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.
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 was—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 luminous 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! If 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.
So let these ships, which have such a vast, such an unutterable influence, use that influence for brightening the encompassing gloom... For, by so doing, the waters of Life will grow smoother, and the signals will never flicker.
She came to the last undulating cadence, the last vibrantly sustained phrase; and then, 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.
Here was a noble triumph, remembered for years even by the teachers. Down in the audience father and mother and grandpa and grandma and all the other relatives who, with suspiciously wet eyes, were assembled in the “reserved section,” overheard such murmurs as: “And she's seventeen!—Where do young folks get those ideas?”—and, “What an unusual gift of phraseology!” And, after the programme, a reporter from the Cherryvale Beacon came up to father and asked permission to quote certain passages from the Valedictory in his “write-up.” That was the proudest moment of Mr. Merriam's entire life.
Missy had time for only hurried congratulations from her family. For she must rush off to the annual Alumni banquet. She was going with Raymond Bonner who, now, was hovering about her more zealously than ever. She would have preferred to share this triumphant hour with—with—well, with someone older and more experienced and better able to understand. But she liked Raymond; once, long ago—a whole year ago—she'd had absurd dreams about him. Yet he was a nice boy; the nicest and most sought-after boy in the class. She was not unhappy at going off with him.
Father and mother walked home alone, communing together in that pride-tinged-with-sadness that must, at times, come to all parents.
Mother said:
“And to think I was so worried! That hat-making, and then that special spell of idle mooning over something-or-nothing, nearly drove me frantic.”
Father smiled through the darkness.
“I suppose, after all,” mother mused on, surreptitiously wiping those prideful eyes, “that there is something in Inspiration, and the dear child just had to wait till she got it, and that she doesn't know any more than we do where it came from.”
“No, I daresay she doesn't.” But sometimes father was more like a friend than a parent, and that faint, unnoted stress was the only sign he ever gave of what he knew about this Inspiration.
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