Zona Gale

“ Dwight Herbert, on the other hand, did not even play her games when he knew perfectly what she meant, but pretended not to understand, made her repeat, made her explain. It was as if Ina had to please him for, say, a living; but as for that dentist, he had to please nobody. In the conversations of Dwight and Ina you saw the historical home forming in clots in the fluid wash of the community.
"He'll fall in love with Di," said Ina.
"And what of that? Little daughter will have many a man fall in love with her, I should say." ”

“ Ina caught her lower lip with her teeth, dipped her head, and looked at Di. And Monona laughed like a little demon.
As soon as Lulu had all in readiness, and cold corned beef and salad had begun their orderly progression, Dwight became the immemorial dweller in green fastnesses. He began:
"This is ideal. I tell you, people don't half know life if they don't get out and eat in the open. It's better than any tonic at a dollar the bottle. Nature's tonic—eh? Free as the air. Look at that sky. See that water. Could anything be more pleasant?" ”

“ And whose disgrace is it, pray?"
"Ninian's," said Lulu.
"Ninian's! Well, he's gone. But you're here. And I'm here. Folks'll feel sorry for you. But the disgrace—that'd reflect on me. See?"
"But if we don't tell, what'll they think then?"
Said Dwight: "They'll think what they always think when a wife leaves her husband. They'll think you couldn't get along. That's all."
"I should hate that," said Lulu.
"Well, I should hate the other, let me tell you."
"Dwight, Dwight," said Ina. "Let's go in the house. I'm afraid they'll hear—"
As they rose, Mrs. Bett plucked at her returned daughter's sleeve. ”

“ Had not Lulu taught her to make buttonholes and to hem—oh, no! Lulu could not have heard properly.
"Everybody's got somebody to be nice to them," she thought now, sitting by the kitchen window, adult yet Cinderella.
She thought that some one would come for her. Her mother or even Ina. Perhaps they would send Monona. She waited at first hopefully, then resentfully. The grey rain wrapped the air.
"Nobody cares what becomes of me after they're fed," she thought, and derived an obscure satisfaction from her phrasing, and thought it again.
Ninian Deacon came into the kitchen. ”

“ Lulu now burned the slow red of her torture. They were all looking at her. She made an anguished effort to defend herself.
"I don't know it," she said, "so I can't say it."
Ninian leaned toward her.
"I, Ninian, take thee, Lulu, to be my wedded wife," he pronounced. "That's the way it goes!"
"Lulu daren't say it!" cried Dwight. He laughed so loudly that those at the near tables turned. And, from the fastness of her wifehood and motherhood, Ina laughed. Really, it was ridiculous to think of Lulu that way....
Ninian laughed too. "Course she don't dare say it," he challenged. ”

“ She wished to go, wished it with violence, but she contrived to give to her arbitrary refusal a quality of contempt. When Jenny arrived with Bobby, she had brought a sheaf of gladioli for Mrs. Bett, and took them to her in the kitchen, and as she laid the flowers beside her, the young girl stopped and kissed her. "You little darling!" cried Mrs. Bett, and clung to her, her lifted eyes lit by something intense and living. But when the ice cream party had set off at last, Mrs. Bett left her supper, gathered up the flowers, and crossed the lawn to the old cripple, Grandma Gates. ”

“ How much, Dwight?"
"Now isn't that like a woman. Isn't it?"
"I thought he was from a good family," said Ina.
"My mercenary little pussy!"
"Well," she said with a sigh, "I shouldn't be surprised if Di did really accept him. A young girl is awfully flattered when a good-looking older man pays her attention. Haven't you noticed that?"
Dwight informed her, with an air of immense abstraction, that he left all such matters to her. Being married to Dwight was like a perpetual rehearsal, with Dwight's self-importance for audience.
A few evenings later, Cornish brought up the music. ”

“ Warbleton was one of the prettiest little towns that he had ever seen. He liked the people—they seemed different. He was sure to like the place, already liked it. Lulu came to the door in Ninian's thin black-and-white gown. She shook hands with the stranger, not looking at him, and said, "Come to supper, all." Monona was already in her place, singing under-breath. Mrs. Bett, after hovering in the kitchen door, entered; but they forgot to introduce her.
"Where's Di?" asked Ina. "I declare that daughter of mine is never anywhere." ”

“ Can't we have a secret if we want one?"
"Upon my word," Dwight commented, "she has a beautiful secret. I don't know about your secrets, Lulu."
Every time that he did this, that fleet, lifted look of Lulu's seemed to bleed.
"I'm glad for my dinner," remarked Monona at last. "Please excuse me." On that they all rose. Lulu stayed in the kitchen and did her best to make her tasks indefinitely last. She had nearly finished when Di burst in.
"Aunt Lulu, Aunt Lulu!" she cried. "Come in there—come. I can't stand it. What am I going to do?"
"Di, dear," said Lulu. "Tell your mother—you must tell her." ”

“ Lulu said, twisting her smile.
"Why, my land, I love her," Mrs. Bett explained, "but she wiggles and chitters."
Cornish never made the slightest effort, at any time, to keep a straight face. The honest fellow now laughed loudly.
"Well!" Lulu thought. "He can't be so very much in love." And again she thought: "He doesn't know anything about the letter. He thinks Ninian got tired of me." Deep in her heart there abode her certainty that this was not so.
By some etiquette of consent, Mrs. Bett cleared the table and Lulu and Cornish went into the parlour. ”

“ For travel Lulu was again wearing Ina's linen duster—the old one.
Ninian appeared, in a sack coat—and his diamond. His distinctly convex face, its thick, rosy flesh, thick mouth and cleft chin gave Lulu once more that bold sense of looking—not at him, for then she was shy and averted her eyes—but at his photograph at which she could gaze as much as she would. She looked up at him openly, fell in step beside him. Was he not taking her to the city? Ina and Dwight themselves were going because she, Lulu, had brought about this party.
"Act as good as you look, Lulie," Mrs. Bett called after them. ”

“ Lulu was in a thin black and white gown which they had never seen, and wore the tilting hat with the red wing.
"Ninian bought me this," said Lulu only.
"But, Lulu, don't you think it might be better to keep, well—out of sight for a few days?" Ina's lifted look besought her.
"Why?" Lulu asked.
"Why set people wondering till we have to?"
"They don't have to wonder, far as I'm concerned," said Lulu, and went down the walk.
Ina looked at Dwight. "She never spoke to me like that in her life before," she said. ”

“ And instead of going to the parlour, she sat down by the kitchen window. She was in her chally gown, with her cameo pin and her string of coral.
Laughter from the parlour mingled with the laughter of Di and Jenny upstairs. Lulu was now rather shy of Di. A night or two before, coming home with "extra" cream, she had gone round to the side-door and had come full upon Di and Bobby, seated on the steps. And Di was saying:
"Well, if I marry you, you've simply got to be a great man. I could never marry just anybody. ”

“ In crossing the lobby in the hotel at Savannah, Georgia, Lulu's most pressing problem had been to know where to look. But now the idlers in the Hess House lobby did not exist. In time she found the door of the intensely rose-coloured reception room. There, in a fat, rose-coloured chair, beside a cataract of lace curtain, sat Di, alone.
Lulu entered. She had no idea what to say. When Di looked up, started up, frowned, Lulu felt as if she herself were the culprit. She said the first thing that occurred to her:
"I don't believe mamma'll like your taking her nice satchel." ”

“ She was proof against any shadow.
"Say, but you look tremendous to-night," Dwight observed to her.
Understanding perfectly that this was said to tease his wife, Lulu yet flushed with pleasure. She saw two women watching, and she thought: "They're feeling sorry for Ina—nobody talking to her." She laughed at everything that the men said. She passionately wanted to talk herself. "How many folks keep going past," she said, many times.
At length, having noted the details of all the clothes in range, Ina's isolation palled upon her and she set herself to take Ninian's attention. ”

“ What dignity in phrasing, but how mean that little room would look—cot bed, washbowl and pitcher, and little mirror—almost certainly a mirror with a wavy surface, almost certainly that.
"And then, you know," he always added, "I'm reading law."
The Plows had been asked in that evening. Bobby was there. They were, Dwight Herbert said, going to have a sing.
Di was to play. And Di was now embarked on the most difficult feat of her emotional life, the feat of remaining to Bobby Larkin the lure, the beloved lure, the while to Cornish she instinctively played the rôle of womanly little girl. ”

“ Bobby was, in fact, hardly less than glum. It was Dwight, the irrepressible fellow, who kept the talk going. And it was no less than deft, his continuously displayed ability playfully to pierce Lulu. Some one had "married at the drop of the hat. You know the kind of girl?" And some one "made up a likely story to soothe her own pride—you know how they do that?"
"Well," said Ina, "my part, I think the most awful thing is to have somebody one loves keep secrets from one. No wonder folks get crabbed and spiteful with such treatment."
"Mamma!" Monona shouted from her room. ”

“ Monona's look was honest and piteous.
"Makes no difference. You must eat or you'll get sick."
"No!"
"Very well, then. No ice cream soda for such a little girl."
Monona began to cry quietly. But she passed her plate. She ate, chewing high, and slowly.
"See? She can eat if she will eat," Ina said to Dwight. "The only trouble is, she will not take the time."
"She don't put her mind on her meals," Dwight Herbert diagnosed it. "Oh, bigger bites than that!" he encouraged his little daughter.
Di's mind had been proceeding along its own paths.
"Are you going to take Jenny and Bobby too?" she inquired. ”

“ Seventeen was late this morning—she'll be along, jerk of a lamb's tail."
"Then," said Lulu, "you got to give me a ticket to Millton, without me paying till after—and you got to lend me two dollars."
"Sure thing," said Lenny, with a manner of laying the entire railway system at her feet.
"Seventeen" would rather not have stopped at Warbleton, but Lenny's signal was law on the time card, and the magnificent yellow express slowed down for Lulu. Hatless and in her blue cotton gown, she climbed aboard.
Then her old inefficiency seized upon her. What was she going to do? Millton! ”

“ Cornish cried, and he kissed her.
"And now," said Dwight, "nobody must mind if I hurry a little wee bit. I've got something on."
He and Ina and Monona were at dinner. Mrs. Bett was in her room. Di was not there.
"Anything about Lulu?" Ina asked.
"Lulu?" Dwight stared. "Why should I have anything to do about Lulu?"
"Well, but, Dwight—we've got to do something."
"As I told you this morning," he observed, "we shall do nothing. Your sister is of age—I don't know about the sound mind, but she is certainly of age. If she chooses to go away, she is free to go where she will." ”

“ Dwight never read from a book at table.
"I wish----" said Lulu, as she looked at them. But she did not know what she wished. Certainly it was for no moral excellence, for she perceived none.
"What is it, Lulu?" Mr. Plow asked, and he was bright and quiet too, Lulu thought.
"Well," said Lulu, "it's not much. But I wanted Jenny to tell me about last night."
"Last night?"
"Yes. Would you----" Hesitation was her only way of apology. "Where did you go?" She turned to Jenny.
Jenny looked up in her clear and ardent fashion: "We went across the river and carried supper and then we came home." ”

“ Monona, you take Grandma Gates a baked apple—no. You shan't go till you drink your milk."
"I don't want it."
"Drink it or mamma won't let you go."
Monona drank it, made a piteous face, took the baked apple, ran.
"The apple isn't very good," said Ina, "but it shows my good will."
"Also," said Dwight, "it teaches Monona a life of thoughtfulness for others."
"That's what I always think," his Ina said.
"Can't you get mother to come out?" Dwight inquired.
"I had so much to do getting dinner onto the table, I didn't try," Ina confessed.
"You didn't have to try," Mrs. Bett's voice sounded. ”

“ Di missed this. She went on:
"I'm grown up. I feel just as grown up as they do. And I'm not allowed to do a thing I feel. I want to be away—I will be away!"
"I know about that part," Lulu said.
She now looked at Di with attention. Was it possible that Di was suffering in the air of that home as she herself suffered? She had not thought of that. There Di had seemed so young, so dependent, so—asquirm. Here, by herself, waiting for Bobby, in the Hess House at Millton, she was curiously adult. Would she be adult if she were let alone? ”

“ She might have said: "Small souls always make a point of that." She said nothing. She watched them set off, and kept her mind on Ina's thousand injunctions.
"Don't let Di see much of Bobby Larkin. And, Lulu—if it occurs to her to have Mr. Cornish come up to sing, of course you ask him. You might ask him to supper. And don't let mother overdo. And, Lulu, now do watch Monona's handkerchief—the child will never take a clean one if I'm not here to tell her...." ”

“ Would it be so awful to be away from Bert and Monona and Di—yes, and Ina, for twenty years?
"You think that?" he laughed. "A man don't know what he's like till he's roamed around on his own." He liked the sound of it. "Roamed around on his own," he repeated, and laughed again. "Course a woman don't know that."
"Why don't she?" asked Lulu. She balanced a pie on her hand and carved the crust. She was stupefied to hear her own question. "Why don't she?" ”

“ Beyond open doors, Mrs. Bett listened, sang, it may be, with them; for when the singers ceased, her voice might be heard still humming a loud closing bar.
"Well!" Cornish cried to Lulu; and then, in the formal village phrase: "You're quite a musician."
"Oh, no!" Lulu disclaimed it. She looked up, flushed, smiling. "I've never done this in front of anybody," she owned. "I don't know what Dwight and Ina'd say...." She drooped. ”