Twenty-three: The Training Of Zora
"I did not know the world was so large," remarked Zora as she and Mrs. Vanderpool flew east and northward on the New York-New Orleans limited. For a long time the girl had given herself up to the sheer delight of motion. Gazing from the window, she compared the lands she passed with the lands she knew: noting the formation of the cotton; the kind and growth of the trees; the state of the roads. Then the comparisons became infinite, endless; the world stretched on and on until it seemed mere distance, and she suddenly realized how vast a thing it was and spoke.
Mrs. Vanderpool was amused. "It's much smaller than one would think," she responded. When they came to Atlanta Zora stared and wrinkled her brows. It was her first large city. The other towns were replicas of Toomsville; strange in number, not in kind; but this was different, and she could not understand it. It seemed senseless and unreasonable, and yet so strangely so that she was at a loss to ask questions. She was very solemn as they rode on and night came down with dreams.
She awoke in Washington to new fairylands and wonders; the endless going and coming of men; great piles that challenged heaven, and homes crowded on homes till one could not believe that they were full of living things. They rolled by Baltimore and Philadelphia, and she talked of every-day matters: of the sky which alone stood steadfast amid whirling change; of bits of empty earth that shook themselves here and there loose from their burden of men, and lay naked in the cold shining sunlight.
All the while the greater questions were beating and curling and building themselves back in her brain, and above all she was wondering why no one had told her before of all this mighty world. Mrs. Vanderpool, to whom it seemed too familiar for comment, had said no word; or, if she had spoken, Zora's ears had not been tuned to understand; and as they flew toward the towering ramparts of New York, she sat up big with the terror of a new thought: suppose this world were full yet of things she did not know nor dream of? How could she find out? She must know.
When finally they were settled in New York and sat high up on the Fifth Avenue front of the hotel, gradually the inarticulate questioning found words, albeit strange ones.
"It reminds me of the swamp," she said.
Mrs. Vanderpool, just returned from a shopping tour, burst into laughter. "It is—but I marvel at your penetration."
"I mean, it is moving—always moving."
"The swamp seemed to me unearthly still."
"Yes—yes," cried Zora, eagerly, brushing back the rumpled hair; "and so did the city, at first, to me."
"Still! New York?"
"Yes. You see, I saw the buildings and forgot the men; and the buildings were so tall and silent against Heaven. And then I came to see the people, and suddenly I knew the city was like the swamp, always restless and changing."
"And more beautiful?" suggested Mrs. Vanderpool, slipping her arms into her lounging- robe.
"Oh, no; not nearly so beautiful. And yet—more interesting." Then with a puzzled look: "I wonder why?"
"Perhaps because it's people and not things."
"It's people in the swamp," asserted Zora, dreamily, smoothing out the pillows of the couch, "'little people,' I call them. The difference is, I think, that there I know how the story will come out; everything is changing, but I know how and why and from what and to what. Now here, everything seems to be happening; but what is it that is happening?"
"You must know what has happened, to know what may happen," said Mrs. Vanderpool. "But how can I know?"
"I'll get you some books to-morrow."
"I'd like to know what it means," wistfully.
"It is meaningless." The woman's cynicism was lost upon Zora, of course, but it possessed the salutary effect of stimulating the girl's thoughts, encouraging her to discover for herself.
"I think not; so much must mean something," she protested.
Zora gathered up the clothes and things and shaded the windows, glancing the while down on the street.
"Everybody is going, going," she murmured. "I wonder where. Don't they ever get there?"
"Few arrive," said Mrs. Vanderpool. Zora softly bent and passed her cool soft hand over her forehead.
"Then why do they go?”
"The zest of the search, perhaps."
"No," said Zora as she noiselessly left the room and closed the door; "no, they are searching for something they have lost. Perhaps they, too, are searching for the Way," and the tears blinded her eyes.
Mrs. Vanderpool lay in the quiet darkened room with a puzzled smile on her lips. A month ago she had not dreamed that human interest in anybody would take so strong a hold upon her as her liking for Zora had done. She was a woman of unusual personal charm, but her own interest and affections were seldom stirred. Had she been compelled to earn a living she would have made a successful teacher or manipulator of men. As it was, she viewed the human scene with detached and cynical interest. She had no children, few near relations, a husband who went his way and still was a gentleman.
Essentially Mrs. Vanderpool was unmoral. She held the code of her social set with sportsmanlike honor; but even beyond this she stooped to no intrigue, because none interested her. She had all the elements of power save the motive for doing anything in particular. For the first time, perhaps, Zora gave her life a peculiar human interest. She did not love the girl, but she was intensely interested in her; some of the interest was selfish, for Zora was going to be a perfect maid. The girl's language came to be more and more like Mrs. Vanderpool's;