HUMBLE PIE
There arc some people "who never during their whole li\ es awake to a consooune^s of themselves, as they are recognised by others ; theic are who awake tot> early, to their undoing, and the fiiuismess of theu characters , Uicxc arc some who awake Utt with a shock, which does not dethrone them from their individuality, but causes them agony, and is possibly for their benefit. Maria Gorham was one of the last, and fo* the first time in her life she saw herself reflected mercilessly in the eyes of her kind one summer m a great mountain hotel. She had no\ er been aware that she was more conceited than others, that she /had ha&l on the whfc>le a better opinion of her external advantages at least, than she deserved, but she discovered that hei self-conceit had been something whioh looked to her monstrous and insufferable. She saw that she was not on tlie surface what she had always thought herself to be, and she .saw that the surface 'has always its influence on the depths. Maria Gorham was an old young woman in her early thirties. She lhad taught sUiool in her natnc Milage in one of tine New England States since she was seventeen. She had been left quite alone in tihe worid (i\e years before, when her mjoUior died. She lived entirely alone in the house in which she had been born. it was one of tihe cottages pre\alent in eeitoin localities. She was entirely fea'lcss. So quietly poised was she in her own self-esteem that it had ne\er occurred to her that anybody could possibly ha\e any iilwill, or evcyn any uncomplimentary feelings towards her. She had always heard herself called good-looking, an>d it had ne\er occjured to her to doubt the opinion of others. She had also heard herself called industrious, capable, and moie Mian ordinarily clever, and she acquiesced with that opinion also. She bad also heard her taste m diess extolled, and she had packed her little trunk with enti c confidence. Deixter Kay's lister Emma had nun across the street, and was watching her. ' I thought I'd like to see you put all them pretty Unngs m, I suspected you was packin',' said Emma, with a gentle admuation, aivl not a suspicion of jealousy Maiia noted Emma's faulty English with a supcuority which gave her a certain pleasure. ' Poor Emma,' she thought, and replied all the more sweetly. ' Yes,' said she, '1 am going on the eight o'clock train to-mor:ow morning, amd I mu->t have my trunk all ready to-night.' Kmma wvitched Maria fold her blue foulard gown daintily. ' Well,' "-he .said, ' 1 gue.s there vow t be many to that hotel where you are goin 1 that has any prettier things than you ' Maria laughed. ' Nonsense,' she replied, but in her heart she quite agreed with Emma. She had entire faith in her wardrobe, winch she and the ullage drcs >- maker had prepared. ' I Suppose you'll wear that handsome pink wrapper mornin's,' said Emma. ' Yes, I ha\e planned to,' replied Maria. Just as she sprtke there was a ring at the front door bell, and Emma started and blushed, although she had herself nothin>a for which to blush. 'I ; rather guess that must be Dexter,' she said. Maria frowned. ' Dexter said he guessed mebbe he'd jest run in an 1 say good-bye,' said Emma timidly, and with e\en more embarrassment. Maria herself blushed, but, as it seemed, with anger rather than embanassment. However, she tried 1o speak politely. Dexter Kay was the only man who had ever wanted to marry her, and while she thoug/ht herself Koo good for him, s"he considered that he was to be rewarded at least with politeness for his pretensions. ' I really don't see how I can stop my packLng,' she saiid. ' I wotide- if you wouldn't just nn downstairs amd tell your brother that I am real sorry, but I am packing.' Emma stood up wilh dignity. She had at times a little sense of injury on her brother's account. ' All right,' said she 4 I have been working very hard all day finisihing up some sewing and getting the house ready to leave, if I stpp ibw, 1 don't know when I would get to bed,' Maiia ridded, with niore conciliation in her tone. 'AH .right,' said Emma, ati/d went out. Maria heard her tell Dexter. ' She says she's real sorry, but she's awful tired, she's been woridn' so hard all day, and she'd got Mo get her trunk packed to-night. 1 There was more sorrow in Emma's voice than there had been in
Maiia's. Maria stole a glance out of the window, and saw Dexter going meekly down the path between the flowei ing shrubs after his rebuff. He was quite a tall man, a little older than she, and there was an odd faithful bend in his shoulders. Maria sighed, sihe could not ha\c told why. Sometimes she wished that Dexter had been 'a more fitting matcn for her. Sometimes she had actually felt angry with Dexter Ray that he did not try to make more of himself, but he spoke no better English than his sister. He also, in Lor Opinion, had uo auibiUom. He kept the village drug s'toie, and several times he had had an opportunity to be selectman, and once town clerk, but he seemed to ha\e no interest except in measuring out di<ugs and dispensing soda water. It would have puzzled Maria had she Leen requiied to mention by what right in \ie\v of her own antecedents she regarded herself as on a higher social scale than Dexter Kay. Her father had been a small farmer, and his father before him. On her father's death she had sold all the fa-ming land, and that made her little nes,t egg in the savings bank. She had ne\er .saved much from the money she had earned teaching. She had a weakness for pretty "things, both for he own person and for her house. She had had a bay window and a piazza ptit on the house since her father's death. She Dad also a \ery splendid carpet in pailor r.nd a set of plush furniture. She had never travelled There was in the depth of her soul a feminine I. nudity about setting forth alone on strange paths, m spite 'of her .steady egotism. It was almost as if she feared lest her faith in heiself would desert her, if she were depnved of the accustomed support of admil uig frier* ls and sub'ected to the cold scrutiny of strangers However, nothing could ha,ve made her admit the slightest hesitation, and the next day she was to set out alone to spend a whole month at a great mountain hotel. ' I dk'claro, ' Emma Ray said when she returned, ' I should think you'd sort of dread start in' out all alone to mmrow, Maria ' ' I don't 1 now why,' replied Maiia, calmly. I should think you'd sort of dread goin' into the dinin'-room all alone.' 'id( n t know why.' ' Of touise I i\now you'll look as fine as anybody,' said Emtra in a conciliatory to'tie. ' I •rio'n/t 1 now why I should dread it, however I looked This is a fiee country.' ■ I suppose there's a lot of rich folks at that hotel.' ' Well, ii"]<rs don't maic any difference in a country h'.e this, do they ? ' ' I don't kinow,' rcnlied Emma. ''i hey ought not to, anyway,' said Maria, finnily, substituting the principle for the fact with a fairly great loyulty. 1 ftlebbe they don't,' sad Emma Presently Emma added • 'Of course, it ain't as thfji-igh you wasn't educated. Of course you have been ■•' h'V)l-tca'lnn' all your life, and I s'pose lots of them ri< h folks couldn't teach scilvool any more than they could fly. 1 1 They haven't been obliged to,' replied Maria. 'They couldn't, anyway.' Maria made no dis-sent to that. In her heart she ivgreod with Emma She folded carefully a white lawn sa^que 1 1 mimed with frills of embroidery, and laid it in ore of the top trays of her trra'c. ' That will bo real pretty to wear with your black silk skirt,' said Emma. ' Us I tho'ight it would,' said Maria. 1 It looks as if you might have a dreadful hot day to-morrow,' said Emma, glancing out of the window which fared the west. The su<n was setting like an awful ball of fire for the ultimate consumption of the world. ' N cs, it seems as if it might be hot, assented Mario. ' What arc you goin' to wear tra\ell : n' ? You'll havp (mile a lorlr journey, most nine hours,' Dexter saiid. He studied it out on the time table.' ' I'm g;oing to wear my gray mc'Jiair I had last sum m or ' 1 Well, that sheds the dust fine ' ' Yes, and I'm going to put my black "-ilk s,kirt in the top of the t-unk where I can jret it easy, and put it. on with this cambric sacque to go to supper in, if> it's a warm night,' said Maria. ' T.hat will be a real good idea,' said Emma appro- ingly. ' It won't be fo much work as getting into a dress", and you'll feel tired.' 1 That's what I thought. I'll wear this cambric "•acnue to and then I suppose I shall sit in Ihe parlor and lisiten to the music. They say there's miusic and 'daneinc every night.' ' Well, there ought to be something when they ask siidh ip rices.'
• Yeis, that is so,' replied Maria. She was herself secretly dazed at the wild extravagance into which she was about to launch, but a spirit of defiance had sudddnly seized her. It was a hot electric summer,, prone to burst forth in fierce storms,, and Maria, in spite of her great self-poise, had an irritable, high-strung, nervous temperament. All at once it had seemed to her that ahe could no longer remain where she was and go her daily rounds. She haled the \ery sight of all the old articles of furniture, winch hud heretofore been to her almost like ljiemLuJt. of hei f c »iuil} . Shu had acquired the habit of sitting in tt!.e fromt parlor, a room which had ne\er been used unless there was company m the house. She also slept in the front chamber instead of her own for weeks. From these rooms she 'could look across the street and see Dexter Ray coming and going, and sometimes she was conscious of a distinct anger against fate which had nob pro\idcd her with a better lqver. She had an unacknowledged humiliation because of her single estate. .She was afraid that people would tjhink nobody had e^er wanted to marry her. She took a pleasure of which she was ashamed 'in ha\rng Emma Ray run in often and in her apparently unappreciated hints concerning her bi other. Emma had been almost aghast when Maria lold her of her iesolut'oju to go to the mountains and S'penicl a month. ' Why don't you wait and go on c,ne of them fifteendollar excursions ? ' sard she ' There will be time enough before your school begins.' ' I am not going with a rabble. I would rather stay at home,' replied Maria, firmly. ' Bu/t it> miust cost an awful sight at that hotel.' ' I d,on't care. I'm going to take the money out of the bank, and I am going. I need the change I ha\e been getting nenous lately, and, if I go at "all, 13 am gping t)he way I want to go. I don't care if it does cost. I 'have made up my mind.' Dexter was almost as much aghast as his sister when she told him of the proposed Hitting, bt.t after a minute he said : ' Well, I guess she's light. She'd better go the way that's a goin' to do her good, if she goes at all. I'm glad stie's goin' to ha\e a little vacalion. She has worked hard all her life ' The expression of DexTer Ray's face as he said that ujs gentle, almost noble. The tears sprang into her lister's eyes. ' I don't know as she has worked any harder than lots of other folks,'' said she, and she \ipole almost crossly to co\e- her pity for her brother. ' (J o right up, am 1 ' down the .street he:e,' she added. ' How many women or men have e\cr had a real -\acation '' ' ' That don't alter it any,' replied Dexter, still with the slame gentle, noble expression. ' I'm real glad she\ goin' to have one, aiijwav.' The emphasis which he put uipon the she was like a benedu tiom. It almost, transfigured the face of the man, which was homely witlh a commonplace homeliness lie was a good dp legist, anH the Ullage people held him, after all, i n etteem, although he had always been in a mcavire a huff because of his awkwardness arrd shyness. He stumbled on all the thresholds of social intercourse with his kind, but he never made an error in pultijig up a prescription. The night they were talking about Maria's going away he proposed timidly to his sister that perhaps Maria would like to have him carry her to the railroad station in his bi ggy. There'd be" plenty of room in front for her tiVnk tipped up on end, and it. would save her fifty cents,' he said. 1 Lajid, she'd turn up her nose at the bare idea ' replied Emma. ' ' Well, maybe she would ruyther »iave the stao-e come for her,' replied Dexter meekly. ' 1 was only thinkin' of savin' her some money.' •"It would make ro <tid of ialk,' Emma .said, with more leniency toward Maria. ' Well, I s'pose you are right,' responded Dexter with a sigh. ' However, Emma was so sorry for him that the nifcht before Maria left, when the tirnk was packed, a wd she was about to go home across the st-ect, she said timidly, ' I s'pose you've got the stage ordered to take you to the statio.ii in the mornin' ? ' 'Of course,' replied Maria. 'It isn't very likely I would leave that until after nine o'clock at night, when the train left in the morning. 1 She spake with" some asperity. She seemed to have a glimpse of Emma's r«ealning in putting the question. ' Why ? ' she dematided further. ' N'othLnV replied Emma meekly. She felt cowed ' Only what 7 ' ' Oh, it wasn't nothin', only Dexter, lie said he'd jest as lief take you and your trunk down to the train, and save you the expense.' Maria's face' flushed. ' Well, T rather think T wouldn't go down to the station with Dexter Ray right in the face and eyes of all the people, witii my trunk!
tilted up in front,' said she. ' I should think your brother would have l^nown better than to propose such a thing. 1 Emma Ray was almost in tears. She was capable of evamescent spurts of assertion, especially on her brother's account, but she was easily intimidated, especially by Maria, to whom she looked up with the greatest admiration and lo\e. However, she also loved her brother, and she made a feeble feint in his defence. 'He didn't mcam nothin' but kindness,' she said and Maria's heart smote her. ' Oh, 1 know it i ' she replied, ' and I'm much obliged, lo him, but, yuu know, Emma, yup.u self, it wouldn't do.' ' Maybe it wouldn't,' said Emma, but Dexter he didn't think of that. Me n ain't apt to. He jest meant to be kind and sa\e you expense.' There was something almost piteous in her tone. ' Well,' said Maria, ' when I started out planning this trip I made up my nuii/d to .spend some money, an/1 not worry about the expense, but I'm just as much obliged to your brother. Maria always saul ' your brother ' ihstcad of Dexter. That night after she had gone to bed she thought a>o .t it all, and she felt almost angry again with fate, or wi!h Dexter hiwself, she could scarcely have told which, that the one man who had fallen in love with 1 o had been Dexter Ray and not someone wJiom she could con,sitler as her equal and who spoke better English. The position, socially speaking, she did not tfliink o_f at all. A druggist was as good as anybody in her lii-Htl \illagc ; in fact, it was considered a decidedly pei7te-I calling. It was only Dexter's own personal drawbacks which she consiricied. The next morning she start eel on her trip, and a queer little qualm of something like self-pity smote her when she saw one of the village women being driven to t)he station by her husband in his buggy, with a smiall tank tilted up in front. She herself clambered oait of the \illage stage coach, which was a relic presened with pride, and she tiipped a little aflifl a bit of the braid lipped off the hem of her gray, molhair. She was obliged to pin it up when siiic got on the train. The tho ight came to her that a woman was better off with a husband |to take her to the station and assist her out and check her baggage. Tnen she straightened herself and realised with prkle that she was going to the mountains to stay a month in a great hotel at an enormous price, and the other woman was only goiang to pay a Msit to he- sister in Maine, and going on an excursion at that. It was almost dark when Maria arrived at her destination ; then she had a drive of a mile through t,he woods, which rose and sank and beetled on mountain sides. The air was coole-, and she was conscious of a strange \igor in it. She rode in a coach which was f.lied with passengers, although Maria could not remember swing one of them on the train They had all bean on Pullman coaches. It had never occurred to Maria to take a Pullman coach. On the seat wi'h Maria was a corpulent woman in a long black silk tra\elhng cloak and a hat draped with a chiffon veil. She cast one glance at Maria, then looked away, and it was as if she nad r.ot seen her at all. With this woman were her two young daughters, in tailor-made suits, and a yo>un:> son carrying golf sticks. The two daughters were nearly of an age, and very pretty, with' pert tilts to their chins, and they carried themselves li'-.e princesses. They talked hut little, but what they said was the language of an unknown world to Maria. Both of the girls glanced at Maria very mucjh as their mother had done, only they gave each other an almost imperceptible glance of amusement afterward. Maria wonldered why. She caught the glance, as any selfcentred persoln would have done. She shortly afterward raised her hand and straightened her bonnet. She wore a bonnet with strings tied under the chin, although she was not nearly so old as the girls' mother. She akso wore a nice little brown and white checked shawl o\ er her shoulders. The shawl had belonged to her mother, and Maria always used it for am extra wap on a journey, without a thought that its day as 1 regarded fashion had passed. When she had seated herself in the mountain wagon she put the shawl over her shoulders and sat up straight with her schoolteacher! air, which was almost majestic. She did not dream, that the combination of majesty, and the little checked shawl and bonnet and face, which was almost too young for such head ge>ar, could possibly afford any amusement to the gills beside her. When she heard a sioft siubdued chuckle she did not dream that she was the ea/ise of it. ' Two silly girls,' she said to herself, and eyed tUie mountains and realised her own superiority, inasmuch as she was intent upon those majestic slopes, while the girls were chattering over their own petty little affairs. S-he made up her mind that she would
write Emma Ray while she was away, it would please her so m,u£h, and she thought of a fine sentiment to put m the letter. She would say that she had never realised her own littleness so much as when she had her first glimpse of the mountains, and she did not know that in reality she realised her own superiority instead of her littleness. They reached the hotel, and she was tfiown to her room. She felt a slight inward tiemor because she had never been in a hotel before, but she fairly strutted across the office, holding her bonneted head high, with her little checked shawl still over 7ieshouldqrs. And she caLned out her intention of slipping on her black silk sJ.iit and her white cambrisacque, m which to appear at shipper. But for the first time in her life Maria Gorham had a n awed sensation as she saw the ott<er women sweep into the dining room in evening gowns. She looked aiound furtively, and shr saw not pother woman in a sacqwe. But she was not easily daunted, not even when some other ladies in low neck gawns seated themselves at her table, and sflie saw Uhcm looking askance at her sacque. She ordered her supper with dignity anri ate it, and when she had finished she marched stiffly the whole length of the dining room. They had placed her at a table at tftie extreme end. She heard furtive chuckles but slhe did not admit that they were laughing at her Mana .Goriham, and that she did not still believe in her sacqfue and its entire appropriateness to the occasion and she would not weaken. She went into the music toom and seated herself composedly and listened to the orchestra and watched the young people dance. When at last she went up to her room and divested herself of the sacq/ue, she did not own that she would not wear it again to supper while she was in the hotel Instead she Jaung it up carefully with a little defiant air under the cretonne curtain which served in lieu of a coset on one side of the room. 'I don't care what other folks wear, I rather think I have a ri^ht to wear anything I choose which is tidy and comfortable ' she told herself. The next morning she attired herself in the piftk wrapper and went down to breakfast, and she was soon aware that not another woman in the diningroom wore a wrapper. She became aware that furtne fun was made of her. The people in the hotel were, on the whole, a well-bred and good-natured lot, and wa c incapable of downright ridicule. But now Maria Gorham s sjpint was up. Out on the verandah she went and walked up and down, holding up her wrapper daintily. Ihen she sat down on one of the verandah chairs ami watched people pass her with furtive stares at her WI i? P P-u er S- and she felt fahl y warlike. She said to herself that she would not pers/ist in wearing the white +hrnh m + brie sacque to supper, since she had not plaiftu>l that, although if there came a warm night when she did not feel like putting on a tight 'dress sfie would wear It but as for the wrapper, she would not give iji one ill* ll 11I 1 Wa ? a P reUv wrapper and nicely made, trimly belted with a pink ribbon. She had intended to wear it mornings during her stay at the hotel, and she would wear it And she did, but as the time went on she suffered tortures Ridicule was the hardest tjliiine in the world for one of her kind to endure. Open warfare would ha\e been more to her liking, but ridicule it was that she had to prepare herself for every morning, and ridicule the worse because it was covert and could not be met with open resentment. Several times in the evening when she was wearing one of her best dresses which sjjmohow seemed not so line as she had thought them she heard herself alluded to as the woman who wore the wrapper mornings. She knew that was the name sjhe went by, but the more she suffered the more obstmate she grew. She walked the verandah in her wrapper. She even climbed a mountain, a small one marching to the summit as grimly and unflinchingly as the youth in Excelsior,' holding up tfce wrapper carefully above her starched" petticoat. She wore on that expediti-cbi her little bonnet with a small black lace veil and the black flies crawled under the veil and bit her cruelly The next day her face was so swollen that she was obliged to call in the hotel physician, and it was on that day that Mrs. Evans came in tihe afternoon Ther« was ,a gentle knock at Maria's door, and Maria said Come in,' and a wtoman as gentle as the knot* entered and asked if she could not do something for her She had heard that she was ill. Maria answered gratefully at first, but then she caught a swift glance at the other woman s eye at the pink wrapper, a fold of which obtruded from behind the calico curtain, and she understood that this woman, sweet and gentle and kindhearted as she was, had looked upon her in the wrapper as the others had. Tjien she spoke grimly, a l. though grimness only lent renewed absurdity to her distorted face. ' There is nothing you can do, tha-ik you,' she said. ' I haAC had medical advice' The 1 i:cdical advice ' alone would have proclaimed her the
school teacher. The other woman was rather persistent in her kindness. She offered to read to her, but Maria refused more and more brusquely. The woman went away, but soon she sent by a bellboy a plate of grapes, having selected the choicest from some which had been sent to her from New York. A week later the woman called again on Maria, and she spoke out with exceeding sweetness, which still had a sting in it ' What a lovely wrapper that is you are wearing,' said the woman. Maria's face changed. She looked at her siuspioiously, although she answered with dignity. ■'Thank you ' T^rif a Pity Uis . that wra <PPers, no matter how pretty they are, are not worn in large hotels,' said the woman. Ihen her face colored piteously before the indignation in Maria's. 'It does not make the slightest difference to me m^V i °\ n lr \ h T otels ' or is n*t worn in hotels,' said S^y^/cUtaS?.' WhaW ' PlCaSe " *** aS " The next morning Maria in her wrapper shook hands with the woman, as she went out of the hotel on her way up to the train. ' I d 0d 0 Jiope you don't lay m> anything against me,' said the other woman Not at all,' said Maria, briskly and kindly. Then the woman went her way. She was the only one of the euests *ho Had spoken to Maria, and she had been in the hotel two weeks. Nobody a t all spoke to her during the remaiaimg two weeks of her stay. Maria was on the whole, more lonely than she had ever been in her life and she did more thinking. She thought a good deal about Dexter Kay. She thought how! if she had a husband with her like many of the other women she would not have felt so defenceless and isolated in' her wrapper, which she had begun to regard as a matter of principle. She felt sure that Dexter would admire the wrapper. She could see just the kindly, worshipful expression that woufd come into his brown eyes at the sight of her in it. Two days before Maria went home she wrote to Emma Ray, and told her when she was coming, and a&Aed her a nd her brother to come in and spend the next evening witih her. Mari a was Dale when she posted tho letter in the little hotel office. She had never asked Dexter to sipend the e\ening with her before, and she 1-uiew what it would mean. Emma Ray, when she got the letter the day before Miaria s return, read it aloud to Dexter. When Emma icad that Maiia would like to have them both in and -smend the oveminp, the brother and sister looked at each other. Dexter's homely, faithful -face flushed, then turned very pale. Kmraa gazed at him with the sympathy of a mother, rather than of a sister. Nobody knew how she had pitied him, and how hard she had tried to heln him. She smiled with the loveliest unselfishness, then slhe looked ae;ain at the letter in her hand. 'Guess Maria has been* eatin' humble pie.' she thought to herself , tfiien sihe reflected how much <^jhe thought of Maria and hex brother, ard how glad she was. ' Well, I guess Maiia thinks that the old friends that have ' always set store by her are the best, after all,' she said, and a moral perfume, as of the sweetness of humility itself, seemed to come hi her face from the letter.—Exchange.
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 9 March 1905, Page 23
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4,910HUMBLE PIE New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10, 9 March 1905, Page 23
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