# The Cat and the King (Lee)

Extracted from The Ladies' Home Journal, Oct 1919, pp. 10, 67, 68, 71. Accompanying illustrations may be omitted. Also included in Breaking the Ties that Bind: Popular Stories of the New Woman, 1915–1930 (1992) and The Ladder (Apr, May 1972)—"published by Lesbians and directed to ALL women seeking full human dignity"—and in sundry anthologies of lesbian fiction.
"The Cat and the King" ... describes love between two women college students. Lillian Faderman argues that "[t]he probable lack of sophistication of most Journal readers explains perhaps why love between women could be treated in such positive terms at so late a date" Warning: template has been deprecated.
A Freshman Wanted to Meet a Senior, But There Were the Inexorable Laws. How Could She Do It? Then She Did It. And That is the Story of—
The Cat and the King
By Jennette Lee
ILLUSTRATION BY RALPH PALLEN COLEMAN
SHE had been up this morning at four o'clock, and had crept out through the gate, almost guiltily, and off across the fields for a long walk. There might be nothing wrong in taking a walk at four o'clock in the morning; perhaps no one would have stayed her in her flight through the college gates, munching her bit of crackers and cheese, had they known. But no one knew. She had carefully not inquired....
She had had her walk, with the freshness of the spring luring her on, up Redmond Hill, down the slope by Boardman's and along home by the road, gathering from the bushes on either side the great masses of trailing vines that draped her head and shoulders and hung swaying from her arms. It had been a wonderful walk—pulling the vines from the bushes, shaking the dew from the clustering blossoms and drenching herself in freshness.
The blossoms were a faint, greenish white and, with her green-and-white-striped skirt and white blouse as she stood in the gateway looking in on the college halls, the flowers and the twisting stalks of leaves twined about her and framing her in, she might have been the very spirit of the outdoor world peeping shyly in at the halls of learning, curious, wistful and tiptoe for flight.
She stood a moment gazing up at the great masses of brick and stone that made up her college world. The side of the buildings nearest the lodge gate was in shadow and the vines and the dull red of the bricks seemed to hold for her something mysterious and strange. She went slowly up the brick walk, holding in check a sudden longing to turn back, to flee once more to the fields and the little brook that ran gurgling by Boardman's and make a day of it, out in the free world.
IT WAS mysterious and wonderful—this college where her name was enrolled: “Flora Bailey, 1920.” But there was something overpowering about it. The great walls that looked so gracious in the fresh morning light had a way of shutting one in, of hampering and binding the movements of freshmen. There were so many things one must and must not do within the gracious walls! Her eye glanced up to a tower of South Parker, high up to a window where silken curtains hung in even folds, and a sigh escaped her lips. One must not make friends with seniors, for instance, except by invitation—and a senior was very high up!
The curtains parted a little. The girl's eyes glanced quickly. A firm hand pushed back the curtains and a figure stood between them looking out on the morning. The lifted head bore a mass of reddish hair gathered carelessly, and the light that fell on the tallest peaks and gables of the college touched it with gold. To the freshman, gazing from her walk, it was as if a goddess, high-enshrined and touched by the rising sun, stood revealed. She gave a gasp of pleasure.
It had been a glorious walk out in the dew and sunrise, and now Annette Osler was gazing from her tower window—not on the girl on the college walk, to be sure, but on the world of wonder.
She looked up adoringly at the figure in the tower of South Parker. And the girl high in the window turned a little and looked down. There was no one in sight—only the quiet light of morning on the campus and the wind rippling shadowy waves in the ivy leaves on brick walls. A little rippling wave seemed to run from the walk to the high tower window, and with a gesture of happiness the girl on the walk turned toward the entrance of Gordon Hall. Her pulses sang as she went, her step danced a little, hurrying up the stairs and along the corridor to her room. She opened the door quickly.
Across the room by the window, her roommate, surrounded by books, was taking notes, dipping in here and there with alert pencil. She looked up in swift surprise. “Why, where have you—— Oh, how lovely!” Her eye caught the green-and-white blossoms and she sprang up. “Here—I'll get the pitcher!”
She brought a pitcher from the bedroom, and Flora placed the vines in water, standing back to survey them. They trailed down over the window sill and onto the seat below. She touched them with quick fingers. “That will do. We'll arrange them after breakfast.”
HER companion had gone back to her task of scooping up notes with a flying pencil. She suspended it a minute and looked up. “Do you remember Bainnuter?” she asked absently.
“Bainnuter?” repeated Flora. “I don't seem to remember—— Was he on the Yale team?”
“They Thought I'd Better be Careful.... On Account of the Game.... Too Bad You Can't Come!”
Her roommate stared. Then she chuckled. “He's ancient history, Flora dear! Early Egyptian. I was wondering if Doxey would ask us about him. Do you suppose he will?”
Flora wheeled. She regarded her with startled eyes. “History exam! This morning!” she gasped. “I forgot—oh, I forgot!” She seized her books from the table, hunting out a stub of pencil in haste. “I hate 'em all—everybody that's had any history done about 'em. I hate 'em!” she said savagely.
“Why, I thought you liked history! You did splendidly in the February exam. You're such a clever thing! I wish I were!” She sighed deeply and returned to her scooping and dredging.
THE roommate's name was Aspasia—Aspasia Elton. That was another of the perplexing things about college, living night and day with a girl named Aspasia. It made life topsy-turvy. No one at home had names out of history books.
Aspasia glanced at her casually. “Better cram on Rameses II,” she said kindly. “They say he's dippy on Rameses!”
The room was quiet. No sound came from the corridors or from the rooms above or below.
The two girls turned leaves and crammed notes. Now and then one of them sighed. Sounds began to come from the corridor—hurried feet in slippers, and splashings and calls from the bathrooms, and bits of conversation floating over transoms.
Flora closed her book with a little shrug. She put a pencil carefully in the place. “Doxey gave me warning last week,” she said.
Aspasia looked up. “What a shame!”
“No-o. It's all right. I knew I wasn't doing anything; only I hoped he didn't know. I thought the February exam had fooled him—maybe.”
“Anyway, you don't need to worry. Your February mark will carry you through.”
“Yes; but it won't put me on the team. That's all I care about, all I've ever cared about,” she said slowly.
Aspasia nodded. It was sympathetic and vague. “Well—you can live if you don't make the team. Other folks do.”
“I can't!” said Flora.
Her roommate looked at her reflectively. “It's Annette Osler,” she announced. “Just because she's captain, you want——”
Flora's face was scarlet. “I don't care if it is!” she murmured.
“Be a sport, Flora! You can't have a crush on a senior——”
“It is not a crush!” said Flora vehemently. “I just want to know Annette because she's the kind of girl I like. And if I get on the team, she'll notice me; she'll have to notice me! There isn't any other way to get to know a senior, is there?” she demanded.
“You're too aspiring,” said Aspasia. She gathered up her books and notes. “Come on to breakfast. There's the bell.”
“I'm not going to breakfast,” said Flora firmly. “I've got to study.”
Her roommate reappeared from the bedroom. “You're a weak, sentimental freshman!” she remarked casually.
“I am not sentimental! I want to know Annette Osler because she's a great, glorious creature! So, there! Let be teasing, Aspasia.”
“'Let be teasing'! I must save that for Professor Goodwin. Funny English! Did you get it from your grandmother, honey? He'll be sure to ask the 'source,' you know.”
“Go along!” said Flora crossly.
SHE was left alone, and there was only the sunlight falling on the green-and-white vines in the window and traveling to the scattered books on the table. She looked at them a minute; then her arms dropped to the table with a little gesture of defeat, and her face dropped to her arms....
A bumblebee hummed in the window and went away.
It may have been the blossoms.
She lifted her face and looked at them balefully. If only she had known enough to get up at four o'clock to study instead of going off for that miserable walk! And suddenly the sunrise as it came over Redmond Hill flashed back to her; it brought the song of a bird that trilled softly out of the woods.
Her face seemed to listen to the fluting call. Then it grew thoughtful. If there were some way, some legitimate way, of attracting the attention of a senior! Annette liked the things she liked. Often she watched her setting off alone over the hill that led to the fields. And because she was a freshman she might not hurry after her and say: “Come on for a walk with me!”... And suddenly she looked at it. Why not? Why not go to her, this very morning, lay the ease before her and ask her to go for a walk? Why not?... The history exam might as well be cut; she was bound to flunk anyway! She pushed the books aside with a look of distaste. She would do it—and do it now!
There was a sound in the hall. She picked up her book and opened it swiftly to Rameses II.
The door swung open on Aspasia, one elbow holding careful guard over a glass of milk and two large slices of bread and butter.
Flora sprang up. “You dear!”
Aspasia set the milk on the table and turned, a little breathless. “What do you think? Annette Osler has sprained her ankle! They're taking her up to the infirmary now!”
And Flora looked at her with a foolish, half-startled smile. “Now isn't that a stupid thing to do!” she said slowly. “How long do you suppose she will have to stay in the infirmary?”
“Oh—ages!” said Aspasia carelessly. “A sprained ankle isn't a thing you get over in a day, you know. She'll be there weeks maybe.”
And Flora looked down at Rameses II. “How stupid!” she said to him softly.
It had seemed so simple this morning to go to Annette. And now she might have been a thousand miles away, for any chance there was of getting at her.
THE history examinations came and went in a maze of gloom. She had flunked of course. She did not care particularly about the flunking, but it was embarrassing to meet Professor Dockery on the campus next day; and she made a little skillful detour to evade him—only to see him coming toward her along the path by the elms.
He stopped as she came up and looked down at her consideringly. “You wrote a good paper yesterday; a very good paper indeed!”
“I did!” cried Flora.
“I shall withdraw my opposition to your being on the team,” he said kindly.
Flora gazed at him mutely. “Now isn't that a shame!” she said swiftly. And she hurried on to the fields, leaving him to extract what sense he could from the wail.
She tramped far that afternoon. A new bird lured her on; and she found a curious hummocky nest on the ground, with a breakfast of shining roots spread out before it. She went down on her knees—a field mouse probably—or a mole perhaps. She wished there were someone to share it with—the delicately lined dome that her fingers explored and the shining roots at the door.... Her thoughts traveled rebelliously to the infirmary—“weeks perhaps,” Aspasia said.
And then, as she knelt by the hummocky nest, the idea came to her. She got up from her knees, smiling down on the little brown dome and the breakfast of roots, and nodded to it slowly and happily.
“I'll do it,” she said softly. “I'll do it—right off.”
WHEN she came in from her walk she went directly to the library and asked for medical books. The librarian bent a keen, spectacled inquiry on her.
“I want them for fiction purposes,” explained Flora, “'for local color.”
But when the musty books were laid before her, she had a period of depression. She attacked them in a little gust of discouragement, selecting the most modern-looking one with colored plates and diagrams and opening it at random. The charts and plates held her. Next to outdoors could there be anything more fascinating and mysterious than the human body? Why had no one ever told her about these things!
She looked down curiously at her own hand resting on the book. It seemed to her a new hand, one that she had never seen before. The network of blue veins fascinated her; they were little branching trees or the delicate veining of leaves. She had not guessed people were like that, as wonderful as trees!—like trees really, with all those branches of muscles and nerves and veins.
Perhaps they were trees once.
Her mind dreamed on happily. She knew how it felt to be a tree, swaying in the wind, with the rain on your leaves. Perhaps she was a tree once, and grew on a hillside, and the squirrels ran up and down and nibbled at branches. She gave a little chuckling laugh in the silence of the library, and the librarian looked over reprovingly from her platform.
Flora made a gesture of apology and plunged again into her search. But it had changed now from seeking to dallying enjoyment. Why had no one told her? And she read on till the librarian touched her on the shoulder and she looked up, blinking.
“The bell has rung,” said the librarian reprovingly.
“Oh-h!” breathed Flora. “Yes; I want them again, please!” And she hurried off blithely.
It was only as she was making ready for dinner that it occurred to her she had not found what she started out to seek.
But in the evening, in the library again, she came on it. She had almost given up her search and was only looking idly at the oldest of the brown books when her eye fell on “The Curious Case of Prudence Small.”
SHE began to read. And as she read her cheeks glowed and her eyes danced. She looked speculatively at the librarian. The librarian was a small woman, and there were only two other girls in the room. Better wait? She shook her head. She would never have the courage if she waited! She opened the book again to “The Curious Case of Prudence Small” and read the details once more—and looked up.
The green-shaded reading lights in the dim room made little ghastly circles about the two girls bending over their books; and the librarian, mounted on her platform, seemed like some priestess of knowledge waiting for mystic rites to begin. Flora fixed her eye on her and stood up. The librarian went on counting out cards. Flora scraped her chair a little on the floor; and then, as no one paid attention, she gave it a shove that upset it with a clatter and brought the spectacled glance full upon her amid a look of annoyance from the girls across the room.
Flora lifted her arms slowly. She gave a long low moan and subsided gently to the floor.
There was a flurry of green-shaded lights, a glimpse of the librarian's startled face; then the sound of running feet, and the two girls were bending over a rigid figure and lifting it from the floor.
Five minutes later, in the consulting room of the infirmary, the college physician, summoned from a comfortable game of whist, bent above the rigid figure.
Flora's eyes rested trustfully on the physician's face. She had recovered consciousness almost as soon as they had deposited her on the infirmary couch. Five minutes the book said; she judged it must be about five minutes—and she opened her eyes and gazed pensively at the perturbed faces that surrounded her.
THE physician dismissed them all with a curt gesture. She brought a basin of water, with a bit of ice tinkling in it, and began to bathe the girl's forehead with swift, sopping strokes.
“I fell,” murmured Flora dreamily.
Doctor Worcester nodded. “You will have a good-sized lump, I'm afraid.” She went on sopping with skillful strokes.
Flora's eyes closed meekly. She felt a little thankful for the bump. She had never seen Doctor Worcester before, near to, and there was something in the face bent above her that made her wonder how “The Curious Case of Prudence Small” would come out. “There!” The doctor put aside the basin. “I don't think it will be discolored now. How do you feel?” She was looking down at her critically.
Flora's face flushed. She recalled hastily how she felt—and stretched out her arms and rubbed them a little. “I feel better,” she said slowly, “only there is a little buzzing in the top of my head, and the soles of my feet are slightly paralyzed, I think.”
She said it neatly and glibly and lay with closed eyes, waiting for what might happen.
The doctor's swift eyes studied the passive countenance. “I think we will keep you here to-night,” she said quietly.
She touched a bell and gave directions to the nurse. Her fingers rested lightly on Flora's wrist. “We will put her in the ward,” she said, “next to Miss Osler.” She started and glanced sharply down at the wrist under her fingers, and then at the girl's placid face.
She held the wrist a minute and dropped it slowly, her eyes on the face. “I shall look in again before I go to bed. She may need a quieting draft to make her sleep.”
FROM her desk on her platform, the librarian peered over at the doctor, who was standing looking down the green-shaded, quiet room.
“Tell me just what happened,” said the doctor briskly.
And while the librarian recounted the meager details of the story, the doctor's thoughtful face surveyed the vacant room and the table where the brown books lay.
“It might have been studying too soon after eating—don't you think?” inquired the librarian helpfully.
“I don't think anything,” said the doctor. “I'm puzzled.” She walked across to the table and picked up one of the books. “What was she reading?” she asked.
The librarian flushed. “She said she wanted them for fiction purposes; 'English A,' I suppose, don't you?”
But the physician did not reply. She was looking at a page that had fallen open in her hand, perhaps because an energetic elbow had held it pressed back for half an hour. “The patient said, on inquiry, that her head still buzzed a little, and the soles of her feet were slightly paralyzed.”
She shut the book with a laugh. “I'll take this along with me. No, I don't think it's serious—a case of nerves maybe.”
Her face wore a thoughtful look as she gave directions to the night nurse in the infirmary and looked over charts. She did not go to the ward, and she left no directions for a sleeping draft for the new patient.
The nurse wondered afterward if the doctor could have forgotten. But there was no sign of restlessness in the ward when she went in a little later. The new patient was asleep. There was only one other patient in the ward, a senior who had sprained her ankle a few days ago. She had been asleep when the new patient was brought in. The nurse stepped very softly and passed out of the shaded ward, drawing the door to behind her.
Flora opened her eyes. Through the chink of door a light burned dimly. And through the open window beside her the moonlight streamed in. The infirmary was at the top of the building, and she could look down on the sleeping world and off at the great clouds drifting and swinging against a blue-black sky. She turned her head a little. The senior was asleep, one hand tucked under her cheek, the reddish hair gathered into a quaint cap; the moonlight, touching the quiet face, made it seem like a child's. Flora gazed with devoted, happy eyes. The little pricks of conscience that had stirred in her under the doctor's inquiring gaze subsided. She felt happy and at home for the first time in her college life.
Something flew across the window, shutting out the moon, with great flapping wings. She turned quickly; a bat maybe—no, too large for a bat!... The doctor's keen eyes flitted before her, and she sighed a little and moved restlessly and caught a glimpse of her hand lying on the coverlet. How pale it was in the moonlight! She lifted it curiously and gazed at the delicate strangeness of it—all the little veins and bones and tissues. They were made of moonlight! Charts and diagrams floated before her—filmy lungs, delicate branching nerves, all the mysterious network of wonder.
Then her mind flashed to the mole's nest and shining roots. And she gazed again at the pillowed head in its cap. To-morrow she would tell Annette! To-morrow—and a whole week to come! She was not sentimental! She only wanted to know Annette—and take long walks—with Annette. Her eyelids drooped a little. She tried to prop them open, to gaze at the beloved face. She wanted to show Annette the mole's nest and the breakfast—of—roots.... And she trailed away into a dream world, carrying the mole's nest and the little roots with her far down into her sleep....
WHEN she opened her eyes they were gazing straight into a pair of gray ones framed in a curious cap. The gray eyes smiled.
“Hello!” said the senior. “Did you drift in in the night?”
And Flora smiled back shyly. No need to talk or make advances now. There would be a week—a whole week——
The senior sat up and reached for a purple robe that hung at the head of the bed and drew it about her. It was a gorgeous robe with tracings of gold running over it; and, as she gathered it about her shoulders, a lock of the reddish hair escaped from her cap and fell across it. She made a royal picture for watching eyes.
She tucked in the escaped lock with half-apologetic fingers. “Stupid, to wear a cap! But my hair tangles so!”
“I like it,” said Flora promptly. “I think it looks—quaint!”
“Thank you!” said the senior. She turned a smiling glance. A little look of surprise touched it. “Why, you're the wood nymph—green and white!” she exclaimed. “I saw you the other morning, didn't I, coming in, before breakfast!”
“I'd been for a walk,” said Flora.
“You were a little bit of all outdoors!” said the senior laughing. She stretched her arms in a restful gesture and looked about the sun-filled room. “Glorious day, isn't it? Perfect—for the game!” She glanced at Flora kindly. 'Too bad you'll miss it. Are you in for long?”
“I don't know,” said Flora happily. “They haven't found out yet what's the matter with me.” She stopped short.
The senior had thrown back the covers and was sitting on the edge of the bed, gathering her robe about her.
Flora's startled gaze held her. “You'll hurt your foot!”
“My foot?” She glanced down at it and thrust it into a purple slipper by the bed, and stood upright—on both feet. “I didn't hurt it at all—not really. But they thought I'd better be careful. Rest for a day or two—on account of the game. Too bad you can't come!”
SHE had knotted her girdle about her and was moving toward the door with vigorous stride.
“Oh—ah!” gasped Flora. She waved her hands in a helpless gesture.
The senior glanced back. “Yes?” she said.
“Did you—did you ever happen to see—a mole's nest?” asked Flora. It came in a little jerk, almost a cry of pain.
“A mole's—nest?” The senior paused doubtfully. “I don't think so. It sounds interesting!” But there was a laughing note in the voice that brought a quick flush to the freshman face.
“It might have been a field mouse,” said Flora weakly.
The senior's eyes were laughing now and she nodded kindly. “I hope you won't have to stay long. But they're awfully good to you here—take the best care of you!” And she nodded again and was gone.
And Flora gazed for a moment where the purple cloud of glory had been. It vanished into a misty blur; and she subsided, a bundle of sobs, under the tumbled clothes.
Doctor Worcester appeared in the doorway. The hunched-up figure in the bed by the window was very quiet. Only a damp handkerchief pressed tight over two eyes was visible, and a tumbled mop of hair.
The doctor came in, glancing about the sun-filled room with a look of pleasure. The infirmary ward was always a cheerful place, but never so attractive as when all the beds were vacant—or nearly all. The fewer heads on pillows the better, to Doctor Worcester. She was a tall, motherly woman, with snow-white hair and a little stoop of the broad shoulders that seemed to take something from the keenness of the straight-glancing dark eyes. She wore a white dress of soft material and in her hand she carried a book, an oldish-looking book in brown covers.
SHE sat down by the bed and the brown book rested unobtrusively on her lap. For a time there was silence in the room. The doctor's chair creaked a little as she rocked. Outside the window great white clouds were floating; the sunshine in the room had something of the same cloudlike quality of ethereal lightness. Only the huddled figure on the bed was darkened with grief.
“They tell me you didn't eat your breakfast,” said the doctor tranquilly.
“I didn't want any.” It was muffled and subdued.
“It would have been better to eat it,” said the doctor.
“How long do I have to stay here?” asked the voice from the clothes.
The doctor's chair creaked. “Well, it depends. I have to find out first just what's the matter with you: It seems to be—a curious—case.”
The words came slowly, and one small ear emerged above the bedclothes and cocked itself with almost startling alertness.
The doctor gazed at the ear attentively. “If you get on all right, of course you will not have to stay long, not more than a week or so——”
There was a movement of the clothes and a muffled sound from beneath.
“But of course if you are foolish and cry——”
The handkerchief moved briskly and drew back from one eye, and the eye gazed out at the doctor intelligently. After a moment it dropped and traveled downward and reached—the brown book. “O-h-h!” said Flora. She sat up swiftly and wiped both eyes and gazed at the book.
The doctor's hand rested on it. She nodded quietly. “Wouldn't you better tell me all about it?” she asked.
Flora gazed from the window at the great clouds traveling by. Her short upper lip trembled. “I just read about her—in the book.” She waved her hand. “And so I—I did it.”
“Yes; I'd got as far as that myself,” said the doctor. “But why?”
THE two souls were silent. The doctor had brought up three daughters. There was something about this alert-eyed freshman that touched her interest—and her sense of humor.
“You didn't do it because you wanted to meet me, did you?” The shot was closer than she knew, and Flora cast a quick glance at her.
“I didn't know about you. If I had, I'd have done it maybe.” Her eyes had a look of shy pleasure.
The doctor laughed out. “Pretty good—for a freshman!” She held up the book. “Was it reading this put it into your head?”
“I thought of it first, and then I hunted in the library. I didn't know she was there. I was just looking for a disease—a disease that was quick and easy to have, you know—and I came on Prudence.”
“I thought so,” said the doctor with a look of satisfaction. “Go on, please.”
So, little by little, the story came out, sometimes in bold sweeps and sometimes with Flora's back half turned and her eyes following shyly the great white clouds that went billowing by in the sky. She told it all—even to the catastrophe of the mole's nest, Annette's laughing exit and her own tragic grief.
But a little smile touched the words as she ended. “And that's all,” she said.
“You're not looking at it sentimentally any more,” said the doctor practically.
The face flushed. “I wasn't sentimental,” swiftly; “not exactly sentimental, I guess. Only it's hard sometimes to tell. Your feelings get mixed up so.”
She glanced inquiringly at the doctor, who nodded with amused face. “That is one of the discoveries of science,” she replied.
Flora looked at it. She shook her head. “You're not making fun of me?” she inquired timidly.
“Not in the least!” said the doctor.
“Anyway—that's the way it was. I wanted to know her. She's so beautiful! Don't you think she's beautiful?”
“Yes,” said the doctor gravely.
Flora nodded. “And she likes walks, the way I do. But it was the mole's nest. Maybe it was a field mouse,” she said reflectively. “Anyway, I wanted to show it to her. It was so wonderful!” She sighed softly. “It seemed as if I couldn't stand it not to have her see it. And I was lonely, looking at it all alone! You see it's all mixed up.” She looked appealingly at the doctor.
“I see,” said the doctor.
“The little roots were shiny and laid out for breakfast, as if somebody was coming back in a minute. And it was all still around, and the light in the sky just growing pink. It almost hurts you when things are like that. You can't help being lonely.” She had forgotten the doctor and the infirmary. She seemed to see only the shining roots and the little nest on the ground. “I guess it's because it's like me, inside,” she was saying softly, “the way I am inside—all little branches and bones and shining things.”
The doctor leaned forward to catch the words. Perhaps she asked a question or two. Her steady eyes watched the girl's face as the story went on—the discovery of the charts and diagrams, and the swift response and delight in them.
The doctor sat very quiet. This was the sort of thing one sometimes came on, once in an age! And the child had supposed she was playing a prank—getting to know a senior! And the books she opened were life! The doctor had watched girls come and go, reaching out to choose some nothing. And now and then it seemed to her a gentle hand reached down and touched the chosen nothing and it became shining, a crystal ball holding life in its roundness.
THE doctor was a scientist. To her also the human body was mysterious and wonderful, and often she seemed to graze the edge of truth and catch a glimpse of the unity that binds life in one. She looked at the girl, who had finished speaking and was lying back watching the sky and the clouds moving in it. “Which of your studies do you like best?” she asked gently.
The girl turned. “I hate 'em all,” swiftly. “History's worst, I think—studying about Rameses II and mummy things!” She threw out her hands. “It's wicked—when there's all outdoors and all the beautiful things inside of us!”
She had spread both hands across her chest, as if to cover as much territory as possible; and to the doctor there was something almost tragic in the gesture. Her eyes dwelt on the small figure—the disheveled hair and round eyes and reddened lids.
“You'd like to study biology, I suppose,” she said reflectively.
“Everything 'that's alive,” said Flora promptly.
“Perhaps you'd better have your breakfast now—and keep alive yourself.”
And Flora ate it, propped against the pillows, the brown book lying on the foot of the bed. Now and then she cast a swift, resentful look at the book. But she was hungry and the marmalade was good and it was a wonderful day.
And then she glanced at the window and remembered suddenly the game that she was not to see!
The doctor had returned and was standing by the bed, looking down and smiling. “All through?” she asked serenely.
Flora nodded. “I was pretty hungry,” she acknowledged.
“I thought so.”” The doctor removed the tray.
“How long do I have to stay here?” meekly.
The doctor sat down. She seemed to ignore the question. “I've been thinking about a biology course for you. There isn't any class you could go into just now.”
“No,” Flora sighed. “I didn't suppose there would be. Perhaps I can do it after I'm through being educated.” She said it with a gleam of mischief, and the doctor laughed out.
“How would you like to work in my laboratory, once a week?”
FLORA leaned forward, breathless. “To study—with you!”
“Well—study, or call it what you like. I am working there Saturdays, and I generally have a student with me to help and look on. Sometimes she experiments a little herself.”
“Oh!” It was a sigh of pure joy.
“It's usually a senior of course. In fact, I have a senior now.” She was watching the glowing face. “Annette Osler is helping me this year.”
Flora's face flushed; then the joy in it laughed out. “I don't deserve that, do I?” she said softly.
The telephone sounded in the next room and the doctor left her a moment. When she returned she glanced at her with a little smile. “Do you think you are feeling well enough to get up?”
The girl sat up with a swift glance of hope.
The doctor nodded. “It's from the team. Someone has given out; they are calling for the next reserve. I thought of you”—she looked teasingly and dubiously. Then she smiled. “Well, go along! And remember you're to come to me Saturday.”
She went toward the door. She turned and looked back. “I forgot. You are to report at once to the captain—in her room.”
Ten minutes later, in the morning of clouds and wind, a small figure in knickerbockers and blouse, with hair in a braid down its back, was scudding along the walk that led to South Parker. The braid of hair was tied with green-and-white ribbon and it swung gayly behind as the figure scudded on.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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