Meanwhile the matter of Mary's education was receiving the attention of
her aunts.
"Patty," said Miss Cordelia one day, "do you know that child of ours is
seventeen?"
The years had dealt kindly with the Misses Spencer and as they looked at
each other, with thoughtful benignity, their faces were like two studies
in silver and pink.
"Although I say it myself," continued Miss Cordelia, "I doubt if we could
have improved her studies. Indeed she is unusually advanced in French,
English and music. But I do think she ought to go to a good finishing
school now for a year or two--Miss Parsons', of course--where she would
not only be welcomed because of her family, but where she would form
suitable friendships and learn those lessons of modern deportment which
we ourselves, I fear, would never be able to teach her."
But if you had been there when the subject of Miss Parsons' School for
Young Ladies was broached to Mary, I think it would have reminded you of
that famous recipe for rabbit pie which so wisely begins "First catch
your rabbit."
Mary listened to all that was said and then, quietly but unmistakably,
she put her foot down on Miss Parsons' fashionable institution of
learning.
I doubt if she herself could have given you all her reasons.
For one thing, the older she grew, the more democratic, the more American
she was becoming.
Deep in her heart she thought the old original Spencers had done more for
the world than any leaders of fashion who ever lived; and when she read
or thought of those who had made America, her mind never went to smart
society and its doings, but to those great, simple souls who had braved
the wilderness in search of liberty and adventure--who had toiled, and
fought, and given their lives, unknown, unsung, but never in Mary's mind
to be forgotten. And whenever she thought of travel, she found she would
rather see the Rockies than the Alps, rather go to New Orleans than Old
Orleans, rather visit the Grand Canyon than the Nile, and would
infinitely rather cross the American continent and see three thousand
miles of her own country, than cross the Atlantic and see three thousand
miles of water that belonged to every one in general and no one in
particular.
"But, my dear," said Miss Cordelia, altogether taken aback, "you ought to
go somewhere, you know. Let me tell you about Miss Parsons' school--"
"It's no use, Aunty. I don't want to go to Miss Parsons' school--"
"Where do you want to go then?"
Like most inspirations, it came like a flash.
"If I'm going anywhere, I want to go to college--"
To college! A Spencer girl--or a Spicer--going to college! Miss Cordelia
gasped. If Mary had been noticing, she might not have pursued her
inspiration further, but her mind was running along a breathless panorama
of Niagara Falls, Great Lakes, Chicago, the farms of the Middle West,
Yellowstone Park, geysers, the Old Man of the Mountain, Aztec ruins,
redwood forests, orange groves and at the end of the vista--like a statue
at the end of a garden walk--she imagined a great democratic institution
of learning where one might conceivably be prepared to solve some of
those problems which life seems to take such deep delight in presenting
to us, with the grim command, "Not one step farther shall you go until
you have answered this!"
"To college?" gasped Miss Cordelia.
"Yes," said Mary, still intent upon her panorama, "there's a good one in
California. I'll look it up."
The more Mary thought of it, the fonder she grew of her idea--which is, I
think, a human trait and true of nearly every one. It was in vain that
her aunts argued with her, pointing out the social advantages which she
would enjoy from attending Miss Parsons' School. Mary's objection was
fundamental. She simply didn't care for those advantages. Indeed, she
didn't regard them as advantages at all.
Helen did, though.
In her heart Helen had always longed to tread the stage of society--to
her mind, a fairyland of wit and gallantry, masquerades and music, to say
nothing of handsome young polo players and titled admirers from foreign
shores--"big fools," all of them, as you can guess, when dazzled by the
smiles of Youth and Beauty.
"Mary can go to California if she likes," said Helen at last, "but give
me Miss Parsons' School."
And Mary did go to California, although I doubt if she would have gained
her point if her father hadn't taken her part. For four years she
attended the university by the Golden Gate, and every time she made the
journey between the two oceans, sometimes accompanied by Miss Cordelia
and sometimes by Miss Patty, she seemed to be a little more serene of
glance, a little more tranquil of brow, as though one by one she were
solving some of those problems which I have mentioned above.
Meanwhile Helen was in her glory at Miss Parsons'; and though the two
aunts didn't confess it, they liked to sit and listen to her chatter of
the girls whose friendship she was making, and to whose houses she was
invited for the holidays.
When she was home, she sang snatches from the operas, danced with
imaginary partners, rehearsed parts of private theatricals and dreamed of
conquests. She had also learned the knack of dressing her hair which,
when done in the grand manner, isn't far from being a talent. Pulled down
on one side, with a pin or two adjusted, she was a dashing young duchess
who rode to hounds and made the old duke's eyes pop out. Or she could dip
it over her ears, change a few pins again and--lo!--she was St. Cecilia
seated at the organ, and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
"She is quite pretty and very clever," said Miss Cordelia one day. "I
think she will marry well."
"Do you think she's as pretty as Mary?" asked Miss Patty.
"My dear!" said Miss Cordelia with a look that said 'What a question you
are asking!' "--is pretty in a way, of course," she said, "but there is
something about our Mary--"
"I know," nodded Miss Patty. "Something you can't express--"
"The dear child," mused Miss Cordelia, looking out toward the west. "I
wonder what she is doing this very moment!"
At that very moment, as it happened, Mary was in her room on the other
side of the continent studying the manufacture of raisin fudge.
Theretofore she had made it too soft, or too sugary, but this time she
was determined to have it right. Long ago she had made all the friends
that her room would hold, and most of them were there. Some were
listening to a girl in spectacles who was talking socialism, while a more
frivolous group, perched on the bed, was arguing the question whether the
perfect lover had a moustache or a clean-shaven lip.
"Money is cruel; it ought to be abolished," said the earnest girl in the
spectacles. "Money is a millstone which the rich use to grind the poor.
You girls know it as well as I do."
Mary stirred away at the fudge.
"It's a good thing she doesn't know that I'm rich," she smiled to
herself. "I wonder when I shall start grinding the poor!"
"And yet the world simply couldn't get along without the wage-earners,"
continued the young orator. "So all they have to do is strike--and
strike--and keep on striking--and they can have everything they want--"
"So could the doctors," mused Mary to herself, stirring away at the
fudge. "Imagine the doctors striking.... And so could the farmers.
Imagine the farmers striking for eight hours a day, and no work Sundays
and holidays, and every Saturday afternoon off...."
Dimly, vaguely, a troubled picture took shape in her mind. She stirred
the fudge more reflectively than ever.
"I wonder if civil wars are started that way," she thought, "one class
setting out to show its power over another and gradually coming to blows.
Suppose--yes, suppose the women were to go on strike for eight hours a
day, and as much money as the men, and Saturday afternoons and Sundays
off, and all the rest of it.... The world certainly couldn't get along
without women. As Becky says, they would only have to strike--and
strike--and keep on striking--and they could get everything they
wanted--"
Although she didn't suspect it, she was so close to her destiny at that
moment that she could have reached out her hand and touched it. But all
unconsciously she continued to stir the fudge.
"I've always thought that women have a poor time of it compared with
men," she nodded to herself. "Still, perhaps it's the way of the world,
like ... like children have the measles ... and old folks have to wear
glasses."
She put the pan on the sill to cool and stood there for a time, looking
out at the campus, dreamy-eyed, half occupied with her own thoughts and
half listening to the conversation behind her.
"There oughtn't to be any such thing as private property--"
"Why, Vera, if he kissed you in the dark, you couldn't tell whether he
was a man or a girl--"
"--Everything should belong to the state--"
"--No, listen. Kiss me both ways, and then tell me which you think is the
nicest--"
A squeal of laughter arose from the bed and, turning, Mary saw that one
of the girls was holding the back of a toothbrush against her upper lip.
"Now," she mumbled, "this is with the moustache ... Kiss me hard ..."
"The greatest book in the world," continued the girl with the spectacles,
"is Marx's book on Capital--"
Mary turned to the window again, more dreamy-eyed than ever.
"The greatest book in the world," she thought, "is the book of life....
Oh, if I could only write a few pages in it ... myself ...!"