In the days that followed after the winter snow's melting it seemed to
Peggy that she was seeing the world by sunlight for the first time. The
wonderful new lights that fell on everything, making even a roof or a
clay bank a beautiful thing to behold, the subtle perfume that came
drifting out on the breeze over orchard and woodland, the pink blossoms
on the apple trees, all these things sent her about with her head in the
clouds and a happiness at her heart that was just the joy of living.
The girls sauntered now on their way to classes, instead of hurrying and
scurrying to escape the cold. They sang on their way to chapel, they
lingered on the porch steps after luncheon, every Saturday they planned
some kind of tramp or picnic that was different, very, from the gay,
romping affairs of the fall. These parties, or "bats," as they always
called them, not knowing at all that that word was considered of rather
vulgar significance out in the world, were long, lazy, enjoyable
affairs, where groups went together with arms twined about each other's
shoulders, always singing, singing. They sang Yale songs and Harvard
songs and Princeton songs, then each group of girls sang the songs of
the college they themselves hoped to attend, and wound up with the
Andrews favorites.
"People along here would think us German soldiers, the way we sing as we
go," said Peggy. "Oh, isn't it all heavenly, heavenly. Music with us
that we make ourselves, and apple blossom petals as sweet as roses
dropping down on us from the trees wherever we go, and all the
world--ours--"
To her own surprise a sob choked her, and the other girls did not laugh,
but looked away with the tolerant dreaminess the spring had given them.
The great topic of every spring at Andrews was Annapolis, and, as soon
as they had thoroughly exhausted the subject, Annapolis all over again.
Which girls were to go and which must stay at home?
"Oh, girls, the marine band!" one group would remind another as they met
going to and from classes.
"And, oh, that gymnasium floor--" the other group would sing out.
Peggy dreamed of nothing but picturesque white buildings and uniformed
young middies drilling, and wonderful girls in wonderful gowns dancing,
dancing with wonderful representatives of the navy.
Not for her--oh, not for her, this one desirable thing of all the world
that the others were to have! Of course, she had wickedly been saved
from a storm--but it seemed to her now very unjust that this should
stand in her way, now especially when the snow was all gone and there
was nothing left to remind her of how grateful she ought to be for that
past favor of fortune. Was getting saved and being served to hot
chocolate such a crime, then? Hadn't any other girl ever had the same
experience? Well, if she hadn't, Peggy pitied her rather than envied
her, she knew that. Oh, Mrs. Forest, what a narrow-minded woman she was.
Just as if she had been born a hundred years old as she was now and had
never known any girlhood, Peggy mused. Oh, Annapolis, Annapolis! Oh,
dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!
Nothing would ever make up--nothing ever or _ever_! If she could only go
and look on, even, she would be satisfied. Must she see the others
fluffing up their ruffles and pinning on their sashes and starting off
with bobbing rose-buds at their waists while she remained behind, her
nose pressed flat to the window, to see them off and the tears coursing
sadly down her face? It was a heartbreaking picture and Peggy threw
herself on the bed and cried over it until the thought came to her that
if she kept this up she would go through the grief of it all many times
before it actually came to her to bear it, and perhaps for the occasion
itself there would be no tears left.
She wiped her eyes and saw that they were not, after all, so very red,
and no permanent wrinkles had been made in her face from screwing it up
so hard. She decided that she'd just pretend she was going instead of
continually dwelling on the fact that she wasn't. She got out her lovely
little frock her aunt had recently sent her to be her best through the
spring term. It was a deep, sweet pink--Peggy called it her candy
dress--and tenderly she smoothed the dainty chiffon tunic over the crisp
taffeta slip. There is a balm just in the touch of pretty clothes to dry
the tears of any girl or woman unless her grief is very deep. Peggy felt
the color stealing back into her cheeks, and her eyes were a-shine with
admiration. The very way the dress fell, all fairy-like and light, from
her fingers when she lifted away her hand, the glow that the silk gave
back, the cool feeling of the silver bead fringe that went around the
sleeves,--Peggy would have had to be far less susceptible to the lure of
feminine finery than she was if she had not caught her breath with pure
joy in the possession of such a gown.
There are pinks and pinks, some beautiful shades and others not so
lovely. But silk stockings will often take the loveliest pink of all,
and Peggy's were delicately tinted and gleamy and did justice to the
dress with which they were to be worn. Her little slippers had high
heels, and how she reveled in them! After the flat heels they were
obliged to wear every day at Andrews the dignified height and the
curving grace of these were a rest and a delight to the eye. They were
all of pink satin, just a shade deeper than the stockings, and were
decorated with tiny handwrought gold buckles that glinted and flashed in
the light like a cluster of yellow diamonds.
"Oh, tra, la," sang Peggy, handling them, "oh, tra, la."
And her pleasure in living rushed back full force, for, after all, these
things were hers and even if there was to be no Annapolis, she would
have the satisfaction of knowing how she _might_ have looked if she
could have gone.
That night, when the girls discussed every detail of the trip, even to
the train they were to take and what they were to wear as traveling
suits, Peggy found that she was able to join in without tears and
without bitterness and help them make their plans perfect. The girls
were overwhelmed by the generosity of her attitude, and marveled at her
cheerful spirit.
"There's one thing, Peggy," said Helen Remington across the table, "if
you were going there wouldn't be a chance for the rest of us. There'd
just be a general stampede in your direction and _we'd_ look on alone
and unnoticed."
The other girls nodded. Peggy thought of the dear pink dress and those
wondrous slippers, and in the egotism of her youth she thought it might
be so, after all.
It was one day off, at last. Even Mrs. Forest was practicing a
peaches-and-cream, prunes-and-prisms, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth
manner for the occasion. She was very kind to all the girls, and was
careful not to hurt the feelings of the few culprits who had to stay at
home, by references in their presence to the good times the others
expected.
"If I _were_ going, I'd wear this brown taffeta suit down there on the
train," mused Peggy, "and these bronze shoes. My, I think it would be
fine going down there on the train--oh, dear, oh dear, I'm afraid I'm
going to cry again over it, and it isn't time yet. Time enough when I
hear the taxis whirring off with them inside. How can Katherine be so
happy in going when I have to stay behind? I'd never go a step if she
were in my place. Never in the whole world! Oh,--de--ar!"
If Katherine had been taking pleasure in the contemplation of a good
time that did not include Peggy it would have been very unlike her
indeed. But, while Peggy had been sentimentally weeping before the pink
gown in their room at Andrews, she had been as busy as might be with
plans to make everything come out all right. And it was perfectly true
that if she had been unable to bring about the desired result, she would
not have gone herself, but would have developed a headache at the last
minute that would have compelled her to remain at home with her injured
room-mate.
Several times she had run in lonely haste up the walk of Huntington
House to hold conference with the owner and his grandson. For, as she
put it, nobody could hope to do anything with Forest unless they had a
"pull," and Mr. Huntington was the only person she knew who had one and
might be expected to exercise it in a case like this.
"Threaten her with the gymnasium," begged Katherine. "Tell her Peggy has
changed her mind about giving up the money for a gymnasium for such a
mean horrid school as she is making of our dear old Andrews. Tell her
that you'll write to the boys at Annapolis and tell them that Forest
keeps her prettiest girls at home and thinks just the ordinary ones are
good enough for them. And then let her see how quickly the yearly
invitation to bring down some of the girls will be renewed. Why, they'll
never consent to hear Andrews mentioned in their presence again." She
was becoming vindictive in the extreme, and Mr. Huntington sat back and
laughed at her.
But, laughing or not, he promised to try his hand at appeasing Mrs.
Forest, and this was just what Katherine had wanted, so she forgave him
his mirth at her expense.
Mr. Huntington was seen to come up on the porch at Andrews a few hours
later, and the girls wondered how many of them he would ask for. Imagine
their surprise, therefore, when he did not even send up word to
Katherine and Peggy, but remained in solitary consultation with their
principal, and finally walked off without a backward and upward glance
at the window full of friendly figures waiting to wave at him.
He left Mrs. Forest in a sad state of mind. But there was only one way
out of it--and that was to trudge up the broad staircase and fill
Peggy's heart with wild delight by the remission of her sentence.
This she did with what grace she could muster, and it must be admitted
there was a guilty feeling of not deserving it when Peggy, impelled by
the sudden rise in her emotional temperature, flung herself upon her
quondam enemy and kissed her on the lips.
"There, there, child," murmured the much-softened principal. "I'm sure
you'll be a credit to the school, and now I want you to forget
everything but the good time. What dress shall you wear, dear? What,
that? Oh, it is beautiful. Your aunt is a very charming woman, my dear,
and possesses excellent taste. I hope it will be very becoming to you."
"Hope!" cried Peggy to Katherine as soon as she had gone, "she hopes.
Why, Katherine, any living person with eyes in their head could see that
it _will_ be!"
So it happened that when the rest of the girls were packing their
suit-cases with joyous exclamations over everything they put in, Peggy,
too, was packing hers. And when the happy party stepped into its several
cabs, she was at, last triumphantly wearing the very brown taffeta that
she thought ideal for the train, and her face was as beaming as the
spring morning. What chattering went on inside those jolting cabs, what
hopes, what surmises, what anticipations filled those youthful hearts!
When they stepped out at the station, a breathless boy from the
florist's ran up to the group panting out, "Miss Parsons, where is Miss
Parsons, please? I ran over to the school but I got there just too
late."
And when Peggy, her face flushing with surprise and pleasure, admitted
that she was the one sought, he eagerly handed her, not one box, but
two, and amid the excitement of the crowding girls, Peggy unwrapped them
then and there. One was fragrant with the most generous bunch of violets
she had ever seen, tied with the daintiest lavender ribbon and thrust
through with a violet pin so that she might transfer the glowing beauty
of them from the box and tissue wrappings to her coat at once. The other
box was white with lilies of the valley, and Peggy buried her bright
face in their sweetness ecstatically. Then she bethought her to look for
cards.
"Because, of course, magical as it seems, getting here like this just as
I am about to start, and not knowing a single person I'd dream would
send me any flowers, still, I suppose somebody _did_ like me enough to
do it. So I'll--just--see--"
Her inquiring fingers slid inside the envelope that came with the lilies
of the valley.
"Mr. Huntington," she read. Then with increasing excitement she opened
the other little envelope and her eyes danced as she read that card.
"James Huntington Smith."
"Oh, how lovely of them, how lovely," she cried. And then and there with
hasty fingers, she mingled the lilies of the valley in with the violets,
and gleefully pinned on the whole gorgeous if somewhat too conspicuous
bunch. In stories, the girls who receive flowers divide them up among
their friends. But in life, how seldom, how seldom! With a finer
appreciation of the intentions of those who sent them, they are quite
delightedly selfish with them, and almost any real live girl would have
combined two bunches, if they were flowers that went well together, as
Peggy did, and would have worn them that way, and been proud to do it,
too.
There is something about the wearing of flowers sent by a really
interesting person that just tips the whole day with a kind of satisfied
glory. Peggy's manner instantly took on a lovely graciousness and
sweetness, for she was wearing the evidence that two people liked her
and wanted her to have a good time, and it behooved her to live up to
the added beauty the flowers lent her.
It was a very long ride down to their destination, and Peggy had time to
conjure up in her mind all the pictures she had ever seen of men in the
navy, and battleships, and cannons, and such warlike objects. She
thrilled to the thought of such a life, with its roving over the whole
world after school was done, in those great gray floating forts of
cruisers with their long sinister guns always ready for whatever might
deserve their cruel attention. Even when women vote, she thought, there
would be no such glory of open sea for them. There would still be
heights on which men would dwell where women could never expect to
climb. Well, came the comforting thought, but the women could go and
dance with these wonders that were afraid of nothing! They could be
waited on by them, too, and served to ices! My, my! Well, it wasn't so
bad after all. Peggy began to feel that everything in the world was
pretty well balanced after all. And she was glad that she lived in so
fine a place, and that she was young and nice looking, and that she had
a pink dress in her suit-case.
When they came to Annapolis at last and the party descended, all
excitement, Peggy could hardly wait to appear at the scene of the coming
festivities. But they were taken first to their rooms at the inn and
there they left their baggage and powdered their noses, and fluffed
their hair and then sallied forth once more, this time to go through the
archway right into the Annapolis grounds, with the white buildings just
as Peggy had dreamed, and the midshipmen and girls strolling and
laughing together along the walks. They went to the reception room while
Mrs. Forest sent up their cards. It had been arranged that certain of
the young men were to come down and take charge of the party for the
afternoon and evening. And while they were waiting Peggy looked at the
other occupants of the reception room. Did the hearts of any go bounding
along as much as those of the Andrews girls? Peggy, seeing no one but
several middle-aged women, thought it was not likely. But perhaps she
was wrong, for these were mothers, and they had not seen their sons
since the beginning of the term. Would they be changed? Would they be
glad to see them there for the games, and pilot them around as loyally
as if they had been slight, laughing, dimpled young girls like that
charming group yonder? Perhaps there was even more excitement in it for
them than for the Andrews girls, but Peggy couldn't know.
When at last the group arrived who were to pilot the girls about for the
afternoon, Peggy was conscious of being introduced to one pleasant-faced
young man after another, each in uniform, and each with a certain
indescribable quality of self-possession and the ability to do just the
right thing that characterizes the boys who are trained in our naval
Academy. Would the girls rather go out on the water and see the boat
races, or would they go over to the baseball game? It was a sort of a
three-ringed circus day at the Academy.
Some girls wanted to go out in the launches, others thought the glare of
sun on the baseball field would not burn their noses so badly. Peggy
just couldn't make up her mind to give up either of them.
"Oh, couldn't I, _couldn't_ I see a little bit of both?" she cried
pleadingly to the boy who had consulted her. "It's just one day out of
the whole world you know, and I want to get everything I can in it!"
Whatever slight restraint there might have been in first meeting fell
away at her frank eagerness, and the boy's expression assumed at once an
alert interest in giving her as good a time as could be crammed into the
hours before them. Out in the little rocking boat they went dancing over
the water with the full blazing glare of the afternoon sun across it and
in their eyes. She saw the race and cheered with the rest, though,
unless she had been told every little while, she would not have known
which boat was which. Every few minutes she turned to laugh her supreme
delight into the equally radiant face of her companion, and the two were
as good friends at once as if they had known each other for years.
Long before the sport on the water was over, however, Harold Wilbering,
her new friend, insisted that they must leave if they really wanted to
see anything of the game. She said reluctantly that she still wanted to,
so they went bounding and leaping back over the waves and hurriedly made
their laughing way toward the ball grounds. As they passed one of the
buildings, Peggy heard a strange tick-ticking sound that was someway
very interesting and compelling. She felt that it meant something, and
was vaguely troubled by its persistence.
"What is that sound?" she found courage to ask at last.
"Oh, the wireless," her companion answered indifferently.
The wireless! Right down that curious looking instrument, the thing
sputtered and ticked! Oh, how queer it was to be where all the mysteries
of the great sea were everyday commonplaces, as the wireless evidently
was to the midshipmen. Perhaps some great ship was calling its distress,
or signaling. Perhaps those very little sputters were the messages of a
British war ship on its way to battle with the German cruisers! It did
not take long for Peggy to picture herself as listening at the moment to
one of the most stirring sea-messages of history--more important than
the famous, "We have met the enemy and they are ours," that she had once
learned about in school, back in her grammar days. She forgot to talk to
her young companion for fully five minutes under the stimulus of this
beautiful idea!
When they came to the ball grounds and climbed into the bleacher seats,
which were the only kind there were, the sun pouring generously down on
them all the while, Peggy thought more of the crowd than of the game.
She looked along the rows of backs ahead of them, and envied some of the
girls for their very self-possessed, experienced appearance, and was
glad she was not others with their too fancy clothes and their excess of
furbelows, of tulle bows, and earrings and coat chains.
Some of the Andrews girls, with Mrs. Forest and Miss Carrol, were
sitting near, and Peggy noticed that they all leaned forward to look at
her with a strangely intent expression in spite of their interest in the
game. Something was wrong? Or was it that she looked so nice? Peggy
hoped devoutly that this was the cause of their unanimous attention.
So she went right ahead and had as good a time here watching the game as
she had just enjoyed on the water. Her face was in the sunlight most of
the time, for her hat did not shade it as most of the girls' hats did
theirs. But Peggy had never minded sunlight and she didn't see why she
should begin now, so she leaned out confidently while the hot blaze came
full on cheek and nose. The dazzle from the water had already had the
best of it, however, and her face was really beyond a much deeper dye of
red than it had already assumed.
She discovered this later, when the girls, after a light supper, were
all in their rooms at the Inn, excitedly pulling out their pretty
dresses for the evening and wiping their faces with all manner of soft
creams and lotions after they had scrubbed them to a healthy glow. Poor
Peggy gave one look in the glass and sank helplessly down on the bed and
buried her small burned face in the pillow.
"It's no use, it's no use," she sighed. "Katherine and Florence, did you
ever hear of such a tragedy? And my dress is pink! Oh, dear, oh, me, oh,
my!"
But the drifting pictures of the afternoon's happiness were going
through her mind, and she was sure nobody would like her when there were
so many girls who had remembered that they would need their complexions
for the evening! Still, here she was, and she had wanted to come at any
cost, and it was probably going to be one of the spectacles of her young
life. She would go and have as good a time as she could, and not mind
too much that she was a different kind of spectacle all by herself, a
sort of little geranium-face in the midst of lilies.
She bathed her face and applied a bit of every kind of lotion, for each
of her friends generously thrust theirs upon her in a well-meaning
endeavor to discount the too marked effect of the sun.
"I'll be just sticky when I'm through," she sighed, complying humbly
with all their well-meant suggestions. Her face shone a triumphant
crimson through the results of all their ministrations, however, and she
realized that not even powder would do much to mitigate a color as
flamboyant as that. To make it worse, it was beginning to peel in funny
little rough wrinkles, as a sensitive skin will after such an exposure
to sun as she had given hers. So the powder just looked crumbly when it
was applied and she turned her eyes away from the mirror with a cowardly
determination not to glance that way again. But how can one do one's
hair in a brand new style and twine a tiny wreath therein without
looking, not once, but many times at one's reflection? But each time the
sight that met her disillusioned eyes was a reproach.
She was doing her beautiful gold-tinted hair into a twist instead of
leaving it as she usually wore it in curls. Most of the Andrews girls
had done their hair after this new fashion throughout the winter and
early spring, but Peggy was younger than most of them and she had worn
hers down her back until to-night.
"Of course," she mused aloud, "there isn't so very much use my taking
any pains with it at all, since I'm to imitate a scarecrow throughout
the evening. But then, I had decided to do my hair this way before I
knew the awful destiny that was in store for me, and I have already paid
two good dollars for the little wreath to go in it, so I guess I'd
better fight it out on this line if it takes all summer. Florence, will
you please stick a hair pin in here for me? I seem to need three hands
right now and I have only two clumsy ones. Do you think I'll do? Oh, I
know my face isn't possible, but otherwise I'm all right, am I?"
And she burst out laughing at the idea of a girl who was all right but
her face thinking of going to a party at all and having a good time.
"But I must remember," she told herself, "that I had a good time getting
that sunburn, and it isn't as if I hadn't already been paid by happiness
for its awfulness."
The pink dress didn't look as pretty as it had when she had tried it on
before her mirror at Andrews, because pink never did go so very well
with that odd shade of flaming red that Peggy's face showed. There was a
bright and distinct line, too, around her neck, all red above the line
and all white below, where her collar had protected the skin. She tied a
strip of black velvet around this tell-tale mark, humming the while, for
it seemed that she might as well be cheerful over this, one of the worst
disasters that had ever happened to her.
"They'll see this black ribbon and just think I've tied it too tight,"
she explained to her friends hopefully, "and that it's choking me,
making my face so red."
Katherine and Florence failed to see the advantage of having them think
this, but they kind-heartedly refrained from saying so, and let Peggy
take what comfort she could out of so plausible a belief.
In her heart of hearts, perhaps, Peggy was remembering the occasion when
she had dressed so carefully for the matinee that she didn't get to the
matinee at all, and was deciding that being on hand was really more
important than making a good appearance.
She went to the hop, her spirits as light as her dancing feet, and when
Harold Wilbering came eagerly over to her, she and he laughed at what
had happened to her face, but he discovered what Peggy had not the least
idea of for herself, that the sunburn effect was really rather becoming.
It made her so vivid and so alive. It looked merely as if she were
blushing all the time, and Harold liked it. And who could help enjoying
himself in talking to Peggy that evening, as she became more and more
forgetful of her tragedy, and more and more able to give her whole
attention to just having a good time? It was rare that so appreciative a
young lady came to one of their early hops. The boys were quite
accustomed to girls who had been to a great many more dances than they
had, and who sometimes made them feel just a little young. But Peggy so
doted on it all, was so carried away by the Marine band, so ready to
laugh at their simplest and most time-worn jokes, so wonderingly
surprised and naively gratified at their own open admiration of her,
that she took like wildfire, and half the academy was talking about that
little Parsons girl for a week thereafter.
Peggy went back with the girls to their rooms, her laughter just
bubbling at her lips and her sense of satisfaction perfect.
She took down her hair chattering all the time, and when at last the
three turned out the light and crept into bed,--for Katherine and she
and Florence shared one room, Florence sleeping on the couch and Peggy
and Katherine in the big bed, she whispered blissfully into the
darkness, "Oh, hasn't this been a most _dazzling_ day! I don't know when
I've had such a lovely, lovely time. I don't someway think it's just
little Peggy Parsons with a red face that went through all that
beautifulness, but instead I feel as if I'd been a fairy princess--the
change that Cinderella experienced and all that--and, oh, how I do hate
to wake up in the morning and realize that my coach and four has turned
into pumpkin!"
"You looked nice in spite of your face, Peggy," said Florence. "And,
someway, everybody did seem to take an awful shine to you."
And then Florence's talk drifted off to the partners she had had, and
what each one had looked like and what they said. And whenever she
paused for breath Katherine interrupted with the story of her adventures
and in the midst of their dialogue the fairy princess and Cinderella and
little tired red-faced Peggy Parsons, all rolled into one, went off to
sleep and dreamed the enchanted dreams of youth.