Books: Missy

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The sun sank lower and lower, a reddening ball of sacred fire and,
as if to catch from it a spark, Missy sat gazing at it as she chewed
her pencil; but no words came to be caught down in pencilled
tangibility. Oh, it hurt!--all this aching sweetness in her, surging
through and through, and not able to bring out one word!

"Well?" enquired mother when, finally, she went back to the house.

Missy shook her head. Mother sighed; and Missy felt the sigh echoing
in her own heart. Why were words, relatively so much less than
inspiration, yet so important for inspiration's expression? And why
were they so maddeningly elusive?

For a while, in her little white bed, she lay and stared hopelessly
out at the street lamp down at the corner; the glow brought out a
beautiful diffusive haze, a misty halo. "Only a signal shewn" . . .

The winking street lamp seemed to gaze back at her. . . "Sometimes a
signal flashes from out the darkness" . . . "Only a look" . . . "But
who can comprehend the unfathomable influence of a look?--It may
come to a soul wounded and despairing--a soul caught in a wide-
sweeping tempest--a soul sad and weary, longing to give up the
struggle. . ."

Where did those words, ringing faintly in her consciousness, come
from? She didn't know, was now too sleepy to ponder deeply. But they
had come; that was a promising token. To-morrow more would come; the
Valedictory would flow on out of her soul--or into her soul,
whichever way it was0-in phrases serene, majestic, ineffable.

Missy's eyelids fluttered; the street lamp's halo grew more and more
irradiant; gleamed out to illumine, resplendently, a slender girl in
white standing on a lighted stage, gazing with lumincus eyes out on
a darkened auditorium, a house as hushed as when little Eva dies.
All the people were listening to the girl up there speaking--the
rhythmic lift and fall of her voice, the sentiments fine and noble
and inspiring:

"Ships that pass in the night and speak each other in passing. . .
So, on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another. . . Only a
look and a voice. . . But who can comprehend the unfathomable
influence of a look?. . . which may come to a soul sad and weary,
longing to give up the struggle. . ."

When she awoke next morning raindrops were beating a reiterative
plaint against the window, and the sound seemed very beautiful. She
liked lying in bed, staring out at the upper reaches of sombre sky.
She liked it to be rainy when she woke up--there was something about
leaden colour everywhere and falling rain that made you fit for
nothing but placid staring, yet, at the same time, pleasantly
meditative. Then was the time that the strange big things which
filter through your dreams linger evanescently in your mind to
ponder over.

"Only a look and a voice--but who can comprehend the--the--the
unfathomable influence of a look? It may come to a soul--may come to
a soul--"

Bother! How did that go?

Missy shut her eyes and tried to resummon the vision, to rehear
those rhythmic words so fraught with wisdom. But all she saw was a
sort of heterogeneous mass of whirling colours, and her thoughts,
too, seemed to be just a confused and meaningless jumble. Only her
FEELING seemed to remain. She could hardly bear it; why is it that
you can feel with that intolerably fecund kind of ache while
THOUGHTS refuse to come?

She finally gave it up, and rose and dressed. It was one of those
mornings when clothes seem possessed of some demon so that they
refuse to go on right. At breakfast she was unwontedly cross, and
"talked back" to Aunt Nettie so that mother made her apologize. At
that moment she hated Aunt Nettie, and even almost disliked mother.
Then she discovered that Nicky, her little brother, had
mischievously hidden her strap of books and, all of a sudden, she
did an unheard-of thing: she slapped him! Nicky was so astonished he
didn't cry; he didn't even run and tell mother, but Missy, seeing
that hurt, bewildered look on his face, felt greater remorse than
any punishment could have evoked. She loved Nicky dearly; how could
she have done such a thing? But she remembered having read that Poe
and Byron and other geniuses often got irritable when in creative
mood. Perhaps that was it. The reflection brought a certain
consolation.

But, at school, things kept on going wrong. In the Geometry class
she was assigned the very "proposition" she'd been praying to elude;
and, then, she was warned by the teacher--and not too privately--
that if she wasn't careful she'd fail to pass; and that, of course,
would mean she couldn't graduate. At the last minute to fail!--after
Miss Simpson had started making her dress, and the invitations
already sent to the relatives, and all!

And finally, just before she started home, Professor Sutton, the
principal, had to call her into his office for a report on her
thesis. The manuscript had to be handed in for approval, and was
already past due. Professor Sutton was very stern with her; he said
some kind of an outline, anyway, had to be in by the end of the
week. Of course, being a grown-up and a teacher besides, he believed
everything should be done on time, and it would be useless to try to
explain to him even if one could.

Raymond Bonner was waiting to walk home with her. Raymond often
walked home with her and Missy was usually pleased with his
devotion; he was the handsomest and most popular boy in the class.
But, to-day, even Raymond jarred on her. He kept talking, talking,
and it was difficult for her preoccupied mind to find the right
answer in the right place. He was talking about the celebrity who
was to give the "Lyceum Course" lecture that evening. The lecturer's
name was Dobson. Oh uninspiring name!--Ridgeley Holman Dobson. He
was a celebrity because he'd done something-or-other heroic in the
Spanish war. Missy didn't know just what it was, not being
particularly interested in newspapers and current events, and remote
things that didn't matter. But Raymond evidently knew something
about Dobson aside from his being just prominent.

"I only hope he kisses old Miss Lightner!" he said, chortling.

"Kisses her?" repeated Missy, roused from her reveries. Why on earth
should a lecturer kiss anybody, above all Miss Lightner, who was an
old maid and not attractive despite local gossip about her being
"man-crazy"? "Why would he kiss Miss Lightner?"

Raymond looked at her in astonishment.

"Why, haven't you heard about him?"

Missy shook her head.

"Why, he's always in the papers! Everywhere he goes, women knock
each other down to kiss him! The papers are full of it--don't say
you've never heard of it!"

But Missy shook her head again, an expression of distaste on her
face. A man that let women knock each other down to kiss him! Missy
had ideals about kissing. She had never been kissed by any one but
her immediate relatives and some of her girl friends, but she had
her dreams of kisses--kisses such as the poets wrote about. Kissing
was something fine, beautiful, sacred! As sacred as getting married.
But there was nothing sacred about kissing whole bunches of people
who knocked each other down--people you didn't even know. Missy felt
a surge of revulsion against this Dobson who could so profane a holy
thing.

"I think it's disgusting," she said.

At the unexpected harshness of her tone Raymond glanced at her in
some surprise.

"And they call him a hero!" she went on scathingly. "Oh, I guess
he's all right," replied Raymond, who was secretly much impressed by
the dash of Dobson. "It's just that women make fools of themselves
over him."

"You mean he makes a fool of himself! I think he's disgusting. I
wouldn't go to hear him speak for worlds!"

Raymond wisely changed the subject. And Missy soon enough forgot the
disgusting Dobson in the press of nearer trials. She must get at
that outline; she wanted to do it, and yet she shrank from
beginning. As often happens when the mind is restless, she had an
acute desire to do something with her hands. She wanted to go ahead
with Marguerite's hat, but mother, who had a headache and was cross,
put her foot down. "Not another minute of dawdling till you write
that thesis!" she said, and she might as well have been Gabriel--or
whoever it is who trumpets on the day of doom.

So Missy once more took up tablet and pencil. But what's the use
commanding your mind, "Now, write!" Your mind can't write, can it?--
till it knows what it's going to write about. No matter how much the
rest of you wants to write.

At supper-time Missy had no appetite. Mother was too ill to be at
the table, but father noticed it.

"Haven't caught mamma's headache, have you?" he asked solicitously.

Missy shook her head; she wished she could tell father it was her
soul that ached. Perhaps father sensed something of this for, after
glancing at her two or three times, he said:

"Tell you what!--Suppose you go to the lecture with me to-night.
Mamma says she won't feel able. What do you say?"

Missy didn't care a whit to hear the disgusting Dobson, but she felt
the reason for her reluctance mightn't be understood--might even
arouse hateful merriment, for Aunt Nettie was sitting there
listening. So she said evasively:

"I think mother wants me to work on my thesis."

"Oh, I can fix it with mother all right," said father.

Missy started to demur further but, so listless was her spirit, she
decided it would be easier to go than to try getting out of it. She
wouldn't have to pay attention to the detestable Dobson; and she
always loved to go places with father.

And it was pleasant, after he had "fixed it" with mother, to walk
along the dusky streets with him, her arm tucked through his as if
she were a grown-up. Walking with him thus, not talking very much
but feeling the placidity and sense of safety that always came over
her in father's society, she almost forgot the offensive celebrity
awaiting them in the Opera House.

Afterward Missy often thought of her reluctance to go to that
lecture, of how narrowly she had missed seeing Dobson. The narrow
margins of fate! What if she hadn't gone! Oh, life is thrillingly
uncertain and interwoven and mysterious!

The Opera House was crowded. There were a lot of women there, the
majority of them staid Cherryvale matrons who were regular
subscribers to the Lyceum Course, but Missy, regarding them
severely, wondered if they were there hoping to get kissed.

Presently Mr. Siddons, who dealt in "Real Estate and Loans" and
passed the plate at the Presbyterian church, came out on the
platform with another man. Mr. Siddons was little and wiry and dark
and not handsome; Missy didn't much care for him as it is not
possible to admire a man who looks as if he ought to run up a tree
and chatter and swing from a limb by a tail; besides he was well
known to be "stingy." But his soul must be all right, since he was a
deacon; and he was a leading citizen, and generally introduced
speakers at the Lyceum Course. He began his familiar little mincing
preamble: "It gives me great pleasure to have the privilege of
introducing to you a citizen so distinguished and esteemed--"

Esteemed!

Then the other man walked forward and stood beside the little table
with the glass and pitcher of water on it. Missy felt constrained to
cast a look at the Honourable Ridgeley Holman Dobson.

Well, he was rather handsome, in a way--one had to admit that; he
was younger than you expect lecturers to be, and tall and slender,
with awfully goodlooking clothes, and had dark eyes and a noticeable
smile--too noticeable to be entirely sincere and spontaneous, Missy
decided.

He began to speak, about something that didn't seem particularly
interesting to Missy; so she didn't pay much attention to what he
was saying, but just sat there listening to the pleasing flow of his
voice and noting the graceful sweep of his hands--she must remember
that effective gesture of the palm held outward and up. And she
liked the way, now and then, he threw his head back and paused and
smiled.

Suddenly she caught herself smiling, almost as if in response, and
quickly put on a sternly grave look. This woman-kissing siren!--or
whatever you call men that are like women sirens. Well, she, for
one, wouldn't fall for his charms! She wouldn't rush up and knock
other women down to kiss him!

She was flaunting her disapproval before her as a sort of banner
when, finally, the lecturer came to an end and the audience began
their noisy business of getting out of their seats. Missy glanced
about, suspicious yet alertly inquisitive. Would the women rush up
and kiss him? Her eyes rested on prim Mrs. Siddons, on silly Miss
Lightner, on fat, motherly Mrs. Allen, Kitty's mother. Poor Kitty,
if her mother should so disgrace herself!--Missy felt a moment's
thankfulness that her own mother was safely home in bed.

A lot of people were pushing forward up the aisle toward the
lecturer; some were already shaking hands with him--men as well as
women.

Then Missy heard herself uttering an amazing, unpremeditated thing:

"Would you like to go up and shake hands with Mr. Dobson, father?"

The moment after, she was horrified at herself. Why had she said
that? She didn't want to shake hands with a repulsive siren!

But father was answering:

"What? You, too!"

Just what did he mean by that? And by that quizzical sort of smile?
She felt her cheeks growing hot, and wanted to look away. But, now,
there was nothing to do but carry it through in a casual kind of
way.

"Oh," she said, "I just thought, maybe, it might be interesting to
shake hands with such a celebrity."

"I see," said father. He was still smiling but, taking hold of her
arm, he began to elbow a slow progress toward the platform.

Just before they reached it, Missy felt a sudden panicky flutter in
her heart. She shrank back.

"You go first," she whispered.

So father went first and shook hands with Mr. Dobson. Then he said:

"This is my daughter."

Not able to lift her eyes, Missy held out her hand; she observed
that Mr. Dobson's was long and slender but had hair on the back of
it--he ought to do something about that; but even as she thought
this, the hand was enclosing hers in a clasp beautifully warm and
strong; and a voice, wonderfully deep and pleasant and vibrant, was
heard saying:

"Your daughter?--you're a man to be envied, sir."

Then Missy forced her eyes upward; Mr. Dobson's were waiting to meet
them squarely--bright dark eyes with a laugh in the back of them.
And, then, the queerest thing happened. As he looked at her, that
half-veiled laugh in his eyes seemed to take on a special quality,
something personal and intimate and kindred--as if saying: "You and
I understand, don't we?"

Missy's heart gave a swift, tumultuous dive and flight.

Then he let go her hand, and patiently turned his eyes to the next
comer; but not with the same expression--Missy was sure of that. She
walked on after her father in a kind of daze. The whole thing had
taken scarcely a second; but, oh! what can be encompassed in a
second!

Missy was very silent during the homeward journey; she intensely
wanted to be silent. Once father said:

"Well, the man's certainly magnetic--but he seems a decent kind of
fellow. I suppose a lot has been exaggerated." He chuckled. "But
I'll bet some of the Cherryvale ladies are a little disappointed."

"Oh, that!" Missy felt a hot flame of indignation flare up inside
her. "He wouldn't act that way! anybody could tell. I think it's a
crime to talk so about him!"

Father gave another chuckle, very low; but Missy was too engrossed
with her resentment and with other vague, jumbled emotions to notice
it.

That night she had difficulty in getting to sleep. And, for the
first time in weeks, visions of Commencement failed to waft her off
to dreams. She was hearing over and over, in a kind of lullaby, a
deep, melodious voice: "Your daughter?--you're a man to be envied,
sir!"--was seeing a pair of dark bright eyes, smiling into her own
with a beam of kinship ineffable.

Next day, at school, she must listen to an aftermath of gossipy
surmise anent the disappointing osculatory hero. At last she could
stand it no longer.

"I think it's horrid to talk that way! Anybody can see he's not that
kind of man!"

Raymond Bonner stared.

"Why, I thought you said he was disgusting!"

But Missy, giving him a withering look, turned and walked away,
leaving him to ponder the baffling contrarieties of the feminine
sex.

A new form of listlessness now took hold of Missy. That afternoon
she didn't want to study, didn't want to go over to Kitty Allen's
when her friend telephoned, didn't even want to work on hats; this
last was a curious turn, indeed, and to a wise observer might have
been significant. She had only a desire to be alone, and was
grateful for the excuse her thesis provided her; though it must be
admitted precious little was inscribed, that bright May afternoon,
on the patient tablet which kept Missy company in the summerhouse.

At supper, while the talk pivoted inevitably round the departed
Dobson, she sat immersed in preoccupation so deep as to be
conspicuous even in Missy. Aunt Nettie, smiling, once started to
make a comment but, unseen by his dreaming daughter, was silenced by
Mr. Merriam. And immediately after the meal she'd eaten without
seeing, the faithful tablet again in hand, Missy wandered back to
the summer-house.

It was simply heavenly out there now. The whole western sky clear to
the zenith was laid over with a solid colour of opaque saffron rose;
and, almost halfway up and a little to the left, in exactly the
right place, of deepest turquoise blue, rested one mountain of
cloud; it was the shape of Fujiyama, the sacred mount of Japan,
which was pictured in Aunt Isabel's book of Japanese prints. Missy
wished she might see Japan--Mr. Dobson had probably been there--
lecturers usually were great travellers. He'd probably been
everywhere--led a thrilling sort of life--the sort of life that
makes one interesting. Oh, if only she could talk to him--just once.
She sighed. Why didn't interesting people like that ever come to
Cherryvale to live? Everybody in Cherryvale was so--so commonplace.
Like Bill Cummings, the red-haired bank teller, who thought a trip
to St. Louis an adventure to talk about for months! Or like old Mr.
Siddons, or Professor Sutton, or the clerks in Mr. Bonner's store.
In Cherryvale there was only this settled, humdrum kind of people.
Of course there were the boys; Raymond was nice--but you can't
expect mere boys to be interesting. She recalled that smiling,
subtly intimate glance from Mr. Dobson's eyes. Oh, if he would stay
in Cherryvale just a week! Tf only he'd come back just once! If
only--

"Missy! The dew's falling! You'll catch your death of cold! Come in
the house at once!"

Bother! there was mother calling. But mothers must be obeyed, and
Missy had to trudge dutifully indoors--with a tablet still blank.

Next morning mother's warning about catching cold fulfilled itself.
Missy awoke with a head that felt as big as a washtub, painfully
laborious breath, and a wild impulse to sneeze every other minute.
Mother, who was an ardent advocate of "taking things in time,"
ordered a holiday from school and a footbath of hot mustard water.

"This all comes from your mooning out there in the summerhouse so
late," she chided as, with one tentative finger, she made a final
test of the water for her daughter's feet.

She started to leave the room.

"Oh, mother!"

"Well?" Rather impatiently Mrs. Merriam turned in the doorway.

"Would you mind handing me my tablet and pencil?"

"What, there in the bath?"

"I just thought"--Missy paused to sneeze--"maybe I might get an
inspiration or something, and couldn't get out to write it down."

"You're an absurd child." But when she brought the tablet and
pencil, Mrs. Merriam lingered to pull the shawl round Missy's
shoulders a little closer; Missy always loved mother to do things
like this it was at such times she felt most keenly that her mother
loved her.

Yet she was glad to be left alone.

For a time her eyes were on her bare, scarlet feet in the yellow
mustard water. But that unbeautiful colour combination did not
disturb her. She did not even see her feet. She was seeing a pair of
bright dark eyes smiling intimately into her own. Presently, with a
dreamy, abstracted smile, she opened the tablet, poised the pencil,
and began to write. But she was scarcely conscious of any of this,
of directing her pencil even; it was almost as if the pencil,
miraculously, guided itself. And it wrote.

"Are you ready to take your feet out now, Missy?"

Missy raised her head impatiently. It was Aunt Nettie in the door.
What was she talking about--feet?--feet? How could Aunt Nettie?

. . . . . .
"Oh! go away, won't you, please?" she cried vehemently.

"Well, did you ever?" gasped Aunt Nettie. She stood in the doorway a
minute; then tiptoed away. But Missy was oblivious; the inspired
pencil was speeding back and forth again--"Then each craft passes on
into the unutterable darkness--" and the pencil, too, went on and
on.

. . . . . .

There was a sound of tiptoeing again at the door, of whispering; but
the author took no notice. Then someone entered, bearing a pitcher
of hot water; but the author gave no sign. Someone poured hot water
into the foot-tub; the author wriggled her feet.

"Too hot, dear?" said mother's voice. The author shook her head
abstractedly. Words were singing in her ears to drown all else. They
flowed through her whole being, down her arms, out through her hand
and pencil, wrote themselves immortally. Oh, this was Inspiration!
Feeling at last immeshed in tangibility, swimming out on a tide of
words that rushed along so fast pencil could hardly keep up with
them. Oh, Inspiration! The real thing! Divine, ecstatic, but
fleeting; it must be caught at the flood.

The pencil raced.

And sad, indeed, is that life which sails on its own way, wrapped in
its own gloom, giving out no signal and heeding none, hailing not
its fellow and heeding no hail. For the gloom will grow greater and
greater; there will be no sympathy to tide it over the rocks; no
momentary gleams of love to help it through its struggle; and the
storms will rage fiercer and the sails will hang lower until, at
last, it will go down, alone and unwept, never knowing the joy of
living and never reaching the goal.

So let these ships, which have such a vast, such an unutterable
influence, use that influence for brightening the encompassing
gloom. Let them not be wrapped in their own selfishness or sorrow,
but let their voice be filled with hope and love. For, by so doing,
the waters of Life will grow smoother, and the signals will never
flicker.

The inspired instrument lapsed from nerveless fingers; the author
relaxed in her chair and sighed a deep sigh. All of a sudden she
felt tired, tired; but it is a blessed weariness that comes after a
divine frenzy has had its way with you.

Almost at once mother was there, rubbing her feet with towels,
hustling her into bed.

"Now, you must keep covered up a while," she said.

Missy was too happily listless to object. But, from under the hot
blankets, she murmured:

"You can read the Valedictory if you want to. It's all done."

Commencement night arrived. Twenty-odd young, pulsing entities were
lifting and lilting to a brand-new, individual experience, each one
of them, doubtless, as firmly convinced as the class Valedictorian
that he--or she--was the unique centre round which buzzed this
rushing, bewitchingly upsetting occasion.

Yet everyone had to admit that the Valedictorian made a tremendous
impression: a slender girl in white standing alone on a lighted
stage--only one person in all that assemblage was conscious that it
was the identical spot where once stood the renowned Dobson--gazing
with luminous eyes out on the darkened auditorium. It was crowded
out there but intensely quiet, for all the people were listening to
the girl up there illumined: the lift and fall of her voice, the
sentiments fine, 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.

She told all about the darkness our souls sail through under their
sealed orders, knowing neither course nor port--and, though you may
be calloused to these trite figures, are they not solemnly true
enough, and moving enough, if you take them to heart? And with that
slim child alone up there speaking these things so feelingly, it was
easy for Cherryvale in the hushed and darkened auditorium to feel
with her. . .

Sometimes they pass oblivious of one another in the gloom; sometimes
a signal flashes from out the darkness; a signal which is understood
as though an intense ray pierced the enveloping pall and laid bare
both souls. That signal is the light from a pair of human eyes,
which are the windows of the soul, and by means of which alone soul
can stand revealed to soul . . .

The emotional impression of this was tremendous on all these dear
Souls who had sailed alongside of Missy since she was launched.

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