Books: Missy

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And things grew harder, much harder, during the first dance. The
guests danced through the big double parlours and out the side door
on to the big, deep porch. It was inspiringly beautiful out there on
the porch: the sweet odour of honeysuckle and wistaria and "mock
orange" all commingled; and the lights shining yellow out of the
windows, and the paler, glistening light of the moon spreading its
fairy whiteness everywhere. It was inspiringly beautiful; and the
music was divine--Charley Kelley's orchestra was playing; and Mr.
Briggs was a wonderful dancer. But Missy couldn't forget the
oppressive heat, or the stabbing weights in her head, or, worse yet,
that blackberry cobbler.

As Mr. Briggs was clapping for a second encore, she said
tremulously:

"Will you excuse me a minute?--I must run upstairs--I forgot my
handkerchief."

"Let me get it for you," offered Mr. Briggs gallantly.

"No! oh, no!" Her tone was excited and, almost frantically, she
turned and ran into the house and up the stairs.

Up there, in the bedroom which was temporarily the "ladies' cloak-
room, prostrate on the bed, Mrs. Bonner found her later. Missy
protested she was now feeling better, though she thought she'd just
lie quiet awhile. She insisted that Mrs. Bonner make no fuss and go
back down to her guests. Mrs. Bonner, after bringing a damp towel
and some smelling-salts, left her. But presently Missy heard the
sound of tip-toeing steps, and lifted a corner of the towel from off
her eyes. There stood Mr. Briggs.

"Say, this is too bad!" he commiserated. "How's the head?"

"It's better," smiled Missy wanly. It wasn't better, in fact, but a
headache isn't without its advantages when it makes a young man
forsake dancing to be solicitous.

"Sure it's better?"

"Sure," replied Missy, her smile growing a shade more wan.

"Because if it isn't--" Mr. Briggs began to rub his palms together
briskly--"I've got electricity in my hands, you know. Maybe I could
rub it away."

"Oh," said Missy.

Her breathing quickened. The thought of his rubbing her headache
away, his hands against her brow, was alarming yet exhilarating. She
glanced up as she felt him removing the towel from her head, then
quickly down again. She felt, even though her face was already fiery
hot, that she was blushing. She was embarrassed, her head was
racking, but on the whole she didn't dislike the situation. Mr.
Briggs unlinked his cuffs, turned back his sleeves, laid his palms
on her burning brow, and began a slow, pressing movement outward, in
both directions, toward her temples.

"That feel good?" he asked. "Yes," murmured Missy. She could
scarcely voice the word; for, in fact, the pressure of his hands
seemed to send those horrible weights joggling worse than ever,
seemed to intensify the uneasiness in her throat--though she
wouldn't for worlds let Mr. Briggs think her unappreciative of his
kindness.

The too-kind hands stroked maddeningly on.

"Feel better now?"

"Yes," she gasped.

Things, suddenly, seemed going black. If he'd only stop a minute!
Wouldn't he ever stop? How could she make him stop? What could she
do?

The whole world, just then, seemed to be composed of the increasing
tumult in her throat, the piercing conflict in her head, and those
maddening strokes--strokes--strokes--strokes. How long could she
stand it?

Presently, after eons it seemed, she desperately evoked a small,
jerky voice.

"I think--it must--be getting worse. Thanks, but--Oh, won't you--
please--go away?"

She didn't open her eyes to see whether Mr. Briggs looked hurt,
didn't open them to see him leave the room. She was past caring,
now, whether he was hurt or not. She thought she must be dying. And
she thought she must be dying, later, while Mrs. Bonner, aided by a
fluttering, murmuring Louise, attended her with sympathetic
ministrations; and again while she was being taken home by Mr.
Bonner in the Bonner surrey--she had never dreamed a surrey could
bump and lurch and jostle so. But people seldom die of measles; and
that was what young Doc Alison, next morning, diagnosed her malady.
It seemed that there is more than one kind of measles and that one
can go on having one variety after another, ad nauseam, so to speak.

"The case is well developed--you should have called me yesterday,"
said young Doc rebukingly.

"I knew you were sick yesterday!" chided mother. "And to think I let
you go to that party!"

"Party?" queried young Doc. "What party?--when?"

Then he heard about the function at the Bonners', and Missy's
debute.

"Well," he commented, "I'll bet there'll be a fine little aftermath
of measles among the young folks of this town."

The doctor's prophecy was to fulfill itself. On her sick-bed Missy
heard the reports of this one and that one who, in turn, were "taken
down."

For the others she was sorry, but when she learned Mr. Archibald
Briggs had succumbed, she experienced poignant emotions. Her
emotions were mingled: regret that she had so poorly repaid a deed
of gallant service but, withal, a regret tempered by the thought
they were now suffering together--he ill over there in Raymond
Bonner's room, she over here in hers--enduring the same kind of
pain, taking the same kind of medicine, eating the same
uninteresting food. Yes, it was a bond. It even, at the time, seemed
a romantic kind of bond.

Then, when days of convalescence arrived, she wrote a condoling note
to the two patients at the Bonnets'--for Louise had duly "taken
down," also; and then, as her convalescence had a few days' priority
over theirs, she was able to go over and visit them in person.

Friendships grow rapidly when people have just gone through the same
sickness; people have so much in common to talk about, get to know
one another so much more intimately--the real essence of one
another. For instance Missy within a few days learned that Louise
Briggs was an uncommonly nice, sweet, "cultured" girl. She enlarged
on this point when she asked her mother to let her accept Louise's
invitation to visit in Keokuk.

"She's the most refined girl I've ever met, mother--if you know what
I mean."

"Yes--?" said mother, as if inviting more.

"She's going to a boarding-school in Washington, D. C., this
winter."

"Yes--?" said mother again.

"And she's travelled a lot, but not a bit uppish. I think that kind
of girl is a good influence to have, don't you?"

Mother, concentrated on an intricate place in her drawn-Yv'ork,
didn't at once answer. Missy gazed at her eagerly. At last mother
looked up.

"But what about your work on the Beacon?" she asked.

"Oh, I've thought about that," Missy returned glibly. "And I really
think a trip of this kind would do me more good than just hanging
round a poky newspaper office. Travel, and a different sphere--
Keokuk's a big town, and there seems to be a lot going on there.
It's really a good chance to enlarge my field of vision--to broaden
my horizon--don't you see, mother?"

Mother bent her head lower over her work.

"Are you sure the thought of parties and a lot going on and--"
mother paused a second--"and Archie has nothing to do with it,
dear?"

Missy didn't mind the teasing hint about Archie when mother said
"dear" in that tone. It meant that mother was weakening.

Nor did thoughts of the abandoned Cosmos trouble her very much
during the blissfully tumultuous days of refurbishing her wardrobe
and packing her trunk. Nor when she wrote a last society item for Ed
Martin to put in the Beacon:

"Miss Melissa Merriam of Locust Avenue has gone for a two weeks'
visit at the home of Miss Louise Briggs in Keokuk, Iowa."'

The little item held much in its few words. It was a swan-song.

As Ed Martin inelegantly put it, in speaking later with her father,
Missy had "canned the Cosmos."

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