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Cloudy Jewel

<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2></div> The day when college opened was a great day. The children could hardly eat any breakfast, and Allison gave Leslie a great many edifying instructions about registering. “Now, kid, if you get stuck for anything, just you hunt me up. I’ll see that you get straightened out. If you and Jane Bristol could only get together, you could help each other a lot. I’ll get some dope from some of the last-year fellows. That’s the advantage I get from finding a chapter of my frat here. They’ll put me wise as to the best course-advisers, and you stick around near the entrance till I give you the right dope. It doesn’t pay to get started wrong in college.” Leslie meekly accepted all these admonitions, and they started off together in the car with an abstracted wave of good-by to Julia Cloud, who somehow felt suddenly left out of the universe. To have her two newly-acquired children suddenly withdrawn by the power of a great educational institution and swept beyond her horizon was disconcerting. She had not imagined she would feel this way. She stood in the window watching them, and wiped away a furtive tear, and then laughed to herself. “Old fool!” she said softly to the window-pane. “The trouble with you is, you’d like to be going to college yourself, and you know it! Now put this out of your mind, and go to work planning how to make home doubly attractive when they get back, so that they will want to spend every minute possible here instead of 207 being drawn away from it. They love it. Now keep them loving it. That’s your job.” When the two came back at noon, they were radiant and enthusiastic as usual, albeit they had many a growl to express. One would have thought to hear Allison that he had been running colleges for some fifty years the way he criticized the policy and told how things ought to be run. At first Julia Cloud was greatly distressed by it all, thinking that they surely had made a mistake in their selection of a college, but it gradually dawned upon her that this was a sort of superior attitude maintained by upper-class men toward all institutions of learning, particularly those in which they happened to be studying, that it was really only an indication of growing developing minds keen to see mistakes and trying to think out remedies, and as yet inexperienced enough to think they could remedy the whole sick world. The opening days of college were turbulent days for Julia Cloud. Her children were so excited they could neither eat nor sleep. They were liable to turn up unexpectedly at almost any hour of the morning or afternoon, hungry as bears, and always in a hurry. They had so many new things to tell her about, and no time in which to talk. They mixed things terribly, and gave her impressions that took months to right; and they could not understand why she looked distressed at their flightiness. They were both taken up eagerly by the students and invited hither and yon by the various groups and societies, which frequently caused them to be absent from meals while they were being dined and lunched and breakfasted. Of course, Julia Cloud reflected, two such good-looking, well-dressed, 208 easy-mannered young people, with a home in the town where they could invite people, a car in which to take friends out, and a free hand with money, would be popular anywhere. Her anxiety grew as the first week waxed toward its end and finished up Saturday night with invitations to two dances and one week-end party at a country house ten miles away. Leslie rushed in breathless about six o’clock Saturday evening, and declared she was too much in a hurry to eat anything; she must get dressed at once, and put some things in her bag. She rattled on about the different social functions she was expected to attend that evening until Julia Cloud was in hopeless confusion, and could only stand and listen, and try to find the things that Leslie in her hurry had overlooked. Then Allison arrived, and wanted some supper. He talked with his mouth full about where he was going and what he was going to do, and at the end of an hour and a half Julia Cloud had a very indefinite idea of anything. She had a swift mental vision of church and Sabbath and Christian Endeavor all slipping slowly out of their calculation, and the world in large letters taking the forefront of their vision. “You are going to a dance!” she said in a white, stricken way she had when an anxiety first bewildered her. “To two dances! O my dear Leslie! You––dance, then? I––hadn’t thought of that!” “Sure I dance!” said Leslie gayly, drawing up the delicate silk stocking over her slim ankles and slipping on a silver slipper. “You ought to see me. And Allison can dance, too. We’ll show you sometime. Don’t you like dancing, Cloudy? Why, Cloudy! You couldn’t mean you don’t approve of dancing? Not 209 really! But where would we be? Everybody dances! Why, there wouldn’t be anything else to do when young people went out. Oh, do you suppose Cherry would press out this skirt a little bit? It’s got horribly mussed in that drawer.” Julia Cloud had dropped into a chair with an all-gone feeling and a lightness in the top of her head. She felt as if the world, the flesh, and the devil had suddenly dropped down upon the house and were carrying off her children bodily, and she was powerless to prevent it. She could not keep the pain of it out of her eyes; yet she did not know what to say in this emergency. None of the things that had always seemed entirely convincing in forming her own opinions seemed adequate to the occasion. Leslie turned suddenly, and saw her stricken face. “What’s the matter, Cloudy? Is something wrong? Aren’t you well? Don’t you like me to go to a dance? Why, Cloudy! Do you really object?” “I have no right to object, I suppose, dear,” she said, trying to speak calmly; “but––Leslie, I can’t bear to think of you dancing; it’s not nice. It’s too––too intimate! My little flower of a girl!” “Oh, but we have to dance, Cloudy; that’s ridiculous! And you aren’t used to dances, or you wouldn’t say so. Can’t you trust me to be perfectly nice?” Julia Cloud shuddered, and went to the head of the stairs to answer a question Allison was calling up to her; and, when, she came back, she said no more about it. The pain was too great, and she felt too bewildered for argument. Leslie was enveloped in rose-colored tulle, with touches of silver, and looked like a young goddess with straps of silver over her slim shoulders 210 and a thread of pearls about her throat. The white neck and back that the wisp of rose-color made no attempt to conceal were very beautiful and quite childish, but they shocked the sweet soul of Julia Cloud inexpressibly. She stood aghast when Leslie whirled upon her and demanded to know how she liked the gown. “O my dear!” gasped her aunt. “You’re not going out before people––men––all undressed like that!” Leslie gave her one glance of hurt dismay, whirled back to her glass, and examined herself critically. “Why, Cloudy!” Her voice was almost trembling, and her cheeks were rosier than the tulle with disappointment. “Why, Cloudy, I thought it was lovely! It’s just like everybody’s else. I thought you would think I looked nice!” The child drooped, and Julia Cloud went up to her gently. “It is beautiful, darling, and you are––exquisite! But, dear! It seems terrible for my little girl to go among young men so sort of nakedly. I’m sure if you understood life better, you wouldn’t do it. You are tempting men to wrong thoughts, undressed that way, and you are putting on common view the intimate loveliness of the body God gave you to keep holy and pure. It is the way cheap women have of making many men love them in a careless, physical way. I don’t know how to tell you, but it seems terrible to me. If you were my own little girl, I never, never would be willing to have you go out that way.” “You’ve said enough!” almost screamed Leslie with a sudden frenzy of rage, shame, and disappointment. “I feel as if I never could look anybody in the face again!” And with a cry she flung herself into 211 the jumble of bright garments on her bed, and wept as if her heart would break. Julia Cloud stood over her in consternation, and tried to soothe her; but nothing did any good. The young storm had to have its way, and the slim pink shoulders shook in convulsive sobs, while the dismayed elder sat down beside the bed, with troubled eyes upon her, and waited, praying quietly. In the midst of it all Allison appeared at the door. “What in thunder is the matter? I’ve yelled my head off, and nobody answers. What is the matter with you, kid? It’s time we started, and you doing the baby act! I never thought you’d get hystericky.” Leslie lifted a wet and smeary face out of her pillow and addressed her brother defiantly: “I’ve good reason to cry!” she said. “Cloudy thinks I’m not decent to go out in this dress, and she won’t believe everybody dresses this way; and I’m not going! I’m never going anywhere again; I’m disgraced!” And down went her head in the pillow again with another long, convulsive sob. Her brother strode over to her, and lifted her up firmly but gently. “There, kid, quit your crying and be sensible. Stand up and let’s look at you.” He stood her upon her feet; and she swayed there, quivering, half ashamed, her hands to her tear-stained face, her pink shoulders heaving and her soft, pink chest quivering with sobs, while he surveyed her. “Well, kid, I must say I agree with Cloudy,” he said half reluctantly at last. “The dress is a peach, of course, and you look like an angel in it; but, if you could hear the rotten things the fellows say about the 212 way the girls dress, you wouldn’t want to go that way; and I don’t want them to talk that way about my sister. Couldn’t you stick in a towel or an apron or something, and make a little more waist to the thing? I’m sure you’d look just as pretty, and the fellows would think you a whole lot nicer girl. I don’t want you to get the nickname of the Freshman Vamp. I couldn’t stand for that.” Poor Leslie sank into a chair, and covered her face for another cry, declaring it was no use, it would utterly spoil the dress to do anything to it, and she couldn’t go, and wouldn’t go and wear it; but at last Julia Cloud came to the rescue with needle and thread and soft rose drapery made from a scarf of Leslie’s that exactly matched the dress; and presently she stood meek and sweet, and quite modest, blooming prettily out of her pink, misty garments like an opening apple-blossom in spite of her recent tears. “But when are you coming back?” asked Julia Cloud in sudden dismay, her troubles returning in full force as she watched them going out the door to the car, Allison carrying two bags and telling Leslie to hurry for all she was worth. The two children turned then, and faced their aunt, with a swift, comprehending vision of what this expedition of theirs meant to her. It had not occurred to them before that they were deliberately planning to spend most of the night, Saturday night, in mirth, and stay over Sunday at a house-party where the Sabbath would be as a thing unknown. Nobody had ever talked to them about these things before. They had accepted it as a part of the world of society into which they had been born, and they had never questioned it. They 213 were impatient now that their tried and true friend and comrade did not comprehend that this occasion was different from most, and that it must be an exception. They were willing to keep the Sabbath in general, but in this particular they felt they must not be hampered. The whole idea shone plainly in their faces, and the pain and disappointment and chagrin shone clearly, emphatically in Julia Cloud’s eyes as she faced them and read the truth. “Why, we don’t know, just for sure, Cloudy,” Allison tried to temporize. “You see, they usually dance to all hours. It’s Saturday night, and no classes to-morrow, and this is an unusual occasion. It’s a week-end party, you know–––” “Then––you won’t be back to-night! You are not going to church to-morrow! You will spend the Sabbath at a party!” She said these things as if she were telling them to herself so that she could better take in the facts and not cry out with the disappointment of it. There was no quality of fault-finding in her tone, but the pain of her voice cut to the heart the two young culprits. Therefore, according to the code of loving human nature, they got angry. “Why, of course!” chirped Leslie. “Didn’t you expect that? That’s what week-end parties are!” “Oh, cut this out, Leslie,” cried Allison. “We’ve gotta beat it. We’re way late now! Cloudy, you can expect us when we get here. Don’t bother about anything. There’s no need to. We’ll telephone you later when we expect to come back. Nightie, nightie, Cloudy. You go rest yourself. You look tired.” He gave her a hurried, deprecatory kiss, and swept 214 his sister out into the night. Julia Cloud heard the purring of the engine, saw the lights of the car glide away from the door down the street and out of sight. They were gone! She felt as though a piece of herself had been torn away from her and flung out for the world to trample upon. For a long time she stood staring from the window into the darkness, unshed tears burning behind her eyes and throat, trying to steady the beating of her heart and get used to the gnawing trouble that somehow made her feel faint and weak. It came over her that she had been a fool to attempt to fill the place of mother to these two modern young things. Their own ideas were fully made up about all questions that seemed vital to her. She had been a fossil in a back-country place all her life, and of course they felt she did not know. Well, of course she did not know much about modern society and its ways, save to dread it, and to doubt it, and to wish to keep them away from it. She was prejudiced, perhaps. Yes, she had been reared that way, and the world would call her narrow. Would Christ the Lord feel that way about it? Did He like to have His children dressing like abandoned women and making free with one another under the guise of polite social customs? Did He want His children to spend their Sabbaths in play, however innocent the play might be? She turned with a sigh away from the window. No, she could not see it any other way. It was the way of the world, and that was all there was to it. Leslie had made it plain when she said they had to do it or be left out. And wasn’t that just what it meant to be a “peculiar people” unto the Lord, to be willing to give up doubtful 215 things that harmed people for the sake of keeping pure and unspotted from the world? “If ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you,” came the familiar old words. Well, and what should she do now? It wouldn’t do to rave and fuss about things. That never did any good. She couldn’t say she wouldn’t stay if they danced and went away over the Sabbath. Those were things in which she might advise, but had no authority. They were old enough to decide such matters for themselves. She could only use her influence, and trust the rest with the Lord. Yes, there was one thing she could do. She could pray! So Julia Cloud gave her quiet orders to Cherry, and went up to her rose-and-gray room to kneel by the bed and pray, agonizing for her beloved children through the long hours of that long, long evening. It was a quiet face that she lifted at last from her vigil, for it bore the brightness of a face-to-face communion with her Lord; and she rose and went about her preparations for the night. Then, just as she had taken down her hair and was brushing it in a silver cloud about her shoulders, she heard a car drive up. A moment more a key turned in the latch, and some one came in. Julia Cloud stood with the hair-brush poised half-way down a strand of hair, and listened. Yes, the car had gone on to the garage. What could have happened? <hr class='toprule' /> <div class='chsp'> 216 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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