--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Unknown collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 33 number: 4 published: 1930-02 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Unknown, “Hoo-Hoo,” *Improvement Era* 33, no. 4 (February 1930): 274–275." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3304unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera3304unse start_page: 274 end_page: 275 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1930-02) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera3304unse publication_year: 1930 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1930, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Hoo-Hoo o o 0— HOO," the call echoed long and eerie over the water. Jessie waited until the sound faded away, then her face lighted up as she waved a slim, brown arm high in the air. Tom Davis, sitting cross-legged on a pile of seines on the wide dock across the river, looked up, and pulling off his cap waved in return. It was too far to see the faces, but not so far but that a spectator on either side of the waterway would have felt the vivid and sparkling youth that an- imated the two. It was June and school would soon be over. It had been Jessie's first year as "teacher" in the little fishing village. She was teacher, principal, janitor and custodian of "the little red school house," though she didn't really half look the part. Coppery curls short enough to dangle enticingly, and gentle blue eyes with dark lashes, she inherited from an aristocratic mother, who had died when Jessie was but a little girl. OINCE Jessie had been able to reach the sink by standing on the inevitable soap box, she had managed to keep house, somehow, for the father and two brothers, who every day shipped barrels of fish to the mythical New York. "New York," the little Jessie would whisper the name to herself. It actually tasted good and often in those early days she went down with the men to haul their catch just so as to go by the "Folly" the stone pillar which marks the boun- dary of three states, and one of these — New York. As their power boat whished by this spot, she would gaze longingly over the broad expanse of enchanted waters. They went to New York. Would she ever go there, too? At sixteen, the beginning of her chance came. With money left by her mother for that purpose, she was packed and clothed adequately, according to her male family's con- Road ception of adequacy, and put aboard the train which would take her to the city, to boarding school. JrOR the first time in her sixteen years, she met the world. She saw a tooth brush. She saw mothers in silks and fath- ers in cutaways. It was a Quaker school and she learned to say, meekly, "If thee will allow." She found that men in the city didn't tie scraps of clothes-lines around their belts to keep the wind out, and girls, "nice girls," didn't bring their lunches in tin pails. All this learning didn't come easily. The heart-aches were bitter, as sixteen year old heart-aches will always be. But no one ever saw the little girl from the country cry, and with the keen eyes and ears and mind of her sea-faring folks, she grasped the differences and sought to mend and cover them. She did, to such an extent that the second summer vacation brought to her heart such a delight as she had never dared to dream. Amelia Winters, of Boston, even Beacon Hill, invited her, Jessie Brown, to visit at her home for two weeks. So for two ecstatic weeks she lived as she had hungered to, and at the end of this time, she vowed a solemn vow that come what might, she would eventually make a place for herself in this world. She was not a snob, but her mother had come from such people as these, had standards such as theirs and had been totally cut off from her family at her marriage. And she had left the seed of long- ing for gentility with her daugh- ter. CBy ESTELLE TEARLE METCALF spent with Amelia, and during the latter one Amelia's brother, Fernald, gave up an anticipated fishing trip to be there too. It was soon evident to all that Jessica had only to say the word. But she didn't say it, then. She had already accepted the position of teaching the country school and felt obli- gated to keep her agreement. L .N the spring vacation she had gone to Boston prepared to give Fernald his answer and she was sure it was to be "Yes." When she saw them all again she felt be- wildered, and again put him off until school closed in June. She went from the Winter's estate and Fernald back to her father's home and Tom Davis. Tom had been a third brother to her ever since she could remember. Together they had studied their les- sons and shot bull-frogs, shelled peas and hauled lobster pots, pulled weeds and trapped skunks, let down her dresses and mended his nets; but no word of love was ever mentioned between them. Not even now, though Tom had his business as well started as any in the village. Nc I OW Jessie stood against the pillar of the piazza rail- ing. The tide was high, so high that it lapped at the roots of the goldenrod that fringed the road. A tug boat with its string of barges was chugging laboriously up the river. A small bare-legged boy lay flat on his tummy on the dock, daring an eel to leave its shadowy refuge and climb upon his impa- tiently dangling hook. The sun was warm, as only a June sun knows how to be, and the breeze from off the water was cool and salty. The two ensuing summers were Jessie drew her eyes a bit sadly, The Improvement Era for February, 1930 275 from the peaceful scene and opened the letter which she held in her Jhand and read it again. Dear Jessica, it read. Even the Jessica seemed strained today. Why do you keep me waiting? You have put me off, till I can't wait any longer. I am half afraid that you will change your mind. Why can't I come to you? There was much more, the letter of an impatient lover. He ended by saying that if he didn't hear some- thing very definite by return mail that he would be there on Satur- day night. It was signed Fernald Winters. t^O the time had come, and the next step was up to her. If she accepted him, she was through with the village for good ; and for five years was not that what she had been fitting herself to do? Again her eyes sought the .answer in the scene before her, as they fol- lowed the long winding course of the river to where it was lost around a point of land and made up into a cove. The "Annabel Lee" was pulling up to her stake, her snowy sails flapping uselessly, as she came about. A flock of geese honked loudly as they fol- lowed the water up to their well known feeding ground. And down the other way, just coming into the river from the bay, was her father's power boat, towing the two dories. Her brothers would be there, too; and across on the other side, a figure was still sitting on the pile of nettings, and though too far away to see, Jessie knew that he would be energetically pull- ing the wooden seine needle through and through the netting, once to make the square and once to lock the stitch, time and time again, until all the little squares were reconstructed and the gaping holes were gone. She ran down the path and across the road . She slipped the painter of her skiff off the stake and, dropping it into the boat, slipped lightly in after it. today?" he had never ceased to see something funny in Jessie's voca- tion. Jessie stood still and looked at the man soberly, not answering. "Your needle's in the box, if you want it," he suggested. She usually did. Not getting any reply from his visitor, he said: "What's the matter? Got a tooth ache, or something?" "No, I haven't any tooth ache, and I don't want any needle and you needn't try to be funny," she answered all at once. "I'm serious and I came over here to ask you a question." The copper curls bobbed emphatically with each word. She arranged herself meth- odically on a convenient post and prepared to unburden her mind. Then she paused. She didn't seem to know how to start, after all. "Well, shoot," the man tried to help her out. "Tom, I came over to ask you a question." "Sure. You said that once. Go on," was the none too helpful re- ply. want me — particularly — so I thought — you were — I was — we were — ." It was her turn to stumble over the words that wouldn't say themselves. T a 'NE rows a boat for diversion; one sculls, when on business bent. Standing in the stern, she sculled neatly. Arriv- ing at the other shore, she threw a half hitch over the stake and step- ped out on the dock. Tom grinned good naturedly. "Hello, Jess. How's teacher HEN the thunderbolt fell. With a deep breath of de- termination, she plunged in. "Do you love me?" she said. "Well, of course," he answered without so much as looking up from his work. "Didn't you ever intend to tell me so?" she demanded. "Well, I don't know's I ever thought about it," he said honest- ly. "You know it, anyhow," ex- pressing the primitive uselessness of reiterating obvious truths. "Don't you want to know whether I — care for you?" she added more diffidently. "Well, I know that too, why — we've always been — you've always been — I've always — what're you all excited about anyway?" he finished somewhat lamely. "Tom Davis, do you intend to marry me?" she demanded explo- sively. "Course. You'll let me know when you're ready," was the la- conic reply. "Oh, I will, will I!" Jessie's copper hair almost turned red in this instant. "Well, I'm sorry, but I came over to tell you that I am going to marry a man in Bos- ton— soon." At Tom's look of gasping astonishment, she went on desperately, "You didn't seem to T. HE man dropped his work now, and untangling his long legs from the nettings, came over to where the crimson-faced girl sat kicking pebbles into the water. "Jessie," he said huskily, "you mean that?" No answer. "Jessie, look up here," his voice shook, "so's I can see your face." Then he spoke slowly, deliberately, that he might not be misunder- 'stood. "You mean, there's somebody — a man — that I don't know — that you're going to — live with — al- ways?" Each word seemed to tear itself from his heart and leave a gaping wound behind. There was no bitterness, no humiliation, no chagrin, only an incredibleness that seemed impossible. The silence was intolerable. "Well, I had to find out, didn't I?" Jessie looked up at last. Her blue eyes were swimming in unshed tears. She had found out all right. She had found out in a few seconds what, in the natural course of events, she might never have known. "Don't you see, Tom, I had to find out whether you were just being polite," she explained hesi- tatingly, "after I asked you what I did." H: .E still looked be- wildered. "I didn't mean it," she looked up from under half-lowered lashes, 'scuse please?" the old childish phrase. "You mean, then — " Tom started, tensely. Hope surged to his head and turned him dizzy. "Don't play with me now, girl. I've got to know the truth, for sure. Jessie," he pleaded, "will you marry me?" The bright curls bobbed affirm- atively. So he gathered her close in his arms and tucked her snugly under his shoulder. As the golden rays of the setting sun sl>one its halo of light upon them, he kissed her — gently; then, as the thought of how near he had come tp losing her came to him, he kissed her again — not so gently.