I heard Zura softly singing as she went about her work. She sang more
and talked less in the two weeks that followed our Thanksgiving
celebration than ever before since I had known her. In that time we had
not seen Page. In our one talk of what we had seen in the garden Zura
simply remarked that she supposed what we heard Page say meant he
dreaded to tell somebody of the loss of his fortune and family. She
lightly scoffed at my suggestion of anything more serious. I prayed that
might be true, but why his confusion and evasion?
Thoughts of the boy and his secret would have weighed heavily upon me
had it not been for my joy in seeing day by day the increasing sweetness
and graciousness of my adopted child. Her gentleness of manner and
speech often caused me to wonder if she could be the same untamed hoyden
of some months ago. Every day I prided myself on my quick understanding
of girls, also of the way to rear them. It made me more than happy to
see what I was accomplishing with Jane's help. While it was no royal
road to peace and happiness which we traveled, for Zura's impatience
with the Orient and its ways, her rebellion against the stigma laid upon
Eurasians, brought the shadows upon many a day's sunshine, yet, as the
time slipped by, there seemed to be a growing contentment. There were
fewer references made to a definite return to America. In the prospect
of her permanent stay with me, I found great joy.
Her high spirits found expression in her work. Her love of excitement
fed on encounters with Ishi and in teasing Jane.
One afternoon she locked the old gardener up in a tea-house till he
apologized for some disrespect. She detained him till intense fear of
the coming darkness induced him to submit.
One night Jane brought home a long bundle.
"A new dress, Saint Jinny?" asked Zura.
"No, honey, I haven't had a store dress in ten years. One somebody is
through with becomes me quite well. These are the models for my
hospital."
"You mean plans, don't you? You wouldn't be caught bringing home a
model. Models are ladies who would be overcome by the superfluous
drapery of a dress. My daddy used them for pictures in his studio. Sit
right down here by the fire, Miss Jaygray, and while you dissipate in
hot beef tea, I'll give you a lesson on models."
Zura painted so graphically a word picture of her father's studio it
made me laugh, for I knew well enough that such clotheless creatures
would not be permitted outside the Cannibal islands. The sheriff would
take them up.
As Zura continued her wild exaggerations a look of horror covered Miss
Gray's face.
"Oh! Zury!" she cried. "Surely those ladies had on part of a dress."
"No! angel child, not even a symptom. Daddy didn't want to paint their
clothes. He wanted to copy the curves that grew on the people."
Jane covered her eyes and spoke in a voice filled with trouble.
"Dearie! I've lived in America a long time but I didn't know there were
people like that! I'm really afraid they aren't selling their souls for
the highest price."
"Daddy wasn't dealing in souls, but he did pay a pretty high price for
lines."
Jane, unsatisfied, asked why her father couldn't use statues for his
model and Zura seeing how troubled her friend was for the souls of the
undressed, asked with eager sympathy to be allowed to see the plans for
the soon-to-be built hospital.
The ground for the building had been purchased and work was well on the
way. Shortly the roof-raising ceremony would take place. In this part of
the country it is the most important event in building. Jane said that
we were all expected to attend these exercises, even if we were so
afraid of the criminal quarters that we had to take our hearts in our
hands to enter.
Brown head and gray were bent together over blueprints and long columns
of figures. Both maid and woman were frail and delicate tools to be used
in the up-building of wrecked lives. Yet by the skill of the Master
Mechanic these instruments were not only working wonders in other lives,
but also something very beautiful in their own.
Zura took untiring interest in all Jane's plans for the
after-festivities of the occasion. Most of their evenings were spent in
arranging programs. I took no part. My hands were full of my own work
and, while they talked, I paused to listen and was delighted not only in
the transformation of Zura, but also in my own enlarged understanding of
her.
I loved all young things, and youth itself, but I had never been near
them before. With tender interest I watched every mood of Zura's,
passing from an untamed child to a lovely girl. Sometimes her bounding
spirits seemed overlaid by a soft enchantment. She would sit chin in
palm, dark, luminous eyes gazing out into space as if she saw some
wonderful picture. I suppose most girls do this. I never had time, but I
made it possible for Zura to have her dreams. She should have all that I
had missed, if I could give it to her--even a lover in years to come. I
did not share these thoughts with Jane, for it is plain human to be
irritated when we see our weaknesses reflected in another, and
encouragement was the last thing Jane's sentimental soul needed. I
failed to make out what had come over my companion these days; she would
fasten her eyes on Zura and smile knowingly, as if telling herself a
happy secret, sighing softly the while. And poetry! We ate, lived and
slept to the swing of some love ditty.
Once I found Zura in a mood of gentle brooding. I suggested to her that,
as the year was drawing to a close, it would be wise to start the new
one with a clean bill of conscience. Did she not think it would be well
for her to write to her grandfather and tell him she could see now that
she had made it most difficult for him? That while she didn't want to be
taken back she would like to be friends with him?
At once she was alert, but not aggressively so as in the past. "Ursula,
I'll do it if you insist; but it wouldn't be honest and I couldn't be
polite. I do not want to be friends with that old man who labels
everybody evil that doesn't think as he does. We'd never think alike in
a thousand years. What's the use of poking up a tiger when he's quiet?"