Lotta Embury's career

Front matter

Eha W. Peattie

Ba

“ELIA. W. PEATTIE he f Kr ; » tes Lotta is a rosy-cheeked country girl, with Qe a knack for the violin, who leaves home to become a great musician, but at last returns | % to find her true vocation in running her . father’s store when his health fails. A ovr | % % | Girls of thirteen to-eighteen will follow ~~ | Lotta’s search for a career with unflagging ®

Contents

. THe Peorpte Lotta KNEW . Aunt CATHY HAS HER Way . . Lotra’s CAREER SUFFERS A CHANGE.

. LOTTA TAKES THINGS IN HER OWN

Hanps .

Chapter One The People Lotta Knew

WHEN you opened the Emburys’ front door and stepped into the living-room, the first thing you noticed was the sweet smell of apples. All houses have their odors; not merely their fleeting odors, but those that remain and welcome the returning wanderer in a way that stirs his deepest memories.

The Emburys’ brown-shingled, story-anda-half cottage, with its sloping roof, stood in the midst of as fine an apple orchard as could be found in Iowa. Furthermore, in the whitewashed cellar were bins upon bins of apples. Oddly, too, the Emburys themselves were in a way suggestive of apples. Lotta and her father might easily remind you of fine red-cheeked Baldwins. Mrs. Embury and her sister, Miss Summerville, — Aunt Cathy,

I

Lotta called her, — might, if you were imaginative, remind you of pale, golden bellflowers. The Emburys were wholesome, simple, village-bred people of pioneer descent, who had come out from New England, and who took naturally to orchards and gardens.

Not that Paul Embury, Lotta’s father, dreamed of going back to the farm. He was content with his life in the little village of Maitland, to which he had come as a fatherless boy to make a way for himself. The only hardware store in the town belonged to him. With its low, attractive building, its faded awnings, and its benches before the door, it looked as inviting as an inn. Mrs. Embury frequently brought her sewing and sat in the store in the low rocking-chair that her husband kept there for her.

From the rear door of the shop a path ran through a lot where the Embury cow grazed, and then ambled on through a part of the orchard, under the apple trees and up to the summer kitchen of the Embury house. So direct was the path that Mr. Embury had only to put his nose out of the shop to learn — if the wind was in the right direction — what was cooking for dinner. It was pretty sure to be something good, for Mrs. Embury and her sister had won a well-deserved reputation all over the county for their special receipts and their excellent cooking.

In their quiet way, the Emburys enjoyed life; the youngest, Carlotta, or Lotta as she was called, enjoyed it superlatively. She was the only child, and she was loved out of proportion to her merits, as she would have been the first to say. It sometimes seemed to her as if every one were working for her, thinking of her, and sacrificing for her. In return, she gave all she could in the way of love and service; but she was handicapped by the embarrassing fact that she could not seem to do much more than merely to attend to her own affairs.

She realized that fact on the day before the last of the summer term of school, when she learned that she had finished her examinations with credit, and so had completed in a satisfactory manner her second year at high school. She had been distrustful of her French and English, and had compelled her family to worry with her over the result. And so, with the good news fairly jumping out of her mouth, she ran hatless down the street, carrying her new green silk parasol unopened in her hand.

“Oh, my goodness!” said her mother to her aunt. “Here comes Lotta running down the street in the sun! What do you suppose can be the matter with the child?”

“Tn this heat, too!” cried Catherine Summerville. ‘How foolish! Besides, she’s getting too grown up to run like that. It is n’t proper. She’s taller than I am this minute.”

“She would n’t have to be very tall for that,” said Jenny Lind Embury, looking at her little elder sister, as the two worked together on the shaded side porch, where the breeze blew in pleasantly. Lotta’s aunt was ironing the dress of India lawn that Lotta was to wear the following day at the school exercises, and her mother was beating up the frosting, inch thick and firm, that was to lie on the ceremonial cake.

“T have my marks,” Lotta called before she was within the gate, “and they’re ripping!”

“But why did n’t you walk home?” asked her mother, rejoicing at the good news, but intent on her reproof. ‘We could have waited five minutes for the news. Anyway, you should have put up your parasol.”

“<«Ripping’ conveys nothing to my mind,” said her aunt severely, although her eyes were shining with satisfaction. “In my day we had good marks and bad marks, but not ‘ripping’ marks.”

“Oh, you frauds! Don’t you think I can see through you? I should say they were ripping. Ninety-two in physiology, ninety-four in history, eighty-two in French, eighty-six in English, and’ — she paused for dramatic effect — ‘‘one hundred in mathematics.”

“No!” cried Aunt Cathy. ~ “Very good, indeed,” said Mrs. Embury, still pretending to be calm.

“Ripping!” insisted Lotta, and she bounded up the steps to hug first one and then the other, and threw herself down in a wicker chair.

“But your violin,” said her aunt. “Why did n’t you bring that home with you? You might have practiced a bit this noon.”

“No, I could n’t, dear,” said Lotta. “I’m too tired and hot.”

Then she took in for the first time the tasks upon which they were engaged.

‘Me talking about being hot!” she cried. “T’m not so hot as either of you at this minute. You’re both slaving for me as usual. Why don’t you leave something for me to do once in a while? I could n’t have made a cake like that, but I might have ironed the dress.”’

Cathy Summerville turned a hurt look on her niece as she held up the diaphanous frock, pressed without crease.

“Do you mean to say that you could have done a piece of ironing like that? If you can, you ve hidden your talent, Carlotta.”

Lotta laughed easily.

“Vain thing,” she said affectionately, as she brushed by her aunt and went into the house.

She had a secret fear that luncheon might have been forgotten in the performance of more interesting tasks, and this was the day of all days when she wished to eat quickly and hasten back to school; but the sight of the old walnut table in the shaded dining room reassured her. She saw the fresh raspberries in the green glass dish, the milk, the rich butter, the cold chicken, the golden drop cookies; and she thought what a lucky girl she was to be surrounded with so much love and bounty. It was all home produce —that good food. Those two women working for her out on the porch had supplied it.

She was glad she was Lotta Embury; glad she had just the particular, identical home that she had; glad that her own father and - mother and aunt had fallen to her share. She often told them that if she had picked them out of all the fathers, mothers, and aunts in the world, she could have done no better. She loved her school, loved the sweet summer weather; loved to be herself. She hoped nothing would change, at least not fora long, long time.

When she came out from her room, ready for her last afternoon’s work at school, she saw her new frock pinned to the screen that stood before the living-room door. Aunt Cathy had taken every stitch in it with her magic needle; and now she had brought out the flowered ribbons that were to be worn with it, and had tossed them over the dress to try the effect of the soft-hued roses above the drifting white. From her place at the luncheon table, Lotta could see the dress swaying in the breeze.

“What a pity you have your back to it!” she said to her aunt. “Don’t you want to change seats?”

But her aunt did not answer. She was staring down at her plate in the brooding way she sometimes had. It exasperated Lotta. She hit on her glass with her spoon.

Q U

“Breakfast time! Wake up, Aunt Cathy!”

But the next moment she was ashamed. The eyes that her aunt had lifted to her own had tears in them.

“Don’t tease, dear,” said her aunt, wearily. |

Lotta darted an inquiring look at her mother. Was her aunt ill? Oddly enough, her mother avoided her gaze, and that was not at all pleasant. Why would people act like that when everything was going just as it should? There must be some secret they

- . were keeping from her. She was glad to see her father walking along the path through the orchard. He was a few moments late; some customer had kept him, no doubt. Lotta’s mind went on a little excursion as she watched him coming on with his downright tread; his loose linen garments fluttered about him as he walked, and his broad hat with its green lining shaded his face. She thought how the front door to the shop would be looking, with its pasteboard sign dangling from the latch to inform all passers- 9 by that the master had gone to dinner, but would be back soon.

Paul Embury was a cheerful man; he usually came in noisily and seated himself with much joking about what was on the table — or what was not on it; but to-day he said little. He sat down rather heavily, and looked at the tempting food as if he had no inclination for it.

“Oh dear!” thought Lotta. “Something really is the matter!”

She had to be excused from the table, for the noon recess was brief; and then, as she stood a little apart looking at the three faces that made up the best part of her world, she became convinced that there was some sort of shadow over them. She put her hand on her father’s shoulder.

“You’re keeping something from me,” she said, reproachfully. “There is something troubling all of you, and you’re not telling me. That is n’t fair.”

Mr. Embury stirred uneasily. The women looked at their plates.

“Go along to school, Lotta,” said her father, after a moment’s uncomfortable silence. “Youll be late, and break your record. There’s no trouble—not what you could rightly call trouble. Go along to school.”

He looked at her affectionately, seeming both to promise and to withhold something. She knew she must go, and kissing him on the forehead, sped away.

Her aunt sat where she could watch the green parasol fluttering down the street. Then a sob escaped her. Her brother-in-law turned on her sharply.

“If you feel so bad about it,’”’ he asked, “why did n’t you leave things as they were?”

Cathy Summerville looked at him through her tears. “J wasn’t thinking of myself when I made the plan,” she said, sadly, “or of you, Paul, or of Jenny Lind.”

“Of course she wasn’t,” agreed Mrs. Embury. “She was thinking of Lotta, Paul, and you know it. We all want to do what’s best for her.”

If

Mr. Embury pushed back his chair.

“I’m glad you feel perfectly sure that you know what’s best for her!” he muttered. “I’m not so sure myself.”

“Paul!” cried his sister-in-law. “With her talent!”

Lotta’s father found his hat, and looked down into its green lining.

“Talent?” he repeated, slowly. “Yes, she’s talented, no doubt. Every one says so. But what’s the use of letting a talent break up a home? We’ve been so happy here, Cathy, and now you’ve spoiled it all. It will never be the same again — never.”

“Now’s the time to train Lotta if she’s ever to be trained,” Cathy said. “You don’t want her to grow up to be like —”’ She let her sentence hang in the air, and fixed a sad gaze on her brother-in-law. ,

“Like?” he questioned.

“Like me,” she ended, bitterly.

“Might do worse, might n’t she, Jenny?” said Paul Embury in his old hearty manner.

He left the house. The women were upset, he said to himself, as he went through his shop to take the weather-beaten piacard off the front door. But to his astonishment it was not there. For the first time in years he had forgotten to inform an anxious public that he had gone to dinner, but would soon be back.

“Tush!” he said, in disgust. He opened his ledger, but he did not work. It was only at the cottage that the Embury industry was in evidence that afternoon. The two sisters were working furiously, unwilling to give themselves time to think.

As for Lotta, she was wondering and wondering, and finding it very hard indeed to fix her mind on the theme that she was expected to finish that afternoon. She looked over at her best friend, Polly Root, who, grave, concentrated, and well-pleased to be set a hard task, was as alert as if this were the first of the term instead of the fagging, tedious last of it. She wanted to talk to Polly — wanted to walk straight across the room, and say, “Come out into the grove. Let’s be free for once. Let’s do what we please. I’ve got to talk.”

But she had to keep to her work. Three o’clock came, and she had not finished.

“Better stay, Carlotta,” said Mr. Root, the superintendent of the school — and incidentally the father of Polly. “Never mind if you are tired. We’re all tired, I feel sure. Finish up your work, and go home with a clear conscience.”

So Lotta settled down to the theme. Later, when she left the schoolhouse and wondered why the interest seemed to have departed from everything, she found Polly waiting for her on the bench beside the door. “You’re to come right home with me,” said Polly, “and have something to eat. Mother said I was to bring you. She knew you’d be starved. She says she doesn’t see why father keeps any one when the weather ’s so warm.

“Almost vacation,” Polly went on, happily, slipping her arm through that of her friend, “and then what fun we’ll have!

Roland will be home in a few days, too. He wants mother to take us all on a camping trip.”

“Really?” cried Lotta. “Do you think she will? And does that include me?”

Polly laughed teasingly.

“Of whom do you suppose brother was thinking if not you? He could see father and mother and me at home, could n’t he? He thinks you’re the best camper he ever knew. There’s mother waving to us. You can telephone home and let them know where you are. We’re to eat in the garden. Oh, I’m so glad summer has come, and that we can eat in the garden! Don’t you love to eat out of doors? Does n’t it make you feel care free?”

Polly, with her gentle face, her blue eyes, and long honey-colored braids, looked like a proper, home-keeping maiden, but Lotta was quite aware that her friend had her gypsy moods — wild ones they were, too, sometimes. The drowsing afternoon hour went by in a dream of warmth, and flowers and confidences, and was, for some reason which neither of the girls could have made plain, always to remain happily in their memories.

Lotta had always thought that Polly was beautiful, but she was sure of it the following afternoon when, toiling up three flights of stairs to the assembly room for the last-day exercises, she saw Polly at the head of the stairs, in her blue-flowered lawn, with pale blue ribbons about her charming head. She was waiting for Lotta, of course, — she seemed to spend much of her time waiting for Lotta, — and she drew her away from her father and mother and her Aunt Summerville, and took her up to the seats occupied by the class.

Every one was excited, and gay, and restless, and those who were to take part in the exercises were tremulous of lips and inclined to tap the floor with impatient feet. Only Lotta was calm. And that was partly because she was confident. Had not Mr. Rand, her instructor, told her that she was as nearly perfect as he could hope any pupil to be in the violin solo that she was to play? Did not every one look to her to put the cap upon the entertainment? Did she not herself, amiably and innocently, think that her solo would be the best event of the evening?

It was natural enough, therefore, that when her turn came she should go forward without fear. She stood calmly before the audience, lifted her little brown violin to her shoulder, and with all the good will in the world played for them Dvorak’s “Humoresque.”

But as she played, the face of her beloved friend Polly, instead of brightening, became rather serious. Polly looked about the audience, and was gratified to see every one intent upon the player, and apparently pleased with what she was doing. Polly blushed unseen — blushed because she thought that Lotta was not doing justice to the composttion or to herself. After all, there was great satisfaction in feeling that Lotta never would forget what she had learned, that she would not suffer from stage fright, and that she could be trusted to go on in that vigorous, good-natured way to the end of the piece. And yet once at a concert in Chicago, Polly had heard a great musician play that music, and as he played she had seemed to hear elfish laughter and fairy glee. She had closed her eyes, and a vision had come of little brown creatures dashing from a grove, whirling about on the sun-baked grass, chuckling in their wicked wee throats, and then scampering again into the wood. Tree toads and squirrels had answered them; birds had taunted them; they had accepted the challenge, flung out again into the ring, had danced, and called, and shouted, and then were off again, and the delicate staccato echo of their voices had died away. ' Was that the same piece that her dearest Lotta was playing? What was the matter, anyway? But how pleased the people were! It showed not only in the applause they gave her then, but in all the warm compliments that Polly heard them paying her later, when the cake and lemonade were 18 being passed. Polly fluttered about Lotta to listen to what was said, and to try to be as glad as she ought to be at her friend’s triumph.

Lotta’s arms were filled with flowers, which she would not resign to her father, who had to content himself with walking beside her. He had not been permitted to carry the violin, either. Aunt Cathy — who had sold her mother’s watch and diamond brooch to buy it — undertook the responsibility of that. Aunt Cathy looked worn, as if with the burden of Lotta’s triumph and the secret she held. She kept it back until the evening, and then, when Mr. and Mrs. Embury and Lotta were all together on the porch with her, she felt that the great moment had arrived.

“There’s something to be told you to-night, Lotta,” she began. “Something that you’re not to feel bad about, even if it does seem a little upsetting at first, because it’s really a splendid thing for you, no matter how it may look just at first.”

“T’ve been feeling the storm in the air for two days,”’ said Lotta, moving a little closer to her father and slipping her hand into his. “Let it burst, Aunt Cathy.”

“It’s no storm. It’s merely that it has been decided that you are to—to go to Chicago, my dear, to study the violin.”

The words were simple enough, but they seemed to quiver upon the air. No one spoke. Paul Embury’s hand tightened upon his daughter’s.

“Mr. Rand,” Aunt Cathy continued, “says he can teach you nothing more.” Her voice trembled with pride and excitement. “He recommends me to take you to the great Herr Gunnar Heegard, the famous Danish violinist. He can teach you as much as any one in Europe.”

“And not go back to school?” cried Lotta. “Why, I’m only half through high school!” .

“It would be all very well for you to spend your time in high school, Lotta,” said her mother gently, and almost as if she were repeating a lesson she had learned, “if it were not for your talent.”

Phat is it, Lotta,’ said her aunt. “lo have a talent is to have something sacred. Suppose you did put in two years more on mathematics and history. What good would it do you or any one else? You would soon forget them. But if you cultivate your talent, what you learn will stay with you always.”

“But lessons with that violinist will be terribly expensive,” protested Lotta.

“T have sold a piece of my orchard land. Your father could n’t spare any of his, of course, because it is needed for the family living. But I could spare mine —”

“T don’t know whether you could or not,” broke in Paul Embury. “My own idea is that you’ve been very foolish.”

“Oh, I’m afraid you have, Aunt Cathy!” crisd Lotta, rising and standing by the porch pillar. “And then I don’t want to leave home. Never mind about my talent, please. It will take care of itself.”

“Tt won’t — it can’t!” declared Catherine Summerville, shrilly. “Hadn’t I talent in my girlhood? But no one helped me — no one. ‘They held me back, and all my power left me, and now I’m what you see, Lotta, a little plain old maid with no accomplishments. That wouldn’t matter if I were happy, but I’m not happy, for I can’t get over my regrets. There’s a kind of shame takes hold of me when I realize that I have n’t made the most of the gifts God gave me. I suffer from that shame Lotta, and shall as long as I live. And that’s what I want to save you from, can’t you understand?”

Her voice broke in a sob.

“Oh, don’t, Aunt Cathy!” Lotta cried, in distress. “Ill do anything you want me to do. To think of your selling the orchard! She ought n’t to have done it, ought she, father?”

“Don’t ask him!” pleaded Aunt Cathy. “He thinks only of keeping you with him. He may not believe it, but it’s harder for me to part with you than it is for him to do it — or your mother, either,” she added, with an anguished defiance. “O Lotta, go, go! Study as hard as you can, and_bring credit to all of us. Become what I might have been if only I’d had my chance! You see, I’m giving the chance to you, Lotta. If you want to repay me for what I’ve done, make a great musician of yourself. Say you will!”

Lotta wondered why her parents did not speak. She could hear her mother sobbing very softly; her father was silent. She kissed her Aunt Catherine full upon the mouth.

“T will try my best,” she said. Then she hurried to her room.

Chapter Two Aunt Cathy Has Her Way

It was long before Lotta slept that night. She lay on her bed on the little porch, listening to the sounds of the night and watching the stars through the vines.

So she was to leave home and go to the city to study the violin, because a talent was something sacred, something for which sacrifices were to be made. The idea weighed upon her as if it had been a blanket of sorrow. Fighting against the stifled feeling at her throat, she sat up and brushed back her hair with nervous hands. Nor was it alone the idea of leaving home that distressed her. She could not keep out of her mind the thought of the endless labor that was before her. Visions arose before her of the long hours when, restless, eager for talking, walking, playing, she must keep to her bow and her instrument. How tired she was of those words: “supple wrist!” It sometimes seemed to her that her aunt attached more importance to a supple wrist than she did to a trained mind. She felt her indignation growing within her, and wanted to argue the question out with some one. So she was gratified when a glimpse of white fluttering at the doorway caught her eye.

“Mother!” she called.

“No, it’s Aunt Cathy.” Aunt Cathy moved forward, and sank into a low chair near Lotta’s cot.

“Can’t you sleep, either?’ whispered Lotta. “But no wonder; it’s been such an exciting day.”

“Tt has been an exciting day,” her aunt admitted. “But many of my days are exciting.”

“Why, Aunt Cathy, I don’t see how.”

She thought of the patient, monotonous days of her aunt’s life, of her quiet pleasures — the having of a few neighbors in to tea, the little journeys to the country to visit old school friends.

“Tt isn’t always what you do that makes life exciting,’ returned her aunt. “It’s the inner life that really matters.”

“Ts it?” asked Lotta, vaguely.

“Oh, yes,” said her aunt, with an earnestness that made Lotta wonder. “You can’t tell by looking at the outside of a person what is going on in the mind, my dear. To me my life always has been exciting.”

She rose to close the door and window, in order that her whispered tones might not reach the sleepers within. When she returned, she drew her chair closer to her niece and bent forward, with her small hands clasped in her lap. “You see,” she said, “I began by having a great belief in myself. For I, too, had a talent —a talent for singing.”

“For singing?” gasped Lotta. “Why, Aunt Cathy, I don’t. believe I ever so much as heard you hum a tune.”

“No, you never did, Lotta. And that’s my story — that’s what I want to tell you about — how I could sing once, and how for years I never, never have.”

“Oh!” Lotta piled her pillows against the wall, in order that she might listen better. Her aunt, wrapped in her white robe, looked strange and weird. Her voice, constrained and tense, was strange, too.

“T was only a very little girl,” she said, “when I first began to sing in public. Every one thought that I would make a great singer some day. Then when I was about fourteen, Mrs. Harrington, who was a concert singer, asked me to travel with her, and at last my parents permitted me to go. Mrs. Harrington gave concerts for churches and for charity, and took a part of the proceeds, and my songs filled in the intermissions between hers. She taught me every day, too, and read to me from the lives of musicians. I was just beginning to understand something of what a musician’s life meant when my little sister, your mother, was born, and I was called home because my mother was broken down in health and needed me. I was only a child, but I had to come home and take a big responsibility on my shoulders.

If there was drudgery to be done, the daughter of the house must do it. It was her duty. That ended the matter.”

Lotta drew in her breath. She had no idea her aunt could use such bitter accents.

“T baked and scrubbed and sewed and waited on mother. I was so tired at night that my feet ached. I never so much as went to district school after that, or was given any sort of lesson. If it had n’t been that your mother was such a dear little baby, I don’t know how I could have stood it. It was I who named her Jenny Lind, for the great singer. I taught her to talk and walk, and she was more my child in some ways than she was mother’s.”

Her voice had grown more natural; for a moment she swayed back and forth in her chair. Then she went on:

“And then, when I was about nineteen, a man fell in love with me. He was a traveling salesman who came here every few weeks and whom I used to meet at the church sociables and the picnics. He was light-hearted and fond of joking, and the sober neighbors hereabouts didn’t approve of him, though they liked him. My parents would n’t consent to our marriage. He wanted me to marry him anyway, but I could n’t. Mother wasn’t strong, and Jenny Lind and I loved each other so! He waited for me three years; then he married some one else.”

Lotta said nothing. After a moment Aunt Cathy resumed: “His wife is a sweet woman, they say, and I hear that they are happy. After a time he was taken into the firm for which he had been a salesman, and now he is prosperous. He became just the sort of man my parents would have liked; but they could n’t allow for his youth, Lotta.”