ROSE ENTERS MADISON
The train drew up to a long platform swarming with people, moving
anxiously about with valises in hand, broad-hatted and kindly; many of
them were like the people of the coule. But the young hackmen terrified
her with their hard, bold eyes and cruel, tobacco-stained mouths.
She alighted from the car, white and tremulous with fear, and her eyes
moved about anxiously. When they fell upon Thatcher the blood gushed up
over her face, and her eyes filled with tears of relief.
"Ah, here you are!" he said with a smile, as he shook her hand and took
her valise. "I began to fear you'd been delayed."
She followed him to the carriage with down-cast eyes. Her regard for him
would not permit her to say a word, even when they were seated together
in the carriage and driving up the street. Her breath came so quick and
strange the Doctor noticed it.
"A little bit excited about it, aren't you?" he smilingly said. "I
remember how I felt when I went to Chicago the first time. I suppose
this seems like Chicago to you. How did you leave the people in the
coule, all well?"
"Yes, sir," she replied without looking up.
"Well, now you are about to begin work. I've got everything all
arranged. You are to stay with us for the present at least. My niece is
with us and you will get along famously I know. How do you like my
horse?" he asked, in his effort to get her to speak.
She studied the horse critically.
"First rate!" she said at last.
He laughed. "Well, I am glad you like him, for I know you are a judge.
He is a pretty good stepper, too, though he hasn't quite enough fling in
his knees, you notice. I'll let you drive him some time."
He drew up before a pretty cottage, set in the midst of a neat lawn. It
was discouragingly fine and handsome to the girl. She was afraid it was
too good for her to enter.
A very blonde young girl came dancing out to the block.
"O Uncle Joe, did Rose--" Rose suddenly appeared.
"This is Rose. Rose, this is our little chatter-box."
"Now, Uncle Joe! Come right in, Rose. I'm going to call you Rose, mayn't
I?"
Mrs. Thatcher, a tall thin woman, welcomed Rose in sober fashion, and
led the way into the little parlor, which seemed incredibly elegant to
the shy girl.
She sat silently while the rest moved about her. There was a certain
dignity in this reserve, and both Mrs. Thatcher and Josie were impressed
by it. She was larger and handsomer than either of them and that gave
her an advantage, though she did not realize that. She was comparing in
swift, disparaging fashion her heavy boots with their dainty soft shoes,
and wondering what she could do to escape from them.
"Josie, take her right up to her room," said Mrs. Thatcher, "and let her
get ready for dinner."
"Yes, come up, you must feel like a good scrub."
Rose flushed again, wondering if her face had grown grimy enough to be
noticeable.
The young girl led Rose into a pretty room with light green walls, and
lovely curtains at the windows. There were two dainty little beds
occupying opposite corners.
"We're to occupy this room together," said Josie. "This is my dressing
case and that's yours."
Rose saw at once Josie had given her the best one. Josie bustled about
helping her lay off her things, pouring water for her and talking on
with gleeful flow.
"I'm awful glad you've come. I know we'll be just as thick! I wish you
were in my classes though, but you won't be, so Doctor says. Don't you
think this is a nice room?"
Rose washed her hands as quickly as possible because they looked so big
and dingy beside the supple whiteness of Josephine's. She felt dusty and
coarse and hopeless in the midst of this exquisite room, the most
beautiful room she had ever seen.
Her eyes moving about fell upon a picture which had the gleam of white
limbs in it. Josephine followed her look: "O, that's young Samson
choking the lion. I just love that; isn't he lovely?"
Rose blushed and tried to answer but could not. The beautiful splendid
limbs of the young man flamed upon her with marvelous appeal. It was
beautiful, and yet her training made her think it somehow not to be
talked about.
Josephine led the way downstairs into the little parlor, which was quite
as uncomfortably beautiful as the bedroom. The vases and flowers, and
simple pictures, and the piano, all seemed like the furnishings of the
homes she had read about in stories.
But dazed as she was she kept her self-command, at least she kept
silence and sat in sombre, almost sullen dejection amid it all. Mrs.
Thatcher hardly knew what to think of her, but the Doctor comprehended
her mood better for he had passed through such experiences himself. He
talked to her for a few minutes about her plans, and then they went out
to dinner.
Rose entered the dining-room with a great fear in her heart. She longed
to run away and hide.
"O I don't know anything!" was the bitter cry welling up in her throat
again and again, and she nearly cried out upon the impulse.
The Doctor liked to have his dinner at one, and so Rose found two
knives, and two forks at her plate, and two spoons also. She had read in
stories of banquets, and she saw that this was to be her greatest trial.
She sat very stiff and silent as the soup was brought on by the
Norwegian girl.
She took the plate as it was handed her, and handed back the one which
was turned down with the napkin on top of it. The Norwegian girl smiled
broadly and handed them both back. Then Rose saw her mistake and the hot
blood swept over her brown face in a purple wave.
The Doctor and his wife passed it in silence. Josie fortunately was
talking to the cat and did not see it.
Rose could hardly touch her soup, which was delicious; her whole mind
was filled with a desire to escape as soon as possible.
Which of the knives should she use first, and what was the extra little
plate for, were the disturbing questions. She could use a fork, but she
was afraid of betraying herself in the minutiae of the service. As a
matter of fact she got along very well, but of that she had no
knowledge.
Some way she lived through the dainty dinner, scarcely tasting anything
of it. At the close of it Mrs. Thatcher said:
"Wouldn't you like to lie down for a little while? aren't you tired?"
Rose hardly knew what weariness was, but she assented because she wished
to be alone.
"I'll call you at three, may I?" asked Josie, who was wildly in love
with Rose already.
"O, isn't she big and splendid, but she's queer," she said when she came
down.
"That'll wear off," said the Doctor. "She feels a little strange now. I
know all about it. I went from a farm to the city."
Rose hardly dared lie down on the spotless bed. A latent good taste in
her enabled her to see in every detail harmony of effect, and herself as
the one discordant note in the house. O, how dirty and rough and awkward
she was!
Looking out of the window she saw a couple of ladies come out of a large
house opposite and walk down toward a carriage which waited at the gate.
The ladies held their dresses with a dainty action of their gloved hands
as they stood for a moment in consultation. (How graceful their hats
were!) Then they entered the carriage.
As they gathered their soft dresses about their limbs and stooped to
enter the door, the flexile line of waist and hip and thigh came out
beautifully, modestly.
They were a revelation of elegance and grace to the farmer's daughter.
Their gaiters were of the same color as their dresses. This was most
wonderful of all. Such unity and completeness of attire was unknown to
her before. She looked down at her red dress, which Mattie Teel had cut
out for her, and she saw it in all its deformity. The sleeves didn't fit
like Josie's did. It didn't hang right; it just wrinkled all around her
waist, and hung in bunches, and she knew it. And her hat, made over from
her last winter's hat, was awful.
She might just as well die or go back home, and never go out of the
coule again. She was nothing but a great country gawk, anyway.
In this bitter fashion she raged on, lying face downward on the sofa.
She lay there until she heard dancing steps, and Josie called out: "May
I come in?"
"Yes," said Rose coldly.
"O, you've been having a good cry, I know! I just like to go off and
have a good cry that way. It makes your eyes red, but you can fix that.
Just sit still now and let me see what I can do."
She bustled about and Rose let her bathe her face with cool water and
cologne, and fuss about. Her little fingers were like a baby's and she
murmured and gurgled in the goodness of her heart like a kitten. Rose
actually fell asleep under her touch.
Josie stopped astonished and startled for a moment, and then tip-toed
out of the room like a burglar, and told Mrs. Thatcher all about it.
"And O, auntie, she's very poor, isn't she? Her clothes----"
"Tut," warned Mrs. Thatcher, "you must be careful not to notice that.
Edward, is she so very poor?"
The Doctor, seated at his desk in the little office, looked up a moment.
"No, I don't think so. It is lack of judgment partially. A little tact
and taste will fix her all right. Dutcher is fairly well-to-do, and she
is all he has. He wrote me to get her what she needed, but I'll leave
that to you girls."
Josie danced with delight. Buying things for yourself was fun, but
buying for another was ecstasy!
"The poor child hasn't a dress that she can wear without alteration, and
she is such a splendid creature, too. I can't conceive how they failed
to fit her."
"It seems to me that putting her beside Josie is pretty hard on her. I
am afraid you are not conversant with the wardrobe of farmer's girls."
"Well, I didn't suppose--and the other room is so small."
"O, well, it all depends upon Josie. Josie, come here."
The girl rose up, and he put his arm around her.
"Now, my kitten, you must be very careful not to allude to any little
mistakes Rose makes."
"O, Uncle Ed--you know--"
"Yes, I know chatterboxes mean all right, but they forget. Now, Rose is
going to be a great scholar and she is going to be a lady, very quick,
too; but she is awkward, now, and my little girl mustn't make it hard
for her."
After Josie went out, Thatcher said:
"I know just how the girl feels. I went through it myself. It's hard,
but it won't hurt her, only don't try to talk it over with her. If she's
the girl I think she is, she'll work the whole matter out in a week
herself. More than that, let me talk to her myself. If she's rested, ask
her to come down."
Rose came into the Doctor's office in a numb sort of timidity, for there
was a great change in the Doctor. He was hardly the same man who had
eaten at their table. She couldn't describe it, but there was something
in his voice which awed her. He sat now surrounded by his professional
books and tools, which gave him dignity in her eyes.
"Sit down, Rose," he said, "I want to talk with you. I've had a letter
from your father about you and your expenses."
And then, in some way, she never knew exactly how, he talked away her
bitterness and gave her hope and comfort. He advised about books, and
said: "And you'll need some little things which Bluff Siding doesn't
keep. Mrs. Thatcher will drive you up town tomorrow and you can get what
you need. Your father has deposited some money here to pay your
expenses. I am going over to University Hill to make a call; perhaps
you'd like to go."
She assented, and went to get her hat.
It was the largest town she had ever seen, and the capitol was wonderful
to her, set in its park, where squirrels ran about on the velvet green
of the grass. The building towered up in the sky, just as she had seen
it in pictures. Swarms of people came and went along the hard,
blue-black paths, and round it the teams moved before the stores of the
square. It was all mightily impressive to her.
They passed the Public Library, and the Doctor said:
"You'll make great use of that, I imagine."
She could not make herself believe that. She saw students coming and
going on the street, and they all seemed so gay and well dressed.
"All this will trouble you for a little while," the Doctor said. "When I
came to the University the first time I seemed like a cat in a bath tub.
I thought everybody was laughing at me, but, as a matter of fact, nobody
paid any attention to me at all. Then I got mad, and I said, 'Well, I'll
_make_ you pay attention to me before I'm done.'" The Doctor smiled at
her and she had the courage to smile back. It was wonderful how well he
understood her.
He drove her around the Lake drive. It was beautiful, but in her
depression the more beautiful anything was the more it depressed her.
The Doctor did not demand speech of her, well knowing she did not care
to talk.
"I'm not mistaken in the girl," he said to his wife when they were
alone. "She has immense reserve force--I feel it. Wait until she
straightens up and broadens out a little, you'll see! There's some
half-savage power in her, magnetism, impelling quality. I predict a
great future for her if--"
"If what?"
"If she don't marry. She is passionate, willful as a colt. It seems
impossible she has come thus far without entanglement. She's going to be
very handsome when she gets a little more at ease. I thought her a
wonderful creature as she sat in that school-room, with the yellow sun
striking across her head. She appeared to me to have destiny in her
favor."
"She's fine, but I think you're over-enthusiastic, Edward."
"Wait and see. She isn't a chatter-box like Josie, that is evident."
"In fact, my dear," he went on to say after a silence, "I should like to
adopt her--I mean, of course, take a particular interest in her. She has
appealed to me very strongly from the first. You can be a mother to
Josie and I'll be a father to Rose."
There was something sombre under his smiling utterance of these words.
Their eyes did not meet, and there was a silence. At last the Doctor
said:
"The girl's physical perfection is wonderful. Most farmers' girls are
round in the shoulders, and flat in the hips, but Rose has grown up like
a young colt. Add culture and ease to her and she'll mow a wide swath,
largely without knowing it, for the girl is incapable of vanity."
The wife listened with a brooding face. Rose's splendid prophecy of
maternity oppressed her some way.
When the girls went up to bed, terror and homesickness and depression
all came back upon Rose again. She sat down desolately upon the little
cream-and-gold chair and watched Josie as she pattered about taking down
her hair and arranging it for the night. She could not help seeing the
multitude of bottles and little combs and powder puffs and boxes and
brushes which Josie gloated over, seeing that Rose was interested.
They were presents, she said, and named the givers of each. It was a
revelation to Rose of the elegancies of a dainty, finicky girl's toilet.
She thought of the ragged wash-brush and wooden-backed hair-brush and
horn comb which made up her own toilet set, and grew hot and cold.
Josephine was delighted to have some one sit and stare in that admiring
way at her, therefore she displayed all her paces. She brushed her hair
out with her ivory-backed brush, and laid out all her beautiful
underwear, trimmed with lace and embroidered in silk. She did it without
malice, but Rose thought of her worn cotton things, shapeless and ugly.
She never could undress before Josephine in the world!
She delayed and delayed until Josie had cuddled down into her bed with
her little pink nose sticking out, and her merry eyes blinking like the
gaze of a kitten. Rose waited, hoping those bright eyes would close, but
they would not. At last a desperate idea came to her. She sprang up and
went to the gaslight.
"How do you put this out?" she asked.
Josie gurgled with laughter. "Just turn that thingamabob underneath.
Yes, _that_--turn it quick--that's right. O, ain't it dark! But you
ain't undressed yet, and the matches are out in the bathroom."
Rose was more at her ease in the dark.
"Never mind, I can undress in the dark. I'm used to it." She loosened
the collar of her dress, slipped off her shoes, and lay down on the bed
bitter and rebellious.
When Josie awoke in the morning the country girl was awake and fully
dressed and reading a book by the window.
The wrinkly red dress could not utterly break up the fine lines of her
firm bust and powerful side and thigh, and the admiring little creature
hopped out of bed and stole across the room, and threw her arms about
Rose.
"How big and beautiful you are!"
These wonderful words ran into the country girl's blood like hot scented
wine. To be beautiful made some amends for being coarse and uncultured.
As she had never felt abasement before, so she had never felt the need
of being beautiful until now.
She turned a radiant, tearful face to Josie, and seized her hands.
"I--I like you--O, so much!"
"I knew we'd be friends," cried the little one dancing about. "And
you'll let me go and help you buy your things, won't you?"
"O, I'll be _glad_ to have you--I'm such a fool. I don't know anything
at all that I ought to know."
"You're just splendid. I'm the one who don't know anything."
Then they entered upon a day of shopping. They toiled like ants and
buzzed like bees.
Rose came home at night worn out, discouraged and dumb as an Indian. She
had submitted to her fate, but she was mentally sore, lame and confused.
She no longer cared whether Josie saw her poverty or not, and she went
to sleep out of utter fatigue, her eyes wet with tears of homesickness.
All she hoped for seemed impossible and of no account, and sleep in her
own attic bed appeared to be the sweetest thing in the world.
Her good, vigorous blood built up her courage during the night, but she
was hardly a sweet and lovable companion in the days which followed. She
(temporarily) hated Josie and feared Mrs. Thatcher. Thatcher himself,
however, was her savior, for she would surely have gone home had it not
been for him.
She had a notable set-to with the dressmaker.
"I won't come here again," she said, sullenly. "I don't want any
dresses, I'm going home. I'm tired of being pulled and hauled."
The dressmaker was a brisk little Alsatian, with something of the French
adroitness in her manner.
"O, my dear young friend! If you only knew! I am in despair! You have
such a beautiful figure. You would give me such pleasure if I might but
finish this lovely gown."
Rose looked at her from under a scowling prominent forehead. She had
never been called beautiful before, at least not by one who was
disinterested or a stranger, and she did not believe the woman.
The dressmaker passed her hands caressingly over the girl's splendid
bust and side.
"Ah! I can make myself famous if I may but fit those lines."
Rose softened and put on the gown once more and silently permitted
herself to be turned and turned about like a tin sign, while the little
artist (which she was) went about with a mouth full of pins, gurgling,
murmuring and patting. This was the worst of the worry, and the end of
all the shopping was in sight.
The touch of soft flannels upon her flesh, the flow of ample and
graceful gowns helped her at once. Her shoulders lifted and her bust
expanded under properly cut and fitted garments. Quickly, unconsciously
she became herself again, moving with large, unfettered movements. She
dominated her clothing, and yet her clothing helped her. Being fit to be
seen, she was not so much troubled by the faces of people who studied
her.
It was wonderful to see how she took on (in the first few weeks) the
graces and refinements of her new life. She met her schoolmates each day
with added ease, and came at last to be a leader among them, just as in
the home coule. Her strength and grace and mastery they felt at once.
Her heart beat very hard and fast on the first day as she joined the
stream of students moving toward the Central Hall. The maple trees were
still in full leaf and blazing color. The sunlight was a magical
cataract of etherealized gold, and the clouds were too beautiful to look
at without a choking in the throat.
As she stepped over the deeply-worn stone sill, she thought of the
thousands of other country girls whose feet had helped to wear that
hollow, and her heart ached with unaccountable emotion.
Above her noisy feet clattered and bounded on the winding stairway, and
careless voices resounded. She climbed in silence. In such wise she
began to climb the way of knowledge, the way which has no returning
foot-steps, and which becomes ever more lonely as the climber rises.