"Peggy, hurry up and come to bed, the light just shines in my eyes, and
_shines_ in my eyes," complained Katherine that night from her side of
the room, "and it's so unlike you to study so late--or aren't you
studying?"
"Nope," answered Peggy laconically, and the hint of tears in her voice
brought Katherine to a sitting posture, a wealth of surprised sympathy
in her face. "What's the matter, honey?" she asked coaxingly, "have I
unknowingly used one of your themes for scrap paper? Or has Forest been
mean again?"
Peggy looked across at her and folded a sheet of paper as she did so.
"It isn't anything," she insisted.
But Katherine guessed. "You are writing to your aunt!" she exclaimed.
Slowly Peggy nodded. "I want everything," she said. "Oh, Katherine, I
don't know how it is that when a person has so much, they can just go on
wanting and wanting and not be content without it _all_. I know I've had
this lovely year with all of you and ever so many girls can't go away to
school at all, but, Katherine, I'm--I'm such a pig--I--I--want college,
too!"
And then the tears that would not be restrained any longer coursed down
her cheeks and fell unheeded on her blue kimono, while she clasped her
hands and rocked them in self-accusation and despair.
"I wish you were going--I don't know what it will be worth without you,"
moaned Katherine, in sympathy. "But, listen, Peggy, dear, there are lots
of girls who have good times staying at home or traveling or--even doing
something that's lots of fun to earn money. Peggy, you aren't a girl who
can be unhappy long, by nature. Honestly, after you've once gotten over
this you--you won't care--"
But Katherine's voice failed her along with her attempts at comfort.
"I can't seem to--face it," wept Peggy. "I don't know what's the matter
with me that all of a sudden I want, want, _want_ this and nothing else
in the world has any effect to comfort me. Oh, Katherine, Katherine,
since I was a little girl I've kind of thought way back in my mind that
I'd get to go to college. And all this wonderful year has drifted away
just like perfume, or something nice like that,--I don't mean to be
poetical--and here it's gone and I haven't any plans. It's terrible to
grow up, Katherine, and to have to work out something definite for
yourself to do. I don't want to be grown up, Katherine, I want to be a
girl for four years more. I know I'm a pig, honey, and if there were
bigger things left to want I suppose I'd want them, too. And even when I
graduated from college, if I did go, I guess I'd not be content, but I'd
want to be an actress and star in something, so as to seem to be having
it all. I wish you'd been asleep instead of questioning me, because I'll
feel awfully in the morning to think I've told you all this. I--I feel
badly enough right now."
And the goldy head went down on the folded paper and the writing on it
was soon blotted and blurred with tears. Katherine slipped out of bed
and, running over to her room-mate, threw her arms around her neck.
"It isn't anything unusual to want everything that way, honey," she
said, "I won't have you think that it is. Everybody in the whole world
wants it all, dear. Only _all_ to some people means different things
from what it does to us. You aren't piggish, either, I've known you a
whole year and you and I have never quarreled over anything in all that
time, and that's a record for room-mates even at Andrews. And my folks
never flattered me by thinking me unselfish, so it isn't my fault things
ran so smoothly--it was your generous, happy spirit, ready to share
everything, wanting to help everybody, eager for good times, and able to
take all the other girls into them with you. Oh, Peggy, dear, it's the
most natural thing in the world to want things--and I think there's a
cog loose somewhere in the way things are run if you don't get your
wish, that's all. You are the very one that ought to have college.
Please don't cry. You look so different from my Peggy when you cry. I'm
so much more used to you laughing."
Putting aside the friendly arms of her room-mate, Peggy wiped her eyes
and snapped out the light. With a final little gasp of a sob she crept
into bed and covered her forlorn young face with the bed clothes. She
expected that she would be awake all night, thinking heartbrokenly of
her troubles, but instead she had no more than gotten snuggled down into
the couch's warmth than she was sound asleep and not in any of her
dreams did any trouble whatsoever make its appearance.
Katherine, on the other hand, lay awake nearly ten minutes and told
Peggy in the morning, believing it was true, of course, that she had not
slept one wink.
In due time a letter came to Peggy from her aunt in answer to the one
she had written with so many tears that night.
"Dear Peggy, Your letter made me think matters over very
carefully, little girl, and I have gone over our resources with
the disheartening result that I must tell you I do not see how I
am to let you go to college this year. Now, Peggy, you are young
and even after several years outside of school, it will not be
too late for you to go to college if financial affairs turn out
better. But just at this time, when everything is so uncertain,
and prices are so high and so few stocks are paying dividends, I
do not see how I can possibly spare enough for you to go to
Hampton. There are a great many nice girls here, Peggy, about
your age, who are not going to school any more, and never even
thought of such a thing. I'm sure you can make quite a little
social set with them, and I shall take you around to call on all
of my friends, and finally give you a small coming out party,
for every well-bred girl ought to care for society and desire to
please by what she has already learned. I think that after a
year of what quiet but agreeable society life you can have here
at home, you will not want to go to college. And to tell the
truth, Peggy, I have never thought much of college for girls. It
seems to me woman's place is in the home and in her own little
social sphere. I know this letter will be a disappointment to
you, but you are a sweet, brave girl, if a bit inclined to be
rompish, and I'm sure you'll agree with me in time when you've
had a chance to think things over. Regretting that I cannot let
you have your wish, though, whether I approve or not, I am,
Very lovingly yours,
---- _Aunt Mattie_."
Peggy's mouth twitched into her characteristic smile, dimple and all,
and she gazed somewhat ruefully back over the closely written sheet.
"Fancy me a society lady," she said to herself. "Oh, I never imagined
even in my wildest dreams that I should get to be that--nor ever wanted
it, either, if I tell the truth. I love parties and I adore people and
hope always to have lots of them around me, men and women and children
and everybody. But just to make a sort of career out of visiting and
dancing--oh, I want college."
All the indefinite longing that the spring brings with it took the shape
in Peggy's mind of this one paramount desire. If she could go to college
she would be happy. If she could not, she must be miserable. Ashamed of
herself for her attitude she might be, but crush the wish she could not.
Katherine had had her application in at Hampton for three years now and
had so been assigned a room on campus with another girl named Gloria
Hazeltine. Peggy felt that already she was dropping out of her
room-mate's life. The other girls were all planning their next year, at
table, outside the class-rooms, on their way to Vespers on Sundays. But
she had nothing to plan. And the idea began to form in her mind that if
she had some definite idea it would be better--even if the idea involved
something hard and unheard of like earning her own living. At least
there would be excitement in the contemplation of actually doing it.
So one day when all the rest were talking Hampton, Hampton, and nothing
but Hampton, and when Daphne Damon turned abruptly to Peggy and said:
"Peg, infant, what are you going to do next year?" she answered quickly,
"Clerk in a store, I think." And their expressions were mingled
astonishment and--yes, she caught it, envy.
"My goodness, Peggy, wouldn't that be lovely," gasped Florence Thomas.
"Who would ever think of anything so daring but you? You'll certainly
have more to write about in your letters than we will, but will you
promise to keep up a correspondence with us, nevertheless, so we can
hear how the famous experiment is going?"
Peggy only laughed.
A while later, in their room, Katherine excitedly handed Peggy a letter
she had just been reading.
"From your substitute, Peggy," she said, "or, in other words, my
room-mate-to-be. The registrar gave her my address, just as she had
given me hers, and she was sweet enough to write me a
let's-get-acquainted letter. I never thought of doing it. She has a nice
name, hasn't she--Gloria Hazeltine."
Mechanically Peggy took the note and read it slowly:
"My dear Miss Foster Who is to be My Room-mate": it began, "Or hadn't I
better begin right away by saying Katherine, and then we won't feel so
strange when we talk to each other really for the first time--"
Peggy looked wistfully up from the letter to her room-mate's glowing
face.
"I won't tell you any of my faults," she read on, "because you'll have a
year to find those out, and I think for those things, a year is long
enough. The main purpose of this letter is to so mislead you that you
will think I haven't any faults and then, when you finally see me, it
will take such a long time for readjustment that, before you've really
found me out, I shall have made you like me a little for good and keeps.
I've never had a room-mate myself, and I hope you haven't, so that it
will be equally new to both of us to have to consider someone else's
taste and wishes at every turn. What color do you like best? I am
beginning to plan my things, and we might as well get together on a
color scheme so that our couch covers won't be too jarringly different,
and my flamboyant cushions won't be shamed by some mouse-like ones of
yours, and vice-versa.
"I am looking forward to rooming with you because I have you all planned
out in my mind. I sit and think slowly 'Katherine Foster' just like
that, and then _you_ rise before me. Only perhaps it isn't you at all.
But I promise not to be disappointed in you whatever you are like, and
won't you write back and make me the same promise?
"Good-bye, from your much excited Next-Year's Room-mate,
"_Gloria Hazeltine_."
Peggy dropped the letter back on the desk and sat down on her couch, her
hands clasped over her knees disconsolately, and her eyes unhappily
looking into the future. Finally she rose with a mighty sigh and,
turning her back on her room-mate, she began to dress for the afternoon
with infinite care.
"Where are you going, Peggy?" Katherine asked, "and may I come along?"
"You could," said Peggy after a reluctant pause, "if you wanted to and
if I didn't have a date all arranged with somebody who told me to come
just by myself."
She realized that her reply sounded ungracious, but the letter from
Katherine's next year's room-mate was vivid in her mind, and she felt
that after all she wasn't going to be missed. It meant so much to her
not to go to college and yet nothing to anyone else. It is human nature
to want to be missed, and Peggy couldn't help her twinge of
disappointment in the fact that her absence was going to mean so little.
Mr. Huntington had asked her to spend the afternoon in a walk with him,
as he had said he wanted to get her opinion on something he was
planning, and as he often did nice things for the townspeople now, Peggy
felt sure this was another such venture and that he merely wanted the
shining-eyed approval she was always certain to give.
He had said, "Nobody but you, this time, Peggy," and yet, when she went
down to the gate to meet him, there stood his grandson also, smiling as
broadly as the old man, and both of them seemed to be in some delightful
secret that she didn't know about at all. Mr. Huntington directed their
walk toward a new part of town that was just being built up.
"It's not generally known that I own all this," he told Peggy, "but I
do, and it's I who am building it up. Now look down this tiny
street--look hard and tell me what you think of it!"
"Oh!" cried Peggy, staring down the dear little new street with great
interest,--great enough to make her forget the thing she couldn't have,
for the moment--for there was a double row of adorable little bungalows,
just newly painted, as neat and trim and attractive as any houses ever
were in the world, and the street itself seemed to be just a miniature
affair, with only six houses on each side and then ending in a vine
covered wall. "Oh, it's darling!" cried the irrepressible Peggy, "I just
love it! Who could have imagined any such dear, doll-like little street,
with twelve such lovely bungalows on it! This street ought to have a
wonderful name, Mr. Huntington--don't you think so, Jim? Please, please,
Mr. Huntington, if it's not already named, let Jim and me pick out what
to call it. I just know that we could find a name that would satisfy
everybody who ever took one of those cute houses to live in as long as
they stand."
She looked up into the old man's face, the sunlight streaming down into
hers, and she clasped her hands in her eagerness, and it was hard to see
how he could have had the heart to refuse her. But he did.
"The name is chosen already," he said with a kind of chuckle. And Jim
only grinned at the sight of Peggy's helplessly falling hands, and her
evident disappointment.
"We--ell," she sighed, "so many things to stand to-day--what is it? I
know it isn't as nice as I had in mind, is it, Jim?"
"Nicer," said that traitor Jim.
"Well, what, then?"
"Parsons Court," said the old man, smiling down on her curiously, and
then laughing toward his grandson who laughed back appreciatively.
"Parsons--?" her breath came in a little astonished gasp.
"That's it," Mr. Huntington repeated, "and do you know why?"
But Peggy must have been a daring young guesser indeed had she been able
to guess correctly why, as the old man's next remark showed.
"It's _yours!_" he told her, pressing a legal looking paper into her
hand, "the whole street was built and planned and named for you, and you
shall have the rent of these little houses, or you can sell them when
you wish. I thought if you just rented them, while you are in college,
they'd bring you in a larger income than most of the girls know how to
spend."
Peggy threw herself right down on the ground and began sobbing. It was
too wonderful--it was simply the wildest magic! Oh, how beautiful it was
to have somebody like her so well and want her to be happy! Then as
abruptly as she had cast herself down, she sprang up, and laughing and
crying at once, she seized Mr. Huntington's hand, and pumped it up and
down, and clung to it and tried to talk and could not.
Jim turned his head away before her great joy and smiled quietly all by
himself. She was such a flyaway sort of Peggy, tears one minute and
laughter the next, and all the past and all the future were as nothing
beside the present moment.
He was recalling all that he himself and the old man beside him owed to
this same warm-hearted girl, and he felt that the debt was not nearly
canceled by Parsons Court.
"Oh, Jim," she was turning to him now, "a few minutes ago I was wicked
enough to be almost sorry you saved me from that storm so long ago. But
now, oh, Jim, I thank you now all over again for having saved me, so
that I can be here now and have this lovely, lovely thing happen to me.
How good people are to me! Oh, I must remember to be a regular _angel_
to everybody I meet just to pay up for everybody's always being so
wonderful to me. Mr. Huntington, I _love_ Parsons Court, and every house
in it, and I'm so stingy I hate to rent any of them, but just want to
come and live in them all myself, one after the other. But renting them
means college, so please, Mr. Huntington, get me some tenants just as
fast as you can,--and I never was so happy in my life, or didn't ever
expect to be!"
The old man's face glowed with pleasure, and it was easy to see that he
was as happy as Peggy.
If anyone ever walked on clouds that person was Peggy as she and her two
friends made their way back toward Andrews. How brightly the sun shone!
She knew it had never looked like that before. How beautiful everybody
was--how everybody's face was beaming as she passed, school children,
old women, the men on the delivery wagons--all, all lit for her by a
subtle glory that was spreading and spreading over the whole world. Her
friends just laughed at her raptures, but it was an understanding laugh,
and Peggy liked them for it. Was there anything at this minute, or
anybody, that she _didn't_ like? Her heart was so full of happiness that
she wished she might share it and _share_ it until it was a little less
full, so that it wouldn't bubble over so uncontrollably.
She was only able to look up into Mr. Huntington's face and smile for
good-bye when they reached the Andrews gateway, and her glance then
swept on to Jim, while the sunlight just poured itself down over the
little group as they stood there together.
Then she turned and ran into the house as fast as she could go, running
up the stairs to Katherine in the unladylike fashion of two at a time,
and if it were possible to slide up banisters as well as down them Peggy
would have slid up in order to get there quicker.
"Katherine! Katherine!" she cried, bursting in at the door, "I'm going,
I'm going--it's all magic, but it's true and I'm going to Hampton!"
Katherine threw aside her schoolbooks and plunged across the room into
her room-mate's arms. "Oh, I'm so glad--Peggy!" she exclaimed joyfully.
And the two girls sat down and planned for another year together as
happy as this one at Andrews had been, and all the time through Peggy's
mind went rhythmically the refrain of "College, College, College."
Peggy's first year at Hampton will be told about in "Peggy Parsons, a
Hampton Freshman."
END
----
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