Katharine's Yesterday

Katharine
Bowman stood at the front gate of her father’s house, looking drearily down the road at nothing in particular. The air was crisp and clear, and the sun shine of the early morning was making everything dance and sparkle.
All the brilliant red leaves, with their dew-covered faces, came fluttering down with a frosty air. They clanked and clattered against one another, as if to pretend that fall was well on its way and winter would soon be here. Nothing could have looked more enticing that October morning; the air, the sunshine, the leaves, and the very grass seemed full of delightful possibilities.
Katharine
saw them all: the little whirls of white dust down the road; the purple and blue mists on the distant hills at the end of the street; the big hill, or “mountain” as it was called, which loomed up before her just across the meadows. She had climbed it in company with a party of young-people only a few days before. A little brisk black-and-tan dog moved along the sidewalk in a lively manner, and the cheerful little sparrows that hopped in the road did not care whether winter came or not, but none of them gave
Katharine
any pleasure or sense of joy.

The truth was, the world looked pretty
dark to her that morning. She ha
d just come from the depot, where she had watched the morning express whizz out of sight, carrying with it half a dozen young people, who had been all in all to her the whole summer.
They had played tennis and croquet together, had read and sung, walked and talked, gone on picnics, taken rides, and, in short, done all the delightful things that a party of congenial, bright young people can think up to do during a long summer in a country village.

The last delegation of them
had gone away this morning; and now only
Katharine
was left, surrounded by all the pleasant places where they had enjoyed themselves together. How dreary they looked to her now. What was that great hill now, with its waving scarlet foliage and its stores of autumn brilliance?
Nothing but a hill, which she would not climb alone. What was the tennis court, with its clean-shaven smoothness and its clear, white lines, over which played the mirthful sunshine and occasionally a yellow-and-brown leaf? Nothing but a desolate reminder of happy days all gone.

Yes, the summer was over and the winter had begun, a whole long winter, full of work and disagreeableness. She remembered the old brown cashmere dress that lay on her table this morning. Her mother had put it there, reminding her that it should be ripped, sponged, and pressed, to be made over.
How she hated made-over things! She glanced down at the stylish street suit she had on. It would have to be put away and kept only for special occasion, now that there was no more company. Her pretty tennis suit, too, would have no use. Then there was a pile of mending, that had been accumulating during the months when she had given herself over to good times. What else was there not to be done, day in and day out, this long, barren winter?

In the house a pile of dishes was awaiting her attention. The servant had gone away for a day or two, and
Katharine
knew that the dishes would be left until she returned from the station, as her mother was very busy with the dressmaker. Still she lingered at the gate,
dreading to go in and begin the winter. She thought miserably of the other happy girls who had left her, some to spend their winters in boarding school, others in
their city homes, and the young men, most of them in college or in business, and not have to poke at home and wash dishes. She wishes she could go to school this winter. Why was it that her father’s business could not have been as good this particular winter, just when she would have so enjoyed going to the seminary with Mabel and Fannie?

She drew a long sigh, and turned away from the gate, drawing off her gloves as she moved slowly toward the house. She would not look at the tennis court as she passed it, and two tears slipped out and rolled down her cheeks. She did so love tennis, and now there would be no more until next summer. Of course, she could not play alone.

But once in the house there was plenty to be done, and no one else there seemed to have time to think of yesterday.

“
Katharine
, I wish you would wash the dishes as soon as possible, and then make a cake. Mrs. Whiting is coming down to tea tonight and go to prayer meeting, and there isn’t a bit of cake in the house. Make the easiest, quickest kind, and get through as soon as possible. There is a great deal to be done, and I shall need
your help this morning.” Her mother said this as she entered the door.

Yesterday, when
Katharine
had been playing tennis, Frank Warner, her partner, had watched her several times. He had thought what a pleasant expression she always had, and what an exceedingly nice girl she was, for a girl who had been brought up in a small village, and whose father had never been able to give her many advantages. But he would scarcely have known her if he could have seen her now as she took off her hat and jacket, with an almost sullen expression on her face, and her brows drawn together in an inartistic scowl.

There was no time for her to examine the package that the girls had given to her at parting, and which she had not had the heart to open before, so she laid it on the table to wait until a leisure moment should come.

It seemed to her as though the task of washing all those sticky, ugly looking dishes was an impossible one, and likely to prove interminable. She made it all the harder for herself by continually envisioning pleasant things that had happened the days before, and discontentedly wishing those days back once more.

The work of getting the dinner fell mostly upon her shoulders that day, and it was performed very reluctantly. She scowled at everything, and sighed until her brother John told her she sounded like a steam engine. She told him in reply that he was a saucy, unbrotherly fellow.  Then she went to work to make a pudding for
dinner which she knew he did not like; just because it took less time than others which he did like; and things did not mat
ter to her much, anyway, that da
y.
Her heart was all in the past summer, mourning for it and its joys as one does for a dead friend.

Dinner was over at last, and the dishes washed, but there was no rest nor leisure yet for
Katharine
. Indeed, she had so prolonged her work by glooming over it, that it was quite late in the afternoon before she went up to her little room and began slowly to smooth her hair. Her mother’s voice called from the sewing room where she had been all day with the dressmaker. “
Katharine
, Mrs. Whiting has just turned the corner, and is coming this way. She has come down very early. You will have to go downstairs and receive and entertain her for a while, until I can come. I am sorry, but I cannot possibly leave this work just now. Do the best you can, dear.”

That was all, and then the door of the sewing room shut quickly, and the hurried mother went back to her work, while
Katharine
scowled harder than ever, and went slowly, crossly, down to the door to welcome old Mrs. Whiting.
Her greeting was by no means cordial; and her mode of entertaining her was so stiff and disagreeable that the poor lady felt quite ill at ease, until at last the gentle mother came down, and
Katharine
was set free to attend to the supper.

“I shall not be able to go to prayer meeting tonight, daughter; I feel one of my nervous headaches coming on, and shall have to go to bed. You can go to the meeting with Mrs. Whiting, dear, can’t you?”

This sentence, spoken at the tea table, with old Mrs. Whiting sitting opposite to her and listening, seemed to
Katharine
the climax of the ugly day. Of course there
was nothing to be said but “Yes,” when she was asked before everyone. She thought to herself as she went for her hat and jacket, “Is all the winter to be like this, I wonder? Oh,
what a contrast to yesterday!”

Prayer meeting seemed the height of dreariness to
Katharine
tonight. She was never at any time fond of going, and usually got out of it as often as she could. To think of having to sit in that dark little room, where all the lamps smoked and the air smelled strongly of kerosene, and listen to several long prayers and talks by some old men and women! She recoiled from the idea, and thought, as she had done a dozen times that day, of the evening before, and the merry party that had gathered at one of the pleasant homes in the village for a farewell frolic.

The meeting was not quite as dreary as she had pictured it. More were out than usual, and there was a spirit of earnestness in all that was said that would have surprised her if she had not been too much wrapped up in her morbid thoughts to pay any attention to what was going on. But the air was as full of kerosene and dust as she had expected, and she turned up her nose over it, and wished for the end of the meeting to come.

At last the day was over, and
Katharine
was seated in her room with the little package in her lap, and leisure to open it. She untied the strings slowly, thinking of the dear friends who had left it, wondering to herself why the summer could not have lasted longer, and why it was that a winter with its hard work must come.