On the return from the farm Isobel didn’t get out of the Loco. The rest climbed out, but Sam said casually that he and Isobel were going for a ride. She wore her green and white tissue and a lingerie hat. In spite of the now torrid heat she looked enchanting.
For some reason Carney kept waiting for them to come home. The afternoon wore away. Kitchen sounds and odors indicated supper, but Isobel didn’t return.
“Supper’s ready,” Mrs. Sibley called at last. “Shall we wait?”
“No,” answered Carney. “Father hates to wait. And the Loco has probably broken down.”
“Maybe,” gurgled Bonnie, “she and Sam have eloped.”
“What about Howard Sedgwick?” asked Carney.
“Well, he’s in New York and Sam is here.”
During supper the telephone rang, and Olga came into the dining room.
“It’s Miss Porteous. She’s been invited to stay for dinner with the Hutchinsons. She says she’ll be home right after dinner. Is it all right, she wants to know?”
“Perfectly,” said Mrs. Sibley, smiling.
A flutter ran around the table.
“What a romantic house party!” cried Betsy. “Larry and Carney going to Orono! Isobel eloping with Sam!”
“She hasn’t eloped with Sam,” Carney cut in almost sharply.
“Maybe she has! How do we know they’re ever coming back?”
“What does ‘elope’ mean?” Bobbie inquired.
“To run away with someone.”
“Huck Finn eloped. Gee, I should say he did!” said Bobbie, looking thoughtfully into his strawberry short-cake.
15
Orono
CARNEY COULDN’T SLEEP that night. It was too hot for anyone to sleep, she thought, even on a sleeping porch, without a top sheet. But Betsy and Bonnie were sleeping. Lifting herself on one elbow, she could see them plainly in the moonlight. Betsy’s hair was done up in Magic Wavers, of course; Bonnie had pinned her yellow locks on top of her head for coolness.
Isobel was sleeping, too, although her loosened hair was scattered over the pillow. It made a wavy pattern. Heat caused Isobel’s hair to curl even more endearingly than usual. Although it had been very hot when she and Sam returned last night, she had looked deliciously pretty. Her hair was twining into curls and curlicues about a flushed face. There had been a brightness lighting her from within. She had looked the way a girl ought to look when she got engaged.
“But I won’t look like that if I get engaged to Larry tomorrow. I won’t be that happy,” Carney thought.
She wondered whether Isobel had become engaged to Sam. The idea seemed ridiculous because of Howard Sedgwick, but she couldn’t be sure. Isobel was so mysterious. You couldn’t figure out what she would or wouldn’t do as you could with ordinary girls.
Carney felt a surge of resentment against her. She wished she hadn’t invited her to come to Minnesota.
“But she’s made a wonderful guest,” she thought, trying to choke down this unworthy feeling. “Everyone likes her. I do myself.”
She got up and went to the railing.
“I’m in a bad mood because of that picnic tomorrow. But I ought to be glad it’s coming off. I usually hate things hanging fire.”
The moon sailed in the sky above the hills in golden indifference. It outlined the turret on the barn and threw large soft shadows of trees on the lawn. The shadows were motionless for there wasn’t a breath stirring. It was stiflingly hot.
Carney longed for a cold bath but she was afraid the sound of running water would waken someone. Her parents and the boys had their bedroom doors open, seeking a nonexistent draft. She decided to get a drink instead, and tiptoeing down to the kitchen, she poured a glass of cold water from the earthen jug which Olga always kept in the icebox. The kitchen was stuffy.
“What weather for a picnic!” Carney groaned, wandering into the dark parlors. Even the ground floor windows were open but there wasn’t a breeze. “I can’t look pretty in weather like this. We can’t make a fire. There has been plenty of nice cool weather. Why did he have to wait so long?”
And yet, she admitted, climbing the stairs again, there had been a reason for waiting.
“Even as it is, we don’t really know each other. Of course he’s only been here two weeks.”
But she had known Sam only a week when they had had that talk about Matthew Lang.
Disgruntled, she returned to her bed. She was still disgruntled in the morning, and the girls annoyed her at breakfast.
“Do you know what we ought to read out loud today? The Little Colonel’s Hero,” Betsy said.
“What are you going to wear?” asked Isobel.
“I haven’t any idea.”
“I’m sorry it’s such a hot day.”
“Heavens!” cried Carney. “Don’t act as though it were my wedding day.”
Isobel and Betsy began to hum delightedly.
“Here comes the bride,
Here comes the bride…”
Carney gave them a crushing look.
She went out to the kitchen and made a jugful of lemonade which she put in the icebox to chill.
“Probably it will be as warm as soup by the time we drink it.”
She got out a basket, slamming it down hard. She made deviled eggs and then decided she might as well make the sandwiches, too, while there was still a little morning coolness.
“It’s going to be a scorcher,” she thought.
Going to the garden for lettuce, she noticed Bobbie sitting underneath an old carpet which he had hung over the clothes reel to make a tent. Within this suffocating shelter he was wearing a leather jacket and knitted cap.
“Bobbie! Come out of there!” she cried. “Whatever are you doing?”
“I’m eloping,” said Bobbie. “Huck Finn and I are eloping.”
“Well, you don’t need to elope in a leather jacket,” said Carney, smiling in spite of her bad humor. She persuaded him to take off the jacket but looking out of the kitchen window later, she saw that he had it on again.
“That Sam!” she muttered. “Lending the boys books that give them crazy ideas!”
After dinner she took a cold bath and put on a clean middy blouse and her white duck skirt with a red tie and red ribbon as usual.
“You look very nice,” said Bonnie.
“And so casual,” added Isobel.
Betsy started to hum the wedding march again.
Carney snorted. “I hope you won’t throw rice when we leave.”
“Darling,” Betsy answered mournfully, “we won’t even be here. It’s perfectly maddening. It would be invaluable to me, as a coming Mary J. Holmes, to watch you two start off, hand in hand down Honeymoon Trail. But Bonnie is dragging us over to your Grandmother’s. In this heat! I’m sure we’ll have sun-strokes.”
“Bonnie,” said Carney earnestly, “you are a jewel!”
Bonnie beamed.
Looking like a determined kitten, she did indeed shoo the reluctant house party out of the house at the proper time. Of course, Mrs. Sibley remained at home. She went about quietly as usual, a half smile on her face. Carney knew what she was thinking. She liked Larry. Her husband liked him, too. Neither of them would object if Larry and Carney reached some sort of understanding.
“Of course, you’ll want to finish college,” Carney could almost hear her saying.
Presently, with kindly tact, Mrs. Sibley went upstairs. Bobbie, still in his tent, was the only soul around when Larry came.
Larry called hello to Bobbie but he didn’t cross the lawn to inquire about the tent. He wasn’t as interested in the boys as Sam was, Carney thought. And Bobbie must have been deeply absorbed in his play, for he didn’t rush out to inspect the rig Larry had hired, although it was magnificent.
It was the best Phillips’ Livery Stable had to offer. The horses were groomed to a shine; the harness was polished; the nickel work gleamed. You could see your face in the surface of the buggy. A light-colored laprobe was folded over the seat, and t
here was a tasseled whip.
Larry looked as spruce as the livery rig. He was even wearing a coat, but he asked permission to remove it, and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt.
“Do you know the way to Orono?” Carney asked as they started up Broad Street.
“Out of West Deep Valley on the Indian Lake Road,” Larry replied. “The Indian Lake Road! That certainly sounds like our childhood.”
“Doesn’t it?” Carney replied.
A wave of happy memories rolled out to meet them as they crossed the slough and started south through a high-walled valley.
“This hill on the right used to be the best place for flowers in the spring.”
“May flowers, Dutchmen’s breeches, dog-tooth violets…” Larry said.
“When we found an especially good patch we’d sit down to pick in order not to give away our prize.”
Larry motioned with the whip. “There’s some fine white sand a little farther on.”
“We used to take it home. Bobbie still does sometimes.”
But the glow induced by memory didn’t last after they passed Indian Lake. They traveled now on the heights and now in the valley, following the distant Cutbank, and it was equally hot in both situations.
On the heights, where they rolled through level farmlands, the sun beat down on the buggy top. Dust was tossed by the horses’ hoofs into their perspiring faces. In the valleys, the bluffs shut in the sweltering heat.
Talk languished, and Carney was glad when at last they reached the dam.
The sparkling blue water of the newly created lake made her feel better, and so did the crash of the waterfall. She wanted to sit in the shade of a willow and cool off, but Larry, who was studying to be an engineer, was interested in the dam. Hitching the horses, he walked about enthusiastically, inspecting it.
Carney tried to share his interest.
“There’s been a mill here since pioneer days,” she said. “First a flour mill and then a flaxseed mill which was the start of one of the biggest linseed mills in America, Dad says. Just two years ago the power company took it over.”
“I want to find the guy in charge,” said Larry.
He found him, and they were immediately boon companions. Larry bombarded him with questions. Did they use the reaction-type turbines? How much power did the plant generate? What was the hydraulic head?
Carney sat down beneath the willow tree alone.
On the west side of the bridge a small road descended to the gorge beneath the dam. On the other side rose a green hill where sheep were grazing. There was one dramatic promontory covered with pines and oaks and pale white birches with wild out-croppings of rock. It soared to a great height and commanded a view of the river valley. That would be a good place to picnic, Carney thought…if they were ever going to picnic!
“I like things settled,” she said under her breath.
They were no farther along than they had been when they started. It grew hotter all the time, and now she was hungry, too.
Larry came back looking apologetic. “It was stupid of me to leave you so long in all this heat.”
“Why, it’s what people come to the dam for, to see the dam,” said Carney. She tried to sound jocular instead of cross.
“It isn’t what we came for,” Larry said with laughing eyes. He took her arm. “Shall we picnic here?”
But Carney was sick of Orono.
“Let’s drive on,” she said.
They got back in the buggy and left the river behind.
“That place might be all right,” said Larry, nodding toward a little hillside pasture. There was a small grove of scrub oaks. It looked cool.
“Fine,” said Carney, and they tied the horses to a fence post.
“You’d better loosen the checkreins,” she reminded, and he did so. He lifted out the picnic basket, and they climbed through a barbed-wire fence.
The little oak grove was as hot as an oven. The grass was rough and hummocky, and the only birds were sleek unpleasant blackbirds with yellow eyes.
Carney unpacked her basket. The lemonade was still quite cold.
“I put a chunk of ice in it,” she said.
“It tastes fine, and the sandwiches are swell. It’s nice to get off by ourselves,” Larry observed, slapping a mosquito.
Carney didn’t answer. Was it?
For some reason she thought about Miss Salmon. She should, she realized suddenly, have thought about her long before. She should have analyzed her problem as Miss Salmon had taught her to do, as she had analyzed the problem of Isobel’s coming, back on Sunset Hill.
Staring at a blackbird, she forced herself to think.
What was the matter with her? Was she afraid Larry wouldn’t propose? No. She knew he was planning to do so. But it wasn’t because he loved her. It was because he idealized their former relationship, just as she had always done.
Was she in doubt as to how she would answer him? She shouldn’t be. She ought to say no. For it came to her now that she wasn’t in love either. She simply wasn’t in love.
As in Grandmother Hunter’s kaleidoscope, she saw a medley of pictures: Hunter looking painfully downward when Isobel was talking to Howard in New York. Betsy running eagerly out for the mail. Betsy’s face when Sam proposed inviting Joe down for the dance.
That was the way you felt when you were in love. She didn’t feel that way about Larry. She used to, maybe. But she didn’t now. And he didn’t feel that way about her.
It had grown very dark in the little grove, although it was far from sundown. As a Minnesotan Carney knew the reason. A thunder storm was brewing. Larry would have to speak soon if he was going to speak at all.
He, too, had been thoughtfully silent, but now he cleared his throat.
“Carney,” he said in his slow way, “it’s been just grand seeing you again.”
“Yes. We’ve had fun,” Carney replied. He was going to propose, and she mustn’t let him. It wouldn’t be fair. She said impetuously, “But we’re not in love any more. Do you realize that?”
Larry looked taken aback. “Aren’t we?” he asked.
“No. I just like you, and you just like me.”
“That’s what I want to find out,” he answered. “I’m not sure you’re right. I like you a lot, Carney, better than any girl I know. You’re so pretty and fresh and natural…” His voice trailed away.
“Yes,” said Carney candidly. “But you’re not in love. And neither am I.” If she had been talking to Sam she might have been able to say more…that a magic which had lain over their relationship in the past had vanished, as when the lights of a Christmas tree are turned off leaving just an ordinary pine. Larry was the same, and she was the same, but the magic wasn’t there any more.
“We’re not in love,” she said. “You can go back to California and fall in love with someone else.”
“But I want to fall in love with you,” he answered miserably.
Carney spoke firmly. “Falling in love is something you can’t do anything about. You’re in love or you’re not, and that’s all there is to it. We can be good friends, though. We can keep on writing to each other.”
If they were just friends again, how much she would like him, she thought!
“Let’s be friends all our lives,” she said abruptly.
He still looked unhappy but her spirits now were as light as air. She felt as though she had been relieved of a great burden. She felt like flying or singing.
All of a sudden the rain started. There had been some forewarning—a flash of lightning, dull peals of thunder, birds scudding silently homeward. Larry and Carney had been too much interested in their conversation to notice. But now a steady shower was rattling on the leaves.
Laughing, Carney jumped up and started to pile things into the basket. Larry ran to unfasten the horses. She looked upward.
Rain splashed on her face, but it was glorious. She was very, very happy. She wasn’t going to marry Larry. He didn’t love her, and she didn?
??t love him.
“Hurry!” Larry called. “This is something terrific. The sky is black as ink.”
“Coming!” she answered. She seized the basket and ran toward the barbed-wire fence.
16
Somebody Elopes
THIS WAS NO ORDINARY thunder storm, Carney realized when she reached the road. Even out in the open, the world was dark. Ominous black clouds were edged luridly with yellow. The rain seemed only a forewarning.
She was holding the reins while Larry buttoned on storm curtains, when the wind burst. It tore the curtains out of his hands.
“Never mind them!” Carney shouted, for the horses were rearing. It took all her strength to hold them. Larry grasped the reins just as a large branch snapped behind them. The horses plunged forward.
They ran as though the giant wind were blowing them, but Larry held the reins firmly. Branches were snapping off everywhere now. A big tree in a nearby pasture crashed.
Carney was frightened but she was exhilarated, too, and she knew that Larry was. The excitement was a relief from the strain of their afternoon. When the horses settled down, at last, into a fast trot, he turned and smiled at her.
“You all right?” he shouted.
“I’m fine.”
They crossed the Orono bridge. The high land seemed mercilessly exposed to the wild glares of lightning, the deafening thunder. Cornfields were swept flat, as though a steam roller had passed over them. Down in the valleys the wind was like a broom sweeping the torrent of rain along the road.
They drove in silence because of the din of the storm, and reached the outskirts of Deep Valley at last.
Where the Indian Lake Road curved into Front Street they saw the owl-like glare of automobile lights. Larry slowed down and Carney cried, “Why, it’s the Loco!” At the same instant the car’s horn sounded, and Sam’s voice swam through the rain.
“Carney! Larry! Is that you?”
Larry pulled the horses to a stop, and Sam jumped out.
“We’re all right. It wasn’t necessary for you to come to meet us,” Larry said stiffly.
“Gosh! I wasn’t worried about you two.”