He took from his vest pocket a small pair of scissors, and handed them to me. I was too confused for a moment to speak. No one before had praised my hair. I had made faces at it in the glass. My brother, who was a few years older than myself, called me Carrots and Red-top, and, when in a very teasing mood, pretended to light a match on it. And Nicol called it beautiful, and wanted a lock of it as a souvenir. My first impulse was to give him the whole, if I could, and be rid of it; but, as I gathered the shining mass in my hand, and saw how the sunlight made it brighten and glisten, I began to have a certain feeling of pride in it, it was so long and thick and glossy, and curled around my fingers like a living thing.
“Yes, you can have some of the old, red stuff, if you want it,” I said, laughingly; and, taking his scissors, I cut a tress where it could not be missed and handed it to him.
He was my teacher, my friend; he was going away, and I felt I scarcely knew how toward him, as, with my hair still down my back—for it was not yet dry, sat beside him, while he talked of Russia, and the difference between life there and in America, appearing all the while as if there was something he wished to say, but could not, or dared not.
“Domestic life there is not what it is here. You would not like it,” he said.
“I know I shouldn’t,” I answered, quickly, and he went on: “But it is home to me. My people are well born, and I must cast my lot with them, whether for good or bad.”
“I hope not for bad,” I said, with a little lump in my throat.
“That depends upon the standpoint from which you look,” he replied. “If I join the nihilists, and you sympathize with them, you will think I go for good. If I side with the government, and help hunt the nihilists down, and your sympathies are there, you will say I go for good.”
“Never!” I answered, hotly, stamping my foot upon the ground. “Nihilism may be wrong, but I detest the government, with its iron heel upon the poor people, and in a way upon your czar, who is kept more in ignorance of what is taking place than I am. You are all slaves, every one of you, from the czar in his palace to the poor serf in his mud house on the barren plain. I wish I could give your grand dukes a piece of my mind!”
Nicol laughed at my heat, and answered: “You didn’t have that red hair given you for nothing, did you? I wish you might give them a piece of your mind, but am afraid it would do no good. Russia is pretty firm in her opinion of herself. I wish she was different. I have learned many things in your country which I shall not forget. My life has been very pleasant here, and my thoughts will often travel back to Ridgefield, and the freedom such as we Russians do not know.”
“Why not stay, then?” I asked, the lump in my throat growing larger, and making my voice a kind of croak.