CHAPTER XVI.
THE GOLDEN LEAF OF HONOR
It was a compliment that changed the entire course of Mary's summer; acompliment which Betty gleefully repeated to her, imitating the oldColonel's very tone, as he gesticulated emphatically to Mr. Sherman:
"I tell you, Jack, she's the most remarkable child of her age I evermet. It is wonderful the information she has managed to pick up in thatGod-forsaken desert country. I say to you, sir, she can tell you as muchnow about scientific bee-culture as any naturalist you ever knew.Actually quoted Huber to me the other day, and Maeterlinck's 'Life ofthe Bee!' Think of a fourteen-year-old girl quoting Maeterlinck! Withthe proper direction in her reading, she need never see the inside of acollege, for her gift of observation amounts to a talent, and she has itin her to make herself not only an honor to her sex, but one of the mostinteresting women of her generation."
Mary looked up in blank amazement when Betty danced into the library,hat in hand, and repeated what the old Colonel had just said in herhearing. Compliments were rare in Mary's experience, and this one,coming from the scholarly old gentleman of whom she stood in awe,agitated her so much that three successive times she ran her needle intoher finger, instead of through the bead she was trying to impale on itspoint. The last time it pricked so sharply that she gave a nervous jerkand upset the entire box of beads on the floor.
"See how stuck-up that made me," she said, with an embarrassed laugh,shaking a tiny drop of blood from her finger before dropping on herknees to grope for the beads, which were rolling all over the polishedfloor. "It's so seldom I hear a compliment that I haven't learned totake them gracefully."
"Godmother is waiting in the carriage for me," said Betty, pinning onher hat as she spoke, "or I'd help you pick them up. I just hurried into tell you while it was fresh in my mind, and I could remember theexact words. I had no idea it would upset you so," she added,mischievously.
Left to herself, Mary soon gathered the beads back into the box andresumed her task. She was making a pair of moccasins for GirlieDinsmore's doll. Her conscience still troubled her for playing stork,and she had resolved to spend some of her abundant leisure in makingamends in this way. But only her fingers took up the same work that hadoccupied her before Betty's interruption. Her thoughts started off in anentirely different direction.
A most romantic little day-dream had been keeping pace with herbead-stringing. A day-dream through which walked a prince with eyes likeRob's and a voice like Phil's, and the wealth of a Croesus in hispockets. And he wrote sonnets to her and called her his ladye fair, andgave her not only one turquoise, but a bracelet-ful.
Now every vestige of sentiment was gone, and she was sitting up straightand eager, repeating the old Colonel's words. They were making herunspeakably happy. "She has it in her to make herself not only an honorto her sex, but one of the most interesting women of her generation.""To make herself an honor,"--why, that would be winning the third leafof the magic shamrock--the _golden_ one! Betty had said that shebelieved that every one who earned those first three leaves was sure tofind the fourth one waiting somewhere in the world. It wouldn't makeany difference then whether she was an old maid or not. She need not bedependent on any prince to bring her the diamond leaf, and that was agood thing, for down in her heart she had her doubts about one evercoming to her. She loved to make up foolish little day-dreams aboutthem, but it would be too late for him to come when she was agrandmother, and she wouldn't be beautiful till then, so she really hadno reason to expect one. It would be much safer for her to depend onherself, and earn the first three in plain, practical ways.
"To make herself an honor." The words repeated themselves again andagain, as she rapidly outlined an arrow-head on the tiny moccasin inamber and blue. Suddenly she threw down the needle and the bit of kidand sprang to her feet. "_I'll do it!_" she said aloud.
As she took a step forward, all a-tingle with a new ambition and a firmresolve, she came face to face with her reflection in one of thepolished glass doors of the bookcase. The intent eagerness of its gazeseemed to challenge her. She lifted her head as if the victory werealready won, and confronted the reflection squarely. "I'll do it!" shesaid, solemnly to the resolute eyes in the glass door. "You see if Idon't!"
Only that morning she had given a complacent glance to the long shelvesof fiction, with which she expected to while away the rest of thesummer. There would be other pleasant things, she knew, drives with Mrs.Sherman, long tramps with the girls, and many good times with EliseWalton; but there would still be left hours and hours for her to spendin the library, going from one to another of the famous novelists, likea bee in a flower garden.
"With the proper direction in her reading," the old Colonel had said,and Mary knew without telling that she would not find the properbeginning among the books of fiction. Instinctively she felt she mustturn to the volumes telling of real people and real achievements.Biographies, journals, lives, and letters of women who had been, as theColonel said, an honor to their sex and the most interesting of theirgeneration. She wished that she dared ask him to choose the first bookfor her, but she hadn't the courage to venture that far. So she chose atrandom.
"Lives of Famous Women" was the volume that happened to attract herfirst, a collection of short sketches. She took it from the shelf andglanced through it, scanning a page here and there, for she was a rapidreader. Then, finding that it bade fair to be entertaining, down shedropped on the rug, and began at the preface. Lunch stopped her forawhile, but, thoroughly interested, she carried the book up to her roomand immediately began to read again.
When she went down to the porch before dinner that evening, she did notsay to herself in so many words that maybe the Colonel would notice whatshe was reading, but it was with the hope that he would that she carriedthe book with her. He did notice, and commended her for it, but threwher into a flutter of confusion by asking her what similarity she hadnoticed in the lives of those women she was reading about.
It mortified her to be obliged to confess that she had not discoveredany, and she thought, as she nervously fingered the pages and lookeddown at her toes, "That's what I got for trying to appear smarter than Ireally am."
"This is what I meant," he began, in his didactic way. "Each of themmade a specialty of some one thing, and devoted all her energies toaccomplishing that purpose, whether it was the establishing of a salon,the discovery of a star, or the founding of a college. They hit thebull's-eye, because they aimed at no other spot on the target. I have nopatience with this modern way of a girl's taking up a dozen fads at atime. It makes her a jack-at-all-trades and a master of none."
The Colonel was growing eloquent on one of his favorite topics now, andpresently Mary found him giving her the very guidance she had longedfor. He was helping her to a choice. By the time dinner was announced,he had awakened two ambitions within her, although he was not consciousof the fact himself. One was to study the strange insect life of thedesert, in which she was already deeply interested, to unlock itstreasures, unearth its secrets, and add to the knowledge the world hadalready amassed, until she should become a recognized authority on thesubject. The other was to prove by her own achievements the truth ofsomething which the Colonel quoted from Emerson. It flattered her thathe should quote Emerson to her, a mere child, as if she were one of hispeers, and she wished that Joyce could have been there to hear it.
This was the sentence: "_If a man can write a better book, preach abetter sermon, or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbor, though hebuild his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten track to hisdoor_."
Mary did not yet know whether the desert would yield her the materialfor a book or a mouse-trap, but she determined that no matter what sheundertook, she would force the world to "make a beaten track to herdoor." The first step was to find out how much had already beendiscovered by the great naturalists who had gone before her, in orderthat she might take a step beyond them. With that in view, she plungedinto the course of study that the Colonel
outlined for her with the sameenergy and dogged determination which made her a successful killer ofsnakes.
Lloyd came upon her the third morning after the breaking up of thehouse-party, sitting in the middle of the library floor, surrounded byencyclopaedias and natural histories. She was verifying in the books allthat she had learned by herself in the desert of the habits of trap-doorspiders, and she was so absorbed in her task that she did not look up.
Lloyd slipped out of the room without disturbing her, wishing she couldplunge into some study as absorbing,--something that would take hermind from the thoughts which had nagged her like a persistent mosquitofor the last few days. She knew that she had done nothing to giveBernice just cause for taking offence, and it hurt her to bemisunderstood.
"If it were anything else," she mused, as she strolled up and down underthe locusts, "I could go to her and explain. But explanation isimpossible in a case of this kind. It would sound too conceited foranything for me to tell her what I know to be the truth about Malcolm'sattentions to her, and as for the othah--" she shrugged her shoulders."It would be hopeless to try that. Oh, if I could only talk it ovah withmothah or Papa Jack!" she sighed.
But they had gone away immediately after the house-party, for a week'souting in the Tennessee mountains. She could have gone to hergrandfather for advice on most questions, but this was too intangiblefor her to explain to him. Betty, too, was as much puzzled as herself.
"I declare," she said, when appealed to, "I don't know what to tell you,Lloyd. It's going to be such a dull summer with everybody gone, and AlexShelby is so nice in every way, it does seem unfair for you to have toput such a desirable companionship from you just on account of anothergirl's jealousy. On the other hand, Bernice is an old playmate, and youcan't very well ignore the claims of such a long-time friendship. Shehas misjudged and misrepresented you, and the opportunity is yours, ifyou will take it, to show her how mistaken she is in your character."
Now, as Lloyd reached the end of the avenue and stopped in front of thegate, her face brightened. Katie Mallard was hurrying down the railroadtrack, waving her parasol to attract her attention.
"I can't come in," she called, as she came within speaking distance."I'm out delivering the most informal of invitations to the mostinformal of garden-parties to-morrow afternoon. I want you and Betty tohelp receive."
"Who else is going to help?" asked Lloyd, when she had cordiallyaccepted the invitation for herself and Betty.
"Nobody. I had intended to have Bernice Howe, and went up there awhileago to ask her. She said maybe she'd come, but she certainly wouldn'thelp receive if you were going to. She's dreadfully down on you, Lloyd."
"Yes, I know it. I've heard some of the catty things she said about mybreaking up the friendship between her and Malcolm. It's simply absurd,and it makes me so boiling mad every time I think about it that I feellike a smouldering volcano. There aren't any words strong enough torelieve my mind. I'd like to thundah and lighten at her."
"Yes, it is absurd," agreed Katie. "I told her so too. I told her thatMalcolm always had thought more of you than any girl in the Valley, andalways would. And she said, well, you had no 'auld lang syne' claim onAlex, and that if he once got started to going to Locust you'd soon havehim under your thumb as you do every one else, and that would be the endof the affair for her."
"As if I were an old spidah, weaving webs for everybody that comesalong!" cried Lloyd, indignantly. "She's no right to talk that way."
"I think it's because she really cares so much, and not that she does itto be spiteful," said Katie. "She hasn't a bit of pride about hiding herfeeling for him. She openly cried about it while she was talking to me."
"What do you think I ought to do?" asked Lloyd, with a troubled face. "Ilike Mistah Shelby evah so much, and I'd like to be nice to him for theold doctah's sake if for no othah reason, for I'm devoted to _him_. AndI really would enjoy seeing him often, especially now when everybodyelse is gone or going for the rest of the summah. Besides, he'd think itmighty queah for me to write to him not to come next Thursday. But I'dhate to really interfere with Bernice's happiness, if it has grown to besuch a serious affair with her that she can cry about it. I'd hate tohave her going through the rest of her life thinking that I haddeliberately wronged her, and if she's breaking her heart ovah it"--shestopped abruptly.
"Oh, I don't see that you have any call to do the grand renouncing act!"exclaimed Katie. "Why should you cut yourself off from a good time and agood friend by snubbing him? It will put you in a very unpleasant light,for you couldn't explain without making Bernice appear a perfect ninny.And if you don't explain, what will he think of you? Let me tell you, itis more than she would do for you if you were in her place. Somehow,with us girls, life seems like a game of 'Hold fast all I give you.'What falls into your hands is yours by right of the game, and you've nocall to hand it over to the next girl because she whimpers that shewants to be 'it.' Don't you worry. Go on and have a good time."
With that parting advice Katie hurried away, and Lloyd was left to paceup and down the avenue more undecided than before. It was late in theafternoon of the next day when she finally found the answer to herquestion. She had been wandering around the drawing-room, glancing intoa book here, rearranging a vase of flowers there, turning over the pileof music on the piano, striking aimless chords on the harp-strings.
Presently she paused in front of the mantel to lift the lid from therose-jar and let its prisoned sweetness escape into the room. As she didso she glanced up into the eyes of the portrait above her. With awhimsical smile she thought of the times before when she had come to itfor counsel, and the question half-formed itself on her lips: "Whatwould _you_ do, you beautiful Grandmother Amanthis?"
Instantly there came into her mind the memory of a winter day when shehad stood there in the firelight before it, stirred to the depths by themusic this one of "the choir invisible" had made of her life, by herpurpose to "ease the burden of the world"--"to live in scorn ofmiserable aims that end with self."
Now like an audible reply to her question the eyes of the portraitseemed to repeat that last sentence to her: "_To live in scorn ofmiserable aims that end with self!_"
For a moment she stood irresolute, then dropping the lid on the rose-jaragain, she crossed over into the next room and sat down beside thelibrary table. It was no easy task to write the note she had decided tosend. Five different times she got half-way through, tore the page intwo and tossed it into the waste-basket. Each attempt seemed so stiffand formal that she was disgusted with it. Nearly an hour passed in theeffort. She could not write the real reason for breaking her engagementfor the ride, and she could not express too much regret, or he wouldmake other occasions she would have to refuse, if she followed out thecourse she had decided upon, to give Bernice no further occasion forjealousy. It was the most difficult piece of composition she had everattempted, and she was far from pleased with the stiff little note whichshe finally slipped into its envelope.
"It will have to do," she sighed, wearily, "but I know he will think Iam snippy and rude, and I can't beah for him to have that opinion ofme."
In the very act of sealing the envelope she hesitated again with Katie'swords repeating themselves in her ears: "It's more than she would dofor you, if you were in her place."
While she hesitated there came a familiar whistle from somewhere in theback of the house. She gave the old call in answer, and the next momentRob came through the dining-room into the hall, and paused in thelibrary door.
"I've made my farewells to the rest of the family," he announced,abruptly. "I met Betty and Mary down in the orchard as I cut across lotsfrom home. Now I've got about five minutes to devote to the last sadrites with you."
"Yes, we're going on the next train," he answered, when her amazedquestion stopped him. "The family sprung the surprise on me just alittle while ago. It seems the doctor thought grandfather ought to go atonce, so they've hurried up arrangements, and we'll be off in a fewhours, two days ahead
of the date they first set."
Startled by the abruptness of his announcement, Lloyd almost dropped thehot sealing-wax on her fingers instead of the envelope. His haste seemedto communicate itself to her, for, springing up, she stood with one handpressing her little signet ring into the wax, while the other reachedfor the stamp-box.
"I'll be through in half a second," she said. "This lettah should havegone off yestahday. If you will post it on the train for me it will savetime and get there soonah."
"All right," he answered. "Come on and walk down to the gate with me,and we'll stop at the measuring-tree. We can't let the old custom go bywhen we've kept it up so many years, and I won't be back again thisvacation."
Swinging the letter back and forth to make sure that the ink was dry,she walked along beside him. "Oh, I wish you weren't going away!" sheexclaimed, forlornly. "It's going to be dreadfully stupid the rest ofthe summah."
They reached the measuring-tree, and taking out his knife andpocket-rule, Rob passed his fingers over the notches which stood for themany years they had measured their heights against the old locust. Thenhe held out the rule and waited for her to take her place under it, withher back against the tree.
"What a long way you've stretched up between six and seventeen," hesaid. "This'll be about the last time we'll need to go through thisceremony, for I've reached my top notch, and probably you have too."
"Wait!" she exclaimed, stooping to pick something out of the grass ather feet. "Heah's anothah foah-leaved clovah. I find one neahly everytime I come down this side of the avenue. I'm making a collection ofthem. When I get enough, maybe I'll make a photograph-frame of them."
"Then you ought to put your own picture in it, for you're certainly theluckiest person for finding them I ever heard of. I'm going to carve oneon the tree, here by this last notch under the date. It will be quiteneat and symbolical, don't you think? A sort of 'when this you seeremember me' hieroglyphic. It will remind you of the long discussionswe've had on the subject since we read 'Abdallah' together."
He dug away in silence for a moment, then said, "It's queer how youhappened to find that just now, for last night I came across a verseabout one, that made me think of you, and I learned it on purpose to sayto you--sort of a farewell wish, you know."
"Spouting poetry is a new accomplishment for you, Bobby," said Lloyd,teasingly. "I certainly want to hear it. Go on."
She looked down to thrust the stem of the clover through the silverarrow that fastened her belt, and waited with an expectant smile tohear what Limerick or nonsense jingle he had found that made him thinkof her. It was neither. With eyes fixed on the little symbol he wasoutlining on the bark of the tree, he recited as if he were reading thewords from it:
"Love, be true to her; Life, be dear to her; Health, stay close to her; Joy, draw near to her; Fortune, find what your gifts Can do for her. Search your treasure-house Through and through for her. Follow her steps The wide world over; You must! for here is The four-leaved clover."
"Why, Rob, that is _lovely_!" she exclaimed, looking up at him,surprised and pleased. "I'm glad you put that clovah on the tree, forevery time I look at it, it will remind me of yoah wish, and--"
The letter she had been carrying fluttered to the ground. He stooped topick it up and return it to her.
"That's the lettah you are to mail for me," she said, giving it back tohim. "Don't forget it, for it's impawtant."
The address was uppermost, in her clear, plain hand, and she held ittoward him, so that he saw she intended him to read it.
"Hm! Writing to Alex Shelby, are you?" he said, with his usual brotherlyfrankness, and a sniff that plainly showed his disapproval.
"It's just a note to tell him that I can't ride with him Thursday," sheanswered, turning away.
"Did you tell him the reason?" he demanded, continuing to dig into thetree.
"Of co'se not! How could I without making Bernice appeah ridiculous?"
"But what will he think of you, if you don't?"
"Oh, I don't know! I've worried ovah it until I'm neahly gray."
Then she looked up, wondering at his silence and the grave intentnesswith which he was regarding her.
"Oh, Rob, don't tell me, aftah all, that you think it was silly of me! Ithought you'd like it! It was only the friendly thing to do, wasn't it?"
He gave a final dig with his knife, then turned to look down into herwistful eyes. "Lloyd Sherman," he said, slowly, "you're one girl whosefriendship means something. You don't measure up very high on this oldlocust, but when it comes to doing the square thing--when it's aquestion of _honor_, you measure up like a man!"
Somehow the unwonted tenderness of his tone, the grave approval of hissmile, touched her in a way she had not believed possible. The tearssprang to her eyes. There was a little tremor in her voice that shetried to hide with a laugh.
"Oh, Rob! I'm so glad! Nothing could make me happier than to have youthink that!"
They started on down to the gate together. The only sound in all thelate afternoon sunshine was the soft rustling of the leaves overhead.How many times the old locusts had watched their yearly partings! Asthey reached the gate, Rob balanced the letter on his palm an instant.Evidently he had been thinking of it all the way. "Yes," he said, as ifto himself, "that proves a right to the third leaf." Then he dropped theletter in his pocket.
Lloyd looked up, almost shyly. "Rob, I want to tell you something. Evenafter that letter was written I was tempted not to send it. I wassitting with it in my hand, hesitating, when I heard yoah whistle in thehall, and then it came ovah me like a flash, all you'd said, both injest and earnest, about friendship and what it should count for. Well,it was the old test, like jumping off the roof and climbing thechimney. I used to say 'Bobby expects it of me, so I'll do it or die.'It was that way this time. So if I have found the third leaf, Rob, itwas _you_ who showed me where to look for it."
Then it was that the old locusts, watching and nodding overhead, sent along whispering sigh from one to another. They knew now that the twochildren who had romped and raced in their shadows, who had laughed andsung around their feet through so many summers, were outgrowing thatchildhood at last. For the boy, instead of answering "Oh, pshaw!" inbluff, boyish fashion, as he would have done in other summers gone,impulsively thrust out his hands to clasp both of hers.
That was their good-by. Then the Little Colonel, tall and slender likeElaine, the Lily Maid, turned and walked back toward the house. She wasso happy in the thought that she had found the golden leaf, that she didnot think to look behind her, so she did not see what the locustssaw--Rob standing there watching her, till she passed out of sightbetween the white pillars. But the grim old family sentinels, who werealways watching, nodded knowingly and went on whispering together.
THE END.
The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor Page 19