 A Real New England Girl by Anna I. Parsons 1. The Shower 2. Oxford County 3. The Stranger and the Girl 4. The Youth and the Girl 5. Pansy and Richard Go Trading 6. The Marvelous Storyteller 7. The Dinner 8. The The Minister Comes for Tea 9. Pansy's Father 10. Pansy and Her Mother 11. Poland Springs 12. The Birthday Cake 13. Ned Patterson Comes for a Visit 14. The Blue Berrying Party 15. The Beginning of Wisdom 16. The Tempted and the Penitent 17. The Concert 18. Stanley's Ride 19. The Bench by the Wayside 20. The Banker and the Widow 21. The Bag of Nuts 22. How They Kept Thanksgiving at Little Farm 23. Hardly a Merry Christimas 24. A Call Down and a Caller 25. The Pride of Mrs. Bradford 26. A Happy New Year 27. Amusement and Winter Sport 28. Kim 29. Richard, the Lion Hearted 30. A Tour of the White Mountains 31. Talking Over the Trip with Henry Bright 32. Thoughts That Lie Too Deep for Words 33. Economics 34. His Toast 35. The Busy Haunts of Man 36. Christmas in New York 37. The Last Night of Their Visit 38. The Language Understood by All 39. Sugaring Off 40. Correspondence 41. Commencement 42. Conclusion Afterward     |
Conclusion "Thy fatal shaft unerring move, I bow before thine altar, Love!" - Smollett More than two weeks had elapsed since Commencement, and on this particular afternoon Pansy sat under the willow tree doing some hard thinking. Already she had made up her mind that she would teach for a year, and with the slender means thus earned, try to spend a year at college. She had just passed her seventeenth birthday, and even with a year's delay, she would only be of the average age at which young ladies matriculate at the higher institutions of learning. Her thirst for knowledge was wholly unquenched, and without a deeper draught, she felt should would never be happy in any sphere in life. The Winthrops had come back to their summer home, and Mrs. Hewlett and Alice were staying with them for a short time before going to the mountains, and Ned and Toots Patterson were making a visit before joining their parents at Poland Springs. She had seen Stanley only a few times at short intervals, but doubtless this was due to the domineering Alice who would have made things unpleasant had he lingered long in his old time haunts, and possibly there would have been another invasion of the Bradford home, and she well knew Stanley would take every precaution to avoid this on her mother's account. Ned had not hesitated to come searching for her day after day, and would lie lazily under the trees and exploit the charms at his command, until the day before she had said to him in the kindliest tone, but with a little stiffening of the lips, "Don't come any more, Ned, without Stanley." All the rollicking fun had died out of his dark eyes and the animation had disappeared from his face. Long and moodily he sat on the grass, then came and took the flowers she was wearing from off her dress, and said simply, "I'm going, Pansy, good bye." Somehow this had seemed like the first nail driven into her coffin, she felt so miserable and so wicked, and she had wondered what it would be like to retire to a convent as Queen Guinevere had done in contrition for her sins. "But I couldn't, I couldn't!" she wailed. "I'd just have to see Richard; I'd just have to see -- those I like the best. I'm a miserable sinner who ought to be punished for making other people unhappy, but I don't know how to go about it -- I don't know how it ever happened." Her mother had said at the supper table, "Pansy is so pale she needs a good herb drink. I'll have to steep some wormwood -- that's the best for a tonic." "Wormwood, wormwood!" she had repeated mentally, going out into the kitchen and pinching her cheeks, "Haven't I had enough to nearly drown me already?" So this afternoon she sat alone under the willow tree, and the varied scenes of two happy summers flashed before her eyes. Compared to them, this present summer seemed out of tune, with no long rambles with Stanley through the fields, no pleasant chats in the afternoon under the trees, no sets of tennis in the twilight, no musical evenings, and the necessity of soon having to leave home to earn the much needed dollars staring her in the face. "O me, O my, girls do have it pretty stiff! I wonder so many of them live to wear false hair," sighed Pansy, stretching out flat on the grass with her head resting on her arms. In the midst of her retrospection, Ruth called to her from the parlor window, "Mother wants to see you, Pansy." Mechanically she arose and went into the house. Her mother and Ruth, each seated in rocking chairs in front of the windows of the living room, were busily engaged with sewing. On the table in front of her mother lay a letter. "I've just heard from Uncle Herbert, Pansy. Sit down, I want to read the letter to you." Taking a chair a short distance from her mother, wonderingly Pansy listened. Kansas City, Kans., July 7, 191__ Dear Sister Ruth: I am enclosing check as usual, but you will note that it is for $50.00 instead of $20.00, and hereafter I shall send you this amount regularly as the income from my business now warrants my doing so, and I want to put you in possession of sufficient funds to enable you to educate your two younger children as their ability deserves, and as their father would have done had he lived. Wife and I expect to go east early in August, and will spend some time with you, and we can then arrange about sending Richard to Agricultural College. Brother will writes that Ruth will soon change her name for that of one of the old Oxford County families, and that Pansy has graduated from school with high honors, all of which is very gratifying news to me. Your affectionate brother, Herbert Alden. "Now Pansy, you can go to college in September instead of waiting and teaching for a year." Mrs. Bradford and Ruth both looked smilingly at Pansy, but she only sat in her chair as one dazed. It was some minutes before she arose, and kneeling before her mother and leaning against her lap, asked with childish simplicity, "Am I going to college, mother?" "Yes, Pansy, you are going to college." "Am I really going to college, mother?" "Yes, Pansy, you are really going to college." "Honest, truly, certain mother, am I going to college?" This time her mother laughed outright. "Honest, truly, certain, Pansy, if Divine Providence does not will otherwise, you are going to college." Then Pansy put her head against her mother's knees and cried. It had been such a heavy burden -- this lack of means to gratify her ambition, and it had all been lifted in the twinkling of an eye. Even stout hearts find relief in tears when strong emotions strive for mastery within. After a time, Pansy arose and went up stairs. When she appeared again, her eyes were still red from weeping, but she had put on a freshly laundered white dress and her pansy brooch, and in her hand she carried a small green parasol. Going into the garden, she was busy for sometime gathering flowers and tying them into a bouquet. Then, with only the parasol for protection, she walked over the avenue of maples. "Pansy's going to tell Mr. Winthrop the news," said Ruth. "She has sweet geranium leaves and marigolds in her hand, and he likes them, because his mother used to raise them in her garden." As Pansy neared the Winthrop house, she could catch glimpses of Stanley, Ned, Alice and Julia playing tennis on the court northeast of the house, and Toots Patterson lay on the ground watching them with Kim sleeping in the sunlight not far away. Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop and Mrs. Hewett sat in a corner of the piazza at the front of the house, the ladies with their embroidery, and Mr. Winthrop with a book. Pansy walked quickly over to them, and after the usual polite salutations, handed Mr. Winthrop the letter from her uncle. "I'm going to college this September! Just read that while I put these flowers in water!" When Pansy came back, Mr. Winthrop's face expressed extreme pleasure. "That's the best news I've heard in many a day," he said. "Whatever are you going to do with all the knowledge you will have when you have studied four years more?" asked Mrs. Winthrop. "It is easier to tell you what I'd like to do with it," she said, thoughtfully. "I'd like to get married and have four sons, and I'd bring them all up to be good farmers." The laughter that followed was almost schoolgirl-like in its merriment. "What are you gong to name all those sons?" asked Mrs. Hewlett, when the mirth had subsided. Carefully Pansy enumerated the names on her small fingers, "One is going to be Richard, one is going to be Stanton, one is going to be Jim Blaine, and one is going to be Jasper." "Richard, Stanton, Jim, and Jasper ought to make good sons of toil!" remarked Mr. Winthrop. "I must go," said Pansy rising, but Mrs. Winthrop placed a detaining arm around her. "Stay with us, Pansy, and after a while the young people will be through with their game, and will want to see you." "I'd like to stay, Mrs. Winthrop, but I've got to go back home, so as to be there when Richard comes, but after your company goes away, I'll come down any afternoon you want me to, and you can let me know by Kim the time." Soon after Pansy's departure, Mrs. Hewlett, finding she was out of embroidery silk, went into the house, and Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop were left alone. "Mamma," said Mr. Winthrop, addressing his wife, "is your heart still very much set on having Alice for a daughter-in-law?" "My heart is still very much set on Stanley's happiness, but I realize it doesn't depend in the least upon Alice," she answered with a smile. "Suppose I call Stanley and you tell him the news?" "Do." Toots Patterson was very glad to take Stanley's place in the game and release him to talk with his parents. Pansy, walking slowly up the avenue of maples, had nearly reached the half-way tree, when a slight crackling sound arrested her attention, and she turned in time to see Stanley vault lightly over the stone wall. He came and took her by the hand. "Pansy," he said, "I'm more pleased than I can express that you are going to college, and you were going home without telling me about it." "You were so very much engaged -- you are always so much engaged this summer, I have hardly seen you." "Well, you are going to see me now as much and as long as you like, so come over to our bench, for I have many things to say to you." He took the parasol from her and twirled it about in his hands, as he seated himself a short distance away on the bench where he could watch her. "Do you believe in reciprocity?" he asked, somewhat abruptly. "In reciprocity!" she repeated in surprise. "Yes, in mutual taking and giving?" You have my pansy blossom, now I want one, too, if your kind little heart can consider such a sacrifice." Neither Pansy nor Stanley appeared at their respective supper tables that night. Mrs. Winthrop said, "Stanley must have stayed for supper at the Bradford's." Mrs. Bradford said, "Pansy must have stayed for supper at the Winthrop's." Richard went up stairs, changed his clothes, put on a stiff straw hat, and saying that he was going to the Winthrop's to walk back with Pansy, started over the avenue of maples. As he neared the half-way tree, he saw the green parasol with its head bowed toward the highway, and beneath it some of Pansy's white dress, and some of Stanley's gray athletic suit. Not until he stood before them were they aware of his presence. Then the green parasol floated off into the grassy ditch, Stanley stood up and held out his hand, "Richard, hereafter you are the only man who can come between us." Richard took the proffered hand and shook it warmly, but when he looked at Pansy, the tears came into his eyes, for after all, she was the only companion he had ever known or ever needed. FINIS Click Here for The Afterword |