Lydia of the Pines/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
THE MILITARY HOP
"Who shall say that I do not understand what the wind sings in my branches or that I am less than the white or more than the Indian?"
IN spite of the fact that Levine had avoided her, after the hearing, and in spite of all the many half tragic ramifications of the reservation trouble, Lydia was not unhappy. In fact, when Registration day dawned she awoke with a sense of something good impending, sang as she dressed, and piloted Margery gaily through the complications of entering the University as a "special" student.
Margery, for the first month or so, was silent and kept as close as possible to Lydia's apron strings. But Lydia had prophesied truly. No girl as beautiful as Margery could be kept in Coventry long and though she refused for a time to go to parties, it was not long before Margery was taking tramps with the college boys and joining happily enough in the simple pleasures at the cottage.
Lydia did not hear from Kent until a week before the first college hop, late in October. Then she received a formal note from him, reminding her of his invitation.
"Oh, Lyd!" exclaimed Margery, "aren't you lucky! I haven't seen Kent or heard from him since our trouble!"
"Neither have I," said Lydia. "And I suspect he's so cross with me that he hates to keep this engagement. But I don't care. I wish I had a new dress. But I've made the sleeves small in my organdy and made a new girdle. It looks as well as could be expected!" she finished, comically.
"Lydia," cried Margery, suddenly, "I've a whole closet full of party dresses I won't wear this year and you and I are just of a size, won't you wear one—take one and keep it—please, Lydia!"
Lydia flushed and shook her head.
"Is it because they were bought with Dad's money?" asked Margery.
Lydia's flush grew deeper. "I couldn't take it anyway, Margery," she protested. But Margery tossed her head and was silent for the rest of the afternoon.
The hop was a success, a decided success, in spite of the organdy. Kent was inclined to be stiff, at first, and to wear a slightly injured air, and yet, mingled with this was a frank and youthful bravado. And there could be no doubt that among the college boys, Kent was more or less of a hero. It was something to boast of, evidently, to have one's name coupled with Levine's in the great scandal.
Kent had supposed that he would have some trouble in filling Lydia's card for her, but to his surprise, he found that in her timid way, Lydia was something of a personage among the older college boys and the younger professors.
"Oh, you have Miss Dudley. Let me have three dances, will you," said the instructor in Psychology. "How pretty she is to-night!"
"Lydia is a peach," Kent stated briefly. "One two-step is the best I can do for you."
"Come now, Moulton, a two-step and a waltz," said Professor Willis. "I haven't seen Miss Dudley since college opened. Isn't her hair wonderful to-night!"
Gustus was there with Olga. "Gimme a waltz with Lydia, Kent," he demanded. "Who'd ever thought she'd grow up so pretty! If she could dress well—"
"Her card's full," grunted Kent. "And she dresses better'n any girl I know. What's the matter with that dress?"
The two young men stood watching Lydia, who was chatting with Professor Willis. The dress was out of style. Even their masculine eyes recognized that fact, yet where in the room was there a mass of dusty gold hair like Lydia's, where such scarlet cheeks, where such a look of untried youth?
"Oh, well, it was just something Olga said," began Gustus.
"Olga makes me sick," said Kent, and he stalked over to claim a waltz with Lydia.
It was altogether an intoxicating evening and at its end Lydia pulled on her last winter's overcoat and clambered into Kent's little automobile, utterly satisfied with life.
"Well, did I give you a good time, Miss?" asked Kent, as they chug-chugged down the Avenue.
"Oh, Kent, it was wonderful!"
"And you don't feel as if I were a villain any more? You've forgiven me?"
"Forgiven you? For what?"
"For not agreeing with you on the Indian question. Gee, I was sore at you, Lyd, that morning at the hearing, and yet I was like your Dad. I was proud of you, too."
"Oh, don't let's talk about it, to-night, Kent," Lydia protested.
"All right, old girl, only just remember that I can't change. I back Mr. Levine to the limit. And maybe he hasn't a surprise party coming for all of you!"
"I don't care," insisted Lydia. "I'm going to be happy to-night, and I won't talk Indians. Oh, Kent, isn't Gustus getting good-looking?"
"Too fat," replied Kent. "He drinks too much beer. And let me call your attention to something funny. As you know, he's always had trouble getting in with the college set, because of the brewery. But his father is the only well-to-do man in town who's had nothing to do with the reservation, so now, by contrast, brewing becomes a highly honorable business! And Gustus goes with 'our very best families.'"
Lydia chuckled, then said, "Margery is feeling much better. She's at our house every Sunday. You must come round and see her!"
"Why shouldn't I come to see you, Lydia?" asked Kent, with a new note in his voice.
"Why, of course, you'd see me, but Margery's always been the main attraction with you."
"Has she? Seems to me I recall a time when I couldn't endure the sight of her. And when you were the best pal I had. That's what you are, Lydia, a real pal. A fellow can flirt round with the rest of 'em, but you're the one to look forward to spending a lifetime with!"
Lydia drew a quick breath, then laughed a little uncertainly. "You were the dearest boy! Do you remember how you hated to wash your hands and that funny cotton cap you liked to wear with Goldenrod Flour printed across it?"
"Of course, I remember. And I remember how the fellows used to tease me about you. I licked Gustus twice for it, when we were in the ward schools. Lydia, let's go over those old trails together again. To-morrow's Sunday. Let's take a walk down to the Willows in the afternoon."
"All right, Kent," said Lydia, quietly, and silence fell on both of them till they drew up at the cottage gate.
Kent lifted Lydia to the ground, held both of her hands, started to speak, then with a half inarticulate, "Thank you, Lydia, and good-by till to-morrow," he jumped into the little car and was gone.
For some reason, when she woke the next morning, Lydia half hoped that the soft patter against her window was of rain drops. But it was the wind-tossed maple leaves, whose scarlet and gold were drifting deep on the lawn and garden. There never was a more brilliant October day than this, and at three o'clock, Lydia and Kent set off down the road to the Willows.
Lizzie watched them from the living-room window. "They're a handsome pair, Amos," she said. "Now aren't they?"
Amos looked up from his Sunday paper with a start. "Those young ones aren't getting sentimental, are they, Liz?" he asked, sharply.
"Well," returned Lizzie, "they might be, very naturally, seeing they're both young and good-looking. For the land sake! Don't you expect Lydia to find her young man and settle down?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Amos. "There isn't a man on earth good enough for Lydia. I don't want her to marry. I'll take care of her."
"Humph! Nothing selfish about a man, is there?" muttered Lizzie.
Kent and Lydia strolled along the leafy road, with the tang of the autumn in their nostrils, and the blue gleam of the lake in their eyes. It was only a half mile to the Willows and as they turned in, Kent took Lydia's hand and drew it through his arm.
"Look," he said, "I believe there is even a little left of our cave, after all this time. What a rough little devil I was in those days. And yet, even then, Lyd, I believe I had an idea of trying to take care of you."
"You were not a rough little devil!" exclaimed Lydia, indignantly. "You were a dear! I can never forget what you did for me, when little Patience died."
"I was a selfish brute in lots of ways afterward, though," said Kent, moodily. "I didn't have sense enough to appreciate you, to realize—yet, I did in a way. Remember our talks up at camp? Then, of course, we never shall agree on the Indian question. But what does that amount to?"
Kent dropped Lydia's hand and faced her. "Lydia, do you care for me—care for me enough to marry me?"
Lydia turned pale. Something in her heart began to sing. Something in her brain began to stir, uncomfortably.
"Oh, Kent," she began, breathlessly, then paused and the two looked deep into each other's eyes.
"Lydia! Lydia!! I need you so!" cried Kent. "You are such a dear, such a pal, so pretty, so sweet—and I need you so! Won't you marry me, Lydia?"
He seized both her hands and held them against his cheeks.
"I've always loved you dearly, Kent, and yet," faltered Lydia, "and yet, somehow, I don't think we'd ever make each other happy."
"Not make each other happy! I'd like to know why not! Just try me, Lydia! Try me!"
Kent's charming face was glowing. Into Lydia's contralto voice crept the note that had belonged to little Patience's day.
"I'd like to try you, dear if— Wait, Kent, wait! Let me have my playtime, Kent. I've never had a real one, you know, till now. Let me finish college, then ask me again, will you, Kent?"
Kent jerked his head discontentedly. "I think it would be better for us to tie to each other right now. Please, Lydia dear!"
Lydia shook her head slowly. "Let me have my playtime, Kent. I don't know that side of myself at all."
Kent looked at the lake and at the little cave of long ago and back into the clear tender blue of Lydia's eyes. Then he said softly, "All right, dear! You know best. But will you give me just one kiss,—for remembrance?"
"Yes," replied Lydia, lifting her face, and Kent pulled off his cap and kissed the warm, girlish lips, tenderly, lingeringly, then, without a word, gently turned Lydia homeward.
Kent's announcement that he had broken with Billy Norton did not amount to a great deal. As winter came on, he and Billy met constantly at the cottage and outwardly at least, were friendly. The commission finished its sitting and turned its findings over to Congress. Congress instructed the District Attorney to carry the matter to the state courts. When this had been done all the incriminated heaved a vast sigh of relief, and prepared to mark time.
To tell the truth, Lydia was not giving a great deal of thought to weighty problems, this winter. No girl who finds herself with two young men in love with her, can give much thought to the world outside her own. Nor did the fact that Professor Willis made a point of appearing at the cottage at least once a month detract any from her general joy in life.
She was doing well in her studies, though outside of the occasional hop she attended with Billy or Kent, she had no part in the college social life. She was not altogether contented with the thought of preparing herself to teach. The idea gave her no mental satisfaction. She could not bring herself to believe that her real talents lay in that direction. Yet, though this dissatisfaction grew as the days went on, it did not prevent her from taking a keen pleasure in the books she read and studied.
She suddenly grew ashamed of her old E. P. Roe period and developed a great avidity for Kipling and Thomas Hardy, for Wordsworth and Stephen Phillips. To her surprise she found that Billy was more familiar with these writers than she. Kent read newspapers and nothing else.
During all Lydia's Junior year, but one fly appeared in her ointment. And this, of course, was with, reference to clothes! that perennial haunting problem of Lydia's, which only a woman who has been motherless and poverty-stricken and pretty can fully appreciate. The latter part of February, the great college social event of the year was to come, the Junior Prom. Lydia felt sure that either Kent or Billy would ask her to go and for this the organdy would not do. And for this she must have a party coat.
Lydia knew if she took the matter up with Amos he would go out and borrow money for her. She shuddered at the thought of this. He had been so bitter about her fudge selling that she dared not broach the matter of money earning to him again. Then she heard of the College Money Making Bureau. She discovered that there were girls who were earning their way through college and that the Bureau was one of the quiet ways used by the University to help them.
There was the Mending Department for example. Here were brought every week by the well-to-do students piles of mending of every variety from heelless socks and stockings, to threadbare underwear and frayed cuffs and collars. These were made into packages and farmed out to the money needing girls. The Department was located in a room in the rear of the Chemical laboratory, and was in charge of the old janitor, whose casual manner was a balm to the pride of the most sensitive.
Early in January, Lydia sneaked into the little room, and out again with a neat but heavy bundle. She got home with it and smuggled it into her room without old Lizzie's seeing it. Socks, wristbands and torn lace—there was fifty cents' worth of mending in the package! Lydia calculated that if she did a package a night for thirty nights, she would have enough money to buy the making of the party dress and cloak.
The necessity for secrecy was what made the task arduous. Lydia finished her studying as hurriedly as possible each night and went on to her room. It was bitter cold in the room when the door was closed, but she hung a dust cloth over the keyhole, a shawl over the window shade, wrapped herself in a quilt and unwrapped the bundle. By two o'clock she had finished and shivering and with aching eyes, crept into bed.
Within a week she was going about her daily work with hollow eyes and without the usual glow in her cheeks. Within two weeks, the casual glimpse of Lizzie darning one of Amos' socks gave her a sense of nausea, but she hung on with determination worthy of a better cause.
The third week she took cold, an almost unheard-of proceeding for Lydia, and in spite of all old Lizzie's decoctions, she could not throw it off. Amos insisted that Lizzie see her to bed each night with hot lemonade and hot water bottle. Lydia protested miserably until she found that it was really more comfortable to mend in bed than it was to sit quilt-wrapped in a chair. At the end of the fourth week she carried back her last bundle, and with fifteen dollars in her pocketbook, she boarded the street-car for home. She was trembling with fatigue and fever.
When she reached the cottage, she stretched out on the couch behind the old base burner with her sense of satisfaction dulled by her hard cough and the feverish taste in her mouth. She was half asleep, half in a stupor when Billy came in.
"How's the cold, Lyd?" he asked.
"I got it," she murmured hoarsely. "It'll be white mull and pink eider-down."
"What did you say?" asked Billy, coming over to the couch and peering down at her, through the dusk.
"Socks," whispered Lydia, "bushels of socks, aren't there, Billy?"
Billy picked up her hand and felt her pulse, pulled the shawl up over her chest, put his cheek down against her forehead for a moment as he murmured, "Oh, Lydia, don't be sick! I couldn't bear it!" then he hurried to the kitchen where Lizzie was getting supper.
The next thing that Lydia knew she was in her own bed and "Doc" Fulton was taking the clinical thermometer from her mouth. She was very much confused.
"Where's my fifteen dollars?" she asked.
"What fifteen dollars, little daughter?" Amos was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her hand.
"For my party dress—white mull—with socks—please, Daddy."
Amos looked at Lizzie. "It's what she wanted for the Junior Prom, I guess," said the old lady, "poor child."
"You shall have fifteen dollars, just as soon as you get well, honey," said Amos.
"All right," said Lydia, hoarsely, "tell Kent so's he—" She trailed off again into stupor.
It was a hard pull, a sharp, hard struggle with badly congested lungs, for two weeks. It was the first real illness Lydia had had in all her sturdy young life. Ma Norton took charge and "Doc" Fulton was there night after night. Margery came every day, with a basket, for Elviry practically fed Amos during the two weeks. Billy did chores. Kent was errand boy with the little car. And Adam sat on the doorstep for hours and howled!
And all this time Lydia wandered in a world of her own, a world that those about her were utterly unable to picture through the erratic fragments of talk she uttered from time to time. She talked to them of little Patience, of John Levine, of old Susie, She seemed to be blaming herself for the starving of an Indian baby who was confused in her mind with little Patience. She sought her fifteen dollars through wild vicissitudes, until Amos found the little purse under the couch pillow and, wondering over its contents, put it in Lydia's feverish hands. Thereafter she talked of it no more.
But Lydia was splendidly strong. One night, after ten days of stupor and delirium, she opened her eyes on Amos' haggard face. She spoke weakly but naturally. "Hello, Dad! Ask Margery to get me the pattern we were talking about. In a day or so I'll be up and around."
Amos began to cry for sheer joy.
Once she began to mend, Lydia's recovery was unbelievably rapid. On a Sunday, a week before the Junior Prom., she was able to dress and to lie on the living-room couch. During the afternoon, Kent came in. He had had one or two glimpses of the invalid before, but this was the first opportunity he'd had for a chat.
"Hello, Lyd!" he cried. "Are you going to go to the Junior Prom. with me, after all?"
"Kent, I can't go. I might be strong enough for one or two dances by that time, but I can't get my clothes done."
"Pshaw, isn't that hard luck!" Kent's voice was soft with sympathy. "Never mind, old lady! I'm so darned glad to have you getting well so fast, that the Prom. doesn't matter. Say, Lyd, Margery's come out fine, since you've been sick!"
"I know it," said Lydia. "Just think of Margery carrying Dad's meals in a basket, and helping Lizzie with the dishes. And I know she hates it worse than poison. She's out in the kitchen now, making fudge."
Kent brightened, perceptibly. "Is she? Er—Lydia, don't you think she'd go to the Prom. with me? Seems to me she's cut out society as long as she needs to."
Lydia buried her nose in a bunch of violets that Professor Willis had sent her. "I think she ought to go if she wants to," she said.
"Guess I'll ask her now," cried Kent, disappearing kitchenward.
Lydia lay watching snowflakes sift softly past the window. It was not long before Margery and Kent appeared.
"She's going!" cried Kent.
Margery's beautiful eyes were glowing. "Yes, I'm going, Lyd! And if nobody else will dance with me, Kent will take all the dances."
Old Lizzie followed in. She looked sharply at Lydia, then said, "You folks come out in the dining-room and let Lydia have a little nap."
"No, I guess I'll go home," Margery answered, "Mother's not very well to-day."
"I'll take you along in my chug-chug." Kent crossed over to the couch and took Lydia's hand, while Margery went for her wraps. "Good-by, dear," he whispered, "get well fast for me."
Lydia smiled at him over the bunch of violets.
Billy was the next caller. "I left Dad and Amos saving the Nation through Free Trade," he said. "Gee, Lydia, but you do look better! You don't suppose you could possibly go to the Prom., just for one or two dances, do you?"
Lydia shook her head. "No clothes," she said, briefly. "Ask some other girl."
"There isn't any other girl," replied Billy. "If I can't go with you, I'll be hanged if I go at all! Lydia, I don't see why a sensible girl like you lays such stress on clothes. Honestly, it's not like you. Come on, be a sport and go in your usual dress."
Lydia looked at Billy's steady gray eyes, and a faint glow of comfort began to surround her heart. Sometimes she felt as if Billy understood her almost as well as John Levine did.
"Now, look here," he said, argumentatively, "you and I had better talk this clothes question out, once and for all."
Lydia giggled. "Billy, you don't know women! It can't be talked out!"
"I know you," replied the young man, stretching out his long legs to the base-burner, and looking at Lydia, "and I want you to stop worrying about your duds. I want you to let me lend you the money to get a complete party outfit with."
"Billy Norton, you know I wouldn't borrow money from a man!" exclaimed Lydia.
"Well, then, I'll give it to Mother and you borrow it from her."
"Of course, I won't," replied Lydia. "Besides, I've got enough money I earned myself!"
"You have! Then what's all the worry about? How'd you earn it, Lyd? I thought your father—"
Lydia dug the little pocketbook from under the sofa pillow and spread the money proudly on her shawl. "There it is and it's the root of all my troubles."
Billy looked at her suspiciously. "Young woman, how'd you earn that money?" he demanded.
"Socks! Bushels of socks, mostly," answered Lydia with a chuckle that ended in a groan. She looked at Billy whimsically and then as the sureness of his understanding came to her again, she told him the story of her little midnight sweatshop.
"Oh, dearest!" Billy burst forth with a groan when she had finished, "how could you be such a little idiot! Oh, Lydia, Lydia, I can't tell you how you wring my heart."
It seemed for a moment as if he must gather the slight little figure to his heart, but he set his teeth.
"If that darned Prom. means as much as that to you—" he began, but Lydia interrupted him.
"It doesn't any more, Billy. I've learned a lot of things since I've been sick. I was a little idiot to work so hard for clothes! But I don't think it was all clothes. I wanted to be like other girls. I wanted to have the man that took me proud of my appearance."
She paused and Billy would have spoken, but Lydia began again.
"You see, I was never sick before, so I never realized that a sickness is a serious thing in more ways than one. I mean you can't go down to death's door and ever be quite the same afterward. I've been thinking about myself a great deal. Billy, and I'm feeling pretty small. Isn't it queer how hard it is to learn just the simplest things about living! Seems as though I learn everything with my elbows."
The two young people sat in silence, Lydia watching the snowflakes settle on the already overladen boughs of the pine. Billy watching the sensitive lines in Lydia's face change with each passing thought.
"I've made up my mind," Lydia began again, "that I've been poor too long, ever really to outgrow the effects of poverty. I suppose I'd always worry about money, even if I were taken suddenly rich! Anyhow, lots of nice people have liked me poor and I'm just not going to worry about having lovely clothes, with soft colors and—and graceful lines, any more. I'm going to take care of our lovely old mahogany furniture and try to make the cottage an attractive place for people with brains. After all, the real thinkers of the country were poor—Emerson and his circle, how simply they lived! You see, Billy, if I clutter up my mind with furniture and clothes, I won't have time to think."
Lizzie came in at this moment with a bowl of broth. "I'll hold it for you, Lydia," said Billy. "Never mind pulling the little table up, Lizzie, she's too weak to fuss with a table."
There was a remote twinkle in Lizzie's old eyes, but she gave the bowl over to Billy, and tactfully withdrew to the kitchen, where she sat down with her feet in the oven. "Drat Kent!" she said to herself.
Billy moved over to sit on the edge of the couch, and Lydia began to sip the broth, spoonful by spoonful. "It's such fun to be weak and a little helpless and have people waiting on you," she said. "It's the first time it ever happened to me."
As she spoke she was thinking how Billy had improved. How immaculate he was and how well his blue suit fitted him. There was no barnyard odor about him now! Only a whiff of the good cigars he smoked.
"Billy," she said, "what would you say if next year I took the short course in agriculture?"
Billy almost dropped the bowl. "I'd be speechless!" he exclaimed.
"I hate to think of teaching," Lydia went on, "and I'm crazy about the country and farming and so is Dad. And there's more than that to it."
What more there was to it, she did not say then, for Ma Norton came bustling in. She made no comment on Billy's posing as a table! Ma was wise and she was almost as devoted to Lydia as Billy himself.
"It's nice to see the pink coming back in your cheeks, Lydia," she said. "I just ran over to say I was going into town to do some shopping, early in the morning, and if there was anything I could do for you—?"
"No, thank you," said Lydia. "I've begun to save up now to buy a cow!"
And Ma looked on with a puzzled smile as Lydia and Billy burst into sudden shrieks of laughter.