The Story of a Whim (4 page)

"What did you do that for?" thundered Christie, suddenly realizing what would be the outcome of this performance.

"Don't speak so loud, Christie, dear; it isn't ladylike, you know. I was merely saving you the trouble of announcing the services. You'll have a good attendance, I'm sure, and we'll come and help you out with the music," said Mortimer in a sweetly unconscious tone.

Christie came at him with clenched fist, which he laughingly dodged, and went on bantering.
But the two young men soon left, for Christie was angry and was not good company. They tried to coax him off to meet some of their other boon companions, but he answered shortly, "No," and they left him to himself.

Left alone, he was in no happy frame of mind. He had intended to go with them. There would be something good to eat, and of course something to drink, and cards, and a jolly good time all around. He could forget for a little while his hard luck, and the slowness of the oranges, and his own wasted life, and feel some of the joy of living.
But he had the temper that went with his hair, and now nothing would induce him to go.

Was it possible there was something else, too, holding him back? A subtle
something which he did not understand, somehow connected with the letter and the picture and the organ?

Well, if there was, he did not stop to puzzle it out. Instead, he threw himself down on the newly arrayed couch,
and let his head sink on one of those delightfully soft pillows, and tried to think.

He took out the letter, and read it over again.

When he read the sentences about praying for him, there came a choking sensation in his throat such as he had not felt since the time he nearly drowned, and realized that there was no mother anymore to go to. This girl wrote as a mother might perhaps talk, if one had a mother.

He folded the letter, and put it back in his pocket; and then, closing and locking the door, he sat down at the organ and tried to play it.

As he knew nothing whatever about music, he did not succeed very well, and he turned from it with a sigh to look up at those pictured eyes once more and find them following his every movement. Some pictures have that power of seeming to follow one around the room.

Christie got up and walked away, still looking at the picture, and turned and came back again.

Still the eyes seemed to remain upon his face with that strong, compelling gaze. He wondered what it meant, and yet he was glad it had come. It seemed like a new friend.

Finally
he sat down and faced the question that was troubling him. He must write a letter to that girl—to those girls, and he might as well have done with it at once and get it out of the way. After that he could feel he had paid the required amount, and could enjoy his things. But it simply was not decent not to acknowledge their receipt. But the tug of war was to know how to do it.

Should he confess that he was a young man and not the Christie they had thought, and offer to send back the things for them to confer upon a more worthy subject?

He glanced hastily about on his new belongings with sudden dismay. Could he give up all this? No. He would not.

His eyes caught the pictured eyes once more. He had found a friend and a little comfort. It had come to him unbidden. He would not bid it depart.

Besides, it would only make those kind people most uncomfortable. They would think they had been doing something dreadful to send a young man presents, especially one whom they had never seen. He knew the ways of the world, a little. And that Hazel Winship who had written the letter, she was a charming person. He would not like to spoil her pretty dream of his being a friendless girl. Let her keep her fancies; they could do no harm.

He would write and thank her as if he were the girl they all supposed him. He had always been good at
playing a part of imitating anyone; he would just write the letter in a girlish hand—it would not be hard to do—and thank them as they expected to be thanked by another girl. That would be the end of it. Then, when his oranges came into bearing,—if they ever did,—he would send them each a box of oranges anonymously, and all would be right.

As for that miserable business Mortimer
had got him into, he would fix that up by shutting up the house and riding away early Sunday morning, and the children might come to Sunday school to their hearts' content. He would not be there to be bothered or bantered.

In something like a good
humor he settled to his task.

He wrote one or two formal notes, and tore them up. As he looked about on the glories of his room, he began to feel that such thanks were inadequate to express his feelings. Then he settled to work once more, and began to be interested.

"My dear unknown friend," he wrote, "I scarcely know how to begin to thank you for the kindness you have showered upon me."

He read the sentence over, and decided it sounded very well and not at all as if a man had written it. The spirit of fun took possession of him, and he made up his mind to write those girls a good long letter,
and tell them all about his life, only tell it just as if he were a girl. It would while away this long, unoccupied day. He wrote on:

"You wanted to know all about me; so I am going to tell you. I
do not, as you suppose, teach school. I had a little money from the sale of father's farm after he died, and I put it into some land down here planted to young orange-trees. I had heard a great deal about how much money was to be made in orange-growing, and thought I would like to try it. I am all alone in the world—not a soul who cares in the least about me, and so there was no one to advise me against it.

"I came down here and boarded at first, but found it would be a good thing for me to live among my trees, so I could look after things better; so I had a little cabin built of logs right in the grove, and sent for all the old furniture that had been saved from the old home,
which was not much, as most things had been sold with the house. You saw how few and poor they were.

"It seems so strange to think that you, who evidently have all the good things of the world to
make you happy, should have stopped to think and take notice of poor, insignificant me. It is wonderful, more wonderful than anything that ever happened to me in all my life. I look about on my beautified room, and cannot believe it is mine.

"I live all alone in my log cabin, surrounded by a lot of young trees which seem to me very slow in doing anything to make me rich. If I had known all I know now, I never would have come here; but one has to learn by experience, and
I'll just have to stick now until something comes of it.

"I am not exactly a girl just like yourselves as you say; for I am twenty-eight years old, and, to judge by your pictures, there isn't one of you as old as that. You are none of you over twenty-two, I am sure, if you are that.

"Besides, you are all beautiful girls, while I most certainly am not. To begin with, my hair is red, and I am brown and freckled from the sun and wind and rain; and, in fact, I am what is called homely. So you see it is not as serious a matter for me to live all alone down here in an orange-grove as it would be for one of you. I have a strong little pony who carries me on his back or in my old buckboard, and does the ploughing. What work I cannot do myself about the grove, I hire done, of course. I also have a few chickens and a dog.

"If you could have seen my little house the night your boxes arrived and were unpacked, you would appreciate the difference the things you have sent make in my surroundings. But you can never know what a difference they will make in my life."

Here the rapid pen halted, and the writer wondered whether that might be a prophecy. So far, he reflected, he had written nothing but what was strictly true; and yet he had not made known his identity.

This last sentence seemed to be writing itself, for he really had no idea that the change in his room would make much difference in his life, except to add a little comfort. He raised his eyes; and, as they met those in the picture, it seemed to
be forced upon him that there was to be a difference, and somehow he was not sorry. The old life was not attractive, but he wondered what it would be. He felt as if he were standing off watching the developments in his own life as one might watch the life of the hero in a story.

There was one more theme in Hazel
Winship's letter which he had not touched upon, he found, after he had gone over each article by name and said nice things about them all and what a lot of comfort he would have from them.

He was especially pleased with his sentence about the bedroom slippers and lace collars. "They are much too fine and pretty to be worn," he had written, "especially by such a large, awkward person as I am; but I like to feel them and see them, and think how pretty they would look on some of the dainty, pretty girls who sent them to me."

But all the time he was reading his letter over he felt that something would have to be said on that other subject. At last he started in again:

"There is a cabin down the road a little way, and this morning a friend of mine came in and played a little while on the organ—I can't play myself, but I am going to learn"—he had not thought about learning before, but now he knew he should—"and we all got to singing out of the books you sent.
By and by I looked up, and saw the doorway full of little raga-muffins listening for all they were worth. I presume I shall be able to give them a good deal of pleasure listening to that organ sometimes, though I am afraid I wouldn't be much of a hand at starting a Sunday school"—that sentence sounded rather mannish for a girl of twenty-eight; but he had to let it stand, as he could think of nothing better to say—"as I never knew much about such things. Though I'm much obliged for your praying, I'm sure. It will give me a pleasant feeling at night when I'm all alone to know someone in the world is thinking about me, and I'm sure if prayers can do any good yours ought to.”

"But about the Sunday school, I don't want to disappoint you after you've been so kind to send all the papers and books. Maybe I could give the black children some of the papers, and let them study the lessons out for themselves; and I used to be quite a hand at drawing once. I might
practice up and draw them some pictures to amuse them sometime when they come around again. I'll do my best.”

"I like to think of you all at college having a good time. My school days were the best of my life. I wish I could go over them again. I have a lot of books;
but, when I come in tired at night, it seems so lonely here, and I'm so tired I just go to sleep. It doesn't seem to make much difference about my reading any more, anyway. The oranges won't know it. They grow just as soon for me as if I kept up with the procession.”

"I appreciate your kindness, though I don't know how to tell you how deeply it has touched me. I have picked out the one in the middle, the girl with the laughing eyes, and a sweet, firm mouth, and the loveliest expression I ever saw on any face, to be Miss Hazel
Winship, the one who thought of this whole beautiful plan. Am I right? I'll study the others up later.”

"Yours very truly—" here he paused, and, carefully erasing the last word, wrote, "lovingly,"

"CHRISTIE W. BAILEY."

He sat back, and covered his face with his hands. A queer, glad feeling had come over him while he was writing those thi
ngs about Hazel Winship. He wondered what it was. He actually enjoyed saying those things to her and knowing she would be pleased to read them, and not think him impertinent.

And
he had written a good many promises, after all. What led him on to that? Did he mean to keep them? Yes, he believed he did; only those fellows, Armstrong and Mortimer, should not know anything about it. He would carry out his plan of going away Sundays until those ridiculous fellows forgot their nonsense. And, so thinking, he folded and addressed his letter.

A little more than a week later six girls gathered in a cozy college room—Hazel's—to hear the letter read.

"You see!' said Hazel, with triumphant light in her eyes, "I was right; she is a girl like us. It doesn't matter in the least little bit that she is twenty-eight. That isn't old. And for once I am glad you see that my impulses are not always crazy. I am going to send this letter home at once to father and mother. They were really quite troublesome about this. They thought it was the wildest thing I ever did, and I've been hearing from it all vacation. Now listen!"

And
Hazel read the letter amid many interruptions.

"I'll tell you what it is, girls," she said, as she finished the letter; "we must keep track of her now we've found her.
I'm so glad we did it. She isn't a Christian, that’s evident; and we must try to make her into one, and work through her a Sunday school. That would be a work worthwhile. Then maybe sometime we can have her up here for a winter, and give her a change. Wouldn't she enjoy it? It can't be this winter, because we'll have to work so hard here in college we'd have no time for anything else; but after we have all graduated wouldn't it be nice? I'll tell you what I'd like to do; I'd like the pleasure of taking Christie Bailey to Europe. I know she would enjoy it. Just think what fun it would be to watch her eyes shine over new things. I don't mind her red hair one bit. Red-haired people are lovely if they know how to dress to harmonize with their complexions."