XII
AN ISLAND
Rose-Marie was exceptionally weary that night. It had been a hard day.All three of her classes had met, and--late in the afternoon--she hadmade good her promise to wash Mrs. Volsky's hair. The task had not been ajoyous one--she felt that she could never wash hair again--not even herown soft curls or the fine, snowy locks that crowned her aunts' statelyheads. Mrs. Volsky had once more relapsed into her shell of silence--shehad seemed more apathetic, more dull than ever. But Rose-Marie hadnoticed that there were no unwashed dishes lying in the tub--that thecorners of the room had had some of the grime of months swept out ofthem. When Ella Volsky came suddenly into the flat, with lips compressed,and a high colour, Rose-Marie had been glowingly conscious of her startof surprise. And when she had said, haltingly, in reference to thehair--"I'll dry it for you, Miss Rose-Marie!" Rose-Marie could have weptwith happiness. It was the first time that she had ever heard Ella offerto do anything for her mother.
Jim--coming in as she was about to leave--had added to Rose-Marie'sweariness. He had been more insistent than usual--he had commented uponher rosy cheeks and he had made a laughing reference to her wide eyes.And he had asked her, gruffly, why she didn't take up with some fellerlike himself--a good provider, an' all, that'd doll her up the way she'doughter be dolled up? And when Ella had interrupted, her dark eyesflashing, he had told her--with a burst of soul-chilling profanity--tomind her own business.
And then Pa had come in--apparently more drunk than he had ever been. AndRose-Marie had seen his bleary eyes pass, without a flicker of interest,over his wife's clean apron and freshly washed hair; had seen him throwhis coat and his empty bottle into one of the newly dusted corners, hadseen his collapse into a heap in the center of the room. And, last ofall, as she had hurried away, with Jim's final insinuation ringing in herears, she had known the fear that all was not well with Bennie--forBennie came in every afternoon before she left. She could not know thatBennie, by this time a budding Boy Scout, was learning more lessons ofthe sort that she had taught him.
Yes, she was weary, in every fibre of her being, as she sat down tosupper that night. She had it quite alone in the dining-room, which, allat once, seemed very large--for the Superintendent was sitting,somewhere, with a dying woman, and the Young Doctor had been called outon an emergency case. And then, still alone, she wandered into thelibrary of the Settlement House and picked up a book. She felt, somehow,too tired to sleep--too utterly exhausted to lay her head upon herpillow. It was in the library that the Superintendent, coming wearilyback from the watch with death, found her.
"My dear," said the Superintendent, and there was a sound of tears in herusually steady voice, "my dear, I'm about all in! Yes, I know it's slang,but I can't help it--I feel slangy! Come up to my sitting-room for a fewminutes and we'll have a cup of hot chocolate!"
Rose-Marie laid down her book with alacrity. She realized, suddenly, thatshe wanted companionship of her own sort--that she longed with all of hersoul to chat with some one who did not murder the queen's English, thatshe wanted to exchange commonplaces about books, and music, and beautifulthings--things that the Volskys would not understand.
"I guess," she said, as she followed the Superintendent into the cozysitting-room, "I guess that tiredness is in the air to-day. I'm all in,myself. A cup of chocolate and a friendly talk will be a godsend to me,this evening!"
The Superintendent was laying aside her coat and her hat. She smoothedher hair with a nervous hand, and straightened her linen collar, beforeshe sank into an easy chair.
"Child," she said abruptly, "_you_ shouldn't be tired--not ever! You'vegot youth, and all of the world at your feet. You've got beauty, andconfidence, and faith. And I--well, I'm getting to be an old woman! Ifeel sometimes as if I've been sitting on the window sill, watching lifego by, for centuries. You mustn't--" She paused, and there was a suddenchange in her voice, "You're not tiring yourself, Rose-Marie? You're notdoing more than your strength will permit? If you could have read theletter that your aunts sent to me, when you first came to the SettlementHouse! I tell you, child, I've felt my responsibility keenly! I'd no morethink of letting you brush up against the sort of facts I'm facing, thanI would--"
Rose-Marie's cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, as sheinterrupted.
"Somehow," she said, "I can't think that you and my aunts are quiteright about shielding me--about keeping me from brushing up against life,and the real facts of life. It seems to me that there's only one way todevelop--really. And that way is to learn to accept things as they come;to meet situations--no matter how appalling they may be, with one's eyesopen. If I," she was warming to her subject, "am never to tire myselfout, working for others, how am I to help them? If I am never to seeconditions as they are how am I ever to know the sort of a problem thatwe, here at the Settlement House, are fighting? Dr. Blanchard wouldn'ttry to treat a case if he had no knowledge of medicine--he wouldn't tryto set a broken leg if he had never studied anatomy. You wouldn't be incharge, here, if you didn't know the district, if you didn't realize thepsychological reasons back of the things that the people of the districtsay and do. Without the knowledge that you're trying to keep from meyou'd be as useless as"--she faltered--"as I am!"
The Superintendent's expression reflected all the tenderness of hernature; the mother-instinct, which she had never known, made her smileinto the girl's serious face.
"My dear," she said, "you must not think that you're useless. You mustnever think that! Look at the success you've had in your clubwork--remember how the children that you teach have come to love you.You've done more with them, because of the things that you don't know,than I could ever do--despite the hard facts that I've had to brush upagainst. Find content, dear, in being the sweet place in our garden--thathas so pitifully few flowers. Do not long for the hard, uncomfortableplaces on the other side of the garden wall!"
Despite the Superintendent's expression--despite the gentle tone of hervoice, Rose-Marie felt a sudden desire to cry out against the irony of itall. She was so tired of being classed with the flowers! "They toil not,neither do they spin," came back to her, from a certain golden text thatshe had learned, long ago, in Sunday-school. Even at the time it hadseemed to her as if the flowers enjoyed lives that were a shade too easy!At the time it had seemed unfair that they, who were not workers, shouldbe beautiful--more beautiful than the ants, for instance, thatuncomplainingly toiled all day long for their existence.
"I don't want to be a flower," she exclaimed, almost fretfully, "I wantto be a worth while member of society--that's what I want! What's the useof being a decoration in a garden! What's the use of knowing only thesunshine? I want to know storms, too, and gales of wind. I want to sharethe tempests that you go through!" She hesitated; and then--"I read abook once," she said slowly, "I forget what it was--but I remember, inone place, that a woman was being discussed. She was a very beautifulelderly woman who, despite her age, had a face as unlined and calm as ayoung girl's face could be. One character in the book commented upon thewoman's youth and charm, and another character agreed that she _was_beautiful and charming, but that she'd be worth more if she had a fewlines on her face. 'She's never known tears,' the character said, 'she'snever lived _deeply_ enough to know tears! Her life has been just asurface life. If you go down deep enough into the earth you find water,always. If you go down deep enough into life you invariably find tears.It's one of the unbreakable rules!'" Rose-Marie paused, for a moment, andstole a covert glance at the Superintendent's face. "You don't want me tobe a woman whose life is only a surface life," she pleaded, "and it willbe just that if you keep me from helping, as I want to help! You don'twant me to have a perfectly unlined face when I'm eighty years old?"
All at once the Superintendent was laughing. "You child!" she exclaimedwhen the first spasm of mirth had passed, "you blessed child! If youcould know how ridiculously young you looked, sitting there and talkingabout lined faces--and yourself at eighty. Eighty is a long way off,Rose-Marie--for yo
u!"
The girl joined, a trifle shamefacedly, in the older woman's laughter.
"I reckon," she agreed, "that I do take myself too seriously! But--well,there are families that I'm just dying to help--families that I've comein contact with through the"--again she was forced to a slightdeceit--"through the Settlement House. I'm sure that I could help them ifyou'd let me visit them, in their own homes. I'm sure that I'd be able toreform ever so many people if you'd only let me go out and find them. Thecity missionary who spoke once in our church, back home, told ofwonderful things that he'd done--of lives that he'd actually made over.Of course, I couldn't do the sort of work he did, but I'm sure--if you'donly give me a chance--" She paused.
The Superintendent was silent for a moment. And then--
"Maybe you're right, dear," she said, "and maybe you're wrong. Maybe I amcramping your ambitions--maybe I am hampering your mental and spiritualgrowth. But then, again, maybe I'm right! And I'm inclined to think thatI am right. I'm inclined to adhere to my point, that it will be betterfor you to wait, until you're older, before you go into manytenements--before you do much reforming outside of the Settlement House.When you're older and more experienced I'll be glad to let you doanything--"
She was interrupted by a rap upon the door. It was a gentle rap, but itwas, above all, a masculine one. There was real gladness on her face asshe rose to answer it.
"I didn't expect Billy Blanchard--he thought he had an all-night case,"she told Rose-Marie. "How nice!"
But Rose-Marie was rising to her feet.
"I don't think that I'll stay," she said hurriedly, "I'm too tired, afterall! I think--"
The Superintendent had paused in her progress to the door. Her voice wassurprisingly firm, of a sudden; firmer than Rose-Marie had ever heard it.
"No, my dear," said the Superintendent, "you're not too tired! You justdon't want to be civil to a very fine boy--who has had a harder day thaneither of us. You came to the slums, Rose-Marie, to help people--to showthat you were a Christian. I think that you can show it, to-night, byforgetting a silly quarrel that happened weeks ago--by forgetting thewords Dr. Blanchard said that he never really meant, inside. If hethought that these people weren't worth it, do you suppose he'd stayhere, at the Settlement House, for a mere pittance? He's had many achance to go to fashionable hospitals, up-town!"
Rose-Marie, bewildered, and not a little ashamed, sank back into her seatas the Superintendent swung open the door.
The Young Doctor came in with a springing step, but there were gray linesthat spoke of extreme fatigue about his mouth, and his eyes were darklycircled. His surprise, at the sight of Rose-Marie, was evident--though hetried to hide it by the breeziness of his manner.
"You'll be glad to know," he told the Superintendent, "that the stork hascalled on the Stefan family. It's a boy--nine pounds--with lots of darkhair. There have been three girls, in the Stefan family," he explained toRose-Marie, "and so they are wild with joy at this latest addition. PapaStefan is strutting about like a proud turkey, with his chest out. AndMamma Stefan is trying to sing a lullaby. I feel something like a tool inthe hand of Providence, to-night!" He threw himself upon the sofa.
There was deep, motherly affection in the Superintendent's face as shesmiled at him.
"We're all of us mental and physical wrecks this evening, Billy!" shesaid. "I think that I've never been so utterly worn out before. Katie"(Katie was the stolid maid) "is making chocolate for us!"
"Chocolate!" The Young Doctor's glance answered the affection that shoneout of the Superintendent's face--"You _are_ a dear!" He smiled at her,and then--all at once--turned swiftly to Rose-Marie.
"Don't let's squabble to-night," he said childishly, "not about anything!We're dog-tired, all three of us, and we're not up to even a tinyquarrel. I'm willing to admit anything you want me to--even that I'mwrong on a lot of subjects. And I want you to admit, yourself, that you'drather be here, with the two of us, than out in some den ofiniquity--reforming people. Am I right?"
Rose-Marie felt a glow of friendship toward the Young Doctor. Whycouldn't he always be like this--confiding and boyish and approachable?She smiled at him, very sweetly, as she answered.
"You're right," she admitted. "I'm afraid that I haven't the heart tothink of reforming any one, this evening! I'm just glad--glad from thevery soul of me--to be here with you all, in the very center ofthis--island!"
The Superintendent's face was puzzled--the Superintendent's eyes werevague--as she asked a question.
"You said--_island_?" she questioned.
Rose-Marie laughed with a shade of embarrassment.
"I didn't really mean to say island," she explained, "but--well, youremember what Dr. Blanchard told us, once, about the little bugs thatfastened together--first one and then another until there were billions?And how, at last, they made an island?" She paused and, at their nods ofassent, went on. "Ever since then," she told them slowly, "I've thoughtof us, here at the Settlement House, as the first little bugs--the onesthat the others must hold to. And I've felt, though many of them don'trealize it, though we hardly realize it ourselves, that we're building anisland together--_an island of faith_!"
There was silence for a moment. And then the Young Doctor spoke. Hisvoice was a trifle husky.
"You've made me more than a bit ashamed of myself, Miss Rose-Marie," hesaid, "and I want to thank you for putting a real symbolism into mychance words. After all"--suddenly he laughed, and then--"after all," hesaid, "I wouldn't be surprised if you are right! I had a curiousexperience, this afternoon, that would go to prove your theory."
The Superintendent was leaning back, shielding her eyes from the light."Tell us about your experience, Billy," she said.
The chocolate had come, and the Young Doctor took an appreciative sipbefore he answered.
"Just as I was going out this afternoon," he said, at last, "I ran into adirty little boy in the hall. He was fondling a kitten--that thin grayone that you brought to the Settlement House, Miss Rose-Marie. I askedhim what he was doing and he told me that he was hunting for a Scout Clubthat he'd heard about. I"--the Young Doctor chuckled--"I engaged him inconversation. And he told me that his ambition was to be a combination ofSt. George and King Arthur and all the rest of those fellows. He saidthat, some day, he wanted to be a good husband and father. When I askedhim where he got his large ambitions he told me that a lady had giventhem to him."
Rose-Marie was leaning forward. "Did he tell you the lady's name?"she breathed.
The Young Doctor shook his head.
"Not a thing did he tell me!" he said dramatically. "The lady's nameseemed to be something in the nature of a sacred trust to him. But hisbig dark eyes were full of the spirit that she'd given him. And his funnylittle crooked mouth was--" He paused, suddenly, his gaze fixed uponRose-Marie. "What's the matter?" he queried. "What's the matter? You lookas if somebody'd just left you a million dollars!"
Rose-Marie's face was flushed and radiant. Her eyes were deepwells of joy.
"I have every reason in the world," she said softly, "to be happy!" Andshe was too absorbed in her own thoughts to realize that a sudden cloudhad crept across the brightness of the Young Doctor's face.