Entry No. 31 in Our Prize Story Competition
(Miss Erda Hammill and Miss Betty Buhannon in peignoirs and slippers are discovered toasting marshmallows over the open fire in the pink and white bedroom of the latter young woman. The hands of the clock on the mantel above their heads are about to meet at the top of the face. There is no light but that from the fire. Erda speaks.)
Y brother Corwin says it's an obsession—have you ever noticed how boys always sprout a crop of big words with their mustaches? It's like this: when your brain stops working for a moment, and your head is perfectly empty, before it starts off on a new track something rolls around in it like a pea on a hot shovel. I knew a girl at college who at such times always found herself muttering "Fourteen hundred and twenty-nine," and there was another who said "Ichthyosorcerous" over and over. She didn't know what it meant, and neither do I.
My obsession isn't so silly as that; it's Mother Goose rimes. And really, if you stop to think, there's a lot in Mother Goose. There seems to be a rime to fit every mood. When you're all trembly and jumpy, what could be better than, "Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle"? And when you're in the dumps doesn't "Three wise men of Gotham went to sea in a bowl" just express it? And when you're filled with that big, solemn feeling of I don't know what, you naturally say slowly, "Fee, fi, fo, fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman!"
One generally keeps an obsession to oneself, it sounds so silly. But mine helped me out of an awful scrape this summer. Wait till you hear!
WAS almost engaged to Thomas Bunting, you know. No, I didn't care about him especially; but I had my plan of life all doped out, as Corwin says, and had decided not to care for anybody really. You see they all say I'm pretty, and seem to like me,—I don't think so myself; but I suppose I have my moments,—so I was just going to be sweet to everybody alike, and not be bothered myself with any topsyturvy feelings.
It's true Thomas is so soft you could poke your finger through him; but he was a willing slave. He's tall and loose jointed, and he falls over everything or drops it, and the worst thing about him is, no one ever thinks of calling him Tom. He's a Thomas through and through. But I thought he would do as well as anybody.
I've changed my mind. Men are like marshmallows,—aren't they, Dear?—either like they come out of the box, floury, tasteless, and sticky; or else like this one, properly toasted, a little bitter and crackly on the outside and—oh! sweet underneath.
The Buntings asked me to go for a cruise down Chesapeake Bay in their motor yacht. Of course I knew what this meant. This was to clinch matters. They would have invited the lady in the moon if their darling had cried for her. But I was quite willing to let it happen. I had some lovely yachting clothes.
"It's going to be a picnic, my dear," Mrs. Bunting said to me. "We won't take any servants. I shall do the cooking, Thomas will steer, and we're taking a young man from Mr. Bunting's office who knows all about machinery. He's a gentleman and will be quite one of us," she thought it necessary to add.
Mrs. Bunting, I should tell you, is a dear little old fashioned rolypoly, with her front hair waved and laid down smooth on each side of her forehead. She always has a surprised and scandalized look. Her husband has been poking fun at her for twenty-five years, and she still takes him seriously. She's a little balmy on the subject of her Thomas.
It was great fun getting ready, though Thomas scarcely ever left my side, and when he did his mother would be whispering his praises in my ear, or his father would drop perfectly transparent hints of what he meant to do for Thomas later on. The Lorelei was a love of a boat, and I was to have the cunningest little stateroom!
Everything went well until just before the start from Sparrows Point, when I met the young engineer, and he had a perfectly horrible effect on me. His name was French Straiker. He was the dark, thin kind that looks so well in rough outing clothes. He had a kind of careless, scornful air. I had on my prettiest embroidered dress and my lingerie hat—and he scarcely looked at me! I spent ten minutes there on deck doing my prettiest to old Mr. Bunting, and that French Straiker went on coiling his old ropes the whole time, and never looked around once! I felt like sticking out my tongue at him! He was very good looking, Dearest. He had that hard look that softens only for one girl, you know, and every girl that sees it wants to be it.