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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15817-8.txt b/15817-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29ddceb --- /dev/null +++ b/15817-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3348 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Melting of Molly, by Maria Thompson +Daviess, Illustrated by R. M. Crosby + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Melting of Molly + + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: May 12, 2005 [eBook #15817] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team from page images generously made available +by the Kentuckiana Digital Library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/) + + + +Note: This version of _The Melting of Molly_ is the American novel + publication and differs significantly from the British magazine + publication, also in the Project Gutenberg library at + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15818 + + Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 15817-h.htm or 15817-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15817/15817-h/15817-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15817/15817-h.zip) + + Images of the original pages are available through the + Kentuckiana Digital Library. See + http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc= + kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-194-30611104&view=toc + + + + + +THE MELTING OF MOLLY + +by + +MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + + Author of + Miss Selina Lue, The Road to Providence, + Rose of Old Harpeth, etc., etc. + +Illustrated by R. M. Crosby + +Indianapolis +The Bobbs-Merrill Company +Publishers + +1912 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Melted] + + + + + MOLLY CARTER AND I + DEDICATE THIS BOOK + TO OUR GOOD FRIEND + CAROL KING JENNEY + + + + +LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF MOLLY + + Leaf First + THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS + + Leaf Second + A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED + + Leaf Third + MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU? + + Leaf Fourth + SCATTERED JAM + + Leaf Fifth + BLUE ABSINTHE + + Leaf Sixth + THE RESURRECTION RAZOO + + Leaf Seventh + DASHED! + + Leaf Eighth + MELTED + + + + + +LEAF FIRST + +THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS + + +Yes, I truly think that in all the world there is nothing so dead +as a young widow's deceased husband, and God ought to give His wisest +man-angel special charge concerning looking after her and the devil at +the same time. They both need it! I don't know how all this is going to +end and I wish my mind wasn't in a kind of tingle. However, I'll do the +best I can and not hold myself at all responsible for myself, and then +who will there be to blame? + +There are a great many kinds of good-feeling in this world, from radiant +joy down to perfect bliss, but this spring I have got an attack of just +old-fashioned happiness that looks as if it might become chronic. + +I am so happy that I planted my garden all crooked, my eyes upon the +clouds with the birds sailing against them, and when I became conscious +I found wicked flaunting poppies sprouted right up against the sweet +modest clover-pinks, while the whole paper of bachelor's-buttons was +sowed over everything--which I immediately began to dig right up again, +blushing furiously to myself over the trowel, and glad that I had caught +myself before they grew up to laugh in my face. However, I got that +laugh anyway, and I might just as well have left them, for Billy ran to +the gate and called Doctor John to come in and make Molly stop digging +up his buttons. Billy claims everything in this garden, and he thought +they would grow up into the kind of buttons you pop out of a gun. + +"So you're digging up the bachelor-pops, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor asked +as he leaned over the gate. I went right on digging without looking up +at him. I couldn't look up because I was blushing still worse. Sometimes +I hate that man, and if he wasn't Billy's father I wouldn't neighbor +with him as I do. But somebody _has_ to look after Billy. + +I believe it will be a real relief to write down how I feel about him +in his old book and I shall do it whenever I can't stand him any longer, +and if he gave the horrid, red leather thing to me to make me miserable, +he can't do it; not this spring! I wish I dared burn it up and forget +about it, but I don't! This record on the first page is enough to +_reduce_ me--to tears, and I wonder why it doesn't. + +I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds, down in black and white, and it +is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the grocery store is so very +reliable in his weights, though he had a very pleasant smile while he +was weighing me. Still I had better get some scales of my own, smiles +are so deceptive. + +I am five feet three inches tall or short, whichever way one looks at +me. I thought I was taller, but I suppose I will have to believe my own +yardstick. + +But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even +if I have promised Doctor John a dozen times over to do it, while I only +really left him to _suppose_ I would. It is bad enough to know that +your belt has to be reduced to twenty-three inches without putting down +how much it measures now in figures to insult yourself with. No, I +intend to have this for my happy spring. + +Yes, I suppose it would have been lots better for my happiness if I had +kept quiet about it all, but at the time I thought I had to advise with +him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being +a widow, you are accustomed to advising with a man, whether you want to +or not, and you can't get over the habit right away. Poor Mr. Carter +hasn't been dead much over a year and I must be missing him most +awfully, though just lately I can't remember not to forget about him a +great deal of the time. Now if he had been here--_horrors_! + +Still, that letter was enough to upset anybody, and no wonder I ran +right across my garden, through Billy's hedge-hole and over into Doctor +John's office to tell him about it; but I ought not to have been +agitated enough to let him take the letter right out of my hand and read +it. + +"So after ten years Al Bennett is coming back to pop his +bachelor's-buttons at you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the deep drawling +voice he always uses when he makes fun of Billy and me and which never +fails to make us both mad. I didn't look at him directly, but I felt his +hand shake with the letter in it. + +"Not ten, only _eight_! He went when I was seventeen," I answered +with dignity, wishing I dared be snappy at him; though I never am. + +"And after eight years he wants to come back and find you squeezed into +a twenty-inch-waist, blue muslin rag you wore at parting? No wonder Al +didn't succeed at bank clerking, but had to make his hit at diplomacy +and the high arts. Some hit at that to be legationed at Saint James! +He's such a big gun that it is a pity he had to return to his native +heath and find even such a slight disappointment as a one-yard waist +measure around his--his--" + +"Oh it's not, it's _not_ that much." I fairly gasped and I couldn't +help the tears coming into my eyes. I have never said much about it, but +nobody knows how it hurts me to be all this fat! Just writing it down in +a book mortifies me dreadfully. It's been coming on worse and worse +every year since I married. Poor Mr. Carter had a very good appetite and +I don't know why I should have felt that I had to eat so much every day +to keep him company; I wasn't always so considerate of him. Then he +didn't want me to dance any more because married women oughtn't, or ride +horseback either--no amusement left but himself and weekly +prayer-meetings, and--and--I just couldn't help the tears coming and +dripping as I thought about it all and that awful waist measure in +inches. + +"Stop crying this minute, Molly," said Doctor John suddenly in the deep +voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really sick or stump-toed. +"You know I was only teasing you and I won't stand for--" + +But I sobbed some more. I like him when his eyes come out from under his +bushy brows and are all tender and full of sorry for us. + +"I can't help it," I gulped in my sleeve. "I did used to like Alfred +Bennett. My heart almost broke when he went away. I used to be beautiful +and slim, and now I feel as if my own fat ghost has come to haunt me all +my life. I am so ashamed! If a woman can't cry over her own dead beauty, +what can she cry over?" By this time I was really crying. + +Then what happened to me was that Doctor John took me by the shoulders +and gave me one good shake and then made me look him right in the eyes +through the tears and all. + +"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard +him use. "You are just a lovely, round, luscious peach, but if you will +be happier to have Al Bennett come and find you as slim as a string-bean +I can show you how to do it. Will you do just as I tell you?" + +[Illustration: "Will you do just as I tell you?"] + +"Yes, I will," I sniffed in a comforted voice. What woman wouldn't be +comforted by being called a "luscious peach". I looked out between my +fingers to see what more he was going to say, but he had turned to a +shelf and taken down two books. + +"Now," he said in his most businesslike voice, as cool as a bucket of +water fresh from the spring, "it is no trouble at all to take off your +surplus avoirdupois at the rate of two and a half pounds a week if you +follow these directions. As I take it you are about twenty-five pounds +over your normal weight. It will take over two months to reduce you and +we will allow an extra month for further beautifying, so that when Mr. +Bennett arrives he will find the lady of his adoration in proper trim to +be adored. Yes, just be still until I copy these directions in this +little, red leather blank-book for you, and every day I want you to keep +an exact record of the conditions of which I make note. No, don't talk +while I make out these diet lists! I wish you would go across the hall +and see if you don't think we ought to get Bill a thinner set of +night-drawers. It seems to me he must be too warm in the ones he is +wearing." + +When he speaks to me in that tone of voice I always do it. And I needed +Billy badly at that very moment. I took him out of his little cot by +Doctor John's big bed and sat down with him in my arms over by the +window through which the early moon came streaming. Billy is so little, +little not to have a mother to rock him all the times he needs it that I +take every opportunity to give it to him I find--when he's unconscious +and can't help himself. She died before she ever even saw him and I've +always tried to do what I could to make it up to him. + +Poor Mr. Carter said when Billy cut his teeth that a neighbor's baby can +be worse than twins of your own. He didn't like children and the baby's +crying disturbed him, so many a night I walked Billy out in the garden +until daylight, while Mr. Carter and Doctor John both slept. Always his +little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not +having a baby of my own. And he's very congenial, too, for he's slim and +flowery, pink and dimply, and as mannish as his father, in funny little +flashes. + +"Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was murmuring in his sleep. Then I +heard the doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put him back in his bed, +and go across the hall. + +Doctor John was standing by the table with this horrid small book in his +hand and his mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes were deep +back under their brows. I hate him that way, too, and I would like to +get up so close to him that he couldn't _hit_ me or have a door +locked between us. It's strange how the thought of taking a beating from +a man can make a woman's heart jump. Mine jumped so it was hard to look +as meek as I felt best under the circumstances; but I looked it out from +under my lashes cautiously. + +"There you are, Mrs. Molly," he said briskly as he handed me this book. +"Get weighed and measured and sized-up generally in the morning and +follow all the directions. Also make every record I have noted so that +I can have the proper data to help you as you go along--or rather down. +And if you will be faithful about it to me, or rather Al, I think we can +be sure of buttoning that blue muslin dress without even the aid of the +button-hook." His voice had the "if you can" note in it that always sets +me off. + +"Had we better get the kiddie some thinner night-rigging?" he hastened +to ask as I was just about to explode. He knows the signs. + +"Thank you, Doctor Moore! I hate the very ground you walk on and I'll +attend to those night-clothes myself to-morrow," I answered, and I +sailed out of that office and down the path toward my own house beyond +his hedge. But I carried this book tight in my hand and I made up my +mind that I would do it all if it killed me. I would show him I could be +_faithful_--to whom I would decide later on. But I hadn't read far +into this book when I committed myself to myself like that! + +I don't know just how long I sat on the front steps all by myself bathed +in a perfect flood of moonlight and loneliness. It was not a bit of +comfort to hear Aunt Adeline snoring away in her room down the dark +hall. It takes the greatest congeniality to make a person's snoring a +pleasure to anybody and Aunt Adeline and I are not that way. + +When poor Mr. Carter died, the next day she said: "Now, Mary, you are +entirely too young to live all your long years of widowhood alone, and +as I am in the same condition, I will rent my cottage and move right +up the street into your house to protect and console you." And she +did,--the moving and the protecting. + +Mr. Henderson has been dead forty-two years. He only lived three months +after he married Aunt Adeline and her crepe veil is over a yard long +yet. Men are the dust under her feet, but she likes for Doctor John to +come over and sit on the porch with us because she can consult with him +about what Mr. Henderson really died of and talk with him about the sad +state of poor Mr. Carter's liver for a year before he died. I just go on +rocking Billy and singing hymns to him in such a way that I can't hear +the conversation. Mr. Carter's liver got on my nerves alive, and dead it +does worse. But it hurts when the doctor has to take the little +sleep-boy out of my arms to carry him home; though I like it when he +says under his breath, "Thank you, Molly." + +And as I sat and thought how near he and I had been to each other in all +our troubles, I excused myself for running to him with that letter and I +acknowledged to myself that I had no right to get mad when he teased me, +for he had been kind and interested about helping me get thin by the +time Alfred came back to see me. I couldn't tell which I was blushing +all to myself about, the "luscious peach" he had called me or the +"lovely lily" Alfred had reminded me in his letter that I had been when +he left me. + +Why don't people realize that a seventeen-year-old girl's heart is a +sensitive wind-flower that may be shattered by a breath? Mine shattered +when Alfred went away to find something he could do to make a living, +and Aunt Adeline gave the hard green stem to Mr. Carter when she married +me to him. Poor Mr. Carter! + +No, I wasn't twenty, and this town was full of women who were aunts and +cousins and law-kin to me, and nobody did anything for me. They all said +with a sigh of relief, "It will be such a nice safe thing for you, +Molly." And they really didn't mean anything by tying up a gay, dancing, +frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. +But God didn't want to see me always trotting along slow and tired and +not caring what happened to me, even pounds and pounds of plumpness, so +he found use for Mr. Carter in some other place but this world, and I +feel that He is going to see me through whatever happens. If some of the +women in my missionary society knew how friendly I feel with God they +would put me out for contempt of court. + +No, the town didn't mean anything by chastening my spirit with Mr. +Carter and they didn't consider him in the matter at all, poor man. Of +that I feel sure. Hillsboro is like that. It settled itself here in a +Tennessee valley a few hundreds of years ago and has been hatching and +clucking over its own small affairs ever since. All the houses set back +from the street with their wings spread out over their gardens, and +mothers here go on hovering even to the third and fourth generation. +Lots of times young, long-legged, frying-size boys scramble out of the +nests and go off to college and decide to grow up where their crow will +be heard by the world. Alfred was one of them. + +And, too, occasionally some man comes along from the big world and +marries a plump little broiler and takes her away with him, but mostly +they stay and go to hovering life on a corner of the family estate. +That's what I did. + +I was a poor, little, lost chick with frivolous tendencies and they +all clucked me over into this empty Carter nest which they considered +well-feathered for me. It gave them all a sensation when they found out +from the will just how well it was feathered. And it gave me one, too. +All that money would make me nervous if Mr. Carter hadn't made Doctor +John its guardian, though I sometimes feel that the responsibility of me +makes him treat me as if he were my step-grandfather-in-law. But all in +all, though stiff in its knees with aristocracy, Hillsboro is lovely and +loving; and couldn't inquisitiveness be called just real affection with +a kind of squint in its eye? + +And there I sat on my front steps, being embraced in a perfume of +everybody's lilacs and peachblow and sweet syringa and affectionate +interest and moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two +photographs and many letters I had kept locked up in the garret for +years. Is it any wonder I tingled when he told me that he had never come +back because he couldn't have me and that now the minute he landed in +America he was going to lay his heart at my feet? I added his honors +to his prostrate heart myself and my own beat at the prospect. All the +eight years faded away and I was again back in the old garden down at +Aunt Adeline's cottage saying good-by, folded up in his arms. That's +the way my memory put the scene to me, but the word "folded" made me +remember that blue muslin dress again. I had promised to keep it and +wear it for him when he came back--and I couldn't forget that the blue +belt was just twenty-three inches and mine is--no, I _won't_ write +it. I had got that dress out of the old trunk not ten minutes after I +had read the letter and measured it. + +No, nobody would blame me for running right across the garden to Doctor +John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the +letter and the little book up close to my breast and laughed until the +tears ran down my cheeks. + +Then before I went into the house I assembled my garden and had family +prayers with my flowers. I do that because they are all the family I've +got, and God knows that all His budding things need encouragement, +whether it is a widow or a snowball-bush. He'll give it to us! + +And I'm praying again as I sit here and watch for the doctor's light to +go out. I hate to go to sleep and leave it burning, for he sits up so +late and he is so gaunt and thin and tired-looking most times. That's +what the last prayer is about, almost always,--sleep for him and no +night call! + + + + +LEAF SECOND + +A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED + + +The very worst page in this red--red devil--I'm glad I've written it at +last--of a book is the fifth. It says: + +"Breakfast--one slice of dry toast, one egg, fruit and a tablespoonful +of baked cereal, small cup of coffee, no sugar, no cream." And me with +two Jersey cows full of the richest cream in Hillsboro, Harpeth Valley, +out in my pasture! + +"Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of toast, spinach, green beans and +lettuce salad. No dessert or sweet." The blue-grass in my yard is full +of fat little fryers and I wish I were a sheep if I have to eat lettuce +and spinach for grass. At least I'd have more than one chop inside me +then. + +"Supper--slice of toast and an apple." Why the apple? Why supper at all? + +Oh, I'm hungry, hungry until I cry in my sleep when I dream about a +muffin! I thought at first that getting out of bed before my eyes are +fairly open and turning myself into a circus actor by doing every kind +of overhand, foot, arm and leg contortion that the mind of cruel man +could invent to torture a human being with, would kill me before I had +been at it a week, but when I read on page sixteen that as soon as all +that horror was over I must jump right into the tub of cold water, I +kicked, metaphorically speaking. And I've been kicking ever since, +literally to keep from freezing. + +[Illustration: She shrouds me for the agony] + +But as cruel a death as freezing is, it doesn't compare to the tortures +of being melted. Judy administers it to me and her faithful heart is so +wrung with compassion that she perspires almost as much as I do. She +wrings a linen sheet out in a caldron of boiling water and shrouds me +in it for the agony--and then more and more blanket windings envelop me +until I am like the mummy of some Egyptian giantess. I have ice on the +back of my neck and my forehead, and murder for the whole world in my +heart. Once I got so discouraged at the idea of having all this hades +in this life that I mingled tears with the beads of perspiration that +rolled down my cheeks, and she snatched me out of those steaming +grave-clothes in less time than it takes to tell it, soused me in +a tub of cold water, fed me a chicken wing and a hot biscuit and the +information that I was "good-looking enough for _anybody_ to eat up +alive without all this foolishness," all in a very few seconds. Now I +have to beg her to help me and I heard her tell her nephew, who does the +gardening, that she felt like an undertaker with such goings-on. At any +rate, if it all kills me it won't be my fault if anybody has to lie in +saying that I was "beautiful in death". + +But now that more than a month has passed, I really don't mind it so +much. I feel so good and strong and prancy all the time that I can't +keep from bubbling. I have to smile at myself. + +Then another thing that helps is Billy and his ball. I never could +really play with him before, but now I can't help it. But an awful thing +happened about that yesterday. We were in the garden playing over by the +lilac bushes and Billy always beats me because when he runs to base he +throws himself down and slides along on the grass on his little stomach +as he sees the real players do over at the ball grounds. Then all of a +sudden, before I knew it, I just did the same thing, and we slid to the +flower pot we use as a base together, each on his own stomach. And what +did Billy do but begin right there on the grass the kind of a tussle we +always have in the big rocking-chair on the porch! Over and over we +rolled, Billy chuckling and squealing while I laughed myself all out of +breath. I'm glad I always would wear delicious petticoats, for there, +looking right over my front fence, I discovered Judge Benton Wade. I +wish I could write down how I felt, for I never had that sensation +before and I don't believe I'll ever have it again. + +I have always thought that Judge Wade was really the most wonderful man +in Hillsboro, not because he is a judge so young in life that there is +only a white sprinkle in his lovely black hair that grows back off his +head like Napoleon's and Charles Wesley's, but because of his smile, +which you wait for so long that you glow all over when you get it. I +have seen him do it once or twice at his mother when he seats her in +their pew at church and once at little Mamie Johnson when she gave him a +flower through their fence as he passed by one day last week, but I +never thought I should have one all to myself. But there it was, a most +beautiful one, long and slow and distinctly mine--at least I didn't +think much of it was for Billie. I sat up and blushed as red all over as +I do when I first hit that tub of cold water. + +[Illustration: I sat up and blushed red all over] + +"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal +resist a peep into the garden of the gods if he spied the queen and her +faun at play?" he said in a voice as wonderful as the smile. By that +time I had reefed in my ruffles around my feet and pushed in all my +hairpins. Billy stood spread-legged as near in front of me as he could +get and said in the rudest possible tone of voice: + +"Get away from my Molly, man!" + +I never was so mortified in all my life and I scrambled to my feet and +came over to the fence to get between him and Billy. + +"It's a lovely day, isn't it, Judge Wade?" I asked with the greatest +interest, which I didn't really feel, in the weather; but what could I +think of to say? A woman is apt to keep the image of a good many of the +grand men she sees passing around her in queer niches in her brain, and +when one steps out and speaks to her for the first time it is confusing. +Of course I have known the judge and his mother all my life, for she is +one of Aunt Adeline's best friends, but I had a feeling from the look in +his eyes that that very minute was the first time he had ever seen me. +It was lovely and I blushed some more as I put my hand up to my cheek so +I wouldn't have to look right at him. + +"About the loveliest day that ever happened in Hillsboro," he said, and +there was still more of the delicious smile, "though I hadn't noticed it +so especially until--" + +But I never knew what he had intended to say, for Billy suddenly swelled +up like a little turkey-cock and cut out with his switch at the judge. + +"Git, man, git, and let my Molly alone!" he said, in a perfect +thundertone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in +it like Doctor John's at his most positive times with Billy and me. + +"No, no, Billy, the judge is just looking over the fence at our flowers! +Don't you want to give him a rose?" I hurried to say as the smile died +out of Judge Wade's face and he looked at Billy intently. + +"How like John Moore the youngster is," he said, and his voice was so +cold to Billy that it hurt me, and I was afraid Billy would notice it. +Coldness in people's voices always makes me feel just like ice-cream +tastes. But Billy's answer was still more rude. + +"You better go, man, before I bring my father to sic our dog on you," +he exploded, and before I could stop him his thin little legs went +trundling down the garden path toward home. + +Then the judge and I both laughed. We couldn't help it. When two people +laugh straight into each other's eyes something feels dangerous and you +get closer together. The judge leaned farther over the fence and I went +a little nearer before I knew it. + +"You don't need to keep a personal dog, do you, Mrs. Carter?" he asked, +with a twinkle that might have been a spark in his eyes, and just at +that moment another awful thing happened. Aunt Adeline came out on the +front porch and said in the most frozen tone of voice: + +"Mary, I wish to speak to you in the house," and then walked back +through the front door without even looking in Judge Wade's direction, +though he had waved his hat with one of his mother's own smiles when he +had seen her before I did. One of my most impossible habits is, when +there is nothing else to do I laugh. I did it then and it saved the day, +for we both laughed into each others eyes a second time, and before we +realized it we were within whispering distance. + +"No, I don't--don't--need any dog," I said softly, hardly glancing out +from under my lashes because I was afraid to risk looking straight at +him again so soon. I could fairly feel Aunt Adeline's eyes boring into +my back. + +"It would take the hydra-headed monster of--may I bring my mother to +call on you and the--Mrs. Henderson?" he asked and poured the wonder +smile all over me. Again I almost caught my breath. + +"I do wish you would, Aunt Adeline is so fond of Mrs. Wade!" I said in a +positive flutter that I hope he didn't see, but I am afraid he did, for +he hesitated as if he wanted to say something to calm me, then bowed +mercifully and went on down the street. He didn't put on the hat he had +held in his hand all the while he stood by the fence until he had looked +back and bowed again. Then I felt still more fluttered as I went into +the house, but I received the third cold plunge of the day when I +reached the front hall. + +"Mary," said Aunt Adeline in a voice that sounded as if it had been +buried and never resurrected, "if you are going to continue in such an +unseemly course of conduct I hope you will remove your mourning, which +is an empty mockery and an insult to my own widowhood." + +"Yes, Aunt Adeline, I'll go take it off this very minute," I heard +myself answer her airily to my own astonishment. I might have known that +if I ever got one of those smiles it would go to my head! Without +another word I sailed into my room and closed the door softly. + +I wonder if God could have realized what a tender thing He was leaving +exposed to life in the garden of the world after He had finished making +a woman? Traditionally, we are created out of rose-leaves and star-dust +and the harmony of the winds, but we need a steel-chain netting to fend +us. Slowly I unbuttoned that black dress that symbolized the ending of +six years of the blackness of a married life, from which I had been +powerless to fend myself, and the rosy dimpling thing in snowy lingerie +with tags of blue ribbon that stood in front of my mirror was as +new-born as any other hour-old similar bundle of linen and lace in +Hillsboro, Tennessee. Fortunately, an old, year-before-last, white lawn +dress could be pulled from the top shelf of the closet in a hurry, and +the Molly that came out of that room was ready for life--and a lot of it +quick and fast. + +And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline had retired with a violent headache +and black Judy was carrying her in a hot water-bottle with a broad grin +on her face. Judy sees the world from the kitchen window and understands +everything. She had laid a large thick letter on the hall table where I +couldn't fail to see it. + +I took possession of it and carried it to a bench in the garden that +backs up against the purple sprayed lilacs and is flanked by two rows of +tall purple and white iris that stand in line ready for a Virginia reel +with a delicate row of the poet's narcissus across the broad path. I +love my flowers. I love them swaying on their stems in the wind, and I +like to snatch them and crush the life out of them against my breast and +face. I have been to bed every night this spring with a bunch of cool +violets against my cheek and I feel that I am going to flirt with my +tall row of hollyhocks as soon as they are old enough to hold up their +heads and take notice. They always remind me of very stately gentlemen +and I have wondered if the fluffy little butter and eggs weren't shaking +their ruffles at them. + +A real love-letter ought to be like a cream puff with a drop of dynamite +in it. Alfred's was that kind. I felt warm and happy down to my toes as +I read it and I turned around so old Lilac Bush couldn't peep over my +shoulder at what he said. + +He wrote from Rome this time, where he had been sent on some sort of +diplomatic mission to the Vatican, and his letter about the Ancient City +on her seven hills was a prose-poem in itself. I was so interested that +I read on and on and forgot it was almost toast-apple time. + +Of course, anybody that is anybody would be interested in Father Tiber +and the old Colosseum, but what made me forget the one slice of dry +toast and the apple was the way he seemed to be connecting me up with +all those wonderful old antiquities that had never even seen me. Because +of me he had felt and written that poem descriptive of old Tiber, and +the moonlight had lit up the Colosseum just because I was over here +lighting up Hillsboro, Tennessee, with Mr. Carter dead. Of course that +is not the way he put it all, but there is no place to really copy what +he did say down into this imp book and, anyway, that is the sentiment he +expressed, boiled down and sugared off. + +That's just what I mean--love boiled down and sugared off is mighty apt +to get an explosive flavor, and one had better be careful with that kind +if one is timid; which I'm not. As I said, also, I am ready for a little +taste of life, so I read on without fear. And, to be fair, Alfred had +well boiled his own last paragraph. It snapped; and I jumped and gasped +both. I almost thought I didn't quite like it and was going to read it +over again to see, when there came a procession from over to Doctor +John's and I laid the bombshell down on the bench. + +First came the red setter that is always first with Doctor John, and +then he came himself, leading Billy by the hand. It was Billy, but the +most subdued Billy I ever saw, and I held out my arms and started for +him. + +"Wait a minute, please, Molly," said the doctor in the voice he always +uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologize to you +for being rude to your--your guest. He told me all about it and I think +he's sorry. Tell Mrs. Carter you are sorry, son." When that man speaks +to me as if I were just any old body else, I hate him so it is a wonder +I don't show it more than I do. But there was nothing to say and I +looked at Billy and Billy looked at me. + +Then suddenly he stretched out his little arms to me and the dimples +winked at me from all over his darling face. + +"Molly, Molly," he said with a perfect rapture of chuckles in his voice, +"now you look just as pretty as you do when you go to bed; all whity all +over. You can kiss my kiss-spot a hundred times while I bear-hug you +for that nice not-black dress," and before any stern person could have +stopped us I was on my knees on the grass kissing my fill from the +"kiss-spot" on the back of his neck, while he hugged all the starch out +of the summer-before-last. + +And Doctor John sat down on the bench quick and laughed out loud one of +the very few times I ever heard him do it. He was looking down at us, +but I didn't laugh up into _his_ eyes. I was afraid. I felt it was +safer to go on kissing the kiss-spot for the present, anyway. + +"Bill," he said, with his voice dancing, "that's the most effective +apology I ever heard. You were sorry to some point." + +Then suddenly Billy stiffened right in my arms and looked me straight in +the face and said in the doctor's own brisk tones, even with his cupid +mouth set in the same straight line: + +"I say I'm sorry, Molly, but damn that man and I'll git him yet!" + +What could we say? What could we do? We didn't try. I busied myself in +tying the string on Billy's blouse that had come untied in the bear-hug +and the doctor suddenly discovered the letter on the bench. I saw him +see it without looking in his direction at all. + +"And how many pounds are we nearer the string-bean state of existence, +Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the blouse, in the +nicest voice in the world, fairly crackling with friendship and good +humor and hateful things like that. Why I should have wanted him to huff +over that letter is more than I can say. But I did; and he didn't. + +"Over twenty, and most of the time I am so hungry I could eat Aunt +Adeline. I dream about Billy, fried with cream gravy," I answered, as I +kissed again the back of the head that was beginning to nod down against +my breast. Long shadows lay across the garden and the white-headed old +snow-ball was signaling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins down +the walk in a scandalous way. At best, spring is just the world's +match-making old chaperon and ought to be watched. I still sat on the +grass and I began to cuddle Billy's bare knees in the skirt of my dress +so the chigres couldn't get at them. + +"But, Mrs. Molly, isn't it worth it all?" asked the doctor as he bent +over toward us and looked down with something wonderful and kind in his +eyes that seemed to rest on us like a benediction. "You have been just +as plucky as a girl can be and in only a little over two months you have +grown as lightfooted and hearty as a boy. _I_ think nothing could +be lovelier than you are right now, but you can get off those other few +pounds if you want to. You know, don't you, that I have known how hard +some of it was and I haven't been able to eat as much as I usually do +thinking how hungry you are? But isn't it all worth it? I think it is. +Alfred Bennett is a very great man and it is right that he should have a +very lovely wife to go out into the world with him. And as lovely as you +are I think it is wonderful of you to make all this sacrifice to be +still lovelier for him. I am glad I can help you and it has taught me +something to see how--how faithful a woman can be across years--and then +in this smaller thing! Now give me Bill and you get your apple and +toast. Don't forget to take your letter in out of the dew." I sat +perfectly still and held Billy tighter in my arms as I looked up at his +father, and then after I had thought as long as I could stand it, I +spoke right out at him as mad as hops and I don't to this minute know +why. + +"Nobody in the world ever doubted that a woman could be faithful if she +had anything to be faithful to," I said as I let him take Billy out of +my arms at last. "Faithfulness is what a woman flowers, only it takes a +_man_ to pick his posy." With which I marched into the house and +left him standing with Billy in his arms, I hope dumfounded. I didn't +look back to see. I always leave that man's presence so mad I can never +look back at him. And wouldn't it make any woman rage to have a man pick +out another man for her to be faithful to when she hadn't made any +decision about it her own self? + +I wonder just how old Judge Wade is? I believe I will make up with Aunt +Adeline enough before I go to bed to find out why he has never married. + + + + +LEAF THIRD + +MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU? + + +Men are very strange people. They are like those horrible sums in +algebra that you think about and worry about and cry about and try to +get help from other women about, and then, all of a sudden, X works +itself out into perfectly good sense. Not that I thought much about Mr. +Carter, poor man! When he wasn't right around I felt it best to forget +him as much as I could, but it seems hard for other women to let you +forget either your husband or theirs. + +I know now that I really never got any older than the poor, foolish, +eighteen-years' child that Aunt Adeline married off "safe", all the time +I was the "refuge" sort of wife. I would sit and listen while the other +wives talked over the men in utter bewilderment and most times terror, +then I would force myself to a little more forgetting and poor Mr. +Carter must have suffered the consequences. But all that was a mild sort +of exasperation to what a widow has to go through with in the matter +of--of, well I think hazing is about the best name to give it. + +"Molly Carter," said Mrs. Johnson just day before yesterday, after the +white-dress, Judge-Wade episode that Aunt Adeline had gone to all the +friends up and down the street to be consoled about, "if you haven't got +sense enough to appreciate your present blissful condition somebody +ought to operate on your mind." + +I was tempted to say, "Why not my heart?" I was glad she didn't know +how good that heart did feel under my tucker when the boy brought that +basket of fish from Judge Wade's fishing trip Saturday. I have firmly +determined not to blush any more at the thought of that gorgeous man--at +least outwardly. + +"Don't you think it is very--very lonely to be a widow, Mrs. Johnson?" I +asked timidly to see what she would say about Mr. Johnson, who is really +lovely, I think. He gives me the gentlest understanding smile when he +meets me on the street of late weeks. + +"Lonely, _lonely_, Molly? You talk about the married state exactly +like an old maid. Don't do it--it's foolish, and you will get the lone +notion really fastened in your mind and let some fool man find out that +is how you feel. Then it will be all over with you. I have only one +regret, and it is that if I ever should be a widow Mr. Johnson wouldn't +be here to see how quickly I turned into an old maid, by the grace of +God." Mrs. Johnson sews by assassinating the cloth with the needle, and +as she talked she was mending the sleeve of one of Mr. Johnson's shirts. + +"I think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a +man who loves her. Lots of them have been married for years," I said, +just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream, and went on +darning one of Billy's socks. + +"Well, be that as it may, they are the blessed members of the women +tribe," she answered, looking at me sharply. "Now I have often told +Mr. Johnson--" but here we were interrupted in what might have been the +rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of Aunt Bettie Pollard, +and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most +wonderful close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat on sight. +I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that made me want +to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel like I had gained all the +more than twenty pounds that I have slaved off me and doubled them on +again. I would have liked to lead her that minute into Doctor John's +office and just to have looked at him and said one word--"string-bean!" +Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Chester from Washington. + +"Oh, my dear Mrs. Carter, how glad I am to meet you!" she said as she +towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool +almost to slimness. "I am the bearer of so many gracious messages that +I am anxious to deliver them safely to you. Not six weeks ago I left +Alfred Bennett in Paris and really--really his greetings to you almost +amounted to steamer luggage. He came down to Cherbourg to see me off, +and almost the last thing he said to me was, 'Now, don't fail to see +Mrs. Carter as soon as you get to Hillsboro; and the more you see of her +the more you'll enjoy your visit to Mrs. Pollard.' Isn't he the most +delightful of men?" She asked me the question, but she had the most +wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time, so +Mrs. Johnson got in the first answer. + +"Delightful, nothing! But Al Bennett is a man of sense not to marry +any of the string of women I suppose he's got following him!" she said. +Miss Chester looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went on +murdering Mr. Johnson's shirt-sleeve with the needle without noticing +the glance at all. + +"Well, well, honey, I don't know about that," said Aunt Bettie as she +fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong rocker +I always kept in the breezy angle of the porch for her. "Al is not old +enough to have proved himself entirely, and from what I hear--" she +paused with the big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins +to tease or match-make, and she does them both most of her time. + +But at whom do you suppose she looked? Not me! Miss Chester! That was +cold tub number two for that day, and I didn't react as quickly as I +might, but when I did I was in the proper glow all over. When I revived +and saw the lovely pale blush on her face I felt like a cabbage-rose +beside a tea-bud. I was glad Aunt Adeline came out on the porch just +then so I could go in and tell Judy to bring out the iced tea and cakes. +When I came from the kitchen I stepped into my room and took out one of +Alfred's letters from the desk drawer and opened it at random, as you do +the Bible when you want to decide things, and put my finger down on a +line with my eyes shut This was what it was: + + "--and all these years I have walked the world, blindfolded to its + loveliness with the blackness that came to me when I found that you--" + + +I didn't read any more, but shoved it back in a hurry and went on out on +the porch, comforted in a way, but feeling some more in sympathy with +Mrs Johnson than I had before Aunt Bettie and her guest from Washington +had interrupted our algebraic demonstration on the man subject. You +can't always be sure of the right answer to X in any proposition of +life; that is, a woman can't! + +And, furthermore, I didn't like that next hour much, just as a sample of +life, for instance. Aunt Bettie had got her joining-together humor well +started, and right there before my face she made a present of every nice +man in Hillsboro to that lovely, distinguished, strange girl who could +have slipped through a bucket hoop if she had tried hard. I had to sit +there, listen to the presentations, watch her drink two tall delicious +glasses of tea full of sugar and consume without fear three of Judy's +puffy cakes, while I crumbled mine in secret over the banisters and set +half the glass of tea out of sight behind the wistaria vine. + +It was bad enough to hear Aunt Bettie just offer her Tom, who, if he is +her own son, is my favorite cousin, but I believe the worst minute I +almost ever faced was when she began on the judge, for I could see from +Aunt Adeline's shoulder beyond Miss Chester how she was enjoying that, +and she added another distinguished ancestor to his pedigree every time +Aunt Bettie paused for breath. I couldn't say a word about the fish and +Aunt Adeline wouldn't! I almost loved Mrs. Johnson when she bit off a +thread viciously and said, "Humph," as she rose to start the tea-party +home. + +That night I did so many exercises that at last I sank exhausted in a +chair in front of my mirror and put my head down on my arms and cried +the real tears you cry when nobody is looking. I felt terribly old and +ugly and dowdy and--widowed. It couldn't have been jealousy, for I just +love that girl. I want most awfully to hug her very slimness and it +was more what she might think of poor dumpy me than what any man in +Hillsboro, Tennessee, or Paris, France, could possibly feel on the +subject that hurt so hard. But then, looking back on it, I am afraid +that jealousy sheds feathers every night so you won't know him in the +morning, for something made me sit up suddenly with a spark in my eyes +and reach out to the desk for my pencil and check-book. It took me more +than an hour to figure it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though +in prospects a poorer woman. + +It is strange how spending a man's money makes you feel more congenial +with him and as I sat in the cars on my way to the city early the next +morning I felt nearer to Mr. Carter than I almost ever did, alive or +dead. After this I shall always appreciate and admire him for the way he +made money, since, for the first time in my life, I fully realized what +it could buy. And I bought things! + +First I went to see Madam Courtier for corsets. I had heard about her +and I knew it meant a fortune. But that didn't matter! She came in and +looked at me for about five minutes without saying a word and then she +ran her hands down and down over me until I could feel the flesh just +crawling off of me. It was delicious! + +Then she and two girls in puffs and rats came in and did things to a +corset they laced on me that I can't even write down, for I didn't +understand the process, but when I looked in that long glass I almost +dropped on the floor. I wasn't tight and I wasn't stiff and I +looked--I'm too modest to write how lovely I really looked to myself. +I was spellbound with delight. + +[Illustration: I was spellbound with delight] + +Next I signed the check for three of those wonders with my head so in +the clouds I didn't know what I was doing, but I came to with a jolt +when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black taffeta bag I +had worn down to the city. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds +I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Chester from the horror I +felt when I looked at myself. The girl was really sympathetic and said +with a smile that was true kindness: "Shall I call a taxi for madam and +have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready +to be fitted at short notice. Really, madam's figure is such that it +commands a perfect costume now." Men do business well, but when women +enter the field they are geniuses at money extracting. I felt myself +already clothed perfectly when that girl said my figure "commanded" a +proper dress. Of course, Klein pays Madam Courtier a commission for the +customers she passes right on to him. The one for me must have looked to +her like a real estate transaction. + +I spent three days at the great Klein store, only going to the hotel to +sleep and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madam Rene must have been +Madam Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madam Telliers in the hat +department was the triplet to them both. When women have genius it +breaks out all over them like measles and they never recover from it; +those women had the confluent kind. But I know that old Rene really +liked me, for when I blushed and asked her if they had a good beauty +doctor in the store she held up her hands and shuddered. + +"Never, Madam, never _pour vous_. _Ravissant, charmant_--it is +to fool. Nevair! _Jamais, jamais de la vie!_" I had to calm her +down and she kissed my hand when we parted. + +I thought Klein was going to do the same thing or worse when I signed +the check which would be good for a house and lot and motor-car for him, +but he didn't. Only he got even with me by saying: "And I am delighted +that the trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, Mrs. Carter." + +That was an awful shock and I hope I didn't show it as I murmured: +"Perfectly, thank you." + +The word "trousseau" can be spoken in a woman's presence for many years +with no effect, but it is an awful shock when she first _really_ +hears it. I felt funny all afternoon as I packed those trunks for the +five o'clock train. + +Yes, the word "trousseau" ought to have a definite surname after it +always and that's why my loyalty dragged poor Mr. Carter out into the +light of my conscience. The thinking of him had a strange effect on me. +I had laid out the dream in dark gray-blue rajah, tailored almost beyond +endurance, to wear home on the train and had thrown the old black +taffeta bag across the chair to give to the hotel maid, but the decision +of the session between conscience and loyalty made me pack the precious +blue wonder and put on once more the black rags of remembrance in a kind +of panic of respect. + +I would lots rather have bought poor Mr. Carter the monument I have been +planning for months to keep up conversation with Aunt Adeline, than wear +that dress again. I felt conscience reprove me once more with loyalty +looking on in disapproval as I buttoned the old thing up for the last +time, because I really ought to have stayed over a day to buy that +monument, but--to tell the truth I wanted to see Billy so desperately +that his "sleep-place" above my heart hurt as if it might have prickly +heat break out at any minute. + +So I hurried and stuffed the gray-blue darling in the top tray, lapped +old black taffeta around my waist and belted it in with a black belt off +a new green linen I had made for morning walks, down to the drug store +on the public square, I suppose. That is about the only morning +dissipation in Hillsboro that I can think of, and it all depends on whom +you meet, how much of a dissipation it is. + +The next thing that happens after you have done a noble deed is, you +either regard it as a reward of virtue or as a punishment for having +been foolish. I felt both ways when Judge Wade came down the car aisle, +looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I don't see how +they stand him ever. At that minute the noble black-taffeta deed felt +foolish, but at the next minute I thanked my lucky stars for it. + +It is nice to watch for a person to catch sight of you if you feel sure +how they are going to take it and somehow in this case I felt sure. I +was not disappointed, for his smile broke his face up into a joy-laugh. +Off came his hat instantly so I could catch a glimpse of the fascinating +frost over his temples, and with a positive sigh of rapture he subsided +into the seat beside me. I turned with an echo smile all over me when +suddenly his face became grave and considerate, and he looked at me as +all the men in Hillsboro have been doing ever since poor Mr. Carter's +funeral. + +"Mrs. Carter," he said very kindly, in a voice that pitched me out of +the car window and left me a mile behind on the track, all by myself, +"I wish I had known of your sad errand to town so I could have offered +you some assistance in your selection. You know we have just had our lot +in the cemetery finally arranged and I found the dealers in memorial +stones very confusing in their ideas and designs. Mrs. Henderson just +told my mother of your absence from home last night, and I could only +come down to the city for the day on important business or I would have +arranged to see you. I hope you found something that satisfied you." + +What's a woman going to say when she has a tombstone thrown in her face +like that? I didn't say anything, but what I thought about Aunt Adeline +filled in a dreadful pause. + +Perfectly dumb and quiet I sat for an awful space of time and wondered +just what I was going to do. Could a woman lie a monument into her suit +case? It was beyond me at that speaking and the Molly that is ready for +life quick, didn't want to. I shut my eyes, counted three to myself as I +do when I go over into the cold tub, and told him all about it. We both +got a satisfactory reaction and I never enjoyed myself so much as that +before. + +I understand now why Judge Wade has had so many women martyr themselves +over him and live unhappily ever afterward, as everybody says Henrietta +Mason is doing. He's a very inspiring man and he fairly bristles with +fascinations. Some men are what you call taking and they take you if +they want you, while others are drawing and after you are drawn to them +they will consider the question of taking you. The judge is like that. + +In the meantime it tingles me up to a very great degree to have a man +use his eyes on me as it is the privilege of only womankind to do, and I +feel that it will be good for his judgeship for me to let him "draw" me +at least a little way. I may get hurt, but I shall at least have an +interesting time of it. I started right then and got results, for he +stopped under the old lilac bush that leans over my side gate and kissed +my hand. Old Lilac shook a laugh of perfume all over us and I believe +signaled the event at the top of his bough to the white clump on the +other side of the garden. I'm glad Aunt Adeline isn't in the flower +fraternity or sorority. Suppose she had seen or heard! + +And it didn't take many minutes for me to slip into old +summer-before-last--also for the last time inside of those buttons--and +run through the garden, my heart singing, "Billy, Billy," in a perfect +rapture of tune. I ran past the office door and found him in his cot +almost asleep and we had a bear reunion in the rocker by the window that +made us both breathless. + +"What did you bring me, Molly?" he finally kissed under my right ear. + +"A real base-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five cars, a rake +and a spade and a hoe, two blow-guns that pop a new way and something +that squirts water and some other things. Will that be enough?" I hugged +him up anxiously, for sometimes he is hard to please and I might not +have got the very thing he wanted. + +"Thank you, Molly, all them things is what I want, but you oughter brung +more'n that for three days not being here with me." Did any woman ever +have a more lovely lover than that? I don't know how long I should have +rocked him in the twilight if Doctor John's voice hadn't come across the +hall in command. + +"Put him down now, Mrs. Molly, and come and say other how-do-you-does," +he called softly. + +It was a funny glad-to-see-him I felt as I came into the office where he +was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its twilight +glow. I think it is wrong for a woman to let her imagination kiss a man +on the back of his neck even if she has known for some time that there +is a little drake-tail lock of hair there just like his own son's. I +gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a blush than I +intended. + +He very far from kissed the hand; he held it just long enough to turn me +around into the light and give me one long looking-over from head to +feet. + +"Just where does that corset press you worst?" he asked in the tone of +voice he uses to say "poke out your tongue." So much of my Tennessee +shooting-blood rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't drip; but I +was cold enough to have hit at forty paces if I had had a shooting-iron +in my hand. As it was the coldness was the only missile that I had, but +I used it to some effect. + +"I am making a call on a friend, Doctor Moore, and not a consultation +visit to my physician," I said, looking into his face as though I had +never seen him before. + +"I beg your pardon, Molly," he exclaimed and his face was redder than +mine and then it went white with mortification. I couldn't stand that. + +"Don't do that way!" I exclaimed, and before I knew it I had taken +hold of his hand and had it in both of mine. "I know I look as if I +was shrunk or laced, but I'm not! I was going to tell you all about +it and show it to you. I'm really inches bigger in the right place and +just--just 'controlled', the woman called it, in the wrong place. Please +feel me and see," and I offered myself to him for examination in the +most regardless way. He's not at all like other people. + +The blood came back into his face and he laughed as he gave me a little +shake that pushed me away from him. "Don't you ever scare me like that +again, child, or it might be serious," he said in the Billy-and-me tone +of voice that I like some, only-- + +"I never will," I said in a hurry; "I want you to ask me anything in the +world you want to and I'll always do it." + +"Well, let me take you home through the garden then--and, yes, I believe +I'll stay to break a muffin with Mrs. Henderson. Don't you want to tell +me what a little girl like you did in a big city and--and read me part +of that London letter I saw the postman give Judy this afternoon?" + +Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett's +letters always makes me so instantly cross. + + + + +LEAF FOURTH + +SCATTERED JAM + + +Sleep is one of the most delightful and undervalued amusements known +to the human race. I have never had enough yet and every second of time +that I'm not busy with something interesting I curl up on the bed and +go dream hunting--only I sleep too hard to do much catching. But this +torture book found that out on me and stopped it the very first thing on +page three. The command is to sleep as little as possible to keep the +nerves in a good condition,--"eight hours at the most and seven would +be better." What earthly good would a seven-hour nap do me? I want ten +hours to sleep and twelve if I get a good tired start. To see me stagger +out of my perfectly nice bed at six o'clock every morning now would +wring the sternest heart with compassion and admiration at my +faithfulness--to whom? + +Yes, it was the day after poor Mr. Carter's funeral that Aunt Adeline +moved up here into my house and settled herself in the big south room +across the hall from mine. Her furniture weighs a ton each piece, and +Aunt Adeline is not light herself in disposition. The next morning when +I went in to breakfast she sat in the "vacant chair" in a way that made +me see that she was obviously trying to fill the vacancy. I am sorry she +worried herself about that. Anyway, it made me take a resolve. After +breakfast I went into the kitchen to speak to Judy. + +"Judy," I said, looking past her head, "my health is not very good and +you can bring my breakfast to me in bed after this." Poor Mr. Carter +always wanted breakfast on the stroke of seven, and me at the same time, +though he rarely got me. Judy has two dead husbands and she likes a +ginger-colored barber down-town. Also her mother is our washerwoman +and influenced by Aunt Adeline. Judy understands everything I say to +her. After I had closed the door I heard a laugh that sounded like a +war-whoop, and I smiled to myself. But that was before my martyrdom to +this book had begun. I get up now! + +But the day after I came from the city I lay in bed just as long as I +wanted to and ignored the thought of the exercises and deep breathing +and the icy unsympathetic tub. I couldn't even take very much interest +in the lonely egg on the lonely slice of dry toast. I was thinking about +things. + +Hillsboro is a very peculiar little speck on the universe; even more +peculiar than being like a hen. It is one of the oldest towns in +Tennessee and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched off +except in spots. But it has a lot of racehorse and distillery money in +it and when it gets poked up by anything unusual it takes a gulp of its +own alcoholic atmosphere and runs away on its own track at a two-five +gait, shedding moss as it goes. It hasn't had a real joy-race for a long +time and I felt that it needed it. I rolled over and laughed into my +pillow. + +The subject of the conduct of widows is a serious one. Of all the things +old Tradition is most set about it is that, and what was decided to be +the proper thing a million years ago this town still dictates shall be +done, and spends a good deal of its time seeing its directions carried +out. For a year after the funeral they forget about the poor bereaved +and when they do remember her they speak to and of her in the same tones +of voice they used at the obsequies. Then sooner or later some neighbor +is sure to see some man walk home from church with her or hear some old +bachelor's voice on her front porch. Mr. Cain took Mrs. Caruther's +little Jessie up in his buggy and helped her out at her mother's gate +just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quick the +town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her. They +were married the day after New Year's and she lost lots of good friends +because she didn't give them more time to talk about it. + +I don't intend to run any risk of losing my friends that way and I want +them to have all the good time they can get out of it. I'm going to +serve out mint-juleps of excitement until the dear old place is running +as it did when it was a two-year-old. Why get mad when people are +interested in you? It's a compliment after all and just gives them more +to think about. I remembered the two trunks across the hall and hugged +my knees up under by chin with pleasure at the thought of the town-talk +they contained. + +Then just as I had got the first plan well-going and was deciding +whether to wear the mauve meteor or the white chiffon with the rosebud +embroidery as a first julep for my friends, a sweetness came in through +my window that took my breath away and I lay still with my hand over my +heart and listened. It was Billy singing right under my window, and I've +never heard him do it before in all his five years. It was the dearest +old-fashioned tune ever written and Billy sang the words as distinctly +as if he had been a boy chorister doing a difficult recitative. My heart +beat so it shook the lace on my breast like a breeze from heaven as he +took the high note and then let it go on the last few words. + + "If you love me, Molly, darling, + Let your answer be a kiss!" + + +A confused recollection of having heard the words and tune sung by my +mother when I was at the rocking age myself brought the tears to my eyes +as I flew to the window and parted the curtains. If you heard a little +boy-angel singing at your casement wouldn't you expect a cherubim face +upturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned as he +heard me draw the shade, but it was streaked like a wild Indian's with +decorations of brown mud and he held a long slimy fish-worm on the end +of a stick while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his +linen blouse. + +[Illustration: I lifted him into my arms] + +"Say, Molly, look at the snake I brunged you!" he exclaimed as he came +close under the sill, which is not high from the ground. "If you put +your face down to the mud and sing something to 'em they'll come outen +they holes. A doodle-bug comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift +me up and I can put him in the water-glass on your table." He held up +one muddy paddie to me and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From +the embrace in which he and the worm and I indulged my lace and dimity +came out much the worse. + +"That was a lovely song you sang about 'Molly, darling', Billy," I said. +"Where did you hear it?" + +"That's a good bug-song, Molly, and I bet I can git a lizard with it, +too, if I sing it right low." He began to squirm out of my arms toward +the table and the glass. + +"Who taught it to you, sugar-sweet?" I persisted as I poured water in on +the squirming worm under his direction. + +"Nobody taught it to me. Doc sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor you +ain't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like _Roll, +Jordan, Roll_, or _Hot Times_ or _Twinkle_. I go to sleep quick 'cause +he makes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good for bugs. Git +a hair-pin for me to poke him with, Molly, quick!" + +I found the hair-pin and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed +it to Billy. As soon as he got it he climbed out the window, glass, bug +and all, and I saw him and the red setter go down the garden walk +together in pursuit of the desired lizard, I suppose. I closed the +blinds and drew the curtains again and flung myself on my pillow. +Something warm and sweet seemed to be sweeping over me in great waves +and I felt young and close up to some sort of big world-good. It was +delicious and I don't know how long I would have stayed there just +feeling it if Judy hadn't brought in my letter. + +He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful things +all flavored with me. He told me about Miss Chester and what good +friends they were, and how much he hoped she would be in Hillsboro when +he got here. He said that a great many of her dainty ways reminded him +of his "own slip of a girl", especially the turn of her head like a +"flower on its stem." At that I got right out of bed like a jack jumping +out of a box and looked at myself in the mirror. + +There is one exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You +screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get +your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born +baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the +others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter +I'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe earlier. It +frightens me to think that I've got only a few weeks more to turn from a +cabbage-rose into a lily. I won't let myself even think "luscious peach" +and "string-bean." If I do, I get warm and happy all over and let up on +myself. I try when I get hungry to think of myself in that blue muslin +dress. + +I haven't been really willing before to write down in this torture +volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madam Rene +did to it--made it over into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I +wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honorable as all +women are at peculiar times. I think she understood, but she seemed not +to, and worked a miracle on it with ribbon and lace. I've put it away on +the top shelf of a closet, for it is torment to look at it. + +You can just take any old recipe for a party and mix up a début for a +girl, but it takes more time to concoct one for a widow, especially if +it is for yourself. I spent all the rest of the day doing almost nothing +and thinking until I felt lightheaded. Finally I had just about given up +any idea of a blaze and had decided to leak out in general society as +quietly as my clothes would let me, when a real conflagration was +lighted inside me. + +If Tom Pollard wasn't my own first cousin I would have loved him +desperately, even if I am a week older than he. He was about the +only oasis in my marriage mirage, though I don't think anybody would +think of calling him at all green. He never stopped coming to see me +occasionally, and Mr. Carter liked him. He was the first man to notice +the white ruche I sewed in the neck of my old black taffeta four or five +months ago and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner of his +eyes even right there in church, under Aunt Adeline's very elbow. He +makes love unconsciously and he flirts with his own mother. As soon as +I've made this widowhood hurdle--well, I'm going to spend a lot of time +buying tobacco with him in his Hup runabout, which sounds as if it was +named for himself. + +And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my début, Tom did +it. I was sitting peaceably on my own front steps, dressed in the +summer-before-last that Judy washes and irons every day while I'm +deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the neighbors, +when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that melted into +it in tone, blew over my hedge and landed at my side. He kissed the lace +ruffle on my sleeve while I reproved him severely and settled down to +enjoy him. But I didn't have such an awfully good time as I generally do +with him. He was too full of another woman, and even a first cousin can +be an exasperation in that condition. + +"Now, Mrs. Molly, truly did you ever see such a peach as she is?" he +demanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinions of +Miss Chester. His use of the word "peach" riled me and before I stopped +to think, I said: "She reminds me more of a string-bean." + +"Now, Molly, don't be mean just because old Wade has got her out driving +behind the grays after kissing your hand under the lilacs yesterday, +which, praise be, nobody saw but little me! I'm not sore, why should you +be? Aren't you happy with me?" + +I withered him with a look, or rather _tried_ to wither him, for +Tom is no Mimosa bud. + +"The way that girl has started in to wake up this little old town +reminds me of the feeling you get under your belt seven minutes after +you've sipped an absinthe frappé for the first time--you are liable for +a good jag and don't know it," he continued enthusiastically. "Let's +don't let the folks know that they are off until I get everybody in a +full swing of buzz over my queen." I had never seen Tom so enthusiastic +over a girl before and I didn't like it. But I decided not to let him +know that, but to get to work putting out the Chester blaze in him and +starting one on my own account. + +"That's just what I'm thinking about, Tom," I said with a smile that was +as sweet as I could make it, "and as she came with messages to me from +one of my best old friends I think I ought to do something to make her +have a good time. I was just planning a gorgeous dinner-party I want to +have for her when you came so suddenly. Do you think we could arrange it +for Tuesday evening?" + +"Lord love us, Molly, don't knock the town down like that! Let 'em have +more than a week to get used to this white rag of a dress you've been +waving in their faces for the last few days. Go slow!" + +"I've been going so slow for so many years that I've turned around and +I'm going fast backward," I said with a blush that I couldn't help. + +"Help! Let my kinship protect me!" exclaimed Tom in alarm, and he +pretended to move an inch away from me. + +"Yes," I said slowly and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes from +under the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long and +black to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the full +shock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flung +down the gauntlet with a high head. + +"Here, Molly, here are the keys of my office, and the spark-plug to the +Hup; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Judy has got a cake I'll +eat it out of your hands. Shall it be California or Nova Scotia? And I +prefer _my_ bride served in light gray tweed." Tom really is +adorable and I let him snuggle up just one cousinly second, then we both +laughed and began to plan what Tom was horrible enough to call the +resurrection razoo. But I kept that delicious rose-embroidered treasure +all to myself. I wanted him to meet it entirely unprepared. + +I was glad we had both got over our excitement and were sitting +decorously at several inches' distance apart when the judge drew the +grays up to the gate and we both went down to the sidewalk to ask him +and the lovely long lady to come in. They couldn't; but we stood and +talked to them long enough for Mrs. Johnson to get a good look at us +from across the street and I was afraid I would find Aunt Adeline in a +faint when I went into the house. + +Miss Chester was delightfully gracious about the dinner--I almost called +it the début dinner--and the expression on the judge's face when he +accepted! I was glad she was sitting sidewise to him and couldn't see. +Some women like to make other women unhappy, but I think it is best for +you to keep them blissfully unconscious until you get what you want. +Anyway, I like that girl all over and I can't see that her neck is so +absolutely impossibly flowery. However, I think she might have been a +little more considerate about discussing Alfred's London triumph over +the Italian mission. As a punishment I let Tom put his arm around my +waist as we stood watching them drive off and then was sorry for the +left gray horse that shied and came in for a crack of the judge's +irritated whip. + +Then I refused to let Tom come inside the gate and he went down the +street whistling, only when he got to the purple lilac he turned and +kissed his hand to me. That, Mrs. Johnson just couldn't stand and she +came across the street immediately and called me back to the gate. + +"You are tempting Providence, Molly Carter," she exclaimed decidedly. +"Don't you know Tom Pollard is nothing but a fly-up-the-creek? As a +husband he'd chew the rope and run away like a puppy the first time your +back was turned. Besides being your cousin, he's younger than you. What +do you mean?" + +"He's just a week younger, Mrs. Johnson, and I wouldn't tie him for +worlds, even if I married him," I said meekly. Somehow I like Mrs. +Johnson enough to be meek with her and it always brings her to a higher +point of excitement. + +"Tie, nonsense; marrying is roping in with ball and chain, to my mind. +And a week between a man and a woman in their cradles gets to be fifteen +years between them and their graves. I'm going to make you the subject +of a silent prayer at the next missionary meeting, and I must go home +now to see that Sally cooks up a few of Mr. Johnson's crotchets for +supper." And she began to hurry away. + +"I don't believe you'll be able to make it a 'silent' session about me, +Mrs. Johnson," I called after her, and she laughed back from her own +front gate. Marriage is the only worm in the bud of Mrs. Johnson's life, +and her laugh has a snap to it even if it is not very sugary sweet. + +When I told Judy about the dinner-party and asked her to get the yellow +barber to come help her and her nephew wait on the table she grinned +such a wide grin that I was afraid of being swallowed. She understood +that Aunt Adeline wouldn't be interested in it until I had time to tell +her all about it. Anyway, she will be going over to Springfield on a +pilgrimage to see Mr. Henderson's sister next week. She doesn't know it +yet; but I do. + +After that I spent all the rest of the evening in planning my +dinner-party and I had a most royal good time. I always have had lots +of company, but mostly the spend-the-day kind with relatives, or more +relatives to supper. That's what most entertaining in Hillsboro is like, +but, as I say, once in a while the old slow pacer wakes up. + +I'll never forget my first real dinner-party, as the flower girl for +Caroline Evans' wedding, when she married the Chicago millionaire, from +which Hillsboro has never yet recovered. I was sixteen, felt dreadfully +naked without a tucker in my dress, and saw Alfred for the first time in +evening clothes--his first. I can hardly stand thinking about how he +looked even now. I haven't been to very many dinner-parties in my life, +but from this time on I mean to indulge in them often. Candle-light, +pretty women's shoulders, black coat sleeves, cut glass and flowers are +good ingredients for a joy-drink, and why not? + +But when I got to planning about the gorgeous food I wanted to give them +all, I got into what I feel came near being a serious trouble. It was +writing down the recipe for the nesselrode pudding they make in my +family that undid me. Suddenly hunger rose up from nowhere and gripped +me by the throat, gnawed me all over like a bone, then shook me until I +was limp and unresisting. I must have astralized myself down to the +pantry, for when I became conscious I found myself in company with a +loaf of bread, a plate of butter and a huge jar of jam. + +I sat down by the long table by the window and slowly prepared to enjoy +myself. I cut off four slices and buttered them to an equal thickness +and then more slowly put a long silver spoon into the jam. I even paused +to admire in Judy's mirror over the table the effect of the cascade of +lace that fell across my arm and lost itself in the blue shimmer of old +Rene's masterpiece of a negligée, then deep down I buried the spoon in +the purple sweetness. I had just lifted it high in the air when out of +the lilac-scented dark of the garden came a laugh. + +[Illustration: "Why Molly, Molly, Molly!"] + +"Why, Molly, Molly, Molly!" drawled that miserable man-doctor as he came +and leaned on the sill right close to my elbow. The spoon crashed on the +table and I turned and crashed into words. + +"You are cruel, cruel, John Moore, and I hate you worse than I ever did +before, if that is possible. I'm hungry, hungry to death, and now you've +spoiled it all! Go away before I wet this nice crisp bread and jam with +tears into a mush I'll have to eat with a spoon. You don't know what it +is to want something sweet so bad you are willing to steal it--from +yourself!" I fairly blazed my eyes down into his and moved as far away +from him as the table would let me. + +"Don't I, Molly?" he asked softly, after looking straight in my eyes for +a long minute that made me drop my head until the blue bow I had tied on +the end of my long plait almost got into the scattered jam. Even at such +a moment as that I felt how glad old Rene would have been to have given +such a nice man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk +chef-d'oeuvre of hers. I was glad myself. + +"Don't I, Peaches?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had +that sensation of being against something warm and great and good like +your own mother's breast and I don't know how I controlled it enough not +to--to-- + +"Well, have some jam then," I managed to say with a little laugh as I +turned away and picked up the silver spoon. + +"Thank you, I will, all of it and the bread and butter, too," he +answered, in that detestable friendly tone of voice as he drew himself +up and sat in the window. "Hustle, Peaches, if you are going to feed me, +for I'm ravenous. It took Sam Benson's wife the longest time to have the +shortest baby I ever experienced and I haven't had any supper. You have; +so I don't mind taking it all away from you." + +"Supper," I sniffed as I spread the jam on those lovely, lovely slices +of bread and thick butter that I had fixed for my own self. "That +apple-toast combination tires me so now that I forget it if I can." As I +handed him the first slice of drippy lusciousness I turned my head away. +He thought it was from the expression of that jam, but it was from his +eyes. + +"Slice up the whole loaf, Peaches, and let's get on a jam jag! Come with +me just this once and forget--forget--" He didn't finish his sentence +and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything more as I fed him that +whole loaf. I found that the bite I took off of each piece I had ready +for him when he finished with the one he had in hand satisfied me as +nothing I had ever eaten in all my life before had done, while at the +same time my nibbles soothed his conscience about robbing me. + +His teeth are big and strong and white and his jaws work like machinery. +He is the strongest man I ever saw, and his gauntness is all muscle. +What is that glow a woman gets from feeding a hungry man whom she likes +with her own hands; and why should I want to be certain that he kissed +the lace on my sleeve as it brushed his face when I reached across him +to catch an inquisitive rose that I saw peeping in the window at us? + + + + +LEAF FIFTH + +BLUE ABSINTHE + + +"The juice of a lemon in two glasses of cold water, to be drunk +immediately on wakening!" Page eleven! I've handed myself that lemon +every morning now until I am sensitive with myself about it. If there +was ever anybody "on the water wagon" it's I, and I have to sit on the +front seat from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water I'm supposed +to consume in that time. Sometime I'm going to get mixed up and try to +drink my bath if I don't look out. I dreamed night before last that I +was taking a bath in a glass of ice-cream soda-water and trying to hide +from Doctor John behind the dab of ice-cream that seemed inadequate for +food or protection. I haven't had even one glass for two months and I +woke up in a cold perspiration of embarrassment and raging hunger. + +I don't know what I'm going to do about this book and I've got myself +into trouble about writing things besides records in it. He looked at me +this morning as coolly as if I was just anybody and said: + +"I would like to see that record now, Mrs. Molly. It seems to me you are +about as slim as you want to be. How did you tip the scales last time +you weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?" + +"I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds and I've got to melt and +freeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heart +question and also the question of producing this book. Wonder what he +would do if I gave it to him to read just as it is? + +"How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smile +in his eyes for his mouth was purely professional. Anyway, I lowered my +lashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally: + +"Sometimes it hurts." Then a cyclone happened to me. + +"Come here to me a minute!" he said quickly and he turned me around and +put his head down between my shoulders and held me so tight against his +ear that I could hardly breathe. + +"Expand your chest three times and breathe as deep as you can," he +ordered from against my back buttons. I expanded and breathed--pretty +quickly at that. + +[Illustration: "Breathe as deep as you can"] + +"Now hold your breath as long as you can," he commanded, and it fitted +my mood exactly to do so. + +"Can't find anything," he said at last, letting me go and looking +carefully at my face. His eyes were all anxiety; and I liked it. "When +does it hurt you and how?" he asked anxiously. + +"Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stop +myself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got white +for a minute and just looked at me as if I was a bug stuck on a pin, +then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table. + +"I didn't understand you were joking," he said quietly. + +That maddened me and I would have done anything to make him think +I was not the foolish thing he evidently had classified me as being. +I snatched at my mind and shook out a mixture of truth and lies that +fooled even myself and gave them to him, looking straight in his face. +I would have cracked all the ten commandments to save myself from his +contempt. + +"I'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I _am_ lonesome. And worse than +being lonesome, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict +of Mr. Carter and gone on to church meetings with Aunt Adeline and let +myself be fat and respectable; but I haven't got the character. You +thought I went to town to buy a monument, and I didn't; I bought enough +clothes for two brides, and now I'm scared to wear 'em, and I don't know +what you'll think when you see my bank-book. Everybody is talking about +me and that dinner-party Tuesday night, and Aunt Adeline says she can't +live in a house of mourning so desecrated any longer; she's going back +to the cottage. Aunt Bettie Pollard says that if I want to get married +I ought to do it to Mr. Wilson Graves because of the seven children and +then everybody would be so relieved that they are taken care of that +they would forget that Mr. Carter hasn't been dead quite one year yet. +Mrs. Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward to +you. I can't help Judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's sitting on +my front steps night and day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away +and murder him. I am perfectly miserable and I'm--" + +"Now that'll do, Molly, just hush for a half-minute and let me talk to +you," said Doctor John as he took my hand in his and drew me near him. +"No wonder your heart hurts if it has got all that load of trouble on it +and well just get a little of that 'scare' off. You put yourself in my +hands and you are to do just as I tell you, and I say--forget it! Come +with me while I make a call. It is a long drive and I'm--I'm lonesome +sometimes myself." + +I saw the worst was over and I breathed freely again, but I had talked +so much truth in that fiction that I felt just as I said I did, which is +a slightly unnatural feeling for a woman. There was nothing for it but +to go with him, and I wanted to most awfully. + +To my dying day I'll never forget that little house, way out on the Cane +Run Pike, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms, +but they were clean and quiet and a girl with the sweetest face I ever +saw lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride and a tiny, tiny +little bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red with +embarrassment and anxiety. + +"She's all right to-day, but she worries because she don't think I can +tend to the baby right," he said; and he did look helpless. "Her mother +had to go home for two days, but is coming to-morrow. I dasn't undress +and wash the youngster myself. It won't hurt him to stay bundled up +until granny comes, will it, Doc?" + +"Not a bit," answered Doctor John in his big comforting voice. + +But I looked at the girl and I understood her. She wanted that baby +clean and fresh even if it was just five days old, and I felt all of a +sudden terribly capable. I picked up the bundle and went into the other +room with it where a kettle was boiling on the stove and a large bucket +by the door. I found things by just a glance from her, and the hour I +spent with that small baby was one of the most delicious of all my life. +I never was left entirely to myself with one before and I did all I +wanted to this one, guided by instinct and desire. He slept right +through and was the darlingest thing I ever saw when I laid him back on +the bed by her. I never looked in Doctor John's direction once, though +I felt him all the time. + +But on the way home I gave myself the surprise of my life! Suddenly +I turned my face against his sleeve and cried as I never had before. +I felt safe, for it is a cliff road and he had to drive carefully. +However, he managed to press that one arm against my cheek in a way that +comforted me into stopping when I saw we were near town. I got out of +the car at the garage and walked away through the garden home without +looking in his direction at all. I never seem to be able to look at him +as I do at other people. We hadn't spoken two words since we had left +the little house in the woods with that happy-faced girl in it. He has +more sense than just a man. + +It was almost dusk and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull the dirt +closer around some of the bachelor's-buttons that had "popped" the +ground some weeks ago. Thinking about them made me regain my spirits and +I went on in the house to be scolded for whatever Aunt Adeline had +thought up while I was gone to do it to me about. Judy told me with her +broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper +and I sat down on the steps with a sigh of relief. + +Some days are like tin cocoanut graters that everybody uses to grate you +against and this was one for me. For an hour I sat and grated my own +self against Alfred's letter that had come in the morning. I realized +that I would just have to come to some sort of decision about what I was +going to do, for he wrote that he was to sail in a day or two, and ships +do travel so fast these days. + +I love him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the most +wonderful life in the world and no woman could help being proud to +accept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confess +to Doctor John. I can't go on living this way any longer. Ruth Chester +has made me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never +and--quick. I know now that she loves him, and she ought to have her +show if I don't want him. The way she idolizes and idealizes him is a +marvel of womanly stupidity. + +Some women like to collect men's hearts and hide them away from other +women on cold storage and the helpless things can't help themselves. + +I have contempt for that sort of butcher, and I love Ruth! + +It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in +Alfred's--and _decide_. If not Alfred, what then? + +First--no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-minded +enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I prefer +to suffer at the hands of some cruel man and trust to beguiling him into +doing just as I say. I like men, can't help it, and want one for my own. +I don't count poor Mr. Carter. + +Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutter +at the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline's own best friend and +they have ideas in common. She is so religious that living with her +would be like having the sacrament for daily bread. Still, living with +him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! The girl he wanted to +marry died of tuberculosis and he wears a locket with her in it yet. I'd +like to reward him for such faithfulness with a nice husky wife to wear +instead of the locket. But then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at +Ruth Chester and realize how faithful, and my heart melts to him in my +breast--my hips have almost all melted away, too, so I had better keep +the heart cold enough to handle if I want anything left at all for him +to come home to. + +In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. You have +to say "don't" to him all the time, but what woman doesn't like a little +impertinence once in a while? I flavor all Tom's dare-devil kisses with +kinship when I feed them to my conscience, and I truly try to make him +be serious about the important things in life like going to church with +his mother and working all day, even if he is rich. I wish he wasn't so +near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Chester's way again! One of +the things that keeps the devil so busy is taking helpless widows to the +heights of knowledge and showing them kingdoms of men that girls never +dream even exist. If all women could have been born with widow-eyes, +things would run much more smoothly along the marriage and +giving-in-marriage line. And the poor men are most of them as ignorant +as girls about what to do. + +I suppose I really would be doing a righteous thing to marry Mr. Graves, +and I would adore all those children to start with, but I know Billy +wouldn't get on with them at all. I can't even consider it on his +account, but I'll let the nice old chap come on for a few times more to +see me, for he really is interesting and we have suffered things in +common. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did. +I'd like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn't be happy, that +settles it, and I don't know how good his boys are. I couldn't have +Billy corrupted. + +And so, as there is nobody else exactly suitable in town, it all simmers +down to one or the other of these or Alfred. In my heart I knew that I +couldn't hesitate a minute--and in the flash of a second I +_decided_. Of course I love Alfred and I'll take him gladly and be +the wife he has waited for all these six lonely years. I'll make +everything up to him if I have to diet to keep thin for him the rest of +my life. I likely will have that very thing to do and I get weak at the +idea. Before I burn this book I'll have to copy it all out and be +chained to it for life. At the thought my heart dropped like a sinker to +my toes; but I hauled it up to its normal place with picturing to myself +how Alfred would look when he saw me in that old blue muslin done over +into a Rene wonder. However, old heart would show a strange propensity +for sinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. Tears were +even coming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the fence and +picked me and the heart up together and put us into an adventure of the +first water. + +"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a +dandy, strolling, gipsy band up at the hotel; the dining-room floor is +all waxed and I'm asking for the first dance with the young and radiant +Mrs. Carter. Get into a glad rag and don't keep me waiting." + +"Tom," I gasped! + +"Oh, be a sport, Moll, and don't take water! You said you would wake up +this town, and now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I +had my arms around you to music and I'm not going to wait any longer. +Everybody is there and they can't all dance with Miss Chester." + +That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be danced to death. Of +course I had planned to make a dignified début under my own roof, backed +up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood, silver and +mahogany, as a widow should, but _duty_ called me to de-weed myself +amidst the informality of an impromptu dance at the little town hotel. +And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to some purpose and +flowered out to still more. I never do anything by halves. + +In that--that--trousseau old Rene had made me there was one, what she +called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the +check it called for, a one and two ciphers back of it. It was of linen +as sheer as a cobweb, real lace and tiny delicious incrustations of +embroidery. It fitted in lines that melted into curves, had enticements +in the shape of a long sash and a dangerous breast-knot of shimmery +blue, the color of my eyes, and I looked new-born in it. + +I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about rats and things +in my hair, now that they are out of style, for I've got lots of my own +left in consequence of not wearing other peoples'. It clings and coils +to my head just any old way that looks as if I had spent an hour on it. +That made me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over +the time he gave me. + +I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tom +to turn out the light for me, as Judy had gone. + +I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let +Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At +first it stunned him,--and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom +Pollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long and I only succeeded in +suppressing him after he had landed two kisses on my shoulder, one on my +hair and one on the back of my neck. + +"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you +are one lovely dream. Your shoulders are flushed velvet, your cheeks are +peaches under cream, your eyes are blue absinthe and your mouth a red +devil. Come on before I get drunk looking at you." I didn't know whether +I liked that or not and turned down the light quickly myself and went to +the gate hurriedly. Tom laughed and behaved himself. + +[Illustration: "Molly, you are one lovely dream"] + +Everybody in town was up to the hotel and everybody was nice to me, +girls and all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town and +they were all in full flower. Most of the men were college boys home for +vacation, and while they are a few years younger than me, I have been +friends with them for always and they know how I dance. I didn't even +get near enough to the wall to know it was there, though I was conscious +of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson sitting on it at one end of the room, +and every time I passed them I flirted with them until I won a smile +from them both. I wish I could be sure of hearing Mrs. Johnson tell Aunt +Adeline all about it. + +And it was well I did come to save Ruth Chester from a dancing death, +for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down. +I felt sorry for Tom, for when he danced with me he could see her, and +when he danced with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I +verily believe it was from being really rattled that he asked little Pet +Buford to dance with him--by mistake as it were. After that if Pet +breathed a single strain of music out of his arms I didn't see it. I +knew that gone expression on his face and it made me feel so lonesome +that I was more gracious to the judge than was exactly safe. He dances +just as magnificently as he exists in life and it is a kind of +ceremonial to do it with him. The boys all wore white flannels, and most +of the men, but the judge was as formally dressed as he would have been +in mid-winter, and I wondered if Alfred could be half as distinguished +to look at. I suppose my eyes must have been telling on me about how +grand I thought he was looking because he--well, I was rather relieved +when one of the boys took me out of his arms for a good, long, swinging +two-step. + +And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beat +time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Chester +and I exchanged little laughs and scraps of conversation in between +times and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. Every pound I have +melted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her and I +just _can't_ think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days +now. I put the thought from me and so let myself swing out into +thoughtlessness with one of the boys. And after that I really didn't +know with whom I was dancing, I began to get so intoxicated with it all. + +I never heard musicians play better or get more of the spirit of dance +in their music than those did to-night. They had just given us the +most lovely swinging things, one after another, when suddenly they all +stopped and the leader drew his bow across his violin. Never in all my +life have I ever heard anything like the call of that waltz from that +gipsy's strings. It laughed you a signal and you felt yourself follow +the first strain. + +Just then somebody happened to take me from whomever I was with and I +caught step and glided off the universe. The strongest arms that I had +felt that evening--or ever--held me and I didn't have to look up to see +who it was. I don't know why I knew but I did. I wasn't clasped so very +close to him or left to float by myself an inch; I was just a part of +him like the arms themselves or the hand that mine molded into. And +while that wonder-music teased and cajoled and mocked and rocked and +sobbed and throbbed, I laid my cheek against his coat sleeve and gave +myself away, I didn't care to whom. + +Again that strange sense of some wonderful eternal good came to me and I +found myself humming Billy's little "soul to keep" prayer against the +doctor's sleeve to the tune of that magic waltz. I had never danced with +him before, of course, but I felt as if I had been doing it always, and +I melted in his arms as that baby had wilted to his mother out in the +cabin a few hours earlier and I don't see how such happiness as that +_could_ stop. But with a soft entreating wail the music came to an +end and there the doctor was, smiling down into my face with his +whimsical friendly smile that woke me up all over. + +"Somebody has stolen a rose from the Carter garden and brought it to the +dance," he said with a laugh that was for me alone. + +"No," I flashed back, "a string-bean." And with that I danced off again +with the judge, while the doctor disappeared through the door, and I +heard the chuck of his car as it whirled away. He had just stopped in +for a second to see the fun and God had given me that gipsy waltz with +him, because He knew I needed something like that in my life to keep for +always. + +This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred, +though he doesn't know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that life +for us is going to be brilliant and gay and full of laughter and love. + +I haven't had Billy in my arms to-day and I don't know how I shall ever +get myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place on +my breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big God +understands the women folk that He makes, even if they don't understand +themselves. + + + + +LEAF SIXTH + +THE RESURRECTION RAZOO + + +Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the +corners and have good times all by themselves, but in Hillsboro, +Tennessee, it is not that way. Everybody that is not invited helps the +hostess get ready and have nice things for the others, and sometimes I +think they really have the best time of all. + +This morning Aunt Bettie came up my front steps before breakfast with a +large basketful of things for my dinner and I wondered what I would have +collected to be served to those people by the time all my neighbors had +made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and Judy a half-hour +to unpack her things and set them in the refrigerator and on the pantry +shelves. One was a plump fruit-cake that had been keeping company in a +tight box with a sponge soaked in sherry for ever since New Year's. It +was ripe, or smelled so. It made me gnaw under my belt. + +A little later Judy was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been +simmered in port and larded with egg dressing, when Mrs. Johnson came in +and began to unpack her basket, which was mostly bottles of things she +said she used to "stick" food. The ginger-colored barber got the run of +them before the dinner was over and got badly stuck, so Judy says. +That's what made him make the mistake. + +I had planned to have a lot of strange food and had ordered some things +up from a caterer in the city, but I telephoned the express man not to +deliver them until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use +soft shelled crabs when Mrs. Wade had sent me word that she was going to +bake some brook trout by a recipe of the judge's grandmother's? Mrs. +Hampton Buford had let me know about two fat little summer turkeys she +was going to stuff with corn-pone and green sage, and _fillet +mignon_ seemed foolish eating beside them. But when the little bit of +a baby pig, roasted whole with an apple in its mouth, looking too frisky +and innocent for worlds with his little baked tail curled up in the air, +arrived from Mrs. Caruthers Cain, I went out into the garden and laughed +at the idea of having spent money for lobsters, to be shipped alive and +to be served broiled in their own shells. + +When I got back in the kitchen things were well under way, everything +smelling grand, and Aunt Bettie in full swing matching up my dinner +guests. + +"Nobody in this town could suit me better than Pet Buford for a +daughter-in-law and I believe I'll have all the east rooms done over in +blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her +blue eyes and corn silk hair," she was saying as she cut orange peel +into strips. + +"You've planned the refurnishing of that east wing to suit the style of +nearly every girl in Hillsboro since Tom put on long trousers, Bettie +Pollard, and they are just as they have been for fifteen years since you +did over the whole house," said Mrs. Johnson as she poured a wine-glass +half full from one bottle and added a tablespoonful from another. + +"Well, I think he is really interested now from the way he danced most +of his time with her down at the hotel the other night, and I have hopes +I never had before. Now, Molly, do put him between you and her, sort of +cornered, so he can't even _see_ Ruth Chester. She is too old for +him." And Tom's mother looked at me over the orange peel as to a +confederate. + +"Humph, I'd like to see you or Molly or any woman 'corner' Tom Pollard," +said Mrs. Johnson with a wry smile as she tasted the concoction in the +wine-glass. + +"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and +the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," I said regretfully. I +always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt +Bettie, so she won't notice our flirtation. + +"I'd put John Moore at the head of the table if I were you, Molly +Carter, because he's about the only man you've invited that has got any +sense left since you and that Chester girl took to visiting Hillsboro. +He's a host of steadiness in himself and the way he ignores all you +women, who would run after him if he would let you, shows what he is. He +has my full confidence," and as she delivered herself of this judgment +of Doctor John, Mrs. Johnson drove in all the corks tight and began to +pound spice. + +"He's not out of the widower-woods yet, Caroline," said Aunt Bettie with +her most speculative smile. "I have about decided on him for Ruth since +the judge has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does. +But don't you all say a word, for John's mighty timid, and I don't +believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. If +he had had he'd have tried a set-to with you, Molly, like all the rest +of the shy birds in town. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a +patient at the end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the +dosing of them, too. Just the other day--dearie me, Judy, what has +boiled over now?" And in the excitement that ensued I escaped to the +garden. + +Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Doctor John; he doesn't see a woman, and +there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realize +that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no +reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers on that +account. Still I don't see why Ruth Chester should have her head +literally thrown against that stone wall and I wish Aunt Bettie +wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-make him and +it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the roots +of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so loud I +could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something. And it +was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me. + +It had a surprise in it and I sat back on the grass and read it with my +heart beating like a trip-hammer. He had sailed the day he had posted it +and he was due to arrive in New York almost as soon as it did, just any +hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from New York immediately to +Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the +paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my +hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for +a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret. + +Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no +wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the +cold paper was transubstantiated into a heart that beat against mine and +I bowed my head over it as I wet it with tears. I knew then that I had +taken his coming back lightly; had fussed over it and been silly-proud +of it; while not _really_ caring at all. All that awful melting +away of my fatness seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; +he wouldn't have minded if I weighed five hundred, I felt sure. He loved +me--really, really, really; and I had sat and weighed him with a lot of +men who were nothing more than amused by my flightiness, or taken with +my beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to +them through a telescope. + +[Illustration: His letters were all there and his photographs] + +I reached into a trunk that stood right beside me and took out a box +that I hadn't looked into for years. His letters were all there and his +photographs that were as handsome as the young god of love himself. +I could hardly see them through my tears, but I knew that they were +dim in places with being cried over when I had put them away years ago +after Aunt Adeline decided that I was to be married. I kissed the poor +little-girl cry-spots; and with that a perfect flood of tears rose to my +eyes--but they didn't fall, for there, right in front of me, stood a +more woe-stricken human being than I could possibly be, if I judged by +appearances. + +"Molly, Molly," gulped Billy, "I am so sick I'm going to die here on the +floor," and he sank into my arms. + +"Oh, Billy, what is the matter?" I gasped and gave him a little +terrified shake. + +"Mamie Johnson did it--poked her finger down her throat and mine, too," +he wailed against my breast. "We was full of things folks gived us to +eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers +it would all come up and we would have room for some more then. She did +it and I'm going to die dead--dead!" + +"No, no, lover; you'll be all right in a second. Stay quiet here in your +Molly's lap and you will be well in just a few minutes," I said with a +smile I hid in his yellow mop as I kissed the drake-tail kiss-spot. +"Where's Mamie?" I thought to ask with the greatest apprehension. + +"In the garden eating cup-cake Judy baked hot for both of us. She didn't +frow up as much as I did--or maybe more." He answered, snuggling close +and much comforted. + +"Don't ever, ever do that again, Billy," I said, giving him both a hug +and a shake. "It's piggy to eat more than you can hold and then still +want more. What would your father say?" + +"Doc ain't no good and I don't care what he says," answered Billy with +spirit. "He don't play no more and he don't laugh no more and he don't +eat no more hardly, too. I ain't a-going to live in that house with him +more'n two days longer. I want to come over and sleep in your bed with +blue ribbons on the posts and have you to play with me, Molly." + +"Don't say that, lover, ever again," I said as I bent over him. "Your +father is the best man in the world, and you must never, never leave +him." + +"I bet I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy +decidedly. "Say, do you reckon Mamie saved even a little piece of that +cake? I 'spect I had better go see," and he slipped out of my arms and +was gone before I could hold him. + +It _is_ a lonely house across the garden with the big and the tiny +man in it all by themselves! And tears, from another corner of my heart +entirely, rose to my eyes at the thought, but they, too, never fell, for +I heard Mrs. Johnson calling and I had to run down quick and see what +new delicacy had arrived for my party. + +Uncle Thomas Pollard had sent me a quart bottle of his private stock +with the message to put the mint to soak just one hour and twenty +minutes before the men came. I made room for it beside the case of +champagne on the cellar shelf and wondered how they would stand it all. +We don't have champagne often in Hillsboro, and when we do nobody seems +to want to cut down on the juleps, consequently--well, nothing ever +really happens! However, it must have been the champagne that made Tom +act as he did. He was never like that before. + +Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner as I did for the +dance, and when I was through I stood before the mirror and looked at +myself a long time. I was very tall and slim and--well, I suppose I +might say regal in that amethyst crêpe with the soft rose-point, but I +looked to myself about the eyes as I had been doing for years when I put +on my Sunday clothes to go to church with Mr. Carter. He was always in a +hurry and I didn't care about looking at myself in the mirror anyway; +nobody else ever looked at me and what was the use? And to-night that +Rene triumph made me feel no different from one of Miss Hettie Primm's +conceptions that I had been wearing for ages with indifference and total +lack of style. I shrugged my shoulder almost out of the dress with what +I thought was sadness, though it felt a trifle like temper, too, and +went on down into the garden to see if any of my flowers had a cheer-up +message for me. + +But it was a bored garden I stepped into just as the last purple flush +of day was being drunk down by the night. The tall white lilies laid +their heads over on my breast and went to sleep before I had said a word +to them, and the nasturtiums snarled around my feet until they got my +slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-button stood up +stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew, and +tipped me an impertinent wink. I felt cheered at the sight of them and +bent down to gather a bunch of them to wear, even if they did swear at +my amethyst draperies, when an amused smile that was done out loud came +from the path just behind me. + +"Don't gather them all to-night, Mrs. Peaches," said Doctor John +teasingly, as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for--for the others." +I waked up in a half-second and so did all those prying flowers, I felt +sure. + +"I was just gathering them for place bouquets for--for the girls," I +said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him. Why it is that the +minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and +as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross is more than I +can say, but I do. I never possibly know how to answer any remark that +he may happen to make unless it is something that makes me lose my +temper. His next remark was the usual spark. + +"Better give them the run of the garden--alone, Mrs. Molly. No show for +'em unless you do," he said laughingly, "or the buttons' either," he +added under his breath so I could just hear it. I wish Mrs. Johnson +could have heard how soft his voice lingered over that little +half-sentence. She is so experienced she could have told me if it +meant--but of course he isn't like other men! + +There are lots of questions I'm going to ask Alfred after I'm married to +him--Mr. Carter didn't know anything about anything and I never cared to +ask him, but I wonder how you know when-- + +"Oh, you Molly," came a hail in Tom's voice from the gate, just as I was +making up my mind to try and think up something to wither the doctor +with, and he and Ruth Chester came up the front walk to meet us. I +wondered why I was having a party in my house when being alone in my +garden with just a neighbor was so much more fun, but I had to begin to +enjoy myself right off, for in a few minutes all the rest came. + +I don't think I ever saw my house look so lovely before. Mrs. Johnson +had put all the flowers out of hers and Mrs. Cain's garden all over +everything and the table was a mass of soft pink roses that were +shedding perfume and nodding at one another in their most society +manner. There is no glimmer in the world like that which comes from +really old polished silver and rosewood and mahogany, and one's +great-great-grandmother's hand-woven linen feels like oriental silk +across one's knees. + +Suddenly I felt very stately and grand-damey and responsible as I looked +at them all across the roses and sparkling glasses. They were lovely +women, all of them, and could such men be found anywhere else in the +world? When I left them all to go out into the big universe to meet the +distinctions that I knew my husband would have for me, would I sit at +salt with people who loved me like this? I saw Pet Buford say something +to Tom about me that I know was lovely from the way he smiled at me; and +the judge's eyes were a full cup for any woman to have offered her. Then +in a flash all the love-fragrance seemed to go to my head--Tom's mixing +of that julep had been skilful, too--and tears rose to my eyes, and +there I might have been crying at my own party if I hadn't felt a strong +warm hand laid on mine as it rested on my lap and Doctor John's kind +voice teased into my ears: "Steady, Mrs. Peaches, there's the loving-cup +to come yet," he whispered. I hated him, but held on to his thumb tight +for half a minute. He didn't know what the matter really was, but he +understood what I needed. He always does. + +And after that everybody had a good time, the ginger barber and Judy as +much as anybody, and I could see Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson peeping in +the pantry door, having the time of their lives, too. + +That dinner was going like an airship on a high wind, when something +happened to tangle its tail feathers and I can hardly write it for +trembling yet. It was a simple little blue telegram, but it might have +been nitro-glycerin on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but +the ginger barber handed it to Tom and he opened it and, looking at me +over his full--after many times emptied--glass, he solemnly read it out +loud. It said: + + "Landed this noon. Have I your permission to come to Hillsboro + immediately? Answer. Alfred." + + +It was dreadful! Nobody said a word and Tom laid the telegram right down +in his plate, where it immediately began to soak up the dressing of his +salad. He was so white and shaky that Pet looked at him in amazement, +and then I am sure she had the good sense to find his hand under the +cloth and hold it, for his shoulder hovered against hers and the color +came back to his face as he smiled down at her. I don't believe I'll +ever get the courage to look at Tom again until he marries Pet, which +he'll do now, I feel sure. + +And as for the judge and Ruth Chester, I was glad they were sitting +beside each other, for I could avoid that side of the table with my eyes +until I had steadied myself a few seconds at least. The surprise made +the others I had been dining seem statues from the stone age, and only +Mr. Graves' fork failed to hang fire. His appetite is as strong as his +nerves and Delia Hawes looked at his composure with the relief plain in +her eyes. Henrietta's smile in the judge's direction was doubtful. But +they were not all my lovers and why that awful silence? + +I couldn't say a word, and I am sure I don't know what I would have done +if it hadn't been for the doctor. He leaned forward and his deep eyes +came out in their wonderful way and seemed to collect every pair of eyes +at the table, even the most astounded, as he raised his glass. We all +held our breaths and waited for him to speak. + +"No wonder we are all stricken dumb at Mrs. Carter's telegram," he said +in his deep voice that commands everybody and everything, even the +terrors of birth and death. "The whole town will be paralyzed at the +news that its most distinguished citizen is only going to give them two +days to get ready to receive him. I can see the panic the brass band +will have now getting the brass shined up, and I want to be the one to +tell Mayor Pollard myself, so as to suggest to him to have at least a +two-hour speech of welcome to hand out at the train. We'll make it one +'hot time' for him when he lands in the old town, and here's to him, God +bless him. Every glass high!" They all drank, and I suppose it helped +them. I wish I could have drained a quart, but I couldn't swallow a sip, +though I did a good stunt of pretending. + +[Illustration: "Every glass high"] + +The rest of this evening has paid me off for every sin I have ever +committed or am ever going to commit. Tom took Pet home early and I hope +they walked in the moonlight for hours. Tom is the kind of man that any +pretty girl who is loving enough in the moonlight could comfort for +anything. I'm not at all worried about him, but-- + +The hour I sat on my front steps and talked to Judge Wade must have +brought gray hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. +Ruth Chester had said good-by with the loveliest haunted look in her +great dark eyes and I had felt as if I had killed something that was +alive and that I hadn't killed it enough. Doctor John had been called +from his coffee to a patient and had gone with just a friendly word of +good night, and the others had at last left the judge and me alone--also +in the moonlight, which I wished in my heart somebody would put out. + +They say among the lawyers that it is a good thing that Benton Wade is +on the bench, for it is no use to try a case against him when he has the +handling of a jury. He just looks them in the face and tells them how to +vote. To-night he looked me in the face and told me how to marry, and +I'm not sure yet that I won't do as he says. Of course I'm in love with +Alfred, but if he wants me he had better get me away quick before the +judge makes all his arrangements. A woman loves to be courted with poems +and flowers and deference, but she's mighty apt to marry the man who +says, "Don't argue, but put on your bonnet and come with me." The fact +that it was too late to get into the clerk's office saved me to-night, +but in two days-- + +Oh, I'm crying, crying in my heart, which is worse than in my eyes, as I +sit and look across my garden, where the cold moon is hanging low over +the tall trees behind the doctor's house and his light in his room is +burning warm and bright. They are right; _he_ doesn't care if I am +going away for ever with Alfred. His quick toast to him and the lovely +warm look he poured over poor frightened me at his side, as he drank his +champagne, told me that once and for all. Still we have been so close +together over his baby and I have grown so dependent on him for so many +things that it cuts into me like a hot knife that he shouldn't care if +he lost me--even for a neighbor. I shouldn't mind not having _any_ +husband if I could always live close by him and Billy like this, and if +I married Judge Wade I could at least have him for a family physician. +_No--I don't like that_! Of course I'm going with Alfred now that +an accident has made me announce the fact to the whole town before he +even knows it himself, but wherever I go that light in the room with +that lonely man is going to burn in my heart. Hope it will throw a glow +over Alfred! + + + + +LEAF SEVENTH + +DASHED! + + +I do believe God gave that wise angel charge concerning me lest I get +dashed, but I just got dashed anyway, and its my own fault, not the +angel's. I have suffered this day until I want to lay my face down +against the hem of His garment and wait in the dust for Him to pick me +up. I shall never be able to do it myself, and how He's going to do it +I can't see, but He will. + +That dinner-party last night was bad enough, but to-day's been worse. +I didn't sleep until long after daylight and then Judy came in before +eight o'clock with a letter for me that looked like a state document. +I felt in my trembly bones that it was some sort of summons affair from +Judge Wade; and it was. I looked into the first paragraph and then +decided that I had better get up and dress and have a cup of coffee and +a single egg before I tried to read it. + +Incidental to my bath and dressing, I weighed and found that I had lost +all four of those last surplus pounds and two more in three days. Those +two extra pounds might be construed to prove love, but exactly on whom +I was utterly unprepared to say. I didn't even enjoy the thinness, but +took a kind of already-married look in my glass and tried to slip the +egg past my bored lips and get myself to chew it down. It was work; and +then I took up the judge's letter, which also was work and more of it. + +He started in at the beginning of everything, that is at the beginning +of the tuberculosis girl and I cried over the pages of her as if she had +been my own sister. At the tenth page we buried her and took up Alfred +and I must say I saw a new Alfred in the judge's bouquet-strewn +appreciation of him, but I didn't want him as bad as I had the day +before when I read his own new and old letters, and cried over his old +photographs. I suppose that was the result of some of what the judge +manages the juries with. He'd be apt to use it on a woman and she +wouldn't find out about it until it was too late to be anything but mad. +Still when he began on me at page sixteen I felt a little better, though +I didn't know myself any better than I did Alfred when I got to page +twenty. + +What I am, is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart than +she can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth. I'm +not any star in a rose-colored sky, and I don't want to inspire anybody; +it's too much of a job. I want to be a healthy happy woman and a wife to +a man who can inspire himself and manage me. I want to marry a thin man +and have from five to ten thin children, and when I get to be thirty I +want my husband to want me to be as fat as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. +An inspiration couldn't be fat and I'm always in danger from hot muffins +and chicken gravy. However, if I should undertake to be all the things +Judge Wade said in that letter he wanted me to be to him, I should soon +be skin and bones from mental and physical exercise. Still, he does +live in Hillsboro and I won't let myself know how my heart aches at the +thought of leaving my home--and other things. It's up in my throat and +I seem always to be swallowing it, the last few days. + +All the men who write me letters seem to get themselves wound up into a +skyrocket and then let themselves explode in the last paragraph and it +always upsets my nerves. I was just about to begin to cry again over the +last words of the judge when the only bright spot in the day so far +suddenly happened. Pet Buford blew in with the pinkest cheeks and the +brightest eyes I had seen since I looked in the mirror the night of the +dance. She was in an awful hurry. + +"Molly, dear," she said, with her words literally falling over +themselves, "Tom says you'll give us some of your dinner left-overs to +take for lunch in the Hup, for we are going way out to Wayne County to +see some awfully fine tobacco he has heard is there. I don't want to ask +mother, for she won't let me go; and his mother, if he asked her, will +begin to talk about us. Tom said come to you and you would understand +and fix it quick. He said kiss you for him and tell you he said 'Come on +in, the water's fine.' Isn't he a joke?" And we kissed and laughed and +packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for good-by. I felt amused +and happy for a few minutes--and also deserted. It's a very good thing +for a woman's conceit to find out how many of her lovers are just +make-believes. I may have needed Tom's deflection. + +Anyway, I don't know when I ever was so glad to see anybody as I was +when Mrs. Johnson came in the front door. A woman who has proved to her +own satisfaction that marriage is a failure is at times a great tonic to +other women. I needed a tonic badly this morning and I got it. + +"Well, from all my long experience, Molly," she said as she seated +herself and began to hem a dish-towel with long steady stabs, "husbands +are just stick candy in different jars. They may look a little +different, but they all taste alike and you soon get tired of them. In +two months you won't know the difference in being married to Al Bennett +and Mr. Carter and you'll have to go on living with him maybe fifty +years. Luck doesn't strike twice in the same place and you can't count +on losing two husbands. Al's father was Mr. Johnson's first cousin and +had more crochets and worse. He had silent spells that lasted a week and +family prayers three times a day, though he got drunk twice a year for a +month at a time. Al looks very much like him." + +"Mrs. Johnson," I said after a minute's silence, while I had decided +whether or not I had better tell her all about it. If a woman's in love +with her husband you can't trust her to keep a secret, but I decided to +try Mrs. Johnson. "I really am not engaged exactly to Alfred Bennett, +though I suppose he thinks so by now if he has got the answer to that +telegram. But--but something has made me--made me think about Judge +Wade--that is he--what do you think of him, Mrs. Johnson?" I concluded +in the most pitifully perplexed tone of voice. + +"All alike, Molly; all as much alike as peas in a pod; all except John +Moore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! His +marrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell in +love with him while he was treating her for typhoid, when his back was +turned as it were, and it was God's own kindness in him that made him +marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There's not +a woman in this town who could marry, that wouldn't marry him at the +drop of his hat--but, thank goodness, that hat will never drop and I'll +have one sensible man to comfort and doctor me down into my old age. +Now, just look at that! Mr. Johnson's come home here in the middle of +the morning and I'll have to get that old paper I hunted out of his desk +for him last night. I wonder how he came to forget it!" It's funny how +Mrs. Johnson always knows what Mr. Johnson wants before he knows himself +and gets it before he asks for it! + +As she went out the gate the postman came in and at the sight of another +letter my heart again slunk off into my slippers, and my brain seemed +about to back up in a corner and refuse to work. In a flash it came to +me that men oughtn't to write letters to women very much--they really +don't plow deep enough, they just irritate the top soil. I took this +missive from Alfred, counted all the fifteen pages, put it out of sight +under a book, looked out the window and saw the ginger barber coming +dejectedly around to the side gate from the kitchen--I knew the scene he +had had with Judy, about the bottle encounters of the night before--saw +Mr. Johnson shooed off down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's +car go chucking hurriedly in the garage and then my spirit turned itself +to the wall and refused to be comforted. I tried my best, but failed to +respond to my own remonstrances with myself, and tears were slowly +gathering in a cloud of gloom when a blue gingham, rompers-clad sunbeam +burst into the room. + +"Git your night-gown and your toothbresh quick, Molly, if you want to +pack 'em in my trunk!" he exclaimed with his eyes dancing and a curl +standing straight up on the top of his head, as it has a habit of doing +when he is most excited. "You can't take nothing but them 'cause I'm +going to put in a rope to tie the whale with when I ketch him, and +it'll take up all the rest of the room. Git 'em quick!" + +"Yes, lover, I'll get them for you, but tell Molly where it is you are +going to sail off with her in that trunk of yours?" I asked, dropping +into the game as I have always done with him, no matter what game of my +own pressed when he called. + +"On the ocean where the boats go 'cross and run right over a whale. +Don't you remember you showed me them pictures of spout whales in a +book, Molly? Doc says they comes right up by the ship and you can hear +'em shoot water and maybe a iceberg, too. Which do you want to ketch +most, Molly, a iceberg or a whale?" His eager eyes demanded instant +decision on my part of the nature of capture I preferred. My mind +quickly reverted to those two ponderous and intense epistles I had got +within the hour and I lay back in my chair and laughed until I felt +almost merry. + +"The iceberg, Billy, every time," I said at last. "I just can't manage +whales, especially if they are ardent, which word means hot. I like +_icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one." + +"I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe Doc will let you put a rope +and a long hook in his trunk to try with if your clothes go into mine. +His is a heap the biggest anyway and Nurse Tilly said he oughter put my +things in his, but I cried and then he went up-stairs and got out that +little one for me. Come see 'em!" + +"What do you mean, Billy?" I asked, while a sudden fear shot all over me +like lightning. "You're just playing go-away, aren't you?" + +"No, I ain't playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and +Doc is a-going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. +Doc ast me about it this morning and I told him all right and you could +come with us, if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you if you +was busy and couldn't come and I told him you would put things down and +come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you and +you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all drawn +up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of it and +a cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery at what I +felt was coming down upon me. + +Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feel +deadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Doctor Moore's +office, where he was just laying off his gloves and dust coat. + +"What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go and +take Billy away from me?" I demanded looking at him with what must have +been such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he came +close to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white and +quiet at my attack and he waited to answer for a long horrible minute +that pulled me apart like one of those inquisition machines they used to +torture women with when they didn't know any better modern way to do it. + +"I didn't know Bill would tell you so soon, Mrs. Molly," he said at last +gently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was coming +over just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you about +it, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a day +that--that ought to be all yours to be--be happy in. But Bill, you see, +is no respecter of--of other people's happy days if he wants them in +his." + +"Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his and he has the heart not +to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sob +gathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't even +taken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean. + +"Bill is too young to understand when he is--is being bereaved, Molly," +he said and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed a +delegate to represent the State Medical Association at the Centennial +Congress in London the middle of next month--and somehow I--feel a bit +pulled lately and I thought I would take the little chap and have--have +a _wander-jahr._ You won't need him now, Mrs. Peaches, and I +couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness in his voice would have +killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead. + +"Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voice +literally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life that +I haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You are +cruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold and cruel like all other +men who don't care how they wring the life blood out of women's hearts +and are willing to use their children to do it with. Even the law +doesn't help us poor helpless creatures and you can take our children +and go with them to the ends of the earth and leave us suffering. I have +gone on and believed that you were not like what the women say all men +are and that you cared whether you hurt people or not, but now I see +that you are just the same and you'll take my baby away if you want +to--and I can do nothing to prevent it--nothing in the wide world--I am +completely and absolutely helpless--you coward, you!" + +When that awful word, the worst word that a woman can use to a man, left +my lips, a flame shot up into his eyes that I thought would burn me up, +but in a half-second it was extinguished by the strangest thing in the +world--for the situation--a perfect flood of mirth. He sat down in his +chair and shook all over with his head in his hands until I saw tears +creep through his fingers. I had calmed down so suddenly that I was +about to begin to cry in good earnest when he wiped his eyes and said +with a low laugh in his throat: + +"The case is yours, Molly, settled out of court, and the +'possession-nine-points-of-the-law clause' works in some cases for a +woman against a man. Generally speaking, anyway, the pup belongs to the +man who can whistle him down and you can whistle Bill from me any day. +I'm just his father and what I think or want doesn't matter. You had +better take him and keep him!" + +"I intend to." I answered haughtily, uncertain as to whether I had +better give in and be agreeable or stay prepared to cry in case there +was further argument. But suddenly a strange diffidence came into his +eyes and he looked away from me as he said in queer hesitating words: + +"You see, Mrs. Molly, I thought from now on your life wouldn't have +exactly a place for Bill. Have you considered that you have trained him +to demand you all the time and all of you? How would you manage +Bill--and--and other claims?" + +And if there is a contagious thing in this world it is embarrassment. I +never felt anything worse in all my life than the shame that swept over +me in a great hot wave when that look came into his eyes and made me +realize just exactly what I had been saying to him, about what, and how +I had said it. I stood perfectly still, shook all over like a leaf, and +wondered if I would ever be able to raise my eyes from the ground. A +dizzy nauseated feeling for myself rose up in me against myself and I +was just about to turn on my heels and leave him, I hoped for ever, when +he came over and laid his hand on my shoulder. + +"Molly," he said in a voice that might have come down from heaven on +dove wings, "you can't for a moment feel or think that I don't realize +and appreciate what you have been to the motherless little chap, and for +life I am yours at command, as he is. I really thought it would be a +relief to you to have him taken away from you for just a little while +right now, and I still think it is best; but not unless you consent. You +shall have him back whenever you are ready for him, and at all times +both he and I are at your service to the whole of our kingdoms. Just +think the matter over, won't you, and decide what you want me to do?" + +Something in me died for ever, I think, when he spoke to me like that. +He's not like other men and there aren't any other men on earth but him! +All the rest are just bugs or bats or something worse. And I'm not +anything myself. There's no excuse for my living and I wish I wasn't so +healthy and likely to go on doing it. It was all over and there was +nothing left for me to live for, and before I could stop myself I buried +my face in my hands. + +"Billy asked me to go with him on this awful whale hunt!" I sobbed out +to comfort myself with the thought that somebody did care for me, +regardless of just how I was further embarrassing and complicating +myself in the affairs of the two men I had thought I owned and was now +finding out that I had to give up. I wish I had been looking at him, for +I felt him start, but he said in his big friendly voice that is so +much--and never enough for me. + +"Well, why not you and Al come along and make it a family party, if that +is what suits Bill, the boss?" + +If men would just buy good, sharp, kitchen knives and cut out women's +hearts in a businesslike way it would be so much kinder of them. +Why do they prefer to use dull weapons that mash the life out slowly? +Everything is at an end for me to-night and that blow did it. It was a +horrible cruel thing for him to say to me! I know now that I have been +in love with John Moore for longer than my honor lets me admit and that +I'll never love anybody else, and that also I have offered myself to him +served up in every known enticement and have had to be refused at least +twice a day for a year. A widow can't say she didn't understand what she +was doing, even to herself, but--My humiliation is complete and the +only thing that can make me ever hold up my head is to puzzle him by--by +_happily_ marrying Alfred Bennett--and quick! + +Of course, he must suspect how I feel about him, for two people couldn't +both be so ignorant as not to see such an enormous thing as my love for +him is, and I was the blind one. But he must never, never know that I +ever realized it, for he is so good that it would distress him. I must +just go on in my foolish way with him until I can get away. I'll tell +him I'm sorry I was so indignant to-night and say that I think it will +be fine for him to take my Billy away from me with him. I must smile at +the idea of having my very soul amputated, insist that it is the only +thing to do, and pack up the little soul in a steamer trunk with the +smile. Just smile, that is all! Life demands smiles from a woman even if +she must crush their perfume from her own heart; and she generally has +them ready. + +Oh, Molly, Molly, is it for this you came into the world, twice to give +yourself without love? What difference does it make that your arms are +strong and white if they can't clasp him to the softness and fragrance +of your breast? Why are your eyes blue pools of love if they are not for +his questioning and what are your rose lips for if they quench not his +thirst? + +[Illustration: What are your rose lips for] + +Yes, I know God is very tender with a woman and I think He understands, +so if she crept very close to Him and caught at His sleeve to steady +herself He would be kind to her until she could go on along her own +steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for it would hurt him to +have hurt me! + + + + +LEAF EIGHT + +MELTED + + +Some days are like the miracle flowers that open in the garden from +plants you didn't expect to bloom at all. I might have been born, lived +and died without having this one come into my life, and now that I have +had it I don't know how to write it, except in the crimson of blood, the +blue of flame, the gold of glory--and a tinge of light green would well +express the part I have played. But it is all over at last and-- + +Ruth Chester was the unfolding of the first hour-petal and I got a +glimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of. +She's God's own good woman and He made her in one of His holy hours. I +wish I could have borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms +was a sacrament. We two women just stood aside with life's artifices and +concealments and let our own hearts do the talking. + +She said she had come because she felt that if she talked with me I +might be better able to understand Alfred when he came and that she had +seen that the judge was very determined, and she thoroughly recognized +his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document +to read. I suppose it was dishonorable, but I needed her protection from +it. I'm glad she had the strength of mind to walk with a head high in +the air to Judy's range and burn it up. Anything might have happened if +she hadn't. And even now I feel that only my marriage vows will close up +the case for the judge--even yet he may--But when Ruth had got done +with Alfred, she had wiped Judge Wade's appreciation of him completely +off my mind and destroyed it in tender words that burned us both worse +than Judy's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully good service. + +"And so you see, you lovely woman you, do you not, that God has +made you for him as a tribute to his greatness and it is given to +you to fulfil a destiny?" She was so beautiful as she said it that +I had to turn my eyes away, but I felt as I did when those awful +'_let-not-man-put-asunder_'--from Mr. Carter--words were spoken +over me by Mr. Raines, the Methodist minister. It made me wild, and +before I knew it I had poured out the whole truth to her in a perfect +cataract of words. The truth always acts on women as some hitherto +untried drug, and you can never tell what the reaction is going to be. +In this case I was stricken dumb and found it hard to see. + +"Oh, dear heart," she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into her +lovely gracious arms, "then the privilege is all the more wonderful for +you, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life. Having suffered +this, you will be all the greater woman to understand him. I accept my +own sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathy +for his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement +as he has for years. In the light of his love this lesser feeling for +Doctor Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be +complete." This was more than I could stand and feeling less than a +worm, I turned my face into her breast and wailed. Now who would have +thought that girl could dance as she did? + +By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon have +had to be sopped up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in bubbling over +like a lovely, white, linen-clad glass of Rhine wine and seltzer. +Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of grief +and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and +generally damp atmosphere. + +"Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says for you to +send him ten dollars to spend getting the brass band half drunk before +the six o'clock train, on which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent +five dollars paying the negroes to polish up their instruments and clean +up the uniforms and it cost him twenty-five to bail the cornettist out +of jail for roost robbing, and it takes a whole gallon of whisky to get +any spirit into the drummer. He says tell you that as this is your +shindig you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for +me, and here's the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!" + +"I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to +you, Pettie, dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk +for my pocket-book. + +"Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind a +perfect rose cloud of blushes. + +"I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the ten +in her hand. I looked at Ruth Chester and we both laughed. It is true +that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week +ago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her +the ten dollars and a blessing. + +"I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as she +rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before +I could stop her, she was gone. + +She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty iron +gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the edge +of the porch. She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft +was almost more than I could stand, and apparently more than Billy was +prepared to accept. + +"Go way, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?" + +I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on +my hardwood floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of +triumph. + +"I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipe +drop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound the +end sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. You +and Doc kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I +can carry Doc's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick and I'll +help you fix it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I could +bear. + +"Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put my +arms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help being +aimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time your +Molly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care of +you and--and maybe bring you back to me some day." + +"Why, Molly," he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, "'taint +me to be took care of! I ain't a-going to leave you here, for maybe a +bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and Doc gone. +'Sides Doc ain't no good and maybe wouldn't help me hold the rope right +to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to do like I tell +him like you do." + +"Try him, lover, and maybe he will--will learn to--" I couldn't help the +tears that came to stop my words. + +"Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he said +with an amused, manly, little tenderness in his voice that I had never +heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only +voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous +little trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kisses +every night if you don't say no more about not a-going and fix that +whale hook for me quick," he coaxed against my cheek. + +Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were saying +with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy, little paddie burned the +sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was +powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you _are!_ You +are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit +and--and you ought to have been flesh of my flesh! + +I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my front +gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in +their constitutions. + +She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie's house +and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, in which +were packed the things Aunt Bettie was contributing to the entertainment +of the distinguished citizen. Mr. Johnson is Alfred's nearest kinsman in +Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guest while he is in town. + +"He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he's eating +my Washington almond pudding with Thomas' old port in it," teased Aunt +Bettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them. + +"There's going to be a regular epidemic of love in Hillsboro, I do +believe," she continued in her usual strain of sentimental speculation. +"I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of the store an hour +ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz to match Pet for the +west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn't even see me. That +was what might have been called a conflagration dinner you gave the +other night, Molly, in more ways than one. I wish a spark had set off +Benton Wade and Henrietta, too. Maybe it did, but is just taking fire +slowly." + +I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie blindfold every +unmarried person in this town and marry them to the first person they +touch hands with. It would be fun for her and then we could have peace +and apparently as much happiness as we are going to have anyway. Mrs. +Johnson seemed to be in somewhat the same state of mind as I found +myself. + +"Humph," she said as we went up the front steps, "I'll be glad when you +are married and settled, Molly Carter, so the rest of this town can +quiet down into peace once more, and I sincerely hope every woman under +fifty in Hillsboro who is already married will stay in that state until +she reaches that age. But I do believe if the law marched widows from +grave number one to altar number two they would get into trouble and +fuss along the road. But come on in, both of you, and help me get this +marriage feast ready, if I must! The day is going by on greased wheels +and I can't let Mr. Johnson's crotchets be neglected, Al Bennett or no +Al Bennett!" + +And from then on for hours and hours I was strapped to a torture wheel +that turned and turned, minute after minute, as it ground spice and +sugar and bridal meats and me relentlessly into a great suffering pulp. +Could I ever in all my life have hungered for food and been able to get +it past the lump in my throat that grew larger with the seconds? And if +Alfred's pudding tasted of the salt of dead sea-fruit this evening, it +was from my surreptitious tears that dripped into it. + +It was late, very late before Mrs. Johnson realized it and shooed me +home to get ready to go to the train along with the brass band and all +the other welcomes. + +I hurried all I could, but for long minutes I stood in front of my +mirror and questioned myself. Could this slow, pale, dead-eyed, slim, +drooping girl be the rollicking child of a Molly who had looked out of +that mirror at me one short week ago? Where were the wings on her heels, +the glint in her curls, the laugh on her mouth and the devil in her +eyes? + +Slowly at last I lifted the blue muslin, twenty-three-inch waist shroud +and let it slip over my head and fall slimly around me. I had fastened +the neck button and was fumbling the next one into the buttonhole when I +suddenly heard laughing excited voices coming up the side street that +ran just under my west window. Something told me that Alfred had come on +the five-down train instead of the six-up and I fairly reeled to the +window and peeped through the shutters. + +They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of +ceremonies, and Ruth Chester was looking up into his face with an +expression I am glad I can never forget. It killed all my regrets on the +score of his future. + +It took two good looks to take him all in and then I must have missed +some of him, for all in all, he was so large that he stretched your eyes +to behold him. He's grown seven feet tall, I don't know how many pounds +he weighs and I don't want anybody ever to tell me! + +I had never thought enough about evolution to know whether I believed in +it and woman's suffrage, but I do now! I know that millions of years ago +a great, big, distinguished hippopotamus stepped out of the woods and +frightened one of my foremothers so that she turned tail and fled +through a thicket that almost tore her limb from limb, right into the +arms of her own mate. That's what I did! I caught that blue satin belt +together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of +savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's office, slammed +the door and backed up against it. + +"He's come!" I gasped. "And I'm frightened to death, with nobody but you +to run to. Hide me quick! He's fat and I _hate_ him!" I was that +deadly cold you can get when fear runs into your very marrow and +congeals the blood in your arteries. "Quick, quick!" I panted. + +He must have been as pale as I was, and for an eternity of a second he +looked at me, then suddenly heaven shone from his eyes and he opened his +arms to me with just one word. + +"Here?" + +I went. + +He held me gently for a half-second, and then with a sob which I felt +rather than heard, he crushed me to him and stopped my breath with his +lips on mine. I understood things then that I never had before, and I +felt that wise guardian man-angel take his fingers from mine and leave +me safe at last. I raised my hand and pressed it against John's wet +lashes until he could let me speak and I was melted into his very breast +itself. + +"Molly," he said when enough tenderness had come back into his arms to +let me breathe, "you have almost killed me!" + +"You!" I exclaimed, crowding still closer, or at least trying to. "It's +not _you_; it's I that am killed, and you did it! I know you don't +really want me, but I can't help that I'd rather you'd do the suffering +with me than to do it myself away from you. I'm so hungry and thirsty +for you that--that I can't diet any longer!" I put the case the +strongest way I knew how and got a swooning, maddening, luscious result. + +"Want you, Molly?" he almost sobbed, and I felt his heart pounding hard +next to my shoulder. + +"Yes, want me!" I answered with more spirit than breath left in me. "I +refuse to believe you are as stupid as I am, and anybody with even an +ordinary amount of brains must have seen how hard I was fighting for +you. I feel sure I left no stone unturned. Some of them I can already +think back and see myself tugging at, and it makes me hot all over. I'm +foolish, and always was, so I'm to be excused for acting that awful way, +but you are to blame for _letting_ me do it. I'm going to be your +punishment for life for not having been stern and stopped me. You had +better stop me some now anyway, for if I go on loving you as I have been +for the last few minutes it will make you uncomfortable." + +"Peaches," he said, after he had hushed me with another broken dose of +love, as large as he thought I could stand--I could have stood more!--"I +am never going to tell you how long I have loved you, but that day you +came to me all in a flutter with Al Bennett's letter in your hand it is +going to take you a lifetime to settle for. You were mine--and Bill's! +How _could_ you--but women don't understand!" I felt him shudder +in my arms as I held him close. I was repaid for all those tiresome +exercises I had taken by the strength to crush him against my breast +almost as hard as he crushed me. Our combined strength was terrific, +dangerous to life and ribs, but--heavenly! + +"Don't women know, John?" I managed to ask softly in memory of a like +question he had put to me across that bread and jam with the rose +a-listening from the dark. + +What brought me to consciousness was his fumbling with the buttons at +the waist of that blue muslin relict of a sentiment. I had fastened but +one, and the lace had got caught on his sleeve buttons. + +"Please don't button me into his possession," I laughed under his chin. +"I'm still scared to death of him, and you haven't hid me yet!" + +"Molly," he asked, this time with a heaven-laugh, "where could you be +more effectually hid from Al Bennett than in my arms?" + +I spent ten minutes telling Billy what a hippopotamus really looks like +as I put him to bed, but later, much as I should have liked to, I +couldn't consume that horrible dinner, that I had helped prepare at the +Johnsons, in the shelter of John's arms, and I had to face Alfred. Ruth +Chester was there, and she faced him too. + +A man that can't be happy with a woman who is willing to "fulfil his +destiny" doesn't deserve to be. + +Then we came over here, and John had the most beautiful time persuading +Aunt Adeline how a good man like Mr. Carter would want his young widow +to be taken care of by being married to a safe friend of his instead of +being flighty and having folks wondering whom she would marry. + +"You know yourself how hard a time a beautiful young widow has, Mrs. +Henderson," he said in the tone of voice that always makes his patients +glad to take his worst doses. He got his blessing and me--with a +warning. + +A lovely night wind is blowing across my garden and bringing me +congratulations from all my flower family. Flowers are a part of love +and the wooing of it, and they understand. I am waiting for the light to +go out behind the tall trees over which the moon is stealthily sinking. +He promised me to put it out right away, and I'm watching the glow that +marks the place where my own two men creatures are going to rest, with +my heart in full song. + +He needs rest, he is so very tired and worn. He confessed it as I stood +on the step above him to-night, after he had taken his own good night +from me out on the porch. When he explained to me how his agony over me +for all these months had kept him walking the floor night after night, +not knowing that I was waiting for the light to go out, I gave myself a +sweetness that I am going to say a prayer for the last thing before I +sleep. I took his head in my arms and pressed his cheek down against +Billy's sleep-place on my breast over my heart and put my lips to that +drake-tail kiss-spot that has tempted me for I won't say how long. Then +I fled--and so did he! + +I had about decided to burn this book, because I shan't need it any +longer, for he says he and Billy and I are going to play so much golf +and tennis that I shall keep as thin as he wants me to be without any +more melting or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to read +the little red devil. Do you suppose he would? + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +******* This file should be named 15817-8.txt or 15817-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15817 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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M. Crosby</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Melting of Molly</p> +<p>Author: Maria Thompson Daviess</p> +<p>Release Date: May 12, 2005 [eBook #15817]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4>E-text prepared by David Garcia<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + the Kentuckiana Digital Library <a href="http://kdl.kyvl.org/"> + "http://kdl.kyvl.org/"</a></h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" bgcolor="ccccff" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + This version of <i>The Melting of Molly</i> is the American novel + publication and differs significantly from the British magazine + publication, also in the Project Gutenberg library at + <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15818">https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15818</a> + <br /> + <br /> + Images of the original pages are available through the Kentuckiana Digital + Library. See + <a href="http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-194-30611104&view=toc"> + http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc=kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-194-30611104&view=toc</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagei" name="pagei"></a>[i]</span> +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageii" name="pageii"></a>[ii]</span> +</p> +<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width: 70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-002.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-002.jpg" style="width: 70%; border: 0;" +alt="Melted" /></a> +</div> +Melted +</center> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageiii" name="pageiii"></a>[iii]</span> +</p> + +<a name="h2H_4_0001" id="h2H_4_0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h1> + THE MELTING OF MOLLY +</h1> +<p style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0;"> + <i>By</i> +</p> +<h2> +MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS +</h2> +<p style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0;"> +<i>Author of</i> <br /> +Miss Selina Lue, The Road to Providence <br /> +Rose of Old Harpeth, etc., etc. +</p> + +<h3> +ILLUSTRATED BY <br /> +R. M. CROSBY +</h3> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<p style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0; font-size: 70%;"> +INDIANAPOLIS <br /> +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY <br /> +PUBLISHERS +</p> +<h4>1912</h4> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagev" name="pagev"></a>[v]</span> +</p> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> +<hr /> +<p style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0;"> +MOLLY CARTER AND I <br /> +DEDICATE THIS BOOK <br /> +TO OUR GOOD FRIEND <br /> +CAROL KING JENNEY +</p> +<hr /> +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevi" name="pagevi"></a>[vi]</span> +</p> +<p> +<!--[Blank Page]--> +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagevii" name="pagevii"></a>[vii]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0002" id="h2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + + + +<h2> + LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF MOLLY +</h2> +<table border="0" align="center" summary="Leaves from the book of Molly"> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0004">Leaf First</a></td><td> + THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0005">Leaf Second</a></td><td> + A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0006">Leaf Third</a></td><td> + MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU? </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0007">Leaf Fourth</a></td><td> + SCATTERED JAM </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0008">Leaf Fifth</a></td><td> + BLUE ABSINTHE </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0009">Leaf Sixth</a></td><td> + THE RESURRECTION RAZOO </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0010">Leaf Seventh</a></td><td> + DASHED! </td></tr> +<tr><td> <a href="#h2H_4_0011">Leaf Eighth</a></td><td> + MELTED </td></tr> +</table> + +<hr /> +<h3>Illustrations</h3> +<p style="text-align: center; text-indent: 0;"> +<a href="#image-0001">Melted</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0002">"Will you do just as I tell you?"</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0003">She shrouds me for the agony</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0004">I sat up and blushed red all over</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0005">I was spellbound with delight</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0006">I lifted him into my arms</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0007">"Why Molly, Molly, Molly!"</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0008">"Breathe as deep as you can"</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0009">"Molly, you are one lovely dream"</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0010">His letters were all there and his photographs</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0011">"Every glass high"</a><br /> +<a href="#image-0012">What are your rose lips for</a> +</p> +<hr /> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageviii" name="pageviii"></a>[viii]</span> +</p> +<p> +<!--[Blank Page]--> +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pageix" name="pageix"></a>[ix]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0003" id="h2H_4_0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h1> + THE MELTING OF MOLLY +</h1> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="pagex" name="pagex"></a>[x]</span> +</p> +<p> +<!--[Blank Page]--> +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page1" name="page1"></a>[1]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0004" id="h2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF FIRST +</h2> +<h3> + THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS +</h3> +<p> +Yes, I truly think that in all the world there is nothing so dead +as a young widow's deceased husband, and God ought to give His wisest +man-angel special charge concerning looking after her and the devil at +the same time. They both need it! I don't know how all this is going to +end and I wish my mind wasn't in a kind of tingle. However, I'll do the +best I can and not hold myself at all responsible for myself, and then +who will there be to blame? +</p> +<p> +There are a great many kinds of good-feeling + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page2" name="page2"></a>[2]</span> + + in this world, from radiant joy down to perfect bliss, but this spring I +have got an attack of just old-fashioned happiness that looks as if it +might become chronic. +</p> +<p> +I am so happy that I planted my garden all crooked, my eyes upon the +clouds with the birds sailing against them, and when I became conscious +I found wicked flaunting poppies sprouted right up against the sweet +modest clover-pinks, while the whole paper of bachelor's-buttons was +sowed over everything—which I immediately began to dig right up again, +blushing furiously to myself over the trowel, and glad that I had caught +myself before they grew up to laugh in my face. However, I got that +laugh anyway, and I might just as well have left them, for Billy ran to +the gate and called Doctor John to come in and make Molly stop + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page3" name="page3"></a>[3]</span> + + digging up his buttons. Billy claims everything in this garden, and he +thought they would grow up into the kind of buttons you pop out of a +gun. +</p> +<p> +"So you're digging up the bachelor-pops, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor asked +as he leaned over the gate. I went right on digging without looking up +at him. I couldn't look up because I was blushing still worse. Sometimes +I hate that man, and if he wasn't Billy's father I wouldn't neighbor +with him as I do. But somebody <i>has</i> to look after Billy. +</p> +<p> +I believe it will be a real relief to write down how I feel about him +in his old book and I shall do it whenever I can't stand him any longer, +and if he gave the horrid, red leather thing to me to make me miserable, +he can't do it; not this spring! I wish I dared burn it up and forget +about it, but I don't! This record on the first + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page4" name="page4"></a>[4]</span> + + page is enough to <i>reduce</i> me—to tears, and I wonder why it +doesn't. +</p> +<p> +I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds, down in black and white, and it +is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the grocery store is so very +reliable in his weights, though he had a very pleasant smile while he +was weighing me. Still I had better get some scales of my own, smiles +are so deceptive. +</p> +<p> +I am five feet three inches tall or short, whichever way one looks at +me. I thought I was taller, but I suppose I will have to believe my own +yardstick. +</p> +<p> +But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even +if I have promised Doctor John a dozen times over to do it, while I only +really left him to <i>suppose</i> I would. It is bad enough to know that +your belt has to be reduced to twenty-three inches without putting down + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page5" name="page5"></a>[5]</span> + + how much it measures now in figures to insult yourself with. No, I +intend to have this for my happy spring. +</p> +<p> +Yes, I suppose it would have been lots better for my happiness if I had +kept quiet about it all, but at the time I thought I had to advise with +him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being +a widow, you are accustomed to advising with a man, whether you want to +or not, and you can't get over the habit right away. Poor Mr. Carter +hasn't been dead much over a year and I must be missing him most +awfully, though just lately I can't remember not to forget about him a +great deal of the time. Now if he had been here—<i>horrors</i>! +</p> +<p> +Still, that letter was enough to upset anybody, and no wonder I ran +right across my garden, through Billy's hedge-hole and over into Doctor +John's office to tell him + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page6" name="page6"></a>[6]</span> + + about it; but I ought not to have been agitated enough to let him take +the letter right out of my hand and read it. +</p> +<p> +"So after ten years Al Bennett is coming back to pop his +bachelor's-buttons at you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the deep drawling +voice he always uses when he makes fun of Billy and me and which never +fails to make us both mad. I didn't look at him directly, but I felt his +hand shake with the letter in it. +</p> +<p> +"Not ten, only <i>eight</i>! He went when I was seventeen," I answered +with dignity, wishing I dared be snappy at him; though I never am. +</p> +<p> +"And after eight years he wants to come back and find you squeezed into +a twenty-inch-waist, blue muslin rag you wore at parting? No wonder Al +didn't succeed at bank clerking, but had to make his hit at diplomacy +and the high arts. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page7" name="page7"></a>[7]</span> + + Some hit at that to be legationed at Saint James! He's such a big gun +that it is a pity he had to return to his native heath and find even +such a slight disappointment as a one-yard waist measure around +his—his—" +</p> +<p> +"Oh it's not, it's <i>not</i> that much." I fairly gasped and I couldn't +help the tears coming into my eyes. I have never said much about it, but +nobody knows how it hurts me to be all this fat! Just writing it down in +a book mortifies me dreadfully. It's been coming on worse and worse +every year since I married. Poor Mr. Carter had a very good appetite and +I don't know why I should have felt that I had to eat so much every day +to keep him company; I wasn't always so considerate of him. Then he +didn't want me to dance any more because married women oughtn't, or ride +horseback either—no + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page8" name="page8"></a>[8]</span> + + amusement left but himself and weekly prayer-meetings, and—and—I just +couldn't help the tears coming and dripping as I thought about it all +and that awful waist measure in inches. +</p> +<p> +"Stop crying this minute, Molly," said Doctor John suddenly in the deep +voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really sick or stump-toed. +"You know I was only teasing you and I won't stand for—" +</p> +<p> +But I sobbed some more. I like him when his eyes come out from under his +bushy brows and are all tender and full of sorry for us. +</p> +<p> +"I can't help it," I gulped in my sleeve. "I did used to like Alfred +Bennett. My heart almost broke when he went away. I used to be beautiful +and slim, and now I feel as if my own fat ghost has come to haunt me all +my life. I am so ashamed! If a woman can't cry over her own dead + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page9" name="page9"></a>[9]</span> + + beauty, what can she cry over?" By this time I was really crying. +</p> +<p> +Then what happened to me was that Doctor John took me by the shoulders +and gave me one good shake and then made me look him right in the eyes +through the tears and all. +</p> +<p> +"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard +him use. "You are just a lovely, round, luscious peach, but if you will +be happier to have Al Bennett come and find you as slim as a string-bean +I can show you how to do it. Will you do just as I tell you?" +</p> +<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width: 70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-019.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-019.jpg" style="width: 60%; border: 0;" +alt="'Will you do just as I tell you?'" /></a> +</div> +"Will you do just as I tell you?" +</center> + +<p> +"Yes, I will," I sniffed in a comforted voice. What woman wouldn't be +comforted by being called a "luscious peach". I looked out between my +fingers to see what more he was going to say, but he had turned to a +shelf and taken down two books. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page10" name="page10"></a>[10]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Now," he said in his most businesslike voice, as cool as a bucket of +water fresh from the spring, "it is no trouble at all to take off your +surplus avoirdupois at the rate of two and a half pounds a week if you +follow these directions. As I take it you are about twenty-five pounds +over your normal weight. It will take over two months to reduce you and +we will allow an extra month for further beautifying, so that when Mr. +Bennett arrives he will find the lady of his adoration in proper trim to +be adored. Yes, just be still until I copy these directions in this +little, red leather blank-book for you, and every day I want you to keep +an exact record of the conditions of which I make note. No, don't talk +while I make out these diet lists! I wish you would go across the hall +and see if you don't think we ought to get Bill a thinner set of night-drawers. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page11" name="page11"></a>[11]</span> + + It seems to me he must be too warm in the ones he is wearing." +</p> +<p> +When he speaks to me in that tone of voice I always do it. And I needed +Billy badly at that very moment. I took him out of his little cot by +Doctor John's big bed and sat down with him in my arms over by the +window through which the early moon came streaming. Billy is so little, +little not to have a mother to rock him all the times he needs it that I +take every opportunity to give it to him I find—when he's unconscious +and can't help himself. She died before she ever even saw him and I've +always tried to do what I could to make it up to him. +</p> +<p> +Poor Mr. Carter said when Billy cut his teeth that a neighbor's baby can +be worse than twins of your own. He didn't like children and the baby's +crying disturbed him, so many a night I walked + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page12" name="page12"></a>[12]</span> + + Billy out in the garden until daylight, while Mr. Carter and Doctor John +both slept. Always his little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the +emptiness of not having a baby of my own. And he's very congenial, too, +for he's slim and flowery, pink and dimply, and as mannish as his +father, in funny little flashes. +</p> +<p> +"Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was murmuring in his sleep. Then I +heard the doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put him back in his bed, +and go across the hall. +</p> +<p> +Doctor John was standing by the table with this horrid small book in his +hand and his mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes were deep +back under their brows. I hate him that way, too, and I would like to +get up so close to him that he couldn't <i>hit</i> me or have a door +locked between us. It's strange how the thought of taking a beating from +a man can make + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page13" name="page13"></a>[13]</span> + + a woman's heart jump. Mine jumped so it was hard to look as meek as I +felt best under the circumstances; but I looked it out from under my +lashes cautiously. +</p> +<p> +"There you are, Mrs. Molly," he said briskly as he handed me this book. +"Get weighed and measured and sized-up generally in the morning and +follow all the directions. Also make every record I have noted so that +I can have the proper data to help you as you go along—or rather down. +And if you will be faithful about it to me, or rather Al, I think we can +be sure of buttoning that blue muslin dress without even the aid of the +button-hook." His voice had the "if you can" note in it that always sets +me off. +</p> +<p> +"Had we better get the kiddie some thinner night-rigging?" he hastened +to ask as I was just about to explode. He knows the signs. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page14" name="page14"></a>[14]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Doctor Moore! I hate the very ground you walk on and I'll +attend to those night-clothes myself to-morrow," I answered, and I +sailed out of that office and down the path toward my own house beyond +his hedge. But I carried this book tight in my hand and I made up my +mind that I would do it all if it killed me. I would show him I could be +<i>faithful</i>—to whom I would decide later on. But I hadn't read far +into this book when I committed myself to myself like that! +</p> +<p> +I don't know just how long I sat on the front steps all by myself bathed +in a perfect flood of moonlight and loneliness. It was not a bit of +comfort to hear Aunt Adeline snoring away in her room down the dark +hall. It takes the greatest congeniality to make a person's snoring a +pleasure to anybody and Aunt Adeline and I are not that way. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page15" name="page15"></a>[15]</span> +</p> +<p> +When poor Mr. Carter died, the next day she said: "Now, Mary, you are +entirely too young to live all your long years of widowhood alone, and +as I am in the same condition, I will rent my cottage and move right +up the street into your house to protect and console you." And she +did,—the moving and the protecting. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Henderson has been dead forty-two years. He only lived three months +after he married Aunt Adeline and her crepe veil is over a yard long +yet. Men are the dust under her feet, but she likes for Doctor John to +come over and sit on the porch with us because she can consult with him +about what Mr. Henderson really died of and talk with him about the sad +state of poor Mr. Carter's liver for a year before he died. I just go on +rocking Billy and singing hymns to him in such a way that I can't hear +the conversation. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page16" name="page16"></a>[16]</span> + + Mr. Carter's liver got on my nerves alive, and dead it does worse. But +it hurts when the doctor has to take the little sleep-boy out of my arms +to carry him home; though I like it when he says under his breath, +"Thank you, Molly." +</p> +<p> +And as I sat and thought how near he and I had been to each other in all +our troubles, I excused myself for running to him with that letter and I +acknowledged to myself that I had no right to get mad when he teased me, +for he had been kind and interested about helping me get thin by the +time Alfred came back to see me. I couldn't tell which I was blushing +all to myself about, the "luscious peach" he had called me or the +"lovely lily" Alfred had reminded me in his letter that I had been when +he left me. +</p> +<p> +Why don't people realize that a seventeen-year-old girl's heart is a +sensitive + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page17" name="page17"></a>[17]</span> + + wind-flower that may be shattered by a breath? Mine shattered when +Alfred went away to find something he could do to make a living, and +Aunt Adeline gave the hard green stem to Mr. Carter when she married me +to him. Poor Mr. Carter! +</p> +<p> +No, I wasn't twenty, and this town was full of women who were aunts and +cousins and law-kin to me, and nobody did anything for me. They all said +with a sigh of relief, "It will be such a nice safe thing for you, +Molly." And they really didn't mean anything by tying up a gay, dancing, +frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. +But God didn't want to see me always trotting along slow and tired and +not caring what happened to me, even pounds and pounds of plumpness, so +he found use for Mr. Carter in some other place but this world, and I +feel that He is going to see me + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page18" name="page18"></a>[18]</span> + + through whatever happens. If some of the women in my missionary society +knew how friendly I feel with God they would put me out for contempt of +court. +</p> +<p> +No, the town didn't mean anything by chastening my spirit with Mr. +Carter and they didn't consider him in the matter at all, poor man. Of +that I feel sure. Hillsboro is like that. It settled itself here in a +Tennessee valley a few hundreds of years ago and has been hatching and +clucking over its own small affairs ever since. All the houses set back +from the street with their wings spread out over their gardens, and +mothers here go on hovering even to the third and fourth generation. +Lots of times young, long-legged, frying-size boys scramble out of the +nests and go off to college and decide to grow up where their crow will +be heard by the world. Alfred was one of them. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page19" name="page19"></a>[19]</span> +</p> +<p> +And, too, occasionally some man comes along from the big world and +marries a plump little broiler and takes her away with him, but mostly +they stay and go to hovering life on a corner of the family estate. +That's what I did. +</p> +<p> +I was a poor, little, lost chick with frivolous tendencies and they +all clucked me over into this empty Carter nest which they considered +well-feathered for me. It gave them all a sensation when they found out +from the will just how well it was feathered. And it gave me one, too. +All that money would make me nervous if Mr. Carter hadn't made Doctor +John its guardian, though I sometimes feel that the responsibility of me +makes him treat me as if he were my step-grandfather-in-law. But all in +all, though stiff in its knees with aristocracy, Hillsboro is lovely and +loving; and couldn't inquisitiveness + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page20" name="page20"></a>[20]</span> + + be called just real affection with a kind of squint in its eye? +</p> +<p> +And there I sat on my front steps, being embraced in a perfume of +everybody's lilacs and peachblow and sweet syringa and affectionate +interest and moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose +two photographs and many letters I had kept locked up in the garret for +years. Is it any wonder I tingled when he told me that he had never come +back because he couldn't have me and that now the minute he landed in +America he was going to lay his heart at my feet? I added his honors +to his prostrate heart myself and my own beat at the prospect. All the +eight years faded away and I was again back in the old garden down at +Aunt Adeline's cottage saying good-by, folded up in his arms. That's the +way my memory put the scene to me, but the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page21" name="page21"></a>[21]</span> + + word "folded" made me remember that blue muslin dress again. I had +promised to keep it and wear it for him when he came back—and I +couldn't forget that the blue belt was just twenty-three inches and mine +is—no, I <i>won't</i> write it. I had got that dress out of the old +trunk not ten minutes after I had read the letter and measured it. +</p> +<p> +No, nobody would blame me for running right across the garden to Doctor +John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the +letter and the little book up close to my breast and laughed until the +tears ran down my cheeks. +</p> +<p> +Then before I went into the house I assembled my garden and had family +prayers with my flowers. I do that because they are all the family I've +got, and God knows that all His budding things + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page22" name="page22"></a>[22]</span> + + need encouragement, whether it is a widow or a snowball-bush. He'll give +it to us! +</p> +<p> +And I'm praying again as I sit here and watch for the doctor's light to +go out. I hate to go to sleep and leave it burning, for he sits up so +late and he is so gaunt and thin and tired-looking most times. That's +what the last prayer is about, almost always,—sleep for him and no +night call! +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page23" name="page23"></a>[23]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0005" id="h2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF SECOND +</h2> +<h3> + A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED +</h3> +<p> +The very worst page in this red—red devil—I'm glad I've written it at +last—of a book is the fifth. It says: +</p> +<p> +"Breakfast—one slice of dry toast, one egg, fruit and a tablespoonful +of baked cereal, small cup of coffee, no sugar, no cream." And me with +two Jersey cows full of the richest cream in Hillsboro, Harpeth Valley, +out in my pasture! +</p> +<p> +"Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of toast, spinach, green beans and +lettuce salad. No dessert or sweet." The blue-grass in my yard is full +of fat little fryers and I wish I were a sheep if I have to eat lettuce +and spinach for grass. At least + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page24" name="page24"></a>[24]</span> + + I'd have more than one chop inside me then. +</p> +<p> +"Supper—slice of toast and an apple." Why the apple? Why supper at all? +</p> +<p> +Oh, I'm hungry, hungry until I cry in my sleep when I dream about a +muffin! I thought at first that getting out of bed before my eyes are +fairly open and turning myself into a circus actor by doing every kind +of overhand, foot, arm and leg contortion that the mind of cruel man +could invent to torture a human being with, would kill me before I had +been at it a week, but when I read on page sixteen that as soon as all +that horror was over I must jump right into the tub of cold water, I +kicked, metaphorically speaking. And I've been kicking ever since, +literally to keep from freezing. +</p> +<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width: 70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-037.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-037.jpg" style="width:60%; border: 0;" +alt="She shrouds me for the agony" /></a> +</div> +She shrouds me for the agony +</center> + +<p> +But as cruel a death as freezing is, it doesn't compare to the tortures +of being + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page25" name="page25"></a>[25]</span> + +melted. Judy administers it to me and her faithful heart is so wrung +with compassion that she perspires almost as much as I do. She wrings a +linen sheet out in a caldron of boiling water and shrouds me in it for +the agony—and then more and more blanket windings envelop me until I am +like the mummy of some Egyptian giantess. I have ice on the back of my +neck and my forehead, and murder for the whole world in my heart. Once I +got so discouraged at the idea of having all this hades in this life +that I mingled tears with the beads of perspiration that rolled down my +cheeks, and she snatched me out of those steaming grave-clothes in less +time than it takes to tell it, soused me in a tub of cold water, fed me +a chicken wing and a hot biscuit and the information that I was +"good-looking enough for <i>anybody</i> to eat up alive without all this + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page26" name="page26"></a>[26]</span> + + foolishness," all in a very few seconds. Now I have to beg her to help +me and I heard her tell her nephew, who does the gardening, that she +felt like an undertaker with such goings-on. At any rate, if it all +kills me it won't be my fault if anybody has to lie in saying that I was +"beautiful in death". +</p> +<p> +But now that more than a month has passed, I really don't mind it so +much. I feel so good and strong and prancy all the time that I can't +keep from bubbling. I have to smile at myself. +</p> +<p> +Then another thing that helps is Billy and his ball. I never could +really play with him before, but now I can't help it. But an awful thing +happened about that yesterday. We were in the garden playing over by the +lilac bushes and Billy always beats me because when he runs to base he +throws himself down and slides + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page27" name="page27"></a>[27]</span> + + along on the grass on his little stomach as he sees the real players do +over at the ball grounds. Then all of a sudden, before I knew it, I just +did the same thing, and we slid to the flower pot we use as a base +together, each on his own stomach. And what did Billy do but begin right +there on the grass the kind of a tussle we always have in the big +rocking-chair on the porch! Over and over we rolled, Billy chuckling and +squealing while I laughed myself all out of breath. I'm glad I always +would wear delicious petticoats, for there, looking right over my front +fence, I discovered Judge Benton Wade. I wish I could write down how I +felt, for I never had that sensation before and I don't believe I'll +ever have it again. +</p> +<p> +I have always thought that Judge Wade was really the most wonderful man +in Hillsboro, not because he is a judge so + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page28" name="page28"></a>[28]</span> + + young in life that there is only a white sprinkle in his lovely black +hair that grows back off his head like Napoleon's and Charles Wesley's, +but because of his smile, which you wait for so long that you glow all +over when you get it. I have seen him do it once or twice at his mother +when he seats her in their pew at church and once at little Mamie +Johnson when she gave him a flower through their fence as he passed by +one day last week, but I never thought I should have one all to myself. +But there it was, a most beautiful one, long and slow and distinctly +mine—at least I didn't think much of it was for Billie. I sat up and +blushed as red all over as I do when I first hit that tub of cold water. +</p> +<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-043.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-043.jpg" style="width:90%; border: 0;" +alt="I sat up and blushed red all over" /></a> +</div> +I sat up and blushed red all over +</center> + +<p> +"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal +resist a peep into the garden of the gods if he + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page29" name="page29"></a>[29]</span> + + spied the queen and her faun at play?" he said in a voice as wonderful +as the smile. By that time I had reefed in my ruffles around my feet and +pushed in all my hairpins. Billy stood spread-legged as near in front of +me as he could get and said in the rudest possible tone of voice: +</p> +<p> +"Get away from my Molly, man!" +</p> +<p> +I never was so mortified in all my life and I scrambled to my feet and +came over to the fence to get between him and Billy. +</p> +<p> +"It's a lovely day, isn't it, Judge Wade?" I asked with the greatest +interest, which I didn't really feel, in the weather; but what could I +think of to say? A woman is apt to keep the image of a good many of the +grand men she sees passing around her in queer niches in her brain, and +when one steps out and speaks to her for the first time it is confusing. +Of course I have known the judge and his + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page30" name="page30"></a>[30]</span> + + mother all my life, for she is one of Aunt Adeline's best friends, but I +had a feeling from the look in his eyes that that very minute was the +first time he had ever seen me. It was lovely and I blushed some more as +I put my hand up to my cheek so I wouldn't have to look right at him. +</p> +<p> +"About the loveliest day that ever happened in Hillsboro," he said, and +there was still more of the delicious smile, "though I hadn't noticed it +so especially until—" +</p> +<p> +But I never knew what he had intended to say, for Billy suddenly swelled +up like a little turkey-cock and cut out with his switch at the judge. +</p> +<p> +"Git, man, git, and let my Molly alone!" he said, in a perfect +thundertone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in +it like Doctor John's at his most positive times with Billy and me. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page31" name="page31"></a>[31]</span> +</p> +<p> +"No, no, Billy, the judge is just looking over the fence at our flowers! +Don't you want to give him a rose?" I hurried to say as the smile died +out of Judge Wade's face and he looked at Billy intently. +</p> +<p> +"How like John Moore the youngster is," he said, and his voice was so +cold to Billy that it hurt me, and I was afraid Billy would notice it. +Coldness in people's voices always makes me feel just like ice-cream +tastes. But Billy's answer was still more rude. +</p> +<p> +"You better go, man, before I bring my father to sic our dog on you," +he exploded, and before I could stop him his thin little legs went +trundling down the garden path toward home. +</p> +<p> +Then the judge and I both laughed. We couldn't help it. When two people +laugh straight into each other's eyes + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page32" name="page32"></a>[32]</span> + + something feels dangerous and you get closer together. The judge leaned +farther over the fence and I went a little nearer before I knew it. +</p> +<p> +"You don't need to keep a personal dog, do you, Mrs. Carter?" he asked, +with a twinkle that might have been a spark in his eyes, and just at +that moment another awful thing happened. Aunt Adeline came out on the +front porch and said in the most frozen tone of voice: +</p> +<p> +"Mary, I wish to speak to you in the house," and then walked back +through the front door without even looking in Judge Wade's direction, +though he had waved his hat with one of his mother's own smiles when he +had seen her before I did. One of my most impossible habits is, when +there is nothing else to do I laugh. I did it then and it saved the day, +for we both laughed into each others eyes a second + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page33" name="page33"></a>[33]</span> + + time, and before we realized it we were within whispering distance. +</p> +<p> +"No, I don't—don't—need any dog," I said softly, hardly glancing out +from under my lashes because I was afraid to risk looking straight at +him again so soon. I could fairly feel Aunt Adeline's eyes boring into +my back. +</p> +<p> +"It would take the hydra-headed monster of—may I bring my mother to +call on you and the—Mrs. Henderson?" he asked and poured the wonder +smile all over me. Again I almost caught my breath. +</p> +<p> +"I do wish you would, Aunt Adeline is so fond of Mrs. Wade!" I said in a +positive flutter that I hope he didn't see, but I am afraid he did, for +he hesitated as if he wanted to say something to calm me, then bowed +mercifully and went on down the street. He didn't put on the hat he + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page34" name="page34"></a>[34]</span> + + had held in his hand all the while he stood by the fence until he had +looked back and bowed again. Then I felt still more fluttered as I went +into the house, but I received the third cold plunge of the day when I +reached the front hall. +</p> +<p> +"Mary," said Aunt Adeline in a voice that sounded as if it had been +buried and never resurrected, "if you are going to continue in such an +unseemly course of conduct I hope you will remove your mourning, which +is an empty mockery and an insult to my own widowhood." +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Aunt Adeline, I'll go take it off this very minute," I heard +myself answer her airily to my own astonishment. I might have known that +if I ever got one of those smiles it would go to my head! Without +another word I sailed into my room and closed the door softly. +</p> +<p> +I wonder if God could have realized + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page35" name="page35"></a>[35]</span> + + what a tender thing He was leaving exposed to life in the garden of the +world after He had finished making a woman? Traditionally, we are +created out of rose-leaves and star-dust and the harmony of the winds, +but we need a steel-chain netting to fend us. Slowly I unbuttoned that +black dress that symbolized the ending of six years of the blackness of +a married life, from which I had been powerless to fend myself, and the +rosy dimpling thing in snowy lingerie with tags of blue ribbon that +stood in front of my mirror was as new-born as any other hour-old +similar bundle of linen and lace in Hillsboro, Tennessee. Fortunately, +an old, year-before-last, white lawn dress could be pulled from the top +shelf of the closet in a hurry, and the Molly that came out of that room +was ready for life—and a lot of it quick and fast. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page36" name="page36"></a>[36]</span> +</p> +<p> +And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline had retired with a violent headache +and black Judy was carrying her in a hot water-bottle with a broad grin +on her face. Judy sees the world from the kitchen window and understands +everything. She had laid a large thick letter on the hall table where I +couldn't fail to see it. +</p> +<p> +I took possession of it and carried it to a bench in the garden that +backs up against the purple sprayed lilacs and is flanked by two rows of +tall purple and white iris that stand in line ready for a Virginia reel +with a delicate row of the poet's narcissus across the broad path. I +love my flowers. I love them swaying on their stems in the wind, and I +like to snatch them and crush the life out of them against my breast and +face. I have been to bed every night this spring with a + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page37" name="page37"></a>[37]</span> + + bunch of cool violets against my cheek and I feel that I am going to +flirt with my tall row of hollyhocks as soon as they are old enough to +hold up their heads and take notice. They always remind me of very +stately gentlemen and I have wondered if the fluffy little butter and +eggs weren't shaking their ruffles at them. +</p> +<p> +A real love-letter ought to be like a cream puff with a drop of dynamite +in it. Alfred's was that kind. I felt warm and happy down to my toes as +I read it and I turned around so old Lilac Bush couldn't peep over my +shoulder at what he said. +</p> +<p> +He wrote from Rome this time, where he had been sent on some sort of +diplomatic mission to the Vatican, and his letter about the Ancient City +on her seven hills was a prose-poem in itself. I was so interested that +I read on and on and forgot it was almost toast-apple time. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page38" name="page38"></a>[38]</span> +</p> +<p> +Of course, anybody that is anybody would be interested in Father Tiber +and the old Colosseum, but what made me forget the one slice of dry +toast and the apple was the way he seemed to be connecting me up with +all those wonderful old antiquities that had never even seen me. Because +of me he had felt and written that poem descriptive of old Tiber, and +the moonlight had lit up the Colosseum just because I was over here +lighting up Hillsboro, Tennessee, with Mr. Carter dead. Of course that +is not the way he put it all, but there is no place to really copy what +he did say down into this imp book and, anyway, that is the sentiment he +expressed, boiled down and sugared off. +</p> +<p> +That's just what I mean—love boiled down and sugared off is mighty apt +to get an explosive flavor, and one had better be careful with that kind +if one is timid; + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page39" name="page39"></a>[39]</span> + + which I'm not. As I said, also, I am ready for a little taste of life, +so I read on without fear. And, to be fair, Alfred had well boiled his +own last paragraph. It snapped; and I jumped and gasped both. I almost +thought I didn't quite like it and was going to read it over again to +see, when there came a procession from over to Doctor John's and I laid +the bombshell down on the bench. +</p> +<p> +First came the red setter that is always first with Doctor John, and +then he came himself, leading Billy by the hand. It was Billy, but the +most subdued Billy I ever saw, and I held out my arms and started for +him. +</p> +<p> +"Wait a minute, please, Molly," said the doctor in the voice he always +uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologize to you +for being rude to your—your guest. He told me all about + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page40" name="page40"></a>[40]</span> + + it and I think he's sorry. Tell Mrs. Carter you are sorry, son." When +that man speaks to me as if I were just any old body else, I hate him so +it is a wonder I don't show it more than I do. But there was nothing to +say and I looked at Billy and Billy looked at me. +</p> +<p> +Then suddenly he stretched out his little arms to me and the dimples +winked at me from all over his darling face. +</p> +<p> +"Molly, Molly," he said with a perfect rapture of chuckles in his voice, +"now you look just as pretty as you do when you go to bed; all whity all +over. You can kiss my kiss-spot a hundred times while I bear-hug you for +that nice not-black dress," and before any stern person could have +stopped us I was on my knees on the grass kissing my fill from the +"kiss-spot" on the back of his neck, while he + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page41" name="page41"></a>[41]</span> + + hugged all the starch out of the summer-before-last. +</p> +<p> +And Doctor John sat down on the bench quick and laughed out loud one of +the very few times I ever heard him do it. He was looking down at us, +but I didn't laugh up into <i>his</i> eyes. I was afraid. I felt it was +safer to go on kissing the kiss-spot for the present, anyway. +</p> +<p> +"Bill," he said, with his voice dancing, "that's the most effective +apology I ever heard. You were sorry to some point." +</p> +<p> +Then suddenly Billy stiffened right in my arms and looked me straight in +the face and said in the doctor's own brisk tones, even with his cupid +mouth set in the same straight line: +</p> +<p> +"I say I'm sorry, Molly, but damn that man and I'll git him yet!" +</p> +<p> +What could we say? What could we + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page42" name="page42"></a>[42]</span> + + do? We didn't try. I busied myself in tying the string on Billy's blouse +that had come untied in the bear-hug and the doctor suddenly discovered +the letter on the bench. I saw him see it without looking in his +direction at all. +</p> +<p> +"And how many pounds are we nearer the string-bean state of existence, +Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the blouse, in the +nicest voice in the world, fairly crackling with friendship and good +humor and hateful things like that. Why I should have wanted him to huff +over that letter is more than I can say. But I did; and he didn't. +</p> +<p> +"Over twenty, and most of the time I am so hungry I could eat Aunt +Adeline. I dream about Billy, fried with cream gravy," I answered, as I +kissed again the back of the head that was beginning to nod down against +my breast. Long shadows + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page43" name="page43"></a>[43]</span> + + lay across the garden and the white-headed old snow-ball was signaling +out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins down the walk in a scandalous way. +At best, spring is just the world's match-making old chaperon and ought +to be watched. I still sat on the grass and I began to cuddle Billy's +bare knees in the skirt of my dress so the chigres couldn't get at them. +</p> +<p> +"But, Mrs. Molly, isn't it worth it all?" asked the doctor as he bent +over toward us and looked down with something wonderful and kind in his +eyes that seemed to rest on us like a benediction. "You have been just +as plucky as a girl can be and in only a little over two months you have +grown as lightfooted and hearty as a boy. <i>I</i> think nothing could +be lovelier than you are right now, but you can get off those other few +pounds if you want to. You know, don't you, that I have known how + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page44" name="page44"></a>[44]</span> + + hard some of it was and I haven't been able to eat as much as I usually +do thinking how hungry you are? But isn't it all worth it? I think it +is. Alfred Bennett is a very great man and it is right that he should +have a very lovely wife to go out into the world with him. And as lovely +as you are I think it is wonderful of you to make all this sacrifice to +be still lovelier for him. I am glad I can help you and it has taught me +something to see how—how faithful a woman can be across years—and then +in this smaller thing! Now give me Bill and you get your apple and +toast. Don't forget to take your letter in out of the dew." I sat +perfectly still and held Billy tighter in my arms as I looked up at his +father, and then after I had thought as long as I could stand it, I +spoke right out at him as mad as hops and I don't to this minute know +why. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page45" name="page45"></a>[45]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Nobody in the world ever doubted that a woman could be faithful if she +had anything to be faithful to," I said as I let him take Billy out of +my arms at last. "Faithfulness is what a woman flowers, only it takes a +<i>man</i> to pick his posy." With which I marched into the house and +left him standing with Billy in his arms, I hope dumfounded. I didn't +look back to see. I always leave that man's presence so mad I can never +look back at him. And wouldn't it make any woman rage to have a man pick +out another man for her to be faithful to when she hadn't made any +decision about it her own self? +</p> +<p> +I wonder just how old Judge Wade is? I believe I will make up with Aunt +Adeline enough before I go to bed to find out why he has never married. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page46" name="page46"></a>[46]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0006" id="h2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF THIRD +</h2> +<h3> + MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU? +</h3> +<p> +Men are very strange people. They are like those horrible sums in +algebra that you think about and worry about and cry about and try to +get help from other women about, and then, all of a sudden, X works +itself out into perfectly good sense. Not that I thought much about Mr. +Carter, poor man! When he wasn't right around I felt it best to forget +him as much as I could, but it seems hard for other women to let you +forget either your husband or theirs. +</p> +<p> +I know now that I really never got any older than the poor, foolish, +eighteen-years' child that Aunt Adeline married off + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page47" name="page47"></a>[47]</span> + + "safe", all the time I was the "refuge" sort of wife. I would sit and +listen while the other wives talked over the men in utter bewilderment +and most times terror, then I would force myself to a little more +forgetting and poor Mr. Carter must have suffered the consequences. But +all that was a mild sort of exasperation to what a widow has to go +through with in the matter of—of, well I think hazing is about the best +name to give it. +</p> +<p> +"Molly Carter," said Mrs. Johnson just day before yesterday, after the +white-dress, Judge-Wade episode that Aunt Adeline had gone to all the +friends up and down the street to be consoled about, "if you haven't got +sense enough to appreciate your present blissful condition somebody +ought to operate on your mind." +</p> +<p> +I was tempted to say, "Why not my heart?" I was glad she didn't know how + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page48" name="page48"></a>[48]</span> + + good that heart did feel under my tucker when the boy brought that +basket of fish from Judge Wade's fishing trip Saturday. I have firmly +determined not to blush any more at the thought of that gorgeous man—at +least outwardly. +</p> +<p> +"Don't you think it is very—very lonely to be a widow, Mrs. Johnson?" I +asked timidly to see what she would say about Mr. Johnson, who is really +lovely, I think. He gives me the gentlest understanding smile when he +meets me on the street of late weeks. +</p> +<p> +"Lonely, <i>lonely</i>, Molly? You talk about the married state exactly +like an old maid. Don't do it—it's foolish, and you will get the lone +notion really fastened in your mind and let some fool man find out that +is how you feel. Then it will be all over with you. I have only one +regret, and it is that if I ever should be a widow + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page49" name="page49"></a>[49]</span> + + Mr. Johnson wouldn't be here to see how quickly I turned into an old +maid, by the grace of God." Mrs. Johnson sews by assassinating the cloth +with the needle, and as she talked she was mending the sleeve of one of +Mr. Johnson's shirts. +</p> +<p> +"I think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a +man who loves her. Lots of them have been married for years," I said, +just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream, and went on +darning one of Billy's socks. +</p> +<p> +"Well, be that as it may, they are the blessed members of the women +tribe," she answered, looking at me sharply. "Now I have often told Mr. +Johnson—" but here we were interrupted in what might have been the +rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of Aunt Bettie Pollard, +and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most +wonderful + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page50" name="page50"></a>[50]</span> + + close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat on sight. I hated her +instantly with the most intense adoration that made me want to lie down +at her feet, and also made me feel like I had gained all the more than +twenty pounds that I have slaved off me and doubled them on again. I +would have liked to lead her that minute into Doctor John's office and +just to have looked at him and said one word—"string-bean!" Aunt Betty +introduced her as Miss Chester from Washington. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, my dear Mrs. Carter, how glad I am to meet you!" she said as she +towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool +almost to slimness. "I am the bearer of so many gracious messages that I +am anxious to deliver them safely to you. Not six weeks ago I left +Alfred Bennett in Paris and really—really his greetings to you almost + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page51" name="page51"></a>[51]</span> + + amounted to steamer luggage. He came down to Cherbourg to see me off, +and almost the last thing he said to me was, 'Now, don't fail to see +Mrs. Carter as soon as you get to Hillsboro; and the more you see of her +the more you'll enjoy your visit to Mrs. Pollard.' Isn't he the most +delightful of men?" She asked me the question, but she had the most +wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time, so Mrs. +Johnson got in the first answer. +</p> +<p> +"Delightful, nothing! But Al Bennett is a man of sense not to marry +any of the string of women I suppose he's got following him!" she said. +Miss Chester looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went on +murdering Mr. Johnson's shirt-sleeve with the needle without noticing +the glance at all. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well, honey, I don't know about + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page52" name="page52"></a>[52]</span> + + that," said Aunt Bettie as she fanned and rocked her great, big, +darling, fat self in the strong rocker I always kept in the breezy angle +of the porch for her. "Al is not old enough to have proved himself +entirely, and from what I hear—" she paused with the big hearty smile +that she always wears when she begins to tease or match-make, and she +does them both most of her time. +</p> +<p> +But at whom do you suppose she looked? Not me! Miss Chester! That was +cold tub number two for that day, and I didn't react as quickly as I +might, but when I did I was in the proper glow all over. When I revived +and saw the lovely pale blush on her face I felt like a cabbage-rose +beside a tea-bud. I was glad Aunt Adeline came out on the porch just +then so I could go in and tell Judy to bring out the iced tea and cakes. +When + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page53" name="page53"></a>[53]</span> + + I came from the kitchen I stepped into my room and took out one of +Alfred's letters from the desk drawer and opened it at random, as you do +the Bible when you want to decide things, and put my finger down on a +line with my eyes shut This was what it was: +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "—and all these years I have walked the world, blindfolded to its + loveliness with the blackness that came to me when I found that you—" +</p> +<p> +I didn't read any more, but shoved it back in a hurry and went on out on +the porch, comforted in a way, but feeling some more in sympathy with +Mrs Johnson than I had before Aunt Bettie and her guest from Washington +had interrupted our algebraic demonstration on the man subject. You +can't always be sure of the right answer to X in any proposition of +life; that is, a woman can't! +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page54" name="page54"></a>[54]</span> +</p> +<p> +And, furthermore, I didn't like that next hour much, just as a sample of +life, for instance. Aunt Bettie had got her joining-together humor well +started, and right there before my face she made a present of every nice +man in Hillsboro to that lovely, distinguished, strange girl who could +have slipped through a bucket hoop if she had tried hard. I had to sit +there, listen to the presentations, watch her drink two tall delicious +glasses of tea full of sugar and consume without fear three of Judy's +puffy cakes, while I crumbled mine in secret over the banisters and set +half the glass of tea out of sight behind the wistaria vine. +</p> +<p> +It was bad enough to hear Aunt Bettie just offer her Tom, who, if he is +her own son, is my favorite cousin, but I believe the worst minute I +almost ever faced was when she began on the judge, for I could + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page55" name="page55"></a>[55]</span> + + see from Aunt Adeline's shoulder beyond Miss Chester how she was +enjoying that, and she added another distinguished ancestor to his +pedigree every time Aunt Bettie paused for breath. I couldn't say a word +about the fish and Aunt Adeline wouldn't! I almost loved Mrs. Johnson +when she bit off a thread viciously and said, "Humph," as she rose to +start the tea-party home. +</p> +<p> +That night I did so many exercises that at last I sank exhausted in a +chair in front of my mirror and put my head down on my arms and cried +the real tears you cry when nobody is looking. I felt terribly old and +ugly and dowdy and—widowed. It couldn't have been jealousy, for I just +love that girl. I want most awfully to hug her very slimness and it was +more what she might think of poor dumpy me than what any man in +Hillsboro, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page56" name="page56"></a>[56]</span> + + Tennessee, or Paris, France, could possibly feel on the subject that +hurt so hard. But then, looking back on it, I am afraid that jealousy +sheds feathers every night so you won't know him in the morning, for +something made me sit up suddenly with a spark in my eyes and reach out +to the desk for my pencil and check-book. It took me more than an hour +to figure it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though in prospects a +poorer woman. +</p> +<p> +It is strange how spending a man's money makes you feel more congenial +with him and as I sat in the cars on my way to the city early the next +morning I felt nearer to Mr. Carter than I almost ever did, alive or +dead. After this I shall always appreciate and admire him for the way he +made money, since, for the first time in my life, I + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page57" name="page57"></a>[57]</span> + + fully realized what it could buy. And I bought things! +</p> +<p> +First I went to see Madam Courtier for corsets. I had heard about her +and I knew it meant a fortune. But that didn't matter! She came in and +looked at me for about five minutes without saying a word and then she +ran her hands down and down over me until I could feel the flesh just +crawling off of me. It was delicious! +</p> +<p> +Then she and two girls in puffs and rats came in and did things to a +corset they laced on me that I can't even write down, for I didn't +understand the process, but when I looked in that long glass I almost +dropped on the floor. I wasn't tight and I wasn't stiff and I +looked—I'm too modest to write how lovely I really looked to myself. +I was spellbound with delight. +</p> +<a name="image-0005"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-073.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-073.jpg" style="width:70%; border: 0;" +alt="I was spellbound with delight" /></a> +</div> +I was spellbound with delight +</center> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page58" name="page58"></a>[58]</span> +</p> +<p> +Next I signed the check for three of those wonders with my head so in +the clouds I didn't know what I was doing, but I came to with a jolt +when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black taffeta bag I +had worn down to the city. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds +I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Chester from the horror I +felt when I looked at myself. The girl was really sympathetic and said +with a smile that was true kindness: "Shall I call a taxi for madam and +have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready +to be fitted at short notice. Really, madam's figure is such that it +commands a perfect costume now." Men do business well, but when women +enter the field they are geniuses at money extracting. I felt myself +already clothed perfectly when that girl + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page59" name="page59"></a>[59]</span> + + said my figure "commanded" a proper dress. Of course, Klein pays Madam +Courtier a commission for the customers she passes right on to him. The +one for me must have looked to her like a real estate transaction. +</p> +<p> +I spent three days at the great Klein store, only going to the hotel to +sleep and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madam Rene must have been +Madam Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madam Telliers in the hat +department was the triplet to them both. When women have genius it +breaks out all over them like measles and they never recover from it; +those women had the confluent kind. But I know that old Rene really +liked me, for when I blushed and asked her if they had a good beauty +doctor in the store she held up her hands and shuddered. +</p> +<p> +"Never, Madam, never <i>pour vous</i>. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page60" name="page60"></a>[60]</span> + + <i>Ravissant, charmant</i>—it is to fool. Nevair! <i>Jamais, jamais de +la vie!</i>" I had to calm her down and she kissed my hand when we +parted. +</p> +<p> +I thought Klein was going to do the same thing or worse when I signed +the check which would be good for a house and lot and motor-car for him, +but he didn't. Only he got even with me by saying: "And I am delighted +that the trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, Mrs. Carter." +</p> +<p> +That was an awful shock and I hope I didn't show it as I murmured: +"Perfectly, thank you." +</p> +<p> +The word "trousseau" can be spoken in a woman's presence for many years +with no effect, but it is an awful shock when she first <i>really</i> +hears it. I felt funny all afternoon as I packed those trunks for the +five o'clock train. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page61" name="page61"></a>[61]</span> +</p> +<p> +Yes, the word "trousseau" ought to have a definite surname after it +always and that's why my loyalty dragged poor Mr. Carter out into the +light of my conscience. The thinking of him had a strange effect on me. +I had laid out the dream in dark gray-blue rajah, tailored almost beyond +endurance, to wear home on the train and had thrown the old black +taffeta bag across the chair to give to the hotel maid, but the decision +of the session between conscience and loyalty made me pack the precious +blue wonder and put on once more the black rags of remembrance in a kind +of panic of respect. +</p> +<p> +I would lots rather have bought poor Mr. Carter the monument I have been +planning for months to keep up conversation with Aunt Adeline, than wear +that dress again. I felt conscience reprove me once more with loyalty +looking on in disapproval + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page62" name="page62"></a>[62]</span> + + as I buttoned the old thing up for the last time, because I really ought +to have stayed over a day to buy that monument, but—to tell the truth I +wanted to see Billy so desperately that his "sleep-place" above my heart +hurt as if it might have prickly heat break out at any minute. +</p> +<p> +So I hurried and stuffed the gray-blue darling in the top tray, lapped +old black taffeta around my waist and belted it in with a black belt off +a new green linen I had made for morning walks, down to the drug store +on the public square, I suppose. That is about the only morning +dissipation in Hillsboro that I can think of, and it all depends on whom +you meet, how much of a dissipation it is. +</p> +<p> +The next thing that happens after you have done a noble deed is, you +either regard it as a reward of virtue or as a punishment + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page63" name="page63"></a>[63]</span> + + for having been foolish. I felt both ways when Judge Wade came down the +car aisle, looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I +don't see how they stand him ever. At that minute the noble +black-taffeta deed felt foolish, but at the next minute I thanked my +lucky stars for it. +</p> +<p> +It is nice to watch for a person to catch sight of you if you feel sure +how they are going to take it and somehow in this case I felt sure. I +was not disappointed, for his smile broke his face up into a joy-laugh. +Off came his hat instantly so I could catch a glimpse of the fascinating +frost over his temples, and with a positive sigh of rapture he subsided +into the seat beside me. I turned with an echo smile all over me when +suddenly his face became grave and considerate, and he looked at me as +all the men in Hillsboro + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page64" name="page64"></a>[64]</span> + + have been doing ever since poor Mr. Carter's funeral. +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Carter," he said very kindly, in a voice that pitched me out of +the car window and left me a mile behind on the track, all by myself, +"I wish I had known of your sad errand to town so I could have offered +you some assistance in your selection. You know we have just had our lot +in the cemetery finally arranged and I found the dealers in memorial +stones very confusing in their ideas and designs. Mrs. Henderson just +told my mother of your absence from home last night, and I could only +come down to the city for the day on important business or I would have +arranged to see you. I hope you found something that satisfied you." +</p> +<p> +What's a woman going to say when she has a tombstone thrown in her face +like that? I didn't say anything, but what I + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page65" name="page65"></a>[65]</span> + + thought about Aunt Adeline filled in a dreadful pause. +</p> +<p> +Perfectly dumb and quiet I sat for an awful space of time and wondered +just what I was going to do. Could a woman lie a monument into her suit +case? It was beyond me at that speaking and the Molly that is ready for +life quick, didn't want to. I shut my eyes, counted three to myself as I +do when I go over into the cold tub, and told him all about it. We both +got a satisfactory reaction and I never enjoyed myself so much as that +before. +</p> +<p> +I understand now why Judge Wade has had so many women martyr themselves +over him and live unhappily ever afterward, as everybody says Henrietta +Mason is doing. He's a very inspiring man and he fairly bristles with +fascinations. Some men are what you call taking and they take you if +they want you, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page66" name="page66"></a>[66]</span> + + while others are drawing and after you are drawn to them they will +consider the question of taking you. The judge is like that. +</p> +<p> +In the meantime it tingles me up to a very great degree to have a man +use his eyes on me as it is the privilege of only womankind to do, and I +feel that it will be good for his judgeship for me to let him "draw" me +at least a little way. I may get hurt, but I shall at least have an +interesting time of it. I started right then and got results, for he +stopped under the old lilac bush that leans over my side gate and kissed +my hand. Old Lilac shook a laugh of perfume all over us and I believe +signaled the event at the top of his bough to the white clump on the +other side of the garden. I'm glad Aunt Adeline isn't in the flower +fraternity or sorority. Suppose she had seen or heard! +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page67" name="page67"></a>[67]</span> +</p> +<p> +And it didn't take many minutes for me to slip into old +summer-before-last—also for the last time inside of those buttons—and +run through the garden, my heart singing, "Billy, Billy," in a perfect +rapture of tune. I ran past the office door and found him in his cot +almost asleep and we had a bear reunion in the rocker by the window that +made us both breathless. +</p> +<p> +"What did you bring me, Molly?" he finally kissed under my right ear. +</p> +<p> +"A real base-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five cars, a rake +and a spade and a hoe, two blow-guns that pop a new way and something +that squirts water and some other things. Will that be enough?" I hugged +him up anxiously, for sometimes he is hard to please and I might not +have got the very thing he wanted. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Molly, all them things is + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page68" name="page68"></a>[68]</span> + + what I want, but you oughter brung more'n that for three days not being +here with me." Did any woman ever have a more lovely lover than that? I +don't know how long I should have rocked him in the twilight if Doctor +John's voice hadn't come across the hall in command. +</p> +<p> +"Put him down now, Mrs. Molly, and come and say other how-do-you-does," +he called softly. +</p> +<p> +It was a funny glad-to-see-him I felt as I came into the office where he +was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its twilight +glow. I think it is wrong for a woman to let her imagination kiss a man +on the back of his neck even if she has known for some time that there +is a little drake-tail lock of hair there just like his own son's. I +gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a blush than I +intended. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page69" name="page69"></a>[69]</span> +</p> +<p> +He very far from kissed the hand; he held it just long enough to turn me +around into the light and give me one long looking-over from head to +feet. +</p> +<p> +"Just where does that corset press you worst?" he asked in the tone of +voice he uses to say "poke out your tongue." So much of my Tennessee +shooting-blood rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't drip; but I +was cold enough to have hit at forty paces if I had had a shooting-iron +in my hand. As it was the coldness was the only missile that I had, but +I used it to some effect. +</p> +<p> +"I am making a call on a friend, Doctor Moore, and not a consultation +visit to my physician," I said, looking into his face as though I had +never seen him before. +</p> +<p> +"I beg your pardon, Molly," he exclaimed and his face was redder than + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page70" name="page70"></a>[70]</span> + + mine and then it went white with mortification. I couldn't stand that. +</p> +<p> +"Don't do that way!" I exclaimed, and before I knew it I had taken +hold of his hand and had it in both of mine. "I know I look as if I +was shrunk or laced, but I'm not! I was going to tell you all about +it and show it to you. I'm really inches bigger in the right place and +just—just 'controlled', the woman called it, in the wrong place. Please +feel me and see," and I offered myself to him for examination in the +most regardless way. He's not at all like other people. +</p> +<p> +The blood came back into his face and he laughed as he gave me a little +shake that pushed me away from him. "Don't you ever scare me like that +again, child, or it might be serious," he said in the Billy-and-me tone +of voice that I like some, only— +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page71" name="page71"></a>[71]</span> +</p> +<p> +"I never will," I said in a hurry; "I want you to ask me anything in the +world you want to and I'll always do it." +</p> +<p> +"Well, let me take you home through the garden then—and, yes, I believe +I'll stay to break a muffin with Mrs. Henderson. Don't you want to tell +me what a little girl like you did in a big city and—and read me part +of that London letter I saw the postman give Judy this afternoon?" +</p> +<p> +Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett's +letters always makes me so instantly cross. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page72" name="page72"></a>[72]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0007" id="h2H_4_0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF FOURTH +</h2> +<h3> + SCATTERED JAM +</h3> +<p> +Sleep is one of the most delightful and undervalued amusements known to +the human race. I have never had enough yet and every second of time +that I'm not busy with something interesting I curl up on the bed and +go dream hunting—only I sleep too hard to do much catching. But this +torture book found that out on me and stopped it the very first thing on +page three. The command is to sleep as little as possible to keep the +nerves in a good condition,—"eight hours at the most and seven would +be better." What earthly good would a seven-hour nap do me? I want ten +hours to sleep and + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page73" name="page73"></a>[73]</span> + + twelve if I get a good tired start. To see me stagger out of my +perfectly nice bed at six o'clock every morning now would wring the +sternest heart with compassion and admiration at my faithfulness—to +whom? +</p> +<p> +Yes, it was the day after poor Mr. Carter's funeral that Aunt Adeline +moved up here into my house and settled herself in the big south room +across the hall from mine. Her furniture weighs a ton each piece, and +Aunt Adeline is not light herself in disposition. The next morning when +I went in to breakfast she sat in the "vacant chair" in a way that made +me see that she was obviously trying to fill the vacancy. I am sorry she +worried herself about that. Anyway, it made me take a resolve. After +breakfast I went into the kitchen to speak to Judy. +</p> +<p> +"Judy," I said, looking past her head, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page74" name="page74"></a>[74]</span> + + "my health is not very good and you can bring my breakfast to me in bed +after this." Poor Mr. Carter always wanted breakfast on the stroke of +seven, and me at the same time, though he rarely got me. Judy has two +dead husbands and she likes a ginger-colored barber down-town. Also her +mother is our washerwoman and influenced by Aunt Adeline. Judy +understands everything I say to her. After I had closed the door I heard +a laugh that sounded like a war-whoop, and I smiled to myself. But that +was before my martyrdom to this book had begun. I get up now! +</p> +<p> +But the day after I came from the city I lay in bed just as long as I +wanted to and ignored the thought of the exercises and deep breathing +and the icy unsympathetic tub. I couldn't even take very much interest +in the lonely egg on the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page75" name="page75"></a>[75]</span> + + lonely slice of dry toast. I was thinking about things. +</p> +<p> +Hillsboro is a very peculiar little speck on the universe; even more +peculiar than being like a hen. It is one of the oldest towns in +Tennessee and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched off +except in spots. But it has a lot of racehorse and distillery money in +it and when it gets poked up by anything unusual it takes a gulp of its +own alcoholic atmosphere and runs away on its own track at a two-five +gait, shedding moss as it goes. It hasn't had a real joy-race for a long +time and I felt that it needed it. I rolled over and laughed into my +pillow. +</p> +<p> +The subject of the conduct of widows is a serious one. Of all the things +old Tradition is most set about it is that, and what was decided to be +the proper thing a million years ago this town still dictates + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page76" name="page76"></a>[76]</span> + + shall be done, and spends a good deal of its time seeing its directions +carried out. For a year after the funeral they forget about the poor +bereaved and when they do remember her they speak to and of her in the +same tones of voice they used at the obsequies. Then sooner or later +some neighbor is sure to see some man walk home from church with her or +hear some old bachelor's voice on her front porch. Mr. Cain took Mrs. +Caruther's little Jessie up in his buggy and helped her out at her +mother's gate just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't +acted quick the town would have noticed them to death before he proposed +to her. They were married the day after New Year's and she lost lots of +good friends because she didn't give them more time to talk about it. +</p> +<p> +I don't intend to run any risk of losing + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page77" name="page77"></a>[77]</span> + + my friends that way and I want them to have all the good time they can +get out of it. I'm going to serve out mint-juleps of excitement until +the dear old place is running as it did when it was a two-year-old. Why +get mad when people are interested in you? It's a compliment after all +and just gives them more to think about. I remembered the two trunks +across the hall and hugged my knees up under by chin with pleasure at +the thought of the town-talk they contained. +</p> +<p> +Then just as I had got the first plan well-going and was deciding +whether to wear the mauve meteor or the white chiffon with the rosebud +embroidery as a first julep for my friends, a sweetness came in through +my window that took my breath away and I lay still with my hand over my +heart and listened. It was Billy singing right under my window, and I've + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page78" name="page78"></a>[78]</span> + + never heard him do it before in all his five years. It was the dearest +old-fashioned tune ever written and Billy sang the words as distinctly +as if he had been a boy chorister doing a difficult recitative. My heart +beat so it shook the lace on my breast like a breeze from heaven as he +took the high note and then let it go on the last few words. +</p> +<div class="poem"> +<div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2"> "If you love me, Molly, darling,</p> +<p class="i2"> Let your answer be a kiss!"</p> +</div> +</div> +<p> +A confused recollection of having heard the words and tune sung by my +mother when I was at the rocking age myself brought the tears to my eyes +as I flew to the window and parted the curtains. If you heard a little +boy-angel singing at your casement wouldn't you expect a cherubim face +upturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page79" name="page79"></a>[79]</span> + + as he heard me draw the shade, but it was streaked like a wild Indian's +with decorations of brown mud and he held a long slimy fish-worm on the +end of a stick while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his +linen blouse. +</p> +<a name="image-0006"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-097.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-097.jpg" style="width:60%; border: 0;" +alt="I lifted him into my arms" /></a> +</div> +I lifted him into my arms +</center> + +<p> +"Say, Molly, look at the snake I brunged you!" he exclaimed as he came +close under the sill, which is not high from the ground. "If you put +your face down to the mud and sing something to 'em they'll come outen +they holes. A doodle-bug comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift +me up and I can put him in the water-glass on your table." He held up +one muddy paddie to me and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From +the embrace in which he and the worm and I indulged my lace and dimity +came out much the worse. +</p> +<p> +"That was a lovely song you sang about + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page80" name="page80"></a>[80]</span> + + 'Molly, darling', Billy," I said. "Where did you hear it?" +</p> +<p> +"That's a good bug-song, Molly, and I bet I can git a lizard with it, +too, if I sing it right low." He began to squirm out of my arms toward +the table and the glass. +</p> +<p> +"Who taught it to you, sugar-sweet?" I persisted as I poured water in on +the squirming worm under his direction. +</p> +<p> +"Nobody taught it to me. Doc sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor you +ain't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like <i>Roll, +Jordan, Roll</i>, or <i>Hot Times</i> or <i>Twinkle</i>. I go to sleep +quick 'cause he makes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good +for bugs. Git a hair-pin for me to poke him with, Molly, quick!" +</p> +<p> +I found the hair-pin and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed +it to + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page81" name="page81"></a>[81]</span> + + Billy. As soon as he got it he climbed out the window, glass, bug and +all, and I saw him and the red setter go down the garden walk together +in pursuit of the desired lizard, I suppose. I closed the blinds and +drew the curtains again and flung myself on my pillow. Something warm +and sweet seemed to be sweeping over me in great waves and I felt young +and close up to some sort of big world-good. It was delicious and I +don't know how long I would have stayed there just feeling it if Judy +hadn't brought in my letter. +</p> +<p> +He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful things +all flavored with me. He told me about Miss Chester and what good +friends they were, and how much he hoped she would be in Hillsboro when +he got here. He said that a great many of her dainty ways reminded + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page82" name="page82"></a>[82]</span> + + him of his "own slip of a girl", especially the turn of her head like a +"flower on its stem." At that I got right out of bed like a jack jumping +out of a box and looked at myself in the mirror. +</p> +<p> +There is one exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You +screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get +your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born +baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the +others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter +I'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe earlier. It +frightens me to think that I've got only a few weeks more to turn from a +cabbage-rose into a lily. I won't let myself even think "luscious peach" +and "string-bean." If I do, I get warm and happy all over and let up + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page83" name="page83"></a>[83]</span> + + on myself. I try when I get hungry to think of myself in that blue +muslin dress. +</p> +<p> +I haven't been really willing before to write down in this torture +volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madam Rene +did to it—made it over into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I +wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honorable as all +women are at peculiar times. I think she understood, but she seemed not +to, and worked a miracle on it with ribbon and lace. I've put it away on +the top shelf of a closet, for it is torment to look at it. +</p> +<p> +You can just take any old recipe for a party and mix up a début for a +girl, but it takes more time to concoct one for a widow, especially if +it is for yourself. I spent all the rest of the day doing almost nothing +and thinking until I felt lightheaded. Finally I had just about given + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page84" name="page84"></a>[84]</span> + + up any idea of a blaze and had decided to leak out in general society as +quietly as my clothes would let me, when a real conflagration was +lighted inside me. +</p> +<p> +If Tom Pollard wasn't my own first cousin I would have loved him +desperately, even if I am a week older than he. He was about the +only oasis in my marriage mirage, though I don't think anybody would +think of calling him at all green. He never stopped coming to see me +occasionally, and Mr. Carter liked him. He was the first man to notice +the white ruche I sewed in the neck of my old black taffeta four or five +months ago and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner of his +eyes even right there in church, under Aunt Adeline's very elbow. He +makes love unconsciously and he flirts with his own mother. As soon as +I've made this widowhood hurdle—well, I'm + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page85" name="page85"></a>[85]</span> + + going to spend a lot of time buying tobacco with him in his Hup +runabout, which sounds as if it was named for himself. +</p> +<p> +And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my début, Tom did +it. I was sitting peaceably on my own front steps, dressed in the +summer-before-last that Judy washes and irons every day while I'm +deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the neighbors, +when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that melted into +it in tone, blew over my hedge and landed at my side. He kissed the lace +ruffle on my sleeve while I reproved him severely and settled down to +enjoy him. But I didn't have such an awfully good time as I generally do +with him. He was too full of another woman, and even a first cousin can +be an exasperation in that condition. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page86" name="page86"></a>[86]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Now, Mrs. Molly, truly did you ever see such a peach as she is?" he +demanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinions of +Miss Chester. His use of the word "peach" riled me and before I stopped +to think, I said: "She reminds me more of a string-bean." +</p> +<p> +"Now, Molly, don't be mean just because old Wade has got her out driving +behind the grays after kissing your hand under the lilacs yesterday, +which, praise be, nobody saw but little me! I'm not sore, why should you +be? Aren't you happy with me?" +</p> +<p> +I withered him with a look, or rather <i>tried</i> to wither him, for +Tom is no Mimosa bud. +</p> +<p> +"The way that girl has started in to wake up this little old town +reminds me of the feeling you get under your belt seven minutes after +you've sipped an absinthe + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page87" name="page87"></a>[87]</span> + + frappé for the first time—you are liable for a good jag and don't know +it," he continued enthusiastically. "Let's don't let the folks know that +they are off until I get everybody in a full swing of buzz over my +queen." I had never seen Tom so enthusiastic over a girl before and I +didn't like it. But I decided not to let him know that, but to get to +work putting out the Chester blaze in him and starting one on my own +account. +</p> +<p> +"That's just what I'm thinking about, Tom," I said with a smile that was +as sweet as I could make it, "and as she came with messages to me from +one of my best old friends I think I ought to do something to make her +have a good time. I was just planning a gorgeous dinner-party I want to +have for her when you came so suddenly. Do you think we could arrange it +for Tuesday evening?" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page88" name="page88"></a>[88]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Lord love us, Molly, don't knock the town down like that! Let 'em have +more than a week to get used to this white rag of a dress you've been +waving in their faces for the last few days. Go slow!" +</p> +<p> +"I've been going so slow for so many years that I've turned around and +I'm going fast backward," I said with a blush that I couldn't help. +</p> +<p> +"Help! Let my kinship protect me!" exclaimed Tom in alarm, and he +pretended to move an inch away from me. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," I said slowly and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes from +under the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long and +black to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the full +shock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flung +down the gauntlet with a high head. +</p> +<p> +"Here, Molly, here are the keys of my + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page89" name="page89"></a>[89]</span> + + office, and the spark-plug to the Hup; you can cut off a lock of my +hair, and if Judy has got a cake I'll eat it out of your hands. Shall it +be California or Nova Scotia? And I prefer <i>my</i> bride served in +light gray tweed." Tom really is adorable and I let him snuggle up just +one cousinly second, then we both laughed and began to plan what Tom was +horrible enough to call the resurrection razoo. But I kept that +delicious rose-embroidered treasure all to myself. I wanted him to meet +it entirely unprepared. +</p> +<p> +I was glad we had both got over our excitement and were sitting +decorously at several inches' distance apart when the judge drew the +grays up to the gate and we both went down to the sidewalk to ask him +and the lovely long lady to come in. They couldn't; but we stood and +talked to them long enough for Mrs. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page90" name="page90"></a>[90]</span> + + Johnson to get a good look at us from across the street and I was afraid +I would find Aunt Adeline in a faint when I went into the house. +</p> +<p> +Miss Chester was delightfully gracious about the dinner—I almost called +it the début dinner—and the expression on the judge's face when he +accepted! I was glad she was sitting sidewise to him and couldn't see. +Some women like to make other women unhappy, but I think it is best for +you to keep them blissfully unconscious until you get what you want. +Anyway, I like that girl all over and I can't see that her neck is so +absolutely impossibly flowery. However, I think she might have been a +little more considerate about discussing Alfred's London triumph over +the Italian mission. As a punishment I let Tom put his arm around my +waist as we stood watching them drive + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page91" name="page91"></a>[91]</span> + + off and then was sorry for the left gray horse that shied and came in +for a crack of the judge's irritated whip. +</p> +<p> +Then I refused to let Tom come inside the gate and he went down the +street whistling, only when he got to the purple lilac he turned and +kissed his hand to me. That, Mrs. Johnson just couldn't stand and she +came across the street immediately and called me back to the gate. +</p> +<p> +"You are tempting Providence, Molly Carter," she exclaimed decidedly. +"Don't you know Tom Pollard is nothing but a fly-up-the-creek? As a +husband he'd chew the rope and run away like a puppy the first time your +back was turned. Besides being your cousin, he's younger than you. What +do you mean?" +</p> +<p> +"He's just a week younger, Mrs. Johnson, and I wouldn't tie him for +worlds, even if I married him," I said meekly. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page92" name="page92"></a>[92]</span> + + Somehow I like Mrs. Johnson enough to be meek with her and it always +brings her to a higher point of excitement. +</p> +<p> +"Tie, nonsense; marrying is roping in with ball and chain, to my mind. +And a week between a man and a woman in their cradles gets to be fifteen +years between them and their graves. I'm going to make you the subject +of a silent prayer at the next missionary meeting, and I must go home +now to see that Sally cooks up a few of Mr. Johnson's crotchets for +supper." And she began to hurry away. +</p> +<p> +"I don't believe you'll be able to make it a 'silent' session about me, +Mrs. Johnson," I called after her, and she laughed back from her own +front gate. Marriage is the only worm in the bud of Mrs. Johnson's life, +and her laugh has a snap to it even if it is not very sugary sweet. +</p> +<p> +When I told Judy about the dinner-party + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page93" name="page93"></a>[93]</span> + + and asked her to get the yellow barber to come help her and her nephew +wait on the table she grinned such a wide grin that I was afraid of +being swallowed. She understood that Aunt Adeline wouldn't be interested +in it until I had time to tell her all about it. Anyway, she will be +going over to Springfield on a pilgrimage to see Mr. Henderson's sister +next week. She doesn't know it yet; but I do. +</p> +<p> +After that I spent all the rest of the evening in planning my +dinner-party and I had a most royal good time. I always have had lots +of company, but mostly the spend-the-day kind with relatives, or more +relatives to supper. That's what most entertaining in Hillsboro is like, +but, as I say, once in a while the old slow pacer wakes up. +</p> +<p> +I'll never forget my first real dinner-party, as the flower girl for +Caroline +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page94" name="page94"></a>[94]</span> +</p> +<p> +Evans' wedding, when she married the Chicago millionaire, from which +Hillsboro has never yet recovered. I was sixteen, felt dreadfully naked +without a tucker in my dress, and saw Alfred for the first time in +evening clothes—his first. I can hardly stand thinking about how he +looked even now. I haven't been to very many dinner-parties in my life, +but from this time on I mean to indulge in them often. Candle-light, +pretty women's shoulders, black coat sleeves, cut glass and flowers are +good ingredients for a joy-drink, and why not? +</p> +<p> +But when I got to planning about the gorgeous food I wanted to give them +all, I got into what I feel came near being a serious trouble. It was +writing down the recipe for the nesselrode pudding they make in my +family that undid me. Suddenly hunger rose up from nowhere and + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page95" name="page95"></a>[95]</span> + + gripped me by the throat, gnawed me all over like a bone, then shook me +until I was limp and unresisting. I must have astralized myself down to +the pantry, for when I became conscious I found myself in company with a +loaf of bread, a plate of butter and a huge jar of jam. +</p> +<p> +I sat down by the long table by the window and slowly prepared to enjoy +myself. I cut off four slices and buttered them to an equal thickness +and then more slowly put a long silver spoon into the jam. I even paused +to admire in Judy's mirror over the table the effect of the cascade of +lace that fell across my arm and lost itself in the blue shimmer of old +Rene's masterpiece of a negligée, then deep down I buried the spoon in +the purple sweetness. I had just lifted it high in the air when out of +the lilac-scented dark of the garden came a laugh. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page96" name="page96"></a>[96]</span> +</p> +<a name="image-0007"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-117.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-117.jpg" style="width:80%; border: 0;" +alt="'Why Molly, Molly, Molly!'" /></a> +</div> +"Why Molly, Molly, Molly!" +</center> + +<p> +"Why, Molly, Molly, Molly!" drawled that miserable man-doctor as he came +and leaned on the sill right close to my elbow. The spoon crashed on the +table and I turned and crashed into words. +</p> +<p> +"You are cruel, cruel, John Moore, and I hate you worse than I ever did +before, if that is possible. I'm hungry, hungry to death, and now you've +spoiled it all! Go away before I wet this nice crisp bread and jam with +tears into a mush I'll have to eat with a spoon. You don't know what it +is to want something sweet so bad you are willing to steal it—from +yourself!" I fairly blazed my eyes down into his and moved as far away +from him as the table would let me. +</p> +<p> +"Don't I, Molly?" he asked softly, after looking straight in my eyes for +a long minute that made me drop my head until the blue bow I had tied on +the end of my + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page97" name="page97"></a>[97]</span> + + long plait almost got into the scattered jam. Even at such a moment as +that I felt how glad old Rene would have been to have given such a nice +man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk chef-d'[oe]uvre of hers. I +was glad myself. +</p> +<p> +"Don't I, Peaches?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had +that sensation of being against something warm and great and good like +your own mother's breast and I don't know how I controlled it enough not +to—to— +</p> +<p> +"Well, have some jam then," I managed to say with a little laugh as I +turned away and picked up the silver spoon. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, I will, all of it and the bread and butter, too," he +answered, in that detestable friendly tone of voice as he drew himself +up and sat in the window. "Hustle, Peaches, if you are going to feed me, +for I'm ravenous. It took + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page98" name="page98"></a>[98]</span> + + Sam Benson's wife the longest time to have the shortest baby I ever +experienced and I haven't had any supper. You have; so I don't mind +taking it all away from you." +</p> +<p> +"Supper," I sniffed as I spread the jam on those lovely, lovely slices +of bread and thick butter that I had fixed for my own self. "That +apple-toast combination tires me so now that I forget it if I can." As I +handed him the first slice of drippy lusciousness I turned my head away. +He thought it was from the expression of that jam, but it was from his +eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Slice up the whole loaf, Peaches, and let's get on a jam jag! Come with +me just this once and forget—forget—" He didn't finish his sentence +and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything more as I fed him that +whole loaf. I found that the bite I took off of each piece I had ready +for + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page99" name="page99"></a>[99]</span> + + him when he finished with the one he had in hand satisfied me as nothing +I had ever eaten in all my life before had done, while at the same time +my nibbles soothed his conscience about robbing me. +</p> +<p> +His teeth are big and strong and white and his jaws work like machinery. +He is the strongest man I ever saw, and his gauntness is all muscle. +What is that glow a woman gets from feeding a hungry man whom she likes +with her own hands; and why should I want to be certain that he kissed +the lace on my sleeve as it brushed his face when I reached across him +to catch an inquisitive rose that I saw peeping in the window at us? +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page100" name="page100"></a>[100]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0008" id="h2H_4_0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF FIFTH +</h2> +<h3> + BLUE ABSINTHE +</h3> +<p> +"The juice of a lemon in two glasses of cold water, to be drunk +immediately on wakening!" Page eleven! I've handed myself that lemon +every morning now until I am sensitive with myself about it. If there +was ever anybody "on the water wagon" it's I, and I have to sit on the +front seat from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water I'm supposed +to consume in that time. Sometime I'm going to get mixed up and try to +drink my bath if I don't look out. I dreamed night before last that I +was taking a bath in a glass of ice-cream soda-water and trying to hide +from Doctor John behind + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page101" name="page101"></a>[101]</span> + + the dab of ice-cream that seemed inadequate for food or protection. I +haven't had even one glass for two months and I woke up in a cold +perspiration of embarrassment and raging hunger. +</p> +<p> +I don't know what I'm going to do about this book and I've got myself +into trouble about writing things besides records in it. He looked at me +this morning as coolly as if I was just anybody and said: +</p> +<p> +"I would like to see that record now, Mrs. Molly. It seems to me you are +about as slim as you want to be. How did you tip the scales last time +you weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?" +</p> +<p> +"I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds and I've got to melt and +freeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heart +question and also the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page102" name="page102"></a>[102]</span> + + question of producing this book. Wonder what he would do if I gave it to +him to read just as it is? +</p> +<p> +"How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smile +in his eyes for his mouth was purely professional. Anyway, I lowered my +lashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally: +</p> +<p> +"Sometimes it hurts." Then a cyclone happened to me. +</p> +<p> +"Come here to me a minute!" he said quickly and he turned me around and +put his head down between my shoulders and held me so tight against his +ear that I could hardly breathe. +</p> +<p> +"Expand your chest three times and breathe as deep as you can," he +ordered from against my back buttons. I expanded and breathed—pretty +quickly at that. +</p> +<a name="image-0008"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-125.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-125.jpg" style="width:70%; border: 0;" +alt="'Breathe as deep as you can'" /></a> +</div> +"Breathe as deep as you can" +</center> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page103" name="page103"></a>[103]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Now hold your breath as long as you can," he commanded, and it fitted +my mood exactly to do so. +</p> +<p> +"Can't find anything," he said at last, letting me go and looking +carefully at my face. His eyes were all anxiety; and I liked it. "When +does it hurt you and how?" he asked anxiously. +</p> +<p> +"Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stop +myself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got white +for a minute and just looked at me as if I was a bug stuck on a pin, +then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't understand you were joking," he said quietly. +</p> +<p> +That maddened me and I would have done anything to make him think I was +not the foolish thing he evidently had classified me as being. I +snatched at my + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page104" name="page104"></a>[104]</span> + + mind and shook out a mixture of truth and lies that fooled even myself +and gave them to him, looking straight in his face. I would have cracked +all the ten commandments to save myself from his contempt. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I <i>am</i> lonesome. And worse than +being lonesome, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict +of Mr. Carter and gone on to church meetings with Aunt Adeline and let +myself be fat and respectable; but I haven't got the character. You +thought I went to town to buy a monument, and I didn't; I bought enough +clothes for two brides, and now I'm scared to wear 'em, and I don't know +what you'll think when you see my bank-book. Everybody is talking about +me and that dinner-party Tuesday night, and Aunt Adeline says she can't +live in a + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page105" name="page105"></a>[105]</span> + + house of mourning so desecrated any longer; she's going back to the +cottage. Aunt Bettie Pollard says that if I want to get married I ought +to do it to Mr. Wilson Graves because of the seven children and then +everybody would be so relieved that they are taken care of that they +would forget that Mr. Carter hasn't been dead quite one year yet. Mrs. +Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward to you. I +can't help Judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's sitting on my front +steps night and day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away and murder +him. I am perfectly miserable and I'm—" +</p> +<p> +"Now that'll do, Molly, just hush for a half-minute and let me talk to +you," said Doctor John as he took my hand in his and drew me near him. +"No wonder your heart hurts if it has got all that load + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page106" name="page106"></a>[106]</span> + + of trouble on it and well just get a little of that 'scare' off. You put +yourself in my hands and you are to do just as I tell you, and I +say—forget it! Come with me while I make a call. It is a long drive and +I'm—I'm lonesome sometimes myself." +</p> +<p> +I saw the worst was over and I breathed freely again, but I had talked +so much truth in that fiction that I felt just as I said I did, which is +a slightly unnatural feeling for a woman. There was nothing for it but +to go with him, and I wanted to most awfully. +</p> +<p> +To my dying day I'll never forget that little house, way out on the Cane +Run Pike, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms, +but they were clean and quiet and a girl with the sweetest face I ever +saw lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride and a tiny, tiny + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page107" name="page107"></a>[107]</span> + + little bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red with +embarrassment and anxiety. +</p> +<p> +"She's all right to-day, but she worries because she don't think I can +tend to the baby right," he said; and he did look helpless. "Her mother +had to go home for two days, but is coming to-morrow. I dasn't undress +and wash the youngster myself. It won't hurt him to stay bundled up +until granny comes, will it, Doc?" +</p> +<p> +"Not a bit," answered Doctor John in his big comforting voice. +</p> +<p> +But I looked at the girl and I understood her. She wanted that baby +clean and fresh even if it was just five days old, and I felt all of a +sudden terribly capable. I picked up the bundle and went into the other +room with it where a kettle was boiling on the stove and a large bucket +by the door. I found things by just + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page108" name="page108"></a>[108]</span> + + a glance from her, and the hour I spent with that small baby was one of +the most delicious of all my life. I never was left entirely to myself +with one before and I did all I wanted to this one, guided by instinct +and desire. He slept right through and was the darlingest thing I ever +saw when I laid him back on the bed by her. I never looked in Doctor +John's direction once, though I felt him all the time. +</p> +<p> +But on the way home I gave myself the surprise of my life! Suddenly +I turned my face against his sleeve and cried as I never had before. +I felt safe, for it is a cliff road and he had to drive carefully. +However, he managed to press that one arm against my cheek in a way that +comforted me into stopping when I saw we were near town. I got out of +the car at the garage and walked away through the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page109" name="page109"></a>[109]</span> + + garden home without looking in his direction at all. I never seem to be +able to look at him as I do at other people. We hadn't spoken two words +since we had left the little house in the woods with that happy-faced +girl in it. He has more sense than just a man. +</p> +<p> +It was almost dusk and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull the dirt +closer around some of the bachelor's-buttons that had "popped" the +ground some weeks ago. Thinking about them made me regain my spirits and +I went on in the house to be scolded for whatever Aunt Adeline had +thought up while I was gone to do it to me about. Judy told me with her +broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper +and I sat down on the steps with a sigh of relief. +</p> +<p> +Some days are like tin cocoanut graters + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page110" name="page110"></a>[110]</span> + + that everybody uses to grate you against and this was one for me. For an +hour I sat and grated my own self against Alfred's letter that had come +in the morning. I realized that I would just have to come to some sort +of decision about what I was going to do, for he wrote that he was to +sail in a day or two, and ships do travel so fast these days. +</p> +<p> +I love him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the most +wonderful life in the world and no woman could help being proud to +accept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confess +to Doctor John. I can't go on living this way any longer. Ruth Chester +has made me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never +and—quick. I know now that she loves him, and she ought to have her +show if I don't want him. The way she idolizes + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page111" name="page111"></a>[111]</span> + + and idealizes him is a marvel of womanly stupidity. +</p> +<p> +Some women like to collect men's hearts and hide them away from other +women on cold storage and the helpless things can't help themselves. +</p> +<p> +I have contempt for that sort of butcher, and I love Ruth! +</p> +<p> +It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in +Alfred's—and <i>decide</i>. If not Alfred, what then? +</p> +<p> +First—no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-minded +enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I prefer +to suffer at the hands of some cruel man and trust to beguiling him into +doing just as I say. I like men, can't help it, and want one for my own. +I don't count poor Mr. Carter. +</p> +<p> +Second—if not Alfred, who? Judge + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page112" name="page112"></a>[112]</span> + + Wade is so delightful that I flutter at the thought, but his mother is +Aunt Adeline's own best friend and they have ideas in common. She is so +religious that living with her would be like having the sacrament for +daily bread. Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw +such eyes! The girl he wanted to marry died of tuberculosis and he wears +a locket with her in it yet. I'd like to reward him for such +faithfulness with a nice husky wife to wear instead of the locket. But +then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Chester and realize how +faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast—my hips have almost +all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to +handle if I want anything left at all for him to come home to. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page113" name="page113"></a>[113]</span> +</p> +<p> +In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. You have +to say "don't" to him all the time, but what woman doesn't like a little +impertinence once in a while? I flavor all Tom's dare-devil kisses with +kinship when I feed them to my conscience, and I truly try to make him +be serious about the important things in life like going to church with +his mother and working all day, even if he is rich. I wish he wasn't so +near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Chester's way again! One of +the things that keeps the devil so busy is taking helpless widows to the +heights of knowledge and showing them kingdoms of men that girls never +dream even exist. If all women could have been born with widow-eyes, +things would run much more smoothly along the marriage and +giving-in-marriage + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page114" name="page114"></a>[114]</span> + + line. And the poor men are most of them as ignorant as girls about what +to do. +</p> +<p> +I suppose I really would be doing a righteous thing to marry Mr. Graves, +and I would adore all those children to start with, but I know Billy +wouldn't get on with them at all. I can't even consider it on his +account, but I'll let the nice old chap come on for a few times more to +see me, for he really is interesting and we have suffered things in +common. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did. +I'd like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn't be happy, that +settles it, and I don't know how good his boys are. I couldn't have +Billy corrupted. +</p> +<p> +And so, as there is nobody else exactly suitable in town, it all simmers +down to one or the other of these or Alfred. In + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page115" name="page115"></a>[115]</span> + + my heart I knew that I couldn't hesitate a minute—and in the flash of a +second I <i>decided</i>. Of course I love Alfred and I'll take him +gladly and be the wife he has waited for all these six lonely years. +I'll make everything up to him if I have to diet to keep thin for him +the rest of my life. I likely will have that very thing to do and I get +weak at the idea. Before I burn this book I'll have to copy it all out +and be chained to it for life. At the thought my heart dropped like a +sinker to my toes; but I hauled it up to its normal place with picturing +to myself how Alfred would look when he saw me in that old blue muslin +done over into a Rene wonder. However, old heart would show a strange +propensity for sinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. +Tears were even coming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the +fence + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page116" name="page116"></a>[116]</span> + + and picked me and the heart up together and put us into an adventure of +the first water. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a +dandy, strolling, gipsy band up at the hotel; the dining-room floor is +all waxed and I'm asking for the first dance with the young and radiant +Mrs. Carter. Get into a glad rag and don't keep me waiting." +</p> +<p> +"Tom," I gasped! +</p> +<p> +"Oh, be a sport, Moll, and don't take water! You said you would wake up +this town, and now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I +had my arms around you to music and I'm not going to wait any longer. +Everybody is there and they can't all dance with Miss Chester." +</p> +<p> +That settled it—I couldn't let a visiting girl be danced to death. Of +course I had planned to make a dignified début under + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page117" name="page117"></a>[117]</span> + + my own roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital +rosewood, silver and mahogany, as a widow should, but <i>duty</i> called +me to de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu dance at the +little town hotel. And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to +some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never do anything by +halves. +</p> +<p> +In that—that—trousseau old Rene had made me there was one, what she +called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the +check it called for, a one and two ciphers back of it. It was of linen +as sheer as a cobweb, real lace and tiny delicious incrustations of +embroidery. It fitted in lines that melted into curves, had enticements +in the shape of a long sash and a dangerous breast-knot of shimmery +blue, the color of my eyes, and I looked new-born in it. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page118" name="page118"></a>[118]</span> +</p> +<p> +I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about rats and things +in my hair, now that they are out of style, for I've got lots of my own +left in consequence of not wearing other peoples'. It clings and coils +to my head just any old way that looks as if I had spent an hour on it. +That made me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over +the time he gave me. +</p> +<p> +I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tom +to turn out the light for me, as Judy had gone. +</p> +<p> +I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let +Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At +first it stunned him,—and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom +Pollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long and I only succeeded in +suppressing him after he had landed two + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page119" name="page119"></a>[119]</span> + + kisses on my shoulder, one on my hair and one on the back of my neck. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you +are one lovely dream. Your shoulders are flushed velvet, your cheeks are +peaches under cream, your eyes are blue absinthe and your mouth a red +devil. Come on before I get drunk looking at you." I didn't know whether +I liked that or not and turned down the light quickly myself and went to +the gate hurriedly. Tom laughed and behaved himself. +</p> +<a name="image-0009"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-145.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-145.jpg" style="width:70%; border: 0;" +alt="'Molly, you are one lovely dream'" /></a> +</div> +"Molly, you are one lovely dream" +</center> + +<p> +Everybody in town was up to the hotel and everybody was nice to me, +girls and all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town and +they were all in full flower. Most of the men were college boys home for +vacation, and while they are a few years younger than me, I have been +friends with them for always and + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page120" name="page120"></a>[120]</span> + + they know how I dance. I didn't even get near enough to the wall to know +it was there, though I was conscious of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson +sitting on it at one end of the room, and every time I passed them I +flirted with them until I won a smile from them both. I wish I could be +sure of hearing Mrs. Johnson tell Aunt Adeline all about it. +</p> +<p> +And it was well I did come to save Ruth Chester from a dancing death, +for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down. +I felt sorry for Tom, for when he danced with me he could see her, and +when he danced with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I +verily believe it was from being really rattled that he asked little Pet +Buford to dance with him—by mistake as it were. After that if Pet +breathed a single strain of music out of + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page121" name="page121"></a>[121]</span> + + his arms I didn't see it. I knew that gone expression on his face and it +made me feel so lonesome that I was more gracious to the judge than was +exactly safe. He dances just as magnificently as he exists in life and +it is a kind of ceremonial to do it with him. The boys all wore white +flannels, and most of the men, but the judge was as formally dressed as +he would have been in mid-winter, and I wondered if Alfred could be half +as distinguished to look at. I suppose my eyes must have been telling on +me about how grand I thought he was looking because he—well, I was +rather relieved when one of the boys took me out of his arms for a good, +long, swinging two-step. +</p> +<p> +And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beat +time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Chester +and I exchanged little + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page122" name="page122"></a>[122]</span> + + laughs and scraps of conversation in between times and I fell deeper and +deeper in love with her. Every pound I have melted and frozen and +starved off me has brought me nearer to her and I just <i>can't</i> +think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days now. I put the +thought from me and so let myself swing out into thoughtlessness with +one of the boys. And after that I really didn't know with whom I was +dancing, I began to get so intoxicated with it all. +</p> +<p> +I never heard musicians play better or get more of the spirit of dance +in their music than those did to-night. They had just given us the most +lovely swinging things, one after another, when suddenly they all +stopped and the leader drew his bow across his violin. Never in all my +life have I ever heard anything like the call of that waltz from that +gipsy's + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page123" name="page123"></a>[123]</span> + + strings. It laughed you a signal and you felt yourself follow the first +strain. +</p> +<p> +Just then somebody happened to take me from whomever I was with and I +caught step and glided off the universe. The strongest arms that I had +felt that evening—or ever—held me and I didn't have to look up to see +who it was. I don't know why I knew but I did. I wasn't clasped so very +close to him or left to float by myself an inch; I was just a part of +him like the arms themselves or the hand that mine molded into. And +while that wonder-music teased and cajoled and mocked and rocked and +sobbed and throbbed, I laid my cheek against his coat sleeve and gave +myself away, I didn't care to whom. +</p> +<p> +Again that strange sense of some wonderful eternal good came to me and I +found myself humming Billy's little + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page124" name="page124"></a>[124]</span> + + "soul to keep" prayer against the doctor's sleeve to the tune of that +magic waltz. I had never danced with him before, of course, but I felt +as if I had been doing it always, and I melted in his arms as that baby +had wilted to his mother out in the cabin a few hours earlier and I +don't see how such happiness as that <i>could</i> stop. But with a soft +entreating wail the music came to an end and there the doctor was, +smiling down into my face with his whimsical friendly smile that woke me +up all over. +</p> +<p> +"Somebody has stolen a rose from the Carter garden and brought it to the +dance," he said with a laugh that was for me alone. +</p> +<p> +"No," I flashed back, "a string-bean." And with that I danced off again +with the judge, while the doctor disappeared through the door, and I +heard the chuck + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page125" name="page125"></a>[125]</span> + + of his car as it whirled away. He had just stopped in for a second to +see the fun and God had given me that gipsy waltz with him, because He +knew I needed something like that in my life to keep for always. +</p> +<p> +This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred, +though he doesn't know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that life +for us is going to be brilliant and gay and full of laughter and love. +</p> +<p> +I haven't had Billy in my arms to-day and I don't know how I shall ever +get myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place on +my breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big God +understands the women folk that He makes, even if they don't understand +themselves. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page126" name="page126"></a>[126]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0009" id="h2H_4_0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF SIXTH +</h2> +<h3> + THE RESURRECTION RAZOO +</h3> +<p> +Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the +corners and have good times all by themselves, but in Hillsboro, +Tennessee, it is not that way. Everybody that is not invited helps the +hostess get ready and have nice things for the others, and sometimes I +think they really have the best time of all. +</p> +<p> +This morning Aunt Bettie came up my front steps before breakfast with a +large basketful of things for my dinner and I wondered what I would have +collected to be served to those people by the time all my neighbors had +made their prize + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page127" name="page127"></a>[127]</span> + + contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and Judy a half-hour to unpack her +things and set them in the refrigerator and on the pantry shelves. One +was a plump fruit-cake that had been keeping company in a tight box with +a sponge soaked in sherry for ever since New Year's. It was ripe, or +smelled so. It made me gnaw under my belt. +</p> +<p> +A little later Judy was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been +simmered in port and larded with egg dressing, when Mrs. Johnson came in +and began to unpack her basket, which was mostly bottles of things she +said she used to "stick" food. The ginger-colored barber got the run of +them before the dinner was over and got badly stuck, so Judy says. +That's what made him make the mistake. +</p> +<p> +I had planned to have a lot of strange + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page128" name="page128"></a>[128]</span> + + food and had ordered some things up from a caterer in the city, but I +telephoned the express man not to deliver them until the next day, even +if they did spoil. How could I use soft shelled crabs when Mrs. Wade had +sent me word that she was going to bake some brook trout by a recipe of +the judge's grandmother's? Mrs. Hampton Buford had let me know about two +fat little summer turkeys she was going to stuff with corn-pone and +green sage, and <i>fillet mignon</i> seemed foolish eating beside them. +But when the little bit of a baby pig, roasted whole with an apple in +its mouth, looking too frisky and innocent for worlds with his little +baked tail curled up in the air, arrived from Mrs. Caruthers Cain, I +went out into the garden and laughed at the idea of having spent money +for lobsters, to + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page129" name="page129"></a>[129]</span> + + be shipped alive and to be served broiled in their own shells. +</p> +<p> +When I got back in the kitchen things were well under way, everything +smelling grand, and Aunt Bettie in full swing matching up my dinner +guests. +</p> +<p> +"Nobody in this town could suit me better than Pet Buford for a +daughter-in-law and I believe I'll have all the east rooms done over in +blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her +blue eyes and corn silk hair," she was saying as she cut orange peel +into strips. +</p> +<p> +"You've planned the refurnishing of that east wing to suit the style of +nearly every girl in Hillsboro since Tom put on long trousers, Bettie +Pollard, and they are just as they have been for fifteen years since you +did over the whole + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page130" name="page130"></a>[130]</span> + + house," said Mrs. Johnson as she poured a wine-glass half full from one +bottle and added a tablespoonful from another. +</p> +<p> +"Well, I think he is really interested now from the way he danced most +of his time with her down at the hotel the other night, and I have hopes +I never had before. Now, Molly, do put him between you and her, sort of +cornered, so he can't even <i>see</i> Ruth Chester. She is too old for +him." And Tom's mother looked at me over the orange peel as to a +confederate. +</p> +<p> +"Humph, I'd like to see you or Molly or any woman 'corner' Tom Pollard," +said Mrs. Johnson with a wry smile as she tasted the concoction in the +wine-glass. +</p> +<p> +"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and +the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page131" name="page131"></a>[131]</span> + + I said regretfully. I always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my +relationship on Aunt Bettie, so she won't notice our flirtation. +</p> +<p> +"I'd put John Moore at the head of the table if I were you, Molly +Carter, because he's about the only man you've invited that has got any +sense left since you and that Chester girl took to visiting Hillsboro. +He's a host of steadiness in himself and the way he ignores all you +women, who would run after him if he would let you, shows what he is. He +has my full confidence," and as she delivered herself of this judgment +of Doctor John, Mrs. Johnson drove in all the corks tight and began to +pound spice. +</p> +<p> +"He's not out of the widower-woods yet, Caroline," said Aunt Bettie with +her most speculative smile. "I have about decided on him for Ruth since +the judge + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page132" name="page132"></a>[132]</span> + + has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does. But don't +you all say a word, for John's mighty timid, and I don't believe, in +spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. If he had had +he'd have tried a set-to with you, Molly, like all the rest of the shy +birds in town. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a patient at the +end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the dosing of them, +too. Just the other day—dearie me, Judy, what has boiled over now?" And +in the excitement that ensued I escaped to the garden. +</p> +<p> +Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Doctor John; he doesn't see a woman, and +there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realize +that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no +reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page133" name="page133"></a>[133]</span> + + on that account. Still I don't see why Ruth Chester should have her head +literally thrown against that stone wall and I wish Aunt Bettie +wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-*make him +and it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the +roots of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so +loud I could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something. +And it was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me. +</p> +<p> +It had a surprise in it and I sat back on the grass and read it with my +heart beating like a trip-hammer. He had sailed the day he had posted it +and he was due to arrive in New York almost as soon as it did, just any +hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from New York immediately to +Hillsboro" he had written + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page134" name="page134"></a>[134]</span> + + in words that fairly sung themselves off the paper. I was frightened—so +frightened that the letter shook in my hands, and with only the thought +of being sure that I might be alone for a few minutes with it, I fled to +the garret. +</p> +<p> +Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no +wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the +cold paper was transubstantiated into a heart that beat against mine and +I bowed my head over it as I wet it with tears. I knew then that I had +taken his coming back lightly; had fussed over it and been silly-proud +of it; while not <i>really</i> caring at all. All that awful melting +away of my fatness seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; +he wouldn't have minded if I weighed five hundred, I felt sure. He loved +me—really, really, really; and I + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page135" name="page135"></a>[135]</span> + + had sat and weighed him with a lot of men who were nothing more than +amused by my flightiness, or taken with my beauty, and who wouldn't have +known such love if it were shown to them through a telescope. +</p> +<a name="image-0010"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-163.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-163.jpg" style="width:85%; border: 0;" +alt="His letters were all there and his photographs" /></a> +</div> +His letters were all there and his photographs +</center> + +<p> +I reached into a trunk that stood right beside me and took out a box +that I hadn't looked into for years. His letters were all there and his +photographs that were as handsome as the young god of love himself. I +could hardly see them through my tears, but I knew that they were dim in +places with being cried over when I had put them away years ago after +Aunt Adeline decided that I was to be married. I kissed the poor +little-girl cry-spots; and with that a perfect flood of tears rose to my +eyes—but they didn't fall, for there, right in front of me, stood a +more woe-stricken human being than + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page136" name="page136"></a>[136]</span> + + I could possibly be, if I judged by appearances. +</p> +<p> +"Molly, Molly," gulped Billy, "I am so sick I'm going to die here on the +floor," and he sank into my arms. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Billy, what is the matter?" I gasped and gave him a little +terrified shake. +</p> +<p> +"Mamie Johnson did it—poked her finger down her throat and mine, too," +he wailed against my breast. "We was full of things folks gived us to +eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers +it would all come up and we would have room for some more then. She did +it and I'm going to die dead—dead!" +</p> +<p> +"No, no, lover; you'll be all right in a second. Stay quiet here in your +Molly's lap and you will be well in just a few + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page137" name="page137"></a>[137]</span> + + minutes," I said with a smile I hid in his yellow mop as I kissed the +drake-tail kiss-spot. "Where's Mamie?" I thought to ask with the +greatest apprehension. +</p> +<p> +"In the garden eating cup-cake Judy baked hot for both of us. She didn't +frow up as much as I did—or maybe more." He answered, snuggling close +and much comforted. +</p> +<p> +"Don't ever, ever do that again, Billy," I said, giving him both a hug +and a shake. "It's piggy to eat more than you can hold and then still +want more. What would your father say?" +</p> +<p> +"Doc ain't no good and I don't care what he says," answered Billy with +spirit. "He don't play no more and he don't laugh no more and he don't +eat no more hardly, too. I ain't a-going to live in that house with him +more'n two days longer. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page138" name="page138"></a>[138]</span> + + I want to come over and sleep in your bed with blue ribbons on the posts +and have you to play with me, Molly." +</p> +<p> +"Don't say that, lover, ever again," I said as I bent over him. "Your +father is the best man in the world, and you must never, never leave +him." +</p> +<p> +"I bet I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy +decidedly. "Say, do you reckon Mamie saved even a little piece of that +cake? I 'spect I had better go see," and he slipped out of my arms and +was gone before I could hold him. +</p> +<p> +It <i>is</i> a lonely house across the garden with the big and the tiny +man in it all by themselves! And tears, from another corner of my heart +entirely, rose to my eyes at the thought, but they, too, never fell, for +I heard Mrs. Johnson calling and I had to run down quick and see + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page139" name="page139"></a>[139]</span> + + what new delicacy had arrived for my party. +</p> +<p> +Uncle Thomas Pollard had sent me a quart bottle of his private stock +with the message to put the mint to soak just one hour and twenty +minutes before the men came. I made room for it beside the case of +champagne on the cellar shelf and wondered how they would stand it all. +We don't have champagne often in Hillsboro, and when we do nobody seems +to want to cut down on the juleps, consequently—well, nothing ever +really happens! However, it must have been the champagne that made Tom +act as he did. He was never like that before. +</p> +<p> +Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner as I did for the +dance, and when I was through I stood before the mirror and looked at +myself a long time. I was very tall and slim and—well, +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page140" name="page140"></a>[140]</span> +</p> +<p> +I suppose I might say regal in that amethyst crêpe with the soft +rose-point, but I looked to myself about the eyes as I had been doing +for years when I put on my Sunday clothes to go to church with Mr. +Carter. He was always in a hurry and I didn't care about looking at +myself in the mirror anyway; nobody else ever looked at me and what was +the use? And to-night that Rene triumph made me feel no different from +one of Miss Hettie Primm's conceptions that I had been wearing for ages +with indifference and total lack of style. I shrugged my shoulder almost +out of the dress with what I thought was sadness, though it felt a +trifle like temper, too, and went on down into the garden to see if any +of my flowers had a cheer-up message for me. +</p> +<p> +But it was a bored garden I stepped into just as the last purple flush +of day + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page141" name="page141"></a>[141]</span> + + was being drunk down by the night. The tall white lilies laid their +heads over on my breast and went to sleep before I had said a word to +them, and the nasturtiums snarled around my feet until they got my +slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-button stood up +stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew, and +tipped me an impertinent wink. I felt cheered at the sight of them and +bent down to gather a bunch of them to wear, even if they did swear at +my amethyst draperies, when an amused smile that was done out loud came +from the path just behind me. +</p> +<p> +"Don't gather them all to-night, Mrs. Peaches," said Doctor John +teasingly, as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for—for the others." +I waked up in a half-second and so did all those prying flowers, I felt +sure. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page142" name="page142"></a>[142]</span> +</p> +<p> +"I was just gathering them for place bouquets for—for the girls," I +said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him. Why it is that the +minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and +as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross is more than I +can say, but I do. I never possibly know how to answer any remark that +he may happen to make unless it is something that makes me lose my +temper. His next remark was the usual spark. +</p> +<p> +"Better give them the run of the garden—alone, Mrs. Molly. No show for +'em unless you do," he said laughingly, "or the buttons' either," he +added under his breath so I could just hear it. I wish Mrs. Johnson +could have heard how soft his voice lingered over that little +half-sentence. She is so experienced she + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page143" name="page143"></a>[143]</span> + + could have told me if it meant—but of course he isn't like other men! +</p> +<p> +There are lots of questions I'm going to ask Alfred after I'm married to +him—Mr. Carter didn't know anything about anything and I never cared to +ask him, but I wonder how you know when— +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you Molly," came a hail in Tom's voice from the gate, just as I was +making up my mind to try and think up something to wither the doctor +with, and he and Ruth Chester came up the front walk to meet us. I +wondered why I was having a party in my house when being alone in my +garden with just a neighbor was so much more fun, but I had to begin to +enjoy myself right off, for in a few minutes all the rest came. +</p> +<p> +I don't think I ever saw my house look so lovely before. Mrs. Johnson +had put all the flowers out of hers and Mrs. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page144" name="page144"></a>[144]</span> + + Cain's garden all over everything and the table was a mass of soft pink +roses that were shedding perfume and nodding at one another in their +most society manner. There is no glimmer in the world like that which +comes from really old polished silver and rosewood and mahogany, and +one's great-great-grandmother's hand-woven linen feels like oriental +silk across one's knees. +</p> +<p> +Suddenly I felt very stately and grand-damey and responsible as I looked +at them all across the roses and sparkling glasses. They were lovely +women, all of them, and could such men be found anywhere else in the +world? When I left them all to go out into the big universe to meet the +distinctions that I knew my husband would have for me, would I sit at +salt with people who loved me like this? I saw Pet Buford say something + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page145" name="page145"></a>[145]</span> + + to Tom about me that I know was lovely from the way he smiled at me; and +the judge's eyes were a full cup for any woman to have offered her. Then +in a flash all the love-fragrance seemed to go to my head—Tom's mixing +of that julep had been skilful, too—and tears rose to my eyes, and +there I might have been crying at my own party if I hadn't felt a strong +warm hand laid on mine as it rested on my lap and Doctor John's kind +voice teased into my ears: "Steady, Mrs. Peaches, there's the loving-cup +to come yet," he whispered. I hated him, but held on to his thumb tight +for half a minute. He didn't know what the matter really was, but he +understood what I needed. He always does. +</p> +<p> +And after that everybody had a good time, the ginger barber and Judy as +much as anybody, and I could see Aunt Bettie + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page146" name="page146"></a>[146]</span> + + and Mrs. Johnson peeping in the pantry door, having the time of their +lives, too. +</p> +<p> +That dinner was going like an airship on a high wind, when something +happened to tangle its tail feathers and I can hardly write it for +trembling yet. It was a simple little blue telegram, but it might have +been nitro-glycerin on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but +read it out +loud. It said: +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "Landed this noon. Have I your permission to come to Hillsboro + immediately? Answer. Alfred." +</p> +<p> +It was dreadful! Nobody said a word and Tom laid the telegram right down +in his plate, where it immediately began to soak up the dressing of his +salad. He + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page147" name="page147"></a>[147]</span> + + was so white and shaky that Pet looked at him in amazement, and then I +am sure she had the good sense to find his hand under the cloth and hold +it, for his shoulder hovered against hers and the color came back to his +face as he smiled down at her. I don't believe I'll ever get the courage +to look at Tom again until he marries Pet, which he'll do now, I feel +sure. +</p> +<p> +And as for the judge and Ruth Chester, I was glad they were sitting +beside each other, for I could avoid that side of the table with my eyes +until I had steadied myself a few seconds at least. The surprise made +the others I had been dining seem statues from the stone age, and only +Mr. Graves' fork failed to hang fire. His appetite is as strong as his +nerves and Delia Hawes looked at his composure with the relief plain in +her eyes. Henrietta's + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page148" name="page148"></a>[148]</span> + + smile in the judge's direction was doubtful. But they were not all my +lovers and why that awful silence? +</p> +<p> +I couldn't say a word, and I am sure I don't know what I would have done +if it hadn't been for the doctor. He leaned forward and his deep eyes +came out in their wonderful way and seemed to collect every pair of eyes +at the table, even the most astounded, as he raised his glass. We all +held our breaths and waited for him to speak. +</p> +<p> +"No wonder we are all stricken dumb at Mrs. Carter's telegram," he said +in his deep voice that commands everybody and everything, even the +terrors of birth and death. "The whole town will be paralyzed at the +news that its most distinguished citizen is only going to give them two +days to get ready to receive him. I can see the panic the brass band +will have + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page149" name="page149"></a>[149]</span> + + now getting the brass shined up, and I want to be the one to tell Mayor +Pollard myself, so as to suggest to him to have at least a two-hour +speech of welcome to hand out at the train. We'll make it one 'hot time' +for him when he lands in the old town, and here's to him, God bless him. +Every glass high!" They all drank, and I suppose it helped them. I wish +I could have drained a quart, but I couldn't swallow a sip, though I did +a good stunt of pretending. +</p> +<a name="image-0011"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-179.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-179.jpg" style="width:80%; border: 0;" +alt="'Every glass high'" /></a> +</div> +"Every glass high" +</center> + +<p> +The rest of this evening has paid me off for every sin I have ever +committed or am ever going to commit. Tom took Pet home early and I hope +they walked in the moonlight for hours. Tom is the kind of man that any +pretty girl who is loving enough in the moonlight could comfort for +anything. I'm not at all worried about him, but— +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page150" name="page150"></a>[150]</span> +</p> +<p> +The hour I sat on my front steps and talked to Judge Wade must have +brought gray hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. +Ruth Chester had said good-by with the loveliest haunted look in her +great dark eyes and I had felt as if I had killed something that was +alive and that I hadn't killed it enough. Doctor John had been called +from his coffee to a patient and had gone with just a friendly word of +good night, and the others had at last left the judge and me alone—also +in the moonlight, which I wished in my heart somebody would put out. +</p> +<p> +They say among the lawyers that it is a good thing that Benton Wade is +on the bench, for it is no use to try a case against him when he has the +handling of a jury. He just looks them in the face and tells them how to +vote. To-night he looked + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page151" name="page151"></a>[151]</span> + + me in the face and told me how to marry, and I'm not sure yet that I +won't do as he says. Of course I'm in love with Alfred, but if he wants +me he had better get me away quick before the judge makes all his +arrangements. A woman loves to be courted with poems and flowers and +deference, but she's mighty apt to marry the man who says, "Don't argue, +but put on your bonnet and come with me." The fact that it was too late +to get into the clerk's office saved me to-night, but in two days— +</p> +<p> +Oh, I'm crying, crying in my heart, which is worse than in my eyes, as I +sit and look across my garden, where the cold moon is hanging low over +the tall trees behind the doctor's house and his light in his room is +burning warm and bright. They are right; <i>he</i> doesn't care if I am +going away for ever with Alfred. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page152" name="page152"></a>[152]</span> + + His quick toast to him and the lovely warm look he poured over poor +frightened me at his side, as he drank his champagne, told me that once +and for all. Still we have been so close together over his baby and I +have grown so dependent on him for so many things that it cuts into me +like a hot knife that he shouldn't care if he lost me—even for a +neighbor. I shouldn't mind not having <i>any</i> husband if I could +always live close by him and Billy like this, and if I married Judge +Wade I could at least have him for a family physician. <i>No—I don't +like that</i>! Of course I'm going with Alfred now that an accident has +made me announce the fact to the whole town before he even knows it +himself, but wherever I go that light in the room with that lonely man +is going to burn in my heart. Hope it will throw a glow over Alfred! +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page153" name="page153"></a>[153]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0010" id="h2H_4_0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF SEVENTH +</h2> +<h3> + DASHED! +</h3> +<p> +I do believe God gave that wise angel charge concerning me lest I get +dashed, but I just got dashed anyway, and its my own fault, not the +angel's. I have suffered this day until I want to lay my face down +against the hem of His garment and wait in the dust for Him to pick me +up. I shall never be able to do it myself, and how He's going to do it I +can't see, but He will. +</p> +<p> +That dinner-party last night was bad enough, but to-day's been worse. I +didn't sleep until long after daylight and then Judy came in before +eight o'clock with a letter for me that looked like a state document. + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page154" name="page154"></a>[154]</span> + + I felt in my trembly bones that it was some sort of summons affair from +Judge Wade; and it was. I looked into the first paragraph and then +decided that I had better get up and dress and have a cup of coffee and +a single egg before I tried to read it. +</p> +<p> +Incidental to my bath and dressing, I weighed and found that I had lost +all four of those last surplus pounds and two more in three days. Those +two extra pounds might be construed to prove love, but exactly on whom +I was utterly unprepared to say. I didn't even enjoy the thinness, but +took a kind of already-married look in my glass and tried to slip the +egg past my bored lips and get myself to chew it down. It was work; and +then I took up the judge's letter, which also was work and more of it. +</p> +<p> +He started in at the beginning of + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page155" name="page155"></a>[155]</span> + + everything, that is at the beginning of the tuberculosis girl and I +cried over the pages of her as if she had been my own sister. At the +tenth page we buried her and took up Alfred and I must say I saw a new +Alfred in the judge's bouquet-strewn appreciation of him, but I didn't +want him as bad as I had the day before when I read his own new and old +letters, and cried over his old photographs. I suppose that was the +result of some of what the judge manages the juries with. He'd be apt to +use it on a woman and she wouldn't find out about it until it was too +late to be anything but mad. Still when he began on me at page sixteen I +felt a little better, though I didn't know myself any better than I did +Alfred when I got to page twenty. +</p> +<p> +What I am, is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart than + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page156" name="page156"></a>[156]</span> + + she can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth. I'm +not any star in a rose-colored sky, and I don't want to inspire anybody; +it's too much of a job. I want to be a healthy happy woman and a wife to +a man who can inspire himself and manage me. I want to marry a thin man +and have from five to ten thin children, and when I get to be thirty I +want my husband to want me to be as fat as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. +An inspiration couldn't be fat and I'm always in danger from hot muffins +and chicken gravy. However, if I should undertake to be all the things +Judge Wade said in that letter he wanted me to be to him, I should soon +be skin and bones from mental and physical exercise. Still, he does live +in Hillsboro and I won't let myself know how my heart aches at the +thought of leaving my home—and other + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page157" name="page157"></a>[157]</span> + + things. It's up in my throat and I seem always to be swallowing it, the +last few days. +</p> +<p> +All the men who write me letters seem to get themselves wound up into a +skyrocket and then let themselves explode in the last paragraph and it +always upsets my nerves. I was just about to begin to cry again over the +last words of the judge when the only bright spot in the day so far +suddenly happened. Pet Buford blew in with the pinkest cheeks and the +brightest eyes I had seen since I looked in the mirror the night of the +dance. She was in an awful hurry. +</p> +<p> +"Molly, dear," she said, with her words literally falling over +themselves, "Tom says you'll give us some of your dinner left-overs to +take for lunch in the Hup, for we are going way out to Wayne County to +see some awfully fine tobacco + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page158" name="page158"></a>[158]</span> + + he has heard is there. I don't want to ask mother, for she won't let me +go; and his mother, if he asked her, will begin to talk about us. Tom +said come to you and you would understand and fix it quick. He said kiss +you for him and tell you he said 'Come on in, the water's fine.' Isn't +he a joke?" And we kissed and laughed and packed a basket, and kissed +and laughed again for good-by. I felt amused and happy for a few +minutes—and also deserted. It's a very good thing for a woman's conceit +to find out how many of her lovers are just make-believes. I may have +needed Tom's deflection. +</p> +<p> +Anyway, I don't know when I ever was so glad to see anybody as I was +when Mrs. Johnson came in the front door. A woman who has proved to her +own satisfaction that marriage is a failure is at times a great tonic to +other women. I + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page159" name="page159"></a>[159]</span> + + needed a tonic badly this morning and I got it. +</p> +<p> +"Well, from all my long experience, Molly," she said as she seated +herself and began to hem a dish-towel with long steady stabs, "husbands +are just stick candy in different jars. They may look a little +different, but they all taste alike and you soon get tired of them. In +two months you won't know the difference in being married to Al Bennett +and Mr. Carter and you'll have to go on living with him maybe fifty +years. Luck doesn't strike twice in the same place and you can't count +on losing two husbands. Al's father was Mr. Johnson's first cousin and +had more crochets and worse. He had silent spells that lasted a week and +family prayers three times a day, though he got drunk twice a year for a +month at a time. Al looks very much like him." +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page160" name="page160"></a>[160]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Johnson," I said after a minute's silence, while I had decided +whether or not I had better tell her all about it. If a woman's in love +with her husband you can't trust her to keep a secret, but I decided to +try Mrs. Johnson. "I really am not engaged exactly to Alfred Bennett, +though I suppose he thinks so by now if he has got the answer to that +telegram. But—but something has made me—made me think about Judge +Wade—that is he—what do you think of him, Mrs. Johnson?" I concluded +in the most pitifully perplexed tone of voice. +</p> +<p> +"All alike, Molly; all as much alike as peas in a pod; all except John +Moore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! His +marrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell in +love with him while he was treating her for typhoid, when his back + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page161" name="page161"></a>[161]</span> + + was turned as it were, and it was God's own kindness in him that made +him marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There's +not a woman in this town who could marry, that wouldn't marry him at the +drop of his hat—but, thank goodness, that hat will never drop and I'll +have one sensible man to comfort and doctor me down into my old age. +Now, just look at that! Mr. Johnson's come home here in the middle of +the morning and I'll have to get that old paper I hunted out of his desk +for him last night. I wonder how he came to forget it!" It's funny how +Mrs. Johnson always knows what Mr. Johnson wants before he knows himself +and gets it before he asks for it! +</p> +<p> +As she went out the gate the postman came in and at the sight of another +letter my heart again slunk off into my slippers, + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page162" name="page162"></a>[162]</span> + + and my brain seemed about to back up in a corner and refuse to work. In +a flash it came to me that men oughtn't to write letters to women very +much—they really don't plow deep enough, they just irritate the top +soil. I took this missive from Alfred, counted all the fifteen pages, +put it out of sight under a book, looked out the window and saw the +ginger barber coming dejectedly around to the side gate from the +kitchen—I knew the scene he had had with Judy, about the bottle +encounters of the night before—saw Mr. Johnson shooed off down the +street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's car go chucking hurriedly in +the garage and then my spirit turned itself to the wall and refused to +be comforted. I tried my best, but failed to respond to my own +remonstrances with myself, and tears were slowly gathering in a cloud of +gloom + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page163" name="page163"></a>[163]</span> + + when a blue gingham, rompers-clad sunbeam burst into the room. +</p> +<p> +"Git your night-gown and your toothbresh quick, Molly, if you want to +pack 'em in my trunk!" he exclaimed with his eyes dancing and a curl +standing straight up on the top of his head, as it has a habit of doing +when he is most excited. "You can't take nothing but them 'cause I'm +going to put in a rope to tie the whale with when I ketch him, and +it'll take up all the rest of the room. Git 'em quick!" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, lover, I'll get them for you, but tell Molly where it is you are +going to sail off with her in that trunk of yours?" I asked, dropping +into the game as I have always done with him, no matter what game of my +own pressed when he called. +</p> +<p> +"On the ocean where the boats go 'cross and run right over a whale. +Don't you remember you showed me them pictures + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page164" name="page164"></a>[164]</span> + + of spout whales in a book, Molly? Doc says they comes right up by the +ship and you can hear 'em shoot water and maybe a iceberg, too. Which do +you want to ketch most, Molly, a iceberg or a whale?" His eager eyes +demanded instant decision on my part of the nature of capture I +preferred. My mind quickly reverted to those two ponderous and intense +epistles I had got within the hour and I lay back in my chair and +laughed until I felt almost merry. +</p> +<p> +"The iceberg, Billy, every time," I said at last. "I just can't manage +whales, especially if they are ardent, which word means hot. I like +<i>icebergs</i>, or I think I should if I could catch one." +</p> +<p> +"I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe Doc will let you put a rope +and a long hook in his trunk to try with if your clothes go into mine. +His is a heap the + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page165" name="page165"></a>[165]</span> + + biggest anyway and Nurse Tilly said he oughter put my things in his, but +I cried and then he went up-stairs and got out that little one for me. +Come see 'em!" +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean, Billy?" I asked, while a sudden fear shot all over me +like lightning. "You're just playing go-away, aren't you?" +</p> +<p> +"No, I ain't playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and +Doc is a-going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. +Doc ast me about it this morning and I told him all right and you could +come with us, if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you if you +was busy and couldn't come and I told him you would put things down and +come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you and +you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all drawn +up + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page166" name="page166"></a>[166]</span> + + with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of it and a +cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery at what I +felt was coming down upon me. +</p> +<p> +Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feel +deadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Doctor Moore's +office, where he was just laying off his gloves and dust coat. +</p> +<p> +"What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go and +take Billy away from me?" I demanded looking at him with what must have +been such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he came +close to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white and +quiet at my attack and he waited to answer for a long horrible minute +that pulled me apart like one + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page167" name="page167"></a>[167]</span> + + of those inquisition machines they used to torture women with when they +didn't know any better modern way to do it. +</p> +<p> +"I didn't know Bill would tell you so soon, Mrs. Molly," he said at last +gently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was coming +over just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you about +it, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a day +that—that ought to be all yours to be—be happy in. But Bill, you see, +is no respecter of—of other people's happy days if he wants them in +his." +</p> +<p> +"Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his and he has the heart not +to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sob +gathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't even +taken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page168" name="page168"></a>[168]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Bill is too young to understand when he is—is being bereaved, Molly," +he said and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed a +delegate to represent the State Medical Association at the Centennial +Congress in London the middle of next month—and somehow I—feel a bit +pulled lately and I thought I would take the little chap and have—have +a <i>wander-jahr.</i> You won't need him now, Mrs. Peaches, and I +couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness in his voice would have +killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead. +</p> +<p> +"Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voice +literally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life that +I haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You are +cruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold and cruel + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page169" name="page169"></a>[169]</span> + + like all other men who don't care how they wring the life blood out of +women's hearts and are willing to use their children to do it with. Even +the law doesn't help us poor helpless creatures and you can take our +children and go with them to the ends of the earth and leave us +suffering. I have gone on and believed that you were not like what the +women say all men are and that you cared whether you hurt people or not, +but now I see that you are just the same and you'll take my baby away if +you want to—and I can do nothing to prevent it—nothing in the wide +world—I am completely and absolutely helpless—you coward, you!" +</p> +<p> +When that awful word, the worst word that a woman can use to a man, left +my lips, a flame shot up into his eyes that I thought would burn me up, +but in a half-second it was extinguished by the strangest + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page170" name="page170"></a>[170]</span> + + thing in the world—for the situation—a perfect flood of mirth. He sat +down in his chair and shook all over with his head in his hands until I +saw tears creep through his fingers. I had calmed down so suddenly that +I was about to begin to cry in good earnest when he wiped his eyes and +said with a low laugh in his throat: +</p> +<p> +"The case is yours, Molly, settled out of court, and the +'possession-nine-points-of-the-law clause' works in some cases for a +woman against a man. Generally speaking, anyway, the pup belongs to the +man who can whistle him down and you can whistle Bill from me any day. +I'm just his father and what I think or want doesn't matter. You had +better take him and keep him!" +</p> +<p> +"I intend to." I answered haughtily, uncertain as to whether I had +better give + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page171" name="page171"></a>[171]</span> + + in and be agreeable or stay prepared to cry in case there was further +argument. But suddenly a strange diffidence came into his eyes and he +looked away from me as he said in queer hesitating words: +</p> +<p> +"You see, Mrs. Molly, I thought from now on your life wouldn't have +exactly a place for Bill. Have you considered that you have trained him +to demand you all the time and all of you? How would you manage +Bill—and—and other claims?" +</p> +<p> +And if there is a contagious thing in this world it is embarrassment. I +never felt anything worse in all my life than the shame that swept over +me in a great hot wave when that look came into his eyes and made me +realize just exactly what I had been saying to him, about what, and how +I had said it. I stood perfectly still, shook all over like a leaf, and + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page172" name="page172"></a>[172]</span> + + wondered if I would ever be able to raise my eyes from the ground. A +dizzy nauseated feeling for myself rose up in me against myself and I +was just about to turn on my heels and leave him, I hoped for ever, when +he came over and laid his hand on my shoulder. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he said in a voice that might have come down from heaven on +dove wings, "you can't for a moment feel or think that I don't realize +and appreciate what you have been to the motherless little chap, and for +life I am yours at command, as he is. I really thought it would be a +relief to you to have him taken away from you for just a little while +right now, and I still think it is best; but not unless you consent. You +shall have him back whenever you are ready for him, and at all times +both he and I are at your service to the whole of our kingdoms. Just + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page173" name="page173"></a>[173]</span> + + think the matter over, won't you, and decide what you want me to do?" +</p> +<p> +Something in me died for ever, I think, when he spoke to me like that. +He's not like other men and there aren't any other men on earth but him! +All the rest are just bugs or bats or something worse. And I'm not +anything myself. There's no excuse for my living and I wish I wasn't so +healthy and likely to go on doing it. It was all over and there was +nothing left for me to live for, and before I could stop myself I buried +my face in my hands. +</p> +<p> +"Billy asked me to go with him on this awful whale hunt!" I sobbed out +to comfort myself with the thought that somebody did care for me, +regardless of just how I was further embarrassing and complicating +myself in the affairs of the two men I had thought I owned and was now + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page174" name="page174"></a>[174]</span> + + finding out that I had to give up. I wish I had been looking at him, for +I felt him start, but he said in his big friendly voice that is so +much—and never enough for me. +</p> +<p> +"Well, why not you and Al come along and make it a family party, if that +is what suits Bill, the boss?" +</p> +<p> +If men would just buy good, sharp, kitchen knives and cut out women's +hearts in a businesslike way it would be so much kinder of them. +Why do they prefer to use dull weapons that mash the life out slowly? +Everything is at an end for me to-night and that blow did it. It was a +horrible cruel thing for him to say to me! I know now that I have been +in love with John Moore for longer than my honor lets me admit and that +I'll never love anybody else, and that also I have offered myself to him +served up in every + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page175" name="page175"></a>[175]</span> + + known enticement and have had to be refused at least twice a day for a +year. A widow can't say she didn't understand what she was doing, even +to herself, but— My humiliation is complete and the only thing that can +make me ever hold up my head is to puzzle him by—by <i>happily</i> +marrying Alfred Bennett—and quick! +</p> +<p> +Of course, he must suspect how I feel about him, for two people couldn't +both be so ignorant as not to see such an enormous thing as my love for +him is, and I was the blind one. But he must never, never know that I +ever realized it, for he is so good that it would distress him. I must +just go on in my foolish way with him until I can get away. I'll tell +him I'm sorry I was so indignant to-night and say that I think it will +be fine for him to take my Billy away from me with him. I must smile at +the idea of having my + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page176" name="page176"></a>[176]</span> + + very soul amputated, insist that it is the only thing to do, and pack up +the little soul in a steamer trunk with the smile. Just smile, that is +all! Life demands smiles from a woman even if she must crush their +perfume from her own heart; and she generally has them ready. +</p> +<p> +Oh, Molly, Molly, is it for this you came into the world, twice to give +yourself without love? What difference does it make that your arms are +strong and white if they can't clasp him to the softness and fragrance +of your breast? Why are your eyes blue pools of love if they are not for +his questioning and what are your rose lips for if they quench not his +thirst? +</p> +<a name="image-0012"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<div style="width:70%;"> +<a href="images/ill-207.jpg"> +<img src="images/ill-207.jpg" style="width:70%; border: 0;" +alt="What are your rose lips for" /></a> +</div> +What are your rose lips for +</center> + +<p> +Yes, I know God is very tender with a woman and I think He understands, +so if she crept very close to Him and caught at His sleeve to steady +herself He would + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page177" name="page177"></a>[177]</span> + + be kind to her until she could go on along her own steep way. Please, +God, never let him find out, for it would hurt him to have hurt me! +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page178" name="page178"></a>[178]</span> +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0011" id="h2H_4_0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + LEAF EIGHT +</h2> +<h3> + MELTED +</h3> +<p> +Some days are like the miracle flowers that open in the garden from +plants you didn't expect to bloom at all. I might have been born, lived +and died without having this one come into my life, and now that I have +had it I don't know how to write it, except in the crimson of blood, the +blue of flame, the gold of glory—and a tinge of light green would well +express the part I have played. But it is all over at last and— +</p> +<p> +Ruth Chester was the unfolding of the first hour-petal and I got a +glimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of. +She's God's own good + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page179" name="page179"></a>[179]</span> + + woman and He made her in one of His holy hours. I wish I could have +borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms was a sacrament. We +two women just stood aside with life's artifices and concealments and +let our own hearts do the talking. +</p> +<p> +She said she had come because she felt that if she talked with me I +might be better able to understand Alfred when he came and that she had +seen that the judge was very determined, and she thoroughly recognized +his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document +to read. I suppose it was dishonorable, but I needed her protection from +it. I'm glad she had the strength of mind to walk with a head high in +the air to Judy's range and burn it up. Anything might have happened if +she hadn't. And even now I feel that only my marriage vows + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page180" name="page180"></a>[180]</span> + + will close up the case for the judge—even yet he may— But when Ruth +had got done with Alfred, she had wiped Judge Wade's appreciation of him +completely off my mind and destroyed it in tender words that burned us +both worse than Judy's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully +good service. +</p> +<p> +"And so you see, you lovely woman you, do you not, that God has made you +for him as a tribute to his greatness and it is given to you to fulfil a +destiny?" She was so beautiful as she said it that I had to turn my eyes +away, but I felt as I did when those awful '<i>let-not-man-put-asunder</i>'—from +Mr. Carter—words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, the Methodist +minister. It made me wild, and before I knew it I had poured out the +whole truth to her in a perfect cataract of words. The truth always acts +on + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page181" name="page181"></a>[181]</span> + + women as some hitherto untried drug, and you can never tell what the +reaction is going to be. In this case I was stricken dumb and found it +hard to see. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, dear heart," she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into her +lovely gracious arms, "then the privilege is all the more wonderful for +you, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life. Having suffered +this, you will be all the greater woman to understand him. I accept my +own sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathy +for his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement as +he has for years. In the light of his love this lesser feeling for +Doctor Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be +complete." This was more than I could stand and feeling less than a +worm, I turned my face into her breast + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page182" name="page182"></a>[182]</span> + + and wailed. Now who would have thought that girl could dance as she did? +</p> +<p> +By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon have +had to be sopped up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in bubbling over +like a lovely, white, linen-clad glass of Rhine wine and seltzer. +Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of grief +and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and +generally damp atmosphere. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says for you to +send him ten dollars to spend getting the brass band half drunk before +the six o'clock train, on which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent +five dollars paying the negroes to polish up their instruments and clean +up the uniforms and it cost him twenty-five to bail the cornettist out +of + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page183" name="page183"></a>[183]</span> + + jail for roost robbing, and it takes a whole gallon of whisky to get any +spirit into the drummer. He says tell you that as this is your shindig +you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for me, and +here's the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!" +</p> +<p> +"I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to +you, Pettie, dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk +for my pocket-book. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind a +perfect rose cloud of blushes. +</p> +<p> +"I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the ten +in her hand. I looked at Ruth Chester and we both laughed. It is true +that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week +ago I might have resented + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page184" name="page184"></a>[184]</span> + + Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her the ten dollars and a +blessing. +</p> +<p> +"I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as she +rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before +I could stop her, she was gone. +</p> +<p> +She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty iron +gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the edge +of the porch. She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft +was almost more than I could stand, and apparently more than Billy was +prepared to accept. +</p> +<p> +"Go way, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?" +</p> +<p> +I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on +my hardwood floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of +triumph. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page185" name="page185"></a>[185]</span> +</p> +<p> +"I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipe +drop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound the +end sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. You +and Doc kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I +can carry Doc's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick and I'll +help you fix it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I could +bear. +</p> +<p> +"Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put my +arms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help being +aimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time your +Molly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care of +you and—and maybe bring you back to me some day." +</p> +<p> +"Why, Molly," he said, flaring his +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page186" name="page186"></a>[186]</span> +</p> +<p> +astonished blue eyes at me, "'taint me to be took care of! I ain't +a-going to leave you here, for maybe a bear to come out of a circus and +eat you up, with me and Doc gone. 'Sides Doc ain't no good and maybe +wouldn't help me hold the rope right to keep the whale from gitting +away. He don't know how to do like I tell him like you do." +</p> +<p> +"Try him, lover, and maybe he will—will learn to—" I couldn't help the +tears that came to stop my words. +</p> +<p> +"Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he said +with an amused, manly, little tenderness in his voice that I had never +heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only +voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous +little trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kisses +every + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page187" name="page187"></a>[187]</span> + + night if you don't say no more about not a-going and fix that whale hook +for me quick," he coaxed against my cheek. +</p> +<p> +Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were saying +with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy, little paddie burned the +sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was +powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you <i>are!</i> You +are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit +and—and you ought to have been flesh of my flesh! +</p> +<p> +I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my front +gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in +their constitutions. +</p> +<p> +She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie's house +and the Pollard cook was following them with + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page188" name="page188"></a>[188]</span> + + a large basket, in which were packed the things Aunt Bettie was +contributing to the entertainment of the distinguished citizen. Mr. +Johnson is Alfred's nearest kinsman in Hillsboro, and, of course, he is +to be their guest while he is in town. +</p> +<p> +"He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he's eating +my Washington almond pudding with Thomas' old port in it," teased Aunt +Bettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them. +</p> +<p> +"There's going to be a regular epidemic of love in Hillsboro, I do +believe," she continued in her usual strain of sentimental speculation. +"I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of the store an hour +ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz to match Pet for the +west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn't even see me. That + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page189" name="page189"></a>[189]</span> + + was what might have been called a conflagration dinner you gave the +other night, Molly, in more ways than one. I wish a spark had set off +Benton Wade and Henrietta, too. Maybe it did, but is just taking fire +slowly." +</p> +<p> +I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie blindfold every +unmarried person in this town and marry them to the first person they +touch hands with. It would be fun for her and then we could have peace +and apparently as much happiness as we are going to have anyway. Mrs. +Johnson seemed to be in somewhat the same state of mind as I found +myself. +</p> +<p> +"Humph," she said as we went up the front steps, "I'll be glad when you +are married and settled, Molly Carter, so the rest of this town can +quiet down into peace once more, and I sincerely hope every woman under +fifty in Hillsboro + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page190" name="page190"></a>[190]</span> + + who is already married will stay in that state until she reaches that +age. But I do believe if the law marched widows from grave number one to +altar number two they would get into trouble and fuss along the road. +But come on in, both of you, and help me get this marriage feast ready, +if I must! The day is going by on greased wheels and I can't let Mr. +Johnson's crotchets be neglected, Al Bennett or no Al Bennett!" +</p> +<p> +And from then on for hours and hours I was strapped to a torture wheel +that turned and turned, minute after minute, as it ground spice and +sugar and bridal meats and me relentlessly into a great suffering pulp. +Could I ever in all my life have hungered for food and been able to get +it past the lump in my throat that grew larger with the seconds? And if +Alfred's pudding tasted of the salt of + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page191" name="page191"></a>[191]</span> + + dead sea-fruit this evening, it was from my surreptitious tears that +dripped into it. +</p> +<p> +It was late, very late before Mrs. Johnson realized it and shooed me +home to get ready to go to the train along with the brass band and all +the other welcomes. +</p> +<p> +I hurried all I could, but for long minutes I stood in front of my +mirror and questioned myself. Could this slow, pale, dead-eyed, slim, +drooping girl be the rollicking child of a Molly who had looked out of +that mirror at me one short week ago? Where were the wings on her heels, +the glint in her curls, the laugh on her mouth and the devil in her +eyes? +</p> +<p> +Slowly at last I lifted the blue muslin, twenty-three-inch waist shroud +and let it slip over my head and fall slimly around me. I had fastened +the neck button and was fumbling the next one into the buttonhole when I +suddenly heard laughing + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page192" name="page192"></a>[192]</span> + + excited voices coming up the side street that ran just under my west +window. Something told me that Alfred had come on the five-down train +instead of the six-up and I fairly reeled to the window and peeped +through the shutters. +</p> +<p> +They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of +ceremonies, and Ruth Chester was looking up into his face with an +expression I am glad I can never forget. It killed all my regrets on the +score of his future. +</p> +<p> +It took two good looks to take him all in and then I must have missed +some of him, for all in all, he was so large that he stretched your eyes +to behold him. He's grown seven feet tall, I don't know how many pounds +he weighs and I don't want anybody ever to tell me! +</p> +<p> +I had never thought enough about evolution to know whether I believed in +it + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page193" name="page193"></a>[193]</span> + + and woman's suffrage, but I do now! I know that millions of years ago a +great, big, distinguished hippopotamus stepped out of the woods and +frightened one of my foremothers so that she turned tail and fled +through a thicket that almost tore her limb from limb, right into the +arms of her own mate. That's what I did! I caught that blue satin belt +together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of +savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's office, slammed +the door and backed up against it. +</p> +<p> +"He's come!" I gasped. "And I'm frightened to death, with nobody but you +to run to. Hide me quick! He's fat and I <i>hate</i> him!" I was that +deadly cold you can get when fear runs into your very marrow and +congeals the blood in your arteries. "Quick, quick!" I panted. +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page194" name="page194"></a>[194]</span> +</p> +<p> +He must have been as pale as I was, and for an eternity of a second he +looked at me, then suddenly heaven shone from his eyes and he opened his +arms to me with just one word. +</p> +<p> +"Here?" +</p> +<p> +I went. +</p> +<p> +He held me gently for a half-second, and then with a sob which I felt +rather than heard, he crushed me to him and stopped my breath with his +lips on mine. I understood things then that I never had before, and I +felt that wise guardian man-angel take his fingers from mine and leave +me safe at last. I raised my hand and pressed it against John's wet +lashes until he could let me speak and I was melted into his very breast +itself. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he said when enough tenderness had come back into his arms to +let me breathe, "you have almost killed me!" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page195" name="page195"></a>[195]</span> +</p> +<p> +"You!" I exclaimed, crowding still closer, or at least trying to. "It's +not <i>you</i>; it's I that am killed, and you did it! I know you don't +really want me, but I can't help that I'd rather you'd do the suffering +with me than to do it myself away from you. I'm so hungry and thirsty +for you that—that I can't diet any longer!" I put the case the +strongest way I knew how and got a swooning, maddening, luscious result. +</p> +<p> +"Want you, Molly?" he almost sobbed, and I felt his heart pounding hard +next to my shoulder. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, want me!" I answered with more spirit than breath left in me. "I +refuse to believe you are as stupid as I am, and anybody with even an +ordinary amount of brains must have seen how hard I was fighting for +you. I feel sure I left no stone unturned. Some of them I can + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page196" name="page196"></a>[196]</span> + + already think back and see myself tugging at, and it makes me hot all +over. I'm foolish, and always was, so I'm to be excused for acting that +awful way, but you are to blame for <i>letting</i> me do it. I'm going +to be your punishment for life for not having been stern and stopped me. +You had better stop me some now anyway, for if I go on loving you as I +have been for the last few minutes it will make you uncomfortable." +</p> +<p> +"Peaches," he said, after he had hushed me with another broken dose of +love, as large as he thought I could stand—I could have stood more!—"I +am never going to tell you how long I have loved you, but that day you +came to me all in a flutter with Al Bennett's letter in your hand it is +going to take you a lifetime to settle for. You were mine—and Bill's! +How <i>could</i> you—but women don't understand!" + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page197" name="page197"></a>[197]</span> + + I felt him shudder in my arms as I held him close. I was repaid for all +those tiresome exercises I had taken by the strength to crush him +against my breast almost as hard as he crushed me. Our combined strength +was terrific, dangerous to life and ribs, but—heavenly! +</p> +<p> +"Don't women know, John?" I managed to ask softly in memory of a like +question he had put to me across that bread and jam with the rose +a-listening from the dark. +</p> +<p> +What brought me to consciousness was his fumbling with the buttons at +the waist of that blue muslin relict of a sentiment. I had fastened but +one, and the lace had got caught on his sleeve buttons. +</p> +<p> +"Please don't button me into his possession," I laughed under his chin. +"I'm still scared to death of him, and you haven't hid me yet!" +</p> +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page198" name="page198"></a>[198]</span> +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he asked, this time with a heaven-laugh, "where could you be +more effectually hid from Al Bennett than in my arms?" +</p> +<p> +I spent ten minutes telling Billy what a hippopotamus really looks like +as I put him to bed, but later, much as I should have liked to, I +couldn't consume that horrible dinner, that I had helped prepare at the +Johnsons, in the shelter of John's arms, and I had to face Alfred. Ruth +Chester was there, and she faced him too. +</p> +<p> +A man that can't be happy with a woman who is willing to "fulfil his +destiny" doesn't deserve to be. +</p> +<p> +Then we came over here, and John had the most beautiful time persuading +Aunt Adeline how a good man like Mr. Carter would want his young widow +to be taken care of by being married to a safe friend of his instead of +being flighty + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page199" name="page199"></a>[199]</span> + + and having folks wondering whom she would marry. +</p> +<p> +"You know yourself how hard a time a beautiful young widow has, Mrs. +Henderson," he said in the tone of voice that always makes his patients +glad to take his worst doses. He got his blessing and me—with a +warning. +</p> +<p> +A lovely night wind is blowing across my garden and bringing me +congratulations from all my flower family. Flowers are a part of love +and the wooing of it, and they understand. I am waiting for the light to +go out behind the tall trees over which the moon is stealthily sinking. +He promised me to put it out right away, and I'm watching the glow that +marks the place where my own two men creatures are going to rest, with +my heart in full song. +</p> +<p> +He needs rest, he is so very tired and + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page200" name="page200"></a>[200]</span> + + worn. He confessed it as I stood on the step above him to-night, after +he had taken his own good night from me out on the porch. When he +explained to me how his agony over me for all these months had kept him +walking the floor night after night, not knowing that I was waiting for +the light to go out, I gave myself a sweetness that I am going to say a +prayer for the last thing before I sleep. I took his head in my arms and +pressed his cheek down against Billy's sleep-place on my breast over my +heart and put my lips to that drake-tail kiss-spot that has tempted me +for I won't say how long. Then I fled—and so did he! +</p> +<p> +I had about decided to burn this book, because I shan't need it any +longer, for he says he and Billy and I are going to play so much golf +and tennis that I shall keep as thin as he wants me to be without + +<span class="pagenum"><a id="page201" name="page201"></a>[201]</span> + + any more melting or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to +read the little red devil. 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M. Crosby + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Melting of Molly + + +Author: Maria Thompson Daviess + +Release Date: May 12, 2005 [eBook #15817] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team from page images generously made available +by the Kentuckiana Digital Library (http://kdl.kyvl.org/) + + + +Note: This version of _The Melting of Molly_ is the American novel + publication and differs significantly from the British magazine + publication, also in the Project Gutenberg library at + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15818 + + Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 15817-h.htm or 15817-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15817/15817-h/15817-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15817/15817-h.zip) + + Images of the original pages are available through the + Kentuckiana Digital Library. See + http://kdl.kyvl.org/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=kyetexts;cc= + kyetexts;xc=1&idno=B92-194-30611104&view=toc + + + + + +THE MELTING OF MOLLY + +by + +MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + + Author of + Miss Selina Lue, The Road to Providence, + Rose of Old Harpeth, etc., etc. + +Illustrated by R. M. Crosby + +Indianapolis +The Bobbs-Merrill Company +Publishers + +1912 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Melted] + + + + + MOLLY CARTER AND I + DEDICATE THIS BOOK + TO OUR GOOD FRIEND + CAROL KING JENNEY + + + + +LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF MOLLY + + Leaf First + THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS + + Leaf Second + A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED + + Leaf Third + MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU? + + Leaf Fourth + SCATTERED JAM + + Leaf Fifth + BLUE ABSINTHE + + Leaf Sixth + THE RESURRECTION RAZOO + + Leaf Seventh + DASHED! + + Leaf Eighth + MELTED + + + + + +LEAF FIRST + +THE BACHELOR'S-BUTTONS + + +Yes, I truly think that in all the world there is nothing so dead +as a young widow's deceased husband, and God ought to give His wisest +man-angel special charge concerning looking after her and the devil at +the same time. They both need it! I don't know how all this is going to +end and I wish my mind wasn't in a kind of tingle. However, I'll do the +best I can and not hold myself at all responsible for myself, and then +who will there be to blame? + +There are a great many kinds of good-feeling in this world, from radiant +joy down to perfect bliss, but this spring I have got an attack of just +old-fashioned happiness that looks as if it might become chronic. + +I am so happy that I planted my garden all crooked, my eyes upon the +clouds with the birds sailing against them, and when I became conscious +I found wicked flaunting poppies sprouted right up against the sweet +modest clover-pinks, while the whole paper of bachelor's-buttons was +sowed over everything--which I immediately began to dig right up again, +blushing furiously to myself over the trowel, and glad that I had caught +myself before they grew up to laugh in my face. However, I got that +laugh anyway, and I might just as well have left them, for Billy ran to +the gate and called Doctor John to come in and make Molly stop digging +up his buttons. Billy claims everything in this garden, and he thought +they would grow up into the kind of buttons you pop out of a gun. + +"So you're digging up the bachelor-pops, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor asked +as he leaned over the gate. I went right on digging without looking up +at him. I couldn't look up because I was blushing still worse. Sometimes +I hate that man, and if he wasn't Billy's father I wouldn't neighbor +with him as I do. But somebody _has_ to look after Billy. + +I believe it will be a real relief to write down how I feel about him +in his old book and I shall do it whenever I can't stand him any longer, +and if he gave the horrid, red leather thing to me to make me miserable, +he can't do it; not this spring! I wish I dared burn it up and forget +about it, but I don't! This record on the first page is enough to +_reduce_ me--to tears, and I wonder why it doesn't. + +I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds, down in black and white, and it +is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the grocery store is so very +reliable in his weights, though he had a very pleasant smile while he +was weighing me. Still I had better get some scales of my own, smiles +are so deceptive. + +I am five feet three inches tall or short, whichever way one looks at +me. I thought I was taller, but I suppose I will have to believe my own +yardstick. + +But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even +if I have promised Doctor John a dozen times over to do it, while I only +really left him to _suppose_ I would. It is bad enough to know that +your belt has to be reduced to twenty-three inches without putting down +how much it measures now in figures to insult yourself with. No, I +intend to have this for my happy spring. + +Yes, I suppose it would have been lots better for my happiness if I had +kept quiet about it all, but at the time I thought I had to advise with +him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being +a widow, you are accustomed to advising with a man, whether you want to +or not, and you can't get over the habit right away. Poor Mr. Carter +hasn't been dead much over a year and I must be missing him most +awfully, though just lately I can't remember not to forget about him a +great deal of the time. Now if he had been here--_horrors_! + +Still, that letter was enough to upset anybody, and no wonder I ran +right across my garden, through Billy's hedge-hole and over into Doctor +John's office to tell him about it; but I ought not to have been +agitated enough to let him take the letter right out of my hand and read +it. + +"So after ten years Al Bennett is coming back to pop his +bachelor's-buttons at you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the deep drawling +voice he always uses when he makes fun of Billy and me and which never +fails to make us both mad. I didn't look at him directly, but I felt his +hand shake with the letter in it. + +"Not ten, only _eight_! He went when I was seventeen," I answered +with dignity, wishing I dared be snappy at him; though I never am. + +"And after eight years he wants to come back and find you squeezed into +a twenty-inch-waist, blue muslin rag you wore at parting? No wonder Al +didn't succeed at bank clerking, but had to make his hit at diplomacy +and the high arts. Some hit at that to be legationed at Saint James! +He's such a big gun that it is a pity he had to return to his native +heath and find even such a slight disappointment as a one-yard waist +measure around his--his--" + +"Oh it's not, it's _not_ that much." I fairly gasped and I couldn't +help the tears coming into my eyes. I have never said much about it, but +nobody knows how it hurts me to be all this fat! Just writing it down in +a book mortifies me dreadfully. It's been coming on worse and worse +every year since I married. Poor Mr. Carter had a very good appetite and +I don't know why I should have felt that I had to eat so much every day +to keep him company; I wasn't always so considerate of him. Then he +didn't want me to dance any more because married women oughtn't, or ride +horseback either--no amusement left but himself and weekly +prayer-meetings, and--and--I just couldn't help the tears coming and +dripping as I thought about it all and that awful waist measure in +inches. + +"Stop crying this minute, Molly," said Doctor John suddenly in the deep +voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really sick or stump-toed. +"You know I was only teasing you and I won't stand for--" + +But I sobbed some more. I like him when his eyes come out from under his +bushy brows and are all tender and full of sorry for us. + +"I can't help it," I gulped in my sleeve. "I did used to like Alfred +Bennett. My heart almost broke when he went away. I used to be beautiful +and slim, and now I feel as if my own fat ghost has come to haunt me all +my life. I am so ashamed! If a woman can't cry over her own dead beauty, +what can she cry over?" By this time I was really crying. + +Then what happened to me was that Doctor John took me by the shoulders +and gave me one good shake and then made me look him right in the eyes +through the tears and all. + +"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard +him use. "You are just a lovely, round, luscious peach, but if you will +be happier to have Al Bennett come and find you as slim as a string-bean +I can show you how to do it. Will you do just as I tell you?" + +[Illustration: "Will you do just as I tell you?"] + +"Yes, I will," I sniffed in a comforted voice. What woman wouldn't be +comforted by being called a "luscious peach". I looked out between my +fingers to see what more he was going to say, but he had turned to a +shelf and taken down two books. + +"Now," he said in his most businesslike voice, as cool as a bucket of +water fresh from the spring, "it is no trouble at all to take off your +surplus avoirdupois at the rate of two and a half pounds a week if you +follow these directions. As I take it you are about twenty-five pounds +over your normal weight. It will take over two months to reduce you and +we will allow an extra month for further beautifying, so that when Mr. +Bennett arrives he will find the lady of his adoration in proper trim to +be adored. Yes, just be still until I copy these directions in this +little, red leather blank-book for you, and every day I want you to keep +an exact record of the conditions of which I make note. No, don't talk +while I make out these diet lists! I wish you would go across the hall +and see if you don't think we ought to get Bill a thinner set of +night-drawers. It seems to me he must be too warm in the ones he is +wearing." + +When he speaks to me in that tone of voice I always do it. And I needed +Billy badly at that very moment. I took him out of his little cot by +Doctor John's big bed and sat down with him in my arms over by the +window through which the early moon came streaming. Billy is so little, +little not to have a mother to rock him all the times he needs it that I +take every opportunity to give it to him I find--when he's unconscious +and can't help himself. She died before she ever even saw him and I've +always tried to do what I could to make it up to him. + +Poor Mr. Carter said when Billy cut his teeth that a neighbor's baby can +be worse than twins of your own. He didn't like children and the baby's +crying disturbed him, so many a night I walked Billy out in the garden +until daylight, while Mr. Carter and Doctor John both slept. Always his +little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not +having a baby of my own. And he's very congenial, too, for he's slim and +flowery, pink and dimply, and as mannish as his father, in funny little +flashes. + +"Git a stick to punch it, Molly," he was murmuring in his sleep. Then I +heard the doctor call me and I had to kiss him, put him back in his bed, +and go across the hall. + +Doctor John was standing by the table with this horrid small book in his +hand and his mouth was set in a straight line and his eyes were deep +back under their brows. I hate him that way, too, and I would like to +get up so close to him that he couldn't _hit_ me or have a door +locked between us. It's strange how the thought of taking a beating from +a man can make a woman's heart jump. Mine jumped so it was hard to look +as meek as I felt best under the circumstances; but I looked it out from +under my lashes cautiously. + +"There you are, Mrs. Molly," he said briskly as he handed me this book. +"Get weighed and measured and sized-up generally in the morning and +follow all the directions. Also make every record I have noted so that +I can have the proper data to help you as you go along--or rather down. +And if you will be faithful about it to me, or rather Al, I think we can +be sure of buttoning that blue muslin dress without even the aid of the +button-hook." His voice had the "if you can" note in it that always sets +me off. + +"Had we better get the kiddie some thinner night-rigging?" he hastened +to ask as I was just about to explode. He knows the signs. + +"Thank you, Doctor Moore! I hate the very ground you walk on and I'll +attend to those night-clothes myself to-morrow," I answered, and I +sailed out of that office and down the path toward my own house beyond +his hedge. But I carried this book tight in my hand and I made up my +mind that I would do it all if it killed me. I would show him I could be +_faithful_--to whom I would decide later on. But I hadn't read far +into this book when I committed myself to myself like that! + +I don't know just how long I sat on the front steps all by myself bathed +in a perfect flood of moonlight and loneliness. It was not a bit of +comfort to hear Aunt Adeline snoring away in her room down the dark +hall. It takes the greatest congeniality to make a person's snoring a +pleasure to anybody and Aunt Adeline and I are not that way. + +When poor Mr. Carter died, the next day she said: "Now, Mary, you are +entirely too young to live all your long years of widowhood alone, and +as I am in the same condition, I will rent my cottage and move right +up the street into your house to protect and console you." And she +did,--the moving and the protecting. + +Mr. Henderson has been dead forty-two years. He only lived three months +after he married Aunt Adeline and her crepe veil is over a yard long +yet. Men are the dust under her feet, but she likes for Doctor John to +come over and sit on the porch with us because she can consult with him +about what Mr. Henderson really died of and talk with him about the sad +state of poor Mr. Carter's liver for a year before he died. I just go on +rocking Billy and singing hymns to him in such a way that I can't hear +the conversation. Mr. Carter's liver got on my nerves alive, and dead it +does worse. But it hurts when the doctor has to take the little +sleep-boy out of my arms to carry him home; though I like it when he +says under his breath, "Thank you, Molly." + +And as I sat and thought how near he and I had been to each other in all +our troubles, I excused myself for running to him with that letter and I +acknowledged to myself that I had no right to get mad when he teased me, +for he had been kind and interested about helping me get thin by the +time Alfred came back to see me. I couldn't tell which I was blushing +all to myself about, the "luscious peach" he had called me or the +"lovely lily" Alfred had reminded me in his letter that I had been when +he left me. + +Why don't people realize that a seventeen-year-old girl's heart is a +sensitive wind-flower that may be shattered by a breath? Mine shattered +when Alfred went away to find something he could do to make a living, +and Aunt Adeline gave the hard green stem to Mr. Carter when she married +me to him. Poor Mr. Carter! + +No, I wasn't twenty, and this town was full of women who were aunts and +cousins and law-kin to me, and nobody did anything for me. They all said +with a sigh of relief, "It will be such a nice safe thing for you, +Molly." And they really didn't mean anything by tying up a gay, dancing, +frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. +But God didn't want to see me always trotting along slow and tired and +not caring what happened to me, even pounds and pounds of plumpness, so +he found use for Mr. Carter in some other place but this world, and I +feel that He is going to see me through whatever happens. If some of the +women in my missionary society knew how friendly I feel with God they +would put me out for contempt of court. + +No, the town didn't mean anything by chastening my spirit with Mr. +Carter and they didn't consider him in the matter at all, poor man. Of +that I feel sure. Hillsboro is like that. It settled itself here in a +Tennessee valley a few hundreds of years ago and has been hatching and +clucking over its own small affairs ever since. All the houses set back +from the street with their wings spread out over their gardens, and +mothers here go on hovering even to the third and fourth generation. +Lots of times young, long-legged, frying-size boys scramble out of the +nests and go off to college and decide to grow up where their crow will +be heard by the world. Alfred was one of them. + +And, too, occasionally some man comes along from the big world and +marries a plump little broiler and takes her away with him, but mostly +they stay and go to hovering life on a corner of the family estate. +That's what I did. + +I was a poor, little, lost chick with frivolous tendencies and they +all clucked me over into this empty Carter nest which they considered +well-feathered for me. It gave them all a sensation when they found out +from the will just how well it was feathered. And it gave me one, too. +All that money would make me nervous if Mr. Carter hadn't made Doctor +John its guardian, though I sometimes feel that the responsibility of me +makes him treat me as if he were my step-grandfather-in-law. But all in +all, though stiff in its knees with aristocracy, Hillsboro is lovely and +loving; and couldn't inquisitiveness be called just real affection with +a kind of squint in its eye? + +And there I sat on my front steps, being embraced in a perfume of +everybody's lilacs and peachblow and sweet syringa and affectionate +interest and moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two +photographs and many letters I had kept locked up in the garret for +years. Is it any wonder I tingled when he told me that he had never come +back because he couldn't have me and that now the minute he landed in +America he was going to lay his heart at my feet? I added his honors +to his prostrate heart myself and my own beat at the prospect. All the +eight years faded away and I was again back in the old garden down at +Aunt Adeline's cottage saying good-by, folded up in his arms. That's +the way my memory put the scene to me, but the word "folded" made me +remember that blue muslin dress again. I had promised to keep it and +wear it for him when he came back--and I couldn't forget that the blue +belt was just twenty-three inches and mine is--no, I _won't_ write +it. I had got that dress out of the old trunk not ten minutes after I +had read the letter and measured it. + +No, nobody would blame me for running right across the garden to Doctor +John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the +letter and the little book up close to my breast and laughed until the +tears ran down my cheeks. + +Then before I went into the house I assembled my garden and had family +prayers with my flowers. I do that because they are all the family I've +got, and God knows that all His budding things need encouragement, +whether it is a widow or a snowball-bush. He'll give it to us! + +And I'm praying again as I sit here and watch for the doctor's light to +go out. I hate to go to sleep and leave it burning, for he sits up so +late and he is so gaunt and thin and tired-looking most times. That's +what the last prayer is about, almost always,--sleep for him and no +night call! + + + + +LEAF SECOND + +A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED + + +The very worst page in this red--red devil--I'm glad I've written it at +last--of a book is the fifth. It says: + +"Breakfast--one slice of dry toast, one egg, fruit and a tablespoonful +of baked cereal, small cup of coffee, no sugar, no cream." And me with +two Jersey cows full of the richest cream in Hillsboro, Harpeth Valley, +out in my pasture! + +"Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of toast, spinach, green beans and +lettuce salad. No dessert or sweet." The blue-grass in my yard is full +of fat little fryers and I wish I were a sheep if I have to eat lettuce +and spinach for grass. At least I'd have more than one chop inside me +then. + +"Supper--slice of toast and an apple." Why the apple? Why supper at all? + +Oh, I'm hungry, hungry until I cry in my sleep when I dream about a +muffin! I thought at first that getting out of bed before my eyes are +fairly open and turning myself into a circus actor by doing every kind +of overhand, foot, arm and leg contortion that the mind of cruel man +could invent to torture a human being with, would kill me before I had +been at it a week, but when I read on page sixteen that as soon as all +that horror was over I must jump right into the tub of cold water, I +kicked, metaphorically speaking. And I've been kicking ever since, +literally to keep from freezing. + +[Illustration: She shrouds me for the agony] + +But as cruel a death as freezing is, it doesn't compare to the tortures +of being melted. Judy administers it to me and her faithful heart is so +wrung with compassion that she perspires almost as much as I do. She +wrings a linen sheet out in a caldron of boiling water and shrouds me +in it for the agony--and then more and more blanket windings envelop me +until I am like the mummy of some Egyptian giantess. I have ice on the +back of my neck and my forehead, and murder for the whole world in my +heart. Once I got so discouraged at the idea of having all this hades +in this life that I mingled tears with the beads of perspiration that +rolled down my cheeks, and she snatched me out of those steaming +grave-clothes in less time than it takes to tell it, soused me in +a tub of cold water, fed me a chicken wing and a hot biscuit and the +information that I was "good-looking enough for _anybody_ to eat up +alive without all this foolishness," all in a very few seconds. Now I +have to beg her to help me and I heard her tell her nephew, who does the +gardening, that she felt like an undertaker with such goings-on. At any +rate, if it all kills me it won't be my fault if anybody has to lie in +saying that I was "beautiful in death". + +But now that more than a month has passed, I really don't mind it so +much. I feel so good and strong and prancy all the time that I can't +keep from bubbling. I have to smile at myself. + +Then another thing that helps is Billy and his ball. I never could +really play with him before, but now I can't help it. But an awful thing +happened about that yesterday. We were in the garden playing over by the +lilac bushes and Billy always beats me because when he runs to base he +throws himself down and slides along on the grass on his little stomach +as he sees the real players do over at the ball grounds. Then all of a +sudden, before I knew it, I just did the same thing, and we slid to the +flower pot we use as a base together, each on his own stomach. And what +did Billy do but begin right there on the grass the kind of a tussle we +always have in the big rocking-chair on the porch! Over and over we +rolled, Billy chuckling and squealing while I laughed myself all out of +breath. I'm glad I always would wear delicious petticoats, for there, +looking right over my front fence, I discovered Judge Benton Wade. I +wish I could write down how I felt, for I never had that sensation +before and I don't believe I'll ever have it again. + +I have always thought that Judge Wade was really the most wonderful man +in Hillsboro, not because he is a judge so young in life that there is +only a white sprinkle in his lovely black hair that grows back off his +head like Napoleon's and Charles Wesley's, but because of his smile, +which you wait for so long that you glow all over when you get it. I +have seen him do it once or twice at his mother when he seats her in +their pew at church and once at little Mamie Johnson when she gave him a +flower through their fence as he passed by one day last week, but I +never thought I should have one all to myself. But there it was, a most +beautiful one, long and slow and distinctly mine--at least I didn't +think much of it was for Billie. I sat up and blushed as red all over as +I do when I first hit that tub of cold water. + +[Illustration: I sat up and blushed red all over] + +"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal +resist a peep into the garden of the gods if he spied the queen and her +faun at play?" he said in a voice as wonderful as the smile. By that +time I had reefed in my ruffles around my feet and pushed in all my +hairpins. Billy stood spread-legged as near in front of me as he could +get and said in the rudest possible tone of voice: + +"Get away from my Molly, man!" + +I never was so mortified in all my life and I scrambled to my feet and +came over to the fence to get between him and Billy. + +"It's a lovely day, isn't it, Judge Wade?" I asked with the greatest +interest, which I didn't really feel, in the weather; but what could I +think of to say? A woman is apt to keep the image of a good many of the +grand men she sees passing around her in queer niches in her brain, and +when one steps out and speaks to her for the first time it is confusing. +Of course I have known the judge and his mother all my life, for she is +one of Aunt Adeline's best friends, but I had a feeling from the look in +his eyes that that very minute was the first time he had ever seen me. +It was lovely and I blushed some more as I put my hand up to my cheek so +I wouldn't have to look right at him. + +"About the loveliest day that ever happened in Hillsboro," he said, and +there was still more of the delicious smile, "though I hadn't noticed it +so especially until--" + +But I never knew what he had intended to say, for Billy suddenly swelled +up like a little turkey-cock and cut out with his switch at the judge. + +"Git, man, git, and let my Molly alone!" he said, in a perfect +thundertone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in +it like Doctor John's at his most positive times with Billy and me. + +"No, no, Billy, the judge is just looking over the fence at our flowers! +Don't you want to give him a rose?" I hurried to say as the smile died +out of Judge Wade's face and he looked at Billy intently. + +"How like John Moore the youngster is," he said, and his voice was so +cold to Billy that it hurt me, and I was afraid Billy would notice it. +Coldness in people's voices always makes me feel just like ice-cream +tastes. But Billy's answer was still more rude. + +"You better go, man, before I bring my father to sic our dog on you," +he exploded, and before I could stop him his thin little legs went +trundling down the garden path toward home. + +Then the judge and I both laughed. We couldn't help it. When two people +laugh straight into each other's eyes something feels dangerous and you +get closer together. The judge leaned farther over the fence and I went +a little nearer before I knew it. + +"You don't need to keep a personal dog, do you, Mrs. Carter?" he asked, +with a twinkle that might have been a spark in his eyes, and just at +that moment another awful thing happened. Aunt Adeline came out on the +front porch and said in the most frozen tone of voice: + +"Mary, I wish to speak to you in the house," and then walked back +through the front door without even looking in Judge Wade's direction, +though he had waved his hat with one of his mother's own smiles when he +had seen her before I did. One of my most impossible habits is, when +there is nothing else to do I laugh. I did it then and it saved the day, +for we both laughed into each others eyes a second time, and before we +realized it we were within whispering distance. + +"No, I don't--don't--need any dog," I said softly, hardly glancing out +from under my lashes because I was afraid to risk looking straight at +him again so soon. I could fairly feel Aunt Adeline's eyes boring into +my back. + +"It would take the hydra-headed monster of--may I bring my mother to +call on you and the--Mrs. Henderson?" he asked and poured the wonder +smile all over me. Again I almost caught my breath. + +"I do wish you would, Aunt Adeline is so fond of Mrs. Wade!" I said in a +positive flutter that I hope he didn't see, but I am afraid he did, for +he hesitated as if he wanted to say something to calm me, then bowed +mercifully and went on down the street. He didn't put on the hat he had +held in his hand all the while he stood by the fence until he had looked +back and bowed again. Then I felt still more fluttered as I went into +the house, but I received the third cold plunge of the day when I +reached the front hall. + +"Mary," said Aunt Adeline in a voice that sounded as if it had been +buried and never resurrected, "if you are going to continue in such an +unseemly course of conduct I hope you will remove your mourning, which +is an empty mockery and an insult to my own widowhood." + +"Yes, Aunt Adeline, I'll go take it off this very minute," I heard +myself answer her airily to my own astonishment. I might have known that +if I ever got one of those smiles it would go to my head! Without +another word I sailed into my room and closed the door softly. + +I wonder if God could have realized what a tender thing He was leaving +exposed to life in the garden of the world after He had finished making +a woman? Traditionally, we are created out of rose-leaves and star-dust +and the harmony of the winds, but we need a steel-chain netting to fend +us. Slowly I unbuttoned that black dress that symbolized the ending of +six years of the blackness of a married life, from which I had been +powerless to fend myself, and the rosy dimpling thing in snowy lingerie +with tags of blue ribbon that stood in front of my mirror was as +new-born as any other hour-old similar bundle of linen and lace in +Hillsboro, Tennessee. Fortunately, an old, year-before-last, white lawn +dress could be pulled from the top shelf of the closet in a hurry, and +the Molly that came out of that room was ready for life--and a lot of it +quick and fast. + +And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline had retired with a violent headache +and black Judy was carrying her in a hot water-bottle with a broad grin +on her face. Judy sees the world from the kitchen window and understands +everything. She had laid a large thick letter on the hall table where I +couldn't fail to see it. + +I took possession of it and carried it to a bench in the garden that +backs up against the purple sprayed lilacs and is flanked by two rows of +tall purple and white iris that stand in line ready for a Virginia reel +with a delicate row of the poet's narcissus across the broad path. I +love my flowers. I love them swaying on their stems in the wind, and I +like to snatch them and crush the life out of them against my breast and +face. I have been to bed every night this spring with a bunch of cool +violets against my cheek and I feel that I am going to flirt with my +tall row of hollyhocks as soon as they are old enough to hold up their +heads and take notice. They always remind me of very stately gentlemen +and I have wondered if the fluffy little butter and eggs weren't shaking +their ruffles at them. + +A real love-letter ought to be like a cream puff with a drop of dynamite +in it. Alfred's was that kind. I felt warm and happy down to my toes as +I read it and I turned around so old Lilac Bush couldn't peep over my +shoulder at what he said. + +He wrote from Rome this time, where he had been sent on some sort of +diplomatic mission to the Vatican, and his letter about the Ancient City +on her seven hills was a prose-poem in itself. I was so interested that +I read on and on and forgot it was almost toast-apple time. + +Of course, anybody that is anybody would be interested in Father Tiber +and the old Colosseum, but what made me forget the one slice of dry +toast and the apple was the way he seemed to be connecting me up with +all those wonderful old antiquities that had never even seen me. Because +of me he had felt and written that poem descriptive of old Tiber, and +the moonlight had lit up the Colosseum just because I was over here +lighting up Hillsboro, Tennessee, with Mr. Carter dead. Of course that +is not the way he put it all, but there is no place to really copy what +he did say down into this imp book and, anyway, that is the sentiment he +expressed, boiled down and sugared off. + +That's just what I mean--love boiled down and sugared off is mighty apt +to get an explosive flavor, and one had better be careful with that kind +if one is timid; which I'm not. As I said, also, I am ready for a little +taste of life, so I read on without fear. And, to be fair, Alfred had +well boiled his own last paragraph. It snapped; and I jumped and gasped +both. I almost thought I didn't quite like it and was going to read it +over again to see, when there came a procession from over to Doctor +John's and I laid the bombshell down on the bench. + +First came the red setter that is always first with Doctor John, and +then he came himself, leading Billy by the hand. It was Billy, but the +most subdued Billy I ever saw, and I held out my arms and started for +him. + +"Wait a minute, please, Molly," said the doctor in the voice he always +uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologize to you +for being rude to your--your guest. He told me all about it and I think +he's sorry. Tell Mrs. Carter you are sorry, son." When that man speaks +to me as if I were just any old body else, I hate him so it is a wonder +I don't show it more than I do. But there was nothing to say and I +looked at Billy and Billy looked at me. + +Then suddenly he stretched out his little arms to me and the dimples +winked at me from all over his darling face. + +"Molly, Molly," he said with a perfect rapture of chuckles in his voice, +"now you look just as pretty as you do when you go to bed; all whity all +over. You can kiss my kiss-spot a hundred times while I bear-hug you +for that nice not-black dress," and before any stern person could have +stopped us I was on my knees on the grass kissing my fill from the +"kiss-spot" on the back of his neck, while he hugged all the starch out +of the summer-before-last. + +And Doctor John sat down on the bench quick and laughed out loud one of +the very few times I ever heard him do it. He was looking down at us, +but I didn't laugh up into _his_ eyes. I was afraid. I felt it was +safer to go on kissing the kiss-spot for the present, anyway. + +"Bill," he said, with his voice dancing, "that's the most effective +apology I ever heard. You were sorry to some point." + +Then suddenly Billy stiffened right in my arms and looked me straight in +the face and said in the doctor's own brisk tones, even with his cupid +mouth set in the same straight line: + +"I say I'm sorry, Molly, but damn that man and I'll git him yet!" + +What could we say? What could we do? We didn't try. I busied myself in +tying the string on Billy's blouse that had come untied in the bear-hug +and the doctor suddenly discovered the letter on the bench. I saw him +see it without looking in his direction at all. + +"And how many pounds are we nearer the string-bean state of existence, +Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the blouse, in the +nicest voice in the world, fairly crackling with friendship and good +humor and hateful things like that. Why I should have wanted him to huff +over that letter is more than I can say. But I did; and he didn't. + +"Over twenty, and most of the time I am so hungry I could eat Aunt +Adeline. I dream about Billy, fried with cream gravy," I answered, as I +kissed again the back of the head that was beginning to nod down against +my breast. Long shadows lay across the garden and the white-headed old +snow-ball was signaling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins down +the walk in a scandalous way. At best, spring is just the world's +match-making old chaperon and ought to be watched. I still sat on the +grass and I began to cuddle Billy's bare knees in the skirt of my dress +so the chigres couldn't get at them. + +"But, Mrs. Molly, isn't it worth it all?" asked the doctor as he bent +over toward us and looked down with something wonderful and kind in his +eyes that seemed to rest on us like a benediction. "You have been just +as plucky as a girl can be and in only a little over two months you have +grown as lightfooted and hearty as a boy. _I_ think nothing could +be lovelier than you are right now, but you can get off those other few +pounds if you want to. You know, don't you, that I have known how hard +some of it was and I haven't been able to eat as much as I usually do +thinking how hungry you are? But isn't it all worth it? I think it is. +Alfred Bennett is a very great man and it is right that he should have a +very lovely wife to go out into the world with him. And as lovely as you +are I think it is wonderful of you to make all this sacrifice to be +still lovelier for him. I am glad I can help you and it has taught me +something to see how--how faithful a woman can be across years--and then +in this smaller thing! Now give me Bill and you get your apple and +toast. Don't forget to take your letter in out of the dew." I sat +perfectly still and held Billy tighter in my arms as I looked up at his +father, and then after I had thought as long as I could stand it, I +spoke right out at him as mad as hops and I don't to this minute know +why. + +"Nobody in the world ever doubted that a woman could be faithful if she +had anything to be faithful to," I said as I let him take Billy out of +my arms at last. "Faithfulness is what a woman flowers, only it takes a +_man_ to pick his posy." With which I marched into the house and +left him standing with Billy in his arms, I hope dumfounded. I didn't +look back to see. I always leave that man's presence so mad I can never +look back at him. And wouldn't it make any woman rage to have a man pick +out another man for her to be faithful to when she hadn't made any +decision about it her own self? + +I wonder just how old Judge Wade is? I believe I will make up with Aunt +Adeline enough before I go to bed to find out why he has never married. + + + + +LEAF THIRD + +MONUMENT OR TROUSSEAU? + + +Men are very strange people. They are like those horrible sums in +algebra that you think about and worry about and cry about and try to +get help from other women about, and then, all of a sudden, X works +itself out into perfectly good sense. Not that I thought much about Mr. +Carter, poor man! When he wasn't right around I felt it best to forget +him as much as I could, but it seems hard for other women to let you +forget either your husband or theirs. + +I know now that I really never got any older than the poor, foolish, +eighteen-years' child that Aunt Adeline married off "safe", all the time +I was the "refuge" sort of wife. I would sit and listen while the other +wives talked over the men in utter bewilderment and most times terror, +then I would force myself to a little more forgetting and poor Mr. +Carter must have suffered the consequences. But all that was a mild sort +of exasperation to what a widow has to go through with in the matter +of--of, well I think hazing is about the best name to give it. + +"Molly Carter," said Mrs. Johnson just day before yesterday, after the +white-dress, Judge-Wade episode that Aunt Adeline had gone to all the +friends up and down the street to be consoled about, "if you haven't got +sense enough to appreciate your present blissful condition somebody +ought to operate on your mind." + +I was tempted to say, "Why not my heart?" I was glad she didn't know +how good that heart did feel under my tucker when the boy brought that +basket of fish from Judge Wade's fishing trip Saturday. I have firmly +determined not to blush any more at the thought of that gorgeous man--at +least outwardly. + +"Don't you think it is very--very lonely to be a widow, Mrs. Johnson?" I +asked timidly to see what she would say about Mr. Johnson, who is really +lovely, I think. He gives me the gentlest understanding smile when he +meets me on the street of late weeks. + +"Lonely, _lonely_, Molly? You talk about the married state exactly +like an old maid. Don't do it--it's foolish, and you will get the lone +notion really fastened in your mind and let some fool man find out that +is how you feel. Then it will be all over with you. I have only one +regret, and it is that if I ever should be a widow Mr. Johnson wouldn't +be here to see how quickly I turned into an old maid, by the grace of +God." Mrs. Johnson sews by assassinating the cloth with the needle, and +as she talked she was mending the sleeve of one of Mr. Johnson's shirts. + +"I think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a +man who loves her. Lots of them have been married for years," I said, +just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream, and went on +darning one of Billy's socks. + +"Well, be that as it may, they are the blessed members of the women +tribe," she answered, looking at me sharply. "Now I have often told +Mr. Johnson--" but here we were interrupted in what might have been the +rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of Aunt Bettie Pollard, +and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most +wonderful close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat on sight. +I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that made me want +to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel like I had gained all the +more than twenty pounds that I have slaved off me and doubled them on +again. I would have liked to lead her that minute into Doctor John's +office and just to have looked at him and said one word--"string-bean!" +Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Chester from Washington. + +"Oh, my dear Mrs. Carter, how glad I am to meet you!" she said as she +towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool +almost to slimness. "I am the bearer of so many gracious messages that +I am anxious to deliver them safely to you. Not six weeks ago I left +Alfred Bennett in Paris and really--really his greetings to you almost +amounted to steamer luggage. He came down to Cherbourg to see me off, +and almost the last thing he said to me was, 'Now, don't fail to see +Mrs. Carter as soon as you get to Hillsboro; and the more you see of her +the more you'll enjoy your visit to Mrs. Pollard.' Isn't he the most +delightful of men?" She asked me the question, but she had the most +wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time, so +Mrs. Johnson got in the first answer. + +"Delightful, nothing! But Al Bennett is a man of sense not to marry +any of the string of women I suppose he's got following him!" she said. +Miss Chester looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went on +murdering Mr. Johnson's shirt-sleeve with the needle without noticing +the glance at all. + +"Well, well, honey, I don't know about that," said Aunt Bettie as she +fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong rocker +I always kept in the breezy angle of the porch for her. "Al is not old +enough to have proved himself entirely, and from what I hear--" she +paused with the big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins +to tease or match-make, and she does them both most of her time. + +But at whom do you suppose she looked? Not me! Miss Chester! That was +cold tub number two for that day, and I didn't react as quickly as I +might, but when I did I was in the proper glow all over. When I revived +and saw the lovely pale blush on her face I felt like a cabbage-rose +beside a tea-bud. I was glad Aunt Adeline came out on the porch just +then so I could go in and tell Judy to bring out the iced tea and cakes. +When I came from the kitchen I stepped into my room and took out one of +Alfred's letters from the desk drawer and opened it at random, as you do +the Bible when you want to decide things, and put my finger down on a +line with my eyes shut This was what it was: + + "--and all these years I have walked the world, blindfolded to its + loveliness with the blackness that came to me when I found that you--" + + +I didn't read any more, but shoved it back in a hurry and went on out on +the porch, comforted in a way, but feeling some more in sympathy with +Mrs Johnson than I had before Aunt Bettie and her guest from Washington +had interrupted our algebraic demonstration on the man subject. You +can't always be sure of the right answer to X in any proposition of +life; that is, a woman can't! + +And, furthermore, I didn't like that next hour much, just as a sample of +life, for instance. Aunt Bettie had got her joining-together humor well +started, and right there before my face she made a present of every nice +man in Hillsboro to that lovely, distinguished, strange girl who could +have slipped through a bucket hoop if she had tried hard. I had to sit +there, listen to the presentations, watch her drink two tall delicious +glasses of tea full of sugar and consume without fear three of Judy's +puffy cakes, while I crumbled mine in secret over the banisters and set +half the glass of tea out of sight behind the wistaria vine. + +It was bad enough to hear Aunt Bettie just offer her Tom, who, if he is +her own son, is my favorite cousin, but I believe the worst minute I +almost ever faced was when she began on the judge, for I could see from +Aunt Adeline's shoulder beyond Miss Chester how she was enjoying that, +and she added another distinguished ancestor to his pedigree every time +Aunt Bettie paused for breath. I couldn't say a word about the fish and +Aunt Adeline wouldn't! I almost loved Mrs. Johnson when she bit off a +thread viciously and said, "Humph," as she rose to start the tea-party +home. + +That night I did so many exercises that at last I sank exhausted in a +chair in front of my mirror and put my head down on my arms and cried +the real tears you cry when nobody is looking. I felt terribly old and +ugly and dowdy and--widowed. It couldn't have been jealousy, for I just +love that girl. I want most awfully to hug her very slimness and it +was more what she might think of poor dumpy me than what any man in +Hillsboro, Tennessee, or Paris, France, could possibly feel on the +subject that hurt so hard. But then, looking back on it, I am afraid +that jealousy sheds feathers every night so you won't know him in the +morning, for something made me sit up suddenly with a spark in my eyes +and reach out to the desk for my pencil and check-book. It took me more +than an hour to figure it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though +in prospects a poorer woman. + +It is strange how spending a man's money makes you feel more congenial +with him and as I sat in the cars on my way to the city early the next +morning I felt nearer to Mr. Carter than I almost ever did, alive or +dead. After this I shall always appreciate and admire him for the way he +made money, since, for the first time in my life, I fully realized what +it could buy. And I bought things! + +First I went to see Madam Courtier for corsets. I had heard about her +and I knew it meant a fortune. But that didn't matter! She came in and +looked at me for about five minutes without saying a word and then she +ran her hands down and down over me until I could feel the flesh just +crawling off of me. It was delicious! + +Then she and two girls in puffs and rats came in and did things to a +corset they laced on me that I can't even write down, for I didn't +understand the process, but when I looked in that long glass I almost +dropped on the floor. I wasn't tight and I wasn't stiff and I +looked--I'm too modest to write how lovely I really looked to myself. +I was spellbound with delight. + +[Illustration: I was spellbound with delight] + +Next I signed the check for three of those wonders with my head so in +the clouds I didn't know what I was doing, but I came to with a jolt +when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black taffeta bag I +had worn down to the city. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds +I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Chester from the horror I +felt when I looked at myself. The girl was really sympathetic and said +with a smile that was true kindness: "Shall I call a taxi for madam and +have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready +to be fitted at short notice. Really, madam's figure is such that it +commands a perfect costume now." Men do business well, but when women +enter the field they are geniuses at money extracting. I felt myself +already clothed perfectly when that girl said my figure "commanded" a +proper dress. Of course, Klein pays Madam Courtier a commission for the +customers she passes right on to him. The one for me must have looked to +her like a real estate transaction. + +I spent three days at the great Klein store, only going to the hotel to +sleep and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madam Rene must have been +Madam Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madam Telliers in the hat +department was the triplet to them both. When women have genius it +breaks out all over them like measles and they never recover from it; +those women had the confluent kind. But I know that old Rene really +liked me, for when I blushed and asked her if they had a good beauty +doctor in the store she held up her hands and shuddered. + +"Never, Madam, never _pour vous_. _Ravissant, charmant_--it is +to fool. Nevair! _Jamais, jamais de la vie!_" I had to calm her +down and she kissed my hand when we parted. + +I thought Klein was going to do the same thing or worse when I signed +the check which would be good for a house and lot and motor-car for him, +but he didn't. Only he got even with me by saying: "And I am delighted +that the trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, Mrs. Carter." + +That was an awful shock and I hope I didn't show it as I murmured: +"Perfectly, thank you." + +The word "trousseau" can be spoken in a woman's presence for many years +with no effect, but it is an awful shock when she first _really_ +hears it. I felt funny all afternoon as I packed those trunks for the +five o'clock train. + +Yes, the word "trousseau" ought to have a definite surname after it +always and that's why my loyalty dragged poor Mr. Carter out into the +light of my conscience. The thinking of him had a strange effect on me. +I had laid out the dream in dark gray-blue rajah, tailored almost beyond +endurance, to wear home on the train and had thrown the old black +taffeta bag across the chair to give to the hotel maid, but the decision +of the session between conscience and loyalty made me pack the precious +blue wonder and put on once more the black rags of remembrance in a kind +of panic of respect. + +I would lots rather have bought poor Mr. Carter the monument I have been +planning for months to keep up conversation with Aunt Adeline, than wear +that dress again. I felt conscience reprove me once more with loyalty +looking on in disapproval as I buttoned the old thing up for the last +time, because I really ought to have stayed over a day to buy that +monument, but--to tell the truth I wanted to see Billy so desperately +that his "sleep-place" above my heart hurt as if it might have prickly +heat break out at any minute. + +So I hurried and stuffed the gray-blue darling in the top tray, lapped +old black taffeta around my waist and belted it in with a black belt off +a new green linen I had made for morning walks, down to the drug store +on the public square, I suppose. That is about the only morning +dissipation in Hillsboro that I can think of, and it all depends on whom +you meet, how much of a dissipation it is. + +The next thing that happens after you have done a noble deed is, you +either regard it as a reward of virtue or as a punishment for having +been foolish. I felt both ways when Judge Wade came down the car aisle, +looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I don't see how +they stand him ever. At that minute the noble black-taffeta deed felt +foolish, but at the next minute I thanked my lucky stars for it. + +It is nice to watch for a person to catch sight of you if you feel sure +how they are going to take it and somehow in this case I felt sure. I +was not disappointed, for his smile broke his face up into a joy-laugh. +Off came his hat instantly so I could catch a glimpse of the fascinating +frost over his temples, and with a positive sigh of rapture he subsided +into the seat beside me. I turned with an echo smile all over me when +suddenly his face became grave and considerate, and he looked at me as +all the men in Hillsboro have been doing ever since poor Mr. Carter's +funeral. + +"Mrs. Carter," he said very kindly, in a voice that pitched me out of +the car window and left me a mile behind on the track, all by myself, +"I wish I had known of your sad errand to town so I could have offered +you some assistance in your selection. You know we have just had our lot +in the cemetery finally arranged and I found the dealers in memorial +stones very confusing in their ideas and designs. Mrs. Henderson just +told my mother of your absence from home last night, and I could only +come down to the city for the day on important business or I would have +arranged to see you. I hope you found something that satisfied you." + +What's a woman going to say when she has a tombstone thrown in her face +like that? I didn't say anything, but what I thought about Aunt Adeline +filled in a dreadful pause. + +Perfectly dumb and quiet I sat for an awful space of time and wondered +just what I was going to do. Could a woman lie a monument into her suit +case? It was beyond me at that speaking and the Molly that is ready for +life quick, didn't want to. I shut my eyes, counted three to myself as I +do when I go over into the cold tub, and told him all about it. We both +got a satisfactory reaction and I never enjoyed myself so much as that +before. + +I understand now why Judge Wade has had so many women martyr themselves +over him and live unhappily ever afterward, as everybody says Henrietta +Mason is doing. He's a very inspiring man and he fairly bristles with +fascinations. Some men are what you call taking and they take you if +they want you, while others are drawing and after you are drawn to them +they will consider the question of taking you. The judge is like that. + +In the meantime it tingles me up to a very great degree to have a man +use his eyes on me as it is the privilege of only womankind to do, and I +feel that it will be good for his judgeship for me to let him "draw" me +at least a little way. I may get hurt, but I shall at least have an +interesting time of it. I started right then and got results, for he +stopped under the old lilac bush that leans over my side gate and kissed +my hand. Old Lilac shook a laugh of perfume all over us and I believe +signaled the event at the top of his bough to the white clump on the +other side of the garden. I'm glad Aunt Adeline isn't in the flower +fraternity or sorority. Suppose she had seen or heard! + +And it didn't take many minutes for me to slip into old +summer-before-last--also for the last time inside of those buttons--and +run through the garden, my heart singing, "Billy, Billy," in a perfect +rapture of tune. I ran past the office door and found him in his cot +almost asleep and we had a bear reunion in the rocker by the window that +made us both breathless. + +"What did you bring me, Molly?" he finally kissed under my right ear. + +"A real base-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five cars, a rake +and a spade and a hoe, two blow-guns that pop a new way and something +that squirts water and some other things. Will that be enough?" I hugged +him up anxiously, for sometimes he is hard to please and I might not +have got the very thing he wanted. + +"Thank you, Molly, all them things is what I want, but you oughter brung +more'n that for three days not being here with me." Did any woman ever +have a more lovely lover than that? I don't know how long I should have +rocked him in the twilight if Doctor John's voice hadn't come across the +hall in command. + +"Put him down now, Mrs. Molly, and come and say other how-do-you-does," +he called softly. + +It was a funny glad-to-see-him I felt as I came into the office where he +was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its twilight +glow. I think it is wrong for a woman to let her imagination kiss a man +on the back of his neck even if she has known for some time that there +is a little drake-tail lock of hair there just like his own son's. I +gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a blush than I +intended. + +He very far from kissed the hand; he held it just long enough to turn me +around into the light and give me one long looking-over from head to +feet. + +"Just where does that corset press you worst?" he asked in the tone of +voice he uses to say "poke out your tongue." So much of my Tennessee +shooting-blood rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't drip; but I +was cold enough to have hit at forty paces if I had had a shooting-iron +in my hand. As it was the coldness was the only missile that I had, but +I used it to some effect. + +"I am making a call on a friend, Doctor Moore, and not a consultation +visit to my physician," I said, looking into his face as though I had +never seen him before. + +"I beg your pardon, Molly," he exclaimed and his face was redder than +mine and then it went white with mortification. I couldn't stand that. + +"Don't do that way!" I exclaimed, and before I knew it I had taken +hold of his hand and had it in both of mine. "I know I look as if I +was shrunk or laced, but I'm not! I was going to tell you all about +it and show it to you. I'm really inches bigger in the right place and +just--just 'controlled', the woman called it, in the wrong place. Please +feel me and see," and I offered myself to him for examination in the +most regardless way. He's not at all like other people. + +The blood came back into his face and he laughed as he gave me a little +shake that pushed me away from him. "Don't you ever scare me like that +again, child, or it might be serious," he said in the Billy-and-me tone +of voice that I like some, only-- + +"I never will," I said in a hurry; "I want you to ask me anything in the +world you want to and I'll always do it." + +"Well, let me take you home through the garden then--and, yes, I believe +I'll stay to break a muffin with Mrs. Henderson. Don't you want to tell +me what a little girl like you did in a big city and--and read me part +of that London letter I saw the postman give Judy this afternoon?" + +Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett's +letters always makes me so instantly cross. + + + + +LEAF FOURTH + +SCATTERED JAM + + +Sleep is one of the most delightful and undervalued amusements known +to the human race. I have never had enough yet and every second of time +that I'm not busy with something interesting I curl up on the bed and +go dream hunting--only I sleep too hard to do much catching. But this +torture book found that out on me and stopped it the very first thing on +page three. The command is to sleep as little as possible to keep the +nerves in a good condition,--"eight hours at the most and seven would +be better." What earthly good would a seven-hour nap do me? I want ten +hours to sleep and twelve if I get a good tired start. To see me stagger +out of my perfectly nice bed at six o'clock every morning now would +wring the sternest heart with compassion and admiration at my +faithfulness--to whom? + +Yes, it was the day after poor Mr. Carter's funeral that Aunt Adeline +moved up here into my house and settled herself in the big south room +across the hall from mine. Her furniture weighs a ton each piece, and +Aunt Adeline is not light herself in disposition. The next morning when +I went in to breakfast she sat in the "vacant chair" in a way that made +me see that she was obviously trying to fill the vacancy. I am sorry she +worried herself about that. Anyway, it made me take a resolve. After +breakfast I went into the kitchen to speak to Judy. + +"Judy," I said, looking past her head, "my health is not very good and +you can bring my breakfast to me in bed after this." Poor Mr. Carter +always wanted breakfast on the stroke of seven, and me at the same time, +though he rarely got me. Judy has two dead husbands and she likes a +ginger-colored barber down-town. Also her mother is our washerwoman +and influenced by Aunt Adeline. Judy understands everything I say to +her. After I had closed the door I heard a laugh that sounded like a +war-whoop, and I smiled to myself. But that was before my martyrdom to +this book had begun. I get up now! + +But the day after I came from the city I lay in bed just as long as I +wanted to and ignored the thought of the exercises and deep breathing +and the icy unsympathetic tub. I couldn't even take very much interest +in the lonely egg on the lonely slice of dry toast. I was thinking about +things. + +Hillsboro is a very peculiar little speck on the universe; even more +peculiar than being like a hen. It is one of the oldest towns in +Tennessee and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched off +except in spots. But it has a lot of racehorse and distillery money in +it and when it gets poked up by anything unusual it takes a gulp of its +own alcoholic atmosphere and runs away on its own track at a two-five +gait, shedding moss as it goes. It hasn't had a real joy-race for a long +time and I felt that it needed it. I rolled over and laughed into my +pillow. + +The subject of the conduct of widows is a serious one. Of all the things +old Tradition is most set about it is that, and what was decided to be +the proper thing a million years ago this town still dictates shall be +done, and spends a good deal of its time seeing its directions carried +out. For a year after the funeral they forget about the poor bereaved +and when they do remember her they speak to and of her in the same tones +of voice they used at the obsequies. Then sooner or later some neighbor +is sure to see some man walk home from church with her or hear some old +bachelor's voice on her front porch. Mr. Cain took Mrs. Caruther's +little Jessie up in his buggy and helped her out at her mother's gate +just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quick the +town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her. They +were married the day after New Year's and she lost lots of good friends +because she didn't give them more time to talk about it. + +I don't intend to run any risk of losing my friends that way and I want +them to have all the good time they can get out of it. I'm going to +serve out mint-juleps of excitement until the dear old place is running +as it did when it was a two-year-old. Why get mad when people are +interested in you? It's a compliment after all and just gives them more +to think about. I remembered the two trunks across the hall and hugged +my knees up under by chin with pleasure at the thought of the town-talk +they contained. + +Then just as I had got the first plan well-going and was deciding +whether to wear the mauve meteor or the white chiffon with the rosebud +embroidery as a first julep for my friends, a sweetness came in through +my window that took my breath away and I lay still with my hand over my +heart and listened. It was Billy singing right under my window, and I've +never heard him do it before in all his five years. It was the dearest +old-fashioned tune ever written and Billy sang the words as distinctly +as if he had been a boy chorister doing a difficult recitative. My heart +beat so it shook the lace on my breast like a breeze from heaven as he +took the high note and then let it go on the last few words. + + "If you love me, Molly, darling, + Let your answer be a kiss!" + + +A confused recollection of having heard the words and tune sung by my +mother when I was at the rocking age myself brought the tears to my eyes +as I flew to the window and parted the curtains. If you heard a little +boy-angel singing at your casement wouldn't you expect a cherubim face +upturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned as he +heard me draw the shade, but it was streaked like a wild Indian's with +decorations of brown mud and he held a long slimy fish-worm on the end +of a stick while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his +linen blouse. + +[Illustration: I lifted him into my arms] + +"Say, Molly, look at the snake I brunged you!" he exclaimed as he came +close under the sill, which is not high from the ground. "If you put +your face down to the mud and sing something to 'em they'll come outen +they holes. A doodle-bug comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift +me up and I can put him in the water-glass on your table." He held up +one muddy paddie to me and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From +the embrace in which he and the worm and I indulged my lace and dimity +came out much the worse. + +"That was a lovely song you sang about 'Molly, darling', Billy," I said. +"Where did you hear it?" + +"That's a good bug-song, Molly, and I bet I can git a lizard with it, +too, if I sing it right low." He began to squirm out of my arms toward +the table and the glass. + +"Who taught it to you, sugar-sweet?" I persisted as I poured water in on +the squirming worm under his direction. + +"Nobody taught it to me. Doc sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor you +ain't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like _Roll, +Jordan, Roll_, or _Hot Times_ or _Twinkle_. I go to sleep quick 'cause +he makes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good for bugs. Git +a hair-pin for me to poke him with, Molly, quick!" + +I found the hair-pin and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed +it to Billy. As soon as he got it he climbed out the window, glass, bug +and all, and I saw him and the red setter go down the garden walk +together in pursuit of the desired lizard, I suppose. I closed the +blinds and drew the curtains again and flung myself on my pillow. +Something warm and sweet seemed to be sweeping over me in great waves +and I felt young and close up to some sort of big world-good. It was +delicious and I don't know how long I would have stayed there just +feeling it if Judy hadn't brought in my letter. + +He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful things +all flavored with me. He told me about Miss Chester and what good +friends they were, and how much he hoped she would be in Hillsboro when +he got here. He said that a great many of her dainty ways reminded him +of his "own slip of a girl", especially the turn of her head like a +"flower on its stem." At that I got right out of bed like a jack jumping +out of a box and looked at myself in the mirror. + +There is one exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You +screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get +your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born +baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the +others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter +I'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe earlier. It +frightens me to think that I've got only a few weeks more to turn from a +cabbage-rose into a lily. I won't let myself even think "luscious peach" +and "string-bean." If I do, I get warm and happy all over and let up on +myself. I try when I get hungry to think of myself in that blue muslin +dress. + +I haven't been really willing before to write down in this torture +volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madam Rene +did to it--made it over into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I +wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honorable as all +women are at peculiar times. I think she understood, but she seemed not +to, and worked a miracle on it with ribbon and lace. I've put it away on +the top shelf of a closet, for it is torment to look at it. + +You can just take any old recipe for a party and mix up a debut for a +girl, but it takes more time to concoct one for a widow, especially if +it is for yourself. I spent all the rest of the day doing almost nothing +and thinking until I felt lightheaded. Finally I had just about given up +any idea of a blaze and had decided to leak out in general society as +quietly as my clothes would let me, when a real conflagration was +lighted inside me. + +If Tom Pollard wasn't my own first cousin I would have loved him +desperately, even if I am a week older than he. He was about the +only oasis in my marriage mirage, though I don't think anybody would +think of calling him at all green. He never stopped coming to see me +occasionally, and Mr. Carter liked him. He was the first man to notice +the white ruche I sewed in the neck of my old black taffeta four or five +months ago and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner of his +eyes even right there in church, under Aunt Adeline's very elbow. He +makes love unconsciously and he flirts with his own mother. As soon as +I've made this widowhood hurdle--well, I'm going to spend a lot of time +buying tobacco with him in his Hup runabout, which sounds as if it was +named for himself. + +And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my debut, Tom did +it. I was sitting peaceably on my own front steps, dressed in the +summer-before-last that Judy washes and irons every day while I'm +deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the neighbors, +when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that melted into +it in tone, blew over my hedge and landed at my side. He kissed the lace +ruffle on my sleeve while I reproved him severely and settled down to +enjoy him. But I didn't have such an awfully good time as I generally do +with him. He was too full of another woman, and even a first cousin can +be an exasperation in that condition. + +"Now, Mrs. Molly, truly did you ever see such a peach as she is?" he +demanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinions of +Miss Chester. His use of the word "peach" riled me and before I stopped +to think, I said: "She reminds me more of a string-bean." + +"Now, Molly, don't be mean just because old Wade has got her out driving +behind the grays after kissing your hand under the lilacs yesterday, +which, praise be, nobody saw but little me! I'm not sore, why should you +be? Aren't you happy with me?" + +I withered him with a look, or rather _tried_ to wither him, for +Tom is no Mimosa bud. + +"The way that girl has started in to wake up this little old town +reminds me of the feeling you get under your belt seven minutes after +you've sipped an absinthe frappe for the first time--you are liable for +a good jag and don't know it," he continued enthusiastically. "Let's +don't let the folks know that they are off until I get everybody in a +full swing of buzz over my queen." I had never seen Tom so enthusiastic +over a girl before and I didn't like it. But I decided not to let him +know that, but to get to work putting out the Chester blaze in him and +starting one on my own account. + +"That's just what I'm thinking about, Tom," I said with a smile that was +as sweet as I could make it, "and as she came with messages to me from +one of my best old friends I think I ought to do something to make her +have a good time. I was just planning a gorgeous dinner-party I want to +have for her when you came so suddenly. Do you think we could arrange it +for Tuesday evening?" + +"Lord love us, Molly, don't knock the town down like that! Let 'em have +more than a week to get used to this white rag of a dress you've been +waving in their faces for the last few days. Go slow!" + +"I've been going so slow for so many years that I've turned around and +I'm going fast backward," I said with a blush that I couldn't help. + +"Help! Let my kinship protect me!" exclaimed Tom in alarm, and he +pretended to move an inch away from me. + +"Yes," I said slowly and as I looked out of the corner of my eyes from +under the lashes that Tom himself had once told me were "too long and +black to be tidy," I saw that he was in a condition to get the full +shock. "If anybody wakes up this town it will be I," I said as I flung +down the gauntlet with a high head. + +"Here, Molly, here are the keys of my office, and the spark-plug to the +Hup; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Judy has got a cake I'll +eat it out of your hands. Shall it be California or Nova Scotia? And I +prefer _my_ bride served in light gray tweed." Tom really is +adorable and I let him snuggle up just one cousinly second, then we both +laughed and began to plan what Tom was horrible enough to call the +resurrection razoo. But I kept that delicious rose-embroidered treasure +all to myself. I wanted him to meet it entirely unprepared. + +I was glad we had both got over our excitement and were sitting +decorously at several inches' distance apart when the judge drew the +grays up to the gate and we both went down to the sidewalk to ask him +and the lovely long lady to come in. They couldn't; but we stood and +talked to them long enough for Mrs. Johnson to get a good look at us +from across the street and I was afraid I would find Aunt Adeline in a +faint when I went into the house. + +Miss Chester was delightfully gracious about the dinner--I almost called +it the debut dinner--and the expression on the judge's face when he +accepted! I was glad she was sitting sidewise to him and couldn't see. +Some women like to make other women unhappy, but I think it is best for +you to keep them blissfully unconscious until you get what you want. +Anyway, I like that girl all over and I can't see that her neck is so +absolutely impossibly flowery. However, I think she might have been a +little more considerate about discussing Alfred's London triumph over +the Italian mission. As a punishment I let Tom put his arm around my +waist as we stood watching them drive off and then was sorry for the +left gray horse that shied and came in for a crack of the judge's +irritated whip. + +Then I refused to let Tom come inside the gate and he went down the +street whistling, only when he got to the purple lilac he turned and +kissed his hand to me. That, Mrs. Johnson just couldn't stand and she +came across the street immediately and called me back to the gate. + +"You are tempting Providence, Molly Carter," she exclaimed decidedly. +"Don't you know Tom Pollard is nothing but a fly-up-the-creek? As a +husband he'd chew the rope and run away like a puppy the first time your +back was turned. Besides being your cousin, he's younger than you. What +do you mean?" + +"He's just a week younger, Mrs. Johnson, and I wouldn't tie him for +worlds, even if I married him," I said meekly. Somehow I like Mrs. +Johnson enough to be meek with her and it always brings her to a higher +point of excitement. + +"Tie, nonsense; marrying is roping in with ball and chain, to my mind. +And a week between a man and a woman in their cradles gets to be fifteen +years between them and their graves. I'm going to make you the subject +of a silent prayer at the next missionary meeting, and I must go home +now to see that Sally cooks up a few of Mr. Johnson's crotchets for +supper." And she began to hurry away. + +"I don't believe you'll be able to make it a 'silent' session about me, +Mrs. Johnson," I called after her, and she laughed back from her own +front gate. Marriage is the only worm in the bud of Mrs. Johnson's life, +and her laugh has a snap to it even if it is not very sugary sweet. + +When I told Judy about the dinner-party and asked her to get the yellow +barber to come help her and her nephew wait on the table she grinned +such a wide grin that I was afraid of being swallowed. She understood +that Aunt Adeline wouldn't be interested in it until I had time to tell +her all about it. Anyway, she will be going over to Springfield on a +pilgrimage to see Mr. Henderson's sister next week. She doesn't know it +yet; but I do. + +After that I spent all the rest of the evening in planning my +dinner-party and I had a most royal good time. I always have had lots +of company, but mostly the spend-the-day kind with relatives, or more +relatives to supper. That's what most entertaining in Hillsboro is like, +but, as I say, once in a while the old slow pacer wakes up. + +I'll never forget my first real dinner-party, as the flower girl for +Caroline Evans' wedding, when she married the Chicago millionaire, from +which Hillsboro has never yet recovered. I was sixteen, felt dreadfully +naked without a tucker in my dress, and saw Alfred for the first time in +evening clothes--his first. I can hardly stand thinking about how he +looked even now. I haven't been to very many dinner-parties in my life, +but from this time on I mean to indulge in them often. Candle-light, +pretty women's shoulders, black coat sleeves, cut glass and flowers are +good ingredients for a joy-drink, and why not? + +But when I got to planning about the gorgeous food I wanted to give them +all, I got into what I feel came near being a serious trouble. It was +writing down the recipe for the nesselrode pudding they make in my +family that undid me. Suddenly hunger rose up from nowhere and gripped +me by the throat, gnawed me all over like a bone, then shook me until I +was limp and unresisting. I must have astralized myself down to the +pantry, for when I became conscious I found myself in company with a +loaf of bread, a plate of butter and a huge jar of jam. + +I sat down by the long table by the window and slowly prepared to enjoy +myself. I cut off four slices and buttered them to an equal thickness +and then more slowly put a long silver spoon into the jam. I even paused +to admire in Judy's mirror over the table the effect of the cascade of +lace that fell across my arm and lost itself in the blue shimmer of old +Rene's masterpiece of a negligee, then deep down I buried the spoon in +the purple sweetness. I had just lifted it high in the air when out of +the lilac-scented dark of the garden came a laugh. + +[Illustration: "Why Molly, Molly, Molly!"] + +"Why, Molly, Molly, Molly!" drawled that miserable man-doctor as he came +and leaned on the sill right close to my elbow. The spoon crashed on the +table and I turned and crashed into words. + +"You are cruel, cruel, John Moore, and I hate you worse than I ever did +before, if that is possible. I'm hungry, hungry to death, and now you've +spoiled it all! Go away before I wet this nice crisp bread and jam with +tears into a mush I'll have to eat with a spoon. You don't know what it +is to want something sweet so bad you are willing to steal it--from +yourself!" I fairly blazed my eyes down into his and moved as far away +from him as the table would let me. + +"Don't I, Molly?" he asked softly, after looking straight in my eyes for +a long minute that made me drop my head until the blue bow I had tied on +the end of my long plait almost got into the scattered jam. Even at such +a moment as that I felt how glad old Rene would have been to have given +such a nice man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk +chef-d'oeuvre of hers. I was glad myself. + +"Don't I, Peaches?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had +that sensation of being against something warm and great and good like +your own mother's breast and I don't know how I controlled it enough not +to--to-- + +"Well, have some jam then," I managed to say with a little laugh as I +turned away and picked up the silver spoon. + +"Thank you, I will, all of it and the bread and butter, too," he +answered, in that detestable friendly tone of voice as he drew himself +up and sat in the window. "Hustle, Peaches, if you are going to feed me, +for I'm ravenous. It took Sam Benson's wife the longest time to have the +shortest baby I ever experienced and I haven't had any supper. You have; +so I don't mind taking it all away from you." + +"Supper," I sniffed as I spread the jam on those lovely, lovely slices +of bread and thick butter that I had fixed for my own self. "That +apple-toast combination tires me so now that I forget it if I can." As I +handed him the first slice of drippy lusciousness I turned my head away. +He thought it was from the expression of that jam, but it was from his +eyes. + +"Slice up the whole loaf, Peaches, and let's get on a jam jag! Come with +me just this once and forget--forget--" He didn't finish his sentence +and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything more as I fed him that +whole loaf. I found that the bite I took off of each piece I had ready +for him when he finished with the one he had in hand satisfied me as +nothing I had ever eaten in all my life before had done, while at the +same time my nibbles soothed his conscience about robbing me. + +His teeth are big and strong and white and his jaws work like machinery. +He is the strongest man I ever saw, and his gauntness is all muscle. +What is that glow a woman gets from feeding a hungry man whom she likes +with her own hands; and why should I want to be certain that he kissed +the lace on my sleeve as it brushed his face when I reached across him +to catch an inquisitive rose that I saw peeping in the window at us? + + + + +LEAF FIFTH + +BLUE ABSINTHE + + +"The juice of a lemon in two glasses of cold water, to be drunk +immediately on wakening!" Page eleven! I've handed myself that lemon +every morning now until I am sensitive with myself about it. If there +was ever anybody "on the water wagon" it's I, and I have to sit on the +front seat from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water I'm supposed +to consume in that time. Sometime I'm going to get mixed up and try to +drink my bath if I don't look out. I dreamed night before last that I +was taking a bath in a glass of ice-cream soda-water and trying to hide +from Doctor John behind the dab of ice-cream that seemed inadequate for +food or protection. I haven't had even one glass for two months and I +woke up in a cold perspiration of embarrassment and raging hunger. + +I don't know what I'm going to do about this book and I've got myself +into trouble about writing things besides records in it. He looked at me +this morning as coolly as if I was just anybody and said: + +"I would like to see that record now, Mrs. Molly. It seems to me you are +about as slim as you want to be. How did you tip the scales last time +you weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?" + +"I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds and I've got to melt and +freeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heart +question and also the question of producing this book. Wonder what he +would do if I gave it to him to read just as it is? + +"How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smile +in his eyes for his mouth was purely professional. Anyway, I lowered my +lashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally: + +"Sometimes it hurts." Then a cyclone happened to me. + +"Come here to me a minute!" he said quickly and he turned me around and +put his head down between my shoulders and held me so tight against his +ear that I could hardly breathe. + +"Expand your chest three times and breathe as deep as you can," he +ordered from against my back buttons. I expanded and breathed--pretty +quickly at that. + +[Illustration: "Breathe as deep as you can"] + +"Now hold your breath as long as you can," he commanded, and it fitted +my mood exactly to do so. + +"Can't find anything," he said at last, letting me go and looking +carefully at my face. His eyes were all anxiety; and I liked it. "When +does it hurt you and how?" he asked anxiously. + +"Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stop +myself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got white +for a minute and just looked at me as if I was a bug stuck on a pin, +then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table. + +"I didn't understand you were joking," he said quietly. + +That maddened me and I would have done anything to make him think +I was not the foolish thing he evidently had classified me as being. +I snatched at my mind and shook out a mixture of truth and lies that +fooled even myself and gave them to him, looking straight in his face. +I would have cracked all the ten commandments to save myself from his +contempt. + +"I'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I _am_ lonesome. And worse than +being lonesome, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict +of Mr. Carter and gone on to church meetings with Aunt Adeline and let +myself be fat and respectable; but I haven't got the character. You +thought I went to town to buy a monument, and I didn't; I bought enough +clothes for two brides, and now I'm scared to wear 'em, and I don't know +what you'll think when you see my bank-book. Everybody is talking about +me and that dinner-party Tuesday night, and Aunt Adeline says she can't +live in a house of mourning so desecrated any longer; she's going back +to the cottage. Aunt Bettie Pollard says that if I want to get married +I ought to do it to Mr. Wilson Graves because of the seven children and +then everybody would be so relieved that they are taken care of that +they would forget that Mr. Carter hasn't been dead quite one year yet. +Mrs. Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward to +you. I can't help Judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's sitting on +my front steps night and day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away +and murder him. I am perfectly miserable and I'm--" + +"Now that'll do, Molly, just hush for a half-minute and let me talk to +you," said Doctor John as he took my hand in his and drew me near him. +"No wonder your heart hurts if it has got all that load of trouble on it +and well just get a little of that 'scare' off. You put yourself in my +hands and you are to do just as I tell you, and I say--forget it! Come +with me while I make a call. It is a long drive and I'm--I'm lonesome +sometimes myself." + +I saw the worst was over and I breathed freely again, but I had talked +so much truth in that fiction that I felt just as I said I did, which is +a slightly unnatural feeling for a woman. There was nothing for it but +to go with him, and I wanted to most awfully. + +To my dying day I'll never forget that little house, way out on the Cane +Run Pike, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms, +but they were clean and quiet and a girl with the sweetest face I ever +saw lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride and a tiny, tiny +little bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red with +embarrassment and anxiety. + +"She's all right to-day, but she worries because she don't think I can +tend to the baby right," he said; and he did look helpless. "Her mother +had to go home for two days, but is coming to-morrow. I dasn't undress +and wash the youngster myself. It won't hurt him to stay bundled up +until granny comes, will it, Doc?" + +"Not a bit," answered Doctor John in his big comforting voice. + +But I looked at the girl and I understood her. She wanted that baby +clean and fresh even if it was just five days old, and I felt all of a +sudden terribly capable. I picked up the bundle and went into the other +room with it where a kettle was boiling on the stove and a large bucket +by the door. I found things by just a glance from her, and the hour I +spent with that small baby was one of the most delicious of all my life. +I never was left entirely to myself with one before and I did all I +wanted to this one, guided by instinct and desire. He slept right +through and was the darlingest thing I ever saw when I laid him back on +the bed by her. I never looked in Doctor John's direction once, though +I felt him all the time. + +But on the way home I gave myself the surprise of my life! Suddenly +I turned my face against his sleeve and cried as I never had before. +I felt safe, for it is a cliff road and he had to drive carefully. +However, he managed to press that one arm against my cheek in a way that +comforted me into stopping when I saw we were near town. I got out of +the car at the garage and walked away through the garden home without +looking in his direction at all. I never seem to be able to look at him +as I do at other people. We hadn't spoken two words since we had left +the little house in the woods with that happy-faced girl in it. He has +more sense than just a man. + +It was almost dusk and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull the dirt +closer around some of the bachelor's-buttons that had "popped" the +ground some weeks ago. Thinking about them made me regain my spirits and +I went on in the house to be scolded for whatever Aunt Adeline had +thought up while I was gone to do it to me about. Judy told me with her +broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper +and I sat down on the steps with a sigh of relief. + +Some days are like tin cocoanut graters that everybody uses to grate you +against and this was one for me. For an hour I sat and grated my own +self against Alfred's letter that had come in the morning. I realized +that I would just have to come to some sort of decision about what I was +going to do, for he wrote that he was to sail in a day or two, and ships +do travel so fast these days. + +I love him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the most +wonderful life in the world and no woman could help being proud to +accept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confess +to Doctor John. I can't go on living this way any longer. Ruth Chester +has made me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never +and--quick. I know now that she loves him, and she ought to have her +show if I don't want him. The way she idolizes and idealizes him is a +marvel of womanly stupidity. + +Some women like to collect men's hearts and hide them away from other +women on cold storage and the helpless things can't help themselves. + +I have contempt for that sort of butcher, and I love Ruth! + +It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in +Alfred's--and _decide_. If not Alfred, what then? + +First--no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-minded +enough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I prefer +to suffer at the hands of some cruel man and trust to beguiling him into +doing just as I say. I like men, can't help it, and want one for my own. +I don't count poor Mr. Carter. + +Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutter +at the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline's own best friend and +they have ideas in common. She is so religious that living with her +would be like having the sacrament for daily bread. Still, living with +him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! The girl he wanted to +marry died of tuberculosis and he wears a locket with her in it yet. I'd +like to reward him for such faithfulness with a nice husky wife to wear +instead of the locket. But then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at +Ruth Chester and realize how faithful, and my heart melts to him in my +breast--my hips have almost all melted away, too, so I had better keep +the heart cold enough to handle if I want anything left at all for him +to come home to. + +In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. You have +to say "don't" to him all the time, but what woman doesn't like a little +impertinence once in a while? I flavor all Tom's dare-devil kisses with +kinship when I feed them to my conscience, and I truly try to make him +be serious about the important things in life like going to church with +his mother and working all day, even if he is rich. I wish he wasn't so +near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Chester's way again! One of +the things that keeps the devil so busy is taking helpless widows to the +heights of knowledge and showing them kingdoms of men that girls never +dream even exist. If all women could have been born with widow-eyes, +things would run much more smoothly along the marriage and +giving-in-marriage line. And the poor men are most of them as ignorant +as girls about what to do. + +I suppose I really would be doing a righteous thing to marry Mr. Graves, +and I would adore all those children to start with, but I know Billy +wouldn't get on with them at all. I can't even consider it on his +account, but I'll let the nice old chap come on for a few times more to +see me, for he really is interesting and we have suffered things in +common. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did. +I'd like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn't be happy, that +settles it, and I don't know how good his boys are. I couldn't have +Billy corrupted. + +And so, as there is nobody else exactly suitable in town, it all simmers +down to one or the other of these or Alfred. In my heart I knew that I +couldn't hesitate a minute--and in the flash of a second I +_decided_. Of course I love Alfred and I'll take him gladly and be +the wife he has waited for all these six lonely years. I'll make +everything up to him if I have to diet to keep thin for him the rest of +my life. I likely will have that very thing to do and I get weak at the +idea. Before I burn this book I'll have to copy it all out and be +chained to it for life. At the thought my heart dropped like a sinker to +my toes; but I hauled it up to its normal place with picturing to myself +how Alfred would look when he saw me in that old blue muslin done over +into a Rene wonder. However, old heart would show a strange propensity +for sinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. Tears were +even coming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the fence and +picked me and the heart up together and put us into an adventure of the +first water. + +"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a +dandy, strolling, gipsy band up at the hotel; the dining-room floor is +all waxed and I'm asking for the first dance with the young and radiant +Mrs. Carter. Get into a glad rag and don't keep me waiting." + +"Tom," I gasped! + +"Oh, be a sport, Moll, and don't take water! You said you would wake up +this town, and now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I +had my arms around you to music and I'm not going to wait any longer. +Everybody is there and they can't all dance with Miss Chester." + +That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be danced to death. Of +course I had planned to make a dignified debut under my own roof, backed +up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood, silver and +mahogany, as a widow should, but _duty_ called me to de-weed myself +amidst the informality of an impromptu dance at the little town hotel. +And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weeded to some purpose and +flowered out to still more. I never do anything by halves. + +In that--that--trousseau old Rene had made me there was one, what she +called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the +check it called for, a one and two ciphers back of it. It was of linen +as sheer as a cobweb, real lace and tiny delicious incrustations of +embroidery. It fitted in lines that melted into curves, had enticements +in the shape of a long sash and a dangerous breast-knot of shimmery +blue, the color of my eyes, and I looked new-born in it. + +I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about rats and things +in my hair, now that they are out of style, for I've got lots of my own +left in consequence of not wearing other peoples'. It clings and coils +to my head just any old way that looks as if I had spent an hour on it. +That made me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over +the time he gave me. + +I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tom +to turn out the light for me, as Judy had gone. + +I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to let +Tom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! At +first it stunned him,--and it is a compliment to any woman to stun Tom +Pollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long and I only succeeded in +suppressing him after he had landed two kisses on my shoulder, one on my +hair and one on the back of my neck. + +"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you +are one lovely dream. Your shoulders are flushed velvet, your cheeks are +peaches under cream, your eyes are blue absinthe and your mouth a red +devil. Come on before I get drunk looking at you." I didn't know whether +I liked that or not and turned down the light quickly myself and went to +the gate hurriedly. Tom laughed and behaved himself. + +[Illustration: "Molly, you are one lovely dream"] + +Everybody in town was up to the hotel and everybody was nice to me, +girls and all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town and +they were all in full flower. Most of the men were college boys home for +vacation, and while they are a few years younger than me, I have been +friends with them for always and they know how I dance. I didn't even +get near enough to the wall to know it was there, though I was conscious +of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson sitting on it at one end of the room, +and every time I passed them I flirted with them until I won a smile +from them both. I wish I could be sure of hearing Mrs. Johnson tell Aunt +Adeline all about it. + +And it was well I did come to save Ruth Chester from a dancing death, +for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down. +I felt sorry for Tom, for when he danced with me he could see her, and +when he danced with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I +verily believe it was from being really rattled that he asked little Pet +Buford to dance with him--by mistake as it were. After that if Pet +breathed a single strain of music out of his arms I didn't see it. I +knew that gone expression on his face and it made me feel so lonesome +that I was more gracious to the judge than was exactly safe. He dances +just as magnificently as he exists in life and it is a kind of +ceremonial to do it with him. The boys all wore white flannels, and most +of the men, but the judge was as formally dressed as he would have been +in mid-winter, and I wondered if Alfred could be half as distinguished +to look at. I suppose my eyes must have been telling on me about how +grand I thought he was looking because he--well, I was rather relieved +when one of the boys took me out of his arms for a good, long, swinging +two-step. + +And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beat +time to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Chester +and I exchanged little laughs and scraps of conversation in between +times and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. Every pound I have +melted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her and I +just _can't_ think about how I am going to hurt her in a few days +now. I put the thought from me and so let myself swing out into +thoughtlessness with one of the boys. And after that I really didn't +know with whom I was dancing, I began to get so intoxicated with it all. + +I never heard musicians play better or get more of the spirit of dance +in their music than those did to-night. They had just given us the +most lovely swinging things, one after another, when suddenly they all +stopped and the leader drew his bow across his violin. Never in all my +life have I ever heard anything like the call of that waltz from that +gipsy's strings. It laughed you a signal and you felt yourself follow +the first strain. + +Just then somebody happened to take me from whomever I was with and I +caught step and glided off the universe. The strongest arms that I had +felt that evening--or ever--held me and I didn't have to look up to see +who it was. I don't know why I knew but I did. I wasn't clasped so very +close to him or left to float by myself an inch; I was just a part of +him like the arms themselves or the hand that mine molded into. And +while that wonder-music teased and cajoled and mocked and rocked and +sobbed and throbbed, I laid my cheek against his coat sleeve and gave +myself away, I didn't care to whom. + +Again that strange sense of some wonderful eternal good came to me and I +found myself humming Billy's little "soul to keep" prayer against the +doctor's sleeve to the tune of that magic waltz. I had never danced with +him before, of course, but I felt as if I had been doing it always, and +I melted in his arms as that baby had wilted to his mother out in the +cabin a few hours earlier and I don't see how such happiness as that +_could_ stop. But with a soft entreating wail the music came to an +end and there the doctor was, smiling down into my face with his +whimsical friendly smile that woke me up all over. + +"Somebody has stolen a rose from the Carter garden and brought it to the +dance," he said with a laugh that was for me alone. + +"No," I flashed back, "a string-bean." And with that I danced off again +with the judge, while the doctor disappeared through the door, and I +heard the chuck of his car as it whirled away. He had just stopped in +for a second to see the fun and God had given me that gipsy waltz with +him, because He knew I needed something like that in my life to keep for +always. + +This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred, +though he doesn't know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that life +for us is going to be brilliant and gay and full of laughter and love. + +I haven't had Billy in my arms to-day and I don't know how I shall ever +get myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place on +my breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big God +understands the women folk that He makes, even if they don't understand +themselves. + + + + +LEAF SIXTH + +THE RESURRECTION RAZOO + + +Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the +corners and have good times all by themselves, but in Hillsboro, +Tennessee, it is not that way. Everybody that is not invited helps the +hostess get ready and have nice things for the others, and sometimes I +think they really have the best time of all. + +This morning Aunt Bettie came up my front steps before breakfast with a +large basketful of things for my dinner and I wondered what I would have +collected to be served to those people by the time all my neighbors had +made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and Judy a half-hour +to unpack her things and set them in the refrigerator and on the pantry +shelves. One was a plump fruit-cake that had been keeping company in a +tight box with a sponge soaked in sherry for ever since New Year's. It +was ripe, or smelled so. It made me gnaw under my belt. + +A little later Judy was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been +simmered in port and larded with egg dressing, when Mrs. Johnson came in +and began to unpack her basket, which was mostly bottles of things she +said she used to "stick" food. The ginger-colored barber got the run of +them before the dinner was over and got badly stuck, so Judy says. +That's what made him make the mistake. + +I had planned to have a lot of strange food and had ordered some things +up from a caterer in the city, but I telephoned the express man not to +deliver them until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use +soft shelled crabs when Mrs. Wade had sent me word that she was going to +bake some brook trout by a recipe of the judge's grandmother's? Mrs. +Hampton Buford had let me know about two fat little summer turkeys she +was going to stuff with corn-pone and green sage, and _fillet +mignon_ seemed foolish eating beside them. But when the little bit of +a baby pig, roasted whole with an apple in its mouth, looking too frisky +and innocent for worlds with his little baked tail curled up in the air, +arrived from Mrs. Caruthers Cain, I went out into the garden and laughed +at the idea of having spent money for lobsters, to be shipped alive and +to be served broiled in their own shells. + +When I got back in the kitchen things were well under way, everything +smelling grand, and Aunt Bettie in full swing matching up my dinner +guests. + +"Nobody in this town could suit me better than Pet Buford for a +daughter-in-law and I believe I'll have all the east rooms done over in +blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her +blue eyes and corn silk hair," she was saying as she cut orange peel +into strips. + +"You've planned the refurnishing of that east wing to suit the style of +nearly every girl in Hillsboro since Tom put on long trousers, Bettie +Pollard, and they are just as they have been for fifteen years since you +did over the whole house," said Mrs. Johnson as she poured a wine-glass +half full from one bottle and added a tablespoonful from another. + +"Well, I think he is really interested now from the way he danced most +of his time with her down at the hotel the other night, and I have hopes +I never had before. Now, Molly, do put him between you and her, sort of +cornered, so he can't even _see_ Ruth Chester. She is too old for +him." And Tom's mother looked at me over the orange peel as to a +confederate. + +"Humph, I'd like to see you or Molly or any woman 'corner' Tom Pollard," +said Mrs. Johnson with a wry smile as she tasted the concoction in the +wine-glass. + +"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and +the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," I said regretfully. I +always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt +Bettie, so she won't notice our flirtation. + +"I'd put John Moore at the head of the table if I were you, Molly +Carter, because he's about the only man you've invited that has got any +sense left since you and that Chester girl took to visiting Hillsboro. +He's a host of steadiness in himself and the way he ignores all you +women, who would run after him if he would let you, shows what he is. He +has my full confidence," and as she delivered herself of this judgment +of Doctor John, Mrs. Johnson drove in all the corks tight and began to +pound spice. + +"He's not out of the widower-woods yet, Caroline," said Aunt Bettie with +her most speculative smile. "I have about decided on him for Ruth since +the judge has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does. +But don't you all say a word, for John's mighty timid, and I don't +believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. If +he had had he'd have tried a set-to with you, Molly, like all the rest +of the shy birds in town. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a +patient at the end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the +dosing of them, too. Just the other day--dearie me, Judy, what has +boiled over now?" And in the excitement that ensued I escaped to the +garden. + +Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Doctor John; he doesn't see a woman, and +there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realize +that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no +reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers on that +account. Still I don't see why Ruth Chester should have her head +literally thrown against that stone wall and I wish Aunt Bettie +wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-make him and +it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the roots +of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so loud I +could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something. And it +was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me. + +It had a surprise in it and I sat back on the grass and read it with my +heart beating like a trip-hammer. He had sailed the day he had posted it +and he was due to arrive in New York almost as soon as it did, just any +hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from New York immediately to +Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the +paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my +hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for +a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret. + +Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no +wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the +cold paper was transubstantiated into a heart that beat against mine and +I bowed my head over it as I wet it with tears. I knew then that I had +taken his coming back lightly; had fussed over it and been silly-proud +of it; while not _really_ caring at all. All that awful melting +away of my fatness seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; +he wouldn't have minded if I weighed five hundred, I felt sure. He loved +me--really, really, really; and I had sat and weighed him with a lot of +men who were nothing more than amused by my flightiness, or taken with +my beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to +them through a telescope. + +[Illustration: His letters were all there and his photographs] + +I reached into a trunk that stood right beside me and took out a box +that I hadn't looked into for years. His letters were all there and his +photographs that were as handsome as the young god of love himself. +I could hardly see them through my tears, but I knew that they were +dim in places with being cried over when I had put them away years ago +after Aunt Adeline decided that I was to be married. I kissed the poor +little-girl cry-spots; and with that a perfect flood of tears rose to my +eyes--but they didn't fall, for there, right in front of me, stood a +more woe-stricken human being than I could possibly be, if I judged by +appearances. + +"Molly, Molly," gulped Billy, "I am so sick I'm going to die here on the +floor," and he sank into my arms. + +"Oh, Billy, what is the matter?" I gasped and gave him a little +terrified shake. + +"Mamie Johnson did it--poked her finger down her throat and mine, too," +he wailed against my breast. "We was full of things folks gived us to +eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers +it would all come up and we would have room for some more then. She did +it and I'm going to die dead--dead!" + +"No, no, lover; you'll be all right in a second. Stay quiet here in your +Molly's lap and you will be well in just a few minutes," I said with a +smile I hid in his yellow mop as I kissed the drake-tail kiss-spot. +"Where's Mamie?" I thought to ask with the greatest apprehension. + +"In the garden eating cup-cake Judy baked hot for both of us. She didn't +frow up as much as I did--or maybe more." He answered, snuggling close +and much comforted. + +"Don't ever, ever do that again, Billy," I said, giving him both a hug +and a shake. "It's piggy to eat more than you can hold and then still +want more. What would your father say?" + +"Doc ain't no good and I don't care what he says," answered Billy with +spirit. "He don't play no more and he don't laugh no more and he don't +eat no more hardly, too. I ain't a-going to live in that house with him +more'n two days longer. I want to come over and sleep in your bed with +blue ribbons on the posts and have you to play with me, Molly." + +"Don't say that, lover, ever again," I said as I bent over him. "Your +father is the best man in the world, and you must never, never leave +him." + +"I bet I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy +decidedly. "Say, do you reckon Mamie saved even a little piece of that +cake? I 'spect I had better go see," and he slipped out of my arms and +was gone before I could hold him. + +It _is_ a lonely house across the garden with the big and the tiny +man in it all by themselves! And tears, from another corner of my heart +entirely, rose to my eyes at the thought, but they, too, never fell, for +I heard Mrs. Johnson calling and I had to run down quick and see what +new delicacy had arrived for my party. + +Uncle Thomas Pollard had sent me a quart bottle of his private stock +with the message to put the mint to soak just one hour and twenty +minutes before the men came. I made room for it beside the case of +champagne on the cellar shelf and wondered how they would stand it all. +We don't have champagne often in Hillsboro, and when we do nobody seems +to want to cut down on the juleps, consequently--well, nothing ever +really happens! However, it must have been the champagne that made Tom +act as he did. He was never like that before. + +Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner as I did for the +dance, and when I was through I stood before the mirror and looked at +myself a long time. I was very tall and slim and--well, I suppose I +might say regal in that amethyst crepe with the soft rose-point, but I +looked to myself about the eyes as I had been doing for years when I put +on my Sunday clothes to go to church with Mr. Carter. He was always in a +hurry and I didn't care about looking at myself in the mirror anyway; +nobody else ever looked at me and what was the use? And to-night that +Rene triumph made me feel no different from one of Miss Hettie Primm's +conceptions that I had been wearing for ages with indifference and total +lack of style. I shrugged my shoulder almost out of the dress with what +I thought was sadness, though it felt a trifle like temper, too, and +went on down into the garden to see if any of my flowers had a cheer-up +message for me. + +But it was a bored garden I stepped into just as the last purple flush +of day was being drunk down by the night. The tall white lilies laid +their heads over on my breast and went to sleep before I had said a word +to them, and the nasturtiums snarled around my feet until they got my +slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-button stood up +stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew, and +tipped me an impertinent wink. I felt cheered at the sight of them and +bent down to gather a bunch of them to wear, even if they did swear at +my amethyst draperies, when an amused smile that was done out loud came +from the path just behind me. + +"Don't gather them all to-night, Mrs. Peaches," said Doctor John +teasingly, as he stooped beside me. "Leave a few for--for the others." +I waked up in a half-second and so did all those prying flowers, I felt +sure. + +"I was just gathering them for place bouquets for--for the girls," I +said stupidly as I moved over a little nearer to him. Why it is that the +minute that man comes near me I get warm and comfortable and stupid, and +as young as Billy, and bubbly and sad and happy and cross is more than I +can say, but I do. I never possibly know how to answer any remark that +he may happen to make unless it is something that makes me lose my +temper. His next remark was the usual spark. + +"Better give them the run of the garden--alone, Mrs. Molly. No show for +'em unless you do," he said laughingly, "or the buttons' either," he +added under his breath so I could just hear it. I wish Mrs. Johnson +could have heard how soft his voice lingered over that little +half-sentence. She is so experienced she could have told me if it +meant--but of course he isn't like other men! + +There are lots of questions I'm going to ask Alfred after I'm married to +him--Mr. Carter didn't know anything about anything and I never cared to +ask him, but I wonder how you know when-- + +"Oh, you Molly," came a hail in Tom's voice from the gate, just as I was +making up my mind to try and think up something to wither the doctor +with, and he and Ruth Chester came up the front walk to meet us. I +wondered why I was having a party in my house when being alone in my +garden with just a neighbor was so much more fun, but I had to begin to +enjoy myself right off, for in a few minutes all the rest came. + +I don't think I ever saw my house look so lovely before. Mrs. Johnson +had put all the flowers out of hers and Mrs. Cain's garden all over +everything and the table was a mass of soft pink roses that were +shedding perfume and nodding at one another in their most society +manner. There is no glimmer in the world like that which comes from +really old polished silver and rosewood and mahogany, and one's +great-great-grandmother's hand-woven linen feels like oriental silk +across one's knees. + +Suddenly I felt very stately and grand-damey and responsible as I looked +at them all across the roses and sparkling glasses. They were lovely +women, all of them, and could such men be found anywhere else in the +world? When I left them all to go out into the big universe to meet the +distinctions that I knew my husband would have for me, would I sit at +salt with people who loved me like this? I saw Pet Buford say something +to Tom about me that I know was lovely from the way he smiled at me; and +the judge's eyes were a full cup for any woman to have offered her. Then +in a flash all the love-fragrance seemed to go to my head--Tom's mixing +of that julep had been skilful, too--and tears rose to my eyes, and +there I might have been crying at my own party if I hadn't felt a strong +warm hand laid on mine as it rested on my lap and Doctor John's kind +voice teased into my ears: "Steady, Mrs. Peaches, there's the loving-cup +to come yet," he whispered. I hated him, but held on to his thumb tight +for half a minute. He didn't know what the matter really was, but he +understood what I needed. He always does. + +And after that everybody had a good time, the ginger barber and Judy as +much as anybody, and I could see Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson peeping in +the pantry door, having the time of their lives, too. + +That dinner was going like an airship on a high wind, when something +happened to tangle its tail feathers and I can hardly write it for +trembling yet. It was a simple little blue telegram, but it might have +been nitro-glycerin on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but +the ginger barber handed it to Tom and he opened it and, looking at me +over his full--after many times emptied--glass, he solemnly read it out +loud. It said: + + "Landed this noon. Have I your permission to come to Hillsboro + immediately? Answer. Alfred." + + +It was dreadful! Nobody said a word and Tom laid the telegram right down +in his plate, where it immediately began to soak up the dressing of his +salad. He was so white and shaky that Pet looked at him in amazement, +and then I am sure she had the good sense to find his hand under the +cloth and hold it, for his shoulder hovered against hers and the color +came back to his face as he smiled down at her. I don't believe I'll +ever get the courage to look at Tom again until he marries Pet, which +he'll do now, I feel sure. + +And as for the judge and Ruth Chester, I was glad they were sitting +beside each other, for I could avoid that side of the table with my eyes +until I had steadied myself a few seconds at least. The surprise made +the others I had been dining seem statues from the stone age, and only +Mr. Graves' fork failed to hang fire. His appetite is as strong as his +nerves and Delia Hawes looked at his composure with the relief plain in +her eyes. Henrietta's smile in the judge's direction was doubtful. But +they were not all my lovers and why that awful silence? + +I couldn't say a word, and I am sure I don't know what I would have done +if it hadn't been for the doctor. He leaned forward and his deep eyes +came out in their wonderful way and seemed to collect every pair of eyes +at the table, even the most astounded, as he raised his glass. We all +held our breaths and waited for him to speak. + +"No wonder we are all stricken dumb at Mrs. Carter's telegram," he said +in his deep voice that commands everybody and everything, even the +terrors of birth and death. "The whole town will be paralyzed at the +news that its most distinguished citizen is only going to give them two +days to get ready to receive him. I can see the panic the brass band +will have now getting the brass shined up, and I want to be the one to +tell Mayor Pollard myself, so as to suggest to him to have at least a +two-hour speech of welcome to hand out at the train. We'll make it one +'hot time' for him when he lands in the old town, and here's to him, God +bless him. Every glass high!" They all drank, and I suppose it helped +them. I wish I could have drained a quart, but I couldn't swallow a sip, +though I did a good stunt of pretending. + +[Illustration: "Every glass high"] + +The rest of this evening has paid me off for every sin I have ever +committed or am ever going to commit. Tom took Pet home early and I hope +they walked in the moonlight for hours. Tom is the kind of man that any +pretty girl who is loving enough in the moonlight could comfort for +anything. I'm not at all worried about him, but-- + +The hour I sat on my front steps and talked to Judge Wade must have +brought gray hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. +Ruth Chester had said good-by with the loveliest haunted look in her +great dark eyes and I had felt as if I had killed something that was +alive and that I hadn't killed it enough. Doctor John had been called +from his coffee to a patient and had gone with just a friendly word of +good night, and the others had at last left the judge and me alone--also +in the moonlight, which I wished in my heart somebody would put out. + +They say among the lawyers that it is a good thing that Benton Wade is +on the bench, for it is no use to try a case against him when he has the +handling of a jury. He just looks them in the face and tells them how to +vote. To-night he looked me in the face and told me how to marry, and +I'm not sure yet that I won't do as he says. Of course I'm in love with +Alfred, but if he wants me he had better get me away quick before the +judge makes all his arrangements. A woman loves to be courted with poems +and flowers and deference, but she's mighty apt to marry the man who +says, "Don't argue, but put on your bonnet and come with me." The fact +that it was too late to get into the clerk's office saved me to-night, +but in two days-- + +Oh, I'm crying, crying in my heart, which is worse than in my eyes, as I +sit and look across my garden, where the cold moon is hanging low over +the tall trees behind the doctor's house and his light in his room is +burning warm and bright. They are right; _he_ doesn't care if I am +going away for ever with Alfred. His quick toast to him and the lovely +warm look he poured over poor frightened me at his side, as he drank his +champagne, told me that once and for all. Still we have been so close +together over his baby and I have grown so dependent on him for so many +things that it cuts into me like a hot knife that he shouldn't care if +he lost me--even for a neighbor. I shouldn't mind not having _any_ +husband if I could always live close by him and Billy like this, and if +I married Judge Wade I could at least have him for a family physician. +_No--I don't like that_! Of course I'm going with Alfred now that +an accident has made me announce the fact to the whole town before he +even knows it himself, but wherever I go that light in the room with +that lonely man is going to burn in my heart. Hope it will throw a glow +over Alfred! + + + + +LEAF SEVENTH + +DASHED! + + +I do believe God gave that wise angel charge concerning me lest I get +dashed, but I just got dashed anyway, and its my own fault, not the +angel's. I have suffered this day until I want to lay my face down +against the hem of His garment and wait in the dust for Him to pick me +up. I shall never be able to do it myself, and how He's going to do it +I can't see, but He will. + +That dinner-party last night was bad enough, but to-day's been worse. +I didn't sleep until long after daylight and then Judy came in before +eight o'clock with a letter for me that looked like a state document. +I felt in my trembly bones that it was some sort of summons affair from +Judge Wade; and it was. I looked into the first paragraph and then +decided that I had better get up and dress and have a cup of coffee and +a single egg before I tried to read it. + +Incidental to my bath and dressing, I weighed and found that I had lost +all four of those last surplus pounds and two more in three days. Those +two extra pounds might be construed to prove love, but exactly on whom +I was utterly unprepared to say. I didn't even enjoy the thinness, but +took a kind of already-married look in my glass and tried to slip the +egg past my bored lips and get myself to chew it down. It was work; and +then I took up the judge's letter, which also was work and more of it. + +He started in at the beginning of everything, that is at the beginning +of the tuberculosis girl and I cried over the pages of her as if she had +been my own sister. At the tenth page we buried her and took up Alfred +and I must say I saw a new Alfred in the judge's bouquet-strewn +appreciation of him, but I didn't want him as bad as I had the day +before when I read his own new and old letters, and cried over his old +photographs. I suppose that was the result of some of what the judge +manages the juries with. He'd be apt to use it on a woman and she +wouldn't find out about it until it was too late to be anything but mad. +Still when he began on me at page sixteen I felt a little better, though +I didn't know myself any better than I did Alfred when I got to page +twenty. + +What I am, is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart than +she can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth. I'm +not any star in a rose-colored sky, and I don't want to inspire anybody; +it's too much of a job. I want to be a healthy happy woman and a wife to +a man who can inspire himself and manage me. I want to marry a thin man +and have from five to ten thin children, and when I get to be thirty I +want my husband to want me to be as fat as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. +An inspiration couldn't be fat and I'm always in danger from hot muffins +and chicken gravy. However, if I should undertake to be all the things +Judge Wade said in that letter he wanted me to be to him, I should soon +be skin and bones from mental and physical exercise. Still, he does +live in Hillsboro and I won't let myself know how my heart aches at the +thought of leaving my home--and other things. It's up in my throat and +I seem always to be swallowing it, the last few days. + +All the men who write me letters seem to get themselves wound up into a +skyrocket and then let themselves explode in the last paragraph and it +always upsets my nerves. I was just about to begin to cry again over the +last words of the judge when the only bright spot in the day so far +suddenly happened. Pet Buford blew in with the pinkest cheeks and the +brightest eyes I had seen since I looked in the mirror the night of the +dance. She was in an awful hurry. + +"Molly, dear," she said, with her words literally falling over +themselves, "Tom says you'll give us some of your dinner left-overs to +take for lunch in the Hup, for we are going way out to Wayne County to +see some awfully fine tobacco he has heard is there. I don't want to ask +mother, for she won't let me go; and his mother, if he asked her, will +begin to talk about us. Tom said come to you and you would understand +and fix it quick. He said kiss you for him and tell you he said 'Come on +in, the water's fine.' Isn't he a joke?" And we kissed and laughed and +packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for good-by. I felt amused +and happy for a few minutes--and also deserted. It's a very good thing +for a woman's conceit to find out how many of her lovers are just +make-believes. I may have needed Tom's deflection. + +Anyway, I don't know when I ever was so glad to see anybody as I was +when Mrs. Johnson came in the front door. A woman who has proved to her +own satisfaction that marriage is a failure is at times a great tonic to +other women. I needed a tonic badly this morning and I got it. + +"Well, from all my long experience, Molly," she said as she seated +herself and began to hem a dish-towel with long steady stabs, "husbands +are just stick candy in different jars. They may look a little +different, but they all taste alike and you soon get tired of them. In +two months you won't know the difference in being married to Al Bennett +and Mr. Carter and you'll have to go on living with him maybe fifty +years. Luck doesn't strike twice in the same place and you can't count +on losing two husbands. Al's father was Mr. Johnson's first cousin and +had more crochets and worse. He had silent spells that lasted a week and +family prayers three times a day, though he got drunk twice a year for a +month at a time. Al looks very much like him." + +"Mrs. Johnson," I said after a minute's silence, while I had decided +whether or not I had better tell her all about it. If a woman's in love +with her husband you can't trust her to keep a secret, but I decided to +try Mrs. Johnson. "I really am not engaged exactly to Alfred Bennett, +though I suppose he thinks so by now if he has got the answer to that +telegram. But--but something has made me--made me think about Judge +Wade--that is he--what do you think of him, Mrs. Johnson?" I concluded +in the most pitifully perplexed tone of voice. + +"All alike, Molly; all as much alike as peas in a pod; all except John +Moore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! His +marrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell in +love with him while he was treating her for typhoid, when his back was +turned as it were, and it was God's own kindness in him that made him +marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There's not +a woman in this town who could marry, that wouldn't marry him at the +drop of his hat--but, thank goodness, that hat will never drop and I'll +have one sensible man to comfort and doctor me down into my old age. +Now, just look at that! Mr. Johnson's come home here in the middle of +the morning and I'll have to get that old paper I hunted out of his desk +for him last night. I wonder how he came to forget it!" It's funny how +Mrs. Johnson always knows what Mr. Johnson wants before he knows himself +and gets it before he asks for it! + +As she went out the gate the postman came in and at the sight of another +letter my heart again slunk off into my slippers, and my brain seemed +about to back up in a corner and refuse to work. In a flash it came to +me that men oughtn't to write letters to women very much--they really +don't plow deep enough, they just irritate the top soil. I took this +missive from Alfred, counted all the fifteen pages, put it out of sight +under a book, looked out the window and saw the ginger barber coming +dejectedly around to the side gate from the kitchen--I knew the scene he +had had with Judy, about the bottle encounters of the night before--saw +Mr. Johnson shooed off down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's +car go chucking hurriedly in the garage and then my spirit turned itself +to the wall and refused to be comforted. I tried my best, but failed to +respond to my own remonstrances with myself, and tears were slowly +gathering in a cloud of gloom when a blue gingham, rompers-clad sunbeam +burst into the room. + +"Git your night-gown and your toothbresh quick, Molly, if you want to +pack 'em in my trunk!" he exclaimed with his eyes dancing and a curl +standing straight up on the top of his head, as it has a habit of doing +when he is most excited. "You can't take nothing but them 'cause I'm +going to put in a rope to tie the whale with when I ketch him, and +it'll take up all the rest of the room. Git 'em quick!" + +"Yes, lover, I'll get them for you, but tell Molly where it is you are +going to sail off with her in that trunk of yours?" I asked, dropping +into the game as I have always done with him, no matter what game of my +own pressed when he called. + +"On the ocean where the boats go 'cross and run right over a whale. +Don't you remember you showed me them pictures of spout whales in a +book, Molly? Doc says they comes right up by the ship and you can hear +'em shoot water and maybe a iceberg, too. Which do you want to ketch +most, Molly, a iceberg or a whale?" His eager eyes demanded instant +decision on my part of the nature of capture I preferred. My mind +quickly reverted to those two ponderous and intense epistles I had got +within the hour and I lay back in my chair and laughed until I felt +almost merry. + +"The iceberg, Billy, every time," I said at last. "I just can't manage +whales, especially if they are ardent, which word means hot. I like +_icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one." + +"I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe Doc will let you put a rope +and a long hook in his trunk to try with if your clothes go into mine. +His is a heap the biggest anyway and Nurse Tilly said he oughter put my +things in his, but I cried and then he went up-stairs and got out that +little one for me. Come see 'em!" + +"What do you mean, Billy?" I asked, while a sudden fear shot all over me +like lightning. "You're just playing go-away, aren't you?" + +"No, I ain't playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and +Doc is a-going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. +Doc ast me about it this morning and I told him all right and you could +come with us, if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you if you +was busy and couldn't come and I told him you would put things down and +come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you and +you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all drawn +up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of it and +a cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery at what I +felt was coming down upon me. + +Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feel +deadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Doctor Moore's +office, where he was just laying off his gloves and dust coat. + +"What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go and +take Billy away from me?" I demanded looking at him with what must have +been such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he came +close to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white and +quiet at my attack and he waited to answer for a long horrible minute +that pulled me apart like one of those inquisition machines they used to +torture women with when they didn't know any better modern way to do it. + +"I didn't know Bill would tell you so soon, Mrs. Molly," he said at last +gently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was coming +over just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you about +it, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a day +that--that ought to be all yours to be--be happy in. But Bill, you see, +is no respecter of--of other people's happy days if he wants them in +his." + +"Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his and he has the heart not +to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sob +gathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't even +taken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean. + +"Bill is too young to understand when he is--is being bereaved, Molly," +he said and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed a +delegate to represent the State Medical Association at the Centennial +Congress in London the middle of next month--and somehow I--feel a bit +pulled lately and I thought I would take the little chap and have--have +a _wander-jahr._ You won't need him now, Mrs. Peaches, and I +couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness in his voice would have +killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead. + +"Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voice +literally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life that +I haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You are +cruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold and cruel like all other +men who don't care how they wring the life blood out of women's hearts +and are willing to use their children to do it with. Even the law +doesn't help us poor helpless creatures and you can take our children +and go with them to the ends of the earth and leave us suffering. I have +gone on and believed that you were not like what the women say all men +are and that you cared whether you hurt people or not, but now I see +that you are just the same and you'll take my baby away if you want +to--and I can do nothing to prevent it--nothing in the wide world--I am +completely and absolutely helpless--you coward, you!" + +When that awful word, the worst word that a woman can use to a man, left +my lips, a flame shot up into his eyes that I thought would burn me up, +but in a half-second it was extinguished by the strangest thing in the +world--for the situation--a perfect flood of mirth. He sat down in his +chair and shook all over with his head in his hands until I saw tears +creep through his fingers. I had calmed down so suddenly that I was +about to begin to cry in good earnest when he wiped his eyes and said +with a low laugh in his throat: + +"The case is yours, Molly, settled out of court, and the +'possession-nine-points-of-the-law clause' works in some cases for a +woman against a man. Generally speaking, anyway, the pup belongs to the +man who can whistle him down and you can whistle Bill from me any day. +I'm just his father and what I think or want doesn't matter. You had +better take him and keep him!" + +"I intend to." I answered haughtily, uncertain as to whether I had +better give in and be agreeable or stay prepared to cry in case there +was further argument. But suddenly a strange diffidence came into his +eyes and he looked away from me as he said in queer hesitating words: + +"You see, Mrs. Molly, I thought from now on your life wouldn't have +exactly a place for Bill. Have you considered that you have trained him +to demand you all the time and all of you? How would you manage +Bill--and--and other claims?" + +And if there is a contagious thing in this world it is embarrassment. I +never felt anything worse in all my life than the shame that swept over +me in a great hot wave when that look came into his eyes and made me +realize just exactly what I had been saying to him, about what, and how +I had said it. I stood perfectly still, shook all over like a leaf, and +wondered if I would ever be able to raise my eyes from the ground. A +dizzy nauseated feeling for myself rose up in me against myself and I +was just about to turn on my heels and leave him, I hoped for ever, when +he came over and laid his hand on my shoulder. + +"Molly," he said in a voice that might have come down from heaven on +dove wings, "you can't for a moment feel or think that I don't realize +and appreciate what you have been to the motherless little chap, and for +life I am yours at command, as he is. I really thought it would be a +relief to you to have him taken away from you for just a little while +right now, and I still think it is best; but not unless you consent. You +shall have him back whenever you are ready for him, and at all times +both he and I are at your service to the whole of our kingdoms. Just +think the matter over, won't you, and decide what you want me to do?" + +Something in me died for ever, I think, when he spoke to me like that. +He's not like other men and there aren't any other men on earth but him! +All the rest are just bugs or bats or something worse. And I'm not +anything myself. There's no excuse for my living and I wish I wasn't so +healthy and likely to go on doing it. It was all over and there was +nothing left for me to live for, and before I could stop myself I buried +my face in my hands. + +"Billy asked me to go with him on this awful whale hunt!" I sobbed out +to comfort myself with the thought that somebody did care for me, +regardless of just how I was further embarrassing and complicating +myself in the affairs of the two men I had thought I owned and was now +finding out that I had to give up. I wish I had been looking at him, for +I felt him start, but he said in his big friendly voice that is so +much--and never enough for me. + +"Well, why not you and Al come along and make it a family party, if that +is what suits Bill, the boss?" + +If men would just buy good, sharp, kitchen knives and cut out women's +hearts in a businesslike way it would be so much kinder of them. +Why do they prefer to use dull weapons that mash the life out slowly? +Everything is at an end for me to-night and that blow did it. It was a +horrible cruel thing for him to say to me! I know now that I have been +in love with John Moore for longer than my honor lets me admit and that +I'll never love anybody else, and that also I have offered myself to him +served up in every known enticement and have had to be refused at least +twice a day for a year. A widow can't say she didn't understand what she +was doing, even to herself, but--My humiliation is complete and the +only thing that can make me ever hold up my head is to puzzle him by--by +_happily_ marrying Alfred Bennett--and quick! + +Of course, he must suspect how I feel about him, for two people couldn't +both be so ignorant as not to see such an enormous thing as my love for +him is, and I was the blind one. But he must never, never know that I +ever realized it, for he is so good that it would distress him. I must +just go on in my foolish way with him until I can get away. I'll tell +him I'm sorry I was so indignant to-night and say that I think it will +be fine for him to take my Billy away from me with him. I must smile at +the idea of having my very soul amputated, insist that it is the only +thing to do, and pack up the little soul in a steamer trunk with the +smile. Just smile, that is all! Life demands smiles from a woman even if +she must crush their perfume from her own heart; and she generally has +them ready. + +Oh, Molly, Molly, is it for this you came into the world, twice to give +yourself without love? What difference does it make that your arms are +strong and white if they can't clasp him to the softness and fragrance +of your breast? Why are your eyes blue pools of love if they are not for +his questioning and what are your rose lips for if they quench not his +thirst? + +[Illustration: What are your rose lips for] + +Yes, I know God is very tender with a woman and I think He understands, +so if she crept very close to Him and caught at His sleeve to steady +herself He would be kind to her until she could go on along her own +steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for it would hurt him to +have hurt me! + + + + +LEAF EIGHT + +MELTED + + +Some days are like the miracle flowers that open in the garden from +plants you didn't expect to bloom at all. I might have been born, lived +and died without having this one come into my life, and now that I have +had it I don't know how to write it, except in the crimson of blood, the +blue of flame, the gold of glory--and a tinge of light green would well +express the part I have played. But it is all over at last and-- + +Ruth Chester was the unfolding of the first hour-petal and I got a +glimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of. +She's God's own good woman and He made her in one of His holy hours. I +wish I could have borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms +was a sacrament. We two women just stood aside with life's artifices and +concealments and let our own hearts do the talking. + +She said she had come because she felt that if she talked with me I +might be better able to understand Alfred when he came and that she had +seen that the judge was very determined, and she thoroughly recognized +his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document +to read. I suppose it was dishonorable, but I needed her protection from +it. I'm glad she had the strength of mind to walk with a head high in +the air to Judy's range and burn it up. Anything might have happened if +she hadn't. And even now I feel that only my marriage vows will close up +the case for the judge--even yet he may--But when Ruth had got done +with Alfred, she had wiped Judge Wade's appreciation of him completely +off my mind and destroyed it in tender words that burned us both worse +than Judy's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully good service. + +"And so you see, you lovely woman you, do you not, that God has +made you for him as a tribute to his greatness and it is given to +you to fulfil a destiny?" She was so beautiful as she said it that +I had to turn my eyes away, but I felt as I did when those awful +'_let-not-man-put-asunder_'--from Mr. Carter--words were spoken +over me by Mr. Raines, the Methodist minister. It made me wild, and +before I knew it I had poured out the whole truth to her in a perfect +cataract of words. The truth always acts on women as some hitherto +untried drug, and you can never tell what the reaction is going to be. +In this case I was stricken dumb and found it hard to see. + +"Oh, dear heart," she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into her +lovely gracious arms, "then the privilege is all the more wonderful for +you, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life. Having suffered +this, you will be all the greater woman to understand him. I accept my +own sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathy +for his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement +as he has for years. In the light of his love this lesser feeling for +Doctor Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be +complete." This was more than I could stand and feeling less than a +worm, I turned my face into her breast and wailed. Now who would have +thought that girl could dance as she did? + +By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon have +had to be sopped up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in bubbling over +like a lovely, white, linen-clad glass of Rhine wine and seltzer. +Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence of grief +and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies and +generally damp atmosphere. + +"Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says for you to +send him ten dollars to spend getting the brass band half drunk before +the six o'clock train, on which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent +five dollars paying the negroes to polish up their instruments and clean +up the uniforms and it cost him twenty-five to bail the cornettist out +of jail for roost robbing, and it takes a whole gallon of whisky to get +any spirit into the drummer. He says tell you that as this is your +shindig you ought at least to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for +me, and here's the kiss he told me to put on your left ear!" + +"I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it to +you, Pettie, dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the desk +for my pocket-book. + +"Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind a +perfect rose cloud of blushes. + +"I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the ten +in her hand. I looked at Ruth Chester and we both laughed. It is true +that a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a week +ago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving her +the ten dollars and a blessing. + +"I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as she +rose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and before +I could stop her, she was gone. + +She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty iron +gas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against the edge +of the porch. She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft +was almost more than I could stand, and apparently more than Billy was +prepared to accept. + +"Go way, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?" + +I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar on +my hardwood floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of +triumph. + +"I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipe +drop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound the +end sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. You +and Doc kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I +can carry Doc's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick and I'll +help you fix it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I could +bear. + +"Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put my +arms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help being +aimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time your +Molly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care of +you and--and maybe bring you back to me some day." + +"Why, Molly," he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, "'taint +me to be took care of! I ain't a-going to leave you here, for maybe a +bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and Doc gone. +'Sides Doc ain't no good and maybe wouldn't help me hold the rope right +to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to do like I tell +him like you do." + +"Try him, lover, and maybe he will--will learn to--" I couldn't help the +tears that came to stop my words. + +"Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he said +with an amused, manly, little tenderness in his voice that I had never +heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only +voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous +little trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kisses +every night if you don't say no more about not a-going and fix that +whale hook for me quick," he coaxed against my cheek. + +Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were saying +with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy, little paddie burned the +sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was +powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you _are!_ You +are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit +and--and you ought to have been flesh of my flesh! + +I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my front +gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in +their constitutions. + +She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie's house +and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, in which +were packed the things Aunt Bettie was contributing to the entertainment +of the distinguished citizen. Mr. Johnson is Alfred's nearest kinsman in +Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guest while he is in town. + +"He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he's eating +my Washington almond pudding with Thomas' old port in it," teased Aunt +Bettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them. + +"There's going to be a regular epidemic of love in Hillsboro, I do +believe," she continued in her usual strain of sentimental speculation. +"I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of the store an hour +ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz to match Pet for the +west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn't even see me. That +was what might have been called a conflagration dinner you gave the +other night, Molly, in more ways than one. I wish a spark had set off +Benton Wade and Henrietta, too. Maybe it did, but is just taking fire +slowly." + +I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie blindfold every +unmarried person in this town and marry them to the first person they +touch hands with. It would be fun for her and then we could have peace +and apparently as much happiness as we are going to have anyway. Mrs. +Johnson seemed to be in somewhat the same state of mind as I found +myself. + +"Humph," she said as we went up the front steps, "I'll be glad when you +are married and settled, Molly Carter, so the rest of this town can +quiet down into peace once more, and I sincerely hope every woman under +fifty in Hillsboro who is already married will stay in that state until +she reaches that age. But I do believe if the law marched widows from +grave number one to altar number two they would get into trouble and +fuss along the road. But come on in, both of you, and help me get this +marriage feast ready, if I must! The day is going by on greased wheels +and I can't let Mr. Johnson's crotchets be neglected, Al Bennett or no +Al Bennett!" + +And from then on for hours and hours I was strapped to a torture wheel +that turned and turned, minute after minute, as it ground spice and +sugar and bridal meats and me relentlessly into a great suffering pulp. +Could I ever in all my life have hungered for food and been able to get +it past the lump in my throat that grew larger with the seconds? And if +Alfred's pudding tasted of the salt of dead sea-fruit this evening, it +was from my surreptitious tears that dripped into it. + +It was late, very late before Mrs. Johnson realized it and shooed me +home to get ready to go to the train along with the brass band and all +the other welcomes. + +I hurried all I could, but for long minutes I stood in front of my +mirror and questioned myself. Could this slow, pale, dead-eyed, slim, +drooping girl be the rollicking child of a Molly who had looked out of +that mirror at me one short week ago? Where were the wings on her heels, +the glint in her curls, the laugh on her mouth and the devil in her +eyes? + +Slowly at last I lifted the blue muslin, twenty-three-inch waist shroud +and let it slip over my head and fall slimly around me. I had fastened +the neck button and was fumbling the next one into the buttonhole when I +suddenly heard laughing excited voices coming up the side street that +ran just under my west window. Something told me that Alfred had come on +the five-down train instead of the six-up and I fairly reeled to the +window and peeped through the shutters. + +They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of +ceremonies, and Ruth Chester was looking up into his face with an +expression I am glad I can never forget. It killed all my regrets on the +score of his future. + +It took two good looks to take him all in and then I must have missed +some of him, for all in all, he was so large that he stretched your eyes +to behold him. He's grown seven feet tall, I don't know how many pounds +he weighs and I don't want anybody ever to tell me! + +I had never thought enough about evolution to know whether I believed in +it and woman's suffrage, but I do now! I know that millions of years ago +a great, big, distinguished hippopotamus stepped out of the woods and +frightened one of my foremothers so that she turned tail and fled +through a thicket that almost tore her limb from limb, right into the +arms of her own mate. That's what I did! I caught that blue satin belt +together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of +savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's office, slammed +the door and backed up against it. + +"He's come!" I gasped. "And I'm frightened to death, with nobody but you +to run to. Hide me quick! He's fat and I _hate_ him!" I was that +deadly cold you can get when fear runs into your very marrow and +congeals the blood in your arteries. "Quick, quick!" I panted. + +He must have been as pale as I was, and for an eternity of a second he +looked at me, then suddenly heaven shone from his eyes and he opened his +arms to me with just one word. + +"Here?" + +I went. + +He held me gently for a half-second, and then with a sob which I felt +rather than heard, he crushed me to him and stopped my breath with his +lips on mine. I understood things then that I never had before, and I +felt that wise guardian man-angel take his fingers from mine and leave +me safe at last. I raised my hand and pressed it against John's wet +lashes until he could let me speak and I was melted into his very breast +itself. + +"Molly," he said when enough tenderness had come back into his arms to +let me breathe, "you have almost killed me!" + +"You!" I exclaimed, crowding still closer, or at least trying to. "It's +not _you_; it's I that am killed, and you did it! I know you don't +really want me, but I can't help that I'd rather you'd do the suffering +with me than to do it myself away from you. I'm so hungry and thirsty +for you that--that I can't diet any longer!" I put the case the +strongest way I knew how and got a swooning, maddening, luscious result. + +"Want you, Molly?" he almost sobbed, and I felt his heart pounding hard +next to my shoulder. + +"Yes, want me!" I answered with more spirit than breath left in me. "I +refuse to believe you are as stupid as I am, and anybody with even an +ordinary amount of brains must have seen how hard I was fighting for +you. I feel sure I left no stone unturned. Some of them I can already +think back and see myself tugging at, and it makes me hot all over. I'm +foolish, and always was, so I'm to be excused for acting that awful way, +but you are to blame for _letting_ me do it. I'm going to be your +punishment for life for not having been stern and stopped me. You had +better stop me some now anyway, for if I go on loving you as I have been +for the last few minutes it will make you uncomfortable." + +"Peaches," he said, after he had hushed me with another broken dose of +love, as large as he thought I could stand--I could have stood more!--"I +am never going to tell you how long I have loved you, but that day you +came to me all in a flutter with Al Bennett's letter in your hand it is +going to take you a lifetime to settle for. You were mine--and Bill's! +How _could_ you--but women don't understand!" I felt him shudder +in my arms as I held him close. I was repaid for all those tiresome +exercises I had taken by the strength to crush him against my breast +almost as hard as he crushed me. Our combined strength was terrific, +dangerous to life and ribs, but--heavenly! + +"Don't women know, John?" I managed to ask softly in memory of a like +question he had put to me across that bread and jam with the rose +a-listening from the dark. + +What brought me to consciousness was his fumbling with the buttons at +the waist of that blue muslin relict of a sentiment. I had fastened but +one, and the lace had got caught on his sleeve buttons. + +"Please don't button me into his possession," I laughed under his chin. +"I'm still scared to death of him, and you haven't hid me yet!" + +"Molly," he asked, this time with a heaven-laugh, "where could you be +more effectually hid from Al Bennett than in my arms?" + +I spent ten minutes telling Billy what a hippopotamus really looks like +as I put him to bed, but later, much as I should have liked to, I +couldn't consume that horrible dinner, that I had helped prepare at the +Johnsons, in the shelter of John's arms, and I had to face Alfred. Ruth +Chester was there, and she faced him too. + +A man that can't be happy with a woman who is willing to "fulfil his +destiny" doesn't deserve to be. + +Then we came over here, and John had the most beautiful time persuading +Aunt Adeline how a good man like Mr. Carter would want his young widow +to be taken care of by being married to a safe friend of his instead of +being flighty and having folks wondering whom she would marry. + +"You know yourself how hard a time a beautiful young widow has, Mrs. +Henderson," he said in the tone of voice that always makes his patients +glad to take his worst doses. He got his blessing and me--with a +warning. + +A lovely night wind is blowing across my garden and bringing me +congratulations from all my flower family. Flowers are a part of love +and the wooing of it, and they understand. I am waiting for the light to +go out behind the tall trees over which the moon is stealthily sinking. +He promised me to put it out right away, and I'm watching the glow that +marks the place where my own two men creatures are going to rest, with +my heart in full song. + +He needs rest, he is so very tired and worn. He confessed it as I stood +on the step above him to-night, after he had taken his own good night +from me out on the porch. When he explained to me how his agony over me +for all these months had kept him walking the floor night after night, +not knowing that I was waiting for the light to go out, I gave myself a +sweetness that I am going to say a prayer for the last thing before I +sleep. I took his head in my arms and pressed his cheek down against +Billy's sleep-place on my breast over my heart and put my lips to that +drake-tail kiss-spot that has tempted me for I won't say how long. Then +I fled--and so did he! + +I had about decided to burn this book, because I shan't need it any +longer, for he says he and Billy and I are going to play so much golf +and tennis that I shall keep as thin as he wants me to be without any +more melting or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to read +the little red devil. Do you suppose he would? + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +******* This file should be named 15817.txt or 15817.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15817 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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