You knew that Catty loved you. There was never the smallest uncertainty
about it. Her big black eyes shone when she saw you coming. You kissed
her smooth cool cheeks, and she hugged you tight and kissed you back
again at once; her big lips made a noise like a pop-gun. When she tucked
you up at night she said, "I love you so much I could eat you."
And she would play any game you liked. You had only to say, "Let's play
the going-away game," and she was off. You began: "I went away to the big
hot river where the rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses are"; or: "I went
away to the desert where the sand is, to catch zebras. I rode on a
dromedary, flump-flumping through the sand," and Catty would follow it up
with: "I went away with the Good Templars. We went in a row-boat on a
lake, and we landed on an island where there was daffodillies growing. We
had milk and cake; and it blew such a cool breeze."
Catty was full of love. She loved her father and mother and her little
sister Amelia better than anything in the whole world. Her home was in
Wales. Tears came into her eyes when she thought about her home and her
little sister Amelia.
"Catty--how much do you love me?"
"Armfuls and armfuls."
"As much as your mother?"
"Very near as much."
"As much as Amelia?"
"Every bit as much."
"How much do you think Jenny loves me?"
"Ever so much."
"No. Jenny loves Roddy best; then Mark; then Dank; then Mamma; then Papa;
then me. That isn't ever so much."
Catty was vexed. "You didn't oughter go measuring people's love, Miss
Mary."
Still, that was what you did do. With Catty and Jenny you could measure
till you knew exactly where you were.
Mamma was different.
You knew _when_ she loved you. You could almost count the times: the time
when Papa frightened you; the time when you cut your forehead; the time
the lamb died; all the whooping-cough and chicken-pox times, and when
Meta, the wax doll, fell off the schoolroom table and broke her head; and
when Mark went away to school. Or when you were good and said every word
of your lessons right; when you watched Mamma working in the garden,
planting and transplanting the flowers with her clever hands; and when
you were quiet and sat beside her on the footstool, learning to knit and
sew. On Sunday afternoons when she played the hymns and you sang:
"There's a Friend for little children
Above the bright blue sky,"
quite horribly out of tune, and when you listened while she sang herself,
"Lead, kindly light," or "Abide with me," and her voice was so sweet and
gentle that it made you cry. Then you knew.
Sometimes, when it was not Sunday, she played the Hungarian March, that
went, with loud, noble noises:
Droom--Droom--Droom-era-room
Droom--Droom--Droom-era-room
Droom rer-room-room droom-room-room
Droom--Droom--Droom.
It was wonderful. Mamma was wonderful. She swayed and bowed to the beat
of the music, as if she shook it out of her body and not out of the
piano. She smiled to herself when she saw that you were listening. You
said "Oh--Mamma! Play it again," and she played it again. When she had
finished she stooped suddenly and kissed you. And you knew.
But she wouldn't say it. You couldn't make her.
"Say it, Mamma. Say it like you used to."
Mamma shook her head.
"I want to hear you say it."
"Well, I'm not going to."
"I love you. I ache with loving you. I love you so much that it hurts me
to say it."
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Because it hurts me more not to. Just once. 'I love you.' Just a weeny
once."
"You're going to be like your father, tease, tease, tease, all day long,
till I'm worn out."
"I'm not going to be like Papa. I don't tease. It's you that's teasing.
How'm I to know you love me if you won't say it?"