DEBATABLE QUESTIONS
Evelyn Porter had come home in June to take her place as mistress of her father's house. The fact that she alone of the girls belonging to families of position in the town had gone to college had set her a little apart from the others. During her four years at Smith she had evinced no unusual interest in acquiring knowledge; she was a fair student only and had been graduated without honors save those which her class had admiringly bestowed on her. She had entered into social and athletic diversions with zest and had been much more popular with her fellow students than with the faculty. She brought home no ambition save to make her father's home as comfortable as possible. She said to herself that she would keep up her French and German, and straightway put books within reach to this end. She had looked with wonder unmixed with admiration upon the strenuous woman as she had seen her, full of ambition to remake the world in less than six days; and she dreaded the type with the dread natural in a girl of twenty-two who has a sound appetite, a taste in clothes, with money to gratify it, and a liking for fresh air and sunshine.
She found it pleasant to slip back into the life of the town; and the girl friends or older women who met her on summer mornings in the shopping district of Clarkson, remarked to one another and reported to their sons and husbands, that Evelyn Porter was at home to stay, and that she was just as cordial and friendly as ever and had no airs. It pleased Evelyn to find that the clerks in the shops remembered her and called her by name; and there was something homelike and simple and characteristic in the way women that met in the shops visited with one another in these places. She caught their habit of going into Vortini's for soda water, where she found her acquaintances of all ages sitting at tables, with their little parcels huddled in their laps, discussing absentees and the weather. She found, in these encounters, that most of the people she knew were again agitated, as always at this season, because Clarkson was no cooler than in previous years; and that the women were expressing their old reluctance to leave their husbands, who could not get away for more than two weeks, if at all. Some were already preparing for Mackinac or Oconomowoc or Wequetonsing, and a few of the more adventurous for the remoter coasts of New Jersey and Massachusetts. The same people were discussing these same questions in the same old spirit, and, when necessary, confessing with delightful frankness their financial disabilities, in excusing their presence in town at a season when it was only an indulgence of providence that all the inhabitants did not perish from the heat.
As a child Evelyn had played in the tower of the house on the hill, and she now made a den of it. Some of her childish playthings were still hidden away in the window seat, and stirred freshly the remembrance of her mother,—her gentleness, her frailty, her interest in the world's work. She often wondered whether the four years at college had realized all that her dead mother had hoped for; but she was not morbid, and she did not brood. She found a pleasure in stealing up to the tower in the summer nights, and watching the shifting lights of the great railway yards far down the valley, but at such times she had no romantic visions. She knew that the fitful bell of the switch engine and the rumble of wheels symbolized the very practical life of this restless region in which she had been born. She cherished no delusion that she was a princess in a tower, waiting for a lover to come riding from east or west. She had always shared with her companions the young men who visited her at college. When they sometimes sent her small gifts, she had shared these also. Warrick Raridan had gone to see her several times, as an old friend, and he had on these occasions, with characteristic enterprise, made the most of the opportunity to widen his acquaintance among Evelyn's friends, to whom she frankly introduced him.
On the day following John Saxton's introduction to the house, Evelyn was busy pouring oil on rusty places in the domestic machinery, when three cards were brought up to her bearing unfamiliar names. They belonged, she imagined, to some of the newer people of the town who had come to Clarkson during her years from home.
"Mrs. Atherton?" she said inquiringly, pausing before the trio in the drawing-room.
Two of the ladies looked toward the third, with whom Evelyn shook hands.
"Miss Morris and Mrs. Wingate," murmured the lady identified as Mrs. Atherton. They all sat down.
"It's so very nice to know that you are at home again," said Mrs. Atherton, "although I've not had the pleasure of meeting you before. I knew your mother very well, many years ago, but I have been away for a long time and have only recently come back to Clarkson.
"It is very pleasant to be at home again," Evelyn responded.
Mrs. Atherton smiled nervously and looked pointedly at her companions, evidently expecting them to participate in the conversation. The younger woman, who had been presented as Miss Morris, sat rigid in a gilt reception chair. She was of severe aspect and glared at Mrs. Atherton, who threw herself again into the breach.
"I hope you do not dislike the West?" Mrs. Atherton inquired of Evelyn.
"No, indeed! On the other hand I am very proud of it. You know I am a native here, and very loyal."
Miss Morris seized this as if it had been her cue, and declared in severe tones:
"We of the West are fortunate in living away from the artificiality of the East. There is some freedom here; the star of empire hovers here; the strength of the nation lies in the rugged but honest people of the great West, who gave Lincoln to the nation and the nation to Liberty." There was a glitter of excitement in the woman's eyes, but she spoke in low monotonous tones. Evelyn thought for a moment that this was conscious hyperbole, but Miss Morris's aspect of unrelenting severity undeceived her. Something seemed to be expected of her, and Evelyn said:
"That is all very true, but, you know, they say down East that we are far too thoroughly persuaded of our greatness and brag too much."
"But," continued Miss Morris, "they are coming to us more and more for statesmen. Look at literature! See what our western writers are doing! The most vital books we are now producing are written west of the Alleghanies!"
"You know Miss Morris is a writer," interrupted Mrs. Atherton. "We should say Doctor Morris," she continued, with a rising inflection on the title,—"not an M.D. Miss Morris is a doctor of philosophy."
"Oh," said Evelyn. "What college, Doctor Morris?"
"The University of North Dakota," with emphasis on the university. "I had intended going to Heidelberg, but felt that we loyal Americans should patronize home institutions. The choruses of Euripides may ring as grandly on our Western plains as in Athens itself," she added with finality. She enunciated with great care and seemed terribly in earnest to Evelyn, who felt an uncontrollable desire to laugh. But there was, she now imagined, something back of all this, and she waited patiently for its unfolding. The dénouement was, she hoped, near at hand, for Miss Morris moved her eyeglasses higher up on her nose and appeared even more formidable than before.
"I have heard that great emphasis is laid at Smith on social and political economy. You must be very anxious to make practical use of your knowledge," continued Miss Morris.
Evelyn recalled guiltily her cuts in these studies.
"Carlyle or somebody"—she was afraid to quote before a doctor of philosophy, and thought it wise to give a vague citation—"calls political economy the dismal science, and I'm afraid I have looked at it a little bit that way myself." She smiled hopefully, but Miss Morris did not relax her severity.
"Civic responsibility rests on women as strongly as on men; even more so," declared Miss Morris.
"Well, I think we ought to do what we can," assented Evelyn.
"Now, our Local Council has been doing a great deal toward improving the sanitation of Clarkson."
"Oh yes," exclaimed Mrs. Wingate from her corner.
"And we feel that every educated woman in the community should lend her aid to all the causes of the Local Council."
"Yes?" said Evelyn, rather weakly. She felt that the plot was thickening. "I really know very little of such things, but—" The "but" was highly equivocal.
"And we are very anxious to get a representative on the School Board," continued Miss Morris. "The election is in November. Has it ever occurred to you how perfectly absurd it is for men to conduct our educational affairs when the schools are properly a branch of the home and should be administered, in part, at least, by women?" She punctuated her talk so that her commas cut into the air. Mrs. Wingate, the third and silent lady, approved this more or less inarticulately.
"I know there's a great deal in that," said Evelyn.
"And we, the Executive Committee of the Council, have been directed to ask you"—Mrs. Wingate and Mrs. Atherton moved nervously in their seats, but Miss Morris now spoke with more deliberation, and with pedagogic care of her pronunciation—"to become a candidate for the School Board."
Evelyn felt a cold chill creeping over her, and swallowed hard in an effort to summon some word to meet this shock.
"Your social position," continued Miss Morris volubly, "and the prestige which you as a bachelor of arts have brought home from college, make you a most natural candidate."
"Destiny really seems to be pointing to you," said Mrs. Atherton, with coaxing sweetness in her tone.
"Oh, but I couldn't think of it!" exclaimed Evelyn, recovering her courage. "I have had no experience in such matters! Why, that would be politics!—and I have always felt,—it has seemed to me,—I simply can't consider it!"
She had gained her composure now. She had been called a bachelor of arts, and she felt an impulse to laugh.
"Ah! we had expected that it would seem strange to you at first," said Mrs. Atherton, who appeared to be in charge of the grand strategy of the call, while Miss Morris carried the rapid firing guns and Mrs. Wingate lent moral support, as of a shore battery.
Mrs. Atherton had risen.
"We have all set our hearts on it, and you must not decline. Think it over well, and when you come to the first meeting of the Council in September, you will, I am sure, be convinced of your duty."
"Yes; a very solemn obligation that wealth and education have laid upon you," Miss Morris amplified.
"A solemn obligation," echoed Mrs. Wingate.
The three filed out, Miss Morris leading the way, while Mrs. Atherton lingeringly covered their retreat with a few words that were intended to convey a knowledge of the summer frivolities then pending.
"I should be very glad to have you come to see me at my rooms," said Miss Morris, wheeling in her short skirt as she reached the door. "I have rooms in the Ætna Building."
"Do come and see us, too," murmured the convoy, smiling in relief as they turned away.
Evelyn sat down in the nearest chair and laughed.
"I wonder whether they think college has made me like that?" she asked herself.
At dinner she gave her father a humorous account of the interview. Grant was away dining with a playmate and they were alone. Porter was in one of his perverse moods, and he began gruffly:
"I should like to know why not! Haven't I spent thousands of dollars on your education? The lady was right; you are, at least so I have understood, a bachelor of arts. Why a bachelor I'm sure I don't know—" He was buttering a bit of bread with deliberation and did not look at Evelyn, who waited patiently, knowing that he would have his whim out.
"It seems to me," he went on, "a proper recognition of your talents and education, and also of me, as one of the oldest citizens of Clarkson. I tell you it is good to get a little recognition once in a while. I have a painful recollection of having been defeated for School Commissioner about ten years ago. Now here's a chance for the family to redeem itself. Of course you accepted the nomination, and after your election I'll expect you to bring the school funds to my bank, and I'll say to you now that the directors will do the right thing by you."
He was still avoiding Evelyn's eyes, but his humor was growing impatient for recognition.
"Now, father!" she pleaded, and they laughed together.
"Father," she said seriously, "I don't want these people here to get an idea that I'm not an ordinary being."
"That's an astonishing statement," he began, ready for further banter; but she would not have it.
"There are," she said, "certain things that a woman ought to do, whether she's educated or not; and I have ideas about that. So you think these people here are expecting great things of me,—"
"Of course they are, and with reason," said Porter, still anxious to return to his joke.
"But I do not intend to have it! When I'm forty years old I may change my mind, but right now I want—"
She hesitated.
"Well, what do you want, child?" he said gently, with the fun gone out of his voice. They had had their coffee, and she sat with her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand.
"Why, I'm afraid I want to have a good time," she declared, rising.
"And that's just what I want you to have, child," he said kindly, putting his arm about her as they went out together.
Evelyn declined the honor offered her by the local council, at long range, in a note to Doctor Morris, giving no reasons beyond her unfamiliarity with political and school matters. These she knew would not be considered adequate by Doctor Morris, but the latter, after writing a somewhat caustic reply, in which she dwelt upon the new woman's duties and responsibilities, immediately announced her own candidacy. The incident was closed as far as Evelyn was concerned and she was not again approached in the matter.
Her father continued to joke about it, and a few weeks later, when they were alone, referred to it in a way which she knew by experience was merely a feint that concealed some serious purpose. Men of Porter's age are usually clumsy in dealing with their own children, and Porter was no exception. When he had anything of weight on his mind to discuss with Evelyn, he brooded over it for several days before attacking her. His manner with men was easy, and he was known down town as a good bluffer; but he stood not a little in awe of his daughter.
"I suppose things will be gay here this winter," he said, as they sat together on the porch.
"About the same old story, I imagine. The people and their ways don't seem to have changed much."
"You must have some parties yourself. Better start them up early. Get some of the college girls out, and turn it on strong."
"Well, I shan't want to overdo it. I don't want to be a nuisance to you, and entertaining isn't as easy as it looks."
"It'll do me good, too," he replied. He fidgeted in his chair and played with his hat, which, however, he did not remove, but shifted from one side to the other, smoking his cigar meanwhile without taking it from his mouth. He rose and walked out to one of his sprinklers which had been placed too near the walk and kicked it off into the grass. She watched him with a twinkle in her eyes, and then laughed. "What is it, father?" she asked, when he came back to the porch.
"What's what?" he replied, with assumed irritation. He knew that he must now face the music, and grew composed at once.
"Well, it's this,—" with sudden decision.
"Yes, I knew it was something," she said, still laughing and not willing to make it too easy for him.
"You know the Knights of Midas are quite an institution here—boom the town, and give a fall festival every year. The idea is to get the country people in to spend their money. Lots of tom-foolishness about it,—swords and plumes and that kind of rubbish; but we all have to go in for it. Local pride and so on."
"Yes; do you want me to join the Knights?"
"No, not precisely. But you see, they have a ball every year in connection with the festival, with a queen and maids of honor. I guess you've never seen one of these things, as they have them in October, and you've always been away at school. Now the committee on entertainment has been after me to see if you'd be queen of the ball this year—"
"Oh!—" ominously.
"Just hold on a minute." He was wholly at ease now, and assumed the manner which he had found effective in dealing with obstreperous customers of his bank. "I'm free to say that I don't like the idea of this myself particularly. There's a lot of publicity about it and you know I don't like that—and the newspapers make an awful fuss. But you see it isn't wise for us"—he laid emphasis on the pronoun—"to set up to be better than other people. Now", with a twinkle in his eye, "you turned down this School Board business the other day and said you wanted to have a good time, just like other girls, and I reckon most of the girls in town would be tickled at a chance like this—"
"And you want me to do it, father? Is that what you mean? But it must be perfectly awful,—the crowd and the foolish mummery."
"Well, there's one thing sure, you'll never have to do it a second time." Porter smiled reassuringly.
"But I haven't said I'd do it once, father."
"I'd like to have you; I'd like it very much, and should appreciate your doing it. But don't say anything about it." Some callers were coming up the walk, so the matter was dropped. Porter recurred to the subject again next day, and Evelyn saw that he wished very much to have her take part in the carnival, but the idea did not grow pleasanter as she considered it. It was quite true, as she had told her father, that she wanted to enjoy herself after the manner of other young women, and without constant reference to her advantages, as she had heard them called; but the thought of a public appearance in what she felt to be a very ridiculous function did not please her. On the other hand, her father rarely asked anything of her and he would not have made this request without considering it carefully beforehand.
In her uncertainty she went for advice to Mrs. Whipple, the wife of a retired army officer, who had been her mother's friend. Mrs. Whipple was a woman of wide social experience and unusual common sense. She had settled in her day many of those distressing complications which arise at military posts in times of national peace. Young officers still came to her for advice in their love affairs, which she always took seriously, but not too seriously. Warry Raridan maintained unjustly that Mrs. Whipple's advice was bad, but that it did the soul good to see how much joy she got out of giving it. The army had communicated both social dignity and liveliness to Clarkson, as to many western cities which had military posts for neighbors. In the old times when civilians were busy with the struggle for bread and had little opportunity for social recreation, army men and women had leisure for a punctilious courtesy. The mule-drawn ambulance was a picturesque feature of the urban landscape as it bore the army women about the rough streets of the new cities; it was not elegant, but it was so eminently respectable! There might be an occasional colonel that was a snob, or a major that drank too much; or a Mrs. Colonel who was a trifle too conscious of her rights over her sisters at the Post, or a Mrs. Major whose syntax was unbearable; but the stars and stripes covered them all, even as they cover worse people and worse errors in our civil administrators.
It gave Evelyn a pleasant sensation to find herself again in the little Whipple parlor. The furniture was the same that she remembered of old in the commandant's house at the fort. It had at last found repose, for the Whipples' marching days were over. They made an effort to have an Indian room, where they kept their books, but they refrained from calling the place a library. On the walls were the headdress of a Sioux chief, and a few colored photographs of red men; the couch was covered with a Navajo blanket, and on the floor were wolf and bear skins. When chairs were needed for callers, the general brought them in from other rooms; he himself sat in a canvas camp chair, which he said was more comfortable than any other kind, but which was prone to collapse under a civilian. The wastepaper-basket by the general's table, and a basket for fire-wood were of Indian make, dyed in dull shades of red and green.
"My dear child," Mrs. Whipple began, when Evelyn had explained her errand; "this is a very pretty compliment they're paying you,—don't you know that?"
"Yes, but I don't want it," declared the girl, with emphasis.
"That is wholly unreasonable. There are girls in Clarkson that could not afford to take it; the strength of your position is that you can afford to do it! It's not going to injure you in any way; can't you see that? Everybody knows all about you,—that you naturally wouldn't want it. Why, there's that Margrave girl, whose father does something or other in one of the railways,—she had this honor that is worrying you two years ago, and her father and all his friends worked hard to get it for her."
Evelyn laughed at her friend's earnestness. "I'm afraid you're trying to lift this to an impersonal plane, but I'm considering myself in this matter. I simply don't want to be mixed up in that kind of thing."
"These business men work awfully hard for all of us," Mrs. Whipple continued. "It seems to me that their daily business contests and troubles are fiercer than real wars. I'd a lot rather take my chances in the army than in commercial life,—if I were doing it all over again,—that is, from the woman's side. The government always gives us our bread if it can't supply the butter; and if the poor men lose a fight they are forgiven and we still eat. But in the business battle—" she shrugged her shoulders to indicate the sorry plight of the vanquished.
"Yes, I suppose that's all true," Evelyn conceded. "But you mustn't be so abstract! I really haven't a philosophical mind. I came here to ask you to tell me how to get out of this, but you seem to be urging me in!"
Mrs. Whipple rallied her forces while she poured the iced tea which a maid had brought.
"We can't always have our 'ruthers.' Now this looks like a very large sacrifice of comfort and dignity to you. I'll grant you the discomfort, but not any loss of dignity. If you were vain and foolish, I'd take your side, just to protect you, but you have no such weaknesses. You must not consider at all that girls in Eastern cities don't do such things; that's because there aren't the things to do. Our great-grandchildren won't be doing them either. But these carnivals, and things like that, are necessary evils of our development. Army people like ourselves, who have always been cared for by a paternal government, can hardly appreciate the troubles of business people; and a girl like you, who has always led a carefully sheltered life, with both comforts and luxuries given her without the asking, must try to appreciate the fact that everybody is not so fortunate. I don't know whether these affairs are really of any advantage to the town commercially; I have heard business men say that they are not; but so long as they have them, the rest of us have got to submit to the confetti throwers and the country brass bands, on the theory that it's good for the town."
Mrs. Whipple covered all the ground when she talked. She had daringly addressed department commanders in this ample fashion when her husband was only a second lieutenant, and she was not easily driven from her position.
"But what's good for the town isn't necessarily good for me," pleaded Evelyn. Her animation was becoming, and Mrs. Whipple was noting the points of the girl's beauty with delight. "Any other girl's clothes would look just as sweet to the multitude," Evelyn asserted.
"That's where you are mistaken. If it's a sacrifice, the town is offering Iphigenia, and only our fairest daughter will do. I'll be talking fine language in a minute, and one of us will be lost." She laughed; Mrs. Whipple always laughed at herself at the right moment. She said it discounted the pleasure other people might have in laughing at her. "Now Evelyn Porter, you're a nice girl and a sensible one. So far as you can see you're going to spend your days in this town, and it isn't a bad place. We preferred to live here after the general retired because we liked it, and that was when we had the world to choose from. I've lived in every part of this country, but the people in this region are simple and honest and wholesome, and they have human hearts in them, and at my age that counts for a good deal. The general and I were both born in Massachusetts, where you hear a lot about ancestors and background; but I've driven over these plains and prairies in an army ambulance, since before the Civil War, and it hasn't all been fun, either; I love every mile of the country, and I don't want you, who are the apple of my eye, to come home with patronizing airs—"
"Not guilty!" exclaimed Evelyn throwing up her hands in protest. "I have no such ideas and you know it; but you ignore the point. What I can't see is that there's any question of patriotism in this Knights of Midas affair, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not so young as I was. The queen of the ball should be much younger than I am."
"Well, if you're reduced to that kind of argument, I think we'll have to call the debate closed. But remember,—you're asked to give only an hour of your life to please your father, and a great many other people. And you'll be doing your town a great service, too."
"Well," said Evelyn dolefully, as she got up to go, "this isn't the kind of counsel I came for. If I'd expected this from you, I'd have taken my troubles elsewhere." She had risen and stood swinging her parasol back and forth and regarding the tip of her boot. "You almost make it seem right."
"You'd better make a note of it as one of those things that are not pleasant, but necessary. If I thought it would harm you, child, I'd certainly warn you against it—I'd do that for your mother's sake."
"I like your saying that," said Evelyn, softly.
Mrs. Whipple had been a beauty in the old army days, and was still a handsome woman. She had retained the slenderness of her girlhood, and the hot suns and blighting winds of the plains and mountains had dealt gently with her. She took both of Evelyn's hands at the door, and kissed her.
"Don't go away hating me, dear. Come up often; and after it's all over, I'll tell you how good you've been."
"Oh, I'll go to a convent afterward," Evelyn answered; "that is, if I find that you've really persuaded me!”