Missy was embroiled in a catastrophe, a tangle of embarrassments and odd
complications. Aunt Nettie attributed the blame broadly to “that O'Neill
girl”; she asserted that ever since Tess O'Neill had come to live in
Cherryvale Missy had been “up to” just one craziness after another. But
then Aunt Nettie was an old maid--Missy couldn't imagine her as EVER
having been fifteen years old. Mother, who could generally be counted
on for tenderness even when she failed to “understand,” rather
unfortunately centred on the wasp detail--why had Missy just stood there
and let it keep stinging her? And Missy felt shy at trying to explain
it was because the wasp was stinging her LEG. Mother would be sure to
remark this sudden show of modesty in one she'd just been scolding for
the lack of it--for riding the pony astride and showing her--
Oh, legs! Missy was in a terrific confusion, as baffled by certain
inconsistencies displayed by her own nature as overwhelmed by her
disgraceful predicament. For she was certainly sincere in her craving
to be as debonairly “athletic” as Tess; yet, during that ghastly moment
when the wasp was...
No, she could never explain it to mother. Old people don't understand.
Not even to father could she have talked it all out, though he had
patted her hand and acted like an angel when he paid for the bucket of
candy--that candy which none of them got even a taste of! That Tess and
Arthur should eat up the candy which her own father paid for, made one
more snarl in the whole inconsistent situation.
It all began with the day Arthur Simpson “dared” Tess to ride her
pony into Picker's grocery store. Before Tess had come to live in the
sanitarium at the edge of town where her father was head doctor, she
had lived in Macon City and had had superior advantages--city life, to
Missy, a Cherryvalian from birth, sounded exotic and intriguing. Then
Tess in her nature was far from ordinary. She was characterized by a
certain dash and fine flair; was inventive, fearless, and possessed the
gift of leadership. Missy, seeing how eagerly the other girls of “the
crowd” caught up Tess's original ideas, felt enormously flattered when
the leader selected such a comparatively stupid girl as herself as a
chum.
For Missy thought she must be stupid. She wasn't “smart” in school like
Beulah Crosswhite, nor strikingly pretty like Kitty Allen, nor president
of the Iolanthians like Mabel Dowd, nor conspicuously popular with
the boys like Genevieve Hicks. No, she possessed no distinctive traits
anybody could pick out to label her by--at least that is what she
thought. So she felt on her mettle; she wished to prove herself worthy
of Tess's high regard.
It was rather strenuous living up to Tess. Sometimes Missy couldn't help
wishing that her chum were not quite so alert. Being all the while on
the jump, mentally and physically, left you somewhat breathless and
dizzy; then, too, it didn't leave you time to sample certain quieter yet
thrilling enjoyments that came right to hand. For example, now and then,
Missy secretly longed to spend a leisurely hour or so just talking with
Tess's grandmother. Tess's grandmother, though an old lady, seemed to
her a highly romantic figure. Her name was Mrs. Shears and she had lived
her girlhood in a New England seaport town, and her father had been
captain of a vessel which sailed to and from far Eastern shores. He had
brought back from those long-ago voyages bales and bales of splendid
Oriental fabrics--stiff rustling silks and slinky clinging crepes and
indescribably brilliant brocades shot with silver or with gold. For
nearly fifty years Mrs. Shears had worn dresses made from these romantic
stuffs and she was wearing them yet--in Cherryvale! They were all made
after the same pattern, gathered voluminous skirt and fitted bodice and
long flowing sleeves; and, with the small lace cap she always wore
on her white hair. Missy thought the old lady looked as if she'd just
stepped from the yellow-tinged pages of some fascinating old book.
She wished her own grandmother dressed like that; of course she loved
Grandma Merriam dearly and really wouldn't have exchanged her for the
world, yet, in contrast, she did seem somewhat commonplace.
It was interesting to sit and look at Grandma Shears and to hear her
recount the Oriental adventures of her father, the sea captain. But Tess
gave Missy little chance to do this. Tess had heard and re-heard the
adventures to the point of boredom and custom had caused her to take her
grandmother's strange garb as a matter of course; Tess's was a nature
which craved--and generally achieved--novelty.
Just now her particular interest veered toward athleticism; she had
recently returned from a visit to Macon City and brimmed with colourful
tales of its “Country Club” life--swimming, golf, tennis, horseback
riding, and so forth. These pursuits she straightway set out to
introduce into drowsy, behind-the-times Cherryvale. But in almost every
direction she encountered difficulties: there was in Cherryvale no place
to swim except muddy Bull Creek--and the girls' mothers unanimously
vetoed that; and there were no links for golf; and the girls themselves
didn't enthuse greatly over tennis those broiling afternoons. So Tess
centred on horseback riding, deciding it was the “classiest” sport,
after all. But the old Neds and Nellies of the town, accustomed
leisurely to transport their various family surreys, did not
metamorphose into hackneys of such spirit and dash as filled Tess's
dreams.
Even so, these steeds were formidable enough to Missy. She feared she
wasn't very athletic. That was an afternoon of frightful chagrin when
she came walking back into Cherryvale, ignominiously following Dr.
O'Neill's Ben. Old Ben, who was lame in his left hind foot, had a
curious gait, like a sort of grotesque turkey trot. Missy outwardly
attributed her inability to keep her seat to Ben's peculiar rocking
motion, but in her heart she knew it was simply because she was afraid.
What she was afraid of she couldn't have specified. Not of old Ben
surely, for she knew him to be the gentlest of horses. When she stood on
the ground beside him, stroking his shaggy, uncurried flanks or feeding
him bits of sugar, she felt not the slightest fear. Yet the minute
she climbed up into the saddle she sickened under the grip of some
increasingly heart-stilling panic. Even before Ben started forward; so
it wasn't Ben's rocking, lop-sided gait that was really at the bottom of
her fear--it only accentuated it. Why was she afraid of Ben up there in
the saddle while not in the least afraid when standing beside him?
Fear was very strange. Did everybody harbour some secret, absurd,
unreasonable fear? No, Tess didn't; Tess wasn't afraid of anything. Tess
was cantering along on rawboned Nellie in beautiful unconcern. Missy
admired and envied her dreadfully.
Her sense of her own shortcomings became all the more poignant when the
little cavalcade, with Missy still ignominiously footing it in the
rear, had to pass the group of loafers in front of the Post Office.
The loafers called out rude, bantering comments, and Missy burned with
shame.
Then Arthur Simpson appeared in Pieker's doorway next door and grinned.
“Hello! Some steed!” he greeted Tess. “Dare you to ride her in!”
“Not to-day, thanks,” retorted Tess insouciantly--that was another
quality Missy envied in her friend, her unfailing insouciance. “Wait
till I get my new pony next week, and then I'll take you up!”
“All right. The dare holds good.” Then Arthur turned his grin to Missy.
“What's the matter with YOU? Charger get out of hand?”
The loafers in front of the Post Office took time from their chewing and
spitting to guffaw. Missy could have died of mortification.
“Want a lift?” asked Arthur, moving forward.
Missy shook her head. She longed to retrieve herself in the public gaze,
longed to shine as Tess shone, but not for worlds could she have essayed
that high, dizzy seat again. So she shook her head dumbly and Arthur
grinned at her not unkindly. Missy liked Arthur Simpson. He wore a big
blue-denim apron and had red hair and freckles--not a romantic figure by
any means; but there was a mischievous imp in his eye and a rollicking
lilt in his voice that made you like him, anyway. Missy wished he hadn't
been a witness to her predicament. Not that she felt at all sentimental
toward Arthur. Arthur “went with” Genevieve Hicks, a girl whom Missy
privately deemed frivolous and light-minded. Besides Missy herself was,
at this time, interested in Raymond Bonner, the handsomest boy in “the
crowd.” Missy liked good looks--they appealed to the imagination or
something. And she adored everything that appealed to the imagination:
there was, for instance, the picture of Sir Galahad, in shining armour,
which hung on the wall of her room--for a time she had almost said her
prayers to that picture; and there was a compelling mental image of
the gallant Sir Launcelot in “Idylls of the King” and of the stern,
repressed, silently suffering Guy in “Airy Fairy Lilian.” Also there had
recently come into her possession a magazine clipping of the boy king
of Spain; she couldn't claim that Alphonso was handsome--in truth he was
quite ugly--yet there was something intriguing about him. She secretly
treasured the printed likeness and thought about the original a great
deal: the alluring life he led, the panoply of courts, royal balls and
garden-parties and resplendent military parades, and associating with
princes and princesses all the time. She wondered, with a little sigh,
whether his “crowd” called him by his first name; though a King he was
just a boy--about her own age.
Nevertheless, though Arthur Simpson was neither handsome nor revealed
aught which might stir vague, deep currents of romance, Missy regretted
that even Arthur had seen her in such a sorry plight. She wished he
might see her at a better advantage. For instance, galloping up on
a spirited mount, in a modish riding-habit--a checked one with
flaring-skirted coat and shining boots and daring but swagger breeches,
perhaps!--galloping insouciantly up to take that dare!
But she knew it was an empty dream. Even if she had the swagger togs--a
notion mad to absurdity--she could never gallop with insouciance. She
wasn't the athletic sort.
At supper she was still somewhat bitterly ruminating her failings.
“Missy, you're not eating your omelet,” adjured her mother.
Missy's eyes came back from space.
“I was just wondering--” then she broke off.
“Yes, dear,” encouraged mother. Missy's hazy thoughts took a sudden
plunge, direct and startling.
“I was wondering if, maybe, you'd give me an old pair of father's
trousers.”
“What on earth for, child?”
“Just an old pair,” Missy went on, ignoring the question. “Maybe that
pepper-and-salt pair you said you'd have to give to Jeff.”
“But what do you want of them?” persisted mother. “Jeff needs them
disgracefully--the last time he mowed the yard I blushed every time he
turned his back toward the street.”
“I think Mrs. Allen's going to give him a pair of Mr. Allen's--Kitty
said she was. So he won't need the pepper-and-salts.”
“But what do you want with a pair of PANTS?” Aunt Nettie put in. Missy
wished Aunt Nettie had been invited out to supper; Aunt Nettie was
relentlessly inquisitive. She knew she must give some kind of answer.
“Oh, just for some fancy-work,” she said. She tried to make her tone
insouciant, but she was conscious of her cheeks getting hot.
“Fancy-work--pants for fancy-work! For heaven's sake!” ejaculated Aunt
Nettie.
Mother, also, was staring at her in surprise. But father, who was a
darling, put in: “Give 'em to her if she wants 'em, dear. Maybe she'll
make a lambrequin for the piano or an embroidered smoking-jacket for the
old man--a'la your Ladies' Home Companion.”
He grinned at her, but Missy didn't mind father's jokes at her expense
so much as most grown-ups'. Besides she was grateful to him for
diverting attention from her secret purpose for the pants.
After supper, out in the summerhouse, it was an evening of such swooning
beauty she almost forgot the bothers vexing her life. When you sit and
watch the sun set in a bed of pastel glory, and let the level bars of
thick gold light steal across the soft slick grass to reach to your very
soul, and smell the heavenly sweetness of dew-damp roses, and listen
to the shrill yet mournful even-song of the locusts--when you sit very
still, just letting it all seep into you and through and through you,
such a beatific sense of peace surges over you that, gradually, trivial
things like athletic shortcomings seem superficial and remote.
Later, too, up in her room, slowly undressing in the moonlight, she let
herself yield to the sweeter spell. She loved her room, especially when
but dimly lit by soft white strips of the moon through the window. She
loved the dotted Swiss curtains blowing, and the white-valanced little
bed, and the white-valanced little dressing-table all dim and misty
save where a broad shaft of light gave a divine patch of illumination to
undress by. She said her prayers on her knees by the window, where she
could keep open but unsacrilegious eyes on God's handiwork outside--the
divine miracle of everyday things transformed into shimmering glory.
A soft brushing against her ankles told her that Poppylinda, her cat,
had come to say good night. She lifted her pet up to the sill.
“See the beautiful night, Poppy,” she said. “See!--it's just like a
great, soft, lovely, blue-silver bed!”
Poppy gave a gentle purr of acquiescence. Missy was sure it was
acquiescence. She was convinced that Poppy had a fine, appreciative,
discriminating mind. Aunt Nettie scouted at this; she denied that she
disliked Poppy, but said she “liked cats in their place.” Missy knew
this meant, of course, that inwardly she loathed cats; that she
regarded them merely as something which musses up counterpanes and keeps
outlandish hours. Aunt Nettie was perpetually finding fault with Poppy;
but Missy had noted that Aunt Nettie and all the others who emphasized
Poppy's imperfections were people whom Poppy, in her turn, for some
reason could not endure. This point she tried to make once when Poppy
had been convicted of a felonious scratch, but of course the grown-ups
couldn't follow her reasoning. Long since she'd given up trying to make
clear the real merits of her pet; she only knew that Poppy was more
loving and lovable, more sympathetic and comprehending, than the
majority of humans. She could count on Poppy's never jarring on any
mood, whether grave or gay. Poppy adored listening to poetry read
aloud, sitting immovable save for slowly blinking eyes for an hour at a
stretch. She even had an appreciation for music, often remaining in the
parlour throughout her mistress's practice period, and sometimes purring
an accompaniment to tunes she especially liked--such tunes as “The
Maiden's Prayer” or “Old Black Joe with Variations.” There was, too,
about her a touch of something which Missy thought must be mysticism;
for Poppy heard sounds and saw things which no one else could--following
these invisible objects with attentive eyes while Missy saw nothing;
then, sometimes, she would get up suddenly, switching her tail, and
watch them as they evidently disappeared. But Missy never mentioned
Poppy's gift of second sight; she knew the old people would only laugh.
Now she cuddled Poppy in her lap, and with a sense of companionship,
enjoyed the landscape of silvered loveliness and peace. A sort of sad
enjoyment, but pleasantly sad. Occasionally she sighed, but it was a
sigh of deep content. Such things as perching dizzily atop a horse's
back, even cantering in graceful insouciance, seemed far, far away.
Yet, after she was in her little white bed, in smiling dreams she
saw herself, smartly accoutred in gleaming boots and pepper-and-salt
riding-breeches, galloping up to Pieker's grocery and there, in the
admiring view of the Post Office loafers and of a dumbfounded Arthur,
cantering insouciantly across the sidewalk and into the store!
Her dream might have ended there, nothing more than a fleeting phantasm,
had not Tess, the following week, come into possession of Gypsy.
Gypsy was a black pony with a white star on her forehead and a long wavy
tail. She was a pony with a personality--from the start Missy recognized
the pony as a person just as she recognized Poppy as a person. When
Gypsy gazed at you out of those soft, bright eyes, or when she pricked
up her ears with an alert listening gesture, or when she turned her head
and switched her tail with nonchalant unconcern--oh, it is impossible to
describe the charm of Gypsy. That was it--“charm”; and the minute Missy
laid eyes on the darling she succumbed to it. She had thought herself
absurdly but deep-rootedly afraid of all horseflesh, but Gypsy didn't
seem a mere horse. She was pert, coquettish, coy, loving, inquisitive,
naughty; both Tess and Missy declared she had really human intelligence.
She began to manifest this the very day of her arrival. After Tess had
ridden round the town and shown off properly, she left the pony in
the sideyard of the sanitarium while she and Missy slipped off to the
summerhouse to enjoy a few stolen chapters from “The Duchess.” There was
high need for secrecy for, most unreasonably, “The Duchess” had been put
under a parental ban; moreover Tess feared there were stockings waiting
to be darned.
Presently they heard Mrs. O'Neill calling, but they just sat still,
stifling their giggles. Gypsy, who had sauntered up to the summerhouse
door, poked in an inquisitive nose. Mrs. O'Neill didn't call again, so
Tess whispered: “She thinks we've gone over to your house--we can go on
reading.”
After a while Missy glanced up and nudged Tess. “Gypsy's still
there--just standing and looking at us! See her bright eyes--the
darling!”
“Yes, isn't she cute?” agreed Tess.
But, just at that, a second shadow fell athwart the sunny sward, a hand
pushed Gypsy's head from the opening, and Mrs. O'Neill's voice said:
“If you girls don't want your whereabouts given away, you'd better teach
that pony not to stand with her head poked in the door for a half-hour
without budging!”
The ensuing scolding wasn't pleasant, but neither of the miscreants had
the heart to blame Gypsy. She was so cute.
She certainly was cute.
The second day of her ownership Tess judged it necessary to give Gypsy
a switching; Gypsy declined to be saddled and went circling round and
round the yard in an abandon of playfulness. So Tess snapped off a
peach-tree switch and, finally cornering the pony, proceeded to use
it. Missy pleaded, but Tess stood firm for discipline. However Gypsy
revenged herself; for two hours she wouldn't let Tess come near
her--she'd sidle up and lay her velvet nose against Missy's shoulder
until Tess was within an arm's length, and then, tossing her head
spitefully, caper away.
No wonder the girls ejaculated at her smartness.
Finally she turned gentle as a lamb, soft as silk, and let Tess
adjust the saddle; but scarcely had Tess ridden a block
before--wrench!--something happened to the saddle, and Tess was left
seated by the roadside while Gypsy vanished in a cloud of dust. The imp
had deliberately swelled herself out so that the girth would be loose!
Every day brought new revelations of Gypsy's intelligence. Missy took
to spending every spare minute at Tess's. Under this new captivation
her own pet, Poppy, was thoughtlessly neglected. And duties such as
practicing, dusting and darning were deliberately shirked. Even reading
had lost much of its wonted charm: the haunting, soul-swelling rhythms
of poetry, or the oddly phrased medieval romances which somehow carried
you back through the centuries--into the very presence of those queenly
heroines who trail their robes down the golden stairways of legend. But
Missy's feet seemed to have forgotten the familiar route to the Public
Library and, instead, ever turned eagerly toward the O'Neills'--that is,
toward the O'Neills' barn.
And, if she had admired Tess before, she worshipped her now for so
generously permitting another to share the wonderful pony--it was
like being a half owner. And the odd thing was that, though Gypsy had
undeniable streaks of wildness, Missy never felt a tremor while on her.
On Gypsy she cantered, she trotted, she galloped, just as naturally and
enjoyably as though she had been born on horseback. Then one epochal
day, emulating Tess's example, she essayed to ride astride. It was
wonderful. She could imagine herself a Centaur princess. And, curiously,
she felt not at all embarrassed. Yet she was glad that, back there in
the lot, she was screened by the big barn from probably critical eyes.
But Gypsy made an unexpected dart into the barn-door, through the barn,
and out into the yard, before Missy realized the capricious creature's
intent. And, as luck would have it, the Reverend MacGill was sitting on
the porch, calling on Grandma Shears. If only it had been anybody but
Rev. MacGill! Missy cherished a secret but profound admiration for
Rev. MacGill; he had come recently to Cherryvale and was younger than
ministers usually are and, though not exactly handsome, had fascinating
dark glowing eyes. Now, as his eyes turned toward her, she suddenly
prickled with embarrassment--her legs were showing to her knees! She
tried vainly to pull down her skirt, then tried to head Gypsy toward the
barn. But Grandma Shears, in scandalized tones, called out:
“Why, Melissa Merriam! Get down off that horse immediately!”
Shamefacedly Missy obeyed, but none too gracefully since her legs were
not yet accustomed to that straddling position.
“What in the world will you girls be up to next?” Grandma Shears went
on, looking like an outraged Queen Victoria. “I don't know what this
generation's coming to,” she lamented, turning to the minister. “Young
girls try to act like hoodlums--deliberately TRY! In my day girls were
trained to be--and desired to be--little ladies.”
Little ladies!--in the minister's presence, the phrase didn't fall
pleasantly on Missy's ear.
“Oh, they don't mean any harm,” he replied. “Just a little innocent
frolic.”
There was a ghost of a twinkle in his eyes. Missy didn't know whether
to be grateful for his tolerance or only more chagrined because he was
laughing at her. She stood, feeling red as a beet, while Grandma Shears
retorted:
“Innocent frolic--nonsense! I'll speak to my daughter!” Then, to Missy:
“Now take that pony back to the lot, please, and let's see no more such
disgraceful exhibitions!”
Missy felt as though she'd been whipped. She felt cold all over and
shivered, as she led Gypsy back, though she knew she was blushing
furiously. Concealed behind the barn door, peeping through a crack, was
Tess.
“It was awful!” moaned Missy. “I can never face Rev. MacGill again!”
“Oh, he's a good sport,” said Tess.
“She gave me an awful calling down.”
“Oh, grandma's an old fogy.” Missy had heard Tess thus pigeonhole her
grandmother often before, but now, for the first time, she didn't feel a
little secret repugnance for the rude classification.
Grandma Shears WAS old-fogyish. But it wasn't her old-fogyishness, per
se, that irritated; it was the fact that her old-fogyishness had made
her “call down” Missy--in front of the minister. Just as if Missy were
a child. Fifteen is not a child, to itself. And it can rankle and burn,
when a pair of admired dark eyes are included in the situation, just as
torturesomely as can twice fifteen.
The Reverend MacGill was destined to play another unwitting part
in Missy's athletic drama which was so jumbled with ecstasies and
discomfitures. A few days later he was invited to the Merriams' for
supper. Missy heard of his coming with mingled emotions. Of course she
thrilled at the prospect of eating at the same table with him--listening
to a person at table, and watching him eat, gives you a singular sense
of intimacy. But there was that riding astride episode. Would he, maybe,
mention it and cause mother to ask questions? Maybe not, for he was,
as Tess had said, a “good sport.” But all the same he'd probably be
thinking of it; if he should look at her again with that amused twinkle,
she felt she would die of shame.
That afternoon she had been out on Gypsy and, chancing to ride by home
on her way back to the sanitarium barn, was hailed by her mother.
“Missy! I want you to gather some peaches!”
“Well, I'll have to take Gypsy home first.”
“No, you won't have time--it's after five already, and I want to make
a deep-dish peach pie. I hear Rev. MacGill's especially fond of it.
You can take Gypsy home after supper. Now hurry up!--I'm behindhand
already.”
So Missy led Gypsy into the yard and took the pail her mother brought
out to her.
“The peaches aren't quite ripe,” said mother, with a little worried
pucker, “but they'll have to do. They have some lovely peaches at
Picker's, but papa won't hear of my trading at Picker's any more.”
Missy thought it silly of her father to have curtailed trading at
Picker's--she missed Arthur's daily visit to the kitchen door with
the delivery-basket--merely because Mr. Picker had beaten father for
election on the Board of Aldermen. Father explained it was a larger
issue than party politics; even had Picker been a Republican he'd
have fought him, he said, for everyone knew Picker was abetting the
Waterworks graft. But Missy didn't see why that should keep him from
buying things from Picker's which mother really needed; mother said it
was “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
Philosophizing on the irrationality of old people, she proceeded to get
enough scarcely-ripe peaches for a deep-dish pie. Being horribly afraid
of climbing, she used the simple expedient of grasping the lower limbs
of the tree and shaking down the fruit.
“Missy!” called mother's voice from the dining room window. “That horse
is slobbering all over the peaches!” “I can't help it--she follows me
every place.”
“Then you'll have to tie her up!”
“Tess never ties her up in THEIR yard!”
“Well, I won't have him slobbering over the fruit,” repeated mother
firmly.
“I'll--climb the tree,” said Missy desperately.
And she did. She was in mortal terror--every second she was sure she was
going to fall--but she couldn't bear the vision of Gypsy's reproachful
eyes above a strangling halter; Gypsy shouldn't think her hostess, so to
speak, less kind than her own mistress.
The peach pie came out beautifully and the supper promised to be a
great success. Mother had zealously ascertained Rev. MacGill's favourite
dishes, and was flushed but triumphant; she came of a devout family that
loved to feed preachers well. And everyone was in fine spirits; only
Missy, at the first, had a few bad moments. WOULD he mention it? He
might think it his duty, think that mother should know. It was maybe his
duty to tell. Preachers have a sterner creed of duty than other people,
of course. She regarded him anxiously from under the veil of her lashes,
wondering what would happen if he did tell. Mother would be horribly
ashamed, and she herself would be all the more ashamed because mother
was. Aunt Nettie would be satirically disapproving and say cutting
things. Father would probably just laugh, but later he'd be serious and
severe. And not one of them would ever, ever understand.
As the minutes went by, her strain of suspense gradually lessened. Rev.
MacGill was chatting away easily--about the delicious chicken-stuffing
and quince jelly, and the election, and the repairs on the church
steeple, and things like that. Now and then he caught Missy's eye, but
his expression for her was exactly the same as for the others--no one
could suspect there was any secret between them. He WAS a good sport!
Once a shadow passed outside the window. Gypsy! Missy saw that he saw,
and, as his glance came back to rest upon herself, for a second her
heart surged. But something in his eyes--she couldn't define exactly
what it was save that it was neither censorious nor quizzical--subtly
gave her reassurance. It was as if he had told her in so many words that
everything was all right, for her not to worry the least little bit.
All of a sudden she felt blissfully at peace. She smiled at him for no
reason at all, and he smiled back--a nice, not at all amused kind of
smile. Oh, he was a perfect brick! And what glorious eyes he had! And
that fascinating habit of flinging his hair back with a quick toss
of the head. How gracefully he used his hands. And what lovely,
distinguished table manners--she must practice that trick of lifting
your napkin, delicately and swiftly, so as to barely touch your lips.
She ate her own food in a kind of trance, unaware of what she was
eating; yet it was like eating supper in heaven.
And then, at the very end, something terrible happened. Marguerite had
brought in the pie'ce de re'sistance, the climactic dish toward which
mother had built the whole meal--the deep-dish peach pie, sugar-coated,
fragrant and savory--and placed it on the serving-table near the open
window. There was a bit, of wire loose at the lower end of the screen,
and, in the one second Marguerite's back was turned--just one second,
but just long enough--Missy saw a velvety nose fumble with the loose
wire, saw a sleek neck wedge itself through the crevice, and a long red
tongue lap approvingly over the sugar-coated crust.
Missy gasped audibly. Mother followed her eyes, turned, saw, jumped
up--but it was too late. Mrs. Merriam viciously struck at Gypsy's muzzle
and pushed the encroaching head back through the aperture.
“Get away from here!” she cried angrily. “You little beast!”
“I think the pony shows remarkably good taste,” commented Rev. MacGill,
trying to pass the calamity off as a joke. But his hostess wasn't
capable of an answering smile; she gazed despairingly, tragically, at
the desecrated confection.
“I took such pains with it,” she almost wailed. “It was a deep-dish
peach pie--I made it specially for Mr. MacGill.”
“Well, I'm not particularly fond of peach pie, anyway,” said the
minister, meaning to be soothing.
“Oh, but I know you ARE! Mrs. Allen said that at her house you took two
helpings-that you said it was your favourite dessert.”
The minister coughed a little cough--he was caught in a somewhat
delicate situation; then, always tactful, replied: “Perhaps I did say
that--her peach pie was very good. But I'm equally fond of all sweets--I
have a sweet tooth.”
At this point Missy gathered her courage to quaver a suggestion.
“Couldn't you just take off the top crust, mother? Gypsy didn't touch
the underneath part. Why can't you just--”
But her mother's scandalized look silenced her. She must have made a
faux pas. Father and Rev. MacGill laughed outright, and Aunt Nettie
smiled a withering smile.
“That's a brilliant idea,” she said satirically. “Perhaps you'd have us
pick out the untouched bits of the crust, too!” Missy regarded her
aunt reproachfully but helplessly; she was too genuinely upset for any
repartee. Why did Aunt Nettie like to put her “in wrong”? Her suggestion
seemed to her perfectly reasonable. Why didn't they act on it? But of
course they'd ignore it, just making fun of her now but punishing her
afterward. For she divined very accurately that they would hold
her accountable for Gypsy's blunder--even though the blunder was
rectifiable; it was a BIG pie, and most of it as good as ever. They were
unreasonable, unjust.
Mother seemed unable to tear herself away from the despoiled
masterpiece.
“Come, mamma,” said father, “it's nothing to make such a fuss about.
Just trot out some of that apple sauce of yours. Mr. MacGill doesn't get
to taste anything like that every day.” He turned to the minister. “The
world's full of apple sauce--but there's apple sauce and apple sauce.
Now my wife's apple sauce is APPLE SAUCE! I tell her it's a dish for a
king.”
And Rev. MacGill, after sampling the impromptu dessert, assured his
hostess that her husband's eulogy had been only too moderate. He vowed
he had never eaten such apple sauce. But Mrs. Merriam still looked
bleak. She knew she could make a better deep-dish peach pie than
Mrs. Allen could. And, then, to give the minister apple sauce and
nabiscos!--the first time he had eaten at her table in two months!
Missy, who knew her mother well, couldn't help feeling a deep degree of
sympathy; besides, she wished Rev. MacGill might have had his pie--she
liked Rev. MacGill better than ever. But she dreaded her first moments
after the guest had departed; mother could be terribly stern.
Nor did her fears prove groundless.
“Now, Missy,” ordered her mother in coldly irate tones, “you take that
horse straight back to Tess. This is the last straw! For days you've
been no earthly use--your practicing neglected, no time for your chores,
just nothing but that everlasting horse!”
That everlasting horse! Missy's chin quivered and her eyes filled.
But mother went on inflexibly: “I don't want you ever to bring it here
again. And you can't go on living at Tess's, either! We'll see that you
catch up with your practicing.”
“But, mother,” tremulously seeking for an argument, “I oughtn't to give
up such a fine chance to become a horsewoman, ought I?”
It was an unlucky phrase, for Aunt Nettie was there to catch it up.
“A horsewoman!” and she laughed in sardonic glee. “Well, I must admit
there's one thing horsey enough about you--you always smell of manure,
these days.”
Wounded and on the defensive, Missy tried to make her tone chilly. “I
wish you wouldn't be so indelicate, Aunt Nettie,” she said.
But Aunt Nettie wasn't abashed. “A horsewoman!” she chortled again. “I
suppose Missy sees herself riding to hounds! All dressed up in a silk
hat and riding-breeches like pictures of society people back East!”
It didn't add to Missy's comfiture to know she had, in truth, harboured
this ridiculed vision of herself. She coloured and stood hesitant.
“Someone ought to put pants on that O'Neill girl, anyway,” continued
Aunt Nettie with what seemed to her niece unparallelled malice. “Helen
Alison says the Doctor saw her out in the country riding astraddle. Her
mother ought to spank her.”
Mother looked at Missy sharply. “Don't let me ever hear of YOU doing
anything like that!”
Missy hung her head, but luckily mother took it for just a general
attitude of dejection. “I can't tolerate tomboys.” she went on. “I can't
imagine what's come over you lately.”
“It's that O'Neill girl,” said Aunt Nettie.
Mother sighed; Missy couldn't know she was lamenting the loss of her
sweet, shy, old-fashioned little girl. But when she spoke next her
accents were firm.
“Now you go and take that horse home. But come straight back and get
to bed so you can get an early start at your practicing in the morning.
Right here I'm going to put my foot down. It isn't because I want to be
harsh--but you never seem to know when to stop a thing. It's all well
and good to be fond of dumb animals, but when it comes to a point where
you can think of nothing else--”
The outstanding import of the terrific and unjust tirade was that Missy
should not go near the sanitarium or the pony for a week.
When mother “put her foot down” like that, hope was gone, indeed. And a
whole week! That was a long, long time when hope is deferred--especially
when one is fifteen and all days are long. At first Missy didn't see how
she was ever to live through the endless period, but, strangely enough,
the dragging days brought to her a change of mood. It is odd how the
colour of our mood, so to speak, can utterly change; how one day we
can desire one kind of thing acutely and then, the very next day, crave
something quite different.
One morning Missy awoke to a dawn of mildest sifted light and
bediamonded dew upon the grass; soft plumes of silver, through the
mist, seemed to trim the vines of the summerhouse and made her catch her
breath in ecstasy. All of a sudden she wanted nothing so much as to
get a book and steal off alone somewhere. The right kind of a book, of
course--something sort of strange and sad that would make your strange,
sad feelings mount up and up inside you till you could almost die of
your beautiful sorrow.
As soon as her routine of duties was finished she gained permission to
go to the Library. As she walked slowly, musingly, down Maple Avenue,
her emotions were fallow ground for every touch of Nature: the slick
greensward of all the lawns, glistening under the torrid azure of the
great arched sky, made walking along the shady sidewalk inexpressibly
sweet; the many-hued flowers in all the flowerbeds seemed to sing out
their vying colours; the strong hard wind passed almost visible fingers
through the thick, rustling mane of the trees. Oh, she hoped she would
find the right kind of book!
Mother, back on the porch, looked up from her sewing to watch the
disappearing figure, and smiled.
“We have our little girl back again,” she observed to Aunt Nettie.
“I wish that O'Neill girl'd move away,” Aunt Nettie said. “Missy's a
regular chameleon.”
It's a pity Missy couldn't hear her new classification; it would have
interested her tremendously; she was always interested in the perplexing
vagaries of her own nature. However, at the Library, she was quite
happy: for she found two books, each the right kind, though different.
One was called “Famous Heroines of Medieval Legend.” They all had names
of strange beauty and splendour--Guinevere--Elaine--Vivien--names which
softly rustled in syllables of silken brocade. The other book was no
less satisfying. It was a book of poems--wonderful poems, by a man named
Swinburne--lilting, haunting things of beauty which washed through
her soul like the waves of a sun-bejewelled sea. She read the choicest
verses over and over till she knew them by heart:
Before the beginning of years, there came to the making of man Grief
with her gift of tears, and Time with her glass that ran...
and, equally lovely:
From too much love of living, from hope and fear set free, We thank with
brief thanksgiving whatever gods may be That no life lives forever; that
dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river winds somewhere
safe to sea...
The verses brought her beautiful, stirring thoughts to weave into verses
of her own when she should find a quiet hour in the summerhouse; or to
incorporate into soul-soothing improvisings at the piano.
Next morning, after her hour's stint at finger exercises, she improvised
and it went beautifully. She knew it was a success both because of her
exalted feelings and because Poppy meowed out in discordant disapproval
only once; the rest of the time Poppy purred as appreciatively as for
“The Maiden's Prayer.” Dear Poppy! Missy felt suddenly contrite for her
defection from faithful Poppy. And Poppy was getting old--Aunt Nettie
said she'd already lived much longer than most cats. She might die soon.
Through a swift blur of tears Missy looked out toward the summerhouse
where, beneath the ramblers, she decided Poppy should be buried. Poor
Poppy! The tears came so fast she couldn't wipe them away. She didn't
dream that Swinburne was primarily responsible for those tears.
Yet even her sadness held a strange, poignant element of bliss.
It struck her, oddly, that she was almost enjoying her week of
punishment--that she WAS enjoying it. Why was she enjoying it, since,
when mother first banned athletic pursuits, she had felt like a martyr?
It was queer. She pondered the mysterious complexity of her nature.
There passed two more days of this inexplicable content. Then came the
thunder-storm. It was, perhaps, the thunder-storm that really deserves
the blame for Missy's climactic athletic catastrophe. No lightning-bolt
struck, yet that thunder-storm indubitably played its part in Missy's
athletic destiny. It was the causation of renewed turmoil after time of
peace.
Tess had telephoned that morning and asked Missy to accompany her to the
Library. But Missy had to practice. In her heart she didn't really care
to go, for, after her stint was finished, she was contemplating some
new improvisings. However, the morning didn't go well. It was close
and sultry and, though she tried to make her fingers march and trot and
gallop as the exercises dictated, something in the oppressive air set
her nerves to tingling. Besides it grew so dark she couldn't see the
notes distinctly. Finally she abandoned her lesson; but even improvising
failed of its wonted charm. Her fingers kept striking the wrong keys.
Then a sudden, ear-splitting thunder-clap hurled her onto a shrieking
discord.
She jumped up from the piano; she was horribly afraid of
thunder-storms--mother wouldn't mind if she stopped till the storm was
over. She longed to go and sit close to mother, to feel the protection
of her presence; but, despite the general softening of her mood, she had
maintained a certain stiffness toward the family. So she crouched on a
sofa in the darkest corner of the room, hiding her eyes, stopping her
ears.
Then a sudden thought brought her bolt upright. Gypsy! Tess had said
Gypsy was afraid of thunder-storms--awfully afraid. And Gypsy was all
alone in that big, gloomy barn--Tess blocks away at the Library.
She tried to hide amongst the cushions again, but visions of Gypsy, with
her bright inquisitive eyes, her funny little petulances, her endearing
cajoleries, kept rising before her. She felt a stab of remorse; that she
could have let even the delights of reading and improvising compensate
for separation from such a darling pony. She had been selfish,
selfcentred. And now Gypsy was alone in that old barn, trembling and
neighing...
Finally, unable to endure the picture longer, she crept out to the hall.
She could hear mother and Aunt Nettie in the sitting-room--she couldn't
get an umbrella from the closet. So, without umbrella or hat, she stole
out the front door. Above was a continuous network of flame as though
someone were scratching immense matches all over the surface of heaven,
but doggedly she ran on. The downpour caught her, but on she sped
though rain and hail hammered her head, blinded her eyes, and drove her
drenched garments against her flesh.
She found Gypsy huddled quivering and taut in a corner of the stall.
She put her arms round the satiny neck, and they mutely comforted each
other. It was thus that Tess discovered them; she, too, had run to Gypsy
though it had taken longer as she had farther to go; but she was not so
wet as Missy, having borrowed an umbrella at the Library.
“_I_ didn't wait to get an umbrella,” Missy couldn't forebear
commenting, slightly slurring the truth.
Tess seemed a bit annoyed. “Well, you didn't HAVE to go out in the rain
anyway. Guess I can be depended on to look out for my own pony, can't
I?”
But Missy's tactful rejoinder that she'd only feared Tess mightn't be
able to accomplish the longer distance, served to dissipate the shadow
of jealousy. Before the summer storm had impetuously spent itself,
the friends were crowded companionably in the feed-box, feeding the
reassured Gypsy peppermint sticks--Tess had met Arthur Simpson on her
way to the Library--and talking earnestly.
The earnest talk was born of an illustration Tess had seen in a magazine
at the Library. It was a society story and the illustration showed the
heroine in riding costume.
“She looked awfully swagger,” related Tess. “Flicking her crop against
her boot, and a derby hat and stock-collar and riding-breeches. I think
breeches are a lot more swagger than habits.”
“Do you think they're a little bit--indelicate?” ventured Missy,
remembering her mother's recent invective against tomboys.
“Of course not!” denied Tess disdainfully. “Valerie Jones in Macon City
wears 'em and she's awfully swell. Her father's a banker. She's in the
thick of things at the Country Club. It's depasse to ride side-saddle,
anyway.”
Missy was silent; even when she felt herself misunderstood by her family
and maltreated, she had a bothersome conscience.
“There's no real class to riding horseback,” Tess went on, “unless
you're up to date. You got to be up to date. Of course Cherryvale's
slow, but that's no reason we've got to be slow, is it?”
“No-o,” agreed Missy hesitantly. But she was emboldened to mention her
father's discarded pepper-and-salt trousers. At the first she didn't
intend really to appropriate them, but Tess caught up the idea
enthusiastically. She immediately began making concrete plans and, soon,
Missy caught her fervour. That picture of herself as a dashing, fearless
horsewoman had come to life again.
When she got home, mother, looking worried, was waiting for her.
“Where on earth have you been? Look at that straggly hair! And that
dress, fresh just this morning--limp as a dish-rag!”
Missy tried to explain, but the anxiety between mother's eyes deepened
to lines of crossness.
“For heaven's sake! To go rushing off like that without a rain-coat or
even an umbrella! And you pretend to be afraid of thunder-storms! Now,
Missy, it isn't because you've ruined your dress or likely caught your
death of cold--but to think you'd wilfully disobey me! What on earth AM
I to do with you?”
She made Missy feel like an unregenerate sinner. And Missy liked her
stinging, smarting sensations no better because she felt she didn't
deserve them. That heavy sense of injustice somewhat deadened any pricks
of guilt when, later, she stealthily removed the pepper-and-salts from
the upstairs store-closet.
But Aunt Nettie's eagle eyes chanced to see her. She went to Mrs.
Merriam.
“What do you suppose Missy wants of those old pepper-and-salt pants?”
“I don't know, Nettie. Why?”
“She's just sneaked 'em off to her room. When she saw me coming up the
stairs, she scampered as if Satan was after her. What DO you suppose she
wants of them?”
“I can't imagine,” repeated Mrs. Merriam. “Maybe she hardly knows
herself--girls that age are like a boiling tea-kettle; you know; their
imagination keeps bubbling up and spilling over, and then disappears
into vapour. I sometimes think we bother Missy too much with
questions--she doesn't know the answers herself.”
Mrs. Merriam was probably feeling the compunctions mothers often feel
after they have scolded.
Aunt Nettie sniffed a little, but Missy wasn't questioned. And now the
scene of our story may shift to a sunny morning, a few days later, and
to the comparative seclusion of the sanitarium barn. There has been,
for an hour or more, a suppressed sound of giggles, and Gypsy,
sensing excitement in the air, stands with pricked-up ears and bright,
inquisitive eyes. Luckily there has been no intruder--just the three of
them, Gypsy and Missy and Tess.
“You're wonderful--simply wonderful! It's simply too swagger for words!”
It was Tess speaking.
Missy gazed down at herself. It WAS swagger, she assured herself. It
must be swagger--Tess said so. Almost as swagger, Tess asseverated,
as the riding outfit worn by Miss Valerie Jones who was the swaggerest
member of Macon City's swaggerest young set. Yet, despite her assurance
of swaggerness, she was conscious of a certain uneasiness. She knew
she shouldn't feel embarrassed; she should feel only swagger. But she
couldn't help a sense of awkwardness, almost of distaste; her legs
felt--and LOOKED--so queer! So conspicuous! The upper halves of them
were clothed in two separate envelopments of pepper-and-salt material,
gathered very full and puffy over the hips but drawn in tightly toward
the knee in a particularly swagger fashion. Below the knee the swagger
tight effect was sustained by a pair of long buttoned “leggings.”
“You're sure these leggings look all right?” she demanded anxiously.
“Of course they look all right! They look fine!”
“I wish we had some boots,” with a smothered sigh.
“Well, they don't ALWAYS wear boots. Lots of 'em in Macon City only wore
puttees. And puttees are only a kind of leggings.”
“They're so tight,” complained the horsewoman. “My legs have got a lot
fatter since--”
Thrusting out one of the mentioned members in a tentative kick, she was
interrupted by the popping of an already overstrained button.
“SEE!” she finished despondently. “I SAID they were too tight.”
“You oughtn't to kick around that way,” reproved Tess. “No wonder it
popped off. Now, I'll have to hunt for a safety-pin--”
“I don't want a safety-pin!--I'd rather let it flop.”
The horsewoman continued to survey herself dubiously, took in the bright
scarlet sweater which formed the top part of her costume. The girls
had first sought a more tailored variety of coat, but peres Merriam
and O'Neill were both, selfishly, very large men; Tess had brilliantly
bethought the sweater--the English always wore scarlet for hunting,
anyway. Missy then had warmly applauded the inspiration, but now her
warmth was literal rather than figurative; it was a hot day and the
sweater was knitted of heavy wool. She fingered her stock collar--one
of Mrs. O'Neill's guest towels--and tried to adjust her derby more
securely.
“Your father has an awfully big head,” she commented. “Oh, they always
wear their hats way down over their ears.” Then, a little vexed at this
necessity for repeated reassurance, Tess broke out irritably:
“If you don't want to wear the get-up, say so! I'LL wear it! I only let
you wear it first trying to be nice to you!”
Then Missy, who had been genuinely moved by Tess's decision that the
first wearing of the costume should make up for her chum's week of
punishment, pulled herself together.
“Of course I want to wear it,” she declared. “I think it's just fine of
you to let me wear it first.”
She spoke sincerely; yet, within the hour, she was plotting to return
her friend's sacrifice with a sort of mean trick. Perhaps it was fit
and just that the trick turned topsy-turvy on herself as it did. Yet the
notion did not come to her in the guise of a trick on Tess. No; it came
just as a daring, dashing, splendid feat in which she herself should
triumphantly figure--she scarcely thought of Tess at all.
It came upon her, in all its dazzling possibilities, while she was
cantering along the old road which runs back of Smith's woods. She and
Tess had agreed it would be best, till they'd “broke in” Cherryvale to
the novelty of breeches, to keep to unfrequented roads. But it was the
inconspicuousness of the route, the lack of an admiring audience,
which gave birth to Missy's startling Idea. Back in the barn she'd felt
self-conscious. But now she was getting used to her exposed legs. And
doing really splendidly on Dr. O'Neill's saddle. Sitting there astride,
swaying in gentle rhythm with Gypsy's springing motion she began to feel
truly dashing, supremely swagger. She seemed lifted out of herself, no
longer timid, commonplace, unathletic Missy Merriam, but exalted into a
sort of free-and-easy, Princess Royal of Swaggerdom. She began to wish
someone might see her...
Then startling, compelling, tantalizing, came the Idea. Why not ride
openly back into Cherryvale, right up Main Street, right by the Post
Office? All those old loafers would see her who'd laughed the day she
tumbled off of Ned. Well, they'd laugh the other way, now. And Arthur
Simpson, too. Maybe she'd even ride into Pieker's store!--that certainly
would surprise Arthur. True it was Tess he'd “dared,” but of course he
had not dreamed SHE, Missy, would ever take it up. He considered her
unathletic--sort of ridiculous. Wouldn't it be great to “show” him? She
visioned the amazement, the admiration, the respect, which would shine
in his eyes as, insouciantly and yet with dash, she deftly manoeuvred
Gypsy's reins and cantered right into the store!
Afterwards she admitted that a sort of madness must have seized her;
yet, as she raced back toward the town, gently swaying in unison with
her mount, her pepper-and-salt legs pressing the pony's sides with
authority, she felt complacently, exultantly sane.
And still so when, blithe and debonair, she galloped up Main Street,
past piazzas she pleasurably sensed were not unpeopled nor unimpressed;
past the Court House whence a group of men were emerging and stopped
dead to stare; past the Post Office where a crowd awaiting the noon mail
swelled the usual bunch of loafers; on to Pieker's where, sure enough,
Arthur stood in the door!
“Holy cats!” he ejaculated. “Where in the world did--”
“Dare me to ride in the store?” demanded Missy, flicking the air with
her crop and speaking insouciantly. She was scarcely aware of the
excited sounds from the Post Office, for as yet her madness was upon
her.
“Oh, I don't think you could get her in!--You'd better not try!”
Missy exulted--he looked as if actually afraid she might attempt it!
As a matter of fact Arthur was afraid; he was afraid Missy Merriam had
suddenly gone out of her head. There was a queer look in her eyes--she
didn't look herself at all. He was afraid she might really do that crazy
stunt; and he was afraid the boss might return from lunch any second,
and catch her doing it and blame HIM! Yes, Arthur Simpson was afraid;
and Missy's blood sang at the spectacle of happy-go-lucky Arthur reduced
to manifest anxiety.
“CAN'T get her in?” she retorted derisively. “Just watch me!”
And, patting Gypsy's glossy neck, she headed her mount directly toward
the sidewalk and clattered straight into Pieker's store.
Arthur had barely time to jump out of the way. “Holy cats!” he again
invoked fervently. Then: “Head her out!--She's slobbering over that
bucket of candy!”
True enough; Gypsy's inquisitive nose had led her to a bewildering
profusion of the sweets she adored; not just meagre little bits, doled
out to her stingily bite by bite. And, as if these delectables had been
set out for a special and royal feast, Gypsy tasted this corner and
sampled that, in gourmandish abandon.
“For Pete's sake!” implored Arthur, feverishly tugging at the bridle.
“Get her out! The old man's liable to get back any minute!--He won't do
a thing to me!”
Missy, then, catching some of his perturbation, slapped with the reins,
stroked Gypsy's neck, exhorted her with endearments and then with
threats. But Gypsy wouldn't budge; she was having, unexpectedly but
ecstatically, the time of her career. Missy climbed down; urged and
cajoled, joined Arthur in tugging at the bridle. Gypsy only planted her
dainty forefeet and continued her repast in a manner not dainty at all.
Missy began to feel a little desperate; that former fine frenzy,
that divine madness, that magnificent tingle of aplomb and dash, was
dwindling away. She was conscious of a crowd collecting in the doorway;
there suddenly seemed to be millions of people in the store--rude,
pushing, chortling phantoms as in some dreadful nightmare. Hot,
prickling waves began to wash over her. They were laughing at her.
Spurred by the vulgar guffaws she gave another frantic tug--
Oh, dear heaven! The upper air suddenly thickened with sounds of buzzing
conflict--a family of mud-wasps, roused by the excitement, were circling
round and round! She saw them in terrified fascination--they were
scattering!--zizzing horribly, threateningly as they swooped this way
and that! Heavens!--that one brushed her hand. She tried to shrink
back--then gave an anguished squeal.
WHAT WAS THAT? But she knew what it was. In petrified panic she stood
stock-still, rooted. She was afraid to move lest it sting her more
viciously. She could feel it exploring around--up near her hip now, now
crawling downward, now for a second lost in some voluminous fold. She
found time to return thanks that her breeches had been cut with that
smart bouffance. Then she cringed as she felt it again. How had It got
in there? The realization that she must have torn her pepper-and-salts,
for a breath brought embarrassment acutely to the fore; then, as
that tickling promenade over her anatomy was resumed, she froze under
paramount fear.
“For Pete's sake!” shouted Arthur. “Don't just stand there!--can't you
do SOMETHING?”
But Missy could do nothing. Removing Gypsy was no longer the paramount
issue. Ready to die of shame but at the same time engripped by deadly
terror, she stood, legs wide apart, for her life's sake unable to move.
She had lost count of time, but was agonizedly aware of its passage; she
seemed to stand there in that anguished stupor for centuries. In reality
it was but a second before she heard Arthur's voice again:
“For Heaven's sake!” he muttered, calamity's approach intensifying his
abjurgations. “There's the old man!”
Apprehensively, abasedly, but with legs still stolidly apart, Missy
looked up. Yes, there was Mr. Picker, elbowing his way through the
crowd. Then an icy trickle chilled her spine; following Mr. Picker,
carrying his noon mail, was Rev. MacGill.
“Here!--What's this?” demanded Mr. Picker.
Then she heard Arthur, that craven-hearted, traitor-souled being she had
once called “friend,” that she had even desired to impress,--she heard
him saying:
“I don't know, Mr. Picker. She just came riding in--”
Mr. Picker strode to the centre of the stage and, by a simple expedient
strangely unthought-of before--by merely pulling away the bucket,
separated Gypsy from the candy.
Then he turned to Missy and eyed her disapprovingly.
“I think you'd better be taking the back cut home. If I was your mamma,
I'd give you a good spanking and put you to bed.”
Spanking! Oh, shades of insouciance and swagger! And with Rev. MacGill
standing there hearing--and seeing! Tears rolled down over her blushes.
“Here, I'll help you get her out,” said Rev. MacGill, kindly. Missy
blessed him for his kindness, yet, just then, she felt she'd rather have
been stung to death than to have had him there. But he was there, and he
led Gypsy, quite tractable now the candy was gone, and herself looking
actually embarrassed, through the crowd and back to the street.
High moments have a way, sometimes, of resolving their prime and
unreducible factors, all of a sudden, to disconcertingly simple terms.
Here was Gypsy, whose stubbornness had begun it all, suddenly soft as
silk; and there was the wasp, who had brought on the horrendous climax,
suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Of course Missy was glad the wasp
was gone--otherwise she might have stood there, dying of shame, till she
did die of shame--yet the sudden solution of her dilemma made her feel
in another way absurd.
But there was little room for such a paltry emotion as absurdity. Rev.
MacGill volunteered to deliver Gypsy to her stall--oh, he was wonderful,
though she almost wished he'd have to leave town unexpectedly; she
didn't see how she'd ever face him again--but she knew there was a
reckoning waiting at home.
It was a painful and unforgettable scene. Mother had heard already;
father had telephoned from the office. Missy supposed all Cherryvale was
telephoning but she deferred thoughts of her wider disgrace; at present
mother was enough. Mother was fearfully angry--Missy knew she would
never understand. She said harsher things than she'd ever said before.
Making such a spectacle of herself!--her own daughter, whom she'd tried
to train to be a lady! This feature of the situation seemed to stir
mother almost more violently than the flagrant disobedience.
“It's all that O'Neill girl,” said Aunt Nettie. “Ever since she came
here to live, Missy's been up to just one craziness after another.”
Mother looked out the window and sighed. Missy was suddenly conscious
that she loved her mother very much; despite the fact that mother had
just said harsh things, that she was going to punish her, that she never
understood. A longing welled up in her to fling her arms round mother's
neck and assure her that she never MEANT to be a spectacle, that she had
only--
But what was the use of trying to explain? Mother wouldn't understand
and she couldn't explain it in words, anyway--not even to herself. So
she stood first on one foot and then on the other, and felt perfectly
inadequate and miserable.
At last, wanting frightfully to say something that would ameliorate her
conduct somewhat in mother's eyes, she said:
“I guess it WAS an awful thing to do, mother. And I'm AWFULLY sorry.
But it wouldn't have come out quite so bad--I could have managed Gypsy
better, I think--if it hadn't been for that old wasp.”
“Wasp?” questioned mother.
“Yes, there was a lot of mud-wasps got to flying around and one some way
got inside of my--my breeches. And you know how scared to death I am
of wasps. I KNOW I could have managed Gypsy, but when I felt that wasp
crawling around--” She broke off; tried again. “Don't think I couldn't
manage her--but when I felt that--”
“Well, if the wasp was all that was the matter,” queried mother, “why
didn't you go after it?”
Missy didn't reply.
“Why did you just stand there and let it keep stinging you?”
Missy opened her lips but quickly closed them again. She realized there
was something inconsistent in her explanation. Mother had accused her of
immodesty: riding astride and wearing those scandalous pepper-and-salts
and showing her legs. If mother was right, if she WAS brazen, somehow it
didn't tie up to claim confusion because her--
Oh, legs!
She didn't try to explain. With hanging head she went meekly to her
room. Mother had ruled she must stay there, in disgrace, till father
came home and a proper punishment was decided upon.
It was not a short or glad afternoon.
At supper father came up to see her. He was disapproving, of course,
though she felt that his heart wasn't entirely unsympathetic. Even
though he told her Mr. Picker had made him pay for the bucket of candy.
Missy knew it must have gone hard with him to be put in the wrong by Mr.
Picker.
“Oh, father, I'm sorry!--I really am!”
Father patted her hand. He was an angel.
“Did you bring it home?” brightening at a thought.
“Bring what home?” asked father.
“Why, the candy.”
“Of course not.”
“I don't see why, if you had to pay for it. The bottom part wasn't hurt
at all.”
Father laughed then, actually laughed. She was glad to see the serious
look removed from his face; but she still begrudged all that candy.
Nor was that the end of the part played by the candy. That night, as
she was kneeling in her nightgown by the window, gazing out at the white
moonlight and trying to summon the lovely thoughts the night's magic
used to bring, the door opened softly and mother came tiptoeing in.
“You ought to be in bed, dear,” she said. No, Missy reflected, she could
never, never be really cross with mother. She climbed into bed and, with
a certain degree of comfort, watched mother smooth up the sheet and fold
the counterpane carefully over the foot-rail.
“Mrs. O'Neill just phoned,” mother said. “Tess is very sick. It seems
she and Arthur got hold of that bucket of candy.”
“Oh,” said Missy.
That was all she said, all she felt capable of saying. The twisted
thoughts, emotions and revulsions which surge in us as we watch the
inexplicable workings of Fate are often difficult of expression. But,
after mother had kissed her good night and gone, she lay pondering for
a long time. Life is curiously unfair. That Tess and Arthur should have
got the candy for which SHE suffered, that the very hours she'd been
shut up with shame and disgrace THEY were gorging themselves, seemed her
climactic crown of sorrow.
Yes, life was queer...
Almost not worth while to try to be athletic-she didn't really like
being athletic, anyway... she hoped they'd had the ordinary human
decency to give Gypsy just a little bit... Gypsy was a darling... that
wavy tail and those bright soft eyes and the white star.. . but you
don't have to be really athletic to ride a pony--you don't have to wear
breeches and do things like that... Arthur wasn't so much, anyway--he
had freckles and red hair and there was nothing romantic about him...
Sir Galahad would never have been so scared of Mr. Picker--he wouldn't
have shoved the blame off onto a maiden in distress... No, and she
didn't think the King of Spain would, either... Or Rev. MacGill... There
were lots of things just as good as being athletic... there were... lots
of things...
A moonbeam crept up the white sheet, to kiss the eyelids closed in
sleep.