No one in Cherryvale ever got a word from Melissa about the true
inwardness of the spiritual renaissance she experienced the winter that
the Reverend MacGill came to the Methodist church; naturally not her
father nor mother nor Aunt Nettie, because grown-ups, though nice and
well-meaning, with their inability to “understand,” and their tendency
to laugh make one feel shy and reticent about the really deep and vital
things. And not even Tess O'Neill, Missy's chum that year, a lively,
ingenious, and wonderful girl, was in this case clever enough to obtain
complete confidence.
Once before Missy had felt the flame divine--a deep, vague kind of glow
all subtly mixed up with “One Sweetly Solemn Thought” and such slow,
stirring, minor harmonies, and with sunlight stealing through the
stained-glass window above the pulpit in colourful beauty that pierced
to her very soul. But that was a long time ago, when she was a little
thing--only ten. Now she was nearly sixteen. Things were different. One
now was conscious of the reality of inward inexperiences: these must
influence life--one's own and, haply, the lives of others. What Missy
did not emphasize in her mind was the mystery of how piety evolved from
white fox furs and white fox furs finally evolved from piety. But she
did perceive that it would be hopeless to try to explain her motives
about Arthur as mixed up with the acquisition of the white fox furs...
No; not even Tess O'Neill could have grasped the true inwardness of it
all.
It all began, as nearly as one could fix on a concrete beginning, with
Genevieve Hicks's receiving a set of white fox furs for Christmas. The
furs were soft and silky and luxurious, and Genevieve might well have
been excused for wearing them rather triumphantly. Missy wasn't at all
envious by nature and she tried to be fair-minded in this case, but she
couldn't help begrudging Genevieve her regal air.
Genevieve had paraded her becoming new finery past the Merriam residence
on several Sunday afternoons, but this wasn't the entire crux of Missy's
discontent. Genevieve and the white fox furs were escorted by Arthur
Summers.
Now, Arthur had more than once asked Missy herself to “go walking” on
Sunday afternoons. But Mrs. Merriam had said Missy was too young
for such things. And when Missy, in rebuttal, once pointed out the
promenading Genevieve, Mrs. Merriam had only replied that Genevieve's
mother ought to know better--that Genevieve was a frivolous-minded girl,
anyway.
Missy, peering through the parlour lace curtains, made no answer; but
she thought: “Bother! Everybody can go walking but me!”
Then she thought:
“She's laughing awful loud. She is frivolous-minded.”
Then:
“He looks as if he's having a good time, too; he's laughing back
straight at her. I wonder if he thinks she's very pretty.”
And then:
“I wish I had some white fox furs.”
That evening at the supper-table Missy voiced her desire. There were
just the four of them at the table--father, mother, Aunt Nettie and
herself. Missy sat silent, listening to the talk of the grownups; but
their voices floated to her as detached, far-off sounds, because she
was engrossed in looking at a mental picture; a red-haired, laughing,
admiring-eyed boy walking along beside a girl in white fox furs--and
the girl was not Genevieve Hicks. The delights of the vision must have
reflected in her face because finally her father said:
“Well, Missy, what's all the smiling about?”
Missy blushed as if she'd been caught in mischief; but she answered,
wistfully rather than hopefully:
“I was just thinking how nice it would be if I had some white fox furs.”
“For heaven's sake!” commented mother. “When you've already got a new
set not two months old!”
Missy didn't reply to that; she didn't want to seem unappreciative.
It was true she had a new set, warm and serviceable, but--well, a
short-haired, dark-brown collarette hasn't the allure of a fluffy,
snow-white boa.
Mother was going on: “That ought to do you two winters at least--if not
three.”
“I don't know what the present generation is coming to,” put in Aunt
Nettie with what seemed to Missy entire irrelevance. Aunt Nettie was a
spinster, even older than Missy's mother, and her lack of understanding
and her tendency to criticize and to laugh was especially dreaded by her
niece.
“Nowadays girls still in knee-skirts expect to dress and act like
society belles!”
“I wasn't expecting the white fox furs,” said Missy defensively. “I
was just thinking how nice it would be to have them.” She was silent
a moment, then added: “I think if I had some white fox furs I'd be the
happiest person in the world.”
“That doesn't strike me as such a large order for complete happiness,”
observed father, smiling at her.
Missy smiled back at him. In another these words might have savoured of
irony, but Missy feared irony from her father less than from any other
old person.
Father was a big, silent man but he was always kind and particularly
lovable; and he “understood” better than most “old people.”
“What is the special merit of these white fox furs?” he went on,
and something in the indulgent quality of his tone, something in the
expression of his eyes, made hope stir timidly to birth in her bosom and
rise to shine from her eyes.
But before she could answer, mother spoke. “I can tell you that. That
flighty Hicks girl went by here this afternoon wearing some. That
Summers boy who clerks in Pieker's grocery was with her. He once wanted
Missy to go walking with him and I had to put my foot down. She doesn't
seem to realize she's too young for such things. Her brown furs will do
her for this season--and next season too!”
Mother put on a stern, determined kind of look, almost hard. Into the
life of every woman who is a mother there comes a time when she learns,
suddenly, that her little girl is trying not to be a little girl any
longer but to become a woman. It is a hard moment for mothers, and
no wonder that they seem unwarrantedly adamantine. Mrs. Merriam
instinctively knew that wanting furs and wanting boys spelled the same
evil. But Missy, who was fifteen instead of thirty-seven and whose
emotions and desires were still as hazy and uncorrelated as they were
acute, stared with bewildered hurt at this unjust harshness in her
usually kind parent.
Then she turned large, pleading eyes upon her father; he had shown a
dawning interest in the subject of white fox furs. But Mr. Merriam, now,
seemed to have lost the issue of furs in the newer issue of boys.
“What's this about the Summers boy?” he demanded. “It's the first I've
ever heard of this business.”
“He only wanted me to go walking, father. All the rest of the girls
go walking with boys.” “Indeed! Well, you won't. Nor for a good many
years!”
Such unexpected shortness and sharpness from father made her feel
suddenly wretched; he was even worse than mother.
“Who is he, anyway?” he exploded further.
Missy's lips were twitching inexplicably; she feared to essay speech,
but it was mother who answered.
“He's that red-headed boy who clerks in Pieker's grocery.”
“Arthur's a nice boy,” Missy then attempted courageously. “I don't think
he ought to be blamed just because he's poor and--”
Her defence ended ignominiously in a choking sound. She wasn't one who
cried easily and this unexpected outburst amazed herself; she could not,
to have saved her life, have told why she cried.
Her father reached over and patted her hand.
“I'm not blaming him because he's poor, daughter. It's just that I don't
want you to start thinking about the boys for a long while yet. Not
about Arthur or any other boy. You're just a little girl.”
Missy knew very well that she was not “just a little girl,” but she
knew, too, that parents nourish many absurd ideas. And though father was
now absurd, she couldn't help feeling tender toward him when he called
her “daughter” in that gentle tone. So, sighing a secret little sigh,
she smiled back at him a misty smile which he took for comprehension
and a promise. The subject of white fox furs seemed closed; Missy was
reluctant to re-open it because, in some intangible way, it seemed bound
up with the rather awkward subject of Arthur.
After supper father conversed with her about a piece she was reading
in the Sunday Supplement, and seemed anxious to make her feel happy and
contented. So softened was he that, when Tess telephoned and invited
Missy to accompany the O'Neill family to the Methodist church that
evening, he lent permission to the unusual excursion.
The unusualness of it--the Merriams performed their Sabbath devotions
at 11 A.M.--served to give Missy a greater thrill than usually attends
going to church. Besides, since the Merriams were Presbyterians,
going to the Methodist church held a certain novelty--savouring of
entertainment--and diversion from the same old congregation, the same
old church choir, and the same old preacher. In literal truth, also,
the new Methodist preacher was not old; he was quite young. Missy had
already heard reports of him. Some of the Methodist girls declared
that though ugly he was perfectly fascinating; and grandpa and grandma
Merriam, who were Methodists (as had been her own father before he
married mother, a Presbyterian), granted that he was human as well as
inspired.
As Missy entered the Methodist church that evening with the O'Neills, it
didn't occur to her memory that it was in this very edifice she had once
felt the flame divine. It was once when her mother was away visiting and
her less rigidly strict grandparents had let her stay up evenings
and attend revival meetings with them. But all that had happened long
ago--five years ago, when she was a little thing of ten. One forgets
much in five years. So she felt no stir of memory and no presentiment of
a coincidence to come.
Reverend MacGill, the new minister, at first disappointed her. He was
tall and gaunt; and his face was long and gaunt, lighted with deep-set,
smouldering, dark eyes and topped with an unruly thatch of dark hair.
Missy thought him terribly ugly until he smiled, and then she wasn't
quite so sure. As the sermon went on and his harsh but flexible voice
mounted, now and then, to an impassioned height, she would feel herself
mounting with it; then when it fell again to calmness, she would feel
herself falling, too. She understood why grandma called him “inspired.”
And once when his smile, on one of its sudden flashes from out that dark
gauntness of his face, seemed aimed directly at her she felt a quick,
responsive, electric thrill. The Methodist girls were right--he was
fascinating.
She didn't wait until after the service to express her approbation to
Tess--anyway, to a fifteen-year-old surreptitiousness seems to add zest
to any communication. She tore a corner from the hymnal fly-leaf and
scribbled her verdict while the elder O'Neills and most of the old
people were kneeling in prayer. Assuring herself that all nearby heads
to be dreaded were reverentially bent, she passed the missive. As she
did so she chanced to glance up toward the minister.
Oh, dear heaven! He was looking straight down at her. He had seen
her--the O'Neill pew was only three rows back. It was too awful. What
would he think of her? An agony of embarrassment and shame swept over
her.
And then--could she believe her eyes?--right in the midst of his prayer,
his harshly melodious voice rising and falling with never a break--the
Reverend MacGill smiled. Smiled straight at her--there could be no
mistake. And a knowing, sympathetic, understanding kind of smile! Yes,
he was human.
She liked him better than she had ever thought it possible to like a
minister--especially an ugly one, and one whom she'd never “met.”
But after service she “met” him at the door, where he was standing to
shake hands with the departing worshippers. As Mrs. O'Neill introduced
her, rather unhappily, as “one of Tess's little friends,” he flashed her
another smile which said, quite plainly: “I saw you up to your pranks,
young lady!” But it was not until after Dr. and Mrs. O'Neill had passed
on that he said aloud: “That was all right--all I ask is that you don't
look so innocent when your hands are at mischief.”
Oh, she adored his smile!
The following Sunday evening she was invited to the O'Neills' for
supper, and the Reverend MacGill was invited too. The knowledge of this
interesting meeting impending made it possible for her to view Genevieve
and Arthur, again out on a Sunday afternoon stroll, with a certain
equanimity. Genevieve, though very striking and vivacious in her white
fox, was indubitably a frivolous-minded girl; she, Missy, was going
to eat supper with the Reverend MacGill. Of course white fox furs were
nice, and Arthur's eyelashes curled up in an attractive way, but there
are higher, more ennobling things in life.
The Reverend MacGill did not prove disappointing on closer acquaintance.
Grandpa said he knew everything there is to know about the Bible, but
the Reverend MacGill did not talk about it. In a way this was a pity,
as his talk might have been instructive, but he got Tess and Missy to
talking about themselves instead. Not in the way that makes you feel
uncomfortable, as many older people do, but just easy, chatty, laughing
comradeship. You could talk to him almost as though he were a boy of the
“crowd.”
It developed that the Reverend MacGill was planning a revival. He said
he hoped that Tess and Missy would persuade all their young friends to
attend. As Missy agreed to ally herself with his crusade, she felt a
sort of lofty zeal glow up in her. It was a pleasantly superior kind
of feeling. If one can't be fashionable and frivolous one can still be
pious.
In this noble missionary spirit she managed to be in the kitchen the
next time Arthur delivered the groceries from Pieker's. She asked him
to attend the opening session of the revival the following Sunday night.
Arthur blushed and stammered a little, so that, since Arthur wasn't
given to embarrassment, Missy at once surmised he had a “date.” Trying
for an impersonal yet urbane and hospitable manner, she added:
“Of course if you have an engagement, we hope you'll feel free to bring
any of your friends with you.”
“Well,” admitted Arthur, “you see the fact is I HAVE got a kind of date.
Of course if I'd KNOWN--”
“Oh, that's all right,” she cut in with magnificent ease. “I wasn't
asking you to go with me. Reverend MacGill just appointed me on a kind
of informal committee, you know--I'm asking Raymond Bonner and all the
boys of the crowd.”
“You needn't rub it in--I get you. Swell chance of YOU ever wanting to
make a date!”
His sulkiness of tone, for some reason, gratified her. Her own became
even more gracious as she said again: “We hope you can come. And bring
any of your friends you wish.”
She was much pleased with this sustained anonymity she had given
Genevieve.
When the opening night of the Methodist revival arrived, most of the
“crowd” might have been seen grouped together in one of the rearmost
pews of the church. Arthur and Genevieve were there, Genevieve in her
white fox furs, of course. She was giggling and making eyes as if she
were at a party or a movie show instead of in church. Missy--who had
had to do a great deal of arguing in order to be present with her, so to
speak, guests--preserved a calm, sweet, religious manner; it was far too
relentlessly Christian to take note of waywardness. But the way she hung
on the words of the minister, joined in song, bowed her head in prayer,
should have been rebuke enough to any light conduct. It did seem to
impress Arthur; for, looking at her uplifted face and shining eyes, as
in her high, sweet treble, she sang, “Throw Out the Life-Line,” he lost
the point of one of Genevieve's impromptu jokes and failed to laugh
in the right place. Genevieve noticed his lapse. She also noticed the
reason. She herself was not a whit impressed by Missy's devotions, but
she was unduly quiet for several minutes. Then she stealthily tore a
bit of leaf from her hymnal--the very page on which she and other frail
mortals were adjured to throw out life-lines--and began to fashion it
into a paper-wad.
The service had now reached the stage of prayer for repentant sinners.
Reverend MacGill was doing the praying, but members of the congregation
were interjecting, “Glory Hallelujah!” “Praise be His Name!” and the
other worshipful ejaculations which make a sort of running accompaniment
on such occasions. Missy thought the interruptions, though proper and
lending an atmosphere of fervour, rather a pity because they spoiled the
effective rise and fall of the minister's voice. There was one recurrent
nasal falsetto which especially threw you off the religious track. It
belonged to old Mrs. Lemon. Everybody knew she nagged at and overworked
and half-starved that ragged little Sims orphan she'd adopted, but here
she was making the biggest noise of all!
However, much as she wished old Mrs. Lemon to stop, Missy could not
approve of what she, just then, saw take place in her own pew.
Genevieve was whispering and giggling again. Missy turned to look.
Genevieve pressed a paper-wad into Arthur's hand, whispered and giggled
some more. And then, to Missy's horror, Arthur took surreptitious but
careful aim with the wad. It landed squarely on old Mrs. Lemon's
ear, causing a “Blessed be the Lo--” to part midway in scandalized
astonishment. Missy herself was scandalized. Of course old Mrs. Lemon
was a hypocrite--but to be hit on the ear while the name of the Saviour
was on her lips! Right on the ear! Missy couldn't help mentally noting
Arthur's fine marksmanship, but she felt it her duty to show disapproval
of a deed so utterly profane.
She bestowed an openly withering look on the desecrators.
“She dared me to,” whispered Arthur--the excuse of the original Adam.
Without other comment Missy returned her stern gaze to the pulpit.
She held it there steadfast though she was conscious of Genevieve,
undaunted, urging Arthur to throw another wad. He, however, refused.
That pleased Missy, for it made it easier to fix the blame for the
breach of religious etiquette upon Genevieve alone. Of course, it was
Genevieve who was really to blame. She was a frivolous, light-minded
girl. She was a bad influence for Arthur.
Yet, when it came time for the “crowd” to disperse and Arthur told
her good night as though nothing had happened, Missy deemed it only
consistent with dignity to maintain extreme reserve.
“Oh, fudge, Missy! Don't be so stand-offish!” Arthur was very appealing
when he looked at you like that--his eyes so mischievous under their
upcurling lashes. But Missy made herself say firmly:
“You put me in a rather awkward position, Arthur. You know Reverend
MacGill entrusted me to--”
“Oh, come out of it!” interrupted Arthur, grinning.
Missy sighed in her heart. She feared Arthur was utterly unregenerate.
Especially, when as he turned to Genevieve--who was tugging at his
arm--he gave the Reverend MacGill's missionary an open wink. Missy
watched the white fox furs, their light-minded wearer and her quarry
all depart together; commiseration for the victim vied with resentment
against the temptress. Poor Arthur!
She herself expected to be taken home by the O'Neills, but to her
surprise she found her father waiting in the church vestibule. He
said he had decided to come and hear the new minister, and Missy never
suspected it was the unrest of a father who sees his little girl trying
to become a big girl that had dragged him from his house-slippers and
smoking-jacket this snowy evening.
They walked homeward through the swirling flakes in silence. That was
one reason why Missy enjoyed being with her father--she could be
so companionably silent with him. She trudged along beside him,
half-consciously trying to match his stride, while her thoughts flew far
afield.
But presently father spoke.
“He's very eloquent, isn't he?”
“He?--who?” She struggled to get her thoughts back home.
Her father peered at her through the feathery gloom.
“Why, the preacher--Reverend MacGill.”
“Oh, yes.” She shook herself mentally. “He's perfectly fasci--” she
broke off, remembering she was talking to a grown-up. “He's very
inspired,” she amended.
Another pause. Again it was father who spoke first.
“Who was the boy who threw the paper-wad?”
Involuntarily Missy's hold on his arm loosened. Then father had seen.
That was bad. Doubtless many others had seen--old people who didn't
understand the circumstances. It was very bad for Arthur's reputation.
Poor Arthur!
“Threw the paper-wad?” she asked back evasively.
“Yes, the red-headed boy. Wasn't it that Summers fellow?”
That Summers fellow!--Arthur's reputation was already gone!
“Wasn't it?” persisted father.
Evasion was no longer possible. Anyway, it might be best to try to
explain just how it was--to set poor Arthur right. So she replied:
“Yes, it was Arthur--but it wasn't his fault, exactly.”
“Not HIS fault? Whose in thunder was it?”
Missy hesitated. She didn't like talking scandal of anyone
directly--and, besides, there were likeable traits in Genevieve despite
her obvious failings.
“Well,” she said, “it's just that Arthur is under a kind of wrong
influence--if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know that influences count for a good deal,” answered father in
the serious way she loved in him. Father DID understand more than most
grown-ups. And Reverend MacGill was like him in that. She found time
fleetingly to wish that Reverend MacGill were in some way related
to her. Too bad that he was a little too young for Aunt Nettie; and,
perhaps, too old for--she caught herself up, blushing in the dark, as
father went on:
“Just what kind of influence is undermining this Arthur fellow?”
She wished he wouldn't keep speaking of Arthur with that damning kind
of phrase. It was because she wanted to convince him that Arthur didn't
really merit it that she went further in speech than she'd intended.
“Well, he runs around with frivolous, light-minded people. People who
lead him on to do things he wouldn't dream of doing if they'd let him
alone. It isn't his fault if he's kind of--kind of dissipated.”
She paused, a little awe-stricken herself at this climactic
characterization of poor, misguided Arthur; she couldn't have told
herself just how she had arrived at it. A little confusedly she
rushed on: “He ought to have uplifting, ennobling influences in his
life--Arthur's at heart an awfully nice boy. That's why I wanted mother
to let me go walking with him. Don't you think that--maybe--if she
understood--she might let me?”
How in the world had that last question ever popped out? How had she
worked up to it? A little appalled, a little abashed, but withal atingle
at her own daring, she breathlessly, even hopefully, awaited his answer.
But father ruthlessly squashed her hopes with two fell sentences and one
terrifying oath.
“I should say not! You say he's dissipated and then in the same breath
ask me--for God's sake!”
“Well, maybe, he isn't so dissipated, father,” she began quaveringly,
regretting the indiscretion into which eloquence had enticed her.
“I don't care a whoop whether he is or not,” said father heartlessly.
“What I want is for you to get it into your head, once for all, that
you're to have NOTHING to do with this fellow or any other boy!”
Father's voice, usually so kind, had the doomsday quality that even
mother used only on very rare occasions. It reverberated in the depths
of Missy's being. They walked the last block in unbroken silence. As
they passed through the gate, walked up the front path, shook the snow
off their wraps on the porch, and entered the cosy-lighted precincts of
home, Missy felt that she was the most wretched, lonely, misunderstood
being in the world.
She said her good nights quickly and got off upstairs to her room. As
she undressed she could hear the dim, faraway sound of her parents'
voices. The sound irritated her. They pretended to love her, but they
seemed to enjoy making things hard for her! Not only did they begrudge
her a good time and white fox furs and everything, but they wouldn't
let her try to be a good influence to the world! What was the use of
renouncing earthly vanities for yourself if you couldn't help others to
renounce them, too? Of course there was a certain pleasure, a kind of
calm, peaceful satisfaction, an ecstasy even, in letting the religious,
above-the-world feeling take possession of you. But it was selfish to
keep it all to yourself. It was your duty to pass it on, to do good
works--to throw out the life-line. And they begrudged her that--it
wasn't right. Were all parents as hard and cruel as hers?
She felt like crying; but, just then, she heard them coming up the
stairs. It would be difficult to explain her tears should one of them
look into her room on some pretext; so she jumped quickly into bed. And,
sure enough, she heard the door open. She shut her eyes. She heard her
mother's voice: “Are you asleep, dear?” Impossible to divine that under
that tender voice lay a stony heart! She emitted a little ghost of a
snore; she heard the door close again, very softly.
For a while she lay quiet but she felt so unlike sleep that, finally,
she crept out of bed, groped for her blanket wrapper, and went over
to the window. It had stopped snowing and everything shone palely in
ghostly white. The trees were white-armed, gleaming skeletons, the
summerhouse an eerie pagoda or something, the scurrying clouds, breaking
now and showing silver edges from an invisible moon, were at once grand
and terrifying. It was all very beautiful and mysterious and stirring.
And something in her stretched out, out, out--to the driving clouds, to
the gleaming, brandishing boughs, to the summerhouse so like something
in a picture. And, as her soul stretched out to the beauty and grandeur
and mystery of it all, there came over her a feeling of indefinable
ecstasy, a vague, keen yearning to be really good in every way. Good to
her Lord, to her father and mother and Aunt Nettie and little brother,
to the Reverend MacGill with his fascinating smile and good works, to
everybody--the whole town--the whole world. Even to Genevieve Hicks,
though she seemed so self-satisfied with her white fox furs and giggling
ways and utter worldliness--yet, there were many things likeable about
Genevieve if you didn't let yourself get prejudiced. And Missy didn't
ever want to let herself get prejudiced--narrow and harsh and bigoted
like so many Christians. No; she wanted to be a sweet, loving, generous,
helpful kind of Christian. And to Arthur, too, of course. There must be
SOME way of helping Arthur.
She found herself, half-pondering, half-praying:
“How can I help Arthur, dear Jesus? Please help me find some way--so
that he won't go on being light-minded and liking light-mindedness. How
can I save him from his ways--maybe he IS dissipated. Maybe he smokes
cigarettes! Why does he fall for light-mindedness? Why doesn't he feel
the real beauty of services?--the rumbling throb of the organ, and the
thrill of hearing your own voice singing sublime hymns, and the inspired
swell of Reverend MacGill's voice when he prays with such expression? It
is real ecstasy when you get the right kind of feeling--you're almost
willing to renounce earthly vanities. But Arthur doesn't realize what it
MEANS. How can I show him, dear Jesus? Because they've forbidden me to
have anything to do with him. Would it be right, for the sake of his
soul, for me to disobey them--just a little bit? For the sake of his
soul, you know. And he's really a nice boy at heart. THEY don't
understand just how it is. But I don't think it would be VERY wrong if I
talked to him just a little--do you?”
Gradually it came over her that she was chilly; she dragged a comforter
from her bed and resumed her kneeling posture by the window and her
communings with Jesus and her conscience. Then she discovered she was
going off to sleep, so she sprang to her feet and jumped back into
bed. A great change had come over her spirit; no longer was there any
restlessness, bitterness, or ugly rebellion; no; nothing but peace
ineffable. Smiling softly, she slept.
The next morning brought confusion to the Merriam household for father
was catching the 8:37 to Macon City on a business trip, Aunt Nettie was
going along with him to do some shopping, mother was in bed with one
of her headaches, and Missy had an inexplicably sore throat. This last
calamity was attributed, in a hurried conclave in mother's darkened
room, to Missy's being out in the snow-storm the night before. Missy
knew there was another contributory cause, but she couldn't easily have
explained her vigil at the window.
“I didn't want her to go to church in the first place,” mother lamented.
“Well, she won't go any more,” said father darkly. Missy's heart sank;
she looked at him with mutely pleading eyes.
“And you needn't look at me like that,” he added firmly. “It won't do
you the least good.”
Missy's heart sank deeper. How could she hope to exert a proper
religious influence if she didn't attend services regularly herself? But
father looked terribly adamantine.
“I think you'd better stay home from school today,” he continued, “it's
still pretty blustery.”
So Missy found herself spending the day comparatively alone in a
preternaturally quiet house--noisy little brother off at school, Aunt
Nettie's busy tongue absent, Marguerite, the hired girl, doing the
laundry down in the basement. And mother's being sick, as always is
the case when a mother is sick, seemed to add an extra heaviness to
the pervasive stillness. The blustery day invited reading, but Missy
couldn't find anything in the house she hadn't already read; and she
couldn't go to the Public Library because of her throat. And couldn't
practice because of mother's head. Time dragged on her hands, and Satan
found the mischief--though Missy devoutly believed that it was the Lord
answering her prayer.
She was idling at the front-parlour window when she saw Picker's
delivery wagon stop at the gate. She hurried back to the kitchen,
telling herself that Marguerite shouldn't be disturbed at her washtubs.
So she herself let Arthur in. All sprinkled with snow and ruddy-cheeked
and mischievous-eyed, he grinned at her as he emptied his basket on the
kitchen table.
“Well,” he bantered, “did you pray for my sins last night?”
“You shouldn't make fun of things like that,” she said rebukingly.
Arthur chortled.
“Gee, Missy, but you're sure a scream when you get pious!” Then he
sobered and, casually--a little too casually, enquired: “Say, I s'pose
you're going again to-night?”
Missy regretfully shook her head. “No, I've got a. sore throat.” She
didn't deem it necessary to say anything about parental objections.
Arthur looked regretful, too.
“Say, that's too bad. I was thinking, maybe--”
He shuffled from one foot to the other in a way that to Missy clearly
finished his speech's hiatus: He'd been contemplating taking HER home
to-night instead of that frivolous Genevieve Hicks! What a shame! To
lose the chance to be a really good influence--for surely getting Arthur
to church again, even though for the main purpose of seeing her home,
was better than for him not to go to church at all. It is excusable
to sort of inveigle a sinner into righteous paths. What a shame she
couldn't grasp at this chance for service! But she oughtn't to let go
of it altogether; oughtn't to just abandon him, as it were, to his fate.
She puckered her brows meditatively.
“I'm not going to church, but--”
She paused, thinking hard. Arthur waited.
An inspiration came to her. “Anyway, I have to go to the library
to-night. I've got some history references to look up.”
Arthur brightened. The library appealed to him as a rendezvous more than
church, anyway. Oh, ye Public Libraries of all the Cherryvales of the
land! Winter-time haunt of young love, rivalling band-concerts in the
Public Square on summer evenings! What unscholastic reminiscences might
we not hear, could book-lined shelves in the shadowy nooks, but speak!
“About what time will you be through at the Library?” asked Arthur,
still casual.
“Oh, about eight-thirty,” said Missy, not pausing to reflect that it's
an inconsistent sore throat that can venture to the Library but not to
church.
“Well, maybe I'll be dropping along that way about that time,” opined
Arthur. “Maybe I'll see you there.”
“That would be nice,” said Missy, tingling.
She continued to tingle after he had jauntily departed with his basket
and clattered away in his delivery wagon. She had a “date” with Arthur.
The first real “date” she'd ever had! Then, resolutely she squashed her
thrills; she must remember that this meeting was for a Christian cause.
The motive was what made it all right for her to disobey--that is, to
SEEM to disobey--her parents' commands. They didn't “understand.” She
couldn't help feeling a little perturbed over her apparent disobedience
and had to argue, hard with her conscience.
Then, another difficulty presented itself to her mind. Mother had set
her foot down on evening visits to the Library--mother seemed to think
girls went there evenings chiefly to meet boys! Mother would never
let her go--especially in such weather and with a sore throat. Missy
pondered long and earnestly.
The result was that, after supper, at which mother had appeared, pale
and heavy-eyed, Missy said tentatively:
“Can I run up to Kitty's a little while to See what the lessons are for
to-morrow?”
“I don't think you'd better, dear,” mother replied listlessly. “It
wouldn't be wise, with that throat.”
“But my throat's better. And I've GOT to keep up my lessons, mother! And
just a half a block can't hurt me if I bundle up.” Missy had formulated
her plan well; Kitty Allen had been chosen as an alibi because of her
proximity.
“Very well, then,” agreed mother.
As Missy sped toward the library, conflicting emotions swirled within
her and joined forces with the sharp breathlessness brought on by her
haste. She had never before been out alone at night, and the blackness
of tree-shadows lying across the intense whiteness of the snow struck
her in two places at once--imaginatively in the brain and fearsomely
in the stomach. Nor is a guilty conscience a reassuring companion under
such circumstances. Missy kept telling herself that, if she HAD lied a
little bit, it was really her parents' fault; if they had only let her
go to church, she wouldn't have been driven to sneaking out this way.
But her trip, however fundamentally virtuous--and with whatever subtly
interwoven elements of pleasure at its end--was certainly not an
agreeable one. At the moment Missy resolved never, never to sneak off
alone at night again.
In the brightly lighted library her fears faded away; she warmed to
anticipation again. And she found some very enjoyable stories in the new
magazines--she seemed, strangely, to have forgotten about any “history
references.” But, as the hands on the big clock above the librarian's
desk moved toward half-past eight, apprehensions began to rise again.
What if Arthur should fail to come? Could she ever live through that
long, terrible trip home, all alone?
Then, just as fear was beginning to turn to panic, Arthur sauntered in,
nonchalantly took a chair at another table, picked up a magazine and
professed to glance through it. And then, while Missy palpitated, he
looked over at her, smiled, and made an interrogative movement with his
eyebrows. More palpitant by the second, she replaced her magazines and
got into her wraps. As she moved toward the door, whither Arthur
was also sauntering, she felt that every eye in the Library must be
observing. Hard to tell whether she was more proud or embarrassed at the
public empressement of her “date.”
Arthur, quite at ease, took her arm to help her down the slippery steps.
Arthur wore his air of assurance gracefully because he was so used to
it. Admiration from the fair sex was no new thing to him. And Missy knew
this. Perhaps that was one reason she'd been so modestly pleased that he
had wished to bestow his gallantries upon her. She realized that Raymond
Bonner was much handsomer and richer; and that Kitty Allen's cousin
Jim from Macon City, in his uniform of a military cadet, was much more
distinguished-looking; and that Don Jones was much more humbly
adoring. Arthur had red hair, and lived in a boarding-house and drove a
delivery-wagon, and wasn't the least bit humble; but he had an audacious
grin and upcurling lashes and “a way with him.” So Missy accepted his
favour with a certain proud gratitude.
She felt herself the heroine of a thrilling situation though their
conversation, as Arthur guided her along the icy sidewalks, was of very
ordinary things: the weather--Missy's sore throat (sweet solicitude
from Arthur)--and gossip of the “crowd”--the weather's probabilities
to-morrow--more gossip--the weather again.
The weather was, in fact, in assertive evidence. The wind whipped
chillingly about Missy's shortskirted legs, for they were strolling
slowly--the correct way to walk when one has a “date.” Missy's teeth
were chattering and her legs seemed wooden, but she'd have died rather
than suggest running a block to warm up. Anyway, despite physical
discomforts, there was a certain deliciousness in the situation, even
though she found it difficult to turn the talk into the spiritual
trend she had proposed. Finally Arthur himself mentioned the paper-wad
episode, laughing at it as though it were a sort of joke.
That was her opening.
“You shouldn't be so worldly, Arthur,” she said in a voice of gentle
reproof.
“Worldly?” in some surprise.
She nodded seriously over her serviceable, unworldly brown collarette.
“How am I worldly?” he pursued, in a tone of one not entirely unpleased.
“Why--throwing wads in church--lack of respect for religious things--and
things like that.”
“Oh, I see,” said Arthur, his tone dropping a little. “I suppose it was
a silly thing to do,” he added with a touch of stiffness.
“It was a profane kind of thing,” she said, sadly. “Don't you see,
Arthur?”
“If I'm such a sinner, I don't see why you have anything to do with me.”
It stirred her profoundly that he didn't laugh, scoff at her; she had
feared he might. She answered, very gravely:
“It's because I like you. You don't think it's a pleasure to me to find
fault with you, do you Arthur?”
“Then why find fault?” he asked good-naturedly.
“But if the faults are THERE?” she persevered.
“Let's forget about 'em, then,” he answered with cheerful logic.
“Everybody can't be good like YOU, you know.”
Missy felt nonplussed, though subtly pleased, in a way. Arthur DID
admire her, thought her “good”--perhaps, in time she could be a
good influence to him. But at a loss just how to answer his personal
allusion, she glanced backward over her shoulder. In the moonlight she
saw a tall man back there in the distance.
There was a little pause.
“I don't s'pose you'll be going to the Library again to-morrow night?”
suggested Arthur presently.
“Why, I don't know--why?” But she knew “why,” and her knowledge gave her
a tingle.
“Oh, I was just thinking that if you had to look up some references or
something, maybe I might drop around again.”
“Maybe I WILL have to--I don't know just yet,” she murmured, confused
with a sweet kind of confusion.
“Well, I'll just drop by, anyway,” he said. “Maybe you'll be there.”
“Yes, maybe.”
Another pause. Trying to think of something to say, she glanced again
over her shoulder. Then she clutched at Arthur's arm.
“Look at that man back there--following us! He looks something like
father!”
As she spoke she unconsciously quickened her pace; Arthur consciously
quickened his. He knew--as all of the boys of “the crowd” knew--Mr.
Merriam's stand on the matter of beaux.
“Oh!” cried Missy under her breath. She fancied that the tall figure
had now accelerated his gait, also. “It IS father! I'll cut across this
vacant lot and get in at the kitchen door--I can beat him home that
way!”
Arthur started to turn into the vacant lot with her, but she gave him a
little push.
“No! no! It's just a little way--I won't be afraid. You'd better run,
Arthur--he might kill you!”
Arthur didn't want to be killed. “So long, then--let me know how things
come out!”--and he disappeared fleetly down the block.
Missy couldn't make such quick progress; the vacant lot had been a
cornfield, and the stubby ground was frozen into hard, sharp ridges
under the snow. She stumbled, felt her shoes filling with snow, stumbled
on, fell down, felt her stocking tear viciously. She glanced over her
shoulder--had the tall figure back there on the sidewalk slowed down,
too, or was it only imagination? She scrambled to her feet and hurried
on--and HE seemed to be hurrying again. She had no time, now, to be
afraid of the vague terrors of night; her panic was perfectly and
terribly tangible. She MUST get home ahead of father.
Blindly she stumbled on.
At the kitchen door she paused a moment to regain her breath; then, very
quietly, she entered. There was a light in the kitchen and she could
hear mother doing something in the pantry. She sniffed at the air and
called cheerily:
“Been popping corn?”
“Yes,” came mother's voice, rather stiffly. “Seems to me you've been a
long time finding out about those lessons!”
Not offering to debate that question, nor waiting to appease her sudden
craving for pop-corn, Missy moved toward the door.
“Get your wet shoes off at once!” called mother.
“That's just what I was going to do.” And she hurried up the back
stairs, unbuttoning buttons as she went.
Presently, in her night-dress and able to breathe naturally again, she
felt safer. But she decided she'd better crawl into bed. She lay there,
listening. It must have been a half-hour later when she heard a cab stop
in front of the house, and then the slam of the front door and the sound
of father's voice. He had just come in on the 9:23--THAT hadn't been
him, after all!
As relief stole over her, drowsiness tugged at her eyelids. But, just
as she was dozing off, she was roused by someone's entering the room,
bending over her.
“Asleep?”
It was father! Her first sensation was of fear, until she realized his
tone was not one to be feared. And, responding to that tenderness of
tone, sharp compunctions pricked her. Dear father!--it was horrible to
have to deceive him.
“I've brought you a little present from town.” He was lighting the gas.
“Here!”
Her blinking eyes saw him place a big flat box on the bed. She fumbled
at the cords, accepted his proffered pen-knife, and then--oh, dear
heaven! There, fluffy, snow-white and alluring, reposed a set of white
fox furs!
“S-sh!” he admonished, smiling. “Mother doesn't know about them yet.”
“Oh, father!” She couldn't say any more. And the father, smiling at her,
thought he understood the emotions which tied her tongue, which underlay
her fervent good night kiss. But he could never have guessed all the
love, gratitude, repentance, self-abasement and high resolves at that
moment welling within her.
He left her sitting up there in bed, her fingers still caressing the
silky treasure. As soon as he was gone, she climbed out of bed to kneel
in repentant humility.
“Dear Jesus,” she prayed, “please forgive me for deceiving my dear
father and mother. If you'll forgive me just this once, I promise never,
never to deceive them again.”
Then, feeling better--prayer, when there is real faith, does lift a load
amazingly--she climbed back into bed, with the furs on her pillow.
But she could not sleep. That was natural--so much had happened, and
everything seemed so complicated. Everything had been seeming to go
against her and here, all of a sudden, everything had turned out
her way. She had her white fox furs, much prettier than Genevieve
Hicks's--oh, she DID hope they'd let her go to church next Sunday
night so she could wear them! And she'd had a serious little talk with
Arthur--the way seemed paved for her to exert a really satisfactory
influence over him. As soon as she could see him again--Oh, she wished
she might wear the furs to the Library to-morrow night! She wished
Arthur could see her in them--
A sudden thought brought her up sharp: she couldn't meet him to-morrow
night after all--for she never wanted to deceive dear father again. No,
she would never sneak off like that any more. Yet it wouldn't be fair to
Arthur to let him go there and wait in vain. She ought to let him know,
some way. And she ought to let him know, too, that that man wasn't
father, after all. What if he was worrying, this minute, thinking she
might have been caught and punished. It didn't seem right, while SHE was
so happy, to leave poor Arthur worrying like that... Oh, she DID wish
he could see her in the furs... Yes, she OUGHT to tell him she couldn't
keep the “date”--it would be awful for him to sit there in the Library,
waiting and waiting...
She kept up her disturbed ponderings until the house grew dark and
still. Then, very quietly, she crept out of bed and dressed herself in
the dark. She put on her cloak and hat. After a second's hesitation she
added the white fox furs. Then, holding her breath, she stole down the
back stairs and out the kitchen door.
The night seemed more fearsomely spectral than ever--it must be terribly
late; but she sped through the white silence resolutely. She was glad
Arthur's boarding-house was only two blocks away. She knew which was
his window; she stood beneath it and softly gave “the crowd's” whistle.
Waited--whistled again. There was his window going up at last. And
Arthur's tousled head peering out.
“I just wanted to let you know I can't come to the Library after all,
Arthur! No!--Don't say anything, now!--I'll explain all about it when
I get a chance. And that wasn't father--it turned out all right. No,
no!--Don't say anything now! Maybe I'll be in the kitchen to-morrow.
Good night!”
Then, while Arthur stared after her amazedly, she turned and scurried
like a scared rabbit through the white silence.
As she ran she was wondering whether Arthur had got a really good view
of the furs in the moonlight; was resolving to urge him to go to church
next Sunday night even if SHE couldn't; was telling herself she mustn't
ENTIRELY relinquish her hold on him-for his sake...
So full were her thoughts that she forgot to be much afraid. And the
Lord must have been with her, for she reached the kitchen door in safety
and regained her own room without detection. In bed once again, a
great, soft, holy peace seemed to enfold her. Everything was right with
everybody--with father and mother and God and Arthur--everybody.
At the very time she was going off into smiling slumber--one hand
nestling in the white fox furs on her pillow--it happened that her
father was making half-apologetic explanations to her mother: everything
had seemed to come down on the child in a lump--commands against
walking and against boys and against going out nights and everything.
He couldn't help feeling for the youngster. So he thought he'd bring her
the white fox furs she seemed to have set her heart on.
And Mrs. Merriam, who could understand a father's indulgent,
sympathetic heart even though--as Missy believed--she wasn't capable of
“understanding” a daughter's, didn't have it in her, then, to spoil his
pleasure by expounding that wanting furs and wanting beaux were really
one and the same evil.