THE CONNIE PROBLEM
Mr. Starr was getting ready to go to conference, and the girls hovered
about him with anxious eyes. This was their fifth conference since
coming to Mount Mark,--the time limit for Methodist ministers was five
years. The Starrs, therefore, would be transferred, and where? Small
wonder that the girls followed him around the house and spoke in soft
voices and looked with tender eyes at the old parsonage and the wide
lawn. They would be leaving it next week. Already the curtains were
down, and laundered, and packed. The trunks were filled, the books were
boxed. Yes, they were leaving, but whither were they bound?
"Get your ecclesiastical dander up, father," Carol urged, "don't let
them give us a church fight, or a twenty-thousand-dollar debt on a
thousand-dollar congregation."
"We don't care for a big salary or a stylish congregation," Lark added,
"but we don't want to go back to washpans and kerosene lamps again."
"If you have to choose between a bath tub, with a church quarrel, and a
wash basin with peace and harmony, we'll take the tub and settle the
scrap!"
The conference was held in Fairfield, and he informed the girls casually
that he would be home on the first train after the assignments were
made. He said it casually, for he did not wish them to know how
perturbed he was over the coming change. During the conference he tried
in many and devious ways to learn the will of the authorities regarding
his future, but he found no clue. And at home the girls were discussing
the matter very little, but thinking of nothing else. They were
determined to be pleased about it.
"It really doesn't make any difference," Lark said. "We've had one year
in college, we can get along without any more. Or maybe father would let
us borrow the money and stay at the dorm. And Connie's so far along now
that she's all right. Any good high school will do for her. It doesn't
make any difference at all."
"No, we're so nearly grown up that one place will do just as well as
another," agreed Carol unconcernedly.
"I'm rather anxious to move, myself," said Connie. "I'm afraid some of
the ladies might carry out their designs on father. They've had five
years of practise now, you know."
"Don't be silly, Con. Isn't Aunt Grace here on purpose to chaperon him
and keep the ladies off? I'd hate to go to New London, or Mediapolis,
or--but after all it doesn't make a bit of difference."
Just the same, on Wednesday evening, the girls sat silent, with
intensely flushed faces and painfully shining eyes, watching the clock,
listening for the footstep. They had deliberately remained away from the
station. They thought they could face it better within the friendly
walls of the parsonage. It was all settled now, father knew where they
were going. Oh, why hadn't he wired? It must be terribly bad then, he
evidently wanted to break it to them gently.
Maybe it was a circuit! There was the whistle now! Only a few minutes
now. Suppose his salary were cut down,--good-by to silk stockings and
kid gloves,--cheap, but kid, just the same! Suppose the parsonage would
be old-fashioned! Suppose there wasn't any parsonage at all, and they
would have to pay rent! Sup--Then the door slammed.
Carol and Lark picked up their darning, and Connie bent earnestly over
her magazine. Aunt Grace covered a yawn with her slender fingers and
looked out of the window.
"Hello!"
"Why, hello, papa! Back already?"
They dropped darning and magazine and flew to welcome him home.
"Come and sit down!" "My, it seemed a long time!" "We had lots of fun,
father." "Was it a nice conference?" "Mr. James sent us two bushels of
potatoes!" "We're going to have chicken to-morrow--the Ladies' Aiders
sent it with their farewell love." "Wasn't it a dandy day?"
"Well, it's all settled."
"Yes, we supposed it would be. Was the conference good? We read accounts
of it every day, and acted stuck-up when it said nice things about
you."
"We are to--"
"Ju-just a minute, father," interrupted Connie anxiously. "We don't care
a snap where it is, honestly we don't. We're just crazy about it,
wherever it is. We've got it all settled. You needn't be afraid to tell
us."
"Afraid to tell us!" mocked the twins indignantly. "What kind of
slave-drivers do you think we are?"
"Of course we don't care where we go," explained Lark. "Haven't we been
a parsonage bunch long enough to be tickled to death to be sent any
place?"
"Father knows we're all right. Go on, daddy, who's to be our next
flock?"
"We haven't any, we--"
The girls' faces paled. "Haven't any? You mean--"
"I mean we're to stay in Mount Mark."
"Stay in--What?"
"Mount Mark. They--"
"They extended the limit," cried Connie, springing up.
"No," he denied, laughing. "They made me a presiding elder, and we're--"
"A presiding elder! Father! Honestly? They--"
"They ought to have made you a bishop," cried Carol loyally. "I've been
expecting it all my life. That's where the next jump'll land you.
Presiding elder! Now we can snub the Ladies' Aid if we want to."
"Do you want to?"
"No, of course not, but it's lots of fun to know we could if we did want
to."
"I pity the next parsonage bunch," said Connie sympathetically.
"Why? There's nothing the matter with our church!"
"Oh, no, that isn't what I mean. But the next minister's family can't
possibly come up to us, and so--"
The others broke her sentence with their laughter.
"Talk about me and my complexion!" gasped Carol, wiping her eyes. "I'm
nothing to Connie and her family pride. Where will we live now,
father?"
"We'll rent a house--any house we like--and live like white folks."
"Rent! Mercy, father, doesn't the conference furnish the elders with
houses? We can never afford to pay rent! Never!"
"Oh, we have a salary of twenty-five hundred a year now," he said, with
apparent complacence, but careful to watch closely for the effect of
this statement. It gratified him, too, much as he had expected. The
girls stood stock-still and gazed at him, and then, with a violent
struggle for self-composure Carol asked:
"Did you get any of it in advance? I need some new slippers."
So the packing was finished, a suitable house was found--modern, with
reasonable rent--on Maple Avenue where the oaks were most magnificent,
and the parsonage family became just ordinary "folks," a parsonage
household no longer.
"You must be very patient with us if we still try to run things," Carol
said apologetically to the president of the Ladies' Aid. "We've been a
parsonage bunch all our lives, you know, and it's got to be a habit.
But we'll be as easy on you as we can. We know what it would mean to
leave two ministers' families down on you at once."
Mr. Starr's new position necessitated long and frequent absences from
home, and that was a drawback to the family comradeship. But the girls'
pride in his advancement was so colossal, and their determination to
live up to the dignity of the eldership was so deep-seated, that affairs
ran on quite serenely in the new home.
"Aren't we getting sensible?" Carol frequently asked her sisters, and
they agreed enthusiastically that they certainly were.
"I don't think we ever were so bad as we thought we were," Lark said.
"Even Prudence says now that we were always pretty good. Prudence ought
to think so. She got most of our spending money for a good many years,
didn't she?"
"Prudence didn't get it. She gave it to the heathen."
"Well, she got credit for it on the Lord's accounts, I suppose. But she
deserved it. It was no joke collecting allowances from us."
One day this beautiful serenity was broken in upon in a most unpleasant
way. Carol looked up from _De Senectute_ and flung out her arms in an
all-relieving yawn. Then she looked at her aunt, asleep on the couch.
She looked at Lark, who was aimlessly drawing feathers on the skeletons
of birds in her biology text. She looked at Connie, sitting upright in
her chair, a small book close to her face, alert, absorbed, oblivious to
the world. Connie was wide awake, and Carol resented it.
"What are you reading, Con?" she asked reproachfully.
Connie looked up, startled, and colored a little. "Oh,--poetry," she
stammered.
Carol was surprised. "Poetry," she echoed. "Poetry? What kind of poetry?
There are many poetries in this world of ours. 'Life is real, life is
earnest.' 'There was a young lady from Bangor.' 'A man and a maiden
decided to wed.' 'Sunset and, evening star,'--oh, there are lots of
poetries. What's yours?" Her senseless dissertation had put her in good
humor again.
Connie answered evasively. "It is by an old Oriental writer. I don't
suppose you've ever read it. Khayyam is his name."
"Some name," said Carol suspiciously. "What's the poem?" Her eyes had
narrowed and darkened. By this time Carol had firmly convinced herself
that she was bringing Connie up,--a belief which afforded lively
amusement to self-conducting Connie.
"Why, it's _The Rubaiyat_. It's--"
"_The Rubaiyat!_" Carol frowned. Lark looked up from the skeletons with
sudden interest. "_The Rubaiyat?_ By Khayyam? Isn't that the old fellow
who didn't believe in God, and Heaven, and such things--you know what I
mean,--the man who didn't believe anything, and wrote about it? Let me
see it. I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it." Carol
turned the pages with critical disapproving eyes. "Hum, yes, I know
about this." She faced Connie sternly. "I suppose you think, Connie,
that since we're out of a parsonage we can do anything we like. Haven't
we any standards? Haven't we any ideals? Are we--are we--well, anyhow,
what business has a minister's daughter reading trash like this?"
"I don't believe it, you know," Connie said coolly. "I'm only reading
it. How can I know whether it's trash or not, unless I read it? I--"
"Ministers' daughters are supposed to keep their fingers clear of the
burning ends of matches," said Carol neatly. "We can't handle them
without getting scorched, or blackened, at least. We have to steer clear
of things folks aren't sure about. Prudence says so."
"Prudence," said Connie gravely, "is a dear sweet thing, but she's
awfully old-fashioned, Carol; you know that."
Carol and Lark were speechless. They would as soon have dreamed of
questioning the catechism as Prudence's perfection.
"She's narrow. She's a darling, of course, but she isn't up-to-date. I
want to know what folks are talking about. I don't believe this poem.
I'm a Christian. But I want to know what other folks think about me and
what I believe. That's all. Prudence is fine, but I know a good deal
more about some things than Prudence will know when she's a thousand
years old."
The twins still sat silent.
"Of course, some folks wouldn't approve of parsonage girls reading
things like this. But I approve of it. I want to know why I disagree
with this poetry, and I can't until I know where we disagree. It's
beautiful, Carol, really. It's kind of sad. It makes me want to cry.
It's--"
"I've a big notion to tell papa on you," said Carol soberly and sadly.
Connie rose at once.
"What's the matter?"
"I'm going to tell papa myself."
Carol moved uneasily in her chair. "Oh, let it go this time. I--I just
mentioned it to relieve my feelings. I won't tell him yet. I'll talk it
over with you again. I'll have to think it over first."
"I think I'd rather tell him," insisted Connie.
Carol looked worried, but she knew Connie would do as she said. So she
got up nervously and went with her. She would have to see it through
now, of course. Connie walked silently up the stairs, with Carol
following meekly behind, and rapped at her father's door. Then she
entered, and Carol, in a hushed sort of way, closed the door behind
them.
"I'm reading this, father. Any objections?" Connie faced him calmly, and
handed him the little book.
He examined it gravely, his brows contracting, a sudden wrinkling at the
corners of his lips that might have meant laughter, or disapproval, or
anything.
"I thought a parsonage girl should not read it," Carol said bravely.
"I've never read it myself, but I've heard about it, and parsonage girls
ought to read parsonage things. Prudence says so. But--"
"But I want to know what other folks think about what I believe," said
Connie. "So I'm reading it."
"What do you think of, it?" he asked quietly, and he looked very
strangely at his baby daughter. It was suddenly borne in on him that
this was one crisis in her growth to womanhood, and he felt a great
yearning tenderness for her, in her innocence, in her dauntless courage,
in her reaching ahead, always ahead! It was a crisis, and he must be
very careful.
"I think it is beautiful," Connie said softly, and her lips drooped a
little, and a wistful pathos crept into her voice. "It seems so sad. I
keep wishing I could cry about it. There's nothing really sad in it, I
think it is supposed to be rather jovial, but--it seems terrible to me,
even when it is the most beautiful. Part of it I don't understand very
well."
He held out a hand to Connie, and she put her own in it confidently.
Carol, too, came and stood close beside him.
"Yes," he said, "it is beautiful, Connie, and it is very terrible. We
can't understand it fully because we can't feel what he felt. It is a
groping poem, a struggling for light when one is stumbling in darkness."
He looked thoughtfully at the girls. "He was a marvelous man, that
Khayyam,--years ahead of his people, and his time. He was big enough to
see the idiocy of the heathen ideas of God, he was beyond them, he
spurned them. But he was not quite big enough to reach out, alone, and
get hold of our kind of a God. He was reaching out, he was struggling,
but he couldn't quite catch hold. It is a wonderful poem. It shows the
weakness, the helplessness of a gifted man who has nothing to cling to.
I think it will do you good to read it, Connie. Read it again and again,
and thank God, my child, that though you are only a girl, you have the
very thing this man, this genius, was craving. We admire his talent, but
we pity his weakness. You will feel sorry for him. You read it, too,
Carol. You'll like it. We can't understand it, as I say, because we are
so sure of our God, that we can't feel what he felt, having nothing. But
we can feel the heart-break, the fear, the shrinking back from the
Providence that he called Fate,--of course it makes you want to cry,
Connie. It is the saddest poem in the world."
Connie's eyes were very bright. She winked hard a few times, choking
back the rush of tears. Then with an impulsiveness she did not often
show, she lifted her father's hand and kissed it passionately.
"Oh, father," she whispered, "I was so afraid--you wouldn't quite see."
She kissed his hand again.
Carol looked at her sister respectfully. "Connie," she said, "I
certainly beg your pardon. I just wanted to be clever, and didn't know
what I was talking about. When you have finished it, give it to me,
will you? I want to read it, too; I think it must be wonderful."
She held out a slender shapely hand and Connie took it quickly,
chummily, and the two girls turned toward the door.
"The danger in reading things," said Mr. Starr, and they paused to
listen, "the danger is that we may find arguments we can not answer; we
may feel that we have been in the wrong, that what we read is right.
There's the danger. Whenever you find anything like that, Connie, will
you bring it to me? I think I can find the answer for you. If I don't
know it, I will look until I come upon it. For we have been given an
answer to every argument. You'll come to me, won't you?"
"Yes, father, I will--I know you'll find the answers."
After the door had closed behind them, Mr. Starr sat for a long time
staring straight before him into space.
"The Connie problem," he said at last. And then, "I'll have to be better
pals with her. Connie's going to be pretty fine, I believe."