C

YNTHIA woke with happiness like sunlight on her eyelids and

for a second let it lightly rest. It was Sunday morning in Hawthorn; happiness enough had she not known a greater. But now it was not only Hawthorn to which she was awaking, most beloved town; and not only church; but also something else something lying bright and precious and faintly heavy on her heart as the sun-yellow happiness upon her lids. Love had come straight and soon to Cynthia Pratt, who had never even heard of it before; and now she understood a thing which had vaguely puzzled her as long as she could remember -what life and the world were all about. Cynthia was fourteen.

It was because of Stockton Seabury that she and the world had both been made; Stockton Seabury, the college president's son, who had lent her picture-books when they were five years old and she was sick, and whose lovely name had ever since eluded her. With a start every once in a while she had tried to remember it, clutching back an important thing forgotten. She would ask her mother, "What was that little boy's name?—you know!" Her mother would remember, absently. Stockton Seabury, for whom Hawthorn was not a summer but a winter home, on account of the college, and who had never, since that time they

She had loved him the minute she saw him again the day she had arrived this week. She had him now like a photograph in her mind, snapped at that moment in motion, an arm and foot a-swing, with Hawthorn back of him and around him-what other town could have been right?-the broad street which led from down town to the campus, with its wide grassy curbs and tall elm-trees in the golden after-supper light. All her love had been for Hawthorn before this; now Hawthorn was embodied in a boy.

Next day had been the Sundayschool picnic at Jefferson Lake. And Stockton, from the boat he was rowing, had stopped with his brown hand the one Cynthia was rowing. He brought himself right alongside her as they sat at water-level facing each other, and smiled at her. All the children knew then, when he put his hand on her boat that way, that she was going to be his girl.

All that day, in and out of swings, merry-go-round, bath-houses, and the four-seated wagons which took them home, they watched each other, came near to each other, caught each other's eye. It was a day of swirling movement for Cynthia, of colors bright against each other everywhere. A little crowd of children shifted, clung together, fell apart, as in kaleidoscope; girls shifting around her, boys shifting around him. Being taller than the rest, he could look out from them to see her. She could keep him the center of the day's bright, shifting pieces. There would be no center now to any day, to any world, without him. Going home, she was crowded into another wagon from his, next to a redhaired woman who pointed out to her the alfalfa in the fields. Alfalfa. It was a new word to Cynthia; it seemed to mean all the strange, pompous things in which grown-up people were interested. She looked curiously at this woman who had thus coined a word for all which was not Stockton. The big wagon rocked dizzily as the heavy horses galloped; dust rose. The woman who thought alfalfa an interesting thing wondered if Cynthia was afraid. She did not know that Cynthia was safe now, perfectly safe, forever. Cynthia, who had not known that love existed, had found her love.

§ 2

Now, on the Sunday morning, she got out of bed and stood in the yellow light, giving thanks out of her full, ecstatic heart for her light-blue taffeta dress, her white hat with daisies, her parasol. She had not visualized those things in combination before. She did not have many clothes,-these were her summer best, and what she had

she had never thought much about. Now these three rose up before her as one entity, a glistening mirage. Did she really have them? She cautiously opened the yellow-varnished wardrobe. Yes, there they were. With careful, clumsy little fingers she laid them out side by side on the bed. How lovely to have them for Stockton to see her in at church! How very fortunate!

A thing she did not know was that in church they would be no more becoming to her than they were now, for setting and for shrine, as she stood motionless in her nightgown looking down at them in this first Adoration of her Clothes! She had discovered clothes but not herself. Cynthia's hair and eyes were as cinnamoncolored as the field-flower by the same name as her own. Her eyes were big, her hair crinkly, her skin white, her mouth wide and unconscious in its soberness or mirth. She was like the cynthia flower, beautiful in coloring, straightness, sturdy delicacy, in a look of being only lightly rooted in the earth. earth. In the yellow sunshine of that first summer Sunday she had had her love, her stillness had suggestion of a stirring and a flight.

§ 3

Church, red brick with white pillars, was down the street and across, at the point where the broad street divided into two streets with a park between. On this point bright dresses and raised parasols and black frock-coats were converging over the gray flags, the grassy curbs, the park, as Cynthia and her mother (her father never went; neither did she and her mother except here in Hawthorn, as part of vacation) set out to the ringing of the bell. In

side, the church was cool and dark, quiet except for a rustling of dresses, the swish of apologetic fans, and sounds in the choir-loft which meant the organ was going to begin. Sweet peas, bunches of lovely-colored wings from Hawthorn gardens, were on the pulpit. Stockton was ushering, in a dark suit. A coat on, and no brown arms. He ushered Cynthia and her mother. He looked at her as she went past him at the pew-end; a look like a smile. He had put them near where the president and lovely Mrs. Seabury were already bending their heads upon the pew in front of them. Colored light came in the windows over all of them.

Would Cynthia dare thus bend her head? Every summer in the Hawthorn church she had ached and yearned to do so. But it had never occurred to her that it was possible, that she really might. Even if she could have got over the bound feeling, the something stiff in her back, there would still have been the inevitable slight amusement of her mother. She remembered the minister last summer reading about how a camel could go through a needle's eye easier than something else could be done. Easier than for her back to bend, she thought, sadly! But oh, how it wanted to now more than ever, for Stockton was Orthodox (it was her father's word for church), and Stockton must not see her sitting high and straight above the others when they prayed! The organ had begun. The magical moments passed. Then suddenly the minister was reading:

"And behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it."

Words-beautiful, vague, blossoming words, opening out into the sky, into something endless and undefined and ineffably lovely-the mystery and the endlessness of God and loving Stockton! She looked to where he sat-but he sat unmoved; he had evidently heard it before. He was used to these lovely words which took one off the earth, which said the unsayable. Something lonesome and small, something which felt removed and cheated and different from other people in her, yearned now more fiercely than before to be Orthodox. She could never go to church, except here. She had never read the Bible. It was something about the way her father felt. He did not "believe in miracles." had never had her share of words, which any one but she could have so easily, abundantly. Now this about the ladder—this beautiful thing about angels ascending and descending on it! Up into the sky where God was and where loving Stockton had lifted her.

She

How someway lovely of the angels just to climb that way, when they could have flown! She, too, could fly. But if such a ladder should be fixed for her, on the earth and reaching into heaven, she too would walk-from courtesy, from a kind of slow delight, finding some staid and inward joy from moving as the mortals do. Loving Stockton made her want to be courteous, considerate. Or if Stockton were a mortal and she an angel she would never let him know that she could fly. She would walk with him; that would be flying enough. Would Stockton mind that she was n't Orthodox? But she would be for him! She would not mind then what her father said. She would fly boldly out into Orthodoxy with Stockton. She would read

the lovely Bible and believe it all. She would climb the ladder with him and the other angels of God to heaven, and then with him beside her fly away. Jack and the Beanstalk-it was something like that, was n't it?-only with God instead of the Giant at the top!

The minister was saying it again

"and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." There was the feeling of soaring, and before she knew what she was doing she had leaned her head upon the pew in front, ascending and descending, orthodox like him.

8 4

First Love, which comes before the age of knowledge, the only love entirely unencumbered with ideas and preconceptions-how little it has to do with words, with talk! It knows no terms; it is the thing itself from which, to fit which, terms and institutions have grown up. First lovers get love at first hand, instead of getting first the idea of romance into which to try to fit themselves and other people. They seldom talk. They get acquainted in other ways-by being near each other, by looking at each other, by softly, shyly touching hands. They hover near each other's houses, circle about them on their bicycles. They do things together-play games, run races. As watchful as small animals, they learn minutely each about the other. But they do not talk. They give each other things, always in fair exchange, and wear them out with carrying about. When they must know facts to supplement their findings, they ask-short, blunt questions. Opinion and discussion have little play.

"What school do you go to?" Stockton asked, sitting on her porch at night, his arm just barely touching hers, as he leaned a little from his chair to carve upon the arm of hers "C. P." and under it "S. S." "Are you going to college? . . . How old are you? When is your birthday? ... What does your father do? . . . Have you begun Latin yet? you begun Latin yet? . . . Have you got a brother? . . . Have you read F. Marion Crawford's books?" And then-it had to come:

...

...

"What church do you go to when you 're home?"

"I don't go to any," said Cynthia, bravely. "But-but I'm going to the Orthodox when I 'm a little older."

"Orthodox?" queried Stockton, poising his penknife. "Which 's that?” Cynthia's eyes were wide: "Why, the one like yours." "Oh-that's Baptist, Cynthia," he

said.

§ 5

A rainy day, rain sloshing quietly into puddles in the hollows of the flagstone walk down town. Cynthia with a rain-cape around her and an umbrella over her thick cynthia-colored hair which crinkled more than ever in the wet and blew around her face in rings. The post-office was a great bare room, with the mail-boxes in a thick wedge coming down the center, and ink-stained ledges around the walls with scratchy pens for addressing postcards. Yes, he was there for the morning mail-opening the large lockbox which the president of the college had to have. With an armful of mail and wheeling his bicycle, he walked home with her and came in.

They sat on the wide door-sill, close together out of the reach of the rain.

His arm touched hers-his habitual, shyly confident caress. He took hold of her hand for a moment to look at her seal-ring. From the open front door came the smell of sweet peas. Sweet peas and rain, and the elm-trees bending, heavy with their rain-sagged leaves. Hawthorn on a rainy morning, with Stockton there. Big tears came into Cynthia's eyes, surprising her.

"What's the matter, Cynthia?"

Words, and a way of saying them, to sink down and down into the well of her heart. An older little girl would have called it tenderness, but Cynthia did no calling.

pleasure at Cynthia's radiant face and bright, blowing hair.

"Sure it is," called Stockton. Cynthia was proud-proud and still. Dr. Breen knew that she was Stockton's girl. Let all the world pass by!

"I'm going to library this afternoon rainy. Are you?" asked Stockton, and reluctantly gathered the president's mail off the wet porch-floor.

§ 6

It was quiet in the library, with only a shuffling sound from the librarian sorting cards. Soft rain on the panes. Several children were huddled in the strange attitudes which children take

"Girls are funny. . . . There comes my mother."

Lovely Mrs. Seabury with a marketbasket on her arm, blowing along under an umbrella; she waved gaily at the two in the door-niche, calling something in her high, sweet voice. Cynthia's mother was grave with Stockton, but with Cynthia Stockton's mother was always very gay. Her greetings opened out vaguely and lightly into a happy world of which Cynthia felt shy. Mingled adoration and fear she had for her as she timidly waved back. She was the most lovely and mysterious woman in the world-Stockton's mother. She made Cynthia tongue-tied. Stockton would think she was n't much good if she could n't act a little like his mother did sometimes; but she was sure she never could. Stockton's mother, passing by.

"Ah-hah, ah-hah," called Dr. Breen, whom all the children liked, hurrying by with his bag. "It 's a nice rain, is n't it, Stockton?" He looked with

if oblivious of her. Suddenly she saw his hand steal out toward her with something in it. She reached. It was a tiny square snap-shot of himself. She looked quickly away from it, tucking it into her dress. She must be alone really to study it as she wanted to. It took her breath a little, as meeting him unexpectedly in the street would do.

She bent again over the F. Marion Crawford story of intrigue and romance in early Venice, but she was not really reading it. She was just existing, consciously, for perhaps the first time. The field-flower in a quiet, windless moment, conscious of its growth, of being higher than it had been, nearer to the sky. Wordless thoughts they were, but not formless; cumulated like clouds into ephemeral but splendid shapes. First love is the prototype of later love; something of the stature of soul of a loved woman was being reached in Cynthia, whose feet were tucked up under her plaid dress on the chair-rung, whose hands around her book were still child's