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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/28444-8.txt b/28444-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9dc7b0c --- /dev/null +++ b/28444-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7493 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. Kelley + +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: Turn About Eleanor + +Author: Ethel M. Kelley + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: March 29, 2009 [EBook #28444] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURN ABOUT ELEANOR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + + + + +[Illustration: Eleanor] + + + + +Turn About Eleanor + +By + +ETHEL M. KELLEY + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +F. GRAHAM COOTES + +INDIANAPOLIS + +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +PUBLISHERS + + + + +Copyright 1917 +The Bobbs-Merrill Company + +Printed in the United States of America + +PRESS OF + +BRAUNWORTH & CO. + +BOOK MANUFACTURERS + +BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I Enter Eleanor 1 + + II The Cooperative Parents 14 + + III The Experiment Begins 27 + + IV Peter Elucidates 40 + + V Eleanor Enjoys Herself in Her Own Way 48 + + VI Jimmie Becomes a Parent 63 + + VII One Descent into Bohemia 72 + + VIII The Ten Hutchinsons 84 + + IX Peter 101 + + X The Omniscient Focus 113 + + XI Gertrude Has Trouble with Her Behavior 124 + + XII Madam Bolling 138 + + XIII Brook and River 158 + + XIV Merry Christmas 167 + + XV Growing Up 181 + + XVI Margaret Louisa's Birthright 195 + + XVII A Real Kiss 203 + + XVIII Beulah's Problem 219 + + XIX Mostly Uncle Peter 234 + + XX The Makings of a Triple Wedding 251 + + XXI Eleanor Hears the News 261 + + XXII The Search 271 + + XXIII The Young Nurse 281 + + XXIV Christmas Again 292 + + XXV The Lover 304 + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + +CHAPTER I + +ENTER ELEANOR + + +A child in a faded tam-o'-shanter that had once been baby blue, and a +shoddy coat of a glaring, unpropitious newness, was sitting +uncomfortably on the edge of a hansom seat, and gazing soberly out at +the traffic of Fifth Avenue. + +The young man beside her, a blond, sleek, narrow-headed youth in +eye-glasses, was literally making conversation with her. That is, he +was engaged in a palpable effort to make conversation--to manufacture +out of the thin crisp air of that November morning and the random +impressions of their progress up the Avenue, something with a general +resemblance to tête-à-tête dialogue as he understood it. He was +succeeding only indifferently. + +"See, Eleanor," he pointed brightly with his stick to the flower shop +they were passing, "see that building with the red roof, and all +those window boxes. Don't you think those little trees in pots outside +look like Christmas trees? Sometimes when your Aunts Beulah and +Margaret and Gertrude, whom you haven't met yet--though you are on +your way to meet them, you know--sometimes when they have been very +good, almost good enough to deserve it, I stop by that little flower +shop and buy a chaste half dozen of gardenias and their accessories, +and divide them among the three." + +"Do you?" the child asked, without wistfulness. She was a good child, +David Bolling decided,--a sporting child, willing evidently to play +when it was her turn, even when she didn't understand the game at all. +It was certainly a new kind of game that she would be so soon expected +to play her part in,--a rather serious kind of game, if you chose to +look at it that way. + +David himself hardly knew how to look at it. He was naturally a +conservative young man, who had been brought up by his mother to +behave as simply as possible on all occasions, and to avoid the +conspicuous as tacitly and tactfully as one avoids a new disease germ. +His native point of view, however, had been somewhat deflected by his +associations. His intimate circle consisted of a set of people who +indorsed his mother's decalogue only under protest, and with the most +stringent reservations. That is, they were young and healthy, and +somewhat overcharged with animal spirits, and their reactions were all +very intense and emphatic. + +He was trying at this instant to look rather more as if he were likely +to meet one of his own friends than one of his mother's. His mother's +friends would not have understood his personal chaperonage of the +shabby little girl at his elbow. Her hair was not even properly +brushed. It looked frazzled and tangled; and at the corner of one of +her big blue eyes, streaking diagonally across the pallor in which it +was set, was a line of dirt,--a tear mark, it might have been, though +that didn't make the general effect any less untidy, David thought; +only a trifle more uncomfortably pathetic. She was a nice little girl, +that fact was becoming more and more apparent to David, but any friend +of his mother's would have wondered, and expressed him or herself as +wondering, why in the name of all sensitiveness he had not taken a +taxicab, or at least something in the nature of a closed vehicle, if +he felt himself bound to deliver in person this curious little +stranger to whatever mysterious destination she was for. + +"I thought you'd like a hansom, Eleanor, better than a taxi-cab, +because you can see more. You've never been in this part of New York +before, I understand." + +"No, sir." + +"You came up from Colhassett last Saturday, didn't you? Mrs. O'Farrel +wrote to your grandmother to send you on to us, and you took the +Saturday night boat from Fall River." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Did you travel alone, Eleanor?" + +"A friend of Grandpa's came up on the train with me, and left me on +the vessel. He told the colored lady and gentleman to see if I was all +right,--Mr. Porter and Mrs. Steward." + +"And were you all right?" David's eyes twinkled. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Not sea sick, nor homesick?" + +The child's fine-featured face quivered for a second, then set again +into impassive stoic lines, and left David wondering whether he had +witnessed a vibration of real emotion, or the spasmodic twitching of +the muscles that is so characteristic of the rural public school. + +"I wasn't sea sick." + +"Tell me about your grandparents, Eleanor." Then as she did not +respond, he repeated a little sharply, "Tell me about your +grandparents, won't you?" + +The child still hesitated. David bowed to the wife of a Standard Oil +director in a passing limousine, and one of the season's prettiest +débutantes, who was walking; and because he was only twenty-four, and +his mother was very, very ambitious for him, he wondered if the tear +smudge on the face of his companion had been evident from the +sidewalk, and decided that it must have been. + +"I don't know how to tell," the child said at last, "I don't know what +you want me to say." + +"I don't want you to say anything in particular, just in general, you +know." + +David stuck. The violet eyes were widening with misery, there was no +doubt about it. "Game, clean through," he said to himself. Aloud he +continued. "Well, you know, Eleanor.--Never say 'Well,' if you can +possibly avoid it, because it's a flagrant Americanism, and when you +travel in foreign parts you're sure to regret it,--well, you know, if +you are to be in a measure my ward--and you are, my dear, as well as +the ward of your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude, and your +Uncles Jimmie and Peter--I ought to begin by knowing a little +something of your antecedents. That is why I suggested that you tell +me about your grandparents. I don't care what you tell me, but I think +it would be very suitable for you to tell me something. Are they +native Cape Codders? I'm a New Englander myself, you know, so you may +be perfectly frank with me." + +"They're not summer folks," the child said. "They just live in +Colhassett all the year round. They live in a big white house on the +depot road, but they're so old now, they can't keep it up. If it was +painted it would be a real pretty house." + +"Your grandparents are not very well off then?" + +The child colored. "They've got lots of things," she said, "that +Grandfather brought home when he went to sea, but it was Uncle Amos +that sent them the money they lived on. When he died they didn't have +any." + +"How long has he been dead?" + +"Two years ago Christmas." + +"You must have had some money since then." + +"Not since Uncle Amos died, except for the rent of the barn, and the +pasture land, and a few things like that." + +"You must have had money put away." + +"No," the little girl answered. "We didn't. We didn't have any money, +except what came in the way I said. We sold some old-fashioned dishes, +and a little bit of cranberry bog for twenty-five dollars. We didn't +have any other money." + +"But you must have had something to live on. You can't make bricks +without straw, or grow little girls up without nourishing food in +their tummies." He caught an unexpected flicker of an eyelash, and +realized for the first time that the child was acutely aware of every +word he was saying, that even his use of English was registering a +poignant impression on her consciousness. The thought strangely +embarrassed him. "We say tummies in New York, Eleanor," he explained +hastily. "It's done here. The New England stomick, however, is almost +entirely obsolete. You'll really get on better in the circles to which +you are so soon to be accustomed if you refer to it in my own simple +fashion;--but to return to our muttons, Eleanor, which is French for +getting down to cases, again, you must have had something to live on +after your uncle died. You are alive now. That would almost seem to +prove my contention." + +"We didn't have any money, but what I earned." + +"But--what you earned. What do you mean, Eleanor?" + +The child's face turned crimson, then white again. This time there was +no mistaking the wave of sensitive emotion that swept over it. + +"I worked out," she said. "I made a dollar and a half a week running +errands, and taking care of a sick lady vacations, and nights after +school. Grandma had that shock, and Grandpa's back troubled him. He +tried to get work but he couldn't. He did all he could taking care of +Grandma, and tending the garden. They hated to have me work out, but +there was nobody else to." + +"A family of three can't live on a dollar and a half a week." + +"Yes, sir, they can, if they manage." + +"Where were your neighbors all this time, Eleanor? You don't mean to +tell me that the good, kindly people of Cape Cod would have stood by +and let a little girl like you support a family alone and unaided. +It's preposterous." + +"The neighbors didn't know. They thought Uncle Amos left us something. +Lots of Cape Cod children work out. They thought that I did it because +I wanted to." + +"I see," said David gravely. + +The wheel of their cab became entangled in that of a smart delivery +wagon. He watched it thoughtfully. Then he took off his glasses, and +polished them. + +"Through a glass darkly," he explained a little thickly. He was really +a very _young_ young man, and once below the surface of what he was +pleased to believe a very worldly and cynical manner, he had a +profound depth of tenderness and human sympathy. + +Then as they jogged on through the Fifty-ninth Street end of the Park, +looking strangely seared and bereft from the first blight of the +frost, he turned to her again. This time his tone was as serious as +her own. + +"Why did you stop working out, Eleanor?" he asked. + +"The lady I was tending died. There wasn't nobody else who wanted me. +Mrs. O'Farrel was a relation of hers, and when she came to the +funeral, I told her that I wanted to get work in New York if I +could,--and then last week she wrote me that the best she could do was +to get me this place to be adopted, and so--I came." + +"But your grandparents?" David asked, and realized almost as he spoke +that he had his finger on the spring of the tragedy. + +"They had to take help from the town." + +The child made a brave struggle with her tears, and David looked away +quickly. He knew something of the temper of the steel of the New +England nature; the fierce and terrible pride that is bred in the bone +of the race. He knew that the child before him had tasted of the +bitter waters of humiliation in seeing her kindred "helped" by the +town. "Going out to work," he understood, had brought the family pride +low, but taking help from the town had leveled it to the dust. + +"There is, you know, a small salary that goes with this being adopted +business," he remarked casually a few seconds later. "Your Aunts +Gertrude and Beulah and Margaret, and your three stalwart uncles +aforesaid, are not the kind of people who have been brought up to +expect something for nothing. They don't expect to adopt a perfectly +good orphan without money and without price, merely for the privilege +of experimentation. No, indeed, an orphan in good standing of the best +New England extraction ought to exact for her services a salary of at +least fifteen dollars a month. I wouldn't consent to take a cent less, +Eleanor." + +"Wouldn't you?" the child asked uncertainly. She sat suddenly erect, +as if an actual burden had been dropped from her shoulders. Her eyes +were not violet, David decided, he had been deceived by the depth of +their coloring; they were blue, Mediterranean blue, and her lashes +were an inch and a half long at the very least. She was not only +pretty, she was going to be beautiful some day. A strange premonition +struck David of a future in which this long-lashed, stoic baby was in +some way inextricably bound. + +"How old are you?" he asked her abruptly. + +"Ten years old day before yesterday." + +They had been making their way through the Park; the searer, yellower +Park of late November. It looked duller and more cheerless than David +ever remembered it. The leaves rattled on the trees, and the sun went +down suddenly. + +"This is Central Park," he said. "In the spring it's very beautiful +here, and all the people you know go motoring or driving in the +afternoon." + +He bowed to his mother's milliner in a little French runabout. The +Frenchman stared frankly at the baby blue tam-o'-shanter and the +tangled golden head it surmounted. + +"Joseph could make you a peachy tam-o'-shanter looking thing of blue +velvet; I'll bet I could draw him a picture to copy. Your Uncle David, +you know, is an artist of a sort." + +For the first time since their incongruous association began the child +met his smile; her face relaxed ever so little, and the lips quivered, +but she smiled a shy, little dawning smile. There was trust in it and +confidence. David put out his hand to pat hers, but thought better of +it. + +"Eleanor," he said, "my mother knows our only living Ex-president, and +the Countess of Warwick, one Vanderbilt, two Astors, and she's met Sir +Gilbert Parker, and Rudyard Kipling. She also knows many of the stars +and satellites of upper Fifth Avenue. She has, as well, family +connections of so much weight and stolidity that their very approach, +singly or in conjunction, shakes the earth underneath them.--I wish we +could meet them all, Eleanor, every blessed one of them." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE COOPERATIVE PARENTS + + +"I wonder how a place like this apartment will look to her," Beulah +said thoughtfully. "I wonder if it will seem elegant, or cramped to +death. I wonder if she will take to it kindly, or with an ill +concealed contempt for its limitations." + +"The poor little thing will probably be so frightened and homesick by +the time David gets her here, that she won't know what kind of a place +she's arrived at," Gertrude suggested. "Oh, I wouldn't be in your +shoes for the next few days for anything in the world, Beulah Page; +would you, Margaret?" + +The third girl in the group smiled. + +"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "It would be rather fun to +begin it." + +"I'd rather have her for the first two months, and get it over with," +Beulah said decisively. "It'll be hanging over your head long after my +ordeal is over, and by the time I have to have her again she'll be +absolutely in training. You don't come until the fifth on the list you +know, Gertrude. Jimmie has her after me, then Margaret, then Peter, +and you, and David, if he has got up the courage to tell his mother +by that time." + +"But if he hasn't," Gertrude suggested. + +"He can work it out for himself. He's got to take the child two months +like the rest of us. He's agreed to." + +"He will," Margaret said, "I've never known him to go back on his word +yet." + +"Trust Margaret to stick up for David. Anyway, I've taken the +precaution to put it in writing, as you know, and the document is +filed." + +"We're not adopting this infant legally." + +"No, Gertrude, we can't,--yet, but morally we are. She isn't an +infant, she's ten years old. I wish you girls would take the matter a +little more seriously. We've bound ourselves to be responsible for +this child's whole future. We have undertaken her moral, social and +religious education. Her body and soul are to be--" + +"Equally divided among us," Gertrude cut in. + +Beulah scorned the interruption. + +"--held sacredly in trust by the six of us, severally and +collectively." + +"Why haven't we adopted her legally then?" Margaret asked. + +"Well, you see, there are practical objections. You have to be a +corporation or an institution or something, to adopt a child as a +group. A child can't have three sets of parents in the eyes of the +law, especially when none of them is married, or have the least +intention of being married, to each other.--I don't see what you want +to keep laughing at, Gertrude. It's all a little unusual and modern +and that sort of thing, but I don't think it's funny. Do you, +Margaret?" + +"I think that it's funny, but I think that it's serious, too, +Beulah." + +"I don't see what's funny about--" Beulah began hotly. + +"You don't see what's funny about anything,--even Rogers College, do +you, darling? It is funny though for the bunch of us to undertake the +upbringing of a child ten years old; to make ourselves financially and +spiritually responsible for it. It's a lot more than funny, I know, +but it doesn't seem to me as if I could go on with it at all, until +somebody was willing to admit what a _scream_ the whole thing is." + +"We'll admit that, if that's all you want, won't we, Beulah?" Margaret +appealed. + +"If I've got this insatiable sense of humor, let's indulge it by all +means," Gertrude laughed. "Go on, chillun, go on, I'll try to be good +now." + +"I wish you would," Margaret said. "Confine yourself to a syncopated +chortle while I get a few facts out of Beulah. I did most of my voting +on this proposition by proxy, while I was having the measles in +quarantine. Beulah, did I understand you to say you got hold of your +victim through Mrs. O'Farrel, your seamstress?" + +"Yes, when we decided we'd do this, we thought we'd get a child about +six. We couldn't have her any younger, because there would be bottles, +and expert feeding, and well, you know, all those things. We couldn't +have done it, especially the boys. We thought six would be just about +the right age, but we simply couldn't find a child that would do. We +had to know about its antecedents. We looked through the orphan +asylums, but there wasn't anything pure-blooded American that we could +be sure of. We were all agreed that we wanted pure American blood. I +knew Mrs. O'Farrel had relatives on Cape Cod. You know what that stock +is, a good sea-faring strain, and a race of wonderfully fine women, +'atavistic aristocrats' I remember an author in the _Atlantic Monthly_ +called them once. I suppose you think it's funny to groan, Gertrude, +when anybody makes a literary allusion, but it isn't. Well, anyway, +Mrs. O'Farrel knew about this child, and sent for her. She stayed with +Mrs. O'Farrel over Sunday, and now David is bringing her here. She'll +be here in a minute." + +"Why David?" Gertrude twinkled. + +"Why not David?" Beulah retorted. "It will be a good experience for +him, besides David is so amusing when he tries to be, I thought he +could divert her on the way." + +"It isn't such a crazy idea, after all, Gertrude." Margaret Hutchinson +was the youngest of the three, being within several months of her +majority, but she looked older. Her face had that look of wisdom that +comes to the young who have suffered physical pain. "We've got to do +something. We're all too full of energy and spirits, at least the rest +of you are, and I'm getting huskier every minute, to twirl our hands +and do nothing. None of us ever wants to be married,--that's settled; +but we do want to be useful. We're a united group of the closest kind +of friends, bound by the ties of--of--natural selection, and we need a +purpose in life. Gertrude's a real artist, but the rest of us are not, +and--and--" + +"What could be more natural for us than to want the living clay to +work on? That's the idea, isn't it?" Gertrude said. "I can be serious +if I want to, Beulah-land, but, honestly, girls, when I come to face +out the proposition, I'm almost afraid to. What'll I do with that +child when it comes to be my turn? What'll Jimmie do? Buy her a string +of pearls, and show her the night life of New York very likely. How'll +I break it to my mother? That's the cheerful little echo in my +thoughts night and day. How did you break it to yours, Beulah?" + +Beulah flushed. Her serious brown eyes, deep brown with wine-colored +lights in them, met those of each of her friends in turn. Then she +laughed. + +"Well, I do know this is funny," she said, "but, you know, I haven't +dared tell her. She'll be away for a month, anyway. Aunt Ann is here, +but I'm only telling her that I'm having a little girl from the +country to visit me." + +Occasionally the architect of an apartment on the upper west side of +New York--by pure accident, it would seem, since the general run of +such apartments is so uncomfortable, and unfriendly--hits upon a plan +for a group of rooms that are at once graciously proportioned and +charmingly convenient, while not being an absolute offense to the eye +in respect to the details of their decoration. Beulah Page and her +mother lived in such an apartment, and they had managed with a few +ancestral household gods, and a good many carefully related modern +additions to them, to make of their eight rooms and bath, to say +nothing of the ubiquitous butler's-pantry, something very remarkably +resembling a home, in its most delightful connotation: and it was in +the drawing room of this home that the three girls were gathered. + +Beulah, the younger daughter of a widowed mother--now visiting in the +home of the elder daughter, Beulah's sister Agatha, in the expectation +of what the Victorians refer to as an "interesting event"--was +technically under the chaperonage of her Aunt Ann, a solemn little +spinster with no control whatever over the movements of her determined +young niece. + +Beulah was just out of college,--just out, in fact, of the most +high-minded of all the colleges for women;--that founded by Andrew +Rogers in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-one. There +is probably a greater percentage of purposeful young women graduated +from Rogers College every year, than from any other one of the +communities of learning devoted to the education of women; and of all +the purposeful classes turned out from that admirable institution, +Beulah's class could without exaggeration be designated as the most +purposeful class of them all. That Beulah was not the most purposeful +member of her class merely argues that an almost abnormally high +standard of purposefulness was maintained by practically every +individual in it. + +At Rogers every graduating class has its fad; its propaganda for a +crusade against the most startling evils of the world. One year, the +sacred outlines of the human figure are protected against +disfigurement by an ardent group of young classicists in Grecian +draperies. The next, a fierce young brood of vegetarians challenge a +lethargic world to mortal combat over an Argentine sirloin. The year +of Beulah's graduation, the new theories of child culture that were +gaining serious headway in academic circles, had filtered into the +class rooms, and Beulah's mates had contracted the contagion +instantly. The entire senior class went mad on the subject of child +psychology and the various scientific prescriptions for the direction +of the young idea. + +It was therefore primarily to Beulah Page, that little Eleanor Hamlin, +of Colhassett, Massachusetts, owed the change in her fortune. At least +it was to Beulah that she owed the initial inspiration that set the +wheel of that fortune in motion; but it was to the glorious enterprise +and idealism of youth, and the courage of a set of the most intrepid +and quixotic convictions that ever quickened in the breasts of a mad +half dozen youngsters, that she owed the actual fulfillment of her +adventure. + +The sound of the door-bell brought the three girls to their feet, but +the footfalls in the corridor, double quick time, and accentuated, +announced merely the arrival of Jimmie Sears, and Peter Stuyvesant, +nicknamed _Gramercy_ by common consent. + +"Has she come?" Peter asked. + +But Jimmie struck an attitude in the middle of the floor. + +"My daughter, oh! my daughter," he cried. "This suspense is killing +me. For the love of Mike, children, where is she?" + +"She's coming," Beulah answered; "David's bringing her." + +Gertrude pushed him into the _chaise-lounge_ already in the +possession of Margaret, and squeezed in between them. + +"Hold my hand, Jimmie," she said. "The feelings of a father are +nothing,--_nothing_ in comparison to those which smolder in the +maternal breast. Look at Beulah, how white she is, and Margaret is +trembling this minute." + +"I'm trembling, too," Peter said, "or if I'm not trembling, I'm +frightened." + +"We're all frightened," Margaret said, "but we're game." + +The door-bell rang again. + +"There they come," Beulah said, "oh! everybody be good to me." + +The familiar figure of their good friend David appeared on the +threshold at this instant, and beside him an odd-looking little figure +in a shoddy cloth coat, and a faded blue tam-o'-shanter. There was a +long smudge of dirt reaching from the corner of her eye well down into +the middle of her cheek. A kind of composite gasp went up from the +waiting group, a gasp of surprise, consternation, and panic. Not one +of the five could have told at that instant what it was he expected to +see, or how his imagination of the child differed from the concrete +reality, but amazement and keen disappointment constrained them. Here +was no figure of romance and delight. No miniature Galatea half hewn +out of the block of humanity, waiting for the chisel of a composite +Pygmalion. Here was only a grubby, little unkempt child, like all +other children, but not so presentable. + +"What's the matter with everybody?" said David with unnatural +sharpness. "I want to present you to our ward, Miss Eleanor Hamlin, +who has come a long way for the pleasure of meeting you. Eleanor, +these are your cooperative parents." + +The child's set gaze followed his gesture obediently. David took the +little hand in his, and led the owner into the heart of the group. +Beulah stepped forward. + +"This is your Aunt Beulah, Eleanor, of whom I've been telling you." + +"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Aunt Beulah," the little girl +said, as Beulah put out her hand, still uncertainly. + +Then the five saw a strange thing happen. The immaculate, inscrutable +David--the aristocrat of aristocrats, the one undemonstrative, +super-self-conscious member of the crowd, who had been delegated to +transport the little orphan chiefly because the errand was so +incongruous a mission on which to despatch him--David put his arm +around the neck of the child with a quick protecting gesture, and then +gathered her close in his arms, where she clung, quivering and +sobbing, the unkempt curls straggling helplessly over his shoulder. + +He strode across the room where Margaret was still sitting upright in +the _chaise-lounge_, her dove-gray eyes wide, her lips parted. + +"Here, you take her," he said, without ceremony, and slipped his +burden into her arms. + +"Welcome to our city, Kiddo," Jimmie said in his throat, but nobody +heard him. + +Peter, whose habit it was to walk up and down endlessly wherever he +felt most at home, paused in his peregrination, as Margaret shyly +gathered the rough little head to her bosom. The child met his gaze as +he did so. + +"We weren't quite up to scratch," he said gravely. + +Beulah's eyes filled. "Peter," she said, "Peter, I didn't mean to +be--not to be--" + +But Peter seemed not to know she was speaking. The child's eyes still +held him, and he stood gazing down at her, his handsome head thrown +slightly back; his face deeply intent; his eyes softened. + +"I'm your Uncle Peter, Eleanor," he said, and bent down till his lips +touched her forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS + + +Eleanor walked over to the steam pipes, and examined them carefully. +The terrible rattling noise had stopped, as had also the choking and +gurgling that had kept her awake because it was so like the noise that +Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, the sick lady she had helped to take care of, +made constantly for the last two weeks of her life. Whenever there was +a sound that was anything like that, Eleanor could not help shivering. +She had never seen steam pipes before. When Beulah had shown her the +room where she was to sleep--a room all in blue, baby blue, and pink +roses--Eleanor thought that the silver pipes standing upright in the +corner were a part of some musical instrument, like a pipe organ. When +the rattling sound had begun she thought that some one had come into +the room with her, and was tuning it. She had drawn the pink silk puff +closely about her ears, and tried not to be frightened. Trying not to +be frightened was the way she had spent a good deal of her time since +her Uncle Amos died, and she had had to look out for her +grandparents. + +Now that it was morning, and the bright sun was streaming into the +windows, she ventured to climb out of bed and approach the uncanny +instrument. She tripped on the trailing folds of that nightgown her +Aunt Beulah--it was funny that all these ladies should call themselves +her aunts, when they were really no relation to her--had insisted on +her wearing. Her own nightdress had been left in the time-worn +carpetbag that Uncle David had forgotten to take out of the "handsome +cab." She stumbled against the silver pipes. They were _hot_; so hot +that the flesh of her arm nearly blistered, but she did not cry out. +Here was another mysterious problem of the kind that New York +presented at every turn, to be silently accepted, and dealt with. + +Her mother and father had once lived in New York. Her father had been +born here, in a house with a brownstone front on West Tenth Street, +wherever that was. She herself had lived in New York when she was a +baby, though she had been born in her grandfather's house in +Colhassett. She had lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, too, until she was four +years old, and her father and mother had died there, both in the same +week, of pneumonia. She wished this morning, that she could remember +the house where they lived in New York, and the things that were in +it. + +There was a knock on the door. Ought she to go and open the door in +her nightdress? Ought she to call out "Come in?" It might be a +gentleman, and her Aunt Beulah's nightdress was not very thick. She +decided to cough, so that whoever was outside might understand she was +in there, and had heard them. + +"May I come in, Eleanor?" Beulah's voice called. + +"Yes, ma'am." She started to get into bed, but Miss--Miss--the nearer +she was to her, the harder it was to call her aunt,--Aunt Beulah might +think it was time she was up. She compromised by sitting down in a +chair. + +Beulah had passed a practically sleepless night working out the theory +of Eleanor's development. The six had agreed on a certain sketchily +defined method of procedure. That is, they were to read certain books +indicated by Beulah, and to follow the general schedule that she was +to work out and adapt to the individual needs of the child herself, +during the first phase of the experiment. She felt that she had +managed the reception badly, that she had not done or said the right +thing. Peter's attitude had shown that he felt the situation had been +clumsily handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. Peter was +too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed in the muffled depths of +a feverish pillow that there should be no more flagrant flaws in the +conduct of the campaign. + +"Did you sleep well, Eleanor?" she asked. + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Are you hungry?" + +"No, ma'am." + +The conversation languished at this. + +"Have you had your bath?" + +"I didn't know I was to have one." + +"Nice little girls have a bath every day." + +"Do they?" Eleanor asked. Her Aunt Beulah seemed to expect her to say +something more, but she couldn't think of anything. + +"I'll draw your bath for you this morning. After this you will be +expected to take it yourself." + +Eleanor had seen bathrooms before, but she had never been in a +bath-tub. At her grandfather's, she had taken her Saturday night baths +in an old wooden wash-tub, which had water poured in it from the tea +kettle. When Beulah closed the door on her she stepped gingerly into +the tub: the water was twice too hot, but she didn't know how to turn +the faucet, or whether she was expected to turn it. Mrs. O'Farrel had +told her that people had to pay for water in New York. Perhaps Aunt +Beulah had drawn all the water she could have. She used the soap +sparingly. Soap was expensive, she knew. She wished there was some way +of discovering just how much of things she was expected to use. The +number of towels distressed her, but she finally took the littlest and +dried herself. The heat of the water had nearly parboiled her. + +After that, she tried to do blindly what she was told. There was a +girl in a black dress and white apron that passed her everything she +had to eat. Her Aunt Beulah told her to help herself to sugar and to +cream for her oatmeal, from off this girl's tray. Her hand trembled a +good deal, but she was fortunate enough not to spill any. After +breakfast she was sent to wash her hands in the bathroom; she turned +the faucet, and used a very little water. Then, when she was called, +she went into the sitting-room and sat down, and folded her hands in +her lap. + +Beulah looked at her with some perplexity. The child was docile and +willing, but she seemed unexpectedly stupid for a girl ten years old. + +"Have you ever been examined for adenoids, Eleanor?" she asked +suddenly. + +"No, ma'am." + +"Say, 'no, Aunt Beulah.' Don't say, 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am.' +People don't say 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am' any more, you know. They +say 'no' and 'yes,' and then mention the name of the person to whom +they are speaking." + +"Yes, ma'am," Eleanor couldn't stop herself saying it. She wanted to +correct herself. "No, Aunt Beulah, no, Aunt Beulah," but the words +stuck in her throat. + +"Well, try to remember," Beulah said. She was thinking of the case in +a book of psychology that she had been reading that morning, of a girl +who was "pale and sleepy looking, expressionless of face, careless of +her personal appearance," who after an operation for adenoids, had +become "as animated and bright as before she had been lethargic and +dull." She was pleased to see that Eleanor's fine hair had been +scrupulously combed, and neatly braided this morning, not being able +to realize--as how should she?--that the condition of Eleanor's fine +spun locks on her arrival the night before, had been attributable to +the fact that the O'Farrel baby had stolen her comb, and Eleanor had +been too shy to mention the fact, and had combed her hair +mermaid-wise, through her fingers. + +"This morning," Beulah began brightly, "I am going to turn you loose +in the apartment, and let you do what you like. I want to get an idea +of the things you do like, you know. You can sew, or read, or drum on +the piano, or talk to me, anything that pleases you most. I want you +to be happy, that's all, and to enjoy yourself in your own way." + +"Give the child absolute freedom in which to demonstrate the worth and +value of its ego,"--that was what she was doing, "keeping it carefully +under observation while you determine the individual trend along which +to guide its development." + +The little girl looked about her helplessly. The room was very large +and bright. The walls were white, and so was the woodwork, the mantle, +and some of the furniture. Gay figured curtains hung at the windows, +and there were little stools, and chairs, and even trays with glass +over them, covered with the same bright colored material. Eleanor had +never seen a room anything like it. There was no center-table, no +crayon portraits of different members of the family, no easels, or +scarves thrown over the corners of the pictures. There were not many +pictures, and those that there were didn't seem to Eleanor like +pictures at all, they were all so blurry and smudgy,--excepting one of +a beautiful lady. She would have liked to have asked the name of that +lady,--but her Aunt Beulah's eyes were upon her. She slipped down from +her chair and walked across the room to the window. + +"Well, dear, what would make this the happiest day you can think of?" +Beulah asked, in the tone she was given to use when she asked Gertrude +and Margaret and Jimmie--but not often Peter--what they expected to do +with their lives. + +Eleanor turned a desperate face from the window, from the row of bland +elegant apartment buildings she had been contemplating with unseeing +eyes. + +"Do I have to?" she asked Beulah piteously. + +"Have to what?" + +"Have to amuse myself in my own way? I don't know what you want me to +do. I don't know what you think that I ought to do." + +A strong-minded and spoiled younger daughter of a widowed +mother--whose chief anxiety had been to anticipate the wants of her +children before they were expressed--with an independent income, and a +beloved and admiring circle of intimate friends, is not likely to be +imaginatively equipped to explore the spiritual fastnesses of a +sensitive and alien orphan. Beulah tried earnestly to get some +perspective on the child's point of view, but she could not. The fact +that she was torturing the child would have been outside of the limits +of her comprehension. She searched her mind for some immediate +application of the methods of Madame Montessori, and produced a lump +of modeling clay. + +"You don't really have to do anything, Eleanor," she said kindly. "I +don't want you to make an effort to please me, only to be happy +yourself. Why don't you try and see what you can do with this modeling +clay? Just try making it up into mud pies, or anything." + +"Mud pies?" + +"Let the child teach himself the significance of contour, and the use +of his hands, by fashioning the clay into rudimentary forms of +beauty." That was the theory. + +"Yes, dear, mud pies, if you wish to." + +Whereupon Eleanor, conscientiously and miserably, turned out a neat +half-dozen skilful, miniature models of the New England deep dish +apple-pie, pricked and pinched to a nicety. + +Beulah, with a vision related to the nebulous stages of a study by +Rodin, was somewhat disconcerted with this result, but she brightened +as she thought at least she had discovered a natural tendency in the +child that she could help her develop. + +"Do you like to cook, Eleanor?" she asked. + +In the child's mind there rose the picture of her grim apprenticeship +on Cape Cod. She could see the querulous invalid in the sick chair, +her face distorted with pain and impatience; she could feel the sticky +dough in her fingers, and the heat from the stove rising round her. + +"I hate cooking," she said, with the first hint of passion she had +shown in her relation to her new friends. + +The day dragged on wearily. Beulah took her to walk on the Drive, but +as far as she was able to determine the child saw nothing of her +surroundings. The crowds of trimly dressed people, the nursemaids and +babies, the swift slim outlines of the whizzing motors, even the +battleships lying so suggestively quiescent on the river before +them--all the spectacular, vivid panorama of afternoon on Riverside +Drive--seemed absolutely without interest or savor to the child. +Beulah's despair and chagrin were increasing almost as rapidly as +Eleanor's. + +Late in the afternoon Beulah suggested a nap. "I'll sit here and read +for a few minutes," she said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. +Then, since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, and +still determined by the hot memory of her night's vigil to leave no +stone of geniality unturned, she added: + +"This is a book that I am reading to help me to know how to guide and +educate you. I haven't had much experience in adopting children, you +know, Eleanor, and when there is anything in this world that you don't +know, there is usually some good and useful book that will help you to +find out all about it." + +Even to herself her words sounded hatefully patronizing and pedagogic, +but she was past the point of believing that she could handle the +situation with grace. When Eleanor's breath seemed to be coming +regularly, she put down her book with some thankfulness and escaped to +the tea table, where she poured tea for her aunt, and explained the +child's idiosyncrasies swiftly and smoothly to that estimable lady. + +Left alone, Eleanor lay still for a while, staring at the design of +pink roses on the blue wall-paper. On Cape Cod, pink and blue were not +considered to be colors that could be combined. There was nothing at +all in New York like anything she knew or remembered. She sighed. Then +she made her way to the window and picked up the book Beulah had been +reading. It was about _her_, Aunt Beulah had said,--directions for +educating her and training her. The paragraph that caught her eye +where the book was open had been marked with a pencil. + +"This girl had such a fat, frog like expression of face," Eleanor +read, "that her neighbors thought her an idiot. She was found to be +the victim of a severe case of ad-e-noids." As she spelled out the +word, she recognized it as the one Beulah had used earlier in the day. +She remembered the sudden sharp look with which the question had been +accompanied. The sick lady for whom she had "worked out" had often +called her an idiot when her feet had stumbled, or she had failed to +understand at once what was required of her. + +Eleanor read on. She encountered a text replete with hideous examples +of backward and deficient children, victims of adenoids who had been +restored to a state of normality by the removal of the affliction. She +had no idea what an adenoid was. She had a hazy notion that it was a +kind of superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but her anguish +was rooted in the fact that this, _this_ was the good and useful book +that her Aunt Beulah had found it necessary to resort to for guidance, +in the case of her own--Eleanor's--education. + +When Beulah, refreshed by a cup of tea and further sustained by the +fact that Margaret and Peter had both telephoned they were coming to +dinner, returned to her charge, she found the stolid, apathetic child +she had left, sprawling face downward on the floor, in a passion of +convulsive weeping. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PETER ELUCIDATES + + +It was Peter who got at the heart of the trouble. Margaret tried, but +though Eleanor clung to her and relaxed under the balm of her gentle +caresses, the child remained entirely inarticulate until Peter +gathered her up in his arms, and signed to the others that he wished +to be left alone with her. + +By the time he rejoined the two in the drawing-room--he had missed his +after-dinner coffee in the long half-hour that he had spent shut into +the guest room with the child--Jimmie and Gertrude had arrived, and +the four sat grouped together to await his pronouncement. + +"She thinks she has adenoids. She wants the doll that David left in +that carpetbag of hers he forgot to take out of the 'Handsome cab.' +She wants to be loved, and she wants to grow up and write poetry for +the newspapers," he announced. "Also she will eat a piece of bread and +butter and a glass of milk, as soon as it can conveniently be provided +for her." + +"When did you take holy orders, Gram?" Jimmie inquired. "How do you +work the confessional? I wish I could make anybody give anything up to +me, but I can't. Did you just go into that darkened chamber and say to +the kid, 'Child of my adoption,--cough,' and she coughed, or are you +the master of some subtler system of choking the truth out of 'em?" + +"Anybody would tell anything to Peter if he happened to want to know +it," Margaret said seriously. "Wouldn't they, Beulah?" + +Beulah nodded. "She wants to be loved," Peter had said. It was so +simple for some people to open their hearts and give out +love,--easily, lightly. She was not made like that,--loving came hard +with her, but when once she had given herself, it was done. Peter +didn't know how hard she had tried to do right with the child that +day. + +"The doll is called the rabbit doll, though there is no reason why it +should be, as it only looks the least tiny bit like a rabbit, and is a +girl. Its other name is Gwendolyn, and it always goes to bed with her. +Mrs. O'Farrels aunt said that children always stopped playing with +dolls when they got to be as big as Eleanor, but she isn't never +going to stop.--You must get after that double negative, Beulah.--She +once wrote a poem beginning: 'The rabbit doll, it is my own.' She +thinks that she has a frog-like expression of face, and that is why +Beulah doesn't like her better. She is perfectly willing to have her +adenoids cut out, if Beulah thinks it would improve her, but she +doesn't want to 'take anything,' when she has it done." + +"You are a wonder, Gram," Gertrude said admiringly. + +"Oh! I have made a mess of it, haven't I?" Beulah said. "Is she +homesick?" + +"Yes, she's homesick," Peter said gravely, "but not for anything she's +left in Colhassett. David told you the story, didn't he?--She is +homesick for her own kind, for people she can really love, and she's +never found any of them. Her grandfather and grandmother are old and +decrepit. She feels a terrible responsibility for them, but she +doesn't love them, not really. She's too hungry to love anybody until +she finds the friends she can cling to--without compromise." + +"An emotional aristocrat," Gertrude murmured. "It's the curse of +taste." + +"Help! Help!" Jimmie cried, grimacing at Gertrude. "Didn't she have +any kids her own age to play with?" + +"She had 'em, but she didn't have any time to play with them. You +forget she was supporting a family all the time, Jimmie." + +"By jove, I'd like to forget it." + +"She had one friend named Albertina Weston that she used to run around +with in school. Albertina also wrote poetry. They used to do poetic +'stunts' of one poem a day on some subject selected by Albertina. I +think Albertina was a snob. She candidly admitted to Eleanor that if +her clothes were more stylish, she would go round with her more. +Eleanor seemed to think that was perfectly natural." + +"How do you do it, Peter?" Jimmie besought. "If I could get one +damsel, no matter how tender her years, to confide in me like that I'd +be happy for life. It's nothing to you with those eyes, and that +matinée forehead of yours; but I want 'em to weep down my neck, and I +can't make 'em do it." + +"Wait till you grow up, Jimmie, and then see what happens," Gertrude +soothed him. + +"Wait till it's your turn with our child," Margaret said. "In two +months more she's coming to you." + +"Do I ever forget it for a minute?" Jimmie cried. + +"The point of the whole business is," Peter continued, "that we've got +a human soul on our hands. We imported a kind of scientific plaything +to exercise our spiritual muscle on, and we've got a real specimen of +womanhood in embryo. I don't know whether the situation appalls you as +much as it does me--" He broke off as he heard the bell ring. + +"That's David, he said he was coming." + +Then as David appeared laden with the lost carpetbag and a huge box of +chocolates, he waved him to a chair, and took up his speech again. "I +don't know whether the situation appalls you, as much as it does +me--if I don't get this off my chest now, David, I can't do it at +all--but the thought of that poor little waif in there and the +struggle she's had, and the shy valiant spirit of her,--the sand that +she's got, the _sand_ that put her through and kept her mouth shut +through experiences that might easily have killed her, why I feel as +if I'd give anything I had in the world to make it up to her, and yet +I'm not altogether sure that I could--that we could--that it's any of +our business to try it." + +"There's nobody else who will, if we don't," David said. + +"That's it," Peter said, "I've never known any one of our bunch to +quit anything that they once started in on, but just by way of +formality there is one thing we ought to do about this proposition +before we slide into it any further, and that is to agree that we want +to go on with it, that we know what we're in for, and that we're +game." + +"We decided all that before we sent for the kid," Jimmie said, "didn't +we?" + +"We decided we'd adopt a child, but we didn't decide we'd adopt this +one. Taking the responsibility of this one is the question before the +house just at present." + +"The idea being," David added, "that she's a fairly delicate piece of +work, and as time advances she's going to be _delicater_." + +"And that it's an awkward matter to play with souls," Beulah +contributed; whereupon Jimmie murmured, "Browning," sotto voice. + +"She may be all that you say, Gram," Jimmie said, after a few minutes +of silence, "a thunderingly refined and high-minded young waif, but +you will admit that without an interpreter of the same class, she +hasn't been much good to us so far." + +"Good lord, she isn't refined and high-minded," Peter said. "That's +not the idea. She's simply supremely sensitive and full of the most +pathetic possibilities. If we're going to undertake her we ought to +realize fully what we're up against, and acknowledge it,--that's all +I'm trying to say, and I apologize for assuming that it's more my +business than anybody's to say it." + +"That charming humility stuff, if I could only remember to pull it." + +The sofa pillow that Gertrude aimed at Jimmie hit him full on the +mouth and he busied himself pretending to eat it. Beulah scorned the +interruption. + +"Of course, we're going to undertake her," Beulah said. "We are signed +up and it's all down in writing. If anybody has any objections, they +can state them now." She looked about her dramatically. On every young +face was reflected the same earnestness that set gravely on her own. + +"The 'ayes' have it," Jimmie murmured. "From now on I become not only +a parent, but a soul doctor." He rose, and tiptoed solemnly toward the +door of Eleanor's room. + +"Where are you going, Jimmie?" Beulah called, as he was disappearing +around the bend in the corridor. + +He turned back to lift an admonitory finger. + +"Shush," he said, "do not interrupt me. I am going to wrap baby up in +a blanket and bring her out to her mothers and fathers." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ELEANOR ENJOYS HERSELF IN HER OWN WAY + + +"I am in society here," Eleanor wrote to her friend Albertina, with a +pardonable emphasis on that phase of her new existence that would +appeal to the haughty ideals of Miss Weston, "I don't have to do any +housework, or anything. I sleep under a pink silk bedquilt, and I have +all new clothes. I have a new black pattern leather sailor hat that I +sopose you would laugh at. It cost six dollars and draws the sun down +to my head but I don't say anything. I have six aunts and uncles all +diferent names and ages but grown up. Uncle Peter is the most elderly, +he is twenty-five. I know becase we gave him a birthday party with a +cake. I sat at the table. I wore my crape da shine dress. You would +think that was pretty, well it is. There is a servant girl to do evry +thing even passing your food to you on a tray. I wish you could come +to visit me. I stay two months in a place and get broghut up there. +Aunt Beulah is peculiar but nice when you know her. She is stric and +at first I thought we was not going to get along. She thought I had +adenoids and I thought she dislikt me too much, but it turned out not. +I take lessons from her every morning like they give at Rogers +College, not like publick school. I have to think what I want to do a +good deal and then do it. At first she turned me loose to enjoy myself +and I could not do it, but now we have disapline which makes it all +right. My speling is weak, but uncle Peter says Stevanson could not +spel and did not care. Stevanson was the poat who wrote the birdie +with a yellow bill in the reader. I wish you would tel me if Grandma's +eye is worse and what about Grandfather's rheumatism. + +"Your fond friend, Eleanor. + +"P. S. We have a silver organ in all the rooms to have heat in. I was +afrayd of them at first." + + * * * * * + +In the letters to her grandparents, however, the undercurrent of +anxiety about the old people, which was a ruling motive in her life, +became apparent. + + * * * * * + +"Dear Grandma and Dear Grandpa," she wrote, + +"I have been here a weak now. I inclose my salary, fifteen dollars +($15.00) which I hope you will like. I get it for doing evry thing I +am told and being adoptid besides. You can tell the silectmen that I +am rich now and can support you just as good as Uncle Amos. I want +Grandpa to buy some heavy undershurts right of. He will get a couff if +he doesn't do it. Tell him to rub your arm evry night before you go to +bed, Grandma, and to have a hot soapstone for you. If you don't have +your bed hot you will get newmonia and I can't come home to take care +of you, becase my salary would stop. I like New York better now that I +have lived here some. I miss seeing you around, and Grandpa. + +"The cook cooks on a gas stove that is very funny. I asked her how it +went and she showed me it. She is going to leve, but lucky thing the +hired girl can cook till Aunt Beulah gets a nother cook as antyseptic +as this cook. In Rogers College they teach ladies to have their cook's +and hired girl's antyseptic. It is a good idear becase of sickness. I +inclose a recipete for a good cake. You can make it sating down. You +don't have to stir it much, and Grandpa can bring you the things. I +will write soon. I hope you are all right. Let me hear that you are +all right. Don't forget to put the cat out nights. I hope she is all +right, but remember the time she stole the butter fish. I miss you, +and I miss the cat around. Uncle David pays me my salary out of his +own pocket, because he is the richest, but I like Uncle Peter the +best. He is very handsome and we like to talk to each other the best. +Goodbye, Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +But it was on the varicolored pages of a ruled tablet--with a picture +on its cover of a pink cheeked young lady beneath a cherry tree, and +marked in large straggling letters also varicolored "The Cherry +Blossom Tablet"--that Eleanor put down her most sacred thoughts. On +the outside, just above the cherry tree, her name was written with a +pencil that had been many times wet to get the desired degree of +blackness, "Eleanor Hamlin, Colhassett, Massachusetts. Private Dairy," +and on the first page was this warning in the same painstaking, +heavily shaded chirography, "This book is sacrid, and not be trespased +in or read one word of. By order of owner. E. H." + +It was the private diary and Gwendolyn, the rabbit doll, and a small +blue china shepherdess given her by Albertina, that constituted +Eleanor's _lares et penates_. When David had finally succeeded in +tracing the ancient carpetbag in the lost and found department of the +cab company, Eleanor was able to set up her household gods, and draw +from them that measure of strength and security inseparable from their +familiar presence. She always slept with two of the three beloved +objects, and after Beulah had learned to understand and appreciate the +child's need for unsupervised privacy, she divined that the little +girl was happiest when she could devote at least an hour or two a day +to the transcribing of earnest sentences on the pink, blue and yellow +pages of the Cherry Blossom Tablet, and the mysterious games that she +played with the rabbit doll. That these games consisted largely in +making the rabbit doll impersonate Eleanor, while the child herself +became in turn each one of the six uncles and aunts, and exhorted the +victim accordingly, did not of course occur to Beulah. It did occur to +her that the pink, blue and yellow pages would have made interesting +reading to Eleanor's guardians, if they had been privileged to read +all that was chronicled there. + + * * * * * + +"My aunt Beulah wears her hair to high of her forrid. + +"My aunt Margaret wears her hair to slic on the sides. + +"My aunt Gertrude wears her hair just about right. + +"My aunt Margaret is the best looking, and has the nicest way. + +"My aunt Gertrude is the funniest. I never laugh at what she says, but +I have trouble not to. By thinking of Grandpa's rheumaticks I stop +myself just in time. Aunt Beulah means all right, and wants to do +right and have everybody else the same. + +"Uncle David is not handsome, but good. + +"Uncle Jimmie is not handsome, but his hair curls. + +"Uncle Peter is the most handsome man that ere the sun shown on. That +is poetry. He has beautiful teeth, and I like him. + +"Yesterday the Wordsworth Club--that's what Uncle Jimmie calls us +because he says we are seven--went to the Art Museum to edjucate me in +art. + +"Aunt Beulah wanted to take me to one room and keep me there until I +asked to come out. Uncle Jimmie wanted to show me the statures. Uncle +David said I ought to begin with the Ming period and work down to Art +Newvoo. Aunts Gertrude and Margaret wanted to take me to the room of +the great masters. While they were talking Uncle Peter and I went to +see a picture that made me cry. I asked him who she was. He said that +wasn't the important thing, that the important thing was that one man +had nailed his dream. He didn't doubt that lots of other painters had, +but this one meant the most to him. When I cried he said, 'You're all +right, Baby. You know.' Then he reached down and kissed me." + + * * * * * + +As the month progressed, it seemed to Beulah that she was making +distinct progress with the child. Since the evening when Peter had won +Eleanor's confidence and explained her mental processes, her task had +been illumined for her. She belonged to that class of women in whom +maternity arouses late. She had not the facile sympathy which accepts +a relationship without the endorsement of the understanding, and she +was too young to have much toleration for that which was not perfectly +clear to her. + +She had started in with high courage to demonstrate the value of a +sociological experiment. She hoped later, though these hopes she had +so far kept to herself, to write, or at least to collaborate with some +worthy educator, on a book which would serve as an exact guide to +other philanthropically inclined groups who might wish to follow the +example of cooperative adoption; but the first day of actual contact +with her problem had chilled her. She had put nothing down in her +note-book. She had made no scientific progress. There seemed to be no +intellectual response in the child. + +Peter had set all these things right for her. He had shown her the +child's uncompromising integrity of spirit. The keynote of Beulah's +nature was, as Jimmie said, that she "had to be shown." Peter pointed +out the fact to her that Eleanor's slogan also was, "No compromise." +As Eleanor became more familiar with her surroundings this spirit +became more and more evident. + +"I could let down the hem of these dresses, Aunt Beulah," she said one +day, looking down at the long stretch of leg protruding from the chic +blue frock that made her look like a Boutet de Monvil. "I can't hem +very good, but my stitches don't show much." + +"That dress isn't too short, dear. It's the way little girls always +wear them. Do little girls on Cape Cod wear them longer?" + +"Yes, Aunt Beulah." + +"How long do they wear them?" + +"Albertina," they had reached the point of discussion of Albertina +now, and Beulah was proud of it, "wore her dresses to her ankles, +be--because her--her legs was so fat. She said that mine was--were +getting to be fat too, and it wasn't refined to wear short dresses, +when your legs were fat." + +"There are a good many conflicting ideas of refinement in the world, +Eleanor," Beulah said. + +"I've noticed there are, since I came to New York," Eleanor answered +unexpectedly. + +Beulah's academic spirit recognized and rejoiced in the fact that with +all her docility, Eleanor held firmly to her preconceived notions. She +continued to wear her dresses short, but when she was not actually on +exhibition, she hid her long legs behind every available bit of +furniture or drapery. + +The one doubt left in her mind, of the child's initiative and +executive ability, was destined to be dissipated by the rather heroic +measures sometimes resorted to by a superior agency taking an ironic +hand in the game of which we have been too inhumanly sure. + +On the fifth week of Eleanor's stay Beulah became a real aunt, the +cook left, and her own aunt and official chaperon, little Miss +Prentis, was laid low with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism. +Beulah's excitement on these various counts, combined with +indiscretions in the matter of overshoes and overfatigue, made her an +easy victim to a wandering grip germ. She opened her eyes one morning +only to shut them with a groan of pain. There was an ache in her head +and a thickening in her chest, the significance of which she knew only +too well. She found herself unable to rise. She lifted a hoarse voice +and called for Mary, the maid, who did not sleep in the house but was +due every morning at seven. But the gentle knock on the door was +followed by the entrance of Eleanor, not Mary. + +"Mary didn't come, Aunt Beulah. I thought you was--were so tired, I'd +let you have your sleep out. I heard Miss Prentis calling, and I made +her some gruel, and I got my own breakfast." + +"Oh! how dreadful," Beulah gasped in the face of this new calamity; +"and I'm really so sick. I don't know what we'll do." + +Eleanor regarded her gravely. Then she put a professional hand on her +pulse and her forehead. + +"You've got the grip," she announced. + +"I'm afraid I have, Eleanor, and Doctor Martin's out of town, and +won't be back till to-morrow when he comes to Aunt Ann. I don't know +what we'll do." + +"I'll tend to things," Eleanor said. "You lie still and close your +eyes, and don't put your arms out of bed and get chilled." + +"Well, you'll have to manage somehow," Beulah moaned; "how, I don't +know, I'm sure. Give Aunt Annie her medicine and hot water bags, and +just let me be. I'm too sick to care what happens." + +After the door had closed on the child a dozen things occurred to +Beulah that might have been done for her. She was vaguely faint for +her breakfast. Her feet were cold. She thought of the soothing warmth +of antiphlogistine when applied to the chest. She thought of the +quinine on the shelf in the bathroom. Once more she tried lifting her +head, but she could not accomplish a sitting posture. She shivered as +a draft from the open window struck her. + +"If I could only be taken in hand this morning," she thought, "I know +it could be broken." + +The door opened softly. Eleanor, in the cook's serviceable apron of +gingham that would have easily contained another child the same size, +swung the door open with one hand and held it to accommodate the +passage of the big kitchen tray, deeply laden with a heterogeneous +collection of objects. She pulled two chairs close to the bedside and +deposited her burden upon them. Then she removed from the tray a +goblet of some steaming fluid and offered it to Beulah. + +"It's cream of wheat gruel," she said, and added ingratiatingly: "It +tastes nice in a tumbler." + +Beulah drank the hot decoction gratefully and found, to her surprise, +that it was deliciously made. + +Eleanor took the glass away from her and placed it on the tray, from +which she took what looked to Beulah like a cloth covered omelet,--at +any rate, it was a crescent shaped article slightly yellow in tone. +Eleanor tested it with a finger. + +"It's just about right," she said. Then she fixed Beulah with a stern +eye. "Open your chest," she commanded, "and show me the spot where +it's worst. I've made a meal poultice." + +Beulah hesitated only a second, then she obeyed meekly. She had never +seen a meal poultice before, but the heat on her afflicted chest was +grateful to her. Antiphlogistine was only Denver mud anyhow. Meekly, +also, she took the six grains of quinine and the weak dose of jamaica +ginger and water that she was next offered. She felt encouraged and +refreshed enough by this treatment to display some slight curiosity +when the little girl produced a card of villainous looking +safety-pins. + +"I'm going to pin you in with these, Aunt Beulah," she said, "and then +sweat your cold out of you." + +"Indeed, you're not," Beulah said; "don't be absurd, Eleanor. The +theory of the grip is--," but she was addressing merely the vanishing +hem of cook's voluminous apron. + +The child returned almost instantly with three objects of assorted +sizes that Beulah could not identify. From the outside they looked +like red flannel and from the way Eleanor handled them it was evident +that they also were hot. + +"I het--heated the flatirons," Eleanor explained, "the way I do for +Grandma, and I'm going to spread 'em around you, after you're pinned +in the blankets, and you got to lie there till you prespire, and +prespire good." + +"I won't do it," Beulah moaned, "I won't do any such thing. Go away, +child." + +"I cured Grandma and Grandpa and Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt that I worked +for, and I'm going to cure you," Eleanor said. + +"No." + +Eleanor advanced on her threateningly. + +"Put your arms under those covers," she said, "or I'll dash a glass of +cold water in your face,"--and Beulah obeyed her. + +Peter nodded wisely when Beulah, cured by these summary though +obsolete methods, told the story in full detail. Gertrude had laughed +until the invalid had enveloped herself in the last few shreds of her +dignity and ordered her out of the room, and the others had been +scarcely more sympathetic. + +"I know that it's funny, Peter," she said, "but you see, I can't help +worrying about it just the same. Of course, as soon as I was up she +was just as respectful and obedient to my slightest wish as she ever +was, but at the time, when she was lording it over me so, she--she +actually slapped me. You never saw such a--blazingly determined little +creature." + +Peter smiled,--gently, as was Peter's way when any friend of his made +an appeal to him. + +"That's all right, Beulah," he said, "don't you let it disturb you for +an instant. This manifestation had nothing to do with our experiment. +Our experiment is working fine--better than I dreamed it would ever +work. What happened to Eleanor, you know, was simply this. Some of the +conditions of her experience were recreated suddenly, and she +reverted." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JIMMIE BECOMES A PARENT + + +The entrance into the dining-room of the curly headed young man and +his pretty little niece, who had a suite on the eighth floor, as the +room clerk informed all inquirers, was always a matter of interest to +the residents of the Hotel Winchester. They were an extremely +picturesque pair to the eye seeking for romance and color. The child +had the pure, clear cut features of the cameo type of New England +maidenhood. She was always dressed in some striking combination of +blue, deep blue like her eyes, with blue hair ribbons. Her +good-looking young relative, with hair almost as near the color of the +sun as her own, seemed to be entirely devoted to her, which, +considering the charm of the child and the radiant and magnetic spirit +of the young man himself, was a delightfully natural manifestation. + +But one morning near the close of the second week of their stay, the +usual radiation of resilient youth was conspicuously absent from the +young man's demeanor, and the child's face reflected the gloom that +sat so incongruously on the contour of an optimist. The little girl +fumbled her menu card, but the waitress--the usual aging pedagogic +type of the small residential hotel--stood unnoticed at the young +man's elbow for some minutes before he was sufficiently aroused from +his gloomy meditations to address her. When he turned to her at last, +however, it was with the grin that she had grown to associate with +him,--the grin, the absence of which had kept her waiting behind his +chair with a patience that she was, except in a case where her +affections were involved, entirely incapable of. Jimmie's +protestations of inability to make headway with the ladies were not +entirely sincere. + +"Bring me everything on the menu," he said, with a wave of his hand in +the direction of that painstaking pasteboard. "Coffee, tea, fruit, +marmalade, breakfast food, ham and eggs. Bring my niece here the same. +That's all." With another wave of the hand he dismissed her. + +"You can't eat it all, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor protested. + +"I'll make a bet with you," Jimmie declared. "I'll bet you a dollar +to a doughnut that if she brings it all, I'll eat it." + +"Oh! Uncle Jimmie, you know she won't bring it. You never bet so I can +get the dollar,--you never do." + +"I never bet so I can get my doughnut, if it comes to that." + +"I don't know where to buy any doughnuts," Eleanor said; "besides, +Uncle Jimmie, I don't really consider that I owe them. I never really +say that I'm betting, and you tell me I've lost before I've made up my +mind anything about it." + +"Speaking of doughnuts," Jimmie said, his face still wearing the look +of dejection under a grin worn awry, "can you cook, Eleanor? Can you +roast a steak, and saute baked beans, and stew sausages, and fry out a +breakfast muffin? Does she look like a cook to you?" he suddenly +demanded of the waitress, who was serving him, with an apologetic eye +on the menu, the invariable toast-coffee-and-three-minute-egg +breakfast that he had eaten every morning since his arrival. + +The waitress smiled toothily. "She looks like a capable one," she +pronounced. + +"I _can_ cook, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor giggled, "but not the way you +said. You don't roast steak, or--or--" + +"Don't you?" Jimmie asked with the expression of pained surprise that +never failed to make his ward wriggle with delight. There were links +in the educational scheme that Jimmie forged better than any of the +cooperative guardians. Not even Jimmie realized the value of the +giggle as a developing factor in Eleanor's existence. He took three +swallows of coffee and frowned into his cup. "I can make coffee," he +added. "Good coffee. Well, we may as well look the facts in the face, +Eleanor. The jig's up. We're moving away from this elegant hostelry +to-morrow." + +"Are we?" Eleanor asked. + +"Yes, Kiddo. Apologies to Aunt Beulah (mustn't call you Kiddo) and the +reason is, that I'm broke. I haven't got any money at all, Eleanor, +and I don't know where I am going to get any. You see, it is this way. +I lost my job six weeks ago." + +"But you go to work every morning, Uncle Jimmie?" + +"I leave the house, that is. I go looking for work, but so far no nice +juicy job has come rolling down into my lap. I haven't told you this +before because,--well--when Aunt Beulah comes down every day to give +you your lessons I wanted it to look all O. K. I thought if you didn't +know, you couldn't forget sometime and tell her." + +"I don't tattle tale," Eleanor said. + +"I know you don't, Eleanor. It's only my doggone pride that makes me +want to keep up the bluff, but you're a game kid,--you--know. I tried +to get you switched off to one of the others till I could get on my +feet, but--no, they just thought I had stage fright. I couldn't +insist. It would be pretty humiliating to me to admit that I couldn't +support one-sixth of a child that I'd given my solemn oath to +be-parent." + +"To--to what?" + +"Be-parent, if it isn't a word, I invent it. It's awfully tough luck +for you, and if you want me to I'll own up to the crowd that I can't +swing you, but if you are willing to stick, why, we'll fix up some +kind of a way to cut down expenses and bluff it out." + +Eleanor considered the prospect. Jimmie watched her apparent +hesitation with some dismay. + +"Say the word," he declared, "and I'll tell 'em." + +"Oh! I don't want you to tell 'em," Eleanor cried. "I was just +thinking. If you could get me a place, you know, I could go out to +work. You don't eat very much for a man, and I might get my meals +thrown in--" + +"Don't, Eleanor, don't," Jimmie agonized. "I've got a scheme for us +all right. This--this embarrassment is only temporary. The day will +come when I can provide you with Pol Roge and diamonds. My father is +rich, you know, but he swore to me that I couldn't support myself, and +I swore to him that I could, and if I don't do it, I'm damned. I am +really, and that isn't swearing." + +"I know it isn't, when you mean it the way they say in the Bible." + +"I don't want the crowd to know. I don't want Gertrude to know. She +hasn't got much idea of me anyway. I'll get another job, if I can only +hold out." + +"I can go to work in a store," Eleanor cried. "I can be one of those +little girls in black dresses that runs between counters." + +"Do you want to break your poor Uncle James' heart, Eleanor,--do +you?" + +"No, Uncle Jimmie." + +"Then listen to me. I've borrowed a studio, a large barnlike studio on +Washington Square, suitably equipped with pots and pans and kettles. +Also, I am going to borrow the wherewithal to keep us going. It isn't +a bad kind of place if anybody likes it. There's one dinky little +bedroom for you and a cot bed for me, choked in bagdad. If you could +kind of engineer the cooking end of it, with me to do the dirty work, +of course, I think we could be quite snug and cozy." + +"I know we could, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor said. "Will Uncle Peter come +to see us just the same?" + +It thus befell that on the fourteenth day of the third month of her +residence in New York, Eleanor descended into Bohemia. Having no least +suspicion of the real state of affairs--for Jimmie, like most +apparently expansive people who are given to rattling nonsense, was +actually very reticent about his own business--the other members of +the sextette did not hesitate to show their chagrin and disapproval at +the change in his manner of living. + +"The Winchester was an ideal place for Eleanor," Beulah wailed. "It's +deadly respectable and middle class, but it was just the kind of +atmosphere for her to accustom herself to. She was learning to manage +herself so prettily. This morning when I went to the studio--I wanted +to get the lessons over early, and take Eleanor to see that exhibition +of Bavarian dolls at Kuhner's--I found her washing up a trail of +dishes in that closet behind the screen--you've seen it, +Gertrude?--like some poor little scullery maid. She said that Jimmie +had made an omelet for breakfast. If he'd made fifty omelets there +couldn't have been a greater assortment of dirty dishes and kettles." + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Jimmie made an omelet for me once for which he used two dozen eggs. +He kept breaking them until he found the yolks of a color to suit him. +He said pale yolks made poor omelets, so he threw all the pale ones +away." + +"I suppose that you sat by and let him," Beulah said. "You would let +Jimmie do anything. You're as bad as Margaret is about David." + +"Or as bad as you are about Peter." + +"There we go, just like any silly, brainless girls, whose chief object +in life is the--the other sex," Beulah cried inconsistently. "Oh! I +hate that kind of thing." + +"So do I--in theory--" Gertrude answered, a little dreamily. "Where do +Jimmie and Eleanor get the rest of their meals?" + +"I can't seem to find out," Beulah said. "I asked Eleanor point-blank +this morning what they had to eat last night and where they had it, +and she said, 'That's a secret, Aunt Beulah.' When I asked her why it +was a secret and who it was a secret with, she only looked worried, +and said she guessed she wouldn't talk about it at all because that +was the only way to be safe about tattling. You know what I think--I +think Jimmie is taking her around to the cafés and all the shady +extravagant restaurants. He thinks it's sport and it keeps him from +getting bored with the child." + +"Well, that's one way of educating the young," Gertrude said, "but I +think you are wrong, Beulah." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ONE DESCENT INTO BOHEMIA + + +"Aunt Beulah does not think that Uncle Jimmie is bringing me up +right," Eleanor confided to the pages of her diary. "She comes down +here and is very uncomforterble. Well he is bringing me up good, in +some ways better than she did. When he swears he always puts out his +hand for me to slap him. He had enough to swear of. He can't get any +work or earn wages. The advertisement business is on the bum this year +becase times are so hard up. The advertisers have to save their money +and advertising agents are failing right and left. So poor Uncle +Jimmie can't get a place to work at. + +"The people in the other studios are very neighborly. Uncle Jimmie +leaves a sine on the door when he goes out. It says 'Don't Knock.' +They don't they come right in and borrow things. Uncle Jimmie says not +to have much to do with them, becase they are so queer, but when I am +not at home, the ladies come to call on him, and drink Moxie or +something. I know becase once I caught them. Uncle Jimmie says I shall +not have Behemiar thrust upon me by him, and to keep away from these +ladies until I grow up and then see if I like them. Aunt Beulah thinks +that Uncle Jimmie takes me around to other studios and I won't tell +but he does not take me anywhere except to walk and have ice-cream +soda, but I say I don't want it because of saving the ten cents. We +cook on an old gas stove that smells. I can't do very good +housekeeping becase things are not convenient. I haven't any oven to +do a Saturday baking in, and Uncle Jimmie won't let me do the washing. +I should feel more as if I earned my keap if I baked beans and made +boiled dinners and layer cake, but in New York they don't eat much but +hearty food and saluds. It isn't stylish to have cake and pie and +pudding all at one meal. Poor Grandpa would starve. He eats pie for +his breakfast, but if I told anybody they would laugh. If I wrote +Albertina what folks eat in New York she would laugh. + +"Uncle Jimmie is teaching me to like salud. He laughs when I cut up +lettice and put sugar on it. He teaches me to like olives and dried +up sausages and sour crought. He says it is important to be edjucated +in eating, and everytime we go to the Delicate Essenn store to buy +something that will edjucate me better. He teaches me to say 'I beg +your pardon,' and 'Polly vous Fransay?' and to courtesy and how to +enter a room the way you do in private theatricals. He says it isn't +knowing these things so much as knowing when you do them that counts, +and then Aunt Beulah complains that I am not being brought up. + +"I have not seen Uncle Peter for a weak. He said he was going away. I +miss him. I would not have to tell him how I was being brought up, and +whether I was hitting the white lights as Uncle Jimmie says.--He would +know." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor did not write Albertina during the time when she was living in +the studio. Some curious inversion of pride kept her silent on the +subject of the change in her life. Albertina would have turned up her +nose at the studio, Eleanor knew. Therefore, she would not so much as +address an envelope to that young lady from an interior which she +would have beheld with scorn. She held long conversations with +Gwendolyn, taking the part of Albertina, on the subject of this +snobbishness of attitude. + + * * * * * + +"Lots of people in New York have to live in little teny, weeny rooms, +Albertina," she would say. "Rents are perfectly awful here. This +studio is so big I get tired dusting all the way round it, and even if +it isn't furnished very much, why, think how much furnishing would +cost, and carpets and gold frames for the pictures! The pictures that +are in here already, without any frames, would sell for hundreds of +dollars apiece if the painter could get anybody to buy them. You ought +to be very thankful for such a place, Albertina, instead of feeling so +stuck up that you pick up your skirts from it." + + * * * * * + +But Albertina's superiority of mind was impregnable. Her spirit sat in +judgment on all the conditions of Eleanor's new environment. She +seemed to criticize everything. She hated the nicked, dun colored +dishes they ate from, and the black bottomed pots and pans that all +the energy of Eleanor's energetic little elbow could not restore to +decency again. She hated the cracked, dun colored walls, and the +mottled floor that no amount of sweeping and dusting seemed to make an +impression on. She hated the compromise of housekeeping in an +attic,--she who had been bred in an atmosphere of shining +nickle-plated ranges and linoleum, where even the kitchen pump gleamed +brightly under its annual coat of good green paint. She hated the +compromise, that was the burden of her complaint--either in the person +of Albertina or Gwendolyn, whether she lay in the crook of Eleanor's +arm in the lumpy bed where she reposed at the end of the day's labor, +or whether she sat bolt upright on the lumpy cot in the studio, the +broken bisque arm, which Jimmie insisted on her wearing in a sling +whenever he was present, dangling limply at her side in the relaxation +Eleanor preferred for it. + +The fact of not having adequate opportunity to keep her house in order +troubled the child, for her days were zealously planned by her +enthusiastic guardians. Beulah came at ten o'clock every morning to +give her lessons. As Jimmie's quest for work grew into a more and more +disheartening adventure, she had difficulty in getting him out of bed +in time to prepare and clear away the breakfast for Beulah's arrival. +After lunch, to which Jimmie scrupulously came home, she was supposed +to work an hour at her modeling clay. Gertrude, who was doing very +promising work at the art league, came to the studio twice a week to +give her instruction in handling it. Later in the afternoon one of the +aunts or uncles usually appeared with some scheme to divert her. +Margaret was telling her the stories of the Shakespeare plays, and +David was trying to make a card player of her, but was not succeeding +as well as if Albertina had not been brought up a hard shell Baptist, +who thought card playing a device of the devil's. Peter alone did not +come, for even when he was in town he was busy in the afternoon. + +As soon as her guests were gone, Eleanor hurried through such +housewifely tasks as were possible of accomplishment at that hour, but +the strain was telling on her. Jimmie began to realize this and it +added to his own distress. One night to save her the labor of +preparing the meal, he took her to an Italian restaurant in the +neighborhood where the food was honest and palatable, and the service +at least deft and clean. + +Eleanor enjoyed the experience extremely, until an incident occurred +which robbed her evening of its sweetness and plunged her into the +purgatory of the child who has inadvertently broken one of its own +laws. + +Among the belongings in the carpetbag, which was no more--having been +supplanted by a smart little suit-case marked with her initials--was a +certificate from the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, duly +signed by herself, and witnessed by the grammar-school teacher and the +secretary of the organization. On this certificate (which was +decorated by many presentations in dim black and white of +mid-Victorian domestic life, and surmounted by a collection of +scalloped clouds in which drifted three amateur looking angels amid a +crowd of more professional cherubim) Eleanor had pledged herself to +abstain from the use as a beverage of all intoxicating drinks, and +from the manufacture or traffic in them. She had also subscribed +herself as willing to make direct and persevering efforts to extend +the principles and blessings of total abstinence. + +"Red ink, Andrea," her Uncle Jimmie had demanded, as the black-eyed +waiter bent over him, "and ginger ale for the offspring." Eleanor +giggled. It was fun to be with Uncle Jimmie in a restaurant again. He +always called for something new and unexpected when he spoke of her to +the waiter, and he was always what Albertina would consider "very +comical" when he talked to him. "But stay," he added holding up an +admonitory finger, "I think we'll give the little one _eau rougie_ +this time. Wouldn't you like _eau rougie_, tinted water, Eleanor, the +way the French children drink it?" + +Unsuspectingly she sipped the mixture of water and ice and sugar, and +"red ink" from the big brown glass bottle that the glowing waiter set +before them. + +As the meal progressed Jimmie told her that the grated cheese was +sawdust and almost made her believe it. He showed her how to eat +spaghetti without cutting it and pointed out to her various Italian +examples of his object lesson; but she soon realized that in spite of +his efforts to entertain her, he was really very unhappy. + +"I've borrowed all the money I can, Angelface," he confessed finally. +"Tomorrow's the last day of grace. If I don't land that job at the +Perkins agency I'll have to give in and tell Peter and David, or wire +Dad." + +"You could get some other kind of a job," Eleanor said; "plumbing or +clerking or something." On Cape Cod the plumber and the grocer's clerk +lost no caste because of their calling. "Couldn't you?" + +"I _could_ so demean myself, and I will. I'll be a chauffeur, I can +run a car all right; but the fact remains that by to-morrow +something's got to happen, or I've got to own up to the bunch." + +Eleanor's heart sank. She tried hard to think of something to comfort +him but she could not. Jimmie mixed her more _eau rougie_ and she +drank it. He poured a full glass, undiluted, for himself, and held it +up to the light. + +"Well, here's to crime, daughter," he said. "Long may it wave, and us +with it." + +"That isn't really red ink, is it?" she asked. "It's an awfully pretty +color--like grape juice." + +"It is grape juice, my child, if we don't inquire too closely into the +matter. The Italians are like the French in the guide book, 'fond of +dancing and light wines.' This is one of the light wines they are fond +of.--Hello, do you feel sick, child? You're white as a ghost. It's the +air. As soon as I can get hold of that sacrificed waiter we'll get +out of here." + +Eleanor's sickness was of the spirit, but at the moment she was +incapable of telling him so, incapable of any sort of speech. A great +wave of faintness encompassed her. She had broken her pledge. She had +lightly encouraged a departure from the blessings and principles of +total abstinence. + +That night in her bed she made a long and impassioned apology to her +Maker for the sin of intemperance into which she had been so +unwittingly betrayed. She promised Him that she would never drink +anything that came out of a bottle again. She reviewed sorrowfully her +many arguments with Albertina--Albertina in the flesh that is--on the +subject of bottled drinks in general, and decided that again that +virtuous child was right in her condemnation of any drink, however +harmless in appearance or nomenclature, that bore the stigma of a +bottled label. + +She knew, however, that something more than a prayer for forgiveness +was required of her. She was pledged to protest against the evil that +she had seemingly countenanced. She could not seek the sleep of the +innocent until that reparation was made. Through the crack of her +sagging door she saw the light from Jimmie's reading lamp and knew +that he was still dressed, or clothed at least, with a sufficient +regard for the conventionalities to permit her intrusion. She rose and +rebraided her hair and tied a daytime ribbon on it. Then she put on +her stockings and her blue Japanese kimono--real Japanese, as Aunt +Beulah explained, made for a Japanese lady of quality--and made her +way into the studio. + +Jimmie was not sitting in the one comfortable studio chair with his +book under the light and his feet on the bamboo tea table as usual. He +was not sitting up at all. He was flung on the couch with his face +buried in the cushions, and his shoulders were shaking. Eleanor seeing +him thus, forgot her righteous purpose, forgot her pledge to +disseminate the principles and blessings of abstinence, forgot +everything but the pitiful spectacle of her gallant Uncle Jimmie in +grief. She stood looking down at him without quite the courage to +kneel at his side to give him comfort. + +"Uncle Jimmie," she said, "Uncle Jimmie." + +At the sound of her voice he put out his hand to her, gropingly, but +he did not uncover his face or shift his position. She found herself +smoothing his hair, gingerly at first, but with more and more +conviction as he snuggled his boyish head closer. + +"I'm awfully discouraged," he said in a weak muffled voice. "I'm sorry +you caught me at it, Baby." + +Eleanor put her face down close to his as he turned it to her. + +"Everything will be all right," she promised him, "everything will be +all right. You'll soon get a job--tomorrow maybe." + +Then she gathered him close in her angular, tense little arms and held +him there tightly. "Everything will be all right," she repeated +soothingly; "now you just put your head here, and have your cry out." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TEN HUTCHINSONS + + +"My Aunt Margaret has a great many people living in her family," +Eleanor wrote to Albertina from her new address on Morningside +Heights. "She has a mother and a father, and two (2) grandparents, one +(1) aunt, one (1) brother, one (1) married lady and the boy of the +lady, I think the married lady is a sister but I do not ask any one, +oh--and another brother, who does not live here only on Saturdays and +Sundays. Aunt Margaret makes ten, and they have a man to wait on the +table. His name is a butler. I guess you have read about them in +stories. I am taken right in to be one of the family, and I have a +good time every day now. Aunt Margaret's father is a college teacher, +and Aunt Margaret's grandfather looks like the father of his country. +You know who I mean George Washington. They have a piano here that +plays itself like a sewing machine. They let me do it. They have +after-dinner coffee and gold spoons to it. I guess you would like to +see a gold spoon. I did. They are about the size of the tin spoons we +had in our playhouse. I have a lot of fun with that boy too. At first +I thought he was very affected, but that is just the way they teach +him to talk. He is nine and plays tricks on other people. He dares me +to do things that I don't do, like go down-stairs and steal sugar. If +Aunt Margaret's mother was my grandma I might steal sugar or plum +cake. I don't know. Remember the time we took your mother's hermits? I +do. I would like to see you. You would think this house was quite a +grand house. It has three (3) flights of stairs and one basement. I +sleep on the top floor in a dressing room out of Aunt Margaret's only +it isn't a dressing room. I dress there but no one else can. Aunt +Margaret is pretty and sings lovely. Uncle David comes here a lot. I +must close. With love and kisses." + + * * * * * + +In her diary she recorded some of the more intimate facts of her new +existence, such facts as she instinctively guarded from Albertina's +calculating sense. + + * * * * * + +"Everybody makes fun of me here. I don't care if they do, but I can't +eat so much at the table when every one is laughing at me. They get +me to talking and then they laugh. If I could see anything to laugh +at, I would laugh too. They laugh in a refined way but they laugh. +They call me Margaret's protegay. They are good to me too. They say to +my face that I am like a merry wilkins story and too good to be true, +and New England projuces lots of real art, and I am art, I can't +remember all the things, but I guess they mean well. Aunt Margaret's +grandfather sits at the head of the table, and talks about things I +never heard of before. He knows the govoner and does not like the way +he parts his hair. I thought all govoners did what they wanted to with +their hairs or anything and people had to like it because (I used to +spell because wrong but I spell better now) they was the govoners, but +it seems not at all. + +"Aunt Margaret is lovely to me. We have good times. I meant to like +Aunt Beulah the best because she has done the most for me but I am +afrayd I don't. I would not cross my heart and say so. Aunt Margaret +gives me the lessons now. I guess I learn most as much as I learned I +mean was taught of Aunt Beulah. Oh dear sometimes I get descouraged +on account of its being such a funny world and so many diferent people +in it. And so many diferent feelings. I was afrayd of the hired +butler, but I am not now." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor had not made a direct change from the Washington Square studio +to the ample house of the Hutchinsons, and it was as well for her that +a change in Jimmie's fortunes had taken her back to the Winchester and +enabled her to accustom herself again to the amenities of gentler +living. Like all sensitive and impressionable children she took on the +color of a new environment very quickly. The strain of her studio +experience had left her a little cowed and unsure of herself, but she +had brightened up like a flower set in the cheerful surroundings of +the Winchester and under the influence of Jimmie's restored spirits. + +The change had come about on Jimmie's "last day of grace." He had +secured the coveted position at the Perkins agency at a slight advance +over the salary he had received at the old place. He had left Eleanor +in the morning determined to face becomingly the disappointment that +was in store for him, and to accept the bitter necessity of admitting +his failure to his friends. He had come back in the late afternoon +with his fortunes restored, the long weeks of humiliation wiped out, +and his life back again on its old confident and inspired footing. + +He had burst into the studio with his news before he understood that +Eleanor was not alone, and inadvertently shared the secret with +Gertrude, who had been waiting for him with the kettle alight and some +wonderful cakes from "Henri's" spread out on the tea table. The three +had celebrated by dining together at a festive down-town hotel and +going back to his studio for coffee. At parting they had solemnly and +severally kissed one another. Eleanor lay awake in the dark for a long +time that night softly rubbing the cheek that had been so caressed, +and rejoicing that the drink Uncle Jimmie had called a high-ball and +had pledged their health with so assiduously, had come out of two +glasses instead of a bottle. + +Her life at the Hutchinsons' was almost like a life on another planet. +Margaret was the younger, somewhat delicate daughter of a family of +rather strident academics. Professor Hutchinson was not dependent on +his salary to defray the expenses of his elegant establishment, but +on his father, who had inherited from his father in turn the +substantial fortune on which the family was founded. + +Margaret was really a child of the fairies, but she was considerably +more fortunate in her choice of a foster family than is usually the +fate of the foundling. The rigorous altitude of intellect in which she +was reared served as a corrective to the oversensitive quality of her +imagination. + +Eleanor, who in the more leisurely moments of her life was given to +visitations from the poetic muse, was inspired to inscribe some lines +to her on one of the pink pages of the private diary. They ran as +follows, and even Professor Hutchinson, who occupied the chair of +English in that urban community of learning that so curiously bisects +the neighborhood of Harlem, could not have designated Eleanor's +description of his daughter as one that did not describe. + + "Aunt Margaret is fair and kind, + And very good and tender. + She has a very active mind. + Her figure is quite slender. + + "She moves around the room with grace, + Her hands she puts with quickness. + Although she wears upon her face + The shadow of a sickness." + +It was this "shadow of a sickness," that served to segregate Margaret +to the extent that was really necessary for her well being. To have +shared perpetually in the almost superhuman activities of the family +might have forever dulled that delicate spirit to which Eleanor came +to owe so much in the various stages of her development. + +Margaret put her arm about the child after the ordeal of the first +dinner at the big table. + +"Father does not bite," she said, "but Grandfather does. The others +are quite harmless. If Grandfather shows his teeth, run for your +life." + +"I don't know where to run to," Eleanor answered seriously, whereupon +Margaret hugged her. Her Aunt Margaret would have been puzzling to +Eleanor beyond any hope of extrication, but for the quick imagination +that unwound her riddles almost as she presented them. For one +terrible minute Eleanor had believed that Hugh Hutchinson senior did +bite, he looked so much like some of the worst of the pictures in +Little Red Riding Hood. + +"While you are here I'm going to pretend you're my very own child," +Margaret told Eleanor that first evening, "and we'll never, never tell +anybody all the foolish games we play and the things we say to each +other. I can just barely manage to be grown up in the bosom of my +family, and when I am in the company of your esteemed Aunt Beulah, but +up here in my room, Eleanor, I am never grown up. I play with dolls." + +"Oh! do you really?" + +"I really do," Margaret said. She opened a funny old chest in the +corner of the spacious, high studded chamber. "And here are some of +the dolls that I play with." She produced a manikin dressed primly +after the manner of eighteen-thirty, prim parted hair over a small +head festooned with ringlets, a fichu, and mits painted on her +fingers. "Beulah," she said with a mischievous flash of a grimace at +Eleanor. "Gertrude,"--a dashing young brunette in riding clothes. +"Jimmie,"--a curly haired dandy. "David,"--a serious creature with a +monocle. "I couldn't find Peter," she said, "but we'll make him some +day out of cotton and water colors." + +"Oh! can you make dolls?" Eleanor cried in delight, "real dolls with +hair and different colored eyes?" + +"I can make pretty good ones," Margaret smiled; "manikins like +these,--a Frenchwoman taught me." + +"Oh; did she? And do you play that the dolls talk to each other as if +they was--were the persons?" + +"Do I?" Margaret assembled the four manikins into a smart little +group. The doll Beulah rose,--on her forefinger. "I can't help +feeling," mimicked Margaret in a perfect reproduction of Beulah's +earnest contralto, "that we're wasting our lives,--criminally +dissipating our forces." + +The doll Gertrude put up both hands. "I want to laugh," she cried, +"won't everybody please stop talking till I've had my laugh out. Thank +you, thank you." + +"Why, that's just like Aunt Gertrude," Eleanor said. "Her voice has +that kind of a sound like a bell, only more ripply." + +"Don't be high-brow," Jimmie's lazy baritone besought with the slight +burring of the "r's" that Eleanor found so irresistible. "I'm only a +poor hard-working, business man." + +The doll David took the floor deliberately. "We intend to devote the +rest of our lives," he said, "to the care of our beloved cooperative +orphan." On that he made a rather over mannered exit, Margaret +planting each foot down deliberately until she flung him back in his +box. "That's the kind of a silly your Aunt Margaret is," she +continued, "but you mustn't ever tell anybody, Eleanor." She clasped +the child again in one of her warm, sudden embraces, and Eleanor +squeezing her shyly in return was altogether enraptured with her new +existence. + +"But there isn't any doll for _you_, Aunt Margaret," she cried. + +"Oh! yes, there is, but I wasn't going to show her to you unless you +asked, because she's so nice. I saved the prettiest one of all to be +myself, not because I believe I'm so beautiful, but--but only because +I'd like to be, Eleanor." + +"I always pretend I'm a princess," Eleanor admitted. + +The Aunt Margaret doll was truly a beautiful creation, a little more +like Marie Antoinette than her namesake, but bearing a not +inconsiderable resemblance to both, as Margaret pointed out, +judicially analyzing her features. + +Eleanor played with the rabbit doll only at night after this. In the +daytime she looked rather battered and ugly to eyes accustomed to the +delicate finish of creatures like the French manikins, but after she +was tucked away in her cot in the passion flower dressing-room--all of +Margaret's belongings and decorations were a faint, pinky +lavender,--her dear daughter Gwendolyn, who impersonated Albertina at +increasingly rare intervals as time advanced, lay in the hollow of her +arm and received her sacred confidences and ministrations as usual. + + * * * * * + +"When my two (2) months are up here I think I should be quite sorry," +she wrote in the diary, "except that I'm going to Uncle Peter next, +and him I would lay me down and dee for, only I never get time enough +to see him, and know if he wants me to, when I live with him I shall +know. Well life is very exciting all the time now. Aunt Margaret +brings me up this way. She tells me that she loves me and that I've +got beautiful eyes and hair and am sweet. She tells me that all the +time. She says she wants to love me up enough to last because I never +had love enough before. I like to be loved. Albertina never loves any +one, but on Cape Cod nobody loves anybody--not to say so anyway. If a +man is getting married they say he _likes_ that girl he is going to +marry. In New York they act as different as they eat. The Hutchinsons +act different from anybody. They do not know Aunt Margaret has adoptid +me. Nobody knows I am adoptid but me and my aunts and uncles. Miss +Prentis and Aunt Beulah's mother when she came home and all the +bohemiar ladies and all the ten Hutchinsons think I am a little +visiting girl from the country. It is nobody's business because I am +supported out of allowances and salaries, but it makes me feel queer +sometimes. I feel like + + "'Where did you come from, baby dear, + Out of the nowhere unto the here?' + +Also I made this up out of home sweet home. + + "'Pleasures and palaces where e'er I may roam, + Be it ever so humble I wish I had a home.' + +"I like having six homes, but I wish everybody knew it. I am nothing +to be ashamed of. Speaking of homes I asked Aunt Margaret why my aunts +and uncles did not marry each other and make it easier for every one. +She said they were not going to get married. That was why they adoptid +me. 'Am I the same thing as getting married?' I ast. She said no, I +wasn't except that I was a responsibility to keep them unselfish and +real. Aunt Beulah doesn't believe in marriage. She thinks its beneth +her. Aunt Margaret doesn't think she has the health. Aunt Gertrude has +to have a career of sculpture, Uncle David has got to marry some one +his mother says to or not at all, and does not like to marry anyway. +Uncle Jimmie never saw a happy mariage yet and thinks you have a beter +time in single blesedness. Uncle Peter did not sign in the book where +they said they would adopt me and not marry. They did not want to ask +him because he had some trouble once. I wonder what kind! Well I am +going to be married sometime. I want a house to do the housework in +and a husband and a backyard full of babies. Perhaps I would rather +have a hired butler and gold spoons. I don't know yet. Of course I +would like to have time to write poetry. I can sculpture too, but I +don't want a career of it because it's so dirty." + + * * * * * + +Physically Eleanor throve exceedingly during this phase of her +existence. The nourishing food and regular living, the sympathy +established between herself and Margaret, the régime of physical +exercise prescribed by Beulah which she had been obliged guiltily to +disregard during the strenuous days of her existence in Washington +Square, all contributed to the accentuation of her material +well-being. She played with Margaret's nephew, and ran up and down +stairs on errands for her mother. She listened to the tales related +for her benefit by the old people, and gravely accepted the attentions +of the two formidable young men of the family, who entertained her +with the pianola and excerpts from classic literature and folk lore. + + * * * * * + +"The We Are Sevens meet every Saturday afternoon," she wrote--on a +yellow page this time--"usually at Aunt Beulah's house. We have tea +and lots of fun. I am examined on what I have learned but I don't mind +it much. Physically I am found to be very good by measure and waite. +My mind is developing alright. I am very bright on the subject of +poetry. They do not know whether David Copperfield had been a wise +choice for me, but when I told them the story and talked about it they +said I had took it right. I don't tell them about the love part of +Aunt Margaret's bringing up. Aunt Beulah says it would make me self +conscioush to know that I had such pretty eyes and hair. Aunt Gertrude +said 'why not mention my teeth to me, then,' but no one seemed to +think so. Aunt Beulah says not to develope my poetry because the +theory is to strengthen the weak part of the bridge, and make me do +arithmetic. 'Drill on the deficiency,' she says. Well I should think +the love part was a deficiency, but Aunt Beulah thinks love is weak +and beneath her and any one. Uncle David told me privately that he +thought I was having the best that could happen to me right now being +with Aunt Margaret. I didn't tell him that the David doll always gets +put away in the box with the Aunt Margaret doll and nobody else ever, +but I should like to have. He thinks she is the best aunt too." + + * * * * * + +Some weeks later she wrote to chronicle a painful scene in which she +had participated. + + * * * * * + +"I quarreled with the ten Hutchinsons. I am very sorry. They laughed +at me too much for being a little girl and a Cape Codder, but they +could if they wanted to, but when they laughed at Aunt Margaret for +adopting me and the tears came in her eyes I could not bare it. I did +not let the cat out of the bag, but I made it jump out. The +Grandfather asked me when I was going back to Cape Cod, and I said I +hoped never, and then I said I was going to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt +Gertrude and Uncle David next. They said 'Uncle David--do you mean +David Bolling?' and I did, so I said 'yes.' Then all the Hutchinsons +pitched into Aunt Margaret and kept laughing and saying, 'Who is this +mysterious child anyway, and how is it that her guardians intrust her +to a crowd of scatter brain youngsters for so long?' and then they +said 'Uncle David Bolling--_what_ does his mother say?' Then Aunt +Margaret got very red in the face and the tears started to come, and I +said 'I am not a mysterious child, and my Uncle David is as much my +Uncle David as they all are,' and then I said 'My Aunt Margaret has +got a perfect right to have me intrusted to her at any time, and not +to be laughed at for it,' and I went and stood in front of her and +gave her my handkercheve. + +"Well I am glad somebody has been told that I am properly adoptid, but +I am sorry it is the ten Hutchinsons who know." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PETER + + +Uncle Peter treated her as if she were grown up; that was the +wonderful thing about her visit to him,--if there could be one thing +about it more wonderful than another. From the moment when he ushered +her into his friendly, low ceiled drawing-room with its tiers upon +tiers of book shelves, he admitted her on terms of equality to the +miraculous order of existence that it was the privilege of her life to +share. The pink silk coverlet and the elegance of the silver coated +steampipes at Beulah's; the implacable British stuffiness at the +Winchester which had had its own stolid charm for the lineal +descendant of the Pilgrim fathers; the impressively casual atmosphere +over which the "hired butler" presided distributing after-dinner gold +spoons, these impressions all dwindled and diminished and took their +insignificant place in the background of the romance she was living +and breathing in Peter's jewel box of an apartment on Thirtieth +Street. + +Even to more sophisticated eyes than Eleanor's the place seemed to be +a realized ideal of charm and homeliness. It was one of the older +fashioned duplex apartments designed in a more aristocratic decade for +a more fastidious generation, yet sufficiently adapted to the modern +insistence on technical convenience. Peter owed his home to his +married sister, who had discovered it and leased it and settled it and +suddenly departed for a five years' residence in China with her +husband, who was as she so often described him, "a blooming +Englishman, and an itinerant banker." Peter's domestic affairs were +despatched by a large, motherly Irishwoman, whom Eleanor approved of +on sight and later came to respect and adore without reservation. + +Peter's home was a home with a place in it for her--a place that it +was perfectly evident was better with her than without her. She even +slept in the bed that Peter's sister's little girl had occupied, and +there were pictures on the walls that had been selected for her. + +She had been very glad to make her escape from the Hutchinson +household. Her "quarrel" with them had made no difference in their +relation to her. To her surprise they treated her with an increase of +deference after her outburst, and every member of the family, +excepting possibly Hugh Hutchinson senior, was much more carefully +polite to her. Margaret explained that the family really didn't mind +having their daughter a party to the experiment of cooperative +parenthood. It appealed to them as a very interesting try-out of +modern educational theory, and their own theories of the independence +of the individual modified their criticism of Margaret's secrecy in +the matter, which was the only criticism they had to make since +Margaret had an income of her own accruing from the estate of the aunt +for whom she had been named. + +"It is very silly of me to be sensitive about being laughed at," +Margaret concluded. "I've lived all my life surrounded by people +suffering from an acute sense of humor, but I never, never, never +shall get used to being held up to ridicule for things that are not +funny to me." + +"I shouldn't think you would," Eleanor answered devoutly. + +In Peter's house there was no one to laugh at her but Peter, and when +Peter laughed she considered it a triumph. It meant that there was +something she said that he liked. The welcome she had received as a +guest in his house and the wonderful evening that succeeded it were +among the epoch making hours in Eleanor's life. It had happened in +this wise. + +The Hutchinson victoria, for Grandmother Hutchinson still clung to the +old-time, stately method of getting about the streets of New York, had +left her at Peter's door at six o'clock of a keen, cool May evening. +Margaret had not been well enough to come with her, having been +prostrated by one of the headaches of which she was a frequent +victim. + +The low door of ivory white, beautifully carved and paneled, with its +mammoth brass knocker, the row of window boxes along the cornice a few +feet above it, the very look of the house was an experience and an +adventure to her. When she rang, the door opened almost instantly +revealing Peter on the threshold with his arms open. He had led her up +two short flights of stairs--ivory white with carved banisters, she +noticed, all as immaculately shining with soap and water as a Cape Cod +interior--to his own gracious drawing-room where Mrs. Finnigan was +bowing and smiling a warmhearted Irish welcome to her. It was like a +wonderful story in a book and her eyes were shining with joy as Uncle +Peter pulled out her chair and she sat down to the first meal in her +honor. The grown up box of candy at her plate, the grave air with +which Peter consulted her tastes and her preferences were all a part +of a beautiful magic that had never quite touched her before. + +She had been like a little girl in a dream passing dutifully or +delightedly through the required phases of her experience, never quite +believing in its permanence or reality; but her life with Uncle Peter +was going to be real, and her own. That was what she felt the moment +she stepped over his threshold. + +After their coffee before the open fire--she herself had had "cambric" +coffee--Peter smoked his cigar, while she curled up in silence in the +twin to his big cushioned chair and sampled her chocolates. The blue +flames skimmed the bed of black coals, and finally settled steadily at +work on them nibbling and sputtering until the whole grate was like a +basket full of molten light, glowing and golden as the hot sun when it +sinks into the sea. + +Except to offer her the ring about his slender Panatela, and to ask +her if she were happy, Peter did not speak until he had deliberately +crushed out the last spark from his stub and thrown it into the fire. +The ceremony over, he held out his arms to her and she slipped into +them as if that moment were the one she had been waiting for ever +since the white morning looked into the window of the lavender +dressing-room on Morningside Heights, and found her awake and quite +cold with the excitement of thinking of what the day was to bring +forth. + +"Eleanor," Peter said, when he was sure she was comfortably arranged +with her head on his shoulder, "Eleanor, I want you to feel at home +while you are here, really at home, as if you hadn't any other home, +and you and I belonged to each other. I'm almost too young to be your +father, but--" + +"Oh! are you?" Eleanor asked fervently, as he paused. + +"--But I can come pretty near feeling like a father to you if it's a +father you want. I lost my own father when I was a little older than +you are now, but I had my dear mother and sister left, and so I don't +know what it's like to be all alone in the world, and I can't always +understand exactly how you feel, but you must always remember that I +want to understand and that I will understand if you tell me. Will you +remember that, Eleanor?" + +"Yes, Uncle Peter," she said soberly; then perhaps for the first time +since her babyhood she volunteered a caress that was not purely +maternal in its nature. She put up a shy hand to the cheek so close to +her own and patted it earnestly. "Of course I've got my grandfather +and grandmother," she argued, "but they're very old, and not very +affectionate, either. Then I have all these new aunts and uncles +pretending," she was penetrating to the core of the matter, Peter +realized, "that they're just as good as parents. Of course, they're +just as good as they can be and they take so much trouble that it +mortifies me, but it isn't just the same thing, Uncle Peter!" + +"I know," Peter said, "I know, dear, but you must remember we mean +well." + +"I don't mean you; it isn't you that I think of when I think about my +co--co-woperative parents, and it isn't any of them specially,--it's +just the idea of--of visiting around, and being laughed at, and not +really belonging to anybody." + +Peter's arms tightened about her. + +"Oh! but you do belong, you do belong. You belong to me, Eleanor." + +"That was what I hoped you would say, Uncle Peter," she whispered. + +They had a long talk after this, discussing the past and the future; +the past few months of the experiment from Eleanor's point of view, +and the future in relation to its failures and successes. Beulah was +to begin giving her lessons again and she was to take up music with a +visiting teacher on Peter's piano. (Eleanor had not known it was a +piano at first, as she had never seen a baby grand before. Peter did +not know what a triumph it was when she made herself put the question +to him.) + +"If my Aunt Beulah could teach me as much as she does and make it as +interesting as Aunt Margaret does, I think I would make her feel very +proud of me," Eleanor said. "I get so nervous saving energy the way +Aunt Beulah says for me to that I forget all the lesson. Aunt Margaret +tells too many stories, I guess, but I like them." + +"Your Aunt Margaret is a child of God," Peter said devoutly, "in spite +of her raw-boned, intellectual family." + +"Uncle David says she's a daughter of the fairies." + +"She's that, too. When Margaret's a year or two older you won't feel +the need of a mother." + +"I don't now," said Eleanor; "only a father,--that I want you to be, +the way you promised." + +"That's done," Peter said. Then he continued musingly, "You'll find +Gertrude--different. I can't quite imagine her presiding over your +moral welfare but I think she'll be good at it. She's a good deal of a +person, you know." + +"Aunt Beulah's a good kind of person, too," Eleanor said; "she tries +hard. The only thing is that she keeps trying to make me express +myself, and I don't know what that means." + +"Let me see if I can tell you," said Peter. "Self-expression is a part +of every man's duty. Inside we are all trying to be good and true and +fine--" + +"Except the villains," Eleanor interposed. "People like Iago aren't +trying." + +"Well, we'll make an exception of the villains; we're talking of +people like us, pretty good people with the right instincts. Well +then, if all the time we're trying to be good and true and fine, we +carry about a blank face that reflects nothing of what we are feeling +and thinking, the world is a little worse off, a little duller and +heavier place for what is going on inside of us." + +"Well, how can we make it better off then?" Eleanor inquired +practically. + +"By not thinking too much about it for one thing, except to remember +to smile, by trying to be just as much at home in it as possible, by +letting the kind of person we are trying to be show through on the +outside. By gosh! I wish Beulah could hear me." + +"By just not being bashful, do you mean?" + +"That's the idea." + +"Well, when Aunt Beulah makes me do those dancing exercises, standing +up in the middle of the floor and telling me to be a flower and +express myself as a flower, does she just mean not to be bashful?" + +"Something like that: she means stop thinking of yourself and go +ahead--" + +"But how can I go ahead with her sitting there watching?" + +"I suppose I ought to tell you to imagine that you had the soul of a +flower, but I haven't the nerve." + +"You've got nerve enough to do anything," Eleanor assured him, but she +meant it admiringly, and seriously. + +"I haven't the nerve to go on with a moral conversation in which you +are getting the better of me at every turn," Peter laughed. "I'm sure +it's unintentional, but you make me feel like a good deal of an ass, +Eleanor." + +"That means a donkey, doesn't it?" + +"It does, and by jove, I believe that you're glad of it." + +"I do rather like it," said Eleanor; "of course you don't really feel +like a donkey to me. I mean I don't make you feel like one, but it's +funny just pretending that you mean it." + +"Oh! woman, woman," Peter cried. "Beulah tried to convey something of +the fact that you always got the better of every one in your modest +unassuming way, but I never quite believed it before. At any rate it's +bedtime, and here comes Mrs. Finnigan to put you to bed. Kiss me good +night, sweetheart." + +Eleanor flung her arms about his neck, in her first moment of +abandonment to actual emotional self-expression if Peter had only +known it. + +"I will never really get the better of you in my life, Uncle Peter," +she promised him passionately. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE OMNISCIENT FOCUS + + +One of the traditional prerogatives of an Omnipotent Power is to look +down at the activities of earth at any given moment and ascertain +simultaneously the occupation of any number of people. Thus the Arch +Creator--that Being of the Supreme Artistic Consciousness--is able to +peer into segregated interiors at His own discretion and watch the +plot thicken and the drama develop. Eleanor, who often visualized this +proceeding, always imagined a huge finger projecting into space, +cautiously tilting the roofs of the Houses of Man to allow the sweep +of the Invisible Glance. + +Granting the hypothesis of the Divine privilege, and assuming for the +purposes of this narrative the Omniscient focus on the characters most +concerned in it, let us for the time being look over the shoulder of +God and inform ourselves of their various occupations and +preoccupations of a Saturday afternoon in late June during the hour +before dinner. + +Eleanor, in her little white chamber on Thirtieth Street, was engaged +in making a pink and green toothbrush case for a going-away gift for +her Uncle Peter. To be sure she was going away with him when he +started for the Long Island beach hotel from which he proposed to +return every day to his office in the city, but she felt that a slight +token of her affection would be fitting and proper on the eve of their +joint departure. She was hurrying to get it done that she might steal +softly into the dining-room and put it on his plate undetected. Her +eyes were very wide, her brow intent and serious, and her delicate +lips lightly parted. At that moment she bore a striking resemblance to +the Botticelli head in Beulah's drawing-room that she had so greatly +admired. + +Of all the people concerned in her history, she was the most +tranquilly occupied. + +Peter in the room beyond was packing his trunk and his suit-case. At +this precise stage of his proceedings he was trying to make two +decisions, equally difficult, but concerned with widely different +departments of his consciousness. He was gravely considering whether +or not to include among his effects the photograph before him on the +dressing-table--that of the girl to whom he had been engaged from the +time he was a Princeton sophomore until her death four years +later--and also whether or not it would be worth his while to order a +new suit of white flannels so late in the season. The fact that he +finally decided against the photograph and in favor of the white +flannels has nothing to do with the relative importance of the two +matters thus engrossing him. The health of the human mind depends +largely on its ability to assemble its irrelevant and incongruous +problems in dignified yet informal proximity. When he went to his desk +it was with the double intention of addressing a letter to his tailor, +and locking the cherished photograph in a drawer; but, the letter +finished, he still held the picture in his hand and gazed down at it +mutely and when the discreet knock on his door that constituted the +announcing of dinner came, he was still sitting motionless with the +photograph propped up before him. + +Up-town, Beulah, whose dinner hour came late, was rather more +actively, though possibly not more significantly, occupied. She was +doing her best to evade the wild onslaught of a young man in glasses +who had been wanting to marry her for a considerable period, and had +now broken all bounds in a cumulative attempt to inform her of the +fact. + +Though he was assuredly in no condition to listen to reason, Beulah +was reasoning with him, kindly and philosophically, paying earnest +attention to the style and structure of her remarks as she did so. Her +emotions, as is usual on such occasions, were decidedly mixed. She was +conscious of a very real dismay at her unresponsiveness, a distress +for the acute pain from which the distraught young man seemed to be +suffering, and the thrill, which had she only known it, is the +unfailing accompaniment to the first eligible proposal of marriage. In +the back of her brain there was also, so strangely is the human mind +constituted, a kind of relief at being able to use mature logic once +more, instead of the dilute form of moral dissertation with which she +tried to adapt herself to Eleanor's understanding. + +"I never intend to marry any one," she was explaining gently. "I not +only never intend to, but I am pledged in a way that I consider +irrevocably binding never to marry,"--and that was the text from which +all the rest of her discourse developed. + +Jimmie, equally bound by the oath of celibacy, but not equally +constrained by it apparently, was at the very moment when Beulah was +so successfully repulsing the familiarity of the high cheek-boned +young man in the black and white striped tie, occupied in encouraging +a familiarity of a like nature. That is, he was holding the hand of a +young woman in the darkened corner of a drawing-room which had been +entirely unfamiliar to him ten days before, and was about to impress a +caress on lips that seemed to be ready to meet his with a certain +degree of accustomed responsiveness. That this was not a peculiarly +significant incident in Jimmie's career might have been difficult to +explain, at least to the feminine portion of the group of friends he +cared most for. + +Margaret, dressed for an academic dinner party, in white net with a +girdle of pale pink and lavender ribbons, had flung herself face +downward on her bed in reckless disregard of her finery; and because +it was hot and she was homesick for green fields and the cool +stretches of dim wooded country, had transported herself in fancy and +still in her recumbent attitude to the floor of a canoe that was +drifting down-stream between lush banks of meadow grass studded with +marsh lilies. After some interval--and shift of position--the way was +arched overhead with whispering trees, the stars came out one by one, +showing faintly between waving branches; and she perceived dimly that +a figure that was vaguely compounded of David and Peter and the +handsomest of all the young kings of Spain, had quietly taken its +place in the bow and had busied itself with the paddles,--whereupon +she was summoned to dinner, where the ten Hutchinsons and their guests +were awaiting her. + +David, the only member of the group whose summer vacation had actually +begun, was sitting on the broad veranda of an exclusive country club +several hundreds of miles away from New York and looking soberly into +the eyes of a blue ribbon bull dog, whose heavy jowl rested on his +knees. His mother, in one of the most fashionable versions of the +season's foulards, sleekly corseted and coifed, was sitting less than +a hundred yards away from him, fanning herself with three inches of +hand woven fan and contemplating David. In the dressing-room above, +just alighted from a limousine de luxe, was a raven-haired, +crafty-eyed ingénue (whose presence David did not suspect or he would +have recollected a sudden pressing engagement out of her vicinity), +preening herself for conquest. David's mind, unlike the minds of the +"other gifted members of the We Are Seven Club," to quote Jimmie's +most frequent way of referring to them, was to all intents and +purposes a total blank. He answered monosyllabically his mother's +questions, patted the dog's beetling forehead and thought of nothing +at all for practically forty-five minutes. Then he rose, and offering +his arm to his mother led her gravely to the table reserved for him in +the dining-room. + +Gertrude, in her studio at the top of the house in Fifty-sixth Street +where she lived with her parents, was putting the finishing touches on +a faun's head; and a little because she had unconsciously used +Jimmie's head for her model, and a little because of her conscious +realization at this moment that the roughly indicated curls over the +brow were like nobody's in the world but Jimmie's, she was thinking of +him seriously. She was thinking also of the dinner on a tray that +would presently be brought up to her, since her mother and father were +out of town, and of her coming two months with Eleanor and her recent +inspiration concerning them. + +In Colhassett, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the dinner hour and even the +supper hour were long past. In the commodious kitchen of Eleanor's +former home two old people were sitting in calico valanced rockers, +one by either window. The house was a pleasant old colonial structure, +now badly run down but still marked with that distinction that only +the instincts of aristocracy can bestow upon a decaying habitation. + +A fattish child made her way up the walk, toeing out unnecessarily, +and let herself in by the back door without knocking. + +"Hello, Mis' Chase and Mr. Amos," she said, seating herself in a +straight backed, yellow chair, and swinging her crossed foot +nonchalantly, "I thought I would come in to inquire about Eleanor. Ma +said that she heard that she was coming home to live again. Is she, +Mr. Amos?" + +Albertina was not a peculiar favorite of Eleanor's grandfather. Amos +Chase had ideas of his own about the proper bringing up of children, +and the respect due from them to their elders. Also Albertina's father +had come from "poor stock." There was a strain of bad blood in her. +The women of the Weston families hadn't always "behaved themselves." +He therefore answered this representative of the youngest generation +rather shortly. + +"I don't know nothing about it," he said. + +"Why, father," the querulous old voice of Grandmother Chase protested, +"you know she's comin' home somewhere 'bout the end of July, she and +one of her new aunties and a hired girl they're bringing along to do +the work. I don't see why you can't answer the child's question." + +"I don't know as I'm obligated to answer any questions that anybody +sees fit to put to me." + +"Well, I _be_. Albertina, pass me my glasses from off the +mantel-tree-shelf, and that letter sticking out from behind the clock +and I'll read what she says." + +Albertina, with a reproachful look at Mr. Amos, who retired coughing +exasperatedly behind a paper that he did not read, allowed herself to +be informed through the medium of a letter from Gertrude and a +postscript from Eleanor of the projected invasion of the Chase +household. + +"I should think you'd rather have Eleanor come home by herself than +bringing a strange woman and a hired girl," Albertina contributed a +trifle tartly. The distinction of a hired girl in the family was one +which she had long craved on her own account. + +"All nonsense, I call it," the old man ejaculated. + +"Well, Eleena, she writes that she can't get away without one of 'em +comin' along with her and I guess we can manage someways. I dunno what +work city help will make in this kitchen. You can't expect much from +city help. They ain't clean like home folks. I shall certainly be +dretful pleased to see Eleena, and so will her grandpa--in spite o' +the way he goes on about it." + +A snort came from the region of the newspaper. + +"I shouldn't think you'd feel as if you had a grandchild now that six +rich people has adopted her," Albertina suggested helpfully. + +"It's a good thing for the child," her grandmother said. "I'm so lame +I couldn't do my duty by her. Old folks is old folks, and they can't +do for others like young ones. I'd d'ruther have had her adopted by +one father and mother instead o' this passel o' young folks passing +her around among themselves, but you can't have what you'd d'ruther +have in this world. You got to take what comes and be thankful." + +"Did she write you about having gold coffee spoons at her last place?" +Albertina asked. "I think they was probably gilded over like ice-cream +spoons, and she didn't know the difference. I guess she has got a lot +of new clothes. Well, I'll have to be getting along. I'll come in +again." + +At the precise moment that the door closed behind Albertina, the clock +in Peter Stuyvesant's apartment in New York struck seven and Eleanor, +in a fresh white dress and blue ribbons, slipped into her chair at the +dinner table and waited with eyes blazing with excitement for Peter to +make the momentous discovery of the gift at his plate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +GERTRUDE HAS TROUBLE WITH HER BEHAVIOR + + +"Dear Uncle Peter," Eleanor wrote from Colhassett when she had been +established there under the new régime for a week or more. "I slapped +Albertina's face. I am very awfully sorry, but I could not help it. +Don't tell Aunt Margaret because it is so contrary to her teachings +and also the golden rule, but she was more contrary to the golden rule +that I was. I mean Albertina. What do you think she said? She said +Aunt Gertrude was homely and an old maid, and the hired girl was +homely too. Well, I think she is, but I am not going to have Albertina +think so. Aunt Gertrude is pretty with those big eyes and ink like +hair and lovely teeth and one dimple. Albertina likes hair fuzzed all +over faces and blonds. Then she said she guessed I wasn't your +favorite, and that the gold spoons were most likely tin gilded over. I +don't know what you think about slapping. Will you please write and +say what you think? You know I am anxsuch to do well. But I think I +know as much as Albertina about some things. She uster treat me like a +dog, but it is most a year now since I saw her before. + +"Well, here we are, Aunt Gertrude and me, too. Grandpa did not like +her at first. She looked so much like summer folks, and acted that +way, too. He does not agree with summer folks, but she got him talking +about foreign parts and that Spanish girl that made eyes at him, and +nearly got him away from Grandma, and the time they were wrecked going +around the horn, and showing her dishes and carvings from China. Now +he likes her first rate. She laughs all the time. Grandma likes her +too, but not when Grandpa tells her about that girl in Spain. + +"We eat in the dining-room, and have lovely food, only Grandpa does +not like it, but we have him a pie now for breakfast,--his own pie +that he can eat from all the time and he feels better. Aunt Gertrude +is happy seeing him eat it for breakfast and claps her hands when he +does it, only he doesn't see her. + +"She is teaching me more manners, and to swim, and some French. It is +vacation and I don't have regular lessons, the way I did while we +were on Long Island. + +"Didn't we have a good time in that hotel? Do you remember the night I +stayed up till ten o'clock and we sat on the beach and talked? I do. I +love you very much. I think it is nice to love anybody. Only I miss +you. I would miss you more if I believed what Albertina said about my +not being your favorite. I am. + +"I wish you could come down here. Uncle Jimmie is coming and then I +don't know what Albertina will say. + +"About teaching me. Aunt Gertrude's idea of getting me cultivated is +to read to me from the great Masters of literature and funny books +too, like Mark Twain and the Nonsense Thology. Then I say what I think +of them, and she just lets me develop along those lines, which is +pretty good for summer. + +"Here is a poem I wrote. I love you best. + + "The sun and wind are on the sea, + The waves are clear and blue, + This is the place I like to be, + If I could just have you. + + "The insects chirrup in the grass, + The birds sing in the tree, + And oh! how quick the time would pass + If you were here with me." + +"What do you think of slapping, Aunt Gertrude?" Eleanor asked one +evening when they were walking along the hard beach that the receding +tide had left cool and firm for their pathway, and the early moon had +illumined for them. "Do you think it's awfully bad to slap any one?" + +"I wouldn't slap you, if that's what you mean, Eleanor." + +"Would you slap somebody your own size and a little bigger?" + +"I might under extreme provocation." + +"I thought perhaps you would," Eleanor sighed with a gasp of relieved +satisfaction. + +"I don't believe in moral suasion entirely, Eleanor," Gertrude tried +to follow Eleanor's leads, until she had in some way satisfied the +child's need for enlightenment on the subject under discussion. It was +not always simple to discover just what Eleanor wanted to know, but +Gertrude had come to believe that there was always some excellent +reason for her wanting to know it. "I think there are some quarrels +that have to be settled by physical violence." + +Eleanor nodded. Then, + +"What about refinement?" she asked unexpectedly. "I want to bring +myself up good when--when all of my aunts and uncles are too busy, or +don't know. I want to grow up, and be ladylike and a credit, and I'm +getting such good culture that I think I ought to, but--I get worried +about my refinement. City refinement is different from country +refinement." + +"Refinement isn't a thing that you can worry about," Gertrude began +slowly. She realized perhaps better than any of the others, being a +better balanced, healthier creature than either Beulah or Margaret, +that there were serious defects in the scheme of cooperative +parentage. Eleanor, thanks to the overconscientious digging about her +roots, was acquiring a New England self-consciousness about her +processes. A child, Gertrude felt, should be handed a code ready made +and should be guided by it without question until his maturer +experience led him to modify it. The trouble with trying to explain +this to Eleanor was that she had already had too many things +explained to her, and the doctrine of unselfconsciousness can not be +inculcated by an exploitation of it. "If you are naturally a fine +person your instinct will be to do the fine thing. You must follow it +when you feel the instinct and not think about it between times." + +"That's Uncle Peter's idea," Eleanor said, "that not thinking. Well, +I'll try--but you and Uncle Peter didn't have six different parents +and a Grandpa and Grandma and Albertina all criticizing your +refinement in different ways. Don't you ever have any trouble with +your behavior, Aunt Gertrude?" + +Gertrude laughed. The truth was that she was having considerable +trouble with her behavior since Jimmie's arrival two days before. She +had thought to spend her two months with Eleanor on Cape Cod helping +the child to relate her new environment to her old, while she had the +benefit of her native air and the freedom of a rural summer. She also +felt that one of their number ought to have a working knowledge of +Eleanor's early surroundings and habits. She had meant to put herself +and her own concerns entirely aside. If she had a thought for any one +but Eleanor she meant it to be for the two old people whose guest she +had constituted herself. She explained all this to Jimmie a day or two +before her departure, and to her surprise he had suggested that he +spend his own two vacation weeks watching the progress of her +experiment. Before she was quite sure of the wisdom of allowing him to +do so she had given him permission to come. Jimmie was part of her +trouble. Her craving for isolation and undiscovered country; her +eagerness to escape with her charge to some spot where she would not +be subjected to any sort of familiar surveillance, were all a part of +an instinct to segregate herself long enough to work out the problem +of Jimmie and decide what to do about it. This she realized as soon as +he arrived on the spot. She realized further that she had made +practically no progress in the matter, for this curly headed young +man, bearing no relation to anything that Gertrude had decided a young +man should be, was rapidly becoming a serious menace to her peace of +mind, and her ideal of a future lived for art alone. She had +definitely begun to realize this on the night when Jimmie, in his +exuberance at securing his new job, had seized her about the waist and +kissed her on the lips. She had thought a good deal about that kiss, +which came dangerously near being her first one. She was too clever, +too cool and aloof, to have had many tentative love-affairs. Later, as +she softened and warmed and gathered grace with the years she was +likely to seem more alluring and approachable to the gregarious male. +Now she answered her small interlocutor truthfully. + +"Yes, Eleanor, I do have a whole lot of trouble with my behavior. I'm +having trouble with it today, and this evening," she glanced up at the +moon, which was seemingly throwing out conscious waves of effulgence, +"I expect to have more," she confessed. + +"Oh! do you?" asked Eleanor, "I'm sorry I can't sit up with you then +and help you. You--you don't expect to be--provocated to _slap_ +anybody, do you?" + +"No, I don't, but as things are going I almost wish I did," Gertrude +answered, not realizing that before the evening was over there would +be one person whom she would be ruefully willing to slap several times +over. + +As they turned into the village street from the beach road they met +Jimmie, who had been having his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather +Amos, with whom he had become a prime favorite. With him was +Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing more than +blandly. + +"This virtuous child has been urging me to come after Eleanor and +remind her that it is bedtime," Jimmie said, indicating the pink +gingham clad figure at his side. "She argues that Eleanor is some six +months younger than she and ought to be in bed first, and personally +she has got to go in the next fifteen minutes." + +"It's pretty hot weather to go to bed in," Albertina said. "Miss +Sturgis, if I can get my mother to let me stay up half an hour more, +will you let Eleanor stay up?" + +Just beyond her friend, in the shadow of her ample back, Eleanor was +making gestures intended to convey the fact that sitting up any longer +was abhorrent to her. + +"Eleanor needs her sleep to-night, I think," Gertrude answered, +professionally maternal. + +"I brought Albertina so that our child might go home under convoy, +while you and I were walking on the beach," Jimmie suggested. + +As the two little girls fell into step, the beginning of their +conversation drifted back to the other two, who stood watching them +for a moment. + +"I thought I'd come over to see if you was willing to say you were +sorry," Albertina began. "My face stayed red in one spot for two hours +that day after you slapped me." + +"I'm not sorry," Eleanor said ungraciously, "but I'll say that I am, +if you've come to make up." + +"Well, we won't say any more about it then," Albertina conceded. "Are +Miss Sturgis and Mr. Sears going together, or are they just friends?" + +"Isn't that Albertina one the limit?" Jimmie inquired, with a piloting +hand under Gertrude's elbow. "She told me that she and Eleanor were +mad, but she didn't want to stay mad because there was more going on +over here than there was at her house and she liked to come over." + +"I'm glad Eleanor slapped her," Gertrude said; "still I'm sorry our +little girl has uncovered the clay feet of her idol. She's through +with Albertina for good." + +"Do you know, Gertrude," Jimmy said, as they set foot on the +glimmering beach, "you don't seem a bit natural lately. You used to be +so full of the everlasting mischief. Every time you opened your mouth +I dodged for fear of being spiked. Yet here you are just as docile as +other folks." + +"Don't you like me--as well?" Gertrude tried her best to make her +voice sound as usual. + +"Better," Jimmie swore promptly; then he added a qualifying--"I +guess." + +"Don't you know?" But she didn't allow him the opportunity to answer. +"I'm in a transition period, Jimmie," she said. "I meant to be such a +good parent to Eleanor and correct all the evil ways into which she +has fallen as a result of all her other injudicious training, and, +instead of that, I'm doing nothing but think of myself and my own +hankerings and yearnings and such. I thought I could do so much for +the child." + +"That's the way we all think till we tackle her and then we find it +quite otherwise and even more so. Tell me about your hankerings and +yearnings." + +"Tell me about your job, Jimmie." + +And for a little while they found themselves on safe and familiar +ground again. Jimmie's new position was a very satisfactory one. He +found himself associated with men of solidity and discernment, and for +the first time in his business career he felt himself appreciated and +stimulated by that appreciation to do his not inconsiderable best. +Gertrude was the one woman--Eleanor had not yet attained the inches +for that classification--to whom he ever talked business. + +"Now, at last, I feel that I've got my feet on the earth, Gertrude; as +if the stuff that was in me had a chance to show itself, and you don't +know what a good feeling that is after you've been marked trash by +your family and thrown into the dust heap." + +"I'm awfully glad, Jimmie." + +"I know you are, 'Trude. You're an awfully good pal. It isn't +everybody I'd talk to like this. Let's sit down." + +The moonlight beat down upon them in floods of sentient palpitating +glory. Little breathy waves sought the shore and whispered to it. The +pines on the breast of the bank stirred softly and tenderly. + +"Lord, what a night," Jimmie said, and began burying her little white +hand in the beach sand. His breath was not coming quite evenly. "Now +tell me about your job," he said. + +"I don't think I want to talk about my job tonight." + +"What do you want to talk about?" + +"I don't know." There was no question about her voice sounding as +usual this time. + +Jimmie brushed the sand slowly away from the buried hand and covered +it with his own. He drew nearer, his face close, and closer to hers. +Gertrude closed her eyes. It was coming, it was coming and she was +glad. That silly old vow of celibacy, her silly old thoughts about +art. What was art? What was anything with the arms of the man you +loved closing about you. His lips were on hers. + +Jimmie drew a sharp breath, and let her go. + +"Gertrude," he said, "I'm incorrigible. I ought to be spanked. I'd +make love to--Eleanor's grandmother if I had her down here on a night +like this. Will you forgive me?" + +Gertrude got to her feet a little unsteadily, but she managed a +smile. + +"It's only the moon," she said, "and--and young blood. I think +Grandfather Amos would probably affect me the same way." + +Jimmie's momentary expression of blankness passed and Gertrude did not +press her advantage. They walked home in silence. + +"It's awfully companionable to realize that you also are human, +'Trude," he hazarded on the doorstep. + +Gertrude put a still hand into his, which is a way of saying "Good +night," that may be more formal than any other. + +"The Colonel's lady, and July O'Grady," she quoted lightly. "Good +night, Jimmie." + +Up-stairs in her great chamber under the eaves, Eleanor was composing +a poem which she copied carefully on a light blue page of her private +diary. It read as follows: + + "To love, it is the saddest thing, + When friendship proves unfit, + For lots of sadness it will bring, + When e'er you think of it. + + Alas! that friends should prove untrue + And disappoint you so. + Because you don't know what to do, + And hardly where to go." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MADAM BOLLING + + +"Is this the child, David?" + +"Yes, mother." + +Eleanor stared impassively into the lenses of Mrs. Bolling's +lorgnette. + +"This is my mother, Eleanor." + +Eleanor courtesied as her Uncle Jimmie had taught her, but she did not +take her eyes from Mrs. Bolling's face. + +"Not a bad-looking child. I hate this American fashion of dressing +children like French dolls, in bright colors and smart lines. The +English are so much more sensible. An English country child would have +cheeks as red as apples. How old are you?" + +"Eleven years old my next birthday." + +"I should have thought her younger, David. Have her call me madam. It +sounds better." + +"Very well, mother. I'll teach her the ropes when the strangeness +begins to wear off. This kind of thing is all new to her, you know." + +"She looks it. Give her the blue chamber and tell Mademoiselle to +take charge of her. You say you want her to have lessons for so many +hours a day. Has she brains?" + +"She's quite clever. She writes verses, she models pretty well, +Gertrude says. It's too soon to expect any special aptitude to +develop." + +"Well, I'm glad to discover your philanthropic tendencies, David. I +never knew you had any before, but this seems to me a very doubtful +undertaking. You take a child like this from very plain surroundings +and give her a year or two of life among cultivated and well-to-do +people, just enough for her to acquire a taste for extravagant living +and associations. Then what becomes of her? You get tired of your +bargain. Something else comes on the docket. You marry--and then what +becomes of your protégée? She goes back to the country, a thoroughly +unsatisfied little rustic, quite unfitted to be the wife of the farmer +for whom fate intended her." + +"I wish you wouldn't, mother," David said, with an uneasy glance at +Eleanor's pale face, set in the stoic lines he remembered so well from +the afternoon of his first impression of her. "She's a sensitive +little creature." + +"Nonsense. It never hurts anybody to have a plain understanding of his +position in the world. I don't know what foolishness you romantic +young people may have filled her head with. It's just as well she +should hear common sense from me and I intend that she shall." + +"I've explained to you, mother, that this child is my legal and moral +responsibility and will be partly at least under my care until she +becomes of age. I want her to be treated as you'd treat a child of +mine if I had one. If you don't, I can't have her visit us again. I +shall take her away with me somewhere. Bringing her home to you this +time is only an experiment." + +"She'll have a much more healthful and normal experience with us than +she's had with any of the rest of your violent young set, I'll be +bound. She'll probably be useful, too. She can look out for Zaidee--I +never say that name without irritation--but it's the only name the +little beast will answer to. Do you like dogs, child?" + +Eleanor started at the suddenness of the question, but did not reply +to it. Mrs. Bolling waited and David looked at her expectantly. + +"My mother asked you if you liked dogs, Eleanor; didn't you +understand?" + +Eleanor opened her lips as if to speak and then shut them again +firmly. + +"Your protégée is slightly deaf, David," his mother assured him. + +"You can tell her 'yes,'" Eleanor said unexpectedly to David. "I like +dogs, if they ain't treacherous." + +"She asked you the question," David said gravely; "this is her house, +you know. It is she who deserves consideration in it." + +"Why can't I talk to you about her, the way she does about me?" +Eleanor demanded. "She can have consideration if she wants it, but she +doesn't think I'm any account. Let her ask you what she wants and I'll +tell you." + +"Eleanor," David remonstrated, "Eleanor, you never behaved like this +before. I don't know what's got into her, mother." + +"She merely hasn't any manners. Why should she have?" + +Eleanor fixed her big blue eyes on the lorgnette again. + +"If it's manners to talk the way you do to your own children and +strange little girls, why, then I don't want any," she said. "I guess +I'll be going," she added abruptly and turned toward the door. + +David took her by the shoulders and brought her right about face. + +"Say good-by to mother," he said sternly. + +"Good-by, ma'am--madam," Eleanor said and courtesied primly. + +"Tell Mademoiselle to teach her a few things before the next audience, +David, and come back to me in fifteen minutes. I have something +important to talk over with you." + +David stood by the open door of the blue chamber half an hour later +and watched Eleanor on her knees, repacking her suit-case. Her face +was set in pale determined lines, and she looked older and a little +sick. Outside it was blowing a September gale, and the trees were +waving desperate branches in the wind. David had thought that the +estate on the Hudson would appeal to the little girl. It had always +appealed to him so much, even though his mother's habits of migration +with the others of her flock at the different seasons had left him so +comparatively few associations with it. He had thought she would like +the broad sweeping lawns and the cherubim fountain, the apple orchard +and the kitchen garden, and the funny old bronze dog at the end of the +box hedge. When he saw how she was occupied, he understood that it was +not her intention to stay and explore these things. + +"Eleanor," he said, stepping into the room suddenly, "what are you +doing with your suit-case? Didn't Mademoiselle unpack it for you?" He +was close enough now to see the signs of tears she had shed. + +"Yes, Uncle David." + +"Why are you packing it again?" + +Her eyes fell and she tried desperately to control a quivering lip. + +"Because I am--I want to go back." + +"Back where?" + +"To Cape Cod." + +"Why, Eleanor?" + +"I ain't wanted," she said, her head low. "I made up my mind to go +back to my own folks. I'm not going to be adopted any more." + +David led her to the deep window-seat and made her sit facing him. He +was too wise to attempt a caress with this issue between them. + +"Do you think that's altogether fair to me?" he asked presently. + +"I guess it won't make much difference to you. Something else will +come along." + +"Do you think it will be fair to your other aunts and uncles who have +given so much care and thought to your welfare?" + +"They'll get tired of their bargain." + +"If they do get tired of their bargain it will be because they've +turned out to be very poor sports. I've known every one of them a long +time, and I've never known them to show any signs of poor +sportsmanship yet. If you run away without giving them their chance to +make good, it will be you who are the poor sport." + +"She said you would marry and get tired of me, and I would have to go +back to the country. If you marry and Uncle Jimmie marries--then Uncle +Peter will marry, and--" + +"You'd still have your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude," David +could not resist making the suggestion. + +"They could do it, too. If one person broke up the vow, I guess they +all would. Misfortunes never come singly." + +"But even if we did, Eleanor, even if we all married, we'd still +regard you as our own, our child, our charge." + +"_She_ said you wouldn't." The tears came now, and David gathered the +little shaking figure to his breast. "I don't want to be the wife of +the farmer for whom fate intended me," she sobbed. "I want to marry +somebody refined with extravagant living and associations." + +"That's one of the things we are bringing you up for, my dear." This +aspect of the case occurred to David for the first time, but he +realized its potency. "You mustn't take mother too seriously. Just +jolly her along a little and you'll soon get to be famous friends. +She's never had any little girls of her own, only my brother and me, +and she doesn't know quite how to talk to them." + +"The Hutchinsons had a hired butler and gold spoons, and they didn't +think I was the dust beneath their feet. I don't know what to say to +her. I said ain't, and I wasn't refined, and I'll only just be a +disgrace to you. I'd rather go back to Cape Cod, and go out to work, +and stand Albertina and everything." + +"If you think it's the square thing to do," David said slowly, "you +may go, Eleanor. I'll take you to New York to-morrow and get one of +the girls to take you to Colhassett. Of course, if you do that it will +put me in rather an awkward position. The others have all had you for +two months and made good on the proposition. I shall have to admit +that I couldn't even keep you with me twenty-four hours. Peter and +Jimmie got along all right, but I couldn't handle you at all. As a +cooperative parent, I'm such a failure that the whole experiment goes +to pieces through me." + +"Not you--her." + +"Well, it's the same thing,--you couldn't stand the surroundings I +brought you to. You couldn't even be polite to my mother for my +sake." + +"I--never thought of that, Uncle David." + +"Think of it now for a few minutes, won't you, Eleanor?" + +The rain was beginning to lash the windows, and to sweep the lawn in +long slant strokes. The little girl held up her face as if it could +beat through the panes on it. + +"I thought," she said slowly, "that after Albertina I wouldn't _take_ +anything from anybody. Uncle Peter says that I'm just as good as +anybody, even if I have been out to work. He said that all I had to do +was just to stand up to people." + +"There are a good many different ways of standing up to people, +Eleanor. Be sure you've got the right way and then go ahead." + +"I guess I ought to have been politer," Eleanor said slowly. "I ought +to have thought that she was your own mother. You couldn't help the +way she acted, o' course." + +"The way you acted is the point, Eleanor." + +Eleanor reflected. + +"I'll act different if you want me to, Uncle David," she said, "and I +won't go and leave you." + +"That's my brave girl. I don't think that I altogether cover myself +with glory in an interview with my mother," he added. "It isn't the +thing that I'm best at, I admit." + +"You did pretty good," Eleanor consoled him. "I guess she makes you +kind of bashful the way she does me," from which David gathered with +an odd sense of shock that Eleanor felt there was something to +criticize in his conduct, if she had permitted herself to look for +it. + +"I know what I'll do," Eleanor decided dreamily with her nose against +the pane. "I'll just pretend that she's Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, and then +whatever she does, I shan't care. I'll know that I'm the strongest and +could hit her if I had a mind to, and then I shan't want to." + +David contemplated her gravely for several seconds. + +"By the time you grow up, Eleanor," he said finally, "you will have +developed all your cooperative parents into fine strong characters. +Your educational methods are wonderful." + + * * * * * + +"The dog got nearly drownded today in the founting," Eleanor wrote. +"It is a very little dog about the size of Gwendolyn. It was out with +Mademoiselle, and so was I, learning French on a garden seat. It +teetered around on the edge of the big wash basin--the founting looks +like a wash basin, and suddenly it fell in. I waded right in and got +it, but it slipped around so I couldn't get it right away. It looked +almost too dead to come to again, but I gave it first aid to the +drownded the way Uncle Jimmie taught me to practicing on Gwendolyn. +When I got it fixed I looked up and saw Uncle David's mother coming. I +took the dog and gave it to her. I said, 'Madam, here's your dog.' +Mademoiselle ran around ringing her hands and talking about it. Then I +went up to Mrs. Bolling's room, and we talked. I told her how to make +mustard pickles, and how my mother's grandpa's relation came over in +the Mayflower, and about our single white lilac bush, and she's going +to get one and make the pickles. Then I played double Canfield with +her for a while. I'm glad I didn't go home before I knew her better. +When she acts like Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt I pretend she is her, and we +don't quarrel. She says does Uncle David go much to see Aunt Beulah, +and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go +to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the +most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam +Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would think the worst." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor grew to like Mademoiselle. She was the aging, rather wry +faced Frenchwoman who had been David's young brother's governess and +had made herself so useful to Mrs. Bolling that she was kept always on +the place, half companion and half resident housekeeper. She was glad +to have a child in charge again, and Eleanor soon found that her +crooked features and severe high-shouldered back that had somewhat +intimidated her at first, actually belonged to one of the kindest +hearted creatures in the world. + +Paris and Colhassett bore very little resemblance to each other, the +two discovered. To be sure there were red geraniums every alternating +year in the gardens of the Louvre, and every year in front of the +Sunshine Library in Colhassett. The residents of both places did a +great deal of driving in fine weather. In Colhassett they drove on the +state highway, recently macadamized to the dismay of the taxpayers who +did not own horses or automobiles. In Paris they drove out to the Bois +by way of the Champs Elysees. In Colhassett they had only one +ice-cream saloon, but in Paris they had a good many of them +out-of-doors in the parks and even on the sidewalk, and there you +could buy all kinds of sirups and 'what you call cordials' and +_aperitifs_; but the two places on the whole were quite different. The +people were different, too. The people of Colhassett were all +religious and thought it was sinful to play cards on Sundays. +Mademoiselle said she always felt wicked when she played them on a +week day. + +"I think of my mother," she said; "she would say 'Juliette, what will +you say to the Lord when he knows that you have been playing cards on +a working day. Playing cards is for Sunday.'" + +"The Lord that they have in Colhassett is not like that," Eleanor +stated without conscious irreverence. + +"She is a vary fonny child, madam," Mademoiselle answered Mrs. +Bolling's inquiry. "She has taste, but no--experience even of the most +ordinary. She cooks, but she does no embroidery. She knits and knows +no games to play. She has a good brain, but Mon Dieu, no one has +taught her to ask questions with it." + +"She has had lessons this year from some young Rogers graduates, very +intelligent girls. I should think a year of that kind of training +would have had its effect." Mrs. Bolling's finger went into every pie +in her vicinity with unfailing direction. + +"Lessons, yes, but no teaching. If she were not vary intelligent I +think she would have suffered for it. The public schools they did +somesing, but so little to elevate--to encourage." + +Thus in a breath were Beulah's efforts as an educator disposed of. + +"Would you like to undertake the teaching of that child for a year?" +Mrs. Bolling asked thoughtfully. + +"Oh! but yes, madam." + +"I think I'll make the offer to David." + +Mrs. Bolling was unsympathetic but she was thorough. She liked to see +things properly done. Since David and his young friends had undertaken +a venture so absurd, she decided to lend them a helping hand with it. +Besides, now that she had no children of her own in the house, +Mademoiselle was practically eating her head off. Also it had +developed that David was fond of the child, so fond of her that to +oppose that affection would have been bad policy, and Mrs. Bolling was +politic when she chose to be. She chose to be politic now, for +sometime during the season she was going to ask a very great favor of +David, and she hoped, that by first being extraordinarily complaisant +and kind and then by bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, +he would finally do what he was asked. The favor was to provide +himself with a father-in-law, and that father-in-law the +multi-millionaire parent of the raven-haired, crafty-eyed ingénue, who +had begun angling for him that June night at the country club. + +She made the suggestion to David on the eve of the arrival of all of +Eleanor's guardians for the week-end. Mrs. Bolling had invited a +house-party comprised of the associated parents as a part of her +policy of kindness before the actual summoning of her forces for the +campaign she was about to inaugurate. + +David was really touched by his mother's generosity concerning +Eleanor. He had been agreeably surprised at the development of the +situation between the child and his mother. He had been obliged to go +into town the day after Eleanor's first unfortunate encounter with her +hostess, and had hurried home in fear and trembling to try to smooth +out any tangles in the skein of their relationship that might have +resulted from a day in each other's vicinity. After hurrying over the +house and through the grounds in search of her he finally discovered +the child companionably currying a damp and afflicted Pekinese in his +mother's sitting-room, and engaged in a grave discussion of the +relative merits of molasses and sugar as a sweetening for Boston baked +beans. + +It was while they were having their after-dinner coffee in the +library, for which Eleanor had been allowed to come down, though +nursery supper was the order of the day in the Bolling establishment, +that David told his friends of his mother's offer. + +"Of course, we decided to send her to school when she was twelve +anyway," he said. "The idea was to keep her among ourselves for two +years to establish the parental tie, or ties I should say. If she is +quartered here with Mademoiselle we could still keep in touch with her +and she would be having the advantage of a year's steady tuition under +one person, and we'd be relieved--" a warning glance from Margaret, +with an almost imperceptible inclination of her head in the direction +of Beulah, caused him to modify the end of his sentence--"of the +responsibility--for her physical welfare." + +"Mentally and morally," Gertrude cut in, "the bunch would still +supervise her entirely." + +Jimmie, who was sitting beside her, ran his arm along the back of her +chair affectionately, and then thought better of it and drew it away. +He was, for some unaccountable reason, feeling awkward and not like +himself. There was a girl in New York, with whom he was not in the +least in love, who had recently taken it upon herself to demonstrate +unmistakably that she was not in love with him. There was another girl +who insisted on his writing her every day. Here was Gertrude, who +never had any time for him any more, absolutely without enthusiasm at +his proximity. He thought it would be a good idea to allow Eleanor to +remain where she was and said so. + +"Not that I won't miss the jolly times we had together, Babe," he +said. "I was planning some real rackets this year,--to make up for +what I put you through," he added in her ear, as she came and stood +beside him for a minute. + +Gertrude wanted to go abroad for a year, "and lick her wounds," as she +told herself. She would have come back for her two months with +Eleanor, but she was glad to be relieved of that necessity. Margaret +had the secret feeling that the ordeal of the Hutchinsons was one that +she would like to spare her foster child, and incidentally herself in +relation to the adjustment of conditions necessary to Eleanor's visit. +Peter wanted her with him, but he believed the new arrangement would +be better for the child. Beulah alone held out for her rights and her +parental privileges. The decision was finally left to Eleanor. + +She stood in the center of the group a little forlornly while they +awaited her word. A wave of her old shyness overtook her and she +blushed hot and crimson. + +"It's all in your own hands, dear," Beulah said briskly. + +"Poor kiddie," Gertrude thought, "it's all wrong somehow." + +"I don't know what you want me to say," Eleanor said piteously and +sped to the haven of Peter's breast. + +"We'll manage a month together anyway," Peter whispered. + +"Then I guess I'll stay here," she whispered back, "because next I +would have to go to Aunt Beulah's." + +Peter, turning involuntarily in Beulah's direction, saw the look of +chagrin and disappointment on her face, and realized how much she +minded playing a losing part in the game and yet how well she was +doing it. "She's only a straight-laced kid after all," he thought. +"She's put her whole heart and soul into this thing. There's a look +about the top part of her face when it's softened that's a little like +Ellen's." Ellen was his dead fiancée--the girl in the photograph at +home in his desk. + +"I guess I'll stay here," Eleanor said aloud, "all in one place, and +study with Mademoiselle." + +It was a decision that, on the whole, she never regretted. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BROOK AND RIVER + + + "Standing with reluctant feet, + Where the brook and river meet." + +"I think it's a good plan to put a quotation like Kipling at the top +of the page whenever I write anything in this diary," Eleanor began in +the smart leather bound book with her initials stamped in black on the +red cover--the new private diary that had been Peter's gift to her on +the occasion of her fifteenth birthday some months before. "I think it +is a very expressive thing to do. The quotation above is one that +expresses me, and I think it is beautiful too. Miss Hadley--that's my +English teacher--the girls call her Haddock because she does look +rather like a fish--says that it's undoubtedly one of the most +poignant descriptions of adolescent womanhood ever made. I made a note +to look up adolescent, but didn't. Bertha Stephens has my dictionary, +and won't bring it back because the leaves are all stuck together +with fudge, and she thinks she ought to buy me a new one. It is very +honorable of her to feel that way, but she never will. Good old +Stevie, she's a great borrower. + + "'Neither a borrower nor a lender be, + For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.' + "Shakespeare. + +"Well, I hardly know where to begin. I thought I would make a resumé +of some of the events of the last year. I was only fourteen then, but +still I did a great many things that might be of interest to me in my +declining years when I look back into the annals of this book. To +begin with I was only a freshie at Harmon. It is very different to be +a sophomore. I can hardly believe that I was once a shivering looking +little thing like all the freshmen that came in this year. I was very +frightened, but did not think I showed it. + + "'Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us, + To see ourselves as others see us.' + +"Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad character, but after he met +his bonnie Jean he wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet's life is +usually sad anyhow--full of disappointment and pain--but I digress. + +"I had two years with Mademoiselle at the Bollings' instead of one the +way we planned. I haven't written in my Private Diary since the night +of that momentous decision that I was to stay in one place instead of +taking turns visiting my cooperative parents. I went to another school +one year before I came to Harmon, and that brings me to the threshold +of my fourteenth year. If I try to go back any farther, I'll never +catch up. I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a cottage on +Long Island with her sister, and her sister's boy, who has grown up to +be the silly kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, and those +things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I can't think of words to express +it. 'Oh! rare pale Margaret,' as Tennyson says. She wears her hair in +a coronet braid around the top of her head, and all her clothes are +the color of violets or a soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue +looks nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou. + +"I went down to Cape Cod for a week before I came to Harmon, and while +I was there my grandmother died. I can't write about that in this +diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother loved me. Uncle Peter +came, and took charge of everything. He has great strength that holds +you up in trouble. + +"The first day I came to Harmon I saw the girl I wanted for my best +friend, and so we roomed together, and have done so ever since. Her +name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she is called Maggie Lou by every +one. She has dark curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very silvery +voice. I have found out that she lies some, but she says it is because +she had such an unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome it for +my sake. + +"That Christmas vacation the 'We Are Sevens' went up the Hudson to the +Bollings' again, but that was the last time they ever went there. +Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry +for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to +marry, a rich girl who looked something like Cleopatra, very dark +complexioned with burning eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese +something like Zaidee. + +"Uncle David said that gold could never buy him, and to take her away, +but Madam Bolling was very angry, of course. She accused him of +wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her a characterless, faded +blonde. Then it was Uncle David's turn to get angry, and I have never +seen any one get any angrier, and he told about the vow of celibacy, +and how instead of having designs on him the whole crowd would back +him up in his struggle to stay single. It was an awful row. I told +Madam Bolling that I would help her to get Uncle David back, and I +did, but she never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose the +feelings of a mother would prompt her to want Uncle David settled down +with a rich and fashionable girl who would soon be the mother of a lot +of lovely children. I can't imagine a Cleopatra looking baby, but she +might have boys that looked like Uncle David. + +"Vacations are really about all there is to school. Freshman year is +mostly grinding and stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes of +'grub' is better than having only two. Some of the girls are rather +selfish about the eats, and come in and help themselves boldly when +you are out of the room. Maggie Lou puts up signs over the candy box: +'Closed for Repairs,' or 'No Trespassing by Order of the Board of +Health,' but they don't pay much attention. Well, last summer vacation +I spent with Uncle Jimmie. I wouldn't tell this, but I reformed him. I +made him sign the pledge. I don't know what pledge it was because I +didn't read it, but he said he was addicted to something worse than +anything I could think of, and if somebody didn't pull him up, he +wouldn't answer for the consequences. I asked him why he didn't choose +Aunt Gertrude to do it, and he groaned only. So I said to write out a +pledge, and sign it and I would be the witness. We were at a hotel +with his brother's family. It isn't proper any more for me to go +around with my uncles unless I have a chaperon. Mademoiselle says that +I oughtn't even to go down-town alone with them but, of course, that +is French etiquette, and not American. Well, there were lots of pretty +girls at this hotel, all wearing white and pink dresses, and carrying +big bell shaped parasols of bright colors. They looked sweet, like so +many flowers, but Uncle Jimmie just about hated the sight of them. He +said they were not girls at all, but just pink and white devices of +the devil. On the whole he didn't act much like my merry uncle, but we +had good times together playing tennis and golf, and going on parties +with his brother's family, all mere children but the mother and +father. Uncle Jimmie was afraid to go and get his mail all summer, +although he had a great many letters on blue and lavender note paper +scented with Roger et Gallet's violet, and Hudnut's carnation. We used +to go down to the beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, and +then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He said that they were +communications from the spirits of the dead. I should have thought +that they were from different girls, but he seemed to hate the sight +of girls so much. Once I asked him if he had ever had an unhappy +love-affair, just to see what he would say, but he replied 'no, they +had all been happy ones,' and groaned and groaned. + +"Aunt Beulah has changed too. She has become a suffragette and thinks +only of getting women their rights and their privileges. + +"Maggie Lou is an anti, and we have long arguments about the cause. +She says that woman's place is in the home, but I say look at me, who +have no home, how can I wash and bake and brew like the women of my +grandfather's day, visiting around the way I do? And she says that it +is the principle of the thing that is involved, and I ought to take a +stand for or against. Everybody has so many different arguments that I +don't know what I think yet, but some day I shall make up my mind for +good. + +"Well, that about brings me up to the present. I meant to describe a +few things in detail, but I guess I will not begin on the past in that +way. I don't get so awfully much time to write in this diary because +of the many interruptions of school life, and the way the monitors +snoop in study hours. I don't know who I am going to spend my +Christmas holidays with. I sent Uncle Peter a poem three days ago, but +he has not answered it yet. I'm afraid he thought it was very silly. I +don't hardly know what it means myself. It goes as follows: + + "A Song + + "The moon is very pale to-night, + The summer wind swings high, + I seek the temple of delight, + And feel my love draw nigh. + + "I seem to feel his fragrant breath + Upon my glowing cheek. + Between us blows the wind of death,-- + I shall not hear him speak. + +"I don't know why I like to write love poems, but most of the women +poets did. This one made me cry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MERRY CHRISTMAS + + +Margaret in mauve velvet and violets, and Gertrude in a frock of smart +black and white were in the act of meeting by appointment at Sherry's +one December afternoon, with a comfortable cup of tea in mind. +Gertrude emerged from the recess of the revolving door and Margaret, +sitting eagerly by the entrance, almost upset the attendant in her +rush to her friend's side. + +"Oh! Gertrude," she cried, "I'm so glad to see you. My family is +trying to cut me up in neat little quarters and send me north, south, +east and west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to stay home and +have Eleanor. How did I ever come to be born into a family of giants, +tell me that, Gertrude?" + +"The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an unfortunately immature +period, I'll admit," Gertrude laughed. "My parents are dears, but +they've never forgiven me for being an artist instead of a dubby bud. +Shall we have tea right away or shall we sit down and discuss life?" + +"Both," Margaret said. "I don't know which is the hungrier--flesh or +spirit." + +But as they turned toward the dining-room a familiar figure blocked +their progress. + +"I thought that was Gertrude's insatiable hat," David exclaimed +delightedly. "I've phoned for you both until your families have given +instructions that I'm not to be indulged any more. I've got a surprise +for you.--Taxi," he said to the man at the door. + +"Not till we've had our tea," Margaret wailed. "You couldn't be so +cruel, David." + +"You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of the happiest surprises +of your life into the bargain," David assured her as he led the way to +the waiting cab. + +"I wouldn't leave this place unfed for anybody but you, David, not if +it were ever so, and then some, as Jimmie says." + +"What's the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?" David inquired as the taxi +turned down the Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a hopeless +mesh of traffic. + +"I don't know; why?" Gertrude answered, though she had not been the +one addressed at the moment. "What's the matter with this hat?" she +rattled on without waiting for an answer. "I thought it was +good-looking myself, and Madam Paran robbed me for it." + +"It is good-looking," David allowed. "It seems to be a kind of +retrieving hat, that's all. Keeps you in a rather constant state of +looking after the game." + +"What about my hat, David?" Margaret inquired anxiously. "Do you like +that?" + +"I do," David admitted. "I'm crazy about it. It's a lovely cross +between the style affected by the late Emperor Napoleon and my august +grandmother, with some frills added." + +The chauffeur turned into a cross street and stopped abruptly before +an imposing but apparently unguarded entrance. + +"Why, I thought this was a studio building," Gertrude said. "David, if +you're springing a tea party on us, and we in the wild ungovernable +state we are at present, I'll shoot the way my hat is pointing." + +"Straight through my left eye-glass," David finished. "You wait till +you see the injustice you have done me." + +But Margaret, who often understood what was happening a few moments +before the revelation of it, clutched at his elbow. + +"Oh! David, David," she whispered, "how wonderful!" + +"Wait till you see," David said, and herded them into the elevator. + +Their destination was the top floor but one. David hurried them around +the bend in the sleekly carpeted corridor and touched the bell on the +right of the first door they came to. It opened almost instantly and +David's man, who was French, stood bowing and smiling on the +threshold. + +"Mr. Styvvisont has arrive'," he said; "he waits you." + +"Welcome to our city," Peter cried, appearing in the doorway of the +room Alphonse was indicating with that high gesture of delight with +which only a Frenchman can lead the way. "Jimmie's coming up from the +office and Beulah's due any minute. What do you think of the place, +girls?" + +"Is it really yours, David?" + +"Surest thing you know." He grinned like a schoolboy. "It's really +ours, that's what it is. I've broken away from the mater at last," he +added a little sheepishly. "I'm going to work seriously. I've got an +all-day desk job in my uncle's office and I'm going to dig in and see +what I can make of myself. Also, this is going to be our headquarters, +and Eleanor's permanent home if we're all agreed upon it,--but look +around, ladies. Don't spare my blushes. If you think I can interior +decorate, just tell me so frankly. This is the living-room." + +"It's like that old conundrum--black and white and red all over," +Gertrude said. "I never saw anything so stunning in all my life." + +"Gosh! I admire your nerve," Peter cried, "papering this place in +white, and then getting in all this heavy carved black stuff, and the +red in the tapestries and screens and pillows." + +"I wanted it to look studioish a little," David explained, "I wanted +to get away from Louis Quartorze." + +"And drawing-rooms like mother used to make," Gertrude suggested. "I +like your Oriental touches. Do you see, Margaret, everything is Indian +or Chinese? The ubiquitous Japanese print is conspicuous by its +absence." + +"I've got two portfolios full of 'em," David said, "and I always have +one or two up in the bedrooms. I change 'em around, you know, the way +the Japs do themselves, a different scene every few days and the rest +decently out of sight till you're ready for 'em." + +"It's like a fairy story," Margaret said. + +"I thought you'd appreciate what little Arabian Nights I was able to +introduce. I bought that screen," he indicated a sweep of Chinese line +and color, "with my eye on you, and that Aladdin's lamp is yours, of +course. You're to come in here and rub it whenever you like, and your +heart's desire will instantly be vouchsafed to you." + +"What will Eleanor say?" Peter suggested, as David led the way through +the corridor and up the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate +part of the establishment. "This is her room, didn't you say, David?" +He paused on the threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and +yellow, with all its hangings of a soft golden silk. + +"She once said that she wanted a yellow room," David said, "a +daffy-down-dilly room, and I've tried to get her one. I know last +year that Maggie Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that +flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor refused to be +comforted." + +A wild whoop in the below stairs announced Jimmie; and Beulah arrived +simultaneously with the tea tray. Jimmie was ecstatic when the actual +function of the place was explained to him. + +"Headquarters is the one thing we've lacked," he said; "a place of our +own, hully gee! It makes me feel almost human again." + +"You haven't been feeling altogether human lately, have you, Jimmie?" +Margaret asked over her tea cup. + +"No, dear, I haven't." Jimmie flashed her a grateful smile. "I'm a bad +egg," he explained to her darkly, "and the only thing you can do with +me is to scramble me." + +"Scrambled is just about the way I should have described your behavior +of late,--but that's Gertrude's line," David said. "Only she doesn't +seem to be taking an active part in the conversation. Aren't you +Jimmie's keeper any more, Gertrude?" + +"Not since she's come back from abroad," Jimmie muttered without +looking at her. + +"Eleanor's taken the job over now," Peter said. "She's made him swear +off red ink and red neckties." + +"Any color so long's it's red is the color that suits me best," Jimmie +quoted. "Lord, isn't this room a pippin?" He swam in among the bright +pillows of the divan and so hid his face for a moment. It had been a +good many weeks since he had seen Gertrude. + +"I want to give a suffrage tea here," Beulah broke in suddenly. "It's +so central, but I don't suppose David would hear of it." + +"Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us--" Peter began. + +"My _mother_ would hear of it," David said, "and then there wouldn't +be any little studio any more. She doesn't believe in votes for +women." + +"How any woman in this day and age--" Beulah began, and thought better +of it, since she was discussing Mrs. Bolling. + +"Makes your blood boil, doesn't it--Beulahland?" Gertrude suggested +helpfully, reaching for the tea cakes. "Never mind, I'll vote for +women. I'll march in your old peerade." + +"The Lord helps those that help themselves," Peter said, "that's why +Gertrude is a suffragist. She believes in helping herself, in every +sense, don't you, 'Trude?" + +"Not quite in every sense," Gertrude said gravely. "Sometimes I feel +like that girl that Margaret describes as caught in a horrid way +between two generations. I'm neither old-fashioned nor modern." + +"I'd rather be that way than early Victorian," Margaret sighed. + +"Speaking of the latest generation, has anybody any objection to +having our child here for the holidays?" David asked. "My idea is to +have one grand Christmas dinner. I suppose we'll all have to eat one +meal with our respective families, but can't we manage to get together +here for dinner at night? Don't you think that we could?" + +"We can't, but we will," Margaret murmured. "Of course, have Eleanor +here. I wanted her with me but the family thought otherwise. They've +been trying to send me away for my health, David." + +"Well, they shan't. You'll stay in New York for your health and come +to my party." + +"Margaret's health is merely a matter of Margaret's happiness anyhow. +Her soul and her body are all one," Gertrude said. + +"Then cursed be he who brings anything but happiness to Margaret," +Peter said, to which sentiment David added a solemn "Amen." + +"I wish you wouldn't," Margaret said, shivering a little, "I feel as +if some one were--were--" + +"Trampling the violets on your grave," Gertrude finished for her. + +Christmas that year fell on a Monday, and Eleanor did not leave school +till the Friday before the great day. Owing to the exigencies of the +holiday season none of her guardians came to see her before the dinner +party itself. Even David was busy with his mother--installed now for a +few weeks in the hotel suite that would be her home until the opening +of the season at Palm Beach--and had only a few hurried words with +her. Mademoiselle, whom he had imported for the occasion, met her at +the station and helped her to do her modest shopping which consisted +chiefly of gifts for her beloved aunts and uncles. She had arranged +these things lovingly at their plates, and fled to dress when they +began to assemble for the celebration. The girls were the first +arrivals. Then Peter. + +"How's our child, David?" Gertrude asked. "I had a few minutes' talk +with her over the telephone and she seemed to be flourishing." + +"She is," David answered. "She's grown several feet since we last saw +her. They've been giving scenes from Shakespeare at school and she's +been playing Juliet, it appears. She has had a fight with another girl +about suffrage--I don't know which side she was on, Beulah, I am +merely giving you the facts as they came to me--and the other girl was +so unpleasant about it that she has been visited by just retribution +in the form of the mumps, and had to be sent home and quarantined." + +"Sounds a bit priggish," Peter suggested. + +"Not really," David said, "she's as sound as a nut. She's only going +through the different stages." + +"To pass deliberately through one's ages," Beulah quoted, "is to get +the heart out of a liberal education." + +"Bravo, Beulah," Gertrude cried, "you're quite in your old form +to-night." + +"Is she just the same little girl, David?" Margaret asked. + +"Just the same. She really seems younger than ever. I don't know why +she doesn't come down. There she is, I guess. No, it's only Alphonse +letting in Jimmie." + +Jimmie, whose spirits seemed to have revived under the holiday +influence, was staggering under the weight of his parcels. The +Christmas presents had already accumulated to a considerable mound on +the couch. Margaret was brooding over them and trying not to look +greedy. She was still very much of a child herself in relation to +Santa Claus. + +"Merry Christmas!" Jimmie cried. "Where's my child?" + +"Coming," David said. + +"Look at the candy kids. My eyes--but you're a slick trio, girls. Pale +lavender, pale blue, and pale pink, and all quite sophisticatedly +décolleté. You go with the decorations, too. I don't know quite why +you do, but you do." + +"Give honor where honor is due, dearie. That's owing to the cleverness +of the decorator," David said. + +"No man calls me dearie and lives to tell the tale," Jimmie remarked +almost dreamily as he squared off. "How'll you have it, Dave?" + +But at that instant there was an unexpected interruption. Alphonse +threw open the big entrance door at the farther end of the long room +with a flourish. + +"Mademoiselle Juliet Capulet," he proclaimed with the grand air, and +then retired behind his hand, smiling broadly. + +Framed in the high doorway, complete, cap and curls, softly rounding +bodice, and the long, straight lines of the Renaissance, stood +Juliet--Juliet, immemorial, immortal, young--austerely innocent and +delicately shy, already beautiful, and yet potential of all the beauty +and the wisdom of the world. + +"I've never worn these clothes before anybody but the girls before," +Eleanor said, "but I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you +might like it--for a surprise." + +"Great jumping Jehoshaphat," Jimmie exclaimed, "I thought you said she +was the same little girl, David." + +"She was half an hour ago," David answered, "I never saw such a +metamorphosis. In fact, I don't think I ever saw Juliet before." + +"She is the thing itself," Gertrude answered, the artist in her +sobered by the vision. + +But Peter passed a dazed hand over his eyes and stared at the delicate +figure advancing to him. + +"My God! she's a woman," he said, and drew the hard breath of a man +just awakened from sleep. + +[Illustration: "I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you might +like it--for a surprise"] + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +GROWING UP + + +"Dear Uncle Jimmie: + +"It was a pleasant surprise to get letters from every one of my uncles +the first week I got back to school. It was unprecedented. You wrote +me two letters last year, Uncle David six, and Uncle Peter sixteen. He +is the best correspondent, but perhaps that is because I ask him the +most advice. The Christmas party was lovely. I shall never forget the +expressions on all the different faces when I came down in my Juliet +suit. I thought at first that no one liked me in it, but I guess they +did. + +"You know how well I liked my presents because you heard my wild +exclamations of delight. I never had such a nice Christmas. It was +sweet of the We Are Sevens to get me that ivory set, and to know that +every different piece was the loving thought of a different aunt or +uncle. I love the yellow monogram. It looks entirely unique, and I +like to have things that are not like anybody else's in the world, +don't you, Uncle Jimmie? I am glad you liked your cuff links. They are +'neat,' but not 'gaudy.' You play golf so well I thought a golf stick +was a nice emblem for you, and would remind you of me and last +summer. + +"I am glad you think it is easier to keep your pledge now. I made a +New Year's resolution to go without chocolates, and give the money +they would cost to some good cause, but it's hard to pick out a cause, +or to decide exactly how much money you are saving. I can eat the +chocolates that are sent to me, however!!!! + +"Uncle David said that he thought you were not like yourself lately, +but you seemed just the same to me Christmas, only more affectionate. +I love you very much. I was really only joking about the chocolates. +Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Uncle David: + +"I was glad to get your nice letter. You did not have to write in +response to my bread and butter letter, but I am glad you did. When I +am at school, and getting letters all the time I feel as if I were +living two beautiful lives all at once, the life of a 'cooperative +child' and the life of Eleanor Hamlin, schoolgirl, both together. +Letters make the people you love seem very near to you, don't you +think they do? I sleep with all my letters under my pillow whenever I +feel the least little bit homesick, and they almost seem to breathe +sometimes. + +"School is the same old school. Maggie Lou had a wrist watch, too, for +Christmas, but not so pretty as the one you gave me. Miss Hadley says +I do remarkable work in English whenever I feel like it. I don't know +whether that's a compliment or not. I took Kris Kringle for the +subject of a theme the other day, and represented him as caught in an +iceberg in the grim north, and not being able to reach all the poor +little children in the tenements and hovels. The Haddock said it +showed imagination. + +"There was a lecture at school on Emerson the other day. The speaker +was a noted literary lecturer from New York. He had wonderful waving +hair, more like Pader--I can't spell him, but you know who I +mean--than Uncle Jimmie's, but a little like both. He introduced some +very noble thoughts in his discourse, putting perfectly old ideas in +a new way that made you think a lot more of them. I think a tall man +like that with waving hair can do a great deal of good as a lecturer, +because you listen a good deal more respectfully than if they were +plain looking. His voice sounded a good deal like what I imagine +Romeo's voice did. I had a nice letter from Madam Bolling. I love you, +and I have come to the bottom of the sheet. Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Uncle Peter: + +"I have just written to my other uncles, so I won't write you a long +letter this time. They deserve letters because of being so unusually +prompt after the holidays. You always deserve letters, but not +specially now, any more than any other time. + +"Uncle Peter, I wrote to my grandfather. It seems funny to think of +Albertina's aunt taking care of him now that Grandma is gone. I +suppose Albertina is there a lot. She sent me a post card for +Christmas. I didn't send her any. + +"Uncle Peter, I miss my grandmother out of the world. I remember how I +used to take care of her, and put a soapstone in the small of her +back when she was cold. I wish sometimes that I could hold your hand, +Uncle Peter, when I get thinking about it. + +"Well, school is the same old school. Bertha Stephens has a felon on +her finger, and that lets her out of hard work for a while. I will +enclose a poem suggested by a lecture I heard recently on Emerson. It +isn't very good, but it will help to fill up the envelope. I love you, +and love you. Eleanor. + + "Life + + "Life is a great, a noble task, + When we fulfill our duty. + To work, that should be all we ask, + And seek the living beauty. + We know not whence we come, or where + Our dim pathway is leading, + Whether we tread on lilies fair, + Or trample love-lies-bleeding. + But we must onward go and up, + Nor stop to question whither. + E'en if we drink the bitter cup, + And fall at last, to wither. + +"P. S. I haven't got the last verse very good yet, but I think the +second one is pretty. You know 'love-lies-bleeding' is a flower, but +it sounds allegorical the way I have put it in. Don't you think so? +You know what all the crosses stand for." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor's fifteenth year was on the whole the least eventful year of +her life, though not by any means the least happy. She throve +exceedingly, and gained the freedom and poise of movement and +spontaneity that result from properly balanced periods of work and +play and healthful exercise. From being rather small of her age she +developed into a tall slender creature, inherently graceful and erect, +with a small, delicate head set flower-wise on a slim white neck. +Gertrude never tired of modeling that lovely contour, but Eleanor +herself was quite unconscious of her natural advantages. She preferred +the snappy-eyed, stocky, ringleted type of beauty, and spent many +unhappy quarters of an hour wishing she were pretty according to the +inexorable ideals of Harmon. + +She spent her vacation at David's apartment in charge of Mademoiselle, +though the latter part of the summer she went to Colhassett, quite by +herself according to her own desire, and spent a month with her +grandfather, now in charge of Albertina's aunt. She found Albertina +grown into a huge girl, sunk in depths of sloth and snobbishness, who +plied her with endless questions concerning life in the gilded circles +of New York society. Eleanor found her disgusting and yet possessed of +that vague fascination that the assumption of prerogative often +carries with it. + +She found her grandfather very old and shrunken, yet perfectly taken +care of and with every material want supplied. She realized as she had +never done before how the faithful six had assumed the responsibility +of this household from the beginning, and how the old people had been +warmed and comforted by their bounty. She laughed to remember her +simplicity in believing that an actual salary was a perquisite of her +adoption, and understood for the first time how small a part of the +expense of their living this faithful stipend had defrayed. She looked +back incredulously on that period when she had lived with them in a +state of semi-starvation on the corn meal and cereals and very little +else that her dollar and a half a week had purchased, and the "garden +sass," that her grandfather had faithfully hoed and tended in the +straggling patch of plowed field that he would hoe and tend no more. +She spent a month practically at his feet, listening to his stories, +helping him to find his pipe and tobacco and glasses, and reading the +newspaper to him, and felt amply rewarded by his final acknowledgment +that she was a good girl and he would as soon have her come again +whenever she felt like it. + +On her way back to school she spent a week with her friend, Margaret +Louise, in the Connecticut town where she lived with her comfortable, +commonplace family. It was while she was on this visit that the most +significant event of the entire year took place, though it was a +happening that she put out of her mind as soon as possible and never +thought of it again when she could possibly avoid it. + +Maggie Lou had a brother of seventeen, and one night in the corner of +a moonlit porch, when they happened to be alone for a half hour, he +had asked Eleanor to kiss him. + +"I don't want to kiss you," Eleanor said. Then, not wishing to convey +a sense of any personal dislike to the brother of a friend to whom +she was so sincerely devoted, she added, "I don't know you well +enough." + +He was a big boy, with mocking blue eyes and rough tweed clothes that +hung on him loosely. + +"When you know me better, will you let me kiss you?" he demanded. + +"I don't know," Eleanor said, still endeavoring to preserve the +amenities. + +He took her hand and played with it softly. + +"You're an awful sweet little girl," he said. + +"I guess I'll go in now." + +"Sit still. Sister'll be back in a minute." He pulled her back to the +chair from which she had half arisen. "Don't you believe in kissing?" + +"I don't believe in kissing _you_," she tried to say, but the words +would not come. She could only pray for deliverance through the +arrival of some member of the family. The boy's face was close to +hers. It looked sweet in the moonlight she thought. She wished he +would talk of something else besides kissing. + +"Don't you like me?" he persisted. + +"Yes, I do." She was very uncomfortable. + +"Well, then, there's no more to be said." His lips sought hers and +pressed them. His breath came heavily, with little irregular catches +in it. + +She pushed him away and turned into the house. + +"Don't be angry, Eleanor," he pleaded, trying to snatch at her hand. + +"I'm not angry," she said, her voice breaking, "I just wish you +hadn't, that's all." + +There was no reference to this incident in the private diary, but, +with an instinct which would have formed an indissoluble bond between +herself and her Uncle Jimmie, she avoided dimly lit porches and boys +with mischievous eyes and broad tweed covered shoulders. + +For her guardians too, this year was comparatively smooth running and +colorless. Beulah's militant spirit sought the assuagement of a fierce +expenditure of energy on the work that came to her hand through her +new interest in suffrage. Gertrude flung herself into her sculpturing. +She had been hurt as only the young can be hurt when their first +delicate desires come to naught. She was very warm-blooded and eager +under her cool veneer, and she had spent four years of hard work and +hungry yearning for the fulness of a life she was too constrained to +get any emotional hold on. Her fancy for Jimmie she believed was +quite over and done with. + +Margaret, warmed by secret fires and nourished by the stuff that +dreams are made of, flourished strangely in her attic chamber, and +learned the wisdom of life by some curious method of her own of +apprehending its dangers and delights. The only experiences she had +that year were two proposals of marriage, one from a timid professor +of the romance languages and the other from a young society man, +already losing his waist line, whose sensuous spirit had been stirred +by the ethereal grace of hers; but these things interested her very +little. She was the princess, spinning fine dreams and waiting for the +dawning of the golden day when the prince should come for her. Neither +she nor Gertrude ever gave a serious thought to the five-year-old vow +of celibacy, which was to Beulah as real and as binding as it had +seemed on the first day she took it. + +Peter and David and Jimmie went their own way after the fashion of +men, all of them identified with the quickening romance of New York +business life. David in Wall Street was proving to be something of a +financier to his mother's surprise and amazement; and the pressure +relaxed, he showed some slight initiative in social matters. In fact, +two mothers, who were on Mrs. Bolling's list as suitable +parents-in-law, took heart of grace and began angling for him +adroitly, while their daughters served him tea and made unabashed, +modern-débutante eyes at him. + +Jimmie, successfully working his way up to the top of his firm, +suffered intermittently from his enthusiastic abuse of the privileges +of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. His mind and soul were in +reality hot on the trail of a wife, and there was no woman among those +with whom he habitually foregathered whom his spirit recognized as his +own woman. He was further rendered helpless and miserable by the fact +that he had not the slightest idea of his trouble. He regarded himself +as a congenital Don Juan, from whom his better self shrank at times +with a revulsion of loathing. + +Peter felt that he had his feet very firmly on a rather uninspired +earth. He was getting on in the woolen business, which happened to be +the vocation his father had handed down to him. He belonged to an +amusing club, and he still felt himself irrevocably widowed by the +early death of the girl in the photograph he so faithfully cherished. +Eleanor was a very vital interest in his life. It had seemed to him +for a few minutes at the Christmas party that she was no longer the +little girl he had known, that a lovelier, more illusive creature--a +woman--had come to displace her, but when she had flung her arms +around him he had realized that it was still the heart of a child +beating so fondly against his own. + +The real trouble with arrogating to ourselves the privileges of +parenthood is that our native instincts are likely to become deflected +by the substitution of the artificial for the natural responsibility. +Both Peter and David had the unconscious feeling that their obligation +to their race was met by their communal interest in Eleanor. Beulah, +of course, sincerely believed that the filling in of an intellectual +concept of life was all that was required of her. Only Jimmie groped +blindly and bewilderedly for his own. Gertrude and Margaret both +understood that they were unnaturally alone in a world where lovers +met and mated, but they, too, hugged to their souls the flattering +unction that they were parents of a sort. + +Thus three sets of perfectly suitable and devoted young men and +women, of marriageable age, with dozens of interests and sympathies in +common, and one extraordinarily vital bond, continued to walk side by +side in a state of inhuman preoccupation, their gaze fixed inward +instead of upon one another; and no Divine Power, happening upon the +curious circumstance, believed the matter one for His intervention nor +stooped to take the respective puppets by the back of their +unconscious necks, and so knock their sluggish heads together. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MARGARET LOUISA'S BIRTHRIGHT + + +"I am sixteen years and eight months old to-day," Eleanor wrote, "and +I have had the kind of experience that makes me feel as if I never +wanted to be any older. I know life is full of disillusionment and +pain, but I did not know that any one with whom you have broken bread, +and slept in the same room with, and told everything to for four long +years, could turn out to be an absolute traitor and villainess. Let me +begin at the beginning. For nearly a year now I have noticed that +Bertha Stephens avoided me, and presented the appearance of disliking +me. I don't like to have any one dislike me, and I have tried to do +little things for her that would win back her affection, but with no +success. As I was editing the Lantern I could print her essayettes (as +she called them) and do her lots of little favors in a literary way, +which she seemed to appreciate, but personally she avoided me like the +plague. + +"Of course Stevie has lots of faults, and since Margaret Louise and I +always talked everything over we used to talk about Stevie in the same +way. I remember that she used to try to draw me out about Stevie's +character. I've always thought Stevie was a kind of piker, that is +that she would say she was going to do a thing, and then from sheer +laziness not do it. My dictionary was a case in point. She gummed it +all up with her nasty fudge and then wouldn't give it back to me or +get me another, but the reason she wouldn't give it back to me was +because her feelings were too fine to return a damaged article, and +not fine enough to make her hump herself and get me another. That's +only one kind of a piker and not the worst kind, but it was +_pikerish_. + +"All this I told quite frankly to Maggie--I mean Margaret Louise, +because I had no secrets from her and never thought there was any +reason why I shouldn't. Stevie has a horrid brother, also, who has +been up here to dances. All the girls hate him because he is so +spoony. He isn't as spoony as Margaret Louise's brother, but he's +quite a sloppy little spooner at that. Well, I told Margaret Louise +that I didn't like Stevie's brother, and then I made the damaging +remark that one reason I didn't like him was because he looked so much +like Stevie. I didn't bother to explain to Maggie--I will not call her +Maggie Lou any more, because that is a dear little name and sounds so +affectionate,--Margaret Louise--what I meant by this, because I +thought it was perfectly evident. Stevie is a peachy looking girl, a +snow white blonde with pinky cheeks and dimples. Well, her brother is +a snow white blond too, and he has pinky cheeks and dimples and his +name is Carlo! We, of course, at once named him Curlo. It is not a +good idea for a man to look too much like his sister, or to have too +many dimples in his chin and cheeks. I had only to think of him in the +same room with my three uncles to get his number exactly. I don't mean +to use slang in my diary, but I can't seem to help it. Professor +Mathews says that slang has a distinct function in the language--in +replenishing it, but Uncle Peter says about slang words, that 'many +are called, and few are chosen,' and there is no need to try to +accommodate them all in one's vocabulary. + +"Well, I told Margaret Louise all these things about Curlo, and how +he tried to hold my hand coming from the station one day, when the +girls all went up to meet the boys that came up for the dance,--and I +told her everything else in the world that happened to come into my +head. + +"Then one day I got thinking about leaving Harmon--this is our senior +year, of course--and I thought that I should leave all the girls with +things just about right between us, excepting good old Stevie, who had +this queer sort of grouch against me. So I decided that I'd just go +around and have it out with her, and I did. I went into her room one +day when her roommate was out, and demanded a show down. Well, I found +out that Maggie--Margaret Louise had just repeated to Stevie every +living thing that I ever said about her, just as I said it, only +without the explanations and foot-notes that make any kind of +conversation more understandable. + +"Stevie told me all these things one after another, without stopping, +and when she was through I wished that the floor would open and +swallow me up, but nothing so comfortable happened. I was obliged to +gaze into Stevie's overflowing eyes and own up to the truth as well as +I could, and explain it. It was the most humiliating hour that I ever +spent, but I told Stevie exactly what I felt about her 'nothing +extenuate, and naught set down in malice,' and what I had said about +her to our mutual friend, who by the way, is not the mutual friend of +either of us any longer. We were both crying by the time I had +finished, but we understood each other. There were one or two things +that she said she didn't think she would ever forget that I had said +about her, but even those she could forgive. She said that my dislike +of her had rankled in her heart so long that it took away all the +bitterness to know that I wasn't really her enemy. She said that my +coming to her that way, and not lying had showed that I had lots of +character, and she thought in time that we could be quite intimate +friends if I wanted to as much as she did. + +"After my talk with Stevie I still hoped against hope that Margaret +Louise would turn out to have some reason or excuse for what she had +done. I knew she had done it, but when a thing like that happens that +upsets your whole trust in a person you simply can not believe the +evidence of your own senses. When you read of a situation like that +in a book you are all prepared for it by the author, who has taken the +trouble to explain the moral weakness or unpleasantness of the +character, and given you to understand that you are to expect a +betrayal from him or her; but when it happens in real life out of a +clear sky you have nothing to go upon that makes you even _believe_ +what you know. + +"I won't even try to describe the scene that occurred between Margaret +Louise and me. She cried and she lied, and she accused me of trying to +curry favor with Stevie, and Stevie of being a backbiter, and she +argued and argued about all kinds of things but the truth, and when I +tried to pin her down to it, she ducked and crawled and sidestepped in +a way that was dreadful. I've seen her do something like it before +about different things, and I ought to have known then what she was +like inside of her soul, but I guess you have to be the object of such +a scene before you realize the full force of it. + +"All I said was, 'Margaret Louise, if that's all you've got to say +about the injury you have done me, then everything is over between us +from this minute;' and it was, too. + +"I feel as if I had been writing a beautiful story or poem on what I +thought was an enduring tablet of marble, and some one had come and +wiped it all off as if it were mere scribblings on a slate. I don't +know whether it would seem like telling tales to tell Uncle Peter or +not; I don't quite know whether I want to tell him. Sometimes I wish I +had a mother to tell such things to. It seems to me that a real mother +would know what to say that would help you. Disillusion is a very +strange thing--like death, only having people die seems more natural +somehow. When they die you can remember the happy hours that you spent +with them, but when disillusionment comes then you have lost even your +beautiful memories. + +"We had for the subject of our theme this week, 'What Life Means to +Me,' which of course was the object of many facetious remarks from the +girls, but I've been thinking that if I sat down seriously to state in +just so many words what life means to _me_, I hardly know what I would +transcribe. It means disillusionment and death for one thing. Since my +grandfather died last year I have had nobody left of my own in the +world,--no real blood relation. Of course, I am a good deal fonder of +my aunts and uncles than most people are of their own flesh and blood, +but own flesh and blood is a thing that it makes you feel shivery to +be without. If I had been Margaret Louise's own flesh and blood, she +would never have acted like that to me. Stevie stuck up for Carlo as +if he was really something to be proud of. Perhaps my uncles and aunts +feel that way about me, I don't know. I don't even know if I feel that +way about them. I certainly criticize them in my soul at times, and +feel tired of being dragged around from pillar to post. I don't feel +that way about Uncle Peter, but there is nobody else that I am +certain, positive sure that I love better than life itself. If there +is only one in the world that you feel that way about, I might not be +Uncle Peter's one. + +"Oh! I wish Margaret Louise had not sold her birthright for a mess of +pottage. I wish I had a home that I had a perfect right to go and live +in forevermore. I wish my mother was here to comfort me to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A REAL KISS + + +At seventeen, Eleanor was through at Harmon. She was to have one year +of preparatory school and then it was the desire of Beulah's heart +that she should go to Rogers. The others contended that the higher +education should be optional and not obligatory. The decision was +finally to be left to Eleanor herself, after she had considered it in +all its bearings. + +"If she doesn't decide in favor of college," David said, "and she +makes her home with me here, as I hope she will do, of course, I don't +see what society we are going to be able to give her. Unfortunately +none of our contemporaries have growing daughters. She ought to meet +eligible young men and that sort of thing." + +"Not yet," Margaret cried. The two were having a cozy cup of tea at +his apartment. "You're so terribly worldly, David, that you frighten +me sometimes." + +"You don't know where I will end, is that the idea?" + +"I don't know where Eleanor will end, if you're already thinking of +eligible young men for her." + +"Those things have got to be thought of," David answered gravely. + +"I suppose they have," Margaret sighed. "I don't want her to be +married. I want to take her off by myself and growl over her all alone +for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to come along and snatch her +up quickly, and set her behind his milk white charger and ride away +with her. If we've all got to get together and connive at marrying her +off there won't be any comfort in having her." + +"I don't know," David said thoughtfully; "I think that might be fun, +too. A vicarious love-affair that you can manipulate is one of the +most interesting games in the world." + +"That's not my idea of an interesting game," Margaret said. "I like +things very personal, David,--you ought to know that by this time." + +"I do know that," David said, "but it sometimes occurs to me that +except for a few obvious facts of that nature I really know very +little about you, Margaret." + +"There isn't much to know--except that I'm a woman." + +"That's a good deal," David answered slowly; "to a mere man that seems +to be considerable of an adventure." + +"It is about as much of an adventure sometimes as it would be to be a +field of clover in an insectless world.--This is wonderful tea, David, +but your cream is like butter and floats around in it in wudges. No, +don't get any more, I've got to go home. Grandmother still thinks it's +very improper for me to call upon you, in spite of Mademoiselle and +your ancient and honorable housekeeper." + +"Don't go," David said; "I apologize on my knees for the cream. I'll +send out and have it wet down, or whatever you do to cream in that +state. I want to talk to you. What did you mean by your last remark?" + +"About the cream, or the proprieties?" + +"About women." + +"Everything and nothing, David dear. I'm a little bit tired of being +one, that's all, and I want to go home." + +"She wants to go home when she's being so truly delightful and +cryptic," David said. "Have you been seeing visions, Margaret, in my +hearth fire? Your eyes look as if you had." + +"I thought I did for a minute." She rose and stood absently fitting +her gloves to her fingers. "I don't know exactly what it was I saw, +but it was something that made me uncomfortable. It gives me the +creeps to talk about being a woman. David, do you know sometimes I +have a kind of queer hunch about Eleanor? I love her, you know, +dearly, dearly. I think that she is a very successful kind of +Frankenstein; but there are moments when I have the feeling that she's +going to be a storm center and bring some queer trouble upon us. I +wouldn't say this to anybody but you, David." + +As David tucked her in the car--he had arrived at the dignity of +owning one now--and watched her sweet silhouette disappear, he, too, +had his moment of clairvoyance. He felt that he was letting something +very precious slip out of sight, as if some radiant and delicate gift +had been laid lightly within his grasp and as lightly withdrawn again. +As if when the door closed on his friend Margaret some stranger, more +silent creature who was dear to him had gone with her. As soon as he +was dressed for dinner he called Margaret on the telephone to know if +she had arrived home safely, and was informed not only that she had, +but that she was very wroth at him for getting her down three flights +of stairs in the midst of her own dinner toilet. + +"I had a kind of hunch, too," he told her, "and I felt as if I wanted +to hear your voice speaking." + +But she only scoffed at him. + +"If that's the way you feel about your chauffeur," she said, "you +ought to discharge him, but he brought me home beautifully." + +The difference between a man's moments of prescience and a woman's, is +that the man puts them out of his consciousness as quickly as he can, +while a woman clings to them fearfully and goes her way a little more +carefully for the momentary flash of foresight. David tried to see +Margaret once or twice during that week but failed to find her in when +he called or telephoned, and the special impulse to seek her alone +again died naturally. + +One Saturday a few weeks later Eleanor telegraphed him that she +wished to come to New York for the week-end to do some shopping. + +He went to the train to meet her, and when the slender chic figure in +the most correct of tailor made suits appeared at the gateway, with an +obsequious porter bearing her smart bag and ulster, he gave a sudden +gasp of surprise at the picture. He had been aware for some time of +the increase in her inches and the charm of the pure cameo-cut +profile, but he regarded her still as a child histrionically assuming +the airs and graces of womanhood, as small girl children masquerade in +the trailing skirts of their elders. He was accustomed to the idea +that she was growing up rapidly, but the fact that she was already +grown had never actually dawned on him until this moment. + +"You look as if you were surprised to see me, Uncle David,--are you?" +she said, slipping a slim hand, warm through its immaculate glove, +into his. "You knew I was coming, and you came to meet me, and yet you +looked as surprised as if you hadn't expected me at all." + +"Surprised to see you just about expresses it, Eleanor. I am surprised +to see you. I was looking for a little girl in hair ribbons with her +skirts to her knees." + +"And a blue tam-o'-shanter?" + +"And a blue tam-o'-shanter. I had forgotten you had grown up any to +speak of." + +"You see me every vacation," Eleanor grumbled, as she stepped into the +waiting motor. "It isn't because you lack opportunity that you don't +notice what I look like. It's just because you're naturally +unobserving." + +"Peter and Jimmie have been making a good deal of fuss about your +being a young lady, now I think of it. Peter especially has been +rather a nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious moments of +triviality with the sweetly solemn thought that our little girl has +grown to be a woman now." + +"Oh, does _he_ think I'm grown up, does he really?" + +"Jimmie is almost as bad. He's all the time wanting me to get you to +New York over the weekend, so that he can see if you are any taller +than you were the last time he saw you." + +"Are they coming to see me this evening?" + +"Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up with his sister. You +know she's on here from China with her daughter. Peter wants you to +meet the child." + +"She must be as grown up as I am," Eleanor said. "I used to have her +room, you know, when I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like +her?" + +"Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. He says she looks like +a heathen Chinee but otherwise is passable. I didn't know that you +added jealousy to the list of your estimable vices." + +"I'm not jealous," Eleanor protested; "or if I am it's only because +she's blood relation,--and I'm not, you know." + +"It's a good deal more prosaic to be a blood relation, if anybody +should ask you," David smiled. "A blood relation is a good deal like +the famous primrose on the river's brim." + +"'A primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,--and +nothing more,'" Eleanor quoted gaily. "Why, what more--" she broke off +suddenly and colored slightly. + +"What more would anybody want to be than a yellow primrose by the +river's brim?" David finished for her. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm a +mere man and such questions are too abstruse for me, as I told your +Aunt Margaret the other day. Now I think of it, though, you don't look +unlike a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter." + +"That's because I've got a yellow ribbon on my hat." + +"No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has something to do with +youth and fragrance and the flowers that bloom in the spring." + +"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la," Eleanor returned +saucily, "have nothing to do with the case." + +"She's learning that she has eyes, good Lord," David said to himself, +but aloud he remarked paternally, "I saw all your aunts yesterday. +Gertrude gave a tea party and invited a great many famous tea party +types, and ourselves." + +"Was Aunt Beulah there?" + +"I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like the famous Queenie, +with her hair in a braid." + +"Not really." + +"Pretty nearly. She's gone in for dress reform now, you know, a kind +of middy blouse made out of a striped portière with a kilted skirt of +the same material and a Scotch cap. She doesn't look so bad in it. +Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar phenomenon these days. She's +growing better-looking and behaving worse every day of her life." + +"Behaving worse?" + +"She's theory ridden and fad bitten. She'll come to a bad end if +something doesn't stop her." + +"Do you mean--stop her working for suffrage? I'm a suffragist, Uncle +David." + +"And quite right to remind me of it before I began slamming the cause. +No, I don't mean suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the +way she's going after it. There are healthy ways of insisting on your +rights and unhealthy ways. Beulah's getting further and further off +key, that's all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor old +cooperative father welcomes you to the associated hearthstone." + +"This front entrance looks more like my front entrance than any other +place does," Eleanor said. "Oh! I'm so glad to be here. George, how is +the baby?" she asked the black elevator man, who beamed delightedly +upon her. + +"Gosh! I didn't know he had one," David chuckled. "It takes a +woman--" + +Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets and a five pound +box of the chocolates most in favor in the politest circles at the +moment. David whistled when he saw them. + +"What's devouring you, papa?" Jimmie asked him. "Don't I always place +tributes at the feet of the offspring?" + +"Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes," David said. "It's only +the labels that surprised me." + +"She knows the difference, now," Jimmie answered, "what would you?" + +The night before her return to school it was decreed that she should +go to bed early. She had spent two busy days of shopping and "seeing +the family." She had her hours discussing her future with Peter, long +visits and talks with Margaret and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at +suffrage headquarters with Beulah, as well as long sessions in the +shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made her home now permanently +with David. She sat before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out +of the embers and David stood with one arm on the mantel, smoking his +after-dinner cigar, and watching her. + +"Is it to be college, Eleanor?" he asked her presently. + +"I can't seem to make up my mind, Uncle David." + +"Don't you like the idea?" + +"Yes, I'd love it,--if--" + +"If what, daughter?" + +"If I thought I could spare the time." + +"The time? Elucidate." + +"I'm going to earn my own living, you know." + +"I didn't know." + +"I am. I've got to--in order to--to feel right about things." + +"Don't you like the style of living to which your cooperative parents +have accustomed you?" + +"I love everything you've ever done for me, but I can't go on letting +you do things for me forever." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know why not exactly. It doesn't seem--right, that's all." + +"It's your New England conscience, Eleanor; one of the most specious +varieties of consciences in the world. It will always be tempting you +to do good that better may come. Don't listen to it, daughter." + +"I'm in earnest, Uncle David. I don't know whether I would be better +fitted to earn my living if I went to business college or real +college. What do you think?" + +"I can't think,--I'm stupefied." + +"Uncle Peter couldn't think, either." + +"Have you mentioned this brilliant idea to Peter?" + +"Yes." + +"What did he say?" + +"He talked it over with me, but I think he thinks I'll change my +mind." + +"I think you'll change your mind. Good heavens! Eleanor, we're all +able to afford you--the little we spend on you is nothing divided +among six of us. It's our pleasure and privilege. When did you come to +this extraordinary decision?" + +"A long time ago. The day that Mrs. Bolling talked to me, I think. +There are things she said that I've never forgotten. I told Uncle +Peter to think about it and then help me to decide which to do, and I +want you to think, Uncle David, and tell me truly what you believe +the best preparation for a business life would be. I thought perhaps I +might be a stenographer in an editorial office, and my training there +would be more use to me than four years at college, but I don't +know." + +"You're an extraordinary young woman," David said, staring at her. +"I'm glad you broached this subject, if only that I might realize how +extraordinary, but I don't think anything will come of it, my dear. I +don't want you to go to college unless you really want to, but if you +do want to, I hope you will take up the pursuit of learning as a +pursuit and not as a means to an end. Do you hear me, daughter?" + +"Yes, Uncle David." + +"Then let's have no more of this nonsense of earning your own +living." + +"Are you really displeased, Uncle David?" + +"I should be if I thought you were serious,--but it's bedtime. If +you're going to get your beauty sleep, my dear, you ought to begin on +it immediately." + +Eleanor rose obediently, her brow clouded a little, and her head held +high. David watched the color coming and going in the sweet face and +the tender breast rising and falling with her quickening breath. + +"I thought perhaps you would understand," she said. "Good night." + +She had always kissed him "good night" until this visit, and he had +refrained from commenting on the omission before, but now he put out +his hand to her. + +"Haven't you forgotten something?" he asked. "There is only one way +for a daughter to say good night to her parent." + +She put up her face, and as she did so he caught the glint of tears in +her eyes. + +"Why, Eleanor, dear," he said, "did you care?" And he kissed her. Then +his lips sought hers again. + +With his arms still about her shoulder he stood looking down at her. A +hot tide of crimson made its way slowly to her brow and then receded, +accentuating the clear pallor of her face. + +"That was a real kiss, dear," he said slowly. "We mustn't get such +things confused. I won't bother you with talking about it to-night, or +until you are ready. Until then we'll pretend that it didn't happen, +but if the thought of it should ever disturb you the least bit, dear, +you are to remember that the time is coming when I shall have +something to say about it; will you remember?" + +"Yes, Uncle David," Eleanor said uncertainly, "but I--I--" + +David took her unceremoniously by the shoulders. + +"Go now," he said, and she obeyed him without further question. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BEULAH'S PROBLEM + + +Peter was shaving for the evening. His sister was giving a dinner +party for two of her husband's fellow bankers and their wives. After +that they were going to see the latest Belasco production, and from +there to some one of the new dancing "clubs,"--the smart cabarets that +were forced to organize in the guise of private enterprises to evade +the two o'clock closing law. Peter enjoyed dancing, but he did not as +a usual thing enjoy bankers' wives. He was deliberating on the +possibility of excusing himself gracefully after the theater, on the +plea of having some work to do, and finally decided that his sister's +feelings would be hurt if she realized he was trying to escape the +climax of the hospitality she had provided so carefully. + +He gazed at himself intently over the drifts of lather and twisted his +shaving mirror to the most propitious angle from time to time. In the +room across the hall--Eleanor's room, he always called it to +himself--his young niece was singing bits of the Mascagni intermezzo +interspersed with bits of the latest musical comedy, in a rather +uncertain contralto. + +"My last girl came from Vassar, and I don't know where to class her." + +Peter's mind took up the refrain automatically. "My last girl--" and +began at the beginning of the chorus again. "My last girl came from +Vassar," which brought him by natural stages to the consideration of +the higher education and of Beulah, and a conversation concerning her +that he had had with Jimmie and David the night before. + +"She's off her nut," Jimmie said succinctly. "It's not exactly that +there's nobody home," he rapped his curly pate significantly, "but +there's too much of a crowd there. She's not the same old girl at all. +She used to be a good fellow, high-brow propaganda and all. Now she's +got nothing else in her head. What's happened to her?" + +"It's what hasn't happened to her that's addled her," David explained. +"It's these highly charged, hypersensitive young women that go to +pieces under the modern pressure. They're the ones that need licking +into shape by all the natural processes." + +"By which you mean a drunken husband and a howling family?" Jimmie +suggested. + +"Yes, or its polite equivalent." + +"That is true, isn't it?" Peter said. "Feminism isn't the answer to +Beulah's problem." + +"It is the problem," David said; "she's poisoning herself with it. I +know what I'm talking about. I've seen it happen. My cousin Jack +married a girl with a sister a great deal like Beulah, looks, +temperament, and everything else, though she wasn't half so nice. She +got going the militant pace and couldn't stop herself. I never met her +at a dinner party that she wasn't tackling somebody on the subject of +man's inhumanity to woman. She ended in a sanitorium; in fact, they're +thinking now of taking her to the--" + +"--bug house," Jimmie finished cheerfully. + +"And in the beginning she was a perfectly good girl that needed +nothing in the world but a chance to develop along legitimate lines." + +"The frustrate matron, eh?" Peter said. + +"The frustrate matron," David agreed gravely. "I wonder you haven't +realized this yourself, Gram. You're keener about such things than I +am. Beulah is more your job than mine." + +"Is she?" + +"You're the only one she listens to or looks up to. Go up and tackle +her some day and see what you can do. She's sinking fast." + +"Give her the once over and throw out the lifeline," Jimmie said. + +"I thought all this stuff was a phase, a part of her taking herself +seriously as she always has. I had no idea it was anything to worry +about," Peter persisted. "Are you sure she's in bad shape--that she's +got anything more than a bad attack of Feminism of the Species in its +most virulent form? They come out of _that_, you know." + +"She's batty," Jimmie nodded gravely. "Dave's got the right dope." + +"Go up and look her over," David persisted; "you'll see what we mean, +then. Beulah's in a bad way." + +Peter reviewed this conversation while he shaved the right side of his +face, and frowned prodigiously through the lather. He wished that he +had an engagement that evening that he could break in order to get to +see Beulah at once, and discover for himself the harm that had come to +his friend. He was devoted to Beulah. He had always felt that he saw +a little more clearly than the others the virtue that was in the girl. +He admired the pluck with which she made her attack on life and the +energy with which she accomplished her ends. There was to him +something alluring and quaint about her earnestness. The fact that her +soundness could be questioned came to him with something like a shock. +As soon as he was dressed he was called to the telephone to talk to +David. + +"Margaret has just told me that Doctor Penrose has been up to see +Beulah and pronounces it a case of nervous breakdown. He wants her to +try out psycho-analysis, and that sort of thing. He seems to feel that +it's serious. Margaret is fearfully upset, poor girl. So'm I, to tell +the truth." + +"And so am I," Peter acknowledged to himself as he hung up the +receiver. He was so absorbed during the evening that one of the +ladies--the wife of the fat banker--found him extremely dull and +decided against asking him to dinner with his sister. The wife of the +thin banker, who was in his charge at the theater, got the benefit of +his effort to rouse himself and grace the occasion creditably, and +found him delightful. By the time the evening was over he had decided +that Beulah should be pulled out of whatever dim world of dismay and +delusion she might be wandering in, at whatever cost. It was +unthinkable that she should be wasted, or that her youth and splendid +vitality should go for naught. + +He found her eager to talk to him the next night when he went to see +her. + +"Peter," she said, "I want you to go to my aunt and my mother, and +tell them that I've got to go on with my work,--that I can't be +stopped and interrupted by this foolishness of doctors and nurses. I +never felt better in my life, except for not being able to sleep, and +I think that is due to the way they have worried me. I live in a world +they don't know anything about, that's all. Even if they were right, +if I am wearing myself out soul and body for the sake of the cause, +what business is it of theirs to interfere? I'm working for the souls +and bodies of women for ages to come. What difference does it make if +my soul and body suffer? Why shouldn't they?" Her eyes narrowed. Peter +observed the unnatural light in them, the apparent dryness of her +lips, the two bright spots burning below her cheek-bones. + +"Because," he answered her slowly, "I don't think it was the original +intention of Him who put us here that we should sacrifice everything +we are to the business of emphasizing the superiority of a sex." + +"That isn't the point at all, Peter. No man understands, no man can +understand. It's woman's equality we want emphasized, just literally +that and nothing more. You've pauperized and degraded us long +enough--" + +"Thou canst not say I--" Peter began. + +"Yes, you and every other man, every man in the world is a party to +it." + +"I had to get her going," Peter apologized to himself, "in order to +get a point of departure. Not if I vote for women, Beulah, dear," he +added aloud. + +"If you throw your influence with us instead of against us," she +conceded, "you're helping to right the wrong that you have permitted +for so long." + +"Well, granting your premise, granting all your premises, Beulah--and +I admit that most of them have sound reasoning behind them--your +battle now is all over but the shouting. There's no reason that you +personally should sacrifice your last drop of energy to a campaign +that's practically won already." + +"If you think the mere franchise is all I have been working for, +Peter,--" + +"I don't. I know the thousand and one activities you women are +concerned with. I know how much better church and state always have +been and are bound to be, when the women get behind and push, if they +throw their strength right." + +Beulah rose enthusiastically to this bait and talked rationally and +well for some time. Just as Peter was beginning to feel that David and +Jimmie had been guilty of the most unsympathetic exaggeration of her +state of mind--unquestionably she was not as fit physically as +usual--she startled him with an abrupt change into almost hysterical +incoherence. + +"I have a right to live my own life," she concluded, "and +nobody--nobody shall stop me." + +"We are all living our own lives, aren't we?" Peter asked mildly. + +"No woman lives her own life to-day," Beulah cried, still excitedly. +"Every woman is living the life of some man, who has the legal right +to treat her as an imbecile." + +"Hold on, Beulah. How about the suffrage states, how about the women +who are already in the proud possession of their rights and +privileges? They are not technical imbeciles any longer according to +your theory. The vote's coming. Every woman will be a super-woman in +two shakes,--so what's devouring you, as Jimmie says?" + +"It's after all the states have suffrage that the big fight will +really begin," Beulah answered wearily. "It's the habit of wearing the +yoke we'll have to fight then." + +"The anti-feminists," Peter said, "I see. Beulah, can't you give +yourself any rest, or is the nature of the cause actually suicidal?" + +To his surprise her tense face quivered at this and she tried to +steady a tremulous lower lip. + +"I am tired," she said, a little piteously, "dreadfully tired, but +nobody cares." + +"Is that fair?" + +"It's true." + +"Your friends care." + +"They only want to stop me doing something they have no sympathy with. +What do Gertrude and Margaret know of the real purpose of my life or +my failure or success? They take a sentimental interest in my health, +that's all. Do you suppose it made any difference to Jeanne d'Arc how +many people took a sympathetic interest in her health if they didn't +believe in what she believed in?" + +"There's something in that." + +"I thought Eleanor would grow up to take an interest in the position +of women, and to care about the things I cared about, but she's not +going to." + +"She's very fond of you." + +"Not as fond as she is of Margaret." + +Peter longed to dispute this, but he could not in honesty. + +"She's a suffragist." + +"She's so lukewarm she might just as well be an anti. She's naturally +reactionary. Women like that aren't much use. They drag us back like +so much dead weight." + +"I suppose Eleanor has been a disappointment to you," Peter mused, +"but she tries pretty hard to be all things to all parents, Beulah. +You'll find she won't fail you if you need her." + +"I shan't need her," Beulah said, prophetically. "I hoped she'd stand +beside me in the work, but she's not that kind. She'll marry early and +have a family, and that will be the end of her." + +"I wonder if she will," Peter said, "I hope so. She still seems such +a child to me. I believe in marriage, Beulah, don't you?" + +Her answer surprised him. + +"Under certain conditions, I do. I made a vow once that I would never +marry and I've always believed that it would be hampering and limiting +to a woman, but now I see that the fight has got to go on. If there +are going to be women to carry on the fight they will have to be born +of the women who are fighting to-day." + +"Thank God," Peter said devoutly. "It doesn't make any difference why +you believe it, if you do believe it." + +"It makes all the difference," Beulah said, but her voice softened. +"What I believe is more to me than anything else in the world, +Peter." + +"That's all right, too. I understand your point of view, Beulah. You +carry it a little bit too far, that's all that's wrong with it from my +way of thinking." + +"Will you help me to go on, Peter?" + +"How?" + +"Talk to my aunt and my mother. Tell them that they're all wrong in +their treatment of me." + +"I think I could undertake to do that"--Peter was convinced that a +less antagonistic attitude on the part of her relatives would be more +successful--"and I will." + +Beulah's eyes filled with tears. + +"You're the only one who comes anywhere near knowing," she said, "or +who ever will, I guess. I try so hard, Peter, and now when I don't +seem to be accomplishing as much as I want to, as much as it's +necessary for me to accomplish if I am to go on respecting myself, +every one enters into a conspiracy to stop my doing anything at all. +The only thing that makes me nervous is the way I am thwarted and +opposed at every turn. I haven't got nervous prostration." + +"Perhaps not, but you have something remarkably like _ideê fixe_," +Peter said to himself compassionately. + +He found her actual condition less dangerous but much more difficult +than he had anticipated. She was living wrong, that was the sum and +substance of her malady. Her life was spent confronting theories and +discounting conditions. She did not realize that it is only the +interest of our investment in life that we can sanely contribute to +the cause of living. Our capital strength and energy must be used for +the struggle for existence itself if we are to have a world of +balanced individuals. There is an arrogance involved in assuming +ourselves more humane than human that reacts insidiously on our health +and morals. Peter, looking into the twitching hectic face before him +with the telltale glint of mania in the eyes, felt himself becoming +helpless with pity for a mind gone so far askew. He felt curiously +responsible for Beulah's condition. + +"She wouldn't have run herself so far aground," he thought, "if I had +been on the job a little more. I could have helped her to steer +straighter. A word here and a lift there and she would have come +through all right. Now something's got to stop her or she can't be +stopped. She'll preach once too often out of the tail of a cart on the +subject of equal guardianship,--and--" + +Beulah put her hands to her face suddenly, and, sinking back into the +depths of the big cushioned chair on the edge of which she had been +tensely poised during most of the conversation, burst into tears. + +"You're the only one that knows," she sobbed over and over again. +"I'm so tired, Peter, but I've got to go on and on and on. If they +stop me, I'll kill myself." + +Peter crossed the room to her side and sat down on her chair-arm. + +"Don't cry, dear," he said, with a hand on her head. "You're too tired +to think things out now,--but I'll help you." + +She lifted a piteous face, for the moment so startlingly like that of +the dead girl he had loved that his senses were confused by the +resemblance. + +"How, Peter?" she asked. "How can you help me?" + +"I think I see the way," he said slowly. + +He slipped to his knees and gathered her close in his arms. + +"I think this will be the way, dear," he said very gently. + +"Does this mean that you want me to marry you?" she whispered, when +she was calmer. + +"If you will, dear," he said. "Will you?" + +"I will,--if I can, if I can make it seem right to after I've thought +it all out.--Oh! Peter, I love you. I love you." + +"I had no idea of that," he said gravely, "but it's wonderful that +you do. I'll put everything I've got into trying to make you happy, +Beulah." + +"I know you will, Peter." Her arms closed around his neck and +tightened there. "I love you." + +He made her comfortable and she relaxed like a tired child, almost +asleep under his soothing hand, and the quiet spell of his +tenderness. + +"I didn't know it could be like this," she whispered. + +"But it can," he answered her. + +In his heart he was saying, "This is best. I am sure this is best. It +is the right and normal way for her--and for me." + +In her tri-cornered dormitory room at the new school which she was not +sharing with any one this year Eleanor, enveloped in a big brown and +yellow wadded bathrobe, was writing a letter to Peter. Her hair hung +in two golden brown braids over her shoulders and her pure profile was +bent intently over the paper. At the moment when Beulah made her +confession of love and closed her eyes against the breast of the man +who had just asked her to marry him, two big tears forced their way +between Eleanor's lids and splashed down upon her letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +MOSTLY UNCLE PETER + + +"Dear Uncle Peter," the letter ran, "I am very, very homesick and +lonely for you to-day. It seems to me that I would gladly give a whole +year of my life just for the privilege of being with you, and talking +instead of writing,--but since that can not be, I am going to try and +write you about the thing that is troubling me. I can't bear it alone +any longer, and still I don't know whether it is the kind of thing +that it is honorable to tell or not. So you see I am very much +troubled and puzzled, and this trouble involves some one else in a way +that it is terrible to think of. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, I do not want to be married. Not until I have +grown up, and seen something of the world. You know it is one of my +dearest wishes to be self-supporting, not because I am a Feminist or a +new woman, or have 'the unnatural belief of an antipathy to man' that +you're always talking about, but just because it will prove to me once +and for all that I belong to myself, and that my _soul_ isn't, and +never has been cooperative. You know what I mean by this, and you are +not hurt by my feeling so. You, I am sure, would not want me to be +married, or to have to think of myself as engaged, especially not to +anybody that we all knew and loved, and who is very close to me and +you in quite another way. Please don't try to imagine what I mean, +Uncle Peter--even if you know, you must tell yourself that you don't +know. Please, please pretend even to yourself that I haven't written +you this letter. I know people do tell things like this, but I don't +know quite how they bring themselves to do it, even if they have +somebody like you who understands everything--everything. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, I am supposed to be going to be married by and by +when the one who wants it feels that it can be spoken of, and until +that happens, I've got to wait for him to speak, unless I can find +some way to tell him that I do not want it ever to be. I don't know +how to tell him. I don't know how to make him feel that I do not +belong to him. It is only myself I belong to, and I belong to you, but +I don't know how to make that plain to any one who does not know it +already. I can't say it unless perhaps you can help me to. + +"I am different from the other girls. I know every girl always thinks +there is something different about her, but I think there are ways in +which I truly am different. When I want anything I know more clearly +what it is, and why I want it than most other girls do, and not only +that, but I know now, that I want to keep myself, and everything I +think and feel and am,--_sacred_. There is an inner shrine in a +woman's soul that she must keep inviolate. I know that now. + +"A liberty that you haven't known how, or had the strength to prevent, +is a terrible thing. One can't forget it. Uncle Peter, dear, twice in +my life things have happened that drive me almost desperate when I +think of them. If these things should happen again when I know that I +don't want them to, I don't think there would be any way of my bearing +it. Perhaps you can tell me something that will make me find a way out +of this tangle. I don't see what it could be, but lots of times you +have shown me the way out of endless mazes that were not grown up +troubles like this, but seemed very real to me just the same. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, dear, dear,--you are all I have. I wish you were +here to-night, though you wouldn't be let in, even if you beat on the +gate ever so hard, for it's long after bedtime. I am up in my tower +room all alone. Oh! answer this letter. Answer it quickly, quickly." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a tear splotched envelope +to Peter. Then she slowly tore letter and envelope into little bits. + +"He would know," she said to herself. "I haven't any real right to +tell him. It would be just as bad as any kind of tattling." + +She began another letter to him but found she could not write without +saying what was in her heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There +was nothing in her experience to help her in her relation to David. +His kiss on her lips had taught her the nature of such kisses: had +made her understand suddenly the ease with which the strange, sweet +spell of sex is cast. She related it to the episode of the unwelcome +caress bestowed upon her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half +forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. She +understood now how she should have repelled that unconscionable boy, +but that understanding did not help her with the problem of her Uncle +David. Though the thought of it thrilled through her with a strange +incredible delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon her +lips. + +"It's--it's--like that," she said to herself. "I want it to be from +somebody--else. Somebody _realer_ to me. Somebody that would make it +seem right." But even to herself she mentioned no names. + +She had definitely decided against going to college. She felt that she +must get upon her own feet quickly and be under no obligation to any +man. Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning to indicate +the way that she should tread. No man or woman who did not understand +"the value of a dollar," was properly equipped to do battle with the +realities of life. The value of a dollar, and a clear title to +it--these were the principles upon which her integrity must be founded +if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her Puritan fathers had +bestowed this heritage upon her. She had always felt the irregularity +of her economic position; now that the complication of her relation +with David had arisen, it was beginning to make her truly +uncomfortable. + +David had been very considerate of her, but his consideration +frightened her. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt or +troubled by his attitude toward her that he had explained again, and +almost in so many words that he was only waiting for her to grow +accustomed to the idea before he asked her to become his wife. She had +looked forward with considerable trepidation to the Easter vacation +following the establishment of their one-sided understanding, but +David relieved her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving +her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with +Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five +of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals, +she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and +normal perspective. David's attitude to her was as simple as ever, and +when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the +matter that was at issue between them--almost but not quite. + +She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the +group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with +them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting +for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she +looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very +newly fledged and timorous one. + +She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she +was soon on her old familiar footing. + + * * * * * + +"Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun," she wrote in her diary. +"He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good +many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs +as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and +teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a +studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is. +I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the +three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking. +Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle +Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking +into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him +when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look at +me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in +my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens. + +"I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday +and Friday,--four days of my vacation. We've been to the Hippodrome +and Chinatown, and we've dined at Sherry's, and one night we went down +to the little Italian restaurant where I had my first introduction to +_eau rougie_, and was so distressed about it. I shall never forget +that night, and I don't think Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing +me about it. It is nice to be with Uncle Jimmie so much, but I never +seem to see Uncle Peter any more. Alphonse is very careful about +taking messages, I know, but it does seem to me that Uncle Peter must +have telephoned more times than I know of. It does seem as if he +would, at least, try to see me long enough to have one of our old time +talks again. To see him with all the others about is only a very +little better than not seeing him at all. He isn't like himself, +someway. There is a shadow over him that I do not understand." + + * * * * * + +"Don't you think that Uncle Peter has changed?" she asked Jimmie, +when the need of speaking of him became too strong to withstand. + +"He is a little pale about the ears," Jimmie conceded, "but I think +that's the result of hard work and not enough exercise. He spends all +his spare time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping and +getting out on his horse the way he used to. He's doing a good job on +the old dear, but it's some job, nevertheless and notwithstanding--" + +"Is Aunt Beulah feeling better than she was?" Eleanor's lips were dry, +but she did her best to make her voice sound natural. It seemed +strange that Jimmie could speak so casually of a condition of affairs +that made her very heart stand still. "I didn't know that Uncle Peter +had been taking care of her." + +"Taking care of her isn't a circumstance to what Peter has been doing +for Beulah. You know she hasn't been right for some time. She got +burning wrong, like the flame on our old gas stove in the studio when +there was air in it." + +"Uncle David thought so the last time I was here," Eleanor said, "but +I didn't know that Uncle Peter--" + +"Peter, curiously enough, was the last one to tumble. Dave and I got +alarmed about the girl and held a consultation, with the result that +Doctor Gramercy was called. If we'd believed he would go into it quite +so heavily we might have thought again before we sicked him on. It's +very nice for Mary Ann, but rather tough on Abraham as they said when +the lady was deposited on that already overcrowded bosom. Now Beulah's +got suffrage mania, and Peter's got Beulah mania, and it's a merry +mess all around." + +"Is Uncle Peter with her a lot?" + +"Every minute. You haven't seen much of him since you came, have +you?--Well, the reason is that every afternoon as soon as he can get +away from the office, he puts on a broad sash marked 'Votes for +Women,' and trundles Beulah around in her little white and green +perambulator, trying to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks +to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. Suffrage is the only +subject on her mind, he explains, so all he can do is to try to cuckoo +gently under it day by day. It's a very complicated process but he's +making headway." + +"I'm glad of that," Eleanor said faintly. "How--how is Aunt Gertrude? +I don't see her very often, either." + +"Gertrude's all right." It was Jimmie's turn to look self-conscious. +"She never has time for me any more; I'm not high-brow enough for her. +She's getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting everywhere." + +"I know she is. She gave me a cast of her faun's head. I think it is +lovely. Aunt Margaret looks well." + +"She is, I guess, but don't let's waste all our valuable time talking +about the family. Let's talk about us--you and me. You ask me how I'm +feeling and then I'll tell you. Then I'll ask you how you're feeling +and you'll tell me. Then I'll tell you how I imagine you must be +feeling from the way you're looking,--and that will give me a chance +to expatiate on the delectability of your appearance. I'll work up +delicately to the point where you will begin to compare me favorably +with all the other nice young men you know,--and then we'll be off." + +"Shall we?" Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle a little. + +"We shall indeed," he assured her solemnly. "You begin. No, on second +thoughts, I'll begin. I'll begin at the place where I start telling +you how excessively well you're looking. I don't know, considering its +source, whether it would interest you or not, but you have the biggest +blue eyes that I've, ever seen in all my life,--and I'm rather a judge +of them." + +"All the better to eat you with, my dear," Eleanor chanted. + +"Quite correct." He shot her a queer glance from under his eyebrows. +"I don't feel very safe when I look into them, my child. It would be a +funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, wouldn't +it?--well,--but away with such nonsense. I mustn't blither to the very +babe whose cradle I am rocking, must I?" + +"I'm not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old sometimes. Older than +any of you." + +"Oh! you are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says +that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering +things out of your previous experience." + +"'When he was a King in Babylon and I was a Christian Slave?'" she +quoted quickly. + +"Exactly. Only I'd prefer to play the part of the King of Babylon, if +it's all the same to you, niecelet. How does the rest of it go, 'yet +not for a--' something or other 'would I wish undone that deed beyond +the grave.' Gosh, my dear, if things were otherwise, I think I could +understand how that feller felt. Get on your hat, and let's get out +into the open. My soul is cramped with big potentialities this +afternoon. I wish you hadn't grown up, Eleanor. You are taking my +breath away in a peculiar manner. No man likes to have his breath +taken away so suddint like. Let's get out into the rolling prairie of +Central Park." + +But the rest of the afternoon was rather a failure. The Park had that +peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The +children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks +later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless +between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive +balminess in the air that seemed merely to overlay a penetrating +chilliness. + +"I'm sorry I'm not more entertaining this afternoon," Jimmie +apologized on the way home. "It isn't that I am not happy, or that I +don't feel the occasion to be more than ordinarily propitious; I'm +silent upon a peak in Darien,--that's all." + +"I was thinking of something else, too," Eleanor said. + +"I didn't say I was thinking of something else." + +"People are always thinking of something else when they aren't talking +to each other, aren't they?" + +"Something else, or each other, Eleanor. I wasn't thinking of +something else, I was thinking--well, I won't tell you exactly--at +present. A penny for your thoughts, little one." + +"They aren't worth it." + +"A penny is a good deal of money. You can buy joy for a penny." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't--buy joy, even if you gave me your penny, Uncle +Jimmie." + +"You might try. My penny might not be like other pennies. On the other +hand, your thoughts might be worth a fortune to me." + +"I'm afraid they wouldn't be worth anything to anybody." + +"You simply don't know what I am capable of making out of them." + +"I wish I could make something out of them," Eleanor said so +miserably that Jimmie was filled with compunction for having tired her +out, and hailed a passing taxi in which to whiz her home again. + + * * * * * + +"I have found out that Uncle Peter is spending all his time with Aunt +Beulah," she wrote in her diary that evening. "It is beautiful of him +to try to help her through this period of nervous collapse, and just +like him, but I don't understand why it is that he doesn't come and +tell me about it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought to +know that I love him so dearly and deeply that I could help him even +in helping her. It isn't like him not to share his anxieties with me. +Aunt Beulah is a grown up woman, and has friends and doctors and +nurses, and every one knows her need. It seems to me that he might +think that I have no one but him, and that whatever might lie heavy on +my heart I could only confide in him. I have always told him +everything. Why doesn't it occur to him that I might have something to +tell him now? Why doesn't he come to me? + +"I am afraid he will get sick. He needs a good deal of exercise to +keep in form. If he doesn't have a certain amount of muscular +activity his digestion is not so good. There are two little creases +between his eyes that I never remember seeing there before. I asked +him the other night when he was here with Aunt Beulah if his head +ached, and he said 'no,' but Aunt Beulah said her head ached almost +all the time. Of course, Aunt Beulah is important, and if Uncle Peter +is trying to bring her back to normality again she is important to +him, and that makes her important to me for his sake also, but nobody +in the world is worth the sacrifice of Uncle Peter. Nobody, nobody. + +"I suppose it's a part of his great beauty that he should think so +disparagingly of himself. I might not love him so well if he knew just +how dear and sweet and great his personality is. It isn't so much what +he says or does, or even the way he looks that constitutes his charm, +it's the simple power and radiance behind his slightest move. Oh! I +can't express it. He doesn't think he is especially fine or beautiful. +He doesn't know what a waste it is when he spends his strength upon +somebody who isn't as noble in character as he is,--but I know, and it +makes me wild to think of it. Oh! why doesn't he come to me? My +vacation is almost over, and I don't see how I could bear going back +to school without one comforting hour of him alone. + +"I intended to write a detailed account of my vacation, but I can not. +Uncle Jimmie has certainly tried to make me happy. He is so funny and +dear. I could have so much fun with him if I were not worried about +Uncle Peter! + +"Uncle David says he wants to spend my last evening with me. We are +going to dine here, and then go to the theater together. I am going to +try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am afraid he won't give +me the chance. Life is a strange mixture of things you want and can't +have, and things you can have and don't want. It seems almost disloyal +to put that down on paper about Uncle David. I do want him and love +him, but oh!--not in that way. Not in that way. There is only one +person in a woman's life that she can feel that way about. +Why--why--why doesn't my Uncle Peter come to me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE MAKINGS OF A TRIPLE WEDDING + + +"Just by way of formality," David said, "and not because I think any +one present"--he smiled on the five friends grouped about his dinner +table--"still takes our old resolution seriously, I should like to be +released from the anti-matrimonial pledge that I signed eight years +ago this November. I have no announcement to make as yet, but when I +do wish to make an announcement--and I trust to have the permission +granted very shortly--I want to be sure of my technical right to do +so." + +"Gosh all Hemlocks!" Jimmie exclaimed in a tone of such genuine +confusion that it raised a shout of laughter. "I never thought of +that." + +"Nor I," said Peter. "I never signed any pledge to that effect." + +"We left you out of it, Old Horse, regarding you as a congenital +celibate anyway," Jimmie answered. + +"Some day soon you will understand how much you wronged me," Peter +said with a covert glance at Beulah. + +"I wish I could say as much," Jimmie sighed, "since this is the hour +of confession I don't mind adding that I hope I may be able to soon." + +Gertrude clapped her hands softly. + +"Wonderful, wonderful!" she cried. "We've the makings of a triple +wedding in our midst. Look into the blushing faces before us and hear +the voice that breathed o'er Eden echoing in our ears. This is the +most exciting moment of my life! Girls, get on your feet and drink to +the health of these about-to-be Benedicts. Up in your chairs,--one +slipper on the table. Now!"--and the moment was saved. + +Gertrude had seen Margaret's sudden pallor and heard the convulsive +catching of her breath,--Margaret rising Undine-like out of a filmy, +pale green frock, with her eyes set a little more deeply in the +shadows than usual. Her quick instinct to the rescue was her own +salvation. + +David was on his feet. + +"On behalf of my coadjutors," he said, "I thank you. All this is +extremely premature for me, and I imagine from the confusion of the +other gentlemen present it is as much, if not more so, for them. +Personally I regret exceedingly being unable to take you more fully +into my confidence. The only reason for this partial revelation is +that I wished to be sure that I was honorably released from my oath of +abstinence. Hang it all! You fellows say something," he concluded, +sinking abruptly into his chair. + +"Your style always was distinctly mid-Victorian," Jimmie murmured. +"I've got nothing to say, except that I wish I had something to say +and that if I _do_ have something to say in the near future I'll +create a real sensation! When Miss Van Astorbilt permits David to link +her name with his in the caption under a double column cut in our +leading journals, you'll get nothing like the thrill that I expect to +create with my modest announcement. I've got a real romance up my +sleeve." + +"So've I, Jimmie. There is no Van Astorbilt in mine." + +"Some simple bar-maid then? A misalliance in our midst. Now about you, +Peter?" + +"The lady won't give me her permission to speak," Peter said. "She +knows how proud and happy I shall be when I am able to do so." + +Beulah looked up suddenly. + +"It is better we should marry," she said. "I didn't realize that when +I exacted that oath from you. It is from the intellectual type that +the brains to carry on the great work of the world must be +inherited." + +"I pass," Jimmie murmured. "Where's the document we signed?" + +"I've got it. I'll destroy it to-night and then we may all consider +ourselves free to take any step that we see fit. It was really only as +a further protection to Eleanor that we signed it." + +"Eleanor will be surprised, won't she?" Gertrude suggested. Three +self-conscious masculine faces met her innocent interrogation. + +"_Eleanor_," Margaret breathed, "_Eleanor_." + +"I rather think she will," Jimmie chuckled irresistibly, but David +said nothing, and Peter stared unseeingly into the glass he was still +twirling on its stem. + +"Eleanor will be taken care of just the same," Beulah said decisively. +"I don't think we need even go through the formality of a vote on +that." + +"Eleanor will be taken care of," David said softly. + +The Hutchinsons' limousine--old Grandmother Hutchinson had a motor +nowadays--was calling for Margaret, and she was to take the two other +girls home. David and Jimmie--such is the nature of men--were +disappointed in not being able to take Margaret and Gertrude +respectively under their accustomed protection. + +"I wanted to talk to you, Gertrude," Jimmie said reproachfully as she +slipped away from his ingratiating hand on her arm. + +"I thought I should take you home to-night, Margaret," David said; +"you never gave me the slip before." + +"The old order changeth," Gertrude replied lightly to them both, as +she preceded Margaret into the luxurious interior. + +"It's Eleanor," Gertrude announced as the big car swung into Fifth +Avenue. + +"Which is Eleanor?" Margaret cried hysterically. + +"What do you mean?" Beulah asked. + +"Jimmie or David--or--or both are going to marry Eleanor. Didn't you +see their faces when Beulah spoke of her?" + +"David wants to marry Eleanor," Margaret said quietly. "I've known it +all winter--without realizing what it was I knew." + +"Well, who is Jimmy going to marry then?" Beulah inquired. + +"Who is Peter going to marry for that matter?" Gertrude cut in. "Oh! +it doesn't make any difference,--we're losing them just the same." + +"Not necessarily," Beulah said. "No matter what combinations come +about, we shall still have an indestructible friendship." + +"Indestructible friendship--shucks," Gertrude cried. "The boys are +going to be married--married--married! Marriage is the one thing that +indestructible friendships don't survive--except as ghosts." + +"It should be Peter who is going to marry Eleanor," Margaret said. +"It's Peter who has always loved her best. It's Peter she cares for." + +"As a friend," Beulah said, "as her dearest friend." + +"Not as a friend," Margaret answered softly, "she loves him. She has +always loved him. It comes early sometimes." + +"I don't believe it. I simply don't believe it." + +"I believe it," Gertrude said. "I hadn't thought of it before. Of +course, it must be Peter who is going to marry her." + +"If it isn't we've succeeded in working out a rather tragic +experiment," Margaret said, "haven't we?" + +"Life is a tragic experiment for any woman," Gertrude said +sententiously. + +"Peter doesn't intend to marry Eleanor," Beulah persisted. "I happen +to know." + +"Do you happen to know who he is going to marry?" + +"Yes, I do know, but I--I can't tell you yet." + +"Whoever it is, it's a mistake," Margaret said. "It's our little +Eleanor he wants. I suppose he doesn't realize it himself yet, and +when he does it will be too late. He's probably gone and tied himself +up with somebody entirely unsuitable, hasn't he, Beulah?" + +"I don't know," Beulah said; "perhaps he has. I hadn't thought of it +that way." + +"It's the way to think of it, I know." Margaret's eyes filled with +sudden tears. "But whatever he's done it's past mending now. There'll +be no question of Peter's backing out of a bargain--bad or good, and +our poor little kiddie's got to suffer." + +"Beulah took it hard," Gertrude commented, as they turned up-town +again after dropping their friend at her door. The two girls were +spending the night together at Margaret's. "I wonder on what grounds. +I think besides being devoted to Eleanor, she feels terrifically +responsible for her. She isn't quite herself again either." + +"She is almost, thanks to Peter." + +"But--oh! I can't pretend to think of anything else,--who--who--who--are +our boys going to marry?" + +"I don't know, Gertrude." + +"But you care?" + +"It's a blow." + +"I always thought that you and David--" + +Margaret met her eyes bravely but she did not answer the implicit +question. + +"I always thought that you and Jimmie--" she said presently. "Oh! +Gertrude, you would have been so good for him." + +"Oh! it's all over now," Gertrude said, "but I didn't know that a +living soul suspected me." + +"I've known for a long time." + +"Are you really hurt, dear?" Gertrude whispered as they clung to each +other. + +"Not really. It could have been--that's all. He could have made me +care. I've never seen any one else whom I thought that of. I--I was so +used to him." + +"That's the rub," Gertrude said, "we're so used to them. They're +so--so preposterously necessary to us." + +Late that night clasped in each other's arms they admitted the extent +of their desolation. Life had been robbed of a magic,--a mystery. The +solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding was the +background of so much lovely folly, so many unrealized possibilities, +so many nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution of +their circle was an unthinkable calamity. + +"We ought to have put out our hands and taken them if we wanted them," +Gertrude said, out of the darkness. "Other women do. Probably these +other women have. Men are helpless creatures. They need to be firmly +turned in the right direction instead of being given their heads. +We've been too good to our boys. We ought to have snitched them." + +"I wouldn't pay that price for love," Margaret said. "I couldn't. By +the time I had made it happen I wouldn't want it." + +"That's my trouble too," Gertrude said. Then she turned over on her +pillow and sobbed helplessly. "Jimmie had such ducky little curls," +she explained incoherently. "I do this sometimes when I think of them. +Otherwise, I'm not a crying woman." + +Margaret put out a hand to her; but long after Gertrude's breath began +to rise and fall regularly, she lay staring wide-eyed into the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +ELEANOR HEARS THE NEWS + + +"Dear Uncle Jimmie: + +"I said I would write you, but now that I have taken this hour in +which to do it, I find it is a very, very hard letter that I have got +to write. In the first place I can't believe that the things you said +to me that night were real, or that you were awake and in the world of +realities when you said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; that +you were talking as a man does sometimes in delirium when he believes +the woman he loves to be by his side, and I was listening the same +way. It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. I can't help +feeling that your idea of me is a dream idea, and the pain that you +said this kind of a letter would give you will be merely dream pain. +It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find that all the lovely +ways we felt, and delicately beautiful things we had, were only dream +things that we wouldn't even understand if we were thoroughly awake. + +"In the second place, you can't want to marry your little niecelet, +the funny little 'kiddo,' that used to burn her fingers and the +beefsteak over that old studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of +make-believe together. That's what our association always ought to +mean to us,--just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous _pretends_. +I couldn't think of myself being married to you any more than I could +Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You're my truly best and +dearest childhood's playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle +Jimmie. I don't think a little girl ever grows up quite _whole_ unless +she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn't want to +marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? There are some kinds of +playmates that can't marry each other. I think that you and I are that +kind, Uncle Jimmie. + +"My dear, my dear, don't let this hurt you. How can it hurt you, when +I am only your little adopted foster child that you have helped +support and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? I love you so +much,--you are so precious to me that you _must_ wake up out of this +distorted, though lovely dream that I was present at! + +"We must all be happy. Nobody can break our hearts if we are strong +enough to withhold them. Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find +the way to be our bravest all the time. I know that what you are +feeling now is not real. I can't tell you how I know, but I do know +the difference. The roots are not deep enough. They could be pulled up +without too terrible a havoc. + +"Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I said this would be a +hard letter to write, and it has been. If you could see my poor +inkstained, weeping face, you would realize that I am only your funny +little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously at all. I hope +you will come up for my graduation. When you see me with all the other +lumps and frumps that are here, you will know that I am not worth +considering except as a kind of human joke. + +"Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you. + +"Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie that Margaret +spending a week-end in a town in Connecticut adjoining that in which +Eleanor's school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her +overnight at the inn where she was staying. She had really planned the +entire expedition for the purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her +for the revelations that were in store for her, though she was +ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with which she was going on into +the Berkshires. + +She started in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in +the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road +house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new +sporting clothes. + +"Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are going to be married," she +told her. "Did you know it, Eleanor?" + +"No, I didn't," Eleanor said faintly, but she grew suddenly very +white. + +"Aren't you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner party one night last +week in his studio, and announced his intentions, but we don't know +the name of the lady yet, and we can't guess it. He says it is not a +society girl." + +"Who do you think it is?" + +"Who do you think it is, Eleanor?" + +"I--I can't think, Aunt Margaret." + +"We don't know who Jimmie is marrying either. The facts were merely +insinuated, but he said we should have the shock of our lives when we +knew." + +"When did he tell you?" + +"A week ago last Wednesday. I haven't seen him since." + +"Perhaps he has changed his mind by now," Eleanor said. + +"I don't think that's likely. They were both very much in earnest. +Aren't you surprised, Eleanor?" + +"I--I don't know. Don't you think it might be that they both just +thought they were going to marry somebody--that really doesn't want to +marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know." + +"I don't think it's a mistake. David doesn't make mistakes." + +"He might make one," Eleanor persisted. + +Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had +anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the +sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to +tell,--why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from +the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have +been shared with her at once. + +She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were +connecting)--Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity +nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in +Margaret's memory for many years. "It would have been easier to tell +her in her street clothes," she thought. "I wish her profile were not +so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely +thing?" + +"Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?" Eleanor was asking. + +"The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now +that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn't show my +feelings through. Haven't you noticed how much more like other people +I've grown, Eleanor?" + +"You've grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don't think you're +very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret." + +"I have though,--every one notices it. You haven't asked me anything +about Peter yet," she added suddenly. + +The lovely color glowed in Eleanor's cheeks for an instant. + +"Is--is Uncle Peter well?" she asked. "I haven't heard from him for a +long time." + +"Yes, he's well," Margaret said. "He's looking better than he was for +a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor." + +Eleanor put her hand to her throat. + +"What kind of news?" she asked huskily. + +"He's going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He +said that he hadn't the consent of the lady to mention her name yet. +We're as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two." + +"It's Aunt Beulah," Eleanor said. "It's Aunt Beulah." + +She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of +her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face +and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it. + +"I don't think it's Beulah," Margaret said. "Beulah knows who it is, +but I never thought of it's being Beulah herself." + +"If she knows--then she's the one. He wouldn't have told her first if +she hadn't been." + +"Don't let it hurt you too much, dear. We're all hurt some, you know. +Gertrude--and me, too, Eleanor. It's--it's pain to us all." + +"Do you mean--Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?" + +"Yes, dear," Margaret smiled at her bravely. + +"And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle Jimmie?" + +"She has for a good many years, I think." + +Eleanor covered her face with her hands. + +"I didn't know that," she said. "I wish somebody had told me." She +pushed Margaret's arm away from her gently, but her breath came hard. +"Don't touch me," she cried, "I can't bear it. You might not want +to--if you knew. Please go,--oh! please go--oh! please go." + +As Margaret closed the door gently between them, she saw Eleanor throw +her head back, and push the back of her hand hard against her mouth, +as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish. + + * * * * * + +The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret had listened for hours in +the night but had heard not so much as the rustle of a garment from +the room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen into the sleep of +exhaustion. It was then that the stricken child had made her escape. +"Miss Hamlin had found that she must take the early train," the clerk +said, "and left this note for Miss Hutchinson." It was like Eleanor to +do things decently and in order. + + * * * * * + +"Dear Aunt Margaret," her letter ran. "My grandmother used to say that +some people were trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid +that is just about what I am,--a trouble breeder. + +"I've been a worry and bother and care to you all since the beginning, +and I have repaid all your kindness by bringing trouble upon you. +Perhaps you can guess what I mean. I don't think I have any right to +tell you exactly in this letter. I can only pray that it will be found +to be all a mistake, and come out right in the end. Surely such +beautiful people as you and Uncle David can find the way to each +other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Gertrude, who are a little +blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the +way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt +Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go +wrong. I was so young, I didn't know how to manage. I shall never be +that kind of young again. I grew up last night, Aunt Margaret. + +"You know the other reason why I am going. Please do not let any one +else know. If the others could think I had met with some accident, +don't you think that would be the wisest way? I would like to arrange +it so they wouldn't try to find me at all, but would just mourn for me +naturally for a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap in the +river, but I was afraid that would be too hard for you. There won't be +any use in trying to find me. I am going where you can not. I couldn't +ever bear seeing one of your faces again. I have done too much harm. +Don't let Uncle Peter _know_, please, Aunt Margaret. I don't want him +to know,--I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want him to know. + +"Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, my dears, my dearests. I +have taken all of my allowance money. Please forgive me. + +"Eleanor." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE SEARCH + + +Eleanor had not bought a ticket at the station, Margaret ascertained, +but the ticket agent had tried to persuade her to. She had thanked him +and told him that she preferred to buy it of the conductor. He was a +lank, saturnine individual and had been seriously smitten with +Eleanor's charms, it appeared, and the extreme solicitousness of his +attitude at the suggestion of any mystery connected with her departure +made Margaret realize the caution with which it would be politic to +proceed. She had very little hope of finding Eleanor back at the +school, but it was still rather a shock when she telephoned the school +office and found that there was no news of her there. She concocted a +somewhat lame story to account for Eleanor's absence and promised the +authorities that she would be sent back to them within the week,--a +promise she was subsequently obliged to acknowledge that she could not +keep. Then she fled to New York to break the disastrous news to the +others. + +She told Gertrude the truth and showed her the pitiful letter Eleanor +had left behind her, and together they wept over it. Also together, +they faced David and Jimmie. + +"She went away," Margaret told them, "both because she felt she was +hurting those that she loved and because she herself was hurt." + +"What do you mean?" David asked. + +"I mean--that she belonged body and soul to Peter and to nobody else," +Margaret answered deliberately. + +David bowed his head. Then he threw it back again, suddenly. + +"If that is true," he said, "then I am largely responsible for her +going." + +"It is I who am responsible," Jimmie groaned aloud. "I asked her to +marry me and she refused me." + +"I asked her to marry me and didn't give her the chance to refuse," +David said; "it is that she is running away from." + +"It was Peter's engagement that was the last straw," Margaret said. +"The poor baby withered and shrank like a flower in the blast when I +told her that." + +"The damned hound--" Jimmie said feelingly and without apology. "Who's +he engaged to anyway?" + +"Eleanor says it's Beulah, and the more I think of it the more I think +that she's probably right." + +"That would be a nice mess, wouldn't it?" Gertrude suggested. +"Remember how frank we were with her about his probable lack of +judgment, Margaret? I don't covet the sweet job of breaking it to +either one of them." + +Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it to them both late that +same afternoon at Beulah's apartment. + +"I'll find her," Peter said briefly. And in response to the halting +explanation of her disappearance that Margaret and Gertrude had done +their best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical nature, he +only said, "I don't see that it makes any difference why she's gone. +She's gone, that's the thing that's important. No matter how hard we +try we can't really figure out her reason till we find her." + +"Are you sure it's going to be so easy?" Gertrude asked. "I +mean--finding her. She's a pretty determined little person when she +makes up her mind. Eleanor's threats are to be taken seriously. She +always makes good on them." + +"I'll find her if she's anywhere in the world," Peter said. "I'll find +her and bring her back." + +Margaret put out her hand to him. + +"I believe that you will," she said. "Find out the reason that she +went away, too, Peter." + +Beulah pulled Gertrude aside. + +"It wasn't Peter, was it?" she asked piteously. "She had some one else +on her mind, hadn't she?" + +"She had something else on her mind," Gertrude answered gravely, "but +she had Peter on her mind, too." + +"She didn't--she couldn't have known about us--Peter and me. We--we +haven't told any one." + +"She guessed it, Beulah. She couldn't bear it. Nobody's to blame. It's +just one of God's most satirical mix-ups." + +"I was to blame," Beulah said slowly. "I don't believe in shifting +responsibility. I got her here in the first place and I've been +instrumental in guiding her life ever since. Now, I've sacrificed her +to my own happiness." + +"It isn't so simple as that," Gertrude said; "the things we start +going soon pass out of our hands. Somebody a good deal higher up has +been directing Eleanor's affairs for a long time,--and ours too, for +that matter." + +"Don't worry, Beulah," Peter said, making his way to her side from the +other corner of the room where he had been talking to Margaret. "You +mustn't let this worry you. We've all got to be--soldiers now,--but +we'll soon have her back again, I promise you." + +"And I promise you," Beulah said chokingly, "that if you'll get her +back again, I--I will be a soldier." + + * * * * * + +Peter began by visiting the business schools in New York and finding +out the names of the pupils registered there. Eleanor had clung firmly +to her idea of becoming an editorial stenographer in some magazine +office, no matter how hard he had worked to dissuade her. He felt +almost certain she would follow out that purpose now. There was a fund +in her name started some years before for the defraying of her college +expenses. She would use that, he argued, to get herself started, even +though she felt constrained to pay it back later on. He worked on this +theory for some time, even making a trip to Boston in search for her +in the stenography classes there, but nothing came of it. + +Among Eleanor's effects sent on from the school was a little red +address book containing the names and addresses of many of her former +schoolmates at Harmon. Peter wrote all the girls he remembered hearing +her speak affectionately of, but not one of them was able to give him +any news of her. He wrote to Colhassett to Albertina's aunt, who had +served in the capacity of housekeeper to Eleanor's grandfather in his +last days, and got in reply a pious letter from Albertina herself, who +intimated that she had always suspected that Eleanor would come to +some bad end, and that now she was highly soothed and gratified by the +apparent fulfillment of her sinister prognostications. + +Later he tried private detectives, and, not content with their +efforts, he followed them over the ground that they covered, searching +through boarding houses, and public classes of all kinds; canvassing +the editorial offices of the various magazines Eleanor had admired in +the hope of discovering that she had applied for some small position +there; following every clue that his imagination, and the acumen of +the professionals in his service, could supply;--but his patient +search was unrewarded. Eleanor had apparently vanished from the +surface of the earth. The quest which had seemed to him so simple a +matter when he first undertook it, now began to assume terrible and +abortive proportions. It was unthinkable that one little slip of a +girl untraveled and inexperienced should be able permanently to elude +six determined and worldly adult New Yorkers, who were prepared to tax +their resources to the utmost in the effort to find her,--but the fact +remained that she was missing and continued to be missing, and the +cruel month went by and brought them no news of her. + +The six guardians took their trouble hard. Apart from the emotions +that had been precipitated by her developing charms, they loved her +dearly as the child they had taken to their hearts and bestowed all +their young enthusiasm and energy and tenderness upon. She was the +living clay, as Gertrude had said so many years before, that they had +molded as nearly as possible to their hearts' desire. They loved her +for herself, but one and all they loved her for what they had made of +her--an exquisite, lovely young creature, at ease in a world that +might so easily have crushed her utterly if they had not intervened +for her. + +They kept up the search unremittingly, following false leads and +meeting with heartbreaking discouragements and disappointments. Only +Margaret had any sense of peace about her. + +"I'm sure she's all right," she said; "I feel it. It's hard having her +gone, but I'm not afraid for her. She'll work it out better than we +could help her to. It's a beautiful thing to be young and strong and +free, and she'll get the beauty out of it." + +"I think perhaps you're right, Margaret," David said. "You almost +always are. It's the bread and butter end of the problem that worries +me." + +Margaret smiled at him quaintly. + +"The Lord provides," she said. "He'll provide for our ewe lamb, I'm +sure." + +"You speak as if you had it on direct authority." + +"I think perhaps I have," she said gravely. + +Jimmie and Gertrude grew closer together as the weeks passed, and the +strain of their fruitless quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her +the letter that Eleanor had written him. + +"Sweet, isn't she?" he said, as Gertrude returned it to him, smiling +through her tears. + +"She's a darling," Gertrude said fervently. "Did she hurt you so much, +Jimmie dear?" + +"I wanted her," Jimmie answered slowly, "but I think it was because I +thought she was mine,--that I could make her mine. When I found she +was Peter's,--had been Peter's all the time, the thought somehow cured +me. She was dead right, you know. I made it up out of the stuff that +dreams are made of. God knows I love her, but--but that personal thing +has gone out of it. She's my little lost child,--or my sister. A man +wants his own to be his own, Gertrude." + +"Yes, I know." + +"My--my real trouble is that I'm at sea again. I thought that I +cared,--that I was anchored for good. It's the drifting that plays the +deuce with me. If the thought of that sweet child and the grief at her +loss can't hold me, what can? What hope is there for me?" + +"I don't know," Gertrude laughed. + +"Don't laugh at me. You've always been on to me, Gertrude, too much so +to have any respect for me, I guess. You've got your work," he waved +his arm at the huge cast under the shadow of which they were sitting, +"and all this. You can put all your human longings into it. I'm a poor +rudderless creature without any hope or direction." He buried his face +in his hands. "You don't know it," he said, with an effort to conceal +the fact that his shoulders were shaking, "but you see before you a +human soul in the actual process of dissolution." + +Gertrude crossed her studio floor to kneel down beside him. She drew +the boyish head, rumpled into an irresistible state of curliness, to +her breast. + +"Put it here where it belongs," she said softly. + +"Do you mean it?" he whispered. "Sure thing? Hope to die? Cross your +heart?" + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Praise the Lord." + +"I snitched him," Gertrude confided to Margaret some days later,--her +whole being radiant and transfigured with happiness. "You snitch +David." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE YOUNG NURSE + + +The local hospital of the village of Harmonville, which was ten miles +from Harmon proper, where the famous boarding-school for young ladies +was located, presented an aspect so far from institutional that but +for the sign board tacked modestly to an elm tree just beyond the +break in the hedge that constituted the main entrance, the gracious, +old colonial structure might have been taken for the private residence +for which it had served so many years. + +It was a crisp day in late September, and a pale yellow sun was spread +thin over the carpet of yellow leaves with which the wide lawn was +covered. In the upper corridor of the west wing, grouped about the +window-seat with their embroidery or knitting, the young nurses were +talking together in low tones during the hour of the patients' +siestas. The two graduates, dark-eyed efficient girls, with skilled +delicate fingers taking precise stitches in the needlework before +them, were in full uniform, but the younger girls clustered about +them, beginners for the most part, but a few months in training, were +dressed in the simple blue print, and little white caps and aprons, of +the probationary period. + +The atmosphere was very quiet and peaceful. A light breeze blew in at +the window and stirred a straying lock or two that escaped the +starched band of a confining cap. Outside the stinging whistle of the +insect world was interrupted now and then by the cough of a passing +motor. From the doors opening on the corridor an occasional restless +moan indicated the inability of some sufferer to take his dose of +oblivion according to schedule. Presently a bell tinkled a summons to +the patient in the first room on the right--a gentle little old lady +who had just had her appendix removed. + +"Will you take that, Miss Hamlin?" the nurse in charge of the case +asked the tallest and fairest of the young assistants. + +"Certainly." Eleanor, demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing +of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to +her a little if she wants me to?" + +"Yes, if you keep the door closed. I think most of the others are +sleeping." + +The little old lady who had just had her appendix out, smiled weakly +up at Eleanor. + +"I hoped 'twould be you," she said, "and then after I'd rung I lay in +fear and trembling lest one o' them young flipperti-gibbets should +come, and get me all worked up while she was trying to shift me. I +want to be turned the least little mite on my left side." + +"That's better, isn't it?" Eleanor asked, as she made the adjustment. + +"I dunno whether that's better, or whether it just seems better to me, +because 'twas you that fixed me," the little old lady said. "You +certainly have got a soothin' and comfortin' way with you." + +"I used to take care of my grandmother years ago, and the more +hospital work I do, the more it comes back to me,--and the better I +remember the things that she liked to have done for her." + +"There's nobody like your own kith and kin," the little old lady +sighed. "There's none left of mine. That other nurse--that black +haired one--she said you was an orphan, alone in the world. Well, I +pity a young girl alone in the world." + +"It's all right to be alone in the world--if you just keep busy +enough," Eleanor said. "But you mustn't talk any more. I'm going to +give you your medicine and then sit here and read to you." + + * * * * * + +On the morning of her flight from the inn, after a night spent staring +motionless into the darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some +dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old friend Bertha Stephens +lived. To "Stevie," to whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to +draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told a part of her story. +It was through the influence of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on +the board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, that Eleanor had +been admitted there. She had resolutely put all her old life behind +her. The plan to take up a course in stenography and enter an +editorial office was to have been, as a matter of course, a part of +her life closely associated with Peter. Losing him, there was nothing +left of her dream of high adventure and conquest. There was merely the +hurt desire to hide herself where she need never trouble him again, +and where she could be independent and useful. Having no idea of her +own value to her guardians, or the integral tenderness in which she +was held, she sincerely believed that her disappearance must have +relieved them of much chagrin and embarrassment. + +Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. She had the +temperament that finds a virtue in the day's work, and a balm in its +mere iterative quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her a good +nurse and her adaptability, combined with her loveliness, a general +favorite. + +She spent her days off at the Stephens' home. Bertha Stephens had been +the one girl that Peter had failed to write to, when he began to +circulate his letters of inquiry. Her name had been set down in the +little red book, but he remembered the trouble that Maggie Lou had +precipitated, and arrived at the conclusion that the intimacy existing +between Eleanor and Bertha had not survived it. Except that Carlo +Stephens persisted in trying to make love to her, and Mrs. Stephens +covertly encouraged his doing so, Eleanor found the Stephens' home a +very comforting haven. Bertha had developed into a full breasted, +motherly looking girl, passionately interested in all vicarious +love-affairs, though quickly intimidated at the thought of having any +of her own. She was devoted to Eleanor, and mothered her clumsily. + +It was still to her diary that Eleanor turned for the relief and +solace of self-expression. + + * * * * * + +"It is five months to-day," she wrote, "since I came to the hospital. +It seems like five years. I like it, but I feel like the little old +woman on the King's Highway. I doubt more every minute if this can be +I. Sometimes I wonder what 'being I' consists of, anyway. I used to +feel as if I were divided up into six parts as separate as +protoplasmic cells, and that each one was looked out for by a +different cooperative parent. I thought that I would truly be I when I +got them all together, and looked out for them myself, but I find I am +no more of an entity than I ever was. The puzzling question of 'what +am I?' still persists, and I am farther away from the right answer +than ever. Would a sound be a sound if there were no one to hear it? +If the waves of vibration struck no human ear, would the sound be in +existence at all? This is the problem propounded by one of the nurses +yesterday. + +"How much of us lives when we are entirely shut out of the +consciousness of those whom we love? If there is no one to _realize_ +us day by day,--if all that love has made of us is taken away, what is +left? Is there anything? I don't know. I look in the glass, and see +the same face,--Eleanor Hamlin, almost nineteen, with the same bow +shaped eyebrows, and the same double ridge leading up from her nose to +her mouth, making her look still very babyish. I pinch myself, and +find that it hurts just the same as it used to six months ago, but +there the resemblance to what I used to be, stops. I'm a young nurse +now in hospital training, and very good at it, too, if I do say it as +shouldn't; but that's all I am. Otherwise, I'm not anybody _to_ +anybody,--except a figure of romance to good old Stevie, who doesn't +count in this kind of reckoning. I take naturally to nursing they tell +me. A nurse is a kind of maternal automaton. I'm glad I'm that, but +there used to be a lot more of me than that. There ought to be some +heart and brain and soul left over, but there doesn't seem to be. +Perhaps I am like the Princess in the fairy story whose heart was an +auk's egg. Nobody had power to make her feel unless they reached it +and squeezed it. + +"I feel sometimes as if I were dead. I wish I could know whether Uncle +Peter and Aunt Beulah were married yet. I wish I could know that. +There is a woman in this hospital whose suitor married some one else, +and she has nervous prostration, and melancholia. All she does all day +is to moan and wring her hands and call out his name. The nurses are +not very sympathetic. They seem to think that it is disgraceful to +love a man so much that your whole life stops as soon as he goes out +of it. What of Juliet and Ophelia and Francesca de Rimini? They loved +so they could not tear their love out of their hearts without +lacerating them forever. There is that kind of love in the +world,--bigger than life itself. All the big tragedies of literature +were made from it,--why haven't people more sympathy for it? Why isn't +there more dignity about it in the eyes of the world? + +"It is very unlucky to love, and to lose that which you cherish, but +it is unluckier still never to know the meaning of love, or to find +'Him whom your soul loveth.' I try to be kind to that poor forsaken +woman. I am sorry for his sake that she calls out his name, but she +seems to be in such torture of mind and body that she is unable to +help it. + +"They are trying to cut down expenses here, so they have no regular +cook, the housekeeper and her helper are supposed to do it all. I said +I would make the desserts, so now I have got to go down-stairs and +make some fruit gelatin. It is best that I should not write any more +to-day, anyway." + + * * * * * + +Later, after the Thanksgiving holiday, she wrote: + + * * * * * + +"I saw a little boy butchered to-day, and I shall never forget it. It +is wicked to speak of Doctor Blake's clean cut work as butchery, but +when you actually see a child's leg severed from its body, what else +can you call it? + +"The reason that I am able to go through operations without fainting +or crying is just this: _other people do_. The first time I stood by +the operating table to pass the sterilized instruments to the +assisting nurse, and saw the half naked doctors hung in rubber +standing there preparing to carve their way through the naked flesh of +the unconscious creature before them, I felt the kind of pang pass +through my heart that seems to kill as it comes. I thought I died, or +was dying,--and then I looked up and saw that every one else was ready +for their work. So I drew a deep breath and became ready too. I don't +think there is anything in the world too hard to do if you look at it +that way. + +"The little boy loved me and I loved him. We had hoped against hope +that we would be able to save his poor little leg, but it had to go. I +held his hand while they gave him the chloroform. At his head sat +Doctor Hathaway with his Christlike face, draped in the robe of the +anesthetist. 'Take long breaths, Benny,' I said, and he breathed in +bravely. It was over quickly. To-morrow, when he is really out of the +ether, I have got to tell him what was done to him. Something happened +to me while that operation was going on. He hasn't any mother. I think +the spirit of the one who was his mother passed into me, and I knew +what it would be like to be the mother of a son. Benny was not without +what his mother would have felt for him if she had been at his side. +I can't explain it, but that is what I felt. + +"To-night it is as black as ink outside. There are no stars. I feel as +if there should be no stars. If there were, there might be some +strange little bit of comfort in them that I could cling to. I do not +want any comfort from outside to shine upon me to-night. I have got to +draw all my strength from a source within, and I feel it welling up +within me even now. + +"I wonder if I have been selfish to leave the people I love so long +without any word of me. I think Aunt Gertrude and Aunt Beulah and Aunt +Margaret all had a mother feeling for me. I am remembering to-night +how anxious they used to be for me to have warm clothing, and to keep +my feet dry, and not to work too hard at school. All those things that +I took as a matter of course, I realize now were very significant and +beautiful. If I had a child and did not know to-night where it would +lie down to sleep, or on what pillow it would put its head, I know my +own rest would be troubled. I wonder if I have caused any one of my +dear mothers to feel like that. If I have, it has been very wicked and +cruel of me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHRISTMAS AGAIN + + +The ten Hutchinsons having left the library entirely alone in the hour +before dinner, David and Margaret had appropriated it and were sitting +companionably together on the big couch drawn up before the fireplace, +where a log was trying to consume itself unscientifically head first. + +"I would stay to dinner if urged," David suggested. + +"You stay," Margaret agreed laconically. + +She moved away from him, relaxing rather limply in the corner of the +couch, with a hand dangling over the farther edge of it. + +"You're an inconsistent being," David said. "You buoy all the rest of +us up with your faith in the well-being of our child, and then you +pine yourself sick over her absence." + +"It's Christmas coming on. We always had such a beautiful time on +Christmas. It was so much fun buying her presents. It isn't like +Christmas at all with her gone from us." + +"Do you remember how crazy she was over the ivory set?" + +"And the bracelet watch?" + +"Do you remember the Juliet costume?" David's eyes kindled at the +reminiscence. "How wonderful she was in it." + +Margaret drew her feet up on the couch suddenly, and clasped her hands +about her knees. David laughed. + +"I haven't seen you do that for years," he said. + +"What?" + +"Hump yourself in that cryptic way." + +"Haven't you?" she said. "I was just wondering--" but she stopped +herself suddenly. + +"Wondering what?" David was watching her narrowly, and perceiving it, +she flushed. + +"This is not my idea of an interesting conversation," she said; "it's +getting too personal." + +"I can remember the time when you told me that you didn't find things +interesting unless they were personal. 'I like things very personal,' +you said--in those words." + +"I did then." + +"What has changed you?" David asked gravely. + +"The chill wind of the world, I guess; the most personal part of me is +frozen stiff." + +"I never saw a warmer creature in my life," David protested. "On that +same occasion you said that being a woman was about like being a field +of clover in an insectless world. You don't feel that way nowadays, +surely,--at the rate the insects have been buzzing around you this +winter. I've counted at least seven, three bees, one or two beetles, a +butterfly and a worm." + +"I didn't know you paid that much attention to my poor affairs." + +"I do, though. If you hadn't put your foot down firmly on the worm, I +had every intention of doing so." + +"Had you?" + +"I had." + +"On that occasion to which you refer I remember I also said that I had +a queer hunch about Eleanor." + +"Margaret, are you deliberately changing the subject?" + +"I am." + +"Then I shall bring the butterfly up later." + +"I said," Margaret ignored his interruption, "that I had the feeling +that she was going to be a storm center and bring some kind of queer +trouble upon us." + +"Yes." + +"She did, didn't she?" + +"I'm not so sure that's the way to put it," David said gravely. "We +brought queer trouble on her." + +"She made--you--suffer." + +"She gave my vanity the worst blow it has ever had in its life," David +corrected her. "Look here, Margaret, I want you to know the truth +about that. I--I stumbled into that, you know. She was so sweet, and +before I knew it I had--I found myself in the attitude of making love +to her. Well, there was nothing to do but go through with it. I wanted +to, of course. I felt like Pygmalion--but it was all potential, +unrealized--and ass that I was, I assumed that she would have no other +idea in the matter. I was going to marry her because I--I had started +things going, you know. I had no choice even if I had wanted one. It +never occurred to me that she might have a choice, and so I went on +trying to make things easy for her, and getting them more tangled at +every turn." + +"You never really--cared?" Margaret's face was in shadow. + +"Never got the chance to find out. With characteristic idiocy I was +keeping out of the picture until the time was ripe. She really ran +away to get away from the situation I created and she was quite right +too. If I weren't haunted by these continual pictures of our offspring +in the bread line, I should be rather glad than otherwise that she's +shaken us all till we get our breath back. Poor Peter is the one who +is smashed, though. He hasn't smiled since she went away." + +"You wouldn't smile if you were engaged to Beulah." + +"Are they still engaged?" + +"Beulah has her ring, but I notice she doesn't wear it often." + +"Jimmie and Gertrude seem happy." + +"They are, gloriously." + +"That leaves only us two," David suggested. "Margaret, dear, do you +think the time will ever come when I shall get you back again?" + +Margaret turned a little pale, but she met his look steadily. + +"Did you ever lose me?" + +"The answer to that is 'yes,' as you very well know. Time was when we +were very close--you and I, then somehow we lost the way to each +other. I'm beginning to realize that it hasn't been the same world +since and isn't likely to be unless you come back to me." + +"Was it I who strayed?" + +"It was I; but it was you who put the bars up and have kept them +there." + +"Was I to let the bars down and wait at the gate?" + +"If need be. It should be that way between us, Margaret, shouldn't +it?" + +"I don't know," Margaret said, "I don't know." She flashed a sudden +odd look at him. "If--when I put the bars down, I shall run for my +life. I give you warning, David." + +"Warning is all I want," David said contentedly. He could barely reach +her hand across the intervening expanse of leather couch, but he +accomplished it,--he was too wise to move closer to her. "You're a +lovely, lovely being," he said reverently. "God grant I may reach you +and hold you." + +She curled a warm little finger about his. + +"What would Mrs. Bolling say?" she asked practically. + +"To tell you the truth, she spoke of it the other day. I told her the +Eleanor story, and that rather brought her to her senses. She wouldn't +have liked that, you know; but now all the eligible buds are plucked, +and she wants me to settle down." + +"Does she think I'm a settling kind of person?" + +"She wouldn't if she knew the way you go to my head," David murmured. +"Oh, she thinks that you'll do. She likes the ten Hutchinsons." + +"Maybe I'd like them better considered as connections of yours," +Margaret said abstractedly. + +David lifted the warm little finger to his lips and kissed it +swiftly. + +"Where are you going?" he asked, as she slipped away from him and +stood poised in the doorway. + +"I'm going to put on something appropriate to the occasion," she +answered. + +When she came back to him she was wearing the most delicate and +cobwebby of muslins with a design of pale purple passion flowers +trellised all over it, and she gave him no chance for a moment alone +with her all the rest of the evening. + +Sometime later she showed him Eleanor's parting letter, and he was +profoundly touched by the pathetic little document. + +As the holidays approached Eleanor's absence became an almost +unendurable distress to them all. The annual Christmas dinner party, a +function that had never been omitted since the acquisition of David's +studio, was decided on conditionally, given up, and again decided on. + +"We do want to see one another on Christmas day,--we've got presents +for one another, and Eleanor would hate it if she thought that her +going away had settled that big a cloud on us. She slipped out of our +lives in order to bring us closer together. We'll get closer together +for her sake," Margaret decided. + +But the ordeal of the dinner itself was almost more than they had +reckoned on. Every detail of traditional ceremony was observed even to +the mound of presents marked with each name piled on the same spot on +the couch, to be opened with the serving of the coffee. + +"I got something for Eleanor," Jimmie remarked shamefacedly as he +added his contributions to the collection. "Thought we could keep it +for her, or throw it into the waste-basket or something. Anyhow I had +to get it." + +"I guess everybody else got her something, too," Margaret said. "Of +course we will keep them for her. I got her a little French party +coat. It will be just as good next year as this. Anyhow as Jimmie +says, I had to get it." + +"I got her slipper buckles," Gertrude admitted. "She has always wanted +them." + +"I got her the Temple _Shakespeare_," Beulah added. "She was always +carrying around those big volumes." + +"You're looking better, Beulah," Margaret said. "Are you feeling +better?" + +"Jimmie says I'm looking more human. I guess perhaps that's it,--I'm +feeling more--human. I needed humanizing--even at the expense of +some--some heartbreak," she said bravely. + +Margaret crossed the room to take a seat on Beulah's chair-arm, and +slipped an arm around her. + +"You're all right if you know that," she whispered softly. + +"I thought I was going to bring you Eleanor herself," Peter said. "I +got on the trail of a girl working in a candy shop out in Yonkers. My +faithful sleuth was sure it was Eleanor and I was ass enough to +believe he knew what he was talking about. When I got out there I +found a strawberry blonde with gold teeth." + +"Gosh, you don't think she's doing anything like that," Jimmie +exclaimed. + +"I don't know," Peter said miserably. He was looking ill and unlike +himself. His deep set gray eyes were sunken far in his head, his brow +was too white, and the skin drawn too tightly over his jaws. "As a +de-tec-i-tive, I'm afraid I'm a failure." + +"We're all failures for that matter," David said. "Let's have +dinner." + +Eleanor's empty place, set with the liqueur glass she always drank her +thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room +in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost +too much for them. Margaret cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded +his eyes with his hand, and Gertrude and Jimmie groped for each +other's hands under the shelter of the table-cloth. + +"This--this won't do," David said. He turned to Beulah on his left, +sitting immovable, with her eyes staring unseeingly into the +centerpiece of holly and mistletoe arranged by Alphonse so lovingly. +"We must either turn this into a kind of a wake, and kneel as we +feast, or we must try to rise above it somehow." + +"I don't see why," Jimmie argued. "I'm in favor of each man howling +informally as he listeth." + +"Let's drink her health anyhow," David insisted. "I cut out the +Sauterne and the claret, so we could begin on the wine at once in this +contingency. Here's to our beloved and dear absent daughter." + +"Long may she wave," Jimmie cried, stumbling to his feet an instant +after the others. + +While they were still standing with their glasses uplifted, the bell +rang. + +"Don't let anybody in, Alphonse," David admonished him. + +They all turned in the direction of the hall, but there was no sound +of parley at the front door. Eleanor had put a warning finger to her +lips, as Alphonse opened it to find her standing there. She stripped +off her hat and her coat as she passed through the drawing-room, and +stood in her little blue cloth traveling dress between the portières +that separated it from the dining-room. The six stood transfixed at +the sight of her, not believing the vision of their eyes. + +"You're drinking my health," she cried, as she stretched out her arms +to them. "Oh! my dears, and my dearests, will you forgive me for +running away from you?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LOVER + + +They left her alone with Peter in the drawing room in the interval +before the coffee, seeing that he had barely spoken to her though his +eyes had not left her face since the moment of her spectacular +appearance between the portières. + +"I'm not going to marry you, Peter," Beulah whispered, as she slipped +by him to the door, "don't think of me. Think of her." + +But Peter was almost past coherent thought or speech as they stood +facing each other on the hearth-rug,--Eleanor's little head up and her +breath coming lightly between her sweet, parted lips. + +"Where did you go?" Peter groaned. "How could you, dear--how could +you,--how could you?" + +"I'm back all safe, now, Uncle Peter. I took up nursing in a +hospital." + +"I didn't even find you. I swore that I would. I've searched for you +everywhere." + +"I'm sorry I made you all that trouble," Eleanor said, "but I thought +it would be the best thing to do." + +"Tell me why," Peter said, "tell me why, I've suffered so +much--wondering--wondering." + +"You've suffered?" Eleanor cried. "I thought it was only I who did the +suffering." + +She moved a step nearer to him, and Peter gripped her hard by the +shoulders. + +"It wasn't that you cared?" he said. Then his lips met hers dumbly, +beseechingly. + + * * * * * + +"It was all a mistake,--my going away," she wrote some days after. "I +ought to have stayed at the school, and graduated, and then come down +to New York, and faced things. I have my lesson now about facing +things. If any other crisis comes into my life, I hope I shall be as +strong as Dante was, when he 'showed himself more furnished with +breath than he was,' and said, 'Go on, for I am strong and resolute.' +I think we always have more strength than we understand ourselves to +have. + +"I am so wonderfully happy about Uncle David and Aunt Margaret, and I +know Uncle Jimmie needs Aunt Gertrude and has always needed her. Did +my going away help those things to their fruition? I hope so. + +"I can not bear to think of Aunt Beulah, but I know that I must bear +to think of her, and face the pain of having hurt her as I must face +every other thing that comes into my life from this hour. I would give +her back Peter, if I could,--but I can not. He is mine, and I am his, +and we have been that way from the beginning. I have thought of him +always as stronger and wiser than any one in the world, but I don't +think he is. He has suffered and stumbled along, trying blindly to do +right, hurting Aunt Beulah and mixing up his life like any man, just +the way Uncle Jimmie and Uncle David did. + +"Don't men know who it is they love? They seem so often to be +struggling hungrily after the wrong thing, trying to get, or to make +themselves take, some woman that they do not really want. When women +love it is not like that with them. + +"When women love! I think I have loved Peter from the first minute I +saw him, so beautiful and dear and sweet, with that _anxious_ look in +his eyes,--that look of consideration for the other person that is +always so much a part of him. He had it the first night I saw him, +when Uncle David brought me to show me to my foster parents for the +first time. It was the thing I grew up by, and measured men and their +attitude to women by--just that look in his eyes, that tender warm +look of consideration. + +"It means a good many things, I think,--a gentle generous nature, and +a tender chivalrous heart. It means selflessness. It means being a +good man, and one who _protects_ by sheer unselfish instinct. I don't +know how I shall ever heal him of the hurt he has done Aunt Beulah. +Aunt Margaret tells me that Aunt Beulah's experience with him has been +the thing that has made her whole, that she needed to live through the +human cycle of emotion--of love and possession and renunciation before +she could be quite real and sound. This may be true, but it is not the +kind of reasoning for Peter and me to comfort ourselves with. If a +surgeon makes a mistake in cutting that afterwards does more good than +harm, he must not let that result absolve him from his mistake. +Nothing can efface the mistake itself, and Peter and I must go on +feeling that way about it. + +"I want to write something down about my love before I close this book +to-night. Something that I can turn to some day and read, or show to +my children when love comes to them. 'This is the way I felt,' I want +to say to them, 'the first week of my love--this is what it meant to +me.' + +"It means being a greater, graver, and more beautiful person than you +ever thought you could be. It means knowing what you are, and what you +were meant to be all at once, and I think it means your chance to be +purified for the life you are to live, and the things you are to do in +it. Experience teaches, but I think love forecasts and points the way, +and shows you what you can be. Even if the light it sheds should grow +dim after a while, the path it has shown you should be clear to your +inner eye forever and ever. Having been in a great temple is a thing +to be better for all your life. + +"It means that the soul and the things of the soul are +everlasting,--that they have got to be everlasting if love is like +this. Love between two people is more than the simple fact of their +being drawn together and standing hand in hand. It is the holy truth +about the universe. It is the rainbow of God's promise set over the +land. There comes with it the soul's certainty of living on and on +through time and space. + +"Just my loving Peter and Peter's loving me isn't the important +thing,--the important thing is the way it has started the truth going; +my knowing and understanding mysterious laws that were sealed to me +before; Peter taking my life in his hands and making it consecrated +and true,--so true that I will not falter or suffer from any +misunderstandings or mistaken pain. + +"It means warmth and light and tenderness, our love does, and all the +poetry in the world, and all the motherliness, (I feel so much like +his mother). Peter is my lover. When I say that he is not stronger or +wiser than any one in the world I mean--in living. I mean in the way +he behaves like a little bewildered boy sometimes. In loving he is +stronger and wiser than any living being. He takes my two hands in his +and gives me all the strength and all the wisdom and virtue there is +in the world. + +"I haven't written down anything, after all, that any one could read. +My children can't look over my shoulder on to this page, for they +would not understand it. It means nothing to any one in the world but +me. I shall have to translate for them or I shall have to say to them, +'Children, on looking into this book, I find I can't tell you what +love meant to me, because the words I have put down would mean nothing +to you. They were only meant to inform me, whenever I should turn back +to them, of the great glory and holiness that fell upon me like a +garment when love came.' + +"And if there should be any doubt in my heart as to the reality of the +feeling that has come to them in their turn, I should only have to +turn their faces up to the light, and look into their eyes and +_know_. + +"I shall not die as my own mother did. I know that. I know that Peter +will be by my side until we both are old. These facts are established +in my consciousness I hardly know how, and I know that they are +there,--but if such a thing could be that I should die and leave my +little children, I would not be afraid to leave them alone in a world +that has been so good to me, under the protection of a Power that +provided me with the best and kindest guardians that a little orphan +ever had. God bless and keep them all, and make them happy." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. 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Kelley. +</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top: 0.5em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.5em;} + body {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + @media screen { + hr.pb {margin:30px 0; width:100%; border:none;border-top:thin dashed silver;} + .pagenum {display: inline; font-size: x-small; text-align: right; position: absolute; right: 2%; padding: 1px 3px; font-style: normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal; text-decoration: none; background-color: inherit; border:1px solid #eee;} + .pncolor {color: silver;} + } + @media print { + hr.pb {border:none;page-break-after: always;} + .pagenum { display:none; } + } + h3 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.2em;} + .figcenter {margin: 2em auto 2em auto; text-align: center;} + p.c {text-align:center} + hr.mini {border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; width:60%; margin:20px auto} + .caption {font-size:.8em;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + h1 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.6em;} + hr.major {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; clear:both;} + h2 {text-align:center; font-weight:normal; font-size:1.4em;} +</style> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. Kelley + +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: Turn About Eleanor + +Author: Ethel M. Kelley + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: March 29, 2009 [EBook #28444] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURN ABOUT ELEANOR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class='pb' /> +<h1>TURN ABOUT ELEANOR</h1> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div class='figcenter'> +<a name='linki_1' id='linki_1'></a> +<img src='images/illus-001.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 393px; height: 481px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 393px;'> +Eleanor<br /> +</p> +</div> +<hr class='pb' /> +<p class='c' style='font-size:1.8em; margin:50px auto 3em auto;'>Turn About Eleanor</p> +<p class='c' style=''>By</p> +<p class='c' style='margin-bottom:4em; font-size:1.2em;'>ETHEL M. KELLEY</p> +<p class='c' style='font-size:0.8em;'>ILLUSTRATED BY</p> +<p class='c' style='margin-bottom:4em;'>F. GRAHAM COOTES</p> +<p class='c' style='font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:50px'>INDIANAPOLIS<br />THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS</p> +<hr class='pb' /> +<p class='c' style='font-size:small; margin-bottom:2em; font-variant:small-caps;'>Copyright 1917<br />The Bobbs-Merrill Company</p> +<p class='c' style='font-size:small; font-style:italic'>Printed in the United States of America</p> +<p class='c' style='font-size:small;'>PRESS OF<br />BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br />BOOK MANUFACTURERS<br />BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p> +<hr class='pb' /> +<h3>TO MY MOTHER</h3> +<hr class='pb' /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<table border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary='Contents' style='margin:1em auto;'> +<tr> + <td align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'><span style='font-size:small;'>CHAPTER</span></td> + <td></td> + <td align='right'><span style='font-size:small;'>PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>I</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Enter Eleanor</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_I_ENTER_ELEANOR'>1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>II</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Cooperative Parents</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_II_THE_COOPERATIVE_PARENTS'>14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>III</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Experiment Begins</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_III_THE_EXPERIMENT_BEGINS'>27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Peter Elucidates</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV_PETER_ELUCIDATES'>40</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>V</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Eleanor Enjoys Herself in Her Own Way</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_V_ELEANOR_ENJOYS_HERSELF_IN_HER_OWN_WAY'>48</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Jimmie Becomes a Parent</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI_JIMMIE_BECOMES_A_PARENT'>63</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>One Descent into Bohemia</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII_ONE_DESCENT_INTO_BOHEMIA'>72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>VIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Ten Hutchinsons</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII_THE_TEN_HUTCHINSONS'>84</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>IX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Peter</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX_PETER'>101</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>X</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Omniscient Focus</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_X_THE_OMNISCIENT_FOCUS'>113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Gertrude Has Trouble with Her Behavior</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI_GERTRUDE_HAS_TROUBLE_WITH_HER_BEHAVIOR'>124</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Madam Bolling</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII_MADAM_BOLLING'>138</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Brook and River</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII_BROOK_AND_RIVER'>158</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Merry Christmas</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV_MERRY_CHRISTMAS'>167</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Growing Up</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV_GROWING_UP'>181</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Margaret Louisa’s Birthright</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI_MARGARET_LOUISAS_BIRTHRIGHT'>195</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Real Kiss</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII_A_REAL_KISS'>203</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XVIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Beulah’s Problem</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII_BEULAHS_PROBLEM'>219</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XIX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Mostly Uncle Peter</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX_MOSTLY_UNCLE_PETER'>234</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XX</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Makings of a Triple Wedding</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX_THE_MAKINGS_OF_A_TRIPLE_WEDDING'>251</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXI</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Eleanor Hears the News</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI_ELEANOR_HEARS_THE_NEWS'>261</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Search</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII_THE_SEARCH'>271</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIII</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Young Nurse</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII_THE_YOUNG_NURSE'>281</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXIV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Christmas Again</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV_CHRISTMAS_AGAIN'>292</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign='top' align='right' style='padding-right:1em;'>XXV</td> + <td valign='top' align='left' style='padding-right:4em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Lover</span> </td> + <td valign='bottom' align='right'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV_THE_LOVER'>304</a></td> +</tr> +</table> +<hr class='pb' /> +<h3>TURN ABOUT ELEANOR</h3> +<hr class='pb' /> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1' name='page_1'></a>1</span></div> +<h3>TURN ABOUT ELEANOR</h3> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<a name='CHAPTER_I_ENTER_ELEANOR' id='CHAPTER_I_ENTER_ELEANOR'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Enter Eleanor</span></h3> +</div> +<p>A child in a faded tam-o’-shanter that had +once been baby blue, and a shoddy coat of a +glaring, unpropitious newness, was sitting uncomfortably +on the edge of a hansom seat, and gazing +soberly out at the traffic of Fifth Avenue.</p> +<p>The young man beside her, a blond, sleek, narrow-headed +youth in eye-glasses, was literally +making conversation with her. That is, he was +engaged in a palpable effort to make conversation—to +manufacture out of the thin crisp air of that +November morning and the random impressions +of their progress up the Avenue, something with a +general resemblance to tête-à-tête dialogue as he +understood it. He was succeeding only indifferently.</p> +<p>“See, Eleanor,” he pointed brightly with his +stick to the flower shop they were passing, “see +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2' name='page_2'></a>2</span> +that building with the red roof, and all those +window boxes. Don’t you think those little trees +in pots outside look like Christmas trees? Sometimes +when your Aunts Beulah and Margaret +and Gertrude, whom you haven’t met yet—though +you are on your way to meet them, you know—sometimes +when they have been very good, almost +good enough to deserve it, I stop by that little +flower shop and buy a chaste half dozen of gardenias +and their accessories, and divide them among +the three.”</p> +<p>“Do you?” the child asked, without wistfulness. +She was a good child, David Bolling decided,—a +sporting child, willing evidently to play when it +was her turn, even when she didn’t understand the +game at all. It was certainly a new kind of game +that she would be so soon expected to play her part +in,—a rather serious kind of game, if you chose to +look at it that way.</p> +<p>David himself hardly knew how to look at it. +He was naturally a conservative young man, who +had been brought up by his mother to behave as +simply as possible on all occasions, and to avoid +the conspicuous as tacitly and tactfully as one +avoids a new disease germ. His native point of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3' name='page_3'></a>3</span> +view, however, had been somewhat deflected by +his associations. His intimate circle consisted of +a set of people who indorsed his mother’s decalogue +only under protest, and with the most stringent +reservations. That is, they were young and +healthy, and somewhat overcharged with animal +spirits, and their reactions were all very intense +and emphatic.</p> +<p>He was trying at this instant to look rather +more as if he were likely to meet one of his own +friends than one of his mother’s. His mother’s +friends would not have understood his personal +chaperonage of the shabby little girl at his elbow. +Her hair was not even properly brushed. It looked +frazzled and tangled; and at the corner of one of +her big blue eyes, streaking diagonally across the +pallor in which it was set, was a line of dirt,—a +tear mark, it might have been, though that didn’t +make the general effect any less untidy, David +thought; only a trifle more uncomfortably pathetic. +She was a nice little girl, that fact was becoming +more and more apparent to David, but any friend +of his mother’s would have wondered, and expressed +him or herself as wondering, why in the +name of all sensitiveness he had not taken a taxicab, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4' name='page_4'></a>4</span> +or at least something in the nature of a closed +vehicle, if he felt himself bound to deliver in person +this curious little stranger to whatever mysterious +destination she was for.</p> +<p>“I thought you’d like a hansom, Eleanor, better +than a taxi-cab, because you can see more. You’ve +never been in this part of New York before, I +understand.”</p> +<p>“No, sir.”</p> +<p>“You came up from Colhassett last Saturday, +didn’t you? Mrs. O’Farrel wrote to your grandmother +to send you on to us, and you took the +Saturday night boat from Fall River.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Did you travel alone, Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“A friend of Grandpa’s came up on the train +with me, and left me on the vessel. He told the +colored lady and gentleman to see if I was all +right,—Mr. Porter and Mrs. Steward.”</p> +<p>“And were you all right?” David’s eyes twinkled.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Not sea sick, nor homesick?”</p> +<p>The child’s fine-featured face quivered for a +second, then set again into impassive stoic lines, +and left David wondering whether he had witnessed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5' name='page_5'></a>5</span> +a vibration of real emotion, or the spasmodic +twitching of the muscles that is so characteristic of +the rural public school.</p> +<p>“I wasn’t sea sick.”</p> +<p>“Tell me about your grandparents, Eleanor.” +Then as she did not respond, he repeated a little +sharply, “Tell me about your grandparents, won’t +you?”</p> +<p>The child still hesitated. David bowed to the wife +of a Standard Oil director in a passing limousine, +and one of the season’s prettiest débutantes, who was +walking; and because he was only twenty-four, and +his mother was very, very ambitious for him, he +wondered if the tear smudge on the face of his companion +had been evident from the sidewalk, and +decided that it must have been.</p> +<p>“I don’t know how to tell,” the child said at last, +“I don’t know what you want me to say.”</p> +<p>“I don’t want you to say anything in particular, +just in general, you know.”</p> +<p>David stuck. The violet eyes were widening with +misery, there was no doubt about it. “Game, clean +through,” he said to himself. Aloud he continued. +“Well, you know, Eleanor.—Never say ‘Well,’ if +you can possibly avoid it, because it’s a flagrant +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_6' name='page_6'></a>6</span> +Americanism, and when you travel in foreign parts +you’re sure to regret it,—well, you know, if you are +to be in a measure my ward—and you are, my dear, +as well as the ward of your Aunts Beulah and Margaret +and Gertrude, and your Uncles Jimmie and +Peter—I ought to begin by knowing a little something +of your antecedents. That is why I suggested +that you tell me about your grandparents. I don’t +care what you tell me, but I think it would be very +suitable for you to tell me something. Are they +native Cape Codders? I’m a New Englander myself, +you know, so you may be perfectly frank with me.”</p> +<p>“They’re not summer folks,” the child said. “They +just live in Colhassett all the year round. They live +in a big white house on the depot road, but they’re +so old now, they can’t keep it up. If it was painted +it would be a real pretty house.”</p> +<p>“Your grandparents are not very well off then?”</p> +<p>The child colored. “They’ve got lots of things,” +she said, “that Grandfather brought home when he +went to sea, but it was Uncle Amos that sent them +the money they lived on. When he died they didn’t +have any.”</p> +<p>“How long has he been dead?”</p> +<p>“Two years ago Christmas.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_7' name='page_7'></a>7</span></p> +<p>“You must have had some money since then.”</p> +<p>“Not since Uncle Amos died, except for the rent +of the barn, and the pasture land, and a few things +like that.”</p> +<p>“You must have had money put away.”</p> +<p>“No,” the little girl answered. “We didn’t. We +didn’t have any money, except what came in the way +I said. We sold some old-fashioned dishes, and a +little bit of cranberry bog for twenty-five dollars. +We didn’t have any other money.”</p> +<p>“But you must have had something to live on. +You can’t make bricks without straw, or grow little +girls up without nourishing food in their tummies.” +He caught an unexpected flicker of an eyelash, and +realized for the first time that the child was acutely +aware of every word he was saying, that even his +use of English was registering a poignant impression +on her consciousness. The thought strangely embarrassed +him. “We say tummies in New York, +Eleanor,” he explained hastily. “It’s done here. +The New England stomick, however, is almost entirely +obsolete. You’ll really get on better in the +circles to which you are so soon to be accustomed if +you refer to it in my own simple fashion;—but to +return to our muttons, Eleanor, which is French for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_8' name='page_8'></a>8</span> +getting down to cases, again, you must have had +something to live on after your uncle died. You are +alive now. That would almost seem to prove my +contention.”</p> +<p>“We didn’t have any money, but what I earned.”</p> +<p>“But—what you earned. What do you mean, +Eleanor?”</p> +<p>The child’s face turned crimson, then white again. +This time there was no mistaking the wave of sensitive +emotion that swept over it.</p> +<p>“I worked out,” she said. “I made a dollar and a +half a week running errands, and taking care of a +sick lady vacations, and nights after school. +Grandma had that shock, and Grandpa’s back +troubled him. He tried to get work but he couldn’t. +He did all he could taking care of Grandma, and +tending the garden. They hated to have me work +out, but there was nobody else to.”</p> +<p>“A family of three can’t live on a dollar and a +half a week.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir, they can, if they manage.”</p> +<p>“Where were your neighbors all this time, +Eleanor? You don’t mean to tell me that the good, +kindly people of Cape Cod would have stood by and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_9' name='page_9'></a>9</span> +let a little girl like you support a family alone and +unaided. It’s preposterous.”</p> +<p>“The neighbors didn’t know. They thought Uncle +Amos left us something. Lots of Cape Cod children +work out. They thought that I did it because I +wanted to.”</p> +<p>“I see,” said David gravely.</p> +<p>The wheel of their cab became entangled in that +of a smart delivery wagon. He watched it thoughtfully. +Then he took off his glasses, and polished +them.</p> +<p>“Through a glass darkly,” he explained a little +thickly. He was really a very <i>young</i> young man, +and once below the surface of what he was pleased +to believe a very worldly and cynical manner, he had +a profound depth of tenderness and human +sympathy.</p> +<p>Then as they jogged on through the Fifty-ninth +Street end of the Park, looking strangely seared and +bereft from the first blight of the frost, he turned to +her again. This time his tone was as serious as +her own.</p> +<p>“Why did you stop working out, Eleanor?” he +asked. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_10' name='page_10'></a>10</span></p> +<p>“The lady I was tending died. There wasn’t nobody +else who wanted me. Mrs. O’Farrel was a +relation of hers, and when she came to the funeral, +I told her that I wanted to get work in New York +if I could,—and then last week she wrote me that +the best she could do was to get me this place to be +adopted, and so—I came.”</p> +<p>“But your grandparents?” David asked, and realized +almost as he spoke that he had his finger on +the spring of the tragedy.</p> +<p>“They had to take help from the town.”</p> +<p>The child made a brave struggle with her tears, +and David looked away quickly. He knew something +of the temper of the steel of the New England +nature; the fierce and terrible pride that is bred in +the bone of the race. He knew that the child before +him had tasted of the bitter waters of humiliation in +seeing her kindred “helped” by the town. “Going +out to work,” he understood, had brought the family +pride low, but taking help from the town had leveled +it to the dust.</p> +<p>“There is, you know, a small salary that goes with +this being adopted business,” he remarked casually +a few seconds later. “Your Aunts Gertrude and +Beulah and Margaret, and your three stalwart uncles +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11' name='page_11'></a>11</span> +aforesaid, are not the kind of people who have been +brought up to expect something for nothing. They +don’t expect to adopt a perfectly good orphan without +money and without price, merely for the privilege +of experimentation. No, indeed, an orphan in +good standing of the best New England extraction +ought to exact for her services a salary of at least +fifteen dollars a month. I wouldn’t consent to take +a cent less, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>“Wouldn’t you?” the child asked uncertainly. She +sat suddenly erect, as if an actual burden had been +dropped from her shoulders. Her eyes were not +violet, David decided, he had been deceived by the +depth of their coloring; they were blue, Mediterranean +blue, and her lashes were an inch and a half +long at the very least. She was not only pretty, she +was going to be beautiful some day. A strange premonition +struck David of a future in which this +long-lashed, stoic baby was in some way inextricably +bound.</p> +<p>“How old are you?” he asked her abruptly.</p> +<p>“Ten years old day before yesterday.”</p> +<p>They had been making their way through the +Park; the searer, yellower Park of late November. +It looked duller and more cheerless than David ever +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12' name='page_12'></a>12</span> +remembered it. The leaves rattled on the trees, and +the sun went down suddenly.</p> +<p>“This is Central Park,” he said. “In the spring +it’s very beautiful here, and all the people you know +go motoring or driving in the afternoon.”</p> +<p>He bowed to his mother’s milliner in a little +French runabout. The Frenchman stared frankly +at the baby blue tam-o’-shanter and the tangled +golden head it surmounted.</p> +<p>“Joseph could make you a peachy tam-o’-shanter +looking thing of blue velvet; I’ll bet I could draw +him a picture to copy. Your Uncle David, you +know, is an artist of a sort.”</p> +<p>For the first time since their incongruous association +began the child met his smile; her face relaxed +ever so little, and the lips quivered, but she smiled +a shy, little dawning smile. There was trust in it +and confidence. David put out his hand to pat hers, +but thought better of it.</p> +<p>“Eleanor,” he said, “my mother knows our only +living Ex-president, and the Countess of Warwick, +one Vanderbilt, two Astors, and she’s met Sir Gilbert +Parker, and Rudyard Kipling. She also knows +many of the stars and satellites of upper Fifth +Avenue. She has, as well, family connections of so +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13' name='page_13'></a>13</span> +much weight and stolidity that their very approach, +singly or in conjunction, shakes the earth underneath +them.—I wish we could meet them all, +Eleanor, every blessed one of them.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14' name='page_14'></a>14</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_II_THE_COOPERATIVE_PARENTS' id='CHAPTER_II_THE_COOPERATIVE_PARENTS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Cooperative Parents</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“I wonder how a place like this apartment +will look to her,” Beulah said thoughtfully. +“I wonder if it will seem elegant, or cramped to +death. I wonder if she will take to it kindly, or +with an ill concealed contempt for its limitations.”</p> +<p>“The poor little thing will probably be so frightened +and homesick by the time David gets her here, +that she won’t know what kind of a place she’s +arrived at,” Gertrude suggested. “Oh, I wouldn’t +be in your shoes for the next few days for anything +in the world, Beulah Page; would you, Margaret?”</p> +<p>The third girl in the group smiled.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “It would +be rather fun to begin it.”</p> +<p>“I’d rather have her for the first two months, and +get it over with,” Beulah said decisively. “It’ll be +hanging over your head long after my ordeal is over, +and by the time I have to have her again she’ll be +absolutely in training. You don’t come until the +fifth on the list you know, Gertrude. Jimmie has +her after me, then Margaret, then Peter, and you, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15' name='page_15'></a>15</span> +and David, if he has got up the courage to tell his +mother by that time.”</p> +<p>“But if he hasn’t,” Gertrude suggested.</p> +<p>“He can work it out for himself. He’s got to take +the child two months like the rest of us. He’s +agreed to.”</p> +<p>“He will,” Margaret said, “I’ve never known him +to go back on his word yet.”</p> +<p>“Trust Margaret to stick up for David. Anyway, +I’ve taken the precaution to put it in writing, as you +know, and the document is filed.”</p> +<p>“We’re not adopting this infant legally.”</p> +<p>“No, Gertrude, we can’t,—yet, but morally we are. +She isn’t an infant, she’s ten years old. I wish you +girls would take the matter a little more seriously. +We’ve bound ourselves to be responsible for this +child’s whole future. We have undertaken her +moral, social and religious education. Her body and +soul are to be—”</p> +<p>“Equally divided among us,” Gertrude cut in.</p> +<p>Beulah scorned the interruption.</p> +<p>“—held sacredly in trust by the six of us, severally +and collectively.”</p> +<p>“Why haven’t we adopted her legally then?” Margaret +asked. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16' name='page_16'></a>16</span></p> +<p>“Well, you see, there are practical objections. You +have to be a corporation or an institution or something, +to adopt a child as a group. A child can’t +have three sets of parents in the eyes of the law, +especially when none of them is married, or have +the least intention of being married, to each other.—I +don’t see what you want to keep laughing at, +Gertrude. It’s all a little unusual and modern and +that sort of thing, but I don’t think it’s funny. Do +you, Margaret?”</p> +<p>“I think that it’s funny, but I think that it’s +serious, too, Beulah.”</p> +<p>“I don’t see what’s funny about—” Beulah began +hotly.</p> +<p>“You don’t see what’s funny about anything,—even +Rogers College, do you, darling? It is funny +though for the bunch of us to undertake the upbringing +of a child ten years old; to make ourselves financially +and spiritually responsible for it. It’s a lot +more than funny, I know, but it doesn’t seem to me +as if I could go on with it at all, until somebody was +willing to admit what a <i>scream</i> the whole thing is.”</p> +<p>“We’ll admit that, if that’s all you want, won’t we, +Beulah?” Margaret appealed.</p> +<p>“If I’ve got this insatiable sense of humor, let’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17' name='page_17'></a>17</span> +indulge it by all means,” Gertrude laughed. “Go on, +chillun, go on, I’ll try to be good now.”</p> +<p>“I wish you would,” Margaret said. “Confine +yourself to a syncopated chortle while I get a +few facts out of Beulah. I did most of my +voting on this proposition by proxy, while I was +having the measles in quarantine. Beulah, did I +understand you to say you got hold of your victim +through Mrs. O’Farrel, your seamstress?”</p> +<p>“Yes, when we decided we’d do this, we thought +we’d get a child about six. We couldn’t have her +any younger, because there would be bottles, and +expert feeding, and well, you know, all those things. +We couldn’t have done it, especially the boys. We +thought six would be just about the right age, but +we simply couldn’t find a child that would do. We +had to know about its antecedents. We looked +through the orphan asylums, but there wasn’t anything +pure-blooded American that we could be sure +of. We were all agreed that we wanted pure American +blood. I knew Mrs. O’Farrel had relatives on +Cape Cod. You know what that stock is, a good +sea-faring strain, and a race of wonderfully fine +women, ‘atavistic aristocrats’ I remember an author +in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> called them once. I suppose +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18' name='page_18'></a>18</span> +you think it’s funny to groan, Gertrude, when anybody +makes a literary allusion, but it isn’t. Well, +anyway, Mrs. O’Farrel knew about this child, and +sent for her. She stayed with Mrs. O’Farrel over +Sunday, and now David is bringing her here. She’ll +be here in a minute.”</p> +<p>“Why David?” Gertrude twinkled.</p> +<p>“Why not David?” Beulah retorted. “It will be a +good experience for him, besides David is so amusing +when he tries to be, I thought he could divert her on +the way.”</p> +<p>“It isn’t such a crazy idea, after all, Gertrude.” +Margaret Hutchinson was the youngest of the three, +being within several months of her majority, but she +looked older. Her face had that look of wisdom +that comes to the young who have suffered physical +pain. “We’ve got to do something. We’re all too +full of energy and spirits, at least the rest of you +are, and I’m getting huskier every minute, to twirl +our hands and do nothing. None of us ever wants +to be married,—that’s settled; but we do want to be +useful. We’re a united group of the closest kind of +friends, bound by the ties of—of—natural selection, +and we need a purpose in life. Gertrude’s a real +artist, but the rest of us are not, and—and—” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19' name='page_19'></a>19</span></p> +<p>“What could be more natural for us than to want +the living clay to work on? That’s the idea, isn’t +it?” Gertrude said. “I can be serious if I want to, +Beulah-land, but, honestly, girls, when I come to face +out the proposition, I’m almost afraid to. What’ll +I do with that child when it comes to be my turn? +What’ll Jimmie do? Buy her a string of pearls, and +show her the night life of New York very likely. +How’ll I break it to my mother? That’s the cheerful +little echo in my thoughts night and day. How did +you break it to yours, Beulah?”</p> +<p>Beulah flushed. Her serious brown eyes, deep +brown with wine-colored lights in them, met those +of each of her friends in turn. Then she laughed.</p> +<p>“Well, I do know this is funny,” she said, “but, +you know, I haven’t dared tell her. She’ll be away +for a month, anyway. Aunt Ann is here, but I’m +only telling her that I’m having a little girl from the +country to visit me.”</p> +<p>Occasionally the architect of an apartment on the +upper west side of New York—by pure accident, it +would seem, since the general run of such apartments +is so uncomfortable, and unfriendly—hits +upon a plan for a group of rooms that are at once +graciously proportioned and charmingly convenient, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20' name='page_20'></a>20</span> +while not being an absolute offense to the eye in respect +to the details of their decoration. Beulah Page +and her mother lived in such an apartment, and they +had managed with a few ancestral household gods, +and a good many carefully related modern additions +to them, to make of their eight rooms and bath, to +say nothing of the ubiquitous butler’s-pantry, something +very remarkably resembling a home, in its +most delightful connotation: and it was in the drawing +room of this home that the three girls were gathered.</p> +<p>Beulah, the younger daughter of a widowed +mother—now visiting in the home of the elder +daughter, Beulah’s sister Agatha, in the expectation +of what the Victorians refer to as an “interesting +event”—was technically under the chaperonage of +her Aunt Ann, a solemn little spinster with no +control whatever over the movements of her determined +young niece.</p> +<p>Beulah was just out of college,—just out, in fact, +of the most high-minded of all the colleges for +women;—that founded by Andrew Rogers in the +year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-one. +There is probably a greater percentage of purposeful +young women graduated from Rogers College every +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21' name='page_21'></a>21</span> +year, than from any other one of the communities +of learning devoted to the education of women; and +of all the purposeful classes turned out from that +admirable institution, Beulah’s class could without +exaggeration be designated as the most purposeful +class of them all. That Beulah was not the most +purposeful member of her class merely argues that +an almost abnormally high standard of purposefulness +was maintained by practically every individual +in it.</p> +<p>At Rogers every graduating class has its fad; its +propaganda for a crusade against the most startling +evils of the world. One year, the sacred outlines of +the human figure are protected against disfigurement +by an ardent group of young classicists in Grecian +draperies. The next, a fierce young brood of vegetarians +challenge a lethargic world to mortal combat +over an Argentine sirloin. The year of Beulah’s graduation, +the new theories of child culture that were +gaining serious headway in academic circles, had +filtered into the class rooms, and Beulah’s mates had +contracted the contagion instantly. The entire senior +class went mad on the subject of child psychology +and the various scientific prescriptions for the direction +of the young idea. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22' name='page_22'></a>22</span></p> +<p>It was therefore primarily to Beulah Page, that +little Eleanor Hamlin, of Colhassett, Massachusetts, +owed the change in her fortune. At least it was to +Beulah that she owed the initial inspiration that set +the wheel of that fortune in motion; but it was to the +glorious enterprise and idealism of youth, and the +courage of a set of the most intrepid and quixotic +convictions that ever quickened in the breasts of a +mad half dozen youngsters, that she owed the actual +fulfillment of her adventure.</p> +<p>The sound of the door-bell brought the three girls +to their feet, but the footfalls in the corridor, double +quick time, and accentuated, announced merely the +arrival of Jimmie Sears, and Peter Stuyvesant, +nicknamed <i>Gramercy</i> by common consent.</p> +<p>“Has she come?” Peter asked.</p> +<p>But Jimmie struck an attitude in the middle of the +floor.</p> +<p>“My daughter, oh! my daughter,” he cried. “This +suspense is killing me. For the love of Mike, children, +where is she?”</p> +<p>“She’s coming,” Beulah answered; “David’s +bringing her.”</p> +<p>Gertrude pushed him into the <i>chaise-lounge</i> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23' name='page_23'></a>23</span> +already in the possession of Margaret, and squeezed +in between them.</p> +<p>“Hold my hand, Jimmie,” she said. “The feelings +of a father are nothing,—<i>nothing</i> in comparison to +those which smolder in the maternal breast. Look +at Beulah, how white she is, and Margaret is trembling +this minute.”</p> +<p>“I’m trembling, too,” Peter said, “or if I’m not +trembling, I’m frightened.”</p> +<p>“We’re all frightened,” Margaret said, “but we’re +game.”</p> +<p>The door-bell rang again.</p> +<p>“There they come,” Beulah said, “oh! everybody +be good to me.”</p> +<p>The familiar figure of their good friend David +appeared on the threshold at this instant, and beside +him an odd-looking little figure in a shoddy cloth +coat, and a faded blue tam-o’-shanter. There was +a long smudge of dirt reaching from the corner of +her eye well down into the middle of her cheek. A +kind of composite gasp went up from the waiting +group, a gasp of surprise, consternation, and panic. +Not one of the five could have told at that instant +what it was he expected to see, or how his imagination +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24' name='page_24'></a>24</span> +of the child differed from the concrete reality, +but amazement and keen disappointment constrained +them. Here was no figure of romance and delight. +No miniature Galatea half hewn out of the block +of humanity, waiting for the chisel of a composite +Pygmalion. Here was only a grubby, little unkempt +child, like all other children, but not so presentable.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter with everybody?” said David +with unnatural sharpness. “I want to present you to +our ward, Miss Eleanor Hamlin, who has come a +long way for the pleasure of meeting you. Eleanor, +these are your cooperative parents.”</p> +<p>The child’s set gaze followed his gesture obediently. +David took the little hand in his, and led +the owner into the heart of the group. Beulah +stepped forward.</p> +<p>“This is your Aunt Beulah, Eleanor, of whom I’ve +been telling you.”</p> +<p>“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Aunt +Beulah,” the little girl said, as Beulah put out her +hand, still uncertainly.</p> +<p>Then the five saw a strange thing happen. The +immaculate, inscrutable David—the aristocrat of +aristocrats, the one undemonstrative, super-self-conscious +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25' name='page_25'></a>25</span> +member of the crowd, who had been delegated +to transport the little orphan chiefly because the +errand was so incongruous a mission on which to +despatch him—David put his arm around the neck of +the child with a quick protecting gesture, and then +gathered her close in his arms, where she clung, +quivering and sobbing, the unkempt curls straggling +helplessly over his shoulder.</p> +<p>He strode across the room where Margaret was +still sitting upright in the <i>chaise-lounge</i>, her dove-gray +eyes wide, her lips parted.</p> +<p>“Here, you take her,” he said, without ceremony, +and slipped his burden into her arms.</p> +<p>“Welcome to our city, Kiddo,” Jimmie said in his +throat, but nobody heard him.</p> +<p>Peter, whose habit it was to walk up and down +endlessly wherever he felt most at home, paused in +his peregrination, as Margaret shyly gathered the +rough little head to her bosom. The child met his +gaze as he did so.</p> +<p>“We weren’t quite up to scratch,” he said gravely.</p> +<p>Beulah’s eyes filled. “Peter,” she said, “Peter, I +didn’t mean to be—not to be—”</p> +<p>But Peter seemed not to know she was speaking. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26' name='page_26'></a>26</span> +The child’s eyes still held him, and he stood gazing +down at her, his handsome head thrown slightly +back; his face deeply intent; his eyes softened.</p> +<p>“I’m your Uncle Peter, Eleanor,” he said, and +bent down till his lips touched her forehead.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27' name='page_27'></a>27</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_III_THE_EXPERIMENT_BEGINS' id='CHAPTER_III_THE_EXPERIMENT_BEGINS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Experiment Begins</span></h3> +</div> +<p>Eleanor walked over to the steam pipes, +and examined them carefully. The terrible +rattling noise had stopped, as had also the choking +and gurgling that had kept her awake because it +was so like the noise that Mrs. O’Farrel’s aunt, +the sick lady she had helped to take care of, +made constantly for the last two weeks of +her life. Whenever there was a sound that +was anything like that, Eleanor could not help +shivering. She had never seen steam pipes before. +When Beulah had shown her the room where she +was to sleep—a room all in blue, baby blue, and +pink roses—Eleanor thought that the silver pipes +standing upright in the corner were a part of some +musical instrument, like a pipe organ. When the +rattling sound had begun she thought that some one +had come into the room with her, and was tuning it. +She had drawn the pink silk puff closely about her +ears, and tried not to be frightened. Trying not to +be frightened was the way she had spent a good deal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28' name='page_28'></a>28</span> +of her time since her Uncle Amos died, and she had +had to look out for her grandparents.</p> +<p>Now that it was morning, and the bright sun was +streaming into the windows, she ventured to climb +out of bed and approach the uncanny instrument. +She tripped on the trailing folds of that nightgown +her Aunt Beulah—it was funny that all these ladies +should call themselves her aunts, when they were +really no relation to her—had insisted on her wearing. +Her own nightdress had been left in the time-worn +carpetbag that Uncle David had forgotten to +take out of the “handsome cab.” She stumbled +against the silver pipes. They were <i>hot</i>; so hot that +the flesh of her arm nearly blistered, but she did not +cry out. Here was another mysterious problem of +the kind that New York presented at every turn, to +be silently accepted, and dealt with.</p> +<p>Her mother and father had once lived in New +York. Her father had been born here, in a house +with a brownstone front on West Tenth Street, +wherever that was. She herself had lived in New +York when she was a baby, though she had been +born in her grandfather’s house in Colhassett. She +had lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, too, until she was four +years old, and her father and mother had died there, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29' name='page_29'></a>29</span> +both in the same week, of pneumonia. She wished +this morning, that she could remember the house +where they lived in New York, and the things that +were in it.</p> +<p>There was a knock on the door. Ought she to go +and open the door in her nightdress? Ought she to +call out “Come in?” It might be a gentleman, and +her Aunt Beulah’s nightdress was not very thick. +She decided to cough, so that whoever was outside +might understand she was in there, and had heard +them.</p> +<p>“May I come in, Eleanor?” Beulah’s voice called.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma’am.” She started to get into bed, but +Miss—Miss—the nearer she was to her, the harder +it was to call her aunt,—Aunt Beulah might think it +was time she was up. She compromised by sitting +down in a chair.</p> +<p>Beulah had passed a practically sleepless night +working out the theory of Eleanor’s development. +The six had agreed on a certain sketchily defined +method of procedure. That is, they were to read +certain books indicated by Beulah, and to follow the +general schedule that she was to work out and adapt +to the individual needs of the child herself, during +the first phase of the experiment. She felt that she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30' name='page_30'></a>30</span> +had managed the reception badly, that she had not +done or said the right thing. Peter’s attitude had +shown that he felt the situation had been clumsily +handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. +Peter was too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed +in the muffled depths of a feverish pillow that there +should be no more flagrant flaws in the conduct of +the campaign.</p> +<p>“Did you sleep well, Eleanor?” she asked.</p> +<p>“Yes, ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Are you hungry?”</p> +<p>“No, ma’am.”</p> +<p>The conversation languished at this.</p> +<p>“Have you had your bath?”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know I was to have one.”</p> +<p>“Nice little girls have a bath every day.”</p> +<p>“Do they?” Eleanor asked. Her Aunt Beulah +seemed to expect her to say something more, but she +couldn’t think of anything.</p> +<p>“I’ll draw your bath for you this morning. After +this you will be expected to take it yourself.”</p> +<p>Eleanor had seen bathrooms before, but she had +never been in a bath-tub. At her grandfather’s, she +had taken her Saturday night baths in an old wooden +wash-tub, which had water poured in it from the tea +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31' name='page_31'></a>31</span> +kettle. When Beulah closed the door on her she +stepped gingerly into the tub: the water was twice +too hot, but she didn’t know how to turn the faucet, +or whether she was expected to turn it. Mrs. +O’Farrel had told her that people had to pay for +water in New York. Perhaps Aunt Beulah had +drawn all the water she could have. She used the +soap sparingly. Soap was expensive, she knew. She +wished there was some way of discovering just how +much of things she was expected to use. The number +of towels distressed her, but she finally took the +littlest and dried herself. The heat of the water had +nearly parboiled her.</p> +<p>After that, she tried to do blindly what she was +told. There was a girl in a black dress and white +apron that passed her everything she had to eat. Her +Aunt Beulah told her to help herself to sugar and to +cream for her oatmeal, from off this girl’s tray. Her +hand trembled a good deal, but she was fortunate +enough not to spill any. After breakfast she was +sent to wash her hands in the bathroom; she turned +the faucet, and used a very little water. Then, when +she was called, she went into the sitting-room and +sat down, and folded her hands in her lap.</p> +<p>Beulah looked at her with some perplexity. The +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32' name='page_32'></a>32</span> +child was docile and willing, but she seemed unexpectedly +stupid for a girl ten years old.</p> +<p>“Have you ever been examined for adenoids, +Eleanor?” she asked suddenly.</p> +<p>“No, ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Say, ‘no, Aunt Beulah.’ Don’t say, ‘no, ma’am’ +and ‘yes, ma’am.’ People don’t say ‘no, ma’am’ and +‘yes, ma’am’ any more, you know. They say ‘no’ and +‘yes,’ and then mention the name of the person to +whom they are speaking.”</p> +<p>“Yes, ma’am,” Eleanor couldn’t stop herself saying +it. She wanted to correct herself. “No, Aunt +Beulah, no, Aunt Beulah,” but the words stuck in +her throat.</p> +<p>“Well, try to remember,” Beulah said. She was +thinking of the case in a book of psychology that she +had been reading that morning, of a girl who was +“pale and sleepy looking, expressionless of face, +careless of her personal appearance,” who after an +operation for adenoids, had become “as animated +and bright as before she had been lethargic and dull.” +She was pleased to see that Eleanor’s fine hair had +been scrupulously combed, and neatly braided this +morning, not being able to realize—as how should +she?—that the condition of Eleanor’s fine spun locks +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33' name='page_33'></a>33</span> +on her arrival the night before, had been attributable +to the fact that the O’Farrel baby had stolen her +comb, and Eleanor had been too shy to mention the +fact, and had combed her hair mermaid-wise, +through her fingers.</p> +<p>“This morning,” Beulah began brightly, “I am +going to turn you loose in the apartment, and let +you do what you like. I want to get an idea of the +things you do like, you know. You can sew, or read, +or drum on the piano, or talk to me, anything that +pleases you most. I want you to be happy, that’s all, +and to enjoy yourself in your own way.”</p> +<p>“Give the child absolute freedom in which to +demonstrate the worth and value of its ego,”—that +was what she was doing, “keeping it carefully under +observation while you determine the individual trend +along which to guide its development.”</p> +<p>The little girl looked about her helplessly. The +room was very large and bright. The walls were +white, and so was the woodwork, the mantle, and +some of the furniture. Gay figured curtains hung +at the windows, and there were little stools, and +chairs, and even trays with glass over them, covered +with the same bright colored material. Eleanor had +never seen a room anything like it. There was no +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34' name='page_34'></a>34</span> +center-table, no crayon portraits of different members +of the family, no easels, or scarves thrown over +the corners of the pictures. There were not many +pictures, and those that there were didn’t seem to +Eleanor like pictures at all, they were all so blurry +and smudgy,—excepting one of a beautiful lady. She +would have liked to have asked the name of that +lady,—but her Aunt Beulah’s eyes were upon her. +She slipped down from her chair and walked across +the room to the window.</p> +<p>“Well, dear, what would make this the happiest +day you can think of?” Beulah asked, in the tone +she was given to use when she asked Gertrude +and Margaret and Jimmie—but not often Peter—what +they expected to do with their lives.</p> +<p>Eleanor turned a desperate face from the window, +from the row of bland elegant apartment +buildings she had been contemplating with unseeing +eyes.</p> +<p>“Do I have to?” she asked Beulah piteously.</p> +<p>“Have to what?”</p> +<p>“Have to amuse myself in my own way? I +don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t know +what you think that I ought to do.”</p> +<p>A strong-minded and spoiled younger daughter +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35' name='page_35'></a>35</span> +of a widowed mother—whose chief anxiety had +been to anticipate the wants of her children before +they were expressed—with an independent income, +and a beloved and admiring circle of intimate +friends, is not likely to be imaginatively equipped +to explore the spiritual fastnesses of a sensitive +and alien orphan. Beulah tried earnestly to get +some perspective on the child’s point of view, but +she could not. The fact that she was torturing +the child would have been outside of the limits of her +comprehension. She searched her mind for some +immediate application of the methods of Madame +Montessori, and produced a lump of modeling +clay.</p> +<p>“You don’t really have to do anything, Eleanor,” +she said kindly. “I don’t want you to make an +effort to please me, only to be happy yourself. Why +don’t you try and see what you can do with this +modeling clay? Just try making it up into mud +pies, or anything.”</p> +<p>“Mud pies?”</p> +<p>“Let the child teach himself the significance of +contour, and the use of his hands, by fashioning +the clay into rudimentary forms of beauty.” That +was the theory. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36' name='page_36'></a>36</span></p> +<p>“Yes, dear, mud pies, if you wish to.”</p> +<p>Whereupon Eleanor, conscientiously and miserably, +turned out a neat half-dozen skilful, miniature +models of the New England deep dish apple-pie, +pricked and pinched to a nicety.</p> +<p>Beulah, with a vision related to the nebulous +stages of a study by Rodin, was somewhat disconcerted +with this result, but she brightened as +she thought at least she had discovered a natural +tendency in the child that she could help her +develop.</p> +<p>“Do you like to cook, Eleanor?” she asked.</p> +<p>In the child’s mind there rose the picture of her +grim apprenticeship on Cape Cod. She could see +the querulous invalid in the sick chair, her face +distorted with pain and impatience; she could feel +the sticky dough in her fingers, and the heat from +the stove rising round her.</p> +<p>“I hate cooking,” she said, with the first hint of +passion she had shown in her relation to her new +friends.</p> +<p>The day dragged on wearily. Beulah took her +to walk on the Drive, but as far as she was able +to determine the child saw nothing of her surroundings. +The crowds of trimly dressed people, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37' name='page_37'></a>37</span> +the nursemaids and babies, the swift slim outlines +of the whizzing motors, even the battleships lying +so suggestively quiescent on the river before them—all +the spectacular, vivid panorama of afternoon +on Riverside Drive—seemed absolutely without interest +or savor to the child. Beulah’s despair and +chagrin were increasing almost as rapidly as +Eleanor’s.</p> +<p>Late in the afternoon Beulah suggested a nap. +“I’ll sit here and read for a few minutes,” she +said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. Then, +since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, +and still determined by the hot memory +of her night’s vigil to leave no stone of geniality +unturned, she added:</p> +<p>“This is a book that I am reading to help me +to know how to guide and educate you. I haven’t +had much experience in adopting children, you +know, Eleanor, and when there is anything in this +world that you don’t know, there is usually some +good and useful book that will help you to find out +all about it.”</p> +<p>Even to herself her words sounded hatefully +patronizing and pedagogic, but she was past the +point of believing that she could handle the situation +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38' name='page_38'></a>38</span> +with grace. When Eleanor’s breath seemed to +be coming regularly, she put down her book with +some thankfulness and escaped to the tea table, +where she poured tea for her aunt, and explained +the child’s idiosyncrasies swiftly and smoothly to +that estimable lady.</p> +<p>Left alone, Eleanor lay still for a while, staring +at the design of pink roses on the blue wall-paper. +On Cape Cod, pink and blue were not considered +to be colors that could be combined. There was +nothing at all in New York like anything she knew +or remembered. She sighed. Then she made her +way to the window and picked up the book Beulah +had been reading. It was about <i>her</i>, Aunt Beulah +had said,—directions for educating her and training +her. The paragraph that caught her eye where +the book was open had been marked with a pencil.</p> +<p>“This girl had such a fat, frog like expression +of face,” Eleanor read, “that her neighbors thought +her an idiot. She was found to be the victim of a +severe case of ad-e-noids.” As she spelled out the +word, she recognized it as the one Beulah had +used earlier in the day. She remembered the sudden +sharp look with which the question had been +accompanied. The sick lady for whom she had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39' name='page_39'></a>39</span> +“worked out” had often called her an idiot when +her feet had stumbled, or she had failed to understand +at once what was required of her.</p> +<p>Eleanor read on. She encountered a text replete +with hideous examples of backward and deficient +children, victims of adenoids who had been +restored to a state of normality by the removal +of the affliction. She had no idea what an adenoid +was. She had a hazy notion that it was a kind of +superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but +her anguish was rooted in the fact that this, <i>this</i> +was the good and useful book that her Aunt Beulah +had found it necessary to resort to for guidance, in +the case of her own—Eleanor’s—education.</p> +<p>When Beulah, refreshed by a cup of tea and +further sustained by the fact that Margaret and +Peter had both telephoned they were coming to +dinner, returned to her charge, she found the stolid, +apathetic child she had left, sprawling face downward +on the floor, in a passion of convulsive +weeping.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40' name='page_40'></a>40</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_IV_PETER_ELUCIDATES' id='CHAPTER_IV_PETER_ELUCIDATES'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Peter Elucidates</span></h3> +</div> +<p>It was Peter who got at the heart of the trouble. +Margaret tried, but though Eleanor clung +to her and relaxed under the balm of her gentle +caresses, the child remained entirely inarticulate +until Peter gathered her up in his arms, and signed +to the others that he wished to be left alone +with her.</p> +<p>By the time he rejoined the two in the drawing-room—he +had missed his after-dinner coffee in +the long half-hour that he had spent shut into the +guest room with the child—Jimmie and Gertrude +had arrived, and the four sat grouped together to +await his pronouncement.</p> +<p>“She thinks she has adenoids. She wants the +doll that David left in that carpetbag of hers he +forgot to take out of the ‘Handsome cab.’ She +wants to be loved, and she wants to grow up and +write poetry for the newspapers,” he announced. +“Also she will eat a piece of bread and butter and +a glass of milk, as soon as it can conveniently be +provided for her.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41' name='page_41'></a>41</span></p> +<p>“When did you take holy orders, Gram?” Jimmie +inquired. “How do you work the confessional? +I wish I could make anybody give anything +up to me, but I can’t. Did you just go into +that darkened chamber and say to the kid, ‘Child +of my adoption,—cough,’ and she coughed, or are +you the master of some subtler system of choking +the truth out of ’em?”</p> +<p>“Anybody would tell anything to Peter if he +happened to want to know it,” Margaret said seriously. +“Wouldn’t they, Beulah?”</p> +<p>Beulah nodded. “She wants to be loved,” Peter +had said. It was so simple for some people to +open their hearts and give out love,—easily, lightly. +She was not made like that,—loving came hard +with her, but when once she had given herself, it +was done. Peter didn’t know how hard she had +tried to do right with the child that day.</p> +<p>“The doll is called the rabbit doll, though there +is no reason why it should be, as it only looks +the least tiny bit like a rabbit, and is a girl. Its +other name is Gwendolyn, and it always goes to +bed with her. Mrs. O’Farrels aunt said that children +always stopped playing with dolls when they +got to be as big as Eleanor, but she isn’t never +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42' name='page_42'></a>42</span> +going to stop.—You must get after that double +negative, Beulah.—She once wrote a poem beginning: +‘The rabbit doll, it is my own.’ She thinks +that she has a frog-like expression of face, and that +is why Beulah doesn’t like her better. She is perfectly +willing to have her adenoids cut out, if Beulah +thinks it would improve her, but she doesn’t want +to ‘take anything,’ when she has it done.”</p> +<p>“You are a wonder, Gram,” Gertrude said admiringly.</p> +<p>“Oh! I have made a mess of it, haven’t I?” +Beulah said. “Is she homesick?”</p> +<p>“Yes, she’s homesick,” Peter said gravely, “but +not for anything she’s left in Colhassett. David +told you the story, didn’t he?—She is homesick for +her own kind, for people she can really love, and +she’s never found any of them. Her grandfather +and grandmother are old and decrepit. She feels +a terrible responsibility for them, but she doesn’t +love them, not really. She’s too hungry to love +anybody until she finds the friends she can cling +to—without compromise.”</p> +<p>“An emotional aristocrat,” Gertrude murmured. +“It’s the curse of taste.”</p> +<p>“Help! Help!” Jimmie cried, grimacing at Gertrude. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43' name='page_43'></a>43</span> +“Didn’t she have any kids her own age +to play with?”</p> +<p>“She had ’em, but she didn’t have any time to +play with them. You forget she was supporting a +family all the time, Jimmie.”</p> +<p>“By jove, I’d like to forget it.”</p> +<p>“She had one friend named Albertina Weston +that she used to run around with in school. Albertina +also wrote poetry. They used to do poetic +‘stunts’ of one poem a day on some subject selected +by Albertina. I think Albertina was a snob. +She candidly admitted to Eleanor that if her clothes +were more stylish, she would go round with her +more. Eleanor seemed to think that was perfectly +natural.”</p> +<p>“How do you do it, Peter?” Jimmie besought. +“If I could get one damsel, no matter how tender +her years, to confide in me like that I’d be happy +for life. It’s nothing to you with those eyes, and +that matinée forehead of yours; but I want ’em +to weep down my neck, and I can’t make ’em +do it.”</p> +<p>“Wait till you grow up, Jimmie, and then see +what happens,” Gertrude soothed him.</p> +<p>“Wait till it’s your turn with our child,” Margaret +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44' name='page_44'></a>44</span> +said. “In two months more she’s coming +to you.”</p> +<p>“Do I ever forget it for a minute?” Jimmie +cried.</p> +<p>“The point of the whole business is,” Peter continued, +“that we’ve got a human soul on our hands. +We imported a kind of scientific plaything to exercise +our spiritual muscle on, and we’ve got a real +specimen of womanhood in embryo. I don’t know +whether the situation appalls you as much as it +does me—” He broke off as he heard the bell +ring.</p> +<p>“That’s David, he said he was coming.”</p> +<p>Then as David appeared laden with the lost +carpetbag and a huge box of chocolates, he waved +him to a chair, and took up his speech again. “I +don’t know whether the situation appalls you, as +much as it does me—if I don’t get this off my +chest now, David, I can’t do it at all—but the +thought of that poor little waif in there and the +struggle she’s had, and the shy valiant spirit of +her,—the sand that she’s got, the <i>sand</i> that put her +through and kept her mouth shut through experiences +that might easily have killed her, why I feel +as if I’d give anything I had in the world to make +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45' name='page_45'></a>45</span> +it up to her, and yet I’m not altogether sure that +I could—that we could—that it’s any of our business +to try it.”</p> +<p>“There’s nobody else who will, if we don’t,” +David said.</p> +<p>“That’s it,” Peter said, “I’ve never known any +one of our bunch to quit anything that they once +started in on, but just by way of formality there +is one thing we ought to do about this proposition +before we slide into it any further, and that is to +agree that we want to go on with it, that we know +what we’re in for, and that we’re game.”</p> +<p>“We decided all that before we sent for the +kid,” Jimmie said, “didn’t we?”</p> +<p>“We decided we’d adopt a child, but we didn’t +decide we’d adopt this one. Taking the responsibility +of this one is the question before the house +just at present.”</p> +<p>“The idea being,” David added, “that she’s a +fairly delicate piece of work, and as time advances +she’s going to be <i>delicater</i>.”</p> +<p>“And that it’s an awkward matter to play with +souls,” Beulah contributed; whereupon Jimmie +murmured, “Browning,” sotto voice.</p> +<p>“She may be all that you say, Gram,” Jimmie +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46' name='page_46'></a>46</span> +said, after a few minutes of silence, “a thunderingly +refined and high-minded young waif, but you +will admit that without an interpreter of the same +class, she hasn’t been much good to us so far.”</p> +<p>“Good lord, she isn’t refined and high-minded,” +Peter said. “That’s not the idea. She’s simply +supremely sensitive and full of the most pathetic +possibilities. If we’re going to undertake her we +ought to realize fully what we’re up against, and +acknowledge it,—that’s all I’m trying to say, and +I apologize for assuming that it’s more my business +than anybody’s to say it.”</p> +<p>“That charming humility stuff, if I could only +remember to pull it.”</p> +<p>The sofa pillow that Gertrude aimed at Jimmie +hit him full on the mouth and he busied himself +pretending to eat it. Beulah scorned the interruption.</p> +<p>“Of course, we’re going to undertake her,” +Beulah said. “We are signed up and it’s all down +in writing. If anybody has any objections, they +can state them now.” She looked about her dramatically. +On every young face was reflected the +same earnestness that set gravely on her own.</p> +<p>“The ‘ayes’ have it,” Jimmie murmured. “From +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47' name='page_47'></a>47</span> +now on I become not only a parent, but a soul +doctor.” He rose, and tiptoed solemnly toward +the door of Eleanor’s room.</p> +<p>“Where are you going, Jimmie?” Beulah called, +as he was disappearing around the bend in the +corridor.</p> +<p>He turned back to lift an admonitory finger.</p> +<p>“Shush,” he said, “do not interrupt me. I am +going to wrap baby up in a blanket and bring her +out to her mothers and fathers.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48' name='page_48'></a>48</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_V_ELEANOR_ENJOYS_HERSELF_IN_HER_OWN_WAY' id='CHAPTER_V_ELEANOR_ENJOYS_HERSELF_IN_HER_OWN_WAY'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Eleanor Enjoys Herself in Her Own Way</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“I am in society here,” Eleanor wrote to her +friend Albertina, with a pardonable emphasis +on that phase of her new existence that would +appeal to the haughty ideals of Miss Weston, “I +don’t have to do any housework, or anything. I +sleep under a pink silk bedquilt, and I have all new +clothes. I have a new black pattern leather sailor +hat that I sopose you would laugh at. It cost +six dollars and draws the sun down to my head +but I don’t say anything. I have six aunts and +uncles all diferent names and ages but grown up. +Uncle Peter is the most elderly, he is twenty-five. +I know becase we gave him a birthday party with +a cake. I sat at the table. I wore my crape da +shine dress. You would think that was pretty, +well it is. There is a servant girl to do evry +thing even passing your food to you on a tray. +I wish you could come to visit me. I stay two +months in a place and get broghut up there. Aunt +Beulah is peculiar but nice when you know her. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49' name='page_49'></a>49</span> +She is stric and at first I thought we was not going +to get along. She thought I had adenoids and I +thought she dislikt me too much, but it turned +out not. I take lessons from her every morning +like they give at Rogers College, not like publick +school. I have to think what I want to do a good +deal and then do it. At first she turned me loose +to enjoy myself and I could not do it, but now we +have disapline which makes it all right. My speling +is weak, but uncle Peter says Stevanson could not +spel and did not care. Stevanson was the poat +who wrote the birdie with a yellow bill in the +reader. I wish you would tel me if Grandma’s +eye is worse and what about Grandfather’s rheumatism.</p> +<p>“Your fond friend, Eleanor.</p> +<p>“P. S. We have a silver organ in all the rooms +to have heat in. I was afrayd of them at first.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>In the letters to her grandparents, however, the +undercurrent of anxiety about the old people, which +was a ruling motive in her life, became apparent.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Dear Grandma and Dear Grandpa,” she wrote,</p> +<p>“I have been here a weak now. I inclose my +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50' name='page_50'></a>50</span> +salary, fifteen dollars ($15.00) which I hope you +will like. I get it for doing evry thing I am told +and being adoptid besides. You can tell the silectmen +that I am rich now and can support you just +as good as Uncle Amos. I want Grandpa to buy +some heavy undershurts right of. He will get a +couff if he doesn’t do it. Tell him to rub your arm +evry night before you go to bed, Grandma, and to +have a hot soapstone for you. If you don’t have +your bed hot you will get newmonia and I can’t +come home to take care of you, becase my salary +would stop. I like New York better now that I +have lived here some. I miss seeing you around, +and Grandpa.</p> +<p>“The cook cooks on a gas stove that is very +funny. I asked her how it went and she showed +me it. She is going to leve, but lucky thing the +hired girl can cook till Aunt Beulah gets a nother +cook as antyseptic as this cook. In Rogers College +they teach ladies to have their cook’s and hired +girl’s antyseptic. It is a good idear becase of +sickness. I inclose a recipete for a good cake. +You can make it sating down. You don’t have +to stir it much, and Grandpa can bring you the +things. I will write soon. I hope you are all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51' name='page_51'></a>51</span> +right. Let me hear that you are all right. Don’t +forget to put the cat out nights. I hope she is +all right, but remember the time she stole the butter +fish. I miss you, and I miss the cat around. +Uncle David pays me my salary out of his own +pocket, because he is the richest, but I like Uncle +Peter the best. He is very handsome and we like +to talk to each other the best. Goodbye, Eleanor.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>But it was on the varicolored pages of a ruled +tablet—with a picture on its cover of a pink +cheeked young lady beneath a cherry tree, and +marked in large straggling letters also varicolored +“The Cherry Blossom Tablet”—that Eleanor put +down her most sacred thoughts. On the outside, +just above the cherry tree, her name was written +with a pencil that had been many times wet to get +the desired degree of blackness, “Eleanor Hamlin, +Colhassett, Massachusetts. Private Dairy,” and on +the first page was this warning in the same painstaking, +heavily shaded chirography, “This book is +sacrid, and not be trespased in or read one word of. +By order of owner. E. H.”</p> +<p>It was the private diary and Gwendolyn, the +rabbit doll, and a small blue china shepherdess +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52' name='page_52'></a>52</span> +given her by Albertina, that constituted Eleanor’s +<i>lares et penates</i>. When David had finally succeeded +in tracing the ancient carpetbag in the lost and +found department of the cab company, Eleanor was +able to set up her household gods, and draw from +them that measure of strength and security inseparable +from their familiar presence. She always +slept with two of the three beloved objects, and +after Beulah had learned to understand and appreciate +the child’s need for unsupervised privacy, +she divined that the little girl was happiest when +she could devote at least an hour or two a day to the +transcribing of earnest sentences on the pink, blue +and yellow pages of the Cherry Blossom Tablet, +and the mysterious games that she played with the +rabbit doll. That these games consisted largely in +making the rabbit doll impersonate Eleanor, while +the child herself became in turn each one of the +six uncles and aunts, and exhorted the victim accordingly, +did not of course occur to Beulah. It +did occur to her that the pink, blue and yellow +pages would have made interesting reading to +Eleanor’s guardians, if they had been privileged to +read all that was chronicled there.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53' name='page_53'></a>53</span></div> +<p>“My aunt Beulah wears her hair to high of her +forrid.</p> +<p>“My aunt Margaret wears her hair to slic on the +sides.</p> +<p>“My aunt Gertrude wears her hair just about +right.</p> +<p>“My aunt Margaret is the best looking, and has +the nicest way.</p> +<p>“My aunt Gertrude is the funniest. I never laugh +at what she says, but I have trouble not to. By +thinking of Grandpa’s rheumaticks I stop myself +just in time. Aunt Beulah means all right, and +wants to do right and have everybody else the +same.</p> +<p>“Uncle David is not handsome, but good.</p> +<p>“Uncle Jimmie is not handsome, but his hair +curls.</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter is the most handsome man that ere +the sun shown on. That is poetry. He has beautiful +teeth, and I like him.</p> +<p>“Yesterday the Wordsworth Club—that’s what +Uncle Jimmie calls us because he says we are seven—went +to the Art Museum to edjucate me in art.</p> +<p>“Aunt Beulah wanted to take me to one room +and keep me there until I asked to come out. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54' name='page_54'></a>54</span> +Uncle Jimmie wanted to show me the statures. +Uncle David said I ought to begin with the Ming +period and work down to Art Newvoo. Aunts +Gertrude and Margaret wanted to take me to the +room of the great masters. While they were talking +Uncle Peter and I went to see a picture that +made me cry. I asked him who she was. He said +that wasn’t the important thing, that the important +thing was that one man had nailed his dream. He +didn’t doubt that lots of other painters had, but +this one meant the most to him. When I cried he +said, ‘You’re all right, Baby. You know.’ Then +he reached down and kissed me.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>As the month progressed, it seemed to Beulah +that she was making distinct progress with the +child. Since the evening when Peter had won +Eleanor’s confidence and explained her mental processes, +her task had been illumined for her. She +belonged to that class of women in whom maternity +arouses late. She had not the facile sympathy +which accepts a relationship without the endorsement +of the understanding, and she was too young +to have much toleration for that which was not +perfectly clear to her. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55' name='page_55'></a>55</span></p> +<p>She had started in with high courage to demonstrate +the value of a sociological experiment. +She hoped later, though these hopes she had so +far kept to herself, to write, or at least to collaborate +with some worthy educator, on a book +which would serve as an exact guide to other philanthropically +inclined groups who might wish to +follow the example of cooperative adoption; but +the first day of actual contact with her problem +had chilled her. She had put nothing down in her +note-book. She had made no scientific progress. +There seemed to be no intellectual response in the +child.</p> +<p>Peter had set all these things right for her. He +had shown her the child’s uncompromising integrity +of spirit. The keynote of Beulah’s nature was, as +Jimmie said, that she “had to be shown.” Peter +pointed out the fact to her that Eleanor’s slogan also +was, “No compromise.” As Eleanor became more +familiar with her surroundings this spirit became +more and more evident.</p> +<p>“I could let down the hem of these dresses, +Aunt Beulah,” she said one day, looking down at +the long stretch of leg protruding from the chic +blue frock that made her look like a Boutet de +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56' name='page_56'></a>56</span> +Monvil. “I can’t hem very good, but my stitches +don’t show much.”</p> +<p>“That dress isn’t too short, dear. It’s the way +little girls always wear them. Do little girls on +Cape Cod wear them longer?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Aunt Beulah.”</p> +<p>“How long do they wear them?”</p> +<p>“Albertina,” they had reached the point of discussion +of Albertina now, and Beulah was proud +of it, “wore her dresses to her ankles, be—because +her—her legs was so fat. She said that mine was—were +getting to be fat too, and it wasn’t refined +to wear short dresses, when your legs were fat.”</p> +<p>“There are a good many conflicting ideas of +refinement in the world, Eleanor,” Beulah said.</p> +<p>“I’ve noticed there are, since I came to New +York,” Eleanor answered unexpectedly.</p> +<p>Beulah’s academic spirit recognized and rejoiced +in the fact that with all her docility, Eleanor held +firmly to her preconceived notions. She continued +to wear her dresses short, but when she was not +actually on exhibition, she hid her long legs behind +every available bit of furniture or drapery.</p> +<p>The one doubt left in her mind, of the child’s +initiative and executive ability, was destined to be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57' name='page_57'></a>57</span> +dissipated by the rather heroic measures sometimes +resorted to by a superior agency taking an ironic +hand in the game of which we have been too +inhumanly sure.</p> +<p>On the fifth week of Eleanor’s stay Beulah +became a real aunt, the cook left, and her own aunt +and official chaperon, little Miss Prentis, was laid +low with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism. +Beulah’s excitement on these various counts, combined +with indiscretions in the matter of overshoes +and overfatigue, made her an easy victim to a wandering +grip germ. She opened her eyes one morning +only to shut them with a groan of pain. There +was an ache in her head and a thickening in her +chest, the significance of which she knew only too +well. She found herself unable to rise. She +lifted a hoarse voice and called for Mary, the maid, +who did not sleep in the house but was due every +morning at seven. But the gentle knock on the +door was followed by the entrance of Eleanor, +not Mary.</p> +<p>“Mary didn’t come, Aunt Beulah. I thought +you was—were so tired, I’d let you have your sleep +out. I heard Miss Prentis calling, and I made +her some gruel, and I got my own breakfast.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58' name='page_58'></a>58</span></p> +<p>“Oh! how dreadful,” Beulah gasped in the face +of this new calamity; “and I’m really so sick. I +don’t know what we’ll do.”</p> +<p>Eleanor regarded her gravely. Then she put a +professional hand on her pulse and her forehead.</p> +<p>“You’ve got the grip,” she announced.</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I have, Eleanor, and Doctor Martin’s +out of town, and won’t be back till to-morrow +when he comes to Aunt Ann. I don’t know what +we’ll do.”</p> +<p>“I’ll tend to things,” Eleanor said. “You lie +still and close your eyes, and don’t put your arms +out of bed and get chilled.”</p> +<p>“Well, you’ll have to manage somehow,” Beulah +moaned; “how, I don’t know, I’m sure. Give Aunt +Annie her medicine and hot water bags, and just +let me be. I’m too sick to care what happens.”</p> +<p>After the door had closed on the child a dozen +things occurred to Beulah that might have been +done for her. She was vaguely faint for her +breakfast. Her feet were cold. She thought of +the soothing warmth of antiphlogistine when applied +to the chest. She thought of the quinine on +the shelf in the bathroom. Once more she tried +lifting her head, but she could not accomplish a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59' name='page_59'></a>59</span> +sitting posture. She shivered as a draft from the +open window struck her.</p> +<p>“If I could only be taken in hand this morning,” +she thought, “I know it could be broken.”</p> +<p>The door opened softly. Eleanor, in the cook’s +serviceable apron of gingham that would have +easily contained another child the same size, swung +the door open with one hand and held it to accommodate +the passage of the big kitchen tray, +deeply laden with a heterogeneous collection of +objects. She pulled two chairs close to the bedside +and deposited her burden upon them. Then +she removed from the tray a goblet of some +steaming fluid and offered it to Beulah.</p> +<p>“It’s cream of wheat gruel,” she said, and added +ingratiatingly: “It tastes nice in a tumbler.”</p> +<p>Beulah drank the hot decoction gratefully and +found, to her surprise, that it was deliciously made.</p> +<p>Eleanor took the glass away from her and placed +it on the tray, from which she took what looked +to Beulah like a cloth covered omelet,—at any +rate, it was a crescent shaped article slightly yellow +in tone. Eleanor tested it with a finger.</p> +<p>“It’s just about right,” she said. Then she fixed +Beulah with a stern eye. “Open your chest,” she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60' name='page_60'></a>60</span> +commanded, “and show me the spot where it’s +worst. I’ve made a meal poultice.”</p> +<p>Beulah hesitated only a second, then she obeyed +meekly. She had never seen a meal poultice before, +but the heat on her afflicted chest was grateful +to her. Antiphlogistine was only Denver mud +anyhow. Meekly, also, she took the six grains of +quinine and the weak dose of jamaica ginger and +water that she was next offered. She felt encouraged +and refreshed enough by this treatment to +display some slight curiosity when the little girl +produced a card of villainous looking safety-pins.</p> +<p>“I’m going to pin you in with these, Aunt Beulah,” +she said, “and then sweat your cold out of +you.”</p> +<p>“Indeed, you’re not,” Beulah said; “don’t be +absurd, Eleanor. The theory of the grip is—,” +but she was addressing merely the vanishing hem +of cook’s voluminous apron.</p> +<p>The child returned almost instantly with three +objects of assorted sizes that Beulah could not +identify. From the outside they looked like red +flannel and from the way Eleanor handled them +it was evident that they also were hot.</p> +<p>“I het—heated the flatirons,” Eleanor explained, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61' name='page_61'></a>61</span> +“the way I do for Grandma, and I’m going to +spread ’em around you, after you’re pinned in the +blankets, and you got to lie there till you prespire, +and prespire good.”</p> +<p>“I won’t do it,” Beulah moaned, “I won’t do any +such thing. Go away, child.”</p> +<p>“I cured Grandma and Grandpa and Mrs. O’Farrel’s +aunt that I worked for, and I’m going to cure +you,” Eleanor said.</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>Eleanor advanced on her threateningly.</p> +<p>“Put your arms under those covers,” she said, +“or I’ll dash a glass of cold water in your face,”—and +Beulah obeyed her.</p> +<p>Peter nodded wisely when Beulah, cured by these +summary though obsolete methods, told the story in +full detail. Gertrude had laughed until the invalid +had enveloped herself in the last few shreds of her +dignity and ordered her out of the room, and the +others had been scarcely more sympathetic.</p> +<p>“I know that it’s funny, Peter,” she said, “but +you see, I can’t help worrying about it just the +same. Of course, as soon as I was up she was +just as respectful and obedient to my slightest wish +as she ever was, but at the time, when she was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62' name='page_62'></a>62</span> +lording it over me so, she—she actually slapped +me. You never saw such a—blazingly determined +little creature.”</p> +<p>Peter smiled,—gently, as was Peter’s way when +any friend of his made an appeal to him.</p> +<p>“That’s all right, Beulah,” he said, “don’t you +let it disturb you for an instant. This manifestation +had nothing to do with our experiment. Our +experiment is working fine—better than I dreamed +it would ever work. What happened to Eleanor, +you know, was simply this. Some of the conditions +of her experience were recreated suddenly, +and she reverted.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63' name='page_63'></a>63</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_VI_JIMMIE_BECOMES_A_PARENT' id='CHAPTER_VI_JIMMIE_BECOMES_A_PARENT'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Jimmie Becomes a Parent</span></h3> +</div> +<p>The entrance into the dining-room of the curly +headed young man and his pretty little niece, +who had a suite on the eighth floor, as the room +clerk informed all inquirers, was always a matter +of interest to the residents of the Hotel Winchester. +They were an extremely picturesque pair to the +eye seeking for romance and color. The child had +the pure, clear cut features of the cameo type +of New England maidenhood. She was always +dressed in some striking combination of blue, deep +blue like her eyes, with blue hair ribbons. Her +good-looking young relative, with hair almost as +near the color of the sun as her own, seemed to be +entirely devoted to her, which, considering the +charm of the child and the radiant and magnetic +spirit of the young man himself, was a delightfully +natural manifestation.</p> +<p>But one morning near the close of the second +week of their stay, the usual radiation of resilient +youth was conspicuously absent from the young +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64' name='page_64'></a>64</span> +man’s demeanor, and the child’s face reflected the +gloom that sat so incongruously on the contour +of an optimist. The little girl fumbled her menu +card, but the waitress—the usual aging pedagogic +type of the small residential hotel—stood unnoticed +at the young man’s elbow for some minutes before +he was sufficiently aroused from his gloomy meditations +to address her. When he turned to her at +last, however, it was with the grin that she had +grown to associate with him,—the grin, the absence +of which had kept her waiting behind his +chair with a patience that she was, except in a case +where her affections were involved, entirely incapable +of. Jimmie’s protestations of inability to make +headway with the ladies were not entirely sincere.</p> +<p>“Bring me everything on the menu,” he said, +with a wave of his hand in the direction of that +painstaking pasteboard. “Coffee, tea, fruit, marmalade, +breakfast food, ham and eggs. Bring my +niece here the same. That’s all.” With another +wave of the hand he dismissed her.</p> +<p>“You can’t eat it all, Uncle Jimmie,” Eleanor +protested.</p> +<p>“I’ll make a bet with you,” Jimmie declared. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65' name='page_65'></a>65</span> +“I’ll bet you a dollar to a doughnut that if she +brings it all, I’ll eat it.”</p> +<p>“Oh! Uncle Jimmie, you know she won’t bring +it. You never bet so I can get the dollar,—you +never do.”</p> +<p>“I never bet so I can get my doughnut, if it +comes to that.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know where to buy any doughnuts,” +Eleanor said; “besides, Uncle Jimmie, I don’t really +consider that I owe them. I never really say that +I’m betting, and you tell me I’ve lost before I’ve +made up my mind anything about it.”</p> +<p>“Speaking of doughnuts,” Jimmie said, his face +still wearing the look of dejection under a grin +worn awry, “can you cook, Eleanor? Can you +roast a steak, and saute baked beans, and stew +sausages, and fry out a breakfast muffin? Does +she look like a cook to you?” he suddenly demanded +of the waitress, who was serving him, with +an apologetic eye on the menu, the invariable +toast-coffee-and-three-minute-egg breakfast that he +had eaten every morning since his arrival.</p> +<p>The waitress smiled toothily. “She looks like a +capable one,” she pronounced. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66' name='page_66'></a>66</span></p> +<p>“I <i>can</i> cook, Uncle Jimmie,” Eleanor giggled, +“but not the way you said. You don’t roast steak, +or—or—”</p> +<p>“Don’t you?” Jimmie asked with the expression +of pained surprise that never failed to make his +ward wriggle with delight. There were links in +the educational scheme that Jimmie forged better +than any of the cooperative guardians. Not even +Jimmie realized the value of the giggle as a developing +factor in Eleanor’s existence. He took +three swallows of coffee and frowned into his cup. +“I can make coffee,” he added. “Good coffee. +Well, we may as well look the facts in the face, +Eleanor. The jig’s up. We’re moving away from +this elegant hostelry to-morrow.”</p> +<p>“Are we?” Eleanor asked.</p> +<p>“Yes, Kiddo. Apologies to Aunt Beulah (mustn’t +call you Kiddo) and the reason is, that I’m broke. +I haven’t got any money at all, Eleanor, and I +don’t know where I am going to get any. You +see, it is this way. I lost my job six weeks ago.”</p> +<p>“But you go to work every morning, Uncle +Jimmie?”</p> +<p>“I leave the house, that is. I go looking for +work, but so far no nice juicy job has come rolling +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67' name='page_67'></a>67</span> +down into my lap. I haven’t told you this before +because,—well—when Aunt Beulah comes down +every day to give you your lessons I wanted it to +look all O. K. I thought if you didn’t know, you +couldn’t forget sometime and tell her.”</p> +<p>“I don’t tattle tale,” Eleanor said.</p> +<p>“I know you don’t, Eleanor. It’s only my doggone +pride that makes me want to keep up the +bluff, but you’re a game kid,—you—know. I tried +to get you switched off to one of the others till I +could get on my feet, but—no, they just thought +I had stage fright. I couldn’t insist. It would be +pretty humiliating to me to admit that I couldn’t +support one-sixth of a child that I’d given my +solemn oath to be-parent.”</p> +<p>“To—to what?”</p> +<p>“Be-parent, if it isn’t a word, I invent it. It’s +awfully tough luck for you, and if you want me +to I’ll own up to the crowd that I can’t swing +you, but if you are willing to stick, why, we’ll fix +up some kind of a way to cut down expenses and +bluff it out.”</p> +<p>Eleanor considered the prospect. Jimmie watched +her apparent hesitation with some dismay.</p> +<p>“Say the word,” he declared, “and I’ll tell ’em.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68' name='page_68'></a>68</span></p> +<p>“Oh! I don’t want you to tell ’em,” Eleanor +cried. “I was just thinking. If you could get me +a place, you know, I could go out to work. You +don’t eat very much for a man, and I might get +my meals thrown in—”</p> +<p>“Don’t, Eleanor, don’t,” Jimmie agonized. “I’ve +got a scheme for us all right. This—this embarrassment +is only temporary. The day will come +when I can provide you with Pol Roge and +diamonds. My father is rich, you know, but he +swore to me that I couldn’t support myself, and +I swore to him that I could, and if I don’t do it, +I’m damned. I am really, and that isn’t swearing.”</p> +<p>“I know it isn’t, when you mean it the way +they say in the Bible.”</p> +<p>“I don’t want the crowd to know. I don’t want +Gertrude to know. She hasn’t got much idea of me +anyway. I’ll get another job, if I can only hold +out.”</p> +<p>“I can go to work in a store,” Eleanor cried. +“I can be one of those little girls in black dresses +that runs between counters.”</p> +<p>“Do you want to break your poor Uncle James’ +heart, Eleanor,—do you?”</p> +<p>“No, Uncle Jimmie.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69' name='page_69'></a>69</span></p> +<p>“Then listen to me. I’ve borrowed a studio, a +large barnlike studio on Washington Square, suitably +equipped with pots and pans and kettles. +Also, I am going to borrow the wherewithal to +keep us going. It isn’t a bad kind of place if anybody +likes it. There’s one dinky little bedroom for +you and a cot bed for me, choked in bagdad. If +you could kind of engineer the cooking end of it, +with me to do the dirty work, of course, I think +we could be quite snug and cozy.”</p> +<p>“I know we could, Uncle Jimmie,” Eleanor said. +“Will Uncle Peter come to see us just the same?”</p> +<p>It thus befell that on the fourteenth day of the +third month of her residence in New York, +Eleanor descended into Bohemia. Having no least +suspicion of the real state of affairs—for Jimmie, +like most apparently expansive people who are +given to rattling nonsense, was actually very reticent +about his own business—the other members +of the sextette did not hesitate to show their +chagrin and disapproval at the change in his manner +of living.</p> +<p>“The Winchester was an ideal place for +Eleanor,” Beulah wailed. “It’s deadly respectable +and middle class, but it was just the kind of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70' name='page_70'></a>70</span> +atmosphere for her to accustom herself to. She +was learning to manage herself so prettily. This +morning when I went to the studio—I wanted to +get the lessons over early, and take Eleanor to +see that exhibition of Bavarian dolls at Kuhner’s—I +found her washing up a trail of dishes in that +closet behind the screen—you’ve seen it, Gertrude?—like +some poor little scullery maid. She said +that Jimmie had made an omelet for breakfast. +If he’d made fifty omelets there couldn’t have +been a greater assortment of dirty dishes and +kettles.”</p> +<p>Gertrude smiled.</p> +<p>“Jimmie made an omelet for me once for +which he used two dozen eggs. He kept breaking +them until he found the yolks of a color to suit +him. He said pale yolks made poor omelets, so +he threw all the pale ones away.”</p> +<p>“I suppose that you sat by and let him,” Beulah +said. “You would let Jimmie do anything. You’re +as bad as Margaret is about David.”</p> +<p>“Or as bad as you are about Peter.”</p> +<p>“There we go, just like any silly, brainless girls, +whose chief object in life is the—the other sex,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71' name='page_71'></a>71</span> +Beulah cried inconsistently. “Oh! I hate that +kind of thing.”</p> +<p>“So do I—in theory—” Gertrude answered, a +little dreamily. “Where do Jimmie and Eleanor +get the rest of their meals?”</p> +<p>“I can’t seem to find out,” Beulah said. “I +asked Eleanor point-blank this morning what they +had to eat last night and where they had it, and +she said, ‘That’s a secret, Aunt Beulah.’ When I +asked her why it was a secret and who it was a +secret with, she only looked worried, and said she +guessed she wouldn’t talk about it at all because +that was the only way to be safe about tattling. +You know what I think—I think Jimmie is taking +her around to the cafés and all the shady extravagant +restaurants. He thinks it’s sport and it +keeps him from getting bored with the child.”</p> +<p>“Well, that’s one way of educating the young,” +Gertrude said, “but I think you are wrong, +Beulah.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72' name='page_72'></a>72</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_VII_ONE_DESCENT_INTO_BOHEMIA' id='CHAPTER_VII_ONE_DESCENT_INTO_BOHEMIA'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>One Descent into Bohemia</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Aunt Beulah does not think that Uncle +Jimmie is bringing me up right,” Eleanor +confided to the pages of her diary. “She comes +down here and is very uncomforterble. Well he +is bringing me up good, in some ways better than +she did. When he swears he always puts out his +hand for me to slap him. He had enough to +swear of. He can’t get any work or earn wages. +The advertisement business is on the bum this year +becase times are so hard up. The advertisers +have to save their money and advertising agents +are failing right and left. So poor Uncle Jimmie +can’t get a place to work at.</p> +<p>“The people in the other studios are very neighborly. +Uncle Jimmie leaves a sine on the door +when he goes out. It says ‘Don’t Knock.’ They +don’t they come right in and borrow things. Uncle +Jimmie says not to have much to do with them, +becase they are so queer, but when I am not at +home, the ladies come to call on him, and drink +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73' name='page_73'></a>73</span> +Moxie or something. I know becase once I +caught them. Uncle Jimmie says I shall not have +Behemiar thrust upon me by him, and to keep +away from these ladies until I grow up and then +see if I like them. Aunt Beulah thinks that Uncle +Jimmie takes me around to other studios and I +won’t tell but he does not take me anywhere +except to walk and have ice-cream soda, but +I say I don’t want it because of saving the ten +cents. We cook on an old gas stove that smells. +I can’t do very good housekeeping becase things +are not convenient. I haven’t any oven to do a +Saturday baking in, and Uncle Jimmie won’t let +me do the washing. I should feel more as if I +earned my keap if I baked beans and made boiled +dinners and layer cake, but in New York they +don’t eat much but hearty food and saluds. It +isn’t stylish to have cake and pie and pudding all +at one meal. Poor Grandpa would starve. He eats +pie for his breakfast, but if I told anybody they +would laugh. If I wrote Albertina what folks eat +in New York she would laugh.</p> +<p>“Uncle Jimmie is teaching me to like salud. He +laughs when I cut up lettice and put sugar on it. +He teaches me to like olives and dried up +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74' name='page_74'></a>74</span> +sausages and sour crought. He says it is important +to be edjucated in eating, and everytime we go to +the Delicate Essenn store to buy something that +will edjucate me better. He teaches me to say ‘I +beg your pardon,’ and ‘Polly vous Fransay?’ and +to courtesy and how to enter a room the way you +do in private theatricals. He says it isn’t knowing +these things so much as knowing when you do +them that counts, and then Aunt Beulah complains +that I am not being brought up.</p> +<p>“I have not seen Uncle Peter for a weak. He +said he was going away. I miss him. I would not +have to tell him how I was being brought up, and +whether I was hitting the white lights as Uncle +Jimmie says.—He would know.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Eleanor did not write Albertina during the time +when she was living in the studio. Some curious +inversion of pride kept her silent on the subject +of the change in her life. Albertina would have +turned up her nose at the studio, Eleanor knew. +Therefore, she would not so much as address an +envelope to that young lady from an interior which +she would have beheld with scorn. She held long +conversations with Gwendolyn, taking the part of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75' name='page_75'></a>75</span> +Albertina, on the subject of this snobbishness of +attitude.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Lots of people in New York have to live in +little teny, weeny rooms, Albertina,” she would +say. “Rents are perfectly awful here. This studio +is so big I get tired dusting all the way round it, +and even if it isn’t furnished very much, why, think +how much furnishing would cost, and carpets and +gold frames for the pictures! The pictures that +are in here already, without any frames, would +sell for hundreds of dollars apiece if the painter +could get anybody to buy them. You ought to be +very thankful for such a place, Albertina, instead +of feeling so stuck up that you pick up your skirts +from it.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>But Albertina’s superiority of mind was impregnable. +Her spirit sat in judgment on all the +conditions of Eleanor’s new environment. She +seemed to criticize everything. She hated the +nicked, dun colored dishes they ate from, and the +black bottomed pots and pans that all the energy +of Eleanor’s energetic little elbow could not restore +to decency again. She hated the cracked, dun +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76' name='page_76'></a>76</span> +colored walls, and the mottled floor that no amount +of sweeping and dusting seemed to make an impression +on. She hated the compromise of housekeeping +in an attic,—she who had been bred in an +atmosphere of shining nickle-plated ranges and +linoleum, where even the kitchen pump gleamed +brightly under its annual coat of good green paint. +She hated the compromise, that was the burden +of her complaint—either in the person of Albertina +or Gwendolyn, whether she lay in the crook of +Eleanor’s arm in the lumpy bed where she reposed +at the end of the day’s labor, or whether +she sat bolt upright on the lumpy cot in the studio, +the broken bisque arm, which Jimmie insisted on +her wearing in a sling whenever he was present, +dangling limply at her side in the relaxation +Eleanor preferred for it.</p> +<p>The fact of not having adequate opportunity to +keep her house in order troubled the child, for +her days were zealously planned by her enthusiastic +guardians. Beulah came at ten o’clock every +morning to give her lessons. As Jimmie’s quest +for work grew into a more and more disheartening +adventure, she had difficulty in getting him out +of bed in time to prepare and clear away the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77' name='page_77'></a>77</span> +breakfast for Beulah’s arrival. After lunch, to +which Jimmie scrupulously came home, she was +supposed to work an hour at her modeling clay. +Gertrude, who was doing very promising work at +the art league, came to the studio twice a week to +give her instruction in handling it. Later in the +afternoon one of the aunts or uncles usually appeared +with some scheme to divert her. Margaret +was telling her the stories of the Shakespeare +plays, and David was trying to make a card player +of her, but was not succeeding as well as if +Albertina had not been brought up a hard shell +Baptist, who thought card playing a device of the +devil’s. Peter alone did not come, for even when +he was in town he was busy in the afternoon.</p> +<p>As soon as her guests were gone, Eleanor hurried +through such housewifely tasks as were possible +of accomplishment at that hour, but the +strain was telling on her. Jimmie began to realize +this and it added to his own distress. One night +to save her the labor of preparing the meal, he +took her to an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood +where the food was honest and palatable, +and the service at least deft and clean.</p> +<p>Eleanor enjoyed the experience extremely, until +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78' name='page_78'></a>78</span> +an incident occurred which robbed her evening of +its sweetness and plunged her into the purgatory +of the child who has inadvertently broken one of +its own laws.</p> +<p>Among the belongings in the carpetbag, which +was no more—having been supplanted by a smart +little suit-case marked with her initials—was a +certificate from the Massachusetts Total Abstinence +Society, duly signed by herself, and witnessed by +the grammar-school teacher and the secretary of +the organization. On this certificate (which was +decorated by many presentations in dim black and +white of mid-Victorian domestic life, and surmounted +by a collection of scalloped clouds in +which drifted three amateur looking angels amid +a crowd of more professional cherubim) Eleanor +had pledged herself to abstain from the use as a +beverage of all intoxicating drinks, and from the +manufacture or traffic in them. She had also +subscribed herself as willing to make direct and +persevering efforts to extend the principles and +blessings of total abstinence.</p> +<p>“Red ink, Andrea,” her Uncle Jimmie had demanded, +as the black-eyed waiter bent over him, +“and ginger ale for the offspring.” Eleanor giggled. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79' name='page_79'></a>79</span> +It was fun to be with Uncle Jimmie in a restaurant +again. He always called for something new and +unexpected when he spoke of her to the waiter, +and he was always what Albertina would consider +“very comical” when he talked to him. “But +stay,” he added holding up an admonitory finger, +“I think we’ll give the little one <i>eau rougie</i> this +time. Wouldn’t you like <i>eau rougie</i>, tinted water, +Eleanor, the way the French children drink it?”</p> +<p>Unsuspectingly she sipped the mixture of water +and ice and sugar, and “red ink” from the big +brown glass bottle that the glowing waiter set +before them.</p> +<p>As the meal progressed Jimmie told her that the +grated cheese was sawdust and almost made her +believe it. He showed her how to eat spaghetti +without cutting it and pointed out to her various +Italian examples of his object lesson; but she soon +realized that in spite of his efforts to entertain her, +he was really very unhappy.</p> +<p>“I’ve borrowed all the money I can, Angelface,” +he confessed finally. “Tomorrow’s the last day of +grace. If I don’t land that job at the Perkins +agency I’ll have to give in and tell Peter and +David, or wire Dad.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80' name='page_80'></a>80</span></p> +<p>“You could get some other kind of a job,” +Eleanor said; “plumbing or clerking or something.” +On Cape Cod the plumber and the grocer’s +clerk lost no caste because of their calling. +“Couldn’t you?”</p> +<p>“I <i>could</i> so demean myself, and I will. I’ll be +a chauffeur, I can run a car all right; but the fact +remains that by to-morrow something’s got to happen, +or I’ve got to own up to the bunch.”</p> +<p>Eleanor’s heart sank. She tried hard to think +of something to comfort him but she could not. +Jimmie mixed her more <i>eau rougie</i> and she drank +it. He poured a full glass, undiluted, for himself, +and held it up to the light.</p> +<p>“Well, here’s to crime, daughter,” he said. “Long +may it wave, and us with it.”</p> +<p>“That isn’t really red ink, is it?” she asked. “It’s +an awfully pretty color—like grape juice.”</p> +<p>“It is grape juice, my child, if we don’t inquire +too closely into the matter. The Italians are like +the French in the guide book, ‘fond of dancing +and light wines.’ This is one of the light wines +they are fond of.—Hello, do you feel sick, child? +You’re white as a ghost. It’s the air. As soon as +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81' name='page_81'></a>81</span> +I can get hold of that sacrificed waiter we’ll get +out of here.”</p> +<p>Eleanor’s sickness was of the spirit, but at the +moment she was incapable of telling him so, incapable +of any sort of speech. A great wave of +faintness encompassed her. She had broken her +pledge. She had lightly encouraged a departure +from the blessings and principles of total abstinence.</p> +<p>That night in her bed she made a long and impassioned +apology to her Maker for the sin of intemperance +into which she had been so unwittingly +betrayed. She promised Him that she would never +drink anything that came out of a bottle again. +She reviewed sorrowfully her many arguments with +Albertina—Albertina in the flesh that is—on the +subject of bottled drinks in general, and decided +that again that virtuous child was right in her condemnation +of any drink, however harmless in appearance +or nomenclature, that bore the stigma of +a bottled label.</p> +<p>She knew, however, that something more than +a prayer for forgiveness was required of her. She +was pledged to protest against the evil that she +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82' name='page_82'></a>82</span> +had seemingly countenanced. She could not seek +the sleep of the innocent until that reparation was +made. Through the crack of her sagging door +she saw the light from Jimmie’s reading lamp and +knew that he was still dressed, or clothed at least, +with a sufficient regard for the conventionalities +to permit her intrusion. She rose and rebraided +her hair and tied a daytime ribbon on it. Then +she put on her stockings and her blue Japanese +kimono—real Japanese, as Aunt Beulah explained, +made for a Japanese lady of quality—and made +her way into the studio.</p> +<p>Jimmie was not sitting in the one comfortable +studio chair with his book under the light and his +feet on the bamboo tea table as usual. He was not +sitting up at all. He was flung on the couch with +his face buried in the cushions, and his shoulders +were shaking. Eleanor seeing him thus, forgot +her righteous purpose, forgot her pledge to +disseminate the principles and blessings of abstinence, +forgot everything but the pitiful spectacle +of her gallant Uncle Jimmie in grief. She stood +looking down at him without quite the courage to +kneel at his side to give him comfort.</p> +<p>“Uncle Jimmie,” she said, “Uncle Jimmie.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83' name='page_83'></a>83</span></p> +<p>At the sound of her voice he put out his hand +to her, gropingly, but he did not uncover his face +or shift his position. She found herself smoothing +his hair, gingerly at first, but with more and +more conviction as he snuggled his boyish head +closer.</p> +<p>“I’m awfully discouraged,” he said in a weak +muffled voice. “I’m sorry you caught me at it, +Baby.”</p> +<p>Eleanor put her face down close to his as he +turned it to her.</p> +<p>“Everything will be all right,” she promised +him, “everything will be all right. You’ll soon +get a job—tomorrow maybe.”</p> +<p>Then she gathered him close in her angular, +tense little arms and held him there tightly. +“Everything will be all right,” she repeated soothingly; +“now you just put your head here, and have +your cry out.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84' name='page_84'></a>84</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_VIII_THE_TEN_HUTCHINSONS' id='CHAPTER_VIII_THE_TEN_HUTCHINSONS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Ten Hutchinsons</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“My Aunt Margaret has a great many people +living in her family,” Eleanor wrote to +Albertina from her new address on Morningside +Heights. “She has a mother and a father, and two +(2) grandparents, one (1) aunt, one (1) brother, +one (1) married lady and the boy of the lady, I +think the married lady is a sister but I do not ask +any one, oh—and another brother, who does not +live here only on Saturdays and Sundays. Aunt +Margaret makes ten, and they have a man to wait +on the table. His name is a butler. I guess you +have read about them in stories. I am taken right +in to be one of the family, and I have a good time +every day now. Aunt Margaret’s father is a college +teacher, and Aunt Margaret’s grandfather +looks like the father of his country. You know +who I mean George Washington. They have a +piano here that plays itself like a sewing machine. +They let me do it. They have after-dinner coffee +and gold spoons to it. I guess you would like to see +a gold spoon. I did. They are about the size of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85' name='page_85'></a>85</span> +the tin spoons we had in our playhouse. I have a +lot of fun with that boy too. At first I thought +he was very affected, but that is just the way they +teach him to talk. He is nine and plays tricks on +other people. He dares me to do things that I +don’t do, like go down-stairs and steal sugar. If +Aunt Margaret’s mother was my grandma I might +steal sugar or plum cake. I don’t know. Remember +the time we took your mother’s hermits? I +do. I would like to see you. You would think +this house was quite a grand house. It has three +(3) flights of stairs and one basement. I sleep +on the top floor in a dressing room out of Aunt +Margaret’s only it isn’t a dressing room. I dress +there but no one else can. Aunt Margaret is +pretty and sings lovely. Uncle David comes here +a lot. I must close. With love and kisses.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>In her diary she recorded some of the more intimate +facts of her new existence, such facts as +she instinctively guarded from Albertina’s calculating +sense.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Everybody makes fun of me here. I don’t +care if they do, but I can’t eat so much at the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86' name='page_86'></a>86</span> +table when every one is laughing at me. They get +me to talking and then they laugh. If I could +see anything to laugh at, I would laugh too. They +laugh in a refined way but they laugh. They call +me Margaret’s protegay. They are good to me +too. They say to my face that I am like a merry +wilkins story and too good to be true, and New +England projuces lots of real art, and I am art, +I can’t remember all the things, but I guess they +mean well. Aunt Margaret’s grandfather sits at +the head of the table, and talks about things I +never heard of before. He knows the govoner +and does not like the way he parts his hair. I +thought all govoners did what they wanted to +with their hairs or anything and people had to like +it because (I used to spell because wrong but I +spell better now) they was the govoners, but it +seems not at all.</p> +<p>“Aunt Margaret is lovely to me. We have +good times. I meant to like Aunt Beulah the +best because she has done the most for me but I +am afrayd I don’t. I would not cross my heart +and say so. Aunt Margaret gives me the lessons +now. I guess I learn most as much as I learned +I mean was taught of Aunt Beulah. Oh dear +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87' name='page_87'></a>87</span> +sometimes I get descouraged on account of its +being such a funny world and so many diferent +people in it. And so many diferent feelings. I +was afrayd of the hired butler, but I am not now.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Eleanor had not made a direct change from the +Washington Square studio to the ample house of +the Hutchinsons, and it was as well for her that a +change in Jimmie’s fortunes had taken her back +to the Winchester and enabled her to accustom +herself again to the amenities of gentler living. +Like all sensitive and impressionable children she +took on the color of a new environment very +quickly. The strain of her studio experience had +left her a little cowed and unsure of herself, but +she had brightened up like a flower set in the cheerful +surroundings of the Winchester and under the +influence of Jimmie’s restored spirits.</p> +<p>The change had come about on Jimmie’s “last +day of grace.” He had secured the coveted position +at the Perkins agency at a slight advance +over the salary he had received at the old place. +He had left Eleanor in the morning determined to +face becomingly the disappointment that was in +store for him, and to accept the bitter necessity of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88' name='page_88'></a>88</span> +admitting his failure to his friends. He had come +back in the late afternoon with his fortunes restored, +the long weeks of humiliation wiped out, +and his life back again on its old confident and +inspired footing.</p> +<p>He had burst into the studio with his news before +he understood that Eleanor was not alone, +and inadvertently shared the secret with Gertrude, +who had been waiting for him with the kettle +alight and some wonderful cakes from “Henri’s” +spread out on the tea table. The three had celebrated +by dining together at a festive down-town +hotel and going back to his studio for coffee. At +parting they had solemnly and severally kissed +one another. Eleanor lay awake in the dark for +a long time that night softly rubbing the cheek +that had been so caressed, and rejoicing that the +drink Uncle Jimmie had called a high-ball and had +pledged their health with so assiduously, had come +out of two glasses instead of a bottle.</p> +<p>Her life at the Hutchinsons’ was almost like a +life on another planet. Margaret was the younger, +somewhat delicate daughter of a family of rather +strident academics. Professor Hutchinson was not +dependent on his salary to defray the expenses of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89' name='page_89'></a>89</span> +his elegant establishment, but on his father, who +had inherited from his father in turn the substantial +fortune on which the family was founded.</p> +<p>Margaret was really a child of the fairies, but +she was considerably more fortunate in her choice +of a foster family than is usually the fate of the +foundling. The rigorous altitude of intellect in +which she was reared served as a corrective to the +oversensitive quality of her imagination.</p> +<p>Eleanor, who in the more leisurely moments of +her life was given to visitations from the poetic +muse, was inspired to inscribe some lines to her on +one of the pink pages of the private diary. They +ran as follows, and even Professor Hutchinson, +who occupied the chair of English in that urban +community of learning that so curiously bisects +the neighborhood of Harlem, could not have designated +Eleanor’s description of his daughter as +one that did not describe.</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“Aunt Margaret is fair and kind,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>And very good and tender.</span><br /> +She has a very active mind.<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>Her figure is quite slender.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90' name='page_90'></a>90</span> + <br /> +“She moves around the room with grace,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>Her hands she puts with quickness.</span><br /> +Although she wears upon her face<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>The shadow of a sickness.”</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>It was this “shadow of a sickness,” that served +to segregate Margaret to the extent that was +really necessary for her well being. To have +shared perpetually in the almost superhuman activities +of the family might have forever dulled +that delicate spirit to which Eleanor came to owe +so much in the various stages of her development.</p> +<p>Margaret put her arm about the child after the +ordeal of the first dinner at the big table.</p> +<p>“Father does not bite,” she said, “but Grandfather +does. The others are quite harmless. If +Grandfather shows his teeth, run for your life.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know where to run to,” Eleanor +answered seriously, whereupon Margaret hugged +her. Her Aunt Margaret would have been +puzzling to Eleanor beyond any hope of extrication, +but for the quick imagination that unwound +her riddles almost as she presented them. For one +terrible minute Eleanor had believed that Hugh +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91' name='page_91'></a>91</span> +Hutchinson senior did bite, he looked so much like +some of the worst of the pictures in Little Red +Riding Hood.</p> +<p>“While you are here I’m going to pretend you’re +my very own child,” Margaret told Eleanor that +first evening, “and we’ll never, never tell anybody +all the foolish games we play and the things we +say to each other. I can just barely manage to be +grown up in the bosom of my family, and when I +am in the company of your esteemed Aunt Beulah, +but up here in my room, Eleanor, I am never grown +up. I play with dolls.”</p> +<p>“Oh! do you really?”</p> +<p>“I really do,” Margaret said. She opened a +funny old chest in the corner of the spacious, high +studded chamber. “And here are some of the +dolls that I play with.” She produced a manikin +dressed primly after the manner of eighteen-thirty, +prim parted hair over a small head festooned with +ringlets, a fichu, and mits painted on her fingers. +“Beulah,” she said with a mischievous flash of a +grimace at Eleanor. “Gertrude,”—a dashing young +brunette in riding clothes. “Jimmie,”—a curly +haired dandy. “David,”—a serious creature with +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92' name='page_92'></a>92</span> +a monocle. “I couldn’t find Peter,” she said, “but +we’ll make him some day out of cotton and water +colors.”</p> +<p>“Oh! can you make dolls?” Eleanor cried in +delight, “real dolls with hair and different colored +eyes?”</p> +<p>“I can make pretty good ones,” Margaret +smiled; “manikins like these,—a Frenchwoman +taught me.”</p> +<p>“Oh; did she? And do you play that the dolls +talk to each other as if they was—were the +persons?”</p> +<p>“Do I?” Margaret assembled the four manikins +into a smart little group. The doll Beulah rose,—on +her forefinger. “I can’t help feeling,” mimicked +Margaret in a perfect reproduction of Beulah’s +earnest contralto, “that we’re wasting our lives,—criminally +dissipating our forces.”</p> +<p>The doll Gertrude put up both hands. “I want +to laugh,” she cried, “won’t everybody please stop +talking till I’ve had my laugh out. Thank you, +thank you.”</p> +<p>“Why, that’s just like Aunt Gertrude,” Eleanor +said. “Her voice has that kind of a sound like a +bell, only more ripply.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93' name='page_93'></a>93</span></p> +<p>“Don’t be high-brow,” Jimmie’s lazy baritone besought +with the slight burring of the “r’s” that +Eleanor found so irresistible. “I’m only a poor +hard-working, business man.”</p> +<p>The doll David took the floor deliberately. “We +intend to devote the rest of our lives,” he said, +“to the care of our beloved cooperative orphan.” +On that he made a rather over mannered exit, +Margaret planting each foot down deliberately +until she flung him back in his box. “That’s the +kind of a silly your Aunt Margaret is,” she continued, +“but you mustn’t ever tell anybody, +Eleanor.” She clasped the child again in one of +her warm, sudden embraces, and Eleanor squeezing +her shyly in return was altogether enraptured with +her new existence.</p> +<p>“But there isn’t any doll for <i>you</i>, Aunt Margaret,” +she cried.</p> +<p>“Oh! yes, there is, but I wasn’t going to show +her to you unless you asked, because she’s so nice. +I saved the prettiest one of all to be myself, not +because I believe I’m so beautiful, but—but only +because I’d like to be, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>“I always pretend I’m a princess,” Eleanor admitted. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94' name='page_94'></a>94</span></p> +<p>The Aunt Margaret doll was truly a beautiful +creation, a little more like Marie Antoinette than +her namesake, but bearing a not inconsiderable resemblance +to both, as Margaret pointed out, +judicially analyzing her features.</p> +<p>Eleanor played with the rabbit doll only at night +after this. In the daytime she looked rather battered +and ugly to eyes accustomed to the delicate +finish of creatures like the French manikins, but +after she was tucked away in her cot in the passion +flower dressing-room—all of Margaret’s belongings +and decorations were a faint, pinky lavender,—her +dear daughter Gwendolyn, who impersonated +Albertina at increasingly rare intervals as time advanced, +lay in the hollow of her arm and received +her sacred confidences and ministrations as usual.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“When my two (2) months are up here I think +I should be quite sorry,” she wrote in the diary, +“except that I’m going to Uncle Peter next, and +him I would lay me down and dee for, only I +never get time enough to see him, and know if +he wants me to, when I live with him I shall +know. Well life is very exciting all the time now. +Aunt Margaret brings me up this way. She tells +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95' name='page_95'></a>95</span> +me that she loves me and that I’ve got beautiful +eyes and hair and am sweet. She tells me that all +the time. She says she wants to love me up +enough to last because I never had love enough +before. I like to be loved. Albertina never loves +any one, but on Cape Cod nobody loves anybody—not +to say so anyway. If a man is getting married +they say he <i>likes</i> that girl he is going to +marry. In New York they act as different as +they eat. The Hutchinsons act different from +anybody. They do not know Aunt Margaret has +adoptid me. Nobody knows I am adoptid but +me and my aunts and uncles. Miss Prentis and +Aunt Beulah’s mother when she came home and +all the bohemiar ladies and all the ten Hutchinsons +think I am a little visiting girl from the country. +It is nobody’s business because I am supported +out of allowances and salaries, but it makes me +feel queer sometimes. I feel like</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“‘Where did you come from, baby dear,<br /> +Out of the nowhere unto the here?’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>Also I made this up out of home sweet home.</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“‘Pleasures and palaces where e’er I may roam,<br /> +Be it ever so humble I wish I had a home.’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96' name='page_96'></a>96</span></div> +<p>“I like having six homes, but I wish everybody +knew it. I am nothing to be ashamed of. Speaking +of homes I asked Aunt Margaret why my +aunts and uncles did not marry each other and +make it easier for every one. She said they were +not going to get married. That was why they +adoptid me. ‘Am I the same thing as getting +married?’ I ast. She said no, I wasn’t except +that I was a responsibility to keep them unselfish +and real. Aunt Beulah doesn’t believe in marriage. +She thinks its beneth her. Aunt Margaret +doesn’t think she has the health. Aunt Gertrude +has to have a career of sculpture, Uncle David has +got to marry some one his mother says to or not +at all, and does not like to marry anyway. Uncle +Jimmie never saw a happy mariage yet and thinks +you have a beter time in single blesedness. Uncle +Peter did not sign in the book where they said +they would adopt me and not marry. They did +not want to ask him because he had some trouble +once. I wonder what kind! Well I am going to +be married sometime. I want a house to do the +housework in and a husband and a backyard full +of babies. Perhaps I would rather have a hired +butler and gold spoons. I don’t know yet. Of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97' name='page_97'></a>97</span> +course I would like to have time to write poetry. +I can sculpture too, but I don’t want a career of +it because it’s so dirty.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Physically Eleanor throve exceedingly during +this phase of her existence. The nourishing food +and regular living, the sympathy established between +herself and Margaret, the régime of physical +exercise prescribed by Beulah which she had been +obliged guiltily to disregard during the strenuous +days of her existence in Washington Square, all +contributed to the accentuation of her material +well-being. She played with Margaret’s nephew, +and ran up and down stairs on errands for her +mother. She listened to the tales related for her +benefit by the old people, and gravely accepted the +attentions of the two formidable young men of the +family, who entertained her with the pianola and +excerpts from classic literature and folk lore.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“The We Are Sevens meet every Saturday +afternoon,” she wrote—on a yellow page this time—“usually +at Aunt Beulah’s house. We have tea +and lots of fun. I am examined on what I have +learned but I don’t mind it much. Physically I am +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98' name='page_98'></a>98</span> +found to be very good by measure and waite. My +mind is developing alright. I am very bright on +the subject of poetry. They do not know whether +David Copperfield had been a wise choice for me, +but when I told them the story and talked about +it they said I had took it right. I don’t tell them +about the love part of Aunt Margaret’s bringing +up. Aunt Beulah says it would make me self conscioush +to know that I had such pretty eyes and +hair. Aunt Gertrude said ‘why not mention my +teeth to me, then,’ but no one seemed to think so. +Aunt Beulah says not to develope my poetry because +the theory is to strengthen the weak part of +the bridge, and make me do arithmetic. ‘Drill on +the deficiency,’ she says. Well I should think the +love part was a deficiency, but Aunt Beulah thinks +love is weak and beneath her and any one. Uncle +David told me privately that he thought I was +having the best that could happen to me right now +being with Aunt Margaret. I didn’t tell him that +the David doll always gets put away in the box +with the Aunt Margaret doll and nobody else ever, +but I should like to have. He thinks she is the +best aunt too.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99' name='page_99'></a>99</span></div> +<p>Some weeks later she wrote to chronicle a painful +scene in which she had participated.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“I quarreled with the ten Hutchinsons. I am +very sorry. They laughed at me too much for +being a little girl and a Cape Codder, but they +could if they wanted to, but when they laughed at +Aunt Margaret for adopting me and the tears came +in her eyes I could not bare it. I did not let the +cat out of the bag, but I made it jump out. The +Grandfather asked me when I was going back to +Cape Cod, and I said I hoped never, and then I +said I was going to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt +Gertrude and Uncle David next. They said ‘Uncle +David—do you mean David Bolling?’ and I did, +so I said ‘yes.’ Then all the Hutchinsons pitched +into Aunt Margaret and kept laughing and saying, +‘Who is this mysterious child anyway, and how is +it that her guardians intrust her to a crowd of +scatter brain youngsters for so long?’ and then +they said ‘Uncle David Bolling—<i>what</i> does his +mother say?’ Then Aunt Margaret got very red +in the face and the tears started to come, and I +said ‘I am not a mysterious child, and my Uncle +David is as much my Uncle David as they all are,’ +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100' name='page_100'></a>100</span> +and then I said ‘My Aunt Margaret has got a perfect +right to have me intrusted to her at any time, +and not to be laughed at for it,’ and I went and +stood in front of her and gave her my handkercheve.</p> +<p>“Well I am glad somebody has been told that +I am properly adoptid, but I am sorry it is the ten +Hutchinsons who know.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101' name='page_101'></a>101</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_IX_PETER' id='CHAPTER_IX_PETER'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Peter</span></h3> +</div> +<p>Uncle Peter treated her as if she were grown +up; that was the wonderful thing about +her visit to him,—if there could be one thing +about it more wonderful than another. From the +moment when he ushered her into his friendly, +low ceiled drawing-room with its tiers upon tiers +of book shelves, he admitted her on terms of +equality to the miraculous order of existence that +it was the privilege of her life to share. The pink +silk coverlet and the elegance of the silver coated +steampipes at Beulah’s; the implacable British +stuffiness at the Winchester which had had its own +stolid charm for the lineal descendant of the Pilgrim +fathers; the impressively casual atmosphere +over which the “hired butler” presided distributing +after-dinner gold spoons, these impressions all +dwindled and diminished and took their insignificant +place in the background of the romance she +was living and breathing in Peter’s jewel box of +an apartment on Thirtieth Street. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102' name='page_102'></a>102</span></p> +<p>Even to more sophisticated eyes than Eleanor’s +the place seemed to be a realized ideal of charm +and homeliness. It was one of the older fashioned +duplex apartments designed in a more aristocratic +decade for a more fastidious generation, yet sufficiently +adapted to the modern insistence on technical +convenience. Peter owed his home to his +married sister, who had discovered it and leased +it and settled it and suddenly departed for a five +years’ residence in China with her husband, who +was as she so often described him, “a blooming +Englishman, and an itinerant banker.” Peter’s domestic +affairs were despatched by a large, motherly +Irishwoman, whom Eleanor approved of on sight +and later came to respect and adore without reservation.</p> +<p>Peter’s home was a home with a place in it for +her—a place that it was perfectly evident was better +with her than without her. She even slept in +the bed that Peter’s sister’s little girl had occupied, +and there were pictures on the walls that had been +selected for her.</p> +<p>She had been very glad to make her escape from +the Hutchinson household. Her “quarrel” with +them had made no difference in their relation to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103' name='page_103'></a>103</span> +her. To her surprise they treated her with an +increase of deference after her outburst, and every +member of the family, excepting possibly Hugh +Hutchinson senior, was much more carefully polite +to her. Margaret explained that the family really +didn’t mind having their daughter a party to the +experiment of cooperative parenthood. It appealed +to them as a very interesting try-out of +modern educational theory, and their own theories +of the independence of the individual modified +their criticism of Margaret’s secrecy in the matter, +which was the only criticism they had to make since +Margaret had an income of her own accruing from +the estate of the aunt for whom she had been +named.</p> +<p>“It is very silly of me to be sensitive about +being laughed at,” Margaret concluded. “I’ve lived +all my life surrounded by people suffering from +an acute sense of humor, but I never, never, never +shall get used to being held up to ridicule for +things that are not funny to me.”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t think you would,” Eleanor answered +devoutly.</p> +<p>In Peter’s house there was no one to laugh at +her but Peter, and when Peter laughed she considered +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104' name='page_104'></a>104</span> +it a triumph. It meant that there was +something she said that he liked. The welcome +she had received as a guest in his house and the +wonderful evening that succeeded it were among +the epoch making hours in Eleanor’s life. It had +happened in this wise.</p> +<p>The Hutchinson victoria, for Grandmother +Hutchinson still clung to the old-time, stately +method of getting about the streets of New York, +had left her at Peter’s door at six o’clock of a +keen, cool May evening. Margaret had not been +well enough to come with her, having been prostrated +by one of the headaches of which she was +a frequent victim.</p> +<p>The low door of ivory white, beautifully carved +and paneled, with its mammoth brass knocker, the +row of window boxes along the cornice a few feet +above it, the very look of the house was an experience +and an adventure to her. When she rang, +the door opened almost instantly revealing Peter +on the threshold with his arms open. He had led +her up two short flights of stairs—ivory white with +carved banisters, she noticed, all as immaculately +shining with soap and water as a Cape Cod interior—to +his own gracious drawing-room where +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105' name='page_105'></a>105</span> +Mrs. Finnigan was bowing and smiling a warmhearted +Irish welcome to her. It was like a wonderful +story in a book and her eyes were shining +with joy as Uncle Peter pulled out her chair and +she sat down to the first meal in her honor. The +grown up box of candy at her plate, the grave +air with which Peter consulted her tastes and +her preferences were all a part of a beautiful magic +that had never quite touched her before.</p> +<p>She had been like a little girl in a dream passing +dutifully or delightedly through the required phases +of her experience, never quite believing in its permanence +or reality; but her life with Uncle Peter +was going to be real, and her own. That was +what she felt the moment she stepped over his +threshold.</p> +<p>After their coffee before the open fire—she herself +had had “cambric” coffee—Peter smoked his +cigar, while she curled up in silence in the twin +to his big cushioned chair and sampled her chocolates. +The blue flames skimmed the bed of black +coals, and finally settled steadily at work on them +nibbling and sputtering until the whole grate was +like a basket full of molten light, glowing and +golden as the hot sun when it sinks into the sea. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106' name='page_106'></a>106</span></p> +<p>Except to offer her the ring about his slender +Panatela, and to ask her if she were happy, Peter +did not speak until he had deliberately crushed +out the last spark from his stub and thrown it into +the fire. The ceremony over, he held out his arms +to her and she slipped into them as if that moment +were the one she had been waiting for ever since +the white morning looked into the window of the +lavender dressing-room on Morningside Heights, +and found her awake and quite cold with the excitement +of thinking of what the day was to bring +forth.</p> +<p>“Eleanor,” Peter said, when he was sure she +was comfortably arranged with her head on his +shoulder, “Eleanor, I want you to feel at home +while you are here, really at home, as if you hadn’t +any other home, and you and I belonged to each +other. I’m almost too young to be your father, +but—”</p> +<p>“Oh! are you?” Eleanor asked fervently, as he +paused.</p> +<p>“—But I can come pretty near feeling like a +father to you if it’s a father you want. I lost +my own father when I was a little older than you +are now, but I had my dear mother and sister +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107' name='page_107'></a>107</span> +left, and so I don’t know what it’s like to be all +alone in the world, and I can’t always understand +exactly how you feel, but you must always remember +that I want to understand and that I will understand +if you tell me. Will you remember that, +Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Uncle Peter,” she said soberly; then perhaps +for the first time since her babyhood she volunteered +a caress that was not purely maternal in +its nature. She put up a shy hand to the cheek +so close to her own and patted it earnestly. “Of +course I’ve got my grandfather and grandmother,” +she argued, “but they’re very old, and not very +affectionate, either. Then I have all these new +aunts and uncles pretending,” she was penetrating +to the core of the matter, Peter realized, “that +they’re just as good as parents. Of course, they’re +just as good as they can be and they take so much +trouble that it mortifies me, but it isn’t just the +same thing, Uncle Peter!”</p> +<p>“I know,” Peter said, “I know, dear, but you +must remember we mean well.”</p> +<p>“I don’t mean you; it isn’t you that I think of +when I think about my co—co-woperative parents, +and it isn’t any of them specially,—it’s just the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108' name='page_108'></a>108</span> +idea of—of visiting around, and being laughed at, +and not really belonging to anybody.”</p> +<p>Peter’s arms tightened about her.</p> +<p>“Oh! but you do belong, you do belong. You +belong to me, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>“That was what I hoped you would say, Uncle +Peter,” she whispered.</p> +<p>They had a long talk after this, discussing the +past and the future; the past few months of the experiment +from Eleanor’s point of view, and the +future in relation to its failures and successes. +Beulah was to begin giving her lessons again and +she was to take up music with a visiting teacher +on Peter’s piano. (Eleanor had not known it was +a piano at first, as she had never seen a baby grand +before. Peter did not know what a triumph it +was when she made herself put the question to +him.)</p> +<p>“If my Aunt Beulah could teach me as much +as she does and make it as interesting as Aunt +Margaret does, I think I would make her feel +very proud of me,” Eleanor said. “I get so nervous +saving energy the way Aunt Beulah says for me +to that I forget all the lesson. Aunt Margaret +tells too many stories, I guess, but I like them.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109' name='page_109'></a>109</span></p> +<p>“Your Aunt Margaret is a child of God,” Peter +said devoutly, “in spite of her raw-boned, intellectual +family.”</p> +<p>“Uncle David says she’s a daughter of the +fairies.”</p> +<p>“She’s that, too. When Margaret’s a year or +two older you won’t feel the need of a mother.”</p> +<p>“I don’t now,” said Eleanor; “only a father,—that +I want you to be, the way you promised.”</p> +<p>“That’s done,” Peter said. Then he continued +musingly, “You’ll find Gertrude—different. I can’t +quite imagine her presiding over your moral welfare +but I think she’ll be good at it. She’s a good +deal of a person, you know.”</p> +<p>“Aunt Beulah’s a good kind of person, too,” +Eleanor said; “she tries hard. The only thing is +that she keeps trying to make me express myself, +and I don’t know what that means.”</p> +<p>“Let me see if I can tell you,” said Peter. “Self-expression +is a part of every man’s duty. Inside +we are all trying to be good and true and fine—”</p> +<p>“Except the villains,” Eleanor interposed. “People +like Iago aren’t trying.”</p> +<p>“Well, we’ll make an exception of the villains; +we’re talking of people like us, pretty good people +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110' name='page_110'></a>110</span> +with the right instincts. Well then, if all the time +we’re trying to be good and true and fine, we +carry about a blank face that reflects nothing of +what we are feeling and thinking, the world is a +little worse off, a little duller and heavier place +for what is going on inside of us.”</p> +<p>“Well, how can we make it better off then?” +Eleanor inquired practically.</p> +<p>“By not thinking too much about it for one +thing, except to remember to smile, by trying to +be just as much at home in it as possible, by letting +the kind of person we are trying to be show +through on the outside. By gosh! I wish Beulah +could hear me.”</p> +<p>“By just not being bashful, do you mean?”</p> +<p>“That’s the idea.”</p> +<p>“Well, when Aunt Beulah makes me do those +dancing exercises, standing up in the middle of the +floor and telling me to be a flower and express +myself as a flower, does she just mean not to be +bashful?”</p> +<p>“Something like that: she means stop thinking +of yourself and go ahead—”</p> +<p>“But how can I go ahead with her sitting there +watching?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111' name='page_111'></a>111</span></p> +<p>“I suppose I ought to tell you to imagine that +you had the soul of a flower, but I haven’t the +nerve.”</p> +<p>“You’ve got nerve enough to do anything,” +Eleanor assured him, but she meant it admiringly, +and seriously.</p> +<p>“I haven’t the nerve to go on with a moral conversation +in which you are getting the better of +me at every turn,” Peter laughed. “I’m sure it’s +unintentional, but you make me feel like a good +deal of an ass, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>“That means a donkey, doesn’t it?”</p> +<p>“It does, and by jove, I believe that you’re +glad of it.”</p> +<p>“I do rather like it,” said Eleanor; “of course +you don’t really feel like a donkey to me. I mean +I don’t make you feel like one, but it’s funny just +pretending that you mean it.”</p> +<p>“Oh! woman, woman,” Peter cried. “Beulah +tried to convey something of the fact that you +always got the better of every one in your modest +unassuming way, but I never quite believed it +before. At any rate it’s bedtime, and here comes +Mrs. Finnigan to put you to bed. Kiss me good +night, sweetheart.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112' name='page_112'></a>112</span></p> +<p>Eleanor flung her arms about his neck, in her +first moment of abandonment to actual emotional +self-expression if Peter had only known it.</p> +<p>“I will never really get the better of you in my +life, Uncle Peter,” she promised him passionately.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113' name='page_113'></a>113</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_X_THE_OMNISCIENT_FOCUS' id='CHAPTER_X_THE_OMNISCIENT_FOCUS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Omniscient Focus</span></h3> +</div> +<p>One of the traditional prerogatives of an +Omnipotent Power is to look down at the +activities of earth at any given moment and ascertain +simultaneously the occupation of any number +of people. Thus the Arch Creator—that Being of +the Supreme Artistic Consciousness—is able to +peer into segregated interiors at His own discretion +and watch the plot thicken and the drama +develop. Eleanor, who often visualized this proceeding, +always imagined a huge finger projecting +into space, cautiously tilting the roofs of the +Houses of Man to allow the sweep of the Invisible +Glance.</p> +<p>Granting the hypothesis of the Divine privilege, +and assuming for the purposes of this narrative +the Omniscient focus on the characters most concerned +in it, let us for the time being look over +the shoulder of God and inform ourselves of their +various occupations and preoccupations of a Saturday +afternoon in late June during the hour before +dinner. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114' name='page_114'></a>114</span></p> +<p>Eleanor, in her little white chamber on Thirtieth +Street, was engaged in making a pink and green +toothbrush case for a going-away gift for her +Uncle Peter. To be sure she was going away with +him when he started for the Long Island beach +hotel from which he proposed to return every day +to his office in the city, but she felt that a slight +token of her affection would be fitting and proper +on the eve of their joint departure. She was +hurrying to get it done that she might steal softly +into the dining-room and put it on his plate undetected. +Her eyes were very wide, her brow intent +and serious, and her delicate lips lightly parted. +At that moment she bore a striking resemblance to +the Botticelli head in Beulah’s drawing-room that +she had so greatly admired.</p> +<p>Of all the people concerned in her history, she +was the most tranquilly occupied.</p> +<p>Peter in the room beyond was packing his trunk +and his suit-case. At this precise stage of his +proceedings he was trying to make two decisions, +equally difficult, but concerned with widely different +departments of his consciousness. He was +gravely considering whether or not to include +among his effects the photograph before him on +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115' name='page_115'></a>115</span> +the dressing-table—that of the girl to whom he had +been engaged from the time he was a Princeton +sophomore until her death four years later—and +also whether or not it would be worth his while +to order a new suit of white flannels so late in +the season. The fact that he finally decided against +the photograph and in favor of the white flannels +has nothing to do with the relative importance of +the two matters thus engrossing him. The health +of the human mind depends largely on its ability +to assemble its irrelevant and incongruous problems +in dignified yet informal proximity. When he went +to his desk it was with the double intention of addressing +a letter to his tailor, and locking the +cherished photograph in a drawer; but, the letter +finished, he still held the picture in his hand and +gazed down at it mutely and when the discreet +knock on his door that constituted the announcing +of dinner came, he was still sitting motionless with +the photograph propped up before him.</p> +<p>Up-town, Beulah, whose dinner hour came late, +was rather more actively, though possibly not more +significantly, occupied. She was doing her best to +evade the wild onslaught of a young man in +glasses who had been wanting to marry her for a +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116' name='page_116'></a>116</span> +considerable period, and had now broken all bounds +in a cumulative attempt to inform her of the fact.</p> +<p>Though he was assuredly in no condition to +listen to reason, Beulah was reasoning with him, +kindly and philosophically, paying earnest attention +to the style and structure of her remarks as she +did so. Her emotions, as is usual on such occasions, +were decidedly mixed. She was conscious +of a very real dismay at her unresponsiveness, a +distress for the acute pain from which the distraught +young man seemed to be suffering, and +the thrill, which had she only known it, is the unfailing +accompaniment to the first eligible proposal +of marriage. In the back of her brain there was +also, so strangely is the human mind constituted, +a kind of relief at being able to use mature logic +once more, instead of the dilute form of moral +dissertation with which she tried to adapt herself +to Eleanor’s understanding.</p> +<p>“I never intend to marry any one,” she was explaining +gently. “I not only never intend to, but +I am pledged in a way that I consider irrevocably +binding never to marry,”—and that was the text +from which all the rest of her discourse developed.</p> +<p>Jimmie, equally bound by the oath of celibacy, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117' name='page_117'></a>117</span> +but not equally constrained by it apparently, was +at the very moment when Beulah was so successfully +repulsing the familiarity of the high cheek-boned +young man in the black and white striped +tie, occupied in encouraging a familiarity of a like +nature. That is, he was holding the hand of a +young woman in the darkened corner of a drawing-room +which had been entirely unfamiliar to him +ten days before, and was about to impress a caress +on lips that seemed to be ready to meet his with a +certain degree of accustomed responsiveness. That +this was not a peculiarly significant incident in Jimmie’s +career might have been difficult to explain, +at least to the feminine portion of the group of +friends he cared most for.</p> +<p>Margaret, dressed for an academic dinner party, +in white net with a girdle of pale pink and lavender +ribbons, had flung herself face downward on her +bed in reckless disregard of her finery; and because +it was hot and she was homesick for green +fields and the cool stretches of dim wooded country, +had transported herself in fancy and still in +her recumbent attitude to the floor of a canoe that +was drifting down-stream between lush banks of +meadow grass studded with marsh lilies. After +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118' name='page_118'></a>118</span> +some interval—and shift of position—the way was +arched overhead with whispering trees, the stars +came out one by one, showing faintly between +waving branches; and she perceived dimly that a +figure that was vaguely compounded of David and +Peter and the handsomest of all the young kings +of Spain, had quietly taken its place in the bow +and had busied itself with the paddles,—whereupon +she was summoned to dinner, where the ten Hutchinsons +and their guests were awaiting her.</p> +<p>David, the only member of the group whose +summer vacation had actually begun, was sitting +on the broad veranda of an exclusive country club +several hundreds of miles away from New York +and looking soberly into the eyes of a blue ribbon +bull dog, whose heavy jowl rested on his knees. +His mother, in one of the most fashionable versions +of the season’s foulards, sleekly corseted and +coifed, was sitting less than a hundred yards away +from him, fanning herself with three inches of +hand woven fan and contemplating David. In the +dressing-room above, just alighted from a limousine +de luxe, was a raven-haired, crafty-eyed +ingénue (whose presence David did not suspect +or he would have recollected a sudden pressing +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119' name='page_119'></a>119</span> +engagement out of her vicinity), preening herself +for conquest. David’s mind, unlike the minds of +the “other gifted members of the We Are Seven +Club,” to quote Jimmie’s most frequent way of +referring to them, was to all intents and purposes +a total blank. He answered monosyllabically his +mother’s questions, patted the dog’s beetling forehead +and thought of nothing at all for practically +forty-five minutes. Then he rose, and offering his +arm to his mother led her gravely to the table reserved +for him in the dining-room.</p> +<p>Gertrude, in her studio at the top of the house +in Fifty-sixth Street where she lived with her +parents, was putting the finishing touches on a +faun’s head; and a little because she had unconsciously +used Jimmie’s head for her model, and +a little because of her conscious realization at this +moment that the roughly indicated curls over the +brow were like nobody’s in the world but Jimmie’s, +she was thinking of him seriously. She was thinking +also of the dinner on a tray that would presently +be brought up to her, since her mother and +father were out of town, and of her coming two +months with Eleanor and her recent inspiration +concerning them. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120' name='page_120'></a>120</span></p> +<p>In Colhassett, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the dinner +hour and even the supper hour were long past. +In the commodious kitchen of Eleanor’s former +home two old people were sitting in calico valanced +rockers, one by either window. The house was +a pleasant old colonial structure, now badly run +down but still marked with that distinction that +only the instincts of aristocracy can bestow upon +a decaying habitation.</p> +<p>A fattish child made her way up the walk, toeing +out unnecessarily, and let herself in by the back +door without knocking.</p> +<p>“Hello, Mis’ Chase and Mr. Amos,” she said, +seating herself in a straight backed, yellow chair, +and swinging her crossed foot nonchalantly, “I +thought I would come in to inquire about Eleanor. +Ma said that she heard that she was coming home +to live again. Is she, Mr. Amos?”</p> +<p>Albertina was not a peculiar favorite of +Eleanor’s grandfather. Amos Chase had ideas of +his own about the proper bringing up of children, +and the respect due from them to their elders. +Also Albertina’s father had come from “poor +stock.” There was a strain of bad blood in her. +The women of the Weston families hadn’t always +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121' name='page_121'></a>121</span> +“behaved themselves.” He therefore answered this +representative of the youngest generation rather +shortly.</p> +<p>“I don’t know nothing about it,” he said.</p> +<p>“Why, father,” the querulous old voice of +Grandmother Chase protested, “you know she’s +comin’ home somewhere ’bout the end of July, she +and one of her new aunties and a hired girl they’re +bringing along to do the work. I don’t see why +you can’t answer the child’s question.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know as I’m obligated to answer any +questions that anybody sees fit to put to me.”</p> +<p>“Well, I <i>be</i>. Albertina, pass me my glasses from +off the mantel-tree-shelf, and that letter sticking +out from behind the clock and I’ll read what she +says.”</p> +<p>Albertina, with a reproachful look at Mr. Amos, +who retired coughing exasperatedly behind a paper +that he did not read, allowed herself to be +informed through the medium of a letter from +Gertrude and a postscript from Eleanor of the projected +invasion of the Chase household.</p> +<p>“I should think you’d rather have Eleanor come +home by herself than bringing a strange woman +and a hired girl,” Albertina contributed a trifle +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122' name='page_122'></a>122</span> +tartly. The distinction of a hired girl in the family +was one which she had long craved on her own +account.</p> +<p>“All nonsense, I call it,” the old man ejaculated.</p> +<p>“Well, Eleena, she writes that she can’t get away +without one of ’em comin’ along with her and I +guess we can manage someways. I dunno what +work city help will make in this kitchen. You +can’t expect much from city help. They ain’t clean +like home folks. I shall certainly be dretful pleased +to see Eleena, and so will her grandpa—in spite +o’ the way he goes on about it.”</p> +<p>A snort came from the region of the newspaper.</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t think you’d feel as if you had a +grandchild now that six rich people has adopted +her,” Albertina suggested helpfully.</p> +<p>“It’s a good thing for the child,” her grandmother +said. “I’m so lame I couldn’t do my duty +by her. Old folks is old folks, and they can’t do +for others like young ones. I’d d’ruther have had +her adopted by one father and mother instead o’ +this passel o’ young folks passing her around among +themselves, but you can’t have what you’d d’ruther +have in this world. You got to take what comes +and be thankful.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123' name='page_123'></a>123</span></p> +<p>“Did she write you about having gold coffee +spoons at her last place?” Albertina asked. “I +think they was probably gilded over like ice-cream +spoons, and she didn’t know the difference. I guess +she has got a lot of new clothes. Well, I’ll have +to be getting along. I’ll come in again.”</p> +<p>At the precise moment that the door closed behind +Albertina, the clock in Peter Stuyvesant’s +apartment in New York struck seven and Eleanor, +in a fresh white dress and blue ribbons, slipped +into her chair at the dinner table and waited with +eyes blazing with excitement for Peter to make +the momentous discovery of the gift at his plate.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124' name='page_124'></a>124</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XI_GERTRUDE_HAS_TROUBLE_WITH_HER_BEHAVIOR' id='CHAPTER_XI_GERTRUDE_HAS_TROUBLE_WITH_HER_BEHAVIOR'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Gertrude Has Trouble with Her Behavior</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Dear Uncle Peter,” Eleanor wrote from +Colhassett when she had been established +there under the new régime for a week or more. +“I slapped Albertina’s face. I am very awfully +sorry, but I could not help it. Don’t tell Aunt +Margaret because it is so contrary to her teachings +and also the golden rule, but she was more contrary +to the golden rule that I was. I mean Albertina. +What do you think she said? She said Aunt +Gertrude was homely and an old maid, and the +hired girl was homely too. Well, I think she is, +but I am not going to have Albertina think so. +Aunt Gertrude is pretty with those big eyes and +ink like hair and lovely teeth and one dimple. Albertina +likes hair fuzzed all over faces and blonds. +Then she said she guessed I wasn’t your favorite, +and that the gold spoons were most likely tin +gilded over. I don’t know what you think about +slapping. Will you please write and say what you +think? You know I am anxsuch to do well. But +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125' name='page_125'></a>125</span> +I think I know as much as Albertina about some +things. She uster treat me like a dog, but it is +most a year now since I saw her before.</p> +<p>“Well, here we are, Aunt Gertrude and me, too. +Grandpa did not like her at first. She looked so +much like summer folks, and acted that way, too. +He does not agree with summer folks, but she +got him talking about foreign parts and that Spanish +girl that made eyes at him, and nearly got him +away from Grandma, and the time they were +wrecked going around the horn, and showing her +dishes and carvings from China. Now he likes +her first rate. She laughs all the time. Grandma +likes her too, but not when Grandpa tells her about +that girl in Spain.</p> +<p>“We eat in the dining-room, and have lovely +food, only Grandpa does not like it, but we have +him a pie now for breakfast,—his own pie that +he can eat from all the time and he feels better. +Aunt Gertrude is happy seeing him eat it for +breakfast and claps her hands when he does it, +only he doesn’t see her.</p> +<p>“She is teaching me more manners, and to swim, +and some French. It is vacation and I don’t have +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126' name='page_126'></a>126</span> +regular lessons, the way I did while we were on +Long Island.</p> +<p>“Didn’t we have a good time in that hotel? Do +you remember the night I stayed up till ten o’clock +and we sat on the beach and talked? I do. I +love you very much. I think it is nice to love anybody. +Only I miss you. I would miss you more +if I believed what Albertina said about my not +being your favorite. I am.</p> +<p>“I wish you could come down here. Uncle +Jimmie is coming and then I don’t know what Albertina +will say.</p> +<p>“About teaching me. Aunt Gertrude’s idea of +getting me cultivated is to read to me from the +great Masters of literature and funny books too, +like Mark Twain and the Nonsense Thology. Then +I say what I think of them, and she just lets me +develop along those lines, which is pretty good for +summer.</p> +<p>“Here is a poem I wrote. I love you best.</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“The sun and wind are on the sea,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>The waves are clear and blue,</span><br /> +This is the place I like to be,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>If I could just have you.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127' name='page_127'></a>127</span> + <br /> +“The insects chirrup in the grass,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>The birds sing in the tree,</span><br /> +And oh! how quick the time would pass<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>If you were here with me.”</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“What do you think of slapping, Aunt Gertrude?” +Eleanor asked one evening when they +were walking along the hard beach that the receding +tide had left cool and firm for their pathway, +and the early moon had illumined for them. +“Do you think it’s awfully bad to slap any one?”</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t slap you, if that’s what you mean, +Eleanor.”</p> +<p>“Would you slap somebody your own size and a +little bigger?”</p> +<p>“I might under extreme provocation.”</p> +<p>“I thought perhaps you would,” Eleanor sighed +with a gasp of relieved satisfaction.</p> +<p>“I don’t believe in moral suasion entirely, +Eleanor,” Gertrude tried to follow Eleanor’s leads, +until she had in some way satisfied the child’s need +for enlightenment on the subject under discussion. +It was not always simple to discover just what +Eleanor wanted to know, but Gertrude had come +to believe that there was always some excellent +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128' name='page_128'></a>128</span> +reason for her wanting to know it. “I think +there are some quarrels that have to be settled by +physical violence.”</p> +<p>Eleanor nodded. Then,</p> +<p>“What about refinement?” she asked unexpectedly. +“I want to bring myself up good when—when +all of my aunts and uncles are too busy, or +don’t know. I want to grow up, and be ladylike +and a credit, and I’m getting such good culture +that I think I ought to, but—I get worried about +my refinement. City refinement is different from +country refinement.”</p> +<p>“Refinement isn’t a thing that you can worry +about,” Gertrude began slowly. She realized perhaps +better than any of the others, being a better +balanced, healthier creature than either Beulah or +Margaret, that there were serious defects in the +scheme of cooperative parentage. Eleanor, thanks +to the overconscientious digging about her roots, +was acquiring a New England self-consciousness +about her processes. A child, Gertrude felt, should +be handed a code ready made and should be guided +by it without question until his maturer experience +led him to modify it. The trouble with trying to +explain this to Eleanor was that she had already +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129' name='page_129'></a>129</span> +had too many things explained to her, and the +doctrine of unselfconsciousness can not be inculcated +by an exploitation of it. “If you are +naturally a fine person your instinct will be to do +the fine thing. You must follow it when you feel +the instinct and not think about it between times.”</p> +<p>“That’s Uncle Peter’s idea,” Eleanor said, “that +not thinking. Well, I’ll try—but you and Uncle +Peter didn’t have six different parents and a +Grandpa and Grandma and Albertina all criticizing +your refinement in different ways. Don’t you ever +have any trouble with your behavior, Aunt +Gertrude?”</p> +<p>Gertrude laughed. The truth was that she was +having considerable trouble with her behavior since +Jimmie’s arrival two days before. She had thought +to spend her two months with Eleanor on Cape Cod +helping the child to relate her new environment to +her old, while she had the benefit of her native air +and the freedom of a rural summer. She also felt +that one of their number ought to have a working +knowledge of Eleanor’s early surroundings and +habits. She had meant to put herself and her own +concerns entirely aside. If she had a thought for +any one but Eleanor she meant it to be for the two +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130' name='page_130'></a>130</span> +old people whose guest she had constituted herself. +She explained all this to Jimmie a day or two before +her departure, and to her surprise he had suggested +that he spend his own two vacation weeks +watching the progress of her experiment. Before +she was quite sure of the wisdom of allowing him +to do so she had given him permission to come. +Jimmie was part of her trouble. Her craving for +isolation and undiscovered country; her eagerness +to escape with her charge to some spot where she +would not be subjected to any sort of familiar surveillance, +were all a part of an instinct to segregate +herself long enough to work out the problem +of Jimmie and decide what to do about it. This +she realized as soon as he arrived on the spot. She +realized further that she had made practically no +progress in the matter, for this curly headed young +man, bearing no relation to anything that Gertrude +had decided a young man should be, was rapidly +becoming a serious menace to her peace of mind, +and her ideal of a future lived for art alone. She +had definitely begun to realize this on the night when +Jimmie, in his exuberance at securing his new job, +had seized her about the waist and kissed her on the +lips. She had thought a good deal about that kiss, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131' name='page_131'></a>131</span> +which came dangerously near being her first one. +She was too clever, too cool and aloof, to have had +many tentative love-affairs. Later, as she softened +and warmed and gathered grace with the years she +was likely to seem more alluring and approachable +to the gregarious male. Now she answered her +small interlocutor truthfully.</p> +<p>“Yes, Eleanor, I do have a whole lot of trouble +with my behavior. I’m having trouble with it today, +and this evening,” she glanced up at the moon, +which was seemingly throwing out conscious waves +of effulgence, “I expect to have more,” she confessed.</p> +<p>“Oh! do you?” asked Eleanor, “I’m sorry I can’t +sit up with you then and help you. You—you don’t +expect to be—provocated to <i>slap</i> anybody, do you?”</p> +<p>“No, I don’t, but as things are going I almost +wish I did,” Gertrude answered, not realizing that +before the evening was over there would be one +person whom she would be ruefully willing to slap +several times over.</p> +<p>As they turned into the village street from the +beach road they met Jimmie, who had been having +his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather Amos, with +whom he had become a prime favorite. With him +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132' name='page_132'></a>132</span> +was Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing +more than blandly.</p> +<p>“This virtuous child has been urging me to come +after Eleanor and remind her that it is bedtime,” +Jimmie said, indicating the pink gingham clad figure +at his side. “She argues that Eleanor is some +six months younger than she and ought to be in +bed first, and personally she has got to go in the +next fifteen minutes.”</p> +<p>“It’s pretty hot weather to go to bed in,” Albertina +said. “Miss Sturgis, if I can get my mother to +let me stay up half an hour more, will you let +Eleanor stay up?”</p> +<p>Just beyond her friend, in the shadow of her +ample back, Eleanor was making gestures intended +to convey the fact that sitting up any longer was +abhorrent to her.</p> +<p>“Eleanor needs her sleep to-night, I think,” Gertrude +answered, professionally maternal.</p> +<p>“I brought Albertina so that our child might go +home under convoy, while you and I were walking +on the beach,” Jimmie suggested.</p> +<p>As the two little girls fell into step, the beginning +of their conversation drifted back to the other +two, who stood watching them for a moment. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133' name='page_133'></a>133</span></p> +<p>“I thought I’d come over to see if you was willing +to say you were sorry,” Albertina began. “My +face stayed red in one spot for two hours that day +after you slapped me.”</p> +<p>“I’m not sorry,” Eleanor said ungraciously, “but +I’ll say that I am, if you’ve come to make up.”</p> +<p>“Well, we won’t say any more about it then,” +Albertina conceded. “Are Miss Sturgis and Mr. +Sears going together, or are they just friends?”</p> +<p>“Isn’t that Albertina one the limit?” Jimmie inquired, +with a piloting hand under Gertrude’s elbow. +“She told me that she and Eleanor were mad, +but she didn’t want to stay mad because there was +more going on over here than there was at her +house and she liked to come over.”</p> +<p>“I’m glad Eleanor slapped her,” Gertrude said; +“still I’m sorry our little girl has uncovered the +clay feet of her idol. She’s through with Albertina +for good.”</p> +<p>“Do you know, Gertrude,” Jimmy said, as they +set foot on the glimmering beach, “you don’t seem +a bit natural lately. You used to be so full of the +everlasting mischief. Every time you opened your +mouth I dodged for fear of being spiked. Yet here +you are just as docile as other folks.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134' name='page_134'></a>134</span></p> +<p>“Don’t you like me—as well?” Gertrude tried +her best to make her voice sound as usual.</p> +<p>“Better,” Jimmie swore promptly; then he added +a qualifying—“I guess.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you know?” But she didn’t allow him +the opportunity to answer. “I’m in a transition +period, Jimmie,” she said. “I meant to be such a +good parent to Eleanor and correct all the evil ways +into which she has fallen as a result of all her other +injudicious training, and, instead of that, I’m doing +nothing but think of myself and my own hankerings +and yearnings and such. I thought I could do +so much for the child.”</p> +<p>“That’s the way we all think till we tackle her +and then we find it quite otherwise and even more +so. Tell me about your hankerings and yearnings.”</p> +<p>“Tell me about your job, Jimmie.”</p> +<p>And for a little while they found themselves on +safe and familiar ground again. Jimmie’s new +position was a very satisfactory one. He found +himself associated with men of solidity and discernment, +and for the first time in his business +career he felt himself appreciated and stimulated +by that appreciation to do his not inconsiderable +best. Gertrude was the one woman—Eleanor had +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135' name='page_135'></a>135</span> +not yet attained the inches for that classification—to +whom he ever talked business.</p> +<p>“Now, at last, I feel that I’ve got my feet on the +earth, Gertrude; as if the stuff that was in me had +a chance to show itself, and you don’t know what +a good feeling that is after you’ve been marked +trash by your family and thrown into the dust heap.”</p> +<p>“I’m awfully glad, Jimmie.”</p> +<p>“I know you are, ’Trude. You’re an awfully +good pal. It isn’t everybody I’d talk to like this. +Let’s sit down.”</p> +<p>The moonlight beat down upon them in floods +of sentient palpitating glory. Little breathy waves +sought the shore and whispered to it. The pines +on the breast of the bank stirred softly and tenderly.</p> +<p>“Lord, what a night,” Jimmie said, and began +burying her little white hand in the beach sand. +His breath was not coming quite evenly. “Now +tell me about your job,” he said.</p> +<p>“I don’t think I want to talk about my job tonight.”</p> +<p>“What do you want to talk about?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know.” There was no question about +her voice sounding as usual this time. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136' name='page_136'></a>136</span></p> +<p>Jimmie brushed the sand slowly away from the +buried hand and covered it with his own. He +drew nearer, his face close, and closer to hers. +Gertrude closed her eyes. It was coming, it was +coming and she was glad. That silly old vow of +celibacy, her silly old thoughts about art. What +was art? What was anything with the arms of the +man you loved closing about you. His lips were +on hers.</p> +<p>Jimmie drew a sharp breath, and let her go.</p> +<p>“Gertrude,” he said, “I’m incorrigible. I ought +to be spanked. I’d make love to—Eleanor’s grandmother +if I had her down here on a night like this. +Will you forgive me?”</p> +<p>Gertrude got to her feet a little unsteadily, but +she managed a smile.</p> +<p>“It’s only the moon,” she said, “and—and young +blood. I think Grandfather Amos would probably +affect me the same way.”</p> +<p>Jimmie’s momentary expression of blankness +passed and Gertrude did not press her advantage. +They walked home in silence.</p> +<p>“It’s awfully companionable to realize that you +also are human, ’Trude,” he hazarded on the doorstep. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137' name='page_137'></a>137</span></p> +<p>Gertrude put a still hand into his, which is a way +of saying “Good night,” that may be more formal +than any other.</p> +<p>“The Colonel’s lady, and July O’Grady,” she +quoted lightly. “Good night, Jimmie.”</p> +<p>Up-stairs in her great chamber under the eaves, +Eleanor was composing a poem which she copied +carefully on a light blue page of her private diary. +It read as follows:</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“To love, it is the saddest thing,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>When friendship proves unfit,</span><br /> +For lots of sadness it will bring,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>When e’er you think of it.</span><br /> + <br /> +Alas! that friends should prove untrue<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>And disappoint you so.</span><br /> +Because you don’t know what to do,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>And hardly where to go.”</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138' name='page_138'></a>138</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XII_MADAM_BOLLING' id='CHAPTER_XII_MADAM_BOLLING'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Madam Bolling</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Is this the child, David?”</p> +<p>“Yes, mother.”</p> +<p>Eleanor stared impassively into the lenses of +Mrs. Bolling’s lorgnette.</p> +<p>“This is my mother, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>Eleanor courtesied as her Uncle Jimmie had +taught her, but she did not take her eyes from Mrs. +Bolling’s face.</p> +<p>“Not a bad-looking child. I hate this American +fashion of dressing children like French dolls, in +bright colors and smart lines. The English are so +much more sensible. An English country child +would have cheeks as red as apples. How old are +you?”</p> +<p>“Eleven years old my next birthday.”</p> +<p>“I should have thought her younger, David. +Have her call me madam. It sounds better.”</p> +<p>“Very well, mother. I’ll teach her the ropes +when the strangeness begins to wear off. This kind +of thing is all new to her, you know.”</p> +<p>“She looks it. Give her the blue chamber and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139' name='page_139'></a>139</span> +tell Mademoiselle to take charge of her. You say +you want her to have lessons for so many hours a +day. Has she brains?”</p> +<p>“She’s quite clever. She writes verses, she models +pretty well, Gertrude says. It’s too soon to +expect any special aptitude to develop.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m glad to discover your philanthropic +tendencies, David. I never knew you had any before, +but this seems to me a very doubtful undertaking. +You take a child like this from very plain +surroundings and give her a year or two of life +among cultivated and well-to-do people, just enough +for her to acquire a taste for extravagant living +and associations. Then what becomes of her? You +get tired of your bargain. Something else comes +on the docket. You marry—and then what becomes +of your protégée? She goes back to the +country, a thoroughly unsatisfied little rustic, quite +unfitted to be the wife of the farmer for whom +fate intended her.”</p> +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t, mother,” David said, with +an uneasy glance at Eleanor’s pale face, set in the +stoic lines he remembered so well from the afternoon +of his first impression of her. “She’s a sensitive +little creature.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140' name='page_140'></a>140</span></p> +<p>“Nonsense. It never hurts anybody to have a +plain understanding of his position in the world. +I don’t know what foolishness you romantic young +people may have filled her head with. It’s just as +well she should hear common sense from me and +I intend that she shall.”</p> +<p>“I’ve explained to you, mother, that this child is +my legal and moral responsibility and will be +partly at least under my care until she becomes of +age. I want her to be treated as you’d treat a child +of mine if I had one. If you don’t, I can’t have +her visit us again. I shall take her away with me +somewhere. Bringing her home to you this time is +only an experiment.”</p> +<p>“She’ll have a much more healthful and normal +experience with us than she’s had with any of the +rest of your violent young set, I’ll be bound. She’ll +probably be useful, too. She can look out for +Zaidee—I never say that name without irritation—but +it’s the only name the little beast will answer +to. Do you like dogs, child?”</p> +<p>Eleanor started at the suddenness of the question, +but did not reply to it. Mrs. Bolling waited +and David looked at her expectantly. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141' name='page_141'></a>141</span></p> +<p>“My mother asked you if you liked dogs, +Eleanor; didn’t you understand?”</p> +<p>Eleanor opened her lips as if to speak and then +shut them again firmly.</p> +<p>“Your protégée is slightly deaf, David,” his +mother assured him.</p> +<p>“You can tell her ‘yes,’” Eleanor said unexpectedly +to David. “I like dogs, if they ain’t +treacherous.”</p> +<p>“She asked you the question,” David said gravely; +“this is her house, you know. It is she who +deserves consideration in it.”</p> +<p>“Why can’t I talk to you about her, the way she +does about me?” Eleanor demanded. “She can +have consideration if she wants it, but she doesn’t +think I’m any account. Let her ask you what she +wants and I’ll tell you.”</p> +<p>“Eleanor,” David remonstrated, “Eleanor, you +never behaved like this before. I don’t know what’s +got into her, mother.”</p> +<p>“She merely hasn’t any manners. Why should +she have?”</p> +<p>Eleanor fixed her big blue eyes on the lorgnette +again. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142' name='page_142'></a>142</span></p> +<p>“If it’s manners to talk the way you do to your +own children and strange little girls, why, then I +don’t want any,” she said. “I guess I’ll be going,” +she added abruptly and turned toward the door.</p> +<p>David took her by the shoulders and brought her +right about face.</p> +<p>“Say good-by to mother,” he said sternly.</p> +<p>“Good-by, ma’am—madam,” Eleanor said and +courtesied primly.</p> +<p>“Tell Mademoiselle to teach her a few things +before the next audience, David, and come back to +me in fifteen minutes. I have something important +to talk over with you.”</p> +<p>David stood by the open door of the blue chamber +half an hour later and watched Eleanor on +her knees, repacking her suit-case. Her face was +set in pale determined lines, and she looked older +and a little sick. Outside it was blowing a September +gale, and the trees were waving desperate +branches in the wind. David had thought that the +estate on the Hudson would appeal to the little girl. +It had always appealed to him so much, even +though his mother’s habits of migration with the +others of her flock at the different seasons had left +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143' name='page_143'></a>143</span> +him so comparatively few associations with it. He +had thought she would like the broad sweeping +lawns and the cherubim fountain, the apple orchard +and the kitchen garden, and the funny old +bronze dog at the end of the box hedge. When he +saw how she was occupied, he understood that it +was not her intention to stay and explore these +things.</p> +<p>“Eleanor,” he said, stepping into the room suddenly, +“what are you doing with your suit-case? +Didn’t Mademoiselle unpack it for you?” He was +close enough now to see the signs of tears she had +shed.</p> +<p>“Yes, Uncle David.”</p> +<p>“Why are you packing it again?”</p> +<p>Her eyes fell and she tried desperately to control +a quivering lip.</p> +<p>“Because I am—I want to go back.”</p> +<p>“Back where?”</p> +<p>“To Cape Cod.”</p> +<p>“Why, Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“I ain’t wanted,” she said, her head low. “I +made up my mind to go back to my own folks. +I’m not going to be adopted any more.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144' name='page_144'></a>144</span></p> +<p>David led her to the deep window-seat and made +her sit facing him. He was too wise to attempt a +caress with this issue between them.</p> +<p>“Do you think that’s altogether fair to me?” he +asked presently.</p> +<p>“I guess it won’t make much difference to you. +Something else will come along.”</p> +<p>“Do you think it will be fair to your other aunts +and uncles who have given so much care and +thought to your welfare?”</p> +<p>“They’ll get tired of their bargain.”</p> +<p>“If they do get tired of their bargain it will be +because they’ve turned out to be very poor sports. +I’ve known every one of them a long time, and +I’ve never known them to show any signs of poor +sportsmanship yet. If you run away without giving +them their chance to make good, it will be you +who are the poor sport.”</p> +<p>“She said you would marry and get tired of me, +and I would have to go back to the country. If +you marry and Uncle Jimmie marries—then Uncle +Peter will marry, and—”</p> +<p>“You’d still have your Aunts Beulah and Margaret +and Gertrude,” David could not resist making +the suggestion. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145' name='page_145'></a>145</span></p> +<p>“They could do it, too. If one person broke up +the vow, I guess they all would. Misfortunes never +come singly.”</p> +<p>“But even if we did, Eleanor, even if we all +married, we’d still regard you as our own, our +child, our charge.”</p> +<p>“<i>She</i> said you wouldn’t.” The tears came now, +and David gathered the little shaking figure to his +breast. “I don’t want to be the wife of the farmer +for whom fate intended me,” she sobbed. “I want +to marry somebody refined with extravagant living +and associations.”</p> +<p>“That’s one of the things we are bringing you +up for, my dear.” This aspect of the case occurred +to David for the first time, but he realized its +potency. “You mustn’t take mother too seriously. +Just jolly her along a little and you’ll soon get to +be famous friends. She’s never had any little girls +of her own, only my brother and me, and she +doesn’t know quite how to talk to them.”</p> +<p>“The Hutchinsons had a hired butler and gold +spoons, and they didn’t think I was the dust beneath +their feet. I don’t know what to say to +her. I said ain’t, and I wasn’t refined, and I’ll +only just be a disgrace to you. I’d rather go back +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146' name='page_146'></a>146</span> +to Cape Cod, and go out to work, and stand +Albertina and everything.”</p> +<p>“If you think it’s the square thing to do,” David +said slowly, “you may go, Eleanor. I’ll take you +to New York to-morrow and get one of the girls +to take you to Colhassett. Of course, if you do +that it will put me in rather an awkward position. +The others have all had you for two months and +made good on the proposition. I shall have to +admit that I couldn’t even keep you with me +twenty-four hours. Peter and Jimmie got along +all right, but I couldn’t handle you at all. As a +cooperative parent, I’m such a failure that the +whole experiment goes to pieces through me.”</p> +<p>“Not you—her.”</p> +<p>“Well, it’s the same thing,—you couldn’t stand +the surroundings I brought you to. You couldn’t +even be polite to my mother for my sake.”</p> +<p>“I—never thought of that, Uncle David.”</p> +<p>“Think of it now for a few minutes, won’t you, +Eleanor?”</p> +<p>The rain was beginning to lash the windows, +and to sweep the lawn in long slant strokes. The +little girl held up her face as if it could beat +through the panes on it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147' name='page_147'></a>147</span></p> +<p>“I thought,” she said slowly, “that after +Albertina I wouldn’t <i>take</i> anything from anybody. +Uncle Peter says that I’m just as good as anybody, +even if I have been out to work. He said +that all I had to do was just to stand up to +people.”</p> +<p>“There are a good many different ways of +standing up to people, Eleanor. Be sure you’ve +got the right way and then go ahead.”</p> +<p>“I guess I ought to have been politer,” Eleanor +said slowly. “I ought to have thought that she +was your own mother. You couldn’t help the +way she acted, o’ course.”</p> +<p>“The way you acted is the point, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>Eleanor reflected.</p> +<p>“I’ll act different if you want me to, Uncle +David,” she said, “and I won’t go and leave you.”</p> +<p>“That’s my brave girl. I don’t think that I +altogether cover myself with glory in an interview +with my mother,” he added. “It isn’t the +thing that I’m best at, I admit.”</p> +<p>“You did pretty good,” Eleanor consoled him. +“I guess she makes you kind of bashful the way +she does me,” from which David gathered with +an odd sense of shock that Eleanor felt there was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148' name='page_148'></a>148</span> +something to criticize in his conduct, if she had +permitted herself to look for it.</p> +<p>“I know what I’ll do,” Eleanor decided dreamily +with her nose against the pane. “I’ll just +pretend that she’s Mrs. O’Farrel’s aunt, and then +whatever she does, I shan’t care. I’ll know that +I’m the strongest and could hit her if I had a +mind to, and then I shan’t want to.”</p> +<p>David contemplated her gravely for several +seconds.</p> +<p>“By the time you grow up, Eleanor,” he said +finally, “you will have developed all your cooperative +parents into fine strong characters. Your +educational methods are wonderful.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“The dog got nearly drownded today in the +founting,” Eleanor wrote. “It is a very little dog +about the size of Gwendolyn. It was out with +Mademoiselle, and so was I, learning French on +a garden seat. It teetered around on the edge of +the big wash basin—the founting looks like a +wash basin, and suddenly it fell in. I waded right +in and got it, but it slipped around so I couldn’t +get it right away. It looked almost too dead to +come to again, but I gave it first aid to the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149' name='page_149'></a>149</span> +drownded the way Uncle Jimmie taught me to +practicing on Gwendolyn. When I got it fixed I +looked up and saw Uncle David’s mother coming. +I took the dog and gave it to her. I said, ‘Madam, +here’s your dog.’ Mademoiselle ran around ringing +her hands and talking about it. Then I went +up to Mrs. Bolling’s room, and we talked. I told +her how to make mustard pickles, and how my +mother’s grandpa’s relation came over in the Mayflower, +and about our single white lilac bush, and +she’s going to get one and make the pickles. Then +I played double Canfield with her for a while. +I’m glad I didn’t go home before I knew her +better. When she acts like Mrs. O’Farrel’s aunt +I pretend she is her, and we don’t quarrel. She +says does Uncle David go much to see Aunt +Beulah, and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie +does. Then she says does he go to see Aunt +Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle +Peter the most. Well, if he doesn’t he almost +does. You can’t tell Mrs. Madam Bolling that +you won’t tattle, because she would think the +worst.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Eleanor grew to like Mademoiselle. She was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150' name='page_150'></a>150</span> +the aging, rather wry faced Frenchwoman who +had been David’s young brother’s governess and +had made herself so useful to Mrs. Bolling that +she was kept always on the place, half companion +and half resident housekeeper. She was glad to +have a child in charge again, and Eleanor soon +found that her crooked features and severe high-shouldered +back that had somewhat intimidated +her at first, actually belonged to one of the kindest +hearted creatures in the world.</p> +<p>Paris and Colhassett bore very little resemblance +to each other, the two discovered. To be sure +there were red geraniums every alternating year +in the gardens of the Louvre, and every year in +front of the Sunshine Library in Colhassett. The +residents of both places did a great deal of driving +in fine weather. In Colhassett they drove on +the state highway, recently macadamized to the +dismay of the taxpayers who did not own horses +or automobiles. In Paris they drove out to the +Bois by way of the Champs Elysees. In Colhassett +they had only one ice-cream saloon, but in Paris +they had a good many of them out-of-doors in +the parks and even on the sidewalk, and there +you could buy all kinds of sirups and ‘what you +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151' name='page_151'></a>151</span> +call cordials’ and <i>aperitifs</i>; but the two places on +the whole were quite different. The people were +different, too. The people of Colhassett were all +religious and thought it was sinful to play cards +on Sundays. Mademoiselle said she always felt +wicked when she played them on a week day.</p> +<p>“I think of my mother,” she said; “she would +say ‘Juliette, what will you say to the Lord when +he knows that you have been playing cards on a +working day. Playing cards is for Sunday.’”</p> +<p>“The Lord that they have in Colhassett is not +like that,” Eleanor stated without conscious irreverence.</p> +<p>“She is a vary fonny child, madam,” Mademoiselle +answered Mrs. Bolling’s inquiry. “She has +taste, but no—experience even of the most +ordinary. She cooks, but she does no embroidery. +She knits and knows no games to play. She has +a good brain, but Mon Dieu, no one has taught +her to ask questions with it.”</p> +<p>“She has had lessons this year from some young +Rogers graduates, very intelligent girls. I should +think a year of that kind of training would have +had its effect.” Mrs. Bolling’s finger went into +every pie in her vicinity with unfailing direction. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152' name='page_152'></a>152</span></p> +<p>“Lessons, yes, but no teaching. If she were not +vary intelligent I think she would have suffered +for it. The public schools they did somesing, but +so little to elevate—to encourage.”</p> +<p>Thus in a breath were Beulah’s efforts as an +educator disposed of.</p> +<p>“Would you like to undertake the teaching of +that child for a year?” Mrs. Bolling asked thoughtfully.</p> +<p>“Oh! but yes, madam.”</p> +<p>“I think I’ll make the offer to David.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Bolling was unsympathetic but she was +thorough. She liked to see things properly done. +Since David and his young friends had undertaken +a venture so absurd, she decided to lend +them a helping hand with it. Besides, now that +she had no children of her own in the house, +Mademoiselle was practically eating her head off. +Also it had developed that David was fond of the +child, so fond of her that to oppose that affection +would have been bad policy, and Mrs. Bolling was +politic when she chose to be. She chose to be +politic now, for sometime during the season she +was going to ask a very great favor of David, +and she hoped, that by first being extraordinarily +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153' name='page_153'></a>153</span> +complaisant and kind and then by bringing considerable +pressure to bear upon him, he would +finally do what he was asked. The favor was to +provide himself with a father-in-law, and that +father-in-law the multi-millionaire parent of the +raven-haired, crafty-eyed ingénue, who had begun +angling for him that June night at the country +club.</p> +<p>She made the suggestion to David on the eve +of the arrival of all of Eleanor’s guardians for +the week-end. Mrs. Bolling had invited a house-party +comprised of the associated parents as a +part of her policy of kindness before the actual +summoning of her forces for the campaign she +was about to inaugurate.</p> +<p>David was really touched by his mother’s generosity +concerning Eleanor. He had been agreeably +surprised at the development of the situation +between the child and his mother. He had been +obliged to go into town the day after Eleanor’s +first unfortunate encounter with her hostess, and +had hurried home in fear and trembling to try +to smooth out any tangles in the skein of their +relationship that might have resulted from a day +in each other’s vicinity. After hurrying over the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154' name='page_154'></a>154</span> +house and through the grounds in search of her +he finally discovered the child companionably currying +a damp and afflicted Pekinese in his mother’s +sitting-room, and engaged in a grave discussion +of the relative merits of molasses and sugar as a +sweetening for Boston baked beans.</p> +<p>It was while they were having their after-dinner +coffee in the library, for which Eleanor had been +allowed to come down, though nursery supper +was the order of the day in the Bolling establishment, +that David told his friends of his mother’s +offer.</p> +<p>“Of course, we decided to send her to school +when she was twelve anyway,” he said. “The +idea was to keep her among ourselves for two +years to establish the parental tie, or ties I should +say. If she is quartered here with Mademoiselle +we could still keep in touch with her and she +would be having the advantage of a year’s steady +tuition under one person, and we’d be relieved—” +a warning glance from Margaret, with an almost +imperceptible inclination of her head in the +direction of Beulah, caused him to modify the +end of his sentence—“of the responsibility—for her +physical welfare.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155' name='page_155'></a>155</span></p> +<p>“Mentally and morally,” Gertrude cut in, “the +bunch would still supervise her entirely.”</p> +<p>Jimmie, who was sitting beside her, ran his +arm along the back of her chair affectionately, and +then thought better of it and drew it away. He +was, for some unaccountable reason, feeling +awkward and not like himself. There was a girl +in New York, with whom he was not in the least +in love, who had recently taken it upon herself +to demonstrate unmistakably that she was not in +love with him. There was another girl who insisted +on his writing her every day. Here was +Gertrude, who never had any time for him any +more, absolutely without enthusiasm at his proximity. +He thought it would be a good idea to allow +Eleanor to remain where she was and said so.</p> +<p>“Not that I won’t miss the jolly times we had +together, Babe,” he said. “I was planning some +real rackets this year,—to make up for what I +put you through,” he added in her ear, as she +came and stood beside him for a minute.</p> +<p>Gertrude wanted to go abroad for a year, “and +lick her wounds,” as she told herself. She would +have come back for her two months with Eleanor, +but she was glad to be relieved of that necessity. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156' name='page_156'></a>156</span> +Margaret had the secret feeling that the ordeal +of the Hutchinsons was one that she would like +to spare her foster child, and incidentally herself +in relation to the adjustment of conditions necessary +to Eleanor’s visit. Peter wanted her with +him, but he believed the new arrangement would +be better for the child. Beulah alone held out +for her rights and her parental privileges. The +decision was finally left to Eleanor.</p> +<p>She stood in the center of the group a little +forlornly while they awaited her word. A wave +of her old shyness overtook her and she blushed +hot and crimson.</p> +<p>“It’s all in your own hands, dear,” Beulah said +briskly.</p> +<p>“Poor kiddie,” Gertrude thought, “it’s all wrong +somehow.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know what you want me to say,” +Eleanor said piteously and sped to the haven of +Peter’s breast.</p> +<p>“We’ll manage a month together anyway,” +Peter whispered.</p> +<p>“Then I guess I’ll stay here,” she whispered +back, “because next I would have to go to Aunt +Beulah’s.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157' name='page_157'></a>157</span></p> +<p>Peter, turning involuntarily in Beulah’s direction, +saw the look of chagrin and disappointment +on her face, and realized how much she minded +playing a losing part in the game and yet how +well she was doing it. “She’s only a straight-laced +kid after all,” he thought. “She’s put her whole +heart and soul into this thing. There’s a look +about the top part of her face when it’s softened +that’s a little like Ellen’s.” Ellen was his dead +fiancée—the girl in the photograph at home in +his desk.</p> +<p>“I guess I’ll stay here,” Eleanor said aloud, “all +in one place, and study with Mademoiselle.”</p> +<p>It was a decision that, on the whole, she never +regretted.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158' name='page_158'></a>158</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIII_BROOK_AND_RIVER' id='CHAPTER_XIII_BROOK_AND_RIVER'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Brook and River</span></h3> +</div> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“Standing with reluctant feet,<br /> +Where the brook and river meet.”</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“I think it’s a good plan to put a quotation like +Kipling at the top of the page whenever I write +anything in this diary,” Eleanor began in the +smart leather bound book with her initials stamped +in black on the red cover—the new private diary +that had been Peter’s gift to her on the occasion +of her fifteenth birthday some months before. “I +think it is a very expressive thing to do. The +quotation above is one that expresses me, and I +think it is beautiful too. Miss Hadley—that’s my +English teacher—the girls call her Haddock because +she does look rather like a fish—says that +it’s undoubtedly one of the most poignant descriptions +of adolescent womanhood ever made. I +made a note to look up adolescent, but didn’t. +Bertha Stephens has my dictionary, and won’t +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159' name='page_159'></a>159</span> +bring it back because the leaves are all stuck together +with fudge, and she thinks she ought to +buy me a new one. It is very honorable of her +to feel that way, but she never will. Good old +Stevie, she’s a great borrower.</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,<br /> +For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.’<br /> +</p> +<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'>“Shakespeare.</p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“Well, I hardly know where to begin. I +thought I would make a resumé of some of the +events of the last year. I was only fourteen then, +but still I did a great many things that might be +of interest to me in my declining years when I +look back into the annals of this book. To begin +with I was only a freshie at Harmon. It is very +different to be a sophomore. I can hardly believe +that I was once a shivering looking little thing +like all the freshmen that came in this year. I +was very frightened, but did not think I showed it.</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> +“‘Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us,<br /> +To see ourselves as others see us.’</p> +</td></tr></table> +<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160' name='page_160'></a>160</span></div> +<p>“Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad +character, but after he met his bonnie Jean he +wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet’s life is +usually sad anyhow—full of disappointment and +pain—but I digress.</p> +<p>“I had two years with Mademoiselle at the +Bollings’ instead of one the way we planned. I +haven’t written in my Private Diary since the +night of that momentous decision that I was to +stay in one place instead of taking turns visiting +my cooperative parents. I went to another school +one year before I came to Harmon, and that +brings me to the threshold of my fourteenth year. +If I try to go back any farther, I’ll never catch up. +I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a +cottage on Long Island with her sister, and her +sister’s boy, who has grown up to be the silly +kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, +and those things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I +can’t think of words to express it. ‘Oh! rare pale +Margaret,’ as Tennyson says. She wears her hair +in a coronet braid around the top of her head, +and all her clothes are the color of violets or a +soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue looks +nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161' name='page_161'></a>161</span></p> +<p>“I went down to Cape Cod for a week before +I came to Harmon, and while I was there my +grandmother died. I can’t write about that in +this diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother +loved me. Uncle Peter came, and took charge +of everything. He has great strength that holds +you up in trouble.</p> +<p>“The first day I came to Harmon I saw the +girl I wanted for my best friend, and so we +roomed together, and have done so ever since. +Her name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she +is called Maggie Lou by every one. She has dark +curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very +silvery voice. I have found out that she lies +some, but she says it is because she had such an +unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome +it for my sake.</p> +<p>“That Christmas vacation the ‘We Are Sevens’ +went up the Hudson to the Bollings’ again, but +that was the last time they ever went there. Uncle +David and his mother had a terrible fight over +them. I was sorry for Madam Bolling in a way. +There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to +marry, a rich girl who looked something like +Cleopatra, very dark complexioned with burning +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162' name='page_162'></a>162</span> +eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese something +like Zaidee.</p> +<p>“Uncle David said that gold could never buy +him, and to take her away, but Madam Bolling +was very angry, of course. She accused him of +wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her +a characterless, faded blonde. Then it was Uncle +David’s turn to get angry, and I have never seen +any one get any angrier, and he told about the +vow of celibacy, and how instead of having designs +on him the whole crowd would back him up +in his struggle to stay single. It was an awful +row. I told Madam Bolling that I would help +her to get Uncle David back, and I did, but she +never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose +the feelings of a mother would prompt her +to want Uncle David settled down with a rich and +fashionable girl who would soon be the mother +of a lot of lovely children. I can’t imagine a +Cleopatra looking baby, but she might have boys +that looked like Uncle David.</p> +<p>“Vacations are really about all there is to +school. Freshman year is mostly grinding and +stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163' name='page_163'></a>163</span> +of ‘grub’ is better than having only two. Some +of the girls are rather selfish about the eats, and +come in and help themselves boldly when you are +out of the room. Maggie Lou puts up signs over +the candy box: ‘Closed for Repairs,’ or ‘No Trespassing +by Order of the Board of Health,’ but +they don’t pay much attention. Well, last summer +vacation I spent with Uncle Jimmie. I wouldn’t +tell this, but I reformed him. I made him sign +the pledge. I don’t know what pledge it was because +I didn’t read it, but he said he was addicted +to something worse than anything I could think +of, and if somebody didn’t pull him up, he +wouldn’t answer for the consequences. I asked +him why he didn’t choose Aunt Gertrude to do it, +and he groaned only. So I said to write out a +pledge, and sign it and I would be the witness. +We were at a hotel with his brother’s family. It +isn’t proper any more for me to go around with +my uncles unless I have a chaperon. Mademoiselle +says that I oughtn’t even to go down-town +alone with them but, of course, that is French +etiquette, and not American. Well, there were +lots of pretty girls at this hotel, all wearing white +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164' name='page_164'></a>164</span> +and pink dresses, and carrying big bell shaped +parasols of bright colors. They looked sweet, +like so many flowers, but Uncle Jimmie just about +hated the sight of them. He said they were not +girls at all, but just pink and white devices of +the devil. On the whole he didn’t act much like +my merry uncle, but we had good times together +playing tennis and golf, and going on parties with +his brother’s family, all mere children but the +mother and father. Uncle Jimmie was afraid to +go and get his mail all summer, although he had +a great many letters on blue and lavender note +paper scented with Roger et Gallet’s violet, and +Hudnut’s carnation. We used to go down to the +beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, +and then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He +said that they were communications from the +spirits of the dead. I should have thought that +they were from different girls, but he seemed to +hate the sight of girls so much. Once I asked +him if he had ever had an unhappy love-affair, +just to see what he would say, but he replied ‘no, +they had all been happy ones,’ and groaned and +groaned.</p> +<p>“Aunt Beulah has changed too. She has become +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165' name='page_165'></a>165</span> +a suffragette and thinks only of getting +women their rights and their privileges.</p> +<p>“Maggie Lou is an anti, and we have long arguments +about the cause. She says that woman’s +place is in the home, but I say look at me, who +have no home, how can I wash and bake and +brew like the women of my grandfather’s day, +visiting around the way I do? And she says that +it is the principle of the thing that is involved, +and I ought to take a stand for or against. Everybody +has so many different arguments that I don’t +know what I think yet, but some day I shall make +up my mind for good.</p> +<p>“Well, that about brings me up to the present. +I meant to describe a few things in detail, but I +guess I will not begin on the past in that way. I +don’t get so awfully much time to write in this +diary because of the many interruptions of school +life, and the way the monitors snoop in study +hours. I don’t know who I am going to spend +my Christmas holidays with. I sent Uncle Peter +a poem three days ago, but he has not answered it +yet. I’m afraid he thought it was very silly. I +don’t hardly know what it means myself. It goes +as follows: +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166' name='page_166'></a>166</span></p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='text-align:center; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'>“A Song</p> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> + <br /> +“The moon is very pale to-night,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>The summer wind swings high,</span><br /> +I seek the temple of delight,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>And feel my love draw nigh.</span><br /> + <br /> +“I seem to feel his fragrant breath<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>Upon my glowing cheek.</span><br /> +Between us blows the wind of death,—<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>I shall not hear him speak.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“I don’t know why I like to write love poems, +but most of the women poets did. This one made +me cry.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167' name='page_167'></a>167</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIV_MERRY_CHRISTMAS' id='CHAPTER_XIV_MERRY_CHRISTMAS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Merry Christmas</span></h3> +</div> +<p>Margaret in mauve velvet and violets, +and Gertrude in a frock of smart black +and white were in the act of meeting by appointment +at Sherry’s one December afternoon, with +a comfortable cup of tea in mind. Gertrude +emerged from the recess of the revolving door +and Margaret, sitting eagerly by the entrance, +almost upset the attendant in her rush to her +friend’s side.</p> +<p>“Oh! Gertrude,” she cried, “I’m so glad to see +you. My family is trying to cut me up in neat +little quarters and send me north, south, east and +west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to +stay home and have Eleanor. How did I ever +come to be born into a family of giants, tell me +that, Gertrude?”</p> +<p>“The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an +unfortunately immature period, I’ll admit,” Gertrude +laughed. “My parents are dears, but they’ve +never forgiven me for being an artist instead of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168' name='page_168'></a>168</span> +a dubby bud. Shall we have tea right away or +shall we sit down and discuss life?”</p> +<p>“Both,” Margaret said. “I don’t know which +is the hungrier—flesh or spirit.”</p> +<p>But as they turned toward the dining-room a +familiar figure blocked their progress.</p> +<p>“I thought that was Gertrude’s insatiable hat,” +David exclaimed delightedly. “I’ve phoned for +you both until your families have given instructions +that I’m not to be indulged any more. I’ve +got a surprise for you.—Taxi,” he said to the +man at the door.</p> +<p>“Not till we’ve had our tea,” Margaret wailed. +“You couldn’t be so cruel, David.”</p> +<p>“You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of +the happiest surprises of your life into the bargain,” +David assured her as he led the way to the +waiting cab.</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t leave this place unfed for anybody +but you, David, not if it were ever so, and then +some, as Jimmie says.”</p> +<p>“What’s the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?” +David inquired as the taxi turned down the +Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a +hopeless mesh of traffic. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169' name='page_169'></a>169</span></p> +<p>“I don’t know; why?” Gertrude answered, +though she had not been the one addressed at the +moment. “What’s the matter with this hat?” she +rattled on without waiting for an answer. “I +thought it was good-looking myself, and Madam +Paran robbed me for it.”</p> +<p>“It is good-looking,” David allowed. “It seems +to be a kind of retrieving hat, that’s all. Keeps +you in a rather constant state of looking after the +game.”</p> +<p>“What about my hat, David?” Margaret inquired +anxiously. “Do you like that?”</p> +<p>“I do,” David admitted. “I’m crazy about it. +It’s a lovely cross between the style affected by +the late Emperor Napoleon and my august grandmother, +with some frills added.”</p> +<p>The chauffeur turned into a cross street and +stopped abruptly before an imposing but apparently +unguarded entrance.</p> +<p>“Why, I thought this was a studio building,” +Gertrude said. “David, if you’re springing a tea +party on us, and we in the wild ungovernable +state we are at present, I’ll shoot the way my hat +is pointing.”</p> +<p>“Straight through my left eye-glass,” David +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170' name='page_170'></a>170</span> +finished. “You wait till you see the injustice you +have done me.”</p> +<p>But Margaret, who often understood what was +happening a few moments before the revelation of +it, clutched at his elbow.</p> +<p>“Oh! David, David,” she whispered, “how +wonderful!”</p> +<p>“Wait till you see,” David said, and herded +them into the elevator.</p> +<p>Their destination was the top floor but one. +David hurried them around the bend in the sleekly +carpeted corridor and touched the bell on the +right of the first door they came to. It opened +almost instantly and David’s man, who was French, +stood bowing and smiling on the threshold.</p> +<p>“Mr. Styvvisont has arrive’,” he said; “he waits +you.”</p> +<p>“Welcome to our city,” Peter cried, appearing +in the doorway of the room Alphonse was indicating +with that high gesture of delight with +which only a Frenchman can lead the way. +“Jimmie’s coming up from the office and Beulah’s +due any minute. What do you think of the place, +girls?”</p> +<p>“Is it really yours, David?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171' name='page_171'></a>171</span></p> +<p>“Surest thing you know.” He grinned like a +schoolboy. “It’s really ours, that’s what it is. +I’ve broken away from the mater at last,” he +added a little sheepishly. “I’m going to work +seriously. I’ve got an all-day desk job in my +uncle’s office and I’m going to dig in and see what +I can make of myself. Also, this is going to be +our headquarters, and Eleanor’s permanent home +if we’re all agreed upon it,—but look around, +ladies. Don’t spare my blushes. If you think I +can interior decorate, just tell me so frankly. This +is the living-room.”</p> +<p>“It’s like that old conundrum—black and white +and red all over,” Gertrude said. “I never saw +anything so stunning in all my life.”</p> +<p>“Gosh! I admire your nerve,” Peter cried, +“papering this place in white, and then getting in +all this heavy carved black stuff, and the red in +the tapestries and screens and pillows.”</p> +<p>“I wanted it to look studioish a little,” David +explained, “I wanted to get away from Louis +Quartorze.”</p> +<p>“And drawing-rooms like mother used to make,” +Gertrude suggested. “I like your Oriental touches. +Do you see, Margaret, everything is Indian or +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172' name='page_172'></a>172</span> +Chinese? The ubiquitous Japanese print is conspicuous +by its absence.”</p> +<p>“I’ve got two portfolios full of ’em,” David +said, “and I always have one or two up in the +bedrooms. I change ’em around, you know, the +way the Japs do themselves, a different scene +every few days and the rest decently out of sight +till you’re ready for ’em.”</p> +<p>“It’s like a fairy story,” Margaret said.</p> +<p>“I thought you’d appreciate what little Arabian +Nights I was able to introduce. I bought that +screen,” he indicated a sweep of Chinese line and +color, “with my eye on you, and that Aladdin’s +lamp is yours, of course. You’re to come in here +and rub it whenever you like, and your heart’s +desire will instantly be vouchsafed to you.”</p> +<p>“What will Eleanor say?” Peter suggested, as +David led the way through the corridor and up +the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate +part of the establishment. “This is her room, +didn’t you say, David?” He paused on the +threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and +yellow, with all its hangings of a soft golden silk.</p> +<p>“She once said that she wanted a yellow room,” +David said, “a daffy-down-dilly room, and I’ve +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173' name='page_173'></a>173</span> +tried to get her one. I know last year that Maggie +Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that +flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor +refused to be comforted.”</p> +<p>A wild whoop in the below stairs announced +Jimmie; and Beulah arrived simultaneously with +the tea tray. Jimmie was ecstatic when the actual +function of the place was explained to him.</p> +<p>“Headquarters is the one thing we’ve lacked,” +he said; “a place of our own, hully gee! It makes +me feel almost human again.”</p> +<p>“You haven’t been feeling altogether human +lately, have you, Jimmie?” Margaret asked over +her tea cup.</p> +<p>“No, dear, I haven’t.” Jimmie flashed her a +grateful smile. “I’m a bad egg,” he explained to +her darkly, “and the only thing you can do with +me is to scramble me.”</p> +<p>“Scrambled is just about the way I should have +described your behavior of late,—but that’s Gertrude’s +line,” David said. “Only she doesn’t seem +to be taking an active part in the conversation. +Aren’t you Jimmie’s keeper any more, Gertrude?”</p> +<p>“Not since she’s come back from abroad,” Jimmie +muttered without looking at her. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174' name='page_174'></a>174</span></p> +<p>“Eleanor’s taken the job over now,” Peter said. +“She’s made him swear off red ink and red +neckties.”</p> +<p>“Any color so long’s it’s red is the color that +suits me best,” Jimmie quoted. “Lord, isn’t this +room a pippin?” He swam in among the bright +pillows of the divan and so hid his face for a +moment. It had been a good many weeks since +he had seen Gertrude.</p> +<p>“I want to give a suffrage tea here,” Beulah +broke in suddenly. “It’s so central, but I don’t +suppose David would hear of it.”</p> +<p>“Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us—” +Peter began.</p> +<p>“My <i>mother</i> would hear of it,” David said, “and +then there wouldn’t be any little studio any more. +She doesn’t believe in votes for women.”</p> +<p>“How any woman in this day and age—” +Beulah began, and thought better of it, since she +was discussing Mrs. Bolling.</p> +<p>“Makes your blood boil, doesn’t it—Beulahland?” +Gertrude suggested helpfully, reaching for +the tea cakes. “Never mind, I’ll vote for women. +I’ll march in your old peerade.”</p> +<p>“The Lord helps those that help themselves,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175' name='page_175'></a>175</span> +Peter said, “that’s why Gertrude is a suffragist. +She believes in helping herself, in every sense, +don’t you, ’Trude?”</p> +<p>“Not quite in every sense,” Gertrude said gravely. +“Sometimes I feel like that girl that Margaret +describes as caught in a horrid way between two +generations. I’m neither old-fashioned nor +modern.”</p> +<p>“I’d rather be that way than early Victorian,” +Margaret sighed.</p> +<p>“Speaking of the latest generation, has anybody +any objection to having our child here for +the holidays?” David asked. “My idea is to have +one grand Christmas dinner. I suppose we’ll all +have to eat one meal with our respective families, +but can’t we manage to get together here for dinner +at night? Don’t you think that we could?”</p> +<p>“We can’t, but we will,” Margaret murmured. +“Of course, have Eleanor here. I wanted her +with me but the family thought otherwise. They’ve +been trying to send me away for my health, +David.”</p> +<p>“Well, they shan’t. You’ll stay in New York +for your health and come to my party.”</p> +<p>“Margaret’s health is merely a matter of Margaret’s +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176' name='page_176'></a>176</span> +happiness anyhow. Her soul and her body +are all one,” Gertrude said.</p> +<p>“Then cursed be he who brings anything but +happiness to Margaret,” Peter said, to which +sentiment David added a solemn “Amen.”</p> +<p>“I wish you wouldn’t,” Margaret said, shivering +a little, “I feel as if some one were—were—”</p> +<p>“Trampling the violets on your grave,” Gertrude +finished for her.</p> +<p>Christmas that year fell on a Monday, and +Eleanor did not leave school till the Friday before +the great day. Owing to the exigencies of the +holiday season none of her guardians came to see +her before the dinner party itself. Even David +was busy with his mother—installed now for a +few weeks in the hotel suite that would be her +home until the opening of the season at Palm +Beach—and had only a few hurried words with +her. Mademoiselle, whom he had imported for +the occasion, met her at the station and helped her +to do her modest shopping which consisted chiefly +of gifts for her beloved aunts and uncles. She +had arranged these things lovingly at their plates, +and fled to dress when they began to assemble for +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177' name='page_177'></a>177</span> +the celebration. The girls were the first arrivals. +Then Peter.</p> +<p>“How’s our child, David?” Gertrude asked. “I +had a few minutes’ talk with her over the telephone +and she seemed to be flourishing.”</p> +<p>“She is,” David answered. “She’s grown several +feet since we last saw her. They’ve been +giving scenes from Shakespeare at school and +she’s been playing Juliet, it appears. She has +had a fight with another girl about suffrage—I +don’t know which side she was on, Beulah, I am +merely giving you the facts as they came to me—and +the other girl was so unpleasant about it that +she has been visited by just retribution in the form +of the mumps, and had to be sent home and +quarantined.”</p> +<p>“Sounds a bit priggish,” Peter suggested.</p> +<p>“Not really,” David said, “she’s as sound as a +nut. She’s only going through the different stages.”</p> +<p>“To pass deliberately through one’s ages,” +Beulah quoted, “is to get the heart out of a liberal +education.”</p> +<p>“Bravo, Beulah,” Gertrude cried, “you’re quite +in your old form to-night.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178' name='page_178'></a>178</span></p> +<p>“Is she just the same little girl, David?” Margaret +asked.</p> +<p>“Just the same. She really seems younger than +ever. I don’t know why she doesn’t come down. +There she is, I guess. No, it’s only Alphonse +letting in Jimmie.”</p> +<p>Jimmie, whose spirits seemed to have revived +under the holiday influence, was staggering under +the weight of his parcels. The Christmas presents +had already accumulated to a considerable mound +on the couch. Margaret was brooding over them +and trying not to look greedy. She was still +very much of a child herself in relation to Santa +Claus.</p> +<p>“Merry Christmas!” Jimmie cried. “Where’s +my child?”</p> +<p>“Coming,” David said.</p> +<p>“Look at the candy kids. My eyes—but you’re +a slick trio, girls. Pale lavender, pale blue, and +pale pink, and all quite sophisticatedly décolleté. +You go with the decorations, too. I don’t know +quite why you do, but you do.”</p> +<p>“Give honor where honor is due, dearie. That’s +owing to the cleverness of the decorator,” David +said. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179' name='page_179'></a>179</span></p> +<p>“No man calls me dearie and lives to tell the +tale,” Jimmie remarked almost dreamily as he +squared off. “How’ll you have it, Dave?”</p> +<p>But at that instant there was an unexpected interruption. +Alphonse threw open the big entrance +door at the farther end of the long room with a +flourish.</p> +<p>“Mademoiselle Juliet Capulet,” he proclaimed +with the grand air, and then retired behind his +hand, smiling broadly.</p> +<p>Framed in the high doorway, complete, cap and +curls, softly rounding bodice, and the long, straight +lines of the Renaissance, stood Juliet—Juliet, immemorial, +immortal, young—austerely innocent +and delicately shy, already beautiful, and yet +potential of all the beauty and the wisdom of the +world.</p> +<p>“I’ve never worn these clothes before anybody +but the girls before,” Eleanor said, “but I +thought”—she looked about her appealingly—“you +might like it—for a surprise.”</p> +<p>“Great jumping Jehoshaphat,” Jimmie exclaimed, +“I thought you said she was the same little girl, +David.”</p> +<p>“She was half an hour ago,” David answered, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180' name='page_180'></a>180</span> +“I never saw such a metamorphosis. In fact, I +don’t think I ever saw Juliet before.”</p> +<p>“She is the thing itself,” Gertrude answered, +the artist in her sobered by the vision.</p> +<p>But Peter passed a dazed hand over his eyes +and stared at the delicate figure advancing to him.</p> +<p>“My God! she’s a woman,” he said, and drew +the hard breath of a man just awakened from +sleep.</p> +<div class='figcenter'> +<a name='linki_2' id='linki_2'></a> +<img src='images/illus-002.jpg' alt='' title='' style='width: 404px; height: 586px;' /><br /> +<p class='caption' style='margin: 0 auto; text-align:center;width: 404px;'> +“I thought”—she looked about her appealingly—“you might like it—for a surprise”<br /> +</p> +</div> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181' name='page_181'></a>181</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XV_GROWING_UP' id='CHAPTER_XV_GROWING_UP'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Growing Up</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Dear Uncle Jimmie:</p> +<p>“It was a pleasant surprise to get letters +from every one of my uncles the first week I got +back to school. It was unprecedented. You wrote +me two letters last year, Uncle David six, and +Uncle Peter sixteen. He is the best correspondent, +but perhaps that is because I ask him the most +advice. The Christmas party was lovely. I shall +never forget the expressions on all the different +faces when I came down in my Juliet suit. I +thought at first that no one liked me in it, but I +guess they did.</p> +<p>“You know how well I liked my presents because +you heard my wild exclamations of delight. I +never had such a nice Christmas. It was sweet +of the We Are Sevens to get me that ivory set, +and to know that every different piece was the +loving thought of a different aunt or uncle. I +love the yellow monogram. It looks entirely +unique, and I like to have things that are not +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182' name='page_182'></a>182</span> +like anybody else’s in the world, don’t you, Uncle +Jimmie? I am glad you liked your cuff links. +They are ‘neat,’ but not ‘gaudy.’ You play golf +so well I thought a golf stick was a nice emblem +for you, and would remind you of me and last +summer.</p> +<p>“I am glad you think it is easier to keep your +pledge now. I made a New Year’s resolution to +go without chocolates, and give the money they +would cost to some good cause, but it’s hard to +pick out a cause, or to decide exactly how much +money you are saving. I can eat the chocolates +that are sent to me, however!!!!</p> +<p>“Uncle David said that he thought you were +not like yourself lately, but you seemed just the +same to me Christmas, only more affectionate. I +love you very much. I was really only joking +about the chocolates. Eleanor.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Dear Uncle David:</p> +<p>“I was glad to get your nice letter. You did +not have to write in response to my bread and +butter letter, but I am glad you did. When I am +at school, and getting letters all the time I feel as +if I were living two beautiful lives all at once, the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183' name='page_183'></a>183</span> +life of a ‘cooperative child’ and the life of +Eleanor Hamlin, schoolgirl, both together. Letters +make the people you love seem very near to +you, don’t you think they do? I sleep with all +my letters under my pillow whenever I feel the +least little bit homesick, and they almost seem to +breathe sometimes.</p> +<p>“School is the same old school. Maggie Lou +had a wrist watch, too, for Christmas, but not so +pretty as the one you gave me. Miss Hadley says +I do remarkable work in English whenever I feel +like it. I don’t know whether that’s a compliment +or not. I took Kris Kringle for the subject of a +theme the other day, and represented him as caught +in an iceberg in the grim north, and not being +able to reach all the poor little children in the +tenements and hovels. The Haddock said it +showed imagination.</p> +<p>“There was a lecture at school on Emerson the +other day. The speaker was a noted literary +lecturer from New York. He had wonderful +waving hair, more like Pader—I can’t spell him, +but you know who I mean—than Uncle Jimmie’s, +but a little like both. He introduced some very +noble thoughts in his discourse, putting perfectly +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184' name='page_184'></a>184</span> +old ideas in a new way that made you think a lot +more of them. I think a tall man like that with +waving hair can do a great deal of good as a +lecturer, because you listen a good deal more respectfully +than if they were plain looking. His +voice sounded a good deal like what I imagine +Romeo’s voice did. I had a nice letter from +Madam Bolling. I love you, and I have come to +the bottom of the sheet. Eleanor.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Dear Uncle Peter:</p> +<p>“I have just written to my other uncles, so I +won’t write you a long letter this time. They +deserve letters because of being so unusually +prompt after the holidays. You always deserve +letters, but not specially now, any more than any +other time.</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter, I wrote to my grandfather. It +seems funny to think of Albertina’s aunt taking +care of him now that Grandma is gone. I suppose +Albertina is there a lot. She sent me a post +card for Christmas. I didn’t send her any.</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter, I miss my grandmother out of the +world. I remember how I used to take care of +her, and put a soapstone in the small of her back +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185' name='page_185'></a>185</span> +when she was cold. I wish sometimes that I could +hold your hand, Uncle Peter, when I get thinking +about it.</p> +<p>“Well, school is the same old school. Bertha +Stephens has a felon on her finger, and that lets +her out of hard work for a while. I will enclose +a poem suggested by a lecture I heard recently on +Emerson. It isn’t very good, but it will help to +fill up the envelope. I love you, and love you. +Eleanor.</p> +<table style='margin: auto' summary=''><tr><td> +<p style='text-align:center; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'>“Life</p> +<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> + <br /> +“Life is a great, a noble task,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>When we fulfill our duty.</span><br /> +To work, that should be all we ask,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>And seek the living beauty.</span><br /> +We know not whence we come, or where<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>Our dim pathway is leading,</span><br /> +Whether we tread on lilies fair,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>Or trample love-lies-bleeding.</span><br /> +But we must onward go and up,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>Nor stop to question whither.</span><br /> +E’en if we drink the bitter cup,<br /> +<span style='margin-left: 0.78125em;'>And fall at last, to wither.</span></p> +</td></tr></table> +<p>“P. S. I haven’t got the last verse very good +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186' name='page_186'></a>186</span> +yet, but I think the second one is pretty. You +know ‘love-lies-bleeding’ is a flower, but it +sounds allegorical the way I have put it in. Don’t +you think so? You know what all the crosses +stand for.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Eleanor’s fifteenth year was on the whole the +least eventful year of her life, though not by any +means the least happy. She throve exceedingly, +and gained the freedom and poise of movement +and spontaneity that result from properly balanced +periods of work and play and healthful exercise. +From being rather small of her age she developed +into a tall slender creature, inherently graceful and +erect, with a small, delicate head set flower-wise +on a slim white neck. Gertrude never tired of +modeling that lovely contour, but Eleanor herself +was quite unconscious of her natural advantages. +She preferred the snappy-eyed, stocky, ringleted +type of beauty, and spent many unhappy quarters +of an hour wishing she were pretty according to +the inexorable ideals of Harmon.</p> +<p>She spent her vacation at David’s apartment in +charge of Mademoiselle, though the latter part of +the summer she went to Colhassett, quite by herself +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187' name='page_187'></a>187</span> +according to her own desire, and spent a +month with her grandfather, now in charge of +Albertina’s aunt. She found Albertina grown into +a huge girl, sunk in depths of sloth and snobbishness, +who plied her with endless questions concerning +life in the gilded circles of New York +society. Eleanor found her disgusting and yet +possessed of that vague fascination that the assumption +of prerogative often carries with it.</p> +<p>She found her grandfather very old and +shrunken, yet perfectly taken care of and with +every material want supplied. She realized as +she had never done before how the faithful six +had assumed the responsibility of this household +from the beginning, and how the old people had +been warmed and comforted by their bounty. She +laughed to remember her simplicity in believing that +an actual salary was a perquisite of her adoption, +and understood for the first time how small a +part of the expense of their living this faithful +stipend had defrayed. She looked back incredulously +on that period when she had lived with +them in a state of semi-starvation on the corn +meal and cereals and very little else that her +dollar and a half a week had purchased, and the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188' name='page_188'></a>188</span> +“garden sass,” that her grandfather had faithfully +hoed and tended in the straggling patch of +plowed field that he would hoe and tend no +more. She spent a month practically at his feet, +listening to his stories, helping him to find his +pipe and tobacco and glasses, and reading the +newspaper to him, and felt amply rewarded by his +final acknowledgment that she was a good girl +and he would as soon have her come again whenever +she felt like it.</p> +<p>On her way back to school she spent a week +with her friend, Margaret Louise, in the Connecticut +town where she lived with her comfortable, +commonplace family. It was while she +was on this visit that the most significant event of +the entire year took place, though it was a happening +that she put out of her mind as soon as +possible and never thought of it again when she +could possibly avoid it.</p> +<p>Maggie Lou had a brother of seventeen, and +one night in the corner of a moonlit porch, when +they happened to be alone for a half hour, he had +asked Eleanor to kiss him.</p> +<p>“I don’t want to kiss you,” Eleanor said. Then, +not wishing to convey a sense of any personal +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189' name='page_189'></a>189</span> +dislike to the brother of a friend to whom she +was so sincerely devoted, she added, “I don’t +know you well enough.”</p> +<p>He was a big boy, with mocking blue eyes and +rough tweed clothes that hung on him loosely.</p> +<p>“When you know me better, will you let me +kiss you?” he demanded.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Eleanor said, still endeavoring +to preserve the amenities.</p> +<p>He took her hand and played with it softly.</p> +<p>“You’re an awful sweet little girl,” he said.</p> +<p>“I guess I’ll go in now.”</p> +<p>“Sit still. Sister’ll be back in a minute.” He +pulled her back to the chair from which she had +half arisen. “Don’t you believe in kissing?”</p> +<p>“I don’t believe in kissing <i>you</i>,” she tried to +say, but the words would not come. She could +only pray for deliverance through the arrival of +some member of the family. The boy’s face was +close to hers. It looked sweet in the moonlight +she thought. She wished he would talk of something +else besides kissing.</p> +<p>“Don’t you like me?” he persisted.</p> +<p>“Yes, I do.” She was very uncomfortable.</p> +<p>“Well, then, there’s no more to be said.” His +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190' name='page_190'></a>190</span> +lips sought hers and pressed them. His breath +came heavily, with little irregular catches in it.</p> +<p>She pushed him away and turned into the house.</p> +<p>“Don’t be angry, Eleanor,” he pleaded, trying to +snatch at her hand.</p> +<p>“I’m not angry,” she said, her voice breaking, +“I just wish you hadn’t, that’s all.”</p> +<p>There was no reference to this incident in the +private diary, but, with an instinct which would +have formed an indissoluble bond between herself +and her Uncle Jimmie, she avoided dimly lit +porches and boys with mischievous eyes and broad +tweed covered shoulders.</p> +<p>For her guardians too, this year was comparatively +smooth running and colorless. Beulah’s +militant spirit sought the assuagement of a fierce +expenditure of energy on the work that came to +her hand through her new interest in suffrage. +Gertrude flung herself into her sculpturing. She +had been hurt as only the young can be hurt when +their first delicate desires come to naught. She +was very warm-blooded and eager under her cool +veneer, and she had spent four years of hard work +and hungry yearning for the fulness of a life she +was too constrained to get any emotional hold on. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191' name='page_191'></a>191</span> +Her fancy for Jimmie she believed was quite over +and done with.</p> +<p>Margaret, warmed by secret fires and nourished +by the stuff that dreams are made of, flourished +strangely in her attic chamber, and learned the +wisdom of life by some curious method of her +own of apprehending its dangers and delights. The +only experiences she had that year were two proposals +of marriage, one from a timid professor of +the romance languages and the other from a young +society man, already losing his waist line, whose +sensuous spirit had been stirred by the ethereal +grace of hers; but these things interested her very +little. She was the princess, spinning fine dreams +and waiting for the dawning of the golden day +when the prince should come for her. Neither +she nor Gertrude ever gave a serious thought to +the five-year-old vow of celibacy, which was to +Beulah as real and as binding as it had seemed on +the first day she took it.</p> +<p>Peter and David and Jimmie went their own +way after the fashion of men, all of them identified +with the quickening romance of New York +business life. David in Wall Street was proving +to be something of a financier to his mother’s surprise +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192' name='page_192'></a>192</span> +and amazement; and the pressure relaxed, he +showed some slight initiative in social matters. In +fact, two mothers, who were on Mrs. Bolling’s list +as suitable parents-in-law, took heart of grace and +began angling for him adroitly, while their daughters +served him tea and made unabashed, modern-débutante +eyes at him.</p> +<p>Jimmie, successfully working his way up to the +top of his firm, suffered intermittently from his +enthusiastic abuse of the privileges of liberty and +the pursuit of happiness. His mind and soul were +in reality hot on the trail of a wife, and there was +no woman among those with whom he habitually +foregathered whom his spirit recognized as his own +woman. He was further rendered helpless and +miserable by the fact that he had not the slightest +idea of his trouble. He regarded himself as a +congenital Don Juan, from whom his better self +shrank at times with a revulsion of loathing.</p> +<p>Peter felt that he had his feet very firmly on a +rather uninspired earth. He was getting on in +the woolen business, which happened to be the +vocation his father had handed down to him. He +belonged to an amusing club, and he still felt himself +irrevocably widowed by the early death of the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193' name='page_193'></a>193</span> +girl in the photograph he so faithfully cherished. +Eleanor was a very vital interest in his life. It +had seemed to him for a few minutes at the +Christmas party that she was no longer the little +girl he had known, that a lovelier, more illusive +creature—a woman—had come to displace her, but +when she had flung her arms around him he had +realized that it was still the heart of a child beating +so fondly against his own.</p> +<p>The real trouble with arrogating to ourselves +the privileges of parenthood is that our native instincts +are likely to become deflected by the substitution +of the artificial for the natural responsibility. +Both Peter and David had the unconscious +feeling that their obligation to their race was met +by their communal interest in Eleanor. Beulah, +of course, sincerely believed that the filling in of +an intellectual concept of life was all that was required +of her. Only Jimmie groped blindly and bewilderedly +for his own. Gertrude and Margaret +both understood that they were unnaturally alone +in a world where lovers met and mated, but they, +too, hugged to their souls the flattering unction +that they were parents of a sort.</p> +<p>Thus three sets of perfectly suitable and devoted +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194' name='page_194'></a>194</span> +young men and women, of marriageable age, +with dozens of interests and sympathies in common, +and one extraordinarily vital bond, continued +to walk side by side in a state of inhuman preoccupation, +their gaze fixed inward instead of upon +one another; and no Divine Power, happening +upon the curious circumstance, believed the matter +one for His intervention nor stooped to take the +respective puppets by the back of their unconscious +necks, and so knock their sluggish heads +together.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195' name='page_195'></a>195</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVI_MARGARET_LOUISAS_BIRTHRIGHT' id='CHAPTER_XVI_MARGARET_LOUISAS_BIRTHRIGHT'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Margaret Louisa’s Birthright</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“I am sixteen years and eight months old +to-day,” Eleanor wrote, “and I have had +the kind of experience that makes me feel as if I +never wanted to be any older. I know life is full +of disillusionment and pain, but I did not know +that any one with whom you have broken bread, +and slept in the same room with, and told everything +to for four long years, could turn out to be +an absolute traitor and villainess. Let me begin +at the beginning. For nearly a year now I have +noticed that Bertha Stephens avoided me, and +presented the appearance of disliking me. I don’t +like to have any one dislike me, and I have tried +to do little things for her that would win back +her affection, but with no success. As I was +editing the Lantern I could print her essayettes +(as she called them) and do her lots of little +favors in a literary way, which she seemed to appreciate, +but personally she avoided me like the +plague. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196' name='page_196'></a>196</span></p> +<p>“Of course Stevie has lots of faults, and since +Margaret Louise and I always talked everything +over we used to talk about Stevie in the same +way. I remember that she used to try to draw +me out about Stevie’s character. I’ve always +thought Stevie was a kind of piker, that is that +she would say she was going to do a thing, and +then from sheer laziness not do it. My dictionary +was a case in point. She gummed it all up with +her nasty fudge and then wouldn’t give it back +to me or get me another, but the reason she +wouldn’t give it back to me was because her feelings +were too fine to return a damaged article, +and not fine enough to make her hump herself and +get me another. That’s only one kind of a piker +and not the worst kind, but it was <i>pikerish</i>.</p> +<p>“All this I told quite frankly to Maggie—I +mean Margaret Louise, because I had no secrets +from her and never thought there was any reason +why I shouldn’t. Stevie has a horrid brother, +also, who has been up here to dances. All the +girls hate him because he is so spoony. He isn’t +as spoony as Margaret Louise’s brother, but he’s +quite a sloppy little spooner at that. Well, I told +Margaret Louise that I didn’t like Stevie’s brother, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197' name='page_197'></a>197</span> +and then I made the damaging remark that one +reason I didn’t like him was because he looked so +much like Stevie. I didn’t bother to explain to +Maggie—I will not call her Maggie Lou any more, +because that is a dear little name and sounds so +affectionate,—Margaret Louise—what I meant by +this, because I thought it was perfectly evident. +Stevie is a peachy looking girl, a snow white +blonde with pinky cheeks and dimples. Well, her +brother is a snow white blond too, and he has +pinky cheeks and dimples and his name is Carlo! +We, of course, at once named him Curlo. It is +not a good idea for a man to look too much like his +sister, or to have too many dimples in his chin +and cheeks. I had only to think of him in the +same room with my three uncles to get his number +exactly. I don’t mean to use slang in my +diary, but I can’t seem to help it. Professor +Mathews says that slang has a distinct function +in the language—in replenishing it, but Uncle +Peter says about slang words, that ‘many are +called, and few are chosen,’ and there is no need +to try to accommodate them all in one’s vocabulary.</p> +<p>“Well, I told Margaret Louise all these things +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198' name='page_198'></a>198</span> +about Curlo, and how he tried to hold my hand +coming from the station one day, when the girls +all went up to meet the boys that came up for +the dance,—and I told her everything else in the +world that happened to come into my head.</p> +<p>“Then one day I got thinking about leaving +Harmon—this is our senior year, of course—and +I thought that I should leave all the girls +with things just about right between us, excepting +good old Stevie, who had this queer sort of +grouch against me. So I decided that I’d just go +around and have it out with her, and I did. I +went into her room one day when her roommate +was out, and demanded a show down. Well, I +found out that Maggie—Margaret Louise had just +repeated to Stevie every living thing that I ever +said about her, just as I said it, only without the +explanations and foot-notes that make any kind of +conversation more understandable.</p> +<p>“Stevie told me all these things one after another, +without stopping, and when she was +through I wished that the floor would open and +swallow me up, but nothing so comfortable happened. +I was obliged to gaze into Stevie’s overflowing +eyes and own up to the truth as well as I +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199' name='page_199'></a>199</span> +could, and explain it. It was the most humiliating +hour that I ever spent, but I told Stevie exactly +what I felt about her ‘nothing extenuate, and +naught set down in malice,’ and what I had said +about her to our mutual friend, who by the way, +is not the mutual friend of either of us any +longer. We were both crying by the time I had +finished, but we understood each other. There +were one or two things that she said she didn’t +think she would ever forget that I had said about +her, but even those she could forgive. She said +that my dislike of her had rankled in her heart +so long that it took away all the bitterness to +know that I wasn’t really her enemy. She said +that my coming to her that way, and not lying +had showed that I had lots of character, and she +thought in time that we could be quite intimate +friends if I wanted to as much as she did.</p> +<p>“After my talk with Stevie I still hoped against +hope that Margaret Louise would turn out to +have some reason or excuse for what she had +done. I knew she had done it, but when a thing +like that happens that upsets your whole trust in +a person you simply can not believe the evidence +of your own senses. When you read of a situation +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200' name='page_200'></a>200</span> +like that in a book you are all prepared for +it by the author, who has taken the trouble to explain +the moral weakness or unpleasantness of the +character, and given you to understand that you +are to expect a betrayal from him or her; but +when it happens in real life out of a clear sky you +have nothing to go upon that makes you even +<i>believe</i> what you know.</p> +<p>“I won’t even try to describe the scene that occurred +between Margaret Louise and me. She cried +and she lied, and she accused me of trying to +curry favor with Stevie, and Stevie of being a +backbiter, and she argued and argued about all +kinds of things but the truth, and when I tried +to pin her down to it, she ducked and crawled +and sidestepped in a way that was dreadful. I’ve +seen her do something like it before about different +things, and I ought to have known then what +she was like inside of her soul, but I guess you +have to be the object of such a scene before you +realize the full force of it.</p> +<p>“All I said was, ‘Margaret Louise, if that’s all +you’ve got to say about the injury you have done +me, then everything is over between us from this +minute;’ and it was, too. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201' name='page_201'></a>201</span></p> +<p>“I feel as if I had been writing a beautiful +story or poem on what I thought was an enduring +tablet of marble, and some one had come and +wiped it all off as if it were mere scribblings on +a slate. I don’t know whether it would seem +like telling tales to tell Uncle Peter or not; I +don’t quite know whether I want to tell him. +Sometimes I wish I had a mother to tell such +things to. It seems to me that a real mother +would know what to say that would help you. +Disillusion is a very strange thing—like death, +only having people die seems more natural somehow. +When they die you can remember the +happy hours that you spent with them, but when +disillusionment comes then you have lost even +your beautiful memories.</p> +<p>“We had for the subject of our theme this +week, ‘What Life Means to Me,’ which of course +was the object of many facetious remarks from +the girls, but I’ve been thinking that if I sat +down seriously to state in just so many words +what life means to <i>me</i>, I hardly know what I +would transcribe. It means disillusionment and +death for one thing. Since my grandfather died +last year I have had nobody left of my own in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202' name='page_202'></a>202</span> +the world,—no real blood relation. Of course, I +am a good deal fonder of my aunts and uncles +than most people are of their own flesh and blood, +but own flesh and blood is a thing that it makes +you feel shivery to be without. If I had been +Margaret Louise’s own flesh and blood, she would +never have acted like that to me. Stevie stuck +up for Carlo as if he was really something to be +proud of. Perhaps my uncles and aunts feel that +way about me, I don’t know. I don’t even know +if I feel that way about them. I certainly criticize +them in my soul at times, and feel tired of +being dragged around from pillar to post. I +don’t feel that way about Uncle Peter, but there +is nobody else that I am certain, positive sure +that I love better than life itself. If there is +only one in the world that you feel that way +about, I might not be Uncle Peter’s one.</p> +<p>“Oh! I wish Margaret Louise had not sold her +birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish I had a +home that I had a perfect right to go and live in +forevermore. I wish my mother was here to +comfort me to-night.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203' name='page_203'></a>203</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVII_A_REAL_KISS' id='CHAPTER_XVII_A_REAL_KISS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Real Kiss</span></h3> +</div> +<p>At seventeen, Eleanor was through at Harmon. +She was to have one year of preparatory +school and then it was the desire of +Beulah’s heart that she should go to Rogers. The +others contended that the higher education should +be optional and not obligatory. The decision was +finally to be left to Eleanor herself, after she had +considered it in all its bearings.</p> +<p>“If she doesn’t decide in favor of college,” David +said, “and she makes her home with me here, +as I hope she will do, of course, I don’t see what +society we are going to be able to give her. Unfortunately +none of our contemporaries have +growing daughters. She ought to meet eligible +young men and that sort of thing.”</p> +<p>“Not yet,” Margaret cried. The two were having +a cozy cup of tea at his apartment. “You’re +so terribly worldly, David, that you frighten me +sometimes.”</p> +<p>“You don’t know where I will end, is that the +idea?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204' name='page_204'></a>204</span></p> +<p>“I don’t know where Eleanor will end, if you’re +already thinking of eligible young men for her.”</p> +<p>“Those things have got to be thought of,” +David answered gravely.</p> +<p>“I suppose they have,” Margaret sighed. “I +don’t want her to be married. I want to take +her off by myself and growl over her all alone +for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to +come along and snatch her up quickly, and set +her behind his milk white charger and ride away +with her. If we’ve all got to get together and +connive at marrying her off there won’t be any +comfort in having her.”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” David said thoughtfully; “I +think that might be fun, too. A vicarious love-affair +that you can manipulate is one of the most +interesting games in the world.”</p> +<p>“That’s not my idea of an interesting game,” +Margaret said. “I like things very personal, +David,—you ought to know that by this time.”</p> +<p>“I do know that,” David said, “but it sometimes +occurs to me that except for a few obvious +facts of that nature I really know very little about +you, Margaret.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205' name='page_205'></a>205</span></p> +<p>“There isn’t much to know—except that I’m a +woman.”</p> +<p>“That’s a good deal,” David answered slowly; +“to a mere man that seems to be considerable of +an adventure.”</p> +<p>“It is about as much of an adventure sometimes +as it would be to be a field of clover in an +insectless world.—This is wonderful tea, David, +but your cream is like butter and floats around in +it in wudges. No, don’t get any more, I’ve got +to go home. Grandmother still thinks it’s very +improper for me to call upon you, in spite of +Mademoiselle and your ancient and honorable +housekeeper.”</p> +<p>“Don’t go,” David said; “I apologize on my +knees for the cream. I’ll send out and have it +wet down, or whatever you do to cream in that +state. I want to talk to you. What did you mean +by your last remark?”</p> +<p>“About the cream, or the proprieties?”</p> +<p>“About women.”</p> +<p>“Everything and nothing, David dear. I’m a +little bit tired of being one, that’s all, and I want +to go home.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206' name='page_206'></a>206</span></p> +<p>“She wants to go home when she’s being so +truly delightful and cryptic,” David said. “Have +you been seeing visions, Margaret, in my hearth +fire? Your eyes look as if you had.”</p> +<p>“I thought I did for a minute.” She rose and +stood absently fitting her gloves to her fingers. “I +don’t know exactly what it was I saw, but it was +something that made me uncomfortable. It gives +me the creeps to talk about being a woman. +David, do you know sometimes I have a kind of +queer hunch about Eleanor? I love her, you know, +dearly, dearly. I think that she is a very successful +kind of Frankenstein; but there are moments +when I have the feeling that she’s going to be a +storm center and bring some queer trouble upon +us. I wouldn’t say this to anybody but you, +David.”</p> +<p>As David tucked her in the car—he had arrived +at the dignity of owning one now—and watched +her sweet silhouette disappear, he, too, had his +moment of clairvoyance. He felt that he was +letting something very precious slip out of sight, +as if some radiant and delicate gift had been laid +lightly within his grasp and as lightly withdrawn +again. As if when the door closed on his friend +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207' name='page_207'></a>207</span> +Margaret some stranger, more silent creature who +was dear to him had gone with her. As soon as +he was dressed for dinner he called Margaret on +the telephone to know if she had arrived home +safely, and was informed not only that she had, +but that she was very wroth at him for getting +her down three flights of stairs in the midst of +her own dinner toilet.</p> +<p>“I had a kind of hunch, too,” he told her, “and +I felt as if I wanted to hear your voice speaking.”</p> +<p>But she only scoffed at him.</p> +<p>“If that’s the way you feel about your chauffeur,” +she said, “you ought to discharge him, but +he brought me home beautifully.”</p> +<p>The difference between a man’s moments of +prescience and a woman’s, is that the man puts +them out of his consciousness as quickly as he +can, while a woman clings to them fearfully and +goes her way a little more carefully for the momentary +flash of foresight. David tried to see +Margaret once or twice during that week but failed +to find her in when he called or telephoned, and +the special impulse to seek her alone again died +naturally.</p> +<p>One Saturday a few weeks later Eleanor telegraphed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208' name='page_208'></a>208</span> +him that she wished to come to New York +for the week-end to do some shopping.</p> +<p>He went to the train to meet her, and when +the slender chic figure in the most correct of tailor +made suits appeared at the gateway, with an obsequious +porter bearing her smart bag and ulster, he +gave a sudden gasp of surprise at the picture. He +had been aware for some time of the increase in +her inches and the charm of the pure cameo-cut +profile, but he regarded her still as a child histrionically +assuming the airs and graces of womanhood, +as small girl children masquerade in the +trailing skirts of their elders. He was accustomed +to the idea that she was growing up rapidly, but +the fact that she was already grown had never +actually dawned on him until this moment.</p> +<p>“You look as if you were surprised to see me, +Uncle David,—are you?” she said, slipping a slim +hand, warm through its immaculate glove, into +his. “You knew I was coming, and you came to +meet me, and yet you looked as surprised as if you +hadn’t expected me at all.”</p> +<p>“Surprised to see you just about expresses it, +Eleanor. I am surprised to see you. I was looking +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209' name='page_209'></a>209</span> +for a little girl in hair ribbons with her skirts +to her knees.”</p> +<p>“And a blue tam-o’-shanter?”</p> +<p>“And a blue tam-o’-shanter. I had forgotten +you had grown up any to speak of.”</p> +<p>“You see me every vacation,” Eleanor grumbled, +as she stepped into the waiting motor. “It isn’t +because you lack opportunity that you don’t notice +what I look like. It’s just because you’re naturally +unobserving.”</p> +<p>“Peter and Jimmie have been making a good +deal of fuss about your being a young lady, now +I think of it. Peter especially has been rather a +nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious +moments of triviality with the sweetly solemn +thought that our little girl has grown to be a +woman now.”</p> +<p>“Oh, does <i>he</i> think I’m grown up, does he +really?”</p> +<p>“Jimmie is almost as bad. He’s all the time +wanting me to get you to New York over the weekend, +so that he can see if you are any taller than +you were the last time he saw you.”</p> +<p>“Are they coming to see me this evening?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210' name='page_210'></a>210</span></p> +<p>“Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up +with his sister. You know she’s on here from +China with her daughter. Peter wants you to meet +the child.”</p> +<p>“She must be as grown up as I am,” Eleanor +said. “I used to have her room, you know, when +I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like +her?”</p> +<p>“Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. +He says she looks like a heathen Chinee but otherwise +is passable. I didn’t know that you added +jealousy to the list of your estimable vices.”</p> +<p>“I’m not jealous,” Eleanor protested; “or if I +am it’s only because she’s blood relation,—and I’m +not, you know.”</p> +<p>“It’s a good deal more prosaic to be a blood +relation, if anybody should ask you,” David smiled. +“A blood relation is a good deal like the famous +primrose on the river’s brim.”</p> +<p>“‘A primrose by the river’s brim a yellow primrose +was to him,—and nothing more,’” Eleanor +quoted gaily. “Why, what more—” she broke off +suddenly and colored slightly.</p> +<p>“What more would anybody want to be than a +yellow primrose by the river’s brim?” David finished +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211' name='page_211'></a>211</span> +for her. “I don’t know, I’m sure. I’m a +mere man and such questions are too abstruse for +me, as I told your Aunt Margaret the other day. +Now I think of it, though, you don’t look unlike +a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter.”</p> +<p>“That’s because I’ve got a yellow ribbon on my +hat.”</p> +<p>“No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has +something to do with youth and fragrance and the +flowers that bloom in the spring.”</p> +<p>“The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la,” +Eleanor returned saucily, “have nothing to do with +the case.”</p> +<p>“She’s learning that she has eyes, good Lord,” +David said to himself, but aloud he remarked +paternally, “I saw all your aunts yesterday. Gertrude +gave a tea party and invited a great many +famous tea party types, and ourselves.”</p> +<p>“Was Aunt Beulah there?”</p> +<p>“I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like +the famous Queenie, with her hair in a braid.”</p> +<p>“Not really.”</p> +<p>“Pretty nearly. She’s gone in for dress reform +now, you know, a kind of middy blouse made out +of a striped portière with a kilted skirt of the same +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212' name='page_212'></a>212</span> +material and a Scotch cap. She doesn’t look so +bad in it. Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar +phenomenon these days. She’s growing better-looking +and behaving worse every day of her life.”</p> +<p>“Behaving worse?”</p> +<p>“She’s theory ridden and fad bitten. She’ll +come to a bad end if something doesn’t stop her.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean—stop her working for suffrage? +I’m a suffragist, Uncle David.”</p> +<p>“And quite right to remind me of it before I +began slamming the cause. No, I don’t mean +suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the +way she’s going after it. There are healthy ways +of insisting on your rights and unhealthy ways. +Beulah’s getting further and further off key, that’s +all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor +old cooperative father welcomes you to the associated +hearthstone.”</p> +<p>“This front entrance looks more like my front +entrance than any other place does,” Eleanor said. +“Oh! I’m so glad to be here. George, how is the +baby?” she asked the black elevator man, who +beamed delightedly upon her.</p> +<p>“Gosh! I didn’t know he had one,” David +chuckled. “It takes a woman—” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213' name='page_213'></a>213</span></p> +<p>Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets +and a five pound box of the chocolates most +in favor in the politest circles at the moment. +David whistled when he saw them.</p> +<p>“What’s devouring you, papa?” Jimmie asked +him. “Don’t I always place tributes at the feet of +the offspring?”</p> +<p>“Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes,” +David said. “It’s only the labels that surprised +me.”</p> +<p>“She knows the difference, now,” Jimmie answered, +“what would you?”</p> +<p>The night before her return to school it was +decreed that she should go to bed early. She had +spent two busy days of shopping and “seeing the +family.” She had her hours discussing her future +with Peter, long visits and talks with Margaret +and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at suffrage headquarters +with Beulah, as well as long sessions in +the shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made +her home now permanently with David. She sat +before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out +of the embers and David stood with one arm on +the mantel, smoking his after-dinner cigar, and +watching her. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214' name='page_214'></a>214</span></p> +<p>“Is it to be college, Eleanor?” he asked her +presently.</p> +<p>“I can’t seem to make up my mind, Uncle +David.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you like the idea?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I’d love it,—if—”</p> +<p>“If what, daughter?”</p> +<p>“If I thought I could spare the time.”</p> +<p>“The time? Elucidate.”</p> +<p>“I’m going to earn my own living, you know.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know.”</p> +<p>“I am. I’ve got to—in order to—to feel right +about things.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you like the style of living to which your +cooperative parents have accustomed you?”</p> +<p>“I love everything you’ve ever done for me, +but I can’t go on letting you do things for me +forever.”</p> +<p>“Why not?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know why not exactly. It doesn’t +seem—right, that’s all.”</p> +<p>“It’s your New England conscience, Eleanor; +one of the most specious varieties of consciences +in the world. It will always be tempting you to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215' name='page_215'></a>215</span> +do good that better may come. Don’t listen to it, +daughter.”</p> +<p>“I’m in earnest, Uncle David. I don’t know +whether I would be better fitted to earn my living +if I went to business college or real college. What +do you think?”</p> +<p>“I can’t think,—I’m stupefied.”</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter couldn’t think, either.”</p> +<p>“Have you mentioned this brilliant idea to +Peter?”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“What did he say?”</p> +<p>“He talked it over with me, but I think he thinks +I’ll change my mind.”</p> +<p>“I think you’ll change your mind. Good heavens! +Eleanor, we’re all able to afford you—the +little we spend on you is nothing divided among +six of us. It’s our pleasure and privilege. When +did you come to this extraordinary decision?”</p> +<p>“A long time ago. The day that Mrs. Bolling +talked to me, I think. There are things she said +that I’ve never forgotten. I told Uncle Peter to +think about it and then help me to decide which to +do, and I want you to think, Uncle David, and tell +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216' name='page_216'></a>216</span> +me truly what you believe the best preparation for +a business life would be. I thought perhaps I +might be a stenographer in an editorial office, and +my training there would be more use to me than +four years at college, but I don’t know.”</p> +<p>“You’re an extraordinary young woman,” David +said, staring at her. “I’m glad you broached this +subject, if only that I might realize how extraordinary, +but I don’t think anything will come of it, +my dear. I don’t want you to go to college unless +you really want to, but if you do want to, I hope +you will take up the pursuit of learning as a pursuit +and not as a means to an end. Do you hear +me, daughter?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Uncle David.”</p> +<p>“Then let’s have no more of this nonsense of +earning your own living.”</p> +<p>“Are you really displeased, Uncle David?”</p> +<p>“I should be if I thought you were serious,—but +it’s bedtime. If you’re going to get your beauty +sleep, my dear, you ought to begin on it immediately.”</p> +<p>Eleanor rose obediently, her brow clouded a +little, and her head held high. David watched the +color coming and going in the sweet face and the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217' name='page_217'></a>217</span> +tender breast rising and falling with her quickening +breath.</p> +<p>“I thought perhaps you would understand,” she +said. “Good night.”</p> +<p>She had always kissed him “good night” until +this visit, and he had refrained from commenting +on the omission before, but now he put out his +hand to her.</p> +<p>“Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked. +“There is only one way for a daughter to say +good night to her parent.”</p> +<p>She put up her face, and as she did so he caught +the glint of tears in her eyes.</p> +<p>“Why, Eleanor, dear,” he said, “did you care?” +And he kissed her. Then his lips sought hers again.</p> +<p>With his arms still about her shoulder he stood +looking down at her. A hot tide of crimson made +its way slowly to her brow and then receded, +accentuating the clear pallor of her face.</p> +<p>“That was a real kiss, dear,” he said slowly. +“We mustn’t get such things confused. I won’t +bother you with talking about it to-night, or until +you are ready. Until then we’ll pretend that it +didn’t happen, but if the thought of it should ever +disturb you the least bit, dear, you are to remember +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218' name='page_218'></a>218</span> +that the time is coming when I shall have something +to say about it; will you remember?”</p> +<p>“Yes, Uncle David,” Eleanor said uncertainly, +“but I—I—”</p> +<p>David took her unceremoniously by the shoulders.</p> +<p>“Go now,” he said, and she obeyed him without +further question.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219' name='page_219'></a>219</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII_BEULAHS_PROBLEM' id='CHAPTER_XVIII_BEULAHS_PROBLEM'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Beulah’s Problem</span></h3> +</div> +<p>Peter was shaving for the evening. His +sister was giving a dinner party for two of +her husband’s fellow bankers and their wives. +After that they were going to see the latest Belasco +production, and from there to some one of the new +dancing “clubs,”—the smart cabarets that were +forced to organize in the guise of private enterprises +to evade the two o’clock closing law. Peter +enjoyed dancing, but he did not as a usual thing +enjoy bankers’ wives. He was deliberating on the +possibility of excusing himself gracefully after the +theater, on the plea of having some work to do, and +finally decided that his sister’s feelings would be +hurt if she realized he was trying to escape the +climax of the hospitality she had provided so +carefully.</p> +<p>He gazed at himself intently over the drifts of +lather and twisted his shaving mirror to the most +propitious angle from time to time. In the room +across the hall—Eleanor’s room, he always called +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220' name='page_220'></a>220</span> +it to himself—his young niece was singing bits of +the Mascagni intermezzo interspersed with bits of +the latest musical comedy, in a rather uncertain +contralto.</p> +<p>“My last girl came from Vassar, and I don’t +know where to class her.”</p> +<p>Peter’s mind took up the refrain automatically. +“My last girl—” and began at the beginning of the +chorus again. “My last girl came from Vassar,” +which brought him by natural stages to the consideration +of the higher education and of Beulah, and +a conversation concerning her that he had had +with Jimmie and David the night before.</p> +<p>“She’s off her nut,” Jimmie said succinctly. “It’s +not exactly that there’s nobody home,” he rapped +his curly pate significantly, “but there’s too much +of a crowd there. She’s not the same old girl at +all. She used to be a good fellow, high-brow +propaganda and all. Now she’s got nothing else +in her head. What’s happened to her?”</p> +<p>“It’s what hasn’t happened to her that’s addled +her,” David explained. “It’s these highly charged, +hypersensitive young women that go to pieces +under the modern pressure. They’re the ones that +need licking into shape by all the natural processes.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221' name='page_221'></a>221</span></p> +<p>“By which you mean a drunken husband and a +howling family?” Jimmie suggested.</p> +<p>“Yes, or its polite equivalent.”</p> +<p>“That is true, isn’t it?” Peter said. “Feminism +isn’t the answer to Beulah’s problem.”</p> +<p>“It is the problem,” David said; “she’s poisoning +herself with it. I know what I’m talking about. +I’ve seen it happen. My cousin Jack married a girl +with a sister a great deal like Beulah, looks, temperament, +and everything else, though she wasn’t +half so nice. She got going the militant pace and +couldn’t stop herself. I never met her at a dinner +party that she wasn’t tackling somebody on the +subject of man’s inhumanity to woman. She ended +in a sanitorium; in fact, they’re thinking now of +taking her to the—”</p> +<p>“—bug house,” Jimmie finished cheerfully.</p> +<p>“And in the beginning she was a perfectly good +girl that needed nothing in the world but a chance +to develop along legitimate lines.”</p> +<p>“The frustrate matron, eh?” Peter said.</p> +<p>“The frustrate matron,” David agreed gravely. +“I wonder you haven’t realized this yourself, Gram. +You’re keener about such things than I am. Beulah +is more your job than mine.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222' name='page_222'></a>222</span></p> +<p>“Is she?”</p> +<p>“You’re the only one she listens to or looks up +to. Go up and tackle her some day and see what +you can do. She’s sinking fast.”</p> +<p>“Give her the once over and throw out the lifeline,” +Jimmie said.</p> +<p>“I thought all this stuff was a phase, a part of +her taking herself seriously as she always has. I +had no idea it was anything to worry about,” Peter +persisted. “Are you sure she’s in bad shape—that +she’s got anything more than a bad attack of Feminism +of the Species in its most virulent form? +They come out of <i>that</i>, you know.”</p> +<p>“She’s batty,” Jimmie nodded gravely. “Dave’s +got the right dope.”</p> +<p>“Go up and look her over,” David persisted; +“you’ll see what we mean, then. Beulah’s in a +bad way.”</p> +<p>Peter reviewed this conversation while he shaved +the right side of his face, and frowned prodigiously +through the lather. He wished that he had +an engagement that evening that he could break +in order to get to see Beulah at once, and discover +for himself the harm that had come to his friend. +He was devoted to Beulah. He had always felt +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223' name='page_223'></a>223</span> +that he saw a little more clearly than the others +the virtue that was in the girl. He admired the +pluck with which she made her attack on life and +the energy with which she accomplished her ends. +There was to him something alluring and quaint +about her earnestness. The fact that her soundness +could be questioned came to him with something +like a shock. As soon as he was dressed he was +called to the telephone to talk to David.</p> +<p>“Margaret has just told me that Doctor Penrose +has been up to see Beulah and pronounces it a +case of nervous breakdown. He wants her to try +out psycho-analysis, and that sort of thing. He +seems to feel that it’s serious. Margaret is fearfully +upset, poor girl. So’m I, to tell the truth.”</p> +<p>“And so am I,” Peter acknowledged to himself +as he hung up the receiver. He was so absorbed +during the evening that one of the ladies—the wife +of the fat banker—found him extremely dull and +decided against asking him to dinner with his sister. +The wife of the thin banker, who was in his +charge at the theater, got the benefit of his effort +to rouse himself and grace the occasion creditably, +and found him delightful. By the time the evening +was over he had decided that Beulah should be +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224' name='page_224'></a>224</span> +pulled out of whatever dim world of dismay and +delusion she might be wandering in, at whatever +cost. It was unthinkable that she should be wasted, +or that her youth and splendid vitality should go +for naught.</p> +<p>He found her eager to talk to him the next +night when he went to see her.</p> +<p>“Peter,” she said, “I want you to go to my aunt +and my mother, and tell them that I’ve got to go +on with my work,—that I can’t be stopped and +interrupted by this foolishness of doctors and +nurses. I never felt better in my life, except for +not being able to sleep, and I think that is due to +the way they have worried me. I live in a world +they don’t know anything about, that’s all. Even +if they were right, if I am wearing myself out soul +and body for the sake of the cause, what business +is it of theirs to interfere? I’m working for the +souls and bodies of women for ages to come. +What difference does it make if my soul and body +suffer? Why shouldn’t they?” Her eyes narrowed. +Peter observed the unnatural light in +them, the apparent dryness of her lips, the two +bright spots burning below her cheek-bones.</p> +<p>“Because,” he answered her slowly, “I don’t +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225' name='page_225'></a>225</span> +think it was the original intention of Him who put +us here that we should sacrifice everything we are to +the business of emphasizing the superiority of a sex.”</p> +<p>“That isn’t the point at all, Peter. No man +understands, no man can understand. It’s woman’s +equality we want emphasized, just literally that +and nothing more. You’ve pauperized and degraded +us long enough—”</p> +<p>“Thou canst not say I—” Peter began.</p> +<p>“Yes, you and every other man, every man in +the world is a party to it.”</p> +<p>“I had to get her going,” Peter apologized to +himself, “in order to get a point of departure. +Not if I vote for women, Beulah, dear,” he +added aloud.</p> +<p>“If you throw your influence with us instead of +against us,” she conceded, “you’re helping to right +the wrong that you have permitted for so long.”</p> +<p>“Well, granting your premise, granting all your +premises, Beulah—and I admit that most of them +have sound reasoning behind them—your battle +now is all over but the shouting. There’s no reason +that you personally should sacrifice your last drop +of energy to a campaign that’s practically won +already.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226' name='page_226'></a>226</span></p> +<p>“If you think the mere franchise is all I have +been working for, Peter,—”</p> +<p>“I don’t. I know the thousand and one activities +you women are concerned with. I know how +much better church and state always have been +and are bound to be, when the women get behind +and push, if they throw their strength right.”</p> +<p>Beulah rose enthusiastically to this bait and +talked rationally and well for some time. Just as +Peter was beginning to feel that David and Jimmie +had been guilty of the most unsympathetic +exaggeration of her state of mind—unquestionably +she was not as fit physically as usual—she +startled him with an abrupt change into almost +hysterical incoherence.</p> +<p>“I have a right to live my own life,” she concluded, +“and nobody—nobody shall stop me.”</p> +<p>“We are all living our own lives, aren’t we?” +Peter asked mildly.</p> +<p>“No woman lives her own life to-day,” Beulah +cried, still excitedly. “Every woman is living the +life of some man, who has the legal right to treat +her as an imbecile.”</p> +<p>“Hold on, Beulah. How about the suffrage +states, how about the women who are already in +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227' name='page_227'></a>227</span> +the proud possession of their rights and privileges? +They are not technical imbeciles any longer according +to your theory. The vote’s coming. Every +woman will be a super-woman in two shakes,—so +what’s devouring you, as Jimmie says?”</p> +<p>“It’s after all the states have suffrage that the +big fight will really begin,” Beulah answered +wearily. “It’s the habit of wearing the yoke we’ll +have to fight then.”</p> +<p>“The anti-feminists,” Peter said, “I see. Beulah, +can’t you give yourself any rest, or is the +nature of the cause actually suicidal?”</p> +<p>To his surprise her tense face quivered at this +and she tried to steady a tremulous lower lip.</p> +<p>“I am tired,” she said, a little piteously, “dreadfully +tired, but nobody cares.”</p> +<p>“Is that fair?”</p> +<p>“It’s true.”</p> +<p>“Your friends care.”</p> +<p>“They only want to stop me doing something +they have no sympathy with. What do Gertrude +and Margaret know of the real purpose of my life +or my failure or success? They take a sentimental +interest in my health, that’s all. Do you suppose +it made any difference to Jeanne d’Arc how many +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228' name='page_228'></a>228</span> +people took a sympathetic interest in her health if +they didn’t believe in what she believed in?”</p> +<p>“There’s something in that.”</p> +<p>“I thought Eleanor would grow up to take an +interest in the position of women, and to care about +the things I cared about, but she’s not going to.”</p> +<p>“She’s very fond of you.”</p> +<p>“Not as fond as she is of Margaret.”</p> +<p>Peter longed to dispute this, but he could not in +honesty.</p> +<p>“She’s a suffragist.”</p> +<p>“She’s so lukewarm she might just as well be +an anti. She’s naturally reactionary. Women +like that aren’t much use. They drag us back like +so much dead weight.”</p> +<p>“I suppose Eleanor has been a disappointment +to you,” Peter mused, “but she tries pretty hard +to be all things to all parents, Beulah. You’ll find +she won’t fail you if you need her.”</p> +<p>“I shan’t need her,” Beulah said, prophetically. +“I hoped she’d stand beside me in the work, but +she’s not that kind. She’ll marry early and have +a family, and that will be the end of her.”</p> +<p>“I wonder if she will,” Peter said, “I hope so. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229' name='page_229'></a>229</span> +She still seems such a child to me. I believe in +marriage, Beulah, don’t you?”</p> +<p>Her answer surprised him.</p> +<p>“Under certain conditions, I do. I made a vow +once that I would never marry and I’ve always +believed that it would be hampering and limiting +to a woman, but now I see that the fight has got +to go on. If there are going to be women to carry +on the fight they will have to be born of the women +who are fighting to-day.”</p> +<p>“Thank God,” Peter said devoutly. “It doesn’t +make any difference why you believe it, if you do +believe it.”</p> +<p>“It makes all the difference,” Beulah said, but +her voice softened. “What I believe is more to +me than anything else in the world, Peter.”</p> +<p>“That’s all right, too. I understand your point +of view, Beulah. You carry it a little bit too far, +that’s all that’s wrong with it from my way of +thinking.”</p> +<p>“Will you help me to go on, Peter?”</p> +<p>“How?”</p> +<p>“Talk to my aunt and my mother. Tell them +that they’re all wrong in their treatment of me.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230' name='page_230'></a>230</span></p> +<p>“I think I could undertake to do that”—Peter +was convinced that a less antagonistic attitude on +the part of her relatives would be more successful—“and +I will.”</p> +<p>Beulah’s eyes filled with tears.</p> +<p>“You’re the only one who comes anywhere near +knowing,” she said, “or who ever will, I guess. I +try so hard, Peter, and now when I don’t seem to +be accomplishing as much as I want to, as much +as it’s necessary for me to accomplish if I am to +go on respecting myself, every one enters into a +conspiracy to stop my doing anything at all. The +only thing that makes me nervous is the way I am +thwarted and opposed at every turn. I haven’t got +nervous prostration.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps not, but you have something remarkably +like <i>ideê fixe</i>,” Peter said to himself compassionately.</p> +<p>He found her actual condition less dangerous +but much more difficult than he had anticipated. +She was living wrong, that was the sum and substance +of her malady. Her life was spent confronting +theories and discounting conditions. She +did not realize that it is only the interest of our +investment in life that we can sanely contribute to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231' name='page_231'></a>231</span> +the cause of living. Our capital strength and +energy must be used for the struggle for existence +itself if we are to have a world of balanced individuals. +There is an arrogance involved in +assuming ourselves more humane than human that +reacts insidiously on our health and morals. Peter, +looking into the twitching hectic face before him +with the telltale glint of mania in the eyes, felt +himself becoming helpless with pity for a mind +gone so far askew. He felt curiously responsible +for Beulah’s condition.</p> +<p>“She wouldn’t have run herself so far aground,” +he thought, “if I had been on the job a little more. +I could have helped her to steer straighter. A word +here and a lift there and she would have come +through all right. Now something’s got to stop +her or she can’t be stopped. She’ll preach once +too often out of the tail of a cart on the subject +of equal guardianship,—and—”</p> +<p>Beulah put her hands to her face suddenly, and, +sinking back into the depths of the big cushioned +chair on the edge of which she had been tensely +poised during most of the conversation, burst into +tears.</p> +<p>“You’re the only one that knows,” she sobbed +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232' name='page_232'></a>232</span> +over and over again. “I’m so tired, Peter, but +I’ve got to go on and on and on. If they stop me, +I’ll kill myself.”</p> +<p>Peter crossed the room to her side and sat down +on her chair-arm.</p> +<p>“Don’t cry, dear,” he said, with a hand on her +head. “You’re too tired to think things out now,—but +I’ll help you.”</p> +<p>She lifted a piteous face, for the moment so +startlingly like that of the dead girl he had loved +that his senses were confused by the resemblance.</p> +<p>“How, Peter?” she asked. “How can you help +me?”</p> +<p>“I think I see the way,” he said slowly.</p> +<p>He slipped to his knees and gathered her close +in his arms.</p> +<p>“I think this will be the way, dear,” he said very +gently.</p> +<p>“Does this mean that you want me to marry +you?” she whispered, when she was calmer.</p> +<p>“If you will, dear,” he said. “Will you?”</p> +<p>“I will,—if I can, if I can make it seem right +to after I’ve thought it all out.—Oh! Peter, I love +you. I love you.”</p> +<p>“I had no idea of that,” he said gravely, “but +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233' name='page_233'></a>233</span> +it’s wonderful that you do. I’ll put everything +I’ve got into trying to make you happy, Beulah.”</p> +<p>“I know you will, Peter.” Her arms closed +around his neck and tightened there. “I love you.”</p> +<p>He made her comfortable and she relaxed like a +tired child, almost asleep under his soothing hand, +and the quiet spell of his tenderness.</p> +<p>“I didn’t know it could be like this,” she whispered.</p> +<p>“But it can,” he answered her.</p> +<p>In his heart he was saying, “This is best. I am +sure this is best. It is the right and normal way +for her—and for me.”</p> +<p>In her tri-cornered dormitory room at the new +school which she was not sharing with any one this +year Eleanor, enveloped in a big brown and yellow +wadded bathrobe, was writing a letter to Peter. +Her hair hung in two golden brown braids over +her shoulders and her pure profile was bent intently +over the paper. At the moment when Beulah +made her confession of love and closed her eyes +against the breast of the man who had just asked +her to marry him, two big tears forced their way +between Eleanor’s lids and splashed down upon her +letter.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234' name='page_234'></a>234</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIX_MOSTLY_UNCLE_PETER' id='CHAPTER_XIX_MOSTLY_UNCLE_PETER'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Mostly Uncle Peter</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Dear Uncle Peter,” the letter ran, +“I am very, very homesick and lonely for +you to-day. It seems to me that I would gladly give +a whole year of my life just for the privilege of +being with you, and talking instead of writing,—but +since that can not be, I am going to try and +write you about the thing that is troubling me. I +can’t bear it alone any longer, and still I don’t know +whether it is the kind of thing that it is honorable +to tell or not. So you see I am very much troubled +and puzzled, and this trouble involves some one +else in a way that it is terrible to think of.</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter, dear, I do not want to be married. +Not until I have grown up, and seen something +of the world. You know it is one of my +dearest wishes to be self-supporting, not because I +am a Feminist or a new woman, or have ‘the unnatural +belief of an antipathy to man’ that you’re +always talking about, but just because it will prove +to me once and for all that I belong to myself, and +that my <i>soul</i> isn’t, and never has been cooperative. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235' name='page_235'></a>235</span> +You know what I mean by this, and you are not +hurt by my feeling so. You, I am sure, would not +want me to be married, or to have to think of myself +as engaged, especially not to anybody that we +all knew and loved, and who is very close to me +and you in quite another way. Please don’t try to +imagine what I mean, Uncle Peter—even if you +know, you must tell yourself that you don’t know. +Please, please pretend even to yourself that I +haven’t written you this letter. I know people do +tell things like this, but I don’t know quite how +they bring themselves to do it, even if they have +somebody like you who understands everything—everything.</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter, dear, I am supposed to be going +to be married by and by when the one who wants +it feels that it can be spoken of, and until that +happens, I’ve got to wait for him to speak, unless I +can find some way to tell him that I do not want it +ever to be. I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t +know how to make him feel that I do not belong +to him. It is only myself I belong to, and I belong +to you, but I don’t know how to make that plain +to any one who does not know it already. I can’t +say it unless perhaps you can help me to. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236' name='page_236'></a>236</span></p> +<p>“I am different from the other girls. I know +every girl always thinks there is something different +about her, but I think there are ways in which +I truly am different. When I want anything I +know more clearly what it is, and why I want it +than most other girls do, and not only that, but I +know now, that I want to keep myself, and everything +I think and feel and am,—<i>sacred</i>. There is +an inner shrine in a woman’s soul that she must +keep inviolate. I know that now.</p> +<p>“A liberty that you haven’t known how, or had +the strength to prevent, is a terrible thing. One +can’t forget it. Uncle Peter, dear, twice in my life +things have happened that drive me almost desperate +when I think of them. If these things should +happen again when I know that I don’t want them +to, I don’t think there would be any way of my +bearing it. Perhaps you can tell me something +that will make me find a way out of this tangle. +I don’t see what it could be, but lots of times you +have shown me the way out of endless mazes that +were not grown up troubles like this, but seemed +very real to me just the same.</p> +<p>“Uncle Peter, dear, dear, dear,—you are all I +have. I wish you were here to-night, though you +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237' name='page_237'></a>237</span> +wouldn’t be let in, even if you beat on the gate +ever so hard, for it’s long after bedtime. I am up +in my tower room all alone. Oh! answer this +letter. Answer it quickly, quickly.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a +tear splotched envelope to Peter. Then she slowly +tore letter and envelope into little bits.</p> +<p>“He would know,” she said to herself. “I +haven’t any real right to tell him. It would be just +as bad as any kind of tattling.”</p> +<p>She began another letter to him but found she +could not write without saying what was in her +heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There +was nothing in her experience to help her in her +relation to David. His kiss on her lips had taught +her the nature of such kisses: had made her understand +suddenly the ease with which the strange, +sweet spell of sex is cast. She related it to the +episode of the unwelcome caress bestowed upon +her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half +forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. +She understood now how she should +have repelled that unconscionable boy, but that +understanding did not help her with the problem +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238' name='page_238'></a>238</span> +of her Uncle David. Though the thought of it +thrilled through her with a strange incredible +delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon +her lips.</p> +<p>“It’s—it’s—like that,” she said to herself. “I +want it to be from somebody—else. Somebody +<i>realer</i> to me. Somebody that would make it seem +right.” But even to herself she mentioned no +names.</p> +<p>She had definitely decided against going to college. +She felt that she must get upon her own +feet quickly and be under no obligation to any man. +Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning +to indicate the way that she should tread. +No man or woman who did not understand “the +value of a dollar,” was properly equipped to do +battle with the realities of life. The value of a +dollar, and a clear title to it—these were the principles +upon which her integrity must be founded +if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her +Puritan fathers had bestowed this heritage upon +her. She had always felt the irregularity of her +economic position; now that the complication of +her relation with David had arisen, it was beginning +to make her truly uncomfortable. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239' name='page_239'></a>239</span></p> +<p>David had been very considerate of her, but his +consideration frightened her. He had been so +afraid that she might be hurt or troubled by his +attitude toward her that he had explained again, +and almost in so many words that he was only +waiting for her to grow accustomed to the idea +before he asked her to become his wife. She had +looked forward with considerable trepidation to +the Easter vacation following the establishment of +their one-sided understanding, but David relieved +her apprehension by putting up at his club and +leaving her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. +There, with Mademoiselle still treating her +as a little girl, and the other five of her heterogeneous +foster family to pet and divert her at +intervals, she soon began to feel her life swing +back into a more accustomed and normal perspective. +David’s attitude to her was as simple as +ever, and when she was with the devoted sextet +she was almost able to forget the matter that was +at issue between them—almost but not quite.</p> +<p>She took quite a new kind of delight in her +association with the group. She found herself suddenly +on terms of grown up equality with them. +Her consciousness of the fact that David was +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240' name='page_240'></a>240</span> +tacitly waiting for her to become a woman, had +made a woman of her already, and she looked on +her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even +though a very newly fledged and timorous one.</p> +<p>She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, +but with Jimmie she was soon on her old familiar +footing.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun,” she +wrote in her diary. “He does just the same old +things he used to do with me, and a good many +new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and +gets me taxi-cabs as if I were really a grown up +young lady, and he pinches my nose and teases me +as if I were still the little girl that kept house in +a studio for him. I never realized before what a +good-looking man he is. I used to think that +Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the +three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally +good-looking. Uncle David has a great +deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle Jimmie +is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic +looking into the bargain. The ladies on the +Avenue all turn to look at him when we go walking. +He says that the gentlemen all turn to look +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241' name='page_241'></a>241</span> +at me, and I think perhaps they do when I have +my best clothes on, but in my school clothes I am +quite certain that nothing like that happens.</p> +<p>“I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday +and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday,—four +days of my vacation. We’ve been to the Hippodrome +and Chinatown, and we’ve dined at Sherry’s, +and one night we went down to the little Italian +restaurant where I had my first introduction to +<i>eau rougie</i>, and was so distressed about it. I +shall never forget that night, and I don’t think +Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing me about +it. It is nice to be with Uncle Jimmie so much, +but I never seem to see Uncle Peter any more. +Alphonse is very careful about taking messages, I +know, but it does seem to me that Uncle Peter +must have telephoned more times than I know of. +It does seem as if he would, at least, try to see +me long enough to have one of our old time talks +again. To see him with all the others about is +only a very little better than not seeing him at all. +He isn’t like himself, someway. There is a shadow +over him that I do not understand.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Don’t you think that Uncle Peter has changed?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242' name='page_242'></a>242</span> +she asked Jimmie, when the need of speaking of +him became too strong to withstand.</p> +<p>“He is a little pale about the ears,” Jimmie conceded, +“but I think that’s the result of hard work +and not enough exercise. He spends all his spare +time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping +and getting out on his horse the way he used to. +He’s doing a good job on the old dear, but it’s +some job, nevertheless and notwithstanding—”</p> +<p>“Is Aunt Beulah feeling better than she was?” +Eleanor’s lips were dry, but she did her best to +make her voice sound natural. It seemed strange +that Jimmie could speak so casually of a condition +of affairs that made her very heart stand still. “I +didn’t know that Uncle Peter had been taking +care of her.”</p> +<p>“Taking care of her isn’t a circumstance to +what Peter has been doing for Beulah. You know +she hasn’t been right for some time. She got +burning wrong, like the flame on our old gas +stove in the studio when there was air in it.”</p> +<p>“Uncle David thought so the last time I was +here,” Eleanor said, “but I didn’t know that +Uncle Peter—” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243' name='page_243'></a>243</span></p> +<p>“Peter, curiously enough, was the last one to +tumble. Dave and I got alarmed about the girl +and held a consultation, with the result that Doctor +Gramercy was called. If we’d believed he would +go into it quite so heavily we might have thought +again before we sicked him on. It’s very nice +for Mary Ann, but rather tough on Abraham as +they said when the lady was deposited on that +already overcrowded bosom. Now Beulah’s got +suffrage mania, and Peter’s got Beulah mania, and +it’s a merry mess all around.”</p> +<p>“Is Uncle Peter with her a lot?”</p> +<p>“Every minute. You haven’t seen much of him +since you came, have you?—Well, the reason is +that every afternoon as soon as he can get away +from the office, he puts on a broad sash marked +‘Votes for Women,’ and trundles Beulah around +in her little white and green perambulator, trying +to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks +to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. +Suffrage is the only subject on her mind, he explains, +so all he can do is to try to cuckoo gently +under it day by day. It’s a very complicated process +but he’s making headway.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244' name='page_244'></a>244</span></p> +<p>“I’m glad of that,” Eleanor said faintly. “How—how +is Aunt Gertrude? I don’t see her very +often, either.”</p> +<p>“Gertrude’s all right.” It was Jimmie’s turn to +look self-conscious. “She never has time for me +any more; I’m not high-brow enough for her. +She’s getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting +everywhere.”</p> +<p>“I know she is. She gave me a cast of her +faun’s head. I think it is lovely. Aunt Margaret +looks well.”</p> +<p>“She is, I guess, but don’t let’s waste all our +valuable time talking about the family. Let’s talk +about us—you and me. You ask me how I’m +feeling and then I’ll tell you. Then I’ll ask you +how you’re feeling and you’ll tell me. Then +I’ll tell you how I imagine you must be feeling +from the way you’re looking,—and that will give +me a chance to expatiate on the delectability of +your appearance. I’ll work up delicately to the +point where you will begin to compare me favorably +with all the other nice young men you know,—and +then we’ll be off.”</p> +<p>“Shall we?” Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle +a little. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245' name='page_245'></a>245</span></p> +<p>“We shall indeed,” he assured her solemnly. +“You begin. No, on second thoughts, I’ll begin. +I’ll begin at the place where I start telling you +how excessively well you’re looking. I don’t know, +considering its source, whether it would interest +you or not, but you have the biggest blue eyes that +I’ve, ever seen in all my life,—and I’m rather a +judge of them.”</p> +<p>“All the better to eat you with, my dear,” +Eleanor chanted.</p> +<p>“Quite correct.” He shot her a queer glance +from under his eyebrows. “I don’t feel very safe +when I look into them, my child. It would be a +funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, +wouldn’t it?—well,—but away with such nonsense. +I mustn’t blither to the very babe whose cradle I +am rocking, must I?”</p> +<p>“I’m not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old +sometimes. Older than any of you.”</p> +<p>“Oh! you are, you are. You’re a regular sphinx +sometimes. Peter says that you even disconcert +him at times, when you take to remembering things +out of your previous experience.”</p> +<p>“‘When he was a King in Babylon and I was a +Christian Slave?’” she quoted quickly. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246' name='page_246'></a>246</span></p> +<p>“Exactly. Only I’d prefer to play the part of the +King of Babylon, if it’s all the same to you, niecelet. +How does the rest of it go, ‘yet not for a—’ something +or other ‘would I wish undone that deed +beyond the grave.’ Gosh, my dear, if things were +otherwise, I think I could understand how that +feller felt. Get on your hat, and let’s get out into +the open. My soul is cramped with big potentialities +this afternoon. I wish you hadn’t grown up, +Eleanor. You are taking my breath away in a +peculiar manner. No man likes to have his breath +taken away so suddint like. Let’s get out into the +rolling prairie of Central Park.”</p> +<p>But the rest of the afternoon was rather a failure. +The Park had that peculiar bleakness that +foreruns the first promise of spring. The children, +that six weeks before were playing in the snow and +six weeks later would be searching the turf for +dandelions, were in the listless between seasons +state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive +balminess in the air that seemed merely to +overlay a penetrating chilliness.</p> +<p>“I’m sorry I’m not more entertaining this afternoon,” +Jimmie apologized on the way home. “It +isn’t that I am not happy, or that I don’t feel the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247' name='page_247'></a>247</span> +occasion to be more than ordinarily propitious; +I’m silent upon a peak in Darien,—that’s all.”</p> +<p>“I was thinking of something else, too,” Eleanor +said.</p> +<p>“I didn’t say I was thinking of something else.”</p> +<p>“People are always thinking of something else +when they aren’t talking to each other, aren’t +they?”</p> +<p>“Something else, or each other, Eleanor. I +wasn’t thinking of something else, I was thinking—well, +I won’t tell you exactly—at present. A +penny for your thoughts, little one.”</p> +<p>“They aren’t worth it.”</p> +<p>“A penny is a good deal of money. You can +buy joy for a penny.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid I couldn’t—buy joy, even if you +gave me your penny, Uncle Jimmie.”</p> +<p>“You might try. My penny might not be like +other pennies. On the other hand, your thoughts +might be worth a fortune to me.”</p> +<p>“I’m afraid they wouldn’t be worth anything to +anybody.”</p> +<p>“You simply don’t know what I am capable of +making out of them.”</p> +<p>“I wish I could make something out of them,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248' name='page_248'></a>248</span> +Eleanor said so miserably that Jimmie was filled +with compunction for having tired her out, and +hailed a passing taxi in which to whiz her home +again.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“I have found out that Uncle Peter is spending +all his time with Aunt Beulah,” she wrote in her +diary that evening. “It is beautiful of him to try +to help her through this period of nervous collapse, +and just like him, but I don’t understand +why it is that he doesn’t come and tell me about +it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought +to know that I love him so dearly and deeply that +I could help him even in helping her. It isn’t like +him not to share his anxieties with me. Aunt +Beulah is a grown up woman, and has friends and +doctors and nurses, and every one knows her need. +It seems to me that he might think that I have no +one but him, and that whatever might lie heavy +on my heart I could only confide in him. I have +always told him everything. Why doesn’t it occur +to him that I might have something to tell him +now? Why doesn’t he come to me?</p> +<p>“I am afraid he will get sick. He needs a good +deal of exercise to keep in form. If he doesn’t +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249' name='page_249'></a>249</span> +have a certain amount of muscular activity his +digestion is not so good. There are two little +creases between his eyes that I never remember +seeing there before. I asked him the other night +when he was here with Aunt Beulah if his head +ached, and he said ‘no,’ but Aunt Beulah said her +head ached almost all the time. Of course, Aunt +Beulah is important, and if Uncle Peter is trying +to bring her back to normality again she is important +to him, and that makes her important to +me for his sake also, but nobody in the world is +worth the sacrifice of Uncle Peter. Nobody, nobody.</p> +<p>“I suppose it’s a part of his great beauty that +he should think so disparagingly of himself. I +might not love him so well if he knew just how +dear and sweet and great his personality is. It +isn’t so much what he says or does, or even the +way he looks that constitutes his charm, it’s the +simple power and radiance behind his slightest +move. Oh! I can’t express it. He doesn’t think +he is especially fine or beautiful. He doesn’t know +what a waste it is when he spends his strength +upon somebody who isn’t as noble in character as +he is,—but I know, and it makes me wild to think +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250' name='page_250'></a>250</span> +of it. Oh! why doesn’t he come to me? My +vacation is almost over, and I don’t see how I +could bear going back to school without one comforting +hour of him alone.</p> +<p>“I intended to write a detailed account of my +vacation, but I can not. Uncle Jimmie has certainly +tried to make me happy. He is so funny and dear. +I could have so much fun with him if I were not +worried about Uncle Peter!</p> +<p>“Uncle David says he wants to spend my last +evening with me. We are going to dine here, and +then go to the theater together. I am going to +try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am +afraid he won’t give me the chance. Life is a +strange mixture of things you want and can’t have, +and things you can have and don’t want. It seems +almost disloyal to put that down on paper about +Uncle David. I do want him and love him, but +oh!—not in that way. Not in that way. There is +only one person in a woman’s life that she can +feel that way about. Why—why—why doesn’t +my Uncle Peter come to me?”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251' name='page_251'></a>251</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XX_THE_MAKINGS_OF_A_TRIPLE_WEDDING' id='CHAPTER_XX_THE_MAKINGS_OF_A_TRIPLE_WEDDING'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Makings of a Triple Wedding</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Just by way of formality,” David said, +“and not because I think any one present”—he +smiled on the five friends grouped about +his dinner table—“still takes our old resolution +seriously, I should like to be released from the +anti-matrimonial pledge that I signed eight years +ago this November. I have no announcement to +make as yet, but when I do wish to make an announcement—and +I trust to have the permission +granted very shortly—I want to be sure of my +technical right to do so.”</p> +<p>“Gosh all Hemlocks!” Jimmie exclaimed in a +tone of such genuine confusion that it raised a +shout of laughter. “I never thought of that.”</p> +<p>“Nor I,” said Peter. “I never signed any pledge +to that effect.”</p> +<p>“We left you out of it, Old Horse, regarding +you as a congenital celibate anyway,” Jimmie +answered. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252' name='page_252'></a>252</span></p> +<p>“Some day soon you will understand how much +you wronged me,” Peter said with a covert glance +at Beulah.</p> +<p>“I wish I could say as much,” Jimmie sighed, +“since this is the hour of confession I don’t mind +adding that I hope I may be able to soon.”</p> +<p>Gertrude clapped her hands softly.</p> +<p>“Wonderful, wonderful!” she cried. “We’ve +the makings of a triple wedding in our midst. +Look into the blushing faces before us and hear the +voice that breathed o’er Eden echoing in our ears. +This is the most exciting moment of my life! +Girls, get on your feet and drink to the health of +these about-to-be Benedicts. Up in your chairs,—one +slipper on the table. Now!”—and the moment +was saved.</p> +<p>Gertrude had seen Margaret’s sudden pallor and +heard the convulsive catching of her breath,—Margaret +rising Undine-like out of a filmy, pale +green frock, with her eyes set a little more deeply +in the shadows than usual. Her quick instinct to +the rescue was her own salvation.</p> +<p>David was on his feet.</p> +<p>“On behalf of my coadjutors,” he said, “I thank +you. All this is extremely premature for me, and +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253' name='page_253'></a>253</span> +I imagine from the confusion of the other gentlemen +present it is as much, if not more so, for +them. Personally I regret exceedingly being unable +to take you more fully into my confidence. +The only reason for this partial revelation is that +I wished to be sure that I was honorably released +from my oath of abstinence. Hang it all! You +fellows say something,” he concluded, sinking +abruptly into his chair.</p> +<p>“Your style always was distinctly mid-Victorian,” +Jimmie murmured. “I’ve got nothing to +say, except that I wish I had something to say and +that if I <i>do</i> have something to say in the near +future I’ll create a real sensation! When Miss +Van Astorbilt permits David to link her name with +his in the caption under a double column cut in +our leading journals, you’ll get nothing like the +thrill that I expect to create with my modest announcement. +I’ve got a real romance up my +sleeve.”</p> +<p>“So’ve I, Jimmie. There is no Van Astorbilt +in mine.”</p> +<p>“Some simple bar-maid then? A misalliance in +our midst. Now about you, Peter?”</p> +<p>“The lady won’t give me her permission to +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254' name='page_254'></a>254</span> +speak,” Peter said. “She knows how proud and +happy I shall be when I am able to do so.”</p> +<p>Beulah looked up suddenly.</p> +<p>“It is better we should marry,” she said. “I +didn’t realize that when I exacted that oath from +you. It is from the intellectual type that the +brains to carry on the great work of the world +must be inherited.”</p> +<p>“I pass,” Jimmie murmured. “Where’s the document +we signed?”</p> +<p>“I’ve got it. I’ll destroy it to-night and then we +may all consider ourselves free to take any step +that we see fit. It was really only as a further +protection to Eleanor that we signed it.”</p> +<p>“Eleanor will be surprised, won’t she?” Gertrude +suggested. Three self-conscious masculine faces +met her innocent interrogation.</p> +<p>“<i>Eleanor</i>,” Margaret breathed, “<i>Eleanor</i>.”</p> +<p>“I rather think she will,” Jimmie chuckled irresistibly, +but David said nothing, and Peter stared +unseeingly into the glass he was still twirling on +its stem.</p> +<p>“Eleanor will be taken care of just the same,” +Beulah said decisively. “I don’t think we need +even go through the formality of a vote on that.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255' name='page_255'></a>255</span></p> +<p>“Eleanor will be taken care of,” David said +softly.</p> +<p>The Hutchinsons’ limousine—old Grandmother +Hutchinson had a motor nowadays—was calling +for Margaret, and she was to take the two other +girls home. David and Jimmie—such is the nature +of men—were disappointed in not being able to +take Margaret and Gertrude respectively under +their accustomed protection.</p> +<p>“I wanted to talk to you, Gertrude,” Jimmie said +reproachfully as she slipped away from his ingratiating +hand on her arm.</p> +<p>“I thought I should take you home to-night, +Margaret,” David said; “you never gave me the +slip before.”</p> +<p>“The old order changeth,” Gertrude replied +lightly to them both, as she preceded Margaret +into the luxurious interior.</p> +<p>“It’s Eleanor,” Gertrude announced as the big +car swung into Fifth Avenue.</p> +<p>“Which is Eleanor?” Margaret cried hysterically.</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” Beulah asked.</p> +<p>“Jimmie or David—or—or both are going to +marry Eleanor. Didn’t you see their faces when +Beulah spoke of her?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256' name='page_256'></a>256</span></p> +<p>“David wants to marry Eleanor,” Margaret said +quietly. “I’ve known it all winter—without realizing +what it was I knew.”</p> +<p>“Well, who is Jimmy going to marry then?” +Beulah inquired.</p> +<p>“Who is Peter going to marry for that matter?” +Gertrude cut in. “Oh! it doesn’t make any difference,—we’re +losing them just the same.”</p> +<p>“Not necessarily,” Beulah said. “No matter +what combinations come about, we shall still have +an indestructible friendship.”</p> +<p>“Indestructible friendship—shucks,” Gertrude +cried. “The boys are going to be married—married—married! +Marriage is the one thing that indestructible +friendships don’t survive—except as ghosts.”</p> +<p>“It should be Peter who is going to marry +Eleanor,” Margaret said. “It’s Peter who has +always loved her best. It’s Peter she cares for.”</p> +<p>“As a friend,” Beulah said, “as her dearest +friend.”</p> +<p>“Not as a friend,” Margaret answered softly, +“she loves him. She has always loved him. It +comes early sometimes.”</p> +<p>“I don’t believe it. I simply don’t believe it.”</p> +<p>“I believe it,” Gertrude said. “I hadn’t thought +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257' name='page_257'></a>257</span> +of it before. Of course, it must be Peter who is +going to marry her.”</p> +<p>“If it isn’t we’ve succeeded in working out a +rather tragic experiment,” Margaret said, “haven’t +we?”</p> +<p>“Life is a tragic experiment for any woman,” +Gertrude said sententiously.</p> +<p>“Peter doesn’t intend to marry Eleanor,” Beulah +persisted. “I happen to know.”</p> +<p>“Do you happen to know who he is going to +marry?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I do know, but I—I can’t tell you yet.”</p> +<p>“Whoever it is, it’s a mistake,” Margaret said. +“It’s our little Eleanor he wants. I suppose he +doesn’t realize it himself yet, and when he does +it will be too late. He’s probably gone and tied +himself up with somebody entirely unsuitable, +hasn’t he, Beulah?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Beulah said; “perhaps he has. +I hadn’t thought of it that way.”</p> +<p>“It’s the way to think of it, I know.” Margaret’s +eyes filled with sudden tears. “But whatever he’s +done it’s past mending now. There’ll be no question +of Peter’s backing out of a bargain—bad or +good, and our poor little kiddie’s got to suffer.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258' name='page_258'></a>258</span></p> +<p>“Beulah took it hard,” Gertrude commented, as +they turned up-town again after dropping their +friend at her door. The two girls were spending +the night together at Margaret’s. “I wonder on +what grounds. I think besides being devoted to +Eleanor, she feels terrifically responsible for her. +She isn’t quite herself again either.”</p> +<p>“She is almost, thanks to Peter.”</p> +<p>“But—oh! I can’t pretend to think of anything +else,—who—who—who—are our boys going to +marry?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know, Gertrude.”</p> +<p>“But you care?”</p> +<p>“It’s a blow.”</p> +<p>“I always thought that you and David—”</p> +<p>Margaret met her eyes bravely but she did not +answer the implicit question.</p> +<p>“I always thought that you and Jimmie—” she +said presently. “Oh! Gertrude, you would have +been so good for him.”</p> +<p>“Oh! it’s all over now,” Gertrude said, “but I +didn’t know that a living soul suspected me.”</p> +<p>“I’ve known for a long time.”</p> +<p>“Are you really hurt, dear?” Gertrude whispered +as they clung to each other. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259' name='page_259'></a>259</span></p> +<p>“Not really. It could have been—that’s all. He +could have made me care. I’ve never seen any one +else whom I thought that of. I—I was so used to +him.”</p> +<p>“That’s the rub,” Gertrude said, “we’re so used +to them. They’re so—so preposterously necessary +to us.”</p> +<p>Late that night clasped in each other’s arms +they admitted the extent of their desolation. Life +had been robbed of a magic,—a mystery. The +solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding +was the background of so much lovely +folly, so many unrealized possibilities, so many +nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution +of their circle was an unthinkable calamity.</p> +<p>“We ought to have put out our hands and taken +them if we wanted them,” Gertrude said, out of +the darkness. “Other women do. Probably these +other women have. Men are helpless creatures. +They need to be firmly turned in the right direction +instead of being given their heads. We’ve +been too good to our boys. We ought to have +snitched them.”</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t pay that price for love,” Margaret +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260' name='page_260'></a>260</span> +said. “I couldn’t. By the time I had made it +happen I wouldn’t want it.”</p> +<p>“That’s my trouble too,” Gertrude said. Then +she turned over on her pillow and sobbed helplessly. +“Jimmie had such ducky little curls,” she +explained incoherently. “I do this sometimes +when I think of them. Otherwise, I’m not a crying +woman.”</p> +<p>Margaret put out a hand to her; but long after +Gertrude’s breath began to rise and fall regularly, +she lay staring wide-eyed into the darkness.</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261' name='page_261'></a>261</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXI_ELEANOR_HEARS_THE_NEWS' id='CHAPTER_XXI_ELEANOR_HEARS_THE_NEWS'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Eleanor Hears the News</span></h3> +</div> +<p>“Dear Uncle Jimmie:</p> +<p>“I said I would write you, but now that +I have taken this hour in which to do it, I find it +is a very, very hard letter that I have got to write. +In the first place I can’t believe that the things +you said to me that night were real, or that you +were awake and in the world of realities when you +said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; +that you were talking as a man does sometimes in +delirium when he believes the woman he loves to +be by his side, and I was listening the same way. +It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. +I can’t help feeling that your idea of me is a dream +idea, and the pain that you said this kind of a +letter would give you will be merely dream pain. +It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find +that all the lovely ways we felt, and delicately +beautiful things we had, were only dream things +that we wouldn’t even understand if we were +thoroughly awake. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262' name='page_262'></a>262</span></p> +<p>“In the second place, you can’t want to marry +your little niecelet, the funny little ‘kiddo,’ that used +to burn her fingers and the beefsteak over that old +studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of +make-believe together. That’s what our association +always ought to mean to us,—just chumship, +and wonderful and preposterous <i>pretends</i>. I +couldn’t think of myself being married to you any +more than I could Jack the giant killer, or Robinson +Crusoe. You’re my truly best and dearest +childhood’s playmate, and that is a great deal to +be, Uncle Jimmie. I don’t think a little girl ever +grows up quite <i>whole</i> unless she has somewhere, +somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn’t want +to marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? +There are some kinds of playmates that can’t +marry each other. I think that you and I are that +kind, Uncle Jimmie.</p> +<p>“My dear, my dear, don’t let this hurt you. +How can it hurt you, when I am only your little +adopted foster child that you have helped support +and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? +I love you so much,—you are so precious to me +that you <i>must</i> wake up out of this distorted, though +lovely dream that I was present at! +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263' name='page_263'></a>263</span></p> +<p>“We must all be happy. Nobody can break our +hearts if we are strong enough to withhold them. +Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find the +way to be our bravest all the time. I know that +what you are feeling now is not real. I can’t tell +you how I know, but I do know the difference. +The roots are not deep enough. They could be +pulled up without too terrible a havoc.</p> +<p>“Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I +said this would be a hard letter to write, and it has +been. If you could see my poor inkstained, weeping +face, you would realize that I am only your funny +little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously +at all. I hope you will come up for my graduation. +When you see me with all the other lumps and +frumps that are here, you will know that I am +not worth considering except as a kind of human +joke.</p> +<p>“Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you.</p> +<p>“Eleanor.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie +that Margaret spending a week-end in a town +in Connecticut adjoining that in which Eleanor’s +school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264' name='page_264'></a>264</span> +overnight at the inn where she was staying. She +had really planned the entire expedition for the +purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her for +the revelations that were in store for her, though +she was ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with +which she was going on into the Berkshires.</p> +<p>She started in abruptly, as was her way, over +the salad and cheese in the low studded Arts and +Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road house, +contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty +woman in new sporting clothes.</p> +<p>“Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are +going to be married,” she told her. “Did you +know it, Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“No, I didn’t,” Eleanor said faintly, but she +grew suddenly very white.</p> +<p>“Aren’t you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner +party one night last week in his studio, and +announced his intentions, but we don’t know the +name of the lady yet, and we can’t guess it. He +says it is not a society girl.”</p> +<p>“Who do you think it is?”</p> +<p>“Who do you think it is, Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“I—I can’t think, Aunt Margaret.”</p> +<p>“We don’t know who Jimmie is marrying either. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265' name='page_265'></a>265</span> +The facts were merely insinuated, but he said we +should have the shock of our lives when we knew.”</p> +<p>“When did he tell you?”</p> +<p>“A week ago last Wednesday. I haven’t seen +him since.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps he has changed his mind by now,” +Eleanor said.</p> +<p>“I don’t think that’s likely. They were both +very much in earnest. Aren’t you surprised, Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“I—I don’t know. Don’t you think it might be +that they both just thought they were going to +marry somebody—that really doesn’t want to +marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think it’s a mistake. David doesn’t +make mistakes.”</p> +<p>“He might make one,” Eleanor persisted.</p> +<p>Margaret found the rest of her story harder to +tell than she had anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped +in the formidable aloofness of the sensitive young, +was already suffering from the tale she had come +to tell,—why, it was not so easy to determine. It +might be merely from the pang of being shut out +from confidences that she felt should have been +shared with her at once. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266' name='page_266'></a>266</span></p> +<p>She waited until they were both ready for bed +(their rooms were connecting)—Eleanor in the +straight folds of her white dimity nightgown, and +her two golden braids making a picture that lingered +in Margaret’s memory for many years. “It +would have been easier to tell her in her street +clothes,” she thought. “I wish her profile were +not so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How +can I hurt such a lovely thing?”</p> +<p>“Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?” Eleanor +was asking.</p> +<p>“The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. +They like me better now that I have grown a nice +hard Hutchinson shell that doesn’t show my feelings +through. Haven’t you noticed how much +more like other people I’ve grown, Eleanor?”</p> +<p>“You’ve grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, +but I don’t think you’re very much like anybody +else, Aunt Margaret.”</p> +<p>“I have though,—every one notices it. You +haven’t asked me anything about Peter yet,” she +added suddenly.</p> +<p>The lovely color glowed in Eleanor’s cheeks for +an instant. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267' name='page_267'></a>267</span></p> +<p>“Is—is Uncle Peter well?” she asked. “I haven’t +heard from him for a long time.”</p> +<p>“Yes, he’s well,” Margaret said. “He’s looking +better than he was for a while. He had some news +to tell us too, Eleanor.”</p> +<p>Eleanor put her hand to her throat.</p> +<p>“What kind of news?” she asked huskily.</p> +<p>“He’s going to be married too. It came out +when the others told us. He said that he hadn’t +the consent of the lady to mention her name yet. +We’re as much puzzled about him as we are about +the other two.”</p> +<p>“It’s Aunt Beulah,” Eleanor said. “It’s Aunt +Beulah.”</p> +<p>She sat upright on the edge of the bed and +stared straight ahead of her. Margaret watched +the light and life and youth die out of the face +and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it.</p> +<p>“I don’t think it’s Beulah,” Margaret said. +“Beulah knows who it is, but I never thought of +it’s being Beulah herself.”</p> +<p>“If she knows—then she’s the one. He wouldn’t +have told her first if she hadn’t been.”</p> +<p>“Don’t let it hurt you too much, dear. We’re +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268' name='page_268'></a>268</span> +all hurt some, you know. Gertrude—and me, too, +Eleanor. It’s—it’s pain to us all.”</p> +<p>“Do you mean—Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?”</p> +<p>“Yes, dear,” Margaret smiled at her bravely.</p> +<p>“And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle +Jimmie?”</p> +<p>“She has for a good many years, I think.”</p> +<p>Eleanor covered her face with her hands.</p> +<p>“I didn’t know that,” she said. “I wish somebody +had told me.” She pushed Margaret’s arm +away from her gently, but her breath came hard. +“Don’t touch me,” she cried, “I can’t bear it. You +might not want to—if you knew. Please go,—oh! +please go—oh! please go.”</p> +<p>As Margaret closed the door gently between +them, she saw Eleanor throw her head back, and +push the back of her hand hard against her mouth, +as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret +had listened for hours in the night but had heard +not so much as the rustle of a garment from the +room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen +into the sleep of exhaustion. It was then that the +stricken child had made her escape. “Miss Hamlin +had found that she must take the early train,” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269' name='page_269'></a>269</span> +the clerk said, “and left this note for Miss Hutchinson.” +It was like Eleanor to do things decently +and in order.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“Dear Aunt Margaret,” her letter ran. “My +grandmother used to say that some people were +trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid +that is just about what I am,—a trouble breeder.</p> +<p>“I’ve been a worry and bother and care to you +all since the beginning, and I have repaid all your +kindness by bringing trouble upon you. Perhaps +you can guess what I mean. I don’t think I have +any right to tell you exactly in this letter. I can +only pray that it will be found to be all a mistake, +and come out right in the end. Surely such beautiful +people as you and Uncle David can find the +way to each other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and +Aunt Gertrude, who are a little blinder about life. +Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the +way, you four will walk together beautifully. +Please try, Aunt Margaret, to make things as right +as if I had never helped them to go wrong. I was +so young, I didn’t know how to manage. I shall +never be that kind of young again. I grew up +last night, Aunt Margaret. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270' name='page_270'></a>270</span></p> +<p>“You know the other reason why I am going. +Please do not let any one else know. If the others +could think I had met with some accident, don’t +you think that would be the wisest way? I would +like to arrange it so they wouldn’t try to find me +at all, but would just mourn for me naturally for +a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap +in the river, but I was afraid that would be too +hard for you. There won’t be any use in trying +to find me. I am going where you can not. I +couldn’t ever bear seeing one of your faces again. +I have done too much harm. Don’t let Uncle +Peter <i>know</i>, please, Aunt Margaret. I don’t want +him to know,—I don’t want to hurt him, and I +don’t want him to know.</p> +<p>“Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, +my dears, my dearests. I have taken all of my +allowance money. Please forgive me.</p> +<p>“Eleanor.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271' name='page_271'></a>271</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXII_THE_SEARCH' id='CHAPTER_XXII_THE_SEARCH'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Search</span></h3> +</div> +<p>Eleanor had not bought a ticket at the station, +Margaret ascertained, but the ticket +agent had tried to persuade her to. She had +thanked him and told him that she preferred to buy +it of the conductor. He was a lank, saturnine +individual and had been seriously smitten with +Eleanor’s charms, it appeared, and the extreme +solicitousness of his attitude at the suggestion of +any mystery connected with her departure made +Margaret realize the caution with which it would +be politic to proceed. She had very little hope of +finding Eleanor back at the school, but it was still +rather a shock when she telephoned the school +office and found that there was no news of her +there. She concocted a somewhat lame story to +account for Eleanor’s absence and promised the +authorities that she would be sent back to them +within the week,—a promise she was subsequently +obliged to acknowledge that she could not keep. +Then she fled to New York to break the disastrous +news to the others. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272' name='page_272'></a>272</span></p> +<p>She told Gertrude the truth and showed her the +pitiful letter Eleanor had left behind her, and together +they wept over it. Also together, they +faced David and Jimmie.</p> +<p>“She went away,” Margaret told them, “both +because she felt she was hurting those that she +loved and because she herself was hurt.”</p> +<p>“What do you mean?” David asked.</p> +<p>“I mean—that she belonged body and soul to +Peter and to nobody else,” Margaret answered +deliberately.</p> +<p>David bowed his head. Then he threw it back +again, suddenly.</p> +<p>“If that is true,” he said, “then I am largely +responsible for her going.”</p> +<p>“It is I who am responsible,” Jimmie groaned +aloud. “I asked her to marry me and she refused +me.”</p> +<p>“I asked her to marry me and didn’t give her +the chance to refuse,” David said; “it is that she +is running away from.”</p> +<p>“It was Peter’s engagement that was the last +straw,” Margaret said. “The poor baby withered +and shrank like a flower in the blast when I told +her that.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273' name='page_273'></a>273</span></p> +<p>“The damned hound—” Jimmie said feelingly +and without apology. “Who’s he engaged to anyway?”</p> +<p>“Eleanor says it’s Beulah, and the more I think +of it the more I think that she’s probably right.”</p> +<p>“That would be a nice mess, wouldn’t it?” Gertrude +suggested. “Remember how frank we were +with her about his probable lack of judgment, Margaret? +I don’t covet the sweet job of breaking +it to either one of them.”</p> +<p>Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it +to them both late that same afternoon at Beulah’s +apartment.</p> +<p>“I’ll find her,” Peter said briefly. And in response +to the halting explanation of her disappearance +that Margaret and Gertrude had done their +best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical +nature, he only said, “I don’t see that it makes any +difference why she’s gone. She’s gone, that’s the +thing that’s important. No matter how hard we +try we can’t really figure out her reason till we +find her.”</p> +<p>“Are you sure it’s going to be so easy?” Gertrude +asked. “I mean—finding her. She’s a pretty +determined little person when she makes up her +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274' name='page_274'></a>274</span> +mind. Eleanor’s threats are to be taken seriously. +She always makes good on them.”</p> +<p>“I’ll find her if she’s anywhere in the world,” +Peter said. “I’ll find her and bring her back.”</p> +<p>Margaret put out her hand to him.</p> +<p>“I believe that you will,” she said. “Find out +the reason that she went away, too, Peter.”</p> +<p>Beulah pulled Gertrude aside.</p> +<p>“It wasn’t Peter, was it?” she asked piteously. +“She had some one else on her mind, hadn’t she?”</p> +<p>“She had something else on her mind,” Gertrude +answered gravely, “but she had Peter on her mind, +too.”</p> +<p>“She didn’t—she couldn’t have known about +us—Peter and me. We—we haven’t told any one.”</p> +<p>“She guessed it, Beulah. She couldn’t bear it. +Nobody’s to blame. It’s just one of God’s most +satirical mix-ups.”</p> +<p>“I was to blame,” Beulah said slowly. “I don’t +believe in shifting responsibility. I got her here +in the first place and I’ve been instrumental in +guiding her life ever since. Now, I’ve sacrificed +her to my own happiness.”</p> +<p>“It isn’t so simple as that,” Gertrude said; “the +things we start going soon pass out of our hands. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275' name='page_275'></a>275</span> +Somebody a good deal higher up has been directing +Eleanor’s affairs for a long time,—and ours too, +for that matter.”</p> +<p>“Don’t worry, Beulah,” Peter said, making his +way to her side from the other corner of the room +where he had been talking to Margaret. “You +mustn’t let this worry you. We’ve all got to be—soldiers +now,—but we’ll soon have her back again, +I promise you.”</p> +<p>“And I promise you,” Beulah said chokingly, +“that if you’ll get her back again, I—I will be a +soldier.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Peter began by visiting the business schools in +New York and finding out the names of the pupils +registered there. Eleanor had clung firmly to her +idea of becoming an editorial stenographer in some +magazine office, no matter how hard he had worked +to dissuade her. He felt almost certain she would +follow out that purpose now. There was a fund +in her name started some years before for the +defraying of her college expenses. She would use +that, he argued, to get herself started, even though +she felt constrained to pay it back later on. He +worked on this theory for some time, even making +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276' name='page_276'></a>276</span> +a trip to Boston in search for her in the stenography +classes there, but nothing came of it.</p> +<p>Among Eleanor’s effects sent on from the school +was a little red address book containing the names +and addresses of many of her former schoolmates +at Harmon. Peter wrote all the girls he remembered +hearing her speak affectionately of, but not +one of them was able to give him any news of her. +He wrote to Colhassett to Albertina’s aunt, who had +served in the capacity of housekeeper to Eleanor’s +grandfather in his last days, and got in reply a +pious letter from Albertina herself, who intimated +that she had always suspected that Eleanor would +come to some bad end, and that now she was +highly soothed and gratified by the apparent fulfillment +of her sinister prognostications.</p> +<p>Later he tried private detectives, and, not content +with their efforts, he followed them over the +ground that they covered, searching through boarding +houses, and public classes of all kinds; canvassing +the editorial offices of the various magazines +Eleanor had admired in the hope of discovering +that she had applied for some small position there; +following every clue that his imagination, and the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277' name='page_277'></a>277</span> +acumen of the professionals in his service, could +supply;—but his patient search was unrewarded. +Eleanor had apparently vanished from the surface +of the earth. The quest which had seemed to him +so simple a matter when he first undertook it, now +began to assume terrible and abortive proportions. +It was unthinkable that one little slip of a girl +untraveled and inexperienced should be able permanently +to elude six determined and worldly +adult New Yorkers, who were prepared to tax +their resources to the utmost in the effort to find +her,—but the fact remained that she was missing +and continued to be missing, and the cruel month +went by and brought them no news of her.</p> +<p>The six guardians took their trouble hard. Apart +from the emotions that had been precipitated by +her developing charms, they loved her dearly as +the child they had taken to their hearts and bestowed +all their young enthusiasm and energy and +tenderness upon. She was the living clay, as Gertrude +had said so many years before, that they +had molded as nearly as possible to their hearts’ +desire. They loved her for herself, but one and +all they loved her for what they had made of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278' name='page_278'></a>278</span> +her—an exquisite, lovely young creature, at ease +in a world that might so easily have crushed her +utterly if they had not intervened for her.</p> +<p>They kept up the search unremittingly, following +false leads and meeting with heartbreaking discouragements +and disappointments. Only Margaret +had any sense of peace about her.</p> +<p>“I’m sure she’s all right,” she said; “I feel it. +It’s hard having her gone, but I’m not afraid for +her. She’ll work it out better than we could help +her to. It’s a beautiful thing to be young and +strong and free, and she’ll get the beauty out of +it.”</p> +<p>“I think perhaps you’re right, Margaret,” David +said. “You almost always are. It’s the bread and +butter end of the problem that worries me.”</p> +<p>Margaret smiled at him quaintly.</p> +<p>“The Lord provides,” she said. “He’ll provide +for our ewe lamb, I’m sure.”</p> +<p>“You speak as if you had it on direct authority.”</p> +<p>“I think perhaps I have,” she said gravely.</p> +<p>Jimmie and Gertrude grew closer together as +the weeks passed, and the strain of their fruitless +quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her the +letter that Eleanor had written him. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279' name='page_279'></a>279</span></p> +<p>“Sweet, isn’t she?” he said, as Gertrude returned +it to him, smiling through her tears.</p> +<p>“She’s a darling,” Gertrude said fervently. “Did +she hurt you so much, Jimmie dear?”</p> +<p>“I wanted her,” Jimmie answered slowly, “but +I think it was because I thought she was mine,—that +I could make her mine. When I found she +was Peter’s,—had been Peter’s all the time, the +thought somehow cured me. She was dead right, +you know. I made it up out of the stuff that +dreams are made of. God knows I love her, but—but +that personal thing has gone out of it. She’s +my little lost child,—or my sister. A man wants +his own to be his own, Gertrude.”</p> +<p>“Yes, I know.”</p> +<p>“My—my real trouble is that I’m at sea again. +I thought that I cared,—that I was anchored for +good. It’s the drifting that plays the deuce with +me. If the thought of that sweet child and the +grief at her loss can’t hold me, what can? What +hope is there for me?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Gertrude laughed.</p> +<p>“Don’t laugh at me. You’ve always been on to +me, Gertrude, too much so to have any respect for +me, I guess. You’ve got your work,” he waved +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280' name='page_280'></a>280</span> +his arm at the huge cast under the shadow of +which they were sitting, “and all this. You can +put all your human longings into it. I’m a poor +rudderless creature without any hope or direction.” +He buried his face in his hands. “You don’t know +it,” he said, with an effort to conceal the fact that +his shoulders were shaking, “but you see before +you a human soul in the actual process of dissolution.”</p> +<p>Gertrude crossed her studio floor to kneel down +beside him. She drew the boyish head, rumpled +into an irresistible state of curliness, to her breast.</p> +<p>“Put it here where it belongs,” she said softly.</p> +<p>“Do you mean it?” he whispered. “Sure thing? +Hope to die? Cross your heart?”</p> +<p>“Yes, my dear.”</p> +<p>“Praise the Lord.”</p> +<p>“I snitched him,” Gertrude confided to Margaret +some days later,—her whole being radiant and +transfigured with happiness. “You snitch David.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281' name='page_281'></a>281</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII_THE_YOUNG_NURSE' id='CHAPTER_XXIII_THE_YOUNG_NURSE'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Young Nurse</span></h3> +</div> +<p>The local hospital of the village of Harmonville, +which was ten miles from Harmon +proper, where the famous boarding-school for +young ladies was located, presented an aspect so +far from institutional that but for the sign board +tacked modestly to an elm tree just beyond the +break in the hedge that constituted the main entrance, +the gracious, old colonial structure might +have been taken for the private residence for +which it had served so many years.</p> +<p>It was a crisp day in late September, and a +pale yellow sun was spread thin over the carpet +of yellow leaves with which the wide lawn was +covered. In the upper corridor of the west wing, +grouped about the window-seat with their embroidery +or knitting, the young nurses were talking +together in low tones during the hour of the +patients’ siestas. The two graduates, dark-eyed +efficient girls, with skilled delicate fingers taking +precise stitches in the needlework before them, +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282' name='page_282'></a>282</span> +were in full uniform, but the younger girls clustered +about them, beginners for the most part, but +a few months in training, were dressed in the +simple blue print, and little white caps and aprons, +of the probationary period.</p> +<p>The atmosphere was very quiet and peaceful. +A light breeze blew in at the window and stirred +a straying lock or two that escaped the starched +band of a confining cap. Outside the stinging +whistle of the insect world was interrupted now +and then by the cough of a passing motor. From +the doors opening on the corridor an occasional +restless moan indicated the inability of some sufferer +to take his dose of oblivion according to +schedule. Presently a bell tinkled a summons to +the patient in the first room on the right—a gentle +little old lady who had just had her appendix +removed.</p> +<p>“Will you take that, Miss Hamlin?” the nurse +in charge of the case asked the tallest and fairest +of the young assistants.</p> +<p>“Certainly.” Eleanor, demure in cap and kerchief +as the most ravishing of young Priscillas, +rose obediently at the request. “May I read to +her a little if she wants me to?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283' name='page_283'></a>283</span></p> +<p>“Yes, if you keep the door closed. I think +most of the others are sleeping.”</p> +<p>The little old lady who had just had her appendix +out, smiled weakly up at Eleanor.</p> +<p>“I hoped ’twould be you,” she said, “and then +after I’d rung I lay in fear and trembling lest one +o’ them young flipperti-gibbets should come, and +get me all worked up while she was trying to +shift me. I want to be turned the least little mite +on my left side.”</p> +<p>“That’s better, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked, as she +made the adjustment.</p> +<p>“I dunno whether that’s better, or whether it +just seems better to me, because ’twas you that +fixed me,” the little old lady said. “You certainly +have got a soothin’ and comfortin’ way with you.”</p> +<p>“I used to take care of my grandmother years +ago, and the more hospital work I do, the more +it comes back to me,—and the better I remember +the things that she liked to have done for her.”</p> +<p>“There’s nobody like your own kith and kin,” +the little old lady sighed. “There’s none left of +mine. That other nurse—that black haired one—she +said you was an orphan, alone in the world. +Well, I pity a young girl alone in the world.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284' name='page_284'></a>284</span></p> +<p>“It’s all right to be alone in the world—if you +just keep busy enough,” Eleanor said. “But you +mustn’t talk any more. I’m going to give you +your medicine and then sit here and read to you.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>On the morning of her flight from the inn, +after a night spent staring motionless into the +darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some +dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old +friend Bertha Stephens lived. To “Stevie,” to +whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to +draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told +a part of her story. It was through the influence +of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on the +board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, +that Eleanor had been admitted there. She had +resolutely put all her old life behind her. The +plan to take up a course in stenography and enter +an editorial office was to have been, as a matter +of course, a part of her life closely associated with +Peter. Losing him, there was nothing left of her +dream of high adventure and conquest. There was +merely the hurt desire to hide herself where she +need never trouble him again, and where she could +be independent and useful. Having no idea of +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285' name='page_285'></a>285</span> +her own value to her guardians, or the integral +tenderness in which she was held, she sincerely +believed that her disappearance must have relieved +them of much chagrin and embarrassment.</p> +<p>Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. +She had the temperament that finds a virtue in +the day’s work, and a balm in its mere iterative +quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her +a good nurse and her adaptability, combined with +her loveliness, a general favorite.</p> +<p>She spent her days off at the Stephens’ home. +Bertha Stephens had been the one girl that Peter +had failed to write to, when he began to circulate +his letters of inquiry. Her name had been set +down in the little red book, but he remembered +the trouble that Maggie Lou had precipitated, and +arrived at the conclusion that the intimacy existing +between Eleanor and Bertha had not survived it. +Except that Carlo Stephens persisted in trying to +make love to her, and Mrs. Stephens covertly +encouraged his doing so, Eleanor found the +Stephens’ home a very comforting haven. Bertha +had developed into a full breasted, motherly looking +girl, passionately interested in all vicarious +love-affairs, though quickly intimidated at the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286' name='page_286'></a>286</span> +thought of having any of her own. She was devoted +to Eleanor, and mothered her clumsily.</p> +<p>It was still to her diary that Eleanor turned for +the relief and solace of self-expression.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“It is five months to-day,” she wrote, “since I +came to the hospital. It seems like five years. I +like it, but I feel like the little old woman on the +King’s Highway. I doubt more every minute if +this can be I. Sometimes I wonder what ‘being I’ +consists of, anyway. I used to feel as if I were +divided up into six parts as separate as protoplasmic +cells, and that each one was looked out for by +a different cooperative parent. I thought that I +would truly be I when I got them all together, +and looked out for them myself, but I find I am +no more of an entity than I ever was. The puzzling +question of ‘what am I?’ still persists, and I +am farther away from the right answer than ever. +Would a sound be a sound if there were no one +to hear it? If the waves of vibration struck no +human ear, would the sound be in existence at all? +This is the problem propounded by one of the +nurses yesterday. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287' name='page_287'></a>287</span></p> +<p>“How much of us lives when we are entirely +shut out of the consciousness of those whom we +love? If there is no one to <i>realize</i> us day by day,—if +all that love has made of us is taken away, +what is left? Is there anything? I don’t know. +I look in the glass, and see the same face,—Eleanor +Hamlin, almost nineteen, with the same +bow shaped eyebrows, and the same double ridge +leading up from her nose to her mouth, making +her look still very babyish. I pinch myself, and +find that it hurts just the same as it used to six +months ago, but there the resemblance to what I +used to be, stops. I’m a young nurse now in +hospital training, and very good at it, too, if I +do say it as shouldn’t; but that’s all I am. Otherwise, +I’m not anybody <i>to</i> anybody,—except a +figure of romance to good old Stevie, who doesn’t +count in this kind of reckoning. I take naturally +to nursing they tell me. A nurse is a kind of +maternal automaton. I’m glad I’m that, but there +used to be a lot more of me than that. There +ought to be some heart and brain and soul left +over, but there doesn’t seem to be. Perhaps I +am like the Princess in the fairy story whose +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288' name='page_288'></a>288</span> +heart was an auk’s egg. Nobody had power to +make her feel unless they reached it and +squeezed it.</p> +<p>“I feel sometimes as if I were dead. I wish I +could know whether Uncle Peter and Aunt Beulah +were married yet. I wish I could know that. +There is a woman in this hospital whose suitor +married some one else, and she has nervous prostration, +and melancholia. All she does all day is +to moan and wring her hands and call out his +name. The nurses are not very sympathetic. They +seem to think that it is disgraceful to love a man +so much that your whole life stops as soon as he +goes out of it. What of Juliet and Ophelia and +Francesca de Rimini? They loved so they could +not tear their love out of their hearts without +lacerating them forever. There is that kind of +love in the world,—bigger than life itself. All the +big tragedies of literature were made from it,—why +haven’t people more sympathy for it? Why +isn’t there more dignity about it in the eyes of the +world?</p> +<p>“It is very unlucky to love, and to lose that +which you cherish, but it is unluckier still never +to know the meaning of love, or to find ‘Him +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289' name='page_289'></a>289</span> +whom your soul loveth.’ I try to be kind to that +poor forsaken woman. I am sorry for his sake +that she calls out his name, but she seems to be in +such torture of mind and body that she is unable +to help it.</p> +<p>“They are trying to cut down expenses here, so +they have no regular cook, the housekeeper and +her helper are supposed to do it all. I said I +would make the desserts, so now I have got to go +down-stairs and make some fruit gelatin. It is +best that I should not write any more to-day, anyway.”</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>Later, after the Thanksgiving holiday, she +wrote:</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“I saw a little boy butchered to-day, and I shall +never forget it. It is wicked to speak of Doctor +Blake’s clean cut work as butchery, but when you +actually see a child’s leg severed from its body, +what else can you call it?</p> +<p>“The reason that I am able to go through operations +without fainting or crying is just this: <i>other +people do</i>. The first time I stood by the operating +table to pass the sterilized instruments to the +assisting nurse, and saw the half naked doctors +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290' name='page_290'></a>290</span> +hung in rubber standing there preparing to carve +their way through the naked flesh of the unconscious +creature before them, I felt the kind of +pang pass through my heart that seems to kill as +it comes. I thought I died, or was dying,—and +then I looked up and saw that every one else was +ready for their work. So I drew a deep breath +and became ready too. I don’t think there is +anything in the world too hard to do if you look +at it that way.</p> +<p>“The little boy loved me and I loved him. We +had hoped against hope that we would be able to +save his poor little leg, but it had to go. I held +his hand while they gave him the chloroform. At +his head sat Doctor Hathaway with his Christlike +face, draped in the robe of the anesthetist. ‘Take +long breaths, Benny,’ I said, and he breathed in +bravely. It was over quickly. To-morrow, when +he is really out of the ether, I have got to tell +him what was done to him. Something happened +to me while that operation was going on. He +hasn’t any mother. I think the spirit of the one +who was his mother passed into me, and I knew +what it would be like to be the mother of a son. +Benny was not without what his mother would +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291' name='page_291'></a>291</span> +have felt for him if she had been at his side. I +can’t explain it, but that is what I felt.</p> +<p>“To-night it is as black as ink outside. There +are no stars. I feel as if there should be no stars. +If there were, there might be some strange little +bit of comfort in them that I could cling to. I +do not want any comfort from outside to shine +upon me to-night. I have got to draw all my +strength from a source within, and I feel it welling +up within me even now.</p> +<p>“I wonder if I have been selfish to leave the +people I love so long without any word of me. +I think Aunt Gertrude and Aunt Beulah and Aunt +Margaret all had a mother feeling for me. I +am remembering to-night how anxious they used to +be for me to have warm clothing, and to keep my +feet dry, and not to work too hard at school. All +those things that I took as a matter of course, I +realize now were very significant and beautiful. +If I had a child and did not know to-night where +it would lie down to sleep, or on what pillow it +would put its head, I know my own rest would be +troubled. I wonder if I have caused any one of +my dear mothers to feel like that. If I have, it +has been very wicked and cruel of me.”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292' name='page_292'></a>292</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV_CHRISTMAS_AGAIN' id='CHAPTER_XXIV_CHRISTMAS_AGAIN'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Christmas Again</span></h3> +</div> +<p>The ten Hutchinsons having left the library +entirely alone in the hour before dinner, +David and Margaret had appropriated it and were +sitting companionably together on the big couch +drawn up before the fireplace, where a log was +trying to consume itself unscientifically head first.</p> +<p>“I would stay to dinner if urged,” David suggested.</p> +<p>“You stay,” Margaret agreed laconically.</p> +<p>She moved away from him, relaxing rather +limply in the corner of the couch, with a hand +dangling over the farther edge of it.</p> +<p>“You’re an inconsistent being,” David said. +“You buoy all the rest of us up with your faith in +the well-being of our child, and then you pine +yourself sick over her absence.”</p> +<p>“It’s Christmas coming on. We always had +such a beautiful time on Christmas. It was so +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293' name='page_293'></a>293</span> +much fun buying her presents. It isn’t like Christmas +at all with her gone from us.”</p> +<p>“Do you remember how crazy she was over +the ivory set?”</p> +<p>“And the bracelet watch?”</p> +<p>“Do you remember the Juliet costume?” David’s +eyes kindled at the reminiscence. “How wonderful +she was in it.”</p> +<p>Margaret drew her feet up on the couch suddenly, +and clasped her hands about her knees. +David laughed.</p> +<p>“I haven’t seen you do that for years,” he said.</p> +<p>“What?”</p> +<p>“Hump yourself in that cryptic way.”</p> +<p>“Haven’t you?” she said. “I was just wondering—” +but she stopped herself suddenly.</p> +<p>“Wondering what?” David was watching her +narrowly, and perceiving it, she flushed.</p> +<p>“This is not my idea of an interesting conversation,” +she said; “it’s getting too personal.”</p> +<p>“I can remember the time when you told me +that you didn’t find things interesting unless they +were personal. ‘I like things very personal,’ you +said—in those words.”</p> +<p>“I did then.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294' name='page_294'></a>294</span></p> +<p>“What has changed you?” David asked gravely.</p> +<p>“The chill wind of the world, I guess; the most +personal part of me is frozen stiff.”</p> +<p>“I never saw a warmer creature in my life,” +David protested. “On that same occasion you +said that being a woman was about like being a +field of clover in an insectless world. You don’t +feel that way nowadays, surely,—at the rate the +insects have been buzzing around you this winter. +I’ve counted at least seven, three bees, one or two +beetles, a butterfly and a worm.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t know you paid that much attention to +my poor affairs.”</p> +<p>“I do, though. If you hadn’t put your foot +down firmly on the worm, I had every intention +of doing so.”</p> +<p>“Had you?”</p> +<p>“I had.”</p> +<p>“On that occasion to which you refer I remember +I also said that I had a queer hunch about +Eleanor.”</p> +<p>“Margaret, are you deliberately changing the +subject?”</p> +<p>“I am.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295' name='page_295'></a>295</span></p> +<p>“Then I shall bring the butterfly up later.”</p> +<p>“I said,” Margaret ignored his interruption, “that +I had the feeling that she was going to be a +storm center and bring some kind of queer trouble +upon us.”</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>“She did, didn’t she?”</p> +<p>“I’m not so sure that’s the way to put it,” +David said gravely. “We brought queer trouble +on her.”</p> +<p>“She made—you—suffer.”</p> +<p>“She gave my vanity the worst blow it has ever +had in its life,” David corrected her. “Look here, +Margaret, I want you to know the truth about that. +I—I stumbled into that, you know. She was so +sweet, and before I knew it I had—I found myself +in the attitude of making love to her. Well, there +was nothing to do but go through with it. I +wanted to, of course. I felt like Pygmalion—but +it was all potential, unrealized—and ass that I +was, I assumed that she would have no other idea +in the matter. I was going to marry her because +I—I had started things going, you know. I had +no choice even if I had wanted one. It never occurred +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296' name='page_296'></a>296</span> +to me that she might have a choice, and so +I went on trying to make things easy for her, +and getting them more tangled at every turn.”</p> +<p>“You never really—cared?” Margaret’s face was +in shadow.</p> +<p>“Never got the chance to find out. With characteristic +idiocy I was keeping out of the picture +until the time was ripe. She really ran away to +get away from the situation I created and she was +quite right too. If I weren’t haunted by these +continual pictures of our offspring in the bread +line, I should be rather glad than otherwise that +she’s shaken us all till we get our breath back. +Poor Peter is the one who is smashed, though. He +hasn’t smiled since she went away.”</p> +<p>“You wouldn’t smile if you were engaged to +Beulah.”</p> +<p>“Are they still engaged?”</p> +<p>“Beulah has her ring, but I notice she doesn’t +wear it often.”</p> +<p>“Jimmie and Gertrude seem happy.”</p> +<p>“They are, gloriously.”</p> +<p>“That leaves only us two,” David suggested. +“Margaret, dear, do you think the time will ever +come when I shall get you back again?” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297' name='page_297'></a>297</span></p> +<p>Margaret turned a little pale, but she met his +look steadily.</p> +<p>“Did you ever lose me?”</p> +<p>“The answer to that is ‘yes,’ as you very well +know. Time was when we were very close—you +and I, then somehow we lost the way to each +other. I’m beginning to realize that it hasn’t +been the same world since and isn’t likely to be unless +you come back to me.”</p> +<p>“Was it I who strayed?”</p> +<p>“It was I; but it was you who put the bars up +and have kept them there.”</p> +<p>“Was I to let the bars down and wait at the +gate?”</p> +<p>“If need be. It should be that way between us, +Margaret, shouldn’t it?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Margaret said, “I don’t know.” +She flashed a sudden odd look at him. “If—when +I put the bars down, I shall run for my life. I +give you warning, David.”</p> +<p>“Warning is all I want,” David said contentedly. +He could barely reach her hand across the intervening +expanse of leather couch, but he accomplished +it,—he was too wise to move closer +to her. “You’re a lovely, lovely being,” he said +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298' name='page_298'></a>298</span> +reverently. “God grant I may reach you and +hold you.”</p> +<p>She curled a warm little finger about his.</p> +<p>“What would Mrs. Bolling say?” she asked +practically.</p> +<p>“To tell you the truth, she spoke of it the other +day. I told her the Eleanor story, and that rather +brought her to her senses. She wouldn’t have +liked that, you know; but now all the eligible buds +are plucked, and she wants me to settle down.”</p> +<p>“Does she think I’m a settling kind of person?”</p> +<p>“She wouldn’t if she knew the way you go to +my head,” David murmured. “Oh, she thinks +that you’ll do. She likes the ten Hutchinsons.”</p> +<p>“Maybe I’d like them better considered as connections +of yours,” Margaret said abstractedly.</p> +<p>David lifted the warm little finger to his lips +and kissed it swiftly.</p> +<p>“Where are you going?” he asked, as she slipped +away from him and stood poised in the doorway.</p> +<p>“I’m going to put on something appropriate to +the occasion,” she answered.</p> +<p>When she came back to him she was wearing +the most delicate and cobwebby of muslins with a +design of pale purple passion flowers trellised all +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299' name='page_299'></a>299</span> +over it, and she gave him no chance for a moment +alone with her all the rest of the evening.</p> +<p>Sometime later she showed him Eleanor’s parting +letter, and he was profoundly touched by the +pathetic little document.</p> +<p>As the holidays approached Eleanor’s absence +became an almost unendurable distress to them all. +The annual Christmas dinner party, a function +that had never been omitted since the acquisition +of David’s studio, was decided on conditionally, +given up, and again decided on.</p> +<p>“We do want to see one another on Christmas +day,—we’ve got presents for one another, and +Eleanor would hate it if she thought that her +going away had settled that big a cloud on us. +She slipped out of our lives in order to bring us +closer together. We’ll get closer together for her +sake,” Margaret decided.</p> +<p>But the ordeal of the dinner itself was almost +more than they had reckoned on. Every detail of +traditional ceremony was observed even to the +mound of presents marked with each name piled +on the same spot on the couch, to be opened with +the serving of the coffee.</p> +<p>“I got something for Eleanor,” Jimmie remarked +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300' name='page_300'></a>300</span> +shamefacedly as he added his contributions +to the collection. “Thought we could keep it for +her, or throw it into the waste-basket or something. +Anyhow I had to get it.”</p> +<p>“I guess everybody else got her something, too,” +Margaret said. “Of course we will keep them for +her. I got her a little French party coat. It will +be just as good next year as this. Anyhow as +Jimmie says, I had to get it.”</p> +<p>“I got her slipper buckles,” Gertrude admitted. +“She has always wanted them.”</p> +<p>“I got her the Temple <i>Shakespeare</i>,” Beulah +added. “She was always carrying around those +big volumes.”</p> +<p>“You’re looking better, Beulah,” Margaret said. +“Are you feeling better?”</p> +<p>“Jimmie says I’m looking more human. I +guess perhaps that’s it,—I’m feeling more—human. +I needed humanizing—even at the expense +of some—some heartbreak,” she said +bravely.</p> +<p>Margaret crossed the room to take a seat on +Beulah’s chair-arm, and slipped an arm around +her. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301' name='page_301'></a>301</span></p> +<p>“You’re all right if you know that,” she +whispered softly.</p> +<p>“I thought I was going to bring you Eleanor +herself,” Peter said. “I got on the trail of a girl +working in a candy shop out in Yonkers. My +faithful sleuth was sure it was Eleanor and I was +ass enough to believe he knew what he was talking +about. When I got out there I found a strawberry +blonde with gold teeth.”</p> +<p>“Gosh, you don’t think she’s doing anything like +that,” Jimmie exclaimed.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” Peter said miserably. He was +looking ill and unlike himself. His deep set gray +eyes were sunken far in his head, his brow was +too white, and the skin drawn too tightly over his +jaws. “As a de-tec-i-tive, I’m afraid I’m a +failure.”</p> +<p>“We’re all failures for that matter,” David said. +“Let’s have dinner.”</p> +<p>Eleanor’s empty place, set with the liqueur glass +she always drank her thimbleful of champagne in, +and the throne chair from the drawing-room in +which she presided over the feasts given in her +honor, was almost too much for them. Margaret +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302' name='page_302'></a>302</span> +cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded his +eyes with his hand, and Gertrude and Jimmie +groped for each other’s hands under the shelter +of the table-cloth.</p> +<p>“This—this won’t do,” David said. He turned +to Beulah on his left, sitting immovable, with her +eyes staring unseeingly into the centerpiece of +holly and mistletoe arranged by Alphonse so lovingly. +“We must either turn this into a kind of +a wake, and kneel as we feast, or we must try to +rise above it somehow.”</p> +<p>“I don’t see why,” Jimmie argued. “I’m in +favor of each man howling informally as he +listeth.”</p> +<p>“Let’s drink her health anyhow,” David insisted. +“I cut out the Sauterne and the claret, so we could +begin on the wine at once in this contingency. +Here’s to our beloved and dear absent daughter.”</p> +<p>“Long may she wave,” Jimmie cried, stumbling +to his feet an instant after the others.</p> +<p>While they were still standing with their glasses +uplifted, the bell rang.</p> +<p>“Don’t let anybody in, Alphonse,” David admonished +him.</p> +<p>They all turned in the direction of the hall, but +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303' name='page_303'></a>303</span> +there was no sound of parley at the front door. +Eleanor had put a warning finger to her lips, as +Alphonse opened it to find her standing there. She +stripped off her hat and her coat as she passed +through the drawing-room, and stood in her little +blue cloth traveling dress between the portières that +separated it from the dining-room. The six stood +transfixed at the sight of her, not believing the +vision of their eyes.</p> +<p>“You’re drinking my health,” she cried, as she +stretched out her arms to them. “Oh! my dears, +and my dearests, will you forgive me for running +away from you?”</p> +<hr class='major' /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 2em; padding-bottom: 1em'> +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304' name='page_304'></a>304</span> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXV_THE_LOVER' id='CHAPTER_XXV_THE_LOVER'></a> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> +<h3><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Lover</span></h3> +</div> +<p>They left her alone with Peter in the drawing +room in the interval before the coffee, +seeing that he had barely spoken to her though his +eyes had not left her face since the moment of her +spectacular appearance between the portières.</p> +<p>“I’m not going to marry you, Peter,” Beulah +whispered, as she slipped by him to the door, +“don’t think of me. Think of her.”</p> +<p>But Peter was almost past coherent thought or +speech as they stood facing each other on the +hearth-rug,—Eleanor’s little head up and her +breath coming lightly between her sweet, parted +lips.</p> +<p>“Where did you go?” Peter groaned. “How +could you, dear—how could you,—how could +you?”</p> +<p>“I’m back all safe, now, Uncle Peter. I took +up nursing in a hospital.”</p> +<p>“I didn’t even find you. I swore that I would. +I’ve searched for you everywhere.” +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305' name='page_305'></a>305</span></p> +<p>“I’m sorry I made you all that trouble,” Eleanor +said, “but I thought it would be the best thing +to do.”</p> +<p>“Tell me why,” Peter said, “tell me why, I’ve +suffered so much—wondering—wondering.”</p> +<p>“You’ve suffered?” Eleanor cried. “I thought +it was only I who did the suffering.”</p> +<p>She moved a step nearer to him, and Peter +gripped her hard by the shoulders.</p> +<p>“It wasn’t that you cared?” he said. Then his +lips met hers dumbly, beseechingly.</p> +<hr class='mini' /> +<p>“It was all a mistake,—my going away,” she +wrote some days after. “I ought to have stayed +at the school, and graduated, and then come down +to New York, and faced things. I have my lesson +now about facing things. If any other crisis +comes into my life, I hope I shall be as strong +as Dante was, when he ‘showed himself more +furnished with breath than he was,’ and said, ‘Go +on, for I am strong and resolute.’ I think we always +have more strength than we understand ourselves +to have.</p> +<p>“I am so wonderfully happy about Uncle David +and Aunt Margaret, and I know Uncle Jimmie +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306' name='page_306'></a>306</span> +needs Aunt Gertrude and has always needed her. +Did my going away help those things to their +fruition? I hope so.</p> +<p>“I can not bear to think of Aunt Beulah, but I +know that I must bear to think of her, and face +the pain of having hurt her as I must face every +other thing that comes into my life from this +hour. I would give her back Peter, if I could,—but +I can not. He is mine, and I am his, and we +have been that way from the beginning. I have +thought of him always as stronger and wiser than +any one in the world, but I don’t think he is. He +has suffered and stumbled along, trying blindly to +do right, hurting Aunt Beulah and mixing up his +life like any man, just the way Uncle Jimmie and +Uncle David did.</p> +<p>“Don’t men know who it is they love? They +seem so often to be struggling hungrily after the +wrong thing, trying to get, or to make themselves +take, some woman that they do not really want. +When women love it is not like that with them.</p> +<p>“When women love! I think I have loved Peter +from the first minute I saw him, so beautiful and +dear and sweet, with that <i>anxious</i> look in his +eyes,—that look of consideration for the other +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307' name='page_307'></a>307</span> +person that is always so much a part of him. He +had it the first night I saw him, when Uncle David +brought me to show me to my foster parents for +the first time. It was the thing I grew up by, and +measured men and their attitude to women by—just +that look in his eyes, that tender warm look +of consideration.</p> +<p>“It means a good many things, I think,—a +gentle generous nature, and a tender chivalrous +heart. It means selflessness. It means being a +good man, and one who <i>protects</i> by sheer unselfish +instinct. I don’t know how I shall ever heal him +of the hurt he has done Aunt Beulah. Aunt Margaret +tells me that Aunt Beulah’s experience with +him has been the thing that has made her whole, +that she needed to live through the human cycle +of emotion—of love and possession and renunciation +before she could be quite real and sound. +This may be true, but it is not the kind of reasoning +for Peter and me to comfort ourselves with. +If a surgeon makes a mistake in cutting that afterwards +does more good than harm, he must not +let that result absolve him from his mistake. +Nothing can efface the mistake itself, and Peter +and I must go on feeling that way about it. +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308' name='page_308'></a>308</span></p> +<p>“I want to write something down about my love +before I close this book to-night. Something that +I can turn to some day and read, or show to my +children when love comes to them. ‘This is the +way I felt,’ I want to say to them, ‘the first week +of my love—this is what it meant to me.’</p> +<p>“It means being a greater, graver, and more +beautiful person than you ever thought you could +be. It means knowing what you are, and what +you were meant to be all at once, and I think it +means your chance to be purified for the life you +are to live, and the things you are to do in it. +Experience teaches, but I think love forecasts and +points the way, and shows you what you can be. +Even if the light it sheds should grow dim after a +while, the path it has shown you should be clear +to your inner eye forever and ever. Having been +in a great temple is a thing to be better for all +your life.</p> +<p>“It means that the soul and the things of the +soul are everlasting,—that they have got to be +everlasting if love is like this. Love between two +people is more than the simple fact of their being +drawn together and standing hand in hand. It is +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309' name='page_309'></a>309</span> +the holy truth about the universe. It is the rainbow +of God’s promise set over the land. There +comes with it the soul’s certainty of living on and +on through time and space.</p> +<p>“Just my loving Peter and Peter’s loving me +isn’t the important thing,—the important thing is +the way it has started the truth going; my knowing +and understanding mysterious laws that were +sealed to me before; Peter taking my life in his +hands and making it consecrated and true,—so +true that I will not falter or suffer from any misunderstandings +or mistaken pain.</p> +<p>“It means warmth and light and tenderness, our +love does, and all the poetry in the world, and all +the motherliness, (I feel so much like his mother). +Peter is my lover. When I say that he is not +stronger or wiser than any one in the world I +mean—in living. I mean in the way he behaves +like a little bewildered boy sometimes. In loving +he is stronger and wiser than any living being. He +takes my two hands in his and gives me all the +strength and all the wisdom and virtue there is +in the world.</p> +<p>“I haven’t written down anything, after all, that +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310' name='page_310'></a>310</span> +any one could read. My children can’t look over +my shoulder on to this page, for they would not +understand it. It means nothing to any one in the +world but me. I shall have to translate for them +or I shall have to say to them, ‘Children, on looking +into this book, I find I can’t tell you what +love meant to me, because the words I have put +down would mean nothing to you. They were +only meant to inform me, whenever I should turn +back to them, of the great glory and holiness that +fell upon me like a garment when love came.’</p> +<p>“And if there should be any doubt in my heart +as to the reality of the feeling that has come to +them in their turn, I should only have to turn +their faces up to the light, and look into their +eyes and <i>know</i>.</p> +<p>“I shall not die as my own mother did. I know +that. I know that Peter will be by my side until +we both are old. These facts are established in +my consciousness I hardly know how, and I know +that they are there,—but if such a thing could be +that I should die and leave my little children, I +would not be afraid to leave them alone in a +world that has been so good to me, under the +<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311' name='page_311'></a>311</span> +protection of a Power that provided me with the +best and kindest guardians that a little orphan +ever had. God bless and keep them all, and +make them happy.”</p> +<p class='c' style='font-size:smaller; margin:30px auto 20px auto;'>THE END</p> + +<!-- generated by ppg.rb version: 0.21 --> +<!-- timestamp: Sat Mar 28 21:11:40 -0600 2009 --> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. 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Kelley + +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: Turn About Eleanor + +Author: Ethel M. Kelley + +Illustrator: F. Graham Cootes + +Release Date: March 29, 2009 [EBook #28444] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TURN ABOUT ELEANOR *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + + + + +[Illustration: Eleanor] + + + + +Turn About Eleanor + +By + +ETHEL M. KELLEY + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +F. GRAHAM COOTES + +INDIANAPOLIS + +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +PUBLISHERS + + + + +Copyright 1917 +The Bobbs-Merrill Company + +Printed in the United States of America + +PRESS OF + +BRAUNWORTH & CO. + +BOOK MANUFACTURERS + +BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I Enter Eleanor 1 + + II The Cooperative Parents 14 + + III The Experiment Begins 27 + + IV Peter Elucidates 40 + + V Eleanor Enjoys Herself in Her Own Way 48 + + VI Jimmie Becomes a Parent 63 + + VII One Descent into Bohemia 72 + + VIII The Ten Hutchinsons 84 + + IX Peter 101 + + X The Omniscient Focus 113 + + XI Gertrude Has Trouble with Her Behavior 124 + + XII Madam Bolling 138 + + XIII Brook and River 158 + + XIV Merry Christmas 167 + + XV Growing Up 181 + + XVI Margaret Louisa's Birthright 195 + + XVII A Real Kiss 203 + + XVIII Beulah's Problem 219 + + XIX Mostly Uncle Peter 234 + + XX The Makings of a Triple Wedding 251 + + XXI Eleanor Hears the News 261 + + XXII The Search 271 + + XXIII The Young Nurse 281 + + XXIV Christmas Again 292 + + XXV The Lover 304 + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + +CHAPTER I + +ENTER ELEANOR + + +A child in a faded tam-o'-shanter that had once been baby blue, and a +shoddy coat of a glaring, unpropitious newness, was sitting +uncomfortably on the edge of a hansom seat, and gazing soberly out at +the traffic of Fifth Avenue. + +The young man beside her, a blond, sleek, narrow-headed youth in +eye-glasses, was literally making conversation with her. That is, he +was engaged in a palpable effort to make conversation--to manufacture +out of the thin crisp air of that November morning and the random +impressions of their progress up the Avenue, something with a general +resemblance to tete-a-tete dialogue as he understood it. He was +succeeding only indifferently. + +"See, Eleanor," he pointed brightly with his stick to the flower shop +they were passing, "see that building with the red roof, and all +those window boxes. Don't you think those little trees in pots outside +look like Christmas trees? Sometimes when your Aunts Beulah and +Margaret and Gertrude, whom you haven't met yet--though you are on +your way to meet them, you know--sometimes when they have been very +good, almost good enough to deserve it, I stop by that little flower +shop and buy a chaste half dozen of gardenias and their accessories, +and divide them among the three." + +"Do you?" the child asked, without wistfulness. She was a good child, +David Bolling decided,--a sporting child, willing evidently to play +when it was her turn, even when she didn't understand the game at all. +It was certainly a new kind of game that she would be so soon expected +to play her part in,--a rather serious kind of game, if you chose to +look at it that way. + +David himself hardly knew how to look at it. He was naturally a +conservative young man, who had been brought up by his mother to +behave as simply as possible on all occasions, and to avoid the +conspicuous as tacitly and tactfully as one avoids a new disease germ. +His native point of view, however, had been somewhat deflected by his +associations. His intimate circle consisted of a set of people who +indorsed his mother's decalogue only under protest, and with the most +stringent reservations. That is, they were young and healthy, and +somewhat overcharged with animal spirits, and their reactions were all +very intense and emphatic. + +He was trying at this instant to look rather more as if he were likely +to meet one of his own friends than one of his mother's. His mother's +friends would not have understood his personal chaperonage of the +shabby little girl at his elbow. Her hair was not even properly +brushed. It looked frazzled and tangled; and at the corner of one of +her big blue eyes, streaking diagonally across the pallor in which it +was set, was a line of dirt,--a tear mark, it might have been, though +that didn't make the general effect any less untidy, David thought; +only a trifle more uncomfortably pathetic. She was a nice little girl, +that fact was becoming more and more apparent to David, but any friend +of his mother's would have wondered, and expressed him or herself as +wondering, why in the name of all sensitiveness he had not taken a +taxicab, or at least something in the nature of a closed vehicle, if +he felt himself bound to deliver in person this curious little +stranger to whatever mysterious destination she was for. + +"I thought you'd like a hansom, Eleanor, better than a taxi-cab, +because you can see more. You've never been in this part of New York +before, I understand." + +"No, sir." + +"You came up from Colhassett last Saturday, didn't you? Mrs. O'Farrel +wrote to your grandmother to send you on to us, and you took the +Saturday night boat from Fall River." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Did you travel alone, Eleanor?" + +"A friend of Grandpa's came up on the train with me, and left me on +the vessel. He told the colored lady and gentleman to see if I was all +right,--Mr. Porter and Mrs. Steward." + +"And were you all right?" David's eyes twinkled. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Not sea sick, nor homesick?" + +The child's fine-featured face quivered for a second, then set again +into impassive stoic lines, and left David wondering whether he had +witnessed a vibration of real emotion, or the spasmodic twitching of +the muscles that is so characteristic of the rural public school. + +"I wasn't sea sick." + +"Tell me about your grandparents, Eleanor." Then as she did not +respond, he repeated a little sharply, "Tell me about your +grandparents, won't you?" + +The child still hesitated. David bowed to the wife of a Standard Oil +director in a passing limousine, and one of the season's prettiest +debutantes, who was walking; and because he was only twenty-four, and +his mother was very, very ambitious for him, he wondered if the tear +smudge on the face of his companion had been evident from the +sidewalk, and decided that it must have been. + +"I don't know how to tell," the child said at last, "I don't know what +you want me to say." + +"I don't want you to say anything in particular, just in general, you +know." + +David stuck. The violet eyes were widening with misery, there was no +doubt about it. "Game, clean through," he said to himself. Aloud he +continued. "Well, you know, Eleanor.--Never say 'Well,' if you can +possibly avoid it, because it's a flagrant Americanism, and when you +travel in foreign parts you're sure to regret it,--well, you know, if +you are to be in a measure my ward--and you are, my dear, as well as +the ward of your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude, and your +Uncles Jimmie and Peter--I ought to begin by knowing a little +something of your antecedents. That is why I suggested that you tell +me about your grandparents. I don't care what you tell me, but I think +it would be very suitable for you to tell me something. Are they +native Cape Codders? I'm a New Englander myself, you know, so you may +be perfectly frank with me." + +"They're not summer folks," the child said. "They just live in +Colhassett all the year round. They live in a big white house on the +depot road, but they're so old now, they can't keep it up. If it was +painted it would be a real pretty house." + +"Your grandparents are not very well off then?" + +The child colored. "They've got lots of things," she said, "that +Grandfather brought home when he went to sea, but it was Uncle Amos +that sent them the money they lived on. When he died they didn't have +any." + +"How long has he been dead?" + +"Two years ago Christmas." + +"You must have had some money since then." + +"Not since Uncle Amos died, except for the rent of the barn, and the +pasture land, and a few things like that." + +"You must have had money put away." + +"No," the little girl answered. "We didn't. We didn't have any money, +except what came in the way I said. We sold some old-fashioned dishes, +and a little bit of cranberry bog for twenty-five dollars. We didn't +have any other money." + +"But you must have had something to live on. You can't make bricks +without straw, or grow little girls up without nourishing food in +their tummies." He caught an unexpected flicker of an eyelash, and +realized for the first time that the child was acutely aware of every +word he was saying, that even his use of English was registering a +poignant impression on her consciousness. The thought strangely +embarrassed him. "We say tummies in New York, Eleanor," he explained +hastily. "It's done here. The New England stomick, however, is almost +entirely obsolete. You'll really get on better in the circles to which +you are so soon to be accustomed if you refer to it in my own simple +fashion;--but to return to our muttons, Eleanor, which is French for +getting down to cases, again, you must have had something to live on +after your uncle died. You are alive now. That would almost seem to +prove my contention." + +"We didn't have any money, but what I earned." + +"But--what you earned. What do you mean, Eleanor?" + +The child's face turned crimson, then white again. This time there was +no mistaking the wave of sensitive emotion that swept over it. + +"I worked out," she said. "I made a dollar and a half a week running +errands, and taking care of a sick lady vacations, and nights after +school. Grandma had that shock, and Grandpa's back troubled him. He +tried to get work but he couldn't. He did all he could taking care of +Grandma, and tending the garden. They hated to have me work out, but +there was nobody else to." + +"A family of three can't live on a dollar and a half a week." + +"Yes, sir, they can, if they manage." + +"Where were your neighbors all this time, Eleanor? You don't mean to +tell me that the good, kindly people of Cape Cod would have stood by +and let a little girl like you support a family alone and unaided. +It's preposterous." + +"The neighbors didn't know. They thought Uncle Amos left us something. +Lots of Cape Cod children work out. They thought that I did it because +I wanted to." + +"I see," said David gravely. + +The wheel of their cab became entangled in that of a smart delivery +wagon. He watched it thoughtfully. Then he took off his glasses, and +polished them. + +"Through a glass darkly," he explained a little thickly. He was really +a very _young_ young man, and once below the surface of what he was +pleased to believe a very worldly and cynical manner, he had a +profound depth of tenderness and human sympathy. + +Then as they jogged on through the Fifty-ninth Street end of the Park, +looking strangely seared and bereft from the first blight of the +frost, he turned to her again. This time his tone was as serious as +her own. + +"Why did you stop working out, Eleanor?" he asked. + +"The lady I was tending died. There wasn't nobody else who wanted me. +Mrs. O'Farrel was a relation of hers, and when she came to the +funeral, I told her that I wanted to get work in New York if I +could,--and then last week she wrote me that the best she could do was +to get me this place to be adopted, and so--I came." + +"But your grandparents?" David asked, and realized almost as he spoke +that he had his finger on the spring of the tragedy. + +"They had to take help from the town." + +The child made a brave struggle with her tears, and David looked away +quickly. He knew something of the temper of the steel of the New +England nature; the fierce and terrible pride that is bred in the bone +of the race. He knew that the child before him had tasted of the +bitter waters of humiliation in seeing her kindred "helped" by the +town. "Going out to work," he understood, had brought the family pride +low, but taking help from the town had leveled it to the dust. + +"There is, you know, a small salary that goes with this being adopted +business," he remarked casually a few seconds later. "Your Aunts +Gertrude and Beulah and Margaret, and your three stalwart uncles +aforesaid, are not the kind of people who have been brought up to +expect something for nothing. They don't expect to adopt a perfectly +good orphan without money and without price, merely for the privilege +of experimentation. No, indeed, an orphan in good standing of the best +New England extraction ought to exact for her services a salary of at +least fifteen dollars a month. I wouldn't consent to take a cent less, +Eleanor." + +"Wouldn't you?" the child asked uncertainly. She sat suddenly erect, +as if an actual burden had been dropped from her shoulders. Her eyes +were not violet, David decided, he had been deceived by the depth of +their coloring; they were blue, Mediterranean blue, and her lashes +were an inch and a half long at the very least. She was not only +pretty, she was going to be beautiful some day. A strange premonition +struck David of a future in which this long-lashed, stoic baby was in +some way inextricably bound. + +"How old are you?" he asked her abruptly. + +"Ten years old day before yesterday." + +They had been making their way through the Park; the searer, yellower +Park of late November. It looked duller and more cheerless than David +ever remembered it. The leaves rattled on the trees, and the sun went +down suddenly. + +"This is Central Park," he said. "In the spring it's very beautiful +here, and all the people you know go motoring or driving in the +afternoon." + +He bowed to his mother's milliner in a little French runabout. The +Frenchman stared frankly at the baby blue tam-o'-shanter and the +tangled golden head it surmounted. + +"Joseph could make you a peachy tam-o'-shanter looking thing of blue +velvet; I'll bet I could draw him a picture to copy. Your Uncle David, +you know, is an artist of a sort." + +For the first time since their incongruous association began the child +met his smile; her face relaxed ever so little, and the lips quivered, +but she smiled a shy, little dawning smile. There was trust in it and +confidence. David put out his hand to pat hers, but thought better of +it. + +"Eleanor," he said, "my mother knows our only living Ex-president, and +the Countess of Warwick, one Vanderbilt, two Astors, and she's met Sir +Gilbert Parker, and Rudyard Kipling. She also knows many of the stars +and satellites of upper Fifth Avenue. She has, as well, family +connections of so much weight and stolidity that their very approach, +singly or in conjunction, shakes the earth underneath them.--I wish we +could meet them all, Eleanor, every blessed one of them." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE COOPERATIVE PARENTS + + +"I wonder how a place like this apartment will look to her," Beulah +said thoughtfully. "I wonder if it will seem elegant, or cramped to +death. I wonder if she will take to it kindly, or with an ill +concealed contempt for its limitations." + +"The poor little thing will probably be so frightened and homesick by +the time David gets her here, that she won't know what kind of a place +she's arrived at," Gertrude suggested. "Oh, I wouldn't be in your +shoes for the next few days for anything in the world, Beulah Page; +would you, Margaret?" + +The third girl in the group smiled. + +"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "It would be rather fun to +begin it." + +"I'd rather have her for the first two months, and get it over with," +Beulah said decisively. "It'll be hanging over your head long after my +ordeal is over, and by the time I have to have her again she'll be +absolutely in training. You don't come until the fifth on the list you +know, Gertrude. Jimmie has her after me, then Margaret, then Peter, +and you, and David, if he has got up the courage to tell his mother +by that time." + +"But if he hasn't," Gertrude suggested. + +"He can work it out for himself. He's got to take the child two months +like the rest of us. He's agreed to." + +"He will," Margaret said, "I've never known him to go back on his word +yet." + +"Trust Margaret to stick up for David. Anyway, I've taken the +precaution to put it in writing, as you know, and the document is +filed." + +"We're not adopting this infant legally." + +"No, Gertrude, we can't,--yet, but morally we are. She isn't an +infant, she's ten years old. I wish you girls would take the matter a +little more seriously. We've bound ourselves to be responsible for +this child's whole future. We have undertaken her moral, social and +religious education. Her body and soul are to be--" + +"Equally divided among us," Gertrude cut in. + +Beulah scorned the interruption. + +"--held sacredly in trust by the six of us, severally and +collectively." + +"Why haven't we adopted her legally then?" Margaret asked. + +"Well, you see, there are practical objections. You have to be a +corporation or an institution or something, to adopt a child as a +group. A child can't have three sets of parents in the eyes of the +law, especially when none of them is married, or have the least +intention of being married, to each other.--I don't see what you want +to keep laughing at, Gertrude. It's all a little unusual and modern +and that sort of thing, but I don't think it's funny. Do you, +Margaret?" + +"I think that it's funny, but I think that it's serious, too, +Beulah." + +"I don't see what's funny about--" Beulah began hotly. + +"You don't see what's funny about anything,--even Rogers College, do +you, darling? It is funny though for the bunch of us to undertake the +upbringing of a child ten years old; to make ourselves financially and +spiritually responsible for it. It's a lot more than funny, I know, +but it doesn't seem to me as if I could go on with it at all, until +somebody was willing to admit what a _scream_ the whole thing is." + +"We'll admit that, if that's all you want, won't we, Beulah?" Margaret +appealed. + +"If I've got this insatiable sense of humor, let's indulge it by all +means," Gertrude laughed. "Go on, chillun, go on, I'll try to be good +now." + +"I wish you would," Margaret said. "Confine yourself to a syncopated +chortle while I get a few facts out of Beulah. I did most of my voting +on this proposition by proxy, while I was having the measles in +quarantine. Beulah, did I understand you to say you got hold of your +victim through Mrs. O'Farrel, your seamstress?" + +"Yes, when we decided we'd do this, we thought we'd get a child about +six. We couldn't have her any younger, because there would be bottles, +and expert feeding, and well, you know, all those things. We couldn't +have done it, especially the boys. We thought six would be just about +the right age, but we simply couldn't find a child that would do. We +had to know about its antecedents. We looked through the orphan +asylums, but there wasn't anything pure-blooded American that we could +be sure of. We were all agreed that we wanted pure American blood. I +knew Mrs. O'Farrel had relatives on Cape Cod. You know what that stock +is, a good sea-faring strain, and a race of wonderfully fine women, +'atavistic aristocrats' I remember an author in the _Atlantic Monthly_ +called them once. I suppose you think it's funny to groan, Gertrude, +when anybody makes a literary allusion, but it isn't. Well, anyway, +Mrs. O'Farrel knew about this child, and sent for her. She stayed with +Mrs. O'Farrel over Sunday, and now David is bringing her here. She'll +be here in a minute." + +"Why David?" Gertrude twinkled. + +"Why not David?" Beulah retorted. "It will be a good experience for +him, besides David is so amusing when he tries to be, I thought he +could divert her on the way." + +"It isn't such a crazy idea, after all, Gertrude." Margaret Hutchinson +was the youngest of the three, being within several months of her +majority, but she looked older. Her face had that look of wisdom that +comes to the young who have suffered physical pain. "We've got to do +something. We're all too full of energy and spirits, at least the rest +of you are, and I'm getting huskier every minute, to twirl our hands +and do nothing. None of us ever wants to be married,--that's settled; +but we do want to be useful. We're a united group of the closest kind +of friends, bound by the ties of--of--natural selection, and we need a +purpose in life. Gertrude's a real artist, but the rest of us are not, +and--and--" + +"What could be more natural for us than to want the living clay to +work on? That's the idea, isn't it?" Gertrude said. "I can be serious +if I want to, Beulah-land, but, honestly, girls, when I come to face +out the proposition, I'm almost afraid to. What'll I do with that +child when it comes to be my turn? What'll Jimmie do? Buy her a string +of pearls, and show her the night life of New York very likely. How'll +I break it to my mother? That's the cheerful little echo in my +thoughts night and day. How did you break it to yours, Beulah?" + +Beulah flushed. Her serious brown eyes, deep brown with wine-colored +lights in them, met those of each of her friends in turn. Then she +laughed. + +"Well, I do know this is funny," she said, "but, you know, I haven't +dared tell her. She'll be away for a month, anyway. Aunt Ann is here, +but I'm only telling her that I'm having a little girl from the +country to visit me." + +Occasionally the architect of an apartment on the upper west side of +New York--by pure accident, it would seem, since the general run of +such apartments is so uncomfortable, and unfriendly--hits upon a plan +for a group of rooms that are at once graciously proportioned and +charmingly convenient, while not being an absolute offense to the eye +in respect to the details of their decoration. Beulah Page and her +mother lived in such an apartment, and they had managed with a few +ancestral household gods, and a good many carefully related modern +additions to them, to make of their eight rooms and bath, to say +nothing of the ubiquitous butler's-pantry, something very remarkably +resembling a home, in its most delightful connotation: and it was in +the drawing room of this home that the three girls were gathered. + +Beulah, the younger daughter of a widowed mother--now visiting in the +home of the elder daughter, Beulah's sister Agatha, in the expectation +of what the Victorians refer to as an "interesting event"--was +technically under the chaperonage of her Aunt Ann, a solemn little +spinster with no control whatever over the movements of her determined +young niece. + +Beulah was just out of college,--just out, in fact, of the most +high-minded of all the colleges for women;--that founded by Andrew +Rogers in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-one. There +is probably a greater percentage of purposeful young women graduated +from Rogers College every year, than from any other one of the +communities of learning devoted to the education of women; and of all +the purposeful classes turned out from that admirable institution, +Beulah's class could without exaggeration be designated as the most +purposeful class of them all. That Beulah was not the most purposeful +member of her class merely argues that an almost abnormally high +standard of purposefulness was maintained by practically every +individual in it. + +At Rogers every graduating class has its fad; its propaganda for a +crusade against the most startling evils of the world. One year, the +sacred outlines of the human figure are protected against +disfigurement by an ardent group of young classicists in Grecian +draperies. The next, a fierce young brood of vegetarians challenge a +lethargic world to mortal combat over an Argentine sirloin. The year +of Beulah's graduation, the new theories of child culture that were +gaining serious headway in academic circles, had filtered into the +class rooms, and Beulah's mates had contracted the contagion +instantly. The entire senior class went mad on the subject of child +psychology and the various scientific prescriptions for the direction +of the young idea. + +It was therefore primarily to Beulah Page, that little Eleanor Hamlin, +of Colhassett, Massachusetts, owed the change in her fortune. At least +it was to Beulah that she owed the initial inspiration that set the +wheel of that fortune in motion; but it was to the glorious enterprise +and idealism of youth, and the courage of a set of the most intrepid +and quixotic convictions that ever quickened in the breasts of a mad +half dozen youngsters, that she owed the actual fulfillment of her +adventure. + +The sound of the door-bell brought the three girls to their feet, but +the footfalls in the corridor, double quick time, and accentuated, +announced merely the arrival of Jimmie Sears, and Peter Stuyvesant, +nicknamed _Gramercy_ by common consent. + +"Has she come?" Peter asked. + +But Jimmie struck an attitude in the middle of the floor. + +"My daughter, oh! my daughter," he cried. "This suspense is killing +me. For the love of Mike, children, where is she?" + +"She's coming," Beulah answered; "David's bringing her." + +Gertrude pushed him into the _chaise-lounge_ already in the +possession of Margaret, and squeezed in between them. + +"Hold my hand, Jimmie," she said. "The feelings of a father are +nothing,--_nothing_ in comparison to those which smolder in the +maternal breast. Look at Beulah, how white she is, and Margaret is +trembling this minute." + +"I'm trembling, too," Peter said, "or if I'm not trembling, I'm +frightened." + +"We're all frightened," Margaret said, "but we're game." + +The door-bell rang again. + +"There they come," Beulah said, "oh! everybody be good to me." + +The familiar figure of their good friend David appeared on the +threshold at this instant, and beside him an odd-looking little figure +in a shoddy cloth coat, and a faded blue tam-o'-shanter. There was a +long smudge of dirt reaching from the corner of her eye well down into +the middle of her cheek. A kind of composite gasp went up from the +waiting group, a gasp of surprise, consternation, and panic. Not one +of the five could have told at that instant what it was he expected to +see, or how his imagination of the child differed from the concrete +reality, but amazement and keen disappointment constrained them. Here +was no figure of romance and delight. No miniature Galatea half hewn +out of the block of humanity, waiting for the chisel of a composite +Pygmalion. Here was only a grubby, little unkempt child, like all +other children, but not so presentable. + +"What's the matter with everybody?" said David with unnatural +sharpness. "I want to present you to our ward, Miss Eleanor Hamlin, +who has come a long way for the pleasure of meeting you. Eleanor, +these are your cooperative parents." + +The child's set gaze followed his gesture obediently. David took the +little hand in his, and led the owner into the heart of the group. +Beulah stepped forward. + +"This is your Aunt Beulah, Eleanor, of whom I've been telling you." + +"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Aunt Beulah," the little girl +said, as Beulah put out her hand, still uncertainly. + +Then the five saw a strange thing happen. The immaculate, inscrutable +David--the aristocrat of aristocrats, the one undemonstrative, +super-self-conscious member of the crowd, who had been delegated to +transport the little orphan chiefly because the errand was so +incongruous a mission on which to despatch him--David put his arm +around the neck of the child with a quick protecting gesture, and then +gathered her close in his arms, where she clung, quivering and +sobbing, the unkempt curls straggling helplessly over his shoulder. + +He strode across the room where Margaret was still sitting upright in +the _chaise-lounge_, her dove-gray eyes wide, her lips parted. + +"Here, you take her," he said, without ceremony, and slipped his +burden into her arms. + +"Welcome to our city, Kiddo," Jimmie said in his throat, but nobody +heard him. + +Peter, whose habit it was to walk up and down endlessly wherever he +felt most at home, paused in his peregrination, as Margaret shyly +gathered the rough little head to her bosom. The child met his gaze as +he did so. + +"We weren't quite up to scratch," he said gravely. + +Beulah's eyes filled. "Peter," she said, "Peter, I didn't mean to +be--not to be--" + +But Peter seemed not to know she was speaking. The child's eyes still +held him, and he stood gazing down at her, his handsome head thrown +slightly back; his face deeply intent; his eyes softened. + +"I'm your Uncle Peter, Eleanor," he said, and bent down till his lips +touched her forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS + + +Eleanor walked over to the steam pipes, and examined them carefully. +The terrible rattling noise had stopped, as had also the choking and +gurgling that had kept her awake because it was so like the noise that +Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, the sick lady she had helped to take care of, +made constantly for the last two weeks of her life. Whenever there was +a sound that was anything like that, Eleanor could not help shivering. +She had never seen steam pipes before. When Beulah had shown her the +room where she was to sleep--a room all in blue, baby blue, and pink +roses--Eleanor thought that the silver pipes standing upright in the +corner were a part of some musical instrument, like a pipe organ. When +the rattling sound had begun she thought that some one had come into +the room with her, and was tuning it. She had drawn the pink silk puff +closely about her ears, and tried not to be frightened. Trying not to +be frightened was the way she had spent a good deal of her time since +her Uncle Amos died, and she had had to look out for her +grandparents. + +Now that it was morning, and the bright sun was streaming into the +windows, she ventured to climb out of bed and approach the uncanny +instrument. She tripped on the trailing folds of that nightgown her +Aunt Beulah--it was funny that all these ladies should call themselves +her aunts, when they were really no relation to her--had insisted on +her wearing. Her own nightdress had been left in the time-worn +carpetbag that Uncle David had forgotten to take out of the "handsome +cab." She stumbled against the silver pipes. They were _hot_; so hot +that the flesh of her arm nearly blistered, but she did not cry out. +Here was another mysterious problem of the kind that New York +presented at every turn, to be silently accepted, and dealt with. + +Her mother and father had once lived in New York. Her father had been +born here, in a house with a brownstone front on West Tenth Street, +wherever that was. She herself had lived in New York when she was a +baby, though she had been born in her grandfather's house in +Colhassett. She had lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, too, until she was four +years old, and her father and mother had died there, both in the same +week, of pneumonia. She wished this morning, that she could remember +the house where they lived in New York, and the things that were in +it. + +There was a knock on the door. Ought she to go and open the door in +her nightdress? Ought she to call out "Come in?" It might be a +gentleman, and her Aunt Beulah's nightdress was not very thick. She +decided to cough, so that whoever was outside might understand she was +in there, and had heard them. + +"May I come in, Eleanor?" Beulah's voice called. + +"Yes, ma'am." She started to get into bed, but Miss--Miss--the nearer +she was to her, the harder it was to call her aunt,--Aunt Beulah might +think it was time she was up. She compromised by sitting down in a +chair. + +Beulah had passed a practically sleepless night working out the theory +of Eleanor's development. The six had agreed on a certain sketchily +defined method of procedure. That is, they were to read certain books +indicated by Beulah, and to follow the general schedule that she was +to work out and adapt to the individual needs of the child herself, +during the first phase of the experiment. She felt that she had +managed the reception badly, that she had not done or said the right +thing. Peter's attitude had shown that he felt the situation had been +clumsily handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. Peter was +too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed in the muffled depths of +a feverish pillow that there should be no more flagrant flaws in the +conduct of the campaign. + +"Did you sleep well, Eleanor?" she asked. + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Are you hungry?" + +"No, ma'am." + +The conversation languished at this. + +"Have you had your bath?" + +"I didn't know I was to have one." + +"Nice little girls have a bath every day." + +"Do they?" Eleanor asked. Her Aunt Beulah seemed to expect her to say +something more, but she couldn't think of anything. + +"I'll draw your bath for you this morning. After this you will be +expected to take it yourself." + +Eleanor had seen bathrooms before, but she had never been in a +bath-tub. At her grandfather's, she had taken her Saturday night baths +in an old wooden wash-tub, which had water poured in it from the tea +kettle. When Beulah closed the door on her she stepped gingerly into +the tub: the water was twice too hot, but she didn't know how to turn +the faucet, or whether she was expected to turn it. Mrs. O'Farrel had +told her that people had to pay for water in New York. Perhaps Aunt +Beulah had drawn all the water she could have. She used the soap +sparingly. Soap was expensive, she knew. She wished there was some way +of discovering just how much of things she was expected to use. The +number of towels distressed her, but she finally took the littlest and +dried herself. The heat of the water had nearly parboiled her. + +After that, she tried to do blindly what she was told. There was a +girl in a black dress and white apron that passed her everything she +had to eat. Her Aunt Beulah told her to help herself to sugar and to +cream for her oatmeal, from off this girl's tray. Her hand trembled a +good deal, but she was fortunate enough not to spill any. After +breakfast she was sent to wash her hands in the bathroom; she turned +the faucet, and used a very little water. Then, when she was called, +she went into the sitting-room and sat down, and folded her hands in +her lap. + +Beulah looked at her with some perplexity. The child was docile and +willing, but she seemed unexpectedly stupid for a girl ten years old. + +"Have you ever been examined for adenoids, Eleanor?" she asked +suddenly. + +"No, ma'am." + +"Say, 'no, Aunt Beulah.' Don't say, 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am.' +People don't say 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am' any more, you know. They +say 'no' and 'yes,' and then mention the name of the person to whom +they are speaking." + +"Yes, ma'am," Eleanor couldn't stop herself saying it. She wanted to +correct herself. "No, Aunt Beulah, no, Aunt Beulah," but the words +stuck in her throat. + +"Well, try to remember," Beulah said. She was thinking of the case in +a book of psychology that she had been reading that morning, of a girl +who was "pale and sleepy looking, expressionless of face, careless of +her personal appearance," who after an operation for adenoids, had +become "as animated and bright as before she had been lethargic and +dull." She was pleased to see that Eleanor's fine hair had been +scrupulously combed, and neatly braided this morning, not being able +to realize--as how should she?--that the condition of Eleanor's fine +spun locks on her arrival the night before, had been attributable to +the fact that the O'Farrel baby had stolen her comb, and Eleanor had +been too shy to mention the fact, and had combed her hair +mermaid-wise, through her fingers. + +"This morning," Beulah began brightly, "I am going to turn you loose +in the apartment, and let you do what you like. I want to get an idea +of the things you do like, you know. You can sew, or read, or drum on +the piano, or talk to me, anything that pleases you most. I want you +to be happy, that's all, and to enjoy yourself in your own way." + +"Give the child absolute freedom in which to demonstrate the worth and +value of its ego,"--that was what she was doing, "keeping it carefully +under observation while you determine the individual trend along which +to guide its development." + +The little girl looked about her helplessly. The room was very large +and bright. The walls were white, and so was the woodwork, the mantle, +and some of the furniture. Gay figured curtains hung at the windows, +and there were little stools, and chairs, and even trays with glass +over them, covered with the same bright colored material. Eleanor had +never seen a room anything like it. There was no center-table, no +crayon portraits of different members of the family, no easels, or +scarves thrown over the corners of the pictures. There were not many +pictures, and those that there were didn't seem to Eleanor like +pictures at all, they were all so blurry and smudgy,--excepting one of +a beautiful lady. She would have liked to have asked the name of that +lady,--but her Aunt Beulah's eyes were upon her. She slipped down from +her chair and walked across the room to the window. + +"Well, dear, what would make this the happiest day you can think of?" +Beulah asked, in the tone she was given to use when she asked Gertrude +and Margaret and Jimmie--but not often Peter--what they expected to do +with their lives. + +Eleanor turned a desperate face from the window, from the row of bland +elegant apartment buildings she had been contemplating with unseeing +eyes. + +"Do I have to?" she asked Beulah piteously. + +"Have to what?" + +"Have to amuse myself in my own way? I don't know what you want me to +do. I don't know what you think that I ought to do." + +A strong-minded and spoiled younger daughter of a widowed +mother--whose chief anxiety had been to anticipate the wants of her +children before they were expressed--with an independent income, and a +beloved and admiring circle of intimate friends, is not likely to be +imaginatively equipped to explore the spiritual fastnesses of a +sensitive and alien orphan. Beulah tried earnestly to get some +perspective on the child's point of view, but she could not. The fact +that she was torturing the child would have been outside of the limits +of her comprehension. She searched her mind for some immediate +application of the methods of Madame Montessori, and produced a lump +of modeling clay. + +"You don't really have to do anything, Eleanor," she said kindly. "I +don't want you to make an effort to please me, only to be happy +yourself. Why don't you try and see what you can do with this modeling +clay? Just try making it up into mud pies, or anything." + +"Mud pies?" + +"Let the child teach himself the significance of contour, and the use +of his hands, by fashioning the clay into rudimentary forms of +beauty." That was the theory. + +"Yes, dear, mud pies, if you wish to." + +Whereupon Eleanor, conscientiously and miserably, turned out a neat +half-dozen skilful, miniature models of the New England deep dish +apple-pie, pricked and pinched to a nicety. + +Beulah, with a vision related to the nebulous stages of a study by +Rodin, was somewhat disconcerted with this result, but she brightened +as she thought at least she had discovered a natural tendency in the +child that she could help her develop. + +"Do you like to cook, Eleanor?" she asked. + +In the child's mind there rose the picture of her grim apprenticeship +on Cape Cod. She could see the querulous invalid in the sick chair, +her face distorted with pain and impatience; she could feel the sticky +dough in her fingers, and the heat from the stove rising round her. + +"I hate cooking," she said, with the first hint of passion she had +shown in her relation to her new friends. + +The day dragged on wearily. Beulah took her to walk on the Drive, but +as far as she was able to determine the child saw nothing of her +surroundings. The crowds of trimly dressed people, the nursemaids and +babies, the swift slim outlines of the whizzing motors, even the +battleships lying so suggestively quiescent on the river before +them--all the spectacular, vivid panorama of afternoon on Riverside +Drive--seemed absolutely without interest or savor to the child. +Beulah's despair and chagrin were increasing almost as rapidly as +Eleanor's. + +Late in the afternoon Beulah suggested a nap. "I'll sit here and read +for a few minutes," she said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. +Then, since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, and +still determined by the hot memory of her night's vigil to leave no +stone of geniality unturned, she added: + +"This is a book that I am reading to help me to know how to guide and +educate you. I haven't had much experience in adopting children, you +know, Eleanor, and when there is anything in this world that you don't +know, there is usually some good and useful book that will help you to +find out all about it." + +Even to herself her words sounded hatefully patronizing and pedagogic, +but she was past the point of believing that she could handle the +situation with grace. When Eleanor's breath seemed to be coming +regularly, she put down her book with some thankfulness and escaped to +the tea table, where she poured tea for her aunt, and explained the +child's idiosyncrasies swiftly and smoothly to that estimable lady. + +Left alone, Eleanor lay still for a while, staring at the design of +pink roses on the blue wall-paper. On Cape Cod, pink and blue were not +considered to be colors that could be combined. There was nothing at +all in New York like anything she knew or remembered. She sighed. Then +she made her way to the window and picked up the book Beulah had been +reading. It was about _her_, Aunt Beulah had said,--directions for +educating her and training her. The paragraph that caught her eye +where the book was open had been marked with a pencil. + +"This girl had such a fat, frog like expression of face," Eleanor +read, "that her neighbors thought her an idiot. She was found to be +the victim of a severe case of ad-e-noids." As she spelled out the +word, she recognized it as the one Beulah had used earlier in the day. +She remembered the sudden sharp look with which the question had been +accompanied. The sick lady for whom she had "worked out" had often +called her an idiot when her feet had stumbled, or she had failed to +understand at once what was required of her. + +Eleanor read on. She encountered a text replete with hideous examples +of backward and deficient children, victims of adenoids who had been +restored to a state of normality by the removal of the affliction. She +had no idea what an adenoid was. She had a hazy notion that it was a +kind of superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but her anguish +was rooted in the fact that this, _this_ was the good and useful book +that her Aunt Beulah had found it necessary to resort to for guidance, +in the case of her own--Eleanor's--education. + +When Beulah, refreshed by a cup of tea and further sustained by the +fact that Margaret and Peter had both telephoned they were coming to +dinner, returned to her charge, she found the stolid, apathetic child +she had left, sprawling face downward on the floor, in a passion of +convulsive weeping. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PETER ELUCIDATES + + +It was Peter who got at the heart of the trouble. Margaret tried, but +though Eleanor clung to her and relaxed under the balm of her gentle +caresses, the child remained entirely inarticulate until Peter +gathered her up in his arms, and signed to the others that he wished +to be left alone with her. + +By the time he rejoined the two in the drawing-room--he had missed his +after-dinner coffee in the long half-hour that he had spent shut into +the guest room with the child--Jimmie and Gertrude had arrived, and +the four sat grouped together to await his pronouncement. + +"She thinks she has adenoids. She wants the doll that David left in +that carpetbag of hers he forgot to take out of the 'Handsome cab.' +She wants to be loved, and she wants to grow up and write poetry for +the newspapers," he announced. "Also she will eat a piece of bread and +butter and a glass of milk, as soon as it can conveniently be provided +for her." + +"When did you take holy orders, Gram?" Jimmie inquired. "How do you +work the confessional? I wish I could make anybody give anything up to +me, but I can't. Did you just go into that darkened chamber and say to +the kid, 'Child of my adoption,--cough,' and she coughed, or are you +the master of some subtler system of choking the truth out of 'em?" + +"Anybody would tell anything to Peter if he happened to want to know +it," Margaret said seriously. "Wouldn't they, Beulah?" + +Beulah nodded. "She wants to be loved," Peter had said. It was so +simple for some people to open their hearts and give out +love,--easily, lightly. She was not made like that,--loving came hard +with her, but when once she had given herself, it was done. Peter +didn't know how hard she had tried to do right with the child that +day. + +"The doll is called the rabbit doll, though there is no reason why it +should be, as it only looks the least tiny bit like a rabbit, and is a +girl. Its other name is Gwendolyn, and it always goes to bed with her. +Mrs. O'Farrels aunt said that children always stopped playing with +dolls when they got to be as big as Eleanor, but she isn't never +going to stop.--You must get after that double negative, Beulah.--She +once wrote a poem beginning: 'The rabbit doll, it is my own.' She +thinks that she has a frog-like expression of face, and that is why +Beulah doesn't like her better. She is perfectly willing to have her +adenoids cut out, if Beulah thinks it would improve her, but she +doesn't want to 'take anything,' when she has it done." + +"You are a wonder, Gram," Gertrude said admiringly. + +"Oh! I have made a mess of it, haven't I?" Beulah said. "Is she +homesick?" + +"Yes, she's homesick," Peter said gravely, "but not for anything she's +left in Colhassett. David told you the story, didn't he?--She is +homesick for her own kind, for people she can really love, and she's +never found any of them. Her grandfather and grandmother are old and +decrepit. She feels a terrible responsibility for them, but she +doesn't love them, not really. She's too hungry to love anybody until +she finds the friends she can cling to--without compromise." + +"An emotional aristocrat," Gertrude murmured. "It's the curse of +taste." + +"Help! Help!" Jimmie cried, grimacing at Gertrude. "Didn't she have +any kids her own age to play with?" + +"She had 'em, but she didn't have any time to play with them. You +forget she was supporting a family all the time, Jimmie." + +"By jove, I'd like to forget it." + +"She had one friend named Albertina Weston that she used to run around +with in school. Albertina also wrote poetry. They used to do poetic +'stunts' of one poem a day on some subject selected by Albertina. I +think Albertina was a snob. She candidly admitted to Eleanor that if +her clothes were more stylish, she would go round with her more. +Eleanor seemed to think that was perfectly natural." + +"How do you do it, Peter?" Jimmie besought. "If I could get one +damsel, no matter how tender her years, to confide in me like that I'd +be happy for life. It's nothing to you with those eyes, and that +matinee forehead of yours; but I want 'em to weep down my neck, and I +can't make 'em do it." + +"Wait till you grow up, Jimmie, and then see what happens," Gertrude +soothed him. + +"Wait till it's your turn with our child," Margaret said. "In two +months more she's coming to you." + +"Do I ever forget it for a minute?" Jimmie cried. + +"The point of the whole business is," Peter continued, "that we've got +a human soul on our hands. We imported a kind of scientific plaything +to exercise our spiritual muscle on, and we've got a real specimen of +womanhood in embryo. I don't know whether the situation appalls you as +much as it does me--" He broke off as he heard the bell ring. + +"That's David, he said he was coming." + +Then as David appeared laden with the lost carpetbag and a huge box of +chocolates, he waved him to a chair, and took up his speech again. "I +don't know whether the situation appalls you, as much as it does +me--if I don't get this off my chest now, David, I can't do it at +all--but the thought of that poor little waif in there and the +struggle she's had, and the shy valiant spirit of her,--the sand that +she's got, the _sand_ that put her through and kept her mouth shut +through experiences that might easily have killed her, why I feel as +if I'd give anything I had in the world to make it up to her, and yet +I'm not altogether sure that I could--that we could--that it's any of +our business to try it." + +"There's nobody else who will, if we don't," David said. + +"That's it," Peter said, "I've never known any one of our bunch to +quit anything that they once started in on, but just by way of +formality there is one thing we ought to do about this proposition +before we slide into it any further, and that is to agree that we want +to go on with it, that we know what we're in for, and that we're +game." + +"We decided all that before we sent for the kid," Jimmie said, "didn't +we?" + +"We decided we'd adopt a child, but we didn't decide we'd adopt this +one. Taking the responsibility of this one is the question before the +house just at present." + +"The idea being," David added, "that she's a fairly delicate piece of +work, and as time advances she's going to be _delicater_." + +"And that it's an awkward matter to play with souls," Beulah +contributed; whereupon Jimmie murmured, "Browning," sotto voice. + +"She may be all that you say, Gram," Jimmie said, after a few minutes +of silence, "a thunderingly refined and high-minded young waif, but +you will admit that without an interpreter of the same class, she +hasn't been much good to us so far." + +"Good lord, she isn't refined and high-minded," Peter said. "That's +not the idea. She's simply supremely sensitive and full of the most +pathetic possibilities. If we're going to undertake her we ought to +realize fully what we're up against, and acknowledge it,--that's all +I'm trying to say, and I apologize for assuming that it's more my +business than anybody's to say it." + +"That charming humility stuff, if I could only remember to pull it." + +The sofa pillow that Gertrude aimed at Jimmie hit him full on the +mouth and he busied himself pretending to eat it. Beulah scorned the +interruption. + +"Of course, we're going to undertake her," Beulah said. "We are signed +up and it's all down in writing. If anybody has any objections, they +can state them now." She looked about her dramatically. On every young +face was reflected the same earnestness that set gravely on her own. + +"The 'ayes' have it," Jimmie murmured. "From now on I become not only +a parent, but a soul doctor." He rose, and tiptoed solemnly toward the +door of Eleanor's room. + +"Where are you going, Jimmie?" Beulah called, as he was disappearing +around the bend in the corridor. + +He turned back to lift an admonitory finger. + +"Shush," he said, "do not interrupt me. I am going to wrap baby up in +a blanket and bring her out to her mothers and fathers." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ELEANOR ENJOYS HERSELF IN HER OWN WAY + + +"I am in society here," Eleanor wrote to her friend Albertina, with a +pardonable emphasis on that phase of her new existence that would +appeal to the haughty ideals of Miss Weston, "I don't have to do any +housework, or anything. I sleep under a pink silk bedquilt, and I have +all new clothes. I have a new black pattern leather sailor hat that I +sopose you would laugh at. It cost six dollars and draws the sun down +to my head but I don't say anything. I have six aunts and uncles all +diferent names and ages but grown up. Uncle Peter is the most elderly, +he is twenty-five. I know becase we gave him a birthday party with a +cake. I sat at the table. I wore my crape da shine dress. You would +think that was pretty, well it is. There is a servant girl to do evry +thing even passing your food to you on a tray. I wish you could come +to visit me. I stay two months in a place and get broghut up there. +Aunt Beulah is peculiar but nice when you know her. She is stric and +at first I thought we was not going to get along. She thought I had +adenoids and I thought she dislikt me too much, but it turned out not. +I take lessons from her every morning like they give at Rogers +College, not like publick school. I have to think what I want to do a +good deal and then do it. At first she turned me loose to enjoy myself +and I could not do it, but now we have disapline which makes it all +right. My speling is weak, but uncle Peter says Stevanson could not +spel and did not care. Stevanson was the poat who wrote the birdie +with a yellow bill in the reader. I wish you would tel me if Grandma's +eye is worse and what about Grandfather's rheumatism. + +"Your fond friend, Eleanor. + +"P. S. We have a silver organ in all the rooms to have heat in. I was +afrayd of them at first." + + * * * * * + +In the letters to her grandparents, however, the undercurrent of +anxiety about the old people, which was a ruling motive in her life, +became apparent. + + * * * * * + +"Dear Grandma and Dear Grandpa," she wrote, + +"I have been here a weak now. I inclose my salary, fifteen dollars +($15.00) which I hope you will like. I get it for doing evry thing I +am told and being adoptid besides. You can tell the silectmen that I +am rich now and can support you just as good as Uncle Amos. I want +Grandpa to buy some heavy undershurts right of. He will get a couff if +he doesn't do it. Tell him to rub your arm evry night before you go to +bed, Grandma, and to have a hot soapstone for you. If you don't have +your bed hot you will get newmonia and I can't come home to take care +of you, becase my salary would stop. I like New York better now that I +have lived here some. I miss seeing you around, and Grandpa. + +"The cook cooks on a gas stove that is very funny. I asked her how it +went and she showed me it. She is going to leve, but lucky thing the +hired girl can cook till Aunt Beulah gets a nother cook as antyseptic +as this cook. In Rogers College they teach ladies to have their cook's +and hired girl's antyseptic. It is a good idear becase of sickness. I +inclose a recipete for a good cake. You can make it sating down. You +don't have to stir it much, and Grandpa can bring you the things. I +will write soon. I hope you are all right. Let me hear that you are +all right. Don't forget to put the cat out nights. I hope she is all +right, but remember the time she stole the butter fish. I miss you, +and I miss the cat around. Uncle David pays me my salary out of his +own pocket, because he is the richest, but I like Uncle Peter the +best. He is very handsome and we like to talk to each other the best. +Goodbye, Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +But it was on the varicolored pages of a ruled tablet--with a picture +on its cover of a pink cheeked young lady beneath a cherry tree, and +marked in large straggling letters also varicolored "The Cherry +Blossom Tablet"--that Eleanor put down her most sacred thoughts. On +the outside, just above the cherry tree, her name was written with a +pencil that had been many times wet to get the desired degree of +blackness, "Eleanor Hamlin, Colhassett, Massachusetts. Private Dairy," +and on the first page was this warning in the same painstaking, +heavily shaded chirography, "This book is sacrid, and not be trespased +in or read one word of. By order of owner. E. H." + +It was the private diary and Gwendolyn, the rabbit doll, and a small +blue china shepherdess given her by Albertina, that constituted +Eleanor's _lares et penates_. When David had finally succeeded in +tracing the ancient carpetbag in the lost and found department of the +cab company, Eleanor was able to set up her household gods, and draw +from them that measure of strength and security inseparable from their +familiar presence. She always slept with two of the three beloved +objects, and after Beulah had learned to understand and appreciate the +child's need for unsupervised privacy, she divined that the little +girl was happiest when she could devote at least an hour or two a day +to the transcribing of earnest sentences on the pink, blue and yellow +pages of the Cherry Blossom Tablet, and the mysterious games that she +played with the rabbit doll. That these games consisted largely in +making the rabbit doll impersonate Eleanor, while the child herself +became in turn each one of the six uncles and aunts, and exhorted the +victim accordingly, did not of course occur to Beulah. It did occur to +her that the pink, blue and yellow pages would have made interesting +reading to Eleanor's guardians, if they had been privileged to read +all that was chronicled there. + + * * * * * + +"My aunt Beulah wears her hair to high of her forrid. + +"My aunt Margaret wears her hair to slic on the sides. + +"My aunt Gertrude wears her hair just about right. + +"My aunt Margaret is the best looking, and has the nicest way. + +"My aunt Gertrude is the funniest. I never laugh at what she says, but +I have trouble not to. By thinking of Grandpa's rheumaticks I stop +myself just in time. Aunt Beulah means all right, and wants to do +right and have everybody else the same. + +"Uncle David is not handsome, but good. + +"Uncle Jimmie is not handsome, but his hair curls. + +"Uncle Peter is the most handsome man that ere the sun shown on. That +is poetry. He has beautiful teeth, and I like him. + +"Yesterday the Wordsworth Club--that's what Uncle Jimmie calls us +because he says we are seven--went to the Art Museum to edjucate me in +art. + +"Aunt Beulah wanted to take me to one room and keep me there until I +asked to come out. Uncle Jimmie wanted to show me the statures. Uncle +David said I ought to begin with the Ming period and work down to Art +Newvoo. Aunts Gertrude and Margaret wanted to take me to the room of +the great masters. While they were talking Uncle Peter and I went to +see a picture that made me cry. I asked him who she was. He said that +wasn't the important thing, that the important thing was that one man +had nailed his dream. He didn't doubt that lots of other painters had, +but this one meant the most to him. When I cried he said, 'You're all +right, Baby. You know.' Then he reached down and kissed me." + + * * * * * + +As the month progressed, it seemed to Beulah that she was making +distinct progress with the child. Since the evening when Peter had won +Eleanor's confidence and explained her mental processes, her task had +been illumined for her. She belonged to that class of women in whom +maternity arouses late. She had not the facile sympathy which accepts +a relationship without the endorsement of the understanding, and she +was too young to have much toleration for that which was not perfectly +clear to her. + +She had started in with high courage to demonstrate the value of a +sociological experiment. She hoped later, though these hopes she had +so far kept to herself, to write, or at least to collaborate with some +worthy educator, on a book which would serve as an exact guide to +other philanthropically inclined groups who might wish to follow the +example of cooperative adoption; but the first day of actual contact +with her problem had chilled her. She had put nothing down in her +note-book. She had made no scientific progress. There seemed to be no +intellectual response in the child. + +Peter had set all these things right for her. He had shown her the +child's uncompromising integrity of spirit. The keynote of Beulah's +nature was, as Jimmie said, that she "had to be shown." Peter pointed +out the fact to her that Eleanor's slogan also was, "No compromise." +As Eleanor became more familiar with her surroundings this spirit +became more and more evident. + +"I could let down the hem of these dresses, Aunt Beulah," she said one +day, looking down at the long stretch of leg protruding from the chic +blue frock that made her look like a Boutet de Monvil. "I can't hem +very good, but my stitches don't show much." + +"That dress isn't too short, dear. It's the way little girls always +wear them. Do little girls on Cape Cod wear them longer?" + +"Yes, Aunt Beulah." + +"How long do they wear them?" + +"Albertina," they had reached the point of discussion of Albertina +now, and Beulah was proud of it, "wore her dresses to her ankles, +be--because her--her legs was so fat. She said that mine was--were +getting to be fat too, and it wasn't refined to wear short dresses, +when your legs were fat." + +"There are a good many conflicting ideas of refinement in the world, +Eleanor," Beulah said. + +"I've noticed there are, since I came to New York," Eleanor answered +unexpectedly. + +Beulah's academic spirit recognized and rejoiced in the fact that with +all her docility, Eleanor held firmly to her preconceived notions. She +continued to wear her dresses short, but when she was not actually on +exhibition, she hid her long legs behind every available bit of +furniture or drapery. + +The one doubt left in her mind, of the child's initiative and +executive ability, was destined to be dissipated by the rather heroic +measures sometimes resorted to by a superior agency taking an ironic +hand in the game of which we have been too inhumanly sure. + +On the fifth week of Eleanor's stay Beulah became a real aunt, the +cook left, and her own aunt and official chaperon, little Miss +Prentis, was laid low with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism. +Beulah's excitement on these various counts, combined with +indiscretions in the matter of overshoes and overfatigue, made her an +easy victim to a wandering grip germ. She opened her eyes one morning +only to shut them with a groan of pain. There was an ache in her head +and a thickening in her chest, the significance of which she knew only +too well. She found herself unable to rise. She lifted a hoarse voice +and called for Mary, the maid, who did not sleep in the house but was +due every morning at seven. But the gentle knock on the door was +followed by the entrance of Eleanor, not Mary. + +"Mary didn't come, Aunt Beulah. I thought you was--were so tired, I'd +let you have your sleep out. I heard Miss Prentis calling, and I made +her some gruel, and I got my own breakfast." + +"Oh! how dreadful," Beulah gasped in the face of this new calamity; +"and I'm really so sick. I don't know what we'll do." + +Eleanor regarded her gravely. Then she put a professional hand on her +pulse and her forehead. + +"You've got the grip," she announced. + +"I'm afraid I have, Eleanor, and Doctor Martin's out of town, and +won't be back till to-morrow when he comes to Aunt Ann. I don't know +what we'll do." + +"I'll tend to things," Eleanor said. "You lie still and close your +eyes, and don't put your arms out of bed and get chilled." + +"Well, you'll have to manage somehow," Beulah moaned; "how, I don't +know, I'm sure. Give Aunt Annie her medicine and hot water bags, and +just let me be. I'm too sick to care what happens." + +After the door had closed on the child a dozen things occurred to +Beulah that might have been done for her. She was vaguely faint for +her breakfast. Her feet were cold. She thought of the soothing warmth +of antiphlogistine when applied to the chest. She thought of the +quinine on the shelf in the bathroom. Once more she tried lifting her +head, but she could not accomplish a sitting posture. She shivered as +a draft from the open window struck her. + +"If I could only be taken in hand this morning," she thought, "I know +it could be broken." + +The door opened softly. Eleanor, in the cook's serviceable apron of +gingham that would have easily contained another child the same size, +swung the door open with one hand and held it to accommodate the +passage of the big kitchen tray, deeply laden with a heterogeneous +collection of objects. She pulled two chairs close to the bedside and +deposited her burden upon them. Then she removed from the tray a +goblet of some steaming fluid and offered it to Beulah. + +"It's cream of wheat gruel," she said, and added ingratiatingly: "It +tastes nice in a tumbler." + +Beulah drank the hot decoction gratefully and found, to her surprise, +that it was deliciously made. + +Eleanor took the glass away from her and placed it on the tray, from +which she took what looked to Beulah like a cloth covered omelet,--at +any rate, it was a crescent shaped article slightly yellow in tone. +Eleanor tested it with a finger. + +"It's just about right," she said. Then she fixed Beulah with a stern +eye. "Open your chest," she commanded, "and show me the spot where +it's worst. I've made a meal poultice." + +Beulah hesitated only a second, then she obeyed meekly. She had never +seen a meal poultice before, but the heat on her afflicted chest was +grateful to her. Antiphlogistine was only Denver mud anyhow. Meekly, +also, she took the six grains of quinine and the weak dose of jamaica +ginger and water that she was next offered. She felt encouraged and +refreshed enough by this treatment to display some slight curiosity +when the little girl produced a card of villainous looking +safety-pins. + +"I'm going to pin you in with these, Aunt Beulah," she said, "and then +sweat your cold out of you." + +"Indeed, you're not," Beulah said; "don't be absurd, Eleanor. The +theory of the grip is--," but she was addressing merely the vanishing +hem of cook's voluminous apron. + +The child returned almost instantly with three objects of assorted +sizes that Beulah could not identify. From the outside they looked +like red flannel and from the way Eleanor handled them it was evident +that they also were hot. + +"I het--heated the flatirons," Eleanor explained, "the way I do for +Grandma, and I'm going to spread 'em around you, after you're pinned +in the blankets, and you got to lie there till you prespire, and +prespire good." + +"I won't do it," Beulah moaned, "I won't do any such thing. Go away, +child." + +"I cured Grandma and Grandpa and Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt that I worked +for, and I'm going to cure you," Eleanor said. + +"No." + +Eleanor advanced on her threateningly. + +"Put your arms under those covers," she said, "or I'll dash a glass of +cold water in your face,"--and Beulah obeyed her. + +Peter nodded wisely when Beulah, cured by these summary though +obsolete methods, told the story in full detail. Gertrude had laughed +until the invalid had enveloped herself in the last few shreds of her +dignity and ordered her out of the room, and the others had been +scarcely more sympathetic. + +"I know that it's funny, Peter," she said, "but you see, I can't help +worrying about it just the same. Of course, as soon as I was up she +was just as respectful and obedient to my slightest wish as she ever +was, but at the time, when she was lording it over me so, she--she +actually slapped me. You never saw such a--blazingly determined little +creature." + +Peter smiled,--gently, as was Peter's way when any friend of his made +an appeal to him. + +"That's all right, Beulah," he said, "don't you let it disturb you for +an instant. This manifestation had nothing to do with our experiment. +Our experiment is working fine--better than I dreamed it would ever +work. What happened to Eleanor, you know, was simply this. Some of the +conditions of her experience were recreated suddenly, and she +reverted." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JIMMIE BECOMES A PARENT + + +The entrance into the dining-room of the curly headed young man and +his pretty little niece, who had a suite on the eighth floor, as the +room clerk informed all inquirers, was always a matter of interest to +the residents of the Hotel Winchester. They were an extremely +picturesque pair to the eye seeking for romance and color. The child +had the pure, clear cut features of the cameo type of New England +maidenhood. She was always dressed in some striking combination of +blue, deep blue like her eyes, with blue hair ribbons. Her +good-looking young relative, with hair almost as near the color of the +sun as her own, seemed to be entirely devoted to her, which, +considering the charm of the child and the radiant and magnetic spirit +of the young man himself, was a delightfully natural manifestation. + +But one morning near the close of the second week of their stay, the +usual radiation of resilient youth was conspicuously absent from the +young man's demeanor, and the child's face reflected the gloom that +sat so incongruously on the contour of an optimist. The little girl +fumbled her menu card, but the waitress--the usual aging pedagogic +type of the small residential hotel--stood unnoticed at the young +man's elbow for some minutes before he was sufficiently aroused from +his gloomy meditations to address her. When he turned to her at last, +however, it was with the grin that she had grown to associate with +him,--the grin, the absence of which had kept her waiting behind his +chair with a patience that she was, except in a case where her +affections were involved, entirely incapable of. Jimmie's +protestations of inability to make headway with the ladies were not +entirely sincere. + +"Bring me everything on the menu," he said, with a wave of his hand in +the direction of that painstaking pasteboard. "Coffee, tea, fruit, +marmalade, breakfast food, ham and eggs. Bring my niece here the same. +That's all." With another wave of the hand he dismissed her. + +"You can't eat it all, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor protested. + +"I'll make a bet with you," Jimmie declared. "I'll bet you a dollar +to a doughnut that if she brings it all, I'll eat it." + +"Oh! Uncle Jimmie, you know she won't bring it. You never bet so I can +get the dollar,--you never do." + +"I never bet so I can get my doughnut, if it comes to that." + +"I don't know where to buy any doughnuts," Eleanor said; "besides, +Uncle Jimmie, I don't really consider that I owe them. I never really +say that I'm betting, and you tell me I've lost before I've made up my +mind anything about it." + +"Speaking of doughnuts," Jimmie said, his face still wearing the look +of dejection under a grin worn awry, "can you cook, Eleanor? Can you +roast a steak, and saute baked beans, and stew sausages, and fry out a +breakfast muffin? Does she look like a cook to you?" he suddenly +demanded of the waitress, who was serving him, with an apologetic eye +on the menu, the invariable toast-coffee-and-three-minute-egg +breakfast that he had eaten every morning since his arrival. + +The waitress smiled toothily. "She looks like a capable one," she +pronounced. + +"I _can_ cook, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor giggled, "but not the way you +said. You don't roast steak, or--or--" + +"Don't you?" Jimmie asked with the expression of pained surprise that +never failed to make his ward wriggle with delight. There were links +in the educational scheme that Jimmie forged better than any of the +cooperative guardians. Not even Jimmie realized the value of the +giggle as a developing factor in Eleanor's existence. He took three +swallows of coffee and frowned into his cup. "I can make coffee," he +added. "Good coffee. Well, we may as well look the facts in the face, +Eleanor. The jig's up. We're moving away from this elegant hostelry +to-morrow." + +"Are we?" Eleanor asked. + +"Yes, Kiddo. Apologies to Aunt Beulah (mustn't call you Kiddo) and the +reason is, that I'm broke. I haven't got any money at all, Eleanor, +and I don't know where I am going to get any. You see, it is this way. +I lost my job six weeks ago." + +"But you go to work every morning, Uncle Jimmie?" + +"I leave the house, that is. I go looking for work, but so far no nice +juicy job has come rolling down into my lap. I haven't told you this +before because,--well--when Aunt Beulah comes down every day to give +you your lessons I wanted it to look all O. K. I thought if you didn't +know, you couldn't forget sometime and tell her." + +"I don't tattle tale," Eleanor said. + +"I know you don't, Eleanor. It's only my doggone pride that makes me +want to keep up the bluff, but you're a game kid,--you--know. I tried +to get you switched off to one of the others till I could get on my +feet, but--no, they just thought I had stage fright. I couldn't +insist. It would be pretty humiliating to me to admit that I couldn't +support one-sixth of a child that I'd given my solemn oath to +be-parent." + +"To--to what?" + +"Be-parent, if it isn't a word, I invent it. It's awfully tough luck +for you, and if you want me to I'll own up to the crowd that I can't +swing you, but if you are willing to stick, why, we'll fix up some +kind of a way to cut down expenses and bluff it out." + +Eleanor considered the prospect. Jimmie watched her apparent +hesitation with some dismay. + +"Say the word," he declared, "and I'll tell 'em." + +"Oh! I don't want you to tell 'em," Eleanor cried. "I was just +thinking. If you could get me a place, you know, I could go out to +work. You don't eat very much for a man, and I might get my meals +thrown in--" + +"Don't, Eleanor, don't," Jimmie agonized. "I've got a scheme for us +all right. This--this embarrassment is only temporary. The day will +come when I can provide you with Pol Roge and diamonds. My father is +rich, you know, but he swore to me that I couldn't support myself, and +I swore to him that I could, and if I don't do it, I'm damned. I am +really, and that isn't swearing." + +"I know it isn't, when you mean it the way they say in the Bible." + +"I don't want the crowd to know. I don't want Gertrude to know. She +hasn't got much idea of me anyway. I'll get another job, if I can only +hold out." + +"I can go to work in a store," Eleanor cried. "I can be one of those +little girls in black dresses that runs between counters." + +"Do you want to break your poor Uncle James' heart, Eleanor,--do +you?" + +"No, Uncle Jimmie." + +"Then listen to me. I've borrowed a studio, a large barnlike studio on +Washington Square, suitably equipped with pots and pans and kettles. +Also, I am going to borrow the wherewithal to keep us going. It isn't +a bad kind of place if anybody likes it. There's one dinky little +bedroom for you and a cot bed for me, choked in bagdad. If you could +kind of engineer the cooking end of it, with me to do the dirty work, +of course, I think we could be quite snug and cozy." + +"I know we could, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor said. "Will Uncle Peter come +to see us just the same?" + +It thus befell that on the fourteenth day of the third month of her +residence in New York, Eleanor descended into Bohemia. Having no least +suspicion of the real state of affairs--for Jimmie, like most +apparently expansive people who are given to rattling nonsense, was +actually very reticent about his own business--the other members of +the sextette did not hesitate to show their chagrin and disapproval at +the change in his manner of living. + +"The Winchester was an ideal place for Eleanor," Beulah wailed. "It's +deadly respectable and middle class, but it was just the kind of +atmosphere for her to accustom herself to. She was learning to manage +herself so prettily. This morning when I went to the studio--I wanted +to get the lessons over early, and take Eleanor to see that exhibition +of Bavarian dolls at Kuhner's--I found her washing up a trail of +dishes in that closet behind the screen--you've seen it, +Gertrude?--like some poor little scullery maid. She said that Jimmie +had made an omelet for breakfast. If he'd made fifty omelets there +couldn't have been a greater assortment of dirty dishes and kettles." + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Jimmie made an omelet for me once for which he used two dozen eggs. +He kept breaking them until he found the yolks of a color to suit him. +He said pale yolks made poor omelets, so he threw all the pale ones +away." + +"I suppose that you sat by and let him," Beulah said. "You would let +Jimmie do anything. You're as bad as Margaret is about David." + +"Or as bad as you are about Peter." + +"There we go, just like any silly, brainless girls, whose chief object +in life is the--the other sex," Beulah cried inconsistently. "Oh! I +hate that kind of thing." + +"So do I--in theory--" Gertrude answered, a little dreamily. "Where do +Jimmie and Eleanor get the rest of their meals?" + +"I can't seem to find out," Beulah said. "I asked Eleanor point-blank +this morning what they had to eat last night and where they had it, +and she said, 'That's a secret, Aunt Beulah.' When I asked her why it +was a secret and who it was a secret with, she only looked worried, +and said she guessed she wouldn't talk about it at all because that +was the only way to be safe about tattling. You know what I think--I +think Jimmie is taking her around to the cafes and all the shady +extravagant restaurants. He thinks it's sport and it keeps him from +getting bored with the child." + +"Well, that's one way of educating the young," Gertrude said, "but I +think you are wrong, Beulah." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ONE DESCENT INTO BOHEMIA + + +"Aunt Beulah does not think that Uncle Jimmie is bringing me up +right," Eleanor confided to the pages of her diary. "She comes down +here and is very uncomforterble. Well he is bringing me up good, in +some ways better than she did. When he swears he always puts out his +hand for me to slap him. He had enough to swear of. He can't get any +work or earn wages. The advertisement business is on the bum this year +becase times are so hard up. The advertisers have to save their money +and advertising agents are failing right and left. So poor Uncle +Jimmie can't get a place to work at. + +"The people in the other studios are very neighborly. Uncle Jimmie +leaves a sine on the door when he goes out. It says 'Don't Knock.' +They don't they come right in and borrow things. Uncle Jimmie says not +to have much to do with them, becase they are so queer, but when I am +not at home, the ladies come to call on him, and drink Moxie or +something. I know becase once I caught them. Uncle Jimmie says I shall +not have Behemiar thrust upon me by him, and to keep away from these +ladies until I grow up and then see if I like them. Aunt Beulah thinks +that Uncle Jimmie takes me around to other studios and I won't tell +but he does not take me anywhere except to walk and have ice-cream +soda, but I say I don't want it because of saving the ten cents. We +cook on an old gas stove that smells. I can't do very good +housekeeping becase things are not convenient. I haven't any oven to +do a Saturday baking in, and Uncle Jimmie won't let me do the washing. +I should feel more as if I earned my keap if I baked beans and made +boiled dinners and layer cake, but in New York they don't eat much but +hearty food and saluds. It isn't stylish to have cake and pie and +pudding all at one meal. Poor Grandpa would starve. He eats pie for +his breakfast, but if I told anybody they would laugh. If I wrote +Albertina what folks eat in New York she would laugh. + +"Uncle Jimmie is teaching me to like salud. He laughs when I cut up +lettice and put sugar on it. He teaches me to like olives and dried +up sausages and sour crought. He says it is important to be edjucated +in eating, and everytime we go to the Delicate Essenn store to buy +something that will edjucate me better. He teaches me to say 'I beg +your pardon,' and 'Polly vous Fransay?' and to courtesy and how to +enter a room the way you do in private theatricals. He says it isn't +knowing these things so much as knowing when you do them that counts, +and then Aunt Beulah complains that I am not being brought up. + +"I have not seen Uncle Peter for a weak. He said he was going away. I +miss him. I would not have to tell him how I was being brought up, and +whether I was hitting the white lights as Uncle Jimmie says.--He would +know." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor did not write Albertina during the time when she was living in +the studio. Some curious inversion of pride kept her silent on the +subject of the change in her life. Albertina would have turned up her +nose at the studio, Eleanor knew. Therefore, she would not so much as +address an envelope to that young lady from an interior which she +would have beheld with scorn. She held long conversations with +Gwendolyn, taking the part of Albertina, on the subject of this +snobbishness of attitude. + + * * * * * + +"Lots of people in New York have to live in little teny, weeny rooms, +Albertina," she would say. "Rents are perfectly awful here. This +studio is so big I get tired dusting all the way round it, and even if +it isn't furnished very much, why, think how much furnishing would +cost, and carpets and gold frames for the pictures! The pictures that +are in here already, without any frames, would sell for hundreds of +dollars apiece if the painter could get anybody to buy them. You ought +to be very thankful for such a place, Albertina, instead of feeling so +stuck up that you pick up your skirts from it." + + * * * * * + +But Albertina's superiority of mind was impregnable. Her spirit sat in +judgment on all the conditions of Eleanor's new environment. She +seemed to criticize everything. She hated the nicked, dun colored +dishes they ate from, and the black bottomed pots and pans that all +the energy of Eleanor's energetic little elbow could not restore to +decency again. She hated the cracked, dun colored walls, and the +mottled floor that no amount of sweeping and dusting seemed to make an +impression on. She hated the compromise of housekeeping in an +attic,--she who had been bred in an atmosphere of shining +nickle-plated ranges and linoleum, where even the kitchen pump gleamed +brightly under its annual coat of good green paint. She hated the +compromise, that was the burden of her complaint--either in the person +of Albertina or Gwendolyn, whether she lay in the crook of Eleanor's +arm in the lumpy bed where she reposed at the end of the day's labor, +or whether she sat bolt upright on the lumpy cot in the studio, the +broken bisque arm, which Jimmie insisted on her wearing in a sling +whenever he was present, dangling limply at her side in the relaxation +Eleanor preferred for it. + +The fact of not having adequate opportunity to keep her house in order +troubled the child, for her days were zealously planned by her +enthusiastic guardians. Beulah came at ten o'clock every morning to +give her lessons. As Jimmie's quest for work grew into a more and more +disheartening adventure, she had difficulty in getting him out of bed +in time to prepare and clear away the breakfast for Beulah's arrival. +After lunch, to which Jimmie scrupulously came home, she was supposed +to work an hour at her modeling clay. Gertrude, who was doing very +promising work at the art league, came to the studio twice a week to +give her instruction in handling it. Later in the afternoon one of the +aunts or uncles usually appeared with some scheme to divert her. +Margaret was telling her the stories of the Shakespeare plays, and +David was trying to make a card player of her, but was not succeeding +as well as if Albertina had not been brought up a hard shell Baptist, +who thought card playing a device of the devil's. Peter alone did not +come, for even when he was in town he was busy in the afternoon. + +As soon as her guests were gone, Eleanor hurried through such +housewifely tasks as were possible of accomplishment at that hour, but +the strain was telling on her. Jimmie began to realize this and it +added to his own distress. One night to save her the labor of +preparing the meal, he took her to an Italian restaurant in the +neighborhood where the food was honest and palatable, and the service +at least deft and clean. + +Eleanor enjoyed the experience extremely, until an incident occurred +which robbed her evening of its sweetness and plunged her into the +purgatory of the child who has inadvertently broken one of its own +laws. + +Among the belongings in the carpetbag, which was no more--having been +supplanted by a smart little suit-case marked with her initials--was a +certificate from the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, duly +signed by herself, and witnessed by the grammar-school teacher and the +secretary of the organization. On this certificate (which was +decorated by many presentations in dim black and white of +mid-Victorian domestic life, and surmounted by a collection of +scalloped clouds in which drifted three amateur looking angels amid a +crowd of more professional cherubim) Eleanor had pledged herself to +abstain from the use as a beverage of all intoxicating drinks, and +from the manufacture or traffic in them. She had also subscribed +herself as willing to make direct and persevering efforts to extend +the principles and blessings of total abstinence. + +"Red ink, Andrea," her Uncle Jimmie had demanded, as the black-eyed +waiter bent over him, "and ginger ale for the offspring." Eleanor +giggled. It was fun to be with Uncle Jimmie in a restaurant again. He +always called for something new and unexpected when he spoke of her to +the waiter, and he was always what Albertina would consider "very +comical" when he talked to him. "But stay," he added holding up an +admonitory finger, "I think we'll give the little one _eau rougie_ +this time. Wouldn't you like _eau rougie_, tinted water, Eleanor, the +way the French children drink it?" + +Unsuspectingly she sipped the mixture of water and ice and sugar, and +"red ink" from the big brown glass bottle that the glowing waiter set +before them. + +As the meal progressed Jimmie told her that the grated cheese was +sawdust and almost made her believe it. He showed her how to eat +spaghetti without cutting it and pointed out to her various Italian +examples of his object lesson; but she soon realized that in spite of +his efforts to entertain her, he was really very unhappy. + +"I've borrowed all the money I can, Angelface," he confessed finally. +"Tomorrow's the last day of grace. If I don't land that job at the +Perkins agency I'll have to give in and tell Peter and David, or wire +Dad." + +"You could get some other kind of a job," Eleanor said; "plumbing or +clerking or something." On Cape Cod the plumber and the grocer's clerk +lost no caste because of their calling. "Couldn't you?" + +"I _could_ so demean myself, and I will. I'll be a chauffeur, I can +run a car all right; but the fact remains that by to-morrow +something's got to happen, or I've got to own up to the bunch." + +Eleanor's heart sank. She tried hard to think of something to comfort +him but she could not. Jimmie mixed her more _eau rougie_ and she +drank it. He poured a full glass, undiluted, for himself, and held it +up to the light. + +"Well, here's to crime, daughter," he said. "Long may it wave, and us +with it." + +"That isn't really red ink, is it?" she asked. "It's an awfully pretty +color--like grape juice." + +"It is grape juice, my child, if we don't inquire too closely into the +matter. The Italians are like the French in the guide book, 'fond of +dancing and light wines.' This is one of the light wines they are fond +of.--Hello, do you feel sick, child? You're white as a ghost. It's the +air. As soon as I can get hold of that sacrificed waiter we'll get +out of here." + +Eleanor's sickness was of the spirit, but at the moment she was +incapable of telling him so, incapable of any sort of speech. A great +wave of faintness encompassed her. She had broken her pledge. She had +lightly encouraged a departure from the blessings and principles of +total abstinence. + +That night in her bed she made a long and impassioned apology to her +Maker for the sin of intemperance into which she had been so +unwittingly betrayed. She promised Him that she would never drink +anything that came out of a bottle again. She reviewed sorrowfully her +many arguments with Albertina--Albertina in the flesh that is--on the +subject of bottled drinks in general, and decided that again that +virtuous child was right in her condemnation of any drink, however +harmless in appearance or nomenclature, that bore the stigma of a +bottled label. + +She knew, however, that something more than a prayer for forgiveness +was required of her. She was pledged to protest against the evil that +she had seemingly countenanced. She could not seek the sleep of the +innocent until that reparation was made. Through the crack of her +sagging door she saw the light from Jimmie's reading lamp and knew +that he was still dressed, or clothed at least, with a sufficient +regard for the conventionalities to permit her intrusion. She rose and +rebraided her hair and tied a daytime ribbon on it. Then she put on +her stockings and her blue Japanese kimono--real Japanese, as Aunt +Beulah explained, made for a Japanese lady of quality--and made her +way into the studio. + +Jimmie was not sitting in the one comfortable studio chair with his +book under the light and his feet on the bamboo tea table as usual. He +was not sitting up at all. He was flung on the couch with his face +buried in the cushions, and his shoulders were shaking. Eleanor seeing +him thus, forgot her righteous purpose, forgot her pledge to +disseminate the principles and blessings of abstinence, forgot +everything but the pitiful spectacle of her gallant Uncle Jimmie in +grief. She stood looking down at him without quite the courage to +kneel at his side to give him comfort. + +"Uncle Jimmie," she said, "Uncle Jimmie." + +At the sound of her voice he put out his hand to her, gropingly, but +he did not uncover his face or shift his position. She found herself +smoothing his hair, gingerly at first, but with more and more +conviction as he snuggled his boyish head closer. + +"I'm awfully discouraged," he said in a weak muffled voice. "I'm sorry +you caught me at it, Baby." + +Eleanor put her face down close to his as he turned it to her. + +"Everything will be all right," she promised him, "everything will be +all right. You'll soon get a job--tomorrow maybe." + +Then she gathered him close in her angular, tense little arms and held +him there tightly. "Everything will be all right," she repeated +soothingly; "now you just put your head here, and have your cry out." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TEN HUTCHINSONS + + +"My Aunt Margaret has a great many people living in her family," +Eleanor wrote to Albertina from her new address on Morningside +Heights. "She has a mother and a father, and two (2) grandparents, one +(1) aunt, one (1) brother, one (1) married lady and the boy of the +lady, I think the married lady is a sister but I do not ask any one, +oh--and another brother, who does not live here only on Saturdays and +Sundays. Aunt Margaret makes ten, and they have a man to wait on the +table. His name is a butler. I guess you have read about them in +stories. I am taken right in to be one of the family, and I have a +good time every day now. Aunt Margaret's father is a college teacher, +and Aunt Margaret's grandfather looks like the father of his country. +You know who I mean George Washington. They have a piano here that +plays itself like a sewing machine. They let me do it. They have +after-dinner coffee and gold spoons to it. I guess you would like to +see a gold spoon. I did. They are about the size of the tin spoons we +had in our playhouse. I have a lot of fun with that boy too. At first +I thought he was very affected, but that is just the way they teach +him to talk. He is nine and plays tricks on other people. He dares me +to do things that I don't do, like go down-stairs and steal sugar. If +Aunt Margaret's mother was my grandma I might steal sugar or plum +cake. I don't know. Remember the time we took your mother's hermits? I +do. I would like to see you. You would think this house was quite a +grand house. It has three (3) flights of stairs and one basement. I +sleep on the top floor in a dressing room out of Aunt Margaret's only +it isn't a dressing room. I dress there but no one else can. Aunt +Margaret is pretty and sings lovely. Uncle David comes here a lot. I +must close. With love and kisses." + + * * * * * + +In her diary she recorded some of the more intimate facts of her new +existence, such facts as she instinctively guarded from Albertina's +calculating sense. + + * * * * * + +"Everybody makes fun of me here. I don't care if they do, but I can't +eat so much at the table when every one is laughing at me. They get +me to talking and then they laugh. If I could see anything to laugh +at, I would laugh too. They laugh in a refined way but they laugh. +They call me Margaret's protegay. They are good to me too. They say to +my face that I am like a merry wilkins story and too good to be true, +and New England projuces lots of real art, and I am art, I can't +remember all the things, but I guess they mean well. Aunt Margaret's +grandfather sits at the head of the table, and talks about things I +never heard of before. He knows the govoner and does not like the way +he parts his hair. I thought all govoners did what they wanted to with +their hairs or anything and people had to like it because (I used to +spell because wrong but I spell better now) they was the govoners, but +it seems not at all. + +"Aunt Margaret is lovely to me. We have good times. I meant to like +Aunt Beulah the best because she has done the most for me but I am +afrayd I don't. I would not cross my heart and say so. Aunt Margaret +gives me the lessons now. I guess I learn most as much as I learned I +mean was taught of Aunt Beulah. Oh dear sometimes I get descouraged +on account of its being such a funny world and so many diferent people +in it. And so many diferent feelings. I was afrayd of the hired +butler, but I am not now." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor had not made a direct change from the Washington Square studio +to the ample house of the Hutchinsons, and it was as well for her that +a change in Jimmie's fortunes had taken her back to the Winchester and +enabled her to accustom herself again to the amenities of gentler +living. Like all sensitive and impressionable children she took on the +color of a new environment very quickly. The strain of her studio +experience had left her a little cowed and unsure of herself, but she +had brightened up like a flower set in the cheerful surroundings of +the Winchester and under the influence of Jimmie's restored spirits. + +The change had come about on Jimmie's "last day of grace." He had +secured the coveted position at the Perkins agency at a slight advance +over the salary he had received at the old place. He had left Eleanor +in the morning determined to face becomingly the disappointment that +was in store for him, and to accept the bitter necessity of admitting +his failure to his friends. He had come back in the late afternoon +with his fortunes restored, the long weeks of humiliation wiped out, +and his life back again on its old confident and inspired footing. + +He had burst into the studio with his news before he understood that +Eleanor was not alone, and inadvertently shared the secret with +Gertrude, who had been waiting for him with the kettle alight and some +wonderful cakes from "Henri's" spread out on the tea table. The three +had celebrated by dining together at a festive down-town hotel and +going back to his studio for coffee. At parting they had solemnly and +severally kissed one another. Eleanor lay awake in the dark for a long +time that night softly rubbing the cheek that had been so caressed, +and rejoicing that the drink Uncle Jimmie had called a high-ball and +had pledged their health with so assiduously, had come out of two +glasses instead of a bottle. + +Her life at the Hutchinsons' was almost like a life on another planet. +Margaret was the younger, somewhat delicate daughter of a family of +rather strident academics. Professor Hutchinson was not dependent on +his salary to defray the expenses of his elegant establishment, but +on his father, who had inherited from his father in turn the +substantial fortune on which the family was founded. + +Margaret was really a child of the fairies, but she was considerably +more fortunate in her choice of a foster family than is usually the +fate of the foundling. The rigorous altitude of intellect in which she +was reared served as a corrective to the oversensitive quality of her +imagination. + +Eleanor, who in the more leisurely moments of her life was given to +visitations from the poetic muse, was inspired to inscribe some lines +to her on one of the pink pages of the private diary. They ran as +follows, and even Professor Hutchinson, who occupied the chair of +English in that urban community of learning that so curiously bisects +the neighborhood of Harlem, could not have designated Eleanor's +description of his daughter as one that did not describe. + + "Aunt Margaret is fair and kind, + And very good and tender. + She has a very active mind. + Her figure is quite slender. + + "She moves around the room with grace, + Her hands she puts with quickness. + Although she wears upon her face + The shadow of a sickness." + +It was this "shadow of a sickness," that served to segregate Margaret +to the extent that was really necessary for her well being. To have +shared perpetually in the almost superhuman activities of the family +might have forever dulled that delicate spirit to which Eleanor came +to owe so much in the various stages of her development. + +Margaret put her arm about the child after the ordeal of the first +dinner at the big table. + +"Father does not bite," she said, "but Grandfather does. The others +are quite harmless. If Grandfather shows his teeth, run for your +life." + +"I don't know where to run to," Eleanor answered seriously, whereupon +Margaret hugged her. Her Aunt Margaret would have been puzzling to +Eleanor beyond any hope of extrication, but for the quick imagination +that unwound her riddles almost as she presented them. For one +terrible minute Eleanor had believed that Hugh Hutchinson senior did +bite, he looked so much like some of the worst of the pictures in +Little Red Riding Hood. + +"While you are here I'm going to pretend you're my very own child," +Margaret told Eleanor that first evening, "and we'll never, never tell +anybody all the foolish games we play and the things we say to each +other. I can just barely manage to be grown up in the bosom of my +family, and when I am in the company of your esteemed Aunt Beulah, but +up here in my room, Eleanor, I am never grown up. I play with dolls." + +"Oh! do you really?" + +"I really do," Margaret said. She opened a funny old chest in the +corner of the spacious, high studded chamber. "And here are some of +the dolls that I play with." She produced a manikin dressed primly +after the manner of eighteen-thirty, prim parted hair over a small +head festooned with ringlets, a fichu, and mits painted on her +fingers. "Beulah," she said with a mischievous flash of a grimace at +Eleanor. "Gertrude,"--a dashing young brunette in riding clothes. +"Jimmie,"--a curly haired dandy. "David,"--a serious creature with a +monocle. "I couldn't find Peter," she said, "but we'll make him some +day out of cotton and water colors." + +"Oh! can you make dolls?" Eleanor cried in delight, "real dolls with +hair and different colored eyes?" + +"I can make pretty good ones," Margaret smiled; "manikins like +these,--a Frenchwoman taught me." + +"Oh; did she? And do you play that the dolls talk to each other as if +they was--were the persons?" + +"Do I?" Margaret assembled the four manikins into a smart little +group. The doll Beulah rose,--on her forefinger. "I can't help +feeling," mimicked Margaret in a perfect reproduction of Beulah's +earnest contralto, "that we're wasting our lives,--criminally +dissipating our forces." + +The doll Gertrude put up both hands. "I want to laugh," she cried, +"won't everybody please stop talking till I've had my laugh out. Thank +you, thank you." + +"Why, that's just like Aunt Gertrude," Eleanor said. "Her voice has +that kind of a sound like a bell, only more ripply." + +"Don't be high-brow," Jimmie's lazy baritone besought with the slight +burring of the "r's" that Eleanor found so irresistible. "I'm only a +poor hard-working, business man." + +The doll David took the floor deliberately. "We intend to devote the +rest of our lives," he said, "to the care of our beloved cooperative +orphan." On that he made a rather over mannered exit, Margaret +planting each foot down deliberately until she flung him back in his +box. "That's the kind of a silly your Aunt Margaret is," she +continued, "but you mustn't ever tell anybody, Eleanor." She clasped +the child again in one of her warm, sudden embraces, and Eleanor +squeezing her shyly in return was altogether enraptured with her new +existence. + +"But there isn't any doll for _you_, Aunt Margaret," she cried. + +"Oh! yes, there is, but I wasn't going to show her to you unless you +asked, because she's so nice. I saved the prettiest one of all to be +myself, not because I believe I'm so beautiful, but--but only because +I'd like to be, Eleanor." + +"I always pretend I'm a princess," Eleanor admitted. + +The Aunt Margaret doll was truly a beautiful creation, a little more +like Marie Antoinette than her namesake, but bearing a not +inconsiderable resemblance to both, as Margaret pointed out, +judicially analyzing her features. + +Eleanor played with the rabbit doll only at night after this. In the +daytime she looked rather battered and ugly to eyes accustomed to the +delicate finish of creatures like the French manikins, but after she +was tucked away in her cot in the passion flower dressing-room--all of +Margaret's belongings and decorations were a faint, pinky +lavender,--her dear daughter Gwendolyn, who impersonated Albertina at +increasingly rare intervals as time advanced, lay in the hollow of her +arm and received her sacred confidences and ministrations as usual. + + * * * * * + +"When my two (2) months are up here I think I should be quite sorry," +she wrote in the diary, "except that I'm going to Uncle Peter next, +and him I would lay me down and dee for, only I never get time enough +to see him, and know if he wants me to, when I live with him I shall +know. Well life is very exciting all the time now. Aunt Margaret +brings me up this way. She tells me that she loves me and that I've +got beautiful eyes and hair and am sweet. She tells me that all the +time. She says she wants to love me up enough to last because I never +had love enough before. I like to be loved. Albertina never loves any +one, but on Cape Cod nobody loves anybody--not to say so anyway. If a +man is getting married they say he _likes_ that girl he is going to +marry. In New York they act as different as they eat. The Hutchinsons +act different from anybody. They do not know Aunt Margaret has adoptid +me. Nobody knows I am adoptid but me and my aunts and uncles. Miss +Prentis and Aunt Beulah's mother when she came home and all the +bohemiar ladies and all the ten Hutchinsons think I am a little +visiting girl from the country. It is nobody's business because I am +supported out of allowances and salaries, but it makes me feel queer +sometimes. I feel like + + "'Where did you come from, baby dear, + Out of the nowhere unto the here?' + +Also I made this up out of home sweet home. + + "'Pleasures and palaces where e'er I may roam, + Be it ever so humble I wish I had a home.' + +"I like having six homes, but I wish everybody knew it. I am nothing +to be ashamed of. Speaking of homes I asked Aunt Margaret why my aunts +and uncles did not marry each other and make it easier for every one. +She said they were not going to get married. That was why they adoptid +me. 'Am I the same thing as getting married?' I ast. She said no, I +wasn't except that I was a responsibility to keep them unselfish and +real. Aunt Beulah doesn't believe in marriage. She thinks its beneth +her. Aunt Margaret doesn't think she has the health. Aunt Gertrude has +to have a career of sculpture, Uncle David has got to marry some one +his mother says to or not at all, and does not like to marry anyway. +Uncle Jimmie never saw a happy mariage yet and thinks you have a beter +time in single blesedness. Uncle Peter did not sign in the book where +they said they would adopt me and not marry. They did not want to ask +him because he had some trouble once. I wonder what kind! Well I am +going to be married sometime. I want a house to do the housework in +and a husband and a backyard full of babies. Perhaps I would rather +have a hired butler and gold spoons. I don't know yet. Of course I +would like to have time to write poetry. I can sculpture too, but I +don't want a career of it because it's so dirty." + + * * * * * + +Physically Eleanor throve exceedingly during this phase of her +existence. The nourishing food and regular living, the sympathy +established between herself and Margaret, the regime of physical +exercise prescribed by Beulah which she had been obliged guiltily to +disregard during the strenuous days of her existence in Washington +Square, all contributed to the accentuation of her material +well-being. She played with Margaret's nephew, and ran up and down +stairs on errands for her mother. She listened to the tales related +for her benefit by the old people, and gravely accepted the attentions +of the two formidable young men of the family, who entertained her +with the pianola and excerpts from classic literature and folk lore. + + * * * * * + +"The We Are Sevens meet every Saturday afternoon," she wrote--on a +yellow page this time--"usually at Aunt Beulah's house. We have tea +and lots of fun. I am examined on what I have learned but I don't mind +it much. Physically I am found to be very good by measure and waite. +My mind is developing alright. I am very bright on the subject of +poetry. They do not know whether David Copperfield had been a wise +choice for me, but when I told them the story and talked about it they +said I had took it right. I don't tell them about the love part of +Aunt Margaret's bringing up. Aunt Beulah says it would make me self +conscioush to know that I had such pretty eyes and hair. Aunt Gertrude +said 'why not mention my teeth to me, then,' but no one seemed to +think so. Aunt Beulah says not to develope my poetry because the +theory is to strengthen the weak part of the bridge, and make me do +arithmetic. 'Drill on the deficiency,' she says. Well I should think +the love part was a deficiency, but Aunt Beulah thinks love is weak +and beneath her and any one. Uncle David told me privately that he +thought I was having the best that could happen to me right now being +with Aunt Margaret. I didn't tell him that the David doll always gets +put away in the box with the Aunt Margaret doll and nobody else ever, +but I should like to have. He thinks she is the best aunt too." + + * * * * * + +Some weeks later she wrote to chronicle a painful scene in which she +had participated. + + * * * * * + +"I quarreled with the ten Hutchinsons. I am very sorry. They laughed +at me too much for being a little girl and a Cape Codder, but they +could if they wanted to, but when they laughed at Aunt Margaret for +adopting me and the tears came in her eyes I could not bare it. I did +not let the cat out of the bag, but I made it jump out. The +Grandfather asked me when I was going back to Cape Cod, and I said I +hoped never, and then I said I was going to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt +Gertrude and Uncle David next. They said 'Uncle David--do you mean +David Bolling?' and I did, so I said 'yes.' Then all the Hutchinsons +pitched into Aunt Margaret and kept laughing and saying, 'Who is this +mysterious child anyway, and how is it that her guardians intrust her +to a crowd of scatter brain youngsters for so long?' and then they +said 'Uncle David Bolling--_what_ does his mother say?' Then Aunt +Margaret got very red in the face and the tears started to come, and I +said 'I am not a mysterious child, and my Uncle David is as much my +Uncle David as they all are,' and then I said 'My Aunt Margaret has +got a perfect right to have me intrusted to her at any time, and not +to be laughed at for it,' and I went and stood in front of her and +gave her my handkercheve. + +"Well I am glad somebody has been told that I am properly adoptid, but +I am sorry it is the ten Hutchinsons who know." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PETER + + +Uncle Peter treated her as if she were grown up; that was the +wonderful thing about her visit to him,--if there could be one thing +about it more wonderful than another. From the moment when he ushered +her into his friendly, low ceiled drawing-room with its tiers upon +tiers of book shelves, he admitted her on terms of equality to the +miraculous order of existence that it was the privilege of her life to +share. The pink silk coverlet and the elegance of the silver coated +steampipes at Beulah's; the implacable British stuffiness at the +Winchester which had had its own stolid charm for the lineal +descendant of the Pilgrim fathers; the impressively casual atmosphere +over which the "hired butler" presided distributing after-dinner gold +spoons, these impressions all dwindled and diminished and took their +insignificant place in the background of the romance she was living +and breathing in Peter's jewel box of an apartment on Thirtieth +Street. + +Even to more sophisticated eyes than Eleanor's the place seemed to be +a realized ideal of charm and homeliness. It was one of the older +fashioned duplex apartments designed in a more aristocratic decade for +a more fastidious generation, yet sufficiently adapted to the modern +insistence on technical convenience. Peter owed his home to his +married sister, who had discovered it and leased it and settled it and +suddenly departed for a five years' residence in China with her +husband, who was as she so often described him, "a blooming +Englishman, and an itinerant banker." Peter's domestic affairs were +despatched by a large, motherly Irishwoman, whom Eleanor approved of +on sight and later came to respect and adore without reservation. + +Peter's home was a home with a place in it for her--a place that it +was perfectly evident was better with her than without her. She even +slept in the bed that Peter's sister's little girl had occupied, and +there were pictures on the walls that had been selected for her. + +She had been very glad to make her escape from the Hutchinson +household. Her "quarrel" with them had made no difference in their +relation to her. To her surprise they treated her with an increase of +deference after her outburst, and every member of the family, +excepting possibly Hugh Hutchinson senior, was much more carefully +polite to her. Margaret explained that the family really didn't mind +having their daughter a party to the experiment of cooperative +parenthood. It appealed to them as a very interesting try-out of +modern educational theory, and their own theories of the independence +of the individual modified their criticism of Margaret's secrecy in +the matter, which was the only criticism they had to make since +Margaret had an income of her own accruing from the estate of the aunt +for whom she had been named. + +"It is very silly of me to be sensitive about being laughed at," +Margaret concluded. "I've lived all my life surrounded by people +suffering from an acute sense of humor, but I never, never, never +shall get used to being held up to ridicule for things that are not +funny to me." + +"I shouldn't think you would," Eleanor answered devoutly. + +In Peter's house there was no one to laugh at her but Peter, and when +Peter laughed she considered it a triumph. It meant that there was +something she said that he liked. The welcome she had received as a +guest in his house and the wonderful evening that succeeded it were +among the epoch making hours in Eleanor's life. It had happened in +this wise. + +The Hutchinson victoria, for Grandmother Hutchinson still clung to the +old-time, stately method of getting about the streets of New York, had +left her at Peter's door at six o'clock of a keen, cool May evening. +Margaret had not been well enough to come with her, having been +prostrated by one of the headaches of which she was a frequent +victim. + +The low door of ivory white, beautifully carved and paneled, with its +mammoth brass knocker, the row of window boxes along the cornice a few +feet above it, the very look of the house was an experience and an +adventure to her. When she rang, the door opened almost instantly +revealing Peter on the threshold with his arms open. He had led her up +two short flights of stairs--ivory white with carved banisters, she +noticed, all as immaculately shining with soap and water as a Cape Cod +interior--to his own gracious drawing-room where Mrs. Finnigan was +bowing and smiling a warmhearted Irish welcome to her. It was like a +wonderful story in a book and her eyes were shining with joy as Uncle +Peter pulled out her chair and she sat down to the first meal in her +honor. The grown up box of candy at her plate, the grave air with +which Peter consulted her tastes and her preferences were all a part +of a beautiful magic that had never quite touched her before. + +She had been like a little girl in a dream passing dutifully or +delightedly through the required phases of her experience, never quite +believing in its permanence or reality; but her life with Uncle Peter +was going to be real, and her own. That was what she felt the moment +she stepped over his threshold. + +After their coffee before the open fire--she herself had had "cambric" +coffee--Peter smoked his cigar, while she curled up in silence in the +twin to his big cushioned chair and sampled her chocolates. The blue +flames skimmed the bed of black coals, and finally settled steadily at +work on them nibbling and sputtering until the whole grate was like a +basket full of molten light, glowing and golden as the hot sun when it +sinks into the sea. + +Except to offer her the ring about his slender Panatela, and to ask +her if she were happy, Peter did not speak until he had deliberately +crushed out the last spark from his stub and thrown it into the fire. +The ceremony over, he held out his arms to her and she slipped into +them as if that moment were the one she had been waiting for ever +since the white morning looked into the window of the lavender +dressing-room on Morningside Heights, and found her awake and quite +cold with the excitement of thinking of what the day was to bring +forth. + +"Eleanor," Peter said, when he was sure she was comfortably arranged +with her head on his shoulder, "Eleanor, I want you to feel at home +while you are here, really at home, as if you hadn't any other home, +and you and I belonged to each other. I'm almost too young to be your +father, but--" + +"Oh! are you?" Eleanor asked fervently, as he paused. + +"--But I can come pretty near feeling like a father to you if it's a +father you want. I lost my own father when I was a little older than +you are now, but I had my dear mother and sister left, and so I don't +know what it's like to be all alone in the world, and I can't always +understand exactly how you feel, but you must always remember that I +want to understand and that I will understand if you tell me. Will you +remember that, Eleanor?" + +"Yes, Uncle Peter," she said soberly; then perhaps for the first time +since her babyhood she volunteered a caress that was not purely +maternal in its nature. She put up a shy hand to the cheek so close to +her own and patted it earnestly. "Of course I've got my grandfather +and grandmother," she argued, "but they're very old, and not very +affectionate, either. Then I have all these new aunts and uncles +pretending," she was penetrating to the core of the matter, Peter +realized, "that they're just as good as parents. Of course, they're +just as good as they can be and they take so much trouble that it +mortifies me, but it isn't just the same thing, Uncle Peter!" + +"I know," Peter said, "I know, dear, but you must remember we mean +well." + +"I don't mean you; it isn't you that I think of when I think about my +co--co-woperative parents, and it isn't any of them specially,--it's +just the idea of--of visiting around, and being laughed at, and not +really belonging to anybody." + +Peter's arms tightened about her. + +"Oh! but you do belong, you do belong. You belong to me, Eleanor." + +"That was what I hoped you would say, Uncle Peter," she whispered. + +They had a long talk after this, discussing the past and the future; +the past few months of the experiment from Eleanor's point of view, +and the future in relation to its failures and successes. Beulah was +to begin giving her lessons again and she was to take up music with a +visiting teacher on Peter's piano. (Eleanor had not known it was a +piano at first, as she had never seen a baby grand before. Peter did +not know what a triumph it was when she made herself put the question +to him.) + +"If my Aunt Beulah could teach me as much as she does and make it as +interesting as Aunt Margaret does, I think I would make her feel very +proud of me," Eleanor said. "I get so nervous saving energy the way +Aunt Beulah says for me to that I forget all the lesson. Aunt Margaret +tells too many stories, I guess, but I like them." + +"Your Aunt Margaret is a child of God," Peter said devoutly, "in spite +of her raw-boned, intellectual family." + +"Uncle David says she's a daughter of the fairies." + +"She's that, too. When Margaret's a year or two older you won't feel +the need of a mother." + +"I don't now," said Eleanor; "only a father,--that I want you to be, +the way you promised." + +"That's done," Peter said. Then he continued musingly, "You'll find +Gertrude--different. I can't quite imagine her presiding over your +moral welfare but I think she'll be good at it. She's a good deal of a +person, you know." + +"Aunt Beulah's a good kind of person, too," Eleanor said; "she tries +hard. The only thing is that she keeps trying to make me express +myself, and I don't know what that means." + +"Let me see if I can tell you," said Peter. "Self-expression is a part +of every man's duty. Inside we are all trying to be good and true and +fine--" + +"Except the villains," Eleanor interposed. "People like Iago aren't +trying." + +"Well, we'll make an exception of the villains; we're talking of +people like us, pretty good people with the right instincts. Well +then, if all the time we're trying to be good and true and fine, we +carry about a blank face that reflects nothing of what we are feeling +and thinking, the world is a little worse off, a little duller and +heavier place for what is going on inside of us." + +"Well, how can we make it better off then?" Eleanor inquired +practically. + +"By not thinking too much about it for one thing, except to remember +to smile, by trying to be just as much at home in it as possible, by +letting the kind of person we are trying to be show through on the +outside. By gosh! I wish Beulah could hear me." + +"By just not being bashful, do you mean?" + +"That's the idea." + +"Well, when Aunt Beulah makes me do those dancing exercises, standing +up in the middle of the floor and telling me to be a flower and +express myself as a flower, does she just mean not to be bashful?" + +"Something like that: she means stop thinking of yourself and go +ahead--" + +"But how can I go ahead with her sitting there watching?" + +"I suppose I ought to tell you to imagine that you had the soul of a +flower, but I haven't the nerve." + +"You've got nerve enough to do anything," Eleanor assured him, but she +meant it admiringly, and seriously. + +"I haven't the nerve to go on with a moral conversation in which you +are getting the better of me at every turn," Peter laughed. "I'm sure +it's unintentional, but you make me feel like a good deal of an ass, +Eleanor." + +"That means a donkey, doesn't it?" + +"It does, and by jove, I believe that you're glad of it." + +"I do rather like it," said Eleanor; "of course you don't really feel +like a donkey to me. I mean I don't make you feel like one, but it's +funny just pretending that you mean it." + +"Oh! woman, woman," Peter cried. "Beulah tried to convey something of +the fact that you always got the better of every one in your modest +unassuming way, but I never quite believed it before. At any rate it's +bedtime, and here comes Mrs. Finnigan to put you to bed. Kiss me good +night, sweetheart." + +Eleanor flung her arms about his neck, in her first moment of +abandonment to actual emotional self-expression if Peter had only +known it. + +"I will never really get the better of you in my life, Uncle Peter," +she promised him passionately. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE OMNISCIENT FOCUS + + +One of the traditional prerogatives of an Omnipotent Power is to look +down at the activities of earth at any given moment and ascertain +simultaneously the occupation of any number of people. Thus the Arch +Creator--that Being of the Supreme Artistic Consciousness--is able to +peer into segregated interiors at His own discretion and watch the +plot thicken and the drama develop. Eleanor, who often visualized this +proceeding, always imagined a huge finger projecting into space, +cautiously tilting the roofs of the Houses of Man to allow the sweep +of the Invisible Glance. + +Granting the hypothesis of the Divine privilege, and assuming for the +purposes of this narrative the Omniscient focus on the characters most +concerned in it, let us for the time being look over the shoulder of +God and inform ourselves of their various occupations and +preoccupations of a Saturday afternoon in late June during the hour +before dinner. + +Eleanor, in her little white chamber on Thirtieth Street, was engaged +in making a pink and green toothbrush case for a going-away gift for +her Uncle Peter. To be sure she was going away with him when he +started for the Long Island beach hotel from which he proposed to +return every day to his office in the city, but she felt that a slight +token of her affection would be fitting and proper on the eve of their +joint departure. She was hurrying to get it done that she might steal +softly into the dining-room and put it on his plate undetected. Her +eyes were very wide, her brow intent and serious, and her delicate +lips lightly parted. At that moment she bore a striking resemblance to +the Botticelli head in Beulah's drawing-room that she had so greatly +admired. + +Of all the people concerned in her history, she was the most +tranquilly occupied. + +Peter in the room beyond was packing his trunk and his suit-case. At +this precise stage of his proceedings he was trying to make two +decisions, equally difficult, but concerned with widely different +departments of his consciousness. He was gravely considering whether +or not to include among his effects the photograph before him on the +dressing-table--that of the girl to whom he had been engaged from the +time he was a Princeton sophomore until her death four years +later--and also whether or not it would be worth his while to order a +new suit of white flannels so late in the season. The fact that he +finally decided against the photograph and in favor of the white +flannels has nothing to do with the relative importance of the two +matters thus engrossing him. The health of the human mind depends +largely on its ability to assemble its irrelevant and incongruous +problems in dignified yet informal proximity. When he went to his desk +it was with the double intention of addressing a letter to his tailor, +and locking the cherished photograph in a drawer; but, the letter +finished, he still held the picture in his hand and gazed down at it +mutely and when the discreet knock on his door that constituted the +announcing of dinner came, he was still sitting motionless with the +photograph propped up before him. + +Up-town, Beulah, whose dinner hour came late, was rather more +actively, though possibly not more significantly, occupied. She was +doing her best to evade the wild onslaught of a young man in glasses +who had been wanting to marry her for a considerable period, and had +now broken all bounds in a cumulative attempt to inform her of the +fact. + +Though he was assuredly in no condition to listen to reason, Beulah +was reasoning with him, kindly and philosophically, paying earnest +attention to the style and structure of her remarks as she did so. Her +emotions, as is usual on such occasions, were decidedly mixed. She was +conscious of a very real dismay at her unresponsiveness, a distress +for the acute pain from which the distraught young man seemed to be +suffering, and the thrill, which had she only known it, is the +unfailing accompaniment to the first eligible proposal of marriage. In +the back of her brain there was also, so strangely is the human mind +constituted, a kind of relief at being able to use mature logic once +more, instead of the dilute form of moral dissertation with which she +tried to adapt herself to Eleanor's understanding. + +"I never intend to marry any one," she was explaining gently. "I not +only never intend to, but I am pledged in a way that I consider +irrevocably binding never to marry,"--and that was the text from which +all the rest of her discourse developed. + +Jimmie, equally bound by the oath of celibacy, but not equally +constrained by it apparently, was at the very moment when Beulah was +so successfully repulsing the familiarity of the high cheek-boned +young man in the black and white striped tie, occupied in encouraging +a familiarity of a like nature. That is, he was holding the hand of a +young woman in the darkened corner of a drawing-room which had been +entirely unfamiliar to him ten days before, and was about to impress a +caress on lips that seemed to be ready to meet his with a certain +degree of accustomed responsiveness. That this was not a peculiarly +significant incident in Jimmie's career might have been difficult to +explain, at least to the feminine portion of the group of friends he +cared most for. + +Margaret, dressed for an academic dinner party, in white net with a +girdle of pale pink and lavender ribbons, had flung herself face +downward on her bed in reckless disregard of her finery; and because +it was hot and she was homesick for green fields and the cool +stretches of dim wooded country, had transported herself in fancy and +still in her recumbent attitude to the floor of a canoe that was +drifting down-stream between lush banks of meadow grass studded with +marsh lilies. After some interval--and shift of position--the way was +arched overhead with whispering trees, the stars came out one by one, +showing faintly between waving branches; and she perceived dimly that +a figure that was vaguely compounded of David and Peter and the +handsomest of all the young kings of Spain, had quietly taken its +place in the bow and had busied itself with the paddles,--whereupon +she was summoned to dinner, where the ten Hutchinsons and their guests +were awaiting her. + +David, the only member of the group whose summer vacation had actually +begun, was sitting on the broad veranda of an exclusive country club +several hundreds of miles away from New York and looking soberly into +the eyes of a blue ribbon bull dog, whose heavy jowl rested on his +knees. His mother, in one of the most fashionable versions of the +season's foulards, sleekly corseted and coifed, was sitting less than +a hundred yards away from him, fanning herself with three inches of +hand woven fan and contemplating David. In the dressing-room above, +just alighted from a limousine de luxe, was a raven-haired, +crafty-eyed ingenue (whose presence David did not suspect or he would +have recollected a sudden pressing engagement out of her vicinity), +preening herself for conquest. David's mind, unlike the minds of the +"other gifted members of the We Are Seven Club," to quote Jimmie's +most frequent way of referring to them, was to all intents and +purposes a total blank. He answered monosyllabically his mother's +questions, patted the dog's beetling forehead and thought of nothing +at all for practically forty-five minutes. Then he rose, and offering +his arm to his mother led her gravely to the table reserved for him in +the dining-room. + +Gertrude, in her studio at the top of the house in Fifty-sixth Street +where she lived with her parents, was putting the finishing touches on +a faun's head; and a little because she had unconsciously used +Jimmie's head for her model, and a little because of her conscious +realization at this moment that the roughly indicated curls over the +brow were like nobody's in the world but Jimmie's, she was thinking of +him seriously. She was thinking also of the dinner on a tray that +would presently be brought up to her, since her mother and father were +out of town, and of her coming two months with Eleanor and her recent +inspiration concerning them. + +In Colhassett, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the dinner hour and even the +supper hour were long past. In the commodious kitchen of Eleanor's +former home two old people were sitting in calico valanced rockers, +one by either window. The house was a pleasant old colonial structure, +now badly run down but still marked with that distinction that only +the instincts of aristocracy can bestow upon a decaying habitation. + +A fattish child made her way up the walk, toeing out unnecessarily, +and let herself in by the back door without knocking. + +"Hello, Mis' Chase and Mr. Amos," she said, seating herself in a +straight backed, yellow chair, and swinging her crossed foot +nonchalantly, "I thought I would come in to inquire about Eleanor. Ma +said that she heard that she was coming home to live again. Is she, +Mr. Amos?" + +Albertina was not a peculiar favorite of Eleanor's grandfather. Amos +Chase had ideas of his own about the proper bringing up of children, +and the respect due from them to their elders. Also Albertina's father +had come from "poor stock." There was a strain of bad blood in her. +The women of the Weston families hadn't always "behaved themselves." +He therefore answered this representative of the youngest generation +rather shortly. + +"I don't know nothing about it," he said. + +"Why, father," the querulous old voice of Grandmother Chase protested, +"you know she's comin' home somewhere 'bout the end of July, she and +one of her new aunties and a hired girl they're bringing along to do +the work. I don't see why you can't answer the child's question." + +"I don't know as I'm obligated to answer any questions that anybody +sees fit to put to me." + +"Well, I _be_. Albertina, pass me my glasses from off the +mantel-tree-shelf, and that letter sticking out from behind the clock +and I'll read what she says." + +Albertina, with a reproachful look at Mr. Amos, who retired coughing +exasperatedly behind a paper that he did not read, allowed herself to +be informed through the medium of a letter from Gertrude and a +postscript from Eleanor of the projected invasion of the Chase +household. + +"I should think you'd rather have Eleanor come home by herself than +bringing a strange woman and a hired girl," Albertina contributed a +trifle tartly. The distinction of a hired girl in the family was one +which she had long craved on her own account. + +"All nonsense, I call it," the old man ejaculated. + +"Well, Eleena, she writes that she can't get away without one of 'em +comin' along with her and I guess we can manage someways. I dunno what +work city help will make in this kitchen. You can't expect much from +city help. They ain't clean like home folks. I shall certainly be +dretful pleased to see Eleena, and so will her grandpa--in spite o' +the way he goes on about it." + +A snort came from the region of the newspaper. + +"I shouldn't think you'd feel as if you had a grandchild now that six +rich people has adopted her," Albertina suggested helpfully. + +"It's a good thing for the child," her grandmother said. "I'm so lame +I couldn't do my duty by her. Old folks is old folks, and they can't +do for others like young ones. I'd d'ruther have had her adopted by +one father and mother instead o' this passel o' young folks passing +her around among themselves, but you can't have what you'd d'ruther +have in this world. You got to take what comes and be thankful." + +"Did she write you about having gold coffee spoons at her last place?" +Albertina asked. "I think they was probably gilded over like ice-cream +spoons, and she didn't know the difference. I guess she has got a lot +of new clothes. Well, I'll have to be getting along. I'll come in +again." + +At the precise moment that the door closed behind Albertina, the clock +in Peter Stuyvesant's apartment in New York struck seven and Eleanor, +in a fresh white dress and blue ribbons, slipped into her chair at the +dinner table and waited with eyes blazing with excitement for Peter to +make the momentous discovery of the gift at his plate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +GERTRUDE HAS TROUBLE WITH HER BEHAVIOR + + +"Dear Uncle Peter," Eleanor wrote from Colhassett when she had been +established there under the new regime for a week or more. "I slapped +Albertina's face. I am very awfully sorry, but I could not help it. +Don't tell Aunt Margaret because it is so contrary to her teachings +and also the golden rule, but she was more contrary to the golden rule +that I was. I mean Albertina. What do you think she said? She said +Aunt Gertrude was homely and an old maid, and the hired girl was +homely too. Well, I think she is, but I am not going to have Albertina +think so. Aunt Gertrude is pretty with those big eyes and ink like +hair and lovely teeth and one dimple. Albertina likes hair fuzzed all +over faces and blonds. Then she said she guessed I wasn't your +favorite, and that the gold spoons were most likely tin gilded over. I +don't know what you think about slapping. Will you please write and +say what you think? You know I am anxsuch to do well. But I think I +know as much as Albertina about some things. She uster treat me like a +dog, but it is most a year now since I saw her before. + +"Well, here we are, Aunt Gertrude and me, too. Grandpa did not like +her at first. She looked so much like summer folks, and acted that +way, too. He does not agree with summer folks, but she got him talking +about foreign parts and that Spanish girl that made eyes at him, and +nearly got him away from Grandma, and the time they were wrecked going +around the horn, and showing her dishes and carvings from China. Now +he likes her first rate. She laughs all the time. Grandma likes her +too, but not when Grandpa tells her about that girl in Spain. + +"We eat in the dining-room, and have lovely food, only Grandpa does +not like it, but we have him a pie now for breakfast,--his own pie +that he can eat from all the time and he feels better. Aunt Gertrude +is happy seeing him eat it for breakfast and claps her hands when he +does it, only he doesn't see her. + +"She is teaching me more manners, and to swim, and some French. It is +vacation and I don't have regular lessons, the way I did while we +were on Long Island. + +"Didn't we have a good time in that hotel? Do you remember the night I +stayed up till ten o'clock and we sat on the beach and talked? I do. I +love you very much. I think it is nice to love anybody. Only I miss +you. I would miss you more if I believed what Albertina said about my +not being your favorite. I am. + +"I wish you could come down here. Uncle Jimmie is coming and then I +don't know what Albertina will say. + +"About teaching me. Aunt Gertrude's idea of getting me cultivated is +to read to me from the great Masters of literature and funny books +too, like Mark Twain and the Nonsense Thology. Then I say what I think +of them, and she just lets me develop along those lines, which is +pretty good for summer. + +"Here is a poem I wrote. I love you best. + + "The sun and wind are on the sea, + The waves are clear and blue, + This is the place I like to be, + If I could just have you. + + "The insects chirrup in the grass, + The birds sing in the tree, + And oh! how quick the time would pass + If you were here with me." + +"What do you think of slapping, Aunt Gertrude?" Eleanor asked one +evening when they were walking along the hard beach that the receding +tide had left cool and firm for their pathway, and the early moon had +illumined for them. "Do you think it's awfully bad to slap any one?" + +"I wouldn't slap you, if that's what you mean, Eleanor." + +"Would you slap somebody your own size and a little bigger?" + +"I might under extreme provocation." + +"I thought perhaps you would," Eleanor sighed with a gasp of relieved +satisfaction. + +"I don't believe in moral suasion entirely, Eleanor," Gertrude tried +to follow Eleanor's leads, until she had in some way satisfied the +child's need for enlightenment on the subject under discussion. It was +not always simple to discover just what Eleanor wanted to know, but +Gertrude had come to believe that there was always some excellent +reason for her wanting to know it. "I think there are some quarrels +that have to be settled by physical violence." + +Eleanor nodded. Then, + +"What about refinement?" she asked unexpectedly. "I want to bring +myself up good when--when all of my aunts and uncles are too busy, or +don't know. I want to grow up, and be ladylike and a credit, and I'm +getting such good culture that I think I ought to, but--I get worried +about my refinement. City refinement is different from country +refinement." + +"Refinement isn't a thing that you can worry about," Gertrude began +slowly. She realized perhaps better than any of the others, being a +better balanced, healthier creature than either Beulah or Margaret, +that there were serious defects in the scheme of cooperative +parentage. Eleanor, thanks to the overconscientious digging about her +roots, was acquiring a New England self-consciousness about her +processes. A child, Gertrude felt, should be handed a code ready made +and should be guided by it without question until his maturer +experience led him to modify it. The trouble with trying to explain +this to Eleanor was that she had already had too many things +explained to her, and the doctrine of unselfconsciousness can not be +inculcated by an exploitation of it. "If you are naturally a fine +person your instinct will be to do the fine thing. You must follow it +when you feel the instinct and not think about it between times." + +"That's Uncle Peter's idea," Eleanor said, "that not thinking. Well, +I'll try--but you and Uncle Peter didn't have six different parents +and a Grandpa and Grandma and Albertina all criticizing your +refinement in different ways. Don't you ever have any trouble with +your behavior, Aunt Gertrude?" + +Gertrude laughed. The truth was that she was having considerable +trouble with her behavior since Jimmie's arrival two days before. She +had thought to spend her two months with Eleanor on Cape Cod helping +the child to relate her new environment to her old, while she had the +benefit of her native air and the freedom of a rural summer. She also +felt that one of their number ought to have a working knowledge of +Eleanor's early surroundings and habits. She had meant to put herself +and her own concerns entirely aside. If she had a thought for any one +but Eleanor she meant it to be for the two old people whose guest she +had constituted herself. She explained all this to Jimmie a day or two +before her departure, and to her surprise he had suggested that he +spend his own two vacation weeks watching the progress of her +experiment. Before she was quite sure of the wisdom of allowing him to +do so she had given him permission to come. Jimmie was part of her +trouble. Her craving for isolation and undiscovered country; her +eagerness to escape with her charge to some spot where she would not +be subjected to any sort of familiar surveillance, were all a part of +an instinct to segregate herself long enough to work out the problem +of Jimmie and decide what to do about it. This she realized as soon as +he arrived on the spot. She realized further that she had made +practically no progress in the matter, for this curly headed young +man, bearing no relation to anything that Gertrude had decided a young +man should be, was rapidly becoming a serious menace to her peace of +mind, and her ideal of a future lived for art alone. She had +definitely begun to realize this on the night when Jimmie, in his +exuberance at securing his new job, had seized her about the waist and +kissed her on the lips. She had thought a good deal about that kiss, +which came dangerously near being her first one. She was too clever, +too cool and aloof, to have had many tentative love-affairs. Later, as +she softened and warmed and gathered grace with the years she was +likely to seem more alluring and approachable to the gregarious male. +Now she answered her small interlocutor truthfully. + +"Yes, Eleanor, I do have a whole lot of trouble with my behavior. I'm +having trouble with it today, and this evening," she glanced up at the +moon, which was seemingly throwing out conscious waves of effulgence, +"I expect to have more," she confessed. + +"Oh! do you?" asked Eleanor, "I'm sorry I can't sit up with you then +and help you. You--you don't expect to be--provocated to _slap_ +anybody, do you?" + +"No, I don't, but as things are going I almost wish I did," Gertrude +answered, not realizing that before the evening was over there would +be one person whom she would be ruefully willing to slap several times +over. + +As they turned into the village street from the beach road they met +Jimmie, who had been having his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather +Amos, with whom he had become a prime favorite. With him was +Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing more than +blandly. + +"This virtuous child has been urging me to come after Eleanor and +remind her that it is bedtime," Jimmie said, indicating the pink +gingham clad figure at his side. "She argues that Eleanor is some six +months younger than she and ought to be in bed first, and personally +she has got to go in the next fifteen minutes." + +"It's pretty hot weather to go to bed in," Albertina said. "Miss +Sturgis, if I can get my mother to let me stay up half an hour more, +will you let Eleanor stay up?" + +Just beyond her friend, in the shadow of her ample back, Eleanor was +making gestures intended to convey the fact that sitting up any longer +was abhorrent to her. + +"Eleanor needs her sleep to-night, I think," Gertrude answered, +professionally maternal. + +"I brought Albertina so that our child might go home under convoy, +while you and I were walking on the beach," Jimmie suggested. + +As the two little girls fell into step, the beginning of their +conversation drifted back to the other two, who stood watching them +for a moment. + +"I thought I'd come over to see if you was willing to say you were +sorry," Albertina began. "My face stayed red in one spot for two hours +that day after you slapped me." + +"I'm not sorry," Eleanor said ungraciously, "but I'll say that I am, +if you've come to make up." + +"Well, we won't say any more about it then," Albertina conceded. "Are +Miss Sturgis and Mr. Sears going together, or are they just friends?" + +"Isn't that Albertina one the limit?" Jimmie inquired, with a piloting +hand under Gertrude's elbow. "She told me that she and Eleanor were +mad, but she didn't want to stay mad because there was more going on +over here than there was at her house and she liked to come over." + +"I'm glad Eleanor slapped her," Gertrude said; "still I'm sorry our +little girl has uncovered the clay feet of her idol. She's through +with Albertina for good." + +"Do you know, Gertrude," Jimmy said, as they set foot on the +glimmering beach, "you don't seem a bit natural lately. You used to be +so full of the everlasting mischief. Every time you opened your mouth +I dodged for fear of being spiked. Yet here you are just as docile as +other folks." + +"Don't you like me--as well?" Gertrude tried her best to make her +voice sound as usual. + +"Better," Jimmie swore promptly; then he added a qualifying--"I +guess." + +"Don't you know?" But she didn't allow him the opportunity to answer. +"I'm in a transition period, Jimmie," she said. "I meant to be such a +good parent to Eleanor and correct all the evil ways into which she +has fallen as a result of all her other injudicious training, and, +instead of that, I'm doing nothing but think of myself and my own +hankerings and yearnings and such. I thought I could do so much for +the child." + +"That's the way we all think till we tackle her and then we find it +quite otherwise and even more so. Tell me about your hankerings and +yearnings." + +"Tell me about your job, Jimmie." + +And for a little while they found themselves on safe and familiar +ground again. Jimmie's new position was a very satisfactory one. He +found himself associated with men of solidity and discernment, and for +the first time in his business career he felt himself appreciated and +stimulated by that appreciation to do his not inconsiderable best. +Gertrude was the one woman--Eleanor had not yet attained the inches +for that classification--to whom he ever talked business. + +"Now, at last, I feel that I've got my feet on the earth, Gertrude; as +if the stuff that was in me had a chance to show itself, and you don't +know what a good feeling that is after you've been marked trash by +your family and thrown into the dust heap." + +"I'm awfully glad, Jimmie." + +"I know you are, 'Trude. You're an awfully good pal. It isn't +everybody I'd talk to like this. Let's sit down." + +The moonlight beat down upon them in floods of sentient palpitating +glory. Little breathy waves sought the shore and whispered to it. The +pines on the breast of the bank stirred softly and tenderly. + +"Lord, what a night," Jimmie said, and began burying her little white +hand in the beach sand. His breath was not coming quite evenly. "Now +tell me about your job," he said. + +"I don't think I want to talk about my job tonight." + +"What do you want to talk about?" + +"I don't know." There was no question about her voice sounding as +usual this time. + +Jimmie brushed the sand slowly away from the buried hand and covered +it with his own. He drew nearer, his face close, and closer to hers. +Gertrude closed her eyes. It was coming, it was coming and she was +glad. That silly old vow of celibacy, her silly old thoughts about +art. What was art? What was anything with the arms of the man you +loved closing about you. His lips were on hers. + +Jimmie drew a sharp breath, and let her go. + +"Gertrude," he said, "I'm incorrigible. I ought to be spanked. I'd +make love to--Eleanor's grandmother if I had her down here on a night +like this. Will you forgive me?" + +Gertrude got to her feet a little unsteadily, but she managed a +smile. + +"It's only the moon," she said, "and--and young blood. I think +Grandfather Amos would probably affect me the same way." + +Jimmie's momentary expression of blankness passed and Gertrude did not +press her advantage. They walked home in silence. + +"It's awfully companionable to realize that you also are human, +'Trude," he hazarded on the doorstep. + +Gertrude put a still hand into his, which is a way of saying "Good +night," that may be more formal than any other. + +"The Colonel's lady, and July O'Grady," she quoted lightly. "Good +night, Jimmie." + +Up-stairs in her great chamber under the eaves, Eleanor was composing +a poem which she copied carefully on a light blue page of her private +diary. It read as follows: + + "To love, it is the saddest thing, + When friendship proves unfit, + For lots of sadness it will bring, + When e'er you think of it. + + Alas! that friends should prove untrue + And disappoint you so. + Because you don't know what to do, + And hardly where to go." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MADAM BOLLING + + +"Is this the child, David?" + +"Yes, mother." + +Eleanor stared impassively into the lenses of Mrs. Bolling's +lorgnette. + +"This is my mother, Eleanor." + +Eleanor courtesied as her Uncle Jimmie had taught her, but she did not +take her eyes from Mrs. Bolling's face. + +"Not a bad-looking child. I hate this American fashion of dressing +children like French dolls, in bright colors and smart lines. The +English are so much more sensible. An English country child would have +cheeks as red as apples. How old are you?" + +"Eleven years old my next birthday." + +"I should have thought her younger, David. Have her call me madam. It +sounds better." + +"Very well, mother. I'll teach her the ropes when the strangeness +begins to wear off. This kind of thing is all new to her, you know." + +"She looks it. Give her the blue chamber and tell Mademoiselle to +take charge of her. You say you want her to have lessons for so many +hours a day. Has she brains?" + +"She's quite clever. She writes verses, she models pretty well, +Gertrude says. It's too soon to expect any special aptitude to +develop." + +"Well, I'm glad to discover your philanthropic tendencies, David. I +never knew you had any before, but this seems to me a very doubtful +undertaking. You take a child like this from very plain surroundings +and give her a year or two of life among cultivated and well-to-do +people, just enough for her to acquire a taste for extravagant living +and associations. Then what becomes of her? You get tired of your +bargain. Something else comes on the docket. You marry--and then what +becomes of your protegee? She goes back to the country, a thoroughly +unsatisfied little rustic, quite unfitted to be the wife of the farmer +for whom fate intended her." + +"I wish you wouldn't, mother," David said, with an uneasy glance at +Eleanor's pale face, set in the stoic lines he remembered so well from +the afternoon of his first impression of her. "She's a sensitive +little creature." + +"Nonsense. It never hurts anybody to have a plain understanding of his +position in the world. I don't know what foolishness you romantic +young people may have filled her head with. It's just as well she +should hear common sense from me and I intend that she shall." + +"I've explained to you, mother, that this child is my legal and moral +responsibility and will be partly at least under my care until she +becomes of age. I want her to be treated as you'd treat a child of +mine if I had one. If you don't, I can't have her visit us again. I +shall take her away with me somewhere. Bringing her home to you this +time is only an experiment." + +"She'll have a much more healthful and normal experience with us than +she's had with any of the rest of your violent young set, I'll be +bound. She'll probably be useful, too. She can look out for Zaidee--I +never say that name without irritation--but it's the only name the +little beast will answer to. Do you like dogs, child?" + +Eleanor started at the suddenness of the question, but did not reply +to it. Mrs. Bolling waited and David looked at her expectantly. + +"My mother asked you if you liked dogs, Eleanor; didn't you +understand?" + +Eleanor opened her lips as if to speak and then shut them again +firmly. + +"Your protegee is slightly deaf, David," his mother assured him. + +"You can tell her 'yes,'" Eleanor said unexpectedly to David. "I like +dogs, if they ain't treacherous." + +"She asked you the question," David said gravely; "this is her house, +you know. It is she who deserves consideration in it." + +"Why can't I talk to you about her, the way she does about me?" +Eleanor demanded. "She can have consideration if she wants it, but she +doesn't think I'm any account. Let her ask you what she wants and I'll +tell you." + +"Eleanor," David remonstrated, "Eleanor, you never behaved like this +before. I don't know what's got into her, mother." + +"She merely hasn't any manners. Why should she have?" + +Eleanor fixed her big blue eyes on the lorgnette again. + +"If it's manners to talk the way you do to your own children and +strange little girls, why, then I don't want any," she said. "I guess +I'll be going," she added abruptly and turned toward the door. + +David took her by the shoulders and brought her right about face. + +"Say good-by to mother," he said sternly. + +"Good-by, ma'am--madam," Eleanor said and courtesied primly. + +"Tell Mademoiselle to teach her a few things before the next audience, +David, and come back to me in fifteen minutes. I have something +important to talk over with you." + +David stood by the open door of the blue chamber half an hour later +and watched Eleanor on her knees, repacking her suit-case. Her face +was set in pale determined lines, and she looked older and a little +sick. Outside it was blowing a September gale, and the trees were +waving desperate branches in the wind. David had thought that the +estate on the Hudson would appeal to the little girl. It had always +appealed to him so much, even though his mother's habits of migration +with the others of her flock at the different seasons had left him so +comparatively few associations with it. He had thought she would like +the broad sweeping lawns and the cherubim fountain, the apple orchard +and the kitchen garden, and the funny old bronze dog at the end of the +box hedge. When he saw how she was occupied, he understood that it was +not her intention to stay and explore these things. + +"Eleanor," he said, stepping into the room suddenly, "what are you +doing with your suit-case? Didn't Mademoiselle unpack it for you?" He +was close enough now to see the signs of tears she had shed. + +"Yes, Uncle David." + +"Why are you packing it again?" + +Her eyes fell and she tried desperately to control a quivering lip. + +"Because I am--I want to go back." + +"Back where?" + +"To Cape Cod." + +"Why, Eleanor?" + +"I ain't wanted," she said, her head low. "I made up my mind to go +back to my own folks. I'm not going to be adopted any more." + +David led her to the deep window-seat and made her sit facing him. He +was too wise to attempt a caress with this issue between them. + +"Do you think that's altogether fair to me?" he asked presently. + +"I guess it won't make much difference to you. Something else will +come along." + +"Do you think it will be fair to your other aunts and uncles who have +given so much care and thought to your welfare?" + +"They'll get tired of their bargain." + +"If they do get tired of their bargain it will be because they've +turned out to be very poor sports. I've known every one of them a long +time, and I've never known them to show any signs of poor +sportsmanship yet. If you run away without giving them their chance to +make good, it will be you who are the poor sport." + +"She said you would marry and get tired of me, and I would have to go +back to the country. If you marry and Uncle Jimmie marries--then Uncle +Peter will marry, and--" + +"You'd still have your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude," David +could not resist making the suggestion. + +"They could do it, too. If one person broke up the vow, I guess they +all would. Misfortunes never come singly." + +"But even if we did, Eleanor, even if we all married, we'd still +regard you as our own, our child, our charge." + +"_She_ said you wouldn't." The tears came now, and David gathered the +little shaking figure to his breast. "I don't want to be the wife of +the farmer for whom fate intended me," she sobbed. "I want to marry +somebody refined with extravagant living and associations." + +"That's one of the things we are bringing you up for, my dear." This +aspect of the case occurred to David for the first time, but he +realized its potency. "You mustn't take mother too seriously. Just +jolly her along a little and you'll soon get to be famous friends. +She's never had any little girls of her own, only my brother and me, +and she doesn't know quite how to talk to them." + +"The Hutchinsons had a hired butler and gold spoons, and they didn't +think I was the dust beneath their feet. I don't know what to say to +her. I said ain't, and I wasn't refined, and I'll only just be a +disgrace to you. I'd rather go back to Cape Cod, and go out to work, +and stand Albertina and everything." + +"If you think it's the square thing to do," David said slowly, "you +may go, Eleanor. I'll take you to New York to-morrow and get one of +the girls to take you to Colhassett. Of course, if you do that it will +put me in rather an awkward position. The others have all had you for +two months and made good on the proposition. I shall have to admit +that I couldn't even keep you with me twenty-four hours. Peter and +Jimmie got along all right, but I couldn't handle you at all. As a +cooperative parent, I'm such a failure that the whole experiment goes +to pieces through me." + +"Not you--her." + +"Well, it's the same thing,--you couldn't stand the surroundings I +brought you to. You couldn't even be polite to my mother for my +sake." + +"I--never thought of that, Uncle David." + +"Think of it now for a few minutes, won't you, Eleanor?" + +The rain was beginning to lash the windows, and to sweep the lawn in +long slant strokes. The little girl held up her face as if it could +beat through the panes on it. + +"I thought," she said slowly, "that after Albertina I wouldn't _take_ +anything from anybody. Uncle Peter says that I'm just as good as +anybody, even if I have been out to work. He said that all I had to do +was just to stand up to people." + +"There are a good many different ways of standing up to people, +Eleanor. Be sure you've got the right way and then go ahead." + +"I guess I ought to have been politer," Eleanor said slowly. "I ought +to have thought that she was your own mother. You couldn't help the +way she acted, o' course." + +"The way you acted is the point, Eleanor." + +Eleanor reflected. + +"I'll act different if you want me to, Uncle David," she said, "and I +won't go and leave you." + +"That's my brave girl. I don't think that I altogether cover myself +with glory in an interview with my mother," he added. "It isn't the +thing that I'm best at, I admit." + +"You did pretty good," Eleanor consoled him. "I guess she makes you +kind of bashful the way she does me," from which David gathered with +an odd sense of shock that Eleanor felt there was something to +criticize in his conduct, if she had permitted herself to look for +it. + +"I know what I'll do," Eleanor decided dreamily with her nose against +the pane. "I'll just pretend that she's Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, and then +whatever she does, I shan't care. I'll know that I'm the strongest and +could hit her if I had a mind to, and then I shan't want to." + +David contemplated her gravely for several seconds. + +"By the time you grow up, Eleanor," he said finally, "you will have +developed all your cooperative parents into fine strong characters. +Your educational methods are wonderful." + + * * * * * + +"The dog got nearly drownded today in the founting," Eleanor wrote. +"It is a very little dog about the size of Gwendolyn. It was out with +Mademoiselle, and so was I, learning French on a garden seat. It +teetered around on the edge of the big wash basin--the founting looks +like a wash basin, and suddenly it fell in. I waded right in and got +it, but it slipped around so I couldn't get it right away. It looked +almost too dead to come to again, but I gave it first aid to the +drownded the way Uncle Jimmie taught me to practicing on Gwendolyn. +When I got it fixed I looked up and saw Uncle David's mother coming. I +took the dog and gave it to her. I said, 'Madam, here's your dog.' +Mademoiselle ran around ringing her hands and talking about it. Then I +went up to Mrs. Bolling's room, and we talked. I told her how to make +mustard pickles, and how my mother's grandpa's relation came over in +the Mayflower, and about our single white lilac bush, and she's going +to get one and make the pickles. Then I played double Canfield with +her for a while. I'm glad I didn't go home before I knew her better. +When she acts like Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt I pretend she is her, and we +don't quarrel. She says does Uncle David go much to see Aunt Beulah, +and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go +to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the +most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam +Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would think the worst." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor grew to like Mademoiselle. She was the aging, rather wry +faced Frenchwoman who had been David's young brother's governess and +had made herself so useful to Mrs. Bolling that she was kept always on +the place, half companion and half resident housekeeper. She was glad +to have a child in charge again, and Eleanor soon found that her +crooked features and severe high-shouldered back that had somewhat +intimidated her at first, actually belonged to one of the kindest +hearted creatures in the world. + +Paris and Colhassett bore very little resemblance to each other, the +two discovered. To be sure there were red geraniums every alternating +year in the gardens of the Louvre, and every year in front of the +Sunshine Library in Colhassett. The residents of both places did a +great deal of driving in fine weather. In Colhassett they drove on the +state highway, recently macadamized to the dismay of the taxpayers who +did not own horses or automobiles. In Paris they drove out to the Bois +by way of the Champs Elysees. In Colhassett they had only one +ice-cream saloon, but in Paris they had a good many of them +out-of-doors in the parks and even on the sidewalk, and there you +could buy all kinds of sirups and 'what you call cordials' and +_aperitifs_; but the two places on the whole were quite different. The +people were different, too. The people of Colhassett were all +religious and thought it was sinful to play cards on Sundays. +Mademoiselle said she always felt wicked when she played them on a +week day. + +"I think of my mother," she said; "she would say 'Juliette, what will +you say to the Lord when he knows that you have been playing cards on +a working day. Playing cards is for Sunday.'" + +"The Lord that they have in Colhassett is not like that," Eleanor +stated without conscious irreverence. + +"She is a vary fonny child, madam," Mademoiselle answered Mrs. +Bolling's inquiry. "She has taste, but no--experience even of the most +ordinary. She cooks, but she does no embroidery. She knits and knows +no games to play. She has a good brain, but Mon Dieu, no one has +taught her to ask questions with it." + +"She has had lessons this year from some young Rogers graduates, very +intelligent girls. I should think a year of that kind of training +would have had its effect." Mrs. Bolling's finger went into every pie +in her vicinity with unfailing direction. + +"Lessons, yes, but no teaching. If she were not vary intelligent I +think she would have suffered for it. The public schools they did +somesing, but so little to elevate--to encourage." + +Thus in a breath were Beulah's efforts as an educator disposed of. + +"Would you like to undertake the teaching of that child for a year?" +Mrs. Bolling asked thoughtfully. + +"Oh! but yes, madam." + +"I think I'll make the offer to David." + +Mrs. Bolling was unsympathetic but she was thorough. She liked to see +things properly done. Since David and his young friends had undertaken +a venture so absurd, she decided to lend them a helping hand with it. +Besides, now that she had no children of her own in the house, +Mademoiselle was practically eating her head off. Also it had +developed that David was fond of the child, so fond of her that to +oppose that affection would have been bad policy, and Mrs. Bolling was +politic when she chose to be. She chose to be politic now, for +sometime during the season she was going to ask a very great favor of +David, and she hoped, that by first being extraordinarily complaisant +and kind and then by bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, +he would finally do what he was asked. The favor was to provide +himself with a father-in-law, and that father-in-law the +multi-millionaire parent of the raven-haired, crafty-eyed ingenue, who +had begun angling for him that June night at the country club. + +She made the suggestion to David on the eve of the arrival of all of +Eleanor's guardians for the week-end. Mrs. Bolling had invited a +house-party comprised of the associated parents as a part of her +policy of kindness before the actual summoning of her forces for the +campaign she was about to inaugurate. + +David was really touched by his mother's generosity concerning +Eleanor. He had been agreeably surprised at the development of the +situation between the child and his mother. He had been obliged to go +into town the day after Eleanor's first unfortunate encounter with her +hostess, and had hurried home in fear and trembling to try to smooth +out any tangles in the skein of their relationship that might have +resulted from a day in each other's vicinity. After hurrying over the +house and through the grounds in search of her he finally discovered +the child companionably currying a damp and afflicted Pekinese in his +mother's sitting-room, and engaged in a grave discussion of the +relative merits of molasses and sugar as a sweetening for Boston baked +beans. + +It was while they were having their after-dinner coffee in the +library, for which Eleanor had been allowed to come down, though +nursery supper was the order of the day in the Bolling establishment, +that David told his friends of his mother's offer. + +"Of course, we decided to send her to school when she was twelve +anyway," he said. "The idea was to keep her among ourselves for two +years to establish the parental tie, or ties I should say. If she is +quartered here with Mademoiselle we could still keep in touch with her +and she would be having the advantage of a year's steady tuition under +one person, and we'd be relieved--" a warning glance from Margaret, +with an almost imperceptible inclination of her head in the direction +of Beulah, caused him to modify the end of his sentence--"of the +responsibility--for her physical welfare." + +"Mentally and morally," Gertrude cut in, "the bunch would still +supervise her entirely." + +Jimmie, who was sitting beside her, ran his arm along the back of her +chair affectionately, and then thought better of it and drew it away. +He was, for some unaccountable reason, feeling awkward and not like +himself. There was a girl in New York, with whom he was not in the +least in love, who had recently taken it upon herself to demonstrate +unmistakably that she was not in love with him. There was another girl +who insisted on his writing her every day. Here was Gertrude, who +never had any time for him any more, absolutely without enthusiasm at +his proximity. He thought it would be a good idea to allow Eleanor to +remain where she was and said so. + +"Not that I won't miss the jolly times we had together, Babe," he +said. "I was planning some real rackets this year,--to make up for +what I put you through," he added in her ear, as she came and stood +beside him for a minute. + +Gertrude wanted to go abroad for a year, "and lick her wounds," as she +told herself. She would have come back for her two months with +Eleanor, but she was glad to be relieved of that necessity. Margaret +had the secret feeling that the ordeal of the Hutchinsons was one that +she would like to spare her foster child, and incidentally herself in +relation to the adjustment of conditions necessary to Eleanor's visit. +Peter wanted her with him, but he believed the new arrangement would +be better for the child. Beulah alone held out for her rights and her +parental privileges. The decision was finally left to Eleanor. + +She stood in the center of the group a little forlornly while they +awaited her word. A wave of her old shyness overtook her and she +blushed hot and crimson. + +"It's all in your own hands, dear," Beulah said briskly. + +"Poor kiddie," Gertrude thought, "it's all wrong somehow." + +"I don't know what you want me to say," Eleanor said piteously and +sped to the haven of Peter's breast. + +"We'll manage a month together anyway," Peter whispered. + +"Then I guess I'll stay here," she whispered back, "because next I +would have to go to Aunt Beulah's." + +Peter, turning involuntarily in Beulah's direction, saw the look of +chagrin and disappointment on her face, and realized how much she +minded playing a losing part in the game and yet how well she was +doing it. "She's only a straight-laced kid after all," he thought. +"She's put her whole heart and soul into this thing. There's a look +about the top part of her face when it's softened that's a little like +Ellen's." Ellen was his dead fiancee--the girl in the photograph at +home in his desk. + +"I guess I'll stay here," Eleanor said aloud, "all in one place, and +study with Mademoiselle." + +It was a decision that, on the whole, she never regretted. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BROOK AND RIVER + + + "Standing with reluctant feet, + Where the brook and river meet." + +"I think it's a good plan to put a quotation like Kipling at the top +of the page whenever I write anything in this diary," Eleanor began in +the smart leather bound book with her initials stamped in black on the +red cover--the new private diary that had been Peter's gift to her on +the occasion of her fifteenth birthday some months before. "I think it +is a very expressive thing to do. The quotation above is one that +expresses me, and I think it is beautiful too. Miss Hadley--that's my +English teacher--the girls call her Haddock because she does look +rather like a fish--says that it's undoubtedly one of the most +poignant descriptions of adolescent womanhood ever made. I made a note +to look up adolescent, but didn't. Bertha Stephens has my dictionary, +and won't bring it back because the leaves are all stuck together +with fudge, and she thinks she ought to buy me a new one. It is very +honorable of her to feel that way, but she never will. Good old +Stevie, she's a great borrower. + + "'Neither a borrower nor a lender be, + For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.' + "Shakespeare. + +"Well, I hardly know where to begin. I thought I would make a resume +of some of the events of the last year. I was only fourteen then, but +still I did a great many things that might be of interest to me in my +declining years when I look back into the annals of this book. To +begin with I was only a freshie at Harmon. It is very different to be +a sophomore. I can hardly believe that I was once a shivering looking +little thing like all the freshmen that came in this year. I was very +frightened, but did not think I showed it. + + "'Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us, + To see ourselves as others see us.' + +"Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad character, but after he met +his bonnie Jean he wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet's life is +usually sad anyhow--full of disappointment and pain--but I digress. + +"I had two years with Mademoiselle at the Bollings' instead of one the +way we planned. I haven't written in my Private Diary since the night +of that momentous decision that I was to stay in one place instead of +taking turns visiting my cooperative parents. I went to another school +one year before I came to Harmon, and that brings me to the threshold +of my fourteenth year. If I try to go back any farther, I'll never +catch up. I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a cottage on +Long Island with her sister, and her sister's boy, who has grown up to +be the silly kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, and those +things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I can't think of words to express +it. 'Oh! rare pale Margaret,' as Tennyson says. She wears her hair in +a coronet braid around the top of her head, and all her clothes are +the color of violets or a soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue +looks nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou. + +"I went down to Cape Cod for a week before I came to Harmon, and while +I was there my grandmother died. I can't write about that in this +diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother loved me. Uncle Peter +came, and took charge of everything. He has great strength that holds +you up in trouble. + +"The first day I came to Harmon I saw the girl I wanted for my best +friend, and so we roomed together, and have done so ever since. Her +name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she is called Maggie Lou by every +one. She has dark curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very silvery +voice. I have found out that she lies some, but she says it is because +she had such an unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome it for +my sake. + +"That Christmas vacation the 'We Are Sevens' went up the Hudson to the +Bollings' again, but that was the last time they ever went there. +Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry +for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to +marry, a rich girl who looked something like Cleopatra, very dark +complexioned with burning eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese +something like Zaidee. + +"Uncle David said that gold could never buy him, and to take her away, +but Madam Bolling was very angry, of course. She accused him of +wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her a characterless, faded +blonde. Then it was Uncle David's turn to get angry, and I have never +seen any one get any angrier, and he told about the vow of celibacy, +and how instead of having designs on him the whole crowd would back +him up in his struggle to stay single. It was an awful row. I told +Madam Bolling that I would help her to get Uncle David back, and I +did, but she never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose the +feelings of a mother would prompt her to want Uncle David settled down +with a rich and fashionable girl who would soon be the mother of a lot +of lovely children. I can't imagine a Cleopatra looking baby, but she +might have boys that looked like Uncle David. + +"Vacations are really about all there is to school. Freshman year is +mostly grinding and stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes of +'grub' is better than having only two. Some of the girls are rather +selfish about the eats, and come in and help themselves boldly when +you are out of the room. Maggie Lou puts up signs over the candy box: +'Closed for Repairs,' or 'No Trespassing by Order of the Board of +Health,' but they don't pay much attention. Well, last summer vacation +I spent with Uncle Jimmie. I wouldn't tell this, but I reformed him. I +made him sign the pledge. I don't know what pledge it was because I +didn't read it, but he said he was addicted to something worse than +anything I could think of, and if somebody didn't pull him up, he +wouldn't answer for the consequences. I asked him why he didn't choose +Aunt Gertrude to do it, and he groaned only. So I said to write out a +pledge, and sign it and I would be the witness. We were at a hotel +with his brother's family. It isn't proper any more for me to go +around with my uncles unless I have a chaperon. Mademoiselle says that +I oughtn't even to go down-town alone with them but, of course, that +is French etiquette, and not American. Well, there were lots of pretty +girls at this hotel, all wearing white and pink dresses, and carrying +big bell shaped parasols of bright colors. They looked sweet, like so +many flowers, but Uncle Jimmie just about hated the sight of them. He +said they were not girls at all, but just pink and white devices of +the devil. On the whole he didn't act much like my merry uncle, but we +had good times together playing tennis and golf, and going on parties +with his brother's family, all mere children but the mother and +father. Uncle Jimmie was afraid to go and get his mail all summer, +although he had a great many letters on blue and lavender note paper +scented with Roger et Gallet's violet, and Hudnut's carnation. We used +to go down to the beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, and +then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He said that they were +communications from the spirits of the dead. I should have thought +that they were from different girls, but he seemed to hate the sight +of girls so much. Once I asked him if he had ever had an unhappy +love-affair, just to see what he would say, but he replied 'no, they +had all been happy ones,' and groaned and groaned. + +"Aunt Beulah has changed too. She has become a suffragette and thinks +only of getting women their rights and their privileges. + +"Maggie Lou is an anti, and we have long arguments about the cause. +She says that woman's place is in the home, but I say look at me, who +have no home, how can I wash and bake and brew like the women of my +grandfather's day, visiting around the way I do? And she says that it +is the principle of the thing that is involved, and I ought to take a +stand for or against. Everybody has so many different arguments that I +don't know what I think yet, but some day I shall make up my mind for +good. + +"Well, that about brings me up to the present. I meant to describe a +few things in detail, but I guess I will not begin on the past in that +way. I don't get so awfully much time to write in this diary because +of the many interruptions of school life, and the way the monitors +snoop in study hours. I don't know who I am going to spend my +Christmas holidays with. I sent Uncle Peter a poem three days ago, but +he has not answered it yet. I'm afraid he thought it was very silly. I +don't hardly know what it means myself. It goes as follows: + + "A Song + + "The moon is very pale to-night, + The summer wind swings high, + I seek the temple of delight, + And feel my love draw nigh. + + "I seem to feel his fragrant breath + Upon my glowing cheek. + Between us blows the wind of death,-- + I shall not hear him speak. + +"I don't know why I like to write love poems, but most of the women +poets did. This one made me cry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MERRY CHRISTMAS + + +Margaret in mauve velvet and violets, and Gertrude in a frock of smart +black and white were in the act of meeting by appointment at Sherry's +one December afternoon, with a comfortable cup of tea in mind. +Gertrude emerged from the recess of the revolving door and Margaret, +sitting eagerly by the entrance, almost upset the attendant in her +rush to her friend's side. + +"Oh! Gertrude," she cried, "I'm so glad to see you. My family is +trying to cut me up in neat little quarters and send me north, south, +east and west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to stay home and +have Eleanor. How did I ever come to be born into a family of giants, +tell me that, Gertrude?" + +"The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an unfortunately immature +period, I'll admit," Gertrude laughed. "My parents are dears, but +they've never forgiven me for being an artist instead of a dubby bud. +Shall we have tea right away or shall we sit down and discuss life?" + +"Both," Margaret said. "I don't know which is the hungrier--flesh or +spirit." + +But as they turned toward the dining-room a familiar figure blocked +their progress. + +"I thought that was Gertrude's insatiable hat," David exclaimed +delightedly. "I've phoned for you both until your families have given +instructions that I'm not to be indulged any more. I've got a surprise +for you.--Taxi," he said to the man at the door. + +"Not till we've had our tea," Margaret wailed. "You couldn't be so +cruel, David." + +"You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of the happiest surprises +of your life into the bargain," David assured her as he led the way to +the waiting cab. + +"I wouldn't leave this place unfed for anybody but you, David, not if +it were ever so, and then some, as Jimmie says." + +"What's the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?" David inquired as the taxi +turned down the Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a hopeless +mesh of traffic. + +"I don't know; why?" Gertrude answered, though she had not been the +one addressed at the moment. "What's the matter with this hat?" she +rattled on without waiting for an answer. "I thought it was +good-looking myself, and Madam Paran robbed me for it." + +"It is good-looking," David allowed. "It seems to be a kind of +retrieving hat, that's all. Keeps you in a rather constant state of +looking after the game." + +"What about my hat, David?" Margaret inquired anxiously. "Do you like +that?" + +"I do," David admitted. "I'm crazy about it. It's a lovely cross +between the style affected by the late Emperor Napoleon and my august +grandmother, with some frills added." + +The chauffeur turned into a cross street and stopped abruptly before +an imposing but apparently unguarded entrance. + +"Why, I thought this was a studio building," Gertrude said. "David, if +you're springing a tea party on us, and we in the wild ungovernable +state we are at present, I'll shoot the way my hat is pointing." + +"Straight through my left eye-glass," David finished. "You wait till +you see the injustice you have done me." + +But Margaret, who often understood what was happening a few moments +before the revelation of it, clutched at his elbow. + +"Oh! David, David," she whispered, "how wonderful!" + +"Wait till you see," David said, and herded them into the elevator. + +Their destination was the top floor but one. David hurried them around +the bend in the sleekly carpeted corridor and touched the bell on the +right of the first door they came to. It opened almost instantly and +David's man, who was French, stood bowing and smiling on the +threshold. + +"Mr. Styvvisont has arrive'," he said; "he waits you." + +"Welcome to our city," Peter cried, appearing in the doorway of the +room Alphonse was indicating with that high gesture of delight with +which only a Frenchman can lead the way. "Jimmie's coming up from the +office and Beulah's due any minute. What do you think of the place, +girls?" + +"Is it really yours, David?" + +"Surest thing you know." He grinned like a schoolboy. "It's really +ours, that's what it is. I've broken away from the mater at last," he +added a little sheepishly. "I'm going to work seriously. I've got an +all-day desk job in my uncle's office and I'm going to dig in and see +what I can make of myself. Also, this is going to be our headquarters, +and Eleanor's permanent home if we're all agreed upon it,--but look +around, ladies. Don't spare my blushes. If you think I can interior +decorate, just tell me so frankly. This is the living-room." + +"It's like that old conundrum--black and white and red all over," +Gertrude said. "I never saw anything so stunning in all my life." + +"Gosh! I admire your nerve," Peter cried, "papering this place in +white, and then getting in all this heavy carved black stuff, and the +red in the tapestries and screens and pillows." + +"I wanted it to look studioish a little," David explained, "I wanted +to get away from Louis Quartorze." + +"And drawing-rooms like mother used to make," Gertrude suggested. "I +like your Oriental touches. Do you see, Margaret, everything is Indian +or Chinese? The ubiquitous Japanese print is conspicuous by its +absence." + +"I've got two portfolios full of 'em," David said, "and I always have +one or two up in the bedrooms. I change 'em around, you know, the way +the Japs do themselves, a different scene every few days and the rest +decently out of sight till you're ready for 'em." + +"It's like a fairy story," Margaret said. + +"I thought you'd appreciate what little Arabian Nights I was able to +introduce. I bought that screen," he indicated a sweep of Chinese line +and color, "with my eye on you, and that Aladdin's lamp is yours, of +course. You're to come in here and rub it whenever you like, and your +heart's desire will instantly be vouchsafed to you." + +"What will Eleanor say?" Peter suggested, as David led the way through +the corridor and up the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate +part of the establishment. "This is her room, didn't you say, David?" +He paused on the threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and +yellow, with all its hangings of a soft golden silk. + +"She once said that she wanted a yellow room," David said, "a +daffy-down-dilly room, and I've tried to get her one. I know last +year that Maggie Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that +flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor refused to be +comforted." + +A wild whoop in the below stairs announced Jimmie; and Beulah arrived +simultaneously with the tea tray. Jimmie was ecstatic when the actual +function of the place was explained to him. + +"Headquarters is the one thing we've lacked," he said; "a place of our +own, hully gee! It makes me feel almost human again." + +"You haven't been feeling altogether human lately, have you, Jimmie?" +Margaret asked over her tea cup. + +"No, dear, I haven't." Jimmie flashed her a grateful smile. "I'm a bad +egg," he explained to her darkly, "and the only thing you can do with +me is to scramble me." + +"Scrambled is just about the way I should have described your behavior +of late,--but that's Gertrude's line," David said. "Only she doesn't +seem to be taking an active part in the conversation. Aren't you +Jimmie's keeper any more, Gertrude?" + +"Not since she's come back from abroad," Jimmie muttered without +looking at her. + +"Eleanor's taken the job over now," Peter said. "She's made him swear +off red ink and red neckties." + +"Any color so long's it's red is the color that suits me best," Jimmie +quoted. "Lord, isn't this room a pippin?" He swam in among the bright +pillows of the divan and so hid his face for a moment. It had been a +good many weeks since he had seen Gertrude. + +"I want to give a suffrage tea here," Beulah broke in suddenly. "It's +so central, but I don't suppose David would hear of it." + +"Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us--" Peter began. + +"My _mother_ would hear of it," David said, "and then there wouldn't +be any little studio any more. She doesn't believe in votes for +women." + +"How any woman in this day and age--" Beulah began, and thought better +of it, since she was discussing Mrs. Bolling. + +"Makes your blood boil, doesn't it--Beulahland?" Gertrude suggested +helpfully, reaching for the tea cakes. "Never mind, I'll vote for +women. I'll march in your old peerade." + +"The Lord helps those that help themselves," Peter said, "that's why +Gertrude is a suffragist. She believes in helping herself, in every +sense, don't you, 'Trude?" + +"Not quite in every sense," Gertrude said gravely. "Sometimes I feel +like that girl that Margaret describes as caught in a horrid way +between two generations. I'm neither old-fashioned nor modern." + +"I'd rather be that way than early Victorian," Margaret sighed. + +"Speaking of the latest generation, has anybody any objection to +having our child here for the holidays?" David asked. "My idea is to +have one grand Christmas dinner. I suppose we'll all have to eat one +meal with our respective families, but can't we manage to get together +here for dinner at night? Don't you think that we could?" + +"We can't, but we will," Margaret murmured. "Of course, have Eleanor +here. I wanted her with me but the family thought otherwise. They've +been trying to send me away for my health, David." + +"Well, they shan't. You'll stay in New York for your health and come +to my party." + +"Margaret's health is merely a matter of Margaret's happiness anyhow. +Her soul and her body are all one," Gertrude said. + +"Then cursed be he who brings anything but happiness to Margaret," +Peter said, to which sentiment David added a solemn "Amen." + +"I wish you wouldn't," Margaret said, shivering a little, "I feel as +if some one were--were--" + +"Trampling the violets on your grave," Gertrude finished for her. + +Christmas that year fell on a Monday, and Eleanor did not leave school +till the Friday before the great day. Owing to the exigencies of the +holiday season none of her guardians came to see her before the dinner +party itself. Even David was busy with his mother--installed now for a +few weeks in the hotel suite that would be her home until the opening +of the season at Palm Beach--and had only a few hurried words with +her. Mademoiselle, whom he had imported for the occasion, met her at +the station and helped her to do her modest shopping which consisted +chiefly of gifts for her beloved aunts and uncles. She had arranged +these things lovingly at their plates, and fled to dress when they +began to assemble for the celebration. The girls were the first +arrivals. Then Peter. + +"How's our child, David?" Gertrude asked. "I had a few minutes' talk +with her over the telephone and she seemed to be flourishing." + +"She is," David answered. "She's grown several feet since we last saw +her. They've been giving scenes from Shakespeare at school and she's +been playing Juliet, it appears. She has had a fight with another girl +about suffrage--I don't know which side she was on, Beulah, I am +merely giving you the facts as they came to me--and the other girl was +so unpleasant about it that she has been visited by just retribution +in the form of the mumps, and had to be sent home and quarantined." + +"Sounds a bit priggish," Peter suggested. + +"Not really," David said, "she's as sound as a nut. She's only going +through the different stages." + +"To pass deliberately through one's ages," Beulah quoted, "is to get +the heart out of a liberal education." + +"Bravo, Beulah," Gertrude cried, "you're quite in your old form +to-night." + +"Is she just the same little girl, David?" Margaret asked. + +"Just the same. She really seems younger than ever. I don't know why +she doesn't come down. There she is, I guess. No, it's only Alphonse +letting in Jimmie." + +Jimmie, whose spirits seemed to have revived under the holiday +influence, was staggering under the weight of his parcels. The +Christmas presents had already accumulated to a considerable mound on +the couch. Margaret was brooding over them and trying not to look +greedy. She was still very much of a child herself in relation to +Santa Claus. + +"Merry Christmas!" Jimmie cried. "Where's my child?" + +"Coming," David said. + +"Look at the candy kids. My eyes--but you're a slick trio, girls. Pale +lavender, pale blue, and pale pink, and all quite sophisticatedly +decollete. You go with the decorations, too. I don't know quite why +you do, but you do." + +"Give honor where honor is due, dearie. That's owing to the cleverness +of the decorator," David said. + +"No man calls me dearie and lives to tell the tale," Jimmie remarked +almost dreamily as he squared off. "How'll you have it, Dave?" + +But at that instant there was an unexpected interruption. Alphonse +threw open the big entrance door at the farther end of the long room +with a flourish. + +"Mademoiselle Juliet Capulet," he proclaimed with the grand air, and +then retired behind his hand, smiling broadly. + +Framed in the high doorway, complete, cap and curls, softly rounding +bodice, and the long, straight lines of the Renaissance, stood +Juliet--Juliet, immemorial, immortal, young--austerely innocent and +delicately shy, already beautiful, and yet potential of all the beauty +and the wisdom of the world. + +"I've never worn these clothes before anybody but the girls before," +Eleanor said, "but I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you +might like it--for a surprise." + +"Great jumping Jehoshaphat," Jimmie exclaimed, "I thought you said she +was the same little girl, David." + +"She was half an hour ago," David answered, "I never saw such a +metamorphosis. In fact, I don't think I ever saw Juliet before." + +"She is the thing itself," Gertrude answered, the artist in her +sobered by the vision. + +But Peter passed a dazed hand over his eyes and stared at the delicate +figure advancing to him. + +"My God! she's a woman," he said, and drew the hard breath of a man +just awakened from sleep. + +[Illustration: "I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you might +like it--for a surprise"] + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +GROWING UP + + +"Dear Uncle Jimmie: + +"It was a pleasant surprise to get letters from every one of my uncles +the first week I got back to school. It was unprecedented. You wrote +me two letters last year, Uncle David six, and Uncle Peter sixteen. He +is the best correspondent, but perhaps that is because I ask him the +most advice. The Christmas party was lovely. I shall never forget the +expressions on all the different faces when I came down in my Juliet +suit. I thought at first that no one liked me in it, but I guess they +did. + +"You know how well I liked my presents because you heard my wild +exclamations of delight. I never had such a nice Christmas. It was +sweet of the We Are Sevens to get me that ivory set, and to know that +every different piece was the loving thought of a different aunt or +uncle. I love the yellow monogram. It looks entirely unique, and I +like to have things that are not like anybody else's in the world, +don't you, Uncle Jimmie? I am glad you liked your cuff links. They are +'neat,' but not 'gaudy.' You play golf so well I thought a golf stick +was a nice emblem for you, and would remind you of me and last +summer. + +"I am glad you think it is easier to keep your pledge now. I made a +New Year's resolution to go without chocolates, and give the money +they would cost to some good cause, but it's hard to pick out a cause, +or to decide exactly how much money you are saving. I can eat the +chocolates that are sent to me, however!!!! + +"Uncle David said that he thought you were not like yourself lately, +but you seemed just the same to me Christmas, only more affectionate. +I love you very much. I was really only joking about the chocolates. +Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Uncle David: + +"I was glad to get your nice letter. You did not have to write in +response to my bread and butter letter, but I am glad you did. When I +am at school, and getting letters all the time I feel as if I were +living two beautiful lives all at once, the life of a 'cooperative +child' and the life of Eleanor Hamlin, schoolgirl, both together. +Letters make the people you love seem very near to you, don't you +think they do? I sleep with all my letters under my pillow whenever I +feel the least little bit homesick, and they almost seem to breathe +sometimes. + +"School is the same old school. Maggie Lou had a wrist watch, too, for +Christmas, but not so pretty as the one you gave me. Miss Hadley says +I do remarkable work in English whenever I feel like it. I don't know +whether that's a compliment or not. I took Kris Kringle for the +subject of a theme the other day, and represented him as caught in an +iceberg in the grim north, and not being able to reach all the poor +little children in the tenements and hovels. The Haddock said it +showed imagination. + +"There was a lecture at school on Emerson the other day. The speaker +was a noted literary lecturer from New York. He had wonderful waving +hair, more like Pader--I can't spell him, but you know who I +mean--than Uncle Jimmie's, but a little like both. He introduced some +very noble thoughts in his discourse, putting perfectly old ideas in +a new way that made you think a lot more of them. I think a tall man +like that with waving hair can do a great deal of good as a lecturer, +because you listen a good deal more respectfully than if they were +plain looking. His voice sounded a good deal like what I imagine +Romeo's voice did. I had a nice letter from Madam Bolling. I love you, +and I have come to the bottom of the sheet. Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Uncle Peter: + +"I have just written to my other uncles, so I won't write you a long +letter this time. They deserve letters because of being so unusually +prompt after the holidays. You always deserve letters, but not +specially now, any more than any other time. + +"Uncle Peter, I wrote to my grandfather. It seems funny to think of +Albertina's aunt taking care of him now that Grandma is gone. I +suppose Albertina is there a lot. She sent me a post card for +Christmas. I didn't send her any. + +"Uncle Peter, I miss my grandmother out of the world. I remember how I +used to take care of her, and put a soapstone in the small of her +back when she was cold. I wish sometimes that I could hold your hand, +Uncle Peter, when I get thinking about it. + +"Well, school is the same old school. Bertha Stephens has a felon on +her finger, and that lets her out of hard work for a while. I will +enclose a poem suggested by a lecture I heard recently on Emerson. It +isn't very good, but it will help to fill up the envelope. I love you, +and love you. Eleanor. + + "Life + + "Life is a great, a noble task, + When we fulfill our duty. + To work, that should be all we ask, + And seek the living beauty. + We know not whence we come, or where + Our dim pathway is leading, + Whether we tread on lilies fair, + Or trample love-lies-bleeding. + But we must onward go and up, + Nor stop to question whither. + E'en if we drink the bitter cup, + And fall at last, to wither. + +"P. S. I haven't got the last verse very good yet, but I think the +second one is pretty. You know 'love-lies-bleeding' is a flower, but +it sounds allegorical the way I have put it in. Don't you think so? +You know what all the crosses stand for." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor's fifteenth year was on the whole the least eventful year of +her life, though not by any means the least happy. She throve +exceedingly, and gained the freedom and poise of movement and +spontaneity that result from properly balanced periods of work and +play and healthful exercise. From being rather small of her age she +developed into a tall slender creature, inherently graceful and erect, +with a small, delicate head set flower-wise on a slim white neck. +Gertrude never tired of modeling that lovely contour, but Eleanor +herself was quite unconscious of her natural advantages. She preferred +the snappy-eyed, stocky, ringleted type of beauty, and spent many +unhappy quarters of an hour wishing she were pretty according to the +inexorable ideals of Harmon. + +She spent her vacation at David's apartment in charge of Mademoiselle, +though the latter part of the summer she went to Colhassett, quite by +herself according to her own desire, and spent a month with her +grandfather, now in charge of Albertina's aunt. She found Albertina +grown into a huge girl, sunk in depths of sloth and snobbishness, who +plied her with endless questions concerning life in the gilded circles +of New York society. Eleanor found her disgusting and yet possessed of +that vague fascination that the assumption of prerogative often +carries with it. + +She found her grandfather very old and shrunken, yet perfectly taken +care of and with every material want supplied. She realized as she had +never done before how the faithful six had assumed the responsibility +of this household from the beginning, and how the old people had been +warmed and comforted by their bounty. She laughed to remember her +simplicity in believing that an actual salary was a perquisite of her +adoption, and understood for the first time how small a part of the +expense of their living this faithful stipend had defrayed. She looked +back incredulously on that period when she had lived with them in a +state of semi-starvation on the corn meal and cereals and very little +else that her dollar and a half a week had purchased, and the "garden +sass," that her grandfather had faithfully hoed and tended in the +straggling patch of plowed field that he would hoe and tend no more. +She spent a month practically at his feet, listening to his stories, +helping him to find his pipe and tobacco and glasses, and reading the +newspaper to him, and felt amply rewarded by his final acknowledgment +that she was a good girl and he would as soon have her come again +whenever she felt like it. + +On her way back to school she spent a week with her friend, Margaret +Louise, in the Connecticut town where she lived with her comfortable, +commonplace family. It was while she was on this visit that the most +significant event of the entire year took place, though it was a +happening that she put out of her mind as soon as possible and never +thought of it again when she could possibly avoid it. + +Maggie Lou had a brother of seventeen, and one night in the corner of +a moonlit porch, when they happened to be alone for a half hour, he +had asked Eleanor to kiss him. + +"I don't want to kiss you," Eleanor said. Then, not wishing to convey +a sense of any personal dislike to the brother of a friend to whom +she was so sincerely devoted, she added, "I don't know you well +enough." + +He was a big boy, with mocking blue eyes and rough tweed clothes that +hung on him loosely. + +"When you know me better, will you let me kiss you?" he demanded. + +"I don't know," Eleanor said, still endeavoring to preserve the +amenities. + +He took her hand and played with it softly. + +"You're an awful sweet little girl," he said. + +"I guess I'll go in now." + +"Sit still. Sister'll be back in a minute." He pulled her back to the +chair from which she had half arisen. "Don't you believe in kissing?" + +"I don't believe in kissing _you_," she tried to say, but the words +would not come. She could only pray for deliverance through the +arrival of some member of the family. The boy's face was close to +hers. It looked sweet in the moonlight she thought. She wished he +would talk of something else besides kissing. + +"Don't you like me?" he persisted. + +"Yes, I do." She was very uncomfortable. + +"Well, then, there's no more to be said." His lips sought hers and +pressed them. His breath came heavily, with little irregular catches +in it. + +She pushed him away and turned into the house. + +"Don't be angry, Eleanor," he pleaded, trying to snatch at her hand. + +"I'm not angry," she said, her voice breaking, "I just wish you +hadn't, that's all." + +There was no reference to this incident in the private diary, but, +with an instinct which would have formed an indissoluble bond between +herself and her Uncle Jimmie, she avoided dimly lit porches and boys +with mischievous eyes and broad tweed covered shoulders. + +For her guardians too, this year was comparatively smooth running and +colorless. Beulah's militant spirit sought the assuagement of a fierce +expenditure of energy on the work that came to her hand through her +new interest in suffrage. Gertrude flung herself into her sculpturing. +She had been hurt as only the young can be hurt when their first +delicate desires come to naught. She was very warm-blooded and eager +under her cool veneer, and she had spent four years of hard work and +hungry yearning for the fulness of a life she was too constrained to +get any emotional hold on. Her fancy for Jimmie she believed was +quite over and done with. + +Margaret, warmed by secret fires and nourished by the stuff that +dreams are made of, flourished strangely in her attic chamber, and +learned the wisdom of life by some curious method of her own of +apprehending its dangers and delights. The only experiences she had +that year were two proposals of marriage, one from a timid professor +of the romance languages and the other from a young society man, +already losing his waist line, whose sensuous spirit had been stirred +by the ethereal grace of hers; but these things interested her very +little. She was the princess, spinning fine dreams and waiting for the +dawning of the golden day when the prince should come for her. Neither +she nor Gertrude ever gave a serious thought to the five-year-old vow +of celibacy, which was to Beulah as real and as binding as it had +seemed on the first day she took it. + +Peter and David and Jimmie went their own way after the fashion of +men, all of them identified with the quickening romance of New York +business life. David in Wall Street was proving to be something of a +financier to his mother's surprise and amazement; and the pressure +relaxed, he showed some slight initiative in social matters. In fact, +two mothers, who were on Mrs. Bolling's list as suitable +parents-in-law, took heart of grace and began angling for him +adroitly, while their daughters served him tea and made unabashed, +modern-debutante eyes at him. + +Jimmie, successfully working his way up to the top of his firm, +suffered intermittently from his enthusiastic abuse of the privileges +of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. His mind and soul were in +reality hot on the trail of a wife, and there was no woman among those +with whom he habitually foregathered whom his spirit recognized as his +own woman. He was further rendered helpless and miserable by the fact +that he had not the slightest idea of his trouble. He regarded himself +as a congenital Don Juan, from whom his better self shrank at times +with a revulsion of loathing. + +Peter felt that he had his feet very firmly on a rather uninspired +earth. He was getting on in the woolen business, which happened to be +the vocation his father had handed down to him. He belonged to an +amusing club, and he still felt himself irrevocably widowed by the +early death of the girl in the photograph he so faithfully cherished. +Eleanor was a very vital interest in his life. It had seemed to him +for a few minutes at the Christmas party that she was no longer the +little girl he had known, that a lovelier, more illusive creature--a +woman--had come to displace her, but when she had flung her arms +around him he had realized that it was still the heart of a child +beating so fondly against his own. + +The real trouble with arrogating to ourselves the privileges of +parenthood is that our native instincts are likely to become deflected +by the substitution of the artificial for the natural responsibility. +Both Peter and David had the unconscious feeling that their obligation +to their race was met by their communal interest in Eleanor. Beulah, +of course, sincerely believed that the filling in of an intellectual +concept of life was all that was required of her. Only Jimmie groped +blindly and bewilderedly for his own. Gertrude and Margaret both +understood that they were unnaturally alone in a world where lovers +met and mated, but they, too, hugged to their souls the flattering +unction that they were parents of a sort. + +Thus three sets of perfectly suitable and devoted young men and +women, of marriageable age, with dozens of interests and sympathies in +common, and one extraordinarily vital bond, continued to walk side by +side in a state of inhuman preoccupation, their gaze fixed inward +instead of upon one another; and no Divine Power, happening upon the +curious circumstance, believed the matter one for His intervention nor +stooped to take the respective puppets by the back of their +unconscious necks, and so knock their sluggish heads together. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MARGARET LOUISA'S BIRTHRIGHT + + +"I am sixteen years and eight months old to-day," Eleanor wrote, "and +I have had the kind of experience that makes me feel as if I never +wanted to be any older. I know life is full of disillusionment and +pain, but I did not know that any one with whom you have broken bread, +and slept in the same room with, and told everything to for four long +years, could turn out to be an absolute traitor and villainess. Let me +begin at the beginning. For nearly a year now I have noticed that +Bertha Stephens avoided me, and presented the appearance of disliking +me. I don't like to have any one dislike me, and I have tried to do +little things for her that would win back her affection, but with no +success. As I was editing the Lantern I could print her essayettes (as +she called them) and do her lots of little favors in a literary way, +which she seemed to appreciate, but personally she avoided me like the +plague. + +"Of course Stevie has lots of faults, and since Margaret Louise and I +always talked everything over we used to talk about Stevie in the same +way. I remember that she used to try to draw me out about Stevie's +character. I've always thought Stevie was a kind of piker, that is +that she would say she was going to do a thing, and then from sheer +laziness not do it. My dictionary was a case in point. She gummed it +all up with her nasty fudge and then wouldn't give it back to me or +get me another, but the reason she wouldn't give it back to me was +because her feelings were too fine to return a damaged article, and +not fine enough to make her hump herself and get me another. That's +only one kind of a piker and not the worst kind, but it was +_pikerish_. + +"All this I told quite frankly to Maggie--I mean Margaret Louise, +because I had no secrets from her and never thought there was any +reason why I shouldn't. Stevie has a horrid brother, also, who has +been up here to dances. All the girls hate him because he is so +spoony. He isn't as spoony as Margaret Louise's brother, but he's +quite a sloppy little spooner at that. Well, I told Margaret Louise +that I didn't like Stevie's brother, and then I made the damaging +remark that one reason I didn't like him was because he looked so much +like Stevie. I didn't bother to explain to Maggie--I will not call her +Maggie Lou any more, because that is a dear little name and sounds so +affectionate,--Margaret Louise--what I meant by this, because I +thought it was perfectly evident. Stevie is a peachy looking girl, a +snow white blonde with pinky cheeks and dimples. Well, her brother is +a snow white blond too, and he has pinky cheeks and dimples and his +name is Carlo! We, of course, at once named him Curlo. It is not a +good idea for a man to look too much like his sister, or to have too +many dimples in his chin and cheeks. I had only to think of him in the +same room with my three uncles to get his number exactly. I don't mean +to use slang in my diary, but I can't seem to help it. Professor +Mathews says that slang has a distinct function in the language--in +replenishing it, but Uncle Peter says about slang words, that 'many +are called, and few are chosen,' and there is no need to try to +accommodate them all in one's vocabulary. + +"Well, I told Margaret Louise all these things about Curlo, and how +he tried to hold my hand coming from the station one day, when the +girls all went up to meet the boys that came up for the dance,--and I +told her everything else in the world that happened to come into my +head. + +"Then one day I got thinking about leaving Harmon--this is our senior +year, of course--and I thought that I should leave all the girls with +things just about right between us, excepting good old Stevie, who had +this queer sort of grouch against me. So I decided that I'd just go +around and have it out with her, and I did. I went into her room one +day when her roommate was out, and demanded a show down. Well, I found +out that Maggie--Margaret Louise had just repeated to Stevie every +living thing that I ever said about her, just as I said it, only +without the explanations and foot-notes that make any kind of +conversation more understandable. + +"Stevie told me all these things one after another, without stopping, +and when she was through I wished that the floor would open and +swallow me up, but nothing so comfortable happened. I was obliged to +gaze into Stevie's overflowing eyes and own up to the truth as well as +I could, and explain it. It was the most humiliating hour that I ever +spent, but I told Stevie exactly what I felt about her 'nothing +extenuate, and naught set down in malice,' and what I had said about +her to our mutual friend, who by the way, is not the mutual friend of +either of us any longer. We were both crying by the time I had +finished, but we understood each other. There were one or two things +that she said she didn't think she would ever forget that I had said +about her, but even those she could forgive. She said that my dislike +of her had rankled in her heart so long that it took away all the +bitterness to know that I wasn't really her enemy. She said that my +coming to her that way, and not lying had showed that I had lots of +character, and she thought in time that we could be quite intimate +friends if I wanted to as much as she did. + +"After my talk with Stevie I still hoped against hope that Margaret +Louise would turn out to have some reason or excuse for what she had +done. I knew she had done it, but when a thing like that happens that +upsets your whole trust in a person you simply can not believe the +evidence of your own senses. When you read of a situation like that +in a book you are all prepared for it by the author, who has taken the +trouble to explain the moral weakness or unpleasantness of the +character, and given you to understand that you are to expect a +betrayal from him or her; but when it happens in real life out of a +clear sky you have nothing to go upon that makes you even _believe_ +what you know. + +"I won't even try to describe the scene that occurred between Margaret +Louise and me. She cried and she lied, and she accused me of trying to +curry favor with Stevie, and Stevie of being a backbiter, and she +argued and argued about all kinds of things but the truth, and when I +tried to pin her down to it, she ducked and crawled and sidestepped in +a way that was dreadful. I've seen her do something like it before +about different things, and I ought to have known then what she was +like inside of her soul, but I guess you have to be the object of such +a scene before you realize the full force of it. + +"All I said was, 'Margaret Louise, if that's all you've got to say +about the injury you have done me, then everything is over between us +from this minute;' and it was, too. + +"I feel as if I had been writing a beautiful story or poem on what I +thought was an enduring tablet of marble, and some one had come and +wiped it all off as if it were mere scribblings on a slate. I don't +know whether it would seem like telling tales to tell Uncle Peter or +not; I don't quite know whether I want to tell him. Sometimes I wish I +had a mother to tell such things to. It seems to me that a real mother +would know what to say that would help you. Disillusion is a very +strange thing--like death, only having people die seems more natural +somehow. When they die you can remember the happy hours that you spent +with them, but when disillusionment comes then you have lost even your +beautiful memories. + +"We had for the subject of our theme this week, 'What Life Means to +Me,' which of course was the object of many facetious remarks from the +girls, but I've been thinking that if I sat down seriously to state in +just so many words what life means to _me_, I hardly know what I would +transcribe. It means disillusionment and death for one thing. Since my +grandfather died last year I have had nobody left of my own in the +world,--no real blood relation. Of course, I am a good deal fonder of +my aunts and uncles than most people are of their own flesh and blood, +but own flesh and blood is a thing that it makes you feel shivery to +be without. If I had been Margaret Louise's own flesh and blood, she +would never have acted like that to me. Stevie stuck up for Carlo as +if he was really something to be proud of. Perhaps my uncles and aunts +feel that way about me, I don't know. I don't even know if I feel that +way about them. I certainly criticize them in my soul at times, and +feel tired of being dragged around from pillar to post. I don't feel +that way about Uncle Peter, but there is nobody else that I am +certain, positive sure that I love better than life itself. If there +is only one in the world that you feel that way about, I might not be +Uncle Peter's one. + +"Oh! I wish Margaret Louise had not sold her birthright for a mess of +pottage. I wish I had a home that I had a perfect right to go and live +in forevermore. I wish my mother was here to comfort me to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A REAL KISS + + +At seventeen, Eleanor was through at Harmon. She was to have one year +of preparatory school and then it was the desire of Beulah's heart +that she should go to Rogers. The others contended that the higher +education should be optional and not obligatory. The decision was +finally to be left to Eleanor herself, after she had considered it in +all its bearings. + +"If she doesn't decide in favor of college," David said, "and she +makes her home with me here, as I hope she will do, of course, I don't +see what society we are going to be able to give her. Unfortunately +none of our contemporaries have growing daughters. She ought to meet +eligible young men and that sort of thing." + +"Not yet," Margaret cried. The two were having a cozy cup of tea at +his apartment. "You're so terribly worldly, David, that you frighten +me sometimes." + +"You don't know where I will end, is that the idea?" + +"I don't know where Eleanor will end, if you're already thinking of +eligible young men for her." + +"Those things have got to be thought of," David answered gravely. + +"I suppose they have," Margaret sighed. "I don't want her to be +married. I want to take her off by myself and growl over her all alone +for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to come along and snatch her +up quickly, and set her behind his milk white charger and ride away +with her. If we've all got to get together and connive at marrying her +off there won't be any comfort in having her." + +"I don't know," David said thoughtfully; "I think that might be fun, +too. A vicarious love-affair that you can manipulate is one of the +most interesting games in the world." + +"That's not my idea of an interesting game," Margaret said. "I like +things very personal, David,--you ought to know that by this time." + +"I do know that," David said, "but it sometimes occurs to me that +except for a few obvious facts of that nature I really know very +little about you, Margaret." + +"There isn't much to know--except that I'm a woman." + +"That's a good deal," David answered slowly; "to a mere man that seems +to be considerable of an adventure." + +"It is about as much of an adventure sometimes as it would be to be a +field of clover in an insectless world.--This is wonderful tea, David, +but your cream is like butter and floats around in it in wudges. No, +don't get any more, I've got to go home. Grandmother still thinks it's +very improper for me to call upon you, in spite of Mademoiselle and +your ancient and honorable housekeeper." + +"Don't go," David said; "I apologize on my knees for the cream. I'll +send out and have it wet down, or whatever you do to cream in that +state. I want to talk to you. What did you mean by your last remark?" + +"About the cream, or the proprieties?" + +"About women." + +"Everything and nothing, David dear. I'm a little bit tired of being +one, that's all, and I want to go home." + +"She wants to go home when she's being so truly delightful and +cryptic," David said. "Have you been seeing visions, Margaret, in my +hearth fire? Your eyes look as if you had." + +"I thought I did for a minute." She rose and stood absently fitting +her gloves to her fingers. "I don't know exactly what it was I saw, +but it was something that made me uncomfortable. It gives me the +creeps to talk about being a woman. David, do you know sometimes I +have a kind of queer hunch about Eleanor? I love her, you know, +dearly, dearly. I think that she is a very successful kind of +Frankenstein; but there are moments when I have the feeling that she's +going to be a storm center and bring some queer trouble upon us. I +wouldn't say this to anybody but you, David." + +As David tucked her in the car--he had arrived at the dignity of +owning one now--and watched her sweet silhouette disappear, he, too, +had his moment of clairvoyance. He felt that he was letting something +very precious slip out of sight, as if some radiant and delicate gift +had been laid lightly within his grasp and as lightly withdrawn again. +As if when the door closed on his friend Margaret some stranger, more +silent creature who was dear to him had gone with her. As soon as he +was dressed for dinner he called Margaret on the telephone to know if +she had arrived home safely, and was informed not only that she had, +but that she was very wroth at him for getting her down three flights +of stairs in the midst of her own dinner toilet. + +"I had a kind of hunch, too," he told her, "and I felt as if I wanted +to hear your voice speaking." + +But she only scoffed at him. + +"If that's the way you feel about your chauffeur," she said, "you +ought to discharge him, but he brought me home beautifully." + +The difference between a man's moments of prescience and a woman's, is +that the man puts them out of his consciousness as quickly as he can, +while a woman clings to them fearfully and goes her way a little more +carefully for the momentary flash of foresight. David tried to see +Margaret once or twice during that week but failed to find her in when +he called or telephoned, and the special impulse to seek her alone +again died naturally. + +One Saturday a few weeks later Eleanor telegraphed him that she +wished to come to New York for the week-end to do some shopping. + +He went to the train to meet her, and when the slender chic figure in +the most correct of tailor made suits appeared at the gateway, with an +obsequious porter bearing her smart bag and ulster, he gave a sudden +gasp of surprise at the picture. He had been aware for some time of +the increase in her inches and the charm of the pure cameo-cut +profile, but he regarded her still as a child histrionically assuming +the airs and graces of womanhood, as small girl children masquerade in +the trailing skirts of their elders. He was accustomed to the idea +that she was growing up rapidly, but the fact that she was already +grown had never actually dawned on him until this moment. + +"You look as if you were surprised to see me, Uncle David,--are you?" +she said, slipping a slim hand, warm through its immaculate glove, +into his. "You knew I was coming, and you came to meet me, and yet you +looked as surprised as if you hadn't expected me at all." + +"Surprised to see you just about expresses it, Eleanor. I am surprised +to see you. I was looking for a little girl in hair ribbons with her +skirts to her knees." + +"And a blue tam-o'-shanter?" + +"And a blue tam-o'-shanter. I had forgotten you had grown up any to +speak of." + +"You see me every vacation," Eleanor grumbled, as she stepped into the +waiting motor. "It isn't because you lack opportunity that you don't +notice what I look like. It's just because you're naturally +unobserving." + +"Peter and Jimmie have been making a good deal of fuss about your +being a young lady, now I think of it. Peter especially has been +rather a nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious moments of +triviality with the sweetly solemn thought that our little girl has +grown to be a woman now." + +"Oh, does _he_ think I'm grown up, does he really?" + +"Jimmie is almost as bad. He's all the time wanting me to get you to +New York over the weekend, so that he can see if you are any taller +than you were the last time he saw you." + +"Are they coming to see me this evening?" + +"Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up with his sister. You +know she's on here from China with her daughter. Peter wants you to +meet the child." + +"She must be as grown up as I am," Eleanor said. "I used to have her +room, you know, when I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like +her?" + +"Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. He says she looks like +a heathen Chinee but otherwise is passable. I didn't know that you +added jealousy to the list of your estimable vices." + +"I'm not jealous," Eleanor protested; "or if I am it's only because +she's blood relation,--and I'm not, you know." + +"It's a good deal more prosaic to be a blood relation, if anybody +should ask you," David smiled. "A blood relation is a good deal like +the famous primrose on the river's brim." + +"'A primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,--and +nothing more,'" Eleanor quoted gaily. "Why, what more--" she broke off +suddenly and colored slightly. + +"What more would anybody want to be than a yellow primrose by the +river's brim?" David finished for her. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm a +mere man and such questions are too abstruse for me, as I told your +Aunt Margaret the other day. Now I think of it, though, you don't look +unlike a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter." + +"That's because I've got a yellow ribbon on my hat." + +"No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has something to do with +youth and fragrance and the flowers that bloom in the spring." + +"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la," Eleanor returned +saucily, "have nothing to do with the case." + +"She's learning that she has eyes, good Lord," David said to himself, +but aloud he remarked paternally, "I saw all your aunts yesterday. +Gertrude gave a tea party and invited a great many famous tea party +types, and ourselves." + +"Was Aunt Beulah there?" + +"I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like the famous Queenie, +with her hair in a braid." + +"Not really." + +"Pretty nearly. She's gone in for dress reform now, you know, a kind +of middy blouse made out of a striped portiere with a kilted skirt of +the same material and a Scotch cap. She doesn't look so bad in it. +Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar phenomenon these days. She's +growing better-looking and behaving worse every day of her life." + +"Behaving worse?" + +"She's theory ridden and fad bitten. She'll come to a bad end if +something doesn't stop her." + +"Do you mean--stop her working for suffrage? I'm a suffragist, Uncle +David." + +"And quite right to remind me of it before I began slamming the cause. +No, I don't mean suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the +way she's going after it. There are healthy ways of insisting on your +rights and unhealthy ways. Beulah's getting further and further off +key, that's all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor old +cooperative father welcomes you to the associated hearthstone." + +"This front entrance looks more like my front entrance than any other +place does," Eleanor said. "Oh! I'm so glad to be here. George, how is +the baby?" she asked the black elevator man, who beamed delightedly +upon her. + +"Gosh! I didn't know he had one," David chuckled. "It takes a +woman--" + +Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets and a five pound +box of the chocolates most in favor in the politest circles at the +moment. David whistled when he saw them. + +"What's devouring you, papa?" Jimmie asked him. "Don't I always place +tributes at the feet of the offspring?" + +"Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes," David said. "It's only +the labels that surprised me." + +"She knows the difference, now," Jimmie answered, "what would you?" + +The night before her return to school it was decreed that she should +go to bed early. She had spent two busy days of shopping and "seeing +the family." She had her hours discussing her future with Peter, long +visits and talks with Margaret and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at +suffrage headquarters with Beulah, as well as long sessions in the +shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made her home now permanently +with David. She sat before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out +of the embers and David stood with one arm on the mantel, smoking his +after-dinner cigar, and watching her. + +"Is it to be college, Eleanor?" he asked her presently. + +"I can't seem to make up my mind, Uncle David." + +"Don't you like the idea?" + +"Yes, I'd love it,--if--" + +"If what, daughter?" + +"If I thought I could spare the time." + +"The time? Elucidate." + +"I'm going to earn my own living, you know." + +"I didn't know." + +"I am. I've got to--in order to--to feel right about things." + +"Don't you like the style of living to which your cooperative parents +have accustomed you?" + +"I love everything you've ever done for me, but I can't go on letting +you do things for me forever." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know why not exactly. It doesn't seem--right, that's all." + +"It's your New England conscience, Eleanor; one of the most specious +varieties of consciences in the world. It will always be tempting you +to do good that better may come. Don't listen to it, daughter." + +"I'm in earnest, Uncle David. I don't know whether I would be better +fitted to earn my living if I went to business college or real +college. What do you think?" + +"I can't think,--I'm stupefied." + +"Uncle Peter couldn't think, either." + +"Have you mentioned this brilliant idea to Peter?" + +"Yes." + +"What did he say?" + +"He talked it over with me, but I think he thinks I'll change my +mind." + +"I think you'll change your mind. Good heavens! Eleanor, we're all +able to afford you--the little we spend on you is nothing divided +among six of us. It's our pleasure and privilege. When did you come to +this extraordinary decision?" + +"A long time ago. The day that Mrs. Bolling talked to me, I think. +There are things she said that I've never forgotten. I told Uncle +Peter to think about it and then help me to decide which to do, and I +want you to think, Uncle David, and tell me truly what you believe +the best preparation for a business life would be. I thought perhaps I +might be a stenographer in an editorial office, and my training there +would be more use to me than four years at college, but I don't +know." + +"You're an extraordinary young woman," David said, staring at her. +"I'm glad you broached this subject, if only that I might realize how +extraordinary, but I don't think anything will come of it, my dear. I +don't want you to go to college unless you really want to, but if you +do want to, I hope you will take up the pursuit of learning as a +pursuit and not as a means to an end. Do you hear me, daughter?" + +"Yes, Uncle David." + +"Then let's have no more of this nonsense of earning your own +living." + +"Are you really displeased, Uncle David?" + +"I should be if I thought you were serious,--but it's bedtime. If +you're going to get your beauty sleep, my dear, you ought to begin on +it immediately." + +Eleanor rose obediently, her brow clouded a little, and her head held +high. David watched the color coming and going in the sweet face and +the tender breast rising and falling with her quickening breath. + +"I thought perhaps you would understand," she said. "Good night." + +She had always kissed him "good night" until this visit, and he had +refrained from commenting on the omission before, but now he put out +his hand to her. + +"Haven't you forgotten something?" he asked. "There is only one way +for a daughter to say good night to her parent." + +She put up her face, and as she did so he caught the glint of tears in +her eyes. + +"Why, Eleanor, dear," he said, "did you care?" And he kissed her. Then +his lips sought hers again. + +With his arms still about her shoulder he stood looking down at her. A +hot tide of crimson made its way slowly to her brow and then receded, +accentuating the clear pallor of her face. + +"That was a real kiss, dear," he said slowly. "We mustn't get such +things confused. I won't bother you with talking about it to-night, or +until you are ready. Until then we'll pretend that it didn't happen, +but if the thought of it should ever disturb you the least bit, dear, +you are to remember that the time is coming when I shall have +something to say about it; will you remember?" + +"Yes, Uncle David," Eleanor said uncertainly, "but I--I--" + +David took her unceremoniously by the shoulders. + +"Go now," he said, and she obeyed him without further question. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BEULAH'S PROBLEM + + +Peter was shaving for the evening. His sister was giving a dinner +party for two of her husband's fellow bankers and their wives. After +that they were going to see the latest Belasco production, and from +there to some one of the new dancing "clubs,"--the smart cabarets that +were forced to organize in the guise of private enterprises to evade +the two o'clock closing law. Peter enjoyed dancing, but he did not as +a usual thing enjoy bankers' wives. He was deliberating on the +possibility of excusing himself gracefully after the theater, on the +plea of having some work to do, and finally decided that his sister's +feelings would be hurt if she realized he was trying to escape the +climax of the hospitality she had provided so carefully. + +He gazed at himself intently over the drifts of lather and twisted his +shaving mirror to the most propitious angle from time to time. In the +room across the hall--Eleanor's room, he always called it to +himself--his young niece was singing bits of the Mascagni intermezzo +interspersed with bits of the latest musical comedy, in a rather +uncertain contralto. + +"My last girl came from Vassar, and I don't know where to class her." + +Peter's mind took up the refrain automatically. "My last girl--" and +began at the beginning of the chorus again. "My last girl came from +Vassar," which brought him by natural stages to the consideration of +the higher education and of Beulah, and a conversation concerning her +that he had had with Jimmie and David the night before. + +"She's off her nut," Jimmie said succinctly. "It's not exactly that +there's nobody home," he rapped his curly pate significantly, "but +there's too much of a crowd there. She's not the same old girl at all. +She used to be a good fellow, high-brow propaganda and all. Now she's +got nothing else in her head. What's happened to her?" + +"It's what hasn't happened to her that's addled her," David explained. +"It's these highly charged, hypersensitive young women that go to +pieces under the modern pressure. They're the ones that need licking +into shape by all the natural processes." + +"By which you mean a drunken husband and a howling family?" Jimmie +suggested. + +"Yes, or its polite equivalent." + +"That is true, isn't it?" Peter said. "Feminism isn't the answer to +Beulah's problem." + +"It is the problem," David said; "she's poisoning herself with it. I +know what I'm talking about. I've seen it happen. My cousin Jack +married a girl with a sister a great deal like Beulah, looks, +temperament, and everything else, though she wasn't half so nice. She +got going the militant pace and couldn't stop herself. I never met her +at a dinner party that she wasn't tackling somebody on the subject of +man's inhumanity to woman. She ended in a sanitorium; in fact, they're +thinking now of taking her to the--" + +"--bug house," Jimmie finished cheerfully. + +"And in the beginning she was a perfectly good girl that needed +nothing in the world but a chance to develop along legitimate lines." + +"The frustrate matron, eh?" Peter said. + +"The frustrate matron," David agreed gravely. "I wonder you haven't +realized this yourself, Gram. You're keener about such things than I +am. Beulah is more your job than mine." + +"Is she?" + +"You're the only one she listens to or looks up to. Go up and tackle +her some day and see what you can do. She's sinking fast." + +"Give her the once over and throw out the lifeline," Jimmie said. + +"I thought all this stuff was a phase, a part of her taking herself +seriously as she always has. I had no idea it was anything to worry +about," Peter persisted. "Are you sure she's in bad shape--that she's +got anything more than a bad attack of Feminism of the Species in its +most virulent form? They come out of _that_, you know." + +"She's batty," Jimmie nodded gravely. "Dave's got the right dope." + +"Go up and look her over," David persisted; "you'll see what we mean, +then. Beulah's in a bad way." + +Peter reviewed this conversation while he shaved the right side of his +face, and frowned prodigiously through the lather. He wished that he +had an engagement that evening that he could break in order to get to +see Beulah at once, and discover for himself the harm that had come to +his friend. He was devoted to Beulah. He had always felt that he saw +a little more clearly than the others the virtue that was in the girl. +He admired the pluck with which she made her attack on life and the +energy with which she accomplished her ends. There was to him +something alluring and quaint about her earnestness. The fact that her +soundness could be questioned came to him with something like a shock. +As soon as he was dressed he was called to the telephone to talk to +David. + +"Margaret has just told me that Doctor Penrose has been up to see +Beulah and pronounces it a case of nervous breakdown. He wants her to +try out psycho-analysis, and that sort of thing. He seems to feel that +it's serious. Margaret is fearfully upset, poor girl. So'm I, to tell +the truth." + +"And so am I," Peter acknowledged to himself as he hung up the +receiver. He was so absorbed during the evening that one of the +ladies--the wife of the fat banker--found him extremely dull and +decided against asking him to dinner with his sister. The wife of the +thin banker, who was in his charge at the theater, got the benefit of +his effort to rouse himself and grace the occasion creditably, and +found him delightful. By the time the evening was over he had decided +that Beulah should be pulled out of whatever dim world of dismay and +delusion she might be wandering in, at whatever cost. It was +unthinkable that she should be wasted, or that her youth and splendid +vitality should go for naught. + +He found her eager to talk to him the next night when he went to see +her. + +"Peter," she said, "I want you to go to my aunt and my mother, and +tell them that I've got to go on with my work,--that I can't be +stopped and interrupted by this foolishness of doctors and nurses. I +never felt better in my life, except for not being able to sleep, and +I think that is due to the way they have worried me. I live in a world +they don't know anything about, that's all. Even if they were right, +if I am wearing myself out soul and body for the sake of the cause, +what business is it of theirs to interfere? I'm working for the souls +and bodies of women for ages to come. What difference does it make if +my soul and body suffer? Why shouldn't they?" Her eyes narrowed. Peter +observed the unnatural light in them, the apparent dryness of her +lips, the two bright spots burning below her cheek-bones. + +"Because," he answered her slowly, "I don't think it was the original +intention of Him who put us here that we should sacrifice everything +we are to the business of emphasizing the superiority of a sex." + +"That isn't the point at all, Peter. No man understands, no man can +understand. It's woman's equality we want emphasized, just literally +that and nothing more. You've pauperized and degraded us long +enough--" + +"Thou canst not say I--" Peter began. + +"Yes, you and every other man, every man in the world is a party to +it." + +"I had to get her going," Peter apologized to himself, "in order to +get a point of departure. Not if I vote for women, Beulah, dear," he +added aloud. + +"If you throw your influence with us instead of against us," she +conceded, "you're helping to right the wrong that you have permitted +for so long." + +"Well, granting your premise, granting all your premises, Beulah--and +I admit that most of them have sound reasoning behind them--your +battle now is all over but the shouting. There's no reason that you +personally should sacrifice your last drop of energy to a campaign +that's practically won already." + +"If you think the mere franchise is all I have been working for, +Peter,--" + +"I don't. I know the thousand and one activities you women are +concerned with. I know how much better church and state always have +been and are bound to be, when the women get behind and push, if they +throw their strength right." + +Beulah rose enthusiastically to this bait and talked rationally and +well for some time. Just as Peter was beginning to feel that David and +Jimmie had been guilty of the most unsympathetic exaggeration of her +state of mind--unquestionably she was not as fit physically as +usual--she startled him with an abrupt change into almost hysterical +incoherence. + +"I have a right to live my own life," she concluded, "and +nobody--nobody shall stop me." + +"We are all living our own lives, aren't we?" Peter asked mildly. + +"No woman lives her own life to-day," Beulah cried, still excitedly. +"Every woman is living the life of some man, who has the legal right +to treat her as an imbecile." + +"Hold on, Beulah. How about the suffrage states, how about the women +who are already in the proud possession of their rights and +privileges? They are not technical imbeciles any longer according to +your theory. The vote's coming. Every woman will be a super-woman in +two shakes,--so what's devouring you, as Jimmie says?" + +"It's after all the states have suffrage that the big fight will +really begin," Beulah answered wearily. "It's the habit of wearing the +yoke we'll have to fight then." + +"The anti-feminists," Peter said, "I see. Beulah, can't you give +yourself any rest, or is the nature of the cause actually suicidal?" + +To his surprise her tense face quivered at this and she tried to +steady a tremulous lower lip. + +"I am tired," she said, a little piteously, "dreadfully tired, but +nobody cares." + +"Is that fair?" + +"It's true." + +"Your friends care." + +"They only want to stop me doing something they have no sympathy with. +What do Gertrude and Margaret know of the real purpose of my life or +my failure or success? They take a sentimental interest in my health, +that's all. Do you suppose it made any difference to Jeanne d'Arc how +many people took a sympathetic interest in her health if they didn't +believe in what she believed in?" + +"There's something in that." + +"I thought Eleanor would grow up to take an interest in the position +of women, and to care about the things I cared about, but she's not +going to." + +"She's very fond of you." + +"Not as fond as she is of Margaret." + +Peter longed to dispute this, but he could not in honesty. + +"She's a suffragist." + +"She's so lukewarm she might just as well be an anti. She's naturally +reactionary. Women like that aren't much use. They drag us back like +so much dead weight." + +"I suppose Eleanor has been a disappointment to you," Peter mused, +"but she tries pretty hard to be all things to all parents, Beulah. +You'll find she won't fail you if you need her." + +"I shan't need her," Beulah said, prophetically. "I hoped she'd stand +beside me in the work, but she's not that kind. She'll marry early and +have a family, and that will be the end of her." + +"I wonder if she will," Peter said, "I hope so. She still seems such +a child to me. I believe in marriage, Beulah, don't you?" + +Her answer surprised him. + +"Under certain conditions, I do. I made a vow once that I would never +marry and I've always believed that it would be hampering and limiting +to a woman, but now I see that the fight has got to go on. If there +are going to be women to carry on the fight they will have to be born +of the women who are fighting to-day." + +"Thank God," Peter said devoutly. "It doesn't make any difference why +you believe it, if you do believe it." + +"It makes all the difference," Beulah said, but her voice softened. +"What I believe is more to me than anything else in the world, +Peter." + +"That's all right, too. I understand your point of view, Beulah. You +carry it a little bit too far, that's all that's wrong with it from my +way of thinking." + +"Will you help me to go on, Peter?" + +"How?" + +"Talk to my aunt and my mother. Tell them that they're all wrong in +their treatment of me." + +"I think I could undertake to do that"--Peter was convinced that a +less antagonistic attitude on the part of her relatives would be more +successful--"and I will." + +Beulah's eyes filled with tears. + +"You're the only one who comes anywhere near knowing," she said, "or +who ever will, I guess. I try so hard, Peter, and now when I don't +seem to be accomplishing as much as I want to, as much as it's +necessary for me to accomplish if I am to go on respecting myself, +every one enters into a conspiracy to stop my doing anything at all. +The only thing that makes me nervous is the way I am thwarted and +opposed at every turn. I haven't got nervous prostration." + +"Perhaps not, but you have something remarkably like _idee fixe_," +Peter said to himself compassionately. + +He found her actual condition less dangerous but much more difficult +than he had anticipated. She was living wrong, that was the sum and +substance of her malady. Her life was spent confronting theories and +discounting conditions. She did not realize that it is only the +interest of our investment in life that we can sanely contribute to +the cause of living. Our capital strength and energy must be used for +the struggle for existence itself if we are to have a world of +balanced individuals. There is an arrogance involved in assuming +ourselves more humane than human that reacts insidiously on our health +and morals. Peter, looking into the twitching hectic face before him +with the telltale glint of mania in the eyes, felt himself becoming +helpless with pity for a mind gone so far askew. He felt curiously +responsible for Beulah's condition. + +"She wouldn't have run herself so far aground," he thought, "if I had +been on the job a little more. I could have helped her to steer +straighter. A word here and a lift there and she would have come +through all right. Now something's got to stop her or she can't be +stopped. She'll preach once too often out of the tail of a cart on the +subject of equal guardianship,--and--" + +Beulah put her hands to her face suddenly, and, sinking back into the +depths of the big cushioned chair on the edge of which she had been +tensely poised during most of the conversation, burst into tears. + +"You're the only one that knows," she sobbed over and over again. +"I'm so tired, Peter, but I've got to go on and on and on. If they +stop me, I'll kill myself." + +Peter crossed the room to her side and sat down on her chair-arm. + +"Don't cry, dear," he said, with a hand on her head. "You're too tired +to think things out now,--but I'll help you." + +She lifted a piteous face, for the moment so startlingly like that of +the dead girl he had loved that his senses were confused by the +resemblance. + +"How, Peter?" she asked. "How can you help me?" + +"I think I see the way," he said slowly. + +He slipped to his knees and gathered her close in his arms. + +"I think this will be the way, dear," he said very gently. + +"Does this mean that you want me to marry you?" she whispered, when +she was calmer. + +"If you will, dear," he said. "Will you?" + +"I will,--if I can, if I can make it seem right to after I've thought +it all out.--Oh! Peter, I love you. I love you." + +"I had no idea of that," he said gravely, "but it's wonderful that +you do. I'll put everything I've got into trying to make you happy, +Beulah." + +"I know you will, Peter." Her arms closed around his neck and +tightened there. "I love you." + +He made her comfortable and she relaxed like a tired child, almost +asleep under his soothing hand, and the quiet spell of his +tenderness. + +"I didn't know it could be like this," she whispered. + +"But it can," he answered her. + +In his heart he was saying, "This is best. I am sure this is best. It +is the right and normal way for her--and for me." + +In her tri-cornered dormitory room at the new school which she was not +sharing with any one this year Eleanor, enveloped in a big brown and +yellow wadded bathrobe, was writing a letter to Peter. Her hair hung +in two golden brown braids over her shoulders and her pure profile was +bent intently over the paper. At the moment when Beulah made her +confession of love and closed her eyes against the breast of the man +who had just asked her to marry him, two big tears forced their way +between Eleanor's lids and splashed down upon her letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +MOSTLY UNCLE PETER + + +"Dear Uncle Peter," the letter ran, "I am very, very homesick and +lonely for you to-day. It seems to me that I would gladly give a whole +year of my life just for the privilege of being with you, and talking +instead of writing,--but since that can not be, I am going to try and +write you about the thing that is troubling me. I can't bear it alone +any longer, and still I don't know whether it is the kind of thing +that it is honorable to tell or not. So you see I am very much +troubled and puzzled, and this trouble involves some one else in a way +that it is terrible to think of. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, I do not want to be married. Not until I have +grown up, and seen something of the world. You know it is one of my +dearest wishes to be self-supporting, not because I am a Feminist or a +new woman, or have 'the unnatural belief of an antipathy to man' that +you're always talking about, but just because it will prove to me once +and for all that I belong to myself, and that my _soul_ isn't, and +never has been cooperative. You know what I mean by this, and you are +not hurt by my feeling so. You, I am sure, would not want me to be +married, or to have to think of myself as engaged, especially not to +anybody that we all knew and loved, and who is very close to me and +you in quite another way. Please don't try to imagine what I mean, +Uncle Peter--even if you know, you must tell yourself that you don't +know. Please, please pretend even to yourself that I haven't written +you this letter. I know people do tell things like this, but I don't +know quite how they bring themselves to do it, even if they have +somebody like you who understands everything--everything. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, I am supposed to be going to be married by and by +when the one who wants it feels that it can be spoken of, and until +that happens, I've got to wait for him to speak, unless I can find +some way to tell him that I do not want it ever to be. I don't know +how to tell him. I don't know how to make him feel that I do not +belong to him. It is only myself I belong to, and I belong to you, but +I don't know how to make that plain to any one who does not know it +already. I can't say it unless perhaps you can help me to. + +"I am different from the other girls. I know every girl always thinks +there is something different about her, but I think there are ways in +which I truly am different. When I want anything I know more clearly +what it is, and why I want it than most other girls do, and not only +that, but I know now, that I want to keep myself, and everything I +think and feel and am,--_sacred_. There is an inner shrine in a +woman's soul that she must keep inviolate. I know that now. + +"A liberty that you haven't known how, or had the strength to prevent, +is a terrible thing. One can't forget it. Uncle Peter, dear, twice in +my life things have happened that drive me almost desperate when I +think of them. If these things should happen again when I know that I +don't want them to, I don't think there would be any way of my bearing +it. Perhaps you can tell me something that will make me find a way out +of this tangle. I don't see what it could be, but lots of times you +have shown me the way out of endless mazes that were not grown up +troubles like this, but seemed very real to me just the same. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, dear, dear,--you are all I have. I wish you were +here to-night, though you wouldn't be let in, even if you beat on the +gate ever so hard, for it's long after bedtime. I am up in my tower +room all alone. Oh! answer this letter. Answer it quickly, quickly." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a tear splotched envelope +to Peter. Then she slowly tore letter and envelope into little bits. + +"He would know," she said to herself. "I haven't any real right to +tell him. It would be just as bad as any kind of tattling." + +She began another letter to him but found she could not write without +saying what was in her heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There +was nothing in her experience to help her in her relation to David. +His kiss on her lips had taught her the nature of such kisses: had +made her understand suddenly the ease with which the strange, sweet +spell of sex is cast. She related it to the episode of the unwelcome +caress bestowed upon her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half +forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. She +understood now how she should have repelled that unconscionable boy, +but that understanding did not help her with the problem of her Uncle +David. Though the thought of it thrilled through her with a strange +incredible delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon her +lips. + +"It's--it's--like that," she said to herself. "I want it to be from +somebody--else. Somebody _realer_ to me. Somebody that would make it +seem right." But even to herself she mentioned no names. + +She had definitely decided against going to college. She felt that she +must get upon her own feet quickly and be under no obligation to any +man. Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning to indicate +the way that she should tread. No man or woman who did not understand +"the value of a dollar," was properly equipped to do battle with the +realities of life. The value of a dollar, and a clear title to +it--these were the principles upon which her integrity must be founded +if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her Puritan fathers had +bestowed this heritage upon her. She had always felt the irregularity +of her economic position; now that the complication of her relation +with David had arisen, it was beginning to make her truly +uncomfortable. + +David had been very considerate of her, but his consideration +frightened her. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt or +troubled by his attitude toward her that he had explained again, and +almost in so many words that he was only waiting for her to grow +accustomed to the idea before he asked her to become his wife. She had +looked forward with considerable trepidation to the Easter vacation +following the establishment of their one-sided understanding, but +David relieved her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving +her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with +Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five +of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals, +she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and +normal perspective. David's attitude to her was as simple as ever, and +when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the +matter that was at issue between them--almost but not quite. + +She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the +group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with +them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting +for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she +looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very +newly fledged and timorous one. + +She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she +was soon on her old familiar footing. + + * * * * * + +"Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun," she wrote in her diary. +"He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good +many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs +as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and +teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a +studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is. +I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the +three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking. +Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle +Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking +into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him +when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look at +me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in +my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens. + +"I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday +and Friday,--four days of my vacation. We've been to the Hippodrome +and Chinatown, and we've dined at Sherry's, and one night we went down +to the little Italian restaurant where I had my first introduction to +_eau rougie_, and was so distressed about it. I shall never forget +that night, and I don't think Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing +me about it. It is nice to be with Uncle Jimmie so much, but I never +seem to see Uncle Peter any more. Alphonse is very careful about +taking messages, I know, but it does seem to me that Uncle Peter must +have telephoned more times than I know of. It does seem as if he +would, at least, try to see me long enough to have one of our old time +talks again. To see him with all the others about is only a very +little better than not seeing him at all. He isn't like himself, +someway. There is a shadow over him that I do not understand." + + * * * * * + +"Don't you think that Uncle Peter has changed?" she asked Jimmie, +when the need of speaking of him became too strong to withstand. + +"He is a little pale about the ears," Jimmie conceded, "but I think +that's the result of hard work and not enough exercise. He spends all +his spare time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping and +getting out on his horse the way he used to. He's doing a good job on +the old dear, but it's some job, nevertheless and notwithstanding--" + +"Is Aunt Beulah feeling better than she was?" Eleanor's lips were dry, +but she did her best to make her voice sound natural. It seemed +strange that Jimmie could speak so casually of a condition of affairs +that made her very heart stand still. "I didn't know that Uncle Peter +had been taking care of her." + +"Taking care of her isn't a circumstance to what Peter has been doing +for Beulah. You know she hasn't been right for some time. She got +burning wrong, like the flame on our old gas stove in the studio when +there was air in it." + +"Uncle David thought so the last time I was here," Eleanor said, "but +I didn't know that Uncle Peter--" + +"Peter, curiously enough, was the last one to tumble. Dave and I got +alarmed about the girl and held a consultation, with the result that +Doctor Gramercy was called. If we'd believed he would go into it quite +so heavily we might have thought again before we sicked him on. It's +very nice for Mary Ann, but rather tough on Abraham as they said when +the lady was deposited on that already overcrowded bosom. Now Beulah's +got suffrage mania, and Peter's got Beulah mania, and it's a merry +mess all around." + +"Is Uncle Peter with her a lot?" + +"Every minute. You haven't seen much of him since you came, have +you?--Well, the reason is that every afternoon as soon as he can get +away from the office, he puts on a broad sash marked 'Votes for +Women,' and trundles Beulah around in her little white and green +perambulator, trying to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks +to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. Suffrage is the only +subject on her mind, he explains, so all he can do is to try to cuckoo +gently under it day by day. It's a very complicated process but he's +making headway." + +"I'm glad of that," Eleanor said faintly. "How--how is Aunt Gertrude? +I don't see her very often, either." + +"Gertrude's all right." It was Jimmie's turn to look self-conscious. +"She never has time for me any more; I'm not high-brow enough for her. +She's getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting everywhere." + +"I know she is. She gave me a cast of her faun's head. I think it is +lovely. Aunt Margaret looks well." + +"She is, I guess, but don't let's waste all our valuable time talking +about the family. Let's talk about us--you and me. You ask me how I'm +feeling and then I'll tell you. Then I'll ask you how you're feeling +and you'll tell me. Then I'll tell you how I imagine you must be +feeling from the way you're looking,--and that will give me a chance +to expatiate on the delectability of your appearance. I'll work up +delicately to the point where you will begin to compare me favorably +with all the other nice young men you know,--and then we'll be off." + +"Shall we?" Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle a little. + +"We shall indeed," he assured her solemnly. "You begin. No, on second +thoughts, I'll begin. I'll begin at the place where I start telling +you how excessively well you're looking. I don't know, considering its +source, whether it would interest you or not, but you have the biggest +blue eyes that I've, ever seen in all my life,--and I'm rather a judge +of them." + +"All the better to eat you with, my dear," Eleanor chanted. + +"Quite correct." He shot her a queer glance from under his eyebrows. +"I don't feel very safe when I look into them, my child. It would be a +funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, wouldn't +it?--well,--but away with such nonsense. I mustn't blither to the very +babe whose cradle I am rocking, must I?" + +"I'm not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old sometimes. Older than +any of you." + +"Oh! you are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says +that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering +things out of your previous experience." + +"'When he was a King in Babylon and I was a Christian Slave?'" she +quoted quickly. + +"Exactly. Only I'd prefer to play the part of the King of Babylon, if +it's all the same to you, niecelet. How does the rest of it go, 'yet +not for a--' something or other 'would I wish undone that deed beyond +the grave.' Gosh, my dear, if things were otherwise, I think I could +understand how that feller felt. Get on your hat, and let's get out +into the open. My soul is cramped with big potentialities this +afternoon. I wish you hadn't grown up, Eleanor. You are taking my +breath away in a peculiar manner. No man likes to have his breath +taken away so suddint like. Let's get out into the rolling prairie of +Central Park." + +But the rest of the afternoon was rather a failure. The Park had that +peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The +children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks +later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless +between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive +balminess in the air that seemed merely to overlay a penetrating +chilliness. + +"I'm sorry I'm not more entertaining this afternoon," Jimmie +apologized on the way home. "It isn't that I am not happy, or that I +don't feel the occasion to be more than ordinarily propitious; I'm +silent upon a peak in Darien,--that's all." + +"I was thinking of something else, too," Eleanor said. + +"I didn't say I was thinking of something else." + +"People are always thinking of something else when they aren't talking +to each other, aren't they?" + +"Something else, or each other, Eleanor. I wasn't thinking of +something else, I was thinking--well, I won't tell you exactly--at +present. A penny for your thoughts, little one." + +"They aren't worth it." + +"A penny is a good deal of money. You can buy joy for a penny." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't--buy joy, even if you gave me your penny, Uncle +Jimmie." + +"You might try. My penny might not be like other pennies. On the other +hand, your thoughts might be worth a fortune to me." + +"I'm afraid they wouldn't be worth anything to anybody." + +"You simply don't know what I am capable of making out of them." + +"I wish I could make something out of them," Eleanor said so +miserably that Jimmie was filled with compunction for having tired her +out, and hailed a passing taxi in which to whiz her home again. + + * * * * * + +"I have found out that Uncle Peter is spending all his time with Aunt +Beulah," she wrote in her diary that evening. "It is beautiful of him +to try to help her through this period of nervous collapse, and just +like him, but I don't understand why it is that he doesn't come and +tell me about it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought to +know that I love him so dearly and deeply that I could help him even +in helping her. It isn't like him not to share his anxieties with me. +Aunt Beulah is a grown up woman, and has friends and doctors and +nurses, and every one knows her need. It seems to me that he might +think that I have no one but him, and that whatever might lie heavy on +my heart I could only confide in him. I have always told him +everything. Why doesn't it occur to him that I might have something to +tell him now? Why doesn't he come to me? + +"I am afraid he will get sick. He needs a good deal of exercise to +keep in form. If he doesn't have a certain amount of muscular +activity his digestion is not so good. There are two little creases +between his eyes that I never remember seeing there before. I asked +him the other night when he was here with Aunt Beulah if his head +ached, and he said 'no,' but Aunt Beulah said her head ached almost +all the time. Of course, Aunt Beulah is important, and if Uncle Peter +is trying to bring her back to normality again she is important to +him, and that makes her important to me for his sake also, but nobody +in the world is worth the sacrifice of Uncle Peter. Nobody, nobody. + +"I suppose it's a part of his great beauty that he should think so +disparagingly of himself. I might not love him so well if he knew just +how dear and sweet and great his personality is. It isn't so much what +he says or does, or even the way he looks that constitutes his charm, +it's the simple power and radiance behind his slightest move. Oh! I +can't express it. He doesn't think he is especially fine or beautiful. +He doesn't know what a waste it is when he spends his strength upon +somebody who isn't as noble in character as he is,--but I know, and it +makes me wild to think of it. Oh! why doesn't he come to me? My +vacation is almost over, and I don't see how I could bear going back +to school without one comforting hour of him alone. + +"I intended to write a detailed account of my vacation, but I can not. +Uncle Jimmie has certainly tried to make me happy. He is so funny and +dear. I could have so much fun with him if I were not worried about +Uncle Peter! + +"Uncle David says he wants to spend my last evening with me. We are +going to dine here, and then go to the theater together. I am going to +try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am afraid he won't give +me the chance. Life is a strange mixture of things you want and can't +have, and things you can have and don't want. It seems almost disloyal +to put that down on paper about Uncle David. I do want him and love +him, but oh!--not in that way. Not in that way. There is only one +person in a woman's life that she can feel that way about. +Why--why--why doesn't my Uncle Peter come to me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE MAKINGS OF A TRIPLE WEDDING + + +"Just by way of formality," David said, "and not because I think any +one present"--he smiled on the five friends grouped about his dinner +table--"still takes our old resolution seriously, I should like to be +released from the anti-matrimonial pledge that I signed eight years +ago this November. I have no announcement to make as yet, but when I +do wish to make an announcement--and I trust to have the permission +granted very shortly--I want to be sure of my technical right to do +so." + +"Gosh all Hemlocks!" Jimmie exclaimed in a tone of such genuine +confusion that it raised a shout of laughter. "I never thought of +that." + +"Nor I," said Peter. "I never signed any pledge to that effect." + +"We left you out of it, Old Horse, regarding you as a congenital +celibate anyway," Jimmie answered. + +"Some day soon you will understand how much you wronged me," Peter +said with a covert glance at Beulah. + +"I wish I could say as much," Jimmie sighed, "since this is the hour +of confession I don't mind adding that I hope I may be able to soon." + +Gertrude clapped her hands softly. + +"Wonderful, wonderful!" she cried. "We've the makings of a triple +wedding in our midst. Look into the blushing faces before us and hear +the voice that breathed o'er Eden echoing in our ears. This is the +most exciting moment of my life! Girls, get on your feet and drink to +the health of these about-to-be Benedicts. Up in your chairs,--one +slipper on the table. Now!"--and the moment was saved. + +Gertrude had seen Margaret's sudden pallor and heard the convulsive +catching of her breath,--Margaret rising Undine-like out of a filmy, +pale green frock, with her eyes set a little more deeply in the +shadows than usual. Her quick instinct to the rescue was her own +salvation. + +David was on his feet. + +"On behalf of my coadjutors," he said, "I thank you. All this is +extremely premature for me, and I imagine from the confusion of the +other gentlemen present it is as much, if not more so, for them. +Personally I regret exceedingly being unable to take you more fully +into my confidence. The only reason for this partial revelation is +that I wished to be sure that I was honorably released from my oath of +abstinence. Hang it all! You fellows say something," he concluded, +sinking abruptly into his chair. + +"Your style always was distinctly mid-Victorian," Jimmie murmured. +"I've got nothing to say, except that I wish I had something to say +and that if I _do_ have something to say in the near future I'll +create a real sensation! When Miss Van Astorbilt permits David to link +her name with his in the caption under a double column cut in our +leading journals, you'll get nothing like the thrill that I expect to +create with my modest announcement. I've got a real romance up my +sleeve." + +"So've I, Jimmie. There is no Van Astorbilt in mine." + +"Some simple bar-maid then? A misalliance in our midst. Now about you, +Peter?" + +"The lady won't give me her permission to speak," Peter said. "She +knows how proud and happy I shall be when I am able to do so." + +Beulah looked up suddenly. + +"It is better we should marry," she said. "I didn't realize that when +I exacted that oath from you. It is from the intellectual type that +the brains to carry on the great work of the world must be +inherited." + +"I pass," Jimmie murmured. "Where's the document we signed?" + +"I've got it. I'll destroy it to-night and then we may all consider +ourselves free to take any step that we see fit. It was really only as +a further protection to Eleanor that we signed it." + +"Eleanor will be surprised, won't she?" Gertrude suggested. Three +self-conscious masculine faces met her innocent interrogation. + +"_Eleanor_," Margaret breathed, "_Eleanor_." + +"I rather think she will," Jimmie chuckled irresistibly, but David +said nothing, and Peter stared unseeingly into the glass he was still +twirling on its stem. + +"Eleanor will be taken care of just the same," Beulah said decisively. +"I don't think we need even go through the formality of a vote on +that." + +"Eleanor will be taken care of," David said softly. + +The Hutchinsons' limousine--old Grandmother Hutchinson had a motor +nowadays--was calling for Margaret, and she was to take the two other +girls home. David and Jimmie--such is the nature of men--were +disappointed in not being able to take Margaret and Gertrude +respectively under their accustomed protection. + +"I wanted to talk to you, Gertrude," Jimmie said reproachfully as she +slipped away from his ingratiating hand on her arm. + +"I thought I should take you home to-night, Margaret," David said; +"you never gave me the slip before." + +"The old order changeth," Gertrude replied lightly to them both, as +she preceded Margaret into the luxurious interior. + +"It's Eleanor," Gertrude announced as the big car swung into Fifth +Avenue. + +"Which is Eleanor?" Margaret cried hysterically. + +"What do you mean?" Beulah asked. + +"Jimmie or David--or--or both are going to marry Eleanor. Didn't you +see their faces when Beulah spoke of her?" + +"David wants to marry Eleanor," Margaret said quietly. "I've known it +all winter--without realizing what it was I knew." + +"Well, who is Jimmy going to marry then?" Beulah inquired. + +"Who is Peter going to marry for that matter?" Gertrude cut in. "Oh! +it doesn't make any difference,--we're losing them just the same." + +"Not necessarily," Beulah said. "No matter what combinations come +about, we shall still have an indestructible friendship." + +"Indestructible friendship--shucks," Gertrude cried. "The boys are +going to be married--married--married! Marriage is the one thing that +indestructible friendships don't survive--except as ghosts." + +"It should be Peter who is going to marry Eleanor," Margaret said. +"It's Peter who has always loved her best. It's Peter she cares for." + +"As a friend," Beulah said, "as her dearest friend." + +"Not as a friend," Margaret answered softly, "she loves him. She has +always loved him. It comes early sometimes." + +"I don't believe it. I simply don't believe it." + +"I believe it," Gertrude said. "I hadn't thought of it before. Of +course, it must be Peter who is going to marry her." + +"If it isn't we've succeeded in working out a rather tragic +experiment," Margaret said, "haven't we?" + +"Life is a tragic experiment for any woman," Gertrude said +sententiously. + +"Peter doesn't intend to marry Eleanor," Beulah persisted. "I happen +to know." + +"Do you happen to know who he is going to marry?" + +"Yes, I do know, but I--I can't tell you yet." + +"Whoever it is, it's a mistake," Margaret said. "It's our little +Eleanor he wants. I suppose he doesn't realize it himself yet, and +when he does it will be too late. He's probably gone and tied himself +up with somebody entirely unsuitable, hasn't he, Beulah?" + +"I don't know," Beulah said; "perhaps he has. I hadn't thought of it +that way." + +"It's the way to think of it, I know." Margaret's eyes filled with +sudden tears. "But whatever he's done it's past mending now. There'll +be no question of Peter's backing out of a bargain--bad or good, and +our poor little kiddie's got to suffer." + +"Beulah took it hard," Gertrude commented, as they turned up-town +again after dropping their friend at her door. The two girls were +spending the night together at Margaret's. "I wonder on what grounds. +I think besides being devoted to Eleanor, she feels terrifically +responsible for her. She isn't quite herself again either." + +"She is almost, thanks to Peter." + +"But--oh! I can't pretend to think of anything else,--who--who--who--are +our boys going to marry?" + +"I don't know, Gertrude." + +"But you care?" + +"It's a blow." + +"I always thought that you and David--" + +Margaret met her eyes bravely but she did not answer the implicit +question. + +"I always thought that you and Jimmie--" she said presently. "Oh! +Gertrude, you would have been so good for him." + +"Oh! it's all over now," Gertrude said, "but I didn't know that a +living soul suspected me." + +"I've known for a long time." + +"Are you really hurt, dear?" Gertrude whispered as they clung to each +other. + +"Not really. It could have been--that's all. He could have made me +care. I've never seen any one else whom I thought that of. I--I was so +used to him." + +"That's the rub," Gertrude said, "we're so used to them. They're +so--so preposterously necessary to us." + +Late that night clasped in each other's arms they admitted the extent +of their desolation. Life had been robbed of a magic,--a mystery. The +solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding was the +background of so much lovely folly, so many unrealized possibilities, +so many nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution of +their circle was an unthinkable calamity. + +"We ought to have put out our hands and taken them if we wanted them," +Gertrude said, out of the darkness. "Other women do. Probably these +other women have. Men are helpless creatures. They need to be firmly +turned in the right direction instead of being given their heads. +We've been too good to our boys. We ought to have snitched them." + +"I wouldn't pay that price for love," Margaret said. "I couldn't. By +the time I had made it happen I wouldn't want it." + +"That's my trouble too," Gertrude said. Then she turned over on her +pillow and sobbed helplessly. "Jimmie had such ducky little curls," +she explained incoherently. "I do this sometimes when I think of them. +Otherwise, I'm not a crying woman." + +Margaret put out a hand to her; but long after Gertrude's breath began +to rise and fall regularly, she lay staring wide-eyed into the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +ELEANOR HEARS THE NEWS + + +"Dear Uncle Jimmie: + +"I said I would write you, but now that I have taken this hour in +which to do it, I find it is a very, very hard letter that I have got +to write. In the first place I can't believe that the things you said +to me that night were real, or that you were awake and in the world of +realities when you said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; that +you were talking as a man does sometimes in delirium when he believes +the woman he loves to be by his side, and I was listening the same +way. It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. I can't help +feeling that your idea of me is a dream idea, and the pain that you +said this kind of a letter would give you will be merely dream pain. +It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find that all the lovely +ways we felt, and delicately beautiful things we had, were only dream +things that we wouldn't even understand if we were thoroughly awake. + +"In the second place, you can't want to marry your little niecelet, +the funny little 'kiddo,' that used to burn her fingers and the +beefsteak over that old studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of +make-believe together. That's what our association always ought to +mean to us,--just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous _pretends_. +I couldn't think of myself being married to you any more than I could +Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You're my truly best and +dearest childhood's playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle +Jimmie. I don't think a little girl ever grows up quite _whole_ unless +she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn't want to +marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? There are some kinds of +playmates that can't marry each other. I think that you and I are that +kind, Uncle Jimmie. + +"My dear, my dear, don't let this hurt you. How can it hurt you, when +I am only your little adopted foster child that you have helped +support and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? I love you so +much,--you are so precious to me that you _must_ wake up out of this +distorted, though lovely dream that I was present at! + +"We must all be happy. Nobody can break our hearts if we are strong +enough to withhold them. Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find +the way to be our bravest all the time. I know that what you are +feeling now is not real. I can't tell you how I know, but I do know +the difference. The roots are not deep enough. They could be pulled up +without too terrible a havoc. + +"Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I said this would be a +hard letter to write, and it has been. If you could see my poor +inkstained, weeping face, you would realize that I am only your funny +little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously at all. I hope +you will come up for my graduation. When you see me with all the other +lumps and frumps that are here, you will know that I am not worth +considering except as a kind of human joke. + +"Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you. + +"Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie that Margaret +spending a week-end in a town in Connecticut adjoining that in which +Eleanor's school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her +overnight at the inn where she was staying. She had really planned the +entire expedition for the purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her +for the revelations that were in store for her, though she was +ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with which she was going on into +the Berkshires. + +She started in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in +the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road +house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new +sporting clothes. + +"Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are going to be married," she +told her. "Did you know it, Eleanor?" + +"No, I didn't," Eleanor said faintly, but she grew suddenly very +white. + +"Aren't you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner party one night last +week in his studio, and announced his intentions, but we don't know +the name of the lady yet, and we can't guess it. He says it is not a +society girl." + +"Who do you think it is?" + +"Who do you think it is, Eleanor?" + +"I--I can't think, Aunt Margaret." + +"We don't know who Jimmie is marrying either. The facts were merely +insinuated, but he said we should have the shock of our lives when we +knew." + +"When did he tell you?" + +"A week ago last Wednesday. I haven't seen him since." + +"Perhaps he has changed his mind by now," Eleanor said. + +"I don't think that's likely. They were both very much in earnest. +Aren't you surprised, Eleanor?" + +"I--I don't know. Don't you think it might be that they both just +thought they were going to marry somebody--that really doesn't want to +marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know." + +"I don't think it's a mistake. David doesn't make mistakes." + +"He might make one," Eleanor persisted. + +Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had +anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the +sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to +tell,--why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from +the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have +been shared with her at once. + +She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were +connecting)--Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity +nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in +Margaret's memory for many years. "It would have been easier to tell +her in her street clothes," she thought. "I wish her profile were not +so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely +thing?" + +"Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?" Eleanor was asking. + +"The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now +that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn't show my +feelings through. Haven't you noticed how much more like other people +I've grown, Eleanor?" + +"You've grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don't think you're +very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret." + +"I have though,--every one notices it. You haven't asked me anything +about Peter yet," she added suddenly. + +The lovely color glowed in Eleanor's cheeks for an instant. + +"Is--is Uncle Peter well?" she asked. "I haven't heard from him for a +long time." + +"Yes, he's well," Margaret said. "He's looking better than he was for +a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor." + +Eleanor put her hand to her throat. + +"What kind of news?" she asked huskily. + +"He's going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He +said that he hadn't the consent of the lady to mention her name yet. +We're as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two." + +"It's Aunt Beulah," Eleanor said. "It's Aunt Beulah." + +She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of +her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face +and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it. + +"I don't think it's Beulah," Margaret said. "Beulah knows who it is, +but I never thought of it's being Beulah herself." + +"If she knows--then she's the one. He wouldn't have told her first if +she hadn't been." + +"Don't let it hurt you too much, dear. We're all hurt some, you know. +Gertrude--and me, too, Eleanor. It's--it's pain to us all." + +"Do you mean--Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?" + +"Yes, dear," Margaret smiled at her bravely. + +"And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle Jimmie?" + +"She has for a good many years, I think." + +Eleanor covered her face with her hands. + +"I didn't know that," she said. "I wish somebody had told me." She +pushed Margaret's arm away from her gently, but her breath came hard. +"Don't touch me," she cried, "I can't bear it. You might not want +to--if you knew. Please go,--oh! please go--oh! please go." + +As Margaret closed the door gently between them, she saw Eleanor throw +her head back, and push the back of her hand hard against her mouth, +as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish. + + * * * * * + +The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret had listened for hours in +the night but had heard not so much as the rustle of a garment from +the room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen into the sleep of +exhaustion. It was then that the stricken child had made her escape. +"Miss Hamlin had found that she must take the early train," the clerk +said, "and left this note for Miss Hutchinson." It was like Eleanor to +do things decently and in order. + + * * * * * + +"Dear Aunt Margaret," her letter ran. "My grandmother used to say that +some people were trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid +that is just about what I am,--a trouble breeder. + +"I've been a worry and bother and care to you all since the beginning, +and I have repaid all your kindness by bringing trouble upon you. +Perhaps you can guess what I mean. I don't think I have any right to +tell you exactly in this letter. I can only pray that it will be found +to be all a mistake, and come out right in the end. Surely such +beautiful people as you and Uncle David can find the way to each +other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Gertrude, who are a little +blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the +way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt +Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go +wrong. I was so young, I didn't know how to manage. I shall never be +that kind of young again. I grew up last night, Aunt Margaret. + +"You know the other reason why I am going. Please do not let any one +else know. If the others could think I had met with some accident, +don't you think that would be the wisest way? I would like to arrange +it so they wouldn't try to find me at all, but would just mourn for me +naturally for a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap in the +river, but I was afraid that would be too hard for you. There won't be +any use in trying to find me. I am going where you can not. I couldn't +ever bear seeing one of your faces again. I have done too much harm. +Don't let Uncle Peter _know_, please, Aunt Margaret. I don't want him +to know,--I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want him to know. + +"Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, my dears, my dearests. I +have taken all of my allowance money. Please forgive me. + +"Eleanor." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE SEARCH + + +Eleanor had not bought a ticket at the station, Margaret ascertained, +but the ticket agent had tried to persuade her to. She had thanked him +and told him that she preferred to buy it of the conductor. He was a +lank, saturnine individual and had been seriously smitten with +Eleanor's charms, it appeared, and the extreme solicitousness of his +attitude at the suggestion of any mystery connected with her departure +made Margaret realize the caution with which it would be politic to +proceed. She had very little hope of finding Eleanor back at the +school, but it was still rather a shock when she telephoned the school +office and found that there was no news of her there. She concocted a +somewhat lame story to account for Eleanor's absence and promised the +authorities that she would be sent back to them within the week,--a +promise she was subsequently obliged to acknowledge that she could not +keep. Then she fled to New York to break the disastrous news to the +others. + +She told Gertrude the truth and showed her the pitiful letter Eleanor +had left behind her, and together they wept over it. Also together, +they faced David and Jimmie. + +"She went away," Margaret told them, "both because she felt she was +hurting those that she loved and because she herself was hurt." + +"What do you mean?" David asked. + +"I mean--that she belonged body and soul to Peter and to nobody else," +Margaret answered deliberately. + +David bowed his head. Then he threw it back again, suddenly. + +"If that is true," he said, "then I am largely responsible for her +going." + +"It is I who am responsible," Jimmie groaned aloud. "I asked her to +marry me and she refused me." + +"I asked her to marry me and didn't give her the chance to refuse," +David said; "it is that she is running away from." + +"It was Peter's engagement that was the last straw," Margaret said. +"The poor baby withered and shrank like a flower in the blast when I +told her that." + +"The damned hound--" Jimmie said feelingly and without apology. "Who's +he engaged to anyway?" + +"Eleanor says it's Beulah, and the more I think of it the more I think +that she's probably right." + +"That would be a nice mess, wouldn't it?" Gertrude suggested. +"Remember how frank we were with her about his probable lack of +judgment, Margaret? I don't covet the sweet job of breaking it to +either one of them." + +Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it to them both late that +same afternoon at Beulah's apartment. + +"I'll find her," Peter said briefly. And in response to the halting +explanation of her disappearance that Margaret and Gertrude had done +their best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical nature, he +only said, "I don't see that it makes any difference why she's gone. +She's gone, that's the thing that's important. No matter how hard we +try we can't really figure out her reason till we find her." + +"Are you sure it's going to be so easy?" Gertrude asked. "I +mean--finding her. She's a pretty determined little person when she +makes up her mind. Eleanor's threats are to be taken seriously. She +always makes good on them." + +"I'll find her if she's anywhere in the world," Peter said. "I'll find +her and bring her back." + +Margaret put out her hand to him. + +"I believe that you will," she said. "Find out the reason that she +went away, too, Peter." + +Beulah pulled Gertrude aside. + +"It wasn't Peter, was it?" she asked piteously. "She had some one else +on her mind, hadn't she?" + +"She had something else on her mind," Gertrude answered gravely, "but +she had Peter on her mind, too." + +"She didn't--she couldn't have known about us--Peter and me. We--we +haven't told any one." + +"She guessed it, Beulah. She couldn't bear it. Nobody's to blame. It's +just one of God's most satirical mix-ups." + +"I was to blame," Beulah said slowly. "I don't believe in shifting +responsibility. I got her here in the first place and I've been +instrumental in guiding her life ever since. Now, I've sacrificed her +to my own happiness." + +"It isn't so simple as that," Gertrude said; "the things we start +going soon pass out of our hands. Somebody a good deal higher up has +been directing Eleanor's affairs for a long time,--and ours too, for +that matter." + +"Don't worry, Beulah," Peter said, making his way to her side from the +other corner of the room where he had been talking to Margaret. "You +mustn't let this worry you. We've all got to be--soldiers now,--but +we'll soon have her back again, I promise you." + +"And I promise you," Beulah said chokingly, "that if you'll get her +back again, I--I will be a soldier." + + * * * * * + +Peter began by visiting the business schools in New York and finding +out the names of the pupils registered there. Eleanor had clung firmly +to her idea of becoming an editorial stenographer in some magazine +office, no matter how hard he had worked to dissuade her. He felt +almost certain she would follow out that purpose now. There was a fund +in her name started some years before for the defraying of her college +expenses. She would use that, he argued, to get herself started, even +though she felt constrained to pay it back later on. He worked on this +theory for some time, even making a trip to Boston in search for her +in the stenography classes there, but nothing came of it. + +Among Eleanor's effects sent on from the school was a little red +address book containing the names and addresses of many of her former +schoolmates at Harmon. Peter wrote all the girls he remembered hearing +her speak affectionately of, but not one of them was able to give him +any news of her. He wrote to Colhassett to Albertina's aunt, who had +served in the capacity of housekeeper to Eleanor's grandfather in his +last days, and got in reply a pious letter from Albertina herself, who +intimated that she had always suspected that Eleanor would come to +some bad end, and that now she was highly soothed and gratified by the +apparent fulfillment of her sinister prognostications. + +Later he tried private detectives, and, not content with their +efforts, he followed them over the ground that they covered, searching +through boarding houses, and public classes of all kinds; canvassing +the editorial offices of the various magazines Eleanor had admired in +the hope of discovering that she had applied for some small position +there; following every clue that his imagination, and the acumen of +the professionals in his service, could supply;--but his patient +search was unrewarded. Eleanor had apparently vanished from the +surface of the earth. The quest which had seemed to him so simple a +matter when he first undertook it, now began to assume terrible and +abortive proportions. It was unthinkable that one little slip of a +girl untraveled and inexperienced should be able permanently to elude +six determined and worldly adult New Yorkers, who were prepared to tax +their resources to the utmost in the effort to find her,--but the fact +remained that she was missing and continued to be missing, and the +cruel month went by and brought them no news of her. + +The six guardians took their trouble hard. Apart from the emotions +that had been precipitated by her developing charms, they loved her +dearly as the child they had taken to their hearts and bestowed all +their young enthusiasm and energy and tenderness upon. She was the +living clay, as Gertrude had said so many years before, that they had +molded as nearly as possible to their hearts' desire. They loved her +for herself, but one and all they loved her for what they had made of +her--an exquisite, lovely young creature, at ease in a world that +might so easily have crushed her utterly if they had not intervened +for her. + +They kept up the search unremittingly, following false leads and +meeting with heartbreaking discouragements and disappointments. Only +Margaret had any sense of peace about her. + +"I'm sure she's all right," she said; "I feel it. It's hard having her +gone, but I'm not afraid for her. She'll work it out better than we +could help her to. It's a beautiful thing to be young and strong and +free, and she'll get the beauty out of it." + +"I think perhaps you're right, Margaret," David said. "You almost +always are. It's the bread and butter end of the problem that worries +me." + +Margaret smiled at him quaintly. + +"The Lord provides," she said. "He'll provide for our ewe lamb, I'm +sure." + +"You speak as if you had it on direct authority." + +"I think perhaps I have," she said gravely. + +Jimmie and Gertrude grew closer together as the weeks passed, and the +strain of their fruitless quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her +the letter that Eleanor had written him. + +"Sweet, isn't she?" he said, as Gertrude returned it to him, smiling +through her tears. + +"She's a darling," Gertrude said fervently. "Did she hurt you so much, +Jimmie dear?" + +"I wanted her," Jimmie answered slowly, "but I think it was because I +thought she was mine,--that I could make her mine. When I found she +was Peter's,--had been Peter's all the time, the thought somehow cured +me. She was dead right, you know. I made it up out of the stuff that +dreams are made of. God knows I love her, but--but that personal thing +has gone out of it. She's my little lost child,--or my sister. A man +wants his own to be his own, Gertrude." + +"Yes, I know." + +"My--my real trouble is that I'm at sea again. I thought that I +cared,--that I was anchored for good. It's the drifting that plays the +deuce with me. If the thought of that sweet child and the grief at her +loss can't hold me, what can? What hope is there for me?" + +"I don't know," Gertrude laughed. + +"Don't laugh at me. You've always been on to me, Gertrude, too much so +to have any respect for me, I guess. You've got your work," he waved +his arm at the huge cast under the shadow of which they were sitting, +"and all this. You can put all your human longings into it. I'm a poor +rudderless creature without any hope or direction." He buried his face +in his hands. "You don't know it," he said, with an effort to conceal +the fact that his shoulders were shaking, "but you see before you a +human soul in the actual process of dissolution." + +Gertrude crossed her studio floor to kneel down beside him. She drew +the boyish head, rumpled into an irresistible state of curliness, to +her breast. + +"Put it here where it belongs," she said softly. + +"Do you mean it?" he whispered. "Sure thing? Hope to die? Cross your +heart?" + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Praise the Lord." + +"I snitched him," Gertrude confided to Margaret some days later,--her +whole being radiant and transfigured with happiness. "You snitch +David." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE YOUNG NURSE + + +The local hospital of the village of Harmonville, which was ten miles +from Harmon proper, where the famous boarding-school for young ladies +was located, presented an aspect so far from institutional that but +for the sign board tacked modestly to an elm tree just beyond the +break in the hedge that constituted the main entrance, the gracious, +old colonial structure might have been taken for the private residence +for which it had served so many years. + +It was a crisp day in late September, and a pale yellow sun was spread +thin over the carpet of yellow leaves with which the wide lawn was +covered. In the upper corridor of the west wing, grouped about the +window-seat with their embroidery or knitting, the young nurses were +talking together in low tones during the hour of the patients' +siestas. The two graduates, dark-eyed efficient girls, with skilled +delicate fingers taking precise stitches in the needlework before +them, were in full uniform, but the younger girls clustered about +them, beginners for the most part, but a few months in training, were +dressed in the simple blue print, and little white caps and aprons, of +the probationary period. + +The atmosphere was very quiet and peaceful. A light breeze blew in at +the window and stirred a straying lock or two that escaped the +starched band of a confining cap. Outside the stinging whistle of the +insect world was interrupted now and then by the cough of a passing +motor. From the doors opening on the corridor an occasional restless +moan indicated the inability of some sufferer to take his dose of +oblivion according to schedule. Presently a bell tinkled a summons to +the patient in the first room on the right--a gentle little old lady +who had just had her appendix removed. + +"Will you take that, Miss Hamlin?" the nurse in charge of the case +asked the tallest and fairest of the young assistants. + +"Certainly." Eleanor, demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing +of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to +her a little if she wants me to?" + +"Yes, if you keep the door closed. I think most of the others are +sleeping." + +The little old lady who had just had her appendix out, smiled weakly +up at Eleanor. + +"I hoped 'twould be you," she said, "and then after I'd rung I lay in +fear and trembling lest one o' them young flipperti-gibbets should +come, and get me all worked up while she was trying to shift me. I +want to be turned the least little mite on my left side." + +"That's better, isn't it?" Eleanor asked, as she made the adjustment. + +"I dunno whether that's better, or whether it just seems better to me, +because 'twas you that fixed me," the little old lady said. "You +certainly have got a soothin' and comfortin' way with you." + +"I used to take care of my grandmother years ago, and the more +hospital work I do, the more it comes back to me,--and the better I +remember the things that she liked to have done for her." + +"There's nobody like your own kith and kin," the little old lady +sighed. "There's none left of mine. That other nurse--that black +haired one--she said you was an orphan, alone in the world. Well, I +pity a young girl alone in the world." + +"It's all right to be alone in the world--if you just keep busy +enough," Eleanor said. "But you mustn't talk any more. I'm going to +give you your medicine and then sit here and read to you." + + * * * * * + +On the morning of her flight from the inn, after a night spent staring +motionless into the darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some +dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old friend Bertha Stephens +lived. To "Stevie," to whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to +draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told a part of her story. +It was through the influence of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on +the board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, that Eleanor had +been admitted there. She had resolutely put all her old life behind +her. The plan to take up a course in stenography and enter an +editorial office was to have been, as a matter of course, a part of +her life closely associated with Peter. Losing him, there was nothing +left of her dream of high adventure and conquest. There was merely the +hurt desire to hide herself where she need never trouble him again, +and where she could be independent and useful. Having no idea of her +own value to her guardians, or the integral tenderness in which she +was held, she sincerely believed that her disappearance must have +relieved them of much chagrin and embarrassment. + +Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. She had the +temperament that finds a virtue in the day's work, and a balm in its +mere iterative quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her a good +nurse and her adaptability, combined with her loveliness, a general +favorite. + +She spent her days off at the Stephens' home. Bertha Stephens had been +the one girl that Peter had failed to write to, when he began to +circulate his letters of inquiry. Her name had been set down in the +little red book, but he remembered the trouble that Maggie Lou had +precipitated, and arrived at the conclusion that the intimacy existing +between Eleanor and Bertha had not survived it. Except that Carlo +Stephens persisted in trying to make love to her, and Mrs. Stephens +covertly encouraged his doing so, Eleanor found the Stephens' home a +very comforting haven. Bertha had developed into a full breasted, +motherly looking girl, passionately interested in all vicarious +love-affairs, though quickly intimidated at the thought of having any +of her own. She was devoted to Eleanor, and mothered her clumsily. + +It was still to her diary that Eleanor turned for the relief and +solace of self-expression. + + * * * * * + +"It is five months to-day," she wrote, "since I came to the hospital. +It seems like five years. I like it, but I feel like the little old +woman on the King's Highway. I doubt more every minute if this can be +I. Sometimes I wonder what 'being I' consists of, anyway. I used to +feel as if I were divided up into six parts as separate as +protoplasmic cells, and that each one was looked out for by a +different cooperative parent. I thought that I would truly be I when I +got them all together, and looked out for them myself, but I find I am +no more of an entity than I ever was. The puzzling question of 'what +am I?' still persists, and I am farther away from the right answer +than ever. Would a sound be a sound if there were no one to hear it? +If the waves of vibration struck no human ear, would the sound be in +existence at all? This is the problem propounded by one of the nurses +yesterday. + +"How much of us lives when we are entirely shut out of the +consciousness of those whom we love? If there is no one to _realize_ +us day by day,--if all that love has made of us is taken away, what is +left? Is there anything? I don't know. I look in the glass, and see +the same face,--Eleanor Hamlin, almost nineteen, with the same bow +shaped eyebrows, and the same double ridge leading up from her nose to +her mouth, making her look still very babyish. I pinch myself, and +find that it hurts just the same as it used to six months ago, but +there the resemblance to what I used to be, stops. I'm a young nurse +now in hospital training, and very good at it, too, if I do say it as +shouldn't; but that's all I am. Otherwise, I'm not anybody _to_ +anybody,--except a figure of romance to good old Stevie, who doesn't +count in this kind of reckoning. I take naturally to nursing they tell +me. A nurse is a kind of maternal automaton. I'm glad I'm that, but +there used to be a lot more of me than that. There ought to be some +heart and brain and soul left over, but there doesn't seem to be. +Perhaps I am like the Princess in the fairy story whose heart was an +auk's egg. Nobody had power to make her feel unless they reached it +and squeezed it. + +"I feel sometimes as if I were dead. I wish I could know whether Uncle +Peter and Aunt Beulah were married yet. I wish I could know that. +There is a woman in this hospital whose suitor married some one else, +and she has nervous prostration, and melancholia. All she does all day +is to moan and wring her hands and call out his name. The nurses are +not very sympathetic. They seem to think that it is disgraceful to +love a man so much that your whole life stops as soon as he goes out +of it. What of Juliet and Ophelia and Francesca de Rimini? They loved +so they could not tear their love out of their hearts without +lacerating them forever. There is that kind of love in the +world,--bigger than life itself. All the big tragedies of literature +were made from it,--why haven't people more sympathy for it? Why isn't +there more dignity about it in the eyes of the world? + +"It is very unlucky to love, and to lose that which you cherish, but +it is unluckier still never to know the meaning of love, or to find +'Him whom your soul loveth.' I try to be kind to that poor forsaken +woman. I am sorry for his sake that she calls out his name, but she +seems to be in such torture of mind and body that she is unable to +help it. + +"They are trying to cut down expenses here, so they have no regular +cook, the housekeeper and her helper are supposed to do it all. I said +I would make the desserts, so now I have got to go down-stairs and +make some fruit gelatin. It is best that I should not write any more +to-day, anyway." + + * * * * * + +Later, after the Thanksgiving holiday, she wrote: + + * * * * * + +"I saw a little boy butchered to-day, and I shall never forget it. It +is wicked to speak of Doctor Blake's clean cut work as butchery, but +when you actually see a child's leg severed from its body, what else +can you call it? + +"The reason that I am able to go through operations without fainting +or crying is just this: _other people do_. The first time I stood by +the operating table to pass the sterilized instruments to the +assisting nurse, and saw the half naked doctors hung in rubber +standing there preparing to carve their way through the naked flesh of +the unconscious creature before them, I felt the kind of pang pass +through my heart that seems to kill as it comes. I thought I died, or +was dying,--and then I looked up and saw that every one else was ready +for their work. So I drew a deep breath and became ready too. I don't +think there is anything in the world too hard to do if you look at it +that way. + +"The little boy loved me and I loved him. We had hoped against hope +that we would be able to save his poor little leg, but it had to go. I +held his hand while they gave him the chloroform. At his head sat +Doctor Hathaway with his Christlike face, draped in the robe of the +anesthetist. 'Take long breaths, Benny,' I said, and he breathed in +bravely. It was over quickly. To-morrow, when he is really out of the +ether, I have got to tell him what was done to him. Something happened +to me while that operation was going on. He hasn't any mother. I think +the spirit of the one who was his mother passed into me, and I knew +what it would be like to be the mother of a son. Benny was not without +what his mother would have felt for him if she had been at his side. +I can't explain it, but that is what I felt. + +"To-night it is as black as ink outside. There are no stars. I feel as +if there should be no stars. If there were, there might be some +strange little bit of comfort in them that I could cling to. I do not +want any comfort from outside to shine upon me to-night. I have got to +draw all my strength from a source within, and I feel it welling up +within me even now. + +"I wonder if I have been selfish to leave the people I love so long +without any word of me. I think Aunt Gertrude and Aunt Beulah and Aunt +Margaret all had a mother feeling for me. I am remembering to-night +how anxious they used to be for me to have warm clothing, and to keep +my feet dry, and not to work too hard at school. All those things that +I took as a matter of course, I realize now were very significant and +beautiful. If I had a child and did not know to-night where it would +lie down to sleep, or on what pillow it would put its head, I know my +own rest would be troubled. I wonder if I have caused any one of my +dear mothers to feel like that. If I have, it has been very wicked and +cruel of me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHRISTMAS AGAIN + + +The ten Hutchinsons having left the library entirely alone in the hour +before dinner, David and Margaret had appropriated it and were sitting +companionably together on the big couch drawn up before the fireplace, +where a log was trying to consume itself unscientifically head first. + +"I would stay to dinner if urged," David suggested. + +"You stay," Margaret agreed laconically. + +She moved away from him, relaxing rather limply in the corner of the +couch, with a hand dangling over the farther edge of it. + +"You're an inconsistent being," David said. "You buoy all the rest of +us up with your faith in the well-being of our child, and then you +pine yourself sick over her absence." + +"It's Christmas coming on. We always had such a beautiful time on +Christmas. It was so much fun buying her presents. It isn't like +Christmas at all with her gone from us." + +"Do you remember how crazy she was over the ivory set?" + +"And the bracelet watch?" + +"Do you remember the Juliet costume?" David's eyes kindled at the +reminiscence. "How wonderful she was in it." + +Margaret drew her feet up on the couch suddenly, and clasped her hands +about her knees. David laughed. + +"I haven't seen you do that for years," he said. + +"What?" + +"Hump yourself in that cryptic way." + +"Haven't you?" she said. "I was just wondering--" but she stopped +herself suddenly. + +"Wondering what?" David was watching her narrowly, and perceiving it, +she flushed. + +"This is not my idea of an interesting conversation," she said; "it's +getting too personal." + +"I can remember the time when you told me that you didn't find things +interesting unless they were personal. 'I like things very personal,' +you said--in those words." + +"I did then." + +"What has changed you?" David asked gravely. + +"The chill wind of the world, I guess; the most personal part of me is +frozen stiff." + +"I never saw a warmer creature in my life," David protested. "On that +same occasion you said that being a woman was about like being a field +of clover in an insectless world. You don't feel that way nowadays, +surely,--at the rate the insects have been buzzing around you this +winter. I've counted at least seven, three bees, one or two beetles, a +butterfly and a worm." + +"I didn't know you paid that much attention to my poor affairs." + +"I do, though. If you hadn't put your foot down firmly on the worm, I +had every intention of doing so." + +"Had you?" + +"I had." + +"On that occasion to which you refer I remember I also said that I had +a queer hunch about Eleanor." + +"Margaret, are you deliberately changing the subject?" + +"I am." + +"Then I shall bring the butterfly up later." + +"I said," Margaret ignored his interruption, "that I had the feeling +that she was going to be a storm center and bring some kind of queer +trouble upon us." + +"Yes." + +"She did, didn't she?" + +"I'm not so sure that's the way to put it," David said gravely. "We +brought queer trouble on her." + +"She made--you--suffer." + +"She gave my vanity the worst blow it has ever had in its life," David +corrected her. "Look here, Margaret, I want you to know the truth +about that. I--I stumbled into that, you know. She was so sweet, and +before I knew it I had--I found myself in the attitude of making love +to her. Well, there was nothing to do but go through with it. I wanted +to, of course. I felt like Pygmalion--but it was all potential, +unrealized--and ass that I was, I assumed that she would have no other +idea in the matter. I was going to marry her because I--I had started +things going, you know. I had no choice even if I had wanted one. It +never occurred to me that she might have a choice, and so I went on +trying to make things easy for her, and getting them more tangled at +every turn." + +"You never really--cared?" Margaret's face was in shadow. + +"Never got the chance to find out. With characteristic idiocy I was +keeping out of the picture until the time was ripe. She really ran +away to get away from the situation I created and she was quite right +too. If I weren't haunted by these continual pictures of our offspring +in the bread line, I should be rather glad than otherwise that she's +shaken us all till we get our breath back. Poor Peter is the one who +is smashed, though. He hasn't smiled since she went away." + +"You wouldn't smile if you were engaged to Beulah." + +"Are they still engaged?" + +"Beulah has her ring, but I notice she doesn't wear it often." + +"Jimmie and Gertrude seem happy." + +"They are, gloriously." + +"That leaves only us two," David suggested. "Margaret, dear, do you +think the time will ever come when I shall get you back again?" + +Margaret turned a little pale, but she met his look steadily. + +"Did you ever lose me?" + +"The answer to that is 'yes,' as you very well know. Time was when we +were very close--you and I, then somehow we lost the way to each +other. I'm beginning to realize that it hasn't been the same world +since and isn't likely to be unless you come back to me." + +"Was it I who strayed?" + +"It was I; but it was you who put the bars up and have kept them +there." + +"Was I to let the bars down and wait at the gate?" + +"If need be. It should be that way between us, Margaret, shouldn't +it?" + +"I don't know," Margaret said, "I don't know." She flashed a sudden +odd look at him. "If--when I put the bars down, I shall run for my +life. I give you warning, David." + +"Warning is all I want," David said contentedly. He could barely reach +her hand across the intervening expanse of leather couch, but he +accomplished it,--he was too wise to move closer to her. "You're a +lovely, lovely being," he said reverently. "God grant I may reach you +and hold you." + +She curled a warm little finger about his. + +"What would Mrs. Bolling say?" she asked practically. + +"To tell you the truth, she spoke of it the other day. I told her the +Eleanor story, and that rather brought her to her senses. She wouldn't +have liked that, you know; but now all the eligible buds are plucked, +and she wants me to settle down." + +"Does she think I'm a settling kind of person?" + +"She wouldn't if she knew the way you go to my head," David murmured. +"Oh, she thinks that you'll do. She likes the ten Hutchinsons." + +"Maybe I'd like them better considered as connections of yours," +Margaret said abstractedly. + +David lifted the warm little finger to his lips and kissed it +swiftly. + +"Where are you going?" he asked, as she slipped away from him and +stood poised in the doorway. + +"I'm going to put on something appropriate to the occasion," she +answered. + +When she came back to him she was wearing the most delicate and +cobwebby of muslins with a design of pale purple passion flowers +trellised all over it, and she gave him no chance for a moment alone +with her all the rest of the evening. + +Sometime later she showed him Eleanor's parting letter, and he was +profoundly touched by the pathetic little document. + +As the holidays approached Eleanor's absence became an almost +unendurable distress to them all. The annual Christmas dinner party, a +function that had never been omitted since the acquisition of David's +studio, was decided on conditionally, given up, and again decided on. + +"We do want to see one another on Christmas day,--we've got presents +for one another, and Eleanor would hate it if she thought that her +going away had settled that big a cloud on us. She slipped out of our +lives in order to bring us closer together. We'll get closer together +for her sake," Margaret decided. + +But the ordeal of the dinner itself was almost more than they had +reckoned on. Every detail of traditional ceremony was observed even to +the mound of presents marked with each name piled on the same spot on +the couch, to be opened with the serving of the coffee. + +"I got something for Eleanor," Jimmie remarked shamefacedly as he +added his contributions to the collection. "Thought we could keep it +for her, or throw it into the waste-basket or something. Anyhow I had +to get it." + +"I guess everybody else got her something, too," Margaret said. "Of +course we will keep them for her. I got her a little French party +coat. It will be just as good next year as this. Anyhow as Jimmie +says, I had to get it." + +"I got her slipper buckles," Gertrude admitted. "She has always wanted +them." + +"I got her the Temple _Shakespeare_," Beulah added. "She was always +carrying around those big volumes." + +"You're looking better, Beulah," Margaret said. "Are you feeling +better?" + +"Jimmie says I'm looking more human. I guess perhaps that's it,--I'm +feeling more--human. I needed humanizing--even at the expense of +some--some heartbreak," she said bravely. + +Margaret crossed the room to take a seat on Beulah's chair-arm, and +slipped an arm around her. + +"You're all right if you know that," she whispered softly. + +"I thought I was going to bring you Eleanor herself," Peter said. "I +got on the trail of a girl working in a candy shop out in Yonkers. My +faithful sleuth was sure it was Eleanor and I was ass enough to +believe he knew what he was talking about. When I got out there I +found a strawberry blonde with gold teeth." + +"Gosh, you don't think she's doing anything like that," Jimmie +exclaimed. + +"I don't know," Peter said miserably. He was looking ill and unlike +himself. His deep set gray eyes were sunken far in his head, his brow +was too white, and the skin drawn too tightly over his jaws. "As a +de-tec-i-tive, I'm afraid I'm a failure." + +"We're all failures for that matter," David said. "Let's have +dinner." + +Eleanor's empty place, set with the liqueur glass she always drank her +thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room +in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost +too much for them. Margaret cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded +his eyes with his hand, and Gertrude and Jimmie groped for each +other's hands under the shelter of the table-cloth. + +"This--this won't do," David said. He turned to Beulah on his left, +sitting immovable, with her eyes staring unseeingly into the +centerpiece of holly and mistletoe arranged by Alphonse so lovingly. +"We must either turn this into a kind of a wake, and kneel as we +feast, or we must try to rise above it somehow." + +"I don't see why," Jimmie argued. "I'm in favor of each man howling +informally as he listeth." + +"Let's drink her health anyhow," David insisted. "I cut out the +Sauterne and the claret, so we could begin on the wine at once in this +contingency. Here's to our beloved and dear absent daughter." + +"Long may she wave," Jimmie cried, stumbling to his feet an instant +after the others. + +While they were still standing with their glasses uplifted, the bell +rang. + +"Don't let anybody in, Alphonse," David admonished him. + +They all turned in the direction of the hall, but there was no sound +of parley at the front door. Eleanor had put a warning finger to her +lips, as Alphonse opened it to find her standing there. She stripped +off her hat and her coat as she passed through the drawing-room, and +stood in her little blue cloth traveling dress between the portieres +that separated it from the dining-room. The six stood transfixed at +the sight of her, not believing the vision of their eyes. + +"You're drinking my health," she cried, as she stretched out her arms +to them. "Oh! my dears, and my dearests, will you forgive me for +running away from you?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LOVER + + +They left her alone with Peter in the drawing room in the interval +before the coffee, seeing that he had barely spoken to her though his +eyes had not left her face since the moment of her spectacular +appearance between the portieres. + +"I'm not going to marry you, Peter," Beulah whispered, as she slipped +by him to the door, "don't think of me. Think of her." + +But Peter was almost past coherent thought or speech as they stood +facing each other on the hearth-rug,--Eleanor's little head up and her +breath coming lightly between her sweet, parted lips. + +"Where did you go?" Peter groaned. "How could you, dear--how could +you,--how could you?" + +"I'm back all safe, now, Uncle Peter. I took up nursing in a +hospital." + +"I didn't even find you. I swore that I would. I've searched for you +everywhere." + +"I'm sorry I made you all that trouble," Eleanor said, "but I thought +it would be the best thing to do." + +"Tell me why," Peter said, "tell me why, I've suffered so +much--wondering--wondering." + +"You've suffered?" Eleanor cried. "I thought it was only I who did the +suffering." + +She moved a step nearer to him, and Peter gripped her hard by the +shoulders. + +"It wasn't that you cared?" he said. Then his lips met hers dumbly, +beseechingly. + + * * * * * + +"It was all a mistake,--my going away," she wrote some days after. "I +ought to have stayed at the school, and graduated, and then come down +to New York, and faced things. I have my lesson now about facing +things. If any other crisis comes into my life, I hope I shall be as +strong as Dante was, when he 'showed himself more furnished with +breath than he was,' and said, 'Go on, for I am strong and resolute.' +I think we always have more strength than we understand ourselves to +have. + +"I am so wonderfully happy about Uncle David and Aunt Margaret, and I +know Uncle Jimmie needs Aunt Gertrude and has always needed her. Did +my going away help those things to their fruition? I hope so. + +"I can not bear to think of Aunt Beulah, but I know that I must bear +to think of her, and face the pain of having hurt her as I must face +every other thing that comes into my life from this hour. I would give +her back Peter, if I could,--but I can not. He is mine, and I am his, +and we have been that way from the beginning. I have thought of him +always as stronger and wiser than any one in the world, but I don't +think he is. He has suffered and stumbled along, trying blindly to do +right, hurting Aunt Beulah and mixing up his life like any man, just +the way Uncle Jimmie and Uncle David did. + +"Don't men know who it is they love? They seem so often to be +struggling hungrily after the wrong thing, trying to get, or to make +themselves take, some woman that they do not really want. When women +love it is not like that with them. + +"When women love! I think I have loved Peter from the first minute I +saw him, so beautiful and dear and sweet, with that _anxious_ look in +his eyes,--that look of consideration for the other person that is +always so much a part of him. He had it the first night I saw him, +when Uncle David brought me to show me to my foster parents for the +first time. It was the thing I grew up by, and measured men and their +attitude to women by--just that look in his eyes, that tender warm +look of consideration. + +"It means a good many things, I think,--a gentle generous nature, and +a tender chivalrous heart. It means selflessness. It means being a +good man, and one who _protects_ by sheer unselfish instinct. I don't +know how I shall ever heal him of the hurt he has done Aunt Beulah. +Aunt Margaret tells me that Aunt Beulah's experience with him has been +the thing that has made her whole, that she needed to live through the +human cycle of emotion--of love and possession and renunciation before +she could be quite real and sound. This may be true, but it is not the +kind of reasoning for Peter and me to comfort ourselves with. If a +surgeon makes a mistake in cutting that afterwards does more good than +harm, he must not let that result absolve him from his mistake. +Nothing can efface the mistake itself, and Peter and I must go on +feeling that way about it. + +"I want to write something down about my love before I close this book +to-night. Something that I can turn to some day and read, or show to +my children when love comes to them. 'This is the way I felt,' I want +to say to them, 'the first week of my love--this is what it meant to +me.' + +"It means being a greater, graver, and more beautiful person than you +ever thought you could be. It means knowing what you are, and what you +were meant to be all at once, and I think it means your chance to be +purified for the life you are to live, and the things you are to do in +it. Experience teaches, but I think love forecasts and points the way, +and shows you what you can be. Even if the light it sheds should grow +dim after a while, the path it has shown you should be clear to your +inner eye forever and ever. Having been in a great temple is a thing +to be better for all your life. + +"It means that the soul and the things of the soul are +everlasting,--that they have got to be everlasting if love is like +this. Love between two people is more than the simple fact of their +being drawn together and standing hand in hand. It is the holy truth +about the universe. It is the rainbow of God's promise set over the +land. There comes with it the soul's certainty of living on and on +through time and space. + +"Just my loving Peter and Peter's loving me isn't the important +thing,--the important thing is the way it has started the truth going; +my knowing and understanding mysterious laws that were sealed to me +before; Peter taking my life in his hands and making it consecrated +and true,--so true that I will not falter or suffer from any +misunderstandings or mistaken pain. + +"It means warmth and light and tenderness, our love does, and all the +poetry in the world, and all the motherliness, (I feel so much like +his mother). Peter is my lover. When I say that he is not stronger or +wiser than any one in the world I mean--in living. I mean in the way +he behaves like a little bewildered boy sometimes. In loving he is +stronger and wiser than any living being. He takes my two hands in his +and gives me all the strength and all the wisdom and virtue there is +in the world. + +"I haven't written down anything, after all, that any one could read. +My children can't look over my shoulder on to this page, for they +would not understand it. It means nothing to any one in the world but +me. I shall have to translate for them or I shall have to say to them, +'Children, on looking into this book, I find I can't tell you what +love meant to me, because the words I have put down would mean nothing +to you. They were only meant to inform me, whenever I should turn back +to them, of the great glory and holiness that fell upon me like a +garment when love came.' + +"And if there should be any doubt in my heart as to the reality of the +feeling that has come to them in their turn, I should only have to +turn their faces up to the light, and look into their eyes and +_know_. + +"I shall not die as my own mother did. I know that. I know that Peter +will be by my side until we both are old. These facts are established +in my consciousness I hardly know how, and I know that they are +there,--but if such a thing could be that I should die and leave my +little children, I would not be afraid to leave them alone in a world +that has been so good to me, under the protection of a Power that +provided me with the best and kindest guardians that a little orphan +ever had. God bless and keep them all, and make them happy." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. 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