Cloudy Jewel Part 21

"That's a girl for you!" scorned Allison. "No loyalty in the whole bunch. They've got to _like_ everything. Now, the real spirit is to come and _make_ the meetings good, just because they're _your_ meetings. See, kid?"

"Yes, I see," snapped Leslie; "but I won't come to your old meetings at all if you are going to talk that way about girls. I guess I've always been loyal to everything, especially you, and I won't stand for that!"

"Oh, I didn't mean you, kid; I was talking about girls in general,"

soothed the brother. "You're all right, of course. But those little fluffy-ruffles that sat in the back seat, now, you'll have to teach them what loyalty means. See?"

Finally the household settled to sleep.

The next day the little house saw little else done save the making of marvellous dainty sandwiches in various forms and shapes.

Even Cherry entered into the work with zest, and Julia Cloud proved herself rich in suggestion for different fillings, till great platters of the finished product reposed in the big white refrigerator, neatly tucked about with damp napkins to keep them from drying.

All that day Allison flew hither and yon in his car, carrying some member of the committee on errands connected with the evening social.

Never had such a stir been made about a mere church social in all the annals of the society. Every remotest member was hunted out and persuaded to be present, and Allison agreed to go around in the evening and pick up at least a dozen who had professed their inability to get there alone. So the big blue car was enlisted in Christian Endeavor service, and the young people were as busy and as happy as ever they had been in getting their little new home settled. They drove away about seven o'clock after a hasty supper, with their platters of sandwiches safely guarded on the back seat; and Julia Cloud watched them, and smiled and was glad. She wondered whether this work would get such a hold upon them that it would last after they started their college work, and fervently hoped that it might, so that there would be another link to bind them to G.o.d's house and His work.

She sighed to think how many things there would likely be to draw them away.

About ten o'clock Leslie telephoned. She wanted to bring Jane Bristol home for the night, as the people where Jane was living were away, and she would otherwise have to stay alone in a big house. Julia Cloud readily a.s.sented, and she and Cherry had a pleasant half-hour putting one of the guest-rooms in order. It was while she was doing this that she began to wonder seriously what Jane Bristol would be like. Who was brought intimately into their new home might mean so much to her two children. And in this room, too, after Cherry had gone to bed, she knelt and breathed a consecrating prayer. Then she went down-stairs to wait for the coming of her children, building up the fire and lighting the porch light so that all would be cheery and attractive for them and their guest. Only a little, lonesome child who did housework for her living, but it was good to be able to give her a pleasant welcome.

In a few minutes the car arrived, and the two girls came chattering in, while Allison put the car away. At least, Leslie was chattering.

"I think you look so lovely in that soft blue dress!" she was saying.

"It is so graceful, and the color just fits your eyes."

"It's only some old accordion-pleated chiffon I had," answered the guest half ashamed. "I had to wash it and dye it and make it myself, and I wasn't sure the pleats would iron out, or that it would do at all. You know I don't have much use for evening dresses, and I really couldn't afford to get one. That's the reason I hesitated at your suggestion about having receptions and parties. But I guess you have to have them."

"You don't mean to say you made it all yourself! Why you're a wonder!

Isn't she, Cloudy? Just take her in and look for yourself! She made that dress all herself out of old things that she washed and dyed.

Why, it looks like an imported frock. Doesn't it look like one, Cloudy? And that girdle is darling, all shirred that way!"

That was Julia Cloud's introduction to the guest as she stood in the open door and watched the two trip along the brick terrace to the entrance.

Leslie s.n.a.t.c.hed away the long, dark cloak that covered Jane Bristol's dress; and she stood forth embarra.s.sed in the firelight, clad in soft, pale-blue chiffon in simple straight lines blending into the white throat in a little round neck, and draping the white girlish, arms.

The firelight and lamplight glimmered and flickered over the softly waved brown hair, the sweet, serious brow, the delicate, refined face; and Jane Bristol lifted two earnest deep-blue eyes, and looked at Julia Cloud. Then between them flashed a look of understanding and sympathy, and each knew at once that she liked the other.

"Isn't she a dear, Cloudy Jewel?" demanded Leslie.

"She is!" responded Julia Cloud, and put her arms softly around the slender blue-clad shoulders. Then she looked up to see the eyes of Allison resting upon them with satisfaction.

They turned down the light and sat before the fire for a little while, telling about the success of the evening and talking of this and that, just getting acquainted; and, when they finally took Jane Bristol up to the pretty guest-room, it was with a sense that a new and lasting friendship had been well begun. Julia Cloud as she lay down to sleep found herself wondering whether her children would always show so much good sense in picking out their friends as they had done this time.

CHAPTER XVII

The day when college opened was a great day. The children could hardly eat any breakfast, and Allison gave Leslie a great many edifying instructions about registering.

"Now, kid, if you get stuck for anything, just you hunt me up. I'll see that you get straightened out. If you and Jane Bristol could only get together, you could help each other a lot. I'll get some dope from some of the last-year fellows. That's the advantage I get from finding a chapter of my frat here. They'll put me wise as to the best course-advisers, and you stick around near the entrance till I give you the right dope. It doesn't pay to get started wrong in college."

Leslie meekly accepted all these admonitions, and they started off together in the car with an abstracted wave of good-by to Julia Cloud, who somehow felt suddenly left out of the universe. To have her two newly-acquired children suddenly withdrawn by the power of a great educational inst.i.tution and swept beyond her horizon was disconcerting. She had not imagined she would feel this way. She stood in the window watching them, and wiped away a furtive tear, and then laughed to herself.

"Old fool!" she said softly to the window-pane. "The trouble with you is, you'd like to be going to college yourself, and you know it! Now put this out of your mind, and go to work planning how to make home doubly attractive when they get back, so that they will want to spend every minute possible here instead of being drawn away from it. They love it. Now keep them loving it. That's your job."

When the two came back at noon, they were radiant and enthusiastic as usual, albeit they had many a growl to express. One would have thought to hear Allison that he had been running colleges for some fifty years the way he criticized the policy and told how things ought to be run.

At first Julia Cloud was greatly distressed by it all, thinking that they surely had made a mistake in their selection of a college, but it gradually dawned upon her that this was a sort of superior att.i.tude maintained by upper-cla.s.s men toward all inst.i.tutions of learning, particularly those in which they happened to be studying, that it was really only an indication of growing developing minds keen to see mistakes and trying to think out remedies, and as yet inexperienced enough to think they could remedy the whole sick world.

The opening days of college were turbulent days for Julia Cloud. Her children were so excited they could neither eat nor sleep. They were liable to turn up unexpectedly at almost any hour of the morning or afternoon, hungry as bears, and always in a hurry. They had so many new things to tell her about, and no time in which to talk. They mixed things terribly, and gave her impressions that took months to right; and they could not understand why she looked distressed at their flightiness. They were both taken up eagerly by the students and invited hither and yon by the various groups and societies, which frequently caused them to be absent from meals while they were being dined and lunched and breakfasted. Of course, Julia Cloud reflected, two such good-looking, well-dressed, easy-mannered young people, with a home in the town where they could invite people, a car in which to take friends out, and a free hand with money, would be popular anywhere. Her anxiety grew as the first week waxed toward its end and finished up Sat.u.r.day night with invitations to two dances and one week-end party at a country house ten miles away.

Leslie rushed in breathless about six o'clock Sat.u.r.day evening, and declared she was too much in a hurry to eat anything; she must get dressed at once, and put some things in her bag. She rattled on about the different social functions she was expected to attend that evening until Julia Cloud was in hopeless confusion, and could only stand and listen, and try to find the things that Leslie in her hurry had overlooked. Then Allison arrived, and wanted some supper. He talked with his mouth full about where he was going and what he was going to do, and at the end of an hour and a half Julia Cloud had a very indefinite idea of anything. She had a swift mental vision of church and Sabbath and Christian Endeavor all slipping slowly out of their calculation, and the WORLD in large letters taking the forefront of their vision.

"You are going to a dance!" she said in a white, stricken way she had when an anxiety first bewildered her. "To _two_ dances! O my dear Leslie! You--_dance_, then? I--hadn't thought of that!"

"Sure I dance!" said Leslie gayly, drawing up the delicate silk stocking over her slim ankles and slipping on a silver slipper. "You ought to see me. And Allison can dance, too. We'll show you sometime.

Don't you like dancing, Cloudy? Why, Cloudy! You couldn't mean you don't approve of dancing? Not _really_! But where would we be?

_Everybody_ dances! Why, there wouldn't be anything else to do when young people went out. Oh, do you suppose Cherry would press out this skirt a little bit? It's got horribly mussed in that drawer."

Julia Cloud had dropped into a chair with an all-gone feeling and a lightness in the top of her head. She felt as if the world, the flesh, and the devil had suddenly dropped down upon the house and were carrying off her children bodily, and she was powerless to prevent it.

She could not keep the pain of it out of her eyes; yet she did not know what to say in this emergency. None of the things that had always seemed entirely convincing in forming her own opinions seemed adequate to the occasion. Leslie turned suddenly, and saw her stricken face.

"What's the matter, Cloudy? Is something wrong? Aren't you well? Don't you like me to go to a dance? Why, Cloudy! Do you really _object_?"

"I have no right to object, I suppose, dear," she said, trying to speak calmly; "but--Leslie, I can't bear to think of you dancing; it's not nice. It's too--too intimate! My little flower of a girl!"

"Oh, but we have to dance, Cloudy; that's ridiculous! And you aren't used to dances, or you wouldn't say so. Can't you trust me to be perfectly nice?"

Julia Cloud shuddered, and went to the head of the stairs to answer a question Allison was calling up to her; and, when, she came back, she said no more about it. The pain was too great, and she felt too bewildered for argument. Leslie was enveloped in rose-colored tulle, with touches of silver, and looked like a young G.o.ddess with straps of silver over her slim shoulders and a thread of pearls about her throat. The white neck and back that the wisp of rose-color made no attempt to conceal were very beautiful and quite childish, but they shocked the sweet soul of Julia Cloud inexpressibly. She stood aghast when Leslie whirled upon her and demanded to know how she liked the gown.

"O my dear!" gasped her aunt. "You're not going out before people--_men_--all undressed like that!"

Leslie gave her one glance of hurt dismay, whirled back to her gla.s.s, and examined herself critically.

"Why, Cloudy!" Her voice was almost trembling, and her cheeks were rosier than the tulle with disappointment. "Why, Cloudy, I thought it was lovely! It's just like everybody's else. I thought you would think I looked _nice_!" The child drooped, and Julia Cloud went up to her gently.

"It is beautiful, darling, and you are--exquisite! But, dear! It seems terrible for my little girl to go among young men so sort of nakedly.

I'm sure if you understood life better, you wouldn't do it. You are tempting men to wrong thoughts, undressed that way, and you are putting on common view the intimate loveliness of the body G.o.d gave you to keep holy and pure. It is the way cheap women have of making many men love them in a careless, physical way. I don't know how to tell you, but it seems terrible to me. If you were my own little girl, I never, _never_ would be willing to have you go out that way."

"You've said enough!" almost screamed Leslie with a sudden frenzy of rage, shame, and disappointment. "I feel as if I never could look anybody in the face again!" And with a cry she flung herself into the jumble of bright garments on her bed, and wept as if her heart would break. Julia Cloud stood over her in consternation, and tried to soothe her; but nothing did any good. The young storm had to have its way, and the slim pink shoulders shook in convulsive sobs, while the dismayed elder sat down beside the bed, with troubled eyes upon her, and waited, praying quietly.

In the midst of it all Allison appeared at the door.

"What in thunder is the matter? I've yelled my head off, and n.o.body answers. What is the matter with you, kid? It's time we started, and you doing the baby act! I never thought you'd get hystericky."

Leslie lifted a wet and smeary face out of her pillow and addressed her brother defiantly:

"I've good reason to cry!" she said. "Cloudy thinks I'm not decent to go out in this dress, and she won't believe everybody dresses this way; and I'm _not going_! I'm _never_ going _anywhere_ again; I'm _disgraced_!" And down went her head in the pillow again with another long, convulsive sob.

Her brother strode over to her, and lifted her up firmly but gently.