Pilgrims to Mecca
"Notice the girl on your right, Elsie. That is the thing! You have to seeit to understand. Do you understand, dear? Do you see the difference?"A middle-aged little mother, with a sensitive, care-worn face, leanedacross the Pullman section and laid a hand upon her daughter's by way ofemphasis--needless, for her voice and manner conveyed all, and much morethan the words could possibly carry. Volumes of argument, demonstration,expostulation were implied."Can you see her? Do you see what I mean? What, dear?"The questions followed one another like beads running down a string.Elsie's silence was the knot at the end. She opened her eyes and turnedthem languidly as directed, but without raising her head from the back ofthe car-seat."I will look presently, mother. I can't see much of anything now.""Oh, never mind. Forgive me, dear. How is your head? Lie still; don't tryto talk."Elsie smiled, patted her mother's hand, and closed her narrow, sweet,sleepy blue eyes. Mrs. Valentin never looked at them, when her mind was atrest, without wishing they were a trifle larger--wider open, rather. Theeyes were large enough, but the lazy lids shut them in. They saw a gooddeal, however. She also wished, in moments of contemplation, that she couldhave laid on a little heavier the brush that traced Elsie's eyebrows, andcontinued them a little longer at the temples. Then, her upper lip was, ifanything, the least bit too short. Yet what a sweet, concentrated littlemouth it was,--reticent and pure, and not over-ready with smiles, thoughthe hidden teeth were small, flawless, and of baby whiteness! Yes, themother sighed, just a touch or two,--and she knew just where to put thosetouches,--and the girl had been a beauty. If nature would only consult themothers at the proper time, instead of going on in her blindfold fashion!But, after all, did they want a beauty in the family? On theory, no: thefew beauties Mrs. Valentin had known in her life had not been the happiestof women. What they did want was an Elsie--their own Elsie--perfectlytrained without losing her naturalness, perfectly educated without losingher health, perfectly dressed without thinking of clothes, perfectlyaccomplished without wasting her time, and, finally, an Elsie perfectlyhappy. All that parents, situated on the wrong side of the continent forart and culture, and not over-burdened with money, could do to that end,Mrs. Valentin was resolved should be done. Needless to say, very little wasto be left to God.Mrs. Valentin was born in the East, some forty-odd years before thiseducational pilgrimage began, of good Unitarian stock,--born with a greatsense of personal accountability. She could not have thrown it off and beenjoyful in the words, "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves."Elsie had got a headache from the early start and the suppressed agitationof parting from her home and her father. Suppression was as natural to heras expression was to her mother. The father and daughter had held eachother silently a moment; both had smiled, and both were ill for hoursafterward.But Mrs. Valentin thought that in Elsie's case it was because she had notsent the girl to bed earlier the night before, and insisted on her eatingsomething at breakfast.Herself--she had lain sleepless for the greater part of that night and manynights previous. She had anticipated in its difficulties every stage ofthe getting off, the subsequent journey, the arrival, their reception byEastern relatives not seen for years, the introduction of her grown-updaughter, the impression she would make, the beginning of life all overagain in a strange city. (She had known her Boston once, but that wastwenty years ago.) She foresaw the mistakes she would inevitably make inher choice of means to the desired ends--dressmakers, doctors, specialistsof all sorts; the horrible way in which school expenses mount up; thetrivial yet poignant comparisons of school life, from which, if Elsiesuffered, she would be sure to suffer in silence.After this fatiguing mental rehearsal she had risen at six, while theelectric lights were still burning and the city was cloaked in fog. It wasSan Francisco of a midsummer morning; fog whistles groaning, sidewalksslippery with wet, and the gray-green trees and tinted flower-beds of thecity gardens emerging like the first broad washes of a water-color laid inwith a full brush.She had taken a last survey of her dismantled home, given the lastdirections to the old Chinese servant left in charge, presided haggardly atthe last home breakfast----what a ghastly little ceremony it was! Then Mr.Valentin had gone across the Oakland ferry with them and put them aboardthe train, muffled up as for winter. They had looked into each other'spale faces and parted for two years, all for Elsie's sake. But what Elsiethought about it--whether she understood or cared for what this sacrificeof home and treasure was to purchase--it was impossible to learn. Stillmore what her father thought. What he had always said was, "You had bettergo.""But do you truly think it is the best thing for the child?""I think that, whatever we do, there will be times when we'll wish we haddone something different; and there will be other times when we shall beglad we did not. All we can do is the best we know up to date.""But do you think it is the best?""I think, Emmy, that you will never be satisfied until you have tried it,and it's worth the money to me to have you feel that you have done yourbest."Mrs. Valentin sighed. "Sometimes I wonder why we do cling to that oldfetich of the East. Why can't we accept the fact that we are Westernpeople? The question is, Shall we be the self-satisfied kind or theunsatisfied kind? Shall we be contented and limited, or discontented andgrow?""I guess we shall be limited enough, either way," Mr. Valentin retortedeasily. He had no hankering for the East and no grudge against fate formaking him a Western man malgre lui. "I've known kickers who didn'tappear to grow much, except to grow cranky," he said.Up to the moment of actual departure, Mrs. Valentin had continued to reviewher decision and to agonize over its possibilities of disaster; but nowthat the journey had begun, she was experiencing the rest of change andmovement. She was as responsive as a child to fresh outward impressions,and the hyperbolical imagination that caused her such torture when itwrought in the dark hours on the teased fabric of her own life, couldgive her compensating pleasures by daylight, on the open roads of theworld. There was as yet nothing outside the car windows which they hadnot known of old,--the marsh-meadows of the Lower Sacramento, tide-riversreflecting the sky, cattle and wild fowl, with an occasional windmillor a duck-hunter's lodge breaking the long sweeps of low-toned color.The morning sun was drinking up the fog, the temperature in the Pullmansteadily rising. Jackets were coming off and shirt-waists blooming out insummer colors, giving the car a homelike appearance.It was a saying that summer, "By their belts ye shall know them."Shirt-waists no longer counted, since the ready-made ones for two dollarsand a half were almost as chic as the tailor-made for ten. But the belts,the real belts, were inimitable. Sir Lancelot might have used them for hisbridle--"Like to some branch of stars we seeHung in the golden galaxy."Mrs. Valentin had looked with distinct approval on a mother and daughterwho occupied the section opposite. Their impedimenta and belongings were"all right," arguing persons with cultivated tastes, abroad for a summerspent in divers climates, who knew what they should have and where toget it. A similarity of judgment on questions of clothes and shops is nodoubt a bond between strange women everywhere; but it was the daughter'sbelt-buckle before which Mrs. Valentin bowed down and humbled herself insilence. The like of that comes only by inheritance or travel. Antique,pale gold--Cellini might have designed it. There was probably not anotherbuckle like that one in existence. An imitation? No more than its wearer, agirl as white as a white camellia, with gray eyes and thin black eyebrows,and thick black lashes that darkened the eyes all round. There was nothingnoticeable in her dress except its freshness and a certain finish in lesserdetails, understood by the sophisticated. "Swell" was too common a wordfor her supreme and dainty elegance. Her resemblance to the ordinaryfull-fleshed type of Pacific coast belle was that of a portrait byRomney--possibly engraved by Cole--to a photograph of some reina de lafiesta. This was Mrs. Valentin's exaggerated way of putting it to herself.Such a passionate conservative as she was sure to be prejudiced.The mother had a more pronounced individuality, as mothers are apt tohave, and looked quite fit for the ordinary uses of life. She was ofthe benignant Roman-nosed Eastern type, daughter of generations ofphilanthropists and workers in the public eye for the public good; a deep,rich voice, an air of command, plain features, abundant gray hair, importedclothes, wonderful, keen, dark eyes overlapped by a fold of the crumpledeyelid,--a personage, a character, a life, full of complex energies anddomineering good sense. With gold eye-glasses astride her high-bridgednose, knees crossed, one large, well-shod foot extended, this mother inIsrael sat absorbed like a man in the daily paper, and wroth like a man atits contents. Occasionally she would emit an impatient protest in the deep,maternal tones, and the graceful daughter would turn her head and read overher shoulder in silent assent."How trivial, how self-centred we are!" Mrs. Valentin murmured, leaningacross to claim a look from Elsie. "I realize it the moment we get outsideour own little treadmill. We do nothing but take thought for what we shalleat and drink and wherewithal we shall be clothed. I haven't thought ofthe country once this morning. I've been wondering if all the good summerthings are gone at Hollander's. It may be very hot in Boston the first fewweeks. You will be wilted in your cloth suit.""Oh, mammy, mammy! what a mammy!" purred Elsie, her pretty upper lipcurling in the smile her mother loved--with a reservation. Elsie had herfather's sense of humor, and had caught his half-caressing way of indulgingit at the "intense" little mother's expense."Elsie," she observed, "you know I don't mind your way of speaking tome,--as if I were the girl of sixteen and you the woman of forty,--but Ihope you won't use it before the aunts and cousins. I shall be sure tolay myself open, but, dear, be careful. It isn't very good form to be tooamused with one's mother. Of course there's as much difference in mothersas in girls," Mrs. Valentin acknowledged. "A certain sort of temperamentinterferes with the profit one ought to get out of one's experience. Ifyou had my temperament I shouldn't waste this two years' experiment onyou; I should know that nothing could change your--spots. But you willlearn--everything. How is your head, dear--what?"Elsie had said nothing; she had not had the opportunity.At a flag station where the train was halted (this overland train was a"local" as far as Sacramento) Mrs. Valentin looked out and saw a coloredman in livery climb down from the back seat of a mail-cart and hastenacross the platform with a huge paper box. It proved to be filled withmagnificent roses, of which he was the bearer to the ladies opposite. Aglance at a card was followed by gracious acknowledgments, and the footmanretired beaming. He watched the train off, hat in hand, bowing to theladies at their window as only a well-raised colored servant can bow."The Coudert place lies over there," said Mrs. Valentin, pointing to a massof dark trees toward which the trap was speeding. "They have been stayingthere," she whispered, "doing the west coast, I suppose, with invitationsto all the swell houses.""Is your daughter not well?" the deep voice spoke across the car.As Elsie could not ride backward, her mother, to give her room, and forthe pleasure of watching her, was seated with her own back to the engine,facing most of the ladies in the car."She is a little train-sick; she could not eat this morning, and thatalways gives her a headache."Elsie raised her eyelashes in faint dissent."She should eat something, surely. Have you tried malted milk? I have someof the lozenges; she can take one without raising her head."Search was made in a distinguished-looking bag, Mrs. Valentin protestingagainst the trouble, and beseeching Elsie with her eyes to accept one fromthe little silver box of pastils that was passed across the aisle.Elsie said she really could not--thanks very much.The keen, dark eyes surveyed her with the look of a general inspecting rawtroops, and Mrs. Valentin felt as depressed as the company officer who hasbeen "working up" the troops. "Won't you try one, Elsie?" she pleaded."I'd rather not, mother," said Elsie.She did not repeat her thanks to the great authority, but left her motherto cover her retreat."The young girls nowadays do pretty much as they please about eating or noteating," observed the Eastern matron, in her large, impersonal way. "Theycan match our theories with quite as good ones of their own." She smiledagain at Elsie, and the overtures on that side ceased."I would have eaten any imaginable thing she offered me," sighed Mrs.Valentin, "but Elsie is so hard to impress. I cannot understand how a girl,a baby, who has never been anywhere or seen anything, can be so fearfullyposee. It's the Valentin blood. It's the drop of Indian blood away, 'wayback. It's their impassiveness, but it's awfully good form--when she growsup to it."After this, Mrs. Valentin sat silent for such an unnatural length of timethat Elsie roused herself to say something encouraging."I shall be all right, mother, after Sacramento. We will take a walk. Thefresh air is all I need."She was as good as her word. The cup of tea and the twenty minutes' strollmade such a happy difference that Mrs. Valentin sent a telegram to herhusband to say that Elsie's head was better and that she had forgotten hertrunk keys, and would he express them to her at once.So much refreshed was Elsie that her mother handed her the letters whichhad come to her share of that morning's mail. There were four or five ofthem, addressed in large, girlish hands, and exhibiting the latest andmost expensive fads in stationery. Over one of them Elsie gave a shriek ofdelight, an outburst so unexpected and out of character with her formerself that their distinguished fellow travelers involuntarily lookedup,--and Mrs. Valentin blushed for her child."Oh, mammy, how rich! How just like Gladys! She kept it for a lastsurprise! Mother, Gladys is going to Mrs. Barrington's herself."The mother's face fell."Indeed!" she said, forcing a tone of pleasure. "Well, it's acompliment--on both sides. Mrs. Barrington is very particular whom shetakes, and the Castants are sparing nothing that money can do for Gladys.""Oh, what fun!" cried Elsie, her face transformed. "Poor Gladys! she'llhave a perfectly awful time too, and we can sympathize.""Are you expecting to have an 'awful time,' Elsie,"--the mother lookedaghast,--"and are you going to throw yourself into the arms of Gladysfor sympathy? Then let me say, my daughter, that neither Mrs. Barringtonnor any one else can do much for your improvement, and all the money weare spending will be thrown away. If you are going East to ally yourselfexclusively with Californian girls, to talk California and think Californiaand set yourself against everything that is not Californian, we might justas well take the first train west at Colfax.""But am I to be different to Gladys when we meet away from home?" Elsie'ssensitive eyes clouded. Her brows went up."Of course not. Gladys is a dear, delightful girl. I'm as fond of her asyou are. But you can have Gladys all the rest of your life, I hope. I'mnot a snob, dear, but I do think we should recognize the fact that someacquaintances are more improving than others.""And cultivate them for the sake of what they can do for us?"In Elsie's voice there was an edge of resistance, hearing which her mother,when she was wise, would let speech die and silence do its work. Herinfluence with the girl was strongest when least insisted upon. She was notwiser than usual that morning, but the noise of the train made niceties ofstatement impossible. She abandoned the argument perforce, and Elsie, leftwith her retort unanswered, acknowledged its cheapness in her own quick,strong, wordless way.The dining-car would not be attached to the train until they reachedOgden. At twilight they stopped "twenty minutes for refreshment," and theValentins took the refreshment they needed most by pacing the platform upand down,--the tall daughter, in her severely cut clothes, shortening herboyish stride to match her mother's step; the mother, looking older thanshe need, in a light-gray traveling-cap, with Elsie's golf cape thrown overher silk waist.The Eastern travelers were walking too. They had their tea out of anEnglish tea-basket, and bread and butter from the buffet, and wereindependent of supper stations. With the Valentins it was sheerimprovidence and want of appetite."Please notice that girl's step," said Mrs. Valentin, pressing Elsie's arm."'Art is to conceal art.' It has taken years of the best of everything, andeternal vigilance besides, to create such a walk as that; but c'est fait.You don't see the entire sole of her foot every time she takes a step.""Having a certain other person's soles in view, mammy?""I'm afraid I should have them in full view if you came to meet me. Not theheel quite so pronounced, dearest.""Oh, mother, please leave that to Mrs. Barrington! Let us be comrades forthese few days.""Dearest, it would be the happiness of my life to be never anything buta comrade. But who is to nag a girl if not her mother? I very much doubtif Mrs. Barrington will condescend to speak of your boot-soles. She willexpect all that to have been attended to long ago.""It has been--a thousand years ago. Sometimes I feel that I'm allboot-soles.""The moment I see some result, dear, I shall be satisfied. One doesn'tspeak of such things for their own sake.""Can't we get a paper?" asked Elsie. "What is that they are shouting?""I don't think it can be anything new. We brought these papers with us onthe train. But we can see. No; it's just what we had this morning. They arepreparing for a general assault. There will be heavy fighting to-morrow.Why, that is to-day!" Mrs. Valentin held the newspaper at arm's length."Is there anything more? I can read only the head-lines."The girl took the paper and looked at it with a certain reluctance,narrowing her eyelids."Mother, there was something else in Gladys's letter. Billy Castant hasenlisted with the Rough Riders. He was in that fight at Las Guasimas, whilewe were packing our trunks. He did badly again in his exams, and he--hedidn't go home; he just enlisted.""The foolish fellow!" Mrs. Valentin exclaimed. A sharp intuition toldher there was trouble in the wind, and defensively she turned upon thepresumptive cause. "The foolish boy! What he needs is an education. But hewon't work for it. It's easier to go off mad and be a Rough Rider.""I don't think it was easy at Las Guasimas," Elsie said, with a strainedlittle laugh. "You remember the last war, mother; did you belittle yourvolunteers?"Mrs. Valentin listened with a catch in her breath. What did this portend?So slight a sign as that in Elsie meant tears and confessions from anothergirl."And did you hear of this only just now, from Gladys's letter?""Yes, mother.""You extraordinary child--your father all over again! I might have known bythe way you laughed over that letter that you had bad news to tell--or keepto yourself.""I don't call that bad news, do you, mother? He does need an education, buthe will never get it out of books.""Well, it's a pretty severe sort of education for his parents--nineteen, anonly son, and to go without seeing them again. He might at least have comehome and enlisted from his own State."They were at the far end of the platform, facing the dark of the pine-cladravines. Deep, odorous breaths of night wind came sighing up the slopes."Mother, there was something happened last winter that I never told you,"Elsie began again, with pauses. "It was so silly, and there seemed no needto speak of it. But I can't bear not to speak now. I don't know if it hasmade any difference--with Billy's plans. It seems disloyal to tell you. Butyou must forget it: he's forgotten, I am sure. He said--those silly things,you know! I couldn't have told you then; it was too silly. And I said thatI didn't think it was for him or for me to talk about such things. It wasfor men and women, not boys who couldn't even get their lessons.""Elsie!" Mrs. Valentin gave a little choked laugh. "Did you say that? Thepoor boy! Why, I thought you were such good friends!""He wasn't talking friendship, mother, and I was furious with him forflunking his exams. He passed in only five out of seven. He ought to havedone better than that. He's not stupid; it's that fatal popularity. He'scaptain of this and manager of that, and they give him such a lot of money.And they pet him, too; they make excuses for him all the time. I told himhe must do something before he began to have feelings. The only feelinghe had any right to have was shame for his miserable record.""And that was all the encouragement you gave him?""If you call that 'encouragement,'" said Elsie."You did very well, my dear; but I suppose you know it was the mostintimate thing you could have said to him, the greatest compliment youcould pay him. If he ever does make any sort of a record, you have givenhim the right to come back to you with it.""He will never come back to me without it," said the girl. "But it wasnothing--nothing! All idleness and nonsense, and the music after supperthat went to his head.""I hope it was nothing more than"--Mrs. Valentin checked herself. Therewere things she said to her husband which sometimes threatened to slip outinadvertently when his youthful copy was near. "Well, I see nothing to beashamed of, on your side. But such things are always a pity. They age agirl in spite of herself. And the boys--they simply forget. The rebuke doesthem good, but they forget to whom they owe it. It's just one of thosethings that make my girlie older. But oh, how fast life comes!"Elsie slipped her hand under her mother's cloak, and Mrs. Valentin pressedher own down hard upon it."We must get aboard, dear. But I'm so glad you told me! And I didn't meanquite what I said about Billy's 'going off mad.' He has given all he had togive, poor boy; why he gave it is his own affair.""I hope--what I told you--has made no difference about his coming home.It's stupid of me to think it. But hard words come back, don't they,mother? Hard words--to an old friend!""Billy is all right, dear; and it was so natural you should be tried withhim! 'For to be wroth with one we'"--Mrs. Valentin had another of hernarrow escapes. "Come, there is the porter waiting for us.""Mother," said Elsie sternly, "please don't misunderstand. I should neverhave spoken of this if I had been 'wroth' with him--in that way.""Of course not, dear; I understand. And it would never do, anyway, forfather doesn't like the blood.""Father doesn't like the--what, mother?"Elsie asked the question half an hour later, as they sat in an adjoiningsection, waiting for their berths to be made up."What, dear?""What did you say father doesn't like--in the Castants?""Oh, the blood, the family. This generation is all right--apparently. Butblood will tell. You are too young to know all the old histories thatfathers and mothers read young people by.""I think we are what we are," said Elsie; "we are not ourgreat-grandfathers.""In a measure we are, and it should teach us charity. Not as much can beexpected of Billy Castant, coming of the stock he does, as you might expectof that ancestry," and Mrs. Valentin nodded toward the formidable Easterncontingent. (Elsie was consciously hating them already.) "The fountain canrise no higher than its source.""I thought there was supposed to be a source a little higher than theground--unless we are no more than earth-born fountains.""'Out of the mouth of babes,'" said Mrs. Valentin, laughing gently. "I ownit, dear. Middle age is suspicious and mean and unspiritual and troubledabout many things. A middle-aged mother is like an old hen when hawks aresailing around; she can't see the sky.""Yes," said Elsie, settling cosily against her mother's shoulder. "I alwaysknow when mammy speaks as my official mother, and when she is talking'straight talk.' I shall be so happy when she believes I am old enough tohear only straight talk."* * * * *"I've got a surprise for you, Elsie," said Mrs. Valentin, a day and a nighteastward of the Sierras. They were on the Great Plains, at that stage ofan overland journey which suggests, in the words of a clever woman, theadvisability of "taking a tuck in the continent."Elsie's eyebrows seemed to portend that surprises are not always pleasant."I've been talking with our Eastern lady, and imagine! her daughter is oneof Mrs. Barrington's girls too. This will be her second year. So thereis"--"An offset to Gladys," Elsie interrupted."So there is a chance for you to know one girl, at least, of the type I'vealways been holding up to you, always believed in, though the individualsare so rare."Elsie's sentiments, unexpressed, were that she wished they might be rarer.Not that the flower of Eastern culture was not all her mother protestedshe was; but there are crises of discouragement on the upward climb oftrying to realize a mother's ambitions for one's self, when one is only agirl--the only girl, on whom the family experiments are all to be wreaked.Elsie suffered in silence many a pang that her mother never dreamedof--pangs of effort unavailing and unappreciated. She wished to conform toher mother's exigent standard, but she could not, all at once, and be agirl too--a girl of sixteen, a little off the key physically, not havingcome to a woman's repose of movement; a little stridulous mentally, butpulsing with life's dumb music of aspiration; as intense as her mother infeeling, without her mother's power to throw off the strain in words."Well, mother?" she questioned."She is older than you, and she will be at home. The advances, of course,must come from her, but I hope, dear, you will not be--you will try to beresponsive?""I never know, mother, when I am not responsive. It's like wrinkling myforehead; it does itself."Mrs. Valentin made a gesture expressive of the futility of argument undercertain not unfamiliar conditions."'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.' I amleading my Pegasus to the fountain of--what was the fountain?"Elsie laughed. "Your Pegasus is pretty heavy on the wing, mammy. But I willdrink. I will gorge myself, truly I will. The money shall not be spent invain.""Oh, the money! Who cares about the money?--if only there were more of it."They stopped over night in Chicago, and Mrs. Valentin bought someshirt-waists; for the heat had "doubled up on them," as a Kansas farmer onthe train remarked.Elsie trailed about the shops with her mother, not greatly interested inshirt-waists or bargains in French underclothing.The war pressure seemed to close in upon them as they left the mid-West anddrew toward the coast once more. The lists from El Caney were throbbingover the wires, and the country, so long immune from peril and suffering,was awakening to the cost of victory. There was a terrible flippancy in theirrepressible spirit of trade which had seized upon the nation's emblems,freshly consecrated in the blood of her sons, and was turning them tocommercial account,--advertising, in symbols of death and pricelessdevotion, that ribbons or soap or candy were for sale. The flag was, so tospeak, dirt-cheap. You could wear it in a hatband or a necktie; you coulddeface it, or tear it in two, in opening an envelope addressed to you byyour bootmaker.Elsie cast hunted eyes on the bulletin boards. She knew by heart that firstlist after Las Guasimas. One glance had burned it in forever. It had becomeone of the indelible scars of a lifetime. Yet those were the names ofstrangers. If a whiff from an avalanche can fell trees a mile away, how ifthe avalanche strike you?They returned to their hotel, exhausted, yet excited, by the heat; and Mrs.Valentin admonished herself of what our boys must be suffering in that"unimaginable climate," and she entered into details, forgetting to spareElsie, till the girl turned a sickly white.It was then the bishop's card was sent up--their own late bishop, muchmourned and deplored because he had been transferred to an Eastern diocese.There could be no one so invariably welcome, who knew so well, withouteffort, how to touch the right chord, whether in earnest or in jest thatsometimes hid a deeper earnest. His manner at first usually hovered betweenthe two, your own mood determining where the emphasis should rest. He hadbrought with him the evening paper, but he kept it folded in his hand."So you are pilgrims to Mecca," he said, looking from mother to daughterwith his gentle, musing smile. "But are you not a little early for theEastern schools?""There are the home visits first, and the clothes," said Mrs. Valentin."And where do you stop, and for how long?""Boston, for one year, Bishop, and then we go abroad for a year, perhaps.""Bless me! what has Elsie done that she should be banished from home fortwo years?""She takes her mother with her.""Yes; that is half of the home. Perhaps that's as much as one girl ought toexpect.""The fathers are so busy, Bishop.""Yes; the fathers do seem to be busy. So Elsie is going East to befinished? And how old is she now? How does she presume to account for thefact that she is taller than her mother and nearly as tall as her bishop?"Elsie promptly placed herself at the bishop's side and "measured," glancingover her shoulder at him in the glass. He turned and gravely placed hishand upon her head."I thought of writing to you at one time," said Mrs. Valentin, "but ofcourse you cannot keep us all on your mind. We are a 'back number.'""She thought I would have forgotten who these Valentins were," said thebishop, smiling."No; but you cannot keep the thread of all our troubles--the sheep of theold flock and the lambs of the new. I have had a thousand minds latelyabout Elsie, but this was the original plan, made years ago, when we wereyoung and sure about things. Don't you think young lives need room, Bishop?Oughtn't we to seek to widen their mental horizons?""The horizons widen, they widen of themselves, Mrs. Valentin--very suddenlysometimes, and beyond our ken." The bishop's voice had struck a deepernote; he paused and looked at Elsie with eyes so kind and tender that thegirl choked and turned away. "This war is rather a widening business, andCalifornia is getting her share. Our boys of the First, for instance,--yousee I still call them our boys,--what were they doing a year ago, andwhat are they doing now? I'll be bound half of them a year ago didn't knowhow 'Philippines' was spelled."Mrs. Valentin became restless."Is that the evening paper?" she asked.The bishop glanced at the paper. "And who," said he, "is to open the gatesof sunrise for our Elsie? With whom do you intend to place her in Boston?""Oh, with Mrs. Barrington."Mrs. Valentin was watching the bishop, whose eyes still rested upon Elsie."She is to be one of the chosen five, is she? The five wise virgins--of theEast? But they are all Western virgins this year, I believe.""If you mean that they are all from the Western States, I think you aremistaken, Bishop.""Am I? Let us see. There is Elsie, and Gladys Castant, perhaps, and thedaughters of my friend Mr. Laws of West Dakota"--"Bishop!""Of West Dakota; that makes four. And then the young lady who was on thetrain with you, Miss Bigelow, from Los Angeles.""Bishop! I am certain you are mistaken there. If those people are notEastern, then I'm from West Dakota myself!""We are all from West Dakota virtually, so far as Mecca is concerned.But Mrs. Barrington offers her young ladies those exceptional socialopportunities which Western girls are supposed to need. If you want Elsieto be with Eastern girls of the East, let her go to a good Boston Latinschool. Did you not go to one yourself, Mrs. Valentin?"Mrs. Valentin laughed. "That was ages ago, and I was at home. I had theenvironment--an education in itself. Won't you dine with us, Bishop? Weshall have dinner in half an hour.""In half an hour I must be on the limited express. You seem to have madedifferent connections.""'The error was, we started wrong,'" said Mrs. Valentin lightly. "We tookthe morning instead of the evening train. But I was convinced we should beleft, and I preferred to get left by the wrong train and have the right oneto fall back on." She ceased her babble, as vain words die when there is asense of no one listening.Elsie stood at the window looking back into the room. She thought, "Motherdoesn't know what she is saying. What is she worried about?"The bishop was writing with a gold pencil on the margin of the newspaper.He folded it with the writing on top."If you had consulted me about that child,"--he looked at Elsie,--"I shouldhave said, 'Do not hurry her--do not hurry her. Her education will come asGod sends it.' With experience, as with death, it is the prematureness thathurts."His beautiful voice and perfect accent filled the silence with heart-warmedcadences."Well, good-by, Mrs. Valentin. Remember me to that busy husband."Mrs. Valentin rose; the bishop took her hand. "Elsie will see me to theelevator. This is the evening paper."He offered it with the writing toward her. Mrs. Valentin read what he hadwritten: "Billy Castant was killed in the charge at San Juan. Every man inthat fight deserves the thanks of the nation.""Come, Elsie, see me to my carriage," the bishop was saying. He placed thegirl's hand on his arm and led her out of the room. At the elevator gratingthey waited a moment; the cold draft up the shaft fanned the hair back fromElsie's forehead as she stood looking down, watching the ascent of thecage."It would be a happy thing," said the bishop, "if parents could always gowith their children on these long roads of experience; but there are someroads the boys and the girls will have to take alone. We shall all meet atthe other end, though--we shall all meet at the end."Elsie walked up and down the hall awhile, dreading to go back to the room.A band in the street below was playing an old war-song of the sixties,revived this battle summer of '98,--a song that was sung when the cost ofthat war was beginning to tell, "We shall meet, but we shall miss him."Elsie knew the music; she had not yet learned the words.Next morning Mr. Valentin received one of his wife's vague but thriftytelegrams, dated at Chicago, on Sunday night, July 3:"We cannot go through with it. Expect us home Wednesday."Mrs. Valentin had spent hours, years, in explaining to Elsie's fatherthe many cogent and crying reasons for taking her East to be finished. Itneeded not quite five minutes to explain why she had brought her back.Strangely, none of the friends of the family asked for an explanation ofthis sudden change of plan. But Elsie envies Gladys her black clothes, andthe privilege of crying in public when the bands play and the troops go by."Such children--such mere children!" Mrs. Valentin sighs.But she no longer speaks to Elsie about wrinkling her forehead or showingher boot-soles. It is eye to eye and heart to heart, and only straight talkbetween them now, as between women who know.
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
