HOW IT HAPPENED
BY
KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
AUTHOR OF
THE MAN IN LONELY LAND,
MARY CARY, ETC
ILLUSTRATED
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1914
TO
MY FAITHFUL FRIEND
ARIADNE ELIZABETH VAUGHAN LATHAM
ILLUSTRATIONS
"WHICH DO YOU LIKE BEST, SARDINES WITH LEMON ON 'EM, OR TOASTED CHEESE
ON TOAST?"
"YOU WOULD NOT LET ME THANK YOU THIS MORNING. MAY I THANK YOU NOW
FOR--"
HOW IT HAPPENED
CHAPTER I
Head on the side and chin uptilted, she held it at arm's-length,
turning it now in one direction, now in another, then with
deliberation she laid it on the floor.
"I have wanted to do it ever since you were sent me; now I am going
to."
Hands on hips, she looked down on the high-crown, narrow-brim hat of
stiff gray felt which was at her feet, and nodded at it with firmness
and decision. "It's going to be my Christmas present to
myself--getting rid of you. Couldn't anything give me as much pleasure
as smashing you is going to give. Good-by--"
Raising her right foot, Carmencita held it poised for a half-moment
over the hated hat, then with long-restrained energy she brought it
down on the steeple-crown and crushed it into shapelessness. "I wish
she could see you now." Another vigorous punch was given, then with a
swift movement the battered bunch of dull grayness, with its yellow
bird and broken buckle of tarnished steel, was sent in the air, and as
it landed across the room the child laughed gaily, ran toward it, and
with the tip of her toes tossed it here and there. Sending it now up
to the ceiling, now toward the mantel, now kicking it over the table,
and now to the top of the window, she danced round and round the room,
laughing breathlessly. Presently she stooped, picked it up, stuck it
on her head, and, going to the stove, opened its top, and with a shake
of her curls dropped the once haughty and now humbled head-gear in the
fire and watched it burn with joyous satisfaction.
"The first time she wore it we called her Coachman Cattie, it was so
stiff and high and hideous, and nobody but a person like her would
ever have bought it. I never thought it would some day come to me.
Some missioners are nice, some very nice, but some--"
With emphasis the lid of the stove was put back, and, going to the
table in the middle of the room, Carmencita picked up the contents of
the little work-basket, which had been knocked over in her rushing
round, and put them slowly in place. "Some missioners seem to think
because you're poor everything God put in other people's hearts and
minds and bodies and souls He left out of you. Of course, if you
haven't a hat you ought to be thankful for any kind." The words came
soberly, and the tiniest bit of a quiver twisted the lips of the
protesting mouth. "You oughtn't to know whether it is pretty or ugly
or becoming or--You ought just to be thankful and humble, and I'm not
either. I don't like thankful, humble people; I'm afraid of them."
Leaving the table where for a minute she had jumbled needles and
thread and scissors and buttons in the broken basket, she walked
slowly over to the tiny mirror hung above a chest of drawers, and on
tiptoes nodded at the reflection before her--nodded and spoke to it.
"You're a sinner, all right, Carmencita Bell, and there's no natural
goodness in you. You hate hideousness, and poorness, and other
people's cast-offs, and emptiness in your stomach, and living on the
top floor with crying babies and a drunken father underneath, and
counting every stick of wood before you use it. And you get furious
at times because your father is blind and people have forgotten about
his beautiful music, and you want chicken and cake when you haven't
even enough bacon and bread. You're a sinner, all right. If you were
in a class of them you would be at the head. It's the only thing you'd
ever be at the head of. You know you're poverty-poor, and still you're
always fighting inside, always making out that it is just for a little
while. Why don't you--"
The words died on her lips, and suddenly the clear blue eyes, made for
love and laughter and eager for all that is lovely in life, dimmed
with hot tears, and with a half-sob she turned and threw herself face
downward on the rug-covered cot on the opposite side of the room.
"O God, please don't let Father know!" The words came in tones that
were terrified. "Please don't ever let him know! I wasn't born good,
and I hate bad smells, and dirty things, and ugly clothes, and not
enough to eat, but until I am big enough to go to work please,
_please_ help me to keep Father from knowing! Please help me!"
With a twisting movement the child curled herself into a little ball,
and for a moment tempestuous sobbing broke the stillness of the room,
notwithstanding the knuckles of two little red hands which were
pressed to the large sweet mouth. Presently she lifted the hem of her
skirt and wiped her eyes, then she got up.
"I wish I could cry as much as I want to. I never have had a place
convenient to do it all by myself, and there's never time, but it gets
the choked things out and makes you feel much better. I don't often
want to, just sometimes, like before Christmas when you're crazy to do
a lot of things you can't do--and some people make you so mad! If I'd
been born different and not minding ugly things and loving pretty
ones, I wouldn't have hated that hat so. That's gone, anyhow. I've
been wanting to see how high I could kick it ever since Miss Cattie
sent it to me, and now I've done it. I've got a lot of old clothes I'd
like to send to Ballyhack, but I can't send."
She stopped, smoothed her rumpled dress, and shook back the long loose
curls which had fallen over her face. "I must be getting sorry for
myself. If I am I ought to be spanked. I can't spank, but I can dance.
If you don't head it off quick it goes to your liver. I'll head!"
With a swift movement Carmencita sprang across the room and from the
mantel took down a once beribboned but now faded and worn tambourine.
"You'd rather cry," she said, under her breath, "but you sha'n't cry.
I won't let you. Dance! Dance! Dance!"
Aloft the tambourine was shaken, and its few remaining bells broke
gaily on the air as with abandon that was bewildering in grace and
suppleness the child leaped into movement swift and light and amazing
in beauty. Around the room, one arm akimbo, one hand now in the air,
now touching with the tambourine the hard, bare floor, now tossing
back the loose curls, now waving gaily overhead, faster and faster she
danced, her feet in perfect rhythm to the bells; then presently the
tambourine was thrown upon the table, and she stopped beside it, face
flushed, eyes shining, and breath that came in quick, short gasps.
"That was much better than crying." She laughed. "There isn't much you
can do in this world, Carmencita, but you can dance. You've got to do
it, too, every time you feel sorry for yourself. I wonder if I could
see Miss Frances before I go for Father? I _must_ see her. Must! Those
Beckwith babies have got the croup, and I want to ask her if she
thinks it's awful piggy in me to put all my money, or 'most all, in
Father's present. And I want to ask her--I could ask Miss Frances
things all night. Maybe the reason I'm not a thankful person is I'm so
inquiring. I expect to spend the first hundred years after I get to
heaven asking questions."
Going over to the mantel, Carmencita looked at the little clock upon
it. "I don't have to go to the wedding-place for father until after
six," she said, slowly, "and I'd like to see Miss Frances before I go.
If I get there by half past five I can see the people get out of their
automobiles and sail in. I wish I could sail somewhere. If I could see
some grandness once and get the smell of cabbage and onions out of my
nose, which I never will as long as the Rheinhimers live underneath
us, I wouldn't mind the other things so much, but there isn't any
chance of grandness coming as high up in the air as this. I wonder if
God has forgot about us! He has so many to remember--"
With a swift turn of her head, as if listening, Carmencita's eyes grew
shy and wistful, then she dropped on her knees by the couch and buried
her face in her arms. "If God's forgot I'll remind Him," she said, and
tightly she closed her eyes.
"O God"--the words came eagerly, fervently--"we are living in the
same place, and every day I hope we will get in a better one, but
until we do please help me to keep on making Father think I like it
better than any other in town. I thought maybe You had forgotten where
we were. I'm too little to go to work yet, and that's why we're still
here. We can't pay any more rent, or we'd move. And won't You please
let something nice happen? I don't mean miracles, or money, or things
like that, but something thrilly and exciting and romantic, if You can
manage it. Every day is just the same sort of sameness, and I get so
mad-tired of cooking and cleaning and mending, before school and after
school and nights, that if something don't happen soon I'm afraid
Father will find out what a pretending person I am, and he mustn't
find. It's been much better since I knew Miss Frances. I'm awful much
obliged to You for letting me know her, but she isn't permanent,
Mother McNeil says, and may go away soon. I'm going to try to have a
grand Christmas and be as nice as I can to Mrs. Rheinhimer, but she's
so lazy and dirty it's hard not to tell her so. And if You could let a
nice thing happen for Christmas I hope You will. If it could be a
marriage and I could be bridesmaid I'd like that best, as I've never
been to an inside wedding, just outside on the street. I don't care
for poor marriages. Amen."
On her feet, Carmencita hesitated, then, going to a closet across the
room, took from its top shelf a shabby straw hat and put it on. "This
was bought for me and fits," she said, as if to some one by her side,
"and, straw or no straw, it feels better than that Coachman Cattie,
which is gone for evermore. Some day I hope I can burn you up,
too"--she nodded to the coat into which she was struggling--"but I
can't do it yet. You're awful ugly and much too big, but you're warm
and the only one I've got. I'll have half an hour before it's time to
go for Father. If Miss Frances is home I can talk a lot in half an
hour."