RUE AND ROSEMARY
They are not easy to take, siestas aren't. They are the word for
going to sleep in the daytime when you would rather not.
Sometimes you have to take medicine with them, and nearly always
you feel that you must have a drink of milk. It is so easy to
discover that you are thirsty, and besides, it usually gives you
a chance to stay awake a little while longer. Frequently you find
that you don't care as much for the milk as you thought you did,
but in one way there is always a satisfaction in it. If you have
a looking-glass, you can see the white mustache the drink has
left on your lip. Another satisfaction is that if Mother forgets
to bring your milk in the mug you like best, you can send her
right back for it.
If David wants to be particularly polite he sometimes asks Mother
to tell him her story about the young man with the mustache. She
has one that is tremendous dull because there are so many
thinking places in it. "And then--and then--" Mother will say,
and after that the story doesn't get on worth anything. The worst
about it is that it always takes such a long while for her to
reach the part which tells of the time when the young man started
to raise a mustache.
"How did he start?" David never fails to ask.
"By not shaving his lip."
It is now that David feels of his white lip with the tip of his
red tongue and then stoutly declares:
"I have not shaved _my_ lip."
"It was brown, like your hair," says Mother, "and when it was
about half-grown it began to curl up at the ends. The boys made
fun of it, but it was very beautiful and ever so soft and fine."
"Truly, was it?" asks David, and then something blooms pink in
Mother's cheeks. That is the one interesting thing about her
story, and up to that point he can always stand her narrative very
well; for he is always watching for the pretty pinkness. But when
that is gone, his interest goes too. It seems very ordinary to him
that this young man should have studied mechanics and become a
great engineer and invented things, and made discoveries.
Now, if he had ever been shipwrecked, or if he had ever been
eaten up by bears, or if he had fought Indians, or done some
other notable thing with a scare in it, why, _that_ would be
worth talking about. But why tell so much about a young man who
had done none of these things? Why speak of the way she had
encouraged him and helped him and studied with him? You can see
for yourself that it was a very stupid tale.
It was clever of David, though, to have her tell him the story,
for then she would sometimes forget that her little boy was not
having his siesta. To show her that he was trying to keep up an
interest he would now and then ask a question, as, for example,
when she spoke of the honors the young man had won at college.
"Could he spit through his teeth?" David would inquire, and it
was always a sad thing to him that this was not one of the young
man's accomplishments. A very disappointing chap, to be sure.
"Do you know, my little boy," Mother would say in a strange, soft
voice, "do you know that your eyes are as bright as his eyes used
to be, and that--"
"It's a nice story," David would say courageously, and like as
not, while Mother was still talking about the handsome young man
with the mustache, her little boy would fall fast asleep.
It is good, David, that you do not hear the story that is hid
away in the thinking places; it is good that you do not know the
worn look which sometimes comes into Mother's face and crowds
from it all the pretty pinkness that you love to see. You will
never know that other look which was often in Mother's face
before you came to nestle in her arms and frighten it away. You
have done well, brave soldier-man, for now I am right sure she
does not wonder any more why the day should have come when the
one she had helped so much should have forgotten the help and
been thankless for all the love that she had given him.