THE WISHING-ROCK
Three girls sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its
mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a
momentous day--momentous because so many things had been decided and
such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with
Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer,
then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced that she was
going to have a house-party and her guests were going to be Pat Everett,
Renee La Due and her brother, and Peggy and Garrett Lee, and Garrett Lee
was going to bring Dana King. And Jerry and Uncle Johnny had prevailed
upon Little-Dad to accept an automobile.
"You can keep Silverheels for just fun and work in the automobile and
then we can go over to Cobble and to Wayside and----"
Little-Dad had not liked the thought at first. Somehow, to bring a
chugging, smelling, snorting automobile up to Sunnyside to stay seemed
an insult to the peace and beauty and simplicity of his little
tucked-away home. But when Jerry pleaded and even Mrs. Travis admitted
it would be nice and reminded him that Silverheels was growing old, he
yielded, and Uncle Johnny promised to order one immediately--he knew
just the kind that would climb Kettle and run as simply as a
sewing-machine.
But the best of all that had been "decided" since sunrise was that Jerry
should go back to Highacres----
"_Pinch_ me, Gypsy Editha Westley--pinch me _hard_!" she cried as she
sat between Gyp and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And _really, truly_
going back to Highacres! I _can't_ be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to
sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver
ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them
because _they_ could go and _I_ couldn't. But it used to be fun
pretending I knew just what the world was like."
Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been
anywhere?"
"Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being
places and seeing things yourself."
Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the
great rock.
"Do you suppose it really _is_ a 'wishing-rock'?"
"Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I
pretended there were fairies--fern fairies and grass fairies and tree
fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for
things that weren't--here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did
not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it
seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock.
Sometimes the wishes came true--when they were just little things."
"Well, it's funny if it wasn't _some_ sort of magic that made Uncle
Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you
were wishing! And your wish came _true_. And if he hadn't--why, you'd
never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that
secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known
that you were _really_ Jerauld Winton. Oh, it _has_ magic!"
Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile--after all, more
than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the
little things which shape our living!
"So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish!
It's so still you could 'most believe there _were_ fairies hiding
'round. I'll wish first."
Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of
the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial
fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral
note.
"I wish," she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball
team--I wish _that_ dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the
college entrance exams.--I don't care how much. I wish to get through
college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly
spliffy position offered to me somewhere which I shall refuse because a
tall man with curly yellow hair and soulful, speaking gray eyes has
asked me to marry him. Then I'll marry him and have six children and
I'll bring them to the mountains to live. Then"--she paused for
breath--"if I'm not asking too much I wish that my hair'll get curly."
"Did I remember everything?" she asked anxiously, jumping down from the
rock. "Who's next?"
Jerry politely waved Isobel to the top.
Isobel laughed in her effort to frame all that she wanted to wish.
"I just want to be the most famous decorator in the country. I want to
have women coming to me from all over, begging me to do their houses.
And if the women are cross and ugly I'll make everything pink to cheer
them up and if they're smug and conceited I'll make their houses dull
gray, and if they are too frivolous I'll make things a spiritual blue.
Oh, it will be _fun_! And I want to go to Paris to study just as soon as
I get through college, and I don't want to get married for a long, long
time, maybe never."
It was Jerry's turn. Isobel and Gyp stood aside. Jerry's eyes were
shining--it _was_ fun to pretend that, maybe, a shadowy, spectral Fate
waited there in the valley to hear what they were saying!
"I wish--oh, it seems as though just going back to Highacres is all
anyone _could_ wish! I want to go to school as long as ever I can and
then I want to go all around the world, and then I want to study to be a
doctor like Little-Dad and take care of sick people and make them well,
so they can enjoy things. And I want to marry a man who's jolly and
always young-acting and loves dogs and has light brown hair and a very
straight nose and----"
"Jerry Travis, that's just like Dana King," cried Gyp, accusingly.
Jerry flushed scarlet. "It isn't anything of the sort! I mean--can't
there be lots of men with light brown hair and straight noses--hundreds
of them? And anyway," loyalty blazed, "Dana King _is_ the nicest boy
I've ever known!"
"And he thinks _you're_ the nicest girl," Gyp laughed back. "I know
it--he told Garrett Lee and Garrett told Peggy. So there----"
"You've interrupted my wish and I don't know where I left off," Jerry
rebuked. "Oh, I wish most of all that I can always, no matter where I
am, come back to Sunnyside and Sweetheart and Little-Dad and--my garden!
There, I've wished everything!"
The distant tinkle of a cowbell sounded faintly; a thrush sang; the sun,
dropping low toward the wooded crest of the opposite mountain, cast a
golden glow over valley and slope. The air was filled with the drowsy
hum and stirring of tiny unseen creatures, the birches that fringed the
glade leaned and whispered. The three girls sat silent, staring down
into the valley, each visioning a golden future of her own. But a
thoughtfulness shadowed the radiance of Jerry's face. Yesterday she had
been just Jerry Travis of Kettle, now she was another Jerry; on a page
far back in her life's book, opened to her, she had glimpsed the tragedy
of disappointment, of blighted hope, of defeat--her own young, undaunted
spirit cried out that none of this must come into _her_ life! Or, if it
did, she must be strong to meet it----
Gyp roused. For her the golden spell was broken. She yawned and
stretched.
"Isn't school funny? You think you hate it and then when vacation comes
you keep thinking about going back. And you bury geometry and Caesar
forever and try to forget them and then first thing you're thinking
about what you're going to take next year and whom you'll get and what
new girls will come and what sort of a team we'll have! We've just _got_
to train a forward who'll be as good as Ginny when she graduates and I
believe, Jerry Travis, you're _it_."
Jerry and Isobel turned promptly from their dreaming.
"I wonder who'll take Miss Gray's place--and Barbara Lee's----"
"And, oh," Jerry hugged them both. "I'll be _there_! I'll be _there_! I
hated to _think_ of your all going on without me. It would have broken
my heart! Dear old Highacres!"
"To thy golden founts of wisdom,
Alma Mater, guide our step----"
caroled the young voices, softly.
* * * * *
BY JANE ABBOTT
HAPPY HOUSE
A NOVEL
"There is something of Louisa May Alcott in the way Mrs. Abbott unfolds
her narrative and develops her ideals of womanhood; something refreshing
and heartening for readers surfeited with novels that are mainly devoted
to uncovering cesspools."--_Boston Herald._
STORIES FOR GIRLS
KEINETH
"'Keineth' is a life creation--within its covers the actual spirit of
youth. The book is of special interest to girls, but when a grown-up
gets hold of it there follows a one-session under the reading lamp with
'finis' at the end."--_Buffalo Times._
LARKSPUR
"Mrs. Abbott takes her story writing seriously and the standards she
sets up in the actions of her characters must help to shape the judgment
and ideals of those who read her books."--_Christian Endeavor World._
HIGHACRES
"Saturated with the spirit of youth, and written in the happy vein
characteristic of Mrs. Abbott's previous stories and which is endearing
the author with her growing army of youthful readers."--_Brooklyn
Standard Union._