The younger set was meeting in Ethel Garner’s summerhouse to make plans for an automobile ride and an all-day picnic that was arranged for the next week.
They fluttered in by ones and twos in their little bright dresses, looking like a lot of dressy dolls on the Garner lawn. They hovered about awaiting a few more arrivals, chattering like a flock of birds just alighted.
“Oh Ethel!” screamed her special chum Janet Chipley, “isn’t that a darling new dress! Did your mother make it or did you get it in the city?”
“This?” said Ethel, with a conscious look at the dainty little blue-and-white voile she was wearing. “Oh, it’s a little imported frock Mother picked up. It is rather good, isn’t it?”
“Imported!” exclaimed Maud Bradley, dashing into the conversation with gusto. “My goodness! They don’t import cotton dresses do they? Aren’t you stylish, wearing imported dresses in the afternoon. Say, Ethel, you look precious in it, though, don’t you? That’s a pastel shade of blue, isn’t it? You ought to save it for the ride. It’s awfully attractive. Jessie Heath said she was getting a new dress, too. Her mother ordered it in New York from that great dressmaker she goes to every spring. It’s some kind of pink they’re wearing in Paris. But I’m sure it won’t be any prettier than yours.”
“You’ve got a pretty dress, too, Maud,” said Ethel, somewhat patronizingly. “Did you make it yourself?”
“Yes,” said Maud with a grimace, “sat up till after midnight last night to finish the hemstitching.”
“Aren’t you clever. You don’t mean to say you did all this hemstitching? Why, it looks just like the imported things. I think you are simply great to be able to do it.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Maud. “I’d much rather do it than study Latin. You know I flunked the exam this year. I get more and more disgusted with it. Say, girls, what do you think? I heard Miss House wasn’t going to teach Latin next year. Wouldn’t that be great? I’d almost be willing to go back to school another year, just to be rid of her. My, she was a pain! How anybody could get like that puzzles me. But isn’t it great that we’re done with high school? You couldn’t drag me to college. Emily Morehouse says she’s going, and Reitha Kent. But they always were grinds.”
“Well, I’m going,” said Ethel with satisfaction.
“You’re going!” screamed her friend in dismay. “Why, I thought you said you weren’t.”
“Well, so I did, but Mother has persuaded me. She says she wants me to get the atmosphere! And you really aren’t anywhere if you haven’t been to college these days.”
“Mercy,” said Janet. “Then I suppose I’ll have to go, too. I only begged off by telling Dad and Mother you weren’t going.”
“Oh, come on, Jan, of course you’ll go. I couldn’t leave you behind. And besides, we’ll have heaps of fun.”
“But we aren’t signed up anywhere.”
“Yes we are; that is, I am. I know Dad can get you in at my college. He’s something on the board. Get your father and mother to come over to-night and talk it over with Dad. He’ll fix it. There comes Gladys Harper. Come on, girls, let’s go back to the summerhouse. The rest will know where to find us, and it’s too hot to stay here in the sun. Was that the phone, Flora?” called Ethel as her younger sister came out on the porch. “Who called? I hope nobody is staying away.”
“It was Eleanor Martin. She can’t come till half past four. They’ve got the dressmaker there and she has to be fitted.”
“I know,” said Ethel. “Come on, we’re going around to the summerhouse. I wonder what she had to telephone for. She told me that this morning.”
Flora, in her bright pink organdy, followed the girls around to the summerhouse.
“Why, it was about Effie,” she admitted with a troubled look as they drifted into the big rustic arbor against its background of tall privet hedge and settled down among the cushions with which it was amply furnished. “You know Effie Martin wants to go with us on the picnic. Eleanor is taking their big new car, and Effie wants to drive it part of the time. She asked me to get her an invitation. But Eleanor has found it out, and she doesn’t want her to go.”
“The very idea!” said Janet Chipley sharply. “Why, that would be ridiculous. Why, she doesn’t belong to our crowd at all.”
“Well, she evidently wants to,” said Flora with a troubled sigh, “and I promised her I’d do my best to get her an invitation. She’s simply wild to go. And it’s really the first time she’s ever seemed to care much. What could I do but promise?”
“Well, she’s not going to get any invitation if I’m on the committee,” announced Maud Bradley. “I’ll tell you that! Why, she’s unbearable. Nobody else would want to go if she went, that’s certain. Just tell her we had our list all made up and there wasn’t room, Flora.”
“But she’d say she could ride on the running board,” said Flora, still troubled. Flora did not like to be unkind.
“Yes, that’s just what she would do,” asserted Ethel. “Anything to make a sensation. And she doesn’t seem to know how disgusting she is. She has a disagreeable habit for every minute in the day, I believe. She bites her nails continually. It sends shivers down my back. I sat behind her in church last Sunday and I nearly went wild. She just took each finger in turn and chewed right around them, and then she put one knee over the other and swung her foot, jarring her knee against the pew in front where that meek little Mrs. Elder sits. I thought I should shriek she made me so nervous. Mrs. Elder kept turning her head just a little and looking distressed, but she couldn’t get the courage to turn clear around and look her in the face and make her stop. I almost disgraced myself sighing with nervousness. I’m sure she heard me, but it didn’t make any difference. She didn’t even know what it was all about. She turned and stared at me a minute with those great black eyes of hers and kept right on. I don’t want any worse punishment than to be obliged to sit beside her in any gathering again.”
“Yes, I know just how she is,” chimed in Maud Bradley. “She just fidgets and fidgets. She’s for all the world as bad as her eight-year-old brother, and he is the most disagreeable little kid in the whole town. I sat beside her in church one Sunday when our seat was full, and I was glad when the service was over. She kept turning and twisting and fixing her hat and smoothing her gloves. She had gloves on, so she couldn’t bite her nails then. She hummed the tunes while the minister was reading the hymns, and she tore a paper into small bits while the prayer was going on. I didn’t have a minute’s peace. I’m sure I don’t know how anybody could be expected to enjoy her company. She’s enough to spoil things wherever she goes. By all means, don’t let us invite her. Don’t you say so, Cornelia? Wouldn’t it simply spoil everything if Effie Martin went along with us?”
Cornelia Gilson, a flashy little girl with copper-colored bobbed hair and a yellow frock, had come in while they were talking and listened with an indignant frown.
“What! That Martin girl? Eleanor’s kid sister? Well, I should say so,” she answered quickly. “What are you all thinking about? Why should she be invited? She never was before!”
Janet Chipley ventured to explain. “Why, Flora Garner says she told her she wanted to go just awfully, and now they have the new car, and Eleanor is to be allowed to take it, and she thinks the girls will ask her.”
“Well, we certainly will not!” declared Cornelia indignantly. “She’ll find she is mistaken. I should think her own sister would make her understand that. She is not old enough for our crowd. She’s only fourteen.”
“Well, I guess she’s fifteen,” admitted Maud reluctantly, “but she doesn’t act like it.”
“Girls, you’re all mistaken about her age. She’s sixteen. Her birthday was last week,” spoke up Flora Garner timidly. “She wants to go dreadfully. Her sister doesn’t want her to, one bit, and she didn’t want to ask her to secure an invitation, so she asked me. I felt awfully embarrassed, for I didn’t know what to say.”
“Sixteen! Well, I should think she would be ashamed. Why, she acts like a big, tough boy. Last summer at the shore, she came tearing down the boardwalk with her hair flying, chasing Tom Moore and bound to catch him before they reached the bathhouses. I felt awfully humiliated to have her come up to me a few minutes after, when I was talking to Mrs. Earle and her son, and say, ‘Hello, Jan!’ She was chewing gum, too. And think of it, I had to introduce her. Mrs. Earle is so sweet; she takes in everybody, and she put out her hand and said, ‘Is this your cousin, Janet?’ Then after I told who she was, Mrs. Earle drew her aside and told her softly, so that her son would not hear, and with a great many ‘my dears,’ that there was a big tear in her skirt. And what do you think that poor fish did? She just laughed out loud and pulled the tear around and stuck her finger in it and said, ‘Oh yes, I know it. That’s been there two weeks. Most everybody’s told me of it now. It’s too much trouble to mend it down here. It’s bad enough to have to sew when I’m at home.’ Just then Tom Moore came in sight again, and without saying good-bye or anything, she started and ran, calling, ‘Ho, Tom, you can’t catch me again! I dare you to!’ I was so mortified I could have sunk down into the sand with a good will and never come up again. Lawrence Earle looked after her with the most curious expression. If she had seen him she would never have held up her head again.”
“Oh yes, she would, Janet,” said Maud, laughing. “You don’t suppose a little thing like that would bother her. Why, she’s got brass enough to make a pair of candlesticks. The thing I don’t understand is how she happened to be so utterly ill-mannered, with so lovely a mother.”
“Well, surely, girls,” said Ethel Garner, “if her own sister doesn’t want her, we can’t ask her to go along. What is the use of discussing her any further? I, for one, am tired of the subject. She is full of disagreeableness and apparently has not a single virtue.”
“You’re forgetting, Ethel,” put in Janet Chipley sarcastically, “she can ride a bicycle!”
“Oh yes, she can ride a wheel”—laughed Ethel with a sneer and a curl of her lip—“but she does even that like a clown. She would rather stand on the saddle with one toe and go flying down Main Street than anything else in the world. She just wants to show off her acrobatic feats! I can’t understand why her mother lets her. She’s too old to ride a bicycle. None of the other girls do.”
“You were just saying she wasn’t old enough to go with us,” urged Flora mischievously.
“Well, you know perfectly what I mean, Flo. Don’t try to be clever! She acts just like a great big, overgrown small boy. And the way she plays baseball and tries to get in with the boys! She thinks she’s so smart because they praise the way she pitches. She thinks it’s so wonderful to be able to pitch like a boy! I think it’s unladylike. And she goes whistling through the streets, and she never looks even neat! Her clothes are simply a mess! And her hair is a fright! If she went along, she’d be sure to disgrace us all in some way. Decidedly, no! She’s a flat tire if there ever was one. Don’t you all say so, girls?”
“Yes I do,” said Maud Bradley. “Come, let’s drop her and get to work. There’s the route and the time and the lunch to plan for, and the afternoon is going fast.”
The little company of brightly dressed girls settled themselves in the hammocks and chairs that were plentiful in the summerhouse and went to work in earnest.
Meantime, on the other side of the carefully trimmed hedge, stretched full length on the soft, springy, sweet-smelling earth, her elbows on a mossy bank, her face in her hands, her cheeks very red, her eyes on an open book, lay Effie Martin, the subject of all this conversation. She had taken her book after dinner and slipped off to this group of trees between her father’s lawn and that of Mr. Garner’s. It was a favorite retreat for her, away from the noise of her teasing brother, and the possible calls of conscience when she heard the work of the house going on and knew that she ought to be helping. She did not like to work, and she did love to read. She often came here when she wanted to be alone. She had found this particular bit of mossy turf, covered by clean, spicy pine needles. She did not know that in the summer arbor, opposite, Ethel and Flora Garner would receive their friends that day.
She would not have hesitated on that account if she had known. It did not occur to her that she would be liable to hear conversations not meant for her ears. When she had first heard voices approaching the hedge on the other side, she had paid little heed to them, but had read on until she suddenly heard her own name and became aware that she was the subject of much unpleasant remark. Her cheeks flamed with anger, and her big black eyes sparkled dangerously. It did not occur to her that she was an eavesdropper or that she ought to get up and go away. She would probably not have gone if it had occurred to her. It had never been fully impressed upon her that there was anything wrong in listening to what is not intended for one’s ears, especially when the theme is one’s self.
The girls on the other side of the hedge went on discussing her personal habits. It had never occurred to her that she had personal habits before or that those habits could be agreeable or disagreeable to others. There was something startling in hearing them portrayed in such unpleasant tones. Her heart beat fast with indignation. So this was what they thought of her. Her first impulse was to start to her feet and rush into their midst, but what could she do? They were but stating their opinions.
She had half started to get up, but now she sank back again. Alas! she could not deny the statements they had made about her, either. She glanced down at her stubby fingers, whose nails, worn to the quick, gave sad evidence of being daily bitten. Now that she recalled it, she supposed she did bite her nails in church. She was tired and longed to get out of doors, and that seemed to give her relief from what seemed to her a dull meeting. She glanced down at her dress. It was even now torn and spotted in many places. She had never paid much attention to her clothes before. She had not minded a few spots or rents, more or less. Now she suddenly saw what others thought of her. How they went on scorning her—those girls of whose circle she had so earnestly aspired to be one. How she hated them for it! What a hateful world she was in! How could they talk that way? Those pretty, simpering girls who could not ride as she could—not one of them—nor pitch a ball so that the boys would as soon have her in the game as one of themselves! They had nothing but nonsense in their heads and were very silly. Why should she care what they said? But all the time, as the talk went on, her cheeks burned redder and redder and her heart throbbed with its painful mingling of emotions.
Meanwhile the girls, unaware of the angry little listener on the other side of the hedge, arranged their program. They were to rest and refresh themselves at a farmhouse, a pleasant distance from home, and return in the evening by moonlight, if the night was clear. Then came the question of the chosen guests. All the usual girls were named, Eleanor Martin, Effie’s older sister, among the rest. A spasm of almost hatred again passed over Effie as she thought of the selfishness of her sister, who was unwilling that she should take part in the coming pleasure. Eleanor could have managed it for her if she had chosen, but Eleanor was nineteen and did not care to be troubled by “kids,” as she chose to designate her sister, albeit she never breathed this in the presence of their mother. Mrs. Martin disliked slang, and endeavored, as much as in her power, to bring up her daughters properly. But it was a hard task with so many feet to guide, so many mouths to feed, so little in the family treasury. This was, perhaps, the reason that poor Effie had been so often obliged to shift for herself.
The letters in the book before her were blurred into one long word. Effie felt no further interest in the hero of the historical novel that she had been reading. History was empty and void. Her own life had loomed up and eclipsed the ages, so that there was nothing of interest outside it. She felt that no one had ever been so miserable, so helpless, so disliked, so ill-treated, so utterly unhappy as herself. How could she go on living after to-day? She had suddenly seen herself as others saw her. Her feelings must have had a little touch of what Eve felt when she had eaten of that forbidden fruit and no longer saw the world about her fair. How could she ever endure it? Her thoughts surged through her brain without beginning or end. And through it all she longed to jump through that hedge, with vengeance in her eyes, and pounce upon those hateful girls and make them take it all back, make them suffer for what they had said, or do something that should assuage this dreadful feeling that oppressed her.
The planning on the other side of the hedge went on. The anticipated pleasure was discussed in animation. This was heightened somewhat by the arrival of a little sister of Janet Chipley, who brought a book her sister had sent her after and contributed this information as she was running away again to play: “Say, Janet, did you know Lawrence Earle had come home? I saw him just now coming from the station in the car with his mother, and he’s going to be home all summer, for he said so, and he’s going to play tennis with me a lot, for he’s promised. Isn’t that lovely? And he isn’t a bit different from a year ago, if he has been to college. I thought perhaps you’d like to ask him to your ride.” And Bessie Chipley flew away to her game, leaving the girls in high glee over the arrival of the young man who had won a most brilliant record in a noted college, and for whose society the girls were all eager.
“Oh, isn’t that lovely!” “Of course we’ll ask him!” were some of the exclamations from the delighted girls.
But the listener, on the other side of the hedge, only felt the blood burn hotter in her cheeks as she remembered what the girls had said she had done the year before at the seashore, and that this young man had been a witness. She really felt humiliation on her own account now, as she realized how she must have appeared in his eyes, tearing along like a boy and careless about the great rent in her gown. A year ago she would scarcely have understood why this should have been embarrassing, so much of a child had she been. But now young womanhood was stirring in her heart, with a sense of pride, self-consciousness, and the fitness of things. Self-consciousness had been very slight indeed, until now, but her eyes had been opened and she was ashamed—and Lawrence Earle, of all people! The boy who had taught her to pitch a ball when she was a mere infant. Of course, he was a great deal older than she was—five or six years at least, and had probably forgotten all about her. But she had always remembered him as an ideal hero!
“We must have another girl to make even couples,” they were saying, and Effie’s humiliation was so complete that she scarcely felt the pang of disappointment that she could not be chosen for the vacant place. No, rather stay at home forever than that she should be of the same company with that immaculate youth who had witnessed her degradation. This was what she felt. Suddenly her feelings rose to such a pitch she could no longer keep still, and scrambling to her feet, she fairly fled from the place where she had so suffered. The tears had gathered in her eyes, and once she fell with a stinging thud to the ground, having tripped over a hidden root. This only brought the tears the faster. And when she reached the house she threw her book upon the floor, ran through the house, slamming all the doors after her, tore up the stairs to her own room where she locked herself in, and threw herself upon the bed in an agony of weeping such as she had very seldom experienced.
Her patient mother, who had been trying to take a nap with the fretful, teething baby, was awakened by her rushing through the house and sighed. “Oh, there goes Effie! What shall we do with that child?”
Effie had cried perhaps half an hour. Hers was too vehement a nature to do things by halves, and her weeping was so violent that she was thoroughly exhausted. Then she lay still and began to think things over. Why was it that those girls disliked her and she seemed to be so unwelcome everywhere? For now that she thought of it, she saw there were quite a number of people in the world who did not care to have her around. Her mother loved her, she felt sure, but somehow her mother always sighed when she came into the room. Why was that? Was she not wanted in the world? She could not help it, she supposed, or could she? What the girls had said about some things was quite true, though she had never felt before they were things that mattered to others. If she wanted to bite her fingernails, what business was it of theirs? She never troubled their fingernails. She had a right to do with her own as she pleased, so long as she let other people’s alone. But here, it seemed, these personal habits of hers did trouble other people, and she must not expect to be wanted if she could not make herself pleasant. She looked at her stumpy fingers through her tear-dimmed eyes. They certainly did not look pretty. But it had never occurred to her that biting them had anything to do with that.
The girls had said she made them nervous. She hardly understood why, but if it was so, why, of course, it was. The question was, could she stop doing it? And if she could, and should, would that make any difference in the feelings of those girls for her? But then, she did not intend to try to please those girls! No, indeed! They were not worth pleasing. But there were people in the world to whom she would like to seem lovely—her mother, for instance, and perhaps Flora Garner, for she had been nice and sweet about asking to have her invited to the ride. Everybody said Flora Garner was sweet. She had that reputation wherever she was known. It was a great thing to have people feel that way about you and say nice things. And then her poor, swollen cheeks burned again at the thought of the hateful things that had been said about her. But would it be worthwhile to try to make things better, so that people might think well of her? A fierce desire to get on her bicycle and fly away into the gathering shades of the dusky night that was drawing on seized her. It was suppertime, but she wanted no supper. She would go, and she jerked herself up from the bed, caught her hat, and without waiting to wash the tearstains from her face, dashed downstairs. It was like her. Effie always did everything without thinking. As she went out the door, she heard her mother sigh and say to her baby brother, “Oh baby, baby, if you would only just sit still on the floor for ten minutes longer till I finish this seam. My back aches so that I cannot hold you and sew any longer.”