From the Improvement Era, January 1943 –

Fool’s Gold

By Mary Lyon Crofts

She was glad that they were just a little late. It was easier to enter unnoticed with the congregation standing, singing. She followed her mother to a row of seats and stood waiting while people moved down all along the line to make room for them. When the singing ended she sat between her mother and father and hated herself for feeling self-conscious.

It was hard to come back after seven years. Hard, but fun too, because she had the inner satisfaction of seven years of accomplishment. She had succeeded beyond her wildest hopes. She knew she would be pointed out by the old townspeople — “There’s Vaudis Lee — Jason Lee’s youngest daughter — She’s going to Washington. Senator Reefe’s private secretary.”

She felt a warmth of mental confusion as she sensed nudges and whisperings along the row that had shifted to make room for her. Already people were beginning to glance surreptitiously at her. Let them; she was proud of what they should see. She felt chic, from the toes of her slippers to the veil that draped her hat and fell to the back over deep copper curls.

Behind the pulpit stood Brother Dick, her old Sunday School teacher. She smiled; he smiled and nodded in recognition. She felt a warm glow, a feeling of belonging again.

She saw few others she recognized. The woman two rows ahead looked vaguely familiar. She held a baby, and beside her sat a curly-headed little boy. The woman’s head turned slightly. It was Mildred Vance — now Mildred Wheeler. She and Bert had been married before Vaudis left. She appraised her old friend with interest. The coat she was wearing, with its loose dark fur, reminded Vaudis of the coats she too had always bought with her potato-picking money — when a few dollars had to go a long way. Vaudis shook herself mentally. Had she become a snob? Mildred’s coat was all right. She looked fine. “Her turban is certainly wound with a nack. I’ll have to get her to show me how she does it.”

When the classes had separated and the smaller groups gone to their rooms in the basement, Brother Dick came back and shook her hand.

“Our kindergarten teacher is absent. Would you like your old job back for a day?”

Panic seized her. She had hardly seen a child for seven years; what could she tell them?

“Oh — I’d rather not.”

“You were a pretty good teacher once,” he reminded.

“Thanks, but honestly, I — ”

He smiled, turned to Mildred, and spoke a few words. She rose, and leading one child, carrying another, she followed him.

Shame filled Vaudis. She could help Mildred. She started to rise. Before her stood Carl Vance; in his eyes was something of scorn. For a fleeting second her own eyes dropped, then, “Oh, hello, Carl,” she managed.

“Hello,” he answered, ” I heard you were back. We are honored to have you here.” The tone of his voice stung.

When the meeting was over she retreated to her small green coupe outside the chapel to avoid the eyes inside. The warmth of late autumn sunshine, the blue smoky haze over the valley, and yellowed falling leaves did little to quiet the turmoil within.

All through the class she had listened to Carl’s voice deep and vibrant conducting the lesson of the adult group. She had marveled at his ability to stimulate the discussion, but always underneath she seemed to hear in a faintly sneering tone — “We are honored.”

She waited in the coupe for her father and mother. And Carl came to wait in the car next. Her mind was flooded with memories. Seven years ago they had not waited in separate cars.

She was acutely conscious of his presence, but sat dumbly wondering what there could be left in this world for them to talk about — only the weather!

“It’s a beautiful day.”

“Yes,” he affirmed; and the weather subject was exhausted.

“Mildred looks fine, doesn’t she? Where do she and Bert live?”

“They are buying the old Larson place, just below your father’s. Mildred has not been well. She works too hard.” Again his tone was a reprimand.

“You’re married, of course?” The question was merely conversation. Of course he was married …. he had said ….

He shook his head. “No. I guess I’ve always kept you on the pedestal I built for you in high school. Even after the things you said before you left, I kept believing in you. I felt sure you would come back. I see now you really meant them all.” His frankness was not new to her, but this bitterness was. His tone told plainly the pent-up hurt of seven years. “Today you couldn’t even condescend to take care of a dozen children for half an hour. Your time, I suppose, is too important for such trifles. I suppose we are just to feast our eyes on the sight of you.”

Vaudis did not have red hair for nothing. Her temper, too, flamed at times, and her eyes flashed.

“You had no right to suppose that I would come back! It’s not my fault if you’ve spent the best years of your life dreaming of a girl you only imagined.”

She turned her head away and was ashamed. She was acting like a school girl. He used to laugh at her tantrums. He was not laughing now. From the corner of her eye, she could see his face, scarlet beneath its weathered brown. He bent forward and turned the keys. The motor began to hum, and without a glance he backed away.

Tears of rage stung her eyes. Rage at him, rage at herself. Why hadn’t he married? Why was he here now to disturb her, to disrupt her complacency?

For two weeks the autumn weather was ideal. The harvesting was in full swing. Every morning Vaudis’ father left the house early to pull beets for the topping crew, and every morning she rose to breakfast with her parents.

“It’s fun,” she said in the dim light of dawn, and they gloried in her interest of their daily tasks. She washed the cream separator and the dishes; she scrubbed floors and helped her mother.

Thus she spent the days of her visit. Once she went to a movie. But mostly she avoided public places and her old friends. Perhaps they all shared Carl’s opinion of her. She could almost feel the whisperings, ” — Carl Vance’s old girl. Everyone thought once they would be married. She’s not spoken half a dozen words to him since she came back.” It was an ordeal now to go to Sunday School, and she counted the days until she would be away again.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday — Sunday she would leave. She had repacked the clothes she would not be needing again. She oiled her typewriter and typed half a dozen “sugarless” recipes for her mother’s recipe file. Then she walked over to her brother Ed’s place.

Ed’s team was hitched to the beet rack in the yard. He and Helen were talking excitedly in the kitchen.

“It’s a party, sis.” Ed informed her. “We’ve not had one since harvesting began, but everyone is nearly through now and the crowd is getting together at Jerry’s. Will you come?”

Vaudis’ face lighted eagerly. “Could I? But perhaps I’d better not.”

“Of course she’ll come,” from Helen. “Jerry told us to bring her!” Helen turned to Vaudis. “All the old crowd will be there — and a lot of new ones. Everyone who plays an instrument will bring it. Ed takes his trombone. I even file away on the fiddle some.”

Vaudis smiled. They were still kids. When had she been so excited about a party? Yet she admitted the prospect was interesting. She might see Carl again. Maybe they could talk. All the old friends she had hoped to see would be there, too. She would show them that she was not “high-hat.”

She brushed her hair briskly, up at the sides, the curls glistening. She opened her largest suitcase and found the deep green dress, zippered in the back. She turned before the mirror and was pleased.

Jerry’s every room was lighted. Coats were piled high on the beds, sleeping babies lay in the back bedrooms. Everywhere was noise and happy confusion. All the sheet music in town had been assembled; instruments blared with varying degrees of proficiency. Vaudis found herself at the piano, and she hammered the keys with alacrity. Carl stood behind her with his clarinet. She did not know the two men playing saxophones. Someone had even brought a set of drums!

Across the room sat a girl Vaudis had never seen before. She was pretty in a plain sort of way. Her hair was dark — almost black, and her eyes followed Carl.

Susan Davenport was her name, Helen had said. And she lived with her father down near the river. Later, Vaudis discovered the girl had a beautiful soprano voice but was too shy to sing without a great deal of persuasion.

Later she tried not to see Carl and Susan sitting together with their huge dishes of ice cream. She had hoped to be sitting there beside Carl eating ice cream.

The girl laughed quietly at something Carl had said. Vaudis turned back to the piano, and began playing softly. Mildred came over and sat on the bench beside her.

“Will you come to supper tomorrow, Vaud?”

“Why, of course, I’d love to.” Vaudis turned to look at her old friend.

“I meant to ask you before, but I guess I’m just too lazy.” Mildred smiled. She looked tired.

“I’ll come if you won’t go to a lot of fuss and bother.” Vaudis amended her acceptance.

“I won’t, just old-fashioned supper.”

“Thanks, I’d like to come early and help.”

Mildred squeezed her arm. “You’re just as sweet as you always were. I don’t believe you’ve changed a bit.”

Vaudis’ fingers rippled the keys of the piano. The melody was Memories. Someone began to sing, others joined in. Vaudis sang too, and from across the room she could hear Carl’s clear rich tenor. Then she drifted into an old favorite of his, Apple Blossom Time. Presently she realized they two were singing alone. He was beside the piano now, and her fingers became unsure on the keys. The song finished, she smiled and rose to leave the piano. The applause was insistent. “More, more …”

She nodded and sat down again. But no more sentimentalizing. White Cliffs of Dover, Johnny Doughboy, and Alexander’s Ragtime Band were safe enough; and now everybody sang.

At twelve o’clock the party ended, and Vaudis talked to Ed and Helen as she watched Carl usher Susan out the door and into his car.

Mildred’s home was simple and comfortable, with ample room for their family of six. There were house plants and sofa cushions, and a second-hand piano along the east wall of the living room.

“It’s lovely, Mildred, how do you do it?”

“Well, of course, we didn’t build the house; it comes with the place; and in eighteen years it will all be ours.” She laughed in the old good-natured way, and every strangeness Vaudis had at first felt, vanished.

There were pies — lemon — cool- ing on the screened-in back porch; savory meat loaf in the oven.

“Mildred! I told you to not go to any fuss about this.”

Mildred grinned. “What fuss? You mean the pies? Our sugar card still allows pie occasionally — and we’re celebrating tonight; that calls for two pies.”

The two girls’ eyes met. All the years of their past friendship seemed to roll about them, drawing them close again.

“Remember how we used to dream of the day when we should be grown up?” Vaudis laughed. She turned to the sink and began cleaning potatoes. “Remember all the things we were going to do?”

Mildred drew a stool up and sat beside her. “Life is too short for everything. Being movie actresses is definitely out!”

“But you did marry Bert!” “And you did make something of yourself — you are somebody!” Mildred countered.

Vaudis shook her head. “Merely a matter of opinion, my dear. I know someone who would challenge that statement.”

“Vaud,” Mildred’s voice became low and confidential. “I’ve asked Carl to supper, too. Do you mind?”

Vaudis hesitated only a moment. “Does he know I’m here?” “I didn’t tell him. Mother is visiting Aunt Martha, so I told him to come over here to supper. I imagine he’ll suspect something. He knows I always wanted you for a sister-in-law.”

Vaudis laughed. Mildred’s frank- ness was as refreshing as Carl’s had been bitter. “You’re not a very subtle match-maker, Mildred.”

“I’m not a very subtle anything. You can read me like a book. There’s no point to my beating about the bush.”

When Carl came in with Bert, Vaudis was slicing bread; she looked up and greeted him with the old friendliness, thus filing away their differences as she would a closed account.

The men washed on the back porch. The children ran in — the baby woke up. In the confusion of washing children and getting them to the table, of dishing up steaming bowlsful of food, there was no room

for a tense atmosphere. The supper was a noisy, joyful affair.

Later, as Carl drove her home, Vaudis silently reminisced. Tonight her pitiful success failed to fill her with pride. She was one in thousands. Mildred was the important one. For Bert, for her family, she was the only one.

Out of her memory came a story she had read years ago — of a young man who had spent weeks in the mountains prospecting. He came down just ahead of the winter storms only to find that his bags were filled with pyrites. In her mind was painted still the picture of him as he stood outside the brightly lighted windows of the town; cold, hungry, fingering the fool’s gold in his pocket.

A chill swept over her. “He should have known what he was after,” she mused aloud. But the chill lingered.

She still thought of the boy outside the warm windows, and shivered. Outside, like herself. She stood outside the windows of life, and her fur coat was not warm enough.

Suddenly she straightened. She stole a glance at Carl’s strong profile and knew what she must do. Their quarreling had all been so silly.

The car stopped in front of her house. “You know,” she said, “as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of being someone — someone important.”

“Yes,” he nodded, “you made that quite plain seven years ago — remember?”

She took a deep breath. Her eyes dropped before his. She had said things — terrible things that she would never have thought of if he had not made her so angry. She had only wanted a few years to see what she could do — young girl ambitions.

“You said things, too,” she reminded. “You said no man would wait five years for a girl — it’s been seven.”

He flushed. “I guess I didn’t know much about it then. I didn’t know a man might wait forever.”

“Carl, I’d have come back sooner, if I had known. I only wanted to prove to myself that I could do something. I only wanted a taste of another kind of life.”

“And I thought it would spoil you. I was sure you would never be con- tent to be a farmer’s wife. Would you? Would you come and live — ”

“In the little old house behind your mother’s? Oh, Carl, I’d love it.”