toothbrush; distributed it and set up another name--Miss Celia Carleton.
He had printed nearly a dozen of these when his mother's voice behind
him interrupted his labours.
"Robert," said the voice sternly, "what are you doing with that
mucilage?"
V
THE LITTLE GIRL
Bobby spent as much time with Celia as he was allowed. On Sunday he took
her on his regular excursion to Auntie Kate--and Auntie Kate's cookies.
"Aren't you glad there was no Sunday School to-day?" he inquired
blithely.
"I like Sunday School," stated Celia.
Bobby stopped short and looked at her.
"Do you like church too?" he demanded.
"I love it," she said.
"Do you like pollywogs?"
"Ugh, No!"
"Or stripy snakes?"
"They're _horrid!_"
"Or forts?"
"I don't know."
"Or rifles an' revolvers?"
"I am afraid of them."
"Or dogs?"
"I love dogs. I've got one home. His name is Pancho."
"What kind is he?" asked Bobby with a vast sigh of relief at finding a
common ground. He had been brought to realize yesterday that little
girls differ from boys; but for a few dreadful, floundering moments this
morning he had feared they might, so to speak, belong to a different
race. Afterward he realized that it would not have mattered even if she
had not liked dogs. He merely wished to be near her. When he left her he
immediately experienced the strongest longing to be again where he could
see her, and breathe the deep, intoxicating, delicious, clean influence
of her near presence. And yet with her his moments of unalloyed
happiness were few and his hours of sheer misery were many.
Self-consciousness had never troubled Bobby before; but now in the
presence of Gerald's slim elegance and easy, languid manner, he became
acutely aware of his own deficiencies. His clothes seemed coarser; his
hands and feet were awkward; his body dumpier; his face rounder and more
freckled. To him was born a great humility of spirit to match the great
longing of it.
Nevertheless, as has been said, he and Duke trudged down to the Ottawa
every morning, and again every afternoon, or as many of them as Mrs.
Orde permitted. He was content to come under the immediate spell of the
dancing, sprite-like, sunny little girl. No thought of the especial
effort to please, called courtship, entered his young head. He played
with the children, and kept as close to Her as possible; that was all.
And one evening, trudging home dangerously near six o'clock, he ran slap
against the legend chalked in huge letters on a board fence:
CELIA CARLETON and BOBBY ORDE
He stopped short, his heart jumping wildly. Often had he seen this
coupling of names, other names; and he knew that it was considered a
little of a shame, and somewhat of a glory. The sight confused him to
the depths of his soul; and yet it also pleased him. He rubbed out the
letters; but he walked on with new elation. The undesired but
authoritative sanction of public recognition had been given his
devotion. Gerald was not considered. Somebody had observed; so the
affair must be noticeable to others. And with another tremendous leap
of the heart Bobby welcomed the daring syllogism that, since the
somebody of the impertinent chalk had fathomed his devotion to her,
might it not be possible, oh, remotely inconceivably possible, of
course, that the unknown had equally marked some slight interest on her
part for him? The board fence, the maple-shaded walk, the soft brown
street of pulverized shingles, all faded in the rapt glory of this
vision. Bobby gasped. Literally it had not occurred to him before. Now
all at once he desired it, desired it not merely with every power of his
child nature, but with the full strength of the man's soul that waited
but the passing of years to spread wide its pinions. The need of her
answer to his love shook him to the depths, for it reached forward and
back in his world-experience, calling into vague, drowsy, fluttering
response things that would later awaken to full life, and reanimating
the dim and beautiful instincts that are an heritage of that time when
the soul is passing the lethe of earliest childhood and retains still a
wavering iridescence of the glory from which it has come. The question
rose to his lips ready for the asking. He wanted to turn track on the
instant, to call for Celia, to demand of her the response to his love.
And then, after the moment of exaltation, came the reaction. He was
afraid. The thought of his stubby uninteresting figure came to him; and
a deep sense of his unworthiness. What could she, accustomed to
brilliant creatures of the wonderful city, of whom Gerald was probably
but a mild sample, find in commonplace little Bobby Orde? He walked
meekly home; and took a scolding for being late.
Nevertheless the idea persisted and grew. It came to the point of
rehearsal. Before he fell asleep that very night, Bobby had ready cut
and dried a half-dozen different ways in which to ask the question, and
twice as many methods of leading up to it. In the darkness, and by
himself, he felt very bold and confident.
The next morning, however, even after he had succeeded in sequestrating
Celia from her companions, he found it impossible to approach the
subject. The bare thought of it threw him to the devourings of a panic
terror. This new necessity tore him with fresh but delicious pains. He
felt the need of finding out whether she cared for him as he had never
conceived a need could exist; yet he was totally unable to satisfy it.
By comparison the former misery of jealousy seemed nothing. Bobby lived
constantly in this high breathless state of delight in Celia; and
misery in the condition of his love for her. The Fuller boys and Angus
saw him no more; the little library was neglected; the wood-box half the
time forgotten; and the arithmetic, always a source of trouble, tangled
itself into a hopeless snarl of which Bobby's blurred mental vision
could make nothing.
All of his spare time he spent at his toy printing press, trying over
and over for a perfect result--unblurred, well-registered, well
aligned--in the shape of calling cards for "Miss Celia Carleton."
As soon as they were done to his satisfaction, he wrapped them in a
clumsy package, and set out for the Ottawa, followed, as always, by
Duke.
He found Celia alone in a rocking chair.
"Why didn't you come down this morning?" she asked him at once.
Bobby held up the package and looked mysterious.
"This," said he.
"Oh! what is it?" she cried, jumping up.
"I made it," said Bobby.
"What is it?" insisted Celia. "Show it to me."
But Bobby thrust the package firmly into his pocket.
"Up past our house there's a fine sand-hill to slide down," said he,
"and we got a fine fort over the hill, and I know where there's a place
you can climb up on where you can see 'most to Redding."
"Show me what you've got!" pleaded Celia.
"I will," Bobby developed his plan, "if you'll come up and play in the
fort."
"All right," agreed Celia in a breath; "I'll tell mamma I'm going. And
I'll hunt up the others."
"I don't want the others to go," announced Bobby boldly.
She calmed to a great stillness, and looked at him with intent eyes.
"All right," she agreed quietly after a moment.
They walked up the street together, followed by the solemn black and
white dog. The shop windows did not detain them, as ordinarily. At the
fire-engine house they turned under the dense shade of the maples. But
by the end of the second block said Bobby:
"We'll go this way."
He was afraid of encountering Angus, or perhaps the Fuller boys.
The sand-hill proved toilsome to Celia, but without a single pause she
struggled bravely up its sliding, cascading yellow surface to the top.
Then she stood still, panting a little, her cheeks flushed, her eyes
bright, the tiniest curls about her forehead wet and matted with
perspiration. With a great adoration, Bobby looked upon her slender
figure held straight against the blue sky. Almost--almost dared he
speak. At least that is what he thought until the words rose to his
lips; and then all at once he realized what a wide gulf lay between the
imagined and the spoken word.
"The fort's over this way," said he gruffly.
"Show me the package first," insisted Celia.
Bobby drew out the cards, and thrust them into her hands.
"They're for you," he said hastily. "I did them on my printing press."
Celia was delighted and wanted to say so at length, but Bobby had his
sex's aversion to spoken gratitude.
"Come on, see the fort," he insisted.
He showed her the elaborate works and explained their uses, and pointed
out the enemy of stumps charging patiently. Celia caught fire with the
idea at once.
[Illustration: ALMOST--ALMOST DARED HE TO SPEAK]
"I'll make bullets the way they did in the Colonies!" she cried.
"Have you 'Old Times in the Colonies,' too?" asked Bobby eagerly.
They seated themselves and talked of their books. Celia was just
beginning the Alcott series. Bobby had never heard of them, and so they
had to be explained. The children had romped and played games together;
but they had never exchanged such ideas as their years had developed.
For once Bobby forgot the fact of his love, and its delicious pains, and
its need for something which he could not place, in the unselfconscious
joy of intimate communion. He drew close to Celia in spirit; and his
whole being expanded to a glow that warmed him through and through. The
westering sun surprised them with the lateness of the hour. At the hotel
gate Celia left him.
"My, but we had a good time!" said she.
With much trepidation Bobby next day suggested in face of the whole
group that he and Celia should climb the high hill from which Bobby
fondly believed he could see "'most to Redding." To his surprise, and to
the surprise of the others, Celia consented at once. They climbed the
hill in short stages, resting formally every ten feet. Bobby they
called the Guide; while Celia was assigned the duty of announcing the
resting-places. There was a wood-road up the hill, but they preferred
the steep side. Trees shaded it; and undergrowth veiled it. Little open
spaces were guarded mysteriously and jealously by the thickets; little
hot pockets held like cups the warmth of the sun. Birds flashed and
disappeared; squirrels chattered indignantly; chipmunks scurried away.
Occasionally they came to dense shade, and moss, and black shadow, and
low sweet shrubs a few inches high, and the tinkle of a tiny streamlet.
Once a tangle of raspberries in a little clearing fell across their way.
Bobby had never happened on these. They had been well picked over by the
squaws, who sold fruit in town by the pailful, but the children managed
to find a few berries, and ate them, enjoying their warm, satiny feel.
Thus they climbed for a long time. The rests were frequent, the course
not of the straightest. For many years their recollection of that hill
was as of a mountain. Finally the top sprang at them abruptly, as though
in joke.
"Come over this way, I'll show you," said Bobby.
He led the way to a point where the scant timber had in times past
suffered a windfall. Through the opening thus made they looked abroad
over the countryside. They could see the snake-fences about the farms,
and the white dusty road like a ribbon and the stumps like black dots,
and the waving green tops of the "wood lots" and far away the flash of
the River.
Thus Bobby gained another of his great desires. Celia proved strangely
acquiescent to suggestions for these excursions. Gerald's dreaded
attractions relaxed their power over Bobby's spirit; and in
corresponding degree Bobby regained the lost captaincy of his soul. The
self-confidence which he lacked seeped gradually into him; and he began,
though very tentatively, to recognize and respect his own value as an
individual. These are big words to employ over the small problems of a
child; yet in the child alone occur those silent developments, those
noiseless changes which touch closest to true abstraction. Later in life
our processes are stiffened by the material into forms of greater
simplicity.
They explored the country about; and what the shortness of their legs
denied them in the matter of actual distance, the largeness of their
children's imaginations lavished bounteously.
Bobby had explored most of it all before--the stump pastures, the
wood-lots, the hills, the beach, the piers, the upper shifting downs of
sand--but now he saw them for the first time because he was showing them
to Celia. One day they made their way under tall beech woods, through a
scrub of cedars, and found themselves on the edge of low bluffs
overlooking the yellow shore and the blue lake. Long years after he
could remember it vividly, and all the little details that belonged to
it--the flash of the waters, the dip of gulls, the gentle wash of the
quiet wavelets against the shore, the thin strip of dark wet sand that
marked the extent of their influences, and, in a long curve to the blue
of distance, the uneven waste of the yellow dry sand on which lay and
from which projected at all angles countless logs, slabs and timbers
cast up derelict by the storms of years. But at the time he was not
conscious of noticing these things. In the darkness of his room that
night all he remembered was Celia standing bright and fair against the
shadow of ancient twisted cedars.
VI
THE LITTLE GIRL (CONTINUED)
Every Saturday evening the Hotel Ottawa gave a hop in its dining room.
Mrs. Carleton suggested that the Ordes dine with her, and afterward take
in this function. The hop proper began at nine o'clock; but the floor
for an hour before was given over to the children. Mrs. Orde accepted.
Promptly at half-past six, then, they all entered the dining room.
Bobby, living in the town, had never taken a meal there. He saw a
high-ceilinged, large room, filled with small, square and round tables
arranged between numerous, slender, white plaster pillars. At the base
of each pillar were still smaller serving tables each supporting a metal
ice-water pitcher. Two swinging doors at the far end led out. Tall
windows looked into the grounds where the children had been in the habit
of playing.
People were scattered here and there eating. Statuesque ladies dressed
in black, with white aprons, stood about or sailed here and there,
bearing aloft in marvellous equilibrium great flat trays piled high with
steaming white dishes. They swung corners in grand free sweeps, the
trays tilted far sideways to balance centrifugal force; they charged the
swinging doors at full speed, and when Bobby held his breath in
anticipation of the crash, something deft and mysterious happened at the
hem of their black skirts and the doors flew open as though commanded by
a magic shibboleth. They were tall and short, slender and stout, dark
and light, but they had these things in common--they all dressed in
black and white, their hair was lofty and of exaggerated waterfall, and
their expressions never altered from one of lazy-eyed, lofty, scornful
ennui. To Bobby they were easily the leading feature of the meal.
After dinner the party sat on the verandah a while, the elders
conversing; the children feeling rather dressed up. By and by their
other playmates joined them. The lights were lit, and shadows descended
with evening coolness. From within came the sound of a violin tuning.
Immediately all ran to the dining room. The tables had been moved to one
end where they were piled on top of one another; the chairs were
arranged in a row along the wall; the floor, newly waxed, shone like
glass. A small upright piano manipulated by an elderly female in
glasses; a tremendous bass viol in charge of a small man, and a violin
played by a large man represented the orchestra.
All the children shouted, and began to slide on the slippery floor.
Bobby joined this game eagerly, and had great fun. But in a moment the
music struck up, the guests of the hotel commenced to drift in and the
romping had to cease.
Gerald offered his arm to Celia, and they swung away in the hopping
waltz of the period. Other children paired off. Bobby was left alone.
He did not know what to do, so he sat down in one of the chairs ranged
along the wall. After a minute or so Mrs. Carleton and the Ordes came
in. Bobby went over to them.
"Don't you dance, Bobby?" asked Mrs. Carleton kindly.
"No, ma'am," replied Bobby in a very small voice.
When the music stopped, the children gathered in a group at the lower
end of the hall. Bobby joined them; but somehow even then he felt out
of it. Celia's cheeks were flushed bright with the exercise and
pleasure. Her spirits were high. She laughed and chatted with Gerald
vivaciously. Poor Bobby she included in the brightness of her mood, but
evidently only because he happened to be in the circle of it. She was
sorry he did not dance; but she loved it, and just now she could think
of nothing else but the enjoyment of it. Bobby could not understand that
there was nothing personal in this. He saw, with a pang, that Gerald
danced supremely well; that Morris romped through the steps with a
cheerful hearty abandon not without its attraction; that Tad Fuller, who
had come in with his mother and his brother, and half a dozen others
whom Bobby knew, all made creditable performers; that even Angus,
red-faced, awkward, perspiring as he was, could yet command the hand,
time and attention of any little girl he might choose to favour. He
himself was useless; and therefore ignored.
At the end of the children's hour he said good night miserably, and
trailed along home at his parents' heels. Ordinarily he liked to be out
after dark. The stars and the velvet shadows and the magic
transformations which the night wrought in the most ordinary and
accustomed things attracted him strongly. But now he was too conscious
of a smarting spirit. Mr. and Mrs. Orde were talking busily about
something. He could not even get a chance to ask a question; and that
seemed the last straw. His lips quivered, and he had to remember very
hard that he was _not_ a little girl in order to keep back the tears.
Finally the talk died.
"Mamma," blurted out Bobby.
"Yes?"
"Can't I learn how to dance?"
The pair wheeled arm in arm and surveyed him. In the starlight his round
child face showed white and anxious.
"Why, of course you can, darling," replied Mrs. Orde, "Don't you
remember mamma wanted you to go to dancing school last winter, and you
wouldn't go?"
"How soon does dancing school open?" demanded Bobby.
"I don't know. Not much before Christmas, I suppose."
Having thus made a definite resolution to remedy matters, Bobby felt
better, even though he would have to wait another year. This recovery
of spirit was completed the next day. He went with some apprehension to
ask Celia to walk again. She had seemed to him so aloof the night
before, that he could hardly believe her unchanged. However, she
assented to the expedition with alacrity. Hardly had they quitted the
hotel grounds when Bobby shot his question at her.
"Celia," said he, "if I learn how to dance this winter will you dance
with me when you come back next summer?"
"Why of course," said Celia.
"Will you dance with me a lot?"
"Yes."
"Will you dance with me more than you do with any one else?"
Celia pondered.
"I don't know," she said slowly. She paused, her eyes vague. "I guess
so," she added at last.
"Then I'll learn," said Bobby.
"It's lots of fun," said she.
Bobby trod on air. Without his conscious intention their course took
direction to the river front. They walked to the left along the wide,
artificial bank of piling. Beneath them the water swished among the
timbers. On one side were the sand-hills, on the other the blue,
preoccupied river. Across the stream was another facade of piles,
unbroken save for the little boatslips where the Life Saving men had
their station. A strong sweet breeze came from the Lake. Far down ahead
they could just make out the twin piers that, jutting into the Lake,
continued artificially the course of the river. The lighthouses on their
ends were dwarfed by distance.
By and by Celia tired a little, so they sat and dangled their feet and
watched the tiny scalloped blue wavelets dance in the current. A
passer-by stopped a moment to warn them.
"Look out, youngsters, you don't fall in," said he.
Bobby still exalted with the favour he had been vouchsafed, looked up
with dignity.
"_I_ am taking care of this little girl," he said deliberately, and
turned his back.
The man chuckled and passed on.
For a long time they sat side by side looking straight out before them.
"Celia," said Bobby without turning his head, "I love you. Do you love
me?"
"Yes," said Celia steadily.
Neither stirred by so much as a hair's breadth. After a little they
arose and returned to the hotel. Neither spoke again.
Strangely enough the subject was not again referred to, although of
course the children continued to play together and the excursions were
not intermitted. There seemed to be nothing to say. They loved each
other, and they were glad of each other's nearness. It sufficed.
Each morning Bobby awoke with a great uplift of the spirit, and a great
longing, which was completely appeased when he had come into Celia's
presence. Each evening he retired filled with an impatience for the
coming day, and with divine rapture of little memories of what had that
day passed. It seemed to him that hour by hour he and Celia drew closer
in a sweet secret, intimacy that nevertheless demanded no outer symbol.
When he spoke to her of the simplest things, or she to him, he
experienced a warm, cosy drawing near, as though beneath the commonplace
remark lay something hidden and subtle to which each must bend the ear
of the spirit gently. This was the soul of it, a supreme inner
gentleness one to the other, no matter how boisterous, how laughing, how
brusque might be the spoken word. And in correspondence all the
beautiful sunlit summer world took on a new softness and splendour and
glory in which they walked, but whose source they did not understand.
This much for the essence of it. But of course, Bobby, being masculine
must give presents after his own notion, and being a small boy must give
them according to his age. The quarter he had earned from his father he
invested in a pack of cards on the upper left-hand corner of which were
embossed marvellous doves, wonderful flowers and miraculous tangles of
scroll-work in colour. These he printed with Celia's name and address.
Near the wharf and railroad station stood a small booth from which a
discouraged-looking individual tried to sell curios. Bobby's eye fell on
a cheap bracelet of silver wire from which dangled half a dozen
moonstones. It caught his eye; day by day his desire for it grew;
finally he asked advice on the subject.
"No, Bobby," replied his mother, "I don't think Celia would care for it.
It is cheap-looking. She has several very pretty bangles already; and
this is not a good one."
Nevertheless, Bobby, being as we have said thoroughly masculine,
deliberated some days further, and bought it. The price was two
dollars--an almost fabulous sum. Most men give their wives or
sweethearts what they think they would like themselves were they women,
and were a man to offer a gift. That is one reason why in so many bureau
drawers are tucked away unused presents. Young as she was, Celia had the
taste not to care for the moonstone bangle, but, like all the rest, she
accepted it with genuine delight because Bobby gave it. She even wore
it. These were the principal transactions of the kind; but anything
Bobby particularly fancied he brought her. Shortly she became possessed
of a bewildering collection consisting variously of large glass marbles
with a twist of coloured glass inside; two or three lichi nuts, then a
curiosity; a dried gull's wing; several exploded shotgun shells; and a
"real," though broken-pointed chisel. Celia gave Bobby her tiny narrow
gold ring with two little turquoises. He could just get it on his little
finger, and wore it proudly, in spite of jeers. Being teased about Celia
was embarrassing to the point of pain; but in the last analysis it was
not unpleasant.
So matters slipped by. Abruptly the end of August came. One day Bobby
found Celia much perturbed.
"I can't go out long," she said, "I've got to help mamma."
"What doing?" asked Bobby.
But Celia shook her head dolefully.
"Come, let's go walk somewhere and I'll tell you," said she.