Lydia of the Pines Part 56

"Has she? Seems to me I recall a time when I couldn't endure the sight of her. And when you were the best pal I had. That's what you are, Lydia, a real pal. A fellow can flirt round with the rest of 'em, but you're the one to look forward to spending a lifetime with!"

Lydia drew a quick breath, then laughed a little uncertainly. "You were the dearest boy! Do you remember how you hated to wash your hands and that funny cotton cap you liked to wear with Goldenrod Flour printed across it?"

"Of course, I remember. And I remember how the fellows used to tease me about you. I licked Gustus twice for it, when we were in the ward schools. Lydia, let's go over those old trails together again.

To-morrow's Sunday. Let's take a walk down to the Willows in the afternoon."

"All right, Kent," said Lydia, quietly, and silence fell on both of them till they drew up at the cottage gate.

Kent lifted Lydia to the ground, held both of her hands, started to speak, then with a half inarticulate, "Thank you, Lydia, and good-by till to-morrow," he jumped into the little car and was gone.

For some reason, when she woke the next morning, Lydia half hoped that the soft patter against her window was of rain drops. But it was the wind-tossed maple leaves, whose scarlet and gold were drifting deep on the lawn and garden. There never was a more brilliant October day than this, and at three o'clock, Lydia and Kent set off down the road to the Willows.

Lizzie watched them from the living-room window. "They're a handsome pair, Amos," she said. "Now aren't they?"

Amos looked up from his Sunday paper with a start. "Those young ones aren't getting sentimental, are they, Liz?" he asked, sharply.

"Well," returned Lizzie, "they might be, very naturally, seeing they're both young and good-looking. For the land sake! Don't you expect Lydia to find her young man and settle down?"

"No, I don't!" snapped Amos. "There isn't a man on earth good enough for Lydia. I don't want her to marry. I'll take care of her."

"Humph! Nothing selfish about a man, is there?" muttered Lizzie.

Kent and Lydia strolled along the leafy road, with the tang of the autumn in their nostrils, and the blue gleam of the lake in their eyes.

It was only a half mile to the Willows and as they turned in, Kent took Lydia's hand and drew it through his arm.

"Look," he said, "I believe there is even a little left of our cave, after all this time. What a rough little devil I was in those days.

And yet, even then, Lyd, I believe I had an idea of trying to take care of you."

"You were not a rough little devil!" exclaimed Lydia, indignantly.

"You were a dear! I can never forget what you did for me, when little Patience died."

"I was a selfish brute in lots of ways afterward, though," said Kent, moodily. "I didn't have sense enough to appreciate you, to realize--yet, I did in a way. Remember our talks up at camp? Then, of course, we never shall agree on the Indian question. But what does that amount to?"

Kent dropped Lydia's hand and faced her. "Lydia, do you care for me--care for me enough to marry me?"

Lydia turned pale. Something in her heart began to sing. Something in her brain began to stir, uncomfortably.

"Oh, Kent," she began, breathlessly, then paused and the two looked deep into each other's eyes.

"Lydia! Lydia!! I need you so!" cried Kent. "You are such a dear, such a pal, so pretty, so sweet--and I need you so! Won't you marry me, Lydia?"

He seized both her hands and held them against his cheeks.

"I've always loved you dearly, Kent, and yet," faltered Lydia, "and yet, somehow, I don't think we'd ever make each other happy."

"Not make each other happy! I'd like to know why not! Just try me, Lydia! Try me!"

Kent's charming face was glowing. Into Lydia's contralto voice crept the note that had belonged to little Patience's day.

"I'd like to try you, dear if---- Wait, Kent, wait! Let me have my playtime, Kent. I've never had a real one, you know, till now. Let me finish college, then ask me again, will you, Kent?"

Kent jerked his head discontentedly. "I think it would be better for us to tie to each other right now. Please, Lydia dear!"

Lydia shook her head slowly. "Let me have my playtime, Kent. I don't know that side of myself at all."

Kent looked at the lake and at the little cave of long ago and back into the clear tender blue of Lydia's eyes. Then he said softly, "All right, dear! You know best. But will you give me just one kiss,--for remembrance?"

"Yes," replied Lydia, lifting her face, and Kent pulled off his cap and kissed the warm, girlish lips, tenderly, lingeringly, then, without a word, gently turned Lydia homeward.

Kent's announcement that he had broken with Billy Norton did not amount to a great deal. As winter came on, he and Billy met constantly at the cottage and outwardly at least, were friendly. The commission finished its sitting and turned its findings over to Congress. Congress instructed the District Attorney to carry the matter to the state courts. When this had been done all the incriminated heaved a vast sigh of relief, and prepared to mark time.

To tell the truth, Lydia was not giving a great deal of thought to weighty problems, this winter. No girl who finds herself with two young men in love with her, can give much thought to the world outside her own. Nor did the fact that Professor Willis made a point of appearing at the cottage at least once a month detract any from her general joy in life.

She was doing well in her studies, though outside of the occasional hop she attended with Billy or Kent, she had no part in the college social life. She was not altogether contented with the thought of preparing herself to teach. The idea gave her no mental satisfaction. She could not bring herself to believe that her real talents lay in that direction. Yet, though this dissatisfaction grew as the days went on, it did not prevent her from taking a keen pleasure in the books she read and studied.

She suddenly grew ashamed of her old E. P. Roe period and developed a great avidity for Kipling and Thomas Hardy, for Wordsworth and Stephen Phillips. To her surprise she found that Billy was more familiar with these writers than she. Kent read newspapers and nothing else.

During all Lydia's Junior year, but one fly appeared in her ointment.

And this, of course, was with, reference to clothes! that perennial haunting problem of Lydia's, which only a woman who has been motherless and poverty-stricken and pretty can fully appreciate. The latter part of February, the great college social event of the year was to come, the Junior Prom. Lydia felt sure that either Kent or Billy would ask her to go and for this the organdy would not do. And for this she must have a party coat.

Lydia knew if she took the matter up with Amos he would go out and borrow money for her. She shuddered at the thought of this. He had been so bitter about her fudge selling that she dared not broach the matter of money earning to him again. Then she heard of the College Money Making Bureau. She discovered that there were girls who were earning their way through college and that the Bureau was one of the quiet ways used by the University to help them.

There was the Mending Department for example. Here were brought every week by the well-to-do students piles of mending of every variety from heelless socks and stockings, to threadbare underwear and frayed cuffs and collars. These were made into packages and farmed out to the money needing girls. The Department was located in a room in the rear of the Chemical laboratory, and was in charge of the old janitor, whose casual manner was a balm to the pride of the most sensitive.

Early in January, Lydia sneaked into the little room, and out again with a neat but heavy bundle. She got home with it and smuggled it into her room without old Lizzie's seeing it. Socks, wristbands and torn lace--there was fifty cents' worth of mending in the package!

Lydia calculated that if she did a package a night for thirty nights, she would have enough money to buy the making of the party dress and cloak.

The necessity for secrecy was what made the task arduous. Lydia finished her studying as hurriedly as possible each night and went on to her room. It was bitter cold in the room when the door was closed, but she hung a dust cloth over the keyhole, a shawl over the window shade, wrapped herself in a quilt and unwrapped the bundle. By two o'clock she had finished and shivering and with aching eyes, crept into bed.

Within a week she was going about her daily work with hollow eyes and without the usual glow in her cheeks. Within two weeks, the casual glimpse of Lizzie darning one of Amos' socks gave her a sense of nausea, but she hung on with determination worthy of a better cause.

The third week she took cold, an almost unheard-of proceeding for Lydia, and in spite of all old Lizzie's decoctions, she could not throw it off. Amos insisted that Lizzie see her to bed each night with hot lemonade and hot water bottle. Lydia protested miserably until she found that it was really more comfortable to mend in bed than it was to sit quilt-wrapped in a chair. At the end of the fourth week she carried back her last bundle, and with fifteen dollars in her pocketbook, she boarded the street-car for home. She was trembling with fatigue and fever.

When she reached the cottage, she stretched out on the couch behind the old base burner with her sense of satisfaction dulled by her hard cough and the feverish taste in her mouth. She was half asleep, half in a stupor when Billy came in.

"How's the cold, Lyd?" he asked.

"I got it," she murmured hoa.r.s.ely. "It'll be white mull and pink eider-down."

"What did you say?" asked Billy, coming over to the couch and peering down at her, through the dusk.

"Socks," whispered Lydia, "bushels of socks, aren't there, Billy?"

Billy picked up her hand and felt her pulse, pulled the shawl up over her chest, put his cheek down against her forehead for a moment as he murmured, "Oh, Lydia, don't be sick! I couldn't bear it!" then he hurried to the kitchen where Lizzie was getting supper.

The next thing that Lydia knew she was in her own bed and "Doc" Fulton was taking the clinical thermometer from her mouth. She was very much confused.

"Where's my fifteen dollars?" she asked.