Contrary Mary

Well, here it is, and you shall judge: I will skip the first years, except to say that my father was one of

the New York Pooles who moved South after the Civil War. My mother was

from Richmond. We were prosperous folk, with an unassailable social

position. My mother, gracious and charming, is little more than a

memory; she died when I was a child. My father married again, and died

when I was in college. There were three children by this second

marriage, and when the estate was settled, only a modest sum fell to my

share.

I had been a lonely little boy--at college I was a dreamy, idealistic

chap, with the saving grace of a love of athletics. Your

brother-in-law will tell you something of my successes on our school

team. That was my life--the day in the open, the nights among my books.

As time went on, I took prizes in oratory--there was a certain

commencement, when the school went wild about me, and I was carried on

the shoulders of my comrades.

There seemed open to me the Church and the law. Had I lived in a

different environment, there would have been also the stage. But I saw

only two outlets for my talents, the Church, toward which my tastes

inclined, and the law, which had been my father's profession.

At last I chose the Church. I liked the thought of my scholarly

future--of the power which my voice might have to sway audiences and to

move them.

I am putting it all down, all of my boyish optimism, conceit--whatever

you may choose to call it.

Yet I am convinced of this, and my success of a few years proved it,

that had nothing interfered with my future, I should have made an

impression on ever-widening circles.

But something came to interfere.

In my last years at the Seminary, I boarded at a house where I met

daily the daughter of the landlady. She was a little thing, with

yellow hair and a childish manner. As I look back, I can't say that I

was ever greatly attracted to her. But she was a part of my life for

so long that gradually there grew up between us a sort of good

fellowship. Not friendship in the sense that I have understood it with

you; there was about it nothing of spiritual or of mental congeniality.

But I played the big brother. I took her to little dances; and to

other college affairs. I gave both to herself and to her widowed

mother such little pleasures as it is possible for a man to give to two

rather lonely women. There were other students in the house, and I was

not conscious that I was doing anything more than the rest of them.