Missy knew, the moment she opened her eyes, that golden June morning,
that it was going to be a happy day. Missy, with Poppylinda purring
beside her, found this mysterious, irradiant feeling flowing out of
her heart almost as tangible as a third live being in her quaint little
room. It seemed a sort of left-over, still vaguely attached, from the
wonderful dream she had just been having. Trying to recall the dream,
she shut her eyes again; Missy's one regret, in connection with her
magical dreams, was that the sparkling essence of them was apt to become
dim when she awoke. But now, when she opened her eyes, the suffusion
still lingered.
For a long, quiet, blissful moment, she lay smiling at the spot where
the sunlight, streaming level through the lace-curtained window, fell on
the rose-flowered chintz of the valances. Missy liked those colours very
much; then her eyes followed the beam of light to where it spun a prism
of fairy colours on the mirror above the high-boy, and she liked that
ecstatically. She liked, too, by merely turning her head on the pillow,
to glimpse, through the parting of the curtains, the ocean of blue sky
with its flying cloud ships, so strange; and to hear the morning song
of the birds and the happy hum of insects, the music seeming almost to
filter through the lace curtains in a frescoed pattern which glided,
alive, along the golden roadway of sunshine. She even liked the
monotonous metallic rattle which betold that old Jeff was already at
work with the lawn-mower.
All this in a silent moment crammed to the full with vibrant ecstasy;
then Missy remembered, specifically, the Wedding drawing every day
nearer, and the new Pink Dress, and the glory to be hers when she should
strew flowers from a huge leghorn hat, and her rapture brimmed over.
Physically and spiritually unable to keep still another second, she
suddenly sat up.
“Oh, Poppylinda!” she whispered. “I'm so happy--so happy!”
Everyone knows--that is, everyone who knows kittens--that kittens,
like babies, listen with their eyes. To Missy's whispered confidence,
Poppylinda, without stirring, opened her lids and blinked her yellow
eyes.
“Aren't you happy, too? Say you're happy, Poppy, darling!”
Poppy was stirred to such depths that mere eye-blinking could not
express her emotion. She opened her mouth, so as to expose completely
her tiny red tongue, and then, without lingual endeavour, began to hum a
gentle, crooning rumble down somewhere near her stomach. Yes; Poppy was
happy.
The spirit of thanksgiving glamorously enwrapped these two all the time
Missy was dressing. Like the efficient big girl of twelve that she was,
Missy drew her own bath and, later, braided her own hair neatly. As she
tied the ribbons on those braids, now crossed in a “coronet” over her
head, she gave the ghost of a sigh. This morning she didn't want to wear
her every-day bows; but dutifully she tied them on, a big brown cabbage
above each ear. When she had scrambled into her checked gingham “sailor
suit,” all spick and span, Missy stood eying herself in the mirror for a
wistful moment, wishing her tight braids might metamorphose into
lovely, hanging curls like Kitty Allen's. They come often to a “strange
child”--these moments of vague longing to overhear one's self termed a
“pretty child”--especially on the eve of an important occasion.
But thoughts of that important occasion speedily chased away
consciousness of self. And downstairs in the cheerful dining room, with
the family all gathered round the table, Missy, her cheeks glowing pink
and her big grey eyes ashine, found it difficult to eat her oatmeal, for
very rapture. In the bay window, the geraniums on the sill nodded
their great, biossomy heads at her knowingly. Beyond, the big maple
was stirring its leaves, silver side up, like music in the breeze. Away
across the yard, somewhere, Jeff was making those busy, restful sounds
with the lawn-mower. These alluring things, and others stretching out
to vast mental distances, quite deadened, for Missy, the family's talk
close at hand.
“When I ran over to the Greenleaf's to borrow the sugar,” Aunt Nettie
was saying, “May White was there, and she and Helen hurried out of the
dining room when they saw me. I'm sure they'd been crying, and--”
“S-sh!” warned Mrs. Merriam, with a glance toward Missy. Then, in a
louder tone: “Eat your cereal, Missy. Why are you letting it get cold?”
Missy brought her eyes back from space with an answering smile. “I was
thinking,” she explained.
“What of, Missy?” This, encouragingly, from father.
“Oh, my dream, last night.”
“What did you dream about?”
“Oh--mountains,” replied Missy, somewhat vaguely.
“For the land's sake!” exclaimed Aunt Nettie. “What ever put such a
thing into her head? She never saw a mountain in her life!” Grown-ups
have a disconcerting way of speaking of children, even when present, in
the third person. But Aunt Nettie finally turned to Missy with a direct
(and dreaded): “What did they look like, Missy?”
“Oh--mountains,” returned Missy, still vague.
At a sign from mother, the others did not press her further. When she
had finished her breakfast, Missy approached her mother, and the latter,
reading the question in her eyes, asked:
“Well, what is it, Missy?”
“I feel--like pink to-day,” faltered Missy, half-embarrassed.
But her mother did not ask for explanation. She only pondered a moment.
“You know,” reminded the supplicant, “I have to try on the Pink Dress
this morning.”
“Very well, then,” granted mother. “But only the second-best ones.”
Missy's face brightened and she made for the door.
Before she got altogether out of earshot, Aunt Nettie began: “I
don't know that it's wise to humour her in her notions. 'Feel like
pink!'--what in the world does she mean by that?”
Missy was glad the question had not been put to her; for, to have saved
her life, she couldn't have answered it intelligibly. She was out of
hearing too soon to catch her mother's answer:
“She's just worked up over the wedding, and being a flower-girl and
all.”
“Well, I don't believe,” stated Aunt Nettie with the assurance that
spinsters are wont to show in discussing such matters, “that it's good
for children to let them work themselves up that way. She'll be as much
upset as the bridegroom if Helen does back out.”
“Oh, I don't think old Mrs. Greenleaf would ever let her break it off,
now” said Mrs. Merriam, stooping to pick up the papers which her husband
had left strewn over the floor.
“She's hard as rocks,” agreed Aunt Nettie.
“Though,” Mrs. Merriam went on, “when it's a question of her daughter's
happiness--”
“A little unhappiness would serve Helen Green leaf right,” commented
the other tartly. “She's spoiled to death and a flirt. I think it was a
lucky day for young Doc Alison when she jilted him.”
“She's just young and vain,” championed Mrs. Merriam, carefully folding
the papers and laying them in the rack. “Any pretty girl in Helen's
position couldn't help being spoiled. And you must admit nothing's ever
turned her head--Europe, or her visits to Cleveland, or anything.”
“The Cleveland man is handsome,” said Aunt Nettie irrelevantly--the
Cleveland man was the bridegroom-elect.
“Yes, in a stylish, sporty kind of way. But I don't know--” She
hesitated a moment, then concluded: “Missy doesn't like him.”
At that Aunt Nettie laughed with genuine mirth. “What on earth do you
think a child would know about it?” she ridiculed.
Meanwhile the child, whose departure had thus loosed free speech, was
leagues distant from the gossip and the unrest which was its source. Her
pink hair bows, even the second-best ones, lifted her to a state
which made it much pleasanter to idle in her window, sniffing at the
honey-suckle, than to hurry down to the piano. She longed to make up
something which, like a tune of water rippling over pink pebbles, was
running through her head. But faithfully, at last, she toiled through
her hour, and then was called on to mind the Baby.
This last duty was a real pleasure. For she could wheel the perambulator
off to the summerhouse, in a secluded, sweet-smelling corner of the
yard, and there recite poetry aloud. To reinforce those verses she knew
by heart, she carried along the big Anthology which, in its old-blue
binding, contrasted so satisfyingly with the mahogany table in the
sitting-room. The first thing she read was “Before the Beginning of
Years” from “Atalanta in Calydon;” Missy especially adored Swinburne--so
liltingly incomprehensible.
The performance, as ever, was highly successful all around. Baby really
enjoyed it and Poppylinda as well, both of them blinking in placid
appreciation. And as for Missy, the liquid sound of the metres rolling
off her own lips, the phrases so beautiful and so “deep,” seemed to lift
a choking something right up into her throat until she could have wept
with the sweet pain of it. She did, as a matter of fact, happy tears,
about which her two auditors asked no embarrassing question. Baby merely
gurgled, and Poppylinda essayed to climb the declaimer's skirts.
“Sit down, sad Soul!” Missy's mood could no longer even attempt to mate
with prose. She turned through the pages of the Anthology until she came
to another favourite:
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight
like young Lochinvar.
This she read through, with a fine, swinging rhythm. “I think that last
stanza's perfectly exquisite--don't you?” Missy enquired of her mute
audience. And she repeated it, as unctuously as though she were the poet
herself. Then, quite naturally, this romance recalled to her the romance
next door, so deliciously absorbing her waking and dreaming hours--the
romance of her own Miss Princess. Miss Princess--Missy's more formal
adaptation of Young Doc's soubriquet for Helen Greenleaf in the days of
his romance--was the most beautiful heroine imaginable. And the Wedding
was next week, and Missy was to walk first of all the six flower-girls,
and the Pink Dress was all but done, and the Pink Stockings--silk!--were
upstairs in the third drawer of the high-boy! Oh, it was a golden
world, radiant with joy. Of course--it's only earth, after all, and not
heaven--she'd rather the bridegroom was going to be young Doc. But Miss
Princess had arranged it this other way--her bridegroom had come out of
the East. And the Wedding was almost here!... There never was morning so
fair, nor grass so vivid and shiny, nor air so soft. Above her head the
cherry-buds were swelling, almost ready to burst. From the open windows
of the house, down the street, sounds from a patient piano, flattered
by distance, betokened that Kitty Allen was struggling with
“Perpetual Motion”; Missy, who had finished her struggles with that
abomination-to-beginners a month previously felt her sense of beatitude
deepen.
Presently into this Elysium floated her mother's voice, summoning her to
the house. Rounding the corner of the back walk with the perambulator,
she collided with the grocer-boy. He was a nice-mannered boy, picking up
the Anthology and Baby's doll from the ground, and handing them to her
with a charming smile. Besides, he had very bright, sparkling eyes.
Missy fancied he must be some lost Prince, and inwardly resolved to make
up, as soon as alone, a story to this effect.
In the house, mother told her it was time to go to Miss Martin's to try
on the Pink Dress.
Down the street, she encountered Mr. Hackett, the rich bridegroom come
out of the East, a striking figure, on that quiet street, in the natty
white flannels suggesting Cleveland, Atlantic City, and other foreign
places.
“Well, if here isn't Sappho!” he greeted her gaily. Missy blushed. Not
for worlds had she suspected he was hearing her, that unlucky morning in
the grape-arbour, when she recited her latest Poem to Miss Princess. Now
she smiled perfunctorily, and started to pass him.
But Mr. Hackett, swinging his stick, stood with his feet wide apart and
looked down at her.
“How's the priestess of song, this fine morning?” he persisted.
“All-right,” stammered Missy.
He laughed, as if actually enjoying her confusion. Missy observed that
his eyes were red-rimmed, and his face a pasty white. She wondered
whether he was sick; but he jauntily waved his stick at her and went on
his way.
Missy, a trifle subdued, continued hers.
But oh, it is a wonderful world! You never know what any moment may
bring you. Adventures fairy-sent surprises, await you at the most
unexpected turns, spring at you from around the first corner.
It was around the very first corner, in truth, that Missy met young Doc
Alison, buzzing leisurely along in his Ford.
“Hello, Missy,” he greeted. “Like a lift?”
Missy would. Young Doc jumped out, and, in a deferential manner she
admired very much, assisted her into the little car as though she were
a grown-up and lovely young lady. Young Doc was a nice man. She knew him
well. He had felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, sent her Valentines,
taken her riding, and shown her many other little courtesies for as far
back as she could remember. Then, too, she greatly admired his looks.
He was tall and lean and wiry. His face was given to quick flashes of
smiling; and his eyes could be dreamy or luminous. He resembled, Missy
now decided--and marvelled she hadn't noticed it before--that other
young man, Lochinvar, “so faithful in love and so dauntless in war.”
When young Doc politely enquired whether she could steal enough time
from her errand to turn about for a run up “The Boulevard,” Missy
acquiesced. She regretted she hadn't worn her shirred mull hat. But
she decided not to worry about that. After all, her appearance, at the
present moment, didn't so much matter. What did matter was the way she
was going to look next Wednesday--and she excitedly began telling young
Doc about her coming magnificence, “It's silk organdie,” she said in a
reverent tone, “and has garlands of rosebuds.” She went on and told
him of the big leghorn hat to be filled with flowers, of the Pink
Stockings--best of all, silk!--waiting, in tissue-paper, in the high-boy
drawer.
“Oh, I can hardly wait!” she concluded rapturously.
Young Doc, guiding the car around the street-sprinkling wagon, did not
answer. Beyond the wagon, Mr. Hackett, whom the Ford had overtaken, was
swinging along. Missy turned to young Doc with a slight grimace.
“'The poor craven bridegroom said never a word,'” she quoted.
Young Doc permitted himself to smile--not too much. “Why don't you like
him, Missy?”
Missy shook her head, without other reply. It would have been difficult
for her to express why she didn't like stylish Mr. Hackett.
“I wish,” she said suddenly, “that you were going to be the bridegroom,
Doc.”
He smiled a wry smile at her. “Well, to tell the truth, I wish so, too,
Missy.”
“Well, she'll be coming back to visit us often, and maybe you can take
us out riding again.”
“Maybe--but after getting used to big imported cars, I'm afraid one
doesn't care much for a Ford.”
There was a note of cynicism, of pain, which, because she didn't know
what it was, cut Missy to the heart. It is all very well, in Romance and
Poems, to meet with unhappy, discarded lovers--they played an essential
part in many of the best ballads in the Anthology; but when that
romantic role falls, in real life, on the shoulders of a nice young Doc,
the matter assumes a different complexion. Missy's own ecstasy over the
Wedding suddenly loomed thoughtless, selfish, wicked. She longed
timidly to reach over and pat that lean brown hand resting on the
steering-wheel. Two sentences she formed in her mind, only to abandon
them unspoken, when, to her relief, the need for delicate diplomacy was
temporarily removed by the car's slowing to a stop before Miss Martin's
gate.
Inside the little white cottage, however, in Miss Martin's
sitting-room--so queer and fascinating with its “forms,” its samples
and “trimmings” pinned to the curtains, its alluring display of fashion
magazines and “charts,” and its eternal litter of varicoloured scraps
over the floor--Missy's momentary dejection could but vanish. Finally,
when in Miss Martin's artfully tilted cheval glass, she surveyed the
pink vision which was herself, gone, for the time, was everything of
sadness in the world. She turned her head this way and that, craning to
get the effect from every angle-the bouffance of the skirt, the rosebuds
wreathing the sides, the butterfly sash in the back. Adjured by Miss
Martin to stand still, she stood vibrantly poised like a lily-stem
waiting the breath of the wind; bade to “lift up your arms,” she obeyed
and visioned winged fairies alert for flight. Even when Miss Martin,
carried away by her zeal in fitting, stuck a pin through the pink tissue
clear into the warmer, softer pink beneath, Missy scarcely felt the
prick.
But, at the midday dinner-table, that sympathetic uneasiness returned.
Father, home from the office, was full of indignation over something
“disgraceful” he had heard down town. Though the conversation was held
tantalizingly above Missy's full comprehension, she could gather that
the “disgrace” centred in the bachelor dinner which Mr. Hackett had
given at the Commercial House the night before. Father evidently held no
high opinion of the introduction of “rotten Cleveland performances” nor
of the man who had introduced them.
“What 'rotten Cleveland performances'?” asked Missy with lively
curiosity.
“Oh, just those late, indigestible suppers,” cut in mother quickly.
“Rich food at that hour just kills your stomach. Here, don't you want
another strawberry tart, Missy?”
Missy didn't; but she affected a desire for it, and then a keen interest
in its consumption. By this artifice, she hoped she might efface herself
as a hindrance to continuation of the absorbing talk. But it is a trick
of grown-ups to stop dead at the most thrilling points; though she
consumed the last crumb of the tart, her ears gained no reward, until
mother said:
“As soon as you've finished dinner, Missy, I wish you'd run over to
Greenleafs' and ask to borrow Miss Helen's new kimono pattern.”
Missy brightened. The sight of old Mrs. Greenleaf and Miss Princess,
bustling gaily about, would lift this strange cloud gathering so
ominously. She asked permission to carry along a bunch of sweet peas,
and gathered the kind Miss Princess liked best--pinkish lavender
blossoms, a delicious colour like the very fringe of a rainbow.
The Greenleafs' coloured maid let her in and showed her into the “den”
back of the parlour. “I'll tell Mrs. Greenleaf,” she said. “They're all
busy upstairs.”
Very busy they must have been, for Missy had restlessly dangled her feet
for what seemed hours, before she heard voices approaching the parlour.
“Oh, I won't--I won't--” It was Miss Princess's voice, almost
unrecognizably high and quavering.
“Now, just listen a minute, darling--” This unmistakably Mr. Hackett's
languorous, curiously repellent monotone.
“Don't you touch me!”
Missy, stricken by the knowledge she was eavesdropping, peered about for
a means of slipping out. But the only door, portiere-hung, was the one
leading into the parlour. And now this concealed poor blundering Missy
from the speakers while it allowed their talk to drift through.
That talk, stormy and utterly incomprehensible, filled the child with
a growing sense of terror. Accusations, quick pleadings, angry retorts,
attempts at explanation, all formed a dreadful muttering background
out of which shot, like sharp streaks of lightning, occasional
clearly-caught phrases: “Charlie White came home dead drunk, I tell
you--” “--You know I'm mad about you, Helen, or I wouldn't--” “--Oh,
don't you touch me!”
To Missy, trapped and shaking with panic, the storm seemed to have raged
hours before she detected a third voice, old Mrs. Greenleaf's, which cut
calm and controlled across the area of passion.
“You'd better go out a little while, Porter, and let me talk to her.”
Then another interminable stretch of turmoil, this all the more
terrifying because less violent.
“Oh, mother-I can't--” Anger, spent, had given way to broken sobbing.
“I understand how you feel, dear. But you'll--”
“I despise him!”
“I understand, dear. All girls get frightened and--”
“But it isn't that, mother. I don't love him. I can't go on. Won't you,
this minute, tell him--tell everybody--?”
“Darling, don't you realize I can't?” Missy had never before heard old
Mrs. Greenleaf's voice tremble.
“The invitation, and the trousseau, and the presents, and everything.
Think of the scandal, dear. We couldn't. Don't you see, dear, we can't
back out, now?”
“O-o-oh.”
“I almost wish--but don't you see--?”
“Oh, I can't stand it another hour!”
“You're excited, dear,” soothingly. “You'd better go rest a while. I'll
have a good talk with Porter. And you go upstairs and lie down. The
Carrolls' dinner--”
“Oh, dinners, luncheons, clothes. I--”
The despairing sound of Miss Princess's cry, and the throbbing
realization that these were calamities she must not overhear, stung
Missy to renewed reconnoitering. Tiptoeing over to the window,
she fumbled at the fastening of the screen, swung it outward, and,
contemplating a jump to the sward below, thrust one foot over the sill.
“Hello, there! What are you up to?”
On the side porch, not twenty feet away, Mr. Hackett was regarding her
with amazed and hostile eyes. Missy's heart thumped against her ribs.
Her consternation was not lessened when, tossing away his cigarette with
a vindictive gesture, he added: “Stay where you are!”
Missy slackened her hold and crouched back like a hunted criminal. And
like a hunted criminal he condemned her, a moment later, to old Mrs.
Greenleaf.
“That kid from next door has been snooping in here. I caught her trying
to sneak out.”
Missy faltered out her explanation.
“I know it wasn't your fault, dear,” said old Mrs. Greenleaf kindly.
“What was it you wanted?”
Her errand forgotten, Missy could only attempt a smile and dumbly extend
the bouquet.
Old Mrs. Greenleaf took the flowers, then spoke over her shoulder: “I
think Helen wants you upstairs, Porter.” Missy had always thought she
was like a Roman Matron; now it was upsetting to see the Roman Matron so
upset.
“Miss Helen's got a terrible headache and is lying down,” said old Mrs.
Greenleaf, fussing over the flowers.
“Oh,” said Missy, desperately tongue-tied and ill-at-ease.
For a long second it endured portentously still in the room and in the
world without; then like a sharp thunder-clap out of a summer sky, a
door slammed upstairs. There was a sound of someone running down the
steps, and Missy glimpsed Mr. Hackett going out the front door, banging
the screen after him.
At the last noise, old Mrs. Greenleaf's shoulders stiffened as if under
a lash. But she turned quietly and said:
“Thank you so much for the flowers, Missy. I'll give them to her after a
while, when she's better. And you can see her to-morrow.”
It was the politest of dismissals. Missy, having remembered the pattern,
hurriedly got it and ran home. She had seen a suspicion of tears in old
Mrs. Greenleaf's eyes. It was as upsetting as though the bronze Winged
Victory on the parlour mantel should begin to weep.
All that afternoon Missy sought solitude. She refused to play croquet
with Kitty Allen when that beautiful and most envied friend appeared.
When Kitty took herself home, offended, Missy went out to the remote
summerhouse, relieved. She looked back, now, on her morning's careless
happiness as an old man looks back on the heyday of his youth.
Heavy with sympathy, non-comprehension and fear, she brooded over these
dark, mysterious hints about the handsome Cleveland man; over young
Doc's blighted love; over Miss Princess's wanting to “back out”; over
old Mrs. Greenleaf's strange, dominant “pride.”
Why did Miss Princess want to “back out”?--Miss Princess with her
beautiful coppery hair, and eager parted lips, and eyes of mysterious
purple (Missy lingered on the reflection “eyes of mysterious purple”
long enough to foreshadow a future poem including that line). Was it
because she still loved Doc? If so, why didn't it turn out all right,
since Doc loved her, too? Surely that would be better, since there
seemed to be something wrong with Mr. Hackett--even though everybody
did talk about what a wonderful match he was. Then they talked about
invitations and things as though old Mrs. Greenleaf thought those things
counted for more than the bridegroom. Old Mrs. Greenleaf, Missy was
sure, loved Miss Princess better than anything else in the world: then
how could she, even if she was “proud,” twist things so foolishly?
She had brought with her the blue-bound Anthology and a writing-pad and
pencil. First she read a little--“Lochinvar” it was she opened to. Then
she meditated. Poor Young Doc! The whole unhappy situation was like
poetry. (So much in life she was finding, these days, like poetry.) This
would make a very sad, but effective poem: the faithful, unhappy lover,
the lovely, unhappy bride, the mother keeping them asunder who, though
stern, was herself unhappy, and the craven bridegroom who--she hoped it,
anyway!--was unhappy also.
In all this unhappiness, though she didn't suspect it, Missy revelled--a
peculiar kind of melancholy tuned to the golden day. She detected a
subtle restlessness in the shimmering leaves about her; the scent of
the June roses caught at something elusively sad in her. Without knowing
why, her eyes filled with tears.
She drew the writing-pad to her; conjured the vision of nice Doc and of
Miss Princess, and, immersed in a sea of feeling, sought for words and
rhyme:
O, young Doctor Al is the pride of the West, Than big flashy autos his
Ford is the best; Ah! courtly that lover and faithful and true. And
fair, wondrous fair, the maiden was, too. But O--dire the day! when from
Cleveland afar--
A long pause here: “car,” “scar,” “jar,”--all tried and discarded.
Finally sense, rhyme and meter were attuned:
--afar, A dastard she met, their sweet idyl to mar.
He won her away with his glitter and plume And citified ways, while the
lover did fume. O, fair dawned the Wedding Day, pink in the East,
And folk from all quarters did come for the feast; Gay banners from
turrets--
“Missy!”
The poet, head bent, absorbed in creation, did not hear.
“Missy! Where are you? Me-lis-sa!”
This time the voice cleaved into the mood of inspiration. With a sigh
Missy put the pad and pencil in the Anthology, laid the whole on the
bench, and obediently went to mind the Baby. But, as she wheeled the
perambulator up and down the front walk, her mind liltingly repeated the
words she had written, and she stepped along in time to the rhythm.
It was a fine rhythm. And, as soon as she was relieved from duty, she
rushed back to the temporary shrine of the Muse. The words, now, flowed
much more easily than at the beginning--one of the first lessons learned
by all creative artists.
Gay banners from turrets streamed out in the air And all Maple, Avenue
turned out for the pair. Ah! beauteous was she, that white-satin young
bride, But sorrow had reddened her deep purple eyes. Each clatter of
hoofs from the courtyard below Did summon the blood swift to ebb and
then flow; For the gem on her finger, the flower in her hair, Bound not
her sad heart to that Cleveland man there.
Ah! who is this riding so fast through Main Street? The gallant young
lover--
Again, reiterant and increasingly imperative, summons from the house
slashed across her mood. Can't one's family ever appreciate the
yearning for solitude? However, even amid the talkative circle round the
supper-table, Missy felt uplifted and strangely remote.
“Why aren't you eating your supper, Missy? Just look at that wasted good
meat!”
“Meat,” though a good rhyme for “street,” would not work well.
“Neat”--“fleet”--Ah! “Fleet!”
Immediately after supper, followed by the inquisitive Poppylinda, Missy
took her poem out to the comparative solitude of the back porch steps.
It was very sweet and still out there, the sun sinking blood-red over
the cherry trees. With no difficulty at all, she went on, inspired:
--Main Street?
The gallant young Doctor in his motor so fleet! So flashing his eye and
so stately his form That the bride's sinking heart with delight did grow
warm. But the poor craven bridegroom said never a word; And the parent
so proud did champ in her woe.
The knight snatched her swiftly into the Ford, And she smiled as he
steered adown the Boulevard; Then away they did race until soon lost to
view, And all knew 'twas best for these lovers so true. For where, tell
me where, would have gone that bride's bliss? Who flouts at true love
all true happiness must miss!
What matters the vain things of Earth, soon or late, If the heart of a
loved one in anguish doth break?
When she came to the triumphant close, among the fragrant cherry blooms
the birds were twittering their lullabies. She went in to say her own
good night, the Poem, much erased and interlined, tucked in the front of
her blouse together with ineffable sensations. But she was not, for all
that, beyond a certain concern for material details. “Mother, may I do
my hair up in kid-curlers?” she asked.
“Why, this is only Wednesday.” Mother's tone connoted the fact that
“waves,” rippling artificially either side of Missy's “part” down to
her two braids, achieved a decorative effect reserved for Sundays and
special events. Then quickly, perhaps because she hadn't been altogether
unaware of this last visitation of the Heavenly Muse, she added: “Well,
I don't care. Do it up, if you want to.”
Then, moved by some motive of her own, she followed Missy upstairs to
do it up herself. These occasions of personal service were rare, these
days, since Missy had grown big and efficient, and were therefore deeply
cherished. But to-night Missy almost regretted her mother's unexpected
ministration; for the paper in her blouse crackled at unwary gestures,
and if mother should protract her stay throughout the undressing period,
there might come an awkward call for explanations.
And mother, innocently, added one more element to her entangled burden
of distress.
“We'll do it up all over your head, for the Wedding,” she said, gently
brushing the full length of the fine, silvery-brown strands. “And let it
hang in loose curls.”
At the conjectured vision, Missy's eyes began to sparkle.
“And I think a ribbon band the colour of your dress would be pretty,”
mother went on, parting off a section and wrapping it round a “curler.”
A sudden remembrance clutched at Missy's ecstatic reply; the shine faded
from her eyes. But mother, engrossed, didn't observe; more deeply she
sank her unintentional barb. “No,” she mused aloud, “a garland of little
rosebuds would be better, I believe-tiny delicate little buds, tied with
a pink bow.”
At that, the prospective flower-girl, to have saved her life, could
not have repressed the sigh which rose like a tidal wave from her
overcharged heart. Mother caught the sigh, and looked at her anxiously.
“Don't you think it would look pretty?” she asked.
Missy nodded mutely. So complex were her emotions that, fearing for
self-control, she was glad, just then, that the Baby cried.
As soon as mother had kissed her good night and left her, she pulled
out the paper rustling importantly within her blouse, and laid it in
the celluloid “treasure box” which sat on the high-boy. Then soberly she
finished the operation on her hair, and undressed herself.
Before getting into bed, after her regular prayer was said, she stayed
awhile on her knees and put the whole of her seething dilemma before
God. “Dear God,” she said, “you know how unhappy Miss Princess is and
young Doc, too. Please make them both happy, God. And please help me not
feel sorry about the Pink Dress. For I just can't help feeling sorry.
Please help us all, dear God, and I'll be such a good girl, God.”
Perhaps it is the biggest gift in the world, to be able to pray. And, by
prayer, is not meant the saying over of a formal code, but the simple,
direct speaking with God. It is so simple in the doing, so marvellous
in its reaction, that the strange thing is that it is not more generally
practiced. But there is where the gift comes in: a supreme essence
of spirit which must, if the prayer is to achieve its end, be first
possessed-a thing possessed by all children not yet quite rid of the
glamour of immortality and by some, older, who contrive to hold enough
glamour to be as children throughout life. Some call this thing Faith,
but there are other names just as good; and the essence lives on
forever.
These reflections are not Missy's. She knelt there, without
consciousness of any motive or analysis. She only knew she was telling
it all to God. And presently, in her heart, in whispers fainter than
the stir of the slumbering leaves outside, she heard His answer. God had
heard; she knew it by the peace He laid upon her tumultuous heart.
Steeped in faith, she fell asleep. But not a dreamless sleep. Missy
always dreamed, these nights: wonderful dreams--magical, splendid,
sometimes vaguely terrifying, often remotely tied up with some event
of the day, but always wonderful. And the last dream she dreamed, this
eventful night, was marvellous indeed. For it was a replica of the one
she had dreamed the night before.
It was an omen of divine portent. No one could have doubted it. Missy,
waking from its subtle glamour to the full sunlight streaming across
her pillow, hugged Poppylinda, crooned over her and, though preparing to
sacrifice that golden something whose prospect had gilded her life, sang
her way through the duties of her toilet.
That accomplished, she lifted out her Poem, and wrote at the bottom:
“Your true friend, MELISSA M.”
Then she tucked the two sheets in her blouse, and scrambled downstairs
to be chided again for not eating her breakfast.
After the last spoonful, obligatory and arduous, had been disposed of,
she loitered near the hall telephone until there was a clear field, then
called Young Doc's number. What a relief to find he had not yet
gone out! Could he stop by her house, pretty soon? Why, what was the
matter--Doc's voice was alarmed--someone sick?
“No, but it's something very important, Doc.”
Missy's manner was hurried and impressive.
“Won't it wait?”
“It's terribly important.”
“What is it? Can't you tell me now, Missy?”
“No--it's a secret. And I've got to hurry up now and hang up the phone
because it's a secret.”
“I see. All right, I'll be along in about fifteen minutes. What do you
want me to--”
“Stop by the summerhouse,” she cut in nervously. “I'll be there.”
It seemed a long time, but in reality was shorter than schedule, before
Young Doc's car appeared up the side street. He brought it to a stop
opposite the summerhouse, jumped out and approached the rendezvous.
Summoning all her courage, she held the Poem ready in her hand.
“Good morning, Missy,” he sang out. “What's all the mystery?”
For answer Missy could only smile--a smile made wan by nervousness--and
extend the two crumpled sheets of paper.
Young Doc took them curiously, smiled at the primly-lettered, downhill
lines, and then narrowed his eyes to skimming absorption. A strange
expression gathered upon his face as he read. Missy didn't know exactly
what to make of his working muscles--whether he was pained or angry or
amused. But she was entirely unprepared for the fervour with which, when
he finished, he seized her by the shoulders and bounced her up and down.
“Did you make all this up?” he cried. “Or do you mean she really doesn't
want to marry that bounder?”
“She really doesn't,” answered Missy, not too engaged in steeling
herself against his crunching of her shoulder bones to register the
soubriquet, “bounder.”
“Are you sure you didn't make most of it up?” Young Doc knew well
Missy's strain of romanticism. But she strove to convince him that, for
once, she was by way of being a realist.
“She despises him. She can't bear to go on with it. She can't stand
it another hour. I heard her say so myself.” Young Doc, crunching her
shoulder bones worse than ever, breathed hard, but said nothing. Missy
proffered bashfully:
“I think, maybe, she wants to marry you, Doc.”
Young Doc then, just at the moment she couldn't have borne the vise a
second longer, let go her shoulders, and smiled a smile which, for her,
would have eased a splintered bone itself.
“We'll quickly find that out,” he said, and his voice was more buoyant
than she had heard it in months. “Missy, do you think you could get a
note to her right away?”
Missy nodded eagerly.
He scribbled the note on the back of a letter and folded it with the
Poem in the used envelope. “There won't be any answer,” he directed
Missy, “unless she brings it herself. Just get it to her without
anyone's seeing.”
Missy nodded again, vibrant with repressed excitement. “I'll just
pretend it's a secret about a poem. Miss Princess always helps make
secrets about poems.”
Evidently Miss Princess did so this time. For, after an eternity of ten
minutes, Young Doc, peering through the leaves of the summerhouse, saw
Missy and her convoy coming across the lawn. Missy was walking along
very solemnly, with only an occasional skip to betray the ebullition
within her.
But it was on the tall girl that Young Doc's gaze was riveted, the
slender graceful figure which, for all its loveliness, had something
pathetically drooping about it--like a lily with a storm-bruised stem.
Something in Young Doc's throat clicked, and every last trace of
resentment and wounded pride magically dissolved. He went straight to
her in the doorway, and for a moment they stood there as if forgetful of
everyone else in the world. Neither spoke, as is the way of those whose
minds and hearts are full of inarticulate things. Then it was Doc who
broke the silence.
“By the way, Missy,” he said in quite an ordinary tone, “there are some
of those sugar pills in a bag out in the Ford. You'll find them tucked
in a corner of the seat.”
Obediently Missy departed to get the treat. And when she returned, not
too quickly, Miss Princess was laughing and crying both at once, and
Young Doc was openly squeezing both her hands.
“Missy,” he hailed, “run in and ask your mother if you can go for a
ride. Needn't mention Miss Princess is going along.”
O, it is a wonderful world! Swiftly back at the trysting place with the
necessary permission, tucked into the Ford between the two happy lovers,
“away they did race until soon lost to view.”
And exactly the same happy purpose as that in the Poem! For, half-way
down the stretch of Boulevard, Miss Princess squeezed her hand and said:
“We're going over to Somerville, darling, to be married, and you're to
be one of the witnesses.”
Missy's heart surged with delight--O, it was a wonderful world! Then a
dart of remembrance came, and a big tear spilled out and ran down her
cheek. Miss Princess, in the midst of a laugh, looked down and spied it.
“Why, darling, what is it?” she cried anxiously.
“My Pink Dress--I just happened to think of it. But it doesn't really
make any difference.” However Missy's eyes were wet and shining with an
emotion she couldn't quite control.
With eyes which were shining with many emotions, the man and girl, over
her head, regarded each other. It was the man who spoke first, slowing
down the car as he did so.
“Don't you think we'd better run back to Miss Martin's and get it?”
For answer, his sweetheart leaned across Missy and kissed him.
A fifteen minutes' delay, and again the Ford was headed towards
Somerville and the County Courthouse; but now an additional passenger,
a big brown box, was hugged between Missy's knees. In the County
Courthouse she did not forget to guard this box tenderly all the
time Young Doc and Miss Princess were scurrying around musty offices,
interviewing important, shirt-sleeved men, and signing papers--not even
when she herself was permitted to sign her name to an imposing document,
“just for luck,” as Doc laughingly said.
Then he bent his head to hear what Miss Princess wanted to whisper to
him, and they both laughed some more; and then he said something to
the shirtsleeved men, and they laughed; and then--O, it is a wonderful
world!--Miss Princess took her into a dusty, paper-littered inner
office, lifted the Pink Dress out of the box, dressed Missy up in it,
fluffed out the “wave” in her front hair, and exclaimed that she was the
loveliest little flower-girl in the whole world.
“Even without the flower-hat and the pink stockings?”
“Even without the flower-hat and the pink stockings,” said Miss Princess
with such assurance that Missy cast off doubt forever.
After the Wedding--and never in Romance was such a gay, laughing
Wedding--when again they were all packed in the Ford, Missy gave a
contented sigh.
“I kind of knew it,” she confided. “For I dreamed it all, two nights
running. Both times I had on the Pink Dress, and both times it was Doc.
I'm so happy it's Doc.”
And over her head the other two looked in each other's eyes.