Under the Big Dipper

by Desiderius George Dery

In their promenades together in the city what struck Helène most was the people. Apparently all belonged to the same class. All were so happy, so satisfied and so well dressed. Each seemed to be going about his own business without interference from others and yet everybody was so orderly. It was all so different from what she had been accustomed to in her own country. No poverty, no soldiers, no armed policemen, no officious park keepers, no bowing and scraping before empty authority. Everybody was free to do as he liked and yet everybody seemed pleased to be decent and well-behaved. Even the children were unafraid.

In the park where she and Margaret found such enjoyment in walking or sitting, the children would come up and look their frank admiration at Helène, their eyes bright and their faces wreathed in smiles. To Margaret the little ones crept instinctively. She had such an inviting, motherly look about her that they knew no introduction was necessary for them to be taken into her embracing arms. It did Helène’s heart good to watch Margaret’s keen delight on these occasions.

Helène could have had no wiser guide than this friend proved to be. Margaret Fisher was a genuine native of New York, bred in its peculiar ways of life, which were at once the outcome of sharp competition and bonhomie. She seemed to have the wisdom of the serpent and the innocence of the dove. Her inexhaustible supply of wit, her humorous way of seeing things, her happy, healthy nature, gave everybody who came under her influence a sense of the reasonableness and fitness of things. “You can’t help being in a good humor when Miss Fisher is around,” Mrs. Kane truly said.

In the daily companionship of such a teacher Helène ripened in experience. Without acquiring the slang spoken everywhere about her, she obtained a command of English which was at once smooth and polished, though she never lost her quaintly pretty accent. Her own instinct guided her and her refinement of nature compelled from others a response which avoided the vulgar. People felt they must be different with Helène, so that they chose their words in speaking to her. They felt they must be on their best behavior with her.

Spring grew into summer, the more than benevolent summer of New York. The girls in Madame Lucile’s employ blossomed in colors and gowns befitting the season; but Helène made no change in her own dress. She retained her sombre black despite Margaret’s pleadings and Madame’s hints. And with it all she bloomed like a rare flower amid the commoner plants. Margaret would put on an air of chagrin and talk of the anxiety Helène was to her; but none the less she was exceedingly proud of her protegée. To her friends she would in mock despair say: “What chance has any girl with Helène, I should like to know?”

On their occasional visits to Art Exhibitions or the Museum, the old librarian was proud to act as cicerone. He had become the envy of the rest in the boarding-house, and especially of the young engineer, because of this privilege extended to him. He had even acted as their host on two occasions when they had accepted his invitation to partake of a table d’hôte dinner at a French restaurant.

The Baltimorean listened to the recital of the enjoyment and waited patiently for his turn. He proved a good waiter. On the eve of the Fourth of July, he ventured to ask the two girls to go with him to the beach. Robert McCreedy could hardly believe his ears when his invitation was accepted. He made a careful estimate and concluded that a week’s income would about meet the occasion, and prayed that the day would be fine.

The day broke cloudless with a pitiless sun blazing down. McCreedy was happy. He did not know that the effect of the sweltering heat of the past few days on Helène had more to do with Margaret’s acceptance of the invitation than anything else. He thought that his patience had at last been rewarded; that the implacable duenna had thought it well to permit him a nearer access to the object of his devotions.

To Helène, tired and overcome by the oppressive heat, the day proved a boon and was also an experience of a novel kind. The ride to the Battery; the ferry trip to South Brooklyn; the open, swaying cars of the steam railway to the beach; the beauty of the Long Island landscape; the cool breezes of the rolling ocean—all were new to her and afforded such interest and refreshment that she forgot her weariness of brain and body and gave herself up to the enjoyment with the abandon of a girl. Everywhere were men, women and children on pleasure bent. Everybody seemed happy. She had already learned many a lesson from this wonderful democracy, but none appealed to her so strongly as did this celebration. A great humanity had assembled, as if at the call of some mysterious voice, and here they were laughing, playing, singing, care-free and happy, without a sign or a sound of discord—all members of a national family, as it were. This, indeed, was a new world—new in a sense that her people in Roumelia could never understand. It was a revelation of the human heart, an insight into the meaning of life which was denied to those who have not known true liberty and have not been permitted the free play of their finer natures.

The day came to a close but too quickly for Robert McCreedy. He had spent his wealth gladly and had known a happiness he had never known before. When Margaret, after consulting her watch, announced it was time to go home, he looked his disappointment so openly that Margaret was compelled to laugh.