II

Stephen's letter that awaited her when she came home from school the

next afternoon was a one-page scrawl. 'My head is ringing so with the

quinine I've taken that I can't write to-night. By to-morrow I shall

probably be rid of this beastly cold. I want to tell you about a book

I've just read. It's great stuff.' He added a postscript: 'Don't ask me,

dear, if I wore my rubbers day before yesterday. You know I didn't.'

In Eunice's eyes was a smile of amused tenderness as she put the letter

back in its envelope. If the cold were 'beastly,' perhaps he might

remember next time. She was afraid though that only married men wore

rubbers.

No letter came the next day, or the next.

'If I don't hear to-morrow, I'll telegraph.'

'He's probably busy,' said her mother.

'I'm afraid he's sick.'

Eunice waited for the postman on Saturday morning, but he brought her

no letter. She put on her hat and coat.

'I'll be back in a half hour, mother.'

As she went down the steps a boy riding a bicycle stopped at the curb.

He handed her a telegram. It was from Stephen's landlady. Stephen had

died that morning at two o'clock--of pneumonia.

Eunice was conscious of being very collected and calm as she went back

into the house; quite wonderfully calm. Her mother was in the kitchen.

Eunice went to her and told her--very gently. She had the feeling that

it was her mother's sorrow. Her mother's dry, hard sobs and bowed figure

brought the tears to her eyes. She laid her hand on the thin convulsed

shoulders. 'Mother, don't--don't, dear, it's all right, you know.' She

stood by her chair until the sobs ceased.

'I'm going around to--to Stephen's, mother. I'll not be gone long.'

Mrs. Day followed her to the steps; her face was pitifully pinched,

almost old. At the gate Eunice turned and saw her.

'Poor mother!' She wanted to go back and kiss her but she dared not.

Stephen's home was on the other side of the town. It was a small frame

house painted light gray, with a gable back and front, and a narrow

porch running across it. This morning the shades in the parlor were

drawn down.

Eunice had to wait some moments before the door was opened by Stephen's

young sister--a slip of a thing but a capable housekeeper. Her eyes were

swollen with crying. 'She's so little,' thought Eunice, and took her in

her arms.

When the girl was able to speak, she told Eunice that her father had

gone to New York, and that he would bring Stephen home. Eunice stayed an

hour, comforting, talking, planning. Then she left her.

'I'm so quiet. I didn't know it could be like this.'

The March wind blew the dust into her face. The grit irritated her. She

wished there were snow on the ground and then wondered that she should

care. That was how it was the next two days: she went on thinking and

acting, with every now and then this strange awareness of being alive.

But on Monday afternoon when they came home from the cemetery, Eunice

went upstairs to her room.

'I'm going to lie down a while, mother.'

Her mother made no answer as she turned into the kitchen.

Eunice lay down on the bed. A pale yellow sunset gleamed through the

branches of the tree outside her window. She had seen the yellow streak

in the sky as they had left the cemetery. She closed her eyes to shut it

out. Her heart was no longer numb. It was waking to its misery. She lay

very still with clenched hands. She had learned to bear physical pain

that way. She thought perhaps she could bear this if she lay very still.

'I want to tell you about a book I've just read. It's great stuff.'

'O Stephen, Stephen, laddie!'

The tears came, and great sobs that shook and twisted her rigid body.

Once she thought her mother came up the stairs and stopped outside her

door. She buried her face in the pillow. Her mother must not hear. By

and by,--she had been quiet for an hour,--her mother came in with a

tray.

'I've made you some toast and tea, Eunice. You must keep up your

strength.'

Her tone was flat and emotionless. She set the tray down by her in the

darkness. Then she lighted the gas.

Eunice swallowed the tea obediently, she was so very tired. As she put

the cup down her eyes fell on the cretonne-covered box in the window.

'Mother, my Glory-Box! Don't let me see it! Oh, don't let me see my

Glory-Box!'

Mrs. Day came up to the bed. 'I'll take it out to-morrow while you are at

school. I meant to do that.' Her face worked as she left the room.

When the door closed, Eunice sat up and pushed her tumbled hair back

from her face. She wanted to look at the Glory-Box. To-morrow her mother

was going to take it away. She clasped her hands tightly about her

drawn-up knees and stared at the box with hot, miserable eyes. Of course

it would have to be taken away, but she wanted to look at it now because

it was her Glory-Box and because it was Stephen's. Stephen had made it.

'That's a decent job for just a lawyer,' he had said, when the last nail

was driven in and they were taking a critical survey of it.

Stephen had laughed when she regretted that the roses in the cretonne

were yellow, because the things to go into the box very likely would be

pink. He had laughed and kissed her and told her she had better get a

pair of pink specs, then the roses would be pink enough.

And Stephen had taken such an interest in what she had written about the

things she was embroidering for household use. When she had reported a

whole dozen napkins hemmed and initialed, he had thought it would be

jolly to have nice linen. They would probably be short on silver at

first, but good linen made you feel respectable. He remembered his

mother taking so much pride in what had been left of hers. For a moment

the words of that letter were so vividly recalled that she forgot that

Stephen was dead. For quite a moment she was happy. Then she

remembered, but the realization brought no tears, only a swelling wave

of misery.

'I can't bear it, oh, I can't!'

But even as she moaned she knew that she would bear it, that she would

go on living for years and years and years. Other girls she had known or

heard about--in her own town--had gone on living: little Sadie Smith

whose lover had been killed three days before her wedding, and even

Milly Petersen, who had been engaged for five years when the man asked

to be released because he wanted to marry the girl who had recently

moved to Milly's street. These girls had lived; they had grown pale and

faded, or hard. People felt very sorry for them: they were spoken of as

'poor Milly,' or 'Sadie Smith, poor child'; but they had lived. Eunice

saw herself moving among her little circle, brave and sad-eyed like

these girls.

Suddenly--she never remembered just how it came about--suddenly her

humor flashed a white light over the vision. This sad-eyed Self seemed

something not to pity but to scorn. It was grotesque standing in your

friend's parlor with clenched hands, as it were, and compressed lips,

saying, 'Don't mind me, please. I'm bearing it.' If one were going to

live one must live happily. Stephen was such a happy person. He was

happy when he was working or playing or just loving. Even hurdy-gurdys

made him happy.

'When I hear one grinding away in the morning,' he had written, 'I have

to kick a few Law Journals about just to keep in tune with the darn

thing.'

It had been a delightful surprise to her, his overflowing happiness, for

Stephen's face in repose was very grave. She herself only occasionally

had his joy in mere living, but she had always thought that Stephen's

joyfulness would prove infectious. Suppose, now, without Stephen she

should make the experiment of being happy. It would be a wonderful

experiment to see,--she spoke the words aloud, deliberately,--to see if

she could kill this terrible thing, Sorrow, and keep Stephen to love and

to remember.

Eunice was still staring at the Glory-Box, but it was more than her

Glory-Box. It was part of the problem that she was trying to think out

clearly. For perhaps sorrow was a problem that you could work out like

other problems, if only you could see it, not as one solid, opaque mass,

but as something made up of pieces that you could deal with one at a

time. The Glory-Box was a piece. She had wanted it taken away because it

was a thing so filled with pain that she could not bear to have it

about. If--Eunice got up in her excitement and walked up and down the

room--if the Glory-Box could become a box again, just a box covered with

cretonne, and the things in it become things, then a great piece of

misery would disappear. Love, a girl's love, was like--she groped a

moment for words--like a vine that puts forth little shoots and

tendrils; love even went into things. When Death trampled on the vine,

the shoots and tendrils were crushed with it. But if you cut them off,

these poor bruised pieces of the vine, the vine itself would perhaps

have a chance to become strong and beautiful.

Eunice played with the idea, her cheeks flushed, her eyes very bright.

She felt as she did sometimes when talking on paper with Stephen.

She went over to the Glory-Box and raised the cover. On top lay the

matinee that Mabel had brought on that day not quite a week ago. She

unfolded it and touched it. 'This isn't--Stephen,' she said aloud, quite

firmly. 'It's cotton voile and val lace. It's cotton voile.'

She took out garment after garment. When she came to the pink kimono her

eyes blinded with tears. 'It's a lovely shade. Pink is pretty with dark

hair.' Her quivering lips could scarcely frame the words. 'It's not

Stephen. It's--it's just a kimono.'

She put the things back and closed the box. 'I'll look at the rest in a

day or two. I'll keep looking at them. Probably I shall never be able to

use them, but I'll keep looking until I get accustomed to seeing them.

Mother will get used to seeing the box here. If she put it in the

storeroom she would always dread going in.'

Mrs. Day was getting breakfast the next morning when Eunice came down.

She went on mechanically with her preparation, avoiding looking at her.

At the table she glanced up. Eunice's face was white and haggard, but

her eyes, strangely big, were shining. Eunice's mother watched her

furtively throughout the meal. As they left the table Eunice put her

arms about her.

'Don't take the box out, mother. It's better to get used to it. I'm

trying to get used to things. Don't you worry about me. You'll see.'

She kissed her and hurried to school. In her exalted mood the

sympathetic attentions of the other teachers seemed almost surprising.

They were dear and kind, but why should they be so kind? She was going

to be happy. At the end of the day, however, Eunice let herself softly

into the house, too wretched to want to meet her mother. She carried to

her room the letters of condolence that were on the dining-room table.

She read them impassively, even the kindly one from Miss Lansing,

wondering why they did not touch her. 'It's because I'm tired,' she

concluded, and knelt down by the Glory-Box, bowing her head on her

outstretched arms.

'Stephen, dear,' she prayed, 'I can't look at the things to-night. I'm

too tired.'

But the next day she took them all out. And on a Saturday afternoon

three weeks later she startled her mother by coming into her room

dressed in the suit and hat that were her 'best.' Her mother laid down

the skirt on which she was putting a new braid.

'Why, where are you going, Eunice?'

'I thought I'd call on Mabel. I've never been to see her since she

started housekeeping. I promised to, long ago.'

Mrs. Day looked at her keenly, her mouth tightening. 'You're foolish to

go and see all her wedding presents about the house. You won't be able

to stand it.'

'I shall, mother. That's why I'm going to stand it. I shan't mind

calling there after I've been this once. I've thought it out.'

'You're a queer girl, Eunice. I don't understand you. But I suppose you

know your--your own business best,' she ended, taking up her work again.

Eunice felt quite sure that she did, and yet there were days when the

experiment seemed a failure, or at least only just begun: days when she

would read in a paper of brilliant social events in New York, in

Stephen's New York. Stephen might have been there at that dinner, his

eyes, which looked so gravely from his picture, lighted with the

joyfulness of the occasion, his splendid head towering above the other

men as he joined in the toasts--Stephen had told her they always made

toasts at these dinners; she could hear his laugh, his hearty boyish

laugh. And those other days in early spring, when a hurdy-gurdy would

play 'Turkey in the Straw,' and she could see Stephen pitching his Law

Journals about, exulting in the glorious fact that he was alive. Oh, how

she longed for him, wanted him these days--with a passionate yearning

that for moments maddened her. But as the months went by the times of

overwhelming wanting came less and less frequently. 'I shall soon be

happy,' Eunice told herself. And on a morning of June loveliness, a

morning of very blue sky, white clouds, and butter-cups, Eunice knew

that she was happy.

'I'm glad to-day, Stephen, I'm glad, just because it's all so

beautiful.'

She wondered now and again why, since she herself was so surely leaving

the sorrow behind her, her mother should still droop under its weight.

They seldom talked about Stephen. They had agreed at the beginning not

to do that often, but there was bitterness in her mother's face and

bitterness on occasion in her words. 'I've got used to seeing your box

around, but don't ever ask me to look inside.' It occurred to Eunice

that perhaps it was because to her mother had come only the grief. She

was not having Stephen to love.