Lydia of the Pines Part 40

"Moving! Where? Why?" exclaimed Lydia.

"Well, I can borrow enough money, I find, to add to the rent we're paying, to rent the old stone house next to Miss Towne's. My idea is to move there just till you finish college! Then we'll go out on a farm. But it'll give you your chance, Lydia."

"Land!" murmured Lizzie.

Lydia hesitated. To move into the house next the Townes would be to arrive, to enter the inner circle, to cease to be a dowd. But--she looked about the familiar rooms.

"Daddy," she said, "would you really want to leave this cottage?"

"I'd just as soon," replied Amos. "Most places are alike to me since your mother's death. I could stand doing without the garden, if I had the farm to look forward to."

"How'd we pay the money back?" asked Lydia.

"After the Levine bill pa.s.ses," said Amos, "I'll have a section of pines."

Instantly Lydia's sleeping land hunger woke and with it the memory of Charlie's tales. She sat in deep thought.

"Daddy," she said, finally, "we're not going to borrow, and we're not going to move again. I don't see why people want to keep moving all the time. I love this place, if it is only a cottage, and I'm going to stay here. I wish we could buy it and hand it down in the family so's it would be known forever as the Dudley place. Then n.o.body'd ever forget our name. What's the use of trying to make a splurge with borrowed money? We thought it was awful when the Barkers mortgaged their house to buy an automobile."

"All right," said Amos, reluctantly. "But remember, you've had your chance and don't feel abused about our poverty."

"I won't," replied Lydia, obediently.

And to her own surprise, she did feel less bitter about her meager, home-made clothing. She had had a chance to improve it and had resisted the temptation.

She told Ma Norton of Amos' plan, and her refusal. Ma heard her through in silence. They were sitting as usual in the kitchen of the Norton farmhouse. Lydia ran over nearly every Sat.u.r.day afternoon but she seldom saw Billy. Amos had refused to allow Lydia to continue fudge selling and Ma supposed that that was why her son never spoke of Lydia or was about when she called.

"You did exactly right, Lydia," was Ma's verdict. "And you mustn't lay it all to clothes, though I've always maintained that party-going boys were just as silly about clothes as party-going girls. You're old for your age, Lydia. It takes older men to understand you. I suppose your cla.s.s has begun to talk about graduation. It's March now."

"Yes," said Lydia. "We've chosen the cla.s.s motto and the cla.s.s color.

I was chairman of the motto committee and we chose Ducit Amor Patriae--and purple and white's our color."

"For the land's sake," murmured Ma. "Why do you children always choose Latin or Greek mottoes? Hardly anybody in the audience knows what they mean. I never did get Billy's through my head."

Lydia laughed. "We just do it to be smart! But I chose this one.

It's one John Levine gave me years ago. I thought it was a good one for young Americans--Love of Country leads them."

"Indeed it is. Especially with all the foreign children in the cla.s.s.

I'll have to tell Billy that. He's doing fine in his law but his father's broken-hearted over his giving up farming."

"I'll bet he goes back to it. He's a born farmer," said Lydia.

Late in March the valedictorian and salutatorian of the cla.s.s were chosen. The custom was for the teachers to select the ten names that had stood highest for scholarship during the entire four years and to submit these to the pupils of the cla.s.s, who by popular vote elected from these the valedictorian and the salutatorian.

To her joy and surprise Lydia's was one of the ten names. So were Olga's and Kent's.

"Olga and Kent will get it," Lydia told Amos and Lizzie. "I'm going to vote for them myself. All the boys are crazy about Olga and all the girls are crazy about Kent."

The day on which the election took place was cold and rainy. Amos plodding home for supper was astonished to see Lydia flying toward him through the mud a full quarter of a mile from home.

"Daddy, they elected me valedictorian! They did! They did!"

Amos dropped his dinner pail. "You don't mean it! How did it happen!

I never thought of such a thing." He was as excited as Lydia.

She picked up his pail and clung to his arm as they started home.

"I don't know how it happened. They just all seemed to take it for granted. No one was surprised but me. Olga got four votes and Mamie Aldrich ten and I got sixty-six! Daddy! And Mamie wasn't cross but Olga was. Oh, isn't it wonderful!"

"Valedictorian! My little Lydia! Scholarship and popular vote! I wish your mother was here. What does Lizzie say?"

Lydia giggled. "I left Lizzie carrying on an imaginary conversation with Elviry Marshall, after she'd cried over me for half an hour. And, Daddy, n.o.body was surprised but me! Not the teachers or anybody!"

"Thank G.o.d, there's some democracy left in the world," said Amos.

"Evidently those youngsters voted without prejudice. They can give us elders a few points. Lord, Lydia! and folks have been looking down on us because we were poor and I'm little better than a day laborer. I'll write to Levine tonight. He'll have to be here for the exercises."

"And Kent is salutatorian. He won by just two votes. I've got to begin to plan about my dress."

"Now, I'm going to buy that dress, Lydia, if I have to borrow money.

You aren't going to begin any talk about earning it."

"Oh, all right," said Lydia, hastily. "You won't have to borrow.

White goods is always cheap and I'll get it right away so I can put lots of hard work on it."

"What's your speech going to be about?" asked Amos, as they turned in the gate.

"I haven't had time to think about that. I'll plan it all out while I'm sewing. I must make a V neck so I can wear the dress without the collar to the Senior Ball."

Lizzie was waiting supper for them and poured the tea into the sugar bowl as she described to Amos the agonies of mind Elviry Marshall would endure on hearing the news. Ma Norton came over during the evening to exchange a setting of eggs but wouldn't sit down after Amos had forestalled Lizzie in telling of Lydia's honor. She said she couldn't wait to get home to tell Pa and Billy.

Billy did not congratulate Lydia. He pa.s.sed her just as he had during all the months, with a curt little "h.e.l.lo." To tell the truth Lydia was heartily ashamed of herself for her shabby reception of Billy's plea. Not that she had softened toward him! But she knew she had been unkind and she missed the desultory companionship she had had with Billy.

The preparation of the dress went on amazingly well. The speech making was less simple. As was customary, Lydia chose the cla.s.s motto for her subject and sweated inordinately to find something to say. She complained bitterly to Miss Towne and Amos because during the four years at High School nothing at all was taught about love of country, or patriotism, or anything that would make the motto suggestive.

"How about your one term of Civil Government?" asked Miss Towne.

"Oh, I was a freshman then and I've forgotten it all,--except the preamble to the Const.i.tution and the Declaration of Independence."

Lydia stopped thoughtfully.

Amos answered her plaint indignantly. "Well, for heaven's sake! And you a descendant of the Puritans! Lord, what's become of the old stock! No, I won't help you at all. Think it out for yourself."

And think it out Lydia did, sitting on the front steps with her sewing and listening to the sighing of the pine by the gate.

Spring flew by like the wind, and June came. There was but one flaw in Lydia's happiness. n.o.body asked her to attend the Senior Ball that was to take place on Graduation night. To be sure, it was not an invitation affair. The cla.s.s was supposed to attend in a body but there was, nevertheless, the usual two-ing and only a very few of the girls who had no invitation from boys would go. Lydia, herself, would have cut off her hand rather than appear at her own Senior Ball without a young man.

She had pinned some faith to Kent, until she had heard that Margery was to be home in time for the graduating exercises. As June came on and the tenth drew near, a little forlorn sense of the unfairness of things began to obscure Lydia's pride and joy in her honor. On the ninth, the last rehearsal of the speech had been made; the dress was finished and hung resplendent in the closet; Amos himself had taken Lydia into town and bought her white slippers and stockings, taking care to inform the street-car conductor and the shoe clerk carelessly the wherefore and why of his mission.