April Hopes

by William Dean Howells

  XV.

  In the edge of the woods and the open spaces among the trees theblueberries grew larger and sweeter in the late Northern summer thana more southern sun seems to make them. They hung dense upon the lowbushes, and gave them their tint through the soft grey bloom that veiledtheir blue. Sweet-fern in patches broke their mass here and there, andexhaled its wild perfume to the foot or skirt brushing through it.

  "I don't think there's anything much prettier than these clusters; doyou, Miss Pasmer?" asked Mavering, as he lifted a bunch pendent from thelittle tree before he stripped it into the bowl he carried. "And see! itspoils the bloom to gather them." He held out a handful, and then tossedthem away. "It ought to be managed more aesthetically for anoccasion like this. I'll tell you what, Miss Pasmer: are you used toblueberrying?"

  "No," she said; "I don't know that I ever went blueberrying before.Why?" she asked.

  "Because, if you haven't, you wouldn't be very efficient perhaps, and soyou might resign yourself to sitting on that log and holding the berriesin your lap, while I pick them."

  "But what about the bowls, then?"

  "Oh, never mind them. I've got an idea. See here!" He clipped off abunch with his knife, and held it up before her, tilting it this wayand that. "Could anything be more graceful! My idea is to serve theblueberry on its native stem at this picnic. What do you think? Sugarwould profane it, and of course they've only got milk enough for thecoffee."

  "Delightful!" Alice arranged herself on the log, and made a lap for thebunch. He would not allow that the arrangement was perfect till he hadcushioned the seat and carpeted the ground for her feet with sweet-fern.

  "Now you're something like a wood-nymph," he laughed. "Only, wouldn't areal wood-nymph have an apron?" he asked, looking down at her dress.

  "Oh, it won't hurt the dress. You must begin now, or they'll be callingus."

  He was standing and gazing at her with a distracted enjoyment of herpose. "Oh yes, yes," he answered, coming to himself, and he set abouthis work.

  He might have got on faster if he had not come to her with nearly everybunch he cut at first, and when he began to deny himself this pleasurehe stopped to admire an idea of hers.

  "Well, that's charming--making them into bouquets."

  "Yes, isn't it?" she cried delightedly, holding a bunch of the berriesup at arm's-length to get the effect.

  "Ah, but you must have some of this fern and this tall grass to go withit. Why, it's sweet-grass--the sweet-grass of the Indian baskets!"

  "Is it?" She looked up at him. "And do you think that the mixture wouldbe better than the modest simplicity of the berries, with a few leavesof the same?"

  "No; you're right; it wouldn't," he said, throwing away his ferns. "Butyou'll want something to tie the stems with; you must use the grass." Heleft that with her, and went back to his bushes. He added, from beyonda little thicket, as if what he said were part of the subject, "I wasafraid you wouldn't like my skipping about there on the rocks, doing thecoloured uncle."

  "Like it?"

  "I mean--I--you thought it undignified--trivial--"

  She said, after a moment: "It was very funny; and people do all sorts ofthings at picnics. That's the pleasure of it, isn't it?"

  "Yes, it is; but I know you don't always like that kind of thing."

  "Do I seem so very severe?" she asked.

  "Oh no, not severe. I should be afraid of you if you were. I shouldn'thave dared to come to Campobello."

  He looked at her across the blueberry bushes. His gay speech meanteverything or nothing. She could parry it with a jest, and then it wouldmean nothing. She let her head droop over her work, and made no answer.

  "I wish you could have seen those fellows on the boat," said Mavering.

  "Hello, Mavering!" called the voice of John Munt, from another part ofthe woods.

  "Alice!--Miss Pasmer!" came that of Miss Anderson.

  He was going to answer, when he looked at Alice. "We'll let them see ifthey can find us," he said, and smiled.

  Alice said nothing at first; she smiled too. "You know more about thewoods than I do. I suppose if they keep looking--"

  "Oh yes." He came toward her with a mass of clusters which he hadclipped. "How fast you do them!" he said, standing and looking down ather. "I wish you'd let me come and make up the withes for you when youneed them."

  "No, I couldn't allow that on any account," she answered, twisting somestems of the grass together.

  "Well, will you let me hold the bunches while you tie them; or tie themwhen you hold them?"

  "No."

  "This once, then?"

  "This once, perhaps."

  "How little you let me do for you!" he sighed.

  "That gives you a chance to do more for other people," she answered;and then she dropped her eyes, as if she had been surprised intothat answer. She made haste to add: "That's what makes you so popularwith--everybody!"

  "Ah, but I'd rather be popular with somebody!"

  He laughed, and then they both laughed together consciously; and stillnothing or everything had been said. A little silly silence followed,and he said, for escape from it, "I never saw such berries before, evenin September, on the top of Ponkwasset."

  "Why, is it a mountain?" she asked. "I thought it was a--falls."

  "It's both," he said.

  "I suppose it's very beautiful, isn't it! All America seems so lovely,so large."

  "It's pretty in the summer. I don't know that I shall like it there inthe winter if I conclude to--Did your--did Mrs. Pasmer tell you what myfather wants me to do?"

  "About going there to--manufacture?"

  Mavering nodded. "He's given me three weeks to decide whether I wouldlike to do that or go in for law. That's what I came up here for."

  There was a little pause. She bent her head down over the clusters shewas grouping. "Is the light of Campobello particularly good on suchquestions?" she asked.

  "I don't mean that exactly, but I wish you could help me to someconclusion."

  "Yes; why not?"

  "It's the first time I've ever had a business question referred to me."

  "Well, then, you can bring a perfectly fresh mind to it."

  "Let me see," she said, affecting to consider. "It's really a veryimportant matter?"

  "It is to me."

  After a moment she looked up at him. "I should think that you wouldn'tmind living there if your business was there. I suppose it's being idlein places that makes them dull. I thought it was dull in London. Oneought to be glad--oughtn't he?--to live in any place where there'ssomething to do."

  "Well, that isn't the way people usually feel," said Mavering. "That'sthe kind of a place most of them fight shy of."

  Alice laughed with an undercurrent of protest, perhaps because she hadseen her parents' whole life, so far as she knew it, passed in this sortof struggle. "I mean that I hate my own life because there seems nothingfor me to do with it. I like to have people do something."

  "Do you really?" asked Mavering soberly, as if struck by the novelty ofthe idea.

  "Yes!" she said, with exaltation. "If I were a man--"

  He burst into a ringing laugh. "Oh no; don't!"

  "Why?" she demanded, with provisional indignation.

  "Because then there wouldn't be any Miss Pasmer."

  It seemed to Alice that this joking was rather an unwarranted liberty.Again she could not help joining in his light-heartedness; but shechecked herself so abruptly, and put on a look so austere, that he wasquelled by it.

  "I mean," he began--"that is to say--I mean that I don't understand whyladies are always saying that. I am sure they can do what they like, asit is."

  "Do you mean that everything is open to them now?" she asked,disentangling a cluster of the berries from those in her lap, andbeginning a fresh bunch.

  "Yes," said Mavering. "Something like that--yes. They can do anythingthey like. Lots of them do."

  "Oh yes, I know," said the girl. "But people don't like th
em to."

  "Why, what would you like to be?" he asked.

  She did not answer, but sorted over the clusters in her lap. "We've gotenough now, haven't we?" she said.

  "Oh, not half," he said. "But if you're tired you must let me make upsome of the bunches."

  "No, no! I want to do them all myself," she said, gesturing his offeredhands away, with a little nether appeal in her laughing refusal.

  "So as to feel that you've been of some use in the world?" he said,dropping contentedly on the ground near her, and watching her industry.

  "Do you think that would be very wrong?" she asked. "What made thatfriend of yours--Mr. Boardman--go into journalism?"

  "Oh, virtuous poverty. You're not thinking of becoming a newspaperwoman, Miss Pasmer!"

  "Why not?" She put the final cluster into the bunch in hand, and beganto wind a withe of sweet-grass around the stems. He dropped forward onhis knees to help her, and together they managed the knot. They wereboth flushed a little when it was tied, and were serious.

  "Why shouldn't one be a newspaper woman, if Harvard graduates are to bejournalists?"

  "Well, you know, only a certain kind are."

  "What kind?"

  "Well, not exactly what you'd call the gentlemanly sort."

  "I thought Mr. Boardman was a great friend of yours?"

  "He is. He is one of the best fellows in the world. But you must haveseen that he wasn't a swell."

  "I should think he'd be glad he was doing something at once. If I werea--" She stopped, and they laughed together. "I mean that I should hateto be so long getting ready to do something as men are."

  "Then you'd rather begin making wall-paper at once than studying law?"

  "Oh, I don't say that. I'm not competent to advise. But I should liketo feel that I was doing something. I suppose it's hereditary." Maveringstared a little. "One of my father's sisters has gone into a sisterhood.She's in England."

  "Is she a--Catholic?" asked Mavering.

  "She isn't a Roman Catholic."

  "Oh yes!" He dropped forward on his knees again to help her tie thebunch she had finished. It was not so easy as the first.

  "Oh, thank you!" she said, with unnecessary fervour.

  "But you shouldn't like to go into a sisterhood, I suppose?" saidMavering, ready to laugh.

  "Oh, I don't know. Why not?" She looked at him with a flying glance, anddropped her eyes.

  "Oh, no reason, if you have a fancy for that kind of thing."

  "That kind of thing?" repeated Alice severely.

  "Oh, I don't mean anything disrespectful to it," said Mavering, throwinghis anxiety off in the laugh he had been holding back. "And I beg yourpardon. But I don't suppose you're in earnest."

  "Oh no, I'm not in earnest," said the girl, letting her wrists fall uponher knees, and the clusters drop from her hands. "I'm not in earnestabout anything; that's the truth--that's the shame. Wouldn't you like,"she broke off, "to be a priest, and go round among these people up hereon their frozen islands in the winter?"

  "No," shouted Mavering, "I certainly shouldn't. I don't see how anybodystands it. Ponkwasset Falls is bad enough in the winter, and compared tothis region Ponkwasset Falls is a metropolis. I believe in getting allthe good you can out of the world you were born in--of course withouthurting anybody else." He stretched his legs out on the bed ofsweet-fern, where he had thrown himself, and rested his head on hishand lifted on his elbow. "I think this is what this place is fit for--apicnic; and I wish every one well out of it for nine months of theyear."

  "I don't," said the girl, with a passionate regret in her voice. "Itwould be heavenly here with--But you--no, you're different. You alwayswant to share your happiness."

  "I shouldn't call that happiness. But don't you?" asked Mavering.

  "No. I'm selfish."

  "You don't expect me to be believe that, I suppose."

  "Yes," she went on, "it must be selfishness. You don't believe I'm so,because you can't imagine it. But it's true. If I were to be happy, Ishould be very greedy about it; I couldn't endure to let any one elsehave a part in it. So it's best for me to be wretched, don't you see--togive myself up entirely to doing for others, and not expect any one todo anything for me; then I can be of some use in the world. That's why Ishould like to go into a sisterhood."

  Mavering treated it as the best kind of joke, and he was confirmed inthis view of it by her laughing with him, after a first glance of whathe thought mock piteousness.