Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

“ Then Night came down like the feathery soot of a smoky lamp, and smutted [9] first the bedquilt, then the hearth-rug, then the window-seat, and then at last the great, stormy, faraway outside world. But sleep did not come. Oh, no! Nothing new came at all except that particularly wretched, itching type of insomnia which seems to rip away from one's body the whole kind, protecting skin and expose all the raw, ticklish fretwork of nerves to the mercy of a gritty blanket or a wrinkled sheet. Pain came too, in its most brutally high night-tide; and sweat, like the smother of furs in summer ”

“ And brains at their best are only a ploughed field teeming always and forever with the worries of incalculable harvests. Make me a little pretty, if you like, and a little wise, but not too much of either, if you value the verities of your Vision. There! I say: do your worst! Make me that face, and that face only, that you need the most in all this big, lonesome world: food for your heart, or fragrance for your nostrils. Only, one face or another—I insist upon having red hair!
"Molly." ”

“ More and more "Molly's" whimsical messages fed him and nourished him and joyously pleased him like some nonsensically fashioned candy-box that yet proved brimming full of real food for a real man. Fight as he would against it, he began to cherish a sense of furious annoyance that Cornelia's failure to provide for him had so thrust him out, as it were, to feed among strangers. With frowning per [86] plexity and real worry he felt the tingling, vivid consciousness of Molly's personality begin to permeate and impregnate his whole nature. ”

“ It's what we would 'like to be' that really tells most about us, isn't it, Carl Stanton? The brown that I have to wear talks loudly enough, for instance, about the color of my complexion, but the forbidden pink that I most crave whispers infinitely more intimately concerning the color of my spirit. And as to my Face—am I really obliged to have a face? Oh, no—o! 'Songs without words' are surely the only songs in the world that are packed to the last lilting note with utterly limitless meanings. ”

“ Then like a raging hot tide, the pain began in the soft, fleshy soles of his feet and mounted up inch by inch through the calves of his legs, through his aching thighs, through his tortured back, through his cringing neck, [18] till the whole reeking misery seemed to foam and froth in his brain in an utter frenzy of furious resentment. Again the day dragged by with maddening monotony and loneliness. Again the clock mocked him, and the postman shirked him, and the janitor forgot him. ”

“ Why how could I go to any sane person like Cornelia—and Cornelia is the most absolutely, hopelessly sane person you ever saw in your life—how could I go to anyone like that, and announce: 'Cornelia, if you find any perplexing change in [104] me during your absence—and your unconscious neglect—it is only that I have fallen quite madly in love with a person'—would you call it a person?—who doesn't even exist. Therefore for the sake of this 'person who doesn't exist', I ask to be released. ”

“ The next day and the next night were stale and mean and musty with a drizzling [23] winter rain. But the following morning crashed inconsiderately into the world's limp face like a snowball spiked with icicles. Gasping for breath and crunching for foothold the sidewalk people breasted the gritty cold. Puckered with chills and goose-flesh, the fireside people huddled and sneezed around their respective hearths. Shivering like the ague between his cotton-flannel blankets, Stanton's courage fairly raced the mercury in its downward course. ”

“ Great, heavy, jet-black curls caught back from her small piquant face by a blazing rhinestone fillet,—cheeks just a tiny bit over-tinted with rouge and excitement,—big, red-brown eyes packed full of high lights like a startled fawn's,—bold in the utter security of her masquerade, yet scared almost to death by the persistent underlying heart-thump of her unescapable self-consciousness,—altogether as tantalizing, altogether as unreal, as a vision out of the Arabian Nights, she stood there staring quizzically at Stanton. ”

“ With a sniff of amusement Stanton collapsed again into his pillows. For almost an hour then he lay considering solemnly whether a red-headed girl could possibly be pretty. By two o'clock he had finally visualized quite a striking, Juno-esque type of beauty with a figure about the regal height of Cornelia's, and blue eyes perhaps just a trifle hazier and more mischievous. ”

“ Fairly jumping from his chair the Doctor snatched hold of Stanton's shoulder.
"Who happen to love us most?" he repeated wildly. "Love us? us? For heaven's sake, who's loving you now?"
Utterly irrelevantly, Stanton brushed him aside, and began to rummage anxiously among the books on his table.
"Do you know much about Vermont?" he asked suddenly. "It's funny, but almost nobody seems to know anything about Vermont. ”

“ Thus quite utterly denied any nourishing Cornelia-flavored food for his thoughts, his hungry mind reverted very naturally to the tantalizing, evasive, sweetly spicy fragrance of the 'Molly' episode—before the really dreadful photograph of the unhappy spinster-lady had burst upon his blinking vision. ”

“ With a little chuckle of amusement not altogether devoid of a very definite consciousness of being teased, Stanton spread all the articles out on the bed-spread before him and tried to piece them together like the fragments of any other jig-saw puzzle. Was the young lady as intellec [57] tual as the Robert Browning poems suggested, or did she mean simply to imply that she wished she were? And did the tom-boyish sling-shot fit by any possible chance with the dainty, feminine scrap of domestic embroidery? ”

“ Nothing but Cornelia herself will ever make you want—Cornelia. But the other girl, the unknown girl—why she's the face in the clouds, she's the voice in the sea; she's the glow of the sunset; she's the hush of the June twilight! Every [120] summer breeze, every winter gale, will fan the embers! Every thumping, twittering, twanging pulse of an orchestra, every—. Oh, Stanton, I say, it isn't the ghost of the things that are dead that will ever come between you and Cornelia. There never yet was the ghost of any lost thing that couldn't be tamed into a purring household pet. ”

“ A Sense of Humor never faileth. But whether there be unpleasant prophecies they shall fail, whether there be scolding tongues they shall cease, whether there be unfortunate knowledge it shall vanish away. When I was a fault-finding child I spake as a fault-finding child, I understood as a fault-finding child,—but when I became a woman I put away fault-finding things. ”

“ Don't you know that the plainest sort of black ink throbs more than some blood—and the touch of the softest hand is a harsh caress compared to the touch of a reasonably shrewd pen? Here—now, I say—this very moment: Lift this letter of mine to your face, and swear—if you're honestly able to—that you can't smell the rose in my hair! A cinnamon rose, would you say—a yellow, flat-faced cinnamon rose? Not quite so lus [40] ciously fragrant as those in your grandmother's July garden? A trifle paler? Perceptibly cooler? ”

“ The little old lady's mind ignored the questions but clung a trifle nervously to the word Boston.
"Boston?" her sweet voice quavered. "Boston? Why you look so nice—surely you're not that mysterious man who has been annoying Mollie so dreadfully these past few days. I told her no good would ever come of her going to the city."
"Annoying Molly?" cried Stanton. "Annoying my Molly? I? Why, it's to [202] prevent anybody in the whole wide world from ever annoying her again about—anything, that I've come here now!" ”

“ Just at the edge of the threshold Cornelia's voice called him back.
"Carl," she protested, "you are looking rather sick. I hope you are going straight home."
"No, I'm not going straight home," said Stanton bluntly. "But here's hoping that the 'longest way round' will prove even yet the very shortest possible route to the particular home that, as yet, doesn't even exist. I'm going hunting, Cornelia, hunting for Molly Make-Believe; and what's more, I'm going to find her if it takes me all the rest of my natural life!" ”

“ Hannibal—Hezekiah—Hosea (Oh, Hell!) " Stolidly with unheedful, drooping ears the little fox-terrier resumed his seat on the rug. "Ichabod—Jabez—Joab," Stanton's voice persisted, experimentally. By nine o'clock, in all possible variations of accent and intonation, he had quite completely exhausted the alphabetical list as far as "K." and the little dog was blinking himself to sleep on the far side of the room. Something about the dog's nodding contentment started Stanton's mouth to yawning and for almost an hour he lay in the lovely, restful consciousness of being at least half asleep. ”

“ Yet when he tried to acknowledge and thereby cancel his personal sense of obligation to this "Molly" by writing an exceptionally civil note of appreciation to the Serial-Letter Co., the Serial-Letter Co. answered him tersely—
"Pray do not thank us for the jonquils,—blanket-wrapper, etc., etc. Surely they are merely presents from yourself to yourself. It is your money that bought them."
And when he had replied briefly, "Well, thank you for your brains, then!" the "company" had persisted with undue sharpness, "Don't thank us for our brains. Brains are our business." ”

“ Most men are! Really unless you catch a man very young [146] and keep him absolutely constantly by your side you cannot hope to walk even into his friendship—except across the heart of some other woman." Again she shivered and jingled a hundred merry little bangles. "But why?" she asked abruptly, "why, if you're engaged to be married, did you come and—buy love-letters of me? My love-letters are distinctly for lonely people," she added severely.
"How dared you—How dared you go into the love-letter business in the first place?" quizzed Stanton dryly. ”

“ I'm going to evolve myself into a sort of a Rheumatic Nights Entertainment—for the sole and explicit purpose of trying to while away some of your long, dark hours. Because if you've simply got to stay awake all night long and think—you might just as well be thinking about ME, Carl Stanton. ”

“ Every girl like Cornelia had to go South sometime between November and March
"Why Cornelia had to go South," he reasoned conscientiously. "Every girl like Cornelia had to go South sometime between November and March. How could any mere man even hope to keep rare, choice, exquisite creatures like that cooped up in a slushy, snowy New England [35] city—when all the bright, gorgeous, rose-blooming South was waiting for them with open arms? 'Open arms'! Apparently it was only 'climates' that were allowed any such privileges with girls like Cornelia. ”

“ Of course if you are very young and very prancy and reasonably good-looking, and still are tired of yourself, you can almost always rest yourself by going on the stage where—with a little rouge and a different colored wig, and a new nose, and skirts instead of trousers, or trousers instead of skirts, and age instead of youth, and badness instead of goodness—you can give your ego a perfectly limitless number of happy holidays. ”

“ In Cornelia's face the well-groomed expression showed sudden signs of immediate disorganization.
Snatching the circular out of his hand she read it hurriedly, once, twice, three times. Then kneeling cautiously down on the floor with all the dignity that characterized every movement of her body, she began to poke here and there into the contents of the suitcase. ”

“ Nothing but the dictionary seemed too big to throw. Finally with a grin that could not be disguised even from the dog, Stanton began to rummage with eye and hand through the intricate back pages of the dictionary.
"You silly little fool," he said. "Won't you mind unless you are spoken to by name?"
"Aaron—Abidel—Abel—Abiathar—" he began to read out with petulant curiosity, "Baldwin—Barachias—Bruno (Oh, hang!) Cadwallader—Cæsar—Caleb (What nonsense!) Ephraim—Erasmus (How could a girl be named anything like that!) Gabriel—Gerard—Gershom [64] (Imagine whistling a dog to the name of Gershom!) ”

“ With an "Ouch," of pain Stanton knocked the Doctor's hands away. "Burn up my letters?" he laughed. "Well, I guess not! I wouldn't even burn up the wall papers. I've had altogether too much fun out of them. And as for the books, the Browning, etc.—why hang it all, I've gotten awfully fond of those books!" Idly he picked up the South American volume and opened the fly-leaf for the Doctor to see. "Carl from his Molly," it said quite distinctly.
"Oh, yes," mumbled the Doctor. "It looks very pleasant. There's absolutely no denying that it looks very pleasant. ”

“ Long as your DREAM stays fine and fair,
Molly, Molly what do you care!'"
"Well, I'll wager that her name is 'Meredith' just the same," vowed Stanton, "and she's probably madder than scat to think that I hit it right."
Whether the daily overtures from the Serial-Letter Co. proved to be dogs or love-letters or hot-water bottles or funny old songs, it was reasonably evident that something unique was practically guaranteed to happen every single, individual night of the six weeks' subscription contract. ”

“ Gift me with Beauty if you like, or gift me with Brains, but do not make the crude masculine mistake of gifting me with both. Thought furrows faces you know, and after Adolescence only Inanity retains [53] its heavenly smoothness. Beauty even at its worst is a gorgeously perfect, flower-sprinkled lawn over which the most ordinary, every-day errands of life cannot cross without scarring. ”