{"id":127,"date":"2019-05-14T18:36:57","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T18:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/?post_type=chapter&p=127"},"modified":"2019-05-24T19:57:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T19:57:40","slug":"fifteen","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/chapter\/fifteen\/","title":{"raw":"Fifteen","rendered":"Fifteen"},"content":{"raw":"It was about mid-May when Rosalie saw that little notice pinned on the kitchen wall; \"My head aches a little, Rosalie. Your loving little old lady.\" Rosalie took a pencil and wrote below, \"And my big toe is prickling. Your loving Rosalie.\"\r\n\r\nWhen the little old lady came in from the yard Rosalie said, \u201cDear little old lady, we must pack today.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYes. We must pack. Isn\u2019t it too bad? Get those two leather trunks from the attic.\"\r\n\r\n\"How shall I ever ship them.\" said Rosalie, \"when I don\u2019t know where I\u2019m going? I may be half way round the world in another month.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"You won\u2019t have to ship them,\" said the little old lady. \"You will take them in the Ford.\"\r\n\r\n\"In the Ford, in the new Ford?\" gasped Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"Of what good will the Ford be to me with you away? I can\u2019t drive it, it would only rust to pieces in the barn. I\u2019m giving you the Ford, Rosalie, so you can come and visit me on your vacations.\"\r\n\r\nThis was too much for Rosalie, and she sat down and covered her face with her hands and burst into a passion of weeping. The little old lady went out in the yard, fussed about the wood-pile, and at last returned with an-armful. Rosalie was still crying quietly in her chair. \"Stop it now, Rosalie. Stop it at once, or you\u2019ll have two bawling women. Stop it and go fetch the leather steamer trunks.\"\r\n\r\nEvening came, the trunks in mid-floor were strapped and labelled, on the little old lady's insistence, with Miss Stella Star.\r\n\r\nThey looked at one another with desolation in their faces, but the little old lady was determined to be gay on this their last night together for ever so long.\r\n\r\n\"We can't play cards yet it\u2019s too early in the evening. I plan to become an expert at solitaire when you are gone, Rosalie.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'll soon be back,\" said Rosalie, \"soon as ever I get off, perhaps if I'm not too far off I could manage weekends.\"\r\n\r\n\"You've got to go, wherever you're going. You mustn't take me into account at all. There's a moron girl down below I can hire to stay with me. She's such a fool that she's quite interesting.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd what if you're ill, Little Old Lady?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"I'm never ill, though I must admit I'm full of gas tonight. Do you ever get gassy, Rosalie?\"\r\n\r\n\"Never,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"That's because you\u2019re young and have good digestion.\"\r\n\r\n\"What's it like,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"You feel as if you were blown up like a balloon. That's the penalty for getting old. I was never gassy when I was young.\"\r\n\r\n\"It must be uncomfortable,\" said Rosalie. \"I'm sorry, Old Lady.\"\r\n\r\n\"It is, and then you're disgraced by your entrails rumbling like a truck going over a bridge. There's a good limerick about that, Rosalie, that I learned many years ago. I never seem to forget anything.\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nI took out the Duchess to tea,<\/em>\r\n\r\nI knew just how it would be,<\/em>\r\n\r\nHer rumbling abdominal<\/em>\r\n\r\nWere something phenomenal<\/em>\r\n\r\nAnd everyone thought it was me.<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRosalie laughed, \"You are a cure, Old Lady. I believe you're just trying to be funny tonight to keep us both from being sad.\"\r\n\r\n\"Nonsense, I'm talking about wind, because I'm full of wind tonight. It\u2019s the penalty of old age. You'll be that way some\u00adday, Rosalie, some sixty years off. Why I can hardly squeeze into my rocking chair to-night. Did you ever hear the story of Sandy MacDonald's bull?\"\r\n\r\n\"No,\" said Rosalie, \"was he too full of gas and wind?\"\r\n\r\n\"He was, he swelled so with gas that his sides touched both sides of the stall, and a fine black bull he was. The neighbors were called in for consultation. 'It's an enema he needs,' said a very old man, 'Give him an enema,' said all the neighbors in concert. They led the bull out into the yard\u2014they couldn't get him through the stable door, but had to open the folding doors that led into the hay barn\u2014and they lashed him securely to a big stout gate. But what to use for an instrument? Old grandmother MacDonald rummaged in the attic and found an ancient horn that had been used to call the men home from the hayfield, bell-shaped it was and curved upward in the stem. 'The very thing,' said Sandy MacDonald, 'there's nothing like the wisdom of old people. Mrs. MacDonald, fetch a bucket of steaming water and soap suds,' They poured it into the dinner horn, and the bull seemed pleased with the sudden glow of internal warmth. \u2018Mrs. MacDonald\u2019, says Sandy, 'fetch yet another bucket of steaming water and soap suds for he is a great bull,' Sandy poured in the second bucket. Now, the bull became restive and \u00a0uneasy and stamped with all his feet and rolled his blood-shot eyes. Suddenly, he reared in his distress, and tore the great gate from its hook and hinges. \u2018Look out,\u2019 said Sandy MacDonald, and the neighbors took refuge in house or barn. The bull, however, galloped down the road toward the village dragging the gate with him. Suddenly the dinner horn began to blow great blasts. The village fire department mistaking the blasts for the fire-siren, turned out in brazen helmets, and drove fast up the road thinking in Sandy MacDonald\u2019s farm. The bull travelling at full speed met the fire brigade mid-way. The gate caught on the engine and carried away the two port wheels and threw the men on their beam-ends.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, Old Lady,\" said Rosalie, \u201cwhere ever did you learn such tales, my stomach aches from laughing.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cThe bull\u201d continued the little old lady, \u201cfreed of the gate carried straight on, the horn still blowing. Now the keeper\u00ad of the drawbridge was a man hard of hearing\u2014a political appointee\u2014and when he heard the horn, he thought it was a tugboat blowing to have the draw opened, so he hustled around and swung open the drawbridge. The bull rushed on to the bridge, fell into the gap and was drowned. It is said that bubbles rose for hours from him lying on the bottom.\r\n\r\n\u201cSandy MacDonald didn\u2019t like the half-deaf draw-keeper, and he was mad at the loss of his bull, so he wrote to the government stating that the drawbridge keeper should be dismissed, on the ground that it was no place for a man who could not distinguish between a tugboat\u2019s whistle and a bull blowing on a dinner horn.\u201d\r\n\r\nThere were tears of laughter in Rosalie's eyes. They played five games of Rummy and the little old lady won twenty-five cents. They went to bed early for they must be up betimes.\r\n\r\nRosalie sat in the Ford at the top of the grassy lane, the two leather trunks in the back seat. The little old lady stood beside her. It was a fine bright morning of late May, Rosalie was setting out she knew not where.\r\n\r\n\u201cI can\u2019t speak a word or I\u2019ll bawl,\u201d said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\u201cDon\u2019t,\" said the little old lady.\r\n\r\nRosalie started the engine; the old lady clutched the side of the open window, \u201cDon't forget Rosalie, what it took me a long time to find out: the world is very old, the first rains hissed on hot rocks in which there was no trace of life; men have been on the world a long time; we come from savagery in a few thousand years; listen to the preacher-medicine men with patience and sympathy; and remember, a strong mind, a steady purpose rules the body, and don't be ashamed to work at anything. Learn, Rosalie, learn.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie let in the clutch, waved her hand, trundled out by the half\u00ad-burnt church, and turned eastward. Rather sick at heart she drove along briskly and when she came to the highway, she increased her speed to be\u00adtween thirty-five and forty miles. For five hours, she drove without any notable adventure, and by noon, she must have been two hundred miles from the old lady's house. She had come to a long stretch of straight road, and she was rolling along pleasantly, the owner of a Ford car, with over a hundred dollars in in her purse and two trunks full of clothing in the back seat. She was thinking, \u2018people would never believe about my good in a story, they\u2019d expect a lonely wandering girl to meet disaster and ruin,\u2019 when she first saw him zigzagging from one side of the highway to the other. As he was almost a mile ahead, he seemed at first about an inch high as he pursued this slanting and erratic course. As Rosalie got nearer, he rapidly grew into an erect young man about six feet tall, clad in brown shoes, untidy grey flannels and a plaid sports coat. He had on no cap, his hair was tousled, and Rosalie noted that he needed a haircut. When she tooted on her horn he paid no heed, but continued to zigzag and kick savagely at something in the roadway. She was obliged to pull up as she got almost abreast of him.\r\n\r\n\"Whatever are you doing?'' asked Rosalie. She saw that he was a nice looking young man\u2014very young, perhaps twenty-one\u2014and that his thin face was bronzed by the sun. He wore glasses and his long untidy brown hair was faded in patches to a bronzy yellow. \"I\u2019m kicking a pebble. Can't you see? I\u2019ve kicked this one over a mile, and it\u2019s never once gone off the cement.\"\r\n\r\n\"Is it a game?\" asked Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"A kind of game. You see if I can kick it two miles without it ever getting on the shoulder, I\u2019ll know what to decide. It's really quite important.\"\r\n\r\n\"It's a very dangerous game,\" said Rosalie. \"You might get run over taking the whole road. I had to stop.\"\r\n\r\n\"They all stop,\" said, the young man. \"Most drivers won't run over a pedestrian. It's only bad on curves and there I make short sissy kicks. Anyway, most of them think I\u2019m drunk and hold up. They all say just like you, 'Whatever are you doing?' and when I reply, 'I'm kicking a pebble,\u2019 they think I\u2019m loony, and they get pale and pull well to the far side of the road, and move on. You seem to be the first sensible person that has passed me in four days. I do this straight stretch every day, but I've never made it yet. Do you think I'm a loony?\"\r\n\r\nRosalie had a sudden reminiscence of the little old lady's story, and in her mind's eye saw row upon row of sleeping sailor-men on a yellow deck, their heads wrapped in their coats against Luna the moon, but she said; \"Of course I don't think you're a loony, \u00a0I can tell that by looking at your eyes, but ordinary people who only saw you at a dis\u00adtance might very well think so. A grown man can't go along the pavement kicking a pebble, you know.\"\r\n\r\n\"Why not? I\u2019m a grown man; male, aged twenty-one, white, and I do.\u00a0 I think myself I'm pretty close to the line, but you see I've got to make a hard decision. I've got fifty more long years to live or forty-nine to be exact, and I want to get off on the right foot.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh dear,\" said Rosalie. \"It's dreadfully hard making decisions isn't it. \u00a0I had to leave place number one, and I didn't want to leave place number two, and now I'm just rolling along the road.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where are you going to?\" asked the young man.\r\n\r\n\"I don't know,\" said Rosalie. \"I never know until I get there. Then I know.\"\r\n\r\n\"You're the most sensible young woman I've ever met,\" said the young man, \"and you're easy to look at too, though that sounds rather flat, stale and unprofitable. Oh God, why should I repeat the sour tripe that men hand out to every pretty girl!\"\r\n\r\n\"You should see me in my new red dress,\" said Rosalie laughing.\r\n\r\n\"You own your own car?\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" said Rosalie, \u201cI do. It's registered in my name and the operator\u2019s license is in my name too. \u00a0I suppose you think I've stolen it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"I don't think anything about it,\" replied the young man. \"It's none of my business, and I shouldn't have asked, the question just popped out due to atavistic curiosity.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie didn\u2019t know what atavistic meant and she resolved to look it up in the dictionary.\r\n\r\n\"I believe whatever people tell me. That's one of my serious faults, my old man says. It's none of my business if they lie, that's their business. Now why should you lie to me? I\u2019m not a detective.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie laughed, \"You might be, I'm so ignorant of the world. However, you\u2019re only a pebble-kicker as far as I know.\"\r\n\r\n\"And you're only a pretty girl driving a Ford along the highway on a warm May day, as far as I know. There's nothing like sticking to facts as far as you know them.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm a respectable, that is quite respectable, married, woman,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"You doubtless are a married woman if you so state, though that sets me back on my heels a bit, but surely it's hardly respectable to be talking to an unknown man on the roadside when we don't even know one another\u2019s names.\"\r\n\r\n\"I see you\u2019re the trustworthy kind, I\u2019ve got wit enough for that. My name\u2019s Stella Star, at least that\u2019s what I call myself.\"\r\n\r\n\"An icy brittle name,\" said the young man. \u201cAre you by any chance on holiday from Hollywood Miss Star, or should I say Mrs. Star?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"No,\" laughed Rosalie, \u201cI haven't made the movies yet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cMy name's Meister. Did you ever hear such a beastly name? It always makes me want to say, 'Meist, Meister, Meistest.' They call me Mice at college. Isn\u2019t that a degrading nickname?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"I suppose you steer clear of cats,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"Catty women, yes. But my first name\u2019s worse. I\u2019ll give you four guesses to choose the most revolting of masculine Christian names.\"\r\n\r\n\"Percy,\" said Rosalie provocatively\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, thank God, not Percy.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cAlbert?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"No, God be praised, not Albert the Good.\"\r\n\r\n\"Eric?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, your selection of stinkers is excellent, Miss Star, but It\u2019s not Eric or Little by Little.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cEImer?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, I\u2019ve truly never been in the bush leagues. No, fair lady, you have named four of the most repulsive of male names, but mine is none of these. By a hair's breadth you have missed the sixty-four dollar prize. There goes another bromide.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cI give up,\u201d said Rosalie. \u201cWhat is it then?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Ferdinand, and mother calls me Ferdie.\"\r\n\r\n\"Ferdinand the Bull,\" laughed Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"Exactly,\" said the young man, \"that\u2019s another name I have at college, when they\u2019re not calling me Mice. What other Ferdinands do you know?\"\r\n\r\n\"Ferdinand and Isabel.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cExactly, and as soon as I begin dancing with a pretty girl, some nut taps me on the shoulder and says, \u2018May I relieve you of Isabel.\u2019 \u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere\u2019s Ferdinand of Bulgaria too. He was a very wicked king.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"You\u2019re quite a scholar, Miss Stella Starr. Only one other person has associated me with Ferdinand of Bulgaria, he was a tutor in history. He fancies himself as a humorist\u2014weak very weak\u2014and he calls me Bulgarian Butter Milk.\"\r\n\r\n\"You're too young and sensitive,\" said Rosalie. \"You mind too much, that's why they call you nicknames. I've noticed the same thing with little children when teaching school. Don't let them know you mind, give them a playful punch in the eye. Ferdinand Meister is a grand high-sound\u00ading name. You should go far with that name, for the little old lady says that names have a great effect upon one's destiny and character.\"\r\n\r\n\"You're a very comforting young woman,\" said the young man.\r\n\r\n\"Moreover,\" said Rosalie, \"when people make nice nicknames like \u2018Mice\u2019 or \u2018Ferdinand the Bull\u2019, or even \u2018Bulgarian Butter Milk\u2019, it's a sign of affection, a sign that they like you. Only you\u2019re too easily teased.\"\r\n\r\n\"I can run faster than any of them anyway. I'm the hundred-yard man and the full-back.\"\r\n\r\n\"There you are,\" said Rosalie. \"Probably the people in the stands say, 'Look at Mice running back the ball! Can't that boy fly! Go on, go on Ferdinand the Bull!' They're all on your side. You can't expect them to chant 'Behold now Ferdinand Meister runneth with the ball.\u2019 \u201d\r\n\r\nThe young man actually laughed, a real laugh from his stomach.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou\u2019re a quick one,\u201d he said. \u201cDo you know I believe you might help me make a decision.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Maybe,\" said Rosalie. \"It\u2019s a queer world but really an awfully nice generous world. You'd never believe the queer nice things that have lately happened to me. Perhaps certain people are sent with messages to one another.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cNonsense,\u201d said the young man,\u201d people just meet by chance. You\u2019re a medievalist, that\u2019s what you are\u2014guardian angels and the Virgin Mary flying over the Allegheny Mountains in purple pyjamas\u2014and all that sort of thing.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don\u2019t be ridiculous,\" said Rosalie. \"I'm a fisherman's daughter. Do you want a lift? A kind man gave me a lift, the first day I was on the road, when I needed it badly.\"\r\n\r\n\"I might now,\" said the young man. \"I've got three miles to go, and I don't feel like kicking pebbles anymore this morning. You're by far the nicest pebble I've seen on any beach. There I go again, I always get a pain in the neck when I talk tripe like that; flat, flat, stale and unprofitable.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie laughed, \"Women, they say like even the stupidest and most worn-out compliments.\"\r\n\r\n\"I\u2019ve got to find my pebble first. It\u2019s an excellent pebble, I\u2019ve kicked it now for three days and it's hardly worn a bit.\" And with that he went weaving along the highway, till he retrieved his rounded stone and stowed it in his pocket.\r\n\r\n\"I don't believe you'll need that anymore,\" said Rosalie as he came back to the car and climbed aboard.\r\n\r\n\"How come?\" said the young man.\r\n\r\n\"I don't know,\" said Rosalie as they drove along, \"but I don\u2019t think you will. You see I've spent the winter with a very wise person, who lived a very full life, and I'm chock-full of second hand wisdom. We got through two good books in the evenings, one in English and one in French.\"\r\n\r\n\"You bi-lingual?\" asked the young man.\r\n\r\n\"Yes,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, well! You're a more astonishing person all the time, a most alluring pick-up, as the bright boys say.\"\r\n\r\n\"I picked you up,\" said Rosalie, \"please don't forget that.\"\r\n\r\n\"True and most unusual,\" said the young man, \u201cI'm beginning to believe in miracles. Perhaps you were sent along to show me the path for my feet, perhaps the old girl did fly over the Allegheny Mountains.\"\r\n\r\n\"You're not a wolf are you?\" said Rosalie. \u201c You look too young and honest for that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cNo, no, not a wolf, I never howl at night. I\u2019m only poor little \u2018Mice\u2019 or Ferdinand the Bull\u2019 or \u2018Bulgarian Butter Milk\u2019.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cI think I\u2019ll call you \u2018Mice\u2019 if you don\u2019t mind. They\u2019re cosy, friendly little animals though very destructive. It's a friendly, comforting name.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cAll right, call me Mice, but Stella Star, that name's too icy and distant for you. Haven\u2019t you got a nickname?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Let me think,\" said Rosalie \"You might call me Rosalie, I\u2019m not twenty yet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"So young and yet so fair,\" said Mice. \"Oh dear there's another flat-tire, another bromide.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat do you say them for if you don't like them?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t say them, my real self doesn\u2019t say them. These vulgar common phrases just pop out of my outer vulgar shell.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat's it\u201d, said Rosalie, \u201cyou\u2019re still in a shell, you haven\u2019t quite hatched yet. But you haven't told me how you like my name.\"\r\n\r\n\"Rosalie, Rosalie,\" said Mice, \u201cwhy it\u2019s the prettiest name in the world and it\u2019s just right for you, plenty of health and sunshine and good nature in that name. Rosalie, Rosalie tripping so merrily, and he rolled the name under his tongue. What poems you could write about Rosalie. Wandering Rosalie, fresh wayside Rosalie, sprang from the sea-foam was Rosalie dawnily. All kinds of sentimental jingle you could make up about Rosalie.\"\r\n\r\n\"Are you a poet?\" asked Rosalie \"I've never seen a poet before.\"\r\n\r\n\"I want to be, that's where the old man and I don't hit it off. He wants me to be a doctor, and I want to be a poet. That\u2019s why I\u2019m kicking a pebble along the roads.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Oh,\" said Rosalie, \"that's what is on your mind, that's what you\u2019re trying to decide.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d said Mice, \"that's the problem, that's why the old pebble gets booted about.\"\r\n\r\n\"Aren't people different.\" said Rosalie. \"Here am I just drifting to see what Fate does to me, and not de\u00adciding at all, and not even worrying, and you go about kicking pebbles for days and days trying to make up your mind. Why don't you just drift \u00a0for a little?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"I can't drift, the old man holds the purse strings and it costs money to get a college education. He's a good old fellow, my dad, a country doctor, and he wants me as he says, to follow in his footsteps. Don't you hate hackneyed phrases like that, 'follow in his footsteps'?\"\r\n\r\n\"Cliche's, we call them in French,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"Cliche's, that\u2019s right. What a knowledgeable young woman you are! No girl at college would know that word. Cliche's bang on my ear like the slap of an open hand. I'm very sensitive to words.\"\r\n\r\n\"All honest words are good,\" said Rosalie. \"It's only when people copy and repeat what they think is smart, that they become bad. Children say lovely natural things sometimes, and make their own phrases.\"\r\n\r\n\"I sometimes believe that education, mass-education, muddles the mind and makes it commonplace,\" said Mice\r\n\r\n\"Not if you get your education from a great-minded person,\" said Rosalie, \"I\u2019ve had six months with such a person, who never pretended. That\u2019s why I appear wise to you. It\u2019s only reflected wisdom and I suppose it will soon wear off.\"\r\n\r\n\"But you made one great decision all by yourself, didn\u2019t you?\" asked Mice.\r\n\r\n\"I certainly did,\" said Rosalie, \u201cand a hard one it was, but some force pushed me along. How did you know?\"\r\n\r\n\"Can\u2019t say,\" said Mice, \"perhaps I\u2019m psychic too in spite of all my attempts at skepticism. I just knew as soon as I looked at you, I say!\"\r\n\r\n\"What?\"\r\n\r\n\"Perhaps you\u2019re the one that can tell me. We\u2019ve got a bungalow, a few miles ahead by the river, and I\u2019m there today all alone. Will you stop and have lunch with me?\"\r\n\r\n\u201cWhy not,\u201d said Rosalie smiling, \"I\u2019m hungry and you\u2019re no wolf, even if you were you couldn't wolf me for I'm a very strong young woman.\"\r\n\r\n\"I wouldn't attempt to wolf a flea. We're almost there. Do you see that bridge way ahead? Pull in to the left fifty yards this side on the patch of green. I'll be a medievalist for the day and believe in miracles and the blood of Saint Januarius.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie halted the car where she was bid and got out. \"My trunks,\" she pointed out with pride. I hope you've got something good to eat for I'm hungry.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cMaterialist,\u201d said Mice, \"don't you realize that you are an embodied guardian angel, that you are in the land of romance where fair women do not eat. However, I\u2019m much obliged to you for not saying I\u2019m hungry as a bear.\"\r\n\r\n\"What a heavenly place,\" thought Rosalie, as she stood before a gray and green bungalow, behind which lofty pines and hemlocks towered and cast a friendly shade. There were window boxes in which nasturtium leaves were already showing. Such a cosy, friendly little bungalow with wide white verandah seats, and above a red-shingled roof, from which a brick chimney sprouted. \"It\u2019s just like the ginger-bread house,\" thought Rosalie. Such a place of peace and contentment, and yet here lives a young man whose mind is so torn with confusion and discontent, that he has to leave all this, and go kicking a pebble along the pavement. I guess the little old lady was right, peace lies in the mind and heart, and you can shift or change your environment if you hold your mind steady.\u201d\r\n\r\nIn front of the bungalow, spring grass stretched down to the boulders that formed the riverbank. The glory of the place was the river that slid out of a long calm silent still-water, split just before the bungalow on a gray cliff of rock as big as a house, lingered by the rock\u2019s margin in a stretch of smooth slick water, before it shattered itself in a rapid of foam and bubbles and unregulated ragged waves to swirl against the abutments of the red iron bridge. Rosalie knew by instinct that this must be a salmon pool, and even as she looked, a fin and a strip of black back showed itself in the slick water by the rock. Upstream the still-water was for the most part calm, ruffled and darkened in patches once in a while, by a gentle squall of down-river wind. Between the tops of the tall hem\u00adlocks on either bank she could see a strip of blue May sky, that threw down upon the middle line of the still-water, a ribbon of silver light. The wild pear and wild cherry were in full bloom, in the intervals of the hemlocks, waving their slender trunks to and fro, and shaking their heads in a glory of cream and white. Every branch strove, upward for light, every root pushed downward for water; it was no wonder that some philosophers looking at the splendor of spring, had decided that light and water were the sources of life. 'This,' said Rosalie to herself, \u2018is as near Heaven as I shall ever be; perhaps I\u2019ll never make the real heaven now after leaving Hercule,\u2019 and she contrasted the lovely spot with the rocky fishing village in which she had been born. \u2018How beautiful the world is, and could be for everyone, if all men understood\u2019, she thought.\r\n\r\nThen in her moment of happiness, she offered up a little prayer, \u2018O dear loving God, you know that I am a very wicked young woman, but please, dear Jesus, please teach me how to live beautifully, and then perhaps to help the world to be a little better and people happier.\u2019 Then she laughed at herself a little and looking again at the variegated still-water and the slick water that plunged into the furious rapid, she thought, \u2018what a donkey, what a contra\u00addiction am I!\u2019\r\n\r\nFrom the kitchen came a pleasant smell of grilling fish and present\u00adly Mice, who had no illusions about the necessities of women, said; \u201cThere\u2019s a toilet off the bedroom, luncheon served steaming hot in five minutes.\" Rosalie went in, noting as she went the well placed furniture, the paintings on the wall\u2014she understood little but had a natural sense of colour, Mice explained later, mother's a painter\u2014the little upright piano with a violin laid across the top, and the red brick fireplace in which of course there was no fire, since the day was warm. Somehow, she knew instinctively that it was all in good taste, and she gave a little sigh and felt a tiny tug at her heart.\r\n\r\nWhen she got back to the verandah Mice was laying out the luncheon from a yellow tray. He was quite a skilled cook; he had split and grilled a small salmon, and there was homemade bread and marmalade, and coffee and a lemon split in two to squeeze over the fish. There was as well, two tall glasses of foaming beer. \"Light alcoholic beverage,\" explained Mice, \"continued proof that I am no wolf. Had I been wolfish I should have provided whiskey and soda.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"And I\u2019m no spring lamb,\" laughed Rosalie, taking a good draught of beer. \"I\u2019m hungry and thirsty as a \u2026\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't say it,\" said Mice. \"Just be hungry and thirsty. It's a kind of cross between breakfast and luncheon. I haven't any pie or pudding so I thought marmalade and fresh bread and butter might go well with the coffee. There\u2019s plenty of salmon. I made the bread yesterday and caught the salmon last night. Poor lovers, poor desperate lovers, they're running upstream now.\"\r\n\r\n\"It's just right,\u201d said Rosalie, \"it goes with the river and the tall trees and the wild pear.\"\r\n\r\nThen for a little while, they had no time for talking, for both were young and hungry, and they did themselves very well.\r\n\r\n\"I\u2019m full,\" said Rosalie at last, \"full right up to the neck.\"\r\n\r\n\"Good,\" said Mice \"and that\u2019s good honest talk.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"I'll help with the dishes,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\nThey carried the dishes to the kitchen and washed up together.\r\n\r\n\"Do you wash out your cup-towels and dish cloths?\" asked Rosalie. \"Never,\" said Mice, \"that\u2019s women's work, women must always have their own distinct functions.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie laughed, \"Men never can,\" and she washed and rinsed them expertly and hung them straight on a little corner rack. They went back to the verandah, sat down and looked at the river.\r\n\r\n\"Now\" said Rosalie, \"let\u2019s hear about the great problem, and why you have to kick a pebble along the highways of the world.\"\r\n\r\n\"You've half heard it already. My old man is bound I\u2019ll be a doctor, mother is on the fence, and I want to be a writer, a poet really.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh,\" said Rosalie, \u201ca poet, that would be fun. How do they manage to live and how do they learn? I never talked with a poet before.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm not a poet yet and I don't want to be a half-assed poet. I want to be a great poet, like Chaucer or Shakespeare or even Heine or Matthew Arnold.\"\r\n\r\n\"You've hitched your wagon to a star, haven't you?\" said Rosalie. \"Yes, I have, though it seems to me I\u2019ve heard that phrase about the wagon and the star before. And if I can't be a great poet, I'd like to be a great novelist and do something as good as 'Wilhelm Meister', or 'Don Quixote' or 'Les Miserables' or 'Tess of the D'Ubervilles' or 'The Cossacks' or 'Tom Jones.' \"\r\n\r\n\"Or perhaps 'Great Expectations', suggested Rosalie timidly.\r\n\r\n\"Yes, even as good as 'Great Expectations'. That was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. Why do you mention that one?\"\r\n\r\n\"I read it out loud last winter,\" said Rosalie. \"What makes you think you must be a poet?\"\r\n\r\n\"Because my head is full of jingles, silly jingles I\u2019ll admit, from morning to night. Some days everything turns in rhymes. You see I can begin on you right at this very minute.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRosalie, Rosalie<\/em>\r\n\r\nSprung from the sounding sea<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201c \u2018Sounding sea' that's Homer of course.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nSweet as the dew-kissed rose<\/em>\r\n\r\nBlowing at dawn<\/em>,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cLet's see now, what rhymes with 'rose' and \u2018dawn\u2019? 'Nose' won't do, \u2018clothes\u2019 is better, and 'fawn' of course will go with \u2018dawn\u2019.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nLeaves for her rustling clothes,<\/em>\r\n\r\nShy as a fawn.<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cYou see it's all nonsense, because you haven't come out of the sounding sea or any other kind of a sea, and you're not clad in leaves but in a perfectly good dress, and you're not a bit shy. There's no sense in any of my poetry yet, but my brain goes on jingling and rhyming from morning to night.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRosalie Rosalie,<\/em>\r\n\r\nNow you have come to me,<\/em>\r\n\r\nDo not depart<\/em>\r\n\r\nStay beating heart;<\/em>\r\n\r\nWatch the blooms quiver<\/em>\r\n\r\nHere by the river,<\/em>\r\n\r\nStay till the twilight<\/em>\r\n\r\nSoftens day's garish light.<\/em>\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRosalie laughed. \"That\u2019s enough for now,\u201d she said, \"turn off the hot water tap.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cPlease don\u2019t think,\" said Mice, \"that I can\u2019t tell good poetry from my jingles, listen to this;\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep<\/em>\r\n\r\nMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,<\/em>\r\n\r\n\u2018Tis not too late to seek a newer world.<\/em>\r\n\r\nPush off, and sitting well in order smite<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holds<\/em>\r\n\r\nTo sail beyond the sunset, and the baths<\/em>\r\n\r\nOf all the western stars, until I die.<\/em>\r\n\r\nIt may be that the gulfs will wash us down:<\/em>\r\n\r\nIt may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<\/em>\r\n\r\nAnd see the great Achilles, whom we knew.<\/em>\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMice halted to note the effect on his audience. \"That's great poetry,\" said he.\r\n\r\n\"I\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t know much about poetry,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"Don't tell me,\" said Mice fiercely, \"that you're wedded to 'The Burial of Sir John Moore,' 'Casabianca,' and 'The Wreck of the Hesperus.' \"\r\n\r\n\"That's about my style,\" said Rosalie. \"You see those are all in the school readers, and the children learn to recite them. But even when we were little we made some improvements;\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThe boy stood on the burning deck,<\/em>\r\n\r\nEating peanuts by the peck.<\/em>\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMice winced. \"I know, I know, I've been all through those childish epidemics. They're like measles. The school books stuff the children's heads with mediocre and sub-mediocre verses in order to reduce them all to quiet orderly mediocrity. That's democracy for you. Rhyming and jingling have become a disease with me, and I can find no cure. In fact, I don't know that I want to be cured. Everything I look at starts me going. I look at that big rock in the river for instance, and here I go;\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nGiant rock you never quiver,<\/em>\r\n\r\nAt the onrush of the river,<\/em>\r\n\r\nFast and firm and bold you stand<\/em>\r\n\r\nDeeply rooted in the land.<\/em>\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"I don\u2019t want to seem too stupid or unsympathetic,\u201d said Rosalie, \"but I know enough to know that there\u2019s good, bad and indifferent poetry. \u00a0I read a little bit once and liked it so much, that I committed it to memory. Would you like to hear it? Of course it\u2019s sentimental, but there\u2019s one line in it about the empty room with the door ajar that I like very much. You\u2019ll understand, Mice, that I\u2019m not saying it to you to vamp you, I'd just like to show that I\u2019m a little better than a 'Casabianca' girl.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Shoot,\u201d said Mice.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cThe day is lost without thee,<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe night hath not a star;<\/em>\r\n\r\nThy going is an empty room,<\/em>\r\n\r\nwhose door is left ajar.<\/em>\r\n\r\nDepart; it is the foot-fall,<\/em>\r\n\r\nOf twilight on the hills;<\/em>\r\n\r\nReturn; and every rood of ground<\/em>\r\n\r\nBursts into daffodils.<\/em>\"\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"I can't do anything as good as that yet,\u201d admitted Mice.\r\n\r\n\"Not yet, not for a long time, I expect,\" said Rosalie. \"You'd have to be or have been really in love to write that.\"\r\n\r\n\"I've been in love fifty times,\" said Mice. \u201cI love nearly every pretty girl I meet.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"That's only kid's stuff,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"I know,\" said Mice, \"and the provoking thing is, no one takes me seriously and I get very bad marks in English Lit\u2014I've just finished my second year and done English One and English Two\u2014and the instructor laughs at me and pulls my leg and says something silly like this to me, when we\u2019re alone;\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nYou\u2019ve got to be fit<\/em>\r\n\r\nTo pass English Lit.<\/em>\r\n\r\nOne can\u2019t see things right<\/em>\r\n\r\nUnless one is tight<\/em>\r\n\r\nAnd then farewell knowledge,<\/em>\r\n\r\nOne\u2019s thrown out of college<\/em>.\u201d\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"I think he\u2019s a very good teacher,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"Why?\"\r\n\r\n\"He\u2019s trying to make you laugh at yourself, and not take yourself too seriously.\"\r\n\r\n\"He\u2019s a good scout,\" said Mice, \"but he makes fun of me.\"\r\n\r\n\"You an only child?\" asked Rosalie, \u201cDid mother tell her darling boy he was going to be a genius?\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Words to that effect,\" admitted Mice,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nMother found joy<\/em>\r\n\r\nIn her wonderful boy<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Oh Mice,\" laughed Rosalie, \u201csnap out of it.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"It's not so easy,\" said Mice. \"The provoking part of the whole thing is that while I just pass in English Literature, I'm a whiz at chemistry and biology, and get high marks in them, when I don\u2019t want to at all. They\u2019re both stinking subjects, but my marks in them confirm the old man\u2019s opinion.\"\r\n\r\n\"Of course,\" said Rosalie, \"I'm not a learned person and not very wise yet, for I'm only nineteen and I won't be twenty till next September.\"\r\n\r\n\"Birthday date please,\" said Mice, pretending to pull out a note book, \"so that appropriate present may be shipped.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie gave no heed to his nonsense. \"But I had a great course with a wise person last winter and I picked up a good deal. Really, you ought to talk with Johnny Allen and the Little Old Lady.\"\r\n\r\n\"Where are they?\" asked Mice.\r\n\r\n\"Miles and miles from here, I\u2019m afraid you'll have to listen to me at second-hand. I'm not sure that they even exist. They may have been fairies, though a truck\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 driver could never be a fairy could he? Perhaps they were just people made in my mind, but that's nonsense, for there\u2019s the Ford and that must have come from somewhere. In some ways I'm as loony as you, Mice, for my life seems only a dream and I think that someday I'll wake up and reach out and touch something real, something like a tree or a stone.\"\r\n\r\n\"Might be,\" said Mice, \"maybe you and I are part of a dream right now. Shall I try you with pin?\"\r\n\r\nRosalie laughed that away, and went on; \"I can tell you what I've learned so far, and maybe it might help you a little. You see, you have to know a great many things about the world and people, and be able to size up their characters, before you can write anything true or worthwhile. The little old lady says it has to agree with an inner truth, that is truer than the apparent outside appearance. People who live by what they call facts are hardly wise at all. You have to have wisdom and understanding to see the truth behind the facts. Oh dear,\u201d said Rosalie, \"I'm talking like a wise old woman and I'm younger than you. I learned all this from the little old lady.\"\r\n\r\n\"You talk exactly like the old man,\u201d said Mice, \"only perhaps you're a shade more profound.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cOh, Mice, stop teasing me,\" said Rosalie, \"stop nibbling. I\u2019m not a bit profound yet, but give me time to grow. I\u2019m sure of one thing, you've got to work and work hard at whatever you're doing, no matter how humble the task, before you can understand people. And you mustn't love money. The old country proverb says; 'Poverty, Labour and Humility maketh a man.' \u201d\r\n\r\n\"I'm not so strong on humility,\" said Mice, \"and I think you should add 'cold'. Snow and ice are good for the human animal.\"\r\n\r\n\"And struggle,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd \u2018getting around\u2019,\u201d added Mice.\r\n\r\n\u201cI don\u2019t know much, about literature,\u201d said Rosalie, \u201cand maybe I\u2019m only a \u2018Casabianca\u2019 and \u2018Wreck of the Hesperus' girl, but I\u2019ve read 'The Tempest' through four times.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cThere,\u201d said Mice, \u201cthat tears it. I\u2019ve been wondering who are; you\u2019re Miranda come to life again.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie laughed, \"Little you know,\" said she, \u201cbut you can't put me off with nonsense. You see I liked 'The Tempest' so much that I read a life of the author.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"A well-known name, a triple A poet,\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nNever a muff<\/em>\r\n\r\nNever a bluff<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cThere I go again on the old jingle. What helpful lesson do you draw from him, for your infant class?\"\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, he was a country boy with none too much education, but he looked at trees and flowers and fields and clouds and brooks and ordinary country people. And afterwards he was chore-boy and horse-holder in London, a ham-actor, a re-maker of old plays, ticket taker at the door, and at last part-owner in three theatres. He learned and laboured and watched people, and then he sat down often tired and discouraged, and made the greatest poetry in the world.\"\r\n\r\n\"I know there's nothing in my jingles now,\" said Mice, \"they're all soft and punk;\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nRosalie, Rosalie<\/em>\r\n\r\nYou are the girl for me<\/em>\r\n\r\nbut give me<\/em>\u00a0time<\/em>.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Here\u2019s something,\" said Rosalie, \"that I\u2019ve thought out all by myself since I've met you. The doctor's nearly always the best man in a place, and everyone depends on him. He knows everybody's troubles and keeps all their secrets. He knows the people inside and outside, and he de\u00adlivers all the babies. Now, how could you ever learn about people better than by being a doctor, especially a country doctor who has an easy and welcome entry to homes of rich and poor. Then as you drove along the country roads, you could turn some of the stuff you\u2019d really learned into verses.\"\r\n\r\n\"And they mustn\u2019t rhyme,\" said Mice thoughtfully, \u201cblank verse is the stuff. It must scan and flow but not rhyme, rhyme makes even the greatest poets ridiculous. Look at Byron, he was the greatest rhymester of them all, and look at the amount of tripe he wrote. Rhyme is a disease.\"\r\n\r\n\"I don't know anything about Mr. Byron,\" said Rosalie, \"but the little old lady told me that two English doctors had written great novels. I think their names were Cronin and Maugham.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"Almost thou persuadest me,\" said Mice, \"How come you know so much?\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" said Rosalie, with the egotism of youth, \u201cI haven\u2019t had much opportunity, but I'm alert and listen and keep looking round me, and the little old lady says I\u2019m well above the average. I don't know much yet, but someday I\u2019m going to know quite a lot. I'm going to work hard in the world and look and listen. I guess you\u2019d better try what your old man says, especially if you've got a natural flair for chemistry and biology.\"\r\n\r\n\"If I could only get over rhyming.\"\r\n\r\n\"You'll get over it,\" said Rosalie. \"if you only set your mind on real things.\"\r\n\r\n\u201cSure?\u201d asked Mice.\r\n\r\n\"Certain,\" said Rosalie.\r\n\r\nMice took off his glasses and cleaned them on a handkerchief that was rather rusty. \"Only sun-glasses,\" he explained, \"There's nothing wrong with my eyesight.\" He looked steadily into Rosalie's eyes. \"Well,\" he said when he had completed his polishing, \"I'm sold on miracles and medievalism forever. A pretty girl in a Ford car picks me up in broad day\u00adlight on a cement highway, and turns my mind around from north to south in two hours. I'll believe in anything queer now, guardian angels, smelly dead men coming to life again, I'll even swallow the story of the purple pyjamas flapping over the Allegheny Mountains.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie smiled the slightly mysterious smile that all women employ when they reflect on the fact that men always remain little boys.\r\n\r\n\"Here goes,\u201d said Mice, walking across the verandah to where his coat was hanging on a chair-back, \u201chere goes the old ball-game.\u201d He rummaged in his coat pocket, took out the pebble and flung it in the river, where it made a tiny and momentary splash in the slick of the rapid. \"Never kick her again, said he. \u201cI guess I\u2019m on the road to being a saw-bones.\u201d\r\n\r\nRosalie got up from her chair, \"Thanks for a good lunch,\u201d said she, \"I guess I\u2019ll have to be on my way.\"\r\n\r\n\"Don't you know,\" said Mice, \u201cthat on a college essay, 'I guess' is marked 'archaic, obsolete and illiterate?' \u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cYou just used it a minute ago,\u201d said Rosalie.\r\n\r\n\"I, oh I, it doesn't matter what I say. I am only a weakling that can be twisted around a woman\u2019s finger. But you, now you'll have to be careful because you have a touch of genius.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie laughed.\r\n\r\n\"Where will you sleep tonight, Rosalie?\"\r\n\r\n\"People always ask that,\" said Rosalie. \"At least you're the second man who has asked that, and I'll give you the same answer; I'll be sleeping somewhere and wherever I'll be sleeping, I'll be sleeping there.\"\r\n\r\n\"That sounds a bit like, 'She sells sea shells', or \u2018Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers\u2019. How will I find you again, Rosalie? You see I'll have to report progress. You can't just cast me off after I've thrown my pebble away.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cI really don't know,\u201d said Rosalie, \"perhaps we've completed the reason for our meeting.\"\r\n\r\n\"Would you mind kissing me before you go, Rosalie? Would you mind very much?\"\r\n\r\n\u201cI'd like to,\u201d said Rosalie feeling that that is what Miranda would have replied. \"I like you ever so much, really I like you better than any man I\u2019ve ever talked to.\"\r\n\r\nThe parting kiss confirmed an idea that for some minutes had been lingering in the back of Mice\u2019s mind. \"I think I'd like to marry you someday, Rosalie, in fact I\u2019m quite sure I would. Of course, I haven't got any sense yet, you can see that.\u201d\r\n\r\n\"That's just it,\" said Rosalie, \"we couldn't get married unless we fell in love with one another, and you're still a chick in a shell or wrapped up somehow like a cocoon, you haven't burst out yet and really spread your wings.\"\r\n\r\n\"I'm going to fly soon, though,\" said Mice. \"I'm going to get out the Anatomy Book this very afternoon.\"\r\n\r\n\"Get your wings clear, Mice. You know we learn a good deal of Latin in our schools, and I remember one nice phrase, when a boy decided or some\u00adbody decided that he was a man, he put on the toga virilis. Put on the toga virilis, Mice.\"\r\n\r\nMice sprang up, seized a rug, draped it around his shoulders, and assumed the pose of a senator about to deliver an oration in the Roman Forum.\r\n\r\n\"It would be fun,\" said Rosalie quite frankly, \u201cto marry a man like you because you\u2019re both serious and humourous, but it'll be a long time before you're a doctor\u2014years and years\u2014and perhaps I'll be blown about the roads of the world like a dead leaf. I'll only be Stella Star of Somewhere and you'll be learning to fly. Perhaps I'll learn to fly too.\"\r\n\r\n\"You can fly now,\" said Mice. \"You've already got your wings clear.\"\r\n\r\nRosalie walked out to her Ford and climbed aboard. She had backed out to the, highway before Mice could pull his wits together.\r\n\r\n\"Rosalie,\" he cried.\r\n\r\nRosalie leaned out of the car window and shouted, \"Don\u2019t forget to get your hair cut, Mice, it will help,\" and she was off.","rendered":"

It was about mid-May when Rosalie saw that little notice pinned on the kitchen wall; “My head aches a little, Rosalie. Your loving little old lady.” Rosalie took a pencil and wrote below, “And my big toe is prickling. Your loving Rosalie.”<\/p>\n

When the little old lady came in from the yard Rosalie said, \u201cDear little old lady, we must pack today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. We must pack. Isn\u2019t it too bad? Get those two leather trunks from the attic.”<\/p>\n

“How shall I ever ship them.” said Rosalie, “when I don\u2019t know where I\u2019m going? I may be half way round the world in another month.\u201d<\/p>\n

“You won\u2019t have to ship them,” said the little old lady. “You will take them in the Ford.”<\/p>\n

“In the Ford, in the new Ford?” gasped Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“Of what good will the Ford be to me with you away? I can\u2019t drive it, it would only rust to pieces in the barn. I\u2019m giving you the Ford, Rosalie, so you can come and visit me on your vacations.”<\/p>\n

This was too much for Rosalie, and she sat down and covered her face with her hands and burst into a passion of weeping. The little old lady went out in the yard, fussed about the wood-pile, and at last returned with an-armful. Rosalie was still crying quietly in her chair. “Stop it now, Rosalie. Stop it at once, or you\u2019ll have two bawling women. Stop it and go fetch the leather steamer trunks.”<\/p>\n

Evening came, the trunks in mid-floor were strapped and labelled, on the little old lady’s insistence, with Miss Stella Star.<\/p>\n

They looked at one another with desolation in their faces, but the little old lady was determined to be gay on this their last night together for ever so long.<\/p>\n

“We can’t play cards yet it\u2019s too early in the evening. I plan to become an expert at solitaire when you are gone, Rosalie.”<\/p>\n

“I’ll soon be back,” said Rosalie, “soon as ever I get off, perhaps if I’m not too far off I could manage weekends.”<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to go, wherever you’re going. You mustn’t take me into account at all. There’s a moron girl down below I can hire to stay with me. She’s such a fool that she’s quite interesting.”<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what if you’re ill, Little Old Lady?\u201d<\/p>\n

“I’m never ill, though I must admit I’m full of gas tonight. Do you ever get gassy, Rosalie?”<\/p>\n

“Never,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“That’s because you\u2019re young and have good digestion.”<\/p>\n

“What’s it like,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“You feel as if you were blown up like a balloon. That’s the penalty for getting old. I was never gassy when I was young.”<\/p>\n

“It must be uncomfortable,” said Rosalie. “I’m sorry, Old Lady.”<\/p>\n

“It is, and then you’re disgraced by your entrails rumbling like a truck going over a bridge. There’s a good limerick about that, Rosalie, that I learned many years ago. I never seem to forget anything.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I took out the Duchess to tea,<\/em><\/p>\n

I knew just how it would be,<\/em><\/p>\n

Her rumbling abdominal<\/em><\/p>\n

Were something phenomenal<\/em><\/p>\n

And everyone thought it was me.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed, “You are a cure, Old Lady. I believe you’re just trying to be funny tonight to keep us both from being sad.”<\/p>\n

“Nonsense, I’m talking about wind, because I’m full of wind tonight. It\u2019s the penalty of old age. You’ll be that way some\u00adday, Rosalie, some sixty years off. Why I can hardly squeeze into my rocking chair to-night. Did you ever hear the story of Sandy MacDonald’s bull?”<\/p>\n

“No,” said Rosalie, “was he too full of gas and wind?”<\/p>\n

“He was, he swelled so with gas that his sides touched both sides of the stall, and a fine black bull he was. The neighbors were called in for consultation. ‘It’s an enema he needs,’ said a very old man, ‘Give him an enema,’ said all the neighbors in concert. They led the bull out into the yard\u2014they couldn’t get him through the stable door, but had to open the folding doors that led into the hay barn\u2014and they lashed him securely to a big stout gate. But what to use for an instrument? Old grandmother MacDonald rummaged in the attic and found an ancient horn that had been used to call the men home from the hayfield, bell-shaped it was and curved upward in the stem. ‘The very thing,’ said Sandy MacDonald, ‘there’s nothing like the wisdom of old people. Mrs. MacDonald, fetch a bucket of steaming water and soap suds,’ They poured it into the dinner horn, and the bull seemed pleased with the sudden glow of internal warmth. \u2018Mrs. MacDonald\u2019, says Sandy, ‘fetch yet another bucket of steaming water and soap suds for he is a great bull,’ Sandy poured in the second bucket. Now, the bull became restive and \u00a0uneasy and stamped with all his feet and rolled his blood-shot eyes. Suddenly, he reared in his distress, and tore the great gate from its hook and hinges. \u2018Look out,\u2019 said Sandy MacDonald, and the neighbors took refuge in house or barn. The bull, however, galloped down the road toward the village dragging the gate with him. Suddenly the dinner horn began to blow great blasts. The village fire department mistaking the blasts for the fire-siren, turned out in brazen helmets, and drove fast up the road thinking in Sandy MacDonald\u2019s farm. The bull travelling at full speed met the fire brigade mid-way. The gate caught on the engine and carried away the two port wheels and threw the men on their beam-ends.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, Old Lady,” said Rosalie, \u201cwhere ever did you learn such tales, my stomach aches from laughing.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bull\u201d continued the little old lady, \u201cfreed of the gate carried straight on, the horn still blowing. Now the keeper\u00ad of the drawbridge was a man hard of hearing\u2014a political appointee\u2014and when he heard the horn, he thought it was a tugboat blowing to have the draw opened, so he hustled around and swung open the drawbridge. The bull rushed on to the bridge, fell into the gap and was drowned. It is said that bubbles rose for hours from him lying on the bottom.<\/p>\n

\u201cSandy MacDonald didn\u2019t like the half-deaf draw-keeper, and he was mad at the loss of his bull, so he wrote to the government stating that the drawbridge keeper should be dismissed, on the ground that it was no place for a man who could not distinguish between a tugboat\u2019s whistle and a bull blowing on a dinner horn.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were tears of laughter in Rosalie’s eyes. They played five games of Rummy and the little old lady won twenty-five cents. They went to bed early for they must be up betimes.<\/p>\n

Rosalie sat in the Ford at the top of the grassy lane, the two leather trunks in the back seat. The little old lady stood beside her. It was a fine bright morning of late May, Rosalie was setting out she knew not where.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t speak a word or I\u2019ll bawl,\u201d said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t,” said the little old lady.<\/p>\n

Rosalie started the engine; the old lady clutched the side of the open window, \u201cDon’t forget Rosalie, what it took me a long time to find out: the world is very old, the first rains hissed on hot rocks in which there was no trace of life; men have been on the world a long time; we come from savagery in a few thousand years; listen to the preacher-medicine men with patience and sympathy; and remember, a strong mind, a steady purpose rules the body, and don’t be ashamed to work at anything. Learn, Rosalie, learn.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie let in the clutch, waved her hand, trundled out by the half\u00ad-burnt church, and turned eastward. Rather sick at heart she drove along briskly and when she came to the highway, she increased her speed to be\u00adtween thirty-five and forty miles. For five hours, she drove without any notable adventure, and by noon, she must have been two hundred miles from the old lady’s house. She had come to a long stretch of straight road, and she was rolling along pleasantly, the owner of a Ford car, with over a hundred dollars in in her purse and two trunks full of clothing in the back seat. She was thinking, \u2018people would never believe about my good in a story, they\u2019d expect a lonely wandering girl to meet disaster and ruin,\u2019 when she first saw him zigzagging from one side of the highway to the other. As he was almost a mile ahead, he seemed at first about an inch high as he pursued this slanting and erratic course. As Rosalie got nearer, he rapidly grew into an erect young man about six feet tall, clad in brown shoes, untidy grey flannels and a plaid sports coat. He had on no cap, his hair was tousled, and Rosalie noted that he needed a haircut. When she tooted on her horn he paid no heed, but continued to zigzag and kick savagely at something in the roadway. She was obliged to pull up as she got almost abreast of him.<\/p>\n

“Whatever are you doing?” asked Rosalie. She saw that he was a nice looking young man\u2014very young, perhaps twenty-one\u2014and that his thin face was bronzed by the sun. He wore glasses and his long untidy brown hair was faded in patches to a bronzy yellow. “I\u2019m kicking a pebble. Can’t you see? I\u2019ve kicked this one over a mile, and it\u2019s never once gone off the cement.”<\/p>\n

“Is it a game?” asked Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“A kind of game. You see if I can kick it two miles without it ever getting on the shoulder, I\u2019ll know what to decide. It’s really quite important.”<\/p>\n

“It’s a very dangerous game,” said Rosalie. “You might get run over taking the whole road. I had to stop.”<\/p>\n

“They all stop,” said, the young man. “Most drivers won’t run over a pedestrian. It’s only bad on curves and there I make short sissy kicks. Anyway, most of them think I\u2019m drunk and hold up. They all say just like you, ‘Whatever are you doing?’ and when I reply, ‘I’m kicking a pebble,\u2019 they think I\u2019m loony, and they get pale and pull well to the far side of the road, and move on. You seem to be the first sensible person that has passed me in four days. I do this straight stretch every day, but I’ve never made it yet. Do you think I’m a loony?”<\/p>\n

Rosalie had a sudden reminiscence of the little old lady’s story, and in her mind’s eye saw row upon row of sleeping sailor-men on a yellow deck, their heads wrapped in their coats against Luna the moon, but she said; “Of course I don’t think you’re a loony, \u00a0I can tell that by looking at your eyes, but ordinary people who only saw you at a dis\u00adtance might very well think so. A grown man can’t go along the pavement kicking a pebble, you know.”<\/p>\n

“Why not? I\u2019m a grown man; male, aged twenty-one, white, and I do.\u00a0 I think myself I’m pretty close to the line, but you see I’ve got to make a hard decision. I’ve got fifty more long years to live or forty-nine to be exact, and I want to get off on the right foot.”<\/p>\n

“Oh dear,” said Rosalie. “It’s dreadfully hard making decisions isn’t it. \u00a0I had to leave place number one, and I didn’t want to leave place number two, and now I’m just rolling along the road.”<\/p>\n

“Where are you going to?” asked the young man.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know,” said Rosalie. “I never know until I get there. Then I know.”<\/p>\n

“You’re the most sensible young woman I’ve ever met,” said the young man, “and you’re easy to look at too, though that sounds rather flat, stale and unprofitable. Oh God, why should I repeat the sour tripe that men hand out to every pretty girl!”<\/p>\n

“You should see me in my new red dress,” said Rosalie laughing.<\/p>\n

“You own your own car?”<\/p>\n

“Yes,” said Rosalie, \u201cI do. It’s registered in my name and the operator\u2019s license is in my name too. \u00a0I suppose you think I’ve stolen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I don’t think anything about it,” replied the young man. “It’s none of my business, and I shouldn’t have asked, the question just popped out due to atavistic curiosity.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie didn\u2019t know what atavistic meant and she resolved to look it up in the dictionary.<\/p>\n

“I believe whatever people tell me. That’s one of my serious faults, my old man says. It’s none of my business if they lie, that’s their business. Now why should you lie to me? I\u2019m not a detective.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed, “You might be, I’m so ignorant of the world. However, you\u2019re only a pebble-kicker as far as I know.”<\/p>\n

“And you’re only a pretty girl driving a Ford along the highway on a warm May day, as far as I know. There’s nothing like sticking to facts as far as you know them.”<\/p>\n

“I’m a respectable, that is quite respectable, married, woman,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“You doubtless are a married woman if you so state, though that sets me back on my heels a bit, but surely it’s hardly respectable to be talking to an unknown man on the roadside when we don’t even know one another\u2019s names.”<\/p>\n

“I see you\u2019re the trustworthy kind, I\u2019ve got wit enough for that. My name\u2019s Stella Star, at least that\u2019s what I call myself.”<\/p>\n

“An icy brittle name,” said the young man. \u201cAre you by any chance on holiday from Hollywood Miss Star, or should I say Mrs. Star?\u201d<\/p>\n

“No,” laughed Rosalie, \u201cI haven’t made the movies yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name’s Meister. Did you ever hear such a beastly name? It always makes me want to say, ‘Meist, Meister, Meistest.’ They call me Mice at college. Isn\u2019t that a degrading nickname?\u201d<\/p>\n

“I suppose you steer clear of cats,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“Catty women, yes. But my first name\u2019s worse. I\u2019ll give you four guesses to choose the most revolting of masculine Christian names.”<\/p>\n

“Percy,” said Rosalie provocatively<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, thank God, not Percy.”<\/p>\n

\u201cAlbert?\u201d<\/p>\n

“No, God be praised, not Albert the Good.”<\/p>\n

“Eric?”<\/p>\n

“No, your selection of stinkers is excellent, Miss Star, but It\u2019s not Eric or Little by Little.”<\/p>\n

\u201cEImer?”<\/p>\n

“No, I\u2019ve truly never been in the bush leagues. No, fair lady, you have named four of the most repulsive of male names, but mine is none of these. By a hair’s breadth you have missed the sixty-four dollar prize. There goes another bromide.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI give up,\u201d said Rosalie. \u201cWhat is it then?\u201d<\/p>\n

“Ferdinand, and mother calls me Ferdie.”<\/p>\n

“Ferdinand the Bull,” laughed Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“Exactly,” said the young man, “that\u2019s another name I have at college, when they\u2019re not calling me Mice. What other Ferdinands do you know?”<\/p>\n

“Ferdinand and Isabel.”<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly, and as soon as I begin dancing with a pretty girl, some nut taps me on the shoulder and says, \u2018May I relieve you of Isabel.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s Ferdinand of Bulgaria too. He was a very wicked king.\u201d<\/p>\n

“You\u2019re quite a scholar, Miss Stella Starr. Only one other person has associated me with Ferdinand of Bulgaria, he was a tutor in history. He fancies himself as a humorist\u2014weak very weak\u2014and he calls me Bulgarian Butter Milk.”<\/p>\n

“You’re too young and sensitive,” said Rosalie. “You mind too much, that’s why they call you nicknames. I’ve noticed the same thing with little children when teaching school. Don’t let them know you mind, give them a playful punch in the eye. Ferdinand Meister is a grand high-sound\u00ading name. You should go far with that name, for the little old lady says that names have a great effect upon one’s destiny and character.”<\/p>\n

“You’re a very comforting young woman,” said the young man.<\/p>\n

“Moreover,” said Rosalie, “when people make nice nicknames like \u2018Mice\u2019 or \u2018Ferdinand the Bull\u2019, or even \u2018Bulgarian Butter Milk\u2019, it’s a sign of affection, a sign that they like you. Only you\u2019re too easily teased.”<\/p>\n

“I can run faster than any of them anyway. I’m the hundred-yard man and the full-back.”<\/p>\n

“There you are,” said Rosalie. “Probably the people in the stands say, ‘Look at Mice running back the ball! Can’t that boy fly! Go on, go on Ferdinand the Bull!’ They’re all on your side. You can’t expect them to chant ‘Behold now Ferdinand Meister runneth with the ball.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The young man actually laughed, a real laugh from his stomach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a quick one,\u201d he said. \u201cDo you know I believe you might help me make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Maybe,” said Rosalie. “It\u2019s a queer world but really an awfully nice generous world. You’d never believe the queer nice things that have lately happened to me. Perhaps certain people are sent with messages to one another.”<\/p>\n

\u201cNonsense,\u201d said the young man,\u201d people just meet by chance. You\u2019re a medievalist, that\u2019s what you are\u2014guardian angels and the Virgin Mary flying over the Allegheny Mountains in purple pyjamas\u2014and all that sort of thing.”<\/p>\n

“Don\u2019t be ridiculous,” said Rosalie. “I’m a fisherman’s daughter. Do you want a lift? A kind man gave me a lift, the first day I was on the road, when I needed it badly.”<\/p>\n

“I might now,” said the young man. “I’ve got three miles to go, and I don’t feel like kicking pebbles anymore this morning. You’re by far the nicest pebble I’ve seen on any beach. There I go again, I always get a pain in the neck when I talk tripe like that; flat, flat, stale and unprofitable.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed, “Women, they say like even the stupidest and most worn-out compliments.”<\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve got to find my pebble first. It\u2019s an excellent pebble, I\u2019ve kicked it now for three days and it’s hardly worn a bit.” And with that he went weaving along the highway, till he retrieved his rounded stone and stowed it in his pocket.<\/p>\n

“I don’t believe you’ll need that anymore,” said Rosalie as he came back to the car and climbed aboard.<\/p>\n

“How come?” said the young man.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know,” said Rosalie as they drove along, “but I don\u2019t think you will. You see I’ve spent the winter with a very wise person, who lived a very full life, and I’m chock-full of second hand wisdom. We got through two good books in the evenings, one in English and one in French.”<\/p>\n

“You bi-lingual?” asked the young man.<\/p>\n

“Yes,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, well! You’re a more astonishing person all the time, a most alluring pick-up, as the bright boys say.”<\/p>\n

“I picked you up,” said Rosalie, “please don’t forget that.”<\/p>\n

“True and most unusual,” said the young man, \u201cI’m beginning to believe in miracles. Perhaps you were sent along to show me the path for my feet, perhaps the old girl did fly over the Allegheny Mountains.”<\/p>\n

“You’re not a wolf are you?” said Rosalie. \u201c You look too young and honest for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, not a wolf, I never howl at night. I\u2019m only poor little \u2018Mice\u2019 or Ferdinand the Bull\u2019 or \u2018Bulgarian Butter Milk\u2019.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ll call you \u2018Mice\u2019 if you don\u2019t mind. They\u2019re cosy, friendly little animals though very destructive. It’s a friendly, comforting name.”<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right, call me Mice, but Stella Star, that name’s too icy and distant for you. Haven\u2019t you got a nickname?\u201d<\/p>\n

“Let me think,” said Rosalie “You might call me Rosalie, I\u2019m not twenty yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

“So young and yet so fair,” said Mice. “Oh dear there’s another flat-tire, another bromide.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you say them for if you don’t like them?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t say them, my real self doesn\u2019t say them. These vulgar common phrases just pop out of my outer vulgar shell.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s it\u201d, said Rosalie, \u201cyou\u2019re still in a shell, you haven\u2019t quite hatched yet. But you haven’t told me how you like my name.”<\/p>\n

“Rosalie, Rosalie,” said Mice, \u201cwhy it\u2019s the prettiest name in the world and it\u2019s just right for you, plenty of health and sunshine and good nature in that name. Rosalie, Rosalie tripping so merrily, and he rolled the name under his tongue. What poems you could write about Rosalie. Wandering Rosalie, fresh wayside Rosalie, sprang from the sea-foam was Rosalie dawnily. All kinds of sentimental jingle you could make up about Rosalie.”<\/p>\n

“Are you a poet?” asked Rosalie “I’ve never seen a poet before.”<\/p>\n

“I want to be, that’s where the old man and I don’t hit it off. He wants me to be a doctor, and I want to be a poet. That\u2019s why I\u2019m kicking a pebble along the roads.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Oh,” said Rosalie, “that’s what is on your mind, that’s what you\u2019re trying to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d said Mice, “that’s the problem, that’s why the old pebble gets booted about.”<\/p>\n

“Aren’t people different.” said Rosalie. “Here am I just drifting to see what Fate does to me, and not de\u00adciding at all, and not even worrying, and you go about kicking pebbles for days and days trying to make up your mind. Why don’t you just drift \u00a0for a little?\u201d<\/p>\n

“I can’t drift, the old man holds the purse strings and it costs money to get a college education. He’s a good old fellow, my dad, a country doctor, and he wants me as he says, to follow in his footsteps. Don’t you hate hackneyed phrases like that, ‘follow in his footsteps’?”<\/p>\n

“Cliche’s, we call them in French,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“Cliche’s, that\u2019s right. What a knowledgeable young woman you are! No girl at college would know that word. Cliche’s bang on my ear like the slap of an open hand. I’m very sensitive to words.”<\/p>\n

“All honest words are good,” said Rosalie. “It’s only when people copy and repeat what they think is smart, that they become bad. Children say lovely natural things sometimes, and make their own phrases.”<\/p>\n

“I sometimes believe that education, mass-education, muddles the mind and makes it commonplace,” said Mice<\/p>\n

“Not if you get your education from a great-minded person,” said Rosalie, “I\u2019ve had six months with such a person, who never pretended. That\u2019s why I appear wise to you. It\u2019s only reflected wisdom and I suppose it will soon wear off.”<\/p>\n

“But you made one great decision all by yourself, didn\u2019t you?” asked Mice.<\/p>\n

“I certainly did,” said Rosalie, \u201cand a hard one it was, but some force pushed me along. How did you know?”<\/p>\n

“Can\u2019t say,” said Mice, “perhaps I\u2019m psychic too in spite of all my attempts at skepticism. I just knew as soon as I looked at you, I say!”<\/p>\n

“What?”<\/p>\n

“Perhaps you\u2019re the one that can tell me. We\u2019ve got a bungalow, a few miles ahead by the river, and I\u2019m there today all alone. Will you stop and have lunch with me?”<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not,\u201d said Rosalie smiling, “I\u2019m hungry and you\u2019re no wolf, even if you were you couldn’t wolf me for I’m a very strong young woman.”<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t attempt to wolf a flea. We’re almost there. Do you see that bridge way ahead? Pull in to the left fifty yards this side on the patch of green. I’ll be a medievalist for the day and believe in miracles and the blood of Saint Januarius.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie halted the car where she was bid and got out. “My trunks,” she pointed out with pride. I hope you’ve got something good to eat for I’m hungry.”<\/p>\n

\u201cMaterialist,\u201d said Mice, “don’t you realize that you are an embodied guardian angel, that you are in the land of romance where fair women do not eat. However, I\u2019m much obliged to you for not saying I\u2019m hungry as a bear.”<\/p>\n

“What a heavenly place,” thought Rosalie, as she stood before a gray and green bungalow, behind which lofty pines and hemlocks towered and cast a friendly shade. There were window boxes in which nasturtium leaves were already showing. Such a cosy, friendly little bungalow with wide white verandah seats, and above a red-shingled roof, from which a brick chimney sprouted. “It\u2019s just like the ginger-bread house,” thought Rosalie. Such a place of peace and contentment, and yet here lives a young man whose mind is so torn with confusion and discontent, that he has to leave all this, and go kicking a pebble along the pavement. I guess the little old lady was right, peace lies in the mind and heart, and you can shift or change your environment if you hold your mind steady.\u201d<\/p>\n

In front of the bungalow, spring grass stretched down to the boulders that formed the riverbank. The glory of the place was the river that slid out of a long calm silent still-water, split just before the bungalow on a gray cliff of rock as big as a house, lingered by the rock\u2019s margin in a stretch of smooth slick water, before it shattered itself in a rapid of foam and bubbles and unregulated ragged waves to swirl against the abutments of the red iron bridge. Rosalie knew by instinct that this must be a salmon pool, and even as she looked, a fin and a strip of black back showed itself in the slick water by the rock. Upstream the still-water was for the most part calm, ruffled and darkened in patches once in a while, by a gentle squall of down-river wind. Between the tops of the tall hem\u00adlocks on either bank she could see a strip of blue May sky, that threw down upon the middle line of the still-water, a ribbon of silver light. The wild pear and wild cherry were in full bloom, in the intervals of the hemlocks, waving their slender trunks to and fro, and shaking their heads in a glory of cream and white. Every branch strove, upward for light, every root pushed downward for water; it was no wonder that some philosophers looking at the splendor of spring, had decided that light and water were the sources of life. ‘This,’ said Rosalie to herself, \u2018is as near Heaven as I shall ever be; perhaps I\u2019ll never make the real heaven now after leaving Hercule,\u2019 and she contrasted the lovely spot with the rocky fishing village in which she had been born. \u2018How beautiful the world is, and could be for everyone, if all men understood\u2019, she thought.<\/p>\n

Then in her moment of happiness, she offered up a little prayer, \u2018O dear loving God, you know that I am a very wicked young woman, but please, dear Jesus, please teach me how to live beautifully, and then perhaps to help the world to be a little better and people happier.\u2019 Then she laughed at herself a little and looking again at the variegated still-water and the slick water that plunged into the furious rapid, she thought, \u2018what a donkey, what a contra\u00addiction am I!\u2019<\/p>\n

From the kitchen came a pleasant smell of grilling fish and present\u00adly Mice, who had no illusions about the necessities of women, said; \u201cThere\u2019s a toilet off the bedroom, luncheon served steaming hot in five minutes.” Rosalie went in, noting as she went the well placed furniture, the paintings on the wall\u2014she understood little but had a natural sense of colour, Mice explained later, mother’s a painter\u2014the little upright piano with a violin laid across the top, and the red brick fireplace in which of course there was no fire, since the day was warm. Somehow, she knew instinctively that it was all in good taste, and she gave a little sigh and felt a tiny tug at her heart.<\/p>\n

When she got back to the verandah Mice was laying out the luncheon from a yellow tray. He was quite a skilled cook; he had split and grilled a small salmon, and there was homemade bread and marmalade, and coffee and a lemon split in two to squeeze over the fish. There was as well, two tall glasses of foaming beer. “Light alcoholic beverage,” explained Mice, “continued proof that I am no wolf. Had I been wolfish I should have provided whiskey and soda.\u201d<\/p>\n

“And I\u2019m no spring lamb,” laughed Rosalie, taking a good draught of beer. “I\u2019m hungry and thirsty as a \u2026”<\/p>\n

“Don’t say it,” said Mice. “Just be hungry and thirsty. It’s a kind of cross between breakfast and luncheon. I haven’t any pie or pudding so I thought marmalade and fresh bread and butter might go well with the coffee. There\u2019s plenty of salmon. I made the bread yesterday and caught the salmon last night. Poor lovers, poor desperate lovers, they’re running upstream now.”<\/p>\n

“It’s just right,\u201d said Rosalie, “it goes with the river and the tall trees and the wild pear.”<\/p>\n

Then for a little while, they had no time for talking, for both were young and hungry, and they did themselves very well.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m full,” said Rosalie at last, “full right up to the neck.”<\/p>\n

“Good,” said Mice “and that\u2019s good honest talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I’ll help with the dishes,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

They carried the dishes to the kitchen and washed up together.<\/p>\n

“Do you wash out your cup-towels and dish cloths?” asked Rosalie. “Never,” said Mice, “that\u2019s women’s work, women must always have their own distinct functions.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed, “Men never can,” and she washed and rinsed them expertly and hung them straight on a little corner rack. They went back to the verandah, sat down and looked at the river.<\/p>\n

“Now” said Rosalie, “let\u2019s hear about the great problem, and why you have to kick a pebble along the highways of the world.”<\/p>\n

“You’ve half heard it already. My old man is bound I\u2019ll be a doctor, mother is on the fence, and I want to be a writer, a poet really.”<\/p>\n

“Oh,” said Rosalie, \u201ca poet, that would be fun. How do they manage to live and how do they learn? I never talked with a poet before.”<\/p>\n

“I’m not a poet yet and I don’t want to be a half-assed poet. I want to be a great poet, like Chaucer or Shakespeare or even Heine or Matthew Arnold.”<\/p>\n

“You’ve hitched your wagon to a star, haven’t you?” said Rosalie. “Yes, I have, though it seems to me I\u2019ve heard that phrase about the wagon and the star before. And if I can’t be a great poet, I’d like to be a great novelist and do something as good as ‘Wilhelm Meister’, or ‘Don Quixote’ or ‘Les Miserables’ or ‘Tess of the D’Ubervilles’ or ‘The Cossacks’ or ‘Tom Jones.’ ”<\/p>\n

“Or perhaps ‘Great Expectations’, suggested Rosalie timidly.<\/p>\n

“Yes, even as good as ‘Great Expectations’. That was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. Why do you mention that one?”<\/p>\n

“I read it out loud last winter,” said Rosalie. “What makes you think you must be a poet?”<\/p>\n

“Because my head is full of jingles, silly jingles I\u2019ll admit, from morning to night. Some days everything turns in rhymes. You see I can begin on you right at this very minute.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosalie, Rosalie<\/em><\/p>\n

Sprung from the sounding sea<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018Sounding sea’ that’s Homer of course.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sweet as the dew-kissed rose<\/em><\/p>\n

Blowing at dawn<\/em>,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cLet’s see now, what rhymes with ‘rose’ and \u2018dawn\u2019? ‘Nose’ won’t do, \u2018clothes\u2019 is better, and ‘fawn’ of course will go with \u2018dawn\u2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leaves for her rustling clothes,<\/em><\/p>\n

Shy as a fawn.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou see it’s all nonsense, because you haven’t come out of the sounding sea or any other kind of a sea, and you’re not clad in leaves but in a perfectly good dress, and you’re not a bit shy. There’s no sense in any of my poetry yet, but my brain goes on jingling and rhyming from morning to night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosalie Rosalie,<\/em><\/p>\n

Now you have come to me,<\/em><\/p>\n

Do not depart<\/em><\/p>\n

Stay beating heart;<\/em><\/p>\n

Watch the blooms quiver<\/em><\/p>\n

Here by the river,<\/em><\/p>\n

Stay till the twilight<\/em><\/p>\n

Softens day’s garish light.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed. “That\u2019s enough for now,\u201d she said, “turn off the hot water tap.”<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t think,” said Mice, “that I can\u2019t tell good poetry from my jingles, listen to this;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;<\/em><\/p>\n

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep<\/em><\/p>\n

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018Tis not too late to seek a newer world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Push off, and sitting well in order smite<\/em><\/p>\n

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds<\/em><\/p>\n

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths<\/em><\/p>\n

Of all the western stars, until I die.<\/em><\/p>\n

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:<\/em><\/p>\n

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<\/em><\/p>\n

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mice halted to note the effect on his audience. “That’s great poetry,” said he.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t know much about poetry,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“Don’t tell me,” said Mice fiercely, “that you’re wedded to ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore,’ ‘Casabianca,’ and ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus.’ ”<\/p>\n

“That’s about my style,” said Rosalie. “You see those are all in the school readers, and the children learn to recite them. But even when we were little we made some improvements;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The boy stood on the burning deck,<\/em><\/p>\n

Eating peanuts by the peck.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mice winced. “I know, I know, I’ve been all through those childish epidemics. They’re like measles. The school books stuff the children’s heads with mediocre and sub-mediocre verses in order to reduce them all to quiet orderly mediocrity. That’s democracy for you. Rhyming and jingling have become a disease with me, and I can find no cure. In fact, I don’t know that I want to be cured. Everything I look at starts me going. I look at that big rock in the river for instance, and here I go;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Giant rock you never quiver,<\/em><\/p>\n

At the onrush of the river,<\/em><\/p>\n

Fast and firm and bold you stand<\/em><\/p>\n

Deeply rooted in the land.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t want to seem too stupid or unsympathetic,\u201d said Rosalie, “but I know enough to know that there\u2019s good, bad and indifferent poetry. \u00a0I read a little bit once and liked it so much, that I committed it to memory. Would you like to hear it? Of course it\u2019s sentimental, but there\u2019s one line in it about the empty room with the door ajar that I like very much. You\u2019ll understand, Mice, that I\u2019m not saying it to you to vamp you, I’d just like to show that I\u2019m a little better than a ‘Casabianca’ girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Shoot,\u201d said Mice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe day is lost without thee,<\/em><\/p>\n

The night hath not a star;<\/em><\/p>\n

Thy going is an empty room,<\/em><\/p>\n

whose door is left ajar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Depart; it is the foot-fall,<\/em><\/p>\n

Of twilight on the hills;<\/em><\/p>\n

Return; and every rood of ground<\/em><\/p>\n

Bursts into daffodils.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I can’t do anything as good as that yet,\u201d admitted Mice.<\/p>\n

“Not yet, not for a long time, I expect,” said Rosalie. “You’d have to be or have been really in love to write that.”<\/p>\n

“I’ve been in love fifty times,” said Mice. \u201cI love nearly every pretty girl I meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

“That’s only kid’s stuff,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“I know,” said Mice, “and the provoking thing is, no one takes me seriously and I get very bad marks in English Lit\u2014I’ve just finished my second year and done English One and English Two\u2014and the instructor laughs at me and pulls my leg and says something silly like this to me, when we\u2019re alone;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to be fit<\/em><\/p>\n

To pass English Lit.<\/em><\/p>\n

One can\u2019t see things right<\/em><\/p>\n

Unless one is tight<\/em><\/p>\n

And then farewell knowledge,<\/em><\/p>\n

One\u2019s thrown out of college<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“I think he\u2019s a very good teacher,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“Why?”<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s trying to make you laugh at yourself, and not take yourself too seriously.”<\/p>\n

“He\u2019s a good scout,” said Mice, “but he makes fun of me.”<\/p>\n

“You an only child?” asked Rosalie, \u201cDid mother tell her darling boy he was going to be a genius?\u201d<\/p>\n

“Words to that effect,” admitted Mice,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mother found joy<\/em><\/p>\n

In her wonderful boy<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Oh Mice,” laughed Rosalie, \u201csnap out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

“It’s not so easy,” said Mice. “The provoking part of the whole thing is that while I just pass in English Literature, I’m a whiz at chemistry and biology, and get high marks in them, when I don\u2019t want to at all. They\u2019re both stinking subjects, but my marks in them confirm the old man\u2019s opinion.”<\/p>\n

“Of course,” said Rosalie, “I’m not a learned person and not very wise yet, for I’m only nineteen and I won’t be twenty till next September.”<\/p>\n

“Birthday date please,” said Mice, pretending to pull out a note book, “so that appropriate present may be shipped.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie gave no heed to his nonsense. “But I had a great course with a wise person last winter and I picked up a good deal. Really, you ought to talk with Johnny Allen and the Little Old Lady.”<\/p>\n

“Where are they?” asked Mice.<\/p>\n

“Miles and miles from here, I\u2019m afraid you’ll have to listen to me at second-hand. I’m not sure that they even exist. They may have been fairies, though a truck\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 driver could never be a fairy could he? Perhaps they were just people made in my mind, but that’s nonsense, for there\u2019s the Ford and that must have come from somewhere. In some ways I’m as loony as you, Mice, for my life seems only a dream and I think that someday I’ll wake up and reach out and touch something real, something like a tree or a stone.”<\/p>\n

“Might be,” said Mice, “maybe you and I are part of a dream right now. Shall I try you with pin?”<\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed that away, and went on; “I can tell you what I’ve learned so far, and maybe it might help you a little. You see, you have to know a great many things about the world and people, and be able to size up their characters, before you can write anything true or worthwhile. The little old lady says it has to agree with an inner truth, that is truer than the apparent outside appearance. People who live by what they call facts are hardly wise at all. You have to have wisdom and understanding to see the truth behind the facts. Oh dear,\u201d said Rosalie, “I’m talking like a wise old woman and I’m younger than you. I learned all this from the little old lady.”<\/p>\n

“You talk exactly like the old man,\u201d said Mice, “only perhaps you’re a shade more profound.”<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Mice, stop teasing me,” said Rosalie, “stop nibbling. I\u2019m not a bit profound yet, but give me time to grow. I\u2019m sure of one thing, you’ve got to work and work hard at whatever you’re doing, no matter how humble the task, before you can understand people. And you mustn’t love money. The old country proverb says; ‘Poverty, Labour and Humility maketh a man.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

“I’m not so strong on humility,” said Mice, “and I think you should add ‘cold’. Snow and ice are good for the human animal.”<\/p>\n

“And struggle,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd \u2018getting around\u2019,\u201d added Mice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know much, about literature,\u201d said Rosalie, \u201cand maybe I\u2019m only a \u2018Casabianca\u2019 and \u2018Wreck of the Hesperus’ girl, but I\u2019ve read ‘The Tempest’ through four times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere,\u201d said Mice, \u201cthat tears it. I\u2019ve been wondering who are; you\u2019re Miranda come to life again.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed, “Little you know,” said she, \u201cbut you can’t put me off with nonsense. You see I liked ‘The Tempest’ so much that I read a life of the author.\u201d<\/p>\n

“A well-known name, a triple A poet,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Never a muff<\/em><\/p>\n

Never a bluff<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThere I go again on the old jingle. What helpful lesson do you draw from him, for your infant class?”<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he was a country boy with none too much education, but he looked at trees and flowers and fields and clouds and brooks and ordinary country people. And afterwards he was chore-boy and horse-holder in London, a ham-actor, a re-maker of old plays, ticket taker at the door, and at last part-owner in three theatres. He learned and laboured and watched people, and then he sat down often tired and discouraged, and made the greatest poetry in the world.”<\/p>\n

“I know there’s nothing in my jingles now,” said Mice, “they’re all soft and punk;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rosalie, Rosalie<\/em><\/p>\n

You are the girl for me<\/em><\/p>\n

but give me<\/em>\u00a0time<\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Here\u2019s something,” said Rosalie, “that I\u2019ve thought out all by myself since I’ve met you. The doctor’s nearly always the best man in a place, and everyone depends on him. He knows everybody’s troubles and keeps all their secrets. He knows the people inside and outside, and he de\u00adlivers all the babies. Now, how could you ever learn about people better than by being a doctor, especially a country doctor who has an easy and welcome entry to homes of rich and poor. Then as you drove along the country roads, you could turn some of the stuff you\u2019d really learned into verses.”<\/p>\n

“And they mustn\u2019t rhyme,” said Mice thoughtfully, \u201cblank verse is the stuff. It must scan and flow but not rhyme, rhyme makes even the greatest poets ridiculous. Look at Byron, he was the greatest rhymester of them all, and look at the amount of tripe he wrote. Rhyme is a disease.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t know anything about Mr. Byron,” said Rosalie, “but the little old lady told me that two English doctors had written great novels. I think their names were Cronin and Maugham.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Almost thou persuadest me,” said Mice, “How come you know so much?”<\/p>\n

“Well,” said Rosalie, with the egotism of youth, \u201cI haven\u2019t had much opportunity, but I’m alert and listen and keep looking round me, and the little old lady says I\u2019m well above the average. I don’t know much yet, but someday I\u2019m going to know quite a lot. I’m going to work hard in the world and look and listen. I guess you\u2019d better try what your old man says, especially if you’ve got a natural flair for chemistry and biology.”<\/p>\n

“If I could only get over rhyming.”<\/p>\n

“You’ll get over it,” said Rosalie. “if you only set your mind on real things.”<\/p>\n

\u201cSure?\u201d asked Mice.<\/p>\n

“Certain,” said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

Mice took off his glasses and cleaned them on a handkerchief that was rather rusty. “Only sun-glasses,” he explained, “There’s nothing wrong with my eyesight.” He looked steadily into Rosalie’s eyes. “Well,” he said when he had completed his polishing, “I’m sold on miracles and medievalism forever. A pretty girl in a Ford car picks me up in broad day\u00adlight on a cement highway, and turns my mind around from north to south in two hours. I’ll believe in anything queer now, guardian angels, smelly dead men coming to life again, I’ll even swallow the story of the purple pyjamas flapping over the Allegheny Mountains.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie smiled the slightly mysterious smile that all women employ when they reflect on the fact that men always remain little boys.<\/p>\n

“Here goes,\u201d said Mice, walking across the verandah to where his coat was hanging on a chair-back, \u201chere goes the old ball-game.\u201d He rummaged in his coat pocket, took out the pebble and flung it in the river, where it made a tiny and momentary splash in the slick of the rapid. “Never kick her again, said he. \u201cI guess I\u2019m on the road to being a saw-bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosalie got up from her chair, “Thanks for a good lunch,\u201d said she, “I guess I\u2019ll have to be on my way.”<\/p>\n

“Don’t you know,” said Mice, \u201cthat on a college essay, ‘I guess’ is marked ‘archaic, obsolete and illiterate?’ \u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just used it a minute ago,\u201d said Rosalie.<\/p>\n

“I, oh I, it doesn’t matter what I say. I am only a weakling that can be twisted around a woman\u2019s finger. But you, now you’ll have to be careful because you have a touch of genius.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie laughed.<\/p>\n

“Where will you sleep tonight, Rosalie?”<\/p>\n

“People always ask that,” said Rosalie. “At least you’re the second man who has asked that, and I’ll give you the same answer; I’ll be sleeping somewhere and wherever I’ll be sleeping, I’ll be sleeping there.”<\/p>\n

“That sounds a bit like, ‘She sells sea shells’, or \u2018Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers\u2019. How will I find you again, Rosalie? You see I’ll have to report progress. You can’t just cast me off after I’ve thrown my pebble away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really don’t know,\u201d said Rosalie, “perhaps we’ve completed the reason for our meeting.”<\/p>\n

“Would you mind kissing me before you go, Rosalie? Would you mind very much?”<\/p>\n

\u201cI’d like to,\u201d said Rosalie feeling that that is what Miranda would have replied. “I like you ever so much, really I like you better than any man I\u2019ve ever talked to.”<\/p>\n

The parting kiss confirmed an idea that for some minutes had been lingering in the back of Mice\u2019s mind. “I think I’d like to marry you someday, Rosalie, in fact I\u2019m quite sure I would. Of course, I haven’t got any sense yet, you can see that.\u201d<\/p>\n

“That’s just it,” said Rosalie, “we couldn’t get married unless we fell in love with one another, and you’re still a chick in a shell or wrapped up somehow like a cocoon, you haven’t burst out yet and really spread your wings.”<\/p>\n

“I’m going to fly soon, though,” said Mice. “I’m going to get out the Anatomy Book this very afternoon.”<\/p>\n

“Get your wings clear, Mice. You know we learn a good deal of Latin in our schools, and I remember one nice phrase, when a boy decided or some\u00adbody decided that he was a man, he put on the toga virilis. Put on the toga virilis, Mice.”<\/p>\n

Mice sprang up, seized a rug, draped it around his shoulders, and assumed the pose of a senator about to deliver an oration in the Roman Forum.<\/p>\n

“It would be fun,” said Rosalie quite frankly, \u201cto marry a man like you because you\u2019re both serious and humourous, but it’ll be a long time before you’re a doctor\u2014years and years\u2014and perhaps I’ll be blown about the roads of the world like a dead leaf. I’ll only be Stella Star of Somewhere and you’ll be learning to fly. Perhaps I’ll learn to fly too.”<\/p>\n

“You can fly now,” said Mice. “You’ve already got your wings clear.”<\/p>\n

Rosalie walked out to her Ford and climbed aboard. She had backed out to the, highway before Mice could pull his wits together.<\/p>\n

“Rosalie,” he cried.<\/p>\n

Rosalie leaned out of the car window and shouted, “Don\u2019t forget to get your hair cut, Mice, it will help,” and she was off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"menu_order":15,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182,"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/127\/revisions\/182"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/127\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=127"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaleditions.library.dal.ca\/rosalie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}