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+Project Gutenberg's The Very Small Person, by Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Very Small Person
+
+Author: Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
+Illustrator: Elizabeth Shippen Green
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2009 [EBook #29404]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VERY SMALL PERSON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeff Kaylin, Bruce Albrecht, and Andrew Sly.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: That is where we play--I mean it is most pleasant there]
+
+
+  The
+  Very Small Person
+
+By
+
+Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
+Author of "Rebecca Mary"
+
+Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green
+
+New York and London
+
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+
+MCMVI
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+     I.  Little Blue Overalls
+    II.  The Boy
+   III.  The Adopted
+    IV.  Bobby Unwelcome
+     V.  The Little Girl Who Should Have Been a Boy
+    VI.  The Lie
+   VII.  The Princess of Make-Believe
+  VIII.  The Promise
+    IX.  The Little Lover
+     X.  The Child
+    XI.  The Recompense
+
+
+Illustrations
+
+  That is where we play--I mean it is most pleasant there
+  Little Blue Overalls climbed into a chair
+  'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!
+  She stayed there a week--a month--a year
+  It was worse than creepy, creaky noises
+  I can't play ... I'm being good
+  Murray had ... seen the vision, too
+  Elizabeth
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+Little Blue Overalls
+
+
+Miss Salome's face was gently frowning as she wrote.
+
+"Dear John," the letter began,--"It's all very well except one thing.
+I wonder you didn't think of that. _I'm_ thinking of it most
+of the time, and it takes away so much of the pleasure of the
+rose-garden and the raspberry-bushes! Anne is in raptures over the
+raspberry-bushes.
+
+"Yes, the raspberries and the roses are all right. And I like the
+stone-wall with the woodbine over it. (Good boy, you remembered that,
+didn't you?) And the apple-tree and the horse-chestnut and the
+elm--of course I like them.
+
+"The house is just big enough and just small enough, and there's a
+trunk-closet, as I stipulated. And Anne's room has a 'southern
+exposure'--Anne's crazy spot is southern exposures. Mine's _it_.
+Dear, dear, John, how could you forget _it!_ That everything
+else--closets and stone-walls and exposures--should be to my mind but
+_that!_ Well, I am thinking of moving out, before I move in. But I
+haven't told Anne. Anne is the kind of person _not_ to tell, until
+the last moment. It saves one's nerves--heigh-ho! I thought I was
+coming here to get away from nerves! I was so satisfied. I really
+meant to thank you, John, until I discovered--it. Oh yes, I
+know--Elizabeth is looking over your shoulder, and you two are saying
+something that is unfit for publication about old maids! My children,
+then thank the Lord you aren't either of you old maids. Make the most
+of it."
+
+Miss Salome let her pen slip to the bare floor and gazed before her
+wistfully. The room was in the dreary early stages of unpacking, but
+it was not of that Miss Salome was thinking. Her eyes were gazing out
+of the window at a thin gray trail of smoke against the blue ground
+of the sky. She could see the little house, too, brown and tiny and a
+little battered. She could see the clothes-line, and count easily
+enough the pairs of little stockings on it. She caught up the pen
+again fiercely.
+
+"There are eight," she wrote. "Allowing two legs to a child, doesn't
+that make _four?_ John Dearborn, you have bought me a house next
+door to four children! I think I shall begin to put the books back
+to-night. As ill luck will have it, they are all unpacked.
+
+"I have said nothing to Anne; Anne has said nothing to me. But we
+both know. She has counted the stockings too. We are both old maids.
+No, I have not _seen_ them yet--anything but their stockings on the
+clothes-line. But the mother is not a washer-woman--there is no hope.
+I don't know how I know she isn't a washer-woman, but I do. It is
+impressed upon me. So there are four children, to say nothing of the
+Lord knows how many babies still in socks! I cannot forgive you,
+John."
+
+Miss Salome had been abroad for many years. Stricken suddenly with
+homesickness, she and her ancient serving-woman, Anne, had fled
+across seas to their native land. Miss Salome had first commissioned
+John, long-suffering John,--adviser, business-manager, brother,--to
+find her a snug little home with specified adjuncts of trunk-closets,
+elm, apple, and horse-chestnut trees, woodbiney stone walls--and a
+"southern exposure" for Anne. John had done his best. But how could
+he have forgotten, and Elizabeth have forgotten, and Miss Salome
+herself have forgotten--it? Every one knew Miss Salome's distaste for
+little children. Anne's too, though Anne was more taciturn than her
+mistress.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+Miss Salome started. In the doorway stood a very small person in blue
+jeans overalls.
+
+"Hullo! I want your money or your life! I'm a 'wayman."
+
+"A--_what?_" Miss Salome managed to ejaculate. The Little Blue
+Overalls advanced a few feet into the room.
+
+"Robber, you know;--you know what robbers are, don't you? I'm one.
+You needn't call me a _high_wayman, I'm so--so low. Just 'wayman 'll
+do. Why, gracious! you ain't afraid, are you? You needn't be,--I
+won't hurt you!" and a sweet-toned, delighted little laugh echoed
+through the bare room. "You needn't give me your money or your life.
+Never mind. I'll 'scuse you."
+
+Miss Salome uttered no word at all. Of course this boy belonged in a
+pair of those stockings over there. It was no more than was to be
+expected.
+
+"It's me. I'm not a 'wayman any more,--just _me_. I heard you'd come,
+so I thought I'd come an' see you. You glad? Why don't you ask me
+will I take a seat?"
+
+"Will I--will you take a seat?" repeated Miss Salome, as if she were
+saying a lesson. The Little Blue Overalls climbed into a chair.
+
+[Illustration: Little Blue Overalls climbed into a chair]
+
+"Looks pretty bad here, doesn't it? I guess you forgot to sweep," he
+said, assuming social curves in his plump little body. He had the air
+of having come to stay. Miss Salome's lips, under orders to tighten,
+found themselves unexpectedly relaxing into a smile. The Little Blue
+Overalls was amusing.
+
+"_We've_ got a sofy, an' a rockin'-chair. The sofy's new, but
+Chessie's broke a hole in it."
+
+"Are there four of you?" Miss Salome asked, abruptly. It was the
+Little Blue Overalls' turn to start now.
+
+"_Me?_--gracious! four o' me? I guess you're out o' your head,
+aren't-- Oh, you mean _child'en!_ Well, there's five, 'thout
+countin' the spandy new one--she's too little to count."
+
+Five--six, with the spandy new one! Miss Salome's gaze wandered from
+the piles of books on the floor to the empty packing-boxes, as if
+trying to find the shortest distance.
+
+"There are only four pairs on the line," she murmured,
+weakly,--"stockings," she added. The Little Blue Overalls nodded
+comprehendingly.
+
+"I don't wear 'em summers,--I guess you didn't notice I was in my
+bare feet, did you? Well, I am. It's a savin'. The rest are nothing
+but girls--I'm all the boy we've got. Boys are tough. But I don't
+s'pose you ever was one, so you don't know?" There was an upward
+inflection to the voice of the Little Blue Overalls. An answer seemed
+expected.
+
+"No--no, I never was one," Miss Salome said, hastily. She could hear
+Anne's plodding steps in the hall. It would be embarrassing to have
+Anne come in now. But the footsteps plodded by. After more
+conversation on a surprising number of topics, the Little Blue
+Overalls climbed out of the chair.
+
+"I've had a 'joyable time, an' I'll be pleased to come again, thank
+you," he said, with cheerful politeness. "I'm glad you've come,--I
+like you, but I hope you'll sweep your floor." He retreated a few
+steps, then faced about again and advanced into the enemy's near
+neighborhood. He was holding out a very small, brown, unwashed hand.
+"I forgot 'bout shakin' hands," he smiled. "Le's. I hope you like me,
+too, an' I guess you do, don't you? Everybody does. Nobody ever
+_didn't_ like me in my life, an' I'm seven. Good-bye."
+
+Miss Salome heard him patter down the hall, and she half thought--she
+was not sure--that at the kitchen door he stopped. Half an hour
+afterwards she saw a very small person crossing the rose-garden. If
+there was something in his hands that he was eating, Miss Salome
+never asked Anne about it. It was not her way to ask Anne questions.
+It was not Anne's way to ask her. The letter to John was finished,
+oddly enough, without further mention of--it. Miss Salome got the
+broom and swept the bare big room carefully. She hummed a little as
+she worked. Out in the kitchen Anne was humming too.
+
+"It is a pleasant little place, especially the stone-wall and the
+woodbine," Miss Salome was thinking; "I'm glad I specified woodbine
+and stone-walls. John would never have thought. So many other things
+are pleasant, too; but, dear, dear, it is very unfortunate about that
+one thing!" Still Miss Salome hummed, and after tea she got Anne to
+help her move out the empty packing-boxes.
+
+The next day the Little Blue Overalls came again. This time he was a
+peddler, with horse-chestnut "apples" to sell, and rose-petal pies.
+He said they were bargains.
+
+"You can truly eat the pies," he remarked. "There's a _little_ sugar
+in 'em. I saved it off the top o' _her_ bun," indicating Anne's
+locality with a jerk of his little cropped head. So it was a fact,
+was it? He had been eating something when he crossed the rose-garden?
+Miss Salome wondered at Anne.
+
+The next day, and the next,--every day the Little Blue Overalls came,
+always in a new character. Miss Salome found herself watching for
+him. She could catch the little blue glint of very small overalls as
+soon as they got to the far side of the rose-garden. But for Anne, at
+the end of the first week she would have gone out to meet him. Dear,
+dear, but for Miss Salome, Anne would have gone!
+
+The Little Blue Overalls confided his troubles to Miss Salome. He
+told her how hard it was to be the only boy,--how impossible, of
+course, it was to play girly plays, and how he had longed to find a
+congenial spirit. Mysteriously enough, he appeared confident that he
+had found the congenial spirit at last. Miss Salome's petticoats
+seemed no obstacle. He showed her his pocketful of treasures. He
+taught her to whittle, and how to bear it when she "bleeded." He
+taught her to whistle--very softly, on account of Anne. (He taught
+Anne, too--softly, on account of Miss Salome.) He let her make sails
+for his boats, and sew on his buttons,--those that Anne didn't sew
+on.
+
+"Dear John," wrote Miss Salome, "the raspberries are ripe. When you
+were a very small person--say seven--did you ever mash them between
+raspberry leaves, with 'sugar in,' and call them pies,--and eat them?
+They are really palatable. Of course it is a little risky on account
+of possible bugs. I don't remember that you were a remarkable little
+boy. Were you? Did you ever play you were a highwayman, or an
+elephant, or anything of that sort? Queer I can't remember.
+
+"Anne is delighted with her southern exposure, but she has never said
+so. That is why I know she is. I am delighted with the roses and the
+closets and the horse-chestnut--especially the horst-chestnut. That
+is where we play--I mean it is most pleasant there, hot afternoons.
+Did you use to dote on horse-chestnuts? Queer boys should. But I
+rather like them myself, in a way,--out of the way! We have picked up
+a hundred and seventeen." Miss Salome dropped into the plural number
+innocently, and Elizabeth laughed over John's shoulder. Elizabeth did
+the reading between the lines. John was only a man.
+
+One day Little Blue Overalls was late. He came from the direction of
+the stable that adjoined Miss Salome's house. He was excited and
+breathless. A fur rug was draped around his shoulders and trailed
+uncomfortably behind him.
+
+"Come on!" he cried, eagerly. "It's a circus! I'm the grizzled bear.
+There's a four-legged girl--Chessie, you know, with stockin's on her
+hands,--and a Manx rooster ('thout any tail), and, oh, my! the
+_splendidest_ livin' skeleton you ever saw! I want you to be
+man'ger--come on! It's easy enough. You poke us with a stick, an' we
+perform. I dance, an' the four-legged girl walks, an' the rooster
+crows, an' the skeleton skel-- Oh, well, you needn't poke the
+skeleton."
+
+The Little Blue Overalls paused for breath. Miss Salome laid aside
+her work. Where was Anne?--but the stable could be reached without
+passing the kitchen windows. Saturdays Anne was very busy, anyway.
+
+"I'm ready," laughed Miss Salome. She had never been a
+circus-manager, but she could learn. It was easier than whittling.
+Together they hurried away to the stable. At the door Miss Salome
+came to an abrupt stop. An astonished exclamation escaped her.
+
+The living skeleton sat on an empty barrel, lean and grave and
+patient. The living skeleton also uttered an exclamation. She and the
+circus-manager gazed at each other in a remarkable way, as if under a
+spell.
+
+"Come on!" shouted the grizzled bear.
+
+After that, Miss Salome and Anne were not so reserved. What was the
+use? And it was much easier, after all, to be found out. Things ran
+along smoothly and pleasantly after that.
+
+Late in the autumn, Elizabeth, looking over John's shoulder one day,
+laughed, then cried out, sharply. "Oh!" she said; "oh, I am sorry!"
+And John echoed her an instant later.
+
+"Dear John," the letter said, "when you were little were you ever
+very sick, and did you _die?_ Oh, I see, but don't laugh. I think I
+am a little out of my head to-day. One is when one is anxious. And
+Little Blue Overalls is very sick. I found Anne crying a little while
+ago, and just now she came in and found me. She didn't mind; I don't.
+
+"He did not come yesterday or the day before. Yesterday I went to see
+why. Anne was just coming away from the door. 'He's sick,' she said,
+in her crisp, sharp way,--you know it, John,--but she was white in
+the face. The little mother came to the door. Queer I had never seen
+her before,--Little Blue Overalls has her blue eyes.
+
+"There were two or three small persons clinging to her, and the very
+smallest one I ever saw was in her arms. She looked fright--" The
+letter broke off abruptly here. Another slip was enclosed that began
+as abruptly. "Anne says it is scarlet-fever. The doctor has been
+there just now. I am going to have him brought over here--you _know_
+I don't mean the doctor. And you would not smile, either of you--not
+Elizabeth, anyway, for she will think of her own babies--"
+
+"Yes, yes," Elizabeth cried, "I am thinking!"
+
+"--That is why he must not stay over there. There are so many babies.
+I am going over there now."
+
+The letter that followed this one was a week delayed.
+
+"Dear John," it said,--"you must be looking out for another place. If
+anything should--he is very sick, John! And I could not stay here
+without him. Nor Anne. John, would you ever think that Anne was born
+a nurse? Well, the Lord made her one. I have found it out. Not with a
+little dainty white cap on, and a nurse's apron,--not that kind, but
+with light, cool fingers and a great, tender heart. That is the
+Lord's kind, and it's Anne. She is taking beautiful care of our
+Little Blue Overalls. The little mother and I appreciate Anne. But he
+is very very sick, John.
+
+"I could not stay here. Why, there isn't a spot that wouldn't remind
+me! There's a faint little path worn in the grass beside the
+stone-wall where he has been 'sentry.' There's a bare spot under the
+horse-chestnut where he played blacksmith and 'shoe-ed' the
+saw-horse. And he used to pounce out on me from behind the old elm
+and demand my money or my life,--he was a highwayman the first time I
+saw him. I've bought rose-pies and horse-chestnut apples of him on
+the front door-steps. We've played circus in the barn. We've been
+Indians and gypsies and Rough Riders all over the place. You must
+look round for another one, John. I can't stay here.
+
+"Here's Anne. She says he is asleep now. Before he went he sent word
+to me that he was a wounded soldier, and he _wished_ I'd make a red
+cross and sew it on Anne's sleeve. I must go and make it. Good-bye.
+The letter will not smell good because I shall fumigate it, on
+account of Elizabeth's babies. You need not be afraid."
+
+There was no letter at all the next week, early or late, and they
+were afraid Little Blue Overalls was dead. Elizabeth hugged her
+babies close and cried softly over their little, bright heads. Then
+shortly afterwards the telegram came, and she laughed--and
+cried--over that. It was as welcome as it was guiltless of
+punctuation:
+
+"Thank the Lord John Little Blue Overalls is going to get well."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Boy
+
+
+The trail of the Boy was always entirely distinct, but on this
+especial morning it lay over house, porch, barn--everything. The
+Mother followed it up, stooping to gather the miscellany of boyish
+belongings into her apron. She had a delightful scheme in her mind
+for clearing everything up. She wanted to see how it would seem, for
+once, not to have any litter of whittlings, of strings and marbles
+and tops! No litter of beloved birds' eggs, snake-skins,
+turtle-shells! No trail of the Boy anywhere.
+
+It had taken the whole family to get the Boy off, but now he was
+gone. Even yet the haze of dust the stage-coach had stirred up from
+the dry roadway lingered like a faint blur on the landscape. It could
+not be ten minutes since they had bidden the Boy his first good-bye.
+The Mother smiled softly.
+
+"But I did it!" she murmured. "Of course,--I _had_ to. The idea of
+letting your Boy go off without kissing him good-bye! Mary," she
+suddenly spoke aloud, addressing the Patient Aunt, who was following
+the trail too, picking up the siftings from the other's apron--"Mary,
+did you kiss him? There was really no need, you know, because you are
+not his mother. And it would have saved his feelings not to."
+
+The Patient Aunt laughed. She was very young and pretty, and the
+"patient" in her name had to do only with her manner of bearing the
+Boy.
+
+"No, I didn't," she said. "I didn't dare to, after I saw him wipe
+yours off!"
+
+"_Mary!_"
+
+"With the back of his hand. I am not near-sighted. Now _why_ should a
+well-meaning little kiss distress a Boy like that? That's what I want
+to know."
+
+"It didn't once," sighed the Mother, gently. "Not when he was a baby.
+I'm glad I got in a great many of them then, while I had a chance. It
+was the trousers that did it, Mary. From the minute he put on
+trousers he objected to being kissed. I put his kilts on again one
+day, and he let me kiss him."
+
+"But it was a bribe to get you to take them off," laughed the Patient
+Aunt, wickedly. "I remember;--I was there. And you took them off to
+pay for that kiss. You can't deny it, Bess."
+
+"Yes, I took them off--and after that I kissed _them_. It was next
+best. Mary, does it seem very _awful_ quiet here to you?"
+
+"Awful. I never heard anything like it in my life. I'm going to let
+something drop and make a noise." She dropped a tin trumpet, but it
+fell on the thick rug, and they scarcely heard it.
+
+The front gate clicked softly, and the Father came striding up the
+walk, whistling exaggeratedly. He had ridden down to the corner with
+the Boy.
+
+"Well, well, well," he said; "now I shall go to work. I'm going up to
+my den, girls, and I don't want to be called away for anything or
+anybody lower than a President or the minister. This is my first good
+chance to work for ten years."
+
+Which showed how old the Boy was. He was rather young to go off alone
+on a journey, but a neighbor half a mile down the glary white road
+was going his way, and would take him in charge. The neighbor was
+lame, and the Boy thought he was going to take charge of the
+neighbor. It was as well. Nobody had undeceived him.
+
+In a little over half an hour--three-quarters at most--the trail of
+the Boy was wiped out. Then the Patient Aunt and the Mother sat down
+peacefully and undisturbed to their sewing. Everything was very
+spruce and cleared up. The Mother was thinking of that, and of how
+very, very still it was. She wished the Patient Aunt would begin to
+sing, or a door would slam somewhere.
+
+"Dear me!" she thought, with a tremulous little smile, "here I am
+wanting to hear a door slam already! Any one wouldn't think I'd had a
+special set of door nerves for years!" She started in to rock
+briskly. There used to be a board that creaked by the west window.
+Why didn't it creak now? The Mother tried to make it.
+
+"Mary," she cried, suddenly and sharply--"_Mary!_"
+
+"Mercy! Well, what is it, my dear? Is the house afire, or anything?"
+
+"Why don't you talk, and not sit there as still as a post? You
+haven't said a word for half an hour."
+
+"Why, so I haven't,--or you either, for that matter. I thought we
+were sitting here enjoying the calm. Doesn't it look too lovely and
+fixed-up for anything, Bess? Seems like Sunday. _Don't_ you wish
+somebody would call before we get stirred up again?"
+
+"There's time enough. We sha'n't get stirred up again for a week,"
+sighed the Mother. She seemed suddenly to remember, as a new thing,
+that weeks held seven days apiece; days, twenty-four hours. The
+little old table at school repeated itself to her mind. Then she
+remembered how the Boy said it. She saw him toeing the stripe in the
+carpet before her; she heard his high sweet sing-song:
+
+"Sixty sec-unds make a min-it. Sixty min-its make a nour. Sixty hours
+make--no; I mean twenty-four hours--make a d-a-a-y."
+
+That was the way the Boy said it--God bless the Boy! The Mother got
+up abruptly.
+
+"I think I will go up and call on William," she said, unsteadily. The
+Patient Aunt nodded gravely. "But he doesn't like to be interrupted,
+you know," she reminded, thinking of the Boy's interruptions.
+
+Up-stairs, the Father said "Come in," with remarkable alacrity. He
+looked up from his manuscripts and welcomed her. The sheets, tossed
+untidily about the table were mostly blank ones.
+
+"Well, dear?" the little Mother said, with a question in her voice.
+
+"Not at all;--_bad_," he answered, gloomily. "I haven't written a
+word yet, Bess. At this rate, how soon will my new book be out? It's
+so confoundedly still--"
+
+"Yes, dear, I know," the Mother said, hastily. Then they both gazed
+out of the window, and saw the Boy's little, rough-coated, ugly dog
+moping under the Boy's best-beloved tree. The Boy had pleaded hard to
+be allowed to take the dog on the journey. They both remembered that
+now.
+
+"He's lonesome," murmured the Mother, but she meant that they two
+were. And they had thought it would be such a rest and relief! But
+then, you remember, the Boy had never been away before, and he was
+only ten.
+
+So one day and one more after it dragged by. Two from seven leaves
+five. The Mother secretly despaired. The second night, after the
+others were asleep, she stole around the house and strewed the Boy's
+things about in all the rooms; but she could not make them look at
+ease. Nevertheless, she let them lie, and, oddly enough, no one
+appeared to see them next morning. All the family made fine pretence
+of being cheerful, and spoke often of the quietude and peace--how
+restful it was; how they had known beforehand that it would be so,
+without the whooping, whistling, tramping, slamming Boy.
+
+"So relieving to the nerves," the Patient Aunt said.
+
+"So soothing," murmured the Mother, sadly.
+
+"So confoundedly nice and still!" the Father muttered in his beard.
+"Haven't had such a chance to work for ten years." But he did not
+work. The third day he said he must take a little run to the city
+to--to see his publishers, you know. There were things that needed
+looking after;--if the Mother would toss a few things into his grip,
+he'd be off;--back in a few days, of course. And so he went. It was a
+relief to the Mother, and a still further one when, on the fourth
+day, the Patient Aunt went away on a little visit to--to some
+friends.
+
+"I'm glad they're gone," nodded the little Mother, decisively, "for I
+couldn't have stood it another day--_not another day!_ Now _I'm_
+going away myself. I suppose I should have gone anyway, but it's much
+pleasanter not to have them know. They would both of them have
+laughed. What do _they_ know about being a Mother and having your
+little Boy away? Oh yes, they can laugh and be relieved--and
+rested--and soothed! It's mothers whose hearts break with
+lonesomeness--mothers and ugly little dogs." She took the moping
+little beast up in her lap and stroked his rough coat.
+
+"You shall go too," she whispered. "You can't wait three days more,
+either, can you? It would have killed you, too, wouldn't it? We are
+glad those other people went away, aren't we? Now we'll go to the
+Boy."
+
+Early the next morning they went. The Mother thought she had never
+been so happy before in her life, and the ugly little beast yelped
+with anticipative joy. In a little--a very little--while, now, they
+would hear the Boy shout--see him caper--feel his hard little palms
+on their faces. They would see the trail of the Boy over everything;
+not a make-believe, made-up trail, but the real, littered, _Boy_
+thing.
+
+"I hope those other two people are enjoying their trips. _We_ are,
+aren't we?" cried the happy Mother, hugging the little ugly dog in
+her arms. "And they won't know;--they can't laugh at us. We'll never
+let them know we couldn't bear it another minute, will we? The Boy
+sha'n't tell on us."
+
+The place where the Boy was visiting was quite a long way from the
+railroad station, but they trudged to it gayly, jubilantly. While yet
+a good way off they heard the Boy and came upon his trail. The little
+dog nearly went into fits with frantic joy at the cap he found in the
+path, but the Mother went straight on to meet the little shouting
+voice in her ears. Half-way to it she saw the Boy. But wait. Who was
+that with him? And that other one, laughing in his beard? If there
+had been time to be surprised--but she only brushed them both aside
+and caught up the Boy. The Boy--the Boy--the Boy again! She kissed
+him all over his freckled, round little face. She kissed his hair and
+his hands and his knees.
+
+"Look out; he's wiping them off!" laughed the Patient Aunt. "But you
+see he didn't wipe mine off."
+
+"You didn't kiss me. You darsn't. You ain't my mother," panted the
+Boy, between the kisses. He could not keep up with them with the back
+of his brown little hand.
+
+"But _I_ am, dear. I'm your mother," cooed the Mother, proud of
+herself.
+
+After a while she let him go because she pitied him. Then she stood
+up, stern and straight, and demanded things of these other two.
+
+"How came you here, Mary? I thought you were going on a visit. Is
+this the way you see your publishers, William?"
+
+"I--I couldn't wait," murmured the Impatient Aunt. "I wanted to hear
+him shout. You know how that is, Bess." But there was no apology in
+the Father's tone. He put out his hand and caught the Boy as he
+darted past, and squared him about, with his sturdy little front to
+his mother. The Father was smiling in a tender way.
+
+"He is my publisher," he said. "I would rather he published my best
+works than any one else. He will pay the highest royalty."
+
+And the Mother, when she slipped across to them, kissed not the Boy
+alone, but them both.
+
+The next day they took the Boy back in triumph, the three of them and
+the little dog, and after that there was litter and noise and joy as
+of old.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+The Adopted
+
+
+The Enemy's chin just reached comfortably to the
+top fence-rail, and there it rested, while above it peered a pair of
+round blue eyes. It is not usual for an enemy's eyes to be so round
+and blue, nor an enemy's chin to reach so short a distance from the
+ground.
+
+"She's watching me," Margaret thought; "she wants to see if I've got
+far as she has. 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch
+'em!"
+
+"She knows I'm here," reflected the Enemy, "just as well as anything.
+'Fore I'd peek at people out o' the ends o' my eyes!"
+
+[Illustration: 'Fore I'd lean my chin on folks's gates and watch 'em!]
+
+Between the two, a little higher than their heads, tilted a motherly
+bird on a syringa twig.
+
+"Ter-wit, ter-wee,--pit-ee, pit-ee!" she twittered under her breath.
+And it did seem a pity to be quarrellers on a day in May, with the
+apple buds turning as pink as pink!
+
+"I sha'n't ever tell her any more secrets," Margaret mused, rather
+sadly, for there was that beautiful new one aching to be told.
+
+"I sha'n't ever skip with her again," the Enemy's musings ran
+drearily, and the arm she had always put round Margaret when they
+skipped felt lonesome and--and empty. And there was that lovely new
+level place to skip in!
+
+"Pit-ee! Pit-ee!" sang softly the motherly bird.
+
+It had only been going on a week of seven days. It was exactly a week
+ago to-day it began, while they were making the birthday presents
+together, Margaret sitting in this very chair and Nell--the Enemy
+sitting on the toppest door-step. Who would have thought it was
+coming? There was nothing to warn--no thunder in the sky, no little
+mother-bird on the syringa bush. It just _came_--oh, hum!
+
+"I'm ahead!" the Enemy had suddenly announced, waving her book-mark.
+She had got to the "h" in her Mother, and Margaret was only finishing
+_her_ capital "M." They were both working "Honor thy Mother that thy
+days may be long," on strips of cardboard for their mothers'
+birthdays, which, oddly enough, came very close together. Of course
+that wasn't exactly the way it was in the Bible, but they had agreed
+it was better to leave "thy Father" out because it wasn't his
+birthday, and they had left out "the land which the Lord thy God
+giveth" because there wasn't room for it on the cardboard.
+
+"I'm ahead!"
+
+"That's because I'm doing mine the carefulest," Margaret had
+retorted, promptly. "There aren't near so many hunchy places in
+mine."
+
+"Well, I don't care; my _mother's_ the best-looking, if her book-mark
+isn't!" in triumph. "Her hair curls, and she doesn't have to wear
+glasses."
+
+Margaret's wrath had flamed up hotly. Mother's eyes were so shiny and
+tender behind the glasses, and her smooth brown hair was so soft! The
+love in Margaret's soul arose and took up arms for Mother.
+
+"I love mine the best, so there!--so there!--_so there!_" she cried.
+But side by side with the love in her soul was the secret
+consciousness of how very much the Enemy loved _her_ mother, too.
+Now, sitting sewing all alone, with the Enemy on the other side of
+the fence, Margaret knew she had not spoken truly then, but the
+rankling taunt of the curls that Mother hadn't, and the glasses that
+she had, justified her to herself. She would never, never take it
+back, so there!--so there!--_so there!_
+
+"She's only got to the end o' her 'days,'--I can see clear from
+here," soliloquized the Enemy, with awakening exultation. For the
+Enemy's "days" were "long,"--she had finished her book-mark. The
+longing to shout it out--"I've got mine done!"--was so intense within
+her that her chin lost its balance on the fence-rail and she jarred
+down heavily on her heels. So close related are mind and matter.
+
+Margaret resorted to philosophic contemplation to shut out the memory
+of the silent on-looker at the fence. She had swung about
+discourteously "back to" her. "I guess," contemplated Margaret, "my
+days 'll be long enough in the land! I guess so, for I honor my
+mother enough to live forever! That makes me think--I guess I better
+go in and kiss her good-night for to-night when she won't be at
+home."
+
+It was mid-May and school was nearly over. The long summer vacation
+stretched endlessly, lonesomely, ahead of Margaret. Last summer it
+had been so different. A summer vacation with a friend right close to
+you all the time, skipping with you and keeping house with you and
+telling all her secrets to you, is about as far away as--as China is
+from an _Enemy_ 'cross the fence! Oh, hum! some vacations are so
+splendid and some are so un-splendid!
+
+It did not seem possible that anything drearier than this could
+happen. Margaret would not have dreamed it possible. But a little way
+farther down Lonesome Road waited something a great deal worse. It
+was waiting for Margaret behind the schoolhouse stone-wall. The very
+next day it jumped out upon her.
+
+Usually at recess Nell--the Enemy--and Margaret had gone wandering
+away together with their arms around each other's waist, as happy as
+anything. But for a week of recesses now they had gone wandering in
+opposite directions--the Enemy marching due east, Margaret due west.
+The stone-wall stretched away to the west. She had found a nice
+lonesome little place to huddle in, behind the wall, out of sight. It
+was just the place to be miserable in.
+
+"I know something!" from one of a little group of gossipers on the
+outside of the wall. "She needn't stick her chin out an' not come an'
+play with us. She's _nothing but an adopted!_"
+
+"Oh!--a what?" in awestruck chorus from the listeners. "Say it again,
+Rhody Sharp."
+
+"An adopted--that's all she is. I guess nobody but an adopted need to
+go trampin' past when we invite her to play with us! I guess we're
+good as she is an' better, too, so there!"
+
+Margaret in her hidden nook heard with a cold terror creeping over
+her and settling around her heart. It was so close now that she
+breathed with difficulty. If--supposing they meant--
+
+"Rhody Sharp, you're fibbing! I don't believe a single word you say!"
+sprang forth a champion valiantly. "She's dreadfully fond of her
+mother--just _dreadfully!_"
+
+"She doesn't know it," promptly returned Rhody Sharp, her voice
+stabbing poor Margaret's ear like a sharp little sword. "They're
+keeping it from her. My gran'mother doesn't believe they'd ought to.
+She says--"
+
+But nobody cared what Rhody Sharp's gran'mother said. A clatter of
+shocked little voices burst forth into excited, pitying discussion of
+the unfortunate who was nothing but an adopted. One of their own
+number! One they spelled with and multiplied with and said the
+capitals with every day! That they had invited to come and play with
+them--an' she'd stuck her chin out!
+
+"Why! Why, then she's a--orphan!" one voice exclaimed. "Really an'
+honest she is--an' she doesn't know it!"
+
+"Oh my, isn't it awful!" another voice. "Shouldn't you think she'd
+hide her head--I mean, if she knew?"
+
+It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist grass--a little
+heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on.
+
+"It's just like a disgrace, isn't it? Shouldn't you s'pose it would
+feel that way if 'twas you?"
+
+"Think o' kissin' your mother good-night an' it's not bein' your
+mother?"
+
+"Say, Rhody Sharp--all o' you--look here! Do you suppose that's why
+her mother--I mean she that _isn't_--dresses her in checked aperns?
+That's what orphans--"
+
+The shorn head dug deeper. A soft groan escaped Margaret's lips. This
+very minute, now while she crouched in the grass,--oh, if she put out
+her hands and felt she would feel the checks! She had been to an
+orph--to a place once with Moth--with _Her_ and seen the aprons
+herself. They were all--all checked.
+
+At home, folded in a beautiful pile, there were all the others. There
+was the pink-checked one and the brown-checked one and the prettiest
+one of all, the one with teenty little white checks marked off with
+buff. The one she should feel if she put out her hand was a
+blue-checked.
+
+Margaret drove her hands deep into the matted grass; she would not
+put them out. It was--it was terrible! Now she understood it all. She
+remembered--things. They crowded--with capital T's, Things,--up to
+her and pointed their fingers at her, and smiled dreadful smiles at
+her, and whispered to one another about her. They sat down on her and
+jounced up and down, till she gasped for breath.
+
+The teacher's bell rang crisply and the voices changed to scampering
+feet. But Margaret crouched on in the sweet, moist grass behind the
+wall. She stayed there a week--a month--a year,--or was it only till
+the night chill stole into her bones and she crept away home?
+
+[Illustration: She stayed there a week--a month--a year]
+
+She and Nell--she and the Enemy--had been so proud to have aprons
+just alike and cut by the same dainty pattern. But now if she
+knew--if the Enemy knew! How ashamed it would make her to have on one
+like--like an adopted's! How she'd wish hers was stripes!
+Perhaps--oh, perhaps she would think it was fortunate that she _was_
+an enemy now.
+
+But the worst Things that crowded up and scoffed and gibed were not
+Things that had to do with enemies. The worst-of-all Things had to do
+with a little, tender woman with glasses on--whose hair didn't curl.
+Those Things broke Margaret's heart.
+
+"Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it's
+wrinkly," gibed one Thing.
+
+"And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings," another
+Thing.
+
+"She doesn't make me do the biggest ones!" flashed Margaret, hotly,
+but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.
+
+"Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes--"
+
+"And won't let you eat two pieces of pie--"
+
+"Or one piece o' fruit-cake--"
+
+"Maybe you remember now the times she's said, 'This is no little
+daughter of mine'?"
+
+Margaret turned sharply. "That was only because I was naughty," she
+pleaded, strickenly, but she knew in her soul it wasn't "only
+because." She knew it was _because_. The terror within her was
+growing more terrible every moment.
+
+Then came shame. Like the evilest of the evil Things it had been
+lurking in the background waiting its turn,--it was its turn now.
+Margaret stood quite still, _ashamed_. She could not name the
+strange feeling, for she had never been ashamed before, but she sat
+there a piteous little figure in the grip of it. It was awful to be
+only nine and feel like that! To shrink from going home past Mrs.
+Streeter's and the minister's and the Enemy's!--oh, most of all past
+the Enemy's!--for fear they'd look out of the window and say, "There
+goes an adopted!" Perhaps they'd point their fingers.--Margaret
+closed her eyes dizzily and saw Mrs. Streeter's plump one and the
+minister's lean one and the Enemy's short brown one, all pointing.
+She could feel something burning her on her forehead,--it was
+"Adopted," branded there.
+
+The Enemy was worst. Margaret crept under the fence just before she
+got to the Enemy's house and went a weary, roundabout way home. She
+could not bear to have this dearest Enemy see her in her disgrace.
+
+Moth--She That had Been--would be wondering why Margaret was late. If
+she looked sober out of her eyes and said, "This can't be my little
+girl, can it?" then Margaret would _know for certain_. That would be
+the final proof.
+
+The chimney was in sight now,--now the roof,--now the kitchen door,
+and She That Had Been was in it! She was shading her eyes and looking
+for the little girl that wasn't hers. A sob rose in the little girl's
+throat, but she tramped steadily on. It did not occur to her to
+snatch off her hat and wave it, as little girls that belonged did.
+She had done it herself.
+
+The kitchen door was very near indeed now. It did not seem to be
+Margaret that was moving, but the kitchen door. It seemed to be
+coming to meet her and bringing with it a dear slender figure. She
+looked up and saw the soberness in its dear eyes.
+
+"This can't be my little girl, can--" but Margaret heard no more.
+With a muffled wail she fled past the slender figure, up-stairs, that
+she did not see at all, to her own little room. On the bed she lay
+and felt her heart break under her awful little checked apron. For
+now she knew for certain.
+
+Two darknesses shut down about her, and in the heart-break of one she
+forgot to be afraid of the other. She had always before been afraid
+of the night-dark and imagined creepy steps coming along the hall and
+into the door. The things she imagined now were dreadfuler than that.
+This new dark was so much darker!
+
+They thought she was asleep and let her lie there on her little bed
+alone. By-and-by would be time enough to probe gently for the
+childish trouble. Perhaps she would leave it behind her in her sleep.
+
+Out-of-doors suddenly a new sound rose shrill above the crickets and
+the frogs. It was the Enemy singing "Glory, glory, hallelujah." That
+was the last straw. Margaret writhed deeper into the pillows. She
+knew what the rest of it was--"Glory, glory, hallelujah, 'tisn't me!
+_My_ soul goes marching on!" She was out there singing that
+a-purpose!
+
+In her desperate need for some one to lay her trouble to, Margaret
+"laid it to" the Enemy. A sudden, bitter, unreasoning resentment took
+possession of her. If there hadn't been an Enemy, there wouldn't have
+been a trouble. Everything would have been beautiful and--and
+respectable, just as it was before. _She_ would have been out there
+singing "Glory, glory hallelujah," too.
+
+"She's to blame--I hate her!" came muffledly from the pillows. "Oh, I
+do!--I can't help it, I do! I'm always going to hate her forevermore!
+She needn't have--"
+
+Needn't have what? What had the little scape-goat out there in the
+twilight done? But Margaret was beyond reasoning now. "Mine enemy
+hath done it," was enough for her. If she lived a thousand years--if
+she lived _two_ thousand--she would never speak to the Enemy
+again,--never forgive her,--never put her into her prayer again among
+the God blesses.
+
+A plan formulated itself after a while in the dark little room. It
+was born of the travail of the child's soul. Something must be
+done--there was something she would do. She began it at once, huddled
+up against the window to catch the failing light. She would pin it to
+her pin-cushion where they would find it after--after she was gone.
+Did folks ever mourn for an Adopted? In her sore heart Margaret
+yearned to have them mourn.
+
+"I have found it out," she wrote with her trembling little
+fingers. "I don't suppose its wicked becaus I couldent help being one
+but it is orful. It breaks your hart to find youre one all of a
+suddin. If I had known before, I would have darned the big holes too.
+Ime going away becaus I canot bare living with folks I havent any
+right to. The stik pin this is pined on with is for Her That Wasent
+Ever my Mother for I love her still. When this you see remember me
+the rose is red the violet blue sugger is sweet and so are you.
+
+  "Margaret."
+
+She pinned it on tremblingly and then crept back to bed. Perhaps
+she went to sleep,--at any rate, quite suddenly there were voices at
+her door--_Her_ voice and--His. She did not stir, but lay and
+listened to them.
+
+"Dear child! Wouldn't you wake her up, Henry? What do you suppose
+could have happened?" That was the voice that used to be Mother's.
+It made Margaret feel thrilly and homesick.
+
+"Something at school, probably, dear,--you mustn't worry. All sorts
+of little troubles happen at school." The voice that used to be her
+Father's.
+
+"I know, but this must have been a big one. If you had seen her
+little face, Henry! If she were Nelly, I should think somebody had
+been telling her--about her origin, you know--"
+
+Margaret held her breath. Nelly was the Enemy, but what was an
+origin? This thing that they were saying--hark?
+
+"I've always expected Nelly to find out that way--it would be so much
+kinder to tell her at home. You know it would, Henry, instead of
+letting her hear it from strangers and get her poor little heart
+broken. Henry, if God hadn't given us a precious little child of our
+own and we had ever adopted--"
+
+Margaret dashed off the quilts and leaped to the floor with a cry of
+ecstasy. The anguish--the shame--the cruel gibing Things--were left
+behind her; they had slid from her burdened little heart at the first
+glorious rush of understanding; they would never come back,--never
+come back,--never come back to Margaret! Glory, glory, hallelujah,
+'twasn't her! _Her_ soul went marching on!
+
+The two at the door suffered an unexpected, an amazing onslaught from
+a flying little figure. Its arms were out, were gathering them both
+in,--were strangling them in wild, exultant hugs.
+
+"Oh! Oh, you're mine! I'm yours! We're each other's! I'm not an
+Adopted any more! I thought I was, and I wasn't! I was going away and
+die--oh, oh, oh!"
+
+Then Margaret remembered the Enemy, and in the throes of her pity the
+enmity was swallowed up forever. The instant yearning that welled up
+in her to put her arms around the poor real Adopted almost stifled
+her. She slid out of the two pairs of big tender arms and scurried
+away like a hare. She was going to find Nelly and love her--oh, love
+her enough to make up! She would give her the coral beads she had
+always admired; she would let her be mistress and _she'd_ be maid
+when they kept house,--she'd let her have the frosting half of all
+their cake and _all_ the raisins.
+
+"I'll let her wear the spangly veil when we dress up--oh, poor, poor
+Nelly!" Margaret cried softly as she ran. "And the longest trail.
+She may be the richest and have the most children--I'd _rather_."
+
+There did not seem anything possible and beloved that she would not
+let Nelly do. She took agitated little leaps through the soft
+darkness, sending on ahead her yearning love in a tender little call:
+"Nelly! Nelly!"
+
+She could never be too tender--too generous--to Nelly, to try to make
+up. And all her life she would take care of her and keep her from
+finding out. She shouldn't find out! When they were both, oh, very
+old, she would still be taking care of Nelly like that.
+
+"Nelly! Nelly!"
+
+If she could only think of some Great Thing she could do, that
+would--would _hurt_ to do! And then she thought. She stopped quite
+suddenly in her impetuous rush, stilled by the Greatness of it.
+
+"I'll let her love her mother the best," whispered Margaret to the
+stars,--"so there!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+Bobby Unwelcome
+
+
+Bobby had learned U that day in school, and he
+strutted home beside his nurse, Olga, with conscious relief in the
+swing of his sturdy legs. There was a special reason why Bobby felt
+relieved to get to U. He glanced up, up, up, sidewise, at the
+non-committal face so far above him, and wondered in his anxious
+little way whether or not it would be prudent to speak of the special
+reason now. Olga _had_ times, Bobby had discovered, when you dassent
+speak of things, and it looked--yes, cert'nly--as though she was
+having one now. Still, if you only dast to--
+
+"It's the same one that's in the middle o' my name, don't you know,"
+he plunged in, hurriedly.
+
+"Mercy! What iss it the child iss talking about!"
+
+There! wasn't she having one? Didn't she usually say "Mercy!" like
+that when she was?
+
+"That letter, you know--U. The one in the middle o' my name," Bobby
+hastened on--"right prezac'ly in the middle of it. I wish"--but he
+caught himself up with a jerk. It didn't seem best, after all, to
+consult Olga now--not now, while she was having one. Better
+wait--only, dear, dear, dear, how long he had waited a'ready!
+
+It had not occurred to Bobby to consult his mother. They two were not
+intimately acquainted, and naturally he felt shy.
+
+Bobby's mother was very young and beautiful. He had seen her dressed
+in a wondrous soft white dress once, with little specks of shiny
+things burning on her bare throat, and ever since he had known what
+angels look like.
+
+There were reasons enough why Bobby seldom saw his mother. The house
+was very big, and her room so far away from his;--that was one
+reason. Then he always went to bed, and got up, and ate his meals
+before she did.
+
+There was another reason why he and the beautiful young mother did
+not know each other very well, but even Olga had never explained that
+one. Bobby had that ahead of him to find out,--poor Bobby! Some one
+had called him Fire Face once at school, but the kind-hearted teacher
+had never let it happen again.
+
+At home, in the great empty house, the mirrors were all high up out
+of reach, and in the nursery there had never been any at all. Bobby
+had never looked at himself in a mirror. Of course he had seen
+himself up to his chin--dear, yes--and admired his own little
+straight legs often enough, and doubled up his little round arms to
+hunt for his "muscle." In a quiet, unobtrusive way Bobby was rather
+proud of himself. He had to be--there was no one else, you see. And
+even at six, when there is so little else to do, one can put in
+considerable time regarding one's legs and arms.
+
+"I guess you don't call _those_ bow-legged legs, do you, Olga?" he
+had exulted once, in an unguarded moment when he had been thinking of
+Cleggy Munro's legs at school. "I guess you call those pretty
+straight-up-'n'-down ones!" And the hard face of the old nurse had
+suddenly softened in a strange, pleasant way, and for the one only
+time that he could remember, Olga had taken Bobby in her arms and
+kissed him.
+
+"They're beautiful legs, that iss so," Olga had said, but she hadn't
+been looking at them when she said it. She had been looking straight
+into his face. The look hurt, too, Bobby remembered. He did not know
+what pity was, but it was that that hurt.
+
+The night after he learned U at school Bobby decided to hazard
+everything and ask Olga what the one in his name stood for. He could
+not put it off any longer.
+
+"Olga, what does the U in the middle o' my name stand for?" he broke
+out, suddenly, while he was being unbuttoned for bed. "I know it's a
+U, but I don't know a U-_what_. I've 'cided I won't go to bed till
+I've found out."
+
+Things had gone criss-cross. The old Norwegian woman was not in a
+good humor.
+
+"Unwelcome--that iss what it must stand for," she laughed
+unpleasantly.
+
+"Bobby Unwelcome!" Bobby laughed too. Then a piteous little
+suspicion crept into his mind and began to grow. He turned upon Olga
+sharply. "What does Unwelcome mean?" he demanded.
+
+"Eh? Iss it not enough plain to you? Well, not wanted--that iss what
+it means then."
+
+"Not wanted,--not wanted." Bobby repeated the words over and over to
+himself, not quite satisfied yet. They sounded bad--oh, very; but
+perhaps Olga had got them wrong. She was not a United States person.
+It would be easy for another kind of a person to get things wrong.
+Still--"not wanted"--they certainly sounded very plain. And they
+meant--Bobby gave a faint gasp, and suddenly his thoughts turned
+dizzily round and round one terrible pivot--"not wanted." He sprang
+away out of the nurse's hands and darted down the long, bright hall
+to his mother's room. She was being dressed for a ball, and the room
+was pitilessly light. She sat at a table with a little mirror before
+her. Suddenly another face appeared in it with hers--a little,
+scarred, red face, stamped deep with childish woe. The contrast
+appalled her.
+
+Bobby was not looking into the glass, but into her beautiful face.
+
+"Is that what it stands for?" he demanded, breathlessly. "She said
+so. Did she lie?"
+
+"Robert! For Heaven's sake, child, stand away! You are tearing my
+lace. What are you doing here? Why are you not in bed?"
+
+"Does it stand for _that?_" he persisted.
+
+"Does what stand for what? Look, you are crushing my dress. Stand
+farther off. Don't you see, child?"
+
+"She said the U in the middle o' my name stood for Not Wanted. Does
+it? Tell me quick. Does it?"
+
+The contrast of the two faces in her mirror hurt her like a blow. It
+brought back all the disappointment and the wounded vanity of that
+time, six years ago, when they had shown her the tiny, disfigured
+face of her son.
+
+"No, it wasn't that. I morember now. It was Unwelcome, but it _means_
+that. Is the middle o' my name Unwelcome--what?"
+
+"Oh yes, yes, yes!" she cried, scarcely knowing what she said. The
+boy's eyes followed hers to the mirror, and in that brief, awful
+space he tasted of the Tree of Knowledge.
+
+With a little cry he stumbled backward into the lighted hall. There
+was a slip, and the sound of a soft little body bounding down the
+polished stairs.
+
+A good while afterwards Bobby opened his eyes wonderingly. There
+seemed to be people near him, but he could not see them at all
+distinctly. A faint, wonderful perfume crept to him.
+
+"It's very dark, isn't it?" he said, in surprise. "I can smell a
+beautiful smell, but I can't see it. Why, why! It isn't you, is
+it?--not my mother? Why, I wasn't 'specting to find-- Oh, I morember
+it now--I morember it all! Then I'm glad it's dark. I shouldn't want
+it to be as light as _that_ again. Oh no! oh no! I shouldn't want her
+to see-- Why, she's crying! What is she crying for?"
+
+He put out a small weak hand and groped towards the sound of bitter
+sobbing. Instinctively he knew it was she.
+
+"I'm very sorry. I guess I know what the matter is. It's me, and I'm
+very sorry. I never knew it before; no, I never. I'm glad it's dark
+now--aren't you?--'count o' that. Only I'm a little speck sorry it
+isn't light enough for you to see my legs. They're very straight
+ones--you can ask Olga. You might feel of 'em if you thought 'twould
+help any to. P'r'aps it might make you feel a very little--just a
+_very_ little--better to. They're cert'nly very straight ones. But
+then of course they aren't like a--like a--a _face_. They're only
+legs. But they're the best I can do."
+
+He ended wearily, with a sigh of pain. The bitter sobbing kept on,
+and seemed to trouble him. Then a new idea occurred to him, and he
+made a painful effort to turn on his pillow and to speak brightly.
+
+"I didn't think of that-- P'r'aps you think I'm feeling bad 'count o'
+the U in the middle o' my name. Is that what makes you cry? Why, you
+needn't. _That's_ all right! After--after I looked in _there_, of
+course I knew 'bout how it was. I wish you wouldn't cry. It joggles
+my--my heart."
+
+But it was his little broken body that it joggled. The mother found
+it out, and stopped sobbing by a mighty effort. She drew very close
+to Bobby in the dark that was light to every one else, and laid her
+wet cheek against the little, scarred, red face. The motion was so
+gentle that it scarcely stirred the yellow tendrils of his soft hair.
+An infinite tenderness was born out of her anguish. There was left
+her a merciful moment to be a mother in. Bobby forgot his pain in the
+bliss of it.
+
+"Why, why, this is very nice!" he murmured, happily. "I never knew
+it would be as nice as this--I never knew! But I'm glad it's
+dark,--aren't you? I'd rather it would--be----dark."
+
+And then it grew altogether dark for Bobby, and the little face
+against the new-born, heart-broken mother's cheek felt cold, and
+would not warm with all her passionate kisses.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Little Girl Who Should Have Been a Boy
+
+
+There was so much time for the Little Girl who should have been a
+Boy to ponder over it. She was only seven, but she grew quite skilful
+in pondering. After lessons--and lessons were over at eleven--there
+was the whole of the rest of the day to wander, in her little,
+desolate way, in the gardens. She liked the fruit-garden best, and
+the Golden Pippin tree was her choicest pondering-place. There was
+never any one there with her. The Little Girl who should have been a
+Boy was always alone.
+
+"You see how it is. I've told you times enough," she communed with
+herself, in her quaint, unchildish fashion. "You are a mistake. You
+went and was born a Girl, when they wanted a Boy--oh, my, how they
+wanted a Boy! But the moment they saw you they knew it was all up
+with them. You wasn't wicked, really,--I _guess_ it wasn't wicked;
+sometimes I can't be certain,--but you did go and make such a silly
+mistake! Look at me,--why didn't you know how much they wanted a Boy
+and _didn't_ want you? Why didn't you be brave and go up to the Head
+Angel, and say, 'Send me to another place; for pity sake don't send
+me _there_. They want a Little Boy.' Why didn't you--oh, why didn't
+you? It would have saved such a lot of trouble!"
+
+The Little Girl who should have been a Boy always sighed at that
+point. The sigh made a period to the sad little speech, for after
+that she always sat in the long grass under the Golden Pippin tree
+and rocked herself back and forth silently. There was no use in
+saying anything more after that. It had all been said.
+
+It was a great, beautiful estate, to east and west and north and
+south of her, and the Boy the Head Angel should have sent instead of
+the sad Little Girl was to have inherited it all. And there was a
+splendid title that went with the estate. In the sharp mind of the
+Little Girl nothing was hidden or undiscovered.
+
+"It seems a pity to have it wasted," she mused, wistfully, with her
+grave wide eyes on the beautiful green expanses all about her, "just
+for a mistake like that,--I mean like _me_--too. You'd think the Head
+Angel would be ashamed of himself, wouldn't you? He prob'ly is."
+
+The Shining Mother--it was thus the Little Girl who should have been
+a Boy had named her, on account of her sparkling eyes and wonderful
+sparkling gowns; everything about the Shining Mother sparkled--the
+Shining Mother was almost always away. So was the Ogre. Somewhere
+outside--clear outside--of the green expanses there was a gay,
+frivolous world where almost always they two stayed.
+
+The Little Girl called her father the Ogre for want of a better name.
+She was never quite satisfied with the name, but it had to answer
+till she found another. Prob'ly ogres didn't wear an eye-glass in one
+of their eyes, or flip off the sweet little daisy heads with cruel
+canes, but they were oldish and scare-ish, and of course they
+wouldn't have noticed you any, even if you were their Little Girl.
+Ogres would have prob'ly wanted a Boy too, and that's the way they'd
+have let you see your mistake. So, till she found a better name, the
+Little Girl who had made the mistake called her father the Ogre. She
+was very proud and fond of the Shining Mother, but she was a little
+afraid of the Ogre. After all, one feeling mattered about as much as
+the other.
+
+"It doesn't hurt you any to be afraid, when you do it all alone by
+yourself," she reasoned, "and it doesn't do you any good to be fond.
+It only amuses you," she added, with sad wisdom. As I said, she was
+only seven, but she was very old indeed.
+
+So the time went along until the weeks piled up into months. The
+summer she was eight, the Little Girl could not stand it any longer.
+She decided that something must be done. The Shining Mother and the
+Ogre were coming back to the green expanses. She had found that out
+at lessons.
+
+"And then they will have it all to go over again--all the
+miser'bleness of my not being a Boy," the Little Girl thought, sadly.
+"And I don't know whether they can stand it or not, but _I_ can't."
+
+A wave of infinite longing had swept over the shy, sensitive soul of
+the Little Girl who should have been a Boy. One of two things must
+happen--she must be loved, or die. So, being desperate, she resolved
+to chance everything. It was under the Golden Pippin tree, rocking
+herself back and forth in the long grass, that she made her plans.
+Straight on the heels of them she went to the gardener's little boy.
+
+"Lend me--no, I mean give me--your best clothes," she said, with
+gentle imperiousness. It was not a time to waste words. At best, the
+time that was left to practise in was limited enough.
+
+"Your _best_ clothes," she had said, realizing distinctly that
+fustian and corduroy would not do. She was even a little doubtful of
+the best clothes. The gardener's little boy, once his mouth had shut
+and his legs come back to their locomotion, brought them at once. If
+there was a suspicion of alacrity in his obedience towards the last,
+it escaped the thoughtful eyes of the Little Girl. Having always been
+a mistake, nothing more, how could she know that a boy's best clothes
+are not always his dearest possession? Now if it had been the
+threadbare, roomy, easy little fustians, with their precious
+pocket-loads, that she had demanded!
+
+There were six days left to practise in--only six. How the Little
+Girl practised! It was always quite alone by herself. She did it in a
+sensible, orderly way,--the leaps and strides first, whoops next,
+whistle last. The gardener's little boy's best clothes she kept
+hidden in the long grass, under the Golden Pippin tree, and on the
+fourth day she put them on. Oh, the agony of the fourth day! She came
+out of that practice period a wan, white, worn little thing that
+should _never_ have been a Boy.
+
+For it was heart-breaking work. Every instinct of the Little Girl's
+rebelled against it. It was terrible to leap and whoop and whistle;
+her very soul revolted. But it was life or death to her, and always
+she persevered.
+
+In those days lessons scarcely paid. They were only a pitiful
+makeshift. The Little Girl lived only in her terrible practice hours.
+She could not eat or sleep. She grew thin and weak.
+
+"I don't look like me at all," she told herself, on a chair before
+her mirror. "But that isn't the worst of it. I don't look like the
+Boy, either. Ugh! how I look! I wonder if the Angel would know me? It
+would be kind of dreadful not to have _anybody_ know you. Well, you
+won't be _you_ when you're the Boy, so prob'ly it won't matter."
+
+On the sixth day--the last thing--she cut her hair off. She did it
+with her eyes shut to give herself courage, but the snips of the
+shears broke her heart. The Little Girl had always loved her soft,
+shining hair. It had been like a beautiful thing apart from her, that
+she could caress and pet. She had made an idol of it, having nothing
+else to love.
+
+When it was all shorn off she crept out of the room without opening
+her eyes. After that the gardener's little boy's best clothes came
+easier to her, she found. And she could whoop and leap and whistle a
+little better. It was almost as if she had really made herself the
+Boy she should have been.
+
+Then the Shining Mother came, and the Ogre. The Little Girl--I mean
+the Boy--was waiting for them, swinging her--his--feet from a high
+branch of the Golden Pippin tree. He was whistling.
+
+"But I think I am going to die," he thought, behind the whistle. "I'm
+certain I am. I feel it coming on."
+
+Of course, after a little, there was a hunt everywhere for the Little
+Girl. Even little girls cannot slip out of existence like that,
+undiscovered. The beautiful green expanses were hunted over and over,
+but only a gardener's little boy in his best clothes, whistling
+faintly, was found. He fell out of the Golden Pippin tree as the
+field-servants went by, and they stopped to carry his limp little
+figure to the gardener's lodge. Then the hunt went forward again. The
+Shining Mother grew faint and sick with fear, and the Ogre strode
+about like one demented. It was hardly what was to be expected of the
+Shining Mother and the Ogre.
+
+Towards night the mystery was partly solved. It was the Shining
+Mother who found the connecting threads. She found the little, jagged
+locks of soft, sweet hair. The Ogre came upon her sitting on the
+floor among them, and the whiteness of her face terrified him.
+
+"I know--you need not tell me what has happened!" she said, scarcely
+above a whisper, as if in the presence of the dead. "A door in me has
+opened, and I see it all--_all_, I tell you! We have never had
+her,--and now, dear God in heaven, we have lost her!"
+
+It was very nearly so. They could hardly know then how near it came
+to being true. Link by link they came upon the little chain of
+pitiful proofs. They found all the little, sweet, white girl-clothes
+folded neatly by themselves and laid in a pile together, as if on an
+altar for sacrifice. If the Little Girl had written "Good-bye" in her
+childish scrawl upon them, the Shining Mother would not have better
+understood. So many things she was seeing beyond that open door.
+
+They found the Little Girl's dolls laid out like little, white-draped
+corpses in one of her bureau-drawers. The row of stolid little faces
+gazed up at them with the mystery of the Sphinx in all their
+glittering eyes. It was the Shining Mother who shut the drawer, but
+first she kissed the faces.
+
+After all, the Ogre discovered the last little link of the chain. He
+brought it home in his arms from the gardener's lodge, and laid it on
+the Little Girl's white bed. It was very still and pitiful and small.
+The took the gardener's little boy's best clothes off from it and put
+on the soft white night-gown of the Little Girl. Then, one on one
+side and one on the other, they kept their long hard vigil.
+
+It was night when the Little Girl opened her eyes, and the first
+thing they saw was the chairful of little girl-clothes the Shining
+Mother had set beside the bed. Then they saw the Shining Mother.
+Things came back to the Little Girl by slow degrees. But the look in
+the Shining Mother's face--that did not come back. That had never
+been there before. The Little Girl, in her wise, old way, understood
+that look, and gasped weakly with the joy and wonder of it. Oh, the
+joy! Oh, the wonder!
+
+"But I tried to be one," she whispered after a while, a little
+bewildered still. "I should have done it, if I hadn't died. I
+couldn't help that; I felt it coming on. Prob'ly, though, I shouldn't
+have made a very good one."
+
+The Shining Mother bent over and took the Little Girl in her arms.
+
+"Dear," she whispered, "it was the Boy that died. I am glad he died."
+
+So, though the Ogre and the Shining Mother had not found their Boy,
+the Little Girl had found a father and mother.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+The Lie
+
+
+The Lie went up to bed with him. Russy didn't want it to, but it
+crept in through the key-hole,--it must have been the key-hole, for
+the door was shut the minute Metta's skirt had whisked through. But
+one thing Russy had to be thankful for,--Metta didn't know it was
+there in the room. As far as that went, it was a kind-hearted Lie.
+But after Metta went away,--after she had put out the light and said
+"Pleasant dreams, Master Russy, an' be sure an' don't roll
+out,"--_after that!_
+
+Russy snuggled deep down in the pillows and said he would go right to
+sleep; oh, right straight! He always had before. It made you forget
+the light was out, and there were queer, creaky night-noises all
+round your bed,--under it some of 'em; over by the bureau some of
+'em; and some of 'em coming creepy, cree-py up the stairs. You dug
+your head deep down in the pillows, and the next thing you knew you
+were asleep,--no, awake, and the noises were beautiful day-ones that
+you liked. You heard roosters crowing, and Mr. Vandervoort's cows
+calling for breakfast, and, likely as not, some mother-birds singing
+duets with their husbands. Oh yes, it was a good deal the best way to
+do, to go right straight to sleep when Metta put the light out.
+
+But to-night it was different, for the Lie was there. You couldn't go
+to sleep with a Lie in the room. It was worse than creepy, creaky
+noises,--mercy, yes! You'd swap it for those quick enough and not ask
+a single bit of "boot." You almost _wanted_ to hear the noises.
+
+[Illustration: It was worse than creepy, creaky noises]
+
+It came across the room. There was no sound, but Russy knew it was
+coming well enough. He knew when it got up close to the side of the
+bed. Then it stopped and began to speak. It wasn't "out loud" and it
+wasn't a whisper, but Russy heard it.
+
+"Move over; I'm coming into bed with you," the Lie said. "I hope you
+don't think I'm going to sit up all night. Besides, I'm always scared
+in the dark,--it runs in my family. The Lies are always afraid.
+They're not good sleepers, either, so let's talk. You begin--or shall
+I?"
+
+"You," moaned Russy.
+
+"Well, I say, this is great, isn't it! I like this house. I stayed at
+Barney Toole's last night and it doesn't begin with this. Barney's
+folks are poor, and there aren't any curtains or carpets or
+anything,--nor pillows on the bed. I never slept a wink at Barney's.
+I'm hoping I shall drop off here, after a while. It's a new place,
+and I'm more likely to in new places. You never slept with one o' my
+family before, did you?"
+
+"No," Russy groaned. "Oh no, I never before!"
+
+"That's what I thought. I should have been likely to hear of it if
+you had. I was a little surprised,--I say, what made you have
+anything to do with me. I was never more surprised in my life! They'd
+always said: 'Well, you'll never get acquainted with that Russy Rand.
+He's another kind.' Then you went and shook hands with me!"
+
+"I had to." Russy sat up in bed and stiffened himself for
+self-defence. "I had to! When Jeffy Vandervoort said that about
+_Her_,--well, I guess you'd have had to if they said things about
+your _mother_--"
+
+"I never had one. The Lies have a Father, that's all. Go ahead."
+
+"There isn't anything else,--I just _had_ to."
+
+"Tell what you said and what _he_ said. Go ahead."
+
+"You know all about--"
+
+"Go ahead!"
+
+Russy rocked himself back and forth in his agony. It was dreadful to
+have to say it all over again.
+
+"Well, then," doggedly, "Jeffy said _my_ mother never did, but his
+did--oh, always!"
+
+"Did what--oh, always?"
+
+Russy clinched his little round fingers till the bones cracked under
+the soft flesh.
+
+"Kissed him good-night--went up to his room a-purpose to,
+an'--an'--tucked him in. Oh, always, he said. He said _mine_ never
+did. An' I said--"
+
+"You said--go ahead!"
+
+"I said she did, too,--oh--always," breathed Russy in the awful dark.
+"I had to. When it's your mother, you have to--"
+
+"I never had one, I told you! How do I know? Go on."
+
+He was driven on relentlessly. He had it all to go through with, and
+he whispered the rest hurriedly to get it done.
+
+"I said she tucked me in,--came up a-purpose to,--an' always kissed
+me _twice_ (his only does once), an' always--called me--Dear." Russy
+fell back in a heap on the pillows and sobbed into them.
+
+"My badness!"--anybody but a Lie would have said "my goodness,"--"but
+you did do it up brown that time, didn't you! But I don't suppose he
+believed a word of it--you didn't make him believe you, did you?"
+
+"He had to," cried out Russy, fiercely. "He said I'd never lied to
+him in my life--"
+
+"Before;--yes, I know."
+
+Russy slipped out of bed and padded over the thick carpet towards the
+place where the window-seat was in the daytime. But it wasn't there.
+He put out his hands and hunted desperately for it. Yes, there,--no,
+that was sharp and hard and hurt you. That must be the edge of the
+bureau. He tried again, for he must find it,--he must! He would not
+stay in bed with that Lie another minute. It crowded him,--it
+tortured him so.
+
+"This is it," thought Russy, and sank down gratefully on the
+cushions. His bare feet scarcely touched toe-tips to the floor. Here
+he would stay all night. This was better than--
+
+"I'm coming,--which way are you? Can't you speak up?"
+
+The Lie was coming, too! Suddenly an awful thought flashed across
+Russy's little, weary brain. What if the Lie would _always_ come,
+too? What if he could never get away from it? What if it slept with
+him, walked with him, talked with him, _lived_ with him,--oh, always!
+
+But Russy stiffened again with dogged courage. "I had to!" he
+thought. "I had to,--I had to,--I had to! When he said things about
+_Her_,--when it's your mother,--you have to."
+
+A great time went by, measureless by clock-ticks and aching little
+heart-beats. It seemed to be weeks and months to Russy. Then he began
+to feel a slow relief creeping over his misery, and he said to
+himself the Lie must have "dropped off." There was not a sound of it
+in the room. It grew so still and beautiful that Russy laughed to
+himself in his relief. He wanted to leap to his feet and dance about
+the room, but he thought of the sharp corners and hard edges of
+things in time. Instead, he nestled among the cushions of the
+window-seat and laughed on softly. Perhaps it was all over,--perhaps
+it wasn't asleep, but had gone away--to Barney Toole's, perhaps,
+where they regularly "put up" Lies,--and would never come back! Russy
+gasped for joy. Perhaps when you'd never shaken hands with a Lie but
+once in your life, and that time you _had_ to, and you'd borne it,
+anyway, for what seemed like weeks and months,--perhaps then they
+went away and left you in peace! Perhaps you'd had punishment enough
+then.
+
+Very late Russy's mother came up-stairs. She was very tired, and her
+pretty young face in the frame of soft down about her opera-cloak
+looked a little cross. Russy's father plodded behind more heavily.
+
+"The boy's room, Ellen?--just this once?" he pleaded in her ear. "It
+will take but a minute."
+
+"I am so tired, Carter! Well, if I must-- Why, he isn't in the bed!"
+
+The light from the hall streamed in, showing it tumbled and tossed as
+if two had slept in it. But no one was in it now. The mother's little
+cry of surprise sharpened to anxiety.
+
+"Where is he, Carter? Why don't you speak? He isn't here in bed, I
+tell you! Russy isn't here!"
+
+"He has rolled out,--no, he hasn't rolled out. I'll light up--there
+he is, Ellen! There's the little chap on the window-seat!"
+
+"And the window is open!" she cried, sharply. She darted across to
+the little figure and gathered it up into her arms. She had never
+been frightened about Russy before. Perhaps it was the fright that
+brought her to her own.
+
+"He is cold,--his little night-dress is damp!" she said. Then her
+kisses rained down on the little, sleeping face. In his sleep, Russy
+felt them, but he thought it was Jeffy's mother kissing Jeffy.
+
+"It feels good, doesn't it?" he murmured. "I don't wonder Jeffy
+likes it! If my mother kissed _me_-- I told Jeffy she did! It was a
+Lie, but I had to. You have to, when they say things like that about
+your _mother_. You have to say she kisses you--oh, always! She comes
+'way up-stairs every night a-purpose to. An' she tucks you in, an'
+she calls you--_Dear_. It's a Lie an' it 'most kills you, but you
+have to say it. But it's perfectly awful afterwards." He nestled
+against the soft down of her cloak and moaned as if in pain. "It's
+awful afterwards when you have to sleep with the Lie. It's
+perfectly--aw--ful--"
+
+"Oh, Carter!" the mother broke out, for it was all plain to her. In a
+flash of agonized understanding the wistful little sleep-story was
+filled out in every detail. She understood all the tragedy of it.
+
+"Russy! Russy!" She shook him in her eagerness. "Russy, it's my
+kisses! _I'm_ kissing you! It isn't Jeffy's mother,--it's your
+mother, Russy! Feel them!--don't you feel them on your forehead and
+your hair and your little red lips? It's your mother kissing _you!_"
+
+Russy opened his eyes.
+
+"Why! Why, so it is!" he said.
+
+"And calling you 'Dear,' Russy! Don't you hear her? Dear boy,--_dear_
+little boy! You hear her, don't you, Russy--dear?"
+
+"Why, yes!--_why!_"
+
+"And tucking you into bed--like this,--_so!_ She's tucking in the
+blanket now,--and now the little quilt, Russy! That is what mothers
+are for--I never thought before--oh, I never thought!" She dropped
+her face beside his on the pillow and fell to kissing him again. He
+held his face quite still for the sweet, strange baptism. Then
+suddenly he laughed out happily, wildly.
+
+"Then it isn't a Lie!" he cried, in a delirium of relief and joy.
+"It's true!"
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+The Princess of Make-Believe
+
+
+The Princess was washing dishes. On her feet she would barely have
+reached the rim of the great dish-pan, but on the soap-box she did
+very well. A grimy calico apron trailed to the floor.
+
+"Now this golden platter I must wash _extry_ clean," the Princess
+said. "The Queen is ve-ry particular about her golden platters. Last
+time, when I left one o' the corners--it's such a nextremely heavy
+platter to hold--she gave me a scold--oh, I mean--I mean she tapped
+me a little love pat on my cheek with her golden spoon."
+
+It was a great, brown-veined, stoneware platter, and the arms of the
+Princess ached with holding it. Then, in an unwary instant, it
+slipped out of her soapsudsy little fingers and crashed to the floor.
+Oh! oh! the Queen! the Queen! She was coming! The Princess heard her
+shrill, angry voice, and felt the jar of her heavy steps. There was
+the space of an instant--an instant is so short!--before the storm
+broke.
+
+"You little limb o' Satan! That's my best platter, is it? Broke all
+to bits, eh? I'll break--" But there was a flurry of dingy apron and
+dingier petticoats, and the little Princess had fled. She did not
+stop till she was in her Secret Place among the willows. Her small
+lean face was pale but undaunted.
+
+"Th-the Queen isn't feeling very well to-day," she panted. "It's
+wash-day up at the Castle. She never enjoys herself on wash-days. And
+then that golden platter--I'm sorry I smashed it all to flinders!
+When the Prince comes I shall ask him to buy another."
+
+The Prince had never come, but the Princess waited for him patiently.
+She sat with her face to the west and looked for him to come through
+the willows with the red sunset light filtering across his hair. That
+was the way the Prince was coming, though the time was not set. It
+might be a good while before he came, and then again--you never could
+tell!
+
+"But when he does, and we've had a little while to get acquainted,
+then I shall say to him, 'Hear, O Prince, and give ear to my--my
+petition! For verily, verily, I have broken many golden platters and
+jasper cups and saucers, and the Queen, long live her! is
+sore--sore--'"
+
+The Princess pondered for the forgotten word. She put up a little
+lean brown hand and rubbed a tingling spot on her temple--ah, not the
+Queen! It was the Princess--long live her!--who was "sore."
+
+"'I beseech thee, O Prince,' I shall say, 'buy new golden platters
+and jasper cups and saucers for the Queen, and then shall I verily,
+verily be--be--'"
+
+Oh, the long words--how they slipped out of reach! The little
+Princess sighed rather wearily. She would have to rehearse that
+speech so many times before the Prince came. Suppose he came
+to-night! Suppose she looked up now, this minute, towards the golden
+west and he was there, swinging along through the willow canes
+towards her!
+
+But there was no one swinging along through the willows. The yellow
+light flickered through--that was all. Somewhere, a long way off,
+sounded the monotonous hum of men's voices. Through the lace-work of
+willow twigs there showed the faintest possible blur of color. Down
+beyond, in the clearing, the Castle Guards in blue jean blouses were
+pulling stumps. The Princess could not see their dull, passionless
+faces, and she was glad of it. The Castle Guards depressed her. But
+they were not as bad as the Castle Guardesses. _They_ were mostly old
+women with bleared, dim eyes, and they wore such faded--silks.
+
+"_My_ silk dress is rather faded," murmured the little Princess
+wistfully. She smoothed down the scant calico skirt with her brown
+little fingers. The patch in it she would not see.
+
+"I shall have to have the Royal Dress-maker make me another one soon.
+Let me see,--what color shall I choose? I'd _like_ my gold-colored
+velvet made up. I'm tired of wearing royal purple dresses all the
+time, though of course I know they're appropriater. I wonder what
+color the Prince would like best? I should rather choose that color."
+
+The Princess's little brown hands were clasped about one knee, and
+she was rocking herself slowly back and forth, her eyes, wistful and
+wide, on the path the Prince would come. She was tired to-day and it
+was harder to wait.
+
+"But when he comes I shall say, 'Hear, O Prince. Verily, verily, I
+did not know which color you would like to find me dressed--I mean
+arrayed--in, and so I beseech thee excuse--_pardon_, I mean--mine
+infirmity.'"
+
+The Princess was not sure of "infirmity," but it sounded well. She
+could not think of a better word.
+
+"And then--I _think_ then--he will take me in his arms, and his face
+will be all sweet and splendid like the Mother o' God's in the
+picture, and he will whisper,--I don't think he will say it out
+loud,--oh, I'd rather not!--'Verily, Princess,' he will whisper, 'Oh,
+verily, _verily_, thou hast found favor in my sight!' And that will
+mean that he doesn't care what color I am, for he--loves--me."
+
+Lower and lower sank the solemn voice of the Princess. Slower and
+slower rocked the little, lean body. The birds themselves stopped
+singing at the end. In the Secret Place it was very still.
+
+"Oh no, no, no,--not _verily!_" breathed the Princess, in soft awe.
+For the wonder of it took her breath away. She had never in her life
+been loved, and now, at this moment, it seemed so near! She thought
+she heard the footsteps of the Prince.
+
+They came nearer. The crisp twigs snapped under his feet. He was
+whistling.
+
+"Oh, I can't look!--I can't!" gasped the little Princess, but she
+turned her face to the west,--she had always known it would be from
+the west, and lifted closed eyes to his coming. When he got to the
+Twisted Willow she might dare to look,--to the Little Willow Twins,
+anyway.
+
+"And I shall know when he does," she thought. "I shall know the
+minute!"
+
+Her face was rapt and tender. The miracle she had made for
+herself,--the gold she had coined out of her piteous alloy,--was it
+not come true at last?--Verily, verily?
+
+Hush! Was the Prince not coming through the willows? And the sunshine
+was trickling down on his hair! The Princess knew, though she did not
+look.
+
+"He is at the Twisted Willow," she thought. "_Now_ he is at the
+Little Willow Twins." But she did not open her eyes. She did not
+dare. This was a little different, she had never counted on being
+afraid.
+
+The twigs snapped louder and nearer--now very near. The merry whistle
+grew clearer, and then it stopped.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+Did princes say "hullo!" The Princess had little time to wonder, for
+he was there before her. She could feel his presence in every fibre
+of her trembling little being, though she would not open her eyes for
+very fear that it might be somebody else. No, no, it was the Prince!
+It was his voice, clear and ringing, as she had known it would be.
+She put up her hands suddenly and covered her eyes with them to make
+surer. It was not fear now, but a device to put off a little longer
+the delight of seeing him.
+
+"I say, hullo! Haven't you got any tongue?"
+
+"Oh, verily, verily,--I mean hear, O Prince, I beseech," she panted.
+The boy's merry eyes regarded the shabby small person in puzzled
+astonishment. He felt an impulse to laugh and run away, but his royal
+blood forbade either. So he waited.
+
+"You are the Prince," the little Princess cried. "I've been waiting
+the longest time,--but I knew you'd come," she added, simply. "Have
+you got your velvet an' gold buckles on? I'm goin' to look in a
+minute, but I'm waiting to make it spend."
+
+The Prince whistled softly. "No," he said then, "I didn't wear _them_
+clo'es to-day. You see, my mother--"
+
+"The Queen," she interrupted, "you mean the Queen?"
+
+"You bet I do! She's a reg'lar-builter! Well, she don't like to have
+me wearin' out my best clo'es every day," he said, gravely.
+
+"No," eagerly, "nor mine don't. Queen, I mean,--but she isn't a
+mother, mercy, no! I only wear silk dresses every day, not my velvet
+ones. This silk one is getting a little faded." She released one
+hand to smooth the dress wistfully. Then she remembered her painfully
+practised little speech and launched into it hurriedly.
+
+"Hear, O Prince. Verily, verily, I did not know which color you'd
+like to find me dressed in--I mean _arrayed_. I beseech thee to
+excuse--oh, _pardon_, I mean--"
+
+But she got no further. She could endure the delay no longer, and her
+eyes flew open.
+
+She had known his step; she had known his voice. She knew his face.
+It was terribly freckled, and she had not expected freckles on the
+face of the Prince. But the merry, honest eyes were the Prince's
+eyes. Her gaze wandered downward to the home-made clothes and bare,
+brown legs, but without uneasiness. The Prince had explained about
+his clothes. Suddenly, with a shy, glad little cry, the Princess held
+out her hands to him.
+
+The royal blood flooded the face of the Prince and filled in all the
+spaces between its little, gold-brown freckles. But the Prince held
+out his hand to her. His lips formed for words and she thought he was
+going to say, "Verily, Princess, thou hast found favor--"
+
+"Le' 's go fishin'," the Prince said.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+The Promise
+
+
+Murray was not as one without hope, for there was
+the Promise. The remembrance of it set him now to exulting, in an
+odd, restrained little way, where a moment ago he had been
+desponding. He clasped plump, brown little hands around a plump,
+brown little knee and swayed gently this way and that.
+
+"Maybe she'll begin with my shoes," Murray thought, and held his foot
+quite still. He could almost feel light fingers unlacing the stubbed
+little shoe; Sheelah's fingers were rather heavy and not patient with
+knots. Hers would be patient--there are some things one is certain
+of.
+
+"When she unbuttons me," Murray mused on, sitting absolutely
+motionless, as if she were unbuttoning him now--"when she unbuttons
+me I shall hold in my breath--this way," though he could hardly have
+explained why.
+
+She had never unlaced or unbuttoned him. Always, since he was a
+little, breathing soul, it had been Sheelah. It had never occurred to
+him that he loved Sheelah, but he was used to her. All the mothering
+he had ever experienced had been the Sheelah kind--thorough enough,
+but lacking something; Murray was conscious that it lacked something.
+Perhaps--perhaps to-night he should find out what. For to-night not
+Sheelah, but his mother, was going to undress him and put him to bed.
+She had promised.
+
+It had come about through his unprecedented wail of grief at parting,
+when she had gone into the nursery to say good-bye, in her light,
+sweet way. Perhaps it was because she was to be gone all day; perhaps
+he was a little lonelier than usual. He was always rather a lonely
+little boy, but there were _worse_ times; perhaps this had been a
+worse time. Whatever had been the reason that prompted him, he had
+with disquieting suddenness, before Sheelah could prevent it, flung
+his arms about the pretty mother and made audible objection to her
+going.
+
+"Why, Murray!" She had been taken by surprise. "Why, you little
+silly! I'm coming back to-night; I'm only going for the day! You
+wouldn't see much more of me if I stayed at home." Which, from its
+very reasonableness, had quieted him. Of course he would not see much
+more of her. As suddenly as he had wailed he stopped wailing. Yet she
+had promised. Something had sent her back to the nursery door to do
+it.
+
+"Be a good boy and I'll come home before you go to bed! I'll _put_
+you to bed," she had promised. "We'll have a regular lark!"
+
+Hence he was out here on the door-step being a good boy. That Sheelah
+had taken unfair advantage of the Promise and made the being good
+rather a perilous undertaking, he did not appreciate. He only knew he
+must walk a narrow path across a long, lonely day.
+
+There were certain things--one especial certain thing--he wanted to
+know, but instinct warned him not to interrupt Sheelah till her work
+was done, or she might call it not being good. So he waited, and
+while he waited he found out the special thing. An unexpected
+providence sent enlightenment his way, to sit down beside him on the
+door-step. Its other name was Daisy.
+
+"Hullo, Murray! Is it you?" Daisy, being of the right sex, asked
+needless questions sometimes.
+
+"Yes," answered Murray, politely.
+
+"Well, le's play. I can stay half a hour. Le's tag."
+
+"I can't play," rejoined Murray, caution restraining his natural
+desires. "I'm being good."
+
+[Illustration: I can't play ... I'm being good]
+
+"Oh, my!" shrilled the girl child derisively. "Can't you be good
+tagging? Come on."
+
+"No; because you might--_I_ might get no-fairing, and then Sheelah'd
+come out and say I was bad. Le's sit here and talk; it's safer to.
+What's a lark, Daisy? I was going to ask Sheelah."
+
+"A--lark? Why, it's a bird, of course!"
+
+"I don't mean the bird kind, but the kind you have when your mother
+puts you--when something splendid happens. That kind, I mean."
+
+Daisy pondered. Her acquaintance with larks was limited, unless it
+meant--
+
+"Do you mean a good time?" she asked. "We have larks over to my house
+when we go to bed--"
+
+"That's it! That's the kind!" shouted delighted Murray. "I'm going to
+have one when I go to bed. Do you have _reg'lar_ ones, Daisy?" with a
+secret little hope that she didn't. "_I'm_ going to have a reg'lar
+one."
+
+"Huh!--chase all 'round the room an' turn somersaults an' be highway
+robberers? An' take the hair-pins out o' your mother's hair an'
+_hide_ in it--what?"
+
+Murray gasped a little at the picture of that kind of a lark. It was
+difficult to imagine himself chasing 'round the room or being a
+highwayman; and as for somersaults--he glanced uneasily over his
+shoulder, as if Sheelah might be looking and read "somersaults"
+through the back of his head. For once he had almost turned one and
+Sheelah had found him in the middle of it and said pointed things. In
+Sheelah's code of etiquette there were no somersaults in the "s"
+column.
+
+"It's a reg'lar lark to hide in your mother's hair," was going on the
+girl child's voice. "Yes, sir, that's the reg'larest kind!"
+
+Murray gasped again, harder. For that kind took away his breath
+altogether and made him feel a little dizzy, as if he were--were
+_doing it now_--hiding in his mother's hair! It was soft, beautiful,
+gold-colored hair, and there was a great deal of it--oh, plenty to
+hide in! He shut his eyes and felt it all about him and soft against
+his face, and smelled the faint fragrance of it. The dizziness was
+sweet.
+
+Yes, that must be the reg'larest kind of a lark, but Murray did not
+deceive himself, once the dream was over. He knew _that_ kind was not
+waiting for him at the end of this long day. But a lark was waiting,
+anyway--a plain lark. It might have been the bird kind in his little
+heart now, singing for joy at the prospect.
+
+Impatience seized upon Murray. He wanted this little neighbor's
+half-hour to be up, so that he could go in and watch the clock. He
+wanted Sheelah to come out here, for that would mean it was ten
+o'clock; she always came at ten. He wanted it to be noon, to be
+afternoon, to be _night!_ The most beautiful time in his rather
+monotonous little life was down there at the foot of the day, and he
+was creeping towards it on the lagging hours. He was like a little
+traveller on a dreary plain, with the first ecstatic glimpse of a
+hill ahead.
+
+Murray in his childish way had been in love a long time, but he had
+never got very near his dear lady. He had watched her a little way
+off and wondered at the gracious beauty of her, and loved her eyes
+and her lips and her soft, gold-colored hair. He had never--oh,
+never--been near enough to be unlaced and unbuttoned and put to bed
+by the lady that he loved. She had come in sometimes in a wondrous
+dress to say good night, but often, stopping at the mirror on the way
+across to him, she had seen a beautiful vision and forgotten to say
+it. And Murray had not wondered, for he had seen the vision, too.
+
+[Illustration: Murray had ... seen the vision, too]
+
+"Your mamma's gone away, hasn't she? I saw her."
+
+Daisy was still there! Murray pulled himself out of his dreaming, to
+be polite.
+
+"Yes; but she's coming back to-night. She promised."
+
+"S'posing the cars run off the track so she can't?" Daisy said,
+cheerfully.
+
+"She'll come," Murray rejoined, with the decision of faith. "She
+promised, I said."
+
+"S'posing she's killed 'most dead?"
+
+"She'll come."
+
+"_Puffickly_ dead--s'posing?"
+
+Murray took time, but even here his faith in the Promise stood its
+ground, though the ground shook under it. Sheelah had taught him what
+a promise was; it was something not to be shaken or killed even in a
+railroad wreck.
+
+"When anybody promises, _they do it_," he said, sturdily. "She
+promised an' she'll come."
+
+"Then her angel will have to come," remarked the older, girl child,
+coolly, with awful use of the indicative mood.
+
+When the half-hour was over and Murray at liberty, he went in to the
+clock and stood before it with hands a-pocket and wide-spread legs. A
+great yearning was upon him to know the mystery of telling time. He
+wished--oh, how he wished he had let Sheelah teach him! Then he could
+have stood here making little addition sums and finding out just how
+long it would be till night. Or he could go away and keep coming back
+here to make little subtraction sums, to find out how much time was
+left _now_--and now--and now. It was dreadful to just stand and
+wonder things.
+
+Once he went up-stairs to his own little room out of the nursery and
+sat down where he had always sat when Sheelah unlaced him, before he
+had begun to unlace himself, and stood up where he had always stood
+when Sheelah unbuttoned him. He sat very still and stood very still,
+his grave little face intent with imagining. He was imagining how it
+would be when _she_ did it. She would be right here, close--if he
+dared, he could put out his hand and smooth her. If he _dared_, he
+could take the pins out of her soft hair, and hide in it--
+
+He meant to dare!
+
+"Little silly," perhaps she would call him; perhaps she would
+remember to kiss him good-night. And afterwards, when the lark was
+over, it would stay on, singing in his heart. And he would lie in the
+dark and love Her.
+
+For Her part, it was a busy day enough and did not lag. She did her
+shopping and called on a town friend or two. In the late afternoon
+she ran in to several art-stores where pictures were on exhibition.
+It was at the last of these places that she chanced to meet a woman
+who was a neighbor of hers in the suburbs.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Cody!" the neighbor cried. "How delightful! You've come in
+to see Irving, too?"
+
+"No," with distinct regret answered Murray's mother, "but I wish I
+had! I'm only in for a little shopping."
+
+"Not going to stay! Why, it will be _wicked_ to go back
+to-night--unless, of course, you've seen him in Robespierre."
+
+"I haven't. Cicely Howe has been teasing me to stop over and go with
+her. It's a 'sure-enough' temptation, as Fred says. Fred's away, so
+that part's all right. Of course there's Murray, but there's also
+Sheelah--" She was talking more to herself now than to the neighbor.
+The temptation had taken a sudden and striking hold upon her. It was
+the chance of a lifetime. She really ought--
+
+"I guess you'll stop over!" laughed the neighbor. "I know the signs."
+
+"I'll telephone to Sheelah," Murray's mother decided, aloud, "then
+I'll run along back to Cicely's. I've always wanted to see Irving in
+that play."
+
+But it was seven o'clock before she telephoned. She was to have been
+at home at half-past seven.
+
+"That you, Sheelah? I'm not coming out to-night--not until morning.
+I'm going to the theatre. Tell Murray I'll bring him a present. Put
+an extra blanket over him if it comes up chilly."
+
+She did not hang up the receiver at once, holding it absently at her
+ear while she considered if she ought to say anything else to
+Sheelah. Hence she heard distinctly an indignant exclamation.
+
+"Will you hear that, now! An' the boy that certain! 'She's promised,'
+he says, an' he'll kape on 'She's-promising' for all o' me, for it's
+not tell him I will! He can go to slape in his poor little boots,
+expectin' her to kape her promise!"
+
+The woman with the receiver at her ear uttered a low exclamation. She
+had not forgotten the Promise, but it had not impressed her as
+anything vital. She had given it merely to comfort Little Silly when
+he cried. That he would regard it as sacred--that it _was_
+sacred--came to her now with the forcible impact of a blow. And,
+oddly enough, close upon its heels came a remembrance picture--of a
+tiny child playing with his soldiers on the floor. The sunlight lay
+over him--she could see it on his little hair and face. She could
+hear him talking to the "Captain soldier." She had at the time
+called it a sermon, with a text, and laughed at the child who
+preached it. She was not laughing now.
+
+"Lissen, Cappen Sojer, an' I'll teach you a p'omise. A p'omise--a
+p'omise--why, when anybody p'omises, _they do it!_"
+
+Queer how plainly she could hear Little Silly say that and could see
+him sitting in the sun! Just the little white dress he had on--tucks
+in it and a dainty edging of lace! She had recognized Sheelah's
+maxims and laughed. Sheelah was stuffing the child with notions.
+
+"If anybody p'omises, they do it." It seemed to come to her over the
+wire in a baby's voice and to strike against her heart. This mother
+of a little son stood suddenly self-convicted of a crime--the crime
+of faithlessness. It was not, she realized with a sharp stab of pain,
+faith in _her_ the little child at the other end of the line
+was exercising, but faith in the Promise. He would keep on
+"She-promising" till he fell asleep in his poor little boots--
+
+"Oh!" breathed in acute distress the mother of a little son. For all
+unexpectedly, suddenly, her house built of cards of carelessness,
+flippancy, thoughtlessness, had fallen round her. She struggled among
+the flimsy ruins.
+
+Then came a panic of hurry. She must go home at once, without a
+moment's delay. A little son was waiting for her to come and put him
+to bed. She had promised; he was waiting. They were to have a regular
+little lark--that she remembered, too, with distinctness. She was
+almost as uncertain as Murray had been of the meaning of a "lark";
+she had used the word, as she had used so many other words to the
+child, heedlessly. She had even and odd, uncertain little feeling as
+to what it meant to put a little son to bed, for she had never
+unlaced or unbuttoned one. She had never wanted to until now. But
+now--she could hardly wait to get home to do it. Little Silly was
+growing up--the bare brown space between the puffs of his little
+trousers and the top rims of his little socks were widening. She must
+hurry, hurry! What if he grew up before she got there! What if she
+never had a chance to put a little son to bed! She had lost so many
+chances; this one that was left had suddenly sprung into prominence
+and immense value. With the shock of her awakening upon her she felt
+like one partially paralyzed, but with the need upon her to rise and
+walk--to _run_.
+
+She started at once, scarcely allowing herself time to explain to her
+friend. She would listen to no urgings at all.
+
+"I've got to go, Cicely--I've promised my little son," was all she
+took time to say; and the friend, knowing of the telephone message,
+supposed it had been a telephone promise.
+
+At the station they told her there was another train at seven-thirty,
+and she walked about uneasily until it came. Walking about seemed to
+hurry it along the rails to her.
+
+Another woman waited and walked with her. Another mother of little
+sons, she decided whimsically, reading it in the sweet, quiet face.
+The other woman was in widow's black, and she thought how merciful it
+was that there should be a little son left her. She yielded to an
+inclination to speak.
+
+"The train is late," she said. "It must be."
+
+"No." The other woman glanced backward at the station clock. "It's
+we who are early."
+
+"And in a hurry," laughed Murray's mother, in the relief of speech.
+"I've got to get home to put my little son to bed! I don't suppose
+you are going home for that?"
+
+The sweet face for an instant lost its quietness. Something like a
+spasm of mortal pain crossed it and twisted it. The woman walked away
+abruptly, but came back. "I've been home and--put him to bed," she
+said, slowly--"in his last little bed."
+
+Then Murray's mother found herself hurrying feverishly into a car,
+her face feeling wet and queer. She was crying.
+
+"Oh, the poor woman!" she thought, "the poor woman! And I'm going
+home to a little live one. I can cover him up and tuck him in! I can
+kiss his little, solemn face and his little, brown knees. Why haven't
+I ever kissed his knees before? If I could only hurry! Will this car
+ever start?" She put her head out of the window. An oily personage
+in jumpers was passing.
+
+"Why don't we start?" she said.
+
+"Hot box," the oily person replied, laconically.
+
+The delay was considerable to a mother going home to put her little
+child to bed. It seemed to this mother interminable. When at length
+she felt a welcome jar and lurch her patience was threadbare. She sat
+bolt upright, as if by so doing she were helping things along.
+
+It was an express and leaped ahead splendidly, catching up with
+itself. Her thoughts leaped ahead with it. No, no, he would not be in
+bed. Sheelah was not going to tell him, so he would insist upon
+waiting up. But she might find him asleep in his poor little boots!
+She caught her breath in half a sob, half tender laugh. Little Silly!
+
+But if an express, why this stop? They were slowing up. It was not
+time to get to the home station; there were no lights. Murray's
+mother waylaid a passing brakeman.
+
+"What is it? What is it?"
+
+"All right, all right! Don't be scairt, lady! Wreck ahead
+somewheres--freight-train. We got to wait till they clear the track."
+
+But the misery of waiting! He might get tired of waiting, or Sheelah
+might tell him his mother was not coming out to-night; he might go to
+bed, with his poor little faith in the Promise wrecked, like the
+freight on there in the dark. She could not sit still and bear the
+thought; it was not much easier pacing the aisle. She felt a wild
+inclination to get off the train and walk home.
+
+At the home station, when at last she reached it, she took a
+carriage. "Drive fast!" she said, peremptorily. "I'll pay you double
+fare."
+
+The houses they rattle past were ablaze with light down-stairs, not
+up-stairs where little sons would be going to bed. All the little
+sons had gone to bed.
+
+They stopped with a terrific lurch. It threw her on to the seat
+ahead.
+
+"This is not the place," she cried, sharply, after a glance without.
+
+"No'm; we're stopping fer recreation," drawled sarcastically the
+unseen driver. He appeared to be assisting the horse to lie down. She
+stumbled to the ground and demanded things.
+
+"Yer'll have to ax this here four-legged party what's doin'. _I_
+didn't stop--I kep' right on goin'. He laid down on his job, that's
+all, marm. I'll get him up, come Chris'mas. Now then, yer ole fool!"
+
+There was no patience left in the "fare" standing there beside the
+plunging beast. She fumbled in her purse, found something, dropped it
+somewhere, and hurried away down the street. She did not walk home,
+because she ran. It was well the streets were quiet ones.
+
+"Has he gone to bed?" she came panting in upon drowsy Sheelah,
+startling that phlegmatic person out of an honest Irish dream.
+
+"Murray--Little Silly--has he gone to bed? Oh no!" for she saw him
+then, an inert little heap at Sheelah's feet. She gathered him up in
+her arms.
+
+"I won't! I won't go, Sheelah! I'm waiting. She promis--" in drowsy
+murmur.
+
+"She's here--she's come, Murray! Mamma's come home to put you to
+bed--Little Silly, open your eyes and see mamma!"
+
+And he opened them and saw the love in her eyes before he saw her.
+Sleep took instant wings. He sprang up.
+
+"I knew you'd come! I told Sheelah! When anybody promises, they--
+Come on quick up-stairs! I can unlace myself, but I'd rather--"
+
+"Yes, yes!" she sobbed.
+
+"And we'll have a lark, won't we? You said a lark; but not the
+reg'larest kind--I don't suppose we could have the reg'larest kind?"
+
+"Yes--yes!"
+
+"Oh!--why!" His eyes shone. He put up his hand, then drew it shyly
+back. If she would only take out the pins herself--if he only dared
+to--
+
+"What is it, Little Silly--darling?" They were up in his room. She
+had her cheek against his little, bare, brown knees. It brought her
+soft, gold-colored hair so near--if he only dared--
+
+"What is it you'd like, little son?" And he took courage. She had
+never called him Little Son before. It made him brave enough.
+
+"I thought--the reg'larest kind--your hair--if you'd let it tumble
+all down, I'd--hide in it," he breathed, his knees against her cheek
+trembling like little frightened things.
+
+It fell about him in a soft shower and he hid in it and laughed.
+Sheelah heard them laughing together.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+The Little Lover
+
+
+"I wish I knew for very certain," the Little Lover murmured,
+wistfully. The licorice-stick was so shiny and black, and he had laid
+his tongue on it one sweet instant, so he knew just how good it
+tasted. If he only knew for very certain--of course there was a
+chance that She did not love licorice sticks. It would be a regular
+pity to waste it. Still, how could anybody _not_ love 'em--
+
+"'Course She does!" exclaimed the Little Lover, with sudden
+conviction, and the struggle was ended. It had only been a question
+of Her liking or not liking. That decided, there was no further
+hesitation. He held up the licorice-stick and traced a wavery little
+line round it with his finger-nail. The line was pretty near one of
+its ends--the end towards the Little Lover's mouth.
+
+"I'll suck as far down as that, just 'xactly," he said; "then I'll
+put it away in the Treasury Box."
+
+He sat down in his little rocker and gave himself up to the moment's
+bliss, first applying his lips with careful exactitude to the
+dividing-line between Her licorice stick and his.
+
+The moment of bliss ended, the Little Lover got out the Treasury Box
+and added the moist, shortened licorice-stick to the other treasures
+in it. There were many of them,--an odd assortment that would have
+made any one else smile. But the Little Lover was not smiling. His
+small face was grave first, then illumined with the light of willing
+sacrifice. The treasures were all so beautiful! She would be so
+pleased,--my, _my_, how please She would be! Of course She would like
+the big golden alley the best,--the very best. But the singing-top
+was only a tiny little way behind in its power to charm. Perhaps She
+had never seen a singing-top--think o' that! Perhaps She had never
+had a great golden alley, or a corkscrew jack-knife, or a canary-bird
+whistle, or a red and white "Kandy Kiss,"--or a licorice-stick! Think
+o' that--think of how pleased She would be!
+
+"'Course She will," laughed the Little Lover in his delight. If he
+only dared to give Her the Treasury Box! If he only knew how! If
+there was somebody he could ask,--but the housekeeper was too old,
+and Uncle Larry would laugh. There was nobody.
+
+The waiting wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the red-cheeked pear
+in the Treasury Box, and the softest apple. They made it a little
+dang'rous to wait.
+
+It had not been very long that he had loved Her. The first Sunday
+that She smiled at him across the aisle was the beginning. He had not
+gone to sleep that Sunday, nor since, on any of the smiling Sundays.
+He had not wanted to. It had been rest enough to sit and watch Her
+from the safe shelter of the housekeeper's silken cloak. Her clear,
+fresh profile, Her pretty hair, Her ear, Her throat--he liked to
+watch them all. It was rest enough,--as if, after that, he could have
+gone to sleep!
+
+She was very tall, but he liked her better for that. He meant to be
+tall some day. Just now he did not reach-- But he did not wish to
+think of that. It troubled him to remember that Sunday that he had
+measured himself secretly beside Her, as the people walked out of
+church. It made him blush to think how very little way he had
+"reached." He had never told any one, but then he never told any one
+anything. Not having any mother, and your father being away all the
+time, and the housekeeper being old, and your uncle Larry always
+laughing, made it diff'rent 'bout telling things. Of course if you
+had 'em--mothers, and fathers that stayed at home, and uncles that
+didn't laugh,--but you didn't. So you 'cided it was better not to
+tell things.
+
+One Sunday the Little Lover thought he detected Uncle Larry watching
+Her too. But he was never quite certain sure. Anyway, when She had
+turned Her beautiful head and smiled across the aisle, it had been at
+_him_. The Little Lover was "certain sure" of that! In his shy little
+way he had smiled back at Her and nodded. The warmth had kept on in
+his heart all day. That was the day before he found out the Important
+Thing.
+
+Out in the front hall after supper he came upon a beautiful,
+tantalizing smell that he failed for some time to locate. He went
+about with his little nose up-tilted, in a persistent search. It was
+such a beautiful smell!--not powerful and oversweet, but faint and
+wonderful. The little nose searched on patiently till it found it.
+There was a long box on the hall-table and the beautiful smell came
+out under the lid and met the little, up-tilted nose half-way.
+
+"I've found it! It's inside o' that box!" the Little Lover cried in
+triumph. "Now I guess I better see what it looks like. Oh! why, it's
+_posies!_" For there, in moist tissue wrappings, lay a cluster of
+marvellous pale roses, breathing out their subtle sweetness into the
+little face above them.
+
+"Why, I didn't know _that_ was the way a beautiful smell looked!
+I--it's very nice, isn't it? If it's Uncle Larry's, I'm goin' to ask
+him-- Oh, Uncle Larry, can I have it? Can I? I want to put it in
+Her--" But he caught himself up before he got quite to "Treasury
+Box." He could not tell Uncle Larry about that.
+
+The tall figure coming down the hall quickened its steps to a leap
+towards the opened box on the table. Uncle Larry's face was flushed,
+but he laughed--he always laughed.
+
+"You little 'thafe o' the wurruld'!" he called out. "What are you
+doing with my roses?"
+
+"I want 'em--please," persisted the child, eagerly, thinking of the
+Treasury Box and Her.
+
+"Oh, you do, do you? But they're not for the likes o' you."
+
+Sudden inspiration came to the Little Lover. If this was a Treasury
+Box,--if he were right on the edge of finding out how you gave one--
+
+"Is--is it for a She?" he asked, breathless with interest.
+
+"A--'She'?" laughed Uncle Larry, but something as faint and tender as
+the beautiful smell was creeping into his face. "Yes, it is for a
+She, Reggie,--the most beautiful She in the world," he added, gently.
+He was wrapping the beautiful smell again in the tissue wrappings.
+
+Then it was a Treasury Box. Then you did the treasures up that way,
+in thin, rattly paper like that. _Then_ what did you do? But he would
+find out.
+
+"Oh, I didn't know," he murmured. "I didn't know _that_ was the way!
+Do you send it by the 'spressman, then, Uncle Larry,--to--to Her, you
+know? With Her name on?"
+
+Uncle Larry was getting into his overcoat. He laughed. The tender
+light that had been for an instant in his face he had put away again
+out of sight.
+
+"No; I'm my own ''spressman.' You've got some things to learn, Reg,
+before you grow up."
+
+"I'd ravver learn 'em now. Tell me 'em! Tell what you do _then_."
+
+The old mocking light was back in Uncle Larry's eyes. This small chap
+with the earnest little face was good as a play.
+
+"'_Then'?_ Then, sure, I go to the door and ring the bell. Then I
+kneel on one knee like this, and hold out the box--"
+
+"The Treasury Box--yes, go on."
+
+"--Like this. And I say, 'Fair One, accept this humble offering, I
+beseech thee'--"
+
+"Accept this hum-bul offering, I--I beseech thee"--the Little Lover
+was saying it over and over to himself. It was a little hard, on
+account o' the queer words in it. He was still saying it after Uncle
+Larry had gone. His small round face was intent and serious. When he
+had learned the words, he practised getting down on one knee and
+holding out an imaginary Treasury Box. That was easier than the queer
+words, but it made you feel funnier somewhere in your inside. You
+wanted to cry, and you were a little afraid somebody else would want
+to laugh.
+
+The next afternoon the Little Lover carried his Treasury Box to Her.
+He had wrapped all the little treasures carefully in tissue like
+Uncle Larry's roses. But there was no beautiful smell creeping
+out;--there was something a little like a smell, but not a beautiful
+one. The Little Lover felt sorry for that.
+
+She came to the door. It was a little discomposing on account of
+there being so little time to get your breath in. I-it made you feel
+funny.
+
+But the Little Lover acted well his part. With a little gasp that was
+like a sob he sank on one knee and held up the Treasury Box to Her.
+
+"Fair One," he quivered, softly, "accept this--offspring--no, I mean
+this _hum-bul_ offspring, I--I--oh, I mean _please!_"
+
+She stooped to the level of his little, solemn face. Then suddenly
+She lifted him, Treasury Box and all, and bore him into a great,
+bright room.
+
+"Why, Reggie!--you are Reggie, aren't you? You're the little boy that
+smiles at me across the aisle in church? I thought so! Well, I am so
+glad you have come to see me. And to think you have brought me a
+present, too--"
+
+"I be-seech thee!" quivered the Little Lover, suddenly remembering
+the queer words that had eluded him before. He drew a long, happy
+breath. It was over now. She had the Treasury Box in her hand. She
+would open it by-and-by and find the golden alley and the singing-top
+and the licorice-stick. He wished he dared tell Her to open it soon
+on account o' the softest apple and the red-cheeked pear. Perhaps he
+would dare to after a little while. It was so much easier, so far,
+than he had expected.
+
+She talked to him in Her beautiful, low-toned voice, and by-and-by
+She sat down to the piano and sang to him. That was the ve-ry best.
+He curled up on the sofa and listened, watching Her clear profile and
+Her hair and Her pretty moving fingers, in his Little Lover way. She
+looked so beautiful!--it made you want to put your cheek against Her
+sleeve and rub it very softly back and forth, back and forth, over
+and over again. If you only dared to!
+
+So he was very happy until he smelled the beautiful smell again. All
+at once it crept to him across the room. He recognized it instantly
+as the same one that had crept out from under the lid of Uncle
+Larry's box. It was there, in the great, bright room! He slid to his
+feet and went about tracing it with his little up-tilted nose. It led
+him across to Her, and then he saw Uncle Larry's roses on Her breast.
+He uttered the softest little cry of pain--so soft She did not hear
+it in Her song--and crept back to his seat. He had had his first
+wound. He was only six, but at six it hurts.
+
+It was Uncle Larry's roses She wore on Her dress--then it was roses
+She liked, not licorice-sticks and golden alleys. Then it was Uncle
+Larry's roses,--then She must like Uncle Larry. Then--oh, then, She
+would never like _him!_ Perhaps it was Uncle Larry She had smiled at
+all the time, across the aisle. Uncle Larry "reached" so far! He
+wouldn't have to grow.
+
+"She b'longs to Uncle Larry, an' I wanted Her to b'long to me.
+Nobody else does--I wouldn't have needed anybody else to, if She had.
+ All I needed to b'long was Her. I wanted Her! I--I love Her. She
+isn't Uncle Larry's--she's mine!--She's mine!" The thoughts of the
+Little Lover surged on turbulently, while the beautiful low song went
+on. She was singing--She was singing to Uncle Larry. The song wasn't
+sweet and soft and tender for _him_. It was sweet and soft and tender
+for Uncle Larry.
+
+"I hate Uncle Larry!" cried out the Little Lover, but She did not
+hear. She was lost in the tender depths of the song. It was very late
+in the afternoon and a still darkness was creeping into the big,
+bright room. The Little Lover nestled among the cushions of the sofa,
+spent with excitement and loss, and that new, dread feeling that made
+him hate Uncle Larry. He did not know its name, and it was better so.
+But he knew the pain of it.
+
+"Why, Reggie! Why, you poor little man, you're asleep! And I have
+been sitting there singing all this time! And it grew quite dark,
+didn't it? Oh, poor little man, poor little man, I had forgotten you
+were here! I'm glad you can't hear me say it!"
+
+Yes, it was better. But he would have like to feel Her cool cheek
+against his cheek; he would have felt a little relief in his
+desolate, bitter heart if he could see how gentle Her face was and
+the beautiful look there was in Her soft eyes. But perhaps--if She
+was not looking at him--if it was at Uncle Larry-- No, no, Little
+Lover; it is better to sleep on and not to know.
+
+It was Uncle Larry who carried him home, asleep still, and laid him
+gently on his own little bed. Uncle Larry's bearded face was shining
+in the dark room like a star. The tumult of joy in the man's heart
+clamored for utterance. Uncle Larry felt the need of telling some
+one. So, because he could not help it, he leaned down and shook the
+Little Lover gently.
+
+"You little foolish chap, do you know what you have lost? You were
+right there--you might have heard Her when She said it! You might
+have peeped between your fingers and seen Her face--angels in Heaven!
+Her face!--with the love-light in it. You poor little chap! you poor
+little chap! You were right there all the time and you didn't know.
+And you don't know now when I tell you I'm the happiest man alive!
+You lie there like a little log. Well, sleep away, little chap. What
+does it matter to you?"
+
+It was the Little Lover's own guardian-angel who kept him from waking
+up, but Uncle Larry did not know. He took off the small, dusty shoes
+and loosened the little clothes, with a strange new tenderness in his
+big fingers. The familiar little figure seemed to have put on a
+certain sacredness for having lain on Her cushions and been touched
+by Her hands. And She had kissed the little chap. Uncle Larry stooped
+and found the place with his lips.
+
+The visit seemed like a dream to the Little Lover, next morning. How
+could it have been real when he could not remember coming home at
+all? He _hadn't_ come home,--so of course he had never gone. It was a
+dream,--still--where was the Treasury Box?
+
+"I wish I knew for very certain," the Little Lover mused. "I could
+ask Uncle Larry, but I hate Uncle Larry--" Oh! Then it wasn't a
+dream. It was true. It all came back. The Little Lover remembered why
+he hated Uncle Larry. He remembered it all. Lying there in his little
+bed he smelt the beautiful smell again and followed it up to the
+roses on Her dress. They were Uncle Larry's roses, so he hated Uncle
+Larry. He always would. He did not hate Her, but he would never go to
+see Her again. He would never nod or smile at Her again in church. He
+would never be happy again.
+
+Perhaps She would send back the Treasury Box;--the Little Lover had
+heard once that people sent back things when it was all over. It was
+all over now. He was only six, but the pain in his heart was so big
+that he did not think to wish She would send back the Treasury Box
+soon, on account of the softest apple.
+
+The days went by until they made a month,--two months,--half a year.
+The pain in the Little Lover's heart softened to a dreary loneliness,
+but that stayed on. He had always been a lonely little chap, but not
+like this. He had never had a mother, and his father had nearly
+always been away. But this was different. Now he had nobody to love,
+and he hated Uncle Larry.
+
+That was before the Wonderful Thing happened. One day Uncle Larry
+brought Her home. He said She was his wife. That was the Wonderful
+Thing.
+
+The Little Lover ran away and hid. They could not find him for a long
+time. It was She who found him.
+
+"Why, Reggie! Why, poor little man! Look up. What is it, dear?
+Reggie, you are crying!"
+
+He did not care. He _wanted_ to cry. But he let Her take him into Her
+arms.
+
+"_I_ wanted to do it!" he sobbed, desolately, his secret out at last.
+
+"Do it? Do what, Reggie?"
+
+"M-marry you. _I_ was goin' to do it. H-He hadn't any right to! I
+hate him--I hate him!"
+
+A minute there was silence, except for the soft creak of Her dress as
+She rocked him. Then She lifted his wet little face to Hers.
+
+"Reggie," She whispered, "how would a mother do?"
+
+He nestled his cheek against Her sleeve and rubbed it back and forth,
+back and forth, while he thought. A mother--then there would be no
+more loneliness. Then there would be a place to cuddle in, and
+somebody to tell things to. "I'd _ravver_ a mother," the Little Lover
+said.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+The Child
+
+
+The Child had it all reasoned out in her own way. It was only lately
+she had got to the end of her reasoning and settled down. At first it
+had not been very satisfactory, but she had gradually, with a child's
+optimism, evolved from the dreary little maze a certain degree of
+content.
+
+She had only one confidant. The Child had always lived a
+rather proscribed, uneventful little life, with pitifully few
+intimates,--none of her own age. The Child was eight.
+
+The confidant, oddly, was a picture in the silent, awe-inspiring
+company-room. It represented a lady with a beautiful face, and a baby
+in her arms. The Child had never heard it called a Madonna, but it
+was because of that picture that she was never afraid in the
+company-room. Going in and out so often to confide things to the Lady
+had bred a familiarity with the silent place that came to amount in
+the end to friendliness. The Lady was always there, smiling gently at
+the Child, and so the other things did not matter--the silence and
+the awe-inspiringness.
+
+The Child told the Lady everything, standing down under the picture
+and looking up at it adoringly. She was explaining her conclusions
+concerning the Greatest Thing of All now.
+
+"I didn't tell you before," she said. "I wanted to get it reasoned
+_out_. If," rather wistfully, "you were a--a flesh-and-bloody lady,
+you could tell me if I haven't got it right. But I think I have.
+
+"You see, there are a great many kinds of fathers and mothers, but
+I'm only talking of my kind. I'm going to love my father one day and
+my mother the next. Like this: my mother Monday, my father Tuesday,
+mother Wednesday, father Thursday--right along. Of course you can't
+divide seven days even, but I'm going to love them both on Sundays.
+Just one day in the week I don't think it will do any harm, do you?--
+Oh, you darling Lady, I wish you could shake your head or bow it! I'm
+only eight, you see, and eight isn't a very _reasonable_ age. But I
+couldn't think of any better way."
+
+The Child's eyes riveted to the beautiful face almost saw it nod a
+little.
+
+"I haven't decided 'xactly, but perhaps I shall love my mother Sunday
+mornings and my father Sunday afternoons. If--if it seems best to.
+I'll let you know." She stopped talking and thought a minute in her
+serious little way. She was considering whether to say the next thing
+or not. Even to the Lady she had never said why-things about her
+father and mother. If the Lady knew--and she had lived so long in the
+company-room, it seemed as if she must,--then there was no need of
+explaining. And if she didn't know--suddenly the Child, with a throb
+of pride, hoped that the Lady did not know. But perhaps some slight
+explanation was necessary.
+
+"Of course," the Child burst out, hurriedly, her cheeks aflame,--"of
+course it would be nice to love both of 'em the same day, but--but
+they're not that kind of a father and mother. I've thought it all
+over and made the reasonablest plan I know how to. I'm going to begin
+to-morrow--to-morrow is Tuesday, my father's day."
+
+It was cold in the company-room, and any moment Marie might come and
+take her away. She was always a little pressed for time.
+
+"I must be going," she said, "or Marie will come. Good-bye. Give my
+love to the baby." She always sent her love to the baby in the
+beautiful Lady's arms.
+
+The Child's home, though luxurious, had to her the effect of being a
+double tenement. An invisible partition divided her father's side
+from her mother's; her own little white room, with Marie's alcove,
+seemed to be across the dividing line, part on one side, part on the
+other. She could remember when there had not been any invisible
+partition, but the intensity of her little mental life since there
+_had_ been one had dimmed the beautiful remembrance. It seemed to her
+now as a pleasant dream that she longed to dream again.
+
+The next day the Child loved her father, for it was Tuesday. She went
+about it in her thorough, conscientious little way. She had made out
+a little programme. At the top of the sheet, in her clear, upright
+hand, was, "Ways to Love My farther." And after that:
+
+  "1. Bringing in his newspaper.
+  "2. Kissing Him goodmorning.
+  "3. Rangeing his studdy table.
+  "4. Putting flours on "  "
+  "5. Takeing up His male.
+  "6. Reeching up to rub My cheak against his cheak.
+  "7. Lerning to read so I can read His Books."
+
+There were many other items. The Child had used three pages for her
+programme. The last two lines read:
+
+  "Praing for Him.
+  "Kissing Him goodnight."
+
+The Wednesday programme was almost identical with this one, with the
+exception of "my mother" instead of "my farther." For the Child did
+not wish to be partial. She had always had a secret notion that it
+would be a little easier to read her mother's books, but she meant to
+read just as many of her "farther's."
+
+During the morning she went in to the Lady and reported progress so
+far. Her cheeks were a delicate pink with excitement, and she panted
+a little when she spoke.
+
+"I'm getting along splendidly," she said, smiling up at the beautiful
+face. "Perhaps--of course I can't tell for sure, but I'm not certain
+but that he will like it after he gets used to it. You have to get
+used to things. He liked the flowers, and when I rubbed my cheek
+'gainst his, and when I kissed him. How I know he did is because he
+smiled--I wish my father would smile all the time."
+
+The Child did not leave the room when she had finished her report,
+but fidgeted about the great silent place uncertainly. She turned
+back by-and-by to the Lady.
+
+"There's something I _wish_ you could tell me," she said, with her
+wistful little face uplifted. "It's if you think it would be polite
+to ask my father to put me to bed instead of Marie--just unbutton me,
+you know, and pray me. I was going to ask my mother to-morrow night
+if my father did to-night. I thought--I thought"--the Child hesitated
+for adequate words--"it would be the lovingest way to love him, for
+you feel a little intimater with persons when they put you to bed.
+Sometimes I feel that way with Marie--a very little. I wish you could
+nod your head if you thought it would be polite."
+
+The Child's eyes, fastened upon the picture, were intently serious.
+And again the Lady seemed to nod.
+
+"Oh, you're nodding, yes!--I b'lieve you're nodding yes! Thank you
+ve-ry much--now I shall ask him to. Good-bye. Give my love to the
+baby." And the little figure moved away sedately.
+
+To ask him in the manner of a formal invitation with "yours very
+truly" in it appeared to the Child upon thoughtful deliberation to be
+the best way. She did not feel very intimate yet with her father, but
+of course it might be different after he unbuttoned her and prayed
+her.
+
+Hence the formal invitation:
+
+"Dear farther you are respectably invited to put yore little girl
+to bed tonite at 1/2 past 7. Yores very truely
+
+  Elizabeth.
+
+"R s v p.
+
+P.s. the little girl is me."
+
+It was all original except the "R s v p" and the fraction. The
+Child had asked Marie how to write "half," and the other she had
+found in the corner of one of her mother's formal invitations. She
+did not know what the four letters meant, but they made the
+invitation look nicer, and she could make lovely capital "R's."
+
+At lunch-time the Child stole up-stairs and deposited her little
+folded note on top of her father's manuscript. Her heart beat
+strangely fast as she did it. She had still a lurking fear that it
+might not be polite.
+
+On the way back she hurried into the company-room, up to the Lady.
+"I've done it!" she reported, breathlessly. "I hope it was
+polite--oh, I hope he will!"
+
+[Illustration: Elizabeth]
+
+The Child's father ate his lunch silently and a little hastily, as if
+to get it over. On the opposite side of the table the Child's mother
+ate hers silently and a little hastily. It was the usual way of their
+meals. The few casual things they said had to do with the weather or
+the salad. Then it was over and they separated, each to his own side
+of the divided house.
+
+The father took up his pen to write--it seemed all there was left to
+do now. But the tiny folded note arrested his hand, and he stared in
+amazement. The Child had inadvertently set her seal upon it in the
+form of a little finger-print. So he knew it was hers. The first
+shock of hope it had awakened subsided into mere curiosity. But when
+he opened it, when he read it--
+
+He sat a long time very still indeed--so still he could hear the
+rustle of manuscript pages in the other writing-room across the hall.
+Perhaps he sat there nearly all the afternoon, for the shadows
+lengthened before he seemed to move.
+
+In the rush of thoughts that came to him two stood out most
+clearly--the memory of an awful day, when he had seemed to die a
+thousand deaths, and only come to life when a white-capped nurse came
+smiling to him and said, "It is a little girl," and the memory of a
+day two years ago, when a man and a woman had faced each other and
+said, "We will try to bear it for the child."
+
+The Child found her answer lying on her plate at nursery tea. Marie,
+who was bustling about the room getting things orderly for the night,
+heard a little gasp and turned in alarm. The Child was spelling out
+her letter with a radiant face that belied the gasp. There was
+something in the lonely little figure's eagerness that appealed even
+to the unemotional maid, and for a moment there was likelihood of a
+strange thing happening. But the crisis was quickly over, and Marie,
+with the kiss unkissed on her lips, went on with her work. Emotions
+were rare with Marie.
+
+"'Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,'" spelled the Child, in a soft
+ecstasy, yet not without dread of what might come, supposing he
+thought she had been impo--
+
+"'Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,'" she hurriedly began again, "'your
+farther will be happy to accept your kind invitation for 1/2
+past 7 this evening. Will you please call for him, as he is a
+little--b-a-s-h-f-u-l'--Marie, what does b-a-s-h-f-u-l spell?"
+shrilled the eager voice. It was a new word.
+
+Marie came over to the Child's chair. "How can I tell without I see
+it?" she said. But the Child drew away gently.
+
+"This is a very intimate letter--you'll have to 'xcuse seeing it.
+Never mind, anyway, thank you,--I can guess it." And she guessed
+that it spelled the way she would feel when she called for her father
+at half-past seven, for the Child was a little bashful, too. She told
+the Lady so.
+
+"I don't _dread_ it; I just wish it was over," she explained. "It
+makes me feel a little queer, you see. Probably you wouldn't feel
+that way if you was better acquainted with a person. Fathers and
+mothers are kind of strangers."
+
+She was ready at seven o'clock, and sat, a little patient statue,
+watching the nursery clock. Marie, who had planned to go out and had
+intended setting the hands of the clock ahead a little, was
+unwarrantably angry with the Child for sitting there so persistently.
+"Come," she said, impatiently; "I've got your night-gown ready. This
+clock's too slow."
+
+"Truly, is it?" the Child questioned, anxiously. "Slow means it's
+'most half-past, doesn't it? Then I ought to be going!"
+
+"Yes,--come along;" but Marie meant to bed, and the Child was already
+on her way to her father. She hurried back on second thought to
+explain to Marie.
+
+"I've engaged somebody--there's somebody else going to put me to bed
+to-night. You needn't wait, Marie," she said, her voice oddly subdued
+and like some other little girl's voice in her repressed excitement.
+
+He was waiting for her. He had been ready since half-past six
+o'clock. Without a word--with only an odd little smile that set the
+Child at ease--he took her hand and went back with her. The door of
+the other writing-room was ajar, and they caught a glimpse as they
+went by of a slender, stooping figure. It did not turn.
+
+"This is my room," the Child introduced, gayly. The worst was over
+now and all the rest was best. "You've never been in my room before,
+have you? This is where I keep my clothes, and this is my
+undressing-chair. This is where Marie sits--you're Marie to-night!"
+The Child's voice rang out in sudden, sweet laughter. It was such a
+funny idea! She was not a laughing Child, and the little, rippling
+sound had the effect of escaping from imprisonment and exulting at
+its freedom.
+
+"You never unbuttoned a little girl before, did you? I'll have to
+learn you."
+
+"Teach you," he corrected, gently.
+
+"Marie says learn you. But of course I'll say 'teach' if you like it
+better," with the ready courtesy of a hostess. "You begin with my
+feet and go backwards!" Again the escaped laughter. The Child was
+happy.
+
+Down the hall where the slender figure stooped above the delicately
+written pages the little laugh travelled again and again. By-and-by
+another laugh, deep and rich, came hand in hand with it. Then the
+figure straightened tensely, for this new laugh was rarer even than
+the Child's. Two years--two years and more since she had heard this
+one.
+
+"Now it is time to pray me," the Child said, dropping into sudden
+solemnity. "Marie lets me kneel to her--" hesitating questioningly.
+Then: "It's pleasanter to kneel to somebody--"
+
+"Kneel to me," he whispered. His face grew a little white, and his
+hand, when he caressed lightly the frolic-rumpled little head, was
+not steady. The stone mask of the man dropped off completely, and
+underneath was tenderness and pain and love.
+
+"Now I lame me down to sleep--no, I want to say another one to-night,
+Lord God, if Thee please. This is a very particular night, because my
+father is in it. Bless my father, Lord God, oh, bless my father! This
+is his day. I've loved him all day, and I'm going to again day after
+to-morrow. But to-morrow I must love my mother. It would be easier to
+love them both forever and ever, Amen."
+
+The Child slipped into bed and slept happily, but the man who was
+father of the Child had new thoughts to think, and it took time. He
+found he had not thought nearly all of them in his afternoon vigil.
+On his way back to his lonely study he walked a little slower past
+the other lonely study. The stooping of the slender figure newly
+troubled him.
+
+The plan worked satisfactorily to the Child, though there was always
+the danger of getting the days mixed. The first mother-day had been
+as "intimate" and delightful as the first father-one. They followed
+each other intimately and delightfully in a long succession. Marie
+found her perfunctory services less and less in requisition, and her
+dazed comprehension of things was divided equally with her
+self-gratulation. Life in this new and unexpected condition of
+affairs was easier to Marie.
+
+"I'm having a beautiful time," the Child one day reported to the
+Lady, "only sometimes I get a little dizzy trying to remember which
+is which. My father is which to-day." And it was at that bedtime,
+after an unusually active day, that the Child fell asleep at her
+prayer. Her rumpled head sagged more and more on her delicate neck,
+till it rested sidewise on the supporting knees, and the Child was
+asleep.
+
+There was a slight stir in the doorway.
+
+"'Sh! don't move--sit perfectly still!" came in a whisper as a
+slender figure moved forward softly into the room.
+
+"Richard, don't move! The poor little tired thing--do you think you
+could slip out without moving while I hold up her head--oh, I mean
+without _joggling?_ Now--oh, mamma's little tired baby! There,
+there!--'Sh! Now you hold her head and let me sit down--now put her
+here in my arms, Richard."
+
+The transfer was safely made. They faced each other, she with her
+baby, he standing looking down at them. Their eyes met steadily. The
+Child's regular breathing alone stirred the silence of the little
+white room. Then he stooped to kiss the Child's face as she stooped,
+and their kisses seemed to meet. She did not start away, but smiled
+instead.
+
+"I want her every day, Richard!" she said.
+
+"_I_ want her every day, Mary!"
+
+"Then there is only one way. Last night she prayed to have things
+changed round--"
+
+"Yes, Polly?"
+
+"We'll change things round, Dick."
+
+The Child was smiling in her sleep as if she heard them.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+The Recompense
+
+
+There were all kinds of words,--short ones and long ones. Some
+were very long. This one--we-ell, maybe it wasn't so _long_, for when
+you're nine you don't of course mind three-story words, and this one
+looked like a three-story one. But this one puzzled you the worst
+ever!
+
+Morry spelled it through again, searching for light. But it was a
+very dark word. Rec-om-_pense_,--if it meant anything _money-y_, then
+they'd made a mistake, for of course you don't spell "pence" with an
+"s."
+
+The dictionary was across the room, and you had to stand up to look
+up things in it,--Morry wished it was not so far away and that you
+could do it sitting down. He sank back wearily on his cushions and
+wished other things, too: That Ellen would come in, but that wasn't a
+very big wish, because Ellens aren't any good at looking up words.
+That dictionaries grew on your side o' the room,--that wish was a
+funny one! That Dadsy would come home--oh, oh, that Dadsy would come
+home!
+
+With that wish, which was a very Big One indeed, came trooping back
+all Morry's Troubles. They stood round his easy-chair and pressed up
+close against him. He hugged the most intimate ones to his little,
+thin breast.
+
+It was getting twilight in the great, beautiful room, and twilight
+was trouble-time. Morry had found that out long ago. It's when it's
+too dark to read and too light for Ellens to come and light the lamps
+that you say "Come in!" to your troubles. They're always there
+waiting.
+
+If Dadsy hadn't gone away to do--that. If he'd just gone on reg'lar
+business, or on a hurry-trip across the ocean, or something like
+that. You could count the days and learn pieces to surprise him with
+when he got back, and keep saying, "Won't it be splendid!" But this
+time--well, this time it scared you to have Dadsy come home. And if
+you learned a hundred pieces you knew you'd never say 'em to
+him--now. And you kept saying, "Won't it be puffectly dreadful!"
+
+"Won't you have the lamps lit, Master Morris?" It was Ellen's voice,
+but the Troubles were all talking at once, and much as ever he could
+hear it.
+
+"I knew you weren't asleep because your chair creaked, so I says, 'I
+guess we'll light up,'--it's enough sight cheerier in the light"; and
+Ellen's thuddy steps came through the gloom and frightened away the
+Troubles.
+
+"Thank you," Morry said, politely. It's easy enough to remember to be
+polite when you have so much time. "Now I'd like Jolly,--you guess
+he's got home now, don't you?"
+
+Ellen's steps sounded a little thuddier as they tramped back down the
+hall. "It's a good thing there's going to be a Her here to send that
+common boy kiting!" she was thinking. Yet his patches were all
+Ellen--so far--had seen in Jolly to find fault with. Though, for that
+matter, in a house beautiful like this patches were, goodness knew,
+out of place _enough!_
+
+"Hully Gee, ain't it nice an' light in here!" presently exclaimed a
+boy's voice from the doorway.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad you've come, Jolly! Come right in and take a
+chair,--take two chairs!" laughed Morry, in his excess of welcome. It
+was always great when Jolly came! He and the Troubles were not
+acquainted; they were never in the room at the same time.
+
+Morry's admiration of this small bepatched, befreckled, besmiled
+being had begun with his legs, which was not strange, they were such
+puffectly straight, limber, splendid legs and could _go_--my! Legs
+like that were great!
+
+But it was noticeable that the legs were in some curious manner
+telescoped up out of sight, once Jolly was seated. The phenomenon was
+of common occurrence,--they were always telescoped then. And nothing
+had ever been said between the two boys about legs. About arms, yes,
+and eyes, ears, noses,--never legs. If Morry understood the kind
+little device to save his feelings, an instinctive knowledge that any
+expression of gratitude would embarrass Jolly must have kept back his
+ready little thank you.
+
+"Can you hunt up things?" demanded the small host with rather
+startling energy. He was commonly a quiet, self-contained host.
+"Because there's a word--"
+
+But Jolly had caught up his cap, untelescoped the kind little legs,
+and was already at the door. Nothing pleased him more than a
+commission from the Little White Feller in the soft chair there.
+
+"I'll go hunt,--where'd I be most likely to find him?"
+
+The Little White Feller rarely laughed, but now--"You--you Jolly
+boy!" he choked, "you'll find him under a hay-stack fast aslee-- No,
+no!" suddenly grave and solicitous of the other's feelings, "in the
+dictionary, I mean. _Words_, don't you know?"
+
+"Oh, get out!" grinned the Jolly boy, in glee at having made the
+Little White Feller laugh out like that, reg'lar-built. "Hand him
+over, then, but you'll have to do the spellin'."
+
+"Rec-om-pense,--p-e-n-_s_-e," Morry said, slowly, "I found it in a
+magazine,--there's the greatest lot o' words in magazines! Look up
+'rec,' Jolly,--I mean, please."
+
+Dictionaries are terrible books. Jolly had never dreamed there were
+so many words in the world,--pages and pages and pages of 'em! The
+prospect of ever finding one particular word was disheartening, but
+he plunged in sturdily, determination written on every freckle.
+
+"Don't begin at the first page!" cried Morry, hastily. "Begin at
+R,--it's more than half-way through. R-e,--r-e-c,--that way."
+
+Jolly turned over endless pages, trailed laboriously his little,
+blunt finger up and down endless columns, wet his lips with the red
+tip of his tongue endless times,--wished 'twas over. He had meant to
+begin at the beginning and keep on till he got to a w-r-e-c-k,--at
+Number Seven they spelled it that way. Hadn't he lost a mark for
+spelling it without a "w"? But of course if folks preferred the r
+kind--
+
+"Hi!" the blunt finger leaped into space and waved triumphantly.
+"R-e-c-k,--I got him!"
+
+"Not 'k,'--there isn't any 'k.' Go backwards till you drop it,
+Jolly,--you dropped it?"
+
+Dictionaries are terrible,--still, leaving a letter off o' the end
+isn't as bad as off o' the front. Jolly retraced his steps patiently.
+
+"I've dropped it," he announced in time.
+
+Morry was breathing hard, too. Looking up words with other people's
+fore-fingers is pretty tough.
+
+"Now, the second story,--'rec' is the first," he explained. "You must
+find 'rec-om' now, you know."
+
+No, Jolly did not know, but he went back to the work undaunted.
+"We'll tree him," he said, cheerily, "but I think I could do it
+easier if I whistled"--
+
+"Whistle," Morry said.
+
+With more directions, more hard breathing, more wetting of lips and
+tireless trailing of small, blunt finger, and then--eureka! there you
+were! But eureka was not what Jolly said.
+
+"Bully for us!" he shouted. He felt _thrilly_ with pride of conquest.
+"It's easy enough finding things. What's the matter with
+dictionaries!"
+
+"Now read what it means, Jolly,--I mean, please. Don't skip."
+
+"'Rec-om-pense: An equi-va-lent received or re-turned for anything
+given, done, or suff-er-ed; comp-ens-a-tion.'"
+
+"That all?--every speck?"
+
+"Well, here's another one that says 'To make a-mends,' if you like
+that one any better. Sounds like praying."
+
+"Oh," sighed Morry, "how I'd like to know what equi-valent means!"
+but he did not ask the other to look it up. He sank back on his
+pillows and reasoned things out for himself the best way he could.
+"To make amends" he felt sure meant to _make up_. To make up for
+something given or suffered,--perhaps that was what a Rec-om-pense
+was. For something given or suffered--like legs, maybe? Limp,
+no-good-legs that wouldn't go? Could there be a Rec-om-pense for
+_those?_ Could anything ever "make up"?
+
+"Supposing you hadn't any legs, Jolly,--that would go?" he said,
+aloud, with disquieting suddenness. Jolly started, but nodded
+comprehendingly. He had not had any legs for a good many minutes; the
+telescoping process is numbing in the extreme.
+
+"Do you think anything could ever Rec-om-pense--make up, you know?
+Especially if you suffered? Please don't speak up quick,--think,
+Jolly."
+
+"I'm a-thinkin'." Not to have 'em that would go,--not _go!_ Never
+to kite after Dennis O'Toole's ice-wagon an' hang on behind,--nor see
+who'd get to the corner first,--nor stand on your head an' wave 'em--
+
+"No, sirree!" ejaculated Jolly, with unction, "nothin'."
+
+"Would ever make up, you mean?" Morry sighed. He had known all the
+time, of course what the answer would be.
+
+"Yep,--nothin' could."
+
+"I thought so. That's all,--I mean, thank you. Oh yes, there's one
+other thing,--I've been saving it up. Did you ever hear of a--of a
+step-mother, Jolly? I just thought I'd ask."
+
+The result was surprising. The telescoped legs came to view jerkily,
+but with haste. Jolly stumbled to his feet.
+
+"I better be a-goin'," he muttered, thinking of empty chip-baskets,
+empty water-pails, undone errands,--a switch on two nails behind the
+kitchen door.
+
+"Oh, wait a minute,--did you ever hear of one, Jolly?"
+
+"You bet," gloomily, "I got one."
+
+"Oh!--oh, I didn't know. Then," rather timidly, "perhaps--I wish
+you'd tell me what they're like."
+
+"Like nothin'! Nobody likes 'em," came with more gloom yet from the
+boy with legs.
+
+"Oh!" It was almost a cry from the boy without. This was terrible.
+This was a great deal terribler than he had expected.
+
+"Would one be angry if--if your legs wouldn't go? Would it make her
+_very_, do you think?"
+
+Still thinking of empty things that ought to have been filled, Jolly
+nodded emphatically.
+
+"Oh!" The terror grew.
+
+"Then one--then she--wouldn't be--be glad to see anybody, I suppose,
+whose legs had _never_ been?--wouldn't want to shake hands or
+anything, I suppose?--nor be in the same room?"
+
+"Nope." One's legs may be kind even to the verge of agony, but how
+unkind one's tongue may be! Jolly's mind was busy with his own
+anticipated woes; he did not know he was unkind.
+
+"That's all,--thank you, I mean," came wearily, hopelessly, from the
+pillows. But Morry called the other back before he got over the
+threshold. There was another thing upon which he craved
+enlightenment. It might possibly help out.
+
+"Are they pretty, Jolly?" he asked, wistfully.
+
+"Are who what?" repeated the boy on the threshold, puzzled. Guilt and
+apprehension dull one's wits.
+
+"Step-ones,--mothers."
+
+_Pretty?_ When they were lean and sharp and shabby! When they kept
+switches on two nails behind the door,--when they wore ugly clothes
+pinned together! But Jolly's eye caught the wistfulness on Morry's
+little, peaked, white face, and a lie was born within him at the
+sight. In a flash he understood things. Pity came to the front and
+braced itself stalwartly.
+
+"You bet they're pretty!" Jolly exclaimed, with splendid enthusiasm.
+"Prettier'n anythin'! You'd oughter see mine!" (Recording Angel,
+make a note of it, when you jot this down, that the little face
+across the room was intense with wistfulness, and Jolly was looking
+straight that way. And remember legs.)
+
+When Ellen came in to put Morry to bed she found wet spots on his
+cushions, but she did not mention them. Ellens can be wise. She only
+handled the limp little figure rather more gently than usual, and
+said rather more cheery things, perhaps. Perhaps that was why the
+small fellow under her hands decided to appeal in his desperation to
+her. It was possible--things were always possible--that Ellen might
+know something of--of step-ones. For Morry was battling with the
+pitifully unsatisfactory information Jolly had given him before
+understanding had conceived the kind little lie. It was, of
+course,--Morry put it that way because "of course" sometimes comforts
+you,--of course just possible that Jolly's step-one might be
+different. Ellen might know of there being another kind.
+
+So, under the skilful, gentle hands, the boy looked up and chanced
+it. "Ellen," he said--"Ellen, are they all that kind,--_all_ of 'em?
+Jolly's kind, I mean? I thought poss'bly you might know one"--
+
+"Heart alive!" breathed Ellen, in fear of his sanity. She felt his
+temples and his wrists and his limp little body. Was he going to be
+sick now, just as his father and She were coming home?--now, of all
+times! Which would be better to give him, quinine, or aconite and
+belladonna?
+
+"Never mind," sighed Morry, hopelessly. Ellens--he might have
+known--were not made to tell you _close_ things like that. They were
+made to undress you and give you doses and laugh and wheel your chair
+around. Jollys were better than Ellens, but they told you pretty hard
+things sometimes.
+
+In bed he lay and thought out his little puzzles and steeled himself
+for what was to come. He pondered over the word Jolly had looked up
+in the dictionary for him. It was a puzzly word,--Rec-om-pense,--but
+he thought he understood it now. It meant something that made up to
+you for something you'd suffered,--"suffered," that was what it said.
+And Morry had suffered--oh, _how!_ Could it be possible there was
+anything that would make up for little, limp, sorrowful legs that had
+never been?
+
+With the fickleness of night-thoughts his musings flitted back to
+step-ones again. He shut his eyes and tried to imagine just the right
+kind of one,--the kind a boy would be glad to have come home with his
+Dadsy. It looked an easy thing to do, but there were limitations.
+
+"If I'd ever had a real one, it would be easier," Morry thought
+wistfully. Of course, any amount easier! The mothers you read about
+and the Holy Ones you saw in pictures were not quite real enough.
+What you needed was to have had one of your own. Then,--Morry's eyes
+closed in a dizzy little vision of one of his own. One that would
+have dressed and undressed you instead of an Ellen,--that would have
+moved your chair about and beaten up the cushions,--one that maybe
+would have _loved_ you, legs and all!
+
+Why!--why, that was the kind of a step-one a boy'd like to have come
+home with his father! That was the very kind! While you'd been lying
+there thinking you couldn't imagine one, you'd imagined! And it was
+_easy!_
+
+The step-one a boy would like to have come home with his father
+seemed to materialize out of the dim, soft haze from the shaded
+night-lamp,--seemed to creep out of the farther shadows and come and
+stand beside the bed, under the ring of light on the ceiling that
+made a halo for its head. The room seemed suddenly full of its
+gracious presence. It came smiling, as a boy would like it to come.
+And in a reg'lar mother-voice it began to speak. Morry lay as if in a
+wondrous dream and listened.
+
+"Are you the dear little boy whose legs won't go?" He gasped a
+little, for he hadn't thought of there being a "dear." He had to
+swallow twice before he could answer. Then:--
+
+"Oh yes'm, thank you," he managed to say. "They're under the
+bedclothes."
+
+"Then I've come to the right place. Do you know--guess!--who I am?"
+
+"Are--are you a step-one?" breathing hard.
+
+"Why, you've guessed the first time!" the Gracious One laughed.
+
+"Not--not _the_ one, I s'pose?" It frightened him to say it. But the
+Gracious One laughed again.
+
+"_The_ one, yes, you Dear Little Boy Whose Legs Won't Go! I thought I
+heard you calling me, so I came. And I've brought you something."
+
+To think of that!
+
+"Guess, you Dear Little Boy! What would you like it to be?"
+
+Oh, if he only dared! He swallowed to get up courage. Then he
+ventured timidly.
+
+"A Rec-om-pense." It was out.
+
+"Oh, you Guesser--you little Guesser! You've guessed the second
+time!"
+
+Was that what it was like? Something you couldn't see at all, just
+feel,--that folded you in like a warm shawl,--that brushed your
+forehead, your cheek, your mouth,--that made you dizzy with
+happiness? You lay folded up in it and knew that it _made up_. Never
+mind about the sorrowful, limp legs under the bedclothes. They seemed
+so far away that you almost forgot about them. They might have been
+somebody else's, while you lay in the warm, sweet Rec-om-pense.
+
+"Will--will it last?" he breathed.
+
+"Always, Morry."
+
+The Gracious Step-one knew his name!
+
+"Then Jolly didn't know this kind,--we never s'posed there was a kind
+like this! Real Ones must be like this."
+
+And while he lay in the warm shawl, in the soft haze of the
+night-lamp, he seemed to fall asleep, and, before he knew, it was
+morning. Ellen had come.
+
+"Up with you, Master Morris! There's great doings to-day. Have you
+forgot who's coming?"
+
+Ellens are stupid.
+
+"She's come." But Ellen did not hear, and went on getting the bath
+ready. If she had heard, it would only have meant quinine or aconite
+and belladonna to drive away feverishness. For Ellens are very
+watchful.
+
+"They'll be here most as soon as I can get you up 'n' dressed. I'm
+going to wheel you to the front winder--"
+
+"No!" Morry cried, sharply; "I mean, thank you, no. I'd rather be by
+the back window where--where I can watch for Jolly." Homely,
+freckled, familiar Jolly,--he needed something freckled and homely
+and familiar. The old dread had come back in the wake of the
+beautiful dream,--for it had been a dream. Ellen had waked him up.
+
+A boy would like to have his father come home in the sunshine, and
+the sun was shining. They would come walking up the path to the
+front-door through it,--with it warm and welcoming on their faces.
+But it would only be Dadsy and a step-one,--Jolly's kind, most
+likely. Jolly's kind was pretty,--_she_ might be pretty. But she
+would not come smiling and creeping out of the dark with a halo over
+her head. That kind came in dreams.
+
+Jolly's whistle was comforting to hear. Morry leaned out of his
+cushions to wave his hand. Jolly was going to school; when he came
+whistling back, she would be here. It would be all over.
+
+Morry leaned back again and closed his eyes. He had a way of closing
+them when he did the hardest thinking,--and this was the very
+hardest. Sometimes he forgot to open them, and dropped asleep. Even
+in the morning one can be pretty tired.
+
+"Is this the Dear Little Boy?"
+
+He heard distinctly, but he did not open his eyes. He had learned
+that opening your eyes drives beautiful things away.
+
+The dream had come back. If he kept perfectly still and didn't
+breathe, it might all begin again. He might feel--
+
+He felt it. It folded him in like a warm shawl,--it brushed his
+forehead, his cheek, his lips,--it made him dizzy with happiness. He
+lay among his cushions, folded up in it. Oh, it made up,--it made up,
+just as it had in the other dream!
+
+"You Dear Little Boy Whose Legs Won't Go!"--he did not catch anything
+but the first four words; he must have breathed and lost the rest.
+But the tone was all there. He wanted to ask her if she had brought
+the Rec-om-pense, but it was such a risk to speak. He thought if he
+kept on lying quite still he should find out. Perhaps in a minute--
+
+"You think he will let me love him, Morris? Say you think he will!"
+
+Morris was Dadsy's other name. Things were getting very strange.
+
+"Because I must! Perhaps it will make up a very little if I fold him
+all up in my love."
+
+"Fold him up"--that was what the warm shawl had done, and the name of
+the warm shawl had been Rec-om-pense. Was there another name to it?
+
+Morry opened his eyes and gazed up wonderingly into the face of the
+step-one.--It was a Real One's face, and the other name was written
+on it.
+
+"Why, it's Love!" breathed Morry. He felt a little dizzy, but he
+wanted to laugh, he was so happy. He wanted to tell her--he must.
+
+"It makes up--oh yes, it makes up!" he cried, softly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Very Small Person, by Annie Hamilton Donnell
+
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