Treasured Brides Collection (15 page)

Her object was to go as far from the planned route of the party that day as pleasant roads and her own will could take her. And her mother, watching the trim figure out of sight, so entirely one with the bicycle she rode, sighed and wished she might give her a little of the happiness she knew Effie had longed for so much. Then the mother prayed to her heavenly Father to guide this loved one’s footsteps into His ways and turned back to her baby and her crowding household cares. If she had not been a mother who confided in her heavenly Father, she could not have tolerated the burdens of her daily life.

Effie’s main object was to ride fast and cross the old township road before the party, which had planned its route along that highway, should reach there. Then she would be far beyond any sight of them, and could forget them, and speed away into the sweet country, and try to enjoy herself. For the very act of riding, even though she was all alone, brought intense pleasure to this girl. She rode fast and daringly. She sat up straight and dropped the boyish lean that she had pretended of late, and which she instinctively felt was a part of what Ethel Garner had meant when she had depreciated her riding. She put her chin on a self-respecting level, her eyes flashing a little defiance as she remembered those girls. She would show them sometime that she also could ride like a lady.

That cut about her riding had gone deeper than she was willing to acknowledge even to herself, for she was proud of her ability to ride well. She would chew no more gum as she rode, and she would maintain an irreproachable position. Thinking these thoughts, she sped along faster than she realized and soon had crossed the township road and was fairly out into the open country. The thought of the party was hateful to her. She tried to live in a world of fancied friends of her own, where she was admired and her company sought after, and where no one spoke of her but to praise. She turned her head slightly and smiled in an imagined talk with a pleasant friend of her own conjuring. Her brown suit became the finest of imported garments. The modest home behind towered into a stately mansion; her mother sat in it at leisure, arrayed in rich silks and costly jewels. The fretful little brother was a lovely child with a French nurse, and there were no more cares or troubles or disagreeable things in her joyful life. Naturally, surrounded by such an atmosphere, she was sweet and lovely herself. Not that Effie had ever sat down and charged her own faults to her surroundings, but her inference was that one who had everything lovely about one could but be lovely one’s self. At least, she would for one afternoon be that ideal person and have things just as she pleased. She even met the other riding party in fancy and had them look at her with envy and call to her to join them, while she pursued the even tenor of her way, sorry for them that they had to be disappointed, but altogether so engaged with these other and worthier friends of hers, she scarcely remembered that they had passed, five minutes after.

Even the young man, Lawrence Earle, came into the story, as she in imagination gave him a distant nod in response to his eager greeting of open admiration.

Thus drenching her bruised spirit in the healing uplift of her own imaginings, she sailed out into a day that was perfect as any June day could be. The sky was blue without a sign of cloud. The blossoms here and there, all the way from dandelion to wild grape, were filling the air with sweetness, and the birds were fairly crazy with song, pouring it out into the air like living, visible gold. As she rode along her spirit rose to meet the day, and more and more the sorrows of her life dropped away and left her free. She was like a butterfly, skimming the golden sunshine, a bird on the wing, as lithe and happy, so happy she could almost burst into song herself.

She tried it a little in a clear, throaty contralto, humming a song the boys sang at school. She forgot she was ugly and unwanted, forgot there were excursions from which she was excluded, forgot there were obnoxious young snobs from college who laughed at little tomboys with holes in their skirts and sweaters, forgot there was anything in this world but free air and sunshine and happiness. In short, she was just the little careless Effie again, as she had been before she heard those hateful girls down behind the privet hedge in her own side yard.

She whizzed past a farmhouse with three old ladies sitting knitting on the porch and was gone before they discovered she was a girl and not a boy. She shied around a red rooster that was strutting in the road; she flashed by a great dog who was lying in wait to bark at her and chase her, as she pedaled up a long, slow hill with the ease of a bird on wing, coasting down again with a broad sweep of meadow and the crossroads ahead of her.

Then suddenly her golden visions vanished and she was hurled back into her hateful world of self-consciousness again. For there, ahead of her, she saw a shining new car, halting at the crossroads, as if its driver were uncertain which road to take, and another glance at him showed something familiar about the set of his shoulders. Was it, could it be that that was Lawrence Earle? And he had missed the way, of course. He had probably meant to join the party on the pike and missed them, or perhaps they had not carefully outlined their route to him.

She knew perfectly which way they intended to take. She had heard it talked about when she was behind the Garner’s hedge and by Eleanor at the dinner table. If this had been anyone else in the world, or any other party of excursionists that he was intending to join, Effie would not have hesitated an instant. She would have ridden with all her might and reached him and told him where he ought to go, that he should turn back at once and take the crossroad to the pike three miles back.

But this was not the usual Effie. This was an awakening girl with a fierce grievance and a heart full of bitterness. What? Warn this young man that he was going away from the rendezvous? Never! She would sooner do anything than that. Help those hateful girls and that supercilious young man who had made fun of her once to come together and have a good time? Not if it were to pour the largest, hottest coals of fire on their heads! She would glory in their separation. It served them right. And there settled down over her a sense of satisfaction that there was an occasional balancing of punishments in this world, and those girls were getting one now. Nevertheless, it made her a little uncomfortable when she looked back to see Mr. Earle riding along on the road she had taken, getting farther and farther away from where he was supposed to want to go, when a word from her might have set him right. He would probably pass her in a moment, so she concluded to put him out of mind by putting him out of sight; and setting spurs to her steed, she wheeled sharply into a road at the right, level as a table, and tried to rejoice in her sense of freedom. Let him go on and lose his way. It was nothing to her!

Suddenly she became aware that for some minutes there had been a sound of rapid hoofs behind her, but she had been enjoying herself too much to pay heed to them. Now as the sounds drew nearer, and she turned her head to see who was driving so madly, she saw it was a grocery wagon, driverless, coming at full speed, the horse apparently almost beside himself with fear, the lines flying in the wind, and its only occupant a little fair-haired child, a tiny boy with golden curls blowing in the breeze, too young to understand, and just old enough to cling to the seat and be frightened. It was a miracle that he had not been thrown out on the hard pavement some distance back. In a moment more that horse would pass her. Instinctively, she swerved aside to be out of his way. And now he had passed her, and the blue-eyed baby looked at her and gave a cry and a beseeching look, and it made her think of her own baby brother’s face when he was frightened or hurt. Just ahead, a quarter of a mile, was a sharp turn and a steep hill with a great yawning quarry hole at one side. The baby would be almost certain to be thrown out there, and there was scarcely a chance of any rescue, unless—oh, could she? With a thought of whether she had a right to risk so much when she had so little power to help, she put all her strength to her bicycle and shot down the road after the horse. She could easily outdistance him in a moment or two if she tried and then—but there was no time for thought—she
must
ride alongside and catch the bridle or the reins, or something, and stop that horse. She must, or the baby would be killed, and if she did not try, she would all her life feel responsible for his life. Not that she really thought this out. It might be said to have flashed through her brain. She acted. Quick as light flashes so her bicycle obeyed her motion. She leaned forward now with all her might to get the greatest power and make the quickest time, with no more thought of trying to ride in a ladylike position. She wished a man were here to act instead of herself, and so increase the chance of saving the baby. She saw no man ahead now and thought of the one she had just passed, and wished he were there, for maybe he could help. She forgot that she had just been hating him. She forgot everything but just what she was doing, and then as quick as thought she was beside the foaming horse, wheeling steadily step-by-step abreast of him, and making ready for her next move. Now her boyish practice of riding this way and that, standing on one pedal or on the saddle, riding on the front and the back and the side, and every other part of her bicycle, stood her in good stead. Just how she did it she could not tell afterward, but she caught that horse by the bit and held him for one long, awful, rushing minute, when everything in the world she had ever done passed over her head in clear sequence, and she felt that the end had come. She heard a car coming. Would it be too late? The horse was rearing and plunging again. Could she possibly hold out till someone came? Then a strong hand was placed firmly over hers, and a steady voice said, “Whoa, now, whoa! Steady, boy, steady!” And the horse gradually slackened his pace, and she caught a glimpse of the golden-haired baby still clinging to the seat. She dropped in a little heap somewhere in the road not far from her bicycle, and everything grew black and still about her.

L
awrence Earle was one of the most admired and envied young men in town. Since he had been a little child, playing in the yard of his father’s beautiful home, people had watched him and pointed him out and said, “See, that is Lawrence Earle. His father is the wealthiest man in this part of the country, and his mother is one of the very finest women you will find. She is beautiful and dresses like a flower and has everything her heart could wish, that money can buy. And yet she is just as sweet and gracious and good as if she had nothing to make her proud.”

Lawrence did not grow up behind stone walls and high hedges, too good to have anything to do with the other boys. He went to the public school and took his place with the rest. He played baseball better than anyone else in his class, they used to say, even when he was in the primary grades. He could swim and climb anything, and he could fight if it became necessary to set something right.

But Lawrence Earle had always stood for fine things. He was always on the level, honest, even if it went against him to be, and the boys said he was so decent that he couldn’t be any more decent.

He stood high in his classes, in spite of the fact that he went out for athletics and was always ready for fun. While he was in grammar school and high school, his house was always the center of all the school social doings, and his mother always ready to help in any sudden party or picnic proposed. She was one of them, “a good sport,” they used to call her. The boys adored her, and girls admired her and tried to imitate her.

One of the nicest features of these social affairs was that there were no class distinctions; all, whether rich or poor, were welcomed alike.

But when Lawrence went away to college, these social affairs at the Earle home largely ceased. Nearly all of Lawrence’s close friends were also away at college or gone to work somewhere. Therefore, it was that the younger set, of whom the Garner girls and Eleanor Martin were members, knew Lawrence and his famous good times only afar. They had been the little children when Lawrence was growing up.

When, therefore, it began to be noised abroad that Lawrence had graduated and would be coming home in a few days, all the younger set, who now considered themselves “the” set, began to scheme how they might get hold of him, for they longed to experience for themselves some of those wonderful good times they had heard their older brothers and sisters talk about.

Lawrence had gained distinction in college, of course, and the news of his successes had drifted home in one way or another. Several of the town boys were in the same college with him, and there was no lack of knowledge concerning his attainments and successes.

Football, basketball, baseball, and scholarship alike seemed to claim him as a hero. The scores he made as captain of this team and that were watched in the papers. When he made Phi Beta Kappa, there was a long article about it in the town paper. And everybody who had any acquaintance whatsoever with him or his family spoke of it to everybody else and said how nice it was, and that it was, of course, to have been expected of a boy like Lawrence. In fact, there were no other boys just like Lawrence, they all agreed.

In short, Lawrence was in a fair way to have his head turned, and a stranger hearing all his praises sounded would have been likely to feel that Lawrence Earle was a most spoiled, conceited, impossible youth. He was rich and good-looking and smart. What more could a young man have?

But Lawrence Earle had a sensible mother who had early taught him that nothing he had was really his own, only a gift from God, to be most carefully and generously used, else it might be taken from him. And as he grew up, he showed that he had not a grain of selfishness or conceit in him.

Yet in spite of what he had been, the friends and neighbors who had watched him grow up and learned to love and admire him, watched for his homecoming with fear and trembling. For how could it be that a boy with as many things to make him proud as this one, could possibly go through college with such honors as he had won and not grow proud, at least to some extent?