Prudence of the Parsonage Part 15

She glanced up when she heard his exclamation, and laughed at his rueful face. "Oh, that isn't Fairy's expression. She thinks brilliant and clever people are just adorable. It is only I who think them horrible." Even Prudence could see that this did not help matters.

"I--I do not mean that," she stammered. "I am sure you are very nice indeed, and we are going to be good friends, aren't we? But I am such a dunce myself that I am afraid of real clever people. They are so superior. And so uninteresting, and--oh, I do not mean that either."

Then Prudence laughed at her predicament. "I may as well give it up.

What I really mean is that you are so nice and friendly and interesting, that I can hardly believe you are so clever. You are the nicest smart person I ever saw,--except my own family, I mean." She smiled up at him deliciously. "Does that make it square?"

"More than square," he said. "You are too complimentary. But the only thing that really counts to-day is whether we are going to be real good friends, as you suggested. We are, aren't we? The very best and closest of friends?"

"Yes," agreed Prudence, dimpling. "I like men to be my friends,--nice men, I mean. But it isn't always safe. So many start out to be good friends, and then want to be silly. So a girl has to be very careful.

But it's perfectly safe with you, and so we can be the very best of friends. I won't need to be watchful for bad symptoms."

"Do you think me so unmanly that I couldn't fall in love?" he asked, and his voice was curious, as though she had hurt him.

"Oh, of course, you'll fall in love," laughed Prudence. "All nice men do.--But not with me,--that was what I meant I couldn't imagine a buggy professor--oh, I beg your pardon! But the twins are so silly and disrespectful, and they thought it was such a joke that I should even look at a professor of biology that they began calling you the buggy professor. But they do not mean any harm by it, not the least in the world. They're such nice sweet girls, but--young, you know. Are your feelings hurt?" she asked anxiously.

"Not a bit! I think the twins and I will be tremendously good friends.

I'm quite willing to be known as the buggy professor. But you were trying to explain why I couldn't fall in love with you. I suppose you mean that you do not want me to."

"Oh, not that at all," she hastened to a.s.sure him. Then she stopped.

"Yes," she said honestly, "that is true, too. But that isn't what I was trying to say. I was just saying that no one realizes any more than I how perfectly impossible it would be for a clever, grown-up, brilliant professor to fall in love with such an idiot as I am. That's all. I meant it for a compliment," she added, seeing he was not well pleased.

He smiled, but it was a sober smile. "You said it was true that you did not wish me to be--fond of you. Why? Don't you like me then, after all?"

Now, he realized that this was a perfectly insane conversation, but for the life of him, he couldn't help it. Prudence was so alluring, and the sky was so warmly blue, the suns.h.i.+ne so mild and hazy, and the roadside so gloriously gay with colors! Who could have sense on such a day, with such a girl as this?

"Oh, I do like you very much indeed," declared Prudence. "It's a big relief, too, for I didn't expect to--oh, I beg your pardon again, but--well, I was scared when Fairy told me how remarkable you are. I didn't want to disgrace the parsonage, and I knew I would. But--why, the reason I do not want you to fall in love with me,--that's very different from being fond of me, I do want you to be that,--but when people fall in love, they get married. I'm not going to get married, so it would be silly to fall in love, wouldn't it?"

He laughed heartily at the matter-of-factness with which this nineteen-year-old girl disposed of love and marriage. "Why aren't you going to be married?" he inquired, foolishly happy, and showing more foolishness than happiness, just as we all do on such occasions.

"Well, it will be ten or eleven years before Connie is fairly raised."

"Yes, but you won't be a Methuselah, in eleven years," he smiled.

"No, but you forget father."

"Forget father! Are you raising him, too?"

"No, I'm not raising him, but I'm managing him." But when he laughed, she hastened to add, "That is, I take care of him, and keep house for him, and remind him of things he forgets." Then with girlish honesty, she added, "Though I must confess that he has to remind me of things I forget, oftener than I do him. I inherited my forgetfulness from father. I asked him once if he inherited his from grandfather, and he said he forgot whether grandfather was forgetful or not! Father is very clever. So's Fairy. And the twins are the smartest little things you ever saw,--and Connie, too. Connie is the oddest, keenest child.

She's wonderful. They all are,--but me. It's kind of humiliating to be the only stupid one in a family of smart folks. I suppose you've no idea how it feels, and I can't explain it. But sometimes I think maybe I ought to go off and die, so the whole family can s.h.i.+ne and sparkle together. As it is, there's just a dull glow from my corner, quite pale and ugly compared with the brilliant gleams the others are sending out."

Said Professor Rayburn, "Ah, Prudence, the faint, sweet mellow glows are always beautiful. Not sparkling, perhaps, not brilliant! But comforting, and cheering, and--always to be trusted. It's just these little corner-glows, like yours, that make life worth living."

This was rather deep for Prudence, but she felt instinctively that he was complimenting her. She thanked him sweetly, and said, "And after all, I do not really mind being the stupid one. I think it's rather fun, for then I can just live along comfortably, and people do not expect much of me. It would wear me all out to be as clever as Fairy, or as witty as Carol, or as studious as Lark. But I am most tremendously proud of them, I a.s.sure you."

If Professor Rayburn had continued along this interesting and fruitful line of conversation, all would have been well.

"But it came just like a clap of thunder in the suns.h.i.+ne," said Prudence to Fairy dramatically, as they sat in their room talking things over that night. "We were having a perfectly grand time, and I was just thinking he was as nice and interesting as if he didn't know one thing to his name, when--Cras.h.!.+ That's how it happened."

Fairy wiped her eyes, and lay back weakly on the bed. "Go on," she urged. "What happened?"

"He stopped right in the middle of a sentence about me, something real nice, too, that I was awfully interested in, and said, 'Look, Miss Starr!' Then he got down on his knees and began cautiously sc.r.a.ping away the sticks and leaves. Then he fished out the most horrible, woolly, many-legged little animal I ever saw in my life. He said it was a giminythoraticus billyancibus, and he was as tickled over it as though he had just picked up a million-dollar diamond. And what do you suppose the weird creature did with it? He wrapped it in a couple of leaves, and put his handkerchief around it and put it in his pocket!--Do you remember when we were eating by the creek, and I got jam on my fingers? He offered me his handkerchief to wipe it off? Do you remember how I shoved him away, and shuddered? I saw you look reprovingly at me! That's why! Do you suppose I could wipe my fingers with a handkerchief that had been in one of his pockets?"

"It wasn't the one that had the giminy billibus, was it?"

"No, but goodness only knows what had been in this one,--an alligator, maybe, or a snake. He's very fond of snakes. He says some of them are so useful. I try to be charitable, Fairy, and I believe I would give even Satan credit for any good there was in him,--but it is too much to ask me to be fond of a man who is fond of snakes. But that is not the worst. He put the giminy thing in his pocket,--his left pocket! Then he came on walking with me, on my right side. On my right side, Fairy, do you understand what that means? It means that the giminy billibus, as you call it--oh, I wouldn't swear to the name, Fairy, I do not claim to be smart, but I know how it looked! Well, anyhow, name and all, it was on the side next to me. I stopped to look at a little stick, and switched around on the other side. Then he stooped to look at a bunch of dirt, and got on the wrong side again. Then I stopped, and then he did, and so we kept zig-zagging down the road. A body would have thought we were drunk, I suppose. Four times that man stopped to pick up some wriggling little animal, and four times he deposited his treasure in one of his various pockets. Don't ask why it is impossible for me to be friends with such a being,--spare me that humiliation!"

But the fair daughter of the parsonage proved irresistibly attractive to the unfortunate professor, and he was not to be lightly shunted aside. He forsook the Presbyterian church, of which he was a member, and attended the Methodist meetings with commendable a.s.siduity. After each service, he accompanied Prudence home, and never failed to accept her invitations, feebly given, to "come in a minute." He called as often during the week as Propriety, in the voice of Prudence, deemed fitting. It was wholly unnatural for Prudence to cater to Propriety, but Professor Rayburn did not know this. Weeks pa.s.sed, a month slipped away, and another. Professor Rayburn was considered a fixture in the parsonage household by all except Prudence herself, who chafed under her bondage.

"I can't just blurt out that I think he's a nuisance," she mourned to Fairy. "Oh, if he'd just do something disgusting so I could fire him off,--Pop! Just like that. Wouldn't it be glorious?"

But the professor did not indulge in disgusting things, and Prudence continued to worry and fret. Then came a blessed evening when the minister and Fairy were away from home, and the twins and Connie were safely in their beds. Professor Rayburn sat with Prudence in the cozy living-room, and Prudence was charming, though quiet, and the professor was only human. Prudence had made tea, and as she rose to relieve him of his empty cup, he also rose to return it to the table. Laughing, they put it down on the tray, each holding one side of the saucer.

Then when it was safely disposed of, Prudence turned toward him, still laughing at the silliness of it,--very alluring, very winsome. And Mr.

Rayburn, unexpectedly to himself as to her, put his arms around her and kissed her. He was aghast at himself, once it was over, and Prudence,--well, let us say frankly that Prudence was only relieved, for it came to her in a flash that this was the "disgusting thing" for which she had so fervently longed.

"Mr. Rayburn!"

"That was very stupid and unpardonable of me, Prudence," he said quickly, "I really did not think what I was doing. But you were so sweet, and--I'm awfully fond of you, Prudence, you know that."

Prudence looked at him thoughtfully. She felt that this hardly gave her the desired opening. So she waited, hoping he would commit himself further. More humbled by her unnatural silence, he did go on.

"You know, Prudence, when a man cares for a girl as I care for you, it isn't always easy for him to be sober and sensible. You shouldn't have been so--so dear."

Prudence sighed happily. She was content. This gave her the long-desired cue.

"Mr. Rayburn," she said gently but decidedly, "I think you ought not to come here any more."

He walked over to her quickly, and stood beside the chair into which she had dropped when he kissed her.

"Don't say that, Prudence," he said in a hurried low voice.

"It is true," she persisted, feeling somehow sorry, though she did not understand why she should feel so. "I--I--well, you know I--you remember what I told you that first day, don't you? About getting married, and falling in love, and such things. It is true. I don't want to love anybody, and I don't want to get married, and Fairy says--it is--remotely possible--that you might get--very fond of me."

He smiled rather grimly. "Yes, I think it is--remotely possible."

"Then that settles it," she said comfortably. "And besides, I have such a lot to do that I can't--well, bother--spending so much time outside as I have with you. I've been neglecting my work, and it isn't right. I haven't the time."

"Which is your way of saying that you do not like me, isn't it?"

Prudence stood up impulsively. "Oh, I like you, but--" she threw out her hands expressively. He took them in his, tenderly, firmly.

"But, Prudence," he argued, "that is because the woman in you isn't awake. You may never love me--a dismal possibility, but it is true.

But don't you think it only fair that you should give me a chance to try?"

"Oh, but that's just the point," she cried. "I do not want you to try.

I do not want to run any risk, at all. I wouldn't marry you if I did love you--I told you that right in the beginning."

He still held her hands in one of his, caressing them slowly with the other. "What is there about me that you do not like?" he demanded suddenly. "There is something, I know."

And with her awful unbelievable honesty. Prudence told him. "Yes,"

she said, "that is true. I hated to mention it, but there is something! Mr. Rayburn, I just can't stand the bugs!"