FORLORN ETTA
Dobbin never could be induced to go faster than a gentle trot and this
pace was especially pleasing to his driver on a day when the world, all
the world that she knew, was at its loveliest. Having left the coast
highway, she turned up the Live-Oak Canon road and slowly began the
ascent toward the foothills.
There was no one in sight for, indeed, one seldom met pedestrians along
the winding lanes in the aristocratic suburb of Santa Barbara. Now and
then a handsome limousine would pass and Dobbin, drawing to the far side
of the road, would put up his ears and stare at the usurper. He seemed to
consider all vehicles not horse-drawn with something of disdain. Then,
when it had passed, he again took the middle of the road, which he deemed
his rightful place.
“Dobbin,” the girl sang out to him, “what would you think, some day, if
you saw me riding in one of those fine cars?” Then, as memory recalled a
certain stormy day two years previous, Jenny continued, “I never told
you, Dobbin, but I did ride in one once. It was a little low gray car and
the boy who drove it called it a ‘speeder.’”
Then, as Dobbin seemed to consider this conversation not worth listening
to, the girl fell to musing.
“I wonder what became of that boy. Harold P-J, he called himself, and he
said I mustn’t forget the hyphen. He laughed when he said it. There must
have been something amusing about it. He was a nice boy with such
brotherly gray eyes. He hasn’t been back since, I am sure, for he told
granddad he would come to the farm the very next time his mother
permitted him to visit Santa Barbara.” Then Jenny recalled the one and
only time that she had seen Harold’s mother. It was when she had been
ten. She had been out in the garden gathering Shasta daisies to give to
Miss Dearborn, her teacher. She had on a yellow dress that day, she
recalled; yellow had always been her favorite color and she had been
standing knee deep among the flowers with her arms almost full when the
grand coach turned into the lane. Jenny had often heard Granny Sue tell
about the coach, on the door of which was emblazoned the Poindexter-Arms,
and the small girl, filled with a natural curiosity, had glanced up as
the equipage was about to pass. But it had not passed, for the only
occupant, a haughty-mannered, handsomely-gowned woman had pulled on a
silken cord which evidently communicated with the driver’s seat, for,
almost at once, the coach had stopped and the woman had beckoned to the
child.
“Are you Jeanette Warner?” she had asked abruptly. The child, making a
curtsy, as Miss Dearborn had said all well-mannered little girls should,
had replied that her name was Jenny. Never would the girl forget the
expression on the handsome face as the eyebrows were lifted. The grand
dame’s next remark, which was quite unintelligible to the child, had been
uttered in a cold voice as though the speaker were much vexed about
something. “I am indeed sorry to find that you are so alike.”
The haughty woman had then jerked on the silken cord in a most imperious
manner and the coach had moved toward the farmhouse.
Jenny had never told anyone of this meeting, but her sensitive nature had
been deeply hurt by the cold, disdainful expression in the woman’s eyes.
She had sincerely hoped she never again would encounter the owner of
Rocky Point, nor had she done so. Time, even, had erased from her memory
just what Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had said, since, at the time, the words
had conveyed no real meaning to the child. All that was left in her heart
was a dread of the woman, and she had been glad, glad that she lived far
away to the north instead of next door.
Suddenly the impulsive girl drew rein. “Dobbin,” she exclaimed joyfully,
“stand still a moment. I want you to look at that wonderful stone wall
around the Bixby estate. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing that you ever
saw with the pink and white cherokee roses, star-like, all over it?” Then
she waved her hand toward an acacia tree beyond the wall that was golden
with bloom, and called out to an invisible mocking bird that was
imitating one lilting song after another, “I don’t wonder that you shout
hosannas of praise. It’s such a wonderful world to live in. Trot along,
Dobbin! We must get the eggs to the seminary before five.”
The tree-shaded, lane-like road they were following had many a bend in it
as it ascended higher and higher into the foothills, and, as they turned
at one of them, Jenny again addressed her four-footed companion.
“Dobbin, do hurry! There’s that poor forlorn Etta Somebody who pares
potatoes at the seminary. I see her all crouched down over a pan of
vegetables every time I go into that kitchen to deliver eggs and honey,
but not once has she looked up at me. I know she’s terribly unhappy about
something. I don’t believe she even knows that she’s living in a
wonderful world where everything is so beautiful that a person just has
to sing. Please do hurry, Dobbin. I may never get another chance to speak
to her and I want to ask her if she wouldn’t like to ride.”
Jenny slapped the reins on the back of the old dusty-white horse, and,
although he at first cast a glance of indignation over his right
shoulder, he decided to humor his young mistress, and did increase his
speed sufficiently to overtake the tall angular girl who shuffled as she
walked and drooped her shoulders as though the burden upon them was more
than she could bear. She wore an almost threadbare brown woolen dress,
though the day was warm, and a queer little hat which suggested to Jenny
pictures she had seen of children in foreign lands. She had one day heard
the cook address the girl as Etta in a voice that had expressed
impatience, and so, pulling on the rein, Jenny called cheerily, “Etta,
are you going up to the seminary? Won’t you ride with me? I’m taking the
eggs a day early.”
The girl, whose plain, colorless face was dully expressionless, climbed
up on the seat at Jenny’s side. “You look awfully fagged and dusty. Have
you been walking far?” the young driver ventured.
The strange girl’s tone was complaining—“Far? Well, I should say I have.
All the way to Santa Barbara railway station and back. Folks enough
passed me goin’ and comin’, but you’re the first that offered me a lift.”
“Eight miles is a long walk,” the young driver put in, “on a day as warm
as this” Etta’s china blue eyes stared dully ahead. She made no response
and so Jenny again started Dobbin on the upward way.
From time to time she glanced furtively at her companion, wondering why
she was so evidently miserable.
At last she said, “I suppose everyone was in a hurry. I mean the folks
who passed you.”
But her companion, with a bitter hatred in her voice, replied, “Don’t you
believe it. Most of ’em don’t have nothin’ to do that has to be done.
Rich folks ridin’ around in their swell cars, but do you s’pose they’d
give me a lift. Not them! They’d think as how I’d poison the air they
breathed if I sat too close. I hate ’em! I hate ’em all!”
Hate was a new word to Jenny and she did not like it. “I suppose some
rich folks are that way, but I don’t believe they all are.” Then she
laughed, her happy rippling laugh which always expressed real mirth.
“Hear me talking as though I knew them, when I don’t. I never spoke to
but one rich person in all my life, and just a minute ago I was wishing
that I never would have to speak to her again.” Jenny wondered why Etta
had walked to the railway station. As they turned the last bend before
their destination was to be reached, she impulsively put her free hand on
the arm of her companion and said, “Etta, would it help any if you told
me why you are so dreadfully unhappy? I don’t suppose I could do
anything, but sometimes just talking things over with someone who wishes
she could help, makes it easier.”
The china blue eyes of the rebellious girl at her side were slowly turned
toward the speaker and in them was mingled amazement and doubt. Then she
remarked cynically, “There ain’t nobody cares what’s making me
miserable.” But when Jenny succeeded in convincing the forlorn girl that
she, at least, really did care, the story of her unhappiness was
revealed.