The day when college opened was a great day. The children could hardly
eat any breakfast, and Allison gave Leslie a great many edifying
instructions about registering.
"Now, kid, if you get stuck for anything, just you hunt me up. I'll
see that you get straightened out. If you and Jane Bristol could only
get together, you could help each other a lot. I'll get some dope from
some of the last-year fellows. That's the advantage I get from finding
a chapter of my frat here. They'll put me wise as to the best
course-advisers, and you stick around near the entrance till I give
you the right dope. It doesn't pay to get started wrong in college."
Leslie meekly accepted all these admonitions, and they started off
together in the car with an abstracted wave of good-by to Julia Cloud,
who somehow felt suddenly left out of the universe. To have her
two newly-acquired children suddenly withdrawn by the power of a
great educational institution and swept beyond her horizon was
disconcerting. She had not imagined she would feel this way. She
stood in the window watching them, and wiped away a furtive tear,
and then laughed to herself.
"Old fool!" she said softly to the window-pane. "The trouble with you
is, you'd like to be going to college yourself, and you know it! Now
put this out of your mind, and go to work planning how to make home
doubly attractive when they get back, so that they will want to spend
every minute possible here instead of being drawn away from it. They
love it. Now keep them loving it. That's your job."
When the two came back at noon, they were radiant and enthusiastic as
usual, albeit they had many a growl to express. One would have thought
to hear Allison that he had been running colleges for some fifty years
the way he criticized the policy and told how things ought to be run.
At first Julia Cloud was greatly distressed by it all, thinking that
they surely had made a mistake in their selection of a college, but it
gradually dawned upon her that this was a sort of superior attitude
maintained by upper-class men toward all institutions of learning,
particularly those in which they happened to be studying, that it was
really only an indication of growing developing minds keen to see
mistakes and trying to think out remedies, and as yet inexperienced
enough to think they could remedy the whole sick world.
The opening days of college were turbulent days for Julia Cloud. Her
children were so excited they could neither eat nor sleep. They were
liable to turn up unexpectedly at almost any hour of the morning or
afternoon, hungry as bears, and always in a hurry. They had so many
new things to tell her about, and no time in which to talk. They mixed
things terribly, and gave her impressions that took months to right;
and they could not understand why she looked distressed at their
flightiness. They were both taken up eagerly by the students and
invited hither and yon by the various groups and societies, which
frequently caused them to be absent from meals while they were being
dined and lunched and breakfasted. Of course, Julia Cloud reflected,
two such good-looking, well-dressed, easy-mannered young people, with
a home in the town where they could invite people, a car in which to
take friends out, and a free hand with money, would be popular
anywhere. Her anxiety grew as the first week waxed toward its end and
finished up Saturday night with invitations to two dances and one
week-end party at a country house ten miles away.
Leslie rushed in breathless about six o'clock Saturday evening, and
declared she was too much in a hurry to eat anything; she must get
dressed at once, and put some things in her bag. She rattled on about
the different social functions she was expected to attend that evening
until Julia Cloud was in hopeless confusion, and could only stand and
listen, and try to find the things that Leslie in her hurry had
overlooked. Then Allison arrived, and wanted some supper. He talked
with his mouth full about where he was going and what he was going to
do, and at the end of an hour and a half Julia Cloud had a very
indefinite idea of anything. She had a swift mental vision of church
and Sabbath and Christian Endeavor all slipping slowly out of their
calculation, and the WORLD in large letters taking the forefront of
their vision.
"You are going to a dance!" she said in a white, stricken way she had
when an anxiety first bewildered her. "To _two_ dances! O my dear
Leslie! You--_dance_, then? I--hadn't thought of that!"
"Sure I dance!" said Leslie gayly, drawing up the delicate silk
stocking over her slim ankles and slipping on a silver slipper. "You
ought to see me. And Allison can dance, too. We'll show you sometime.
Don't you like dancing, Cloudy? Why, Cloudy! You couldn't mean you
don't approve of dancing? Not _really_! But where would we be?
_Everybody_ dances! Why, there wouldn't be anything else to do when
young people went out. Oh, do you suppose Cherry would press out this
skirt a little bit? It's got horribly mussed in that drawer."
Julia Cloud had dropped into a chair with an all-gone feeling and a
lightness in the top of her head. She felt as if the world, the flesh,
and the devil had suddenly dropped down upon the house and were
carrying off her children bodily, and she was powerless to prevent it.
She could not keep the pain of it out of her eyes; yet she did not
know what to say in this emergency. None of the things that had always
seemed entirely convincing in forming her own opinions seemed adequate
to the occasion. Leslie turned suddenly, and saw her stricken face.
"What's the matter, Cloudy? Is something wrong? Aren't you well? Don't
you like me to go to a dance? Why, Cloudy! Do you really _object_?"
"I have no right to object, I suppose, dear," she said, trying to
speak calmly; "but--Leslie, I can't bear to think of you dancing; it's
not nice. It's too--too intimate! My little flower of a girl!"
"Oh, but we have to dance, Cloudy; that's ridiculous! And you aren't
used to dances, or you wouldn't say so. Can't you trust me to be
perfectly nice?"
Julia Cloud shuddered, and went to the head of the stairs to answer a
question Allison was calling up to her; and, when, she came back, she
said no more about it. The pain was too great, and she felt too
bewildered for argument. Leslie was enveloped in rose-colored tulle,
with touches of silver, and looked like a young goddess with straps of
silver over her slim shoulders and a thread of pearls about her
throat. The white neck and back that the wisp of rose-color made no
attempt to conceal were very beautiful and quite childish, but they
shocked the sweet soul of Julia Cloud inexpressibly. She stood aghast
when Leslie whirled upon her and demanded to know how she liked the
gown.
"O my dear!" gasped her aunt. "You're not going out before
people--_men_--all undressed like that!"
Leslie gave her one glance of hurt dismay, whirled back to her glass,
and examined herself critically.
"Why, Cloudy!" Her voice was almost trembling, and her cheeks were
rosier than the tulle with disappointment. "Why, Cloudy, I thought it
was lovely! It's just like everybody's else. I thought you would think
I looked _nice_!" The child drooped, and Julia Cloud went up to her
gently.
"It is beautiful, darling, and you are--exquisite! But, dear! It seems
terrible for my little girl to go among young men so sort of nakedly.
I'm sure if you understood life better, you wouldn't do it. You are
tempting men to wrong thoughts, undressed that way, and you are
putting on common view the intimate loveliness of the body God gave
you to keep holy and pure. It is the way cheap women have of making
many men love them in a careless, physical way. I don't know how to
tell you, but it seems terrible to me. If you were my own little girl,
I never, _never_ would be willing to have you go out that way."
"You've said enough!" almost screamed Leslie with a sudden frenzy of
rage, shame, and disappointment. "I feel as if I never could look
anybody in the face again!" And with a cry she flung herself into the
jumble of bright garments on her bed, and wept as if her heart would
break. Julia Cloud stood over her in consternation, and tried to
soothe her; but nothing did any good. The young storm had to have its
way, and the slim pink shoulders shook in convulsive sobs, while the
dismayed elder sat down beside the bed, with troubled eyes upon her,
and waited, praying quietly.
In the midst of it all Allison appeared at the door.
"What in thunder is the matter? I've yelled my head off, and nobody
answers. What is the matter with you, kid? It's time we started, and
you doing the baby act! I never thought you'd get hystericky."
Leslie lifted a wet and smeary face out of her pillow and addressed
her brother defiantly:
"I've good reason to cry!" she said. "Cloudy thinks I'm not decent to
go out in this dress, and she won't believe everybody dresses this
way; and I'm _not going_! I'm _never_ going _anywhere_ again; I'm
_disgraced_!" And down went her head in the pillow again with another
long, convulsive sob.
Her brother strode over to her, and lifted her up firmly but gently.
"There, kid, quit your crying and be sensible. Stand up and let's look
at you."
He stood her upon her feet; and she swayed there, quivering, half
ashamed, her hands to her tear-stained face, her pink shoulders
heaving and her soft, pink chest quivering with sobs, while he
surveyed her.
"Well, kid, I must say I agree with Cloudy," he said half reluctantly
at last. "The dress is a peach, of course, and you look like an angel
in it; but, if you could hear the rotten things the fellows say about
the way the girls dress, you wouldn't want to go that way; and I
don't want them to talk that way about my sister. Couldn't you stick
in a towel or an apron or something, and make a little more waist to
the thing? I'm sure you'd look just as pretty, and the fellows would
think you a whole lot nicer girl. I don't want you to get the nickname
of the Freshman Vamp. I couldn't stand for that."
Poor Leslie sank into a chair, and covered her face for another cry,
declaring it was no use, it would utterly spoil the dress to do
anything to it, and she couldn't go, and wouldn't go and wear it; but
at last Julia Cloud came to the rescue with needle and thread and soft
rose drapery made from a scarf of Leslie's that exactly matched the
dress; and presently she stood meek and sweet, and quite modest,
blooming prettily out of her pink, misty garments like an opening
apple-blossom in spite of her recent tears.
"But when are you coming back?" asked Julia Cloud in sudden dismay,
her troubles returning in full force as she watched them going out the
door to the car, Allison carrying two bags and telling Leslie to hurry
for all she was worth.
The two children turned then, and faced their aunt, with a swift,
comprehending vision of what this expedition of theirs meant to her.
It had not occurred to them before that they were deliberately
planning to spend most of the night, Saturday night, in mirth, and
stay over Sunday at a house-party where the Sabbath would be as a
thing unknown. Nobody had ever talked to them about these things
before. They had accepted it as a part of the world of society into
which they had been born, and they had never questioned it. They were
impatient now that their tried and true friend and comrade did not
comprehend that this occasion was different from most, and that it
must be an exception. They were willing to keep the Sabbath in
general, but in this particular they felt they must not be hampered.
The whole idea shone plainly in their faces, and the pain and
disappointment and chagrin shone clearly, emphatically in Julia
Cloud's eyes as she faced them and read the truth.
"Why, we don't know, just for sure, Cloudy," Allison tried to
temporize. "You see, they usually dance to all hours. It's Saturday
night, and no classes to-morrow, and this is an unusual occasion. It's
a week-end party, you know----"
"Then--you won't be back to-night! You are not going to church
to-morrow! You will spend the Sabbath at a party!"
She said these things as if she were telling them to herself so that
she could better take in the facts and not cry out with the
disappointment of it. There was no quality of fault-finding in her
tone, but the pain of her voice cut to the heart the two young
culprits. Therefore, according to the code of loving human nature,
they got angry.
"Why, of course!" chirped Leslie. "Didn't you expect that? That's what
week-end parties are!"
"Oh, cut this out, Leslie," cried Allison. "We've gotta beat it. We're
way late now! Cloudy, you can expect us when we get here. Don't bother
about anything. There's no need to. We'll telephone you later when we
expect to come back. Nightie, nightie, Cloudy. You go rest yourself.
You look tired."
He gave her a hurried, deprecatory kiss, and swept his sister out
into the night. Julia Cloud heard the purring of the engine, saw the
lights of the car glide away from the door down the street and out of
sight. They were gone! She felt as though a piece of herself had been
torn away from her and flung out for the world to trample upon. For a
long time she stood staring from the window into the darkness, unshed
tears burning behind her eyes and throat, trying to steady the beating
of her heart and get used to the gnawing trouble that somehow made her
feel faint and weak.
It came over her that she had been a fool to attempt to fill the place
of mother to these two modern young things. Their own ideas were fully
made up about all questions that seemed vital to her. She had been a
fossil in a back-country place all her life, and of course they felt
she did not know. Well, of course she did not know much about modern
society and its ways, save to dread it, and to doubt it, and to wish
to keep them away from it. She was prejudiced, perhaps. Yes, she had
been reared that way, and the world would call her narrow. Would
Christ the Lord feel that way about it? Did He like to have His
children dressing like abandoned women and making free with one
another under the guise of polite social customs? Did He want His
children to spend their Sabbaths in play, however innocent the play
might be? She turned with a sigh away from the window. No, she could
not see it any other way. It was the way of the world, and that was
all there was to it. Leslie had made it plain when she said they had
to do it or be left out. And wasn't that just what it meant to be a
"peculiar people" unto the Lord, to be willing to give up doubtful
things that harmed people for the sake of keeping pure and unspotted
from the world? "If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own; but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you," came the familiar old words. Well, and what should
she do now? It wouldn't do to rave and fuss about things. That never
did any good. She couldn't say she wouldn't stay if they danced and
went away over the Sabbath. Those were things in which she might
advise, but had no authority. They were old enough to decide such
matters for themselves. She could only use her influence, and trust
the rest with the Lord. Yes, there was one thing she could do. She
could pray!
So Julia Cloud gave her quiet orders to Cherry, and went up to her
rose-and-gray room to kneel by the bed and pray, agonizing for her
beloved children through the long hours of that long, long evening.
It was a quiet face that she lifted at last from her vigil, for it
bore the brightness of a face-to-face communion with her Lord; and she
rose and went about her preparations for the night. Then, just as she
had taken down her hair and was brushing it in a silver cloud about
her shoulders, she heard a car drive up. A moment more a key turned in
the latch, and some one came in.
Julia Cloud stood with the hair-brush poised half-way down a strand of
hair, and listened. Yes, the car had gone on to the garage. What could
have happened?