The very possibility brought her to her feet and out of the closet. “No! I won’t stand it!” she cried. “I must have Mother! I won’t stay here! I won’t! I won’t!”
She was immediately all resolution. She washed her face. Then she took off the dress she was wearing—her grandmother had bought it—and opening the suit-case, chose and put on a dress of her mother’s buying. Thus fortified, as it were, in something that had been touched by hands dear beyond expression, she descended to the library. She hoped all the grown-ups would be there on her arrival. She longed to announce defiantly her plan to leave.
But—only Uncle John was in the room, leaned, as always, over his papers and his great flat-topped table. He did not speak; did not even look up—as Phœbe advanced to a stand before the large map of the United States which hung above the bookcases at one side of the room.
Ah, what a great distance lay between! Here, a small dot and small letters showed the position of the town where she was; there, a larger dot and larger letters marked the spot where Mother had gone.
Standing before the map, with face raised, once more anger possessed her—a fierce anger—against this town in which she was, against everyone in it. There had been a time when she had fretted because she could not go about like other girls, and meet people; now she felt she did not want to go anywhere, did not want to meet anyone, know anyone, make any friends!
They did not like her mother? They talked against her mother? Very well. They need not like her, either. They could talk against her if they wanted to!
Her resentment demanded action. There was a drug-store down the street, two blocks away. To reach it from the Blair front gate, one had to pass a dozen houses. There were always people on the porches of those houses, or on the lawns. Phœbe went upstairs for her New York hat, and for her purse. There was ice-cream soda to be had at the drug-store, and sundaes of every description. Phœbe liked them. But they were not, just then, first in her thoughts. Did Genevieve Finnegan, and others like her, expect Phœbe Shaw Blair to hide herself away in Grandma’s big house? To weep alone at slights? “From such small-town people?” raged Phœbe, as she slammed the front door. Did they think she would act as if she were ashamed of her mother?
Her hat on the back of her head, her head in the air, Phœbe let herself out of the front gate and started for the drug-store. And on the way, she passed every one of those dozen houses without so much as a glance!
It was a pleasure to do that. She arrived at the drug-store in great good humor. She felt that she had done something for Mother!
She was in a reckless mood. She enjoyed one soda and two ice-creams. She ignored the pretty young woman who waited upon her. When she started homeward, she went with a light step and a high chin. She wished she had a dog to lead. Not that she cared for dogs—she was afraid of them. But if she were leading a dog, he would be an excuse for running, and calling out happily. That was what she most wished to do—call out happily, and skip—just to show all those gaping neighbors how little she cared!