It was Sunday; and it was in May. To Whitewater Farms floated the
sound of bells from three village churches, pealing alternately. With
a final three strokes from each bell, Odell and Lister drove out of
the horse-barn in the family carry-all. In God’s honour, Odell wore a
celluloid collar. Lister’s reverence was expressed in a new scarlet
bandanna.
Mazie, big, symmetrical, handsome in her trim summer clothes, appeared
from the house, herding her loitering, loutish offspring--Gene, 18; Si,
17; Willis, 16; Buddy, 15; all habited in the dark, ready-made clothing
and dark felt hats of rural ceremony, the gloomy similarity relieved
only by ready-made satin neck-scarfs of different but primitive hues.
“Where’s Eris?” inquired Odell.
Mazie laughed: “She ain’t ready, what with her curling and her manicure
set--busy ’s’a bee from fingers to toes--”
“Eris!” shouted her father, looking up at the open window, where dotted
muslin curtains were blowing.
Eris peeped out, her chestnut hair dishevelled.
“Don’t wait,” she said. “I’ll walk.”
Odell gathered the reins: “G’lang!” he grunted.
* * * * *
For twenty minutes or more there was no sound in the House of Odell
except the flutter of muslin curtains.
Under the window a lilac bush was vibrant with bumble-bees; robins ran
through the grass; blue-birds drifted along the fence from post to post
in soft, moth-like flight.
It was quite a while after the kitchen clock struck that light, hurried
steps sounded on the stairs.
Eris stepped out on the porch, radiant and in her best.
At twenty she had the slender immaturity of a girl of sixteen. Her slim
figure made her seem taller than she was.
Her hat was one of those sagging straw affairs. It tied under the chin
with lilac ribbon. Her thin white gown had lilac ribbons on it, too. So
did her sun-shade.
She was very late. She walked to the gate, keeping to the brick path on
account of her white shoes and stockings.
Here she consulted her wrist-watch. There was no use hurrying now. She
glanced up and down the road--possibility of a belated neighbour giving
her a lift to the village.
No, it was too late to hurry. Almost too late to go at all.
She looked up at the gate lilacs, broke off a heavy, mauve cluster,
inhaled the fragrance.
For a little while, still, she lingered on the chance of a passing
vehicle. Finally she returned to her room, took a book from her pillow,
took “the key to the fields,” and sauntered off through the hillside
orchard, now a wilderness of pink and white bloom.
Everywhere the azure wings of blue-birds; the peach-red of a robin’s
breast; the broad golden glint of a flicker flashing through high white
bloom.
The breeze which had fluttered her muslin curtains was busy up here,
too, blowing white butterflies out of their courses and spreading
silvery streaks across tall grasses.
On the hill-top she paused, looking out over the world of May.
Below her lay Whitewater Farms, neat as a group of newly-painted
toys, house, barns with their hip-gables, silos, poultry-runs, sheds,
out-buildings, whitewashed fences.
A mile south, buried among elms and maples, lay White Hills Village,
the spires of its three churches piercing the foliage.
All around, east, west, south, rose low hills, patched with woods,
a barn or two in silhouette on some grassy ridge. Ploughed fields,
pastures, squares of vivid winter wheat checkered the panorama, the
tender green of hard-wood groves alternating with the dark beauty of
hemlock and white pine.
Overhead a blue sky, quite cloudless; over all, May sunshine; the young
world melodious with the songs of birds. And Eris, twenty, with the
heart and experience of sixteen.
Sweet, thrilling came the meadow lark’s calling from the crests of tall
elms. It seemed to pierce her heart.
To the breezy stillness of the hill came faintly out of the valley the
distant barking of a dog, a cock-crow, answered, answered again from
some remoter farm.
Eris turned and looked into the north, where bluish hills spread away
into the unknown.
Below her were the Home Woods, where Whitewater Brook ran over silver
gravel, under mossy logs, pouring into deep, spreading pools, gliding
swiftly amid a camouflage of ferns, gushing out over limestone beds to
clatter and sparkle and fling rainbow spray across every sunny glade.
Eris looked down at the woods. To venture down there was not very good
for her low-heeled, white sport shoes.... Of course she could clean
them after noon dinner and they’d be dry in time for--anything.... But
for _what_?
She paused at the wood’s edge, her mind on her shoes.
“In time for what?” she repeated aloud.
She stood, abstracted, grey eyes brooding the question.
What was there to dress for--to clean her white shoes for? Evening
service. A slow stroll with some neighbour’s daughter along the village
street. Gossip with other young people encountered in the lamp-lit
dark. Banter with boys--passing the usual group clustered on fence or
wall--jests born of rural wit, empty laughter, emptier retort--the
slow stroll homeward.... This was what she dressed for.... Or for a
party ... where the deadly familiarity of every face and voice had
long since dulled her interest.... Where there was never any mental
outlook; no aspiration, no stimulation--no response to her restless
curiosity--where nobody could tell her “why.”
Standing there on the wood’s edge, she wondered why she was at pains to
dress becomingly for the sake of such things as these.
She wondered why she cared for her person so scrupulously in a family
where a bath a week was the rule--in a community where the drug-store
carried neither orange-stick nor depilatory.
It is true, however, that with the advent of short skirts and
prohibition it was now possible to purchase lipstick and powder-puff in
White Hills. And State Troopers had been there twice looking for hootch.
There was a rumour in local ecclesiastical circles that the youth of
White Hills was headed hellward.
* * * * *
As yet the sweet-fern was only in tassel; Eris could pick her way,
without danger to her stockings, through the strip of rough clearing.
She entered the woods, pensively, amid the dappled shadows of new
leaves.
Everywhere her eyes discovered young ferns and wild blossoms. Trillium
and bunch-berry were still in bloom; viburnum, too; violets, blue,
yellow and white; and a few pink moccasin flowers and late anemones.
Birds, too, sang everywhere; crows were noisy in the taller pines;
glimpses of wood-thrush and Veery in moist thickets; clear little
ecstasies of bird-song from high branches, the strident chirring of red
squirrels, the mysterious, muffled drumming of a cock-grouse far in
woodland depths.
Where a mossy limestone ledge hung low over Whitewater Brook, Eris
spread her handkerchief and sat down on it carefully, laying her book
beside her.
Here the stillness was melodious with golden harmonies from a little
waterfall.
There were no black flies or midges yet,--no exasperating deer-flies
either. Only gilded ephemera dancing over the water, where, at
intervals, some burly trout broke with a splash.
Green-clouded swallow-tail butterflies in floppy, erratic flight,
sped through sunny glades. Overhead sailed the great yellow
swallow-tail,--in aërial battle, sometimes with the Beauty of
Camberwell, the latter rather ragged and faded from last summer’s
gaiety, but with plenty of spirit left in her shabby wings.
Sun-spots glowed and waned; shadows flickered; water poured and glided
between green banks, aglint with bubbles. The beauty of all things
filled the young heart of Eris, reddened her lips, tormented her,
almost hurt her with the desire for utterance.
If inexperience really has anything to express, it has no notion how to
go about it.
Like vast, tinted, unreal clouds, her formless thoughts crowded her
mind--guileless desire, innocent aspiration toward ineffable heights,
ambition as chaste as immature.
And when in dreaming preoccupation the clouds took vague form, her
unformed mind merely mirrored an unreal shape resembling herself--a
magic dancing shape, ethereal, triumphant amid Olympian thunders of
applause--a glittering shape, like hers, lovelier, facing the world
from the jewelled splendour of the stage--a shadow-shape, gliding
across the screen, worshipped in silence by a breathless multitude.
She opened her book. It was entitled: “How to Break into the Movies.”
She read for a few moments, gave it up.
* * * * *
It was May in the world; and, in the heart of Eris, April. And a
strange, ardent, restlessness in the heart of all youth the whole
world over--the renaissance, perhaps, of a primitive, lawless
irresponsibility curbed into discipline æons ago. And, after ages, let
loose again since the Twilight of the World fell over Armageddon.
* * * * *
Sooner or later she felt she must free mind, heart, body of whatever
hampered, and go--go on about her business in life--whatever it might
be--seek it throughout the world--ask the way--ask all things unknown
to her--learn all things, understand, choose, achieve.
Twenty, in the April just ended! Her time was short. The time to be
about her business in life was very near.... The time was here.... It
was already here ... if she only knew the way.... The way out.... The
door that opened outward....
* * * * *
Lifting her grey eyes she saw a man across the brook. He saw her at the
same moment.
He was fat. He wore short rubber boots and no coat. Creel, bait-box,
and fishing rod explained his presence on Whitewater. But as to his
having any business there, he himself seemed in doubt.
“Hello, sister!” he said jauntily.
“Hello,” said Eris, politely.
“Is it all right for me to fish here?” he inquired. “I’m not
trespassing, am I?”
“People fish through our woods,” replied Eris.
“Oh, are they _your_ woods?” He looked around him at the trees as
though to see what kind of sylvan property this girl possessed.
“A pretty spot,” he said with condescension, preparing to bait his
hook. “I like pretty spots. It’s my business to hunt for them, too.
Yes, and sometimes I hunt for dreary spots. Not that I like them, but
it’s in my line----” He shoved a squirming worm onto the hook and wiped
his hands on his trousers. “Yes, that’s my line--I’m in all kinds of
lines--even fish-lines----” He dropped his hook into the pool and stood
intent, evidently indifferent to any potential applause as tribute to
his wit.
He was sunburnt, fat, smooth-shaven. Thin hair partly covered his head
in damp ringlets.
Presently he glanced across at Eris out of little bluish, puffy eyes
which sagged at the corners. He winked at her, not offensively:
“Yes, that’s my best line, sister.... Spots! All kinds. Pretty, gloomy,
lovely, dreary--oasis or desert, it doesn’t matter; I’m always in the
market for spots.”
“Are you looking for a farm?” inquired Eris.
“Farm? Well, that’s in my line, too,--farms, mills, nice old stone
bridges,--all that stuff is in my line,--in fact, everything is in my
line,--and nothing _on_ my line----” He lifted a dripping bait, lowered
it again, winked at Eris.
“I suppose,” he said, “there isn’t a single thing in all the world that
isn’t in my line. Why, even _you_ are!” he added, laughing fatly. “What
do you think of that, now?”
“What is your line?” she inquired, inclined to smile.
“Can’t you guess, girlie?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Well, I come out this way on location. The bunch is over at Summit.
I’m just scouting out the lay over here. To-day’s Sunday, so I’m
fishing. I can’t hunt spots every minute.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Eris.
“Why, we’re shooting the sanitarium over at Summit,” he explained,
gently testing his line. As there was nothing on it he looked over at
Eris.
“You don’t get me, sister,” he said. “It’s pictures. See?”
“Moving pictures?”
“Yeh, the Crystal Film outfit. We’re shooting the ‘Wild Girl.’ It’s all
outside stuff now. We’re going to shoot ‘The Piker’ next. Nature stuff.
That’s why.”
Once more he drew out and examined his bait. “Say,” he demanded, “are
there any fish in this stream?”
“Trout.”
“Well, they seem to be darned scarce----”
“I want to ask you something,” interrupted the girl, breathlessly.
“Shoot, sister.”
“I want to know how people--how a girl----”
“Sure. I get you. I’m glad you asked me. They all ask that. You want to
know how to get into pictures.”
“Yes----”
“Of course. So does every living female in the United States. That’s
what sixty million women, young and old, want to know----”
He looked up, prepared to wink, but something in her flushed expression
modified his jocose intention:
“Say, sister,” he drawled, “_you_ don’t want to go into pictures.”
“Yes, I do.”
“What for?”
“Why are _you_ in pictures?” she asked.
“God knows----”
“Will you please tell me why?”
“I like the job, I guess.”
“So do I.”
“Oh, very well,” he said, laughing, “go to it, girlie.”
“How?”
“Why, _I_ can’t tell you----”
“You _can_!”
He lifted his bait and flopped it into another place.
“Now, listen,” he said, “some men would take notice of your pretty
face and kid you along. That ain’t me. If you break loose and go into
pictures it’s a one to a million shot you make carfare.”
“I want to try.”
“_I_ can’t give you a job, sister----”
“Would the Crystal Film management let me try?”
“Nobody would let you try unless they needed an extra.”
“What is an extra?”
“A day’s jobber. Maybe several days. Then it’s hoofing it after the
next job.”
“Couldn’t they let me try a small part?”
“We’re cast. You got to begin as an extra, anyhow. There’s nothing else
to it, girlie----”
Something jerked his line; gingerly he lifted the rod, not “striking”;
a plump trout fell from the hook into the water.
“Lost him, by jinx!” he exclaimed. “What the devil did I do that I
hadn’t oughto I dunno?”
“You should jerk when a trout bites. You just lifted him out. You can’t
hook a trout that way.... I hope you will be kind enough to give me
your name and address, and help me to get into pictures.”
For a while he stood silent, re-baiting his hook. When he was ready he
cast the line into the water, laid the rod on the bank, drew out and
lighted a large, pallid cigar.
“Of course,” he remarked, “your parents are against your going into
pictures.”
“My mother is dead. My stepmother only laughs at me.”
“How about papa?”
“He wouldn’t like it.”
“Same old scenario,” he said. “And I’ll give you the same old advice:
if you got a good home, stay put. Have you?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t want to stay put?”
“No.”
“You want to run away and-be-a-great-actress?”
“I’m going to try.”
“Try to do what?”
“Find out what I can do and do it!” she replied hotly, almost on the
verge of tears.
He looked up at the delicate, flushed beauty of her face.
It wasn’t a question of talent. Most women have the actress in them.
With or lacking intelligence it can be developed enough for Broadway
use.
“You young girls,” he said, “expect to travel everywhere on your looks.
And some of you do. And they last as long as their looks last. But men
get nowhere without brains.”
“I have brains,” she retorted unsteadily.
“Let it go at that. But where’s your experience?”
“How can I have it unless I--I try?”
“You think acting is your vocation, sister?”
“I intend to find out.”
“You better listen to me and stick to a good home while the sticking’s
good!”
“I’m going into pictures,” she said slowly. “And that’s _that_!”
Wearying of bad luck the fat man started to move down stream toward
another pool.
The girl rose straight up on her mossy rock, joining both hands in
classic appeal, quite unconscious of her dramatic attitude.
“Please--_please_ tell me who you are and where you live!” she
beseeched him.
He was inclined to laugh; then her naïveté touched him.
“Well, sister,” he said, “if you put it that way--my name is
Quiss--Harry B. Quiss. I live in New York--Hotel Huron. You can find me
there when I’m not on location or at the studio.... The Crystal Films
Corporation. We’re in the telephone book.”
Mr. Quiss might have added that the Crystal Films Corporation was also
on its beam-ends. But he couldn’t quite do that. All he could say was:
“Better stick to papa while the sticking’s good, girlie. There’s no
money in pictures. They all bust sooner or later. Take it from one
who’s been blown sky-high more’n twice. And expects to go up more’n
twice more.”
He went slowly toward the pool below, gesticulating with his rod for
emphasis:
“There’s no money in pictures--not even for stars. I don’t know where
it all goes to. Don’t ask me who gets it. I don’t, anyway.”