The Story of a Whim Read online

  A soft, restful green was chosen for the couch cover. It couldn’t have fit better if Victoria Landis had secretly had a tape measure in her pocket and measured the couch, which perhaps she did on her second trip to the freight house.

  Ruth Summers made the two pillows—large, comfortable, and sensible—of harmonizing greens and browns and a gleam of gold here and there.

  With careful attention to the directions, the new owner dressed his old lounge and placed the pillows as directed, “with a throw and a pat, not laid stiffly,” from a postscript in Ruth’s clear feminine hand. Then he stood back in awe that a thing so familiar and ugly could suddenly assume such an air of ease and elegance. Could he ever bring the rest of the room up to the same standard?

  But the box invited further investigation. A bureau set of dainty blue and white, a cover for the top and pincushion to match were packed inside, with a few yards of material and a rough sketch with directions for a possible dressing table, to be made of a wooden box in case Christie had no bureau.

  It was from Emily Whitten, who said she couldn’t remember seeing a bureau among the things. But she was sure any girl would know how to fix one up and perhaps be glad of some new things for it.

  The young man looked helplessly at these things. He finally walked out into the moonlight and hunted up an old box, which he brushed off with the broom and brought inside. He clumsily spread the blue-and-white frills over its splintery top, then fumbled in the lapel of his coat for a pin and solemnly tried to stick it into the cushion.

  He was growing more bewildered with his new possessions. As each one came to light, he wondered how he could maintain and keep up to such luxuries.

  Mother Winship included a bright knit afghan, which looked perfect over the couch. Next came a layer of Sunday school songbooks, a Bible, and some lesson leaflets. A card said that Esther Wakefield sent these and hoped they would help in the new Sunday school.

  A roll of chalkboard cloth, a large cloth map of Palestine, and a box of chalk followed. The young man grew more helpless. This was worse than the bureau set and the slippers. What was he to do with them? He start a Sunday school! He would more likely start children in the opposite way from heaven if he continued as he had the last two years.

  His face hardened. He was almost ready to sweep the whole lot back into the box, nail them up, and send them back where they came from. What did he want with a lot of trash with such burdensome obligations attached?

  But curiosity made him return to see what was left in the box, and a glance around his room made him unwilling to give up this luxury.

  He looked curiously at the box of fluffy lace things with Marion Halston’s card on top. He could only guess that they were some girls’ things and wondered vaguely what he should do with them. Then he unwrapped a photograph of the six girls, which was hurriedly taken and inscribed, “Guess which is which,” with a list of their names written on a circle of paper like the spokes of a wheel.

  He studied each face with interest; somehow it was for the letter writer he sought, Hazel Winship. And he thought he should know her at once.

  This would be very interesting and pass some of the long hours when there was nothing worthwhile to do. It would keep him from thinking how long it took orange groves to pay and what hard luck he’d always had.

  He decided at first glance that the one in the center with the clear eyes and firm mouth was the instigator of all this bounty. As his eyes traveled from one face to another and came back to hers each time, he felt more sure of it. Her gaze held something frank and pleasant in it. Somehow it would not do to send that girl back her things and tell her he didn’t need her charity. He liked to think she’d thought of him, even though she did think of him as a poor discouraged girl or an old woman.

  He stood the picture up against the pincushion lace and forever gave up the idea of trying to send those things back.

  One thing more was in the bottom of the box, fastened inside another protecting board. He took it at last from its wrappings—a large picture, Hofmann’s head of Christ, framed in broad, dark Flemish oak to match the tint of the etching.

  Dimly he understood who the subject of the picture was, although he’d never seen it before. Silently he found a nail and drove it deep into the log of the wall. Just over the organ he hung it, without the slightest hesitation. He recognized at once where this picture belonged and knew that it, not the bright rug or the restful couch or the gilded screen or even the organ itself, was to set the standard henceforth for his home and his life.

  He knew this without its quite coming to the surface of his consciousness. He was weary by this time, with the unusual excitement of the occasion, and perplexed. He felt like a person suddenly lifted up a little way from the earth and obliged against his will to walk along unsupported in the air.

  His mind was in a whirl. He looked from one new thing to another, wondering more and more what they expected of him. The ribbons and lace for the bureau worried him, and the lace collars and pincushion. What did he have to do with such things? Those foolish little slippers mocked him with something that wasn’t in his life, a something for which he wasn’t even trying to find himself. The organ and the books and, above all, the picture seemed to dominate him and demanded of him things he could never give. A Sunday school! What an absurdity! He!

  And the eyes in the picture seemed to look into his soul and to say, quietly enough, that He had come here now to live, to take command of his home and its occupant.

  He rebelled against it and turned away from the picture. He hated all the things, and yet the comfort of them drew him irresistibly.

  In sheer weariness at last, he put out his light and, wrapping his old blankets around him, lay down upon the rug; for he would not disturb the couch lest the morning should dawn and his new dream of comfort look as if it had fled away. Besides, how was he ever to get it together again? And when the morning broke and Christie awoke to the splendor of his things by daylight, the wonder of it dawned, too, and he went about his work with the same spell still upon him.

  Now and again he raised his eyes to the pictured Christ and dropped them again reverently. It seemed to him this morning as if that Presence were living and had come to him in spite of all his railings at fate, his bitterness and scoffing, and his feckless life. It seemed to say with that steady gaze: What will you do with Me? I am here, and you cannot get away from My drawing.

  It wasn’t as if his life had been filled in the past with tradition and teaching, for his mother died when he was a little fellow. And the thin-lipped, hard-working maiden aunt who had cared for him in her place, whatever religion she might have had in her heart, never thought it necessary to speak it out beyond requiring a certain amount of decorum on Sunday and regular attendance at Sunday school.

  In Sunday school it was his lot to sit under a good elder who read the questions from a lesson leaflet and looked helplessly at the boys who were employing their time in more pleasurable things. The very small amount of holy things he absorbed from his days at Sunday schools failed to leave him with a strong idea of God’s love or any adequate knowledge of the way to be saved.

  In later years, of course, he listened indifferently to preaching. When he went to college—a small, insignificant one—he came in contact with religious people; but here, too, he heard as one hears a thing in which one hasn’t the slightest interest.

  He had gathered and held this much, that the God in whom the Christian world believed was holy and powerful and that most of the world’s inhabitants were culprits. Up to this time God’s love had passed him by unaware.

  Now the pictured eyes of the Son of God seemed to breathe out tenderness and yearning. For the first time in his life, the possibility of love between his soul and God came to him.

  His work that morning was much more complicated than usual. He wasted little time in getting breakfast. He had to clean house. He couldn’t bear the idea that the old regime and the new should touch shoulders as th
ey did behind that screen. So, with broom and scrub brush, he set to work.

  He had things in pretty good shape at last and was just coming in from giving the horse a belated breakfast when a strange impulse seized him.

  At his feet, creeping all over the white sand in delicate patterns, were wild pea blossoms of crimson, white and pink. He never noticed them before. Weren’t they just weeds? But with a new insight into possibilities in art, he stooped and gathered a few of them. Holding them awkwardly, he went into the house to put them into his new vase. He felt ashamed of them and held them behind him as he entered. But with the shame was mingled an eagerness to see how they would look in the vase on the “blue bureau thing.”

  “‘Will you walk into my parlor?’

  Said the spider to the fly,

  ’Tis the prettiest little parlor

  That ever you did spy,” sang out a rich tenor voice in greeting.

  “I say, Chris! What are you setting up for? What does it mean? Ain’t going to get married or nothing, are you, man? Because I’ll be obliged to go to town and get my best coat out of pawn if you are.”

  “Aw, now that’s great!” drawled another voice, in an English accent. “Got anything good to drink? Trot it out, and we’ll be better able to appreciate all this luxury!”

  Chapter 3

  “And What Are You Going to Say to Her?”

  The young man felt a rising tendency to swear. He’d forgotten all about the fellows and their agreement to meet and spend a festive day out. So great was the spell on him that he forgot to put the feminine things away from curious eyes.

  There he stood foolishly in the middle of his own floor, with a bunch of “weeds” in his hand, which he hadn’t the sense to drop. Far off the sound of a cracked church bell gave a soft reminder, which the distant popping of firecrackers at a cabin down the road confirmed, that this was Christmas Day. Christmas Day, and the face of the Christ looking down at him tenderly from his own wall.

  The oath that rose to his lips at his foolish plight was stayed. He couldn’t take that name in vain with those eyes upon him. The spell wasn’t broken even yet.

  With a quick settling of his lips and daring in his eyes, he threw back his head and walked over to the glass vase to fill it with water. It was like him to brave it out and tell the whole story now that he was caught.

  He was a broad-shouldered young man, firmly built, with a head well set on his shoulders. Except for a certain careless slouch in his gait he might have been fine to look upon. His face wasn’t handsome, but he had good brown eyes with deep hazel lights in them that kindled when he looked at you.

  His hair was red, deep and rich, and decidedly curly. His gestures were strong and regular. If his face didn’t have a certain hardness about it he would have been interesting, but that look made one turn away disappointed.

  His companions were both big men like him. The Englishman was loose-jointed and awkward, with pale blue eyes, hay-colored hair, and a large jaw with loose lips; he belonged to that large class of second or third sons with a good education, a poor fortune, and very little practical knowledge how to better it, so many of whom came to Florida to try growing oranges. The other was handsome and dark, with a weak mouth and daring black eyes that continually warred with one another.

  Both were dressed in rough clothes, trousers tucked into boots with spurs, dark flannel shirts, and soft riding hats. The Englishman wore gloves and affected a certain loud style in dress. They carried their riding whips and walked undismayed upon the bright colors of the rug.

  “Oh, I say now, get off there with those great clods of boots, can’t you?” exclaimed Christie, with sudden housewifely carefulness. “Anybody’d think you were brought up in a barn, Armstrong.”

  Armstrong put on his eyeglasses—he always wore them as if they were a monocle—and examined the rug carefully.

  “Aw, I beg pardon! Awfully nice, ain’t it? Sorry I didn’t bring my patent leathers along. Remind me next time, please, Mortimer.”

  Christie told the story of his Christmas gifts in as few words as possible. Somehow he didn’t feel like elaborating it.

  The guests seized upon the photograph of the girls and laughed hilariously over it.

  “Takes you for a girl, does she?” said Mortimer. “That’s great! Which one is she? I choose that fine one with snapping black eyes and handsome teeth. She knew her best point, or she wouldn’t have laughed when her picture was taken.”

  Victoria Landis’s eyes would have snapped indeed if she’d heard the comments about her and the others. But she was safely out of hearing, far up in the North.

  The comments continued most freely. Christie found himself disgusted with his friends. Only yesterday he would have laughed at all they said. What made the difference now? Was it that letter? Would the other fellows feel the same if he read it to them?

  But he never would! The red blood stole up in his face. He could hear their shouts of laughter now over the tender girlish phrases. It shouldn’t be desecrated. He was glad indeed that he’d put it in his coat pocket the night before.

  The letter, the pictures, and the things seemed to have a sacredness about them, and it went against the grain to hear the coarse laughter of his friends.

  At last they spoke about the girl in the center of the group, the clear-eyed, firm-mouthed one he’d selected for Hazel. His blood boiled. He could stand it no longer. With one sweep of his long strong arm, he struck the picture from them with “Aw, shut up! You make me tired!” and, picking it up, tucked it in his pocket.

  At this point his companions’ fun took a new turn. They examined the table decked out in blue and lace. The man named Mortimer knew the lace collars and handkerchiefs for women’s attire, and they turned upon their most unwilling host and decked him in fine array.

  He sat helpless and mad, with a large lace collar over his shoulders. Another hung down in front arranged over the bureau cover, which was spread across him as a background, while a couple of lace-bordered handkerchiefs adorned his head.

  “And what are you going to say to her for all these pretty presents, Christie, my girl?” laughed Mortimer.

  “Say to her!” gasped Christie.

  It hadn’t occurred to him before that he would need to say anything. A horrible oppression was settling down upon his chest. He wished that all the things were back in their boxes and on their way to their ridiculous owners. He got up, kicked at the rug, and tore the lace finery from his neck, stumbling on the lavender slippers, which his tormentors had stuck on the toes of his shoes.

  “Why, certainly, man—I beg your pardon—my dear girl,” continued Mortimer. “You don’t intend to be so rude as not to reply, or say, ‘I thank you very kindly’!”

  Christie’s thick auburn brows settled into a scowl, and the attention of the others was drawn to the side of the room where the organ stood.

  “That’s awfully fine, don’t you know?” remarked Armstrong, leveling his eyeglasses at the picture. “It’s by somebody great—I don’t just remember who.”

  “Fine frame,” said Mortimer tersely as he opened the organ and sat down in front of it.

  And the new owner of the picture felt for the first time in his acquaintance with those two men that they were somehow out of harmony with him.

  He glanced up at the picture with the color mounting in his face, half pained for the friendly gaze that was treated so lightly. He didn’t in the least understand himself.

  But the fingers touching the keys now were not altogether unaccustomed. A soft, sweet strain broke through the room and swelled louder and fuller until it seemed to fill the little log house and be wafted through the open windows to the world outside.

  Christie stopped in his walk across the room, held by the music. It seemed to express all he had thought and felt during the last few hours.

  A few chords, and the player abruptly reached up to the pile of songbooks above him. Dashing the book open at random, he began playing and in a moment, i
n a rich, sweet tenor, sang. The others drew near, and each took a book and joined in.

  “He holds the key of all unknown,

  And I am glad;

  If other hands should hold the key,

  Or if He trusted it to me,

  I might be sad.”

  The song was a new creed spoken to Christie’s soul by a voice that seemed to fit the eyes in the picture. What was the matter with him? He didn’t at all know. His whole life was suddenly shaken.

  It may be that the fact of his long residence alone in that desolate land, with only a few acquaintances, had made him more ready to be swayed by this sudden stirring of new thoughts and feelings. Certain it was that Christie Bailey was not acting like himself.

  But the others were interested in the singing. It had been a long time since they’d had an instrument to accompany them, and they enjoyed the sound of their own voices. They would have preferred, perhaps, a book of college songs or, better still, the latest street songs. But since they weren’t at hand and gospel hymns were, they found pleasure even in these.

  On and on they sang, through hymn after hymn, their voices growing stronger as they found pieces that had some hint of familiarity.

  The music filled the house and floated out into the bright Christmas world outside. Presently Christie felt rather than saw movement at the window and, looking up, beheld it dark with little, eager faces of the black children. Their supply of firecrackers had given out and, seeking further celebration, were drawn with delight by the unusual sounds. Christie dropped into a chair and gazed at them, his eyes growing troubled and the frown deepening. He couldn’t make it out. Here he’d been for some time, and these little children had never ventured to his premises. Now here they were in full force, their faces fairly shining with delight, their eyes rolling with wonder and joy over the music.