A CLEAR CALL
The tinkle of the telephone disturbed the family as they were at dinner,
and Connie, who sat nearest, rose to answer the summons, while Carol, at
her corner of the table struck a tragic attitude.
"If Joe Graves has broken anything, he's broken our friendship for good
and all. These fellows that break themselves--"
"Break themselves?" asked her father gravely.
"Yes,--any of his members, you know, his leg, or his arm, or,--If he
has, I must say frankly that I hope it is his neck. These boys that
break themselves at the last minute, thereby breaking dates, are--"
"Well," Connie said calmly, "if you're through, I'll begin."
"Oh, goodness, Connie, deafen one ear and listen with the other. You've
got to learn to hear in a hubbub. Go on then, I'm through. But I haven't
forgotten that I missed the Thanksgiving banquet last year because Phil
broke his ankle that very afternoon on the ice. What business had he on
the ice when he had a date--"
"Ready?" asked Connie, as the phone rang again, insistently.
"Go on, then. Don't wait until I get started. Answer it."
Connie removed the receiver and called the customary "Hello." Then,
"Yes, just a minute. It's for you, Carol."
Carol rose darkly. "It's Joe," she said in a dungeon-dark voice. "He's
broken, I foresee it. If there's anything I despise and abominate it's a
breaker of dates. I think it ought to be included among the
condemnations in the decalogue. Men have no business being broken,
except their hearts, when girls are mixed up in it.--Hello?--Oh; oh-h-h!
Yes,--it's professor! How are you?--Yes, indeed,--oh, yes, I'm going to
be home. Yes, indeed. Come about eight. Of course I'll be here,--nothing
important,--it didn't amount to anything at all,--just a little old
every-day affair.--Yes, I can arrange it nicely.--We're so anxious to
see you.--All right,--Good-by."
She turned back to the table, her face flushed, eyes shining. "It's
professor! He's in town just overnight, and he's coming out. I'll have
to phone Joe--"
"Anything I despise and abominate it's a breaker of dates," chanted
Connie; "ought to be condemned in the decalogue."
"Oh, that's different," explained Carol. "This is professor! Besides,
this will sort of even up for the Thanksgiving banquet last year."
"But that was Phil and this is Joe!"
"Oh, that's all right. It's just the principle, you know, nothing
personal about it. Seven-six-two, please. Yes. Seven-six-two? Is Joe
there? Oh, hello, Joe. Oh, Joe, I'm so sorry to go back on you the last
minute like this, but one of my old school-teachers is in town just for
to-night and is coming here, and of course I can't leave. I'm so sorry.
I've been looking forward to it for so long, but--oh, that is nice of
you. You'll forgive me this once, won't you? Oh, thanks, Joe, you're so
kind."
"Hurry up and phone Roy, Larkie. You'll have to break yours, too."
Lark immediately did so, while Carol stood thoughtfully beside the
table, her brows puckered unbecomingly.
"I think," she said at last slowly, with wary eyes on her father's quiet
face, "I think I'll let the tuck out of my old rose dress. It's too
short."
"Too short! Why, Carol--" interrupted her aunt.
"Too short for the occasion, I mean. I'll put it back to-morrow." Once
more her eyes turned cautiously father-ward. "You see, professor still
has the 'little twinnie' idea in his brain, and I'm going to get it out.
It isn't consistent with our five feet seven. We're grown up. Professor
has got to see it. You skoot up-stairs, Connie, won't you, there's a
dear, and bring it down, both of them, Lark's too. Lark,--where did you
put that ripping knife? Aunt Grace, will you put the iron on for me?
It's perfectly right that professor should see we're growing up. We'll
have to emphasize it something extra, or he might overlook it. It makes
him feel Methuselish because he's so awfully smart. But I'll soon change
his mind for him."
Lark stoutly refused to be "grown up for the occasion," as Carol put it.
She said it was too much bother to let out the tuck, and then put it
right back in, just for nonsense. At first this disappointed Carol, but
finally she accepted it gracefully.
"All right," she said, "I guess I can grow up enough for both of us.
Professor is not stupid; if he sees I'm a young lady, he'll naturally
know that you are, too, since we are twins. You can help me rip then if
you like,--you begin around on that side."
In less than two minutes the whole family was engaged in growing Carol
up for the occasion. They didn't see any sense in it, but Carol seemed
so unalterably convinced that it was necessary that they hated to
question her motives. And, as was both habitual and comfortable, they
proceeded to do as she directed.
If her idea had been utterly to dumfound the unsuspecting professor, she
succeeded admirably. Carefully she planned her appearance, giving him
just the proper interval of patient waiting in the presence of her aunt
and sisters. Then, a slow parting of the curtains and Carol stood out,
brightly, gladly, her slender hands held out in welcome, Carol, with
long skirts swishing around her white-slippered feet, her slender throat
rising cream-white above the soft fold of old rose lace, her graceful
head with its royal crown of bronze-gold hair, tilted most charmingly.
The professor sprang to his feet and stared at her. "Why, Carol," he
exclaimed soberly, almost sadly, as he crossed the room and took her
hand. "Why, Carol! Whatever have you been doing to yourself overnight?"
Of course, it was far more "overnight" than the professor knew, but
Carol saw to it that there was nothing to arouse his suspicion on that
score. He lifted her hand high, and looked frankly down the long lines
of her skirt, with the white toes of her slippers showing beneath. He
shook his head. And though he smiled again, his voice was sober.
"I'm beginning to feel my age," he said.
This was not what Carol wanted, and she resumed her old childish manner
with a gleeful laugh.
"What on earth are you doing in Mount Mark again, P'fessor!" When Carol
wished to be particularly coy, she said "p'fessor." It didn't sound
exactly cultured, but spoken in Carol's voice was really irresistible.
"Why, I came to see you before your hair turned gray, and wrinkles
marred you--"
"Wrinkles won't mar mine," cried Carol emphatically. "Not ever! I use up
a whole jar of cold cream every three weeks! I won't have 'em. Wrinkles!
P'fessor, you don't know what a time I have keeping myself young."
She joined in the peal of laughter that rang out as this age-wise
statement fell from her lips.
"You'll be surprised," he said, "what does bring me to Mount Mark. I
have given up my position in New York, and am going to school again in
Chicago this winter. I shall be here only to-night. To-morrow I begin to
study again."
"Going to school again!" ejaculated Carol, and all the others looked at
him astonished. "Going to school again. Why, you know enough, now!"
"Think so? Thanks. But I don't know what I'm going to need from this on.
I am changing my line of work. The fact is, I'm going to enter the
ministry myself, and will have a couple of years in a theological
seminary first."
Utter stupefaction greeted this explanation. Not one word was spoken.
"I've been going into these things rather deeply the last two years.
I've attended a good many special meetings, and taken some studies along
with my regular work. For a year I've felt it would finally come to
this, but I preferred my own job, and I thought I would stick it out, as
Carol says. But I've decided to quit balking, and answer the call."
Aunt Grace nodded, with a warmly approving smile.
"I think it's perfectly grand, Professor," said Fairy earnestly.
"Perfectly splendid. You will do it wonderfully well, I know, and be a
big help--in our business."
"But, Professor," said Carol faintly and falteringly, "didn't you tell
me you were to get five thousand dollars a year with the institute from
this on?"
"Yes. I was."
Carol gazed at her family despairingly. "It would take an awfully loud
call to drown the chink of five thousand gold dollars in my ears, I am
afraid."
"It was a loud call," he said. And he looked at her curiously, for of
all the family she alone seemed distrait and unenthusiastic.
"Professor," she continued anxiously, "I heard one of the bishops say
that sometimes young men thought they were called to the ministry when
it was too much mince pie for dinner."
"I did not have mince pie for dinner," he answered, smiling, but
conscious of keen disappointment in his friend.
"But, Professor," she argued, "can't people do good without preaching?
Think of all the lovely things you could do with five thousand dollars!
Think of the influence a prominent educator has! Think of--"
"I have thought of it, all of it. But haven't I got to answer the call?"
"It takes nerve to do it, too," said Connie approvingly. "I know just
how it is from my own experience. Of course, I haven't been called to
enter the ministry, but--it works out the same in other things."
"Indeed, Professor," said Lark, "we always said you were too nice for
any ordinary job. And the ministry is about the only extraordinary job
there is!"
"Tell us all about it," said Fairy cordially. "We are so interested in
it. Of course, we think it is the finest work in the world." She looked
reproachfully at Carol, but Carol made no response.
He told them, then, something of his plan, which was very simple. He had
arranged for a special course at the seminary in Chicago, and then would
enter the ministry like any other young man starting upon his life-work.
"I'm a Presbyterian, you know," he said. "I'll have to go around and
preach until I find a church willing to put up with me. I won't have a
presiding elder to make a niche for me."
He talked frankly, even with enthusiasm, but always he felt the curious
disappointment that Carol sat there silent, her eyes upon the hands in
her lap. Once or twice she lifted them swiftly to his face, and lowered
them instantly again. Only he noticed when they were raised, that they
were unusually deep, and that something lay within shining brightly,
like the reflection of a star in a clear dark pool of water.
"I must go now," he said, "I must have a little visit with my uncle, I
just wanted to see you, and tell you about it. I knew you would like
it."
Carol's hand was the first placed in his, and she murmured an inaudible
word of farewell, her eyes downcast, and turned quickly away. "Don't let
them wait for me," she whispered to Lark, and then she disappeared.
The professor turned away from the hospitable door very much depressed.
He shook his head impatiently and thrust his hands deep into his pockets
like a troubled boy. Half-way down the board walk he stopped, and
smiled. Carol was standing among the rose bushes, tall and slim in the
cloudy moonlight, waiting for him. She held out her hand with a friendly
smile.
"I came to take you a piece if you want me," she said. "It's so hard to
talk when there's a roomful, isn't it? I thought maybe you wouldn't
mind."
"Mind? It was dear of you to think of it," he said gratefully, drawing
her hand into the curve of his arm. "I was wishing I could talk with
you alone. You won't be cold?"
"Oh, no, I like to be out in the night air. Oh," she protested, when he
turned north from the parsonage instead of south, as he should have
gone, "I only came for a piece, you know. And you want to visit with
your uncle." The long lashes hid the twinkle the professor knew was
there, though he could not see it.
"Yes, all right. But we'll walk a little way first. I'll visit him later
on. Or I can write him a letter if necessary." He felt at peace with all
the world. His resentment toward Carol had vanished at the first glimpse
of her friendly smile.
"I want to talk to you about being a preacher, you know. I think it is
the most wonderful thing in the world, I certainly do." Her eyes were
upon his face now seriously. "I didn't say much, I was surprised, and I
was ashamed, too, Professor, for I never could do it in the world.
Never! It always makes me feel cheap and exasperated when I see how much
nicer other folks are than I. But I do think it is wonderful. Really
sometimes, I have thought you ought to be a preacher, because you're so
nice. So many preachers aren't, and that's the kind we need."
The professor put his other hand over Carol's, which was restlessly
fingering the crease in his sleeve. He did not speak. Her girlish,
impulsive words touched him very deeply.
"I wouldn't want the girls to know it, they'd think it was so funny,
but--" She paused uncertainly, and looked questioningly into his face.
"Maybe you won't understand what I mean, but sometimes I'd like to be
good myself. Awfully good, I mean." She smiled whimsically. "Wouldn't
Connie scream if she could hear that? Now you won't give me away, will
you? But I mean it. I don't think of it very often, but sometimes, why,
Professor, honestly, I wouldn't care if I were as good as Prudence!" She
paused dramatically, and the professor pressed the slender hand more
closely in his.
"Oh, I don't worry about it. I suppose one hasn't any business to expect
a good complexion and just natural goodness, both at once, but--" She
smiled again. "Five thousand dollars," she added dreamily. "Five
thousand dollars! What shall I call you now? P'fesser is not appropriate
any more, is it?"
"Call me David, won't you, Carol? Or Dave."
Carol gasped. "Oh, mercy! What would Prudence say?" She giggled merrily.
"Oh, mercy!" She was silent a moment then. "I'll have to be contented
with plain Mr. Duke, I suppose, until you get a D.D. Duckie, D.D.," she
added laughingly. But in an instant she was sober again. "I do love our
job. If I were a man I'd be a minister myself. Reverend Carol Starr,"
she said loftily, then laughed. Carol's laughter always followed fast
upon her earnest words. "Reverend Carol Starr. Wouldn't I be a peach?"
He laughed, too, recovering his equanimity as her customary buoyant
brightness returned to her.
"You are," he said, and Carol answered:
"Thanks," very dryly. "We must go back now," she added presently. And
they turned at once, walking slowly back toward the parsonage.
"Can't you write to me a little oftener, Carol? I hate to be a bother,
but my uncle never writes letters, and I like to know how my friends
here are getting along, marriages, and deaths, and just plain gossip.
I'll like it very much if you can. I do enjoy a good correspondence
with--"
"Do you?" she asked sweetly. "How you have changed! When I was a
freshman I remember you told me you received nothing but business
letters, because you didn't want to take time to write letters, and--"
"Did I?" For a second he seemed a little confused. "Well, I'm not crazy
about writing letters, as such. But I'll be so glad to get yours that I
know I'll even enjoy answering them."
Inside the parsonage gate they stood a moment among the rose bushes.
Once again she offered her hand, and he took it gravely, looking with
sober intentness into her face, a little pale in the moonlight. He noted
again the royal little head with its grown-up crown of hair, and the
slender figure with its grown-up length of skirt.
Then he put his arms around her, and kissed her warmly upon the childish
unexpecting lips.
A swift red flooded her face, and receding as swiftly, left her pale.
Her lips quivered a little, and she caught her hands together. Then
sturdily, and only slightly tremulous, she looked into his eyes and
laughed. The professor was in nowise deceived by her attempt at
light-heartedness, remembering as he did the quick quivering of the lips
beneath his, and the unconscious yielding of the supple body in his
arms. He condemned himself mentally in no uncertain terms for having
yielded to the temptation of her young loveliness. Carol still laughed,
determined by her merriment to set the seal of insignificance upon the
act.
"Come and walk a little farther, Carol," he said in a low voice. "I want
to say something else." Then after a few minutes of silence, he began
rather awkwardly, and David Arnold Duke was not usually awkward:
"Carol, you'll think I'm a cad to say what I'm going to, after doing
what I have just done, but I'll have to risk that. You shouldn't let men
kiss you. It isn't right. You're too pretty and sweet and fine for it. I
know you don't allow it commonly, but don't at all. I hate to think of
any one even touching a girl like you."
Carol leaned forward, tilting back her head, and looking up at him
roguishly, her face a-sparkle.
He blushed more deeply. "Oh, I know it," he said. "I'm ashamed of
myself. But I can't help what you think of me. I do think you shouldn't
let them, and I hope you won't. They're sure to want to."
"Yes," she said quietly, very grown-up indeed just then, "yes, they do.
Aren't men funny? They always want to. Sometimes we hear old women say,
'Men are all alike.' I never believe it. I hate old women who say it.
But--are they all alike, Professor?"
"No," he said grimly, "they are not. But I suppose any man would like to
kiss a girl as sweet as you are. But men are not all alike. Don't you
believe it. You won't then, will you?"
"Won't believe it? No."
"I mean," he said, almost stammering in his confusion, "I mean you won't
let them touch you."
Carol smiled teasingly, but in a moment she spoke, and very quietly.
"P'fessor, I'll tell you a blood-red secret if you swear up and down
you'll never tell anybody. I've never told even Lark--Well, one night,
when I was a sophomore,--do you remember Bud Garvin?"
"Yes, tall fellow with black hair and eyes, wasn't he? In the freshman
zoology class."
"Yes. Well, he took me home from a party. Hartley took Lark, and they
got in first. And Bud, well--he put his arm around me, and--maybe you
don't know it, Professor, but there's a big difference in girls, too.
Now some girls are naturally good. Prudence is, and so's Lark. But Fairy
and I--well, we've got a lot of the original Adam in us. Most girls,
especially in books--nice girls, I mean, and you know I'm nice--they
can't bear to have boys touch them.--P'fessor, I like it, honestly I do,
if I like the boy. Bud's rather nice, and I let him--oh, just a little,
but it made me nervous and excited. But I liked it. Prudence was away,
and I hated to talk to Lark that night so I sneaked in Fairy's room and
asked if I might sleep with her. She said I could, and told me to turn
on the light, it wouldn't disturb her. But I was so hot I didn't want
any light, so I undressed as fast as I could and crept in. Somehow, from
the way I snuggled up to Fairy, she caught on. I was out of breath,
really I was ashamed of myself, but I wasn't just sure then whether I'd
ever let him put his arm around me again or not. But Fairy turned over,
and began to talk. Professor," she said solemnly, "Fairy and I always
pretend to be snippy and sarcastic and sneer at each other, but in my
heart, I think Fairy is very nearly as good as Prudence, yes, sir, I do.
Why, Fairy's fine, she's just awfully fine."
"Yes, I'm sure she is."
"She said that once, when she was fifteen, one of the boys at Exminster
kissed her good night. And she didn't mind it a bit. But father was
putting the horses in the barn, and he came out just in time to see it;
it was a moonlight night. After the boys had gone, father hurried in and
took Fairy outdoors for a little talk, just the two of them alone. He
said that in all the years he and my mother were married, every time he
kissed her he remembered that no man but he had ever touched her lips,
and it made him happy. He said he was always sort of thanking God
inside, whenever he held her in his arms. He said nothing else in the
world made a man so proud, and glad and grateful, as to know his wife
was all his own, and that even her lips had been reserved for him like a
sacred treasure that no one else could share. He said it would take the
meanest man on earth, and father thinks there aren't many as mean as
that, to go back on a woman like that. Fairy said she burst out crying
because her husband wouldn't ever be able to feel that way when he
kissed her. But father said since she was so young, and innocent, and it
being the first time, it wouldn't really count. Fairy swore off that
minute,--never again! Of course, when I knew how father felt about
mother, I wanted my husband to have as much pleasure in me as father did
in her, and Fairy and I made a solemn resolve that we would never, even
'hold hands,' and that's very simple, until we got crazy enough about a
man to think we'd like to marry him if we got a chance. And I never have
since then, not once."
"Carol," he said in a low voice, "I wish I had known it. I wouldn't have
kissed you for anything. God knows I wouldn't. I--I think I am man
enough not to have done it anyhow if I had only thought a minute, but
God knows I wouldn't have done it if I had known about this. You don't
know how--contemptible--I feel."
"Oh, that's all right," she said comfortingly, her eyes glowing. "That's
all right. We just meant beaux, you know. We didn't include uncles, and
fathers, and old school-teachers, and things like that. You don't count.
That isn't breaking my pledge."
The professor smiled, but he remembered the quivering lips, and the
relaxing of the lithe body, and the forced laughter, and was not
deceived.
"You're such a strange girl, Carol. You're so honest, usually, so
kind-hearted, so generous. But you always seem trying to make yourself
look bad, not physically, that isn't what I mean." Carol smiled, and her
loving fingers caressed her soft cheek. "But you try to make folks think
you are vain and selfish, when you are not. Why do you do it? Every one
knows what you really are. All over Mount Mark they say you are the best
little kid in town."
"They do!" she said indignantly. "Well, they'd better not. Here I've
spent years building up my reputation to suit myself, and then they go
and shatter me like that. They'd better leave me alone."
"But what's the object?"
"Why, you know, P'fessor," she said, carefully choosing her words, "you
know, it's a pretty hard job living up to a good reputation. Look at
Prudence, and Fairy, and Lark. Every one just naturally expects them to
be angelically and dishearteningly good. And if they aren't, folks talk.
But take me now. No one expects anything of me, and if once in a while,
I do happen to turn out all right by accident, it's a sort of joyful
surprise to the whole community. It's lots more fun surprising folks by
being better than they expect, than shocking them by turning out worse
than they think you will."
"But it doesn't do you any good," he assured her. "You can't fool them.
Mount Mark knows its Carol."
"You're not going?" she said, as he released her hand and straightened
the collar of his coat.
"Yes, your father will chase me off if I don't go now. How about the
letters, Carol? Think you can manage a little oftener?"
"I'd love to. It's so inspiring to get a letter from a
five-thousand-dollars-a-year scientist, I mean, a was-once. Do my
letters sound all right? I don't want to get too chummy, you know."
"Get as chummy as you can," he urged her. "I enjoy it."
"I'll have to be more dignified if you're going to McCormick.
Presbyterian! The Presbyterians are very dignified. I'll have to be
formal from this on. Dear Sir: Respectfully yours. Is that proper?"
He took her hands in his. "Good-by, little pal. Thank you for coming
out, and for telling me the things you have. You have done me good. You
are a breath of fresh sweet air."
"It's my powder," she said complacently. "It does smell good, doesn't
it? It cost a dollar a box. I borrowed the dollar from Aunt Grace. Don't
let on before father. He thinks we use Mennen's baby--twenty-five cents
a box. We didn't tell him so, but he just naturally thinks it. It was
the breath of that dollar powder you were talking about."
She moved her fingers slightly in his hand, and he looked down at them.
Then he lifted them and looked again, admiring the slender fingers and
the pink nails.
"Don't look," she entreated. "They're teaching me things. I can't help
it. This spot on my thumb is fried egg, here are three doughnuts on my
arm,--see them? And here's a regular pancake." She pointed out the
pancake in her palm, sorrowfully.
"Teaching you things, are they?"
"Yes. I have to darn. Look at the tips of my fingers, that's where the
needle rusted off on me. Here's where I cut a slice of bread out of my
thumb! Isn't life serious?"
"Yes, very serious." He looked thoughtfully down at her hands again as
they lay curled up in his own. "Very, very serious."
"Good-by."
"Good-by." He held her hand a moment longer, and then turned suddenly
away. She watched until he was out of sight, and then slipped up-stairs,
undressed in the dark and crept in between the covers. Lark apparently
was sound asleep. Carol giggled softly to herself a few times, and Lark
opened one eye, asking, "What's amatter?"
"Oh, such a good joke on p'fessor," whispered Carol, squeezing her twin
with rapture. "He doesn't know it yet, but he'll be so disgusted with
himself when he finds it out."
"What in the world is it?" Lark was more coherent now.
"I can't tell, Lark, but it's a dandy. My, he'll feel cheap when he
finds out."
"Maybe he won't find it out."
"Oh, yes, he will," was the confident answer, "I'll see that he does."
She began laughing again.
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you, but you'll certainly scream if you ever do know it."
"You can't tell me?" Lark was wide awake, and quite aghast.
"No, I can't, I truly can't."
Lark drew away from the encircling arm with as much dignity as could be
expressed in the dark and in bed, and sent out a series of deep breaths,
as if to indicate that snores were close at hand.
Carol laughed to herself for a while, until Lark really slept, then she
buried her head in the pillow and her throat swelled with sobs that were
heavy but soundless.
The next morning was Lark's turn for making the bed. And when she shook
up Carol's pillow she found it was very damp.
"Why, the little goose," she said to herself, smiling, "she laughed
until she cried, all by herself. And then she turned the pillow over
thinking I wouldn't see it. The little goose! And what on earth was she
laughing at?"