A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney [portable ebook reader txt] 📗

'If the American Eagle could solace itself in that way, we let it went!' She might have done some good to us,--we needed to be done to, I don't doubt,--but it's all over now. That light is under a bushel, and that city's hid, so far as Highslope is concerned. And we've pretty much made up our minds, among us, to be bad and jolly. Only sometimes I get thinking,--that's all."

She got up, giving the string of rings a final whirl, and tossing them into Leslie Goldthwaite's lap. "Good-by," she said, shaking down her flounces. "It's time for me to go and assert myself at Shinar. '_L'empire, c'est moi!_' Napoleon was great when he said that. A great deal greater than if he'd pretended to be meek, and want nothing but the public good!"

"What gets crowded out?" Day by day that is the great test of our life.

Just now, everything seemed likely to get crowded out with the young folks at Outledge but dresses, characters, and rehearsals. The swivel the earth turned on at this moment was the coming Tuesday evening and its performance. And the central axis of that, to nearly every individual interest, was what such particular individual was to "be."

They had asked Leslie to take the part of Zorayda in the "Three Moorish Princesses of the Alhambra." Jeannie and Elinor were to be Zayda and Zorahayda. As for Leslie, she liked well enough, as we know, to look pretty; it was, or had been, till other thoughts of late had begun to "crowd it out," something like a besetting weakness; she had only lately--to tell the whole truth as it seldom is told--begun to be ashamed, before her higher self, to turn, the first thing in the morning, with a certain half-mechanical anxiety toward her glass, to see how she was looking. Without studying into separate causes of complexion and so forth, as older women given to these things come to do, she knew that somehow there was often a difference; and beside the standing question in her mind as to whether there were a chance of her growing up to anything like positive beauty or not, there was apt often to be a reason why she would like _to-day_, if possible, to be in particular good looks. When she got an invitation, or an excursion was planned, the first thing that came into her head was naturally what she should wear; and a good deal of the pleasure would depend on that. A party without an especially pretty dress didn't amount to much; she couldn't help that; it did count with everybody, and it made a difference. She would like, undoubtedly, a "pretty part" in these tableaux; but there was more in Leslie Goldthwaite, even without touching upon the deep things, than all this. _Only_ a pretty part did not quite satisfy: she had capacity for something more. In spite of the lovely Moorish costume to be contrived out of blue silk and white muslin, and to contrast so picturesquely with Jeannie's crimson, and the soft, snowy drapery of Elinor, she would have been half willing to be the "discreet Kadiga" instead; for the old woman had really to look _something_ as well as _somehow_, and there was a spirit and a fun in that.

The pros and cons and possibilities were working themselves gradually clear to her thoughts, as she sat and listened, with external attention in the beginning, to Sin Saxon's chatter. Ideas about the adaptation of her dress-material, and the character she could bring out of, or get into, her part, mingled themselves together; and Irving's delicious old legend that she had read hundreds of times, entranced, as a child, repeated itself in snatches to her recollection. Jeannie must be stately; that would quite suit her. Elinor--must just be Elinor. Then the airs and graces remained for herself. She thought she could illustrate with some spirit the latent coquetry of the imprisoned beauty; she believed, notwithstanding the fashion in which the story measured out their speech in rations,--always an appropriate bit, and just so much of it to each,--that the gay Zorayda must have had the principal hand in their affairs; must have put the others up to mischief, and coaxed most winningly the discreet Kadiga. She could make something out of it: it shouldn't be mere flat prettiness. She began to congratulate herself upon the character. And then her ingenious fancy flew off to something else that had occurred to her, and that she had only secretly proposed to Sin Saxon; an illustration of a certain ancient nursery ballad, to vary by contrast the pathetic representations of "Auld Robin Gray" and "The Lady of Shalott." It was a bright plan, and she was nearly sure she could carry it out; but it was not a "pretty part," and Sin Saxon had thought it fair she should have one; therefore Zorayda. All this was reason why Leslie's brain was busy, like her fingers, as she sat and sewed on the green curtain, and let Sin Saxon talk. Till Miss Craydocke said that "something always gets crowded out," and so those words came to her in the midst of all.

The Josselyns went away to their own room when the last rings had been sewn on; and the curtain was ready, as had been promised, at ten o'clock. Leslie stayed, waiting for Dakie Thayne to come and fetch it. While she sat there, silent, by the window, Miss Craydocke brought out a new armful of something from a drawer, and came and placed her Shaker rocking-chair beside her. Leslie looked around, and saw her lap full of two little bright plaid dresses.

"It's only the buttonholes," said Miss Craydocke. "I'm going to make them now, before they find me out."

Leslie looked very uncomprehending.

"You didn't suppose I let those girls come in here and spend their morning on that nonsense for nothing, did you? This is some of _their_ work, the work that's crowding all the frolic out of their lives. I've found out where they keep it, and I've stolen some. I'm Scotch, you know, and I believe in brownies. They're good to believe in. Old fables are generally _all but_ true. You've only to 'put in one to make it so,' as children say in 'odd and even.'" And Miss Craydocke overcasted her first buttonhole energetically.

Leslie Goldthwaite saw through the whole now, in a minute. "You did it on purpose, for an excuse!" she said; and there was a ring of applauding delight in her voice which a note of admiration poorly marks.

"Well, you must begin somehow," said Miss Craydocke. "And after you've once begun, you can keep on." Which, as a generality, was not so glittering, perhaps, as might be; but Leslie could imagine, with a warm heart-throb, what, in this case, Miss Craydocke's "keeping on" would be.

"I found them out by degrees," said Miss Craydocke. "They've been overhead here, this month nearly, and if you _don't_ listen nor look more than is lady-like, you can't help scraps enough to piece something out of by that time. They sit by their window, and I sit by mine. I cough, and sneeze, and sing, as much as I find comfortable, and they can't help knowing where their neighbors are; and after that, it's their lookout, of course. I lent them some books one Sunday, and so we got on a sort of visiting terms, and lately I've gone in, sometimes, and sat down awhile when I've had an errand, and they've been here; the amount of it is, they're two young things that'll grow old before they know they've ever been young, if somebody don't take hold. They've only got just so much time to stay; and if we don't contrive a holiday for them before it's over, why,--there's the 'Inasmuch,'--that's all."

Dakie Thayne came to the door to fetch Leslie and the curtain.

"It's all ready, Dakie,--here; but I can't go just now,--not unless they want me _very_ much, and then you'll come, please, won't you, and let me know again?" said Leslie, bundling up the mass of cambric, and piling it upon Dakie's arms.

Dakie looked disappointed, but promised, and departed. They were finding him useful upstairs, and Leslie had begged him to help.

"Now give me that other dress," she said, turning to Miss Craydocke. "And you,--couldn't you go and steal something else?" She spoke impetuously, and her eyes shone with eagerness, and more.

"I've had to lay a plan," resumed Miss Craydocke, as Leslie took the measure of a buttonhole and began. "Change of work is as good as a rest. So I've had them down here on the curtain among the girls. Next, I'm going to have a bee. I've got some things to finish up for Prissy Hoskins, and they're likely to be wanted in something of a hurry. She's got another aunt in Portsmouth, and if she can only be provided with proper things to wear, she can go down there, Aunt Hoskins says, and stay all winter, get some schooling, and see a city doctor. The man here tells them that something might be done for her hearing by a person skilled in such things, and Miss Hoskins says 'there's a little money of the child's own, from the vandoo when her father died,' that would pay for traveling and advice, and 'ef the right sort ain't to be had in Portsmouth, when she once gets started, she shall go whuzzever't is, if she has to have a vandoo herself!' It's a whole human life of comfort and usefulness, Leslie Goldthwaite, may be, that depends!--Well, I'll have a bee, and get Prissy fixed out. Her Portsmouth aunt is coming up, and will take her back. She'll give her a welcome, but she's poor herself, and can't afford much more. And then the Josselyns are to have a bee. Not everybody; but you and me, and we'll see by that time who else. It's to begin as if we meant to have them all round, for the frolic and the sociability; and besides that, we'll steal all we can. For your part, you must get intimate. Nobody can do anything, except as a friend. And the last week they're here is the very week I'm going everywhere in! I'm going to charter the little red, and have parties of my own. We'll have a picnic at the Cliff, and Prissy will wait on us with raspberries and cream. We'll walk up Feather-Cap, and ride up Giant's Cairn, and we'll have a sunset at Minster Rock. And it's going to be pleasant weather every day!"

They stitched away, then, dropping their talk. Miss Craydocke was out of breath; and Leslie measured her even loops with eyes that glittered more and more.

The half-dozen buttonholes apiece were completed; and then Miss Craydocke trotted off with the two little frocks upon her arm. She came back, bringing some two or three pairs of cotton-flannel drawers.

"I took them up, just as they lay, cut out and ready, on the bed. I wouldn't have a word. I told them I'd nothing to do, and so I haven't. My hurry is coming on all of a sudden when I have my bee. Now I've done it once, I can do it again. They'll find out it's my way, and when you've once set up a way, people always turn out for it."

Miss Craydocke was in high glee.

Leslie stitched up three little legs before Dakie came again, and said they must have her upstairs.

One thing occurred to her, as they ran along the winding passages, up and down, and up again, to the new hall in the far-off L.

The Moorish dress would take so long