A Name for Herself Read online

  Comet hunting is the pet hobby of astronomers. It must be a decidedly exciting sport, with the tail of a comet instead of a fox as a trophy of the chase. It has the charm of uncertainty, too, because, as there is no known way of branding comets,84 an astronomer who has run a comet to earth can’t be sure that it hasn’t been already discovered by somebody else. In this connection let me tell you a little smile I read ’tother day.

  Once upon a time there was a famous scientist – I daresay he is yet, but it sounds better that way – more fairy-tale-ish, you know – who was a noted comet-hunter, but he had an ambitious rival. Twice had this rival patiently hunted down a comet, only to find that the famous man had been there before him. The third time he thought he was sure of his prize, and gave out to the world that he had really and truly discovered a comet.

  “I think,” wired the famous man to him, “you will find that it is my comet of six years ago that has returned.”

  The disgusted rival, in a fearful passion, wired back:

  “Why don’t you keep your old comets chained up?”

  Some time ago, in this department, I gave my opinion on the subject of hygienic rules as suggested by Polly’s perplexity over them.85 I think one thing I told her was that she would probably pick up an article next day which would contradict every word that she had just read. Since then, for my own amusement, I’ve been collecting a few of these contradictory statements from various journals, and here they are, suitably coupled together:

  “Eat only a light breakfast” and “Breakfast should be the best meal of the day.”

  “Always take a good walk before breakfast,” and “Never attempt to do anything on an empty stomach.”

  “Take a cold bath the first thing in the morning,” and “The shock to the system in suddenly encountering cold or heat is very injurious.”

  “Do not get in the habit of sleeping during the day,” and “Always take a nap in the afternoon.”

  “Eat only at meal times,” and “Always eat whenever you feel hungry.”

  “Eat no meat,” and “If you would be strong eat plenty of meat.”

  “Never eat before going to bed,” and “Always take a light lunch before retiring.”

  “Accustom yourself to scanty indulgence in fluids,” and “Drink all the water you can.”

  “Make a practice of rising early,” and “Sleep until thoroughly rested no matter how late it is.”

  There you are! Just suppose anybody tried to live up to those rules! What would be her fate?

  Polly broke her hand-mirror the other day and quarrelled with Jack the same evening – the latter being, to her mind, the logical consequence of the former. “No luck for seven years,” says Polly.

  It worries me to think how superstitious Polly is. The idea of anybody in this enlightened age believing that bad luck is attendant on breaking mirrors. Of course, I wouldn’t sit down with thirteen at a table for anything you could give me – but that is an entirely different thing!

  We discussed the subject around the table last night, and everybody laughed at Polly. Aunt Janet said that if Polly had passed under a ladder she might make moan, but that it was all nonsense about breaking mirrors. Theodosia said of course it was; the only thing that really brought bad luck was seeing the new moon over your left shoulder. She said she had seen the last moon that way, and she’d never had a bit of luck since.

  “My new dress doesn’t fit, and my new hat doesn’t become me, and Jim admires that horrid girl who is visiting the B’s,” she said dolefully.

  Ted howled at us and said we were all idiots “except Cynthia.” You see, I hadn’t said a word about my little odd-number belief. It is wonderful what a reputation for wisdom you can gain if you only keep mum!

  But I happen to know that Ted carries a four-leaf clover about in his pocket-book.

  Speaking of the new moon reminds me that I saw it over the right shoulder, and a very pretty picture into the bargain, when I was going down Pleasant street the other evening. There was the moon, right over the dark head of the lion on the monument,86 like a golden fairy boat piloted by one great white star, afloat in a sea of silvery blue sky, against which the graceful boughs of the leafless trees in the old cemetery came out like a delicate etching.

  But, really, Polly has been unlucky of late. The other night, at the M—’s dance, she forgot and sat down on her new tulle sash, and of course it was done for.

  Those tulle sashes are lovely things, however, and I advise you to get one if you can remember always to pull it aside before you sit down. Polly’s is – or was – of tulle, brought down to a point in front, where it is held by a rhinestone slide. In the back it is gathered into a huge rosette, with long ends reaching to the bottom of the skirt. These ends are knotted twice, and in each knot is a tiny rhinestone slide. In the centre of the rosette there is also a rhinestone buckle!

  But remember – don’t – sit – down – on – it.

  Here is the answer to that conundrum I propounded last week: “What verse in Genesis proves that the people in those days did sums on the ground?” The first verse of the sixth chapter, where it says, “Men began to multiply on the face of the earth.”

  [A Walk in the Park]

  Saturday, 23 November 1901

  LAST SUNDAY AFTERNOON I WENT FOR A WALK IN THE Park.87 I took Theodosia with me, because Theodosia has been known to keep silence for as much as ten minutes at a time. Polly wanted to go, too, but I sternly said “No!” I wanted to think, and I knew that would be impossible if Polly went along. Likely as not, just as I would be getting into a rapture over the aroma of the pines or enthusing over a glimpse of the Arm88 framed in feathery boughs, Polly would say,

  “Cynthia, what color do you think I would better select for my new coat – automobile red or bottle green?”

  And all my soul-inspiring visions would come down with a crash then and there.

  So Theodosia and I went alone.

  I suppose the Park is not so beautiful in November as in June. But the woods have charms of their own in every season. Just now they look as if they had hooded themselves in russet and brown, and fallen asleep to dream of future springs. All the ferns and countless little green wood things that carpeted the aisles of the pine-lands have turned sere and brown or vanished altogether. But the pines are still there, green and beautiful and unchanging, with gauzy veils of vapor clinging to their brows, and ripely purple shadows lurking beneath them.

  Theodosia and I wandered around dreamily and enjoyed ourselves, drinking in deep breaths of the crisp, resinous autumn air. When we were tired we went and sat down by the shore. In the clump of spruce behind us several sparrows were making a great commotion – chattering and scolding and screaming. I suspect they were holding a Sparrows’ Rights Convention or something of that sort. Before us was the silver-gray harbor and on our left the city, scarfed in its mists. Theodosia softly quoted Kipling’s lines about “the warden of the honor of the North,”89 as we watched the sun, breaking suddenly from a dark, low-hung cloud behind us, send a flood of splendor over the tossing waters and the purpling hills beyond.

  And we both felt that our afternoon had not been wasted, and told each other so. It’s good to creep away once in a while to talk with the trees and find out what rare companions they can be.

  Thanksgiving comes next week, so if I want to do any moralizing about it now is my chance. Yesterday Polly said in a dismal voice that she really didn’t know what she had to be thankful for. But she has lots of things, and so we all have, if we would only count them up. The trouble is, we would rather count up our troubles and groan and growl about them. That is human nature!

  Thanksgiving ought to be celebrated royally, not only in the letter, but in the spirit. At least, as some historic character has remarked, we can all be thankful “that things ain’t no wuss.”90

  Thanksgiving can, of course, be well and truly celebrated everywhere, but I think the Thanksgiving par excellence is one that is held in an old ho
mestead. Thanksgiving in a new or rented house can’t have the same flavor as it has in a home where the very walls are permeated with the joys and sorrows of three or four generations. When the grown-up children come home to spend the day under the old roof, with perhaps a vacant chair to remind them of one who has gone to “a far country”91 – too far to even turn his footsteps back for that reunion – Thanksgiving is or ought to be all that its name implies.

  Aunt Janet is making mince meat for Thanksgiving up at our house already. Mince meat needs to be mellowed by age, you know. What would Thanksgiving be without mince pie? This is not a conundrum, but a serious, sober question. Well, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving, that’s all. When folks leave mince pie out of the day it will be time for the Government to interfere.

  Polly and Theodosia and I took in the display of art needlework yesterday, and, of course, we enjoyed ourselves hugely. We would have been less than human – feminine human – if we hadn’t. If there be one thing more than another over which the average woman is inclined to gloat it is fancy work. There is a perennial charm in it. Since the dawn of history, from the tent-dwellers down, the needle has played an important part in the decoration of palace and cottage. The ancient tapestries, as well as the carefully preserved samplers our great-grandmothers worked, bear testimony to that.

  Oh, what pretty things can be made by skilful fingers – things so dainty that their beauty would be “their own excuse for being” even if they were of no use at all.92

  Some of the cushions we saw yesterday were lovely – “perfectly sweet,” as Polly says. Three of them, representing flowers, were especially beautiful. Theodosia liked the red one; Polly, being sentimental, liked the pink one, while I coveted the yellow one with the big purple pansy in the centre.

  To be sure, when we went home and told Ted about them he sniffed in his aggravating masculine way, and said that, for his part, he wanted a cushion that you needn’t be scared of – one that you could sit down on or double up under your head, or shy at the other fellow, or generally jam about to your heart’s content. He said his life of late years had been a burden to him because of the elaborate cushions in the drawing-rooms and cosy corners of his lady friends.

  “It takes all the zest out of existence,” said Ted, “to feel that your hostess is watching out of the corner of her eye to see that you don’t lean up against her favorite cushion. As for me, give me plain, comfortable, every-day cushions or give me death.”93

  That’s the way the men talk, you know. Isn’t it funny?

  Most young ladies, at one period in their lives, seemed possessed by a desire to alter and improve upon the original spelling of their names. Ethel becomes Ethyl – suggestive of chemistry, isn’t it?94 – Lilian blossoms out as Lylian, and Mabel evolves into Maebelle. I had a very virulent attack of it myself once, and while it lasted I wrote myself down as Synthea.95 But it’s all over now, and – like measles – you never take it twice. I was left to recover from it gradually, not being blessed with a brother like the girl’s in the following story, who might have cured me quickly by a similar heroic method.

  A lad received a letter from his sister, Jessie, who was at a fashionable boarding school. It was signed “Jessica.” He replied:

  “Dear Sister, Jessica:

  “Your welcome letter received. Papaica and Uncle Georgica started for Halifaxica yesterday. I have a new horse. It is a beauty. Its name is Maudica.

  “Your affec. brother,

  SAMICA.”

  The sister’s next letter was signed Jessie.

  Polly has very pretty little feet. That is why she has dared to adopt the new fad for lacing shoes. She laces them from the top downward, and ties the strings in a natty little bow across her foot. That is all very nice if you don’t go above Number Twos.

  [Cakes and Dresses]

  Monday, 2 December 1901

  WE HAVE HAD SOME FOREWARNINGS OF WINTER THIS last week, haven’t we? The air grew cold and crisp and the poor little sparrows twittered and fluffed out their feathers; and one morning the good folks of Halifax wakened up to see a filmy scarf of white over their city – not much of a snowfall, but just enough to pick the roofs out in dark lines and make the streets for a few brief moments into avenues of marble and invest the glimpses of distant hills with an unreal, fairy-like beauty. The first snowfall of every year has a perennial novelty. There is always a certain suggestion of miracle or magic about it. We go to bed some night, looking out on a dull, gray, lifeless world from which all zest and sparkle seem to have departed. Next morning, presto, change!96

  Somebody – something – has been at work in the hours of darkness and the sad old world is transformed. And we look upon it with as much delight as if we had never seen it before – this wonderful white loveliness that came while we slept and vanishes again before the morning is far spent.

  One day last week Polly and I were ambling down Pleasant street together, feeling at peace with ourselves, each other and all the world. We overtook Marian and Marian opened up enthusiastically on her new hobby – reading people’s characters by their walk.

  By the way, it’s simply gruesome to reflect how many methods there are of giving ourselves away!

  “I’ve been noting the characteristic gait of everybody I’ve met to-day,” declared Marian, “and I know what sort of people they are just as well as if I’d lived with them all my life.”

  “Well, what is that woman like?” asked Polly, indicating a tall lady in black who was gliding up Spring Garden Road.

  “She has a feline walk,” said Marian sagely. “Your reputation wouldn’t be safe a minute with her. She’d tear it all to little bits in her gentle, purring way.”

  “What about that lady in gray who just came out of the Academy of Music?” I asked.97

  “Good erect bearing – firm, easy step,” catalogued Marian. “She’s just and fair and seldom fails in anything she undertakes. She has enough motion and not too much. You may be sure her household is well managed.”

  Just then a girl passed us in a walking hat and heavy boots with half-inch soles.

  “See that stride?” said Marian. “Oh, she’s aggressive – overdoes everything just as she does her walk. Too much energy – or rather, doesn’t know how to use it – no tact – thumps the world into giving her what she asks.”

  A little woman skipped past us at the Prince street crossing and Marian exclaimed,

  “That’s the hen walk – short, jerky steps go with a fussy, important manner. That woman is discontented and couldn’t think a big thought to save her life.”

  When a tall girl with a dreamy face under a gray velvet hat passed us Marian murmured,

  “Notice that little hitch in her walk. She doesn’t step evenly. That girl is always halting between two opinions. She can never make up her mind to anything. When she buys a new hat she tries on every one in the shop and the milliner has to pick one for her after all. Oh, going down George street, are you? Well, bi-bi. You ought to study this thing up, Cynthia – you’d find it interesting.”

  Polly and I went on, feeling uncomfortable. We knew Marian was looking after us and sizing us up from our gait in turn.

  At the last church fair he attended Ted bought a typewritten recipe for “scripture cake.” He paid a quarter for the recipe and a slice of the cake wrapped up in tissue paper. Ted didn’t eat the cake – he says he intends to preserve it as a souvenir.98 This is not meant for a reflection on the cake or the builders thereof, because it is good.

  To be sure, Polly made one next day. I helped her and obeyed her orders meekly, and she says – but never mind! The ingratitude of human nature is proverbial.

  Anyhow, the cake was a dismal failure. But that wasn’t the fault of the recipe. Here it is:

  4½ cups of 1 Kings, 4.22.99

  1½ cups of Judges, 5.25 (last clause).100

  2 cups of Jeremiah, 6.20.101

  2 cups of 1 Samuel, 30.12.102

  2 cups of Nahum, 3.18.103

 
; 1 cup of Nahum, 17.8.104

  2 tablespoons of 1 Sam., 14.25.105

  6 of Jeremiah, 17.11.106

  2 Chronicles, 9.9, to taste.107

  ½ cup Judges, 4.19 (last clause).108

  A pinch of Leviticus, 2.13.109

  2 teaspoons Amos, 4.5 (baking powder).110

  Follow Solomon’s prescription for making a good boy (Proverbs 23.14),111 and you will have a good cake.

  I imagine that the secret of Polly’s failure lurks in the last injunction.

  The other day Ted went to a wedding in Truro, which Polly and I were unable to attend. He will never do such a rash thing again. When he got home we took him in hand, and made him tell us about it – at least, we tried to.

  Of course, the first question was, “What did the bride wear?”

  Ted looked wise.

  “Oh,” he said, in a triumphant, that-is-an-easy-one tone. “She looked fine. She wore – why, she wore a dress. It was between a cream and a blue and a brown. And she had a bonnet on.”

  “I suppose you mean a hat,” said Theodosia, blandly. “It is one of the mysteries of life why men will persist in lumping all kinds of feminine headgear together as ‘bonnets.’ What was her hat like?”

  “Well,” said Ted, meekly. “It was – it was – well, it looked fine. It was made of fur and lace, and things.”

  “What was her dress trimmed with?” I asked.

  “Oh, some ribbons and things,” replied Ted vaguely. “And it had a lot of fuzzy stuff let in in front, and kind of three-pointed things with lace over them.”

  “What had the bridesmaid on?” queried Polly, undauntedly.