Atlantic Narratives Part 20

'MayIgwoutandgettadrink?' she asked. And from the depths of the dressing-room, where she was sobbing into the heart of the roller towel, she could hear Charles, the usurper, yelling,--

'Harrisburg-on-the-Susquehanna!'

When Theodora felt able to return to society, the color which was usually in her cheeks seemed to have concentrated at the end of her nose, and her eyes looked sopping wet. Her intense little being, however, was all afire with determination to win the purple star.

II

At the end of the week, Theodora and Charles had each a pink, blue, yellow, green, and red star. So had several of the other children, for that matter, but Theodora well knew that these others would have an intellectual slump by the third or fourth week. She was right, for at the end of the month, the names of Theodora Bowles and Charles Augustus Starr, Junior, were the only ones that had a complete set of stars after them.

'Miss Prawl, now, about what kind of a deed would a person have to do, to get a purple star?' queried Charley, one day when he had stayed after school for the express purpose of extracting some inside information from Miss Prawl.

'That's just exactly what Theodora asked me yesterday,' said Miss Prawl.

'The trouble is, I shan't know, myself until the deed is done.'

'Miss Prawl, now, if I saved the President of the United States from a runaway horse that wanted to stamp on him, would that deed get me a purple star?'

'It might,' admitted Miss Prawl. 'That would be a brave, kind act.'

'If he would only move to Brooklyn, I might stand some show,' yearned Charles.

'Now, Miss Prawl,' began Theodora excitedly, the day after the Thanksgiving recess, 'if I discovered something that n.o.body had ever discovered before, would that be a purple-star deed?'

'It would depend upon the nature of your discovery, Theodora. Of course, while the world could not progress without discoveries, they are not primarily brave, or kind.'

'That's just the trouble,' sighed Theodora. But she still looked hopeful. 'Miss Prawl, now, would it be a purple-star deed, if I discovered that there was another sun up in the sky besides the one we are already using?'

'If you discovered anything as remarkable as that, Theodora, I should feel entirely justified in giving you a purple star,' replied Miss Prawl, reveling in Theodora's imagination. 'But you mustn't worry about it,' she advised. 'And you mustn't try too hard, dear.'

Theodora could hardly believe her ears. Dear! A schoolteacher had called her _dear_. How romantic she felt! She took her seat with such an expression of ecstasy on her face that Miss Prawl wondered what she could be thinking about now.

Although Miss Prawl had asked her not to try too hard, Theodora, under the impelling flattery of 'dear,' resolved that she would work more than ever to do something kindly brave or bravely kind. As there didn't seem to be any deeds of that sort lying round loose waiting to be done, Theodora worked up a bitter grudge against George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, who, before she was born, had taken a mean advantage of her by saving the country and freeing the slaves. Still, by thinking constantly of the purple star, and kind bravery, she hoped to keep in the proper frame of mind to recognize the great deed when it came along just aching to be done. Meanwhile, she practised brave kindness, by smiling lovingly and saying sweetly 'Good morning!' to the school janitor, who was a faithful, glowering old dog of a Scotchman--one of the few human beings who are impervious to blandishments. If any one ever spoke to him unnecessarily, this janitor fixed a murderous gaze on the offender, as if he would deeply relish killing him, if he weren't too busy mopping or washing blackboards. All those who were not practising bravery avoided him as much as possible.

It gets on one's nerves to try to live in perpetual exaltation, and Theodora was very often cross. Especially was she irritated at the sight of Charley Starr being driven home from school by a c.o.xcombical groom, in a large, gleaming, red-wheeled cart, drawn by a n.o.bby bob-tailed horse. Theodora herself lived just one block away from the school, and walked humbly to and from the halls of learning. She was not jealous of Charles, but he annoyed her, because he completely upset her theory that all very rich children were correspondingly stupid. Usually one could work out the law of compensation very pleasantly, and in a way that was extremely complimentary to one's self. The only way in which she could revenge herself on her wealthy, fortunate, scintillating rival was to call meetings of the See-A-Star Club on a certain street-corner past which Charley and his liveried groom invariably drove. And when Charles was conveyed by, self-consciously,--he hated the pomp and polish which his mother prided herself upon,--the See-A-Star Club raised eyes and right hands, and gave its ear-piercing, steam-whistle 'yell.'

Charles always blushed deeply, being much embarra.s.sed before the groom, and tried to wheedle Theodora into an explanation of her acts. She was, however, iron-heartedly uncommunicative, and continued her persecutions.

III

On a certain March afternoon, when it was snowing most unseasonably hard, and the children were drowsy and listless, Miss Prawl dismissed her cla.s.s early, with instructions to go straight home, and to change their shoes and stockings the minute they got there. On account of the deep, blinding snow, Theodora reluctantly called off the meeting of the See-A-Star Club, and as she plunged home through the biting icy flakes, she mused on the futility of even trying to get a purple star. There was no use in hoping to excel Charley Starr in the matter of ordinary stars, because he was always perfect. Neither he nor she had so far been absent or late, and neither had failed in anything. The only solution, therefore, was to invent some way of being more than perfect.

As the snow continued to fall all night, and was still coming down the next morning, Theodora, besides her usual wraps, wore a pair of shiny, unused rubber boots, a Christmas present from her grandmother, who had always worn rubber boots to school when _she_ was little, and thought that girls ought to now. With a somewhat lumbering gait, Theodora waded to school, and arrived just in time to see Charles Augustus Starr, Junior, being magnificently driven up in a regal sleigh with great accompanying jingling of bells, and waving in the wind of red and yellow plumes. Besides Charley and Theodora, very few of the cla.s.s were present; and as for chapel--well, it looked desolate and emptily bleak, instead of being hot and crowded as usual.

Miss Prawl went through the lessons rapidly, and at eleven o'clock, Mr.

Wadsmore put his head in the door, and said that school must be dismissed at once. There was a high gale, and the children were to go home as quickly as they could get there.

The next morning, the snowstorm had become a blizzard, a dangerous monster of a blizzard, in fact the one great historic blizzard--the blizzard of 1888. And the milkman left no milk at Theodora's house that morning. And the rooms were so dark that all the gas in the house had to be lit. And the ch.o.r.eman couldn't come to fix the furnace, and the fire went out. Everything was cold, shivery, and unreal. Outside, the great banks of snow were impenetrable. From the downstairs rooms, you couldn't have seen people on the other side of the street--supposing that there had been any people to see. A policeman went by on a floundering horse, but there were no wagons, and there was n.o.body walking--no red-faced jocose postman, no iceman, no sedate business men, no scurrying, scampering children.

As she pulled on her rubber boots, Theodora, who always planned to get to school before the doors were opened, decided to allow ten minutes extra that morning. At exactly half-past eight, the Scotch janitor always took down the big bar which held the double doors in place, and Theodora was invariably the first one in. It was not necessary for her to get there until ten minutes of nine, but she never ran the slightest risk of being tardy. In all her life, she had never been tardy or absent.

'Don't worry about me, mother, if I'm late to luncheon,' said Theodora, as she appeared in the dining-room door. 'It's so snowy that it will take me longer than usual.'

'Theodora, child,' remonstrated Mrs. Bowles, 'surely you don't think that I'm going to allow you to go to school?'

'Why, yes, mother,' said Theodora, with horrible misgiving none the less.

'You couldn't get there alive,' declared her mother. 'There's no one on the street. It would be positively suicidal.'

Theodora began with tears, and just the usual methods of teasing; then, finding these trusty old friends unavailing, she launched forth into impromptu diplomatic schemes for extracting a 'yes.' She tried to trap her mother by means of a system of cross-questioning, and she endeavored to weary her, until she should impatiently exclaim, 'Oh, for mercy's sake, _go_!'

But her mother, for once, was relentless. Her father had given up all idea of going to his office, and while Theodora was arguing with her mother, Mr. Bowles went down cellar to build a furnace fire. He very rarely visited the cellar, and when he did, he always returned tremendously upset about something or other. Consequently, Theodora teased in a low voice so that her father shouldn't hear her through the registers. She hoped to win her mother's consent and get away before her father wrathfully returned. Mrs. Bowles, however, seemed to get more flinty-hearted every minute. When ten minutes of nine came, and then nine minutes of nine, Theodora realized that never again, in all her life, could she say, 'I have never been tardy.'

She still hoped, however, that some higher power would intervene, and see to it that she got to school at nine. To be tardy was disgraceful enough, but to be absent was a crime that could never be expiated.

Suddenly she ran into the library, and knelt rigidly on a rug which she had heard her mother refer to as a 'prayer rug.' And she all but prayed the soul out of her body that the rug would change into a magic carpet on which she could be transported to school. She must have invoked the wrong deity, for the rug did not stir even a hair's breadth. But perhaps kneeling was not enough; perhaps one ought to lie p.r.o.ne on the rug and pray.

She had just stretched out, full-length, face down, when the hall clock boomed the fatal nine. Now she was both tardy and absent. She was just like any other ordinary human child--she was undistinguished in any way.

Well, there was really no use in continuing to live, and oh, for a convenient way to die! How badly her mother and father would feel when they found her stretched dead on the piano bench, and how they would blame themselves for not allowing her to have her way!

Weeping miserably from self-pity, Theodora pulled off her things, and sat down to look out at the storm, and plan her end.

'Come, p.u.s.s.y, don't mope!' exclaimed her father. He had just finished a bitter dissertation on the short life of the modern coal-shovel when handled by the ch.o.r.eman of to-day, and was beginning to feel very good-natured again. 'Let's play backgammon.'

'I'm tardy, and I'm absent!' moaned Theodora, who had about abandoned the idea of dying, in favor of disappearing forever.

'There won't be any school on such a day as this,' said Mr. Bowles, consolingly. 'Even the teachers couldn't get there and live.'

This happy suggestion made Theodora decidedly less pensive. Maybe--and oh, how she prayed that it might be so!--_maybe_ her father was right, and maybe, after all, she was still a supreme being--one who had never been tardy or absent. As the day wore on, she became more and more hopeful. Her greatest comfort of all was the thought that Charles Augustus Starr, Junior, who lived over two miles from school, was even more surely a prisoner than herself.

It kept right on snowing that night. There was no discussion about any one's going out the following day, for the whole city seemed destined to be buried in the snow which fell unceasingly from low, inexhaustible clouds. Finally, after several days, when people were becoming seriously alarmed, and some of them were hungry, the snow stopped, and the sky turned into a dazzling blue from which a blinding sun again looked down on a new white city. And then men began to open their front doors again, and shovel and pant, and pant and shovel, as they dug their way out into the world. Gradually there began to be postmen and butcher-boys and milk-men and horsecars and newspaper-boys and policemen. And when Theodora's father started for his office, the long-pent-up Theodora was permitted to go to school.

IV

Although the small paths on the sidewalk were so slippery that the most nimble-footed kept tumbling down, Theodora was, as usual, the first child against the school door. And she was the first to burst into the silent building when the Scotch janitor took down the bar, and the first to dash up the creaky wooden stairs. Racing down the echoing hall, she tore off her things in the dressing room, and rushed into Room H, fearing she knew not what. And the sight that she saw on the blackboard made her blood run cold. During her enforced absence, the very worst had happened. At the end of the long line of stars which followed the name of Charles Augustus was a prominent, unmistakably new star. It was larger than any of the pink or blue or red or green or yellow stars, and there was no doubt about it, for the sun shone warmly on the blackboard: the new star opposite her rival's name was--purple. The new boy, Coal-Cart Starr's son, the skipper of cla.s.ses, the groom-escorted, never-absent, late, or wrong Charley Starr, had attained the unattainable.

Slowly Theodora put her books into her desk, and sat in her place, waiting grimly for Miss Prawl. It was only a few minutes later that the teacher came in, rosy from her short run through the snowy street,--she lived only three doors from the school,--and said cheerfully, without looking the least bit guilty,--

'Good morning, Theodora.'

Theodora could not reply. All the while the other children were bouncing in with shiny, apple-red cheeks, and a great flourishing of clean white pocket handkerchiefs, Theodora sat as still as a little China image. In the midst of her chagrin, she dreaded meeting the exultant look which she knew would be in the eyes of the winner of the purple star. Every time any one came in from the hall, Theodora jumped from nervousness.

But she jumped in vain, because Charley Starr failed to appear. Even when it was ten minutes of nine, Charley Starr had not come. With a triumphant lilt of the heart, Theodora thought, 'Charley Starr is late!'

At nine o'clock, it dawned upon her that Charley Starr was not coming to school at all. And at the same time, an unexplained lump of uncomfortable bigness suddenly developed in her throat. She was afraid--afraid that something had happened to Charley Starr. She did not know why, but a panic of terror seized her. It was the first big real fear of her life. The purple star on the blackboard became the sign of some heroic tragedy. Where, where, where was Charley Starr?

'Well, girls and boys,' began Miss Prawl, 'we have all been taking a very unexpected vacation. And there has been no school at all since you were all here before.'

Theodora's heart flippety-flopped with relief. All her sufferings had been in vain: she was still a supreme being. But what was the thing in Miss Prawl's face which made one sit so deadly still, and grasp the desk-cover so tight?