Lydia of the Pines Part 39

"Been hearing more stories about my wickedness?" asked John.

Lydia nodded, miserably.

"My dear," Levine said quietly, "this is a man's game. I'm playing a rough-and-tumble, catch-as-catch-can fight. In it, the weak must fail and maybe die. But out of it a great good will come to this community.

As long as the Indians are here to exploit, this community will be demoralized. I'm using every means fair or foul to carry my purpose.

Can't you let it go at that?"

Lydia set her teeth. "Yes, I can and I will," she said, as her father came up with his cane.

And though this was more easily said than done and the thought of murdered chiefs and starved babies troubled her occasionally, she did not really worry over it all as much as she might have were she not entering her senior year in the High School.

If life holds any position more important, any business more soul satisfying than that of being a High School senior, few people are so fortunate as to have discerned it. Being a college senior is a highly edifying and imposing business, but the far greater advantages lie with the High School senior. He is four years younger. He has lost no illusions. He has developed no sense of values. He is not conscious of the world outside his vision. But in spite of a smug conviction of superiority, the college senior has heard life knocking at the door of his young illusions. He has moments of wistful uncertainty. No, it is the High School senior who is life's darling.

Lydia was not altogether an easy person to live with this year although both Lizzie and Amos realized that never had she been so altogether sweet and lovable as now. She objected to Lizzie's table manners. She was hurt because Amos would eat in his shirt-sleeves, and would sit in his stocking feet at night, ignoring the slippers she crocheted him.

She stored in the attic the several fine engravings in gilt frames that her father and mother had brought with them from New England. In their place she hung pa.s.separtouted Gibson pictures clipped from magazines.

And she gave up reading tales of travel and adventure, gave up d.i.c.kens and Thackeray and Mark Twain and took to E. P. Roe and other writers of a sticky and lovelorn nature.

In spite of the camping trip, Lydia saw little of her campmates.

Charlie did not reenter school in the fall. Olga and Gustus were devoted to each other and, to Lydia's surprise, Kent took Margery to several parties.

"I thought you liked Gustus best," she said to Margery one Sat.u.r.day afternoon late in the fall. Lydia was calling on Margery and the two were making fudge.

"Oh, that was last year! Gustus is too sickly for me. I'm crazy about Kent. He's so big and strong and bossy!"

A little pang shot through Lydia's heart. But she was saved a reply by Elviry, who as usual was within earshot.

"Kent Moulton doesn't amount to anything. His father's got nothing but a salary. Gustus'll have the brewery."

"Well, who wants to marry a brewery," sniffed Margery. "If you think I'm going to have any old bossy, beery German like Gustus'll be, you're mistaken. Kent comes of fine Puritan stock."

"Your ancestors don't pay the bills," said Elviry, sharply. "If your father has that extra money he's expecting at Christmas time, you'll just go East to boarding-school, Margery."

"I don't want to go," protested Margery. "I love High School."

"Makes no difference. You have common tastes, just like your father.

I want you should have refined tastes in your friends particularly."

And Dave must have received his extra money, for after the Christmas holidays, Margery tearfully departed for the Eastern finishing school.

The night after her departure, Kent made his first call on Lydia in many months. The two withdrew to the kitchen to make candy and there Lydia's surprise and pleasure gave way to suspicion. Kent seemed to want to talk for the most part about Margery!

"Hasn't she grown to be a beauty," he said, beating the fudge briskly.

"She always was beautiful," replied Lydia, who was cracking walnuts.

"Didn't we use to hate her though! Well, she was the whiniest little snip!"

"Oh, that was her mother's fault! The only good thing about this boarding-school deal is that it gets her away from Elviry Marshall.

Put more nuts in here, Lyd. You like her now, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," replied Lydia, honestly, "though she's an awful silly.

She never reads anything, and she flunked all her Thanksgiving examinations."

"Anybody as pretty as Margery doesn't need to be brilliant," said Kent.

"And she spoons, and you don't think much of girls that spoon."

Lydia's cheeks were a deeper pink than usual.

"Shucks, don't be catty, Lydia!" growled Kent.

Lydia suddenly chuckled, though tears were very near the surface.

"Well, when I'm an old maid here in the cottage, you and Margery can come out and call in your automobile."

"Who's talking about marrying or you being an old maid?" asked Kent, disgustedly. "Gee, you girls make me sick!"

Lydia's jaw dropped. Then she gave a laugh that ended abruptly.

"Heavens, how clothes do count in life," she sighed. "Come on in and give Dad and Lizzie some fudge, Kent."

Kent called several times during the winter, but he never asked Lydia to go to a party nor did any of the other boy friends she saw daily in school--boys with whom she chummed over lessons, who told her their secrets, who treated her as a mental equal, yet never asked to call, or slipped boxes of candy into her desk or asked her into a drugstore for a sundae or a hot chocolate.

n.o.body resented this state of affairs more than old Lizzie. After Kent's third or fourth call, she said to Lydia, closing the door behind him, "Yes, Kent'll come out here and see you, but I notice he don't take you anywhere. If you had fine party clothes and lived on Lake Sh.o.r.e Avenue, he'd be bowing and sc.r.a.ping fast enough."

Lydia tossed her head. "I don't care about going to parties."

"You do, too," insisted the old lady. "You're eating your heart out.

I know. I was young once."

Amos looked up from his paper. "Lydia's too young to go if they did ask her. But why don't they ask?"

"It's because I'm too poor and I live so far out and I don't spoon,"

answered Lydia. "I don't care, I tell you." And just to prove that she didn't care, Lydia bowed her face in her hands and began to cry.

A look of real pain crossed Amos' face. He got up hastily and went to Lydia's side.

"Why, my little girl, I thought you were perfectly happy this year.

And your clothes look nice to me." He smoothed Lydia's bright hair with his work-scarred hand. "I tell you, I'll borrow some money, by heck, and get you some clothes!"

Lydia raised a startled face. "No! No! I'd rather go in rags than borrow money. We're almost out of debt now and we'll stay out. Don't borrow, Daddy," her voice rising hysterically. "Don't borrow!" Adam began to howl.

"All right, dearie, all right!" said Amos.

"I'm an old fool to have said anything," groaned Lizzie. "What does it matter when she's the best scholar in her cla.s.s and everybody, teachers and boys and girls alike, loves her."

Lydia wiped her eyes and hugged her father, then Adam and then Lizzie.

"I've got John Levine, anyhow," she said.

"You certainly have, hand and foot," said Amos.

The matter was not mentioned again directly. But the little scene rankled with Amos. A week or so later he said at supper, "Lydia, I'm thinking seriously of moving."