Chapter II: Part 2

“Well, where was I, then?”

“You were born in this house.”

“Where in this house?”

“Where? Why, upstairs, I suppose.”

“Are people always born upstairs?”

“Usually.”

“Never born down-stairs at all? Didn’t you ever know anybody that was born down—”

“Oh, stop, Bobbert! Go on amusing your sister. You have a genius for pure idiocy. Where’s your mother?”

Bobbert’s face fell. The baby tore off a bit of her doll and swallowed it unrebuked—it was one of her swallowing days—and began wetting her finger and following in a smudgy outline the figures on the Kate Greenaway wall-paper, without one reprimand from her brother.

“’F I’m goin’ to have a tree, I want to make it myself. They’re all down in the lib’r’y, and I have to keep out. They’ve got a ladder in there, too. And they laugh all the time. I have to stay here with _her_! What’s the good o’ calling it my tree if I can’t help? Aunt Helena says won’t my eyes pop out when I see; but they won’t.”

(“Hadn’t she better keep the doll to play with and eat something else?”)

“I think I might go in! Here, stop eating that, Baby! Let go! Somebody fell off the ladder, too, and there I was out in the hall! I don’t believe they had the little back thing up that keeps it from doubling up, sort of, that way it does, you know. Do you? I could ’a’ told them about that. What’s the good of a tree, anyway?”

(“Do you think she improves the wall-paper with that border? Perhaps the color comes off.”)

“Here, stop that! Don’t suck your hand, Baby. Oh, goodness! I wish Minna was here. I’m not a nurse. I never made such a fuss when I was little, I know. If I had a tree for anybody, I’d let them have the fun of it. Wouldn’t you?”

His audience looked uncertain. In his heart he felt that his nephew was right, but prudence restrained him, and he rose to go with a temporizing air. “Well, you know, it’s usually done this way,” he suggested. “It’s supposed to be in the nature of a surprise. If you arranged the whole thing, there wouldn’t be anybody to surprise, would there?”

Bobbert sniffed. “Oh, if you stay out, we could s’prise you, I s’pose,” he said, somewhat cynically.

“But I’ve seen so many trees——” The defence was very feeble, and he knew it.

“Oh, all right,” said Bobbert testily, jerking the baby away from the high fender. “And they’re popping corn over the fire in there; I heard it pop. And Aunt Helena said that it was so good sugared, and that fat one—the one with the yellow mustache—said that he should think all that she ate would taste——”

“How do you know what they said?”

“I heard.”

“How?”

“I heard.”

“How did you hear?”

“Through the key-hole!” Bobbert set his jaw and twisted a piece of the baby’s dress nervously.

“And since when have you adopted that method of obtaining information, Robertson?”

“I don’t care! I only did a moment! I don’t care if it is sneaky—I might just as well be sneaky if I’m not going to Annapolis! If I do anything at all, everybody says: ‘Oh dear! I’m afraid you’ll never be a lieutenant, after all. They never do so!’ And if I say I’m going to be one, they say, ‘I wouldn’t count on it, Bobbert,’ till I’m just sick and tired! Am I going to Annapolis? Am I? I don’t care about the old tree if I know that.”

“My dear boy, how do I know? It will depend on—on—on circumstances,” he concluded weakly.

Bobbert stamped his foot. His uncle slipped out of the room.

In the library the tree was towering to completion. A gilt angel held ropes of pop-corn that straggled artistically downward; snowy, ribbon-bound packets dangled from the boughs; candles dotted the ends. Aunts and uncles chattered and laughed and quarrelled amicably, while Bobbert’s father and mother, bubbling over with delight and busyness and vague Christmas good feeling, ran about holding the same parcels, straightening the same red candle, pulling at the same rope of cranberries.

“Isn’t it grand, Frank? This is really the best we’ve ever had. How are the children? Do they suspect anything?”

“Nothing—nothing whatever,” he assured her. “Bobbert thinks the odor of hemlock and pop-corn is to be attributed to the window-boxes, and I have no doubt that he supposes you’re conducting a funeral down here. It’s so still and solemn.”

“Oh, Frank, how absurd! Well, I suppose he does begin to suspect——”

“My dear sister, your penetration does you credit. Bobbert is only nine, and he has only seen this performance nine times, so it would be odd if he should have any _exact_ idea of what you are all doing, but he probably has a dim——”

“Now, Frank, you are tiresome. Of course he knows, but how can he know the size of it? He never saw one so big. And we never had so many candles—there are three boxes here. And look at this. What do you think Uncle Ritch. has sent him?”

One of the aunts waved at him a set of red, blue and yellow balls attached by elastic cords to a brightly colored stick.

“I suppose the dear old man thinks Bobbert is about two years old! Where have you put that Japanese juggler’s outfit, Kate? See, Frank, that beautiful French puzzle! It’s awfully interesting. I hope he’ll like it. More candy? The idea! The child would die! Where’s Father Robertson’s bird-book, dear? I sha’n’t dare let him take it alone; it’s too exquisite. See, Frank, there are two hundred and fifty colored plates. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Bobbert’s uncle fell upon the book. “By George!” he said, “but that’s a beauty! Rather wasted on Bobbert, isn’t it? Doesn’t know an ostrich from a canary, does he?”

“Well, that’s what Father Robertson wants him to learn!” they cried in chorus.

He nodded doubtfully. “Pity he can’t come in and help,” he suggested, “he’d enjoy this rumpus.”

They stared at him in consternation.

“Why, Francis Robertson, what are you thinking of? Have Bobbert help on his own tree? Are you crazy?”

“I suppose it wouldn’t do,” he admitted, “but you see that’s just what a little fellow likes—all the noise and fuss and running about and the—smells,” he added vaguely.

“The smells?” demanded Bobbert’s mother.

“The hemlock and the candy and the _new_ smell of all the things,” he persisted.

“In short,” said the fat one with the yellow mustache, looking up from a box of many-colored baubles with which he and Aunt Helena were playing in undisguised joy, “just what we like!”

“Precisely,” remarked Uncle Frank.

“Really,” said Aunt Kate, somewhat stiffly, “if Bobbert and Babe should help about the tree, I can’t quite see whom we’d call in to see it this evening! What are we working so hard for—to please ourselves?”

“Oh, no! great heavens, no!” cried Uncle Frank.

Bobbert’s father appeared with an armful of steel rails and cross-pieces. “What do you say to this, Robertson?” he called delightedly. “Jove! these are heavy. Three switches to the thing, and you ought to see the engine! There’s a parlor-car, a smoker, and two passengers. See the tender? Jove! I call that pretty good. Ring the bell, Kate. Look at that piston-rod, Frank!”

They clustered about him excitedly.

“Father sent it round just now. Wouldn’t tell what he paid for the thing. You clamp it down to the carpet—right through it goes. There are forty-two feet of railing—how’s that? Four curves and three switches—regular thing, you know. We’ll put it right through the library, across the hall, and loop it back in front of the conservatory. What do you say?”

“Won’t he be delighted!” sighed the aunts.

“Can we get it down before evening?” said Bobbert’s mother nervously.

“Well, I should say so!” The fat one with the yellow mustache seized an armful of rails and began to study the joinings; Bobbert’s father and Uncle Christopher explained the switch-workings eagerly to each other; and Bobbert’s mother flew about wondering how the rugs could stand it, and picturing Bobbert’s joy as the train puffed out from the base of the tree.

“This is great!” Uncle Christopher cried, as the rails went down with wonderful celerity. “Haven’t had such fun in an age! Half the fun’s in getting it ready!”

The fat one with the mustache glanced up and caught Uncle Frank’s eye.

“Perhaps he’d rather——”

Bobbert’s mother shook her head at them. “Now stop right there,” she said merrily, “if you’re going to suggest that he should come down and help! You don’t seem to see my plan at all, Frank. I want this thing to be perfect—I want it all to burst on him at once. How can we put it down in the evening when we’re all dressed? And there wouldn’t be time, anyway. Oh, Chris, you didn’t get him that, too? See that lovely dog collar! And the chain, too! Now Don will look respectable. Just step up stairs, won’t you, Frank, and keep Bob on that floor till supper? Minna will bring it to him up there. He’ll see the rails, you see, if he comes down into the hall. Helena, if you and Mr. Ferris eat any more of that broken candy, you’ll certainly be sick. No, I don’t mean ill—I mean plain sick.”

“Do you mean to say you’re not going to let that child out into the dining-room? He’ll be so disgusted there’ll be no managing him.”

Bobbert’s mother looked plaintive. “I wish to heaven, Frank,” she said, “that you had some children of your own! Perhaps you wouldn’t be so ridiculous then. How on earth is it going to hurt Bobbert, to-night of all nights, to stay in the nursery a few hours, just so that we may all toil for his own particular amusement? Tell him a story, or something. We’ll barely have time——”

A burst of laughter interrupted her. Uncle Christopher had wound up the train and started it on what extent of rail was already laid, to his own great comfort and the disgust of Bobbert’s father and the fat one with the mustache, who shrieked at him to “stop it off,” and nervously waved their hands at the engine as it hove down upon the unfinished curve at the hearth rug, while Aunt Helena waved a red flag wildly, and Aunt Kate began to pass round a hat for a purse for “the brave girl who risked her life so gallantly to save the train.”

He left them with a chuckle, and began to mount the stairs two steps at a time, just saving himself from falling upon a huddled group at the top of the flight.

“What _are_ they doing in the hall?” Bobbert demanded, abruptly, clutching the baby’s skirts with one hand and supporting himself in a peering attitude with the other. “What makes ’em scream that way? Why do they say, ‘Down brakes’? Is it a game? When Aunt Helena laughs and laughs that way, she us’ally cries afterward.”

Uncle Frank towed them back into the nursery, and led the conversation story-ward, but Bobbert was not to be beguiled.

“I’m tired of stories. I’d rather be down-stairs,” he yawned. “I know one thing—if I get another old carpenter’s set, I’ll sell it to-morrow for five cents. I hate ’em. All I want’s a boat, and I can’t have that. I don’t see why I can’t go out, if it _is_ snowing. I never can do a single thing I want, anyway.”

“You are a little cross,” observed his uncle, surveying him critically, “but I don’t know that I blame you. Minna’s coming up soon.”

“Well, she better.” Bobbert scowled at the baby, who smiled sweetly back.

“You’re bad,” he said, shortly.

“Oh, _nein_,” she smiled.

“_‘Oh, nein,’ she smiled._

_‘Oh, ja,’ he scowled._”
]

“Oh, _ja_,” he scowled. “You’re always chewing the wrong thing. Look at your shoe, all wet! What’ll Minna say?”

She screwed her face into wrinkles and shook her head, wringing her hands with Minna’s gesture. “_Pfui! pfui doch! ’s ist abscheulich!_” she scolded.

“I don’t believe you’ll get a present at all,” he continued.

“Babe get p’es’t! Babe get big p’es’t!”

“Not a one! Not a one!” he persisted.

Her eyes filled; she implored him earnestly.

“_P’ease_, Babe get big p’es’t!”

“Not a——”

“Stop teasing your sister, Bobbert. Of course she’ll get a present. Why not?”

“Because she swore.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean what I say.”

“When did she swear?”

“Day before yesterday night. She said she was going to be bad when she got up, and they kept at her to say she wouldn’t and she said she would. She can be the worst you ever saw.”

“Worse ever saw!” echoed the baby.

“And all day they were afraid she would be, and she wasn’t and she wasn’t, and she wasn’t. Not till she went to bed. And she said her prayers—that one she says, ‘_Herr Jesus, mild und_—something—_Du_’—and then she just looked right up at the ceiling and swore as hard as she could.”

“What in th—time did she say?”

“She said: ‘O Lord! Good Heavens! Damn!’”

“Oh!”

“And she got her little hands mighty well slapped, too. She must never say it again, must you, Baby?”

The baby laughed impishly. There was no telling what more she knew.

At exactly half-past six the library doors flew open with a bang, the piano struck up a brilliant march and Minna escorted her charges pompously down the stairs, the baby in white, with a bewildering number of pink bows, Bobbert in a blue sailor suit.

Around the gleaming tree stood a ring of aunts, uncles and grandparents, flushed and happy.

“Merry Christmas, Bobbert! Merry Christmas, Babe! How do you like it? Isn’t it grand? See the angel? See the pop-corn? Don’t look at the floor yet! (No, it isn’t time so soon. Chris will start it.) Well, was it lovely, bless her little heart? _Wunderschön, Liebchen, nicht wahr?_”

Bobbert smiled perfunctorily at the tree, blinked a little, leaped through the ring of bright-frocked relatives, and fell upon a red-faced, apologetic man standing with the group of delighted servants near the door.

“Hello David!” he cried. “When did you come back? Are you going to stay? Did you know I could swim? Will you tell me a story to-night?”

David, whose only fault was too great an attachment to the cup that cheered him too frequently, and who had been devoted to Bobbert, coughed deprecatingly and explained: “Only dropped in for the tree, Mr. Bob, your papa havin’ asked me in with the rest. And a fine tree it is, I’m sure. I expect most o’ them presents will be for you, Mr. Bob?”

David prefixed the title of respect in public, but his private relations with Bobbert had been anything but formal.

Aunt Kate, dancing with impatience, had begun to detach the presents from the lower boughs, and soon they were piling up around him.

“Master Robertson Wheeler. Master Robertson Wheeler—oh, Bobbert, that’s a whopping fine present. Miss Dorothea Wheeler. _Siehst du, mein süsses Kind?_ Master Robertson Wheeler. See what Uncle Ritch. sent you, Bob! He forgot how you had grown!”

They were laughing, explaining, thanking, eating, all at once.

“And the candy, mother’ll keep till to-morrow. Now, Bob, see! Under the tree!”

The engine rattled proudly forth. The uncles and aunts fell upon it.

“There! I told you it wasn’t oiled enough! See, where the smoke-stack joins on! Will she take the curve by the rug? See, Bobbert, how the switches work! Real switches! Father! Here, this way, Father Robertson! Mr. Ferris is going to work the switch. Isn’t it wonderful, Bobbert? It’s from Grandpa Wheeler. Thank him. It goes through the hall. Oh, Kate, you can’t work that switch, can you? See Aunt Kate work the switch, dear.”

Bobbert watched it curiously. He ran forward to the third switch.

“Want to see how it goes, Bob? Here, I’ll work it for you. It’s a little catchy at first. Yes indeed, Mr. Robertson, we had more fun than a little getting this ready, I assure you. Quite complete, isn’t it?”

Uncle Christopher began to juggle with the Japanese outfit, to the intense delight of the servants. The aunties and Mr. Ferris played with the engine explaining its mechanism to the wondering grandfathers. Grandma Wheeler marvelled at the French dissecting puzzle. Bobbert’s mother happily guarding the candy, laughed at the baby, who, harnessed into the dog collar, pranced along before her father, waving the colored balls in the air, a woolly lamb under her free arm. The merry moments passed.

Suddenly Grandfather Wheeler looked up from the bird-book, which he was sharing with Uncle Frank. “But where is Robertson, Jr.?” he inquired mildly.

They stared. “Why, right here,” they said. But he was not right there.

Uncle Frank looked about comprehensively at the relatives and smiled a superior smile. Then his eye fell on the bird-book in his lap, and the smile changed its quality.

He glanced at the ring of servants. “And where is David?” he added. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. “Come on!” he said. “We’ll find him. Don’t make a noise—walk softly, now.”

And still holding the presents, they trooped after him through the hall, Bobbert’s mother close to the leader, the aunties and Mr. Ferris at the end of the line. Through the dining-room, through the wide pantry, through the hall, and up to the kitchen door they tiptoed.

Uncle Frank paused a moment, nodded, and made room for Bobbert’s father, while the grandfathers crowded up and the aunties peeped under and over.

On the floor before the well-swept kitchen hearth sat David; beside him, a little space away, squatted Bobbert, a long black hockey-stick in his hand. Between them were arranged large pieces of coal from the hod—arranged in what appeared to be nine-pin patterns.

“I shall attack from the right at daybreak. You’ll see what the Mosquito Fleet can do, Mr. David! Your clumsy old Spanish ships can’t move quick enough! Can they?”

“Wait and see, Bob, my boy!”

“This coal makes dandy ships—don’t it? A lot of coal would be a fine present—wouldn’t it? They use wood upstairs, and I don’t believe I could get hold of any. Are you enjoying yourself, David?”

“You bet I am, Bob. Put your flagship in line.”

“Well, I will. She was out for—for repairs. When I go skating, David, I’ll never use any other hockey-stick. I wanted a black one next to a boat. You were lovely to give it to me. I’ll be big enough for a boat next year, I hope.”

“Well, now it’s daybreak. Lieutenant, are you ready?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Begin the fight!”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The coal flew about thick and fast, the commanders shuffled the lumps into place, cheering and encouraging their officers and crews. Ship after ship sank, to rise no more, in a clatter of coal on the hearth.

Under cover of the noise Uncle Frank led them away, silent, through the empty rooms, to where the deserted Christmas tree sheltered only Minna, cooing German cradle-songs to her sleeping baby.

“Now look here,” he said. “Let’s be sensible, dear people. We’ll go on enjoying our presents and sports—and let Bobbert enjoy his. Why not, eh?”

THE HEART OF A CHILD

The sun-glare lies on the road and the field and the house. The beetles buzz and buzz, and the hens chuckle drowsily, half sunk in the gray dust. There are only three little white clouds in all the warm blue sky. It is quite still, except for the hens and the beetles and the occasional flap of the collie’s tail on the warm flags. No one passes up or down the road. It is the hot noon sleep of the country in August.

Suddenly comes the grating sound of something dragged over the floor, and the door opens. The Child pushes out with a little wooden rocking-chair and a great tin pan heaped with unshelled peas. She stands the chair carefully in the coolest patch of shade and squeezes her plump little body between the curved arms. Her blue-checked apron is tied by the waistband around her neck—it is a grown woman’s apron, and covers her and the chair, which is far too small for her, now. But one cannot be always eight years old, and when one is eleven shall one relinquish without a pang the birthday gifts of one’s childhood?

She lays the pan beside her and puts a handful of peas into her blue-checked lap. She presses her brown little thumb against the sharp green edge and drags it down the pod. Out patter the little green balls, and rattle into the pan. Truly, a pleasant sound! Like the rain on the roof. When she was very little and slept with her mother, she woke once in the night, and it was raining hard. The thunder frightened her, and her mother comforted her and sang her to sleep in the bed. And when the lightning flashed and all the room was bright and dreadful, her mother told her to keep her eyes shut and then the flashes would not trouble her. So she screwed her eyes hard together and held her mother’s hand and drifted off to sleep.

That was so long ago! But whenever anything rattles and patters she shuts her eyes quickly, and sees for a moment the dark room and the square white counterpane, and hears her mother singing “Mary of Argyle.” She wonders if when we die and go to heaven we are reminded by little sights and sounds of what we used to do on earth. Of course, we shall do only pleasant things there, but they might remind us of the pleasant things here—the pasture in the early morning, when it is so still and cool and almost strange; the barn, full of sweet piles of hay, musical with pigeons, checkered with amber sunlight, a fairy palace on whose fragrant divans one sits with sultans and slave girls, and listens to Sindbad and Aladdin; the shady porch, where cool white milk and dark shiny gingerbread wait the weary, berry-stained wanderer. In the brown book in the parlor is a poem about a little girl who used to “take her little porringer and eat her supper there.” The Child feels like that little girl when she eats in the porch.

There is another little girl in the brown book—“Sweet Lucy Gray.” She thinks of Lucy when she comes home alone at dusk, and quickens her steps.

_For some maintain unto this day
She is a living child_——

How frightened she would be! Not that the Child has been foolishly taught to fear. Only that she is imaginative, and knows enough to be afraid.

In that poem there is mention of one “minster-clock.” What may that be? She connects it hazily with the watch that the minister takes out before the sermon. But that could never strike. If she could have one wish in all her life she knows what it would be. A beautiful gold watch all chased with figures and a cherry-colored ribbon tied into the handle. Then she would put it into her waist—but her dresses open in the back! The disadvantages of youth are obvious enough, in all conscience, without that last pathetic touch. When can she have a separate waist and skirt?

Suppose she should die before she grows old enough to attain this glory? People have died when they were young—much younger than she. The little Waters girl died, and she was only nine. The Child went to the funeral, but not with her mother. She slipped into the kitchen and listened at the door. When she told her mother that she had gone her mother looked at her so strangely.

“Why did you want to go?” she said. The Child could not tell.

“It made me cry,” she answered, “but I felt good, too. I want her to tell my brother that I am pretty well, and that I hope he is the same, when she gets to heaven. Do you suppose she will get there by to-night?”

They talked about her conduct on that occasion so strangely and so long that she never spoke any more with them about death or the life after it. But she thought about these things.

She wondered whether Mary Waters remembered the secret place they made together in a hollow gate-post. Mary Waters had a way of sometimes telling things not quite as they really were. Did she do so now? Or had she told enough lies to send her to hell? For liars inherit hell. It is not that this fact has been impressed upon her mind by others, but she has read it in the Bible and heard it read.

There are strange things in the Bible. One is commanded to refrain from doing so many things that one never would do anyway. But those things must have been done by the Israelites and the Pharisees and the Hittites and the Publicans. Then did God mean that the Americans must keep the same laws? But Americans were free and equal. They threw over the tea, and with a wild whoop—wait! let us pretend!

This is Boston. It is still and quiet. Night is dark all around. Soft and stealthy come footsteps—the Indians! They gather from the shadows of the trees and houses, they wave their tomahawks exultantly, they glide to the wharf. In their path stands a little girl in a blue-checked apron. She falls upon her knees in terror.

“Save me!” she cries. The chief laughs a horrid laugh; he raises his tomahawk—the dog barks loud and the Child nearly drops the peas in her lap, so frightened she is.

“I thought they were real! I thought they were coming!” she whispers to herself.

Let us think of pleasant things! Peas are so small if you count them by ones! If people considered whenever they gobbled peas so quickly that every one had to be shelled by one poor, tired little girl! But no, they eat them without a thought of how she sat in the little tight chair and rattled them into the pan. If they were only rich enough to leave the chair and the peas and the farm and go to a city! What city? Oh, New York or Boston or Persia. In Persia the days are full of richness and the nights are Arabian. Along the streets walk veiled and lovely women—does it matter that to the Child their veils are of the dull blue cotton that wreathes her mother’s hat? By all the Persian monarchs, no!—driving black dogs and white hinds, followed by turbaned slaves and glaring eunuchs, with misty genii hovering in the background. They enter a frowning portal—but let us pretend!

This is Persia. The streets are narrow; the people jostle and crowd to one side a little girl in a blue-checked apron. She walks along unknown, unnoticed. Wait! Who is this? It is a slave in a turban with a scimitar flashing with jewels. He bows low.

“I am bidden to tell you that your presence is desired by my master, lovely maiden!” The lovely maiden looks haughtily at him.

“I will follow you, Slave,” she says. They go on to a low narrow door. The slave says a magic word and the door swings open. Through a long passage and a great hall they go. There bursts upon them a radiance of light. Flowers fill the air with an unearthly fragrance. Golden goblets and ruby pitchers stand on silver salvers with “dried fruit, cakes, and sweetmeats, which give an appetite for drinking.” Lovely slave girls lead the maiden to the bath, and attire her in rich and costly robes. They seat her in a golden chair and give her a bowl of seed-pearls to string. (These are the pearls.) She lifts her lovely head and says in a voice of silver music, “Where is your master?”

“Lady,” says one of the slaves, bowing low, “he comes.” She hears the feet of the approaching prince; she dares not raise her eyes. How will he look? What gift will he bring? She sinks her hands deep in the pearls. Ah, what is that? A great sweet-bough drops in the pan.

“Your gran’ma wants them peas!” says the prince in genial rebuke. Alas! And did Haroun-al-Raschid speak through his nose?

The Child stares at him, dazed.

“These—these are pearls!” she says. “I am stringing them for my girdle! Does your Highness desire that I should wear this—this _carbuncle_?”

His Highness laughs loud and long.

“It’s a sweet-bough,” he chuckles, “and I guess you better eat it right up, now.” One moment of wavering: shall awful wrath come upon this desecrator of the soul’s best rites, or good fellowship and feasting be given him? She scowls, she shrugs her aproned shoulders, she glances from beneath her lashes, she smiles.

“I’ll give you half,” she announces. After all, it is hardly probable that the prince would have helped her shell the peas. And William Searles will, if he _is_ only the chore-boy. Vain hope!

“I got to drive the chickens ’round back,” he demurs. “I can’t spend my time shellin’ peas. Your gran’ma says if you don’t get ’em done pretty soon you can’t go over to Miss Salome’s this afternoon. She says you’re a dreadful slow child!”

This is the last straw. The Child rises with what would indeed be a freezing dignity were it not that with her rises the birthday-chair. “William,” she begins. But more suddenly than is consistent with her tone she sinks back. William sits upon the grass shaking with laughter.

“You looked so awful funny, so awful funny!” he gasps. The Child hangs for a moment between tears and laughter. Then she accepts the situation and laughs as merrily as the chore-boy

“I was pretending I was a princess,” she explains. “I——”

“Ho!” rejoins William, “you ain’t like a princess! You don’t look like the ones you tell about, anyway! Why”—as she glares at him over the apron, “your hair’s red, red! An’ your eyes are kind o’ green, they are! An’ you’re just jam-packed full o’ freckles! I guess I know well enough how they look, and you ain’t like ’em!”

The tears stand in her eyes, but she will not let them fall.

“I don’t care, William Searles,” she says bravely, “I may _look_ freckled, but I don’t _feel so_! And it’s better to know how they look than—” But no! She is an honest Child, with all her imaginings. She knows that it is better to look like them than to know about them: better for the maiden and the prince, at least. William waits for the sentence. She begins again.

“William Searles,” she says solemnly, “wouldn’t you rather I could _tell_ you about those princesses than _look_ like them?” William’s eyes sparkle greedily.

“You bet!” he replies with fervor. The Child sighs with relief.

“All right,” she says, “then don’t complain.”

She is alone again, and only William’s faint and fainter invitations to the chickens break the silence. The peas fly into the pan. Suppose she should be kept from Miss Salome’s! But no, that shall not be. She looks ahead to the happy afternoon, singing as she works.

And now, and now the time has come. The dishes are wiped, the cat fed, and the fennel picked for the long sermon to-morrow. She, her very self, in her new dotted lawn walks carefully up the hill to the big house, terraced and gravel-pathed. She knocks timidly at the brass ring and the tall colored butler lets her in. He is the only indoor man-servant she has ever seen, and she reverences him greatly. He smiles condescendingly at her, as he smiles not upon all the country people.

“If Miss will walk up,” he says. She goes up the soft-carpeted stairs into the upstairs drawing-room. She draw’s a long breath of happiness and wonder ever new, and makes her little curtsy to Miss Salome.

Out of the dim delicious dusk of the room come slowly the familiar treasures: the high polished desk, the great piano, the marvelous service of Delft that fills a monstrous sideboard in the distance, the chairs, all silk and satin and shining wood, the great pictures in gilt frames. In the largest chair sits Miss Salome. Will the Child ever tire of looking at her pale lined face, her silver high-dressed hair, her beautiful hands sparkling with rings, her haughty mouth, her tired, troubled eyes? She must have been almost as lovely as the Princess Angelica, once. But she smiles so seldom. She puts out her hand.

“And what has happened since last Saturday?” she says.

The Child laughs for pure joy. To talk, to describe, to venture at analysis, to ask the why and wherefore, to illustrate by gesture as vivid as her speech—these things are her happiness. To be suffered this joy in snatches is much, to have it demanded, and for one whole afternoon! Here is no one to reprove, no one to blame the idle hands, no one to question the propriety of mimicry, or to insist on her sitting in her little chair.

Miss Salome watches her flitting about the dusky parlor, her reddish gold hair gleaming now against the Delft blue, now against the polished mahogany desk. She tells of the chickens that lost their mother. She wanders about clucking for her brood and cooing over the returned prodigals. She walks across the room as William does—her slouching gait, open mouth, drawling voice, irresistibly perfect. She describes the shooting star that seemed to her like a lost spirit, gone to sorrow and the earth.

“It made me think of ‘Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen!’” she says solemnly. “I wonder how that star felt, Miss Salome?”

There is a long pause. The lady sighs.

Then, “You may read, if you like,” she says at last.

The Child’s face flushes for joy. She runs to the book-cases and brings out a small brown book. She fingers lovingly the tree-calf that covers the precious pages, and opens them before she finds her chair. She curls up on a great satin ottoman and smooths the leaves. Where is the farm? Where the peas? Where William? They are less than shadows, more unreal than dreams. Her voice trembles as she begins:

“’And now, your Highness permitting, I shall relate to your Majesty one of the most surprising adventures ever known to your Majesty—’” Ah, it is good to have been a child and perfectly happy.

What do children know of life, she thinks, who play with tops and dogs and kittens? There are books in the world. And they own all lands and seas and peoples, who own those printed leaves. Even Miss Salome does not know as much as the books. Even Miss Salome cannot say such curious wonderful things. Why is Miss Salome so good to her? In heaven, will they see each other? “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Suppose she should be put in Miss Salome’s? Will the “Arabian Nights” be there? When she lifts her eyes from the book they fall on an immense peacock-feather fan. It glows on the wall, and the eyes dilate and tremble and satisfy her hungry little soul with the color she loves. On a small table near her stands a sandal-wood cabinet. Its faint sweet smell mingles with the spices and gums of the tale, and should a Genius spring from the cover and bow to the ground before them, she would not be surprised.

With a sigh of pleasure she releases the princess and outwits the evil spirit.

“’And now if your Majesty would care to listen to the story of the Fisherman——’”

“That is enough,” says Miss Salome. “Are you tired?” The Child’s eyes answer her.

“Then sing to me.”

“What shall I sing?” says the Child. “’Lord Lovell’”?

“If you like,” answers Miss Salome.

The Child rises and stands before the great chair. Her face is raised and serious. She knows only ballads, but to her they are opera and symphony in one. She clasps her hands and begins:

_Lord Lovell he stood at his castle gate,
A-combing his milk-white steed,
When out came Lady Nancy Bell,
To wish her lover good spee-ee-eed,
To wish her lover good speed._

Her voice rings true as a bell. Miss Salome smiles at the eager little face.

_“Now where are you going, Lord Lovell?” she said,
“Now where are you going?” said she.
“I’m going away, dear Nancy Bell,
Strange countries for to see-ye-ye,
Strange countries for to see!”_

She carries them through fateful verses and unconsciously softens and saddens her voice at the woful ending, where

_They buried the lady in the nave of the church,
They buried the lord in the choir,
And out of her bosom there grew a red rose,
And out of her lover’s a brier-ier-ier,
And out of her lover’s a brier._

Miss Salome applauds vigorously.

“One more,” she begs.

The Child’s heart grows big with happiness. That she should love it so, and yet with it pleasure others! It is too much joy. She will make a special prayer to-night and thank God, as does her grandmother, for unexpected bounty.

“I will sing, ‘Come with thy lute,’” she says. It is a quaint, old-fashioned tune, and her voice rises and falls, and reaches for the notes with an almost pathetic feeling for their beauty:

_Come with thy lute to the fountain,
Sing me a song of the mountain,
Sing of the happy and free:_—

She looks at the lovely lady in the white satin gown in the great gold frame before her. How beautiful she must have been! She died when she was very young. Her husband shot himself with grief for her. She might have sung that song to him—who knows? The Child chokes and swallows her tears at the end of the song, and when she looks at Miss Salome she sees that her eyes, too, are full of tears.

“Oh, I have made you cry! I am sorry—so sorry!”

Miss Salome wipes her eyes.

“If I make my guests unhappy, they will not care to come again,” she says. “Ring for Peter, dear child.” So the Child taps the bell, and Peter comes gravely in with the beautiful silver tray, and in a flutter of delight the Child forgets the song and the picture. Miss Salome cuts the dark frosted cake, and dishes into glass plates the candied ginger, floating in syrup, and pours out cups of real tea. And the Fairy Princess is served with a banquet worthy of her dreams. Oh, to be at last in Miss Salome’s mansion!

The clock chimes for half-past five. Heaven is over. She brushes the crumbs to a little heap on her gilt-rimmed plate.

“I must go now, I think,” she says with obvious effort. Her hostess smiles.

“But you will come next week?” she asks. And the Child’s face lights up.

“Oh, yes! I’ll surely come next week, _surely_,” she replies with emphasis. So she goes around to Miss Salome’s chair, and the beautiful ringed hand raises her face and strokes her little freckled cheek.

“Good-by, my Sunshine!” she says. The Child catches the hand in a rush of loving worship and kisses it.

“I will never be cross to William Searles again, never!” she cries. “I will be good to everybody—even to stupid people!” Miss Salome pinches her cheek and laughs.

And the Child goes out and down the steps of the terrace, rapt, wondering, lifted to a height of love and admiration that keeps her little soul to its sweetest, highest pitch for—ah, measure not the time, I beg you! The children who are older, how long do the glow and the flush remain with them? They can only say, “There will be another!” and wait for it as well and patiently as may be.

The Child goes back to the life of everyday, and embroiders its dull web with eyes of peacocks and sifts into it the scent of sandal-wood, and sets it weaving to the tune of ballads, quaint and sweet. Yet she has taken into another’s web, unknowing, a tiny scarlet thread of happiness, that weaves through the tarnished cloth of silver and blesses the pattern as it grows. And the Master of the Looms has planned it all.

ARDELIA IN ARCADY

When first the young lady from the College Settlement dragged Ardelia from her degradation—she was sitting on a dirty pavement and throwing assorted refuse at an unconscious policeman—like many of her companions in misery, she totally failed to realize the pit from which she was digged. It had never occurred to her that her situation was anything less than refined, and though, like most of us, she had failed to come up to her wildest ideals of happiness, in that respect she differed very little from the young lady who rescued her.

“Come here, little girl,” said the young lady invitingly. “Wouldn’t you like to come with me and have a nice, cool bath?”

“Naw,” said Ardelia, in tones rivaling the bath in coolness.

“You wouldn’t? Well, wouldn’t you like some bread and butter and jam?”

“Wha’s jam?” said Ardelia conservatively.

“Why, it’s—er—marmalade,” the young lady explained. “All sweet, you know.”

“Naw!” and Ardelia turned away and fingered the refuse with an air of finality that caused the young lady to sigh with vexation.

“I thought you might like to go on a picnic,” she said helplessly. “I thought all little girls liked——”

“Picnic? When?” cried Ardelia, moved instantly to interest. “I’m goin’!”

She brushed the garbage from her dress—Ardelia was of that emancipated order of women who disapprove of the senseless multiplication of feminine garments, and wore, herself, but one—and regarded her rescuer impatiently.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “I’m all ready. Hump along!”

“We’ll go and ask your mother first, won’t we?” suggested the young lady, a little bewildered at this sudden change of attitude.

“Jagged,” Ardelia returned laconically. “She’d lift y’r face off yer! Is it the Dago picnic?”

The young lady shuddered, and seizing the hand which she imagined to have had least to do with the refuse, she led Ardelia away—the first stage of her journey to Arcady.

Ardelia’s origin, like that of the civilization of ancient Egypt, was shrouded in mystery. At the age of two months she had been handed to a policeman by a scared-looking boy, who said vaguely that he found her in the park under a bench. The policeman had added her to the other foundling waiting that day at headquarters, and carried them to the matron of the institution devoted to their interest. Around the other baby’s neck was a medal of the Blessed Virgin, and a slip of paper pinned to her flannel petticoat labeled her Mary Katharine. The impartial order of the institution therefore delivered Ardelia, who was wholly unlabeled, to the Protestant fold, and one of the scrubbing-women named her.

Later she had taken up her residence with Mrs. Michael Fahey, who had consented to add to her precarious income by this means, and at the age of four she became the official nurse of Master John Sullivan Fahey. A terribly hot August, unlimited cold tea, and a habit of playing in the gutter in the noon glare proved too much for her charge, and he died on his third birthday. The ride to the funeral was the most exciting event of Ardelia’s life. For years she dated from it. Mrs. Fahey had so long regarded her as one of the family, that though her occupation was gone, and her board was no longer paid, she was whipped as regularly and cursed as comprehensively, in her foster-mother’s periodical sprees, as if they had been closely related.

What time she could spare from helping Mrs. Fahey in her somewhat casual household labor, and running errands to tell that lady’s perennially hopeful employers that her mother wasn’t feeling well to-day, but would it do if she came to-morrow, Ardelia spent in playing up and down the street with a band of little girls, or, in the very hottest days, sitting drowsy and vindictive at the head of a flight of stone steps that led into a down-stairs saloon. The damp, flat, beer-sweetened air that rushed out as the men pushed open the swing-doors was cool and refreshing to her; she was in a position to observe any possible customers at the three push-carts in her line of vision, and could rouse a flagging interest in life by listening to any one of the altercations that resounded from the tenements night and day. Drays clattered incessantly over the pavement, peddlers shouted, sharp gongs punctuated the steadier din. A policeman was almost always in sight, and one of them, Mr. Halloran, had more than once given her a penny for lemonade. In the room above her head an Italian band practised every evening, and then Ardelia was perfectly happy, for she loved music. Often before the band began, a hurdy-gurdy would station itself at the corner, and Ardelia and the other little girls would dance about, singly and in pairs, shouting the tunes they knew, rejoicing in the comparative coolness and the generally care-free atmosphere. Ardelia was the lightest-footed of them all; her hands held her skirts out almost gracefully, her thin little legs flew highest. Sometimes the saloon-keeper—they called him “Old Dutchy”—would nod approval as Ardelia skipped and pranced, and beckon her to him mysteriously.

“You trow your legs goot,” he would say. “We shall see you already dancing, no? Here is an olluf; eat her.”

And Ardelia, who loved olives to distraction, would nibble off small, sour, salty mouthfuls and suck the pit luxuriously while she listened to the Italian band.

Except for Mrs. Fahey’s errands, which never carried her far off the street, Ardelia had never left it in her life, and her journey to the Settlement-house was one of interest to her. She was a silent child, but for occasional fits of gabbling and chattering with the little girls in the street; and though she did not understand why the young lady from the Settlement should cry when she introduced her to two other ladies, nor why so many messages should be left for her mother, and so many local and general baths administered, she said very little. She was not accustomed to question fate, and when it sent her two fried eggs—she refused to eat them boiled—for her breakfast, she quietly placed them in the credit column as opposed to the baths, and held her peace.

Later, arrayed in starched and creaking garments which had been made for a slightly smaller child, she was transported to the station, and for the first time introduced to a railroad car. She sat stiffly on the red plush seat with furtive eyes and sucked-in lips, while the young lady talked reassuringly of daisies and cows and green grass. As Ardelia had never seen any of these things, it is hardly surprising that she was somewhat unenthusiastic; but the young lady was disappointed by this lack of ardor. She was so thoroughly convinced of the essential right of every child to a healthy country life, that she was almost disposed to blame Ardelia for not sharing her eminently creditable conviction.

“You can roll in the daisies, my dear, and pick all you want—all!” she urged eagerly. But no answering gleam woke in Ardelia’s eyes.

“Aw right,” she answered guardedly, and stared into her lap.

“Look out, dear, and see the fields and houses—see that handsome dog, and see the little pond!”

Ardelia shot a quick glance at the blurring green that dizzied her as it rushed by; the train was a fast express making up for lost time. Then with a scowl she resumed the contemplation of her starched gingham lap. The swelteringly hot day, and the rapid, unaccustomed motion combined to afflict her with a strange internal anticipation of future woe. Once last summer, when she ate the liquid dregs of the ice-cream man’s great tin, and fell asleep in the room where her mother was frying onions, she had experienced this same foreboding, and the climax of that dreadful day lingered yet in her memory. So she set her teeth and waited with stoical resignation for the end, while the young lady babbled of green fields, and wondered why the child should be so sullen. Finally she laid it to homesickness, and recovered her faith in human nature.

At last they stopped. The young lady seized her hand, and led her through the narrow aisle, down the steep steps, across the little country-station platform, and Ardelia was in Arcady.

A bare-legged boy in blue overalls and a wide straw hat then drove them many miles along a hot, dusty road, that wound endlessly through the parched country fields. To the young lady’s remark that they needed rain sadly, he replied, “Yep!” and held his peace for the following hour. Occasionally they passed another horse, but for the most part the only sight or sound of life was afforded by the hens clucking angrily as the travelers drove them from their dust baths in the powdery road. Released from her horror of foreboding, Ardelia took a more apparent interest in her situation, and would perhaps have spoken if her chaperone had opened conversation; but the young lady was weary of such efforts, disposed to a headache from the blinding heat, and altogether inclined to silence. At last they turned into a driveway, and drew up before a gray wooden house. Ardelia, cramped with sitting still, for she had not altered her position since she was placed stiffly on the seat between her fellow-passengers, was lifted down and escorted up the shingle-walk to the porch. A spare, dark-eyed woman in a checked apron advanced to meet them.

“Terrible hot to-day, ain’t it?” she sighed. “I’m real glad to see you, Miss Forsythe. Won’t you cool off a little before you go on? This is the little girl, I s’pose. I guess it’s pretty cool to what _she’s_ accustomed to, ain’t it, Delia?”

“No, I thank you, Mrs. Slater, I’ll go right on to the house. Now, Ardelia, here you are in the country. I’m staying with my friend in a big white house about a quarter of a mile farther on. You can’t see it from here, but if you want anything you can just walk over. Day after to-morrow is the picnic I told you about. You’ll see me then, any way. Now run right out in the grass and pick all the daisies you want. Don’t be afraid; no one will drive you off _this_ grass!”

The force of this was lost on Ardelia, who had never been driven off any grass whatever, but she gathered that she was expected to walk out into the thick, rank growth of the unmowed side yard, and strode downward obediently, turning when in the exact center of the plot, for further orders.

“Now pick them! Pick the daisies!” cried Miss Forsythe excitedly. “I want to see you.”

Ardelia looked blank.

“Huh?” she said.

“Gather them. Get a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn’t know how!” Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia’s quick eyes followed her gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and started back with them, staring distrustfully into the depths of the thick clinging grass as she pushed through it. Miss Forsythe gasped.

“No, no, dear! Pull them up! Take the stem, too,” she explained. “Pick the whole flower!”

Ardelia bent over again, tugged at a thick-stemmed clover, brought it up by the roots, recovered her balance with difficulty, and assaulted a neighboring daisy. On this she cut her hands, and sucking off the blood angrily, she grabbed a handful of coarse grass, and plowing through the tangled mass about her feet, laid the spoils awkwardly on the young lady’s lap.

Miss Forsythe stared at the dirty, trailing roots that stained her linen skirt and sighed.

“Thank you, dear,” she said politely, “but I meant them for you. I meant you to have a bunch. Don’t you want them?”

“Naw!” said Ardelia decidedly, nursing her cut hand and stepping with relief on the smooth floor of the porch.

Miss Forsythe’s eyes brightened suddenly.

“I know what you want,” she cried, “you’re thirsty! Mrs. Slater, won’t you get us some of your good, creamy milk? Don’t you want a drink, Ardelia?”

Ardelia nodded. She felt very tired, and the glare of the sun seemed reflected from everything into her dazed eyes. When Mrs. Slater appeared with the foaming yellow glasses she wound her nervous little hands about the stem of the goblet and began a deep draught. She did not like it, it was hard to swallow, and instinct warned her not to go on with it; but all the thirst of a long morning—Ardelia was used to drinking frequently—urged her on, and its icy coldness enabled her to finish the glass. She handed it back with a deep sigh. The young lady clapped her hands.

“There!” she cried. “Now, how do you like real milk, Ardelia? I declare, you look like another child already! You can have all you want every day—why, what’s the matter?”