buzz and buzz, and the hens chuckle drowsily, half sunk in the gray
dust. There are only three little white clouds in all the warm blue sky.
It is quite still, except for the hens and the beetles and the
occasional flap of the collie’s tail on the warm flags. No one passes up
or down the road. It is the hot noon sleep of the country in August.
Suddenly comes the grating sound of something dragged over the floor,
and the door opens. The Child pushes out with a little wooden
rocking-chair and a great tin pan heaped with unshelled peas. She stands
the chair carefully in the coolest patch of shade and squeezes her plump
little body between the curved arms. Her blue-checked apron is tied by
the waistband around her neck—it is a grown woman’s apron, and covers
her and the chair, which is far too small for her, now. But one cannot
be always eight years old, and when one is eleven shall one relinquish
without a pang the birthday gifts of one’s childhood?
She lays the pan beside her and puts a handful of peas into her
blue-checked lap. She presses her brown little thumb against the sharp
green edge and drags it down the pod. Out patter the little green balls,
and rattle into the pan. Truly, a pleasant sound! Like the rain on the
roof. When she was very little and slept with her mother, she woke once
in the night, and it was raining hard. The thunder frightened her, and
her mother comforted her and sang her to sleep in the bed. And when the
lightning flashed and all the room was bright and dreadful, her mother
told her to keep her eyes shut and then the flashes would not trouble
her. So she screwed her eyes hard together and held her mother’s hand
and drifted off to sleep.
That was so long ago! But whenever anything rattles and patters she
shuts her eyes quickly, and sees for a moment the dark room and the
square white counterpane, and hears her mother singing “Mary of Argyle.”
She wonders if when we die and go to heaven we are reminded by little
sights and sounds of what we used to do on earth. Of course, we shall do
only pleasant things there, but they might remind us of the pleasant
things here—the pasture in the early morning, when it is so still and
cool and almost strange; the barn, full of sweet piles of hay, musical
with pigeons, checkered with amber sunlight, a fairy palace on whose
fragrant divans one sits with sultans and slave girls, and listens to
Sindbad and Aladdin; the shady porch, where cool white milk and dark
shiny gingerbread wait the weary, berry-stained wanderer. In the brown
book in the parlor is a poem about a little girl who used to “take her
little porringer and eat her supper there.” The Child feels like that
little girl when she eats in the porch.
There is another little girl in the brown book—“Sweet Lucy Gray.” She
thinks of Lucy when she comes home alone at dusk, and quickens her
steps.
_For some maintain unto this day
She is a living child_——
How frightened she would be! Not that the Child has been foolishly
taught to fear. Only that she is imaginative, and knows enough to be
afraid.
In that poem there is mention of one “minster-clock.” What may that be?
She connects it hazily with the watch that the minister takes out before
the sermon. But that could never strike. If she could have one wish in
all her life she knows what it would be. A beautiful gold watch all
chased with figures and a cherry-colored ribbon tied into the handle.
Then she would put it into her waist—but her dresses open in the back!
The disadvantages of youth are obvious enough, in all conscience,
without that last pathetic touch. When can she have a separate waist and
skirt?
Suppose she should die before she grows old enough to attain this glory?
People have died when they were young—much younger than she. The little
Waters girl died, and she was only nine. The Child went to the funeral,
but not with her mother. She slipped into the kitchen and listened at
the door. When she told her mother that she had gone her mother looked
at her so strangely.
“Why did you want to go?” she said. The Child could not tell.
“It made me cry,” she answered, “but I felt good, too. I want her to
tell my brother that I am pretty well, and that I hope he is the same,
when she gets to heaven. Do you suppose she will get there by to-night?”
They talked about her conduct on that occasion so strangely and so long
that she never spoke any more with them about death or the life after
it. But she thought about these things.
She wondered whether Mary Waters remembered the secret place they made
together in a hollow gate-post. Mary Waters had a way of sometimes
telling things not quite as they really were. Did she do so now? Or had
she told enough lies to send her to hell? For liars inherit hell. It is
not that this fact has been impressed upon her mind by others, but she
has read it in the Bible and heard it read.
There are strange things in the Bible. One is commanded to refrain from
doing so many things that one never would do anyway. But those things
must have been done by the Israelites and the Pharisees and the Hittites
and the Publicans. Then did God mean that the Americans must keep the
same laws? But Americans were free and equal. They threw over the tea,
and with a wild whoop—wait! let us pretend!
This is Boston. It is still and quiet. Night is dark all around. Soft
and stealthy come footsteps—the Indians! They gather from the shadows of
the trees and houses, they wave their tomahawks exultantly, they glide
to the wharf. In their path stands a little girl in a blue-checked
apron. She falls upon her knees in terror.
“Save me!” she cries. The chief laughs a horrid laugh; he raises his
tomahawk—the dog barks loud and the Child nearly drops the peas in her
lap, so frightened she is.
“I thought they were real! I thought they were coming!” she whispers to
herself.
Let us think of pleasant things! Peas are so small if you count them by
ones! If people considered whenever they gobbled peas so quickly that
every one had to be shelled by one poor, tired little girl! But no, they
eat them without a thought of how she sat in the little tight chair and
rattled them into the pan. If they were only rich enough to leave the
chair and the peas and the farm and go to a city! What city? Oh, New
York or Boston or Persia. In Persia the days are full of richness and
the nights are Arabian. Along the streets walk veiled and lovely
women—does it matter that to the Child their veils are of the dull blue
cotton that wreathes her mother’s hat? By all the Persian monarchs,
no!—driving black dogs and white hinds, followed by turbaned slaves and
glaring eunuchs, with misty genii hovering in the background. They enter
a frowning portal—but let us pretend!
This is Persia. The streets are narrow; the people jostle and crowd to
one side a little girl in a blue-checked apron. She walks along unknown,
unnoticed. Wait! Who is this? It is a slave in a turban with a scimitar
flashing with jewels. He bows low.
“I am bidden to tell you that your presence is desired by my master,
lovely maiden!” The lovely maiden looks haughtily at him.
“I will follow you, Slave,” she says. They go on to a low narrow door.
The slave says a magic word and the door swings open. Through a long
passage and a great hall they go. There bursts upon them a radiance of
light. Flowers fill the air with an unearthly fragrance. Golden goblets
and ruby pitchers stand on silver salvers with “dried fruit, cakes, and
sweetmeats, which give an appetite for drinking.” Lovely slave girls
lead the maiden to the bath, and attire her in rich and costly robes.
They seat her in a golden chair and give her a bowl of seed-pearls to
string. (These are the pearls.) She lifts her lovely head and says in a
voice of silver music, “Where is your master?”
“Lady,” says one of the slaves, bowing low, “he comes.” She hears the
feet of the approaching prince; she dares not raise her eyes. How will
he look? What gift will he bring? She sinks her hands deep in the
pearls. Ah, what is that? A great sweet-bough drops in the pan.
“Your gran’ma wants them peas!” says the prince in genial rebuke. Alas!
And did Haroun-al-Raschid speak through his nose?
The Child stares at him, dazed.
[Illustration: “_These are the pearls._”]
“These—these are pearls!” she says. “I am stringing them for my girdle!
Does your Highness desire that I should wear this—this _carbuncle_?”
His Highness laughs loud and long.
“It’s a sweet-bough,” he chuckles, “and I guess you better eat it right
up, now.” One moment of wavering: shall awful wrath come upon this
desecrator of the soul’s best rites, or good fellowship and feasting be
given him? She scowls, she shrugs her aproned shoulders, she glances
from beneath her lashes, she smiles.
“I’ll give you half,” she announces. After all, it is hardly probable
that the prince would have helped her shell the peas. And William
Searles will, if he _is_ only the chore-boy. Vain hope!
“I got to drive the chickens ’round back,” he demurs. “I can’t spend my
time shellin’ peas. Your gran’ma says if you don’t get ’em done pretty
soon you can’t go over to Miss Salome’s this afternoon. She says you’re
a dreadful slow child!”
This is the last straw. The Child rises with what would indeed be a
freezing dignity were it not that with her rises the birthday-chair.
“William,” she begins. But more suddenly than is consistent with her
tone she sinks back. William sits upon the grass shaking with laughter.
“You looked so awful funny, so awful funny!” he gasps. The Child hangs
for a moment between tears and laughter. Then she accepts the situation
and laughs as merrily as the chore-boy
“I was pretending I was a princess,” she explains. “I——”
“Ho!” rejoins William, “you ain’t like a princess! You don’t look like
the ones you tell about, anyway! Why”—as she glares at him over the
apron, “your hair’s red, red! An’ your eyes are kind o’ green, they are!
An’ you’re just jam-packed full o’ freckles! I guess I know well enough
how they look, and you ain’t like ’em!”
The tears stand in her eyes, but she will not let them fall.
“I don’t care, William Searles,” she says bravely, “I may _look_
freckled, but I don’t _feel so_! And it’s better to know how they look
than—” But no! She is an honest Child, with all her imaginings. She
knows that it is better to look like them than to know about them:
better for the maiden and the prince, at least. William waits for the
sentence. She begins again.
“William Searles,” she says solemnly, “wouldn’t you rather I could
_tell_ you about those princesses than _look_ like them?” William’s eyes
sparkle greedily.
“You bet!” he replies with fervor. The Child sighs with relief.
“All right,” she says, “then don’t complain.”
She is alone again, and only William’s faint and fainter invitations to
the chickens break the silence. The peas fly into the pan. Suppose she
should be kept from Miss Salome’s! But no, that shall not be. She looks
ahead to the happy afternoon, singing as she works.
And now, and now the time has come. The dishes are wiped, the cat fed,
and the fennel picked for the long sermon to-morrow. She, her very self,
in her new dotted lawn walks carefully up the hill to the big house,
terraced and gravel-pathed. She knocks timidly at the brass ring and the
tall colored butler lets her in. He is the only indoor man-servant she
has ever seen, and she reverences him greatly. He smiles condescendingly
at her, as he smiles not upon all the country people.
“If Miss will walk up,” he says. She goes up the soft-carpeted stairs
into the upstairs drawing-room. She draw’s a long breath of happiness
and wonder ever new, and makes her little curtsy to Miss Salome.
Out of the dim delicious dusk of the room come slowly the familiar
treasures: the high polished desk, the great piano, the marvelous
service of Delft that fills a monstrous sideboard in the distance, the
chairs, all silk and satin and shining wood, the great pictures in gilt
frames. In the largest chair sits Miss Salome. Will the Child ever tire
of looking at her pale lined face, her silver high-dressed hair, her
beautiful hands sparkling with rings, her haughty mouth, her tired,
troubled eyes? She must have been almost as lovely as the Princess
Angelica, once. But she smiles so seldom. She puts out her hand.
“And what has happened since last Saturday?” she says.
The Child laughs for pure joy. To talk, to describe, to venture at
analysis, to ask the why and wherefore, to illustrate by gesture as
vivid as her speech—these things are her happiness. To be suffered this
joy in snatches is much, to have it demanded, and for one whole
afternoon! Here is no one to reprove, no one to blame the idle hands, no
one to question the propriety of mimicry, or to insist on her sitting in
her little chair.
Miss Salome watches her flitting about the dusky parlor, her reddish
gold hair gleaming now against the Delft blue, now against the polished
mahogany desk. She tells of the chickens that lost their mother. She
wanders about clucking for her brood and cooing over the returned
prodigals. She walks across the room as William does—her slouching gait,
open mouth, drawling voice, irresistibly perfect. She describes the
shooting star that seemed to her like a lost spirit, gone to sorrow and
the earth.
“It made me think of ‘Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou
fallen!’” she says solemnly. “I wonder how that star felt, Miss Salome?”
There is a long pause. The lady sighs.
Then, “You may read, if you like,” she says at last.
The Child’s face flushes for joy. She runs to the book-cases and brings
out a small brown book. She fingers lovingly the tree-calf that covers
the precious pages, and opens them before she finds her chair. She curls
up on a great satin ottoman and smooths the leaves. Where is the farm?
Where the peas? Where William? They are less than shadows, more unreal
than dreams. Her voice trembles as she begins:
“’And now, your Highness permitting, I shall relate to your Majesty one
of the most surprising adventures ever known to your Majesty—’” Ah, it
is good to have been a child and perfectly happy.
What do children know of life, she thinks, who play with tops and dogs
and kittens? There are books in the world. And they own all lands and
seas and peoples, who own those printed leaves. Even Miss Salome does
not know as much as the books. Even Miss Salome cannot say such curious
wonderful things. Why is Miss Salome so good to her? In heaven, will
they see each other? “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Suppose
she should be put in Miss Salome’s? Will the “Arabian Nights” be there?
When she lifts her eyes from the book they fall on an immense
peacock-feather fan. It glows on the wall, and the eyes dilate and
tremble and satisfy her hungry little soul with the color she loves. On
a small table near her stands a sandal-wood cabinet. Its faint sweet
smell mingles with the spices and gums of the tale, and should a Genius
spring from the cover and bow to the ground before them, she would not
be surprised.
With a sigh of pleasure she releases the princess and outwits the evil
spirit.
“’And now if your Majesty would care to listen to the story of the
Fisherman——’”
“That is enough,” says Miss Salome. “Are you tired?” The Child’s eyes
answer her.
“Then sing to me.”
“What shall I sing?” says the Child. “’Lord Lovell’”?
“If you like,” answers Miss Salome.
The Child rises and stands before the great chair. Her face is raised
and serious. She knows only ballads, but to her they are opera and
symphony in one. She clasps her hands and begins:
_Lord Lovell he stood at his castle gate,
A-combing his milk-white steed,
When out came Lady Nancy Bell,
To wish her lover good spee-ee-eed,
To wish her lover good speed._
Her voice rings true as a bell. Miss Salome smiles at the eager little
face.
[Illustration]
_“Now where are you going, Lord Lovell?” she said,
“Now where are you going?” said she.
“I’m going away, dear Nancy Bell,
Strange countries for to see-ye-ye,
Strange countries for to see!”_
She carries them through fateful verses and unconsciously softens and
saddens her voice at the woful ending, where
_They buried the lady in the nave of the church,
They buried the lord in the choir,
And out of her bosom there grew a red rose,
And out of her lover’s a brier-ier-ier,
And out of her lover’s a brier._
Miss Salome applauds vigorously.
“One more,” she begs.
The Child’s heart grows big with happiness. That she should love it so,
and yet with it pleasure others! It is too much joy. She will make a
special prayer to-night and thank God, as does her grandmother, for
unexpected bounty.
“I will sing, ‘Come with thy lute,’” she says. It is a quaint,
old-fashioned tune, and her voice rises and falls, and reaches for the
notes with an almost pathetic feeling for their beauty:
[Illustration: Moderato.]
_Come with thy lute to the fountain,
Sing me a song of the mountain,
Sing of the happy and free:_—
She looks at the lovely lady in the white satin gown in the great gold
frame before her. How beautiful she must have been! She died when she
was very young. Her husband shot himself with grief for her. She might
have sung that song to him—who knows? The Child chokes and swallows her
tears at the end of the song, and when she looks at Miss Salome she sees
that her eyes, too, are full of tears.
“Oh, I have made you cry! I am sorry—so sorry!”
Miss Salome wipes her eyes.
“If I make my guests unhappy, they will not care to come again,” she
says. “Ring for Peter, dear child.” So the Child taps the bell, and
Peter comes gravely in with the beautiful silver tray, and in a flutter
of delight the Child forgets the song and the picture. Miss Salome cuts
the dark frosted cake, and dishes into glass plates the candied ginger,
floating in syrup, and pours out cups of real tea. And the Fairy
Princess is served with a banquet worthy of her dreams. Oh, to be at
last in Miss Salome’s mansion!
The clock chimes for half-past five. Heaven is over. She brushes the
crumbs to a little heap on her gilt-rimmed plate.
“I must go now, I think,” she says with obvious effort. Her hostess
smiles.
“But you will come next week?” she asks. And the Child’s face lights up.
“Oh, yes! I’ll surely come next week, _surely_,” she replies with
emphasis. So she goes around to Miss Salome’s chair, and the beautiful
ringed hand raises her face and strokes her little freckled cheek.
“Good-by, my Sunshine!” she says. The Child catches the hand in a rush
of loving worship and kisses it.
“I will never be cross to William Searles again, never!” she cries. “I
will be good to everybody—even to stupid people!” Miss Salome pinches
her cheek and laughs.
And the Child goes out and down the steps of the terrace, rapt,
wondering, lifted to a height of love and admiration that keeps her
little soul to its sweetest, highest pitch for—ah, measure not the time,
I beg you! The children who are older, how long do the glow and the
flush remain with them? They can only say, “There will be another!” and
wait for it as well and patiently as may be.
The Child goes back to the life of everyday, and embroiders its dull web
with eyes of peacocks and sifts into it the scent of sandal-wood, and
sets it weaving to the tune of ballads, quaint and sweet. Yet she has
taken into another’s web, unknowing, a tiny scarlet thread of happiness,
that weaves through the tarnished cloth of silver and blesses the
pattern as it grows. And the Master of the Looms has planned it all.
ARDELIA IN ARCADY
[Illustration: “_Throwing assorted refuse._”]
When first the young lady from the College Settlement dragged Ardelia
from her degradation—she was sitting on a dirty pavement and throwing
assorted refuse at an unconscious policeman—like many of her companions
in misery, she totally failed to realize the pit from which she was
digged. It had never occurred to her that her situation was anything
less than refined, and though, like most of us, she had failed to come
up to her wildest ideals of happiness, in that respect she differed very
little from the young lady who rescued her.
“Come here, little girl,” said the young lady invitingly. “Wouldn’t you
like to come with me and have a nice, cool bath?”
“Naw,” said Ardelia, in tones rivaling the bath in coolness.
“You wouldn’t? Well, wouldn’t you like some bread and butter and jam?”
“Wha’s jam?” said Ardelia conservatively.
“Why, it’s—er—marmalade,” the young lady explained. “All sweet, you
know.”
“Naw!” and Ardelia turned away and fingered the refuse with an air of
finality that caused the young lady to sigh with vexation.
“I thought you might like to go on a picnic,” she said helplessly. “I
thought all little girls liked——”
“Picnic? When?” cried Ardelia, moved instantly to interest. “I’m goin’!”
She brushed the garbage from her dress—Ardelia was of that emancipated
order of women who disapprove of the senseless multiplication of
feminine garments, and wore, herself, but one—and regarded her rescuer
impatiently.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “I’m all ready. Hump along!”
“We’ll go and ask your mother first, won’t we?” suggested the young
lady, a little bewildered at this sudden change of attitude.
“Jagged,” Ardelia returned laconically. “She’d lift y’r face off yer! Is
it the Dago picnic?”
The young lady shuddered, and seizing the hand which she imagined to
have had least to do with the refuse, she led Ardelia away—the first
stage of her journey to Arcady.
Ardelia’s origin, like that of the civilization of ancient Egypt, was
shrouded in mystery. At the age of two months she had been handed to a
policeman by a scared-looking boy, who said vaguely that he found her in
the park under a bench. The policeman had added her to the other
foundling waiting that day at headquarters, and carried them to the
matron of the institution devoted to their interest. Around the other
baby’s neck was a medal of the Blessed Virgin, and a slip of paper
pinned to her flannel petticoat labeled her Mary Katharine. The
impartial order of the institution therefore delivered Ardelia, who was
wholly unlabeled, to the Protestant fold, and one of the scrubbing-women
named her.
Later she had taken up her residence with Mrs. Michael Fahey, who had
consented to add to her precarious income by this means, and at the age
of four she became the official nurse of Master John Sullivan Fahey. A
terribly hot August, unlimited cold tea, and a habit of playing in the
gutter in the noon glare proved too much for her charge, and he died on
his third birthday. The ride to the funeral was the most exciting event
of Ardelia’s life. For years she dated from it. Mrs. Fahey had so long
regarded her as one of the family, that though her occupation was gone,
and her board was no longer paid, she was whipped as regularly and
cursed as comprehensively, in her foster-mother’s periodical sprees, as
if they had been closely related.