THE PRINCESS OF THE PENDULUM
THERE were literary exercises in the chapel the following Friday
afternoon. It was the day for the reading of the _Seminary Star_, a
monthly paper to which all the grades contributed. As a humourous
account of the Hallowe'en celebrated was to be one of the chief
features, spiced by many personal allusions, its appearance was looked
for eagerly.
Little Magnolia Budine was the only one in the room impatient for the
exercises to close. She sat near a front window looking out at every
sound of approaching wheels, to see if the old carryall had stopped at
the high green gate in front of the seminary. She had been hoping all
afternoon that her father would come for her earlier than usual, and she
half-expected that he would. The chill November days were short, and she
knew that he would want to reach home before dark.
It was not that she failed to appreciate the interesting articles in the
_Star_, but she was in a hurry for the ten-mile drive to be over. The
reason for her impatience was packed away in the old carpet-bag, waiting
outside in the hall. Unless she reached home before dark, a certain
pleasure she had in store would have to be delayed till morning. So
intent was she on listening for the sound of wheels, that she failed to
hear the title of a short poem, which one of the editors announced as
written by E. L. L. When Elise nudged her, whispering, "That's about
you, Maggie," she turned with a start and blush to find every one
looking at her. She was so confused she heard only the last verse:
"Not only did he steal the tarts
Made by the gracious queen,
He captured all the schoolgirls' hearts--
That little knave--on Hallowe'en."
The applause which followed was loud and long. Her heart gave a proud,
glad throb at this public compliment, but her face felt as if it were on
fire, and she longed to drop under her desk out of sight. It was just at
this moment that Mrs. Clelling told her in a low tone that her father
had come and she might be excused. How she ever got to the door with all
those eyes fastened on her was more than she could tell. She felt as if
each foot weighed a ton, and that she was an hour travelling the short
space.
Snatching her hat from the cloak-room and pinning a big gray shawl
around her, she caught up the carpet-bag and ran down to the gate. An
occasional snowflake, like a downy white feather, floated through the
air. The wind was raw and damp, and she was glad to climb in behind the
sheltering curtains of the old carryall and lean up against her father's
rough, warm overcoat.
"Well, Puss, how goes it?" he asked, pulling an old bedquilt up over his
knees and tucking it well around her.
"_Fine_, daddy!" she answered, squeezing his arm in both her mittened
hands and snuggling up to him like a contented kitten. "I think now it's
the nicest school in the world, and I like it better and better every
day."
"Got a good report this week?"
"Yes, I haven't missed a single word in spelling. Mrs. Clelling had to
show me nearly two hours about borrowing in subtraction, but I don't
have any more trouble with it now, and I had a longer list of adjectives
on my language-paper than anybody else in the class."
There was a look of pride in the old farmer's weather-beaten face. He
had had little education himself. He had barely learned to read and
write in the few short terms he had been able to attend school when he
was a boy. He couldn't have told an adjective from any other part of
speech, and his wonder at her amount of learning was all the greater on
that account. He patted her hand affectionately. "That's right! That's
right!" he exclaimed. "The family's dependin' on you, Puss, to do us all
credit." Then he began repeating what she had heard a hundred times
before. He never failed to tell her the same story as they jogged
homeward every Friday night and back again the following Monday morning.
She had heard it so often that it sounded in her ears like the familiar
refrain of an old song to which she need pay no heed. She only waited
patiently until he had finished.
"The older children didn't have no chance when they was young like you.
We were too far away from the public schools to send 'm except just a
spell spring and fall, and we couldn't afford the pay schools, but after
we moved up here and Marthy got married and Tom and Hilliard was big
enough to do for 'emselves and getting good wages, times was easier. Ma
says to me, 'We'll give the baby a fair start in the world, anyhow,'
and I says, 'She'll have the best diplomy that Lloydsboro Seminary can
give if I have to carry her there and home again on my back every day
till she gets it.'"
There was much more in the same strain to which Magnolia listened,
waiting for her turn to speak, as one would wait for an alarm clock to
run down when it was striking. The moment he paused she began, eagerly,
"I've got something right now that mammy will be proud to see."
Diving under the quilt for the carpet-bag, she opened it and took out a
book which lay on top of her clothes.
"Now put on your spectacles, daddy," she ordered, gaily, "or maybe you
won't be able to tell who it is." She slipped a photograph from the book
and held it up before him. Holding the reins between his knees, he
pulled off one glove, felt in various pockets, and finally fished up a
pair of steel-bowed spectacles, which he slowly adjusted.
"Miss Katherine Marks took it," she explained, "and she painted it
afterward, so you can tell exactly how I looked at the masquerade-party."
"If it ain't my little magnolia blossom!" exclaimed the old man,
proudly, holding the beautifully tinted photograph off at arm's length
for a better view. "Wherever did you get all those fine gew-gaws? Why,
Puss, you're prettier than a posy. Sort of fanciful and trimmed up, but
that's your little face natural as life. I should say your mammy will be
proud!"
It took all the time while they were driving the next six miles for
Magnolia to tell of that memorable afternoon and night. How Lloyd
Sherman had taken her over to Clovercroft, and all the Marks family had
helped to make her costume. How beautiful it was, and how the girls had
praised it, and even published a poem about her in the _Seminary Star_;
and next day Miss Katherine had taken her picture, and the day after
that had sent for her to come over to her studio, and had given her a
copy of it to take home.
"Seems to me as if we ought to do something nice for those people who
have been so kind to you," said her father, musingly, when she had told
him the whole story. "You say if it hadn't been for Miss Katherine you'd
have had to miss the party. If you'd have missed that you wouldn't have
had that poetry about you in the paper. I'm proud of that, Puss. Seems
as if my little girl is mighty popular--a sort of celebrity, to get
into the paper. I'd like to show that young lady that I appreciate what
she's done to make you happy. I wonder how she'd like a crock of your
mammy's apple butter. There ain't no better apple butter in all Oldham
County, and I should think she'd be glad to get it. I'll speak about it
when we get home, and if your mammy's willing, I'll carry a crock of it
to the young lady when I take you back to school Monday morning."
Magnolia was not sure of the propriety of such a gift, and he turned the
matter over in his slow mind all the rest of the way home. They jogged
along in silence, for she also was busy with her thoughts. She was
thinking of another picture in the library book which she had not showed
her father. It was an unmounted photograph of Lloyd Sherman which Miss
Katherine had taken the year before.
She had photographed all the children who took part in the play of the
"Rescue of the Princess Winsome," and they were arranged on a panel on
her studio wall. There were several of Lloyd; one at the spinning-wheel,
one with her arms around Hero's neck, and one with the knight kneeling
to take her hand from the old king's. But the most beautiful one of all
was the one of the Dove Song. That picture hung by itself. It was just
a little medallion, showing the head of the Princess with the white dove
nestled against her shoulder. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls
made a halo around the sweet little face, and Magnolia stood gazing at
it as if it had been the picture of an angel. She had no eyes for
anything else in the studio, and Miss Flora, seeing her gaze of rapt
admiration, looked across at her sister and smiled significantly.
"Haven't you a copy of that you could give her, Katherine?" she asked,
in a low tone. "I never saw a child's face express such wistful longing.
It makes me think of some of the little waifs I have seen at Christmas
time, gazing hungrily into the shop windows at the toys and bon-bons
they know can never be for them."
Miss Katherine opened a table drawer, and, after searching a few minutes
among the unmounted photographs it contained, took out one, regarding it
critically.
"This was a trifle too light to suit me," she said, "but too good to
destroy." She crossed the room and held it out to Magnolia, who still
stood gazing at its duplicate on the wall.
Such a look of rapture came into the child's face when it was finally
made clear to her that she was to have the picture to keep that no one
noticed the omission of spoken thanks. She was too embarrassed to say
anything, but she took it as if it were something sacred.
"I suppose because Lloyd happens to be the goddess just now to whom she
burns incense," said Miss Katherine when she had gone. "These little
schoolgirl affairs are very amusing sometimes. They're so intense while
they last."
Maggie could not have told why she did not show the picture of the
Princess to her father. In an undefined sort of way she felt that he
would look at it as he would look at the picture of any little girl, and
that he would not understand that she was so much finer and better and
more beautiful and different in every way from all the other girls in
the world. But Corono would understand. For two days Magnolia had looked
forward to the pleasure of showing it to her.
"Can't you get old Dixie out of a walk, daddy?" she exclaimed at last.
"I'm mighty anxious to get home before sundown. I want to stop at
Roney's with this library book, and show her the picture, too."
Aroused from his reverie the old farmer clucked to his horse, and they
went bumping down the stony pike at a gait which satisfied even Maggie's
impatient desire for speed.
"I reckon Roney will be mighty glad to see you," he remarked, as he
stopped the horse in front of an old cabin a short distance from his own
home. "She's been worse this week. You'll have half an hour yet before
sundown," he added, as he turned the wheel for her to climb out of the
carryall.
"I'll stay till supper-time," she called back over her shoulder, "for I
have so much to tell her this week."
With the library book tucked away under the old gray shawl, she ran down
the straggling path to the little whitewashed cabin.
Roney would understand. Roney had always understood things from the time
they had first been neighbours on a lonely farm near Loretta. That was
when Magnolia was a baby, and Corono, six years older, without a
playmate and without a toy, had daily borrowed her and played with her
as if she had been a great doll. It was Corono who had discovered her
first tooth, and who had coaxed her to take her first step, and had
taught her nearly everything she knew, from threading a needle and tying
a knot, to spelling out the words on the tombstones in the nuns'
graveyard. Corono could often tell what she was thinking about, even
before she said a word. She was the only one at home to whom Magnolia
ever mentioned the Princess.
Several years before the two families had moved away together from the
old place. In that time Corono's mother had died, and her father had
become so crippled with rheumatism that he could no longer manage to do
the heavy work on the farm he had rented. They were glad to accept their
old neighbour's offer of an empty cabin on his place. After that, when
Corono was not at the farmhouse helping Mrs. Budine with her cleaning or
sewing or pickle-making, Magnolia was at the cabin, following at the
little housekeeper's very heels, as she went about her daily tasks. But
now for several months Corono had been barely able to drag from one room
to another. Whether it was a fall she had had in the early summer which
injured her back, or whether it was some disease of the spine past his
skill to discover, the doctor from the crossroads could not decide.
Her father had to be housekeeper now, and they would have had meagre
fare oftentimes, had not a generous share of every pie and pudding baked
in the Budine kitchen found its way to their table.
The weeks would have been almost unbearably monotonous to Corono after
Magnolia started to school had she not looked forward to the Fridays,
when her return meant the bringing of a new library book, and another
delightfully interesting chapter of her life at the seminary.
These glimpses into a world so different from her own gave her something
to think about all week, as she dragged wearily about, trying to help
her father in his awkward struggles with the cooking and cleaning. She
thought about them at night, too, when the pain in her back kept her
awake. Betty and Lloyd and Allison, Kitty and Elise and Katie Mallard,
were as real to her as they were to Maggie. They would have stared in
astonishment could they have known that every week a sixteen-year-old
girl, whom they had never seen, and of whom they had barely heard, was
waiting to ask a dozen eager questions about them.
Maggie ran in without knocking, bringing such a breath of fresh air and
fresh interest with her that Corono's face brightened instantly. She was
lying on the bed with a shawl thrown over her.
"I've been listening for you for more than an hour," said Corono,
propping herself up on her elbow. "I thought the time never would pass.
I counted the ticking of the clock, and then I tried to see how much of
Betty's play I could repeat. I've read it so many times this week that I
know it nearly all by heart."
She picked up the book which lay beside her on the bed. It was the
library copy of "The Rescue of the Princess Winsome," which Maggie had
brought to her the previous Friday. It had been in such constant demand
since the opening of school that she had been unable to obtain it
earlier.
Maggie, about to plunge into an account of her Hallowe'en experiences,
checked herself as Corono winced with pain and her face grew suddenly
white. "What's the matter?" she asked, sympathetically. "Do you feel
very bad?"
To her astonishment Corono buried her face in her pillow to hide the
tears that were trickling down her cheeks, and began to sob.
"I'll run get mammy," said the frightened child, who had never seen
Corono give way to her feelings in such fashion before.
"No, don't!" she sobbed. "I'll be all right--in a minute. I'm just
nervous--from the pain--I haven't slept much--lately!"
Maggie sat motionless, afraid to make any attempt at consolation, even
so much as patting her cheek with her plump little hand. Roney was the
one who had always comforted _her_. She did not know what to do, now
that their positions were suddenly reversed. She was relieved when Roney
presently wiped her eyes and said, with an attempt at cheerfulness,
"There! You never saw me make a baby of myself before! Did you! But I
couldn't help it. Sometimes when it gets this way I wish I could die.
But I've just _got_ to keep on living for daddy's sake. I don't suppose
any one ever told you, and you couldn't understand unless you knew.
"It's this way. My mother's family never wanted her to marry daddy, and
they disowned her when she did, because he wasn't educated and rich and
all that, as they were. They never spoke to her afterward, but when my
grandfather came to die, I reckon he was sorry for the way he'd done,
for he wanted to send for her. It was too late, though. She had died
that spring. Then he tried to make it up in a way, by being good to me,
and he left me an annuity. I can't explain to you just what that is, but
every year as long as I live his lawyer is to pay me some money. It
isn't much, but it is all that daddy and I have had to live on since he
hasn't been able to work. When I die the money will stop coming, so I
feel that I _must_ keep on living even when every breath is agony, as it
is sometimes. I don't think I can stand it much longer. There are days
when I just have to grit my teeth and say I _won't_ give up! I will hang
on for poor daddy's sake. Sometimes I believe that is all that keeps me
alive."
She stopped abruptly, seeing the tears of distress in Maggie's eyes, and
made an attempt to laugh.
"There!" she exclaimed. "Now that I've poured out all my troubles and
eased my mind, I feel better. Tell me about the girls. What have they
been doing this week?"
Much relieved, Maggie produced the photograph of herself, and began an
enthusiastic account of her Hallowe'en experiences. She began with the
visit to Clovercroft, and as she described the handsomely furnished
music-room, with its luxurious rugs and grand piano, and the priceless
pictures that had been brought from over the sea, its lace curtains and
white tiled hearth and andirons that shone like gold, it seemed to her
that the little cabin had never looked so bare. Its chinked walls and
puncheon floor stood out in pitiful contrast. The only picture in the
room was an unframed chromo tacked above the mantel.
As she described the masquerade frolic, she contrasted Roney's lonely
shut-in life with her own and the other girls' at the seminary. A
realization of its meagreness and emptiness stole over her till she
could hardly keep the tears back. A great longing sprang up in her warm
little heart to do something that would compensate as far as possible
for all that she had missed. Acting on that impulse, as she reached the
climax of her story and drew out the cherished photograph of the
Princess, she thrust it into Roney's hand, saying, hurriedly, "Here, you
can have it, Roney. I'd rather you would have it than me."
Corono held the picture eagerly, studying every detail of the beautiful
little medallion. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls, the white
dove nestled against her shoulder, as she had held it when she sang
"Flutter and fly, flutter and fly, bear him my heart of gold,"--all
seemed doubly attractive now with the play fresh in her mind. Besides,
it was the most beautiful picture she had ever seen in all the sixteen
years of her lonely, unsatisfied life.
The intuition that always helped her to understand her little friend
made her understand now in a way that the gift meant a sacrifice, and
she exclaimed, impulsively, "Oh, Maggie! I don't feel as if I ought to
take it from you. You keep it, and just lend it to me once in awhile."
"No, I want you to have it," said Maggie, drawing the old shawl up
around her. "Goodness me! It's getting dark. I'll have to run," and
before Corono could make another protest she rushed away.
As she ran along the path that crossed the pasture between the cabin and
the farmhouse, there was a tremulous smile on her face, but the faint
twilight also showed tears in her eyes. The smile was for the joy she
knew she had given Roney, but the tears were for herself. Nobody knew
how much of a sacrifice she had made in giving up the picture of the
Princess. Even Roney had not guessed how great it was. But she had no
regret next morning when she came back to the cabin. Roney greeted her
eagerly.
"Look!" she cried, pointing to the old wooden clock which stood on the
mantel. "I didn't have a frame to put the picture in, and I was afraid
it would get spoiled without glass over it. While I was looking around
the room wondering what to do, I happened to notice that it was the
same size as the pendulum. Daddy lifted it down for me, and I fastened
the picture on that. So there it is all safe and sound behind the glass
door, and I can see it from any part of the room.
"And, oh, Maggie, you don't know how it helped me last night. It made
the play seem so real to me. As I lay here watching the pendulum, it
stopped saying 'Tick tock, tick tock.' It seemed to me that the Princess
was looking straight at me, saying, instead, '_For love--will find--a
way!_' Then I knew that she meant me. That love would help me bear the
pain for daddy's sake; that my living along as bravely as I could was
like spinning the golden thread, and that I mustn't think about the
great skein that the weeks and months were piling up ahead for me to do;
I must just spin a minute at a time. I can stand the pain when I count
it with the pendulum. Even when the fire died down and I couldn't see
her any longer, I could hear her saying it over and over, 'For
love--will find--a way.' And I lay there in the dark and pretended that
I was a princess, too, spinning love's golden thread, and that my dove
was a little white prayer that I could send fluttering up to God, asking
him to help me find the way to be brave and patient, and to hang on to
life as long as I possibly can for daddy's sake."
Little did the Shadow Club dream that day how far their shadow-selves
were reaching. But Betty's song brought comfort and courage for many an
hour into Roney's lonely life, and the greatest solace in her keenest
suffering was the smiling face of the Princess, swaying back and forth
upon the pendulum.