Little
Magnolia Budine was the only one in the room impatient for the exercises
to close. She sat near a front window looking out at every sound of
approaching wheels, to see if the old carryall had stopped at the high
green gate in front of the seminary. She had been hoping all afternoon
that her father would come for her earlier than usual, and she
half-expected that he would. The chill November days were short, and she
knew that he would want to reach home before dark.
It was
not that she failed to appreciate the interesting articles in the Star,
but she was in a hurry for the ten-mile drive to be over. The reason for
her impatience was packed away in the old carpet-bag, waiting outside in
the hall. Unless she reached home before dark, a certain pleasure she had
in store would have to be delayed till morning. So intent was she on
listening for the sound of wheels, that she failed to hear the title of a
short poem which one of the editors announced as written by E. L. L. When
Elise nudged her, whispering,
"That's
about you, Maggie," she turned with a start and blush to find every one
looking at her. She was so confused she heard only the last verse:
"Not
only did he steal the tarts
Made by the gracious queen,
He captured all the schoolgirls' hearts
That little knave --- on Hallowe'en."
The
applause which followed was loud and long. Her heart gave a proud, glad
throb at this public compliment, but her face felt as if it were on fire,
and she longed to drop under her desk out of sight. It was just at this
moment that Mrs. Clelling told her in a low tone that her father had come
and she might be excused. How she ever got to the door with all those eyes
fastened on her was more than she could tell. She felt as if each foot
weighed a ton, and that she was an hour travelling the short space.
Snatching her hat from the cloak-room and pinning a big gray shawl around
her, she caught up the carpet-bag and ran down to the gate. An occasional
snowflake, like a downy white feather, floated through the air. The wind
was raw and damp, and she was glad to climb in behind the sheltering
curtains of the old carryall and lean up against her father's rough, warm
overcoat.
"Well,
Puss, how goes it?" he asked, pulling an old bedquilt up over his knees
and tucking it well around her.
"Fine,
daddy!" she answered, squeezing his arm in both her mittened hands and
snuggling up to him like a contented kitten." I think now it's the
nicest school in the world, and I like it better and better every day."
"Got a
good report this week?"
"Yes, I
haven't missed a single word in spelling. Mrs. Clelling had to show me
nearly two hours about borrowing in subtraction, but I don't have any more
trouble with it now, and I had a longer list of adjectives on my
language-paper than anybody else in the class."
There
was a look of pride in the old farmer's weather-beaten face. He had had
little education himself. He had barely learned to read and write in the
few short terms he had been able to attend school when he was a boy. He
couldn't have told an adjective from any other part of speech, and his
wonder at her amount of learning was all the greater on that account. He
patted her hand affectionately. "That's right! That's right!" he
exclaimed. "The family's dependin' on you, Puss, to do us all credit."
Then he began repeating what she had heard a hundred times before. He
never failed to tell her the same story as they jogged homeward every
Friday night and back again the following Monday morning. She had heard it
so often that it sounded in her ears like the familiar refrain of an old
song to which she need pay no heed. She only waited patiently until he had
finished.
"The
older children didn't have no chance when they was young like you. We were
too far away from the public schools to send 'm except just a spell spring
and fall, and we couldn't afford the pay schools. but after we moved up
here and Marthy got married and Tom and Hilliard was big enough to do for
'emselves and getting good wages, times was easier. Ma says to me, 'We'll
give the baby a fair start in the world, anyhow,' and I says, 'she'll have
the best diplomy that Lloydsboro Seminary can give if I have to carry her
there and home again on my back every day till she gets it.'"
There
was much more in the same strain to which Magnolia listened, waiting for
her turn to speak, as one would wait for an alarm clock to run down when
it was striking. The moment he paused she began, eagerly, "I've got
something right now that mammy will be proud to see."
Diving
under the quilt for the carpet-bag, she opened it and took out a book
which lay on top of her clothes.
"Now put
on your spectacles, daddy," she ordered, gaily, "or maybe you won’t be
able to tell who it is." She slipped a photograph from the book and held
it up before him. Holding the reins between his knees, he pulled off one
glove, felt in various pockets, and finally fished up a pair of
steel-bowed spectacles. which he slowly adjusted.
"Miss
Katherine Marks took it." she explained, "and she painted it
afterward, so you can tell exactly how I looked at the masquerade-party."
"If it
ain't my little magnolia blossoms" exclaimed the old man, proudly, holding
the beautifully tinted photograph off at arm's length for a better view.
"Wherever did you get all those fine gew-gaws? Why, Puss, you're prettier
than a posy. Sort of fanciful and trimmed up, but that's your little face
natural as life. I should say your mammy will be proud!"
It took
all the time while they were driving the next six miles for Magnolia to
tell of that memorable afternoon and night. How
Lloyd Sherman had taken her over to
Clovercroft, and all the Marks family had
helped to make her costume. How beautiful it was, and how the girls had
praised it, and even published a poem about her in the Seminary Star;
and next day Miss Katherine had taken her picture, and the day after that
had sent for her to come over to her studio, and had given her a copy of
it to take home.
"Seems
to me as if we ought to do something nice for those people who have been
so kind to you," said her father, musingly, when she had told him the
whole story. "You say if it hadn't been for Miss Katherine you'd have had
to miss the party. If you'd have missed that you wouldn't have had that
poetry about you in the paper. I'm proud of that, Puss. Seems as if my
little girl is mighty popular --- a sort of celebrity, to get into the
paper. I'd like to show that young lady that I appreciate what she's done
to make you happy. I wonder how she'd like a crock of your mammy's apple
butter. There ain't no better apple butter in all Oldham County, and I
should think she'd be glad to get it. I'll speak about it when we get
home, and if your mammy's willing, I'll carry a crock of it to the young
lady when I take you back to school Monday morning."
Magnolia
was not sure of the propriety of such a gift, and he turned the matter
over in his slow mind all the rest of the way home. They jogged along in
silence, for she also was busy with her thoughts. She was thinking of
another picture in the library book which she had not showed her father,
It was an unmounted photograph of Lloyd Sherman which Miss Katherine had
taken the year before.
She had
photographed all the children who took part in the play of the "Rescue
of the Princess Winsome, and they were arranged on a panel on her
studio wall. There were several of Lloyd; one at the spinning-wheel, one
with her arms around Hero's neck, and one with the knight kneeling to take
her hand from the old king's. But the most beautiful one of all was the
one of the Dove Song. That picture hung by itself. It was just a little
medallion, showing the head of the Princess with the white dove nestled
against her shoulder. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls made a halo
around the sweet little face, and Magnolia stood gazing at it as if it had
been the picture of an angel. She had no eyes for anything else in the
studio, and Miss Flora, seeing her gaze of rapt admiration, looked across
at her sister and smiled significantly.
"Haven't
you a copy of that you could give her, Katherine?" she asked, in a low
tone. "I never saw a child's face express such wistful longing. It makes
me think of some of the little waifs I have seen at Christmas time, gazing
hungrily into the shop windows at the toys and bon-bons they know can
never be for them."
Miss
Katherine opened a table drawer, and, after searching a few minutes among
the unmounted photographs it contained, took out one, regarding it
critically.
"This
was a trifle too light to suit me," she said, "but too good to destroy."
She crossed tile room and held it out to Magnolia, who still stood gazing
at its duplicate on the wall.
Such a
look of rapture came into the child's face when it was finally made clear
to her that she was to have the picture to keep that no one noticed the
omission of spoken thanks. She was too embarrassed to say anything, but
she took it as if it were something sacred.
"I
suppose because Lloyd happens to be the goddess just now to whom she burns
incense," said Miss Katherine when she had gone. "These little school-girl
affairs are very amusing sometimes. They're so intense while they last."
Maggie
could not have told why she did not show the picture of the Princess to
her father. In an undefined sort of way she felt that he would look at it
as be would look at the picture of any little girl, and that he would not
understand that she was so much finer and better and more beautiful and
different in every way from all the other girls in the world. But Corono
would understand. For two days Magnolia had looked forward to the pleasure
of showing it to her.
"Can't
you get old Dixie out of a walk, daddy?" she exclaimed at last. "I'm
mighty anxious to get home before sundown. I want to stop at Roney's with
this library book, and show her the picture, too."
Aroused
from his reverie the old farmer clucked to his horse, and they went
bumping down the stony pike at a gait which satisfied even Maggie's
impatient desire for speed.
"I
reckon Roney will be mighty glad to see you," be remarked, as he stopped
the horse in front of an old cabin a short distance from his own home.
"She's been worse this week. You'll have half an hour yet before sundown,"
he added, as he turned the wheel for her to climb out of the carryall.
"I'll
stay till supper-time," she called back over her shoulder, "for I have so
much to tell her this week."
With the
library book tucked away under the old gray shawl, she ran down the
straggling path to the little whitewashed cabin.
Roney
would understand. Roney had always understood things from the time they
had first been neighbours on a lonely farm near Loretta. That was when
Magnolia was a baby, and Corona, six years older, without a playmate and
without a toy, had daily borrowed her and played with her as if she had
been a great doll. It was Corono who had discovered her first tooth, and
who had coaxed her to take her first step, and had taught her nearly
everything she knew, from threading a needle and tying a knot, to spelling
out the words on the tombstones in the nuns' graveyard. Corono could often
tell what she was thinking about, even before she said a word. She was the
only one at home to whom Magnolia ever mentioned the Princess.
Several
years before the two families had moved away together from the old place.
In that time Corono's mother had died, and her father had become so
crippled with rheumatism that he could no longer manage to do the heavy
work on the farm he had rented. They were glad to accept their old
neighbour's offer of an empty cabin on his place. After that, when Corono
was not at the farmhouse helping Mrs. Budine with her cleaning or sewing
or pickle-making, Magnolia was at the cabin, following at the little
housekeeper's very heels, as she went about her daily tasks. But now for
several months Corona had been barely able to drag from one room to
another. Whether it was a fall she had had in the early summer which
injured her back, or whether it was some disease of the spine past his
skill to discover, the doctor from the crossroads could not decide.
Her
father had to be housekeeper now, and they would have had meagre fare
oftentimes, had not a generous share of every pie and pudding baked in the
Budine kitchen found its way to their table.
The
weeks would have been almost unbearably monotonous to Corono after
Magnolia started to school had she not looked forward to the Friday, when
her return meant the bringing of a new library book, and another
delightfully interesting chapter of her life at the seminary.
These
glimpses into a world so different from her own gave her something to
think about all week, as she dragged wearily about, trying to help her
father in his awkward struggles with the cooking and cleaning. She thought
about them at night, too, when the pain in her back kept her awake.
Betty and Lloyd
and Allison, Kitty and Elise and
Katie Mallard, were as real to her as they
were to Maggie. They would have stared in astonishment could they have
known that every week a sixteen-year-old girl, whom they had never seen,
and of whom they had barely heard, was waiting to ask a dozen eager
questions about them.
Maggie
ran in without knocking, bringing such a breath of fresh air and fresh
interest with her that Corona's face brightened instantly. She was lying
on the bed with a shawl thrown over her.
"I've
been listening for you for more than an hour," said Corono, propping
herself up on her elbow. "I thought the time never would pass. I
counted the ticking of the clock, and then I tried to see how much of
Betty's play I could repeat. I've read it so many times this week that I
know it nearly all by heart."
She
picked up the book which lay beside her on the bed. It was the library
copy of "The Rescue of the Princess Winsome;" which Maggie had brought to
her the previous Friday. It had been in such constant demand since the
opening of school that she had been unable to obtain it earlier.
Maggie,
about to plunge into an account of her Hallowe'en experiences, checked
herself as Corono winced with pain and her face grew suddenly white.
"What's the matter?" she asked, sympathetically. "Do you feel very bad?"
To her
astonishment Corona buried her face in her pillow to hide the tears that
were trickling down her cheeks, and began to sob.
"I'll
run get mammy," said the frightened child, who had never seen Corono give
way to her feelings in such fashion before.
"No,
don't I" she sobbed. "I'll be all right --- in a minute. I'm just nervous
--- from the pain --- I haven't slept much --- lately!"
Maggie
sat motionless, afraid to make any attempt at consolation, even so much as
patting her cheek with her plump little hand. Roney was the one who had
always comforted her. She did not know what to do, now that their
positions were suddenly reversed. She was relieved when Roney presently
wiped her eyes and said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, "There! You
never saw me make a baby of myself before! Did you! But I couldn't help
it. Sometimes when it gets this way I wish I could die. But I've just got
to keep on living for daddy's sake. I don't suppose any one ever told you,
and you couldn't understand unless you knew.
"It's
this way. My mother's family never wanted her to marry daddy, and they
disowned her when she did, because he wasn't educated and rich and all
that, as they were. They never spoke to her afterward, but when my
grandfather came to die, I reckon he was sorry for the way he'd done, for
he wanted to send for her. It was too late, though. She had died that
spring. Then he tried to make it up in a way, by being good to me, and he
left me an annuity. I can't explain to you just what that is, but every
year as long as I live his lawyer is to pay me some money. It isn't much,
but it is all that daddy and I have had to live on since he hasn't been
able to work. When I die the money will stop coming, so I feel that I must
keep on living even when every breath is agony, as it is sometimes. I
don't think I can stand it much longer. There are days when I just have to
grit my teeth and say I won't give up! I will hang on for poor daddy's
sake. Sometimes I believe that is all that keeps me alive."
She
stopped abruptly, seeing the tears of distress in Maggie's eyes, and made
an attempt to laugh.
"There!"
she exclaimed. "Now that I've poured out all my troubles and eased my
mind, I feel better. Tell me about the girls. What have they been doing
this week?"
Much
relieved, Maggie produced the photograph of herself, and began an
enthusiastic account of her Hallowe'en experiences. She began with the
visit to Clovercroft, and as she described the handsomely furnished
music-room, with its luxurious rugs and grand piano. and the priceless
pictures that had been brought from over the sea, its lace curtains and
white tiled hearth and andirons that shone like gold, it seemed to her
that the little cabin had never looked so bare. Its chinked walls and
puncheon floor stood out in pitiful contrast. The only picture in the room
was an unframed chrome tacked above the mantel.
As she
described the masquerade frolic, she contrasted Roney's lonely shut-in
life with her own and the other girls' at the
seminary. A realization of its
meagreness and emptiness stole over her till she could hardly keep the
tears back. A great longing sprang up in her warm little heart to do
something that would compensate as far as possible for all that she had
missed. Acting on that impulse, as she reached the climax of her story and
drew out the cherished photograph of the Princess, she thrust it into
Roney's hand, saying, hurriedly, "Here, you can have it, Roney. I'd rather
you would have it than me."
Corona
held the picture eagerly, studying every detail of the beautiful little
medallion. The fair hair with its coronet of pearls, the white dove
nestled against her shoulder, as she had held it when she sang "Flutter
and fly, flutter and fly, bear him my heart of gold." --- all seemed
doubly attractive now with the play fresh in her mind. Besides, it was the
most beautiful picture she had ever seen in all the sixteen years of her
lonely, unsatisfied life.
The
intuition that always helped her to understand her little friend made her
understand now in a way that the gift meant a sacrifice, and she
exclaimed, impulsively, " Oh, Maggie! I don't feel as if I ought to take
it from you. You keep it, and just lend it to me once in awhile."
"No, I
want you to have it," said Maggie, drawing the old shawl up around her.
"Goodness me! It's getting dark. I'll have to run," and before Corono
could make another protest she rushed away.
As she
ran along the path that crossed the pasture between the cabin and the
farmhouse, there was a tremulous smile on her face, but the faint twilight
also showed tears in her eyes. The smile was for the joy she knew she had
given Roney, but the tears were for herself. Nobody knew how much of a
sacrifice she had made in giving up the picture of the Princess. Even
Roney had not guessed how great it was. But she had no regret next morning
when she came back to the cabin. Roney greeted her eagerly.
"Look!"
she cried, pointing to the old wooden clock which stood on the mantel. "I
didn't have a frame to put the picture in, and I was afraid it would get
spoiled without glass over it. While I was looking around the room
wondering what to do, I happened to notice that it was the same size as
the pendulum. Daddy lifted it down for me, and I fastened the picture on
that. So there it is all safe and sound behind the glass door, and I can
see it from any part of the room.
"And,
oh, Maggie, you don't know how it helped me last night. It made the play
seem so real to me. As I lay here watching the pendulum, it stopped saying
'Tick tock, tick tock.' It seemed to me that the Princess was looking
straight at me, saying, instead, 'For love --- will find --- a way!'
Then I knew that she meant me. That love would help me bear the pain for
daddy's sake; that my living along as bravely as I could was like spinning
the golden thread, and that I mustn't think about the great skein that the
weeks and months were piling up ahead for me to do; I must just spin a
minute at a time. I can stand the pain when I count it with the pendulum.
Even when the fire died down and I couldn't see her any longer, I could
hear her saying it over and over, 'For love --- will find --- a way.' And
I lay there in the dark and pretended that I was a Princess, too, spinning
love's golden thread, and that my dove was a little white prayer that I
could send fluttering up to God, asking him to help me find the way to be
brave and patient, and to hang on to life as long as I possibly can for
daddy's sake."
Little
did the Shadow Club dream that day how far their shadow-selves were
reaching. But Betty's song brought comfort and courage for many an hour
into Roney's lonely life, and the greatest solace in her keenest suffering
was the smiling face of the Princess, swaying back and forth upon the
pendulum.
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