Mary Ellen Chase

“ Mary Wescott was almost frightened as she sat on the boulder and looked at the crab-apple tree. She was vaguely fearful lest this sadness which its sudden beauty had made her feel would stay with her and lend an aching loveliness to other long-accustomed, perfectly familiar things. The years from thirteen on seemed all at once dim, perilous ways to her. If one were made to feel pain and sadness by things which had hitherto given only joy, how could one walk safely through the weeks and months to come? ”

“ The crocuses bloomed and withered; dandelions studded the roadsides; the seeds by the fence swelled and burst. Nathan was too much occupied with the more utili- tarian gardening to bother much about that in the front yard; but Mary Ann haunted the place like a troubled spirit. Every daring, twin-leafed weed that came from the earth made a queer clutch in her throat. At night she was prone to dream that the front yard was piled high with vegetables born of the soil and of Nathan's surprise packet. ”

“ And even in the midst of her grief, Virginia was happy—happy in the knowledge that she had gained a friend—a “real friend for always.” In the hard days that followed, when so few understood why it was that the merry girl from Wyoming had suddenly grown less merry, that friendship was a tower of strength to Virginia—giving her courage and happiness when she most needed both; and proving, as it has proven so many times, that there is no sweeter, finer influence in life than the mutual helpfulness born of a friendship between a teacher and one of “her girls.” ”

“ Then they came out-of-doors in the ever-deepening stillness to watch the moon rise over the blue shadowy mountains, and look down upon the mesa, upon the horses feeding some rods away among the 102 sagebrush, and upon them as they stood together a little distance from the cabin.
“Isn’t it still?” whispered Vivian, holding Virginia’s hand. “You can just hear the silence in your ears. I believe it’s louder than the creek!”
“I love it!” said Mary, unlocked doors all forgotten in a blessed, all-together feeling. “See the stars come out one by one. ”

“ As for Cynthia, she had been sure, ever since the day when she played the penitent pilgrim in the snow, that she wanted to study great literature and some day to unlock for others the door to the majesty of its presence. She had another dream, too. Even more than she wanted to show to others the beauty and magic of words, she longed to write them herself—words that should make one feel the calm arrogance of bright noons on high, treeless plains, words that should suggest the intimacy of those same plains, silver-mantled, at midnight. ”

“ Pedro looked back and whinnied. He realized at least that something was agitating his mistress. But half an hour since she had run out of the house to where he was feeding beneath the cottonwoods, and hurried him to the corral where she had saddled and bridled him herself. She had been crying then. Quick little sobs were shaking her shoulders. Then she had sprung upon his back and ridden like mad across the prairie to Elk Creek Valley. Had MacDuff been along, he would not have minded; but it was too warm at mid-day to gallop all alone. ”

“ Now, Anne, I’ve just one criticism. You’re going to learn to dismount all right; but if you’d only look less scared when you ride toward the Dauphin! You know you ought to look soulful, as though you were seeing a distant vision, but you don’t. You look frightened to death.”
“Then I look just the way I feel, Virginia. I’d rather ride an elephant than that Napoleon. I am scared of him, and I may as well admit it. He’s the most terrorizing animal I’ve ever known!” ”

“ The drifting petals of that spring brought a message to the Wescott village also, a message that made Father Wescott again walk up the street with his collar and tie in their rightful places. He looked old and stooped as he opened the white gate and went up the driveway in the drowsy, contented hum of bees and the sweet odor of apple blossoms in warm sunlight. ”

“ If the trout in the dark pool under the shadow of the quaking-asps had seen the performance that preceded the appearance of that fly and grasshopper, he never would have deigned to approach them. But his late afternoon nap had fortunately prevented, and now supper was before his very eyes. He darted for the grasshopper and securely seized it. Priscilla, standing motionless upon the bank, felt a tremor go through the rod in her hand, saw the tip bend, felt a frightful tug as the fish darted downstream. Something told her that her dream was realized—that she had at least hooked a fish! ”

“ Long after Priscilla’s breathing showed that she had forgotten indignation and all else, Virginia lay awake, choking back a great, obstinate lump of homesickness, which would rise in her throat. She longed for her father. He would understand as no one else could. She longed for Don, who would call Miss Green “an old prune.” Most of all she longed for her own big country, where, her poor injured heart told her, people didn’t look for impoliteness. And just this morning she had been so happy! ”

“ Though she mounted in the recesses of the forest, and could have all the assistance she needed, to ride before the audience, holding her spear aloft in one hand, and driving with the other was well-nigh impossible, especially when she longed to grasp the saddle-horn; and lastly, to dismount safely, without catching on some part of that fearful saddle and irretrievably loosening her armor, was an act she feared and dreaded day and night.
“Oh, why did I choose to be Joan!” she cried, as Virginia, at a private rehearsal, raised her from the ground after at least the twentieth attempt to dismount. ”

“ You see, Don, we had to do something! ’Twas necessary with Imogene influencing Dorothy and Vivian the way she did, and I’ve discovered that when a thing just has to be done, there’s always some one to do it. Oh, Don, see the wind blowing over the grain! It looks almost like the real sea from Priscilla’s house—all blue-green and wavy—only I love the prairie sea better. Won’t they all just love it? It’s such a big country! ”

“ They were shutting out all the people about her, her father, John, Roger, Cynthia, even Mary Christmas herself, the sunlight, the drifting petals of apple blossoms, and in their places were trying to show her Things which were not things at all. They were making her dimly aware that the sorrows in the world, the pitiful sufferings of the aged, the bewildering anguish of young people, the broken hearts of little children, are all a part of a great mantle of sorrow that encircles the whole wide earth in its dark, smothering folds. ”

“ We don’t have girls from Wyoming every day, do we, Mary? You like my room, Virginia?” For Virginia’s eyes were wandering about the room, charmed with everything.
“I just love it, Miss King,” she said, in her natural, unaffected way. “It makes me think of a sunny autumn afternoon at home. The walls are just the color of our brown foot-hills, and the yellow curtains against them are like the sunlight on the hills. ”

“ Wyoming, to be appreciated, should be explored on horseback and not viewed from the observation platform of a limited train. Barren stretches of sagebrush and cactus, and grim, ugly buttes guard too well the secret that golden wheat-fields lie beyond them; the rugged, far-away mountains never tell that their canyon-cut sides are clothed with timber and carpeted with a thousand flowers; and tired, dusty travelers, quite unaware of these things, find themselves actually longing for Nebraska to break the monotony! ”

“ An east wind swept the last petals from the orchard trees, and drove them through the misty air into the drenching grass. Cynthia, returning in the rain from an errand for her mother, brought in one which clung close to her wet, pink cheek. Watching the storm from the library windows, they talked of Mary Christmas. What was she thinking of as she followed the coast road beneath the lowering rain-filled clouds? Was it of Saint Gregory, or the great, dim church where she had been healed, or of Raphael and little Mary in Erzerum? ”

“ The weird, lonesome cry of the coyotes startled more than one sleeping Vigilante that night, and Vivian nestled closer beneath Aunt Nan’s protecting arm. It was not until the next morning when they started for home that they knew of the bear, who, smelling the ham and bacon, had wandered into camp, only to be repulsed by Malcolm and an extra log on the fire.
In that strange, just-before-dawn stillness Virginia awoke to miss Priscilla from her side. She moved the tent flap, and looked out. ”

“ In another moment Virginia was up and away, leaving Mr. Hanly, who was watching her, somewhat reassured in the doorway.
This was something like riding, she told herself, as she cantered along the country road. The black horse, though nothing like her own Pedro, was still a good horse. He could even singlefoot, and did not have the asthma.
She rode miles into the country beyond St. Helen’s. The afternoon was perfect—one of those autumn afternoons when the summer lingers, loath to go; when the leaves drift slowly down, and the air is filled with an unseen chorus ”

“ She would build a new house in place of the cabin, buy some more land, and make her ranch one of the best in all Wyoming!
The Vigilantes were in a new world as they listened—a world where the only capital necessary was ambition, enthusiasm, vigor! Something told them that this homesteading girl was richer in many things than they themselves; that the treasures of hard work were quite as precious as those of wealth; and that Jean MacDonald was finding for herself through her own untiring labor the things most worth-while. ”

“ Dorothy whispered, “she’s gone up to find that paper. Martha cleans this afternoon, you know, and Lucile wants to use that oration. I’ll bet I’m not asked for any thoughts to-night!”
“Oh, no, she won’t!” cried Virginia. “Dorothy, do you suppose she will?”
“You wait and see! Of course she will. Lucile’s queer. She doesn’t have any thoughts; and she can’t see when a thing is funny. Miss Wallace doesn’t have them read aloud, does she, Priscilla? Lucile especially asked that, and I told her she didn’t.” ”

“ The idea of anyone’s having lived in the Garden of Eden was quite too staggering. John particularly could not get things straight in his mind. Was Mary Christmas so old that, like the Garden of Eden, she was ageless? She who had seen the Tree of Life, was it not likely that she, too, had walked in the cool of the day with God and Adam and Eve? ”

“ Virginia stood on the porch and watched Vivian ride down the lane before returning to Cæsar. She was wondering if anything could be the matter, if, perhaps, something had happened at the barn-warming the evening before to displease Vivian. She had seemed so unlike herself all the morning.
But, she concluded wisely, few days were cloudless, and even an almost perfect house-party had its ups and downs. She and Donald had both discovered that. So many different personalities were bound to collide occasionally, and one couldn’t be happy always. ”

“ Virginia lost no time in tearing open the envelope and unfolding the paper within.
‘Dear Virginia,’ she read in a trembling voice to those who listened, ‘I know you’ll all think I’m sillier than ever, but I can’t stand being miserable any longer. You’ve all been good to me, especially you, and I’ll never, never, never forget it, so long as I live! You’re the best friend I ever had. (A sob from Dorothy.) But it is very hard to hate yourself every minute; and, besides, I can’t forget what Imogene said to me when she went away. ”

“ SHORT TWILIGHTS AND DRIFTING PETALS IT was just five years after Mary Wescott’s wedding that, following unprecedented events in Europe, blood did begin to flow in Erzerum, as in Mary Christmas’ dream beneath the sumachs. But it was not avenging blood; and in those awestruck days when the world was rudely shaken from its serenity, the horror of it was lessened in minds already jaded by atrocities. In the mind of Mary Christmas, however, it eclipsed all other catastrophes. ”

“ Virginia liked Carver, though she knew him far better now than she had ever dreamed she should. She liked him in spite of the tinge of snobbishness which would creep in now and then, try as he did to conceal it. She even liked him during the ten minutes he took to lace the thong when she could have done it in three.
It was growing dark when they at last swung into the easier, grass-grown trail of the lower mountains—dark and cold. ”

“ Dorothy’s room was in a sad state of upheaval, the Navajo rug, carefully spread on the floor, being the only sign of an attempt at settlement. Dorothy herself was curled up on the couch, deep in a magazine. Her room-mate had not returned she said, so why arrange things? Their ideas might not harmonize.
The room opposite their own, occupied by Imogene and Vivian, was settled in a most unsettled manner. Virginia thought as she entered that never in her life had she seen so many things in one room. ”