CRIMSON MOUNTAIN

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Thank you.

  With a great deal of love,

  Rosalie Gray

  Laurel sank into her seat in dismay. Now what was she to do? It would not be hard work to call up the class and give them the proper message, but what was she to do herself?

  Then she heard the gong sounding for the opening of school, and the students came marching through the halls and turning into their various classrooms. Her own entered just then and took their places at their desks, and in a moment more the usual morning procedure began like clockwork. She had no time to think about her own problems, though occasionally the matter would come to her mind like a thorn in the flesh reminding of its presence.

  At morning recess time, Laurel drew a small piece of paper toward her while one of the other teachers was trying to explain how disagreeable old Miss Fenton had been to her when she told her that her niece would have to go back to the lower grade because she wouldn’t study and couldn’t keep up with her class. And when the other teacher had gone on to tell somebody else her troubles, Laurel looked at the paper and found she had written:

  POSSIBILITIES

  Tea Room?

  Hotel?

  YWCA (Is there one?)

  And what could she add to that meager list? Should she go to the principal and ask questions? Were there other boardinghouses in the neighborhood? Somebody would know. Yet she shrank from putting her predicament before any of the teachers. They would one and all set to work to turn heaven and earth for her. Insist on her coming home with them. And she didn’t want to do it. She wanted to be independent.

  Now what was she going to do? She didn’t want to ask anyone in the school about a boarding place because there were some foolish girls who were so crazy over her that they would demand that their parents take her in to board, and that might be very embarrassing. No, she had to work this thing out by herself.

  All morning as she went through her daily schedule, she was trying to think the problem through. Oh, if Phil Pilgrim were only here, he would find a right place for her. Ah, but she had God! She must put the matter all in his hands. Rest it there.

  So she prayed for guidance.

  At noon Laurel went to the telephone and called up the tearoom, asking if they had any vacant rooms, but again she found the tearoom vacancies were all filled. She asked if they knew any other places where there were rooms and was given a couple of addresses that might be possibilities.

  “There are so many new workers at the munitions plant, you know, that I’m afraid you’ll find it hard to locate any vacancies,” said the proprietress of the tearoom helpfully.

  She glanced at her poor little list and telephoned the hotel. Yes, they had a few rooms, fourth floor, no elevator. She got into her car and drove slowly by the hotel but was not impressed by the company who lolled around on the porch. Pilgrim had told her it was no place for her to go.

  She went to the post office and asked about a YWCA but was told there wasn’t any. Then on the way back, she eyed several tourist places, but somehow none of them appealed to her. What was she going to do? Was she too particular? Surely there must be some other boardinghouse that would be fairly cheap and comfortable.

  At her desk during a study period after lunchtime she wrote a brief letter to Phil Pilgrim, realizing that his letters must no longer go to Mrs. Price’s house.

  Dear Phil:

  This is just a hasty note to ask you to address any mail you may be sending to General Delivery till further notice. I am clearing out from my boarding place this afternoon and am not just sure yet where I am going. Will let you know the definite address as soon as I am sure that it is all right.

  The other place got too full of workmen for the new plant, and the women all left but one, so I thought I’d get out also. Those two acquaintances of mine were among the new arrivals, so I thought I’d better go before I had to meet them. Thus the haste.

  The schoolwork is going strong, and I like it.

  When do you have to move, and where? I wish you were here. I’d like to ask your advice about something.

  Yours as ever,

  Laurel

  This she would mail when school was out, and then she would go out and find someplace to stay that night. If worst came to worst she would go and ask Mark’s advice. That was an idea. Why not?

  So she got through her afternoon work calmly, excused herself from the attentions of her admiring pupils and a teacher who wanted to talk, and got out of her job.

  She mailed her letter and then started on a slow drive around the streets that would be most convenient to her work in case she found a boarding place.

  There were plenty of cozy little homes, but none to which she quite felt like applying. They seemed like private houses. They had no signs out for either boarders or lodgers. And then all at once she saw a meek, drab little figure walking along a side street, with a familiar slump to her shoulders and a familiar droop to her head. Was that Mrs. Frisbie? Perhaps she would know of a place.

  So she drove up to her and called, “Mrs. Frisbie! Is that you? I wonder if you can help me. You’ve left the boardinghouse, haven’t you? So have I.”

  “Oh,” said the quiet woman lifting those very sad eyes of hers admiringly to the girl. “Yes, I’ve left. She doubled my board, and I couldn’t afford it any longer. I wouldn’t have stayed that long if it hadn’t been cheaper than anywhere I knew then. What’s the matter? Did she raise your board, too?”

  “No,” laughed Laurel, “but some men came into the hall opposite my door last night and raised a terrible rumpus because they couldn’t have my room. They wanted two rooms together. And when I heard you had left, I decided that it was a men’s boardinghouse and I’d better find someplace where there were more women. But it seems it isn’t so easy to do that now that the munitions plant is here.”

  “No,” said Mrs. Frisbie, “I guess not. Everybody’s taking in boarders, and the men are arriving fast now. I understand there’s to be a hundred more come in this afternoon to work on that plant. They’re trying to get it in shape to produce as soon as possible. And you haven’t any place to go? Why, that’s too bad. I should think the school might look after you somehow. There’ll be somebody glad to get you. But that doesn’t look after you tonight, does it? Well, yes, I do know of one room in the house where I am, but it’s not a fancy place. Everything is very plain and homely, and they’re plain people. They’re good as gold, but they’re not your class of people.”

  “Oh, my dear!” said Laurel aghast. “Please, please don’t think I’m high hat. I’m only too grateful to know of a respectable place, and I’m sure anything that is good enough for you is good enough for me. At least for a few days till I can make sure I have found the most convenient place for me. Where is it, Mrs. Frisbie? Is it near here?”

  “Why, it’s about three blocks away. You turn up that corner—” The shabby gray glove pointed ahead.

  “Were you on your way there, Mrs. Frisbie?”

  “Why, yes. I came home early from my work today to get my room in order.”

  “Well, won’t you get in and ride with me?”

  “Oh, thank you!” Mrs. Frisbie? climbed in to the welcoming door that Laurel swung open. “That’s kind of you. I was a little tired. I got up pretty early this morning to get my things out for the grocery boy to take for me. I didn’t have so many, but I couldn’t carry them all, and Mrs. Price said if I didn’t get them out by eight o’clock she’d have to charge me for another week.”

  “The old skinflint!” said Laurel indignantly. “Well, Mrs. Frisbie, I guess you and I are in the same boat. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she sent a lawyer around to see me to demand board for the whole winter.” She laughed lightly as she started her car, and Mrs. Frisbie? relaxed her shy, anxious face into an almost merry crinkle.

  It was a bald, old brick house standing stark and alone in a wide scrubby lot before which they presently pulled up. A dilapidated barn hovered nearby. There wasn’t a tree on the place,
and only a huddle of dirty withered leaves in the corners of the gaunt chimney that soared above the roof to show that autumn was swirling around in the neighborhood. The tired old window shutters had once been green, but now they were faded to a sickly, bluish, nondescript color that did deadly things to the dull red of the bricks. Some of the slats were out, giving the appearance of a blind dog with a bandage around one eye. One shutter was off its hinges lying on the ground, another with but one hinge sagged dismally, and still another had vanished entirely, but these were on the backside of the house, and Laurel did not see them. The old front porch had lost some of its underpinning and drooped unstably. There was a distinct hole in the tread of one of the front steps. The sickly honeysuckle that some brave householder had tried to train had lost every leaf, and the knobby pale stem on which they once grew clung with a frail tendril to a crevice in the chimney, waving forlornly back and forth in the wind. It wasn’t a cheerful-looking place, and Laurel’s heart sank as she took it in with a single glance.

  But it was getting dusky already, and she did not know where else to go, so she got out of the car and went in with Mrs. Frisbie.

  As she stood on the dilapidated steps, she turned and caught a glimpse in the dying light of old Crimson Mountain. Ah! She would not entirely miss that sight if she came here! It made her feel somewhat at home. Then the door opened, and there stood Nannie Gilbert, one of her own students, and she caught her breath. Nannie, a shy, sweet girl with plain, ugly dresses and never any of the trinkets and adornments that other girls seemed to manage no matter how poor. Her hair, straight and black and bobbed in an old-fashioned way, was unattractively held back by a black ribbon tied around her head, a ribbon that never seemed quite adequate for its duty and was continually letting down one straight lock in her right eye. Nannie Gilbert! So this was her background! No wonder she looked like that! Poor Nannie Gilbert!

  Nannie smiled shyly. “Why, it’s Miss Sheridan!” she gasped softly. “It’s wonderful to see you here! Come in, won’t you? But— there isn’t any nice place to take you!” She stopped short in the hall and glanced toward a door at the right that was closed, then went on. “You see—Mother’s fixing the parlor—into another room—to rent.”

  Her voice broke and seemed almost to fade away, but Laurel smiled and patted her shoulder. “Oh, that’s all right, Nannie. I don’t need to sit down. I just want to see your mother for a minute. Is she here?”

  “Yes, she’s here. I’ll call her,” and she vanished inside the door at the end of the hall, through which Mrs. Frisbie had also disappeared.

  Laurel found herself standing alone in a big empty hall whose floor was covered with badly worn oilcloth quite frayed at the edges, and she smothered a desire to giggle. This was such a funny place, and such a funny thing to happen to her! She turned about and looked out the open door. There before her in the light of a great red ball of fire stood Crimson Mountain, facing her clearly, with a halo of the last golden trees across its forehead. Dear old Crimson Mountain. Ah! She was not alone!

  Then she heard steps coming, and Mrs. Frisbie returned with a shy, tired-looking woman behind her.

  “Miss Sheridan, this is Mrs. Gilbert,” she said. “I told her you wanted to see if she had a room for the night, and perhaps longer if you didn’t find the place you wanted near to the school.”

  Mrs. Gilbert studied her, and then slowly her face lighted up as she met Laurel’s smile. “Sheridan!” she said. “Then you must be Nannie’s teacher?”

  “Yes,” said Laurel cordially. “But I didn’t know Nannie lived here when I came with Mrs. Frisbie. I’m very glad to know you. Nannie is a very sweet girl, and she works hard in school and is a great comfort. I’m very proud of her as a student.”

  “Well, she’s just crazy about you,” said the shy mother, blushing. “I’d be proud to have you in one of my rooms, only we’re not fixed up very fine. We haven’t got any very grand rooms. There’s a room in here. It was our parlor, but we’re thinking of making it over into a bedroom. It isn’t rightly done yet, but you can see it.”

  Mrs. Gilbert flung open the closed door by her side, and there stood the room, stark and almost empty, just a couple of chairs, a golden oak desk, an old-fashioned four-poster bed, the headboard and footboard standing up against the wall, the mattress and springs lying down on the floor. Over in one corner there was a high shelf with a row of hooks under it and a calico curtain tacked half across the front. An evident plan for a clothes closet.

  The dismay in Laurel’s face must have shown as she turned toward Mrs. Gilbert, still smiling bravely. “Oh! Is this—have you any other—?”

  “Yes, we have one other room. It’s up the stairs. It ain’t very big, but it’s close to the bathroom. Come right this way, and I’ll show you. Nannie, run see if that stew is burning and turn the gas a little lower till I get back,” Mrs. Gilbert stood aside and let her honored guest climb the stairs ahead of her.

  It wasn’t a very large room they led her to. Just the end of the wide hall partitioned off, a curtained corner closet, a cot, and a shelf in the other corner with a looking glass over it for a dressing table. Laurel had never seen such makeshifts for furniture. There was also a small rocker with a cushion made of a dark patchwork quilt. The whole thing touched her tremendously.

  Then she turned, and there was Crimson Mountain looking down at her more intimately than she had seen it yet. It was picked out sharply like an etching against a sky that had in these few minutes put on a clear veil of pale green, with little flecks of clouds, softly edged with light. And in this light, the building that had been going on during those hectic days stood out clearly, showing its progress, showing the outlines, the rough stonework, the brick walls, the piles of lumber, and the crude board scaffold. Then, as a tear came in a deep purple cloud, the sun, a dying ball of ruby like a jagged drop of blood, shot out and gave that fiery look to sky and mountain and the air about, then slowly, slowly dropped down behind old Crimson and was gone! Almost at once the dark came down and seemed to wrap about the mountain, like a hand wrapping up a precious package.

  Laurel turned back sharply to the waiting Gilberts as they stood gazing breathlessly, watching her. What did she think of their poor attempts at grandeur? Would she take it?

  But Laurel was struggling with a great emotion. The mountain had spoken to her, and it was her mountain. Hers and Phil Pilgrim’s—and God’s.

  “Yes,” she said with a huskiness in her voice, “I’ll take it. Yes, this one please! I like the view! I’m not sure for how long, but I’ll take it tonight, and we’ll talk about the rest tomorrow night, shall we?” she finished with her pleasant smile that made them all her abject slaves. “And now I’ll go down and get my things,” she said.

  Suddenly from the shadows behind her a figure developed.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll go down and help you,” said Sam Gilbert, Laurel’s young scapegrace of a student who could always provide an alibi for any difficulty he got tied up with. He accompanied her downstairs and out to her car, proudly walking ahead and waiting for her instructions when he reached the sidewalk.

  So Laurel’s luggage was transferred from her car to the second-storyhall bedroom. Laurel, turning back, carrying as many small articles as she could manage, and surrendering some of them to Nannie, who came down the walk to meet her, suddenly wondered why she had said she would stay in this forlorn-looking house. It would never have attracted her if the day had been fresh and she had been rested. But it was just that evening vision of the mountain that had decided her. She knew it now. Well, she didn’t have to stay here but one night if she didn’t want to. But if she had been hunting the town over for a place where Rainey and Winter would not be likely to find her, she could not have found a better place. They would never dream of her being in a place like this. Still, if Mrs. Frisbie said it was respectable, why might it not be all right? The house certainly looked clean inside, dismal as the outside had looked.

  Laurel placed her garme
nts, a few of them, under the calico curtain, got out the books she would need this evening and her writing materials, and made herself ready for supper, which she had been told would be at six o’clock sharp.

  And that supper came graciously up the stairs about ten minutes before six, in long, appetizing whiffs of browned gravy and onions, with a pleasant addition of baking apples and cinnamon. Laurel was hungry. Perhaps the supper would not be so bad. The meal was an interesting experience to the girl, who had never known much about hardworking poverty.

  The table was long and wide and a little bit rickety. As she sat down, she had the place of honor beside Mrs. Frisbie at Mrs. Gilbert’s right. There were small, coarse, clean napkins folded in triangles and a bunch of wizened marigolds in a glass in the center of the long table. Two generous plates of bread flanked the two ends of the table, and the main dish of the evening was the delicious-looking stew, which had not burned and had a most appetizing odor. It was brought to the table in an enormous platter and put in front of Mr. Gilbert, the bright yellow of its carrots, the white of its onions and potatoes, and the brown of its gravy making a pleasant blending of color.

  The dishes were cheap ironstone china, and the silver-plated rims had badly worn down to the base in some cases. The knife and fork and spoon that Laurel had were fairly bright and newer than the rest.

  Mr. Gilbert and the four men who worked with him, either on the farm or at the plant, came in with very clean hands, wet hair neatly combed, and unaccustomedly wearing coats.

  Laurel had never seen a meal like this, but somehow it intrigued her. So this was the background of those two young people to whom she would never have come close enough to understand if she had not come here!

  There were two small brothers younger than Sam, and a little girl. The children took the plates when the main part of the meal was concluded and brought in heaping plates of hot cinnamon buns and the baked apples with pitchers of cream. It wasn’t an elaborate meal, but it was well balanced and satisfying, and Laurel drew back her chair feeling that she had enjoyed that supper more than any meal she had eaten at Mrs. Price’s boardinghouse. Moreover, she was intensely thankful to be away from that house and not subject to constantly meeting those two young men she had known in the city.