CHAPTER V.

"_What is a b.u.t.terfly? At best She's but a caterpillar, drest._"

--_Benjamin Franklin._

The dreams of our youth are long in coming true. When at last they do arrive we have worked so hard for them, watched them grow from such humble, unpromising beginnings, come through so much commonplace, grinding routine, that we do not recognize them as the reality of the vision that carried us up to the clouds years before.

The more definite Billy's ideal became, the farther it receded, until at last it seemed so impossible that he said little about it. The only man whom he hoped to believe in it was the District Representative. He had helped him in the selection of a flock of sheep to trim down the rough corners of the neglected farm. He had used his influence to get him credit on a bunch of s.h.a.ggy, bony calves to turn into the waste places in the spring, and had been the first person to laugh with him over the cheque in the fall. He had initiated him in the art of mixing cement, with the result that the stables, the cellar and the porch around the house were made dry and solid. He had surveyed for drains through a field that had never grown much but bulrushes, and Billy had another two acres of black loam added to his tillable area. Oh, he was an all-round man, that Representative, with the tentacles of his office reaching out to a thousand sources for help, and placing it to the best of his knowledge wherever anyone in his territory wanted it.

It was the Representative who revealed to Billy at last that the thing he needed before he would ever be satisfied with anything else was more education. Billy knew that he wanted an education, but he also wanted the fields, the steady quieting toil of seed time and harvest, the care of the cattle, the directing of life and growth with all their mysteries and miracles, and their unfailing obediences to natural laws. He was a born farmer, but he would never be content to farm blindly, mechanically, as an animal follows prey, for an existence. The best solution for his case seemed to be the agricultural college.

A college year leaves considerable free time in the twelve months, and Billy managed somehow to keep the tillable acres of the farm under crop and to harvest what he planted. The first year initiated him into a dozen phases of learning that he had never heard of before. In the second year, partly by accident, partly through the insight of a few semi-professionals, it was discovered that he had some unusual athletic possibilities, and Billy loosened up from his grind sufficiently to learn the hard, clean strain of rugby and hockey, and to warm up daily in the gymnasium. It opened up a new world for him. In his whole life he had never before learned to play, and as it put a new spring in his muscles, a new physical joy of living in his existence, it began to clear away the cloud that had sobered and darkened his outlook. It was in his third year, at the term's closing dance before Christmas, that he had another awakening.

Up to this time, every attempt of his cla.s.smates to draw him across the girls' campus had failed. The magic force had come to him on the rink that afternoon. A gay little figure in a white wool skating outfit, with a brave dash of crimson here and there, chasing a hockey puck down the ice, skated very close to him, lost the puck around his skates somehow, and as he returned it, she turned in his direction for a moment the most naive, childish gaze from a pair of wonderful blue eyes. At night, to the amazement of his friends, he went to the dance. The girl might be as unattainable as a royal princess--he was quite sure she was; yet, as millions of men had done before him, he took the trail of the impossible with a hope that really promised nothing.

She made the first picture he saw when he went in, standing like a rare bit of Italian china on a s.p.a.ce of polished floor, the magnet of a train of sleekly-groomed, linen-bosomed young men. Absently Billy was having a programme thrust upon him. Dazedly the admonition was being borne in on him that he would be expected to do his duty to the end, and distribute himself around well. Already he was entangled, introduced to a girl wearing a committee badge, and his escort deserted him.

The committee girl didn't disturb his equilibrium at all. It wasn't necessary to pay much attention to her; she didn't seem to expect it.

She was there for a purpose, to put people at ease, the rare individuals of the twentieth century youth who needed this ministration--and to shuffle them. She handled Billy's case by rea.s.suring him from the frankest and friendliest eyes he had ever looked into, then following the direction of his gaze, she led him directly to the regal little figure with its buzzing circle of attendants.

Miss Evison's greeting was not so alluring as her wide baby stare in the afternoon. She turned her meaningless, drawing-room gaze toward him with the indifference due one of her innumerable courtiers, and even glanced with immovable correctness at his hand extended half way across the distance between them. Billy brought the hand back painfully. He had known better, of course, but it seemed such a humanly natural thing to do. Come to think of it, he had shaken hands with the committee girl too, but she must have met him half way, or something, because he had never thought of it until now. There was something decidedly chilling, too, in Miss Evison's clear, blase, very "nice girl," how-do-you-_do_, and not being a connoisseur in the ways of women, he took it for a dismissal and turned to go.

Miss Evison had not antic.i.p.ated this danger. He was walking right away from her, with his rare six feet of athlete, his good looks, and his whole unique farmerish appearance that would make such a striking background for the evening.

She had to think quickly and she was not accustomed to the process.

"I--I think I noticed you at the rink this afternoon?" she threw out desperately.

It was very bad, of course. She should never have admitted that she ever noticed anyone anywhere. It was a decided compromise from the standards she upheld so carefully, and the high tint of excitement in her cheeks deepened and burned at the mistake. Billy sincerely looked his grat.i.tude for the recognition. It was so much more than he had expected from this queenly little personage, with the whole of her narrow little circ.u.mscribed world at her feet. He found something very sweet and womanly in the deepening color, in the maidenly lifting and lowering of her eyes--very wonderful eyes they seemed, large and long-lashed, with the beautiful, deep blue and little brown specks that Nature had given them, and the thousand little tricks, flashes and mists and a half-closed dreaminess for which Nature was not responsible at all. They could never be called soft in their expression, but they could be very mysterious. Yet the girl was only twenty.

Billy was not a novice at dancing. He had spent many a night gliding over the candle-waxed floor in the town hall at home. He would never take Jean to these affairs; he hated their atmosphere himself, but he was very human in his fondness for the poetry of motion, and there was very little poetry of anything else in his life. From the time he entered the ball-room, it was his habit to dance constantly until he decided to stop--then he went home. Sometimes, for reasons of his own, he left earlier, but never because he was tired of the dance itself. Here the tone was different.

Unconsciously he attracted some attention by dancing three times in succession with the popular Miss Evison. She had demurred playfully over the second, and seriously over the third, but when Billy apologized for his selfishness, she gave it to him very sweetly. She even managed, though he would never have thought of suggesting it, to give him the second half of an extra, because it does give a certain prestige to a girl's social standing to have to cut into her dances--and Billy made such a noticeable figure coming across to claim this mere fragment of her evening, and covering her with confusion, in her effort to be nice to everybody.

In the intervals when she was away from him, Billy stood in the shadows and watched her with a sober tenderness, something akin to worship. She was as remote as the stars, he knew, yet a moment before he had felt her soft, clingy scarf blowing against his face. She was so sort of set apart, so uncertain, so alluringly feminine, from the transparent drape about her white shoulders, and the American Beauties trembling against her with every breath, to her frail, little high-heeled shoes, and he thought happily that she would always need a man to take care of her, to work for her, and to give her these things. Then he came back to earth heavily. He thought of the bleak little, weather-worn house on the Swamp Farm, with the fire now covered up for the night in the chilly kitchen, and the oil lamp turned low. To-morrow night he would be back, it would be Christmas Eve, and until the last few hours the thought of it exalted him. Now it hovered like the proverbial little cloud darkening his skies.

He began to make his way out of the gymnasium with its confusion of crashing music, delicate tinted dresses, gay shaded lights and gliding figures trailing their white shadows after them along the polished floor. Then it occurred to him that he might see Miss Evison again on the pretext of saying good-night.

Miss Evison wasn't accustomed to this ceremony from the rank and file of the college body. She was rather surprised, but she was too much occupied to be much interested. The diversion was a senior student who was considered exceedingly "interesting" that term, and who had been inattentive enough the last while to set a special premium on his society.

"Oh, going? I'm sorry!" she flipped off in the clear, smooth _staccato_ that always came when she had no point in particular.

She didn't offer him her hand, of course not--and Billy went out vaguely unhappy.

The train for home would leave in the afternoon. There were many things Billy could have done with the morning, but he paced moodily among the term's wreckage in his room. About ten o'clock a crowd of girls pa.s.sed the window and a crimson scarf flying from a white skating outfit brought him to, suddenly. The next minute he was unstrapping his trunk and groping for his skates.

Miss Evison in her skating rigs seemed far more of a flesh and blood creation than when she was made up for the evening. She was less formal, too, and Billy felt more sure of himself. They had made one circle of the rink when a new crowd of students came in. Billy didn't know them; they belonged to a clique by themselves. They could steer a toboggan down a hill, or balance a tea-cup with the dexterity of long practice. Why they had chosen agriculture as a profession was a mystery, but from the standpoint of tearooms, flowers and theatres, they were very select young men. As she pa.s.sed them with her new attendant, Miss Evison observed that their attention was casual and it set her thinking. She realized that perhaps she had been overdoing things. It was one thing to let the attentions of a very good-looking and unknown young man create a sensation at a dance, and quite another matter to keep up the acquaintance.

After rapid consideration, she cut right into Billy's enthusiastic account of the carnival after the last hockey match with a sister college. She didn't interrupt him rudely, of course. If you're just socially cultivated enough you can do anything without being rude.

"I had almost forgotten," she said, "this is the last skate of the year. A lot of the people I know are here, and I don't want to be--exclusive."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I should have thought, but it seemed such a little time."

It had been a little time, scarcely five minutes, and it occurred to her that possibly he had more intuition than she suspected. It was not at all what she desired, that this boy from the country, whom she had chosen to be nice to, should question anything she wanted to do, whether it was right or not.

"Perhaps the men here are too appreciative of trifles," she remarked stiffly. "It may be different in the country."

Billy took her back silently. Things _were_ very different in the country; if she only knew how different, he surmised, she would despise him even more. Turning dazedly to go off the ice he ran right into the committee girl.

It was fortunate that the speed of his arms measured up pretty well with the force of his body, otherwise the girl might have had a bad fall. As it was, there was a blue mark on her shoulder that she kept hidden for some days. The fear that it might be there troubled Billy not a little. He dropped his hand and stood there terrified.

"Thank you," she said, "I was just about gone," and then she laughed, just naturally laughed at his confusion, laughed with a frank, rea.s.suring kindness in her friendly eyes, and just as unconcernedly as he had met her the night before, Billy found himself skating down the ice with her. He found himself talking to her without restraint and quite on a level. Then she introduced him to a crowd of the finest girls he had ever known. Altogether, he was having a very good time. He had almost forgotten the agony it gave him to see Miss Evison sweep past, listening with rapt attention, evidently, to the social oratory of the "interesting" man, when a thin little voice beside him almost whispered--

"Was I terribly horrid?"

If she had been alluring before in her many variable little moods, she was irresistible when she put all that childish appeal to be forgiven into her misty eyes and pouting mouth. Billy looked and wondered. He couldn't see that she had done much to require forgiveness, but it made him very happy to have her come back; so he laughed into her troubled eyes as one does to a penitent child, and answered:--

"I think you were. How far will you come now to make up for it?"

Considering his inexperience, he was playing up to her lead very well.

She would go any distance. She would even skate with him a little while after the others had all gone--if he had time before his train left. She told him in broken, embarra.s.sed little phrases, that she was impulsive, that she guessed she was spoiled, but she was always sorry after she had been rude; she would do anything to make up, she wanted always to be kind, because she just couldn't stand it not to have people love her.

And Billy replied gallantly that he didn't see how anyone could help it.

They had the ice to themselves now, and as they swept down the clear, wide stretch they were unutterably happy. At least Billy was. He didn't know that the sudden change in her att.i.tude was due to the fact that he had established his favor with the best girls of the college that morning. If he had known he might have appreciated the kindness of the committee girl even more.

Miss Evison explained her high spirits on the ground that she was going home that night. Mother and Dad had both written that they were dying to see her--that was the worst of being an only child. She had an inkling that Dad was getting her a little runabout for Christmas, sort of a bribe to keep her from wanting to go back to the city next year. Oh, yes, they had a farm--just a hobby, of course. Oh, no, they didn't live on it. They had a house in the nearest town; there were several congenial families living there, and it was near enough to the city to go in to a show when there was anything really good. But, oh, she loved the country--just loved it.

And what did she think of the college? She loved it, too. She would be sorry when her year was up. She had met some of the _dearest_ girls, and she had had a perfectly _lovely_ time. She hadn't wanted to come in the first place, but Dad had just insisted; he said she was going far too fast at home--it really was hard to get an evening in, because there were some _very_ nice people in the town, for the size of it, and she was _so_ fond of company and excitement. She could just live on it. She told him, with the naivete of a child, of her many amusing culinary disasters, after she had begun to study household science; how the last time she was at home she had _insisted_ on getting tea on the maid's afternoon off; how the souffle had fallen flat and she had forgotten to put the cream of tartar in the biscuits.

When she suddenly remembered that she had an engagement in the afternoon, Billy took off her skates something after the manner of a slave kneeling at the feet of the Queen of Sheba.

"Just to think," she chattered, "our last skate this year, and I've talked all about myself. The next time you must tell me all about _your_ affairs, and your holidays, and everything."

Billy smiled and looked away. He realized painfully how difficult it would be to tell this beautiful, irresponsible, "delicately-reared"

girl anything about himself or his holidays or anything.

When he opened the Hall door for her she drew from her m.u.f.f her smooth, supple little hand without even its glove, held it out to him warmly, and left him thrilling from the contact. She rushed upstairs glowing; she had had a glorious time and there were a thousand more glorious times ahead of her--not with Billy--oh, dear no. She confided to a circle of her dearest girl friends that he was "all right in an agricultural setting," he was "awfully handsome in his lumbering yeoman style," he was "splendid to have looking at you with his sober eyes, as though you were a Madonna, or an actress, or something," but Billy "transplanted to a circle of the cla.s.s of people a girl would want to live with--heavens!"

And Billy, rushing for his train, staring out at the flying white fields, or figuring on the back of the latest market report of beef cattle, was possessed of one thought. He must make his plans work out; he must be ready to turn things into money fast; he must be successful in some way or other; and he wasn't thinking of the folks at home this time. He didn't notice the old familiar landmarks until the train stopped at the home station.

Jean was there to meet him. She had her arms around his neck almost before he reached the platform, and would not let him go till he had fairly crushed the breath out of her.

"And how's everything?" he asked.

"Just fine--only Mother!"