Part 8 (2/2)

Years ago it seemed she had wakened in the morning after dreaming of a rose gown with its glimpses of cool green flickering through rows of open lace; but no more could she dream, since that lace was now condemned to blindness, unable even to hint at concealed beauties, and this because Economy, the stern G.o.d of the Procter home, so ordained.

Two tears at last found their slow way down her cheek. Not the least of her woe was caused by the realization that now the dress was ingloriously what Maizie had termed it, a pale pink lawn at ten cents a yard, bearing no appeal to her imagination, fulfilling no place in Suzanna's great Scheme of Things.

Suzanna's distress, as the days pa.s.sed, did not abate. She never spoke of the dress, nor did she go to look at it as it hung shrouded in cheese cloth in the hall closet upstairs. No longer did she look forward with delight to the day when feelingly she should recite the troubles and the heroism of ”The Little Martyr of Smyrna.”

Instead she went quietly about performing her customary duties, finding for the time no real zest in life.

Mrs. Procter, innocent of the cause of Suzanna's listlessness, spoke no word. She wondered why the child had lost interest in the festival, indeed in all things pertaining to the occasion. It was difficult, she finally decided, to know how to cope with a child so complex, so changeable. She determined to treat the new mood with indifference, as being the most potent method. So she asked of Suzanna the performance of daily duties just as usual. When she discovered Suzanna gazing at her, Maizie close beside her with the same degree of reflection in her gray eyes, Mrs. Procter grew uncomfortable, then a trifle irritable. Both children seemed to regard her as an alien, one, for the time, quite outside their pale.

Suzanna, then, had taken Maizie into her confidence.

”One needs be clairvoyant,” Mrs. Procter told her husband one evening, ”to know what pa.s.ses through small minds.”

”Clairvoyant and full of patience,” he answered, looking up from his color book. ”I can remember even now my own sensations when at times my mother failed to go with me into my land of dreams.”

Mrs. Procter cast her memory back over the events of several days.

”I can't think what has so changed Suzanna,” she said at last; ”I've disappointed her, I fear, about something or other. Dear me, what insight versatile children do demand in a mother. And Suzanna takes everything so very seriously. And Maizie stares at me too, with a little bewildered expression. It's strange that Maizie, with all her literalness, can understand at times Suzanna's disappointments when her fancies are not given due value. For, of course, it is some fancy of Suzanna's that I've either not noticed, or perhaps laughed at.” She paused to smile at her husband.

”Such children come of giving them an inventor father, an 'impractical genius,' as I've heard myself in satire called.”

She flushed up angrily at this.

”You've done wonderfully well,” she said, and believed the a.s.sertion; just as though at forty to weigh nails correctly and to sell so many yards of garden hose a week was a fine measure of success. ”And your name will go ringing down the ages.” She would never let him lose confidence in his own powers. Circ.u.mstances alone had thrown him into a mediocre position in a small town, but they should never hold him down.

He grew beneath her look; beneath her belief in him. And so the conversation ended on the personal note; ended with hands clasped and fond eyes seeing each the other's charm after many years.

Suzanna, arranging the pantry the next morning, sought her mother upstairs with a domestic announcement.

”The vinegar bottle is empty,” she said.

”And the gherkins all ready,” cried Mrs. Procter. ”Will you run over to Mrs. Reynolds and ask her for some vinegar, Suzanna?”

Listlessly, Suzanna returned downstairs, and from the pantry procured a cup. Slowly she left the house, walked down the front path and across the road to Mrs. Reynolds' home. Arrived there, she went round to the back door and knocked with slack knuckles.

Mrs. Reynolds, a white cloth tied about her forehead, opened the door.

She gave out redolently the pungent odor of the commodity Suzanna sought to borrow.

Mrs. Reynolds was stout and comfortable looking ordinarily. A quaint and interesting personality, sprung from Welsh parentage, she fitted into the life of Anchorville only because of a certain natural adaptability.

She seemed to belong to a wilder, more pa.s.sionate people than those plain lives which surrounded her.

Suzanna knew her tenderness, her tragic depressions. She loved her deep voice, her resonant tones, all her quick changes of mood, and her occasional strange ways of expression, revealing her understanding of men and women's vagaries.

Mrs. Reynolds adored Suzanna. She had said often there was one thing she coveted from her neighbor, and that was her neighbor's child.

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