Ethel Hueston

“ All my life I have lived in the crater of a volcano, and I have brought it upon you. It is a curse I carry with me. It is the chaos from which I have come, and to which I must go again when I leave you—it is that which destroys your peace.”
Frightened and astonished, Eveley soothed her, cradling her in her arms. “You little silly,” she said tenderly. “You dear little goose. Don’t you believe any such nonsense as that. We are in a condition of turmoil, our United States and all the rest of the world. It is not the affairs of your Mexico that worry me—it is the tempest in my own country. ”

“ There was one hour in the week when Doris felt she could lean back and sigh aloud in relief and contentment, with every member of her little family before her and mischief out of the question—the hour of the Sabbath morning worship. Father was in the pulpit, Rosalie was at her side in the choir loft—and Rosalie in the choir loft was a changed being, for some inner, inherent sense of fineness restrained the naughty fairies in her witching eyes for that one hour only. And down in the eighth pew to the right sat Treasure and Zee, very respectable, very reverent, very austere. ”

“ And her face was so bright, and her eyes so starry, that placid self-satisfied Fairy felt a twinge of something like envy.
"You look like a creature from another world, Prue," she said. "If Professor Rayburn has any sense in his bones, he will fall dead in love with you,—bugs or no bugs!"
"People do not have sense in their bones, Fairy, and—and—shall I say professor, or just plain Mister?"
"Professor, I suppose,—every one calls him professor."
"Then I shall say Mister," said Prudence. "It will be so hard to enjoy myself if I keep remembering that he teaches bugs! ”

“ One would have thought enough happiness had come to the health seekers for one day. Carol would have sworn she could not possibly be one little bit gladder than she had been before, with David sick, of course. And now came this! How David would love it. She looked at her husband, happily pottering around the engine, turning bolts and buttons as men will do, and she looked at Julia, proudly viewing her own physical beauties in the shining body of the car, and she looked at Connie with the charm and glory of the parsonage life clinging about her like a halo. ”

“ Even Carol smiled, not the serene sweet smile that melted hearts, but the grim hard smile of the joker when the tables are turned! She flattered herself that this wretched travesty on parsonage courtesy would be ended before there were any further witnesses to her downfall from her proud fine heights, but she was doomed to disappointment. Fairy, on the Averys' porch, had heard the serenade. After the first shock, and after the helpless laughter that followed, she bade her friends good night. ”

“ I really believe Mr. MacCammon likes you."
"Likes me! Ye gods, aren't some folks blind? I can always tell when men are stuck on me long before they can tell it themselves, but some folks are so slow. You are a stupid girl, Doris, I have no patience with you. Poor dear Mr. MacCammon and the bishop, too—both of them—I think it is downright reprehensible, to dangle a bishop and a psychological philosopher at the same time. I wouldn't do such a thing."
Doris glimmered softly, the old Doris struggling weakly but jubilantly back to her own again.
"Oh, Rosalie, don't talk about the bishop," she said. ”

“ Oh, not the dry, barren border country, but my Mexico, rich with jewels and gold, studded with magnificent cities, flowering with rare fruits and 222 spices, a mellow, golden, matchless land, peopled by those who are skilled in arts and science, lovers of beauty, and—Ah, you do not know Mexico. You know only the half-breed savages who run the borderland, preying on Mexican and American alike. You do not know the real Mexico of beautiful women, and brave and gallant men. ”

“ I can't imagine an existence without it. Going to bed, worn out with the day, rising in the morning ready to plunge in over one's ears. It is the only real life there is. How do people endure a drifting through the days, with never anything to do and never worn enough to sleep?"
"I don't know," said Carol promptly. "They aren't alive, that's sure. But let's go to bed. David, please get off that floor and stop coughing."
David obediently got up, lightly dusting his trousers as he did so. Then he lifted his arms high and breathed deeply. "Anyhow it is better to be tired than lazy, isn't it?" ”

“ Miss Allen was a young woman of twenty-six, with clear kind eyes and a strong sweet mouth. She had about her that charm of manner which can only be described as winsome womanliness. Prudence gazed at her with open and honest admiration. Such a young woman to be the principal of a high school in a city the size of Mount Mark! She must be tremendously clever. But Prudence did not sigh. We can't all be clever, you know. There must be some of us to admire the rest of us! ”

“ Could any such marriage be happy?”
“Well, Nolan,” said Miriam sadly, “I am not sure that any marriage can be happy, or was ever supposed to be. But women are such that they have to try it once. Eveley will be like all the rest. And if she has to try it, she had better try it with a million, than with eighteen hundred a year.”
“There is something in that, Miriam, certainly,” said Eveley thoughtfully. “What do you think, Eileen?”
“I think it is absurd. The notion that woman was born for marriage died long ago. Ridiculous! Woman is born for life, for service, for action, just as man is. ”

“ Fairy and the twins were only less sooty than Connie and the kitchen. The stove-pipe lay about them with that insufferable insolence known only to fallen stove-pipe. And Connie wept loudly, her tears making hideous trails upon her blackened face.
"I might have known it," Prudence thought, with sorrow. But her motherly pride vanished before her motherly solicitude, and Connie was soon quieted by her tender ministrations.
We love you, but we can't kiss you
"We love you, Aunt Grace," cried Carol earnestly, "but we can't kiss you." ”

“ Always as they climbed a long hill, Carol reminded them that they were climbing a sunny slope that would lead to a city of gold at the top, a city where everything was happy and bright, and there was no sickness, no sorrow, no want. And looking ahead to the spires of a little village, nestling cloudy and blue on the plains, she vowed it was a golden city, and they leaned forward to catch the first sparkle of the diamond-studded streets. ”

“ Then with intense solemnity, "I guess girls."
They laughed together, youthfully. "You are right," he said.
And with a sigh of relief, Prudence answered, "That's the first time I ever got a hundred in anything in my life. I was very much accustomed to eighties when I was in school. I am very common and unbrilliant," she assured him. "Fairy says you are perfectly horribly clever——"
She glanced up when she heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." ”

“ You are afraid of the world and the night, I am afraid only of men and women. I have lived alone, and have had wide dark gardens to wander in. They have never harmed me. Only men have injured me, and my family. So I love to slip down into the soft fragrant darkness of the canyon and sit on the big stones or on the velvet grass, and see my future in the shadows. ”

“ Aunt Grace smiled gently.
Connie frowned. "It's a risky business," she said. "Lark can't speak any more than a rabbit, and—"
"I know it," was the humble admission.
"Don't be a goose, Con," interrupted Carol. "Of course Lark can speak a piece. She must learn it, learn it, learn it, so she can rattle it off backwards with her eyes shut. Then even if she gets scared, she can go right on and folks won't know the difference. It gets to be a habit if you know it well enough. That's the whole secret. Of course she can speak."
"How did it happen?" inquired Fairy. ”

“ But isn't it a nuisance to have him tagging along home with me, when I might be having such a good time with you and the twins, or father? Can a girl tell a man she prefers to go home with her family, without hurting his feelings? Is there any way to turn a person down without letting him know it? He's so nice I wouldn't hurt his feelings for anything, but—it's such a bother! I'm too young for beaus, and since I'm never going to get married it's just a waste of time."
And Fairy screamed with laughter, but told Prudence she must solve her own love problems! ”

“ Julia, satisfied, returned to her canal, and Lark, with throbbing pity, patted Carol's arm.
"Do you know, Larkie, I think that death is life on the top of a sunny slope, clear up on the peak where it touches the sky. Such a big sunny slope that the canyons of shadow are miles and miles away, out of sight entirely. I believe that David is living right along on the top of a sunny slope." ”

“ Then her face grew bright and luminous as she said, “But there are those who are princes of sacrifice and love, risking all their world, their lives, their honor, for my Mexico. If there be any faith, it is in them. You call them bandits—Yes? I call them sons of God.”
Eveley changed the subject as quickly as she could. The bandits who had been driven desperately from crag to cranny, berated in the press, denounced in the pulpit, deprecated on the platform—were these the princes of Marie’s Mexico, the idols of their women’s hearts, the saviors of their faith, their hope of freedom? ”

“ For a time they gazed in silence, then they burst into laughter.
"Pie!" cried Fairy. "It's raspberry pie, coming out, Carol!"
The corners of Carol's lips twitched slightly, and it was with difficulty that she maintained her wounded regal bearing. But Lark, always quick to resent an indignity to this twin of her heart, turned upon them angrily.
"Fairy Starr! You are a wicked unfeeling thing! You sit there and laugh and talk about pie when Carol is sick and suffering—her lovely complexion all ruined, and it was the joy of my life, that complexion was. Papa,—why don't you do something?" ”

“ Such a way to introduce Etiquette into the parsonage life. She was glad to make her escape from the room when Fairy returned, a graceful figure in the fine blue silk! She went back to the dining-room, and painstakingly arranged the big tray for the designated moment of its entrance,—according to etiquette. Fairy and Babbie in the next room talked incessantly, laughing often and long, and Prudence, hearing, smiled in sympathy. She herself thought it would be altogether stupid to be shut up in a room alone with "just a man" for a whole evening,—but etiquette required it. ”

“ A shrill shriek sounded outside the tent,—a dangerous rustling in the sand, a crinkling of dead leaves in the corners of the steps, a ring, a roar, a wild tumult. Something whirled to the floor in David's room, papers rattled, curtains flapped, and there was a metallic patter on the uncarpeted floor of the tent. Carol gave an indistinct murmur of fear and burrowed beneath the covers. ”

“ Nolan laughed at that, but Eveley sat up very straight indeed and fairly glowered at her unconscious friend on the couch.
“You must have the soft and lovely things of life, and the way to get them is to marry them. Now, sweet, you take your twenty-five hundred, be manicured and massaged and shampooed until you are glowing with beauty, buy a lot of lovely clothes, trip around like a lady, dance and play, and meet men—men with money—and there you are. You can look like a million dollars on your 75 twenty-five hundred—and your looks will get you the million by marriage.” ”

“ The heavy yoke,—the yoke of dead routine,—dogs the footsteps of every minister, and even more, of every minister's wife. But Carol thought of the folks that fitted into the cogs of the routine to drive it round and round,—the teachers, the doctors' wives, the free-thinkers, the mothers, the professional women, the cynics, the pillars of the church,—and thinking of the folks, she forgot the routine. ”

“ They slouched, they smoked, they lounged, they leered. The churches knew them not. They were the slum element, the Bowery of Mount Mark, Iowa.
Prudence, in her day, had passed them by with a shy slight nod and a glance of tender pity. Fairy and Lark, and even Connie, sailed by with high heads and scornful eyes,—haughty, proud, icily removed. But Carol, by some weird and inexplicable fancy, treated them with sweet and gracious solicitude, quite friendly. ”

“ When you want vaudeville, I will incline to grand opera. When you would enjoy a movie, I shall have a musicale here at home. When you are in the midst of a novel, I shall insist on a three-handed game of bridge. When you are ready to shave, I shall need the hot water. When your appetite calls for corned beef and cabbage, my soul shall require lettuce sandwiches and iced tea. Not your duty, dear, by any means. I do not believe in duty. ”

“ The Misses Avery considered Prudence herself rather a sweet, silly little thing.
"You have some real nice people in the Methodist church," Miss Dora had told her. "I dare say you will find a few of them very likeable."
"Oh, I will like them all," said Prudence quickly and seriously.
"Like them all!" echoed Miss Dora. "Oh, impossible!"
"Not for us," said Prudence. "We are used to it, you know. We always like people."
"That is ridiculous," said Miss Dora. "It is absolutely impossible. One can't! Of course, as Christians, we must tolerate, and try to help every one. ”

“ Being born and bred in the ministry, Carol acquitted herself properly before the public eye. But once inside the guarding doors of the darling manse, secure from the condemning witness of even the least of the fold, she danced and sang and exulted as the very young, and very glad, must do to find expression.
Their first dinner in the manse was more of a social triumph than a culinary success. The coffee was nectar, though a trifle overboiled. The gravy was sweet as honey, but rather inclined to be lumpy. ”

“ It's very pretty as it is naturally,—plenty curly enough and—Oh, Fairy, I know Aunt Grace will love you," she cried ecstatically. "You look like a dream, you—"
"Yes, —a nightmare," said Carol snippily. "If I saw Fairy coming at me on a dark night I'd—"
"Papa, we'll miss the train!" Then as he came slowly down the stairs, she said to her sisters again, anxiously: "Oh, girls, do keep nice and clean, won't you? And be very sweet to Aunt Grace! It's so—awfully good of her—to come—and take care of us,—" Prudence's voice broke a little. The admission of another to the parsonage mothering hurt her. ”

“ I live with my aunt, a dear, motherly little old soul. She will adore you, Prudence, and you will like her, too. Would your father let you spend a week? We can easily drive back and forth in the car."
"Maybe he will,—but who will keep the parsonage while I am away?"
"Fairy, to be sure. She must be a good fairy once in a while. We can take the twins with us, Connie, too, if you like, and then Fairy will only have to mother your father. Do you like riding in a car?" ”

“ Marie cried, with a smart snap of her fingers. “They are dogs. They only help us for money, and they wish only to embroil the world in war. It is no love for us—but they are cheap—we buy them. When the time comes, we tramp them under our feet. Eveley, if you wish me, I will come.”
Then in a moment they were away, the car swinging dizzily down the steep grade rocking from side to side.
“How did you get Marie, Angelo—you angel?” asked Eveley, after a while. ”

“ But what should be done with Julia? David was so ill, Carol so weak, the baby so tender. Was it safe to keep her there? But could they let that little rosebud go?
"Why, I will just take her home with me," said Aunt Grace gently. "And we'll keep her until you are ready. Oh, it won't be a bit of trouble. We want her."
That settled it. The baby was to go.
"For once in my life I have made a sacrifice," said Carol grimly. "I think I must be improving. I have allowed myself to be hurt, and crushed, and torn to shreds, for the good of some one else. I certainly must be improving." ”

“ All the woman in your heart seems to be given to your sisters and your father, and— But you will waken, and I won't hurry you." Then he put his arms around her again, and whispered in her ear, "But I love you, Prudence, and—if some one else should do the awakening—it would hurt!" Then he kissed her, and went away.
But Prudence ran up-stairs, singing happily. "Oh, I feel like a caged-up bird that has broken loose," she cried to her reflection in the mirror jubilantly. "Oh, what fun it will be to come home from church with Fairy and the twins, the way I used to do!" ”

“ She can not be happy without him, and she was certainly not happy with him. It is only a choice of miseries. As long as she loves him, she will suffer for it. I begin to think that one who loves can not be happy.”
“Oh, yes, one can. One is,” asserted Eveley positively.
“Perhaps I should say, when one is married to it,” he added, with a sober smile for her assurance.
Then he had gone away, and when Lem’s pleadings had suddenly ceased, Eveley felt that the little tempest would live its life, and die its death, and perhaps Miriam at least would find happiness in the lull that followed. ”