Books: Missy

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Oh, the whole place was entrancing, entrancing in a new way; and her
sensations, too, were entrancing in a new way. Even when Raymond, as
he manipulated her hair, inadvertently pulled the roots, the prickly
pains seemed to tingle on down through her being in little tremors
of pure ecstasy.

Raymond went on fanning her hair.

"Curly hair's messy looking," he observed after a considerable pause
during which, evidently, his thoughts had remained centred on this
pleasing theme.

And then, all of a sudden, Missy found herself saying an
inexplicable, unheard-of thing:

"You can have a lock-if you want to."

She glanced up, and then quickly down. And she felt herself blushing
again; she didn't exactly like to blush--yet--yet--

"Do I want it?"

Already Raymond had dropped his improvised fan and was fumbling for
his knife.

"Where?" he asked.

Missy shivered deliciously at the imminence of that bright steel
blade; what if he should let it slip?--but, just then, even
mutilation, provided it be at Raymond's hand, didn't seem too
terrible.

"Wherever you want," she murmured.

"All right--I'll take a snip here where it twines round your ear--it
looks so sort of affectionate."

She giggled with him. Of course it was all terribly silly--and yet--

Then there followed a palpitant moment while she held her breath and
shut her eyes. A derisive shout caused her to open them quickly.
There stood Don Jones, grinning.

"Missy gave Raymond a lock of her hair! Missy gave Raymond a lock of
her hair!"

Missy's face grew hot; blushing was not now a pleasure; she looked
up, then down; she didn't know where to look.

"Gimme one, too! You got to play fair, Missy--gimme one, too!"

Then, in that confusion of spirit, she heard her voice, which didn't
seem to be her own voice but a stranger's, saying:

"All right, you can have one, too, if you want it, Don."

Don forthwith advanced. Missy couldn't forebear a timid glance
toward Raymond. Raymond was not looking pleased. She wished she
might assure him she didn't really want to give the lock to Don, and
yet, at the same time, she felt strangely thrilled at that lowering
look on Raymond's face. It was curious. She wanted Raymond to be
happy, yet she didn't mind his being just a little bit unhappy--this
way. Oh, how complicated and fascinating life can be!

During the remainder of their stay at the ford Missy was preoccupied
with this new revelation of herself and with a furtive study of
Raymond whose continued sulkiness was the cause of it. Raymond
didn't once come to her side during all that endless three-mile
tramp back to Cherryvale; but she was conscious of his eye on her as
she trudged along beside Don Jones. She didn't feel like talking to
Don Jones. Nor was the rest of the crowd, now, a lively band; it was
harder to laugh than it had been in the morning; harder even to
talk. And when they did talk, little unsuspected irritabilities
began to gleam out. For now, when weary feet must somehow cover
those three miles, thoughts of the journey's end began to rise up in
the truants' minds. During the exalted moments of adventure they
hadn't thought of consequences. That's a characteristic of exalted
moments. But now, so to speak, the ball was over, the roses all
shattered and faded, and the weary dancers must face the aftermath
of to-morrow. . .

And Missy, trudging along the dusty road beside Don Jones who didn't
count, felt all kinds of shadows rising up to eclipse brightness in
her soul. What would Professor Sutton do?--he was fearfully strict.
And father and mother would never understand. . .

If only Don Jones would stop babbling to her! Why did he persist in
walking beside her, anyway? That lock of hair didn't mean anything!
She wished she hadn't given it to him; why had she, anyway? She
herself couldn't comprehend why, and Raymond would never, never
comprehend.

The farther she walked, the less she saw the pleasanter aspects of
Raymond's jealousy and the more what might be the outcome of it.
Perhaps he'd never have anything to do with her again. That would be
terrible! And she'd have such a short time to try making it up. For
in less than a month she'd have to go with Aunt Isabel to Colorado;
and, then, she wouldn't see Raymond for weeks and weeks. Colorado!
It was like talking of going to the moon, a dreary, dead, far-off
moon, with no one in it to speak to. Aunt Isabel? Aunt Isabel was
sweet, but she was so old--nearly thirty! How could she, Missy, go
and leave Raymond misunderstanding her so?

But who can tell how Fate may work to confound rewards and
punishments!

It was to become a legend in the Cherryvale High School how, once on
a day in May, a daring band ran away from classes and how the truant
class, in toto, was suspended for the two closing weeks of the
semester, with no privilege of "making up" the grades. And the
legend runs that one girl, and the most prominent girl in the class
at that, by reason of this sentence fell just below the minimum
grade required to "pass."

Yes; Missy failed again. Of course that was very bad. And taking her
disgrace home--indeed, that was horrid. As she faced homeward she
felt so heavy inside that she knew she could never eat her dinner.
Besides, she was walking alone--Raymond hadn't walked home with her
since the wretched picnic. She sighed a sigh that was not connected
with the grade card in her pocket. For one trouble dwarfs another in
this world; and friendship is more than honours--a sacred thing,
friendship! Only Raymond was so unreasonable over Don's lock of
hair; yet, for all the painfulness of Raymond's crossness, Missy
smiled the littlest kind of a down-eyed, secret sort of smile as she
thought of it. . . It was so wonderful and foolish and interesting
how much he cared that Missy began to question what he'd do if she
got Don to give her a lock of his hair.

Then she sobered suddenly, as you do at a funeral after you have
forgotten where you are and then remember. That card was an
unpleasant thing to take home! . . . Just what did Raymond mean by
giving Kitty Allen a lock of his hair? And doing it before Missy
herself--"Kitty, here's that lock I promised you"--just like that.
Then he had laughed and joked as if nothing unusual had happened--
only was he watching her out of the corner of his eye when he
thought she wasn't looking? That was the real question. The idea of
Raymond trying to make her jealous! How simple-minded boys are!

But, after all, what a dear, true friend he had proved himself in
the past--before she offended him. And how much more is friendship
than mere pleasures like travel--like going to Colorado.

But was he jealous? If he was--Missy felt an inexplicable kind of
bubbling in her heart at that idea. But if he wasn't--well, of
course it was natural she should wonder whether Raymond looked on
friendship as a light, come-and-go thing, and on locks of hair as
meaning nothing at all. For he had never been intimate with Kitty
Allen; and he had said he didn't like curly hair. Yet, probably, he
had one of Kitty Allen's ringlets. . . Missy felt a new, hideous
weight pulling down her heart.

Of course she had given that straight wisp to Don Jones--but what
else could she do to keep him from telling? Oh, life is a muddle!
And here, in less than a week, Aunt Isabel would come by and whisk
her off to the ends of the earth; and she might have to go without
really knowing what Raymond meant. . .

And oh, yes--that old card! How dreary life can be as one grows
older.

Missy waited to show the card till her father came home to supper--
she knew it was terribly hard for father to be stern. But when
Missy, all mute appeal, extended him the report, he looked it over
in silence and then passed it on to mother. Mother, too, examined it
with maddening care.

"Well," she commented at last. "I see you've failed again."

"It was all the fault of those two weeks' grades," the culprit tried
to explain. "If it hadn't been for that--"

"But there was 'that.'" Mother's tone was terribly unsympathetic.

"I didn't think of grades--then."

"No, that's the trouble. I've warned you, Missy. You've got to learn
to think. You'll have to stay home and make up those grades this
summer. You'd better write to Aunt Isabel at once, so she won't be
inconvenienced."

Mother's voice had the quiet ring of doom.

Tender-hearted father looked away, out the window, so as not to see
the disappointment on his daughter's face. But Missy was gazing down
her nose to hide eyes that were shining. Soon she made an excuse to
get away.

Out in the summerhouse it was celestially beautiful and peaceful.
And, magically, all this peace and beauty seemed to penetrate into
her and become a part of herself. The glory of the pinkish-mauve
sunset stole in and delicately tinged her so; the scent of the
budding ramblers, and of the freshly-mowed lawn, became her own
fragrant odour; the soft song of the breeze rocking the leaves
became her own soul's lullaby. Oh, it was a heavenly world, and the
future bloomed with enchantments! She could stay in Cherryvale this
summer! Dear Cherryvale! Green prairies were so much nicer than
snow-covered mountains, and gently sloping hills than sharp-pointing
peaks; and much, much nicer than tempestuous waterfalls was the
sweet placidity of Swan Creek. Dear Swan Creek. . .

The idea of Raymond's trying to make her jealous! How simple-minded
boys are! But what a dear, true friend he was, and how much more is
friendship than mere pleasures like travel--or prominence or fine
grades or anything. . .

It was at this point in her cogitations that Missy, seeing her
Anthology--an intimate poetic companion--where she'd left it on a
bench, dreamily picked it up, turned a few pages, and then was moved
to write. We have borrowed her product to head this story.

Meanwhile, back in the house, her father might have been heard
commenting on the noble behaviour of his daughter.

"Didn't let out a single whimper--brave little thing! We must see to
it that she has a good time at home--poor young one! I think we'd
better get the car this summer, after all."

CHAPTER IX

DOBSON SAVES THE DAY

It was two years after the Spanish war; and she was seventeen years
old and about to graduate.

On the Senior class roster of the Cherryvale High School she was
catalogued as Melissa Merriam, well down--in scholarship's token--
toward the tail-end of twenty-odd other names. To the teachers the
list meant only the last young folks added to a backreaching line of
girls and boys who for years and years had been coming to
"Commencement" with "credits" few or many, large expectant eyes
fixed on the future, and highly uncertain habits of behaviour; but,
to the twenty-odd, such dead prosiness about themselves would have
been inconceivable even in teachers.

And Missy?

Well, there were prettier girls in the class, and smarter girls-and
boys, too; yet she was the one from all that twenty-odd who had been
chosen to deliver the Valedictory. Did there ever exist a maid who
did not thrill to proof that she was popular with her mates? And
when that tribute carries with it all the possibilities of a
Valedictory--double, treble the exultation.

The Valedictory! When Missy sat in the classroom, exhausted with the
lassitudinous warmth of spring and with the painful uncertainty of
whether she'd be called to translate the Vergil passage she hadn't
mastered, visions of that coming glory would rise to brighten weary
hours; and the last thing at night, in falling asleep, as the moon
stole in tenderly to touch her smiling face, she took them to her
dreams. She saw a slender girl in white, standing alone on a lighted
stage, gazing with luminous eyes out on a darkened auditorium.
Sometimes they had poky old lectures in that Opera House. Somebody
named Ridgely Holman Dobson was billed to lecture there now--before
Commencement; but Missy hated lectures; her vision was of something
lifted far above such dismal, useful communications. She saw a house
as hushed as when little Eva dies--all the people listening to the
girl up there illumined: the lift and fall of her voice, the
sentiments fine and noble and inspiring. They followed the slow
grace of her arms and hands--it was, indeed, as if she held them in
the hollow of her hand. And then, finally, when she had come to the
last undulating cadence, the last vibrantly sustained phrase, as she
paused and bowed, there was a moment of hush--and then the applause
began. Oh, what applause! And then, slowly, graciously, modestly but
with a certain queenly pride, the shining figure in white turned and
left the stage.

She could see it all: the way her "waved" hair would fluff out and
catch the light like a kind of halo, and each one of the nine
organdie ruffles that were going to trim the bottom of her dress;
she could even see the glossy, dark green background of potted
palms--mother had promised to lend her two biggest ones. Yes, she
could see it and hear it to the utmost completeness--save for one
slight detail: that was the words of the girlish and queenly
speaker. It seemed all wrong that she, who wasn't going to be a dull
lecturer, should have to use words, and so many of them! You see,
Missy hadn't yet written the Valedictory.

But that didn't spoil her enjoyment of the vision; it would all come
to her in time. Missy believed in Inspiration. Mother did not.

Mother had worried all through the four years of her daughter's high
school career--over "grades" or "exams" or "themes" or whatnot. She
had fretted and urged and made Missy get up early to study; had even
punished her. And, now, she was sure Missy would let time slide by
and never get the Valedictory written on time. The two had already
"had words" over it. Mother was dear and tender and sweet, and Missy
would rather have her for mother than any other woman in Cherryvale,
but now and then she was to be feared somewhat.

Sometimes she would utter an ugly, upsetting phrase:

"How can you dilly-dally so, Missy? You put everything off!--put
off--put off! Now, go and try to get that thesis started!"

There was nothing for Missy to do but go and try to obey. She took
tablet and pencil out to the summerhouse, where it was always
inspiringly quiet and beautiful; she also took along the big blue-
bound Anthology from the living-room table--an oft-tapped fount; but
even reading poetry didn't seem able to lift her to the creative
mood. And you have to be in the mood before you can create, don't
you? Missy felt this necessity vaguely but strongly; but she
couldn't get it across to mother.

And even worse than mother's reproaches was when father finally gave
her a "talking to"; father was a big, wise, but usually silent man,
so that when he did speak his words seemed to carry a double force.
Missy's young friends were apt to show a little awe of father, but
she knew he was enormously kind and sympathetic. Long ago--oh, years
before--when she was a little girl, she used to find it easier to
talk to him than to most grown-ups; about all kinds of unusual
things--the strange, mysterious, fascinating thoughts that come to
one. But lately, for some reason, she had felt more shy with father.
There was much she feared he mightn't understand--or, perhaps, she
feared he might understand.

So, in this rather unsympathetic domestic environment, the class
Valedictorian, with the kindling of her soul all laid, so to speak,
uneasily awaited the divine spark. It was hard to maintain an easy
assumption that all was well; especially after the affair of the
hats got under way.

Late in April Miss Ackerman, the Domestic Science teacher, had
organized a special night class in millinery which met, in turns, at
the homes of the various members. The girls got no "credit" for this
work, but they seemed to be more than compensated by the joy of
creating, with their own fingers, new spring hats which won them
praise and admiration. Kitty Allen's hat was particularly
successful. It was a white straw "flat," faced and garlanded with
blue. Missy looked at its picturesque effect, posed above her "best
friend's" piquantly pretty face, with an envy which was augmented by
the pardonable note of pride in Kitty's voice as she'd say: "Oh, do
you really like it?--I made it myself, you know."

If only she, Missy, might taste of this new kind of joy! She was not
a Domestic Science girl; but, finally, she went to Miss Ackermanand-
-oh,rapture!--obtained permission to enter the millinery class.

However, there was still the more difficult matter of winning
mother's consent. As Missy feared, Mrs. Merriam at once put on her
disapproving look.

"No, Missy. You've already got your hands full. Have you started the
thesis yet?"

"Oh, mother!--I'll get the thesis done all right! And this is such a
fine chance!--all the girls are learning how to make their own hats.
And I thought, maybe, after I'd learned how on my own, that maybe I
could make you one. Do you remember that adorable violet straw you
used to have when I was a little girl?--poke shape and with the pink
rose? I remember father always said it was the most becoming hat you
ever had. And I was thinking, maybe, I could make one something like
that!"

"I'm afraid I've outgrown pink roses, dear." But mother was smiling
a soft, reminiscent little shadow of a smile.

"But you haven't outgrown the poke shape--and violet! Oh, mother!"

"Well, perhaps--we'll see. But you mustn't let it run away with you.
You must get that thesis started."

Not for nothing had Missy been endowed with eyes that could shine
and a voice that could quaver; yes, and with an instinct for just
the right argument to play upon the heart-strings.

She joined the special night class in millinery. She learned to
manipulate troublesome coils of wire and pincers, and to evolve a
strange, ghostly skeleton--thing called a "frame," but when this was
finally covered with crinoline and tedious rows-on-rows of straw
braid, drab drudgery was over and the deliciousness began.

Oh, the pure rapture of "trimming"! Missy's first venture was a
wide, drooping affair, something the shape of Kitty Allen's, only
her own had a much subtler, more soul-satisfying colour scheme. The
straw was a subtle blue shade--the colour Raymond Bonner, who was a
classmate and almost a "beau," wore so much in neckties--and the
facing shell-pink, a delicate harmony; but the supreme ecstasy came
with placing the little silken flowers, pink and mauve and deeper
subtle-blue, in effective composition upon that heavenly background;
and, in just the one place, a glimpse of subtle-blue ribbon, a sheen
as gracious as achieved by the great Creator when, with a master's
eye, on a landscape he places a climactic stroke of shining blue
water. Indeed, He Himself surely can view His handiwork with no more
sense o gratification than did Missy, regarding that miracle of
colour which was her own creation.

Oh, to create! To feel a blind, vague, ineffable urge within you,
stealing out to tangibility in colour and form! Earth--nor Heaven,
either--can produce no finer rapture.

Missy's hat was duly admired. Miss Ackerman said she was a "real
artist"; when she wore it to Sunday-school everybody looked at her
so much she found it hard to hold down a sense of unsabbatical
pride; father jocosely said she'd better relinquish her dreams of
literary fame else she'd deprive the world of a fine milliner; and
even mother admitted that Mrs. Anna Stubbs, the leading milliner,
couldn't have done better. However, she amended: "Now, don't forget
your school work, dear. Have you decided on the subject of your
thesis yet?"

Missy had not. But, by this time, the hat business was moving so
rapidly that she had even less time to worry over anything still
remote, like the thesis--plenty of time to think of that; now, she
was dreaming of how the rose would look blooming radiantly from this
soft bed of violet straw; . . . and, now, how becoming to Aunt
Nettie would be this misty green, with cool-looking leaves and wired
silver gauze very pure and bright like angels' wings--dear Aunt
Nettie didn't have much "taste," and Missy indulged in a certain
righteous glow in thus providing her with a really becoming,
artistic hat. Then, after Aunt Nettie's, she planned one for
Marguerite. Marguerite was the hired girl, mulatto, and had the
racial passion for strong colour. So Missy conceived for her a
creation that would be at once satisfying to wearer and beholder.
How wonderful with one's own hands to be able to dispense pleasure!
Missy, working, felt a peculiarly blended joy; it is a
gratification, indeed, when a pleasing occupation is seasoned with
the fine flavour of noble altruism.

She hadn't yet thought of a theme for the Valedictory, and mother
was beginning to make disturbing comments about "this hat mania,"
when, by the most fortuitous chance, while she was working on
Marguerite's very hat--in fact, because she was working on it--she
hit upon a brilliantly possible idea for the Valedictory.

She was rummaging in a box of discarded odds and ends for
"trimmings." The box was in mother's store-closet, and Missy
happened to observe a pile of books up on the shelf. Books always
interested her, and even with a hat on her mind she paused a moment
to look over the titles. The top volume was "Ships That Pass in the
Night"--she had read that a year or so ago--a delightful book,
though she'd forgotten just what about. She took it down and opened
it, casually, at the title page. And there, in fine print beneath
the title, she read:

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only
a signal shewn, and a distant voice in the darkness; So, on the
ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a
voice--then darkness again, and a silence.

Standing there in the closet door, Missy read the stanza a second
time--a third. And, back again at her work, fingers dawdled while
eyes took on a dreamy, preoccupied expression. For phrases were
still flitting through her head: "we pass and speak one another" . .
. "then darkness again, and a silence" . . .

Very far away it took you--very far, right out on the vast, surging,
mysterious sea of Life!

The sea of Life!. . . People, like ships, always meeting one
another--only a look and a voice--and then passing on into the
silence. . .

Oh, that was an idea! Not just a shallow, sentimental pretense, but
a real idea, "deep," stirring and fine. What a glorious Valedictory
that would make!

And presently, when she was summoned to supper, she felt no desire
to talk; it was so pleasant just to listen to those phrases faintly
and suggestively resounding. All the talk around her came dimly and,
sometimes, so lost was she in hazy delight that she didn't hear a
direct question.

Finally father asked:

"What's the day-dream, Missy?--thinking up a hat for me?"

Missy started, and forgot to note that his enquiry was facetious.

"No," she answered quite seriously, "I haven't finished Marguerite's
yet."

"Yes," cut in mother, in the tone of reproach so often heard these
days, "she's been frittering away the whole afternoon. And not a
glimmer for the thesis yet!"

At that Missy, without thinking, unwarily said:

"Oh, yes, I have, mother."

"Oh," said her mother interestedly. "What is it?"

Missy suddenly remembered and blushed--grown-ups seldom understand
unless you're definite.

"Well," she amended diffidently, "I've got the subject."

"What is it?" persisted mother.

Everybody was looking at Missy. She poured the cream over her
berries, took a mouthful; but they all kept looking at her, waiting.

"'Ships That Pass in the Night,'" she had to answer.

"For Heaven's sake!" ejaculated Aunt Nettie. "What're you going to
write about that?"

This was the question Missy had been dreading. She dreaded it
because she herself didn't know just what she was going to write
about it. Everything was still in the first vague, delightful state
of just feeling it--without any words as yet; and grown-ups don't
seem to understand about this. But they were all staring at her, so
she must say something.

"Well, I haven't worked it out exactly--it's just sort of pouring in
over me."

"What's pouring over you?" demanded Aunt Nettie.

"Why--the sea of Life," replied Missy desperately.

"For Heaven's sake!" commented Aunt Nettie again.

"It sounds vague; very vague," said father. Was he smiling or
frowning?--he had such a queer look in his eyes. But, as he left the
table, he paused behind her chair and laid a very gentle hand on her
hair.

"Like to go out for a spin in the car?"

But mother declined for her swiftly. "No, Missy must work on her
thesis this evening."

So, after supper, Missy took tablet and pencil once more to the
summerhouse. It was unusually beautiful out there--just the kind of
evening to harmonize with her uplifted mood. Day was ending in still
and brilliant serenity. The western sky an immensity of benign
light, and draped with clouds of faintly tinted gauze.

"Another day is dying," Missy began to write; then stopped.

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