Part 1 (2/2)
”Sammy says--he was down to the station last night when the ten-six come in--seems like,” she digressed, ”he's always hanging around the station since Rosie Allan's been telegraph operator there--”
”Rosie is a very pretty girl, Sarah,” I chided gently.
”Pretty is as pretty does!” said Sarah, in irrefutable self-defense.
”Limb, I call her--bold as bra.s.s! But then,” she added in her most pleasant tone, ”Sammy was never raised to know better.” And she looked at me with that unique light in her eyes which never fails them of the mention of any Simpson delinquency, however slight.
”Sammy says,” she continued, bound to pursue the subject to the bitter end, ”that the new doctor is a likely-looking young fellow, and seems well off.”
At this juncture, I opened my paper with an air of finality.
”If this stranger in our midst is, as you infer, young, handsome, and wealthy,” I remarked, ”why then, in Heaven's name, has he descended upon Green Hill, Sarah?”
I hate handsome men. They are always so much vainer than women.
Sarah, accustomed as she is to my intemperate habits of speech, regarded me with a somewhat shocked air.
”Sammy says,” she quoted--and here the conversational cat leaped from the bag--”that he come down here because he is suffering from nerves!”
The door closed after her, but her contempt lingered, almost tangibly, in the room; and I smothered my laughter in the lavender-scented pillows.
But Sarah had given me something to think about. I have known so few men, young ones, that perhaps I am given to speculating about them even more than the average girl. They're such an unknown quality. And certainly the one or two who have been escorted to my presence have not shown to good advantage. The healthy man reacts unfavorably to invalid feminism. They are bored, or too sympathetic; they speak in whispers, or in too cheery tones; they shuffle their great feet; and escape, eventually, with a sigh of relief. And I am impatient of them, of their bulk and their strength, and the arrogance which is part and parcel of their s.e.x. Perhaps it is because I am handicapped, circ.u.mstantially out of the running, so as to speak, that an ”eligible” male always arouses in me a feeling of antagonism. And yet with not unremarkable inconsistency, I always wish, wistfully, deep down, that I might make, sometime, a man friend of my own generation.
But I can't. Something in me shuts doors and bolts them in any strange, masculine face.
A breeze stole delicately through my open window and ruffled my hair, luring my eyes to the out-of-door world where young Summer goes walking today, clad in blue and green. Not far off, the hills which give our town its pretty name, rise mistily, like altars. Just beyond that tall tangle of oak trees, a little river comes singing from its source. In winter I miss its friendly voice, yet I am more in sympathy with it then, for ice-bound, its bright limbs fettered, its dancing stilled, it seems kin to such as I. But for me there will never dawn a springtide, with the prison keys in her green girdle and rosy hands outstretched to unlock the door.
Year in, year out, my bed is always close to the windows. All of out-doors that I may see and hear, I must have for my own. I love every glimpse and scent and sound of it. Only the aggressive shriek of the train at the distant crossing makes me shrink and shudder. That was the last thing I heard--a whistle at a crossing--before the day coach which was carrying me home from a happy visit plunged over the embankment.
Eleven years ago! It seems like many centuries. Yet I remember it as I remember yesterday--that crash before oblivion. I can remember even the thrill of twelve-year old pride in the dignity of that fifty-mile journey, made quite alone. It was the beginning of a longer journey, where the milestones are the years; a journey painful and rebellious, marked with many stations of weariness, and black tunnels of agony; a journey which, despite all the loving care that surrounds me, I must make in isolation of body and spirit. Oh, little blue diary, it is well that I may shut away my moods and my mutiny between your covers!
No one in all this house must be made sadder because of me. Not father, unfailing playmate, and tender; not Sarah, whose silent affection is like protecting arms about me. There's a great shaft of sunlight quivering across what I've just written. Incongruous, somehow. And I'm out of tune with the June weather and the birds just beyond my windows.
I must ask Sarah to bring me my first rose from my Sleeping Beauty bush. First roses are always the sweetest--like the kiss of Prince Charming.
I wonder what the nervous doctor's name is--poor Sarah!
June paid me a visit this afternoon while I slept. She was reluctant to waken me, but left me her prettiest card. The first roses from my bus.h.!.+ They have been happily translated to a vase beside me, as I write. Father brought them upstairs with him when he came in for tea.
”Did you kiss her hands and tell her how sorry I would be to miss her?” I asked him soberly.
Father looked alarmed.
”Whose hands?” he began.
”Who has called on us today?”
<script>