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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29404-h.zip b/29404-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..090c91e --- /dev/null +++ b/29404-h.zip diff --git a/29404-h/29404-h.htm b/29404-h/29404-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b70b37c --- /dev/null +++ b/29404-h/29404-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3898 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> + <title>The Very Small Person</title> +<style type="text/css"><!-- +body {padding-right: 10%; padding-left: 10%;} +div.titlepage {text-align: center; line-height: 2.0; margin-top: 4em;} +.chapheader {text-align: center; font-size: 1.2em; padding-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 2em;} +.sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-style: normal;} +blockquote p {margin: 0.5em auto;} +.sig {text-align: right; margin-right: 2em;} +ul li {list-style-type: none;} +.imgcenter {text-align: center; margin-bottom: 1.5em;} +.caption {font-size: 90%;} +--></style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +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. + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="imgcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.png" width='373' height='550' alt="Front cover"> +</div> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img1"> +<img src="images/img01.png" width='377' height='590' alt="Illustration: +Woman and boy playing with chestnuts."> +<p class="caption">That is where we play—I mean it is most pleasant there</p> +</div> + +<div class="titlepage"> +<h1>The<br> +Very Small Person</h1> + +<p>By<br> +Annie Hamilton Donnell</p> + +<p>Author of “Rebecca Mary”</p> + +<p>Illustrated by Elizabeth Shippen Green</p> + +<p>New York and London</p> + +<p>Harper & Brothers Publishers</p> + +<p>MCMVI</p> +</div> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + + +<table summary="toc"> +<tr><td> + <a href="#vsp01">I.</a></td><td class="sc">Little Blue Overalls +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp02">II.</a></td><td class="sc">The Boy +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp03">III.</a></td><td class="sc">The Adopted +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp04">IV.</a></td><td class="sc">Bobby Unwelcome +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp05">V.</a></td><td class="sc">The Little Girl Who Should Have Been a Boy +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp06">VI.</a></td><td class="sc">The Lie +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp07">VII.</a></td><td class="sc">The Princess of Make-Believe +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp08">VIII.</a></td><td class="sc">The Promise +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp09">IX.</a></td><td class="sc">The Little Lover +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp10">X.</a></td><td class="sc">The Child +</td></tr><tr><td> + <a href="#vsp11">XI.</a></td><td class="sc">The Recompense +</td></tr> +</table> + +<h2>Illustrations</h2> + +<ul> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img1">That is where we play—I mean it is most pleasant there</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img2">Little Blue Overalls climbed into a chair</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img3">’Fore I’d lean my chin on folks’s gates and watch ’em!</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img4">She stayed there a week—a month—a year</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img5">It was worse than creepy, creaky noises</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img6">I can’t play ... I’m being good</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img7">Murray had ... seen the vision, too</a></li> +<li class="sc"><a href="#img8">Elizabeth</a></li> +</ul> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp01"> +<p>Chapter I</p> + +<h3>Little Blue Overalls</h3> +</div> + + +<p>Miss Salome’s face was gently frowning as she wrote.</p> + +<p>“Dear John,” the letter began,—“It’s all very well except one thing. +I wonder you didn’t think of that. <em>I’m</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>it</em>. +Dear, dear, John, how could you forget <em>it!</em> That everything +else—closets and stone-walls and exposures—should be to my mind but +<em>that!</em> Well, I am thinking of moving out, before I move in. But I +haven’t told Anne. Anne is the kind of person <em>not</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There are eight,” she wrote. “Allowing two legs to a child, doesn’t +that make <em>four?</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>seen</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!”</p> + +<p>Miss Salome started. In the doorway stood a very small person in blue +jeans overalls.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! I want your money or your life! I’m a ’wayman.”</p> + +<p>“A—<em>what?</em>” Miss Salome managed to ejaculate. The Little Blue +Overalls advanced a few feet into the room.</p> + +<p>“Robber, you know;—you know what robbers are, don’t you? I’m one. +You needn’t call me a <em>high</em>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“It’s me. I’m not a ’wayman any more,—just <em>me</em>. 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?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img2"> +<img src="images/img02.png" width='544' height='391' alt="Illustration: +Woman and boy on chairs."> +<p class="caption">Little Blue Overalls climbed into a chair</p> +</div> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“<em>We’ve</em> got a sofy, an’ a rockin’-chair. The sofy’s new, but +Chessie’s broke a hole in it.”</p> + +<p>“Are there four of you?” Miss Salome asked, abruptly. It was the +Little Blue Overalls’ turn to start now.</p> + +<p>“<em>Me?</em>—gracious! four o’ me? I guess you’re out o’ your head, +aren’t— Oh, you mean <em>child’en!</em> Well, there’s five, ’thout +countin’ the spandy new one—she’s too little to count.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There are only four pairs on the line,” she murmured, +weakly,—“stockings,” she added. The Little Blue Overalls nodded +comprehendingly.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<em>didn’t</em> like me in my life, an’ I’m seven. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You can truly eat the pies,” he remarked. “There’s a <em>little</em> sugar +in ’em. I saved it off the top o’ <em>her</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<em>splendidest</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Come on!” shouted the grizzled bear.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Dear John,” the letter said, “when you were little were you ever +very sick, and did you <em>die?</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>know</em> +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—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes,” Elizabeth cried, “I am thinking!”</p> + +<p>“—That is why he must not stay over there. There are so many babies. +I am going over there now.”</p> + +<p>The letter that followed this one was a week delayed.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>wished</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord John Little Blue Overalls is going to get well.”</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp02"> +<p>Chapter II</p> + +<h3>The Boy</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“But I did it!” she murmured. “Of course,—I <em>had</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t dare to, after I saw him wipe +yours off!”</p> + +<p>“<em>Mary!</em>”</p> + +<p>“With the back of his hand. I am not near-sighted. Now <em>why</em> should a +well-meaning little kiss distress a Boy like that? That’s what I want +to know.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I took them off—and after that I kissed <em>them</em>. It was next +best. Mary, does it seem very <em>awful</em> quiet here to you?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Mary,” she cried, suddenly and sharply—“<em>Mary!</em>”</p> + +<p>“Mercy! Well, what is it, my dear? Is the house afire, or anything?”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you talk, and not sit there as still as a post? You +haven’t said a word for half an hour.”</p> + +<p>“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. <em>Don’t</em> you wish +somebody would call before we get stirred up again?”</p> + +<p>“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:</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>That was the way the Boy said it—God bless the Boy! The Mother got +up abruptly.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well, dear?” the little Mother said, with a question in her voice.</p> + +<p>“Not at all;—<em>bad</em>,” 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—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“So relieving to the nerves,” the Patient Aunt said.</p> + +<p>“So soothing,” murmured the Mother, sadly.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I’m glad they’re gone,” nodded the little Mother, decisively, “for I +couldn’t have stood it another day—<em>not another day!</em> Now <em>I’m</em> +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 <em>they</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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, <em>Boy</em> +thing.</p> + +<p>“I hope those other two people are enjoying their trips. <em>We</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Look out; he’s wiping them off!” laughed the Patient Aunt. “But you +see he didn’t wipe mine off.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“But <em>I</em> am, dear. I’m your mother,” cooed the Mother, proud of +herself.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“How came you here, Mary? I thought you were going on a visit. Is +this the way you see your publishers, William?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“He is my publisher,” he said. “I would rather he published my best +works than any one else. He will pay the highest royalty.”</p> + +<p>And the Mother, when she slipped across to them, kissed not the Boy +alone, but them both.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp03"> +<p>Chapter III</p> + +<h3>The Adopted</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img3"> +<img src="images/img03.png" width='373' height='596' alt="Illustration: +Girl sitting, another looking over a fence."> +<p class="caption">’Fore I’d lean my chin on folks’s gates and watch ’em!</p> +</div> + +<p>Between the two, a little higher than their heads, tilted a motherly +bird on a syringa twig.</p> + +<p>“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!</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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!</p> + +<p>“Pit-ee! Pit-ee!” sang softly the motherly bird.</p> + +<p>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 <em>came</em>—oh, hum!</p> + +<p>“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 +<em>her</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“I’m ahead!”</p> + +<p>“That’s because I’m doing mine the carefulest,” Margaret had +retorted, promptly. “There aren’t near so many hunchy places in +mine.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t care; my <em>mother’s</em> the best-looking, if her book-mark +isn’t!” in triumph. “Her hair curls, and she doesn’t have to wear +glasses.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I love mine the best, so there!—so there!—<em>so there!</em>” she cried. +But side by side with the love in her soul was the secret +consciousness of how very much the Enemy loved <em>her</em> 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!—<em>so there!</em></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 <em>Enemy</em> ’cross the fence! Oh, hum! some vacations are so +splendid and some are so un-splendid!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>nothing but an adopted!</em>”</p> + +<p>“Oh!—a what?” in awestruck chorus from the listeners. “Say it again, +Rhody Sharp.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“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 <em>dreadfully!</em>”</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>“Why! Why, then she’s a—orphan!” one voice exclaimed. “Really an’ +honest she is—an’ she doesn’t know it!”</p> + +<p>“Oh my, isn’t it awful!” another voice. “Shouldn’t you think she’d +hide her head—I mean, if she knew?”</p> + +<p>It was already hidden. Deep down in the sweet, moist grass—a little +heavy, uncrowned, terror-smitten head. The cruel voices kept on.</p> + +<p>“It’s just like a disgrace, isn’t it? Shouldn’t you s’pose it would +feel that way if ’twas you?”</p> + +<p>“Think o’ kissin’ your mother good-night an’ it’s not bein’ your +mother?”</p> + +<p>“Say, Rhody Sharp—all o’ you—look here! Do you suppose that’s why +her mother—I mean she that <em>isn’t</em>—dresses her in checked aperns? +That’s what orphans—”</p> + +<p>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 <em>Her</em> and seen the aprons +herself. They were all—all checked.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img4"> +<img src="images/img04.png" width='370' height='598' alt="Illustration: +Girl by wall."> +<p class="caption">She stayed there a week—a month—a year</p> +</div> + +<p>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 <em>was</em> +an enemy now.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Now you know why She makes you make the bed over again when it’s +wrinkly,” gibed one Thing.</p> + +<p>“And why she makes you mend the holes in your stockings,” another +Thing.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t make me do the biggest ones!” flashed Margaret, hotly, +but she could not stem the tide of Things. It swirled in.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps now you see why She makes you hem towels and wipe dishes—”</p> + +<p>“And won’t let you eat two pieces of pie—”</p> + +<p>“Or one piece o’ fruit-cake—”</p> + +<p>“Maybe you remember now the times she’s said, ‘This is no little +daughter of mine’?”</p> + +<p>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 <em>because</em>. The terror within her was +growing more terrible every moment.</p> + +<p>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, <em>ashamed</em>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>know for certain</em>. That would be +the final proof.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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! +<em>My</em> soul goes marching on!” She was out there singing that +a-purpose!</p> + +<p>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. <em>She</em> would have been out there +singing “Glory, glory hallelujah,” too.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>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 <em>two</em> thousand—she would never speak to the Enemy +again,—never forgive her,—never put her into her prayer again among +the God blesses.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<blockquote><p>“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.</p> + +<p class="sig">“Margaret.”</p></blockquote> + +<p>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—<em>Her</em> voice and—His. She did not stir, but lay and +listened to them.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>Margaret held her breath. Nelly was the Enemy, but what was an +origin? This thing that they were saying—hark?</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>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! <em>Her</em> soul went marching on!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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 <em>she’d</em> be maid +when they kept house,—she’d let her have the frosting half of all +their cake and <em>all</em> the raisins.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>rather</em>.”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Nelly! Nelly!”</p> + +<p>If she could only think of some Great Thing she could do, that +would—would <em>hurt</em> to do! And then she thought. She stopped quite +suddenly in her impetuous rush, stilled by the Greatness of it.</p> + +<p>“I’ll let her love her mother the best,” whispered Margaret to the +stars,—“so there!”</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp04"> +<p>Chapter IV</p> + +<h3>Bobby Unwelcome</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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 <em>had</em> 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—</p> + +<p>“It’s the same one that’s in the middle o’ my name, don’t you know,” +he plunged in, hurriedly.</p> + +<p>“Mercy! What iss it the child iss talking about!”</p> + +<p>There! wasn’t she having one? Didn’t she usually say “Mercy!” like +that when she was?</p> + +<p>“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!</p> + +<p>It had not occurred to Bobby to consult his mother. They two were not +intimately acquainted, and naturally he felt shy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I guess you don’t call <em>those</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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-<em>what</em>. I’ve ’cided I won’t go to bed till +I’ve found out.”</p> + +<p>Things had gone criss-cross. The old Norwegian woman was not in a +good humor.</p> + +<p>“Unwelcome—that iss what it must stand for,” she laughed +unpleasantly.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Eh? Iss it not enough plain to you? Well, not wanted—that iss what +it means then.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Bobby was not looking into the glass, but into her beautiful face.</p> + +<p>“Is that what it stands for?” he demanded, breathlessly. “She said +so. Did she lie?”</p> + +<p>“Robert! For Heaven’s sake, child, stand away! You are tearing my +lace. What are you doing here? Why are you not in bed?”</p> + +<p>“Does it stand for <em>that?</em>” he persisted.</p> + +<p>“Does what stand for what? Look, you are crushing my dress. Stand +farther off. Don’t you see, child?”</p> + +<p>“She said the U in the middle o’ my name stood for Not Wanted. Does +it? Tell me quick. Does it?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“No, it wasn’t that. I morember now. It was Unwelcome, but it <em>means</em> +that. Is the middle o’ my name Unwelcome—what?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>that</em> again. Oh no! oh no! I shouldn’t want her +to see— Why, she’s crying! What is she crying for?”</p> + +<p>He put out a small weak hand and groped towards the sound of bitter +sobbing. Instinctively he knew it was she.</p> + +<p>“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 +<em>very</em> little—better to. They’re cert’nly very straight ones. But +then of course they aren’t like a—like a—a <em>face</em>. They’re only +legs. But they’re the best I can do.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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. <em>That’s</em> all right! After—after I looked in <em>there</em>, of +course I knew ’bout how it was. I wish you wouldn’t cry. It joggles +my—my heart.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp05"> +<p>Chapter V</p> + +<h3>The Little Girl Who Should Have Been a Boy</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>guess</em> 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 <em>didn’t</em> 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 <em>there</em>. They want a Little Boy.’ Why didn’t you—oh, why didn’t +you? It would have saved such a lot of trouble!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>me</em>—too. You’d think the Head +Angel would be ashamed of himself, wouldn’t you? He prob’ly is.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>I</em> can’t.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Your <em>best</em> 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!</p> + +<p>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 <em>never</em> have been a Boy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>anybody</em> know you. Well, you +won’t be <em>you</em> when you’re the Boy, so prob’ly it won’t matter.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“But I think I am going to die,” he thought, behind the whistle. “I’m +certain I am. I feel it coming on.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—<em>all</em>, I tell you! We have never had +her,—and now, dear God in heaven, we have lost her!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>The Shining Mother bent over and took the Little Girl in her arms.</p> + +<p>“Dear,” she whispered, “it was the Boy that died. I am glad he died.”</p> + +<p>So, though the Ogre and the Shining Mother had not found their Boy, +the Little Girl had found a father and mother.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp06"> +<p>Chapter VI</p> + +<h3>The Lie</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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,”—<em>after that!</em></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>wanted</em> to hear the noises.</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img5"> +<img src="images/img05.png" width='372' height='558' alt="Illustration: +Boy in bed and personification of Lie."> +<p class="caption">It was worse than creepy, creaky noises</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“You,” moaned Russy.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“No,” Russy groaned. “Oh no, I never before!”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“I had to.” Russy sat up in bed and stiffened himself for +self-defence. “I had to! When Jeffy Vandervoort said that about +<em>Her</em>,—well, I guess you’d have had to if they said things about +your <em>mother</em>—”</p> + +<p>“I never had one. The Lies have a Father, that’s all. Go ahead.”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t anything else,—I just <em>had</em> to.”</p> + +<p>“Tell what you said and what <em>he</em> said. Go ahead.”</p> + +<p>“You know all about—”</p> + +<p>“Go ahead!”</p> + +<p>Russy rocked himself back and forth in his agony. It was dreadful to +have to say it all over again.</p> + +<p>“Well, then,” doggedly, “Jeffy said <em>my</em> mother never did, but his +did—oh, always!”</p> + +<p>“Did what—oh, always?”</p> + +<p>Russy clinched his little round fingers till the bones cracked under +the soft flesh.</p> + +<p>“Kissed him good-night—went up to his room a-purpose to, +an’—an’—tucked him in. Oh, always, he said. He said <em>mine</em> never +did. An’ I said—”</p> + +<p>“You said—go ahead!”</p> + +<p>“I said she did, too,—oh—always,” breathed Russy in the awful dark. +“I had to. When it’s your mother, you have to—”</p> + +<p>“I never had one, I told you! How do I know? Go on.”</p> + +<p>He was driven on relentlessly. He had it all to go through with, and +he whispered the rest hurriedly to get it done.</p> + +<p>“I said she tucked me in,—came up a-purpose to,—an’ always kissed +me <em>twice</em> (his only does once), an’ always—called me—Dear.” Russy +fell back in a heap on the pillows and sobbed into them.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“He had to,” cried out Russy, fiercely. “He said I’d never lied to +him in my life—”</p> + +<p>“Before;—yes, I know.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“I’m coming,—which way are you? Can’t you speak up?”</p> + +<p>The Lie was coming, too! Suddenly an awful thought flashed across +Russy’s little, weary brain. What if the Lie would <em>always</em> come, +too? What if he could never get away from it? What if it slept with +him, walked with him, talked with him, <em>lived</em> with him,—oh, always!</p> + +<p>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 +<em>Her</em>,—when it’s your mother,—you have to.”</p> + +<p>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 <em>had</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“The boy’s room, Ellen?—just this once?” he pleaded in her ear. “It +will take but a minute.”</p> + +<p>“I am so tired, Carter! Well, if I must— Why, he isn’t in the bed!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Where is he, Carter? Why don’t you speak? He isn’t here in bed, I +tell you! Russy isn’t here!”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“It feels good, doesn’t it?” he murmured. “I don’t wonder Jeffy +likes it! If my mother kissed <em>me</em>— I told Jeffy she did! It was a +Lie, but I had to. You have to, when they say things like that about +your <em>mother</em>. 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—<em>Dear</em>. 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—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Russy! Russy!” She shook him in her eagerness. “Russy, it’s my +kisses! <em>I’m</em> 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 <em>you!</em>”</p> + +<p>Russy opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Why! Why, so it is!” he said.</p> + +<p>“And calling you ‘Dear,’ Russy! Don’t you hear her? Dear boy,—<em>dear</em> +little boy! You hear her, don’t you, Russy—dear?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes!—<em>why!</em>”</p> + +<p>“And tucking you into bed—like this,—<em>so!</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“Then it isn’t a Lie!” he cried, in a delirium of relief and joy. +“It’s true!”</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp07"> +<p>Chapter VII</p> + +<h3>The Princess of Make-Believe</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Now this golden platter I must wash <em>extry</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>“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—’”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“‘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—’”</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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. <em>They</em> were mostly old +women with bleared, dim eyes, and they wore such faded—silks.</p> + +<p>“<em>My</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“I shall have to have the Royal Dress-maker make me another one soon. +Let me see,—what color shall I choose? I’d <em>like</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—<em>pardon</em>, I mean—mine +infirmity.’”</p> + +<p>The Princess was not sure of “infirmity,” but it sounded well. She +could not think of a better word.</p> + +<p>“And then—I <em>think</em> 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, <em>verily</em>, thou hast found favor in my sight!’ And that will +mean that he doesn’t care what color I am, for he—loves—me.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Oh no, no, no,—not <em>verily!</em>” 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.</p> + +<p>They came nearer. The crisp twigs snapped under his feet. He was +whistling.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“And I shall know when he does,” she thought. “I shall know the +minute!”</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“He is at the Twisted Willow,” she thought. “<em>Now</em> 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.</p> + +<p>The twigs snapped louder and nearer—now very near. The merry whistle +grew clearer, and then it stopped.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I say, hullo! Haven’t you got any tongue?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>The Prince whistled softly. “No,” he said then, “I didn’t wear <em>them</em> +clo’es to-day. You see, my mother—”</p> + +<p>“The Queen,” she interrupted, “you mean the Queen?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Hear, O Prince. Verily, verily, I did not know which color you’d +like to find me dressed in—I mean <em>arrayed</em>. I beseech thee to +excuse—oh, <em>pardon</em>, I mean—”</p> + +<p>But she got no further. She could endure the delay no longer, and her +eyes flew open.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—”</p> + +<p>“Le’ ’s go fishin’,” the Prince said.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp08"> +<p>Chapter VIII</p> + +<h3>The Promise</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>worse</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Be a good boy and I’ll come home before you go to bed! I’ll <em>put</em> +you to bed,” she had promised. “We’ll have a regular lark!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Murray! Is it you?” Daisy, being of the right sex, asked +needless questions sometimes.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered Murray, politely.</p> + +<p>“Well, le’s play. I can stay half a hour. Le’s tag.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t play,” rejoined Murray, caution restraining his natural +desires. “I’m being good.”</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img6"> +<img src="images/img06.png" width='376' height='598' alt="Illustration: +Girl and boy on front steps."> +<p class="caption">I can’t play ... I’m being good</p> +</div> + +<p>“Oh, my!” shrilled the girl child derisively. “Can’t you be good +tagging? Come on.”</p> + +<p>“No; because you might—<em>I</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>“A—lark? Why, it’s a bird, of course!”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Daisy pondered. Her acquaintance with larks was limited, unless it +meant—</p> + +<p>“Do you mean a good time?” she asked. “We have larks over to my house +when we go to bed—”</p> + +<p>“That’s it! That’s the kind!” shouted delighted Murray. “I’m going to +have one when I go to bed. Do you have <em>reg’lar</em> ones, Daisy?” with a +secret little hope that she didn’t. “<em>I’m</em> going to have a reg’lar +one.”</p> + +<p>“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’ +<em>hide</em> in it—what?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>Murray gasped again, harder. For that kind took away his breath +altogether and made him feel a little dizzy, as if he were—were +<em>doing it now</em>—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.</p> + +<p>Yes, that must be the reg’larest kind of a lark, but Murray did not +deceive himself, once the dream was over. He knew <em>that</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>night!</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img7"> +<img src="images/img07.png" width='377' height='600' alt="Illustration: +Boy watching woman in mirror."> +<p class="caption">Murray had ... seen the vision, too</p> +</div> + +<p>“Your mamma’s gone away, hasn’t she? I saw her.”</p> + +<p>Daisy was still there! Murray pulled himself out of his dreaming, to +be polite.</p> + +<p>“Yes; but she’s coming back to-night. She promised.”</p> + +<p>“S’posing the cars run off the track so she can’t?” Daisy said, +cheerfully.</p> + +<p>“She’ll come,” Murray rejoined, with the decision of faith. “She +promised, I said.”</p> + +<p>“S’posing she’s killed ’most dead?”</p> + +<p>“She’ll come.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Puffickly</em> dead—s’posing?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“When anybody promises, <em>they do it</em>,” he said, sturdily. “She +promised an’ she’ll come.”</p> + +<p>“Then her angel will have to come,” remarked the older, girl child, +coolly, with awful use of the indicative mood.</p> + +<p>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 <em>now</em>—and now—and now. It was dreadful to just stand and +wonder things.</p> + +<p>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 <em>she</em> did it. She would be right here, close—if he +dared, he could put out his hand and smooth her. If he <em>dared</em>, he +could take the pins out of her soft hair, and hide in it—</p> + +<p>He meant to dare!</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Why, Mrs. Cody!” the neighbor cried. “How delightful! You’ve come in +to see Irving, too?”</p> + +<p>“No,” with distinct regret answered Murray’s mother, “but I wish I +had! I’m only in for a little shopping.”</p> + +<p>“Not going to stay! Why, it will be <em>wicked</em> to go back +to-night—unless, of course, you’ve seen him in Robespierre.”</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“I guess you’ll stop over!” laughed the neighbor. “I know the signs.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>But it was seven o’clock before she telephoned. She was to have been +at home at half-past seven.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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 <em>was</em> +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.</p> + +<p>“Lissen, Cappen Sojer, an’ I’ll teach you a p’omise. A p’omise—a +p’omise—why, when anybody p’omises, <em>they do it!</em>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>her</em> 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—</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>run</em>.</p> + +<p>She started at once, scarcely allowing herself time to explain to her +friend. She would listen to no urgings at all.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“The train is late,” she said. “It must be.”</p> + +<p>“No.” The other woman glanced backward at the station clock. “It’s +we who are early.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Then Murray’s mother found herself hurrying feverishly into a car, +her face feeling wet and queer. She was crying.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t we start?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Hot box,” the oily person replied, laconically.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What is it? What is it?”</p> + +<p>“All right, all right! Don’t be scairt, lady! Wreck ahead +somewheres—freight-train. We got to wait till they clear the track.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They stopped with a terrific lurch. It threw her on to the seat +ahead.</p> + +<p>“This is not the place,” she cried, sharply, after a glance without.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Yer’ll have to ax this here four-legged party what’s doin’. <em>I</em> +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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Has he gone to bed?” she came panting in upon drowsy Sheelah, +startling that phlegmatic person out of an honest Irish dream.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I won’t! I won’t go, Sheelah! I’m waiting. She promis—” in drowsy +murmur.</p> + +<p>“She’s here—she’s come, Murray! Mamma’s come home to put you to +bed—Little Silly, open your eyes and see mamma!”</p> + +<p>And he opened them and saw the love in her eyes before he saw her. +Sleep took instant wings. He sprang up.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes!” she sobbed.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—yes!”</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>It fell about him in a soft shower and he hid in it and laughed. +Sheelah heard them laughing together.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp09"> +<p>Chapter IX</p> + +<h3>The Little Lover</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>“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 <em>not</em> love ’em—</p> + +<p>“’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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll suck as far down as that, just ’xactly,” he said; “then I’ll +put it away in the Treasury Box.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <em>my</em>, 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!</p> + +<p>“’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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<em>him</em>. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<em>posies!</em>” For there, in moist tissue wrappings, lay a cluster of +marvellous pale roses, breathing out their subtle sweetness into the +little face above them.</p> + +<p>“Why, I didn’t know <em>that</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You little ‘thafe o’ the wurruld’!” he called out. “What are you +doing with my roses?”</p> + +<p>“I want ’em—please,” persisted the child, eagerly, thinking of the +Treasury Box and Her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you do, do you? But they’re not for the likes o’ you.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“Is—is it for a She?” he asked, breathless with interest.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Then it was a Treasury Box. Then you did the treasures up that way, +in thin, rattly paper like that. <em>Then</em> what did you do? But he would +find out.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t know,” he murmured. “I didn’t know <em>that</em> was the way! +Do you send it by the ’spressman, then, Uncle Larry,—to—to Her, you +know? With Her name on?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“No; I’m my own ‘’spressman.’ You’ve got some things to learn, Reg, +before you grow up.”</p> + +<p>“I’d ravver learn ’em now. Tell me ’em! Tell what you do <em>then</em>.”</p> + +<p>The old mocking light was back in Uncle Larry’s eyes. This small chap +with the earnest little face was good as a play.</p> + +<p>“‘<em>Then’?</em> Then, sure, I go to the door and ring the bell. Then I +kneel on one knee like this, and hold out the box—”</p> + +<p>“The Treasury Box—yes, go on.”</p> + +<p>“—Like this. And I say, ‘Fair One, accept this humble offering, I +beseech thee’—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Fair One,” he quivered, softly, “accept this—offspring—no, I mean +this <em>hum-bul</em> offspring, I—I—oh, I mean <em>please!</em>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>him!</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>him</em>. It was sweet and soft and tender +for Uncle Larry.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>hadn’t</em> come home,—so of course he had never gone. It was a +dream,—still—where was the Treasury Box?</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Little Lover ran away and hid. They could not find him for a long +time. It was She who found him.</p> + +<p>“Why, Reggie! Why, poor little man! Look up. What is it, dear? +Reggie, you are crying!”</p> + +<p>He did not care. He <em>wanted</em> to cry. But he let Her take him into Her +arms.</p> + +<p>“<em>I</em> wanted to do it!” he sobbed, desolately, his secret out at last.</p> + +<p>“Do it? Do what, Reggie?”</p> + +<p>“M-marry you. <em>I</em> was goin’ to do it. H-He hadn’t any right to! I +hate him—I hate him!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Reggie,” She whispered, “how would a mother do?”</p> + +<p>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 <em>ravver</em> a mother,” the Little Lover +said.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp10"> +<p>Chapter X</p> + +<h3>The Child</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t tell you before,” she said. “I wanted to get it reasoned +<em>out</em>. 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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>reasonable</em> age. But I +couldn’t think of any better way.”</p> + +<p>The Child’s eyes riveted to the beautiful face almost saw it nod a +little.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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 +<em>had</em> been one had dimmed the beautiful remembrance. It seemed to her +now as a pleasant dream that she longed to dream again.</p> + +<p>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: +<ul> +<li>“1. Bringing in his newspaper.</li> +<li>“2. Kissing Him goodmorning.</li> +<li>“3. Rangeing his studdy table.</li> +<li>“4. Putting flours on " "</li> +<li>“5. Takeing up His male.</li> +<li>“6. Reeching up to rub My cheak against his cheak.</li> +<li>“7. Lerning to read so I can read His Books.”</li></ul> + +<p>There were many other items. The Child had used three pages for her +programme. The last two lines read:</p> +<ul> +<li>“Praing for Him.</li> +<li>“Kissing Him goodnight.”</li></ul> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There’s something I <em>wish</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>The Child’s eyes, fastened upon the picture, were intently serious. +And again the Lady seemed to nod.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hence the formal invitation:</p> + +<blockquote><p>“Dear farther you are respectably invited to put yore little girl +to bed tonite at ½ past 7. Yores very truely</p> + +<p class="sig">Elizabeth.</p> + +<p>“R s v p.</p> + +<p>P.s. the little girl is me.”</p></blockquote> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<div class="imgcenter" id="img8"> +<img src="images/img08.png" width='354' height='593' alt="Illustration: +Girl standing."> +<p class="caption">Elizabeth</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“‘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—</p> + +<p>“‘Dear Little Girl, Who Is You,’” she hurriedly began again, “‘your +farther will be happy to accept your kind invitation for ½ +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.</p> + +<p>Marie came over to the Child’s chair. “How can I tell without I see +it?” she said. But the Child drew away gently.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I don’t <em>dread</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Truly, is it?” the Child questioned, anxiously. “Slow means it’s +’most half-past, doesn’t it? Then I ought to be going!”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“You never unbuttoned a little girl before, did you? I’ll have to +learn you.”</p> + +<p>“Teach you,” he corrected, gently.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>There was a slight stir in the doorway.</p> + +<p>“’Sh! don’t move—sit perfectly still!” came in a whisper as a +slender figure moved forward softly into the room.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>joggling?</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I want her every day, Richard!” she said.</p> + +<p>“<em>I</em> want her every day, Mary!”</p> + +<p>“Then there is only one way. Last night she prayed to have things +changed round—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Polly?”</p> + +<p>“We’ll change things round, Dick.”</p> + +<p>The Child was smiling in her sleep as if she heard them.</p> + +<div class="chapheader" id="vsp11"> +<p>Chapter XI</p> + +<h3>The Recompense</h3> +</div> + + + +<p>There were all kinds of words,—short ones and long ones. Some +were very long. This one—we-ell, maybe it wasn’t so <em>long</em>, 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!</p> + +<p>Morry spelled it through again, searching for light. But it was a +very dark word. Rec-om-<em>pense</em>,—if it meant anything <em>money-y</em>, then +they’d made a mistake, for of course you don’t spell “pence” with an +“s.”</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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 <em>enough!</em></p> + +<p>“Hully Gee, ain’t it nice an’ light in here!” presently exclaimed a +boy’s voice from the doorway.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>go</em>—my! Legs +like that were great!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go hunt,—where’d I be most likely to find him?”</p> + +<p>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. <em>Words</em>, don’t you know?”</p> + +<p>“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’.”</p> + +<p>“Rec-om-pense,—p-e-n-<em>s</em>-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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p>“Hi!” the blunt finger leaped into space and waved triumphantly. +“R-e-c-k,—I got him!”</p> + +<p>“Not ‘k,’—there isn’t any ‘k.’ Go backwards till you drop it, +Jolly,—you dropped it?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ve dropped it,” he announced in time.</p> + +<p>Morry was breathing hard, too. Looking up words with other people’s +fore-fingers is pretty tough.</p> + +<p>“Now, the second story,—‘rec’ is the first,” he explained. “You must +find ‘rec-om’ now, you know.”</p> + +<p>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”—</p> + +<p>“Whistle,” Morry said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Bully for us!” he shouted. He felt <em>thrilly</em> with pride of conquest. +“It’s easy enough finding things. What’s the matter with +dictionaries!”</p> + +<p>“Now read what it means, Jolly,—I mean, please. Don’t skip.”</p> + +<p>“‘Rec-om-pense: An equi-va-lent received or re-turned for anything +given, done, or suff-er-ed; comp-ens-a-tion.’”</p> + +<p>“That all?—every speck?”</p> + +<p>“Well, here’s another one that says ‘To make a-mends,’ if you like +that one any better. Sounds like praying.”</p> + +<p>“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 <em>make up</em>. 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 +<em>those?</em> Could anything ever “make up”?</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I’m a-thinkin’.” Not to have ’em that would go,—not <em>go!</em> 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—</p> + +<p>“No, sirree!” ejaculated Jolly, with unction, “nothin’.”</p> + +<p>“Would ever make up, you mean?” Morry sighed. He had known all the +time, of course what the answer would be.</p> + +<p>“Yep,—nothin’ could.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>The result was surprising. The telescoped legs came to view jerkily, +but with haste. Jolly stumbled to his feet.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Oh, wait a minute,—did you ever hear of one, Jolly?”</p> + +<p>“You bet,” gloomily, “I got one.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!—oh, I didn’t know. Then,” rather timidly, “perhaps—I wish +you’d tell me what they’re like.”</p> + +<p>“Like nothin’! Nobody likes ’em,” came with more gloom yet from the +boy with legs.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” It was almost a cry from the boy without. This was terrible. +This was a great deal terribler than he had expected.</p> + +<p>“Would one be angry if—if your legs wouldn’t go? Would it make her +<em>very</em>, do you think?”</p> + +<p>Still thinking of empty things that ought to have been filled, Jolly +nodded emphatically.</p> + +<p>“Oh!” The terror grew.</p> + +<p>“Then one—then she—wouldn’t be—be glad to see anybody, I suppose, +whose legs had <em>never</em> been?—wouldn’t want to shake hands or +anything, I suppose?—nor be in the same room?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Are they pretty, Jolly?” he asked, wistfully.</p> + +<p>“Are who what?” repeated the boy on the threshold, puzzled. Guilt and +apprehension dull one’s wits.</p> + +<p>“Step-ones,—mothers.”</p> + +<p><em>Pretty?</em> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.)</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>So, under the skilful, gentle hands, the boy looked up and chanced +it. “Ellen,” he said—“Ellen, are they all that kind,—<em>all</em> of ’em? +Jolly’s kind, I mean? I thought poss’bly you might know one”—</p> + +<p>“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?</p> + +<p>“Never mind,” sighed Morry, hopelessly. Ellens—he might have +known—were not made to tell you <em>close</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <em>how!</em> Could it be possible there was +anything that would make up for little, limp, sorrowful legs that had +never been?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 <em>loved</em> you, legs and all!</p> + +<p>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 +<em>easy!</em></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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:—</p> + +<p>“Oh yes’m, thank you,” he managed to say. “They’re under the +bedclothes.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ve come to the right place. Do you know—guess!—who I am?”</p> + +<p>“Are—are you a step-one?” breathing hard.</p> + +<p>“Why, you’ve guessed the first time!” the Gracious One laughed.</p> + +<p>“Not—not <em>the</em> one, I s’pose?” It frightened him to say it. But the +Gracious One laughed again.</p> + +<p>“<em>The</em> 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.”</p> + +<p>To think of that!</p> + +<p>“Guess, you Dear Little Boy! What would you like it to be?”</p> + +<p>Oh, if he only dared! He swallowed to get up courage. Then he +ventured timidly.</p> + +<p>“A Rec-om-pense.” It was out.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you Guesser—you little Guesser! You’ve guessed the second +time!”</p> + +<p>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 <em>made up</em>. 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.</p> + +<p>“Will—will it last?” he breathed.</p> + +<p>“Always, Morry.”</p> + +<p>The Gracious Step-one knew his name!</p> + +<p>“Then Jolly didn’t know this kind,—we never s’posed there was a kind +like this! Real Ones must be like this.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Up with you, Master Morris! There’s great doings to-day. Have you +forgot who’s coming?”</p> + +<p>Ellens are stupid.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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—”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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,—<em>she</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Is this the Dear Little Boy?”</p> + +<p>He heard distinctly, but he did not open his eyes. He had learned +that opening your eyes drives beautiful things away.</p> + +<p>The dream had come back. If he kept perfectly still and didn’t +breathe, it might all begin again. He might feel—</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>“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—</p> + +<p>“You think he will let me love him, Morris? Say you think he will!”</p> + +<p>Morris was Dadsy’s other name. Things were getting very strange.</p> + +<p>“Because I must! Perhaps it will make up a very little if I fold him +all up in my love.”</p> + +<p>“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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“It makes up—oh yes, it makes up!” he cried, softly.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Very Small Person, by Annie Hamilton Donnell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VERY SMALL PERSON *** + +***** This file should be named 29404-h.htm or 29404-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/0/29404/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin, Bruce Albrecht, and Andrew Sly. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VERY SMALL PERSON *** + +***** This file should be named 29404.txt or 29404.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/0/29404/ + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin, Bruce Albrecht, and Andrew Sly. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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