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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/15818-8.txt b/15818-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab814d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/15818-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3064 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Melting of Molly, by Maria Thompson +Daviess + + +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 #15818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +E-text prepared by Michael Oltz, David Garcia, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +Note: This version of _The Melting of Molly_ is a British magazine + publication and differs significantly from the American novel + publication, also in the Project Gutenberg library at + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15817 + + + + + +THE MELTING OF MOLLY + +by + +MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + + + + + + + +Leaf I. + +The Bachelor's-Buttons. + + +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 clove-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 Dr. 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-buttons, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor +asked as he leaned over the gate. I went 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 be as +friendly with him as I am. 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 dare burn it up and forget +about it, but I daren'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, set down in black and white, and +it is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the weighing machine 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 shall have to believe my own +yardstick. + +But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even +if I have half promised Dr. 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 better consult +him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being +a widow, you are accustomed to consulting a man, whether you want to or +not, and you can't get over the habit immediately. Poor Mr. Carter, my +husband, hasn't been dead much over six years, 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. + +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 Dr. +John's surgery 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 Alfred Bennett is coming back to offer his +bachelor's-buttons to you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the 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 away 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 +Alfred didn't succeed as a bank clerk, but had to make his hit in the +colonies. 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 as--large as I am. 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 about +him. Then he didn't want me to go for long walks with the dogs any more, +because married women oughtn't to, or ride horseback either--no +amusement left but himself; 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 Dr. John suddenly in the deep +voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really ill or tired. "You know +I was only teasing you and I won't let you--" + +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 use 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 Dr. John took me by the shoulders and +gave me one good shake. + +"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard +him use. "You are just a lovely perfect flower, but if you will be +happier to have Alfred Bennett come and find you as slim as a scarlet +runner, I can show you how to do it. 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 "perfect flower"? 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 write 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 upstairs and see +if you don't think we ought to get Billy a thinner set of nightgowns. +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 +Dr. 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, so very +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 neighbour's baby +can be worse than 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 Dr. John both slept. Always his +little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not +having a little one 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 downstairs. + +Dr. 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 don't like him that way, yet my heart jumped +so it was hard to look as meek as I felt it best under the +circumstances; but I looked 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 Alfred, 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, Dr. 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 surgery 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 by the open window 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 upstairs. 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 let my cottage, and move 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 crêpe veil is over a yard long +yet. Men are the dust under her feet, but she likes Dr. John to come +over and sit 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 vexed 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 "perfect flower" 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 realise 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 +insisted on marrying me to him. Poor Mr. Carter! + +No, I wasn't nineteen, 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, +frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. + +No, the town didn't mean anything but kindness by marrying me to 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 this +north country a few hundreds of years ago, and has been hatching and +clucking over its own small affairs ever since. All the houses stand +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 boys scramble out of the nests and go +off 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 girl 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, lonely chick with frivolous tendencies, and they +all clucked me over into this 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 Dr. 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 manners, Hillsboro is lovely and loving; and +couldn't inquisitiveness be called just real affection with a kind of +turn in its eye? + +And there I sat in my front room, being embraced in a perfume of +everybody's lilacs and hawthorns and affectionate interest and +moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two photographs +and letters I used to keep locked up in my desk. 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 England he was going to +lay his heart at my feet? I added his colonial honours 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-bye, 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 Dr. +John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the +letter and the little book and laughed until the tears ran down my +cheeks. + +Then, before I went to bed, I went round 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 II. + +A Love-Letter, Loaded. + + +The very worst page in this red book is the fifth. It says-- + +"Breakfast--one slice of dry toast, one egg, fruit and a small cup of +coffee, no sugar, no cream." And me with two Jersey cows full of the +richest cream in Hillsboro, out in my meadow! + +"Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of toast, spinach or lettuce salad. +No dessert or sweet." My poultry-yard is full of fat little chickens, +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 acrobat 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. + +But as cruel as freezing is, it doesn't compare to the tortures of being +melted. Jane 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 cauldron of hot water and shrouds me in it--and +then more and more blanket windings envelop me until I am like the mummy +of some Egyptian giantess. + +Once I got so discouraged at the idea of having all this misery 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 wrappings in +less time than it takes to tell it, soused me in a tub of cold water, +fed me with a chicken wing and mashed potatoes, 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 people tell untruths 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 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 it goes down the +slope he throws himself down and rolls over on the grass. I went after +him. And what did Billy do but begin the kind of a tussle we always have +in the big armchair in the living-room! Billy chuckled and squealed, +while I laughed myself all out of breath. And then, looking right over +my front hedge, I discovered Judge 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 Billy. I sat up and blushed as red all over as +I do when I first hit that tub of cold water. + +"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal +resist a peep into such a fairy garden 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 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 hedge 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 still more as I put my hand up to my cheek +so that 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. + +"Go away, man, and let my Molly alone!" he said, in a perfect +thunder-tone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in +it like Dr. John's at his most positive times with Billy and me. + +"No, no, Billy; the judge is just looking over the hedge 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'd better go, man, before I bring my father to set 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. 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 of the +front door, 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 other's eyes, and, before we realised +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 hedge 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. + +Slowly I unbuttoned that black dress that symbolised the ending of six +years of the blackness, 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. Fortunately, an old white lawn dress could be pulled from the +top shelf of the cupboard in a hurry, and the Molly that came out of +that room was ready for life--and a lot of it. + +And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline had retired with a violent +headache, and Jane was carrying her in a hot water-bottle with a broad +smile on her face. Jane 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 dance 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 little narcissus 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 round so that 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. 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 +over. + +That's just what I mean--love boiled down and sugared over is apt to get +an explosive flavour, 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 +more 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. +I almost thought I didn't quite like it, and was going to read it over +again to see, when I saw a procession coming over from Dr. John's, and +I laid the bombshell down on the bench. + +First came the red setter that is always first with Dr. 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 a voice he always +uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologise 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 old white dress. + +And Dr. 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. + +"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 bother that man, and I'll hit 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 scarlet-runner state of +existence, Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the +blouse, in the nicest voice in the world, fairly cracking with +friendship and good humour and hateful things like that. Why I should +have wanted him to get huffy 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 signalling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins rose 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 gnats 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 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 could be, 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 dumbfounded. 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 III. + + +Men are very strange people. They are like those 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. + +I know now that I really never got any older than the poor, foolish, +eighteen-years child that Aunt Adeline married off "safe." 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 worrying interference 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 blouse when the boy brought that +basket of fish from Judge Wade's fishing expedition 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 a kind-hearted sort of man, I think. He gives me the gentlest +understanding smile when he meets me in 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 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." Mrs. Johnson sews by +assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was +mending the sleeve of Mr. Johnson's lounge coat. + +"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 the minute +you saw it. I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that +made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel as though +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 Dr. John's office and just to have looked at him and said one +word--"Scarlet-runner!" Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Clinton from +London. + +"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 a pile of 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 indeed! But Alfred Bennett is a man of sense not to marry +any of the string of women who I suppose are running after him!" she +said. Miss Clinton looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went +on hacking Mr. Johnson's coat-sleeve with the needle without noticing +the glance at all. + +"Well, well, dearie, I don't know about that," said Aunt Bettie as she +fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong +rocking-chair I always kept for her. "Alfred 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 Clinton! 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 in just then so I could +go in and tell Julia to bring out the 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, 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 pushed it back in a hurry and went back to +the company comforted in a way, but feeling a little more in sympathy +with Mrs. Johnson than I had before Aunt Bettie and her guest from +London 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 humour well +started, and 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 delicious cups of tea +full of sugar and cream, and consume without fear three of Jane's puffy +cakes, while I crumbled mine in secret and set half the cup of tea out +of sight behind a fern pot. + +It was bad enough to hear Aunt Bettie just offer her Tom, who, if he is +her own son, is my favourite 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 Clinton 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, or Paris, 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 cheque-book. It took me more than an hour to +reckon it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though in prospects +a poorer woman. + +As I sat in the train on my way to town early the next morning I thought +a good deal about poor Mr. Carter. After this I shall always appreciate +and admire him for the way he made money, and his kindness in leaving it +to me, since, for the first time in my life, I fully realised 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 superfluous +flesh just walking off of me. It was delicious! + +Then she and two girls wearing fashionable frocks and fashionable hair +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. + +Next I signed the cheque 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 silk bag I had +worn down to the West End. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds +I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Clinton, 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 madame and +have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready +to be fitted at short notice. Really, madame'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 +Madame Courtier a commission for the customers she passes on to him. +The one for me must have looked to her like a big transaction. + +I spent three days at the great Klein establishment, only going to the +hotel to sleep, and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madame Rene must +have been Madame Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madame 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 Madame Rene +really approved of me, for when I blushed and asked her if she could +recommend a good beauty doctor she held up her hands and shuddered. + +"Never, madame, never _pour vous. Ravissant, charmant_--it is too +foolish. Nevair! _Jamais, jamais de la vie!_" I had to calm her +down, and she bowed over my hand when we parted. + +I thought Klein was going to do the same thing or worse when I signed +the cheque which would be enough to provide him with a new motor-car, +but he didn't. He only said politely, "And I am delighted that the +trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, madame." + +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 queer all the 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 grey-blue cloth, tailored almost beyond +endurance, to wear in the train going home, and had thrown the old black +silk 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 a day longer 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 grey-blue darling in the top tray, lapped +the old black silk around my waist and belted it in with a black belt +off a new green linen I had bought for morning walks--down to the +butcher's in the High Street, 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 platform at +St. Pancras, looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I +don't see how they ever stand him. At that minute the noble black-silk +deed felt foolish, but at the next minute I was glad I had done 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 pleasure he got into +the same carriage and took a 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 people 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 carriage window and left me a mile behind on the rails, all by +myself, "I wish I had known of your sad errand to town, so that I could +have offered you some assistance in your selection. You know we have +just had our family grave 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 up to town for the day on important +business or I would have arranged to see you. I hope you found something +that satisfied you." + +What is 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 a space of time and wondered just +what I was going to do. It was beyond me at the moment, and the Molly +that is ready for life quick didn't know what to say. I shut my eyes, +counted three to myself as I do when I go over into the cold tub, and +then 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 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 only myself to thank for it. When we reached home, the judge +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 +signalled the event with 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. 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 surgery door and found him in his cot +almost asleep, and we had a bear reunion in the wicker chair by the +window that made us both breathless. + +"What did you bring me, Molly?" he finally kissed under my right ear. + +"A real cricket-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five carriages, +a rake and a spade and a hoe, two 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 have +bringed 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 Dr. 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 surgery where +he was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its +twilight glow. 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 +round 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 "put out your tongue." So much of my bad temper +rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't make a scar; but I was +cold enough to all outward appearances. + +"I am making a call on a friend, Dr. 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!" 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. I'm really +inches bigger in the right place, and just--just 'controlled,' the woman +called it, in the wrong place." + +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 a little, 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 supper 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 +Paris letter I saw the postman give Jane this afternoon?" + +Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett's +letters always makes me so instantly cross. + + + + +Leaf IV. + + +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 about 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 landing 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. Anyhow, it made me take a resolve. After +breakfast, I went into the kitchen to speak to Jane. + +"Jane," 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. Jane has buried +husbands. Also her mother is our washerwoman, and influenced by Aunt +Adeline. Jane 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 London 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 the +North, and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched off +except in spots. But when it does get stirred up to take an interest in +anything, it certainly goes the pace. It hasn't had any real excitement +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 neighbour +is sure to see some man walk home from church with her, or hear some +masculine voice in her front garden. Mr. Blake gave Mrs. Caruther's +little Jessie a ride in his trap and helped her out at her mother's gate +just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quickly +the town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her. +They were married the day after New Year's Day, 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 enjoyment they can get out of it. I'm going to +serve out doses of excitement until the dear old place is running as it +did when it was a two-year old. Why get annoyed when people are +interested in you? It's a compliment, after all, and gives them more to +think about. I remembered the two trunks I had brought home with me, and +hugged my knees up under my 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 crêpe de Chine or the white chiffon with the +rosebud embroidery as a first dose 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 cherub face +upturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned as he +heard me draw up the blind, but it was streaked like a wild Indian's +with decorations of brown mud, and he held a slimy frog in one hand +while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his linen blouse. + +"I say, Molly, look at the frog I bringed 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 out of +their holes. A beetle comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift me +up, and I can put him in the waterglass on your table." He held up one +muddy hand to me, and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From the +embrace in which he and the frog and I indulged my lace and cambric 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 frog-song, Molly, and I believe I can git a squirrel with +it, too, if I sing it quite 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 frog under his direction. + +"Nobody taught it to me. Father sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor +you aren't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like +'Black-eyed Susan' or 'Little Boy Blue.' I go to sleep quick 'cause he +makes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good for frogs and +things. Get a piece of cloth to tie over the top of the glass, Molly, +quick!" + +I found some, and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed it to +Billy. As soon as he got it he climbed out of the window, glass, frog +and all, and I saw him and the old setter go down the garden walk +together in pursuit of the desired squirrel, 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 Jane hadn't brought in my letter. + +He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful things +all flavoured with me. He told me about Miss Clinton 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 round 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 "perfect flower" +and "scarlet runner." If I do, I get warm and happy all over. 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 wretched +volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madame +Rene did to it--remade it into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I +wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honourable, 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 cupboard, for it is a torment to look at it. + + * * * * * + +You can just take any recipe for a party and it will make a good +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 light-headed. Finally I had +just about given up any idea of a party 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 childhood's days, 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 silk four or five +months ago, and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner of +his eyes as we were coming out of church, under Aunt Adeline's very +elbow. + +And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my début, Tom +did it. I was sitting peaceably in my own summer-house, dressed in +the summer-before-last that Jane washes and irons every day while +I am deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the +neighbours, when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that +melted into it in tone, jumped over my fence 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 a 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 flower as she is?" he +demanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinions +of Miss Clinton. His use of the word "flower" riled me, and before I +stopped to think, I said, "She reminds me more of a scarlet runner." + +"Now, Molly, don't be jealous just because old Wade has taken her out +driving behind the greys after kissing your hand under the lilacs +yesterday, which, fortunately, 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 managed to wake up this little old town is a +marvel," 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 Clinton 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?" + +"Good gracious, 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 round 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 +car; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Jane has got a cake I'll +eat it out of your hands. Shall it be Switzerland or Japan? And I prefer +_my_ bride served in light grey tweed." Tom really is delightful. Then +we both laughed and began to plan what Tom called a conflagration. 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 drinking tea, when the judge drew the greys up to the gate, +and we both went out to the kerb 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 should find Aunt Adeline in a faint when I went into the house. + +Miss Clinton 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 beside 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. +Anyhow, 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 triumph over the +Italian mission. As a punishment I let Tom take my arm as we stood +watching them drive off, and then was sorry for the left grey 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 scatter-brained fly-away? +As a husband there'd be no dependence on him. 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. Well, 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. + +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 Jane about the dinner-party and asked her to get her mother +to come and help her, and her nephew to wait at table, she smiled such +a wide smile 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, Aunt 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 party. I was bridesmaid for Caroline +Evans, when she married a Birmingham magnate, from which Hillsboro has +never yet recovered. It was the week before the wedding. I was sixteen, +felt dreadfully unclothed 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 +parties in my life, but from this time on I mean to indulge in them +often. Candle-light, pretty women's frocks, 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 astralised 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 at 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 Jane'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 +Madame 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. + +"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, and turn it into a pulp 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 Madame 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, Flower?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had +that sensation of being against something warm and great and good, 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. "Hurry, Flower, if you are going to feed me, +for I'm ravenous. I've been attending Sam Benson's wife, 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. "I am so +tired of that apple-toast combination 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, Flower, and let's have a feast. Forget--" He +didn't finish his sentence, and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything +more as I cut that whole loaf; but why should I want to be certain that +he touched 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 V. + + +"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 "living a Noah's Ark sort of life" it's I, and I have +to sit at the Ark window from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water +I'm supposed to consume in that time. Some time I'm going to get mixed +up and try to drink my bath, if I don't look out. + +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. Anyhow, 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 round 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. + +"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 an insect 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'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I am lonely. And worse than being +lonely, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict of +Mr. Carter and gone out 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 too scared to wear 'em, and I don't know what you'll think +when you see my bankbook. 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 marry Mr. Wilson Graves because of his 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 five years yet. Mrs. +Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward under you. +I can't help judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's walking over my +front steps every day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away and drown +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 Dr. 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 we'll 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. 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, away out on the +hillside, 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 Dr. 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 Dr. 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 steep 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 +earth closer round 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 quite prepared to be scolded for whatever +Aunt Adeline had thought of while I was gone. Jane told me with her +broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper, +and I sat down with a sigh of relief. + +Some days are like tin nutmeg-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 realised +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 coming in a week or two. + +I like 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 Dr. John. I can't go on living like this any longer. Ruth Clinton 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 chance if I don't +want him. The way she idolises and idealises 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 a woman, 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 like men, +can't help it, and seem to need one for my own. + +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. + +Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! +The girl he wanted to marry died of turberculosis, and he wears a locket +with her in it yet. I'd like to reward him for such faithfulness. But +then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Clinton and realise how +faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast--my brain feels almost +all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to +manage, 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. 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 Clinton's +way again! + +I suppose I really would be doing the right thing to marry Mr. Graves, +and I should 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 gentleman come 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. Probably +I shall 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 remade into a Rene +wonder. However, my 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 +jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have +an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and don't keep me +waiting." + +"Tom!" I gasped. + +"Oh, don't spoil sport, Moll! You said you would wake up this town, and +now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I went to a party +with you, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Everybody is there, and +they can't all have Miss Clinton." + +That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be worn out with +attention. 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 _soirée_ 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 Madame Rene had made me there was one, what +she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the +cheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent 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 dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and I +looked new-born in it. + +I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about pads in my +hair, now that they are out of fashion, for I've got lots of my own left +in consequence of not wearing other people's. It clings and coils to my +head just anyhow, so that it 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 Jane had gone out. + +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. + +"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you +are one lovely dream. Your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes are +blue forget-me-nots, and your mouth a red blossom. Come on before I lose +my head 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. + +Everybody in town was at 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 a few years younger than +I. 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 Clinton 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 was with me he could see her, and when +he was with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I verily +believe it was from being really jealous that he asked little Pet Buford +to dance with him--by mistake as it were. + +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 Clinton +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. + +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 VI. + +Conflagration. + + +Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the +corners and have good times all by themselves; but in Hillsboro 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 +neighbours had made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and +Jane 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 other equally rich cakes ever +since the New Year. It was ripe, or smelt so. It made me feel very +hungry. + +A little later Jane was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been +simmered in some wonderful liquor and larded with egg dressing, when +Mrs. Johnson came in and began to unpack her basket. + +I had planned to have a lot of food and had ordered some things up from +a caterer in the city, but I telegraphed to them not to deliver them +until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use smelts 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 +chestnuts, and roast fowl 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. + +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 up with +blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her +blue eyes and fair 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 up 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 spent 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 Clinton. 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 that she won't notice our friendliness. + +"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 Clinton girl took to going about +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 Dr. 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 any of you say a word, for John's very timid, and I don't +believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. 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, Jane, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement +that ensued I escaped to the garden. + +Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Dr. John; he doesn't see a woman, and +there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realise +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 Clinton 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 hammer. He was leaving Paris the day he had posted +it, and he was due to arrive in London almost as soon as it did, just +any hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from London 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 turned into a heart that beat against mine, and I bowed +my head over it as I wetted 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 reducing my waist +measure seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; he wouldn't +have minded if I weighed five hundred pounds, 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 chatter, or taken with my +beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to them +through a telescope. + +I reached into a trunk that stood just 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 very handsome. 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 ill 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 people gived us to +eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers +it would make room for some more then. She did it, and I'm going to die +dead--dead! + +"No, no, pet; 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 Jane baked hot for both of us," 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 is good for you and then still +want more. What would your father say?" + +"Father isn'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'm not going to live in that house with +him more'n two days longer. I want to come over and sleep in your bed +and have you to play with me, Molly." + +"Don't say that, darling, 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 'spect I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy +decidedly. "I say, do you think 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. + +Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner, and when I was +ready 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. 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 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 round my feet until they got my +slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-buttons stood up +stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew. I felt +cheered at the sight of them, and bent down to gather a bunch of them to +wear, even if they did clash with 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. Molly," said Dr. 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 chance +for them 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. + +"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 of something to wither the doctor +with, and he and Ruth Clinton 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 neighbour was so much more interesting, 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 granddamey and responsible as I looked +at them all across the roses and sparkling glass. 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 future husband would have for me, would I +sit at table 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 it all seemed to go to my head, 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 +Dr. John's kind voice teased into my ears--"Steady, Mrs. Molly, 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, Jane and her nephew 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 telegram, but it might have been +nitro-glycerine on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but the +nephew handed it to Tom, and he opened it and, looking at me, he +solemnly read it out loud. It said-- + + "Arrived 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 colour 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 Clinton, 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 should 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. 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 paralysed 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 polished 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 a +great time for him when he lands in the old town." + + * * * * * + +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 sympathetic +enough in the moonlight could comfort for anything. I'm not at all +worried about him, but-- + +The hour I sat in the garden and talked to Judge Wade must have brought +grey hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. Ruth +Clinton had said good-bye with the loveliest haunted look in her great +dark eyes, and I had felt as if I had killed something that was alive. +Dr. 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. + +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 wonderfully apt to marry the man who +says, "Don't argue, but put on your bonnet and come with me." + +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 eulogy of him, and the lovely +warm look he poured over poor frightened me at his side, 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 neighbour. 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--_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. I hope it will +throw a glow over Alfred! + + + + +Leaf VII. + +Heart Agonies. + + +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 Jane 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 that I was in love, but +exactly with 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 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-coloured sky, and I don't want to inspire +anybody; it's too heavy an undertaking. 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 when I get to be thirty I want my husband to +want me to be as large as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. An inspiration +couldn't be fat, and I'm always in danger from hot cakes 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 sky rocket 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 ran 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 would give us some of your dinner left-overs to take for +lunch in the car, for we are going to take a run down to Hedgeland to +see some awfully fine cattle he has heard will be in the market there. +I don't want to ask mother, in case she won't let me go; and his mother, +if he asked her, will begin to talk about us. Tom said I was to come to +you, and you would understand and arrange it all quickly. He sent his +love and all sorts of other messages. Isn't he fond of a joke?" And we +kissed and laughed and packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for +good-bye. 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 tea-cloth with long steady stabs, "husbands +are just like sticks of 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 Alfred +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. Alfred's father was Mr. Johnson's first +cousin and had more crotchets and worse. He had silent spells that +lasted a week, and altogether gave his family a bad time of it. Alfred +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 attending her when she had typhoid, when his +back was turned as it were, and it was simple 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 of the gate the postman came in, and at the sight of +another letter my heart 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 plough 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 of the window and saw Mr. Johnson shooed off +down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's car go chugging +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, romper-clad sunbeam burst into the +room. + +"Git your night-gown and your tooth-bresh 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? Father 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 intense. I like +_icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one." + +"I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe father 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 ought to +put my things in his, but I cried, and then he went upstairs and got out +that little one for me. Come and 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'm not playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and +father is going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. +Father 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 Dr. Moore's +surgery, where he was just taking 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 attend the Centennial Congress in Paris the middle of next +month--and somehow I--feel a bit run down lately and I thought I would +take the little chap and--have--have a _Wanderjahr_. You won't need him +now, Mrs. Molly, 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 now 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 +realise 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 realise +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 a little while just +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 nowhere. 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 Alfred come along and make it a family party, if +that is what suits Bill, the boss?" + +If men would just make an end of 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 I can tell, and that I'll never love anybody else, and that +also I have offered myself to him 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 realised 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 cabin trunk with a 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? Why are your eyes blue pools +of love if they are not for his questioning? + +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 had the courage to go on +along her own steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for it +would hurt him to have hurt me! + + + + +Leaf VIII. + +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 Clinton 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 what she is. 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 recognised +his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document +to read. I suppose it was dishonourable, 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 the fire 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 Jane's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully good service. + +"And so you see, you lovely woman, you, do you not, that you were 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 solemn "_let-not-man-put-asunder_" +words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, our minister. It made me +frightened, 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 Dr. +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 all bubbling +over. 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 you are to +send him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up before +the six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent a +guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost +him five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing. He +says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, 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 purse. + +"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 money +in her hand. I looked at Ruth Clinton 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 money 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 +doorway. 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 away, 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 parquet 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 father kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I +can carry father's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick, and +I'll help you do 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, "'tisn't +me to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a a +bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone. +'Sides, father isn't very useful 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 going, and make 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 hand 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. + +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 things Aunt Bettie was contributing towards 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 Kensington almond pudding with Thomas's 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 affairs 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 +draper's 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 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, Alfred or no +Alfred." + +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 realised 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 girl 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 light 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 was fastening +the buttons behind 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 by the five-down train instead of the six-up, and I fairly reeled +to the window and peeped through the venetian blind. + +They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of +ceremonies, and Ruth Clinton 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 know now 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 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 and hooked it +together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of +savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's surgery, 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 large and coarse-looking, 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 half a 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 I was 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 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. + +"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, for if I go on loving you as I have been for the last +few minutes it will make you uncomfortable." + +"Blossom," 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 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. + +"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 lace on that +blue muslin relict of a sentiment. The lace had got caught on his sleeve +buttons. + +"Please don't forget that that is 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 Alfred 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 +Clinton 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 at once, 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 under the oak-tree. 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 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 without any more +melting, or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to read the +little red book. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +******* This file should be named 15818-8.txt or 15818-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15818 + + + +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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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 #15818]</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> +<h3>E-text prepared by Michael Oltz, David Garcia,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3> +<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 a British magazine + publication and differs significantly from the illustrated American novel + publication, also in the Project Gutenberg library at + <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15817">https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15817</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1> +The Melting of Molly +</h1> +<h3> +By Maria Thompson Daviess +</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<hr /> +<h2>Contents</h2> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0001">Leaf I</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0002">Leaf II</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0003">Leaf III</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0004">Leaf IV</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0005">Leaf V</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0006">Leaf VI</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0007">Leaf VII</a>.</p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#h2H_4_0008">Leaf VIII</a>.</p> +<hr /> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> +<a name="h2H_4_0001"></a> +<h2> + Leaf I. +</h2> +<h3> + The Bachelor's-Buttons. +</h3> +<p> +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 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 clove-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 Dr. 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. +</p> +<p> +"So you're digging up the bachelor-buttons, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor +asked as he leaned over the gate. I went 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 be as +friendly with him as I am. 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 dare burn it up and forget +about it, but I daren't! This record on the first page is enough to +reduce me—to tears, and I wonder why it doesn't. +</p> +<p> +I weigh one hundred and sixty pounds, set down in black and white, and +it is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the weighing machine 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 shall 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 half promised Dr. 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 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 better consult +him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being +a widow, you are accustomed to consulting a man, whether you want to or +not, and you can't get over the habit immediately. Poor Mr. Carter, my +husband, hasn't been dead much over six years, 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. +</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 Dr. +John's surgery 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. +</p> +<p> +"So after ten years Alfred Bennett is coming back to offer his +bachelor's-buttons to you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the voice he always +uses when he makes fun of Billy and me, and which never fails to make us +both mad. +</p> +<p> +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 away 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 +Alfred didn't succeed as a bank clerk, but had to make his hit in the +colonies. 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 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 as—large as I am. 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 about +him. Then he didn't want me to go for long walks with the dogs any more, +because married women oughtn't to, or ride horseback either—no +amusement left but himself; 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 Dr. John suddenly in the deep +voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really ill or tired. "You know +I was only teasing you and I won't let you——" +</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 use 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. +</p> +<p> +Then what happened to me was that Dr. John took me by the shoulders and +gave me one good shake. +</p> +<p> +"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard +him use. "You are just a lovely perfect flower, but if you will be +happier to have Alfred Bennett come and find you as slim as a scarlet +runner, I can show you how to do it. Will you do just as I tell you?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, I will," I sniffed in a comforted voice. What woman wouldn't be +comforted by being called a "perfect flower"? 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> +"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 write 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 upstairs and see +if you don't think we ought to get Billy a thinner set of nightgowns. +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 +Dr. 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, so very +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 neighbour's baby +can be worse than 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 Dr. John both slept. Always his +little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not +having a little one 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 downstairs. +</p> +<p> +Dr. 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 don't like him that way, yet my heart jumped +so it was hard to look as meek as I felt it best under the +circumstances; but I looked 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 Alfred, 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> +"Thank you, Dr. 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 surgery 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 by the open window 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 upstairs. 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> +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 let my cottage, and move 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 crêpe veil is over a yard long +yet. Men are the dust under her feet, but she likes Dr. John to come +over and sit 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." +</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 vexed 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 "perfect flower" 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 realise 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 +insisted on marrying me to him. Poor Mr. Carter! +</p> +<p> +No, I wasn't nineteen, 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, +frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. +</p> +<p> +No, the town didn't mean anything but kindness by marrying me to 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 this +north country a few hundreds of years ago, and has been hatching and +clucking over its own small affairs ever since. All the houses stand +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 boys scramble out of the nests and go +off and decide to grow up where their crow will be heard by the world. +Alfred was one of them. +</p> +<p> +And, too, occasionally some man comes along from the big world and +marries a girl 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, lonely chick with frivolous tendencies, and they +all clucked me over into this 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 Dr. 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 manners, Hillsboro is lovely and loving; and +couldn't inquisitiveness be called just real affection with a kind of +turn in its eye? +</p> +<p> +And there I sat in my front room, being embraced in a perfume of +everybody's lilacs and hawthorns and affectionate interest and +moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two photographs +and letters I used to keep locked up in my desk. 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 England he was going to +lay his heart at my feet? I added his colonial honours 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-bye, 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 <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 Dr. +John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the +letter and the little book and laughed until the tears ran down my +cheeks. +</p> +<p> +Then, before I went to bed, I went round 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! +</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> +<a name="h2H_4_0002" id="h2H_4_0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf II. +</h2> +<h3> + A Love-Letter, Loaded. +</h3> +<p> +The very worst page in this red book is the fifth. It says— +</p> +<p> +"Breakfast—one slice of dry toast, one egg, fruit and a small cup of +coffee, no sugar, no cream." And me with two Jersey cows full of the +richest cream in Hillsboro, out in my meadow! +</p> +<p> +"Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of toast, spinach or lettuce salad. +No dessert or sweet." My poultry-yard is full of fat little chickens, +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. +</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 acrobat 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> +<p> +But as cruel as freezing is, it doesn't compare to the tortures of being +melted. Jane 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 cauldron of hot water and shrouds me in it—and +then more and more blanket windings envelop me until I am like the mummy +of some Egyptian giantess. +</p> +<p> +Once I got so discouraged at the idea of having all this misery 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 wrappings in +less time than it takes to tell it, soused me in a tub of cold water, +fed me with a chicken wing and mashed potatoes, and the information that +I was "good-looking enough for <i>anybody</i> 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 people tell untruths 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 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 it goes down the +slope he throws himself down and rolls over on the grass. I went after +him. And what did Billy do but begin the kind of a tussle we always have +in the big armchair in the living-room! Billy chuckled and squealed, +while I laughed myself all out of breath. And then, looking right over +my front hedge, I discovered Judge 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 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 Billy. I sat up and blushed as red all over as +I do when I first hit that tub of cold water. +</p> +<p> +"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal +resist a peep into such a fairy garden 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 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 hedge 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 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 still more as I put my hand up to my cheek +so that 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> +"Go away, man, and let my Molly alone!" he said, in a perfect +thunder-tone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in +it like Dr. John's at his most positive times with Billy and me. +</p> +<p> +"No, no, Billy; the judge is just looking over the hedge 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'd better go, man, before I bring my father to set 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. 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 of the +front door, 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 other's eyes, and, before we realised +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 had +held in his hand all the while he stood by the hedge 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> +Slowly I unbuttoned that black dress that symbolised the ending of six +years of the blackness, 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. Fortunately, an old white lawn dress could be pulled from the +top shelf of the cupboard in a hurry, and the Molly that came out of +that room was ready for life—and a lot of it. +</p> +<p> +And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline had retired with a violent +headache, and Jane was carrying her in a hot water-bottle with a broad +smile on her face. Jane 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 bunch of cool +violets against my cheek, and I feel that I am going to dance 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 little narcissus 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 round so that 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> +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. 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 +over. +</p> +<p> +That's just what I mean—love boiled down and sugared over is apt to get +an explosive flavour, 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 +more 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. +I almost thought I didn't quite like it, and was going to read it over +again to see, when I saw a procession coming over from Dr. John's, and +I laid the bombshell down on the bench. +</p> +<p> +First came the red setter that is always first with Dr. 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 a voice he always +uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologise 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. +</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 hugged all the +starch out of the old white dress. +</p> +<p> +And Dr. 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. +</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 bother that man, and I'll hit him yet!" +</p> +<p> +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. +</p> +<p> +"And how many pounds are we nearer the scarlet-runner state of +existence, Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the +blouse, in the nicest voice in the world, fairly cracking with +friendship and good humour and hateful things like that. Why I should +have wanted him to get huffy 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 lay across the garden, and the white-headed old +snow-ball was signalling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins rose 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 gnats 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 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 could be, and I don't to this minute +know why. +</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 dumbfounded. 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> +<a name="h2H_4_0003" id="h2H_4_0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf III. +</h2> +<p> +Men are very strange people. They are like those 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. +</p> +<p> +I know now that I really never got any older than the poor, foolish, +eighteen-years child that Aunt Adeline married off "safe." 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 worrying interference 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 +good that heart did feel under my blouse when the boy brought that +basket of fish from Judge Wade's fishing expedition 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 a kind-hearted sort of man, I think. He gives me the gentlest +understanding smile when he meets me in 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 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." Mrs. Johnson sews by +assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was +mending the sleeve of Mr. Johnson's lounge coat. +</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 close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat the minute +you saw it. I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that +made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel as though +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 Dr. John's office and just to have looked at him and said one +word—"Scarlet-runner!" Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Clinton from +London. +</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 +amounted to a pile of 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 indeed! But Alfred Bennett is a man of sense not to marry +any of the string of women who I suppose are running after him!" she +said. Miss Clinton looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went +on hacking Mr. Johnson's coat-sleeve with the needle without noticing +the glance at all. +</p> +<p> +"Well, well, dearie, I don't know about that," said Aunt Bettie as she +fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong +rocking-chair I always kept for her. "Alfred 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 Clinton! 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 in just then so I could +go in and tell Julia to bring out the 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, and put my finger down on +a line with my eyes shut. This was what it was— +</p> +<p> +"—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 pushed it back in a hurry and went back to +the company comforted in a way, but feeling a little more in sympathy +with Mrs. Johnson than I had before Aunt Bettie and her guest from +London 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> +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 humour well +started, and 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 delicious cups of tea +full of sugar and cream, and consume without fear three of Jane's puffy +cakes, while I crumbled mine in secret and set half the cup of tea out +of sight behind a fern pot. +</p> +<p> +It was bad enough to hear Aunt Bettie just offer her Tom, who, if he is +her own son, is my favourite 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 Clinton 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> +<hr /> +<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, or Paris, 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 cheque-book. It took me more than an hour to +reckon it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though in prospects +a poorer woman. +</p> +<p> +As I sat in the train on my way to town early the next morning I thought +a good deal about poor Mr. Carter. After this I shall always appreciate +and admire him for the way he made money, and his kindness in leaving it +to me, since, for the first time in my life, I fully realised 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 superfluous +flesh just walking off of me. It was delicious! +</p> +<p> +Then she and two girls wearing fashionable frocks and fashionable hair +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> +<p> +Next I signed the cheque 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 silk bag I had +worn down to the West End. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds +I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Clinton, 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 madame and +have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready +to be fitted at short notice. Really, madame's figure is such that it +commands a perfect costume now." +</p> +<p> +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 +Madame Courtier a commission for the customers she passes on to him. +The one for me must have looked to her like a big transaction. +</p> +<p> +I spent three days at the great Klein establishment, only going to the +hotel to sleep, and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madame Rene must +have been Madame Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madame 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 Madame Rene +really approved of me, for when I blushed and asked her if she could +recommend a good beauty doctor she held up her hands and shuddered. +</p> +<p> +"Never, madame, never <i>pour vous. Ravissant, charmant</i>—it is too +foolish. Nevair! <i>Jamais, jamais de la vie!</i>" I had to calm her +down, and she bowed over my hand when we parted. +</p> +<p> +I thought Klein was going to do the same thing or worse when I signed +the cheque which would be enough to provide him with a new motor-car, +but he didn't. He only said politely, "And I am delighted that the +trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, madame." +</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 queer all the afternoon as I packed those trunks for +the five o'clock train. +</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 grey-blue cloth, tailored almost beyond +endurance, to wear in the train going home, and had thrown the old black +silk 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 as I buttoned the old thing up for +the last time, because I really ought to have stayed a day longer 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 grey-blue darling in the top tray, lapped +the old black silk around my waist and belted it in with a black belt +off a new green linen I had bought for morning walks—down to the +butcher's in the High Street, 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 for having +been foolish. I felt both ways when Judge Wade came down the platform at +St. Pancras, looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I +don't see how they ever stand him. At that minute the noble black-silk +deed felt foolish, but at the next minute I was glad I had done 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 pleasure he got into +the same carriage and took a 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 people in Hillsboro 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 carriage window and left me a mile behind on the rails, all by +myself, "I wish I had known of your sad errand to town, so that I could +have offered you some assistance in your selection. You know we have +just had our family grave 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 up to town 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 is 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. +</p> +<p> +Perfectly dumb and quiet I sat for a space of time and wondered just +what I was going to do. It was beyond me at the moment, and the Molly +that is ready for life quick didn't know what to say. I shut my eyes, +counted three to myself as I do when I go over into the cold tub, and +then 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, 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 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 only myself to thank for it. When we reached home, the judge +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 +signalled the event with 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. Suppose she had seen or heard! +</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 surgery door and found him in his cot +almost asleep, and we had a bear reunion in the wicker chair 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 cricket-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five carriages, +a rake and a spade and a hoe, two 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 what I want, but you oughter have +bringed more'n that for three days not being here with me." +</p> +<p> +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 Dr. 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 surgery where +he was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its +twilight glow. I gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a +blush than I intended. +</p> +<p> +He very far from kissed the hand; he held it just long enough to turn me +round 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 "put out your tongue." So much of my bad temper +rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't make a scar; but I was +cold enough to all outward appearances. +</p> +<p> +"I am making a call on a friend, Dr. 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 +mine, and then it went white with mortification. I couldn't stand that. +</p> +<p> +"Don't do that!" 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. I'm really +inches bigger in the right place, and just—just 'controlled,' the woman +called it, in the wrong place." +</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 a little, only— +</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 supper 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 +Paris letter I saw the postman give Jane 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> +<a name="h2H_4_0004" id="h2H_4_0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf IV. +</h2> +<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 about 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? +</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 landing 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. Anyhow, it made me take a resolve. After +breakfast, I went into the kitchen to speak to Jane. +</p> +<p> +"Jane," 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. Jane has buried +husbands. Also her mother is our washerwoman, and influenced by Aunt +Adeline. Jane 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 London 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. +</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 the +North, and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched off +except in spots. But when it does get stirred up to take an interest in +anything, it certainly goes the pace. It hasn't had any real excitement +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 shall be +done, and spends a good deal of its time seeing its directions carried +out. +</p> +<p> +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 neighbour +is sure to see some man walk home from church with her, or hear some +masculine voice in her front garden. Mr. Blake gave Mrs. Caruther's +little Jessie a ride in his trap and helped her out at her mother's gate +just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quickly +the town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her. +They were married the day after New Year's Day, 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 my friends that way, and I want +them to have all the enjoyment they can get out of it. I'm going to +serve out doses of excitement until the dear old place is running as it +did when it was a two-year old. Why get annoyed when people are +interested in you? It's a compliment, after all, and gives them more to +think about. I remembered the two trunks I had brought home with me, and +hugged my knees up under my 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 crêpe de Chine or the white chiffon with the +rosebud embroidery as a first dose 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. +</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 cherub face +upturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned as he +heard me draw up the blind, but it was streaked like a wild Indian's +with decorations of brown mud, and he held a slimy frog in one hand +while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his linen blouse. +</p> +<p> +"I say, Molly, look at the frog I bringed 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 out of +their holes. A beetle comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift me +up, and I can put him in the waterglass on your table." He held up one +muddy hand to me, and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From the +embrace in which he and the frog and I indulged my lace and cambric came +out much the worse. +</p> +<p> +"That was a lovely song you sang about 'Molly darling,' Billy," I said. +"Where did you hear it?" +</p> +<p> +"That's a good frog-song, Molly, and I believe I can git a squirrel with +it, too, if I sing it quite 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 frog under his direction. +</p> +<p> +"Nobody taught it to me. Father sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor +you aren't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like +'Black-eyed Susan' or 'Little Boy Blue.' I go to sleep quick 'cause he +makes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good for frogs and +things. Get a piece of cloth to tie over the top of the glass, Molly, +quick!" +</p> +<p> +I found some, and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed it to +Billy. As soon as he got it he climbed out of the window, glass, frog +and all, and I saw him and the old setter go down the garden walk +together in pursuit of the desired squirrel, 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 Jane hadn't brought in my letter. +</p> +<p> +He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful things +all flavoured with me. He told me about Miss Clinton 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. +</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 round 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 "perfect flower" +and "scarlet runner." If I do, I get warm and happy all over. 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 wretched +volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madame +Rene did to it—remade it into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I +wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honourable, 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 cupboard, for it is a torment to look at it. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +You can just take any recipe for a party and it will make a good +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 light-headed. Finally I had +just about given up any idea of a party 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 childhood's days, 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 silk four or five +months ago, and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner of +his eyes as we were coming out of church, under Aunt Adeline's very +elbow. +</p> +<p> +And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my début, Tom +did it. I was sitting peaceably in my own summer-house, dressed in +the summer-before-last that Jane washes and irons every day while +I am deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the +neighbours, when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that +melted into it in tone, jumped over my fence 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 a 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> +"Now, Mrs. Molly, truly did you ever see such a flower as she is?" he +demanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinions +of Miss Clinton. His use of the word "flower" riled me, and before I +stopped to think, I said, "She reminds me more of a scarlet runner." +</p> +<p> +"Now, Molly, don't be jealous just because old Wade has taken her out +driving behind the greys after kissing your hand under the lilacs +yesterday, which, fortunately, 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 managed to wake up this little old town is a +marvel," 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 Clinton 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> +"Good gracious, 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 round 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 office, and the spark-plug to the +car; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Jane has got a cake I'll +eat it out of your hands. Shall it be Switzerland or Japan? And I prefer +<i>my</i> bride served in light grey tweed." Tom really is delightful. Then +we both laughed and began to plan what Tom called a conflagration. 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 drinking tea, when the judge drew the greys up to the gate, +and we both went out to the kerb 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 should find Aunt Adeline in a faint when I went into the house. +</p> +<p> +Miss Clinton 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 beside 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. +Anyhow, 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 triumph over the +Italian mission. As a punishment I let Tom take my arm as we stood +watching them drive off, and then was sorry for the left grey 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 scatter-brained fly-away? +As a husband there'd be no dependence on him. 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. 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. Well, 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> +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 Jane about the dinner-party and asked her to get her mother +to come and help her, and her nephew to wait at table, she smiled such +a wide smile 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, Aunt 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 party. I was bridesmaid for Caroline +Evans, when she married a Birmingham magnate, from which Hillsboro has +never yet recovered. It was the week before the wedding. I was sixteen, +felt dreadfully unclothed 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 +parties in my life, but from this time on I mean to indulge in them +often. Candle-light, pretty women's frocks, 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 gripped +me by the throat, gnawed me all over like a bone, then shook me until +I was limp and unresisting. I must have astralised 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 at 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 Jane'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 +Madame Rene's masterpiece of a <i>negligée</i>, 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> +"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, and turn it into a pulp 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 long plait almost got into the scattered jam. Even at +such a moment as that I felt how glad Madame Rene would have been to +have given such a nice man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk +<i>chef-d'oeuvre</i> of hers. I was glad myself. +</p> +<p> +"Don't I, Flower?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had +that sensation of being against something warm and great and good, 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. "Hurry, Flower, if you are going to feed me, +for I'm ravenous. I've been attending Sam Benson's wife, 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. "I am so +tired of that apple-toast combination 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, Flower, and let's have a feast. Forget——" He +didn't finish his sentence, and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything +more as I cut that whole loaf; but why should I want to be certain that +he touched 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> +<a name="h2H_4_0005" id="h2H_4_0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf V. +</h2> +<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 "living a Noah's Ark sort of life" it's I, and I have +to sit at the Ark window from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water +I'm supposed to consume in that time. Some time I'm going to get mixed +up and try to drink my bath, if I don't look out. +</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 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. Anyhow, 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 round 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> +<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 an insect 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. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I am lonely. And worse than being +lonely, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict of +Mr. Carter and gone out 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 too scared to wear 'em, and I don't know what you'll think +when you see my bankbook. 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 marry Mr. Wilson Graves because of his 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 five years yet. Mrs. +Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward under you. +I can't help judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's walking over my +front steps every day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away and drown +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 Dr. 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 we'll 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. 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, away out on the +hillside, 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. +</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 Dr. 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 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 Dr. 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 steep 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. +</p> +<p> +It was almost dusk, and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull the +earth closer round 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 quite prepared to be scolded for whatever +Aunt Adeline had thought of while I was gone. Jane told me with her +broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper, +and I sat down with a sigh of relief. +</p> +<p> +Some days are like tin nutmeg-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 realised +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 coming in a week or two. +</p> +<p> +I like 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 Dr. John. I can't go on living like this any longer. Ruth Clinton 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 chance if I don't +want him. The way she idolises and idealises 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 a woman, and I love Ruth! +</p> +<p> +It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look in +Alfred's—and decide. 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 like men, +can't help it, and seem to need one for my own. +</p> +<p> +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. +</p> +<p> +Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! +The girl he wanted to marry died of turberculosis, and he wears a locket +with her in it yet. I'd like to reward him for such faithfulness. But +then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Clinton and realise how +faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast—my brain feels almost +all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to +manage, if I want anything left at all for him to come home to. +</p> +<p> +In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. 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 Clinton's +way again! +</p> +<p> +I suppose I really would be doing the right thing to marry Mr. Graves, +and I should 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 gentleman come 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 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. Probably +I shall 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 remade into a Rene +wonder. However, my 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. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a +jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have +an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and don't keep me +waiting." +</p> +<p> +"Tom!" I gasped. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, don't spoil sport, Moll! You said you would wake up this town, and +now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I went to a party +with you, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Everybody is there, and +they can't all have Miss Clinton." +</p> +<p> +That settled it—I couldn't let a visiting girl be worn out with +attention. 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 <i>duty</i> called me to +de-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu <i>soirée</i> 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 Madame Rene had made me there was one, what +she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the +cheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent 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 dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and I +looked new-born in it. +</p> +<p> +I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about pads in my +hair, now that they are out of fashion, for I've got lots of my own left +in consequence of not wearing other people's. It clings and coils to my +head just anyhow, so that it 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 Jane had gone out. +</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. +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you +are one lovely dream. Your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes are +blue forget-me-nots, and your mouth a red blossom. Come on before I lose +my head 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> +<p> +Everybody in town was at 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 a few years younger than +I. 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. +</p> +<p> +And it was well I did come to save Ruth Clinton 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 was with me he could see her, and when +he was with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I verily +believe it was from being really jealous that he asked little Pet Buford +to dance with him—by mistake as it were. +</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 Clinton +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 <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. +</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> +<a name="h2H_4_0006" id="h2H_4_0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf VI. +</h2> +<h3> + Conflagration. +</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 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 +neighbours had made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and +Jane 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 other equally rich cakes ever +since the New Year. It was ripe, or smelt so. It made me feel very +hungry. +</p> +<p> +A little later Jane was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been +simmered in some wonderful liquor and larded with egg dressing, when +Mrs. Johnson came in and began to unpack her basket. +</p> +<p> +I had planned to have a lot of food and had ordered some things up from +a caterer in the city, but I telegraphed to them not to deliver them +until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use smelts 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 +chestnuts, and roast fowl 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. +</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 up with +blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her +blue eyes and fair 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 up the whole 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 spent 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 Clinton. 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," I said regretfully. +I always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt +Bettie, so that she won't notice our friendliness. +</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 Clinton girl took to going about +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 Dr. 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 has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does. +But don't any of you say a word, for John's very timid, and I don't +believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. 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, Jane, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement +that ensued I escaped to the garden. +</p> +<p> +Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Dr. John; he doesn't see a woman, and +there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realise +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 Clinton 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 hammer. He was leaving Paris the day he had posted +it, and he was due to arrive in London almost as soon as it did, just +any hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from London 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. +</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 turned into a heart that beat against mine, and I bowed +my head over it as I wetted 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 reducing my waist +measure seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; he wouldn't +have minded if I weighed five hundred pounds, 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 chatter, or taken with my +beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to them +through a telescope. +</p> +<p> +I reached into a trunk that stood just 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 very handsome. 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. +</p> +<p> +"Molly, Molly," gulped Billy, "I am so ill 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 people gived us to +eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers +it would make room for some more then. She did it, and I'm going to die +dead—dead! +</p> +<p> +"No, no, pet; 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. +</p> +<p> +"In the garden eating cup-cake Jane baked hot for both of us," 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 is good for you and then still +want more. What would your father say?" +</p> +<p> +"Father isn'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'm not going to live in that house with +him more'n two days longer. I want to come over and sleep in your bed +and have you to play with me, Molly." +</p> +<p> +"Don't say that, darling, 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 'spect I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy +decidedly. "I say, do you think 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 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. +</p> +<p> +Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner, and when I was +ready 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. 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 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 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 round my feet until they got my +slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-buttons stood up +stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew. I felt +cheered at the sight of them, and bent down to gather a bunch of them to +wear, even if they did clash with 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. Molly," said Dr. 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> +"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 chance +for them 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! +</p> +<p> +There are lots of questions I'm going to ask Alfred after I'm married +to him. +</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 of something to wither the doctor +with, and he and Ruth Clinton 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 neighbour was so much more interesting, 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. 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 granddamey and responsible as I looked +at them all across the roses and sparkling glass. 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 future husband would have for me, would I +sit at table 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 it all seemed to go to my head, 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 +Dr. John's kind voice teased into my ears—"Steady, Mrs. Molly, 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, Jane and her nephew 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. +</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 telegram, but it might have been +nitro-glycerine on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but the +nephew handed it to Tom, and he opened it and, looking at me, he +solemnly read it out loud. It said— +</p> +<p class="quote"> + "Arrived this noon. Have I your permission to come to Hillsboro + immediately? Answer. <span style="font-variant: small-caps" >Alfred.</span>" +</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 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 colour 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 Clinton, 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? +</p> +<p> +I couldn't say a word, and I am sure I don't know what I should 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. 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 paralysed 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 polished 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 a +great time for him when he lands in the old town." +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +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 sympathetic +enough in the moonlight could comfort for anything. I'm not at all +worried about him, but—— +</p> +<p> +The hour I sat in the garden and talked to Judge Wade must have brought +grey hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. Ruth +Clinton had said good-bye with the loveliest haunted look in her great +dark eyes, and I had felt as if I had killed something that was alive. +Dr. 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> +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 wonderfully apt to marry the man who +says, "Don't argue, but put on your bonnet and come with me." +</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. His quick eulogy of him, and the lovely +warm look he poured over poor frightened me at his side, 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 neighbour. 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>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. I hope it will +throw a glow over Alfred! +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0007" id="h2H_4_0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf VII. +</h2> +<h3> + Heart Agonies. +</h3> +<p> +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 Jane 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. +</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 that I was in love, but +exactly with 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 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. +</p> +<p> +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-coloured sky, and I don't want to inspire +anybody; it's too heavy an undertaking. 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 when I get to be thirty I want my husband to +want me to be as large as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. An inspiration +couldn't be fat, and I'm always in danger from hot cakes and chicken +gravy. +</p> +<p> +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. +</p> +<p> +All the men who write me letters seem to get themselves wound up into +a sky rocket 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 ran 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 would give us some of your dinner left-overs to take for +lunch in the car, for we are going to take a run down to Hedgeland to +see some awfully fine cattle he has heard will be in the market there. +I don't want to ask mother, in case she won't let me go; and his mother, +if he asked her, will begin to talk about us. Tom said I was to come to +you, and you would understand and arrange it all quickly. He sent his +love and all sorts of other messages. Isn't he fond of a joke?" And we +kissed and laughed and packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for +good-bye. 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 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 tea-cloth with long steady stabs, "husbands +are just like sticks of 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 Alfred +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. Alfred's father was Mr. Johnson's first +cousin and had more crotchets and worse. He had silent spells that +lasted a week, and altogether gave his family a bad time of it. Alfred +looks very much like him." +</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 attending her when she had typhoid, when his +back was turned as it were, and it was simple 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!" +</p> +<p> +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 of the gate the postman came in, and at the sight of +another letter my heart 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 plough 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 of the window and saw Mr. Johnson shooed off +down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's car go chugging +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, romper-clad sunbeam burst into the +room. +</p> +<p> +"Git your night-gown and your tooth-bresh 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 of spout whales in a +book, Molly? Father 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 intense. 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 father 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 ought to +put my things in his, but I cried, and then he went upstairs and got out +that little one for me. Come and 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'm not playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and +father is going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. +Father 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. +</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 Dr. Moore's +surgery, where he was just taking 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 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> +"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 attend the Centennial Congress in Paris the middle of next +month—and somehow I—feel a bit run down lately and I thought I would +take the little chap and—have—have a <i>Wanderjahr</i>. You won't need him +now, Mrs. Molly, 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 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 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 now 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 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 +realise 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. +</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 realise +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 a little while just +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?" +</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 nowhere. 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 +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 Alfred come along and make it a family party, if +that is what suits Bill, the boss?" +</p> +<p> +If men would just make an end of 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 I can tell, and that I'll never love anybody else, and that +also I have offered myself to him 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 realised 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 cabin trunk with a 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? Why are your eyes blue pools +of love if they are not for his questioning? +</p> +<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 be kind to her until she had the courage to go on +along her own steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for it +would hurt him to have hurt me! +</p> +<a name="h2H_4_0008" id="h2H_4_0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + Leaf VIII. +</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 Clinton 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 what she is. 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 recognised +his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document +to read. I suppose it was dishonourable, 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 the fire 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 Jane'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 you were 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 solemn "<i>let-not-man-put-asunder</i>" +words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, our minister. It made me +frightened, 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. +</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 Dr. +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? +</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 all bubbling +over. 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 you are to +send him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up before +the six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent a +guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost +him five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing. He +says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, 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 purse. +</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 money +in her hand. I looked at Ruth Clinton 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 money 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 +doorway. 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 away, 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 parquet floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full of +triumph. +</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 father kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I +can carry father's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick, and +I'll help you do 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 astonished blue eyes at me, "'tisn't +me to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a a +bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone. +'Sides, father isn't very useful 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 night if you don't say no more about not going, and make 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 hand 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. +</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 a large basket, in +which were packed things Aunt Bettie was contributing towards 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 Kensington almond pudding with Thomas's 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 affairs 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 +draper's 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." +</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 who is already married will stay in that state until +she reaches that age. 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, Alfred or no +Alfred." +</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 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 realised 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 girl 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 light 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 was fastening +the buttons behind 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 by the five-down train instead of the six-up, and I fairly reeled +to the window and peeped through the venetian blind. +</p> +<p> +They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of +ceremonies, and Ruth Clinton 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 and woman's suffrage. But I know now 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 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 and hooked it +together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of +savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's surgery, 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 large and coarse-looking, 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> +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 half a 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 I was 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> +"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 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. +</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 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, for if I go on loving you as I have been for the last +few minutes it will make you uncomfortable." +</p> +<p> +"Blossom," 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 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!" I felt him +shudder in my arms as I held him close. +</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 lace on that +blue muslin relict of a sentiment. The lace had got caught on his sleeve +buttons. +</p> +<p> +"Please don't forget that that is his possession," I laughed under his +chin. "I'm still scared to death of him, and you haven't hid me yet!" +</p> +<p> +"Molly," he asked, this time with a heaven-laugh, "where could you be +more effectually hid from Alfred 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 +Clinton 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 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 at once, 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 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 under the oak-tree. 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 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 without any more +melting, or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to read the +little red book. +</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 15818-h.txt or 15818-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15818">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/8/1/15818</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>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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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 #15818] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +E-text prepared by Michael Oltz, David Garcia, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +Note: This version of _The Melting of Molly_ is a British magazine + publication and differs significantly from the American novel + publication, also in the Project Gutenberg library at + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15817 + + + + + +THE MELTING OF MOLLY + +by + +MARIA THOMPSON DAVIESS + + + + + + + +Leaf I. + +The Bachelor's-Buttons. + + +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 clove-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 Dr. 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-buttons, Mrs. Molly?" the doctor +asked as he leaned over the gate. I went 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 be as +friendly with him as I am. 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 dare burn it up and forget +about it, but I daren'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, set down in black and white, and +it is a tragedy! I don't believe that man at the weighing machine 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 shall have to believe my own +yardstick. + +But as to my waist measure, I positively refuse to write that down, even +if I have half promised Dr. 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 better consult +him over the matter. Now I'm sorry I did. That is one thing about being +a widow, you are accustomed to consulting a man, whether you want to or +not, and you can't get over the habit immediately. Poor Mr. Carter, my +husband, hasn't been dead much over six years, 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. + +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 Dr. +John's surgery 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 Alfred Bennett is coming back to offer his +bachelor's-buttons to you, Mrs. Molly?" he said in the 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 away 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 +Alfred didn't succeed as a bank clerk, but had to make his hit in the +colonies. 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 as--large as I am. 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 about +him. Then he didn't want me to go for long walks with the dogs any more, +because married women oughtn't to, or ride horseback either--no +amusement left but himself; 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 Dr. John suddenly in the deep +voice he uses to Billy and me when we are really ill or tired. "You know +I was only teasing you and I won't let you--" + +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 use 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 Dr. John took me by the shoulders and +gave me one good shake. + +"You foolish child," he said in the deepest voice I almost ever heard +him use. "You are just a lovely perfect flower, but if you will be +happier to have Alfred Bennett come and find you as slim as a scarlet +runner, I can show you how to do it. 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 "perfect flower"? 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 write 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 upstairs and see +if you don't think we ought to get Billy a thinner set of nightgowns. +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 +Dr. 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, so very +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 neighbour's baby +can be worse than 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 Dr. John both slept. Always his +little, warm, wilty body has comforted me for the emptiness of not +having a little one 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 downstairs. + +Dr. 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 don't like him that way, yet my heart jumped +so it was hard to look as meek as I felt it best under the +circumstances; but I looked 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 Alfred, 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, Dr. 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 surgery 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 by the open window 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 upstairs. 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 let my cottage, and move 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 Dr. John to come +over and sit 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 vexed 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 "perfect flower" 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 realise 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 +insisted on marrying me to him. Poor Mr. Carter! + +No, I wasn't nineteen, 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, +frolicking, prancing colt of a girl with a terribly ponderous bridle. + +No, the town didn't mean anything but kindness by marrying me to 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 this +north country a few hundreds of years ago, and has been hatching and +clucking over its own small affairs ever since. All the houses stand +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 boys scramble out of the nests and go +off 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 girl 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, lonely chick with frivolous tendencies, and they +all clucked me over into this 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 Dr. 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 manners, Hillsboro is lovely and loving; and +couldn't inquisitiveness be called just real affection with a kind of +turn in its eye? + +And there I sat in my front room, being embraced in a perfume of +everybody's lilacs and hawthorns and affectionate interest and +moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two photographs +and letters I used to keep locked up in my desk. 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 England he was going to +lay his heart at my feet? I added his colonial honours 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-bye, 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 Dr. +John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the +letter and the little book and laughed until the tears ran down my +cheeks. + +Then, before I went to bed, I went round 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 II. + +A Love-Letter, Loaded. + + +The very worst page in this red book is the fifth. It says-- + +"Breakfast--one slice of dry toast, one egg, fruit and a small cup of +coffee, no sugar, no cream." And me with two Jersey cows full of the +richest cream in Hillsboro, out in my meadow! + +"Dinner, one small lean chop, slice of toast, spinach or lettuce salad. +No dessert or sweet." My poultry-yard is full of fat little chickens, +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 acrobat 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. + +But as cruel as freezing is, it doesn't compare to the tortures of being +melted. Jane 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 cauldron of hot water and shrouds me in it--and +then more and more blanket windings envelop me until I am like the mummy +of some Egyptian giantess. + +Once I got so discouraged at the idea of having all this misery 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 wrappings in +less time than it takes to tell it, soused me in a tub of cold water, +fed me with a chicken wing and mashed potatoes, 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 people tell untruths 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 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 it goes down the +slope he throws himself down and rolls over on the grass. I went after +him. And what did Billy do but begin the kind of a tussle we always have +in the big armchair in the living-room! Billy chuckled and squealed, +while I laughed myself all out of breath. And then, looking right over +my front hedge, I discovered Judge 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 Billy. I sat up and blushed as red all over as +I do when I first hit that tub of cold water. + +"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal +resist a peep into such a fairy garden 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 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 hedge 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 still more as I put my hand up to my cheek +so that 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. + +"Go away, man, and let my Molly alone!" he said, in a perfect +thunder-tone of voice; but I almost laughed, for it had such a sound in +it like Dr. John's at his most positive times with Billy and me. + +"No, no, Billy; the judge is just looking over the hedge 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'd better go, man, before I bring my father to set 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. 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 of the +front door, 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 other's eyes, and, before we realised +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 hedge 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. + +Slowly I unbuttoned that black dress that symbolised the ending of six +years of the blackness, 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. Fortunately, an old white lawn dress could be pulled from the +top shelf of the cupboard in a hurry, and the Molly that came out of +that room was ready for life--and a lot of it. + +And again, fortunately, Aunt Adeline had retired with a violent +headache, and Jane was carrying her in a hot water-bottle with a broad +smile on her face. Jane 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 dance 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 little narcissus 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 round so that 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. 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 +over. + +That's just what I mean--love boiled down and sugared over is apt to get +an explosive flavour, 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 +more 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. +I almost thought I didn't quite like it, and was going to read it over +again to see, when I saw a procession coming over from Dr. John's, and +I laid the bombshell down on the bench. + +First came the red setter that is always first with Dr. 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 a voice he always +uses when he's punishing Billy and me. "Bill came to apologise 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 old white dress. + +And Dr. 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. + +"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 bother that man, and I'll hit 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 scarlet-runner state of +existence, Mrs. Molly?" he asked me before I had finished tying the +blouse, in the nicest voice in the world, fairly cracking with +friendship and good humour and hateful things like that. Why I should +have wanted him to get huffy 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 signalling out of the dusk to a Dorothy Perkins rose 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 gnats 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 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 could be, 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 dumbfounded. 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 III. + + +Men are very strange people. They are like those 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. + +I know now that I really never got any older than the poor, foolish, +eighteen-years child that Aunt Adeline married off "safe." 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 worrying interference 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 blouse when the boy brought that +basket of fish from Judge Wade's fishing expedition 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 a kind-hearted sort of man, I think. He gives me the gentlest +understanding smile when he meets me in 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 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." Mrs. Johnson sews by +assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was +mending the sleeve of Mr. Johnson's lounge coat. + +"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 the minute +you saw it. I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that +made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel as though +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 Dr. John's office and just to have looked at him and said one +word--"Scarlet-runner!" Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Clinton from +London. + +"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 a pile of 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 indeed! But Alfred Bennett is a man of sense not to marry +any of the string of women who I suppose are running after him!" she +said. Miss Clinton looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went +on hacking Mr. Johnson's coat-sleeve with the needle without noticing +the glance at all. + +"Well, well, dearie, I don't know about that," said Aunt Bettie as she +fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong +rocking-chair I always kept for her. "Alfred 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 Clinton! 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 in just then so I could +go in and tell Julia to bring out the 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, 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 pushed it back in a hurry and went back to +the company comforted in a way, but feeling a little more in sympathy +with Mrs. Johnson than I had before Aunt Bettie and her guest from +London 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 humour well +started, and 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 delicious cups of tea +full of sugar and cream, and consume without fear three of Jane's puffy +cakes, while I crumbled mine in secret and set half the cup of tea out +of sight behind a fern pot. + +It was bad enough to hear Aunt Bettie just offer her Tom, who, if he is +her own son, is my favourite 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 Clinton 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, or Paris, 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 cheque-book. It took me more than an hour to +reckon it all up, but I went to bed a happier, though in prospects +a poorer woman. + +As I sat in the train on my way to town early the next morning I thought +a good deal about poor Mr. Carter. After this I shall always appreciate +and admire him for the way he made money, and his kindness in leaving it +to me, since, for the first time in my life, I fully realised 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 superfluous +flesh just walking off of me. It was delicious! + +Then she and two girls wearing fashionable frocks and fashionable hair +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. + +Next I signed the cheque 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 silk bag I had +worn down to the West End. I must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds +I had felt obliged to lose for Alfred and Ruth Clinton, 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 madame and +have it take her to Klein's? They have wonderful gowns by Rene all ready +to be fitted at short notice. Really, madame'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 +Madame Courtier a commission for the customers she passes on to him. +The one for me must have looked to her like a big transaction. + +I spent three days at the great Klein establishment, only going to the +hotel to sleep, and most of the time I forgot to eat. Madame Rene must +have been Madame Courtier's twin sister in youth, and Madame 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 Madame Rene +really approved of me, for when I blushed and asked her if she could +recommend a good beauty doctor she held up her hands and shuddered. + +"Never, madame, never _pour vous. Ravissant, charmant_--it is too +foolish. Nevair! _Jamais, jamais de la vie!_" I had to calm her +down, and she bowed over my hand when we parted. + +I thought Klein was going to do the same thing or worse when I signed +the cheque which would be enough to provide him with a new motor-car, +but he didn't. He only said politely, "And I am delighted that the +trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, madame." + +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 queer all the 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 grey-blue cloth, tailored almost beyond +endurance, to wear in the train going home, and had thrown the old black +silk 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 a day longer 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 grey-blue darling in the top tray, lapped +the old black silk around my waist and belted it in with a black belt +off a new green linen I had bought for morning walks--down to the +butcher's in the High Street, 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 platform at +St. Pancras, looking so much grander than any other man in sight that I +don't see how they ever stand him. At that minute the noble black-silk +deed felt foolish, but at the next minute I was glad I had done 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 pleasure he got into +the same carriage and took a 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 people 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 carriage window and left me a mile behind on the rails, all by +myself, "I wish I had known of your sad errand to town, so that I could +have offered you some assistance in your selection. You know we have +just had our family grave 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 up to town for the day on important +business or I would have arranged to see you. I hope you found something +that satisfied you." + +What is 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 a space of time and wondered just +what I was going to do. It was beyond me at the moment, and the Molly +that is ready for life quick didn't know what to say. I shut my eyes, +counted three to myself as I do when I go over into the cold tub, and +then 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 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 only myself to thank for it. When we reached home, the judge +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 +signalled the event with 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. 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 surgery door and found him in his cot +almost asleep, and we had a bear reunion in the wicker chair by the +window that made us both breathless. + +"What did you bring me, Molly?" he finally kissed under my right ear. + +"A real cricket-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five carriages, +a rake and a spade and a hoe, two 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 have +bringed 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 Dr. 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 surgery where +he was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its +twilight glow. 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 +round 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 "put out your tongue." So much of my bad temper +rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't make a scar; but I was +cold enough to all outward appearances. + +"I am making a call on a friend, Dr. 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!" 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. I'm really +inches bigger in the right place, and just--just 'controlled,' the woman +called it, in the wrong place." + +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 a little, 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 supper 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 +Paris letter I saw the postman give Jane this afternoon?" + +Again I ask myself the question why his friendliness to Alfred Bennett's +letters always makes me so instantly cross. + + + + +Leaf IV. + + +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 about 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 landing 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. Anyhow, it made me take a resolve. After +breakfast, I went into the kitchen to speak to Jane. + +"Jane," 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. Jane has buried +husbands. Also her mother is our washerwoman, and influenced by Aunt +Adeline. Jane 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 London 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 the +North, and the moss on it is so thick that it can't be scratched off +except in spots. But when it does get stirred up to take an interest in +anything, it certainly goes the pace. It hasn't had any real excitement +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 neighbour +is sure to see some man walk home from church with her, or hear some +masculine voice in her front garden. Mr. Blake gave Mrs. Caruther's +little Jessie a ride in his trap and helped her out at her mother's gate +just before last Christmas, and if the poor widow hadn't acted quickly +the town would have noticed them to death before he proposed to her. +They were married the day after New Year's Day, 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 enjoyment they can get out of it. I'm going to +serve out doses of excitement until the dear old place is running as it +did when it was a two-year old. Why get annoyed when people are +interested in you? It's a compliment, after all, and gives them more to +think about. I remembered the two trunks I had brought home with me, and +hugged my knees up under my 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 crepe de Chine or the white chiffon with the +rosebud embroidery as a first dose 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 cherub face +upturned with heaven-lights all over it? Billy's face was upturned as he +heard me draw up the blind, but it was streaked like a wild Indian's +with decorations of brown mud, and he held a slimy frog in one hand +while he wiped his other grimy hand down the front of his linen blouse. + +"I say, Molly, look at the frog I bringed 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 out of +their holes. A beetle comed, too, but I couldn't ketch 'em both. Lift me +up, and I can put him in the waterglass on your table." He held up one +muddy hand to me, and promptly I lifted him up into my arms. From the +embrace in which he and the frog and I indulged my lace and cambric 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 frog-song, Molly, and I believe I can git a squirrel with +it, too, if I sing it quite 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 frog under his direction. + +"Nobody taught it to me. Father sings it to me when Tilly, nurse, nor +you aren't there to put me to bed. He don't know no good songs like +'Black-eyed Susan' or 'Little Boy Blue.' I go to sleep quick 'cause he +makes me feel tired with his slow tune what's only good for frogs and +things. Get a piece of cloth to tie over the top of the glass, Molly, +quick!" + +I found some, and I don't know why my hand trembled as I handed it to +Billy. As soon as he got it he climbed out of the window, glass, frog +and all, and I saw him and the old setter go down the garden walk +together in pursuit of the desired squirrel, 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 Jane hadn't brought in my letter. + +He had written from London, and it was many pages of wonderful things +all flavoured with me. He told me about Miss Clinton 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 round 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 "perfect flower" +and "scarlet runner." If I do, I get warm and happy all over. 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 wretched +volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madame +Rene did to it--remade it into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I +wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honourable, 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 cupboard, for it is a torment to look at it. + + * * * * * + +You can just take any recipe for a party and it will make a good +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 light-headed. Finally I had +just about given up any idea of a party 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 childhood's days, 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 silk four or five +months ago, and he let me see that he noticed it out of the corner of +his eyes as we were coming out of church, under Aunt Adeline's very +elbow. + +And when that conflagration was lighted in me about my debut, Tom +did it. I was sitting peaceably in my own summer-house, dressed in +the summer-before-last that Jane washes and irons every day while +I am deciding how to hand out the first sip of my trousseau to the +neighbours, when Tom, in a dangerous blue-striped shirt, with a tie that +melted into it in tone, jumped over my fence 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 a 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 flower as she is?" he +demanded after I had expressed more than a dozen delighted opinions +of Miss Clinton. His use of the word "flower" riled me, and before I +stopped to think, I said, "She reminds me more of a scarlet runner." + +"Now, Molly, don't be jealous just because old Wade has taken her out +driving behind the greys after kissing your hand under the lilacs +yesterday, which, fortunately, 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 managed to wake up this little old town is a +marvel," 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 Clinton 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?" + +"Good gracious, 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 round 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 +car; you can cut off a lock of my hair, and if Jane has got a cake I'll +eat it out of your hands. Shall it be Switzerland or Japan? And I prefer +_my_ bride served in light grey tweed." Tom really is delightful. Then +we both laughed and began to plan what Tom called a conflagration. 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 drinking tea, when the judge drew the greys up to the gate, +and we both went out to the kerb 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 should find Aunt Adeline in a faint when I went into the house. + +Miss Clinton 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 beside 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. +Anyhow, 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 triumph over the +Italian mission. As a punishment I let Tom take my arm as we stood +watching them drive off, and then was sorry for the left grey 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 scatter-brained fly-away? +As a husband there'd be no dependence on him. 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. Well, 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. + +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 Jane about the dinner-party and asked her to get her mother +to come and help her, and her nephew to wait at table, she smiled such +a wide smile 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, Aunt 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 party. I was bridesmaid for Caroline +Evans, when she married a Birmingham magnate, from which Hillsboro has +never yet recovered. It was the week before the wedding. I was sixteen, +felt dreadfully unclothed 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 +parties in my life, but from this time on I mean to indulge in them +often. Candle-light, pretty women's frocks, 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 astralised 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 at 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 Jane'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 +Madame 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. + +"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, and turn it into a pulp 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 Madame 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, Flower?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had +that sensation of being against something warm and great and good, 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. "Hurry, Flower, if you are going to feed me, +for I'm ravenous. I've been attending Sam Benson's wife, 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. "I am so +tired of that apple-toast combination 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, Flower, and let's have a feast. Forget--" He +didn't finish his sentence, and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything +more as I cut that whole loaf; but why should I want to be certain that +he touched 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 V. + + +"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 "living a Noah's Ark sort of life" it's I, and I have +to sit at the Ark window from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of water +I'm supposed to consume in that time. Some time I'm going to get mixed +up and try to drink my bath, if I don't look out. + +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. Anyhow, 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 round 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. + +"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 an insect 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'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I am lonely. And worse than being +lonely, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict of +Mr. Carter and gone out 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 too scared to wear 'em, and I don't know what you'll think +when you see my bankbook. 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 marry Mr. Wilson Graves because of his 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 five years yet. Mrs. +Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward under you. +I can't help judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's walking over my +front steps every day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away and drown +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 Dr. 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 we'll 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. 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, away out on the +hillside, 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 Dr. 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 Dr. 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 steep 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 +earth closer round 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 quite prepared to be scolded for whatever +Aunt Adeline had thought of while I was gone. Jane told me with her +broadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper, +and I sat down with a sigh of relief. + +Some days are like tin nutmeg-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 realised +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 coming in a week or two. + +I like 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 Dr. John. I can't go on living like this any longer. Ruth Clinton 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 chance if I don't +want him. The way she idolises and idealises 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 a woman, 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 like men, +can't help it, and seem to need one for my own. + +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. + +Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes! +The girl he wanted to marry died of turberculosis, and he wears a locket +with her in it yet. I'd like to reward him for such faithfulness. But +then Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Clinton and realise how +faithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast--my brain feels almost +all melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough to +manage, 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. 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 Clinton's +way again! + +I suppose I really would be doing the right thing to marry Mr. Graves, +and I should 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 gentleman come 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. Probably +I shall 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 remade into a Rene +wonder. However, my 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 +jolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to have +an evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and don't keep me +waiting." + +"Tom!" I gasped. + +"Oh, don't spoil sport, Moll! You said you would wake up this town, and +now do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I went to a party +with you, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Everybody is there, and +they can't all have Miss Clinton." + +That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be worn out with +attention. 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 _soiree_ 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 Madame Rene had made me there was one, what +she called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as the +cheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent 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 dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and I +looked new-born in it. + +I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about pads in my +hair, now that they are out of fashion, for I've got lots of my own left +in consequence of not wearing other people's. It clings and coils to my +head just anyhow, so that it 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 Jane had gone out. + +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. + +"Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "you +are one lovely dream. Your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes are +blue forget-me-nots, and your mouth a red blossom. Come on before I lose +my head 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. + +Everybody in town was at 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 a few years younger than +I. 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 Clinton 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 was with me he could see her, and when +he was with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I verily +believe it was from being really jealous that he asked little Pet Buford +to dance with him--by mistake as it were. + +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 Clinton +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. + +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 VI. + +Conflagration. + + +Most parties are just bunches of selfish people who go off in the +corners and have good times all by themselves; but in Hillsboro 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 +neighbours had made their prize contributions. It took Aunt Bettie and +Jane 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 other equally rich cakes ever +since the New Year. It was ripe, or smelt so. It made me feel very +hungry. + +A little later Jane was exclaiming over a two-year-old ham that had been +simmered in some wonderful liquor and larded with egg dressing, when +Mrs. Johnson came in and began to unpack her basket. + +I had planned to have a lot of food and had ordered some things up from +a caterer in the city, but I telegraphed to them not to deliver them +until the next day, even if they did spoil. How could I use smelts 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 +chestnuts, and roast fowl 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. + +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 up with +blue chintz for her. I think that would be the best thing to set off her +blue eyes and fair 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 up 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 spent 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 Clinton. 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 that she won't notice our friendliness. + +"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 Clinton girl took to going about +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 Dr. 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 any of you say a word, for John's very timid, and I don't +believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. 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, Jane, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement +that ensued I escaped to the garden. + +Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Dr. John; he doesn't see a woman, and +there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realise +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 Clinton 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 hammer. He was leaving Paris the day he had posted +it, and he was due to arrive in London almost as soon as it did, just +any hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from London 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 turned into a heart that beat against mine, and I bowed +my head over it as I wetted 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 reducing my waist +measure seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me; he wouldn't +have minded if I weighed five hundred pounds, 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 chatter, or taken with my +beauty, and who wouldn't have known such love if it were shown to them +through a telescope. + +I reached into a trunk that stood just 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 very handsome. 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 ill 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 people gived us to +eat and couldn't eat no more. She said if we did that with our fingers +it would make room for some more then. She did it, and I'm going to die +dead--dead! + +"No, no, pet; 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 Jane baked hot for both of us," 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 is good for you and then still +want more. What would your father say?" + +"Father isn'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'm not going to live in that house with +him more'n two days longer. I want to come over and sleep in your bed +and have you to play with me, Molly." + +"Don't say that, darling, 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 'spect I will, when I get big enough to kill a bear," answered Billy +decidedly. "I say, do you think 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. + +Somehow I didn't enjoy dressing to-night for my dinner, and when I was +ready 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. 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 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 round my feet until they got my +slippers stained with green. Only Billy's bachelor's-buttons stood up +stiff and sturdy, slightly flushed with imbibing the night dew. I felt +cheered at the sight of them, and bent down to gather a bunch of them to +wear, even if they did clash with 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. Molly," said Dr. 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 chance +for them 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. + +"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 of something to wither the doctor +with, and he and Ruth Clinton 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 neighbour was so much more interesting, 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 granddamey and responsible as I looked +at them all across the roses and sparkling glass. 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 future husband would have for me, would I +sit at table 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 it all seemed to go to my head, 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 +Dr. John's kind voice teased into my ears--"Steady, Mrs. Molly, 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, Jane and her nephew 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 telegram, but it might have been +nitro-glycerine on a tear for the way it acted. It was for me, but the +nephew handed it to Tom, and he opened it and, looking at me, he +solemnly read it out loud. It said-- + + "Arrived 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 colour 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 Clinton, 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 should 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. 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 paralysed 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 polished 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 a +great time for him when he lands in the old town." + + * * * * * + +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 sympathetic +enough in the moonlight could comfort for anything. I'm not at all +worried about him, but-- + +The hour I sat in the garden and talked to Judge Wade must have brought +grey hairs to my head if it was daylight and I could see them. Ruth +Clinton had said good-bye with the loveliest haunted look in her great +dark eyes, and I had felt as if I had killed something that was alive. +Dr. 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. + +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 wonderfully apt to marry the man who +says, "Don't argue, but put on your bonnet and come with me." + +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 eulogy of him, and the lovely +warm look he poured over poor frightened me at his side, 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 neighbour. 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--_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. I hope it will +throw a glow over Alfred! + + + + +Leaf VII. + +Heart Agonies. + + +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 Jane 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 that I was in love, but +exactly with 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 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-coloured sky, and I don't want to inspire +anybody; it's too heavy an undertaking. 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 when I get to be thirty I want my husband to +want me to be as large as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. An inspiration +couldn't be fat, and I'm always in danger from hot cakes 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 sky rocket 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 ran 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 would give us some of your dinner left-overs to take for +lunch in the car, for we are going to take a run down to Hedgeland to +see some awfully fine cattle he has heard will be in the market there. +I don't want to ask mother, in case she won't let me go; and his mother, +if he asked her, will begin to talk about us. Tom said I was to come to +you, and you would understand and arrange it all quickly. He sent his +love and all sorts of other messages. Isn't he fond of a joke?" And we +kissed and laughed and packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again for +good-bye. 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 tea-cloth with long steady stabs, "husbands +are just like sticks of 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 Alfred +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. Alfred's father was Mr. Johnson's first +cousin and had more crotchets and worse. He had silent spells that +lasted a week, and altogether gave his family a bad time of it. Alfred +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 attending her when she had typhoid, when his +back was turned as it were, and it was simple 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 of the gate the postman came in, and at the sight of +another letter my heart 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 plough 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 of the window and saw Mr. Johnson shooed off +down the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's car go chugging +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, romper-clad sunbeam burst into the +room. + +"Git your night-gown and your tooth-bresh 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? Father 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 intense. I like +_icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one." + +"I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe father 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 ought to +put my things in his, but I cried, and then he went upstairs and got out +that little one for me. Come and 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'm not playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you and +father is going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here. +Father 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 Dr. Moore's +surgery, where he was just taking 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 attend the Centennial Congress in Paris the middle of next +month--and somehow I--feel a bit run down lately and I thought I would +take the little chap and--have--have a _Wanderjahr_. You won't need him +now, Mrs. Molly, 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 now 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 +realise 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 realise +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 a little while just +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 nowhere. 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 Alfred come along and make it a family party, if +that is what suits Bill, the boss?" + +If men would just make an end of 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 I can tell, and that I'll never love anybody else, and that +also I have offered myself to him 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 realised 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 cabin trunk with a 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? Why are your eyes blue pools +of love if they are not for his questioning? + +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 had the courage to go on +along her own steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for it +would hurt him to have hurt me! + + + + +Leaf VIII. + +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 Clinton 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 what she is. 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 recognised +his force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the document +to read. I suppose it was dishonourable, 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 the fire 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 Jane's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully good service. + +"And so you see, you lovely woman, you, do you not, that you were 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 solemn "_let-not-man-put-asunder_" +words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, our minister. It made me +frightened, 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 Dr. +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 all bubbling +over. 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 you are to +send him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up before +the six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent a +guinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it cost +him five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing. He +says I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, 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 purse. + +"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 money +in her hand. I looked at Ruth Clinton 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 money 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 +doorway. 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 away, 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 parquet 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 father kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and I +can carry father's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick, and +I'll help you do 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, "'tisn't +me to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a a +bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone. +'Sides, father isn't very useful 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 going, and make 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 hand 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. + +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 things Aunt Bettie was contributing towards 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 Kensington almond pudding with Thomas's 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 affairs 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 +draper's 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 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, Alfred or no +Alfred." + +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 realised 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 girl 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 light 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 was fastening +the buttons behind 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 by the five-down train instead of the six-up, and I fairly reeled +to the window and peeped through the venetian blind. + +They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master of +ceremonies, and Ruth Clinton 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 know now 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 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 and hooked it +together with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed of +savage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's surgery, 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 large and coarse-looking, 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 half a 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 I was 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 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. + +"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, for if I go on loving you as I have been for the last +few minutes it will make you uncomfortable." + +"Blossom," 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 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. + +"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 lace on that +blue muslin relict of a sentiment. The lace had got caught on his sleeve +buttons. + +"Please don't forget that that is 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 Alfred 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 +Clinton 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 at once, 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 under the oak-tree. 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 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 without any more +melting, or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to read the +little red book. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MELTING OF MOLLY*** + + +******* This file should be named 15818.txt or 15818.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/8/1/15818 + + + +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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