QUIESCENT
Long but not dreary weeks followed one after the other. In the little
'dobe cottage, situated far up the hill on the mesa, Carol and David
lived a life of passionless routine. Carol was busy, hence she had the
easier part. David's breakfast on a tray at seven, nourishment at
nine, luncheon at twelve, nourishment at three, dinner at six,
nourishment at nine,--with medicines to be administered, temperatures
to be taken, alcohol rubs to be given at frequent intervals,--this was
Carol's day. And at odd hours the house must be kept clean and
sanitary, dishes washed, letters written. And whenever the moment
came, David was waiting for her to come and read aloud to him.
When a man of action, of energy, of boundless enthusiasm is tossed
aside, strapped with iron bands to a little white cot on a screened
porch with a view of a sunburned mesa reaching off to the mountains,
unless he is of the biggest, and finest, his personality can not
survive. David's did. Months of helplessness lay behind him, a life
of inaction lay before him. He could walk a half block or so, he could
go driving with kind neighbors who invited him, but every avenue of
service was closed, every form of expression denied him. He had hoped
to live a full, good, glowing life. And there he lay.
It is not work which tells the caliber of man, but idleness.
Month followed month, now there were bitter winds and blinding snows,
now the hot sun scorched the yellow sand of the mesa, now the mountains
were high white clouds of snow, now the fields of green alfalfa showed
on a few distant foothills, and the canyons were green with pines.
Otherwise there was no change.
But the summers in New Mexico were crushingly, killingly hot, and so
the sturdy-hearted health chasers left the 'dobe cottage, packed their
few possessions and moved up into Colorado. And while David waited
patiently in the hotel, Carol set forth alone and found a small cottage
with sleeping porch, cleanly and nicely furnished, rent reasonable, no
objections to health seekers. And she and David moved into their new
home.
And the old life of Albuquerque began again, meals, nourishments and
medicines alternating through the days.
In the summer of the third year, Carol wrote to Connie:
"Haven't you been saving up long enough? We do so want to see you, and
Colorado is beautiful. We haven't the long mesa stretching up to the
sunny slopes as it was in New Mexico, but from our tiny cottage we can
look right over the city to the mountains on the other side, and the
sunny slopes are there. So please count your pennies. They give
summer rates you know."
Connie went down to Mount Mark the night she received that letter,
spending half the night in the train, and talked it over with the
family. Without a dissenting voice, they said she ought to go. Ten
days later, Carol and David were exulting over Connie's letter.
"Yes, thank you, I am coming. In fact, I was only waiting for the word
from you. So I shall start on Monday next, C., B. & Q., reaching
Denver Tuesday afternoon at 2:30. Be sure and meet me.
"I nearly lost my job, too. I went to Mr. Carver and said I wanted a
vacation. He said 'All right, when and how long?' I said, 'Beginning
next Monday.' He nodded. 'To continue six weeks.' He nearly died.
He asked what kind of an institution for the feeble-minded I thought
this was. I said I hadn't solved it yet. He reminded me that I have
already had one week's vacation, and three days on two different
occasions. He said he hired people to work, not to visit their
relatives at his expense. He said I had one week of vacation coming.
And I interrupted to say I didn't expect any salary during that time, I
just wanted him to hold my position for me. He said he was astonished
I didn't ask him to discontinue publication during my absence. Finally
he said I might have one week on full pay, and one week without pay,
and that was enough for a senator.
"So I went to my machine and wrote out a very literary resignation
which I handed to him. I know the business now, and I have met a lot
of publishers, so I was safe in resigning. I knew I could get another
position in three days. He tore the resignation up, and said he wished
I could outgrow my childishness.
"Before luncheon, he said he had a good idea. We were away behind in
clippings for filling and he suggested that I take a big bundle of
exchanges with me, and clip while I vacated. Also I could doubtless
find the time to write a thousand or so words a week and send it in,
and then I might go on full pay for six weeks. Figuratively I fell
upon his neck and kissed him,--purely figuratively, for his wife has a
most annoying way of dropping in at unexpected hours,--and I am getting
the most charming new clothes made up, so David will think I am
prettier than you. Now don't withdraw the invitation, for I shall come
anyhow."
Carol considered herself well schooled in the art of emotional
restraint, but when she finished reading those blessed words--which to
her ears, so hungry for the voices of home, sounded like an extract
from the beatitudes--she put her head on the back of David's hand and
gulped audibly. And she admitted that she must certainly have cried,
save for the restraining influence of the knowledge that crying made
her nose red.
In the meantime, back in Iowa, the Starrs in their separate households,
were running riot. Never was there to be such a wonderful visit for
anybody in the world. Jerry and Prudence bundled up their family, and
got into a Harmer Six and drove down to Mount Mark, where they
ensconced themselves in the family home and announced their intention
of staying until Connie had gone. As soon as Fairy heard that, she
hastened home too, full of the glad tiding that she had found a boy she
wanted to adopt at last. Lark and Jim neglected the farm shamefully,
and all the women of the neighborhood were busy making endless little
odds and ends of dainty clothing for Carol, who had lived ready-made
during the three years of their domicile in the shadowland of sunshine.
A hurried letter was despatched to David's doctor, asking endless
questions, pledging him to secrecy, and urging him to wire an answer C.
O. D. Little Julia was instructed as to her mother's charms and her
father's virtues far beyond the point of her comprehension. And Jerry
spent long hours with Connie in the car, explaining its mechanism, and
making her a really proficient driver, although she had been very
skilful behind the wheel before. Also, he wrote long letters to his
dealer in Denver, giving him such a host of minute instructions that
the bewildered agent thought the "old gent in Des Moines had gone daft."
Carol wrote every day, pitifully, jubilantly, begging Connie to hurry
and get started, admonishing her to take a complete line of snapshots
of every separate Starr, to count each additional gray hair in darling
father's head, and to locate every separate dimple in Julia's fat
little body. And every letter was answered by every one of the family,
who interrupted themselves to urge everybody else not to give anything
away, and to be careful what they said. And they all cried over Julia,
and over Carol's letters, and even cried over the beautiful assortment
of clothes they had accumulated for Carol, using Lark as a sewing model.
Twenty minutes after the train left Mount Mark, came a telegram from
Carol: "Did she get off all right? Did anything happen? Wire
immediately." And the whole family rushed off to separate rooms to
weep all over again.
But Aunt Grace walked slowly about the house, gathering up blocks, and
headless dolls, and tailless dogs, and laying them carefully away in a
drawer until little Julia should return to visit the family in Mount
Mark.
For the doctor had said it was all right to restore the baby to her
heart-hungering parents in the mountain land. Carol was fairly strong,
David was fairly well. The baby being healthy, and the parents being
sanitary, the danger to its tiny lungs was minimized,--and by all means
send them the baby.
So Julia was arrayed in matchless garments destined to charm the eyes
of the parents, who, in their happiness, would never realize it had any
clothes on at all, and Connie set out upon her journey with the little
girl in her charge.
On Tuesday morning, Carol was a mental wreck. She forgot to salt
David's eggs, and gave him codeine for his cough instead of tonic
tablets for his appetite. She put no soda in the hot cakes, and made
his egg-nog of buttermilk. She laughed out loud when David was asking
the blessing, and when he wondered how tall Julia was she burst out
crying, and then broke two glasses in her energetic haste to cover up
the emotional outbreak. Altogether it was a most trying morning. She
was ready to meet the train exactly two hours and a half before it was
due, and she combed David's hair three times, and whenever she couldn't
sit still another minute she got up and dusted the railing around the
porch, brushed off his lounging jacket, and rearranged the roses in the
vase on his table.
"David, I honestly believe I was homesick. I didn't know it before. I
got along all right before I knew she was coming, but now I want to
jump up and down and shout. Why on earth didn't she take an earlier
train and save me this agony?"
At last, in self-defense, David insisted that she should start, and,
too impatient to wait for cars and to endure their stopping at every
corner, she walked the two miles to the station, arriving breathless,
perspiring and flushed. Even then she was thirty minutes ahead of
time, but finally the announcer called the train, and Carol stationed
herself at the exit close to the gate to watch the long line of
travelers coming up from the subway. No one noticed the slender woman
standing so motionless in the front of the waiting line, but the angels
in Heaven must have marked the tumult throbbing in her heart, and the
happiness stinging in her bright eyes.
Then--she leaned forward. That was Connie of course,--she caught her
breath, and tears started to her eyes. Yes, that was Connie, that tall
slim girl with the shining face,--and oh, kind and merciful Providence,
that must be her own little Julia trudging along beside her, the fat
white face turning eagerly from side to side, confident she was going
to know that mother on sight, just because they had told her a mother
was what most belonged to her.
Carol twisted her hands together, wringing her gloves into a shred.
She moistened her dry lips, and blinked desperately to crowd away those
tears. Yes, it was Connie, the little baby sister she used to tease so
mercilessly, and Julia, the little rosebud baby she had wanted so many
nights. She could not bear to let those ugly tears dim her sight for
one minute, she dare not miss one second of that feast to her hungering
eyes.
The two sisters who had not seen each other for nearly four years,
looked into each other's faces, Carol's so pleadingly hungry for the
vision of one of her own, Connie's so strongly sweet and reassuring.
Instinctively the others drew away, and the little group, the
red-capped attendant trailing in the rear, stood alone.
"Julia, this is your mama," said Connie, and the wide blue eyes were
lifted wonderingly into those other wide blue eyes so like them,--the
mother eyes that little Julia had never known. Carol, with an
inarticulate sob dropped on her knees and gathered her baby into her
arms.
[Illustration: Carol, with an inarticulate sob, gathered her baby in
her arms.]
Julia, who had been told it was to be a time of laughter, or rejoicing,
of utter gaiety, marveled at the pain in the face of this mother and
patted away the tears with chubby hands, laughing with excitement. By
the time Carol could be drawn from her wild caressing of the rosebud
baby, she was practically helpless. It was Connie who marshaled them
outside, tipped the red-capped attendant, waved a hand to the driver
waiting across the street, directed him about the baggage, and saw to
getting Carol inside and seated.
Only once Carol came back to earth, "Mercy, Connie, taxis cost a
fortune out here."
"This isn't a taxi," said Connie, "it is just a car."
But Carol did not even hear her answer, for Julia, enchanted at being
so lavishly enthroned in the attention of any one, lifted her lips for
another noisy kiss, and Carol was deaf to the rest of the world.
Her one idea now was to get this precious, wonderful, matchless
creature home to David as quickly as possible.
"Hurry, hurry," she begged. "Make him go faster, Connie."
"He can't," said Connie, laughing. "Do you want to get us pinched for
speeding the first thing?"
And Julia, catching the word, immediately pinched both her auntie and
her mama, to show them she knew what they were talking about. And
Carol was stricken dumb at the wonderful, unbelievable cleverness of
this remarkable infant.
When the car stopped before her cottage, she forgot her manners as
hostess, she forgot the baggage, and the driver, and even sister
Connie. She just grabbed Julia in her arms and rushed into the
cottage, back through the kitchen to the sleeping porch in the rear,
and stood gloating over her husband.
"Look, look, look," she chanted. "It is Julia, she is ours, she is
here." David sat up in bed, his breath coming quickly.
Carol, like a goddess of plenty dispensing royal favors, dumped the
smiling child on the bed and David promptly seized her.
By this time Connie had made her arrangements with the driver, and
escorted herself calmly into the house, trailing the family to the
porch, gently readjusting Julia who was nearly turned upside down by
the fervor of her papa and mama, and informed David that she wanted to
shake hands. Thus recalled, David did shake hands, and looked pleased
when she commented on how well he was looking. But in her heart,
Connie, the young, untouched by sorrow, alive with the passion for
work, was crying out in resentment. Big, buoyant, active David reduced
to this. Carol, radiant, glowing, gleaming Carol,--this subdued gentle
woman with the thin face and dark circles beneath her eyes. "Oh, it is
wrong," thought Connie,--though she still smiled, for hearts are
marvelous creations, holding such sorrow, and hiding it well.
When their wraps were removed, Julia sat on David's table, with David's
hand squeezing her knees, and Carol clutching her feet, and with
Connie, big and bright, sitting back and watching quietly, and telling
them startling and imaginary tales of the horrors she had encountered
on the train. David was entranced, and Carol was enchanted. This was
their baby, this brilliant, talented, beautiful little fairy,--and
Carol alternately nudged David's arm and tapped his shoulder to remind
him of the dignity of his fatherhood.
But in one little hour, she remembered that after all, David was her
job, and even crowy, charming little Julia must not crowd him aside,
and she hastened to prepare the endless egg-nog. Then from the kitchen
window she saw the auto, still standing before their door.
"Oh, my gracious!" she gasped. "We forgot that driver."
She got her purse and hurried outside, but the driver was gone, and
only the car remained. Carol was too ignorant of motor-cars to observe
that it was a Harmer Six, she only wondered how on earth he could go
off and forget his car. She carried the puzzle to David, and he could
not solve it.
"Are you able to walk at all, David?" asked Connie.
"Yes, indeed," he said, sitting up proudly, "I can walk half a block if
there are no steps to climb."
"Come out in front and we'll investigate," she suggested.
When they reached the car, and it took time for David walked but
slowly, he promptly looked at the name plate.
"Harmer Six," he read. "Why this is Jerry's kind of car."
"Yes, it is his kind," explained Connie. "He and Prudence sent this
one out for you and Carol and Julia. They have just established an
agency here, and he has made arrangements with the dealer to take
entire care of it for you, sending it up when you want it, calling for
it when you are through, keeping it in repair, and providing gas and
oil,--and the bill goes to Jerry in Des Moines."
One would have thought enough happiness had come to the health seekers
for one day. Carol would have sworn she could not possibly be one
little bit gladder than she had been before, with David sick, of
course. And now came this! How David would love it. She looked at
her husband, happily pottering around the engine, turning bolts and
buttons as men will do, and she looked at Julia, proudly viewing her
own physical beauties in the shining body of the car, and she looked at
Connie with the charm and glory of the parsonage life clinging about
her like a halo. Then she turned and walked into the house without a
word. Understandingly, David and Connie allowed her to pass inside
without comment.
"Connie," said David when they were alone, "I believe God will give you
a whole chest of stars for your crown for the sweetness that brought
you out here. Carol was sick for something of home. I wanted her to
go back for a visit but she would not leave me. But she was sick. She
needed some outside life. I can give her nothing, I take my life from
her. And she needed fresh inspiration, and you have brought it."
David was silent a moment. "Connie, whenever things do get shadowy for
us, the clouds are pulled back so we may see the sun shining on the
slopes more brilliantly than ever."
Turning quickly she followed his gaze, and a softness came into her
eyes as she looked. Truly the darkness of the canyons seemed only to
emphasize the brightness of the ridges above them.
She laid her hand on David's arm, that strong, shapely, capable hand,
and whispered, "David, if I might have what you and Carol have, if I
could be happy in the way that you are, I think I should be willing to
lose the sunshine on the slopes and dwell entirely in the darkness of
the canyons. But I haven't got it, I don't know how to get it." Then
she added slowly, "But I suppose, having what you two have, one could
not lose the sunshine on the slopes."