"_That a girl may make five dollars a day in a canning club during
the summer, or a boy win a prize of one hundred dollars for feeding a
baby beef, is one of the lesser advantages of the great national
movement which has caught the imaginative enthusiasm of the Young
Generation. It is really leading the way to a finer community life.
Many of us remember the old-fashioned chicken suppers in the basement
of the church, where the boys sat on the benches by themselves, while
the girls looked pityingly and shyly across the intervening space.
The club boys and girls in this great industrial college, allied
artists in the creation of a better country life, are changing all
this. Nothing in rural life has ever been the medium of such good
times._"--_Stanley Johnson._
Dan heard of the intended visit to the city doctor with astonishment
and annoyance. It wasn't like Mary to want such a thing, and he
attributed it to some more of Billy's "higher life" ideas. He
repeatedly unburdened his bitterness to Mary in Billy's absence, that
he had been fool enough to let him go to school just to come home
with his superior ways. To outsiders he had a habit of remarking: "My
boy, he's in college now. Costs a good deal--an education, nowadays,
but I want him to have the best I can give him."
Regarding the consulting of a special doctor he openly disapproved,
on the grounds that all a doctor hung out his sign for was to get
people's money. He had never had a doctor in his life and he never
would have one. The best rule he knew for health was to "forget it."
Then Billy came in and he stopped. When Mary came home at night and
took up the threads of her work where she had dropped them in the
morning, however, he rested more easily. He inquired, apparently
amused at the whole affair, when she was going back again, and she
said she didn't have to go back. He reflected then, that it was only
a "notion," as he had supposed, and was satisfied.
It was different with Billy. A dozen times a day he came into the
house and waited around awkwardly, without asking any questions, but
the most his mother ever said about the subject that troubled him was
that it was "about time to take the tonic," as though the
completeness of her heart's desire was assured through that
proceeding. Billy had never known her to appear so happy and he knew
in his heart that while she had opposed so seriously his staying at
home, she felt a support in his presence. A strange dread haunted him
that the time might come when she would need him still more. His
first important step in the farming operations was to provoke his
father's wrath by the extravagance of adding a bathroom to the house.
It was a very simple affair, built on a level with the ground floor,
with a hand-force pump and cement storage tank, but it gave a
satisfying touch of comfort and refinement.
Early in the New Year Billy received a scribbled note from the
District Representative. "Can you help us with our short course? We
have about thirty enrolled for the boys' class, pretty good fellows
practically, but most of them, I dare say, could have had all the
schooling they ever got crowded into two full years. To make matters
worse, we're putting on a course for the girls--cooking and the like.
A girl taking some post-graduate work at the college is coming down. I
expect the thing will develop into considerable of a nuisance before
we're done with it, but we'll have to see it through."
Billy's sympathies were aroused. He readjusted his plans so he could
get five days a week off, went to call on the Representative and
found him troubled.
"You see, it wouldn't be so bad," explained that work-driven,
detail-harrassed official, "if it were not for this girls' affair.
Even if they'd keep to themselves it wouldn't matter so much, but I
understand there are to be tobogganings and skating-parties and
socials--sort of a sleigh-ride-and-taffy-pull phase of the
keep-the-young-people-on-the-farm movement, and I expect it will
leave them a hundred per cent more of the hoyden, or a hundred per
cent more buried in the Slough of Sentimentality than if they'd
never been the object of an uplift."
"I expect it will be the best thing that ever happened to them," said
Billy. "Were you ever so scared of a girl that when you went to a
neighbor's in the evening you'd go around to the stable first and
wait there till some of the boys came out and took you into the
house, sort of under cover?"
"No," came witheringly from his superior.
"And did you ever find yourself left alone with a girl that you'd
known or should have known all your life, a really good-sense, clever
girl who must have had lots of ideas of her own, but neither of you
could advance any conversation at all because you hadn't the first
shade of a common ground or a common interest? There was nothing to
do but try to imitate the smart talk of the imported store-clerk, or
go, so because you didn't want to make a complete donkey of yourself
you generally went?"
"I should say not."
"Or if you were an easy prey to the hoodlum element hanging around
almost every country village, you possibly found your recreation in
shooting peas from the back seat of the church at tea-meetings, or
cutting harness, or stretching wires across the road on dark nights.
When you reached the age of more civil instincts the most alluring
social interest was to follow the public balls from one end of the
country to the other. You met the same people, or the same class of
people, night after night, and you stayed till four o'clock in the
morning. Before it was done half the men would be glazed-eyed and
unsteady, and the girls looking dragged out, but sort of tolerating
it all; and some of them the best girls in the country, too. They
must have gone home heart-sick of it, but they always came back; you
can't wonder much--there was a lot they didn't know and there wasn't
any other excitement in their lives. A minister in the village here
ventured the idea of fitting up a gymnasium in the basement of the
church and having moving pictures on Wednesday nights, but one old
reprobate of an elder opposed it until it was dropped. He considered
it profanity in the first degree, and anyway he didn't want his
daughter going to picture shows or dressing up in gymnasium rigs, but
every time she came down to the post office, a new arrival in the
village who had come to open a pool-room over the carriage-shop, a
social and moral worm, as every man in the place knew, walked part
way home with her. She wouldn't have tolerated him a minute if she
could have seen him in comparison with decent men, but her father
didn't believe in the "safety in numbers" fact. She ran away with the
pool promoter and married him, and all the time there were a dozen
honest, well-intentioned fellows native to the farms around, any one
of whom she might just as possibly have married, but didn't for the
very good reason that she didn't know them. I believe this
co-education venture will be the best move yet in the 'rural
sociology' scheme."
"Well, then, before your enthusiasm cools, I wish you'd go and take a
look at the hall we have to fix up for a demonstration kitchen."
Billy looked at the hall and reported. The next day he brought his
tools, and according to directions improvised a table from some rough
lumber, nailed some boxes together for a cupboard, then swept out his
shavings and incidentally the dust from a year's meetings of the
county council. On the third day he was commissioned to meet the
train bringing the teacher.
Billy was not given to questioning orders, but he stopped unloading
chairs from a wood-rack to look his chief over with open defiance.
"I'll do anything in reason," he said. "I'll haul the furniture from
any part of the county till we get the place equipped. I'll blacken
the stove or scrub the floor if I have to, but I don't feel at all
equal to meeting any post-graduate domestic science girl and
escorting her up to the Royal Hotel. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd
sit right down on the steps and cry."
"More likely to sit right down and give you five minutes to find a
better place or get a taxi to take her home."
"Only that there isn't any better place."
"Why won't some of the women take her?"
"Some of them claim to have had previous experience with 'lady
speakers.' The general trouble, however, is that she comes from the
city--is rumored to be something of an aristocrat and the people are
afraid of her."
In spite of these scattered feelings of fear and hostility, the
teacher had a pretty fair attendance the first day. The second day it
seemed as though some one, probably the girls themselves, had done
some additional advertising. Toward the close of the afternoon the
Representative suggested to Billy that he go up and see if she wanted
anything.
The classes were over, but the girls were still there, and sounds
unlike the scraping of pans or handling of dishes, or anything else
pertaining to domestic science, came from the room. The door was
open, and instead of finding the students bending over a yeast
culture or copying the food constituents of cereals, he saw twenty or
more girls coming down the hall practising the minuet. The teacher
was there, with her back to him, demonstrating, of course; the girls
themselves had never seen the minuet before--and Billy stood
watching, open mouthed, for a full minute, before someone saw him,
and the dance broke up in confusion. He came forward to apologize to
the teacher and when she turned he remembered; she was the "committee
girl."
The class filed out bashfully, and the teacher gave Billy some idea
of what she was trying to do. Evidently she thought some explanation
was due. The minuet, she explained, was part of some physical culture
she was working into the course, and he heartily approved. He had
observed a neighbor's daughter, an awkward girl of sixteen, stiffened
and sobered from the care of the family of younger children, actually
relaxing and taking the bend with considerable grace. He had noticed
the stolid, stoop-shouldered girl from the Home, whose pride, almost
her self-respect, had been crushed out of existence, curving her
spine and lifting her head in admirable imitation of Miss Macdonald's
poise. He didn't wonder at this at all. If ever a school of physical
culture turned out a model it must be this girl, with her slim,
perfect physique, her quiet, supple carriage, her entire absence of
self-consciousness. Her whole personality radiated a wholesomeness.
From her regular, white teeth, her hair still shining from the brush
and sending out little rusty glints from the brown hollows where the
light struck it, to her white linen uniform and classy low-heeled
shoes, she carried the mark of the thoroughbred. And feeling the
warmth of her kind, happy eyes, hazel or gray or whatever they were,
it didn't matter, Billy almost decided that these things were worth
more than being pretty. He considered bringing Jean home from school
for the two weeks--not for the sake of the course, just for the
atmosphere.
In spite of her poise he surmised that she was taking her job pretty
seriously.
"The playing part of it," she explained, "will be questioned a good
deal, I'm afraid; it isn't outlined in the programme, but I believe
it's almost the most important here. Most of the girls can cook
pretty well; you can tell by the way they listen to the reasons why
you put meat to cook in cold water for soup, and boiling water for a
stew; and by the questions they ask about why specialists have
decided that it's better to keep a baby's feeding four hours apart
instead of two. You can't give them very much in two weeks, but they
have so much that is practical to begin on that they can go right
ahead and apply almost any principle they learn. When they're through
here they should be able to take the best Home Economics literature
and study for themselves. We're considering forming a 'Better Homes
Club' and linking up with your Junior Farmers. What do you think?"
Billy accepted the idea with encouraging enthusiasm.
"That's why it seems that the social part of it should be started
under some direction. Do the boys skate?"
"I'm afraid a lot of them don't. I never thought of such a thing
until I left here."
"I'm going to teach some of the girls on the pond on Saturday
afternoon. If the boys were interested we could have some skating
parties before we finish."
Billy spent some strenuous nights on the ice, getting the boys
interested. At the end of the first week a bonfire of pine roots at
the edge of the pond made the illumination for a union skating meet,
a laborious exercise for some of the class, but sending everyone home
with a happy anticipation for the next time. Before it was over Billy
set out with Ruth to follow the creek for a few miles down through
the moonlit stretches of frosted barrens. The girl skated as she did
everything else, freely and easily with an expression of joy of
living in every stroke. He had never seen such rhythmic, easy,
independent motion in girls' athletics, and he wondered how she had
acquired it.
"You must have taken to the out-doors soon after you learned to
creep," he ventured.
"I imagine I was kept pretty closely under cover at that time. I know
when I was seven years old people still thought I wouldn't grow up.
My mother died when I was a few weeks old and a well-intentioned aunt
put me into an exquisite nursery in the attic of her big house, and
got an expensive nurse to take care of me, but I just wouldn't
thrive. It was a very patient and far-seeing teacher who took me to
the fields and taught me to climb trees and spent nearly a whole
summer overcoming my fears of the lake. Then suddenly one day I swam
away from her; after that I began to live. There must be hundreds of
children like that whom no one ever bothers with. Had we better go
back?"
"Tired?"
"No, but I think we've come far enough."
She didn't look tired. Of all the glowing, happy, well-poised
creatures under the heavens she seemed the most thoroughly alive.
Billy admired the quiet control that never sickened a pleasure with
satiety, that reverenced a recreation enough to stop when it had
recreated. He thought of the jaded girls he had seen dragging through
after-midnight dances, in rooms reeking with air so poisoned that
even the lamps burned blue and flickered, and he hoped she would
teach them her creed of guarding her physical womanhood as a sacred
trust. He hoped she could inspire a love for the clean out of doors
that seemed to leave her tingling with the fires of pure oxygen.
Even the Representative, in spite of his prejudices, fell a convert
to her social propaganda, and attended with less boredom than he had
anticipated the tobogganings and sleigh-rides and taffy-pulling
functions. Instead of finding his young people "one hundred per cent
more of the hoyden," he observed an unwonted dignity. He overheard a
few conversations discussing landscape effects for the spring
planting, and the practicability of power systems for the farms and
homes of the districts. Instead of discovering his teen-age
irresponsibles floundering "in the Sloughs of Sentimentality," he
found a free and easy mixing of a few older people in every
entertainment and none of the clandestine pairing off so general in
some of their former affairs. He inquired how the parties and
sleigh-rides always came to be chaperoned by some women of the
neighborhood, and was informed that the girls arranged it. He
marvelled that the gatherings always broke up not later than eleven
o'clock, and heard from more than one mystified youth that the girls
seemed to have some secret understanding; no one knew what had come
over them.
On the last day of the course, when Billy returned from taking the
boys to see the Aberdeen-Angus herd that had played such an important
part in directing his own early interests, he found the
Representative unusually worried, and interrupting his enthusiastic
report of the day's proceedings with the irrelevant question:
"Have you seen Miss Macdonald to-day?"
Billy hadn't seen her.
"Well, she's got a beast of a cold, and looks like destruction," the
Representative grumbled. "I wish she was out of that hotel. She never
should have been there in the first place. I'll bet the walls are
fairly dripping dampness, and you probably know that when she's at
home she lives in a steam-heated, electric-ventilated palace of a
place, with a kind of millionaire uncle."
"I didn't know."
"Queer she should care about knocking around at a job like this."
"What are you going to do about it?"
"What would I be likely to do about it? I suppose what she needs is
mustard plasters and ginger-tea. What would you suggest that we do?"
Billy stared out the window for a minute.
"I guess I'll see if she'll come home with me and let my mother fix
her up," he said.
The Representative contemplated the back of his assistant's head,
wisely, for a minute, then decided he was wrong. He had never in his
experience with agricultural undergraduates come across so little
presumption and so much cool initiative. It made a puzzling
combination.
Ruth heard his suggestion with surprised gratitude. "It's just the
most ordinary kind of a farm house," he apologized, "but I think it
would be more comfortable and a lot safer than staying another night
at the hotel."
She wasn't afraid of the farm house, but she hesitated at the
imposition; she wasn't accustomed to such consideration. She also
realized her danger, and it decided her.
Of the several things in Billy's later career that had heightened his
mother's hopes for him, this was the crowning event, and in the whole
of her orphaned life Ruth had never known so well how much she missed
in not having a mother of her own. She felt no homesickness for her
uncle's luxurious house and her aunt's efficient, methodical
ministrations. She liked to lie in the deep feather bed with a
flannel-wrapped hot brick at her feet; and she liked to have Billy's
mother coming to see how she was getting on and staying to regret
that he hadn't brought her sooner; and she liked the strong, nippy
sweetness of her black currant drinks, even the warmth of her mustard
plasters--and she _loved_ the mother herself.
Somehow Mary knew it, and was happy. She supposed she would have
liked any girl Billy had brought home--certainly she would have
tried. But such a girl! She had always treasured the hope that
sometime there would be such a one, serious, and wise, and
considerate--a girl who would sort of take his mother's place for a
man when she had gone.
She confided the hope to Billy while they watched the fire the next
night, and Ruth was probably having dinner in her uncle's house with
no trace of her cold left other than an inconvenient red square on
her chest that interfered with wearing the regulation dinner-gown. He
looked up surprised. He stretched his imagination for some time,
but he couldn't picture Marjorie Evison in any such capacity at all;
neither could he see why any man would want such a thing. He was
still pretty young.