Straws in the Wind

Straws in the Wind By Annette Mott "Oh dear!" It was an exclamation in which there mingled both exasperation and regret. Janet Wells stood by a cement rimmed pool in the park and watched her hat floating about upon the surface of the water at the mercy of the summer wind. It was a very nice hat. It was quite worth the money she had paid for it, if one con- sidered style and quality and, looking at Janet as she knelt to recover it, you could not have inferred by her dress, voice, or manner, just how much the loss of the hat would involve. If she had been idling here because she had nothing else to do, which seemed apparent, she no doubt had access to an income sufficient to cover the loss of the hat without any real sacrifice on her part, but if its replacement meant extensive in- roads upon the contents of the next pay envelope — well, that would be a different thing. She did try to recover it, however. Perhaps it was her favorite hat; perhaps in a conciliatory mood she had promised it to her maid — it being also the maid's favorite choice. While she knelt upon the edge of the pool with her arm extended — it wasn't a very long arm so that it didn't reach far — the hat still playfully eluded her finger-tips, and the ex- pression of annoyance on her face had changed to one of wist- ful regret. She said, "Oh dear," again, with a sigh. "What you need is a cane." The words were spoken by a young man who had arrived apparently out of nowhere, and before she could move he had knelt beside her and was suiting his action to his words. The little hat was in a teasing mood. Three times they changed their position, laughing and excited, before with final triumph they drew it in. When they had risen there was a moment of rapid mutual inspection, first of each other, and then of the hat. "Impossible?" he asked holding it up on the end of his cane. "Not a bit," she answered. He immediately whisked out his handkerchief and began drying it carefully. "Oh, it doesn't matter at all, really, she laughed. I can

994 IMPROVEMENT ERA cany it like this, while it dries, and I can easily walk home from here. It was silly taking all that trouble, but it was rather fun, after all." She stood on a bit of sward full in the sun. Her bright hair seemed both to absorb and reflect the glory of it. Her face was fair and appealing and at present flushed with excite- ment. Her eyes were the color of a moody sea. The hat once more in her possession, she stood for an in- stant undecided. Her eyes sought the face of a clock in a tower across the park. If the young man noticed the merest shade of concern which accompanied her search or the instant relief from anxiety that followed it, he made no sign. She was thinking: "I have an hour and forty-seven min- utes." He was thinking: "She has it, how lovely. Once in a hundred years." I do not know to what he referred but I am sure it was not the hat. It might have been her beauty which was in excess of that usually attributed to mere youth. It might have been some particular quality of tone in her voice or that subtle something termed the racing strain — an impression of the thor- oughbred that never quite gets into the vocabulary because it just escapes being described. As she began to move away the young man reflected for a moment that she needed protection. His thought seemed to run along its own path. "I think I ought to go with you for a ways. No one can tell what might happen — to that hat" — he added smiling. Whereupon she smiled in return, and looked as if she might have desired that arrangement all along: as if, perhaps, she was following a whim rather than a destination in the direction she took. They turned and moved toward the bright length of the park in a sort of transitory wonder that the opportunity for spending an hour or so together had furnished no difficulties whatever. The Island of Manhattan is, without doubt, the greatest commercial center on the entire western hemisphere. Any en- cyclopedia would mention that; but here in its very center two young people might walk on a summer morning, under favor- able conditions, as much shut away from its confusion and com- mercialism as if it had been the heart of the Forest of Arden three centuries or more ago. Bees hummed. Birds sang. Flowers bloomed. They walked through sparkling enchantments be- neath old trees which the sunshine gilded and caressed. It was a pre-war June so that the young man, who was to

STRAWS IN THE WIND 995 the unprejudiced just an ordinarily nice young man, icouldn't have been a soldier. He could not even have foreseen that Life and Love and Youth which he had been taught, which he be- lieved to be secure, were about to be betrayed to the limit of all violence, to struggle, and to every unmitigated horror of death. Neither could his elders have foreseen it, nor the wise men of his generation, for the shadow was not yet the shade it was, but a cloud the size of a man's hand upon a far horizon. By and by they left the park and crossed to quiet, fashion- able streets. Sometimes they walked in silence. The young man held to his own thoughts. Perhaps he felt no urgent need of set phrases to disturb them. Sometimes a smile grew about his lips, at things she said, and ran over into his eyes as he glanced from time to time at the young lady walking so de- murely beside him. Once she asked serenely, "Do you live up this way, too?" For a moment he regarded her with the whimsical smile still on his lips. "You don't for a moment think I'm a millionaire, do you?" "Well, I must say you look it." She answered his quick glance quite undisturbed, but there was a faint gleam of mischief in her eyes. "Like a million dollars," he repeated. "Now, I don't know if that's a compliment or not. To tell you the truth, I'm taking a new job this morning." "Is it something nice?" She was looking straight before her. "Something you'll like very much? It's so beastly to be taking orders from some one you don't care about — to be al- ways on time, trying to make yourself like — well — what you don't like — wlien all this is just outside." She made a gesture to include the open space where the river gleamed through the trees, even though at this point, it was a creeping river and ships to distant ports rode upon it, freighted for the seas. "It sure is, he answered, softly. I think I never noticed it so much as this morning." "What?" "The weather." "Silly, any one would like a morning like this, so you're not the least bit peculiar." They were passing a florist shop. They loitered idly before the great plateglass windows. "Cinnamon roses!" the young man exclaimed with a little note of surprise in his voice. "Where?" she questioned, following his eyes. "Those yellow ones in that tall, green jar. The firs* I've seen this summer."

996 IMPROVEMENT ERA After a moment of brief, still apreciation, Janet asked, "Where did you ever see them before?" She raised her hand to hold her hair straight against the wind. Every gesture she made was full of unconscious attrac- tion, or so it seemed to the young man whose eyes were so often upon her. "In my grandmother's yard in Vermont," he said, slowly. And then he almost frowned. He made a motion to go into the shop, thought better of it, thrust his hand into his pocket, and drew forth a crumpled dollar bill. For a moment their minds rested upon the same thought. They regarded the bill and each other amused. "Better keep your money," Janet said, gaily, and they moved slowly on. "Which house do you like best?" he asked, presently. They were passing a row of handsome residences. She gave him a defiant sidewise glance, but she found that he was not observing her very closely just then. "I suppose you're trying to find out where I live, but you must not try to do that." "You might say which you like best any way, that wouldn't be telling, would it?" "Which do you like best?" "No. 1068 looks — well — homelike I think. It has a bit of a yard and, bless me! an arbor and a tree." "Oh dear!" she didn't say it out loud but she was thinking of a yard much, much larger, with many wide-spreading old trees and stables and box-bordered walks. "So do I," she answered, but her interest was waning. Some of the gaiety had fallen out of her voice. "But it's not where I live." She turned abruptly. The dimples retreated and the merest fringe of the anxiety she had felt a short time before swept her brow and eyes. She removed the pin from the hat by which she had carried it and, striking a pose, she asked archly, as she put the hat on her head, "Is it straight?" and again — suddenly — "Could you tell me the time?" He nodded, watching her. "Summer time," he said impulsively, and so low that she could scarcely hear. The whimsical smile spread again to his eyes. Reluctantly he held the open face of his watch for her inspection. Perhaps what the hands indicated was reassuring for she looked up meeting his eyes, a trifle shyly, but she turned away immediately. "Time for my riding lesson, now," she said, but still she tar- ried.

STRAWS IN THE WIND 997 A number of rapid thoughts seemed to chase one another over her face without presenting to her consideration one idea that seemed available. Not a fleeting expression of her face escaped the notice of the young man, however. Perhaps he desired to make things easy for her, for he made a quick decision. "I'm going back for those roses after all. I'll not be a minute. You can wait that long." But she couldn't, for the instant he had turned the corner, and she felt convinced he was lost to sight, she ran across a little parked place and hailed an oncoming motor bus. Although much preferring to ride aloft, she chose a seat below near the door, quite hidden from view. The bus slowly moving southward came by devious ways to the crowding traffic of Broadway and the Avenues. By and by she left the bus and walked rapidly a half block or so. She was no longer a free creature. She belonged to com- mercialism after all. Her limitations were set. Her destina- tion was, just at present, no whim. She entered a very nice place. No doubt she had been there often before, for upon entering she walked with the confidence employment there implied. The interior, though quite appeal- ing to the eye, had long since failed to impress her. The back- ground of tinted wall, the tables, the dresses of the girls, who waited upon them, were in varying tones of gray; the lights, the decorations, the accessories were in one shade of rose. She noticed with relief that it was five to eleven. She made her way back to a little dressing-room reserved for em- ployees. The last of the loquacious sisterhood at that instant coming out greeted her thus carelessly. " 'Lo Jane, on time, I see." Janet lowered her eyes to veil the excitement she felt gleam- ing there, and made an indifferent reply. She observed her face in the glass. "Not half bad," she told her reflection. Her voice fell to a whisper. Perhaps she referred to the hat. She removed it and carefully hung it on a hook. If you had gone to Cartiers' that afternoon you might have seen her behind the cashier's desk. One purchased ices, candies and sodas at extreme prices at Cartiers'. If you had happened to look into her eye when she gave you the change you might have observed a new light there which had not been there yesterday, nor the day before, nor the day before that. But one couldn't follow her home, which was just as well. The little court wasn't so very bad, anyway. June had done a great deal for it. More than any other month could possibly

998 IMPROVEMENT ERA have done, save, perhaps, October, when the leaves of the half dozen elm trees bronzed and fell and lay in crisp patterns on the strip of green sward beneath them. In nearly every house that opened upon the little court rooms, and board could be obtained at varying prices so that it came to be called Boarding House Row, but not in the di- rectory. It had a more dignified mention there. When Janet first had seen the room for which she was asked, as she believed at the time, an exhorbitant sum, her heart almost failed her at its bareness. But the contents of her trunk had furnished a number of attractive accessories in chintz over- drapes for the inadequate curtains at the windows; a bright wool afghan sofa cushion; a small rug, and innumerable toilet articles of silver and ivory. She also hung a number of photo- graphs, in frame, along the wall. One was the picture of a big house under great old trees. Sometimes but not often she had wept standing before this when things in general had taken on a very deep, dark shade of discouragement; but now she had employment, and a pay envelope whose contents covered with thoughtful contriving, at least, her immediate needs. Tonight, everything about her seemed inordinately gay. Standing before her mirror she hummed snatches of a popular song while she brushed and arranged her shining hair. She changed into a sprigged muslin that looked old and sheer as if it had persisted from some more propitious day. "Stupid old room," she breathed. "Life isn't after all the particular bore we sometimes surmise it to be. It isn't preached down and held in only in spots. There's no limit to impossible things that can happen you know." And to the entire row of photographs, she whispered gaily, as she went out, "Don't worry, dear old darlings, I'll be good." On her way down the stairs, she heard voices in the hall below. When she arrived there, the landlady, drab, annoyed, weary, to whom June was as November except that the days were longer and thus provided more hours for employment, had already signed for the box. "For Miss Wells," she said, and laid it across her arm. Janet ran up to her room again and after a busy instant, there they lay revealed — fifty unbelievable cinnamon roses, WTien Alden Gray, the young man of the adventure, saw Janet Wells enter the motor bus he immediately called a taxi. If you have ever attempted to trail some particular individ- ual in a motor bus, with a million other individuals getting be- tween you and the bus and not that alone but getting on and off a hundred motor busses that look and act alike, you will

STRAWS IN THE WIND 999 know why he said something under his breath softly, at the end of an hour, and abandoned the taxi. But the desire to sleuth possessed him. "I'll try it," he said to his insistent thought. "Who knows?" And within the next half-hour he was standing again beside the revealing pool in the park, where he had fished for the little hat some time before. Now Fate or Destiny or both have been employed from time immemorial to solve many an intricate riddle of our lives, and here, quite beneath his very feet, crumpled and almost lost to sight, was the most obvious illustration of the aforesaid to be found, perhaps, in all Manhattan Island that particular morning in June. It was a discarded envelope, empty and torn. Alden Gray smoothed it across his palm. On the face of it in cramped handwriting but unmistakably plain, there appeared a name and address — Miss Janet E. Wells, No. 75 Belden Court, New York City, and as if to outdo itself further in illumination there was a return inscription in the upper left-hand corner — Mrs. Gideon Plaum, No. 1121 Trent Boulevard, Richmond, Va. Now it was that return inscription that accelerated the plans and smoothed the way for the interference of the before- mentioned Fate and Destiny. At four or thereabout on the same day, Alden Gray, well dressed, smooth shaven, bearing the stamp of an aristocracy not only of wealth but of good breeding, descended the steps of No. 1068 Street. He carried a traveling bag. He paused for an instant when he had achieved the walk, almost immediately thought better of his indecision and walked rapidly away. Presently he en- tered the florist shop where the yellow roses had been dis- played earlier in the day. When he again reached the street you could have guessed the destination of the box carefully tied and addressed, awaiting its messenger. His destination was Richmond. At the identical hour when on the preceding day he had walked with an unknown young lady in the Forest of Arden he was ringing the doorbell at No. 1121 Trent Boulevard. When he emerged a half-hour later an old lady followed him out upon the wide wisteria-trellissed veranda. She was voluble, small and wiry and dressed in white. The gray curls about her delicate face were confined beneath a small lace cap. "This is where Judge Wells lived," she said, indicating a place directly opposite — it was the counterpart of the photo- graph over which Janet so often yearned. "When he died I

1000 IMPROVEMENT ERA wanted Janet to come to me, but, do you know she only waited until the estate was settled and then she went to New York. She didn't have much money either. I'm thinking it must be gone by this time." Alden Gray was wondering how he might halt that placid flow of information. His coming in the first place had seemed like spying upon a young lady who, after all, was a mere stranger to him, but of course that wasn't the object of his visit at all. He hadn't come down here for that, but wouldn't he have difficulty in explaining to the young lady? Somehow with all his reluctance to hear, the information was not un- pleasant. He had surmised the surroundings of her youth sometime before. His eyes were on the old place opposite. Yes, the setting was such as became her. It was no doubt the up- bringing her pretty wilfulness attested. "I don't see how she keeps a position," the little lady con- tinued. "At home she always had her own way. The Judge never crossed her. She did as she pleased. While she staid with me she often said, 'Why, Aunt Sarah, nothing goes on here, and life is change, you know, change and going on.' I was amused, though, in her last letter: 'Dear Aunt Sarah,' she said, 'If you get sick be sure to let me know and I will come.' Now that sounds as if her independence was beginning to wear off doesn't it?" They had slowly sauntered down the sun-flecked path to the gate, where Alden Gray left her, turning twice to wave as he passed from view. It was perhaps three days later that the following letter reached Belden Court: Dear Miss Janet Wells: — You may have guessed before this that I was in possession of your name. I think I shall be perfectly . frank at once and tell you that I found an envelope you had dropped in the park. I live with my Great Aunt Emily. I have always been her favorite nephew. I am not in the least to be blamed for this because I am the only 'near .relative she has. When she saw the name of the sender of that letter to you, she sent me at once to Richmond, because the lady who lives at No. 1121 Trent Boulevard was and is an old schoolmate and a very dear friend of my Great Aunt Emily. Many years ago they lived in the same little village in Vermont. My Aunt Emily is old and she has a preference for -the friends of her youth so I persuaded your Great Aunt Sarah to make us a visit. She is here and she wants to see you. I am convinced that she needs your care. I am certain that coming so far it would not be dutiful in you to refuse to see her at my aunt's address, and so I am sending the car. Pack a bag with some of your things. I have heard their scheme. They are going to Vermont for a month or two and they are planning to take us along. Now as a pledge that I am sincere, and that I am writing this at my Aunt Emily's request the driver of the car will wear a cinnamon rose. Goodby. Be ready, dear Miss Janet Wells. Yours, Alden Gray.

STRAWS IN THE WIND 1001 After second thought he underscored the word imme- diately preceding her name. Now very handsome touring cars with drivers de luxe sel- dom came into Belden Court and I am sure if the hour of its arrival and departure had not also been the popular dinner hour of the boarding houses which faced upon the twilit court, its appearance might have aroused uncharitable comment. Janet refused to see the driver. His outfit had not for an instant deceived her. She even watched his concern from her own safe concealment behind her window shade when she sent a note to the effect that she would not see him. She despatched it by a messenger boy who happened to be in the hall, at the time. But upon reading what he scrawled and at once re- turned to her, she went down and stood by the curb. The picture she made was decidedly appealing. She wore the old fashioned sprigged muslin. Her cheeks were flushed, but I fancy more in anger than excitement. She stood a trifle defiantly at attention so that the line from the top of her burnished hair to the high heels of her little slippers caught and fascinated and held the eye. She must have said a few bright things because the light in Alden Gray's eyes was very marked and his smile often broke into a laugh in which she did not join, however. I do not know what a little later led to her decision, but I fancy it was a look which had escaped some deep place in the young man's heart when her eyes met his — the Lochinvar spirit, perhaps, which is after all the lover's immemorial inheritance, for she not only went presently without further protest, but she followed his directions about the bag. There was a whispered consultation with the landlady after which they rode with smooth swiftness away. The silver crescent of a new moon persisted through the clearing air. A single star of bright magnitude shone. Thus Romance, once more triumphant, passed out of the little court through these age-old enchantments to meet a common destiny. Write for Free Information According to the catalogue now being distributed by the Brigham Young University, the fall term at that institution will begin, Monday, September 18. In order to accommodate the many graduates who wish to take their Master's degrees from the institution, a graduate division has been added. For the school year 1922-23 about twice as many courses are being offered as were ever offered by the institution before. A cata- logue giving full particulars regarding the parent Church school may be had by writing for one to the Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.