DREAMS AND FAREWELLS
With arms about each other’s waists, Cathalina Van Buskirk and Elizabeth
Barnes were walking slowly in the winding path through Greycliff Wood.
Cathalina’s sunny locks were close to Betty’s dark ones.
“Just think!” Betty was saying, “I won’t see you for three months!”
“I wish you could go home with me this summer. Can’t you?”
“Not possibly. Mother has not been well and I am needed at home. She has
been terribly worried, too, over Aunt Dorothy’s family. Aunt Dorothy
married a Canadian and they live up in Toronto,—but the two oldest boys
are both fighting in France. Dick is wild to go too; he hears from the
boys once in a while. Father doesn’t worry, but Mother is sure that we
shall get into the war some time.”
“How old is your brother?”
“Dick is almost twenty.”
They had reached the place where three paths diverged, one to the left
going deeper into the woods behind Greycliff, another leading down into
the vine-clad ravine near the river, and a third winding to the right
and leading out to the front of the grove, where a grassy bluff
overlooked the beach. A chorus of gay calls came from the trees there.
“Whoo-hoo, Betty, wasn’t that an easy quiz in French?” Eloise waved her
handkerchief at Betty, who hurried up the path with Cathalina and
dropped down by the other girls. “I haven’t a single examination now,
all through! It’s goodbye lessons for at least twelve weeks!”
“O, Eloise!” responded Cathalina joyously, “I’m so glad, too, that the
old exams are over,—yet I do hate to go and leave you girls.”
“Well, we’re going too, not left behind.”
“Yes, but you see I don’t know whether I’m coming back or not!”
“You better had!” said Betty.
“Aren’t you going to ask to come?” Diane looked surprised.
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, that’s all that’s necessary, isn’t it?”
“O, you don’t know my father and mother if they think something’s good
for me!” Cathalina shook her head in some doubt. “But I’m sure they will
admit that this plan to have me come here has turned out wonderfully!
And _I_ would not have missed it for anything! Just _think_ of not
knowing you girls!” Cathalina spoke earnestly and sincerely, but created
a laugh and exclamations of “How awful!”
“Neither would I,” said Helen,—“but look at Hilary and Lilian together
again!” she exclaimed, pointing to where the two girls in question were
walking up from the beach and swinging hands in the best of spirits.
“That isn’t Hilary, is it?” demurred Eloise, looking around a tree.
“Yes,—see her red tie and hair ribbon?”
“Other girls have red ties and hair ribbons.”
“That may be, but I know Hilary’s middy and her walk,” Helen assured the
girls.
“They’ve made up since the picnic, or, really, that day,” said
Cathalina.
“Haven’t you noticed them together?” asked Betty.
“What was the matter, then, if they don’t mind our knowing. Hilary has
not happened to be in the suite and we did not say one word to Lilian
about it from the first.”
“Hilary said I might tell you girls, or of course I would not say
anything. It was all that Myrtle Wiseman. I couldn’t have supposed any
girl could, _but I think she must have told lies_!” Cathalina’s voice
dropped to a whisper on the last words, and her blue eyes widened in her
earnestness, while the girls laughed out.
“You know,” she apologized, “in polite society one hardly charges people
with such things. I can’t remember all about it, but you know how Myrtle
tried to go around with Hilary all the time. It seems that she was
jealous of Lilian, and Lil told Hilary afterwards that she guessed she
was jealous of Myrtle or she wouldn’t have been so taken in. And Myrtle
told a lot of things and twisted what Hilary really did say, and Lil
believed it and—” Cathalina was forced to stop and take breath.
“She told Lilian that she wouldn’t think a girl would ‘stick in where
she wasn’t wanted,’ that it was perfectly plain that Hilary was just
being polite to her and that Hilary had said she didn’t care to be so
intimate with one girl. She did not say it in just that way, but in
little mean hints and sly ways. What Hilary did say was in answer to
some question of Myrtle’s about our corridor crowd—that she thought it
nice to have ever so many friends and not only one or two.
“There were one or two thoughtless things that Hilary did just then and
they seemed to prove what Myrtle said true. So Lilian was nearly killed
over it, she said and just couldn’t act decent. What was the use of
asking Hilary, she said, because Hilary was too kind to tell her the
truth! So she was hoping that Hilary would ask about it, and Hilary was
hurt and wondering what was the matter.
“I knew that Myrtle was deceitful, for we’ve all seen her use a pony in
Latin and copy in algebra,—but this was a regular scheme! It was
simply—”
“Dee-spisable!” added Isabel, who had appeared from somewhere in time to
hear Cathalina’s explanation. She curled down and put her head in
Cathalina’s lap. “‘Sweet Cathalina, dear Cathalina, My love for thee
shall never, never do-yi!’ Listen, girls, did you ever hear my
adaptation of that sweet little ditty just out (interrogation point
drawn by Isabel’s finger in the air), entitled ‘Evaline’?—I mean ‘My
Cathaline’:
“O, Cathaline (O, Cathaline),
My Cathaline (My Cathaline), . . . .
Sweeter to me than the honey to the bee,
I love-a you, say you love-a me!
Meet me in the shade of the old apple tree-ee,
Kitty, Kathy Cothy, Cathali-ine!”
“Silly,” said Cathalina, stroking Isabel’s curls.
Lilian and Hilary leaped up the steep way that was always the shortest
route to the Hall. The girls kept still till they had topped the bank,
and then greeted them with the old, “What’s the matter with
Hilary?—She’s all right! Who’s all right?—Hilary!” Making like inquiry
into Lilian’s condition, they found her “all right”, too. As the friends
were still sensitive about the recent misunderstanding, they only nodded
and smiled and joined the circle.
“Is this a final meeting of some sort?” asked Lilian.
“Just a happen-so,” replied Eloise. “We really ought to have one more
good old fudge or beach party, but nobody has time. I’ve begun packing.
My, how do we get so much stuff? I don’t know what to do with it!”
“I saw the old spring wagon come up a while ago with a load of empty
boxes that I suppose some of the girls have ordered for their things.”
“That makes me think,—I ordered one!” Isabel scrambled to her feet. “See
you all tonight to say goodbye!”
“We must go too, Diane,” said Helen, jumping up and pulling the lazy
Diane, who complained that just when she got nicely settled Helen always
wanted her to do something!
“I’ve been packing all day, too, more or less,” and Diane made a pitiful
face as she pretended to be dragged along by the lively Helen.
“Yes, girls,” said Helen, looking back, “her packing has consisted in
pulling everything out of the bureau drawers ‘onto’ the floor, and if we
don’t get to work we shan’t be able to get to bed tonight without
crushing some art treasure or other under foot! She has her hand-painted
china in a pasteboard box under her bed and I’ve noticed that it’s awful
rickety lately. You all can’t imagine the time I have. Talk about
‘Northern enterprise’!” All this in Helen’s pretty drawl with the r’s
omitted in Southern fashion. “Come on, Eloise, and help!”
“All right,” and pretty Eloise hopped up too.
At last, only Cathalina, Hilary, Betty and Lilian were left. The
afternoon sun cast long shadows among the trees. Somewhere down in the
ravine a wood thrush was singing his flute-like song. The girls listened
and were silent. The waves softly foamed about the rocks afar off, and
the little Greycliff was coming home with some last party of girls.
“Haven’t we had a good year, girls? I’m so grateful to Aunt Hilary for
sending me to this lovely place.”
“I did not want to come at all,” said Cathalina, “but it’s hard to
imagine it now. O, I want to be and do so much some time!”
“That is what Father and Mother said they hoped my school life would do
for me,—make me want to ‘be and do,’” said Betty. “And what wonderful
talks Miss Randolph has given us in chapel!”
“Yes,” said Lilian. “Do you remember her talk on ‘I slept and dreamed
that life was beauty,—I woke and found that life is duty’?—or something
like that, I’m not very sure in quoting!”
“I do believe it’s beauty,” Cathalina remarked thoughtfully, “but she
did make it very clear that it couldn’t be beautiful if duty did not
come first. I never had any plans before, except to study art and have a
good time, but I almost want to go to college, now.”
“I can,” said Hilary, happily, “if nothing happens.”
“I want to be an illustrator,” spoke Betty, “and maybe write my own
things to illustrate, too. But don’t tell anybody else; it’s all a
secret, because maybe I can’t do it.”
“O, we’ll study together, Betty!” Cathalina clasped her hands over her
knee. “You’ll draw and write and I’ll paint and ‘sculp.’ What do you
want to do, Lilian?”
“I want to sing!” cried Lilian, who had a sweet bird in her throat. “But
Father says I must have a ‘broad foundation’ first, and they never let
me sing very much, only let me take lessons this year because Professor
Marchant was especially interested and promised to take such care of my
infant voice! Maybe it won’t amount to anything anyway, so I may take up
domestic science next year. If music fails me, I may be able to cook for
some nice man. That isn’t original, girls. I heard one of the
Collegiates say that the other day.”
“Father says,” said Cathalina, “that to make a home is the most
wonderful thing in the world, and since men can’t, women ought to be
‘proud of the distinction.’ You ought to hear him and Aunt Katherine
when she is on her ‘high horse’! She says that housekeeping takes more
brains and patience than anything else, and the better trained your mind
is the better you’ll do it.”
“I believe she’s right,” Hilary added. “I know Mother puts all her
brains and strength into being a minister’s wife, along with taking care
of the kiddies. I don’t think I shall ever marry.” At Hilary’s solemn
air, the girls laughed merrily.
“I know one young man,” Cathalina said teasingly, “who thinks Hilary the
‘foxiest girl’ he knows.”
“Sh-sh! Cathalina Van Buskirk!”
“O, who? who, Cathalina?” asked Betty and Lilian. “Your brother?”
“No, though Phil certainly does like old Hilary! Well, I won’t tease,
Hilary. Ask her, girls.” But Hilary shook her head.
“I’m always seeing myself,” continued Lilian, with an amused smile,
“standing gracefully on a platform and all fluffy with laces and
glittering with jewels and decorations. Then I sing, while everybody is
breathless or in tears, you know, and when I stop, there is a thunder of
applause. They’re all wild about the ‘glorious creature,’ and then I
come out and bow, again and again, and carry off loads of roses, and get
a thousand dollars a night!”
“Greedy creature! Will you sing at our church for nothing?”
“Yes, indeed, Hilary, out of friendship for you; and you’ll put in the
Saturday paper that the famous prima donna is to sing at the morning
service. Then I will say, ‘O, no, Dr. Lancaster, I could not accept
anything for the exquisite pleasure of singing to your congregation!’”
“Listen to Lil’s big words! How noble!” murmured Hilary. “Thanks.”
“I’m not worrying,” said Betty, “about those far away days, but I do
love to dream about what I want to do most; and don’t you remember?—Miss
Randolph said that if we didn’t have dreams we might never try to make
anything great come true.”
“O, yes,” answered Cathalina, “but after all, I’m glad that we’re just
girls now, and coming back, if nothing happens to prevent, to dear old
Greycliff.”
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Cathalina at Greycliff, by Harriet Pyne Grove