by Frank Cobb
CHAPTER XII
AN ORIGINAL IN MATH
When Gertrude's brother turned up at college just before the holidays oftheir senior year, he boldly asked for Bea in the same breath with hissister's name. When the message was brought to her, that fancy-free youngperson's first thought was a quick dread that Berta would tease her aboutthe preference. But no. Miss Abbott, chairman of the Annual's editorialboard, clasped her inky hands in relief.
"Bless the boy! He couldn't have chosen better if he had looked throughthe walls and discovered Bea the sole student with time to burn--or totalk, for that matter. Trot along, Beatrice, and tell him that Gertrudeis coming the moment she has dug her way out of this avalanche ofmanuscript. I can't possibly spare her for half an hour yet. Go anddistract his mind from his unnatural sister by means of another story."
"Tell him about your little original in math, Bea," called Lila afterher, "that's your best and latest."
Bea retraced her steps to thrust back an injured countenance at the door."I guess I am able to converse as well as monologue, can't I?" shedemanded indignantly, "you just listen."
However, when confronted by a young man with a monosyllabic tongue and anembarrassingly eloquent pair of eyes, she seized a copy of the lastAnnual from the table in the senior parlor, and plunged into an accountof her own editorial trials.
Gertrude is on the board for this year's Annual, you know, and BertaAbbott is chairman. At this very moment they are struggling over a delugeof manuscripts submitted in their prize poem contest. Of course, Isympathize, because I have been through something of the same ordeal. TheMonthly offered a prize for a short story last fall, and we had rather alively sequel to the decision. Shall I tell you about it from thebeginning? At our special meeting, I read the stories aloud, because Ihappen to be chief editor. Nobody said anything at first. Janet, thebusiness editor, tipped her chair back and stared at the piles ofmagazines on the shelves opposite. Laura, who does the locals, pressedher forehead closer to the pane to watch the girls hurrying past on theirway to the tennis tournament on the campus. Adele and Jo, the literaries,nibbled their fountain-pens.
I spread out the manuscripts, side by side, in a double row on the bigsanctum desk, picked up my scribbled pad, leaned back till the swivelscrew squeaked protestingly from below, and said, "Well?"
Janet brought her chair down on all four feet with a bump. "Nary one isworth a ten dollar prize," she declared pugnaciously, "especially nowthat Robbie Belle has gone to the infirmary for six weeks and she can'thelp me in soliciting advertisements."
Laura turned her head. "Robbie Belle had promised to write up the firsthall play for me. She was going to review two books for Jo and compose aChristmas poem for Adele's department. I think maybe there are perhaps adozen or so girls who might have been more easily spared."
I brushed a hand across my weary brow. It did not feel like cobwebsexactly,--more like cork, sort of light and dry and full of holes. I hadbeen up almost all night, studying over those fifteen manuscripts,applying the principles of criticism, weighing, balancing, measuring,arguing with myself, and rebelling against fate. If Robbie Belle had beenthere she could have recognized the best story by instinct. Ever since Ibecame chief editor I had depended upon her judgment, because she is aborn critic and always right, and I'm not. And now just when I needed hermost of all and more than anybody else, there she had to go and getquarantined in the infirmary.
"Girls," I said, "do express an opinion. Say what you think. We simplymust decide this matter now, because the prize story has to go to pressbefore the first, and this is our only free afternoon. I know what Ithink--at least I am almost sure what I think--but I want to hear yourviews first. Adele, you're always conscientious."
Adele was only a junior and rather new to the responsibility of being onthe editorial board. She glanced down at her page of notes.
"Every one of the stories has some good points," she began cautiously."Most of them start out well and several finish well. Six have goodplots, nine are interesting, five are brightly written. Number seven is,I believe--yes, I think I consider it the best. The trouble is----"
"Altogether too jerky," interrupted Jo, "a fine plot but no stylewhatever. This is a cat. See the cat catch the rat. That's the kind ofEnglish in number seven. Now I vote for number fifteen."
"Oh, but, Jo," I broke in eagerly, for number seven was my own laboriouschoice also, and Adele's corroboration strengthened me wonderfully. "Jo,it is the simplicity of the style that is its greatest recommendation.You know how Professor Whitcomb has drummed into us the beauty ofAnglo-Saxon diction. It's beautiful--it's charming--it's perfect. Why, asix-year-old could understand it. Fifteen is far too sensational for goodart. Just listen to this----"
Jo was stubborn. "The use of short words is a mere fad," she said, "it islike wearing dimity for every occasion. Now listen to this!"
She snatched up one manuscript and read aloud while I declaimed from theother. Adele listened with a pained frown on her forehead, Janet laughedand teetered recklessly to and fro on her frisky chair, Laura fidgeted atthe window and filled every pause with a threat to leave us instanter forthe tournament positively had to be written up that day. Finally I putthe question to the vote, for Jo is so decided in her manner that shemakes me feel wobbly unless I am conscious of being backed up by RobbieBelle. I suppose it is because my own opinions are so shaky from theinside view that I hate to appear variable from the outside. It wouldhave been horrid to yield to Jo's arguments and change my ideas rightthere before the whole board. The rest of them except Jo had fallen intoa way of deferring to my judgment, for I had seemed to hit it off rightalmost always in accepting or rejecting contributions. Nobody knew howmuch I had depended on Robbie Belle.
The board awarded the prize to number seven, my choice, you know. Janetwas on my side because the story had a nice lively plot, and that was allshe cared about. Laura put in a blank ballot, saying that her head achedso that it was not fair to either side for her to cast any weight uponthe scale. Adele of course voted with me. Jo stuck to number fifteen tillthe end.
"Well, that's over!" sighed Laura and escaped before any one had put themotion to adjourn. Janet vanished behind her, and Jo picked up themanuscript of which she was champion.
"By the way, girls," she said, "I will return this to its writer, if youdon't mind. And I shall tell her to offer it to the Annual. The committeewill jump at the chance. Find out who she is, please."
I slipped the elastic band from the packet of fifteen sealed envelopesand selected the one marked with the title of the story. The name insidewas that of a sophomore who had already contributed several articles tothe Monthly. Then I opened the envelope belonging to number seven.
"Maria Mitchell Kiewit," I read, "who in the world is she? I've neverheard of her. She must be a freshman."
Jo who was half way out of the room stopped at the word and thrust herhead back around the door. "Did little Maria Kiewit write that? No wonderit is simple and jerky. She's a mathematical prodigy, she is. Her motheris an alumna of this college. See! The infant was named after our greatprofessor of astronomy. She wants to specialize herself in mathematicalastronomy when she gets to be a junior. Her mother was head editor of theMonthly in her day. Maria rooms somewhere in this corridor, I believe. Itwill be a big thing for her to win the prize away from all the upperclass girls. I didn't vote for her. By-bye."
"Oh!" exclaimed Adele, clasping her hands in that intense way of hers,"won't she be happy when she hears! A little ignorant unknown freshman towin the prize for the best short story among eight hundred students! Hermother will be delighted. Her mother will be proud."
"Hist!" Jo's head reappeared. "She's coming down the corridor now. Redcheeks, bright eyes, ordinary nose, round chin, long braid, whiteshirtwaist, tan skirt--nothing but an average freshman. She doesn't looklike a mathematical prodigy, but she is one. And an author, too--dear,dear! There must be some mistake. Authors never have curly hair."
Adele and I poke
d our faces through the crack. Jo wickedly flung the doorwide open. "Walk right out, ladies and gentlemen. See the conqueringheroine comes," she sang in a voice outrageously shrill. During the trillon the hero, she bowed almost double right in the path of the approachingfreshman. Maria Mitchell Kiewit stopped short, her eyes as round as thebuttons on her waist.
Jo fell on her knees, lifting her outspread hands in ridiculousadmiration. "O Maria Mitchell Kiewit," she declaimed, "hearken! I havethe honor--me, myself--I snatch it, seize it--the honor to announce thatthou--thee--you--your own self hast won the ten dollar prize for the bestshort story written for the Monthly by an undergraduate. Vale!" Shescrambled upright by means of clutching my skirt and put out a cordialhand. "Nice girl! Shake!"
"Josephine!" gasped Adele in horrified rebuke. My breath was beginning tocome fast over this insult to our editorial dignity when I caught sightof the freshman's face. Her cheeks were as red as ever, but she hadturned white about the lips, and her eyes were really terrified.
"Oh, I don't want it!" she cried involuntarily, shrinking away from us,"I don't want it."
Jo's mouth fell open. "Then why in the world----"
The little freshman fairly ran to the alleyway leading to her room.
Jo turned blankly to us. "Then why in the world did she write the storyand send it in?"
Adele--I told you she was conscientious, didn't I? and inclined to bemathematical herself--stared at the spot where Maria had disappeared."Such an attitude might be explained either by the supposition that sheis diffident--sort of stunned by the surprise, you understand--she neverexpected to win. Or maybe she is shy and dreads the notoriety of fame.Everybody will be looking at her, pointing her out. Or--or possibly----"Adele hesitated, glanced around uneasily, caught my eye; and we bothdropped our lids quickly. It was horrid of us. I think it is the meanestthing to be suspicious and ready to believe evil of anybody. But truly wehad just been reading a volume of college stories, and one was about agirl who plagiarized some poems and passed them off as her own. And thisMaria Mitchell Kiewit had behaved almost exactly like her.
"Or possibly what?" demanded Jo.
Adele stammered. "Or p-p-possibly--oh, nothing! Maybe she is ashamed ofthe story or something like that. She lacks self-esteem probably. Shedidn't expect it to be published, you know, and--and she is surprised.That's all. She--I guess she's surprised."
"Come along, Adele," I slipped my arm through hers and dragged her awayfrom Jo's neighborhood, "you must help me reject these fourteen others.That's the part I hate worst about this editorial business."
"Don't you want to reconsider the decision?" called Jo, "since shedoesn't wish the prize herself, you'd better choose my girl. This is yourlast chance. The committee for the Annual will surely gobble numberfifteen up quick. Berta Abbott knows good literature when she sees it.Going, going----"
"Let her go. Now, Adele," I said, closing the sanctum door withinquisitive stubborn Jo safely on the outside, "here are the rest of thenames. You doubtless know some of their owners by sight, and I hope Iknow others. This is how we shall manage. Whenever you see one of themsecurely away from her room--maybe in the library or recitation or out onthe campus or down town or anywhere--you tell me or else run yourself andtake her manuscript and poke it under her door. I'll write a nice politelittle regretful admiring note to go with each story, and that ought totake the edge off the blow. But be sure she is not at home. It would besimply awful to hand anybody a rejected article right to her real faceand see how disappointed she is. I think it is more courteous to give hera chance to recover alone and unobserved."
"But suppose she has a roommate?" said Adele.
"Oh, dear! Well, in that case we'll have to watch and loiter around tillthey are both out of reach. It may take us all the week."
And it actually did. It took a lot of time but it was exciting too in away. We felt like detectives or criminals--it doesn't matter which--tohaunt the corridors and grounds till we spied one of those girls headedaway from her room (of course we had to find out first where each onelived), and then we scurried up-stairs and down and hung around in theneighborhood and walked past the door, if anybody happened to be near,and finally shoved the manuscript to its goal. Certainly I understandthat we were not obliged to take all this trouble but I simply could notbear to send those long envelopes back through the post. Every studentwho distributes the mail would have recognized such a parcel as arejected manuscript. And of course that would have hurt the author'sfeelings.
Naturally I was rushed that week because Thanksgiving Day came onThursday, and I had an invitation to go down to the city to hear grandopera that afternoon. It was necessary to take such an early train that Imissed the dinner. That evening when I returned I found the wholeeditorial board and Berta too groaning in Lila's study while Laura actedas amanuensis for a composite letter to Robbie Belle. You see, they hadeaten too much dinner--three hours at the table and everything too goodto skip. Each one tried to put a different groan into the letter. Theywere so much interested in the phraseology and they felt so horrid thatnobody offered to get me crackers or cocoa, though I was actuallyfamishing.
After poking around in the family cupboard under the window seat, Irouted out a bag of popcorn. I lighted the gas stove and popped aboutthree quarts, and then boiled some sugar and water to crystallize it.When you are starving, have you ever eaten popcorn buttered for a firstcourse and crystallized for a second? It is the most delicious thing! Ihad just settled myself in a steamer-chair with the heaped up pan offluffy kernels within reach of my right hand, when there came a knock onthe door.
"Enter!" called Janet.
The knob turned diffidently and in marched Maria Mitchell Kiewit.
Lila pushed another pillow behind Jo on the couch, Laura lifted her pen,Janet exerted herself to rise politely. I carelessly threw a newspaperover the corn, and then poked it off. After all, editors are only human,and freshmen might as well learn that first as last.
"I wish to see Miss Leigh," said the visitor in a high, very young voicethat quavered in the middle.
I straightened up into a dignified right angle. "What can I do for you,Miss Kiewit?"
"I wish to withdraw my story," she announced still at the same strainedpitch, "I have changed my mind. Here is the ten-dollar bill."
"But it went to press three days ago," I exclaimed.
"And the Annual has gobbled up second choice," said Jo triumphantly.
"We jumped at it," corroborated Berta.
"To take out the prize story now would spoil the magazine," cried Adele.
"Impossible!" declared Janet.
"Nonsense!" said Laura under her breath.
The little freshman stared from one to another. Then suddenly her roundface quivered and crumpled. Throwing up one arm over her eyes she turned,snatched at the door knob and stumbled out into the corridor.
I looked at Adele.
"Yes," she replied to my expression, "you'd better go and find out now.It's for the honor of the Monthly. It would be awful to printa--a--mistake," she concluded feebly.
Just as I emerged from the alleyway I caught sight of the small figurefluttering around the corner of a side staircase half way down the dimlylighted hall. I had to hurry in order to overtake her before she couldreach her own room. She must have been sobbing to herself, for she didnot notice the sound of my steps on the rubber matting till I was nearenough to touch her elbow. Then how she jumped!
"Pardon me, Miss Kiewit. May I speak to you for one minute?"
She nodded. I am not observant generally but this time I could see thatshe said nothing because she dared not trust her voice to speak. She wentin first to light the gas. The pillows on the couch were tossed about indisorder, and one of yellow silk had a round dent in it and two or threedamp spots as if somebody had been crying with her face against it.
Now I hate to ask direct questions especially in a situation like thiswhere I wished particularly to be tactful, and of course she would bethrust into an aw
kward position in case she should dislike to reply. So Isat down and looked around and said, "How prettily you have arranged yourroom!"
The freshman had seated herself on the edge of her straightest chair. Atmy speech she glanced about nervously. "My mother graduated here," sheexplained, "and she knew what I ought to bring. Ever since I canremember, she has been planning about college for me."
"What a fortunate girl you are!" This was my society manner, youunderstand, for I was truly embarrassed. I always incline to small talkwhen I have nothing to say. She caught me up instantly.
"Fortunate! Oh, me! Fortunate! When I hate it--I hate the college exceptfor math. My mother teaches in the high school--she works day after day,spending her life and strength and health, so that I may stay here. I--Ihate it. She wants me to become a writer. And I can't, I can't, I can't!I want to elect mathematics."
"Oh!" said I.
"When she was a girl, she longed to write, but circumstances prevented.Then I was born and she thought I would carry out her ambition and growto be an author myself. She's been trying years and years. But I can'twrite. I'm not like my mother. I have my own life to live. I--I hate itso. And--and----" The child stopped, swallowed hard, then leaned towardme, her eyes begging me.
"And if you keep my story for the prize, she will hear about it, and shewon't let me elect mathematics for my sophomore year."
"Oh!" I said, and I was surprised to such a degree that the oh soundedlike a giggle at the end. That made me so ashamed that I sat up a littlemore erect and ejaculated vivaciously, "You--you astonish me."
It was the funniest thing--she hung her head like a conscience-smittenchild. "I--I haven't told her about it because it would encourage her andthen later she would--would be all the more disappointed. I can't write,I tell you."
"The vote was almost unanimous," I remarked stiffly.
She stared at me doubtfully. "Well, maybe that story is good but I know Icouldn't do it again. And anyhow my mother told me the plot."
"Oh," I said. It was really the plot that had won the prize, youunderstand, though indeed I had found the style eminently praiseworthyalso according to all the principles of criticism. It almost fulfilledthe rhetorical rules about unity, mass and coherence.
"So you will let me withdraw?" she questioned timidly, "here's the tendollars." She held out the crumpled bill which she had been clutching allthe evening.
I thought I might as well be going. "It's allowable to use your ownmother's plot," I assured her, "don't bother about that. Good bye."
Without looking at her I hurried through the alleyway into the corridor,flew past the sanctum, darted into the staircase, then halted, turnedaround, stopped at the water-cooler for a taste of ice water, then walkedslowly back to her room.
I put my head in at the door. "You heard me say, didn't you, that thestory has gone to press?"
She lifted her face from that same yellow silk pillow. "Yes," she said.
"All right." I started away briskly as if I thought I was going, but Ididn't. This time I turned around, went clear into the room and sat downon the couch.
"And anyway," I said, "you haven't any right to deceive your mother likethat. It is robbing her of a joy that she surely deserves. She has earnedit. You haven't any right not to tell her that your story won the prize.Whether we let you withdraw it or not, it would be wrong for you to stealthat pleasure from your own mother. You are thinking merely of your ownselfish wishes."
"No, no, no! Don't you see?" She flung herself toward me. "It is likebeing a surgeon. I must cut out the ambition. I can never fulfill it.Never, never, I tell you. The news of this prize will make it grow andgrow like a cancer or something, till it will hurt worse, maim, kill,when I fail at last. If she would only see that I love mathematics andcan do something in that maybe some day. But in literature. Suppose Ishut myself up for years, struggle, struggle, struggle to wring outsomething that isn't in me, while she wears herself out to support me.The publishers will send it back, one after another. I can't write, Itell you. I know it. It will be all an awful sacrifice--a uselesssacrifice, with no issue except waste of her life and my life. Don't yousee?"
"Don't you think," said I calmly, "don't you think that you are just alittle foolish and intense?" That is what a professor said to me once andit had a wonderfully reducing effect. So I tried it on this excitedlittle freshman. But the result was different. Instead of clearing theatmosphere with a breeze of half mortified laughter, it created astillness like the stillness before a whirlwind. I got up hastily. "Ithink I had better be going," I said.
This time I heard the key turn in the lock behind me as I walked rapidlyaway. Actually I had to hold myself in to keep from scuttling away like awhipped puppy. That is how I felt inside. I didn't believe that she wouldever forgive me. There were two compensations for this episode in myeditorial career: one was the realization that the little freshman hadplenty of dignity to fall back on, the other was that she would not bevery likely to ask again for the return of the prize story.
Considering that this was my sincere attitude, you may imagine how amazedI was to hear my name called by this young person the very next morning.She came running up to me at the instant my fingers were on the knob ofthe sanctum door. Her hands were filled with those little cardboardrhomboids, polyhedrons, prisms and so forth which the freshmen have tomake for their geometry work.
"I'm going to do it," she began breathlessly, "I'm going to tell mymother. Perhaps it would please her more if--if you should write me anote on paper with the name of the Monthly at the top, you know. She usedto be an editor when she was in college. In it say that the board gave methe prize. I think it will please her."
"I shall be delighted," I exclaimed. Then something in the way she wasgazing down at those geometrical monstrosities (I never could enduremathematics myself) made me want to comfort her.
"Why, child, it won't be necessary to sacrifice math entirely. You canelect analytics and calculus to balance the lit and rhetoric. Cheer up."
She raised eyes brimming with tears. "My mother thinks that math has anadverse tendency. She doesn't want me to take much science either. Shesays that science deals with facts, literature with the impression offacts."
"Oh," I remarked. You notice that I had found occasion to use theforegoing expletive several times since first meeting Miss Maria MitchellKiewit.
She nodded gloomily in acknowledgment of my sympathetic comprehension."Yes, once when I described lights in a fog as 'losing their chromaticidentity' instead of saying they 'blurred into the mist,' she asked me todrop physics in the high school. She said it was ruinous, it wasdestroying the delicacy of my perceptions."
"Doesn't your mother ever----" I hesitated, then decisively, "doesn't sheever laugh?"
Maria dimpled suddenly. "Oh, yes, yes! She's my dearest, best friend, andwe have fun all the time except when she talks about my becoming awriter. She said that now at college I could show if there was any hopein me. She meant that this is my chance to learn to write. I--I----" Shepaused and glanced at me dubiously from under her lashes. "I sent in thatstory just to show her that I couldn't write. I was going to tell her Ihad tried and failed."
"Oh!" Then I chuckled, and the freshman after a moment of half resentfulpouting joined in with a small reluctant laugh.
"It is funny," she said, "I think that maybe from your side of the affairit is awfully funny. But----"
I turned the knob swiftly. "No but about it. I shall write that note thisminute, and you shall mail it home at once. That is the only right thingto do."
"Yes." She heaved a deep, long sigh. "I know that. I have worked it allout as an original in geometry. For instance: Given, an unselfish motherwith a special ambition for her rebellious selfish daughter. Problem: todecide which one should sacrifice her own wishes. Let the mother's desireequal this straight line, and the daughter's inclination equal thisstraight line at right angles to the other. To prove----"
"See here, little girl," I interrupted her kindly bu
t firmly, "no wonderyour mother dreads the effect of mathematical studies on your tenderbrain! I said farewell to geometry exactly two years and four months ago.I did the examination in final trig three times. Comprehend? Now run intoyour own room and get that letter written quick. If you are veryagreeable indeed, I may let you enclose the proof sheets, who knows?"
"Thank you," she exclaimed in impulsive joy, "that will be lovely. Motherwill be so pleased." Then the vision of coming woe in exile from belovedcalculations descended upon her, and she hugged the paper figures soconvulsively that the sharpest, most beautiful angle of the biggestpolyhedron cracked clear across from edge to edge. They were perfectlysplendid clean edges, edges that even I could see had been formed by thecarefully loving hands of a mathematical prodigy.
After that day came a pause in the drama (Adele declared that it wasreally a tragedy caused by one life trying to bend another to its will)until the day when the new issue of the Monthly arrived in the noon mail.As Robbie Belle was still in the infirmary of course, the rest of theboard took hold of her share of the work. We divided the list ofsubscribers between us, and started out to distribute the magazines atthe different rooms in the various dormitories.
SHE WAVED AN OPEN LETTER IN HER HAND]
Part of my route happened to include the neighborhood of the sanctum.Just as I turned into Maria's alleyway to leave the three copies alwaysprovided for every contributor, she came dashing out of her room in sucha headlong rush that I barely saved my equilibrium by a rapid jump to oneside. As soon as she could control her own impetus she whirled and boredown upon me once more.
"Mercy, mercy!" I cried, backing into a corner by the hinges and holdingmy pile of magazines in front as a rampart, "don't be an automobile anymore."
She waved an open letter in her hand.
"Mother says I may elect all the math I want. She says I can't write alittle bit. She says that this prize story shows I can't. She says it isawful--all except the plot, and that isn't mine, you know. She says thatthe vocabulary, sentence structure, everything proves me mathematical tothe centre of my soul. She says she has always been afraid she was makinga mistake to force a square peg into a round hole. I'm the peg, youunderstand. She says I needn't struggle any more, and she'll be just asproud of a mathematical genius as of a mechanical author. She says she isgrateful for the honor of the prize, but she thinks the board of editorsmade a mistake."
I walked feebly into the room, sank on the couch, and propped myselfagainst that yellow silk pillow.
"It's horrid to be an editor," I said, "especially when Robbie Belle hasto go and get taken to the infirmary just when I need her most."
"My mother knows," chanted the little freshman, "and she says I can'twrite a little bit. She says I can elect mathematics. Whoopee!"
