room, and she was quite alone, although I had heard her talking as I went up-stairs. Then I said: ‘Con- tent, I thought somebody was in your room. I heard you talking.’
“And she said, looking right into my eyes: ‘Yes, ma’am, I was talking.’
“‘But there is nobody here,’ I said.
“‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said. ‘There isn’t anybody here now, but my big sister Solly was here, and she is gone. You heard me talking to my big sister Solly.’ I felt faint, Edward, and you know it takes a good deal to overcome me. I just sat down in Content’s wicker rocking-chair. I looked at her and she looked at me. Her eyes were just as clear and blue, and her forehead looked like truth itself. She is not exactly a pretty child, and she has a peculiar appearance, but she does certainly look truthful and good, and she looked so then. She had tried to fluff her hair over her forehead a little as I had told her, and not pull it back so tight, and she wore her new dress, and her face and hands were as clean, and she stood straight. You know she is a little inclined to stoop, and I have talked to her about it. She stood straight, and looked at me with those blue eyes, and I did feel fairly dizzy.”
“What did you say?”
“Well, after a bit I pulled myself together and I said: ‘My dear little girl, what is this? What do you mean about your big sister Sarah?’ Edward, I could not bring myself to say that idiotic Solly. In fact, I did think I must be mistaken and had not heard correctly. But Content just looked at me as if she thought me very stupid. ‘Solly,’ said she. ‘My sister’s name is Solly.’
“‘But, my dear,’ I said, ‘I understand that you had no sister.’
“‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I have my big sister Solly.’
“‘But where has she been all the time?’ said I.
“Then Content looked at me and smiled, and it was quite a wonderful smile, Edward. She smiled as if she knew so much more than I could ever know, and quite pitied me.”
“She did not answer your question?”
“No, only by that smile which seemed to tell whole volumes about that awful Solly’s whereabouts, only I was too ignorant to read them.
“‘Where is she now, dear?’ I said, after a little.
“‘She is gone now,’ said Content.
“‘Gone where?’ said I.
“And then the child smiled at me again. Edward, what are we going to do? Is she untruthful, or has she too much imagination? I have heard of such a thing as too much imagination, and children telling lies which were not really lies.”
“So have I,” agreed the rector, dryly, “but I never believed in it.” The rector started to leave the room.
“What are you going to do?” inquired Sally.
“I am going to endeavor to discriminate between lies and imagination,” replied the rector.
Sally plucked at his coat-sleeve as they went down-stairs. “My dear,” she whispered, “I think she is asleep.”
“She will have to wake up.”
“But, my dear, she may be nervous. Would it not be better to wait until to-morrow?”
“I think not,” said Edward Patterson. Usually an easy-going man, when he was aroused he was determined to extremes. Into Content’s room he marched, Sally following. Neither of them saw their small son Jim peeking around his door. He had heard — he could not help it — the conversation earlier in the day between Content and his mother. He had also heard other things. He now felt entirely justified in listening, although he had a good code of honor. He considered himself in a way respon- sible, knowing what he knew, for the peace of mind of his parents. Therefore he listened, peeking around the doorway of his dark room.
The electric light flashed out from Content’s room, and the little interior was revealed. It was charmingly pretty. Sally had done her best to make this not altogether welcome little stranger’s room attractive. There were garlands of rosebuds swung from the top of the white satin-papered walls. There were dainty toilet things, a little dressing- table decked with ivory, a case of books, chairs cushioned with rosebud chintz, windows curtained with the same.
In the little white bed, with a rose-sprinkled cover- lid over her, lay Content. She was not asleep. Directly, when the light flashed out, she looked at the rector and his wife with her clear blue eyes. Her fair hair, braided neatly and tied with pink ribbons, lay in two tails on either side of her small, certainly very good face. Her forehead was beautiful, very white and full, giving her an expression of candor which was even noble. Content, little lonely girl among strangers in a strange place, mutely beseech- ing love and pity, from her whole attitude toward life and the world, looked up at Edward Patterson and Sally, and the rector realized that his determina- tion was giving way. He began to believe in imagi- nation, even to the extent of a sister Solly. He had never had a daughter, and sometimes the thought of one had made his heart tender. His voice was very kind when he spoke.
“Well, little girl,” he said, “what is this I hear?”
Sally stared at her husband and stifled a chuckle.
As for Content, she looked at the rector and said nothing. It was obvious that she did not know what he had heard. The rector explained.
“My dear little girl,” he said, “your aunt Sally” — they had agreed upon the relationship of uncle and aunt to Content — “tells me that you have been telling her about your — big sister Solly.” The rector half gasped as he said Solly. He seemed to himself to be on the driveling verge of idiocy before the pro- nunciation of that absurdly inane name.
Content’s responding voice came from the pink- and-white nest in which she was snuggled, like the fluting pipe of a canary.
“Yes, sir,” said she.
“My dear child,” said the rector, “you know perfectly well that you have no big sister — Solly.” Every time the rector said Solly he swallowed hard.
Content smiled as Sally had described her smiling. She said nothing. The rector felt reproved and looked down upon from enormous heights of inno- cence and childhood and the wisdom thereof. How- ever, he persisted.
“Content,” he said, “what did you mean by telling your aunt Sally what you did?”
“I was talking with my big sister Solly,” replied Content, with the calmness of one stating a funda- mental truth of nature.
The rector’s face grew stern. “Content,” he said, “look at me.”
Content looked. Looking seemed to be the in- stinctive action which distinguished her as an indi- vidual.
“Have you a big sister — Solly?” asked the rector. His face was stern, but his voice faltered.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then — tell me so.”
“I have a big sister Solly,” said Content. Now she spoke rather wearily, although still sweetly, as if puzzled why she had been disturbed in sleep to be asked such an obvious question.
“Where has she been all the time, that we have known nothing about her?” demanded the rector.
Content smiled. However, she spoke. “Home,” said she.
“When did she come here?”
“This morning.”
“Where is she now?”
Content smiled and was silent. The rector cast a helpless look at his wife. He now did not care if she did see that he was completely at a loss. How could a great, robust man and a clergyman be harsh to a tender little girl child in a pink-and- white nest of innocent dreams?
Sally pitied him. She spoke more harshly than her husband. “Content Adams,” said she, “you know perfectly well that you have no big sister Solly. Now tell me the truth. Tell me you have no big sister Solly.”
“I have a big sister Solly,” said Content.
“Come, Edward,” said Sally. “There is no use in staying and talking to this obstinate little girl any longer.” Then she spoke to Content. “Before you go to sleep,” said she, “you must say your prayers, if you have not already done so.”
“I have said my prayers,” replied Content, and her blue eyes were full of horrified astonishment at the suspicion.
“Then,” said Sally, “you had better say them over and add something. Pray that you may always tell the truth.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Content, in her little canary pipe.
The rector and his wife went out. Sally switched off the light with a snap as she passed. Out in the hall she stopped and held her husband’s arms hard. “Hush!” she whispered. They both listened. They heard this, in the faintest plaint of a voice:
“They don’t believe you are here, Sister Solly, but I do.”
Sally dashed back into the rosebud room and switched on the light. She stared around. She opened a closet door. Then she turned off the light and joined her husband.
“There was nobody there?” he whispered.
“Of course not.”
When they were back in the study the rector and his wife looked at each other.
“We will do the best we can,” said Sally. “Don’t worry, Edward, for you have to write your sermon to-morrow. We will manage some way. I will admit that I rather wish Content had had some other distant relative besides you who could have taken charge of her.”
“You poor child!” said the rector. “It is hard on you, Sally, for she is no kith nor kin of yours.”
“Indeed I don’t mind,” said Sally Patterson, “if only I can succeed in bringing her up.”
Meantime Jim Patterson, up-stairs, sitting over his next day’s algebra lesson, was even more per- plexed than were his parents in the study. He paid little attention to his book. “I can manage little Lucy,” he reflected, “but if the others have got hold of it, I don’t know.”
Presently he rose and stole very softly through the hall to Content’s door. She was timid, and always left it open so she could see the hall light until she fell asleep. “Content,” whispered Jim.
There came the faintest “What?” in response.
“Don’t you,” said Jim, in a theatrical whisper, “say another word at school to anybody about your big sister Solly. If you do, I’ll whop you, if you are a girl.”
“Don’t care!” was sighed forth from the room.
“And I’ll whop your old big sister Solly, too.”
There was a tiny sob.
“I will,” declared Jim. “Now you mind!”
The next day Jim cornered little Lucy Rose under a cedar-tree before school began. He paid no atten- tion to Bubby Harvey and Tom Simmons, who were openly sniggering at him. Little Lucy gazed up at Jim, and the blue-green shade of the cedar seemed to bring out only more clearly the white-rose softness of her dear little face. Jim bent over her.
“Want you to do something for me,” he whis- pered.
Little Lucy nodded gravely.
“If my new cousin Content ever says anything to you again — I heard her yesterday — about her big sister Solly, don’t you ever say a word about it to anybody else. You will promise me, won’t you, little Lucy?”
A troubled expression came into little Lucy’s kind eyes. “But she told Lily, and Lily told Amelia, and Amelia told her grandmother Wheeler, and her grandmother Wheeler told Miss Parmalee when she met her on the street after school, and Miss Parma- lee called on my aunt Martha and told her,” said little Lucy.
“Oh, shucks!” said Jim.
“And my aunt Martha told my father that she thought perhaps she ought to ask for her when she called on your mother. She said Arnold Carruth’s aunt Flora was going to call, and his aunt Dorothy. I heard Miss Acton tell Miss Parmalee that she thought they ought to ask for her when they called on your mother, too.”
“Little Lucy,” he said, and lowered his voice, “you must promise me never, as long as you live, to tell what I am going to tell you.”
Little Lucy looked frightened.
“Promise!” insisted Jim.
“I promise,” said little Lucy, in a weak voice.
“Never, as long as you live, to tell anybody. Promise!”
“I promise.”
“Now, you know if you break your promise and tell, you will be guilty of a dreadful lie and be very wicked.”
Little Lucy shivered. “I never will.”
“Well, my new cousin Content Adams — tells lies.”
Little Lucy gasped.
“Yes, she does. She says she has a big sister Solly, and she hasn’t got any big sister Solly. She never did have, and she never will have. She makes believe.”
“Makes believe?” said little Lucy, in a hopeful voice.
“Making believe is just a real mean way of lying. Now I made Content promise last night never to say one word in school about her big sister Solly, and I am going to tell you this, so you can tell Lily and the others and not lie. Of course, I don’t want to lie myself, because my father is rector, and, besides, mother doesn’t approve of it; but if anybody is going to lie, I am the one. Now, you mind, little Lucy. Content’s big sister Solly has gone away, and she is never coming back. If you tell Lily and the others I said so, I can’t see how you will be lying.”
Little Lucy gazed at the boy. She looked like truth incarnate. “But,” said she, in her adorable stupidity of innocence, “I don’t see how she could go away if she was never here, Jim.”
“Oh, of course she couldn’t. But all you have to do is to say that you heard me say she had gone. Don’t you understand?”
“I don’t understand how Content’s big sister Solly could possibly go away if she was never here.”
“Little Lucy, I wouldn’t ask you to tell a lie for the world, but if you were just to say that you heard me say –“
“I think it would be a lie,” said little Lucy, “be- cause how can I help knowing if she was never here she couldn’t –“
“Oh, well, little Lucy,” cried Jim, in despair, still with tenderness — how could he be anything but tender with little Lucy? — “all I ask is never to say anything about it.”
“If they ask me?”
“Anyway, you can hold your tongue. You know it isn’t wicked to hold your tongue.”
Little Lucy absurdly stuck out the pointed tip of her little red tongue. Then she shook her head slowly.
“Well,” she said, “I will hold my tongue.”
This encounter with innocence and logic had left him worsted. Jim could see no way out of the fact that his father, the rector, his mother, the rector’s wife, and he, the rector’s son, were disgraced by their relationship to such an unsanctified little soul as this queer Content Adams.
And yet he looked at the poor lonely little girl, who was trying very hard to learn her lessons, who sug- gested in her very pose and movement a little, scared rabbit ready to leap the road for some bush of hiding, and while he was angry with her he pitied her. He had no doubts concerning Content’s keeping her promise. He was quite sure that he would now say nothing whatever about that big sister Solly to the others, but he was not prepared for what happened that very afternoon.
When he went home from school his heart stood still to see Miss Martha Rose, and Arnold Carruth’s aunt Flora, and his aunt who was not his aunt, Miss Dorothy Vernon, who was visiting her, all walking along in state with their lace-trimmed parasols, their white gloves, and their nice card-cases. Jim jumped a fence and raced across lots home, and gained on them. He burst in on his mother, sitting on the porch, which was inclosed by wire netting overgrown with a budding vine. It was the first warm day of the season.
“Mother,” cried Jim Patterson — “mother, they are coming!”
“Who, for goodness’ sake, Jim?”
“Why, Arnold’s aunt Flora and his aunt Dorothy and little Lucy’s aunt Martha. They are coming to call.”
Involuntarily Sally’s hand went up to smooth her pretty hair. “Well, what of it, Jim?” said she.
“Mother, they will ask for — big sister Solly!”
Sally Patterson turned pale. “How do you know?”
“Mother, Content has been talking at school. A lot know. You will see they will ask for –“
“Run right in and tell Content to stay in her room,” whispered Sally, hastily, for the callers, their white-kidded hands holding their card-cases genteelly, were coming up the walk.
Sally advanced, smiling. She put a brave face on the matter, but she realized that she, Sally Patterson, who had never been a coward, was positively afraid before this absurdity. The callers sat with her on the pleasant porch, with the young vine-shadows making networks over their best gowns. Tea was served presently by the maid, and, much to Sally’s relief, before the maid appeared came the inquiry. Miss Martha Rose made it.
“We would be pleased to see Miss Solly Adams also,” said Miss Martha.
Flora Carruth echoed her. “I was so glad to hear another nice girl had come to the village,” said she with enthusiasm. Miss Dorothy Vernon said some- thing indefinite to the same effect.
“I am sorry,” replied Sally, with an effort, “but there is no Miss Solly Adams here now.” She spoke the truth as nearly as she could manage without unraveling the whole ridiculous affair. The callers sighed with regret, tea was served with little cakes, and they fluttered down the walk, holding their card- cases, and that ordeal was over.
But Sally sought the rector in his study, and she was trembling. “Edward,” she cried out, regardless of her husband’s sermon, “something must be done now.”
“Why, what is the matter, Sally?”
“People are — calling on her.”
“Calling on whom?”
“Big sister — Solly!” Sally explained.
“Well, don’t worry, dear,” said the rector. “Of course we will do something, but we must think it over. Where is the child now?”
“She and Jim are out in the garden. I saw them pass the window just now. Jim is such a dear boy, he tries hard to be nice to her. Edward Patterson, we ought not to wait.”
“My dear, we must.”
Meantime Jim and Content Adams were out in the garden. Jim had gone to Content’s door and tapped and called out, rather rudely: “Content, I say, put on your hat and come along out in the garden. I’ve got something to tell you.”
“Don’t want to,” protested Content’s little voice, faintly.
“You come right along.”
And Content came along. She was an obedient child, and she liked Jim, although she stood much in awe of him. She followed him into the garden back of the rectory, and they sat down on the bench beneath the weeping willow. The minute they were seated Jim began to talk.
“Now,” said he, “I want to know.”
Content glanced up at him, then looked down and turned pale.
“I want to know, honest Injun,” said Jim, “what you are telling such awful whoppers about your old big sister Solly for?”
Content was silent. This time she did not smile, a tear trickled out of her right eye and ran over the pale cheek.
“Because you know,” said Jim, observant of the tear, but ruthless, “that you haven’t any big sister Solly, and never did have. You are getting us all in an awful mess over it, and father is rector here, and mother is his wife, and I am his son, and you are his niece, and it is downright mean. Why do you tell such whoppers? Out with it!”
Content was trembling violently. “I lived with Aunt Eudora,” she whispered.
“Well, what of that? Other folks have lived with their aunts and not told whoppers.”
“They haven’t lived with Aunt Eudora.”
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Content Adams, and you the rector’s niece, talking that way about dead folks.”
“I don’t mean to talk about poor Aunt Eudora,” fairly sobbed Content. “Aunt Eudora was a real good aunt, but she was grown up. She was a good deal more grown up than your mother; she really was, and when I first went to live with her I was ‘most a little baby; I couldn’t speak — plain, and I had to go to bed real early, and slept ‘way off from everybody, and I used to be afraid — all alone, and so –“
“Well, go on,” said Jim, but his voice was softer. It WAS hard lines for a little kid, especially if she was a girl.
“And so,” went on the little, plaintive voice, “I got to thinking how nice it would be if I only had a big sister, and I used to cry and say to myself — I couldn’t speak plain, you know, I was so little — ‘Big sister would be real solly.’ And then first thing I knew — she came.”
“Who came?”
“Big sister Solly.”
“What rot! She didn’t come. Content Adams, you know she didn’t come.”
“She must have come,” persisted the little girl, in a frightened whisper. “She must have. Oh, Jim, you don’t know. Big sister Solly must have come, or I would have died like my father and mother.”
Jim’s arm, which was near her, twitched convul- sively, but he did not put it around her.
“She did — co-me,” sobbed Content. “Big sister Solly did come.”
“Well, have it so,” said Jim, suddenly. “No use going over that any longer. Have it she came, but she ain’t here now, anyway. Content Adams, you can’t look me in the face and tell me that.”
Content looked at Jim, and her little face was almost terrible, so full of bewilderment and fear it was. “Jim,” whispered Content, “I can’t have big sister Solly not be here. I can’t send her away. What would she think?”
Jim stared. “Think? Why, she isn’t alive to think, anyhow!”
“I can’t make her — dead,” sobbed Content. “She came when I wanted her, and now when I don’t so much, when I’ve got Uncle Edward and Aunt Sally and you, and don’t feel so dreadful lonesome, I can’t be so bad as to make her dead.”
Jim whistled. Then his face brightened up. He looked at Content with a shrewd and cheerful grin. “See here, kid, you say your sister Solly is big, grown up, don’t you?” he inquired.
Content nodded pitifully.
“Then why, if she is grown up and pretty, don’t she have a beau?”
Content stopped sobbing and gave him a quick glance.
“Then — why doesn’t she get married, and go out West to live?”
Jim chuckled. Instead of a sob, a faint echo of his chuckle came from Content.
Jim laughed merrily. “I say, Content,” he cried, “let’s have it she’s married now, and gone?”
“Well,” said Content.
Jim put his arm around her very nicely and pro- tectingly. “It’s all right, then,” said he, “as all right as it can be for a girl. Say, Content, ain’t it a shame you aren’t a boy?”
“I can’t help it,” said Content, meekly.
“You see,” said Jim, thoughtfully, “I don’t, as a rule, care much about girls, but if you could coast down-hill and skate, and do a few things like that, you would be almost as good as a boy.”
Content surveyed him, and her pessimistic little face assumed upward curves. “I will,” said she. “I will do anything, Jim. I will fight if you want me to, just like a boy.”
“I don’t believe you could lick any of us fellers unless you get a good deal harder in the muscles,” said Jim, eying her thoughtfully; “but we’ll play ball, and maybe by and by you can begin with Arnold Carruth.”
“Could lick him now,” said Content.
But Jim’s face sobered before her readiness. “Oh no, you mustn’t go to fighting right away,” said he. “It wouldn’t do. You really are a girl, you know, and father is rector.”
“Then I won’t,” said Content; “but I COULD knock down that little boy with curls; I know I could.”
“Well, you needn’t. I’ll like you just as well. You see, Content” — Jim’s voice faltered, for he was a boy, and on the verge of sentiment before which he was shamed — “you see, Content, now your big sister Solly is married and gone out West, why, you can have me for your brother, and of course a brother is a good deal better than a sister.”
“Yes,” said Content, eagerly.
“I am going,” said Jim, “to marry Lucy Rose when I grow up, but I haven’t got any sister, and I’d like you first rate for one. So I’ll be your big brother instead of your cousin.”
“Big brother Solly?”
“Say, Content, that is an awful name, but I don’t care. You’re only a girl. You can call me any- thing you want to, but you mustn’t call me Solly when there is anybody within hearing.”
“I won’t.”
“Because it wouldn’t do,” said Jim with weight.
“I never will, honest,” said Content.
Presently they went into the house. Dr. Trum- bull was there; he had been talking seriously to the rector and his wife. He had come over on purpose.
“It is a perfect absurdity,” he said, “but I made ten calls this morning, and everywhere I was asked about that little Adams girl’s big sister — why you keep her hidden. They have a theory that she is either an idiot or dreadfully disfigured. I had to tell them I know nothing about it.”
“There isn’t any girl,” said the rector, wearily. “Sally, do explain.”
Dr. Trumbull listened. “I have known such cases,” he said when Sally had finished.
“What did you do for them?” Sally asked, anx- iously.
“Nothing. Such cases have to be cured by time. Children get over these fancies when they grow up.”
“Do you mean to say that we have to put up with big sister Solly until Content is grown up?” asked Sally, in a desperate tone. And then Jim came in. Content had run up-stairs.
“It is all right, mother,” said Jim.
Sally caught him by the shoulders. “Oh, Jim, has she told you?”
Jim gave briefly, and with many omissions, an account of his conversation with Content.
“Did she say anything about that dress, Jim?” asked his mother.
“She said her aunt had meant it for that out- West rector’s daughter Alice to graduate in, but Content wanted it for her big sister Solly, and told the rector’s wife it was hers. Content says she knows she was a naughty girl, but after she had said it she was afraid to say it wasn’t so. Mother, I think that poor little thing is scared ‘most to death.”
“Nobody is going to hurt her,” said Sally. “Goodness! that rector’s wife was so conscientious that she even let that dress go. Well, I can send it right back, and the girl will have it in time for her graduation, after all. Jim dear, call the poor child down. Tell her nobody is going to scold her.” Sally’s voice was very tender.
Jim returned with Content. She had on a little ruffled pink gown which seemed to reflect color on her cheeks. She wore an inscrutable expression, at once child-like and charming. She looked shy, fur- tively amused, yet happy. Sally realized that the pessimistic downward lines had disappeared, that Content was really a pretty little girl.
Sally put an arm around the small, pink figure. “So you and Jim have been talking, dear?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied little Content. “Jim is my big brother –” She just caught herself before she said Solly.
“And your sister Solly is married and living out West?”
“Yes,” said Content, with a long breath. “My sister Solly is married.” Smiles broke all over her little face. She hid it in Sally’s skirts, and a little peal of laughter like a bird-trill came from the soft muslin folds.
LITTLE LUCY ROSE
LITTLE LUCY ROSE
BACK of the rectory there was a splendid, long hill. The ground receded until the rectory garden was reached, and the hill was guarded on either flank by a thick growth of pines and cedars, and, being a part of the land appertaining to the rectory, was never invaded by the village children. This was considered very fortunate by Mrs. Patterson, Jim’s mother, and for an odd reason. The rector’s wife was very fond of coasting, as she was of most out-of-door sports, but her dignified position pre- vented her from enjoying them to the utmost. In many localities the clergyman’s wife might have played golf and tennis, have rode and swum and coasted and skated, and nobody thought the worse of her; but in The Village it was different.
Sally had therefore rejoiced at the discovery of that splendid, isolated hill behind the house. It could not have been improved upon for a long, per- fectly glorious coast, winding up on the pool of ice in the garden and bumping thrillingly between dry vegetables. Mrs. Patterson steered and Jim made the running pushes, and slid flat on his chest behind his mother. Jim was very proud of his mother. He often wished that he felt at liberty to tell of her feats. He had never been told not to tell, but real- ized, being rather a sharp boy, that silence was wiser. Jim’s mother confided in him, and he re- spected her confidence. “Oh, Jim dear,” she would often say, “there is a mothers’ meeting this after- noon, and I would so much rather go coasting with you.” Or, “There’s a Guild meeting about a fair, and the ice in the garden is really quite smooth.”
It was perhaps unbecoming a rector’s wife, but Jim loved his mother better because she expressed a preference for the sports he loved, and considered that no other boy had a mother who was quite equal to his. Sally Patterson was small and wiry, with a bright face, and very thick, brown hair, which had a boyish crest over her forehead, and she could run as fast as Jim. Jim’s father was much older than his mother, and very dignified, although he had a keen sense of humor. He used to laugh when his wife and son came in after their coasting expeditions.
“Well, boys,” he would say, “had a good time?”
Jim was perfectly satisfied and convinced that his mother was the very best and most beautiful per- son in the village, even in the whole world, until Mr. Cyril Rose came to fill a vacancy of cashier in the bank, and his daughter, little Lucy Rose, as a matter of course, came with him. Little Lucy had no mother. Mr. Cyril’s cousin, Martha Rose, kept his house, and there was a colored maid with a bad temper, who was said, however, to be inval- uable “help.”
Little Lucy attended Madame’s school. She came the next Monday after Jim and his friends had planned to have a chicken roast and failed. After Jim saw little Lucy he thought no more of the chicken roast. It seemed to him that he thought no more of anything. He could not by any possi- bility have learned his lessons had it not been for the desire to appear a good scholar before little Lucy. Jim had never been a self-conscious boy, but that day he was so keenly worried about her opinion of him that his usual easy swing broke into a strut when he crossed the room. He need not have been so troubled, because little Lucy was not looking at him. She was not looking at any boy or girl. She was only trying to learn her lesson. Little Lucy was that rather rare creature, a very gentle, obedient child, with a single eye for her duty. She was so charming that it was sad to think how much her mother had missed, as far as this world was con- cerned.
The minute Madame saw her a singular light came into her eyes — the light of love of a childless woman for a child. Similar lights were in the eyes of Miss Parmalee and Miss Acton. They looked at one another with a sort of sweet confidence when they were drinking tea together after school in Ma- dame’s study.
“Did you ever see such a darling?” said Madame. Miss Parmalee said she never had, and Miss Acton echoed her.
“She is a little angel,” said Madame.
“She worked so hard over her geography lesson,” said Miss Parmalee, “and she got the Amazon River in New England and the Connecticut in South America, after all; but she was so sweet about it, she made me want to change the map of the world. Dear little soul, it did seem as if she ought to have rivers and everything else just where she chose.”
“And she tried so hard to reach an octave, and her little finger is too short,” said Miss Acton; “and she hasn’t a bit of an ear for music, but her little voice is so sweet it does not matter.”
“I have seen prettier children,” said Madame, “but never one quite such a darling.”
Miss Parmalee and Miss Acton agreed with Ma- dame, and so did everybody else. Lily Jennings’s beauty was quite eclipsed by little Lucy, but Lily did not care; she was herself one of little Lucy’s most fervent admirers. She was really Jim Patter- son’s most formidable rival in the school. “You don’t care about great, horrid boys, do you, dear?” Lily said to Lucy, entirely within hearing of Jim and Lee Westminster and Johnny Trumbull and Arnold Carruth and Bubby Harvey and Frank Ellis, and a number of others who glowered at her.
Dear little Lucy hesitated. She did not wish to hurt the feelings of boys, and the question had been loudly put. Finally she said she didn’t know. Lack of definite knowledge was little Lucy’s rock of refuge in time of need. She would look adorable, and say in her timid little fluty voice, “I don’t — know.” The last word came always with a sort of gasp which was alluring. All the listening boys were convinced that little Lucy loved them all individually and gen- erally, because of her “I don’t — know.”
Everybody was convinced of little Lucy’s affec- tion for everybody, which was one reason for her charm. She flattered without knowing that she did so. It was impossible for her to look at any living thing except with soft eyes of love. It was impos- sible for her to speak without every tone conveying the sweetest deference and admiration. The whole atmosphere of Madame’s school changed with the advent of the little girl. Everybody tried to live up to little Lucy’s supposed ideal, but in reality she had no ideal. Lucy was the simplest of little girls, only intent upon being good, doing as she was told, and winning her father’s approval, also her cousin Martha’s.
Martha Rose was quite elderly, although still good-looking. She was not popular, because she was very silent. She dressed becomingly, received calls and returned them, but hardly spoke a word. People rather dreaded her coming. Miss Martha Rose would sit composedly in a proffered chair, her gloved hands crossed over her nice, gold-bound card- case, her chin tilted at an angle which never varied, her mouth in a set smile which never wavered, her slender feet in their best shoes toeing out precisely under the smooth sweep of her gray silk skirt. Miss Martha Rose dressed always in gray, a fashion which the village people grudgingly admired. It was undoubtedly becoming and distinguished, but savored ever so slightly of ostentation, as did her custom of always dressing little Lucy in blue. There were different shades and fabrics, but blue it always was. It was the best color for the child, as it re- vealed the fact that her big, dark eyes were blue. Shaded as they were by heavy, curly lashes, they would have been called black or brown, but the blue in them leaped to vision above the blue of blue frocks. Little Lucy had the finest, most delicate features, a mist of soft, dark hair, which curled slightly, as mist curls, over sweet, round temples. She was a small, daintily clad child, and she spoke and moved daintily and softly; and when her blue eyes were fixed upon anybody’s face, that person straightway saw love and obedience and trust in them, and love met love half-way. Even Miss Martha Rose looked another woman when little Lucy’s innocent blue eyes were fixed upon her rather handsome but colorless face between the folds of her silvery hair; Miss Martha’s hair had turned prematurely gray. Light would come into Martha Rose’s face, light and animation, although she never talked much even to Lucy. She never talked much to her cousin Cyril, but he was rather glad of it. He had a keen mind, but it was easily diverted, and he was engrossed in his business, and concerned lest he be disturbed by such things as feminine chatter, of which he certainly had none in his own home, if he kept aloof from Jenny, the colored maid. Hers was the only female voice ever heard to the point of annoyance in the Rose house.
It was rather wonderful how a child like little Lucy and Miss Martha lived with so little conversa- tion. Martha talked no more at home than abroad; moreover, at home she had not the attitude of wait- ing for some one to talk to her, which people outside considered trying. Martha did not expect her cousin to talk to her. She seldom asked a question. She almost never volunteered a perfectly useless obser- vation. She made no remarks upon self-evident topics. If the sun shone, she never mentioned it. If there was a heavy rain, she never mentioned that. Miss Martha suited her cousin exactly, and for that reason, aside from the fact that he had been devoted to little Lucy’s mother, it never occurred to him to marry again. Little Lucy talked no more than Miss Martha, and nobody dreamed that she sometimes wanted somebody to talk to her. Nobody dreamed that the dear little girl, studying her lessons, learn- ing needlework, trying very futilely to play the piano, was lonely; but she was without knowing it herself. Martha was so kind and so still; and her father was so kind and so still, engrossed in his papers or books, often sitting by himself in his own study. Little Lucy in this peace and stillness was not hav- ing her share of childhood. When other little girls came to play with her. Miss Martha enjoined quiet, and even Lily Jennings’s bird-like chattering be- came subdued. It was only at school that Lucy got her chance for the irresponsible delight which was the simple right of her childhood, and there her zeal for her lessons prevented. She was happy at school, however, for there she lived in an atmos- phere of demonstrative affection. The teachers were given to seizing her in fond arms and caress- ing her, and so were her girl companions; while the boys, especially Jim Patterson, looked wistful- ly on.
Jim Patterson was in love, a charming little poetical boy-love; but it was love. Everything which he did in those days was with the thought of little Lucy for incentive. He stood better in school than he had ever done before, but it was all for the sake of little Lucy. Jim Patterson had one talent, rather rudimentary, still a talent. He could play by ear. His father owned an old violin. He had been in- clined to music in early youth, and Jim got per- mission to practise on it, and he went by himself in the hot attic and practised. Jim’s mother did not care for music, and her son’s preliminary scra- ping tortured her. Jim tucked the old fiddle under one round boy-cheek and played in the hot attic, with wasps buzzing around him; and he spent his pennies for catgut, and he learned to mend fiddle- strings; and finally came a proud Wednesday after- noon when there were visitors in Madame’s school, and he stood on the platform, with Miss Acton playing an accompaniment on the baby grand piano, and he managed a feeble but true tune on his violin. It was all for little Lucy, but little Lucy cared no more for music than his mother; and while Jim was playing she was rehearsing in the depths of her mind the little poem which later she was to recite; for this adorable little Lucy was, as a matter of course, to figure in the entertainment. It therefore happened that she heard not one note of Jim Patterson’s pain- fully executed piece, for she was saying to herself in mental singsong a foolish little poem, beginning:
There was one little flower that bloomed Beside a cottage door.
When she went forward, little darling blue-clad figure, there was a murmur of admiration; and when she made mistakes straight through the poem, saying,
There was a little flower that fell On my aunt Martha’s floor,
for beginning, there was a roar of tender laughter and a clapping of tender, maternal hands, and every- body wanted to catch hold of little Lucy and kiss her. It was one of the irresistible charms of this child that people loved her the more for her mistakes, and she made many, although she tried so very hard to avoid them. Little Lucy was not in the least brilliant, but she held love like a precious vase, and it gave out perfume better than mere knowledge.
Jim Patterson was so deeply in love with her when he went home that night that he confessed to his mother. Mrs. Patterson had led up to the subject by alluding to little Lucy while at the dinner-table.
“Edward,” she said to her husband — both she and the rector had been present at Madame’s school entertainment and the tea-drinking afterward — “did you ever see in all your life such a darling little girl as the new cashier’s daughter? She quite makes up for Miss Martha, who sat here one solid hour, hold- ing her card-case, waiting for me to talk to her. That child is simply delicious, and I was so glad she made mistakes.”
“Yes, she is a charming child,” assented the rector, “despite the fact that she is not a beauty, hardly even pretty.”
“I know it,” said Mrs. Patterson, “but she has the worth of beauty.”
Jim was quite pale while his father and mother were talking. He swallowed the hot soup so fast that it burnt his tongue. Then he turned very red, but nobody noticed him. When his mother came up-stairs to kiss him good night he told her.
“Mother,” said he, “I have something to tell you.”
“All right, Jim,” replied Sally Patterson, with her boyish air.
“It is very important,” said Jim.
Mrs. Patterson did not laugh; she did not even smile. She sat down beside Jim’s bed and looked seriously at his eager, rapt, shamed little boy-face on the pillow. “Well?” said she, after a minute which seemed difficult to him.
Jim coughed. Then he spoke with a blurt. “Mother,” said Jim, “by and by, of course not quite yet, but by and by, will you have any objection to Miss Lucy Rose as a daughter?”
Even then Sally Patterson did not laugh or even smile. “Are you thinking of marrying her, Jim?” asked she, quite as if her son had been a man.
“Yes, mother,” replied Jim. Then he flung up his little arms in pink pajama sleeves, and Sally Patterson took his face between her two hands and kissed him warmly.
“She is a darling, and your choice does you credit, Jim,” said she. “Of course you have said nothing to her yet?”
“I thought it was rather too soon.”
“I really think you are very wise, Jim,” said his mother. “It is too soon to put such ideas into the poor child’s head. She is younger than you, isn’t she, Jim?”
“She is just six months and three days younger,” replied Jim, with majesty.
“I thought so. Well, you know, Jim, it would just wear her all out, as young as that, to be obliged to think about her trousseau and housekeeping and going to school, too.”
“I know it,” said Jim, with a pleased air. “I thought I was right, mother.”
“Entirely right; and you, too, really ought to finish school, and take up a profession or a busi- ness, before you say anything definite. You would want a nice home for the dear little thing, you know that, Jim.”
Jim stared at his mother out of his white pillow. “I thought I would stay with you, and she would stay with her father until we were both very much older,” said he. “She has a nice home now, you know, mother.”
Sally Patterson’s mouth twitched a little, but she spoke quite gravely and reasonably. “Yes, that is very true,” said she; “still, I do think you are wise to wait, Jim.”
When Sally Patterson had left Jim, she looked in on the rector in his study. “Our son is thinking seriously of marrying, Edward,” said she.
The rector stared at her. She had shut the door, and she laughed.
“He is very discreet. He has consulted me as to my approval of her as daughter and announced his intention to wait a little while.”
The rector laughed; then he wrinkled his forehead uneasily. “I don’t like the little chap getting such ideas,” said he.
“Don’t worry, Edward; he hasn’t got them,” said Sally Patterson.
“I hope not.”
“He has made a very wise choice. She is that perfect darling of a Rose girl who couldn’t speak her piece, and thought we all loved her when we laughed.”
“Well, don’t let him get foolish ideas; that is all, my dear,” said the rector.
“Don’t worry, Edward. I can manage him,” said Sally.
But she was mistaken. The very next day Jim proposed in due form to little Lucy. He could not help it. It was during the morning intermission, and he came upon her seated all alone under a haw- thorn hedge, studying her arithmetic anxiously. She was in blue, as usual, and a very perky blue bow sat on her soft, dark hair, like a bluebird. She glanced up at Jim from under her long lashes.
“Do two and seven make eight or ten? If you please, will you tell me?” said she.
“Say, Lucy,” said Jim, “will you marry me by and by?”
Lucy stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“Will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Marry me by and by?”
Lucy took refuge in her little harbor of ignorance. “I don’t know,” said she.
“But you like me, don’t you, Lucy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you like me better than you like Johnny Trumbull?”
“I don’t know.”
“You like me better than you like Arnold Carruth, don’t you? He has curls and wears socks.”
“I don’t know.”
“When do you think you can be sure?”
“I don’t know.”
Jim stared helplessly at little Lucy. She stared back sweetly.
“Please tell me whether two and seven make six or eleven, Jim,” said she.
“They make nine,” said Jim.
“I have been counting my fingers and I got it eleven, but I suppose I must have counted one finger twice,” said little Lucy. She gazed reflectively at her little baby-hands. A tiny ring with a blue stone shone on one finger.
“I will give you a ring, you know,” Jim said, coaxingly.
“I have got a ring my father gave me. Did you say it was ten, please, Jim?”
“Nine,” gasped Jim.
“All the way I can remember,” said little Lucy, “is for you to pick just so many leaves off the hedge, and I will tie them in my handkerchief, and just be- fore I have to say my lesson I will count those leaves.”
Jim obediently picked nine leaves from the haw- thorn hedge, and little Lucy tied them into her handkerchief, and then the Japanese gong sounded and they went back to school.
That night after dinner, just before Lucy went to bed, she spoke of her own accord to her father and Miss Martha, a thing which she seldom did. “Jim Patterson asked me to marry him when I asked him what seven and two made in my arithmetic lesson,” said she. She looked with the loveliest round eyes of innocence first at her father, then at Miss Martha. Cyril Rose gasped and laid down his newspaper.
“What did you say, little Lucy?” he asked.
“Jim Patterson asked me to marry him when I asked him to tell me how much seven and two made in my arithmetic lesson.”
Cyril Rose and his cousin Martha looked at each other.
“Arnold Carruth asked me, too, when a great big wasp flew on my arm and frightened me.”
Cyril and Martha continued to look. The little, sweet, uncertain voice went on.
“And Johnny Trumbull asked me when I ‘most fell down on the sidewalk; and Lee Westminster asked me when I wasn’t doing anything, and so did Bubby Harvey.”
“What did you tell them?” asked Miss Martha, in a faint voice.
“I told them I didn’t know.”
“You had better have the child go to bed now,” said Cyril. “Good night, little Lucy. Always tell father everything.”
“Yes, father,” said little Lucy, and was kissed, and went away with Martha.
When Martha returned, her cousin looked at her severely. He was a fair, gentle-looking man, and severity was impressive when he assumed it.
“Really, Martha,” said he, “don’t you think you had better have a little closer outlook over that baby?”
“Oh, Cyril, I never dreamed of such a thing,” cried Miss Martha.
“You really must speak to Madame,” said Cyril. “I cannot have such things put into the child’s head.”
“Oh, Cyril, how can I?”
“I think it is your duty.”
“Cyril, could not — you?”
Cyril grinned. “Do you think,” said he, “that I am going to that elegant widow schoolma’am and say, ‘Madame, my young daughter has had four proposals of marriage in one day, and I must beg you to put a stop to such proceedings’? No, Martha; it is a woman’s place to do such a thing as that. The whole thing is too absurd, indignant as I am about it. Poor little soul!”
So it happened that Miss Martha Rose, the next day being Saturday, called on Madame, but, not being asked any leading question, found herself abso- lutely unable to deliver herself of her errand, and went away with it unfulfilled.
“Well, I must say,” said Madame to Miss Par- malee, as Miss Martha tripped wearily down the front walk — “I must say, of all the educated women who have really been in the world, she is the strang- est. You and I have done nothing but ask inane questions, and she has sat waiting for them, and chirped back like a canary. I am simply worn out.”
“So am I,” sighed Miss Parmalee.
But neither of them was so worn out as poor Miss Martha, anticipating her cousin’s reproaches. However, her wonted silence and reticence stood her in good stead, for he merely asked, after little Lucy had gone to bed:
“Well, what did Madame say about Lucy’s pro- posals?”
“She did not say anything,” replied Martha.
“Did she promise it would not occur again?”
“She did not promise, but I don’t think it will.”
The financial page was unusually thrilling that night, and Cyril Rose, who had come to think rather lightly of the affair, remarked, absent-mindedly; “Well, I hope it does not occur again. I cannot have such ridiculous ideas put into the child’s head. If it does, we get a governess for her and take her away from Madame’s.” Then he resumed his reading, and Martha, guilty but relieved, went on with her knitting.
It was late spring then, and little Lucy had at- tended Madame’s school several months, and her popularity had never waned. A picnic was planned to Dover’s Grove, and the romantic little girls had insisted upon a May queen, and Lucy was unani- mously elected. The pupils of Madame’s school went to the picnic in the manner known as a “straw- ride.” Miss Parmalee sat with them, her feet uncomfortably tucked under her. She was the youngest of the teachers, and could not evade the duty. Madame and Miss Acton headed the pro- cession, sitting comfortably in a victoria driven by the colored man Sam, who was employed about the school. Dover’s Grove was six miles from the vil- lage, and a favorite spot for picnics. The victoria rolled on ahead; Madame carried a black parasol, for the sun was on her side and the day very warm. Both ladies wore thin, dark gowns, and both felt the languor of spring.
The straw-wagon, laden with children seated upon the golden trusses of straw, looked like a wagon- load of blossoms. Fair and dark heads, rosy faces looked forth in charming clusters. They sang, they chattered. It made no difference to them that it was not the season for a straw-ride, that the trusses were musty. They inhaled the fragrance of blooming boughs under which they rode, and were quite ob- livious to all discomfort and unpleasantness. Poor Miss Parmalee, with her feet going to sleep, sneezing from time to time from the odor of the old straw, did not obtain the full beauty of the spring day. She had protested against the straw-ride.
“The children really ought to wait until the season for such things,” she had told Madame, quite boldly; and Madame had replied that she was well aware of it, but the children wanted something of the sort, and the hay was not cut, and straw, as it happened, was more easily procured.
“It may not be so very musty,” said Madame; “and you know, my dear, straw is clean, and I am sorry, but you do seem to be the one to ride with the children on the straw, because” — Madame dropped her voice — “you are really younger, you know, than either Miss Acton or I.”
Poor Miss Parmalee could almost have dispensed with her few years of superior youth to have gotten rid of that straw-ride. She had no parasol, and the sun beat upon her head, and the noise of the children got horribly on her nerves. Little Lucy was her one alleviation. Little Lucy sat in the midst of the boisterous throng, perfectly still, crowned with her garland of leaves and flowers, her sweet, pale little face calmly observant. She was the high light of Madame’s school, the effect which made the whole. All the others looked at little Lucy, they talked to her, they talked at her; but she remained herself unmoved, as a high light should be. “Dear little soul,” Miss Parmalee thought. She also thought that it was a pity that little Lucy could not have worn a white frock in her character as Queen of the May, but there she was mistaken. The blue was of a peculiar shade, of a very soft material, and nothing could have been prettier. Jim Patterson did not often look away from little Lucy; neither did Arnold Carruth; neither did Bubby Harvey; neither did Johnny Trumbull; neither did Lily Jennings; neither did many others.
Amelia Wheeler, however, felt a little jealous as she watched Lily. She thought Lily ought to have been queen; and she, while she did not dream of competing with incomparable little Lucy, wished Lily would not always look at Lucy with such wor- shipful admiration. Amelia was inconsistent. She knew that she herself could not aspire to being an object of worship, but the state of being a nonentity for Lily was depressing. “Wonder if I jumped out of this old wagon and got killed if she would mind one bit?” she thought, tragically. But Amelia did not jump. She had tragic impulses, or rather im- aginations of tragic impulses, but she never carried them out. It was left for little Lucy, flower-crowned and calmly sweet and gentle under honors, to be guilty of a tragedy of which she never dreamed. For that was the day when little Lucy was lost.
When the picnic was over, when the children were climbing into the straw-wagon and Madame and Miss Acton were genteelly disposed in the victoria, a lamentable cry arose. Sam drew his reins tight and rolled his inquiring eyes around; Madame and Miss Acton leaned far out on either side of the vic- toria.
“Oh, what is it?” said Madame. “My dear Miss Acton, do pray get out and see what the trouble is. I begin to feel a little faint.”
In fact, Madame got her cut-glass smelling-bottle out of her bag and began to sniff vigorously. Sam gazed backward and paid no attention to her. Ma- dame always felt faint when anything unexpected occurred, and smelled at the pretty bottle, but she never fainted.
Miss Acton got out, lifting her nice skirts clear of the dusty wheel, and she scuttled back to the up- roarious straw-wagon, showing her slender ankles and trimly shod feet. Miss Acton was a very wiry, dainty woman, full of nervous energy. When she reached the straw-wagon Miss Parmalee was climb- ing out, assisted by the driver. Miss Parmalee was very pale and visibly tremulous. The children were all shrieking in dissonance, so it was quite impossible to tell what the burden of their tale of woe was; but obviously something of a tragic na- ture had happened.
“What is the matter?” asked Miss Acton, tee- tering like a humming-bird with excitement.
“Little Lucy –” gasped Miss Parmalee.
“What about her?”
“She isn’t here.”
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know. We just missed her.”
Then the cry of the children for little Lucy Rose, although sadly wrangled, became intelligible. Ma- dame came, holding up her silk skirt and sniffing at her smelling-bottle, and everybody asked ques- tions of everybody else, and nobody knew any satis- factory answers. Johnny Trumbull was confident that he was the last one to see little Lucy, and so were Lily Jennings and Amelia Wheeler, and so were Jim Patterson and Bubby Harvey and Arnold Carruth and Lee Westminster and many others; but when pinned down to the actual moment everybody disagreed, and only one thing was cer- tain — little Lucy Rose was missing.
“What shall I say to her father?” moaned Ma- dame.
“Of course, we shall find her before we say any- thing,” returned Miss Parmalee, who was sure to rise to an emergency. Madame sank helpless be- fore one. “You had better go and sit under that tree (Sam, take a cushion out of the carriage for Madame) and keep quiet; then Sam must drive to the village and give the alarm, and the straw- wagon had better go, too; and the rest of us will hunt by threes, three always keeping together. Re- member, children, three of you keep together, and, whatever you do, be sure and do not separate. We cannot have another lost.”
It seemed very sound advice. Madame, pale and frightened, sat on the cushion under the tree and sniffed at her smelling-bottle, and the rest scattered and searched the grove and surrounding underbrush thoroughly. But it was sunset when the groups returned to Madame under her tree, and the straw- wagon with excited people was back, and the victoria with Lucy’s father and the rector and his wife, and Dr. Trumbull in his buggy, and other carriages fast arriving. Poor Miss Martha Rose had been out calling when she heard the news, and she was walk- ing to the scene of action. The victoria in which her cousin was seated left her in a cloud of dust. Cyril Rose had not noticed the mincing figure with the card-case and the parasol.
The village searched for little Lucy Rose, but it was Jim Patterson who found her, and in the most unlikely of places. A forlorn pair with a multi- plicity of forlorn children lived in a tumble-down house about half a mile from the grove. The man’s name was Silas Thomas, and his wife’s was Sarah. Poor Sarah had lost a large part of the small wit she had originally owned several years before, when her youngest daughter, aged four, died. All the babies that had arrived since had not consoled her for the death of that little lamb, by name Viola May, nor restored her full measure of under-wit. Poor Sarah Thomas had spied adorable little Lucy separated from her mates by chance for a few minutes, pick- ing wild flowers, and had seized her in forcible but loving arms and carried her home. Had Lucy not been such a silent, docile child, it could never have happened; but she was a mere little limp thing in the grasp of the over-loving, deprived mother who thought she had gotten back her own beloved Viola May.
When Jim Patterson, big-eyed and pale, looked in at the Thomas door, there sat Sarah Thomas, a large, unkempt, wild-visaged, but gentle creature, holding little Lucy and cuddling her, while Lucy, shrinking away as far as she was able, kept her big, dark eyes of wonder and fear upon the woman’s face. And all around were clustered the Thomas children, unkempt as their mother, a gentle but degenerate brood, all of them believing what their mother said. Viola May had come home again. Silas Thomas was not there; he was trudging slowly homeward from a job of wood-cutting. Jim saw only the mother, little Lucy, and that poor little flock of children gazing in wonder and awe. Jim rushed in and faced Sarah Thomas. “Give me little Lucy!” said he, as fiercely as any man. But he reckoned without the unreasoning love of a mother. Sarah only held little Lucy faster, and the poor little girl rolled appealing eyes at him over that brawny, grasping arm of affection.
Jim raced for help, and it was not long before it came. Little Lucy rode home in the victoria, seated in Sally Patterson’s lap. “Mother, you take her,” Jim had pleaded; and Sally, in the face and eyes of Madame, had gathered the little trembling crea- ture into her arms. In her heart she had not much of an opinion of any woman who had allowed such a darling little girl out of her sight for a moment. Madame accepted a seat in another carriage and rode home, explaining and sniffing and inwardly resolving never again to have a straw-ride.
Jim stood on the step of the victoria all the way home. They passed poor Miss Martha Rose, still faring toward the grove, and nobody noticed her, for the second time. She did not turn back until the straw-wagon, which formed the tail of the little procession, reached her. That she halted with mad waves of her parasol, and, when told that little Lucy was found, refused a seat on the straw because she did not wish to rumple her best gown and turned about and fared home again.
The rectory was reached before Cyril Rose’s house, and Cyril yielded gratefully to Sally Patter- son’s proposition that she take the little girl with her, give her dinner, see that she was washed and brushed and freed from possible contamination from the Thomases, who were not a cleanly lot, and later brought home in the rector’s carriage. However, little Lucy stayed all night at the rectory. She had a bath; her lovely, misty hair was brushed; she was fed and petted; and finally Sally Patterson telephoned for permission to keep her overnight. By that time poor Martha had reached home and was busily brushing her best dress.
After dinner, little Lucy, very happy and quite restored, sat in Sally Patterson’s lap on the veranda, while Jim hovered near. His innocent boy-love made him feel as if he had wings. But his wings only bore him to failure, before an earlier and mightier force of love than his young heart could yet compass for even such a darling as little Lucy. He sat on the veranda step and gazed eagerly and rapturously at little Lucy on his mother’s lap, and the desire to have her away from other loves came over him. He saw the fireflies dancing in swarms on the lawn, and a favorite sport of the children of the village occurred to him.
“Say, little Lucy,” said Jim.
Little Lucy looked up with big, dark eyes under her mist of hair, as she nestled against Sally Patter- son’s shoulder.
“Say, let’s chase fireflies, little Lucy.”
“Do you want to chase fireflies with Jim, darling?” asked Sally.
Little Lucy nestled closer. “I would rather stay with you,” said she in her meek flute of a voice, and she gazed up at Sally with the look which she might have given the mother she had lost.
Sally kissed her and laughed. Then she reached down a fond hand and patted her boy’s head. “Never mind, Jim,” said Sally. “Mothers have to come first.”
NOBLESSE
NOBLESSE
MARGARET LEE encountered in her late middle age the rather singular strait of being entirely alone in the world. She was unmarried, and as far as relatives were concerned, she had none except those connected with her by ties not of blood, but by marriage.
Margaret had not married when her flesh had been comparative; later, when it had become superlative, she had no opportunities to marry. Life would have been hard enough for Margaret under any circum- stances, but it was especially hard, living, as she did, with her father’s stepdaughter and that daughter’s husband.
Margaret’s stepmother had been a child in spite of her two marriages, and a very silly, although pretty child. The daughter, Camille, was like her, although not so pretty, and the man whom Camille had mar- ried was what Margaret had been taught to regard as “common.” His business pursuits were irregular and partook of mystery. He always smoked ciga- rettes and chewed gum. He wore loud shirts and a diamond scarf-pin which had upon him the appear- ance of stolen goods. The gem had belonged to Margaret’s own mother, but when Camille expressed a desire to present it to Jack Desmond, Margaret had yielded with no outward hesitation, but after- ward she wept miserably over its loss when alone in her room. The spirit had gone out of Margaret, the little which she had possessed. She had always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and was almost helpless before the wishes of others.
After all, it had been a long time since Margaret had been able to force the ring even upon her little finger, but she had derived a small pleasure from the reflection that she owned it in its faded velvet box, hidden under laces in her top bureau drawer. She did not like to see it blazing forth from the tie of this very ordinary young man who had married Camille. Margaret had a gentle, high-bred contempt for Jack Desmond, but at the same time a vague fear of him. Jack had a measure of unscrupulous business shrewdness, which spared nothing and no- body, and that in spite of the fact that he had not succeeded.
Margaret owned the old Lee place, which had been magnificent, but of late years the expenditures had been reduced and it had deteriorated. The conserva- tories had been closed. There was only one horse in the stable. Jack had bought him. He was a worn- out trotter with legs carefully bandaged. Jack drove him at reckless speed, not considering those slender, braceleted legs. Jack had a racing-gig, and when in it, with striped coat, cap on one side, cigarette in mouth, lines held taut, skimming along the roads in clouds of dust, he thought himself the man and true sportsman which he was not. Some of the old Lee silver had paid for that waning trotter.
Camille adored Jack, and cared for no associations, no society, for which he was not suited. Before the trotter was bought she told Margaret that the kind of dinners which she was able to give in Fairhill were awfully slow. “If we could afford to have some men out from the city, some nice fellers that Jack knows, it would be worth while,” said she, “but we have grown so hard up we can’t do a thing to make it worth their while. Those men haven’t got any use for a back-number old place like this. We can’t take them round in autos, nor give them a chance at cards, for Jack couldn’t pay if he lost, and Jack is awful honorable. We can’t have the right kind of folks here for any fun. I don’t propose to ask the rector and his wife, and old Mr. Harvey, or people like the Leaches.”
“The Leaches are a very good old family,” said Margaret, feebly.
“I don’t care for good old families when they are so slow,” retorted Camille. “The fellers we could have here, if we were rich enough, come from fine families, but they are up-to-date. It’s no use hang- ing on to old silver dishes we never use and that I don’t intend to spoil my hands shining. Poor Jack don’t have much fun, anyway. If he wants that trotter — he says it’s going dirt cheap — I think it’s mean he can’t have it, instead of your hanging on to a lot of out-of-style old silver; so there.”
Two generations ago there had been French blood in Camille’s family. She put on her clothes beauti- fully; she had a dark, rather fine-featured, alert lit- tle face, which gave a wrong impression, for she was essentially vulgar. Sometimes poor Margaret Lee wished that Camille had been definitely vicious, if only she might be possessed of more of the charac- teristics of breeding. Camille so irritated Margaret in those somewhat abstruse traits called sensibilities that she felt as if she were living with a sort of spiritual nutmeg-grater. Seldom did Camille speak that she did not jar Margaret, although uncon- sciously. Camille meant to be kind to the stout woman, whom she pitied as far as she was capable of pitying without understanding. She realized that it must be horrible to be no longer young, and so stout that one was fairly monstrous, but how horrible she could not with her mentality conceive. Jack also meant to be kind. He was not of the brutal — that is, intentionally brutal — type, but he had a shrewd eye to the betterment of himself, and no realization of the torture he inflicted upon those who opposed that betterment.
For a long time matters had been worse than usual financially in the Lee house. The sisters had been left in charge of the sadly dwindled estate, and had depended upon the judgment, or lack of judgment, of Jack. He approved of taking your chances and striking for larger income. The few good old grand- father securities had been sold, and wild ones from the very jungle of commerce had been substituted. Jack, like most of his type, while shrewd, was as credulous as a child. He lied himself, and expected all men to tell him the truth. Camille at his bidding mortgaged the old place, and Margaret dared not oppose. Taxes were not paid; interest was not paid; credit was exhausted. Then the house was put up at public auction, and brought little more than suffi- cient to pay the creditors. Jack took the balance and staked it in a few games of chance, and of course lost. The weary trotter stumbled one day and had to be shot. Jack became desperate. He frightened Camille. He was suddenly morose. He bade Ca- mille pack, and Margaret also, and they obeyed. Camille stowed away her crumpled finery in the bulging old trunks, and Margaret folded daintily her few remnants of past treasures. She had an old silk gown or two, which resisted with their rich honesty the inroads of time, and a few pieces of old lace, which Camille understood no better than she under- stood their owner.
Then Margaret and the Desmonds went to the city and lived in a horrible, tawdry little flat in a tawdry locality. Jack roared with bitter mirth when he saw poor Margaret forced to enter her tiny room sidewise; Camille laughed also, although she chided Jack gently. “Mean of you to make fun of poor Margaret, Jacky dear,” she said.
For a few weeks Margaret’s life in that flat was horrible; then it became still worse. Margaret near- ly filled with her weary, ridiculous bulk her little room, and she remained there most of the time, although it was sunny and noisy, its one window giving on a courtyard strung with clothes-lines and teeming with boisterous life. Camille and Jack went trolley-riding, and made shift to entertain a little, merry but questionable people, who gave them passes to vaudeville and entertained in their turn until the small hours. Unquestionably these peo- ple suggested to Jack Desmond the scheme which spelled tragedy to Margaret.
She always remembered one little dark man with keen eyes who had seen her disappearing through her door of a Sunday night when all these gay, be- draggled birds were at liberty and the fun ran high. “Great Scott!” the man had said, and Margaret had heard him demand of Jack that she be recalled. She obeyed, and the man was introduced, also the other members of the party. Margaret Lee stood in the midst of this throng and heard their repressed titters of mirth at her appearance. Everybody there was in good humor with the exception of Jack, who was still nursing his bad luck, and the little dark man, whom Jack owed. The eyes of Jack and the little dark man made Margaret cold with a ter- ror of something, she knew not what. Before that terror the shame and mortification of her exhibition to that merry company was of no import.
She stood among them, silent, immense, clad in her dark purple silk gown spread over a great hoop- skirt. A real lace collar lay softly over her enormous, billowing shoulders; real lace ruffles lay over her great, shapeless hands. Her face, the delicacy of whose features was veiled with flesh, flushed and paled. Not even flesh could subdue the sad brill- iancy of her dark-blue eyes, fixed inward upon her own sad state, unregardful of the company. She made an indefinite murmur of response to the saluta- tions given her, and then retreated. She heard the roar of laughter after she had squeezed through the door of her room. Then she heard eager conversa- tion, of which she did not catch the real import, but which terrified her with chance expressions. She was quite sure that she was the subject of that eager discussion. She was quite sure that it boded her no good.
In a few days she knew the worst; and the worst was beyond her utmost imaginings. This was be- fore the days of moving-picture shows; it was the day of humiliating spectacles of deformities, when inventions of amusements for the people had not progressed. It was the day of exhibitions of sad freaks of nature, calculated to provoke tears rather than laughter in the healthy-minded, and poor Mar- garet Lee was a chosen victim. Camille informed her in a few words of her fate. Camille was sorry for her, although not in the least understanding why she was sorry. She realized dimly that Margaret would be distressed, but she was unable from her narrow point of view to comprehend fully the whole tragedy.
“Jack has gone broke,” stated Camille. “He owes Bill Stark a pile, and he can’t pay a cent of it; and Jack’s sense of honor about a poker debt is about the biggest thing in his character. Jack has got to pay. And Bill has a little circus, going to travel all summer, and he’s offered big money for you. Jack can pay Bill what he owes him, and we’ll have enough to live on, and have lots of fun going around. You hadn’t ought to make a fuss about it.”
Margaret, pale as death, stared at the girl, pertly slim, and common and pretty, who stared back laughingly, although still with the glimmer of un- comprehending pity in her black eyes.
“What does — he — want — me — for?” gasped Margaret.
“For a show, because you are so big,” replied Camille. “You will make us all rich, Margaret. Ain’t it nice?”
Then Camille screamed, the shrill raucous scream of the women of her type, for Margaret had fallen back in a dead faint, her immense bulk inert in her chair. Jack came running in alarm. Margaret had suddenly gained value in his shrewd eyes. He was as pale as she.
Finally Margaret raised her head, opened her miserable eyes, and regained her consciousness of herself and what lay before her. There was no course open but submission. She knew that from the first. All three faced destitution; she was the one financial asset, she and her poor flesh. She had to face it, and with what dignity she could muster.
Margaret had great piety. She kept constantly before her mental vision the fact in which she be- lieved, that the world which she found so hard, and which put her to unspeakable torture, was not all.
A week elapsed before the wretched little show of which she was to be a member went on the road, and night after night she prayed. She besieged her God for strength. She never prayed for respite. Her realization of the situation and her lofty reso- lution prevented that. The awful, ridiculous com- bat was before her; there was no evasion; she prayed only for the strength which leads to victory.
However, when the time came, it was all worse than she had imagined. How could a woman gently born and bred conceive of the horrible ignominy of such a life? She was dragged hither and yon, to this and that little town. She traveled through swelter- ing heat on jolting trains; she slept in tents; she lived — she, Margaret Lee — on terms of equality with the common and the vulgar. Daily her absurd unwieldiness was exhibited to crowds screaming with laughter. Even her faith wavered. It seemed to her that there was nothing for evermore beyond those staring, jeering faces of silly mirth and delight at sight of her, seated in two chairs, clad in a pink spangled dress, her vast shoulders bare and sparkling with a tawdry necklace, her great, bare arms covered with brass bracelets, her hands in- cased in short, white kid gloves, over the fingers of which she wore a number of rings — stage prop-