THE DREAM OF A STAR
Mrs. Clayton was a Diller. She often stated this fact with pride.
“The Dillers, my dear, are among the very oldest and the very best
families in the country; and when one has family as every sensible
person recognizes, money is of secondary importance,” Ethel’s mother
insisted over and over, in season and out.
“All very well, dear,” agreed the girl cheerfully. “But money is more
essential to our daily comfort than blue blood. I presume I am glad I
have Diller blood in my veins. I am much gladder I have Diller brains
in my head; for they enable me to earn twenty dollars a week--more than
any other girl earns, I do believe, in Mailsburg.”
Mrs. Clayton, with all her horror of things common, could not deny
that Israel Diller had been the saviour of the family by his business
ability. He went into trade and he made good in it. By grace of
his doing so, and leaving her a few shares of the Hapwood-Diller
Company--and Grandon Fuller’s wife a good many--both the Claytons and
the Fullers were benefitted. Indeed, Mrs. Clayton and Ethel lived much
more comfortably in the little cottage at the end of Burnaby Street
by grace of the dividends from those shares than they had while Mr.
Clayton was alive.
“But I sometimes wonder,” Mrs. Clayton sighed, “how it came about
that Mehitable Fuller and I should have been so unevenly treated by
Great-uncle Israel. Mehitable never did a hand’s turn for old Mr.
Diller in her life. While you can remember yourself, Ethel, although
you were but a tiny girl, that the old gentleman was brought here that
time he had typhoid and he was a care on my hands for six months.”
“Oh, Mother!”
“I’m not begrudging the care,” her mother hastened to say. “And of
course his lawyer afterward brought me the money for his board--six
dollars a week for twenty-seven weeks. And I signed a paper saying it
was all I could expect. Still--Well! if he had been alone in his own
home and had had to hire a trained nurse and all that he’d have paid
out a lot more money than he did.”
“Now, Mother, never mind all that,” Ethel urged.
“No, I realize it doesn’t sound nice,” Mrs. Clayton agreed. “But it
seems funny. When I see those Fullers driving around so haughtily, and
read about Mehitable, that I went to school with, and that pug-nosed
girl of hers----”
“Mercy! don’t let anybody hear you speak of Helen Fuller’s nose in such
terms,” laughed Ethel. “And Helen is pretty. You’ve got to acknowledge
that.”
“Her nose _is_ a pug,” declared Mrs. Clayton. “That’s got nothing to do
with those stocks. Great-uncle Israel’s will was peculiar. So they all
say. No administrator mentioned. And he died with Gran Fuller right in
the house----”
“Don’t!” begged Ethel. “You must not intimate any wrongdoing, when
there can have been no wrongdoing.”
“What do you know about it? And you but a chit of a girl at the time!”
demanded Mrs. Clayton. “Anyway, Gran Fuller was there, and he found the
will. Mr. Mestinger, the lawyer, was dead then.”
“But the witnesses were alive if the lawyer wasn’t. Of course it was
Mr. Diller’s honest will.”
“And he gave all that lump of money to Mehitable who never scarcely
spoke to him, and only a little, meaching few stocks of the
Hapwood-Diller Company to me. Oh, well, small favors thankfully
received. The money’s very welcome every quarter.”
Of course, Ethel was the recipient of a fairly comfortable salary. But
they could not have lived so nicely as they did upon her weekly stipend
only. Moreover, it was but recently that the girl was able to earn the
amount at present paid her.
“And there was a time,” pursued Mrs. Clayton on this particular
evening, “when I came near selling the shares for a song.” She and
Ethel were sitting, after the dinner dishes were cleared up, on the
sheltered porch. “Grandon Fuller made me an offer for my stock. That
was just before Mr. Barton was made manager, and people said the
company was going to fail.”
“Mr. Barton has done wonders,” declared the girl with admiration.
“Oh, I don’t know,” responded her mother deprecatingly. “I suppose
business just chanced to change. But it’s lucky we held on to our
stock.”
“It was Mr. Barton who saved us and the rest of the small
stockholders,” the girl said firmly.
“Well, I suppose you must say so. I presume you feel some gratitude
to him for raising your pay. You never would have got it without his
say-so.”
“I hope I earn it,” Ethel observed with some sharpness. “I believe I
am worthy of my wages, just as Mr. Barton is worthy of the credit of
having put the Hapwood-Diller Company on its feet.”
“Still talking shop?” asked the cheerful voice of Benway Chase. He had
come up the walk without the widow and her daughter hearing him till he
spoke.
“Oh, Ethel is singing the praises of that wonderful Mr. Barton, as
usual,” her mother said.
“I’ll join in,” Ben Chase chuckled, and he sat down on the step of the
porch to fill and light his pipe. “We’ve got to hand it to Mr. Barton,
Mrs. Clayton. He did another good deed to-day. Promised to take me into
the offices.”
“Oh, Ben!” exclaimed the girl in sheer delight. “Did you speak to him
as I advised you?”
“Certainly did. I got tired of waiting on the pleasure of those other
people who had promised me a job. I have spent every cent we can
afford getting a business course and just because I am left-handed the
business men I have seen hem and haw over hiring me--or even giving me
a chance to show them I am as quick as a fellow with two hands.”
“Dear me, Bennie, don’t talk in that way,” murmured Mrs. Clayton.
“Nobody wants a fellow with one hand--not really!” exclaimed the young
man with vigor. “They won’t take me in the army--though a fellow could
work a machine gun very well with one paw,” and he laughed without
managing to get much mirth into the sound.
“But your Mr. Barton is different,” he added, turning to Ethel. “I saw
him to-day at lunch hour--while you were out, Ethel. He never said a
word about my bum wing. By the way, did you know he was going away?”
“Who’s going away?” asked Mrs. Clayton, scenting gossip.
“Not Mr. Barton?” cried her daughter quickly.
“Spoke as though he expected to be absent from the offices in the near
future. Said you and that Jim Mayberry would break me in all right.
What did he mean if it wasn’t that he expected to be absent?”
The girl looked at him breathlessly and her face was actually pale.
Mrs. Clayton drawled:
“I suppose he must mean to take a vacation.”
“That’s not it, is it?” Benway Chase asked Ethel, realizing that she
was deeply moved.
“It’s the war!” gasped the girl.
“The war?” rejoined her mother. “What’s that to do with Mr. Barton?
He’s exempt, isn’t he?”
“He will enlist. I knew he would!” The girl’s hands were clasped in
real agony and her voice showed imminent tears. “Oh, I knew he would!”
“Not really?” exclaimed Benway, forgetting to keep his pipe alight.
“Mr. Barton can’t be spared, can he?”
“I suspected all along how he felt about it,” moaned the girl. “Ever
since April when war was declared--even before.”
“But, goodness! there are so many other men to go,” cried her mother.
“And you were just saying that he was necessary to the well-being of
the Hapwood-Diller Company, Ethel. Surely he will not desert us.”
“The business is in very good shape again--thanks to him,” Ethel
answered, trying to recover her composure. “I suppose he feels that
now, at least, he can go to the officers’ training camp. And if we get
along all right I just know he will go to France.”
Benway whistled--low and thoughtfully. “He’s that kind of a chap, I
guess,” he observed. “Goodness knows, this town is full of those who
think differently. The boards had the hardest time getting their full
quota for this first draft. There’s got to be a general awakening
before the second call comes----”
“But war is dreadful!” cried Mrs. Clayton.
“It must be. But we haven’t come to a realization of it yet or we’d all
be glad to try to help keep it in Europe, instead of letting it dribble
over here after militarism has ruined the less prepared countries over
there. This war is going to mean a good deal. The government is awfully
particular about the men they take right now; but they won’t be so
particular before it is all over.
“Why!” cried the young fellow with a break in his voice that showed a
deeper emotion, “even the Red Cross or the Y. M. C. A. won’t accept for
service a fellow with a single solitary thing the matter with him!”
Ethel, who had slipped down into a seat on the step beside him,
suddenly patted his shoulder in a sisterly way. She knew that he had
tried to serve his country under the banner of the Cross of Peace and
had been refused because of his withered arm.
“Heigho!” added Benway, shrugging his shoulders and swallowing his
emotion, “that’s neither here nor there. Mr. Barton spoke as though he
expected to leave soon, anyway. I expect Ethel, here, will pretty near
be boss of those offices while he is gone. How about it, Ethel? Going
to be a hard taskmaster to yours truly?”
“I am afraid if Mr. Barton goes that my influence there will be curbed
rather than increased,” the girl said with gravity.
“No!”
“Naturally Mr. Mayberry will be boss. Mr. Mayberry does not consider me
as capable as does Mr. Barton.”
“Jim Mayberry!” exclaimed Ben. “He’s dead in love with you, they say.”
The girl’s head came up and she turned a haughty look upon her friend.
“Do you consider that complimentary to me?” she demanded.
“No. But complimentary to his good sense,” returned Benway. “I don’t
know much about Mayberry; only that he hangs about the Bellevue too
much.”
“You’ve said it all,” Ethel declared, with less sternness. “I do not
like Mr. Mayberry.”
“All right. I shan’t like him, either, then,” said Benway cheerfully.
“But, goodness, girl! you can’t blame men for falling in love with you.
I wonder the whole town doesn’t tail along after you when you walk down
the street.”
She laughed at him then--and with him.
“There is one thing about your compliments, Ben,” she said. “They may
lack grace; but they are unmistakable. Ridiculous! There are hundreds
of girls in Mailsburg better looking than I am.”
“Now, did I say anything about looks?” he asked her wickedly. “It’s
your sweet disposition that makes you so many friends.”
“Like Jim Mayberry, I suppose?” she said in some disgust.
They continued to wrangle in a friendly way. Mrs. Clayton, frankly
yawning, bade them good-night. The moment her mother withdrew Ethel’s
manner changed. She removed herself a little from Benway’s vicinity and
her witticisms ceased.
“I believe I shall retire early myself, Ben,” she said. “This has been
a trying day. I--I shall be glad to have you in the offices with us.”
“Shall you?” There was something in his tone that increased her
seriousness.
“If I can do anything there to help you, let me do it,” she said
earnestly. “You know we have always been such chums, Ben.”
“Haven’t we?” Again the disturbing accent. She started to rise. He
caught her hand. “Wait,” he said. “Let me say a little something to
you, Ethel.”
“Ben! Ben! Had you better? You know----”
“I know--everything you can tell me,” he interrupted bitterly. “I know
I am only half a man. A fellow shy a wing hasn’t much chance in this
world. I ought to know it after all my experience. Especially as the
folks have no money to back me. But I have a whole brain----”
“I’ve always told you that, Ben,” she hastened to say. “A perfectly
good brain. I would not harp so much on that withered arm.”
“No, perhaps you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t unless the old arm happened to
be hitched to your shoulder, as it is to mine. No, it is easy enough to
say to a cripple, ‘Forget it.’ Wait till you try it yourself! Though,
Heaven forbid! I hope you will never suffer such a handicap, Ethel.”
“Oh, Benway!”
“Now, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Ethel,” he returned, and
patted her hand. “Fact is, I feel rather toppy to-night myself. I know
that Mr. Barton is taking me on for just what he thinks is in me, and
no more. He must think that a withered arm will not make me less useful
around the offices of the Hapwood-Diller Company. Influence is not
getting me this footing.
“And he was kind enough to say,” went on the boy, “that he saw no
reason why I should not rise there as he had risen. He told me how
he began in one of the shops and worked up. Of course, I am not
beginning just in that way; but he says that a practical knowledge
of the mechanical end of the business is not absolutely necessary to
advancement.
“If I make good, Ethel--if I prove that the stuff is in me to get up in
the business world, after all----”
“Of all your friends I shall be the one who will be the most delighted,
Ben,” she interrupted, rising now with finality. “Don’t forget that
I have always said it was in you to make something of yourself.
Even if your parents could not afford to send you to college, I
know--absolutely know--you will make your mark.”
“Well, yes,” he said, rather piqued that she had not let him finish.
She stood above him now, looking down.
“Good-night, Benway. I suppose you will come to the offices on Monday?”
“Yes, I’ll see you then, Ethel, every day,” he said wistfully.
“Good-night,” she repeated and went quickly within. Once inside
the screen door she watched his shadowy figure down the path. “‘No
influence’?” she murmured. “He does not suspect how I fairly had to beg
Mr. Barton to give him a chance! Poor Benway! Poor, poor boy!”
The girl went on to her bedroom. She stood a moment in the darkness.
“Frank Barton going--leaving--” she gasped. “Oh, why can’t he see? Why
can’t he see?” she added, moaning.
Then she began her preparations for bed.
Benway Chase crossed the road and entered the field that divided his
own home from the end of Burnaby Street. This was a surburban locality.
There was the fine smell of new-mown hay in his nostrils. Half way
across the field he stumbled upon a cock of hay that had been thrown up
for the night, and he fell upon it, rolling upon his back luxuriously
and gazing back.
There was a light in a certain window of the Clayton Cottage. He had
watched it many a night, for he knew that it was the window of Ethel’s
room. Above the rooftree hung a brilliant star. He had watched that,
too, often and again. And when the light in Ethel’s room was snuffed
out he fixed his eyes on the star and dreamed.
It was only a boy’s dream at best. It was a foolish dream, perhaps. But
Benway Chase often dreamed it.
He was fully a year older than Ethel Clayton; but sometimes she made
him feel very much younger than she. Dreamer by nature, he; and she one
of those practical souls that chafe in the bodies of women. At least,
they chafe where women’s growth is hampered. But Ethel was numbered
of the emancipated. She was a business woman. Moreover, she was a
successful business woman.
As she had said, no girl in Mailsburg in all probability earned a
larger wage than she did. She had a grasp upon the details of the
business of the Hapwood-Diller Company that fitted her without
question for a position as important as that of Jim Mayberry for
instance. Indeed, she was better informed and more capable than even
Frank Barton realized.
The manager merely found her surprisingly helpful on occasion. He
respected her; he admired her good business sense displayed at these
times. Ethel Clayton did not wish to be admired by the manager for any
such reason.
Perhaps hers, too, was a dream of a star.