Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame?--A fitful tongue of fickle flame. And
what is prominence to me, When a brown bird sings in the apple-tree? Ah,
mortal downfalls lose their sting When World and Heart hear the call of
Spring! You ask me why mere friendship so Outweighs all else that but
comes to go?... A truce, a truce to questioning: “We two are friends,”
tells everything. I think it vile to pigeon-hole The pros and cons of a
kindred soul. (From Melissa's Improvement on Certain Older Poets.)
The year Melissa was a high school Junior was fated to be an
unforgettable epoch. In the space of a few short months, all
mysteriously interwoven with their causes and effects, their trials
turning to glory, their disappointments and surcease inexplicable, came
revelations, swift and shifting, or what is really worth while in life.
Oh, Life! And oh, when one is sixteen years old! That is an age, as
many of us can remember, one begins really to know Life--a complex and
absorbing epoch.
The first of these new vistas to unspread itself before Missy's eyes was
nothing less dazzling than Travel. She had never been farther away from
home than Macon City, the local metropolis, or Pleasanton, where
Uncle Charlie and Aunt Isabel lived and which wasn't even as big as
Cherryvale; and neither place was a two-hours' train ride away. The
most picturesque scenery she knew was at Rocky Ford; it was far from the
place where the melons grow, but water, a ford and rocks were there, and
it had always shone in that prairie land and in Missy's eyes as a
haunt of nymphs, water-babies, the Great Spirit, and Nature's poetics
generally--the Great Spirit was naturally associated with its inevitable
legendary Indian love story. But when Aunt Isabel carelessly suggested
that Missy, next summer, go to Colorado with her, how the local
metropolis dwindled; how little and simple, though pretty, of course,
appeared Rocky Ford.
Colorado quivered before her in images supernal. Colorado! Enchantment
in the very name! And mountains, and eternal snow upon the peaks,
and spraying waterfalls, and bright-painted gardens of the gods--oh,
ecstasy!
And going with Aunt Isabel! Aunt Isabel was young, beautiful, and
delightful. Aunt Isabel went to Colorado every summer!
But a whole year! That is, in truth, a long time and can bring forth
much that is unforeseen, amazing, revolutionizing. Especially when one
is sixteen and beginning really to know life.
Missy had always found life in Cherryvale absorbing. The past had been
predominantly tinged with the rainbow hues of dreams; with the fine,
vague, beautiful thoughts that “reading” brings, and with such delicious
plays of fancy as lend witchery to a high white moon, an arched blue
sky, or rolling prairies-even to the tranquil town and the happenings of
every day. Nothing could put magic into the humdrum life of school, and
here she must struggle through another whole year of it before she might
reach Colorado. That was a cloud, indeed, for one who wasn't “smart”
like Beulah Crosswhite. Mathematics Missy found an inexplicable,
unalloyed torture; history for all its pleasingly suggestive glimpses of
a spacious past, laid heavy taxes on one not good at remembering dates.
But Missy was about to learn to take a more modern view of high school
possibilities. Shortly before school opened Cousin Pete came to see his
grandparents in Cherryvale. Perhaps Pete's filial devotion was due to
the fact that Polly Currier resided in Cherryvale; Polly was attending
the State University where Pete was a “Post-Grad.” Missy listened to
Cousin Pete's talk of college life with respect, admiration, and some
unconscious envy. There was one word that rose, like cream on milk,
or oil on water, or fat on soup, inevitably to the surface of his
conversation. “Does Polly Currier like college?” once inquired Missy,
moved by politeness to broach what Pete must find an agreeable subject.
“Naturally,” replied Pete, with the languor of an admittedly superior
being. “She's prominent.” The word, “prominent,” as uttered by him had
more than impressiveness and finality. It was magnificent. It was
as though one might remark languidly: “She? Oh, she's the Queen of
Sheba”--or, “Oh, she's Mary Pickford.”
Missy pondered a second, then asked:
“Prominent? How is a-what makes a person prominent?”
Pete elucidated in the large, patronizing manner of a kindly-disposed
elder.
“Oh, being pretty--if you're a girl--and a good sport, and active in
some line. A leader.”
Missy didn't yet exactly see. She decided to make the problem specific.
“What makes Polly prominent?”
“Because she's the prettiest girl on the hill,” Pete replied
indulgently. “And some dancer. And crack basket-ball forward--Glee
Club--Dramatic Club. Polly's got it over 'em forty ways running.”
So ended the first lesson. The second occurred at the chance mention
of one Charlie White, a Cherryvale youth likewise a student at the
University.
“Oh, he's not very prominent,” commented Pete, and his tone damned poor
Charlie for all eternity.
“Why isn't he?” asked Missy interestedly.
“Oh, I don't know--he's just a dub.”
“A dub?”
“Yep, a dub.” Pete had just made a “date” with Polly, so he beamed on
her benignantly as he explained further: “A gun--a dig-a greasy grind.”
“But isn't a smart person ever prominent?”
“Oh, sometimes. It all depends.”
“Is Polly Currier a grind?”
“I should hope not!” as if defending the lady from an insulting charge.
Missy looked puzzled; then asked:
“Does she ever pass?”
“Oh, now and then. Sometimes she flunks. Polly should worry!”
Here was strange news. One could be smart, devote oneself to study--be
a “greasy grind”--and yet fail of prominence; and one could fail to
pass--“flunk”--and yet climb to the pinnacle of prominence. Evidently
smartness and studiousness had nothing to do with it, and Missy felt a
pleasurable thrill. Formerly she had envied Beulah Crosswhite, who wore
glasses and was preternaturally wise. But maybe Beulah Crosswhite was
not so much. Manifestly it was more important to be prominent than
smart.
Oh, if she herself could be prominent!
To be sure, she wasn't pretty like Polly Currier, or even like her own
contemporary, Kitty Allen--though she had reason to believe that Raymond
Bonner had said something to one of the other boys that sounded as if
her eyes were a little nice. “Big Eyes” he had called her, as if that
were a joke; but maybe it meant something pleasant. But the High School
did not have a Glee Club or Dramatic Society offering one the chance to
display leadership gifts. There was a basket-ball team, but Missy didn't
“take to” athletics. Missy brooded through long, secret hours.
The first week of September school opened, classes enrolled, and the
business of learning again got under way. By the second week the various
offshoots of educational life began to sprout, and notices were posted
of the annual elections of the two “literary societies,” Iolanthe and
Mount Parnassus. The “programmes” of these bodies were held in the
auditorium every other Friday, and each pupil was due for at least one
performance a semester. Missy, who was an Iolanthian, generally chose
to render a piano solo or an original essay. But everybody in school
did that much--they had to--and only a few rose to the estate of being
“officers.”
The Iolanthians had two tickets up for election: the scholastic, headed
by Beulah Crosswhite for president, and an opposition framed by some
boys who complained that the honours always went to girls and that it
was time men's rights were recognized. The latter faction put up Raymond
Bonner as their candidate. Raymond was as handsome and gay as Beulah
Crosswhite was learned.
It was a notable fight. When the day of election arrived, the Chemistry
room in which the Iolanthians were gathered was electric with restrained
excitement. On the first ballot Raymond and Beulah stood even. There
was a second ballot--a third--a fourth. And still the deadlock, the
atmosphere of tensity growing more vibrant every second. Finally a group
of boys put their heads together. Then Raymond Bonner arose.
“In view of the deadlock which it seems impossible to break,” he began,
in the rather stilted manner which befits such assemblages, “I propose
that we put up a substitute candidate. I propose the name of Miss
Melissa Merriam.”
Oh, dear heaven! For a second Missy was afraid she was going to
cry--she didn't know why. But she caught Raymond's eye on her, smiling
encouragement, and she mistily glowed back at him. And on the very
first vote she was elected. Yes. Miss Melissa Merriam was president of
Iolanthe. She was prominent.
And Raymond? Of course Raymond had been prominent before, though she had
never noticed it, and now he had helped her up to this noble elevation!
He must think she would adorn it. Adorn!--it was a lovely word that
Missy had just captured. Though she had achieved her eminence by a
fluke.
Missy took fortune at the flood like one born for success. She mazed
the whole school world by a meteoric display of unsuspected capacities.
Herself she amazed most of all; she felt as if she were making the
acquaintance of a stranger, an increasingly fascinating kind of
stranger. How wonderful to find herself perusing over a “meeting”
from the teacher's desk in the Latin room, or over a “programme” in the
auditorium, with calm and superior dignity!
Missy, aflame with a new fire, was not content with the old hackneyed
variety of “programme.” It was she who conceived the idea of giving the
first minstrel show ever presented upon the auditorium boards. It is a
tribute to Missy's persuasiveness when at white heat that the faculty
permitted the show to go beyond its first rehearsal. The rehearsals
Missy personally conducted, with Raymond aiding as her first
lieutenant-and he would not have played second fiddle like that to
another girl in the class-he said so. She herself chose the cast,
contrived the “scenery”; and she and Raymond together wrote the dialogue
and lyrics. It was wonderful how they could do things together! Missy
felt she never could get into such a glow and find such lovely rhymes
popping right up in her mind if she were working alone. And Raymond said
the same. It was very strange. It was as if a mystic bond fired them
both with new talents-Missy looked on mixed metaphors as objectionable
only to Professor Sutton.
Her reputation-and Raymond's-soared, soared. Her literary talent placed
her on a much higher plane than if she were merely “smart”--made her in
the most perfect sense “prominent.”
After the minstrel triumph it was no surprise when, at class elections,
Melissa Merriam became president of the Juniors. A few months before
Missy would have been overwhelmed at the turn of things, but now she
casually mounted her new height, with assurance supreme. It was as
though always had the name of Melissa Merriam been a force. Raymond said
no one else had a look-in.
At the end of the term prominence brought its reward: Missy failed in
Geometry and was conditioned in Latin. Father looked grave over her
report card.
“This is pretty bad, isn't it?” he asked.
Missy fidgeted. It gave her a guilty feeling to bring that expression to
her indulgent father's face.
“I'm sorry, father. I know I'm not smart, but-” She hesitated.
Father took off his glasses and thoughtfully regarded her.
“I wasn't complaining of your not being 'smart'--'smart' people are
often pests. The trouble's that this is worse than it's ever been.
And today I got a letter from Professor Sutton. He says you evince no
interest whatever in your work.”
Missy felt a little indignant flare within her.
“He knows what responsibilities I have!”
“Responsibilities?” repeated father.
Here mother, who had been sitting quietly by, also with a disapproving
expression, entered the discussion:
“I knew all that Iolanthe and class flummery would get her into
trouble.”
Flummery!
Missy's voice quavered. “That's a very important part of school life,
mother! Class spirit and all--you don't understand!” “I suppose parents
are seldom able to keep up with the understanding of their children,”
replied mother, with unfamiliar sarcasm. “However, right here's where
I presume to set my foot down. If you fail again, in the spring
examinations, you'll have to study and make it up this summer. You can't
go with Aunt Isabel.”
Lose the Colorado trip! The wonderful trip she had already lived
through, in vivid prospect, a hundred times! Oh, mother couldn't be so
cruel! But Missy's face dropped alarmingly.
“Now, mamma,” began father, “I wouldn't-”
“I mean every word of it,” reaffirmed mother with the voice of doom.
“No grades, no holiday. Missy's got to learn balance and moderation.
She lets any wild enthusiasm carry her off her feet. She's got to learn,
before it's too late, to think and control herself.”
There was a moment's heavy pause, then mother went on, significantly:
“And I don't know that you ought to buy that car this spring, papa.”
The parents exchanged a brief glance, and Missy's heart dropped even
lower. For months she had been teasing father to buy a car, as so many
of the girls' fathers were doing. He had said, “Wait till spring,” and
now-the universe was draped in gloom.
However, there was a certain sombre satisfaction in reflecting that
her traits of frailty should call forth such enthrallingly sinister
comments. “Lets any wild enthusiasm carry her off her feet”--“before,
it's too late”--“must learn to control herself--”
Human nature is an interesting study, and especially one's own nature
when one stands off and regards it as a problem Allen, mysterious and
complicated. Missy stared at the endangered recesses of her soul--and
wondered what Raymond thought about these perils-for any girl. He liked
her of course, but did he think she was too enthusiastic?
Yet such speculations did not, at the time, tie up with views about the
Colorado trip. That was still the guiding star of all her hopes. She
must study harder during the spring term and stave off the threatened
and unspeakable calamity. It was a hard resolution to put through,
especially when she conceived a marvellous idea-a “farce” like one Polly
Currier told her about when she was home for her Easter vacation. Missy
wrestled with temptation like some Biblical martyr of old, but the
thought of Colorado kept her strong. And she couldn't help feeling
a little noble when, mentioning to mother the discarded
inspiration-without allusion to Colorado-she was praised for her
adherence to duty.
The sense of nobility aided her against various tantalizing chances to
prove anew her gifts of leadership, through latter March, through April,
through early May--lengthening, balmy, burgeoning days when Spring
brings all her brightly languid witchery in assault upon drab endeavour.
The weather must share the blame for what befell that fateful Friday of
the second week in May. Blame? Of course there was plenty of blame from
adults that must be laid somewhere; but as for Missy, a floating kind
of ecstasy was what that day woke in her first, and after the worst had
happened--But let us see what did come to pass.
It was a day made for poets to sing about. A day for the young man to
forget the waiting ledger on his desk and gaze out the window at skies
so blue and deep as to invite the building of castles; for even his
father to see visions of golf-course or fishing-boat flickering in the
translucent air; for old Jeff to get out his lawn-mower and lazily add
a metallic song to the hum of the universe. And for him or her who
must sit at schoolroom desk, it was a day to follow the processes of
blackboard or printed page with the eyes but not the mind, while the
encaged spirit beat past the bars of dull routine to wing away in the
blue.
Missy, sitting near an open window of the “study room” during the
“second period,” let dreamy eyes wander from the fatiguing Q. E. D.'s of
the afternoon's Geometry lesson; the ugly tan walls, the sober array of
national patriots hanging above the encircling blackboard, the sea of
heads restlessly swaying over receding rows of desks, all faded hazily
away. Her soul flitted out through the window, and suffused itself in
the bit of bright, bright blue showing beyond the stand-pipe, in the
soft, soft air that stole in to kiss her cheek, in the elusive fragrance
of young, green, growing things, in the drowsy, drowsy sound of Mrs.
Clifton's chickens across the way...
Precious minutes were speeding by; she would not have her Geometry
lesson. But Missy didn't bring herself back to think of that; would not
have cared, anyway. She let her soul stretch out, out, out.
Such is the sweet, subtle, compelling madness a day of Spring can bring
one.
Missy had often felt the ecstasy of being swept out on the yearning
demand for a new experience. Generally because of something suggestive
in “reading” or in heavenly colour combinations or in sad music at
twilight; but, now, for no definable reason at all, she felt her soul
welling up and up in vague but poignant craving. She asked permission to
get a drink of water. But instead of quenching her thirst, she wandered
to the entry of the room occupied by Mathematics III A--Missy's own
class, from which she was now sequestered by the cruel bar termed
“failure-to-pass.” Something was afoot in there; Missy put her ear to
the keyhole; then she boldly opened the door.
A tempest of paper-wads, badinage and giggles greeted her. The teacher's
desk was vacant. Miss Smith was at home sick, and the principal had
put Mathematics III A on their honour. For a time Missy joined in their
honourable pursuit of giggles and badinage. But Raymond had welcomed her
as if the fun must mount to something yet higher when she came; she felt
a “secret, deep, interior urge” to show what she could do. The seductive
May air stole into her blood, a stealthy, intoxicating elixir, and
finally the Inspiration came, with such tumultuous swiftness that she
could never have told whence or how. Passed on to her fellows, it was
caught up with an ardour equally mad and unreckoning. One minute the
unpastored flock of Mathematics III A were leaning out the windows,
sniffing in the lilac scents wafted over from Mrs. Clifton's yard;
the next they were scurrying, tip-toe, flushed, laughing, jostling,
breathless, out through the cloak-room, down the stairs, through the
side-door, across the stretch of school-yard, toward a haven beyond Mrs.
Clifton's lilac hedge.
Where were they going? They did not know. Why had they started? They did
not know. What the next step? They did not know. No thought nor reason
in that, onward rush; only one vast, enveloping, incoherent, tumultuous
impulse--away! away! Away from dark walls into the open; away from the
old into the new; away from the usual into the you-don't-know-what; away
from “you must not” into “you may.” The wild, free, bright, heedless
urge of Spring!
Behind their fragrant rampart they paused, for a second, to spin about
in a kind of mental and spiritual whirlpool. Some began breaking off
floral sprays to decorate hat-band or shirt-waist. But Missy, feeling
her responsibility as a leader, glanced back, through leafy crevices, at
those prison-windows open and ominously near.
“We mustn't stay here!” she admonished. “We'll get caught!”
As if an embodiment of warning, just then Mrs. Clifton emerged out on
her front porch; she looked as if she might be going to shout at them.
But Raymond waited to break off a lilac cluster for Missy. He was
so cool about it; it just showed how much he was like the Black
Prince--though of course no one would “understand” if you said such a
thing.
The fragrantly beplumed company sped across the green Clifton yard,
ruthlessly over the Clifton vegetable garden, to the comparative retreat
of Silver Street, beyond. But they were not yet safe--away! away! Missy
urged them westward, for no defined reason save that this direction
might increase their distance from the danger zone of the High School.
Still without notion of whither bound, the runaways, moist and
dishevelled, found themselves down by the railroad tracks. There,
in front of the Pacific depot, stood the 10:43 “accommodation” for
Osawatomie and other points south. Another idea out of the blue!
“Let's go to Osawatomie!” cried Missy.
The accommodation was puffing laboriously into action as the last Junior
clambered pantingly on. But they'd all got on! They were on their way!
But not on their way to Osawatomie.
For before they had all found satisfactory places on the red plush seats
where it was hard to sit still with that bright balminess streaming
in through the open windows--hard to sit still, or to think, or to do
anything but flutter up and down and laugh and chatter about nothing at
all--the conductor appeared.
“Tickets, please!”
A trite and commonplace phrase, but potent to plunge errant, winging
fancies down to earth. The chattering ceased short. No one had
thought of tickets, nor even of money. The girls of the party looked
appalled--in Cherryvale the girls never dreamed of carrying money to
school; then furtively they glanced at the boys. Just as furtively
the boys were exploring into pockets, but though they brought forth
a plentiful salvage of the anomalous treasure usually to be found in
school-boys' pockets, the display of “change” was pathetic. Raymond had
a quarter, and that was more than anyone else turned out.
The conductor impatiently repeated:
“Tickets, please!”
Then Missy, feeling that financial responsibility must be recognized
in a class president, began to put her case with a formal dignity that
impressed every one but the conductor.
“We're the Junior class of the Cherryvale High School--we wish to go to
Osawatomie. Couldn't we--maybe--?”
Formal dignity broke down, her voice stuck in her throat, but her eyes
ought to have been enough. They were big and shining eyes, and when she
made them appealing they had been known to work wonders with father and
mother and other grown-ups, even with the austere Professor Sutton.
But this burly figure in the baggy blue uniform had a face more like a
wooden Indian than a human grown-up--and an old, dyspeptic wooden Indian
at that. Missy's eyes were to avail her nothing that hour.
“Off you get at the watering-tank,” he ordained. “The whole pack of
you.”
And at the watering-tank off they got.
And then, as often follows a mood of high adventure, there fell upon the
festive group a moment of pause, of unnatural quiet, of “let down.”
“Well, what're we going to do now?” queried somebody.
“We'll do whatever Missy says,” said Raymond, just as if he were Sir
Walter Raleigh speaking of the Virgin Queen. It was a wonder someone
didn't start teasing him about her; but everyone was too taken up
waiting for Missy to proclaim. She set her very soul vibrating; shut
her eyes tightly a moment to think; and, as if in proof that Providence
helps them who must help others, almost instantly she opened them again.
“Rocky Ford!”
Just like that, out of the blue, a quick, unfaltering, almost
unconscious cry of the inspired. And, with resounding acclaim, her
followers caught it up:
“Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!”--“That's the ticket!”--“We'll have a
picnic'.”--“Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!”
Rocky Ford, home of nymphs, water-babies and Indian legend, was only
half a mile away. Again it shone in all its old-time romantic loveliness
on Missy's inward eye. And for a fact it was a good Maytime picnic
place.
That day everything about the spot seemed invested with a special kind
of beauty, the kind of beauty you feel so poignantly in stories and
pictures but seldom meet face to face in real life. The Indian maiden
became a memory you must believe in: she had loved someone and they
were parted somehow and she was turned into a swan or something. Off
on either side the creek, the woods stretched dim and mysterious; but
nearby, on the banks, the little new leaves stirred and sparkled in the
sun like green jewels; and the water dribbled and sparkled over the flat
white stones of the ford like a million swishing diamonds; and off in
the distance there were sounds which may have been birds--or, perhaps,
the legendary maiden singing; and, farther away, somewhere, a faint
clanging music which must be cow-bells, only they had a remote heavenly
quality rare in cow-bells.
And, all the while, the sun beaming down on the ford, intensely soft and
bright. Why is it that the sun can seem so much softer and brighter in
some places than in others?
Missy felt that soft brightness penetrating deeper and deeper into her
being. It seemed a sort of limpid, shining tide flowing through to her
very soul; it made her blood tingle, and her soul quiver. And, in
some mysterious way, the presence, of Raymond Bonner, consciousness
of Raymond--Raymond himself--began to seem all mixed up with this
ineffable, surging effulgence. Missy recognized that she had long
experienced a secret, strange, shy kind of feeling toward Raymond. He
was so handsome and so gay, and his dark eyes told her so plainly that
he liked her, and he carried her books home for her despite the fact
that the other boys teased him. The other girls had teased Missy,
too, so that sometimes she didn't know whether she was more happy or
embarrassed over Raymond's admiration.
But, to-day, everyone seemed lifted above such childish rudeness.
When Missy had first led off from the watering-tank toward Rocky Ford,
Raymond had taken his place by her side, and he maintained it there
masterfully though two or three other boys tried to include themselves
in the class president's group--“buttinskys,” Raymond termed them.
Once, as they walked together along the road, Raymond took hold of her
hand. He had done that much before, but this was different. Those other
times did not count. She knew that this was different and that he, too,
knew it was different. They glanced at each other, and then quickly
away.
Then, when they turned off into a field, to avoid meeting people who
might ask questions, Raymond held together the barbed wires of the fence
very carefully, so she could creep under without mishap. And when they
neared the woods, he kicked all the twigs from her path, and lifted
aside the underbrush lest it touch her face. And at each opportunity
for this delicious solicitude they would look at each other, and then
quickly away.
That was in many ways an unforgettable picnic; many were the unheard-of
things carried out as soon as thought of. For example, the matter
of lunch. What need to go hungry when there were eggs in a farmer's
henhouse not a half-mile away, and potatoes in the farmer's store-house,
and sundry other edibles all spread out, as if waiting, in the farmer's
cellar? (Blessings on the farmer's wife for going a-visiting that day!)
The boys made an ingenious oven of stones and a glorious fire of brush;
and the girls made cunning dishes out of big, clean-washed leaves. Then,
when the potatoes and eggs were ready, all was devoured with a zest that
paid its own tribute to the fair young cooks; and the health of the fair
young cooks was drunk in Swan Creek water, cupped in sturdy masculine
hands; and even the girls tried to drink from those same cups, laughing
so they almost strangled. A mad, merry and supremely delightful feast.
After she had eaten, for some reason Missy felt a craving to wander off
somewhere and sit still a while. She would have loved to stretch out in
the grass, and half-close her eyes, and gaze up at the bits of shining,
infinite blue of the sky, and dream. But there was Raymond at her
elbow--and she wanted, even more than she wanted to be alone and dream,
Raymond to be there at her elbow.
Then, too, there were all the others. Someone shouted:
“What'll we do now? What'll we do, Missy?”
So the class president dutifully set her wits to work. Around the flat
white stones of the ford the water was dribbling, warm, soft, enticing.
“Let's go wading!” she cried.
Wading!
Usually Missy would have shrunk from appearing before boys in bare feet.
But this was a special kind of day which held no room for embarrassment;
and, more quickly than it takes to tell it, shoes and stockings were
off and the new game was on. Missy stood on a stepping-stone, suddenly
diffident; the water now looked colder and deeper, the whispering
cascadelets seemed to roar like breakers on a beach. The girls were all
letting out little squeals as the water chilled their ankles, and the
boys made feints of chasing them into deeper water.
Raymond pursued Missy, squealing and skipping from stone to stone till,
unexpectedly, she lost her slippery footing and went sprawling into the
shallow stream.
“Oh, Missy! I'm sorry!” She felt his arms tugging at her. Then she
found herself standing on the bank, red-faced and dripping, feeling
very wretched and very happy at the same time--wretched because Raymond
should see her in such plight; happy because he was making such a fuss
over her notwithstanding.
He didn't seem to mind her appearance, but took his hat and began
energetically to fan her draggled hair.
“I wish my hair was curly like Kitty Allen's,” she said.
“I like it this way,” said Raymond, unplaiting the long braids so as to
fan them better.
“But hers curls up all the prettier when it's wet. Mine strings.”
“Straight hair's the nicest,” he said with finality.
He liked straight hair best! A wave of celestial bliss stole over her.
It was wonderful: the big, fleecy clouds so serenely beautiful up in
the enigmatic blue; the sun pouring warmly down and drying her dress
in uneven patches; the whisperings of the green-jewelled leaves and the
swishing of the diamond-bubbles on the stones; the drowsy, mysterious
sounds from far away in the woods, and fragrance everywhere; and
everything seeming delightfully remote; even the other boys and
girls--everything and everybody save Raymond, standing there so
patiently fanning the straight hair he admired.
Oh, the whole place was entrancing, entrancing in a new way; and her
sensations, too, were entrancing in a new way. Even when Raymond, as he
manipulated her hair, inadvertently pulled the roots, the prickly pains
seemed to tingle on down through her being in little tremors of pure
ecstasy.
Raymond went on fanning her hair.
“Curly hair's messy looking,” he observed after a considerable pause
during which, evidently, his thoughts had remained centred on this
pleasing theme.
And then, all of a sudden, Missy found herself saying an inexplicable,
unheard-of thing:
“You can have a lock-if you want to.”
She glanced up, and then quickly down. And she felt herself blushing
again; she didn't exactly like to blush--yet--yet--
“Do I want it?”
Already Raymond had dropped his improvised fan and was fumbling for his
knife.
“Where?” he asked.
Missy shivered deliciously at the imminence of that bright steel
blade; what if he should let it slip?--but, just then, even mutilation,
provided it be at Raymond's hand, didn't seem too terrible.
“Wherever you want,” she murmured.
“All right--I'll take a snip here where it twines round your ear--it
looks so sort of affectionate.”
She giggled with him. Of course it was all terribly silly--and yet--
Then there followed a palpitant moment while she held her breath and
shut her eyes. A derisive shout caused her to open them quickly. There
stood Don Jones, grinning.
“Missy gave Raymond a lock of her hair! Missy gave Raymond a lock of her
hair!”
Missy's face grew hot; blushing was not now a pleasure; she looked up,
then down; she didn't know where to look.
“Gimme one, too! You got to play fair, Missy--gimme one, too!”
Then, in that confusion of spirit, she heard her voice, which didn't
seem to be her own voice but a stranger's, saying:
“All right, you can have one, too, if you want it, Don.”
Don forthwith advanced. Missy couldn't forebear a timid glance toward
Raymond. Raymond was not looking pleased. She wished she might assure
him she didn't really want to give the lock to Don, and yet, at the same
time, she felt strangely thrilled at that lowering look on Raymond's
face. It was curious. She wanted Raymond to be happy, yet she didn't
mind his being just a little bit unhappy--this way. Oh, how complicated
and fascinating life can be!
During the remainder of their stay at the ford Missy was preoccupied
with this new revelation of herself and with a furtive study of Raymond
whose continued sulkiness was the cause of it. Raymond didn't once come
to her side during all that endless three-mile tramp back to Cherryvale;
but she was conscious of his eye on her as she trudged along beside Don
Jones. She didn't feel like talking to Don Jones. Nor was the rest of
the crowd, now, a lively band; it was harder to laugh than it had been
in the morning; harder even to talk. And when they did talk, little
unsuspected irritabilities began to gleam out. For now, when weary feet
must somehow cover those three miles, thoughts of the journey's end
began to rise up in the truants' minds. During the exalted moments of
adventure they hadn't thought of consequences. That's a characteristic
of exalted moments. But now, so to speak, the ball was over, the roses
all shattered and faded, and the weary dancers must face the aftermath
of to-morrow...
And Missy, trudging along the dusty road beside Don Jones who didn't
count, felt all kinds of shadows rising up to eclipse brightness in
her soul. What would Professor Sutton do?--he was fearfully strict. And
father and mother would never understand...
If only Don Jones would stop babbling to her! Why did he persist in
walking beside her, anyway? That lock of hair didn't mean anything!
She wished she hadn't given it to him; why had she, anyway? She herself
couldn't comprehend why, and Raymond would never, never comprehend.
The farther she walked, the less she saw the pleasanter aspects of
Raymond's jealousy and the more what might be the outcome of it. Perhaps
he'd never have anything to do with her again. That would be terrible!
And she'd have such a short time to try making it up. For in less than
a month she'd have to go with Aunt Isabel to Colorado; and, then, she
wouldn't see Raymond for weeks and weeks. Colorado! It was like talking
of going to the moon, a dreary, dead, far-off moon, with no one in it to
speak to. Aunt Isabel? Aunt Isabel was sweet, but she was so old--nearly
thirty! How could she, Missy, go and leave Raymond misunderstanding her
so?
But who can tell how Fate may work to confound rewards and punishments!
It was to become a legend in the Cherryvale High School how, once on
a day in May, a daring band ran away from classes and how the truant
class, in toto, was suspended for the two closing weeks of the semester,
with no privilege of “making up” the grades. And the legend runs that
one girl, and the most prominent girl in the class at that, by reason of
this sentence fell just below the minimum grade required to “pass.”
Yes; Missy failed again. Of course that was very bad. And taking her
disgrace home--indeed, that was horrid. As she faced homeward she felt
so heavy inside that she knew she could never eat her dinner. Besides,
she was walking alone--Raymond hadn't walked home with her since the
wretched picnic. She sighed a sigh that was not connected with the grade
card in her pocket. For one trouble dwarfs another in this world;
and friendship is more than honours--a sacred thing, friendship! Only
Raymond was so unreasonable over Don's lock of hair; yet, for all the
painfulness of Raymond's crossness, Missy smiled the littlest kind of
a down-eyed, secret sort of smile as she thought of it... It was so
wonderful and foolish and interesting how much he cared that Missy began
to question what he'd do if she got Don to give her a lock of his hair.
Then she sobered suddenly, as you do at a funeral after you have
forgotten where you are and then remember. That card was an unpleasant
thing to take home!... Just what did Raymond mean by giving Kitty Allen
a lock of his hair? And doing it before Missy herself--“Kitty, here's
that lock I promised you”--just like that. Then he had laughed and joked
as if nothing unusual had happened--only was he watching her out of the
corner of his eye when he thought she wasn't looking? That was the
real question. The idea of Raymond trying to make her jealous! How
simple-minded boys are!
But, after all, what a dear, true friend he had proved himself in the
past--before she offended him. And how much more is friendship than mere
pleasures like travel--like going to Colorado.
But was he jealous? If he was--Missy felt an inexplicable kind of
bubbling in her heart at that idea. But if he wasn't--well, of course it
was natural she should wonder whether Raymond looked on friendship as
a light, come-and-go thing, and on locks of hair as meaning nothing at
all. For he had never been intimate with Kitty Allen; and he had said
he didn't like curly hair. Yet, probably, he had one of Kitty Allen's
ringlets... Missy felt a new, hideous weight pulling down her heart.
Of course she had given that straight wisp to Don Jones--but what else
could she do to keep him from telling? Oh, life is a muddle! And here,
in less than a week, Aunt Isabel would come by and whisk her off to the
ends of the earth; and she might have to go without really knowing what
Raymond meant...
And oh, yes--that old card! How dreary life can be as one grows older.
Missy waited to show the card till her father came home to supper--she
knew it was terribly hard for father to be stern. But when Missy, all
mute appeal, extended him the report, he looked it over in silence and
then passed it on to mother. Mother, too, examined it with maddening
care.
“Well,” she commented at last. “I see you've failed again.”
“It was all the fault of those two weeks' grades,” the culprit tried to
explain. “If it hadn't been for that--”
“But there was 'that.'” Mother's tone was terribly unsympathetic.
“I didn't think of grades--then.”
“No, that's the trouble. I've warned you, Missy. You've got to learn to
think. You'll have to stay home and make up those grades this
summer. You'd better write to Aunt Isabel at once, so she won't be
inconvenienced.”
Mother's voice had the quiet ring of doom.
Tender-hearted father looked away, out the window, so as not to see the
disappointment on his daughter's face. But Missy was gazing down her
nose to hide eyes that were shining. Soon she made an excuse to get
away.
Out in the summerhouse it was celestially beautiful and peaceful. And,
magically, all this peace and beauty seemed to penetrate into her and
become a part of herself. The glory of the pinkish-mauve sunset stole in
and delicately tinged her so; the scent of the budding ramblers, and of
the freshly-mowed lawn, became her own fragrant odour; the soft song of
the breeze rocking the leaves became her own soul's lullaby. Oh, it was
a heavenly world, and the future bloomed with enchantments! She could
stay in Cherryvale this summer! Dear Cherryvale! Green prairies were so
much nicer than snow-covered mountains, and gently sloping hills than
sharp-pointing peaks; and much, much nicer than tempestuous waterfalls
was the sweet placidity of Swan Creek. Dear Swan Creek...
The idea of Raymond's trying to make her jealous! How simple-minded
boys are! But what a dear, true friend he was, and how much more is
friendship than mere pleasures like travel--or prominence or fine grades
or anything...
It was at this point in her cogitations that Missy, seeing her
Anthology--an intimate poetic companion--where she'd left it on a bench,
dreamily picked it up, turned a few pages, and then was moved to write.
We have borrowed her product to head this story.
Meanwhile, back in the house, her father might have been heard
commenting on the noble behaviour of his daughter.
“Didn't let out a single whimper--brave little thing! We must see to it
that she has a good time at home--poor young one! I think we'd better
get the car this summer, after all.”