Sunny Slopes

by Ethel Hueston

  CHAPTER XVIII

  QUIESCENT

  Long but not dreary weeks followed one after the other. In the little'dobe cottage, situated far up the hill on the mesa, Carol and Davidlived a life of passionless routine. Carol was busy, hence she had theeasier part. David's breakfast on a tray at seven, nourishment atnine, luncheon at twelve, nourishment at three, dinner at six,nourishment at nine,--with medicines to be administered, temperaturesto be taken, alcohol rubs to be given at frequent intervals,--this wasCarol's day. And at odd hours the house must be kept clean andsanitary, dishes washed, letters written. And whenever the momentcame, David was waiting for her to come and read aloud to him.

  When a man of action, of energy, of boundless enthusiasm is tossedaside, strapped with iron bands to a little white cot on a screenedporch with a view of a sunburned mesa reaching off to the mountains,unless he is of the biggest, and finest, his personality can notsurvive. David's did. Months of helplessness lay behind him, a lifeof inaction lay before him. He could walk a half block or so, he couldgo driving with kind neighbors who invited him, but every avenue ofservice was closed, every form of expression denied him. He had hopedto live a full, good, glowing life. And there he lay.

  It is not work which tells the caliber of man, but idleness.

  Month followed month, now there were bitter winds and blinding snows,now the hot sun scorched the yellow sand of the mesa, now the mountainswere high white clouds of snow, now the fields of green alfalfa showedon a few distant foothills, and the canyons were green with pines.Otherwise there was no change.

  But the summers in New Mexico were crushingly, killingly hot, and sothe sturdy-hearted health chasers left the 'dobe cottage, packed theirfew possessions and moved up into Colorado. And while David waitedpatiently in the hotel, Carol set forth alone and found a small cottagewith sleeping porch, cleanly and nicely furnished, rent reasonable, noobjections to health seekers. And she and David moved into their newhome.

  And the old life of Albuquerque began again, meals, nourishments andmedicines alternating through the days.

  In the summer of the third year, Carol wrote to Connie:

  "Haven't you been saving up long enough? We do so want to see you, andColorado is beautiful. We haven't the long mesa stretching up to thesunny slopes as it was in New Mexico, but from our tiny cottage we canlook right over the city to the mountains on the other side, and thesunny slopes are there. So please count your pennies. They givesummer rates you know."

  Connie went down to Mount Mark the night she received that letter,spending half the night in the train, and talked it over with thefamily. Without a dissenting voice, they said she ought to go. Tendays later, Carol and David were exulting over Connie's letter.

  "Yes, thank you, I am coming. In fact, I was only waiting for the wordfrom you. So I shall start on Monday next, C., B. & Q., reachingDenver Tuesday afternoon at 2:30. Be sure and meet me.

  "I nearly lost my job, too. I went to Mr. Carver and said I wanted avacation. He said 'All right, when and how long?' I said, 'Beginningnext Monday.' He nodded. 'To continue six weeks.' He nearly died.He asked what kind of an institution for the feeble-minded I thoughtthis was. I said I hadn't solved it yet. He reminded me that I havealready had one week's vacation, and three days on two differentoccasions. He said he hired people to work, not to visit theirrelatives at his expense. He said I had one week of vacation coming.And I interrupted to say I didn't expect any salary during that time, Ijust wanted him to hold my position for me. He said he was astonishedI didn't ask him to discontinue publication during my absence. Finallyhe said I might have one week on full pay, and one week without pay,and that was enough for a senator.

  "So I went to my machine and wrote out a very literary resignationwhich I handed to him. I know the business now, and I have met a lotof publishers, so I was safe in resigning. I knew I could get anotherposition in three days. He tore the resignation up, and said he wishedI could outgrow my childishness.

  "Before luncheon, he said he had a good idea. We were away behind inclippings for filling and he suggested that I take a big bundle ofexchanges with me, and clip while I vacated. Also I could doubtlessfind the time to write a thousand or so words a week and send it in,and then I might go on full pay for six weeks. Figuratively I fellupon his neck and kissed him,--purely figuratively, for his wife has amost annoying way of dropping in at unexpected hours,--and I am gettingthe most charming new clothes made up, so David will think I amprettier than you. Now don't withdraw the invitation, for I shall comeanyhow."

  Carol considered herself well schooled in the art of emotionalrestraint, but when she finished reading those blessed words--which toher ears, so hungry for the voices of home, sounded like an extractfrom the beatitudes--she put her head on the back of David's hand andgulped audibly. And she admitted that she must certainly have cried,save for the restraining influence of the knowledge that crying madeher nose red.

  In the meantime, back in Iowa, the Starrs in their separate households,were running riot. Never was there to be such a wonderful visit foranybody in the world. Jerry and Prudence bundled up their family, andgot into a Harmer Six and drove down to Mount Mark, where theyensconced themselves in the family home and announced their intentionof staying until Connie had gone. As soon as Fairy heard that, shehastened home too, full of the glad tiding that she had found a boy shewanted to adopt at last. Lark and Jim neglected the farm shamefully,and all the women of the neighborhood were busy making endless littleodds and ends of dainty clothing for Carol, who had lived ready-madeduring the three years of their domicile in the shadowland of sunshine.

  A hurried letter was despatched to David's doctor, asking endlessquestions, pledging him to secrecy, and urging him to wire an answer C.O. D. Little Julia was instructed as to her mother's charms and herfather's virtues far beyond the point of her comprehension. And Jerryspent long hours with Connie in the car, explaining its mechanism, andmaking her a really proficient driver, although she had been veryskilful behind the wheel before. Also, he wrote long letters to hisdealer in Denver, giving him such a host of minute instructions thatthe bewildered agent thought the "old gent in Des Moines had gone daft."

  Carol wrote every day, pitifully, jubilantly, begging Connie to hurryand get started, admonishing her to take a complete line of snapshotsof every separate Starr, to count each additional gray hair in darlingfather's head, and to locate every separate dimple in Julia's fatlittle body. And every letter was answered by every one of the family,who interrupted themselves to urge everybody else not to give anythingaway, and to be careful what they said. And they all cried over Julia,and over Carol's letters, and even cried over the beautiful assortmentof clothes they had accumulated for Carol, using Lark as a sewing model.

  Twenty minutes after the train left Mount Mark, came a telegram fromCarol: "Did she get off all right? Did anything happen? Wireimmediately." And the whole family rushed off to separate rooms toweep all over again.

  But Aunt Grace walked slowly about the house, gathering up blocks, andheadless dolls, and tailless dogs, and laying them carefully away in adrawer until little Julia should return to visit the family in MountMark.

  For the doctor had said it was all right to restore the baby to herheart-hungering parents in the mountain land. Carol was fairly strong,David was fairly well. The baby being healthy, and the parents beingsanitary, the danger to its tiny lungs was minimized,--and by all meanssend them the baby.

  So Julia was arrayed in matchless garments destined to charm the eyesof the parents, who, in their happiness, would never realize it had anyclothes on at all, and Connie set out upon her journey with the littlegirl in her charge.

  On Tuesday morning, Carol was a mental wreck. She forgot to saltDavid's eggs, and gave him codeine for his cough instead of tonictablets for his appetite. She put no soda in the hot cakes, and madehis egg-nog of buttermilk. She laughed out loud when David was askingthe blessing, and when he wondered how tall
Julia was she burst outcrying, and then broke two glasses in her energetic haste to cover upthe emotional outbreak. Altogether it was a most trying morning. Shewas ready to meet the train exactly two hours and a half before it wasdue, and she combed David's hair three times, and whenever she couldn'tsit still another minute she got up and dusted the railing around theporch, brushed off his lounging jacket, and rearranged the roses in thevase on his table.

  "David, I honestly believe I was homesick. I didn't know it before. Igot along all right before I knew she was coming, but now I want tojump up and down and shout. Why on earth didn't she take an earliertrain and save me this agony?"

  At last, in self-defense, David insisted that she should start, and,too impatient to wait for cars and to endure their stopping at everycorner, she walked the two miles to the station, arriving breathless,perspiring and flushed. Even then she was thirty minutes ahead oftime, but finally the announcer called the train, and Carol stationedherself at the exit close to the gate to watch the long line oftravelers coming up from the subway. No one noticed the slender womanstanding so motionless in the front of the waiting line, but the angelsin Heaven must have marked the tumult throbbing in her heart, and thehappiness stinging in her bright eyes.

  Then--she leaned forward. That was Connie of course,--she caught herbreath, and tears started to her eyes. Yes, that was Connie, that tallslim girl with the shining face,--and oh, kind and merciful Providence,that must be her own little Julia trudging along beside her, the fatwhite face turning eagerly from side to side, confident she was goingto know that mother on sight, just because they had told her a motherwas what most belonged to her.

  Carol twisted her hands together, wringing her gloves into a shred.She moistened her dry lips, and blinked desperately to crowd away thosetears. Yes, it was Connie, the little baby sister she used to tease somercilessly, and Julia, the little rosebud baby she had wanted so manynights. She could not bear to let those ugly tears dim her sight forone minute, she dare not miss one second of that feast to her hungeringeyes.

  The two sisters who had not seen each other for nearly four years,looked into each other's faces, Carol's so pleadingly hungry for thevision of one of her own, Connie's so strongly sweet and reassuring.Instinctively the others drew away, and the little group, thered-capped attendant trailing in the rear, stood alone.

  "Julia, this is your mama," said Connie, and the wide blue eyes werelifted wonderingly into those other wide blue eyes so like them,--themother eyes that little Julia had never known. Carol, with aninarticulate sob dropped on her knees and gathered her baby into herarms.

  Carol, with an inarticulate sob, gathered her baby inher arms.]

  Julia, who had been told it was to be a time of laughter, or rejoicing,of utter gaiety, marveled at the pain in the face of this mother andpatted away the tears with chubby hands, laughing with excitement. Bythe time Carol could be drawn from her wild caressing of the rosebudbaby, she was practically helpless. It was Connie who marshaled themoutside, tipped the red-capped attendant, waved a hand to the driverwaiting across the street, directed him about the baggage, and saw togetting Carol inside and seated.

  Only once Carol came back to earth, "Mercy, Connie, taxis cost afortune out here."

  "This isn't a taxi," said Connie, "it is just a car."

  But Carol did not even hear her answer, for Julia, enchanted at beingso lavishly enthroned in the attention of any one, lifted her lips foranother noisy kiss, and Carol was deaf to the rest of the world.

  Her one idea now was to get this precious, wonderful, matchlesscreature home to David as quickly as possible.

  "Hurry, hurry," she begged. "Make him go faster, Connie."

  "He can't," said Connie, laughing. "Do you want to get us pinched forspeeding the first thing?"

  And Julia, catching the word, immediately pinched both her auntie andher mama, to show them she knew what they were talking about. AndCarol was stricken dumb at the wonderful, unbelievable cleverness ofthis remarkable infant.

  When the car stopped before her cottage, she forgot her manners ashostess, she forgot the baggage, and the driver, and even sisterConnie. She just grabbed Julia in her arms and rushed into thecottage, back through the kitchen to the sleeping porch in the rear,and stood gloating over her husband.

  "Look, look, look," she chanted. "It is Julia, she is ours, she ishere." David sat up in bed, his breath coming quickly.

  Carol, like a goddess of plenty dispensing royal favors, dumped thesmiling child on the bed and David promptly seized her.

  By this time Connie had made her arrangements with the driver, andescorted herself calmly into the house, trailing the family to theporch, gently readjusting Julia who was nearly turned upside down bythe fervor of her papa and mama, and informed David that she wanted toshake hands. Thus recalled, David did shake hands, and looked pleasedwhen she commented on how well he was looking. But in her heart,Connie, the young, untouched by sorrow, alive with the passion forwork, was crying out in resentment. Big, buoyant, active David reducedto this. Carol, radiant, glowing, gleaming Carol,--this subdued gentlewoman with the thin face and dark circles beneath her eyes. "Oh, it iswrong," thought Connie,--though she still smiled, for hearts aremarvelous creations, holding such sorrow, and hiding it well.

  When their wraps were removed, Julia sat on David's table, with David'shand squeezing her knees, and Carol clutching her feet, and withConnie, big and bright, sitting back and watching quietly, and tellingthem startling and imaginary tales of the horrors she had encounteredon the train. David was entranced, and Carol was enchanted. This wastheir baby, this brilliant, talented, beautiful little fairy,--andCarol alternately nudged David's arm and tapped his shoulder to remindhim of the dignity of his fatherhood.

  But in one little hour, she remembered that after all, David was herjob, and even crowy, charming little Julia must not crowd him aside,and she hastened to prepare the endless egg-nog. Then from the kitchenwindow she saw the auto, still standing before their door.

  "Oh, my gracious!" she gasped. "We forgot that driver."

  She got her purse and hurried outside, but the driver was gone, andonly the car remained. Carol was too ignorant of motor-cars to observethat it was a Harmer Six, she only wondered how on earth he could gooff and forget his car. She carried the puzzle to David, and he couldnot solve it.

  "Are you able to walk at all, David?" asked Connie.

  "Yes, indeed," he said, sitting up proudly, "I can walk half a block ifthere are no steps to climb."

  "Come out in front and we'll investigate," she suggested.

  When they reached the car, and it took time for David walked butslowly, he promptly looked at the name plate.

  "Harmer Six," he read. "Why this is Jerry's kind of car."

  "Yes, it is his kind," explained Connie. "He and Prudence sent thisone out for you and Carol and Julia. They have just established anagency here, and he has made arrangements with the dealer to takeentire care of it for you, sending it up when you want it, calling forit when you are through, keeping it in repair, and providing gas andoil,--and the bill goes to Jerry in Des Moines."

  One would have thought enough happiness had come to the health seekersfor one day. Carol would have sworn she could not possibly be onelittle bit gladder than she had been before, with David sick, ofcourse. And now came this! How David would love it. She looked ather husband, happily pottering around the engine, turning bolts andbuttons as men will do, and she looked at Julia, proudly viewing herown physical beauties in the shining body of the car, and she looked atConnie with the charm and glory of the parsonage life clinging abouther like a halo. Then she turned and walked into the house without aword. Understandingly, David and Connie allowed her to pass insidewithout comment.

  "Connie," said David when they were alone, "I believe God will give youa whole chest of stars for your crown for the sweetness that broughtyou out here. Carol was sick for something of home. I wanted her togo back for a visit but
she would not leave me. But she was sick. Sheneeded some outside life. I can give her nothing, I take my life fromher. And she needed fresh inspiration, and you have brought it."David was silent a moment. "Connie, whenever things do get shadowy forus, the clouds are pulled back so we may see the sun shining on theslopes more brilliantly than ever."

  Turning quickly she followed his gaze, and a softness came into hereyes as she looked. Truly the darkness of the canyons seemed only toemphasize the brightness of the ridges above them.

  She laid her hand on David's arm, that strong, shapely, capable hand,and whispered, "David, if I might have what you and Carol have, if Icould be happy in the way that you are, I think I should be willing tolose the sunshine on the slopes and dwell entirely in the darkness ofthe canyons. But I haven't got it, I don't know how to get it." Thenshe added slowly, "But I suppose, having what you two have, one couldnot lose the sunshine on the slopes."