Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories — The Glory-Box

I

In Southern Ohio a girl's wedding chest is her Glory-Box.

If, like Mabel Bennet, you are the daughter of a successful druggist, the box is of cedarwood, delivered free of charge by the Dayton department stores; but if, like Eunice Day, you are the daughter of an unsuccessful bookkeeper who has left a life insurance inadequate even when supplemented by the salary you earn teaching primary children, then the box is just a box, covered with gay cretonne, and serving the purpose very nicely.

When Eunice Day's engagement became known, Mabel, remembering the scalloped guest-towels which Eunice had given her some months before, brought over one afternoon an offering wrapped in tissue paper.

'I hope you'll like this, Eunice,' she said.

'It's just a sack,--what they call a matinee.

I've found them very useful.'

Mabel spoke with the slightly complacent air of the three months' bride.

'Why, it's ever so dear of you to go to so much trouble,' said Eunice, taking the package into her hands.

She was a tall, slender girl, with dark eyes and a pretty dignity of bearing.

'I'll have to open it right now, I guess.

You aren't in a hurry, are you?'

'Oh, no, not especially.

Harry doesn't get home until quarter past six, and I've fixed the vegetables.

Just you go ahead.'

Eunice untied the white ribbon.

'Why, Mabel, it's beautiful, and such a delicate shade of pink!'

She held the sack at arm's length.

'I'm glad you like it.

It's nothing wonderful, of course.'

'It couldn't be more pretty, and Stephen loves pink.

I wrote him the other day that I had made a pink kimono and I hoped he would like it.

He wrote back that pink was--was the color of dawn and apple-blossoms.'

Mabel laughed.

'Stephen has a funny way of saying things, hasn't he?'

'Why, I don't know,' said Eunice, flushing.

'Oh, well,' went on Mabel good-naturedly, 'I do think you look nice in pink with your dark hair.

Harry always tells me to stick to blue.

It's the color for blondes.

Don't you want to show me your things?

I won't mind if the ribbons aren't all run in yet.'

'I'd like to show them to you, of course.

Come upstairs.

They'll look nicer though when they are all pressed out,' said Eunice, laying the sack carefully back in its paper wrappings.

She carried it on outstretched palms.

'Do you know when you're going to be married?'

asked Mabel as she reached the top of the narrow stairs.

'We haven't made plans yet.

Probably Stephen won't want to for another year.

It depends on so many things.'

'I suppose so,' said Mabel, following Eunice into her bedroom.

It was a small room but pretty.

Eunice had recently put four coats of white paint on her oak set.

'Lawyers,' continued Mabel sympathetically, 'have to wait so much longer.

Now Harry knew to a cent what salary he was getting when he proposed to me, and he knew what his raise would probably be for the next two years.

The Wire Company is a square concern.

There's your Glory-Box!

It looks awfully nice.

You made it, didn't you?'

'Stephen made it when he was on for his vacation last summer.

We happened to have the cretonne in the house.

Mother wanted me to buy a cedar chest but I thought this would do.'

'Oh, one doesn't really need a cedar chest,' said Mabel cheerfully, 'and they're terribly expensive, you know.'

'Yes, I do know.'

Eunice's face twinkled.

'I'll lay this sack on the bed so it won't get mussed while I'm showing you the things.'

She raised the lid of the Glory-Box, then glanced shyly at the other girl.

'You're the first person I've shown them to.

I hope you'll think they're dainty.

There isn't much lace on them, but mother put in a lot of handwork--feather-stitching.'

'Lace is a bother to do up,' Mabel said amiably.

'I've been almost distracted doing up mine.'

'Your things were beautiful, though.'

Eunice was laying piles of carefully folded garments on the edge of the box.

'There, I've got it now,' she said, getting up from the floor.

'This is my prettiest set.

I've kept it wrapped in dark blue paper.

Mother said it would keep white longer.'

'Why, they are sweet, Eunice!'

Mabel touched the soft white stuff with appraising fingers.

'And all made by hand.

My, what a lot of work!

Your mother must have spent hours on them.'

'She did.

She said she wanted to do it, though.

The other things are plainer.'

Eunice took them up one by one and showed them.

'I won't let you see the table linen to-day.

I've done a lot of initialing, but they don't look really well until they have been washed.'

'No, they don't. Anyway I have to be going.

You certainly have nice things, Eunice.

That kimono is awfully pretty.'

'I like it,' said Eunice simply.

'Well, I can't stay another minute.

Don't you come down to the door now.

You have to put away everything.

I'll just run along.

Come and see me.

I've got the flat all settled.'

'I shall love to, Mabel.

Just a moment!

You must let me go to the door with you.

The Glory-Box can wait.'

Eunice found her mother standing by the bed when she came back.

She was a meagre-looking woman with a thin mouth.

Her eyes had once been soft and dark like Eunice's, but the glow had gone out of them, leaving them a little hard.

'I've been looking at the sack Mabel brought you.

It's a nice pattern.

That sort of lace looks almost like real val.

What did she say to your things?'

'She said they were sweet, mother.'

'Well, I suppose they are as nice as any one could have without spending money.

You didn't show her the tablecloth I gave you?'

'No, I thought I'd wait to show the linen until it was all done up.'

Her mother fingered the lace on the sack.

'I don't believe she has a much better tablecloth than that one, Eunice.

Do you suppose so?'

'No,' answered Eunice, 'probably not.

It's very beautiful.'

She laid down the garment she was folding and looked up, troubled, into her mother's face.

'Oh, it seems so selfish for me to have it all.

You've always wanted nice fine linen, mother.'

'I've given up wanting, I guess.

I don't care as long as you have them.

You had better lay tissue paper in that sleeve, Eunice, the way I showed you.

I'll start supper so that you can put these things away.

They won't look like anything if you leave them about.'

When her mother was gone, Eunice took up the pink kimono and spread it out on the bed.

She could fold it more carefully that way.

She touched it with caressing fingers.

'Dawn and apple-blossoms,' she repeated softly.

Then she smiled, remembering Mabel's remark: 'Stephen has a funny way of saying things.'

Stephen was different somehow from Harry, from any of the men whom her friends had married.

They were nice young men, of course, all of them.

One was superintendent of the Sunday School, besides getting a good salary in the Cash Register Company; another had gone to college, had been in Stephen's class at the Ohio State University in fact, and was now doing well as part owner of the garage on Main Street; still another was paying-teller in the bank next to the garage; he wore very 'good-looking' suits, usually with a tiny line of white at the edge of the waistcoat.

Still Stephen was different.

When he had got his B. A.

degree at Ohio, he decided that he wanted to be a lawyer, and that he would go to one of the best schools in the country.

He chose Columbia.

He had worked his way through college, but he considered that it would not pay to work his way through Law School.

He wanted the time to get something out of New York.

His father was unable to advance the money, so Stephen went to a friend of his father's, a prosperous coal-dealer in the town, and asked that he lend him enough to put him through economically, but not, he plainly said, too economically.

He would give the coal-dealer notes, payable with interest four years after he was admitted to the bar.

The coal-dealer, taking into consideration the fact that the young man had broken every record at the university in scholarship, and two other facts, the young man's forehead and mouth, lent him the money.

He said that the interest need not begin until he was admitted.

Stephen thanked him and went to Columbia.

One of the professors there took a great fancy to him.

He introduced him to his sister, a maiden lady living in Washington Square, who, finding him very likable, introduced him to other people living in the Square.

Stephen was very happy.

He wrote to Eunice,--he had been engaged to her since the end of his second year at the Law School,--'Washington Square is rather terrifying from the outside, but once inside you feel beautifully at home.

I think it's the perfect breeding you find there.

I've met women more intellectual, greater perhaps, than Professor Lansing's sister, but never one who gives such an impression of completion.

There are no loose ends.

You will like her, Eunice.'

In another letter he said, 'We won't have much money to start with, of course, but if we put a little dignity into our kitchenette apartment, it will be a home that people will love to come to.

It's partly the dignity of their living that makes these Washington Square people so worth while to be with.'

And last week he had written, 'You won't find New York lonely.

They will love you, dear.

You belong.

You have not only charm but the dignity that belongs.

I wonder if I'm foolish to care so much for that word dignity.

Perhaps it's because I associate it with you, or perhaps--I love you because you have it.'

And Eunice too was happy and proud: happy that Stephen was coming into his own, and proud that he should think her equal to the occasion.

It would not be an easy task, being equal to Stephen.

Stephen was a great man, or would be a great man.

She knew it and Stephen knew it.

'We are going to be great, you and I,' he had said more than once.

And yet one day when she had answered, 'You and I, Stephen?'

his eyes, which had been alight with the glorious vision of the future, softened, and he had come and knelt beside her and had laid his head down.

'Oh, Eunice,' he had whispered, 'I've got brains; I'm pretty sure to be successful; but if I'm worth while, it will be because of you.

You are a great woman, dear.'

And Eunice had mothered him and had hoped--so fervently that the hope was a prayer--that she would really be great enough to meet his needs.

Sometimes she doubted.

She had dignity; Stephen had said so; but inside she was deprecating and shy.

People like Mabel Ashley made her shy, and most of the people she knew were like Mabel.

They thought Stephen's way of saying and thinking things 'funny.'

There was only one woman whom she could talk with, a High-School teacher who had come to board next door.

She and the High-School teacher took long walks together.

The High-School teacher had been to Europe twice.

She knew how people lived outside of this little Ohio town--outside of the United States even.

She was full of shrewd comment.

Eunice talked to her about the books that she and Stephen were reading, and sometimes about Stephen himself.

Several times the High-School teacher had said, 'He is splendid, Eunice.'

Eunice thought about her this afternoon as she put the last things away in the Glory-Box.

She hoped that, if the Washington Square people were like this teacher, she would get along.

And there came another encouraging thought.

The people in the Square were sure of themselves of course, but perhaps they were sure because they had things and had always had things.

She would one day have the things in her Glory-Box, and she would have Stephen.

After she was quite used to having them and to having a person like Stephen, she would be sure of herself too.

'Supper will be ready in five minutes, Eunice.'

'I'm coming in a moment.'

The room had grown quite dark.

Eunice lighted two candles standing on her bureau.

They were in common glass candlesticks which she had bought at the Ten Cent store: she had wanted to have brass; but then, Stephen and she were going to have brass candlesticks in every room of their house.

They both loved candle-light.

Eunice smoothed her dark hair.

Then she washed her hands very carefully.

Stephen had said once that they were not wonderfully pretty hands, but that they had distinction.

He had kissed them.

'I guess I'm all right now,' said Eunice, glancing into the mirror.

She picked up a photograph of Stephen from the bureau and laid her face against it.

Then she blew out the candles and went downstairs.

II

Stephen's letter that awaited her when she came home from school the next afternoon was a one-page scrawl.

'My head is ringing so with the quinine I've taken that I can't write to-night.

By to-morrow I shall probably be rid of this beastly cold.

I want to tell you about a book I've just read.

It's great stuff.'

He added a postscript: 'Don't ask me, dear, if I wore my rubbers day before yesterday.

You know I didn't.' In Eunice's eyes was a smile of amused tenderness as she put the letter back in its envelope.

If the cold were 'beastly,' perhaps he might remember next time.

She was afraid though that only married men wore rubbers.

No letter came the next day, or the next.

'If I don't hear to-morrow, I'll telegraph.'

'He's probably busy,' said her mother.

'I'm afraid he's sick.'

Eunice waited for the postman on Saturday morning, but he brought her no letter.

She put on her hat and coat.

'I'll be back in a half hour, mother.'

As she went down the steps a boy riding a bicycle stopped at the curb.

He handed her a telegram.

It was from Stephen's landlady.

Stephen had died that morning at two o'clock--of pneumonia.

Eunice was conscious of being very collected and calm as she went back into the house; quite wonderfully calm.

Her mother was in the kitchen.

Eunice went to her and told her--very gently.

She had the feeling that it was her mother's sorrow.

Her mother's dry, hard sobs and bowed figure brought the tears to her eyes.

She laid her hand on the thin convulsed shoulders.

'Mother, don't--don't, dear, it's all right, you know.'

She stood by her chair until the sobs ceased.

'I'm going around to--to Stephen's, mother.

I'll not be gone long.'

Mrs. Day followed her to the steps; her face was pitifully pinched, almost old.

At the gate Eunice turned and saw her.

'Poor mother!'

She wanted to go back and kiss her but she dared not.

Stephen's home was on the other side of the town.

It was a small frame house painted light gray, with a gable back and front, and a narrow porch running across it.

This morning the shades in the parlor were drawn down.

Eunice had to wait some moments before the door was opened by Stephen's young sister--a slip of a thing but a capable housekeeper.

Her eyes were swollen with crying.

'She's so little,' thought Eunice, and took her in her arms.

When the girl was able to speak, she told Eunice that her father had gone to New York, and that he would bring Stephen home.

Eunice stayed an hour, comforting, talking, planning.

Then she left her.

'I'm so quiet.

I didn't know it could be like this.'

The March wind blew the dust into her face.

The grit irritated her.

She wished there were snow on the ground and then wondered that she should care.

That was how it was the next two days: she went on thinking and acting, with every now and then this strange awareness of being alive.

But on Monday afternoon when they came home from the cemetery, Eunice went upstairs to her room.

'I'm going to lie down a while, mother.'

Her mother made no answer as she turned into the kitchen.

Eunice lay down on the bed.

A pale yellow sunset gleamed through the branches of the tree outside her window.

She had seen the yellow streak in the sky as they had left the cemetery.

She closed her eyes to shut it out.

Her heart was no longer numb.

It was waking to its misery.

She lay very still with clenched hands.

She had learned to bear physical pain that way.

She thought perhaps she could bear this if she lay very still.

'I want to tell you about a book I've just read.

It's great stuff.'

'O Stephen, Stephen, laddie!'

The tears came, and great sobs that shook and twisted her rigid body.

Once she thought her mother came up the stairs and stopped outside her door.

She buried her face in the pillow.

Her mother must not hear.

By and by,--she had been quiet for an hour,--her mother came in with a tray.

'I've made you some toast and tea, Eunice.

You must keep up your strength.'

Her tone was flat and emotionless.

She set the tray down by her in the darkness.

Then she lighted the gas.

Eunice swallowed the tea obediently, she was so very tired.

As she put the cup down her eyes fell on the cretonne-covered box in the window.

'Mother, my Glory-Box!

Don't let me see it!

Oh, don't let me see my Glory-Box!'

Mrs. Day came up to the bed.

'I'll take it out to-morrow while you are at school.

I meant to do that.'

Her face worked as she left the room.

When the door closed, Eunice sat up and pushed her tumbled hair back from her face.

She wanted to look at the Glory-Box.

To-morrow her mother was going to take it away.

She clasped her hands tightly about her drawn-up knees and stared at the box with hot, miserable eyes.

Of course it would have to be taken away, but she wanted to look at it now because it was her Glory-Box and because it was Stephen's. Stephen had made it.

'That's a decent job for just a lawyer,' he had said, when the last nail was driven in and they were taking a critical survey of it.

Stephen had laughed when she regretted that the roses in the cretonne were yellow, because the things to go into the box very likely would be pink.

He had laughed and kissed her and told her she had better get a pair of pink specs, then the roses would be pink enough.

And Stephen had taken such an interest in what she had written about the things she was embroidering for household use.

When she had reported a whole dozen napkins hemmed and initialed, he had thought it would be jolly to have nice linen.

They would probably be short on silver at first, but good linen made you feel respectable.

He remembered his mother taking so much pride in what had been left of hers.

For a moment the words of that letter were so vividly recalled that she forgot that Stephen was dead.

For quite a moment she was happy.

Then she remembered, but the realization brought no tears, only a swelling wave of misery.

'I can't bear it, oh, I can't!'

But even as she moaned she knew that she would bear it, that she would go on living for years and years and years.

Other girls she had known or heard about--in her own town--had gone on living: little Sadie Smith whose lover had been killed three days before her wedding, and even Milly Petersen, who had been engaged for five years when the man asked to be released because he wanted to marry the girl who had recently moved to Milly's street.

These girls had lived; they had grown pale and faded, or hard.

People felt very sorry for them: they were spoken of as 'poor Milly,' or 'Sadie Smith, poor child'; but they had lived.

Eunice saw herself moving among her little circle, brave and sad-eyed like these girls.

Suddenly--she never remembered just how it came about--suddenly her humor flashed a white light over the vision.

This sad-eyed Self seemed something not to pity but to scorn.

It was grotesque standing in your friend's parlor with clenched hands, as it were, and compressed lips, saying, 'Don't mind me, please.