Sunny Slopes

by Ethel Hueston

  CHAPTER XVII

  RUBBING ELBOWS

  "Chicago, Illinois.

  "Dearly Beloveds:

  "Nearly I am converted to matrimony as a life career. Almost I feel itis worth the sacrifice of independence, the death of originality, thebanishment of special friendship, and the monotonous bondage of rigidroutine.

  "I have just come back from Mount Mark, where I had my second visitwith little Julia. She is worth the giving up of anything, and theenduring of everything. She is marvelous.

  "When I first saw her, just after Aunt Grace brought her home,--I thinkI told you that I went without a new pair of lovely gray shoes at tendollars a pair in order to go to Mount Mark to meet her,--she was verysweet, and all that, but when they are so rosily new they are more likescientific curiosities than literary inspirations. But I have met heragain, and I am everlastingly converted to the domestic enslavement ofwomen. One little Julia is worth it. So as soon as I find thehusband, I am going to cultivate my eleven children. You remember thatwas the career I picked out in the days of my tender youth.

  "Her face is big and round and white, and her eyes are bluer than anysummer sky the poets could rave about. Her lips are the originalCupid's bow,--in fact, Julia's lips have about convinced me that Cupidmust have been a woman, certainly he could ask no more deadly weaponfor shattering the hearts of men. Her hair is comical. It is yellowgold, but it sticks straight out in every direction. It is the mostaggravatingly, irresistibly defiant hair you ever saw in your life. Itmakes you kiss it, and brush it, and soak it in water, and shake Juliafor having it, and then fall in love with her all over again.

  "She is just beginning to talk. When I arrived the whole family wasassembled to do me honor, Prudence and Fairy, Lark and all the babies.Julia seemed to resent her temporary eclipse in the limelight. Shecrowed in a compelling way, and when I advanced to bow reverentlybefore her, she pointed a fat, accusing finger at me, and said, 'Who is'at?' Her very first word,--and no presidential message ever provokedhalf the storm of approval her little phrase called forth. We laughed,and kissed each other, and begged her to say it again, and Prudencesaid 'Oh, if Carol could have heard that,' and then we all rushed offand cried and scolded each other for being so silly, and Juliascreamed. Oh, it was a formal afternoon reception all right.

  "And I am putting a little three-line ad in the morning _Tribune_.'Young, accomplished, attractive lady without means, of strong domestictendencies, desires a husband, eugenic, rich, good looking. Objectmatrimony.'

  "Of course I know that I repeat myself. But if you don't say 'Objectmatrimony,' some men wouldn't catch the point.

  "And so you are out of the San and keeping house again. A brand-newhoneymoon, of course, and cooing doves, and chiming bells, and all therest of it. When the rest of us back here write to each other, we sayat the end, 'Carol is well and David is better.' It conveys the ideaof a Thanksgiving service and a hallelujah chorus. It means Goodnight, God bless you, and Merry Christmas, all in one.

  "By the way, do you remember William Canfield Brewer, the originaladvertiser who got moved out when I moved in? Well, between you andme, almost for a while I did begin to see some charms in matrimony. Hecame again, and was properly introduced. And took me for a drive,--itseems he had just collected his salary,--and he came again, and we wentto the park, and he came again. And that was when I began to see thehalo around the wedding bells. One night he was telling me hisexperiences in saving money,--uproariously funny, my dear, for he nevercould save more than five dollars a month, and ran in debt fifteendollars to encompass it. He said:

  "'My wife used to say it was harder work for me to carry my salary homefrom the office than to earn it right at the start.'

  "I laughed,--I thought of course it was a joke. I guess the laugh wasrevealing, for he turned around suddenly and said:

  "'You knew I was married, didn't you, Connie?' First time he evercalled me Connie.

  "Well, the halo vanished like a flash and hasn't got back yet.

  "I said, 'No, I didn't know it.'

  "'Why, everybody knows it,' he expostulated.

  "'I did not.'

  "'We are devoted to each other,' he said, laughing lightly, 'but wefind our devotion wears better at long distance. So she lives whereverI do not, and we get along like birdies in their little nest. Ihaven't seen her for two years.'

  "Then he went on with his financial experiences, evidently calling thesubject closed.

  "When he started home, he said, 'Well, what shall we do Sunday?'

  "'Nothing, together. You are married.'

  "'Well, I don't get any fun out of it, do I?'

  "'No, maybe not. But I have a hunch I won't get much fun out of it,either.'

  "'I forgot about the parsonage.' He considered a moment. 'All right,I'll hunt her up and have her get a divorce,' he volunteered cheerfully.

  "He was very puzzled and perplexed when I vetoed that. He says I can'thave the true artistic temperament, I am so ghastly religious. At anyrate, I have not seen him since, and have not answered his notes. Now,don't weep over me, Carol, and think my young affections were trifledwith. They weren't--because they didn't have time. But I am nottaking any chances.

  "Henceforth I get my sentiment second hand.

  "The girl at our table, Emily Jarvis, who is a spherist, attributes allthe good fortune that has come to you and David to the fact that atheart you are in harmony with the spheres. You don't know what aspherist is, and neither do I. But it includes a lot of musical terms,and metaphors, and is something like Christian Science and New Thought,only more so. Spherists believe in a life of harmony, and somehow orother they get the spheres back of it, and believe in immaterialmatter, and that all physical manifestations are negative, and the onlypositive, or affirmative, is 'harmony.'

  "Emily is very, very pretty, and that sort of excuses her for digginginto the intricacies of spheral harmonies. Even such unmitigatednonsense as sphere control, spirit harmony, and mental submission,assumes a semblance of dignity when expounded by her cherry-red lips.She speaks vacuously of being under world-dominance, and has absolutelyno physical consciousness. She says so herself. If she ignores hertempting curves and matchless softness, she is the only one in thehouse who does. In fact, it is only the attraction of her veryphysical being, which she denies, that lends a species of sense to herharmonious converse. She and I are great friends. She says I am aharmonizer on the inside.

  "She is engaged to a man across the hall, Rodney Carter. She has theroom next to mine. His voice is deep and carrying, hers is clear andringing, and the walls are thin. So I have benefited by most of theircourtship. But the course of true love, you know. She has triedspiritually and harmoniously to convert him to immaterialism, butRodney is very conscious of his physical, muscular, material being, andhe hoots at her derisively, but tenderly.

  "'Oh, cut it out, Emily,' he said, one evening. 'We can only affordone spirit in the family. One of us has got to earn a living.Spirits, it seems, require plenty of steak and potatoes to keep them inharmony. I could not conscientiously lead you to the altar, even aspheral altar, if I were not prepared to pay house rent and coal bills.One's enough, you can be our luxury.'

  "'But, Rod, if you are in harmony you can earn our living so much moreeasily. You must get above this notion of material necessities. Thereare no such things.'

  "'I don't believe it,' he interrupted coldly. 'There are materialnecessities. You are one of them. The most necessary in the world.You may be harmonious, but you are material, too. That is why I loveyou. I couldn't be crazy about a melodious breath of air ghostingaround the back yard. And I am not strong for disembodied minds,either. They make me nervous. They sound like skulls and cross-bones,and whitening skeletons to me. I love you, your arms, your face, allof you. It may not be proper to talk about it, but I love it. Can youimagine our minds embracing each other, thrilling at the contact,--oh,it's tommyrot. A fool--'

 
"'It may be tommyrot to you, Rod,' said Emily haughtily. 'But theinspiration of the matchless minds of the mystic men of the Orient--'

  "'Inspiration of idiocy. What do mystic men of the Orient know aboutwarm-blooded Americans, dead in love? I might kiss the air until I wasblue in the face,--nothing to it,--but let me kiss you, and we are bothaquiver, and--'

  "'Rodney Carter, don't you dare say such things,' she cried furiously.'It is insulting. Besides it has nothing to do with it. It isn't soanyhow. And what is more--'

  "'There's nothing mysterious about us. Let the old Chinesers padaround in their bare feet and naked souls if they want to. We arechildren of light, we are, creatures of earth, earthly. We're--'

  "'Oh, I can't argue with you, Rod,' she began confusedly.

  "'I don't want you to. Kiss me. One kiss, Emily mine, will confoundthe whole united order of Maudlin Mystics. I am willing to risk allthe anathemas contained in an inharmonious sphere for one touch of yourlips. Go ahead with your sacred doctrine of universal and spiritualimbecility, but soften its harshness with worldly, physical,sin-suggesting kisses, and I am in tune with the infinite.'

  "Then Emily broke the engagement, and Rodney, after relieving himselfof more heretical opinions of spiritual simplicity and mystic madness,stalked unmelodiously away, slamming her door, and his own after it.

  "What I didn't hear of it myself, Emily told me afterward, for we arevery confidential.

  "The whole house was intensely interested in the denouement. Rodneysat stolidly at his table, crunching his food, gazing reproachfully andadoringly at Emily's proudly lifted head. Emily, for all herunconsciousness of physical necessity, lost her appetite, and grewpale. The mental and physical may have nothing in harmony, as shesays, but certainly her mental upheaval resulting from the lack ofRodney's demonstrations of love, affected her physical appetite as wellas her complexion.

  "When Rodney met Emily in the halls, he made her life miserable.

  "'Good morning, Long Sin Coo.' 'Hello, Ghostie.' 'Hey, Spirit, may Iborrow a nip of brandy to make an ethereal cocktail for my imaginarynightcap?'

  "And he opened his transom and took to talking to himself out loud. SoEmily decided to close her transom. It stuck. She asked myassistance, and we balanced a chair on a box and I held it steady whileshe got up to oil the transom. But first she would lose her balance,then she would drop the oil can, then the box would slip. She couldn'treach the joints, or whatever you call them, and when she stood ontiptoe she lost her balance. Then she got her finger in the joint andpinched it, emitting a most material squeal as she did so. Happeningto glance through the transom, she saw Rodney standing below in thehall, grinning at her with inharmonious, unspiritual, unsentimentalglee, and she tugged viciously at the transom, banging herself off thebox, upsetting the chair, and squirting oil all over me as she fell.

  "Rodney rushed to the rescue, but Emily was already scrambling intositting posture, scared, bruised and furious. She had torn her dress,twisted her ankle, bumped her head and scratched her face. And Rodneyhad seen it.

  "Ignoring me, Rodney sat down on the box and looked her over with coldprofessional eyes.

  "'My little seeker after truth,' he said, 'you are a mystic combinationof spirit and mind. You are in tune with the infinite spheres. Youare a breath in a universal breeze. Therefore you feel noinconvenience. Get up, my child, and waltz an Oriental hesitation downthe hall and convince yourself everlastingly that you are in truth onlya mysterious unit in a universe of harmonic chords.'

  "Emily dropped her head on the oil can, lifted up her voice and wept.And Rodney, with an exclamation that a minister's daughter can notrepeat, took the unhappy mystic into his arms.

  "'Sweetheart, forgive me. I am a brute, I know. Knock me on the headwith the oil can, won't you? Don't cry, sweetheart,--Emily, don't.'

  "Finally Emily spoke. 'You are as mean and hateful as you can be,Rodney Carter,' she said, burrowing more deeply into his shoulder.'And I despise you. And I am going to marry you, too, just to get evenwith you. Give me back my engagement ring.' Rodney ecstatically did.The touch of her lovely, material body must have thrilled him, for hekissed her all over the top of the head, her face being hidden.

  "I stood my ground. I was looking for literary material since I neverhave a chance to make romance for myself. Emily spoke again.

  "'I know now that the Vast Infinite intends us for each other. I havebeen dwelling in Perfect Harmony the last four days, trusting the AllPerfection to bring us together again. So I know that our union wasdecreed from the foundation by the Universal sphere. I tell you, Rod,you can't get ahead of the Infinite.'

  "Then I went to my own room, and they never knew when I left,--theydidn't even remember I had been there. But as I came back fromanswering the phone at eleven o'clock, I met Rod in the hall. He hadsome books in his hand. He ducked them behind him when he saw me. Ireached for them sternly, and he pulled them out rather sheepishly. Iread the titles, 'Spheral Mentality,' 'Infinite Spheres,' 'SpheralHarmony.'

  "'Made me promise to read 'em, too,' he confided in a whisper. 'And byGeorge, she is worth it.'

  "Oh, I tell you, Carol, these boarding-houses are chuck full ofliterary material. Really, I am developing. I know it. I feel itevery day. I rub elbows with every one I meet, and I like it. I don'tcare if they aren't 'My Kind' at all. I am learning to reach down tothe same old human nature back of all the different kinds. Isn't thatgrowth?

  "You asked about the millionaire's son. He still comes to see me everyonce in a while. He says he can't promise to let me spend all of hismillions for missions if I marry him,--says he has too much funspending them on himself,--but he insists that I may do whatever I likewith him. Isn't it too bad I can't feel called upon to take him inhand?

  "Anyhow, if I had a million dollars do you know what I would do? Buyan orphans' home, and dump 'em all in a big ship and go sailing,sailing over the bounding main. I'd kidnap Julia and take her along.

  "He was here last week, and sent his love to you, and best wishes toDavid. He told me to ask particularly how your complexion gets alongout in the sunny mesa land.

  "I want to see you. I am saving up my pennies religiously, and whenthey have multiplied sufficiently I am coming. Thanks for theinvitation.

  "Lovingly as always,

  "Connie."