PS 2789 U.C.I. BETTINK BECAME -A WOMAN. BETTING LAURA EVERINGHAM SCAMMON PRESS OF HL DSON-KIMBERLY PUB. CO. KANSAS CITY, MO. PS COPYRIGHTED 18!>4 BY LAURA KVERIMGHAM SCAMMON. fHERK came a day, 1 I j As to brown buds come the blithe airs of Mav. When my young soul Ope d to the sunshine of thy sweet control. I dared not own The mastery, then, of e en thy lightest tone. Thy smile, thy kiss Do all souls know how sweet surrender is ? Thy whisper low "My love shall hold thee, sweet, nor let thee go," By right divine Made me thine own forever, only thine. Two lilies fair, Breathing one tender fragrance, bless the air; And minstrelsy Blends two soft strains in one full harmony; And holy night From moon and stars pours one pure, perfect light. So would I be Not thine, not thine, dear love, but part of thee. Then but no more ! Faith sits i l ashes at my heart s shut door. As God s above, There s naught within but my dead, coffined love. L. K. S. BETTINE. Bettine had a lover. To this, however, I offered no objec tion; having a lover is an important part of a girl s education it cannot be neg lected with impunity. In Bettine s case, I have come to re gard the lover highly, as an assistant disciplinarian. Even when he has mul tiplied himself indefinitely, I have found it best to work with rather than against him, sometimes, in spite of himself, to make of him an accomplice. Bettine came naturally enough by this last lover of hers, as she has come by many another. It may not be said that any particular type of hero is enthralled by her witcheries, or that any is excluded from her transient favor. The callow poet, the ancient beau, the dry-as-dust scientist, the man of the world, preacher, 8 Bettine. cynic, dainty dude, and picturesque fish- erboy, each, according to the mood which he may insj ire in the girl, regards her as the one earthly impersonation of his bright ideal. She gives to each adorer his little day, then all is to her as though it had never been or so she fondly dreams. To flit as flits the butterfly, hither and yon, with no store of honey as wage; to flit and forget, and still go flitting and forgetting, yet to bear ever the heart of childhood, tender, sweet, and true, this is the paradox of my Bettine. It may be that she is not phenome nally good, according to the established standards, it may be that she is not even phenomenally good-looking; but she ac cepts herself as nature made her and thinks no more about it. For this I like the girl. I cannot fancy what Bettine would do with beauty; it would not suit her it is too commonplace. She is so much Bettine. 9 more charming without it this graceful, brown, ardent young creature, upon whom the eyes of all men rest with strange delight. Can it be that the coming years have power to destroy those fine curves, that the lithe form may develop into the stout, every-day figure of an ordinary woman? The soft and subtle glow that is almost a radiance, will that cheapen or disap pear, and the delicate chin and large mobile lips, will they lose their grace and sweetness, growing coarse and at the same time weak? The bird-like buoy ancy we all adore, will that degenerate into feeble flippancy, and the angelic gravity into sullen gloom or flabby dis content? Nay, I believe it not. The envious earth may hide Bettine in her bosom; the great green sea, white-lipped, may kiss her cold sweet limbs to rest; but old Time himself shall never rob this favorite child of her ineffable charm. Perhaps it is the airiness and piquancy i o Bettine. of the girl that is most irresistible. She reacts to everything in nature, sensitive and responsive to its most subtle moods. She fits into any landscape as a part of it and not a protest. She adapts herself insensibly to any and all circumstances and does not know how to be discon tented. She has a God- like love of giv ing happiness; it is an effulgence, an in carnation of heaven s best thought for man. She is as variable, withal, and quite as irresponsible, as her first fond love, the sea. Like the sea, her eyes are grey, or blue, or green, brooding or beaming, as the hour is dark or bright. Her hair is a cloud a darkly flying cloud with gleams of unsteady sunshine filtered through. I amuse myself, sometimes, by tracing the various moods of nature as reflected in Bettine. Now she is like the new r moon, delicate, timid, fearful of being seen; now like the full moon, obscuring Bettine. 1 1 all things else by its own brilliance; now like a dog-clay morning, all fog and mist, with a sun, like copper, somewhere over head; now dancing to the rhythm of her own glad pulses, like the sun on Easter morning. Elusive and enticing she may be, as the faint breath of shower-washed mignonette; then sweetly serious, de vout as a tall white lily bending to the fragrant hush of early dawn. Now she is serene and open as the wide blue sky, gay as the skimming swallows; now gloomy and restless as the waves before the wind, with hints of undeveloped tem pests near at hand. Every one who would not cruelly mis understand must recognize these moods in her as pure reflections of nature whose child she is. "Is is." I am constantly saying is and never was of any grace or charm of my Bettine. Yet my thought of her is disturbed by vague forebodings. As she has been those few free years, I would 1 2 Bet tine. that she might remain frank and brave, uncontrolled as sportive mermaidens in their coral caves, strange to introspec tion or soulful secrets as the wide-blown lotus on the lake, opening to heaven her heart of gold, giving unstintedly, uncon sciously to all that pass her way, as her Creator has bestow y ed. I still hope this, but it is in the face of fears. All men are not content to be as sails that in an hour slip beyond our view, and this last lover caused me much uneasiness. Already he had tarried three whole months, and although she pouted and protested once and again, he held to his post, and Bettine endured him. Endur ance was not one of her virtues, and any thing like an ineffectual pout or protest I had never seen before from the non chalant Bettine. If she were no longer satisfied with Hugo, why did she not send him adrift as she had sent adrift many another? This I could not under- Bettine, 1 5 stand. I hoped it might be a passing phase, at worst, but surely the girl was no longer her free and joyous self. There were signs of subjugation, such as might -in time change the entire nature, causing it to reflect from but one side, in response to a single influence. Even with me she was restless and uncertain my loving little Bette! One night she came to me as I sat on the low porch that faces the sea, smoking my pipe and lookingat the moon. Slowly and sadly its light was being quenched in a dim, watery cloud, as may be lost the one great hope of a darkened life. The air was thick and salty, and lighted at intervals by far-away flashes of elec tricity. There was no wind, but I could look over the rocky point between me and the sea, where played a phosphores cent light along the shore. There would be a storm. Bettine stood behind my chair and slid an arm about my neck. "I am so tired 1 6 Bel fine. of everything," said my dove-eyed one. "I m tired of every single thing in this big, bad, old world. Tell me a story, grandsire." Then down on her knees at my side, cradling me in her young, strong arms, she rocked to and fro with little angry meanings, like summer gusts. My heart fell as I held her fast in the hollow of my arm and petted her like the troubled babe she seemed. " What is it, Bette? " I asked. " Have you and Hugo been quarreling? " "Yes; he is so stubborn; he makes me frantic. We cannot abide each other." Never before had it been like this. I could feel that my Bettine was slipping away from me, and the smoke smarted in my eye, bringing a tear to my cheek. "What sort of a story will you have, Bettine?" " Oh ! anything you like a ghost story," said the girl. Bettine. 1 7 " The story of the Flying Dutchman ? " " Certainly not ; you have told me that half a hundred times." " Shall it be of the fire-ship that ap pears yonder, along the coast, before a fatal storm ? " " I know all those things by heart and by vision too, grandsire, as well as you. Tell me something I have never heard," she cried impatiently ; " something new, and horrible, and true ! " " I might tell you of an experience of my own during the war " "Is it true, and very shocking ? " I was silent a moment, thinking, not of the story, but of other shocking things. " Well, tell it, tell it!" she cried im petuously. The two hands that I held in mine were cold and fluttering, and two wild eyes swept the sea and sky. Never, never had I seen the child like this. " It was in 61," I began, "in the Chick- ahominy 1 8 Bettine. But the smoke from my pipe was in the other eye, now, and another tear rolled down my cheek. Surely the lov er s discipline was too severe for Bettine. " It was a very dark night," I began again, " and I was stationed in the woods as picket guard "Grandsire, do you see the lightning?" Bettine broke in, grasping my wrist, but I paid no heed. " The wood in front of us was alive with soldiers, only awaiting a signal to fire upon us," I went on. " I could hear the clocks striking the midnight hour over in Richmond " In Fairyland, grandsire ; why don t you say in Fairyland? And they were bells that you heard, a million tiny, tink ling bells. You are so dull and prosy to-night, grandsire. " It might as well have been the bells of Fairyland, child, for we never came any nearer to them. But this night we Bcttine. 1 9 were in the dense forest and a storm was gathering, as heavy a storm as is brew ing over yonder where the lightning slashes the sky " See how it is leaping at us, sire ; it will be a terrible storm." " I think not, Bettine; and it may not strike us for hours." Just then a little wave sprang up and flung itself with an angry plash against the shore. Bettine threw back her face to the murky sky, then turned to the dark ening water ; she watched the phospho rescent light along the shore, a white line growing around her tremulous, shut lips. " But the ghost, grandsire, the ghost ! " she cried, defying the boding storm. " I give up the bells of Fairyland, but I must have a ghost." " It was the loneliest of lonely places," so I resumed my story. " My beat ran along the edge of a creek which was skirted with bushes, and picketed, as I very well knew, by the enemy ; one of 2O Bettine. their bullets was likely to make an end of me at any minute. This kept my eyes wide open, though I was very tired and perishing for sleep." "And all at once you saw "All at once I saw, but a few feet away, two fiery eyes fixed full upon me. I think my hair stood up, Bette." " Yes, yes! " " We glared at each other for a second a second that seemed an hour and neither my eyes nor the eyes of fire moved." "And then what happened then?" A wave larger and more sullen than the other crashed against the shore ; a fiercer flash of lightning bathed in fire the dim landscape and the dingy sea ; a long- drawn, angry roar of thunder told that the tempest soon would break. Bettine sprang forward and the wind caught her long hair. " It will be a fearful storm, grandsire ? " "It may be." Bettine. 2 r " Boats will be dashed against the shore ; wrecked and swamped in the sea? " " Perhaps." " You say perhaps so calmly, but I know your heart, dear sire," she said, with shaking voice. " Go on, go on," she commanded, then, and fell back shivering upon my arm. "Where was I? Oh! the eyes. Well, I faced them, and said as bravely as I could: Advance and give the counter sign ! There was no answer, and I called out sharply : Speak ! or I 11 shoot! Still no answer came, and, aft er waiting another minute or two, I raised my musket and blazed away, aim ing between those two burning eyes. When the smoke cleared, I saw three eyes glaring at me, where there had been two. Then I was scared." "Yes, yes; grandsire, of course you were." "As soon as I could load I fired again, and then four eyes glared at me, instead 22 Bettine. of three. Then the pickets came run ning up from all sides and the camp awoke behind me. We had a lively time for a quarter of an hour, then we made a formal advance upon the spot where the four eyes still gleamed." "Then to your horrified sight " " Then to our horrified sight appeared the tall stump of a tree, old, decayed, and with the bark still clinging loosely to its trunk. I had been shooting at the holes where the fox-fire shone through, and, of course, making another fierj 7 eye with every shot." "And is that all?" "That is all." Bettine stood before me tall and straight, her arms folded behind her back. " I know what you mean, sire," she said. "You are laughing at me." " I am not laughing, Bettine ; but if my story must have a moral, let it be this: There is nothing to fear in God s uni- Bettine. 23 verse. The fear of the L,ord may be the beginning of wisdom, but fear of any thing which the L,ord has created is the beginning and continuation of foolish ness. Surely, my child, you have need of no lesson such as this." But Bettine walked grandly off to the shore, where the little waves were dash ing in strongly over the shells and sand. Presently she came flying back. " Grandsire ! O, the wind is coming! What shall I do ? " She paced the narrow porch like one distraught, her dark hair swirling in the rising gale. She wrung her hands with broken little cries of terror the very reflection of the waves and sky. Just then a mellow whistle came from the fringe of bushes along the garden wall " Whip-poor-will ! whip-poor-will ! " " lyisten, child," I said ; " the birds are at the mercy of the tempest and they are not disturbed." 24 Bettine. "Ah, yes! ah, yes !" she cried ; "but Hugo" "Well," I broke in sharply, "what about Hugo ?" " He is out in his skiff! and you have said there may be wrecks upon the shore ! and the sea will wash them up men, I mean, drowned "Pish! Hugo is safe at home, or, if not, this hatful of wind will only help him in. Don t be foolish, Bettine." " But I sent him." " He need n t have gone." The wind increased, and with it the girl s distress ; she clung and coiled about me, ghastly pale, with chattering teeth. " Grandsire, I must know if he is safe at home!" Then I said brutally: " Perhaps you would have me row across the cove ? There is still some strength in my right arm, and it is a safer journey for my old bones than for Hugo s young ones." Bettine. 25 " Sire, you are cruel," said Bettine, " but I will not be angry. It was in my mind that you might allow old Bluet to go around by land." Even in her an guish, there was a touch of Bettine s sweet dignity in this that went to my heart, but I shook my head slowly. " No, no, my child. You would be certain to repent of such a confession as soon as the storm is over." I folded my trembling girl close, and told her another story, a story full of youth and joyousness, in the days when her mother played about my knee in our own sweet, sunny France. Gradually she became quiet, and when the storm was at its height she was sleeping, dear babe, against my breast. It was but a passing squall after all, as brief as severe, and the morning that followed was heavenly. No wrecks were swept ashore, and the sun shot his first 26 Bettine. level rays across the plain of waters, as smooth and green as any fair meadow. The air was fresh and sweet, and all the scene bathed in a blest tranquillity, as though tempests never raged. Bettine, too, had forgotten. " I will send old Bluet to ask about Hugo," I remarked. "Assuredly you will not," she said, with unnecessary emphasis. " But he may have been " " Do not tease me, sire. There is no such good luck for either of us." And she pinned a dripping spray of briar to my jacket and gave my cheek a condescending pat. Hugo came while yet the sun was far from high, but Bettine was not ready to be reconciled. " You are all so tiresome," I heard her say in a new and exasperating drawl, " it is best to be able to put you off like an old glove." Hugo looked at her a moment, dumb Bet line. 27 with rage or misery, then sprang into his boat. Now Bettine was herself again ; a re flection of the sunlit sea and sky, only in this instance I fancied the reflection was somewhat exaggerated. Her gaiety seemed to lack the true spontaneity of nature. I could trace some of the im perfections of an imitation. She sang, she laughed, she danced like the little waves. And the next morning she came to me with a downcast face. " I had a dream last night, sire." "Well?" " I have been day-dreaming ever since, and wondering if I would do in reality what I did in my sleep." "And you want my opinion, which, very likely, will settle your mind upon exactly the opposite opinion." " I can tell you, grandsire, you are so old, and you know so much about men and about women, too, don t you, grand- sire ? " 2 8 Bet tine. What need she to know about men and women, my little Bette ? " It brings bad luck to tell dreams, 1 I said. "But you know me so much better than I know myself, dear sire," said Bettine, and she faced me in arrestive fashion, as he who " stoppeth one of three," desperately brave to tell the worst, but with a blush which proclaimed that worst divine. The blush was heav enly beautiful, but I felt a thrill of fear lest it had lost me my little Bette. " I was dreaming of Hugo," she be gan rapidly, with little catches of breath now and then, " and my sleep was full of trouble. We could not understand each other, and Hugo sprang into his boat and away and the sea went out with him. The cove was a bed of dry pebbles, with little lights coming out here and there. I could see the brown crabs crawling among the shells and stones, and beyond Bettine. 3 1 was the great green wave, like a wall, and Hugo in his boat on its crest." "A fit of indigestion, Bettine." " Listen, sire ; you have not heard. Hugo stretched out his arms to me and cried, Help, help ! Bettine, help ! and I ran across the dry cove to him. The brown crabs snapped their claws against my bare feet, but I did not feel them. I was crying, Hugo, Hugo ! all the way. Then, with a great leap, he stood beside me, and the huge green wave had doubled on us. We must run for our lives, shouted Hugo, and so we did. But the terrible wave swept after us, it towered above our heads, it was breaking over us ! I could have outrun it even then, but Hugo seemed scarcely to move. Then with one arm I pushed him toward the shore, and with the other held back the wave until it broke and swept me away. Sire, sire ! would I do that for Hugo?" 32 Bettine. " You would sacrifice yourself for the man you love." "And must I do that for Hugo? " " You must not ; you shall not ! And you need have no fears for that young man, Bettine ; he will take care of him self. Child, child ! cease this idle dream ing. Come to your senses." " I know, grandsire, that you do not like Hugo." She turned her back upon me, and I with the tears in my eyes I could well have shaken her. Hugo discovered, in some inscrutable way, that he was to be pardoned, and came back, all their quarrels ending in a renewal of love. They sailed and sailed together, looking, Bettine told me, for the lights in the bottom of the cove. They walked and walked together when the sea was tumultuous. It was youth and ignorance enchanted with youth and Bettine, 35 ignorance, as senselessly happy as young birds in pairing time. I could see the stealthy serpent in their fool s paradise ; but I am old, as Bet- tine has said ; I have learned to bide my time. Man does not bend the earth, the earth bends man; or, rather, the power which rules the earth rules man as well ; and he who cannot ally his strength to that of the universe and gain inspiration from its great hidden fount, he who is incapable of response to the pulse at nature s heart, has not awakened to self- consciousness. Until the time of such awakening he must remain a poor creat ure, at war within himself and out of harmony with the highest in nature. As to Hugo, he had inherited so richly from a hardy ancestry that he seemed some fair young Norseland god, cameo- faced, clean-limbed, massive, powerful, fleet of foot, and deft of hand. He was slow in the mental processes, quite help- 36 Bettine. less before those subtle quips and gibes which are the natural language of one like my Bettine; but this served, in the end, to excite the girl s compassion. She melted with honest pity at sight of this great hulk of a fellow who could not do at all what her nimble wits were con stantly leading her to do without a con scious effort. More than this, his heavi ness and stupidity were somehow haloed and gilded by her imagination into a sem blance of the rarest qualities, magnan imous silence, reserved force I know not what of dignity and power. I have always felt profoundest pity for the woman who insists upon decorating the head of the ass with flowers ; but, unless one is possessed of the wand of Oberon wherewith to open her eyes, how can one help her? It was slow torture to me to see my dazzling child of the sun degenerating Bettine. 37 into a mere reflection of this dull clod. Already his shadow fell across her like an eclipse, and she had almost ceased to be Bettine. Ah! but just here appears the merit of the lover. The guardian or friend often longs to dispel the illusioning mists, but pity stays his hand ; then it is that the object of adoration himself as~ sumes the attitude of a preceptor. Leave him alone and he will certainly enlighten the infatuated worshiper as to the amal gam of which her idol is composed. The wind was strong one night and Hugo had not gone home. The sea was dark, except where the waves were broken into light against the rocks. We sat upon the little veranda, almost like a narrow shelf overhanging the sea, with the cottage behind us trembling at every blast. We were enveloped in mist from the waves which were torn into spray 38 Bettine. and cast off by the rocks. It was a night worth an hundred days of calm. We could not talk, for the roar and boom of the ocean drowned our thin voices, and so, hour after hour, we sat in charmed silence, Bettine with her face upon my arm, and Hugo lying against her feet. Suddenly the girl sprang up : "Hugo! grandsire ! listen; voices are calling us ! " A light was shining brightly from an upper window, where I kept it always burning at night, and it might be that some boat in distress was making toward us. Listening keenly, I fancied that I could discern faint calls for help piercing the tempest s thunder, and in an interval of the blast I could make oath I heard a woman s fearful shriek. I was on my feet and Bettine w T as twisting a long shawl tightly about her head and shoulders, girding it well at the waist. "Where is the long-boat ? " Her voice Bettine. 39 rang out clear and strong, like a captain s "Ship ahoy!" " No small boat can live in this sea," I said. "It would be certain death," said Hugo ; but she seized his hand. " Now for a dash ! " she cried. " You are to stand on the shore, sire, ready for whatever comes. Hugo and I can man age the boat." Hugo argued and protested, but she led him on protesting. I pulled down the boat and she sprang in, and Hugo, with but an instant s pause, followed, and the boat went out on a great reced ing run of the sea. I watched them through the spray, now on the top of a tall wave, now under the next ; then I saw them no more. A moment of wild suspense and the empty boat was thrown high upon the beach. Hugo came in on the next wave : plunging forward, he cleared the surf and stood pale and drip ping. 4O Bettine. " Bettine ! where is Bettine?" I cried, outshrieking the tempest in my fren/.y. " Bettine ! my little Bette ! " and a faint voice answered : " Hugo ! Hugo ! " "Yes; here, Bettine!" I answered, and sprang into the pounding water. I caught her as a huge wave laid hold upon her. I tore her from its clutches and dragged her ashore, flung, both of us, headlong upon the sand. She was faint and gasping, but un daunted. After a moment her voice rang out once more : " We must try again, Hugo. Where is the boat? " But he stood his ground. " It is of no use, Bettine." " They must not drown. Come, Hugo ; come with me." She begged more in pantomime than by words, for the roar and crash were deafening. " I tell you it is useless, Bettine." " For my sake, then, dear Hugo for Bettine. 43 the love we bear each other," she plead with heavenly insistence, her white, bare arms gleaming as they encircled him; but Hugo s only answer was a dogged shake of the head. " You will not go? And my grandsire, with the bullet in his shoulder it is he who saved me ! But what can he do against this sea ? Ah! I will go alone." She ran to the boat, high up on the beach and full of water. She tried to pull it down, her wet petticoats wrap ping and clinging about her. Then she stood still and wailed out piteously, " You have no heart, Hugo. You never have loved me." And weeping bitterly I led her into the house. No wrecks were washed ashore that night, no dead were found upon the strand. Who it was that called to us for 44 Bettine. help we never knew. Perhaps, after all, it was but some vagary of the wind and waves. But, through wind and waves, the eyes of poor Bettine were opened and she became a woman. I dare say I ought to be grateful to this particular lover for the lesson he so effectively taught my girl, and perhaps, considering all the circumstances, I am. But this becoming a woman brings with it more or less of conventionality, a cer tain degree of conformity to type, and I cannot convince myself that this is an improvement. I was quite content with Bettine as she was. To-day I overheard my girl soliloqui/- ing, and that I did not like. " I fan cied," so she said, " I quite fancied for a time that I loved Hugo, but that was all a sad mistake. It was a hero I adored, a hero of my own making, not Bettine. 45 a common, coarse, selfish man, such as Hugo." She then shook her head slowly and sadly, like a very wise old woman my little Bette ! and then she said : "All idols have clay feet." Can she forget, and still go flitting and forgetting ? This morning her hair went all un bound ; her heart-shaped mouth made moan and hope fell low. At noon she was sage ; she spake wise things darkly, as speaks the oracle and hope died. She let the lapping wavelets kiss her feet, and, looking far into the faint beyond, she talked in world-wise platitudes, after a footlight fashion I abhor : To-night she wears a rose and mumbles rhymes, my child, guileless of book-craft ! The heart that weaves its fine emotions into rhythmic sounds, striking the chords 46 Bettine. upon its own untuned strings, this heart love yet may break, but has not broken and hope stirs in her shroud. A 000 551 561 4