Out on a Dakota prairie, in a corner of a motionless Pullman sat a short
girl in a plain blue suit, her grey eyes behind thick glasses bent upon
the pages of a red leather book.
"'Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness.'" She read the words over and over, and the
book fell from her hands as she looked out on the limitless fields.
"'Beauty for ashes.' What a striking way of putting it! 'The oil of
joy'--why, I wonder what we are stopping here so long for. It doesn't
look like a station."
And suddenly Alice Prescott sat up straight and looked about her, alert
and alive.
The porter came slowly in response to her repeated ring. "What's the
matter? Why, there's an engine off the track a little ways off, and our
crew and engine has gone to help. No, nobody hurt. Just a freight
engine. Don't know how long. Mebbe one hour. Mebbe two."
"But I'll miss my connections!"
"Too bad, Miss." The porter looked at her with lazy curiosity. The train
had already been at a standstill for ten minutes, and every other woman
on the car had put him through a catechism long ago. This girl looked
awake and practical. How could a porter understand that the mere beauty
of words and ideas could render one unconscious to delays in
transportation?
Alice rose and walked up and down the aisle. Three women, rather
overdressed, were playing cards in a remote section. A man slept in a
corner. She went to the door, and seeing groups of passengers standing
outside along the track, jumped down from the high step and walked a
little, tasting the fresh air with pleasure. The country offered nothing
to her gaze. Her eye, accustomed to mountains, found endless level
stretches harrowing rather than soothing. She recalled a Dakota girl at
Dexter who was always telling of the beauty of the prairie, and longing
for it. "I suppose it's a matter of habit," she thought to herself.
"There is certainly something that kindles your imagination in such a
sight. It would be dreary if it weren't cultivated, but it must be
wonderful to see a whole country reclaimed from wildness and made
productive. 'Beauty for ashes' O!" and with a little shiver of pleasure,
she repeated the lines that had so charmed her a few minutes before.
"'The spirit of heaviness.' What a strange thing to include in the same
message with the vengeance of the Lord! It makes blues and dullness seem
so important. It doesn't say anything here about Christ's coming to heal
bodily suffering or sin, and it does explicitly say he is to cure the
blues. Isn't that interesting?"
Her walk had brought her to the first of the line of day-coaches by this
time, and she glanced up at the listless faces leaned against the dirty
window-panes. As she passed, each pair of eyes rested wearily on her
figure. Suddenly a thought struck her. Blues and dullness! Where were
they ever more to the fore than here? She entered the car impulsively
and stood looking people over. She spoke to the nearest woman.
"It's a nuisance having to wait so, isn't it? Wouldn't you like to come
out for a little walk?"
"No," snapped the woman, "I wouldn't." Alice flushed, then smiled and
went on down the aisle. Evidently her mission of good fairy was not
going to be successful at the start. "Some people want to be 'heavy,'"
she thought. "I'll take some one who looks as though she wanted to be
lightened up. Here's one."
The red-eyed cindery young woman who was curled up in her seat, dabbing
her cheeks with a smeary handkerchief, looked as though any change would
be a welcome one. Alice stopped resolutely. "Can I do anything for you?"
she asked, not at all sure of her reception.
The girl lifted her eyes and swallowed a sob. "Nobud-d-dy can," she
wailed; "I'm going to be m-m-married!"
Alice's face twitched. "Won't you tell me about it?" she asked.
"Cheering folks up" was proving an intricate business. "If the garment
of praise doesn't fit any one," she thought, "I'll just have to carry it
back and wear it myself."
The bride gulped and spoke again:
"It's to be to-night and I've missed my train at the Junction already,
and I don't know what to do. Everybody was invited and the supper won't
keep, and I lost my solid silver hatpin, anyway."
"Can't you come out and walk with me?" suggested Alice. "The air will
make you feel better. Bathe your eyes and come."
Still tearful, but manifestly a little relieved, the bride obeyed and,
once out on the prairie, poured forth her tale. She had at the last
moment decided she could not bear to be married without a veil, and had
gone early in the morning to the nearest town to invest her last money
in that frivolity. Fate was against her, however, for there were no
veils in the shops, and a persuasive milliner had induced her to give up
her cherished notion and buy a hat instead. "And I'm most sure the
ribbon's cotton-back," she sighed. "I don't know why I bought it,
anyway. That's always the way with me. I think I know what I'll get, and
then they coax me into getting something different. Once I went down
town to buy me a pair of black stockings, and I got an Alice blue silk
waist, instead. Stephen he thinks it's funny and he says he'll see to
the shopping when we're married. I wisht he'd come to-day."
"Wouldn't it be fun if he had?" said Alice. "There is a minister on the
train, and we could have had a lovely wedding out here!"
This romantic idea cheered them both for a time, but its power was
brief. There were signs of a tear-shower imminent, and Alice was at her
wits' end for devices to adjust that garment of praise to fit.
Then came a great inspiration. "Let's walk to the Junction," she
exclaimed. "I'll go with you, and you can get a team there, and drive
home."
"But you'd miss your train."
"O, no, I wouldn't. It has to come right along there behind us, and I
could jump on the cow-catcher if it came; but it can't come without an
engine, and there isn't one in sight, and it's only two miles to your
Junction, you say. That won't be anything of a walk. Go and get your
hat-box."
The hat-box was not all. Though the journey was to be only a short one,
the bride had taken a satchel with her of a type Alice especially
loathed. This was a trifle, however, to a spirit so bent on adventure,
and Alice seized the "grip" and started off at a brisk pace.
"I can't walk so fast," said the bride fretfully. "My shoes hurt."
Alice looked from her own broad-soled street shoes to the high-heeled,
misshapen things on her companion's feet. The latter looked at them,
too, with pride and affection. "I'm going to wear them at the wedding
and I thought that, being they was so tight, I'd best break 'em in a
little first."
"I see," and Alice moderated her own pace to the hobbling gait of the
wedding slippers. Two miles seemed more of an undertaking now and she
began to wonder if she had been rash in her suggestion. "I'll carry it
through," she said to herself. "I know I can, and I won't back down.
We'll get tired if we keep going without rests," she said aloud. "So
let's walk ten minutes and then rest. You can tell by your watch."
The bride brightened at the allusion to the great plated and chased
timepiece suspended from a rhinestone dove very near to her breast-bone.
"Steve give me that when we was first engaged," she explained, and Alice
smiled indulgently. "He give me my bracelet for Christmas, and all his
friends give me bangles." She jingled the thing proudly as she spoke.
"There's thirty-four of 'em."
"Thirty-four friends! He must be a popular man!" said Alice.
"O, he is, awful. And he's the handsomest! You just ought to see him."
"The garment of praise is settling into place without a wrinkle,"
thought Alice. "I hope she won't take it all, for I may need a corner of
it myself, to console me for this abominable bag, and the tinkle of that
bracelet. I suppose she would think it was finer than the jade one Mrs.
Langdon gave me. And I wonder what she would think if she knew my
necklace was under my dress, so it wouldn't show in travelling. O, well,
she's a nice little thing, and I hope Steve will be good to her."
"I'm afraid you'll be all beat out helping me," said the bride
remorsefully, as they paused once more for a rest. "I don't know how
I'll ever thank you, anyhow."
"O, that's all right," and Alice seized the bag and bore it mightily
forward.
"O, dear," sighed the bride presently. "There's somebody driving this
way. I wish they was going the other, and would give us a lift."
The black speck down the road, which here ran alongside the track,
expanded rapidly, developing into a smart buggy with two good horses,
and a man driving. He leaned forward as he neared them, and suddenly
reined in the horses with a jerk.
"Great Guns!" he shouted, throwing the reins over the dashboard, and
leaping out over the wheel.
"It's Steve," cried the bride in a rapture, and Alice pinched herself
with delight as Steve embraced his lady.
"However in the world did you get off here?" he asked, releasing her
enough to reply.
"How did you?" she answered, and he laughed, "O, I thought I'd drive
over to the Junction to meet you and carry you home, and I heard about
the train being stalled out here and couldn't get out for hours, so I
drove on, that's all. But the idea of you hoofing it in!" He put his
head back and laughed loudly.
His fiancee then remembered Alice and introduced her, telling Steve of
her kind interest. He was all cordiality, and offered to give her a ride
back to the train.
"No, no," she protested. "I love to walk. And do hurry along home and
have the wedding. I'm so glad it all turned out all right; and you're
feeling happier, aren't you?" she asked the girl.
Steve put his arm around his little bride gently. "I guess she won't
ever feel bad again. I shan't let her go off alone any more. And thank
you for what you done. I shan't forget it. Say, couldn't you stop off
now for the wedding?"
"O, do," begged the bride, and Alice had to refuse tenderly. She watched
them get into the buggy, and drive happily away, waving to her as they
did so. Then she turned back to her train, and her own car.
One of the card-playing women was tired and inclined to be sociable. So
Alice sat with her, by invitation, and listened to the history of her
family's diseases and operations, and her difficulties with servants,
till the train was started once more and the rumble of the cars resumed
their interrupted song of "Getting nearer, getting nearer."
"I must hear it that way every minute," Alice thought, as she took her
own seat again, and while the lamps were lighted, watched in the windows
not the rushing landscape but her own face. "It would be so easy to hear
'Getting farther,' and think of leaving home for nine whole months, but
I'll just remember Hannah and Catherine and Frieda and dear Dexter,--and
that will keep the garment from slipping off my shoulders."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FINDING A VOCATION
On the second afternoon after Alice's arrival, the four girls walked
down to the post-office to mail their letters, Catherine having written
to Miss Lyndesay, while the other three wrote to their mothers. Now,
pleasantly conscious of duty performed, they strolled idly along the
street.
It was "library afternoon" and Catherine had a book to exchange for a
busy neighbor, who much enjoyed the library privileges, but seldom had
time to choose her own books. The girls turned in at the library door,
which was hospitably open. Several people were waiting at the desk,
while Algernon busily attended to their wants. Catherine laid down her
book and went over to the fiction shelves to find something to take its
place. The other girls wandered about, looking at the soldierly rows of
books, and at the effective picture bulletin which Bess had made to
celebrate the Fourth of July, a list of patriotic books under crossed
flags,--turned the pages of the half dozen magazines on the
reading-table, and then, by common consent gathered in the little alcove
devoted to children's books.
"Three copies of _Alice in Wonderland_!" exclaimed Alice. "That
seems a rather large proportion!"
Catherine, who had secured _Friendship Village_, and was rejoicing
in her good fortune, answered the criticism.
"You see, each member of the club selected a book for the first order,
and Dot and Max both chose _Alice_ and neither would give up, so we
finally ordered two; and then somebody gave us a copy afterward."
"What did you choose?"
Catherine laughed. "Can't you guess?"
Hannah pounced on a big copy of Pyle's _Robin Hood_.
"This, of course. Do you remember how you gave it to me to read the
first evening I was at your house?"
Frieda had been looking the shelves over as if seeking something, and
now straightened up, disappointed.
"Nowhere is there the _Laetus Sorte Mea_ book," she said sadly.
"That's so!" exclaimed Catherine, regretfully. "We'll put it on the
suggestion list at once. Do you see any other lack, any of you?"
They all laughed, looking about at the few hundred volumes on the
shelves, but Frieda said earnestly:
"There are many Germans here, Dr. Harlow told me. And the older ones
cannot read English. Can they have no share in the library?"
"That's right," said Alice. "They are taxpayers and I should think you
ought to get a few German books every year, Catherine. It's done in
other places."
Algernon was at liberty for a moment, and came over to the group.
"Are we talking too much?" asked Catherine.
"No, no. There's no one at the reading-table. What are you discussing?"
"Frieda thinks there should be German books here for the people in town
who can't read English."
"There ought," said Algernon gravely. "But I don't know what to order. I
don't want to start out with Goethe and Schiller. I asked the German
minister, and he gave a list of religious books, but that isn't what we
want, either."
Frieda's eyes shone. "Please let me make you a list," she said eagerly.
"And I have two or three books in my trunk which I would gladly give, O,
gladly."
Algernon's pleasure was as great as her own.
"That would be simply bully! We can order one each time we send for new
books, and it won't be long before we have a good supply. I say,
Catherine, would you mind taking the desk for a few minutes? There come
the program committee of the Study Club, and I ought to be free to talk
with them."
Catherine consented willingly, always liking to manipulate the simple
machinery of the loan desk. Frieda sat down at once with a pencil and
paper to make out her list, and Alice and Hannah helped themselves to
magazines and waited.
Catherine looked about her at the little room and her heart swelled with
pride and pleasure. So much had come of her thought of making Algernon
useful. He was already quite a different person, with a dignity that
became him well. The pile of cards in the charging tray before her
showed that the library was being used by a goodly number of borrowers.
The program committee was evidence that part, at least, of its use, was
for more than mere recreation.
"O, I am so glad, so glad!" sang Catherine's heart. "There are so many
things to be glad about. And see my dear, dear Wide-Awakes. I think they
really are the most beautiful girls I ever beheld!"
A stranger might have thought that rather an extravagant speech, for
Catherine herself was the only one of the four who could be called
beautiful. But Frieda's face was unusual and interesting, Alice's sweet,
though plain, and Hannah's the sort that always called for a second
glance and a smile of pleasure.
"Have you anything in the library on the Past, the Present and the
Future?" asked a voice, and Catherine stopped her musing.
"The what?" she asked, not believing her ears. She had been thinking of
the past, the present and the future as she watched her three friends'
faces, but that was quite a different matter.
"I have to write a paper on that subject," said a complacent young
woman, rather showily dressed, "and I thought I'd maybe better read up
on it a little."
"I should think it would be wise," murmured Catherine. "But I hardly
know--the Past, the Present, and the Future of what?"
"Why, not of anything. Just the Past, the Present and the Future," said
the other, with a shade of impatience in her tone. "Maybe I'd better
wait till the real librarian is at liberty. He always knows what to give
out."
"Perhaps that would be best," faltered Catherine. "It is such a very
large subject, you know."
"Yes, that's why I chose it. I like a large subject. There is so much
more to say on it. I wrote on 'Woman' last year, but it wasn't broad
enough!"
A little girl, who came in wanting a fairy story, gave Catherine a
chance to turn away and hide her amusement. The child wanted to know
what the story was about, and before Catherine realized what she was
doing, she had her arm about the little girl's waist, and, kneeling
beside the low table, was showing her the pictures in a beautiful
illustrated _Tanglewood Tales_, telling the story of Persephone as
that sweet sad tale has seldom been told.
Some one came in and wanted a book, but Catherine did not know it.
Alice, who had had some library experience at college, stepped quietly
to the desk and served the customer. Hannah dropped her magazine and
stole nearer the alcove, listening to the story. Frieda looked up from
her writing, as Catherine's voice, full of wistfulness, came to her ear:
"And Mother Ceres wandered and wandered over the face of the earth, but
there was not any Persephone anywhere. And the grass forgot to grow, and
the flowers forgot to blossom, and the wheat withered and died, for
Mother Ceres' heart was broken. How could she care for other things,
when Persephone was gone?"
The members of the program committee, one by one, paused in their busy
searching through Poole's Index, and waited while the sweet voice went
on:
"And poor little Persephone was lonely down in the dark king's palace
underground. She pined and pined, and would not eat or be comforted. And
the poor King was sad, too. He wanted a little girl so badly, you know,
and now that he had found one, he could not make her happy. It is a
terrible thing not to be able to make people happy!"
The little girl cuddling close to Catherine, her eyes turning only from
the pictured page to Catherine's face, sighed softly.
Algernon, watching and listening to the story of the tempting
pomegranate, suddenly drew a deep breath, and his face lighted up as it
always did when a new idea came to him.
"And then Quicksilver hurried her away, past the fierce dog with the
three terrible heads, and up to the world again. Such a dry parched
world! Not any green grass, not a single, flower. Not a single
corn-stalk or spear of wheat. And poor old Mother Ceres sitting at home
on her door-step, weary and sad and hopeless, wishing for her own little
girl. And what do you think? As Persephone and Quicksilver walked along,
pretty fast, you may be sure, for you can think how eager the little
girl was to see her dear mother again, all along the sides of the path
where they walked, the grass turned green and the flowers began to
blossom and nod, and the corn-stalks lifted up their heads and waved new
tassels, and the wheat sprang up, and the trees put out fresh leaves,
and the birds sang, and the little dried-up brooks began to run and
ripple over stones. And Mother Ceres, sitting and looking out over the
dry brown world, suddenly saw a green glow over everything and she stood
up, very angry, and said: 'Does the earth disobey me? I said that if the
earth should ever grow green again, it should be along the path by which
my daughter should come back to my arms.'
"And then a sweet child voice said: 'Open your arms, dear Mother, for I
have come back to you, and all the earth is green and blossoming!'"
The little girl threw her arms around Catherine's neck and kissed her.
"O, I'm so glad she came back," she cried. "Tell me about it again."
Catherine smiled but her eyes were dreamy still. Algernon made his way
over to her.
"You found my vocation for me," he said eagerly, "and now I've found
yours. We'll have a story-hour in this library hereafter,--with bars up
to keep the grown-ups out! You're better than the professional I heard
at Madison."
Catherine looked bewildered, but Alice took her hand and squeezed it.
"I knew you could. I heard you once 'telling' to Jonathan Edwards out
under the hemlocks when you thought no one else was listening. It's a
glorious gift, dear, and I feel sure you'll do wonders with it some day.
See! Hannah and Frieda are almost crying! Come on, girls. She doesn't
even know what she has done. We'll have to take her home and have her
mother explain it!"
Catherine revived from her dazed condition sufficiently to protest
against being led out of the door, and the four went gayly up the hill
together; but Catherine's mind was intent on the suggestion which
Algernon had made. "Professional? Work? A vocation? Anything so simple
and delightful, and _natural_ as telling stories? Could _I_ do
something that would make lots of people happier and better, as Aunt
Clara's pictures do, and Mother's work and Father's?" The bliss of the
idea was quite too much for her, and she broke away from the others,
exclaiming:
"I'll race you all to the porch steps. One, two, three, scramble!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DOCTOR'S ORDERS
Dr. Helen, dismissing her last patient at the office door, glanced into
the waiting-room. To her surprise, she saw Alice sitting there with a
magazine in her hand.
"Why, my dear, what is wrong? Are you ill? Come in here." Alice rose and
followed her into the little white room.
"Nothing is wrong. I wanted to see you alone for a few minutes, and I
thought this was the best way to do it. Are you quite free now?"
"Entirely. Sit down in this comfortable chair. I was startled. To have
you fall ill after a week with us would be distressing."
"It has been such a dear week!" sighed Alice. "And I've rested all the
time and have loved being with the girls. No, I'm quite well. But I had
a letter from Mrs. Langdon, at Dexter, you know, just before I left
home, and she told me I might tell you, if I cared to, what she has
never let me tell any one outside the family,--that is, that I am one of
the girls she is helping through college. I'm glad she said I might, for
I've often wished Catherine knew, and it will be next best if you do."
"It is a rather trying condition of Mrs. Langdon's," said Dr. Helen
sympathetically, "and sometimes creates difficult situations for the
girls concerned, but I long ago gave up hope that she would ever change
her ways. I quite understand how you feel, because, during my last two
years at Dexter, I was one of her girls, too."
"You?" Alice's tone expressed the deepest surprise, and Dr. Helen
continued.
"My father could not afford to send me, and I earned the money for my
first two years, and was struggling along, trying to spend several hours
a day earning money and at the same time to keep up with my work, when
Mrs. Langdon, who was staying at home that winter, heard about me from
friends. She helped me finish my college course, and gave me substantial
aid in taking my professional course. I repaid the money afterward, but
I couldn't repay the kindness."
"She is wonderfully kind," said Alice, "though her queer ways make you
forget it sometimes. I had had letters from her before I left home the
first year, of course, about the business part, and I went on, feeling
that I wasn't going entirely among strangers, but she paid no attention
to me at all. It was only by chance that I met her in the spring through
Hannah."
"Poor child! You must have been much disappointed and very lonely at
first. But she is a friend worth having, in spite of her peculiarities.
I am glad she let you share your secret with me. Did she say anything
about her own health when she wrote? I almost never hear from her."
"Not a word. But she asked me to call on her old friend, Madam
Kittredge, while I was here."
"She is our pastor's mother, a beautiful woman, and nearly blind. You
must certainly call. Catherine always makes the rounds of the old ladies
among our patients once a summer, and she loves to go to Madam
Kittredge's. She must take you. I wonder--What is that? Come!"