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Across the Mesa, a fiction by Helen Bagg |
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Chapter 1. Why Not? |
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_ CHAPTER I. WHY NOT? Polly Street drove her little electric down Michigan Boulevard, with bitterness in her heart. It was a cold wet day in the early spring of 1920, and Chicago was doing her best to show her utter indifference to anyone's opinion as to what spring weather ought to be. It was the sort of day when, if you had any ambition left after a dreary winter, you began to plot desperate things. Polly hated driving the electric--her soul yearned for a gas car. Mrs. Street, however, did not like a gas car without a man to drive it; the son of the family was in Athens, Mexico, at a coal mine; and Mr. Street, Sr., considered that his income did not run to a chauffeur at the present scale of wage. Therefore, Polly tried to forget her prejudice and to imagine that the neat little car was a real machine. Second among her grievances was the fact that this was Bob's wedding day and she, his adored and adoring sister, was not with him. Bob had been engaged for some months to a girl in Douglas, Arizona. The date of the wedding had been set twice and each time difficulties in Mexico had made it seem unwise either that Bob should leave Athens, where he held the position of superintendent of one of Fiske, Doane & Co.'s mines, or that the bride should venture into the disturbed region. This time they expected, as Bob wrote, to "pull it off on schedule." Polly had hoped either to go to Douglas for the wedding or to have the bride and groom in Chicago; but Father had been unable to get away, Mother hadn't been well, and the trip had been given up. Then the young couple planned to go immediately to Athens without the formality of a honeymoon. To quote Bob again: "People go on honeymoons to be lonesome, and if anybody can find a better place to be lonesome in than Athens, let him trot it out." The third grievance held an element of publicity particularly galling to a young lady who was known to her friends not only as a daring horsewoman, a crack swimmer and a golf champion, but as a bit of a belle besides. She and Joyce Henderson had agreed a week ago to break their engagement. The engagement had been a mistake--both young people admitted it frankly to each other. The irritating part of it was that Joyce was admitting it to the world. Instead of taking the matter seriously and considering himself, outwardly at least, as the victim of an unhappy love affair, Joyce had escorted another girl, who shall be nameless, for she does not enter this story except as an element of conflict, to the Mandarin Ball. Now the Mandarin Ball is not the frivolous affair that its name suggests, but a perennial of deep importance, a function to which young men are in the habit of taking their wives, their fiancees, or the girls they rather hope may be their fiancees. It is one of the few social affairs left of the old order. Thus you can see that it was a pointed action on Joyce's part; an indication that he regarded himself as a free man, and after the habit of free men was about to put on new chains. It was humiliating, to say the least. During the war the engagement had seemed quite natural, quite a part of things. All the young people were engaged--except those who were married. "That, at least, I had sense enough not to do!" raged Polly, as she narrowly missed a pedestrian's heel. It is hard for older people to realize how important it is at twenty-three to be doing exactly what others are doing; the absolute anguish of being the only man in the A. E. F. without a wife or sweetheart, or the only girl at home without a soldier husband or lover. A bit of such understanding would make clear not only the number of divorces and broken engagements which resulted from the war and had their share in the production of the unrest of the times, but would also elucidate a good many other happenings to youth. So much for Polly Street and Joyce Henderson, who were fortunate enough to find out before marriage that they were unsuited for each other. Polly, however, preferred to look upon the dark side. Joyce had behaved like a cad. "And the worst of it is that everybody will say it serves me right," she went on to herself, "just because I've flirted a bit here and there. It's not my fault if people never turn out as I expect them to. I guess I'm like Grandfather Street was in his religion. He thought the Baptists were wonderful until he joined them and then the Presbyterians looked more interesting to him. After he'd been with them a while he couldn't see how anybody could be a Presbyterian, so he joined the Unitarians. People thought he was a turncoat, but he wasn't--he was just a sort of religious Mormon. One church wasn't enough for him. "Oh dear, I wish I'd gone to Douglas alone! Bob would understand. I believe I'll go to Athens. Why not? It's safe enough or Emma's parents wouldn't let her go. Of course it's a bit soon after their wedding, but I'll be tactful and keep out of their way." The light of determination was in Polly's dark eyes. They were big lovely eyes that looked at you wistfully from under arched brows. They seldom laughed or twinkled and the nose that kept them company was equally sedate, being purely aquiline, but a mouth with dimpled corners upset the scheme entirely, while ripples of golden brown hair completed the picture of a healthy, happy youngster--not radiantly beautiful but what people like to call "winsome," which is after all as good a word as most. She parked the electric on the Lake Front and crossed the Boulevard. The policeman on the crossing nodded to her and she smiled at him. Polly had what her father called a "stand in" with the force. It was unnecessary, for she was a good driver when her feelings were not agitated, but there was something about policemen that appealed to her. They were so big and pink and forceful that you felt rather important when they nodded to you--a bit after the fashion of a man who is recognized by the head waiter. She was still smiling when she entered the building in which was located a club to which she belonged. It was a serious-minded club of clever women, and most people had been amused when Polly Street joined it. Nobody expected serious-minded things of Polly, though here and there someone was willing to admit that she was "clever enough in her way." Finding the writing-room empty, Polly sat down to write a letter. Several times in her career she had decided upon courses of procedure which had seemed to her eminently practical, only to be talked out of them by her family. This time she would take no such chances. She would write to Bob, and Bob, being much like her, understood her--as well at any rate as any brother understands a sister. Then she would go over to the bank and get some money on her Liberty Bonds. Polly was as usual broke, Mr. Street being a man who provided credit liberally for his family but who had learned from experience that money was safer in his own hands. A trip to the ticket office to make reservations and the thing would be done. A vague remembrance that Mexico was a place which demanded passports upon entrance came into her mind but was dismissed airily. Father would attend to that. The fact that Mexico was a troublous region where an American girl might meet with a good many disagreeable adventures was as airily dismissed. All that anyone needed to go anywhere, according to Polly's simple code, was common sense and money. The first she had, the second she intended to get, so why worry? As she sat at the writing-table a slightly martial air came over Polly. Bob must be made to understand the situation. Because a man took it upon himself to dwell in or on a coal mine, Polly was never quite sure of the phrase, in the remote Southwest, he was not absolved from all family duties. The fact that he had married the handsomest girl in Arizona and was indulging in a honeymoon need not prevent an oppressed sister from demanding sympathy. She wrote rapidly. "DEAR BOB: "I know it's awfully nervy of me to drop in on you and Emma right at the beginning of your honeymoon, but I am coming just the same. Joyce Henderson has behaved atrociously to me. I'll explain when I see you. You needn't show this to Emma; you can read her scraps of it." Polly paused. A mental picture of Emma, demure and pretty, came before her. Bob Street was a lucky man to have found a girl like Emma. A dreamy look succeeded the martial one. Visions of a flower-bedecked hacienda--was that what they called them, it didn't sound exactly right--surrounded by peons dozing in the sun succeeded the dimpled vision of Emma. Polly drew her ideas of Mexico entirely from the movies, Bob's short letters being quite lacking in atmosphere. She saw herself leaning over a balcony, listening to the strains of a mandolin, played by a tall, slim youth, who resembled a composite photograph of several of her favorite movie idols. Poor Joyce Henderson, how unimportant he seemed by the side of that radiant vision! Polly scribbled furiously. _ |
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