“I don’t believe,” said Isobel, “that you Middle Westerners ever settle down. I think you live like this all the time.” She, too, bent over the chart. “Two parties yesterday, and in between them Hunter took me for that wonderful drive.”
Hunter had worn his best suit, Carney remembered, and his most becoming tie. The New York telephone call was forgotten, and his joy, when they started off, had made his face glow. But Carney had encountered little Ellen buying embroidery thread in the fancy-work shop down on Front Street. Ellen was so pale that her freckles stood out; she had been crying.
“And today,” chimed in Bonnie, “we’re going fishing.”
“And tomorrow—” said Betsy, and paused. “By the way,” she asked mysteriously, “what day is tomorrow?”
“It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?” Carney replied in pretended innocence. She knew that everyone knew it was her birthday. There was a something on embroidery hoops which Bonnie whisked out of sight whenever she entered the room. Isobel and Betsy had made an unexplained shopping trip. A few assorted relatives had been invited to dinner.
“Thursday we’re going to visit your cousins in the country,” continued Isobel. She had asked to see a typical Minnesota farm. “Friday is still free, but Saturday is the Hutchinson dance, and on Sunday we all leave.”
“Boo hoo!” said Betsy.
“Boo hoo!” echoed Bonnie.
They fell on one another’s shoulders in mock grief.
Carney jumped up and went out of the library. Sitting down at the piano, she began some agitated scales. The week was going by on wings! Larry would be leaving soon, and they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere!
“I’m sure he likes me,” she thought. Admiration was always plain in his eyes. “And I certainly like him. But I don’t seem to know him very well.”
It was queer. They talked easily—about Stanford and Vassar, about Larry’s trip to Lake Tahoe and Carney’s to New York. (To be sure, Carney thought, they didn’t have much that was new to tell each other. They not only had written faithfully over the years but they had read and re-read one another’s letters. She remembered all about Larry’s camping on Lake Tahoe. Larry remembered all about her seeing the Wax Works down on Twenty-third Street in New York.)
They enjoyed doing things together, playing tennis or croquet. He joked and teased her in an affectionate way…like a brother, almost.
“But I don’t feel close to him,” she thought. She would, perhaps, if they were alone together more. But they were never alone. They never tried to be alone. They didn’t even take advantage of the maneuvers by which their companions sometimes tried to manage it.
If only he were more aggressive! Some men…someone like Sam Hutchinson…would do something definite in a situation like this.
She pushed aside the disloyal thought. Larry was so attractive, so perfect! But if he was going to go away for another four years…
“Mail!” Betsy called. Betsy usually brought in the mail. She was always looking for letters from Joe. “Something for you, Carney.”
Carney left the piano willingly.
“It’s a letter from Vassar,” she cried, examining it. “From the Secretary of the College. Do you have one, Isobel?”
“No,” Isobel replied.
“I hope I’m not put out or anything.”
Carney ripped open the envelope anxiously, but as she read a smile of real pleasure crossed her face. She was asked to serve on the Reception Committee for Freshmen. This group of upper classmen returned to school early. Wearing white dresses, rose and gray ribbons, and badges, they extended official welcomes and helped the freshmen register. It was an honor to serve on the committee.
Isobel echoed this thought.
“That’s wonderful, Carney. Most of the committee are seniors. They only pick outstanding juniors.”
“It’s because of my work with the Christian Association, I suppose,” said Carney.
“Oh,” said Isobel, “you’re in lots of activities. And you hold a class office. You’re very outstanding.”
Carney was surprised and pleased by this spontaneous tribute.
“Carney is a leader wherever she goes,” Betsy remarked, and Carney felt some of her old assurance returning. Maybe she wouldn’t have that feeling of inadequacy at college this year.
She was inordinately pleased by the letter. She told Sam about it that afternoon at the fishing. They had driven out to Pearl Lake laden with fish poles, straw hats, and a pail half filled with angle worms which Jerry and Bobbie had dug and sold for profit. Pearl was a small reedy lake lined raggedly with docks and faded summer cottages, but perch, sunfish, and crappies were abundant there, and boats could be rented. While Larry was concluding his bargain, Carney found herself seated in the boat with Sam. He had charged it, of course.
Her confiding in him seemed strange when she thought about it afterwards. She had told Larry that she was asked to be on the committee. But she had told it as though it were nothing. To Sam, although he was unshaven and grumpy, she blurted out what was in her heart.
“I’m awfully pleased because…I never thought I was anyone at Vassar.”
“Around here,” he said, “Carney Sibley is pretty important.”
“I know it. I think I was conceited when I went away. But Vassar took it out of me.”
“Was the work hard?”
“Yes. I have a B average now, though. It wasn’t the work…it was the people.” She frowned at the cork bobber on her fishing line.
“Did you know anyone when you went there?” he asked.
“Not a soul. I just put on a hard shell and plunged. I got in with a group of dyed-in-the-wool Easterners who were very kind, but I was a sort of…curiosity…to them because I came from the Middle West.”
“I suppose,” he said thoughtfully, “the Middle West isn’t very well represented at Vassar. But I don’t think it took folks long to find out that you were quite a person.”
Carney glanced at him gratefully.
His bobber dipped beneath the water and he pulled out his line. Finding only a bullhead on the hook he disengaged the ugly little creature and threw it back.
Carney spoke violently, “The East just…intimidates me. It has me buffaloed…or it did, until this letter came. This gives me back a little self-confidence.”
“Then reach out and grab it,” Sam said. “And don’t ever let go of it again.”
For a moment they were silent.
“I’m glad I’m doing well,” Carney remarked presently. “It was good of Dad to send me.”
“Do you know that you’re awfully conscientious?”
“We were brought up that way. My family is different from yours. We were brought up to think we should have a serious purpose in life.”
“Is the Presbyterian Church important to you?”
“I like to go to church. I like to organize my thoughts there every Sunday, see where I’m going wrong, plan things out. Of course, I don’t believe what some Presbyterians do, that all those who haven’t heard the word of God are damned…it wouldn’t be fair.”
“Of course not,” said Sam.
“Lots of people don’t think that any more. My father doesn’t. I don’t have deep thoughts,” she added suddenly. “Not many of them.” Then to her surprise she heard herself telling him the verse from Micah.
“What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
“That’s darn good,” said Sam. “It even lets me in.”
“That’s right,” said Carney. “It does.” She sounded surprised, which made him laugh; and she began to laugh, too.
“What are you two laughing about?” Isobel called from the next boat.
“The Bible,” said Sam.
“The Bible?” Isobel sounded surprised. But Carney and Sam wouldn’t tell her the joke.
Carney spent the rest of the day with Larry, and they told each other things they remembered already; they joked
and fooled. Somehow it seemed a little colorless after the talk with Sam.
Larry was in her thoughts, however, when she woke the next morning. She wondered with pleasurable excitement what he would give her for her birthday. He would remember the day, she knew. He had never forgotten it in all the years he had been away. Of course, he had to give flowers, candy, or a book. That was all it was proper to give a girl until you were engaged. Her mother hadn’t even liked his sending her that little abalone pendant. But his gift might tell her something.
He didn’t come in during the morning. In the early afternoon a car stopped in front of the house, but it was Sam who bounded up the steps. The house party came running from all directions to meet him. He waved them off.
“Go back to your knitting, girls. I came to see Jerry. Brought him Huck Finn.” Sam had taken to bringing books to Jerry from the big library in the house at Murmuring Lake. He turned to Carney. “Did he like Tom Sawyer?”
“Loved it. He read it out loud to Bobbie.”
“Well, now that I’m here,” said Sam, “how about a ride?”
The girls smiled at each other.
“We can’t leave,” Betsy explained in a stage whisper. “It’s Carney’s birthday.”
“Is that the cake I smell?” Sam asked, sniffing. “Isn’t there going to be a party?”
“Just a family party. Grandmothers, aunts, and such.”
“Save me a piece of the birthday cake then,” he said, departing.
Carney remembered that her mother had asked her to cut some flowers for the vases. Getting scissors and a basket from the kitchen, where Olga moved rapidly to conceal a cake fresh from the oven, she went out to the garden. By a happy chance she was still there, alone, when Larry came.
He strode toward her, removing his white straw hat, and extended a tissue-wrapped package.
“Something for you,” he said, smiling.
Putting her basket full of cosmos and phlox on the ground, she untied the ribbons eagerly.
“It’s a book,” she thought to herself, and saw that it was a fine leather copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, illustrated with colored pictures.
“Oh, thank you!” she cried. “I’m glad to own this.”
“Everyone at Stanford is reading it.”
“Everyone at Vassar too. Thank you very much. Let’s go in,” she added nervously. “I’ve got enough flowers now.”
He hesitated. “I can’t stay. I was wondering whether we might get away for a picnic, just you and me? Would it be all right? Could you leave your house party?”
Carney swallowed hard. “They wouldn’t mind.”
“Is there a free day?”
“There’s nothing planned yet for Friday.”
“Let’s go Friday then.”
“I’ll ask Dad for the car.”
“No,” said Larry. “I’ll hire a livery team. Where shall we go?”
“To Orono?” asked Carney and then she felt confused, for she remembered what they had said—that they would save Orono for a very special occasion.
“Yes,” said Larry with his charming crooked smile. “Let’s go to Orono.”
Carney went slowly into the house. She met her mother in the kitchen and showed her the Rubaiyat. Mrs. Sibley smiled approvingly. She had never read the Persian poet, but a book seemed a highly suitable gift. Besides, she had come to like Larry very much.
Carney wanted to talk to Bonnie. Fortunately Betsy and Isobel were deep in a game of Seven-and-a-half. Bonnie was sitting in the big chair, tatting, and it was not difficult to beckon her away.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Carney proposed, and when they were out in the street, she said, “Larry wants me to go on a picnic with him, Friday…all alone.”
“Carney!” cried Bonnie. She looked at Carney solemnly. “This is it!” she said.
“It can’t be.”
“Don’t you like him?”
“Yes. I like him awfully well. But…I haven’t gotten to know him.”
“You don’t need to get to know him. You’ve known him all your life.”
“But we’re not close,” Carney tried to explain. It couldn’t be done, and she stopped.
“What will you say?” asked Bonnie excitedly.
“Let’s wait to see what he says,” Carney answered.
If it was going to be another four years before she saw him again, she’d better say “yes,” she thought.
When they returned, her mother met them on the steps. She looked less serene.
“Carney,” she said, “there’s a box for you. A perfectly enormous box.”
“Where is it?”
“On the back parlor floor.”
Plainly, it was on the floor because there was no table long enough to hold it. It was a flower box, almost as long and as thick as a man.
Carney opened it with elated fingers. It held two dozen American Beauty roses, velvety and fragrant, unbelievably tall.
They could come from only one person. It wasn’t necessary to search for the card. But when it was found it bore, as everyone knew it would, a scrawled, “Happy birthday—Sam.”
“How ridiculous of him!” said Carney, but her cheeks were flushed with pleasure.
Mrs. Sibley looked critical. “I can’t imagine what we’ll put them in. The umbrella stand might do if it had a bottom.”
Vases were borrowed from Grandmother Sibley and Grandmother Hunter. Jerry and Bobbie ran around the neighborhood excitedly borrowing vases. Soon the house was dizzily sweet.
It was turning very warm, and the heat seemed to make the fragrance all the sweeter. Cutting the cake, opening the modest packages from her family and the girls, Carney kept inhaling deep intoxicating breaths.
She remembered her thoughts the day she had first met the Hutchinsons. How different they were from the Sibleys in their extravagant lavishness! Purple and dove gray!
When Sam called the next day to drive the girls out to the country, she thanked him with the dimple shining.
“Did you like them?”
“I loved them.”
“There’s something I want to tell you.” He encircled her shoulder with his big arm, which made Carney feel queer although he was only doing it, she knew, in order to whisper. He put his lips close to her ear.
“I paid cash for them.”
“Did you really?”
“Yes, I did.”
Larry came in presently, and like everyone else he immediately mentioned the forest of roses.
“Opening a florist shop?” he asked.
“Just birthday,” answered Carney.
Bobbie piped up, “They’re from Sam.”
Sam turned to Jerry and Bobbie. “You boys coming along to the farm?”
“Nope,” said Bobbie. “I’m playing Huck Finn.”
“I’m reading it through again,” said Jerry. “Gosh, Sam, it’s good!”
That afternoon wasn’t very successful, although the cousins were hospitable and their farm one of the finest in the county. The heat was growing more intense, and only Isobel seemed to have the energy to appreciate rural sights.
Of course, to the others, farms were homely and familiar. They well knew the pattern of small house, large red barn and outbuildings, windmill, windbreak of poplars and the rich flat land around. They were accustomed to handsome horses sweating in golden fields, to fat cows in verdant meadows, to grunting black and white pigs, bright hens, collie dogs and litters of kittens. They made the rounds apathetically and were glad to return to the shade of the door-yard elm, a plate of fresh-baked cookies and cold water from the well.
“It’s almost too hot for sightseeing but there’s one place we ought to take in before the girls go, and tomorrow’s the last chance,” Sam said.
“What is it?” asked the indefatigable Isobel.
“The dam at Orono.”
Bonnie let out a startled gasp.
“Oh, we can’t go there!” she cried, and stopped, looking distressed. Carney colored, and Larry
began to dig in the ground with a stick he had picked up.
“Why can’t we?” Betsy demanded. “It’s a grand idea.”
“I’ve heard so much about the dam,” Isobel added.
Larry didn’t speak.
Carney was exasperated. It wasn’t like her to have concealed her plan for Friday, but she had dreaded telling Betsy and Isobel, and there hadn’t really been a chance. The excitement of her birthday roses had almost blotted out the projected twosome picnic.
At least, she thought, she would be frank now. She spoke brusquely, interrupting Bonnie who was framing a suitable excuse.
“Larry and I are busy tomorrow.”
There was a startled silence.
“Well,” Sam said, “the rest of us could go.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Bonnie. “But Orono is where they’re going.”
Still Larry didn’t speak.
Carney sat rigidly upright. If she didn’t say, “We’ll all go,” it showed how important their private picnic was. If she did say it, she destroyed the only chance she and Larry would have for a confidential talk.
She jumped up. “I’ll get some more cookies,” she said.
“I’ll get some water,” said Larry, jumping up, too, and seizing the pail.
But in spite of these fresh supplies the group didn’t re-form.
Shortly Betsy found Carney.
“It’s the most thrilling thing I ever heard of! I’m so thankful I was here when it happened.”
“But nothing has happened.”
“Oh, it will!”
Isobel seemed equally sure that the expedition was romantic.
“He’s certainly a charmer,” she said. “I’m awfully happy for you, Carney darling.”
Even Sam sought her out.
“Did you know I was a good amateur carpenter?” he asked.
“No. Are you? Why?”
“I’m going to make you a shelf. You’ll need one, I suppose, to climb up on after that trip tomorrow.”
His eyes were crinkled into his bright smile. But there was something urgent and demanding in their gaze.
Carney opened her mouth to speak, but she shut it again. When she talked with Sam she always said too much.