Georgina of the Rainbows

by Annie F. Johnston

It was to shorten the time of waiting that Barbara threw herself into the children’s games and pleasures so heartily. Every night she tore a leaf off the calendar and planned something to fill up the next day to the brim with work or play. They climbed to the top of the monument when she found that Richard had never made the ascent, and stood long, looking off to Plymouth, twenty miles away, and at the town spread out below them, seeming from their great height, a tiny toy village. They went to Truro to see the bayberry candle-dipping. They played Maud Muller, raking the yard, because the boy whom old Jeremy had installed in his place had hurt his foot. Old Jeremy, being well on toward ninety now, no longer attempted any work, though still hale and hearty. But the garden had been his especial domain too long for him to give it up entirely, and he spent hours in it daily, to the disgust of his easy-going successor.

There were picnics at Highland Light and the Race Point life-saving station. There were long walks out the state road, through the dunes and by the cranberry bogs. But everything which speeded Barbara’s weeks of feverish waiting, hurrying her on nearer her heart’s desire, brought Richard nearer ito the time of parting from the old seaport town and the best times he had ever known. He had kodak pictures of all their outings. Most of them were light-struck or out of focus or over-exposed, but he treasured them because he had taken them himself with his first little Brownie camera. There was nothing wrong or queer with the recollection of the scenes they brought to him. His memory photographed only perfect days, and he dreaded to have them end.

Before those weeks were over Richard began to feel that he belonged to Barby in a way, and she to him. There were many little scenes of which no snapshot could be taken, which left indelible impressions.

For instance, those evenings in the dim room lighted only by the moonlight streaming in through the open windows, when Barby sat at the piano with Georgina beside her, singing, while he looked out over the sea and felt the soul of him stir vaguely, as if he had wings somewhere, waiting to be unfurled.

The last Sunday of his vacation he went to church with Barbara and Georgina. It wasn’t the Church of the Pilgrims, but another white-towered one near by. The president of the bank was one of the ushers. He called Richard by name when he shook hands with the three of them at the door. That in itself gave Richard a sense of importance and of being welcome. It was a plain old-fashioned church, its only decoration a big bowl of tiger-lilies on a table down in front of the pulpit. When he took his seat in one of the high front pews he felt that he had never been in such a quiet, peaceful place before.

They were very early. The windows were open, and now and then a breeze blowing in from the sea fluttered the leaves of a hymn-book lying open on the front seat. Each time they fluttered he heard another sound also, as faint and sweet as if it were the ringing of little crystal bells. Georgina, on the other side of Barby, heard it too, and they looked at each other questioningly. Then Richard discovered where the tinkle came from, and pointed upward to call her attention to it. There, from the center of the ceiling swung a great, old-fashioned chandelier, hung with a circle of pendant prisms, each one as large and shining as the one Uncle Darcy had given her.

Georgina knew better than to whisper in such a place, but she couldn’t help leaning past Barby so that Richard could see her lips silently form the words, “Rainbow Club.” She wondered if Mr. Gates had started it. There were enough prisms for nearly every member in the church to claim one.

Barby, reading the silent message of her lips and guessing that Georgina was wondering over the discovery, moved her own lips to form the words, “just _honorary_ members.”

Georgina nodded her satisfaction. It was good to know that there were so many of them in the world, all working for the same end, whether they realized it or not.

Just before the service began an old lady in the adjoining pew next to Richard, reached over the partition and offered him several cloves. He was too astonished to refuse them and showed them to Barby, not knowing what to do with them. She leaned down and whispered behind her fan: