IN the story it was six long years before the Princess Ina completed her
task, but less than a week went by before Libby was convinced that the
charm was a potent one, and that Miss Santa Claus had spoken truly. But
there was one thing she could not understand. In the story, one found
the star-flowers only among nettles and briars, and gathered them to the
accompaniment of scratches and stings. Yet she was finding it not only a
pleasure to obey this new authority but a tingling happiness to do
anything for her which would call forth some smile of approval or a
caress.
Still, she saw that the story way was the true way in Will'm's case, for
so many things that he was told to do, made him feel all "cross and
scratchy and hot." They interfered with his play or clashed with the
ideas he imbibed from Benjy. Some of Benjy's ideas were as "catching"
and distorting as the mumps.
The conductor's punch did not long continue to be the daily reminder to
Will'm that Libby's ring was to her, for it mysteriously disappeared one
day, and was lost for months. It disappeared the very day that a row of
little star-shaped holes was found along the edge of the expensive
Holland window-shade in the front window of the parlor. Benjy had
suggested punching them. He wanted a lot of little stars to paste all
over their shoes. Why he wanted them nobody but he could understand.
But the punch served its purpose, for the Holland shade was not taken
down on account of the holes, and whenever the row of little stars met
Molly Branfield's eyes, they reminded her of the day when Libby threw
herself into her arms, calling her "Mother" for the first time, and
sobbing out the story of Ina and the swans. Distressed by Will'm's
wickedness, Libby begged her not to stop loving him even if he did keep
on being naughty, and to try the charm on him which would change him
into a real little son. Many a time in the months which followed, the
row of little holes brought a smile of tolerant tenderness, when she was
puzzling over ways to deal with the stubbornness of the small boy who
resented her authority. She knew that it was not because he was bad that
he resented it, but because, as Libby suggested, he had "started out
wrong in his hooking-up." Many a time Libby was moved to say mournfully,
"Oh, if he'd just remembered what Miss Santa Claus told him, this never
would have happened!"
It was not every day, however, that this crookedness was apparent. Often
from daylight till dark he went happily from one thing to another,
without a single incident to mar the peacefulness of the hours. He liked
the new home with its banisters to slide down, and its many windows
looking out on streets where something interesting was always
happening. He liked to water the flowers in the dining-room windows. It
made him feel that he was helping make a spot of summertime in the
world, when all out of doors was white with snow. One of the pots of
flowers was his, a rose-geranium. Even before the wee buds began to
swell, it was a thing of joy, for he had only to rub his fingers over a
leaf to make it send forth a smell so good that one longed to eat it.
He liked the race down the hall every evening trying to beat Libby to
the door to open it for their father. Now that he was acquainted with
him again, it seemed the very nicest thing in the world to have a big
jolly father who could swing him up on his shoulder and play circus
tricks with him just like an acrobat, and who knew fully as much as the
president of the United States.
And Will'm liked the time which often came before that race down the
hall--the wait in the firelight, while _She_ played on the piano and he
and Libby sang with her. There was one song about the farmer feeding
his flocks, "with a quack, quack here, and a gobble, gobble there," that
he liked especially. Whenever they came to the chorus of the flocks and
the herds it was such fun to make all the barnyard noises. Sometimes
with their lusty mooing and lowing the noise would be so great that they
would fail to hear the latchkey turn in the door, and first thing they
knew there their father would be in the room mooing with them, in a deep
voice that thrilled them like a bass drum.
Libby entered school after the holidays, and Benjy started back on his
second half-year, but he did not go regularly. Many a day when he should
have been in his classes, he was playing War in the Branfield attic, or
Circus in the nursery. It was always on those days that the crookedness
of Will'm was more manifest, and for that reason, a great effort was
made periodically to get rid of Benjy. But it seemed a hopeless task. He
might be set bodily out of doors and told to go home, but even locks
and bolts could not keep him out. He oozed in again somewhere, just
like smoke. Repeated telephone messages to his mother had no effect. She
seemed as indifferent to his being a nuisance to the neighbors as he was
to his gartersnaps being unfastened. Several times, thinking to escape
him when he had announced his intention the night before of coming
early, Mrs. Branfield took Will'm down town with her, shopping. But he
trailed them around the streets just like a little dog till he found
them, and attached himself as joyously as if they had whistled to him.
And he looked even worse than an unwashed, uncombed little terrier, for
he was always unbuttoned and ungartered besides.
Upon these appearances, Will'm, who a moment before had been the most
interested and interesting of companions, pointing at the shop windows
and asking questions in a high, happy little voice, would pull loose
from his companion's hand and fall back beside Benjy. The worst of it
was that the unwelcome visitor rarely did anything that could be
pointed out to Will'm as an offense. It was simply that his presence had
a subtle, moving quality like yeast, which started fermentation in the
Branfield household whenever he dropped into it.
Fortunately, when summer came, Benjy's mother departed to the seashore,
taking him with her, and Will'm made the acquaintance of the children on
the next block. There were several boys his own size who swarmed in the
Branfield yard continually. He had a tent for one thing, which was an
unusual attraction, and a slide. Up to a reasonable point he had access
to a cooky jar and an apple barrel. Often, little tarts found their way
to the tent on mornings when "the gang" proposed playing elsewhere, and
often the long hot afternoons were livened with pitchers of lemonade in
which ice clinked invitingly; a nice big chunk apiece, which lasted till
the lemonade was gone, and could be used afterward in a sort of game.
You dropped them on the ground to see who could pick his up and hold it
the longest with his bare toes.
Will'm had a birthday about this time, with five candles on his cake and
five boys, besides Libby, to share the feast. He loved all these things.
He was proud of having treats to offer the boys which they could not
find in any other yard on that street, and in time he began to love the
hand which dealt them out. He might have done so sooner if Libby had not
been so aggravating about it. She always took occasion to tell him
afterward that such kindnesses were the little golden star-flowers
mother was gathering for him, and that he ought to be ashamed to do even
the littlest thing she told him not to, when she was so good to him.
Unfortunately Libby had overheard her mother speak of her as a real
little comfort in the way she tried to uphold her authority and help her
manage Will'm. The remark made her doubly zealous and her efforts, in
consequence, doubly offensive to Will'm. He was learning early that a
saint is one of the most exasperating people in the world to live with.
Even when they don't _say_ anything, they can make you feel the contrast
sometimes so strongly that you _want_ to be bad on purpose, just because
they are the way they are.
Libby's little ring still turned her waking thoughts in the direction of
Ina and the swans, and her morning remarks usually pointed the same way.
The cherry-red stocking with its tinsel fringe hung from the side of her
mirror, the most cherished ornament in the room, and a daily reminder of
Miss Santa Claus, who was forever enshrined in her little heart as one
of the dearest memories of her life. She felt that she owed everything
to Miss Santa Claus. But for her she might have started out crooked, and
might never have found her way to the mother-love which had grown to be
such a precious thing to her that she could not bear for Will'm not to
share it fully with her.
He learned to fight that summer, and nothing made him quite so furious
as to have Libby interfere when he had some boy down, and by sheer
force of will it seemed, since her three years' advantage in age gave
her little in strength, pull him off his adversary, flapping and
scratching like a little game-cock. Sometimes it made him so angry that
he wanted to tear her in pieces. The worst of it was, that _She_ always
took Libby's part on such occasions, and never seemed to understand that
it was necessary for him to do these things. She always looked so sorry
and worried when he was dragged into the house, roaring and resentful.
Gradually as summer wore on into the autumn, it began to make him feel
uncomfortable when he saw that sorry, worried look. It hurt him worse
than when she sent him to his room or tied him to the table leg for
punishment. And one night when he had openly defied her and been
impudent, she did not say anything, but she did not kiss him good-night
as usual. That hurt him worst of all. He lay awake a long time thinking
about it. Part of the time he was crying softly, but he had his face
snuggled close down in the pillow so that Libby couldn't hear him.
He wished with all his heart that she was his own, real mother. He felt
that he needed one. He needed one who could _understand_ and who had a
_right_ to punish him. It was because she hadn't that right that he
resented her authority. All the boys said she hadn't. If she did no more
than call from the window: "Don't do that, Will'm," they'd say in an
undertone, "You don't have to pay any attention to _her_!" They seemed
to think it was all right for their mothers to slap them and scold them
and cuff them on the ears. He'd seen it done. He wouldn't care how much
he was slapped and cuffed, if only somebody who was his truly _own_ did
it. Somebody who loved him. A queer little feeling had been creeping up
in his heart for some time. Very often when _She_ spoke to Libby she
called her "little daughter" and she and Libby seemed to belong to each
other in a way that shut Will'm out and gave him a lonesome
left-in-the-cold feeling. Will'm was a reasonable child, and he was
just, and up there in the dark where he could be honest with himself, he
had to acknowledge that it was his own fault that she hadn't kissed him
good-night. It was his fault because, having started out crooked, he
didn't seem to be able to do anything but to go on crooked to the end.
He couldn't tell her, but he wished, oh, how he wished, that _She_ could
know how he felt, and know that he was crying up there in the dark about
it. He wished he could go back to the Junction and be Grandma Neal's
little boy. She always kissed him good-night, even on days when she had
to switch him with a peach-tree switch. When he was a little bigger he
would just run off and go back to Grandma Neal.
But next morning he was glad that he was not living at the Junction, for
he started to kindergarten, and a world of new interests opened up
before him. Benjy came back to town that week, but he did not find
quite the same tractable follower. Will'm had learned how to play with
other boys, and how to make other boys do _his_ bidding, so he did not
always allow Benjy to dictate. Still the leaven of an uneasy presence
began working again, and worked on till it was suddenly counteracted by
the coming of another Christmas season.
Both Libby and Will'm began to feel its approach when it was still a
month off. They felt it in the mysterious thrills that began to stir the
household as sap, rising in a tree, thrills it with stirrings of spring.
There were secrets and whisperings. There was counting of pennies and
planning of ways to earn more, for they were wiser about Christmas this
year. They knew that there are three kinds of presents. There is the
kind that Santa Claus puts into your stocking, just because he _is_
Santa Claus, and the Sky Road leads from his Kingdom of Giving straight
to the kingdom of little hearts who love and believe in him.
Then there's the kind that you give to the people you love, just because
you love them, and you put your name on those. And third, there's the
kind that you give secretly, in the name of Santa Claus, just to help
him out if he is extra busy and should happen to send you word that he
needs your services.
Libby and Will'm received no such messages, being so small, but their
father had one. He sent a load of coal and some rent money to a man who
had lost a month's wages on account of sickness in his family, and it
must have been a very happy and delightful feeling that Santa Claus gave
their father for doing it, for his voice sounded that way afterward when
he said, "After all, Molly, that's the best kind of giving. We ought to
do more of it and less of the other."
When it came to the first kind of presents, neither Libby nor Will'm
made a choice. They sent their names and addresses up the chimney so
that the reindeer might be guided to the right roof-top, and left the
rest to the generosity of the reindeer's wise master to surprise them as
he saw fit. They were almost sure that the things they daily expressed a
wish for would come by the way of the Christmas tree as the doll and the
tricycle had the year before, "with the love of father and mother."
But when it came to the second kind of presents, they had much to
consider. They wanted to give to the family and each other, and the cook
and their teachers, and the children they played with most and half a
dozen people at the Junction. The visit which they had planned all year
was to be a certainty now. The day after Christmas the entire family was
to go for a week's visit, to Grandma and Uncle Neal.
That last week the children went around the house in one continual
thrill of anticipation. Such delicious odors of popcorn and boiling
candy, of cake and mincemeat in the making floated up from the kitchen!
Such rustling of tissue paper and scent of sachets as met one on the
opening of bureau drawers! And such rapt moments of gift-making when
Libby sewed with patient, learning fingers, and Will'm pasted paper
chains and wove paper baskets, as he had been taught in kindergarten!
One day the conductor's punch suddenly reappeared, and he seized it with
a whoop of joy. Now all his creations could be doubly beautiful since
they could be star-bordered. As he punched and punched and the tiny
stars fell in a shower, the story of Ina and the swans stirred in his
memory, with all the glamour it had worn when he first heard it over his
dish of strawberries. Down in his secret soul he determined to do what
he wished he had done a year earlier, to begin to follow the example of
Ina.
The family could not fail to notice the almost angelic behavior which
began that day. They thought it was because of the watching eye he
feared up the chimney, but no one referred to the change. He used to sit
in front of the fire sometimes, just as he had done at the Junction,
rocking and singing, his soft bobbed hair flapping over his ears every
time the rockers tilted forward. But he was not singing with any thought
that he might be overheard and written down as a good little boy. He was
singing just because the story of the Camels and the Star was so very
sweet, and the mere thought of angels and silver bells and the
glittering Sky Road brought a tingling joy. But more than all he was
singing because he had begun to weave the big beautiful mantle whose
name is Love, and the curious little left-out-in-the-cold feeling was
gone.
Christmas eve came at last. When the twilight was just beginning to
fall, Libby brought down the stockings which were to be hung on each
side of the sitting-room fireplace. It would be nearly an hour before
their father could come home to drive the nails on which they were to
hang, but they wanted everything ready for him. Will'm went out to the
tool-chest on the screened porch to get the hammer. It took him a long
time to find it.
Libby waited impatiently a few moments, supposing he had stopped to
taste something in the kitchen. She was about to run out and warn him
not to nip the edges from some tempting bit of pastry, as he had been
known to do, but remembering how very hard he had been trying to be good
all week, she decided he could be trusted.
With the stockings thrown over one arm she stood in front of the piano,
idly striking the keys while she waited. She had learned to play several
tunes during the year, and now that she was eight years old, she was
going to have real lessons after the holidays and learn to read music.
How much she had learned since the first time her little fingers were
guided over the keys. She struck those earliest-learned notes again:
"Three blind mice! See how they run!" She could play the whole thing
now, faster than flying. She ran down the keys, over and over again.
[Illustration: "Take it back!"]
When for about the twentieth time "they all took after the farmer's
wife," she stopped short, both hands lifted from the keys to listen. Her
face blanched until even her lips were pale. Such a sound of awful
battle was coming from the back yard! Recognizing Will'm's voice she ran
out through the kitchen to the yard.
"It's that everlastin' Benjy, again!" called the cook as Libby darted
out the door to rescue Will'm from she knew not what.
But it was Benjy who needed rescuing this time. Will'm sat on top, so
mighty in his wrath and fury that he loomed up fearsomely to the bigger
boy beneath him, whose body he bestrode and whose face he was battering
with hard and relentless little fists. Both boys were blubbering and
crying, but Will'm was roaring between blows, "Take it back! Take it
back!"
Whatever it was, Benjy took it back just as Libby appeared, and being
allowed to stagger up, started for the street, loudly boo-hooing at
every step, as he found his way homeward, for once of his own
volition. The cries had startled Libby but they were as nothing to
the sight that met her eyes when she led Will'm, so blinded by his own
tears that he needed her guidance, to the light of the kitchen door.
What she saw sent her screaming into the house, with agonized calls for
"mother." She still held on to Will'm's hand, pulling him along after
her.
From forehead to chin, one side of his face was scratched as if a young
tiger cat had set his claws in it. A knot was swelling rapidly on his
upper lip, and one hand was covered with blood. Mrs. Branfield gave a
gasp as she came running in answer to Libby's calls. "Why, you poor
child!" she cried, gathering him up to her and sitting down in the big
rocker with him in her lap. "What happened? What's the matter?"
He was sobbing so convulsively now, with long choking gasps, that he
couldn't answer. She saw that his face was only scratched, but snatched
up his hand to examine the extent of its injuries. As he looked at it
too, the power of speech came back to him, in a degree.
"That isn't m-my b-blood!" he sobbed. "It's _B-Benjy's_ blood!"
"Oh, Will'm!" mourned Libby. "On Christmas eve, just when you've been
trying so hard to be good, too!"
She picked up the stockings which she had dropped on running out of the
house, and laid his over the back of a chair, as if she realized the
hopelessness of hanging it up now, after he had acted so. At that,
almost a spasm of sobs shook him. He didn't need anybody to remind him
of all he had forfeited and all he had failed in. That was what he was
crying about. He didn't mind the smarting of his face or the throbbing
of his swollen lip. He was crying to think that the struggle of the last
week was all for naught. He was all crooked with _Her_ again. _She_
didn't want him to fight and she'd never understand that this time he
just _had_ to.
The arms that held him were pressing for an answer. "Tell me how it
happened, dear."
Between gulps it came.
"Benjy said for me to come on--and go to the grocery with him! And I
said--that my--my mother--didn't want me to!"
"Yes," encouragingly, as he choked and stopped. He had never called her
that before.
"And Benjy said like he always does, that you w-wasn't my m-m-mother
anyhow. And I said you _was_! If he didn't take it back I--_I'd beat him
up_!"
Libby was crying too, now, from sympathy. He'd been told so many times
he must not fight that she was afraid he would have to be punished for
such a bad fight as this. To be punished on Christmas eve was just _too_
awful! She stole an anxious glance towards the chimney, then toward her
mother.
But her mother was hugging him tight and kissing him wherever she could
find a place on his poor little face that wasn't scratched or swollen,
and she was saying in a voice that made a lump come into Libby's
throat, it was so loving and tender,
"My dear little boy, if that's why you fought him I'm _glad_ you did it,
for you've proved now that you _are_ my little son, my very own!"
Then she laughed, although she had tears in her eyes herself, and said,
"That poor little cheek shows just what fierce nettles and briars you've
been through for me, but you brought it, didn't you! The most precious
star-flower in all the world to me!"
The surprise of it stopped his tears. She _understood_! He could not yet
stop the sobbing. That kept on, doing itself. But a feeling, warm and
tender that he could not explain, seemed to cover him "from wing-tip to
wing-tip!" A bloody little hand stole up around her neck and held her
tight. She _was_ his mother, because she _understood_! It was all right
between them now. It would _always_ be all right, no matter what Benjy
and the rest of the world might say. He'd _beat up anybody_ that dared
to say they didn't belong to each other, and she _wanted_ him to do it!
Presently she led him up-stairs to put some healing lotion on his face,
and wash away the blood of Benjy.
Libby, in the deep calm that followed the excitement of so many
conflicting emotions, sat down in the big rocking chair to wait for her
father. Her fear for Will'm had been so strong, her relief at the happy
outcome so great, that she felt all shaken up. A long, long time she sat
there, thinking. There was only one more thing needed to make her
happiness complete, and that was to have Miss Santa Claus know that the
charm had worked out true at last. She felt that they owed her that
much--to let her know. Presently she slipped out of the chair and knelt
in front of the fire so close that it almost singed her.
"Are you listening up there?" she called softly. "'Cause if you are,
_please_ tell Miss Santa Claus that everything turned out just as she
said it would. I'll be _so_ much obliged."
Then she scudded back to her chair to listen for her father's latchkey
in the door, and her mother's and Will'm's voices coming down the
stairs, a happier sound than even the sound of the silver bells, that by
and by would come jingling down the Sky Road.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
Page 38, "know" changed to "knew" (He knew only the)
Page 85, "Ridgley" changed to "Ridgely" (At Ridgely she)
Page 139, "loose" changed to "lose" (no time to lose)