AN EVENTFUL PICNIC
It was summer and it was June. There was to be a picnic, and Elizabeth was
going.
Grandmother Brady had managed it. It seemed to her that, if Elizabeth
could go, her cup of pride would be full to overflowing; so after much
argument, pro and con, with her daughter and Lizzie, she set herself down
to pen the invitation. Aunt Nan was decidedly against it. She did not wish
to have Lizzie outshone. She had been working nights for two weeks on an
elaborate organdie, with pink roses all over it, for Lizzie to wear. It
had yards and yards of cheap lace and insertion, and a whole bolt of pink
ribbons of various widths. The hat was a marvel of impossible roses, just
calculated for the worst kind of a wreck if a thunder-shower should come
up at a Sunday-school picnic. Lizzie's mother was even thinking of getting
her a pink chiffon parasol to carry; but the family treasury was well-nigh
depleted, and it was doubtful whether that would be possible. After all
that, it did not seem pleasant to have Lizzie put in the shade by a
fine-lady cousin in silks and jewels.
But Grandmother Brady had waited long for her triumph. She desired above
all things to walk among her friends, and introduce her granddaughter,
Elizabeth Bailey, and inadvertently remark: "You must have seen me
granddaughter's name in the paper often, Mrs. Babcock. She was giving a
party in Rittenhouse Square the other day."
Elizabeth would likely be married soon, and perhaps go off somewhere away
from Philadelphia--New York or Europe, there was no telling what great
fortune might come to her. Now the time was ripe for triumph if ever, and
when things are ripe they must be picked. Mrs. Brady proceeded to pick.
She gathered together at great pains pen, paper, and ink. A pencil would
be inadequate when the note was going to Rittenhouse Square. She sat down
when Nan and Lizzie had left for their day's work, and constructed her
sentences with great care.
"_Dear Bessie_--" Elizabeth had never asked her not to call her that,
although she fairly detested the name. But still it had been her mother's
name, and was likely dear to her grandmother. It seemed disloyalty to her
mother to suggest that she be called "Elizabeth." So Grandmother Brady
serenely continued to call her "Bessie" to the end of her days. Elizabeth
decided that to care much about such little things, in a world where there
were so many great things, would be as bad as to give one's mind entirely
over to the pursuit of fashion.
The letter proceeded laboriously:
"Our Sunday school is going to have a picnic out to Willow
Grove. It's on Tuesday. We're going in the trolley. I'd be
pleased if you would go 'long with us. We will spend the day,
and take our dinner and supper along, and wouldn't get home till
late; so you could stay overnight here with us, and not go back
home till after breakfast. You needn't bring no lunch; fer we've
got a lot of things planned, and it ain't worth while. But if
you wanted to bring some candy, you might. I ain't got time to
make any, and what you buy at our grocery might not be fine
enough fer you. I want you to go real bad. I've never took my
two granddaughters off to anything yet, and your Grandmother
Bailey has you to things all the time. I hope you can manage to
come. I am going to pay all the expenses. Your old Christian
Deaver you used to 'tend is going to be there; so you'll have a
good time. Lizzie has a new pink organdie, with roses on her
hat; and we're thinking of getting her a pink umbreller if it
don't cost too much. The kind with chiffon flounces on it.
You'll have a good time, fer there's lots of side-shows out to
Willow Grove, and we're going to see everything there is to see.
There's going to be some music too. A man with a name that
sounds like swearing is going to make it. I don't remember it
just now, but you can see it advertised round on the
trolley-cars. He comes to Willow Grove every year. Now please
let me hear if you will go at once, as I want to know how much
cake to make.
"Your loving grandmother,
ELIZABETH BRADY."
Elizabeth laughed and cried over this note. It pleased her to have her
grandmother show kindness to her. She felt that whatever she did for
Grandmother Brady was in a sense showing her love to her own mother; so
she brushed aside several engagements, much to the annoyance of her
Grandmother Bailey, who could not understand why she wanted to go down to
Flora Street for two days and a night just in the beginning of warm
weather. True, there was not much going on just now between seasons, and
Elizabeth could do as she pleased; but she might get a fever in such a
crowded neighborhood. It wasn't in the least wise. However, if she must,
she must. Grandmother Bailey was on the whole lenient. Elizabeth was too
much of a success, and too willing to please her in all things, for her to
care to cross her wishes. So Elizabeth wrote on her fine note-paper
bearing the Bailey crest in silver:
_"Dear Grandmother:_ I shall be delighted to go to the picnic
with you, and I'll bring a nice big box of candy, Huyler's best.
I'm sure you'll think it's the best you ever tasted. Don't get
Lizzie a parasol; I'm going to bring her one to surprise her.
I'll be at the house by eight o'clock.
"Your loving granddaughter,
ELIZABETH."
Mrs. Brady read this note with satisfaction and handed it over to her
daughter to read with a gleam of triumph in her eyes at the supper-table.
She knew the gift of the pink parasol would go far toward reconciling Aunt
Nan to the addition to their party. Elizabeth never did things by halves,
and the parasol would be all that could possibly be desired without
straining the family pocketbook any further.
So Elizabeth went to the picnic in a cool white dimity, plainly made, with
tiny frills of itself, edged with narrow lace that did not shout to the
unknowing multitude, "I am real!" but was content with being so; and with
a white Panama hat adorned with only a white silken scarf, but whose
texture was possible only at a fabulous price. The shape reminded
Elizabeth of the old felt hat belonging to her brother, which she had worn
on her long trip across the continent. She had put it on in the hat-store
one day; and her grandmother, when she found how exquisite a piece of
weaving the hat was, at once purchased it for her. It was stylish to wear
those soft hats in all sorts of odd shapes. Madam Bailey thought it would
be just the thing for the seashore.
Her hair was worn in a low coil in her neck, making the general appearance
and contour of her head much as it had been three years before. She wore
no jewelry, save the unobtrusive gold buckle at her belt and the plain
gold hatpin which fastened her hat. There was nothing about her which
marked her as one of the "four hundred." She did not even wear her gloves,
but carried them in her hand, and threw them carelessly upon the table
when she arrived in Flora Street. Long, soft white ones, they lay there in
their costly elegance beside Lizzie's post-card album that the
livery-stable man gave her on her birthday, all the long day while
Elizabeth was at Willow Grove, and Lizzie sweltered around under her pink
parasol in long white silk gloves.
Grandmother Brady surveyed Elizabeth with decided disapproval. It seemed
too bad on this her day of triumph, and after she had given a hint, as it
were, about Lizzie's fine clothes, that the girl should be so blind or
stubborn or both as to come around in that plain rig. Just a common white
dress, and an old hat that might have been worn about a livery-stable. It
was mortifying in the extreme. She expected a light silk, and kid gloves,
and a beflowered hat. Why, Lizzie looked a great deal finer. Did Mrs.
Bailey rig her out this way for spite? she wondered.
But, as it was too late to send Elizabeth back for more fitting garments,
the old lady resigned herself to her disappointment. The pink parasol was
lovely, and Lizzie was wild over it. Even Aunt Nan seemed mollified. It
gave her great satisfaction to look the two girls over. Her own outshone
the one from Rittenhouse Square by many counts, so thought the mother; but
all day long, as she walked behind them or viewed them from afar, she
could not understand why it was that the people who passed them always
looked twice at Elizabeth and only once at Lizzie. It seemed, after all,
that clothes did not make the girl. It was disappointing.
The box of candy was all that could possibly be desired. It was ample for
the needs of them all, including the two youths from the livery-stable who
had attached themselves to their party from the early morning. In fact, it
was two boxes, one of the most delectable chocolates of all imaginable
kinds, and the other of mixed candies and candied fruit. Both boxes bore
the magic name "Huyler's" on the covers. Lizzie had often passed Huyler's,
taking her noon walk on Chestnut Street, and looked enviously at the girls
who walked in and out with white square bundles tied with gold cord as if
it were an everyday affair. And now she was actually eating all she
pleased of those renowned candies. It was almost like belonging to the
great élite.
It was a long day and a pleasant one even to Elizabeth. She had never been
to Willow Grove before, and the strange blending of sweet nature and
Vanity Fair charmed her. It was a rest after the winter's round of
monotonous engagements. Even the loud-voiced awkward youths from the
livery-stable did not annoy her extremely. She took them as a part of the
whole, and did not pay much attention to them. They were rather shy of
her, giving the most of their attention to Lizzie, much to the
satisfaction of Aunt Nan.
They mounted the horses in the merry-go-rounds, and tried each one
several times. Elizabeth wondered why anybody desired this sort of
amusement, and after her first trip would have been glad to sit with her
grandmother and watch the others, only that the old lady seemed so much to
desire to have her get on with the rest. She would not do anything to
spoil the pleasure of the others if she could help it; so she obediently
seated herself in a great sea-shell drawn by a soiled plaster nymph, and
whirled on till Lizzie declared it was time to go to something else.
They went into the Old Mill, and down into the Mimic Mine, and sailed
through the painted Venice, eating candy and chewing gum and shouting. All
but Elizabeth. Elizabeth would not chew gum nor talk loud. It was not her
way. But she smiled serenely on the rest, and did not let it worry her
that some one might recognize the popular Miss Bailey in so ill-bred a
crowd. She knew that it was their way, and they could have no other. They
were having a good time, and she was a part of it for to-day. They weighed
one another on the scales with many jokes and much laughter, and went to
see all the moving pictures in the place. They ate their lunch under the
trees, and then at last the music began.
They seated themselves on the outskirts of the company, for Lizzie
declared that was the only pleasant place to be. She did not want to go
"way up front." She had a boy on either side of her, and she kept the seat
shaking with laughter. Now and then a weary guard would look distressedly
down the line, and motion for less noise; but they giggled on. Elizabeth
was glad they were so far back that they might not annoy more people than
was necessary.
But the music was good, and she watched the leader with great
satisfaction. She noticed that there were many people given up to the
pleasure of it. The melody went to her soul, and thrilled through it. She
had not had much good music in her life. The last three years, of course,
she had been occasionally to the Academy of Music; but, though her
grandmother had a box there, she very seldom had time or cared to attend
concerts. Sometimes, when Melba, or Caruso, or some world-renowned
favorite was there, she would take Elizabeth for an hour, usually slipping
out just after the favorite solo with noticeable loftiness, as if the
orchestra were the common dust of the earth, and she only condescended to
come for the soloist. So Elizabeth had scarcely known the delight of a
whole concert of fine orchestral music.
She heard Lizzie talking.
"Yes, that's Walter Damrosch! Ain't that name fierce? Grandma thinks it's
kind of wicked to pernounce it that way. They say he's fine, but I must
say I liked the band they had last year better. It played a whole lot of
lively things, and once they had a rattle-box and a squeaking thing that
cried like a baby right out in the music, and everybody just roared
laughing. I tell you that was great. I don't care much for this here kind
of music myself. Do you?" And Jim and Joe both agreed that they didn't,
either. Elizabeth smiled, and kept on enjoying it.
Peanuts were the order of the day, and their assertive crackle broke in
upon the finest passages. Elizabeth wished her cousin would take a walk;
and by and by she did, politely inviting Elizabeth to go along; but she
declined, and they were left to sit through the remainder of the afternoon
concert.
After supper they watched the lights come out, Elizabeth thinking about
the description of the heavenly city as one after another the buildings
blazed out against the darkening blue of the June night. The music was
about to begin. Indeed, it could be heard already in the distance, and
drew the girl irresistibly. For the first time that day she made a move,
and the others followed, half wearied of their dissipations, and not
knowing exactly what to do next.
They stood the first half of the concert very well, but at the
intermission they wandered out to view the electric fountain with its
many-colored fluctuations, and to take a row on the tiny sheet of water.
Elizabeth remained sitting where she was, and watched the fountain. Even
her grandmother and aunt grew restless, and wanted to walk again. They
said they had had enough music, and did not want to hear any more. They
could hear it well enough, anyway, from further off. They believed they
would have some ice-cream. Didn't Elizabeth want some?
She smiled sweetly. Would grandmother mind if she sat right there and
heard the second part of the concert? She loved music, and this was fine.
She didn't feel like eating another thing to-night. So the two ladies,
thinking the girl queer that she didn't want ice-cream, went off to enjoy
theirs with a clear conscience; and Elizabeth drew a long breath, and sat
back with her eyes closed, to test and breathe in the sweet sounds that
were beginning to float out delicately as if to feel whether the
atmosphere were right for what was to come after.
It was just at the close of this wonderful music, which the programme said
was Mendelssohn's "Spring Song," when Elizabeth looked up to meet the eyes
of some one who stood near in the aisle watching her, and there beside her
stood the man of the wilderness!
He was looking at her face, drinking in the beauty of the profile and
wondering whether he were right. Could it be that this was his little
brown friend, the maid of the wilderness? This girl with the lovely,
refined face, the intellectual brow, the dainty fineness of manner? She
looked like some white angel dropped down into that motley company of
Sunday-school picknickers and city pleasure-seekers. The noise and clatter
of the place seemed far away from her. She was absorbed utterly in the
sweet sounds.
When she looked up and saw him, the smile that flashed out upon her face
was like the sunshine upon a day that has hitherto been still and almost
sad. The eyes said, "You are come at last!" The curve of the lips said, "I
am glad you are here!"
He went to her like one who had been hungry for the sight of her for a
long time, and after he had grasped her hand they stood so for a moment
while the hum and gentle clatter of talk that always starts between
numbers seethed around them and hid the few words they spoke at first.
"O, I have so longed to know if you were safe!" said the man as soon as he
could speak.
Then straightway the girl forgot all her three years of training, and her
success as a débutante, and became the grave, shy thing she had been to
him when he first saw her, looking up with awed delight into the face she
had seen in her dreams for so long, and yet might not long for.
The orchestra began again, and they sat in silence listening. But yet
their souls seemed to speak to each other through the medium of the music,
as if the intervening years were being bridged and brought together in the
space of those few waves of melody.
"I have found out," said Elizabeth, looking up shyly with a great light in
her eyes. "I have found what it all means. Have you? O, I have wanted so
much to know whether you had found out too!"
"Found out what?" he asked half sadly that he did not understand.
"Found out how God hides us. Found what a friend Jesus Christ can be."
"You are just the same," said the man with satisfaction in his eyes. "You
have not been changed nor spoiled. They could not spoil you."
"Have you found out too?" she asked softly. She looked up into his eyes
with wistful longing. She wanted this thing so very much. It had been in
her prayers for so long.
He could not withdraw his own glance. He did not wish to. He longed to be
able to answer what she wished.
"A little, perhaps," he said doubtfully. "Not so much as I would like to.
Will you help me?"
"_He_ will help you. You will find Him if you search for Him with all your
heart," she said earnestly. "It says so in His book."
Then came more music, wistful, searching, tender. Did it speak of the
things of heaven to other souls there than those two?
He stooped down, and said in a low tone that somehow seemed to blend with
the music like the words that fitted it,
"I will try with all my heart if you will help me."
She smiled her answer, brimming back with deep delight.
Into the final lingering notes of an andante from one of Beethoven's
sublime symphonies clashed the loud voice of Lizzie:
"O Bess! Bess! B-es-see! I say, Bessie! Ma says we'll have to go over by
the cars now if we want to get a seat. The concert's most out, and
there'll be a fierce rush. Come on! And grandma says, bring your friend
along with you if you want." This last with a smirking recognition of the
man, who had turned around wonderingly to see who was speaking.
With a quick, searching glance that took in bedraggled organdie, rose hat,
and pink parasol, and set them aside for what they were worth, George
Benedict observed and classified Lizzie.
"Will you excuse yourself, and let me take you home a little later?" he
asked in a low tone. "The crowd will be very great, and I have my
automobile here."
She looked at him gratefully, and assented. She had much to tell him. She
leaned across the seats, and spoke in a clear tone to her cousin.
"I will come a little later," she said, smiling with her Rittenhouse
Square look that always made Lizzie a little afraid of her. "Tell
grandmother I have found an old friend I have not seen for a long time. I
will be there almost as soon as you are."
They waited while Lizzie explained, and the grandmother and aunt nodded a
reluctant assent. Aunt Nan frowned. Elizabeth might have brought her
friend along, and introduced him to Lizzie. Did Elizabeth think Lizzie
wasn't good enough to be introduced?
He wrapped her in a great soft rug that was in the automobile, and tucked
her in beside him; and she felt as if the long, hard days that had passed
since they had met were all forgotten and obliterated in this night of
delight. Not all the attentions of all the fine men she had met in
society had ever been like his, so gentle, so perfect. She had forgotten
the lady as completely as if she had never heard of her. She wanted now to
tell her friend about her heavenly Friend.
He let her talk, and watched her glowing, earnest face by the dim light of
the sky; for the moon had come out to crown the night with beauty, and the
unnatural brilliance of electric blaze, with all the glitter and noise of
Willow Grove, died into the dim, sweet night as those two sped onward
toward the city. The heart of the man kept singing, singing, singing: "I
have found her at last! She is safe!"
"I have prayed for you always," he said in one of the pauses. It was just
as they were coming into Flora Street. The urchins were all out on the
sidewalk yet, for the night was hot; and they gathered about, and ran
hooting after the car as it slowed up at the door. "I am sure He did hide
you safely, and I shall thank Him for answering my prayer. And now I am
coming to see you. May I come to-morrow?"
There was a great gladness in her eyes. "Yes," she said.
The Bradys had arrived from the corner trolley, and were hovering about
the door self-assertively. It was most apparent to an onlooker that this
was a good opportunity for an introduction, but the two young people were
entirely oblivious. The man touched his hat gravely, a look of great
admiration in his eyes, and said, "Good night" like a benediction. Then
the girl turned and went into the plain little home and to her belligerent
relatives with a light in her eyes and a joy in her steps that had not
been there earlier in the day. The dreams that visited her hard pillow
that night were heavenly and sweet.