INDEPENDENCE
"Golly day, but I'm tired!"
Martie Calkins threw herself on the cool sand of the beach and gave
vent to a long breath. Sidney, standing over her, wished she could do
likewise with the same picturesque abandon. Mart was so splendidly "I
don't care a hang"; her tumbled hair now was thick with sand, across
her tanned face was a smear of black, her shabby blouse was torn and
open at the throat exposing her chest to the hot sun, her bare,
hard-muscled legs were outstretched, the heels digging into the sand
and the grimy toes separating and curling like the tentacles of a crab.
"Oh, this is the life," she sang. "Sit down and make yourself at home.
This beach's yours as much as mine I guess."
Sidney sat down quickly lest her companion guess how she was tied
inside with the innumerable bonds and knots of conventions, century
old, which Martie had somehow escaped. Of course Sidney herself did not
think it that way; she only knew that she felt ridiculously awkward
with Martie Calkins in spite of her growing determination to be just
like her.
They had been friends now for two whole weeks, the shortest two weeks
Sidney had ever known simply because into them they had crowded so
much. She had met Mart the day after her coming to Sunset Lane. Mart
had appeared at Aunt Achsa's with some baking soda her grandmother had
borrowed two months before. Aunt Achsa had said: "I cal'late you two
girls better make friends." That was so obviously sensible that Sidney
quickly put from her the impression that Mart was the "queerest" girl
she had ever met. She had _seen_ queerer but had never _talked_ to
them. But Mart was young and frankly friendly and lived next door and,
anyway, everything was so very different here that it was ridiculous to
expect to meet a girl like Nancy or the others at school or perfect
like Pola.
Before Mart's experience, her knowledge of the sea and boats, her
background of seafaring ancestors, her easy assurance, Sidney's
pleasant sense of superiority soon went crash. Too, Mart revealed a
quality of strongheartedness and a contentment with everything as it
came along that amazed Sidney at the same time that it put her own
restlessness to shame. Why, Mart, in all her life, had never been
farther than Falmouth and had gone there to a funeral, but she had none
of Sidney's yearnings to "see places." Pressed by Sidney's inquiries
she had answered, with a deceiving indifference: "Oh, what's the use of
wanting to go anywhere, it's nice enough here." Nor did Mart's
multitudinous tasks embarrass her; she would keep Sidney waiting while
she finished scrubbing the kitchen floor. And she had a way of swishing
her brush that made even this homely labor seem like play until Sidney,
watching from the safety of a chair, her feet securely tucked between
its rungs, longed to roll up her own sleeves and thrust her arms into
the sudsy water. Martie had to work much harder than any girl Sidney
had ever known or heard about; she did a man's work and a woman's work
about her home and did not even think it was out of kindly proportion
to her years. "Oh, there's just gran'ma and me and she has rheumatiz
awful," she had explained just once to Sidney. That was why, of course,
Martie looked so unkempt and overgrown and had had so little schooling,
but Sidney came to think these shortcomings and their cause made Martie
the more interesting.
Though after a week Sidney could toss her head like Mart, run as fast,
go barefooted, sprinkle her chatter with a colloquial slang that would
have horrified the League, affect ignorance to anything schooly, she
found that it was not easy to emulate Mart's fine independence. There
was always that feeling of being tied to the things ingrained within
her.
Mart's ease with everyone, young or old, gave her, in Sidney's eyes,
the desirable quality of grown-upness. Mart talked to the fishermen and
the women who were her grandmother's friends and the artists and the
tradespeople exactly as though she were their equal in point of years;
Sidney, marvelling and admiring, did not know that this assurance was
really a boldness that had grown naturally out of there just being
"gran'ma and me." Martie had had to hold her own since she was six
years old.
Though from the first day of her coming Sidney, moved by a sense of the
courtesy to be expected from a guest, had insisted that they include
Lavender in all their plans, at the same time she had wished that he
would refuse for she could not conquer a shyness with him. He was a boy
and she had never known any boys very well, and he was a "different"
boy. But Mart did not mind him at all; she played tolerantly with him,
quarreled cheerfully and bitterly with him, laughed with him and at him
exactly as though he were a girl like herself or she the boy that she
should have been, gran'ma considered.
On this day Mr. Dugald had taken Lavender to the backside. He had not
invited the girls to join them which had roused Sidney's curiosity. She
had watched them depart, loaded down with books and stools and an easel
and a box of lunch and had wondered what they were going to do all day,
alone, in the dunes. She was soon to know that those hours were sacred
to Lavender, that in the great silences of the sandy stretches he and
his Mr. Dugald with their books went far from the Cape and Sunset Lane
and the crooked body.
The girls, left to themselves, had decided to go clamming. Of all the
novel things she had done in the last two weeks Sidney liked clamming
best. It was even more fun than the _Arabella_ for after all the
_Arabella_ was only pretend. She liked to feel her bare toes suck up
the goosy sand as she stepped over the wet beds. She could never dig as
fast as Mart or Lavender because she had to stop and watch the sky and
the clouds and the moving sails and the swooping seagulls. "You'd never
make a living digging clams," Martie had scolded. (Mart herself could
dig faster than old Jake Newberry who had peddled clams through the
town for fifty years. Mart had sometimes sold hers at the hotels.)
"There's so much to _look_ at!" Sidney had answered, drawing in a long
happy breath.
"_Look_ at! What? All I can see is sky and water and a lot of that and
that ain't nothing new."
"But it is always different! The sky gets bluer and the clouds pinker
and the water dances just as though there were sprites hiding in each
wave."
"Gee, anyone 'ud think you were a poet!" Mart had laughed and at that
Sidney had fallen hastily to digging.
Now, as they lay on the beach, hot and happy, their basket of clams
between them, Sidney's thoughts went back to Lavender's and Mr.
Dugald's mysterious departure.
"We've had just as much fun," she declared, aloud.
"What d'you mean? Oh--Lav. Pooh, yes. Who'd want t'go off in the sand
and sit in the hot sun all day? _I_ wouldn't."
"Aunt Achsa packed them an awfully good lunch," Sidney reflected.
"Sure she did. She spoils Lav like anything. Gran'ma says it's a shame.
And what _she_ doesn't spoil that boarder does."
For an instant Sidney flared with resentment at her companion's tone.
However she realized that she was at a disadvantage in that she had
only known these people for only two weeks and Mart for her whole
lifetime.
"What do you s'pose they do over there?"
Mart shrugged her shoulders. "I used to be curious but I'm not any
more. They go off somewhere like that together all the time, packed up
'sif they were headin' for a whole winter's cruise. I guess I know.
Like as not the boarder's paintin' Lav's picture and Lav don't want him
to do it where people'll see on account of his being crooked." Mart,
satisfied with her explanation, stretched herself luxuriously, her arms
upflung.
Sidney shuddered. "Oh, why should he want to paint Lavender's picture?
I think he's cruel!" Then she remembered Dugald Allan's allusion to the
flower on the crooked stem. "Maybe he's painting Lav's spirit."
At this Mart raised herself on her elbow, stared at Sidney, and burst
into a loud laugh. "Oh, that's the _best_! Lav's spirit! Oh, _my_!
You're the funniest kid. Say, don't get sore but I just have to howl,
you're so rich." She threw herself back in the sand and rolled from one
side to the other.
Sidney sat very still biting the lips that had betrayed her. She'd
remember after this; she'd never make another slip that would provoke
Mart to such amusement. Mart began looking hard at her again and she
squirmed uneasily under the scrutiny. But Mart only asked:
"Say, ain't your hair awful hot?"
Relieved, Sidney answered promptly, "Yes. I hate it." She gave a fling
to the heavy braids.
"Why do you have it then? I'd cut it off. I cut mine. I wouldn't be
bothered with a lot of hair. I s'pose your folks would make an awful
fuss if you did, though."
Sidney twisted her bare toes in the sand and frowned down at them. Yet
it was not at their whiteness she frowned but at a sudden recollection
of Mrs. Milliken's: "Always wear your hair like that, my lamb, it is so
beautifully quaint."
"I don't know that they'd mind. It's my own hair. I've thought of
having it cut often."
Mart sat upright. "Say, I'll do it for you--if you want me to. We can
go straight home now. We'll divide our clams when we get to our house.
That is if you're not afraid."
"Afraid--of just cutting my hair? I may look a sight but who cares?
I'll do it. Come on!" Sidney sprang to her feet, a challenge in her
voice that Mart, of course, could not understand.
Mart rose more leisurely and took the dripping basket of clams and
seaweed. They were not far from Sunset Lane. It took them but a few
moments to reach the Calkins' house--not long enough for Sidney's
courage to falter.
"Gran'ma isn't home, but anyway she wouldn't say anything. She lets me
do just as I please. She never said a word when I cut my own hair. Sit
down here and I'll find the shears in a jiffy."
Sidney sat down in a rush-bottomed chair, thrilling pleasantly. This
was a high moment in her life--the clipping of the two despised braids;
a declaration of independence, a symbol of a freedom as great as
Mart's. And certainly Mart must be impressed by the way she had
responded to the suggestion. "Afraid!" Well, Mart might laugh at things
she said but she would see that she was quite her own mistress.
Mart returned with a pair of huge shears.
"Of course I can't do it as good as a regular barber but it'll be good
enough for the first time and around here, anyway. Sure you don't mind?
Your hair _is_ dandy!" While she was speaking she was unbraiding one
pigtail. She shook it out. "It's awful thick and wavy. Mebbe you could
sell it. I've heard of girls doing that but I don't know's there's any
place around here. Sit still, now, so I can get it straight."
Click. Sidney shut her eyes and sat rigid with a fearful certainty that
she must suffer physical pain from the operation. Click. The touch of
the steel against her neck sent icy shivers down her spine.
"There, now--it's off," cried Mart, taking a step backward. "It's sort
of crooked but that won't show when it's all loose. Go in gran'ma's
room and take a look at yourself."
Sidney turned and stared stupidly at the mass of hair in Martie's hand.
It _was_ beautiful hair. For an instant she wanted to cry out in a
violent protest; she checked it as it rose to her lips. Mart's eyes
were on her. She managed instead a little laugh. "It feels so _funny_."
"Oh, you'll get used to that. You'll like it. Take a look now and say
I'm some barber."
Gran'ma Calkins' old mirror, hung where the light shone strong upon it,
reflected back to Sidney a strange and pleasing image.
"Why _I like it_!" she cried, running her fingers through the mass.
"It's--it's--so _different_. It's jolly."
"You won't have to bother combing it much, either. I don't touch mine
sometimes for days."
Sidney, still staring at the stranger in the old mirror, laughed
softly. "Wait until Nancy sees it. Nancy hair is straight as can be or
I'll bet she'd cut hers. And Issy. Issy will have a fit when she knows.
And Mrs. Milliken!" Here she broke off abruptly, not even in her
triumph must she give hint to Mart of the League and its hold upon the
house of Romley. "Oh, I like it!" she repeated exultingly. "And it
won't be half the bother." She felt now that she was Mart's peer in
point of abandon.
"You don't think your Aunt Achsa will make a fuss, do you?" asked
Martie, with tardy concern.
"Aunt Achsa? Oh, no! At least--" It had not occurred to Sidney that
Aunt Achsa had anything to say about it. "She lets me do anything."
Which was quite true. But something of Sidney's exultance faded; she
was beginning to wish that she had just said _some_thing to Aunt Achsa
about it before she let Mart clip her braids--not exactly asked
permission but confided her intentions. That Mart might not perceive
her moment's perturbation she turned her attention to the clams.
"I ought not to have half for I didn't find nearly as many as you did."
"Oh, rats. Take 'em. All you want." To Mart, who could dig clams faster
than old Jake Newberry, an accurate division of their spoils meant
nothing. To Sidney who dug awkwardly each clam was a treasure.
Her step lagged as she approached Aunt Achsa's. She hoped Aunt Achsa
would not be home. Then she wondered why she could not be as
confidently defiant as Martie; she supposed it was the restraint of the
League and the three sisters under whom she had had to live and Martie
had not. But it was absurd to feel even apprehensive of Aunt Achsa's
displeasure when Aunt Achsa was such a little thing and so indefinite a
relative.
Aunt Achsa was in the kitchen trimming the edge of a pie. She was
holding it high on the tips of her fingers and skilfully cutting the
crust with a small knife when under it she spied Sidney's shorn head.
She promptly dropped the pie upon the table upside down. A trickle of
red cherry juice ran out over the spotless table.
"Why, I _swum_! Sidney Romley! Wh--what have you gone and done? What's
ever happened to you?"
"My hair was so hot and _such_ a bother. I can swim now and won't have
to sit around for an hour drying it. I _hated_ my braids--" All good
arguments which rang true but did not seem to convince Aunt Achsa who
continued to stare at Sidney with troubled eyes.
"It's _my_ hair, Aunt Achsa. If I look a sight it's my own fault."
"That ain't it, child. Only--it's so sudden. Your--_doing_ it--without
a word or--or anything. What'll your folks say? I--I--kind a wish you'd
just _told_ me, you see."
Sidney laughed with a lightness she did not feel. Aunt Achsa eyes were
so reproachful, even hurt. "Why, I did not have time to tell you. I
didn't think of it myself until a few moments ago. And Mart offered to
do it for me. It's such a little thing to make any fuss about."
The cherry juice went on dripping until a big round stain disfigured
the tablecloth and still Aunt Achsa stared at Sidney with troubled eyes.
"It's a little thing, of course. But I was thinkin'--Sidney, promise
your Aunt Achsy you won't go off and do anything _else_ high-handed
like without tellin' me. I don't want to be worryin' or suspicionin'
what you're up to or havin' your sisters blame me for something that
ain't just right to their thinkin'. Mebbe we don't do things same as
you do but we know what's right and what's wrong same as anyone." Which
was a long and stern speech for Aunt Achsa. She gave a frightened gasp
at the end and turned the poor pie right side up.
A dark flush had swept Sidney's face. There was no such thing as
freedom _any_where--there must always be someone in authority somewhere
to warn and rebuke, even this absurd little old woman, who seemed so
remotely related. She wished she could think of something very
withering and at the same time dignified to retort.
"I think I am perfectly capable of knowing what is right and what is
wrong and my sisters have _perfect_ confidence in me," she said slowly
and with deep inward satisfaction. Then she added scornfully: "Of
course it _is_ very different here and if I don't seem to get used to
it you can't blame me!" With which she stalked through the parlor to
her room and slammed the door.
Aunt Achsa pattered after her.
"Child! Child!" she called through the door. "Here's a letter for you.
I was that taken back when I saw you I forgot to give it you." She
slipped the letter through the inch of opening that Sidney, now
tearful, vouchsafed her.
The letter was from Trude. To poor Sidney this was the crowning
humiliation; it was exactly as though Trude could look out from the
pages and see the mutilated locks. Trude had always loved her hair and
had often brushed it for her for the simple delight of fingering its
wavy strands. More than once Trude had said: "You're lucky to have this
hair, kid. Look at mine." Now she would gasp in horror as Aunt Achsa
had done. "You should not have done it, Sidney--at least without
consulting one of us." It was not the deed itself even Trude would
censure--it was her independence. Oh, how terribly difficult it was to
be like Mart!
Trude had written to her almost daily, sketchy letters full of the news
of what she was doing at the Whites. Sidney could not know that Trude
purposely made them lively and wrote them often because she believed
Sidney was homesick. In this letter her concern had reached the height
of sacrifice.
"If you're ready to go home, have had enough of Cape Cod, just say the
word, little sister, and I'll join you at Middletown. Perhaps you have
been with Cousin Achsa long enough--you do not want to impose upon her
hospitality. She may have other friends she wants to invite to her
house. But you must decide at once for Mrs. White is making plans for
the next few weeks and will want to know if I am going to be here. She
is perfectly wonderful to me and I think she likes to have me here and
that I help her a little, but if you want me to join you at home she
will understand.
"Why in the world haven't you written to me? I shall scold you soundly
for that when we are together. Be a good girl and remember how much we
all love you. I shall expect a letter within three days at most telling
me what you want to do."
Sidney gasped. Her barbered hair, Aunt Achsa, were forgotten for the
moment. Go home--leave all her fun and Sunset Lane and Mart--and
Lavender? Her consternation gave no room for the thought that two weeks
had indeed worked a strange conversion. Why, she would sit right down
and write to Trude that she did not _want_ to go home. That was silly!
Then she thought of the hurt on Aunt Achsa's face only a few moments
before when she had flung her angry retort at her. And Aunt Achsa had
been so good to her! Why, that cherry pie that had come to such a
disastrous end Aunt Achsa was baking just because she had said she
adored cherry pies. That was Aunt Achsa's way of showing affection.
That Aunt Achsa had trusted her--she had given her complete freedom in
the two last whirlwind weeks because she had _trusted_ her. And how
ungrateful, now, Aunt Achsa must think her. Well, she had punished her
own self for now, of course, Aunt Achsa would _want_ her to go.