agreed, holding up the new beauty and studying its
fastenings.
"Now, slip this off and in you go," said Julia, twitching off Marian's
school frock with one hand and putting the new dress over her head with
the other.
The two girls hooked and snapped and patted and poked with eager hands
for a minute, until Marian stood revealed in all the rose-frilled
loveliness, a little untidy about her hair, which was a picturesque
heap since she pulled off her cap, but otherwise all that could be
desired. There was no doubt that the rose dress was tremendously
becoming.
"Only those tan shoes spoil it," said artistic Julia, frowning at
Marian's feet.
"Here's Mother!" said Lucy, springing up from the floor as steps
sounded on the stairs. "Come in quick, Mother, and see Marian's
present."
Mrs. Gordon came, and added her praise to the chorus. "What a perfectly
lovely present, Marian. I do think you have the best father! That dress
fits you perfectly, too. Turn around and let me see the back."
"Undo it, Cousin Sally, won't you? I'd like to sit down and take a
rest," remarked Marian, tired of being exhibited. "I'll wear it on
Thanksgiving Day."
"I should think so," sighed Lucy. "That's something to be thankful for."
Marian cast a glance of more affection than she usually bestowed on her
clothes at the little dress, as Mrs. Gordon laid it carefully back in
the box.
"Mother, we have something else to talk about," said Lucy, as Mrs.
Gordon took out her hat-pins and folded up her veil. "We want to get
all the girls we can together, to-morrow afternoon, to work for Mrs.
Houston, and afterward have them here to play games and give them
ice-cream and cookies. How about it?"
"Why, yes, I think so," agreed Mrs. Gordon thoughtfully. "I don't
see why you shouldn't. But the new maid I've engaged won't be here,
so if you invite all the girls near your age you had better go down
to Sergeant Wyatt's some time to-day and ask Rosie to come and help
Margaret. There will be a good many to wait on."
"I'm going to bring some cookies, Mrs. Gordon," put in Julia. "I can
make awfully good ones. The puppy found some of the last ones I made,"
she added regretfully.
"I know they're good, Julia, and that's very kind of you. You really
needn't."
"Oh, I'd like to, Mrs. Gordon. I simply must go now," Julia declared,
getting hastily up from her seat on the floor.
"I'll come down with you," said Lucy, rising too. "I may as well go and
speak to Rosie now," she added, at the foot of the stairs. "Just wait a
second, Julia, till I get my coat."
Once outside Julia said good-night and started across the green, for
Lucy's way led to the left.
"Good-bye till to-morrow. I'll telephone every one this evening," Lucy
called after her.
Lucy found Rosie Wyatt willing enough to come and help. Rosie was a
girl about Lucy's own age, the Sergeant's oldest daughter. She was
always glad to earn a little money to help along her father's big
family, and with Mrs. Gordon's instruction was becoming a very good
little waitress.
When it came to telephoning the girls, Lucy managed to get fifteen,
including herself and Marian, and she obtained each one's promise to go
to the Red Cross next day to work from lunch time until half-past three.
The following afternoon saw a string of girls entering the club in twos
and threes, armed with thimble and scissors, until quite a little crowd
was assembled at one end of the Red Cross room.
"This was a splendid idea of yours, Lucy," said Mrs. Houston, looking
with real satisfaction at the hands held out toward her for their
share of sewing. "These little dresses and wrappers are all stitched
together, girls, just the way they are to go. I am sure you can all
sew well enough to turn up the hems and put on the collars. If any one
can't, she may sew on the buttons."
"Then I guess I'll have to sew on the buttons," said Marian, looking a
little shamefacedly at the busy workers. "I certainly couldn't put on a
collar that any orphan could wear."
"All right, Marian," said Mrs. Houston, smiling. "There are lots of
buttons to go on, so you will have plenty to do. Only be sure to sew
them tight enough. There won't be any one over there to put them on
again."
"I just want to tell you, Mrs. Houston," said Hilda Lee, looking up,
"that Anne Matthews and I were coming here to work this afternoon
anyway, so we aren't such slackers as you may think."
"Oh, you girls are pretty good about coming, I think," said Mrs.
Houston seriously. "I know it's more fun to stay outdoors after school
than to sit over a table here. Part of Saturday is really the most we
can expect of you in school-time."
"Especially if you work as hard as Marian and I do," put in Julia,
laughing. Their marks for the month had come out unexpectedly a little
higher than Anne's and Lucy's.
Marian looked pleased but said nothing. In fact she was having rather
a hard time with the buttons, and Lucy secretly took the work away from
her more than once to straighten out a snarl of cotton.
"Just think of never having even sewed on a button for yourself," Lucy
thought as she bent again over her own hemming. With the reflection she
understood a little better a certain helplessness about Marian that
cropped out at inconvenient moments, when Lucy in the midst of some
occupation needed a helping hand. It was not that Marian was clumsy or
lacked quickness--she learned anything with amazing readiness--it was
only that she had never done little useful things and had to learn what
most girls know.
The two hours of work passed pleasantly and quickly, with every one
sewing as hard as she could and talking still harder. When the clock
struck half-past three a pile of finished garments had been stacked
upon the table.
"Oh, isn't this nice?" said Mrs. Houston, folding the little flannel
dresses with approving hands. "You've done more than I ever thought you
could, girls, and you've certainly earned a rest."
"We liked doing it," said Mabel Philips, putting down her last piece of
work. "We'll come any time you want us, if we can."
Every one hurried into her hat and coat and ran down-stairs. Outdoors
a cold wind was blowing from Sandy Hook which flung capes and coats
about in clinging folds, and made the sentry's ears red, as he walked
in front of the club, shifting his gun occasionally from one shoulder
to the other.
"Gracious!" said Marian, snuggling promptly down into her fur collar.
"I'm glad Lucy can't take me for a walk to-day. This is the sort of
weather she likes to go around the island just where the wind is
strongest."
"Isn't she cruel?" said Anne Matthews, laughing. She did not add that
Marian's rosier cheeks and growing endurance were a pretty good defense
of Lucy's persevering methods.
Back at the Gordons', after the wraps were put aside, Lucy said to her
guests: "I thought it would be fun to play games for a while. What do
you think? You aren't any of you too old to like Blind Man's Buff and
Stage-Coach and Winks, are you?"
The three reverend sixteen-year-olds expressed their perfect
willingness to play anything, and proposed Stage-Coach to begin with.
Every one was eager to move about after sitting still so long and in a
few moments the house was in a joyous uproar, as though having worked
so hard made the girls more able to enjoy themselves.
Stage-Coach was followed by Winks and Going to Jerusalem--played
with the help of the Victrola, and finally a calm ensued for twenty
questions. Then came Charades, acted in Lucy's and Marian's rooms,
with one room for the actors and one for the audience. These were so
popular that they lasted until Lucy whispered to Marian, who happened
to be on the audience side at the moment:
"Would you mind going down and telling Margaret and Rosie that we're
ready now? It's nearly five o'clock."
Marian ran down-stairs to the dining-room and gave Rosie Lucy's
message. Mrs. Gordon had put a pretty, embroidered cloth on the table
and a big fern in the center. Everything was ready on it except for
Margaret to bring things up from the kitchen, and for the candles to be
lighted, for five o'clock meant nearly darkness now.
"Shall I light the candles?" asked Rosie, looking very trim and nice in
her little white apron. "Did Miss Lucy say they'd be right down?"
"Yes, they are coming in just a minute," said Marian, drawing up
another chair to the table, and counting to see if there were enough.
Suddenly a gust of wind from the harbor blew open the big glass door
opening from the dining-room on the back piazza. Marian rushed toward
it in a panic as the table-cloth billowed and fluttered and the
pictures on the wall rocked back and forth. She seized the door and
closed it, and as she struggled with the fastening she heard something
fall behind her and heard Rosie scream. The lighted candle had tipped
over on the table and Rosie, wildly snatching at the fallen candlestick
and at the second one, ready to fall, had set fire to her fluttering
apron.
The flame sprang quickly to life in the air still quivering from the
gust of wind, and curled dangerously against her muslin dress as
Rosie's trembling hands tried vainly to untie the strings. "Get some
water!" she stammered, white with terror, and remembering only one of
the counsels taught her--to stand still.
The water-pitcher was across the room from Marian, and one good
drenching would have put out the flame, but Marian stood rooted to
the spot with horror, literally unable to move, her staring eyes
fixed on Rosie's apron, and on the girl's terrified, white face as
she still tugged at the strings behind her waist. But Rosie found her
voice now, and she burst into such screams that Margaret came running
breathless from below, and the whole party, abandoning charades, rushed
down-stairs with headlong speed. One look at Rosie and Margaret seized
the pitcher of water and poured it over her blazing apron and already
kindling skirt; then, laying the child on the floor, she rolled her
tightly in a rug till the last spark was extinguished. By the time
the girls and Mrs. Gordon were on the scene the danger was over, and
except for being pale and trembling, Rosie was unharmed.
"What on earth happened? Is she hurt?" "Good gracious, did she catch
fire?" "I heard those awful screams, and----" came in a babel of
voices. Some one dressed as a gypsy, to judge by a quantity of shawls
and curtains, shouted excitedly to a sort of Daniel Boone, in Major
Gordon's boots and William's leather cap. The charaders had not waited
to change their clothes. The room was crowded to the doors, for the
sentry had run into the house, gun in hand, at Rosie's shrieks, to be
re-enforced by two soldiers from the Quartermaster's who were doing
carpentry in the basement.
Mrs. Gordon had little time to devote to Rosie, once assured that she
was safe, for Marian, after that awful second of paralyzed horror, had
sunk down almost fainting on a chair, oblivious to all around her. Lucy
ran for water and patted her forehead with a moistened handkerchief,
while the girls gathered about, alarmed and sympathetic, offering each
one a different suggestion in excited whispers. Marian's failure to
rise to the occasion of Rosie's need was kindly attributed to her being
almost an invalid, and only exclamations of pity followed her, when
at last she was able to be helped to her feet and up-stairs with Mrs.
Gordon's arm about her shoulders.
Rosie was too shaken to stay, besides being dripping wet, so two of the
guests volunteered to walk home with her, as Sergeant Wyatt's house was
only a short way off.
"We won't be gone more than ten minutes, Lucy," they assured their
hostess, who began to feel doubtful about her little party ever taking
place.
Mrs. Gordon came back from Marian's room to urge every one to sit down
at the table. "Marian is all right," she said, "and Margaret is waiting
to bring things in. Sit down, all of you, and I will just see that
Rosie has enough warm clothes on to go home."
Rosie was standing by the front door with Lucy and several of the girls
still surrounding her, when down the stairs came Marian, looking pretty
pale and holding on to the banister, but carrying under one arm a huge
cardboard box. Lucy looked at her in astonishment and saw that her
face was as quiet and determined as it had been on the day of Bob's
departure. Marian went straight up to Rosie and held out the big box
to her, saying, "Please take this, Rosie. It's a present, because I'm
sorry your dress is spoiled. If I had had any sense it wouldn't have
been."
In a hushed silence Rosie took hold of the box with uncertain fingers.
But as she fumbled with the lid and, opening it, half revealed the
glories within, she flushed red with pleasure and sinking down on the
floor lifted out the lovely rose-colored dress with a sigh of wondering
delight. She was almost Marian's size, and no normal girl could have
resisted that dress, especially one who had so few pretty things come
her way as the Sergeant's little daughter.
"Oh, thank you!" she breathed, her eyes raised to Marian as to a fairy
godsister as she put back the dress and struggled, in a fluttering
shower of tissue-paper, to her feet.
The burst of enthusiasm which greeted this generous act was echoed with
unbounded rejoicing in Lucy's heart. She could hardly wait until Rosie
was gone and the others had started back toward the dining-room to
catch her cousin by the arm and whisper, "Oh, Marian, you're a brick."
All during the last half hour, since Marian had stood weakly helpless
in the face of Rosie's danger, Lucy had been struggling with her
feelings, vainly trying to excuse her cousin's cowardice and only
succeeding in feeling unsympathetic and disappointed. But all in a
moment now Lucy saw that Marian had been as little satisfied with her
conduct as she herself, and had taken prompt and heroic measures to
redeem it. No one who had seen Marian trying on that taffeta dress
would have doubted that it took a generous effort to give it away
before she had even worn it. She might have given any one of a dozen
dresses as good as new, and far better than Rosie's little muslin, but
she chose the only one she really cared to keep.
Marian had flushed at Lucy's praise, and her face wore a happy smile as
the guests sat down to a belated feast of hot chocolate, brown bread
sand-wiches, ice-cream and cookies. In a moment tongues were loosed,
and the excitement made more to talk about now that it was safely over.
Marian came in for a good share of comment, both aloud and whispered,
and not one of Lucy's friends but gave her the credit she deserved for
making the best atonement in her power.
When the girls had eaten all they could and finally taken their leave,
Julia lingered a moment, ostensibly to ask Mrs. Gordon about the
first-aid class which Mrs. Matthews was beginning the next day for Anne
and her friends, but really more than anything to have a friendly word
with Marian and let her know that an honest effort at self-improvement
did not go unnoticed. Marian was quick enough at guessing the feelings
of others. She felt the atmosphere of appreciation about her, and the
faint color returned to her pale cheeks and a cheerful light to her
eyes. She had suffered a few moments of real shame in her room alone
after Mrs. Gordon had left her, and nothing less than this would have
restored her peace of mind.
That night Lucy sat on the sofa by her window with the moonlight
shining in on her, and thought with a glow of satisfaction of her own
hard work in Marian's behalf and of the returns it had already brought,
small and scattered though they were. Her mother had not felt quite so
pleased as the others at Marian's giving away her father's present, but
she had nevertheless appreciated the sacrifice which lay behind it.
Lucy felt a warm friendship for her cousin now, in spite of her trying
moments, but another small problem loomed up, which must be solved on
the next day.
"I'll ask Mother to decide it," she thought, for sleep was getting the
best of her reflective mood.
Lucy raised the window and looked up at the full moon, gleaming clear
and bright in the starry sky.
"That moon is looking down on Bob somewhere in France. I wonder if he's
watching it too."
Then the cold air came blowing in and, with a last look at the man in
the moon's cheerful face, she ran to get into bed.