The Wishing Carpet

THE thing which made her situation easier was the fact of Luke’s greatly increased activities. If he had been hard worked before he became superintendent, he was now a driven slave, only that he drove himself and rejoiced in the driving. He was alert, intense, obsessed. Mr. ’Gene Carey, who had a long-drawn battle with the flu and regained his strength very slowly, commented regretfully upon it but did not see where he could help matters.

“I wish I could do more, myself, Luke,” he said remorsefully, when his daughter brought him down to the mill for the first time, gray of face and slow of foot. “But I’m a poor stick these days and that’s the Lord’s truth! And I miss old Ben, somehow ... the old fellow was as much a part of the Altonia as the walls and ceilings....” Weak tears filled his eyes. “Old fool—” he muttered, impatiently. “Think of old Ben sitting out there under an orange tree, watching the well gush oil, and we need him so here!”

“We’re getting along all right, sir,” his lieutenant assured him. “You don’t see things neglected, do you?”

“No, no! I should say not! Never saw things kept up better in all the years— It isn’t that, Luke; you know it isn’t. I just don’t want you to kill yourself, boy, that’s all!”

Nancy Carey was sitting on the arm of her father’s old office chair, one plump, pale hand on his white head. “And I don’t want to have you kill yourself,” she added softly.

“Of course you don’t!” The old gentleman beamed, putting his arm about her. “Don’t want to see your old Daddy’s one and only right-hand man killed off, so he’ll have to work himself to death, do you? No, of course you don’t!” The light died out of his face and he sighed. “Well, I’ll be getting along home, Lady-bird! Old Doc’s right ... a little goes a long way with me now. But next week, Luke, I reckon I’ll be back on the job!”

The next week found him only slightly stronger, however, and Nancy, tyrannizing prettily over him, brought him down for only an hour a day, and presently his physician ordered him into the Canadian Rockies for two months.

Glen, who had secretly hoped that Luke’s promotion would mean an upward step for her as well, kept her disappointment to herself. Of course, it didn’t matter, really; she wanted to be wherever she could help Luke most, but there would have been great pride and satisfaction in keeping the books of the Altonia. She knew she could do it acceptably; she had taken high marks in bookkeeping at business college. It hurt a little, to have Luke doubt her ability, although he put it very pleasantly.

“I want to keep the reins in my own hands, Glen. If you’ll just keep on with the correspondence and the files, and the thousand and one things I depend on you for—that’ll be the greatest help in the world!”

Luke had been a little difficult, at first, when she had explained the way in which she cared for him, with its prohibitions and limitations; she had been rather frightened, for a moment, but almost instantly he had himself in hand again. She supposed it was disappointing, if you were a demonstrative sort of person, to find some one you cared for was not demonstrative, although it couldn’t, she felt sure, be as uncomfortable as the other way about! Luke had a theory which she had no means of weighing and judging, that, directly they were married, she would get over her foolish notions. Girls, he stated sapiently, often had ideas like that.

Glen did not doubt his being right in this matter; Luke was always right. It would have been, nevertheless, a comfort to secure the expert opinion of a woman, some woman who had been successfully loved and married, which qualification, of course, eliminated Miss Ada, even if Glen had been willing to confide in her about her mountaineer. There was nothing for it, then, but time. Time, she knew, would help her to correct her own peculiarities, and time would likewise, she earnestly hoped, so increase Luke’s interests that he would hardly miss or notice the limitations of his wife. Extremely busy and purposeful married people, such as she and Luke would be, could not, surely, have very much time left over for the sort of scenes which he had started in the lonely lane, on the afternoon of her nineteenth birthday. She visualized a serene and industrious future for them, filled to the brim with welfare work among Luke’s people and the mill hands, with economic triumphs and a new and model Altonia built on the mistakes of the old.

And meanwhile, her loyalty to Luke was doubled; if she was failing him in one way, she would make it up to him in others!

But there seemed to be margins of time, now, left over from her work, with Luke putting in almost every evening at the mill, and staying often on Sundays, and Glen found herself groping for a fresh interest.

It was Gloriana-Virginia Tolliver who supplied the inspiration for it—fair exchange for the fairy-tale book which was faithfully remembered even on that shadowed day which found Glen nineteen years and one day old.

“Say, Glen,” the child wanted to know a week later, “have yo’all got a Wishin’ Cyarpet?”

“No, Glory! What made you think of that?”

“Why”—she was a little shy about it—“yo’all live in sech a sweet-pretty house an’ wear sech sweet-pretty cloze, an’ do jes’ whatsoever yo’ wishful to do!”

Glen laughed. Her clothes were of the plainest, and she had no illusions about the hideous house her mother had hated. “No, Glory, dear,” she shook her head, “I have no Wishing Carpet.” But no sooner had she said it than a six-year-old memory flashed before her—her question, and her mother’s answer—her pale and plaintive mother, her frail, frustrated mother who weakly wished for things she knew she could never have....

“Glory,” she said, after a thoughtful moment, watching the small wizened face brighten again, “I forgot! There is a rug I used to think was a Wishing Carpet! Of course, it isn’t really, but when I was little, I used to pretend—and even my mother made believe about it.”

Gloriana-Virginia clasped her unpleasant little claws in rapture. “Oh, Glen! Would yo’all lemme see hit jes’ once? I promise, cross my heart, to be so keerful not to dirty hit!”

She went home with Glen that night, and halted in breathless and worshipful admiration at the door of the ugly sitting room, her gaze roaming impartially over the glistening golden oak and offensive carpets but coming to rest on the small, patrician rug. “I know in time hit’s jes’ pintly erbleeged to be a Wishin’ Cyarpet!” she murmured, round-eyed. She dropped to her knees and crept close to it. “I wouldn’t go fo’ to tech hit ... hit’s so sweet-pretty an’ hahn’-sum ... but I kin remember hit. An’ some day, when I git me somep’n moughty big’n fine to wish fo’, why, yo’ll lemme come hyar an’ wish on hit, won’t yo’, Glen, honey-heart?”

After she had pattered down the hill her friend stood still, looking at the small section of beauty in her unbeautiful home. “I wish,” she thought rebelliously, “that I could make the rest of the house match it!” And then, quite suddenly and surprisingly, came the determination to do it, and with it a thrill of eagerness and interest. She could not buy more Persian rugs, of course, but she could cleanse her dwelling of its most appalling ugliness, so that her one treasure would have at least a less atrocious background.

Miss Ada Tenafee, eagerly consulted at the supper table, fell in with the plan in the nicest possible spirit of enthusiasm. Miss Ada had shrewdly conjectured that all was not moonlight and roses in the love affair of her enemy and her beloved young protégée, and rejoiced thereat, and she welcomed this fresh interest. Her own room in the Darrow house had always been charming, for she had brought her furniture with her, and she announced now that there were several really good pieces which her own dear father had brought from his ancestral home, stored in the attic at Cousin Amos’ mansion.

“But, Miss Ada!—That would be wonderful, but would you want to bring them here?”

She insisted warmly that she would. (Anything which gave her a firmer hold here, made the home more definitely hers.... Of course, when Glen married the young savage and brought him here, the gentlewoman must go; it would be an intolerable situation. But meanwhile, the deeper she could drive her roots, the better. And she had been aware, lately, of a growing hope.... He came less often and there was a restraint in Glen’s manner when she spoke of him....)

“The first thing,” Glen was glowing with her excited interest, “will be to take all this awful wall paper off and put on something perfectly plain.”

“Well, I’d have the perfectly plain in the parlor and dining room,” Miss Ada offered, “but don’t you think you’d like some quaint little flowered patterns in the bedrooms?”

“Of course! And rag rugs and patchwork-quilts, and rush-bottomed chairs? I’ve noticed pictures in the back of magazines”—even the hectic weekly was not above running opulent advertisements—“and I read a home decoration article at the library one evening! And little dotted-muslin curtains! I could make them myself!”

“And I could help you,” Miss Ada purred.

“And we’ll take up all the carpets, and paint the floors—I can paint the floors! I’ve read about how you do it, and it will be fun!” The infrequent color was climbing in her clear cheeks.

It was fun, all of it. She flung herself into it with all the energy which she had meant for her new responsibilities at the mill, and for being in love with Luke, and she rose at five and stayed up until midnight many nights, and flew up the hill at noon for a precious half hour. Slowly, very slowly, the old house crawled out of its skin of ugliness and became simple and charming. The two women worked tirelessly; Miss Ada hurried home from school to sew on curtains and covers and valances, and Glen performed the more robust tasks of painting and polishing, of hammering and tacking.

The oppressive wall papers were covered over with a cool gray with a faint glint of gold in it, downstairs, and with prim little patterns of blue and purple rosebuds and humming birds and weeping-willow trees upstairs; the fat magenta and mustard colored flowers in the carpets went away forever to bloom in Phemie’s delighted cabin, and the floors, discovered to be surprisingly smooth and well laid, took their coats of serene hues successfully; the windows looked at once demure and arch between their dotted-muslin ruffles. The golden oak, sold to Phemie’s friends and neighbors, brought enough to replace it with a few satisfying old walnut and cherry things. There were no museum pieces, but they were honest in line and color, and with fresh upholstering in flowered chintz and hours of polishing took on an air of stable worth. These, together with Miss Ada’s beautiful old sofa carved in great bunches of grapes, her own dear father’s armchair, which she now brought down from her chamber, a gate-legged table and a prim rocker and a stern old bookcase and writing desk in one, furnished the house sparingly, almost austerely, but very restfully.

“And now and then, as we feel we can afford it, we will add things,” Miss Ada said.

Janice Jennings, who had taken her grandmother to Florida and brought her back again for a final fortnight at the Bella Vista, stared at it in gasping astonishment. Her bright mouth fell open as always in moments of mystification. “It knocks me for a goal!” she admitted freely. “It was the well-known world’s most horrible interior, and now it’s a darb! I’ve got to hand it to you, girls!” She beamed on Glen and Miss Ada in turn, and her bright little eyes roved consideringly over the cool and quiet interior. “Now, you need an honest-to-God old clock in the middle of the mantelpiece, and a Dresden China shepherd and his sweetie saying—‘Oh, you kid!’ from each end, and you’ll be all set, and I’ve seen the very things in that old cellar shop on Main Street.”

“I know,” Glen sighed appreciatively, “but we can’t spend any more money just now, Janice.”

“Who’s talking about your money? I want a finger in this pie! Yes, you can, too, let me do it,” she battered down remonstrance. “Gee, I guess this is the nearest I’ll ever get to fussing with a home. Grammer wouldn’t live in a house on a bet. Sweet, Daddy, but I get fed up on hotels!” She came back in an hour with the clock and the bisque figures and exulted over the air they gave the room, waving away their thanks. “It gives me a tenth interest in the joint, see? You’ve always got to let me come here, now!” She sat down suddenly and rather limply in Miss Ada’s prim rocker; her hands with their very pointed nails, glistening with liquid polish, hung slackly down beside her. “I’ll want to head in, sometimes, when I’m sick of everything....”

“I’m sure you will always be more than welcome, my dear Miss Jennings.” Miss Tenafee was touched. “Glen and I will always be glad——”

But Janice was on her feet again, winking away the moisture which had dimmed her hard young gaze. “It has me buffaloed—that chair—the whole dump! I’ll bet I couldn’t smoke in here to save my neck!” She left on the following day, and Glen walked as far as the entrance to the Bella Vista’s grounds with her, after her farewell call. “I’ll write to you sometimes, Glen,” she said, with careful casualness. “Will you answer?”

“Of course, Janice. But—living here, as I do—I won’t have anything to tell you!”

“Any old time you won’t! Tell me when you get any new old junk for the house! Tell me about yourself! Tell me about the sheik!” She watched her narrowly. “Say, remember what I said, will you?”

“What was it?”

“You know, all right enough! I said—‘Ramble around a little and look ’em over, first!’ Listen, Glen, he’s easy to look at and all that but—well, give the rest of the world the once over!”

“It wouldn’t make any difference.” Glen lifted her chin.

“All right; then you’ll be all the surer. It was no compliment for Crusoe to pick Man Friday, get me? Gee, I’d like to doll you up and take you ’round a little! I can think of a dozen good eggs I’d like to have you meet! I’d like— Oh, hot puppy!” Her bizarrely-colored little face broke into lines of pixie glee. “I’d like to have you meet Peter Piper Parker!”

Glen Darrow registered extreme disgust.

“It would do you good! And it would do him good, to find one girl in the world who wasn’t crazy about him! He probably doesn’t believe there’s any such animal! Of course, after you knew him a little while, even you——”

Glen was quite visibly forcing herself to speak calmly and civilly. “I wish you wouldn’t, Janice. I know it’s just fun for you, but it’s something much more serious with me. It’s a matter of principle. He stands for everything I’ve been taught to despise. He’s a waster, and an idler, and a parasite——”

“All right, all right, I got you the first time!” Miss Jennings was cheerfully rude about it. “But it would be exactly like a story, wouldn’t it?— Haven’t you read a million where they start in with hating each other and— Well we’ll see! I’ll dope it out for you some way, if I possibly can. And in the meantime, happy days, old thing! Promise me you won’t make the final clinch without tipping me off?” She shook hands briskly and then gave her a sudden, shamefaced hug. “So long!”

Glen turned back, but she had gone only a few steps when she heard Janice calling to her and waited for her.

“I suppose you know that Nancy Carey has a secret crush on your sheik, don’t you?”

“Nancy Carey?” Glen stared and then laughed. The thing was absurd on the face of it.

“All right, laugh; but don’t say I didn’t hang out the red lantern! She’s a dumb-bell, that girl. Solid bone from the beads on up. But that’s not saying she doesn’t generally get what she wants; the dumb-bells usually do, and the little foxes like me lose out! Well, on your way!”

But once more she hailed her, and this time when Glen walked halfway back to meet her she was giggling. “Say, I never told you about Peter Piper’s toast on Mother’s Day, did I?”

Glen conveyed coldly that she had not, and that she needed not now repair the omission.

“It’s a classic! It’s been told all over the map, and printed and reprinted till you’d think the mama would be ashamed to show herself on a platform. Of course, I figure there was a good deal of truth in it, though I’ll admit it was a pretty fresh thing to say. Mrs. Parker is a grand old gal, but she’s one of these eight-day, self-winding, Do-Gooders—you know! Always cleaning up a slum or starting a movement or something, and I guess Peter’s just naturally so sick of it he goes the limit the other way. (No, now—you can wait a minute!) You can’t high-hat me out of telling my bun mut! Well, it was in one of the colleges where they hadn’t canned him yet, and the Y.M.C.A. lads were giving a dinner to their mothers, and, of course, Mrs. Parker would be the noblest Roman of them all, and they were nuts to have her, only she was clear across the map, uplifting something, and telegraphed her regrets. Well, then they figured that the next best would be to get her son, and have him respond to the toast—‘Our Mothers!’”

Her listener showed signs of extreme restiveness and Miss Jennings laid firm hands upon her.

“Well, in a weak moment he allows he’ll do it, and then, on the big night, forgets all about it. There they are, all set, and r’aring to go, and no Peter Parker. So they start a still hunt all over the landscape, including some choice spots where those good little Y.M.C.A. had never been before, and finally they run him down, only slightly the worse for wear, and get him into his uni, and deliver him at the speaker’s table. Well, by that time Peter is just about as near sore as Peter ever could be, because he was just slipping into high for a really good night, and this whole thing leaves him cold, and he figures that it’s all the mama’s fault for being such a front-page special, so when the poor old toast master sees him there at last, clothed and in his right mind, he makes a long and fancy introduction, saying it with flowers and gobs of goo, and tells what pleasure he has and what an honor it is to introduce Mr. Peter Parker, the son of Mrs. Eugenia Parker, the blah to whose blah-blah we owe the blah-blah-BLAH—‘Ladies and Gentlemen—Mr. Peter Parker!’

“Well, of course there’s a big hand, and Peter Piper rises wearily, and waits till the noise dies away, and then he lifts his glass of lukewarm lemonade and looks at it more in sorrow than in anger, and up on the balls of his feet, like young Mr. Mercury, all set for a get-a-way, and sighs a little, and says—‘Here’s to the mothers who bore us ... and still do!’”