“Ope the sacred source of sympathetic tears.”
Meg was leaning back in delicious idleness on the cool, shaded porch of
her aunt’s house, with her hands loosely clasped above her head, and
her eyes dreamily fixed on the treetops.
Robert Malloy was reading aloud from a book of verse. His voice, rising
and falling musically, harmonized with the summer sounds, the hum of
the insects, and chirping of the birds that came fearlessly close, to
bathe in the whirling spray of the garden hose.
After he had read a while he closed the book, and said, “Tell me a
story.”
“A really, truly one?” she asked, bringing her eyes on a level with
his.
“Yes; tell me about yourself.”
“All right. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess, and she
was as good as she was beautiful; never cross, never impatient, always
serene, gentle, and loving. She lived with her cruel stepmother—”
“Wasn’t there a prince?” he queried anxiously.
“Not any real one,” was the severe retort, “just a few little imitation
ones. But she had a taste above paste jewels, so she determined—”
At this moment the air was pierced by a shrill cry from the road,
followed by lusty weeping.
Meg was half-way to the gate before Robert started, and when he reached
there he found her exclaiming pityingly over a small, ragged, and
decidedly dirty boy, who was sitting in the dust of the road nursing an
injured toe.
“How did it happen?” she was asking as Robert came up and leaned
against the fence.
The hurt, slight in itself, assumed new importance in the eyes of the
boy, and he answered proudly, between the sniffles into which his sobs
had subsided, “I was running fast, an’ I never seen that piece of
broken bottle, an’ I stepped right on it, an’ cut my toe, an’ it hurts
just awful.”
“I know it does, you poor, dear thing,” was Meg’s sympathetic
rejoinder; “come right in the yard with me, where it’s cool, and I’ll
fix it all right.”
The boy began to strut after her, but meeting Robert’s broad smile,
bethought himself of his affliction, so changed the strut into a limp,
and followed her in.
He looked a trifle dubious over the water when she took the injured
member in her soft hands to bathe it, but submitted like a martyr.
After Meg had washed the wound free from dirt she looked up at Robert,
who was watching the proceedings with amused eyes, and imperiously
demanded his handkerchief.
He elevated his brows, as he handed it to her, and, addressing the boy,
remarked, “The heroines one reads about always tear their own
handkerchiefs into strips.”
“Yessir,” responded the boy, scarcely knowing what was expected of him.
“Do you remember what Chesterfield says about just such a case as
this?” Meg asked the boy, ignoring Robert.
“No’m. Who’s he? The doctor?” And alarm became visibly written under
the grime of his countenance.
“Never mind,” Meg said reassuringly to him, and went on neatly binding
the toe. When it was finished, she darted into the house and came out
carrying an apple and a huge piece of cake, which she immediately
bestowed upon her new protegé.
He accepted them graciously, as he had her ministrations, and was about
to edge off when her eye was attracted to a sling-shot protruding from
his coat pocket. She pulled it out and threw it as far as she could,
then turned to the amazed boy with flashing eyes. “You horrid, bad,
ugly boy! You were chasing a poor little bird when you stepped on that
bottle! I’m glad you got hurt, and I hope the next time you will cut
your toe completely off!”
She emphasized her words with a little shake, which sent him scuttling
down the yard and out of the gate without a backward glance.
After he had disappeared, Meg stood, red and mortified, realizing that
Robert must despise her for her outburst of temper, and wishing that at
least she had been more dignified in her expression of disapproval. She
became uneasy at the long silence, and finally ventured to raise her
eyes to his, prepared for the scorn and contempt she knew would be in
his glance.
Instead, his eyes were dancing with enjoyment, and when he met her
look, he laughed outright. Then he said deliberately, “I think I know
you well enough now to call you Margie.”