"You might just as well give up trying to get rid of me, Barbara.
Because I do not intend to marry any one."
"Very well, Leila," I said, in a cold tone. "Of course it matters not to me, because I can be kept in school untill I am thirty, and never come out or have a good time, and no one will care. But when you are an old woman and have not employed your natural function of having children to suport you in Age, don"t say I did not warn you."
"Oh, you"ll come out all right," she said, in a brutal manner. "You"ll come out like a sky rocket. You"d be as impossable to supress as a boil."
Carter Brooks came around that afternoon and we played marbels in the drawing room with moth b.a.l.l.s, as the rug was up. It was while sitting on the floor eating some candy he had brought that I told him that there was no use hanging around, as Leila was not going to marry. He took it bravely, and said that he saw nothing to do but to wait for some of the younger crowd to grow up, as the older ones had all refused him.
"By the way," he said. "I thought I saw you running a car the other day. You were chasing a fox terier when I saw you, but I beleive the dog escaped."
I looked at him and I saw that, although smiling, he was one who could be trusted, even to the Grave.
"Carter," I said. "It was I, although when you saw me I know not, as dogs are always getting in the way."
I then told him about the pony cart, and the Allowence, and saving car fare. Also that I felt that I should have some pleasure, even if SUB ROSA, as the expression is. But I told him also that I disliked decieving my dear parents, who had raised me from infancy and through meazles, whooping cough and shingles.
"Do you mean to say," he said in an astounded voice, "that you have BOUGHT that car?"
"I have. And paid for it."
Being surprized he put a moth ball into his mouth, instead of a gum drop.
"Well," he said, "you"ll have to tell them. You can"t hide it in a closet, you know, or under the bed."
"And let them take it away? Never."
My tone was firm, and he saw that I meant it, especialy when I explained that there would be nothing to do in the country, as mother and Sis would play golf all day, and I was not allowed at the Club, and that the Devil finds work for idle hands.
"But where in the name of good sense are you going to keep it?" he inquired, in a wild tone.
"I have been thinking about that," I said. "I may have to buy a portible Garage and have it set up somwhere."
"Look here," he said, "you give me a little time on this, will you? I"m not naturaly a quick thinker, and somhow my brain won"t take it all in just yet. I suppose there"s no use telling you not to worry, because you are not the worrying kind."
How little he knew of me, after years of calls and conversation!
Just before he left he said: "Bab, just a word of advise for you. Pick your Husband, when the time comes, with care. He ought to have the solidaty of an elephant and the mental agilaty of a flee. But no imagination, or he"ll die a lunatic."
The next day he telephoned and said that he had found a place for the car in the country, a shed on the Adams" place, which was emty, as the Adams"s were at Lakewood. So that was fixed.
Now my plan about the car was this: Not to go on indefanitely decieving my parents, but to learn to drive the car as an expert. Then, when they were about to say that I could not have one as I would kill myself in the first few hours, to say:
"You wrong me. I have bought a car, and driven it for----days, and have killed no one, or injured any one beyond bruizes and one st.i.tch."
I would then disapear down the drive, returning shortly in the Arab, which, having been used----days, could not be returned.
All would have gone as aranged had it not been for the fatal question of Money.
Owing to having run over some broken milk bottles on the ocasion I have spoken of, I was obliged to buy a new tire at thirty-five dollars.
I also had a bill of eleven dollars for gasoline, and a fine of ten dollars for speeding, which I paid at once for fear of a Notice being sent home.
This took fifty-six dollars more, and left me but $183.45 for the rest of the year, $15.28 a month to dress on and pay all expences. To add to my troubles mother suddenly became very fussy about my clothing and insisted that I purchace a new suit, hat and so on, which cost one hundred dollars and left me on the verge of penury.
Is it surprizing that, becoming desparate, I seized at any straw, however intangable?
I paid a man five dollars to take the Arab to the country and put it in the aforsaid shed, afterwards hiding the key under a stone outside. But, although needing relaxation and pleasure during those sad days, I did not at first take it out, as I felt that another tire would ruin me.
Besides, they had the Pony Cart brought every day, and I had to take it out, pretending enjoyment I could not feel, since acustomed to forty miles an hour and even more at times.
I at first invited Tom to drive with me in the Cart, thinking that merely to be together would be pleasure enough. But at last I was compeled to face the truth. Although protesting devotion until death, Tom did not care for the Cart, considering it juvenile for a college man, and also to small for his legs.
But at last he aranged a plan, which was to take the Cart as far as the shed, leave it there, and take out the car. This we did frequently, and I taught Tom how to drive it.
I am not one to cry over spilt milk. But I am one to confess when I have made a mistake. I do not beleive in laying the blame on Providence when it belongs to the Other s.e.x, either.
It was on going down to the shed one morning and finding a lamp gone and another tire hanging in tatters that I learned the Truth. He who should have guarded my interests with his very Life, including finances, had been taking the Arab out in the evenings when I was confined to the bosom of my Familey, and using up gasoline et cetera besides riding with whom I knew not.
Eighty-three dollars and 45 cents less thirty-five dollars for a tire and a bill for gasoline in the village of eight dollars left me, for the balance of the year, but $40.45 or $3.37 a month! And still a lamp missing.
It was terrable.
I sat on the running board and would have shed tears had I not been to angry.
It was while sitting thus, and deciding to return the Frat pin as costing to much in gasoline and patients, that I percieved Tom coming down the road. His hand was tied up in a bandige, and his whole apearance was of one who wishes to be forgiven.
Why, oh, why, must women of my s.e.x do all the forgiving?
He stood in the doorway so I could see the bandige and would be sorry for him. But I apeared not to notice him.
"Well?" he said.
I was silent.
"Now look here," he went on, "I"m darned lucky to be here and not dead, young lady. And if you are going to make a fuss, I"m going away and join the Ambulance in France."
"They"d better not let you drive a car if they care anything about it,"
I said, coldly.
"That"s it! Go to it! Give me the Devil, of course. Why should you care that I have a broken arm, or almost?"
"Well," I said, in a cutting manner, "broken bones mend themselves and do not have to be taken to a Garage, where they charge by the hour and loaf most of the time. May I ask, if not to much trouble to inform me, whom you took out in my car last night? Because I"d like to send her your pin. I"d go on wearing it, but it"s to expencive."
"Oh, very well," he said. He then brought out my key ring, although unable to take the keys off because of having but one hand. "If you"re as touchy as all that, and don"t care for the real story, I"m through.
That"s all."
I then began to feel remorceful. I am of a forgiving Nature naturaly and could not forget that but yesterday he had been tender and loving, and had let me drive almost half the time. I therfore said:
"If you can explain I will listen. But be breif. I am in no mood for words."