Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories Part 13

'No, I won't be upset because I'll be so glad. Stephen said she was a wonderful woman, and--we can talk about him. He was at her house only a few days before he--caught cold.'

'Well, I don't know,' said her mother. 'You had better come into the kitchen where it's warm. You look like a ghost, Eunice. I'll give you a cup of soup to drink. It's on the stove now.' She laid nervous compelling fingers on Eunice's arm. 'I suppose,' Mrs. Day was pouring out the soup as she spoke, 'I suppose that Miss Lansing hasn't any idea of the way we live. Even the front stoop looks a sight. It's needed a coat of paint for years.'

'I know,' Eunice answered, her face clouding. 'I wish things were different for Stephen's sake. But we can't help it.'

'No,' said her mother harshly, 'we can't help it. But I wish she wasn't coming for a meal. The last decent tablecloth was cut up into napkins a month ago. I was ashamed of the one we set Mabel Bennet down to the other night.'

Eunice walked to the window. She looked out upon the backyard, upon the snow that was reflecting the sunset, a sentence of one of Stephen's letters in her mind. 'It's the dignity of their living that makes these Washington Square people so worth while.' And then she recalled that other letter. 'It will be jolly to have nice linen. Good linen makes you feel respectable.'

It pained her that they must offer this friend of Stephen's what they had been ashamed to offer Mabel Bennet. Stephen's pride would be hurt, Stephen who had loved that word 'dignity'; and Stephen's pride was her own pride just as much as if she were his wife, as if he were living.

Eunice stood a long time looking out upon the snow, until the rose of the sunset had gone from it, leaving it blue and cold. She turned from the window.

'Mother,'--she was glad that in the darkening kitchen she could not see her mother's face distinctly,--'mother, don't you think we had better use that very fine cloth you gave me, and the napkins, to make the table look nice? Hadn't we better use them?'

'Use your things out of your Glory-Box, Eunice!'

'Yes, they are just pretty things, now, mother. All the pain is out of them. I'm going to wear the best set you made me. I think if I have on those nice clothes under my dress I won't be so shy with Miss Lansing. I want--O, mother, I want Stephen to--to feel proud of me.'

Mrs. Day bent to rake the fire, then straightened up. 'If you can stand wearing that set, I've nothing to say. You have a right to your own notions. But I don't see how I can bear to look at the cloth.'

'After it's been done up and on the table once, you'll forget there was anything sad connected with it. I know you will,' said Eunice, with her brave, pleading eyes fixed on her mother's set face.

'I don't know; maybe I could forget. But I don't see how I could bring myself to use something out of your own Glory-Box. It seems almost indelicate. They're all your things.'

Eunice crossed the room and laid her face down on her mother's shoulder.

'You gave me the things, mother, and you've had so little of what you've always wanted. Can't it be our Glory-Box, for us both to use on special occasions--like this?' Her arms tightened about her mother's neck.

'Can't we use them this time for Stephen's sake?'

After a moment's silence Mrs. Day pushed her gently away.

'If they are to be washed you'll have to bring them down to-morrow. I'll want to get them on the line while this good weather lasts. Sat.u.r.day is only four days off.'

Sat.u.r.day evening Eunice lighted the candles on her bureau; lighting the candles seemed like another ceremony of this perfect day. She had got up early so as to put her room and the rest of the house in order. While her mother was finishing in the kitchen she had set the table. It had been a joy to do that, to spread the cloth so that the creases would come in just the right place, and the large initial 'D' show without being too conspicuous, and to fold the napkins prettily and arrange the dishes. At the last moment she had decided that it would not be too extravagant to buy a little plant of some sort for a centrepiece. So there was just time for her to slip into the clothes that had been spread out on the bed, and do over her hair, before Miss Lansing arrived.

Stephen had said, 'You will like her, Eunice.' Like her!--she was the most wonderful woman she had ever met. She was elderly, but strangely enough you did not wonder whether she had been pretty or beautiful when she was young. She was wonderful just as she was now. You could not think of her as being different. She was tall, a little taller than Eunice herself. Her face was finely cut, the sort of face you saw in engravings of old portraits; there were not many lines in it. Her eyes were dark and young too, though she had quite gray hair and evidently didn't care to be in the fashion, for her black silk fell all around in ample lengths. Eunice had watched her hands. They were not small, but long and slender and very white; the two rings she wore seemed made for them.

And Eunice had not felt shy. At first she had thought she was going to; Miss Lansing had seemed at first so like a personage; but the thought of Stephen, and of the featherst.i.tched best set she was wearing made her forget that Washington Square was, as Stephen had said, rather terrifying on the outside. It was Stephen's friend whom they were entertaining, and Stephen's friend was not a personage really, but a wonderful woman who had loved Stephen too.

After lunch they talked together in the parlor while her mother was clearing things away. Miss Lansing said that she had seen a great deal of Stephen that last year. He had seemed to enjoy coming to the house.

He had come to dinner sometimes, but more often he had dropped in on Sat.u.r.day or Sunday afternoons for tea. One afternoon he had not been quite himself. She had questioned him a little and he had confessed with a laugh that he was homesick for Ohio.

'That was the time he talked for two hours about you, my dear,' Miss Lansing said, smiling. 'Fortunately no one else came in, so he was uninterrupted. I liked to listen to his talk; he had charm.' But Eunice saw her eyes kindle. 'He was more than charming. He was great.'

'Yes,' Eunice answered very low. 'He would have been a great man, Miss Lansing. I always knew he would.'

At that Miss Lansing put out both hands and covered Eunice's that were clasped tightly in her lap. 'He would have been a great man,' she repeated, 'and you, my dear, would have made him a great wife.'

Eunice felt that never, unless she should hear Stephen's voice again, should she listen to such wonderful words as those. Ever since Miss Lansing had gone they had sung themselves in her heart like a sacred refrain. She was glad that it was night now so that she could fall asleep repeating them.

'Getting ready for bed, Eunice?'

'I'm beginning to.' Eunice opened the door to her mother, who stood outside winding the clock.

'Do you know,' said Mrs. Day as she set the alarm, 'I've been thinking again what a good idea it was to open that can of peas. They did make the chops look so tasty, and they were almost as tender as the French.

I helped Miss Lansing twice.'

Eunice kissed her as she turned away.

'It was a nice dinner throughout, mother, and the table looked lovely.'

'Well, I saw Miss Lansing look at the cloth. She was too much of a lady to say anything, of course, but I could tell she noticed it.'

'Yes,' said Eunice, 'I think she did.'

Mrs. Day was closing her door.

'Put out the light in the hall before you go to bed, Eunice.'

'Yes, mother,' said Eunice, softly closing her own door.

She stood still a moment in the centre of the candle-lighted room. Then she went over to the Glory-Box and took out the kimono and laid it over the footboard so that the pink folds could catch the light. When she had undressed, she put it on. 'It will be a beautiful ending to the day,'

she said, as she stood before the mirror braiding her hair.

Her eyes rested on Stephen's picture.

'I think you would have been proud to-day, dear, and I think you would have liked this.'

She turned to the mirror, and looked at the girl reflected there, at the dark eyes and hair and at the kimono draping her soft white gown.

'Dawn and apple-blossoms,' she whispered and then stretched out her arms.

'Stephen, my dear! O Stephen.'

THE SPIRIT OF THE HERD[7]

BY DALLAS LORE SHARP

I

We were trailing the 'riders' of P Ranch across the plains to a hollow in the hills called the 'Troughs,' where they were to round up a lot of cattle for a branding. On the way we fell in behind a bunch of some fifty cows and yearlings which one of the riders had picked up; and, while he dashed off across the desert for a 'stray,' we tenderfeet drove on the herd. It was hot, and the cattle lagged, so we urged them on. All at once I noticed that the whole herd was moving with a swinging, warping gait, with switching tails, and heads thrown round from side to side as if every steer were watching us. We were not near enough to see their eyes, but the rider, far across the desert, saw the movement and came cutting through the sage, shouting and waving his arms to stop us.

We had pushed the driving too hard. Mutiny was spreading among the cattle, already manifest in a sullen ugly temper that would have brought the herd charging us in another minute, had not the cowboy galloped in between us just as he did--so untamed, unafraid, and instinctively savage is the spirit of the herd.

It is this herd-spirit that the cowboy, on his long, cross-desert drives to the railroad, most fears. The herd is like a crowd, easily led, easily excited, easily stampeded,--when it becomes a mob of frenzied beasts, past all control,--the spirit of the city 'gang' at riot in the plains.