Books: Missy

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Missy was silent; even when she felt herself misunderstood by her
family and maltreated, she had a bothersome conscience.

"There's no real class to riding horseback," Tess went on, "unless
you're up to date. You got to be up to date. Of course Cherryvale's
slow, but that's no reason we've got to be slow, is it?"

"No-o," agreed Missy hesitantly. But she was emboldened to mention
her father's discarded pepper-and-salt trousers. At the first she
didn't intend really to appropriate them, but Tess caught up the
idea enthusiastically. She immediately began making concrete plans
and, soon, Missy caught her fervour. That picture of herself as a
dashing, fearless horsewoman had come to life again.

When she got home, mother, looking worried, was waiting for her.

"Where on earth have you been? Look at that straggly hair! And that
dress, fresh just this morning--limp as a dish-rag!"

Missy tried to explain, but the anxiety between mother's eyes
deepened to lines of crossness.

"For heaven's sake! To go rushing off like that without a rain-coat
or even an umbrella! And you pretend to be afraid of thunder-storms!
Now, Missy, it isn't because you've ruined your dress or likely
caught your death of cold--but to think you'd wilfully disobey me!
What on earth AM I to do with you?"

She made Missy feel like an unregenerate sinner. And Missy liked her
stinging, smarting sensations no better because she felt she didn't
deserve them. That heavy sense of injustice somewhat deadened any
pricks of guilt when, later, she stealthily removed the pepper-and-
salts from the upstairs store-closet.

But Aunt Nettie's eagle eyes chanced to see her. She went to Mrs.
Merriam.

"What do you suppose Missy wants of those old pepper-and-salt
pants?"

"I don't know, Nettie. Why?"

"She's just sneaked 'em off to her room. When she saw me coming up
the stairs, she scampered as if Satan was after her. What DO you
suppose she wants of them?"

"I can't imagine," repeated Mrs. Merriam. "Maybe she hardly knows
herself--girls that age are like a boiling tea-kettle; yon know;
their imagination keeps bubbling up and spilling over, and then
disappears into vapour. I sometimes think we bother Missy too much
with questions--she doesn't know the answers herself."

Mrs. Merriam was probably feeling the compunctions mothers often
feel after they have scolded.

Aunt Nettie sniffed a little, but Missy wasn't questioned. And now
the scene of our story may shift to a sunny morning, a few days
later, and to the comparative seclusion of the sanitarium barn.
There has been, for an hour or more, a suppressed sound of giggles,
and Gypsy, sensing excitement in the air, stands with pricked-up
ears and bright, inquisitive eyes. Luckily there has been no
intruder--just the three of them, Gypsy and Missy and Tess.

"You're wonderful--simply wonderful! It's simply too swagger for
words!" It was Tess speaking.

Missy gazed down at herself. It WAS swagger, she assured herself. It
must be swagger--Tess said so. Almost as swagger, Tess asseverated,
as the riding outfit worn by Miss Valerie Jones who was the
swaggerest member of Macon City's swaggerest young set. Yet, despite
her assurance of swaggerness, she was conscious of a certain
uneasiness. She knew she shouldn't feel embarrassed; she should feel
only swagger. But she couldn't help a sense of awkwardness, almost
of distaste; her legs felt--and LOOKED--so queer! So conspicuous!
The upper halves of them were clothed in two separate envelopments
of pepper-and-salt material, gathered very full and puffy over the
hips but drawn in tightly toward the knee in a particularly swagger
fashion. Below the knee the swagger tight effect was sustained by a
pair of long buttoned "leggings."

"You're sure these leggings look all right?" she demanded anxiously.

"Of course they look all right! They look fine!"

"I wish we had some boots," with a smothered sigh.

"Well, they don't ALWAYS wear boots. Lots of 'em in Macon City only
wore puttees. And puttees are only a kind of leggings."

"They're so tight," complained the horsewoman. "My legs have got a
lot fatter since--"

Thrusting out one of the mentioned members in a tentative kick, she
was interrupted by the popping of an already overstrained button.

"SEE!" she finished despondently. "I SAID they were too tight."

"You oughtn't to kick around that way," reproved Tess. "No wonder it
popped off. Now, I'll have to hunt for a safety-pin--"

"I don't want a safety-pin!--I'd rather let it flop."

The horsewoman continued to survey herself dubiously, took in the
bright scarlet sweater which formed the top part of her costume. The
girls had first sought a more tailored variety of coat, but peres
Merriam and O'Neill were both, selfishly, very large men; Tess had
brilliantly bethought the sweater--the English always wore scarlet
for hunting, anyway. Missy then had warmly applauded the
inspiration, but now her warmth was literal rather than figurative;
it was a hot day and the sweater was knitted of heavy wool. She
fingered her stock collar--one of Mrs. O'Neill's guest towels--and
tried to adjust her derby more securely.

"Your father has an awfully big head," she commented. "Oh, they
always wear their hats way down over their ears." Then, a little
vexed at this necessity for repeated reassurance, Tess broke out
irritably:

"If you don't want to wear the get-up, say so! I'LL wear it! I only
let you wear it first trying to be nice to you!"

Then Missy, who had been genuinely moved by Tess's decision that the
first wearing of the costume should make up for her chum's week of
punishment, pulled herself together.

"Of course I want to wear it," she declared. "I think it's just fine
of you to let me wear it first."

She spoke sincerely; yet, within the hour, she was plotting to
return her friend's sacrifice with a sort of mean trick. Perhaps it
was fit and just that the trick turned topsy-turvy on herself as it
did. Yet the notion did not come to her in the guise of a trick on
Tess. No; it came just as a daring, dashing, splendid feat in which
she herself should triumphantly figure--she scarcely thought of Tess
at all.

It came upon her, in all its dazzling possibilities, while she was
cantering along the old road which runs back of Smith's woods. She
and Tess had agreed it would be best, till they'd "broke in"
Cherryvale to the novelty of breeches, to keep to unfrequented
roads. But it was the inconspicuousness of the route, the lack of an
admiring audience, which gave birth to Missy's startling Idea. Back
in the barn she'd felt self-conscious. But now she was getting used
to her exposed legs. And doing really splendidly on Dr. O'Neill's
saddle. Sitting there astride, swaying in gentle rhythm with Gypsy's
springing motion she began to feel truly dashing, supremely swagger.
She seemed lifted out of herself, no longer timid, commonplace,
unathletic Missy Merriam, but exalted into a sort of free-and-easy,
Princess Royal of Swaggerdom. She began to wish someone might see
her. . .

Then startling, compelling, tantalizing, came the Idea. Why not ride
openly back into Cherryvale, right up Main Street, right by the Post
Office? All those old loafers would see her who'd laughed the day
she tumbled off of Ned. Well, they'd laugh the other way, now. And
Arthur Simpson, too. Maybe she'd even ride into Pieker's store!--
that certainly would surprise Arthur. True it was Tess he'd "dared,"
but of course he had not dreamed SHE, Missy, would ever take it up.
He considered her unathletic--sort of ridiculous. Wouldn't it be
great to "show" him? She visioned the amazement, the admiration, the
respect, which would shine in his eyes as, insouciantly and yet with
dash, she deftly manoeuvred Gypsy's reins and cantered right into
the store!

Afterwards she admitted that a sort of madness must have seized her;
yet, as she raced back toward the town, gently swaying in unison
with her mount, her pepper-and-salt legs pressing the pony's sides
with authority, she felt complacently, exultantly sane.

And still so when, blithe and debonair, she galloped up Main Street,
past piazzas she pleasurably sensed were not unpeopled nor
unimpressed; past the Court House whence a group of men were
emerging and stopped dead to stare; past the Post Office where a
crowd awaiting the noon mail swelled the usual bunch of loafers; on
to Pieker's where, sure enough, Arthur stood in the door!

"Holy cats!" he ejaculated. "Where in the world did--"

"Dare me to ride in the store?" demanded Missy, flicking the air
with her crop and speaking insouciantly. She was scarcely aware of
the excited sounds from the Post Office, for as yet her madness was
upon her.

"Oh, I don't think you could get her in!--You'd better not try!"

Missy exulted--he looked as if actually afraid she might attempt it!
As a matter of fact Arthur was afraid; he was afraid Missy Merriam
had suddenly gone out of her head. There was a queer look in her
eyes--she didn't look herself at all. He was afraid she might really
do that crazy stunt; and he was afraid the boss might return from
lunch any second, and catch her doing it and blame HIM! Yes, Arthur
Simpson was afraid; and Missy's blood sang at the spectacle of
happy-go-lucky Arthur reduced to manifest anxiety.

"CAN'T get her in?" she retorted derisively. "Just watch me!"

And, patting Gypsy's glossy neck, she headed her mount directly
toward the sidewalk and clattered straight into Pieker's store."

Arthur had barely time to jump out of the way. "Holy cats!" he again
invoked fervently. Then: "Head her out!--She's slobbering over that
bucket of candy!"

True enough; Gypsy's inquisitive nose had led her to a bewildering
profusion of the sweets she adored; not just meagre little bits,
doled out to her stingily bite by bite. And, as if these delectables
had been set out for a special and royal feast, Gypsy tasted this
corner and sampled that, in gourmandish abandon.

"For Pete's sake!" implored Arthur, feverishly tugging at the
bridle. "Get her out! The old man's liable to get back any minute!--
He won't do a thing to me!"

Missy, then, catching some of his perturbation, slapped with the
reins, stroked Gypsy's neck, exhorted her with endearments and then
with threats. But Gypsy wouldn't budge; she was having, unexpectedly
but ecstatically, the time of her career. Missy climbed down; urged
and cajoled, joined Arthur in tugging at the bridle. Gypsy only
planted her dainty forefeet and continued her repast in a manner not
dainty at all. Missy began to feel a little desperate; that former
fine frenzy, that divine madness, that magnificent tingle of aplomb
and dash, was dwindling away. She was conscious of a crowd
collecting in the doorway; there suddenly seemed to be millions of
people in the store--rude, pushing, chortling phantoms as in some
dreadful nightmare. Hot, prickling waves began to wash over her.
They were laughing at her. Spurred by the vulgar guffaws she gave
another frantic tug--

Oh, dear heaven! The upper air suddenly thickened with sounds of
buzzing conflict--a family of mud-wasps, roused by the excitement,
were circling round and round! She saw them in terrified
fascination--they were scattering!--zizzing horribly, threateningly
as they swooped this way and that! Heavens!--that one brushed her
hand. She tried to shrink back--then gave an anguished squeal.

WHAT WAS THAT? But she knew what it was. In petrified panic she
stood stock-still, rooted. She was afraid to move lest it sting her
more viciously. She could feel it exploring around--up near her hip
now, now crawling downward, now for a second lost in some voluminous
fold. She found time to return thanks that her breeches had been cut
with that smart bouffance. Then she cringed as she felt it again.
How had It got in there? The realization that she must have torn her
pepper-and-salts, for a breath brought embarrassment acutely to the
fore; then, as that tickling promenade over her anatomy was resumed,
she froze under paramount fear.

"For Pete's sake!" shouted Arthur. "Don't just stand there!--can't
you do SOMETHING?"

But Missy could do nothing. Removing Gypsy was no longer the
paramount issue. Ready to die of shame but at the same time
engripped by deadly terror, she stood, legs wide apart, for her
life's sake unable to move. She had lost count of time, but was
agonizedly aware of its passage; she seemed to stand there in that
anguished stupor for centuries. In reality it was but a second
before she heard Arthur's voice again:

"For Heaven's sake!" he muttered, calamity's approach intensifying
his abjurgations. "There's the old man!"

Apprehensively, abasedly, but with legs still stolidly apart, Missy
looked up. Yes, there was Mr. Picker, elbowing his way through the
crowd. Then an icy trickle chilled her spine; following Mr. Picker,
carrying his noon mail, was Rev. MacGill.

"Here!--What's this?" demanded Mr. Picker.

Then she heard Arthur, that craven-hearted, traitor-souled being she
had once called "friend," that she had even desired to impress,--she
heard him saying:

"I don't know, Mr. Picker. She just came riding in--"

Mr. Picker strode to the centre of the stage and, by a simple
expedient strangely unthought-of before--by merely pulling away the
bucket, separated Gypsy from the candy.

Then he turned to Missy and eyed her disapprovingly.

"I think you'd better be taking the back cut home. If I was your
mamma, I'd give you a good spanking and put you to bed."

Spanking! Oh, shades of insouciance and swagger! And with Rev.
MacGill standing there hearing--and seeing! Tears rolled down over
her blushes.

"Here, I'll help you get her out," said Rev. MacGill, kindly. Missy
blessed him for his kindness, yet, just then, she felt she'd rather
have been stung to death than to have had him there. But he was
there, and he led Gypsy, quite tractable now the candy was gone, and
herself looking actually embarrassed, through the crowd and back to
the street.

High moments have a way, sometimes, of resolving their prime and
unreducible factors, all of a sudden, to disconcertingly simple
terms. Here was Gypsy, whose stubbornness had begun it all, suddenly
soft as silk; and there was the wasp, who had brought on the
horrendous climax, suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Of course
Missy was glad the wasp was gone--otherwise she might have stood
there, dying of shame, till she did die of shame--yet the sudden
solution of her dilemma made her feel in another way absurd.

But there was little room for such a paltry emotion as absurdity.
Rev. MacGill volunteered to deliver Gypsy to her stall--oh, he was
wonderful, though she almost wished he'd have to leave town
unexpectedly; she didn't see how she'd ever face him again--but she
knew there was a reckoning waiting at home.

It was a painful and unforgettable scene. Mother had heard already;
father had telephoned from the office. Missy supposed all Cherryvale
was telephoning but she deferred thoughts of her wider disgrace; at
present mother was enough. Mother was fearfully angry--Missy knew
she would never understand. She said harsher things than she'd ever
said before. Making such a spectacle of herself!--her own daughter,
whom she'd tried to train to be a lady! This feature of the
situation seemed to stir mother almost more violently than the
flagrant disobedience.

"It's all that O'Neill girl," said Aunt Nettie. "Ever since she came
here to live, Missy's been up to just one craziness after another."

Mother looked out the window and sighed. Missy was suddenly
conscious that she loved her mother very much; despite the fact that
mother had just said harsh things, that she was going to punish her,
that she never understood. A longing welled up in her to fling her
arms round mother's neck and assure her that she never MEANT to be a
spectacle, that she had only--

But what was the use of trying to explain? Mother wouldn't
understand and she couldn't explain it in words, anyway--not even to
herself. So she stood first on one foot and then on the other, and
felt perfectly inadequate and miserable.

At last, wanting frightfully to say something that would ameliorate
her conduct somewhat in mother's eyes, she said:

"I guess it WAS an awful thing to do, mother. And I'm AWFULLY sorry.
But it wouldn't have come out quite so bad--I could have managed
Gypsy better, I think--if it hadn't been for that old wasp."

"Wasp?" questioned mother.

"Yes, there was a lot of mud-wasps got to flying around and one some
way got inside of my--my breeches. And you know how scared to death
I am of wasps. I KNOW I could have managed Gypsy, but when I felt
that wasp crawling around--" She broke off; tried again. "Don't
think I couldn't manage her--but when I felt that--"

"Well, if the wasp was all that was the matter,'' queried mother,
"why didn't you go after it?"

Missy didn't reply.

"Why did you just stand there and let it keep stinging you?"

Missy opened her lips but quickly closed them again. She realized
there was something inconsistent in her explanation. Mother had
accused her of immodesty: riding astride and wearing those
scandalous pepper-and-salts and showing her legs. If mother was
right, if she WAS brazen, somehow it didn't tie up to claim
confusion because her--

Oh, legs!

She didn't try to explain. With hanging head she went meekly to her
room. Mother had ruled she must stay there, in disgrace, till father
came home and a proper punishment was decided upon.

It was not a short or glad afternoon.

At supper father came up to see her. He was disapproving, of course,
though she felt that his heart wasn't entirely unsympathetic. Even
though he told her Mr. Picker had made him pay for the bucket of
candy. Missy knew it must have gone hard with him to be put in the
wrong by Mr. Picker.

"Oh, father, I'm sorry!--I really am!"

Father patted her hand. He was an angel.

"Did you bring it home?" brightening at a thought.

"Bring what home?" asked father.

"Why, the candy."

"Of course not."

"I don't see why, if you had to pay for it. The bottom part wasn't
hurt at all."

Father laughed then, actually laughed. She was glad to see the
serious look removed from his face; but she still begrudged all that
candy.

Nor was that the end of the part played by the candy. That night, as
she was kneeling in her nightgown by the window, gazing out at the
white moonlight and trying to summon the lovely thoughts the night's
magic used to bring, the door opened softly and mother came
tiptoeing in.

"You ought to be in bed, dear," she said. No, Missy reflected, she
could never, never be really cross with mother. She climbed into bed
and, with a certain degree of comfort, watched mother smooth up the
sheet and fold the counterpane carefully over the foot-rail.

"Mrs. O'Neill just phoned," mother said. "Tess is very sick. It
seems she and Arthur got hold of that bucket of candy."

"Oh," said Missy.

That was all she said, all she felt capable of saying. The twisted
thoughts, emotions and revulsions which surge in us as we watch the
inexplicable workings of Fate are often difficult of expression.
But, after mother had kissed her good night and gone, she lay
pondering for a long time. Life is curiously unfair. That Tess and
Arthur should have got the candy for which SHE suffered, that the
very hours she'd been shut up with shame and disgrace THEY were
gorging themselves, seemed her climactic crown of sorrow.

Yes, life was queer. . .

Almost not worth while to try to be athletic-she didn't really like
being athletic, anyway . . . she hoped they'd had the ordinary human
decency to give Gypsy just a little bit . . . Gypsy was a darling .
. . that wavy tail and those bright soft eyes and the white star . .
. but you don't have to be really athletic to ride a pony--you don't
have to wear breeches and do things like that . . . Arthur wasn't so
much, anyway--he had freckles and red hair and there was nothing
romantic about him. . . Sir Galahad would never have been so scared
of Mr. Picker--he wouldn't have shoved the blame off onto a maiden
in distress. . . No, and she didn't think the King of Spain would,
either . . . Or Rev. MacGill. . . There were lots of things just as
good as being athletic . . . there were . . . lots of things . . .

A moonbeam crept up the white sheet, to kiss the eyelids closed in
sleep.

CHAPTER VIII

A HAPPY DOWNFALL

Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame?--A fitful tongue of fickle flame.
And what is prominence to me, When a brown bird sings in the apple-
tree? Ah, mortal downfalls lose their sting When World and Heart
hear the call of Spring! You ask me why mere friendship so Outweighs
all else that but comes to go? . . . A truce, a truce to
questioning: "We two are friends," tells everything. I think it vile
to pigeon-hole The pros and cons of a kindred soul. (From Melissa's
Improvement on Certain Older Poets.)

The year Melissa was a high school Junior was fated to be an
unforgettable epoch. In the space of a few short months, all
mysteriously interwoven with their causes and effects, their trials
turning to glory, their disappointments and surcease inexplicable,
came revelations, swift and shifting, or what is really worth while
in life. Oh, Life! And oh, when one is sixteen years old! That is an
age, as many of us can remember, one begins really to know Life--a
complex and absorbing epoch.

The first of these new vistas to unspread itself before Missy's eyes
was nothing less dazzling than Travel. She had never been farther
away from home than Macon City, the local metropolis, or Pleasanton,
where Uncle Charlie and Aunt Isabel lived and which wasn't even as
big as Cherryvale; and neither place was a two-hours' train ride
away. The most picturesque scenery she knew was at Rocky Ford; it
was far from the place where the melons grow, but water, a ford and
rocks were there, and it had always shone in that prairie land and
in Missy's eyes as a haunt of nymphs, water-babies, the Great
Spirit, and Nature's poetics generally--the Great Spirit was
naturally associated with its inevitable legendary Indian love
story. But when Aunt Isabel carelessly suggested that Missy, next
summer, go to Colorado with her, how the local metropolis dwindled;
how little and simple, though pretty, of course, appeared Rocky
Ford.

Colorado quivered before her in images supernal. Colorado!
Enchantment in the very name! And mountains, and eternal snow upon
the peaks, and spraying waterfalls, and bright-painted gardens of
the gods--oh, ecstasy!

And going with Aunt Isabel! Aunt Isabel was young, beautiful, and
delightful. Aunt Isabel went to Colorado every summer!

But a whole year! That is, in truth, a long time and can bring forth
much that is unforeseen, amazing, revolutionizing. Especially when
one is sixteen and beginning really to know life.

Missy had always found life in Cherryvale absorbing. The past had
been predominantly tinged with the rainbow hues of dreams; with the
fine, vague, beautiful thoughts that "reading" brings, and with such
delicious plays of fancy as lend witchery to a high white moon, an
arched blue sky, or rolling prairies-even to the tranquil town and
the happenings of every day. Nothing could put magic into the
humdrum life of school, and here she must struggle through another
whole year of it before she might reach Colorado. That was a cloud,
indeed, for one who wasn't "smart" like Beulah Crosswhite.
Mathematics Missy found an inexplicable, unalloyed torture; history
for all its pleasingly suggestive glimpses of a spacious past, laid
heavy taxes on one not good at remembering dates. But Missy was
about to learn to take a more modern view of high school
possibilities. Shortly before school opened Cousin Pete came to see
his grandparents in Cherryvale. Perhaps Pete's filial devotion was
due to the fact that Polly Currier resided in Cherryvale; Polly was
attending the State University where Pete was a "Post-Grad." Missy
listened to Cousin Pete's talk of college life with respect,
admiration, and some unconscious envy. There was one word that rose,
like cream on milk, or oil on water, or fat on soup, inevitably to
the surface of his conversation. "Does Polly Currier like college?"
once inquired Missy, moved by politeness to broach what Pete must
find an agreeable subject. "Naturally," replied Pete, with the
languor of an admittedly superior being. "She's prominent." The
word, "prominent," as uttered by him had more than impressiveness
and finality. It was magnificent. It was as though one might remark
languidly: "She? Oh, she's the Queen of Sheba"--or, "Oh, she's Mary
Pickford."

Missy pondered a second, then asked:

"Prominent? How is a-what makes a person prominent?"

Pete elucidated in the large, patronizing manner of a kindly-
disposed elder.

"Oh, being pretty--if you're a girl--and a good sport, and active in
some line. A leader."

Missy didn't yet exactly see. She decided to make the problem
specific.

"What makes Polly prominent?"

"Because she's the prettiest girl on the hill," Pete replied
indulgently. "And some dancer. And crack basket-ball forward--Glee
Club--Dramatic Club. Polly's got it over 'em forty ways running."

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