“But the unhappy woman doesn’t sound routine!”
“Her? Just case of nerves. You can’t
do much with these marriage mix-ups.”
“But dear, please, will you tell me about
the next case that you do think is interesting?”
“Sure. You bet. Tell you about anything
that——Say that’s pretty good
salmon. Get it at Howland’s?”
Four days after the Jolly Seventeen debacle Vida Sherwin
called and casually blew Carol’s world to pieces.
“May I come in and gossip a while?” she
said, with such excess of bright innocence that Carol
was uneasy. Vida took off her furs with a bounce,
she sat down as though it were a gymnasium exercise,
she flung out:
“Feel disgracefully good, this weather!
Raymond Wutherspoon says if he had my energy he’d
be a grand opera singer. I always think this climate
is the finest in the world, and my friends are the
dearest people in the world, and my work is the most
essential thing in the world. Probably I fool
myself. But I know one thing for certain:
You’re the pluckiest little idiot in the world.”
“And so you are about to flay me alive.”
Carol was cheerful about it.
“Am I? Perhaps. I’ve been wondering—I
know that the third party to a squabble is often the
most to blame: the one who runs between A and
B having a beautiful time telling each of them what
the other has said. But I want you to take a
big part in vitalizing Gopher Prairie and so——Such
a very unique opportunity and——Am
I silly?”
“I know what you mean. I was too abrupt
at the Jolly Seventeen.”
“It isn’t that. Matter of fact, I’m
glad you told them some wholesome truths about servants.
(Though perhaps you were just a bit tactless.) It’s
bigger than that. I wonder if you understand that
in a secluded community like this every newcomer is
on test? People cordial to her but watching her
all the time. I remember when a Latin teacher
came here from Wellesley, they resented her broad
A. Were sure it was affected. Of course they
have discussed you——”
“Have they talked about me much?”
“My dear!”
“I always feel as though I walked around in
a cloud, looking out at others but not being seen.
I feel so inconspicuous and so normal—so
normal that there’s nothing about me to discuss.
I can’t realize that Mr. and Mrs. Haydock must
gossip about me.” Carol was working up a
small passion of distaste. “And I don’t
like it. It makes me crawly to think of their
daring to talk over all I do and say. Pawing me
over! I resent it. I hate——”
“Wait, child! Perhaps they resent some
things in you. I want you to try and be impersonal.
They’d paw over anybody who came in new.
Didn’t you, with newcomers in College?”
“Yes.”
“Well then! Will you be impersonal?
I’m paying you the compliment of supposing that
you can be. I want you to be big enough to help
me make this town worth while.”
