Chapter 6

AN ADMIRER

It must be remembered that Prudence did not live in a sheltered and exclusive city home, where girls are rigidly withheld from all unchaperoned intercourse with young men and old. We know how things are managed in the "best homes" of the big cities,--girls are sheltered from innocent open things, and, too often, indulge in really serious amusements on the quiet. But this was the Middle West, where girls are to be trusted. Not all girls, of course, but as a matter of fact, the girls who need watching, seldom get enough of it to keep them out of mischief. Out in Iowa, girls and boys are allowed to like each other, and revel in each other's company. And it is good for both.

Prudence was not a sentimental girl. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact that at the age when most girls are head-full of boy, Prudence was hands-full of younger sisters! And when hands are full to overflowing, there is small likelihood of heads being full of nonsense. Prudence liked boys as she liked girls,--that was the end of it. Romance was to her a closed book, and she felt no inclination to peep between the covers. Soul-stirring had not come to her yet.

But Prudence was attractive. She had that indescribable charm that carries a deep appeal to the eyes, and the lips, and the hearts of men. Happily Prudence herself did not realize this. The first young man of Mount Mark to yield to the charms of Prudence was a serious-minded lawyer, nearly ten years her senior. This was just the type of man to become enraptured with Prudence. He gazed across at her solemnly during the church service. He waited patiently after the benediction until she finished her Methodist practise of hand-shaking, and then walked joyously home with her. He said little, but he gazed in frank enchantment at the small womanly girl beside him.

"He's not half bad, Fairy," Prudence would confide to her sister when they were snug in their bed. "He's not half bad at all. But at heart, he doesn't approve of me. He doesn't know that himself, and I certainly can't believe it is my duty to tell him. But I am convinced that it is true. For instance, he thinks every one, especially women, should have a mission in life, a serious, earnest mission. I told him I didn't believe anything of the kind,--I think we are just supposed to live along from day to day and do what we can, and be happy, and not say mean things about one another. But he said he considered that I was fulfilling the noblest mission a woman could have. Now what do you reckon he meant by that, Fairy? I've been puzzling my brain over it for days and days. Anybody can tell I am not the sort of girl to have a mission! Maybe he just said it to encourage me,--he's a very encouraging sort of man. He's very nice,--oh, very nice, indeed! But isn't it a nuisance to have him tagging along home with me, when I might be having such a good time with you and the twins, or father? Can a girl tell a man she prefers to go home with her family, without hurting his feelings? Is there any way to turn a person down without letting him know it? He's so nice I wouldn't hurt his feelings for anything, but--it's such a bother! I'm too young for beaus, and since I'm never going to get married it's just a waste of time."

And Fairy screamed with laughter, but told Prudence she must solve her own love problems! And Prudence, unwilling to give offense, and preferring self-sacrifice, endured his company until a gay young college lad slipped in ahead of him. "First come, first served," was the motto of heartless Prudence, and so she tripped comfortably away with "Jimmy," laughing at his silly college stories, and never thinking to give more than a parting smile at the solemn face she left behind.

After Jimmy came a grocery clerk named Byron Poe Smith, and after him somebody else, and somebody else, and somebody else. And Prudence continued to laugh, and thought it "awfully amusing, Fairy, but I keep wondering what you and the twins are laughing about!"

But it was Fairy herself who brought a real disturbing element into the life of Prudence. One of the lightest-minded of the many light-minded college men, had been deeply smitten by the charms of dignified Fairy. He walked with her, and talked with her,--this young man was a great deal of a talker, as so pathetically many college men are! He planned many little expeditions and entertainments for her amusement, and his own happiness. His name was Eugene Babler.

"Oh, he talks a lot," said Fairy coolly, "but he certainly shows one a good time, and that's the point, you know!"

She came in from college one afternoon and rattled off this little tale to Prudence.

"A few of us were on the campus to-day, and we decided to go down the creek to-morrow afternoon and take our suppers. There'll be Ellen Stark, and Georgia Prentiss, and myself. And the boys will be Tom Angell, and Frank Morris, and Eugene Babler. And Professor Rayburn was there when we were talking about it, and so we asked him to go along, but we told him he must take a girl. And he said, 'I wonder if your sister wouldn't go? I have only met her once, but perhaps on your recommendation, Miss Fairy----' and he paused with his breath in the air, inquiringly. So I said, 'Do you mean Prudence, or one of the twins?' He smiled very kindly and said, 'I mean Prudence.' I said I was sure you would go, and so you'll have to do it. It's a great honor, Prue, for all the upper-class girls, and even the unmarried women on the Fac. are crazy about him. He's so aloof, you know, and very intelligent. I swelled with pride at the public tribute to the parsonage!"

"Professor Rayburn! Of the Fac.!" gasped Prudence. "Oh, I'm sure he didn't mean me, Fairy. You must have misunderstood him. Why, I wouldn't know what to say to a professor, you know! What is his line?"

"Bugs!" cried Fairy. "He's the biology man. And this is his first year here, and he's very brilliant,--they say! I'm no authority on bugs myself. But anyhow every one just raves about him, and he showed very plainly that he was anxious to get acquainted with you, so you'll have to go."

"But bugs!" wailed Prudence. "What do I know about bugs! Will he expect me to know how to divide them,--separate them, you know--"

"I suppose you mean dissect them, you poor child," screamed Fairy. "Divide bugs! If professor could hear you now, Prue, he would be sadly disillusioned. You must just trot up-stairs and get one of the twins' biology books and cram up a little. He won't expect you to be an advanced buggist. He can give you points himself. Men do love to have girls appeal to their superior knowledge, and be admiring and deferent. Maybe he will 'divide one' for you if you ask him 'please.'"

"I won't do it," declared Prudence. "I don't like bugs anyhow, and--why, the very pictures of them in the twins' books make me nervous. I won't do it. You can just tell him I don't feel qualified to go."

"You've got to go," said Fairy sternly, "for I said you would, and he's counting on it. He's going to phone you this afternoon and ask you himself. You've got to go."

At that instant, the telephone rang.

"There's professor!" cried Fairy. "You tell him you are just delighted to go, and that you are so interested in bugs!"

With a flushed face, Prudence took down the receiver. "Hello," she said, "this is the parsonage."

And then, a second later, she said, "Yes, this is Prudence."

After that she stood silent for some little time, with Fairy crouched beside her, trying to hear.

Then spoke Prudence. "Yes, Fairy has been telling me. And it's very kind of you, indeed, and I know I would enjoy it. But as I was telling Fairy, I don't know a thing about bugs, and I don't like them anyhow, so I'm afraid you would find me rather stupid."

Fairy was striving to get a hand over her sister's lips to stem the words, but Prudence eluded her. They were both somewhat astounded at the great peal of laughter which came over the telephone.

"Good! That's just what I was hoping for! You couldn't have said anything that would give me greater pleasure. Then shall I come around with Babler, for you and your sister, about one o'clock?--Oh, that is very kind of you, Miss Starr. Good-by! Don't cultivate an interest in bugs between now and to-morrow, for my sake!"

The girls looked at each other doubtfully when the receiver was once more on its hook.

"I'm afraid he's laughing at me," said Prudence questioningly.

"I should hope so," cried Fairy. "What in the world did you say that for? Couldn't you have pretended to be interested? Professor likes women to be dignified and intellectual and deep, and----"

"Then why on earth did he ask me to go?" demanded Prudence. "Any one could tell to look at me that I'm not dignified and intellectual and deep, and----"

"And I know he admired you, for he was so eager when he asked about you. Think how grand it would be to speak of 'my sister, Mrs. Professor Rayburn,' and----"

"Don't be silly, Fairy. If I was going to marry anybody, which I am not, I hope you do not think for one minute that I'd marry a buggist! Gracious! Goodness! I've a notion not to go a step! I'll call him up and----"

But Fairy only laughed.

And after all, Prudence looked forward to the little outing in the glorious October woods with eager anticipation. It was seldom indeed that she indulged in merry-making away from the parsonage. Yet she was fond of gaiety. Long before one o'clock on that eventful day, she was ready. And her face was so bright, and her eyes so starry, that placid self-satisfied Fairy felt a twinge of something like envy.

"You look like a creature from another world, Prue," she said. "If Professor Rayburn has any sense in his bones, he will fall dead in love with you,--bugs or no bugs!"

"People do not have sense in their bones, Fairy, and--and--shall I say professor, or just plain Mister?"

"Professor, I suppose,--every one calls him professor."

"Then I shall say Mister," said Prudence. "It will be so hard to enjoy myself if I keep remembering that he teaches bugs! I might as well be at school. I shall say Mister."

And she did say "Mister," and she said it so sweetly, and looked up into Professor Rayburn's face so brightly, and with happiness so evident and so girlish, that the staid professor felt a quick unaccountable throbbing down somewhere beneath his coat. He did look eager! There was no doubt of it. And he looked at Prudence, continuously.

"Just like ordinary men, isn't he?" whispered Fairy to Eugene Babler,--called "Babbie," for short and for humiliation,--for he enjoyed the reputation of being a "talker" even among college men!

The three young couples struck off briskly down the road, creek-ward, and Prudence followed sedately with her professor.

"Fairy says it was perfectly disgusting of me to tell you I didn't know anything about bugs," she said comfortably. "But I thought maybe, you were one of those professors who like one thing so much they can't be interested in anything else. And I wanted to warn you. But I guess you aren't that kind, after all?"

"Oh, no, indeed," he assured her fervently, looking deep into her blue eyes. "I like bugs, it is true. But really I like other things, one thing at least, much better."

"Is it a riddle?" she inquired. "Am I supposed to guess?"

"It isn't a riddle, but you may guess. Think hard, now! It's a serious matter. Please don't say 'food.'"

"If I get below seventy will I be put down a grade?" she asked. Then with intense solemnity, "I guess girls."

They laughed together, youthfully. "You are right," he said.

And with a sigh of relief, Prudence answered, "That's the first time I ever got a hundred in anything in my life. I was very much accustomed to eighties when I was in school. I am very common and unbrilliant," she assured him. "Fairy says you are perfectly horribly clever----"

She glanced up when she heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." Even Prudence could see that this did not help matters. "I--I do not mean that," she stammered. "I am sure you are very nice indeed, and we are going to be good friends, aren't we? But I am such a dunce myself that I am afraid of real clever people. They are so superior. And so uninteresting, and--oh, I do not mean that either." Then Prudence laughed at her predicament. "I may as well give it up. What I really mean is that you are so nice and friendly and interesting, that I can hardly believe you are so clever. You are the nicest smart person I ever saw,--except my own family, I mean." She smiled up at him deliciously. "Does that make it square?"

"More than square," he said. "You are too complimentary. But the only thing that really counts to-day is whether we are going to be real good friends, as you suggested. We are, aren't we? The very best and closest of friends?"

"Yes," agreed Prudence, dimpling. "I like men to be my friends,--nice men, I mean. But it isn't always safe. So many start out to be good friends, and then want to be silly. So a girl has to be very careful. But it's perfectly safe with you, and so we can be the very best of friends. I won't need to be watchful for bad symptoms."

"Do you think me so unmanly that I couldn't fall in love?" he asked, and his voice was curious, as though she had hurt him.

"Oh, of course, you'll fall in love," laughed Prudence. "All nice men do.--But not with me,--that was what I meant I couldn't imagine a buggy professor--oh, I beg your pardon! But the twins are so silly and disrespectful, and they thought it was such a joke that I should even look at a professor of biology that they began calling you the buggy professor. But they do not mean any harm by it, not the least in the world. They're such nice sweet girls, but--young, you know. Are your feelings hurt?" she asked anxiously.

"Not a bit! I think the twins and I will be tremendously good friends. I'm quite willing to be known as the buggy professor. But you were trying to explain why I couldn't fall in love with you. I suppose you mean that you do not want me to."

"Oh, not that at all," she hastened to assure him. Then she stopped. "Yes," she said honestly, "that is true, too. But that isn't what I was trying to say. I was just saying that no one realizes any more than I how perfectly impossible it would be for a clever, grown-up, brilliant professor to fall in love with such an idiot as I am. That's all. I meant it for a compliment," she added, seeing he was not well pleased.

He smiled, but it was a sober smile. "You said it was true that you did not wish me to be--fond of you. Why? Don't you like me then, after all?"

Now, he realized that this was a perfectly insane conversation, but for the life of him, he couldn't help it. Prudence was so alluring, and the sky was so warmly blue, the sunshine so mild and hazy, and the roadside so gloriously gay with colors! Who could have sense on such a day, with such a girl as this?

"Oh, I do like you very much indeed," declared Prudence. "It's a big relief, too, for I didn't expect to--oh, I beg your pardon again, but--well, I was scared when Fairy told me how remarkable you are. I didn't want to disgrace the parsonage, and I knew I would. But--why, the reason I do not want you to fall in love with me,--that's very different from being fond of me, I do want you to be that,--but when people fall in love, they get married. I'm not going to get married, so it would be silly to fall in love, wouldn't it?"

He laughed heartily at the matter-of-factness with which this nineteen-year-old girl disposed of love and marriage. "Why aren't you going to be married?" he inquired, foolishly happy, and showing more foolishness than happiness, just as we all do on such occasions.

"Well, it will be ten or eleven years before Connie is fairly raised."

"Yes, but you won't be a Methuselah, in eleven years," he smiled.

"No, but you forget father."

"Forget father! Are you raising him, too?"

"No, I'm not raising him, but I'm managing him." But when he laughed, she hastened to add, "That is, I take care of him, and keep house for him, and remind him of things he forgets." Then with girlish honesty, she added, "Though I must confess that he has to remind me of things I forget, oftener than I do him. I inherited my forgetfulness from father. I asked him once if he inherited his from grandfather, and he said he forgot whether grandfather was forgetful or not! Father is very clever. So's Fairy. And the twins are the smartest little things you ever saw,--and Connie, too. Connie is the oddest, keenest child. She's wonderful. They all are,--but me. It's kind of humiliating to be the only stupid one in a family of smart folks. I suppose you've no idea how it feels, and I can't explain it. But sometimes I think maybe I ought to go off and die, so the whole family can shine and sparkle together. As it is, there's just a dull glow from my corner, quite pale and ugly compared with the brilliant gleams the others are sending out."

Said Professor Rayburn, "Ah, Prudence, the faint, sweet mellow glows are always beautiful. Not sparkling, perhaps, not brilliant! But comforting, and cheering, and--always to be trusted. It's just these little corner-glows, like yours, that make life worth living."

This was rather deep for Prudence, but she felt instinctively that he was complimenting her. She thanked him sweetly, and said, "And after all, I do not really mind being the stupid one. I think it's rather fun, for then I can just live along comfortably, and people do not expect much of me. It would wear me all out to be as clever as Fairy, or as witty as Carol, or as studious as Lark. But I am most tremendously proud of them, I assure you."

If Professor Rayburn had continued along this interesting and fruitful line of conversation, all would have been well.

"But it came just like a clap of thunder in the sunshine," said Prudence to Fairy dramatically, as they sat in their room talking things over that night. "We were having a perfectly grand time, and I was just thinking he was as nice and interesting as if he didn't know one thing to his name, when--Crash! That's how it happened."

Fairy wiped her eyes, and lay back weakly on the bed. "Go on," she urged. "What happened?"

"He stopped right in the middle of a sentence about me, something real nice, too, that I was awfully interested in, and said, 'Look, Miss Starr!' Then he got down on his knees and began cautiously scraping away the sticks and leaves. Then he fished out the most horrible, woolly, many-legged little animal I ever saw in my life. He said it was a giminythoraticus billyancibus, and he was as tickled over it as though he had just picked up a million-dollar diamond. And what do you suppose the weird creature did with it? He wrapped it in a couple of leaves, and put his handkerchief around it and put it in his pocket!--Do you remember when we were eating by the creek, and I got jam on my fingers? He offered me his handkerchief to wipe it off? Do you remember how I shoved him away, and shuddered? I saw you look reprovingly at me! That's why! Do you suppose I could wipe my fingers with a handkerchief that had been in one of his pockets?"

"It wasn't the one that had the giminy billibus, was it?"

"No, but goodness only knows what had been in this one,--an alligator, maybe, or a snake. He's very fond of snakes. He says some of them are so useful. I try to be charitable, Fairy, and I believe I would give even Satan credit for any good there was in him,--but it is too much to ask me to be fond of a man who is fond of snakes. But that is not the worst. He put the giminy thing in his pocket,--his left pocket! Then he came on walking with me, on my right side. On my right side, Fairy, do you understand what that means? It means that the giminy billibus, as you call it--oh, I wouldn't swear to the name, Fairy, I do not claim to be smart, but I know how it looked! Well, anyhow, name and all, it was on the side next to me. I stopped to look at a little stick, and switched around on the other side. Then he stooped to look at a bunch of dirt, and got on the wrong side again. Then I stopped, and then he did, and so we kept zig-zagging down the road. A body would have thought we were drunk, I suppose. Four times that man stopped to pick up some wriggling little animal, and four times he deposited his treasure in one of his various pockets. Don't ask why it is impossible for me to be friends with such a being,--spare me that humiliation!"

But the fair daughter of the parsonage proved irresistibly attractive to the unfortunate professor, and he was not to be lightly shunted aside. He forsook the Presbyterian church, of which he was a member, and attended the Methodist meetings with commendable assiduity. After each service, he accompanied Prudence home, and never failed to accept her invitations, feebly given, to "come in a minute." He called as often during the week as Propriety, in the voice of Prudence, deemed fitting. It was wholly unnatural for Prudence to cater to Propriety, but Professor Rayburn did not know this. Weeks passed, a month slipped away, and another. Professor Rayburn was considered a fixture in the parsonage household by all except Prudence herself, who chafed under her bondage.

"I can't just blurt out that I think he's a nuisance," she mourned to Fairy. "Oh, if he'd just do something disgusting so I could fire him off,--Pop! Just like that. Wouldn't it be glorious?"

But the professor did not indulge in disgusting things, and Prudence continued to worry and fret. Then came a blessed evening when the minister and Fairy were away from home, and the twins and Connie were safely in their beds. Professor Rayburn sat with Prudence in the cozy living-room, and Prudence was charming, though quiet, and the professor was only human. Prudence had made tea, and as she rose to relieve him of his empty cup, he also rose to return it to the table. Laughing, they put it down on the tray, each holding one side of the saucer. Then when it was safely disposed of, Prudence turned toward him, still laughing at the silliness of it,--very alluring, very winsome. And Mr. Rayburn, unexpectedly to himself as to her, put his arms around her and kissed her. He was aghast at himself, once it was over, and Prudence,--well, let us say frankly that Prudence was only relieved, for it came to her in a flash that this was the "disgusting thing" for which she had so fervently longed.

"Mr. Rayburn!"

"That was very stupid and unpardonable of me, Prudence," he said quickly, "I really did not think what I was doing. But you were so sweet, and--I'm awfully fond of you, Prudence, you know that."

Prudence looked at him thoughtfully. She felt that this hardly gave her the desired opening. So she waited, hoping he would commit himself further. More humbled by her unnatural silence, he did go on.

"You know, Prudence, when a man cares for a girl as I care for you, it isn't always easy for him to be sober and sensible. You shouldn't have been so--so dear."

Prudence sighed happily. She was content. This gave her the long-desired cue.

"Mr. Rayburn," she said gently but decidedly, "I think you ought not to come here any more."

He walked over to her quickly, and stood beside the chair into which she had dropped when he kissed her.

"Don't say that, Prudence," he said in a hurried low voice.

"It is true," she persisted, feeling somehow sorry, though she did not understand why she should feel so. "I--I--well, you know I--you remember what I told you that first day, don't you? About getting married, and falling in love, and such things. It is true. I don't want to love anybody, and I don't want to get married, and Fairy says--it is--remotely possible--that you might get--very fond of me."

He smiled rather grimly. "Yes, I think it is--remotely possible."

"Then that settles it," she said comfortably. "And besides, I have such a lot to do that I can't--well, bother--spending so much time outside as I have with you. I've been neglecting my work, and it isn't right. I haven't the time."

"Which is your way of saying that you do not like me, isn't it?"

Prudence stood up impulsively. "Oh, I like you, but--" she threw out her hands expressively. He took them in his, tenderly, firmly.

"But, Prudence," he argued, "that is because the woman in you isn't awake. You may never love me--a dismal possibility, but it is true. But don't you think it only fair that you should give me a chance to try?"

"Oh, but that's just the point," she cried. "I do not want you to try. I do not want to run any risk, at all. I wouldn't marry you if I did love you--I told you that right in the beginning."

He still held her hands in one of his, caressing them slowly with the other. "What is there about me that you do not like?" he demanded suddenly. "There is something, I know."

And with her awful unbelievable honesty. Prudence told him. "Yes," she said, "that is true. I hated to mention it, but there is something! Mr. Rayburn, I just can't stand the bugs!"

"Good heavens! The what?"

"The bugs! I can't bear for you to be near me, because I keep wondering if there are bugs and things in your pocket. I'm afraid they'll get over on me. Even now it makes me shiver when you hold my hands, because I know you've been handling the horrible little creatures with yours." He dropped her hands abruptly, and stared at her. "And after you leave, I get down on my hands and knees and look over the floor, and examine the chairs, to see if any have crawled off! It's a terrible feeling, Mr. Rayburn. You know I told you I hated bugs.--I'm afraid I've hurt your feelings," she said sadly.

"Where in the world did you get such an idea as that?" he demanded rather angrily. "Do you think I have pet bugs to carry around with me for company?"

"No,--but don't you remember the picnic,--and how you kept gathering them up in your handkerchiefs and putting them in your pockets? And how I kept squirming around to get on the other side,--I was trying to get away from the bugs!"

"But, my heavens, Prudence, those were my field clothes. I don't put bugs in these pockets,--these are my Sunday togs!" He smiled a little. "And I always wash my hands, you know." He found it humorous, and yet it hurt him. Such a little thing to prejudice a girl so strongly,--and one he liked so marvelously well!

"You might forget, and put them in these pockets,--it's a kind of habit with you, I suppose. And just plain washing won't take the idea of bugs off your hands."

"Prudence, you are only a girl,--a childish girl, but a very sweet one. I want you to like me. When you grow up, you are going to be a wonderfully good and lovely woman. I--I am going to want you then. I know it. Let's just be friends now, can't we--until later--for a long time yet? I'll promise on my word of honor never to put another bug in my pockets, or my handkerchiefs. But I can't promise not to touch them, for I have to do it in class. That's how I earn my living! But I will wash my hands with Ivory soap and sapolio, and rub them with cold cream, and powder them, and perfume them, before I ever come near you again. Won't that do?"

Prudence shook her head. "I know you are laughing at me," she said, "but I always told you I was just a silly simpleton. And--it isn't the bugs altogether. I--I like it better to be with my sisters than----"

"Than with me? I see. As I said, the woman of you is still sleeping. Well, we are young, and I will wait. I won't bother you any more for a long time, Prudence, but I shan't forget you. And some day I will come back to you again." He stared at her moodily. Then he put his hands beneath her elbows, and looked into her eyes searchingly. "You are a strange girl, Prudence. In some ways, you are so womanly, and in other ways so--pitifully girlish! All the woman in your heart seems to be given to your sisters and your father, and-- But you will waken, and I won't hurry you." Then he put his arms around her again, and whispered in her ear, "But I love you, Prudence, and--if some one else should do the awakening--it would hurt!" Then he kissed her, and went away.

But Prudence ran up-stairs, singing happily. "Oh, I feel like a caged-up bird that has broken loose," she cried to her reflection in the mirror jubilantly. "Oh, what fun it will be to come home from church with Fairy and the twins, the way I used to do!"