A FEW days later May Nell came, and Billy went to see her. On the way, and while waiting in the parlor of her imposing home, he recalled the April evening she had come into Vina on the refugee train from San Francisco, a homeless waif. Driven right into his arms he believed, by the catastrophe, he had led her to his mother’s door; and the little girl had walked into their hearts, never to be forgotten.

Yet now she seemed remote,—very young, and out of Billy’s life, if not out of memory. He had not seen her since they separated after the summer together at Lallula; and that was far away, a part of another life.

May Nell had never been robust since the terrifying days and nights of the great fire; and her parents sent her to a girls’ school in a neighboring town, where health was the first consideration.

The maid came interrupting his memories, and he followed her.

“Come up, Billy!” May Nell called in the well remembered melodious voice.

He was unprepared for the change in her. She had been only slightly hurt in the foot in an automobile accident, and now showed almost no ill effects from it. She seemed no older, no larger, yet different, in a way that Billy could not explain to himself. As she rose impulsively to greet him, leaning gracefully on her cane, he felt in full force once more her charm, her otherworldliness.

Her face had rounded and taken on richer tints; and the gold of her hair and the blue of her eyes were almost ethereal. She was like a beautiful dream, or like some little princess of bygone years stepped from the canvas of an old master.

“Oh, Billy, Billy! How good it is to see you! And how fine of you to come this first day I’m at home.”

Billy was only half at ease. He felt old and rude, and in some odd way not good enough to touch her delicate hand, to help her reseat herself. “I had to come, you know.” And though he smiled he remembered that he had wished he were going to see Erminie instead.

Yet now that he was here he felt widely separated from Erminie. A fancy struck into his mind on the instant between sentences: Erminie was the bright red rose, quickly blooming and quickly fading, that grows luxuriantly in plain view in the valley; May Nell was a rare and delicate yet unwithering orchid that hides on the far mountain side.

“Mama says I am not to return to school till the autumn semester opens.”

Again the daintiness, the foreign flavor that attached to all she said or did came with the French “mama.”

“That’s dandy!” and he gave her a boyish scrutiny. “You’re different, older someway; but you’re—just as little.” A teasing mischief danced in his eyes.

“I am older, Billy. Did you think I would always stay a little girl?”

“Thirteen isn’t very old.”

“It’s only three years younger than sixteen.”

“I’m much more than sixteen,” he objected, and thought with dismay of Erminie. Could she feel as much beyond him in age as he felt beyond May Nell?

“Well, no matter, Billy. You look twenty. But I’ll challenge you on the score of studies, that is, if—if you’ll cut out mathematics,” she added in a mock-plaintive tone.

“Mathematics is—are?—the whole business,” he swaggered; and thus they chaffed themselves back to childhood standing again, and talked on of many matters, each telling of life during the separation.

She was almost well, would soon be ready to join in their sports again. Going home, Billy thought over his changed future. The gay days were coming when May Nell and his cousins, Hector, Hugh, and little Miss Snow, as they called their little sister, would all go chugging around the Sound among the beautiful Thousand Islands, or startle the silences of night and day at lovely Lallula.

But he would not be there. He would be drudging at some sort of hard work; making a beginning in his long, hurrying climb toward an income that would warrant him in taking Erminie to a home of their own. Suddenly the future looked bigger and darker, and he mentally drew back from it; but instantly chid himself for a coward.

He need not. He was only a boy. How was he to know that he was not yet able to endure long mental strain; that this depression was the inevitable reaction from exciting days, and nights with little or no sleep?

On his way he met Bess Carter.

“Hello, Queen of Sheba!” he called as she was passing him, her head up, eyes unheeding.

“Oh! Billy! I’m glad you spoke. We’re so busy I’m totally absorbed and don’t have time to see my friends.”

“Evidently not. What is it? Politics?”

“Yes. Though it doesn’t seem like that. I thought politics was something tremendous and difficult and—rather bad. But since mother says women are to be enfranchised and I must learn things, and since I heard Mr. Streeter, it really appears merely a sort of housekeeping for the city, or State, or whatever; easy, but lots of work.”

“When you’ve heard more from Mr. Streeter you’ll see that any kind of housekeeping that’s worth while isn’t so easy; though it’s simpler when all the people have a pride in it.”

“Yes. Do you know, Billy, I’d never have been allured by it if he hadn’t said that one who forgot or abused his city was the same as one who forgot home or demolished the furniture.” Bess retained her fondness for long words.

“That was rather striking.”

“And now I’m in—deep in the girls’ reform party; and we are going to participate in the Progressives’ playground rally to-night. Will you be there?”

“Sure. But what will the girls do?”

“We wish to address the meeting. It’s especially to bring about better conditions on the playground; and the student body will take some part there if Hector is president.”

“Yes.”

“You know the boys of the Fifth Avenue High have an unconscionable name there.”

“Yes; and it’s only a few that have given it that reputation. You’re going some for girls. How did you get the chance to butt in on the rally?”

“Oh, Billy, doesn’t the school and the playground belong to girls as well as to boys? Have not we a right to be heard?”

“Sure. But how is it the boys let you?”

“Hector told the managers of the meeting that if they wanted him to speak they’d have to let us in too.”

“Good. I’ll be there.”

“And—Billy—” Her hesitation was unprecedented.

Billy’s eyes questioned.

“It’s about the—Erminie Fisher.”

“Well?” This time the eyes warned.

“They’re talking about her—the girls don’t like her.”

“Anything else?” There was a steel-like quality in his voice that Bess Carter had never suspected.

“Yes. She’s working for Jim Barney’s ticket, and you must make her—only you can—make her stop, or Hector won’t win.” She was intensely in earnest now, all her loyalty to Billy fighting for him. “Billy! That girl is no good friend to you, and she’ll spoil everything if you don’t stop her.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” he said, after a silence that puzzled and chilled her.

“She won’t join the Girls’ Branch of the Progressives, nor register. And she says if Hector Price is elected he will turn the student body into a kindergarten; at least that’s what Walter Buckman said she said.” She pumped out the words breathily.

“Any more slams on her?”

“Oh, Billy, I’m no tattler. It isn’t what they say; it’s the looks and sniggers that say more than words. No one would dare to tell me anything anyway; they know I’m your friend, Billy, your California friend.”

He caught the emotion in her voice, knew that in all the world he had not a more devoted friend, a more fearless champion than Bess Carter. “You’re to the good, Bess. I shall try to deserve your kindness.” He lifted his cap and passed on, leaving her troubled and mystified.

He found his mother busy over her window plants. After an anxious inquiry as to dinner, which settled the fact that he would have to wait ten minutes, he stood watching her in such an unusual silence that she noticed it and rallied him.

“What’s happening in Calcutta, Billy?”

“Not in Calcutta; right here. What are you killing all those little babies for?”

Mrs. Bennett straightened up and looked at him, startled. “It does seem almost like that, doesn’t it? But if I don’t pinch these buds the plants will be less thrifty, perhaps die.”

“Why?”

“It’s warm here in this room, and the plant has hurried to put out buds before the root has struck deep enough. It would be unwise to let it come to flower now.”

“Doesn’t Nature know best how to do things?”

“Not always. Nature is very wasteful. Besides, I’ve robbed these plants of Nature’s care, taken them into artificial conditions; so I must stand in place of Nature to them.”

“Suppose the plant gets discouraged and won’t bloom at all?”

“It won’t do that; blooming is the law of its life.”

He was silent a moment before asking, “I wonder if that is true in—in other ways—that about blooming too soon?”

“Yes, true of all Nature. Fruit grown or gathered prematurely is always poor, tasteless; still more important, the seeds produce poorer stock.”

“I don’t quite understand. I thought young flowers were finest. Didn’t you say pansies wouldn’t have fine blooms the second or third year?”

“Yes. That is because naturally the pansy is an annual. Only in warm climates does it live through the winter; when it does, the second season is merely a prolonged old age.”

“How about animal life?”

“The law is the same. In hot climates where boys and girls marry early the races are not strong, dominant. And in our own latitude the children of well-grown, well-trained men and women are stronger mentally and physically than those whose parents marry in their teens.”

Billy winced. “I should think that—that—well, when boys and girls are old enough to care for each other that would mean they were old enough to marry.”

“In the dawn of the race when men were no wiser than the plants, when they lived naturally, it did mean that. But as the race unfolds and we make artificial conditions, man sees more fully perhaps the meaning of God’s command to him to have dominion over every thing on the earth. Man’s growing wisdom is in charge over Nature to mould her material forms to higher, ever higher perfection.”

“Then why is it that kids do marry? Why do they want to before they ought?”

“Why do you wish to eat before you are really hungry? Why do you wish to run, leap, dance, be ever on the move, whether you have conscious need for motion or not? Why does a baby try to walk before its legs will bear it?”

Billy grinned. “You’re too deep for me, marms.”

“Because Nature is often blind. To preserve the race is her first business. She sacrifices the one to the welfare of the many. Man, exercising the power God gave him, sees that only as each one comes to his best, will he contribute to the race the best possible stock. Therefore our wisest thinkers say that all should wait till at least well in the twenties before marriage.”

Billy was thoughtful for a minute. “What of the fellow who likes a girl so well that he can’t keep—well, keep from thinking of her?” He knew very well that his mother cast a quick look at him, but he did not meet her eye, and she went quietly on with her employment of snipping and digging.

“That is a very deep question, one to which you should give much study. There are books prepared especially to answer such questions. For ages man has been developing unevenly. The truth is that men and women are nine-tenths alike; that is, human—eating, drinking, suffering, joying, loving each other and mankind alike, and dying alike. Only in about one-tenth of their natures are they different, this being the difference of sex.”

“Gee! That seems strange.”

“But is it? Look at Bess Carter. She has been reared most wisely. Is she not nearly as much of an athlete as you are? What is there that you can do that she cannot?”

Billy scowled. He remembered uncomfortably a day when a little child had fallen into the edge of the lake, and Bess had outrun him and rescued her just as he was arriving. Also he was more uncertain than he liked as to their relative percentage for the year.

“She’s an exception,” he evaded.

“So are you. Few boys of your age are as well developed. Yet you could not endure, except for a momentary spurt, perhaps, what, with no accident or illness you will be able to endure at twenty-three. Mentally the difference will be nearly the same.”

“Why do people marry so young, then?”

“For many reasons. Children are not taught these things as they should be taught. Boys who leave school early and earn for themselves usually have no aim beyond mere physical satisfaction, no large ideals to follow, and become a prey to natural emotions they yield to but do not understand.”

“How about the others—and girls?”

“The young man who takes a longer school course or a profession must put his whole effort to succeeding in that. He cannot take the burden of a family life, and he has his work, sports, various matters to occupy his attention, and all his forces combine to the making of his higher success. It is about the same with girls.”

“But why shouldn’t they love each other, be engaged and wait?”

He thought it a long time before she answered. When at last she turned and looked deep in his eyes her voice took on the tender tone he knew, and her words were grave. “Billy, think back to the time when you were a little boy and the apples, full grown and gloriously tinted but hard as wood, tempted you from their leafy nests. What would have happened if you had fondled and pinched each one?”

Billy’s eyes darkened. “I—I—see.”

“Would it have been the fault of the apple if it had become later a dented, spotted thing with decay setting in before it had really ripened?”

“No.” He writhed inwardly at the conclusions forced upon him.

“Remember, Billy, every girl is like an apple slowly ripening toward womanhood.”

The room was very still, and they stood together, Billy’s arm close about her waist, looking out upon the distant shimmering lake. At length she lifted her head suddenly and spoke with a singular passion.

“My boy, the love relation between a man and a woman is the holiest one on earth. It may begin in passion, but if true, it ends in a constant devotion that opens the door of heaven. Since this is God’s way of keeping his race going it is blasphemy to speak or even think coarsely of it, or to enter upon it except devoutly. If there is one relation in life that should be given preparation, almost I would say that should be entered upon with prayer and fasting, it is that by which you shall become responsible for the welfare of future beings, your children.”

She was trembling, and Billy knew now that she understood him; that even if she did not know the one he loved, she knew the fact. He could not deceive her, nor did he wish it. He felt relieved that she knew, though he could not bring himself to speak of it. He thought it was because he must not let any one intrude on Erminie’s privacy, but the reason lay deeper than that, deeper than he could then know.

The dinner was brought in. He had forgotten his hurry; but now it returned, and he hastened his meal and excused himself to go to the rally.

He went round by Erminie’s home. He wished to ask her of the situation Bess had described. He was sure she could clear up everything that troubled him, sure she could defend her course no matter how it might look to others. Perhaps she really disbelieved in politics for girls; if so, she had a right to her opinion.

Yet why had she openly assisted the school bully? That was as much a political move as the other, and not so frank; more, it was exceedingly unpopular. She could not be associated with Jim in any matter, and hold the goodwill of the best girls in school.

A hot wave swept over him. Whatever she did, he must stand by her now, make life for her better, not worse. Yet how could he do it? Open interference between her and Barney would be disastrous.

Still questioning anxiously of himself he rang the bell; once, twice, and a third time. No one answered, and after a wait and another ring he went back to the playground, and found a noisy, chaotic scene.

Redtop was manager. He had planned a rally in imitation of the campaign meetings of real politics. There would be speeches, and the candidates for the playground officers would be presented. There could be no rules, of course, as if in a room, but three boys were appointed to keep order, Billy being one. And everybody was welcome.

Apparently the cityful had arrived before Billy. As he approached, Redtop, perspiring and anxious, called, “Billy Next Week, come on! Get busy! Hold down those kids, will you? This meeting’s got a football game skinned silly on noise.”

“All right,” Billy responded cheerfully. “Shall I scare ’em or run ’em in?”

“Oh, anything. Cop ’em or duck ’em. Here! Take this.” He pinned a badge of authority on Billy’s coat.

Billy started through the wriggling, shifting mass of boys of many nationalities from fair-faced Swede to swarthy Italian and garrulous Irish boy, with quiet, squat Japanese fringing the edges.

“The cop’s coming!” ran derisively from lip to lip along the crowd, which curved back at his approach, only to close in behind him with more and more noise.

“Say! Fellers!” Billy wheeled and called to the nearest, “What’s the matter of helping here and getting the taffy a little later?”

“Sure, Mike,” cried some. And others asked, “Where’s the taffy?”

Billy laughed and touched his lip. “You’ll get as much as I will.”

“What’s that?”

“The fun. See? Now hike, and bring those benches over here.” He waved his doubled fist at them as if it were a club; and thirty or more hurried off laughing, and began to labor with the park benches which they set in semi-circular rows on the grass around a central bench between two torches, that was the speakers’ stand.

Coming on Sis Jones a moment later, Billy asked him to look after the bench brigade, which he did, crying out to Billy when he passed again, “Gee! This is work! Where’s the reward?”

“Where mine is,” Billy jeered. “Look at the girls; they’re doing half of the work.” He nodded to a dozen or more struggling by with the heavy seats, one bending alone under the weight of a short bench, and refusing help.

“Look at the strong Miss Kid!” shouted a small boy.

“The mighty suffragette!” another fleered.

The girls only laughed, straightened a little, and tugged on.

Some of the Kid’s followers caught Sis Jones, stripped off his coat, tied a girl’s hat on him with a scarf, threw a girl’s wrap over him, pulled off his shoes and socks, and dragged him forward into the circle of light, only to be themselves caught and lashed to trees farther back.

Billy and his helpers rushed about frantically. Redtop mounted his bench platform and tried to call the meeting to order; but the uproar increased, and after a moment of vain gesticulating for quiet he stepped down amid wildest cheers.

Two large boys swung a little negro back and forth, head down, commanding him to sing. Too frightened to emit a sound he finally wriggled away from them and fled like a rabbit, with a dozen yelling buffoons after him.

A third group crowned a tiny girl with evergreen, lifted her to their close-touching shoulders, and paraded with her around the open space, shouting, “Madam President!” “I rise to a point of order!” “I have the floor—” “No, no! It’s the ground!” and a lot more nonsense.

The pranks went on while those in charge conferred apart upon the question of handling the mob, each in turn bolstering the courage of the rest.

“Gee whiz! I didn’t expect any of the real thing—voters and mamas,” Redtop panted as he lunged back after his inauspicious beginning. “What are we to do?”

“If we fizzle out, the girls will never stop guying us,” Sis Jones groaned; “they toted almost as many benches as we did.”

“Get a girl to start the meeting; they’re keen on it, and maybe the fellows wouldn’t give it to a girl so—so in the neck.”

“Where’s Hec? What does he say?”

“I say we’ve got to beat that crowd into respect, or not only the Progressives will lose their election, but we’ll lose ours.”

“But this is no meeting for the student body,” Redtop urged.

“No. But Barney and Buckman and their crowd know that nearly every one who will vote for me is mixed up in this playground fight on the side of the Progressives. The Good Citizens’ Club stands for the Progressives too.”

“You go speak to them now, Hec,” Redtop urged.

“No, he can’t,” Billy objected. “He’s the principal speaker of the evening; he must be introduced properly.”

Behind them stood Bess Carter bursting with indignation. “You boys haven’t the spunk of a flea!” she taunted, and before they could reply she was standing on the bench gazing fearlessly but silently around on the mob. Her advent, so sudden and unheralded, touched the most quieting element of a crowd, its curiosity.

Tall, erect, her dark eyes flashing in the light of the torches, her beauty enhanced by her air of refinement and womanliness,—her power was felt by every little hoodlum there as keenly as by the older people.

“Gee! The Queen of Sheba’ll do the trick!” Billy ejaculated softly.

For what seemed to be minutes she stood, motionless except for her quick-glancing eyes, calmly waiting for perfect silence. It came at length, and she bowed gracefully and smiled as if she had expected nothing else.

“Ladies and gentlemen and fellow students: I did not mount this rostrum to make a speech, only to announce that the meeting is about to begin, and that we shall expect quiet. For really good Americans this is an unnecessary request. For any others who may possibly be here we have behind us real American policemen who will take charge of them.”

She bowed and in a moment was back among the anxious group again, while the audience clapped and roared, and the high-school boys shouted, “Hooray for the Queen!” “Bully for her!” and other elegant expressions that nevertheless held only admiration.

“Bess! What did you say that for? We have no police—”

“Not now, but we’re going to! I never saw such barbarians! I’m going to telephone for the police!” Before any could stop her she was flying across the street to find a telephone.

Taking advantage of the lull that followed her speech, Redtop mounted the bench and in the briefest way announced the programme and introduced the first speaker, who was Reginald Steele. Hector was to follow him, and Billy was to be called on for an impromptu speech, when he would introduce one or two of the girls.

But this programme was never carried out. Before Reginald got to his “secondly,” two boys sprang at the torches and extinguished them; half a dozen bunches of firecrackers began to explode in different localities; and a scream from the wading pool at the same moment completed the panic.

The long twilight had faded and the scattered park lamps shed only faint gleams.

“There’s no danger! Everyone go home quietly!” shouted one man. And another called, “The little chap that screamed fell into the wading pool. He isn’t hurt, and has gone home.”

In five minutes the playground was deserted and silent under the quiet stars. Billy remained to the last, searching in vain for Erminie. He had seen her there, and expected her to wait for him. On a sudden impulse he decided to go across to her home.

As he neared the house he saw her standing under the porch light with Jim Barney. Her face was in the shadow, and he could not hear their words; but he knew from their low, tense tones and Jim’s eager, bending attitude, that their conversation was important.

Billy watched them an instant, dazed and uncertain, yet tormented by the tender pleading in an occasional tone that floated out to him in Erminie’s voice. But eavesdropping Billy despised; and as soon as he could recover himself he turned away, his disappointment at the utter failure of the meeting pushed to insignificance by this puzzling, sinister, covert situation that included both Erminie and Jim. Billy was utterly perplexed. What could she mean?

Slowly, his feet weighing tons, he plodded home, and entered to find the telephone ringing.

He hurried to take down the receiver that the household might not be disturbed. “Who is it?”

“Erminie,” came back over the wire. “Oh, Billy, I’m so glad to get you!”

“Yes?” Billy could not keep the coldness out of his voice. He was hearing again the tender eagerness in her tone as the Kid bent over her twenty minutes before.

“Oh, I don’t wonder you speak in that Alaska voice, Billy; but you don’t know everything. Billy, dear, won’t you trust me? Just for a few days?”

“I—I’d like to,” he sent back huskily over the wire. Even at that distance he could feel her power over him, hear the caress in each word.

“You may, Billy. And you won’t be sorry. Good-night.”

Without another word she hung up, leaving Billy a trifle comforted but more perplexed than ever.