  The old Scudder place in those days was full of laughter and young people. We were happier there than any place else, and I have never known any parties gayer than those, where the only refreshments were weak lemonade and occasionally a batch of cookies. I remember once or twice on great occasions Miss Sarah Grant provided “refreshments.” There came a time when I agreed with Edward Graham that Ellen was going too far. This night I remember we were playing hide-and-seek all through the house—and you may be sure it was only in little Mrs. Payne’s house that such a thing would be allowed; for, oh! how sacred the guest-room in my day and how solemn and suggestive of a funeral the parlors in all the rigor of their horsehair. The Scudder house was a magnificent place for hide-and-seek,—the ell connected with the front of the house by what was known in my day as a “scoot hole,”—sort of a half-sized door,—and “Now, I’ve got you,” cried John Seymore’s voice; and to my horror and scandal, he kissed her and Ellen merely laughed, laughed as she might have had she been ten instead of twenty, having run away breathless from a kiss that she expected to get in the end, and over which she was only making a mock panic. It was a romping sort of a performance, because Ellen had slipped away from him without any sentiment, but I was shocked and pained—and, besides, I liked John Seymore and he liked me, and I didn’t think such levity was becoming in one who was to become a minister. I sought Ellen out. “I saw you,” said I. “I heard you under the bed,” said Ellen. “That’s why you went out?” “I didn’t want to embarrass you,” said she, grinning a naughty little-girl grin at me. “Do I look it?” asked Ellen. Suddenly there rushed over me most poignantly the memory of all our immature aspirations for the uplifting of those we knew. In a great wave of sadness I felt that we were wasting our lives—and the boy that liked me most of all had kissed Ellen in a romp. Twelve o’clock had struck for me. I was little Cinderella. I suppose I must have shown Ellen all I felt, for she had seen the new look in my eyes and all her impishness vanished, and she cried out: “Oh, Roberta dear!”—when we both heard voices shouting:— “It’s Alec! It’s Alec Yorke!” And in strolled a grown-up youth with wide shoulders, and a fine, open-air, swinging way with him, and on top of it was perched the head of Alec Yorke, only Alec made over with that incredible change that comes between fifteen and eighteen years. He was a man grown, but from this face, so masculine in its youthful quality, looked the touching young eyes of Alec, blue and sweet, and fearless, angry blue. He was “I can’t tell how strange this meeting with Alec has been. It was as though my dearest friend had been changed over and I had to find my Alec in this new grown-up boy, who was the same and so different; even his voice was different. And then all at once he began to tell me how much he cared for me, and I feel so ashamed. I feel ashamed just because he says that the memory of what I am like has kept him from doing things that he shouldn’t; he said I’ve always seemed to him like a white light burning in his life. I seemed to myself so very silly. I have never had any one talk to me as he did. Every one else who has cared for me has wanted something for themselves and he wanted nothing. I know now that I’ve never cared for any one in my life, for the way I care means nothing compared to the way he cares for me. What little bit of love I had for Edward I can’t say that I remember any marked change of action in Ellen because of her change of heart, and I still had that rather breathless feeling when I perceived that she was what she called “happy in her feet,” by which she meant that then it was she was so happy that she must go romping through our staid, little town, a graceful harlequin. It was just now, however, that she learned something about Miss Sarah Grant that touched her and made her wish to put her newborn feelings toward life into immediate action. Miss Grant, who had always lectured us severely, it now seemed had defended Ellen against all comments. “I enjoy the child’s high spirits,” we found her to have said. “This town should not Finding this out, Ellen said to me:— “She wants a sign of my industry; I’m going to buy her something beautiful.” “What with?” I asked, because actual money was scarce in the Payne household, and their tiny income was eked out by trading eggs and other things at the store; for in a day when most people raised everything themselves it was desperately hard for two ladies to make actual money. “Well,” considered Ellen, “Mrs. Salesby has gone away.” Mrs. Salesby was a gentlewoman who copied Mr. Sylvester’s sermons, his handwriting being quite illegible. The sum paid for this work was trifling, the work demanded, long and laborious, and Ellen’s handwriting I might call temperamental. Mr. Sylvester was at this time having a book of his sermons, which he called “Thoughts on Life,” copied. So for long hours Ellen shut herself in Mr. Sylvester’s dust-covered study and copied the inspired wanderings of his spirit which was what his sermons really were. At this time also Edward Graham ceased to be a disturbing presence in her life; for feeling the need of showing Alec the sort of a girl she was she told him her whole little story and he had applied to it the youth’s rule-of-thumb logic and saw the thing as it really was. He gave Ellen the first sensible talk she had ever had on her relations with men. As for Ellen’s calm acceptance of Alec’s devotion, she used the sophistries with which women from all time have accepted the sweet, undimmed love of those whom they consider boys. “He would, of course,”—writes the candid Ellen,—“have cared for some one anyway at this time, and it is better that he should care for me because I place real value on his affection Through months of toil she had at last acquired the few dollars necessary to buy the present, and something “boughten” at that moment had a tremendous value. Gifts were much fewer, and such gifts as there were were of course made at home. The first afternoon after her long task was over, Ellen went up the mountain to reflect. Our mountain and our river were two things which moulded the souls of us. The austere mountain drew my eyes toward God, and how often I lost my personal grievances as I mingled my bemused little spirit in the swirling river, which, after one looked at it long enough and steadily enough, seemed at last to absorb one in itself and float one down seaward. I knew that Ellen was on the mountain and Alec and I walked up to meet her. She was on what we call “Oscar’s Leap,” a place where the mountain seemed cleft away above the river, as though with some giant’s knife, and just above there was a clear platform, surrounded by trees and bushes. Our tradition had it that Oscar, one of This night the river was turned to a mighty sheet of burnished crimson, as the sun set just beyond the black bulk of the mountain. Our peaceful town took on an apocalyptical aspect. One felt that among the serene silence of departing day, the end of the world had come, and in some way the very silence of its coming made it more awesome, for its color demanded cataclysmal sounds. Ellen said once: “It tears one through like the noise of trumpets.” Presently Ellen came down the road toward us, the last slanting rays of the sun outlining her in the light. She didn’t see us as she came toward us, as we stood in the shadow. As I look back at that time it seems to me that she forever moved in a pool of light that came from the radiance of her own spirit. There was a little hush over both Alec and myself. He said: “She is very lovely.” And I answered: “She has been on the mountain.” I felt, indeed, as if Ellen had gone there to commune with God. SHE IS VERY LOVELY In all that she writes about him during the next two weeks, where he crosses and recrosses the pages of her journal continually,—for she wrote an almost day-to-day account, Time at that moment held its breath and gave her space I thought in my innocence that the white radiance of her, that was so apparent to me who loved her so, was the blossoming of religion in her spirit. One afternoon we had been notified that Ellen’s gift had come for her aunt. It had been sent direct from the city, very beautiful toilet and cologne bottles, I remember it was, of the massive kind with which ladies’ dressers were then always supplied. We had it all planned that we were to sit there while Miss Sarah undid her parcel, and finally, after she had wondered who could have sent her this gift, with a gesture Ellen was to tell her, but while Miss Sarah was about to open the parcel, the wide door of the stately drawing-room opened. A young man was framed in it. He stood there looking at Ellen, who was sitting on a low |
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