"FOLLOWING THE GLEAM"
If the summer months had brought many changes to the dwellers in the
Yellow House and the House of Lords, the autumn was responsible for many
more. Cousin Ann's improvements were set in motion and were promised to
be in full force before cold weather set in, and the fall term at Beulah
Academy had opened with six new, unexpected, and interesting students.
Happily for the Careys and happily for Beulah, the old principal, a
faithful but uninspired teacher, had been called to Massachusetts to
fill a higher position; and only a few days before the beginning of the
term, a young college man, Ralph Thurston, fresh from Bowdoin and
needing experience, applied for and received the appointment. The thrill
of rapture that ran like an electric current through the persons of the
feminine students when they beheld Ralph Thurston for the first
time,--dignified, scholarly, unmistakably the gentleman,--beheld him
mount the platform in the assembly room, and knew him for their own,
this can better be imagined than described! He was handsome, he was
young, he had enough hair (which their principals seldom had possessed),
he did not wear spectacles, he had a pleasing voice, and a manner of
speaking that sent tremors of delight up and down a thirteen-year-old
spine. He had a merry wit and a hearty laugh, but one had only to look
at him closely to feel that he had borne burdens and that his
attainments had been bought with a price. He was going to be difficult
to please, and the girls of all ages drew deep breaths of anticipation
and knew that they should study as never before. The vice-principal, a
lady of fine attainments, was temporarily in eclipse, and such an
astounding love for the classics swept through young Beulah that nobody
could understand it. Ralph Thurston taught Latin and Greek himself, but
parents did not at first observe the mysterious connection between cause
and effect. It was all very young and artless and innocent; helpful and
stimulating too, for Thurston was no budding ladies' man, but a
thoroughly good fellow, manly enough to attract the boys and hold
their interest.
The entrance of the four Careys and two Lords into the list of students
had an inspiring effect upon the whole school. So far as scholarship was
concerned they were often outstripped by their country neighbors, but
the Careys had seen so much of the world that they had a great deal of
general culture, and the academy atmosphere was affected by it. Olive,
Nancy, and Gilbert went into the highest class; Kathleen, Julia, and
Cyril into the one below.
The intimacy of Nancy and Olive was a romantic and ardent one. Olive had
never had a real companion in her life; Nancy's friends dotted the
universe wherever she had chanced to live. Olive was uncommunicative,
shy, and stiff with all but a chosen few; Nancy was at ease in all
assemblies. It was Nancy's sympathy and enthusiasm and warmth that
attracted Olive Lord, and it was the combination of Olive's genius and
her need of love, that held Nancy.
Never were two human creatures more unlike in their ways of thought.
Olive had lived in Beulah seven years, and knew scarcely any one because
of her father's eccentricities and his indifference to the world; but
had you immured Nancy in a convent she would have made a large circle of
acquaintances from the window of her cell, before a month passed over
her head. She had an ardent interest in her fellow creatures, and
whenever they strayed from the strict path of rectitude, she was
consumed with a desire to set them straight. If Olive had seen a drunken
man lying in a ditch, she would scarcely have looked at him, much less
inquired his name. Nancy would have sat by until he recovered himself,
if possible, or found somebody to take him to his destination. As for
the delightful opportunity of persuading him of his folly, she would
have jumped at the chance when she was fifteen or sixteen, but as she
grew older she observed a little more reticence in these delicate
matters, at least when she was endeavoring to reform her elders. She had
succeeded in making young Nat Harmon stop cigarette smoking, but he was
privately less convinced of the error of his ways than he was bewitched
by Nancy. She promised readily to wear a blue ribbon and sit on the
platform in the Baptist Chapel at the Annual Meeting of the Junior
Temperance League. On the eve of the affair she even would gladly have
made a speech when the president begged her to do so, but the
horror-stricken Olive succeeded in stopping her, and her mother firmly
stood by Olive.
"Oh! all right; I don't care a bit about it, Muddy," she answered
nonchalantly. "Only there is something splendid about rising from a band
of blue-ribboned girls and boys and addressing the multitude for a great
cause." "What do you know about this great cause, Nancy dear, at
your age?"
"Oh, not much! but you don't have to know much if you say it loud and
clear to the back settees. I've watched how it goes! It was thrilling
when we gave 'Esther the Beautiful Queen' in the Town Hall; when we
waved our hands and sang 'Haman! Haman! Long live Haman!' I almost
fainted with joy."
"It was very good; I liked it too; but perhaps if you 'faint with joy'
whenever your feet touch a platform, it will be more prudent for you to
keep away!" and Mother Carey laughed.
"Very well, madam, your will is my law! When you see the youth of Beulah
treading the broad road that leadeth to destruction, and looking on the
wine when it is red in the cup, remember that you withheld my hand
and voice!"
Gilbert and Cyril were much together, particularly after Cyril's
standing had been increased in Beulah by the news that Mr. Thurston
thought him a remarkable mathematician and perhaps the leading student
in his class. Cyril himself, too pale for a country boy of fourteen,
narrow-shouldered, silent, and timid, took this unexpected fame with
absolute terror, but Olive's pride delighted in it and she positively
bloomed, in the knowledge that her brother was appreciated. She herself
secretly thought books were rather a mistake when paints and brushes
were at hand, and it was no wonder that she did not take high rank,
seeing that she painted an hour before school, and all day Saturday,
alternating her work on the guest chamber of the Yellow House with her
portrait of Nancy for Mother Carey's Christmas present.
Kathleen and Julia had fallen into step and were good companions.
Kathleen had never forgotten her own breach of good manners and family
loyalty; Julia always remembered the passion of remorse that Kathleen
felt, a remorse that had colored her conduct to Julia ever since. Julia
was a good plodder, and Mr. Thurston complimented her on the excellence
of her Latin recitations, when he had his wits about him and could
remember that she existed. He never had any difficulty in remembering
Nancy. She was not, it must be confessed, especially admirable as a
_verbatim et literatim_ "reciter." Sometimes she forgot entirely what
the book had said on a certain topic, but she usually had some original
observation of her own to offer by way of compromise. At first Mr.
Thurston thought that she was trying to conceal her lack of real
knowledge, and dazzle her instructor at the same time, so that he should
never discover her ignorance. Later on he found where her weakness and
her strength lay. She adapted, invented, modified things
naturally,--embroidered all over her task, so to speak, and delivered it
in somewhat different shape from the other girls. (When she was twelve
she pricked her finger in sewing and made a blood-stain on the little
white mull apron that she was making. The stuff was so delicate that she
did not dare to attempt any cleansing process, and she was in a great
hurry too, so she embroidered a green four leaf clover over the
bloodstain, and all the family exclaimed, "How like Nancy!") Grammar
teased Nancy, algebra and geometry routed her, horse, foot, and
dragoons. No room for embroidery there! Languages delighted her,
map-drawing bored her, and composition intoxicated her, although she was
better at improvising than at the real task of setting down her thoughts
in black and white. The class chronicles and prophecies and songs and
poems would flow to her inevitably, but Kathleen would be the one who
would give new grace and charm to them if she were to read them to
an audience.
How Beulah Academy beamed, and applauded, and wagged its head in pride
on a certain day before Thanksgiving, when there were exercises in the
assembly room. Olive had drawn The Landing of the Pilgrims on the
largest of the blackboards, and Nancy had written a merry little story
that caused great laughter and applause in the youthful audience.
Gilbert had taken part in a debate and covered himself with glory, and
Kathleen closed the impromptu programme by reciting Tennyson's--
O young Mariner,
You from the haven
Under the sea-cliff,
You that are watching
The gray Magician
With eyes of wonder,...
follow the Gleam.
Great the Master,
And sweet the Magic,
When over the valley,
In early summers,
Over the mountain,
On human faces,
And all around me,
Moving to melody
Floated the Gleam.
O young Mariner,
Down to the haven,
Call your companion,
Launch your vessel
And crowd your canvas,
And, ere it vanishes
Over the margin,
After it, follow it,
Follow the Gleam.
Kathleen's last year's brown velveteen disclosed bronze slippers and
stockings,--a novelty in Beulah,--her hair fell in such curls as Beulah
had rarely beheld, and her voice was as sweet as a thrush's note; so
perhaps it is not strange that the poem set a kind of fashion at the
academy, and "following the gleam" became a sort of text by which to
study and grow and live.
Thanksgiving Day approached, and everybody was praying for a flurry of
snow, just enough to give a zest to turkey and cranberry sauce. On the
twentieth it suddenly occurred to Mother Carey that this typical New
England feast day would be just the proper time for the housewarming, so
the Lord children, the Pophams, and the Harmons were all bidden to come
at seven o'clock in the evening. Great preparations ensued. Rows of Jack
o' Lanterns decorated the piazza, and the Careys had fewer pumpkin pies
in November than their neighbors, in consequence of their extravagant
inroads upon the golden treasures of the aft garden. Inside were a few
late asters and branches of evergreen, and the illumination suggested
that somebody had been lending additional lamps and candles for the
occasion. The original equipment of clothes possessed by the Careys on
their arrival in Beulah still held good, and looked well by lamplight,
so that the toilettes were fully worthy of so important a function.
Olive's picture of Nancy was finished, and she announced the absolute
impossibility of keeping it until Christmas, so it reached the Yellow
House on Thanksgiving morning. When it was unwrapped by Nancy and
displayed for the first time to the family, Mother Carey's lips parted,
her eyes opened in wonder, but no words came for an instant, in the
bewilderment of her mind. Olive had written the title "Young April"
under the picture. Nancy stood on a bit of dandelion-dotted turf, a
budding tree in the background, her arm flung over the neck of a Jersey
calf. The calf had sat for his portrait long before, but Nancy had been
added since May. Olive, by a clever inspiration, had turned Nancy's face
away and painted her with the April breeze blowing her hair across her
cheek. She was not good at painting features, her art was too crude, but
somehow the real thing was there; and the likeness to Nancy, in figure,
pose, and hair, was so unmistakable that her mother caught her breath.
As for the calf, he, at least, was distinctly in Olive's line, and he
was painted with a touch of genius.
"It is better of the calf than it is of you, Nancy," said Gilbert
critically.
"Isn't Mr. Bossy lovely?" his sister responded amiably. "Wouldn't he put
any professional beauty out of countenance? I am proud to be painted
beside him! Do you like it, Muddy dear?"
"Like it?" she exclaimed, "it is wonderful! It must be sent to Boston
for criticism, and we must invent some way of persuading Mr. Lord to
give Olive the best instruction to be had. This picture is even better
than anything she has done in the painted chamber. I shouldn't wonder a
bit, Nancy, if little Beulah were to be very proud of Olive in the
years to come!"
Nancy was transported at her mother's praise. "I felt it, I knew it! I
always said Olive was a genius," she cried, clapping her hands. "Olive
is 'following the gleam'! Can't you feel the wind blowing my hair and
dress? Don't you see that the calf is chewing his cud and is going to
move in just a minute? Olive's animals are always just going to
move!--Oh, Muddy dear! when you see Olive nowadays, smiling and busy and
happy, aren't you glad you stretched your wings and took her under them
with the rest of us? And don't you think you could make a 'new beast'
out of Mr. Henry Lord, or is he too old a beast even for Mother Carey?"