Star-Dust | Page 6

guess Snow can tell a girl story if
she wants to. Go on, Snow, 'once upon a time there was the most
beautiful girl in all the world' and she had honey-colored curls and--"
"I didn't say she had honey-colored curls. Honey! Who ever heard of a
girl having honey curls?"
"Well, she had."
"Didn't."
"Did."
"--and her name was--was--Gladys."
"Oh no, Snow, call her--"
"I think Gladys is just a beautiful name for a girl," ventured Flora
Kemble on this occasion. "I like Elsie, too. I think Elsie Dinsmore is
my favorite name."
"Elsie Dinsmore!" flared Lilly. "Girls aren't pokey like her any more."
Thus diverted, there ensued a quick confetti of flung opinions.
"Minn is a pretty name."
"That's because you're stuck on Minnie Duganne in your class. Oh-oh,
Roy is stuck on Minnie Duganne!"
"Arabella--I just love that name. Don't you, Lilly?"

"If I was a girl, I would be named Mamma-Annie."
"Shut up, Harry; and, say, you better take back that can opener. You
stole it off Mr. Hazzard's dresser."
"What is your favorite name, Lilly?"
Her eyes on the warts blown into the glass globe, hugging her knees in
their sturdy ribbed stockings, her smooth brown hair enhancing her
clean kind of prettiness, Lilly gazed up roundly.
"I choose," she said, mouthing grandiloquently, her little pink tongue
waving like a clapper--"I choose--choose--ah--Zoe!"
"That isn't a name!"
"'Tis so."
"Who ever heard of a girl named Zoe! You never did yourself."
"I know I never did, Roy Kemble, but just the same I think it is the
most beautiful name in the world. It isn't so much what it really means;
names don't have to mean anything--it's what it feels like it means. To
me the name Zoe feels like it means--means--"
CHORUS: "She don't know what it means. She don't know what it
means."
"She means doe! The doe in the zoo at Forest Park. Hauh-hauh--her
favorite name is Doe."
"Zoe," repeated Lilly, her eyes in a trance and lakes of reflected vision.
"Zoe--it means--it means something--something full of life.
Life--free--to me Zoe means free! Life!"
CHAPTER IV
When Lilly was fourteen she graduated from grade school, second in
her class.

"It's an outrage," said Mrs. Becker. "Miss Lare always did pick on the
child."
"I'd rather have been last than second," said Lilly, trying to keep firm a
lip that would tremble.
"Never mind, Lilly, you'll have the prettiest graduation dress of them
all. I've got Katy Stutz engaged for three days in the house. A girl don't
have to be so smart."
"I'd rather have the valedictory address than--clothes," still very
uncertain of lip.
"Of course. That is because for a child you certainly have crazy ideas.
Why don't you nag your father a little with what you've been nagging
me all week?"
"I--Not now, mamma."
"Why not now? All I've got to say about it is, if he is willing, I am."
"What is it?"
"Tell him, Lilly."
"I--You see, papa, I thought if only you would let me begin vocal
lessons, now that I am going to High School. Not real singing,
papa--I'm too young for that--but just the foundation for voice."
"She wants to study with Max Rinehardt, Ben. I say it can't do any
harm for the child to learn parlor singing. I think I can manage it at a
dollar and a half a lesson. The elocution I say 'No' to. We don't need
any play-acting in the family."
"Why--er--I'm surprised, Lilly, that you should have your heart set on
that kind of thing. Seems to me a young girl could find something more
worth while than that. Singers never amount to much."
"Oh, papa, it's what I want most in the world."

"Let her have them. A little parlor singing helps any girl with the young
men. I notice you courted me from the choir. If she waits for
encouragement from you, her accomplishments won't amount to a row
of pins."
"You see, papa, I'm going to take the commercial course at High and
learn stenography and typewriting, so it will just balance my education
fine."
"Well, little woman, whatever you say."
"You know what I say."
"Don't you think she is a bit too young?"
Mimetically: "No, I don't think she's a bit too young. The sooner you
wake up to the fact that your daughter is growing up, the better. She's a
graduate already from grammar school."
"Papa, I'm on the graduating program."
"For what, daughter?"
"A piano solo. 'Alice,' with variations."
"Well, Carrie, if that is the way you feel about it--if you think those
kind of lessons are good for her--"
"That is the way I feel about it."
These little acid places occurring somewhere in almost every day
hardly corroded into Lilly's accustomed consciousness. If