Georgina's Service Stars

by Annie F. Johnston

It is the same way with all my attempts at stories and verses. If I should take to turning the key in the door at this late day, they'd think it queer, and I'm afraid Barby would feel a bit hurt and shut out of my life, because we've always shared everything of that sort.

So I just carry the book around with me in my knitting bag, and scribble a few lines whenever there is an opportunity. Most of this will have to be written down on the beach where I am now. It's too hot up in the garret these days. I sit cross-legged in the sand behind an overturned rowboat, drawn up out of reach of the tide. All that can be seen of me from the house is a big garden hat flopping down over the shoulders of my pink smock. Smocks and flopping hats are as common as clams in this old fishing town, full of artists and summer girls, so when I tuck my "wealth of nut-brown curls" up out of sight, nobody recognizes me at a little distance. If any one comes along I begin knitting on a bright blue muffler that I'm making for a Belgian orphan. It seems dreadfully deceitful, but what else can I do?

I haven't any place where I can keep the book between times. Tippy is such a thorough-going housekeeper that she knows what is in every drawer and closet in this house, from top to bottom. Neither she nor Barby would dream of reading a diary or even a scrap of writing belonging to any one else but me. But they think of me as a part of themselves, I suppose, or as still such an infant that if they were to come across this they'd smile indulgently and say, "The dear child. Was anything ever so diverting and clever!" And they'd read it with that pleased, proud expression you see on a family's face when they discover the baby's first tooth or find that it can stand alone.

I'd keep it at Uncle Darcy's, down at Fishburn Court, but I seldom go down there now oftener than once a week, and I want to make a practice of filling a few pages every day.

Fishburn Court would be an ideal place in which to write. It's a cluster of little old houses set around the edge of a sand dune, and hidden away from the heart of the town by some tall buildings. A crooked, sandy lane leads into it from one of the back streets. There's an apple-tree in Uncle Darcy's yard with thick grass under it, and a two-seated wooden swing where an old yellow-nosed cat sleeps all day. You can look up and see billowy white clouds floating in the blue overhead, and smell the salt of the sea, but it's so shut in that although it's only a short distance from the beach you barely hear the chug of the motor boats, and the street cries are so faint, that you feel you're far, far away from the world, like a nun in a cloister.

Sitting there, I've sometimes thought I'd like to be that—a nun in a cloister, to walk with rapt, saint-like face, my hands folded lily-wise over my breast. It must be lovely to feel that one is a pure white saint, a bride of heaven. Sometimes I think I'd rather be that than a world-renowned author.

I often wonder what great part I'm destined to play in the universe. Really the world is so full of things to do and be, that one needs as many lives as a cat. I'd like one life in which to be a nun, another an actress, another in which to shine as a peerless wit and beauty, the social leader in a brilliant salon like that great French madame—I can't think of her name. Then, of course, there's the life I want for my literary career, and one in which to be just a plain wife and mother.

One thing is certain, if I ever have a daughter I'll try to remember how a girl feels at my age; although I don't see how one who has been one can ever forget. And there are some things she shall be allowed to decide for herself. R. B. (As long as I was a mere child Barby seemed to understand me perfectly. But now that I lack only one paltry inch of being as tall as she is, she doesn't seem able to get my point of view at all. She doesn't seem to realize that I've put away childish things, and that when you're in your teens you're done with doll-rags.)

There is nothing so bitter in life as being misunderstood. If you have cruel step-parents who mistreat you out of pure meanness, everybody sympathizes with you. But if you have devoted own parents who hurt you through a mistaken idea that they're doing it for your own good, nobody sympathizes with you. I'd rather be beaten or locked in my room on bread and water than have Minnie Waite or Daisy Poole tagging after me forevermore.

I wasn't at home the day Mrs. Saxe came around, organizing the "Busy Bees" to do Red Cross work for the Belgians. But Barby put my name down and paid the fifty cents dues, and said I'd be glad to do my part. Well, I am glad, but I'd already been trying to do it ever since the war started "over there." I've rolled bandages every Saturday afternoon and taken part in two plays and waited on the table at all the lawn fetes, and I'm knitting my sixth sweater for French and Belgian orphans.