Tiger Lily,

And Other Stories

Julia Thompson & Stosch Schayer

The shrill treble of a girl's voice, raised to its highest pitch in anger and remonstrance, broke in upon the scholarly meditations of the teacher of the Ridgemont grammar school. He raised his head from his book to listen. It came again, mingled with boyish cries and jeers, and the sound of blows and scuffling. The teacher, a small, fagged-looking man of middle age, rose hastily, and went out of the school-house.

Both grammar and high school had just been dismissed, and the bare-trodden play-ground was filled with the departing scholars. In the centre of the ground a group of boys had collected, and from this group the discordant sounds still proceeded.

"What is the meaning of this disturbance?" the master asked, coming near.

At the sound of his voice the group fell apart, disclosing, as a central point, the figure of a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She was thin and straight, and her face, now ablaze with anger and excitement, was a singular one, full of contradictions, yet not inharmonious as a whole. It was fair, but not as blondes are fair, and its creamy surface was flecked upon the cheeks with dark, velvety freckles. Her features were symmetrical, yet a trifle heavy, particularly the lips, and certain dusky tints were noticeable about the large gray eyes and delicate temples, as well as a peculiar crisp ripple in the mass of vivid red hair which fell from under her torn straw hat.

Clinging to her scant skirts was a small hunch-backed boy, crying dismally, and making the most of his tears by rubbing them into his sickly face with a pair of grimy fists.

The teacher looked about him with disapproval in his glance. The group contained, no doubt, its fair proportion of future legislators and presidents, but the raw material was neither encouraging nor pleasant to look upon. The culprits returned his wavering gaze, some looking a little conscience-smitten, others boldly impertinent, others still (and those the worst in the lot) with a charming air of innocence and candor.

"What is it?" the master repeated. "What is the matter?"

"They were plaguing Bobby, here," the girl broke in, breathlessly,—"taking his marbles away, and making him cry—the mean, cruel things!"

"Hush!" said the teacher, with a feeble gesture of authority. "Is that so, boys?"

The boys grinned at each other furtively, but made no answer.

"Boys," he remarked, solemnly, "I—I'm ashamed of you!"

The delinquents not appearing crushed by this announcement, he turned again to the girl.

"Girls should not quarrel and fight, my dear. It isn't proper, you know."

A mocking smile sprang to the girl's lips, and a sharp glance shot from under her black, up-curling lashes, but she did not speak.

"She's allers a-fightin'," ventured one of the urchins, emboldened by the teacher's reproof; at which the girl turned upon him so fiercely that he shrank hastily out of sight behind his nearest companion.

"You are not one of my scholars?" the master asked, keeping his mild eyes upon the scornful face and defiant little figure.

"No!" the girl answered. "I go to the high school!"

"You are small to be in the high school," he said, smiling upon her kindly.

"It don't go by sizes!" said the child promptly.

"No; certainly not, certainly not," said the teacher, a little staggered. "What is your name, child?"

"Lilly, sir; Lilly O'Connell," she answered, indifferently.

"Lilly!" the teacher repeated abstractedly, looking into the dusky face, with its flashing eyes and fallen ruddy tresses,—"Lilly!"

"It ought to have been Tiger-Lily!" said a pert voice. "It would suit her, I'm sure, more ways than one!" and the speaker, a pretty, handsomely-dressed blonde girl of about her own age, laughed, and looked about for appreciation of her cleverness.

"So it would!" cried a boyish voice. "Her red hair, and freckles, and temper! Tiger-Lily! That's a good one!"

A shout of laughter, and loud cries of "Tiger-Lily!" immediately arose, mingled with another epithet more galling still, in the midst of which the master's deprecating words were utterly lost.

A dark red surged into the girl's face. She turned one eloquent look of wrath upon her tormentors, another, intensified, upon the pretty child who had spoken, and walked away from the place, leading the cripple by the hand.

"Oh, come now, Flossie," said a handsome boy, who stood near the blonde girl, "I wouldn't tease her. She can't help it, you know."

"Pity she couldn't know who is taking up for her!" she retorted, tossing the yellow braid which hung below her waist, and sauntering away homeward.

"Oh, pshaw!" the boy said, coloring to the roots of his hair; "that's the way with you girls. You know what I mean. She can't help it that her mother was a—a mulatto, or something, and her hair red. It's mean to tease her."

"She can help quarrelling and fighting with the boys, though," said Miss Flossie, looking unutterable scorn.

"She wouldn't do it, I guess, if they'd let her alone," the young fellow answered, stoutly. "It's enough to make anybody feel savage to be badgered, and called names, and laughed at all the time. It makes me mad to see it. Besides, it isn't always for herself she quarrels. It's often enough for some little fellow like Bobby, that the big fellows are abusing. She is good-hearted, anyhow."

They had reached by this time the gate opening upon the lawn which surrounded the residence of Flossie's mother, the widow Fairfield. It was a small, but ornate dwelling, expressive, at every point, of gentility and modern improvements. The lawn itself was well kept, and adorned with flower-beds and a tiny fountain. Mrs. Fairfield, a youthful matron in rich mourning of the second stage, sat in a wicker chair upon the veranda reading, and fanning herself with an air of elegant leisure.

Miss Flossie paused. She did not want to quarrel with her boyish admirer, and, with the true instinct of coquetry, instantly appeared to have forgotten her previous irritation.

"Won't you come in, Roger?" she said, sweetly. "Our strawberries are ripe."

The boy smiled at the tempting suggestion, but shook his head.

"Can't," he answered, briefly. "I've got a lot of Latin to do. Good-by."

He nodded pleasantly and went his way. It lay through the village and along the fields and gardens beyond. Just as he came in sight of his home,—a square, elm-shaded mansion of red brick, standing on a gentle rise a little farther on,—he paused at a place where a shallow brook came creeping through the lush grass of the meadow which bounded his father's possessions. He listened a moment to its low gurgling, so suggestive of wood rambles and speckled trout, then tossed his strap of books into the meadow, leaped after it, and followed the brook's course for a little distance, stooping and peering with his keen brown eyes into each dusky pool.

All at once, as he looked and listened, another sound than the brook's plashing came to his ears, and he started up and turned his head. A stump fence, black and bristling, divided the meadow from the adjoining field, its uncouth projections draped in tender, clinging vines, and he stepped softly toward it and looked across. It was a rocky field, where a thin crop of grass was trying to hold its own against a vast growth of weeds, and was getting the worst of it,—a barren, shiftless field, fitly matching the big shiftless barn and small shiftless house to which it appertained.

Lying prone among the daisies was Lilly O'Connell, her face buried in her apron, the red rippling mane falling about her, her slender form shaking with deep and unrestrained sobs.

Roger looked on a moment and then leaped the fence. The girl rose instantly to a sitting position, and glared defiance at him from a pair of tear-stained eyes.

"What are you crying about?" he asked, with awkward kindness.

Her face softened, and a fresh sob shook her.

"Oh, come!" said Roger; "don't mind what a lot of sneaks say."

The girl looked up quickly into the honest dark eyes.

"It was Florence Fairfield that said it," she returned, speaking very rapidly.

Roger gave an uneasy laugh.

"Oh! you mean that about the 'Tiger-Lily'?"

"Yes," she answered, "and it's true. It's true as can be. See!" And for the first time the boy noticed that her gingham apron was filled with the fiery blossoms of the tiger-lily.

"See!" she said again, with an unchildish laugh, holding the flowers against her face.

Roger was not an imaginative boy, but he could not help feeling the subtle likeness between the fervid blossoms, strange, tropical outgrowth of arid New England soil, and this passionate child of mingled races, with her ruddy hair, and glowing eyes and lips. For a moment he did not know what to say, but at last, in his simple, boyish way he said:

"Well, what of it? I think they're splendid."

The girl looked up incredulously.

"I wouldn't mind the—the hair!" he stammered. "I've got a cousin up to Boston, and she's a great belle—a beauty, you know. All the artists are crazy to paint her picture, and her hair is just the color of yours."

Lilly laid the flowers down. Her eyes fell.

"You don't understand," she said, slowly. "Other girls have red hair. It isn't that."

Roger's eyes faltered in their reassuring gaze.

"I—I wouldn't mind—the other thing, either, if I were you," he stammered.

"You don't know what you'd do if you were me!" the girl cried, passionately. "You don't know what you'd do if you were hated, and despised, and laughed at, every day of your life! And how would you like the feeling that it could never be any different, no matter where you went, or how hard you tried to be good, or how much you learned? Never, never any different! Ah, it makes me hate myself, and everybody! I could tear them to pieces, like this, and this!"

She had risen, and was tearing the scarlet petals of the lilies into pieces, her teeth set, her eyes flashing.

"Look at them!" she cried wildly. "How like me they are, all red blood like yours, except those few black drops which never can be washed out! Never! Never!"

And again the child threw herself upon the ground, face downward, and broke into wild, convulsive sobbing.

Young Roger was in an agony of pity. He found his position as consoler a trying one. An older person might well have quailed before this outburst of unchild-like passion. He knew that what she said was true—terribly, bitterly true, and this kept him dumb. He only stood and looked down upon the quivering little figure in embarrassed silence.

Suddenly the girl raised her head, with a flash of her eyes.

"What does God mean," she cried, fiercely, "by making such a difference in people?"

Roger's face became graver still.

"I can't tell you that, Lilly," he answered, soberly. "You'll have to ask the minister. But I've often thought of it myself. I suppose there is a reason, if we only knew. I guess all we can do is to begin where God has put us, and do what we can."

Lilly slowly gathered her disordered hair into one hand and pushed it behind her shoulders, her tear-stained eyes fixed sadly on the boy's troubled face.

The tea-bell, sounding from the distance, brought a welcome interruption, and Roger turned to go. He looked back when half across the meadow, and saw the little figure standing in relief upon a rocky hillock, the sun kindling her red locks into gold.

A few years previously, O'Connell had made his appearance in Ridgemont with wife and child, and had procured a lease of the run-down farm and buildings which had been their home ever since. It was understood that they had come from one of the Middle States, but beyond this nothing of their history was known.

The wife, a beautiful quadroon, sank beneath the severity of the climate, and lived but a short time. After her death, O'Connell, always a surly, hot-headed fellow, grew surlier still, and fell into evil ways. The child, with a curious sort of dignity and independence, took upon her small shoulders the burden her mother had laid aside, and carried on the forlorn household in her own way, without assistance or interference.

That she was not like other children, that she was set apart from them by some strange circumstance, she had early learned to feel. In time she began to comprehend in what the difference lay, and the knowledge roused within her a burning sense of wrong, a fierce spirit of resistance.

With the creamy skin, the full, soft features, the mellow voice, and impassioned nature of her quadroon mother, Lilly had inherited the fiery Celtic hair, gray-green eyes, and quick intelligence of her father.

She contrived to go to school, where her cleverness placed her ahead of other girls of her age, but did not raise her above the unreasoning aversion of her school-mates; and the consciousness of this rankled in the child's soul, giving to her face a pathetic, hunted look, and to her tongue a sharpness which few cared to encounter.

Those who knew her best—her teachers, and a few who would not let their inborn and unconquerable prejudice of race stand in the way of their judgment—knew that, with all her faults of temper, the girl was brave, and truthful, and warm-hearted. They pitied the child, born under a shadow which could never be lifted, and gave her freely the kind words for which her heart secretly longed.

There was little else they could do, for every attempt at other kindness was repelled with a proud indifference which forbade further overtures. So she had gone her way, walking in the shadow which darkened and deepened as she grew older, until at last she stood upon the threshold of womanhood.

It was at this period of her life that the incidents we have related occurred. Small as they were, they proved a crisis in the girl's life. Too much a child to be capable of forming a definite resolve, or rather, perhaps, of putting it into form and deliberately setting about its fulfilment, still the sensitive nature had received an impression, which became a most puissant influence in shaping her life.

A change came over her, so great as to have escaped no interested eyes; but interested eyes were few.

Her teachers, more than any others, marked the change. There was more care of her person and dress, and the raillery of her school-mates was met by an indifference which, however hard its assumption may have been, at once disarmed and puzzled them.

Now and then, the low and unprovoked taunts of her boyish tormentors roused her to an outburst of the old spirit, but for the most part they were met only with a flash of the steel-gray eyes, and a curl of the full red lips.

One Sunday, too, to the amazement of pupils and the embarrassment of teachers, Lilly O'Connell, neatly attired and quite self-possessed, walked into the Sunday-school, from which she had angrily departed, stung by some childish slight, two years before. The minister went to her, welcomed her pleasantly, and gave her a seat in a class of girls of her own age, who, awed by the mingled dignity and determination of his manner, swallowed their indignation, and moved along—a trifle more than was necessary—to give her room.

The little tremor of excitement soon subsided, and Lilly's quickness and attentiveness won for her an outward show, at least, of consideration and kindness, which extended outside of school limits, and gradually, all demonstrations of an unpleasant nature ceased.

When she was about sixteen her father died. This event, which left her a homeless orphan, was turned by the practical kindness of Parson Townsend—the good old minister who had stood between her and a thousand annoyances and wrongs—into the most fortunate event of her life. He, not without some previous domestic controversy, took the girl into his own family, and there, under kind and Christian influences, she lived for a number of years.

At eighteen her school-life terminated, and, by the advice of Parson Townsend, she applied for a position as teacher of the primary school.

The spirit with which her application was met was a revelation and a shock to her. The outward kindness and tolerance which of late years had been manifested toward her, had led her into a fictitious state of content and confidence.

"I was foolish enough," she said to herself, with bitterness, "to think that because the boys do not hoot after me in the street, people had forgotten, or did not care."

The feeling of ostracism stung, but could not degrade, a nature like hers. She withdrew more and more into herself, turned her hands to such work as she could find to do, and went her way again, stifling as best she might the anguished cry which sometimes would rise to her lips:

"What does God mean by it?"

Few saw the beauty of those deep, clear eyes and pathetic lips, or the splendor of her burnished hair, or the fine curves of her tall, upright figure. She was only odd, and "queer looking"—only Lilly O'Connell; very pleasant of speech, and quick at her needle, and useful at picnics and church fairs, and in case of sickness or emergencies of any kind,—but Lilly O'Connell still,—or "Tiger-Lily," for the old name had never been altogether laid aside.

Ten years passed by. The good people of Ridgemont were fond of alluding to the remarkable progress and development made by their picturesque little town during the past decade, but in reality the change was not so great. A few new dwellings, built in the modern efflorescent style, had sprung up, to the discomfiture of the prim, square houses, with dingy white paint and dingier green blinds, which belonged to another epoch; a brick block, of almost metropolitan splendor, cast its shadow across the crooked village street, and a soldiers' monument, an object of special pride and reverence, adorned the centre of the small common, opposite the Hide and Leather Bank and the post-office.

Beside these, a circulating library, a teacher of china-painting and a colored barber were casually mentioned to strangers, as proofs of the slightness of difference in the importance of Ridgemont and some other towns of much more pretension.

Over the old Horton homestead hardly a shadow of change had passed. It presented the same appearance of prosperous middle age. The great elms about it looked not a day older; the hydrangeas on the door-step flowered as exuberantly; the old-fashioned roses bloomed as red, and white, and yellow, against the mossy brick walls; the flower-plots were as trim, and the rustic baskets of moneywort flourished as green, as in the days when Mrs. Horton walked among them, and tended them with her own hands. She had lain with her busy hands folded these five years, in the shadow of the Horton monument, between the grave of Dr. Jared Horton and a row of lessening mounds which had been filled many, many years—the graves of the children who were born—and had died—before Roger's birth.

A great quiet had hung about the place for several years. The blinds upon the front side had seldom been seen to open, except for weekly airings or semi-annual cleanings.

But one day in mid-summer the parlor windows are seen wide open, the front door swung back, and several trunks, covered with labels of all colors, and in several languages, are standing in the large hall.

An unwonted stir about the kitchen and stable, a lively rattling of silver and china in the dining room, attest to some unusual cause for excitement. The cause is at once manifest as the door at the end of the hall opens, and Roger Horton appears, against a background composed of mahogany side-board and the erect and vigilant figure of Nancy Swift, the faithful old housekeeper of his mother's time.

The handsome, manly lad had fulfilled the promise of his boyhood. He was tall and full-chested; a trifle thin, perhaps, and his fine face, now bronzed with travel, grave and thoughtful for his years, but capable of breaking into a smile like a sudden transition from a minor to a major key in music.

He looked more than thoughtful at this moment. He had hardly tasted the food prepared by Nancy with a keen eye to his youthful predilections, and in the firm conviction that he must have suffered terrible deprivations during his foreign travels.

Truly, this coming home was not like the comings-home of other days, when two dear faces, one gray-bearded and genial, the other pale and gentle-eyed, had smiled upon him across the comfortable board. The sense of loss was almost more than he could bear; the sound of his own footsteps in the cool, empty hall smote heavily upon his heart.

The door of the parlor stood ajar, and he pushed it open and stepped into the room. Everything was as it had always been ever since he could remember—furniture, carpets, curtains, everything. Just opposite the door hung the portraits of his parents, invested by the dim half-light with a life-like air which the unknown artist had vainly tried to impart.

Roger had not entered the room since his mother's funeral, which followed close upon that of his father, and just before the close of his collegiate course.

Something in the room brought those scenes of bitter grief too vividly before him. It might have been the closeness of the air, or, more probably, the odor rising from a basket of flowers which stood upon the centre-table. He remembered now that Nancy had mentioned its arrival while he was going through the ceremony of taking tea, and he went up to the table and bent over it. Upon a snowy oval of choicest flowers, surrounded by a scarlet border, the word "Welcome" was wrought in purple violets.

The young man smiled as he read the name upon the card attached. He took up one of the white carnations and began fastening it to the lapel of his coat, but put it back at length, and with a glance at the painted faces, whose eyes seemed following his every motion, he took his hat and went out of the house.

His progress through the streets of his native village took the form of an ovation. Nearly every one he met was an old acquaintance or friend. It warmed his heart, and took away the sting of loneliness which he had felt before, to see how cordial were the greetings. Strong, manly grips, kind, womanly hand-pressures, and shy, blushing greetings from full-fledged village beauties, whom he vaguely remembered as lank, sun-burned little girls, met him at every step.

He noticed, and was duly impressed by, the ornate new dwellings, the soldiers' monument, and the tonsorial establishment of Professor Commeraw. But beyond these boasted improvements, it might have been yesterday, instead of four years ago, that he passed along the same street on his way to the station. Even Deacon White's sorrel mare was hitched before the leading grocery-store in precisely the same spot, and blinking dejectedly at precisely the same post, he could have taken his oath, where she had stood and blinked on that morning.

Before the tumble-down structure where, in connection with the sale of petrified candy, withered oranges, fly-specked literature, and gingerpop, the post-office was carried on, sat that genial old reprobate, the post-master, relating for the hundredth time to a sleepy and indifferent audience, his personal exploits in the late war; pausing, however, long enough to bestow upon Horton a greeting worthy of the occasion.

"Welcome home!" said Mr. Doolittle, with an oratorical flourish, as became a politician and a post-master; "welcome back to the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

Whereupon he carefully seated himself on the precarious chair which served him as rostrum, and resumed his gory narrative.

A little further on, another village worthy, Fred Hanniford, cobbler, vocalist, and wit, sat pegging away in the door of his shop, making the welkin ring with the inspiring strains of "The Sword of Bunker Hill," just as in the old days. True, the brilliancy of his tones was somewhat marred by the presence of an ounce or so of shoe-pegs in his left cheek, but this fact had no dampening effect upon the enthusiasm of a select, peanut-consuming audience of small boys on the steps.

He, too, suspended work and song to nod familiarly to his somewhat foreignized young townsman, and watched him turn the corner, fixing curious and jealous eyes upon the receding feet.

"Who made your boots?" he remarked sotto voce, as their firm rap upon the plank sidewalk grew indistinct, which profound sarcasm having extracted the expected meed of laughter from his juvenile audience, Mr. Hanniford resumed his hammer, and burst forth with a high G of astounding volume.

As young Horton came in sight of Mrs. Fairfield's residence, he involuntarily quickened his steps. As a matter of course, he had met in his wanderings many pretty and agreeable girls, and, being an attractive young man, it is safe to say that eyes of every hue had looked upon him with more or less favor. It would be imprudent to venture the assertion that the young man had remained quite indifferent to all this, but Horton's nature was more tender than passionate; early associations held him very closely, and his boyish fancy for the widow's pretty daughter had never quite faded. A rather fitful correspondence had been kept up, and photographs exchanged, and he felt himself justified in believing that the welcome the purple violets had spoken would speak to him still more eloquently from a pair of violet eyes.

He scanned the pretty lawn with a pleased, expectant glance. Flowers were massed in red, white and purple against the vivid green; the fountain was scattering its spray; hammocks were slung in tempting nooks, and fanciful wicker chairs, interwoven with blue and scarlet ribbons, stood about the vine-draped piazza. He half expected a girlish figure to run down the walk to meet him, in the old childish way, and as a fold of white muslin swept out of the open window his heart leaped; but it was only the curtain after all, and just as he saw this with a little pang of disappointment, a girl's figure did appear, and came down the walk toward him. It was a tall figure, in a simple dark dress. As it came nearer, he saw a colorless, oval face, with downcast eyes, and a mass of ruddy hair, burnished like gold, gathered in a coil under the small black hat. There was something proud, yet shrinking, in the face and in the carriage of the whole figure. As the latch fell from his hand the girl looked up, and encountered his eyes, pleased, friendly and a trifle astonished, fixed full upon her.

She stopped, and a beautiful color swept into her cheeks, a sudden unleaping flame filled the luminous eyes, and her lips parted.

"Why, it is Lilly O'Connell!" the young man said, cordially, extending his hand.