THE CRIME OF DAVID
It is not pleasant to be a criminal; it hurts. David knew he was
one, and although he did not know what crime he had committed, he
imagined that he was now being punished for it. The idea came to
him on account of the way the Doctor was acting. The man had
gently replaced the miniature upon the top of the desk, and
afterward he stood motionless, sunk deep in revery. The little
boy was trying to guess what he had done. It must be very, very
wrong, or else Fav-ver Doctor wouldn't be standing there like
that. He would talk and take notice. David knew this was so,
but, try as he might, he could not think what sin he was guilty
of. It was a great puzzle, and, in truth, David was frequently
puzzled in the same way. For the laws which grown-ups have for
little boys are so much like any other kind of laws that it is
hard to get any justice out of them.
Without knowing what it was, David keenly felt his disgrace. The
glory of being in the Doctor's house; the glory of sitting at
table in an ordinary chair; the glory of a hair-cut, and even the
glory of trouvers--each of these mighty events was now shorn of
its charm. Everything had grown sadly commonplace; for there can
be no satisfaction in achieving greatness, if one is so soon to
be forgotten. So now, with the passing of every instant, things
were growing more and more solemn.
Doubtless the chair on which David was sitting was partly to
blame. It was such a slippery seat that if one didn't hold on
tight he would be sure to slide right off. There were stickery
things in it, too, for the hair-cloth was getting all worn out.
The little boy sat politely on the stickery things and waited. If
he waited long enough, maybe Fav-ver Doctor would smile at him as
Mother always did. At the present time, though, one could hardly
believe that there were ever any smiles in Fav-ver Doctor's
face--he was looking so hard and so long at nothing at all.
Everything in the room was feeling lonesome and guilty and bad;
and worst of all was the clock. It was a big, upright, colonial
clock, and its counting of time was done with deep and stately
deliberation. If he would only strike the hour, that would help.
David remembered with what dignity the clock could strike. The
brazen reverberations of each stroke always lingered awhile
before the next one came, and then, when all of them had been
struck, and the last ringing beat had throbbed and swooned into a
whisper, and died, one always felt that other strokes would
follow. One looked for them, and waited for them, but they did
not come. To-day nothing seemed to come but the regular, echoing,
church-like tick-tock, and to-day there was no diversion of any
kind; there was only a large, dark, depressing awesomeness.
It is very scareful for a little boy when he feels himself grown
to be such a criminal. Immense periods of time seem to be
slipping away, but he doesn't know at all whether he is getting
to be really and truly a man, or whether he is getting littler
and littler. There is always the fear of diminishing, because one
would so like to be grown up, and when one is such a bad little
boy, how can he expect ever to be grown up? David felt himself
slipping and slipping. He was slipping back into three-years-old.
From that he would go into two-years-old, and before very long he
would be only one. He knew it was coming on. There was a tingling
flush going down his back, a cold current, like ants with frozen
feet. Maybe it was only perspiration, but how was a little boy to
know that? He was gasping with excitement when he suddenly called
out: "Here I am!"
The idea was that the Doctor should instantly seize him and save
him from being dissolved into empty air. But no sooner had David
called than he was overcome with shame. At first he was
astonished that his voice should really be _his_ voice. There was
no change in it--not the slightest--and he now saw that he had
only fooled himself. That is why he was ashamed. He was so
ashamed that he began to cry.
That would not do at all. Fav-ver Doctor said it wouldn't, and he
was so distressed about it that he offered David the rare
privilege of wearing his watch. At any other time the little boy
would have been mightily set up over the honor, but at such a
time as this no distinction of any sort was for him. He did not
deserve it. He had disgraced himself too much for that, and he
pushed the watch from him. He kicked his feet against the chair
and rudely exclaimed:
"Don't want your watch!"
In some ways Dr. Redfield was not different from most of us. So
many years had passed since he was a little boy that he had
forgotten that what appears to be only sullenness may in reality
be something quite different. Perhaps if he had been more like
his normal self instead of being a very tired and a very
irritable doctor he would not have considered it necessary to
regard David with the eye of stern discipline. But however that
may be, the man pivoted suddenly upon his heel and marched out of
the room, leaving the little boy alone to brood at his leisure
upon the sad impropriety of being rude.
David wanted to go with the Doctor, but the man would have
nothing to do with any little boy who cries without any reason
for crying and is saucy besides. David could not go. David must
sit still on that chair and must not get up.
"I don't like you," the child called out.
Then, as soon as the door was shut upon him, he became a very
angry little boy. He pounced from his seat and began to walk
heavily up and down the room. He stamped his feet; he shut his
teeth together and he kicked the chair where he had been sitting.
He had not been fairly dealt with, and now, as Mitch Horrigan
would say, he was going to be just as rotten bad as ever he
could.
But it was useless to stamp so loud and clench his fists. There
was no one to hear him and there was no one to see him. Neither
was there any satisfaction in knocking over a chair. The outlook
was utterly hopeless. There didn't seem to be any good way of
being bad.
Presently, though, David had an inspiration. He would get hold of
the picture the Doctor had talked about so foolishly. David would
get it and have a look at it. Surely that would be very naughty
indeed. David was confident of that, for the Doctor had been so
extremely nice in handling the little miniature.
Only there was one great difficulty which stood in the way of
this famous campaign of badness. David encountered this
difficulty when he had dragged a chair in front of the high desk.
Even by standing on the chair he was not tall enough to reach the
picture; even by standing tippy-toe he could not reach it. There
was left but the one alternative--he must jump for it, but when
he did that he knocked it off. It fell with a loud clack to the
floor and broke in two.
Then terror seized the heart of David. He did not mean to break
the lady; honestly he did not, and now--oh, oh!--what was to
be done? The little boy did not have much time to think about it.
He heard a heavy tread on the stairs and knew the Doctor was
coming.
Perhaps it would do to say that the picture had fallen off itself
and got broken, or maybe it would be better to say that the
fairies had done it, or maybe--
Now, at last, David knew the thing to do, and did it. When the
Doctor came into the room the little boy was sweetly but not
serenely in his place. He was sitting upright in his chair, as
though he had not stirred a hair's breadth during the man's
absence, but in the eyes of David was a feverish lustre, and the
little body of him was all of a tremble.
"I didn't understand about the crying," Dr. Redfield announced,
and he was very humble. It did not seem odd to him that he should
come to confessional before this little boy. He believed that he
had judged too hastily, and he was come to make it right. "Maybe
you were lonesome," he said. "Maybe you wanted Mother."
David said nothing, and the Doctor went on with that wistful
tenderness which comes to us when we feel we have not been just
with those we love.
"You _do_ like me, don't you, David?"
But the little boy could not answer; he was crying so.