Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

Evidently not, for a few minutes later she heard her whistling softly the air 'He promised to buy me a knot of blue ribbon to tie up my bonny brown hair,' and could she have looked into Jerry's room she would have seen her standing before the mirror examining the face which Harold had said was the loveliest he had ever seen. Others had said the same, and their sayings had been repeated to her. Billy Peterkin, and Tom Tracy, and Dick St. Claire, and even Fred Raymond, from Kentucky, who was supposed to be devoted to Nina. But Jerry cared little for the compliments of either Fred or Dick, while those of Tom she scorned and those of Billy she ridiculed. One word of commendation from Harold was worth more to her than the praises of the whole world besides. But Harold had always been chary of his commendations, and was rather more given to reproof than praise, which did not altogether suit the young lady.

As Jerry had grown older, and merged from childhood into womanhood, a change had come over both the girl and boy, a change which Jerry discovered first, awaking suddenly one day to find that the brother and sister delusion was ended, and Harold stood to her in an entirely new relation. Just when the change had commenced she could not tell. She only knew that it had come, and that she was not quite so happy as she had been in the days when she called Harold her brother, and kissed him whenever she felt like it, which was very often, for she was naturally affectionate, and showed her affection to those she loved. She was seventeen when the dream came—the old, old story which transformed her from a romping, a rather gushing child, into a woman more quiet and more dignified, especially with Harold, who missed and mourned in secret for the playful loving ways which had been so pleasant to him, even if he did not always make a return.

Though capable of loving quite as devotedly and unselfishly as Jerry, he was not demonstrative, while a natural shyness and depreciation of himself made him afraid to tell in words just what or how much he did feel. He would rather show it by acts; and never was brother tenderer or kinder toward a sister than he was to Jerry, whose changed mood he could not understand. And so there gradually arose between them a little cloud, which both felt, and neither could exactly define.

Arthur had kept his promise well with regard to Jerry, who had passed from him to Vassar, and he would have kept it with Harold, if the latter had permitted it. But the boy's pride and independence had asserted themselves at last. He had accepted the course at Andover, and one year at Harvard, on condition that he should be allowed to pay Arthur back all he had received as soon as he was able to do it. As he entered Harvard in advance, he was a junior when he decided to care for himself, and during the remainder of his college course, which, of course, was longer than usual, he struggled on, doing what he could during the summer vacation—teaching school for months at a time—and in the college reducing his expenses by acting as proctor, and compelling obedience to the rules of the institution. Even the few who were aware of his limited means, and his efforts to increase them, had to acknowledge, as he stood before the multitude, delivering the valedictory, and exciting thunders of applause by his graceful gestures and thrilling eloquence, that he was not only an orator, but every inch a gentleman.

His fellow students who saw him then, and listened entranced to his clear, well-trained voice, thought not of Harold's threadbare coat and shining old-fashioned pants, which were so conspicuous as he pursued his studies in the class-room, but which were now concealed by the gown he wore over them. They saw only the large, dark eyes, the finely chiseled features, and the manly form. But as they listened to the burning words which showed so much clear, deep thought, they said to each other:

'The young man has a future before him. Such eloquence as that could move the world, and rouse or quiet the wildest mob that ever surged through the streets of mad Paris.'

Jerry was there, and saw and heard. And when Harold's speech was over, and the building was shaking with applause, and flowers were falling around him like rain, she, too, stood up and cheered so loudly that a Boston lady, who sat in front of her, and who thought any outward show of feeling vulgar and ill-bred, turned and looked at her wonderingly and reprovingly. But in her excitement Jerry did not see the disapprobation in the cold, proud eyes. She saw only what she mistook for enquiry, and she answered eagerly:

'That's Harold—that's my brother! Oh, I am so proud of him!'

And leaning forward so that a curl of her bright hair touched the Boston woman's bonnet, she threw the bunch of pond lilies which she had herself gathered that day on the river at home, before the sun was up, and while the white petals were still folded in sleep. For Jerry had come down on the early train to see Harold graduated, and Maude had found her in the crowd and sat beside her, almost as pleased and happy as herself to see Harold thus acquit himself.

Maude's roses had been bought at a florist's in Boston at a fabulous price, for they were the choicest and rarest in market. Harold had seen both the roses and the lilies long before they fell at his feet. It was a fancy, perhaps, but it seemed to him that it sweet perfume from the latter reached him with the brightness of Jerry's eyes. He knew just where the lilies came from, for he had often waded out to the green bed when the water was low to get them for Jerry; and all the time he was speaking there was in his heart a thought of the old home, and the woods, and the river, and the tall tree on the bank, with the bench beneath, and on it the girl, whose upturned, eager face he saw above the sea of heads confronting him.